A Carlin routine pilfered from the excellent JuanCole.com

' I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. I'll give you an example of that.

There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to it's absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap.

In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves.

That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue.

Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, we're up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.

Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.'

*******

A whole barrage of things to click around on. I am not sure whether there is any order to this chaos, but it should lead you to some interesting areas.

Antiwar.com and its many commentators:

Don't Wait for World War III- by Justin Raimondo

Truthdig - Reports - The Nuclear Expert Who Never Was

Zionism's Dead End - by Jonathan Cook

Antiwar.com Blog · GOP Rep. Gilchrest on Iran Sanctions Bill

Antiwar.com Blog · Greenwald Challenges Obama and Olbermann

Remaking the Middle East - by Philip Giraldi

Change We Can Believe In? - by Charles Peña

Can the Air Force Be Reformed? - by Ivan Eland

Turning the Recurring Joke of a New European Defense Policy into Reality - by Doug Bandow

Return of the Reds - by Nebojsa Malic

The Media Did Fail Us - by Alan Bock

The Supreme Court Gets One Right - by David R. Henderson

The US and China:<br /> Unsettling Similarities - by Sascha Matuszak

Meanwhile, Keith Olbermann pivots on a dime to support the Telecom Orwellian Bailout, which I think technically makes it a DoubleThink Double Bank shot:

Keith Olbermann's reply and Obama's secret plan to protect the rule of law - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Keith Olbermann: Then and now - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Some new tasty docs on WTC7 came out. However I will warn you that one of the docs has a Word Macro in it, which might be a virus or something: If you dare: Index of /WTC7Report

Leaked NIST Docs: "Unusual" Event Before Collapse Of WTC 7

9/11 First Responder Heard WTC 7 Demolition Countdown

YouTube - The Third Tower 1/2

YouTube - World Exclusive: WTC7 Survivor Barry Jennings Account

Ray McGovern on the Alex Jones show warns of "false flag attack" and possible nuclear strikes on Iran | 911blogger.com

shocked! Shocked at all this heroin, i tell you!

AmericanDrugWar's blog | 911blogger.com

Shocked! Shocked, I tell you! Afghanistan drug trade hits $4 billion a year | theage.com.au

YouTube - The Post-9/11 Afghan Heroin Explosion

The military-industrial-congressional-complex: Report Shows Lawmakers Heavily Invested in War

More miscellany:

Daily Kos: The neuroscience of false beliefs

Firedoglake » Fed’s Credibility “Below Zero”

MI5 spy quits over scandal | Herald Sun

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan - Military operation launched in Khyber Agency

Talking Points Memo | Pentagon: Taliban a resilient force in Afghanistan

Further evidence that Capitol Hill Democrats are dragging their feet: TPM | Conyers Finally Subpoenas DOJ For Documents

Bloggingheads.tv - diavlogs featuring Firedoglake lady Hamsher and Libertarian prez. candidate Bob Barr!

Ruthless Reviews.Com: Where Pornographers Debate Nihilists About Pop Culture

TPMMuckraker | Talking Points Memo | Sen. Norm Coleman Rents Cheap Crash Pad From Political Pal

Le Téléprésident: Sarkozy tightens his grip over French state TV | World news | The Guardian

American Buddha Online Library and Western Cultural Bazaar (American Buddhism)

YouTube - DoZo

Some notes on the doomed media industry:Source is Romanesko, who knows what's up! Poynter Online - Romenesko

Firedoglake » Max Frankel’s Ghost

reduction in force - a set on Flickr <- MUST SEE!

Is Lara Logan being smeared for her criticism of Iraq war coverage | Philly | 06/26/2008

Alhurra Paid Former White House Aides, Washington Journalists - ProPublica

Alhurra, ProPublica, Media Ethics and Me - David Corn

globeandmail.com: I killed Tim Russert (on Wikipedia)

Poynter Online - Forums Sam Zell's comments on CNBC

Recovering Journalist: Death of Almost 1,000 Cuts

Etaoin Shrdlu: Time is the fire in which we burn

Ed Asner Reintroduces "Lou Grant" and Talks Mary Richards, The Media & More (Fancast: Inside TV)

New AP Stylebook Cuts the 'Malarkey,' Brings in the 'WMD'

The Courant To Make Deep Cuts, 'Reinvent' Paper -- Courant.com
New-Media Focus Splits Associated Press Members - WSJ.com

They're brill on Fleet St. - The Boston Globe
Poynter Online - Forums Hartford Courant details staff, content cuts

Bloggers: Big Media Is Watching

Non-profit Groups Financing Independent Journalism | Online NewsHour | June 24, 2008 | PBS
Intern or Die

Meet the make-believe strategists of TV - Politico.com
To Our Readers - washingtonpost.com
techPresident – Open Systems, Closed Systems and Trauma in the Press
The Beachwood Reporter The [Tuesday] Papers
Awkward Questions for...Arianna Huffington - Media Blog - Jeff Bercovici - Mixed Media - Portfolio.com
At Google, Slow Growth in News Site - NYTimes.comNieman Watchdog > Commentary > I.F. Stone's lessons for Internet journalism
The Official Website of I.F. Stone
I. Lewis Libby Trial - The Washington Back Channel - Max Frankel - New York Times

Firedoglake » FDL Book Salon Welcomes Myra MacPherson: All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone
Dan Froomkin - Washington Journalism on Trial - washingtonpost.com
Firedoglake » Access Journalism  read more »

With George Carlin' s passing, it's probably a relevant time to revisit what you might call his writer parallel, Hunter Thompson. Fortunately there's a new documentary coming out! See this trailer!

Here's the IMDB entry. Check out the RottenTomatoes reviews for more: currently getting 83%.

If you want to see the weird 1970s documentary "Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood," which followed HST and Ralph Steadman around for a while, check it out here. Thompson gets pissed off with the kinda-fanboy treatment he gets from the Brit producer...

Online Videos by Veoh.com
Some other bits: Hunter Thompson was working on WTC collapse story before mysterious sudden death, warned he'd be 'suicided'and The Murder Of Hunter S. Thompson. A bit unlikely, but could it ever be out of the question? (then again, shouldn't Nixon have had Howard Hunt do it earlier?)
And Thompson thought 9/11 was something like an inside job:

Mick O'Regan: Could I take you back to September 11th. What I'd really like to know is your reactions. And I know you said you were writing a sports column for ESPN when the planes hit the towers, but could I get you to tell that story of when you found out about it and what you were doing and what your reaction was?

