Ukraine And Neo-Nazis

Ever since serious protest broke out in Ukraine in February the Western mainstream media, particularly in the United States, has seriously downplayed the fact that the usual suspects – the US/European Union/NATO triumvirate – have been on the same side as the neo-Nazis. In the US it’s been virtually unmentionable. I’m sure that a poll taken in the United States on this issue would reveal near universal ignorance of the numerous neo-Nazi actions, including publicly calling for death to “Russians, Communists and Jews”. But in the past week the dirty little secret has somehow poked its head out from behind the curtain a bit.

On September 9 NBCnews.com reported that “German TV shows Nazi symbols on helmets of Ukraine soldiers”. The German station showed pictures of a soldier wearing a combat helmet with the “SS runes” of Hitler’s infamous black-uniformed elite corps. (Runes are the letters of an alphabet used by ancient Germanic peoples.) A second soldier was shown with a swastika on his helmet.

On the 13th, the Washington Post showed a photo of the sleeping quarter of a member of the Azov Battalion, one of the Ukrainian paramilitary units fighting the pro-Russian separatists. On the wall above the bed is a large swastika. Not to worry, the Post quoted the platoon leader stating that the soldiers embrace symbols and espouse extremist notions as part of some kind of “romantic” idea.

Yet, it is Russian president Vladimir Putin who is compared to Adolf Hitler by everyone from Prince Charles to Princess Hillary because of the incorporation of Crimea as part of Russia. On this question Putin has stated:

The Crimean authorities have relied on the well-known Kosovo precedent, a precedent our Western partners created themselves, with their own hands, so to speak. In a situation absolutely similar to the Crimean one, they deemed Kosovo’s secession from Serbia to be legitimate, arguing everywhere that no permission from the country’s central authorities was required for the unilateral declaration of independence. The UN’s international court, based on Paragraph 2 of Article 1 of the UN Charter, agreed with that, and in its decision of 22 July 2010 noted the following, and I quote verbatim: No general prohibition may be inferred from the practice of the Security Council with regard to unilateral declarations of independence.

Putin as Hitler is dwarfed by the stories of Putin as invader (Vlad the Impaler?). For months the Western media has been beating the drums about Russia having (actually) invaded Ukraine. I recommend reading: “How Can You Tell Whether Russia has Invaded Ukraine?” by Dmitry Orlov

And keep in mind the NATO encirclement of Russia. Imagine Russia setting up military bases in Canada and Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Remember what a Soviet base in Cuba led to.

Has the United States ever set a bad example?

Ever since that fateful day of September 11, 2001, the primary public relations goal of the United States has been to discredit the idea that somehow America had it coming because of its numerous political and military acts of aggression. Here’s everyone’s favorite hero, George W. Bush, speaking a month after 9-11:

“How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred for America? I’ll tell you how I respond: I’m amazed. I’m amazed that there’s such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us. I am – like most Americans, I just can’t believe it because I know how good we are.”

Thank you, George. Now take your pills.

I and other historians of US foreign policy have documented at length the statements of anti-American terrorists who have made it explicitly clear that their actions were in retaliation for Washington’s decades of international abominations. But American officials and media routinely ignore this evidence and cling to the party line that terrorists are simply cruel and crazed by religion; which many of them indeed are, but that doesn’t change the political and historical facts.

This American mindset appears to be alive and well. At least four hostages held in Syria recently by Islamic State militants, including US journalist James Foley, were waterboarded during their captivity. The Washington Post quoted a US official: “ISIL is a group that routinely crucifies and beheads people. To suggest that there is any correlation between ISIL’s brutality and past U.S. actions is ridiculous and feeds into their twisted propaganda.”

The Post, however, may have actually evolved a bit, adding that the “Islamic State militants … appeared to model the technique on the CIA’s use of waterboarding to interrogate suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.”

Talk given by William Blum at a Teach-In on US Foreign Policy, American University, Washington, DC, September 6, 2014

Each of you I’m sure has met many people who support American foreign policy, with whom you’ve argued and argued. You point out one horror after another, from Vietnam to Iraq. From god-awful bombings and invasions to violations of international law and torture. And nothing helps. Nothing moves this person.

Now why is that? Are these people just stupid? I think a better answer is that they have certain preconceptions. Consciously or unconsciously, they have certain basic beliefs about the United States and its foreign policy, and if you don’t deal with these basic beliefs you may as well be talking to a stone wall.

The most basic of these basic beliefs, I think, is a deeply-held conviction that no matter what the United States does abroad, no matter how bad it may look, no matter what horror may result, the government of the United States means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may lie, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are always honorable, even noble. Of that the great majority of Americans are certain.

Frances Fitzgerald, in her famous study of American school textbooks, summarized the message of these books: “The United States has been a kind of Salvation Army to the rest of the world: throughout history it had done little but dispense benefits to poor, ignorant, and diseased countries. The U.S. always acted in a disinterested fashion, always from the highest of motives; it gave, never took.”

And Americans genuinely wonder why the rest of the world can’t see how benevolent and self-sacrificing America has been. Even many people who take part in the anti-war movement have a hard time shaking off some of this mindset; they march to spur America – the America they love and worship and trust – they march to spur this noble America back onto its path of goodness.

Many of the citizens fall for US government propaganda justifying its military actions as often and as naively as Charlie Brown falling for Lucy’s football.

The American people are very much like the children of a Mafia boss who do not know what their father does for a living, and don’t want to know, but then wonder why someone just threw a firebomb through the living room window.

This basic belief in America’s good intentions is often linked to “American exceptionalism”. Let’s look at how exceptional US foreign policy has been. Since the end of World War 2, the United States has:

1. Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected.
2. Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
3. Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
4. Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
5. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
6. Led the world in torture; not only the torture performed directly by Americans upon foreigners, but providing torture equipment, torture manuals, lists of people to be tortured, and in-person guidance by American teachers, especially in Latin America.

This is indeed exceptional. No other country in all of history comes anywhere close to such a record.

So the next time you’re up against a stone wall … ask the person what the United States would have to do in its foreign policy to lose his support. What for this person would finally be TOO MUCH. If the person mentions something really bad, chances are the United States has already done it, perhaps repeatedly.

Keep in mind that our precious homeland, above all, seeks to dominate the world. For economic reasons, nationalistic reasons, ideological, Christian, and for other reasons, world hegemony has long been America’s bottom line. And let’s not forget the powerful Executive Branch officials whose salaries, promotions, agency budgets and future well-paying private sector jobs depend upon perpetual war. These leaders are not especially concerned about the consequences for the world of their wars. They’re not necessarily bad people; but they’re amoral, like a sociopath is.

Take the Middle East and South Asia. The people in those areas have suffered horribly because of Islamic fundamentalism. What they desperately need are secular governments, which have respect for different religions. And such governments were actually instituted in the recent past. But what has been the fate of those governments?

Well, in the late 1970s through much of the 1980s, Afghanistan had a secular government that was relatively progressive, with full rights for women, which is hard to believe, isn’t it? But even a Pentagon report of the time testified to the actuality of women’s rights in Afghanistan. And what happened to that government? The United States overthrew it, allowing the Taliban to come to power. So keep that in mind the next time you hear an American official say that we have to remain in Afghanistan for the sake of women’s rights.

After Afghanistan came Iraq, another secular society, under Saddam Hussein. And the United States overthrew that government as well, and now the country is overrun by crazed and bloody jihadists and fundamentalists of all kinds; and women who are not covered up are running a serious risk.

Next came Libya; again, a secular country, under Moammar Gaddafi, who, like Saddam Hussein, had a tyrant side to him but could in important ways be benevolent and do marvelous things for Libya and Africa. To name just one example, Libya had a high ranking on the United Nation’s Human Development Index. So, of course, the United States overthrew that government as well. In 2011, with the help of NATO we bombed the people of Libya almost every day for more than six months. And, once again, this led to messianic jihadists having a field day. How it will all turn out for the people of Libya, only God knows, or perhaps Allah.

And for the past three years, the United States has been doing its best to overthrow the secular government of Syria. And guess what? Syria is now a playground and battleground for all manner of ultra militant fundamentalists, including everyone’s new favorite, IS, the Islamic State. The rise of IS owes a lot to what the US has done in Iraq, Libya, and Syria in recent years.

We can add to this marvelous list the case of the former Yugoslavia, another secular government that was overthrown by the United States, in the form of NATO, in 1999, giving rise to the creation of the largely-Muslim state of Kosovo, run by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The KLA was considered a terrorist organization by the US, the UK and France for years, with numerous reports of the KLA being armed and trained by al-Qaeda, in al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan, and even having members of al-Qaeda in KLA ranks fighting against the Serbs of Yugoslavia. Washington’s main concern was dealing a blow to Serbia, widely known as “the last communist government in Europe”.

The KLA became renowned for their torture, their trafficking in women, heroin, and human body parts; another charming client of the empire.

Someone looking down upon all this from outer space could be forgiven for thinking that the United States is an Islamic power doing its best to spread the word – Allah Akbar!

But what, you might wonder, did each of these overthrown governments have in common that made them a target of Washington’s wrath? The answer is that they could not easily be controlled by the empire; they refused to be client states; they were nationalistic; in a word, they were independent; a serious crime in the eyes of the empire.

So mention all this as well to our hypothetical supporter of US foreign policy and see whether he still believes that the United States means well. If he wonders how long it’s been this way, point out to him that it would be difficult to name a single brutal dictatorship of the second half of the 20th Century that was not supported by the United States; not only supported, but often put into power and kept in power against the wishes of the population. And in recent years as well, Washington has supported very repressive governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Indonesia, Egypt, Colombia, Qatar, and Israel.

And what do American leaders think of their own record? Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was probably speaking for the whole private club of our foreign-policy leadership when she wrote in 2000 that in the pursuit of its national security the United States no longer needed to be guided by “notions of international law and norms” or “institutions like the United Nations” because America was “on the right side of history.”

Let me remind you of Daniel Ellsberg’s conclusion about the US in Vietnam: “It wasn’t that we were on the wrong side; we were the wrong side.”

Well, far from being on the right side of history, we have in fact fought – I mean actually engaged in warfare – on the same side as al Qaeda and their offspring on several occasions, beginning with Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s in support of the Islamic Moujahedeen, or Holy Warriors.

The US then gave military assistance, including bombing support, to Bosnia and Kosovo, both of which were being supported by al Qaeda in the Yugoslav conflicts of the early 1990s.

In Libya, in 2011, Washington and the Jihadists shared a common enemy, Gaddafi, and as mentioned, the US bombed the people of Libya for more than six months, allowing jihadists to take over parts of the country; and they’re now fighting for the remaining parts. These wartime allies showed their gratitude to Washington by assassinating the US ambassador and three other Americans, apparently CIA, in the city of Benghazi.

Then, for some years in the mid and late 2000s, the United States backed Islamic militants in the Caucasus region of Russia, an area that has seen more than its share of religious terror going back to the Chechnyan actions of the 1990s.

Finally, in Syria, in attempting to overthrow the Assad government, the US has fought on the same side as several varieties of Islamic militants. That makes six occasions of the US being wartime allies of jihadist forces.

I realize that I have fed you an awful lot of negativity about what America has done to the world, and maybe it’s been kind of hard for some of you to swallow. But my purpose has been to try to loosen the grip on your intellect and your emotions that you’ve been raised with – or to help you to help others to loosen that grip – the grip that assures you that your beloved America means well. US foreign policy will not make much sense to you as long as you believe that its intentions are noble; as long as you ignore the consistent pattern of seeking world domination, which is a national compulsion of very long standing, known previously under other names such as Manifest Destiny, the American Century, American exceptionalism, globalization, or, as Madeleine Albright put it, “the indispensable nation” … while others less kind have used the term “imperialist”.

In this context I can’t resist giving the example of Bill Clinton. While president, in 1995, he was moved to say: “Whatever we may think about the political decisions of the Vietnam era, the brave Americans who fought and died there had noble motives. They fought for the freedom and the independence of the Vietnamese people.” Yes, that’s really the way our leaders talk. But who knows what they really believe?

It is my hope that many of you who are not now activists against the empire and its wars will join the anti-war movement as I did in 1965 against the war in Vietnam. It’s what radicalized me and so many others. When I hear from people of a certain age about what began the process of losing their faith that the United States means well, it’s Vietnam that far and away is given as the main cause. I think that if the American powers-that-be had known in advance how their “Oh what a lovely war” was going to turn out they might not have made their mammoth historical blunder. Their invasion of Iraq in 2003 indicates that no Vietnam lesson had been learned at that point, but our continuing protest against war and threatened war in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and elsewhere may have – may have! – finally made a dent in the awful war mentality. I invite you all to join our movement. Thank you.

Notes

1. NBC News, “German TV Shows Nazi Symbols on Helmets of Ukraine Soldiers”, September 6 2014
2. BBC, March 18, 2014
3. Information Clearinghouse, “How Can You Tell Whether Russia has Invaded Ukraine?”, September 1 2014
4. Boston Globe, October 12, 2001
5. See, for example, William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower(2005), chapter 1
6. Washington Post, August 28, 2014
7. Foreign Affairs magazine (Council on Foreign Relations), January/February 2000

Yankee Blowback

What would a psychiatrist call this? Delusions of grandeur?

US Secretary of State John Kerry, July 8, 2014:
“In my travels as secretary of state, I have seen as never before the thirst for American leadership in the world.”

President Barack Obama, May 28, 2014:
“Here’s my bottom line, America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will.”

Nicholas Burns, former US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, May 8, 2014:
“Where is American power and leadership when the world needs it most?”

Mitt Romney, Republican Party candidate for President, September 13, 2012:
“The world needs American leadership. The Middle East needs American leadership and I intend to be a president that provides the leadership that America respects and keep us admired throughout the world.”

Paul Ryan, Congressman, Republican Party candidate for Vice President, September 12, 2012:
“We need to be reminded that the world needs American leadership.”

John McCain, Senator, September 9, 2012:
“The situation in Syria and elsewhere ‘cries out for American leadership’.”

Hillary Clinton, September 8, 2010:
“Let me say it clearly: The United States can, must, and will lead in this new century. Indeed, the complexities and connections of today’s world have yielded a new American Moment — a moment when our global leadership is essential, even if we must often lead in new ways.”

Senator Barack Obama, April 23, 2007:
“In the words of President Franklin Roosevelt, we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good. I still believe that America is the last, best hope of Earth.”

Gallup poll, 2013:

Question asked: “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?”

Replies:

• United States 24%
• Pakistan 8%
• China 6%
• Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea, each 5%
• India, Iraq, Japan, each 4%
• Syria 3%
• Russia 2%
• Australia, Germany, Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Korea, UK, each 1%

The question is not what pacifism has achieved throughout history, but what has war achieved?

Remark made to a pacifist: “If only everyone else would live in the way you recommend, I would gladly live that way as well – but not until everyone else does.”

The Pacifist’s reply: “Why then, sir, you would be the last man on earth to do good. I would rather be one of the first.”

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, 1947, words long cherished by a large majority of the Japanese people:

“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

“In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

This statement is probably unique amongst the world’s constitutions.

But on July 1, 2014 the government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, without changing a word of Article 9, announced a “reinterpretation” of it to allow for military action in conjunction with allies. This decision can be seen as the culmination of a decades-long effort by the United States to wean Japan away from its post-WW2 pacifist constitution and foreign policy and set it back on the righteous path of being a military power once again, only this time acting in coordination with US foreign policy needs.

In the triumphalism of the end of the Second World War, the American occupation of Japan, in the person of General Douglas MacArthur, played a major role in the creation of this constitution. But after the communists came to power in China in 1949, the United States opted for a strong Japan safely ensconced in the anti-communist camp. For pacifism, it’s been downhill ever since … step by step … MacArthur himself ordered the creation of a “national police reserve”, which became the embryo of the future Japanese military … visiting Tokyo in 1956, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Japanese officials: “In the past, Japan had demonstrated her superiority over the Russians and over China. It was time for Japan to think again of being and acting like a Great Power.”  … various US-Japanese security and defense cooperation treaties, which called on Japan to integrate its military technology with that of the US and NATO … the US supplying new sophisticated military aircraft and destroyers … all manner of Japanese logistical assistance to the US in Washington’s frequent military operations in Asia … repeated US pressure on Japan to increase its military budget and the size of its armed forces … more than a hundred US military bases in Japan, protected by the Japanese military … US-Japanese joint military exercises and joint research on a missile defense system … the US Ambassador to Japan, 2001: “I think the reality of circumstances in the world is going to suggest to the Japanese that they reinterpret or redefine Article 9.”  … Under pressure from Washington, Japan sent several naval vessels to the Indian Ocean to refuel US and British warships as part of the Afghanistan campaign in 2002, then sent non-combat forces to Iraq to assist the American war as well as to East Timor, another made-in-America war scenario … US Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2004: “If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light.”  …

In 2012 Japan was induced to take part in a military exercise with 21 other countries, converging on Hawaii for the largest-ever Rim of the Pacific naval exercises and war games, with a Japanese admiral serving as vice commander of the combined task force.  And so it went … until, finally, on July 1 of this year, the Abe administration announced their historic decision. Abe, it should be noted, is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, with which the CIA has had a long and intimate connection, even when party leaders were convicted World War 2 war criminals.

If and when the American empire engages in combat with China or Russia, it appears that Washington will be able to count on their Japanese brothers-in-arms. In the meantime, the many US bases in Japan serve as part of the encirclement of China, and during the Vietnam War the United States used their Japanese bases as launching pads to bomb Vietnam.

The US policies and propaganda not only got rid of the annoying Article 9, but along the way it gave rise to a Japanese version of McCarthyism. A prime example of this is the case of Kimiko Nezu, a 54-year-old Japanese teacher, who was punished by being transferred from school to school, by suspensions, salary cuts, and threats of dismissal because of her refusal to stand during the playing of the national anthem, a World War II song chosen as the anthem in 1999. She opposed the song because it was the same one sung as the Imperial Army set forth from Japan calling for an “eternal reign” of the emperor. At graduation ceremonies in 2004, 198 teachers refused to stand for the song. After a series of fines and disciplinary actions, Nezu and nine other teachers were the only protesters the following year. Nezu was then allowed to teach only when another teacher was present.

Yankee Blowback

The number of children attempting to cross the Mexican border into the United States has risen dramatically in the last five years: In fiscal year 2009 (October 1, 2009 – September 30, 2010) about 6,000 unaccompanied minors were detained near the border. The US Department of Homeland Security estimates for the fiscal year 2014 the detention of as many as 74,000 unaccompanied minors. Approximately 28% of the children detained this year are from Honduras, 24% from Guatemala, and 21% from El Salvador. The particularly severe increases in Honduran migration are a direct result of the June 28, 2009 military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected president, Manuel Zelaya, after he did things like raising the minimum wage, giving subsidies to small farmers, and instituting free education. The coup – like so many others in Latin America – was led by a graduate of Washington’s infamous School of the Americas.

