Canada: Selling Its Soul To America

Canada is more colony than sovereign state. Canadians perhaps wonder when it’ll grow up, act like an adult, and regain its rightful independence.

Occupy The War Contractors /Profiteers

As America begins to awaken and take to the streets, let us remember the happily profitable WAR contractors/Profiteers who are scattered across the country. Over decades past, and still, they have received billions for designing, building, and transporting the weapons of war which have destroyed other nations and are now being deployed here at home against us.

They are directly responsible for sound cannons, droids, and other weapons now aimed at ordinary Americans as well as people around the world. War is being made on us and those providing the weapons are right next door, in many cases.  We need to acknowledge this and act.

Some of these weapons, for instance the Sound Cannon, also known as the Long Range Acoustic Device, are already being used against us as we protest. LRAD Corporation and is only one example.

From the wikipedia:

“ Against protesters:

The LRAD device was on hand at protests of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City[6] but not used; it was extensively used against opposition protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia, in November 2007.[7]

The magazine Foreign Policy has revealed that LRADs have been sold to the government of the People’s Republic of China. American companies have been banned from selling arms to China since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Local residents of Dusit in Bangkok witnessed it in use during protests of Triumphfactory employees against dismissals on August 28, 2009.[8] The LRAD was used for the first time in the United States in Pittsburgh during the time of the G20 summit on September 24–25th, 2009.[9][10] Pittsburgh police again utilized LRAD as a precautionary measure to prevent unruly crowds from getting out of control following the 2011 Super Bowl. LRAD systems were also purchased by Toronto Police for the 2010 G20 summit.

In 2009, the government of Honduras used it on at least two occasions, on September 22 and 25, to communicate to those seeking refuge in the Brazilianembassy. In addition to embassy staff, these included the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, his family, and some supporters and journalists.

LRAD was also used against college students in the city of Macomb, Illinois at the Wheeler Block Party at Western Illinois University (“WIU”)[11] on May 1, 2011.[1]

LRAD was also reportedly[12] used by the Oakland Police Department during the clearance of the Occupy Oakland encampment on the morning of 25 October 2011.

Polish Police also acquired LRAD on december 2010 and used them to communicate with protesters during 11 November 2011 riots in Warsaw city. [13]

LRAD use was also reported as the New York City Police department cleared protestors during the Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park on the morning of 15 November 2011.”

LRAD Corporation is located at 15378 Avenue of Science, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92128 USA
Phone:             858.676.1112.

The company which produces tasers, Taser International, their subtext is “Protect Life,” has its international headquarters at 17800 N. 85th St. Scottsdale, AZ. Another office is located in Arlington, Virgina, and yet another, TASER Virtual Systems at 5464 Carpinteria Ave, Suite I, Santa Barbara, CA 93013.

On August 28^th Anonymous released the following information on the producer of drones, which many expect will soon be deployed against Americans within the United States, are all paid for by tax payers.

“August 28, 2011, Alastair Stevenson reports in the International Business Times: The hacker collective Anonymous has released a fresh batch of data taken from Vanguard Defense Industries, a Pentagon and FBI contractor.

The data release was revealed via a post on tor2web.org and later publicised (sic) on the group’s AnonymousIRC Twitter account. In it the group claimed to have released “1GB of private emails and documents belonging to Vanguard Defense Industries (VDI).”

But these are the obvious problems, the end products also imply subcontracters who provide software and other essentials without which the products could not be produced.

There are also the old line, military-industrial complex corporations which are very conscious they are a corporate military presence on alien territory, for instanceNorthrop Grumman. A friend of mine, a mind-mannered software engineer, and his partner, inadvertently drove into the company parking lot during broad daylight in Maryland to be met by ‘security’ wearing flack jackets and carrying AK47s.

Some defense contractors are open to their relationship with us. Others are covert.

Santa Barbara, that lovely resort where so many 1%ers live on the Pacific coast above Los Angeles, is also the headquarters for Green Hills Software, yet another defense contractor located at 28 Sola St., Santa Barbara, CA 93103. Notice the significant partners on their “defense customers” page for this company who are more easily recognizable.

Complex weapons systems, high level encryption, and other expensive toys used in war, are produced behind the seemingly safe and friendly doors of businesses which donate to local charities as they cash their government checks and pump out their products of death. We need to rethink our attitude here.

War is the health of the corporate state. General Smedley Butler said this of corporate war profits in his book, “War is a Racket,” written in 1937. “The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits — ah! that is another matter — twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent — the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let’s get it.

Of course, it isn’t put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and “we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,” but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket — and are safely pocketed. Let’s just take a few examples:

Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people — didn’t one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn’t much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let’s look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump — or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!”

The Occupy Movement is about confrontation. Since its inception more protests have begun and are broadening out in scope.

Protests are traditional tools for awakening the public and growing a movement but awakening is only the first step.

It is time to move directly to accountability. No person of conscience should have participated in making these weapons, no matter how profitable or what justifications were offered by those ‘in authority.’

We are facing a reality which includes a corrupt system of justice and elected officials who demand they not be held accountable for their actions. This cannot be tolerated.

We can no longer accept a moral justification based on lies sold to us by government and corporations. Instead, we should non-violently demand accountability and simultaneously work taking each of these areas into account with parallel efforts.

War Contractors/Profiteers

• How much was paid to each specific corporation, owner, and specific employee for these weapons or components which were used to produce weapons or controls on Americans and others around the world?
• What damage has been done to each of us, to others around the world, to our environment?
• What is owed to us, as individuals, for these damages? Certainly enough to reboot the system as we continue the fight to return governance to the most local level.

Asking the questions begins the process which ends in collecting and ending the use of a bogus ‘sovereign immunity’ to hold onto ill-gotten gains. If we stay in the Corporate-Government (Greedville) paradigm we cannot win.

Keeping us divided, Right and Left, was a strategy built into their game plan.

War contractors build a cultural shield around themselves.  This shield is extended to their employees.

Keeping us apart has involved the use of oppositional cultural icons and ideas. As humans, we build our own worlds of these, ignoring the contractions as long as possible.

War is made only for the profit of corporations and to enlarge the power of Greedville. The people pay and bleed, Greedville profits.

This accounts for the shrill calls for a free market from people who should know a free market cannot exist if government is involved. This reinforces the R – L division.

What is a Free Market?

