“The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers” - Watch One Of The Most Important Documentaries Of Our Time Free On June 13 & 14

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.-- Henry David Thoreau

We have mentioned the Ellsberg documentary a few times since its release.  It came to my city without fanfare and was shown only for a week at an obscure theatre that often shows movies or documentaries with a moral conscience.    The Pentagon Papers fiasco happened before my time but its message is timeless and incredibly prescient to efforts of the state today.   The state or that part of government that is outside of the view and oversight of democracy is endlessly corrupt and will do anything to perpetuate its power and most often by conclusion, its evil. 

This is a movie that clearly documents and points out the endless lies and corruption of democracy by political administration after administration and the struggle the press and whistleblowers endured to expose this fraud.   Secrecy is an evil in itself.  To use it as a shield from prosecution for criminal activity, which is arguably being done today by American politicians, is a relatively recent invention of political con men that completely subverts our constitution and our rule of law. 

Daniel Ellsberg was a brilliant golden boy of the war state four decades ago.   That is, until he started to think for himself and realized the endless slaughter of human life served no purpose other than to perpetuate an illegitimate bureaucracy.  The state did everything it could to send Daniel Ellsberg to prison for the rest of his life for exposing its endless deceit.   Today, there are many parallels with minds motivated by conscience who have revealed egregious secrets of the state.

Link to Ellsberg’s blog and web site here.

CNN interview with Ellsberg- “All of the Crimes Nixon Committed Against Me Are Now Legal”