Europe is Built on Corpses and Plunder

(Speech given in Rome at the Italian Parliament on January 29, 2016)

***

Friends and Comrades, it is a great honor to be standing here – at the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Parliament.

***

One year ago I was driving through the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, monitoring the situation in the refugee camps there. Winter was approaching and the mountains on the Lebanese–Syrian border were covered by snow. It was cold, very cold.

Some 20 minutes, after leaving Baalbek, I spotted an extremely humble makeshift refugee camp, growing literally from the road, in the middle of nowhere.

I stopped. Together with my interpreter, I walked inside and engaged several people in conversation.

The situation was desperate. Children were hungry and could not register for schools through the UNHCR or through the Lebanese government, which, by that time, had almost collapsed. Many electronic food cards that were issued to the migrants did not function. Work permits were not offered, and without proper paperwork, local social services could not be used. In brief: a total disaster.

I was told that in this area, some Syrian migrants had already been starving.

This was Bekaa Valley, a tough place to start with, and full of ancient traditions, clans, gangs and narcotic-business. Refugees were expected to keep their heads down, or else…

Before I left, two little girls, two sisters, approached me. Both had swollen bellies, suffering from malnutrition. Both were dressed in rugs. Both looked deprived.

But after spotting my cameras, they were mesmerized, smiling at me, showing tongues, laughing.

Their country was in ruins, their future uncertain.

But these were just two little girls in the middle of the mountains, two girls excited about each and every little detail of life. Such innocence! Such hope! People are people, and children are children, everywhere, even during wars.

Unfortunately, I have witnessed too many of them; too many wars. Too many barbarities performed by NATO, by the Empire, by the United States and Europe.

Later, working on the Greek island of Kos and in Calais in France, I kept thinking about those two girls, again and again.

The West (or call it NATO, or anything you like – we all know what I mean!) has, in the most cynical manner, destabilized and destroyed the entire Middle East. As it has in virtually all the continents of the world, it ruined tremendous cultures, plundered all it could put its hands on, turned proud people into slaves. Libya and Iraq are no more! I can testify, as I work all over the Middle East.

And then the West enclosed itself into its gold-plated bunker, slowly and disgustingly digesting its booty!

How many refugees are there that Europe says: “it cannot accept”? 1 million? Tiny, miniscule Lebanon has 2 million, and it is coping; badly but coping!

And Lebanon did not destroy Syria, Libya, Afghanistan or Iraq.

You know how it all feels like? Like observing a woman who was gang-raped, whose husband was murdered in front of her own eyes, and whose beautiful house was looted. Now this woman, just in order to save her starving children from the rubbles, is forced to go to Europe, to the rapists and thieves who destroyed her life, asking for shelter and food. And they spit into her face! They say: “It is too much for us, too difficult to accommodate you and others like you! Woman, you came to take advantage of us. You came to have a better life at our expense!”

This is how it looks from the outside. This is how I see it.

And I want to puke. But there is no time… One has to work, day and night, to stop this madness.

The West, of course including Europe, is too hardened by its own crimes, too cynical, and too unrepentant.

It remains blind, because it simply does not pay to see!

***

There is no Left Wing in Europe, anymore. Not the Left as we understand the term in Cuba and other revolutionary nations.

To us, true left means “Internationalism”, solidarity!

True left is global, egalitarian, and color-blind.

European so-called Left is only concerned with the benefits of its own citizens. It does not care at all where the funds are coming from.

As long as French, Greek, Spanish or Italian farmers get their subsidies and perks, who cares that agriculture in Africa or Asia gets thoroughly ruined. The most important is that European farmers could drive their latest BMW’s, for producing something or not producing anything at all.

I saw absolutely grotesque concepts implemented in countries like Senegal, and other former French colonies: heavily subsidized French food produce flooded West Africa, supermarkets opened, local production collapsed. Then the prices spiked to 2-3 times higher levels than those in Paris. And so, in Senegal where incomes are perhaps only 10% of those in France, a yoghurt costs 3 times more than in Monoprix.

Who pays for those 35-hour workweeks? Who pays for socialized medical care and free education in the European Union? Definitely not the Europeans themselves! Most of the funds used to come from the colonies, from that unimaginable plunder of the world performed by the West.

Colonialism and imperialism are still there, but they often changed forms, although the toll on people in non-white countries continues to be the same.

The Belgian King Leopold II and his cohorts, in what is now Congo, massacred 10 million people, at the beginning of the 20th Century. Between 1995 and now, the West plundered the Democratic Republic of Congo once again, mercilessly, by using its closest allies in Africa – Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya. Again, between 7 and 10 million people died there, in just 20 years, and these are not some inflated numbers, these are numbers provided by the United Nations and its reports, including the so-called “Mapping Report”. All that horror, only so the West could have access to coltan (used in our mobile phones), to uranium, and other strategic materials. I compiled the evidence in my feature documentary film “Rwanda Gambit”.