As per the standard Western Hemisphere script, the Honduran coup was followed by the abusive policies of the new regime, loyally supported by the United States. The State Department was virtually alone in the Western Hemisphere in not unequivocally condemning the Honduran coup. Indeed, the Obama administration has refused to call it a coup, which, under American law, would tie Washington’s hands as to the amount of support it could give the coup government. This denial of reality still persists even though a US embassy cable released by Wikileaks in 2010 declared: “There is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 [2009] in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch”. Washington’s support of the far-right Honduran government has been unwavering ever since.

The questions concerning immigration into the United States from south of the border go on year after year, with the same issues argued back and forth: What’s the best way to block the flow into the country? How shall we punish those caught here illegally? Should we separate families, which happens when parents are deported but their American-born children remain? Should the police and various other institutions have the right to ask for proof of legal residence from anyone they suspect of being here illegally? Should we punish employers who hire illegal immigrants? Should we grant amnesty to at least some of the immigrants already here for years? … on and on, round and round it goes, decade after decade. Those in the US generally opposed to immigration make it a point to declare that the United States does not have any moral obligation to take in these Latino immigrants.

But the counter-argument to this last point is almost never mentioned: Yes, the United States does indeed have a moral obligation because so many of the immigrants are escaping a situation in their homeland made hopeless by American intervention and policy. In addition to Honduras, Washington overthrew progressive governments which were sincerely committed to fighting poverty in Guatemala and Nicaragua; while in El Salvador the US played a major role in suppressing a movement striving to install such a government. And in Mexico, though Washington has not intervened militarily since 1919, over the years the US has been providing training, arms, and surveillance technology to Mexico’s police and armed forces to better their ability to suppress their own people’s aspirations, as in Chiapas, and this has added to the influx of the oppressed to the United States, irony notwithstanding.

Moreover, Washington’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has brought a flood of cheap, subsidized US agricultural products into Mexico, ravaging campesino communities and driving many Mexican farmers off the land when they couldn’t compete with the giant from the north. The subsequent Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) has brought the same joys to the people of that area.

These “free trade” agreements – as they do all over the world – also result in government enterprises being privatized, the regulation of corporations being reduced, and cuts to the social budget. Add to this the displacement of communities by foreign mining projects and the drastic US-led militarization of the War on Drugs with accompanying violence and you have the perfect storm of suffering followed by the attempt to escape from suffering.

It’s not that all these people prefer to live in the United States. They’d much rather remain with their families and friends, be able to speak their native language at all times, and avoid the hardships imposed on them by American police and other right-wingers.

M’lady Hillary

Madame Clinton, in her new memoir, referring to her 2002 Senate vote supporting military action in Iraq, says: “I thought I had acted in good faith and made the best decision I could with the information I had. And I wasn’t alone in getting it wrong. But I still got it wrong. Plain and simple.”

In a 2006 TV interview, Clinton said: “Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote. And I certainly wouldn’t have voted that way.”

On October 16, 2002 the US Congress adopted a joint resolution titled “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq”. This was done in the face of numerous protests and other political events against an American invasion.

On February 15, 2003, a month before the actual invasion, there was a coordinated protest around the world in which people in some 60 countries marched in a last desperate attempt to stop the war from happening. It has been described as “the largest protest event in human history.” Estimations of the total number of participants involved reach 30 million. The protest in Rome involved around three million people, and is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest anti-war rally in history. Madrid hosted the second largest rally with more than 1½ million protesters. About half a million marched in the United States. How many demonstrations in support of the war can be cited? It can be said that the day was one of humanity’s finest moments.

So what did all these people know that Hillary Clinton didn’t know? What information did they have access to that she as a member of Congress did not have?

The answer to both questions is of course “Nothing”. She voted the way she did because she was, as she remains today, a wholly committed supporter of the Empire and its unending wars.

And what did the actual war teach her? Here she is in 2007, after four years of horrible death, destruction and torture:

“The American military has done its job. Look what they accomplished. They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They gave the Iraqis a chance for free and fair elections. They gave the Iraqi government the chance to begin to demonstrate that it understood its responsibilities to make the hard political decisions necessary to give the people of Iraq a better future. So the American military has succeeded.”

And she spoke the above words at a conference of liberals, committed liberal Democrats and others further left. She didn’t have to cater to them with any flag-waving pro-war rhetoric; they wanted to hear anti-war rhetoric (and she of course gave them a tiny bit of that as well out of the other side of her mouth), so we can assume that this is how she really feels, if indeed the woman feels anything. The audience, it should be noted, booed her, for the second year in a row.

“We came, we saw, he died.” – Hillary Clinton as US Secretary of State, giggling, as she referred to the uncivilized and utterly depraved murder of Moammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Imagine Osama bin Laden or some other Islamic leader speaking of September 11, 2001: “We came, we saw, 3,000 died, ha-ha.”

Notes

1. Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1994
2. Washington Post, July 18, 2001
3. BBC, August 14, 2004
4. Honolulu Star-Advertiser, June 23 and July 2, 2012
5. Tim Weiner, “Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA” (2007), p.116-21
6. Washington Post, August 30, 2005
7. Washington Post, June 6, 2014
8. Speaking at the “Take Back America” conference, organized by the Campaign for America’s Future, June 20, 2007, Washington, DC; this excerpt can be heard on the June 21, 2007 edition of Democracy Now!

Is Judgement Real? Does God Punish Disobedience?

Bumper stickers often reflect the quality of the theology that supports American Christianity. “God said it and I believe it” used to be popular. “Are You Saved?” was often seen and a whole variety of challenging, pithy phrases continue to appear: “I Love Jesus”, “Jesus Possess Me”, “Know Jesus, Know Peace”, “Love God Love People”, “One Nation Under God”, “Pray for America”, “Got Jesus”, “Victory In Jesus”, “Honk If You Know Jesus”, “Love God Love People”, etc. etc.

The flippant attitude that pervades American Christianity reflects the feeble impact it has on the culture and the progression of Divine Judgment that overshadows us.

Christians often challenge one another with regular sessions of reading “The Word”; for many Christians this means reading the New Testament with an occasional short selection from the Old. They believe the Old Testament was applicable to another era and consider this new era one of Grace and any reference to law to be “legalistic”.

It is quickly apparent in reading R. J. Rushdoony that his approach to Christian theology is different than the preaching we hear at our local church. He believes the entire Bible, every word, is the Word of God From Genesis to Revelation he ponders each word, phrase, and sentence to determine what action his Creator seeks. Instead of using his reason as a filter he sets it aside to be used as a guide to the actions God requires. He wants to obey God rather than understand Him. He does not pick and choose but glories in the entire Biblical narrative. He tarries with God’s Law since obedience is the foundational requirement of the Covenant God of the Bible.

He embraces the Charismatic Movement as a new and more vibrant recognition of the Holy Spirit but expresses disdain for tongues and the gibberish that that often results. Sinful men are unable to accurately hear the Holy Spirit without the yardstick of His Law. We are sinful beings and without the restraint of His written Commandments chaos and wickedness quickly overtake us. Antinomianism in Charismatic circles destroys the power of the Holy Spirit.

The power and glory of the God of the Bible must emanate from individual Christian men who live by God’s Commandments. When men abdicate their responsibility to lead their individual families in obedience to the Will of the Creator they open the door for the state to assume that role and to tighten the vise of tyranny.

When the rule of the Creator is torn from its Biblical base and maligned by sinful human minds the strength of the Gospel no longer beams forth. Instead we have the amoral, adaptable, pragmatic, competitive, social creatures that are popular today. Men are suspected of being unfaithful and sexually promiscuous. Those that stand for honesty, righteousness and faithfulness are often mocked by powerful triflers.

Men no longer understand the leadership position God requires of them. They are responsible for the safety, well-being and conduct of their family. They are to be the head of their home and to participate in the government of the community in which they live.

Rushdoony writes, ”A society cannot be vital and possessed of an ongoing vigor if the men therein are marked by a loss of faith, a retreat from responsibility, and an unwillingness to cope with personal problems. A culture loses its will to live and to conquer if its members manifest a spirit of retreat and surrender.”

Role playing has become a pandemic mendacity. Public forums are full of men who role-play. During his campaign President Obama promised scores of actions that were popular and needed. However, when he assumed the office of President he installed programs diametrical to those he promised. American politicians never produce what they promise; they are puppets playing roles demanded by an unseen power center.

Congresspersons maintain their office as a grant from the closely held press. They carefully avoid taking positions that defy politically correct media dictates. They all play a role and the role is inimical to the well-being of our nation.

Men play an unnatural role in their homes when wives often assume equal or superior authority in family life. Women were created to helpmates to men and when they assume roles for which they were not intended we lose the decisiveness that is a masculine trait. Men sin by abdicating their responsibilities and women sin by assuming them.

However, even if role-playing ceased and rational thought began we would still be in serious trouble. Mortal minds will never produce peace, order, and freedom.

Recently, someone sent me an article by Tom Mullen with the audacious title of “Jesus Christ, Libertarian”. Mullen quotes verbatim Scripture from John 8 about the woman taken in adultery that Jesus forgave with the admonition to go and sin no more.

Mullin tees off on this particular incident with a plethora of dangerous and erroneous conclusions. He writes: “However, no one has a right to use violence against those who engage in behavior that does not harm another person, regardless of whether or not that behavior violates the laws of God.” Mullin would have his insignificant opinion override the perfect Law of God. Such arrogance is the fuel for murder and strife.

Mullin has devised a non-violent system but his system is vulnerable to an opposite system devised by a tyrant who has no aversion to the use of violence to achieve his goals – both systems are products of the anarchic minds of men and sans God’s immutable law one is as valid as the other. Man was not created to govern himself. Without the overarching, righteous law of the Creator chaos and strife will continue to plague us.

On page 387 of his “Systematic Theology” Rushdoony lists the curses that are visited on disobedient individuals and nations. First, fallen man lives under the curse of physical death. Second, he lives under the fear of “sickness, plagues, and epidemics”. Third, the advent of drought and natural disasters produces fear. Fourth, poverty lurks in the economies of profligates. Fifth, nonbelievers are cursed with war, invasion, defeat, conquest, and ultimate captivity. Sixth, Frustration annoys the intentions of men and nations when they seek their own will instead of following the Will of the Creator. And seventh, Rushdoony laments the curse of blindness that causes millions of Evangelical Christians to ignore the obvious signs of God’s judgment.

It is the curse of blindness that causes us to ignore the obvious poverty and strife that plagues the world’s pagan nations and the bursting prosperity that marked Christian civilization. When the United States of America was making an effort to obey God’s Commandments she enjoyed unparalleled prosperity. We have now become a secular nation and not only poverty but all of the other curses are bursting forth.

We have an adequate supply of anti-war spokespersons in the United States but I have yet to find one who espouses the only viable solution. History is replete with constant warfare. Men and nations have been engaged in continuous war from the beginning of time. The Bible contains that legal structure that God gave us to bring lasting peace but sinful men ignore it. Paul Craig Roberts is a bright and well informed writer. He writes with commendable insight into the conduct of our nation but he never once mentions the fact the humanistic solutions to perennial war have never been effective and he fails to consider the legal platform God has given us for lasting peace. His latest article is here.

As America continues to fall into the devil’s abbess will Christians finally wake up and begin to heed the One True God? Mainline churches will not stem the fall. Patriotism will not reverse it. Politics and revolution will not save us. Guns will not help against the judgment of Almighty God. Our stubborn failure to repent, follow Him, and obey His commandments may seal our fate.

For several years I wrote about the tyrannical nature of our government. But government is a reflection of the people who are governed and we have voted for the government we are receiving. We, the people, are the problem. The prayer that is need it that the One True God would change our hearts bringing a resolute desire for obedience to God and a resulting righteous government.

At The Pinnacle of Power: The God of The Bible

It was during the Ides of March 51 years ago that the God of the Bible set this stumbling man on his feet and with much Grace began to grow him into the person He intended him to be.  In those early days of my Christian walk there was much talk about the end times and the soon return of the Savior.  “Jesus is Coming Again” was written in 1957 by John Peterson.

Marvelous message we bring,

Glorious carol we sing,

Wonderful word of the King -

Jesus is coming again!

(Chorus)

Coming again, Coming again;

Maybe morning, maybe noon,

Maybe evening and maybe soon!

Coming again, Coming again;

O what a wonderful day it will be -

Jesus is coming again!

Forest and flower exclaim,

Mountain and meadow the same,

All earth and heaven proclaim -

Jesus is coming again!

Standing before Him at last,

Trial and trouble all past,

Crowns at His feet we will cast -

Jesus IS coming again!

Tragically, thousands of Christians got stuck on the emotional ecstasy of praise and it became the core of many Charismatic churches.  Praise and great gratitude are stored in the hearts of all real Christians but when we approach Jesus like a human friend we fail to exhibit the awe and fear that should be accorded to the King and Judge of creation.  When we stand before Jesus at last we will be standing before the Judge.

The God of the Bible is sovereign; He is still on His throne and He rules the world and all of His creation including the human species created in His own image.  Yes, we do possess a form of free will.  We can disobey God’s directives and we can decide to oppose His Will, but when He selects a particular individual He draws him to Himself, changes his thoughts and desires, and makes him useful for His purposes. During the process the person seems to be making decisions independently and often fails to recognize God’s miraculous hand until much later, if at all.

God selects His servants and though they may have misgivings (Moses), they become servants and do His bidding.  Sometimes He selects servants who turn out to be unfaithful and disobedient (Saul).  Other times He selects servants who have a deep devotion but suffer from serious character defects (David).  He sometimes selects and changes people who hate Him (Paul) and other times He chooses men who love Him but are troubled by fear and disloyalty (Peter).  Sometimes His choice is someone strong and faithful other times He chooses a weak unpopular person and makes him strong and authoritative.  No man comes to Christ unless the Father draws him.

All of God’s blessings are contingent on obedience.  Though He can make us obedient He rewards us for choosing to be obedient.  When we choose to be disobedient we suffer; when we choose to be obedient we set the stage for peace, freedom, and prosperity.  We can set the stage but blessing is a gift, as with all gifts we cannot demand it.

God made a New Covenant by sacrificing His only Son that we might be saved in spite of our sin.  His original Covenant with ancient Israel involved Grace and Law and His New Covenant also involves Grace and Law.  When the original Covenant was broken and twelve tribes of Israel were rejected following the crucifixion of Christ, the New Covenant passed to Christians and the Christian Church.

Salvation allows sinners to approach the throne of God as sinless servants.  It allows God to hear our prayers.  It does not remove the requirement of obedience. Obedience is the foundation of Godly living and sets the stage for the blessed existence God intends for His people.  God’s Law is a reflection of God’s character, when we flaunt it we flaunt God and bring His judgment.

Rev. Billy Graham’s crusades have provided an arena for thousands of conversions.  Rev. Graham requests that his listeners “make a decision for Christ” and thousands of converts respond and are saved.  But there is a serious theological problem:  If the creature can “make a decision for Christ” he can also make a decision against Christ which means He is a sort of god over God making the Creator and ruler of the universe subject to his decision.  This is not only an arrogant assumption but an irrational conclusion.  Thousands have been converted in Graham crusades but each of them was chosen by God before going forward.  God is sovereign.

As the frenzy to resist despotic government continues, keeping guns (The Second Amendment to our Constitution) to protect our family and property is a serious concern.  We watch helplessly as the land of the free falls under the authority of a power laden tyrannical regime; some of our citizens like ostriches bury their heads in the sand; others seek to offer resistance but are stymied by a creeping progression that leaves them without a stationary target.

There is a third category made up of pragmatic sycophants who go along with the lies and illegal maneuvers to protect themselves or to further their careers.  Included in this group would be the end times believers who though they claim to be Christians act like heathen.

In his commentary on” Numbers” R. J. Rushdoony writes, “Two motives now govern men. One is egocentrism whereby the individual judges all things by himself.  In terms of Genesis 3:5 he sees himself as a god empowered to judge and determine what is good and evil in terms of himself.  The other motive is group centrism: the criterion for judgment becomes one’s social, racial, or special interest group. In either case, no higher law is seen as binding on all.  The political process then becomes a clash of false and petty centers, all determined to destroy the totality if their will is not done.”

Tragically, not only the elite would be world rulers but the people they intend to rule have fallen into the condition Rushdoony so aptly describes.  In our times all are “determined to destroy the totality if their will is not done”.  We have millions of pseudo-Christians who believe they can stem the advance of the police state by electing the proper political figures.  Their striving is being successfully countered by the wily elite power brokers who actually have the power to control the political apparatus. It is a meager group that seeks to forsake the entire mess, accept, obey and defend the Law of the Creator, and leave the solution in His hands.

Christians have been lackadaisical; living with and accommodated sin without confronting, resisting, and exposing it.  The Christian Church has failed to confront evil and obey God’s Law.  When President Wilson broke his anti-war promise and allowed the wealth of the nation to be raped by the criminal Federal Reserve the Christian Church failed to confront the immorality and dishonesty involved.  We did the same when President Franklin D. Roosevelt set up a Socialist Government. We were too involved in our own self-centered agenda to pay proper attention to the enemy in the house.

When sin begins to blossom it can easily be removed but if it is ignored and the blossoms become branches and entangling vines cutting off a strand has not effect on the entire plant.  This is where we are, we are surrounded by massive entangled sin that we have allowed to grow but that we can no longer control.  From a human standpoint our situation is hopeless.

In his commentary on Numbers R. J. Rushdoony writes, “The modern state hides its evils in a vast bureaucracy of endless rules and regulations which make for anonymity.  The anonymity of cowardice now surrounds us and all too many men are silent.  We do not advance in history by means of any natural force or pendulum, but only by faith and moral courage.  This is the great need of our time.”

We can elect another liar to the Presidency but he will forsake his promises and continue to allow the puppeteer to dictate his behavior.  We can continue to fight a losing battle against an overwhelming power structure, we can work for a revolution that will result in another oppressive government, or we can put our head in the sand and go along to get along.  These are the alternatives.  But there is another.  God can restore this nation. We cannot untangle the mess but He can.  He can restore freedom to the world!

It was the God of the Bible that miraculously freed His people from Egyptian captivity.  We worship that same miracle working, powerful and merciful God.  “When my people humble themselves—the ones who are called by my name—and pray, seek me, and turn away from their evil practices, I myself will listen from heaven, I will pardon their sins, and I will restore their land.”

