LowerCaseRepublican

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Nuke, its like the agent provacateurs of the Vietnam era. But the illegalities and authoritarianism of COINTELPRO are another discussion... The part that struck me was: Are we coming to a thought police of just acceptable speech?

This is from the print edition of the journal "Counterpunch" which can be found at www.counterpunch.org : Alexander Cockburn (COUNTERPUNCH, 1-26-05) The CIA's New Spies on Campus After disclosure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's effort to set a new and spectacularly unaccountable version of the CIA in the Pentagon, the sprouting forest of secret intelligence operations set up in the wake of 9/11 is at last coming under some scrutiny. Here's sinister one in the academic field that one that that had escaped scrutiny until this week. Dr David Price, of St Martins College, in Olympia, Washington is an anthropologist long interested in the intersections of his discipline with the world of intelligence and national security, both the CIA and the FBI. CounterPunchers know Price's work well. Now he's turned the spotlight on a new test program, operating without detection or protest, that is secretly placing CIA agents in American university classrooms. With time these students who cannot admit to their true intentions will inevitably pollute and discredit the universities in which they are now enrolled. Subscribers to our CounterPunch newsletter are now receiving the edition with Price's full investigation. Herewith a brief resume of his expose. Even before 9/11 government money was being sluiced into the academies for covert subsidies for students. The National Security Education Program (NSEP) siphoned off students from traditional foreign language funding programs and offered graduate students good money, sometimes $40,000 a year and up, to study "in demand" languages, but with pay-back stipulations mandating that recipients later work for unspecified U.S. national security agencies. When the NSEP got off the ground in the early 1990s there was some huff and puff from concerned academics about this breaching of the supposed barrier between the desires of academia and the state. But there wasn't even a watch-pup's yap about Congressional approval for section 318 of the 2004 Intelligence Authorization Act which appropriated four million dollars to fund a pilot program known as the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (PRISP), named after Senator Pat Roberts (R. Kansas, Chair, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence). PRISP is designed to train intelligence operatives and analysts in American university classrooms for careers in the CIA and other agencies. The program now operates on an undisclosed number of American college and university campuses. Dr Price has discovered that if the pilot phase of the program proves to be a useful means of recruiting and training members of the intelligence community then the program will expand to more campuses across the country. PRISP participants must be American citizens who are enrolled fulltime in graduate degree programs. They need to "complete at least one summer internship at CIA or other agencies", and they must pass the same background investigations as other CIA employees. PRISP students receive financial stipends ranging up to $25,000 per year and they are required to participate in closed meetings with other PRISP scholars and individuals from their administering intelligence agency. >From his enquiries Dr Price has determined that less than 150 students a year are currently authorized to receive funding during the pilot phase as PRISP evaluates the program's initial outcomes. PRISP is apparently administered not just by the CIA, but also through a variety of individual intelligence agencies like the NSA, MID, or Naval Intelligence. Secrecy is the root problem here, with the usual ill-based assumption that good intelligence operates best in clandestine conditions. Of course America needs good intelligence, but the most useful and important intelligence can largely be gathered openly without the sort of covert invasion of our campuses that PRISP silently brings. Anyone doubting the superior merits of open intelligence has only to study the sorry saga of the non-existent WMDs whose imagined threat in vast stockpiles was ringingly affirmed by all the secret agencies, while being contested by analysts unencumbered by bogus covert intelligence estimates massaged by Iraqi disinformers and political placemen in Langley and elsewhere. Dr Price says, "The CIA makes sure we won't know which classrooms PRSIP scholars attend, this being rationalized as a requirement for protecting the identities of intelligence personnel." But this secrecy shapes PRISP as it takes on the form of a covert operation in which PRISP students study chemistry, biology, sociology, psychology, anthropology and foreign languages without their fellow classmates, professors, advisors, department chairs or presumably even research subjects (knowing that they are working for the CIA, DIA, NSA or other intelligence agencies. "In a decade and a half of Freedom of Information Act research," Dr Price continues, " I have read too many FBI reports of students detailing the 'deviant' political views of their professors." In one instance elicited by Dr Price from files he acquired under FOIA, the FBI arranged for a graduate student to guide topics of 'informal' conversation with anthropologist Gene Weltfish that were later the focus of an inquiry by Joseph McCarthy). Today, Dr Price maintains, "These PRSIP students are also secretly compiling dossiers on their professors and fellow students." The confluence between academe and intelligence is long standing and pervasive. In 1988 CIA spokeswoman Sharon Foster bragged that the CIA then secretly employed enough university professors "to staff a large university". Most experts estimate that this presence has grown since 2001. But If the CIA can use PRISP to corral students, haul along to mandatory internships and summer sessions, douse them in the ethos of CIA, then it can surely shape their intellectual outlook even before their grasp of cultural history develops in the relatively open environment of their university. Academic environments thrive on open disagreement, dissent, and reformulation. As Dr Price writes," The presence of PRISP's secret sharers brings hidden agendas that sabotage fundamental academic processes. The Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program infects all academia with the viruses dishonesty and distrust as participant scholars cloak their intentions and their ties to the cloaked masters they serve."