Hunter S. Thompson: I had in fact just finished a sports column for ESPN. Here it is: "It was just after dawn in Woody Creek, Colorado when the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City on Tuesday morning. And as usual I was writing about sports. But not for long. Football suddenly seemed irrelevant compared to the scenes of destruction and other devastation coming out of New York on TV."

Mick O'Regan: You went on to say in that article, which I have in front of me, that "even ESPN was broadcasting war news. It was the worst disaster in the history of the United States." Do you think that the event completely transformed the way in which Americans see themselves and their own vulnerability?

Hunter S. Thompson: No, the event by itself wouldn't have done that. But it was the way the Administration was able to use that event. Even use it as a springboard for everything they wanted to do. And that might tell you something. I remember when I was writing that column you sort of wonder when something like that happens, Well who stands to benefit? Who had the opportunity and the motive? You just kind of look at these basic things, and I don?t know if I want to go into this on worldwide radio here, but ...

Mick O'Regan: You may as well.

Hunter S. Thompson: All right. Well I saw that the US government was going to benefit, and the White House people, the republican administration to take the mind of the public off of the crashing economy. Now you want to keep in mind that every time a person named Bush gets into office, the nation goes into a drastic recession they call it.

Mick O'Regan: It seems a very long bow to me, but are you sort of suggesting that this worked in the favour of the Bush Administration?

Hunter S. Thompson: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I have spent enough time on the inside of, well in the White House and you know, campaigns and I've known enough people who do these things, think this way, to know that the public version of the news or whatever event, is never really what happened.

And also his comments about 9/11 immediately thereafter. Apparently a part of this will be quoted in the documentary...

The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now -- with somebody -- and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.

It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. Osama bin Laden may be a primitive "figurehead" -- or even dead, for all we know -- but whoever put those All-American jet planes loaded with All-American fuel into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did it with chilling precision and accuracy. The second one was a dead-on bullseye. Straight into the middle of the skyscraper.

Nothing -- even George Bush's $350 billion "Star Wars" missile defense system -- could have prevented Tuesday's attack, and it cost next to nothing to pull off. Fewer than 20 unarmed Suicide soldiers from some apparently primitive country somewhere on the other side of the world took out the World Trade Center and half the Pentagon with three quick and costless strikes on one day. The efficiency of it was terrifying.

We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them.

This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed -- for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now. He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter where they live or why. If the guilty won't hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force.

Good luck. He is in for a profoundly difficult job -- armed as he is with no credible Military Intelligence, no witnesses and only the ghost of Bin Laden to blame for the tragedy.

OK. It is 24 hours later now, and we are not getting much information about the Five Ws of this thing.

The numbers out of the Pentagon are baffling, as if Military Censorship has already been imposed on the media. It is ominous. The only news on TV comes from weeping victims and ignorant speculators.

The lid is on. Loose Lips Sink Ships. Don't say anything that might give aid to The Enemy.

Have you ever wondered why the Washington Post sucks? I think I found the answer with the outgoing interview of one of the senior guys. This is so weird it's almost occult!

Post Newsroom Leader to Retire - washingtonpost.com

Chicago: Hey Len, What is your opinion of Katherine Graham's quote: "The press these days should be rather careful about its role. We may have acquired some tendencies about over-involvement that we had better overcome. We had better not yield to the temptation to go on refighting the next war and see conspiracy and cover-up where they do not exist."

Leonard Downie Jr.: It's timeless wisdom. She said that many years ago, and it was true then and it's true now. We keep that responsibility in mind every day

*****

Arlington, Va.: McLean's question referred to a rightward drift in news coverage, not editorials. Please respond to the original question. Thank you.

Leonard Downie Jr.: We have not changed or established any "drift" to our news coverage, right or left. Sometimes it's the readers who perceive something like that because the coverage does not reflect their point of view. Critics on both the left and right accuse The Post of bias in the other direction. We have no ideology in this newsroom -- our only bias is for a good story and accountability journalism. The only political activity our journalists are allowed to engage in is voting (and even that I don't do). No personal or financial support for candidates or issues. No demonstrating. No petition-signing.

*****

Arlington, Va.: You are known for being so objective that you don't vote. Now that you are retiring, will register and vote?

Leonard Downie Jr.: I'll have to think about that, because I didn't just stop voting -- I stopped having even private opinions about politicians or issues, so that I would have a completely open mind in supervising our coverage. It may be hard to change.

I have always believed, and argued, that a true understanding of the Kennedy assassination will lead not to `a few bad people,’ but to the institutional and parapolitical arrangements which constitute the way we are systematically governed.

--Peter Dale Scott

Currently I am reading "October Surprise" by Gary Sick... Here's a review I posted long ago...

We have to get a chunk of this! Peter Dale Scott, a Berkeley professor, is one of the classic scholars of suspicious American political conspiracies, the JFK assassination, the ongoing fake war on drugs, and other things that good kids keep their fuckin' mouths shut about.

I was impressed by the latest from ol' Scott, and it also led me around to look at L. Fletcher Prouty's "The Secret Team, The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World" which you can read for free there. Following here is an excerpt of how the Global Dominance Mindset works - and how ugly and weird events like 9/11 and the JFK assassination mark episodes of turmoil among this stratum of the American establishment.

Earlier: Feb 24 2008: What now? Homeland Security Detention Camps & Trains of course; 9/11 poisons our dreams; Zarqawi PSYOPS fake news revisited

And earlier, July 7 2007: Weekend roundup: sweeping bitesized paranoia! with some clips of Scott talking about those ol' Left Gatekeepers and 9/11... Also recommended: PD Scott on JFK and 9/11 Insights Gained from Studying Both....

**********

9/11, Deep State Violence and the Hope of Internet Politics:

9/11, Deep Events, and the Global Dominance Mindset in American Society

The continuity of past deep events is part of the problem facing those who wish to understand and correct what underlies them. For the mainstream U.S. media (as we now clearly see them) have become so implicated in past protective lies about Korea, Tonkin Gulf, and the JFK assassination that they, as well as the government, have now a demonstrated interest in preventing the truth about any of these events from coming out.

This means that the current threat to constitutional rights does not derive from the deep state alone. As I have written elsewhere, the problem is a global dominance mindset that prevails not only inside the Washington Beltway but also in the mainstream media and even in the universities, one which has come to accept recent inroads on constitutional liberties, and stigmatizes, or at least responds with silence to, those who are alarmed by them. Just as acceptance of bureaucratic groupthink is a necessary condition for advancement within the state, so acceptance of this mindset’s notions of decorum has increasingly become a condition for participation in mainstream public life.