Christians often quote this verse from Second Chronicles 7:14 but the promise is contingent on obedience and we have failed to obey.  First, God is referring to His Church, “my people – the ones who are called by my name” must humble themselves.  Humility is not a wishy-washy condition.  Being humble means being subservient to the Living God – understanding that He is God and we are His servants enjoined to do His Will.  With a humble spirit we are to seek Him in two ways: One, we are to pray.  Two, we are to repent and turn from our evil ways.

It is the second requirement that sets the foundation for the restoration.  Turning from our evil ways means that we will stop disobeying God.  In order to obey God we must turn to His Law.  We are evil; we suffer from the same urge to disobey that overcame Adam in the book of Genesis.  We want to be God.  We are unable to determine how to obey God without referring the His Law.  We must go back to the Torah and the Law God gave to Moses.  There is no way to gain a better understanding of the character and desires of the God we worship than to read the Laws He gave to Moses.

God’s Law sets the foundation for the society He seeks for His people.  We are saved by the Blood of Jesus; by the sacrifice of God’s Son our sins are forgiven – forgiven but not forgotten.  The results of sin cross into the next couple of generations.  The sooner we repent and begin to obey God’s Law the sooner we and our posterity will begin to enjoy the righteousness, peace, freedom, and prosperity that obedience produces..

We must humble ourselves and pray, seek God with a contrite heart, and begin to learn and obey His Law.  Then He will restore us to our land.  Do you realize, gentle reader, that our land is being stolen from us through government ownership and United Nations control?  Land is a gift from God to be subdued and cultivated for our sustenance.  It is not to be acquired by despotic governments and returned to wilderness.

How do we pray?  We pray for forgiveness from our sins and the sins of our fathers.  We ask God to forgive us for putting the nation ahead of His Kingdom.  We ask to be forgiven for making an idol of politicians and political parties.  We repent from being the arbiter of our faith and vow to treat His Word with humility and reverence. We agree to obey His Law to the best of our ability and we thank Him for the provision He has provided by sacrificing His Son.  We seek forgiveness for supporting illegal wars with a macho desire for victory and promise never to engage in armed conflict without His willing assistance. We agree to promote obedience in our sphere by confronting evil with righteousness.  And we pray all this with the understanding that it is God who has brought the United States of America to this juncture and only He can turn it around.

It is time to acknowledge that we cannot redeem our nation; that human efforts are useless against a powerful opaque enemy who has control of all of the power centers.  We can carp at the results of this hidden adversary but we have no way of confronting the forces that are slowly robbing us of our freedom.

I believe God has divorced the mainline Christian Churches, the Charismatic congregations, the independent mega churches, and many of the Evangelical Churches. These organizations have become social centers and theological aberrations.  They are useless in the battle for redemption.

The Catholic Church has maintained an authoritative center but it has allowed heretical traditions to distort its theology and sexual sin to stain and pollute its heart.  It supports world government and is a significant part of the problem.

The Protestant Church has allowed Antinomianism to destroy its theological base to the point where it can hardly be called a Christian organization.  Lawless Evangelical and Charismatic churches do not worship the God of the Bible.  The Law is a reflection of the character of God.  Christians who deny the Law worship a different god. Rushdoony writes, “To despise God’s law is to despise God.”

Real Christians can no longer support organized churches.  If we wish to be servants to the Living God we must leave organized churches.

The God of the Bible, The One True God, seeks an obedient people.  He knows our frailties but wants us to do our utmost for His Highest.  Our duty is to seek to obey His Commandments in every phase of our lives and to work to bring all of His creation under His dominion.  His power and blessing will enforce that effort.

In his comments on Christ’s High Priestly prayer in “Systematic Theology” R. J. Rushdoony quotes a sterling description of a real church by D. Douglas Bannerman,http://www.docs.is.ed.ac.uk/docs/lib-archive/bgallery/Gallery/records/eighteen/bannerman.html  “That they may be one, even a We are.”  Who can tell all that these words foreshadow as in the final estate of the Church of the redeemed?  Christ’s disciples shall be one with each other, even as the Three are most high in the unity of the blessed Godhead. They shall be one in heart and will, in righteousness, holiness, and love, in the unity of one new nature in Christ, and yet with no loss of personal character, even as there are high and mysterious differences between the three, who are One upon the throne in heaven, “the same in substance, equal in power and glory.”

I am an old man and my energies are waning but I have often dreamed of having an anti-establishment blog in every city.  The Blog would specifically counter the slanted news produced by our press and media.  These Blogs would correct and add to the news that is always distorted and truncated allowing citizens to read a realistic description of the issues.  It would provide the rest of the story that is often found on various internet sites but never in the controlled media.  There are good writers who regularly write for the net without compensation.   Extensive computer savvy would be required but the cost would be minimal – a few bumper stickers would suffice for advertising.

God may already have rejected the Christian Church.  It has been an ineffective organization for many years and efforts to awaken it leaders have failed.  Real Christians need to begin to network and work on projects that resist the massive evil entanglements.  The objective is to bring the world under God’s control through willing obedience to His Commandments.

Rushdoony list three requirements of the covenant people “law, obedience, and love”.

There it is:  Repent, regroup, pray, and work to bring the light of righteousness back into the world.  Leave the end times and the Second Coming in the hands of God and begin to do the work God intended for us.   When the Mighty God of All Creation is on our side victory is assured.

Obama’s Multiple Regime Change Fronts

Previous articles discussed Obama’s rogue agenda in detail. His destructive pattern continues unabated. Throughout his tenure, he did what supporters thought impossible.

He exceeded the worst of George Bush. His policies replicate Republican hardliners. Neocons infest his administration.

He’s waging war on humanity. He’s doing at home and abroad.

He wrecked America’s economy. He looted the nation’s wealth. He handed Wall Street crooks multi-trillions of dollars. He gave trillions more to war profiteers.

Other corporate favorites benefitted hugely. So did super-rich elites. Ordinary Americans struggle through protracted Depression level conditions.

Hard times keep getting harder. They persist. They show no signs of ending. Growing millions face impoverishment without jobs or futures.

Freedoms are disappearing in plain sight. Police state ruthlessness targets dissent. Abuse of power is institutionalized.

Multiple regime change fronts target foreign leaders. Independent ones aren’t tolerated. Obama wants Syria’s Assad replaced.

He’s waging proxy to oust him. He’s responsible for three years of bloody conflict. Mass slaughter, destruction and unspeakable human misery define it.

Millions of internally and externally displaced Syrians attest to his ruthlessness. War rages without end.

Peace talks are more pretense than real. Full-scale US intervention may follow their failure. They’re currently deadlocked. They’re going nowhere.

Syrians want their sovereign rights protected. Obama wants unconditional surrender. He wants pro-Western puppet governance replacing Assad. He wants similar stooges in charge elsewhere.

So-called Iranian nuclear talks may fail. Pursuing them is red herring cover for regime change.

Iran’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful. It has no military component. Washington hardliners claim otherwise. So does Obama.

Saying so flies in the face of hard evidence. Annual US intelligence assessments affirm Iran’s peaceful program. So do IAEA inspectors.

Regime change matters more. So does eliminating an Israeli rival. Perhaps Obama plans more war to do it. Maybe he intends manipulating nuclear talks to fail as pretext.

Maybe he’ll attack Iran jointly with Israel. Maybe he’ll risk regional war doing it. Imagine the unthinkable.

Imagine humanity threatening nuclear war. Bush administration’s 2001 Nuclear Policy Review asserted first strike nuclear policy strategy.

His 2002 and 2006 National Security Strategies reaffirmed it. In 2010, Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review was old wine in new bottles.

Rhetoric changed, not policy. Obama “reserves the right” to use nuclear weapons preemptively. He does so based on real or invented threats.

He does it against non-nuclear power states. His land/sea/air triad offensive can be activated on his call alone.

He can order bombs away against any country. He can claim preemptive defense against a nonexistent existential threat. He can risk mushroom-shaped cloud denouement doing so.

Total war risks what no responsible leader would dare. Obama waged multiple direct and proxy wars throughout his entire tenure.

He’s got other targets in mind. How many more millions will suffer on his watch? How many more will perish? How much more human suffering is too much?

America’s super-weapons include the Mother of All Bombs. It has globe-circling delivery systems. It has arsenal strength able to extinguish human life in hours. Days at most.

It’s perhaps lawless enough to try. Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (1904 – 2005) said human intelligence doesn’t guarantee survival.

Beetles and bacteria stand a better chance than humans. They may become the only species ever to self-destruct.

Hubris produces bad endings. America faces the same fate as all previous empires. None survived.

America’s denouement may take humanity with it. Imagine having leaders willing to risk it. Imagine ending life on earth.

Waging war on Syria risks regional war. Attacking Iran risks the unthinkable. Plans were readied years ago. Updating followed.

Bombs away could happen with push button ease. Is Obama foolhardy enough to risk it?

Ukraine is targeted for regime change. The battle for its soul continues. Same old, same old reflects US policy.

Obama wants another independent leader toppled. He wants pro-Western stooge governance replacing him.

He wants opposition leader Arseny Yatsenyuk leading it. On Sunday, he addressed supporters publicly. He did so in Ukraine’s Independence Square.

President Viktor Yanukovych extended an olive branch earlier. Yatsenyuk rejected his offer to become prime minister. He’s forming his own government, he said.

He wants Ukraine’s 2004 constitution reinstated. It calls for combined parliamentary/presidential rule.

Obama wants Ukraine colonized for profit. He wants its resources plundered. He wants ordinary Ukrainians turned into serfs. He wants Russia increasingly weakened and isolated.

He’s in league with ultranationalist extremists. He’s involved in inciting continuing violent clashes.

He wants all former Soviet republics transformed into subservient US satellites. He wants America’s war machine encroaching on Russia’s borders.

Imagine challenging the only other nation able to match America’s nuclear might blow for blow.

Imagine the potential mother of all conflicts. Imagine the possible mother of all bad endings.

Imagine an irresponsible US leader willing to risk the unthinkable. Imagine bipartisan complicity doing nothing to stop him. Imagine strong anti-war sentiment absent on streets protesting.

Imagine America again getting away with mass murder. Imagine it on the most unspeakable of ugly scales.

Imagine risking humanity’s survival in the process. Imagine imperial madness exceeding everything preceding it.

Imagine targeting Venezuela at the same time. Imagine wanting Bolivarian social justice destroyed.

Imagine trying for the past 15 years to extinguish it. Imagine new schemes following failed ones.

Imagine wanting control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. They’re the world’s largest. Big Oil has its eye on the prize it covets.

Obama killed Chavez. He was either poisoned or infected with cancer causing substances.

Maduro believes he’s targeted the same way. He knows Obama wants him ousted. He wants fascist governance replacing him.

US manipulated violence continues on Venezuelan streets. On Sunday, President Nicolas Maduro addressed thousands of supporters.

“You want to see people in the streets? We’ll give you people in the streets,” he said. Thousands cheered him.

“I’m not going to give one millimeter of the power the Venezuelan people have given me.”

“Nothing will stop me from building this revolution which comandante Chavez left us.”

Maduro denounced protesters as coup d’etat fascists. Responsible parties will be prosecuted according to the full letter of the law, he said.

He accused former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe of fomenting unrest. He called him an “enemy of Venezuela.”

So is anti-Bolivarian fascist politician Leopoldo Lopez. He heads

Venezuela’s hard-right Voluntad Popular (Popular Will) party.

He incited violence. “There cannot be peace,” he said. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

He’s charged with murder, terrorism, conspiracy, incitement to crime, setting fire to a public building, damaging public property, public intimidation, and inflicting serious injuries.

Maduro called him “the face of fascism.” He threatens Venezuelan freedom. He’s against Bolivarian fairness. So are other likeminded extremists.

On Sunday, Venezuelan Minister of Interior and Justice Miguel Rodriguez Torres spoke publicly. He condemned opposition-provoked street violence.

“(V)andalism protests, he called them. Popular Will party extremists incite them. John Kerry issued an outrageous one-sided statement. In didn’t surprise. In part, he said:

“We are particularly alarmed by reports that the Venezuelan government has arrested or detained scores of anti-government protestors and issued an arrest warrant for opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez.”

“These actions have a chilling effect on citizens’ rights to express their grievances peacefully.”

He ignored Washington’s role in inciting violence. He condemned what he supports.

Doublespeak duplicity defines US policy. Kerry called on Venezuela’s government “to provide the political space necessary for meaningful dialogue with the Venezuelan people…”

He urged restoration of calm. He called “(f)reedoms of expression and peaceful assembly…universal rights.”

Venezuela “has an obligation to protect” them,” he said.

Bolivarian principles champion them. America systematically trashes rule of law principles. It’s waging economic, political and street clash war on Venezuela. Don’t expect Kerry to explain.

Obama has three years left in office. How many more independent governments does he plan to target?

How much more street violence will he cause? How many more wars will he wage? How much more carnage will follow?

How much longer will Americans tolerate his lawlessness? The only solution is nonviolent revolution.

Resisting tyranny is a national imperative. America’s Declaration of Independence endorsed it, saying:

“(W)hever any form of government (threatens) life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”

Jefferson, Madison and other notable Americans supported doing so. Tyranny is too unjust to tolerate. Good people are obligated to resist.

It’s a noble tradition. It’s a universal right for justice. It’s high time Americans got some. The alternative is perhaps perish.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at .

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Urban War Zones In America

Urban War Zones are now a reality inside many American cities.

It’s no longer necessary to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or Africa to enter a real war zone and have to fight for your life.

Thanks to massive CIA drug trafficking and American Free-trade Treaties like NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT & WTO, many American inner cities have been transformed into actual war zones.

These inner city war zones are infested with drug gangs that outnumber police and out gun them too.

At present these gangs are typically competing and battling with each other for turf and making a living selling drugs and running prostitutes, some captive sex-slaves. At some point if the economy worsens and the SHTF, they could easily start looting and attacking anyone and everyone.

However, in every major city in America at present, violent urban predators prey on the unarmed, old, weak, sick or disabled. And while out of control Police Swat Teams battle these predators and drug gangs, they often tyrannize the innocent which include women and young children, using excessive force all too often. There are numerous incidents of such teams murdering innocents after attacking the wrong home.

The massive War on Drugs was designed as a dualistic program. One hand, the top secret part involves the USG bringing in massive amounts of illegal drugs to raise “off the books money” for covert ops. The other hand uses all serious gang crimes arising as a pretext to militarize the police as justify their deployment as Nazi Storm Troopers.

This second part of the War on Drugs is for public disclosure and consumption. In response to all this massive urban breakdown, the worsening economy and increasing government tyranny from the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA and out of control local police, Americans are arming at an astounding rate. Guns are literally flying off the shelves and ammo sales are at an all time high also.

Americans now arming up in mass in order  to protect themselves from and this increasing USG Tyranny of the USG, DHS and their local militarized and Mind-kontrolled local police (1)  and from increasing and spreading urban crime which includes robberies, car-jackings, home burglaries and home invasions.

Also given as an important reason for arming up for the first time when asked, is a fear of possible impending economic collapse with an associated SHTF occurrence. Many express a salient and absolute need to be able to protect themselves and/or their family members from possible looters and armed home invaders which would likely accompany a SHTF urban breakdown situation.

And who should be credited with creating such a foreboding urban environment? It is the Globalist Traitors and infil-Traitors who have hijacked the political process and Banking in America.

These Globalist “enemies within” have rammed through economically disastrous Free-Trade Agreements and forced Diversity, Perversions and Political correctness accompanied by massive immigration, most illegal. All this has been designed to destroy the borders, language and culture of America, to neutralize its Constitution, Bill of Rights and Rule of Law while transforming America into a economically distressed Third World Nation.

These Globalist enemies within the Gates have been working very hard to transform America into a Democracy (Mob rule by the masses) from the Republic which was set up by our Founding Fathers.  Obviously any real enforcement of the US Constitution would assure that American would remain a republic the way it was set up.

Since the imposition of so-called “Free Trade” policies upon the American Republic, urban decay and blight have become epidemic in major American cities. Many cities have turned into Urban Jungles, where only the strongest survive. In these Urban Jungles, violent gangs prevail and the weak are parasitized and consumed, afraid to go out of their homes, especially after dark.

Take Chicago, which has become a “kill or be kill” free fire Urban War Zone in some of its Urban areas. Chicago is the one of the most gun restricted areas ever, but the only ones that do not carry guns to defend themselves are law abiding citizens.

Gang members have all the guns they want, supplied by drug gangs and the CIA and BATF.http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/

Some of these areas such as Washington DC have been rated as having a 300% chance of being mugged if out after dark in certain areas, which means you could likely be robbed three times in a single block if you have a victim profile (old, young, weak, disabled, female). The real unemployment rate is 37%, despite phony USG that it is 7% or less.(2)

And now Detroit has been declared Bankrupt. It has been reported that retired police and City workers will now receive approximately 13% of their pensions due.

The Ruins of Detroit:

The ten Most Dangerous American Cities which are truly Urban Jungles at Night:

There are areas in Detroit, South Chicago and St. Louis that are so violent and infested with violent gangs that even the police refuse to enter unless ordered and then do so with major forces.

Until recently parts of Detroit was so violent that police and ambulances refused to provide service during the night hours and often found abandoned dead bodies (murder victims) days later. Detroit, known as “Iron City”, the jewel of America, used to be prosperous beyond measure based on the manufacture of the world’s finest cars.

Remember what a 1965 Olds Starfire coupe was like, or a mid 60′s Buick Wildcat or Pontiac Bonneville was like.  How about a mid 60′s Chevy with a HP409 engine or a Plymouth Belvedere with a 426 Hemi or 440 Wedge engine?

That all changed in 1971 with the introduction of very extreme anti-pollution “clean air” laws which reduced automotive engine compression ratios from approximately 10.5 to 8.5, required the installation of retarded, goofy extremely inefficient camshafts.  The result was garbage engines that had little power, consumed huge increases in gasoline and a major shift in chassis quality to near complete crap. At that point American automotive quality was gone and is only starting to come back now forty years later.

This is but one symptom of the covert Globalist engineering of American Society on behalf of the City of London zionist Central Banksters.

This of course created a great opportunity for the Japanese Auto manufacturers, secretly owned and controlled by the super-elite American Banking families. When W. Edwards Deming, an astute American engineer approached American Automotive Manufacturers in Detroit and proposed his plan to drastically reduce defects and lemons, he was rebuffed because it was felt his plan was too expensive and too slow.

