When you talk about the effectiveness of American imperialism, you highlight the fact
that part of the reason it's so effective is because it has been able to be largely invisible, and
it has been invisible, you point out, through, I think, two mechanisms, one, that it trains the
elites in other countries in order to manage affairs on behalf of American imperialism, and also
because it disseminates, through popular media, images of America that in essence -- I'm not sure you
use this word exactly -- indoctrinate or brainwash a population into allowing them to believe that
America is instilled with values that in fact it doesn't have, the ability of imperialistic forces
to supposedly give these values to the countries they dominate.
I mean, that is a kind of a raison d'être for economic and even military intervention, as we saw
in Iraq, in planning democracy in Baghdad and letting it spread out across the Middle East, or going
into Afghanistan to liberate the women of Afghanistan. That, as somebody who spent 20 years on the
outer edges of empire, is a lie.
We will define "fifth column" as the "transnational" part of national elite along the lines
of"The Revolt of the Elites"theory. There are other definitions. For example
The fifth column is the people in positions of power, who act in the interests of another state,
and they are used as a tool to achieve foreign state political goals,"
Modus operandi of the
US imperialism (which of course never
calls itself imperialist state) was always to install some puppets/controlled government as away to
rule a vassal state without making it outright colony. So they polishing fifth column concept to
perfection, providing strong ties of part of the elite via education in US universities, via their
technological achievements, via advertizing of American way of life and export of American culture
and first of all Hollywood films and via their multinationals, many of them have world recognizable
brands. As Merkel told US congress during her recent visit to the USa one of her dreams when
she was young and living in German Democratic Republic was to get a pair of American jeans. This is
how neoliberalism operated as well. It relies less of direct military intervention and more of
putting nations into debt slavery. The contry is controlled by its own fifth column -- a tiny strata
of "globalised" elite
Previous consensus was that the national elite generally shares the idea that the society in which they live
works best when all members of society can engage in upward mobility and improve their status via education
and entrepreneurship. If there are adequate upward mobility channels, then most members of society perceive
themselves as belonging to the same team and care about ensuring that that this team succeeds.
But in the new "internationalized" world dominated by transnational corporations,
the notion that a company or corporate executive of transnational
corporation or a professional (for example, IT professionals) working in such a corporation is
bound by an allegiance to their country of origin and work for its benefit is passé.
Such elite is leaching the country using stronger neoliberal states as "protection racket" and hiding
their stolen money in London, Zurich and New Your with full knowledge of their criminal behaviour (and
often support as they represented interests of multinational in their native country) by government
of such neoliberal states. London generally contains the most interesting and disgusting collection
financial criminals from Russia which amazingly after crossing the border escaping prosecution instantly
became freedom fighter.
The elites of today are more bound to one another and in case of executives to the transnational
corporations they serve more to the country where this international corporation reside, then to country
where they reside. And this effect is not limited to executives. For example many programmers
read almost exclusively the US computer journals and media and that naturally affects their "social
affiliation". This was true even in the time of the USSR, when access to foreign magazines was extremely
difficult.
Also the fact that the greed on neoliberal oligarchy (especially financial) is just overwhelming
and the possibility to get higher salary (sometimes in convertible currency) decimates all other
considerations such as patriotism and moral obligations. Amorality became a norm and
Randism became a new ideology of elite.
In a sense prols -- people outside the elite -- became just tools, not compatriots and their standard
of living means nothing. Ukraine is a pretty
telling example of such a country.
The term Lumpenbourgeoisie
is somewhat similar to the term "fifth column":
Lumpenbourgeoisie is a term used primarily in the context of colonial and neocolonial elites
in Latin America, which became heavily dependent and supportive of the neocolonial powers.
It is a hybrid compound of the German word Lumpen (rags) and the French word bourgeoisie.
Lumpenbourgeoisie is a term most often attributed to Andre Gunder Frank in 1972 to describe a
type of a middle class and upper class (merchants, lawyers, industrialists, etc.) one that has
little collective self-awareness or national economic base and who supports the colonial masters.
Frank writing on the origins of the term noted that he created this neologism lumpenbourgeoisie
from lumpenproletariat and bourgeoisie because while the Latin America's colonial and neocolonial
elites were similar to European bourgeoisie on many levels, they had one major difference. This
difference was their mentality of the Marxist lumpenproletariat, the "refuse of all classes"
(as described in Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon) easy to manipulate to support
the capitalist system, often turning to crime.
Similarly, the colonial elites would—while not involved in crime activities — hurt local economy
by aiding the foreign exploiters. Foreign colonial powers want to acquire resources and goods found
in the colonies, and they find this facilitated with incorporation of the local elites into the system,
as they become intermediaries between the rich colonial buyers and the poor local producers.
The local elites become increasingly reliant on the system in which they supervise gathering
of the surplus production from the colonies, taking their cut and before the remaining goods are
sold abroad.
Frank termed this economic system lumpendevelopment and the countries affected by it, lumpenstates.
As Christoper Lasch pointed out in his groundbreaking book: "[T]he new
elites, the professional classes in particular, regard the masses with mingled scorn and apprehension."
In 1994, Lasch had come to believe that the economic and cultural elite of the United States, who
historically has insured the continuity of a culture had lost faith in the traditional values (which
that organized the country culture since its inception), and replaced then with unrestrained greed .
He saw a threat to the continuation of Western civilization was not a mass revolt as envisioned by the
pro-communist New Left of the 1960's, but a rejection of its liberal and
pluralistic values by the educated elite. (see Ayn Rand and Objectivism Cult)
In the process of throwing off elements of traditional morality, transnational
elite adopted Nietzschean "Übermensch"
mentality (typically in the form of Objectivism).
They also have mastered the art of the shameless transgression of authority for their own enrichment.
This tendency was amplified by computer revolution. Computers dramatically increased the capability
of transnational corporations making possible growth far beyond that was possible before them.
They also enabled "hacking" of monetary system to the extent that was not possible in 1920, although
financial elite were always capable to find a sure way to a steal from other strata of society .
Distinctions between white-collar jobs and blue-collar jobs have become increasingly arbitrary.
Playing with financial flows as if they are computer game lead to high levels of unemployment, which
can no longer be regarded as aberrational, but due to labor arbitrage and dramatically improved communications
became a necessary part of the working mechanisms of modern capitalist mode of production.
At the same time the key component of the traditional meaning of the term "fifth column" is preserved
and the definition given by Wikipedia is fully applicable:
A fifth column is a group of people who clandestinelyundermine a larger group such as anationfrom within. A fifth column can be a group of secret sympathizers of an enemy
that are involved in sabotage within military defense lines, or a country's borders.[1]
A key tactic of the fifth column is the secret introduction of supporters
into the whole fabric of the entity under attack.[2]
This clandestine infiltration is especially effective with positions concerning national policy and
defense.[2]
From influential positions like these, fifth-column tactics can be effectively utilized, from
stoking fears through misinformation campaigns, to traditional techniques like espionage.[2]
The term originated with a 1936 radio address by
Emilio Mola[3] , a
Nationalist
General during the 1936–39
Spanish Civil War. As
his army approached Madrid, a message
was broadcast that the four
columns of his forces
outside the city would be supported by a "fifth column" of his supporters inside the city, intent
on undermining the
Republican government from within (see
Siege of Madrid).[4]
The class and social structure of xUUSR space has undergone profound transformation in recent decades
as each nation has been incorporated into global financial system. As a result national elites have
been split into two parts:
Older nationally-oriented elites are grounded in more protected and often state-guided national
and regional circuits. Nationally-oriented elites are more dependent on the standard of living
of a large portion of national middle class and blue color workers for the preservation and reproduction
of their own status, and therefore on local development processes that raise standard of living of
population.
Emergent transnational-oriented elites grounded in the transnational corporations and political
organization. They are typically the USA oriented as it is the USA that dominated G7, which in turn
is a home of most transnationals. Transnational-oriented elites are less dependent on local
social condition of middles lass and blue-color workers and are ready to undermine the level of national
industrialization and standard of living in general. That's why they are often called "the
fifth column".
The key way of recruiting fifth column in xUSSR region was and still is cash. NGOs simply buy people.
They were successful in Ukraine, Serbia and Georgia, although they fail to create a critical mass in
Russia in 2011-2012. But even a failure in Russian White Revolution was not a failure, but a successful
intermediary stage of building "fifth column" or how it was aptly called them "rent-a-revolution"
crowd. That suggest that the next round of color revolution for Russia lies ahead.
After all defeated troops learn fast -- that the rule. That includes so called "mercenaries"
(aka people who bought Mercedeses on US grant money
;-)
Just the existence of this crowd and strong constant flow of dollars to sustain their activities
makes operation of government much more difficult and opportunities to engage the state in the USA sphere
of influence stronger. Remember Russian vote on Libya during Medvedev's presidency. This was not just
a significant USA diplomatic success, this was also a sign the USA can create the internal pressure
on Medvedev's government via financed and controlled the fifth column in Russian society. With
the neoliberalism as still an official Russian economic development paradigm, this is as easy as
spilling sand on the gears. So money work beautifully in any case and provided a huge return on investment.
That's my point.
They already created strong comprador lobby in Russian language press, especially Internet press.
And this "Media fifth column" do have influential spokesmen, unconditional support of Western
press, martyrs for the cause such as permanent hunger striker Udaltsov, Magnitsky, Khodorkovsky, Pussies,
etc. Self quote:
So “Vy Zhertvoyu Pali V Bor’be rokovoi” theme is pretty current for Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky and
similar personalities and that’s how they are and will be depicted in western MSM.
And they have their own political network which includes set of parties with open globalist agenda
such as Union of right-wing forces.
Moreover they successfully emulate Trotskyite tactics of political struggle. Taking into account
that huge parts of the damage the Yeltsin did was not undone and some figures of the "family" (aka
chubaisyata :-) are still present on the political scene (Anatoly Chubais himself, Kudrin,
and possibly Medvedev himself). Actually the role of Medvedev in all this Browder-Magnitsky Gasprom
stocks swindle is unclear to me.
I think we need to agree that they are really dangerous and tenacious "enemies of the state" using
old terminology ;-).
And should be treated with due respect. I would not say that they are currently winning, but
there are far from being completely defeated either.
In a way Foreign Agents Registration Act is too
weak a law to stop activity of fifth column. It is necessary and strong pill that can diminish the inflammation,
but it is not enough.
Something else is needed, and first of all ideological alternative to neoliberalism.
Weaver "China seems to have defined "communism" as a rejection of democracy."
What is democracy? In the west, it has become apparent that whoever controls the media
controls democracy. We elect rulers. We do not get any say in formulating many laws as in
each new law being put to a referendum. China voted with its feet during the revolution. Many
culture elect or otherwise have local leaders who everyone in the community knows and the
community leaders decide on or elect who has positions at the next level of governance and so
forth. In that way, China is very democratic beginning at the grass roots level.
The Chinese government have done a huge amount in bringing millions of people out of poverty,
creating better living conditions for its people. When there is constantly and increase in
prosperity at all levels, even if some prosper more than others, the people have an
optimistic outlook.
Democracy at a national level where voters do not personal know the candidate requires
accurate information to enable an informed vote. In that way, democracy in the west is non
existent - it is an illusion but the sheeple cling to it.
Compared to the so called west, China government is very much of the people for the
people.
@ Peter AU1 (# 23), name a democracy that isn't a suzerainty. We don't elect rulers. We
elect puppets that have been selected by the rulers. Who owns the media? Who creates majority
of money in your nation?
"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers."
– J.R.R. Tolkien
"Democracy" is a temporary phase of history which allows the Global Financial Syndicate to
take control from the earlier generation of dominant power players: the monarchies.
Long ago and far away, a group of very clever paleo-banksters figured out a way to stop
those annoying periodic slave revolts... eventually it came to be known as "the two party
system" (democracy/Republic) and it's working like a charm...Rulers make the slaves fight
each other.
World Financiers & Banksters ENSLAVEMENT plan using democracy:
– Create a REVOLUTION & steal a region
– Create a Private CENTRAL BANK (First Bank of the USA, BoE-1694)
– Fund & control new rich individuals (Kleptocrats)
– Fund & control political PARTIES & MEDIA
– Nationalize the central bank (the Fed, BoE-1946)
Enslave & control people by DOMINANCE over economic & political powers & call
it a DEMOCRACY. An interesting FRACTAL emerges when one analysis the formation of
democracies.
What we have is "representative" democracies designed by the economically powerful solely
for their interests and in this sense would always be functioning anti-democratically. In a
money democracy (where the fundamental element of influence is the unit of money), the
political and legal system is influenced and shaped by systems of power to protect and
enhance those systems of power.
"There are none so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The
truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They
feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes."
– Goethe
Your understanding of democracy and the prevalent Chinese understanding of democracy are
divergent.
It is true that all of the political decisions in China are made by the communists; the
CPC. But do note that the CPC has almost 100 million members . These are not simply
voters like political parties have in the US, who just align themselves with a party
and vote for it every couple years. These 100 million members of the CPC are actual
decision-makers.
Of course, that is a lot of work and responsibility and not everyone in China wants to
commit that much of their life to politics. With that said, how much of your life do
you commit to politics? Does your biennial vote actually carry any weight, and do you take
full responsibility for the consequences of it? Of course not on both points.
Those Chinese people who choose to do so live democracy. You, on the other hand,
just play a shallow democracy game that is little more than a reality TV show like
Survivor . Does Trump get voted off the island? Clinton? Sanders? That is your choice.
Does America slaughter some more dark skinned people in the Global South? Do the banks get
bailed out with your wealth? These things you get no say in.
Communists don't oppose democracy. They oppose the crappy reality TV "The Democracy
Show!™" sham that westerners love to hate.
I look on it as somewhat of a mixed group. Fellow travelers do the same thing but for
different reasons. Finance, anglo supremacy ect. Amongst the vassal states in same cases
straight out corruption as in selling their service es to the highest bidder, amongst the
five-eyes, the elite in particular, in the current events of trying to bring down Russia and
China, continued anglo dominance of the world is a very big driver. The anglosphere has been
a dominant force in the world for close to 500 years and many are truly afraid of this
ending. The cant envisage a world that is dominated by cultures other than anglo or
anglo/europe.
This "fairly good" relationship is mainly done in spite to China and to gain another pawn
on the SCS theatre.
It's being wined and dined by the school jock after China gave him the finger like a
back-up shag. But Vietnam knows the score, it works for them for now and it would be stupid
not to play along as long as it is aligned to its interests.
A large number of its businesses exporting to the west are, you guessed it, are founded
and operated by the Chinese for the lower wages and to skirt quotas, tariffs etc.
Vietnam is still a communist state, how is this fact not lost in the face of full spectrum
demonisation of China for being communists in the minds of the 5 eyes populace is a most
interesting question indeed.
It's as moronic as "China is authoritarian!" but Saudi Arabia is A-OK!
Today democracy and human rights are just fig leaves of the hegemony, war cry for the
[colonization of] expendables.
Of course you've heard the name " George Soros ," often invoked as a sort of folk demon on the
American and international right, it's likely that you have some vague notion of why you think
he's a bad guy, or maybe you think the whole thing is a bunch of hype.
However, if you're a freedom lover, there's nothing "hype" about the influence that George
Soros has around the world attacking your freedom. Indeed, you probably vastly underestimate
the influence that he has on politics.
From the perspective of someone who values life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,
there is no more dangerous man today than George Soros. This is not hyperbole, it is the simple
truth. While we don't plan to paint a picture of a man standing behind the scenes, rubbing his
hands together and cackling as he plays puppet master over each and every attack on freedom
around the world, Soros acts as a strawman and a caricature of what is actually going on in the
world.
George Soros, his
money , and his NGOs
are bankrolling and influencing public policy and opinion from the local level all the way up
to the national level. Entire nations have been made to bow to the Soros agenda, but perhaps
more importantly for our purposes, key local officials in government are increasingly wholly
owned subsidiaries of the Soros machine.
American political culture focuses almost entirely on Presidential elections, with
Congressional and gubernatorial races getting much less attention from the general public. When
it comes to local politics, unless you live in a large city, chances are good that you don't
know much about city politics. For example: Who is your local district attorney or county
prosecutor?
Most people have no idea. It's a low-key office, generally staffed by someone looking to do
public service, not advance their career. There is little glamor, low pay, and lots of
thankless work to be done at this level, which means that for the most part, this is not where
social climbers begin their careers.
That being said, these elected officials have enormous amounts of power because they decide
who gets prosecuted, who doesn't, and what charges are levied against them. If your DA decides
that the local band of looters are actually peaceful protesters, they won't ever see the inside
of a courtroom. Similarly, if the local DA isn't a fan of the right to self-defense, one must
consider this when choosing whether or not to pull your firearm if a mob of them shows up on
your lawn.
Part of this is just the very nature of bureaucracy, the plainer term for what people mean
when they talk about "the deep state." The government rests on men doing things, chief among
these are what Vladimir Lenin called "special bodies of armed men"
: cops, courts, and jails. According to Lenin, this is the very essence of the state.
Libertarians will sympathize with this definition of the state. At its core, the state is a man
with a gun who will throw you in a cage or kill you if you fail to comply. Everything else is
just window dressing.
The local prosecutor is a chokepoint in the special bodies of armed men. The attorney
general isn't euphemistically called "top cop" for no reason and in his own way, the local
prosecutor is also a "top cop," albeit with a much smaller jurisdiction. This also means that
he has more direct control over the individuals in his district, as the attorney general deals
more in broad brushstrokes.
Who is your local DA? George Soros knows. He might very well be his paymaster.The campaigns
for local DAs and the like aren't shy about stoking racial resentment and animosity. The
Democratic Party's playbook hasn't changed much since the days of Jim Crow, it's just that it
has found new ways to make political hay out of sowing racial divisions among Americans. One
Soros-produced ad for Noah Phillips campaign for District Attorney of Sacramento County,
focuses almost exclusively on a black
boy in a hoodie .
It is of course unrealistic to expect that even highly bureaucratic roles are entirely
apolitical, however, the Soros DAs have ratcheted up the partisanship, not just in the race,
but in the actual execution of the office. As of September 2020, there were
31 Soros-backed DAs in the United States . That might not sound like a lot, but it includes
the DAs of Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, and St.
Louis. All told, tens of millions of Americans are now victims of the Soros racket in the form
of their local top prosecutor.
Some examples of the Soros machine at work in America's DA offices include:
After the last round of rioting, looting, and arson in St. Louis, Circuit Attorney Kim
Gardner dismissed charges against all 36 people arrested. She's on the take from Soros for
$307,000 . This is also the prosecutor who filed charges against the McCloskeys.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon got over $2 million
from the Soros operation , he ended cash bail and is no longer prosecuting the crimes
of trespassing, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, prostitution, or driving without a
license.
Kim Foxx is the Illinois State's Attorney and has received
$807,000 from Soros. She also declined to prosecute rioters, saying "The question it
comes down to is, is it a good use of our time and resources? No, it's not." Foxx likewise
declined to prosecute hate crime hoaxer, Jussie Smollett.
Philly District Attorney Larry Krasner has received
$1.7 million from Soros. He won't be prosecuting rioters, looters, and arsonists.
Krasner was very open about the ideology driving his permitting chaos in the city:
"Prosecution alone will achieve nothing close to justice -- not when power imbalances and
lack of accountability make it possible for government actors including police or
prosecutors to regularly take life or liberty unjustly and face no criminal or career
penalty."
Krasner is worth calling out for special attention because he filed 75 cases against the
police and has represented both Occupy Philadelphia and Black Lives Matter. At his victory
party, supporters chanted, "F*** the police! F*** the police!" He generally declines to
call himself a "prosecutor," instead labelling himself a "public defender with power."
The results in Philadelphia are stunning as charges are dropped in 60 percent of all
shooting cases – though we suspect your odds of being a conservative self-defense
case and having your charges waived are rather slim. Shootings in Philadelphia were up 57
percent year over year from 2019 to 2020.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin, who's working off
$620,000 in Soros money, proclaims that "[t]he criminal justice system isn't just
massive and brutal, it's also racist." He doesn't prosecute crimes such as solicitation,
public camping, or public urination, which has certainly
transformed San Francisco into a paradise on earth . Homicide rates have increased,
burglary cases have increased by 42 percent, motor vehicle theft increased by 31 percent,
and arson rates increased by 45 percent. He was formerly an advisor to Hugo Chavez and his
parents were members of the Weather
Underground , a far-left terrorist organization who directly participated in the
robbery of an armored car. His victory party included obscene anti-police chants.
DA Mike Schmidt of Portland, who's received
$230,000 in Soros money, also declined to prosecute rioters who burned the city for
months while besieging a federal building. He openly sympathized with the rioters saying
that they "represent the instinctive reactions of people who have been gassed repeatedly,
who have been struck with kinetic projectile weapons."
If the Soros machine can capture a District Attorney's office in San Francisco, which is
extremely expensive, there is little preventing them from capturing prosecutorial powers in
Omaha, Annapolis, or Colorado Springs – or indeed your hamlet.
The Soros Machine
and Racial Unrest
Much like the Democrat Party he supports, George Soros is not the slightest bit afraid to go
into the mud of the politics of racial resentment. The Open Society Foundations are the primary
mechanism for Soros delivering money to political activists in the United States and around the
world. In 2020, The Open Society Foundations unveiled plans to spend
$220 million on "efforts to achieve racial equality in America."
To show you the relative priority that the Soros machine places on "racial equality" as
opposed to electoral politics, the Soros machine only spent
$28 million on the Democrat Party in 2020 .
When Soros says "racial equality," he means something very different from what you or the
average American means when they say it. What Soros deems "racial equality" might more
accurately be called "racial revenge," though the left prefers to use the term "racial equity."
We will dive more into the ideology motivating Soros later, but our article on
the Frankfurt School and Cultural Marxism is also an excellent resource on the deep
philosophy of the Soros machine.
What Are the Open Society Foundations?
It's important to know how the Soros machine operates so that you can learn to look for it.
The Open Society Foundations is the main umbrella under which Soros distributes money. It
includes a number of organizations, most of which you've probably never heard of and most of
which feature very innocuous, even bland-sounding, names. The think tank used to generate the
ideology is New America, formerly known as the New America Foundation, the name of which is
much more direct about what it intends to create.
So what is an "Open Society?" Well it's based on a phrase used by Karl Popper , a
somewhat obscure 20th Century thinker known best for his " paradox of tolerance ," which
essentially says that liberals should stop tolerating diversity of opinion when it begins to
threaten liberalism.
Where does the Soros operation put its money in America in order to transform the country
into an "open society?" It aims to abolishing
the police and invest $1.5 million into the Community Resource Hub for Safety &
Responsibility, another one of these blandly named organizations working to undo the American
way of life. Additionally, his money has been
linked to the urban unrest in Ferguson in 2014 . In total he spent
$33 million fomenting chaos in the formerly safe suburb of St. Louis.
Of course, no rogue's gallery of the radical left would be complete without mentioning Black
Lives Matter (BLM), another one of these vaguely innocuous-sounding organizations that Soros
spends his money on. And boy howdy, did he spend money on BLM - George Soros spent
$33 million on BLM alone .
What Is the Philosophy of the Open Society
Foundations?
We've seen the modus operandi of the Soros machine, but what is the ideology that motivates
it?
Soros' umbrella organization is The Open Society Foundations. The phrase "open society" is
one of those things that sounds so unassailable that no one could be against it. After all, are
you for a closed society?
This is the framing trick used by the left since time immemorial. Something vague and
innocuous sounding is picked as a name which means something very, very different to those in
the know. So what is an "open society" to Soros and his retinue?
It is a concept developed by Karl Popper, Soros' intellectual hero. Popper was not a
Cultural Marxist, in fact he was highly critical of Marxism. However, there is so much overlap
in terms of end results that it becomes a distinction without a difference.
Karl Popper didn't invent the concept of the open society, despite his association with the
term and his development of the idea – that dubious honor falls to a Frenchman by the
name of Henri Bergson. However, we can credit most of what the open society is understood as
today as springing from the mind of Karl Popper.
There are some key takeaways about what an open society actually is. First, the open society
is an atomized society. People are to be seen not as part of any kind of social organism, but
rather as radically separate individuals. The individual is not an essential building block of
society, it is the end to itself. Social norms and traditions are seen as necessarily
oppressive.
The open society is hostile to the notion of natural law and instead puts man-made laws,
properly called "legislation," over and above a more natural law flowing from a set of first
principles, most notably God. Again, like Cultural Marxism, it seeks to "dethrone God" from
society, replacing it with a cult of human judgment.
Popper also believed in a culture of constant critique, this is a point of overlap with
Cultural Marxism; and humanitarianism, which is a loaded word designed to sound innocuous, but
which actually means something far more specific than "being nice to people."
Perhaps most frighteningly, the "open society" is just that – open. That is, entirely
without any sort of privacy. While the notion of a "right to privacy" as interpreted by United
States courts as a justification is troubling in practice, far more troubling is Popper's
conception of a society where every facet of a person's life is in the public sphere,
irregardless of their consent.
Free speech and free elections were seen as a necessity for such a society, however, Popper
and the Open Society Foundations had different interpretations for this. Free speech does not
apply to opponents of the open society unless they are critiquing society from the left –
the only way to complain about Comrade Stalin is to say how much better we would all be if
there were but two of him. Similarly, free elections means that of the kind we had in 2020
– one with absolutely no safeguards against abuse and taking place behind closed doors
under the supervision of ideologically motivated "monitors" with rampant fraud.
It's not just in America, it's a worldwide phenomenon.
George Soros: King of the Color
Revolution
George Soros' primary weapon for changing countries to be more pliable to his desires is the
"color revolution." You've probably heard of revolutions occurring, generally in post-Soviet
states, but also elsewhere. They have names like the Yellow Revolution (the Philippines), the
Rose Revolution (Republic of Georgia), the Orange Revolution (Ukraine), and the Saffron
Revolution (Myanmar).
There are some common themes to a color revolution which are worth noting for those wishing
to prevent such a thing from happening in their own country. A disputed election where there is
widespread cheating on the part of the "opposition" candidate generally kicks things off. The
"opposition" is controlled by the Soros machine and friendly to NATO or other Atlantacist
political organizations. There are then street rallies where violent operatives hide in crowds
of otherwise peaceful protesters.
The government then responds and there is outcry from "humanitarian" organizations that the
government has dealt sternly with what are effectively terrorists using human shields. There
are generally operatives within the command structure who are sympathetic to Soros and his
allies in Western governments.
There have been mixed success with color revolutions. They fail more often than they
succeed. But they do succeed, especially where one defines success not so much as overthrowing
the existing government, but forcing it to accept radical concessions that dramatically remake
the political culture in the country. Color revolutions have resulted in what was effectively
regime change in the Republic of Georgia ( twice ), Ukraine , the Arab World , and Belarus .
George Soros is deeply embedded in color revolutions around the world through the auspices
of his Open Society Foundations NGO. The playbook should look somewhat familiar to most
Americans after the summer riots of 2019 and 2020, as well as the aftermath of the
2020 elections .
It's important to remember that George Soros is not a god. He is simply a man with a lot of
money. Thus, we should be cautious in attempting to attribute each and every action on the far
left to him, particularly in the view that he is some kind of micromanaging puppet master who
is involved in the trenches of making policy or street activism. He is not.
He is a real-world supervillain and he is able to direct the law, constitutional, and
political culture of entire nations using his money and his vision for what society ought to
look like. He is able to get away with it thanks to general ignorance of just how effective he
is and a coordinated effort by the media to smear anyone who calls him out as a dangerous
fanatic.
It is George Soros, however, who is the dangerous fanatic. He is gunning for you, your
property, your children, and ultimately your way of life.
play_arrow
7thGenMO 4 hours ago
It is a bit of a red herring to focus only on Soros when he is part of a network - our
friends of intelligence that:
- Gun down American sailors in lifeboats after firebombing their ship.
- Infiltrate the financial and, accordingly, the political systems.
- Steal military technology.
- Sell poor American kids as sex slaves.
- Etc., etc., etc.
gregga777 5 hours ago
George Soros, aka Gyorge Schwartz, was a Nazi collaborator and assisted the SS in
confiscating wealth from Hungarian ****. The Holtzman Amendment prohibits anyone who
participated in Nazi persecution from living in the United States. Why is George Soros even
allowed in the US not to mention being allowed to live here? Does that Law only apply to
Gentiles and not to ****?
Lordflin 5 hours ago
When later asked how he felt about that part of his life... he said that aiding his Nazi
stepfather to plunder his own people... made him feel powerful...
RedCharles 17 minutes ago
Compare Soro's moral position with Einstein's take on Gandhi's moral position.
Operation Paperclip brought the best of Nazi middle management and scientists to the US
and Canada. Wernher Braun for example.
Canada's Deputy PM is the descendant of a Ukrainian Nazi propagandist.
gregga777 5 hours ago (Edited)
NASA hero SS-Sturmbannführer Werner von Braun was an unindicted Nazi war criminal.
He was responsible for deaths amongst slave laborers, probably numbering in the thousands,
at the Mittelwert Dora V-2 assembly plant. But, 95-year old retired factory worker
Friedrich Karl Burger was recently deported back to Germany because in 1945 he had served a
few weeks as an 18-year old concentration camp guard. The 2010 Holtzman Amendment prohibits
anyone who participated in Nazi persecution from living in the United States.
Fluff The Cat 5 hours ago
Millions of illegals get away with violating our sovereignty, yet the state will throw
the book at the average Joe citizen for a misdemeanor. People like Soros and Gates are
untouchable for a reason. It's not just because they have so much money but rather because
they fill roles which help facilitate radical transformations to our detriment.
Gold Bug XXX 5 hours ago remove link
Thankfully, the 60 Minutes interview with Steve Kroft that exposes Soros' Sabbatean
Frankist origins is still online. Anyone who wants to know the real story about Soros and
the wealthy patron family behind him needs to read Rabbi Marvin Antelman's 2 book series:
Eliminate The Opiate available on Amazon. Antelman was the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Rabbinic Court of America from 1974 to 2004 and he exposes both who and what is behind
Soros and his agenda. Literally, this is THE book every American needs to read now.
This is the group behind Fabian Socialism, the group exposed by George Orwell (Eric
Blair) in his book 1984, as well as in Animal Farm. This is the philosophy of of modern
progressive Democrats in the USA and the liberal Labour party in Britain. This is the group
behind the Rhodes Trust, that created the Rhodes Scholarships, the London School of
Economics (Soros is a grad) and the Royal Institute of International Affairs who created
the CFR branch in the USA. Why do you think we have so many Rhodes Scholars and graduates
of the London School of Economics in the Obama and Biden administrations and leading the
far left?
Soros has sponsored everything evil from NAMBLA to BLM. He (and Bloomberg) funded the
anarchy and nationwide explosion in violent crime that we are seeing in every Blue City
where they installed their radical, Marxist prosecutors and DAs like Gascon in LA, Larry
Krasner in Philly, Kim Gardner in St. Louis, and Kim Foxx in Chicago - all cities where
prosecutors are emptying the jails, not prosecuting crime, and letting chaos reign supreme
so they can Federalize the Police (Soros' primary agenda) giving the federal government
more political power. This will extend the corruption we already see in our Intel Agencies,
the DOJ, all the Courts, and especially in the rogue FBI which is now a purely NKVD,
Brownshirt SA, STASI political police force focused inward on political dissidents and no
longer a legitimate law enforcement agency.
America had better wake up and wake up now, because with the purge of conservatives,
Christians and patriots from the military led by MIC Ratheon board member, the bitter
affirmative action general known as Lloyd Austin and the bat ****e crazy radical Marxist
Bishop Garrison, if we lose the police and the military - we will relive the Bolshevik
Revolution... the round ups, the torture the gulags and the death.
And then just like Solzhenitsyn warned, we'll burn in the camps wondering what would
have been if only we had resisted...
An academic study carried out by researchers in the US and Germany has concluded that
big-tech elites are completely different to all other people on the planet, and can be placed
in their own class.
"Our research contributes to closing a research gap in societies with rising inequalities,"
note the authors of the study from two German universities and the Ralph Bunche Institute
for International Studies in New York.
The research
centres around analysing language used in close to 50,000 tweets and other online statements by
100 of the richest tech-elites as listed by Forbes.
The researchers conclude that big-tech elites such as Mark
Zuckerberg and
Bill Gates display a 'meritocratic' worldview, meaning they do not see wealth as a source
of their influence or success, but rather believe their innate abilities and more altruistic
beliefs have enabled them to achieve power.
"We find that the 100 richest members of the tech world reveal distinctive attitudes that
set them apart both from the general population and from other wealthy elites," the study
states.
The findings reveal that big-tech elites consistently talk about believing in democracy,
being philanthropic, and helping make the world a better place for other people.
"Yet their position in a democratic system is contradictory – as a result of their
enormous wealth, they have disproportionate influence over how discretionary income is
spent," the researchers note.
The researchers found that language used by the tech-elites regularly includes words such as
'merit', 'distinct', 'excellent', 'value', 'virtue', 'advantage', 'superiority', 'worth',
'perfect', 'important' and 'significant'.
"The tech elite may be thought of as a 'class for itself' in Marx's sense – a social
group that shares particular views of the world, which in this case means meritocratic,
missionary, and inconsistent democratic ideology."
The researchers noted that the study had limitations, ironically owing to the fact that they
were not able to access language used by all the top 100 tech-elites because Twitter is banned
in China.
The Twitter accounts they were able to access could also be managed by PR professionals and
are obviously public projections of how the tech elites want to be thought of by the public at
large, therefore the language used may be 'strategic'.
Nevertheless, the findings go some way to explaining why big-tech elites are so inclined to
censor and
de-platform those who hold world views at odds with their own.
ay_arrow
josie0802 12 hours ago remove link
Big Tech feeds on narcissist tendencies in people. As long as you engage you are part of
the problem. Once you leave you might be part of the solution.
LetThemEatRand 18 hours ago remove link
Ironically, most of history's psychopaths were nerds before they gained power. If you want
a basic psychology lesson, they have an axe to grind.
BluCapitalist PREMIUM 18 hours ago remove link
Also grandiosity. Their wealth is self fulfilling. Hitler thought the same of himself
in4mayshun 17 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Agreed. Deep down they know how pathetic they are. Even more sad is that they aren't even
smart enough to make their own billions; These technologies were entrusted to them in
exchange for selling out humanity.
"Human rights" agitprop has long been a staple of US imperialist propaganda. As the
Grayzone website pointed out earlier this year, "HRW was founded during the height of the
Cold War as Helsinki Watch, an anti-Soviet lobby group closely linked to the US government
and funded by the Ford Foundation, which served as a CIA passthrough."
The hysterical propaganda against communist nations and fighters goes hand in hand with
the bombs, torture and assassination that are US/British/French/NATO specialties. The modern
version of "human rights" campaigning was born out of the US defeat in Vietnam, and the spate
of revelations that came out of that period about US crimes (Pentagon Papers, Church Senate
investigations, Winter Soldier, etc.) in an attempt to rebrand the Vietnam war criminals as
some sort of humanitarians. The Helsinki Accords were a US propaganda program that the
misguided leaders of the USSR, along with Tito, etc. approved with the vain hope of detente
and peaceful cooperation between nations. In reality, the US never wanted such peaceful
coexistence.
Thanks, b, for bucking the anti-China propaganda campaign. The Pentagon and CIA still lick
their wounds from the last time they faced Chinese forces in battle. Their dream of
anti-Communist conquest of China and North Korea (assisted by their supposedly docile
Japanese assistants) is as dangerous as their dream of dismembering Russia and turning all of
the Eurasian landmass into a colony for US (and Japanese) exploitation. There lies the fuse
for WW3, and the end deaths of hundreds of millions.
Now is the time for every person of clear mind to oppose these mad dreams of conquest! The
lies that have and are being told about Russia and China (only occasionally rooted in some
actual injustice) are being churned out daily by the CIA and Pentagon propaganda machine.
Their purpose is to rally the population for war. Soon the hammer will drop harder on the US
and West Europe/Australian population, as the persecution of Julian Assange suggests, as the
ruling elite tighten up the repression needed to pull off their genocidal war.
Former senior CIA official John Stockwell discusses how the CIA would place false reports
in newspapers around the world, including in the Washington Post. Stories that were complete
fabrications, that were attacking their enemies, like Cuba. John Stockwell
interview
What a courageous man Stockwell is, to give up his career, his support network, and invite
attacks from one of the most dangerous organizations around.
Second the 15-minute clip that Antiwar7 @17 posted. Just saw that one about 3 weeks ago.
It's from 1983, an interview on the University of Southern California campus. Everyone should
watch it if they haven't already.
(There are also YouTube vids with German journalist Udo Ulfkotte who's been mentioned here
before that are related to this.)
Met John Stockwell a few times. He's a terrific guy.
Working for the NSC in the White House, he created the false stories about the Cuban soldiers
raping nuns in Angola. That was his job. He's been around in public since the '80s but never
got any Media attention.
He also was CIA officer in the Vietnam Highlands working with the Hmong against the
government. He married a Vietnamese.
When the US pullout was ordered he was also ordered to sacrifice 150 agents in the
Highlands who worked for him. The US wouldn't take them out.
His book "In Search of Enemies" is vital to read. He testified to Congress about the
machinations of Henry Kissinger that were illegal, antithetical to US best interests, but no
one gave a damn. Left him out on the limb.
John Stockwell is a great voice of the Truth. A good man.
By Kit Klarenberg , an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence
services in shaping politics and perceptions. Follow Kit on Twitter @KitKlarenberg Western journalists, rights groups
and governments are concerned about the head of a foreign NGO being asked to leave Russia.
However, serious discussion of the organization's background, and funding sources, is
completely absent.
Last week, it was announced that Moscow had revoked the residency of Vanessa Kogan, a US
national who heads the NGO Stichting Justice Initiative (SJI) in Russia. If her appeal against
the decision isn't successful, she'll be forced to leave the country, where she has lived for
over a decade, and has two children who are Russian nationals.
Authorities had been mounting pressure on the organization for some time -- one of its
branches was deemed a foreign agent in 2019, and the group's offices in Dagestan, Moscow, and
Ingushetia have been raided by officials in recent months.
Condemnation from Western media and rights groups was immediate, with the issue framed as
just the latest example of an ongoing autocratic crackdown on rights activists in Russia. The
censures were intriguing for what they both did and didn't say.
Perhaps predictably, references to its almost entirely foreign-borne history, composition,
finances -- which includes support from George Soros' Open Society Foundation (OSF) -- and ties
to dubious Washington-based regime change entities were entirely absent.
Curiouser and
curiouser
Mainstream outlets such as the UK's Guardian newspaper universally referred to Kogan and SJI
as "prominent" and/or "well-known" , a somewhat peculiar characterizations given
neither she nor the organization received virtually any media attention whatsoever in its
nigh-on 20 years of operation, prior to her residency being revoked. Perhaps she and SJI are
only familiar to the small community of Western journalists and activists in the Russian
capital.
In any event, several genuinely high-profile organizations and figures, such as Peter Stano,
European Commission lead spokesperson for external affairs, slammed Kogan's expulsion on
Twitter - SJI's own account on the social network is largely dormant, having accrued just 231
followers in its four-and-half years on the platform.
Conversely, the numerous mainstream articles on the move made virtually no reference to the
organization's funding sources -- The Guardian perhaps went furthest, at least hinting SJI
receives financial support "from abroad" .
A joint statement signed by six NGOs was similarly opaque on the former question, merely
noting SJI was "one of the most active in Russia in bringing cases" to the European
Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and had secured over 250 judgements in favor of complainants.
Curiously, there was no mention of the intimate ties between SJI and two of the cosignatories,
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, an oversight one might think unethical.
The sextet moreover alleged SJI "has always been open and transparent about its work"
, a claim difficult to square with the paucity of information on its official website.
A section on the organization's finances sparingly notes it "raises funds from
institutional and government donors" . Financial statements are provided, but only from
2010 - 2017, and aren't at all informative, merely noting SJI's yearly income, and what it was
spent on. Still, they indicate the vast bulk of its budget is goes on salaries, and grants have
accounted for up to 99 percent of the organization's yearly funding.
The organization's annual reports are somewhat more illuminating, although they're only
available from 2006 - 2011, and the final instalment isn't even publicly listed. They reveal
SJI has at least previously been funded by a number of controversial Western 'philanthropic'
organizations, including Soros' aforementioned OSF.
This vehicle, which bankrolls civil society groups the world over to the tune of many
millions, has been embroiled in countless controversies since its establishment in 1993.
Mounting suspicion of OSF internationally may at least partially explain why SJI has become
ever-increasingly unwilling to divulge who and what is bankrolling it over time. Recent years
have seen numerous governments investigate and curtail the foundation's activities, if not
outright ban it from operating on their soil - among them Russia, after Moscow ruled the
organization represented a threat to national security in November 2015.
SJI's fiscal opacity is assisted by being based in the Netherlands - as its name implies,
it's a 'Stichting', or foundation. While not registered as a charity, it's characterised as
being "without commercial enterprise" , so isn't required to file accounts under Dutch
law.
'Stichtings' are openly advertised as ideal ways for wealthy individuals and corporations to
minimize tax liabilities and discretely distribute funds internationally.
Murky,
incestuous web
The organization's 2011 annual report reveals SJI was established in 2001 by a trio of
Dutchmen, Diederik Lohman, the director of Human Rights Watch's health division, Jan ter Laak,
a theologian, and Egbert Wesselink, a senior advisor at PAX, a Netherlands-based NGO.
Further underlining SJI's foreign nature, its governing board boasts only one Russian
member, Alexandra Koulaeva. Previously an activist with Moscow-based civil rights group
Memorial, she has since relocated to Paris to work for the International Federation for Human
Rights (FIDH).
FIDH likewise receives OSF funding, along with financial support from the European Union,
Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and a variety of Western governments. Wesselink
also sits on the board -- PAX has the same correspondence address as SJI, a post office box in
Utrecht, and also gets OSF funding.
The rest of the board is comprised of Ole Solvang, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Tanya
Mazur, director of Amnesty International Ukraine, and Viviana Krstecevic, of the Center for
Justice and International Law (CEJIL).
The Council is bankrolled by numerous European states, while CEJIL has a variety of
international donors, among them OSF, and the US National Endowment for Democracy
(NED).
When covert becomes overt
The connection between NED and SJI is supremely striking for more reasons than one. Firstly,
NED was banned in Russia July 2015 on the same grounds as OSF -- the move was widely lambasted
at the time, but any consideration of the organization's shadowy history and activities, and
the role they played in motivating Moscow's decision, was conspicuously missing.
NED was founded in November 1983 - then-Central Intelligence Agency Director William Casey
and senior CIA covert operations specialist Walter Raymond Jr. were instrumental in its
creation.
They sought to construct a mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would
engage in propaganda and political action the CIA had historically organized and paid for in
secret. In 1991, senior NED official Allen Weinstein acknowledged "a lot of what we do today
was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA" .
The specifics of CEJIL's activities on behalf of NED, for which it has reaped hundreds of
thousands of dollars over decades, may be relevant to assessing SJI's own work.
In September 2003, the organization granted CEJIL US$83,000 to train citizens in launching
legal action against Caracas via the Inter-American Commission and Inter-American Court of
Human Rights, a little-known yet extremely powerful Washington and Costa Rica-based legal nexus
that claims jurisdiction over the entirety of the Americas, with the agreement of the
Organization of American States.
The grant led to a dramatic increase in frivolous claims brought against the Venezuelan
government by opposition activists, all of which circumvented the country's legal system and
undermined its sovereignty, granting power of judgment to a potentially sympathetic foreign
body.
SJI board member Viviana Krsticevic's official biography on CEJIL's website notes she has
litigated cases before both the Inter-American Commission and Inter-American Court of Human
Rights, strongly suggesting she was involved in these very NED-funded anti-Chavez efforts.
SJI says its purpose is to provide legal support to residents of the North Caucasus who seek
justice for alleged human rights abuses through international bodies such as the ECHR.
When Chechnya declared independence from Russia in 1991, the region became a haven for
criminals, kidnappers, and Islamist warlords, and over the course of two extremely brutal wars,
December 1994 – August 1996, August 1999 - May 2000), enforced disappearances,
extra-judicial killings, torture and unfair trial became routine.
Such crimes continue intermittently to this day, and few would surely argue with the moral
necessity of bringing those responsible to justice and securing redress for those affected.
Nonetheless, the risk of at least some cases being without foundation and/or politically
motivated is significant, a prospect demonstrably magnified when there is a financial incentive
for individuals to bring cases, and organizations specifically seek out individuals to
represent in such legal actions.
For example, in February 2017 award winning British lawyer Phil Shiner, who'd played a
leading role in bringing legal action against British troops for their maltreatment of Iraqis
following the 2003 invasion, was struck off the solicitors' register. It had been revealed he
paid middlemen to seek out claimants, and made "unsolicited direct approaches" to
potential clients.
Could SJI have helped facilitate potentially vexatious claims against Russia in the ECHR?
Krsticevic's position on the organization's board suggests this is a possibility, and the
organization's 2010 annual report makes clear the organization specifically sought out young
Russian lawyers and trained them to bring cases to the Court, and boasts of how financial
rewards paid to out its claimants had almost doubled over the past decade, to an average of
€60,000 - 70,000.
At the very least, the same document makes clear "forcing structural change in Russian
law and policy" was a key objective of its founders from the beginning.
As such, SJI is just one example of how Western powers quietly and surreptitiously influence
politics and policy in "enemy" states via NGOs, under the aegis of democracy and human
rights promotion. While the aims of the foreign funded organizations in question may be benign,
the goals of those bankrolling them are often far from benevolent, and all too frequently left
unexamined.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
francismd 1 day ago 12 Dec, 2020 09:11 AM
what surprises me is Russia allowing NGOs to operate in their country. NGO is a trojan horse.
do you actually believe that these NGOs have good intentions. There is no such thing as free.
DoubleKnot 1 day ago 12 Dec, 2020 09:02 AM
,...Her expulsion is just Russia's auto-immune system in function.
shadow1369 1 day ago 12 Dec, 2020 07:43 AM
If corporate media is rattled that is proof absolute that Kogan was doing their dirty work.
Maybe she should not be expelled, but rather prosecuted for sedition. NATO routinely uses
fake 'journalists' and NGOs to undermine any country which stands against US tyranny.
Ohhho 1 day ago 12 Dec, 2020 12:10 PM
A memo for the Russian government: if the Western MSM condemns your actions then you did
the right thing. If it prizes whatever you did: repent and reverse!
gswew 1 day ago 12 Dec, 2020 09:55 AM
huh? you evicted 1 person but the NGO is still open? why???? Close down all of them!!!!
Jeff_P 1 day ago 12 Dec, 2020 12:22 PM
I'm stunned that other countries allow foreign "NGO's" to operate in their countries. Many
are naught but moles operating to undermine the countries in which they operate. Especially
if that CIA front operation NED is in any way involved.
AnnaMR 1 day ago 12 Dec, 2020 11:36 AM
Oh, poor "prominent" Kogan. How about the sadistic imprisonment/torture of the political
prisoner and great journalist Julian Assange? As for Ms. Alexandra Koulaeva, a former
"activist with Moscow-based civil rights group," who relocated to Paris to "work for the
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)," does she have a shred of decency to tell a
word or two to her FIDH' bosses about the imprisonment of Julian Assange? No? Then Ms.
Alexandra Koulaeva is a presstitute, a regular opportunistic hypocrite with no brains and no
soul.
Srinivas Injeti 15 hours ago 13 Dec, 2020 05:12 AM
99% of these NGO do anti-national activities in the garb of social and welfare activities.
They are also used for spying and creating unrest and sponsoring terrorist and subversive
activities. They are used to create uprisings against the ruling parties which do not bow
down to the diktat of the US and its western stooges. It is better to ban all these NGOs and
their affiliations.
NonDucorDuco 15 hours ago 13 Dec, 2020 05:07 AM
What else could one expect from the Dutch, known for being huge hypocrites with double
standards. They have their mouth full of Human Rights, but are one of the EU countries known
for the highest rate of discrimination against immigrants and treating their own nationals in
the Caribbean part of their kingdom as 3rd class citizens. The Dutch politicians volunteered
to become a loyal sheepdog for the US regime, misusing their Caribbean territorial waters to
provide cover for the destabilizing covert US regime OPS against neighboring Venezuela ~
against the will of the Caribbean natives whom have strong family ties with Venezuela.
Another example is the biased report on the downing of the NH-17 flight, which was clearly a
False Flag OPS.
Jewel Gyn 16 hours ago 13 Dec, 2020 05:07 AM
US is so full of crap and double standards you can't take it seriously. Ditto all these
state-sponsored rights group. They acted immediately when their interests are threatened but
vanish and lay low when it don't suit their narratives.
The Russian government is set to expel a prominent human-rights activist, with former
president Dmitry Medvedev claiming there's a co-ordinated campaign by international
organizations to stoke unrest in the world's largest state.
Vanessa Kogan, the director of the Stichting Justice Initiative project, told Britain's
Guardian newspaper that Russian authorities had notified her of the revocation of her residency
permit. She will now have two weeks to leave the country, where she has lived for more than ten
years. She also has two children with a Russian national.
The Stichting Justice Initiative is an NGO which, it says, provides legal support to
Russians in cases of perceived human rights abuses. It has been less open about its funding in
recent years, but in 2010 and 2011, it was bankrolled by the Dutch government and the Hungarian
billionaire George Soros. via his 'Open Society' pressure group, which has been banned in
Russia and declared "undesirable."
Kogan's work has previously focused on the North Caucasus region, where her group has
represented people alleging victimization at the hands of authorities. Its activity in the
majority Muslim area has reportedly brought tensions with local leaders, such as Ramzan
Kadyrov, the head of the Republic of Chechnya.
Now the Deputy Chairman of Russia's Security Council, Medvedev, who has also served as
Russia's prime minister, told reporters on Thursday that well-funded foreign groups were using
networks in Russia to "exacerbate the internal political situation in certain regions,
including through Russian non-profit groups they associate with."
He went on to add that these NGOs "depend on internet media, and use various far-fetched
reasons for rewriting the events of our national history." He called this a "large-scale
information campaign, being conducted to discredit the leadership of some specific territories
and Federal Subjects."
In November, the country's State Duma debated new legislation that would expand the
definition of foreign agents, enabling the label to be applied not only to NGOs and media
organizations, but also to ordinary citizensIn 2018, the United States imprisoned a Russian
citizen, Maria Butina, claiming that she was a foreign agent operating on behalf of Moscow.
Authorities allege that she had infiltrated conservative-leaning organizations to promote
better ties between Washington and the Kremlin. She served five months in prison, some of it in
solitary confinement, before being deported back to Russia.
Zeta029 43 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:01 PM
This is a most dangerous situation. Being unable to openly defeat Russia on a battlefield
(not that they didnt try, most recently in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria), the Empire is
focusing on certain NGO and people like Navalny to weaken the leadership of Russian
Federation. This is the undisputed truth and so these measures should be swift and harsh, for
National Security sake.
cangoroo Zeta029 16 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:28 PM
And those NGOs are funded with "printed money" in the Empire. Now Australia has joined the
money-printing party of their big-brother US; at the rate of $5billion a week. Money-printing
means PIRATING money from the holders of their money, including foreign CentralBnks like
China's. It was SEA-PIRACY on which the Empire Britannia was built during the reign of QE1 in
the 16th century. Genes, I guess.
Count_Cash Zeta029 18 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:26 PM
It's a multifaceted interference in Russia. The biggest play is economic , the next play is
internal friction based on wealth disparity, the third is to create perception that
westerners have better rights. The medium is external media, internal media, external courts,
attacks on internal courts and political institutions - But there is one thing the western
strategists haven't figured - nuclear weapons and their deterrent is aimed at preventing not
only military attacks but also other attacks that attempt to politically and economically
dominate Russia. While the west think all this activity has no cost, as was shown in the
places you reference, there can be a military cost for the western games of interference and
pushed far enough it could be a nuclear one. Nuclear Weapons their not just for countering
military threats!
TheFishh 40 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:04 PM
Funded by Soros and Dutch government? There you have it. I wonder what Netherlands and the US
would do, if some organizations operating there were getting money from Moscow. They'd lock
up everyone involved in it. They wouldn't just be told to go back to Russia.
Nonenity TheFishh 16 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:28 PM
They ought to be in OP and making their reports on the war crimes and human rights abuses
there - ongoing since before 1948...
Madbovineuk 1 hour ago 3 Dec, 2020 12:58 PM
Expel all NGOs from Russia especially those with American ties
WhoWantsAIDS Madbovineuk 13 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:31 PM
As an American if Putin wants to send Soros workers or sympathizers home in a box he would be
doing the world a favor. 💯🔮
Count_Cash Madbovineuk 25 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:19 PM
Yes just boot her and the rest out. They are just trouble makers, if they were straight up
they would be running to Iraq or Afghanistan to help people abused by the US.
Timothy-Allen Albertson 1 hour ago 3 Dec, 2020 12:56 PM
Soros, the nazi, needs to be hanged for Crimes Against Humanity. Too bad the Russian
Federation did not imprison this Soros agitator for a long term at hard labor.
She should work all her life, and still I dont think she would repay the harm she did.
Badgecub 1 hour ago 3 Dec, 2020 01:25 PM
Kogan, if you are worried about human rights abuses go to the UK and help Julian Assage
Nonenity Badgecub 18 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:26 PM
And all of those many, many US folks in prison for long periods, mostly for minor offences,
because it was their third time stealing a slice of pizza. You don't hear/read/see it on the
MSM, but these prisoners are all but slave labor and usually for multinational companies like
S...bucks... Indeed in at least two states they are slave labor because they do not even get
the cents (well under a dollar) per hour that prisoners in most states do. And should the
prisoners refuse to do this labor, they often end up in solitary confinement - well known to
be psychological torture...And there are political prisoners as well (not called that, of
course, given who and where they are)...not to mention Guantanamo and the various Black Sites
around the world and controlled by the CIA.... Stephen Kinzer's book on The Poisoner in
Chief...a good read about the post war decades and the human rights abuses by the
exceptionalist nation...
TheFishh Badgecub 35 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:09 PM
Yes. And these sorts of contradictions is what gives away these so-called western human
rights organizations as a bunch of nefarious fakes.
DoubleKnot 1 hour ago 3 Dec, 2020 01:14 PM
NGO - Non-Gentile Organization
TheFishh DoubleKnot 37 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:07 PM
BING!
Marko Podganjek 15 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:29 PM
I thought that such organizations and people were expelled from Russia long ago. Because on
west they want to imprison people that were just on trip in Russia. Not to say if somebody
would get money from Russia. The relations and approaches here has to be comparable on both
sides.
Smanz 20 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:24 PM
Anything linked to Soros generally only exists to create chaos and ruin the country it is in.
dunkie56 8 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:36 PM
i will say it again...throw the West and it's agents provocateurs out of Russia...all Western
companies must leave forthwith and restrict who comes into Russia and tighten the borders!
Preferably raise up the iron curtain once again!
SrJustice 5 minutes ago 3 Dec, 2020 02:39 PM
Politicians in the US think that improving relations with other countries is a bad thing
because they need enemies, enemies are better than friends to have for Washington, very
twisted minds. They just want to scare their people so they can suck more tax money and spend
on the weapons manufacturers, where most of those politician invest their money.
Szilard Demeter, a ministerial commissioner and head of the Petofi Literary
Museum in Budapest, used highly provocative language to describe Hungarian-American financier
George Soros and his purported influence over EU policy.
"Europe is George Soros' gas chamber," the government-appointed cultural commissioner
wrote in an op-ed.
"Poison gas flows from the capsule of a multicultural open society, which is deadly to the
European way of life."
He went on to
characterize Soros as "the liberal Fuhrer," insisting that the businessman's
"liber-aryan army deifies him more than did Hitler's own."
bristolwind shadow1369 19 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 02:07 PM
Now look at the US of Zimbabwe, banana republic with Mugabe level stolen election, fascist
brown shirts (BLM, ANTIFA) beating people on the streets, burning places of worship and
private business, eliminating Trump black supporters execution style. Plutocrats,
authoritarian to the core, control Uniparty, MSM and social media forbidding any dissent.
And, as even not much trusted, Gingerich said : IT IS VERBOTEN to mention one person name
(Soros) even on treasonous fox news!! In the future USA will be longing to have fair and
transparent election as people of Belarus or Venezuela. At this point Russia and Hungary are
beacons of free world. Simple because they throw out former Nazi quislin
J_P_Franklin 23 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 10:36 AM
"Europe is George Soros' gas chamber," the government-appointed cultural commissioner wrote
in an op-ed. " Poison gas flows from the capsule of a multicultural open society , which is
deadly to the European way of life."
Cryptoid
Cyaxares_425bc 21 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 12:37 PM
What RT DID NOT mention, is that as a teenager during World War II, Soros aided the Gestapo in
Budapest, by pointing out the homes & apartments of wealthy jews. And then he helped
inventory the loot - as well as load the furniture, paintings, carpets, and heirlooms onto
trucks. On CBS's program "60 minutes" he states that these 'were the best years of his life'.
Ohhho 22 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 11:49 AM
George Soros (aka Georgy Schwartz) is just a tool: he keeps the funds that the British-American
elites channeled from he British budget into his "private" account in that famous "British
Pound speculation"! Now for years he is financing all kind of covert and not so covert
operations by MI6 and CIA without any control or supervision from the state: nice!
EnkisDaughter 22 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 11:32 AM
Gyorgy Schwartz (his real name) and his father (Theodore Schwartz ) made money by selling their
own people (Soros is Jewish by birth) to the Nazis; these people then went to the concentration
camps. The Hungarians were allies of the Nazis and the Schwartz family certainly made money
from them.
CA_Sue 16 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 04:57 PM
I think the Hungarian commissioner had every right to say what he did. Soros hides behind his
NGO's and other organizations and has funded mayhem and horrible violence in America. If Poland
and Hungary want to protect their culture, so be it, it's THEIRS to protect.
Bianca882008 21 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 11:57 AM
And how creepy is it that EU conditions its COVID aid! So if these two countries do not pass
legislation on transgender rights, and few other gender-choice related issues, they are
deprived if aid in the middle of pandemic! That is militant liberalism. This is not about
rights, it is about SUPREMACY. It is to prove that liberal agenda can shove anything down a
nation's throat -- when a country is weak and needs money. It is about bringing to power those
that will champion the new "values". And kick out of power the conservatives, the nationalist
old guard. There us a method to this militant Soros madness. Perfect name -- liber-aryans!
veneziano49454 20 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 01:23 PM
I think that Hungary People has many reasons. Mr Open Society has ruined the World and again he
is ruining the USA. He is behind the Dominion Voting through his UK friend CEO of Smartmatic
Software. He is continuing to ruine the Italy after the Italian currency speculation in the
1992. We Italians hate him. He is continuing to invade the Italy by immigrants. Through the ONG
paid from Open Society. And now warning american people. Because he is thinking to a Monetary
war against the USD. He want create a Global Currency. The Great Reset begin with fraud against
the USA President. This is an obstacle to eliminate.
HandyGlock17 20 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 12:52 PM
Bravo Hungary, you are putting principles OVER filthy profit. You love your nation, people, and
culture more than dirty money. You put all other countries who are ruled by traitors to shame.
rolvik 22 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 11:29 AM
"Poison gas flows from the capsule of a multicultural open society, which is deadly to the
European way of life." this is 100% correct. EU puppets should arrest that criminal terrorist
soros . only Hungary and Poland dare to speak. "Israeli Embassy in Budapest expressed similar
outrage." is soros citizen of Israel?? of not, what should Israel have to have with soros??
beside they are complete terrorist criminal country, adn they are last to give anybody morale
lessons . "There is no place for connecting the worst crime in human history, or its
perpetrators, to any contemporary debate, no matter how essential," the Israeli diplomatic
mission wrote in a tweet. that is biggest lie in history, and even if that lie is true it is
definitely not biggest crime. and soros crime is way bigger then Hitler's. terrorist soros
sponsor genocide of whole European continent, and criminals including Israel support that
mumbojumbo272 22 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 11:25 AM
Open society, two nice words hiding horrible goals . Just like dissecting humanbeings in the
whomb of women under terms like: pro-choice and other terms eluding the true facts .
Robin Olsen 21 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 12:36 PM
The Jewish response is indeed curious seeing as though Soros built his fortune by stealing the
'left behind' wealth of deported Jews during WW2 while hiding out posing as a Nazi. One could
almost define that as a act of genocidal treason right? But Hungry and Poland are funny...big
problem with E.U and Soros but no problems accepting thousands of Soros supporting American
troops to fight off 'the Russian bogey man' . Flip flopping around like a Tuna caught out of
the water.
Dirk45 18 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 03:58 PM
Mr Demeter is referring to the deliberate liberal policy of promoting mass immigration from the
Third World, and thereafter using incessant indoctrination and legal coercion to promote mass
integration. The aim of Mr Soros , the EU, and Western governments can only be to destroy the
racial and consequently cultural identity of the entire native population of Europe. Relating
this to the extermination of millions of Jews is therefore entirely appropriate, and should in
no way be considered as somehow devaluing or depreciating it. To contrast the two situations is
pointless. The fate suffered by millions of Jews in Nazi camps was immediate and brutal; the
fate suffered by hundreds of millions of Europeans spread across an entire continent from the
Urals to the Atlantic is less so, but the intention of the perpetrators in both cases is
identical.
SheepNotHuman 12 hours ago 30 Nov, 2020 01:06 AM
George Soros runs America through his many fake politicians, DA, Judges, NGO's funded by him.
Actually he represents the Rothchild house for the Royals Global Cartel. No surprise that
Israel cover for him being the Rothchild is father of Israel. They are the destroyers of
humanity who use the MSM that they own to manufacture consent in your mind. Lone wolf, hear
your calling and do your duty for humanity.