In saying this, I mean something more narrow than the pervasive "business-defined consensus" which Gabriel Kolko once asserted was "a central reality," underlying how "a ruling class makes its policies operate." I would agree that, at least since the Reagan era, the mindset I am describing has become more and more clearly identified with the mentality of an overworld determined to protect its privileges and even enlarge them at the expense of the rest of society.

But the mindset I mean is narrower in focus – originally concerned with defending and now increasingly concerned with enlarging America’s dominance in the world, in an era of finite and increasingly scarcer resources. And it is also, increasingly, less a consensus than an arena of serious division and debate.

It is clear that the mindset is not monolithic. There have been recurring notable dissents within it, such as when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau revealed in the New York Times that the Bush administration, in defiance of the FISA Act, was engaged in warrantless electronic surveillance of telephone calls inside the United States.47 But on other issues, notably the Iraq War, the Timeshas conspicuously failed to play the judicious critical role that it did with respect to the U.S. war in Vietnam. In general, as Kristina Borjesson reports in her devastating book, "Investigative reporting is dwindling…because it is expensive, attracts lawsuits, and can be hostile to the corporate interests and/or government connections of a news division’s parent company." And as to critical thinking about 9/11, as before about the Kennedy assassination, the Post has predictably gone out of its way to depict the 9/11 truth movement as a "cacophonous and free-range…bunch of conspiracists."

According to a survey of Lexis Nexis, the New York Times did not report Attorney General Gonzalez’ newsworthy claim that "There is no expressed grant of habeas corpus in the Constitution." (The Washington Post reported it, without comment, in a story of 197 words.) And on the question of torture even a liberal Harvard University professor, Michael Ignatieff, has argued in a University Press book from an even-handed starting point – "A democracy is committed to both the security of the majority and the rights of the individual" -- to an alarming defense of "coercive questioning."

In this state of affairs, I shall argue, the Internet provides an opportunity for opposition, of potentially immense political importance.

Deep Events as Intrigues within the Global Dominance Consensus

Many critics of American foreign policy on the left tend to stress its substantial coherence over time, from the War-Peace Studies for post-war planning of the Council on Foreign Relations in the 1940s, to Defense Secretary Charles Wilson’s plans in the 1950s for a "permanent war economy," to Clinton’s declaration to the United Nations in 1993 that the U.S. will act "multilaterally when possible, but unilaterally when necessary."

This view of America’s policies has persuaded some, notably Alexander Cockburn, to lament the displacement of coherent Marxist analysis by the "fundamental idiocy" and "foolishness" of "9/11 conspiracism." But it is quite possible to acknowledge both that there are ongoing continuities in American policy and also important, hidden, and recurring internal divisions, which have given rise to America’s structural deep events. These events have always involved friction between Wall Street and the Council on Foreign Relations, on the one hand, and the increasingly powerful oil- and military-dominated economic centers of the Midwest and the Texas Sunbelt on the other.

At the time that General MacArthur, drawing on his Midwest and Texas support, threatened to challenge Truman and the State Department, the opposition was seen as one between the traditional Europe-Firsters of the Northeast and new-wealth Asia-Firsters. In the 1952 election, the foreign policy debate was between Democratic "containment" and Republican "rollback." Bruce Cumings, following Franz Schurmann, wrote later of the split, even within the CIA, between "Wall Street internationalism" on the one hand and "cowboy-style expansionism" on the other.

Many have followed Michael Klare in defining the conflict as one, even within the Council on Foreign Relations, between "traders" and warrior "Prussians." Since the rise to eminence of the so-called "Vulcans" – notably Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz, backed by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) – the struggle has frequently been described as a struggle between the multilateralists of the status quo and the unilateralists seeking indisputable American hegemony.

Underlying every one of the deep events I have mentioned, and others such as the U-2 incident, can be seen this contest between traderly (multilateralist) and warriorly (unilateralist) approaches to the maintenance of U.S. global dominance. For decades the warriorly faction was clearly a minority; but it was also an activist and well-funded minority, in marked contrast to the relatively passive and disorganized traderly majority. Hence the warriorly preference for war, thanks to ample funding from the military-industrial complex and also to a series of deep events, was able time after time to prevail.

The 1970s can be seen as a turning-point, when a minority CFR faction, led by Paul Nitze, united with corporate executives from the military-industrial complex like David Packard and pro-Zionist future neocons like Richard Perle to forge a succession of militant political coalitions, such as the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD). Cheney and Rumsfeld, then in the Ford White House, participated in this onslaught on the multilateral foreign policy of Henry Kissinger. In the late 1990s Cheney and Rumsfeld, even while secretly refining the COG provisions put into force on 9/11, also participated openly in the successor organization to the CPD, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

From his office interfacing between CIA and the U.S. Air Force, Col. L. Fletcher Prouty deduced that there was a single Secret Team, within the CIA but not confined to it, responsible for not only the Tonkin Gulf incidents (timed to enable already planned military action against North Vietnam) but other deep events, such as the U-2 incident of 1960 (which in Prouty’s opinion was planned and timed to frustrate the projected summit conference between Eisenhower and Khrushchev) and even the assassination of President Kennedy (after which the Secret Team "moved to take over the whole direction of the war and to dominate the activity of the United States of America").

In language applicable to both Korea in 1950 and Tonkin Gulf in 1964, Prouty argued that CIA actions followed a pattern of actions which "went completely out of control in Southeast Asia:"

The clandestine operator… prepares the stage by launching a very minor and very secret, provocative attack of a kind that is bound to bring open reprisal. These secret attacks, which may have been made by third parties or by stateless mercenaries whose materials were supplied secretly by the CIA, will undoubtedly create reaction which in turn is observed in the United States…. It is not a new game. [but] it was raised to a high state of art under Walt Rostow and McGeorge Bundy against North Vietnam, to set the pattern for the Gulf of Tonkin attacks.

I mention Prouty’s thesis here in order to record my partial dissent from it. In my view his notion of a "team" localizes what I call the global dominance mindset too narrowly in a restricted group who are not only like-minded but in conspiratorial communication over a long term. He exhibits the kind of conspiratorialist mentality once criticized by G. William Domhoff:

We all have a tremendous tendency to want to get caught up in believing that there's some secret evil cause for all of the obvious ills of the world …. [Conspiracy theories] encourage a belief that if we get rid of a few bad people, everything will be well in the world.