Deming’s plan required 100% quality checks and verification of all parts from every supplier instead of the approximately 1% or less sampling. When Deming approached the Japanese, who had already shown a new coming expertise in motorcycles and quality circles in their electronics manufacturing, his program was accepted and implemented.

The rest is history, and after about 15 years, the American Automotive manufacturers have been playing a catch up game ever since for quality with the Japanese Auto manufacturers.

And now the Korean Automotive Manufacturers have hired retired Japanese automotive engineers as consultants and have adopted many of their same practices and principals to their automotive manufacturing.  The result?

Some Autos manufactured in South Korea have attained the same quality as the Japanese which are considered to currently be the highest quality in the world. As many automotive enthusiasts suggest, if you want the best performance buy German, if you want the highest quality buy Japanese.

It is a fair assumption that Globalism and the Free-Trade Agreements it produced, have resulted in the exportation of most American heavy industry, manufacturing and millions of good paying jobs. This alone has seriously harmed the American economy and set America on a path of destruction, starting first with its Urban Centers which have become urban wastelands and jungles, and now progressively spreading to middle class and upper middle class outlying suburbs.

Fair Trade with suitably adjusted reasonable Tariffs to protect American Jobs are necessary to America’s economic survival and prosperity. Free Trade is not Free at all and is an abomination to the American republic and its Sovereignty.

It is a tool of the Globalists to enhance the earnings of their international offshore Globalist corporations at the expense of the American worker.  It is nothing less than a secret war against America’s Sovereignty and the Republic itself.

The only other globalist tactic to destroy America that approaches its effectiveness are the policies of unrestricted illegal immigration, forced diversity, cultural programming that perversion is good, required perversion programming in the public schools that it is normal, and political correctness.

Obviously these are all Globalist weapons of covert war waged against America to destroy its borders, language and culture and gut it economically.  These Globalist weapons have been deployed against Americans in order to transform America into a Third World “Democracy” instead of the Republic that it was set up to be by the Founding Fathers.

These Traitors and Infil-Traitors in Congress and the Administration keep financing and running foreign wars for Israel in order to establish Democracy like they keep claiming we have in America. We have never had a democracy but they have been doing their best to kill the Republic on the behalf of their zionist owners and masters This is of course one of the biggest lies ever told.

America has always been a Republic, a democracy is mob rule. Of course bringing in 30-60 million illegal immigrants and millions of legally sanctioned foreign workers has quickly undermined American culture and tradition and established a real base to elect politicians who appeal to the masses. The election of President Obama was the first of such travesties.

Up until recently when American aircraft manufacturers starting buying foreign parts, American aircraft were the best in the world, especially the military aircraft and fighter/interceptors. Now we have an F-22 with a contaminated O2 system from China that causes some pilots to start passing out and a Boeing Dreamliner with a faulty battery system that was imported.

For years St. Louis has been so poor that some of their police radio don’t work properly and their squad cars are in disrepair. In East Los Angeles, despite how tough and well armed the LA Police Department is, top police officials know that they are completely outgunned by Mexican drug gangs allowed to enter and do business inside America and also provided arms shipped by the CIA and the BATF.

It’s not as if Americans weren’t duly warned what such Free-Trade Treaties would produce, because Presidential Candidate Ross Perot went public with what was coming.  He described the effects as a “giant sucking sound” for American jobs as they would leave America in droves.

But despite Perot’s grave warnings, President George HW Bush signed NAFTA on Dec. 17, 1992 with full Congressional support. The NAFTA Treaty was ratified after Bill Clinton became President. Soon after the sucking sound started, with shocking support the the US Department of State which provided massive grants to major corporations to move manufacturing to Mexico.  These grants continued at American taxpayer expense under the subsequent Trade Treaties that were subsequently signed and ratified such as CAFTA, GATT, and WTO.

Unbeknownst to most Americans, President Obama is now deeply involved in secret negotiations to pass the Trans Pacific Partnership Treaty (TPP) which experts have described as “NAFTA on Steroids”. TPP is far more than just another Free Trade Treaty which continues to lower the value of American wages to the “rock bottom” levels in third world  countries. If signed and ratified by Congress, the TPP would be the complete end to any remaining American Sovereignty.

What established this frenzy for Free-Trade Agreements? It is now known that The last duly elected President of the United States of America was Ronald Reagan.  It is also known by seasoned intel officers that Ronald Reagan distrusted American Intel in general and especially his Vice President George HW Bush.

In fact it has now been discovered that President Reagan distrusted the CIA and American Intel so much, he set up his “Kitchen Cabinet” and brought in Lee Wanta as his Secret Agent under the Totten Doctrine (3).

George HW Bush was illegally elected later as President, since his father Prescott Bush had signed an Immunity Agreement that no future Bushes (Scherfs) would ever run for office after he was arrested for “aiding the enemy” and his Union Bank assets were seized by FDR during WW2.

It is also known that George HW Bush ran his own private CIA inside the CIA which served the specific needs of the zionist City of London Central Banksters and their franchisees, the American private Federal Reserve and major Wall Street Banksters.

Some former top American Intel believe that it was this private GHW Bush Intel organization that tried to assassinate President Reagan, by using their man, a secret service man who fired a high speed plastic disc from a compressed air powered disc-gun, the type displayed by William Colby in Congressional Hearings on the abuses of American Intel.

PBS Judy Woodruff had reported this of seeing the SS man fire a gun from a second story window that night on PBS but the story was quickly squelched and she changed it after a very convincing “not to worry visit” from some very serious American Intel agents. President Reagan, despite a long slow disjointed route to the hospital, survived. This assassination attempt however signaled that the Treasonous Bush Cabal had attained a major power base inside the Military and Congress.

The sad thing is that all the political power and influence  necessary to accomplish this and to transform the American Congress into Traitors was due to the vast money provided to K Street Lobbyists and zionist espionage groups like AIPAC, ADL, B’nai B’brith, and the like by the Central Banksters and the various Judaic groups shaken down and manipulated by zionist for donations.

So the first beach-head of the Globalists (aka zionist City of London Central Banksters and the “Old Black Nobility” they represented) was established with a bought, owned and controlled US Congress.  Once GHW Bush was elected President, the circle of control was complete.

One of George W. Bush’s major assignments was to take American further down the Globalist path by fighting more Mideast wars for Israel. Another was to destroy the Republic party by being the worst President ever and fully debasing the Republican, which he did. Now the Republican leaders in Congress are tricking the Republican Party into committing suicide by agreeing to back the Democratic legislation for making illegal immigrants legal and future citizens.

So it is now obvious that the Republic Party is finished and Americans need to rise up and form a new Third Party. Otherwise you can be assured that just like in the last Presidential election, both candidates will be owned by the Bush Cabal.Unless the Bush Cabal has been fully exposed and displaced by then which is now  real possibility.

It has been estimated that there are now approximately 30 million illegal immigrants inside Americaallowed in by a Globalist controlled USG who prevented border enforcement and liberal immigration laws which are not enforced. With the the passage of the currently proposed Democratic plan for legalizing illegal immigrants, this number could easily grow to 60 to 100 million.

In most major American Cities, Police are not allowed to arrest suspected illegal immigrants for minor traffic violations or check their identification for legal status. Not so for those whose license plates are run and show up as actual American Citizens. And this is all due to orders coming down from a few top policy-Makers who operate at the nexus of the Secret Shadow Government (SSG).

GHWB could now institute major efforts to undo all the excellent plans for the economic and industrial reconstruction of America that President Reagan had set in place and activated. As has been disclosed in a previous article (4), President Reagan had brought in Lee Wanta to serve as his Secret Agent because he didn’t trust the CIA which had been corrupted and hijacked by GHWB.

It should now be exceedingly clear to those who are well informed about the degradation of the American economy and rule of law accompanied by increasing tyranny, deployment of DHS, TSA and the passage of all the unConstitutional draconian laws (like the so-called Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and NDAA 2014).

All this is being engineered by foreign controlled Globalist traitors and infil-Traitors who have hijacked America and worked hard to export  heavy industry, manufacturing and jobs.

And that they are doing this to asset strip America, destroy it’s economy and the Republic itself in order to Balkanize America and prevent it from ever rising in economic strength again and operating as a Republic “of the people, by the people and for the people”.

Their motives for all this?  To covertly re-fight the Revolutionary war that was lost and retake America on behalf of the zionist City of London Central Banksters and their Kingpin overlords the Old Black Nobility (OBN).  These hidden masters of the world-wide occult network which runs the IZCS prefer to stay hidden in the background where they can pull all the strings of several top Policy-Makers in America with no personal risk to themselves.

What can be done to turn this around? Obviously the first step is to get rid of all Free-Trade Agreements. In order to do this all the zionist espionage fronts inside America such as AIPAC, ADL, B’nai B’rith and the like must be fully exposed and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. In order to do this zionist Israeli-American dual citizens inside Congress and the USG and its Agencies must be exposed as traitors and agents of foreign espionage and routed out of power.

America has to stop fighting Israel’s illegal Mideast wars and withdraw all aid and support for Israel as long as it is a criminal, racist apartheid state persecuting and murdering Palestinians and stealing their land incrementally.

Lee Wanta, a great American Heroe that served as President Reagan’s Secret Agent under the Totten Doctrine and was instrumental in bringing down the evil Soviet Union

We need to re-institute the Wanta Reconstructing America Plan based on the Maglev High Speed Rail System which has the necessary funding already available. (5)

And it is time to also re-establish the Want Economic Recovery Plan for America that was also set up under President Reagan, but later stopped cold by George HW Bush and his Cabal when they instituted a secret coup to take over the whole USG on behalf of the City of London zionist Central Banksters and their Wall Street and Federal Reserve Franchisees.(6)

In fact it is a reasonable assumption that the massive Free-Trade attack on America’s economy was largely a reaction by the Bush Cabal to these amazing economic reconstruction plans President Reagan had put in place through his Secret Agent Lee Wanta, who was the master strategist that took down the Soviet Union for President Reagan.

Recent respected surveys show that a majority of American are disgusted with the current administration and rating of the lowest ever experienced in America in the last century. Congress is also rated at an all time low with only 9% approving of it. Many view the current President as an alien imposter with no traceable past.  Some alternative media writers have stated that he is a sheep-dipped CIA creation just like Bill Clinton. All this is a mute point.  Why?

Because Ronald Reagan was the last duly elected President of the United States of America, the Republic, all presidents since have been fraudulently elected and owned by the Bush Cabal. And this Bush Cabal is the Action Agent of the City of London zionist Central Banksters and their International Zionist Crime Syndicate (IZCS).

The IZCS is centered in Israel where most intel is done by privatized Israeli corporations serving as American Defense and Intel contractors.  It is these private Israeli contactors who control all NSA raw intel and almost all American communications including internal White House phone calls and messaging, as well as all Pentagon and DOD communications.

Obviously the Bush Cabal has been able to install its own Presidential puppets and run a lucrative illegal drug trafficking operations into America.  All done to destabilize and “dirty up” American Cities while absorbing a great deal of the Welfare dollars and capturing vast “off the books” funds for their own covert operations and bribery of Congress. It is a fair conclusion that the Bush Cabal has destroyed the American Rule of Law, debased any true enforcement of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights and has corrupted every institution and agency of the USG.

However there is good news.  A growing force for good has emerged in the Alternative Media now transmitted everywhere instantly on demand by the worldwide Internet, the new Gutenberg Press and the NWO Globalist’s Achilles Heel. Yes, the Controlled Mass media (CMMM) has been a propaganda mouthpiece for the Bush Cabal and the IZCS, but is now losing its appeal and credibility. The CMMM keeps feeding lies and crap to the American public that are obviously false, like the Mideast American wars are wars to establish Democracy.  More and more Americans now realize this is complete BS, that we are there to fight Israel’s wars and defend British Oil interests.

Compare the articles of Veterans Today and other respected truth media now which are being published and read by millions inside America and all over the world with the CMMM. You will see the gap between the alternative media truth and the CMMM lies is ever widening and we are starting to see Alternative Media’s popularity driving stories into the CMMM, even thought the CMMM usually attempts to neutralize their significance.

Many thousands of brave American Soldiers who were lied to and deceived into fighting these illegal, unConstitutional, unprovoked, undeclared wars for Israel and Big Oil, thinking that they were defending America and its freedom. Few greater lies and deceptions has ever been predicated on Americans than this complete lie.  Many thousands of Americans have been killed and horribly wounded and disabled in this war.

If the American Military ever fully realizes that all these wars were phony and based on a lie and that Israel did the 9/11 attacks with the help of a cabal within the USAF and JCS, there will be hell to pay for all those perps involved. And now there is good reason to believe that day is coming in the not too distant future.

As most Americans are beginning to realize, America has been infil-Traited by Traitors and Infil-Traitors in the highest positions of the USG.  The major economic deterioration and loss of assets to the Wall Street Banksters and the private Federal reserve through financial Fraud have been staggering and Americans are catching on the the BLATANTLY OBVIOUS.

When American society reaches a critical mass awakening to this obvious situation that Globalists have been doing everything they can to destroy America, there will be major Blow-back of astounding proportions. When 12% of Americans are awakened, a critical mass and major turning point will be reached and you will begin to see major social change like never conceived, and this will all be due to major Blow-back from awakening.

The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon’s conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination. More recently, the townhall meetings, dominated by people opposed to health care reform, have been a serious roadblock for those pushing reform…. A big turnout … can make a real difference….When someone tells you to stop imagining that you are having an impact, ask them to please direct their energy into getting 10 friends to join you in doing what needs to be done. If it has no impact, you’ll have gone down trying. If it has an impact, nobody will tell you for many years. (7)

This coming complete awakening will be due to information dispensed and diffused by the Alternative Media and the worldwide Internet as well as word of mouth. it is best viewed as a byproduct of a new and powerful emerging worldwide populism which has now reached the point it is unstoppable. One recent study has established 10% as a critical mass, turning point for Society.(8)

I believe we are already at 11% and when we reach 12%, the days of the Bush cabal will be dated. They know it too and are scared sh*tless. That is why they have been going for broke trying to ram the NWO down our throats and militarize local police and build up DHS to oppress and then mass murder us.

It’s time to speak up to all your family, friends and associates that we need to abandon the Republican and Democratic political Parties.  Both parties are owned and controlled by the same Overlord, the IZCS who bought them and can blackmail them with NSA provided intel.

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who is also a Vet and a Navy Seal/UDT man had it right in his book of the Replican and Democrat Political Gangs in America, DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans (9).

Gov. Ventura recommends Americans dump both political Parties which serve the same corrupt masters and start electing alternative candidates only who are not associated with either of the two parties.

Conclusion:

It should now be exceedingly clear to those who are well informed about the degradation of the American economy and rule of law accompanied by increasing tyranny, deployment of DHS, TSA and the passage of all the unConstitutional draconian laws (like the so-called Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and NDAA 2014), that all this is being engineered by foreign controlled Globalist traitors and infil-Traitors who have hijacked America and worked hard to export  heavy industry, manufacturing and jobs.

And that they are doing this to asset strip America, destroy it’s economy and the Republic itself in order to Balkanize America and prevent it from ever rising in economic strength again and operating as a Republic “of the people, by the people and for the people”.

Their motives for all this?  To covertly re-fight the Revolutionary war that was lost and retake America on behalf of the zionist City of London Central Banksters and their Kingpin overlords the Old Black Nobility (OBN).  These hidden masters of the world-wide occult network which runs the IZCS prefer to stay hidden in the background where they can pull all the strings of several top Policy-Makers in America with no personal risk to themselves.

(1) http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/02/17/robocops/

(2) http://www.tpnn.com/2014/01/22/actual-unemployment-rate-37-2-not-6-7-says-wall-street-adviser/

(3) TOTTEN DOCTRINE [ 92 U.S. 105, 107 (1875) ]

(4) http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/01/05/the-wanta-reconstructing-america-plan/

(5) http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/12/28/high-speed-rail/

(6) http://wantarevelations.com/2014/01/wanta-plan-macro-financial-economic-check-list/

(7) http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2014-01-31/powers-be-are-secretly-terrified-people%E2%80%99s-power-%E2%80%A6-and-only-pretend-they%E2%80%99re-fi

(8) http://scienceblog.com/46622/minority-rules-scientists-discover-tipping-point-for-the-spread-of-ideas/

(9) 

Source: Preston James | Veterans Today

The Danger of War in Asia

An editorial in the Financial Times last week, entitled “End drift to war in the East China Sea,” highlighted the growing alarm in ruling circles about the prospect of a conflict between Japan and China. “The possibility of war,” it declared, “is rapidly emerging as one of the biggest security risks facing the world,” and the two governments “are doing nothing to make conflict less likely.”

The FT focussed on comments by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he explicitly drew the comparison between the current rivalry in East Asia and that between Britain and Germany prior to World War I. “For Japan’s prime minister to allow any comparison with 1914 in Europe is chilling and inflammatory,” it stated.

The immediate source of tensions is the territorial dispute over rocky outcrops in the East China Sea, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. However, the chief responsibility for inflaming this dangerous flashpoint, along with others throughout the region, lies with the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia”—a strategy aimed at isolating China economically and diplomatically, and encircling it militarily.

While hypocritically claiming to be “neutral” on the territorial dispute, Washington has repeatedly declared that, in the event of a war over the islands, the US would support its ally Japan. Moreover, as part of the “pivot,” the Obama administration has been restructuring its military bases in Japan and encouraging Japan to remilitarise.

Asia in 2014 does bear a chilling resemblance to Europe in 1914. World War I arose over the intractable competition for spheres of influence between the major powers. As Lenin and Trotsky, the great Marxists of that period explained, it marked the opening of the imperialist epoch—the epoch of the death agony of capitalism.

The global financial crisis that erupted in 2008, the worsening world economic slump and rising geo-political tensions make clear that capitalism has resolved none of the fundamental contradictions that produced the horrors of a century ago.

Over the past decade, US imperialism has plunged into one war of aggression after another—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya—as well as numerous intrigues and provocations, in a desperate bid to offset its relative economic decline through its military predominance. The installation of Obama as president and his “pivot” to Asia reflected deep concerns in the American establishment that the Bush administration’s focus on the Middle East undermined US hegemony in Asia, including over its cheap labour platforms, above all China, that had become central to corporate profit.

Under Obama, the US has encouraged allies such as Japan and the Philippines to take a more assertive stance in their disputes with China; begun to “rebalance” 60 percent of US air and naval forces to the Indo-Pacific; and is establishing new basing arrangements with Australia and other Asia-Pacific countries as part of its war preparations.

In Japan, the US “pivot” has helped foster the emergence of the right-wing Abe government that, in the space of a year, has increased military spending for the first time in a decade and moved to end constitutional restrictions on the Japanese armed forces. Last month, Abe provocatively visited the notorious Yasukuni Shrine to the country’s war dead—a potent symbol of Japanese militarism in the 1930s and 1940s.