All those ruined lives and countries, so that European citizens could have their benefits, long vacations, and social services.

When I discussed the issue with my friend, an Italian filmmaker from Naples, he snapped at me: “We don’t want to be like the Chinese. We don’t want to work hard like them!”

I replied: “Then live within your means! Do not allow your corporations and governments to massacre tens of millions of people, so that the companies could have their insane profits, and citizens those outrageous benefits.”

Recently, in Thailand, I overheard a group of unemployed Spaniards laughing about having a vacation in Southeast Asia, paid for by their unemployment benefits.

I know many countries, dependencies of the West, where losing one’s job is synonymous to a death sentence! But we are asked to feel sorry for Spaniards, Italians and Greeks. We are expected to see them as victims.

***

I am saddened to say, but it is not only the United States, but also Europe, which is totally, blissfully ignorant about its role in the world, and about the harm, about the horrors that it is spreading all over our Planet.

This discovery shocked me so much, that I spent 4 years crisscrossing the world, compiling the evidence and testimonies that illustrate the colonialist, neo-colonialist and imperialist legacy of the West, as well as the current neo-colonialist barbarities. The book is 840-pages long and it is called “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. I hope, one day, it will be available in the Italian language!

The book has been receiving enthusiastic reception, but for me, this thick volume is not the end. Now I am compiling the second installment. The topic is just too enormous. The crimes, genocides, holocausts committed by the West on the people of our Planet, are too enormous.

Everything is linked to them! The entire arrangement of the world uses them as pillars.

In our book “On Western Terrorism – From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare”, written together with my friend Noam Chomsky, I was asked whether the Europeans actually realize what they have done to the world, during the last centuries.

(Just a side note – this book is now available in the Italian language “Terrorismo Occidentale”).

I replied to Noam: “They definitely don’t!”

And I repeat here, again: most of them, the great majority of them, do not realize it! They don’t want to see, to admit, that their opera houses, hospitals, museums, parks and promenades, are all constructed on the corpses of those who were robbed of everything: from Latin America and its open veins, to Asia and Africa. Slavery, unimaginable extermination campaigns, tremendous lists of horrors!

Before Noam and I began our discussion, I spent some time with several top statisticians, and our conclusion was chilling: directly or indirectly, the West massacred between 40 and 50 million people, between the Hiroshima A-bomb explosion, and the time of my long dialogue with Noam – in 2012.

The number of people, who were murdered throughout history, directly or indirectly, by European empires, all over the world, can only be calculated in hundreds of millions, and one of my statistician friends believes that the total accumulative number actually exceeds 1 billion.

***

When I was recently speaking at the China Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, and later in Moscow, having been invited by Russian philosophers and by several members of the Russian Academy of Science, I publicly declared that I am fundamentally against “free medical care and free education in Europe”.

When asked “why?” I explained that the cost is too high, and those robbed and destroyed people, all over the world, are almost exclusively expected to cover it.

But I continued: “I am totally, decisively, supportive of universal free medical care, education and essential social benefits. Or as we say in Cuba: everyone dances, or nobody does!”

Of course I also can tolerate and support free medical care, education and benefits in those countries that do not plunder the world, like Cuba, China, Venezuela, Bolivia, South Africa or Ecuador.

***

Not only the West refuses to face its responsibility for, by now, the almost absolute total destruction of the world, it is also using all sorts of smoke screens and propaganda tactics to divert the attention of the people; it is spreading nihilist economic concepts, propaganda and outright lies.

It is using education as a weapon, offering scholarships to children of elites in the countries it is robbing and controlling. After being indoctrinated, they return home and continue violating their own countries on behalf of the United States and Europe.

And so the vicious cycle continues!

I encountered so many grotesque moments, when for instance, an Indonesian upper class family returning from its vacation in Holland, begins a long litany, about how great are the theaters, trains, museums and public spaces in Netherlands, compared to those in Indonesia.

Of course they are! All built from centuries of Dutch plunder of Indonesia, like those Spanish cathedrals stuffed with gold, growing from corpses.

As Noam Chomsky often says: “not to see all this truly takes great discipline!”

***

The brutality of the Western Empire is unmatchable. Its cynicism is monumental!

Look at those so-called “terrorists” in Muslim countries, scarecrows that Western governments and media keep waving in front of our eyes!

Islamic culture is greatly socialist and socially oriented. After World War II, secular, socialist, revolutionary and anti-Western governments ruled the most important Muslim nations: Egypt, Iran and Indonesia.

Within two decades, the West overthrew them all, implementing fascist regimes.

It then invented the Mujahideen and injected them into Afghanistan, in order to finish with the Soviet Union.