For more on this look at the use of Milton Friedman as a ‘free market economist.’ Those who knew him personally knew he was Chicago School and therefore entirely amenable to the use of government at the federal level.

This largely minimized the voice of Murray Rothbard, whose ideas define the free market far more exactly.

Markets are part of how we cooperate with each other. They cannot work unless our individual rights are affirmed and our system for justice is available to all, no matter what their income or condition.

War Contractors / Profiteers have built themselves into a privileged class, apart from the rest of us. This makes it very much in their interest to ignore the reality now about to hit all of us. Their lives have not changed. Ours have.

ACTION:

If these involved as war contractors are ignorant of the connection between their livelihoods and encroaching death and fascism we need to inform them directly.

To accomplish this we must have the facts in advance.

This requires research on each ‘contractor.’

Each ‘contractor, also needs to become visible to us and to the general population.

A site using google earth or other similar program can accomplish this. We can, in effect, ‘tour’ the contractors, heightening awareness nationally and within our communities.

This should impact those employed at each facility, as well as their owners, stock holders, boards of directors, and business partners.

The personal lives of those involved can be penetrated. We can confront them and this, we must do.

Research each contractor, each part and component of what they spend.

Confront, owners, employees, their subcontractors and suppliers, and so awaken a broad range of Americans to what is happening to all of us.

Always destroy the will of the enemy to resist before engagement begins.

[Originally written early last year, this grows truer every day. We need to start to anticipate what is coming far more effectively.]

Two People, One Hummus

A talk given in Toronto at The Islamic Society of York, Canada 24.2.12

I was asked to talk to you today about the on-going dispute within our ranks between those who support the One State Solution for the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and those who advocate Two States for the two people.

Interestingly enough, this is a topic I hardly comment on, and not because I am short of vision, opinion or ideas, but rather because I do believe that the fate of the people in Palestine and Israel should be decided by the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. I, for instance, fail to see what qualifies a NYC Jewish academic or activist to determine how people should live in Palestine or anywhere else. Furthermore, I have never seen a Palestinian trying to advise Western solidarity activists how to run their life. I argue then, that our ‘interventionist’ enthusiasm to preach to others on how they should live is actually slightly pretentious.

But the subject is obviously deeper: in spite of the fact Israel is an organic sovereign State — it is already recognised as a one State by the nations, it has a single sewage system, one electric grid, one pre-dial international code – many Western world leaders insist that it should actually be divided into two. But don’t you think that it is pretty unusual for the ‘international community’ to blindly follow the Zionist ideology and draw a racially inspired line between the two people on the land?

So, rather than entering an endless and futile debate here, I propose that we should begin from a point at which we all agree: I presume that we all accept that Israel is currently a one State, yet it is dominated politically and spiritually by an ethnocentric discriminatory political system.

Israel defines itself as the Jewish State and the practical meaning of it is pretty devastating. It is racially driven. Israeli laws favour the Jewish population over the indigenous people of the land. Israel is impervious to universal and ethical thoughts. It is basically set to serve one tribe at the expense of the people of the land.

I would insist that in order to tackle any subject to do with Israel/Palestine conflict resolution we must first understand; what is Israel is all about? Surely, we must ask what the Jewish nature of Israel entails. We should, once and for all, grasp the relationship between Zionism and Jewishness.

Zionism presented itself initially as a Utopian promise to bring to life a new ‘authentic ethical and civilised Jew’; it promised to make Jews into ‘people like all other people’. But the Israeli reality has proved to be the complete opposite of that aspiration. Zionism has totally failed. The Israelis have been proven to be the most unethical collective in the history of the Jews. One may wonder, why, where and when did it all go so wrong? Why did Zionism fail? If Zionism was a unique moment of Jewish reawakening and self-reflection, then why didn’t it provide on its promises? I believe that the answer is devastating. Zionism was doomed from its very beginning, for in spite of its pseudo-secularist agenda, it was entangled with a quasi-religious ideology, and inevitably, it transformed the Bible into a land registry, and turned God into an estate agent. It was the Jewishness of the Jewish State then, that prevailed over the early Zionist utopia. It is the Jewishness in Israel that has lead to ethnic cleansing, segregation, isolation, and ultimately , the resurrection of the European ghetto walls.

In order to contemplate a prospect of a peaceful future then, we must be able to understand the complicated relationship between Jews, Zionism, Israel and Jewishness, and we have to ask whether there is any lucid vision of peace within the Jewish ideological and cultural discourse.

But are we even allowed to ask these questions? I say certainly yes, we must – after all, Israel openly, consciously  and even proudly defines itself as the Jewish State. Its air-planes drop bombs on densely populated Palestinian neighbourhoods whilst decorated with Jewish symbols. Surely then, we are entitled to ask what Jewishness means and what is its role within the Jewish psyche and spirit.

In my book The Wandering Who I have attempted to untangle this knot. I  have tried to understand what is Jewish identity politics all about? I have exposed the continuum between Zionism, Jewish anti-Zionism and some elements within the left. In the book I try to find out, what is the meaning of Jewishness and how is it related to Jewish politics and Jewish political power?

In the last few pages of the book I elaborate on a fictitious peace scenario in which an imaginary Israeli Prime Minister who grasps, pretty much out of the blue, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved with just a single statement.

In a press conference, the imaginary Israel PM announces to the world and his/her people:

‘Israel realises its unique circumstances and its responsibility for world peace. Israel calls the Palestinian people to return to their homes. The Jewish state is to become a state of its citizens, where all people enjoy full equal rights’.

Though shocked by the sudden Israeli move, political analysts around the world would be quick to realise that, considering Israel is the representative of world Jewry, such a simple Israeli peaceful initiative won’t just resolve the conflict in the Middle East, it would also bring to an end to two millennia of mutual suspicion and resentfulness between Christians and Jews. Some right-wing Israeli academics, ideologists and politicians join the revolutionary initiative and declare that such a heroic unilateral Israeli act could be the one and only total and comprehensive fulfilment of the Zionist dream, for not only have Jews returned to their alleged historical home, they also have managed, at last, to love their neighbours and be loved in return.

But don’t hold your breath – as much as such an idea is thrilling, we shouldn’t expect it to happen any time soon, for Israel is not an ordinary state and such a scenario doesn’t fit into its Jewish ethno-centric ideology that is driven by exclusiveness, exceptionalism, racial supremacy and a deep inherent inclination toward segregation.

