JFK on Secrecy, Censorship, and Freedom of The Press ~ in Contrast to Our Government's action in the Wikileaks Controversy.
source: http://ow.ly/3txzT
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- gerardange
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The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
Compare that to the way our government has been responding -- demanding that US companies block access to Wikileaks and other such moves.
Of course, if you read the full speech from JFK (which was given to the American Newspaper Publishers Association), it's really quite nuanced. JFK argues forcefully against censorship from the government -- but actually is suggesting that the press consider self-censoring itself, taking into account the impact that it could have if it publishes certain information. However, he does try to make it clear that he does not want criticism or errors to be shielded from the public -- just that he hopes the press will decide for themselves to avoid publishing info that directly reveals vital points to enemies of the country.
In the end, I actually think these two paragraphs may be even more powerful than the one that most people are talking about:
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed--and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment-- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution- -not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants"--but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.
Too bad we're not hearing much of that from our politicians today.
To view the full article : JFK On Secrecy And Censorship | Techdirt http://ow.ly/3txzT
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- recommended by:
- ras_menelik
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gerardange
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Okay now what?
So now we all go back to sleep? Back to business as usual & doing nothing?
Doing nothing is stupid!
Doing something is courageous...
WIKILEAKS IS A WAKE-UP CALL !!!
Wikileaks is a global "Virus Protection Software" that has shown all of us that our systems are infected.... That there is a trojan virus running in the background - doing things against the interests of the People of the Country that the government is mandated to represent.
This is a real wake-up call for people everywhere.... that Corporations have taken over all our government systems... Stealing all our freedoms and making us slaves of their corporate system.
LEARN FROM HISTORY.....
Mussolini quote: " Fascism should be appropriately called Corporatism because of a merger of State & Corporate Power."
That is what is going on here...
This is a wake-up call for everyone.. and
Wikileaks is the Alarm Bell !!!
Truth is courageous...
~
- 2 years ago
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gerardange
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Tyr
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Anyone who actually thinks that there were no secrets or misinformation released during the Kennedy years is an absolute fool...do you honestly think that during some of the darkest days of the Cuban missile crisis that there was complete transparency about what was transpiring? If you believe that then make sure to leave some cookies for Santa Dec 24th.
- 2 years ago
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Tyr
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bullpcp
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Transparency... no really ;)
- 2 years ago
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bullpcp
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ras_menelik
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RT @SocialismoXXI: Wikileaks y el “bolivarianismo” #CubaDebate
Wikileaks y el “bolivarianismo” | Cubadebate - cubadebate.cu - 2 years ago
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ras_menelik
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Stoneyroad
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Let's be honest, JFK wasn't againts all secrecy.
pictures like this, and the fact that he & his brother both slept with Marilyn Monroe, the most famous sex symbol in history were kept pretty hush hush.Thank God Wikileaks doesn't have to deal with J. Edgar Hoover.
Forget trumped up sexual assault charges, Assange would be disappeared. - 2 years ago
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Stoneyroad
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Nephwrack
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Stoneyroad:
my grandma says pretty much everyone knew he was sleeping with her.
- 2 years ago
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Nephwrack
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Stoneyroad
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Nephwrack:
But nobody had PROOF, at least nobody that wanted to share it like Assange.
People like Hoover kept it secret so they could blackmail and ruin powerful people like pawns on chess board.
Shot-Caller + Secret (sexual or military ect.) = Leverage, for anyone who can keep that secret.Marilyn Monroe 'Dry Snitched' on the sex when she sang this happy birthday song. (that's why grandparents say everyone 'knew')
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVKYMb4nzM&feature=related
2 MONTHS LATER SHE WAS DEAD.
(creepy: she was introduced as the 'late' marilyn monroe.) - 2 years ago
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Stoneyroad
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Nephwrack
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Stoneyroad:
before then man. and so the fuck what? who cares if the effing president is getting some on the side? ever consider the fact that Jackie O might have had her offed? she wasn't exactly one to mess with. where the president puts his shlong is none of my business, and has absolutely NO bearing on how well they perform the duties of the office.
- 2 years ago
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Nephwrack
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Stoneyroad
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Nephwrack:
I'm not saying getting some strange has bearing on performing duties.
i'm saying when someone nefarious has pictures of powerful people getting freaky and threaten their reputations, those powerful people can be made to halt their reform efforts or support the nefarious agendas.Imagine if John Edwards was president. His wife has just died mid 1st term, he is riding high on sympathy support and Dick Cheney is one of a handfull of people who know he had a 'lovechild' out of wedlock, and Cheney tells Edwards he has to play ball or he will out him faster than Valerie Plame. Then hands him a copy of that video of him going down on his pregnant mistress from back when the now dead 1st lady was dieing from cancer.
What could he be made to do, and not do, to keep a secret like that?