Morsi_X 1 day ago 29 Nov, 2020 12:10 PM
Poison gas flows from the capsule of a multicultural open society, which is deadly to the
European way of life." multiculturalism and over population is a hindering within the United
States and stopping these younger progressives from getting some of their socialist policies
through because they can't look around and grasp that socialism doesn't work with an eternal
population that is approaching (or maybe already there) 350 million then onto 400 million with
a bunch of multi cultural people, like Armenians which never seen an American flag in their
lives, along with a bunch of other non-indigenous and non-founding immigrants but they
constantly yelling in the street and can't even pass a civics class.
sukmiwangyak 23 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 01:44 PM
Soros is far more evil than Hiltler, it's not even close by a long shot. For Israel to defend
Soros is like Judas running a trust fund. I always wondered why didn't Israel take action
against Soros who confessed he helped to Nazi's to catch Jews, then he would steal their
wealth; he said " it was his best memory's" ! Hitler wasn't as bad as the Bushes, or the
Clintons, he knew the Jews was like wild animals that's the reason he tried to give them to the
USA or other states, but they choice to turn their backs on them. Even if we hung Soros today,
he still would've gotten away with so much. Just like Hillary he is both Mossad & CIA,
protected by the Jesuits. We need to first condemn the color revolutions which is paid for with
the " Open Society Foundation " Secondly we need to close all secrete foundations and make them
accountable to the Rule of Law. Thirdly lets exterminate people like Soros's, Rockefeller's,
Rothschild's, Clinton's, Biden's, Bush's from this world for mankind's sake. Lastly we need
more people like Szilard Demeter.
Lloyd Hart 16 hours ago 29 Nov, 2020 08:55 PM
Soros was a member of the SS during the war & still is. He only pretends to be liberal but
his immigrant policies have more to do with breaking unions with cheap migrant and insecure
labour. So he is still a nazi in my book. Crushing uncooperative poorer nation's currencies is
his institutional nazism.
Human Rights are not intrinsic. They are a post-war invention (1948) by the UN, something
created so everybody could sleep better at night (or be invaded, if you're a fan of post-Cold
War History).
Natural rights are just as much the figment of some people's imagination as human
rights.
None of these have any existence or any objective, scientific, physical basis, they are just
intellectual notions, like money, gods and other fancy ideas. The majority of people might
agree on them from time to time, but they surely aren't eternal, and any system based on
these has a limited lifespan.
@ CJ 70 Natural rights are just as much the figment of some people's imagination as human
rights.
No. We all have the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Those rights are codified by the UN in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights .
...included...
Article I - All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are
endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood.
Article 2 - Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this
Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language,
religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political,
jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person
belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation
of sovereignty.
Article 3 - Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person...
here
For those readers who may be unfamiliar with the term "Color Revolution", it refers to what has now become the standard technique
for promoting "regime change" in targeted nations.
The term may have its origins in the works of
Gene
Sharp
, who wrote some guidebooks on how to organize popular revolts using Madison Avenue-style marketing techniques. He
recommended to the sponsors that rather than confusing or boring the participants with too much political theory, they should
motivate their budding revolutionaries with pop culture, using catchy, content-free slogans, logos, and team colors.
Color R
e
volutions are expensive (
$5
billion in the case of Ukraine
) and are typically orchestrated by a public-private partnership comprised of government agencies
such as the State Department and MI6 and/or CIA, combined with private funding and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs).
The most famous organization of this sort is the National Endowment For Democracy, a curious entity that is funded by the US
Government through USAID (as well as by donations from major
neocon
private
foundations), and has two sub-organizations that disseminate the funds to various Regime Change projects: the International
Republican Institute, affiliated with the Republican Party, and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs,
affiliated with the Democrats. Both organizations carry out the same activity, which underscores the fact that on matters of
subverting and bullying the rest of the world, there is a lot more bipartisanship in the US than people are inclined to think.
Another name associated with funding and orchestration is
George
Soros
, whose various tax-exempt organizations such as the Open Society Foundations invariably pump money into the latest Color
Revolutions, for reasons that are often more commercial than strictly political.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the
neocons
fanned
the flames of indignation and xenophobia, and were able to exploit them in order to assume a dominant role in most American
institutions, particularly the political parties and the media. Regime Change fever swept the foreign policy establishment, and
anyone who looked cross-eyed at a neocon became a target.
Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama embraced the neocon ethos and gave them virtual carte blanche to carry out Color
Revolutions around the world. The advent of social media, which fosters communication in the form of short, catchy slogans and
images that can be made to "go viral," was particularly conducive to Gene Sharp's formula of organizing the masses around
advertising copy and team colors. The Color Revolution techniques were used on a large scale in the former Soviet Union, such as in
the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia or the 2005 Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
If the targeted populations can't be organized effectively to overthrow their leaders, there is always the fall back option of
arming mercenary groups to seize power by violence, or if that fails, out and out military aggression by the US or NATO. The most
reliable method seems to be a combination of non-violent and violent action, such as in the case of Ukraine's second Color
Revolution in 2014 (a coup which was comically dubbed the "Revolution of Dignity" by its neocon sponsors, who know that a successful
marketing campaign must never be understated.) A similar case was the 2019 protests in Hong Kong, where gang violence was deployed
in hopes of provoking a crackdown by the state which could then be exploited for propaganda purposes.
But it was inevitable that these techniques would eventually be used on the US itself. Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of
reducing US reliance on Regime Change wars and NATO "out-of-area deployments" as a centerpiece of foreign policy. This was
anathema
to the neocons.
Once in office, Trump vacillated, bringing prominent neocons into his cabinet and allowing them to launch
multiple Regime Change operations. However, Trump was not a doctrinaire neocon, and he angered them by advocating better relations
with North Korea, Russia and China. And for the neocons, anything short of total allegiance to their ideology is tantamount to
betrayal.
The standard methodology was put into play the moment Trump was inaugurated. The team color was pink, in the form of the pink "pussy
hats" (these ostensibly called attention to Trump's sexual vulgarity and libertine lifestyle, which lacked the charm of Bill
Clinton's.) The buzzword was #Resistance, which was intended to conjure up images of the struggle by nations which had been
conquered by Nazi aggression during World War II. Oddly enough, however, the aggressive moves by Trump against other nations were
not #Resisted. In fact, those were the only instances where he received hearty praise from the corporate media.
But it's not possible to mobilize a population with hats and hashtags alone. There had to be some minimal political content, and
herein lay the dilemma for the organizers of America's Color Revolution. There was widespread popular discontent with what has
become known as the "forever war" policy, as well as the neoliberal economics which have produced an unprecedented income disparity
between the 1% and the 99%, and this popular discontent was key in electing Trump. The neocons wanted discontent, but
not
on those issues
, since they had no intention of changing those policies.
Instead, they opted for a revival of the Cold War. Americans seem to have a particular susceptibility to jingoism, and the
demonization of the former communist powers, which had already begun in 2014 with the neocon-sponsored coup in Ukraine, was cranked
up to full volume in the corporate media, using all the imagery and sloganeering that had proved so effective during the 1950s.
This involved some spectacular feats of cognitive dissonance. Despite
Trump's
outbursts of bellicosity toward Russia
and other neocon targets, Trump was portrayed as being "soft," an appeaser, or an
outright enemy agent. The Democratic Party, which is considered to be the more liberal of the two parties and had in decades past
expressed some nominal opposition to military adventures in Vietnam and elsewhere,
swung
way to the right of the Republicans
in the jingoism derby.
The
secret
police agencies
and their pet journalists concocted what will be admired by historians as one of the most preposterous
conspiracy theories in recorded history, the tale of Russia manipulating the 2016 election with a computer hack which somehow
cannot
be detected by the NSA
, and
puppy
pages on Facebook
.
There was also a big focus on Trump's personality, which is admittedly none too winsome. This is consistent with the neocon "Hitler
of the Month Club" formula, where each new nemesis, from Manuel Noriega to Saddam Hussein to Muammar Gaddafi to Vladimir Putin, is
depicted as the most brutish, authoritarian dictator ever to walk the face of the planet.
They succeeded in impeaching Trump in December 2019, almost three years into his first term in office. They did not actually charge
Trump with an impeachable crime, but rather offered the rationale that he had allegedly used the power of his office in ways that
could benefit his re-election campaign (something that no other American president would ever dream of doing.) This was a far cry
from the much sexier, hoped-for rationale of "collusion" with the Bolshevik Foe, which had been shot down by the Mueller Report.
However, impeachment maven
Adam
Schiff
managed to insinuate that this Collusion was the real basis for impeachment, every time he saw a TV camera. We faced the
surreal spectacle of liberals begging John Bolton to testify, as the role of the neocons in orchestrating the #Resistance became
ever more explicit.
The impeachment passed the House on purely partisan lines, and Senate voted not to convict on purely partisan lines as well. There
has been much speculation that popular pushback to the whole spectacle may actually benefit Trump in this year's election. We shall
see.
Meanwhile, with the massively FUBAR Iowa caucuses of February 2020, questions were once again raised once again about the Democratic
nominating process. Bernie Sanders was emerging as a new threat to neocon dominance, this time from within the Democratic Party.
During the days leading up to Super Tuesday, there was a remarkable development. Every prominent neocon, from Bill Kristol to Max
Boot to David Frum to Susan Rice, acted with synchronized, military precision to endorse Joe Biden. Several neocon-friendly
Democratic presidential candidates abruptly withdrew from the race to endorse him as well. There was an immediate Pavlovian response
from cable news pundits and other putative journalists. Russiagate was dusted off and started up again, this time for use against
Sanders. On April 8, Sanders capitulated and withdrew from the race.
No one in their right mind believed that the confused and incoherent Biden could defeat the also incoherent, but clever and
confident Trump. But at this point, it was more important to the neocons that they keep control over at least one of the two
parties, and a decision was made that it were better to throw the election to Trump rather than to allow Sanders' brand of
left-populism to become ascendant in the Democratic Party.
But then the neocons saw a fresh opportunity, following the May 25 murder of African-American George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.
Protest demonstrations by the Black community intersected the anxieties of a population frightened and frustrated by the one-two
punch of economic collapse combined with public health isolation to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Violent groups from the
Antifa
milieiu,
predominately
white
and
possibly assets of the FBI's
COINTELPRO
progam,
initiated vandalism and looting. Neocons were salivating at the prospect of Maidan-style chaos.
The beleaguered Trump had already been showing signs of psychological fatigue, and there had been significant lapses in his already
questionable judgement. In addition to mishandling the public health measures and the economic crisis, he had capitulated once more
to the neocons and went on an anti-China tirade. Then, when the social unrest began in the wake of the George Floyd killing, all of
Trump's political flaws came into play.
The neocons triumphantly hit the airwaves and the digital arena. Their great oracle,
The
Atlantic
, published
an
article
that serendipitously confirms the central theme of the article you are presently reading. Neocon high priestess Susan
Rice
suggested
that the Russians were to blame
for the rioting. Trump's every misstep was amplified by neocon pundits. Suddenly the idea of
electing Biden was no longer so implausible, as long as he could be
kept
away from live microphones.
It's important to
bear
in mind that the neocons are not
in the least concerned with Trump's mishandling of COVID-19 pandemic or civil unrest. They
were delighted when he ranted against China. But when he advocated reducing U.S. troop deployments in Germany and Afghanistan, they
were livid. On June 26, the
New York Times
published
yet
another story
based on anonymous leaks from the "intelligence community". This one claimed that the Taliban needed some
incentives after being occupied by a foreign power after 20 years and was now accepting "bounties" from Russia in exchange for
fighting the US military. In mid-September, General Frank McKenzie, Commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News that no
evidence had been found to support this claim. Neocons continued to speak of it as established fact.
Although the corporate press continued to depict Trump as a fanatical right-winger in coverage intended for the rubes, within the
citadels of neoconservatism he was regarded as something entirely different. On September 30, 2020, the
Atlantic
published
another revelatory article entitled "
What
a Second Trump Term Would Mean for the World
." Author Thomas Wright drops a few bombshells like this one, likening Trump to the
great Progressive leader Henry Wallace (who is regarded by neocons as a close relative of Satan):
Looking back on U.S. diplomatic history, one of the great counterfactuals is what would have happened if Franklin D. Roosevelt
had not replaced his vice president Henry Wallace with Harry Truman in 1944. Wallace was sympathetic to the Soviet Union and
became an ardent opponent of the Cold War. If he had become president when FDR died, in April 1945, the next half century could
have gone very differently -- likely no NATO, no Marshall Plan, no alliance with Japan, no overseas troop presence, and no
European Union.
The U.S. is now teetering on another historically important moment. With Trump, we would not only be deprived of our Truman. We
would be saddled with our Wallace -- a leader whose instincts and actions are diametrically opposed to what the moment requires.
The good news is that the neocons are not omnipotent. They are adept at conning the public and they have the full cooperation of the
corporate media, but the public is volatile and increasingly skeptical of the official "narratives." This is why the neocons are
growing more and more hysterical in their public proclamations about "conspiracy theories" and "disinformation." They are in fact
strongly in favor of conspiracy theories and disinformation, provided that it is their own conspiracy theories and not someone
else's.
Neocons are demanding
censorship
of social media
, to drive everyone into the arms of CNN and
The
Atlantic.
As the election approaches, these demands have become increasingly more vociferous, leading to a major controversy
with the decision by both Facebook and Twitter to censor the
New
York Post
coverage
of leaked email correspondence between Joe Biden's son and executives of the Ukrainian energy firm
Burisma (which employed him at a rather remarkable salary). The rationale offered by the two social media giants, that the sourcing
of the emails was unclear, did not impress media critics, who
pointed
out
that if that policy were applied in an even-handed fashion, Russiagate could never have happened.
As long as the option is open, follow alternative news sources online. I recommend the
Grayzone
and
Consortium
News
, both of which I have found to be quiet reliable. The neocons are frightened; they worry about what John Durham's
investigation, or the declassification of documents ordered by Trump, may reveal about their methods of manipulation. Frightened
people make tactical errors. We must keep our wits about us and find ways to turn those errors to our advantage.
Nota Bene: the author of this article was subsequently
suspended
from Twitter
without explanation. Contact @TwitterSupport
and ask them why.
Did some googling and I find it fascinating how much support the US State Department and
associated fake NGOs talk up this "Ecodefense" organization in Russia while ignoring,
dismissing, or criticizing activist environmental organizations that impact the empire's
profits.
Meanwhile record numbers of environmental activists have been murdered across Latin
America and the Philippines. Funny how the US State Department only complains about the CIA's
drug dealers getting snuffed in the Philippines!
This difference in response to persecution of activists in different places leads me to
strongly suspect that, like the drug dealers in the Philippines that the empire cries over,
certain environmental "NGOs" in Russia are tools of the empire.
Governments should closely watch all "NGOs" operating in their countries and
immediately arrest anyone from those organizations who are awarded a financial "literary
prize" or other laundered payment by obscure groups that are linked through any number of
intermediaries to the US State Department's fake "NGOs" . These groups that hand out
the payment from the empire are usually hazy publishing companies that have never published
anything, or at most create a quarterly newsletter with a distribution list of around five
people. Somehow these dubious "publishers" hand out quarter million dollar
"literary prizes" to pro-empire individuals whose writing sucks. A quarter $million
every couple years is more than enough to grow local fake "NGOs" to be used in future
"regime change operations" .
Furthermore, if the US State Department talks up an organization then that organization
is almost certainly an evil tool of empire.
They Got Out of Their
Tractors
Why the so-called common people are increasingly joining the ranks of the so-called fifth column
Gazeta.ru
August 29, 2016
A
fifth column of tractors? Photo courtesy of @melnichenko_va/Twitter
The arrest of the people involved in the tractor convoy
, as well as new protest rallies in Togliatti after Nikolai
Merkushin, governor of Samara Region announced wage arrears would
"never"
be
paid off, are vivid examples of the top brass's new style of communicating with people. After flirting only four or five years
ago with the common people, as opposed to the
creacles
from
the so-called fifth column, the authorities have, in the midst of a crisis, been less and less likely to pretend they
care about the needs of rank-and-file Russians. Moreover, any reminders of problems at the bottom provokes irritation and an
increasingly repressive reaction at the top.
Previously, top officials, especially in the run-up to elections, preferred
to mollify discontent at the local level by promising people something, and from year to year, the president would even
personally solve people's specific problems, both during his televised town hall meetings (during which, for example, he dealt
with problems ranging from the water supply in a Stavropol village to the payment of wages to workers at a fish factory on
Shikotan
) and
during personal visits, as was the case in
Pikalyovo
,
where chemical plant workers also blocked a federal highway. Nowadays, on the contrary, the authorities have seemingly stopped
pretending that helping the common people is a priority for them.
The people have made no political demands in these cases. Moreover, the
main players in these stories almost certainly belong to the hypothetical loyal majority.
The people who took part in the tractor convoy against forcible land
seizures even adopted the name Polite Farmers, apparently by analogy with the patriotic meme
"polite
people,"
which gained popularity in Russia after the annexation of Crimea.
In 2011–2012, the authorities used approximately the same people to
intimidate street protesters sporting political slogans. That was when the whole country heard of
Uralvagonzavod
,
a tank manufacturer whose workers promised to travel to Moscow to teach the creacles a lesson. Subsequently, the company's
head engineer, Igor Kholmanskih, was unexpectedly
appointed
presidential
envoy to the Urals Federal Distrtict.
Back then, the cultivation of a political standoff between working people
from the provinces and slackers, "State Department agents," and self-indulgent intellectuals from the capitals seemed pivotal,
but in the aftermath of Crimea and a protracted crisis, it has almost been nullified.
The people are still important for generating good ratings [
via
wildly dubious opinion polls
--
TRR
], but it would seem that even
rhetorically they have ceased to be an object of unconditional concern on the part of the government.
Nowadays, the authorities regard the requests and especially the demands of
the so-called common people nearly as harshly as they once treated the
Bolotnaya
Square
protests.
The government does not have the money to placate the common people, so
people have to be forced to love the leadership unselfishly, in the name of stability and the supreme interests of the state.
Since politics has finally defeated the economy in Russia, instead of getting down to brass tacks and solving problems with
employment and wage arrears, the regime generously feeds people stories about war with the West. During a war, it quite
unpatriotic to demand payment of back wages or ask for pension increase. Only internal enemies would behave this way.
"We are not slaves!" Coal Miners on Hunger Strike in Gukovo
. Published on August 25, 2016,
by
Novaya
Gazeta
. Miners in Gukovo have refused a "handout" from the governor of Rostov Region and continued their hunger strike
over unpaid wages. Video by Elena Kostyuchenko. Edited by Gleb Limansky.
So the
coal
miners in Rostov
, who have continued their hunger strike under the slogan "We are not slaves," have suddenly proven to be
enemies, along with the farmers of Krasnodar, who wanted to tell the president about forcible land seizures, and the activists
defending
Torfyanka
Park
in Moscow, who were
detained
in the early hours of Monday morning for, allegedly, attempting to break Orthodox crosses
, and the people defending the
capital's
Dubki
Park
, slated for redevelopment despite the opinion of local residents, and the people who protested against the
extortionate Plato system for calculating the mileage tolls paid by
truckers
,
and just about anyone who is unhappy with something and plans to make the authorities aware of their dissatisfaction.
Grassroots initiatives, especially if they involve protests against the
actions or inaction of the authorities, are not only unwelcome now, but are regarded as downright dangerous, almost as actions
against the state. This hypothesis is borne out by the silence of the parliamentary opposition parties. In the midst of an
election campaign, they have not even attempted to channel popular discontent in certain regions and make it work to their
advantage at the ballot box.
The distinction between the so-called fifth column and the other four has
blurred.
Nowadays, the fifth column can be a woman who asks a governor about back
wages. Someone who defends a city park. Farmers. Coal miners. Even the workers of
Uralvagonzavod
,
which in recent years has been on the verge of bankruptcy. The contracts the state had been throwing the company's way have
not helped, apparently.
If the authorities, especially local authorities simply afraid to show
federal authorities they are incapable of coping with problems, continue to operate only through a policy of intimidation,
they might soon be the fifth column themselves, if only because, sooner or later, they will find themselves in the minority.
Translated by the
Russian Reader.
Thanks
to
Sean
Guillory
f
or the heads-up
"... We, in Russia, went through a fairly long period where foreign funds were very much the main source for creating and financing non-governmental organisations. Of course, not all of them pursued self-serving or bad goals, or wanted to destabilise the situation in our country, interfere in our domestic affairs, or influence Russia's domestic and, sometimes, foreign policy in their own interests. Of course not. ..."
Genuine democracy and civil society cannot be "imported." I have said so many times. They
cannot be a product of the activities of foreign "well-wishers," even if they "want the best
for us." In theory, this is probably possible. But, frankly, I have not yet seen such a thing
and do not believe much in it. We see how such imported democracy models function. They are
nothing more than a shell or a front with nothing behind them, even a semblance of sovereignty.
People in the countries where such schemes have been implemented were never asked for their
opinion, and their respective leaders are mere vassals. As is known, the overlord decides
everything for the vassal. To reiterate, only the citizens of a particular country can
determine their public interest.
We, in Russia, went through a fairly long period where foreign funds were very much the
main source for creating and financing non-governmental organisations. Of course, not all of
them pursued self-serving or bad goals, or wanted to destabilise the situation in our country,
interfere in our domestic affairs, or influence Russia's domestic and, sometimes, foreign
policy in their own interests. Of course not.
There were sincere enthusiasts among independent civic organisations (they do exist), to
whom we are undoubtedly grateful. But even so, they mostly remained strangers and ultimately
reflected the views and interests of their foreign trustees rather than the Russian citizens.
In a word, they were a tool with all the ensuing consequences.
A strong, free and independent civil society is nationally oriented and sovereign by
definition. It grows from the depth of people's lives and can take different forms and
directions. But it is a cultural phenomenon, a tradition of a particular country, not the
product of some abstract "transnational mind" with other people's interests behind it.
"... Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the State Duma believes that Navalny has been too outspoken: "This guy is a competely shamless fraud." And pointing out how much was done to save his unworthy ass: From the pilots who emergency-landed the plane in Tomsk; to the doctors and nurses who fought ferociously to intubate him; to the President himself who personally gave permission to fly this recidivist to a prestigious German clinic Dante should have designed a special circle in Hell for such an ingrate, who now spits on the entire Russian nation. ..."
"... Putin's Press Secretary Peskov: "We should clarify that CIA specialists are working with Navalny, and give him various instructions. And moreover, this is not the first time, either." ..."
"... Navalny was upset by Peskov's words, he blustered back saying that Peskov is skating on very thin ice [little joke there], and said he planned to sue the man for libel: "He must prove that I actually have ties with American intelligence." Well, that's easy: Just ask Pompeo. ..."
"... Akopov himself believes that Navalny is more than just a "CIA project", he is more like a "joint venture" with all the Westie agencies. And this project also includes the Russian Neo-Liberal elite and the Westernizing section of the Oligarchy. ..."
"... Everybody who has studied Navalny and Navalniada, know what is actually going on here: Navalny and his neo-Liberal kreakle supporters represent that class of bourgeois intelligentsia who came along maybe 5 or 10 years too late to participate in the Yeltsinite plundering of the Russian people. ..."
"... They are only millionaires now, but they want to be billionaires. [yalensis: Although some evil tongues claim that Navalny has actually lost his fortune somehow and is fleeing from his creditors; hence the current crisis.] Putin stands in the way of the kreakles because he (and his caste of functionaries) have somewhat curbed the openly pirate proclivities of the Russian bourgeoisie; partially nationalized them, made them go to Church, and forced them to follow certain rules. ..."
Этот Германн, --
продолжал
Томский, -- лицо
истинно
романическое: у
него профиль
Наполеона, а
душа
Мефистофеля. Я
думаю, что на
его совести по
крайней мере
три злодейства.
Как вы
побледнели!..
"This Hermann fellow," Tomsky continued, -- "a truly romantic-era personality, the profile
of a Napoleon, and the soul of Mephistopheles. I believe that on his conscience lie at least
three crimes.
Oh my, you just turned pale!" -- Pushkin, The Queen of Spades "And that's not even counting
KirovLes!" Tomsky should have added.
Dear Readers: Today concluding my review of this piece by reporter/analyst Petr Akopov.
Where we left off, we saw that Navalny may have overstepped the line (just a tad) by
directly accusing Putin of poisoning him.
According to my blog-commenter James, Navalny is now busy on the talk-show circuit, doing a
full Ginsburg on all the imperialist propaganda media.
Describing what it feels like to be poisoned – "Ow! it hurt so much!" in full
pathos.
And Westie Navalny Goes Va Banque – burghers no doubt lapping up this farce because
it's more entertaining than the circus. –Meanwhile, back in Russia, members of the
government are not very happy with Navalny's wild improvised performance.
Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the State Duma believes that Navalny has been too
outspoken: "This guy is a competely shamless fraud." And pointing out how much was done to save
his unworthy ass: From the pilots who emergency-landed the plane in Tomsk; to the doctors and
nurses who fought ferociously to intubate him; to the President himself who personally gave
permission to fly this recidivist to a prestigious German clinic Dante should have designed a
special circle in Hell for such an ingrate, who now spits on the entire Russian
nation.
For 7 long days, Navalny lay in a fake-coma does that work for the 7 card? Furthermore, in a
no-shit kind of epiphany, Volodin opines that this whole poisoning scenario was scripted by the
Westies: "In order to create tension within Russia, and to prevent Belorussia from asserting
its sovereignty." Captain Obvious concludes with: "Navalny himself clearly works with the
special services and organs of goverments of [various] Western countries."
After such a shocking utterance, the Kremlin felt the need to clarify: Uh, it's not so much
that Navalny works for the CIA; as the CIA works for him! Uh huh, that makes perfect sense. As
comedian Yakov Smirnov might say: In America, Secret Agent works for CIA. But in Russia, CIA
works for him!
Putin's Press Secretary Peskov: "We should clarify that CIA specialists are working with
Navalny, and give him various instructions. And moreover, this is not the first time,
either."
Navalny was upset by Peskov's words, he blustered back saying that Peskov is skating on
very thin ice [little joke there], and said he planned to sue the man for libel: "He must prove
that I actually have ties with American intelligence." Well, that's easy: Just ask
Pompeo.
Akopov himself believes that Navalny is more than just a "CIA project", he is more like
a "joint venture" with all the Westie agencies. And this project also includes the Russian
Neo-Liberal elite and the Westernizing section of the Oligarchy.
They are all in this together as partners. [yalensis: And these knuckle-heads couldn't come
up with anybody better than Navalny as their Leader?] Akopov would not even want to venture a
guess, which one of these "partners" holds the "controlling interest" in Mr.
Navalny's person.
Although it is plausible that shares might be redistributed during Navalny's stay in
Germany. The question du jour is whether or not Navalny will return to Russia. Gentlemen and
Countesses, you are free to place your bets on this one. Akopov believes that, yes, Navalny not
only will, but must, return to Russia. Why? To complete his Quest. What is his Quest? To change
the internal political structure and geopolitical vector of Russia.
Here is how Navalny himself describes the pathos of the current situation: "A struggle is
taking place between those who stand for Freedom, and those who wish to push us backwards. Into
the Past, into that strange Orthodox imitation of the Soviet Union, only decorated with
Capitalism and Oligarchs." "I win!" Hm I hate to admit it, but Navalny's words actually have a
ring of truth to them, which is why, if they were to come out of the mouth of a real
freedom-fighter, then they might bear some weight.
But you know what people say: If you want to sell a lie, then you have to sprinkle it with
truth.
Everybody who has studied Navalny and Navalniada, know what is actually going on here:
Navalny and his neo-Liberal kreakle supporters represent that class of bourgeois intelligentsia
who came along maybe 5 or 10 years too late to participate in the Yeltsinite plundering of the
Russian people.
They regret this, and wish for an opportunity to make their own fortunes, on the backs of
said Russian people.
They are only millionaires now, but they want to be billionaires. [yalensis: Although
some evil tongues claim that Navalny has actually lost his fortune somehow and is fleeing from
his creditors; hence the current crisis.] Putin stands in the way of the kreakles because he
(and his caste of functionaries) have somewhat curbed the openly pirate proclivities of the
Russian bourgeoisie; partially nationalized them, made them go to Church, and forced them to
follow certain rules.
This is what drives Navalny and his ilk crazy. They want it all, and they want it now!
Putin, for his part, in his endless balancing act, trying to maintain two incompatible things,
as Pushkin might have said (=capitalism and Russian patriotism) has scrambled to win the
support of the patriotic bourgeoisie and the clergy, the two pillars of the Lost Russia he
strives to re-build.
Navalny again:
"A part of society repeats Putin's rhetoric about how the country needs to follow its own
path. They are talking about restoring a kind of monarchy, based on certain spiritual values.
And against them stand such people as myself, who consider this to be a lie and hypocrisy, and
who are convinced that Russia must develop only according to the European model."
Ah, Navalny! You had me at "monarchy" but lost me at "European model" – you wretch!
"It's curtains for you, buster!"
Akopov, it goes without saying, is one of those intellectuals whom Navalny despises as
supporting the "Putinite" model of Russian development: Rely on a strong Russian state (which
Navalny mockingly calls an "imitation of the USSR"), lean on the Church, develop one's own
geo-political vector, etc.
Navalny and his crowd regard these types as complete zombies, whose proposed model is
worthless.
But the only thing that Navalny counter-punts are equally worn-out ideas of what Lenin would
call "the highest stages of capitalism" and which would, in reality, demote Russia to the level
of an American colony.
Same as the rest of Europe! Akopov concedes, however, that Navalny's "vision", if one could
call it that, of a European Russia imbued with "democratic values" does, in fact, enjoy mass
support -- among the Muscovite intelligentsia.
This kreakle mass [Akopov does not say, but there are estimates that the Navalnyite program
enjoys as much as 30% support among the residents of Moscow, not so much in the rest of the
country] believe in exactly the same things that Navalny does.
And have been "fighting" for this program (in one way or another) for the past 30 years.
This section of the Russian bourgeois intelligentsia punts against Putin's "national
project" and now awaits eagerly for the return of their poisoned, and poisonous, hero. [THE
END]
Creacl (креакл) is the latest addition to a list
of existing euphemisms used to describe the phenomenon of a middle class in Russia. Other terms
include creative class , network hamster ( setevoi khomiak) , office
plankton(offisnyi plankton), moral elite (nravstvennaia elita).
The ironic term is an acronym of creative class
(креативный
класс) but also refers to Greek mythology: in Russian ,
creacl rhymes with Gerakl (Hercules). In one of its first appearances, the term was
used by levsharansky2, a popular LiveJournal blog (which is believed to be run by
pro-Kremlin bloggers) to describe the twelve labors of Creacl :
brainstorming in the hipsters' cafe Jean-Jacques ; attending gay pride parades; taming
lumpen supporters of the Putin regime; or purchasing a new i-Phone or i-Pad.
[1]
If we look at the methods of creating humor in Russian satire, it often depends on the
incongruity of applying a lofty style to describing a routine, e.g. Est' mnenie, chto nado
pomyt' posudu (There is an opinion that you need to do the dishes). Here the jargon of the
Soviet partocracy and propaganda is applied to a household chore thereby producing an ironic
effect. Similarly, the term creacl appeared at the time when the definition creative
class became a cliché overused in political polemics, while an unexpected
connotation of grandeur, encrypted in the word form of creacl unmistakably brought about
a humorous effect and assigned new meanings to the definition.
The term took on popular use in January 2013 in connection with Aleksei Kabanov's criminal
case. Kabanov, a popular blogger and chef, was the co-founder of the Project O.G.I. (1998-2012)
literary cafes in downtown Moscow that gathered Russia's bohemians, prominent writers,
musicians, and humanities students. In January 2013, Aleksei Kabanov launched a Facebook
campaign amongst his 1500 friends to help him search for his wife, Irina Cherska, who,
according to him, went missing after a family quarrel. While volunteers and police searched for
the woman, Kabanov kept updating his Facebook account with emotional posts: "Irka still
missing" ("Irka ne nashlas'"). When investigators found body fragments of Cherska in a car that
Kabanov borrowed from a friend a few days later, he confessed to committing the murder. He
revealed that he strangled and then dismembered his wife, hoping to get rid of her body later.
Kabanov was detained and faces up to 15 years in jail for murder. Irina Cherska was 39, and the
mother of three young children.
Kabanov family' tragedy sparked a polemic about the controversial nature of the formation of
the Russian middle class casting doubt on the very possibility of its existence. In a
post that further promoted the usage of
the term creacl, Pavel Prianikov noted that the Kabanovs were seen by many as model
representatives of creative class : both were intellectuals, active participants in
anti-Kremlin protests, prolific bloggers, and emerging small business owners. However, as
Prianikov further suggested, what most people didn't see behind this façade, was a large
family with three kids who rented a small studio apartment in the suburbs, barely had any
income through scarce freelance journalist jobs, and went bankrupt in an attempt to open their
own restaurant in Moscow.
[2] The discussions surrounding Kabanov's crime centered on the deep sociocultural and
economic problems that impede the normal functioning of the "middle class" in Putin's Russia at
all levels, including property ownership, income, socioeconomic values, and stability. Many
Putin supporters gloated over the opposition revealing its real face (especially after the
protesters denounced the violence at the May 2012 Bolotnaya Square demonstrations, declaring
themselves a peaceful group). The Kabanov tragedy should be understood not as an insight into
the opposition, but as a structural absence of opportunities for a thriving middle class in
Russia.
The phonetics of the word creacl further emphasizes this idea: based on the satirical
device of the elevation of the low, the greatest irony of the term is that it might as well
reveal the nature of something that in fact never existed.
Class Issue and Creacls in Recent Russian Cinema
Paradoxical as it might seem, recent Russian cinema has not clearly revealed class
difference as a realistic aspect of Russian social fabric. Until recently (and especially in
the films released in 2011), the class issue was, at best, replaced with the idea of
generational conflict. Here the focus was either on a lost generation of those born in the
60s-70s and unable to adjust to a new social reality ( Gromozeka, 2011 ), or on
post-Soviet Russians born in a country that no longer exists, who are eternally nostalgic for
the totems of their youth, such as young pioneers, Moidodyr ( a magical creature from a
1923 Soviet poem by Kornei Chukovsky ) or medved'-kosmonavt (the Cosmounaut Bear)
( Chapiteau-Show, 2011 ).
When the issue of class difference finally began to appear in the films of 2011-12 --
Elena (2011), Kokoko (2012), Twilight Portrait (Portret v sumerkakh, 2011), The White Moor
(Belyi Mavr, 2012), Dukhless (2012), An Office Romance: Our Time (Sluzhebnyi roman: Nashe
Vremia, 2011) -- we can't help but notice that the representation of class in the majority
of these films was reduced to the depiction of either lumpens from the city outskirts or
the upper classes and minigarchs from the prestigious zones of the city. In the latter
case, the directors and producers appeared to unequivocally accept that this group of people
inhabiting Moscow's suburbs Rublevka and Zhukovka are numerous enough to represent a vast
social phenomenon of the upper class in Russia. This stands true even for the films with a
clearly articulated agenda of social awareness, such as Elena and Twilight
Portrait. What was obviously lacking in the films mentioned above was a representation of a
middle class: qualified specialists -- representatives of intellectual professions, or midlevel
managers and small business owners.
Creacl5.jpg Creacls of Kokoko at a political rally
Some serious reservations have been recently expressed by sociologists over the existence of
a middle class in Russia (Samson, Krasil'nikova 2012),
[3] who argue that generally accepted socioeconomic and ethical values of "middle class"
that correspond to Western understanding of the concept have not been formed in contemporary
Russia. The same hesitation is obvious in cinematic representations of the middle class. In
fact, many contemporary Russian films are dealing with comical re-enactments of multiple
euphemisms that exist in the rhetoric of the state today to describe the Russian middle class
: creacls, office plankton, network hamsters, creatiff, etc. We may take a look at the
entire gallery of cartoonish creacls presented in the symposium films to get this
message: the inert, inactive, and almost extinct intelligentsia of Kokoko;
representatives of the opposition or rather a group of idiots without a single clearly
articulated political message in Dukhless; or the faceless office plankton floating in
the background in An Office Romance: Our Time. Most of these films about the
contemporary "middle class" share the narrative structure of a collage of loosely connected
stories, e.g. Short Stories ( Rasskazy , 2012 ), Gromozeka, Chapiteau Show
. Contrary to the Russian tradition of favoring longer narrative forms, such collage stylistics
might also point to the fact that Russia lacks sufficient economic and socio-political grounds
for singling out a unified group with an established collective identity that could be called
"middle class."
Generation P (2011) poignantly captures the lost optimism of the 90s, when the
formation of middle class not only seemed a viable possibility for the Russian intelligentsia,
but also a driving force behind social, economic and cultural transformations in post-Soviet
Russia. "Kreatorom, eto tvortsom, esli perevesti?" asks Vladelen Tatarsky, the main protagonist
of Generation P, his potential employer at the advertising agency. "Tvortsy nam zdes' na
khui ne nuzhny! Kreatorom, Vovan, Kreatorom!" answers the agency director. The post-Soviet
Russian intelligentsia aspired to create something significant and eternal, but instead
were reduced to advertising canned pickles. The sad truth is that the contemporary creative
class haven't given up on these aspirations and are still trying really hard to bring social
and political changes to their country, however their prospects for democratic change become
more and more doomed.
US regime in this last forty years since the Iranian revolution has been totally
successful making majority Iranian people anywhere in the world understand that the US is
their chronic strategic enemy for decades to come, in mean time, US regime has been equally
as successful in making American people believe Iran is their enemy.
The difference between the two sides belief is, Iranian people by experiencing US regime'
conducts came to their belief, but the American people' belief was made by their own regime'
propaganda machinery. For this reason just like the people to people relation between the US
and Russian people Before and after the fall of USSR the relation between US and Iran in next
few generations will not come or even develop to anything substantial or meaningful. One can
see this same trajectory in US Chinese relations, or US Cuban. Noticeably all these countries
relation with US become terminally irreparable after their revolutions, regardless of
maturity or termination of their revolution.
As much as US loves color revolutions, US hates real revolutions.
Deeper down the rabbit hole of US-backed color revolutions.
Believe it or not, the US State Department's mission statement actually says the following:
"Advance freedom for the benefit of the American people and the international community
by helping to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and prosperous world composed of
well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty,
and act responsibly within the international system."
A far and treasonous cry from
the original purpose of the State Department - which was to maintain communications and
formal relations with foreign countries - and a radical departure from historical norms that
have defined foreign ministries throughout the world, it could just as well now be called the
"Department of Imperial Expansion." Because indeed, that is its primary purpose now, the
expansion of Anglo-American corporate hegemony worldwide under the guise of "democracy" and
"human rights."
That a US government department should state its goal as to build a world of "well-governed
states" within the "international system" betrays not only America's sovereignty but the
sovereignty of all nations entangled by this offensive mission statement and its
execution.
Image : While the US State Department's mission statement sounds benign
or even progressive, when the term "international system" or "world order" is used, it is
referring to a concept commonly referred to by the actual policy makers that hand politicians
their talking points, that involves modern day empire. Kagan's quote came from a 1997 policy
paper describing a policy to contain China with.
....
The illegitimacy of the current US State Department fits in well with the overall
Constitution-circumventing empire that the American Republic has degenerated into. The current
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, gives a daily affirmation of this illegitimacy every time
she bellies up to the podium to make a statement.
Recently she issued a
dangerously irresponsible "warning" to Venezuela and Bolivia regarding their stately
relations with Iran. While America has the right to mediate its own associations with foreign
nations, one is confounded trying to understand what gives America the right to dictate such
associations to other sovereign nations. Of course, the self-declared imperial mandate the US
State Department bestowed upon itself brings such "warnings" into perspective with the
realization that the globalists view no nation as sovereign and all nations beholden to their
unipolar "international system."
It's hard to deny the US State Department is not behind the "color revolutions" sweeping
the world when the Secretary of State herself phones in during the youth movement confabs her department
sponsors on a yearly
basis.
If only the US State Department's meddling was confined to hubris-filled
statements given behind podiums attempting to fulfill outlandish mission statements, we could
all rest easier. However, the US State Department actively bolsters its meddling rhetoric with
very real measures. The centerpiece of this meddling is the vast and ever-expanding network
being built to recruit, train, and support various "color revolutions" worldwide. While the
corporate owned media attempts to portray the various revolutions consuming Eastern Europe,
Southeast Asia, and now Northern Africa and the Middle East as indigenous, spontaneous, and
organic, the reality is that these protesters represent what may be considered a "fifth-branch"
of US power projection.
CANVAS :
Freedom House, IRI, Soros funded Serbian color revolution college behind the Orange, Rose,
Tunisian, Burmese, and Egyptian protests and has trained protesters from 50 other
countries.
As with the army and CIA that fulfilled this role before, the US State
Department's "fifth-branch" runs a recruiting and coordinating center known as the Alliance of
Youth Movements (AYM). Hardly a secretive operation, its website, Movements.org proudly lists the details of its
annual summits which began in 2008 and featured astro-turf cannon fodder from Venezuela to
Iran, and even the April 6 Youth Movement from Egypt.
The summits, activities, and coordination AYM provides is but a nexus.
As previously
noted , these organizations are now retroactively trying to obfuscate their connections to
the State Department and the Fortune 500 corporations that use them to achieve their goals of
expansion overseas. CANVAS has renamed and moved their list of supporters and partners while
AYM has oafishly changed their "partnerships" to "past partnerships."
Before & After: Oafish attempts to downplay US State Department's extra-legal
meddling and subterfuge in foreign affairs. Other attempts are covered
here .
It should be noted that while George Soros is portrayed as being "left," and the overall
function of these pro-democracy, pro-human rights organizations appears to be "left-leaning," a
vast number of
notorious "Neo-Cons" also constitute the commanding ranks and determine the overall agenda
of this color revolution army.
Then there are legislative acts of Congress that overtly fund the subversive objectives of
the US State Department. In support of regime change in Iran, the Iran Freedom and Support
Act was passed in 2006. More recently in 2011, to see the US-staged color revolution in
Egypt through to the end, money was appropriated to
"support" favored Egyptian opposition groups ahead of national elections.
Then of course there is the State Department's propaganda machines. While organizations like
NED and Freedom House produce volumes of talking points in support for their various on-going
operations, the specific outlets currently used by the State Department fall under the
Broadcasting Board of
Governors (BBG). They include Voice of America , Radio Free
Europe , Radio Free Asia ,
Alhurra , and Radio Sawa . Interestingly enough,
the current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
sits on the board of governors herself, along side a shameful collection of representatives
from the Fortune 500, the corporate owned media, and various agencies within the US
government.
Hillary Clinton: color revolutionary field marshal & propagandist,
two current roles that defy her duties as Secretary of State in any
rational sense or interpretation.
Getting back to Hillary Clinton's illegitimate threat regarding Venezuela's associations
with Iran, no one should be surprised to find out an extensive effort to foment a color
revolution to oust Hugo Chavez has been long underway by AYM, Freedom House, NED, and the rest
of this "fifth-branch" of globalist power projection. In fact, Hugo Chavez had already
weathered an attempted military coup overtly orchestrated by the United States under Bush in
2002.
http://www.youtube.com/embed/Id--ZFtjR5c
Upon digging into the characters behind Chavez' ousting in 2002, it
appears that this documentary sorely understates US involvement.
The same forces of corporatism, privatization, and free-trade that led the 2002
coup against Chavez are trying to gain ground once again. Under the leadership of Harvard
trained globalist minion
Leopoldo Lopez , witless youth are taking the place of 2002's generals and tank columns in
an attempt to match globalist minion Mohamed
ElBaradei's success in Egypt .
Unsurprisingly, the US State Department's AYM is pro-Venezuelan opposition, and describes
in great detail their campaign to "educate" the youth and get them politically active.
Dismayed by Chavez' moves to consolidate his power and strangely repulsed by his "rule by
decree," -something that Washington itself has set the standard for- AYM laments
over the difficulties their meddling "civil society" faces.
Chavez' government recognized the US State Department's meddling recently in regards to a
student hunger strike and the US's insistence that the Inter-American Human Rights
Commission be allowed to "inspect" alleged violations under the Chavez government. Venezuelan
Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro even went as far as saying, "It looks like they (U.S.)
want to start a virtual Egypt."
The "Fifth-Branch" Invasion: Click for larger image.
Understanding this "fifth-branch" invasion of astro-turf cannon fodder and the role it is
playing in overturning foreign governments and despoiling nation sovereignty on a global scale
is an essential step in ceasing the Anglo-American imperial machine. And of course, as always,
boycotting and replacing
the corporations behind the creation and expansion of these color-revolutions hinders not only
the spread of their empire overseas, but releases the stranglehold of dominion they possess at
home in the United States. Perhaps then the US State Department can once again go back to
representing the American Republic and its people to the rest of the world as a responsible
nation that respects real human rights and sovereignty both at home and abroad.
Editor's Note: This article has been edited and updated October 26, 2012.
" And I cannot forget that when David Cameron's government was so schoolboyishly
eager to give support to the rebels attacking the tyranny of Syria's President Assad, a
very senior British soldier friend said to me: 'This is the first time in my career that I
think the Russians have a point. They keep waggling their fingers and saying to us "be
careful what you wish for". They believe the anti-Assad jihadis represent a threat to us
all, and they may be right' .
Professor Sir Michael Howard, Britain's most distinguished historian and strategist,
now 92, lamented to me last month the tottering, if not collapse, of every pillar that has
supported international order through his lifetime. By that he means the UN, Nato and a
strong America . "
Actually, I am in perfect sympathy with Michael Howard, bless the old codger. I too lament
the collapse of every pillar of an international order that served us well at least part of
the time over the most recent decades.
The crisis in Ukraine marks the end of even the pretense that international law is
anything other than a tool of the western powers – they made it, they staff it and they
disobey it when they deem it is important enough.
Oh, they will cover themselves in sackcloth and ashes after their victory and say how
sorry they are, blame it on Russia and try to recover and go back to the way things were, but
the day when you could pull that off is gone because of instantaneous reporting around the
world, and it's harder for a prefabricated cover story to hold up.
Most people who are paying attention at all know we now live under the law of the gun,
and might makes right, and the western alliance will wipe its ass on every principle it
espouses if it means that's what it must do to maintain its bankster corporate empire. Those
who are content with the extension of this world order are lulled by the promise of the
national dream.
What we are seeing In the Middle East, courtesy of ISIS or IS is an enacting of the Yinon
Plan, originally published in the early 1980's. This proposed that Israel needed to
'reconfigure' its regional 'architecture' by breaking up neighbouring Arab countries into
smaller statelets predicated upon ethnicity. US neocon thinking coincided with this in 'Clean
Break' and 'Project for the New American Century'.
The destruction of existing states was key – mini ethnic statelets would find it
much harder to defend their resources against predatory outsiders and, Israel, by virtue of
their existence, would no longer be unique as a state predicated on ethnicity but as one such
state amongst a number and, because of its overwhelming military force, would be the numero uno
in the region.
Now we have some new Islamic kids on the block who're achieving exactly what Israel and a
certain strand of US foreign policy has long held as a strategic goal for the Middle East.
Which probably leads most thinking people – and I'd include Hastings here who must know
the history – to realise that the ISIS/IS story is suspect. So I'd say his job is to
direct attention elsewhere – 'we' need to ramp up the army, rally for a 'strong' and
'confident' America etc.
Truth be told: political operatives own and run our MSM. This is why the press is called
the 'Fourth Estate'.
They are more correctly described as a Fifth Column , one far more open and sworn to
destroy our country and its foundational citizens – and taxpayers – as any that
ever operated during World War II. You would think this would be of vital interest to people
who loudly declare themselves to be "Nazi-punchers", but who time and again show themselves to
be merely low-level street terrorists informed and inspired by Mao's Red Guard and the
irredeemable thugs of the African National Congress.
One wonders what's preventing them from
mimicking the Red Terror waged by the leftists of Spain, when the battle for "freedom" involved
the disinterment of the graves of Catholic clergy to better pose the corpses in blasphemous
positions. Imagine how depraved those Mostly Peaceful protesters had to have been for even a
leftist-supporting site such as Wikipedia to baldly state
The violence consisted of the killing of tens of thousands of people (including 6,832
Roman Catholic priests, the vast majority in the summer of 1936 in the wake of the military
coup), attacks on the Spanish nobility, industrialists, and conservative politicians, as well
as the desecration and burning of monasteries and churches.
Directly in the crosshairs this time are small and medium-sized owner-operated businesses
– the true backbone of American freedom and prosperity – who have largely been
sacrificed in exchange for the knock-kneed offerings of Danegeld from our giant conglomerates,
all of whom have prospered immensely from the suffering and privation brought on by the
Democratic lockdown of society – and the total shutdown of our economy.
Think! – have you read a single article charting how the government war on small
business directly enriched Amazon.com and
world's richest autocrat, Jeff Bezos? . who then funnels his windfall into a newspaper that
blatantly pimps for the Democratic Party, which translates into a vast payday for the DNC, not
least from its newly-approved partnership with the shadowy and many-tentacled Soros-surrogate
group, BLM?
The result is what you'd expect when a fringe group operates with the full cooperation and
partnership of major industry and both political parties (don't confuse Trump with a
standard-issue Republican, please – he may have terrible flaws, but that isn't one of
them) – 10% of the population holding the other 90% in a chokehold with only one set of
rules: no arrest and prosecution for Bolshevik violence and terror ..but the zero-tolerance
heavy hand of corrupt Leviathan coming down hard against any and all citizens who fight back
or, eventually – inevitably – who even struggle against their restraints.
Short of the sudden arrival of celestial horsemen to punish the guilty and reward the
set-upon, it has become clear that the only answer is the one that the Powers That Be claim to
be dead set against: racial separatism. (Particularly when we consider that all that will be
necessary to turn America into Hell on earth will be the adoption of Ibram Kendi's First Law,
sometimes known as equality of outcome :
To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the
U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is
evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals.
Could any "amendment" be more terrifyingly totalitarian than this?)
White and black separation would, instead, accomplish two goals, both more important than
Kendi's quick fix: we would learn soon enough about actual equality of outcomes (which
is why no Communist, black or white, wants anything to do with the creation of one more failed
basket-case black state), and much more importantly, white families can sleep secure in their
beds at night, without worrying about Apache raids at midnight, egged on and recorded for
"posterity" by that Fourth Estate/Fifth Column referred to up top. Because the fact of the
matter is that, even should some combination of government and law-enforcement halt the burning
and looting of America – as things stand now, none of the worst malefactors will ever see
the inside of a prison cell .which means any ceasefire will only be temporary, to be violently
ripped asunder the moment they sense white Americans have at last lowered their guard once
more. And living in perpetual paranoid readiness for violent uprisings and mindless destruction
is no way to live at all.
Trump has it half right, a border wall is the answer: only it needs to run
lengthwise , between the Southern and Northern borders. If we don't use the next four
years to plan out such a separation, fretting over our children's children will be a fruitless
exercise – those who aren't murdered will be captured and 'go native' .and in case you
haven't looked at a globe lately, there's no place left to run.
As a recovering journalist, I can point out that even on a rinkydink rag in a small city,
where I got fired for being a real journalist back in the early '70's; he who owns the
presses and distribution networks calls the tune. It's a matter of working-class (no matter
how middle-class your income or social-status) versus the ownership class. The latter wins
every time.
By now, readers are no doubt familiar with the sight of angry mobs smashing windows, looting
stores, and harassing pedestrians and street diners around the country , supposedly in the name
of advocating for the rights of black Americans. Around the country, these mobs are diverse and
have diverse motives, ranging from simply wanting to loot and get free stuff to being driven by
deeply held ideological beliefs. However, one can't help but notice that in many places a
significant number of those causing disturbances are not the subjects of the state oppression
in question, but are often white and sometimes even affluent, and as a result are almost
completely isolated from the consequences of their destructive sprees.
Portland, site of over a hundred straight days of protests and often violent rioting, seems
like the poster child for this phenomenon. Portland is, in fact, the whitest big city in the US.
In New York City, the Daily Mail
reported on the recent arrest of seven members of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, a
revolutionary Maoist group, after a rioting spree that caused at least $100,000 in damages.
Every one of them appears to be white from their mugshots , and among them are an art director
who has done work for Pepsi and Samsung, a model and actress, and the son of famous comic book
writers. The New York Post profiled one
rioter, twenty-year-old Clara Kraebber, and discovered that her mother runs her own
architecture firm and her father is a psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University. The
family paid $1.8 million in 2016 for their New York City apartment and also own a home in
Connecticut with four fireplaces.
Or consider Vicky Osterweil, the white author of the much-discussed book In Defense of
Looting , who is also the daughter of a college professor. As Matt Taibbi reports in his review of the
book, "there's little evidence the author of In Defense of Looting has ever been outside" and
"she confesses to a 'personal aversion to violence,' lamenting a 'refusal to attack property'
that 'does not lessen the degree to which I benefit from systems of domination.'" In Taibbi's
words "this is a 288-page book written by a Very Online Person in support of the idea that
other people should loot, riot, and burn things in the real world."
Rioting by the affluent is not limited to white people either. Consider the
case of the two nonwhite attorneys, one of whom received his law degree at Princeton, whose
arrest for throwing a molotov cocktail at a riot in New York City made the headlines precisely
because of their high-status, well-paying jobs.
What all of these examples have in common is that the rioting and destruction, or advocacy
for the same, is being perpetrated by people who have no skin in the game and will not be
exposed to the long-term consequences for the people and communities that they are ostensibly
trying to help. Neighborhoods that suffer through riots often
end up economically depressed for decades to come, but people like Clara Kraebber will not
have to worry about such things.
In the last century, there has been a great deal of scholarship attempting to discover the
roots of these kinds of widespread revolutionary movements. In Liberalism , Mises discusses the
idea of a Fourier complex, where antiliberal revolutionary ideas are adopted by people as a
means of dealing with their own inadequacy in the face of reality. Political theorist Eric
Voegelin (who attended Mises's Vienna seminars) also posits a similar, though more complex,
explanation with his theory of gnosticism.
The classically liberal sociologist Helmut Schoeck also makes a similar argument in his book
Envy . Envy, Schoeck
argues, stems from an individual's reaction to a personal inadequacy and a desire to find a way
to shift the blame to anyone or anything other than himself. Like Mises and Voegelin, Schoeck
explores the ways in which this attitude is detrimental to society, but he also explores why
some people engaged in revolutionary movements are themselves well off and not members of the
toiling masses they seek to "liberate."
In these cases Schoeck argues that such people are not afflicted with envy, but rather with
a fear of envy or the guilt of being unequal. He argues that "the guilt-tinged fear of being
thought unequal is very deeply ingrained in the human psyche," and that it can be observed
everywhere from offices to schools in the way in which people who excel at something will
consciously or unconsciously lower their performance. This phenomenon is unfortunate enough
when it comes to the workplace, but when it comes to politics the consequences can be much more
serious.
Schoeck argues that such guilt may lead a person to forgo their old life in order to serve
the less fortunate but that many times such a person does not seek to extirpate their guilt by
leaving their own comfortable station, but rather by insisting that the entire world must join
them in eradicating inequality. In his words "I have no doubt that one of the most important
motives for joining an egalitarian political movement is this anxious sense of guilt: 'Let us
set up a society where no one is envious.'"
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No doubt even Schoeck would be impressed by the degree to which our current upheavals are
driven by those wracked with the guilt of being unequal rather than those filled with envy
itself. To be sure, there is no shortage of such envious people running around these days, but
there can be no doubt about which group is the driving force.
Hopefully, as social life slowly returns to normal and as the weather gets colder, the
guilt-ridden rich kids will tire out from playacting as revolutionaries and return home. But
until then, it seems that the rest of us will be forced to suffer as they work out their
psychological problems through some window-smashing therapy.
DEDA CVETKO , 2 hours ago
Just a friendly reminder to the author of the article:
Some of the most vicious and violent revolutionaries throughout human history were the
scions of aristocracy or descendants of extremely rich and affluent families: Jean-Paul
Marat, Girolamo Savonarola, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Simon Bolivar, Fidel Castro, Sun Yat-Sen,
Che Guevara, Louis Auguste Blanqui, Oliver Cromwell, Friedrich Engels, etc, etc....all
either came from the very rich family background or descended from the blue-bloods and
nobility. Mao Zedong's father was one of the richest farmers in all of China, just as
Trotsky's dad was one of the richest farmers in Russian Ukraine. Mohandas Gandhi was a
brahmin. Count Mirabeau was a, well...count. Ataturk's father was one of the richest people
in Salonica, Greece. Louis Philippe II - who sided with Robespierre - was of the royal
blood, the first cousin of Louis XVI whose trial and execution he personally endorsed and
supported. And, oh....lest I forget...Nelson Mandela was no slouch in the class pedigree
department, either.
I could go on forever and ever.
In fact, impoverished and pauperized revolutionaries were always but a tiny subset of
the revolutionary class. People like Stalin, Gramsci or Tito were always an aberrant group,
an exception to the general rule.
One can probably write a very thick tome about the rich and aristocratic abandoning
their social stratus in order to side with the dispossessed and disenfranchised. This is
far from being a new and heretofore unknown phenomenon.
I am leaving it to the historians and political psychologists to explain why this is so.
Personally, I think that the inherent cynicism and hypocrisy of their own families is a
perfectly good reason to switch sides. Another possible reason is that the poor and hungry
people are typically too busy surviving and feeding themselves to be organizing violent
overthrow of the ruling class.
truth hound , 1 hour ago
They are knowingly in on the psyop. By DECEPTION, though shalt do war.
DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago
Possibly some but definitely not all. It would require a much more detailed
psychological profile to figure out what went on in these people's heads. I myself am just
visiting this cluster**** of galaxies, what the fvck do I know about how and why the humans
behave?
Blue_Rock , 1 hour ago
A very good post. I will add anger and rebellion by the youths. The realization that
they somehow don't measure up and that they might not be able to use that gender studies
lesbian basket weaving diploma to get ahead. I have personally seen more than one inherited
fortune lost and business run into the ground by spoiled entitled heirs.
DEDA CVETKO , 1 hour ago
I have personally seen more than one inherited fortune lost and business run into the
ground by spoiled entitled heirs.
This is the Law of Entropy on display: each subsequent iteration is only a paler and
paler version of the preceding one. This is why the caste and class-based societies can't
endure forever: the forces and ideas that guide them simply aren't genetically suited to
perpetuate themselves in their original, integral form. Sooner or later, the integrity of
the founding father(s) dissipates into degeneration and devolution.
algol_dog , 2 hours ago
An interesting note to history. The initiators of these movements are the first to go
once the new regime takes over. Once the new leaders get in charge they realize the danger
of having them around and quickly dispense with them. Examples being the Stalin purges and
Hitler's breaking of the SA.
Utopia Planitia , 2 hours ago
"What's With The Rich-Kid Revolutionaries?"
Safe spaces, exclusively female teachers, participation trophies, no siblings (nobody to
kick you in the face growing up when you are being an asswipe), never a harsh word, no
discipline, constantly being told you are "special", etc. etc. That's just a start.
not dead yet , 1 hour ago
Long before there were the things you mentioned there were rich kids doing rioting and
looting. Back in the sixties it was rich kids made to feel guilty about being rich by their
commie professors. Came from good families with a decent upbringing gone bad by propaganda.
Same kids would go home during breaks and argue with their families how they made their
money off the backs of the workers. Typical commie stuff. Unlike today back then they made
bombs and blew stuff up killing people with many of the bomb makers rich kids. Robberies
for the cause. The parents of the slimy San Francisco DA are serving life for killing a
guard while robbing an armored car. Idiot was then raised by Bill Ayers after his parents
were arrested.
motley331 , 3 hours ago
ALL of these people are useful idiots for the likes of Soros...
truthseeker47 , 1 hour ago
Leader of the violent Weather Underground and self-described communist revolutionary
Bill Ayers came from a very upper class suburban Chicago family.
Ignant Bastad , 1 hour ago
neglected and unloved as a child, so he spends his life "getting back at" his parents?
just a guess.
PGR88 , 2 hours ago
More importantly, those rich white kids out there burning 7-11s downtown are displaying
yet more entitlement. They've never faced consequences their whole life. Imagine if some
counter-protestor swung a bat at them, or small businessman defending his property shot
them? It would be an quick education in consequences.
play_arrow
Arctic_Fox , 1 hour ago
When they don't get shot, it's another manifestation of their white-assed privilege.
Plus, Progressive mayors tell the cops not to play hardball with the rioters, and even
if a few get busted the Soros-backed DA drops charges. Then if it does go to court, some
faculty lounge kook is on the bench as judge, and there are OJ juries to nullify the
prosecution... so they walk.
Privilege from start to finish...
Kind of makes you wonder why we even bother with this government-thing.
hoffstetter , 2 hours ago
People learn from their friends. I know tech millionaires that don't have a clue about
what's going on outside their own circle jerk echo chamber of "friends" that repeat leftist
talking points as if they were Catholics reciting the rosary. Occasionally, I get one to
admit that the stuff they're spouting is completely unsupported after tossing them a few
videos or transcripts that contradict what they thought was reality, but they just find
something else to which they can redirect that is completely unsupported and irrefutable as
it's nonexistent. These aren't kids. They've been around for decades but never left their
cubicles or their monitors and were extremely competent in their jobs, so now they think
they know everything because they knew one thing. It's extremely common.
hmmmm , 2 hours ago
Maslow's hierarchy of needs explains why a disproportionate amount of shallow thinking
rich kids are involved in such causes. Regular folks are not focused on self
actualization.
charlie_don't_surf , 2 hours ago
They are unaccomplished jealous little a-holes that can only tear down others to pretend
to elevate themselves.
Why123 , 2 hours ago
Alexis De Tocqueville analyzed the United States in the early 19th century, before
Germany was a country under the Kaisers. He predicted that the United States and Russia
would be the world's superpowers in the 20th century. With respect to the United States, he
predicted that we would be a preeminent superpower because 1) we didn't have permanent
concentrations of wealth (for example, if a rich guy had six kids, his plantation would be
evenly distributed in at least two generations) and 2) we focused exclusively on practical
education, not the theoretical ******** that dominated European academia, and which could
only benefit the aristocracy and absurdly intelligent proles (think Euclid or Gauss). With
respect to both Russia and the United States, he saw that both populations had the capacity
to sacrifice and overcome adversity (although different types of adversity). Those
advantages have been eviscerated. We don't focus on practical education. We have permanent,
feudal levels, of wealth, and the population has no will to sacrifice. The university
system and institutionalization of the United States was fundamental towards achieving
those aims.