Abe is being driven by the interests of Japanese imperialism, which is not prepared to relinquish its position as a leading power in Asia. In his speech at Davos, Abe dismissed pundits who “called Japan the land of the setting sun” and declared that “a new dawn” was breaking. The two themes of his speech were equally aggressive—thinly-disguised criticisms of China, alongside cut-throat economic measures designed to undermine rivals and turn Japan into one of the “most business-friendly places in the world.”

By likening China to Germany in 1914, Abe is seeking to portray Beijing as a dangerous new menace. Unlike Germany, however, China is not an imperialist power. Despite the size of its economy, it continues to function as a cheap labour platform, completely dependent on foreign corporate investment and technology, as well as the existing centres of finance capital. In the military sphere, the US has an overwhelming preponderance, and a global network of bases and alliances that can threaten Chinese interests anywhere in the world.

Backed into a corner by the US over the past four years, the Chinese leadership has responded by offering further economic concessions to the major powers, on the one hand, while boosting military spending and asserting its claims in waters immediately adjacent to the Chinese mainland, on the other. The Beijing regime is whipping up anti-Japanese chauvinism both to justify its military build-up and to divert attention from the extreme social tensions produced by three decades of capitalist restoration.

While drawing attention to the rising danger of war, the Financial Times editorial offered no solution, other than an impotent appeal for “both sides to stop rattling sabres and start talking to one another.” Ignoring the fact that the US “pivot” has stoked the present confrontation, the editorial appealed for Washington to intervene as the voice of peace and reason. Both Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping “should look for a route away from Armageddon before it is too late,” it concluded.

However, as in 1914, the drive to war is being fuelled by the inherent contradictions of capitalism—between global economy and the outmoded nation state system, and private ownership of the means of production and socialised production—that have erupted with full force in the wake of the 2008 global breakdown. The only means of averting the catastrophe being prepared for humanity is the abolition of the bankrupt profit system and the socialist reorganisation of society to meet the social needs of vast majority, not the super-profits of a tiny wealthy elite. The dangers of another world war underscore the necessity of rejecting all forms of nationalism and patriotism and building a unified international anti-war movement of workers and youth in China, Japan, the US and around the world to carry out this urgent task.

Source: wsws

We Better Move On…

“I’ve gotten some of my best light from bridges I’ve burned.”– Don Henley

What does it take, in an era dominated by progressive identity politics, to be accepted as a fully qualified member of the Left?

Jane is a London lawyer who identifies politically ‘as a woman,’ and marches enthusiastically for human rights. Can she join? I think the answer is yes, she can.

George is a medical doctor who happens also to be a black man and identifies as ‘Black middle class.’ Can he subscribe to a progressive email group and contribute to the discussion? I hope and suspect that he can.

And what about Julie? She runs an estate agency on the posh side of town but she also identifies as a ‘gay lesbian,’ can she join the parade? What a question! Of course she can.

Now Abe is an accountant and very attached to his Jewish heritage. Abe identifies as a ‘secular Jew,’ can he join the anti-war movement? More than likely he can, in fact he may even, within hours of his joining, find himself in a position of leadership.

But what about Hammed, a metal worker from Birmingham? Hammed identifies as a ‘Muslim’ — can he join a Left demonstration against the War in Syria? It’s a good question and the answer is not immediately obvious at all because it’s no secret that many of those who subscribe to ‘progressive’ ideology and indeed, activism, are rather troubled by religion in general and Islam in particular.

So, while Hammed is identifying with a universal and humanist precept, Jane, ‘the woman’, Julie ‘the Gay Lesbian’ and George ‘the Black’ openly subscribe to biologically-determined political identities. Furthermore, Abe, Identifying as a secular Jew, affiliates himself with a blood-based ethnocentric tribal identity. Clearly, the Left has no problem with such marginal and exclusivist political identities.

So, how is it possible that the contemporary Left discourse is sustained by people who, themselves subscribe to biologically-determined identity politics, yet so often reject similar, though often working class folk, who actually support equality and human rights issues? Could it be that the Left has in fact, drifted away from working class politics into some vague and inconsistent pseudo-empathic discourse primarily engaged in sectarian battles?

And there’s more.

Uri is an Israeli peace activist and writer who also identifies as an Israeli Leftist. Is Uri welcome within the progressive network? The answer is unreservedly, yes. But John Smith, an English bus driver from Liverpool is proud to be English and ‘as an Englishman’ he opposes the war because John actually believes that peace is patriotic. Can he join an anti-war protest and, while he’s at it, carry a Union Jack to demonstrations? I leave the answer to you.

Tony is a ‘Jewish Socialist’ – certainly not religious but an ethnic Jew who identifies ‘as a Jew’ racially and ethnically. And by the way, Tony also operates politically within Jews-only anti-Zionist groups. Now Tony is hugely welcome at most Left and progressive gathering. But can the same be said for Franz who identifies as an ‘Aryan socialist’? Again, I leave the answer to you.

The point is that yet again we detect a critical discrepancy in Left or progressive thinking. While Jewish ethnocentrism and even Jewish racial exclusivity is accepted, other forms of ethnocentrism are bluntly rejected. Is this a contradiction? You judge.

And, while we’re at it, what about Laura? She’s a Muslim convert who often hides her face behind the veil. Does she feel comfortable in ‘progressive’ gatherings? Not really. But Laura certainly supports human rights and equality almost as much as she loves Allah. But the Left’s  and progressives’ tolerance towards Allah worshippers is particularly limited while, on the other hand,  worshippers of the Talmud who are willing to oppose Israel are, not only tolerated, they are positively welcomed. Torah Jews, for instance, are often invited to progressive gatherings though, it must be said, they also encounter some resentment, especially from Jewish activists (This surely is because progressive Jews don’t like to be associated with people in caftans).

So it seems that membership of a progressive club is no straightforward matter because here we are here dealing with a discourse that is far from being open or inclusive. On the contrary, it is a pretty selective operation and far from being principled, coherent or universal. No longer is it committed to ‘members’ of the ‘working class’ –  unless they first demonstrate adherence  to a predetermined tablet of  ‘correct politics’.

So what are these ‘correct politics’? Where are they defined and by whom?

In order to address this question we have to first delve into the peculiar ‘progressive’  threshold that leaves the Muslim and the nationalist out yet happily embraces other biologically-determined political, and even racial categories. Strangely enough, the mix that forms the Left alliance is suspiciously similar to the mix that sustains Liberal Zionist political power.

Is this a coincidence? Is it really that surprising that the Left, traditionally defined as a universal humanist discourse, is now supported politically and financially by a mixture of political identities that also lend their support to Israel and its rabidly nationalist, capitalist and ethnocentric ideology? No, it’s not, so I guess that the growing similarity between the Left and Liberal Zionism alliance demands some explanation. I’ve managed to come with three possible answers.

1.     The Spin – The similarity between the Liberal Zionist alliance and the Left compound is a complete coincidence and reveals nothing about either Zionism or Left ideology.

2.     The Observant – The Left and Liberal Zionism are basically two faces of the same coin.

3.     The Forensic – By following the money trail, we see that most Left groups and liberal Zionism (a la J-Street and practically the entire progressive network) are funded by the same organizations, leading amongst them being George Soros’ Open Society Institute.  

If the last is true (and I think it is) it may as well mean that a large part of the ‘dissident’ network is sustained by….wait for it… a Wall Street hedge fund. In other words we are dealing here with an institutional and well-funded controlled opposition apparatus. This may explain, what so often seems on the part of the Left and Progressive discourse generally, like complete dysfunction and utter impotence – whether in labour matters, domestic politics, foreign affairs, global wars and, of course, Palestine.

If the Left sees any reason to rescue itself — and this is indeed a big ‘if’ —  it would first have to redeem itself from its greed and attachment to ‘big money.’ It may have to redefine for itself exactly what labour and ‘working class politics’ means for the workless.

Of course, it may just be that the Left has ended its political and ideological role, that basically, it belongs to the past. In other words, our capacity to think universally and ethically is now completely liberated from dialectical materialism or class division.

In the end, I doubt whether anyone within the progressive network possesses the intellectual capacity and ideological stamina  to endure such a serious discussion.

I guess we’d just better move on.

Global Warming Denial’s Twin Brother

For a long time now holocaust revisionists, aka “deniers”, have occupied a spot in the public’s esteem somewhere below pedophiles and just above serial killers. Now, a new contender for the penultimate position in the scale of public opprobrium has emerged: global warming “deniers”. The debate-squelching term has been applied to the likes of Richard Lindtzen, professor emeritus of meteorology at MIT; Roger Pielke Sr., professor emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State; and Patrick Michaels, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists. A while back, Scott Pelley of CBS News directly linked the two sets of heretics.

As with holocaust deniers, who enjoyed a brief exposure in the national media in the early 1990s but have since been banned from the airwaves, attempts are being made to deny global warming skeptics access to the podium. The Los Angeles Times recently banned “factually inaccurate” letters to the editor skeptical of human-caused climate change. In November, Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent for The Nation, accused Piers Morgan of being “journalistically irresponsible” for allowing a denier, Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama-Huntsville, on his  (Hertsgaard, who I suspect has a degree in Art History or the like, admonished Dr. Spencer, a former senior climate scientist at NASA, telling him he “needs to read more scientific papers”, to which Dr. Spencer graciously responded “I’ve got a feeling I’ve read more than you have, Mark”.)

Like holocaust denial, global warming denial can be hazardous to your career. In her inaugural address to Department of the Interior staff, the newly-appointed Secretary, Sally Jewell, warned ““I hope there are no climate-change deniers in the Department of Interior” (She’s probably checking the closets right now). Heidi Cullen, host of The Weather Channel’s “The Climate Code”, has called for the American Meteorologist Society to decertify weathermen who express skepticism about human activity causing climate change. And in Oregon, Governor Ted Kulongoski, sought to strip Professor George Taylor of the honorary title “State Climatologist”, bestowed on him by Oregon State, because of his anti-warmist views.

Fortunately, global warming denial has not been criminalized as has holocaust denial in Europe… yet. But RFK Jr. once accused supposed financial backers of global warming denial, like Exxon-Mobil, of treason, and David Suzuki, a well-known Canadian environmentalist, urged his fans to find a way to throw global warming denying politicians in jail because “what they’re doing is a criminal act”.  of Grist went ballistic in an op-ed in that online mag, labeling climate change denial a “war crime” worthy of a Nuremberg-type prosecution. Thankfully, we don’t prosecute holocaust deniers in this country, and I think it unlikely their global warming co-defendants will suffer that fate either.

There’s one final similarity between holocaust and global warming deniers: they’re both beginning to win the debate. Success for the global warming skeptics derives from the fact the earth hasn’t warmed in over a decade, something the models didn’t predict. In groping for an explanation, warmists have resorted to arguments very similar to those employed by holocaust believers. For instance, in testimony before Congress recently, David Titley, Deputy Under Secretary for Operations at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in trying to explain the lack of evidence for climate change-induced severe weather, argued “The Absence of Evidence is not the Evidence of Absence”, echoing the holocaust believers’ argument that the absence of any evidence of gas chambers is not evidence that gas chambers never existed. Dedicated and courageous scholars – often writing under pseudonyms for obvious reasons – have debunked the major holocaust myths to my satisfaction. If the Russian archives are ever opened fully, I’m sure the revelations they contain will be sufficient to convince the rest of you.

So, if over the next few years, the mean global temperature fails to rise, arctic sea ice recovers its former extent, severe weather events don’t increase in intensity or frequency, the polar bears continue to thrive (while you’re shedding a tear for the forlorn polar bears drifting towards extinction on their ever-shrinking ice floes, remember the poor penguins, who now have to walk 22 miles further to reach the sea because of the record ice extent in the Antarctic), and you find yourself listening with increased respect to what the global warming deniers have to say, please consider whether those other more venerable, even more denigrated deniers might, too, have something to say worth listening to. In fact, why wait? (a good place to start is The Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust)

Violence In The Face Of Tyranny Is Often Necessary

It was the winter of 1939, only a few months earlier the Soviet Union and Hitler’s Third Reich had signed a partially secret accord known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact; essentially a non-aggression treaty which divided Europe down the middle between the fascists and the communists. Hitler would take the West, and Stalin would take the East. Stalin’s war machine had already steamrolled into Latvia. Lithuania, and Estonia. The soviets used unprecedented social and political purges, rigged elections, and genocide, while the rest of the world was distracted by the Nazi blitzkrieg in Poland. In the midst of this mechanized power grab was the relatively tiny nation of Finland, which had been apportioned to the communists.

Apologists for Stalinist history (propagandists) have attempted to argue that the subsequent attack on Finland was merely about “border territories” which the communists claimed were stolen by the Finns when they seceded from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution. The assertion that the soviets were not seeking total dominance of the Finns is a common one. However, given the vicious criminal behavior of Russia in nearby pacified regions, and their posture towards Finland, it is safe to assume their intentions were similar. The Finns knew what they had to look forward to if they fell victim to the iron hand of Stalin, and the soviet propensity for subjugation was already legendary.

The Russian military was vastly superior to Finland’s in every way a common tactician would deem important. They had far greater numbers, far better logistical capability, far better technology, etc, etc. Over 1 million troops, thousands of planes, thousands of tanks, versus Finland’s 32 antiquated tanks, 114 planes which were virtually useless against more modern weapons, and 340,000 men, most of whom were reservists rallied from surrounding farmlands. Finland had little to no logistical support from the West until the conflict was almost over, though FDR would later pay lip service to the event, “condemning” soviet actions while brokering deals with them behind the scenes. Russian military leadership boasted that the Finns would run at the sound of harsh words, let alone gun fire. The invasion would be a cakewalk.

The battle that followed would later be known as the “Winter War”; an unmitigated embarrassment for the Soviets, and a perfect example of a small but courageous indigenous guerrilla army repelling a technologically advanced foe.

 

To Fight, Or Pretend To Fight?

Fast forward about seven decades or so, and you will discover multiple countries around the globe, including the U.S., on the verge of the same centralized and collectivized socialist occupation that the Finnish faced in 1939. The only difference is that while their invasion came from without, our invasion arose from within. The specific methods may have changed, but the underlying face of tyranny remains the same.

In America, the only existing organization of people with the slightest chance of disrupting and defeating the march towards totalitarianism is what we often refer to as the “Liberty Movement”; a large collection of activist and survival groups tied together by the inexorable principles of freedom, natural law, and constitutionalism. The size of this movement is difficult to gauge, but its social and political presence is now too large to be ignored. We are prevalent enough to present a threat, and prevalent enough to be attacked, and that is all that matters. That said, though we are beginning to understand the truly vital nature of our role in America’s path, and find solidarity in the inherent values of liberty that support our core, when it comes to solutions to the dilemma of globalization and elitism, we are sharply divided.

While most activist movements suffer from a complete lack of solutions to the problems they claim to recognize, constitutional conservatives tend to have TOO MANY conceptual solutions to the ailments of the world. Many of these solutions rely upon unrealistic assumptions and methods that avoid certain inevitable outcomes. Such strategies center mostly on the concepts of “non-aggression” or pacifism idealized and romanticized by proponents of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, and the anti-war movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The post-baby boomer generations in particular have grown up with an incessant bombardment of the “higher nature” of non-violence as a cure-all for every conceivable cultural ailment.

We have been taught since childhood that fighting solves nothing, but is this really true?

I can understand the allure of the philosophy. After all, physical confrontation is mentally and emotionally terrifying to anyone who is not used to experiencing it. The average “reasonable” person goes far out of their way on every occasion to avoid it. Most of the activists that I have met personally who deride the use of force against tyrannical government have never actually been in an outright confrontation of any kind in their lives, or if they have, it ended in a failure that scarred them. They have never trained for the eventuality. Many of them have never owned a firearm. The focus of their existence has been to hide from pain, rather than overcome their fears to achieve something greater.

There is nothing necessarily wrong with becoming an “intellectual warrior”, unless that person lives under the fantasy that this alone will be enough to defeat the kind of evil we face today.

Non-aggression methods rely on very specific circumstances in order to be effective. Most of all, they rely on a system of government that is forced to at least PRETEND as if it cares what the masses think of it. Gandhi’s Indian Independence Movement, for example, only witnessed noticeable success because the British government at that time was required to present a semblance of dignity and rule of law. But what happens if a particular tyranny reaches a point where the facade of benevolence disappears? What happens when the establishment turns to the use of the purge as a tool for consolidation? What happens when the mask comes completely off?

How many logical arguments or digital stashes of ethereal Bitcoins will it take to save one’s life or one’s freedom then?

Arguments For And Against Violent Action

The position against the use of “violence” (or self defense) to obstruct corrupt systems depends on three basic debate points:

1) Violence only feeds the system and makes it stronger.

2) We need a “majority” movement in order to be successful.

3) The system is too technologically powerful – to fight it through force of arms is “futile”, and our chances are slim to none.

First, violence does indeed feed the system, if it is driven by mindless retribution rather than strategic self defense. This is why despotic governments often resort to false flag events; the engineering of terrorist actions blamed on scapegoats creates fear within the unaware portions of the population, which generates public support for further erosion of freedoms. However, there is such a thing as diminishing returns when it comes to the “reach, teach, and inspire” method.

The escalation of totalitarianism will eventually overtake the speed at which the movement can awaken the masses, if it has not done so already. There will come a time, probably sooner rather than later, when outreach will no longer be effective, and self defense will have to take precedence, even if that means subsections of the public will be shocked and disturbed by it. The sad fact is, the faster we wake people up, the faster the establishment will degrade social stability and destroy constitutional liberties. A physical fight is inevitable exactly because they MAKE it inevitable. Worrying about staying in the good graces of the general populace or getting honest representatives elected is, at a certain point, meaningless. I find it rather foolish to presume that Americans over the next decade or two or three have the time needed to somehow inoculate the system from within. In fact, I’m starting to doubt that strategy has any merit whatsoever.

Second, the idea that a movement needs a “majority” of public backing to shift the path of a society is an old wives tale. Ultimately, most people throughout history are nothing more than spectators in life, watching from the sidelines while smaller, ideologically dedicated groups battle for superiority. Global developments are decided by true believers; never by ineffectual gawkers. Some of these groups are honorable, and some of them are not so honorable. Almost all of them have been in the minority, yet they wield the power to change the destiny of the whole of the nation because most people do not participate in their own futures. They merely place their heads between their legs and wait for the storm to pass.