And once it felt the need for some monumental enemy to replace Communism, it manufactured and then armed, trained and educated groups like al-Qaida, al-Nusra and ISIS.

This move served two important goals: to justify astronomical military and intelligence budgets, and to portray the Western/Christian civilization as “culturally superior”, fighting “Arab terrorist monsters”.

Of course, the great majority of the people in Europe and North America are so indoctrinated, intellectually self-righteous and defunct, that they remain blind when faced with those Machiavellian pirouettes.

For the European public, there are plenty of “good reasons” to stick to those inherently racist beliefs, and to protectionism. There are even better reasons for hiding those millions of heads in the sand!

And so it goes.

***

I am here, in Italy, and today I do not want to discuss the United States, Israel, or other colonies and client states of the West. We can do it some other time, if I am invited back.

I spoke about Europe.

And I spoke about those two Syrian girls I met in Lebanon.

They are your responsibility, too, Italy! They suffer from malnutrition because your part of the world is ruining their country. It is because your country is a member of NATO, and NATO is behaving like a fascist thug with some clear mafia behavioral patterns.

I know you have heart!

I grew up on you films, on Fellini and de Sica, Rossellini, Antonioni and others. I greatly admire your poetry and music. They had tremendous influence on my work, and on how I see the world.

But your heart, it seems, lately goes only to your own people. It is not an internationalist heart. It does not believe that all people are equal.

I came here to say this, because not too many people dare to.

I came here because I still care for your country.

But as a determined socialist realist, I care about Italy as it “could and should be”, not “as it is” at this moment.

Thank you!

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/05/europe-is-built-on-corpses-and-plunder/

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”.Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

Edward Bernay's Propaganda

(in this post: 13 part podcast 10 hours, 3 books(pdf) , 1 documentary , 7 interviews, qoutes and background information )

Edward Bernays, born in Vienna in 1891 and famously the nephew of Sigmund Freud, was perhaps the pioneer in the field of Public Relations, and highly influential in providing the framework for modern advertising.

His work aimed to convince people to want things that they didn't need, and in the process, link their unconscious desires to the consumption of mass produced goods. This in turn, it was theorized, could be used to control the masses, as by keeping them distracted on frivolous happenings and relatively unimportant wants, they wouldn't interfere with the activities of what he called 'the important few'.

All the while, he was remarkably candid about his intent. In one of his first books, 'Propaganda' (1928), he coined the term 'engineering of consent' to describe his technique for controlling the masses. In this podcast series, Guy Evans examines just how influential these ideas were, and details the resulting impact in relation to public relations, advertising, celebrity culture, and democracy itself

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Some Qoutes from his work: Propaganda.

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The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society.

p. 37

In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons [...] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.

p. 37–38

In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered to him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed.

p. 39

Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.

p. 48

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Propaganda by edward bernays.

https://archive.org/stream/Propaganda1928ByEdwardL.Bernays/Propaganda%281928%29%20by%20Edward%20L.%20Bernays#page/n1/mode/2up

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Crystallizing public opinion by edward bernays.

http://sttpml.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/5369599-Crystallizing-Public-Opinion-Edward-Bernays.pdf

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Public relations by edward bernays.

https://archive.org/stream/publicrelationse00bernrich/publicrelationse00bernrich_djvu.txt

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Documentaries

Century of Self.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

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Interviews with the man him self.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL521CEC139EF41514

Sheldon Wolin: Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?

Sheldon Wolin

 

Sheldon Wolin, our most important contemporary political theorist, died Oct. 21 at the age of 93. In his books “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism” and “Politics and Vision,” a massive survey of Western political thought that his former student Cornel West calls “magisterial,” Wolin lays bare the realities of our bankrupt democracy, the causes behind the decline of American empire and the rise of a new and terrifying configuration of corporate power he calls “inverted totalitarianism.”

Wendy Brown, a political science professor at UC Berkeley and another former student of Wolin’s, said in an email to me: “Resisting the monopolies on left theory by Marxism and on democratic theory by liberalism, Wolin developed a distinctive—even distinctively American—analysis of the political present and of radical democratic possibilities. He was especially prescient in theorizing the heavy statism forging what we now call neoliberalism, and in revealing the novel fusions of economic with political power that he took to be poisoning democracy at its root.”

Wolin throughout his scholarship charted the devolution of American democracy and in his last book, “Democracy Incorporated,” details our peculiar form of corporate totalitarianism. “One cannot point to any national institution[s] that can accurately be described as democratic,” he writes in that book, “surely not in the highly managed, money-saturated elections, the lobby-infested Congress, the imperial presidency, the class-biased judicial and penal system, or, least of all, the media.” 