My own position is still that which I articulated years ago in response to Domhoff:

I have always believed, and argued, that a true understanding of the Kennedy assassination will lead not to `a few bad people,’ but to the institutional and parapolitical arrangements which constitute the way we are systematically governed.

Quoting what I had written, Michael Parenti added, "In sum, national security state conspiracies [or what I would call deep events] are components of our political structure, not deviations from it."

The outcome of the deep events I have mentioned so far has been chiefly a series of victories for the warriors. But there have been other structural deep events, notably Watergate in 1972-74 and Iran-Contra in 1986-87, which can be interpreted, if not as victories for the traders, at least as temporary setbacks for the warriors. In The Road to 9/11 I have tried to show that Cheney and Rumsfeld, while in the Ford White House, bitterly resented the setback represented by the post-Watergate reforms, and immediately set in motion a series of moves to reverse them. I argue there that the climax of these moves was the imposition after 9/11 of their long-planned provisions for COG, formulated under their supervision since the early 1980s.

Thus since World War Two the warriorly position, initially that of a marginal but conspiratorial minority, has moved since the Reagan and Bush presidencies into a more and more central position. This is well symbolized by the rise in influence since 1981 of the Council for National Policy, originally funded by Texas oil billionaire Nelson Bunker Hunt and explicitly designed to offset the influence of the Council on Foreign Relations. Comparing the 1950s with the present decade, it is striking how much the status of the State Department has declined vis-à-vis the Pentagon. With the accelerated militarization of the U.S. economy, the question arises whether a more traderly foreign policy can ever again prevail.

And since 9/11, especially with the institution of unknown COG procedures, some have talked of the overall subversion of democracy, by a new Imperial Presidency in the Bush White House.

***********

Well that's all for now, kids. Have fun in the endless rabbit holes of Deep Politics and Cryptocracies!

I noted all this nonsense a while ago: March 27, 2007: New GeoMap; Kremlin warns of "Operation Bite" American attack on Iran April 6? More rumors etc.

The latest twist is that apparently the Democrats agreed to give Bush as much money as they wanted in order to do the "U.S. Covert - BALUCHIS" attack detailed on this sketch here. At roughly the time of my post, actually!

April 4, 2007: Iran paranoia, covert war escalates; Tensions rise as Persian Gulf fills with carriers, media crews, tribal revolts; US Air Force buzzes infiltrated Iranian Khuzestan

At that time we had the excellent "Approximate Covert Crisis GeoMap: Shitstorm 2007:

April 8, 2007: Jundullah: Baluchi ally of the United States... And Al Qaeda... in covert Iran war.

Since those heady days, I haven't had too much to say about the Baluchi pawn situation. However, the drums of war have continued and my tasty diagrams are as accurate as last year. Both the CIA-sponsored tribal uprisings and the Mujahideen el-Khalq actions are going forth accordingly.

At least, that's what good ol Seymour Hersh has divined from his vast array of establishment sources, who generally seem quite frightened of the alternate chains of command that Dick Cheney has built up from his office.

Annals of National Security: Preparing the Battlefield: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Pay very close attention to this part, kiddos, because herein lies the primary potential source of a cataclysmic Iran war: the "small group" at the White House who are developing an alternate chain of command.

Fallon’s early retirement, however, appears to have been provoked not only by his negative comments about bombing Iran but also by his strong belief in the chain of command and his insistence on being informed about Special Operations in his area of responsibility. One of Fallon’s defenders is retired Marine General John J. (Jack) Sheehan, whose last assignment was as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command, where Fallon was a deputy. Last year, Sheehan rejected a White House offer to become the President’s “czar” for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “One of the reasons the White House selected Fallon for CENTCOM was that he’s known to be a strategic thinker and had demonstrated those skills in the Pacific,” Sheehan told me. (Fallon served as commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific from 2005 to 2007.) “He was charged with coming up with an over-all coherent strategy for Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and, by law, the combatant commander is responsible for all military operations within his A.O.”—area of operations. “That was not happening,” Sheehan said. “When Fallon tried to make sense of all the overt and covert activity conducted by the military in his area of responsibility, a small group in the White House leadership shut him out.”

The law cited by Sheehan is the 1986 Defense Reorganization Act, known as Goldwater-Nichols, which defined the chain of command: from the President to the Secretary of Defense, through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and on to the various combatant commanders, who were put in charge of all aspects of military operations, including joint training and logistics. That authority, the act stated, was not to be shared with other echelons of command. But the Bush Administration, as part of its global war on terror, instituted new policies that undercut regional commanders-in-chief; for example, it gave Special Operations teams, at military commands around the world, the highest priority in terms of securing support and equipment. The degradation of the traditional chain of command in the past few years has been a point of tension between the White House and the uniformed military.

“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue civilian influence and direction of nonconventional military operations,” Sheehan said. “If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.”

Admiral Fallon, who is known as Fox, was aware that he would face special difficulties as the first Navy officer to lead CENTCOM, which had always been headed by a ground commander, one of his military colleagues told me. He was also aware that the Special Operations community would be a concern. “Fox said that there’s a lot of strange stuff going on in Special Ops, and I told him he had to figure out what they were really doing,” Fallon’s colleague said. “The Special Ops guys eventually figured out they needed Fox, and so they began to talk to him. Fox would have won his fight with Special Ops but for Cheney.”

The Pentagon consultant said, “Fallon went down because, in his own way, he was trying to prevent a war with Iran, and you have to admire him for that.”

There you have it. This is huge. Bigger than the usual British-style strategy of renting local warlords like the Baluchis. Also duly noted:

A strategy of using ethnic minorities to undermine Iran is flawed, according to Vali Nasr, who teaches international politics at Tufts University and is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Just because Lebanon, Iraq, and Pakistan have ethnic problems, it does not mean that Iran is suffering from the same issue,” Nasr told me. “Iran is an old country—like France and Germany—and its citizens are just as nationalistic. The U.S. is overestimating ethnic tension in Iran.” The minority groups that the U.S. is reaching out to are either well integrated or small and marginal, without much influence on the government or much ability to present a political challenge, Nasr said. “You can always find some activist groups that will go and kill a policeman, but working with the minorities will backfire, and alienate the majority of the population.”

The Administration may have been willing to rely on dissident organizations in Iran even when there was reason to believe that the groups had operated against American interests in the past. The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.

One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support.