It comes down to the needs of every human being, rich or poor, to feel achievement and
the specific needs of the rich. These kids have real money because they own assets that
replicate more money, without work. I won't get into tax, trade and immigration policies
that take an already advantageous position enjoyed by these pricks to the next level of
oligarchy. But that isn't enough. You have to impose your value system and "skills" as the
objective value system. You see, these kids want the advantage of the wealth, but they want
to demolish the path to achieving wealth by others. The university system has to be the
ONLY functioning economic path. What would happen if kids knew from a young age that the
name of the game is to save and acquire asserts, and all other pursuits are meaningless? Do
you think we would have a student loan problem? Do you think we would have an inequality
problem? The answer is a resounding "no." The education system is designed to destroy. It
blinds you to this indisputable truth. There are people who see through the BS though (more
on this later). As long as there is some freedom, these problem will rise up the dominance
hierarchy. These rich kids don't like that. These rich kids and their academic professors
deeply resent that. This is why they have to tear down the system. Their privilege will be
preserved, but the rest of the population will be enslaved. If they have their way, every
single young person in the United Stares will have the "benefit" of attending university
and having a "fulfilling career." Well have people in school until their thirties, learning
useless crap, and in permanent debt bondage. This cements the rich kids' status,
Anecdotally, I was speaking to friends from high school. Most of us are professionals.
Some work in law enforcement, some work as engineers, some as lawyers, a few unionized
tradespeople and one doctor. The unionized trades people blow all of us out of the water,
but that's not the startling thing. One of our friends went straight to work at 16. He's
not even a real "tradesman." His father, mother, three sister and himself worked three jobs
and saved aggressively. They bought a first multifamily in 2005. They now have 70
buildings. The first building, as my one friend put it, "caused a snowballs effect." That's
the American way. That's the American dream. The American dream is not going to school
until you are in your fu**** late twenties or mid thirties to go churn and burn on a W-2.
For the prick with an inheritance, that may be useful because he or she has wealth, and he
or she can, especially in light of Boomer cultural norms, pretend that the source of wealth
is the education, but deep inside they know the truth, and they resent the system because
it still allows it and a small number of people manage to rise as a result. These people
are at the top of the food chain. This offends these rich university assholes.
I chuckled when my friend who works for Homeland Security (Democrat) and my friend who
works as an engineer for the Defense Industry (Republican) both stated "why didn't they
teach us that in school?" Rofl. The point of the schools is that so you don't know the
source of success. The point of school is to cement the rich kids advantage and destroy
you. This causes a dual resentment: the poor kids feel resentment because they see they
were sold a bag of goods and the rich kid feels resentment because he or she can't pretend
the success is self induced.
I'll leave everyone with this: Donald Trump was called a racist, rapist, crook, liar,
etc by Clinton in the 2016 campaign. That didn't bother him. The only thing that got him
angry, ever, was when Clinton said he inherited money, which was the only thing that was
true.
Dying-Of-The-Light , 2 hours ago
Kind of ironic that you have the thick-as-shxt, criminal end of blacks who want lots of
bling without working for it, marching with middle class whites who have all the toys these
blacks want. A real match made in hell. The sooner these black and white retards are given
long prison sentences the better.
createnewaccount , 2 hours ago
Ironic? Maybe for the moment but watch this space, I expect the old Minsky quote also
applies to the body politic.
" stability breeds instability "
-Hyman Minsky
Eastern Whale , 2 hours ago
The US government especially Trump, Pompeo and Nancy Pelosi seem to like the "peaceful"
violence in Hong Kong. Nancy Pelosi even coined it a ""a beautiful sight to behold".
What goes around comes around, beware of what you are promoting overseas. Violence and
War all in the name of WMD, Democracy and National Security.
Herodotus , 3 hours ago
Same thing was going on in 1968.
Also, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were rich kid revolutionaries.
fackbankz , 3 hours ago
George Washington was not from a particularly rich family. Jefferson was though.
Jack's Raging Bile Duct , 1 hour ago
It's pretty simple. Rich kids are idle, don't understand the value of anything, and
commonly lazy. This is fertile ground for half-baked ideologies that run h
awesomepic4u , 3 hours ago
Revolutionary leftism is
contemporary Western society's operating definition of nobility and heroism. Social elites
have always justified themselves as being the people who fully live up to the ideal, and
their young men in particular are supposed to earn their aristocratic honors by being the
ones who run towards both good and evil rather than shrinking from them. Violence gets
justified as being the ultimate test of personal commitment to an ideal, and it's a short
road from there to arguing that violence must therefore be virtuous in itself.
If these kids feel guilty of anything, they feel guilty of sitting in classrooms and
offices rather than exercising their powers to the fullest. A moral crusade with lots of
opportunities for adrenaline-soaked adventure is an irresistible temptation.
Cheap Chinese Crap , 1 hour ago
I forget the exact context but I remember the story about an American couple who
wondered if they should send their kids to an American or British university.
"That depends," their British friend replied,"on whether you want them back as radicals
or homosexuals."
Now you get both.
sbin , 2 hours ago
Would be fun to move those BLM white tards to the real black neighborhoods.
Would produce a lot of racists.
My black friends do not want to live in a black majority neighborhood.
y_arrow
stinkypinky , 3 hours ago
Abused and angry children, lashing out at "the system" around them, being used by true
revolutionaries (Marxists). The abuse angle is key - they want all vestiges of "the power
structure" around them to be torn down, to get back at it all. Racism doesn't matter,
sexism doesn't matter, none of these causes are actually cared about one iota. They would
riot because it's Tuesday and 60 degrees outside as long as someone had a bullhorn, an
umbrella and a brick. It certainly helps that racism is a thought crime you can accuse
ANYONE OF, and it's been so loaded with meaning that it's a devastating attack of character
which can't be defended against.
Bottom line: to understand why these rich kids are rioting look to how they've been
abused.
4Y_LURKER , 2 hours ago
Yeah they are in reality human shields for the corporate apparently communist coup which
is ongoing.
1Y4NixfGQ4MbMO4f , 3 hours ago
I think they are called "Useful idiots" or more descriptive would be "Disposable
Idiots"
GRDguy , 29 seconds ago
Another generation of sociopaths, born to and indoctrined by sociopathic parents.
"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime," and a great number of victims.
smacker , 9 minutes ago
I believe there's a long history of rich kids being involved in revolutionary
conduct.
They are invariably brought up in the shadow of dominating strict rich white parents and
get to
an age where they want to cut out their own slice of life to establish themselves as
independent
individuals, not clones. Adopting political extremes and crime is an easy way to do
that.
Angular Momentum , 48 minutes ago
The industrial revolution has made life safe bland and comfortable for the middle class.
It's easy to be moral when life is easy. In rough dangerous times and places living a life
of integrity was a challenge and those who did it earned respect. But how can you be a hero
in Suburbia? By heroically challenging common sense. The stupider the cause the harder it
is to accept its ideas and thus the more heroic.
fcd443 , 58 minutes ago
Because these dipsh!ts didn't create their own wealth and they feel bad for all of their
parents/generational wealth. They don't know the first thing when it comes to creating
something and coming from nothing.
They want to feel as relevant as their priors so they do what they know best, throw a
tantrum. In this case, it's called a peaceful protest aka black lives matter.
LeftandRightareWrong , 1 hour ago
Many people just want to be relevant. Why do sites like Facebook work?
Psychological, psychiatric pandemic in full force.
darkstar7646 , 2 hours ago
Couple of ideas:
They know the game is over and that they will "fail" to live up to the legacy of
their parents, costing their families everything in the process (which see the scam
college-admissions scandals).
They are trying to provoke a reaction among the White Right Militias ( agent
provocateurs ).
They feel they can get away with anything and are actually acti
Linda Hand , 3 hours ago
The education system is infested with communists.
DancingDragon , 3 hours ago
You mean the democrat party and their MSM sycophants
Ominous stuff indeed. For readers who wish to read further, please consult
the full Politico piece from which we have excerpted the above highlighted passages. There
is also a fascinating documentary on Sharp instructively titled "
How to Start a Revolution ."
This is all interesting and disturbing, to say the least. In its own right it would suggest
a compelling nexus point between the operations run against Trump and the Color Revolution
playbook. But what does this have to do with our subject Norm Eisen? It just so happens that
Eisen explicitly places himself in the tradition of Gene Sharp, acknowledging his book "The
Playbook" as a kind of update to Sharp's seminal "Dictatorship to Democracy."
And there we have it, folks -- Norm Eisen, former Obama Ethics Czar, Ambassador to
Czechoslovakia during the "Velvet Revolution," key counsel in impeachment effort against Trump,
and participant in the ostensibly bi-partisan election war games predicting a contested
election scenario unfavorable to Trump -- just happens to be a Color Revolution expert who
literally wrote the modern "Playbook" in the explicitly acknowledged tradition of Color
Revolution Godfather Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy."
Before we turn to the contents of Norm Eisen's Color Revolution manual, full title "The
Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding," it will be useful to make
a brief point regarding the term "democracy" itself, which happens to appear in the title of
Gene Sharp's book "From Dictatorship to Democracy" as well.
Just like the term "peaceful protestor," which, as we pointed out in our George Kent essay
is used as a term of craft in the Color Revolution context, so is the term "democracy" itself.
The US Government launches Color Revolutions against foreign targets irrespective of whether
they actually enjoy the support of the people or were elected democratically. In the case of
Trump, whatever one says about him, he is perhaps the most "democratically" elected President
in America's history. Indeed, in 2016 Trump ran against the coordinated opposition of the
establishments of both parties, the military industrial complex, the corporate media,
Hollywood, and really every single powerful institution in the country. He won, however,
because he was able to garner sufficient support of the people -- his true and decisive power
base as a "populist." Precisely because of the ultra democratic "populist" character of Trump's
victory, the operatives attempting to undermine him have focused specifically on attacking the
democratic legitimacy of his victory.
In this vein we ought to note that the term "democratic backsliding," as seen in the
subtitle of Norm Eisen's book, and its opposite "democratic breakthrough" are also terms of art
in the Color Revolution lexicon. We leave the full exploration of how the term "democratic" is
used deceptively in the Color Revolution context (and in names of decidedly
anti-democratic/populist institutions) as an exercise to the interested reader. Michael McFaul,
another Color Revolution expert and key anti-Trump operative somewhat gives the game away in
the following tweet in which the term "democratic breakthrough" makes an appearance as a better
sounding alternative to "Color Revolution:"
Most likely as a response to Revolver News' first Color Revolution article on State
Department official George Kent, former Ambassador McFaul issued the following tweet as a
matter of damage control:
With this now-deleted tweet we get a clearer picture of the power bases that must be
satisfied for a "democratic breakthrough" to occur -- and conveniently enough, not one of them
is subject to direct democratic control. McFaul, Like Eisen, George Kent, and so many others,
perfectly embodies Revolver's thesis regarding the Color Revolution being the same
people running the same playbook. Indeed, like most of the star never-Trump impeachment
witnesses, McFaul is or has been an ambassador to an Eastern European country. He has supported
operations against Trump, including impeachment. And, like Norm Eisen, he has actually
written
a book on Color Revolutions (more on that later).
Norm Eisen's The Democracy Playbook: A Brief Overview:
A deep dive into Eisen's book would exceed the scope of this relatively brief exposé.
It is nonetheless important for us to draw attention to key passages of Eisen's book to
underscore how closely the "Playbook" corresponds to events unfolding right here at home.
Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that regime change professionals such as Eisen
simply decided to run the same playbook against Trump that they have done countless times when
foreign leaders are elected overseas that they don't like and want to remove via
extra-democratic means -- "peaceful protests," "democratic breakthroughs" and such.
First, consider the following passage from Eisen's Playbook:
If you study this passage closely, you will find direct confirmation of our earlier point
that "democracy" in the Color Revolution context is a term of art -- it refers to anything they
like that keeps the national security bureaucrats in power. Anything they don't like, even if
elected democratically, is considered "anti-democratic," or, put another way, "democratic
backsliding." Eisen even acknowledges that this scourge of populism he's so worried about
actually was ushered in with "popular support," under "relatively democratic and electoral
processes." The problem is precisely that the people have had enough of the corrupt ruling
class ignoring their needs. Accordingly, the people voted first for Brexit and then for Donald
Trump -- terrifying expressions of populism which the broader Western power structure did
everything in its capacity to prevent. Once they failed, they viewed these twin populist
victories as a kind of political 9/11 to be prevented by any means necessary from recurring.
Make no mistake, the Color Revolution has nothing to do with democracy in any meaningful sense
and everything to do with the ruling class ensuring that the people will never have the power
to meddle in their own elections again.
The passage above can be insightfully compared to the passage in Gene Sharp's book noting
ripe applications to the domestic situation.
It is instructive to compare the passage in Eisen's Color Revolution book to the passage in
Michael McFaul's Color Revolution book:
First off, it is absolutely imperative to look at every single one of the conditions for a
Color Revolution that McFaul identifies. It is simply impossible not to be overcome with the
ominous parallels to our current situation. Specifically, however, note condition 1 which
refers to having a target leader who is not fully authoritarian, but semi-autocratic. This
coincides perfectly well with Eisen's concession that the populist leaders he's so concerned
about might be "illiberal" but enjoy "popular support" and have come to power via "relatively
democratic electoral processes."
Consulting the above passage from McFaul's book, we note that McFaul has been perhaps the
most explicit about the conditions which facilitate a Color Revolution. We invite the reader to
supply the contemporary analogue to each point as a kind of exercise.
A semi-autocratic regime rather than fully autocratic
An unpopular incumbent (note blanket negative coverage of Trump, fake polls)
A united and organized opposition (media, intel community, Hollywood, community
groups, etc)
Enough independent media to inform citizens of falsified vote (see full court press
in media pushing contested election narrative, social media censorship)
A political opposition capable of mobilizing tens of thousands or more demonstrators
to protest electoral fraud ( SEE BLACK LIVES MATTER AND ANTIFA )
On point number four , which is especially relevant to our present situation, Eisen has an
interesting thing to say about the role of a contested election scenario in the Orange
Revolution, arguably the most important Color Revolution of them all.
Finally, let's look at one last passage from Norm Eisen's Color Revolution "Democracy
Playbook" and cross-reference it with McFaul's conditions for a Color Revolution as well as the
situation playing out right now before our very eyes:
A few things immediately jump out at us. First, the ominous instruction: "prepare to use
electoral abuse evidence as the basis for reform advocacy." Secondly, we note the passage
suggesting that opposition to a target leader might avail itself of "extreme institutional
measures" including impeachment processes, votes of no confidence, and, of course, the good
old-fashioned "protests, strikes, and boycotts" (all more or less peaceful no doubt).
By now the Color Revolution agenda against Trump should be as plain as day. Regime change
professionals like McFaul, Eisen, George Kent, and others, who have refined their craft
conducting color revolutions overseas, have taken it upon themselves to use the same tools, the
same tactics -- quite literally, the same playbook -- to overthrow President Trump. Yet again,
same people, same playbook.
We conclude this study of key Color Revolution figure Norm Eisen by exploring his
particularly proactive -- indeed central role -- in effecting one of the Color Revolution's
components mentioned in the Eisen Playbook -- impeachment.
__________
The Ghost of Democracy's Future
We mentioned at the outset of this piece that Norm Eisen is many things -- a former Obama
Ethics Czar (but of course), Ambassador to Czechoslovakia, participant in the now notorious
Transition Integrity Project, et cetera. But he earned his title as "legal hatchet man" of the
Color Revolution for his tireless efforts in promoting the impeachment of President Trump.
The litany of Norm Eisen's legal activity cited at the beginning of this piece bears
repeating.
As the man who implemented the David Brock blueprint
for suing the President into paralysis and his
allies into bankruptcy , who helped mainstream and amplify the Russia Hoax, who drafted
10 articles of impeachment for the Democrats a full month before President Trump ever
called the Ukraine President in 2018 , who personally served as DNC co-counsel for
litigating the Ukraine impeachment
If that resume doesn't warrant the title "legal hatchet man" we wonder what does? We
encourage interested readers or journalists to explore those links for themselves. By way of
conclusion, it simply suffices to note that much of Eisen's impeachment activity he conducted
before there was any discussion or knowledge of President Trump's call to the Ukrainian
President in 2018 -- indeed before the call even happened. Impeachment was very clearly a
foregone conclusion -- a quite literal part of Norm Eisen's Color Revolution playbook -- and it
was up to people like Eisen to find the pretext, any pretext.
Despite their constant invocation of "democracy" we ought to note that transferring the
question of electoral outcomes to adversarial legal processes is in fact anti-Democratic -- in
keeping with our observation that the Color Revolution playbook uses "democracy" as a term of
art, often meaning the precise opposite of the usual meaning suggesting popular support.
Perhaps the most important entry in Eisen's entry is the first, that is, Eisen's
participation in the infamous David Brock blueprint on how to undermine and overthrow the Trump
presidency.
The Washington Free Beacon attended the retreat and obtained David Brock's private
and confidential memorandum from the meeting. The memo, "
Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action ," outlines Brock's four-year agenda to
attack Trump and Republicans using Media Matters, American Bridge, Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) , and Shareblue.
This leaked memo was written before President Trump took office, further suggesting that all
of the efforts to undermine Trump have not been good faith responses to his behavior, but a
pre-ordained attack strategy designed to overturn the 2016 election by any means necessary. The
Color Revolution expert who suggests impeachment as a tactic in his Color Revolution "playbook"
was already in charge of impeachment before Trump even took office -- -Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is run by none other than Norm Eisen.
But the attempt to overturn the 2016 election using Color Revolution tactics failed. And so
now the plan is to overthrow Trump in 2020, hence Norm Eisen's noted participation in the
Transition Integrity Project. Looking around us, one is forced to ask the deeply uncomfortable
question, "transition into what?"
To conclude, we would like to call back to a point we raised in the first piece in our color
revolution series. In this piece, we noted that star Never Trump impeachment witness George
Kent just happens to be running the Belarus desk at the State Department. Belarus, we argued,
with its mass demonstrations egged on by US Government backed NGOS, its supposed "peaceful
protests" and of course its contested election results all fit the Color Revolution mold
curiously enough.
One NGO called the Transatlantic Democracy Working Group (TDWG) was bold or reckless enough
to draw the parallels between the Color Revolution in Belarus and the events playing out
against Trump explicitly. In response to a remark by a twitter user that the TDWG's remarks
about Belarus suggested parallels to the United States, the TDWG ominously replied:
Now, would the reader care to take a guess as to who runs the Transatlantic Democracy
Working Group? If you guessed Norm Eisen, you would be correct.
Stay tuned for more in Revolver.news' groundbreaking coverage of the Color Revolution
against Trump. Be sure to check out the previous installments in this series:
The QT has referenced "the playbook" (uncapitalized) several times. Don't know if they are
pointing to Eisen's book, or the "Nazi" playbook. Whichever one it is, probably both, the
legitimate question can be asked:
* Note what word is being defined in the dictionary link.
If interested in seeing what QT is referencing in regards to "the playbook" you can click
this link , type " playbook " into the
'Search' and all mentions of 'playbook' in the drops will come up.
The Democracy Playbook sets forth strategies and actions that supporters of liberal
democracy can implement to halt and reverse democratic backsliding and make democratic
institutions work more effectively for citizens. The strategies are deeply rooted in the
evidence: what the scholarship and practice of democracy teach us about what does and does not
work. We hope that diverse groups and individuals will find the syntheses herein useful as they
design catered, context-specific strategies for contesting and resisting the illiberal toolkit.
This playbook is organized into two principal sections: one dealing with actions that domestic
actors can take within democracies, including retrenching ones, and the second section
addressing the role of international actors in supporting and empowering pro-democracy actors
on the ground. [ Note: contains copyrighted material ].
"... Seeking to impose on others the conformity it enforces in its ranks, articulate only in a boilerplate of ritualized cant, today's lumpen intelligentsia consists of persons for whom a little learning is delightful. They consider themselves educated because they are credentialed, stamped with the approval of institutions of higher education that gave them three things: a smattering of historical information just sufficient to make the past seem depraved; a vocabulary of indignation about the failure of all previous historic actors, from Washington to Lincoln to Churchill , to match the virtues of the lumpen intelligentsia; and the belief that America's grossest injustice is the insufficient obeisance accorded to this intelligentsia. ..."
"... Today's cancel culture -- erasing history, ending careers -- is inflicted by people experiencing an orgy of positive feelings about themselves as they negate others. This culture is a steamy sauna of self-congratulation: "I, an adjunct professor of gender studies, am superior to U.S. Grant, so there." Grant promptly freed the slave he received from his father-in-law, and went on to pulverize the slavocracy. Nevertheless . . . ..."
"... Today's gruesome irony: A significant portion of the intelligentsia that is churned out by higher education does not acknowledge exacting standards of inquiry that could tug them toward tentativeness and constructive dissatisfaction with themselves. Rather, they come from campuses, cloaked in complacency. Instead of elevating, their education produces only expensively schooled versions of what José Ortega y Gasset called the "mass man." ..."
"... A barbarian is someone whose ideas are "nothing more than appetites in words," someone exercising "the right not to be reasonable," who "does not want to give reasons" but simply "to impose his opinions." ..."
"... The barbarians are not at America's gate. There is no gate. ..."
A nation's gravest problems are those it cannot discuss because it dare not state them. This
nation's principal problem, which makes other serious problems intractable, is that much of
today's intelligentsia is not intelligent.
One serious problem is that the political class is terrified of its constituents -- their
infantile refusal to will the means (revenue) for the ends (government benefits) they demand.
Another serious problem is family
disintegration -- e.g., 40 percent of all births, and 69 percent of all African American
births, to unmarried women. Families are the primary transmitters of social capital: the
habits, dispositions and mores necessary for flourishing. Yet the subject of disorganized
families has been entirely absent from current discussions -- actually, less discussions than
virtue-signaling ventings -- about poverty, race and related matters.
Today's most serious problem, which annihilates thoughtfulness about all others, is that a
significant portion of the intelligentsia -- the lumpen intelligentsia -- cannot think. Its
torrent of talk is an ever-intensifying hurricane of hysteria about the endemic sickness of the
nation since its founding in
1619 (don't ask). And the iniquities of historic figures mistakenly admired.
An admirable intelligentsia, inoculated by education against fashions and fads, would make
thoughtful distinctions arising from historically informed empathy. It would be society's
ballast against mob mentalities. Instead, much of America's intelligentsia has become a
mob.
Seeking to impose on others the conformity it enforces in its ranks, articulate only in
a boilerplate of ritualized cant, today's lumpen intelligentsia consists of persons for whom a
little learning is delightful. They consider themselves educated because they are credentialed,
stamped with the approval of institutions of higher education that gave them three things: a
smattering of historical information just sufficient to make the past seem depraved; a
vocabulary of indignation about the failure of all previous historic actors, from Washington to
Lincoln to
Churchill
, to match the virtues of the lumpen intelligentsia; and the belief that America's grossest
injustice is the insufficient obeisance accorded to this intelligentsia.
Its expansion tracks the expansion of colleges and universities -- most have, effectively,
open admissions -- that have become intellectually monochrome purveyors of groupthink. Faculty
are outnumbered by administrators, many of whom exist to administer uniformity concerning
"sustainability," "diversity," "toxic masculinity" and the threat free speech poses to favored
groups' entitlements to serenity.
Today's cancel culture -- erasing history, ending careers -- is inflicted by people
experiencing an orgy of positive feelings about themselves as they negate others. This culture
is a steamy sauna of self-congratulation: "I, an adjunct professor of gender studies, am
superior to U.S. Grant, so there." Grant promptly freed
the slave he received from his father-in-law, and went on to pulverize the slavocracy.
Nevertheless . . .
The cancelers need just enough learning to know, vaguely, that there was a Lincoln who lived
when Americans, sunk in primitivism, thought they were confronted with vexing constitutional
constraints and moral ambiguities. : Too much learning might immobilize the topplers with
doubts about how they would have behaved in the contexts in which the statues' subjects
lived.
The cancelers are reverse Rumpelstiltskins , spinning problems that
merit the gold of complex ideas and nuanced judgments into the straw of slogans. Someone
anticipated something like this.
Today's gruesome irony: A significant portion of the intelligentsia that is churned out
by higher education does not acknowledge exacting standards of inquiry that could tug them
toward tentativeness and constructive dissatisfaction with themselves. Rather, they come from
campuses, cloaked in complacency. Instead of elevating, their education produces only
expensively schooled versions of what José Ortega y Gasset called the "mass
man."
In 1932's "
The Revolt of the Masses ," the Spanish philosopher said this creature does not " appeal
from his own to any authority outside him . He is satisfied with himself exactly as he is.
. . . He will tend to consider and affirm as good everything he finds within himself: opinions,
appetites, preferences, tastes." (Emphasis is Ortega's.)
Much education now spreads the disease that education should cure, the disease of
repudiating, without understanding, the national principles that could pull the nation toward
its noble aspirations. The result is barbarism, as Ortega defined it, "the absence of standards
to which appeal can be made."
A barbarian is someone whose ideas are "nothing more than appetites in words," someone
exercising "the right not to be reasonable," who "does not want to give reasons" but simply "to
impose his opinions."
The barbarians are not at America's gate. There is no gate.
"... despite her pretensions, she is not the holder of either science or wealth or belonging to a lineage. She is a commoner, a half-scientist and lives on emoluments. She dreams of oligarchy, but she only has the power of " henchman " ; she is auxiliary, Lackey, second-rate, she serves soup infinitely ... as a good shepherd dog, she admonishes, sermons, reprimands, everything she considers to be at the bottom of the scale ..."
"... This caste of half-educated, false scholars, "fast thinker", "little whites of culture" serves to exorcise "the power of those who have no more title to govern than to be governed". ..."
"... Published by Le Bougnoulosophe at 2/05/2013 ..."
Special dedication to Caroline Fourest, cheerleader of the "superstructure" and the dominant
order...
A new caste was born. One would have to be blind not to notice its emergence. It aspires to
the outsourcing of "pastoral power". And the flock is the people. This caste does not
appreciate popular claims: of poujadism. She does not like too "tanned" manifestations:
communitarianism and Islamism. She is outraged when one criticizes Israel or the United States:
of anti-Semitism and " conspirationism ".
Faithful to her masters, she cannot stand criticism of the powerful: envy and resentment.
She does not like the internet: "freaks, maniacs, fanatics, megalomaniacs, paranoiacs, nazis,
informants, who find there a way to spread their delusions, their hatreds, or their obsessions
worldwide.". She hates democracy, in its noble sense ; to put it simply, she hates it. She is,
most often without announcing the color, Zionist, Atlantist and a little Islamophobic. If,
rather, it is found in the media, it is flexible and adapts to all contexts. It is one and at
the same time multiple. Within it we observe all the nuances, history to occupy all niches, way
to interest all sensibilities.
Despite her great airs, despite her pretensions, she is not the holder of either science
or wealth or belonging to a lineage. She is a commoner, a half-scientist and lives on
emoluments. She dreams of oligarchy, but she only has the power of " henchman " ; she is
auxiliary, Lackey, second-rate, she serves soup infinitely ... as a good shepherd dog, she
admonishes, sermons, reprimands, everything she considers to be at the bottom of the scale
... neither scribe, nor prophet, nor Mandarin, she likes to illuminate with her "false
lights".
She demands that we listen carefully. She orders that we obey her. It does not tolerate
contradiction or debate. Its mission in the end: to allow the oligarchy to rule in the name of
the people and to establish this society that regulates the power of the commodity. This
caste of half-educated, false scholars, "fast thinker", "little whites of culture" serves to
exorcise "the power of those who have no more title to govern than to be governed". But
she is more and more helpless as her strings are big and her intellectual means limited
"... The triumph of Brexit is the clearest example of the conquest of Conservatism by an idea which, whatever one thinks of it, is not primarily justified by a reasoned economic calculation. It is instead a moralist's statement of how the world ought to be. Britain ought to be a sovereign country; it ought to have an independent weight in the world; its historic values equip it to thrive; they need to be liberated. ..."
"... the underlying point is that the political class as a whole, across all parties, is now infected with the same tendency. ..."
"... Politics has been hollowed out into a war of words, now that a parliamentary career has become less attractive to men and women from other walks of life. It currently attracts in disproportionate numbers what used to be called the lumpenintelligentsia: earnest types who enthuse about ideas, simplify them and believe fervently that their crude and wholesale application will solve complex social problems. ..."
The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914
by Simon
Heffer . Random House, 912 pp., £30, September 2017, 978 1 84794 742 0
... ... ...
Only rarely since then has the vision of a disinterested Millite clerisy directing national
counsels gained political traction. Some have suggested that Asquith's government was beholden
to an ideology of 'New Liberalism', but this is dewy-eyed: like 'New Labour', it was a
political triangulation strategy rather than an intellectual endeavour. For most of the 20 th
century, abstract ideas were kept in their place. Within parties, and particularly within the
Labour Party, policy-making was delegated to committees, which were rarely temples of
high-mindedness. Keith Middlemas described the politics of industrial society as a battle of
economic interests – capital and labour – that became bureaucratised and
accommodated within the processes and institutions of government. Parties appealed to voters
mostly in straightforward terms – talk of jobs, wages, living standards and social
services – and there was a continuing subsidiary role for ethical appeals to various
kinds of loyalty, moral respectability and aspiration loosely based on traditional ideas of
patriotism, religion or class solidarity. As Morgan Phillips observed, the Labour Party owed
more to Methodism than to Marxism. Large swathes of the Conservative Party continued to
deprecate ideas, and to prioritise pragmatism even when applying the ideas they recognised,
such as free market economics. The party's main claim on voters' loyalties was its basic offer
of economic competence and stability.
The process by which the Conservative Party has become addicted to ideas is one of
the most significant and least studied political developments of the last quarter-century. It
clearly owes something to the legacy of Thatcher and the appeal of free market ideology,
bolstered by the process of globalisation.
But the craving for an ideas-driven Conservatism
can't be explained simply in terms of the triumph of a particular economic worldview. On the
contrary, it could be argued that at no time since 1914 has the Conservative Party demonstrated
less concern with economic competence than it does now. This can be attributed to a range of
pressures: the unattractive economic choices imposed by post-2008 austerity politics; the
dependence on a particular unproductive vested interest, old age pensioners; and, above all,
the allure of Brexit.
The triumph of Brexit is the clearest example of the conquest of
Conservatism by an idea which, whatever one thinks of it, is not primarily justified by a
reasoned economic calculation. It is instead a moralist's statement of how the world ought to
be. Britain ought to be a sovereign country; it ought to have an independent weight in the
world; its historic values equip it to thrive; they need to be liberated.
This is the language of newspaper columnists who in a thousand words must put the world to
rights. It is the language of Heffer himself, when writing about Brexit, and it is the language
of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, who both spent their whole pre-political careers as
journalists. Yet Brexit is merely the most striking example of the way in which the press
– and some quasi-intellectual policy advisers in the mould of Oliver Letwin – have
remoralised the Conservative offering. Gove's attack as education secretary on 'the blob', his
term for the forces in charge of school education, was shaped by years of indignant columns
about the barriers to excellence and competitiveness imposed by school bureaucracy and
political correctness. George Osborne's abolition of the 50p tax rate in 2012, which in one
month knocked six points off the Conservative share of the vote in the opinion polls, owed more
to pro-Laffer-curve journalism than to conclusive Treasury data on the subject. This is now a
world in which Osborne, for six years the second most powerful man in Britain, can think that
the best means of resisting Brexit is the editorship of a London freesheet. And it is a world
in which leading Conservative political columnists – Tim Montgomerie, Matthew d'Ancona,
Iain Martin – respond to the party's current parlous position by urging a turn to 'new
ideas', as if the current ones hadn't done damage enough.
Abandoning hard-headed economic realism allied to the sceptical rebuttal of utopian
moralism, and replacing it with something approaching its opposite, is a course that seems at
best electorally retrograde and in all likelihood completely suicidal. Yet the underlying point
is that the political class as a whole, across all parties, is now infected with the same
tendency.
Politics has been hollowed out into a war of words, now that a parliamentary career
has become less attractive to men and women from other walks of life. It currently attracts in
disproportionate numbers what used to be called the lumpenintelligentsia: earnest types who
enthuse about ideas, simplify them and believe fervently that their crude and wholesale
application will solve complex social problems.
Hence, among other consequences, the paradox
that Brexit appeals to resurgent Corbynites on the grounds that it might one day bring about
socialism in one country and to Conservative free marketeers for the opposite reason. Clearly
both can't be right, and almost certainly neither will get as far as they hope towards
implementing their vision. But it is ironic that 150 years after Carlyle and Mill fretted about
how best to secure the rule of the high-minded in an era awash with money, the ideas men
– and it is perhaps telling that they are nearly all men – have finally taken over
politics. Though Heffer may disagree, I have a feeling that neither of those venerable sages
would think our new political class quite up to it.
"... On the strength of Adrian Vermeule's review last month (" Liturgy of Liberalism ," January 2017), I picked up Ryszard Legutko's The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies . Legutko sees many parallels between the communism that dominated the Poland of his youth and the political-social outlook now treated as obligatory by Eurocrats and dominant in America, which he calls "[neo]liberal democracy." ..."
"... One parallel struck me as especially important: "Communism and [neo]liberal democracy are related by a similarly paradoxical approach to politics: both promised to reduce the role of politics in human life, yet induced politicization on a scale unknown in previous history." We're aware of the totalitarian dimension of communism. But liberalism? Isn't it supposed to be neutral with respect to substantive outlooks, endorsing only the constitutional and legal frameworks for free and fair political debate? Actually, no. Liberals always assert that liberalism is the view of politics, society, and morality "most adequate of and for modern times." ..."
"... [Neo]Liberalism, Legutko points out, is committed to dualism, not pluralism. He gives the example of Isaiah Berlin, who made a great deal out of the importance of the pluralism of the liberal spirit. Yet "Berlin himself, a superbly educated man, knew very well and admitted quite frankly that the most important and most valuable fruits of Western philosophy were monistic in nature." This means that liberalism, as Berlin defines it, must classify nearly the entire history of Western thought (and that of other cultures as well) as "nonliberal." Thus, "the effect of this supposed liberal pluralism" is not a welcoming, open society in which a wide range of substantive thought flourishes, but "a gigantic purge of Western philosophy, bringing an inevitable degradation of the human mind." ..."
"... The purge mentality has a political dimension. Since 1989, European politics has shifted away from a left vs. right framework toward "mainstream" vs. "extremist." This is a telling feature of [neo]liberal democracy as an ideology. "The tricky side of 'mainstream' politics is that it does not tolerate any political 'tributaries' and denies that they should have any legitimate existence. Those outside the mainstream are believed to be either mavericks and as such not deserving to be treated seriously, or fascists who should be politically eliminated." ..."
"... Lumpenproletariat ..."
"... Legutko speaks of "lumpenintellectuals." These are the professors and journalists who buttress the status quo by rehearsing ideological catechisms and exposing heretics. We certainly have a lumpenintelligentsia ..."
"... I regularly read two lumpenintellectuals in order to understand the orthodoxies of our political mainstream: Tom Friedman over at the New York Times and Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal . The former is a cheerleader for today's globalist orthodoxies, complete with ritual expressions of misgivings. The latter eagerly plays the role of Leninist enforcer of those orthodoxies ..."
♦ Boys and girls are different. There, I've said it, a heresy of our time. We're not
supposed to suggest that a woman shouldn't fight in combat, or that an athletic girl doesn't
have a right to play on the boys' football team -- or that a young woman doesn't run a greater
risk than a young man when binge drinking. We are not supposed to reject the conceit that the
sexes are interchangeable, and therefore a man can become a "woman" and use the ladies'
bathroom.
Male and female God created us. I commend this heresy to readers. Remind people that boys in
girls' bathrooms put girls at risk, and that Obergefell is a grotesque distortion of
the Constitution. True -- and don't miss the opportunity to say, in public, that men and women
are different. This is the deepest reason why gender ideology is perverse. As Peter Hitchens
observes in this issue (" The Fantasy of
Addiction "), there's a great liberation that comes when, against the spirit of the age,
one blurts out what one knows to be true.
♦ Great Britain
recently announced regulatory approval for scientists to introduce third-party DNA into the
reproductive process. The technological innovation that allows for interventions into the most
fundamental dimensions of reproduction and human identity is sure to accelerate. Which is a
good reason for incoming President Trump to revive the President's Council on Bioethics. (It
existed under President Obama, but was told to do and say nothing.) We need sober reflection on
the coming revolution in reproductive technology. Trump should appoint Princeton professor
Robert P. George to head the Bioethics Commission. He has the expertise in legal and moral
philosophy, and he knows what's at stake. (See " Gnostic Liberalism ,"
December 2016.)
♦ On the strength of Adrian Vermeule's review last month (" Liturgy of
Liberalism ," January 2017), I picked up Ryszard Legutko's
The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies . Legutko sees many
parallels between the communism that dominated the Poland of his youth and the political-social
outlook now treated as obligatory by Eurocrats and dominant in America, which he calls
"[neo]liberal democracy."
One parallel struck me as especially important: "Communism and [neo]liberal democracy
are related by a similarly paradoxical approach to politics: both promised to reduce the role
of politics in human life, yet induced politicization on a scale unknown in previous history."
We're aware of the totalitarian dimension of communism. But liberalism? Isn't it supposed to be
neutral with respect to substantive outlooks, endorsing only the constitutional and legal
frameworks for free and fair political debate? Actually, no. Liberals always assert that
liberalism is the view of politics, society, and morality "most adequate of and for modern
times."
This gives [neo]liberalism a partisan spirit all the more powerful because it is denied.
Although such words as "dialogue" and "pluralism" appear among its favorite motifs, as do
"tolerance" and other similarly hospitable notions, this overtly generous rhetorical
orchestration covers up something entirely different. In its essence, liberalism is
unabashedly aggressive because it is determined to hunt down all nonliberal agents and ideas,
which it treats as a threat to itself and to humanity.
[Neo]Liberalism, Legutko points out, is committed to dualism, not pluralism. He gives the example
of Isaiah Berlin, who made a great deal out of the importance of the pluralism of the liberal
spirit. Yet "Berlin himself, a superbly educated man, knew very well and admitted quite frankly
that the most important and most valuable fruits of Western philosophy were monistic in
nature." This means that liberalism, as Berlin defines it, must classify nearly the entire
history of Western thought (and that of other cultures as well) as "nonliberal." Thus, "the
effect of this supposed liberal pluralism" is not a welcoming, open society in which a wide
range of substantive thought flourishes, but "a gigantic purge of Western philosophy, bringing
an inevitable degradation of the human mind."
♦ The purge mentality has a political dimension. Since 1989, European politics has
shifted away from a left vs. right framework toward "mainstream" vs. "extremist." This is a
telling feature of [neo]liberal democracy as an ideology. "The tricky side of 'mainstream' politics
is that it does not tolerate any political 'tributaries' and denies that they should have any
legitimate existence. Those outside the mainstream are believed to be either mavericks and as
such not deserving to be treated seriously, or fascists who should be politically
eliminated."
♦ Karl Marx coined the term Lumpenproletariat . Lumpen means "rag"
in German, and its colloquial meanings include someone who is down-and-out. According to Marx,
this underclass has counter-revolutionary tendencies. These people can be riled up by
demagogues and deployed in street gangs to stymie the efforts of the true proletariat to topple
the dominant class.
Legutko speaks of "lumpenintellectuals." These are the professors and journalists who
buttress the status quo by rehearsing ideological catechisms and exposing heretics. We
certainly have a lumpenintelligentsia , left and right: tenured professors,
columnists, think tank apparatchiks, and human resources directors.
♦ I regularly read two lumpenintellectuals in order to understand the orthodoxies of
our political mainstream: Tom Friedman over at the New York
Times and Bret
Stephens at the Wall Street Journal . The former is a cheerleader for today's
globalist orthodoxies, complete with ritual expressions of misgivings. The latter eagerly plays
the role of Leninist enforcer of those orthodoxies.
♦ Bill Kristol recently stepped down
as day-to-day editor at the Weekly Standard . .... As he put it with characteristic humor, "Here at The Weekly Standard , we've
always been for regime change."...
"... Shcharansky earned his chops by popularizing words and expressions suitable for flaying the Soviet and now Russian dissident intelligentsia, aka "The Scorpions in the Nest" ™. In Russian the word is Рукопожатный (ruko-po-zhat-ny), from "ruka" ("hand") and "po-zhat" ("to press"). This "internet meme" of the "handshakeable person" is defined as "a person to whom the Russian liberal Opposition is inclined to shake hands with". ..."
"... Since XIX century the so-called liberal intelligentsia in Russia was fashionably in opposition to the Regime – and it was the first to crawl begging said regime to suppress the revolting masses, which more than anything else had frightened them. ..."
You and I have wandered together on this long journey through the Inferno of Lyttenburgh's
brain. We reached the epicenter of Russian cultural Hell, where a Satanic Gerontocracy ™
of handshakeable kreakles impose their pornographic "Visions" of High Art upon a
mouth-breathing bydlo who only want to see trite spectacles, and who are incapable of
appreciating the True Genius of the Artistic Mind.
A singing dancing porno Jesus? A kangaroo eating jelly at the Last Supper? Why not!?
Which reminds me, I should probably explain those terms up there which I put in italics. For
those not in the know, " handshakeable " is another of those winged words invented by,
probably, dissident blogger Lev Shcharansky . Who, as I mentioned before, has
exerted more influence over the modern Russian language (well, at least its Internet version)
than Ilf, Petrov, Griboedov, and Pushkin combined.
Shcharansky earned his chops by popularizing
words and expressions suitable for flaying the Soviet and now Russian dissident intelligentsia,
aka "The Scorpions in the Nest" ™. In Russian the word is
Рукопожатный
(ruko-po-zhat-ny), from "ruka" ("hand") and "po-zhat" ("to press"). This "internet meme" of the
"handshakeable person" is defined as "a person to whom the Russian liberal Opposition is
inclined to shake hands with". Quite simple, no?
As for "bydlo", that is an ancient Slavic, and even Indo-European word. The ancient
Indo-European root was something like *bʰuH , and it meant "to be". As in Hamlet's
"to be or not to be". Russian and all Slavic not to mention most European languages use the
same verb, namely, "byt". In West Slavic languages, such as Polish and Czech, a derived word
"bydlo" came to mean a place where people settled. Then the meaning shifted from "place" to
"property or stuff", like household stuff, and from there to "domestic animals". In this sense
of the meaning, the word was borrowed from West Slavic
into Russian . Russians, always on the lookout for new ways to insult their friends and
neighbors, were, like, "We need a word just like that to describe our domestic animals, and
also certain persons who look and behave like domestic animals". Hence, bydlo .
With that bit of house-keeping out of the way, let us return to Lyttenburgh. Having passed
the epicenter of Inferno, we are now in the field of reverse gravity. What seems up is down,
and vice versa. Who knows, we may yet emerge, popping out of some volcanic crater in Iceland or
New Zealand, or somewhere like that.
Part V
Senseless and Merciless
"The skies gonna open
People going pray and crawl
It's gonna rain down fire
It's gonna burn us all"
– Christian Kane, "L.A. song"
This happened a year and a half ago. As time will tell us – no one learned anything
from this earlier incident. Maybe because at the moment of its eruption in February-March of
2015 there were plenty of other issues closer to home to occupy the general discourse of
Russian people. Hence a scandal in the cultural sphere just failed to generate a significant
resonance at the time to produce a serious discussion within society.
All sides of the conflict were dissatisfied with its resolution. The artistic intelligentsia
warped the whole story into the now well-known myth about "creeping censorship" and continued
to enjoy their Fronde . The people were dissatisfied that they were ignored, scoffed at
and offended by the self-proclaimed new High Priesthood of the Art. Real members of the real
world religions made their views on the scandal abundantly clear. This also raised the ire of
the kreakls, who saw no controversy in demanding a limit to the clergy's right of freedom of
speech. With the conflict not resolved, with tensions still high and simmering just beneath the
surface of deceiving calm, with lessons unlearned and the State aloof and unresponsive to its
role as the keeper of peace and high arbiter, new scandals and conflicts were bound to
happen.
When the people don't have a voice they tend to lash out. This is a fact of life, a fact of
history and a fact of the present day, as a lot of exalted alien beings inhabiting safe spaces
of Facebook, Tumblr and politically correct hangouts found to their stupefied dismay only
recently, and who, probably, will keep finding it in the future till they learn the lesson and
change some of their dearly held preconceptions. Lashing out in question is always an ugly,
destructive affair. Revolting peasants of the Jacquerie, German Peasant War, Khmelnitsky's uprising and
Pugachev's
rebellion committed uncountable number of violent crimes and atrocities. They were
criminals by anyone's standards, and the Powers That Be had to suppress them. Yet, dismissing
them outright without recognizing both the pressing issues that made people rise up and the
fact, that they were denied any say in legally addressing their grievances, puts these events
out of context.
Desperate people are prone to desperate measures. Lacking a clear moral authority to lead
them and rein in the worst expressions of violent urges, then something else entirely,
something less benevolent and more unhinged is bound to attempt to ride this tiger of an
awakened, self-conscious and angry population. Some con artists, fanatics, goofballs and
demagogues are bound to appear and attempt to hijack the legitimate protest or even try to
discredit it while overstepping the law.
Bydlo Fight Back
Due to the all-prevailing narrative, which places squarely all possible and impossible
crimes against humanity on Stalin; and to the generally cherished ignorance of history --
people forget that it was in the reign of the "Dear and Beloved" Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev that the
atheist and anti-religious propaganda reached an exorbitant and all penetrating level in the
Soviet Union. This is all part of our history, which is always better to know than pretend it
never happened.
Look out! Enteo is out of his cage!
It's anyone's guess what were the driving imperatives of the people, organizing the
exhibition in Manezh expo-hall in Moscow in August 2015, when they decided to feature mainly
"sculptures" on religious themes of the so-called nonconformist artists from 1954-68. The
exhibition was attacked by one man freak show Dmitry Tsorionov aka
Enteo . Former liberast, proponent of the alternative spiritual practices (read: sects and
cults) and a connoisseur of mind-expanding ingredients (read: drugs) Enteo is the violent,
always angry born again self-proclaimed zealot of the true Christianity in the form of his
organization "God's Will". The official Church and the authorities showed him their silent and
tacit support, while his group was disrupting attempts to hold gay-prides (not that it would
require a lot of manpower or effort), but what he did at Manezh clearly shocked and dismayed
them. Enteo and his own cultists entered the hall where the exhibition was taking place,
screeched out their displeasure with what they saw and attempted to deface the objects of
"art".
Thankfully, like virtually anything produced in the USSR back then, said "statues"
proved to be nigh indestructible, so Enteo and Co succeed only in smashing an Ikea made plate,
on which one of the "exhibits" was standing. Security did absolutely nothing to stop them.
As the result of this escapade Tsorionov lost even the tacit support of the officials, and
the public opinion of him and his vigilantes became much more negative. Manezh expo-hall
filed an official request to the police , accusing Enteo of vandalism and hooliganism. One
month later, he was found guilty of
petty hooliganism and sentenced to 10 days of arrest. Same people, who deemed Pussy Riot's
and "artist" Pavlensky's escapades a form of "creative protest" and "modern art-events", while
bemoaning any attempts of the state to characterize their actions as unlawful, were less
forgiving in Enteo's case with his very own "happening" and "performance". But, as said Dmitriy
Anatolyevich Medvedev in his capacity as then president of Russia (and as was aptly
demonstrated in cases of Enteo, Pavlensky and the former art-director Mezdrich, who won't
answer for the mysterious disappearance of the state funds in his opera) – "The System
must learn how to forgive".
Again – nothing came out of that, sides of the conflict exchanged volleys of
accusations and no lessons were learned. Again everyone had been left guessing when and what
will explode next time. Surely enough, something exploded, riling up two clearly incomparable
in numbers sides even more in their non-acceptance of each other.
Dmitry Zakharov protests against art depicting Ukrainian National Guard as heroes
In September 2016 a group of Byelarussian members of the artistic intelligentsia (and local
Fronde to bat'ka Lukashenko) held a photo-exhibition at the Sakharov Center, Moscow,
depicting "Heroes of Donbass". In their version – members of the so-called volunteer
battalions of the National Guard were these heroes. People, killing their former countrymen,
women, children and elderly – depicted as smiling, nice, hearty persons. This most
"balanced" and "neutral" exhibition proclaimed them as the people, fighting against the
"Separatists" – all in accordance to the Vision of the Artist. Needless to say, that such
interpretation was met with
most loud protests from the people of Russia. Equally unnecessary would be pointing out,
that we are talking about an "event" sanctioned by our always shy and hands-off Ministry of
Culture in their own building. It turned ugly very soon – photos were sprayed with red paint
by one of the enraged visitors – an artist himself.
Sergeii Lukashevsky: Always fair and balanced.
Most progressive intelligentsia of Russia deemed these actions of protest "barbarous", once
again confirming everyone's suspicions about whose side they were supporting in the Ukrainian
civil war. [yalensis hint: Russia's "progressive intelligentsia" mostly supports the
Ukrainian government side in that war, although they won't always admit it out loud.]
Art-Director of the Sakharov Center
Sergey Lukashevsky admitted that he knew what kind of reaction such an exhibition could
produce. Still, he decided to stage it, arguing that last year his center produced a similar
exhibition, only from the People's Republics side – he was just striving for "balance"
and "neutrality".
More Scandals Involving Children And Animals
At the same time, another scandal was in full swing, once again polarizing society into two
numerically unequal camps. Again, it was because of yet another example of the generous
permissiveness of our Ministry of Culture. Photo exhibition of Jock Sturges "art" drew a
proverbial tsunami of people's wrath. The artistic intelligentsia couldn't just deny itself the
pleasure of prodding a tiger, safely locked behind bars. While pointing out that from a purely
judicial point of view the exhibit was not violating any Russian laws. The people answered with
stating the obvious – there are underage completely nude girls on this photo exhibition.
How can any normal, non-pervert person claim that taking photos of them and then making their
photos available for "appreciation" among the connoisseurs of such things is normal? Kreakls
answered with wailing, gnashing of teeth and condemnation of the "spiritual paupers", incapable
of seeing and understating the Art. In their opinion, it was the Regime's guilt. If only it
could cough up more money and make the "appreciation of culture" taught at schools then the
people will grow up as highly-artistic persons, with broad views on reality at large and new
sets of values. These suggestions were made live, on state owned "Kremlin-controlled" TV
channels with no ill consequences to the members of artistic intelligentsia. What is more
important, IMO, is that no one dared to ask these fine specimens and results of countless
generations of "progress" and "higher culture", how do they suggest an underage kid would be
taught to appreciate the "positive artistic eroticism" of photos of equally underage
kids.
Jock Sturges art photography
Again the Ministry of Culture stood aloof, again nothing was done on the official level
– because Russia, no matter what the detractors say, has no censorship. Some people
staged one-person protest against the exhibit – to the apparent displeasure of the
so-called Russian liberals. Others went much far and beyond the law. A group calling itself
"The Union of Russian Officers" (with no official status or even real officers among their
numbers) organized a picket at the entrance of the expo-hall, and one of their number entered
the accursed placed armed with a can full of urine, to consecrate the exhibits with its
content. He succeeded in this endeavor, which later translated into his detainment and arrest.
Aristocrats of the Spirit responsible for this scandal wallowed (and enjoyed!) in their newly
acquired status of Victims of the Regime – because how else can you explain their
decision to have no security on site, or that they did not call the police the first moment
they saw trouble brewing on the horizon?
It was exactly against this that Konstantin Raikin decided to raise his voice. Being a
member of the Aristocracy of the Spirit he and the likes of him never doubted for a moment that
all protests against the sacred Art were fake, staged, paid by the Regime, which uses these
fake protestors as cat's-paws in its quest to squash already threatened Freedom of Expression
in This Country. The idea that there is such thing as self-aware narod , instead of a
silent quietly mewling herd of mostly stupid and submissive bydlo never crossed his or
other's minds. For them it is all old "The Artist vs the State" struggle, and the people,
public, society, spectators – they do not fit into the narrative. Since XIX century the
so-called liberal intelligentsia in Russia was fashionably in opposition to the Regime –
and it was the first to crawl begging said regime to suppress the revolting masses, which more
than anything else had frightened them.
"Ladies and gentlemen: On your right is an Old Master painting. On your left, a stuffed dog
wearing a birthday cap."
A Ministry of Culture self-contradictory passive, all permissiveness and unable to defend
their own official program, an ossified if not degenerative modus Vivendi of the vast
majority of representatives of the so-called creative classes and the un-diminishing anger and
rejection of both the "post-modern values" and the legislation, paradoxically protecting it, by
the people deprived of any say, would mean only one thing – such scandals will happen
more and more in the future. Just to demonstrate that even the nearly universal condemnation of
Raikin's haughtiness by the common people is not a big deal to the Aristocracy of the Spirit,
yet another scandal
erupted last week . Russian society, still reeling after the criminal affair featuring
girl-students from Khabarovsk
mutilating animals on-line , now was not prepared for a state-sanctioned, highly artistic
dead-animal mutilating fete – in the Hermitage, Saint-Petersburg, of all places! The
Hermitage is ruled by a true Aristocrat – the infamous M.B. Piotrovsky , who, literally,
inherited the title of the head of one of (if not the) most important museums of Russia from
his father. No scandal or accusation ever harmed his handshakable status or deprived him from
the favour of the Ministry of Culture. Surely, a person who allowed enormous graft and theft of
objects of art in Hermitage in the past will survive the present day scandal unscathed, while
accusing all those opposing this most wondrous exhibition as "hired slanderers".
The day after the elections , Russians
got together to rally against election fraud. Even though the United Russia party, according to
preliminary results, is to lose some 77 seats compared to the previous Duma, most of the
protesters considered the election to be neither fair, nor free (see our previous reports on
the web crackdown
and massive
violation reports).
After the polls closed on Dec. 4, Solidarnost movement invited protesters to
Chistye Prudy metro station in Moscow, while the Communists, also unhappy with the election
results, organized their rally at Pushkinskaya square. Solidarnost movement represenatives,
most of whom have no political arena except street actions and the blogosphere, managed to
bring thousands of people together (while crowd estimates vary significantly, the most balanced
assessment seems to be from 8,000 to 10,000 people).
Chistye Prudy
People began gathering for the Solidarnost event at around 19:00 MSK. Georgiy Alburov
posted a picture of the
line to the site of the rally:
Line to the Chistye Prudy rally. Photo by Georgiy Alburov
Thousands out in cold/rain baying for free elections, Putin to be sent to prison. Never
seen anything on this scale. Definite change of mood
The overall coverage was chaotic as the mobile Internet stopped working in the area and
people couldn't upload videos and pictures. LiveJournal kept the chronology of the events
here [ru].
Only later in the evening people were able to upload videos [ru] from the rally and particularly
the speech [ru] by
Alexey Navalny, who was among the most popular politicians of the event. His speech probably
best describes the essence of the current events:
And then: "They can call us microbloggers or net hamsters. I am a net hamster! And I'll bite
[these bastards' heads off.] We'll all do it together! Because we do exist! [ ] We will not
forget, we will not forgive"
The reference to 'net hamsters' (a pejorative term for politically-engaged Internet
commenters) and their political will to change the country has destroyed the myth of the
slacktivist nature of political engagement online. Navalny has specifically emphasized
'forgetting/forgiving' to show that netizens do not necessarily have a short attention span
often ascribed to them.
On to Lubyanka
After several speeches made by the opposition politicians, the crowd moved on towards
Lubyanka Square, where the head office of the Federal Security Service is located. The
video [ru] uploaded by
user bigvane depicts Muscovites moving to Lubyanka and chanting "Free elections":
Most of the activists, however, were soon stopped on their way. Ilya Barabanov tweeted a
picture of the blocked road:
Blocked road. Photo by Ilya Barabanov
Twenty minutes after the aforementioned photo was made, Alexey Navalny was detained by the
police. Ilya Barabanov was detained three minutes after Navalny. (See this great photo report
made by ridus.ru correspondents here [ru].)
But even the detention didn't break the rebellious and quite positive spirit of the
protesters. Navalny, while sitting in a police bus together with other activists, shared an
instagram photo of the cheerful detained protesters:
'I'm sitting in a police bus with all the guys. They all say hi.' Photo by Alexey
Navalny
Another video , also shot
inside a police bus, showed protesters discussing the salaries of police officers, laughing a
lot.
The Hamster Revolution
The most interesting part of the post-election rebellion is not its peaceful manner (also an
important feature compared to violent nationalist riots), but its new demographics. Tvrain.ru
field reporter said that the crowd consisted mainly of the "intelligentsia, hipsters, and young
people." "It is a fashionable rally," said the reporter. Later, these observations were added:
the age of the protesters was between 16 and 33 and for many of those who were detained this
was the first street action experience. As Vera Kichanova tweeted :
Lyosha Nikitin writes that he is the only one of the 16 people in the police bus who had been
detained before. Others were taking part in a rally for the first time!
***
Meanwhile, levada.ru, the site of Levada Center polling and sociological
research organization, has been DDoSed [ru] and the contents
of epic-hero.ru were removed [ru] by the hosting provider.
Brainwashed net hamsters are typical foot soldiers of any color revolution. Nothing new here.
Notable quotes:
"... Meet Clara Kraebber, who was arrested for felony rioting and misdemeanor possession of graffiti instruments after being identified as one of the people causing more than $100,000 worth of damage during an early September window-smashing spree. ..."
"... Kraebber, aged 20, is a history major at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She's the daughter of an architect and a child psychologist and comes from a family so wealthy that they own a 1.8 million dollar co-op with river views on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, as well as a country home built in the 1730s in exclusive Litchfield County, Connecticut. ..."
"... Kraebber's mother, Virginia Kindred, runs Kindred Arch.Works, a Manhattan architect firm that has designed spaces for Columbia University and NYU, and worked on numerous school and business spaces throughout the city. ..."
"... Her father is Markus Kraebber, an Upper East Side child and adolescent psychiatrist who teaches at the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. ( source ) ..."
"... She seems to be a prime example of a person who drank the Koolaid of the kind of misguided indoctrination many young people are facing right now. ..."
"... So we have more brainwashed, privileged kids touting communism who will one day hold positions of power. Kids with these backgrounds will be on boards of directors. They'll hold corporate jobs. They'll handle funds. ..."
When you hear about Black Lives Matter protests taking place in New York City, you might expect those taking lead roles to be
Black people.
It appears this isn't necessarily the case, and some of the worst damage and most violent ideologies are instead the products
of privileged white kids who are rampaging in the streets.
Meet Clara Kraebber, who was arrested for felony rioting and misdemeanor possession of graffiti instruments
after being identified as one
of the people causing more than $100,000 worth of damage during an early September window-smashing spree.
Kraebber, aged 20, is a history major at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She's the daughter of an architect and a child
psychologist and comes from a family so wealthy that they own a 1.8 million dollar co-op with river views on the Upper East Side
in Manhattan, as well as a country home built in the 1730s in exclusive Litchfield County, Connecticut.
Kraebber's mother, Virginia Kindred, runs Kindred Arch.Works, a Manhattan architect firm that has designed spaces for Columbia
University and NYU, and worked on numerous school and business spaces throughout the city.
Her father is Markus Kraebber, an Upper East Side child and adolescent psychiatrist who teaches at the Columbia University
Department of Psychiatry. ( source
)
She seems to be a prime example of a person who drank the Koolaid of the kind of
misguided indoctrination many
young people are facing right now.
What police found in her belongings
When Kraebber was arrested, police found dozens of handwritten pages of plans to "redistribute wealth" in what she called a "revolutionary
strategy that appears to have been inspired by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin – whose totalitarian government has been widely condemned
for overseeing mass repressions
, ethnic cleansing, deportations
, hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines
that killed millions
( source ) – and Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky.
From a NY Post report, here are some of the writings found in her handwritten manifesto.
In her notes, Kraebber pointed to the "HUGE number of empty units" in "white flight apts, new luxury buildings" that and include
the instruction to "study tactics of clearing buildings."
There are repeated references to "scouts" to find vacant apartments and locksmiths to help break in, as well as the need to
"prep for SWAT-style eviction efforts" through the use of movable "barricades" and "bricks on roofs as weapons," sources said.
A page titled "Revolutionary Strategy" and dated Aug. 21 includes notes that say "Stalin -- defend USSR at all costs" and "Trotsky
-- United front of all working class but don't let capitalists in," sources said.
There are repeated references to the Spanish Civil War, including an assertion that the failure of the Spanish revolution of
1936 was a "failure of leadership," sources said.
"Some think actual revolution will be lead by more deliberate leadership," Kraebber wrote.
Kraebber also faulted the protests over the police killing of George Floyd, writing, "Minneapolis -- lots of spontaneous radical
energy but no leadership."
Her notes contain multiple mentions of "Abolition Park" -- or "AP" -- which refer to the anti-cop encampment that activists
set up outside City Hall during the recent battle to defund the NYPD, which resulted in a total $1.5 billion in cuts to its operating
and capital budgets.
"All cops are bad because they work for a system that thrives off the oppression of marginalized communities. Asking 'what
about the 'good' cops?' is like asking what about the good slave masters," according to the Abolition Park website. (
source
)
So to be clear, this rich kid wants to find vacant apartments and also forcibly evict residents to give the homes to others she
feels are more worthy of living in them. She wants to defend this violently and has already been arrested for destroying property.
And she's awaiting trial in her family's luxurious second home.
Her notes led the NYPD to issue a warning to police officers.
Kraebber's violent plans led the NYPD to issue a warning to police officers about possible tactics that could be used against
them.
The discovery of Kraebber's notes led the NYPD to warn cops in a Wednesday email that they could face future incidents during
which anarchists blend in with peaceful protesters to incite violence before changing into all-black clothing, sources said.
The "Officer Safety Alert" also said that anarchists could listen in on police communications and stash rocks on rooftops to
hurl at cops.
In addition, the NYPD said that the homes of police brass could be targeted. (
source
)
During the riot, hundreds of people chanted, "Every city, every town, burn the precinct to the ground."
She's not the only wealthy kid who was arrested.
Several of Kraebber's "comrades" also come from privileged backgrounds.
Fox News reported:
Frank Fuhrmeister, 30, of Stuyvesant Heights, charged with rioting and possession of a graffiti instrument, is a freelance
art director who's designed ads for Joe Coffee and has also worked for Pepsi, Samsung and The Glenlivet, among other high-profile
brands, his LinkedIn profile and
portfolio shows. He studied fine arts with a concentration in
photography at Florida State College in Jacksonville, according to his LinkedIn, and his most recent address is a stately home
on Reed Island Drive in the city's tony Beacon Hills and Harbour Neighborhood, public records show
Adi Sragovich , 20, is a student at Sarah Lawrence College from Great Neck, L.I., according to police and her family. Before
joining the protest, Sragovich was an accomplished musician who spent time performing in local theater groups and at the Sea
Cliff Yacht Club, according to the
Great Neck Record , which
photographed her during a 2017 show.
