UPDATE

A bit about the brilliant Eugene Volokh, a noted libertarian-conservative scholar of law:

http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/23/congratulations-to-eugene-volokh-listed-among-the-100-most-influential-lawyers-in-america/

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

As I just blogged, the first amendment is not a get-out-of-jail-free card, as some libertarians seem to think.

At Slate, Emily Bazelon, who did a great legal analysis of the Trayvon Martin case, suggests how to improve the new law.

She suggests, rightly, that an improved law would ban the posting of ANY content depicting nudity or sexual contact, unless there was explicit permission from the subject.

The injunction would extend to the publisher (regardless of whether he had a malicious intention or not), not simply to the person who took the image, who in many cases is the victim herself.

For those who are in full “blame-the-victim” mode, here’s why you are off-base:

Consider someone who takes a picture of her body, for medical reasons, and, by accident leaves a copy on her computer. Say that someone gets hold of it and tried to pretend the person sent the image to a porn site.

It is easily done.

They could then upload that pornified image onto their target’s cell-phone, unbeknownst to her, and “send” it to her employers, or to her husband, or to strangers, or even to a popular forum, texting a fraudulent message of consent to publication along with it.

What did the victim do to merit such harassment?

The sky is the limit when it comes to the ingenuity of  people in devising such evil schemes to target what are often very young  women. Holly Jacobs was 23 at the time.

Other times, the victims are only especially vulnerable (lonely or sick) or naive.

Many are not even aware of the potential of the technology in their hands, which is pushed relentlessly, not just by the government, as libertarians would have it, but by corporations intent on commercially milking every human drive to its ultimate limit.

A modicum of good will and intelligence should let us see that Holly Jacobs is not at fault any more than a home-owner who finds himself burgled by a workman he trusted is at fault for trusting a criminal.

“Here’s a better model bill that doesn’t have the flaws of the one in California. The bill makes it a crime to “disclose” an image, video, or recording involving nudity or sexual contact without the subject’s consent, “under circumstances in which the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.” Consenting to the photo within a private relationship doesn’t meaning consenting to public disclosure. The author, University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks, says that when people tell her they oppose it, they often start “waving their hands about free speech. But when you ask them how this violates the First Amendment, they can’t tell you why.” That’s because it really doesn’t. Eugene Volokh, a strong free-speech advocate who teaches law at UCLA, doesn’t see a constitutional problem with “a suitably clear and narrow statute banning nonconsensual posting of nude pictures of another, in a context where there’s good reason to think that the subject did not consent to publication.”

Props of the year go to Stuart Schneiderman, for analyzing Naomi Wolf’s new foray into scheming exhibitionism involving her private parts and sexual history, “Vagina”:-

“Where did Wolf go wrong?

Being a woman, like being a man, is a public identity, a socially defined role. It involves behaviors that are immediately recognizable by other people. A woman dresses a certain way, comports herself a certain way and fulfills a certain number of responsibilities.

It isn’t a mystery and has nothing to do with her sexual enjoyment.

We are all happy that Wolf has mind-blowing sex, but, truth be told, she has grossly overestimated its importance in defining her identity.

Since I know you want to know, Wolf did manage to solve her problem. She learned from her gynecologist that the problem lay in her spinal cord, not her vagina.

Discovering that she was a physiological organism blew her mind.

In Wolf’s words:

I almost fell off my chair in astonishment…neural wiring? Not culture, not upbringing, not patriarchy, not feminism, not Freud?…

Is she saying that it’s not all a social construct? Does she mean that human civilization is not a vast right wing patriarchal conspiracy designed to deprive women of the mind-blowing orgasms that make them women?

What will advanced feminist theorists do now?

In the meantime, Wolf underwent surgery to correct her spinal problem. Thereafter she recovered the extra added orgasmic thrill that made her a woman.

Now, she feels like more of a woman. Unfortunately, for having shared her story with the world she looks like less of a woman to everyone else.”

From Metzger Music.com:

“J. S. Bach had an unwavering assurance of God’s providence in his life. The depth of his trust and faith the Lord is clearly evident in his compositions. To Bach all music, sacred and secular, was for the glory of God. He would agree with Martin Luther who wrote, “Music’s only purpose should be for the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit.”