The meaning of it is very concerning. For Israel and Israelis to fulfil the initial Zionist promise and become ‘people like other people’, all traces of ideological superiority must be suppressed first. For the Jewish state to lead a peace initiative, Israel must be de-Zionised – it should first stop being the Jewish State. Similarly, in order for an imaginary Israeli PM to bring peace about, he or she must be de-Zionised first.

As things stand, the Jewish State is categorically unable to lead its people into reconciliation. It lacks the necessary ingredients needed to think in terms of harmony and reconciliation — at present, Israel can only think in terms of Shalom , a term which, in reality, only means ‘peace and security for the Jews’.

But what about world Jewry; can they push their Israeli brothers towards a reconciliation? I don’t actually think  that they can. I recently came across some devastating statistics gathered by theInstitute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR). The poll studied ‘The attitudes of Jews in Britain towards Israel’. It revealed that “the vast majority of (British Jewish) respondents exhibit strong personal support for, and affinity with, Israel: 95% have visited the country; 90% see it as the “ancestral homeland” of the Jewish people, and 86% feel that Jews have a special responsibility for its survival.”

Though some Jewish ‘progressive’ voices insist to tell us that Diaspora Jews are drifting away from Israel and Zionism, the JPR report reveals the complete opposite – Nine out of ten British Jews feel close affinity towards a war criminal, ethnic cleanser, racist discriminatory state.

But what about the one out of ten Jew who openly opposes Israel? Is he or she going to speak out and help us to get the message of peace across? I am not so sure either. It is more likely that he or she are going to do any thing they can to prevent us from from talking about Jewishness and the fact that 90% of their brothers identify with the Jewish state. Ahead of my Toronto appearance, the organisers of tonight’s event were subject to endless harassment by various Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist organisations and individuals.   Like their Zionist brothers most Jewish anti Zionist are largely concerned with Jewish tribal matters– they will fight anti Semitism, ‘Holocaust denial’ or any attempt to understand Jewishness from a universal perspective. Yet, as the JPR poll reveals, they will achieve very little within their respective communities.

But the situation may not be totally grim. I am actually slightly optimistic. For more than a while I am convinced that the only people who can bring peace about are actually the Palestinians, because Palestine, against all odds and in spite of the endless suffering, humiliation and oppression, is still an ethically-driven ecumenical society.

So what do we do for the time being – should we fight for one state or two states? I guess that you gather by now that I am a strong supporter of a one State. I would love to see Israel being transformed into a state of its citizens. I would also openly admit that I do realise that this State won’t be a Jewish State. It will be Palestine. It is about time to say it openly–Israel belongs to the past. And yet, I contend that it is the facts on the ground that would determine the future of the region. And what we see on the ground maybe encouraging.

In spite of the, pain, animosity and distrust between the two people, there is one principle both Israelis and Palestinian would agree upon, namely “Two People, One Hummus”. It may sound frivolous, banal or trivial to say that, but it is actually far more profound than just a culinary suggestion. Israelis are gradually becoming the minority on the land. As I once heard Palestinian Ambassador to Britain Manuel Hassassian commenting, ‘Israel has many lethal bombs, the Palestinians have only one bomb, the demographic one’.

Interestingly enough, when Israelis want to feel authentic, they do not speak in Yiddish or Aramaic, they actually swear in Arabic and eat hummus. The meaning of it is simple, deep in their hearts the Israelis know that Palestine is the land and Israel is just a state. When Israelis want to bond with the Zion they actually plagiarise the indigenous people of the land, for deep inside the Israeli knows that the sky, the sea, Al Quds, Mount Olive, the Sea of Galilee, the Wailing Wall, the Arabic language and the Hummus belong to the land. They also grasp that  oppression,  exceptionalism,  supremacy belong to the State — their own Jewish State.

‘Two People one Hummus’ is my image of peace and reconciliation. The Land will Stay forever – the failing Jewish State is already subject to historical research. The two people will dine together — and they won’t just share the hummus: they may even share the pita bread between them.

Interview with Mark Kingwell

Prof. Mark Kingwell is a world renowned Canadian author and philosopher. He is the associate chair at University of Toronto’s Department of Philosophy. Kingwell is a fellow of Trinity College. He specializes in theories of politics and culture. Kingwell has published twelve books, most notably, A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism, which was awarded the Spitz Prize for political theory in 1997. Spitz Prize is annually awarded by a panel based in the Department of Political Science of Columbia University to the author of the best book in liberal and/or democratic theory.

Kingwell is the contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine. His articles on philosophy, culture, journalism, art and architecture have appeared on the New York Times, Utne Reader, Adbusters, Harvard Design Magazine, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail and the National Post.

His main areas of interest are political philosophy, cultural criticism, philosophy of art and continental philosophy.

Mark has been the editor of “The Varsity,” the second oldest student newspaper of Canada from 1983 to 1984 and the “University of Toronto Review” from 1984 to 1985.

Prof. Kingwell’s works have been translated into ten languages and among his notable books are ” Dreams of Millennium: Report from a Culture on the Brink,” “Practical Judgments: Essays in Culture, Politics, and Interpretation” and “Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and American Dreams.”

Prof. Kingwell kindly joined me in an exclusive interview and answered my questions about philosophy, popular culture, the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street Movement and ethics in journalism.

Kourosh Ziabari: Philosophy, journalism and architecture. How do you make a connection between these three? As to what I have noted, you were enthusiastically interested in journalism since you were very young. Please tell us about your journalistic experiences in the days of youth. Certainly, it’s a fantastic opportunity to work with Globe and Mail. Am I right?

Mark Kingwell: I don’t consider myself a journalist, just someone who writes for newspapers and magazines as well as academic journals and literary quarterlies. It’s true that I edited my university’s student newspaper, and worked as a city desk reporter and editorial writer at a big national paper, The Globe and Mail. This was invaluable experience in how to write concisely and accessibly, and also a fast-track education in how cities work. I hung out at city hall and the harbour commissioner’s office. I saw dead bodies, fires, and corrupt landlords. I interviewed the survivors of plane crashes. I called the police desk sergeant every night to get crime updates. It was exciting, and very illuminating. But to be honest I liked the romance of it more than the reality, and enjoyed writing more than reporting.

