Either they're lying about fake UFOs to manipulate the American public, or there really are UFOs and they've been lying about them for decades.
No matter which of these branches proves true, our government's rampant secrecy is illegitimate and offensive. We traded away good government for the illusion of safety in the nuclear age and we won't get it back until we organize to actually restrain our ruling elite.
If our goal in backing the Ukrainians was to weaken Russia, haven't we failed miserably? And how has pushing Russia and China into being allies helped America's interests?
It makes me sad that we allowed hundreds of billions in tax dollars to flow to American weapons makers even as millions of Americans are forced to sleep in tents on sidewalks.
The Russia-China thing is a super interesting topic. It was always the case that Russia needed a strong industrial power with which it could exchange its resources. Resources too big even for a strong Russian industrial base and for much of history its shipping capacity. The partner industrial power could only be either Germany (since the late 19th century) or China (since let's say the 1970s). Either one would do but China is now by any measure the more trustworthy partner. Done. Germany and Europe haven't even begun to feel the pain of their choice.
Government thinks that there are 580K homeless in the US. Also, most homeless don't sleep on the sidewalk. Most stay with friends and relatives. Lots sleep in shelters. The actual number is about 200K sleeping outside each night.
Plus, the people that make this argument don't actually want to help the homeless. They don't advocate giving the homeless money; $10k each would be $6 billion. Leaving plenty for Ukraine.
Our goal in backing Ukraine was to keep Ukrainians from being dead, or worse. And if you don't think there's such a thing as "worse", you weren't keeping up with the news from towns that the Russians took over.
It wasn't about weakening Russia. Russia is weakening itself, by putting so much of its economy and infrastructure into a fight that it can't win even with a much smaller opponent. It has destroyed its own army and demonstrated the inadequacy of its military technology.
It is, indeed, sad that the US has not solved its own homelessness and other problems. But pearl-clutching about that is just Russian trolling: we hadn't solved those problems before Russia attacked, either. And when Russia finally gives up in humiliation, we'll still have our own domestic problems. But not nearly as bad as the overwhelming incompetence, corruption, and horror of Putin's monstrosity.
Why is NewsGuard considered a trusted source, given their ties to the US intelligence establishment? The people that conned us about Iraqi WMD do not deserve the right to be the arbiters of what is deemed to be information.
The National Association of Realtors is the #1 lobbyist group in DC. Given the influence they have, the likelihood of any real change is unfortunately low. (I really hope the NAR loses. Good luck!)
It's a shame, because restrictions on housing supply are the biggest driver of inequality there is. An 80% improvement could be made on that front if we could somehow waive a magic wand and stop rewarding people for literal rent-seeking.
I don't see any mention in the article of the effects of anti-LGBT parents.
When I was growing up in the 1980s, the fear of AIDS and LGBT people in general was so great that it kept me from telling anyone about my inner experiences.
When I was four, I asked my mom about "trading pee" with other boys. She shut that down in a hurry, telling me it was gross.
When I was seven, I got sick with something that kept me from eating for a couple of days, which left me shitting nothing but clear water. As I sat in the bathroom, I distinctly remember wondering if I was finally going to turn into a girl.
When I was eight, I was styling my hair in the most feminine way possible, which freaked my dad out. One day he saw my hair and washed out all the mousse and dried it in the roughest way possible with a towel.
When I was nine, I jumped on my male classmate's back; another time I saw his fly was open, so I went up to him and zipped it up. I got in trouble when this stuff got mentioned to my parents at a PTA conference. I saw other girls do this stuff and just had no idea that I wasn't supposed to act that way.
When I was twelve, I tried castrating myself with a rubber band I took from a broccoli stalk. I got several hours into it, but took it off after I had thoughts about the reaction my mother would have. I wish I hadn't.
When I was fourteen, my mother saw me sashay, which scared her so much she flew into a rage. I still have a scar on my neck from the reaction.
