Not Without Incident: Questioning Big Brother's Platitudes

Keiran’s Take on the Week Ending June 25^th

Firstly, I want to apologize for the delay on getting this take on last week out. I had about 6 or 7 different news items that I wanted to cover and had extensive notes on, and even after I narrowed it down, I had to condense notes into bite sized pieces, as this is the main point of this shorter series. This weekend I will publish the next essay in my War on Trump series.

The Extradition of Julian Assange May Be Imminent

Julian Assange’s latest appeal was rejected a few weeks ago, and he is making his last appeal through the UK court system. After that, his only other legal option will be through the European Human Rights Commission, who could stop an attempt to extradite Assange if they had the will to. Despite vague promises from the Australian government, there is evidently little serious effort to free Assange and bring him home.

When a journalist is being detained by one of the bad countries, like Russia or China, Western governments do not hesitate to employ diplomatic boycotts, threaten sanctions, and to roll out a host of commentators to condemn the actions of authoritarian regimes against freedom of the press. There is no call for boycotts against the US in relation to the persecution of Assange.

On its face, the case against him is farcical, as he is not a US citizen and Wikileaks is not a US based publication. Also, his attorney-client privileges were violated by the CIA, and during the Trump presidency, which is when he was indicted, there was a plot by Mike Pompeo’s CIA to kidnap and assassinate him. Based on this alone, the case should be thrown out.

That this case is allowed to continue is a grave injustice and the implications are beyond a threat to press freedom, if a foreign national can be tried and convicted for publishing information with a foreign publication in the US, then an incredibly dangerous precedent will be set. That precedent will allow the US to persecute any journalist they want, no matter their location or citizenship. This is the sort of behavior that we expect from countries like Iran and Russia, and yet, the mainstream press is mostly silent on Assange’s plight.

A group of five outlets published an open letter calling for his freedom a while ago, but as Chris Hedges notes in a recent essay, this is too little, too late, and he and other journalists, like Matt Taibbi, have travelled to London to witness and to protest Assange’s appeal hearing.[i]

Daniel Ellsberg died on June 16^th, and Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers and revealed what the US government was secretly doing in Vietnam, is an iconic whistleblower and before his death, he consistently advocated for protections for whistleblowers and he spoke on behalf of specific cases, like Assange’s.

However, the Pentagon Papers leak is often seen as the reason for why public opinion on the Vietnam War shifted, culminating in protests outside the White House. In response, Richard Nixon pulled the plug on the US campaign in Vietnam. This allowed the Viet Cong to takeover the entirety of Vietnam, which resulted in a vacuum in the region that led to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge taking over Cambodia and committing genocide. This is utter nonsense. What Ellsberg revealed was crucial evidence that there is a secret government, what I refer to as the permanent regime, that conducts US foreign policy in secret and above public accountability. Ellsberg was thus targeted by this permanent regime. Assange exposed secrets of US involvement around the world, from Honduras to Iraq, and he is thus being targeted by the permanent regime as well.

It is shameful that Assange is being persecuted, however, it is even more shameful that we all stand by and watch, mouthing platitudes about human rights and democracy, condemning the repressive actions of countries like North Korea and China. Assange will not be the last target of the permanent regime; next it could be you or me.

Hubris Implosion

The OceanGate submarine Titan that took 5 people for a tour of the remains of the RMS Titanic, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, imploded on the Sunday before last. Despite knowing this already, a large-scale search for the missing submarine was conducted by Canadian as well as American coastguards and search teams.[ii]

On Twitter, jokes, and memes about the event, like an image of a megalodon preparing to swallow the submarine whole, were shared and in response, many expressed sadness and outrage that people would make light of such a tragedy. Although they may be correct that the submarine implosion is a horrific tragedy, they are wrong that making jokes about it is out of the question.

Also, much of the commentary on the event itself as well as reactions to it are missing the point. For example, the argument that those on board were extremely wealthy, thus they deserved their fate, is absurd, and the argument in response to this, that those exploiting the tragedy to rail against billionaires are, in the words of Spiked columnist Tim Black, ‘cynical ghouls’, are reacting to an absurd position that will be taken no matter the tragedy that befalls the obscenely wealthy.[iii]

The real lesson here is, as my dad always told me, just because someone is rich does not mean that they are more intelligent or clever than the rest of us. Rich people are idiots too. More information is coming out that proves that not only was the sub unfit for the undersea journey to the Titanic, but that Rush cut corners and dismissed safety concerns. He said at one time that if people were worried about risk, then they should stay in bed. While he may be right that a certain level of risk comes with going out and living your life, however, such recklessness can and often does result in death.

To those saying that the this shows that undersea exploration should be more tightly regulated are missing the point as well. If people want to be idiots, let them, it’s their problem. Rush may have been putting others at risk, but they signed waivers and knew the risks themselves. They also presumably had time to look at the sub and ask questions about it before they finally got in and allowed themselves to be bolted in tight.