I once had to choose between a fairly secure career in journalism and the uncertainty of a doctoral program. I chose the latter because I knew I could always write magazine or newspaper articles as a philosopher, but I could not philosophize — not, at least, with any rigor — as a journalist. I’ve never regretted the choice.

Philosophy and architecture is a more recent conjunction of interests, growing out of my work in political theory. Too many political philosophers write as if the subjects of their theories were not real people at all, living and working and raising families in actual places, but abstract bundles of interest, or of decision. At the same time, too many architects use philosophy as casual window-dressing for their work, without actually struggling with the details of the views in question. I have written two books so far that try to address these related gaps: one about a single building, the Empire State in New York (Nearest Thing to Heaven, 2006) and one that is a sort of phenomenological meditation on the built environment and its social dimensions (Concrete Reveries, 2008). I have also edited a collection of essays (Rites of Way, 2009, with Patrick Turmel) which address the issue of public space—a key point of contact between political philosophy and architecture.

KZ: I know that you’ve focused on the questions of social obligation and the role of citizenship in sustaining a just and democratic society. In the developing societies, like Iran, the citizenship rights are not observed to the full and people have a long way to understand the principles of decent citizenship, neighborhood and social interaction. Can we conclude that one of the reasons why democracy is not institutionalized in such countries is this lack of citizenship culture?

MK: I think we can. At least since Aristotle it has been argued that political institutions will function to foster justice if and only if there is some substantial bonds of ethical life between persons—what Hegel called Sittlichkeit. The focus on the virtues of citizenship in my book The World We Want (2000) was an attempt to join Aristotelian insights about virtue, character, friendship, and justice—the main topics of the Nicomachean Ethics—with a liberal-democratic idea that there could be a distinction between my obligations as a good citizen and my non-conflicting but separate obligations as a good person.

This attempt was perhaps only partially successful, but what remains clear to me is that citizenship is an essential category of political theory. Even the most elaborate theory of social justice or democratic procedure will need to address issues of motivation, fellow feeling, and shared vulnerability. There are numerous ways to do this—Adam Smith’s sympathy, Herder’s einfuhlen, Derrida’s hospitality—but they all make a similar point. Unless and until I see the other as someone to whom I am obliged in some profound way, there can be no political justice.

One form of trouble for this prospect lies in cultural differences concerning fellowship, neighborliness, civility, and the like. I have tried to write about these, especially civility, many times; but it can be very hard to deploy persuasive arguments when the issue comes down to differences in perception. Something I find offensive may not even raise your eyebrows. As philosophers, where do we go from there? Indeed, as members of political bodies—nation-states, regions—how can we forge minimal bonds of connection across such differences?

I am lately exercised by a sense of vulnerability, the shared capacity for suffering, as a start. But that, too, is always open to question. Maybe the pain you feel at the pain of another is just a socio-biological trick that your neurons play on you! Well, maybe. But even so, it creates opportunities to cooperate and coordinate our actions, such that even a confirmed Hobbesian can see the point.

KZ: You have surely taken note of the popular uprisings in the Middle East, instigated by the self-immolation of a young Tunisian vendor before the municipality office. What are the peoples of the region looking for? Are they after improved living conditions, social freedoms and civil liberties? If they’re fed up with their authoritarian regimes, why hadn’t they taken any step to bring down the autocratic despots in the past years?

MK: It’s not for me to say what people in theMiddle Eastwant, except that I see, as everyone must, that there is growing dissatisfaction with the very idea of authority, especially if it is suspected to be aligned with decadence, hereditary privilege, or corruption. People will put up with a lot of hardship, and go about their business even in poverty, if they feel that things cannot be better. But if the hardships are perceived as unnecessary, or wedded to the privileges of others, they will resist. This was as true in 1776 and 1789 as it is now.

As for why it has taken this long, I would only suggest that we recall just how capacious is the human spirit. Most people just want to get on with their lives, to make do. It’s only an assault on their basic dignity, as in the case of Mohamed Abouazizi that you mention, which can make someone adopt extreme measures of resistance. This shows something essential about us: we mostly desire to be left in peace, but no peace is worth the cost of feeling debased, or degraded, or subject to contempt.

KZ: What are the features of an inclusive, effective and comprehensive democracy? Is democracy confined to holding elections and giving people the chance to elect president or parliament members?

MK: ‘Democracy’ is the opaque signifier of our political moment: it means everything and nothing at once. I’m rather with Derrida on this: democracy is always to come, not yet here. One could articulate the basic features of a democratic system—free elections, independent media, strong participatory citizenship, and so on— and still fall short of democracy. Some people, for instance Carl Schmitt, even think that democracy is only present when a being is united against a common enemy in a struggle for survival, and hence democracy is incompatible with liberalism.

Obviously I think is not only extreme, but mistaken. Let us suffice with two very basic points. In emerging democracies, such as those that might be burgeoning in your region, the most important thing is the public enactment of franchise, that is, free and fair elections. In developed democracies, however, the most important thing is to try and minimize the corruption that attends our allegedly free elections, the way they are held hostage by large donors and other corporate interests. There is a cautionary tale in this contrast: one can have apparently open elections, with universal franchise, and still not have democracy.

KZ: What’s your analysis of the Occupy Wall Street movement? Do you think that it was inspired by the Arab Spring? Why the American protesters call themselves the 99% of the population and question the authority and supremacy of the 1%? Is there anything wrong with capitalism and corporatism that has exhausted the people? What’s your view about the police crackdown on the protesters?

MK: I’m certain there was some inspiration taken from the Arab Spring, yes. The very topic of OWS’s connection to the Arab Spring became a contentious issue here, however. Critics of OWS—who grew more repressive and condescending by the day, until the parks were forcibly cleared—were vehement that no comparison with Arab Spring was valid, or even allowed. It was if popular uprising were democratic, and wonderful, but only if they happened somewhere else. One particularly loathsome journalist labeled the OWS protesters as ‘capitalism’s spoiled children’, as if they had no right to object to a system than does not work, that is grossly unjust, and that is sustained by only a sham politics of puppet candidates permanently indebted to the monied interest. Shut up, and get back to shopping for gadgets! It was a disgusting spectacle of provincial, toy-time fascism.

I was especially upset about the police crackdown because of the cavalier way in which ‘health and safety concerns’ became a blanket justification for police action. The books in the OWS library—including a small volume I co-write, The Wage Slave’s Glossary (2011, with Joshua Glenn)—were tossed in garbage containers. In a strange way, this blithe trashing of books was worse than setting fire to them. For this neo-liberal police state, books are not even dangerous or important enough to burn. A depressing thought.