At the beginning of his manuscripts Bach would write I.N.J (In Nomine Jesu-“In the name of Jesus”) or J.J. (Jesu Juva-“Jesus Help Me”). He would then inscribe SDG (Soli Deo Gloria-“To God alone, be the glory) on the last page.

Throughout his life Bach bore the burden of much grief and sadness. At the age of ten he was an orphan, his first wife died leaving him with four young children and ten of his children died in infancy. He struggled with church leadership and town counsels, and at times could be a man with quite a temper. However, Bach learned, as all of God’s children must, to bear his cross willingly. He learned to depend completely upon the Lord for grace and blessing in his life.

The ever ingenious Bach created his own personal seal, which was used as early as 1722.

It is made up of a crown that sits above his intertwined initials. His initials are also mirrored backwards, signifying that Bach had turned from his sins to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. Also to be seen in the monogram is the Greek symbol ? for the cross. The cross is intertwined in his initials signifying Bach as a crossbearer. “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mathew 16:24)

The crown is made of twelve precious stones (Revelation 12:1) grouped as seven (the number of completion). The stones are set in a crest of five, the number of Christ’s passion.

What an example Bach is to all of us as we learn to place our trust in Christ-not only for our salvation, but for every aspect of our daily lives! Bach, a man with perhaps the greatest musical gifts in history, gave God the glory for all that he did. Bach’s true greatness was not in his vast musical talent, but in his complete reliance upon God. Soli Deo Gloria for such a man as Johann Sebastian Bach!”

American Everyman:

“Last week the new CISPA bill is ready to be rolled out. A few MSM outlets mentioned it, but not many…

This weekend, the New York Times comes out with “new” revelations about the NSA via “Edward Snowden”… (it’s not really new)

On the very same day,  Greenwald and the other controlled opposition Mockingbird Scahill announce some BIG STORY about an NSA leak involving domestic assassination programs… (no details of course)

And tonight Greenwald and Gibson go on REDDIT (more controlled opposition) and parrot the Obama talking points telling people we need to “have the debate” between freedom and security…

… with the new CISPA waiting in the wings and 800 major corporations backing it.

These companies donated some 65 million dollars last year to keep CISPA supporting congressmen in office. They showed up in D.C. in April with armies of lobbyists to tell their congressmen it was time to act, to put their money where their mouths were. To get CISPA passed.

That’s a lot of money folks. That’s a lot of pressure from congress’ real constituency.

You think all of this is just coincidental timing? You live in a fantasy world.

Glenn Greenwald’s job is to pave the way on the left of the country for the new CISPA. It’s just that simple.“

NBC reports:

“A bill banning “revenge porn” — nude or sexual photos, generally of former wives or girlfriends, posted online by an angry ex — has been signed into law by California’s governor, but the chief advocate for the legislation says it doesn’t go far enough to help victims.

The law makes it a misdemeanor to post nude photos of someone else online without their permission, and the person posting the photos or videos must have done so with the intent of causing emotional distress or humiliation. A conviction could result in six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.”

Comment:

Hear, hear! So nice to know that Americans themselves are so much more sensible than the posse of free-speech fundamentalists, one of whom is calling this the “rape of liberty” (Brian Wilson, at LRC).

If that inaccurate analysis is typical, I’d say we have a bigger problem with the rape of language.

Wilson starts his exercise in confused thinking quoting Congreve (“hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”), although the point of revenge sex, as he himself acknowledges in para 2, is that it’s an act most often committed by scorned men, not women.

Hint: Porn involving their own selves isn’t usually a means by which women “revenge” themselves, is it?

Of course, the confusion has already begun in the article’s title:

“The first amendment is not a guardian of taste” it reads.

Taste?

Since when did posting nude, sexual pictures of someone online (caps: ONLINE), without their permission, become a matter of taste?

It’s a matter of aggression against them.

It takes their most private physical images and disseminates them permanently, to the entire world, to be recycled forever in the most salacious contexts.

It is as though you took your clothes off in a public restroom or doctor’s office, only to find that tapes were running, sending the images all over the world. Or, imagine that your husband took a picture of the moment you delivered a baby, and that picture was then sent all over the world. It might not cause people to stalk you (or it might); it might not give you the label of slut, but it would certainly cause you intense distress.

Then there are the cases where the images are not even real. They are photo-shopped. Or the emails are spoofed or misconstrued. They are then sent to the target, anonymously, with threatening messages.