- 2 years ago
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Stoneyroad
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Stoneyroad
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Nephwrack:
And yes i have Strongly considered Jackie O as a suspect.
Women killers often use posion, and her cause of death was "acute barbiturate poisoning"
+ "probable suicide".probable suicide, possible Jackie's revenge
- 2 years ago
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Stoneyroad
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Ish05
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It is a great tragedy and It pains me when our truly good leaders are taken from a people who will only survive and become good because of that leadership. It is the effect of good leadership that we as a human race are able to govern ourselves and naturally free ourselves from the binds of the sensual relationship we share with our universe, To be able to use our minds and not just our senses, to evolve and become the greatest good force this wonderful universe has intended to create. A lack of good leadership will cause us to fall back to that animal characteristic that keeps us bound in a chaotic state of entropy, when it is clear that we are anti-entropic by nature. We owe it to ourselves and our posterity that we rid ourselves of the ideas that we are only here for the pursuance of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
-IP - 2 years ago
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Ish05
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rodstradamus
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AKA The Speech the Got Kennedy Killed. That's what happens when you try to oppose secret societies, the Federal Reserve, the military industrial complex and the New World Order.
- 2 years ago
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rodstradamus
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KSirys
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rodstradamus:
True indeed!
- 2 years ago
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KSirys
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maasanova
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This is a very revealing speech, but what I think is being lost on a lot of people is that the press are doing their jobs in a sense.
Wikileaks gave five large media outlets exclusive rights to the diplomatic cables. I can't recall all five of the papers, but the ones I know are Le Monde, the London Guardian, the New York Times.
Most other papers have now picked up on the cables and are reporting on SELECT cables.
So in other words, Wikileaks latest "leaks" were spoon fed to the mainstream media, who then processed the data into mostly pro-war propaganda.
I know it's been said over and over that Wikileaks didn't reveal anything new but it's true and it needs to continued to be repeated over and over. The Blogs have been reporting on soliders killing people, Monsanto ect for years now. The mainstream media could not control that information, so they in turn either had to address the blogs or deny their claims, or sometimes both at the same time.
Because of Wikihoax, governments all around the world from Brazil to the UK are now trying to shut down free speech and Wikileaks is HELPING them to accomplish that, NOT fighting against it.
Most people are getting lost in the drama and thinking that Assange is a free speech hero that is fighting against the evil government worldwide.
It is a cartoonish paradigm that couldn't be further from the truth.
The more the mainstream media-government establishment continues to plaster that fools face all over Rolling Stone and MSNBC, the more the Obama administration is going to use Assange and Wikihoax an excuse to shut down THE BLOGS, which have been the true source of the leaks all along, NOT Wikihoax.
- 2 years ago
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maasanova
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mitekillem
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Education is the enemy of ignorance.
What purpose does the news serve if not to inform?
The press should be free, and treated as a messenger.
Assange raises a good question about the work of WikiLeaks.
How could a small website uncover so much information, when our own news teams could not? -The short answer, our News Networks are not looking for that information.
They no longer hold the government accountable. They no longer report unbiased facts.
Some facts are left out, or worded in such a way, that you form the opinion that they lead you to...much like in a court room when a defender is "leading a witness".
The witness must give their own account, from their own recollection, on their own opinion of the facts they experienced.The institution which once always had the ear of the American public, now finds itself to be crippled. They have become twisted by lusting after ratings, doing what they must to achieve the top ratings, competing against each other.
More recently, they've become pawns and mouth-pieces for political parties and agendas.I for one, am glad that WikiLeaks has surfaced.
Someone has to focus on the things they uncover.We The People have not been asleep, but much has been hidden from us.
Look to those people who considered Assange a "terrorist".
What terrorist spreads truth? How many have died from his "information bombs"?
Should he had uncovered things about the UN, plotting against the US, and published it, he would undoubtedly be called a hero.
-think about that.Has he hurt our government? -No. Their secrets and lies have hurt themselves.
If you broke someone's window, and told your friend to keep your secret, but he tells on you...should he pay for that window which you broke? -No.
The very same applies here.
You do the crime, you do the time. Being a tattle-tale is not a crime. It is simply being a messenger of truth.1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the PRESS; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. - 2 years ago
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mitekillem
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ras_menelik
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The basis of racial discrimination and colonialism has been economic, and it is with economic weapons that these evils have been and can be overcome. In pursuance of resolutions adopted at the Addis Ababa summit conference, African states have undertaken certain measures in the economic field which, if adopted by all member states of the United Nations, would soon reduce intransigeance to reason. I ask, today, for adherence to these measures by every nation represented [here] which is truly devoted to the principles enunciated in the charter.