It remains to be seen what political upshot there is from OWS. My own feeling is that the objections to corporate capitalism will not be as easy to eradicate as were a few tents and bodies. They used to say to us left-wingers, when we were young, that socialism is a nice idea, only it doesn’t work. Here’s an update: capitalism doesn’t work either, and it’s not even a nice idea.

KZ: Would you please give us a gist of some of your important tips for better living which you proposed in your book “Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness From Plato to Prozac”? Why are some people so unfriendly with the self-help books? Is it really possible to realize a better living by practicing what the self-help books prescribe? Some people argue that the lifestyle is something inherent and inborn and cannot be changed by practice and exercise, because it’s related to one’s mindset and ideology. Do you agree?

MK One of my favorite reviews of Better Living called it “the self-help books for people who hate self-help books.” In one broad sense, all books of philosophy, at least in the so-called wisdom tradition, are self-help books: they offer a kind of therapy, in book form, whose basic message is that same as that found in Rilke’s musing on the Archaic Torso of Apollo: You must change your life! But the therapy is intellectual and ethical, often ironic and prickly, and not delivered in twelve easy or even twelve hard steps. So I wanted to criticize the recent fad of lifestyle guidance by, once again, revisiting some basically Aristotelian insights in a modern form. That’s why I used personal narrative, some cultural criticism, and different forms of ironic discourse in the book.

I can’t distill the book into tips, but the most obvious take-away is the old insight that a happiness worth having is not a matter of feeling good all the time, or achieving constant joy or bliss, but of cultivating personal virtue, contributing to causes and structures larger than yourself, and exploring human possibility. In a way, Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics makes the best version of the argument: contemplation is the most divine experience we know. The point of our striving, indeed of all our institutions, is finally to give us the space to enjoy the most amazing thing about us, namely that we can play, create art, have philosophical conversations, and enjoy each other’s presence.

I have little patience with the idea that lifestyle is inherent, by the way. Most people simply take cues from the cultural surround, follow the herd, and try not to think too much—and then call this a lifestyle. It’s always been the job of philosophers to knock them off-course a little, to shake things up. Self-help, maybe, but of a peculiarly challenging sort.

KZ: What’s your definition of media ethics? How should the mass media cling to the codes of morality in disseminating the news and publishing the reports? Are the media permitted to publish whatever they want, without having any restriction? From one hand, one may argue that restricting the media and defining limits for their performance is contrary to the freedom of speech which is a prominent value of the democratic societies; however, we should also take note of respecting the privacy of people, avoid directing ad hominem attacks against them and distinguishing between criticism and personality attack. What’s your take on that?

MK: I’m one of those paranoid people who think there is already too much information, too much surveillance, and too much revelation of the personal in our world. I find most social media distasteful because it is predicated on a narcissistic trumpeting of the usually banal individual, but I fall on the individual’s side when it comes to the media. Short of some pressing political interest, there is no possible justification for an invasion of privacy, and even there the burden of proof must be overwhelming since it is so easily corrupted. The Murdoch papers phone-tapping scandal was an appalling spectacle of media self-righteousness allowed to grow to a pathological level. I can’t help thinking sometimes that the arrogance of newspaper and media people is in direct proportion to their slipping sense of actual influence. They’re not nearly as important as they think they are.

At the same time, no political system can function without a free press. What this means in practice, then, is that the media are not unlike other bodies of professional workers. They need to police themselves first, maintaining the strictest standards of fairness and respect; and then there must be recourse in the public forum for those whose privacy has been violated. This gets especially tricky underU.S.law where corporations are legally like persons, and have similar protections and abilities. In an ideal world, those decisions would be repealed. Not only would it improve democratic oversight of corporate actions, now sometimes impossible to investigate; it would also limit the amount of corporate money spent, and hence influence bought, in the centers of political power.

KZ: What’s your prediction for the future of television in the wake of the growing influence of web-based media and social networking websites? In your book the “Practical Judgments,” you accurately pointed out that television is still the dominant medium of information and entertainment of the age. Don’t you believe that with the growing penetration of internet in the families, television will be debased and lose its position? I think that internet, with its multimedia attractiveness and dynamic atmosphere will even eliminate the traditional newspapers and magazines. Don’t you think so?

MK: The essays in Practical Judgments (2002) were gathered from work I published in the previous decade or so, and the claims about television must now be revised somewhat. In some important sense, television is over. People may still use the sets to watch programs, but the programs have been downloaded, or selected via pay-per-view, or recorded on Blu-Ray or DVD. Even cable television involves self-selection to the point where is no longer any such thing as a television audience. This is great in some ways, since we have more entertainment options; but it comes with the usual price imposed by the tyranny of choice, namely that feeling of ennui or boredom when there are so many options that, somehow, none of them seem worth committing to.

Beneath this, television of a certain sort (The Wire, Game of Thrones, Mad Men) now begins to function more like visual literature. You find yourself discussing it with someone who is also a devotee, the way you might discover another Pynchon or Updike enthusiast at a party or dinner. It helps that some of these programs are as narratively complex and emotionally satisfying as any first-rate novel.

Television news, meanwhile, is floundering in the contradictions of a medium whose primary purpose—entertainment—has always afflicted its attempts at seriousness. Political news shows, at least inNorth America, are a running joked of extreme positions, brain-dead rhetoric, and baggy oratory. The only good news here is that most people no longer look to television to gather their political views, or track current events. The bad news is that the places where they do so, because self-selected, may be even more polarized and worse!

KZ: What’s your idea about using media for the purpose of black propaganda? Is it moral to demonize those who we consider enemies, especially at the level of governments, by publishing misinformation about them and blackening their public image? Do you consider state-sanctioned propaganda an intrinsic and natural function of the mass media?

MK: One word answer here: never. Propaganda is worse than falsehood; it is, as in the analysis of philosopher Harry Frankfurt, bullshit. That is, it does not even heed the norm of truth enough to violate it. Therefore, propaganda is even more dangerous than lies, which at least are violations whose existence confirms the idea of truth. (You can compare my earlier remark about why throwing books in dumpsters is actually worse than burning them.)