The C.I.A. and Special Operations communities also have long-standing ties to two other dissident groups in Iran: the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, known in the West as the M.E.K., and a Kurdish separatist group, the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, or PJAK.

The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

I have zero faith in any element of America's political class to even understand what is happening, let alone get some degree of control over these covert operations, ever escalating and widening out into the aggressive galaxy of contractors and militant baby boomers, all set in motion on their own, partitioned even from the regional American military commanders.

When even the President's direct regional commander, General Fallon, couldn't find out what the fuck Special Forces are actually doing, then by definition we have a serious and insane war conspiracy unfolding.

And for now, that is basically all I can say.

Given the circumstances in Minnesota - with Al Franken's writings back in the day - I have thought a lot lately about the classic Supreme Court First Amendment cases. The rules here are unique, and these days many spots in the world are moving closer towards regulating political speech.

In 1972 George Carlin got arrested for some quality words:

Pacifica Radio put on the routine from the Occupation: Foole album...

Occupation: Foole - Wikipedia

Wikipedia adds: Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action in 1978, by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene". The Court accepted as compelling the government's interests in 1) shielding children from patently offensive material, and 2) ensuring that unwanted speech does not enter one's home. The Court stated that the FCC had the authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience, and gave the FCC broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency in different contexts.

Here we go: the full text from of course, the Electronic Frontier Foundation: (thanks for all the nice work, EFF)

http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/FCC_v_Pacifica/fcc_v_pacifica.decision

FCC V. PACIFICA FOUNDATION

FCC v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION

438 U.S. 726 (1978)

Decided July 3, 1978

1. Syllabus

2. Majority opinion

3. Concurring opinion

4. Dissenting opinion

5. Dissenting opinion

A radio station of respondent Pacifica Foundation (hereinafter

respondent) made an afternoon broadcast of a satiric monologue,

entitled "Filthy Words," which listed and repeated a variety of

colloquial uses of "words you couldn't say on the public airwaves." A

father who heard the broadcast while driving with his young son

complained to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which,

after forwarding the complaint for comment to and receiving a response

from respondent, issued a declaratory order granting the complaint.

While not imposing formal sanctions, the FCC stated that the order

would be "associated with the station's license file, and in the event

subsequent complaints are received, the Commission will then decide

whether it should utilize any of the available sanctions it has been

granted by Congress." In its memorandum opinion, the FCC stated that

it intended to "clarify the standards which will be utilized in

considering" the growing number of complaints about indecent radio

broadcasts, and it advanced several reasons for treating that type of

speech differently from other forms of expression. The FCC found a

power to regulate indecent broadcasting, inter alia, in 18 U.S.C. 1464

(1976 ed.), which forbids the use of "any obscene, indecent, or

profane language by means of radio communications." The FCC

characterized the language of the monologue as "patently offensive,"

though not necessarily obscene, and expressed the opinion that it

should be regulated by principles analogous to the law of nuisance

where the "law generally speaks to channeling behavior rather than

actually prohibiting it." The FCC found that certain words in the

monologue depicted sexual and excretory activities in a particularly

offensive manner, noted that they were broadcast in the early

afternoon "when children are undoubtedly in the audience," and

concluded that the language as broadcast was indecent and prohibited

by 1464. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals reversed, one

judge concluding that the FCC's action was invalid either on the

ground that the order constituted censorship, which was expressly

forbidden by 326 of the Communications Act of 1934, or on the ground

that the FCC's opinion was the functional equivalent of a rule, and as

such was "overbroad." Another judge, who felt that 326's censorship

provision did not apply to broadcasts forbidden by 1464, concluded

that 1464, construed narrowly as it has to be, covers only language

that is obscene or otherwise unprotected by the First Amendment. The

third judge, dissenting, concluded that the FCC had correctly

condemned the daytime broadcast as indecent. Respondent contends that

the broadcast was not indecent within the meaning of the statute

because of the absence of prurient appeal. Held: The judgment is

reversed. Pp. 734-741; 748-750; 761-762.

181 U.S. App. D.C. 132, 556 F.2d 9, reversed.

MR. JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to

Parts I-III and IV-C, finding:

1. The FCC's order was an adjudication under 5 U.S.C. 554 (e) (1976

ed.), the character of which was not changed by the general statements

in the memorandum opinion; nor did the FCC's action constitute

rulemaking or the promulgation of regulations. Hence, the Court's

review must focus on the FCC's determination that the monologue was

indecent as broadcast. Pp. 734-735.

2. Section 326 does not limit the FCC's authority to sanction

licensees who engage in obscene, indecent, or profane broadcasting.

Though the censorship ban precludes editing proposed broadcasts in

advance, the ban does not deny the FCC the power to review the content

of completed broadcasts. Pp. 735-738.

3. The FCC was warranted in concluding that indecent language within

the meaning of 1464 was used in the challenged broadcast. The words

"obscene, indecent, or profane" are in the disjunctive, implying that

each has a separate meaning. Though prurient appeal is an element of

"obscene," it is not an element of "indecent," which merely refers to

noncomformance with accepted standards of morality. Contrary to

respondent's argument, this Court in Hamling v. United States, 418

U.S. 87, has not foreclosed a reading of 1464 that authorizes a

proscription of "indecent" language that is not obscene, for the

statute involved in that case, unlike 1464, focused upon the prurient,

and dealt primarily with printed matter in sealed envelopes mailed

from one individual to another, whereas 1464 deals with the content of

public broadcasts. Pp. 738-741.

4. Of all forms of communication, broadcasting has the most limited

First Amendment protection. Among the reasons for specially treating

indecent broadcasting is the uniquely pervasive presence that medium

of expression occupies in the lives of our people. Broadcasts extend

into the privacy of the home and it is impossible completely to avoid

those that are patently offensive. Broadcasting, moreover, is uniquely

accessible to children. Pp. 748-750.

MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, joined by THE CHIEF JUSTICE, and MR. JUSTICE

REHNQUIST, concluded in Parts IV-A and IV-B:

1. The FCC's authority to proscribe this particular broadcast is not

invalidated by the possibility that its construction of the statute

may deter certain hypothetically protected broadcasts containing

patently offensive references to sexual and excretory activities. Cf.

Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367. Pp. 742-743.

2. The First Amendment does not prohibit all governmental regulation

that depends on the content of speech. Schenck v. United States, 249

U.S. 47, 52. The content of respondent's broadcast, which was

"vulgar," "offensive," and "shocking," is not entitled to absolute

constitutional protection in all contexts; it is therefore necessary

to evaluate the FCC's action in light of the context of that

broadcast. Pp. 744-748.