All revolutions begin in the minds and hearts of so-called “outsiders”. To expect any different is to deny the past, and to assume that a majority is needed to achieve change is to deny reality.

Third, I’m not sure why non-aggression champions see the argument of statistical chance as relevant. When all is said and done, the “odds” of success in any fight against oligarchy DO NOT MATTER. Either you fight, or you are enslaved. The question of victory is an afterthought.

Technological advantage, superior numbers, advanced training, all of these things pale in comparison to force of will, as the Finnish proved during the Winter War. Some battles during that conflict consisted of less than a hundred Finns versus tens-of-thousands of soviets. Yet, at the end of the war, the Russians lost 3500 tanks, 500 aircraft, and had sustained over 125,000 dead (official numbers). The Finns lost 25,000 men. For every dead Finn, the soviets lost at least five. This is the cold hard reality behind guerrilla and attrition warfare, and such tactics are not to be taken lightly.

Do we go to the Finnish and tell them that standing against a larger, more well armed foe is “futile”? Do we tell them that their knives and bolt action rifles are no match for tanks and fighter planes? And by extension, do we go to East Asia today and tell the Taliban that their 30 year old AK-47’s are no match for predator drones and cruise missiles? Obviously, victory in war is not as simple as having the biggest gun and only the uneducated believe otherwise.

The Virtues Of Violence

The word “violence” comes with numerous negative connotations. I believe this is due to the fact that in most cases violence is used by the worst of men to get what they want from the weak. Meeting violence with violence, though, is often the only way to stop such abuses from continuing.

At Alt-Market, we tend to discuss measures of non-participation (not non-aggression) because all resistance requires self-sustainability. Americans cannot fight the criminal establishment if they rely on the criminal establishment. Independence is more about providing one’s own necessities than it is about pulling a trigger. But, we have no illusions about what it will take to keep the independence that we build. This is where many conceptual solutions are severely lacking.

If the system refuses to let you walk away, what do you do? If the tyrants would rather make the public suffer than admit that your social or economic methodology is better for all, how do you remove them? When faced with a cabal of psychopaths with deluded aspirations of godhood, what amount of reason will convince them to step down from their thrones?

I’m sorry to say, but these questions are only answered with violence.

The Liberty Movement doesn’t need to agree on the “usefulness” of physical action because it is coming regardless. The only things left to discern are when and how. Make no mistake, one day each and every one of us will be faced with a choice – to fight, or to throw our hands in the air and pray they don’t shoot us anyway. I certainly can’t speak for the rest of the movement, but in my opinion only those who truly believe in liberty will stand with rifle in hand when that time comes. A freedom fighter is measured by how much of himself he is willing to sacrifice, and how much of his humanity he holds onto in the process. Fear, death, discomfort; none of this matters. There is no conundrum. There is no uncertainty. There are only the chains of self-defeat, or the determination of the gun. The sooner we all embrace this simple fact, the sooner we can move on and deal with the dark problem before us.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

The Revolutionaries In Our Midst

New York – Jeremy Hammond sat in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center last week in a small room reserved for visits from attorneys. He was wearing an oversized prison jumpsuit. The brown hair of the lanky 6-footer fell over his ears, and he had a wispy beard. He spoke with the intensity and clarity one would expect from one of the nation’s most important political prisoners.

On Friday the 28-year-old activist will appear for sentencing in the Southern District Court of New York in Manhattan. After having made a plea agreement, he faces the possibility of a 10-year sentence for hacking into the Texas-based private security firm Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor, which does work for the Homeland Security Department, the Marine Corps, the Defense Intelligence Agency and numerous corporations including Dow Chemical and Raytheon.

Four others involved in the hacking have been convicted in Britain, and they were sentenced to less time combined—the longest sentence was 32 months—than the potential 120-month sentence that lies before Hammond.

Hammond turned the pilfered information over to the website WikiLeaks and  and other publications. The 3 million email exchanges, once

made public, exposed the private security firm’s infiltration, monitoring and surveillance of protesters and dissidents, especially in the Occupy movement, on behalf of corporations and the national security state. And, perhaps most important, the information provided chilling evidence that anti-terrorism laws are being routinely used by the federal government to criminalize nonviolent, democratic dissent and falsely link dissidents to international terrorist organizations. Hammond sought no financial gain. He got none.The email exchanges Hammond made public were entered as evidence in my lawsuitagainst President Barack Obama over Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Section 1021 permits the military to seize citizens who are deemed by the state to be terrorists, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military facilities. Alexa O’Brien, a content strategist and journalist who co-founded US Day of Rage, an organization created to reform the election process, was one of my co-plaintiffs. Stratfor officials attempted, we know because of the Hammond leaks, to falsely link her and her organization to Islamic radicals and websites as well as to jihadist ideology, putting her at risk of detention under the new law. Judge Katherine B. Forrest ruled, in part because of the leak, that we plaintiffs had a credible fear, and she nullified the law, a decision that an appellate court overturned when the Obama administration appealed it.

Freedom of the press and legal protection for those who expose government abuses and lies have been obliterated by the corporate state. The resulting self-exile of investigative journalists such as Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Appelbaum and Laura Poitras, along with the indictment of Barret Brown, illustrate this. All acts of resistance—including nonviolent protest—have been conflated by the corporate state with terrorism. The mainstream, commercial press has been emasculated through the Obama administration’s repeated use of the Espionage Act to charge and sentence traditional whistle-blowers. Governmental officials with a conscience are too frightened to reach out to mainstream reporters, knowing that the authorities’ wholesale capturing and storing of electronic forms of communication make them easily identifiable.

Elected officials and the courts no longer impose restraint or practice oversight. The last line of defense lies with those such as Hammond, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning who are capable of burrowing into the records of the security and surveillance state and have the courage to pass them on to the public. But the price of resistance is high.

“In these times of secrecy and abuse of power there is only one solution—transparency,” wrote Sarah Harrison, the British journalist who accompanied Snowden to Russia and who also has gone into exile, in Berlin. “If our governments are so compromised that they will not tell us the truth, then we must step forward to grasp it. Provided with the unequivocal proof of primary source documents people can fight back. If our governments will not give this information to us, then we must take it for ourselves.”

“When whistleblowers come forward we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged,” she went on. “When they are gagged, we must be their voice. When they are hunted, we must be their shield. When they are locked away, we must free them. Giving us the truth is not a crime. This is our data, our information, our history. We must fight to own it. Courage is contagious.”

Hammond knows this contagion. He was living at home in Chicago in 2010 under a 7-a.m.-to-7-p.m. curfew for a variety of acts of civil disobedience when Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning was arrested for giving WikiLeaks secret information about military war crimes and government lies. Hammond at the time was running social aid programs to feed the hungry and send books to prisoners. He had, like Manning, displayed a remarkable aptitude for science, math and computer languages at a young age. He hacked into the computers at a local Apple store at 16. He hacked into the computer science department’s website at the University of Illinois-Chicago as a freshman, a prank that saw the university refuse to allow him to return for his sophomore year. He was an early backer of “cyber-liberation” and in 2004 started an “electronic-disobedience journal” he named Hack This Zine. He called on hackers in a speech at the 2004 DefCon convention in Las Vegas to use their skills to disrupt that year’s Republican National Convention. He was, by the time of his 2012 arrest, one of the shadowy stars of the hacktivist underground, dominated by groups such as Anonymous and WikiLeaks in which anonymity, stringent security and frequent changes of aliases alone ensured success and survival. Manning’s courage prompted Hammond to his own act of cyber civil disobedience, although he knew his chances of being caught were high.

“I saw what Chelsea Manning did,” Hammond said when we spoke last Wednesday, seated at a metal table. “Through her hacking she became a contender, a world changer. She took tremendous risks to show the ugly truth about war. I asked myself, if she could make that risk shouldn’t I make that risk? Wasn’t it wrong to sit comfortably by, working on the websites of Food Not Bombs, while I had the skills to do something similar? I too could make a difference. It was her courage that prompted me to act.”

Hammond—who has black-inked tattoos on each forearm, one the open-source movement’s symbol known as the “glider” and the other the shi hexagram from the I Ching—is steeped in radical thought. As a teenager, he swiftly migrated politically from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party to the militancy of the Black Bloc anarchists. He was an avid reader in high school of material put out by CrimethInc, an anarchist collective that publishes anarchist literature and manifestos. He has molded himself after old radicals such as Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman and black revolutionaries such as George Jackson, Elaine Brown and Assata Shakur, as well as members of the Weather Underground. He said that while he was in Chicago he made numerous trips to Waldheim Cemetery to visit the Haymarket Martyrs Monument, which honors four anarchists who were hanged in 1887 and others who took part in the labor wars. On the 16-foot-high granite monument are the final words of one of the condemned men, August Spies. It reads: “The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voice you are throttling today.” Emma Goldman is buried nearby.

Hammond became well known to the government for a variety of acts of civil disobedience over the last decade. These ranged from painting anti-war graffiti on Chicago walls to protesting at the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York to hacking into the right-wing website Protest Warrior, for which he was sentenced to two years in the Federal Correctional Institute at Greenville, Ill.

He said he is fighting as “an anarchist communist” against “centralized state authority” and “exploitative corporations.” His goal is to build “leaderless collectives based on free association, consensus, mutual aid, self-sufficiency and harmony with the environment.” It is essential, he said, that all of us work to cut our personal ties with capitalism and engage in “mass organizing of protests, strikes and boycotts.” Hacking and leaking, he said, are part of this resistance—“effective tools to reveal ugly truths of the system.”

Hammond spent months within the Occupy movement in Chicago. He embraced its “leaderless, non-hierarchical structures such as general assemblies and consensus, and occupying public spaces.” But he was highly critical of what he said were the “vague politics” in Occupy that allowed it to include followers of the libertarian Ron Paul, some in the tea party, as well as “reformist liberals and Democrats.” Hammond said he was not interested in any movement that “only wanted a ‘nicer’ form of capitalism and favored legal reforms, not revolution.” He remains rooted in the ethos of the Black Bloc.

“Being incarcerated has really opened my eyes to the reality of the criminal justice system,” he said, “that it is not a criminal justice system about public safety or rehabilitation, but reaping profits through mass incarceration. There are two kinds of justice—one for the rich and the powerful who get away with the big crimes, then for everyone else, especially people of color and the impoverished. There is no such thing as a fair trial. In over 80 percent of the cases people are pressured to plea out instead of exercising their right to trial, under the threat of lengthier sentences. I believe no satisfactory reforms are possible. We need to close all prisons and release everybody unconditionally.”

He said he hoped his act of resistance would encourage others, just as Manning’s courage had inspired him. He said activists should “know and accept the worst possible repercussion” before carrying out an action and should be “aware of mass counterintelligence/surveillance operations targeting our movements.” An informant posing as a comrade, Hector Xavier Monsegur, known online as “Sabu,” turned Hammond and his co-defendants in to the FBI. Monsegur stored data retrieved by Hammond on an external server in New York. This tenuous New York connection allowed the government to try Hammond in New York for hacking from his home in Chicago into a private security firm based in Texas. New York is the center of the government’s probes into cyber-warfare; it is where federal authorities apparently wanted Hammond to be investigated and charged.

Hammond said he will continue to resist from within prison. A series of minor infractions, as well as testing positive with other prisoners on his tier for marijuana that had been smuggled into the facility, has resulted in his losing social visits for the next two years and spending “time in the box [solitary confinement].” He is allowed to see journalists, but my request to interview him took two months to be approved. He said prison involves “a lot of boredom.” He plays chess, teaches guitar and helps other prisoners study for their GED. When I saw him, he was working on the statement, a personal manifesto, that he will read in court this week.

He insisted he did not see himself as different from prisoners, especially poor prisoners of color, who are in for common crimes, especially drug-related crimes. He said most inmates are political prisoners, caged unjustly by a system of totalitarian capitalism that has snuffed out basic opportunities for democratic dissent and economic survival.

“The majority of people in prison did what they had to do to survive,” he said. “Most were poor. They got caught up in the war on drugs, which is how you make money if you are poor. The real reason they get locked in prison for so long is so corporations can continue to make big profits. It is not about justice. I do not draw distinctions between us.”

“Jail is essentially enduring harassment and dehumanizing conditions with frequent lockdowns and shakedowns,” he said. “You have to constantly fight for respect from the guards, sometimes getting yourself thrown in the box. However, I will not change the way I live because I am locked up. I will continue to be defiant, agitating and organizing whenever possible.”

He said resistance must be a way of life. He intends to return to community organizing when he is released, although he said he will work to stay out of prison. “The truth,” he said, “will always come out.” He cautioned activists to be hyper-vigilant and aware that “one mistake can be permanent.” But he added, “Don’t let paranoia or fear deter you from activism. Do the down thing!”

Chris Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig, has previously spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

Source: Truthdig

National Security Agency

The only part of the government that really listens to what you have to say…

The New York Times (November 2) ran a long article based on NSA documents released by Edward Snowden. One of the lines that most caught my attention concerned “Sigint” – Signals intelligence, the term used for electronic intercepts. The document stated:

“Sigint professionals must hold the moral high ground, even as terrorists or dictators seek to exploit our freedoms. Some of our adversaries will say or do anything to advance their cause; we will not.”

What, I wondered, might that mean? What would the National Security Agency – on moral principle – refuse to say or do?

I have on occasion asked people who reject or rationalize any and all criticism of US foreign policy: “What would the United States have to do in its foreign policy to lose your support? What, for you, would be too much?” I’ve yet to get a suitable answer to that question. I suspect it’s because the person is afraid that whatever they say I’ll point out that the United States has already done it.

The United Nations vote on the Cuba embargo – 22 years in a row

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We haven’t heard that for a very long time. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions):

Year	Votes (Yes-No)	No Votes
1992	59-2	US, Israel
1993	88-4	US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay
1994	101-2	US, Israel
1995	117-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1996	138-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1997	143-3	US, Israel, Uzbekistan
1998	157-2	US, Israel
1999	155-2	US, Israel
2000	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2001	167-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2002	173-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2003	179-3	US, Israel, Marshall Islands
2004	179-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2005	182-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2006	183-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2007	184-4	US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau
2008	185-3	US, Israel, Palau
2009	187-3	US, Israel, Palau
2010	187-2	US, Israel
2011	186-2	US, Israel
2012	188-3	US, Israel, Palau
2013	188-2	US, Israel

Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.

Speaking before the General Assembly, October 29, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: “The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion.” He added that the blockade “has been further tightened under President Obama’s administration”, some 30 US and foreign entities being hit with $2.446 billion in fines due to their interaction with Cuba.

However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other countries to oppose the resolution, said:

“The international community … cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and, despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and police violence against Cuban citizens.”1

So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest 2 ; that their encampments were violently smashed up; that many of them were physically abused by the police.

Does Mr. Godard ever read a newspaper or the Internet, or watch television? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer shooting to death an unarmed person?

As to “independent journalism” – what would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?

The real reason for Washington’s eternal hostility toward Cuba? The fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as Third World countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.

How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” 3 Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its everlasting enemy.

The Cold War Revisited

I’ve written the Introduction to a new book recently published in Russia that is sort of an updating of my book Killing Hope. 4 Here is a short excerpt:

The Cold War had not been a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. It had been a struggle between the United States and the Third World, which, in the decade following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, continued in Haiti, Somalia, Iraq, Yugoslavia and elsewhere.

The Cold War had not been a worldwide crusade by America to halt Soviet expansion, real or imaginary. It had been a worldwide crusade by America to block political and social changes in the Third World, changes opposed by the American power elite.

The Cold War had not been a glorious and noble movement of freedom and democracy against Communist totalitarianism. It had typically been a movement by the United States in support of dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and corrupt oligarchies which were willing to follow Washington’s party line on the Left, US corporations, Israel, oil, military bases, et al. and who protected American political and economic interests in their countries in exchange for the American military and CIA keeping them in power against the wishes of their own people.

In other words, whatever the diplomats at the time thought they were doing, the Cold War revisionists have been vindicated. American policy had been about imperialism and military expansion.

Apropos the countless other myths we were all taught about the Soviet Union is this letter I recently received from one of my readers, a Russian woman, age 49, who moved to the United States eight years ago and now lives in Northern Virginia:

I can’t imagine why anybody is surprised to hear when I say I miss life in the Soviet Union: what is bad about free healthcare and education, guaranteed employment, guaranteed free housing? No rent or mortgage of any kind, only utilities, but they were subsidized too, so it was really pennies. Now, to be honest, there was a waiting list to get those apartments, so some people got them quicker, some people had to wait for years, it all depended on where you worked. And there were no homeless people, and crime was way lower. As a first grader I was taking the public transportation to go to school, which was about 1 hour away by bus (it was a big city, about the size of Washington DC, we lived on the outskirts, and my school was downtown), and it was fine, all other kids were doing it. Can you even imagine this being done now? I am not saying everything was perfect, but overall, it is a more stable and socially just system, fair to everybody, nobody was left behind. This is what I miss: peace and stability, and not being afraid of the future.

Problem is, nobody believes it, they will say that I am a brainwashed “tovarish” [comrade]. I’ve tried to argue with Americans about this before, but just gave up now. They just refuse to believe anything that contradicts what CNN has been telling them for all their lives. One lady once told me: “You just don’t know what was going on there, because you did not have freedom of speech, but we, Americans, knew everything, because we could read about all of this in our media.” I told her “I was right there! I did not need to read about this in the media, I lived that life!”, but she still was unconvinced! You will not believe what she said: “Yes, maybe, but we have more stuff!”. Seriously, having 50 kinds of cereal available in the store, and walmarts full of plastic junk is more valuable to Americans than a stable and secure life, and social justice for everybody?

Of course there are people who lived in the Soviet Union who disagree with me, and I talked to them too, but I find their reasons just as silly. I heard one Russian lady whose argument was that Stalin killed “30, no 40 million people”. First of all it’s not true (I don’t in any way defend Stalin, but I do think that lying and exaggerating about him is as wrong)*, and second of all what does this have to do with the 70s, when I was a kid? By then life was completely different. I heard other arguments, like food shortages (again, not true, it’s not like there was no food at all, there were shortages of this or that specific product, like you wouldn’t find mayo or bologna in the store some days, but everything else was there!). So, you would come back next day, or in 2-3 days, and you would find them there. Really, this is such a big deal? Or you would have to stay in line to buy some other product, (ravioli for example). But how badly do you want that ravioli really that day, can’t you have anything else instead? Just buy something else, like potatoes, where there was no line.