KZ: In your book “Concrete reveries: consciousness and the city,” you analyzed the relationship between urbanism and personal identity. Do you believe that urban construction gives people certain identities and bestows upon them special characteristics? Then, is there any difference between the personal characteristics, demeanors and deportments of people in a city like New York in which the most prominent incarnations of modern architecture can be found, and a city like Tehran (the capital of Iran) which is actually an emerging city and is gradually embracing the new modes and styles of urban construction?

MK: Yes, the material environmental absolutely conditions the consciousness of a person. It can be as obvious as how one walks—how fast, with what demeanour, dodging or bumping into people, looking at a phone or not, and so on. But even less obvious things are quite central to how we experience ourselves. So large cities have many similarities but it is easy, when one travels, to see subtle differences in self-presentation: clothes, gestures, the way space is occupied. These in turn are symptoms of the experience of consciousness we call selfhood. The aim of Concrete Reveries, as I mentioned earlier, was to bring political philosophy and architecture closer together, somewhat in the manner of Hannah Arendt. But it turned out that the common term between them was really phenomenology, especially in our aspects of embodied consciousness. They we inhabit rooms, cross thresholds, mount staircases—these are all forms of thought as well of physical deportment.

In the book I try to get at these somewhat abstract insights by contrasting the feeling evoked by two very different large cities,New YorkandShanghai. The provided, as it were, phenomenological case studies for my larger argument. They also allowed me to re-introduce some of the first-person and second-person styles I had used in other writing. I wanted to produce a book with something of the feeling (if not the grace!) of Bachelard’s Poetics of Space. I was really happy that the publisher allowed me to include dozens of images that leaven the text, and make the book itself a kind of phenomenological flanerie, an intellectual stroll through the complex of ideas concerning what cities are, and how they work. In a very roundabout way, this actually ties me back to those days spent as a city-desk reporters, encountering the city’s corners, margins, and undersides day after day. . .

KZ: As my final question, I want to ask you about the course of globalization and the future of local, traditional cultures. Will the process of globalization abolish local cultures, vernacular languages and ancient customs and rituals of different peoples around the world? Do you see any chances for their survival in the wake of the domination of Western culture over the developing world?

MK: I suspect we have already witnessed the worst of the globalization cultural bulldozer. What is happening everywhere is the hybridization of culture, such that local traditions, practices, and vernaculars are folding in elements of global culture—not really a culture at all, just an economic expansion program—and creating unique human customs that will continue to evolve. This is precisely what humans have always done with culture, especially in times and places with lots of mobility. My main wish for these ‘bottom-up’ hybrids is that they include elements of the best in Western culture, especially the discourses of philosophical justification for human rights and social justice. The West has exported lots of awful things, but there are some good things too!

The Coming Global Financial Collapse That Will Make Your Hair Stand Up

Is the world on the verge of another massive global financial collapse?  Yes.  The western world is drowning in an ocean of debt unlike anything the world has ever seen before, and our financial markets are gigantic casinos that are dependent on huge mountains of risk and leverage remaining very stable.  In the end, this house of cards that has been built on a foundation of sand is going to come crashing down in a horrifying manner.  Usually in this column I go on and on about why things will soon get much worse.  But today I am going to take a bit of a break.  Today, I am going to let some of the top financial professionals in the world tell you why things will soon get much worse.  Many of the quotes that you are about to read just might make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.  Most people out there have no idea what is about to happen.  Most people out there are working hard and are busy preparing for the holidays and they are hopeful that the economy will turn around soon.  But that is not going to happen.  We are heading for another major global financial collapse, and when it happens the U.S. economy is going to get even worse.

The epicenter for the coming global financial collapse is almost certainly going to be in Europe.  As you will see below, financial professionals all over the world are sounding the alarm about Europe.  It is a disaster that everyone can see coming but that nobody seems to be able to prevent.

Of course the failure of the “supercommittee” in the United States certainly is not helping matters.  There is already talk that we may soon see another downgrade for U.S. debt.  It is hard to even describe how incompetent the U.S. Congress is.

There is a tremendous lack of leadership both in the United States and in Europe right now.  The financial world is more interconnected than ever before, and when the financial dominoes start to fall it is going to take a miracle to keep a complete and total disaster from unfolding.

So when the time comes, who is going to step forward and provide that leadership?

That is a really, really good question.

Right now, panic and fear are spreading like wildfire in the financial world and nobody knows for sure what is going to happen next.

But one thing is for certain.  Pessimism is growing stronger by the day.

The following are 17 quotes about the coming global financial collapse that will make your hair stand up….

#1 Credit Suisse’s Fixed Income Research unit: “We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.”

#2 Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup: “Time is running out fast.  I think we have maybe a few months — it could be weeks, it could be days — before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it.”

#3 Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank: “If you don’t think Merkel’s tone will change then our investment advice is to dig a hole in the ground and hide.”

#4 David Rosenberg, a senior economist at Gluskin Sheff in Toronto: “Lenders are finding it difficult to finance their day-to-day operations with short-term funding. This is a lot like 2008 but with more twists.”

#5 Christian Stracke, the head of credit research for Pimco: “This is just a repeat of what we saw in 2008, when everyone wanted to see toxic assets off the banks’ balance sheets”

#6 Paul Krugman of the New York Times: “At this point I’d guess soaring rates on Italian debt leading to a gigantic bank run, both because of solvency fears about Italian banks given a default and because of fear that Italy will end up leaving the euro. This then leads to emergency bank closing, and once that happens, a decision to drop the euro and install the new lira. Next stop, France.”

#7 Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group: “More and more, we are hearing anecdotal comments from individual and professionals that this is the most difficult environment they have ever experienced as the market is like a fish flopping around after being taken out of the water.”

#8 Bob Janjuah of Nomura International: “Germany appears to be adamant that full political and fiscal integration over the next decade (nothing substantive will happen over the short term, in my view) is the only option, and ECB monetisation is no longer possible. I really think it is that clear and simple. And if I am wrong, and the ECB does a U-turn and agrees to unlimited monetisation, I will simply wait for the inevitable knee-jerk rally to fade before reloading my short risk positions. Even if Germany and the ECB somehow agree to unlimited monetisation I believe it will do nothing to fix the insolvency and lack of growth in the eurozone. It will just result in a major destruction of the ECB‟s balance sheet which will force an ECB recap. At that point, I think Germany and its northern partners would walk away. Markets always want short, sharp, simple solutions.”