Inverted totalitarianism is different from classical forms of totalitarianism. It does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader but in the faceless anonymity of the corporate state. Our inverted totalitarianism pays outward fealty to the facade of electoral politics, the Constitution, civil liberties, freedom of the press, the independence of the judiciary, and the iconography, traditions and language of American patriotism, but it has effectively seized all of the mechanisms of power to render the citizen impotent.

“Unlike the Nazis, who made life uncertain for the wealthy and privileged while providing social programs for the working class and poor, inverted totalitarianism exploits the poor, reducing or weakening health programs and social services, regimenting mass education for an insecure workforce threatened by the importation of low-wage workers,” Wolin writes. “Employment in a high-tech, volatile, and globalized economy is normally as precarious as during an old-fashioned depression. The result is that citizenship, or what remains of it, is practiced amidst a continuing state of worry.Hobbes had it right: when citizens are insecure and at the same time driven by competitive aspirations, they yearn for political stability rather than civic engagement, protection rather than political involvement.”

Inverted totalitarianism, Wolin said when we met at his home in Salem, Ore., in 2014 to film a nearly three-hour interview, constantly “projects power upwards.” It is “the antithesis of constitutional power.” It is designed to create instability to keep a citizenry off balance and passive.

He writes, “Downsizing, reorganization, bubbles bursting, unions busted, quickly outdated skills, and transfer of jobs abroad create not just fear but an economy of fear, a system of control whose power feeds on uncertainty, yet a system that, according to its analysts, is eminently rational.”

Inverted totalitarianism also “perpetuates politics all the time,” Wolin said when we spoke, “but a politics that is not political.” The endless and extravagant election cycles, he said, are an example of politics without politics.

“Instead of participating in power,” he writes, “the virtual citizen is invited to have ‘opinions’: measurable responses to questions predesigned to elicit them.”

Political campaigns rarely discuss substantive issues. They center on manufactured political personalities, empty rhetoric, sophisticated public relations, slick advertising, propaganda and the constant use of focus groups and opinion polls to loop back to voters what they want to hear. Money has effectively replaced the vote. Every current presidential candidate—including Bernie Sanders—understands, to use Wolin’s words, that “the subject of empire is taboo in electoral debates.” The citizen is irrelevant. He or she is nothing more than a spectator, allowed to vote and then forgotten once the carnival of elections ends and corporations and their lobbyists get back to the business of ruling.

“If the main purpose of elections is to serve up pliant legislators for lobbyists to shape, such a system deserves to be called ‘misrepresentative or clientry government,’ ” Wolin writes. “It is, at one and the same time, a powerful contributing factor to the depoliticization of the citizenry, as well as reason for characterizing the system as one of antidemocracy.”

The result, he writes, is that the public is “denied the use of state power.” Wolin deplores the trivialization of political discourse, a tactic used to leave the public fragmented, antagonistic and emotionally charged while leaving corporate power and empire unchallenged.

“Cultural wars might seem an indication of strong political involvements,” he writes. “Actually they are a substitute. The notoriety they receive from the media and from politicians eager to take firm stands on nonsubstantive issues serves to distract attention and contribute to a cant politics of the inconsequential.”

“The ruling groups can now operate on the assumption that they don’t need the traditional notion of something called a public in the broad sense of a coherent whole,” he said in our meeting. “They now have the tools to deal with the very disparities and differences that they have themselves helped to create. It’s a game in which you manage to undermine the cohesiveness that the public requires if they [the public] are to be politically effective. And at the same time, you create these different, distinct groups that inevitably find themselves in tension or at odds or in competition with other groups, so that it becomes more of a melee than it does become a way of fashioning majorities.”

In classical totalitarian regimes, such as those of Nazi fascism or Soviet communism, economics was subordinate to politics. But “under inverted totalitarianism the reverse is true,” Wolin writes. “Economics dominates politics—and with that domination comes different forms of ruthlessness.”

He continues: “The United States has become the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed.”

The corporate state, Wolin told me, is “legitimated by elections it controls.” To extinguish democracy, it rewrites and distorts laws and legislation that once protected democracy. Basic rights are, in essence, revoked by judicial and legislative fiat. Courts and legislative bodies, in the service of corporate power, reinterpret laws to strip them of their original meaning in order to strengthen corporate control and abolish corporate oversight.

[1/4]
read more:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/sheldon_wolin_and_inverted_totalitarianism_20151101 

PDF : book: Democracy Incorporated  

http://cryptome.org/2013/01/aaron-swartz/Democracy-Inc.pdf

Why Paris Reveals the Horror – and the Hypocrisies – of Global Terrorism

The world was shocked and horrified at the terror inflicted upon Paris on the night of Friday the 13th, 2015, when ISIS-affiliated militants killed well over 100 civilians in one of the world’s most iconic cities. An outpouring of grief, solidarity, support and condolences came in from across the world. The tragedy, and tyranny, of such terror cannot be underestimated, but it should also be placed in its global context: namely, that the chief cause of terrorism is, in fact, terrorism, and that the chief victims are the innocent, wherever they may be.

While ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, following attacks the group undertook in previous days in both Beirut and Baghdad, it is worth remembering and reflecting on what led to the development of ISIS itself. The so-called Islamic State had its origins in the Iraq War, launched by the United States and closely supported by the United Kingdom in March of 2003. After overthrowing Saddam Hussein, a dictator once favored by the U.S., the occupying powers struggled to deal with a growing Sunni insurgency against their military occupation. In response, the U.S. helped create death squads in Iraq that further fueled a sectarian conflict between Shi’a and Sunni communities, which likewise fueled a growing regional rivalry between Shi’a Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

The resulting civil war in Iraq killed hundreds of thousands, and the U.S. aligned itself even more tightly with Saudi Arabia, a country the West considers to be "moderate" in comparison to both Iran and Syria, yet it was the primary financier of al-Qaeda. The broader aim, in Iraq and across the Middle East, was to support the regional hegemony of the West’s allies – Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab dictatorships – against their chief rivals, Iran and Syria. If it meant supporting the countries that supported al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, so be it.

After all, it has never been much of a secret that the Saudis and their Gulf neighbors were the major financial backers of global terrorists; even then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted as much in a memo leaked by Wikileaks. Nor was it a secret that Saudi Arabia was responsible for more destabilization and terrorism inside Iraq than Iran, which nonetheless received most of the blame.

The Saudis and the Gulf dictatorships are U.S. and Western allies, with immense oil riches that have made them some of the largest investors and shareholders in Western banks and corporations. Iran and Syria, on the other hand, are not.

Al-Qaeda did not exist inside Iraq until after the U.S. invasion and occupation. Over the years, since the war and occupation began, the group has undergone a number of name changes and transitions. One such evolution of the group is the al-Nusra front. And another is now known as the Islamic State, or ISIS.

Origins of the Current Terror

When the Arab uprisings began against Western-supported dictators back in late 2010 and early 2011, the U.S. and its key Middle East allies faced an unprecedented crisis. The longtime French and U.S.-supported dictator of Tunisia, Ben Ali, fled his country in January of 2011. The following month, it was Egypt’s dictator, Hosni Mubarak, a “family friend” of Hillary Clinton’s, who had to leave.

The Saudis and other Arab dictators were furious that the U.S. could toss one of its major regional clients aside, fearful that if Mubarak could be removed, any of them could be next. Thus, Saudi Arabia and other Arab dictators led a counter-revolution against the Arab Spring, pouring in money to support dictators they considered friendly (such as in Jordan), sending in troops to violently crush uprisings (such as in Bahrain), and arming rebel groups and terrorists against long-time foes in an effort to take advantage of the uprisings and undermine their rivals (such as in Libya).

In Libya, NATO led a war against long-time dictator Colonel Gaddafi in cooperation with many extremist rebel groups, including al-Qaeda. France and Britain were the main proponents of the war against Libya, which is hardly surprising given that both countries have hundreds of years of experience invading, occupying, colonizing and waging war against peoples of the Middle East and Africa. The war in Libya was of course a monumental disaster. While it removed a dictator long despised by both the Western powers and the Gulf Arab dictators, its ultimate effect was to plunge the country into civil war and chaos, terrorism and collapse.

Meanwhile, the weapons looted in Libya during the war began making their way into neighboring Mali and the more-distant Syria. As the arms crossed borders, so too did terror and warfare, and the French weren't far behind. In early 2013, France launched airstrikes in Mali, leading to a ground invasion that ended in 2014. Around the same time, France also military intervened in the Central Africa Republic.

In 2013, Western powers including France, the UK and U.S. began increasing their participation in the Syrian civil war, which was already a full-blown regional proxy war pitting Syria’s government, led by Bashar al-Assad allied with Iraq and Iran, against Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Turkey. The Gulf dictatorships armed and funded religious extremist sects to fight against the Syrian government, and were aided in this process by Western countries.

The U.S., France and Britain provided training and support to so-called "moderate" rebels inside Jordan to fight against the Syrian government. The CIA has been involved in arming and training Syrian rebels at least since 2012, in close cooperation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The official line stressed that the CIA’s efforts aimed to prevent weapons from getting into the hands of extremist groups like al-Qaeda – yet virtually all of the rebel groups it was aiding inside Syria were hardline religious extremists.

Even as reports emerged that secular and moderate rebel groups had all but collapsed, the CIA continued to funnel more sophisticated weapons (in cooperation with Saudi allies) to these mythical “trustworthy” rebel groups. France was not far behind in delivering arms to Syrian rebel groups.