Claire Severine, 27, who lives in Washington Heights and was charged with rioting, appears to be a signed model with the
We Speak agency who had the ability to jet between Montreal, Quebec, and Dublin, Ireland, before settling in the Big Apple
to "pursue a career in acting," according to a
modeling profile with the same name
Etkar Surette , a 27-year-old from Brooklyn who summered in Europe as a kid, is charged with rioting and possession of
a graffiti instrument.
Elliot Rucka, a 20-year-old from Portland, Oregon, charged with rioting, is the son of
famed comic
book writers Greg Rucka and Jennifer Van Meter, according to his father's online bio. Greg penned the comic book series
"The Old Guard," which he then adapted for a Netflix film of the same name -- and co-created the "Stumptown" comic series that
ABC optioned into a TV show last year. (
source )
The hypocrisy of these people wanting to redistribute the wealth of others is simply mind-boggling.
There's a pattern here.
Earlier this summer, Toby Cowern wrote about how the change
of names from CHAZ to CHOP was extremely significant. I think we're seeing the same pattern with these young people as we did
with the Occupy Wall Street protestors.
Think back to 2009-2011 – this was the real peak of the Occupy movement. We're now in 2020. We're nine years on.
So those young, idyllic people that were the main rank and file of that movement are 10 years older now. Those who were quite
high profile students from good universities were getting behind this, what positions are they in nowadays? They're going to be
sitting at mid, or high-level management in major corporations. They're going to have a whole other sphere of influence.
Or they might be on the city council.
A Seattle City Council member, Kshama Sawant, was part of the original Occupy Wall Street protests and is also part of this
one.
While the protest does have some loose leadership, there are few formal structures. Sawant compares the space to the "Night
of 500 tents" during the Occupy Wall Street movement in Seattle in October 2011, of which she was a part. Back then, Occupy protesters
were able to
drive police from their space before police returned and cleared out the area where the protests took place.
Already, said Sawant, CHOP has outlasted what they were able to achieve with that Occupy action, which only lasted three days.
But she said she expects police to clear the area sometime in the near future. "I don't think that we can in any way assume that
the police will not come back and specifically attack this space," she said. "I think we should expect that that could happen
at any moment, because that's exactly what happened in Occupy." (
source )
No longer is this about wearing a funny t-shirt and waving a flag on the street and feeling the reward of being 'part of the
crowd' anymore. These people have progressed into places that they have major corporate clout.
So we have more brainwashed, privileged kids touting communism who will one day hold positions of power. Kids with these backgrounds
will be on boards of directors. They'll hold corporate jobs. They'll handle funds.
But I'd be willing to bet they won't be turning over the keys to their own Upper East Side co-ops if the opportunity rolls
around to reallocate property. They'll just be coming after everyone else's hard-earned property in the name of "revolutionary strategy."
dogismycopilot , 8 hours ago
These aren't kids. They are adults who have accepted the rights of being an American without accepting the responsibilities.
These people need to be punished by the Federal government. If they are released I can promise you it will only burnish their
credentials and feed their insanity.
This is a Communist Insurrection. The Communists have hijacked the Democratic party.
If Joe Biden were to win, he will not be in control. The Communists will. The first thing they will do is eliminate the filibuster.
Then they will pack the supreme court by adding more judges. The electoral college would go bye bye. They will redistribute senators
based on population – imagine California with 30 sentators. Illegal immigrants and residents will be given voting rights.
This election is not a Democrat v Republican. This is about a radical left progressive party (communist-democrats) who wish
to fundamentally alter the US. They want to erase 1776 and they want to go for a Jacobian French revolution complete with guillatins.
These people need to be punished severely.
Yen Cross , 7 hours ago
I digress, these adults have the mental acuity of a 15 year old child 75 years ago. When I was 20, I was running a business
out of my garage.
TBT or not TBT , 6 hours ago
Colonial America was balkanized into various Protestant Christian variants. So balkanized that even after the 1st amendment
was ratified various states maintained state recognized state religions. Fully constitutionally by the way, as the Establishment
Clause only applied to Congress, not the states. Any brand of Protestant Christianity could be and was recognized by state and
local government.
Roger Casement , 5 hours ago
...Commiefornia gangsters have been openly criminally discriminating against white American citizens since the 70s. 30% of
the students in their publicly funded colleges are white while over half their population is/was white. That's some massive, blatant,
anti-American discrimination and racist RICO theft. The gangsters are getting away with this everywhere since the Clintons.
In the mid-1980s, Rony Brauman, who, at the time, was the president of the leading
humanitarian organization Médecins sans Frontières, established a new human
rights group called Liberté sans Frontières. For the inaugural colloquium,
Brauman invited a number of speakers, among them Peter Bauer, a recently retired professor from
the London School of Economics. Bauer was an odd choice given that he was a staunch defender of
European colonialism; he had once responded to a student pamphlet that accused the British of
taking "the rubber from Malaya, the tea from India, [and] raw materials from all over the
world," by arguing that actually "the British took the rubber to Malaya and the tea to India."
Far from the West causing Third World poverty, Bauer maintained that "contacts with the West"
had been the primary agents of the colonies' material progress.
Bauer hammered on this point at the colloquium, claiming that indigenous Amazonians were
among the poorest people in the world precisely because they enjoyed the fewest "external
contacts." Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, he continued, showed proof of the
economic benefits such contacts brought. "Whatever one thinks of colonialism it can't be held
responsible for Third World poverty," he argued.
In her illuminating new book, "The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of
Neoliberalism," Jessica Whyte recounts this story only to ask why Brauman, a leading
humanitarian activist, invited Bauer -- whom The Economist had described as being as hostile to
foreign aid as Friedrich Hayek had been to socialism -- to deliver a talk during the opening
event for a new human rights organization. Her response is multifaceted, but, as she traces the
parallel histories of neoliberalism and human rights, it becomes clear that the two projects
are not necessarily antithetical, and actually have more in common than one might think.
Clickhereto read long excerpts from "The Morals of the Market" at Google
Books.
Indeed, Liberté sans Frontières went on to play a central role in
delegitimizing Third World accounts of economic exploitation. The organization incessantly
challenged the accusations that Europe's opulence was based on colonial plunder and that the
world economic system made the rich richer and the poor poorer. And while it may have been more
outspoken in its critique of Third Worldism than more prominent rights groups, it was in no way
an outlier. Whyte reveals that in the eyes of organizations such as Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch, for instance, the major culprit for the woes of postcolonial states was
neither Europe nor the international economic order but rather corrupt and ruthless Third World
dictators who violated the rights of their populations as they undermined the development of a
free economy. This approach coincides neatly with neoliberal thought.
Whyte contends that we cannot understand why human rights and neoliberalism flourished
together if we view neoliberalism as an exclusively economic doctrine that favors
privatization, deregulation, and unfettered free markets over public institutions and
government. Although she strives to distinguish herself from thinkers like Wendy Brown and
Michel Foucault, she ends up following their footsteps by emphasizing the moral dimension of
neoliberal thought: the idea that a competitive market was not "simply a more efficient means
of distributing resources; it was the basic institution of a moral and 'civilised' society, and
a necessary support for individual rights."
She exposes how neoliberal ideas informed the intense struggle over the meaning of "human
rights," and chronicles how Western rights groups and neoliberals ultimately adopted a similar
interpretation, one that emphasizes individual freedoms at the expense of collective and
economic rights. This interpretation was, moreover, in direct opposition to many newly
independent postcolonial leaders.
Whyte describes, for instance, how just prior to the adoption of the two 1966 human rights
covenants -- the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights -- Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of
independent Ghana, coined the term "neo-colonialism" to refer to a series of mechanisms that
perpetuate colonial patterns of exploitation in the wake of formal independence. Nkrumah
"argued that the achievement of formal sovereignty had neither freed former colonies from the
unequal economic relations of the colonial period nor given them political control over their
own territories," thus preventing these states from securing the basic rights of their
inhabitants. A "state in the grip of neo-colonialism," he wrote, "is not master of its own
destiny."
Nkrumah thought that only when postcolonial states fully controlled their natural resources
would they be able to invest in the population's well-being. In the meantime, neo-colonial
economic arrangements were denying African states the ability to provide adequate education and
health care as well as other economic and social rights to their populations, thus revealing
how these economic arrangements were welded in a Gordian knot with international politics. Any
attempt to understand one without the other provided a distorted picture of reality.
Such combining of the economy with the political, however, was anathema to neoliberal
thought. In 1927, exactly three decades before Ghana's new leader led his country to
independence, Hayek's mentor, economist Ludwig von Mises, had already argued that colonialism
took advantage of the superior weaponry of the "white race" to subjugate, rob, and enslave
weaker peoples. But Mises was careful to distinguish colonial oppression from the economic
goals of a competitive market, noting that Britain was different since its form of colonialism
pursued "grand commercial objectives." Similarly, the British economist Lionel Robbins
separated the benign economic sphere from the merciless political one, writing in the 1930s
that "[n]ot capitalism, but the anarchic political organization of the world is the root
disease of our civilization."
These thinkers set the tone for many neoliberal economists who have since defined colonial
imperialism as a phenomenon of politics, not capitalism, while casting the market as a realm of
mutually beneficial, free, peaceful exchange. In this view, it is the political realm that
engenders violence and coercion, not the economic sphere. Yet, during the period of
decolonization neoliberals also understood that they needed to introduce moral justifications
for the ongoing economic exploitation of former colonies. Realizing that human rights were
rapidly becoming the new lingua franca of global moral speak, Whyte suggests that they, like
Nkrumah, began mobilizing rights talk -- except that neoliberals deployed it as a weapon
against states who tried to gain control over their country's natural resources as well as a
shield from any kind of criticism directed toward their vision of a capitalist market.
Their relation to the state was complicated, but was not really different from the one
espoused by their liberal predecessors. Neoliberal thinkers understood that states are
necessary to enforce labor discipline and to protect corporate interests, embracing states that
served as handmaidens to competitive markets. If, however, a state undermined the separation of
political sovereignty from economic ownership or became attuned to the demands of its people to
nationalize resources, that state would inevitably be perceived as a foe. The solution was to
set limits on the state's exercise of sovereignty. As Friedrich Hayek, the author of "The Road
to Serfdom," put it, the "taming of the savage" must be followed by the "taming of the
state."
Shaping the state so that it advances a neoliberal economic model can, however, be a brutal
undertaking, and the consequences are likely to generate considerable suffering for large
segments of the population. Freed from any commitment to popular sovereignty and economic
self-determination, the language of liberal human rights offered neoliberals a means to
legitimize transformative interventions that would subject states to the dictates of
international markets. This is why a conception of human rights, one very different from the
notion of rights advanced by Nkrumah, was needed.
In Whyte's historical analysis the free-market ideologues accordingly adopted a lexicon of
rights that buttressed the neoliberal state, while simultaneously pathologizing mass politics
as a threat to individual freedoms. In a nutshell, neoliberal economists realized that human
rights could play a vital role in the dissemination of their ideology, providing, in Whyte's
words, "competitive markets with a moral and legal foundation."
At about the same time that neoliberalism became hegemonic, human rights organizations began
sprouting in the international arena. By the early 1970s, Amnesty International and the
International Commission of Jurists were already active in numerous countries around the globe,
and Americas Watch (a precursor to Human Rights Watch) had just been established. According to
Samuel Moyn, a professor of history at Yale and author of the best seller "The Last Utopia," it
was precisely during this period that human rights first achieved global prominence. That
Western human rights organizations gained influence during the period of neoliberal
entrenchment is, Whyte argues, not coincidental.
Although Whyte emphasizes the writings of leading neoliberal thinkers, a slightly more
nuanced approach would have framed these developments as the reflection of a conjunctural
moment, whereby the rise of neoliberalism and of human rights NGOs was itself part of numerous
economic, social, and cultural shifts. Chile serves as a good example of this conjuncture,
revealing how a combination of historical circumstances led neoliberal economics and a certain
conception of human rights to merge.
Notwithstanding the bloody takeover, the extrajudicial executions, the disappearances and
wholesale torture of thousands of dissidents, Hayek's response to Pinochet's 1973 coup was that
"the world shall come to regard the recovery of Chile as one of the great economic miracles of
our time." Milton Friedman, a key figure in the Chicago School, later echoed this assessment,
describing Chile as an economic and political "miracle." The two Nobel Prize winners were not
detached observers, having provided advice to Pinochet on how to privatize state services such
as education, health care, and social security, and it was Friedman's former students, the
"Chicago Boys," who occupied central positions within the authoritarian regime, ensuring that
these ideas became policy.
What is arguably even more surprising is the reaction of human rights organizations to the
bloody coup in Chile. Whyte acknowledges that Naomi Klein covered much of this ground in "The
Shock Doctrine," where she details how Amnesty International obscured the relationship between
neoliberal "shock therapy" and political violence. Characterizing the Southern Cone as a
"laboratory" for both neoliberalism and grassroots human rights activism, Klein argued that, in
its commitment to impartiality, Amnesty occluded the reasons for the torture and killing, and
thereby "helped the Chicago School ideology to escape from its first bloody laboratory
virtually unscathed." While Whyte concurs with Klein's assessment, she has a slightly different
point to make.
To do so, she shows how Samuel Moyn contested Klein's claim that the human rights movement
was complicit in the rise of neoliberalism; he argued that the "chronological coincidence of
human rights and neoliberalism" is "unsubstantiated" and that the so-called "Chilean miracle"
is just as much due to the country's "left's own failures." Moyn's comment, Whyte cogently
observes, "raises the question of why, in the period of neoliberal ascendancy, international
human rights organisations flourished, largely escaping the repression that was pursued so
furiously against leftists, trade unionists, rural organizers and indigenous people in
countries such as Chile."
She points out that the CIA-trained National Intelligence Directorate had instructions to
carry out the "total extermination of Marxism," but in an effort to present Chile as a modern
civilized nation, the junta did not disavow the language of human rights, and at the height of
the repression allowed overseas human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and
the International Commission of Jurists to enter the country, giving them extensive freedom of
movement.
Whyte explains that in focusing their attention on state violence while upholding the market
as a realm of freedom and voluntary cooperation, human rights NGOs strengthened the great
neoliberal dichotomy between coercive politics and free and peaceful markets. Allende's
government had challenged the myth of the market as a realm of voluntary, non-coercive, and
mutually beneficial relations, and the Chilean leader paid for it with his life. By contrast,
the junta with the Chicago Boys' aid sought to uphold this myth, while using the state both to
enhance a neoliberal economic order and to decimate collective political resistance. Whyte
acknowledges that in challenging the junta's torturous means, human rights NGOs arguably helped
restrain the worst of its violence, but they did so at the cost of abandoning the economy as a
site of political contestation.
Whyte's claim is not simply that the human rights NGOs dealt with political violence in
isolation from the country's economic transformations, as Klein had argued. Rather, she shows
that the gap between Amnesty's version of human rights and the version espoused by postcolonial
leaders, like Nkrumah, was wide. Indeed, Amnesty International invoked human rights in a way
that had little in common with Nkrumah's program of economic self-determination, and the
organization was even hostile to the violent anti-colonial struggles promoted by UN diplomats
from postcolonial societies during the same period. The story of human rights and neoliberalism
in Chile is not, as Whyte convincingly shows, simply a story of the massive human rights
violations carried out in order to allow for market reforms, or of the new human rights NGOs
that contested the junta's violence. It is also the story of the institutionalization of a
conservative and market-driven vision of neoliberal human rights, one that highlights
individual rights while preserving the inequalities of capitalism by protecting the market from
the intrusions of "the masses."
Expanding Whyte's analysis to the present moment (the book focuses on the years between 1947
and 1987) while thinking of the relation between neoliberalism and human rights as part of a
historical conjuncture, it becomes manifest that many if not most human rights NGOs operating
today have been shaped by this legacy. One of its expressions is that rights groups rarely
represent "the masses" in any formal or informal capacity. Consider Human Rights Watch, whose
longstanding executive director Kenneth Roth oversees an annual budget of over $75 million and
a staff of roughly 400 people. In four years' time, Roth will outstrip Robert Mugabe's 30-year
tenure in office; while Roth has dedicated most of his adult life struggling against social
wrongs, he has never had to compete in elections to secure his post. Indeed, due to the
corporate structure of his organization the only constituency to which he is accountable are
Human Rights Watch's board members and donors -- those who benefit from neoliberal economic
arrangements -- rather than the people whose rights the NGO defends or, needless to say, the
"masses." Moreover, Human Rights Watch is not exceptional within the rights-world, and even
though rights organizations across the globe say they are interested in what the "people want,"
sovereignty of the people in any meaningful sense, wherein the people can control the decisions
that affect their lives most, is not really on the agenda.
Undoubtedly, Human Rights Watch has shed light on some of the most horrendous state crimes
carried out across the globe over the past several decades. Exposing egregious violations is
not an easy task and is a particularly important endeavor in our post-truth era. However,
truth-telling, in and of itself, is not a political strategy. Even if exposing violations is
conceived of as a component of a broader political mobilization, the truths that NGOs like
Human Rights Watch have been revealing are blinkered. Given that they interpret human rights in
an extremely narrow way, one that aligns quite neatly with neoliberal thought, their strategy
therefore fails to provide tools for those invested in introducing profound and truly
transformative social change.
From the get-go, most Western human rights NGOs had been attuned to Cold War politics and
refrained from advocating for economic and social rights for decades, inventing numerous
reasons to justify this stance: from the claim that the right to education and health care were
not basic human rights like freedom of speech and freedom from torture, to the assertion that
economic and social rights lacked a precise definition, thus rendering them difficult to
campaign for. It took close to a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ongoing
campaigning of Third World activists for the leading human rights organizations to acknowledge
that economic and social rights, such as the right to health care, education, and social
security, were indeed human rights, rights that they should dedicate at least some of its
resources to fight for. But even today, almost 20 years after their integration within Human
Rights Watch's agenda, the resources allocated to the protection of these rights is relatively
small, and the way that the organization strives to secure them is deeply skewed by the
neoliberal view that politics and markets are separate realms and that human rights work should
avoid interference with the capitalist structure of competitive markets. Wittingly or not,
organizations like Human Rights Watch have not only bolstered the neoliberal imagination, but
have produced a specific arsenal of human rights that shapes social struggles in a way that
weakens those who aim to advance a more egalitarian political horizon.
Several years ago, Roth tried to justify Human Rights Watch's approach, claiming that the
issues it deals with are determined by its "methodology," and that the "essence of that
methodology [ ] is not the ability to mobilize people in the streets, to engage in litigation,
to press for broad national plans, or to provide technical assistance. Rather, the core of our
methodology is our ability to investigate, expose, and shame." The hallmark of human rights
work, in his view, is uncovering discrimination, while the unequal arrangement of the local and
international economy leading to discrimination are beyond the organization's purview. Not
unlike the neoliberal thinkers discussed in Whyte's book, Human Rights Watch limits its
activism to formal equality, adopting a form of inquiry that ignores and ultimately disavows
the structural context, which effectively undercuts forms of collective struggle.
Returning to Rony Brauman and the creation of Liberté sans Frontières, toward
the end of the book Whyte recounts how in a 2015 interview he understood things differently
than he had in the mid-1980s. "I see myself and the small group that I brought together as a
kind of symptom of the rise of neoliberalism [ ] We had the conviction that we were a kind of
intellectual vanguard, but no," he laughed, "we were just following the rising tendency."
Whyte suggests that this assessment is, if anything, too modest: rather than being a
symptom, the humanitarians who founded Liberté sans Frontières explicitly
mobilized the language of human rights in order to contest the vision of substantive equality
that defined the Third Worldist project. Brauman and his organization benefited from the
neo-colonial economic arrangements and, she notes,
were not powerless companions of the rising neoliberals, but active, enthusiastic and
influential fellow travellers. Their distinctive contribution was to pioneer a distinctly
neoliberal human rights discourse, for which a competitive market order accompanied by a
liberal institutional structure was truly the last utopia.
The destructive legacy that Whyte so eloquently describes suggests that the convergence
between neoliberals and rights practitioners has defanged human rights from any truly
emancipatory potential. Formal rights without the redistribution of wealth and the
democratization of economic power, as we have learned not only from the ongoing struggles of
postcolonial states but also from the growing inequality in the Global North, simply do not
lead to justice. So if the objectives of a utopian imagination include equitable distribution
of resources and actual sovereignty of the people, we urgently need a new vocabulary of
resistance and novel methods of struggle.
If intellectuals replace the current professional politicians as the leaders of society the
situation would become much worse. Because they have neither the sense of reality, nor common
sense. For them, the words and speeches are more important than the actual social laws and the
dominant trends, the dominant social dynamics of the society. The psychological principle of
the intellectuals is that we could organize everything much better, but we are not allowed to
do it.
But the actual situation is as following: they could organize the life of society as they
wish and plan, in the way they view is the best only if under conditions that are not present
now are not feasible in the future. Therefore they are not able to act even at the level of
current leaders of the society, which they despise. The actual leaders are influenced by social
pressures, by the current social situation, but at least they doing something. Intellectuals
are unhappy that the real stream of life they are living in. They consider it wrong. that makes
them very dangerous, because they look really smart, while in reality being sophisticated
professional idiots.
"Trump was simply asking new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- in a July phone
call -- to investigate crimes at the "highest levels" of both Kiev and Washington," Rudy
Giuliani, a personal attorney for President Trump, told Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham
Angle."
"So, he is being impeached for doing the right thing as president of the United States,"
he said.
Giuliani told Laura Ingraham on "The Ingraham Angle" that he helped forced out Yovanovitch
because she was corrupt and obstructing the investigation into Ukraine and the Bidens.
Dem's impeachment for innocent conduct is intended to obstruct the below investigations of
Obama-era corruption:
- Billions of laundered $
- Billions, mostly US $, widely misused
- Extortion
- Bribery
- DNC collusion w/ Ukraine to destroy candidate Trump
He told Ingraham that he needed her out of the way because she was corrupt. Giuliani said he
was not the first person to go to the president with concerns about the diplomat.
In more tweets Tuesday, Giuliani elaborated:
Yovanovitch needed to be removed for many reasons most critical she was denying visas to
Ukrainians who wanted to come to US and explain Dem corruption in Ukraine. She was
OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE and that's not the only thing she was doing. She at minimum enabled
Ukrainian collusion.
" Yovanovitch needed to be removed for many reasons most critical she was denying visas to
Ukrainians who wanted to come to US and explain Dem corruption in Ukraine.
She was OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE and that's not the only thing she was doing. She at
minimum enabled Ukrainian collusion."
Marie Yovanovitch was dismissed in March after Trump's allies said she was blocking the
probe of Joe Biden and bad-mouthing the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko said that she
gave him a "do not prosecute list", that included Ukraine MPs and the exact same Sorosfunded
NGO president.
Nov 19, 2019Several sources claim former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch,
instructed Ukraine officials to keep their hands off investigating the NGO in Ukraine founded
by George Soros. Why?"
Any questions? As Putin warned the US: "ask about the 5th floor of the State Department."
(where Soros held court!). No wonder the US Commies hate Putin.
What the Shiffhead Impeachment hearings demonstrated with the appearances of Ms.
Yankonitbitch, Bowtie George, and the other "Dindunuffin/Donnonuffin Clowns" is just how much
American Taxpayers' money is being wasted employing a bunch of sanctimonious drones who do
nothing but get in the way of progress. Successful Corporations remove dead wood like that
with downsizing and shakeups. But the Federal Government seems immune to efficiency because
our elected officials NEVER DO THEIR JOBS BY USING ZERO BASE BUDGETING TO JUSTIFY EVERY
******* DOLLAR. And so, we now hear of yet another Omnibus Budget being foisted onto American
Taxpayers and more wasteful spending that never, never, never, gets reduced. We need a
Taxpayer's Revolution in this Country to stop the corrupt theft.
And one more thing: What the Ukrainian Matter reveals is how Foreign Aid is dispensed,
handed out by the foreign recipient, and the funds are laundered and kicked back to the
corrupt politicians and Deep State Operatives like the Bidens. If $400 Million in palletized
untraceable cash can be delivered via a clandestine unmarked airplane at night to Iran
supposedly for ransom as the Socialist Media Complex would have us believe in a way that is
not consistent with long practiced methods for funds transfer, can we imagine all the
billions that have quietly been stolen from us to enrich scum like Barack Obola, Quid Pro
Joe, The Clintons, and so many others? IN THE MEANTIME, PRESIDENT TRUMP CAN'T GET A DIME TO
SPEND ON BUILDING A WALL TO STOP THE ILLEGAL ALIEN COCKROACH INVASION.
Yovanovitch pulled the "poor me federal" employee act. I worked for the Feds for 31 years
most as a manger and Yovanovitch victim act is what all federal employees pull when they get
in trouble. Blah Blah my 30 years of service, my awards, my appraisals blah blah. She said
that she had no concern about Hunter Biden while being hailed as a corruption fighter. Blah
blah.
It's a crime that State Department people and ambassadors can have the same ethnic origin
as the countries they serve in. It's a recipe for personal/family agendas, corruption and not
representing the best interests of the United States. Of course if you're a DemoRat, you're
always corrupt, as they have proven it is a given.
Rudy Giuliani: Yovanovitch Was Part Of The Cover-Up, She Had To Be Ousted.
"Ousted"? I thought the penalty for high treason was hanging. What are they waiting for?
Hang the lot and in a public square near Congress so that all the traitors who reside in
Congress and the highest levels of government and banking get a sense of what awaits
them.
"At the end of the month, almost all criminals arrested for state crimes in New York,
including sex crimes , will be released without posting bail. It is a suicidal policy,
but it is nonetheless the state’s prerogative to engage in such suicide. What is
not its prerogative is the New York law that took effect this week granting
driver’s licenses to illegal aliens and blocking ICE access to criminal enforcement
information. We have a national union with a federal government controlling immigration for a
reason, and it’s time for the Trump administration to show state officials who has the
final say over this issue.
Beginning this week, the NY state government
is inviting any and all illegal aliens , with or without criminal records, to apply for
driver’s licenses. As documentation
, they can offer consular ID cards, which are fraught with fraud, expired work permits, or
foreign birth certificates. They can even offer Border Crossing Cards, which are only valid
for 72 hours and for a stay in the country near the border area! The state law further
prohibits state and county officials from disclosing any information to ICE and bars ICE and
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from accessing N.Y. Department of Motor Vehicles (NYDMV)
records and information.
It’s truly hard to overstate the enormity of the public safety crisis this law,
dubbed “the green light law,” will spawn. There are
currently 3.3 million aliens in the ICE non-detained docket who remain at large in this
country. Just in one year, ICE put detainers on aliens criminally charged with 2,500
homicides. Given
that New York has the fourth largest illegal alien population in the country, it is
virtually certain that a large number of criminal aliens reside in the state and will now be
offered legal resident documents to shield them from removal.
Some might suggest that this is the problem of New York’s residents and that it is
their job and their responsibility alone to overturn these laws. But the difference between
this law and their general pro-criminal laws is that when it comes to immigration, they
simply lack the power to enact such a policy. Rather than the DHS and DOJ bemoaning these
laws, it’s time for the Trump administration to actually stop them in their tracks.
Otherwise the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution is nothing but ink on parchment.
A violation of federal law and the Constitution
8 U.S.C. § 1324 makes a felon of anyone who “knowing or in reckless disregard
of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation
of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or
shield from detection, such alien in any place.” That statute also makes a criminal of
anyone who “encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United
States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence
is or will be in violation of law” or anyone who “engages in any conspiracy to
commit any of the preceding acts, or aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding
acts.” Some form of this law has been on the books since 1891.
NY’s new law not only harbors illegal aliens but actually calls on the DMV to notify
illegal aliens of any ICE interest in their files. There is only one purpose of this law: to
tip off criminal alien fugitives that ICE is looking for them, the most literal violation of
the law against shielding them from detection. Would we allow state officials to block
information to the FBI, ATF, or DEA?
Moreover, New York’s Green Light law violates the entire purpose of the infamous
1986 amnesty bill, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which was “to combat
the employment of illegal aliens.” The law specifically makes it “illegal for
employers to knowingly hire, recruit, refer, or continue to employ unauthorized
workers.” Yet the rationale for the Green Light Law, according to supporters , was
“getting to work” and “ensure that our industries have the labor they need
to keep our economy moving.” That directly conflicts with federal law.
Finally, 8 U.S.C. 1373 prohibits state and local government from “in any way
restrict[ing]
, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status,
lawful or unlawful, of any individual.” The entire purpose of this bill is to restrict
all New York government entities from sending information on citizenship status to ICE.
Whether one disagrees with immigration laws or not, nobody can argue that the federal
government lacks the power to enforce them. Immigration law is one of the core jobs of the
federal government. People are free to go to any state once they are in the country, which is
why the Founders transferred
immigration policy from the states under the Articles of Confederation to the federal
government under the Constitution.
This is why James Madison in Federalist #42 bemoaned that, under
the Articles of Confederation, there was a “very serious embarrassment” whereby
“an alien therefore legally incapacitated for certain rights in the [one state], may by
previous residence only in [another state], elude his incapacity; and thus the law of one
State, be preposterously rendered paramount to the law of another, within the jurisdiction of
the other.” He feared that without the Constitution’s new idea of giving the
federal Congress power “to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,”
“certain descriptions of aliens, who had rendered themselves obnoxious” would
choose states with weak immigration laws as entry points into the union and then move to any
other state as legal residents or citizens.
As for immigration without naturalization, because of the issue of the slave trade, the
first clause of Article I, Section 9 bars Congress from prohibiting “the Migration or
Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to
admit” until the year 1808. Well, Congress has long exercised that power to exclude
over the past 200 years. New York has lacked the ability to maintain its own separate
immigration scheme for quite some time.
When did the federal government become weak in the face of state rebellion?"
The diplomatic service made a big mistake when they abandoned the practice of preventing
people from serving in countries where they have an ethnic connection
jovanivic is part of a rabid Ukrainian diaspora, chased out of the country by the Red Army
for collaboration with the Nazis.
these people have a vicious, insatiable desire for revenge ...and the US does not need
these kind of biases mucking things up
"... That person then will land on a special list of "agents" and will be obliged to register as a company so that his or her funding is transparent to the state. A Russian journalist working for Voice of America also becomes a foreign agent under the law. ..."
"... Butina was charged under a different though similar statute , which also requires foreign agents to register with the U.S. government. Even U.S. officials sometimes confuse the regulations, and it's not easy for a layman to understand what actions make one a foreign agent under them. ..."
"... Butina, for example, was sentenced to 18 months for trying to establish contacts with Republican operatives and National Rifle Association members ..."
"... Putin was annoyed by the Butina case. "They grabbed the girl, put her behind bars, and they had nothing to show for it," he commented after her sentencing. ..."
"... Now comes the retaliation -- and as usual under Putin, mainly against Russians he sees as a Western fifth column ..."
The new law makes it possible to
apply the foreign agent label to individuals, specifically to those who spread content from
media or other organizations determined to be foreign agents and who receive any kind of
funding from a foreign or foreign-financed source...
That person then will land on a special list of "agents" and will be obliged to
register as a company so that his or her funding is transparent to the state. A Russian
journalist working for Voice of America also becomes a foreign agent under the law.
... ... ...
Failure to register, open a company or mark one's stories or posts as coming from a foreign
agent will be punishable by a yet-undetermined fine.
Andrei Klimov, one of the drafters of the law, recently told
the government-owned daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta:
Unlike our foreign counterparts, we envisage no criminal liability. We don't grab people,
we don't toss them into torture chambers, like some other countries that do it for five or
fifteen years. We are capable of getting results with administrative measures.
It's clear from his comment that the Russian law is a response to the sudden
prominence of foreign-agent registration, a previously obscure requirement best known to
professional lobbyists, in the Donald Trump-Russia investigations of special counsel Robert
Mueller. He had political operatives Paul Manafort and Rick Gates indicted for violating the
Foreign Agent Registration Act of 1938, previously a laxly enforced law.
Butina was charged under a different
though similar statute , which also requires foreign
agents to register with the U.S. government. Even U.S. officials sometimes confuse the regulations, and it's not
easy for a layman to understand what actions make one a foreign agent under them.
Butina, for example, was sentenced to 18 months for trying to establish contacts with
Republican operatives and National Rifle Association members on behalf of a Russian
Central Bank official who may have wanted to set up a back channel between the Kremlin and the
Republican elite in the U.S.
Putin was annoyed by the Butina case. "They grabbed the girl, put her behind bars, and
they had nothing to show for it," he commented after her sentencing.
Now comes the retaliation -- and as usual under Putin, mainly against Russians he sees
as a Western fifth column rather than against the U.S. as such. Also as usual under Putin,
the response is asymmetrical.
On the need to purge the "5th Column"...as the illustrative case of Bolivia so clearly
exposes....
The GDR historian Kurt Gossweiler (1917-2017) is probably the greatest Marxist-Leninist
thinker not only of the GDR but of Germany. In the IIGM he participated since 1939 as a
soldier in the Wehrmacht and in 1943 he joined the Red Army. In 1947 he joined the SED of
the GDR.
Between 1958 and 1970, Gossweiler worked at the Humboldt University of the GDR as a
research assistant, receiving in 1973 the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze. Gossweiler
emphasized the central role of large banks in German monopolistic financial capital.
In a speech delivered at the International Seminar of communist and workers' parties in
Brussels in 1994, Gossweiler declared that "anti-Stalinism" was the "main obstacle to the
unity of all anti-imperialist forces and the communist movement."
Kurt Gossweiler, at the 1994 Brussels Seminar, defended Stalin and the "purges" carried
out in the 1930s, stating that those "purges" saved the Soviet Union from a "fifth column"
and secured the victory of the USSR in World War II.
On November 30th 2015, Zerohedge reported, Russian Prosecutor General's Office issued
a statement in which it recognised George Soros's Open Society Institute and another
affiliated organisation as "undesirable groups", banning Russian citizens and organisations
from participation in any of their projects.
–prosecutors said the activities of the Open Society Institute and the Open
Society Institute Assistance Foundation were a threat to the foundations of Russia's
Constitutional order and national security.
...
The Law on Undesirable Foreign Organisations came into force in early June this year.
It requires the Prosecutor General's Office and the Foreign Ministry to draw up an official
list of undesirable foreign organisations and outlaw their activities. Once a group is
recognised as undesirable, its assets in Russia must be frozen, its offices closed and the
distribution of any of its materials must be banned.
Isn't it about time all other countries around the world enacted similar laws and
policies against foreign-funded WMD NGOs? HK and Venezuela particularly come to mind, of
course, and Brazil could have avoided the Bolsonaro nuclear explosion through such laws if
they had been put into effect in time.
Mueller Dragnet Snags Ex-Clintonista, Obama Lawyer
Greg Craig took money from a pro-Russian regime, just like jailed ex-Trump aide Paul Manafort. Welcome to the
swamp.
By
Barbara Boland
•
August 15, 2019
U.S. President Barack Obama (R) greets White House counsel Gregory Craig (L) during an event on January 21,
2009.(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election has snagged its first high-profile
Democrat: Gregory Craig, former special counsel to President Bill Clinton during his impeachment and Barack Obama's
first White House counsel.
In a trial expected to last two weeks, a jury will hear how the former partner of the
prestigious Washington firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP allegedly made false statements to the U.S.
government and concealed the extent of his work for the pro-Russian Ukrainian regime. Due to a delay over jury
selection, opening arguments are
expected
to begin Friday.
The case against Craig is the latest in a series of prosecutions arising from the Department of Justice's revamped
enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires people to make fairly extensive disclosures if
they engage in political or quasi-political activities on behalf of foreign governments or officials. Almost all
high-profile cases against unregistered foreign agents in the last two years have stemmed from Mueller's investigation.
Previously, the law had been lightly enforced.
Mueller's probe led to FARA charges against Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates. The charges against Manafort
stem from work he did on behalf of President Viktor Yanukovych and his pro-Russia party. Mueller's team convicted
Manafort, Gates, and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. Manafort received a seven and a half year
sentence for conspiracy and financial crimes, some of it related to his work for Yanukovych.
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With Craig, "the Justice Department is going after some high-profile scalps,"
says
Matthew T. Sanderson, a
defense lawyer who specializes in foreign lobbying cases for the law firm Caplin and Drysdale.
Prosecutors say Craig was engaged by the Ukrainian regime to conduct an independent inquiry into the fairness of
former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko's 2011 conviction, with the hopes of quelling international concerns that it was
politically motivated by then-president and rival Yanukovych.
Manafort was also working with the regime to improve Yanukovych's image. Craig's law firm received $4.6 million for
his work.
After Craig briefed American journalists on the report, Manafort effusively praised him in an email.
"Well done," wrote Manafort to Craig. Officials in Kiev "are especially happy with the way the media is playing it.
You are 'THE MAN.'"
Journalists who published stories citing Craig's work would not have known that he had been paid to write the report
by a Ukrainian operative, as prosecutors now claim. Craig insists that he only discussed the document after it had
become public to "correct misinformation," according to court filings.
"I never discussed the findings of our report with any U.S. officials and certainly did not lobby any U.S. officials
on behalf of Ukraine," Craig said in a
statement
proclaiming his innocence. "I did not help Ukraine promote its spin when it released our report."
If journalists had known that the report had been paid for by Tymoshenko's rivals, it would have affected media
coverage, points out Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for
International Policy.
According to the indictment, although the report concluded that the evidence presented at Tymoshenko's trial
supported her conviction, in a memo for his own files, Craig wrote that the evidence against her was "virtually non
existent."
Craig backdated a letter and invoice to hide who had really paid for the report, which aided the Ukrainian
government's lies about its cost, prosecutors wrote in a 22-page indictment filed in April.
"I don't want to register as a foreign agent under FARA. I think we don't have to with this assignment, yes?" Craig
wrote
to another partner in the firm on February 13, 2012, reports
Bloomberg
.
In response to a partner's suggestion that another lawyer at the firm could decide whether he should register, Craig
wrote, "I don't really care who you ask but we need an answer from someone who we can rely on with a straight face."
Firms that take clients from countries with human rights abuses and other public relations difficulties don't appear
to have trouble attracting other clients, but they do charge a premium for that work, according to Freeman.
"Normally, if a Washington firm is going to write a report about a country, they can't get $4 million for it,"
Freeman says. "But a report written for someone who is friends with Vladimir Putin is going to cost more money."
Craig flouted FARA's reporting requirements and did not register because he did not want to limit his future career
prospects, according to prosecutors.
The idea that registering as a foreign agent is a stigma, a "scarlet letter" that will prevent agents from getting
other work, certainly prevails in Washington, "but the fact of the matter is, there's nearly 2,000 registered foreign
agents walking the streets of America," says Freeman. "They're not exactly a rare breed, and a lot of the firms that
work for foreign governments also work for domestic clients. They're lobbying for big American businesses too."
A big reason companies may prefer to register under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, as opposed to FARA, is that the
latter requires significantly more disclosure. With FARA, agents need to list the member's offices they visited,
everyone they spoke to, the days they met, and what issues were discussed -- and that's a lot of additional work, says
Freeman.
In January, Skadden agreed to register under FARA and pay a $4.6 million fine, an amount that equals what it paid for
the Ukraine report. Craig left the firm in April 2018.
The DOJ's renewed interest in investigating and prosecuting FARA crimes may make Washington insiders think twice
about concealing what foreign interests they represent. FARA registrations jumped 46 percent from 2016 to 2017, the year
after Mueller was appointed special counsel and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's home was raided.
"I think the Craig case and the other cases like it change the calculus for folks who work for foreign entities or
are doing this type of lobbying and PR work," says Freeman. "It sends a clear message that if you're at all uncertain if
you should register under FARA, it behooves you to play it safe."
Barbara Boland is
's foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her
on Twitter
@BBatDC.
"... FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing." ..."
"... Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned. ..."
"... Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government. ..."
"... Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it. ..."
The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a
final report on its findings has been issued. Although the investigation had a mandate to
explore all aspects of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, from the start
the focus was on the possibility that some members of the Trump campaign had colluded with the
Kremlin to influence the outcome of the election to favor the GOP candidate. Even though that
could not be demonstrated, many prominent Trump critics, to include Laurence Tribe of the
Harvard Law School,
are demanding that the investigation continue until Congress has discovered "the full facts
of Russia's interference [to include] the ways in which that interference is continuing in
anticipation of 2020, and the full story of how the president and his team welcomed, benefited
from, repaid, and obstructed lawful investigation into that interference and the president's
cooperation with it."
Tribe should perhaps read the report more carefully. While it does indeed confirm some
Russian meddling, it does not demonstrate that anyone in the Trump circle benefited from it or
cooperated with it. The objective currently being promoted by dedicated Trump critics like
Tribe is to make a case to impeach the president based on the alleged enormity of the Russian
activity, which is not borne out by the facts: the Russian role was intermittent, small scale
and basically ineffective.
One interesting aspect of the Mueller inquiry and the ongoing Russophobia that it has
generated is the essential hypocrisy of the Washington Establishment. It is generally agreed
that whatever Russia actually did, it did not affect the outcome of the election. That the
Kremlin was using intelligence resources to act against Hillary Clinton should surprise no one
as she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and also made clear that she would
be taking a very hard line against Moscow.
The anti-Russia frenzy in Washington generated by the vengeful Democrats and an
Establishment fearful of a loss of privilege and entitlement claimed a number of victims. Among
them was Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has a court date and will very likely be
sentenced tomorrow .
Regarding Butina, the United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe
that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association
(NRA) by having a Russian citizen take out a life membership in the organization with the
intention of corrupting it and turning it into an instrument for subverting American democracy.
Maria Butina has, by the way, a long and well documented history as an advocate for gun
ownership and was a co-founder in Russia of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence
front organization of some kind. It is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active
membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can
own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to
Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.
Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in a federal prison, having been
charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was
arrested on July 15, 2018. It is decidedly unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed
to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) , but she has not been granted bail because, as a
Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee the US and
return home.
FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to
registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts.
Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while
deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to
advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and
assessing."
Maria eventually pleaded guilty of not registering under FARA to mitigate any punishment,
hoping that she would be allowed to return to Russia after a few months in prison on top of the
nine months she has already served. She has reportedly fully cooperated the US authorities,
turning over documents, answering questions and undergoing hours of interrogation by federal
investigators before and after her guilty plea.
Maria Butina basically did nothing that damaged US security and it is difficult to see where
her behavior was even criminal, but the prosecution is asking for 18 months in prison for her
in addition to the time served. She would be, in fact, one of only a handful of individuals
ever to be imprisoned over FARA, and they all come from countries that Washington considers to
be unfriendly, to include Cuba, Saddam's Iraq and Russia. Normally the failure to comply with
FARA is handled with a fine and compulsory registration.
Butina was essentially convicted of the crime of being Russian at the wrong time and in the
wrong place and she is paying for it with prison. Selective enforcement of FARA was,
ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to
the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump
Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should
have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law
Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no
extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned.
Kushner reportedly aggressively
pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United
Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United
Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed
when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National
Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice
and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York
City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.
Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser
George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately
determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that
Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli
government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to
do nothing about it.
As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in
American politics start by focusing on Washington's adversaries but then comes up with Israel.
Noam Chomsky
described it best "First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our
elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as
compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu
goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with
overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies -- what happened with Obama
and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress
trying to -- calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And
that's just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence."
Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered
security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior
advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access
to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but
recommended nothing, as if it didn't happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it "We in Congress stand by
Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel." Indeed.
"... The article is a thorough-going rebuke of every journalist and former official (Daniel Shapiro, former ambassador under Obama, for instance, as well as the Forward and the Times opinion writers) who says that money is not at the root, or very near the root, of Democratic Party support. So let's follow the money, and review the money quotes ..."
"... there is little willingness among Democrats to argue publicly for substantially changing longstanding policy toward Israel. ..."
"... In part, some Hill staff members and former White House officials say, this is because of the influence of megadonors: Of the dozens of personal checks greater than $500,000 made out to the largest PAC for Democrats in 2018, the Senate Majority PAC, around three-fourths were written by Jewish donors. ..."
"... Though the number of Jewish donors known to prioritize pro-Israel policies above all other issues is small, there are few if any pushing in the opposite direction ..."
"... The Obama administration didn't just support the occupation, it kept supporting it right up till the November 2016 election so that Hillary Clinton wouldn't lose donors. ..."
"... concerns about donors among Democrats dominated not just "what was done but what was not done, and what was not even contemplated." Even the timing of the administration's policies toward Israel was dictated by domestic politics. ..."
"... Everyone knows this math. And the Democrats fear they'll lose all their money. ..."
"... Joel Rubin, a deputy assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in the Obama administration, former political director at J Street and a founding board member of the centrist Jewish Democratic Council of America, agreed: "The fight over Israel used to be about voters. It's more about donors now." ..."
"... Thrall says the Democratic Party leadership is perfectly happy with AIPAC, but he leaves out what we reported here: the extent of the reliance on Jewish donors is "gigantic" and "shocking," according to insiders JJ Goldberg and the head of Emily's List, and AIPAC gets to script congressional campaigns on their middle east positions before the candidates can raise money from the Jewish community. ..."
"... Sadly the Jewish community is largely supportive of Israel, as Thrall shows. By and large, American Jews are Zionists. Trump's horrors in the Middle East are OK by them. ..."
"... any declension in US support is seen as alienating the donor class. ..."
"... Joel Rubin said: "The problem for center-left groups that are more critical of Israel is that the Jewish donor class is comfortable with current U.S. policies. They just don't like Trump on other issues." ..."
"... Thrall shows that fear of losing donors played a role when the University of Michigan student body passed a narrow divestment measure last fall– to divest only from companies doing business in the occupation -- and still the administration said No way. ..."
"... Lara Friedman of Foundation for Middle East Peace and formerly of Peace Now continues to blaze a trail by honestly describing the intolerance in the Jewish community for debate of Israel. That community has pushed the anti-BDS legislation. ..."
"... I asked [Zionist Organization of America's Morton] Klein why he believed it was "utterly racist and despicable," as he put it, for [Richard] Spencer to promote a state for only one ethnic group but not racist for Israel to do so. "Israel is a unique situation," he said. "This is really a Jewish state given to us by God." He added, "God did not create a state for white people or for black people." ..."
"... Thrall says Israel is Jim Crow society thru and thru. ..."
"... Israeli law forbids citizens to obtain citizenship or permanent residency for Palestinian spouses from the West Bank and Gaza. ..."
"... First, of course there was the famous 'Benjamins' tweet in which Omar noted that members of Congress were obedient to the Lobby because of the hundreds of millions it raises and distributes to loyal pro-Israel candidates. ..."
"... The way this happened was instructive: there is, of course, an ancient anti-Semitic trope that Jews are rich and use their wealth to control the finance, banking, entertainment, and the media sectors, etc. That of course, has nothing to do with the true statement that the Lobby raises and distributes massive lucre to its favored candidates. A reasonable person can see the difference between these two concepts. ..."
"... anyone who believes that the interests of one of the greatest powers on earth is the same as that of a small Middle Eastern theocratic state is either terribly naïve or worse ..."
"... "Pro-Israel Jews like Engel are particularly exercised by the implication of dual loyalty. That is, that pro-Israel Jews are more loyal to Israel than America. An especially apt historical phrase connoting dual loyalty is the term 'Israel Firster.' It was not invented by an anti-Semite or white supremacist. But rather by the dean of American Jewish historians, Abe Sachar, the first president of Brandeis University. ..."
"... "American Jews continued to object to Israel's claim that a genuine Jewish life was possible only in Israel. Abram L. Sachar, president of Brandeis University, at the biennial convention of JWB [Jewish Welfare Board], declared on April 2, 1960 that among Jews there is no room 'for Israel Firsters whose chauvinism and arrogance find nothing relevant or viable in any area outside of Israel.'" ..."
"... Israel is no longer a democracy. Instead it has become a theocracy, run by fundamentalist extremists bent on holy war with the Muslim world. Israel's interests are diverging from those of the democratic west more than ever. And this fissure can only continue to widen as Israel sinks ever deeper into mass murder, Occupation and oppression. Israel's interests and America's are no longer the same. Not even close. That little sliver of daylight which presidents used to boast about not existing when it came to Israel and U.S. interests: it's now a wide-open expanse of sky. ..."
"... The smell of greenbacks remains too enticing to resist. ..."
"... Phil likes to downplay the role of Christian Zionists, while others who feel uncomfortable talking about Jewish donors ( fearing the antisemitism charge) like to emphasize them. The truth is that they are both important in why the US supports Israel. ..."
"... on the secular level American rightwingers sometimes see Israel as a bastion of "Western civilization" surrounded by the heathens. Of course some of that last part overlaps with what Israel supporters in the Democratic Party think. ..."
"... The truth is the GOP's courting of the donor class comes from the same motivation – the counting of the donor Benjamins. The difference is they can better hide their support (of Zionism) under banners of defense, business, and righteousness. ..."
"... Trump plays to this crowd with his actions in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Finally, this "donor class" could hardly match the daily U.S. gift of $10 million, so the pitch they make is to American taxpayers, although nobody ever talks about that. ..."
"... 'Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, similarly told the Aipac conference in 2018: "Of course, we say it's our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace."' Damn, and I thought that the reason there was no peace was because of the oppressive, prison-like conditions of the Palestinian people under Occupation. ..."
"... Of course it is "all about the Benjamins". Contending to the contrary is simply silly. One might well add that BDS can be viewed as a good thing for Israel, and in that country's true best interests. ..."
"... A collection of primitive Bronze Age fictional gibberish can confer land titles over bits of the Middle East, to its adherents – even to adherents with absolutely no ancestral connection to the land. ..."
This weekend the New York Times
breaks
one of the biggest taboos , describing the responsibility of Jewish donors for the Democratic Party's slavish support for Israel.
Nathan Thrall's groundbreaking piece repeats a lot of data we've reported here and says in essence that it really is about the Benjamins,
as Rep. Ilhan Omar said so famously. The donor class of the party is overwhelmingly Jewish, and Jews are still largely wed to Zionism–
that's the nut. Though that party is breaking up. Thrall's labors are minimized by the New York Times with the headline "The Battle
Over B.D.S.," but his message is that the progressive base has a highly-critical view of Israel that the leadership has refused to
reflect, and that's about to change. We're inside the tent. The party is going to have to reflect pro-Palestinian positions. Ben
Rhodes tells Thrall that the moment of overcoming the fear of the pro-Israel lobby (as the Cuba fear was overcome) is about to happen.
The article is a thorough-going rebuke of every journalist and former official (Daniel Shapiro, former ambassador under Obama, for
instance, as well as the Forward and the Times opinion writers) who says that money is not at the root, or very near the root, of
Democratic Party support. So let's follow the money, and review the money quotes. Deep into his piece, Thrall explains why progressives
aren't being heard. Megadonors.
For all the recent tumult over Israel in Washington, the policy debate remains extremely narrow Despite pointed critiques of American
support for Israel by representatives like Betty McCollum of Minnesota, [Rashida] Tlaib and Omar, there is little willingness
among Democrats to argue publicly for substantially changing longstanding policy toward Israel.
In part, some Hill staff members
and former White House officials say, this is because of the influence of megadonors: Of the dozens of personal checks greater
than $500,000 made out to the largest PAC for Democrats in 2018, the Senate Majority PAC, around three-fourths were written by
Jewish donors. This provides fodder for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and for some, it is the elephant in the room.
Though
the number of Jewish donors known to prioritize pro-Israel policies above all other issues is small, there are few if any pushing
in the opposite direction
As we reported from Ben Rhodes's book,
Rhodes tells Thrall that donors forced Obama to hew to the Netanyahu line.
According to Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national-security adviser and one of Obama's closest confidants, several members of the
Obama administration wanted to adopt a more assertive policy toward Israel but felt that their hands were tied. "The Washington
view of Israel-Palestine is still shaped by the donor class The donor class is profoundly to the right of where the activists
are, and frankly, where the majority of the Jewish community is." Peter Joseph, an emeritus chairman of the center-left Israel
Policy Forum, told me that the views of major Democratic Jewish donors could act as a check on the leftward pull by progressive
voters who are strongly critical of Israel: "I can't imagine that mainstream Democratic Jewish donors are going to be happy about
any Democratic Party that is moving in that direction."
Off the record, people go further. The Obama administration didn't just support the occupation, it kept supporting it right up till
the November 2016 election so that Hillary Clinton wouldn't lose donors. We reported as much at the time.
Another former member of the Obama White House, who asked not to be named, fearing professional retaliation, said that concerns
about donors among Democrats dominated not just "what was done but what was not done, and what was not even contemplated."
Even the timing of the administration's policies toward Israel was dictated by domestic politics. Faced with a 2016 United Nations
Security Council resolution condemning settlements, the Obama administration abstained (effectively supporting the resolution),
but only after having signaled it would not consider backing any resolution before November. "There is a reason the U.N. vote
did not come up before the election in November," the former official said. "Was it because you were going to lose voters to Donald
Trump? No. It was because you were going to have skittish donors. That, and the fact that we didn't want Clinton to face pressure
to condemn the resolution or be damaged by having to defend it."
Everyone knows this math. And the Democrats fear they'll lose all their money.
What worries establishment Democrats, the former official added, is that the partisan divide over Israel will concretize -- with
Republicans defined as pro-Israel, Democrats defined as anti-Israel -- and that the party coffers will empty. Joel Rubin, a deputy
assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in the Obama administration, former political director at J Street and a
founding board member of the centrist Jewish Democratic Council of America, agreed: "The fight over Israel used to be about voters.
It's more about donors now."
Thrall says the Democratic Party leadership is perfectly happy with AIPAC, but he leaves out
what we reported here: the extent of the reliance on Jewish donors is "gigantic" and "shocking," according to insiders JJ Goldberg
and the head of Emily's List, and AIPAC gets to script congressional campaigns on their middle east positions before the candidates
can raise money from the Jewish community. We always said Sanders could be better on Palestine because he avoided the donor class
of the Democratic party. Rhodes agrees.
"If you don't rely on a traditional fund-raising model, then you have more freedom on these types of issues," Rhodes said. "You're
not worried about the one-hour phone call that you're going to have to do after the presidential debate with a really angry donor."
The key element here is, older Jewish donors are conservative about Israel. A former Clinton campaign official:
"There's no major donor that I can think of who is looking for someone to take a Bernie-like approach." And whereas none of the
most liberal Jewish donors have threatened to withdraw support because a candidate was too pro-Israel, pro-Israel donors and PACs
have a history of financing opposition to candidates deemed unfriendly. Haim Saban, one of Hillary Clinton's top five donors in
2016, has financed opponents of Democratic candidates critical of Israel
Sadly the Jewish community is largely supportive of Israel, as Thrall shows. By and large, American Jews are Zionists. Trump's horrors
in the Middle East are OK by them.
In the same [Mellman] poll -- conducted after the United States closed the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington, moved
the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, appointed a fund-raiser for the settlements as U.S. ambassador and cut
humanitarian aid to Palestinians -- roughly half of American Jews said they approved of President Trump's handling of relations
with Israel. On what is considered the most divisive issue in U.S.-Israel relations, the establishment of Israeli settlements
in the West Bank,
a November
2018 post-midterm election poll of more than 1,000 American Jews that was commissioned by J Street, the pro-Israel lobby aligned
with Democrats, found that roughly half said the expansion of settlements had no impact on how they felt about Israel.
Those Jews are conservative compared to the base, which is increasingly people of color and real progressives.
Members of the Democratic Party's progressive activist base, by contrast, find themselves light years from their representatives
in Washington.
And any declension in US support is seen as alienating the donor class.
Joel Rubin said: "The problem for center-left groups that are more critical of Israel is that the Jewish donor class is comfortable
with current U.S. policies. They just don't like Trump on other issues." In October, just weeks before the 2018 midterm election,
as the Democratic leadership was working to take back the House, a Democratic staff member, who asked not to be named for fear
of professional retaliation, told me that it was important to retain the support of all major donors, not just the most liberal
ones.
Referring to two of the largest Jewish donors to Democrats, on opposite ends of the political spectrum, the staff member
said: "Our members need George Soros and Haim Saban. And they need everything in between."
Thrall shows that fear of losing donors played a role when the University of Michigan student body passed a narrow divestment measure
last fall– to divest only from companies doing business in the occupation -- and still the administration said No way.
Michigan's administration quickly issued a statement that it would not appoint a committee to investigate divestment. A month
later, the board of regents released a letter backing the decision. (The two regents who didn't sign it were the only people of
color on the board.) Like many large American universities, the University of Michigan has extensive research partnerships with
Israeli universities. And many of its institutes and buildings are named after alumni donors who have contributed large sums to
Israel or pro-Israel groups.
Lara Friedman of Foundation for Middle East Peace and formerly of Peace Now continues to blaze a trail by honestly describing the
intolerance in the Jewish community for debate of Israel. That community has pushed the anti-BDS legislation.
"The American Jewish community, which is broadly speaking liberal, has allowed itself in the name of defending Israel and fighting
B.D.S. to become the leading edge of illiberalism by pushing legislation to curb free speech."
OK now let's get to some of the good news here. Thrall's overall point is that the battle is breaking out, thanks to those women
of color in the House and the progressive base.
As the Democratic Party is pulled toward a more progressive base and a future when a majority of the party will most likely be
people of color, tensions over Israel have erupted. In the past several months, a fierce debate over American support for Israel
has periodically dominated the news cycle and overshadowed the Democrats' policymaking agenda.
BDS is gaining ground. Israel knows it.
Emmanuel Nahshon, a spokesman for Israel's foreign ministry, told me, "Despite the overwhelming support for Israel in the U.S.,
we see that the attempt to delegitimize Israel is gaining ground, especially among extreme left-wing marginal groups."
When have you ever seen such a fair assessment of BDS in the Times?
Instead of tying itself to a specific outcome, the B.D.S. movement insisted on these three principles, which could be fulfilled
any number of ways: two states, one state with equal individual rights, a confederation with equal collective rights.
This is a simple turn by Thrall on why Zionism is racist at its core.
Following the 1948 war, which erupted after the United Nations announced its plan to partition Palestine into two states, the
Jews who fled could return; Palestinians could not.
Here's another great moment, brilliant reporting.
I asked [Zionist Organization of America's Morton] Klein why he believed it was "utterly racist and despicable," as he put it,
for [Richard] Spencer to promote a state for only one ethnic group but not racist for Israel to do so. "Israel is a unique situation,"
he said. "This is really a Jewish state given to us by God." He added, "God did not create a state for white people or for black
people."
Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, similarly told the Aipac conference in 2018: "Of course, we
say it's our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace."
Thrall says Israel is Jim Crow society thru and thru.
Currently, hundreds of Israeli towns have admissions committees that can bar Palestinian citizens from living in them based on
"social suitability." (It's illegal for people to be excluded on the basis of race, religion or nationality, but the rubric of
"social suitability" permits the rejection of applicants who are not Zionist, haven't served in the army or don't intend to send
their children to Hebrew-language schools.)
More than 900 towns in Israel contain no Arab families, according to Yosef Jabareen,
a professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. Palestinian schools can lose government funding if they commemorate
the Nakba, the displacement of Palestinians in 1948. Israeli law forbids citizens to obtain citizenship or permanent residency
for Palestinian spouses from the West Bank and Gaza.
And that's why MD Rep. Donna Edwards and two white congressional colleagues locked arms and sang We Shall Overcome in apartheid Hebron:
Edwards and her colleagues looked up to see garbage-filled nets hanging above their heads, put up to catch trash thrown by Israeli
settlers. "We had never seen anything like that," she told me recently. "Hebron is the place where I think you can see in the
most frightening way what the injustice is, where you have people on one side of the street who live one way and people on another
side of the street living another way. And streets that some people can cross and walk on, but other people cannot. To me, it
looked like the stories that my mother and my grandmother told me about living in the South."
The great news at the end of the article. Edwards et al are taking over the party. Thrall cites Electronic Intifada's influence,
and Jewish Voice for Peace, and IfNotNow too.
Politicians speaking on Israel-Palestine used to worry primarily about attacks from pro-Israel media and activist groups; now
progressives are starting to feel some heat from the pro-Palestinian side.
But it's over. All the anti-Omar stuff of recent weeks is just the froth on the wave. Jim Zogby got slamdunked on the platform in
2016 by the Clintonites. But that wont' happen again.
James Zogby says that standing for Palestinian rights is guaranteed to be a major topic in the 2020 election: "It's a smell-test
issue. If you go to young people, they know you stink if you don't talk about it right." A senior Democratic staff member on Capitol
Hill told me: "People like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Bernie Sanders have opened the floodgates on this issue. It may be painful
for the party as we move in a more progressive direction. But we'll come out in a better place -- a more moral and evenhanded
place -- in the end."
This piece is going to resonate for weeks. It's going to come under fierce attack. Because it's huge, and it's calm and factual.
It doesn't say a word about Christian Zionists because they don't have influence in the Democratic Party. And Thrall did the shrewd
thing of avoiding the word "lobby." I guess it's been anathematized, but that's what this article is about. That and race. People
of color are driving this change. They are going to be punished. Betty McCollum doesn't get taken to the woodshed for calling it
apartheid, but one county west, Ilhan Omar is going to be primaried next year.
About Philip
Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
" This piece is going to resonate for weeks. It's going to come under fierce attack. Because it's huge, and it's calm and factual.
It doesn't say a word about Christian Zionists because they don't have influence in the Democratic Party. "
Wrong. Read it again. He focuses mostly on the struggle within the Democratic Party so he doesn't say much about them, but
he does say that they are among the most pro-Israel groups, but are also mostly Republican voters.
I just read it again and I think your characterization of the piece as "mostly on the struggle within the Democratic
Party" is flat out wrong – it covers that but a lot else as well. It's a big sprawling piece that covers campus politics, the
human rights situation is Israel, the political temperature in the American Jewish community, the whole anti-semitism debate in
the U.S. and so on. I take the last paragraph as support for Phil's assertion that the piece will have an impact:
During his introduction of Sanders, King spoke of the Vermont senator's family members murdered in the Holocaust, and how
coming of age in these circumstances "gave Bernie a deep sense of right and wrong." King said: "He has always rejected the status
quo. He spoke out against apartheid in South Africa, when -- crazily -- that was an unpopular thing to do. And even today," King
added, "he speaks out against apartheid like conditions in Palestine, even though it's not popular." The crowd erupted in cheers.