We must act while we can, while the occasion exists to exert those legitimate pressures available to us lest time run out and resort be had to less happy means. (...) The great nations of the world would do well to remember that in the modern age even their own fates are not wholly in their hands. Peace demands the united efforts of us all. Who can foresee what spark might ignite the fuse ? (...) The stake of each one of us is identical-life or death. We all wish to live. We all seek a world in which men are freed of the burdens of ignorance, poverty, hunger and disease. And we shall all be hard-pressed to escape the deadly rain of nuclear fall-out should catastrophe overtake us. (...) The problems which confront us today are, equally, unprecedented. They have no counterparts in human experience. Men search the pages of history for solutions, for precedents, but there are none. This then, is the ultimate challenge. Where are we to look for our survival, for the answers to the questions which have never before been posed ? We must look, first, to the Almighty God, Who has raised man above the animals and endowed him with intelligence and reason. We must put our faith in Him, that He will not desert us or permit us to destroy humanity which He created in His image.
And we must look into ourselves, into the depth of our souls. We must become something we have never been and for which our education and experience and environment have ill-prepared us. We must become bigger than we have been : more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.
That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; That until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained; And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed; Until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and good-will; Until all Africans stand and speak as free beings, equal in the eyes of all men, as they are in the eyes of Heaven; Until that day, the African continent will not know peace. We Africans will fight, if necessary, and we know that we shall win, as we are confident in the victory of good over evil. – Haile Selassie I
In his speech to the U.N., Selassie reminded his listeners that these are only words; their value depends wholly on our will to observe and honour them and give them content and meaning.
- 2 years ago
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ras_menelik
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jubal
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The real terrorists in this world are the secret societies.
- 2 years ago
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jubal
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keithponder
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jubal:
http://www.erichufschmid.net/JFK/Toronto-connection.html
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JFK assassination video: Abraham Zapruder's Ties To CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald: Zapruder gets $16 million for his film from Feds
Abraham Zapruder's Ties To CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald"Zapruder Arbitration Board has agreed to pay 16 million for the Zapruder
film.The question is whether Abraham Zapruder's family should be allowed to
profit using the corporation LMH Inc. when in 1963 Zapruder belonged to the
Dallas Council on World Affairs, a CIA front organization, as did de
Mohrenschildt? George Bush's mentor Neil Mallon founded this organization.
In 1964 the Warren Commission found that Jeanne and her husband George de
Mohrenschildt were Marina and Lee Oswald's closest friends.
Ten years before the assassination in 1953 Zapruder had worked with Jeanne
de Mohrenschildt at the Nardis of Dallas clothing factory. Jeanne designed
the clothes while Zapruder cut her patterns.
Not only did Jeanne and Zapruder worked together, they were in 1953 both
friends with Olga Fehmer at Nardis of Dallas. Olga's daughter Marie would
become the personal secretary of Lyndon Johnson's. Marie was on board Air
Force One following JFK's death. The Fehmer family attended Senator Chuck
Robb's wedding to Lynda Johnson.
Throughout the 1950s George de Mohrenschildt worked out of a CIA-trust
building and exchanged letters in 1963 with LBJ seven months before JFK's
death. De Mohrenschildt met with LBJ on April 26, and again on May 20th.
The man in charge of the CIA, President Bill Clinton's own lawyer, Robert
Bennett represented the Zapruder Family in this case before the Zapruder
Arbitration Board. Clinton's Attorney General appointed Al Gore's
brother-in-law, Frank Hunger, to represent our Government's interest in the
Zapruder case. Hunger quit after Adamson complained to Janet Reno of this
conflict of interest.
George Bush Sr. was President and was responsible for signing into law in
1991-92 The JFK Assassination Records Review Board Act which took possession
of Zapruder's film under this act.
George Bush, Sr. has written a letter admitting that he had known de
Mohrenschildt since 1942.
Bush also knew LBJ was involved with The Bay of Pigs Invasion and Bush was
briefed by J.E. Hoover on JFK's assassination on November 23, 1963. The Bush
family has many ties to Oswald and de Mohrenschildt.
- The Abraham Zapruder film is first shown on TV, more than 11 years after
JFK's assassination)*** exposing the hidden truth for further educational research only ***
*** NOTICE: Due to Presidential Executive Orders, the National Security
Agency (NSA) may have read emails without warning, warrant, or notice. They
may do this without any judicial or legislative oversight. You have no
recourse, nor protection.......... IF anyone other than the addressee of
this e-mail is reading it, you are in violation of the 1st & 4th Amendments
to the Constitution of the United States. Patriot Act 5 & H.R. 1955
Disclaimer Notice: This post & all my past & future posts represent parody &
satire & are all intended for intellectual entertainment only. - 2 years ago
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keithponder
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jubal
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This incredible policy they set about undertaking lead to both their deaths. The current system is so corrupt it needs to be reigned in. The errors need to be corrected and the only way that its going to be accomplished is for the power of the press to be affirmed to reveal the secrets of fascists.
- 2 years ago
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jubal