Around the same time, an internal CIA study noted that in its decades of experience arming insurgencies against regimes that the U.S. opposed, the agency’s efforts had largely failed. The main “exception” to the litany of failures, ironically, was when the CIA armed and trained the Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. That "success," as we now know, led directly to the creation of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

A Plan Backfires

With all the support given to Syrian rebel groups in the form of training and arms, those same groups quickly became enemies of the West that had armed and trained them. This includes ISIS, whose rise was fueled by U.S. involvement in both Syria and Iraq, and who is funded and supported by key U.S. allies in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

In fact, a report prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 predicted the rise of ISIS, noting that such al-Qaeda-affiliated groups were the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” and added that they were being supported in their efforts to take over large parts of Syria and Iraq by “western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey.” Further, the document noted, this was “exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime.” A former Pentagon official who ran the DIA even suggested that the U.S. not only didn't “turn a blind eye” to its support of such groups, but that “it was a willful decision.”

Here is the takeaway: the Syrian civil war, combined with the effects of the Iraq war, Libyan war and other conflicts in the region that were fueled by Western powers and their regional allies, has resulted in the massive refugee crisis Europe faces today, as millions of civilians flee the conflicts plaguing their nations while Western powers continue to pour weapons and money into them. Conflict and terror has bred further conflict and terror.

Yet when terrorism hits inside Western nations, like it did Friday in Paris, the reaction by Western governments is fairly, and tragically, typical. The Paris attacks occurred less than two months after France began launching air strikes against ISIS inside Syria, and have already prompted calls for a more aggressive strategy against ISIS in the future. So what can we expect as a result? Simply, more terror.

In short, if the objective is to oppose or prevent terrorism, the most logical strategy is not to dismantle civil liberties at home and send militaries and weapons abroad, but to stop participating in terrorism itself. This does not take away from the tragedy of the lives lost in Paris on Nov. 13, but the hypocrisy in how we acknowledge and address terrorism only enhances the tragedy. French President Francois Hollande called the attacks that killed 129 people an “act of war,” which it was. But in turn, he declared that “France will be merciless” in its response, and this is something we have yet to see.

If 200,000 dead Syrians, millions of refugees, and regional warfare spreading from state to state is considered "merciful" participation by Western nations in Middle East conflicts, the terror that might now be unleashed abroad – and the new terror that will, inevitably, once again wash ashore as a result – is indeed something to fear. To end terror, perhaps Western states should consider stopping its own participation in terror. In the very least, it would be a first step in the right direction.

- See more at: http://www.occupy.com/article/why-paris-reveals-horror-%E2%80%93-and-hypocrisies-%E2%80%93-global-terrorism#sthash.3Xl36tfk.dpuf

1984

“The war, therefore if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that the hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word "war," therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that is exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and has been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three superstates, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed forever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This--although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense--is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.”

― George Orwell, 1984

Plutocracy: Political Repression In The U.S.A

Plutocracy: Political Repression In The U.S.A (part 1)

Plutocracy is the first documentary to comprehensively examine early American history through the lens of class. A multi-part series by filmmaker Scott Noble, Part I focuses on the the ways in which the American people have historically been divided on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex and skill level.

Plutocracy: Divide et Impera (Divide and Rule) includes sections on Mother Jones, the American Constitution; the Civil War draft riots; Reconstruction; Industrialization; the evolution of the police; the robber barons; early American labor unions; and major mid-to-late 19th Century labor events including the uprising of 1877, the Haymarket Affair, the Homestead strike and the New Orleans General Strike. The introduction examines the West Virginian coal wars of the early 20th Century, culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain.

Part II ('Solidarity Forever') will cover the late 19th Century to the early twenties.

The Rothschilds exposed.

This video shows the history of the family and how they have accumulated their vast wealth, and I hope this will give you an insight into their plan to dominate the world through central banking

Edward Bernays: Architect of the Consumer Mind.

Michael Cross, author of the "Freedom from Conscience" series and host of UCY Radio's "Unlock the Door" deals with how Bernays changed the world of marketing and politics.

Big Oil’s Global Power Grab. Devastating Environmental and Social Consequences

It has been happening all over the earth where pristine nature supports indigenous peoples that for eons of time have lived in isolative bliss and symbiotic harmony with their idyllic surroundings. Primal cultures and their natural habitats have too often been overrun by cultures and technologies from the West, that by their very human nature exploit other humans and nature for profit and greed. It is the history of humankind, one group of invading humans believing themselves to be superior in their mistreatment toward others. Under the false pretense that might makes right, and the false presumption that since they are believed to be more civilized, they therefore are entitled to lay claim to what is not rightfully theirs.