I know how that works. It was done to me. Material was taken from private conversations and emails, misconstrued,  and used to threaten me….even though there was no substance to any of the threats.

Any more than there is substance to all the multiple posts calling me CIA, RAW, a prostitute, and stock fraud.

A casual remark, cut and pasted, can be made to look like something else. A vulgar image can be tacked onto a name; a baseless innuendo can destroy a reputation.

People have committed suicide over less.

Mr. Wilson is quite right on one thing, though.

This isn’t rape. It’s much, much worse than rape.

The emotional pain of rape can last for years, even if the actual event has been obliterated from memory. But it ends. The physical effects end even sooner.  If there is no disease transmitted or baby created, they end with the healing of injured tissues, in a few weeks or months.

That is one solace. And there is another.

Beside the victim and the perpetrator, no one else needs to know about this most private crime, a crime which is treated, and has been treated for most of civilization, as if it humiliates and shames the victim more than it shames the perpetrator.

And what’s more, rape has always been treated as if it humiliates and shames the victim’s family, despite changing mores in this regard over the last half century.

But a virtual rape of the internet kind is NEVER erased.

It is never healed, because it is forever visible. It is the most private of injuries occurring in the most public of venues.

Dr. Jacobs will live with her boyfriend’s cyber-crime every second of her life.  It will affect every decision in her life, every relationship she has, from peer interaction… to marriage.. to her relationship with her children.

It will have an impact on every career move she makes, every public word she speaks.

She has been permanently “disfigured” in those areas.

The closest comparison to “revenge porn” as a crime is acid-throwing in Asia. The same kind of  mentality is behind both. The attitude of the scorned men: “If  I can’t have her, she’ll not be fit for anyone else to have.”

In one, the face is mutilated for ever. In the other, the moral life is mutilated.

In my estimation, the moral harm in virtual rape is even greater than in acid-throwing.  An injured face can be repaired to pass in society.  The injury to Ms. Jacobs is well-nigh beyond repair.

I can understand Marxists and atheists arguing the opposite. They, as a rule, can see nothing beyond what they can touch, smell, and shove up an orifice.

But LRC is supposed to cater to Christian libertarians as well. No Christian libertarian could ever argue that injuries to the body are worse than injuries to the moral life of a human being.

And, since the net is the most public forum ever devised, it stands to reason that virtual offenses are in fact the  stuff of public adjudication, libertarian cant notwithstanding.

Virtual rape is so devastating in its effects that the intelligence agencies have put it to use, not least, because unthinking people  will tend to gloss over it and pass it off as not “rape-rape,” as Whoopie Goldberg, to her everlasting disgrace, put it.

That is the same reason the intelligence agencies use “no-touch” (mental or psycho-sexual) torture.  Virtual torture is every bit as bad as “real” (physical) torture….but it provides useful cover, when discovered, because it doesn’t “look” as bad as the real deal.

Of course, it is much worse.  Cyber-rape is rape of a type too profound for us to fully grasp, because our paradigms are still materialistic, still Marxist. It is the body all the way, with us.

And that is where the danger lies, because let’s not forget the bigger picture – where we are at this moment: We are in a war, not so much against another country, as against ourselves.

A war of culture, in a sense, but not the one that divides red state from blue.

We are in a war of culture dividing those who get what’s at stake…. and those who don’t.

What is at stake is the possibility of freedom itself. It is the soul.

War is being waged against our own minds and souls all the time.

Cyber-crime, hand-in-glove with propaganda and disinformation,  is in the vanguard of that war.

And, Dr. Holly Jacobs has just won a battle against it.

She’s a hero for that. I applaud her.

If you want to help Holly Jacobs and the millions of young women (and men and children) world-wide whose dignity of person has been irreparably injured by the CRIME of revenge porn, please sign here.

Dr. John “Ray” Christopher, whose herbal formulas cleared the path for the renaissance of alternative medicine in the US, was also a conscientious objector and an apostle of racial harmony, years ahead of his time.

When World War II broke out, and just a few months after the Christopher’s were married, Ray received a draft notice on his doorstep summoning him to active duty. A 35-year-old man, divorced and newly married, with two families to support, he reported for service but requested status as a conscientious objector, presenting his Word of Wisdom booklet as evidence of his firm beliefs.