Was this annoying, yes, and at the time I was annoyed too, but only now I realized that I would much prefer this nuisance to my present life now, when I am constantly under stress for the fear that I can possibly lose my job (as my husband already did), and as a result, lose everything else – my house? You couldn’t possibly lose your house in Soviet Union, it was yours for life, mortgage free. Only now, living here in the US, I realized that all those soviet nuisances combined were not as important as the benefits we had – housing, education, healthcare, employment, safe streets, all sort of free after school activities (music, sports, arts, anything you want) for kids, so parents never had to worry about what we do all day till they come home in the evening.

* We’ve all heard the figures many times … 10 million … 20 million … 40 million … 60 million … died under Stalin. But what does the number mean, whichever number you choose? Of course many people died under Stalin, many people died under Roosevelt, and many people are still dying under Bush. Dying appears to be a natural phenomenon in every country. The question is how did those people die under Stalin? Did they die from the famines that plagued the USSR in the 1920s and 30s? Did the Bolsheviks deliberately create those famines? How? Why? More people certainly died in India in the 20th century from famines than in the Soviet Union, but no one accuses India of the mass murder of its own citizens. Did the millions die from disease in an age before antibiotics? In prison? From what causes? People die in prison in the United States on a regular basis. Were millions actually murdered in cold blood? If so, how? How many were criminals executed for non-political crimes? The logistics of murdering tens of millions of people is daunting. 5

Let’s not repeat the Barack fuckup with Hillary

Not that it really matters who the Democrats nominate for the presidency in 2016. Whoever that politically regressive and morally bankrupt party chooses will be at best an uninspired and uninspiring centrist; in European terms a center-rightist; who believes that the American Empire – despite the admittedly occasional excessive behavior – is mankind’s last great hope. The only reason I bother to comment on this question so far in advance of the election is that the forces behind Clinton have clearly already begun their campaign and I’d like to use the opportunity to try to educate the many progressives who fell in love with Obama and may be poised now to embrace Clinton. Here’s what I wrote in July 2007 during the very early days of the 2008 campaign:

Who do you think said this on June 20? a) Rudy Giuliani; b) Hillary Clinton; c) George Bush; d) Mitt Romney; or e) Barack Obama?

“The American military has done its job. Look what they accomplished. They got rid of Saddam Hussein. They gave the Iraqis a chance for free and fair elections. They gave the Iraqi government the chance to begin to demonstrate that it understood its responsibilities to make the hard political decisions necessary to give the people of Iraq a better future. So the American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions which are important for their own people.” 6

Right, it was the woman who wants to be president because … because she wants to be president … because she thinks it would be nice to be president … no other reason, no burning cause, no heartfelt desire for basic change in American society or to make a better world … she just thinks it would be nice, even great, to be president. And keep the American Empire in business, its routine generating of horror and misery being no problem; she wouldn’t want to be known as the president that hastened the decline of the empire.

And she spoke the above words at the “Take Back America” conference; she was speaking to liberals, committed liberal Democrats and others further left. She didn’t have to cater to them with any flag-waving pro-war rhetoric; they wanted to hear anti-war rhetoric (and she of course gave them a bit of that as well out of the other side of her mouth), so we can assume that this is how she really feels, if indeed the woman feels anything. The audience, it should be noted, booed her, for the second year in a row.

Think of why you are opposed to the war. Is it not largely because of all the unspeakable suffering brought down upon the heads and souls of the poor people of Iraq by the American military? Hillary Clinton couldn’t care less about that, literally. She thinks the American military has “succeeded”. Has she ever unequivocally labeled the war “illegal” or “immoral”? I used to think that Tony Blair was a member of the right wing or conservative wing of the British Labour Party. I finally realized one day that that was an incorrect description of his ideology. Blair is a conservative, a bloody Tory. How he wound up in the Labour Party is a matter I haven’t studied. Hillary Clinton, however, I’ve long known is a conservative; going back to at least the 1980s, while the wife of the Arkansas governor, she strongly supported the death-squad torturers known as the Contras, who were the empire’s proxy army in Nicaragua. 7

Now we hear from America’s venerable conservative magazine, William Buckley’s National Review, an editorial by Bruce Bartlett, policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan; treasury official under President George H.W. Bush; a fellow at two of the leading conservative think-tanks, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute – You get the picture? Bartlett tells his readers that it’s almost certain that the Democrats will win the White House in 2008. So what to do? Support the most conservative Democrat. He writes: “To right-wingers willing to look beneath what probably sounds to them like the same identical views of the Democratic candidates, it is pretty clear that Hillary Clinton is the most conservative.” 8

We also hear from America’s premier magazine for the corporate wealthy, Fortune, whose recent cover features a picture of Clinton and the headline: “Business Loves Hillary”. 9

Back to 2013: In October, the office of billionaire George Soros, who has long worked with US foreign policy to destabilize governments not in love with the empire, announced that “George Soros is delighted to join more than one million Americans in supporting Ready for Hillary.” 10

There’s much more evidence of Hillary Clinton’s conservative leanings, but if you need more, you’re probably still in love with Obama, who in a new book is quoted telling his aides during a comment on drone strikes that he’s “really good at killing people”. 11 Can we look forward to Hillary winning the much-discredited Nobel Peace Prize?

I’m sorry if I take away all your fun.

Notes

1. Democracy Now!, “U.N. General Assembly Votes Overwhelmingly Against U.S. Embargo of Cuba”, October 30, 2013 ↩
2. Huffingfton Post, May 3, 2012 ↩
3. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba (1991), p.885 ↩
4. Copies can be purchased by emailing  ↩
5. From William Blum, Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire (2005), p.194 ↩
6. Speaking at the “Take Back America” conference, organized by the Campaign for America’s Future, June 20, 2007, Washington, DC; this excerpt can be heard on Democracy Now!’s website ↩
7. Roger Morris, former member of the National Security Council, Partners in Power (1996), p.415 ↩
8. National Review Online, May 1, 2007 ↩
9. Fortune magazine, July 9, 2007 ↩
10. Washington Post, October 25, 2013 ↩
11. Washington Post, November 1, 2013, review of “Double Down: Game Change 2012” ↩

Obama’s Tipping Point And Implosion

With a failed Presidency, Barak Obama is on the verge of becoming a perpetual buffoon in a skit on Saturday Night Live. Even with such public distain, the destructive policies of the rogue government merrily continue. The bipartisan cabal class of careerists operates as if they are permanently immune from public outrage. Up to now, they are correct. The Tea Party was hijacked and went dormant, the bulk of the anti-war opposition is AWOL and the government trolls within the occupied movement are now interning at Goldman Sacks. As for the throngs of Obama cult worshipers, who continue to place their faith in state decency and righteousness, are still on a pilgrimage to cash their loyalty checks. Yet, something has changed, but is it too late?

The staff at PJ Media, who bills themselves as “Voices from a free America”, compiled The Complete List of Barack Obama’s Scandals, Misdeeds, Crimes and Blunders. Whether you agree or object to their selection, it is very difficult to defend such a record. Oh, maybe for the likes of Obama groupie turned CNN crossfire media whore, , it is just another day at the office. Just what-you-goanna-do; when your hero breaks the law and betrays the trust of the country?

For the true believer fold who remains correct to the doctrine, just deny and lie. The international humiliation that Obama self-inflicted upon himself over his retreat from a Rambo inspired Syria mission is a tipping point for the fools who once saw the man of mystery as a savior. As it turns out, he has more in common with Austin Powers than Col. Aaron Bank.Consistently Pat Buchanan provides the operative insight, as reported in Mediaite.com.

“Fox News analyst Pat Buchanan spoke to Off the Record host Greta van Susteren Wednesday night and praised Vladimir Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times as outstanding, pointing out that it was the Russian president, and not President Barack Obama, who was best speaking to American opinion on Syria.

“I read it twice,” Buchanan said, “and, candidly, it was an outstanding piece. Vladimir Putin made a better case against U.S. strikes in Syria than the President of the United States did last night…He is reaching out to the anti-war community in the United States, the anti-interventionist community on Syria, which, as we know, recently, is probably around 60, 70, 80% of the American people. And he’s doing it in an op-ed, and I think it’s very effective.”

“Frankly, in the last week, Vladimir Putin has looked like a statesman,” Buchanan said, contrasting Putin’s acumen with the “petty” behavior of Obama “stiffing” him at the G20.”

Inescapably, the military-industrial-security-spy complex just continues to prepare for the next opportunity to expand their asinine interventionist involvement. The proponents of the Zionist “Greater Israel” security project view the Middle East conflict, as the ultimate excuse to perfect and execute the domestic police state back in the homeland. In this case, the fatherland is the Disunited States that is rapidly resembling and adopting the Israeli model of oppression.

Barack Hussein Obama is a creation of elitist invention. His usefulness has reached an end for his masters. There is no doubt that the tremendous acceleration in the systematic dismantling of the remains of a constitutional republic, going on for the last quarter century, made great strides under Obama. However, the time has come for a real slowdown in the transition to the empire gulag if he remains as the spokesman in chief.

The reason is clear Obama has lost his effectiveness. Sure, he can make a chump out of Secretary of State John Kerry, but that is a natural reflex out of the windsurfer. The more important development is that he is losing the obedience within the military that usually blindly follow orders. Here is the real hope. A movement within the ranks of the junior officer corps to break with career advancement and stand up to the Generals is necessary. Refusing to deploy for another NWO expedition is the key for the implosion of the evil empire.

The GOP chicken hawks who demand that Syria must be neutralized are pathetic cowards. The entire NeoCon agenda is built upon a false and contrived war on terror. The Obama administration never attempted to change this destructive foreign policy. Proof positive, that he was the establishment choice, to deceive the public once again.

In order to understand better the planned collapse review a short list of Obama’s fiascos: List of Obama’s Failures.

“It’s hard to think of a president that has been more of an Epic Failure than President Obama. Even Carter is glad this guy came along, so at least he knows he is no longer the worst president ever.”

Is this an accident or is it more probable that these catastrophes are designed circumstances?

For the rest of Obama’s term, he will at best be a crippled conveyor of confusion. If the elites truly want to implode the remains of a functional economy and collapse any checks and balances institutions left in the system, having a caretaker President in charge would be delightful. In anticipation of a substitute replacement organism, the elites have the ideal fall guy in the man with no birth records. Who needs George W. Bush anymore? We got an improved idiot in Obama.

Four More Insane Years of Obama Lies illustrates facts that must be denied by the Obama toadies. “With the re-election of Barack Obama, the United States has officially become a banana republic. From a nation that produced patriots like Ronald Reagan and John Kennedy, we have knowingly selected the lowest common denominator as our commander in chief.”Now if you are really up to the challenge a list of Obama’s documented lies so far with the most recent lies first, will make your day.

How long do lies work, even when told to a dumb downed public? Answer – probably as long as the spin deflects from the substance of the scandals and failures, while redirecting responsibility, using false flags diversions for the rapid decline in personal well-being from the masses.

Back to the effectiveness assessment, ultimately this is the standard that Obama is evaluated by from the perspective of the best long-term interests for the globalists that put him in office.

During this window of opportunity of a weaken POTUS, the great diversity of activist organizations and ideological opponents of a fascist state need to network and work towards applying maximum pressure on the plunderers of power.

In the spirit of this effort, a weekly BATR RealPolitik Newsletter is available by email. Subscription sign-up is required with an opt-in approval. Strike while the iron is hot. Contribute ideas and start your own organizational projects that draw in and motivate your own circle of friends and contacts.

Now is the time for serious grassroots activism. For those who see improved prospects and look to the 2014 Congressional and Senate elections, the time to recruit primary challengers is now. Those who are far more cynical and pragmatic about the way truth to power actually functions, should organize serious lobbying and pressure group strategies.

The odds of success may be long but the prospects of meaningful change are nil without active involvement. Acceptability of mass civil disobedience needs to go mainstream.

Implosion is not a “To Be or Not To Be” personal dilemma choice. It is a societal and existential reality. Even if the crippled system crawls along, the pattern of Totalitarian Collectivism goes on uninterrupted.

Seldom are the prospects of disrupting the establishment more promising than when a sitting President is backed down through the communal voice of disgusted citizens. Let us all hope that another insane foreign adventure has been derailed, but without continuous persistency, an averted attack on Syria may well be a temporary victory.

A botched Obama administration causes harm to everyone, except to the top tier sociopaths that just accumulate more control and power. The toppling of their agenda and timetable can launch the tumbling of their best-laid plans.

Engaging a pro Obama supporter in discourse much less serious dialogue is a painful experience. Their denial is their badge of identity. Our synergism of commonality should emphasis a non-intervention foreign policy, a vigorous pro civil liberty defense and fundamental revamping of the debt created money, legal tender, financial banksters fraudulent system.

These three areas of mutual benefit are strategic and indispensible in developing a massive re-alignment of the body politic. Resisting the trap of “gotye politics” is a difficult task for political junkies. However, the practice of divide and conquer, has persisted far too long, and is a major impediment for true representative government based upon natural rights and democratic principles.

The prospects of the next three plus years can become a battlefield for a historic confrontation with the old regime. The Old Right needs to become the new home for frustrated patriots as well as disgruntled Obama boosters. Is it not time to build upon the retreat of incompetent government with a positive initiative?

Are The Real Enemies In Syria Or Washington?

“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”–Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The definition of what makes an “enemy” may vary from person to person. But I would say that, generally, an enemy is one who has an active ability to do irreparable harm to you or your essential values. He is motivated by destruction, the destruction of all that you hold dear. He is capable and unrelenting. He is a legitimate threat. He will not compromise. He will not waver. He will do anything to wound you. He will not stop. He is possessed.

Americans have spent the better part of a century being told who their enemies are with very little explanation or substantiation. We have blindly rallied around our patriotic prerogative without knowing the root cause of the conflict or the nature of the target we are told to annihilate. We have been suckered into war after war, conjured by international interests in order to lure us into accepting greater centralization and concentrated globalism. As a culture, I’m sorry to say, we have been used. We are a tool of unmitigated doom. We are the loaded gun in the hand of the devil.

This paradigm has done irreparable harm to our standing in the eyes of the peoples of the world. But until recently, it has done very little harm to us as a society. We have allowed ourselves to be used like a bloody club, but we have not yet felt the true pain or the true cost. We have been insulated from consequence. However, this comfortable situation is quickly coming to an end.

When one applies the above definition of “the enemy” to Syria, one comes away with very little satisfaction. The Syrian government poses absolutely no immediate threat to the United States. In fact, the civil war that now rages within its borders has been completely fabricated by our own government. The insurgency has been funded, armed, trained and ultimately directed by the U.S. intelligence community. Without U.S. subversion, the civil war in Syria would not exist.

So, the question arises: If Syria is not the real enemy, who is?

I point back to the core issue. That is to say, I would examine who pose a legitimate threat to our country and our principles. The Syrian government under Bashar Assad clearly has no capability to threaten our freedom, our economic stability, our social stability, or our defensive capabilities. There is, though, a group of people out there who do, in fact, pose a significant threat to the American way of life on every conceivable level. These people do not live on the other side of the world. They do not wear foreign garb or speak another language. Most of them do not have pigmented skin or Asian features. They look just like you and I, and they live in Washington D.C.

If the so-called “debate” over a possible military strike in Syria has done anything, it has certainly brought the American public’s true enemies frothing to the surface like so much sewage. Men who posed as liberal proponents of peace not long ago now salivate over the prospect of bloodshed. Men who once posed as fiscal conservatives now clamor for more Federal funding to drive the U.S. war machine. Men who claimed to represent the citizenry now ignore all calls for reason by the public in the pursuit of global dominance.

I have warned of the considerable dangers of a war in Syria for years — long before most people knew or cared about the Assad regime. Being in this position has allowed me to view the escalating crisis with a considerable amount of objectivity. In the midst of so much chaos and confusion, if you know who stands to gain and who stands to lose, the progression of events becomes transparent, and the strategy of the actual enemy emerges.

So what have I observed so far?

If you want to know who has malicious intent toward our Constitutional values, simply move your eyes away from the Mideast and focus on our own capital. The ill will toward liberty held by the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties is obvious in the Congressional support of the banker bailouts, the Patriot Acts, the National Defense Authorization Act, the President’s domestic assassination directives, the hands-off approach to National Security Agency mass surveillance, etc. But even beyond these litmus tests, the Syrian debate has unveiled numerous enemies of the American people within our own government.

The catastrophe inherent in a Syrian strike is at least partially known to most of the public. We are fully aware that there will be blowback from any new strike in the Mideast (limited or unlimited), economically as well as internationally. So if the average American with little political experience understands the consequences of such an action, the average politician should be more than educated on the dangers. Any representative who blatantly ignores the calamity ahead is either very stupid or has an agenda.

I find it fascinating that politicians and bureaucrats from both sides of the aisle are now coming out of the woodwork to cheerlead alongside each other for war and the state.

For those who are predominantly preoccupied with Barack Obama as the source of all our ills, I would gladly point out that Republican leader and House Speaker John Boehner has also thrown his support behind a Syrian strike, even before the U.N. investigative report on Syrian chemical weapons use has been released.

In the meantime, self-proclaimed Republican stalwarts like John McCain (R-Ariz.) have argued that Obama’s “limited strike” response is “not enough.” This is the same man, by the way, who has been instrumental in the monetary and military support of Al Qaeda in Syria.  McCain has recently called for avid pursuit of the new Russian proposal for chemical disarmament in Syria, not because he wants to find a peaceful solution to the situation, but because he believes the deal can be used as a bargaining chip to convince Congress to VOTE FOR military force, in order to “keep pressure on Assad”.

Secretary of State John Kerry, who not long ago ran for President on the platform of being an anti-war Democrat, now regularly begs the American people to back further war based on the same dubious evidence for which he once criticized the George W. Bush Administration. In fact, Kerry has made it clear that even if Congress votes “no” against a strike, he believes Obama has the right to set one in motion anyway.

Senator Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.), the man who openly admits in mainstream interviews that he believes the President has the right to indefinitely detain or assassinate American citizens without trial or oversight, has loudly indicated his support for a war on Syria. His criticisms parallel McCain’s in that he believes the Obama Administration should have attacked without Congressional approval or should commit to an all-out military shift into the region.  That is to say, he believes the goal of the White House should be invasion and regime change, not just disarmament.  Graham consistently fear mongers in the mainstream media, often warning that without a hard, immediate strike against Syria, catastrophe will befall Israel, and chemical andnuclear weapons will rain on America.

All I have to say to Graham is, if chemical or nuclear weapons are used against the American people, it will be because the establishment ALLOWED it to happen — just as it has allowed numerous attacks in the past to occur in order to facilitate pretext for a larger war. (The Gulf of Tonkin is a fitting example considering the many similarities between the Syrian debacle and Vietnam, the only difference being that this time the establishment is throwing its support on the side of the insurgency, rather than the prevailing government).

