We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Obits for "Fabled Hero" of Vietnam War, Vang Pao, Omit CIA Drug Connection

by Conn Hallinan from Foreign Policy in Focus. (About the author.) 

The author reveals what is hidden in mainstream media's innocuous reports on the demise of a former Vietnamese who in actuality was a CIA collaborator in the drug business during the tragic Vietnam War. It is reports like this that can recover real information that was suppressed when the events were happening. It is often hazardous for the health of journalists to report such things.

A fine journalist, Gary Webb, employed by the San Jose Mercury, who in 1996 wrote a series of fine reports regarding CIA involvement in illicit drug operations, found himself blacklisted, his career destroyed, and died mysteriously in 2004.
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