MR. JUSTICE POWELL, joined by MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concluded that the

FCC's holding does not violate the First Amendment, though, being of

the view that Members of this Court are not free generally to decide

on the basis of its content which speech protected by the First

Amendment is most valuable and therefore deserving of First Amendment

protection, and which is less "valuable" and hence less deserving of

protection, he is unable to join Part IV-B (or IV-A) of the opinion.

Pp. 761-762.

STEVENS, J., announced the Court's judgment and delivered an opinion

of the Court with respect to Parts I-III and IV-C, in which BURGER, C.

J., and REHNQUIST, J., joined, and in all but Parts IV-A and IV-B of

which BLACKMUN and POWELL, JJ., joined, and an opinion as to Parts

IV-A and IV-B, in which BURGER, C. J., and REHNQUIST, J., joined.

POWELL, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the

judgment, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined, post, p. 755. BRENNAN, J.,

filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p.

762. STEWART, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BRENNAN, WHITE,

and MARSHALL, JJ., joined, post, p. 777.

Joseph A. Marino argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the

briefs were Robert R. Bruce and Daniel M. Armstrong.

Harry M. Plotkin argued the cause for respondent Pacifica Foundation.

With him on the brief were David Tillotson and Harry F. Cole. Louis F.

Claiborne argued the cause for the United States, a respondent under

this Court's Rule 21 (4). With him on the brief were Solicitor General

McCree, Assistant Attorney General Civiletti, and Jerome M. Feit.[*]

*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed by Anthony H. Atlas

for Morality in Media, Inc.; and by George E. Reed and Patrick F.

Geary for the United States Catholic Conference.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed by J. Roger

Wollenberg, Timothy B. Dyk, James A. McKenna, Jr., Carl R. Ramey,

Erwin G. Krasnow, Floyd Abrams, J. Laurent Scharff, Corydon B. Dunham,

and Howard Monderer for the American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., et

al.; by Henry R. Kaufman, Joel M. Gora, Charles Sims, and Bruce J.

Ennis for the American Civil Liberties Union et al.; by Irwin Karp for

the Authors League of America, Inc.; by James Bouras, Barbara Scott,

and Fritz E. Attaway for the Motion Picture Association of America,

Inc.; and by Paul P. Selvin for the Writers Guild of America, West

Inc.

Charles M. Firestone filed a brief for the Committee for Open Media as

amicus curiae.

FCC V. PACIFICA FOUNDATION - MAJORITY OPINION

MR. JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court (Parts I, II,

III, and IV-C) and an opinion in which THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR.

JUSTICE REHNQUIST joined (Parts IV-A and IV-B).

This case requires that we decide whether the Federal Communications

Commission has any power to regulate a radio broadcast that is

indecent but not obscene.

A satiric humorist named George Carlin recorded a 12-minute monologue

entitled "Filthy Words" before a live audience in a California

theater. He began by referring to his thoughts about "the words you

couldn't say on the public, ah, airwaves, um, the ones you definitely

wouldn't say, ever." He proceeded to list those words and repeat them

over and over again in a variety of colloquialisms. The transcript of

the recording, which is appended to this opinion, indicates frequent

laughter from the audience.

At about 2 o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, October 30, 1973, a

New York radio station, owned by respondent Pacifica Foundation,

broadcast the "Filthy Words" monologue. A few weeks later a man, who

stated that he had heard the broadcast while driving with his young

son, wrote a letter complaining to the Commission. He stated that,

although he could perhaps understand the "record's being sold for

private use, I certainly cannot understand the broadcast of same over

the air that, supposedly, you control."

The complaint was forwarded to the station for comment. In its

response, Pacifica explained that the monologue had been played during

a program about contemporary society's attitude toward la0nguage and

that, immediately before its broadcast, listeners had been advised

that it included ++"sensitive language which might be regarded as

offensive to some." Pacifica characterized George Carlin as "a

significant social satirist" who "like Twain and Sahl before him,

examines the language of ordinary people. . . . Carlin is not mouthing

obscenities, he is merely using words to satirize as harmless and

essentially silly our attitudes towards those words." Pacifica stated

that it was not aware of any other complaints about the broadcast.

On February 21, 1975, the Commission issued a declaratory order

granting the complaint and holding that Pacifica "could have been the

subject of administrative sanctions." 56 F. C. C. 2d 94, 99. The

Commission did not impose formal sanctions, but it did state that the

order would be "associated with the station's license file, and in the

event that subsequent complaints are received, the Commission will

then decide whether it should utilize any of the available sanctions

it has been granted by Congress."[fn1]

In its memorandum opinion the Commission stated that it intended to

"clarify the standards which will be utilized in considering" the

growing number of complaints about indecent speech on the airwaves.

Id., at 94. Advancing several reasons for treating broadcast speech

differently from other forms of expression,[fn2] the Commission found

a power to regulate indecent broadcasting in two statutes: 18 U.S.C.

1464 (1976 ed.), which forbids the use of "any obscene, indecent, or

profane language by means of radio communications,"[fn3] and 47 U.S.C.

303 (g), which requires the Commission to "encourage the larger and

more effective use of radio in the public interest."[fn4]

The Commission characterized the language used in the Carlin monologue

as "patently offensive," though not necessarily obscene, and expressed

the opinion that it should be regulated by principles analogous to

those found in the law of nuisance where the "law generally speaks to

channeling behavior more than actually prohibiting it. . . . [T]he

concept of `indecent' is intimately connected with the exposure of

children to language that describes, in terms patently offensive as

measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium,

sexual or excretory activities and organs, at times of the day when

there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience." 56

F. C. C. 2d, at 98.[fn5]

Applying these considerations to the language used in the monologue as

broadcast by respondent, the Commission concluded that certain words

depicted sexual and excretory activities in a patently offensive

manner, noted that they "were broadcast at a time when children were

undoubtedly in the audience (i. e., in the early afternoon)," and that

the prerecorded language, with these offensive words "repeated over

and over," was "deliberately broadcast." Id., at 99. In summary, the

Commission stated: "We therefore hold that the language as broadcast

was indecent and prohibited by 18 U.S.C. [] 1464."[fn6] Ibid.