"Israel Lobby and Pro-Israel House Democrats Tried to Excommunicate Ilhan Omar, They Failed"
By Richard Silverstein
EXCERPT:
... ... ...
"The 2018 Congressional election marked a watershed, sweeping a new progressive class into office. Most prominent among them
were Reps. Rashid Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, women who challenged the system, incumbents, and the Democratic
machine to win sweeping victories on truly progressive platforms. Their Middle East agenda was particularly forthright, and therefore
shocking: they opposed U.S. aid to Israel, supported BDS and a one state solution (AOC has not expressed herself as explicitly
on these issues, but presumably shares many of her colleagues' views).
"Anyone who knows the Israel Lobby knew that the other shoe was bound to drop. They just didn't know when. And it didn't take
long. Both Tlaib and especially Omar have been outspoken on Israel-Palestine since their elections. And their markedly pro-Palestine
views have rapidly become grist for the anti-Semitism mill churned by the Lobby and its water-carriers in Congress.
"First, of course there was the famous 'Benjamins' tweet in which Omar noted that members of Congress were obedient to the
Lobby because of the hundreds of millions it raises and distributes to loyal pro-Israel candidates. But somehow, noting that the
Lobby derived its power from money morphed into outright anti-Semitism. The way this happened was instructive: there is, of course,
an ancient anti-Semitic trope that Jews are rich and use their wealth to control the finance, banking, entertainment, and the
media sectors, etc. That of course, has nothing to do with the true statement that the Lobby raises and distributes massive lucre
to its favored candidates. A reasonable person can see the difference between these two concepts.
"But the Lobby plays a game of smoke and mirrors. It sees a clear statement attacking it and manages through a bit of hocus-pocus
to transform it into a classic anti-Semitic charge, when in actuality there is absolutely no connection.
"Now, the Lobby has done it again after Omar gave a talk at a Washington DC bookstore in which she criticized those in Congress
and the Lobby who had a foreign allegiance: 'I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is O.K.
for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.'
"By this, of course she meant that groups like Aipac and their Congressional sponsors who take their marching orders either
from Israel directly, or who conceive their agenda totally with Israel and its interests in mind. They may believe that the interests
of the U.S. and Israel are the same; and that therefore they are not betraying U.S. interests. But anyone who believes that the
interests of one of the greatest powers on earth is the same as that of a small Middle Eastern theocratic state is either terribly
naïve or worse.
"After Omar's statement, the Lobby went into Defcon mode. The attack was launched by Eliot Engel, a veteran of the New York
Democratic machine, who attacked the Somali-American Congresswoman:
"Pro-Israel Jews like Engel are particularly exercised by the implication of dual loyalty. That is, that pro-Israel Jews are
more loyal to Israel than America. An especially apt historical phrase connoting dual loyalty is the term 'Israel Firster.' It
was not invented by an anti-Semite or white supremacist. But rather by the dean of American Jewish historians, Abe Sachar, the
first president of Brandeis University.
And he used the term to deride precisely the figures Omar is now attacking: a powerful
Lobby and its apologists who put Israel before all else. This is a passage from the 1961 American Jewish Yearbook:
"American Jews continued to object to Israel's claim that a genuine Jewish life was possible only in Israel. Abram L. Sachar,
president of Brandeis University, at the biennial convention of JWB [Jewish Welfare Board], declared on April 2, 1960 that among
Jews there is no room 'for Israel Firsters whose chauvinism and arrogance find nothing relevant or viable in any area outside
of Israel.'"
"The NY Times headline about the speech said Sachar derided the 'dogma of Israel.' If American Jews can quarrel over the meaning
and primacy of Israel in Jewish life, why would we deny Arab American the same right, considering that their Palestinian sisters
and brothers are under the boot heel of Israeli Occupation?
"It would not be so bad if Israel was a democratic, secular nation like the U.S. and most western democracies. Then at least
there would be a confluence of interests and values. But Israel is no longer a democracy. Instead it has become a theocracy, run
by fundamentalist extremists bent on holy war with the Muslim world. Israel's interests are diverging from those of the democratic
west more than ever. And this fissure can only continue to widen as Israel sinks ever deeper into mass murder, Occupation and
oppression. Israel's interests and America's are no longer the same. Not even close. That little sliver of daylight which presidents
used to boast about not existing when it came to Israel and U.S. interests: it's now a wide-open expanse of sky.
"Apparently, Congress has not yet read the memo. It is sunk in old ways and habits. The smell of greenbacks remains too enticing
to resist. But the old ways are dying. The election victories I referenced above testify to that more strongly than a $100-million
Sheldon Adelson donation.
"That's why the anti-Semitism fire-drill convened by the Democratic Congressional leadership was initially so infuriating.
It decided to take Omar to the woodshed and whip her by passing a resolution denouncing anti-Semitism by its members. This represented
the Democratic Party eating its young. Nancy Pelosi, at the goading of Engel, Nita Lowey and other pro-Israel members, tabled
a pointless resolution. It would have forced members to swear allegiance on pain of getting a public spanking like Omar. The final
wording never ended up referring directly to Omar. But the message was clear: shut up on the subject or the Party caucus will
exact a toll."
"think your characterization of the piece as "mostly on the struggle within the Democratic Party" is flat out wrong – it covers
that but a lot else as well. "
That's true. It is one of the best pieces I have ever seen in this subject. I am not knocking the piece -- I am correcting
Phil. Thrall doesn't write much about why Republicans support Israel, where Christian Zionists are a major factor. Phil claimed
he didn't say anything about Christian Zionists when he actually did. Phil didn't notice that because to the extent the piece
was about political parties in the US, it focused on the Democrats where Christian Zionists are not very important. Also, Phil
likes to downplay the role of Christian Zionists, while others who feel uncomfortable talking about Jewish donors ( fearing the antisemitism charge) like to emphasize them. The truth is that they are both important in why the US supports Israel.
Liberal Christian guilt about anti-Semitism also plays a role.
If Thrall were writing about the political right he would have to say a lot about how many on the Christian Right see Israel
as a central element in their belief on how the world was going to end. He would be writing about Hal Lindsay's books and later
the "Left Behind" series and how on the secular level American rightwingers sometimes see Israel as a bastion of "Western civilization"
surrounded by the heathens. Of course some of that last part overlaps with what Israel supporters in the Democratic Party think.
That included both Jews and Muslims who were tortured on the rack, also known as the auto-da-fe
I realize this is a bit of a nitpick, but the auto-da-fé was the final public confession prior to execution – it had
nothing whatsoever to do with any specific instrument of torture.
The fact that nobody in the entire editorial process noticed this obvious screwup, speaks volumes about the lack of
standards (and the lack of knowledge of European history) in the modern print media.
Given that the author was using the Inquisition as a rhetorical device, it would have been nice if he didn't come away from
the attempt looking like an ignoramus.
The truth is the GOP's courting of the donor class comes from the same motivation – the counting of the donor Benjamins. The difference
is they can better hide their support (of Zionism) under banners of defense, business, and righteousness.
My one beef with Mondoweiss
is that you regularly downplay the role of American Evangelical Christianity in the oppression of the Palestinians.
I think it's at the very top of the list, for Jewish Zionists simply don't have the numbers to win what is essentially
a public relations war for control of the Middle East. Right-wing Christianity – especially those who espouse Dominionist beliefs
– will tolerate ANY form of behavior that fits their views of Biblical prophecy. Absent these believers, who honestly don't give
a crap about Israel's behavior, the hue and cry of anti-semitism is the only weapon the Zionists have.
Trump plays to this crowd with his actions in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Finally, this "donor class" could hardly match
the daily U.S. gift of $10 million, so the pitch they make is to American taxpayers, although nobody ever talks about that.
TERRYHEATON- ". I think it's at the very top of the list, for Jewish Zionists simply don't have the numbers to win what
is essentially a public relations war for control of the Middle East."
Well, you would say that wouldn't you? Miss the 700 club do you? The reality is that Evangelical Christian support for Israel
and Zionism didn't really take off until the late 1970s as a consequence of Israeli PM Menachem Begin's recruitment of their support.
This was well after Israel and Zionism had firmly established itself following the 1967 six day war. Zionism and Israel is an
overwhelmingly Jewish project, Christian Zionists little more than opportunistic camp followers. The Christian Zionist leadership
has taken advantage of the opportunity to jump on the bandwagon of Jewish Zionist power. While these Christian Zionists may be
numerous, they lack the access to the corridors of power comparable to the Jewish Zionists, although their alliance with Jewish
Zionism has improved their status.
Phil is correct to downplay the power of the Christian Zionists. They have negligible effect upon the policies of either Israel
or the American Jewish Zionists, pats on the head notwithstanding. Their power lies more in supporting the rightward drift in
American politics.
Keith, thanks for the input. If you've read my book, then you already know my feelings about The 700 Club and Pat Robertson.
Sadly, Christian Zionists are not at all merely clinging to right-wing beliefs. They started many of them. In fact, that's what
we did at The 700 Club. Rather, they're waiting and hoping for the return of Jesus Christ, who will then, the thinking goes, elevate
them and bring peace for 1,000 years. So their support of Israel is from their interpretation of scripture, and that's a powerful
force that permits them to look the other way whenever Israel's behavior is questioned. They don't care, because they have their
eyes on what they view as a bigger prize. Pro-Israel forces in the U.S. would never get their way without the blind support of
this massive group of citizens.
'Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, similarly told the Aipac conference in 2018: "Of course, we say it's
our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace."' Damn, and I thought that the reason there was no peace was because of the oppressive, prison-like conditions of the Palestinian
people under Occupation.
Thanks, Chuck, for the enlightenment! Boy, do I feel dumb now!!
@ genesto: 'Senator Charles Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, similarly told the Aipac conference in 2018: "Of course,
we say it's our land, the Torah says it, but they don't believe in the Torah. So that's the reason there is not peace."' ||
So according to Mr. Schumer's "logic" any lack of peace with Muslims isn't the fault of Muslims – it's the fault of non-Muslims
(including Jews) who do not believe in the Qur'an.
Very good! Unfortunately,
logic was never a strong point among the Zionists.
Schumer, the self-proclaimed shomer (guardian) of the state of Israel in the Congress (Did someone say dual loyalty???), somehow
manages to be both humorous and frightening at the same time. Nice trick, if you can do it.
Of course it is "all about the Benjamins". Contending to the contrary is simply silly. One might well add that BDS can be viewed
as a good thing for Israel, and in that country's true best interests.
There's little point analysing this nonsense in terms of what is or isn't silly. After all, the entire shebang is predicated
on an idea that is breathtaking in its silliness: in a nutshell it's this –
A collection of primitive Bronze Age fictional gibberish can confer land titles over bits of the Middle East, to its adherents
– even to adherents with absolutely no ancestral connection to the land.
It's absolutely no coincidence that Herzl and his mob could not get any rabbi west of Lviv to endorse their nonsense: the rabbis
of all genuine centres of scholarship repudiated the Zionist project as an abomination.
So Herzl etc just kept going further East until they found someone theologically illiterate enough to give a rabbinical imprimatur,
and hence a veneer of intellectual respectability, to their project.
It's an indictment on the Polish rabbinate that they signed off on such an obvious apostasy it would have been nice if Herzl
etc had really had to go full retard and end up relying on a Chinaman (a Kaifeng) – but if that's what it would have taken at
the time, they would have done so.
(I'm an atheist, so I reject the idea that a project is validated if some religio-dipshit whackball waves some magic words
at it but Herzl's project wanted a religious imprimatur).
Is there any other nation that wields such a stranglehold on any other as Israel does the
United States? Is there any other nation that has so completely surrendered its sovereignty
to another as has the United States to Israel. Does any other country (size of Israel) strike
fear and dread into the hearts of its lawmakers to the point of complete serfdom as Israel
does the US? Can any other country allow any foreign country to override its head of state to
address lawmakers as Israel has done to the US in the case of Obama, despite his complete
servility to Israel, thereby rendering himself a victim of dual abuses: racism and disregard
of American sovereignty? Has any other country sacrificed so many of its citizens for wars on
behalf of any other country as we have done for Israel? Can any other country receiving
billions of dollars of taxpayers money in aid and military hardware shamelessly call the
shots as Israel does with America, with America not as much as questioning orders from
Israel? Can we realistically celebrate Independence Day with so much fanfare when another
country has us so completely by the balls as to make a mockery of the word "independence".
Can any country strip any other of its sovereignty as Israel has done to the US, including
undermining its constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, with our total collusion?
Having raised all these questions, can there be realistic grounds for hoping for a ray of
light at the end of the tunnel, short of a comprehensive revolution that would rehabilitate a
nation led by quislings into one of principled men and women?
anyone here who chooses to hate me. I recognize that that you have the right to do so. And
that that right s Constitutionally protected. You are entitled to your feelings.
What I must object to and call into question is your attempt to engage in acts that in any
threaten, thwart, disrupt my right as a US citizen to access every aspect of what is
guaranteed to me by the US constitution. That includes manufacturing false claims to
undermine the same.
I will defend your right to your feelings and your right to express them in a manner in
accordance with the first amendment. I cannot support acts that deprive myself my
constitutional rights in any manner.
I am not a promoter of hate, but I certainly recognize the right that people have for
their feelings and the desire to one's express them.
[Bret Stephens] attributes to her "insidious cunning" and "anti-Jewish bigotry"
observing how "she wraps herself in the flag, sounding almost like Pat Buchanan when he
called Congress "Israeli-occupied" territory."
If what Rep. Omar said wasn't too different from what Mr. Buchanan said previously, why
haven't we heard a peep out of him on this issue?
a liar and a hypocrite, and that alone should disqualify them for office.
Hello?
Where the bleep have you been, Pardner? You got that exactly backwards; mendacity
and hypocrisy are mandatory minimum qualifications for the positions.
Ms. Omar is dis qualified because she is honest enough to speak the truth.
Now, go learn to shoot straight before shooting off yer mug, and you can start with
this,
I must take issue with your observation that Mr. Truman is an habitual liar, not because
I disagree with you, but because I disagree with your manner in presenting it as a
derogatory statement. Is not the ability of lying necessary to political
leadership ?
And this, which illustrates several points regarding politicians, their characteristics
and motives.:
Two candidates for political office in a debate
SAUSAGE-SELLER
No, Cleon, little you care for his reigning in Arcadia, it's to pillage and impose on the
allies at will that you reckon; you wish the war to conceal your rogueries as in a mist,
that Demos may see nothing of them, and harassed by cares, may only depend on yourself for
his bread. But if ever peace is restored to him, if ever he returns to his lands to comfort
himself once more with good cakes, to greet his cherished olives, he will know the
blessings you have kept him out of, even though paying him a salary; and, filled with
hatred and rage, he will rise, burning with desire to vote against you. You know this only
too well; it is for this you rock him to sleep with your lies.
until there is a much larger block of anti israel congresspeople nothing is going to change.
What is the USs interest? They sure are not interested in making things better for the
majority/middle class. All the while continuing to enrich the already too wealthy ever more.
Media is a lying POS and yet people still watch Fox or Cnn or msnbc. All of them produce
nothing but propaganda garbage. Unfortunately, it seems like most in the USA just don't care.
In Venezuela look at the protesters the US media sets up and/or loves so much, try that in
the USA and you'll end up in jail.
For me, Ilhan Omar's statements were the most exciting political event in decades. I'm not
surprised that she is being punished, but the viciousness of the attacks have certainly gone
up a notch.
America's big mistake: allowing all the media to congeal into one big bullhorn that is
controlled by Jewish interests. As long as they control the media there will be no national
debate of zionist power in America.
Another great article by Giraldi. He is consistently the most forceful and articulate
writer regarding the subversion of America's national interests to Israel.
As much as I despise Omar's politics, in this case she is right to expose the dirty politics
that Israel uses on it's "friend and ally" the United States of America.
AIPAC is the most powerful foreign lobby in the United States and has done more to influence
and damage the American political process than just about any other lobby. It is a
loosely-guarded secret that, in order to garner jewish support, prospective politicians must
sign a loyalty oath promising support for Israel. This, in itself is un-American and borders
on treason. Failure to sign the loyalty oath almost always assures a political death. AIPAC
will spend millions to elect a candidate as long as he "toes the Israeli line".
Remember the USS Liberty (GTR-5), the American naval vessel that was deliberately attacked
with massive loss of American lives (an act of war) by "our friend and ally" Israel on June
8, 1967. If I had my way, Israel would have been turned into a "glass parking lot" on June 9,
1967.
As an aside, we must constantly hit our politicians with charges of treason, citing the
"loyalty oaths" to Israel that almost all of them have signed.
Dual citizens of Israel are through out the US government and have given America unending
wars and debt and an unconstitutional FED and IRS. No dual citizen from any nation should be
able to hold office in any government or state or county or city government in the US, no one
can serve two masters and citizens of Israel serve Israel and that is why America has been at
war for 18 years and counting in the Mideast!
Israel was everywhere at the Jewish day school I attended in New York. The Israeli and
American flags were proudly displayed together, no matter that I, like the majority of my
classmates, was not Israeli.
This alone might be innocuous, a loose cultural affinity that would be familiar in a
French or German language academy. But in Jewish day school life, outright political
mobilization for Israel and its policies was a requirement.
Every year we would be "strongly encouraged" to attend the Salute to Israel parade on
New York's Fifth Avenue. Teachers were marshals, and mocking stories about pro-Palestinian
activists were exchanged in class the following day.
One year, we were outright required to join a protest in support of Israel, during the
school day, at the United Nations.
This school-mandated allegiance seeped into even the most casual conversations. I
remember once debating with my group of friends whether we'd rather serve with the Israeli
Defense Forces or the U.S. military. Even though all of us, and our parents, were born and
raised in the United States, we were unanimous: we'd rather fight for Israel.
With any other cultural group in America, for any other country, these statements
would be shocking. After all, when was the last time you heard of an Italian-American
birthright trip to Sicily? But for American Jews, the centrality of allegiance to Israel in
our communal organizations is the norm.
There is one big omission in your article PG. If you read more than the tweet from Rep. Juan
Vargas that you linked as
"Questioning support for the US-Israel relationship is unacceptable."
you must have been pleased by the deluge (maybe hundreds) of Tweets uniformly condemning
him and including many from people claiming believably to be Jews.
BTW Australia doesn't allow dual citizenship by its national MPs and senators and has had
in the last few years a previously unparalleled spate of challenges to members already seated
in Parliament. The courts have interpreted the constitutional provision strictly and MPs
whose Italian born mothers filled in a form which gave them Italian citizenship without their
knowledge have been caught (or at least been taken to court).
I would tend to argue that dual citizenship should be declared but that it is up yo the
voters to decide whether they want to be represented by someone who isn't only an Australian.
There are counterarguments however and avoidance of America's Israel First situation is
certainly one of them.
It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold
public office. Stated allegiance to any other country should be treated as high treason,
which it is. However, I don't see Congress doing any of this: we all know what happens when
the improvements in henhouse safely is in the hands of foxes.
Anyway All US political system is running on bribery. So the bribery is legal and cannot be
tackled.
The only way to go is to distinguish the bribery and divide it into two groups.
Patriotic bribery and non patriotic bribery.
Here is a funny thing!!!!!!!!!
The Arabs have a proper English word for bribery: Backshish.
1 It is done in the back, so nobody sees it.
2 Shish means you should be quiet about it.
What bribery you may ask.
So what are those prepayed trips to Israel where the Congress people are treated as kings,
and they have chance to make love to the Jewish wall of the temple. They stick their wishes
written on paper into crevices of the wall. (Not too many records if the wall did take care
of their wishes.}
@AnonFromTN You
dont have to be a dual citizen be a traitor.
So what the US needs is an amendment to the Constitution expanding the definitions of
treason and subversion to better reflect the modern day realities of our political
system.
Perhaps suggest to the Magnificent Three that they put forth a bill calling for that.
What makes this piece meaningful is he is 100% correct. Representative Ilhar Omar should
be applauded for her bravery. She truly is courageous, as she not only risks her political
career but also her life. And by doing so she leaves open the door for others to follow.
We'll soon see how serious the Zionists take this matter.
JFK called for AIPAC to register as a foreign agent, however sense his murder not one
politician has ever mentioned it again. I think this says a lot about how much influence that
particular lobby has. Too much.
Dual loyalty is a fuzzy term. Why not go back to the tried-and-true fifth column? These
domestic Zionazis are Israel's fifth column. They constitute the vanguard of an
international, and their program is clearly shown here:
Israel leads a counterrevolutionary plan and conspiracy for bad-faith subversion of all
your human rights including your human right to peace. Israel's existence depends on domestic
Apartheid, totalitarian repression in client states such as the US, and continual threats to
peace worldwide. The government of Israel has forfeited its sovereignty by shirking its
responsibility to protect with the crime against peace of aggression and the crime against
humanity of extermination. In consequence, it must give way to a free Palestine.
The only way you're going to shake off Israel's fifth column is end Israel. You've got to
do to Israel what we did to South Africa.
"No politician can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or
he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve America and Israel."
@jo6pac There
are 40 Jews in the house and senate .that is not 89% of the total 500 congressmen and
senators.
Crap claims like this are actually harmful to the effort to get the Jewish Fifth Column
and Israel out of the US because the lie will be pointed out and much fun made of the
nutcases by the uber Jews.
Duel citizenship is only acceptable if one citizenship is from where you were born, over
which you had no choice, and the other is where you have chosen to live, made your home, and
become a citizen thereof. Two citizenship by choice is a sham: getting the benefactors of one
but maintaining your loyalty to another.
In the America of today social justice warriors virtue signaling their tolerance for others
have been repeatedly and quite often exposed for the bigots, sexists, and racists that they
really are.
DFGTC
"Those whom the gods are about to destroy, they first make mad ..."
This is not so much about Israel as about Neoconservatism and neoliberal globalism.
Notable quotes:
"... Anyone can become a dual citizen, even members of Congress, high court judges and top officials of the executive branch. There's no law or regulation against it. Nor are they required to disclose such dual citizenship. ..."
"... Dual citizenship in the United States poses a hitherto unappreciated issue for policy-level members of the legislative, executive and judicial branches. The divided national loyalties of dual citizens can create real or apparent conflicts of interest when such legislators, judges or senior officials make or speak out on policies that relate to their second country. ..."
Most Americans
would be shocked if they knew how many foreign citizens are in our federal government -- and at
what levels. They don't know because the mainstream media (or the conservative media, for that
matter) almost never talks about it. It is one of the biggest secrets in Washington, D.C.
Back in 2015, Michael Hager wrote a very important missive that appeared in
The Hill . Hager said:
The Biblical injunction that "No one can serve two masters" (Matthew 6:24) doesn't apply to
nations. Almost half of the world's countries, including the U.S., recognize dual citizenship
-- even when they don't encourage it for the complicated legal issues it often raises.
For example, one who obeys a requirement to give allegiance to a country or votes in a
foreign election may be regarded as having renounced citizenship in the other country. What
happens when the legal claims of one country conflict with those of the second country? Which
of the two countries has an obligation to assist a dual national in distress?
Until the Supreme Court decided otherwise in the 1967 case of Afroyim v. Rusk , a U.S.
citizen who voted in a political election in a foreign state would forfeit his or her U.S.
citizenship. From that point on, dual citizens have maintained their right to vote and hold
public office without penalty.
Anyone can become a dual citizen, even members of Congress, high court judges and top
officials of the executive branch. There's no law or regulation against it. Nor are they
required to disclose such dual citizenship.
So what's the problem?
Dual citizenship in the United States poses a hitherto unappreciated issue for policy-level
members of the legislative, executive and judicial branches. The divided national loyalties of
dual citizens can create real or apparent conflicts of interest when such legislators, judges
or senior officials make or speak out on policies that relate to their second country.
The potential damage to our democracy is the greater when such potential conflicts of
interest are concealed in undisclosed dual citizenship.
The lack of transparency regarding citizenship erodes trust in government, raising
credibility doubts where there should be none, and allowing some apparent conflicts of interest
to continue undetected.
When a senator, representative or senior U.S. official speaks out, submits bills or
determines policy on an issue of importance to a foreign country of which that member or
official (or judge) has the tie of citizenship, their constituents and the U.S. public at large
should at least be able to assess whether such views or actions are influenced by the divided
loyalty.
Since they don't involve national loyalty, religion and ethnicity seldom raise conflict
issues. Moreover, they are generally matters of public record.
By contrast, dual citizenship creates conflict of interest through divided loyalties. Thus
it would seem reasonable to require that dual citizen members of Congress, the judiciary and
the executive be required to renounce citizenship in another country as a condition of public
service.
Yet the media and government watchdog organizations have largely ignored the potential
conflict of interest inherent in dual citizenship. Why the neglect of this issue? Shouldn't
members of Congress (and federal judges and executive branch officials) at least be required to
disclose their citizenship in another country?
Even if our legal system continues to allow dual citizens to serve in high positions of the
U.S. government, it should require them to recuse themselves from participating in decisions or
policy debates that relate to their second country.
As a first step, the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress should begin
to include citizenship (along with the current listings of party breakdown, age, occupations,
education, Congressional service, religion, gender, ethnicity and military service) in its
published profiles of each new Congress.
Americans can then decide whether our legislators (and possibly federal judges and senior
government officials as well) should be required to renounce their citizenship in another
country as a condition of public service.
Dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country. They are
required to obey the laws of both countries, and either country has the right to enforce its
laws. It is important to note the problems attendant to dual nationality. Claims of other
countries upon U.S. dual-nationals often place them in situations where their obligations to
one country are in conflict with the laws of the other.
Yet, there are probably hundreds (we really don't know the true number, because as Hager
notes, they are not required by law to declare their foreign citizenship) of foreign citizens
serving in our federal government. And will you be shocked to learn that almost all of them --
if not ALL of them -- are citizens of ONE foreign country? Take a wild guess which country that
is. You're right. ISRAEL.
Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?
In my research for this column (which was not exhaustive), I found over 100 members of the
U.S. government who are known to be dual U.S.-Israeli citizens. Here is a short sample list
(compiled from public documents):
Michael Chertoff
He was the 2nd United States Secretary of Homeland Security (2005 – 2009), serving
under G.W. Bush and Barack Obama. He was co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act, Federal Judge of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (2003 – 2005) and United States
Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division (2001 – 2003).
Chertoff's father was Rabbi Gershon Baruch Chertoff (a Talmud scholar and the former leader
of the Congregation B'nai Israel in Elizabeth, New Jersey). His mother was Livia Chertoff
(née Eisen), an Israeli citizen who worked for the Mossad.
As Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Dept. of Justice,
Chertoff personally supervised and controlled the entire FBI non-investigation of 9-11.
Chertoff is the responsible person for the obstruction of justice and blocking access to the
evidence since September 11, 2001.
Chertoff is the co-author, along with Viet Dinh, of the USA PATRIOT Act, signed into law on
October 26, 2001. As head of the Justice Department's criminal division, he advised the Central
Intelligence Agency on the legality of torture techniques in coercive interrogation
sessions.
From 2001 to 2003, he headed the criminal division of the Department of Justice, leading the
prosecution against terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui. In this role, Chertoff was central in
creating the 9-11 myth by providing the list of the 19 Arab suspects and supervising the FBI's
confiscation of evidence and the non-investigation of 9-11.
Michael Mukasey
He served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States (2007 – 2009) under
President G.W. Bush; he was the 2nd Jewish U.S. Attorney General. He served for 18 years as a
judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (1987 –
2006), 6 of those years as Chief Judge (2000 – 2006).
Mukasey was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several
insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center. He was a major
proponent of G.W. Bush's efforts to expand executive powers in the name of national security.
He was especially outspoken in his support for the USA Patriot Act.
Richard Perle
Perle served as the 1st Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under
President Ronald Reagan. He began his political career as a senior staff member to Senator
Henry "Scoop" Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970s. He served on the
Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004 (chairman 2001 –
2003) under the Bush Administration before resigning due to conflicts of interest.
A very likely Israeli government agent, Perle was expelled from Senator Jackson's office in
the 1970's after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing highly-classified
(National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy.
He has been involved with neocon think tanks including:
·The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) Board of Advisors
·The Center for Security Policy (CSP)
·The Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
·The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
Perle was a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group until December 2015. He
is a self-described neoconservative. He co-authored the book An End To Evil: How To Win The War
On Terror with fellow neoconservative David Frum in 2004. The book is regularly used as a
defense of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and outlines important neoconservative ideas, including
ways to abandon all Israeli-Palestinian peace processes, invade Syria and implement strict US
domestic surveillance.
Perle is also "an ardent Zionist, a personal friend of [former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel]
Sharon, head of Hollinger Digital, part of the group that publishes the Daily Telegraph in
Britain, a board member of the Jerusalem Post, a resident 'fellow' of the American Enterprise
Institute and ex-employee of the Israeli weapons manufacturer Soltam." Jensen, H. (2002,
October 7). Pre-Emption, Disarmament Or Regime Change? Part III. Retrieved August 1, 2018, from
www.antiwar.com/orig/jensen1b.html .
Over the years, Perle has been known by the nickname "Prince of Darkness." He is a major
player in the Israel lobby.
Perle's connections with former Vice President Dick Cheney run deep, as both are members of
the board of advisors to JINSA, along with National Security Adviser John Bolton and Douglas
Feith. Under the auspices of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, Perle
and Feith worked together in 1996 as advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
There they devised the war to oust Saddam Hussein from Iraq and the removal of as many
Palestinians as possible from their homes and properties in the Israeli occupied
territories.
Paul Wolfowitz
Wolfowitz is a political scientist and diplomat who served as the 10th President of the
World Bank from 2005 to 2007 (and resigned under pressure from World Bank members over a
scandal involving his misuse of power), United States Deputy Secretary of Defense (2001 –
2005) under G.W. Bush and United States Ambassador to Indonesia (1986 – 1989) under
Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush. Like Perle, Wolfowitz came from the Jewish think tank JINSA. He
was the number two leader within the G.W. Bush administration, planning and implementing the
Iraq War.
Douglas Feith
Born to a Jewish family in Philadelphia, PA, Feith attended Harvard University and
Georgetown University Law Center. After graduation, he worked for three years as an attorney
with the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Feith also came from the
Jewish think tank JINSA.
In the Reagan Administration, he worked at the White House as a Middle East specialist for
the National Security Council and then served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Negotiations Policy.
Feith served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the G.W. Bush administration from
2001 to 2005. His appointment was facilitated by connections he had with other
neoconservatives, including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. In that position, he helped
devise the U.S. government's strategy for the war on terrorism and contributed to the plans for
the Afghanistan and Iraq war campaigns.
He is closely associated with the extremist group the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA),
which even attacks Jews that don't agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently speaks at
ZOA conferences.
Feith co-founded a small Washington DC law firm, Feith & Zell, which only has one
international office: in Israel. Feith supervised the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, a group
of policy and intelligence analysts created to provide senior government officials with raw
intelligence, unvetted by the intelligence community. The office was responsible for hiring
Lawrence Franklin, who was later convicted along with AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs
Committee) employees Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman for passing classified national defense
information to an Israeli diplomat, Naor Gilon.
Henry Kissinger
Kissinger was the 56th United States Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 under Presidents
Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He was Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
from January 1969 until November 1975 under Nixon and Ford. He was appointed by President
Reagan to chair the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America in July 1983 until 1985.
He served as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1984 to 1990
under Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush. He was a member of the Commission on Integrated Long-Term
Strategy of the National Security Council and Defense Department from 1986 to 1988. And he
served as a member of the Defense Policy Board from 2001 to 2016 (under Richard Perle). Henry
Kissinger -- a prominent member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral
Commission -- has been a close personal advisor to every President from John F. Kennedy to
Donald Trump.
John Bolton
Bolton is the current National Security Advisor to President Trump. He was the interim U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations (2005 – 2006) under G.W. Bush. From 1989 to 1993, under
G.H.W. Bush, he was Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. He
held positions in the United States Agency for International Development and as Assistant
Attorney General under Ronald Reagan (1985 – 1989). One of the most hawkish of war hawks,
he aggressively supported and helped plan military action and regime change in Iraq and Libya
and is now doing the same thing in Syria and Iran.
Additional Israeli citizens serving in high level U.S. government positions include:
Janet Yellen – Federal Reserve Chair
Stanley Fischer – Federal Reserve Vice-Chair
Lincoln Bloomfield – Assistant Secretary of State
Daniel Kurtzer – Ambassador to Israel
Cliff Sobel – Ambassador to the Netherlands
Stuart Bernstein – Ambassador to Denmark
Nancy Brinker – Ambassador to Hungary
Frank Lavin – Ambassador to Singapore
Ron Weiser – Ambassador to Slovakia
Martin Silverstein – Ambassador to Uruguay
Jay Lefkowitz – Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy
Council
Ken Melman – White House Political Director
Brad Blakeman – White House Director of Scheduling
I found 14 current and former U.S. senators who are dual U.S.-Israel citizens including:
Barbara Boxer
Russ Feingold
Dianne Feinstein
Frank Lautenberg
Joe Lieberman
Bernard Sanders
Charles Schumer
And I found 32 current or past members of the U.S. House of Representatives who are dual
U.S.-Israel citizens including:
Eric Cantor
Barney Frank
Gabrielle Giffords
Jerrold Nadler
Adam Schiff
Henry Waxman
Anthony Weiner
As I said, I have been able to identify well over 100 high-level members of the U.S.
government who are citizens of Israel. And for the sake of this column, I tried to find U.S.
government officials who were dual citizens with other countries, and I couldn't find any. Not
one! I am not saying there aren't any; I'm just saying I couldn't find any. (I am not including
those who were born on foreign soil to American parents. That is a completely different
category.)
Remember what the U.S. State Department official website under the category of "Dual
Citizenship" said:
Dual nationals owe allegiance to both the United States and the foreign country .
They are required to obey the laws of both countries, and either country has the right to
enforce its laws. It is important to note the problems attendant to dual nationality. Claims
of other countries upon U.S. dual-nationals often place them in situations where their
obligations to one country are in conflict with the laws of the other. [Underlines
added]
The U.S. government is awash with foreign citizens -- Israeli citizens. And if you don't
think that Israel is exerting tremendous influence over the decisions, policies and wars of the
United States, you are hopelessly naïve.
It is absurd that people who are citizens of foreign nations would be allowed to hold public
office in the United States -- or, at the very least, would not be required by law to disclose
those foreign citizenships and recuse themselves from any vote or decision involving the
countries in which they hold citizenship, as Michael Hager opined above. Senator Ted Cruz and
Rep. Michele Bachmann were right to renounce their foreign citizenships (Canada and Switzerland
respectively), albeit they both served several years in Congress as dual citizens and both
surrendered their foreign citizenships only after receiving media backlash for it during their
respective presidential campaigns.
And the presence of a large network of Israeli citizens serving in the U.S. government
should also inspire people to read Christopher Bollyn's new book referenced above,
The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East .
I guarantee you that once you read Bollyn's book, you will be able to better understand how
the presence of a large network of Israeli citizens serving as officials within the U.S.
government has been able to shape America's foreign policy and take our country into perpetual
war.
This quote is taken from the book's back cover:
The government and media have misled us about 9/11 in order to compel public opinion to
support the War on Terror.
Why have we gone along with it? Do we accept endless war as normal? Are we numb to the
suffering caused by our military interventions?
No. We have simply been propagandized into submission. We have been deceived into thinking
that the War on Terror is a good thing, a valiant struggle against terrorists who intend to
attack us as we were on 9/11.
Behind the War on Terror is a strategic plan crafted decades in advance to redraw the map of
the Middle East. 9/11 was a false-flag operation blamed on Muslims in order to start the
military operations for that strategic plan. Recognizing the origin of the plan is crucial to
understanding the deception that has changed our world.
This book is the one book you must read in 2018. It dispels the myths and destroys the
lies about 9/11 and America's "War on Terror." READ THIS BOOK!
"... There are many modern myths. One of them is about the events of 1989 as being the culmination of a grand historical struggle for freedom and liberty. Nothing could be farther from the truth. For years prior to 1989 the West through a combination of both legal business and criminal activity had interpenetrated the Communist elites with lucrative deals and promises of all kinds. ..."
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
-- Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar"
There are many modern myths. One of them is about the events of 1989 as being the
culmination of a grand historical struggle for freedom and liberty. Nothing could be farther from the truth. For years prior to 1989 the West through a combination of both legal business and criminal
activity had interpenetrated the Communist elites with lucrative deals and promises of all
kinds.
This situation was even more pronounced in "non-aligned" Yugoslavia who for years had
maintained CIA and American and West European business contacts.
In effect, the "cold war" witnessed a rapid convergence between the economic and power
interests of both Western and Communist elites.
The "Communists" (in name only of course) quickly realized the economic benefits available
to them through at times open at times clandestine cooperation with Western business/criminal
interests.
Eventually, Communist elites realized that they had an unprecedented economic opportunity on
their hands: state privatization made possible, in part, with active Western participation.
For them, "Freedom" meant the freedom to get rich beyond their wildest dreams.
And the 1990's were just that. A paradise for thieving on an unimaginable scale all under
the rubric of the rebirth of "capitalism and freedom".
The true outcome of that decade was that the old communist elites not only retained their
social and political power behind the scenes; they also were able to enrich themselves beyond
anything the communist dictatorships could ever hope to offer them in the past.
Yes, the price was to give up imperial, national, and ideological ambitions. But it was a
very small price to pay; since the East European elites had ceased to believe in any of those
things years earlier.
The only firm belief they still held was the economic betterment of themselves and their
families through the acquisition by any means of as many asset classes as possible. In effect,
they became the mirror image of their "enemy" the "imperialist capitalist West".
This was not a case of historical dialectics but historical convergence. What appeared as a
world divided was actually a world waiting to be made whole through the basest of criminal
business activity.
But being clever thieves they knew how to hide themselves and their doings behind
superficially morally impeccable figures such as Vaclav Havel and Lech Wałęsa, to
name just a few. These "dissidents" would be the faces they would use to make a good part of
the world believe that 1989 was a narrative of freedom and not outright pubic theft which it
was.
Yes, people in the east, even in Russia, are freer now than they were. But it should never
be forgotten that the events of 1989/1990 were not even remotely about those revolutionary
dreams.
It was about something much more mundane and sordid. It was about greed. It was about the
maintenance of power. And finally it was about money.
How deep has the Western nexus of power and wealth gone into the heart of the East? So far
indeed that one can easily question to what extent a country like Russia is truly a "national"
state anymore and rather just a territory open to exploitation by both local and global
elites.
For that matter, we can ask the same question about the USA.
"... Paul Manafort was indicted for supposedly establishing a relationship with a foreign government that was not covered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). ..."
"... Speaking of FARA, when is someone in the US government or the totally corrupted and bought-off US Congress going to demand that Israel and AIPAC be registered under FARA? And then: When will investigations begin into some of the truly treasonous acts and legislation shepherded by this foreign agent called AIPAC: -- like its interference with Free Speech protections in the US Bill of Rights, and this latest: Something about residents of some town in Texas forced to sign a loyalty pledge in support of Israel in order to receive funds to rebuild their stricken landscape ??? Is Israel putting up the money for disaster relief projects in America? If so, how did this come about? ..."
A sardine is hauled in and the big fish swim away. This story seems to suggest either massive
chutzpah on the part of the Clinton campaign or stupidity fueled by desperation.
That they would allow Mueller's investigation to go forward when they were sitting on a mountain
of graft, collusion and other malfeasance (i.e., uranium sold to Russia for among other things
half a million straight into Billl's pocket) all of it, really quite amazing.
We got two uniformly bad candidates in the 2016 elections, both of whom were/are ardent supporters
of Israel. How did that happen?
And Paul Manafort was indicted for supposedly establishing a relationship with a foreign
government that was not covered by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Speaking of FARA, when is someone in the US government or the totally corrupted and bought-off
US Congress going to demand that Israel and AIPAC be registered under FARA? And then: When will
investigations begin into some of the truly treasonous acts and legislation shepherded by this
foreign agent called AIPAC: -- like its interference with Free Speech protections in the US Bill
of Rights, and this latest: Something about residents of some town in Texas forced to sign a loyalty
pledge in support of Israel in order to receive funds to rebuild their stricken landscape ???
Is Israel putting up the money for disaster relief projects in America? If so, how did this come
about?
If the present provides a hint of what it is to come, the nastiest, ugliest, and bloodiest
wars to be fought this century will be between states opposed to continued US dominance, and
the force multipliers of US dominance. We see the outline of sovereign self-defense programs
that take diverse forms, from the banning of foreign funding for NGOs operating in a state's
territory, controlling the mass media, arresting protesters, shutting down CIA-funded political
parties, curtailing foreign student exchanges, denying visas to foreign academic researchers,
terminating USAID operations, to expelling US ambassadors, and so forth. In extreme cases, this
includes open warfare between governments and armed rebels backed by the US, or more indirectly
(as the force multiplier principle mandates) backed by US allies. US intervention will provoke
and heighten paranoia, stoking repression, and create the illusion of a self-fulfilling
prophecy that US interventionists can further manipulate, using logic of this kind: they are
serial human rights abusers; we therefore need to intervene in the name of humanity. There will
be no discussion, let alone admission, that US covert intervention helped to provoke
repression, and that the US knowingly placed its "force multipliers" on the front line. "Force
multipliers" also requires us to understand the full depth and scope of US imperialism
comprising, among other things: entertainment, food, drink, software, agriculture, arms sales,
media, and so on.
Yet, in the end, we are still left with a basic question:
What is a force
multiplier?
There are even more answers to this question than there are persons answering
it. Beyond the most basic definition in physics, we see a proliferation of examples of force
multipliers, reflecting a weak pseudo-science that reifies actual policies, offering mixed
results in practice. Given the scientistic and positivist approach that achieved hegemony
during the Cold War in US universities and the military, the conceptualization of force
multipliers reveals familiar problems arising from the naturalization of social phenomena, of
"man" as "molecule" of society. As an impoverished form of political science, one that is
formulaic, mechanical, utilitarian, and ideologically-driven, the force multiplier idea
nonetheless poses difficult anthropological questions about the agency of others.
My hope was that military writers did not choose to write "force multipliers" because
candidly calling them "quislings," "shills," "dupes," "pawns" or "suckers" would have been too
"politically incorrect," or would have validated older, Cold War-era accusations of the US
supporting "stooges," "lackeys," "cronies," "henchmen," "running dogs," or "lap dogs". In other
words, my hope was that this was not yet another imperial euphemism. Regardless of the
intentions behind the terminology, whether conscious or not, the basic idea of using humans as
a form of
drone
, one that is less expensive yet more precise and in less need of
constant guidance, seems to be the persisting feature of the force multiplier concept.
If the concept is not a mere euphemism, then there is still an absence of sound theorization
of force multipliers on the part of the Pentagon, and by that I mean that while an inchoate
lexical infrastructure exists consisting of nested synonyms derived from the natural sciences,
there is little more than crude utilitarianism and functionalism to hold the terms together.
Some may wish to retort, "then
that
is the theory" by noting the presence of
functionalist assumptions and premises derived from rational-choice theories. However, the
presence of theory should also involve the process of theorization, which entails questioning,
revising, and exposing one's assumptions to a dialogue with other theories and with facts that
appear to challenge the validity of the theory.
There may be a lot of real-world destruction by the US military and intelligence apparatus,
but there is no winning as such!the absence of theorization is killing the imperial political
and security structures, but their exposure to critical theories will only hasten their defeat.
No wonder then that so many right-wing "pro-military" columnists in the US routinely scoff at
and dismiss "post-colonialism"!theirs is a hegemony in trouble, turned narcissistic: unable to
find their mirror image in many sectors of the social sciences and humanities, they resort to
angry triumphalism and cyclical repetition of the same failed "solutions," repeated over and
over again. On the other hand, they can find their mirror-image in academia, and particularly
anthropology, in other ways: many US anthropologists' convoluted (meta)theoretical fumblings,
obfuscated by pretentious language whose deliberate lack of clarity masks deep confusion and
bewilderment, stands out particularly in the cases of topics which are "new," such as democracy
or globalization. In this sense, both the US military and US anthropology in some quarters
share in common a proliferation of theoretical-sounding rhetoric and a lack of scientific
theory. Not coincidentally, both also share an apparent aversion to even saying the word
"imperialism". One might detect a certain decadence in imperial intellectual life, of which the
force multiplier theoretical pretense is but one small example.
Clearly there are numerous examples of agents serving as "force multipliers," and almost as
clear is the absence of theorization, let alone reason for imperial elites to feel confident
about success when the political, economic, and cultural projects they represent are
domestically bankrupt and alienating. Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, and "winning
hearts and minds," certainly did happen in some places and to some extent, which gives partial
weight to the "force multiplier" idea at the core of these processes. However, on the whole,
counterinsurgency programs have been defeated in Afghanistan just as in Vietnam before.
"...when Putin came to power in 1999-2000 he inherited a system completely designed
and controlled by the USA. During the Eltsin years, Russian ministers had much less
power than western 'advisers' who turned Russia into a US colony. In fact, during the
1990s, Russia was at least as controlled by the USA as Europe and the Ukraine are today.
And the results were truly catastrophic: Russia was plundered from her natural wealth,
billions of dollars were stolen and hidden in western offshore accounts, the Russian
industry was destroyed, a unprecedented wave of violence, corruption and poverty drowned
the entire country in misery and the Russian Federation almost broke up into many small
statelets. It was, by any measure, an absolute nightmare, a horror comparable to a major
war. Russia was about to explode and something had to be done.
Two remaining centers of power, the oligarchs and the ex-KGB, were forced to seek a
solution to this crisis and they came up with the idea of sharing power: the former
would be represented by Anatolii Medvedev and the latter by Vladimir Putin. Both sides
believed that they would keep the other side in check and that this combination of big
money and big muscle would yield a sufficient degree of stability.
I call the group behind Medvedev the "Atlantic Integrationists" and the people behind
Putin the "Eurasian Sovereignists". The former wants Russia to be accepted by the West
as an equal partner and fully integrate Russia into the AngloZionist Empire, while the
latter want to fully "sovereignize" Russia and then create a multi-polar international
system with the help of China and the other BRICS countries.
What the Atlantic Integrationists did not expect is that Putin would slowly but
surely begin to squeeze them out of power: first he cracked down on the most notorious
oligarchs such as Berezovskii and Khodorkovskii, then he began cracking down on the
local oligarchs, gubernatorial mafias, ethnic mobsters, corrupt industry officials, etc.
Putin restored the "vertical [axis]of power" and crushed the Wahabi insurgents in
Chechnia. Putin even carefully set up the circumstances needed to get rid of some of the
worst ministers such as Serdiukov and Kudrin. But what Putin has so far failed to do is
to
Reform the Russian political system
Replace the 5th columnists in and around the Kremlin
Reform the Russian economy"
Yes. I'm a little shy of the Saker, though. He has his own enthusiasms. I
agree that the Russian Central Bank is a knot that needs to be untied ... but what
central bank isn't?
Somebody - the poster by that 'original' name - posted a link to
How Harvard Lost Russia
, detailing the corruption of the Harvard team sent to Russia
to 'help' after the collapse. I view Medvedev and 'Atlanticist' cronies as of the same
ilk.
There was an amazing 'report' by Medvedev, printed at the Kremlin site, of the
corruption entailed in the last Russian election, all against his party, of course. I
wonder if that isn't how Medvedev himself didn't get his seat?
"The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is
unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United
States to maintain its overwhelming superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up
to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies
alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful,
but that it must be absolutely powerful." Vice-President Dick Cheney – West Point
lecture, June 2002
Still on course ...
@99 b4
I think that Putin is not so much a neo-liberal - you cannot be serious ... 'if you
are to believe Western press' - as buried under the snow-job of Western 'economics'.
They give Nobel Prizes for Western economic snow, and he's not the only one intimidated
by it, the only one who still believes 'There Is No Alternative'. The Chinese are on the
same page ... they seem to be enjoying it, though.
Raqqa is in dispute. Mike Whitney
agrees with you
. I wait to see ...
Harvard team sent to Russia to 'help' after the collapse...
History repeats itself.
First as a tragedy, and then as a farce. Western (and Polish) expert help reforming the
economy of Ukraine. Polish detractors wonder if even the Volhynia massacres justify this
kind of retribution.
for anyone who missed all that, here is john helmers last article on the crazy couple
who tried to conquer poland with neo con stupid-ness..
http://johnhelmer.net/?p=13866
"... It has recently turned out that Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a vocal proponent of Ukraine's European integration, made huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State. Although the foundation swore off donations from foreign governments while Mrs. Clinton was serving as a state official, it continued accepting money from private donors. Many of them had certain ties to their national governments like Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman and ex-parliamentarian. ..."
"... Viktor Pinchuk has always been one of the most vocal proponents of Ukraine's European integration. In 2004 Pinchuk founded the Yalta European Strategy (YES) platform in Kiev. YES is led by the board including ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. According to the website of the platform, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Annan, Radoslaw Sikorski, Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Petro Poroshenko and other prominent figures have participated in annual meetings of YES since 2004. ..."
"... Experts note that after the coup, the Ukrainian leadership has actually become Washington's puppet government. Several foreign citizens, including American civilian Natalie Jaresko, Lithuanian investment banker Aivaras Abromavicius and Georgia-born Alexander Kvitashvili have assumed high posts in the Ukrainian government. It should be noted that Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's Financial Minister, have previously worked in the US State Department and has also been linked to oligarch Viktor Pinchuk. ..."
A sinister atmosphere surrounds the Clinton Foundation's role in Ukrainian military coup of February
2014, experts point out.
It has recently turned out that Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Pinchuk, a vocal proponent of Ukraine's
European integration, made huge contributions to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton was
the US Secretary of State. Although the foundation swore off donations from foreign governments while
Mrs. Clinton was serving as a state official, it continued accepting money from private donors. Many
of them had certain ties to their national governments like Viktor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian businessman
and ex-parliamentarian.
Remarkably, among individual donors contributing to the Clinton Foundation in the period between
1999 and 2014, Ukrainian sponsors took first place in the list, providing the charity with almost
$10 million and pushing England and Saudi Arabia to second and third places respectively.
It is worth mentioning that the Viktor Pinchuk Foundation alone transferred at least $8.6 million
to the Clinton charity between 2009 and 2013. Pinchuk, who acquired his fortune from a pipe-making
business, served twice as a parliamentarian in Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada and was married to the daughter
of ex-president of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma.
Although the Clinton's charity denies that the donations were somehow connected with political
matters, experts doubt that international private sponsors received no political support in return.
In 2008 Pinchuk pledged to make a five-year $29 million contribution to the Clinton Global Initiative
in order to fund a program aimed at training future Ukrainian leaders and "modernizers." Remarkably,
several alumni of these courses are current members of Ukrainian parliament. Because of the global
financial crisis, the Pinchuk Foundation sent only $1.8 million.
Experts note that during Mrs. Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, Viktor Pinchuk was introduced
to some influential American lobbyists. Curiously enough, he tried to use his powerful "friends"
to pressure Ukraine's then-President Viktor Yanukovych to free Yulia Tymoshenko, who served a jail
term.
Viktor Pinchuk has always been one of the most vocal proponents of Ukraine's European integration.
In 2004 Pinchuk founded the Yalta European Strategy (YES) platform in Kiev. YES is led by the board
including ex-president of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski and former NATO Secretary General Javier
Solana. According to the website of the platform, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice,
Kofi Annan, Radoslaw Sikorski, Vitaliy Klitschko, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Petro Poroshenko and other prominent
figures have participated in annual meetings of YES since 2004.
No one would argue that proponents of Ukraine's pro-Western course played the main role in organizing
the coup of February 2014 in Kiev. Furthermore, the exceptional role of the United States in ousting
then-president Viktor Yanukovich has also been recognized by political analysts, participants of
Euromaidan and even by Barack Obama, the US President.
Experts note that after the coup, the Ukrainian leadership has actually become Washington's puppet
government. Several foreign citizens, including American civilian Natalie Jaresko, Lithuanian investment
banker Aivaras Abromavicius and Georgia-born Alexander Kvitashvili have assumed high posts in the
Ukrainian government. It should be noted that Natalie Jaresko, Ukraine's Financial Minister, have
previously worked in the US State Department and has also been linked to oligarch Viktor Pinchuk.
So far, experts note, the recent "game of thrones" in Ukraine has been apparently instigated by
a few powerful clans of the US and Ukraine, who are evidently benefitting from the ongoing turmoil.
In this light the Clinton Foundation looks like something more than just a charity: in today's world
of fraudulent oligopoly we are facing with global cronyism, experts point out, warning against its
devastating consequences.
Dear Stooges, I'm having a flame war with a youtuber, called him some bad names, so I'm committed
to crushing him. He claims SAA are incompetents who extort bribes from Syrians. I called for evidence,
he links to this
https://citeam.org/here-s-why-assad-s-army-can-t-win-the-war-in-syria/
Now I ask you, does the author, Mikhail Khodarenok, Gazeta.ru's military observer, a retired colonel,
qualify as kreakl? Or anyways, as someone enamored of the United Shits, or ? How would Stooges-in-the-know
characterise him? He's obviously at odds with the present Russian leadership, from my tiny perspective.
BTW, kreakl, returned one google hit, a rap album by Zippy Kid. Did I mispell the word? Or, is that
the confection of one of our resident russophones, known only to us?
That's our term; we adopted it spelt with a 'k', like the Russian alphabet, in which there is
no mistake what sound it makes. It is a portmanteau of 'creative class', but previous users dubbed
it 'creacle'. We decided to use the 'k' because 'c' also has a soft sound in English, while it
is only a soft sound in Russian and represents the 's'.
While you're engaged in World War III against the youtuber, you'll need sustenance to keep going
so here is some nice refreshment from Andrey Filatov's Youtube channel.
BTW who's the youtuber? He may be someone we've all come across in the past.
We really need our own Kremlin Stooge range and rank of Kreals ( a la Russe of course),
and maybe some mockups (see below). The bottom rung could simply be called 'Kreakl', the second
from top rung 'Golden Kreakl' and the top run 'Platinum Kreakl'. We'd have to populate the list
with suitable personalities. Maybe we should also have 'Kreaklites', people who are not full 'Kreakl'
but lean that way?
Not to mention the 'Rice Kreakl', similar to the 'Rice Christian'; someone who pretends to be
devout when it is feeding him. Stanislav Belkovsky typifies this class, as he will say anything
so long as it brings him attention, money or both.
What a prick on the receiving end of a lot of pricks! That was before he stitched his gob up and
before his pièce de ré·sis·tance , namely nailing his ball-bag to Red Square.
Sometimes I do not manage to get the express at Pavlovsky Posad, so then I board a normal
commuter train - and realize how much I hate the Russian people. The day following such
a journey, I suffer because of this loathing. . If you could just see such a parade of
monsters! What types there are that wander around the carriages, offering with their vile voices
all sorts of trash… [She is talking about vendors that offer goods for sale on the commuter
trains - ME] And straight away there come the beggars with dogs, about whom I have written
so much … and I give them some kopecks … Who do we write articles for? We write about scams and
questionable banks, about books and films, about education and travel - but for whom?? And the
people spit out their sunflower seeds, guzzle their beer out of cans and rest their tatty heads
against those of their neighbours. I HATE THEM .
She should ride the bus in many western cities, full of young yobs who curse appallingly in a
normal conversational voice regardless of who is nearby, because it's such fun to be outrageous
– she'd probably like that, it's freedom. The Russian government should notify her that she has
ten days to sell her belongings, and then put her free of charge on a one-way trip to Chicago
– hey, how bad can it be? The President comes from there. Just roll her out on the tarmac, and
turn around and come back. She'd probably have a job by next week with the Jamestown Foundation
or the Heritage Institute or one of those the-people-are-rising-against-Putin think
"... But the standard explanation, as well as the standard debate, overlooks the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs ..."
"... This means that the fracture in politics will move from left to right to the anti-establishment versus establishment. ..."
"... In most cases, international agreements are negotiated by elites that have more in common with each other than with working people in the countries that they represent. ..."
"... when we negotiate economic agreements with these poorer countries, we are negotiating with people from the same class. That is, people whose interests are like ours – on the side of capital ..."
"... Accordingly, the fundamental purpose of the neo-liberal polices of the past 20 years has been to discipline labor in order to free capital from having to bargain with workers over the gains from rising productivity. ..."
"... Moreover, unregulated globalization in one stroke puts government's domestic policies decisively on the side of capital. In an economy that is growing based on its domestic market, rising wages help everyone because they increase purchasing power and consumer demand – which is the major driver of economic growth in a modern economy. But in an economy whose growth depends on foreign markets, rising domestic wages are a problem, because they add to the burden of competing internationally. ..."
"... Both the international financial institutions and the WTO have powers to enforce protection of investors' rights among nations, the former through the denial of financing, the latter through trade sanctions. But the institution charged with protecting workers' rights – the International Labor Organization (ILO) – has no enforcement power. ..."
But the standard explanation, as well as the standard debate, overlooks the increasing concentration
of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by
which the economy runs. ...
Dan Kervick said...
"This means that the fracture in politics will move from left to right to the anti-establishment
versus establishment."
I think this is probably right, but the established parties are doing their best to prevent
it. Each of them has an interest in continuing to divide people along various cultural, religious
and ethnic identity lines in order to prevent them from achieving any kind of effective solidarity
along class lines.
Anyway, I fear we may be headed toward a turbulent and very unpleasant future.
Kenneth D said...
"Rethinking the Global Political Economy" By Jeff Faux April 24, 2002
In most cases, international agreements are negotiated by elites that have more in common with
each other than with working people in the countries that they represent. As a retired U.S. State
Department official put it to me bluntly a few years ago, "What you don't understand," he said,
"is that when we negotiate economic agreements with these poorer countries, we are negotiating
with people from the same class. That is, people whose interests are like ours – on the side of
capital."
Accordingly, the fundamental purpose of the neo-liberal polices of the past 20 years has
been to discipline labor in order to free capital from having to bargain with workers over the
gains from rising productivity.
But labor is typically at a disadvantage because it usually bargains under conditions of excess
supply of unemployed workers. Moreover, the forced liberalization of finance and trade provides
enormous bargaining leverage to capital, because it can now threaten to leave the economy altogether.
Moreover, unregulated globalization in one stroke puts government's domestic policies decisively
on the side of capital. In an economy that is growing based on its domestic market, rising wages
help everyone because they increase purchasing power and consumer demand – which is the major
driver of economic growth in a modern economy. But in an economy whose growth depends on foreign
markets, rising domestic wages are a problem, because they add to the burden of competing internationally.
Both the international financial institutions and the WTO have powers to enforce protection
of investors' rights among nations, the former through the denial of financing, the latter through
trade sanctions. But the institution charged with protecting workers' rights – the International
Labor Organization (ILO) – has no enforcement power.
"... The "Washington Wire" blog at the resolutely non-partisan Wall Street Journal features an
article about "a new 52-page report from centrist Democratic think tank the Third Way" that warns
against populist, redistributionist messages. ..."
"... Buried inside the annual report for Third Way is a revelation that the group relies on a
peculiar DC consulting firm to raise half a million a year: Peck, Madigan, Jones & Stewart. Peck
Madigan is no ordinary nonprofit buckraiser. The group is, in fact, a corporate lobbying firm that
represents Deutsche Bank, Intel, the Business Roundtable, Amgen, AT&T, the International Swaps &
Derivatives Association, MasterCard, New York Life Insurance, PhRMA and the US Chamber of Commerce,
among others. ..."
The "Washington Wire" blog at the resolutely non-partisan Wall Street Journal features an
article about "a new 52-page report from centrist Democratic think tank the Third Way" that warns
against populist, redistributionist messages.
Who is this Third Way? According to Wikipedia: "The board of the Third Way is made up almost
entirely of investment bankers and other Wall Street executives." Wikipedia cites as their source
a Nation article from 2013, "GOP Donors and K Street Fuel Third Way's Advice for the Democratic
Party."
Buried inside the annual report for Third Way is a revelation that the group relies on
a peculiar DC consulting firm to raise half a million a year: Peck, Madigan, Jones & Stewart.
Peck Madigan is no ordinary nonprofit buckraiser. The group is, in fact, a corporate lobbying
firm that represents Deutsche Bank, Intel, the Business Roundtable, Amgen, AT&T, the
International Swaps & Derivatives Association, MasterCard, New York Life Insurance, PhRMA and
the US Chamber of Commerce, among others.
ATHENS - A dynamic entrepreneur, Lavrentis Lavrentiadis seemed to represent a promising new era
for Greece. He dazzled the country's traditionally insular business world by spinning together a
multibillion-dollar empire just a few years after inheriting a small family firm at 18. Seeking acceptance
in elite circles, he gave lavishly to charities and cultivated ties to the leading political parties.
But as Greece's economy soured in recent years, his fortunes sagged and he began embezzling money
from a bank he controlled, prosecutors say. With charges looming, it looked as if his rapid rise
would be followed by an equally precipitous fall. Thanks to a law passed quietly by the Greek Parliament,
however, he avoided prosecution, at least for a time, simply by paying the money back.
Now 40, Mr. Lavrentiadis is back in the spotlight as one of the names on the so-called Lagarde
list of more than 2,000 Greeks said to have accounts in a Geneva branch of the bank HSBC and who
are suspected of tax evasion. Given to Greek officials two years ago by Christine Lagarde, then the
French finance minister and now head of the International Monetary Fund, the list was expected to
cast a damning light on the shady practices of the rich.
Lavrentis Lavrentiadis embezzled money from a bank he controlled, prosecutors say
Instead, it was swept under the rug, and now two former finance ministers and Greece's top tax
officials are under investigation for having failed to act.
Greece's economic troubles are often attributed to a public sector packed full of redundant workers,
a lavish pension system and uncompetitive industries hampered by overpaid workers with lifetime employment
guarantees. Often overlooked, however, is the role played by a handful of wealthy families, politicians
and the news media - often owned by the magnates - that make up the Greek power structure.