“I’ll serve my country with pride on the front lines,” he said, “I’ll carry stretchers that can save people. But I will not carry a gun. I cannot kill another human being.” During basic training, he was told to carry a gun on night watch, but he refused. The officer thrust a night stick at him, but he shook his head, and refused to carry a night stick, too, because you could kill people with a night stick. The officer ordered Ray to be confined to quarters under guard till next morning, when he was tried for his rebellion. The officer hearing the case slapped his palm sharply on the table and shouted, “This is ridiculous! A conscientious objector that won’t carry a nightstick? What if everyone in the world felt as you do?”

“Then there would be no war” Ray answered.

“That’s the answer I needed,” the officer responded. “Take this card. It shows that you are a conscientious objector, and no one will challenge you again.”

From Fort Douglas, Utah, Ray traveled to North Fort at Washington’s Fort Lewis, where he was assigned to supervise a medical dispensary. Here was more irony­ Raymond Christopher, a buck private, gave orders to pharmacists and therapists, all of whom outranked him. Even the cleaning boy outranked him. Ray, in charge of the entire operation, served under a Major Shumate.

At first Ray felt frustrated and angry. Having learned and seen so much healing using natural methods and nutrition (he had all ready helped many people), here he was confined to use standard medical treatments. He knew that there are better ways. He saw cases among the soldiers that he knew would quickly respond to natural treatments. However, Major Shumate was firmly against any such treatments. So he spent his time observing the effects of orthodox medications, seeing first hand the futility of the treatment. He saw that standard medicine only treats symptoms instead of the cause of disease. But one day a soldier came to the dispensary with a supposedly incurable condition, and this changed the course of his life.

At a staff meeting, composed of the heads of eight dispensaries, Major Shumate, a private dermatologist in civilian life, said he had never seen a case of contagious impetigo so severe. The soldier had been hospitalized nine times, where his case had cleared up temporarily, but it always flared up when he was released. Specialists from the eastern U.S. had been called in, but nothing had worked.

Major Shumate brought the soldier in, and’ except for Ray, they all gasped with horror. The soldier’s head had been shaved as much as possible, but wherever the stubble of hair grew, the scalp was covered with a crusty scab nearly an inch thick.

“What a beautiful case of impetigo!” exclaimed Ray (who had never seen one quite that bad).

“You must be a born doctor,” said Shumate, slapping him on the shoulder, “It’s one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, too. But unfortunately, we have to release this man from the army.”

“I object to that!” cried the soldier, “I came into this army a clean man. I caught this thing while I was here, and now you’re asking me to take this filth home to my wife and children. I won’t do it.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do,” responded Shumate, “We’ve done everything possible. We’ve used every cure medical science has to offer, and nothing has worked. We have to give you a release, and it will be an honorable discharge.”

“Wait,” Ray said. “That man can be healed.”

Shumate whirled to face him. “None of your blasted herbs!” The other officers rolled their eyes and guffawed.

The soldier spoke up. “I should have something to say about this. I don’t care if he puts horse manure on my head, as long as he heals me.”

Shumate paused, and then said, “All right. If you sign papers releasing the government and the army from any liability, you can try this treatment.”

The papers were signed, and the soldier was placed under twenty-four hour military police surveillance to prevent escape. As the meeting broke up, one of the officers jeered, “When will the big unveiling be?”

“Monday morning!” Ray snapped back, without really thinking. Then he realized­ he just had one week. Here, far from home without the herbs that he generally used, he had to treat the worst case of impetigo he had ever seen. Immediately he called a Salt Lake friend who had a black walnut tree in his backyard. He explained his dilemma, and his friend agreed to gather the black walnut husks, even though the ground was covered with snow. They were transported overnight to Fort Lewis. Ray picked them up in the morning­ sopping wet, which could weaken their potency. Not only that, but Ray only had rubbing alcohol, not grain alcohol, which was not available through the army medical system. And instead of fourteen days to macerate the tincture, he figured he could take only two days. He carried the tincture with him, shaking it vigorously all the time.

At last he strained the tincture and made a compress to fit over the soldier’s head like a football helmet. He left instructions that the compress should be kept wet with the tincture for the rest of the week. He also wrote a prescription to the mess sergeant, for wholesome foods for the soldier to eat.