When I was twenty, I snapped back at my insensitive father, who was taken aback when he made some particularly ham-fisted and overbearing remark. As his eyes grew wide, he told me that I "have the sensitivity of a woman!"
I learned to keep myself repressed in order to survive. It took me over two decades of life as an adult in an increasingly accepting society to overcome the stigma and inertia I grew up with as a child. The effects were terrible for me, and for my first wife and the relationship we had for sixteen years!
I wish the authors of this article would be open to incorporating feedback from people with experiences like mine. Without it their analysis is quite flawed and you would do well to take it with a huge grain of salt.
That sounds dreadful. My condolences that it went that way. Transitioning is difficult enough in society today without such additional burdens, and it is an awful thing that your parents; the people you are programmed to trust and respect by default, were so unsupportive of you.
No, if employers are needlessly using criteria they should be outcompeted by companies who don't. Like it or not, there are large differences between high school graduates and non-graduates in this country, on average.
But.. The US Govt. has zero reasons to acknowledge existence of a non-human superior technology spacecraft. It would undermine their position as world super power and destabilize trust and security in the country and could lead to mass instability and a slow down of technological progress.
And if they are running a massive psyops deception campaign it would make the public lose the last vestige of trust left in the govt. Its a lose lose situation on both scenarios and I expect the US govt. to keep things of this nature locked down to a extreme state as it has been doing since WW2.
Also interesting note, the flood of credible pentagon UFO info is being brought up by a bunch of individuals who worked in(or currently for) the US intelligence community. This is 2017 and after when the NYtimes(Leslie Kean reporter) released the bombshell pentagon UFO tapes. These individuals are: Christoper Mellon(ex high ranking intelligence director), Luis Elizondo(Intelligence officer on and off), and currently David Grusch NGA, & NRO - the person who states that non human craft have been retrieved(OP article).
Would a US President have the necessary clearance to know of the existence of non-human superior technology spacecraft? A former US President is recorded on tape boasting about knowledge of US military plans to invade Iran.
I don't mean to make this political at all, just trying to reason on the basis of a personality and knowing that a president would boast about having knowledge of such trivial classified information - in comparison to the existence of non-human spacecraft; makes me believe that if he was briefed on it he likely would have boasted about it. (and so would I, just imagine what earth shaking news that is.)
The president would have the clearance, but the issue is knowing who to even ask who would have knowledge. Top Secret SCI is compartmentalized, so only the people who need to know get read in.
One great example of this is during the Bin Laden raid planning, after all plans were exhausted on how they could put boots on the ground, only then did a high ranking officer let the president and the rest of the team in the room know about the stealth helicopters that even the SEALs had never seen before.
This is exactly what I have been thinking since 2016. If Aliens/UFOs are real, we will hear about it soon. However, if it's true that parts of the government are secret from the president, even the last one, then that is a real problem.
I think a large portion of the government, including Trump's very direct reports, know not to tell him anything that should be kept secret. I imagine other Presidents all know a ton of stuff that nobody happened to mention to Trump, you know, for some reason.
Supposedly the President is deliberately kept in the dark. Bush Sr. denied President Carter access to that information, and I have no doubt other more recent Presidents were denied access or purposely fed misinformation.
Trump in particular never showed any interest in anything besides enriching himself and allowing the Saudis, Russians, and Chinese to feed his ego. I doubt he even thought about the aliens, let alone went through enough trouble to ask about them....because if he did, and was denied info, he would have fired the intelligence officer who denied him access and publicly blabbered about it on Twitter.
So are hostile countries using declassified nuclear blueprints to bomb our homeland. Alas, if you want the democratic experiment to succeed, you need to account for those who stand to lose everything from your success.
Official secrecy clearly failed to stop the very scenario you're talking about!
We have had nuclear secrecy for nearly 80 years. In that time, nuclear weapons have proliferated to nine countries. North Korea has them, for God's sake.