In a country crushed by years of austerity and 25 percent unemployment, average Greeks are growing
increasingly resentful of an oligarchy that, critics say, presides over an opaque, closed economy
that is at the root of many of the country's problems and operates with virtual impunity. Several
dozen powerful families control critical sectors, including banking, shipping and construction, and
can usually count on the political class to look out for their interests, sometimes by passing legislation
tailored to their specific needs.
The result, analysts say, is a lack of competition that undermines the economy by allowing the
magnates to run cartels and enrich themselves through crony capitalism. "That makes it rational for
them to form a close, incestuous relationship with politicians and the media, which is then highly
vulnerable to corruption," said Kevin Featherstone, a professor of European Politics at the London
School of Economics.
This week the anticorruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Greece as the most corrupt
nation in Europe, behind former Eastern Bloc states like Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia. Under the
pressure of the financial crisis, Greece is being pressed by Germany and its international lenders
to make fundamental changes to its economic system in exchange for the money it needs to avoid bankruptcy.
But it remains an open question whether Greece's leaders will be able to engineer such a transformation.
In the past year, despite numerous promises to increase transparency, the country actually dropped
14 places from the previous corruption survey.
Mr. Lavrentiadis is still facing a host of accusations stemming from hundreds of millions of dollars
in loans made by his Proton bank to dormant companies - sometimes, investigators say, ordering
an employee to withdraw the money in bags of cash. But with Greece scrambling to complete a
critical bank recapitalization and restructuring, his case is emblematic of a larger battle between
Greece's famously weak institutions and fledgling regulatory structures against these entrenched
interests.
Many say that the system has to change in order for Greece to emerge from the crisis. "Keeping
the status quo will simply prolong the disaster in Greece," Mr. Featherstone said. While the case
of Mr. Lavrentiadis suggests that the status quo is at least under scrutiny, he added, "It's not
under sufficient attack."
In a nearly two-hour interview, Mr. Lavrentiadis denied accusations of wrongdoing and said that
he held "a few accounts" at HSBC in Geneva that totaled only about $65,000, all of it legitimate,
taxed income. He also sidestepped questions about his political ties and declined to comment on any
details of the continuing investigation into Proton Bank.
Sitting in the office of his criminal lawyer last month, relaxed, smiling and dressed in a crisp
blue suit and red-and-blue tie, Mr. Lavrentiadis said he found it puzzling that he had been singled
out in reports about the Lagarde list when other powerful figures appeared to evade scrutiny.
"My question is, 'Why me?' " he said. "I'm the scapegoat for everything."
In the interview, Mr. Lavrentiadis depicted himself as an outsider and upstart, an entrepreneur
in a small country dominated by old families who frown on newcomers. "I am not from a third-generation
aristocratic family," he said repeatedly.
Indeed, by some lights, Mr. Lavrentiadis fell in part because he rose too quickly and then failed
to secure enough of the right friends to protect him, a perception he did not dispute.
There is a war underway. I'm not talking about Washington's bloody misadventures in Afghanistan and
Iraq, but a war within our own borders. It's a war fought on the airwaves, on television and radio
and over the internet, a war of words and images, of half-truth, innuendo, and raging lies. I'm talking
about a political war, pitting liberals against conservatives, Democrats against Republicans. I'm
talking about a spending war, fueled by stealthy front groups and deep-pocketed anonymous donors.
It's a war that's poised to topple what's left of American democracy.
The right wing won the opening battle. In the 2010 midterm elections, shadowy outside organizations
(who didn't have to disclose their donors until well after Election Day, if at all) backing Republican
candidates doled out $190 million, outspending their adversaries by a more than two-to-one margin,
according to the Center for Responsive Politics. American Action Network, operated by Republican
consultant Fred Malek and former Republican Senator Norm Coleman, spent $26 million; the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce plunked down $33 million; and Karl Rove's American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS shelled
out a combined $38.6 million. Their investments in conservative candidates across the country paid
off: the 62 House seats and six Senate seats claimed by Republicans were the most in the postwar
era -- literally, a historic victory.
Knocked out of their complacency, no longer basking in the glow of Barack Obama's 2008 victory, wealthy
Democrats are now plotting their response. Left-wing media mogul David Brock plans to create an outside
group dubbed American Bridge in response to Rove's Crossroads outfits that will fight in the trenches
of 2012 campaign spending. Many more outfits like Brock's will surely follow, as liberal and centrist
Democrats brace for a promised $500 million onslaught by the Chamber of Commerce and others of its
ilk.
Even the Obama administration, which shunned outside groups in 2008, has opened the door to a
covert spending war. The Democrats will now fight fire with fire. "Is small money better? You
bet. But we're in a fucking fight," Democratic strategist and fundraiser Harold Ickes
told me
recently. "And if you're in a fistfight, then you're in a fistfight, and you use all legal means
available."
The endgame here, of course, is nonstop war. No longer will outside groups come and go every two
years. Now, such groups will be running attack ads, sending out mailers, and deploying robo-calls
year-round in what is going to become a perpetual campaign to sway voters and elect friendly lawmakers.
"We're definitely building a foundation," was how American Crossroads president Steven Law
put it.
This is what nowadays passes for the heart and soul of American democracy. It used to be that
citizens in large numbers, mobilized by labor unions or political parties or a single uniting cause,
determined the course of American politics. After World War II, a swelling middle class was the most
powerful voting bloc, while, in those same decades, the working and middle classes enjoyed comparatively
greater economic prosperity than their wealthy counterparts. Kiss all that goodbye. We're now a country
run by rich people.
Not surprisingly, political power has a way of following wealth. What that means is: You
can't understand how the rich seized control of American politics, and arguably American society,
without understanding how a small group of Americans got so much money in the first place.
That story begins in the late 1970s and continues through the Obama years, a period in which American
policy has been so skewed toward the rich that we're now living through the worst period of income
inequality in modern history. Consider the statistics: 50 years ago, the wealthiest 1 percent of
Americans accounted for one of every 10 dollars of the nation's income; today, it's nearly one in
every four. Between 1979 and 2006, the average post-tax household income (including benefits) of
the wealthiest 1 percent increased by 256 percent; the poorest households saw an increase of 11 percent;
middle class homes, 21 percent, much of which was due to the arrival of two-job families.
Tax guru David Cay Johnston recently
crunched new
Social Security Administration data and discovered an even starker divide. On the one hand, the number
of Americans earning a steady income declined by 4.5 million between 2008 and 2009, and the average
wage in the U.S. dipped by 0.6 percent, to $39,269. On the other hand, the average wage among Americans
earning more than $50 million per year skyrocketed from $91 million in 2008 to $519 million in 2009.
Those multimillionaires take home more in one week -- about $10 million -- than most Americans make
in a lifetime.
Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz put the situation Americans now find themselves in
this way:
Think of the American economy as a large apartment block. A century ago -- even 30 years ago
-- it was the object of envy. But in the last generation its character has changed. The penthouses
at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling more and more
squeezed and the basement has flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That
broken elevator is what gets people down the most.
Let's call those select few in the penthouse the New Oligarchy, an awesomely rich sliver of Americans
raking in an outsized share of the nation's wealth. They're oil magnates and media tycoons, corporate
executives and hedge-fund traders, philanthropists and entertainers. Depending on where you want
to draw the line, they're the top 1 percent, or the top 0.1 percent, or even the top 0.01 percent
of the population. And when the Supreme Court handed down its controversial Citizens United
decision in January, it broke the floodgates so that a torrent of anonymous donations from this
oligarchic class could flood back down from the heights and inundate the political lands below.
"The Thirty-Year War"
How did we get here? How did a middle-class-heavy nation transform itself into an oligarchy? You'll
find answers to these questions in Winner-Take-All Politics,
a revelatory new book by political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson. The authors treat the
present figures we have on American wealth and poverty as a crime scene littered with clues and suspects,
dead-ends and alibis.
Unlike so many pundits, politicians, and academics, Hacker and Pierson resist blaming the usual
suspects: globalization, the rise of an information-based economy, and the demise of manufacturing.
The culprit in their crime drama is American politics itself over the last three decades. The clues
to understanding the rise of an American oligarchy, they believe, won't be found in New York or New
Delhi, but on Capitol Hill, along Pennsylvania Avenue, and around K Street, that haven in a heartless
world for Washington's lobbyists.
"Step by step and debate by debate," they write, "America's public officials have rewritten the
rules of American politics and the American economy in ways that have benefited the few at the expense
of the many."
Most
accounts of American income inequality begin in the 1980s with the reign of President Ronald Reagan,
the anti-government icon whose "Reaganomics" are commonly fingered as the catalyst for today's problems.
Wrong, say Hacker and Pierson. The origins of oligarchy lay in the late 1970s and in the unlikely
figure of Jimmy Carter, a Democratic president presiding over a Congress controlled by Democrats.
It was Carter's successes and failures, they argue, that kicked off what economist Paul Krugman has
labeled
"the Great Divergence."
In 1978, the Carter administration and Congress took a red pen to the tax code, slashing the top
rate of the capital gains tax from 48 percent to 28 percent -- an enormous boon for wealthy Americans.
At the same time, the most ambitious effort in decades to reform American labor law in order to make
it easier to unionize died in the Senate, despite a 61-vote Democratic supermajority. Likewise,
a proposed Office of Consumer Representation, a $15 million advocacy agency that was to work on behalf
of average Americans, was defeated by an increasingly powerful business lobby.
Ronald Reagan, you could say, simply took the baton passed to him by Carter. His 1981 Economic
Recovery and Tax Act (ERTA) bundled a medley of goodies any oligarch would love, including tax cuts
for corporations, ample reductions in the capital gains and estate taxes, and a 10 percent income
tax exclusion for married couples in two-earner families. "ERTA was Ronald Reagan's greatest legislative
triumph, a fundamental rewriting of the nation's tax laws in favor of winner-take-all outcomes,"
Hacker and Pierson conclude.
The groundwork had by then been laid for the rich to pull definitively and staggering ahead of
everyone else. The momentum of the tax-cut fervor carried through the presidencies of George H.W.
Bush and Bill Clinton, and in 2000 became the campaign trail rallying cry of George W. Bush. It was
Bush II, after all, who
told a room full
of wealthy donors at an $800-a-plate dinner, "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base,"
and who pledged that his 2001 tax cuts would be a boon for all Americans. They weren't: according
to Hacker and Pierson, 51 percent of their benefits go to the top 1 percent of earners.
Those cuts will be around a lot longer if the GOP has its way. Take Republican Congressman Dave
Camp's word for it. On Nov. 16, Camp, a Republican from Michigan,
said the only acceptable
solution when it came to the Bush-era tax cuts was not just upholding them for all earners, rich
and poor, but passing more such cuts. Anything in between, any form of compromise, including President
Obama's proposal to extend the Bush cuts for the working and middle classes but not the wealthy,
was "a terrible idea
and a total non-starter."
Why should you care what Dave Camp says? Here's the answer: In January, he's set to inherit the
chairman's gavel on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the body tasked with writing the
nation's tax laws. And though most Americans wouldn't even recognize his name, Camp's message surely
left America's wealthy elites breathing a long sigh of relief. You could sum it up like this:
Fear not, wealthy Americans, your money is safe. The policies that made you rich aren't going anywhere.
Tear Down This Law
Where rewriting the tax code proved too politically difficult, demolishing regulations worked
almost as well. This has been especially true in the world of finance. There, a legacy of deregulation
transformed banking from a relatively staid industry into a
casino culture, ushering in an
era of eye-popping profits,
lavish bonuses, and the "financialization"
of the American economy.
April 6, 1998: it's a useful starting point in the story of financial deregulation. On that day,
two well-known Wall Street denizens, Citicorp and Travelers Group, agreed to a historic $140-billion
merger. The deal required much lobbying, but eventually the chiefs of these banks won an exemption
from the Glass-Steagall Act, the New Deal-era law walling off commercial banks from riskier investment
houses. The resulting institution, dubbed Citigroup, would be the largest supermarket bank in history,
a marriage of teller windows and trading desks, customer banking and high-stakes investing -- all
suddenly under one deregulated roof. It would prove an explosive, if not disastrous, mix.
The merger stirred visions of a future in which the U.S. would dominate the planet financially.
All that stood in the way was undue regulatory red tape. At least that's the way free marketeers
like then-Republican Senator Phil
Gramm of Texas saw it. Gramm, who as an aide to presidential candidate John McCain infamously
called America a
"nation of whiners," was, in fact, the driving force behind two of the most influential pieces
of deregulation in recent history.
In 1999, President Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, a bevy of deregulatory measures
that obliterated Glass-Steagall. In December of the following year, Gramm
quietly snuck the 262-page
Commodity Futures Modernization Act into a massive $384-billion spending bill. Gramm's bill blocked
regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from cracking down on the shadowy "over-the-counter
derivatives" market, home to billions of dollars of opaque financial instruments that would, years
later, nearly demolish the American economy.
As presidents, both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush wrapped their arms around financial deregulation.
As a result, in a binge of financial gluttony, Wall Street grew fat in ways never previously seen.
Between 1929, the year the Great Depression began, and 1988, Wall Street's profits averaged 1.2 percent
of the nation's gross domestic product; in 2005, that figure peaked at 3.3 percent as industry bonuses
soared ever-higher.
In 2009, bad times for most Americans, bonuses
hit $20 billion. So
much wealth in so few hands. Nothing explains the rise of the new American oligarchy more starkly.
Of course, it's not just what politicians did that helped create today's oligarchy, but what they
failed to do. A classic example: In the 1990s, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), a
private American accounting regulator, set its sights on a loophole big enough to drive a financial
Mack truck through. Until then, stock options included in executives' skyrocketing pay packages --
potentially worth tens of millions of dollars when exercised -- were valued at zero when issued.
That's right: zero, zilch, nada. When FASB and the SEC tried to close the loophole,
however, big business leapt to its defense. An avalanche of money went into the pockets of an army
of K Street lobbyists and leviathan business trade associations. In the end, nothing happened. Or
rather, everything continued happening. The loophole remained.
Citizen United's Brave New World
Hacker and Pierson ably guide us through 30 years of "winner-take-all" policymaking, politicking,
and -- from the point of view of the wealthy -- judicious inaction. They offer an eye-opening journey
across the landscape that helped foster the New Oligarchs, but one crucial vista appeared too late
for the authors to include.
No understanding of the rise of our New Oligarchs could be complete without exploring the effects
of the Supreme Court's January Citizens United decision, which set their power in cement
more effectively than any tax cut ever could. Before Citizens United, the rich used their
wealth to subtly shape policy, woo politicians, and influence elections. Now,with so much
money flowing into their hands and the contribution faucets wide open, they can simply buy American
politics so long as the price is right.
There's no mistaking how, in less than a year, Citizens United has radically tilted the
political playing field. Along with several
other major court rulings,
itushered in American Crossroads, American Action Network, and many similar groups that
now can reel in unlimited donations with pathetically few requirements to disclose their funders.
What the present Supreme Court, itself the fruit of successive tax-cutting and deregulating administrations,
has ensured is this: that in an American "democracy," only the public will remain in the dark. Even
for dedicated reporters, tracking down these groups is like chasing shadows: official addresses lead
to P.O. boxes; phone calls go unreturned; doors are shut in your face.
The limited glimpse we have of the people bankrolling these shadowy outfits is a
who's-who of the New Oligarchy:
the billionaire Koch
Brothers ($21.5
billion); financier George Soros ($11
billion); hedge-fund CEO Paul Singer (his fund, Elliott Management, is
worth $17 billion); investor
Harold Simmons (net worth: $4.5 billion); New York venture capitalist
Kenneth Langone ($1.1
billion); and real estate tycoon
Bob Perry ($600 million).
Then there's the roster of corporations who have used their largesse to influence American politics.
Health insurance companies, including UnitedHealth Group and Cigna,
gave a whopping $86.2 million to the U.S. Chamber to kill the public option, funneling the money
through the industry trade group America's Health Insurance Plans. And corporate titans like Goldman
Sachs, Prudential Financial, and Dow Chemical have
given millions more to
the Chamber to lobby against new financial and chemical regulations.
As a result, the central story of the 2010 midterm elections isn't Republican victory or Democratic
defeat or Tea Party anger; it's this blitzkrieg of outside spending, most of which came from right-leaning
groups like Rove's American Crossroads and the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. It's a grim illustration of what happens when so much money ends up in the hands
of so few. And with campaign finance reforms soundly defeated for years to come, the spending wars
will only get worse.
Indeed, pundits predict that spending in the 2012 elections will smash all records. Think of it
this way: In 2008, total election spending reached
$5.3 billion, while the $1.8 billion spent on the presidential race alone more than doubled 2004's
total. How high could we go in 2012? $7 billion? $10 billion? It looks like the sky's the limit.
We don't need to wait for 2012 to arrive, however, to know that the sheer amount of money being
pumped into American politics makes a mockery out of our democracy (or what's left of it). Worse
yet, few solutions exist to staunch the cash flow: the
DISCLOSE Act, intended to counter the effects of Citizens United, twice failed in the
Senate this year; and the best option, public financing of elections, can't even get a hearing in
Washington.
Until lawmakers cap the amount of money in politics, while forcing donors to reveal their identities
and not hide in the shadows, the New Oligarchy will only grow in stature and influence. Left unchecked,
this ultimate elite will continue to root out the few members of Congress not beholden to them and
their "contributions" (see: Wisconsin's
Russ Feingold) and will replace them with lawmakers eager to do their bidding, a Congress full
of obedient placeholders ready to give their donors what they want.
Never before has the United States looked so much like a country of the rich, by the rich, and
for the rich.
Andy Kroll is a reporter in the D.C.
Bureau of Mother Jonesand an associate editor at
TomDispatch.com. You
can email him at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com.
A brouhaha erupted when Diane Rehm, of National Public Radio,
confronted Bernie
Sanders during an interview with an allegation that's been making the rounds on the Internet for
years: "Now, you're a dual citizen of Israel," she averred. Startled, he replied:
"Well, no I do not have dual citizenship with Israel. I'm an American. I don't know where
that question came from. I am an American citizen, and I have visited Israel on a couple of occasions.
I'm an American citizen, period."
He claimed to be "offended" by Rehm's assertion, although I don't know why anybody would be: after
all, what's wrong with being a dual citizen of Israel, or of any other country?
Ms. Rehm issued an official apology, in which she regretted not posing a question rather than
making an assertion – and that underscores the problem with the whole issue of public officials holding
dual citizenship: they aren't required to disclose it. Rehm says she brought it up in the first place
because of a Facebook comment, which referenced a list of alleged dual US-Israeli citizens in Congress.
None of these
lists, however, are sourced, a fact the research-challenged Rehm failed to notice. It's virtually
impossible to source such information, however, unless members of Congress are forthcoming with it
– which they aren't.
"Anyone can become a dual citizen, even members of Congress, high court judges and top officials
of the executive branch. There's no law or regulation against it. Nor are they required to disclose
such dual citizenship.
"So what's the problem?
"For most dual citizens, having the benefits of citizenship in two countries (including
expedited immigration) outweigh the costs (which may include tax obligations to both countries).
"Yet dual citizenship in the United States poses a hitherto unappreciated issue for policy-level
members of the legislative, executive and judicial branches. The divided national loyalties of
dual citizens can create real or apparent conflicts of interest when such legislators, judges
or senior officials make or speak out on policies that relate to their second country.
"The potential damage to our democracy is the greater when such potential conflicts of interest
are concealed in undisclosed dual citizenship.
"Current entries on the Internet contain a number of undocumented assertions as to which
members of Congress and senior officers are dual citizens. Without reliable data, however, Americans
can only speculate on which senators and representatives may have divided national loyalties.
"The lack of transparency regarding citizenship erodes trust in government, raising credibility
doubts where there should be none, and allowing some apparent conflicts of interest to continue
undetected."
So what's the solution? Hager suggests 1) Dual citizens in Congress should recuse themselves from
voting on issues where a conflict of interest might arise, e.g. a dual citizen of, say, Liberia,
should not be voting on whether to increase aid to that country. And 2) The Congressional Research
Service of the Library of Congress ought to publish this information, along with all the other facts
they routinely gather – party affiliation, age, ethnicity, gender, etc. – about every member of each
new Congress.
The Rehm-Sanders controversy was a good opportunity for Israel's American amen corner to make
the usual disingenuous
claims about the supposedly
rising tide of anti-Semitism, claiming Israel was once again being unfairly singled out for special
attention and that to even raise the question
amounted to
peddling The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the public square. The irony is that even
as the Rehm controversy was breaking another story was breaking: Israel's spying on the P5+1 negotiations
with Iran. That very morning the Wall Street Journal was
reporting that the Israelis had infiltrated some very sophisticated malware – a virus – into
the computers at the hotels where the negotiations were taking place:
"[T]he virus was packed with more than 100 discrete 'modules' that would have enabled the
attackers to commandeer infected computers.
"One module was designed to compress video feeds, possibly from hotel surveillance cameras.
Other modules targeted communications, from phones to Wi-Fi networks. The attackers would know
who was connected to the infected systems, allowing them to eavesdrop on conversations and steal
electronic files.
"The virus could also enable them to operate two-way microphones in hotel elevators, computers
and alarm systems. In addition, the hackers appeared to penetrate front-desk computers. That could
have allowed them to figure out the room numbers of specific delegation members."
All very James Bond, but then again the Israelis are a
formidable
foe and they're
deadly
serious when it comes to penetrating the secrets of their "friends" as well as their enemies.
What's in question, however, is who's a friend and who's an enemy: in their eyes, it's no longer
very clear.
Increasingly isolated internationally, as well as increasingly hostile to the United States –
Israeli bigwigs
openly
booed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew in Jerusalem the other day – Israel's political class (and
Israeli society in general) have taken a very sharp rightward turn. A virulent form of
ultra-nationalism dominates Israeli politics these days, and anti-Americanism is on the rise.
After all, these are a people who
named
a public square in Jerusalem – overlooked by the American consulate – after Jonathan Pollard,
the Israeli spy
imprisoned for life in the United States for stealing US secrets.
And that calculated insult occurred in 2007, right before then President George W. Bush –
surely one of the most pro-Israel presidents in American history – was scheduled to visit. Since
then, the tension between Washington and Tel Aviv has increased a
hundred-fold.
So Israel isn't being picked on for no good reason. Indeed, the Israelis have targeted the US
and its allies, not only accusing them of "appeasing" Iran but also penetrating their security and
industrial systems.
According toWired, the reach of the Israeli super-virus extended worldwide, extending
to:
"[A]n international gathering for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
concentration camps. The focus in this case may have been on the scores of VIPs who attended the
event, including presidents and prime ministers….
"In addition to all of these targets, Symantec uncovered victims in the UK, Sweden, Hong
Kong and India. Notably, it found telecom victims in Europe and Africa, an electronics firm in
South East Asia, and multiple infections in the US, including one organization where developers
working on mobile platforms were infected. Some of the infections dated back to 2013 … "
America's "special relationship" with Israel has soured for a two reasons: 1) Our security
interests, once aligned during the cold war era, have
diverged, and 2) The political environment in Israel has undergone a radical
transformation.
Furthermore, none of this was avoidable. Although the Israel lobby would like us to
forget it, the United States and the Jewish state are
separate countries, with inevitably disparate interests. And those interests underwent a significant
shift with the end of the cold war and the beginning of the "age of terrorism," as it might be termed.
It became necessary
for Washington to forge a closer relationship with Middle Eastern states other than Israel, i.e.
Israel's traditional adversaries. We see this playing out now as Iran
takes on ISIS and a Washington-Tehran rapprochement is in the works.
Inside Israel, another shift was taking place: the
inherent logic of that settler colony's origins was pushing it on a course that didn't allow
for any compromise with its indigenous Arab population. Reduced to helotry, and radicalized by their
predicament, the Arabs revolted – and the subsequent Israeli
backlash changed the political
landscape forever.
Aggressive Israeli spying on – and in – the US is not a "conspiracy theory," it's a
reality,
and the
danger it poses is heightened by the presence of a powerful lobby that seeks to deny and/or excuse
that aggression at every turn. No responsible American observer can look on it with indifference,
and measures must be taken to counteract it, just as we would seek to obstruct similar intrusions
by, say, China or Russia.
As for the issue of dual citizenship, particularly involving federal officials and specifically
members of Congress, the direct relation of this matter to our national security is underscored by
the case of
Jane Harman.
While serving in Congress, Harman was
caught out by the National
Security Agency having a conversation with an Israeli official in which she agreed to intercede on
behalf of two AIPAC lobbyists who had been brought up on espionage charges.
Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman,
two longtime members of the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, had been accused of procuring sensitive
information purloined from the Pentagon on Israel's behalf.
Harman was angling, at the time, to chair the House Intelligence Committee, and the New York
Timesreported
that "One official who has seen transcripts of several wiretapped calls said she appeared to agree
to intercede in exchange for help in persuading party leaders to give her the powerful post." Those
transcripts, according to the official, revealed that the Israeli caller "promised her that a wealthy
California donor – the media mogul Haim Saban – would threaten to withhold campaign contributions
to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who was expected to become House speaker
after the 2006 election, if she did not select Ms. Harman for the intelligence post."
Rather than run for reelection under this cloud, Harman retired from Congress.
Israel represents a danger to the national security of this country: this is an incontrovertible
fact, and no amount of
"anti-Semitism"-baiting is going to obscure it. And that danger is growing, as the story of the
Israeli spy-virus makes all too clear.
In this context, dual US-Israeli citizenship among federal employees – including members of Congress
– is a legitimate concern, and not only for
law enforcement but also for voters. Just as a candidate for federal office must reveal the sources
of their campaign funds, so they ought to be required to disclose their allegiance to a foreign government
– no matter what country is involved.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
You can check out my Twitter feed by going
here. But please note that my tweets
are sometimes deliberately provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking out
loud.
My attempt for the figurine :)
Sergei Guriev is the only Russian attending the Bilderberg summit, June 9th-14th in Austria. http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/participants.html
He has the usual Soros and Khodorkovsky connections. (I don't think Google is correct when they
list his fortune as 3.5 billion USD.) I presume he will advice the Atlanticist elite on how to
proceed against Russia.
"With the fund amounting to only about 6% of GDP, Russia can maintain a 3.7% deficit for
less than two years before it either has to withdraw from Ukraine to gain relief from Western
sanctions, or undertake a major – and, for Putin, politically dangerous – fiscal adjustment."
And another revealing piece in the Washington Post, splattered with wishful sentences like
"The Kremlin has no credible financial plan beyond 2016 except for hoping for oil prices
to recover."
"regime survival" "widespread panic and the collapse of the regime. "
"At some point, this regime will have to go"
"the best scenario one can hope for is some form of transitional government that would provide
certain guarantees to the outgoing elites and oversee new elections."
"The West should get prepared now for sudden and turbulent change in Russia."
I'm guessing it is close to what he has presented at the Bilderberg meeting, and might give
some indicators on what the western elites plan for Russia in the next future (coup d'etat?).
Apparently the Fifth Columnists
have taken to snooping around graveyards, looking for evidence to hand over to NATO, of Russian servicemen
dying in Ukraine civil war.
Sectarianism in the Middle East is regularly inflamed by the Sunni Salafi/Wahhabi groups and countries in the Middle East. It
is directed against all other strains of Islam as well as against all other religions.
But as the "western" governments and media favor the Saudi Arabian side and often denigrate the "resistance" side, be it Shia,
Sunni or whatever else, they insist that it is the Shia side that is preaching sectarianism. One can often experience this with reports
on speeches of Hizbullah leader Nasrallah who is always very careful to not ever use sectarian language. When Nasrallah condemns
Takfiri terrorists like AlQaeda and the Islamic State as non-Muslim and calls them the greatest danger to Sunnis, Shia and Christians
alike the "western" media like to report that he warns of Sunnis in general and is thus spreading sectarianism.
Many such reports come from "western" reporters who are stationed in Beirut, speak no Arabic and depend on the spokespersons and
translators in the offices of the Saudi-Lebanese Sunni leader Hariri. For an ever growing collection of typical examples see the
Angry Arab here and
here.
The finding of non-existent sectarian language in "resistance" leaders' communications and the emphasizing of it has been internalized
by "western" reporters. You can clearly see the process in the exemplary Twitter exchange copied below.
Liz Sly is the Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post in Beirut and does not speak Arabic. Elijah J. Magnier is Chief
International Correspondent for the Kuwaiti TV station AL RAI. He speaks Arabic and has covered the war on Iraq and other wars on
the ground for decades.
The issue at hand is a defense bill in front of the U.S. Congress which
refers to Sunni militia, Kurds and other groups in Iraq as distinguished "countries" which are to be armed separately from the
state of Iraq. "Divide and rule" writ large. Many Iraqi politicians including the Prime Minister have spoken out against it. The
Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr
warned
of the consequences should the bill go through which he says would include an unleashing of his troops against U.S. interests.
Notice how Liz Sly insist on a sectarian aspect/intent in Sadr's proclamation even when there clearly is none. She keeps in insisting
on it even after she gets pointed to an official denial of any sectarian intent by a Sadr spokesperson. The
exchange:
Liz Sly 17h17 hours ago
Moqtada Sadr to the US: if you arm Iraq's Sunnis, we will fight Americans in Iraq. https://twitter.com/jihadicas/status/593512749235249152
…
Elijah J. Magnier 8h8 hours ago
@LizSly Moqtada didn't say that https://twitter.com/EjmAlrai/status/593324552437903360 …
Liz Sly 6h6 hours ago
@EjmAlrai Didn't mean literally fighting US troops, but to fight against US presence in Iraq. Presumably would hit embassy, personnel
etc?
Elijah J. Magnier 6h6 hours ago
@LizSly U r right as Moqtada said he will fight USA in Iraq and abroad but didn't say if Sunni are armed.
Elijah J. Magnier 5h5 hours ago
@LizSly "We shall hit US interest in Iraq & abroad, as possible, ', if US approves supporting each religion independently",
Liz Sly 5h5 hours ago
@EjmAlrai Right, he means if Sunnis are armed directly by the US under that weird bill
Elijah J. Magnier 5h5 hours ago
@LizSly I spoke to S. Ali Seism who said it is not directed to Sunni but 2 all religions (incl Kurds) as there are more than Sunnis
in Iraq.
Elijah J. Magnier 5h5 hours ago
@LizSly In fact the communique' doesn't say in any line the word "Sunni" but "all religions".
Liz Sly 5h5 hours ago
@EjmAlrai The bill is aimed at arming Sunnis and my tweet makes it clear Muqtada is against the US arming Sunnis, not against
arming them
Liz Sly 5h5 hours ago
@EjmAlrai Ok, but it's clear he's against a bill whose goal is to permit the US to directly arm Sunnis, not eg Fayli. As are many
Iraqis.
The last paragraph of Sadr's statement says:
American should know that if it wants to exacerbate sectarian sentiment, we would continue to tread on the path of national unity.
Let sectarianism fall out of existence! This is the very sectarianism that seeks to create [artificial] borders.
The U.S. Congress introduces a law that would exacerbate sectarianism in Iraq. Muqtada al-Sadr responses with a statement explicitly
speaking out against sectarianism. Liz Sly insist that it is therefore Sadr who is playing a sectarian card.
Is this insistence by Liz Sly on sectarian "Shia leader Sadr is against Sunnis" justified by anything but sly, willful exaggeration,
and even falsification, of what Sadr wrote? Who is the sectarian here?
Another good example of this is the NYT story from yesterday,
An Eroding Syrian Army Points to Strain, about various religious sects and ethnic groups in Syria losing confidence in the
SAA. Penned by Anne Barnard and Eric Schmitt, it is clearly a CIA-sponsored tale, built mostly out of quotes from an anonymous
"Syrian with security ties."
The chief target of the anonymous source's ire is of course Hezbollah.
thanks b. given the background on this, i'm inclined to believe it's intentional. or is it that it fits with the constant
mantra on the problem in the middle being one of sectarian conflict that the usa and the west want to always present?
@2 mike. thanks more of the same bs from the same sources, in this case cia, although i they aren't referenced in the article..
nyt - cia/blackhouse mouthpiece..
"It is extremely delusional and childish to assume that tens of thousands of well-armed and battle-hardened Jihadists who have
gotten accustomed to roaming their (and other people´s) country to kill "infidels", "apostates", "traitors" (e.g. fellow Sunnis
who fight in the Syrian army) or simply "Shabiha" (a derogatory expression used to defame and dehumanize all kind of Sunni and
non-Sunni militias and civilians who reject the rebels) would lay down their weapons and re-enter their ordinary civilian life
on the day the Syrian government falls and Assad is killed..."
Al Sadr and his Iranian allies don't want any US involvement in Iraq. He certainly doesn't want the Kurds armed by anyone for
obvious reasons and the Sunni tribes are considered a possible threat especially because they remember how Sadr's Mahdi Army carefully
planned and viciously executed the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad's Sunni civilian population. Actions speak much louder than words.
Nasrallah has to carefully chose his words because the Shia are a minority in Lebanon but again actions are more telling than
words. Hezbollah attempted to overthrow the government of Lebanon to create a Shia led Islamic Republic which I think is still
their goal.
I wonder what would happen if the media started talking about US support for Jewish terror groups ???
@ WOW as per usual your talking shit. Maybe you should ask sadr about his father and unclear death, while their killers were
at the time roaming around free under US protection, kinda the same as KSA now
I really do admire your methods of being a paid propagandist -- Whether your in India or Tel Aviv or receive your pay checks
from them, you really do have a way of talking doo doo
Yes maybe you should ask the nuns of maloola that your friends Way Out West seemed to have forgotten about if Hezbollah wants
a Islamic Republic
You clearly are a Zionist because you seem to know enough about the Middle East, yet those who know as "much" as you so would
not generally distort the truth unless they had an agenda, and most people who tread your path and masturbate heavily Iran Syria
Hezbollah are generally yids
Sorry dude u have been exposed
I also wonder if Israel will comply with UNIFIL new resolution demanding they withdraw from all Lebanese territory and stop
violating its air space
Israel sure is a funny country shame they cant beat a "rag tag" militia lol
' sly, willful exaggeration, and even falsification ' is the basis for the US aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria,
Ukraine ... the issue is not so much the sly exaggerators and falsifiers in the government ... all 546 of those at the top are
owned lock, stock and barrel by the aggressors, and so, of course, are their mouthpieces and hired hands ... but us, zombified
cogs on the wheels of imperial slaughter, sitting on our thumbs and switching from cnn, to foxx, to msnbc eating popcorn and the
'news' along with. At what point do you call our self-delusion willful, and how long ago was that point passed?
The only people among us asserting ourselves are Americans of color, who've been pinched, lynched, and gunned down in the streets
long enough. For far too long, of course, but now, with a black president and successive attorneys general leading the charge
against them, black Americans have given up all hope of help from above/outside their own ranks.
White/Black - Sunni/Shia - Xtian/Muslim ... divide, devastate and destroy worldwide. The US is as monstrous in 2015
as Germany was in 1935, but no one seems to notice. And the EUnuchs, Israel and the KSA are filling in for Italy and Japan.
I see this tweet exchange between Sly and Magnier as an example of Sly having been told by her employer (and probably the US
govt through its embassy) to ratchet up the Sunni / Shia sectarian divide whenever and wherever possible. In addition Sly seems
quite brainwashed and primed to see sectarianism even where it doesn't exist. This would explain her idiotic responses to Magnier's
tweets.
The US govt is using identity politics as part of its "divide and rule" strategy to set different religious and ethnic
groups at one another's throats. To their credit, people like Moqtada al Sadr and Sheikh Hassan Nasrullah among others recognize
that this strategy encourages tensions between and among various groups leading to continuous instability, turbulence and chaos
that the US and other foreigners can use to their advantage.
The Western media is also at fault for deploying to the Middle East and other areas around the world as foreign correspondents
people who have no background knowledge or understanding of the peoples, languages and cultures in the areas they have to report
on.
Liz Sly and Ann Barnard are the mini-version of the notorious Judith Miller, the NYT journalist that has been the promoter
of lies that lead to the Iraq war.
Judith Miller was on Israel payroll. Whose payroll Liz Sly and Ann Barnard are on?
Thanks for yet another enlightening post about the inner workings of the so-called MSM. Their efforts to reproduce a narrative
that combines official government views with those of the WaPo's editorial board are truly pathetic.
@mcohen@3
why do we not hear from liz sly herself... hey liz what do you think of these allegators made against you in this article
by the blogger
i await your reply
Good try, but no cigar. You will wait until hell freezes over. She cannot step down from her clay feet pedestal to answer a
commoner's question. No sir. She would be fired if she does for violation of...submission.
@Wayoutwest@7
Hezbollah attempted to overthrow the government of Lebanon to create a Shia led Islamic Republic which I think is still
their goal.
This time, Way-out-there outdid himself, his ignorance about Hezbollah, Lebanon and the Shia, of galactic proportions.
@Jen@11
I see this tweet exchange between Sly and Magnier as an example of Sly having been told by her employer (and probably the
US govt through its embassy) to ratchet up the Sunni / Shia sectarian divide whenever and wherever possible. In addition Sly seems
quite brainwashed and primed to see sectarianism even where it doesn't exist. This would explain her idiotic responses to Magnier's
tweets.
Bingo. Great summary of the whole guacamole. Thanks.
emma sky wrote this in 2014.....now petraeus is back in iraq looking almost a year later and .....and .......and liz on the
sly is tweeting about ........not sure what .....anyone understand this stuff,
there is so many billions up for grabs the whole thing looks like one big criminal exercise.....
one thing is for sure ....sectarianism is just a cover, surely a religion would not stoop this low
In his June 19 statement, U.S. President Barack Obama said,
"Iraqi leaders must rise above their differences and come together around a political plan for Iraq's future. Shia, Sunni,
Kurds -- all Iraqis -- must have confidence that they can advance their interests and aspirations through the political process
rather than through violence."
Obama is right to pressure Iraqi politicians to form a new government, rather than insisting that they support Maliki. He correctly
recognized that any military options would be effective only if they were in support of an overall political strategy that a new
broad-based government agreed to.
The United States has a key role to play in helping broker a new deal among the elites that creates a better balance among
Iraq's communities. A new broad-based Iraqi government will need to win back the support of Sunnis against ISIS -- and the Obama
administration should be prepared to respond positively to requests for assistance to do so.
"General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO, told CNN that the Islamic Emirate ("Daesh") had been "created by our
friends and allies to defeat Hezbollah."
General Clark thus clearly put into question the responsibility of Israel.
Since 2001, General Clark has been the spokesman for a group of senior officers opposed to Israeli influence on the foreign
policy of the United States, its aggressive imperialist developments and the remodeling of the "Greater Middle East". He had opposed
the deployment of troops in Iraq, and wars against Libya and against Syria." (With accompanying video).
Some reminder regarding pretend-journalists/model-type cupcakes you may wanna put the boots to (well not Emma Sky) slanting
stories to influence people to believe that USSA, Israel and KSA ONLY are fighting ISIS, Daesh, ISIL, Al-Qaeda, whatever name
their bosses want to give them this week.
Selling lies thru their fascist party dolls taking pouty selfies on the side.
"...Hezbollah rocket attacks also targeted and succeeded in hitting military targets in Israel. The Israeli military censorship
was, however, very strict and explicitly forbade Israel-based media from reporting such incidents. The war time instruction
to media stated that "The Military Censor will not approve reports on missile hits at IDF bases and/or strategic facilities."[131]
A notable exception was the rocket attack 6 August, on a company of IDF reservists assembling in the border community of Kfar
Giladi, which killed 12 soldiers and wounded several others. Initially Israel did not confirm that the victims were military
but eventually relented..."
In fact the subject of this post and that of the last Ukraine famine post are very similar. It is the same game being played,
with many of the same methods. Make no mistake: given its position so far from.the consequences of sparking these deep-seated
ethnic conflicts, the sheer fact of any fighting, no matter what the outcome, is a "victory" for.our cynical masters. Nothing
new - similar games were.played in Nicaragua w the Miskito (sorry for spelling). Its quite remarkable display the.power.to split
people and turn them against one another. People w/ hundreds of years of peaceful coexistence.
...It's been evident for some months that Israel was trying to turn Hizbullah's flank.
Good point. No better proof can be found of the proxy links between ISIS and Israel than ISIS drive into the Qalamoun Mountains.
mcohen@30, 34 is way off line with his opinions about Hezbollah's "miscalculations." Just recently, Syria's Defense Minister
visited Iran and got all the support Syria needs, and more to continue its existential fight against the Axis of Terror, US/Israel/KSA
et al.
The war on Syria has geopolitical repercussions beyond the region, and neither Iran, nor Iraq, or Russia will allow the fall
of Assad. Hezbollah will not allow the taqfiris control of the Qalamoun and surroundings, for obvious strategic reasons; ISIS
would have direct access to the Bekaa Valley. Iran will not permit the taqfiris to succeed in their efforts to drive a strategic
wedge against Hezbollah, which will expose Syria's northern front and Lebanon; Iraq cannot afford losing Syria to the taqfiris
and get surrounded by a hostile sea of Sunnis, and Russia will support Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah efforts to avoid cutting
Syria in two on a SW/NE axis, that will effectively isolate the port of Tartus, Russia's naval base on the Mare Nostrum.
Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah is not a man prone to miscalculations, whether political or military and he learns from his mistakes.
For example, he admitted the Israeli response to the kidnapping and killing of Israeli soldiers that ignited the 2006 Summer War,
was a surprise for Hezbollah, which didn't expect such a reaction, even though Israel had concrete plans after getting kicked
out of southern Lebanon in 2000, to bomb Lebanon as a punishment for not disarming Hezbollah. Hezbollah intervention in Syria,
after Nasrallah deemed the taqfiris an "existential threat" for the Shiites and Lebanon has been confirmed correct by later developments.
"If what is happening in Baltimore happened in a foreign country, here is how Western media would cover it:
International leaders expressed concern over the rising tide of racism and state violence in America, especially concerning
the treatment of ethnic minorities in the country and the corruption in state security forces around the country when handling
cases of police brutality. The latest crisis is taking place in Baltimore, Maryland, a once-bustling city on the country's Eastern
Seaboard, where an unarmed man named Freddie Gray died from a severed spine while in police custody.
Black Americans, a minority ethnic group, are killed by state security forces at a rate higher than the white majority population.
Young, black American males are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than white American males.
The United Kingdom expressed concern over the troubling turn of events in America in the last several months. The country's
foreign ministry released a statement: "We call on the American regime to rein in the state security agents who have been brutalizing
members of America's ethnic minority groups. The equal application of the rule of law, as well as the respect for human rights
of all citizens, black or white, is essential for a healthy democracy." Britain has always maintained a keen interest in America,
a former colony.
Palestine has offered continued assistance to American pro-democracy activists, sending anti-tear-gas kits to those protesting
police brutality in various American cities. Egyptian pro-democracy groups have also said they will be sharing their past experience
with U.S.-made counter-protest weapons.
A statement from the United Nations said, "We condemn the militarization and police brutality that we have seen in recent months
in America, and we strongly urge American state security forces to launch a full investigation into the death of Freddie Gray
in Baltimore. There is no excuse for excessive police violence." The U.N. called on the United States to make a concerted effort
to make databases of police violence public to improve transparency and cut down on corruption in the justice system.
International analysts predict the seeds of a so-called "American Spring," fomented by technology. "It's amazing what social
media is doing for the cause of justice in America," said a political rights analyst based in Geneva. "The black youth of America
are showing what 21st-century civil rights activism looks like, using technology, social media and a decentralized organizing
strategy to hold authorities accountable and agitate for change. These kids represent what modern-day freedom fighting looks like.
The revolution will be tweeted, Periscope-d and Snapchatted."
Local leaders in the American township of Baltimore imposed a state of martial law this week after peaceful protests turned
violent. In response, countries around the world have advised darker-skinned nationals against non-essential travel to areas noted
for state violence against unarmed people of color, especially in recent hot spots such as New York, Missouri, Oklahoma, South
Carolina, Ohio, California, Michigan, Virginia and now Maryland.
International human rights groups have appealed to the global community to facilitate asylum for America's ethnic black minorities.
When asked whether the European Union was willing to take on more black refugees risking their lives in fleeing American state
violence, an E.U. human rights spokesman said: "More black refugees? We are dealing with our own Mediterranean crisis, so now
is not really a good time for that for us. Furthermore, we believe in American solutions to American problems." The African Union
has not responded to requests for comment.
American government officials took to state media, characterizing the protesters as "thugs," a racially coded word increasingly
used to describe black males in America. Commentators in national media have frequently compared the protesters and riots to various
characters and events from the popular television series "The Wire," set in early-2000s Baltimore.
America's ethnic blacks have been displaced from many of their communities due to a phenomenon experts on the region call "gentrification,"
when wealthier residents move into a lower-income area. Baltimore is no exception to this trend, with some areas seeing home values
rise as much as 137 percent after corporate dollars move in on opportunities in poverty-stricken areas.
Resident Joe Smith, a member of the white majority ethnic group, said outside of a brand-new Starbucks near Baltimore's Inner
Harbor, "I don't know why these blacks are destroying their own communities. Why don't these people follow Martin Luther King's
example? Those guys got it good from the police back then too, but they didn't try to rise up and fight back and make everyone
uncomfortable, you know?"
The media in Mordor has been all "sectarianism" all the time, since late 2003. They needed an explanation for the ongoing violence
in Iraq, besides "guerilla war", which was completely unacceptable with an election approaching.
So they invented the nonsense that the Iraqis were attacking themselves and the noble Orcs were desperately trying to prevent
it. I think the nonsense was that al-Ciada was targeting the anti-occupation Arabs to provoke a civil war thereby forcing the
occupation to continue since they were 'winning' and about to leave. Apparently al-ciada hadn't heard about the permanent bases.
This protection conveniently involved treating the Arab population like the Palestinians and putting them under guard behind concrete
and barbed wire wherever possible.
Why the pro-occupation Kurds didn't need to be forced into dozens of bantustans, was something I've never seen asked by anyone.
That the Iraqi population was heavily intermarried and had never had a 'civil war' or any history of 'sectarian violence' was
also deemed not newsworthy.
After 10+ years of even the 'alternative' media repeating this garbage it has become accepted as fact among the limited portion
of the population who are even vaguely aware of the endless colonial wars.
Difficult time for Hillary bots. Botswana61 even complained: "How come that posters who clearly hate The Guardian and its editorial
policy keep coming back to its portal day after day".
What will be funny is when your "military advisers" start coming home in pieces because the Kiev hill billies they are training
can't cut it in the field….
This video should tell you all you need to know about the lies of the Kiev regime- Video Shows the Beautiful Terrorists the
US Financed the Ukrainian Nazi National Guard Battalions To Kill. When you see them you will realize that you have been lied to
all along.
...incidentally, is it normal for the guardian now to cooperate openly with RFE/RL, cold-war propaganda tool of the US government?
..... How long has this been going on?
Good question. The really big change occurred after MI5 smashed the Guardian's computer hard drives with sledge hammers.
Nobody from the Guardian was ever charged under Official Secrets legislation, and the Guardian never sought any redress or
compensation for the damage.
Anyone arguing against stereotyping of Russia, its leader and its policies, who substantiates his or her argument with solid
reasoning and historical or contemporary fact, must be paid by the Russian government:
A few days ago, I was thinking that I might do a post on the bellyaching and caterwauling from the Russophobes about Moscow's
supposed army of "paid trolls," who are reimbursed by the Russian government for clogging western comment threads with fallacious
arguments and childish insults which detract from – or derail entirely – thoughtful and informative commentary, often ridiculing
the post itself in the bargain.
Read on and follow the links to the related pieces quoted therein for a fuller discussion.
Kremlin trolls? Actually, there is much less there than meets the eye -- that is, for those still capable of seeing with some
degree of clarity.
How come that posters who cleary hate The Guardian and its editorial policy keep coming back to its portal day
after day
Listen, Botswana, who authorized you to be attorney for The Guardian editorial policy. You have enough of your Swahili media in
Botswana, so go there to play the role of an attorney.:-)
Odessa = Was that after Russian's invaded Crimea and Luhansk?
Was that more Russian's chancing their arm at starting civil war in Odessa?
Who left theie Molotov cocktails on the stairwells of the buiding they were in?
German and Poland brown coal open cast sites. The Brussels is going to take them to the cleaners over the huge pollution this
will cause. Polish farmers are already Upset as the will lose 1000 hectares of their farm land - this is probably why they are
going to Brussels to protest. EU countries are no longer free to make their own decisions that have the potential to harm the
environment and increase the threat of Global Warming - on this point ' are we not all in it together'.
It's not going to happen- Lithuania has no money for that, just about have enough wherewithal to ran charitable APC from 60
and 70.... but from what I hear munitions production ramped up to resupply koshermafia entrenched in Ukraine. Bizarre as French
keep saying.:)
I noticed that 2 bits of your info was incorrect Cuba has been released from the debt it owes to Russia and that Russia is
welcome to invest in Cyprus (South), Cyprus (North ) is awaiting confirmation from Turkey.
Yves here. Andrew Bacevich excoriates policy intellectuals as "blight on the republic". His case
study focuses on the military/surveillance complex but he notes in passing that the first policy
intellectuals were in the economic realm. And we are plagued with plenty of malpractice there too.
by Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations emeritus
at Boston University's Pardee School of Global Studies. He is writing a military history of
America's War for the Greater Middle East. His most recent book is
Breach
of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. Originally published at
TomDispatch
Policy intellectuals - eggheads presuming to instruct the mere mortals who actually run for office
- are a blight on the republic. Like some invasive species, they infest present-day Washington, where
their presence strangles common sense and has brought to the verge of extinction the simple ability
to perceive reality. A benign appearance - well-dressed types testifying before Congress, pontificating
in print and on TV, or even filling key positions in the executive branch - belies a malign impact.
They are like Asian carp let loose in the Great Lakes.
It all began innocently enough. Back in 1933, with the country in the throes of the Great
Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt first imported a handful of eager academics to join
the ranks of his New Deal. An unprecedented economic crisis required some fresh thinking, FDR
believed. Whether the contributions of this "Brains
Trust" made a positive impact or served to retard economic recovery (or ended up being a wash)
remains a subject for debate even today. At the very least, however, the arrival of Adolph
Berle, Raymond Moley, Rexford Tugwell, and others elevated Washington's bourbon-and-cigars social
scene. As bona fide members of the intelligentsia, they possessed a sort of cachet.
Then came World War II, followed in short order by the onset of the Cold War. These events brought
to Washington a second wave of deep thinkers, their agenda now focused on "national security."
This eminently elastic concept - more properly, "national insecurity" - encompassed just about anything
related to preparing for, fighting, or surviving wars, including economics, technology, weapons design,
decision-making, the structure of the armed forces, and other matters said to be of vital importance
to the nation's survival. National insecurity became, and remains today, the policy world's
equivalent of the gift that just keeps on giving.
People who specialized in thinking about national insecurity came to be known as "defense intellectuals."
Pioneers in this endeavor back in the 1950s were as likely to collect their paychecks from think
tanks like the prototypical RAND Corporation as from more traditional academic institutions.
Their ranks included creepy figures like Herman Kahn, who took pride in "thinking about the unthinkable,"
and Albert Wohlstetter, who tutored Washington in the complexities of maintaining "the delicate balance
of terror."
In this wonky world, the coin of the realm has been and remains "policy relevance." This
means devising products that convey a sense of novelty, while serving chiefly to perpetuate the ongoing
enterprise. The ultimate example of a policy-relevant insight is
Dr. Strangelove's
discovery of a "mineshaft gap" - successor to the "bomber gap" and the "missile gap" that, in the
1950s, had found America allegedly lagging behind the Soviets in weaponry and desperately needing
to catch up. Now, with a thermonuclear exchange about to destroy the planet, the United States
is once more falling behind, Strangelove claims, this time in digging underground shelters enabling
some small proportion of the population to survive.
In a single, brilliant stroke, Strangelove posits a new raison d'être for the entire
national insecurity apparatus, thereby ensuring that the game will continue more or less forever.
A sequel to Stanley Kubrick's movie would have shown General "Buck" Turgidson and the other brass
huddled in the War Room, developing plans to close the mineshaft gap as if nothing untoward had occurred.
The Rise of the National Insecurity State
Yet only in the 1960s, right around the time that Dr. Strangelove first appeared in movie
theaters, did policy intellectuals really come into their own. The press now referred to them
as "action intellectuals," suggesting energy and impatience. Action intellectuals were thinkers,
but also doers, members of a "large and growing body of men who choose to leave their quiet and secure
niches on the university campus and involve themselves instead in the perplexing problems that face
the nation," as LIFE Magazine put it in 1967. Among the most perplexing of those problems
was what to do about Vietnam, just the sort of challenge an action intellectual could sink his teeth
into.
Over the previous century-and-a-half, the United States had gone to war for many reasons, including
greed, fear, panic, righteous anger, and legitimate self-defense. On various occasions, each
of these, alone or in combination, had prompted Americans to fight. Vietnam marked the first
time that the United States went to war, at least in considerable part, in response to a bunch of
really dumb ideas floated by ostensibly smart people occupying positions of influence. More
surprising still, action intellectuals persisted in waging that war well past the point where it
had become self-evident, even to members of Congress, that the cause was a misbegotten one doomed
to end in failure.
As Exhibit A, Professor Appy presents McGeorge Bundy, national security adviser first for President
John F. Kennedy and then for Lyndon Johnson. Bundy was a product of Groton and Yale, who famously
became the youngest-ever dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, having gained tenure there
without even bothering to get a graduate degree.
For Exhibit B, there is Walt Whitman Rostow, Bundy's successor as national security adviser.
Rostow was another Yalie, earning his undergraduate degree there along with a PhD. While taking
a break of sorts, he spent two years at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. As a professor of economic
history at MIT, Rostow captured JFK's attention with his modestly subtitled 1960 book The Stages
of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, which offered a grand theory of development
with ostensibly universal applicability. Kennedy brought Rostow to Washington to test his theories
of "modernization" in places like Southeast Asia.
Finally, as Exhibit C, Appy briefly discusses Professor Samuel P. Huntington's contributions to
the Vietnam War. Huntington also attended Yale, before earning his PhD at Harvard and then
returning to teach there, becoming one of the most renowned political scientists of the post-World
War II era.
What the three shared in common, apart from a suspect education acquired in New Haven, was an
unwavering commitment to the reigning verities of the Cold War. Foremost among those verities
was this: that a monolith called Communism, controlled by a small group of fanatic ideologues hidden
behind the walls of the Kremlin, posed an existential threat not simply to America and its allies,
but to the very idea of freedom itself. The claim came with this essential corollary: the only
hope of avoiding such a cataclysmic outcome was for the United States to vigorously resist the Communist
threat wherever it reared its ugly head.
Buy those twin propositions and you accept the imperative of the U.S. preventing the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. North Vietnam, from absorbing the Republic of Vietnam, a.k.a. South Vietnam,
into a single unified country; in other words, that South Vietnam was a cause worth fighting and
dying for. Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington not only bought that argument hook, line, and sinker,
but then exerted themselves mightily to persuade others in Washington to buy it as well.
Yet even as he was urging the "Americanization" of the Vietnam War in 1965, Bundy already entertained
doubts about whether it was winnable. But not to worry: even if the effort ended in failure,
he counseled President Johnson, "the policy will be worth it."
How so? "At a minimum," Bundy wrote, "it will damp down the charge that we did not do all
that we could have done, and this charge will be important in many countries, including our own."
If the United States ultimately lost South Vietnam, at least Americans would have died trying to
prevent that result - and through some perverted logic this, in the estimation of Harvard's youngest-ever
dean, was a redeeming prospect. The essential point, Bundy believed, was to prevent others
from seeing the United States as a "paper tiger." To avoid a fight, even a losing one, was
to forfeit credibility. "Not to have it thought that when we commit ourselves we really mean
no major risk" - that was the problem to be avoided at all cost.
Rostow
outdid even Bundy in hawkishness. Apart from his relentless advocacy of coercive bombing to
influence North Vietnamese policymakers, Rostow was a chief architect of something called the Strategic
Hamlet Program. The idea was to jumpstart the Rostovian process of modernization by forcibly
relocating Vietnamese peasants from their ancestral villages into armed camps where the Saigon government
would provide security, education, medical care, and agricultural assistance. By winning hearts-and-minds
in this manner, the defeat of the communist insurgency was sure to follow, with the people of South
Vietnam vaulted into the "age of high mass consumption," where Rostow believed all humankind was
destined to end up.
That was the theory. Reality differed somewhat. Actual Strategic Hamlets were indistinguishable
from concentration camps. The government in Saigon proved too weak, too incompetent, and too
corrupt to hold up its end of the bargain. Rather than winning hearts-and-minds, the program
induced alienation, even as it essentially destabilized peasant society. One result: an increasingly
rootless rural population flooded into South Vietnam's cities where there was little work apart from
servicing the needs of the ever-growing U.S. military population - hardly the sort of activity conducive
to self-sustaining development.
Yet even when the Vietnam War ended in complete and utter defeat, Rostow still claimed vindication
for his theory. "We and the Southeast Asians," he wrote, had used the war years "so well that
there wasn't the panic [when Saigon fell] that there would have been if we had failed to intervene."
Indeed, regionally Rostow spied plenty of good news, all of it attributable to the American war.
"Since 1975 there has been a general expansion
of trade by the other countries of that region with Japan and the West. In Thailand we have
seen the rise of a new class of entrepreneurs. Malaysia and Singapore have become countries
of diverse manufactured exports. We can see the emergence of a much thicker layer of technocrats
in Indonesia."
So there you have it. If you want to know what 58,000 Americans (not to mention vastly larger
numbers of Vietnamese) died for, it was to encourage entrepreneurship, exports, and the emergence
of technocrats elsewhere in Southeast Asia.
Appy describes Professor Huntington as another action intellectual with an unfailing facility
for seeing the upside of catastrophe. In Huntington's view, the internal displacement of South
Vietnamese caused by the excessive use of American firepower, along with the failure of Rostow's
Strategic Hamlets, was actually good news. It promised, he insisted, to give the Americans
an edge over the insurgents.
The key to final victory, Huntington
wrote, was "forced-draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly brings the country in question
out of the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate sufficient strength
to come to power." By emptying out the countryside, the U.S. could win the war in the cities.
"The urban slum, which seems so horrible to middle-class Americans, often becomes for the poor peasant
a gateway to a new and better way of life." The language may be a tad antiseptic, but the point
is clear enough: the challenges of city life in a state of utter immiseration would miraculously
transform those same peasants into go-getters more interested in making a buck than in signing up
for social revolution.
Revisited decades later, claims once made with a straight face by the likes of Bundy, Rostow,
and Huntington - action intellectuals of the very first rank - seem beyond preposterous. They
insult our intelligence, leaving us to wonder how such judgments or the people who promoted them
were ever taken seriously.
How was it that during Vietnam bad ideas exerted such a perverse influence? Why were those
ideas so impervious to challenge? Why, in short, was it so difficult for Americans to recognize
bullshit for what it was?
Creating a Twenty-First-Century Slow-Motion Vietnam
These questions are by no means of mere historical interest. They are no less relevant when applied
to the handiwork of the twenty-first-century version of policy intellectuals, specializing in national
insecurity, whose bullshit underpins policies hardly more coherent than those used to justify and
prosecute the Vietnam War.
The present-day successors to Bundy, Rostow, and Huntington subscribe to their own reigning verities.
Chief among them is this: that a phenomenon called terrorism or Islamic radicalism, inspired by a
small group of fanatic ideologues hidden away in various quarters of the Greater Middle East, poses
an existential threat not simply to America and its allies, but - yes, it's still with us - to the
very idea of freedom itself. That assertion comes with an essential corollary dusted off and
imported from the Cold War: the only hope of avoiding this cataclysmic outcome is for the United
States to vigorously resist the terrorist/Islamist threat wherever it rears its ugly head.
At least since September 11, 2001, and arguably for at least two decades prior to that date, U.S.
policymakers have taken these propositions for granted. They have done so at least in part
because few of the policy intellectuals specializing in national insecurity have bothered to question
them.
Indeed, those specialists insulate the state from having to address such questions. Think
of them as intellectuals devoted to averting genuine intellectual activity. More or less like
Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter (or Dr. Strangelove), their function is to perpetuate the ongoing
enterprise.
The fact that the enterprise itself has become utterly amorphous may actually facilitate such
efforts. Once widely known as the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, it has been transformed into
the War with No Name. A little bit like the famous Supreme Court opinion on pornography: we
can't define it, we just know it when we see it, with ISIS the latest manifestation to capture Washington's
attention.
All that we can say for sure about this nameless undertaking is that it continues with no end
in sight. It has become a sort of slow-motion Vietnam, stimulating remarkably little honest
reflection regarding its course thus far or prospects for the future. If there is an actual
Brains Trust at work in Washington, it operates on autopilot. Today, the second- and third-generation
bastard offspring of RAND that clutter northwest Washington - the Center for this, the Institute
for that - spin their wheels debating latter day equivalents of Strategic Hamlets, with nary a thought
given to more fundamental concerns.
What prompts these observations is Ashton Carter's return to the Pentagon as President Obama's
fourth secretary of defense. Carter himself is an action intellectual in the Bundy, Rostow,
Huntington mold, having made a career of rotating between positions at Harvard and in "the Building."
He, too, is a Yalie and a Rhodes scholar, with a PhD. from Oxford. "Ash" - in Washington, a
first-name-only identifier ("Henry," "Zbig," "Hillary") signifies that you have truly arrived
- is the author of books and articles galore, including
one op-ed co-written with former Secretary of Defense William Perry back in 2006 calling for
preventive war against North Korea. Military action "undoubtedly carries risk," he bravely
acknowledged at the time. "But the risk of continuing inaction in the face of North Korea's race
to threaten this country would be greater" - just the sort of logic periodically trotted out by the
likes of Herman Kahn and Albert Wohlstetter.
As Carter has taken the Pentagon's reins, he also has taken pains to convey the impression of
being a big thinker. As one Wall Street Journal
headline enthused, "Ash Carter Seeks Fresh Eyes on Global Threats." That multiple global
threats exist and that America's defense secretary has a mandate to address each of them are, of
course, givens. His predecessor Chuck Hagel (no Yale degree) was a bit of a plodder.
By way of contrast, Carter has made clear his intention to shake things up.