#9 Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors: “The ’08 recession, which was a credit bubble that manifested itself through primarily the real estate market, that was a serious stress….This is much more serious.”

#10 Francesco Garzarelli of Goldman Sachs: “Pressures on Euro area sovereign bond markets have progressively intensified and spread like a wildfire.”

#11 Jim Rogers: “In 2002 it was bad, in 2008 it was worse and 2012 or 2013 is going to be worse still – be careful”

#12 Dr. Pippa Malmgren, the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management who once worked in the White House as an adviser to President Bush: “Market forces are increasingly determining what the options are and foreclosing on options policymakers thought they had. One option which is now under discussion involves permitting a country to temporarily leave the Euro, return to its native currency, devalue, commit to returning to the Euro at a better debt to GDP ratio, a better exchange rate and a better growth trajectory and yet not sacrifice its EU membership. I would like to say for the record that this is precisely the thought process that I expected to evolve,but when I proposed this possibility back in 2009, and again in September 2010, I had a 100% response from clients and others that this was “impossible” and many felt it was “ridiculous”. They may be right but this is the current state of the discussion. The Handelsblatt in Germany has reported this conversation, but wrongly assumes that the country that will exit is Germany. I think that Germany will have to exit if the Southern European states do not. Germany’s preference is to stay in the Euro and have the others drop out. The problem has been the Germans could not convince the others to walk away. But, now, market pressures are forcing someone to leave. Germany is pushing for that someone to be Italy. They hope that this would be a one off exception, not to be repeated by any other country. Obviously, though, if Italy leaves the Euro and reverts to Lira then the markets will immediately and forcefully attack Spain, Portugal and even whatever is left  of the already savaged Greeks. These countries will not be able to compete against a devalued Greece or Italy when it come to tourism or even infrastructure. But, the principal target will be France. The three largest French banks have roughly 450 billion Euros of exposure to Italian debt. So, further sovereign defaults are certainly inevitable, but that is true under any scenario. Growth and austerity will not do the trick, as ZeroHedge rightly points out. Ultimately, I will not be at all surprised to see Europe’s banking system shut for days while the losses and payments issues are worked out. People forget that the term “bank holiday” was invented in the 1930’s when the banks were shut for exactly the same reason.”

#13 Daniel Clifton, a policy strategist with Strategas Research Partners on the potential for more downgrades of U.S. debt: “We would expect further downgrades, a first downgrade from Moody’s and Fitch and possibly a second downgrade from S&P.”

#14 Warren Buffett on the problems in the eurozone: “The system as presently designed has revealed a major flaw. And that flaw won’t be corrected just by words. Europe will either have to come closer together or there will have to be some other rearrangement because this system is not working”

#15 David Kostin, equity strategist for Goldman Sachs: “The wide range of possible outcomes on both the super committee process and the unstable political economy in Europe drives our view that investors should assume the worst while hoping for the best.”

#16 Mark Mobius, the head of the emerging markets desk at Templeton Asset Management: “There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner”

#17 Gerald Celente, founder of The Trends Research Institute: “The whole system is going down. Pull your money out your Fidelity account, your Scwhab accout, and your ETFs.”

Are you starting to get the picture?

When so many top financial professionals are freaking out like this, perhaps the rest of us should start paying attention.

They are telling us that “time is running out”.

They are telling us that “there is definitely going to be another financial crisis”.

They are telling us that this “is going to be worse” than 2008.

They are telling us that “the whole system is going down”.

Yes, a devastating financial collapse really is coming.  Just like in 2008, it will seem like the “end of the world” while it is happening, but it won’t be.  It will severely damage our financial system and our economy, but it will not finish us off.

Think of it this way.  When you build a sand castle at the beach, it doesn’t get totally wiped out by the first wave or the second wave that hits it.  Each wave does significant damage, but the destruction of your sand castle is a process.

It is the same thing with the U.S. economy.  We once had the most incredible economic machine that the world has ever seen.  It is constantly being guttedand the financial crisis of 2008 hit us really hard, but we are still doing okay.

After this next financial crisis we will be in even worse shape.  But we will still be breathing.

More “waves” will come after this next financial crisis.  If we continue on the road that we are on, our economy will progressively get worse and worse.

Not everyone will agree with this analysis, and that is okay.  In the end, time will reveal the truth to all of us.

Right now, we all need to get ready for the next wave that is about to hit us.  A lot of people are going to lose their jobs over the next few years.  Hopefully you are prepared for that.

Source: The Economic Collapse

Occupy The Defense Contractors

As America begins to awaken and take to the streets let us remember the happily profitable defense contractors who are scattered across the country. Over decades past, and up until today, they have received billions for designing, building, and transporting the weapons of war which have destroyed other nations and are now being deployed here at home against us.

Do you feel safer because a river of weapons is being produced from the money you sweat to make?

Some of these weapons, for instance the Sound Cannon, also known as the Long Range Acoustic Device, are already being used against us as we protest. LRAD Corporation and is only one example.

From the wikipedia:

“ Against protesters:

The LRAD device was on hand at protests of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City[6] but not used; it was extensively used against opposition protesters in Tbilisi, Georgia, in November 2007.[7]

The magazine Foreign Policy has revealed that LRADs have been sold to the government of the People’s Republic of China. American companies have been banned from selling arms to China since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Local residents of Dusit in Bangkok witnessed it in use during protests of Triumph factory employees against dismissals on August 28, 2009.[8] The LRAD was used for the first time in the United States in Pittsburghduring the time of the G20 summit on September 24–25th, 2009.[9][10] Pittsburgh police again utilized LRAD as a precautionary measure to prevent unruly crowds from getting out of control following the 2011 Super Bowl. LRAD systems were also purchased by Toronto Police for the 2010 G20 summit.

In 2009, the government of Honduras used it on at least two occasions, on September 22 and 25, to communicate to those seeking refuge in the Brazilian embassy. In addition to embassy staff, these included the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, his family, and some supporters and journalists.

LRAD was also used against college students in the city of Macomb, Illinois at the Wheeler Block Party at Western Illinois University (“WIU”)[11] on May 1, 2011.[1]

LRAD was also reportedly[12] used by the Oakland Police Department during the clearance of the Occupy Oakland encampment on the morning of 25 October 2011.