After the order issued, the Commission was asked to clarify its

opinion by ruling that the broadcast of indecent words as part of a

live newscast would not be prohibited. The Commission issued another

opinion in which it pointed out that it "never intended to place an

absolute prohibition on the broadcast of this type of language, but

rather sought to channel it to times of day when children most likely

would not be exposed to it." 59 F. C. C. 2d 892 (1976). The Commission

noted that its "declaratory order was issued in a specific factual

context," and declined to comment on various hypothetical situations

presented by the petition.[fn7] Id., at 893. It relied on its "long

standing policy of refusing to issue interpretive rulings or advisory

opinions when the critical facts are not explicitly stated or there is

a possibility that subsequent events will alter them." Ibid.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia

Circuit reversed, with each of the three judges on the panel writing

separately. 181 U.S. App. D.C. 132, 556 F.2d 9. Judge Tamm concluded

that the order represented censorship and was expressly prohibited by

326 of the Communications Act.[fn8] Alternatively, Judge Tamm read the

Commission opinion as the functional equivalent of a rule and

concluded that it was "overbroad." 181 U.S. App. D.C., at 141, 556

F.2d, at 18. Chief Judge Bazelon's concurrence rested on the

Constitution. He was persuaded that 326's prohibition against

censorship is inapplicable to broadcasts forbidden by 1464. However,

he concluded that 1464 must be narrowly construed to cover only

language that is obscene or otherwise unprotected by the First

Amendment. 181 U.S. App. D.C., at 140-153, 556 F.2d, at 24-30. Judge

Leventhal, in dissent, stated that the only issue was whether the

Commission could regulate the language "as broadcast." Id., at 154,

556 F.2d, at 31. Emphasizing the interest in protecting children, not

only from exposure to indecent language, but also from exposure to the

idea that such language has official approval, id., at 160, and n. 18,

556 F.2d, at 37, and n. 18, he concluded that the Commission had

correctly condemned the daytime broadcast as indecent.

Having granted the Commission's petition for certiorari, 434 U.S.

1008, we must decide: (1) whether the scope of judicial review

encompasses more than the Commission's determination that the

monologue was indecent "as broadcast"; (2) whether the Commission's

order was a form of censorship forbidden by 326; (3) whether the

broadcast was indecent within the meaning of 1464; and (4) whether the

order violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

I

The general statements in the Commission's memorandum opinion do not

change the character of its order. Its action was an adjudication

under 5 U.S.C. 554 (e) (1976 ed.); it did not purport to engage in

formal rulemaking or in the promulgation of any regulations. The order

"was issued in a specific factual context"; questions concerning

possible action in other contexts were expressly reserved for the

future. The specific holding was carefully confined to the monologue

"as broadcast."

"This Court . . . reviews judgments, not statements in opinions."

Black v. Cutter Laboratories, 351 U.S. 292, 297. That admonition has

special force when the statements raise constitutional questions, for

it is our settled practice to avoid the unnecessary decision of such

issues. Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U.S. 549, 568-569. However

appropriate it may be for an administrative agency to write broadly in

an adjudicatory proceeding, federal courts have never been empowered

to issue advisory opinions. See Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U.S. 117, 126.

Accordingly, the focus of our review must be on the Commission's

determination that the Carlin monologue was indecent as broadcast.

II

The relevant statutory questions are whether the Commission's action

is forbidden "censorship" within the meaning of 47 U.S.C. 326 and

whether speech that concededly is not obscene may be restricted as

"indecent" under the authority of 18 U.S.C. 1464 (1976 ed.). The

questions are not unrelated, for the two statutory provisions have a

common origin. Nevertheless, we analyze them separately.

Section 29 of the Radio Act of 1927 provided:

"Nothing in this Act shall be understood or construedto give the

licensing authority the power of censorshipover the radio

communications or signals transmitted byany radio station, and no

regulation or condition shall bepromulgated or fixed by the licensing

authority whichshall interfere with the right of free speech by means

ofradio communications. No person within the jurisdictionof the United

States shall utter any obscene, indecent,or profane language by means

of radio communication."44 Stat. 1172.

The prohibition against censorship unequivocally denies the Commission

any power to edit proposed broadcasts in advance and to excise

material considered inappropriate for the airwaves. The prohibition,

however, has never been construed to deny the Commission the power to

review the content of completed broadcasts in the performance of its

regulatory duties.[fn9]

During the period between the original enactment of the provision in

1927 and its re-enactment in the Communications Act of 1934, the

courts and the Federal Radio Commission held that the section deprived

the Commission of the power to subject "broadcasting matter to

scrutiny prior to its release," but they concluded that the

Commission's "undoubted right" to take note of past program content

when considering a licensee's renewal application "is not

censorship."[fn10]

Not only did the Federal Radio Commission so construe the statute

prior to 1934; its successor, the Federal Communications Commission,

has consistently interpreted the provision in the same way ever since.

See Note, Regulation of Program Content by the FCC, 77 Harv. L. Rev.

701 (1964). And, until this case, the Court of Appeals for the

District of Columbia Circuit has consistently agreed with this

construction.[fn11] Thus, for example, in his opinion in

Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith v. FCC, 131 U.S. App. D.C. 146,

403 F.2d 169 (1968), cert. denied, 394 U.S. 930, Judge Wright

forcefully pointed out that the Commission is not prevented from

canceling the license of a broadcaster who persists in a course of

improper programming. He explained:

"This would not be prohibited `censorship,' . . . any more than would

the Commission's considering on a license renewal application whether

a broadcaster allowed `coarse, vulgar, suggestive, double-meaning'

programming; programs containing such material are grounds for denial

of a license renewal." 131 U.S. App. D.C., at 150-151, n. 3. 403 F.2d,

at 173-174, n. 3.See also Office of Communication of United Church of

Christ v. FCC, 123 U.S. App. D.C. 328, 359 F.2d 994 (1966).

Entirely apart from the fact that the subsequent review of program

content is not the sort of censorship at which the statute was

directed, its history makes it perfectly clear that it was not

intended to limit the Commission's power to regulate the broadcast of

obscene, indecent, or profane language. A single section of the 1927

Act is the source of both the anticensorship provision and the

Commission's authority to impose sanctions for the broadcast of

indecent or obscene language. Quite plainly, Congress intended to give

meaning to both provisions. Respect for that intent requires that the

censorship language be read as inapplicable to the prohibition on

broadcasting obscene, indecent, or profane language.