So on his second day in office, for example, he dinedwith Kenneth Pollack, Michael
O'Hanlon, and Robert Kagan, ranking national insecurity intellectuals and old Washington hands one
and all. Besides all being employees of the Brookings Institution, the three share the distinction
of having supported the
Iraq War back in 2003 and calling for redoubling efforts against ISIS today. For assurances
that the fundamental orientation of U.S. policy is sound - we just need to try harder - who better
to consult than
Pollack,
O'Hanlon, and
Kagan (any
Kagan)?
Was Carter hoping to gain some fresh insight from his dinner companions? Or was he letting
Washington's clubby network of fellows, senior fellows, and distinguished fellows know that, on his
watch, the prevailing verities of national insecurity would remain sacrosanct? You decide.
Soon thereafter, Carter's first trip overseas provided another opportunity to signal his intentions.
In Kuwait, he convened a war council of senior military and civilian officials to take stock of the
campaign against ISIS. In a daring departure from standard practice, the new defense secretary
prohibited PowerPoint briefings. One participant described the ensuing event as "a five-hour-long
college seminar" - candid and freewheeling. "This is reversing the paradigm," one awed senior
Pentagon official
remarked. Carter was said to be challenging his subordinates to "look at this problem differently."
Of course, Carter might have said, "Let's look at a different problem." That, however, was far
too radical to contemplate - the equivalent of suggesting back in the 1960s that assumptions landing
the United States in Vietnam should be reexamined.
In any event - and to no one's surprise - the different look did not produce a different conclusion.
Instead of reversing the paradigm, Carter affirmed it: the existing U.S. approach to dealing with
ISIS is sound, he announced. It only needs a bit of
tweaking - just the result to give the Pollacks, O'Hanlons, and Kagans something to write about
as they keep up the chatter that substitutes for serious debate.
Do we really need that chatter? Does it enhance the quality of U.S. policy? If policy/defense/action
intellectuals fell silent would America be less secure?
Let me propose an experiment. Put them on furlough. Not permanently - just until the last of the
winter snow finally melts in New England. Send them back to Yale for reeducation. Let's see if we
are able to make do without them even for a month or two.
In the meantime, invite Iraq and Afghanistan War vets to consider how best to deal with ISIS.
Turn the op-ed pages of major newspapers over to high school social studies teachers. Book English
majors from the Big Ten on the Sunday talk shows. Who knows what tidbits of wisdom might turn up?
The West has no respect for Russian liberals or kreaklies. The moment a Russian liberal or kreakly
steps out of line or fails to sing from the same hymn sheet they will be ostracised and labelled
a Putin/Kremlin lackey.
To be a Russian liberal or kreakly is to be a member of a religion, to be a believer in "Westernism"
as Karlin coins it. Russian liberal or kreakly is a lay person who has no right to question or
challenge the high priests of Westernism, to do so is heresy and will condemn you to become a
benighted undemocratic uncivilised Russian heathen again.
The treat of Gorbachev and Solzhenitsyn by the Western media is evidence that the West has
no respect for any Russian political figure or dissident that goes off message and goes off the
reservation.
Russian liberals and kreaklies only function is to denigrate their own country and people incessantly.
If a Russian liberal or kreaklies, dares to defend the Russian perspective or interests, then
they cease being a liberal or a kreakly.
To be a Russian liberal or kreakly to have a fanatical belief that the West is right all the
time and on everything.
Я вот тоже не понимаю, как это работает. Обстреливают люди артиллерией мирные города.
Месяц обстреливают. Разрушаются дома, гибнут люди, либералы пишут про то, как кровавый режим убивает
прекрасную летчицу-мать маленьких детей...
Второй месяц обстреливают. Разрушаются дома, гибнут люди, либералы пишут про то, как кровавый
режим убивает прекрасную летчицу-мать маленьких детей...
Третий месяц обстреливают. Разрушаются дома, гибнут люди, либералы пишут про то, как кровавый
режим убивает прекрасную летчицу-мать маленьких детей...
Четвертый месяц обстреливают. Разрушаются дома, гибнут люди, либералы пишут про то, как кровавый
режим убивает прекрасную летчицу-мать маленьких детей...
Пятый месяц обстреливают. Разрушаются дома, гибнут люди, либералы пишут про то, как кровавый режим
убивает прекрасную летчицу-мать маленьких детей...
Шестой месяц обстреливают. Разрушаются дома, гибнут люди, либералы пишут про то, как кровавый
режим убивает прекрасную летчицу-мать маленьких детей...
Седьмой месяц обстреливают. Разрушаются дома, гибнут люди, либералы пишут про то, как кровавый
режим убивает прекрасную летчицу-мать маленьких детей...
Восьмой месяц обстреливают. Разрушаются дома, гибнут люди, либералы пишут про то, как кровавый
режим убивает прекрасную летчицу-мать маленьких детей...
И тут прилетает хрень с неустановленной траекторией. И внезапно раздается АААААА! ВЫ УБИЛИ 5 ЧЕЛОВЕК!!!
И весь мир вздрагивает от этого ААААА. Такая у него акустика.
Это сработает в Вашингтоне, в Брюсселе. А здесь, господа, все это было бы очень интересно, если
бы на Донбассе не ловили ваши диверсионные группы.
Как только либерал слышит, что убийцы могут быть из своих, на него нисходит невозмутимость. И
он снова начинает перечислять раны умученной Савченко - медийного Христа наших политубогих.
Finally, about a war waged against this country. Fortunately, there is no war. Let us not pay
too much attention to this. There is, however, an attempt to restrain our development by different
means, an attempt to freeze the world order that has taken shape in the past decades after the collapse
of the Soviet Union, with one single leader at its head, who wants to remain an absolute leader,
thinking he can do whatever he likes, while others can only do what they are allowed to do and only
if it is in this leader's interests. Russia would never agree to such a world order.
Maybe some like it, they want to live in a semi-occupied state, but we will not do it. However,
we will not go to war with anyone either, we intend to cooperate with everyone. The attempts made,
including through the so-called sanctions, do not make anyone happy in the final count, I believe.
They cannot be effective when applied to such a country as ours, though they are doing us certain
harm. We have to understand this and enhance our sovereignty, including economic sovereignty. Therefore,
I would like to call on you to show understanding of what is going on and to cooperate with the state
and the Government.
... ... ...
Someone also said a 'spectre of recession' is roaming the world. As we all know, it used to be
the 'spectre of communism', and now it is a 'spectre of recession'. Representatives of our traditional
confessions say it is enough to turn to God and we would not fear any spectres. However, a popular
saying tells us that God helps him who helps himself. Therefore, if we work hard and retain a responsible
attitude to our job, we will succeed.
Maidan in Ukraine started a year ago. Now it is time to look back and see how it started and what
it led to. Pravda.Ru interviewed the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, Doctor
of Economic Sciences, Natalia Vitrenko, about the events which marked the beginning of the civil
war, the social and economic disaster and the collapse of Ukraine.
"One year after Maidan, what, in your opinion, were the aspirations of the Ukrainian people, who
toppled Yanukovych? What are the results of the Ukrainian revolution? Has anything been done?"
"The fact is that the people were called to come to Maidan. Large protests started on November
23, 2013, when people demanded Yanukovych should sign the association agreement with the EU. Before
November 2013, the Party of Regions together with Communists and the Litvin Bloc had the majority
in the parliament. For 2.5 years, those parties were maintaining public psychosis in the country
about the need to join the European integration. They were the prime initiators of the European
integration. On 1 July 2010, they adopted the law about the foundations of domestic and foreign policy.
Article 11 of the law said that Ukraine would be integrated into European space, that the goal
of Ukraine was to become a EU member.
"The administration of President Yanukovych, above all, the head of administration, Sergei Levochkin,
was monitoring the situation on television. They did not allow hosts on the country's most popular
talk shows who would advocate for a different course for Ukraine - the course for integration with
Russia. The research on Ukraine's integration into the Customs Union showed excellent prospects for
Ukraine. I myself was making those calculations - two respectable economic institutions were working
on that - the Russian and the Ukrainian academies of sciences engaged. The calculations convincingly
showed all benefits from the integration of Ukraine in the East.
"As for calculations of benefits from Ukraine's integration into the European Union, no one has
seen them. Without any arguments, they would be broadcasting psychosis from morning till night
on all radio and TV channels. And, of course, the orange associations - the Tymoshenko bloc
and Our Ukraine - would only nod to the majority of deputies. They had been doing this since 2010.
"Russia was watching all that favorably. United Russia had cross-party co-operation agreements
with the Party of Regions, the Communist Party. Russia was showing absolutely no impact outhouse
political forces. We were fighting against the policy of European integration, but all were pulling
Ukraine into Europe. Our party and several others would be subjected to obstruction, because we were
defending and defend a completely different vector of integration.
Suddenly, on November 21, Azarov's government decided to suspend the signing of the association
agreement. I knew that the decision was taken after the government and the president were introduced
to calculations of the economic disaster in Ukraine, about the inevitability of default, in case
Ukraine had signed the agreement on association. Ukraine has nothing to enter the free trade
zone with the EU. Ukrainian products are uncompetitive on the European market. When the government
made that decision on November 21, it produced a shock in the camp. Two days later, opponents came
to their senses and called people to gather on Maidan.
"Kiev residents came, students came, people from Western Ukraine were brought too, who understand
nothing, but can frantically yell that all they need is Europe. Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, Tyagnibok and
Poroshenko started flaming Maidan up. They showered people with promises that Ukraine would receive
unprecedented benefits from the association with Europe, that Ukraine would be a civilized European
country, where all rights and freedoms would be ensured and guaranteed. That means a sharp rise in
wages, pensions and social benefits in accordance with all European standards.
"The people, of course, succumbed to that pressure. Imagine that they have been listening to all
that propaganda for 2.5 years, and then Maidan confirmed all that too. Therefore, most people in
Ukraine believeв that Ukraine must sign this agreement. They assumed that Yanukovych would be their
prime enemy, if he refused to sign the agreement.
On November 29, when it became clear that Yanukovych did not sign it, Yatsenyuk, Tyagnibok and
Klitschko were ready to dissolve Maidan because they were confused. They thought think that their
pressure would be decisive. Nevertheless, Yanukovych did not sign the papers. After they returned
from Brussels, they gathered on Maidan and announced that everyone should go home for the time being.
They started to remove the stage and the sound equipment, when the second scenario started working.
Later it became known that this scenario had been prepared in advance by the presidential administration.
The scenario was about the use of Berkut fighters to put up a New Year tree, but they use well-prepared
militants to attack Berkut fighters. As a result, the protesters clashed with Berkut. At night, all
national TV channels of Ukraine were filming all that on the square. They were filming the episodes
that would be very good for the USA, as the entire scenario had been agreed with Washington and Brussels.
At first, all instructions were coming from the US Embassy in Ukraine.
"They were filming how Berkut fighters were beating students, children, but they did not show
how the protesters were throwing rocks at Berkut soldiers, how they would set soldiers ablaze. On
the basis of this footage that produced a bombshell effect, people started coming to Maidan. On December
1, a massacre occurred on Bankovaya Street. There were militants wielding chains, bats, Molotov cocktails
and boulders. Militants started taking administrative buildings in Kiev. Nineteen administrative
buildings were seized, the center of Kiev was seized too.
The capital was paralyzed. But Yanukovych was instructed not to touch the peaceful protesters,
as they said. The West wanted to see the resistance growing. It was growing in waves, because
Maidan did not have the support of the majority of the people. On January 19, militants attacked
the Berkut fighters, who were defending the government quarter. Car tires were burning in the street,
on European Square and Kreshchatik Street.
Maidan was ideologized, it was a Russophobian, Nazi Maidan that was rigidly following the direction
against Russia. For Ukrainians, Russia is the enemy, "Glory to the nation, death to the enemy" -
that was the directive. This hatred was infecting more and more people.
Anti-Maidan could not oppose anything. As a result, on February 18, the Verkhovna Rada was attacked.
On February 20, they were already armed. Maidan activists obtained weapons after they captured military
and police arms caches.
"On February 21, Yanukovych signed an agreement with Maidan leaders. Three Foreign Ministers of
European countries: Germany, France and Poland acted as guarantors of the agreement. I listened
to the press conference of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs with his Russian counterpart Lavrov.
He looked disgraceful. When he was asked why he did not observe the execution of that agreement,
he suddenly said that it was because Yanukovych had fled the country. What did Yanukovych have to
do with it? To hell with him, I am sorry about the country and the people.
"The agreement stipulated for the disarmament of all illegal armed groups and the creation of
the government of national consent. Nothing was done. As a result of the armed neo-Nazi putsch, the
new government was formed. MPs were mocked and humiliated, and the Parliament was eventually reformatted
and start serving the neo-Nazi coup. In violation of the Ukrainian constitution, Yanukovych was suspended
from power, and the parliament speaker was given an opportunity to become acting president.
"That is, they started doing what they wanted, and the US and EU were condoning that. They wanted
that in Ukraine, they did it and got it. The only thing that they did not anticipate was the protest
in the Crimea and in the Donbas. The Crimea saw the essence of this revolution, heard those slogans
- "Muscovites on knives!" and realized that Ukraine would be for Ukrainians. Of course, they all
went to the referendum and voted to pull out from that Ukraine. And then the Donbass rebelled against
Kiev too. The people of Donbass identify themselves as members of the Russian world. They also understood
that as long as Ukraine was going to be for Ukrainians, then they would be killed. They understood
that Ukraine would be built into NATO.
If Ukraine was going to become Europe's servant, it would break economic and industrial ties with
Russia, and the Donbass would be left with nothing, because the Donbass was tied to Russia up whole.
Donbass realized that it was doomed either way. That is why the uprising began in the region.
Ukraine faced a civil war. According to experts' estimates, over 40 thousand people have been killed,
including the rebels, the Ukrainian military and civilians. Two million refugees. Hundreds of thousands
of wounded, shell-shocked ... Many return from the zone of the so-called anti-terrorist operation
to Ukraine as mentally ill individuals. Children are deeply traumatized. The gene pool of the nation
was generally undermined. This is what Maidan has done to Ukraine.
"Where are their successes? They signed the association agreement, and it was ratified in September.
Where is the money that Europe promised? 30-40 billion euros. Ukraine begged to receive $6 billion
from the IMF and the World Bank, another 900 million euros came from Europe and that was it. Our
people die. In hospitals, there are no medications, patients do not receive any food. Last week in
Kiev, they stopped giving bread to patients. That's what the United States and Europe have done.
And, of course, they have put Ukraine in a position when the authorities are only interested in war.
We are all sitting on a powder keg; every day we wait what provocation Ukraine would arrange to draw
Russia into the war to start Third World War. The are the results of Maidan.
"According to President Poroshenko, the planned reforms, not less than 60, will embrace all areas
of life, from public utilities to courts. Are there any reforms being conducted now?"
"They launched lustration. I do not know in which way it can relate to European values, when they
fire people from jobs - specialists, professionals - they throw people in garbage cans. This is something
barbarous, shameful, ape-like behaviour. They unfold reforms and say that they will reduce
the amount of taxes. How are they going to do that? Whose shoulders will carry the burden of these
taxes? We can not expect anything good from this government, no reforms whatsoever, because it is
oligarchs that rule Euromaidan. They fund volunteer battalions and the new parliament.
They do not worry about the fate of the people. They will enhance exploitation and amass their
fortunes. This is the essence of their reforms. They say that they will start an education reform,
but at the same time they zombify children with ideas of neo-Nazism. They plant seeds of hatred to
other nations, civilizations, primarily Russia. They hammer into children's heads the idea that Ukrainians
originate from a super-ancient civilization. These reforms are a disaster for Ukraine.
"They allow to use the Russian language on the level of private, personal communication; they
root it out from Ukraine. They will undoubtedly continue to struggle with dissent. Already today,
the parties and movements that protect other ideology can not hold their own peaceful public actions.
We could not take part in the elections, because we were openly threatened with violence, beatings
and death. Ukraine is taking the shape of a Nazi state with totalitarian dictatorship - an ardent
enemy of Russia and a very comfortable obedient puppet of the United States."
"Why is there no progress in investigating high-profile cases?"
"Because for the current authorities, the truthful results on the investigation of the Boeing
tragedy, shootings on Maidan and other cases would mean the end. After all, no matter how they try
to hide it, all paths in those cases lead to him. Irrefutable facts show that Porubiy was commanding
the snipers on Maidan. More than 80 people were killed at once at his command. When the people saw
the dead bodies, it produced an immediate effect, and they went on a desperate attack on the government.
That's why they needed the snipers and deaths on Maidan. The downing of the Boeing was needed to
shift the blame on Russia and the militia of the Donbass. But they failed."
"A year ago, on Kiev Maidan, people were protesting and even dying for Europe. A few months after
winning the "revolution of dignity," Ukraine has not gotten any closer to Europe. On the contrary,
Ukraine has slipped down to the level of Africa," this is what TV presenter of a Lviv channel, Ostap
Drozdov said. The average pension in Ukraine after the "revolution of dignity" makes up 50 euros.
This is the level of Africa. Do you agree with this opinion?"
"I agree that after Maidan, Ukraine has gone decades and even centuries back. We now have the
power of barbarians, who do not recognize the rule of law, who trample on the Constitution, violate
laws, refuse to fulfill international obligations. Poroshenko's decree from 4 November is a bright
example of that. One should introduce international sanctions against Poroshenko's Ukraine. Otherwise,
it is impossible to bring to reason the man, whose power destroys all norms of law. But Europe is
silent, the international community is silent under the thumb of the US - they are fine and satisfied
with it. They are satisfied with the jungle in the middle of Europe, on the territory of Ukraine."
Previously, back in September, I discussed the Minsk Protocol in detail here, where I said
"…..the Protocol is in my opinion a total red herring. The Protocol is not a contract or treaty.
There is no court or tribunal that will arbitrate on the meaning of its words. All the sides will
construe it as they wish. The junta will not of course construe it as I have done and nor will its
western backers even though my interpretation is undoubtedly the correct one. The junta will continue
to call the NAF (the "Novorossian Armed Forces" - AM) "terrorists" and will continue to deny they
are the representatives of the Donbas whether they win the election or not. Certainly the junta will
not recognise an election the NAF wins or any declaration of independence the NAF makes. For what
it's worth in my opinion there is little chance of the terms of such an election being agreed upon
or such an election taking place whilst the Donbas remains part of the Ukraine".
Every word in this paragraph has come true. The Ukrainian government still refuses to recognise
the Donbass leaders Zakharchenko and Plotnisky as the representatives of the people of the Donbass
even though their signatures are on the Minsk Protocol, which the Ukrainian government negotiated
with them and itself signed. Elections in the Donbass did take place in November but as I predicted
the Ukrainian government did not agree their terms. The Ukrainian government still calls Zakharchenko
and Plotnitsky and the other Donbass leaders "terrorists".
The reason I was able to make that prediction in September with such confidence and why that prediction
has in every respect come true, is because the nature of the Ukrainian government allowed for no
other.
The basic truth about the crisis in Ukraine and why there is a war there - the one that many people
especially in the West refuse to acknowledge - is that the faction that seized power in Ukraine through
the February 2014 coup is structurally incapable of negotiation or compromise with those it considers
its opponents.
I discussed the nature of this faction when I discussed the results of the elections in Ukraine
last November. Briefly, the whole purpose of the February coup was so that the faction in Ukraine
that holds power now could achieve the unrestricted dominance of Ukrainian society which is its only
way of making true its vision of a unitary, monolingual, monocultural Ukraine that is forever distanced
from Russia.
Given the diversity of Ukrainian society, it cannot compromise with its opponents since were it
to do so that would jeopardise the entire project that is the reason for its existence and the justification
for its hold on power. That is why it acted in February to eliminate from Ukrainian political life
the faction that had held power in Ukraine before and why it remains committed to eliminating its
opponents in the Donbass now.
It is also incidentally the reason for the repeated attacks on the Lenin statues discussed by
Paul Robinson here. Given the regime's overriding, aggressive drive to reshape Ukraine in its own
image, it cannot tolerate the existence of these statues precisely because so many Ukrainians adhere
to them and by doing so hold fast to a different vision of Ukraine from the one the regime has. The
very reason why Robinson says it is a mistake to attack these statues is therefore for the regime
a compelling reason to destroy them. The statues have to be eliminated from Ukraine just as opponents
who think of Ukraine differently must be.
It is this drive - not Russia's actions - which is why Ukraine is in a state of perpetual war
and crisis and why atrocities like the 2nd May 2014 Odessa fire can happen without being properly
investigated or the perpetrators brought to account.
Though the Maidan regime is deeply divided and factionalised, its drive to remake Ukraine and
to eliminate all opponents of its vision, is the common denominator of all its factions. As factional
differences intensify as the economic situation deteriorates, fulfilment of the drive through war
increasingly becomes the way the regime retains coherence, making a renewal of the war inevitable.
What this means in practice is that negotiations between the Ukrainian government and the Donbass
as a route to peace in Ukraine are all but impossible. As Yanukovych repeatedly discovered during
the Maidan crisis (see our discussion of his ouster here), any attempt to achieve a compromise is
bound in the end to fail since the Maidan movement which holds power in Ukraine now is structurally
unable to compromise.
Ukraine Goes to War – and Always Will as Long as Maidan Holds Power
as Alexander Mercouris writes for Russia Insider
Here some excerpts:
"The basic truth about the crisis in Ukraine and why there is a war there – the one that many
people especially in the West refuse to acknowledge – is that the faction that seized power
in Ukraine through the February 2014 coup is structurally incapable of negotiation or compromise
with those it considers its opponents.
"… the whole purpose of the February coup was so that the faction in Ukraine that holds power
now could achieve the unrestricted dominance of Ukrainian society which is its only way of making
true its vision of a unitary, monolingual, monocultural Ukraine that is forever distanced from
Russia.
"Given the diversity of Ukrainian society, it cannot compromise with its opponents since were
it to do so that would jeopardize the entire project that is the reason for its existence and
the justification for its hold on power. That is why it acted in February to eliminate from Ukrainian
political life the faction that had held power in Ukraine before and why it remains committed
to eliminating its opponents in the Donbass now.
"… Though the Maidan regime is deeply divided and factionalised, its drive to remake Ukraine
and to eliminate all opponents of its vision, is the common denominator of all its factions.
As factional differences intensify as the economic situation deteriorates, fulfillment of
the drive through war increasingly becomes the way the regime retains coherence, making a renewal
of the war inevitable.
"What this means in practice is that negotiations between the Ukrainian government and
the Donbass as a route to peace in Ukraine are all but impossible. … any attempt to achieve a
compromise is bound in the end to fail since the Maidan movement which holds power in Ukraine
now is structurally unable to compromise."
Neoliberal Empire is so close in spirit to late USSR that closeness of event strikes everybody.
As in cult soviet satirical film "Kin-DZA-DZA: "You now find yourselves in cells, because you say
things without thinking, and think about things that you should not think at all". If Kafka were
alive, these days he would have definitely died again. The only thing unclear whether from laughing
or from envy. Although it can be both.
"No respectable publication in the citadel of the free world reprinted the
cartoons"
The associated Press reported from Paris that after the most massive in the history of mankind
demonstrations in defense of freedom of speech, 54 people were arrested for wrong words which supposedly
demonstrate hate and support of terrorism. Then the arrests continued, and now the number of arrested
exceeded sixty people.
Among them is the famous comedian Dieudonne Mbala Mbala. The funny thing is that this comic was
ideologically close ally of cartoonists from Charlie Hebdo . It now looks as if cartoonists,
who were perished were Communists, and so far tot he left the Chairman of communist Party of
Russia Gennady Zyuganov on their background looks like obnoxious right-wing conservative.
The absurdity of what is happening, when in support of freedom of speech can immediately arrest
the person just saying something politically incorrect, and put him in jail for six months, it has
become evident even for selected Russian neoliberals. They, however, try to cal concern by saying
that those events happened in backward France, and that's why Obama did not fly to the largest demonstration
fro the freedom of speed in world history.
However, in the citadel of the free world, where freedom of speech is protected by a separate
amendment to the Constitution, for some reason no respectable publication reprinted the cartoons.
Talking about large multinationals, it's funny that on the English version of the Apple website,
for example, there were no words in support of the victims, but on the French page sacramental
Je suis Charlie was hanging. Looks like variant of support of freedom of word with severely
restricted export channels
Within the neoliberal worlds almost nobody is supposed by those inconsistencies. They explain
that freedom of speech includes the freedom to criticize and make fun of all religions. And believers
must bow their heads and endure. But hate speech is a completely different matter, it is about inciting
hatred and ethnic strife. and you can be jailed for such an action.
Let's try to give a Russian example of such a behaviour. it looks like this: when satirist Shenderovich
rhetorically asks the priest why he did not learned anything from the events of the twenties,
this is a freedom of speech. But when the Shenderovich asked why Jews learned nothing from events
of 30th, this is hate speech and anti-Semitism. Here Article 282 of Russian Criminal codex
might be applicable.
For a normal person it is extremely difficult to understand nuances of interpretation of the subtle
difference between free speech" and "hate speech" in the neoliberal world. But neoliberals suck the
right interpretation with their genetically modified neoliberal milk. Such an interpretation looks
as following "Freedom only for the free men, and all the barbarians mouth should be closed".
For anybody who lived in Brezhnev's USSR it looks like ideological poles of modern world are just
reverse poles that existed 40 years back. Now we can understand why the US and Western European citizens
were so stunned by absurdity of Soviet propaganda and millions of people who on May 1
come to street to march for Freedom of people from exploitation, against oppression and for personal
liberties including the freedom of word. Under the strict guidance of the party and government.
There were also a lot of talk about the "freedom of the word" in late USSR, and you really can
criticize decadent West as much as you can, but openly criticizing Soviet regime could easily
get you a jail term for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. However, I will make a special reservation:
the Soviet Union was my homeland. and despite all the shortcomings and broken economic model life
for ordinary people in late USSR was very good. We have had something that today can be found nowhere
- there was no unemployment, no homeless children, no crime, and for children especially it was a
great environment to grow up.
However, I repeat, the public Communist rituals looked f*cking ridiculous. But at the same time
Soviet people have perfect understanding of of this situation and everybody felt that the system
was completely rotten from inside and that communist ideology is no longer viable. In the 70s the
Soviet ideology lost any hold of people minds. Ideology of Neoliberal Empire in Europe is still
relatively new and smell with flesh layer of "free markets" utopia paint and new level of neoliberal
hypocrisy after the events of 2008. It still hold minds by a lot of Western European lemmings.
It's pretty telling that Neoliberal Empire strikes former citizens of the USSR as ideological
reincarnation of "Brezhnev USSR" in all its rotten ideological glory and absurdity. But it's still
relatively clean on the streets of Western capitals (but not New York). And infrastructure
is still relatively in order. And people have rather high standard of living. But the real situation
with the "freedom of the word" is exactly like in the cult Soviet satirical film "Kin-DZA-DZA":
"You now find yourselves in cells, because you say things without thinking, and think about things
that you should not think at all". And it is this parade of hypocrisy that we observe right
now. There are powerful and corrupt guys who define in what cases "freedom of word" is applicable
and when it is not. And you need to obey. Or...
But, of course, what Russian people living under authoritarianism can understand in Western European
events. Those savages in work robes as neoliberal journalists from "Echo of Moscow" would characterize
us. And after such a characterization, the journalist from "Echo of Moscow" will go to
have one or two Americano, and is not afraid of being arrested and jailed for some time for inciting
hatred and enmity. He is serving the right boss, for the right convertible currency, so why should
he/she? Exactly like in "Kin-DZA-DZA". In other words, not everybody can pretend that
"We are Charlie" in this neoliberal world. Only selected few.
From just about as early in my life as I can remember, growing up as a child in Holland,
there were stories about World War II, and not just about Anne Frank and the huge amounts of people
who, like her, had been dragged off to camps in eastern Europe never to come back, but also about
the thousands who had risked their lives to hide Jewish and other refugees, and the scores who had
been executed for doing so, often betrayed by their own neighbors.
And then there were those who had risked their lives in equally courageous ways to get news out to
people, putting out newspapers and radio broadcasts just so there would be a version of events out
there that was real, and not just what the Germans wanted one to believe. This happened in all Nazi
- and Nazi friendly - occupied European nations.
The courage of these people is hard to gauge for us today, and I'm convinced there's no way to say
whom amongst us would show that kind of bravery if we were put to the test. I certainly wouldn't
be sure about myself.
Still, without wanting to put myself anywhere near the level of those very real heroes - please don't
get me wrong about that - that's not what I mean, I was thinking about them with regards to what
is happening in our media today. I've mentioned before that I don't think Joseph Goebbels had anything
on US and European media today.
That propaganda as a strategic and political instrument has been refined to a huge extent over the
past 70-odd years since Goebbels first picked up on Freud's lessons on how to influence the unconscious
mind, and the "mass-mind," as a way to "steer" an entire people, not just as a means to make them
buy detergent. These days, the media can make people believe just about anything, and they have the
added benefit that they can pose as friends of the people, not the enemy.
But there is a reason why such a large "industry" has developed on the web with people writing articles
that don't say what the mass media say. That reason is, obviously, first and foremost that not everybody
believes whatever they are told. The problem is equally obvious: not nearly enough people are being
reached to make a true difference, and to question the official narratives.
I have no claim to fame outside of the appreciation I get from, first, my readers and, second, from
my colleagues and peers. I get a lot of both, and I thank you for that, but this certainly is not
about me. If anything, it's about trying to live up to the desire for truth in the face of odds squarely
stacked against it, and against the people I try to reach out to. Trying to do just 0.1 percent of
what the WWII underground press was about.
The FBI claims they are certain the hackers are North Korean, but they have provided no proof
of that claim. We have to trust them on their beautiful blue eyes. I think if anything defines
2014 for me, it's the advent of incessant claims for which no proof - apparently - needs to be
provided. Everything related to Ukraine over the past year carries that trait. The year of 'beautiful
blue eyes', in other words. Never no proof, you just have to believe what your government says.
And that truly defines 2014 for me. A level of propaganda I don't recognize, and I don't think I've
ever seen before. 2014 has for me been the year of utter nonsense. To wit, it just finished in fine
form with a 5 percent US GDP growth number, just to name one example. Really, guys? 5 percent? Really?
With all the numbers presented lately, the negative Thanksgiving sales data - minus 11 percent from
what I remember - the so-so at best Christmas store numbers to date, shrinking durable goods in November
and all? Plus 5 percent?
It really doesn't matter what I say, does it? You have enough people believing ridiculous numbers
like that to make it worth your while. After all, that's all that counts. It's a democracy, isn't
it? If a majority believes something, it becomes true. If you can get more than 50 percent of people
to believe whatever you say, that's case closed.
With well over 90 million working age Americans counted as being out of the labor force, and with
43 million on food stamps, you can still present a 5 percent GDP growth number, if only you can get
a sufficiently large number of people to believe. And you do, I'll give you that. As far as the media
goes, we have achieved the change we can believe in. We may not have that change, but we sure do
believe we have, don't we? And isn't that what counts? Are congratulations in order?
Well, not where I'm at, they're not. I should do a shout out to the likes of Zero Hedge, Yves Smith,
David Stockman, Wolf Richter, Mish, Steve Keen, Jim Kunstler, and so many others, we're a solid crowd
by now even if we're neglected, and please don't feel left out if you're not in that list, I know
who you are. The problem is, we're all completely neglected by the mass media, even though there
are a ton of very sharp minds in this "finance blogosphere." And perhaps we should make it a point
to break through that ridiculous black-out in 2015.
2014, in my eyes, has been the year of propaganda outdoing even its own very purpose, and succeeding
too. We are supposed to be living in a time of the best educated people in the history of mankind,
and everyone thinks (s)he's mighty smart, but precious few have even an inkling of a clue of what
transpires in the world they live in. Talk about a lost generation. Or two.
We really need to question the value of higher education, if all we get for it is a generation of
people so easily duped by utter blubber. What do they teach people at our universities these days?
Certainly not to think for themselves, that much is clear. And then what is the use? Why spend all
that time raising an entire generation of highly educated pawns, sheep, and robots? I can think of
some people liking that, but for society as a whole, it's devastating if that's all higher education
is.
And if you would like to raise doubts here, the very existence of finance blogosphere I mentioned
before is proof that we indeed have raised a generation of sheep. If we had functioning media, there'd
be no need for that blogosphere. We are the people who keep on pointing out where the mass media
fail, let alone the politicians, simply by being there and being supported to the extent we are by
the few people who escape the sheep mentality.
But that's not nearly enough. Journalists, reporters, whatever they call themselves, working for
Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, etc. should at the very least quote Zero Hedge on a daily basis, and Mish,
and Steve, and Yves, and perhaps even me - though it's fine if they continue to ignore me, as long
as they give the rest their rightful place.
There are many people in the blogosphere who are many times smarter than the people who write for
the mass media, and that's a very simple and hardly disputable fact that needs to be recognized.
When you read something in your paper or at your online news provider, it should be second nature
to ask yourself: but what would Tyler Durden say, or the Automatic Earth, or Naked Capitalism, or
David Stockman?
But we're nowhere near that, are we? We've been fooled with economic stats for years, not just in
the US, not even just in the west, but all over, they all grabbed on to the potential of providing
people with numbers that have little to do with reality, but that simply feel good. Or even just
look good.
Still, boy, have we been, and are being, fooled. Then again, most of you wouldn't know, would you?
We people tend to discount the future, to see today as more important than tomorrow, and in the same
manner we find our children's future much less important than our own. Because that feels good too.
If we are comfy right now, screw them. Not that we'd ever put it into those terms.
But you know, that's really all old hack by now. 2014 brought us a whole other class of nonsense.
And we swallowed it all hook line and entire sinker.
2014 gave us Ukraine. And you just try and find anyone today who doesn't think Vladimir Putin is
and was the evil genius mind behind the whole thing, including the 4500+ people who died there over
the past 10 months. Why is it so hard to anyone who doubts that narrative? Because our media told
us Putin is the bogeyman. And "we" never asked for any proof. That is, except for those of us in
that same blogosphere.
Meanwhile, round after round of sanctions against Russia have been set up and activated by EU and
US, causing hardship for both Russian people and European businesses. But why, what exactly is Putin
allegedly guilty of?
The US/EU installed a government in Kiev in February (yeah, yap about it), which is still in place,
with a bunch of US citizens recently added for good measure - and for profit. The chocolate prince
president was indeed elected months later, but the prime minister - "Yats" - was handpicked by America,
and is still, amazingly, in place. That's the same government that had it own army murder thousands
of its own citizens, and not a thing has been resolved so far.
The whole thing came to a head when MH17 was shot down over the summer. That too was blamed on Putin.
Or was it? Well, not directly, nobody said Putin ordered that plane to be shot. Nor did anyone say
Russia shot it. There is the accusation that Russian speaking Ukrainian "rebels" did it, but proof
for that was never provided in the six months since the incident. And there must be a "best before"
date in there somewhere.
Is it possible the "rebels" did it? We can't exclude it, but that's for the same reason we can't
exclude the option that little green Martians did it: we don't know. But even then, even if they
did, there's the question whether that would have been on purpose. Which seems really stretching
it: nothing they want would be served by shooting down a plane full of European, Malaysian and Australian
holiday goers.
But here we are: no proof and layer upon layer of sanctions. And nary a voice is raised in the west.
If one is, it's to denounce the Russians as bloodthirsty barbarians. Even though there is no proof
they did anything other than protecting what they see as their own people. Something we all would
do too, no questions asked.
Ukraine defines 2014 as the year western propaganda came into its own. Not just fictional
stories about an economic recovery anymore, no, we had our politico-media establishment ram an entire
new cold war down our throats. And we swallowed it whole. We may have had a million more years of
higher education than our parents and grandparents, but we sure don't seem to have gotten any smarter
than them.
There is a lot of information out there, written by people inspired by things other than monetary
incentives or job security or anything like that -people who simply want to get information out that
your trusted media won't give you anymore than Goebbels' media did in occupied Europe in the 1940s.
And you don't even have to risk your lives to access that information. All you have to do is to get
off your couch.
The Automatic Earth is but a small part of a very valuable and fast growing resource that warrants
a lot more attention than it's been receiving to date. A reported 5 percent US GDP growth print is
one reason why, the entire Ukraine fantasy story is another. The blogosphere is full of functioning
neurons, which is more than you can say for your papers and online MSM.
As far as media is concerned, 2014 has been downright scary in its distortion of reality. Let's try
and move 2015 a little bit closer towards what's actually happening.
The Crazy US 'Group Think' on Russia
Congress has voted to up the ante in the showdown with Russia over Ukraine, embracing a new
Cold War and the neocon scheme for "regime change" in Moscow. But – amid the tough-guy-ism
– there was little consideration of the risks from destabilizing nuclear-armed Russia.
By Robert Parry
Has anyone in Official Washington thought through the latest foreign policy "group think,"
the plan to destabilize nuclear-armed Russia? All the "smart" people, including the New York
Times editors, are rubbing their hands with glee over the financial crisis being imposed on
Russia because of the Ukraine crisis, but no one, it seems, is looking down the road.
This reckless strategy appears to be another neocon-driven "regime change" scheme, this
time focused on Moscow with the goal to take down Russian President Vladimir Putin and presumably
replace him with some U.S. puppet, a Russian-speaking Ahmed Chalabi perhaps. Since the neocons
have never faced accountability for the Iraq disaster – when the conniving Chalabi was their
man – they are still free to dream about a replay in Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over Germany.
However, as catastrophic as the Iraq War was especially for Iraqis, the new neocon goal
of Russian "regime change" is far more dangerous. If one looks at the chaos that has followed
neocon (and "liberal interventionist") schemes to overthrow governments in Iraq, Syria, Libya,
Ukraine and elsewhere, what might the risks be if such political disorder was created in Russia?
Since the neocon plans don't always work out precisely as they dream them up at Washington
think tanks or at the Washington Post's editorial board, what are the chances that some
radical Russian nationalist might emerge from the chaos and take command of the nuclear launch
codes? As much fun as the Washington tough guys and gals are having today, the prospects
for thermo-nuclear war might not be as pleasing.
And, does anyone really think that cooler heads in Official Washington would prevail in
such a crisis? From what we have seen over the past year regarding Ukraine – not to mention
other international hot spots – it seems that the only game in town is to swagger around, as
pumped up as Hans and Franz, just not as amusing.
You see, the Russians have already experienced what it is like to comply with U.S. economic
edicts. That was tried during the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union when experts
from Harvard University descended on Moscow with "shock therapy" for the post-communist society.
What happened was that a handful of well-connected thieves plundered the nation's resources,
making themselves into billionaire oligarchs while President Boris Yeltsin stayed drunk much
of the time and many average Russians faced starvation.
A key reason why Putin and his autocratic style have such a strong political base is that
he took on some of the oligarchs and restructured the economy to improve the lives of many
Russians. The neocons may think that they can oust Putin through a combination of economic
pain and information warfare but there is a deep understanding among many Russians what a repeat
of the Yeltsin years would mean.
So, even a "successful regime change" could end up with a more radical figure in charge
of Russia and its nuclear arsenal than Putin. But that is the course that Official Washington
has chosen to take, with Congress almost unanimously approving a package of harsher sanctions
and $350 million in arms and military equipment for Ukraine to wage its "anti-terrorism operation"
against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.
Cuba Example
There is some irony here in that just as President Barack Obama finally begins to lift the
ineffective, half-century-old U.S. embargo against Cuba, the U.S. Congress and the entire mainstream
U.S. news media have jumped on another high horse to charge off against Russia, imposing new
economic sanctions and dreaming of another "regime change."
The promiscuous use of sanctions – as part of "regime change" strategies – has become
almost an addiction in Washington. One can envision some tough-talking U.S. diplomat confronting
the leaders of a troublesome nation by going around the room and saying, "we sanction you,
we sanction you, we sanction you."
Beyond the trouble that this pathology creates for American businesses, not sure whether
they're stumbling over one of these sanctions, there is the backlash among countries increasingly
trying to circumvent the United States in order to deny Washington that leverage over them.
The long-run effect is surely to be a weakening of the U.S. dollar and the U.S. economy.
However, in the meantime, U.S. politicians can't seem to get enough of this feel-good approach
to foreign disputes. They can act like they're "doing something" by punishing the people of
some wayward country, but sanctions are still short of outright war, so the politicians don't
have to attend funerals and face distraught mothers and fathers, at least not the mothers and
fathers of American soldiers.
In the past, sanctions, such as those imposed on Iraq in the 1990s, took a fearsome toll,
killing some half million Iraqi children, according to United Nations estimates.
Another example of how the sanctioning impulse can run amok has been U.S. policy toward
Sudan, where leaders were sanctioned over the violence in Darfur. The United States also supported
the secession of oil-rich South Sudan as a further penalty to Sudan.
But the U.S. sanctions on Sudan prevented South Sudan from shipping its oil through pipelines
that ran through Sudan, creating a political crisis in South Sudan, which led to tribal violence.
The U.S. government responded with, you guessed it, sanctions against leaders of South Sudan.
So, now, the U.S. government is back on that high horse and charging off to sanction Russia
and its leaders over Ukraine, a crisis that has been thoroughly misrepresented in the mainstream
U.S. news media and in the halls of government.
A False Narrative
Official Washington's "group think" on the crisis has been driven by a completely phony
narrative of what has happened in Ukraine over the past year. It has become the near-monolithic
view of insiders that the crisis was instigated by Putin as part of some diabolical scheme
to recreate the Russian Empire by seizing Ukraine, the Baltic states and maybe Poland.
But the reality is that the crisis was initiated by the West, particularly by Official Washington's
neocons, to pry Ukraine away from the Russian sphere of influence and into Europe's, a ploy
that was outlined by a leading neocon paymaster, Carl Gershman, the longtime president of the
U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy.
On Sept. 26, 2013, Gershman took to the op-ed page of the Washington Post and pronounced
Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Putin and putting
down the resurgent and willful Russia that he represents.
Gershman, whose NED is financed by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100 million a
year, wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of
Russian imperialism that Putin represents. … Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find
himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."
In other words, from the start, Putin was the target of the Ukraine initiative, not the
instigator. Beyond Gershman's rhetoric was the fact that NED was funding scores of projects
inside Ukraine, training activists, supporting "journalists," funding business groups.
Then, in November 2013, Ukraine's elected President Viktor Yanukovych balked at an association
agreement with the European Union after learning that it would cost Ukraine some $160 billion
to separate from Russia. Plus, the International Monetary Fund was demanding economic "reforms"
that would hurt average Ukrainians.
Yanukovych's decision touched off mass demonstrations from western Ukrainians who favored
closer ties to Europe. That, in turn, opened the way for the machinations by neocons inside
the U.S. government, particularly the scheming of Assistant Secretary of State for European
Affairs Victoria Nuland, the wife of arch-neocon Robert Kagan.
Before long, Nuland was handpicking the new leadership for Ukraine that would be in charge
once Yanukovych was out of the way, a process that was ultimately executed by tightly organized
100-man units of neo-Nazi storm troopers bused in from the western city of Lviv. ["NYT Discovers
Ukraine's Neo-Nazis at War."]
Worsening Crisis
The violent overthrow of President Yanukovych led to resistance from south and east Ukraine
where Yanukovych got most of his votes. Crimea, a largely ethnic Russian province, voted overwhelmingly
to secede from the failed Ukrainian state and rejoin Russia, which had been Crimea's home since
the 1700s.
When Putin accepted Crimea back into Russia – recognizing its historical connections and
its strategic importance – he was excoriated by Western leaders and the mainstream U.S. media.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton likened him to Hitler, as the narrative took shape
that Putin was on a premeditated mission to conquer states of the former Soviet Union.
That narrative was always fake but it became Official Washington's conventional wisdom,
much like the existence of Iraq's WMD became what "everyone knew to be true." The "group think"
was again so strong that not even someone as important to the establishment as former Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger could shake it.
In an interview last month with Der Spiegel magazine, Kissinger said that "The annexation
of Crimea was not a move toward global conquest. It was not Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia."
The 91-year-old Kissinger added that President Putin had no intention of instigating a crisis
in Ukraine: "Putin spent tens of billions of dollars on the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The theme
of the Olympics was that Russia is a progressive state tied to the West through its culture
and, therefore, it presumably wants to be part of it. So it doesn't make any sense that a week
after the close of the Olympics, Putin would take Crimea and start a war over Ukraine."
Instead Kissinger argued that the West – with its strategy of pulling Ukraine into the orbit
of the European Union – was responsible for the crisis by failing to understand Russian sensitivity
over Ukraine and making the grave mistake of quickly pushing the confrontation beyond dialogue.
Kissinger's remarks – though undeniably true – were largely ignored by the mainstream U.S.
media and had little or no impact on the U.S. Congress which pressed ahead with its legislation
to expand the anti-Russia sanctions, which – along with declining energy prices – were contributing
to a severe economic downturn in Russia.
The New York Times' editors spoke for many in their celebration over the pain being inflicted
on Russia. In an editorial entitled "The Ruble's Fall and Mr. Putin's Reckoning," the Times
wrote:
"The blame for this [economic calamity] rests largely with the disastrous policies of President
Vladimir Putin, who has consistently put his ego, his territorial ambitions and the financial
interests of his cronies ahead of the needs of his country. The ruble fell as much as 19 percent
on Monday after the Central Bank of Russia sharply raised its benchmark interest rate to 17
percent in the middle of the night in a desperate attempt to keep capital from fleeing the
country.
"Since June, the Russian currency has fallen about 50 percent against the dollar. Because
Russia relies heavily on imported food and other goods, the decline in its currency is fueling
inflation. Consumer prices jumped 9.1 percent last month compared with a year earlier and also
increased 8.3 percent in October.
"Russia's immediate problems were caused by the recent collapse of global crude oil prices
and the financial sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe in an effort to get Mr.
Putin to stop stirring conflict in Ukraine. But the rot goes far deeper. …
"Mr. Putin has taken great relish in poking the West. Now that he is in trouble, the rest
of the world is unlikely to rush to his aid. On Tuesday, a White House spokesman said that
President Obama intends to sign a bill that would authorize additional sanctions on Russia's
energy and defense industries. That bill would also authorize the administration to supply
arms to Ukraine's government.
"The sensible thing for Mr. Putin to do would be to withdraw from Ukraine. This would bring
immediate relief from sanctions, and that would ease the current crisis and give officials
room to start fixing the country's economic problems. The question is whether this reckless
leader has been sufficiently chastened to change course."
But the reality has been that Putin has tried to keep his distance from the ethnic Russian
separatists in eastern Ukraine, even urging them to postpone a referendum that revealed strong
support for the region's secession from Ukraine. But he has faced a hard choice because the
Kiev regime launched an "anti-terrorist operation" against the eastern region, an offensive
that took on the look of ethnic cleansing.
The Ukrainian government's strategy was to pound eastern cities and towns with artillery
fire and then dispatch neo-Nazi and other extremist "volunteer battalions" to do the dirty
work of street-to-street fighting. Amnesty International and other human rights groups took
note of the brutality inflicted by these anti-Russian extremists....
Don't look for friends in the camp of the camp of world's oligarchic bastards, there cannot be
such people there. They will bever allow you into the ranks on world elite on equal terms. they will
use you, rob you and then throw away, as they did Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, the leaders
of Yugoslavia and many others.
Those cases should seve a strong warning for every admirer of the principles of Western
democracy. The last week the West began to signal that it is ready to continue dialogue with Moscow.
That, on Thursday the head of the European Parliament Martin Schulz told at the press conference
. Earlier, Pope Francis spoke about the intention to meet with the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia
Kirill, speaking for peace in Ukraine. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev offers his help
to start a dialogue between Russia and the United States.
They are now in a hurry,. because the time has come to pay for Ukraine, which is torn to pieces;
the economy collapsed, after the coup, when to power came a neofascist regime. there is a civil war
at the East now. Who will pay for the chaos and mayhem, they inflicted on Ukraine?
Washington never pays for its pogroms, and the European Union has already splurged, and
is not going to continue to spend money. Because of this, they began to look to the East, and
sent messengers. But while they are holding out one hand for a peaceful handshake, the West is always
holding a grenade in the other hand.
The actions of Washington is a perfect example of this. Ukraine demostrate perfectly well the
long-established pattern, namely to choose the victim, buy or cooopt part of the elite, then to stage
a coup ("color revolution"), or at attack the state. In any case the the state is plunged into chaos,
and then wither away, leaving others to clean up the mess.
They always acted this way before, and they want to continued to act the same way now. the target
of the "color revolutions" are always countries, which experience rapid ecopnomic growth (see below
reference data for countries where there color revolutions were staged).
The economy of those countries, where the "color revolutions" were successful, was applied a crushing
blow that has set the country back decades ago.
Especially remarkable is the fact that after the end of the cold war with the USSR Washington's
activity did not decrease.
Compare three maps.
On the first map you can see countries, where during the cold war, American intelligence agencies
have organized coups (the list is based on the book by William bloom's "Killing hope: U.S. military
intervention and the CIA after the Second world war."
The coups of the cold war"
On the second map you can see supported by the West color revolution of the twenty-first
century, which include the "colored revolutions", the "Arab spring" and other coups (beige - country,
where attempts failed; brown - country, which is in the stage of the collapse or a period of long-term
destabilization after the color revolution or other type of coup).
Unrest and revolution of the XXI century
And finally, on the third - you can see the countries of the "Golden billion", not affected by
the revolutions.
The countries of the "Golden billion"
Given that the cold war lasted for more than 40 years, and the time period from the "bulldozer
revolution" in Yugoslavia to Euromayday is just 13 years - it is easy to see that in the XXI century,
the United States began to crave for conflicts, much more then during the period of confrontation
with the USSR.
Sowing on the same territory chaos and leaving her in the lurch, Washington instantly begin to
search for a new victim. And in order to avoid the explositon of the affected country they try to
engage various negotiators. Those are going to Moscow, Beijing, sometimes to Brussels and other Europeian
capitals. They propose let start a dialogue. Because plunged into chaos territory need someone to
pay for the restoration. But right now nobody beleaves Washington any longer such negotiators
are hard to find. The bench is nearly empty.
GDP, where Washington organized the "colored revolutions", according to the World Bank
Serbia. GDP Yugoslavia has increased from $14.6 billion (1970) to $90,5 billion (1989). The West
has provoked the collapse of the country. In 2000 there was a "bulldozer revolution in Serbia and
overthrow Slobodan Milosevic.
Georgia. GDP increased from $2.8 billion (1999) to $4 billion (2003). In the 2003 "rose revolution"
that overthrew President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia.
Ukraine. GDP grew from $31 billion (in 2000) to $65 billion (2004). In 2004 it was subjected to
"orange revolution". Growth stopped.
Kyrgyzstan. GDP has grown from $ 1.2 billion (1999) to $ 2.2 billion (2004). In the 2005 "Tulip
revolution", in which Askar Akayev was overthrown.
Uzbekistan. GDP increased from 9.5 billion (2002) to 14.3 billion (2005). In 2005 there was an
attempt to overthrow President Islam Karimov.
Lebanon. GDP increased from 2.8 billion (1990) to 22 billion dollars (2005). In 2005 "cedar revolution",
which resulted in a change of political regime.
Belarus. GDP increased from 14.5 billion (2002) to 37 billion dollars (2006). In 2006 there was
an attempt to stage a color revolution.
Moldavia. GDP grew from $ 1.7 billion in 1999 to USD 6 billion (2008). In 2009 there was a "purple
revolution", which resulted in the parliamentary elections and the resignation of President Vladimir
Voronin.
Tunisia. GDP increased from 14.5 billion in 1993 to 44 billion dollars (2010). In 2011 - "Jasmine
revolution", the result of which was the overthrow of President Ben Ali.
Egypt. GDP increased from 36 billion dollars (1991) to 236 billion (2011). In 2011, the "Lotus
revolution, which ousted Hosni Mubarak.
Libya. GDP increased from 19.8 billion (2002) to 75 billion dollars (2010). In 2011, the "Arab
spring", which ended in the overthrow of M. Gaddafi.
Syria. GDP grew from $ 10 billion in 1994 to 74 billion dollars (2011). In 2011, the West has
unleashed a civil war.
Iraq. GDP grew from us $ 10 billion (1997) to 25 billion dollars (2000). In 2003 as a result of
the military invasion of Saddam Hussein was overthrown, and in 2005 the "purple revolution" has completed
the change of political regime.
Russia. GDP increased from 196 billion (1999) to 1899 billion dollars (2011). In late 2011 - early
2012 - the attempt to stage "white revolution" was launched.
Ukraine. GDP grew from 117 billion (2009) to 176 billion (2012). In 2013 - Euromayday (military
coup).
Myanmar. GDP grew in the early 2000s with the pace of 12%-13% per year. In 2007-- an attempt to
to stage "saffron revolution".
Iran. GDP grew from $ 60 billion in 1993 to 362 billion dollars (2009). In 2009 an attempt to
stage so called "green revolution".
China. GDP increased from 440 billion dollars in 1993 to 7332 billion dollars (2011). In 2011
attempt of "Jasmine revolution" in 2014 Hong Cong umprella revolution. Both unsuccessful.
Thailand. GDP has increased from $ 39 billion (1985) to 273 billion dollars (2008). In 2008-2010
performance of the red shirts.
Venezuela. GDP increased from 84 billion (2003) to 438 billion (2013). In 2013 to attempt of an
overthrow of a political regime after the death of Hugo Chavez.
Shawn Walker commentary is along State Departments talking points, as usual. You can read Shaun
Walker's news wrap
here. If you need details read the English translation of the conference. It is available in English
from President of Russia website. Actually it is pretty
unusual for a leader of country to take questions from the audience and answer them for three hours.
Q: Where does opposition finish and 5th column start? A: It's v difficult
to answer that. I'm being honest. Because the border is subtle.
Real Putin's answer:
N. GALIMOVA: Good afternoon, Vladimir Vladimirovich! (Natalia Galimov, "Газета.Ru").
Speaking to the Federal Assembly after the referendum in Crimea, You used the expression:
a "fifth column" and "national traitors" - You did not named anyone specifically, but from
this time the term "fifth column" again became active in the political lexicon. Those who support
you now call "fifth column" people who disagree with the government. Whom were you referring
to when he talked about "national traitors", "fifth column", and where for you the opposition
ends and the "fifth column" starts? And finally, do you feel personally responsible for the
return of this term, which only adds to public hostility and division?
Thank you.
Vladimir Putin:
No, I do not feel any responsibility in this regard. And all my actions are intended to
unite our society, not divide it. If you believe that (and I believe you, probably, so probably
are more sensitive to this label), I should be more careful in their public statements, I'll
think about it. But trying to put a gloss on everything infinitely is impossibletoo, we sometimes
need to call things by their proper names.
The issue is extremely complex. I say quite frankly, I find it difficult to answer your
question because the line is very thin. It is difficult, perhaps, to give a scientific definition,
where it the opposition ends and the "fifth column" begins.
This year we all (our Year of culture 2014) celebrated the anniversary of Mikhail Yuryevich
Lermontov, our great poet. We all remember his lines, how about the battle of Borodino he
wrote: "Let's die defending
Moscow, like our grandfathers died!" But he wrote and others: "farewell, unwashed Russia, a
country of slaves, the country of nobles. An you, blue uniforms, and you, the people who are
loyal to them" He was the opposition? Of course, there was opposition. After all, if you know,
I'm sure many here know, when he wrote "On death of a poet" on the death of Pushkin,
one of the relatives came to his home, saw what he wrote, and asked him to soften the text
of the poem.
He was so outraged that not only did not follow the recommendation, he made it more sharp
and wrote in the end: "And you can't wash away all your black blood the poet righteous blood!"
He, of course, was in the opposition to power, but I think he was a patriot. This is a very
fine line. He was an officer who was a very brave officer, the officer who went under the bullets
fire for the interests of the country.
Incidentally, in the last film of Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov we see the same type of officers.
When they brought the matter to its logical conclusion - undershed the revolution, then the
revolutionaries drowned them all. And I am nor sure that, if they returned to the point where
they started, would they act the same for the destruction of the Russian state, as they did.
In a way I think that the line between opposition and a "fifth column" is internal. It is
difficult to see it externally. What is the essence of it? The opposition, even very harsh,
it is ultimately is ready to fight for their homeland till the bitter end. A "fifth column"
are those people, who do what is dictated by the interests of another state. They are used
as a tool to achieve foreign power to achieve unacceptable to our people policy objectives.
Across the political and media elite in Australia, a silence has descended on the memory of the
great, reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died. His achievements are recognised, if
grudgingly, his mistakes noted in false sorrow. But a critical reason for his extraordinary political
demise will, they hope, be buried with him.
Australia briefly became an independent state during the Whitlam years, 1972-75. An American commentator
wrote that no country had "reversed its posture in international affairs so totally without going
through a domestic revolution". Whitlam ended his nation's colonial servility. He abolished Royal
patronage, moved Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supported "zones of peace" and opposed
nuclear weapons testing.
Although not regarded as on the left of the Labor Party, Whitlam was a maverick social democrat
of principle, pride and propriety. He believed that a foreign power should not control his country's
resources and dictate its economic and foreign policies. He proposed to "buy back the farm".
In drafting the first Aboriginal lands rights legislation, his government raised the ghost of the
greatest land grab in human history, Britain's colonisation of Australia, and the question of who
owned the island-continent's vast natural wealth.
Latin Americans will recognise the audacity and danger of this "breaking free" in a
country whose establishment was welded to great, external power. Australians had served every
British imperial adventure since the Boxer rebellion was crushed in China. In the 1960s, Australia
pleaded to join the US in its invasion of Vietnam, then provided "black teams" to be run by the CIA.
US diplomatic cables published last year by WikiLeaks disclose the names of leading figures in both
main parties, including a future prime minister and foreign minister, as Washington's informants
during the Whitlam years.
Whitlam knew the risk he was taking. The day after his election, he ordered that his staff should
not be "vetted or harassed" by the Australian security organisation, ASIO – then, as now, tied to
Anglo-American intelligence. When his ministers publicly condemned the US bombing of Vietnam as "corrupt
and barbaric", a CIA station officer in Saigon said: "We were told the Australians might as well
be regarded as North Vietnamese collaborators."
Whitlam demanded to know if and why the CIA was running a spy base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs,
a giant vacuum cleaner which, as Edward Snowden revealed recently, allows the US to spy on everyone.
"Try to screw us or bounce us," the prime minister warned the US ambassador, "[and Pine Gap] will
become a matter of contention".
Victor Marchetti, the CIA officer who had helped set up Pine Gap, later told me, "This threat
to close Pine Gap caused apoplexy in the White House. … a kind of Chile [coup] was set in motion."
Pine Gap's top-secret messages were de-coded by a CIA contractor, TRW. One of the de-coders was
Christopher Boyce, a young man troubled by the "deception and betrayal of an ally". Boyce revealed
that the CIA had infiltrated the Australian political and trade union elite and referred to the
Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as "our man Kerr".
Kerr was not only the Queen's man, he had long-standing ties to Anglo-American intelligence.
He was an enthusiastic member of the Australian Association for Cultural Freedom, described by Jonathan
Kwitny of the Wall Street Journal in his book, 'The
Crimes of Patriots', as, "an elite, invitation-only group… exposed in Congress as being founded,
funded and generally run by the CIA". The CIA "paid for Kerr's travel, built his prestige… Kerr
continued to go to the CIA for money".
When Whitlam was re-elected for a second term, in 1974, the White House sent Marshall Green to
Canberra as ambassador. Green was an imperious, sinister figure who worked in the shadows of America's
"deep state". Known as the "coupmaster", he had played a central role in the 1965 coup against President
Sukarno in Indonesia – which cost up to a million lives. One of his first speeches in Australia was
to the Australian Institute of Directors – described by an alarmed member of the audience as "an
incitement to the country's business leaders to rise against the government".
The Americans and British worked together. In 1975, Whitlam discovered that Britain's MI6 was
operating against his government. "The Brits were actually de-coding secret messages coming into
my foreign affairs office," he said later. One of his ministers, Clyde Cameron, told me, "We knew
MI6 was bugging Cabinet meetings for the Americans." In the 1980s, senior CIA officers revealed that
the "Whitlam problem" had been discussed "with urgency" by the CIA's director, William Colby, and
the head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. A deputy director of the CIA said: "Kerr did what he was told
to do."
On 10 November, 1975, Whitlam was shown a top secret telex message sourced to Theodore Shackley,
the notorious head of the CIA's East Asia Division, who had helped run the coup against Salvador
Allende in Chile two years earlier.
Shackley's message was read to Whitlam. It said that the prime minister of Australia was a security
risk in his own country. The day before, Kerr had visited the headquarters of the Defence Signals
Directorate, Australia's NSA where he was briefed on the "security crisis".
On 11 November – the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in
Australia – he was summoned by Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal "reserve powers", Kerr sacked the
democratically elected prime minister.
The "Whitlam problem" was solved, and Australian politics never recovered, nor the nation its
true independence.
Unrest in Hong Kong are declining. On Monday, the part of the fence was dismantled, the main government
complex resumed its work. Protesters with umbrellas behave peacefully and do not interfere with civil
servants getting in/out of work; the number of activists on the streets has decreased dramatically:
Of course, it's too early to say "Done". As recently as last winter EuroMaidan a few times almost
completely faded, but then petrol to sustain fire was injected again and again; in the end all this
ended with national socialist revolution and Anti-Russian course for Ukraine as well as the rapid
destruction of economy, and civil war at the East. However, the initial success of China authorities
is obvious, and if the organizers of "umbrella Maidan" will not be able to inject new resources and
money into the protest and/or organize a serious provocation along the class like of sharpshooter
from the roof, Hong Kong might soon return to a normal life.
Let's see what methods the China used in response to the orange infection.
1. As we remember the significant contribution to EuroMaidan was transportation by buses of residents
of Western regions of Ukraine into Kiev. In Hong Kong this trick failed. China has established a
tight cordons on the border of Hong Kong - tourists who looks like potential street fighters and
coordinators tourists were turned back. Buses with armed bits and fittings gull of young aggressive
young people had no chance to get into the area of unrest.
2. China has carefully worked the Hong Kong professors, who trying to repay the US grants by droving
students to the streets. Dismissal, conversations with the Chinese KGB, check about the payment of
taxes from money from grants make this method of generating the crowd from university students by-and-large
closed. Similar problems were created for all American NGOs.
Yanukovich during his time in power did not managed to close this channel of feeding of Maidan
via "pre-paid" university professors, and NGOs has almost diplomatic immunity status in Ukraine.
At the end he almost paid with his life for that.