For those out there in the movement who are hoping for reason and logic to prevail during a Congressional debate on the Syrian issue, I would suggest that they do not hold their breath. This vote was decided before Obama ever allowed it to go to the Hill. The vote has been cast. The debate is a sideshow designed to make the American people feel as if their system of government still functions as it should. Remember, no Congress in the history of the United States has ever refused the request of a President to make war.

The more than 150 Congressmen who demanded a vote on the Syrian crisis did so because they wanted to be included in the process, not because they necessarily opposed a war. That leaves nearly 300 representatives who had NO PROBLEM whatsoever with Obama attacking Syria unilaterally without any checks or balances. The Senate panel that initiated the voting process on the strike plan passed the initiative 10-7. I have no doubt that Obama has the votes to confirm the use of force, even with all the talk of uncertainty in evidence or planning.

The Russian offer of organizing chemical disarmament has barely made a dent in the White House’s war rhetoric, as was evident in Barack Obama’s address to the nation yesterday.  When asked in an interview with NBC if he has made up his mind whether or not he will forge ahead with military action if Congress votes his proposal down, Obama stated:

“It’s fair to say that I haven’t decided…”

Putting on the airs of a Roman Emperor, Obama’s thumb remains in the neutral position over the gladiator pit of Syria, but as he clearly points out, he can give the thumbs down anytime he chooses.  If anything, the White House and the elitist machine are simply using the next few weeks (the approximate time being discussed for chemical disarmament) to establish further precedent, or conjure new atrocities, in order to garner a minimal public backing for violent action in the region.

And, let’s not forget our friendly enemies in the mainstream media.  The MSM is in rare form the past week, fabricating numerous arguments as to why the average American “just doesn’t get the Syrian situation”.  The latest disinformation campaigns seem to be revolving around generating alternative motivations for a strike –

Obama’s “red line” was crossed and we must strike in order to save face amongst our allies.

A refusal to strike Syria will “embolden Iran” and lead them to use their own WMD’s in terrorist acts (WMD’s which are still not proven to exist).

And my favorite argument:  That refusing to strike would mean in their war on Assad.  You know, the same rebels permeated with psychopathic Al Qaeda operatives that our government trained and funded.

The mainstream media steamroller is barreling forward, searching for ANY talking point that will hook the American populace into rationalizing an attack.  I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many pencil-necked weaklings call for so much blood.  The strategy seems to be an attempt to shift America’s attention away from the alleged chemical attack alone, and discombobulate us with multiple sales pitches of death in case Congressional support turns sour (which I doubt).

But let’s say Obama does not get his Congressional approval; as stated earlier his office has asserted on numerous occasions that he has the authority to trigger war regardless. A “no” vote in Washington means nothing today due to war powers granted after 9/11. The probable scenario, though, is the most common scenario. Congress will likely authorize the “use of limited military force” without directly declaring war on the Assad regime. This is exactly what Congress did in the wake of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There was no evidence of an Al Qaeda support structure and no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but war exploded nonetheless. Congress gave Bush a blank check to do whatever he saw fit, and I believe Congress will do the same for Obama.

America is being set up to look like the bad guy or the fool, but why?

Our political leadership is devoted to the ideology of globalization, not sovereignty or U.S prosperity. A Syrian strike places the United States in tremendous peril, the likes of which have not been seen since the Cuban missile crisis. Syria itself is a vacuum of suffocating calamity; a black hole swirling in a void of economic and sociological interdependency. Where the United States enters, so follows Iran, so follows Israel, so follows Saudi Arabia, so follows Lebanon, so follows Jordan, so follows Egypt, so follows Russia, so follows China and on and on.

In my analysis of Syria over the years, I have exposed this domino effect of war as well as the possible calamities of an economic chain reaction. Escalating conflict in Syria will eventually lead to the end of the dollar’s world reserve status and the collapse of the U.S. financial system. Knowing that this is the ultimate result of a strike in the region, many people would ask WHYthe White House and so many prominent figures in Congress would be so hell-bent on setting such wheels in motion. I would stand back from the chaos and ask what I always ask: Who gains the most from the disaster?

The demise of American currency dominance and the degradation of the American spirit do indeed benefit a select few. For the most part, central banks and globalists have taken a hands-off approach to the Syrian debacle. Perhaps that’s because doing so makes it easier for them to survey the inevitable collapse from a distance and swoop in later as our “saviors,” ready to rebuild the world according to their own ideals. Having a debased and desperate U.S. populace certainly makes the transition to total globalization and centralization much easier.

My original query was: Who is the real enemy? No matter what happens in the coming months and years, never forget that question. Who poses the greatest threat to our freedom: Syria or the political ghouls trying to convince us to decimate Syria?

Who claims the power to take everything we have? Who claims the power to take our liberty and our lives at a whim? Who claims the power to kill innocents in our name? Who disregards the checks and balances of Constitutionalism at every turn? Who truly threatens our future and the future of our children?

Do not be distracted by stories of foreign monsters far away when the real monsters lurk so quietly under your bed.  Even if we can find a successful strategy to pressure Congress into avoiding a Syrian conflict, I say remain vigilant. America is one global hiccup away from oblivion. And if this is what the establishment wants, they will find a way to make it happen. The threat of continuous U.S. catastrophe will only end when the poison is removed from our very veins, and that process of purification begins with the removal of the criminal political structures and banking structures in Washington.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

Lavrov Calls Kerry’s Bluff

Russian Foreign Sergei Lavrov wants peace. He’s going all out against war on Syria. He’s doing it responsibly.

Important world leaders back him. So does overwhelming global anti-war sentiment.

On Monday, Lavrov met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. He did so in Moscow.

“We are calling on the Syrian authorities not only agree on putting chemical weapons storages under international control, but also for its further destruction and then joining the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons,” he said.

“We have passed our offer to Muallem and hope to receive a fast and positive answer.”

Al-Moallem pledged “full cooperation with Russia to remove any pretext for aggression.” Lavrov promised Moscow’s support.

He’s trying to broker a diplomatic solution. In return, he wants Obama to cancel attack plans.

He cited John Kerry saying Assad “could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week.”

“Turn it over, all of it without delay and allow (a) full and total accounting, but he isn’t about to do it and it can’t be done.”

Doing it would avoid military intervention, Kerry said. Damage control followed his statement. State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki reinterpreted his comments.

He “was making a rhetorical argument about the impossibility and unlikelihood of Assad turning over chemical weapons,” she said.

“His point was that this brutal dictator with a history of playing fast and loose with the facts cannot be trusted to turn over chemical weapons, otherwise he would have done so long ago. That’s why the world faces this moment.”

Reinterpreting Kerry’s statement shows Obama’s true intention. Falsely blaming Assad for using chemical weapons is cover for long planned regime change.

War is Obama’s option of choice. Lavrov’s best efforts may fall short. He forthrightly pursued them throughout months of conflict. He’s not about to stop now.

He faces long odds. Obama didn’t wage war on Syria to quit. He won’t do so no matter what Lavrov, Moallem, Assad or other Syrian officials pledge. Rogues states operate that way. America’s by far the worst.

Moallem’s doing his best anyway. So is Lavrov. From Moscow, he said:

“We have agreed on practical steps to be taken bilaterally and in cooperation with other states for giving the political settlement a chance.”

“No matter how serious the current situation may be, our Syrian partners and we are confident that possibilities remain for a political settlement.”

“Russia has been staying in touch with all (Syrian) opposition groups without an exception in the recent years and we will carry on our efforts to try to convince them that there is no alternative to an international conference.”

“If our contacts express that this (conference) may help, then we do not rule out the possibility of an invitation to Moscow of all who are interested in peace and a political settlement in Syria and reject the military scenario.”

“What are the real interests of the US behind launching this aggression,” he asked?

“Obama is not listening to Americans, Europeans, and UK Parliament. We thank American people for standing against striking Syria.”

“We admire the American people who voice their protest against military intervention,” added Muallem.

“What are the real interests of the United States behind launching this aggression? Why does US want to help those who are behind 9/11?

Washington “will be wrong to destroy (Syria’s) army and help Al Qaeda. We’re confident Russian efforts on peace talks will stop strikes.”

Lavrov replied, saying:

“UN inspectors should return to Syria to investigate alleged use of chemical weapons.”

“The alleged chemical attack on August 21 was orchestrated.” Anti-Assad elements bear full responsibility.

“We must consolidate government and rebels to evict terrorists. We are taking active moves to prevent devastating strike. Every report on chemical arms use must be closely studied.”

“Syria is open to Geneva-2 peace talks with no pre-conditions. We call on US colleagues to focus on talks, not on strikes.”

“Syria strike will only enable terrorism. Russia believes no group should monopolize peace talks.”

“Dialogue is necessary among all Syrians. It’s the only solution. UN inspectors must go back to Syria, but some powers are obstructing.”

He left no doubt which ones he means. They’re headquartered in Washington. Obama’s a warmaker. He deplores peace. He’s going all out to prevent it. He plans war to do so.

“Russia is well-supported in the view that military action in Syria will provoke rampant terrorism,” said Lavrov.

Moallem said his government is ready for Geneva II with no preconditions. “We are still ready to do that. But I do not know what may happen after an act of aggression by the United States. Probably a missile will fly over and thwart this.

America sides with terrorists, he added. It plans to be Al Qaeda’s air force.

“But if such aggression against Syria aims, as we suspect, to considerably weaken the military potential of the Syrian army in the interest of al-Qaeda and various affiliated groups, then we will raise our objections,” he stressed.

“Then we have the right to ask a question about the genuine interests of the United States that wishes to unleash an attack on the behalf of Jabhat al-Nusra and similar groups.”

“We’ve come here just as the US is sounding war drums. Our feeling is that Russia plays an important role of staving off aggression.”

“That is where Russia’s moral ground lies, since a peacekeeper is always stronger than a warmonger.”

“Mr. Assad has sent his regards and said he was grateful to Mr. Putin for his stand on Syria both before and after the G20 summit.”

“Russia plays an important role in preventing aggression.”

Lavrov added that Russia’s “stand on Syria is unwavering and does not permit a military solution of the Syrian conflict, especially foreign intervention.”

“The position of Russia is well-known. It is immune to change and varying circumstances.”

“This position says there is no alternative to peaceful, diplomatic settlement of the Syrian conflict, especially not a military solution employing foreign intervention.”

“On the background of the unfolding campaign calling to use force against Damascus, Russia is taking steps to prevent a pernicious situation in the Middle East.”

“There cannot be any deals behind backs of the Syrian people from the Russian side in what refers to the policies Russia is following.”

He added that force against Syria would cause a wave of regional terrorism. Perhaps that’s precisely what Obama intends.

He needs pretexts to intervene. Peace and stability defeat his agenda. It requires violence and destabilization. He plans lots more ahead.

He faces stiff world opposition. On September 9, Reuters headlined “Analysis: Obama growing isolated on Syria as support wanes”.

“White House efforts to convince the US Congress to back military action against Syria are not only failing, they seem to be stiffening the opposition.”

He’s making more enemies than friends. He’s doing so at home and abroad. Skeptics way outnumber supporters.

Hindsight may show he shot himself in the foot. Peace activists hope so. He’ll give it another go Tuesday night. He’ll try enlisting support for what most people reject.

They’re tired of being lied to. They want peace, stability, and jobs. They want America’s resources directed toward creating them.

They want leadership representing everyone equitably. Obama’s polar opposite. He supports wealth, power and privilege alone. He spurns popular interests.

He chooses war over peace. He’s less able to sell what most people reject. Odds favor he’ll attack Syria anyway.

Pretexts are easy to fabricate. They’re longstanding US policy. Expect another major one if Ghouta’s Big Lie falls flat. It’s likely planned ready to be implemented if needed.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at . His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html – Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

How “Progressives” And The American “Left” Are Failing Over Syria

It’s now painfully clear that Obama’s war on Syria is a replay of Bush’s march to war in Iraq, both built on lies. Zero evidence has been put forth that proves the Syrian government used chemical weapons. On the contrary, evidence has been collected that suggests the U.S.-backed Syrian rebels are responsible for the attack.

 If Obama wages an aggressive attack on Syria — especially without UN authorization — he’ll be committing a major international crime that will, by any standard, make him a war criminal, just like Bush before him.

And because Obama’s attack on Syria followed Bush’s logic, you’d assume that liberal, progressive, and other Left groups would do what they did when Bush went to war: denounce it unconditionally and organize against it.

But that’s not what happened. Because this didn’t happen, less accurate information was made available to the public, and fewer public mobilizations have occurred, thus re-enforcing Obama’s ability to wage an aggressive war.

There are four pieces of information that all left groups have a duty to report about Syria, but they have either ignored or minimized:

1) Obama presented zero evidence to back up his main justification for war: that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against civilians.

2) A top UN investigator, Carla Del Ponte, blamed a previous chemical weapons attack on the U.S.-backed rebels.

3) Any attack on Syria, no matter how “limited,” has a high risk of expanding into neighboring countries if Syria exercises its right as a sovereign nation to defend itself.

4) A war against Syria will be a violation of international law, since it is not approved by the UN, and therefore will make President Obama a war criminal.

There has been a broad spectrum of leftist failure to address these issues and condemn Obama’s war, ranging from those who take an overtly pro-war position to those who use anti-war slogans that are stained with pro-war justifications. A consistent “Hands Off Syria” message was hard to find.

The most guilty parties who have aided and assisted Obama’s expected war plans will have blood-stained hands after the bombing begins. Perhaps the best example of this coterie is Van Jones, the former adviser to Obama who founded the Rebuild The Dream organization.  (Preview) :

“I think we need to stand behind this president and send a clear message to Assad that this type behavior is not acceptable.”

 Many liberals took Jones’ “stand by our president” approach, even if it wasn’t stated as directly as Jones did, and even after “our president” was unable to present any sensible reason for waging another aggressive war in the Middle East.

A notch lower on the leftist spectrum of Syria war guilt is MoveOn.org, which has done everything in their power not to portray President Obama’s actions in their true light. But MoveOn had to take a more creative approach to covering up for Obama in Syria.

MoveOn organized a “teach-in” that was streamed on their website. The panel of speakers — with one exception — presented Obama’s position in a very evenhanded, “objective” way, presenting the president as an entirely reasonable person for wanting to bomb Syria, even if it might not be the best way to deal with the situation.

Instead of pointing out the flagrant similarities between Obama’s Syria war rationale and George Bush’s Iraq War lies, these similarities were papered over, thus legitimizing Obama’s criminal actions.

The worst Obama apologist on the panel was Matt Duss from the Center for American Progress, who explained that, although he was against a war on Syria, he “respects” that “other progressives of good faith may come to a different view.”

Phyllis Bennis from the Institute of Policy Studies was the only consistent anti-war panelist, who appeared as a fringe element when compared to the rest of the panel, only because she offered a common sense, consistent anti-war message.

The teach-in ended with a “what can we do” segment to influence the situation. Instead of mobilizing in the streets against Obama, the panelists discussed “contacting congressmen,” “calling the White House’s comment line,” “tweeting,” “email,” “petitions,” but no call was made for doing what was done against Bush: mobilize people in the streets to demand that the war be stopped.

MoveOn further exposed their pro-Obama, pro-war attitude on the website, where for days the featured petition being promoted was titled: “President Obama: Don’t Strike Syria Without Congressional Approval.”

Again, there is no basis for any strike on Syria, period — Congressional approval or otherwise. Even if Congress doesn’t approve Obama’s actions in Syria, it’s likely that he’ll attack Syria anyway, just as happened in Libya after Congress refused authorization.

On the lower end of the spectrum of leftist failure on Syria sits the International Socialist Organization (ISO). After Obama announced his intention to attack Syria, the ISO’s main article, “Imperial Hypocrisy to Justify an Assault,” neglected to address any of the above-stated four critical points about the situation in Syria.

But the ISO’s article went beyond mere neglect of facts; in several instances it re-enforced Obama’s war plans by unquestionably accepting Obama’s claim that there was “evidence” that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians.

After Obama’s “evidence” was accepted, the ISO article then went on to plagiarize  (Preview) of the YouTube video that showed the after effects of the attack:

“The mass killing in Ghouta was so awful that it forced the debate on Syria to a head. The warheads filled with sarin gas were targeted not at rebel fighters, but women and children in their beds. Their lungs filled with fluid, suffocating them. Hundreds more suffered severe and crippling injuries. Anyone with a sense of justice will be incensed by such a calculated effort to terrorize a vulnerable civilian population.”

Nowhere in the ISO article does it say “Hands Off Syria” or does it clearly denounce Obama’s pending attack on Syria. The article merely states that the U.S. is acting “hypocritically,” which, although true, falls tragically short of the needed response, therefore allowing more political space for Obama to wage a brutal attack.

It’s important to note that the above groups and individuals also politically failed BEFORE Obama announced a direct military intervention, since they did not sound the alarm bells of the long-approaching attack.

For example, the U.S. has been training, funding, and arming Syrian rebels for almost two years now, while having led the diplomatic organizing efforts of a group of rich Syrian exiles that Obama refers to as the “legitimate” government of Syria. Obama stated several times that “Assad must go.” The political Left had a duty to explain the significance of these events and their likely outcome, direct U.S. military intervention.

All of the above groups are also guilty of demonizing Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, buying in on the propaganda that he is worse than the Al Qaeda-linked rebels who are attacking him. This is a crucial element of justifying any aggressive war. Every head of state that is targeted by the U.S. government must be portrayed as an inspiring “Hitler,” since attacking a nation led by “Hitler” is, of course, a “good” thing to do.

And although opinion is certainly divided over Assad, those in the U.S. wishing to stop an aggressive war must focus on the actions of their own country.

“Hands Off Syria” is a united front demand, meaning that it’s intentionally aimed to create a broad based appeal in an effort to mobilize as many people as possible. No anti-war movement — or any social movement — is powerful without massive, ongoing mobilizations.

Within the united front demand of Hands Off Syria there is plenty of room for other tactics and room to discuss the deeper politics of the movement, but creating the largest possible mobilizations must be the base ingredient, and this can only be done under a demand that is capable of bringing together broad sections of the U.S. public.

The question of war sadly remains the greatest immediate threat the world faces, especially in light of an increasingly conflict-ridden and dangerous Middle East.

The United States government is hell-bent on reckless wars that are increasingly likely to spiral out of control as they bring abject misery to the affected populations around the world while funneling money for badly needed social programs here in the U.S. into campaigns of death and destruction. Unequivocally denouncing U.S. foreign aggression is the duty of all working people who value peace, hate war, and aspire to create a better world.

Hands Off Syria! Bring the Troops Home NOW!

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