There is nothing in the legislative history to contradict this

conclusion. The provision was discussed only in generalities when it

was first enacted.[fn12] In 1934, the anticensorship provision and the

prohibition against indecent broadcasts were re-enacted in the same

section, just as in the 1927 Act. In 1948, when the Criminal Code was

revised to include provisions that had previously been located in

other Titles of the United States Code, the prohibition against

obscene, indecent, and profane broadcasts was removed from the

Communications Act and re-enacted as 1464 of Title 18. 62 Stat. 769

and 866. That rearrangement of the Code cannot reasonably be

interpreted as having been intended to change the meaning of the

anticensorship provision. H. R. Rep. No. 304, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.,

A106 (1947). Cf. Tidewater Oil Co. v. United States, 409 U.S. 151,

162.

We conclude, therefore, that 326 does not limit the Commission's

authority to impose sanctions on licensees who engage in obscene,

indecent, or profane broadcasting.

III

The only other statutory question presented by this case is whether

the afternoon broadcast of the "Filthy Words" monologue was indecent

within the meaning of 1464.[fn13] Even that question is narrowly

confined by the arguments of the parties.

The Commission identified several words that referred to excretory or

sexual activities or organs, stated that the repetitive, deliberate

use of those words in an afternoon broadcast when children are in the

audience was patently offensive, and held that the broadcast was

indecent. Pacifica takes issue with the Commission's definition of

indecency, but does not dispute the Commission's preliminary

determination that each of the components of its definition was

present. Specifically, Pacifica does not quarrel with the conclusion

that this afternoon broadcast was patently offensive. Pacifica's claim

that the broadcast was not indecent within the meaning of the statute

rests entirely on the absence of prurient appeal.

The plain language of the statute does not support Pacifica's

argument. The words "obscene, indecent, or profane" are written in the

disjunctive, implying that each has a separate meaning. Prurient

appeal is an element of the obscene, but the normal definition of

"indecent" merely refers to nonconformance with accepted standards of

morality.[fn14]

Pacifica argues, however, that this Court has construed the term

"indecent" in related statutes to mean "obscene," as that term was

defined in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15. Pacifica relies most

heavily on the construction this Court gave to 18 U.S.C. 1461 in

Hamling v. United States, 418 U.S. 87. See also United States v. 12

200-ft. Reels of Film, 413 U.S. 123, 130 n. 7 (18 U.S.C. 1462)

(dicta). Hamling rejected a vagueness attack on 1461, which forbids

the mailing of "obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile"

material. In holding that the statute's coverage is limited to

obscenity, the Court followed the lead of Mr. Justice Harlan in Manual

Enterprises, Inc. v. Day, 370 U.S. 478. In that case, Mr. Justice

Harlan recognized that 1461 contained a variety of words with many

shades of meaning.[fn15] Nonetheless, he thought that the phrase

"obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile," taken as a

whole, was clearly limited to the obscene, a reading well grounded in

prior judicial constructions: "[T]he statute since its inception has

always been taken as aimed at obnoxiously debasing portrayals of sex."

370 U.S., at 483. In Hamling the Court agreed with Mr. Justice Harlan

that 1461 was meant only to regulate obscenity in the mails; by

reading into it the limits set by Miller v. California, supra, the

Court adopted a construction which assured the statute's

constitutionality.

The reasons supporting Hamling's construction of 1461 do not apply to

1464. Although the history of the former revealed a primary concern

with the prurient, the Commission has long interpreted 1464 as

encompassing more than the obscene.[fn16] The former statute deals

primarily with printed matter enclosed in sealed envelopes mailed from

one individual to another; the latter deals with the content of public

broadcasts. It is unrealistic to assume that Congress intended to

impose precisely the same limitations on the dissemination of patently

offensive matter by such different means.[fn17]

Because neither our prior decisions nor the language or history of

1464 supports the conclusion that prurient appeal is an essential

component of indecent language, we reject Pacifica's construction of

the statute. When that construction is put to one side, there is no

basis for disagreeing with the Commission's conclusion that indecent

language was used in this broadcast.

 read more »

The Celtics crushed the arrogant Lakers last night, and I didn't really watch more than a few minutes. Nonetheless, Kevin Garnett gave one hell of a post-game interview - complete with shoutouts to Minnesota and Chi town. Sweet!

Many of our choice links this afternoon come from Cryptome.org, Antiwar.com, Cryptogon.com and PrisonPlanet.com. All of these websites are only for the bad kids! They will soon be censored in the upcoming plan to kill the Internet!!

******

A lot of people are saying angry things about Tim Russert now that he's no longer with us. I thought that was not appropriate on the day he expired, but as we look back it seems pretty clear that Russert was a committed defender of the establishment status quo, generally an uncritical promoter of the war, and never really accounted for the huge and systemic distortions within his own media purview that led to the deaths of thousands upon thousands. Perhaps he would have recanted some of the stuff later, but now he'll never have the chance.

I have to steal this one paragraph from Electric Politics, which is a fine site:

Electric Politics | An Irish Flack:

For in reality, Russert practiced evasion and obfuscation, replacing real news with pap. He was no teller of great truths, no champion of the powerless, no voice of conscience. To the contrary, he diligently enforced the status quo. Sure, he was a nice guy. And he had a gift for handicapping political races. But the agitation surrounding his passing marks less his admirable qualities than his failings: without his happy face the establishment media may now more easily be seen for the toxic parasites that they are. Their exaggerated grieving serves the grievers, not the man. It would be better to remember Tim Russert without memorializing the system.

******Another subject Russert would never dream of touching: Fun video of Ben Bernanke @ Bilderberg!

Bilderbergers Leave Confab To Initiate Fresh Ordersand Castrated U.S. Media Remains Obediently Silent On Bilderberg. Ouch - gendered language! Suspicion Surrounds Governor's Mansion Fire, why not! Secret Bilderberg Agenda To Microchip Americans Leaked and Iran Threatened After Gates Bilderberg Visit

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Good times...******Some spy stuff: Spy Legal Reference Book from the government.
******Gore Vidal doubts McCain's story, and talks some smack! Questions For Gore Vidal - Literary Lion - Questions For Gore Vidal - Deborah Solomon - Interview - NYTimes.com

And what about Mr. McCain? Disaster. Who started this rumor that he was a war hero? Where does that come from, aside from himself? About his suffering in the prison war camp?

Everyone knows he was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. That’s what he tells us.

Why would you doubt him? He’s a graduate of Annapolis. I know a lot of the Annapolis breed. Remember, I’m West Point, where I was born. My father went there.

So what does that have to do with the U.S. Naval Academy down in Annapolis? The service universities keep track of each other, that’s all. They have views about each other. And they are very aware of social class and eventually money, since