3. A dangerous groups that could take on the role of storm troopers for insurgents - such as radical
environmentalists were placed under administrative arrest and could not participate in the riots.
4. Around the Maidan was organized by the cordon of police, who did not give peaceful protesters
the ability to smuggle to the place of unrest Molotov cocktails and such. Those who were caught were
packed into police car and removed.
5. China found for local Poroshenko, who fanned the Maidan through his media resources,
some very convincing words. Jimmy Lai for a couple of days disappeared from the public view, and
when he returned, his revolutionary enthusiasm had sharply diminished.
6. Chinese media together were explained to local residents that because of protests big business
and big money will move to other cities. which gladly will cease the opportunity to take over
Hong Kong financial hub. For residents of Hong Kong this is a very troubling prospect:
at least in terms of higher unemployment and lower wages. At this point many will not be able
to pay their mortgages and other loans.
Explanations had its effect - CNN reports that the locals became really aggressive toward protesters.
Quote:
The news of official talks comes as a dwindling number of pro-democracy demonstrators
continue to cling on to their protest sites in key areas of the tightly packed city. As their
numbers wane, so does patience of some of their fellow citizens.
"At first, I supported them, but then I started to think they are being selfish
because they block the roads -- and that's wrong," said Virginia Lai, who has sold newspapers
from a stall in the busy district of Mong Kok for 45 years.
Lai says her business is down 30% and getting worse. The student-led demonstrators
are camped out at a major intersection in the neighborhood, which witnessed violent clashes between
protesters and their opponents over the weekend.
At the moment on the streets of Hong Kong are still about 300 protesters:
As we know from previous color revolutions experience, hardcore protesters themselves usually
do not disperse voluntarily: they sit until the last, waiting for the moment when the police begin
to disperse them. How will China to solve the problem is unclear.
However, we can already say that Americans have faced this time with an intelligent and cold-blooded
enemy: the enemy, who had carefully studied all of their previous games, and provided a strong response
to each standard course of manuals.
Perhaps, in the place of the Americans, I would think not even about Hong Kong, but about Texas
and Washington. In the U.S., more than enough smoldering conflicts that an experienced player will
be able, with a little luck to inflate to a full-scale protest. and amount of armed people could
make it problematic for policy to crash.
Ukraine became a kind of "litmus test", which revealed the weakness of our own economic and political
system. If Russia today never happened what happened with Ukraine in our eyes, this does not mean
that all is well in the "Russian Kingdom". Tomorrow it could happen to us. Soon all not on the Maidan
and on Bolotnaya square. And then grow into a civil war with no predictable consequences.
We talked about the fact that the events in Ukraine is the inevitable result of the fact that
there for two decades "Nezalezhnosti formed capitalism is a "colonial", "oligarch", "comprador" etc.
Key role in the development of events in Ukraine are the local oligarchs. Regardless of how soon
will the events develop around Ukraine, the assets of Ukrainian oligarchs (both domestic and foreign)
when saving rate of the country to the West sooner or later will fall under the control of the transnational
banks and transnational corporations. That is the goal of the plans of the so-called "European integration"
of Ukraine, developed in the Brussels and Washington. It is interesting, what to expect Ukrainian
oligarchs?
Who's in the house (i.e. Ukraine) host, we clearly saw in December 2013, when an official in the
state Department Victoria Nuland was called on the carpet first Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov,
gave him acceleration and demanded to "restore order". The command was given to all oligarchs, and
they zabegaev as scalded cockroaches, began to prepare the Maidan.
But perhaps in Russia we have a different social model? - No, all the same colonial, oligarchic
and comprador capitalism. Only in a few softened version. Last but not least, due to more skillful
maneuvering our power and ability of the first persons of the state (first of all, the President)
to negotiate with the oligarchs. But all this is not trustworthy.
Today we are not only difficult to help our brothers in Ukraine, but even to protect themselves.
Quite often in our media recently began to speak about "fifth column" in Russia. Even President V.V.
Putin recently used the term. In his speech to the Federal Assembly in March of this year, he said:
"Western politicians scare us not only sanctions but the exacerbation of the internal problems.
I would like to know what they mean: the actions of some of the fifth column, various national-traitors,
or expect to worsen the socio - economic situation in Russia, and thus to provoke discontent of
the people? Consider such allegations as irresponsible and obviously aggressive, and will be suitable
to react to this".
From our point of view - a threat for Russia from the "fifth column" today, more real and dangerous
than the threat of direct military intervention, economic sanctions and the activities of Western
intelligence services. I would like to note that our media use the term "fifth column" in the singular.
Actually we have many such "fifth column". Actually "the fifth column" - the many-headed Hydra. The
theme of the "fifth column" is very complex and diverse. In this publication I just want to make
an inventory of goals "Hydra". In my estimation, these goals are not less than seven. Briefly list
them.
1. Offshore aristocracy (OA) is a narrow group of people that formal considered to be "citizens
of the Russian Federation", and in fact are "non-residents", as their capital, assets, the assets
are located outside the country. OA is present in government, business, media, army and special services.
The example of Ukraine shows that for the sake of their assets abroad, offshore aristocracy ready
to execute any commands from there." Of course, we are far from the illusion that all the Subversion
and all armed activities in the areas of interests of Washington will Finance local offshore aristocracy.
But it can act also as a mediator, with which Washington is convenient to carry out such funding.
In particular, there is a suspicion that the Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky funds created paramilitary
units (thrown on suppression of DND and LNR) is not out of pocket. This oligarch is a "window"through
which money Washington transferred to private military structures. First, Washington transfers funds
to offshore accounts Kolomoisky, and then they are transferred to accounts of the oligarch in Ukraine.
We have no confidence that in Russia today there is their "Kolomoisky, which also receive money from
Washington through their offshore structures and thus are involved in subversive activities against
Russia.
2. Foreign capital in the country. First, foreign companies and banks - perfect "wallet" to
Finance any subversive acts in the country. Second, foreign companies and banks by a team of Financial
international may destabilize the economic, political and social situation in the country. It is
enough to recall such a "minor" incident, as blocking of operations with plastic cards Russian subsidiaries
of international corporations. There's nothing surprising, as these corporations are closely associated
with the American special services. We should not have illusions that the Western banks and companies
in other sectors such relationships do not have. In the West have long been constructed very hard
"power vertical", about which our textbooks "market economy" keep complete silence.
3. The media, which are financed from abroad or from internal sources, controlled by the West.
Unfortunately, until now our government didn't even begun serious discussions to be put under effective
control of the media, under Russian jurisdiction. The events in Ukraine "highlighted" these anti-Russian
media, however, they continue to operate.
4. Part of the enormous army of immigrants. Among them there are many people who came to Russia
not only (and not so much) to work, how to perform a special mission. Many of them have military
training and are ready for the team to participate in hostilities.
5. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Even after the adoption in the Russian Federation
law on foreign agents, many of the NGOs continue to be foreign agents, without declaring it. There
are numerous financial schemes to circumvent the requirements of this law.
6. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia) as a special extra-territorial
formation. In the law on the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, which was developed without
the involvement and influence of Western "experts", stipulates a special status of the Bank of Russia.
7. Russian banks, which this year have to reckon with the requirements of American law FATCA.
They even officially will be referred to as "tax agent" of the United States. There is no need to
say that as long as our banks will make payments in dollars, they will remain on the "hook" of Washington,
because all of us dollar transactions take place through the banking system of the United States.
Of course, I name only the most important heads of Hydra called "fifth column". There are others.
They all hid. But have not disappeared. Just look at the "offshore aristocracy". She, despite repeated
demands to fight offshore, have not disappeared. There is only a certain rearrangement and relocation
of its foreign assets. But the assets remain outside Russia (with some exceptions). If we don't want
that, so we began the war on the Ukrainian scenario, we need to immediately start work on neutralization
of this many-headed Hydra. And to beat all the heads. According to indirect data, even in the agenda
of our security Council issue a "fifth column" touched on only briefly.
In the State Duma, judging by names being prepared and adopted laws, this problem is not felt
by the deputies. After a stormy debate in the State Duma concerning financed from abroad NGOs enthusiasm
of the people's representatives on the front against the "fifth column" significantly diminished.
For a start, you should at least try to pay more attention to the publications on the topic of the
"fifth column" of the theme in our media, unfortunately, is marginal.
People in social networks directly say that this category of citizens is the fifth column ,
the newspaper said political scientist Oleg Matveychev . He was commenting on the past in Moscow
march for freedom of speech , which is not collected and thousands of people, although organizers
expect 50,000 participants.
"With the number of rally organizers claimed up to 50 thousand people gathered on the avenue Sakharov
less than one thousand people , including members of the media and bloggers " - said the source RIA
"Novosti" .
"They are fighting for their freedom, not for freedom of speech for all"
Despite the fact that the designated theme of the meeting was freedom of speech , he added , the
organizers of the event did not allow individual members of the media . According to ITAR -TASS,
the rally was attended by activists of various political forces , " movement" Solidarity "," Libertarian
Party " RPR Parnassus , " Party on December 5 , "" The Progress Party . "
The rally took place peacefully. Scene on the screen was the inscription: " In an era of total
lies to tell the truth - it is revolutionary -- " But media people almost was not. The crowd saw the
chief editor of "Echo of Moscow" Alexei Venediktov and oppositionist Ilya Yashin . Someone hung a
banner " Freedom to the prisoners on May 6 ." Several participants raised the Ukrainian flag . At
one point there were imperial flags and anarchists flag .Technical .
Apr. 13th, 2014 at 3:04 PM
That started in the afternoon - a highly unusual .
Maybe like " reconnaissance " to identify ETA as preparation for a night assault , and maybe svidetestvovat
on the desperate situation in the leadership of the attackers . And for the same helicopters fly.
In principle , well- prepared ambush can put immediately to half of the " specialists " - immediately
decides everything the way it is organized by the defenders - even if you're " cat " , though " gray
stone " - in the first few seconds when everything is solved , it provides no advantages. T get into
- and find yourself in A & P I have loved, but there needs a high degree of mutual understanding
and coordination , otherwise their own shooting.
Now , armor has an advantage only in the open field against the " tegmental " checkpoint . In the
village the same city walls of the houses have the same function as armor , and at a distance of
throw bottles with " cocktail " - and at vulnerable.
" Right sector" - good only as SD and provocateurs (which they , in principle, are). " National Guard
" - a fake . Worthless human materyal .
Yes and how many of them there just in the end? Can gather yes drive a couple of hundred at best
, young punks and Nerds older . Preparation of low morale turns into trash " Uncle , do not beat
." Hundred or specialists who are able to collect Avakov uboltat yes - against them may well survive
mensheee number of specialists on the other hand, dismissed and " switched to the side." Certain
number of mercenaries there - these , by subordination and linguistic , technical and other problems
may act , perhaps, only in isolation and narrowly postalennye problem . Also the question , more
neutralized (if there are) professionalnymi volunteers and PMC opposing party.
Well, communication, night sights , VU, " needle " - " Boom " yes heavy machine guns and grenade
launchers , helicopters and armored vehicles neytraldizuyuschie - question , as I understand it -
open.
I would say that , from a technical point of view, the uprising (and it already uprising ) have a
chance.
It is important to play your cards wisely , it is important to maintain the chain of events on Human
Settlements , winning space and time . ZADOLBALI APCs on their cities and villages ride .
That is now available opinion.Among posters : "Hitler kaputt", "Life has become very Kiselevo ",
" Stop lying ", "Moscow fascism", " God Save the Ukraine " and others.
This rally was attended by writer Dmitry Bykov , a lawyer Vyacheslav Makarov , journalist Kara-Murza
( Jr. ) , politician Ilya Konstantinov, as well as some former defendants in the case of riots of
May 6, 2012, which then fall under the amnesty. The event was directed by Alexander Ryklin .
Because of the rally traffic on Sakharov Avenue was blocked . police helicopter hovered
over the Avenue.
Professor HSE Oleg Matveychev believes that those who came to this rally , characterizes pure
example of " Fifth Column. "Aliens Among Us ", the poster which was previously posted under
the windows of the radio station" Echo of Moscow " reflects this view. As he noted:
"As a result of the Crimean and Ukrainian events in Russia there was a definite turning
point in mind. If before people who openly with ultra-pro-western views , could masquerade as
those who have a keen sense of justice, but now all the masks dropped
Now it is quite difficult to conduct the same propaganda . They often meet with rebukes . People
in social networks directly say that this category of citizens is a fifth column , "
It the manifestation of double standards typical for this group that the organizers of the rally
have not allowed some journalists to cover the event. As Professor HSE Oleg Matveychev note,
if those people were assigned to moderating soem media outlet this outlat will a singlepoint
of view, the one that they think is right. "It just shows that talk about freedom of speech freedom
of speech imply a freedom for only a certain category of people. They are fighting for their personal
freedom and not freedom of speech for all of us ", - said the analyst.
"Some Western politicians are already threatening us not just with sanctions but
also the prospect of increasingly serious problems on the domestic front," the president said in
his speech announcing plans to absorb Crimea into the Russian Federation. "I would like to know
what they have in mind exactly: action by a fifth column, this disparate bunch of 'national traitors,'
or are they hoping to put us in a worsening social and economic situation so as to provoke public
discontent?"
... ... ...
At Mr. Putin's direction, a committee led by his chief of staff is developing a new
"state policy in culture." Widely expected to be enacted into law, the proposed cultural policy emphasizes
that "Russia is not Europe" and urges "a rejection of the principles of multiculturalism and tolerance"
in favor of emphasizing Russia's "unique state-government civilization," according to Russian news
accounts that quoted a presidential adviser on culture, Vladimir Tolstoy.
... ... ...
And in a statement last week, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned its citizens not
to travel to countries that have extradition treaties with the United States, saying that the Obama
administration "is trying to make a routine practice out of 'hunting' for Russian citizens in
third countries with the goal of their subsequent extradition and conviction in the U.S. on the basis
of, as a rule, questionable charges."
In some cases, the xenophobic language has been accompanied by an intensified crackdown
on political opponents and also on some media outlets that do not strictly toe the Kremlin line.
... ... ...
A previously unknown group called Glavplakat published a statement on its website
taking responsibility for the banner outside the bookstore, and it promised additional street art
in support of its antitraitor mission.
"Many films have been shot, many books have been written about how aliens have secretly captured
the earth masking themselves as earthlings," the group wrote. "At the time, no one suspects that
they are others, enemies. For now we have not encountered real aliens. However, the 'fifth column'
of national traitors in Russia has unfortunately become an incontestable reality."
The group added, "In fact these are the very 'others.' Pretending that they act in the interests
of Russia and our citizens, they serve the interests of completely different 'civilizations.' "
... ... ...
The banner did not last long. It was removed by midmorning. It was also far from
clear that Moscow was ready to give up its globalist tendencies for insular nationalism.
Arsen Avakov in his younger years was prosecuted
in Kharkov for running pedophilia ring with little boys but case has been squashed.
And now Wiki:
"Avakov was charged on 31 January 2012 with illegally transferring land and he was put on the
international wanted list of Interpol on 21 March 2012.[1] He was detention in Frosinone (Italy)
late March 2012.[1] A Italian court placed Avakov under house arrest as a preventive measure on
12 April 2012.[2] After in October 2012 he was elected into the Ukrainian parliament he return
to Ukraine on 11 December 2012.[1] On 10 December 2012, a Court ruling canceled Avakov's restriction
measure in the form of detention and a warranty for Avakov'a arrest, as Avakov was elected as
a people's deputy.[3]'
So welcome in new Free and Democratic Ukraine the best which Western taxpayers'
Rob Purcell
Now the Ukraine and its its politically restful, ambitious and impoverished population
are the EU's problem.
Whereas before the EU was agitating for a revolt against Russian domination, they seemed to
have changed their tune a bit. They are now urging 'cooperation'. Might have something to do with
a new found realization of the possibility of being solely left with an expensive and demanding
albatross weighing them down even further.
What do you think the populations of EU countries will think about their new family members?
The EU has plenty 39;s) money for them, but not for older family members, apparently. It seems
the EU didn't have enough problems already, it had to take some more from other countries.
What happens if the EU can't meet the Ukrainian population's high expectations? Well, Putin
is always there ready to welcome them back into the Russian fold, although perhaps not under such
generous conditions as pertained previously.
Reyter01
"We have seen the expert evaluations of Susan Rice, which are based on repeated US military
interventions in multiple places around the world, especially where the US administration is
of the opinion that the norms of Western democracy are in danger or ruling regimes begin too
clearly 'to get out hand'.
We consider that the current presidential adviser will give this kind of advice about the
error of using force to the US leadership in the event of a decision about a new intervention."
This is classic! Despite the rightward nature of the present Russia government, how can one
not admire them? The world has become a terrible place since the US was able to impose the regime
of baling out the bankers who destroyed the economy. Spending many billions or trillions to impose
regime change all over the world while gutting the pensions and benefits of workers. Imploring
other nations to be 'democratic' while spying on all the communications of US citizens and citizens
all over the world. One could go on for a month but the Russians are once again standing alone......
emorat -> burghead
already you are hearing triumphant western "leaders" talking about a "eurasian spring"
because they have learned nothing from libya or egypt
cjv123 -> burghead
The "Arab Spring" was wildly successful in the eyes of the Guardian and other Western media
opinion framers. Secular dictators were replaced with Sunni Islamist terrorists loyal to the Saudis
who call London their true home.
donibristle
Happy to see Tymoschenko out of jail and good riddance Yanukovitch. Yet more regime change
from the US of anything but democracy.
The fascist party supported by the US has won the day through armed insurrection. How many
police shot by sniper fire ?? Ukrainians have a right to be worried.
Hitler came to power under similar circumstances, financed by the same country financing the
Ukrainian far right. Good luck Ukraine !
Chukuriuk
Here is the interactive map of what Ukrainians are calling, tongue-in-cheek, "Leninopad" (Leninfall):
The geniuses also keep bringing down monuments dedicated to the Soviet Soldier (presumably
several million Ukrainians as well). But this minor fact won't enter the Western record. I wonder
when Sikorski will tweet about it.
IrishAndy
He did not care about the Ukrainian citizens murdered under the orders of their Kremlin puppet.
Alexander Bach -> IrishAndy
Those who think Yanukovich is a Kremplin puppet, have you ever asked yourself, why did
he negotiate with EU about that notorious association agreement for so long, before he unexpectedly
refused to sigh it?
If he really were a puppet, he wouldn't even start to discuss it, would he?
Actually Yanukovich thought he was a smart ass, and tried to sell his signature to one
side or another. His problem is that he is a dull ass. So dull that now he really has to mind
his ass, literally
dion13
The West has invented a new form of military. The present method of warfare is
to have a military made up of mercenaries out of uniforms who give the appearance of being the
locals in revolution and trained like once notorious French Foreign Legion. ...
KingRolo
How will EU deal with a fascist uprising? If the EU is democratic (which it's not) and will
not acknowledge their is a NeoNazi element out of control, then the argument for a Europe wide
referendum on EU membership is imperative
THX010101 -> KingRolo
The whole EU project, since its inception, has been a pseudo-fascist project in some respects,
through the consolidation and solidification of State and corporate power. In this case it a super-State
or a transnational State.
As I read in this paper several years ago (I believe), the Gestapo and Germany's top financiers
and industrialists from the IG Farben collective, chaired a conference in 1944 to discuss the
issue of 'how can to win the peace once we have lost the war'. Their conclusion was the Europaische
Wirthschaft Gemeinschaft or the European Economic Community, which later became the European Union.
Look at the role of the influential Bilderberg Group for their role in this sordid affair.
efreelittlehelps
....but money from where?
Its virtual money, the amount is typed and recorded by IMF bank of Ukraine peer to peer network
Its made real by the promise of the Ukraine govt to legislate the debt over to the taxpayers
in its country .
The virtual loan computer credits are never created and are repaid by downsizing the economy
selling some off to pay the real interest attached to the virtual loan
numinous -> efreelittlehelps
The loans are fake money created at the stroke of a key - but they must be repaid in real money,
earned by Ukrainians through their hard work and toil, and in state assets to be privatised.
Neoliberalism in action. Financial wars of aggression and conquest.
PascalDAngelo -> numinous
If the loans are not real money, then why would the Ukrainians want them? There is no advantage
to the EU or U.S. in increasing the present austerity in Ukraine. That will only increase instability.
Let us hope the Ukrainians are shrewd enough to get a good deal. So far they appear to be pretty
shrewd.
edwardrice -> numinous
Disaster Capitalism!
Turkeys voting for xmas except Ukrainians didn't vote for this.
edwardrice
Anti-Yanukovych protesters stand guard in front of the house of parliament in Kiev on
24 February, 2014.
Alternative caption for the photo: Neo-Nazi Right Sector thugs outside Parliament making sure
the MPs inside do as they are told.
edwardrice
Democracy Now interview, University of Rhode Island professor Nicolai Petro:
it's pretty much a classical coup, because under the current constitution the president
may be-may resign or be impeached, but only after the case is reviewed by the Constitutional
Court and then voted by a three-fourth majority of the Parliament. And then, either case, either
the prime minister or the speaker of the Parliament must become the president. Instead, that's
not what happened at all. There was an extraordinary session of Parliament, after-it was held
after most members were told there would be no session and many had left town. And then, under
the chairmanship of the radical party, Svoboda, this rump Parliament declared that the president
had self-removed himself from the presidency.
"The situation here in Kiev is now being described by many as a witchhunt"
From a very interesting live report from Kiev on Russia Today.
Footage of rallies in Eastern Ukraine with a sign being held saying "Stop Ukranian Nazism",
of snipers (not police) inside a building, of a physical assault inside parliament, etc.
The reporter Egor Pisunov says about 500 Party of Regions offices have been torched down. He
says also:
"In several Eastern Ukrainian town, the attempts to hold rallies in support of
Maidan have been foiled by local residents.(...) We're even getting reports that in some parts
of the Crimea, volunteers turn up and are pretty much preparing to fight any oppositional forces
if they enter the republic,"
The opinions of two RT analysts in the report:
"At the moment the situation in Kiev is controlled by radical people with arms who are
pursuing a very very radical agenda."
"A new regime has taken shape really quickly. It has nothing to do with democracy".
And please (some of you) don't bother commenting this with the "from Putin's press release"
line.
More than a dozen family members of China's top political and military leaders are making use
of offshore companies based in the British Virgin Islands, leaked financial documents reveal.
The brother-in-law of China's current president, Xi Jinping, as well as the son and son-in-law
of former premier Wen Jiabao are among the political relations making use of the offshore havens,
financial records show.
I can't judge the quality and importance of new laws. Yanukovich demonstrated absolute
legal nihilism by passing the law which provides amnesty to participants of Maidan. Also none of current
laws are in force and if so, what is the importance of new laws and what they change if current laws
are not working? Looks like Yanukovich is more worried about his clan capitals then the country. But
this interview by Oleg Tsaryov is something different from a typical comprador position of Party of
Regions (which almost all voted for amnesty). Hard pressure and inconvenient sharp questions for more
then an hour from pretty professional fifth column agents, who are outrages by the possibility of losing
their plush salaries. My God, this was a pressure of the level at which Bill O'Reilly look like
a petty and somewhat shy school bully in comparison with those wolfs of media business. Looks like "grant
eaters" who feel threat to their hard currency income flows instantly turn into very dangerous and very
hungry wolfs. List listen to the interview... No matter how you judge the new laws, this guy really
fought like a lion against pack of wolfs exited by the possibility of losing their hard currency flows.
Jan 17, 2014
Очень длинная беседа.
Не всякому хватит времени выдержать столько, да еще и на двух мовах.
Я выдержал, так ведь я в материале и ловлю контексты.
Так, - на всякий случай, - дублирую аннотацию из Ютуба.
К ней, как говорится, ни убавить, ни прибавить.
"Сотрудники американского "Громадского" ТВ, журналистами их не назовёшь, для очередной
травли, пригласили в студию депутата Олега Царёва. 2,5 часа прямого эфира, получая
указания по ноутбукам, ведущие выполняли заказ своих американских хозяев - морально уничтожали
народного депутата...
Схема простая - увести человека от привычной формы общения, наброситься всей стаей на
одного и не связными вопросами, подборкой выборочных фактов, мешая ему отвечать на вопросы, превратить
диалог фактически в судебный процесс, на котором приглашённый гость должен быть выставлен, как
подсудимый, виновный в совершённом преступлении.
Тема беседы при этой схеме не имеет значения.
Так ведущие "Громадского" поступают со всеми кого им заказывают их владельцы.
Для этих целей и был создан данный информационный канал. О журналистской этики, морали,
чести и человеческом достоинстве сотрудников этого канала и речи не идёт.
Хотя и не удивительно, предателями всегда становились "моральные уроды" из разных слоёв
общества..."
От себя: все, что за истекшие два месяца я узнал о ранее почти неизвестном мне депутате
Царёве, говорило о том, что Олег Анатольевич честный, умный и сильный человек.
Но даже не представить не мог, насколько умный и настолько сильным. Сто пятьдесят две минуты
с секундами выстоять один на один против стаи бойцовых псов на их территории и, более того, победить
- это дорогого стоит.
...some pro-Kremlin journalists praised the reshuffle as a long-overdue move against fifth
columnists.
"The destruction of RIA Novosti is a welcome step from Putin. The systemic nest of anti-Russian
information forces has been destroyed," Maxim Shevchenko, a pro-Kremlin TV host, tweeted.
Employees said they were given no warning of the announcement, and that they were waiting to hear
if they would be fired or hired into the new agency.
Agnes Maria
From my perspective, from online, the copy-and-pasted articles, quoted directly from Western
media, did very often times contain language inappropriate for one to use to speak about oneself,
such as Russians about Russia. There would be anti-Russian and anti-Soviet jokes and language
too subtle for everyone to notice, and they do get published via RIA online all the time. It does
not look good and you cannot take it seriously, though it is not usually intentional. I hope we
will see all straight up reporting and no sensationalised nonsense from now on.
Here are some unedited thoughts I just shared with the BBC's Radio 4 on Cyprus while we are all
waiting for the new deal to shape up:
Cyprus' banking sector must shrink. As did Ireland's, the hard way. What is essential, as every
Irishman and woman will tell you, is that the politicians do not load up the weaker citizen's/taxpayers'
shoulders with enormous debts on behalf of bankers that refuse to wither.
Every bailout agreement, beginning with Greece's in May 2010, seems less logical and more toxic
than the previous one. The culmination was of course Cyprus this past week. Think about it: In one
short week, Europe has managed:
To put in jeopardy the hitherto sacrosanct concept of state guaranteed deposit insurance
The monetary integrity of the Eurozone
The European Union's single market principle according to which capital controls are a no-no.
If only the agreement reached at last June's EU Summit to de-couple the banking crisis from the
public debt crisis had been implemented, we would not be having this conversation now.
The Cyprus debacle is the homage that denial of the systematic nature of the euro crisis pays
to a systemic crisis.
Cyprus parliamentarians offered the Eurozone a reprieve from the stupidest and most potentially
destructive Eurogroup decision since this Crisis began three years ago. It now remains to be seen
whether, scared by the sound of their own NO, they will now succumb to an even less rational deal.
By Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economics at the University of Athens. Cross posted
from
his
blog.
from Mexico:
You know, I was talking to a Canadian politilogue, Peter Dale Scott, earlier today, and he
was telling me some stuff about politics around those parts in the Americas that would really
blow the mind of the average clueless American. I know I was flabbergasted.
For example, did you know that the "unofficial" government in the United States - the "deep
state" (CIA, NRO, NSA, DIA, DEA, NED, USAID, etc.), in collusion with that country's military
sector and the transnational banking cartel, is a lot more powerful than the "official" government
there? And to use a euphemism of a Pakistani fellow I was talking with the other day, if the United
States legislature failed to do what the triumvirate of US deep state, the US military sector
(both private and public), and transnational banking cartel instructed it to do, then it would
be "cleaned". In his own words: "We are heading towards an international new order where the power
of the state will be totally in hands of a corrupt mafia, who will usurp all human rights on pretext
of controlling terrorism…. The boomerang will come back and as they say the wheel turns !" http://nsnbc.me/2013/02/01/the-volatility-of-gas-geo-politics-and-the-greater-middle-east-an-interview-with-major-agha-h-amin-2/
I think this accounts for the surprising pattern of unanimous votes there against rank and
file Americans that have occurred over the past 35 years, and also likely means that any actions
going forward by the sock-puppet government of the United States will be at the direction of the
actual governing institutions of that particular state. Which is not to say that that is necessarily
a bad thing, at least for the 1%, the neoliberals and neoconservatives. I'm just pointing out
that unless you happen to be talking to people who are from the region and are somewhat politically
connected, you might not have any idea what is really going on there.
The Dork of Cork:
This is not a mistake.
Capital controls within the Euro on a island be it Cyprus today or Ireland in the future is
a very effective measure for core Euro and chief IMF shareholders ( the banks which control the
western treasuries )
Core Europe needs basic (energy resources). If Cypriots or Irish fight for the last Euro in
the company store the oil they once burned will flow elsewhere.
Thats the point of this.
I have kept saying for some time now. The Irish are worth more dead then alive.
from Mexico:
March 24, 2013 at 8:43 am
What is it going to take to wake up the rank and file of Ireland, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal,
Italy, Greece, etc. to a very simple reality: They're being colonized? We've seen this movie before.
It's what Hannah Arendt called "continental imperialism."
And it is all facilitated by a small group of privileged elites who hail from within the colonized
nations. The relationship between inside colonizer and outside colonizer that exists in neo-colonialism
is explained by Carlos Fuentes as follows:
In the phase immediately after independence, Britain managed Latin America's foreign trade;
in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the United States came to be the principal partner.
However, they employed the same instruments of economic power, namely favorable agreements
for their merchants, loans and credits, investment, and the handling of the export economy…
A highly privileged local minority served as intermediaries, both for these exports and for
the imports of manufacured European and North American goods, which were in demand among the
urban population in the interior…
Large haciendas, intensive exploitation of minerals and cheap labor forces proliferated.
Was this what independence was all about - land and mine owners profiting handsomely while
the majority remained impoverished?
– CARLOS FUENTES, The Buried Mirror
For an excellent contemporary analysis of the same phenomenon there's Ljubiša Mitrović's "THE
NEW BOURGEOISIE AND ITS PSEUDO-ELITE IN THE SOCIETIES OF PERIPHERAL CAPITALISM":
Following the neoliberal ideology and concept of development (characterized by market fundamentalism,
monetarist economic policy, privatization, liberalization, deregulation, Washington Agreement),
the forces of the global capitalism, whose agents are the leading countries of the world centre
and the USA, TNCs and the financial bank bourgeoisie, have imposed
the neoliberal ideology of dependent modernization on the countries of the semiperiphery and
the periphery.
Here's how Mitrović describes the role of the inside colonizers:
Comprador bourgeoisie is the upper layer of the bourgeois class… It is a tycoon group
ruthlessly led by its interests. It posits its own interests over general social ones.
It is not national in character and is socially irresponsible. It is a blind servant of foreign
capital, ruthless in the exploittaion of the domestic workforce and dictatorial in relation
to its fellow countrymen. Its homeland is where its interests are. It is the
agent of the megacapital in the function of global economy. It is a "Trojan horse" of the foreign
TNCs in Serbia and the region. Its god is the god Mammon, the capital. Its aim is to amass
capital, and it puts profit above individuals. It is a predatory class of the nouveau riche
and often bon vivant and parasitic upstarts. It is a peculiar jet-set of bandit economy.
The world's epicenter of capitalism is the United States, and its reach/power/influence circumnavigates
the globe. The elites of the capitalist class are no longer tied to territoriality or driven by national
competition. "U.S. capitalism has expanded its reach by morphing into
a Transnational Capitalist Class." according to William Robinson (Univ. of Calif.)
Global Capitalism and 21st Century Fascism, Aljazeera, May 2011.
The driving force that binds together this elite cadre is free market capitalism; it is the heartbeat
of a worldwide network of capitalists that thrive off profits and wealth creation. Their nonpareil
world order is driven by money which equates to success, power, collegiality, and increasingly, as
this new world order coalesces into the most formidable political entity in the history of humankind,
democratic nation-states lose the legacy of the Age of Enlightenment, which played such a major role
in the French Revolution (1789-99) and the American Revolution (1775-83), contributing to the Declaration
of Independence (1776), and the U.S. Bill of Rights (1791)… stripping away national identities.
The notion that a company or corporate executive or wealthy entrepreneur
is bound by an allegiance to their country of origin is passé. The elite capitalists
of today are bound to one another, not to countries. They meet at the same conferences, like the
World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, or the The Bilderberg Group annual geopolitic forum,
or in Asia it is the Boao Forum on China's Hainan Island each spring, or the Aspen Institute's Ideas
Festival, or Herb Allen's Sun Valley gathering for media moguls, or the Google Zeitgeist conference,
all defining the characteristics of today's plutocrats; they are forming a global community, and
their ties to one another are increasingly closer than their ties to the multitudes back home.
They attend the same operas and polo matches, stay at the same 5-star hotels, lease the same private
jets, dine at the same 5-star restaurants, meet Bono, and ceaselessly travel the globe together,
with homes on every continent, residing wherever the weather is seasonally most favourable.
Their allegiances extend well beyond the borders of their nation-states
of origin, and they could care less about the various underling classes of society in any particular
country where they do business.
This new global elite, according to Chrystia Freeland (Global Editor at Large, Reuters, who traveled
with, and mingles with, the elites),
The Rise of the New Global Elite, Atlantic Magazine, Jan./Feb. 2011: "Perhaps most noteworthy,
they are becoming a transglobal community of peers who have more in common with one another than
with their countrymen back home. Whether they maintain primary residences in New York or Hong Kong,
Moscow or Mumbai, today's super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves."
This federation of convenience by the global elite is a lingering problem for the lower classes
in America. The U.S.-based CEO of one of the world's largest hedge funds told Chrystia Freeland that
his firm's investment committee often discusses the question of who wins and who loses in today's
economy. In a recent internal debate, he said, one of his senior colleagues argued that the hollowing-out
of the American middle class didn't really matter. "His point was that if the transformation of the
world economy lifts four people in China and India out of poverty and into the middle class, and
meanwhile means one American drops out of the middle class, that's not such a bad trade." Notice
the CEO's reference to "not such a bad trade" as representative of free market lingo, i.e., "trade."
Everything is measured in trade terms, like statistics… if you look in the mirror, you'll see the
reflection of a commodity.
This viewpoint is typical of how the global ruling class thinks, and proof positive of it is reflected
in today's politics in America. The right wing embodies this same viewpoint by striving to strip
the federal government of public welfare services, privatizing governmental assets, and undercutting
benefits to society at large, especially via manipulation of the federal tax code. This same occurrence
is happening in real time right now in Greece, Spain, and Portugal as the cadre of elite technocrats
out of Brussels, de facto capital of the EU, dictate nation-state policies to those three forlorn
countries. The world's elites love hard times/recessions because of the set up. It makes it easier
for them to strip away government largess via austerity programs that they force upon governments,
and it allows for undercutting the wages of average citizens as well as dismantling of governmental
regulations. This, in turn, prompts protestors to congregate in the streets of capital cities, but
over time, the capitalist class waits them out, temporarily residing in one of their homes elsewhere,
away from danger, and with time on their side, the capitalists win.
Upon reading Chrystia Freeland's article in Atlantic Magazine, one comes away with the impression
the elite capitalists look down with disdain upon the masses of people, expressing a contempt for
those in society who do not have the personal merit to rise to the occasion of wealth and power.
Meritocracy is their biblical source, not equality and fraternity. These are hackneyed terms from
'America of old' and no longer applicable in the new technologically enhanced world, which itself
is the major source of many of the new self-made wealthy.
This global ruling class controls the levers of an emergent trans-national state apparatus of
global decision-making and orders emanate from the IMF, World Bank, the EU, and the WTO. The ruling
bloc of this world order consists of chieftains of global corporations and financial conglomerates,
major players in the dominant political parties of the world, media conglomerates, and technocratic
elites.
Several thousand people, who all play in the same sandbox, control the world of finance and politics,
similar to the faceless/nameless/shameless fictional elites in the TV series The X-Files. In that
series, the 'Smoking Man' is the only personality from amongst the elite cadre that is recognized
on an on-going basis; he is C.G.B.Spender, the public face of the "Syndicate," which is a shadow
government and highly secretive organization. As the Smoking Man says, "If people were to know of
the things that I know… it would all fall apart." Similarly, one wonders what those 'things' are
in today's world, and there are definitely cracks in the veneer of this new capitalistic world order.
For example, "Market capitalism has proven to be a remarkable engine of wealth creation, but if
it continues to function in the next 25 years as it has in the past 25, we are in for a violent ride
or, worse, a serious breakdown in the system itself. That sounds dire, and it is," Global Capitalism
at Risk. What are you Doing About it? by Joseph L. Bower, Herman B. Leonard, and Lynn S. Paine, Harvard
Business Review, Sept. 2011. This article co-written by three professors at Harvard University pinpoints
a festering problem that may be impossible to address because, as the article goes on to relate:
"The leaders we talked to identified various forces that could severely disrupt the global market
system in the decades ahead… these forces arise from multiple sources. Some are fueled by negative
consequences of the market system and feedback into it in disruptive ways. Others arise from sources
external to the system. Still others relate to…." Frankly, the multiplicity of the financial problem
is the problem! The world of finance is a mind-boggling complexity of derivatives overlying derivatives
superimposed upon CMOs interlocking with CDSs and residing within the depths of major brokerages
and banks, deep in their vaults for nobody to see in full living color. The legendary investor Sir
John Templeton summed up the financial monster in two words, writing a memorandum to close friends
and family before his death, as he anticipated the future, "Financial Chaos." World banking/finance
is a multi-headed hydra monster of global proportions that may bring the world of capitalism down
to its knees, prompting police state intervention to maintain social order. The early stages of this
phenomenon have already appeared, and historians may one day earmark the summer of 2007 as the start
of the Age of Financial Calamity!
According to William Robinson: Transnational capital has been able
to break free of nation-state constraints to shift the correlation of class and social forces worldwide
sharply in its favour and to undercut the strength of popular and working class movements around
the world. One new structural dimension of 21st century global capitalism is a dramatic
expansion of the global superfluous population or that portion marginalized and locked out of productive
participation … constituting some one-third of humanity. The need to assure the social control of
this mass of humanity living in slums gives a powerful impetus to neo-fascist projects and
facilitates the transition from social welfare to social control, otherwise
known as police states. Over time, this system becomes ever more violent and the ability
of economic power to determine electoral outcomes opens the door for 21st century fascism to emerge
without a rupture in electoral cycles and/or a constitutional change.
The door for 21st century fascism has more than opened. It has been blown off the hinges starting
with the U.S. Patriot Act, which act violates the U.S. Constitution and which act was rammed down
the throats of the U.S. Congress, whose members did not even read the document, by the Bush Administration,
implying that any members who voted against the hurried-bill would be blamed for any further attacks
at a time when the nation was braced for a second attack.
Another example of impending fascism occurred when President Obama signed the National Defense
Authorization Act, which act negates the writ of habeas corpus, the most powerful cornerstone of
civil rights since the Magna Carta. Subsequently, May 2012, U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest
overruled the domestic military detention provisions of the act, an act that was roundly supported
by Democrats and Republicans.
This is a clear, and extremely troubling, clarion call for how far legislators will go to strip
U.S. citizens of their rights. According to Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, "American
individual liberties are being stripped away." The elites contend the negation of individual rights
is foisted upon the government in order to maintain civil order, and their lackeys in Congress take
bait with open-arms.
As transnational capitalism gains momentum, the chieftains of major U.S. international corporations
feel less, and less, empathy towards their homeland and more akin to
a world-state wherein the entire planet is their haunt. Their quest for profits dictates
a worldly view that brushes aside nation-state regulations that interfere with profits, and their
disdain for the peoples of any given nation-state leads to statist political leanings, meaning a
concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a centralized government for control
of individual nation-states whilst worldwide trade is subjected to free market capitalism. This course
of action is already evident in Europe where nation-states like Portugal are being dictated to by
a centralized body of technocrats, the EU. Likewise, this is happening in America where the Central
Bank has become dictator of the markets whilst the global corporations on the Dow Jones Industrial
Average carry on in their own markets around the world, splashing strong profits, in part, because
of neoliberal tendencies that discriminate between which nation-states offer the cheapest labor and
the weakest regulations. The common denominator of global corporations is cheap labor; they hover
like bees around the queen wherever cheap labor is to be found.
As a result of an assortment of extremely powerful economic and political forces intertwined within
transnational capitalism, it is reasonable to assume the various classes in American society will
continue to experience a significant downgrade of lifestyle as the transnational capitalists comb
the world for the cheapest labor and the loosest regulations.
In time, America itself will become a target for transnational capitalists' manufacturing plants
& facilities as American wages and benefits continue to stagnate and as right-wingers attack governmental
regulations and privatize government assets.
Read more: http://prn.fm/2012/08/08/robert-hunziker-transnational-elite/#ixzz2MKrzC3Ia
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
There is an interesting analogy between Libya and Russia: in both cases opposition fights for getting
oil rent. As part of comprador alliance with the West. That is essentially the real goal of Russian
opposition, not all this democratization and fighting with corruption smoke screen.
These Russian liberals seem to fall into a category of liberal I've encountered elsewhere –
people who are progressive in some ways, more educated (often far
more so) and more enlightened than their countrymen, but at the same time completely unable to
understand:
that they have their own snobberies and prejudices ;
that they are where they are as a result of social advantage
just as much as ability ;
that the economics they propound favor (and are seen as favoring) them, not everybody ;
that there is a huge link between social division and prejudice, which their economics
foster rather than ameliorate ;
that if you weaken labour organization and socialist politics,
it's not liberalism which fills the gap ;
that if progressive social ideas are linked to fuck-you economics,
and are seen as being propounded by a superior elite, then you are asking for what you get,
which is an alliance between the resentful proletariat and the cynical wealthy.
That they can't grasp any of these is precisely because of their monumental self-regard and
sense of superiority.
Moscow Exile
And that sense of superiority is often all too plain to see. Chirikova is on record as calling
the vast majority of Russians that do not go on protest marches and who seem to her to all
be unquestioning supporters of United Russia and Putin as быдло – cattle, a herd, a bovine
mob. Other "liberal" opposition leaders in Russia also seem to look down on the millions who
are not educated and upwardly aspiring as feckless, vodka besotted couch potatoes.
Latynina, columnist for Novaya gazeta, Moscow Times et al. has even questioned the wisdom
of allowing the hoi-poloi the right to vote.
If one surveys the history of international relations, great powers have regularly meddled in
the internal politics of other countries, in order to obtain strategic or economic benefits. It is
only common sense that they would seek such benefits, and there is no reason to assume Libya will
be any exception to this basic trend. Indeed, Libya's vast oil reserves, which are the ninth largest
in the world, would constitute a rich prize for the Western states, and for private interests within
those states
In surveying past interventions in Vietnam, Chile, Congo, Italy, Haiti, Iraq, Iran, or numerous
other targets, we see that the United States has a long history of meddling, for self-interested
reasons, and then lying to the public about it. Indeed, the CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy
were largely created for the purpose of meddling. France and Britain too have extensive histories
of intervention, with unpleasant results.
One senses that Bérubé would like to flush this history down the proverbial memory hole, along
with other inconvenient facts; including the
Western intimacy with the Gaddafi dictatorship, which endured up until the revolts against him,
beginning less than one year ago.
The Russian electoral authorities found that Golos had violated Russia's election laws by publishing
polls in the "quiet period" immediately preceding parliamentary elections and fined the organization
just under $1,000 for the violation. Russian lawmakers have also accused Golos and several other
political opposition friendly NGOs of receiving funding from foreign sources for their political
activities, which would be against Russian law (as foreign funding of US elections would be against
US law).
The organization, we read, was "the country's main non-government election watchdog," so of course
it having been "gagged" on the eve of parliamentary elections was ominous and troubling to the Western
press. US-regime friendly (and George Soros-funded) Human Rights Watch complained that Golos was
the "victim of a smear campaign."
Major Western media outlets once again trotted out the old "Russia just cannot help its authoritarian
tendencies" reporting on the event, with the Reuters report
adding that "The complaint echoed Vladimir Putin's speech on Sunday at his United Russia party
congress, where he accused foreigners of funding his political opponents in what reminded some of
the anti-Western rhetoric that marked his 2000-08 presidency."
A perusal of Golos's own website (Google's
translation features helps non-Russian speakers) lists its foreign partners being the US "regime
change" specialists National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and National Democratic Institute (NDI),
two of the major US sponsors of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia,
among other adventures.
USAID is also listed
as a "partner" organization to Golos, with whom it "works to decrease the number of violations, especially
administrative abuses, in election campaigns." Apparently violations committed by the organizations
it funds are OK, however. To make an omelet, NGOs must break a few eggs.
The National Endowment for Democracy's own website advertises openly that it provided "independent"
NGO Golos with a generous grant in the 2010–2011 cycle to:
"...carry out a detailed analysis of the autumn 2010 and spring 2011 election cycles in Russia,
which will include press monitoring, monitoring of political agitation, activity of electoral
commissions, and other aspects of the application of electoral legislation in the long-term run-up
to the elections. GOLOS will hold local and national press conferences and publish reports on
its findings, as well as provide detailed methodological advice to its monitors and other monitoring
agencies."
Not to be outdone, the US government-funded National Democratic Institute
proudly admits that "since 2000, NDI has
worked with GOLOS...[to] provide...ongoing consultation and training for the organization's regional
partners."
Are Russians "paranoid" to be wary of US government funding of domestic Russian NGOs through its
most notorious "regime change" and "color revolution" specialists? Would Americans be similarly "paranoid"
if they found out that a Russian or Chinese government-funded "NGO" with a track record of internal
subversion and fomenting revolutions was funding political organizations in the United States? Why
is it OK if the US does it to others, but outrageous and threatening if it is done to us?
Destroying the concept of national sovereignty in the rest of the world will come back to haunt
the United States. Interventionism is a virus that we cannot hope to spread worldwide yet quarantine
just outside our own shores.
UPDATE: Could US criticisms of Russia on the eve of elections somehow be related to Russia's
surprisingly firm stance in favor of its ally Syria as NATO and its corrupt puppets in the Arab
League prepare a
Libya-style "liberation"?
Chess champion Gary Kasparov, his comrades and supporters in the west
Defiance of all rules on sovereignty
"A strange practice has developed in international relations since Washington, relying on "freedom
and democracy", set up a number of foundations and think tanks in order
to intervene in the internal affairs of foreign countries in defiance of all the rules on sovereignty."
Peter Scholl-Latour: Russland im Zangengriff, Putins Imperium zwischen Nato, China und Islam,
ISBN 10: 35-490726-51, p. 110
Ever since the murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya and the mysterious death of the former
secret service office Litvinenko, the western media have turned up the heat in their campaign against
the Russian president Vladimir Putin that has never actually ceased since the arrest of the oligarch
Chodorkovski in autumn 2003.
For many commentators there can be no doubt: The Kremlin is to blame. Peter Scholl-Latour is one
of the few who raise his voice in protest, pointing out that while Putin might be a Chekist, he isn't
stupid. Politkovskaya was murdered immediately before Putin's visit to Germany, with Litvinenko following
immediately before the summit between Russia and the EU. There is no doubt that these deaths did
not benefit Putin. As part of the anti-Russian campaign, considerable publicity was given to a rather
disappointing anti-Putin demonstration on 16 December 2006 in Moscow (attracting just over 2,000
protesters, not exactly impressive in the light of the 18 million inhabitants of the Moscow region),
with its most prominent speaker, the chess player Gary Kasparov. For this reason, it is appropriate
to look eastwards.
Anger of the western imperialists at collapse of oil deal
The campaign against Russia began with the arrest of Chodorkovski. Rainer Rupp in the "Junge Welt":
"The vehemence of the vicious propaganda campaign against Putin reflects the anger of the western
imperialists that he thwarted their plans to acquire Russian raw materials cheaply. Ever since Putin
prevented the fraudster and Yukos boss Michail Chodorkovski from selling the oilfields grabbed by
the overnight billionaire (roughly one half of the Russian oil reserves) to the west in a gigantic
deal, the fronts have been clear.
Following the wild privatisation orgies under US fan Boris Yeltsin, Putin has since taking power
gradually returned the Russian resources to state control. The western imperialists are furious at
this suppression of capitalist 'human rights', and so they take every opportunity to sell Chodorkovski
and now Litvinenko to the western public as martyrs and victims of 'Putin the Terrible'. "("Junge
Welt", 20.12.2006)
Neocon attack on Russia
On 28 September 2004 an open letter was published by 115 Europeans and Americans against Putin's
policies. The signatories included neocons, liberal imperialists and greens.1 In December 2004, Washington
succeeded in making further progress in drawing a circle around Russia with the "Orange Revolution"
in Kiev. On 12 August 2005, the then director for Russia and Foreign Programmes of the Carnegie
Foundation (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Anders Aslund (who also signed the open
letter of 28 September 2004) a report entitled "Putin's Decline and America's Response". This sets
out recommendations for the US administration basically suggesting that the US should finance a further
revolution, this time in Russia. "The US should insist on effective international monitoring of
elections. … The best monitors have proven to be nongovernmental organisations. … The US can assist
in setting up independent exit polls for elections. The most effective protests in the region have
been those led by student activist organisations such as Otpor in Serbia, Kmara in Georgia, Subr
in Belarus and Pora in the Ukraine. Their techniques are well-known and can and should be disseminated
in Russia."2 The neocon ideologist Robert Kagan (cofounder of the neocon central organ Weekly Standard
and of the Project for the New American Century) is, incidentally, employed at the Brussels office
of the Carnegie Foundation (one of the financiers of NGOs). Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland was deputy
advisor for national security in the office of Vice President Cheney from 2003 to 2005, and has been
US ambassador to the Nato since 2005. Her official biography states: "A career Foreign Service Officer,
she was Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Cheney from July 2003 until
May 2005 where she worked on the full range of global issues, including the promotion of democracy
and security in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Lebanon and the broader Middle East."3
Russian support for US interests
In November 2005, the US Congress approved four million dollar in the 2006 budget for the development
of political parties in Russia. It's hardly surprising in the light of this decision and the Aslund
report that the Russian Duma adopted a new law on improving the monitoring of NGO activities at
the end of 2005.
Aslund identified the former prime minister Michail Kasyanov as his ideal candidate for a leading
role in the movement against Putin. Kasyanov, a man with excellent contacts to Yeltsin and oligarchs
such as Beresovski and Chodorkovski's deputy Leonid Nevzlin, was prime minister from January 2000
to February 2004. In 2005 he announced that he intended to stand in the presidential elections in
2008. Kasyanov founded his own party, the Popular Democratic Union, and formed an alliance with the
United Popular Front of the former world chess champion Gary Kasparov. The Heinrich-Böll Foundation,
generally favourable to the anti-Putin opposition, wrote about Kasyanov: "In the eyes of most people,
his image continues to be closely linked with the economic crisis and corruption of the Yeltsin presidency."4
Gary Kasparov (who describes himself as a "Russian citizen and cosmopolitan") is the only personality
in the pro-west anti-Putin opposition who enjoys nationwide popularity. Most liberal politicians
did everything they could to make themselves unpopular during the Yeltsin era. In contrast, Kasparov,
born in 1963 in Baku on the Caspian Sea as Garik Weinstein, is only known as a chess genius. Kasparov,
who in 2004 predicted the inevitability of a crisis in the system in the Ukraine in 2006, has his
own political organisations with the "All Russian Civic Congress" and the "United Civic Front". The
liberal politician Irina Chakamada, presidential candidate in 2004, is also a member of the Civic
Congress. In the meantime, the leaders of the established liberal parties – the Union of Right Forces
(SPS) and the Yabloko Party (under Grigori Yavlinski) – have not shown any inclination to acknowledge
Kasparov as their new leader. Instead, Kasparov has other comrades.
Kasparov – US citizen and member of neocon think tanks
Kasparov, who holds both US and Russian nationality, urged the exclusion of Russia from the G8
summit on 16 December 2006. Similar demands had previously been raised by the neocon "Prince of Darkness"
Richard Perle and the neocons' favourite senators Jon McCain and Joseph Lieberman. On 2 December
2006, Kasparov published an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled "Chessboard Endgame. Obsessed
with Iraq, we've lost sight of the rest of the world" (the "we" means the USA).5 In it, Kasparov
urged Washington to take a harder line against Russia, and on the Iraq war said "However, if you
attack Iraq, the potential to go after Iran and Syria must also be on the table." – the same war
propaganda as can be heard from Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, William Kristol or Frank Gaffney.
Kasparov is allied with the neocons not only in ideology but also in organisational terms. He
is a member of the National Security Advisory Council (NSAC) of the militarist think tank Center
for Security Policy (CSP) led by Frank Gaffney (protégé of Richard Perle). The Council's members
include politicians, neocon intellectuals, former government officials, retired generals and admirals
(most of them no doubt linked to the military and industrial complex by consultancy contracts),
and representatives of the armaments industry. Its honorary chairmen are the Republican Senator Jon
Kyl (a friend of the Christian right) and James Woolsey (2002 to 2005 chairman of the board of the
"human rights organisation" Freedom House, Vice president of consultants Booz Allen Hamilton [one
of the largest government contractors], proponent of the "4th World War", head of the CIA from 1993
to 1995.6 As head of Freedom House, Woolsey had been one of the men behind the Orange Revolution.
Manipulators of the "revolutions" in Belgrade, Tiflis und Kiev
Shortly before the G8 summit, Kasparov and Kasyanov organised an anti-Putin conference in Moscow
under the name Drugaya Rossia (Other Russia), attended by western diplomats and representatives of
well-known western organisations (Council on Foreign Relations, National Endowment for Democracy,
Project on Transitional Democracies, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Carnegie Foundation etc.). Bruce Jackson
of the Project on Transitional Democracies (one of the most important figures in the neocon and militarist
networks and, like Kasparov, a member of the National Security Advisory Council at the CSP) organised
an address of solidarity by western personalities for the conference.7 The conference was sponsored
by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED, a "private" organisation financed from the US budget,
as independent of the US government as the Comintern was of the Soviet Union) and by the Soros Foundation.
Both bodies were supporters of the "revolutions" in Belgrade, Tiflis und Kiev. The conference was
attended by neither the leaders of Jabloko and the Union of Right Forces nor those of Syuganow's
Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Instead there came the leader of the National Bolshevist
Party of Russia (NBP), Edward Limonov (whose party flag recalls that of the Nazis, except that the
white circle in the red flag contains not a swastika but a hammer and sickle), and anti-semites such
as Victor Anpilov of the Stalinist Trudovaya Rossia or Sergei Glazev (former chairman of the Rodina
Party). This variegated crowd indicates the desperate situation of Kasparov, Kasyanov and their western
supporters. Men like Bruce Jackson, Richard Holbrooke from the Council on Foreign Relations, Carl
Gershman from the National Endowment for Democracy or Reinhard Bütikofer from the Greens, who participated
in the conference, would in better days certainly never have sat at the same table as Limonov or
Anpilov. Limonov's National Bolshevists (who use provocation to attract the necessary publicity)
were responsible for the stewards at the conference and intoned their favourite chant "Stalin-Beria-Gulag".
March of the political valuta prostitutes
A comprehensive alliance spanning from Kasparow to Limonow and Anpilow was brought about by the
Druggaja Rossija Conference, albeit without the Alliance of the right-wing forces or Jawlinskis Jabloko.
The Kasparow-Kasjanow-Limonow-Anpilow-Alliance (Wladimir Ryshkow from the small Republican Party
of Russia also joined in) organized the "March of the Discontented." With barely 2,000 participants
it was cordoned off by 8,000 members of the Security Forces. Members of the Russian Youth Movement
organized a counter protest march. They displayed a banner reading: "We greet the March of the Valuta
Prostitutes". They also used other means in their attempt to disrupt the march. National Bolsheviks,
who at the end of the rally, in violation of police regulations, tried to march through the city
center, were arrested. The rally, which was to take place from 12 noon until 2 p.m., lasted exactly
one hour, i.e. from 12.30 until 1.30.
The Western Media raised their voices against the huge police presence and the arrests made on
December 16th. We should remind ourselves that Liminow's National Bolshevik Party was often
referred to as the neo-nazi or extreme right-wing party in the German Media, and that Liminow's supporters
seeking to draw attention to themselves, indulged in militant activities and used methods
familiar to the western neo-nazi scene, as well as to the so-called autonomous group scene.
In addition, Liminow as well as Anpilow campaigned for resorting to violence to overthrow the government.
Were the autonomous block, the neo-nazis, or the Stalinists to join forces in Germany, how would
the government react? Having asked this questions, it needs to be answered.
Prevent import of rotten fruit
The campaign against Chodorkowski by the Russian government was at that time an effective blow.
Kasparow's big campaign on the other hand was a flop, and the crisis he prophesized for 2006 didn't
come about. Wladimir Putin's political agenda underlies the national interest of his country. The
majority of Russians are aware of this, and for this reason they stand behind their president.
Since Putin came to power, the Russian economy has continued to improve. Unemployment figures
are lower than in Germany.
Wages and salaries are increasing, and in contrast to the Jelzin era, they are paid out. The oil
fields as well as the gas supplies are once more under Russian ownership, and in other strategically
important branches of the national economy the state has strengthened its position. Agricultural
land is under Russian ownership and can only be leased. It cannot be purchased by companies. Russia
has modern weapons and has freed itself of foreign debt. Furthermore, it has a considerable amount
of reserve assets. The Kremlin doesn't adhere to Washington's demands in foreign affairs issues,
it pursues its own interests. Russia doesn't need "democratizing" by the US or EU-NGOs.
A "democracy" according to the aims of The National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, George
Soros, various Think Tanks, or the German political parties trust funds would give criminal oligarchs
and western banks and large corporations the freedom to plunder Russia and its people.
The Russians already experienced that type of "democracy" under Jelzin. If Washington fails to
force Russia to change its political course, Kasparow and Kasjanow, together with their western supporters,
will make further attempts to destabilize Russia's undertakings. They can rest assured their attempts
will meet the approval of the green do-gooders in Germany.
The oranges in the Ukraine have proved to be foul fruit and it would be wise for Russia's political
leaders in charge of national security issues if they could prevent the import of this type of foul
fruit.
The United States gives high priority to helping democracy and human rights advocates in Europe
and Eurasia succeed and consolidate their successes. The United States continued to engage governments
of the region toward this end, often with other democratic allies and in multilateral forums, and
employed a variety of tools to deliver tangible support to democracy and human rights efforts in
2006. These tools included training for officials, media, democratic parties, and NGO advocates;
monitoring of elections and criminal justice proceedings; capacity building of civil society groups
and government structures; and technical and legal assistance, grants, and exchanges. […] , elections
were an intensive focus of U.S. support during the past year. The United States promoted democratic
political processes and the administration of fairly-contested elections by, for example, supporting
political party development in Belarus, empowering voters' groups – including women activists and
youth – in Serbia, and assisting international election monitoring efforts in Ukraine. In preparation
for Armenia's elections in 2007 and 2008, the U.S. supported efforts to improve election systems,
update voter lists, educate the public on voting and democratic principles, and strengthen political
parties. The United States is providing similar support, through political party training, training
for mass media representatives on covering political issues, and voter education initiatives, in
support of free and fair elections in Russia for the Duma in December 2007 and for president in March
2008.[…] The United States also provided technical assistance and grant support to Russian civil
society groups, NGO resource centers, think tanks, labor unions, and watchdog organizations to sustain
their active participation in society.
Source: Extract from Europe and Eurasia in Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record
2006, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor of the U.S. Department of State,
April 5, 2007
NGOs as a Device for Foreign States
Wladimir Putin: In Russia, the non-governmental organizations are in operation. Indeed we
have introduced a new governmental system for them. There is little difference between our system
and that in place in other countries. For the time being we have had no comment from the non-governmental
organizations themselves. We actually didn't refuse anyone permission to register. There were two
or three cases with formal issues, and these non-governmental organizations are working on correcting
their byelaws etc. When it came down to it, nobody was rejected. Everyone is contributing and will
also continue to do so.
What are our major concerns? I can tell you and I believe it's easy to comprehend. If these non-governmental
organizations are basically financed by foreign governments, we view this as a device for foreign
powers to impose their political agenda on our country. That's the first thing. Secondly, there are
rules and regulations in every country for the financing of an election campaign. Via the non-governmental
organizations, the financing comes from government sources in foreign countries.
How does this work? Is this a normal democracy in any way?
It's a latent type of financing, concealed from society.
What is democratic about it? Can you answer that question? No. You can't. And you will never find
an answer. Because this isn't democracy, but the influencing of one state by another.
We are interested for the people of Russia to take care of their own interests, and for them to
criticize the authorities and to help find their mistakes, and to rectify political policies according
to the interest of the people. That is, without doubt, our goal.
And we will support the Russian people and the non-governmental organizations.
Source: The Discussion following Putin's speech at the Security Conference in Munich on the 10th
February 2007.
Translated by Novosti, published 14 February, 2007
The US-American Revolution-Limited Liability Company
Almost unanimously, the world paid homage to the rebellion of a young East European nation that
not only wanted to free itself of the shackles of its own tyrants and exploiters, but above all,
it also wanted to break free from the Putin lobby interfering in its affairs.
It's nothing short of a miracle that night after night this huge gathering remained steadfast
and strong in their attempt to bring their noble ideals to the forefront, despite having to contend
with inadequate food supplies and bitterly cold temperatures.
Surprisingly, Western TV cameras avoided filming the 1500 heated tents, where warm meals were
distributed free of charge. Reporters were reluctant to mention the dubious, if not shady activities
involved, including bribery, in the time and effort required to raise money.
Money which in turn was used to strengthen the backbone of the organized
frenzy.
Deprived of this type of background information, it was many months before newspaper readers,
not to mention TV viewers, were informed by way of detailed and exemplary reports in renowned newspapers
about the schemes of the American donation organizations – institutes, foundations and government
bodies who made no attempt to conceal their subversive meddling.
At this point in time, information was also brought to light on what
Spiegel magazine termed Revolutions Ltd., an international squad deployed by the US Secret Service
to dispose of "uncooperative" regimes.
Source: Peter Scholl-Latour, Russland im Zangengriff, Putins Imperium zwischen Nato, China und
Islam, p.386
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
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