Polish Police also acquired LRAD on december 2010 and used them to communicate with protesters during 11 November 2011 riots in Warsaw city. [13]

LRAD use was also reported as the New York City Police department cleared protestors during the Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park on the morning of 15 November 2011.”

LRAD Corporation is located at 15378 Avenue of Science, Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92128 USA
Phone:             858.676.1112.

The company which produces tasers, Taser International, their subtext is “Protect Life,” has its international headquarters at 17800 N. 85th St. Scottsdale, AZ. Another office is located in Arlington, Virgina, and yet another,TASER Virtual Systems at 5464 Carpinteria Ave, Suite I, Santa Barbara, CA 93013.

On August 28^th Anonymous released the following information on the producer of drones, which many expect will soon be deployed against Americans within the United States, are all paid for by tax payers.

“August 28, 2011, Alastair Stevenson reports in the International Business Times: The hacker collective Anonymous has released a fresh batch of data taken from Vanguard Defense Industries, a Pentagon and FBI contractor.

The data release was revealed via a post on tor2web.org and later publicised (sic) on the group’sAnonymousIRC Twitter account. In it the group claimed to have released “1GB of private emails and documents belonging to Vanguard Defense Industries (VDI).”

But these are the obvious problems, the end products also imply subcontracters who provide software and other essentials without which the products could not be produced.

There are also the old line, military-industrial complex corporations which are very conscious they are a corporate military presence on alien territory, for instance Northrop Grumman. A friend of mine, a mind-mannered software engineer, and his partner, inadvertently drove into the company parking lot during broad daylight in Maryland to be met by ‘security’ wearing flack jackets and carrying AK47s.

Some defense contractors are open to their relationship with us. Others are covert.

Santa Barbara, that lovely resort where so many 1%ers live on the Pacific coast above Los Angeles, is also the headquarters for Green Hills Software, yet another defense contractor located at 28 Sola St., Santa Barbara, CA 93103. Notice the significant partners on their “defense customers” page for this company who are more easily recognizable.

Complex weapons systems, high level encryption, and other expensive toys used in war, are produced behind the seemingly safe and friendly doors of businesses which donate to local charities as they cash their government checks and pump out their products of death. We need to rethink our attitude here.

War is the health of the corporate state. General Smedley Butler said this of corporate war profits in his book, “War is a Racket,” written in 1937. “The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits — ah! that is another matter — twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent — the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let’s get it.

Of course, it isn’t put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and “we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,” but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket — and are safely pocketed. Let’s just take a few examples:

Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people — didn’t one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn’t much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let’s look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump — or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!”

The Occupy Movement is about confrontation, about letting those profiting know we are on to them and will no longer tolerate their assumption of moral justification. Instead, we will non-violently disrupt their lives, never stopping until we, who produce the wealth, control what we justly earn so that our world can be safe for all of humanity.

Research each contractor, each part and component of what they spend. Occupy all of them.

Puppet Masters Pulling Strings

What do Bill Clinton, David Rockefeller, Prince Charles, Bill Gates, Ben Bernanke, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt and Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes have in common?

Each has attended meetings of the Bilderberg Group, a secretive, invitation-only organization whose annual conferences for the most part remain mysteriously off the record.

A recently published thriller novel, The Ninth Orphan, by James and Lance Morcan, shines a light on the little known Bilderberg Group and portrays it as being America’s, and the world’s, shadow government. The authors claim their book, which merges fact with fiction, exposes a secret elite pulling the strings of various administrations.

Is there any truth behind this supposed political conspiracy? Well, that depends on who you ask.

Conspiracy theorists have long said the Bilderberg Group undermines democracy and influences everything from nations’ political leaders to the venue for the next war; the politicians and industrialists who attend say it’s nothing more than a think-tank, conducted without media coverage so the world’s most powerful can speak freely.

Certainly, it’s easy to see why conspiracy theories plague the group.

Bilderberg takes its name from a hotel of the same name in the Netherlands where the first meeting took place in 1954. Ever since, every Bilderberg conference has received almost complete media blackouts despite being held at prominent five-star resorts.

Conspiracy theorists point out this dearth of media coverage is highly unusual given the veritable who’s who of world leaders and movers-and-shakers in attendance each year.

Other notable US political figures to have officially attended Bilderberg meetings include current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig and Colin Powell, former President Gerald Ford as well as Texas Governor and 2012 Presidential hopeful Rick Perry.

Some say these and all other US attendees have been in direct violation of the Logan Act, a Federal law which prevents US citizens and representatives from making policy decisions in secret with foreign government officials. However, no Bilderberger has ever acknowledged engaging in policy-making during the meetings and there is no clear proof that any of them do.

On the international roster, Bilderbergers have included leaders of almost every Western nation, Swiss bankers, EU Commissioners and Royalty. Among past and present attendees are current Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Margaret Thatcher, the King of Spain Juan Carlos I and the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Phillip.

Beyond these confirmed Bilderbergers, there’s also a raft of other high profile figures suspected to have participated in conferences – according to the conspiracy theorists at least. For example, shortly before becoming the US President, Barack Obama was rumored to have met with key Bilderberg members at or near their conference venue in Chantilly, Virginia, in 2008.

Veteran Bilderberg observer, Jim Tucker, phoned Obama’s office during the campaign to confirm whether he had attended the conference. A campaign spokeswoman refused to discuss the matter, but would not deny that Obama had attended.

Other rumored attendees include Rupert Murdoch, George Bush, Sr. and George W. Bush. Hillary Clinton also denies having attended any Bilderberg meetings despite reported sightings of her at the locations of the 2006 (Toronto) and 2008 (Virginia) conferences.

Bill Clinton, however, was an official attendee of the 1991 Bilderberg conference in Germany while still a little known Governor of Arkansas; the following year he won the US Presidential Election.

So what does all this mean exactly? Is it just a pile of the usual circumstantial evidence that seems to conveniently support most conspiracy theories?

According to Belgian magnate and Bilderberg chairman Étienne Davignon, that is exactly the case. Davignon says an attraction of Bilderberg Group meetings is they provide an opportunity for participants to speak candidly and to find out what major figures really think without the risk of off-the-cuff comments becoming fodder for media controversy. However, partly because of its working methods to ensure strict privacy, the Bilderberg Group is often accused of conspiracies.

Then again, it is hard to believe the only decisions the world’s elite make at these exclusive resorts each year is what to order for dinner or what time to play golf.