All too soon Monday morning arrived, and the dispensary heads all met, ready to ridicule Ray for his herbal treatments. “Everybody ready?” asked Shumate in a mocking tone. “Private Christopher, are you ready to show us your miracle?”

“I’m ready,” responded Ray, feeling nervous but determined. “I haven’t seen him yet, but we’ll take a look.”

The guards ushered the soldier in, and Ray skillfully cut away the adhesive tape. As he lifted the compress off, the scab came off with it, and the soldier’s scalp was as clean and pure as a baby’s. The impetigo was gone, with no scarring.

The officers all gasped. Shumate shouted; “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my medical practice!” He took Ray aside. “I’ve misjudged you, Private Christopher,” he admitted. “From this day on you have full permission to practice with herbs. Set yourself up a laboratory here. Do whatever you like as long as you’re under my jurisdiction at Fort Lewis.”

And with that Ray became the only practicing herbalist in the United States Army during World War II. His black walnut tincture became famous, not only to cure impetigo, but for fungus infection and jungle rot. When soldiers learned that Private Christopher could cure jungle rot, his patient load multiplied tenfold. Eventually this tincture was successful in curing scrofula, eczema, ringworm, shingles, and chronic boils.

During his time at the dispensary, Ray started his personal search for an herb that could relieve his own serious health problem, high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries, which he had suffered since adolescence. He began working with cayenne, which is high in calcium and vitamin C. He found that cayenne is one of the best remedies for the heart. He saw that it restores and retains the elasticity of the blood vessels, correcting or preventing hardening of the arteries and preserving the health of the circulatory system. Ray also found that cayenne equalized blood circulation and brought blood pressure to normal. He even found that cayenne was powerful enough to stop a heart attack in progress. In later years, carrying cayenne in his herbal doctor’s bag, he never lost a person to a heart attack. He remembered one woman who had suffered from heart problems for eighteen years. She had taken powerful heart medication for more than seven years. After starting cayenne , she was able to stop this medication within months. Her varicose veins also completely cleared.

Soon Ray added ginger, parsley, golden seal, garlic and Siberian ginseng root to cayenne to create a formula called Blood Circulation Formula , which equalizes blood pressure and builds the health of the circulatory system. This formula, along with a healthy diet and lifestyle, prolonged Ray’s own life many years after the doctors’ predictions. At age 45, ten years after the doctors predicted he would die, Ray had a full physical examination. The doctors were astounded to see that he had the blood pressure of a healthy teenager. Just before his death, Ray’s blood pressure at seventy years was that of a young man in his twenties.

During World War II, racial prejudice was still rampant. Ray began to understand and feel the distress of the black soldiers who were treated so negatively at the dispensaries. Black soldiers often suffered physical agony in silence rather than go there. But soon word spread that the dispensary head at Fort Lewis was different; within months he was seeing dozens of black soldiers every day. They received kindness as well as the superior care from herbal treatment.”

From thirdestatesundayreview, some truth-telling about Naomi Wolf’s “Beauty Myth,” the book from which the rest of her career has derived most of its impetus. Seems she forget to put quotation marks and a footnote under a lot of the good stuff:

“The Beauty Myth, the ‘book’ that made her a ‘name’. Parts of it are dead on arrival, others sparkle. Isn’t it past time that Naomi gave credit where it’s due? The parts that work in the book, she ‘borrowed’ from Judith N. Shklar.

All of the sparkling literary and historical critiques are ones Shklar built her lectures around. Naomi’s largely gotten away with her ‘borrowed’ passages. People whisper about it and laugh about it, but few bother to call her out on it. Shklar is deceased but, too bad for Naomi, Shklar’s The Faces Of Injustice (based on one set of lectures) came out in 1990, a year before The Beauty Myth and based on a series of lectures given in 1988. (Filled with examples Shklar’s students — including the famous political theorist who is the most vocal about Naomi’s ‘borrowing’ — can tell you were present for over a decade in the woman’s lectures.)

The Faces Of Injustice is a masterpiece, one of the finest works of political theory published in the 1990s. (Disclosure, one of us — C.I. — knew Shklar and The Common Ills is named after one of Shklar’s key phrases for what plagues societies. We both know Naomi — and work hard to avoid her.) Shklar’s book is the best sections of The Beauty Myth with none of the faltering moments where Naomi tries to think for herself.”