http://www.drinkinggame.us/ The State of the Union is tonight so its time for the old tradition of the State of the Union drinking game.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 11:03 PM) http://www.nydailynews.com/front/breaking_...5p-236111c.html This man is an absolute disgrace to higher education. He's a nutcase who has absolutely no place teaching anything to anybody's kid and the fact a public university has this assclown on its tenured payroll makes me sick. This is hate speech, cut and dried, and that this man still has a job is more proof that hate speech is ok........just so long as it's the right kind. And for those that don't know about Ward Churchill -- he's one very pissed off cynical Native American (I've read some of his research regarding COINTELPRO and the FBi during the 50's and 60's) And from the article, he's got a point with this statement: "The overriding question that was being posed at the time was 'why did this happen, why did they hate us so much,' and my premise was when you do this to other people's families and children, that is going to be a natural response."

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 04:31 PM) This guy also agrees that the 1985 Bears were a fluke. I love that photo! An oldie but a goodie.

QUOTE(KittleWalk83 @ Feb 1, 2005 -> 02:01 PM) Let's see Raiders, 81 and 84 Redskins 82 and 88 Niners 80, 85, 89 That's 7 Super Bowls won by three teams. Add the 1980 Steelers (the last of 4 SB) the 1986 Giants (who in 90 would win their second SB) and then the FLUKE 85 Bears. Who are still waiting for a return trip to the Super Bowl. If winning a championship every 21 years isn't a FLUKE, I don't know what is. 63. 85. 2006??? With the losers on and running the Bears that's really going to happen. Is that so hard for you to figure out? Oh don't answer that, it may take you forever to figure it out, moron. Knock the name calling off. Not only does it make you look bad but also tears apart your argument. And I for one had a hard time deciphering how you said nearly every team won a Super Bowl in the 1980s when there were not enough Super Bowls to have that occur.

QUOTE(GASHWOUND @ Jan 31, 2005 -> 06:22 AM) Yeah, comes off as an ass sometimes... QP, right on! I f***ing hate Bobby Flay! He's such a whining dickweed. Was searching the net for this story: At the end of his first battle against Japanese Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto, a smack-talking, posturing Flay jumped triumphantly onto the counter. Standing on his cuttingboard and doing that dorky "raise the roof" hand gesture, Flay lead the crowd in chanting "U.S.A! U.S.A!" All of this, but primarily the standing on the cutting board part, grievously offended Morimoto and the rest of the Japanese contingent. Hilariously, Flay lost the battle, and afterwards took every opportunity to complain to the press that it was unfair, that his equipment was inferior to his challenger's and that the odds were stacked against him. A year later, he was afforded a rematch, which he ended up winning. As the final buzzer sounded, Flay jumped up and stood on the counter once again. In typically obnoxious fashion, he pointed out that this time he wasn't standing on the cutting board cause he didn't want to offend anybody. "He's so American!" the young Japanese actress on the panel of judges tittered nervously. Morimoto just shook his head in disbelief. And yes, I am a huge fan of Iron Chef. The new one sucks so much.

Warren Zevon Hank Sr. Dead Kennedys Bad Religion Killswitch Engage Avenged Sevenfold (props Cali ) Cake Ben Harper Marty Jones & the Pork Boilin' Poor Boys (they're a Denver based dixietonk band) David Byrne Talking Heads Black Sabbath (well more aptly put, the album "We Sold Our Souls for Rock and Roll") Led Zeppelin

Mike Piazza makes better catches when he's not behind the plate. -- ESPN.com caption. Am I the only one who read that and then thought of the Piazza Is Gay rumors?

