Reference Materials – Authoritarian Rule by Our Intelligence Services – May 10

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Ordinarily we post in this “Reference Materials” section, inter alia, book reviews of the focus book.

However, since Orwell’s 1984 was published in 1949, it is unlikely that any book reviews of that period would have anticipated what an epic 1984 became.

And virtually all of us read 1984 for the first time in high school and remember well many of its features including “Big Brother” and “Big Brother is watching you”!!!

Accordingly, there is posted instead the current Wikipedia article on 1984 (our apologies to everyone who recalls our mantra that “Wikipedia articles are only as good as their footnotes,” but they are often a good place to start and provide a good summary).

In addition, there is posted the current Wikipedia article on Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” which was published 17 years earlier in 1932.

Many, if not most, of us studied both together and, indeed, the first paragraph of the section of the Wikipedia article on 1984 that compares it to Brave New World, says --

“In the decades since the publication of 1984, there have been numerous comparisons to the Aldous Huxley novel, Brave New World which was published 17 years earlier in 1932. They are both predictions of societies dominated by a central government, based on extensions of the trends of their times. But the ruling class of 1984 use brutal force, torture, and mind control to keep rebellious individuals in line, while Brave New World rulers keep citizens in line through addictive drugs and pleasurable distractions.”

Also highly recommended are three articles from the Guardian that were proposed 9/12/2016 as a meeting topic by Utah Owl (aka June Taylor) entitled “The CIA - A Constitutional Crisis?” which said simply --

“I propose that we read The Guardian's series ‘The Insider’ about Daniel Jones, a staffer on the Senate's intelligence oversight committee, who managed to obtain a copy of the highly secret ‘Panetta Report’ on the CIA's torture and other activities in the early days of the Iraq war. It is in three parts, all online at this point. Have a look and decide whether this is worth our attention!” Whereupon the proposal contained cross-links to the three articles in The Guardian.

June’s 9/12/2016 topic proposal expired 2/8/2017 because it received no votes for 6 consecutive meetings.

However, the three articles, together with June’s Original Proposal, are posted in this section.

And although the three articles are lengthy, reading them is highly recommended because (1) they show how our intelligence officials often lie under oath concerning their activities, and (2) because they almost-routinely “leak” classified information betraying “sources and methods” which is a felony punishable by 10 years in prison.

The “intelligence official” guilty of “leaking” in the imbroglio described in the three Guardian articles was Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) who was at war with President Obama and who admitted on 3/11/2014 that her staff had stolen 2 months earlier CIA documents that were then “leaked.”

The reason why the Guardian articles are only “highly recommended” is to illustrate that there are many reasons why an “intelligence official” such as Sen. Feinstein might violate the law.

However, our May 10th meeting will focus on only one reason -- the elimination from our democratic government of any official that the intelligence services dislike and the resulting Authoritarian Rule by Our Intelligence Services which must be stopped in its tracks.
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