For centuries Western nations from Europe and North America have been invading far-off Third World lands, bringing with them bigger guns and more money to “negotiate” and buy their way into drilling and mining, extracting and stealing whatever precious natural resources they desire from the earth, primarily oil and minerals. Justifying their power grabbing with a self-serving rationale is always accompanied by the hideously false promise that they will bring increasing number of jobs and wealth into the poorer nations and their local populations. And so this recurring cycle of deception, exploitation and theft begins and never ends ad nauseum throughout human history. Unfortunately this very sad old story has been endlessly playing itself out in every corner of the globe ever since the dawn of man.

And though there remain few places on the planet where Western powers have not yet come, have not yet seen, and have not yet conquered, today this pattern is still unfolding in numerous remote regions. Once again so called progress and civilization are colliding with indigenous cultures and the last precious, unspoiled lands on earth. An examination of the native Arctic population of the Inuit Eskimos and their stake in the offshore undersea oil drilling can shed some important light on how indigenous groups in other places may not be faring so well.

Estimates from the US Geological Survey maintain that the Arctic contains some 90 billion barrels of oil and 44 billion barrels of natural gas, totaling 30 percent of the world’s untapped gas reserves. The Beaufort and Chukchi Seas have the potential to produce 500,000 barrels of oil each day. These are tantalizing numbers for prospective oil companies just itching to explore the vast underwater seabed reserves that promise even higher profits than their already record breaking pace in recent years.

With global warming and the polar icecap meltdown, 30 percent of the Arctic sea ice has meltedaway from 1979 to 2003. This has only enticed oil companies to lust for the Arctic drilling go-ahead with even more enthusiasm and determination. Despite a campaign promise to leave the Arctic region alone for the native Inuit people who have inhabited northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland since 800 B.C. as the longest running human inhabitants in North America, Obama the oil-friendly president has turned his back on them and in 2012 granted licenses for big oil drilling rights in both the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The harsh, austere conditions in the Arctic environment pose much greater dangers than offshore drilling in much warmer waters like the Gulf of Mexico. Plus, with the nearest Coast Guard stations 1000 miles away and no ports in the Arctic, oil drilling is especially problematic throughout the entire region.

Yet just two short years after the most costly and damaging oil spill in history with BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 when nearly 5 million gallons of crude oil leaked into the Gulf, throwing all caution to the wind and the native Inuits he promised to protect under the bus, Obama opened up the Arctic Ocean to the greedy oil companies. With complete disregard for the native people in the Arctic, Obama knew that risking another oil spill in Alaska like the one in the Gulf would be a catastrophic death trap to the Inuits.

When he invited the oil companies to resume carving up the Arctic floor in 2012 after over two decades of non-activity, Obama was well aware of the fact that the Gulf is now an ecological dead zone with mostly all of its marine wildlife gone. The remaining shrimp are still coated in oil, half with serious deformities. Moreover, Obama knew that the toxic chemical dispersant aerially sprayed saturating the entire Gulf coast with unprecedented amounts was a desperate attempt to simply contain the oil by literally sweeping it under the seabed rug at the ocean floor and thereby allow BP to falsely declare all is well. Neither the deceptive BP propaganda blitz nor Michelle Obama heading to the Gulf on vacation could conceal the overwhelming and devastating damage to the entire region.

Meanwhile, by 2012 Obama also knew that the combination of oil and the 2 million gallons of the chemical Corexit used in the cleanup has a synergistically toxic effect that makes the combo 52 times more poisonous and lethal than either the chemical or oil by themselves. A congressional report said as much yet the oil and chemical company lobbyists have ensured that four years later not a single change or recommendation has yet to be enacted. Even the chemical manufacturing plant that produces Corexit also located in Louisiana remains open and unchanged despite the known health hazards. In the meantime, serious skin rashes and lesions along with a plethora of extremely severe respiratory and central nervous diseases and impairments are now beginning to kill Americans living along the Gulf coast waters. This horrendous scandal is yet one more among many criminal and sinister Obama administration cover-ups piling up during his final term in office.

Meanwhile back at the polar Arctic icecap, with so much sea ice already melted and gone, the native population along the Arctic coast struggles to maintain its traditional lifestyle that includes ice fishing, now severely limited since the ocean ice is no longer thick enough in many areas for humans much less dog sleds or polar bears to traverse. Hunting walrus and seals is also much more difficult. Travel to other villages located across the bay is also made much more distant and time-consuming.

With the additional presence of offshore oil rigs drilling wells deep into the seabed, the Inuits fear both their food supply and traditional culture will be cut off and eliminated. 80 percent of the natives’ food source is caught in their coastal waters. And with the local marine wildlife – the bowhead whale in particular – so vital to their survival, the delicate eco-system balance that has sustained them for thousands of years is perilously threatened by Big Oil interests. A steady flow of icebreaker tankers and rigging ships in and out of the area would produce a major lasting negative impact on their environment. Still another critical concern would be the short narrow window of only the three warmer months each year to respond to any serious mishap or spill if it was to occur. After the Gulf leak, time-wise the Arctic stakes would be much higher. Finally, a third of that three to four month period when conditions are viable for production, the Arctic is under the cover of darkness.