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Jan 30, 2005 -> 01:38 PM) I watched that whole damned movie waiting to laugh, and barely ever cracked a smile. It was a huge let down. Saw Manchurian Canditate today, definately a quality movie. 2004 or 1962? Cuz if you liked the '04, I think you'll like the 62 version with Sinatra as well.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jan 30, 2005 -> 02:28 PM) Is something like that happening here? Thought so. Is Allawi anything like Pinochet? Thought so. Why is it that any measure of success in Iraq is downplayed and ridiculed by you and terrorist actions trumpeted about as loud as possible? I'm just saying I wonder if the US would continue its lip service to "democracy" by overthrowing yet another leader if the elections did not play out the way they wanted them to. And according to reports, in places like Fallujah [re: the BBC] the amount of voters seen there can be "counted on one hand" It is good that the Iraqis are voting -- but just color me more than a bit cynical about how much the US and their funded "Friends of Democracy" group has to do with the election of Allawi.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jan 30, 2005 -> 02:10 PM) Say what you want but shrill leftist monday morning QB's like you with your hypothetical bulls*** really don't carry a whole lot of weight. Hypothetical. Can we discuss overthrowing "democratically elected Allende" in Chile or our interventions in Greece or what we did in Guatemala etc.? Because there are numerous times where democratically elected leaders were ousted from their positions and authoritarians whom the US liked were installed.

It might be an insurance policy *if* El Duque happens to go down. That's the first thing that came to mind for me so figure I'd throw it out there.

Looks like Allawi is gonna get in most likely [he's also the US picked candidate after their candidate in Ahmed Chalabi was found to be an Iranian spy]...This is pure conjecture but I wonder what would have happened if a candidate that the US did not like won the election?

You got red on you. I love the part where his friend crashes the other car just so they have to drive the Jag to get away.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Jan 30, 2005 -> 03:50 AM) Considering that Canada has never had Fox News type outlet and have been only hearing one side of the issues, that might contribute to their liberal leanings. As for my point, Fox News has b**** slapped CNN, MSNBC, etc. They'll, in time, do the same to CBC unless the liberalists in Canada cause the gov't to pull the plug on them. They have b**** slapped them in the ratings but at what cost? O'Reilly's got enough distortions and lies that he's uttered on air to fill numerous books [my personal favorite is where he made up the Paris Business Review citing it as a source that said the O'Reilly/FNC boycott of France cost France billions when imports from France have actually gone up since the war started.] I have no problem with conservatives airing their point of view on TV but to do it under a guise of "fair and balanced" and in the absolutely imbicilic way that they do so [i.e. making up facts etc. -- like Coulter saying the World War I Red Scare took place in 1924 etc.] then it really does a disservice to legitimate conservatives to have these incompetent softheaded morons railing -- just like Michael Moore is a disservice to liberal minded people.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ Jan 29, 2005 -> 07:12 PM) This is from a country who, until very recently, allowed Al Jazerra on its airwaves and banned Fox News. f*** them. Coming from a man in a country who has Fox News on the airwaves and no Al Jazeera.

Just finished the classic spaghetti western "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" (1966). Such a great movie...3 hours long but f***ing great.

QUOTE(santo=dorf @ Jan 28, 2005 -> 06:55 PM) http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ima...3195-2005Jan27L I bet she can "go f*** herself." I love that "You dumbass" look the guy in the brown hat is giving Cheney

http://www.geocities.com/smernandtrimble/cardinalslogo My friend's site

http://antiwar.com/justin/ Its a really good article about previous uses of PR to create lies in the media to get us into things that are most definitely not good at all. And MrEye, I don't think that it will have much impact/newsworthyness if Clinton was found to do the same thing because he's been out of office for 5 years now. Plus, a lot of his activities (NAFTA, GATT etc.) were quite beneficial to large conglomerate business. So I wouldn't doubt that he probably did. However, the Bushies and the neo-cons have greatly increased the funding of public relations much more than the previous administrations. The CIA in the past paid off journalists in a disinfo campaign during Vietnam and PR firms lied to increase war furvor during Gulf War I so it would not surprise me that there are a lot more payoffs to be found.

Tell Me Something (1999). Psychological thriller from Korea. If you're a fan of "Seven" or the "Usual Suspects" then you definitely need to check this movie out. It was a little bit longer than it should have been but still a very definite rental if you're not turned off by a little blood/gore.

I just watched George Romero's "Bruiser" (2000). Holy sweet goddamn was I disappointed. Absolutely terrible.

Just finished "Ikiru" (1952) -- absolutely breathtaking. That movie was so excellently done. Definite must see.