Nuclear weapons are simply a function of having a large enough industrial base to support their development. The "secret sauce" is officially secret, but it isn't actually secret.
“Policy X is useless because it did not stop every single instance of the thing it was trying to reduce” is a fallacious argument. Seat belts did not halt deaths in auto accidents, etc.
Secrecy may or may not be warranted, but this is not a good argument against it.
> We have had nuclear secrecy for nearly 80 years. In that time, nuclear weapons have proliferated to nine countries. North Korea has them, for God's sake
> It’s not secrecy that has prevented proliferation, it’s carrots and sticks that has.
Secrecy increases the cost, so it is, in effect, part of the “stick” end of the carrots and sticks. If there hadn’t been secrecy, would the return to sanity that stopped the South American nuclear arms race been too late? Secrecy should not be dismissed.
There is secrecy, which is why the countries that haven’t found a shortcut around it (as in the nuclear arms race between Argentina and Brazil) have a harder road than those that do (like South Africa via Israel).
> Research the Nth Country Experiment
The Nth Country Experiment focused on paper design of a device, which, while a requirement to getting to functional nuclear weapons, isn’t the whole or, in practice, the limiting factor.
>while a requirement to getting to functional nuclear weapons, isn’t the whole or, in practice, the limiting factor.
Nukes are not a physics challenge, but an engineering challenge. That's why an experiment showing a bunch of physicists understand simple particle physics isn't a useful demonstration that building nukes doesn't require insane amounts of help from a willing sponsor.
People "knew" how to build the A bomb before World War 2 even started, yet even when several countries put energy into it to aid their war effort, only the US succeeded, and only because they dedicated around one tenth of the entire GDP to the process.
Merely getting enough enriched material is enough of a problem to stop most countries.
Anyway, Brazil has a working uranium enrichment facility, with public numbers, and as efficient as any modern one (what is way more efficient than anything from the time nuclear bombs were created).
What kind of secrecy are you stating that is stopping Brazil?
The comment doesn't really apply to that either. Germany and France were quite involved on that one, so it wasn't exactly secrecy that kept things slow. It was more due to the sheer unpopularity of the thing (on both sides) even between the people high-ranked enough to know about it.
I mean, by 85 Brazil had already a nuclear reactor in full activity. A reactor can get you enough plutonium for a bomb long before it's in full activity.
I see your points, but the difference is we know about the existence of the silos and subs. They're protecting information about them, but not trying to mislead us into thinking submarines aren't a thing.
Associates who vouched for Grusch said his information was highly sensitive, providing evidence that materials from objects of non-human origin are in the possession of highly secret black programs. Although locations, program names, and other specific data remain classified, the Inspector General and intelligence committee staff were provided with these details. Several current members of the recovery program spoke to the Inspector General’s office and corroborated the information Grusch had provided for the classified complaint.
Why not simply demand that Grusch's complaint be declassified? If it is bunk, we have a right to know; the US Government does not have any Constitutional authority to conduct psyops on US citizens. If it is real, we also have a right to know that.
The one thing I am certain of is that the US Government is morally corrupt in keeping either one of these secrets from us (psyop or aliens), and it needs to come clean. We cannot have a democracy if our government is constantly undermining it by keeping us in the dark about anything it chooses to label as a "national security" matter.
Why shouldn't we trust official secrecy? Nearly 78 years ago, a secretive United States Government thrust its civilian population into the nuclear era by dropping two atomic bombs on Japan, killing as many as 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians. The American public had no information about the bomb, no vote on its funding, and no choice about spending decades cowering in bomb shelters and under school desks. If Vladimir Putin did to Ukraine what we actually did to Japan in 1945, the entire world would call it a war crime. Official secrecy prevented any such democratic check from occurring in real time; how do we know that something similar isn't happening today?
No matter which of these branches proves true, our government's rampant secrecy is illegitimate and offensive. We traded away good government for the illusion of safety in the nuclear age and we won't get it back until we organize to actually restrain our ruling elite.