I

More perceptive Moldbuggery, this time on the need to substitute for the grand narrative of the power-mongers your own uncorrected vision, duly paying the price for your clear sight by turning invisible to the mass-es…not to mention the mass-ah…of the plantation:

Technology, Communism and the Brown Scare:

“I’ll tell you what the real emotion behind the Arab Spring was.  Actually, Beavis can tell you better.  “Fire is cool,” said Beavis.  Fire is indeed cool.  Americans were bored and needed some better CNN.  They wanted to see shit burn.  Shit indeed burned, and is still burning.  Which was cool.  So they got what they wanted.  Not too different from the crowd in the Colosseum, just less honest about how they satisfy their very simple chimp/human needs.

And it’s not just sadism that motivates callous altruism.  Another source of venal satisfaction is that when you help people, or appear to help them, you become a patron.  You gain ownership over them.  When you help overthrow the dictator of Egypt, for example, you become in a sense the new government of Egypt.  The old dictator was a strongman – the new dictator is a weakman, because he owes his job to someone else. That someone is you – the collective you, but you nonetheless.  If you decide you don’t like your weakman, it’s easy to find another weakman.

The fear that someone, somewhere, is exercising power over someone else, is one of the most basic cues of the callous-altruist mentality.  Let me kill the master and free the slave.  Out of altruism!   Not sadism or ambition, of course.  My hands are pure.

But slavery is simply dependence, and the default state of the newly “freed” slave is to be dependent on his new master – you, because you killed the old master.  So your sadism itch is scratched, because you get to kill; and your ambition itch is scratched, because you become a slavemaster.

(A slavemaster?  You may not tell your dependent what to do all day.  But if you pay him to do nothing, he is still your slave – you may not ask him to work today, but you could tomorrow.  He would have to obey your commands or starve.  In other words, he’s a slave.  And of course, there’s one thing you’ve surely bought – his vote.)

When Higginson and friends tried this experiment in the 1860s, roughly a fourth of the slaves died as a consequence of the operation.  Not to mention all the other people killed.  Naturally, since America is a communist country, this episode – which might under other regimes be viewed as an outbreak of mass criminal insanity – is considered one of the most glorious in our glorious history.

And this is why you don’t want to be a part of the lynch mob.  Even if you think there aren’t enough women programmers and there should be more.  It is not your forebrain that lusts for power.  It is your hindbrain.  Forebrain… must… control… hindbrain.

As for the mob’s victims, who already understand this stuff – there’s an easy way to not get purged.  Don’t play the fool.  What is attacking you, though it seems like a frivolous phenomenon, is anything but.   This is an active volcano which has claimed hundreds of millions of lives.  Just firing you is a small, small thing for it.  Just destroying your life – very easy.  Don’t mess with it.  If you can avoid a fight with it, do.

And if you can’t, don’t be defensive.  Attack.  If possible, attack in depth and preemptively.  (What do you think I’m doing here?)  One of the things that this evil machine is capable of, for example, is covering up hatefacts – realities that embarrass it or contradict its narrative.  Your goal in attacking it is to embarrass and contradict it, creating a counter-narrative that it cannot incorporate into its own entertainment product.  If you succeed, you will be covered up as well – which is exactly what you want.  So the purpose of your attack is not to draw attention, but to avoid attention.”

My Comment:

Again, Mr. Moldbug echoes my own sentiments.

The goal of activism shouldn’t be to occupy the visible space of the establishment media on a smaller scale by bringing publicity to a certain position, for instance.

You can’t fight the state using the methods of the state.

Your goal should be the exact opposite. Not to gain prominence. But to abjure it.

To vanish. To disappear. And to take the handful who can still see you, along with you, when you disappear. First, imaginatively. Then, literally.

Your goal is to join the invisibility that clings to the dark underbelly of  the public realm… join it and keep joining it…so that it increases, drop by drop – a pool of inchoate truth seeping out from under the steel girders of bureaucracy and ideology.

In that sense, this blog is the anti-Wikileaks and, if I had a press,  it wouldn’t call itself the Sunshine Press. Sunshine suggests openness…transparency, another watch-word of the powers that be.

I raise a cheer here for obscurity, darkness,  secrecy.