If this tragedy is not made into a movie, it could be the subject of an episode of 1000 Ways to Die, #994, Hubris Implosion. This is not to make light of this tragedy, though I have no issue with people making jokes, however dark, as making jokes is how we deal with tragedy and hardship. No one deserves to perish in such a horrible way, but if one accepts such a brazenly dangerous risk, then one is accepting the potential horrible consequences.

We never think that the consequences of risk taking will befall us, it will only happen to others. For the rich and privileged, this notion is bolstered by their social status. They believe that due to their position they are especially above the consequences of risk taking. The main lesson from this debacle is that even the rich and powerful are clownish and ignorant.

The Permanent Regime Fail at Accounting

The experts at the Pentagon can’t do basic math or accounting. Their errors resulted in an extra 6.3 billion dollars being transferred to Ukraine. This error is one that was revealed last month, but at the time it was estimated to be an extra 3 billion dollars, however, it appears it was more than double that.[iv]

This news is being reported on as if it’s just another day in Washington. That amount of money could be spent on a plethora of issues like homeless, child hunger or Medicare, and yet, there is little to no news of the Pentagon requesting the money back. It is after all, money that is meant for the American people and their security.

Why is this not an outrage? Even in the independent media world, this story is not discussed that much. When the military industrial complex slips up, it’s no big deal. If anything, it’s a happy accident, as the money went to Ukraine, not China or Iran. Chances are that the US was going to send billions more anyways.

This story and the lack of reaction to it shows several key issues. Two main issues are the apathy that people have in relation to the incompetence of the US government. The other issue is the fallibility of the experts. Just like in the case of the Titan implosion, those who are in positions of prestige and power assume that they have superhuman wisdom and that they are not susceptible to risk in the same way that us, the plebs, are. Again and again, this is proven wrong. The consequences of such arrogance are destructive.

What is most astounding about this story, however, is the lack of outrage from the American people and the media. We’re talking about a sum of money that could have ended homelessness in America, not a handful of change. This is not surprising though, as this same government spent 6 trillion dollars last year to little effect. The defense budget that we know about amounts to around 900 billion dollars, and the CIA inevitably has their own shadow budget. The Pentagon and the State Department are handling millions and billions dollar arms deals and weapons transfers all the time, and it is almost certain that this is one of many accounting errors. This error is just one that the permanent regime decided to make public. In any other setting, if someone made such a costly error, there would be an organizational crisis and those responsible would be fired. In Washington, it’s the equivalent of forgetting your car keys. If an error at this scale is not a massive deal to the permanent regime, what else isn’t?

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[i] Hedges, Chris. “Chris Hedges: The Imminent Extradition of Julian Assange and the Death of Journalism.” scheerpost.com, June 19, 2023. https://scheerpost.com/2023/06/18/chris-hedges-the-imminent-extradition-of-julian-assange-and-the-death-of-journalism/.

[ii] Cohen, Li. “Just Hours into Sub’s Journey, Navy Detected Sound ‘Consistent with an Implosion.’ Experts Explain How It Can Happen. – CBS News.” http://www.cbsnews.com, June 23, 2023. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submarine-implosion-navy-detected-sound/.

[iii] Black, Tim. “The Grim Exploitation of the Titan Sub Tragedy.” http://www.spiked-online.com, June 23, 2023. https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/06/23/the-grim-exploitation-of-the-titan-sub-tragedy/.

[iv] Britzky, Haley, and Natasha Bertrand. “Pentagon Says Ukraine Accounting Error Revealed Last Month Is Much Bigger than Previously Stated | CNN Politics.” CNN, June 20, 2023. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/20/politics/pentagon-ukraine-accounting-error/index.html.

References

Black, Tim. “The Grim Exploitation of the Titan Sub Tragedy.” http://www.spiked-online.com, June 23, 2023. https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/06/23/the-grim-exploitation-of-the-titan-sub-tragedy/.

Britzky, Haley, and Natasha Bertrand. “Pentagon Says Ukraine Accounting Error Revealed Last Month Is Much Bigger than Previously Stated | CNN Politics.” CNN, June 20, 2023. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/20/politics/pentagon-ukraine-accounting-error/index.html.

Cohen, Li. “Just Hours into Sub’s Journey, Navy Detected Sound ‘Consistent with an Implosion.’ Experts Explain How It Can Happen. – CBS News.” http://www.cbsnews.com, June 23, 2023. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-submarine-implosion-navy-detected-sound/.

Hedges, Chris. “Chris Hedges: The Imminent Extradition of Julian Assange and the Death of Journalism.” scheerpost.com, June 19, 2023. https://scheerpost.com/2023/06/18/chris-hedges-the-imminent-extradition-of-julian-assange-and-the-death-of-journalism/.