{"id":145649,"date":"2015-04-08T14:11:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T14:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=145649"},"modified":"2015-04-08T14:11:11","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T14:11:11","slug":"political-smears-in-u-s-never-change-the-nyts-1967-attack-on-mlks-anti-war-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/political-smears-in-u-s-never-change-the-nyts-1967-attack-on-mlks-anti-war-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Political Smears in U.S. Never Change: the NYT\u2019s 1967 Attack on MLK\u2019s Anti-War Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Oliver\u2019s Monday night <a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2015\/04\/06\/john-oliver-interview-political-disengagement-american-public\/\">interview of Edward Snowden<\/a> \u2013 which in 24 hours has been viewed by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M\">3 million people on YouTube alone<\/a> \u2013 renewed all the standard attacks in Democratic circles accusing Snowden of being a traitor in cahoots with the Kremlin. What\u2019s most striking about this\u00a0\u2013 aside from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2014\/01\/28\/us-usa-security-snowden-feinstein-idUSBREA0R20G20140128\">utter lack of evidence<\/a>\u00a0for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/storyline\/nsa-snooping\/edward-snowden-probably-not-russian-spy-new-nsa-chief-says-n121926\">any of it<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 is how identical it is\u00a0to what<a href=\"https:\/\/freedom.press\/blog\/2014\/01\/russian-spy-tactics-used-rep-rogers-snowden-were-pioneered-nixon-admin-against-daniel\">Nixon officials said to smear<\/a> the last generation\u2019s greatest whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg (who is widely regarded by Democrats as a hero because his leak occurred with a Republican in the White House). As\u00a0<em>The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/query.nytimes.com\/gst\/abstract.html?res=9D06E4DC103DE63ABC4952DFBE668388669EDE\">reported<\/a> in August 1973:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn03.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2015\/04\/ellsberg.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-18805\" src=\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn03.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2015\/04\/ellsberg-261x300.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>. . .<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2015\/04\/ellsberg1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-18807\" src=\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn00.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2015\/04\/ellsberg1-300x292.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As the Freedom of the Press Foundation <a href=\"https:\/\/freedom.press\/blog\/2014\/01\/russian-spy-tactics-used-rep-rogers-snowden-were-pioneered-nixon-admin-against-daniel\">recently noted<\/a>:\u00a0in December 1973,<em>The<\/em>\u00a0<em>NYT<\/em>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/query.nytimes.com\/mem\/archive-free\/pdf?res=9E06E1D91239E73ABC4153DFB4678388669EDE\">described<\/a> the origins of Nixon\u2019s \u201cPlumbers Unit\u201d and detailed how much of it was motivated by the innuendo spread by Henry Kissinger that Ellsberg was a covert Soviet operative:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn02.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2015\/04\/ellsberg2.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-18812\" src=\"https:\/\/prod01-cdn03.cdn.firstlook.org\/wp-uploads\/sites\/1\/2015\/04\/ellsberg2-266x300.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I defy anyone to listen to any Democratic\u00a0apparatchik insinuate that\u00a0Snowden is a Russian agent and identify any differences with how Nixon apparatchiks smeared Ellsberg (or, for that matter, how today\u2019s warnings from Obama officials\u00a0about the grave harm coming from\u00a0leaks<a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2014\/02\/12\/james-clapper-says-transparency-helps-terrorists-like\/\">differ from the warnings issued by Bush and Nixon officials<\/a>). The script for smearing never changes \u2013 it stays constant over five decades and through the establishments of both parties \u2013 and it\u2019s one of the reasons Ellsberg so closely identifies with Snowden and has become one of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/daniel-ellsberg-nsa-leaker-snowden-made-the-right-call\/2013\/07\/07\/0b46d96c-e5b7-11e2-aef3-339619eab080_story.html\">his most vocal defenders<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/firstlook.org\/theintercept\/2015\/04\/07\/political-rhetoric-us-never-changes-nyts-attack-mlks-anti-war-speeches\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Oliver\u2019s Monday night interview of Edward Snowden \u2013 which in 24 hours has been viewed by 3 million people on YouTube alone \u2013 renewed all the standard attacks in Democratic circles accusing Snowden of being a traitor in cahoots with the Kremlin. What\u2019s most striking about this\u00a0\u2013 aside from the utter lack of evidence\u00a0for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-145649","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-politics","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}