From Mark Mitchell, another compelling chapter on the BCCI bank and its vast criminal network.  Don’t overlook the paragraphs describing how the Klebnikov Project, ostensibly devoted to uncovering the facts about the murder of Forbes journalist Paul Klebnikov, was sabotaged from within by another Forbes journalist:

The Global Bust-Out, Chapter 8:

“Pundits and journalists in Russia have opposing views about Berezovsky and his “exile” in London. One view has it that Berezovsky elevated Putin to the presidency, but in doing so, he miscalculated, failing to realize  that Putin would not return the favor by allowing Berezovsky and his associates to continue looting Russia, and would, to the contrary, crack down on the oligarchs and strip of them of the power they wielded over the Russian government. The other view has it that Putin’s move against Berezovsky was a ruse, intended only to score political points, and that Putin and Berezovsky secretly maintained close relations. In support of the latter point of view, pundits and media in Russia report that Putin and Berezovsky continued in the years following 2000 to hold secret meetings, and that Berezovsky continued to have business dealings with elements of the Russian intelligence services.

In further support of the latter view, pundits and media in Russia also note that oligarchs and crime syndicates that were among Berezovsky’s closest business partners, and which, along with Berezovsky, played important roles in elevating Putin to the presidency in 1999, continue to this day to operate in Russia with the apparent protection of the Putin government, and in partnership with the powerful Russian intelligence services. Therefore, it cannot be possible, or so it is argued, that Berezovsky, during his years as an “exile” in London, genuinely desired to remove Putin from the presidency.

It might even be (in the view of some Russian pundits) that Berezovsky moved to London not to lead a dissident movement against the Putin government, but to serve Putin as some sort of master spy, seizing control of the dissident movement so as to defuse it, and meanwhile leading the expansion of Russian influence into Britain and other Western nations. Alternatively, some suggest that Berezovsky had been an agent of Western governments at the time when he was the most powerful man in Russia, and Putin became aware of this, one reason why Putin forced Berezovsky to leave Russia, even though it was Berezovsky who had orchestrated Putin’s rise to power. We will see that there is no question that Berezovsky was an asset of Western governments, including the regime in Washington, but the nature of his relationship with Putin after his move to London remains a matter of debate.

Either way, the party line put forth by most major U.S. news organizations is patently false, and it says a lot about the state of the U.S. media that the only mainstream journalist to report the truth about Berezovsky was Paul Klebnikov, author of the 2000 book (“The Godfather of the Kremlin”) and other writings about Berezovsky’s criminality. Even more disturbing is the fact that Klebnikov (who had reported receiving death threats from Berezovsky) was, in 2004, gunned down on a Moscow street, and when he was killed, many of his fellow American journalists did not see fit to report that Klebnikov’s seminal work had linked Berezovsky to organized crime.

For a long time, the last word on Klebnikov’s murder was a 2007 story in Forbes Magazine (the magazine that had employed Klebnikov at the time when he was killed), and this story, authored by a journalist named Gary Weiss, did not even mention Berezovsky’s name, much less the fact that Klebnikov had devoted most of his career to exposing Berezovsky’s criminality. Only after Berezovsky himself was dead did Forbes Magazine publish a story suggesting that Berezovsky had, in fact, been a likely suspect in the murder of Klebnikov. There could be no greater evidence of the timidity of Forbes magazine’s editors than that they could not bring themselves to name a likely suspect in the murder of their own reporter until after the suspect was dead.

All the more appalling was that Forbes had previously given the last word on the subject of Klebnikov’s murder to the journalist Gary Weiss, who was meanwhile helping direct the activities of an outfit called The Klebnikov Project, which had been established by some of America’s most prominent journalists, ostensibly to investigate Klebnikov’s murder, and ostensibly to send a strong message that America’s most prominent journalists would not tolerate the murder of one of their own, and would indeed expose any and all miscreants who would dare so much as threaten a journalist or otherwise seek to infringe upon the freedom of the press. Incredibly, not one of those prominent journalists, in the many stories that they published about Klebnikov’s murder, reported that Berezovsky had threatened to murder Klebnikov, and nor did they report that Klebnikov’s seminal work had not only exposed Berezovsky’s ties to organized crime, but had also linked Berezovsky to multiple murders.

In addition, of course, not one of those prominent American journalists reported that Berezovsky was a likely suspect in Klebnikov’s murder, which was quite in contrast to journalists in Russia, where there is still a free press, and where numerous journalists had not only exposed Berezovsky’s ties to organized crime and had not only indentified Berezovsky as the likely suspect in Klebnikov’s murder, but had also linked Berezovsky to the murders of other journalists besides. All the more incredible was the fact that Gary Weiss, the prominent journalist who helped direct The Klebnikov Project (and who, until after Berezovsky’s death, had the last word in Forbes magazine on Klebnikov’s murder) had previously been employed by the lawyers of none other than…Boris Berezovsky.

Not only that, but Weiss (the journalist who hijacked The Klebnikov Project, an outfit ostensibly devoted to protecting freedom of the press) had been employed by Berezovsky’s lawyers to help quash freedom of the press. More specifically, Weiss (the journalist who also hijacked the Klebnikov Project, which was ostensibly investigating the murder of Paul Klebnikov) had been employed by Berezovsky’s lawyers to provide assistance to a libel lawsuit that Berezovsky had filed against…Paul Klebnikov. In addition, Weiss had been employed (by Berezovsky) to lead a smear campaign aimed at trashing Klebnikov’s reputation.

As part of this campaign, Weiss had authored dozens of anonymous internet reviews trashing Klebnikov’s book, and in these reviews (which DeepCapture reporter and computer technologist Judd Bagley traced to Gary Weiss’s IP address) maintained (falsely) that Klebnikov had fabricated the information in his book linking Berezovsky to organized crime. And if you think we have a free press in this nation, consider that The Klebnikov Project (set up by America’s most prominent journalists to expose those who threaten freedom of the press) not only failed to expose Berezovsky (who threatened the free press), but was, in fact, enthusiastically supported by none other than…Berezovsky.

Meanwhile, many of America’s leading news organizations (e.g. the Wall Street Journal) had come to be owned by people (e.g. Rupert Murdoch) who were among Berezovsky’s closest associates. In addition, the major U.S. news organizations seemed to view with total approval or indifference the fact that Berezovsky (who, after all, was some kind of democracy activist) had meddled in our own democracy, becoming one of the largest  donors (or, rather, buyers) of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Equally important, the major U.S. news organizations completely ignored the massive damage that Berezovsky and his mafia associates did to the U.S. economy during all those years while Berezovsky was ostensibly employed full-time as a Russian “exile” and “dissident” in the mold of the heroic Solzhenitsyn.

* * * * * * * * *

In any event, though the information has never appeared in any major U.S. news organization, it has been widely reported elsewhere, and confirmed to be true by numerous prominent investigators, that Berezovsky did (as Klebnikov reported in his book) build his business empire in partnership with leading Russian and Chechen organized crime syndicates. It has also been confirmed to be true (as Klebnikov reported in his book) that Berezovsky, more specifically, built his business empire in partnership with the Mogilevich organization (led by Semion Mogilevich, often referred to as “the most dangerous mobster in the world”) and a Chechen organized crime syndicate who leaders were (in addition to being mobsters) notorious terrorists, trained by trained by Osama bin Laden’s operation and by U.S. military contractors who took their orders from a faction of the regime in Washington.

Berezovsky himself admitted to investing more than $1 million with a Chechen terrorist named Shamil Basaev, who had once planted a radioactive materials in a Moscow park, informing the Russian police that next time the radioactive materials would be exploded as a so-called “dirty bomb,” thereby afflicting thousands of people with deadly radioactive poisoning. In 2004, Basaev did one better by leading a horrific terrorist attack on an elementary school in Beslan, Russia. That atrocity resulted in the deaths of more than 300 people, most of them young children, though there is debate over whether the children were killed by Basaev and his associates, or by Russian police who stormed the school in a botched attempt to rescue the children whom Basaev was holding hostage.

That same year, 2004, of course, Klebnikov, was murdered. That murder has never been solved, and nor have the murders of numerous Russian journalists who reported extensively on Berezovsky. One of those journalists was named Anna Politkovskaya, and when she was assassinated in 2006, it was widely assumed in Russia that her mistake had been to report the same story that Klebnikov had reported. Politkovskaya had been regarded as being Russia’s best investigative journalist, and the American media establishment conferred upon her numerous awards for her reporting and for her efforts to maintain press freedoms in Russia. However, America’s free press failed to inform the public that Politkovskaya’s seminal investigative reporting had been about Berezovsky’s ties to Chechen organized crime and his role in securing the presidency for Vladimir Putin.