One of the Inuit tribes in Alaska, the Inupiat, preserves a traditional ritual that illustrates the ecologically sound practice of respecting their natural environment. They are only allowed to catch 10 bowhead whales a year. The first nine boats to harpoon a whale each receive equal shares with the lead whaling crew dividing the head between them. The butchered skull is then given back to the sea in a gesture that symbolizes the ancient regenerative cycle of life and death making for life anew. Obama and the oil companies are oblivious to such foreign constructs, which explains why so much of life under their dominance and control is utterly unsustainable.

Despite receiving the green light from governmental regulators five years ago after investing 2 billion dollars on leases to drill, not unlike Obama, Shell Oil blundered by simply ignoring the needs and well-being of the local native population, never consulting or working with them just as the BP debacle began unfolding. The Inuit Alaskans then applied pressure on Washington to place an immediate federal moratorium on all offshore drilling, thus derailing Shell’s plans for the Arctic. Then to Shell’s rescue came Obama’s 2012 decision to reopen the Arctic corridor. By the time the short season in 2012 came to a close, Shell had just started drilling with only two wells up and running.

But then Shell’s floatable Kulluk rig suddenly washed aground in January 2013 and had to undergo costly repairs after the Shell barge also was damaged while being tested in the state of Washington. Five billion dollars later, Shell Oil still has nothing to show for itself in the Arctic. And with another 5 billion needed to drill deep enough, extract and transport the crude oil out of the Arctic, Shell’s future in the region is still very uncertain. Because of Shell’s recent problems and the federal regulators’ response that began tightening up requirements, ConocoPhillips has foregone drilling in the Chukchi Sea in 2014 because of “the uncertainties of evolving federal regulatory requirements.” Of course it turns out Shell’s costly floundering was a break for the locals whose interests and concerns were never taken into consideration.

One positive development in recent decades is the Inuit people from Alaska, Canada and Greenland have formed an alliance on a unified front called the Inuit Circumpolar Council, (ICC), a body created in 1977. The ICC can contest and exercise some control over the wholesale extraction of natural resources from their traditional lands and seas. As a result, the estimated 160,000 in the Arctic region wield a degree of autonomous power. Inuits from Greenland as a territory of Denmark in 2009 became independent. In northern Arctic Canada the Nunavut territory was established by the Inuit population there. The indigenous people of the Arctic are not entirely opposed to development, but want to make sure that it does so under their control of protecting their living environment while receiving fair financial compensation.

Earlier this week Exxon Mobil affiliate Imperial Oil announced its plans to dig more than four miles deep drilling in the Canadian Arctic in the Beaufort Sea, which would become the deepest well within the Arctic circle. It might take an estimated three years just to drill that deep given the short iceberg-free season. Again if another Exxon Valdez tanker spill that ravaged the Alaskan shoreline a quarter century ago or worse yet, another BP-like disaster were to occur where in the warm Gulf waters it took months to finally seal the leak, in the Arctic the consequences of a major oil spill would become far more devastating and long term.

Exxon learned from its relatively recent past in 2005 after spending nearly a quarter billion dollars on drilling over 30,000 feet deep in the shallow warm Gulf waters that the high pressure and gas leaking into the well bore produced too much stress on the equipment. Blackbeard as it is called became the most expensive abandoned dry hole ever. But another company took over using heavier equipment in 2008, and drilled another 3000 feet down to hit pay dirt. A second nearby well indicates that the underwater oil field may hold 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This year production is expected to go on line. Though these deep offshore wells carry risks and costs far greater than onshore shale fracking, which in itself is guilty of polluting the environment and causing serious health risks, the long term dividend of deep offshore wells is banking on the notion that natural gas can be produced for many years to come. In contrast after only one year, shale wells lose at least 50 percent of their output.

Fortunately the Inuit population of Nunavut will be prepared to play an active role in overseeing and negotiating the proposed Exxon affiliate Imperial Oil’s plan to embark on an ambitious drilling operation creating the deepest wells in their Arctic backyard. Whether the risks for catastrophe will be too high and the native political council of the ICC will ultimately oppose the plan remains to be seen.

Unfortunately the current land grab occurring in the South Pacific island jungle of Papua New Guineaoffers another tragic cautionary tale. In December 2009 Exxon Mobil made a deal with the corruptMinister of Community Development that totally excluded the poor local population living in the southern highlands. Exxon’s invested 15 billion dollars on its liquefied natural gas operation and hired largely foreign nationals and not local New Guinean residents as employees. Under increasing tensions Exxon walled off the entire complex like a colonial fortress in the middle of the jungle. The local residents left out in the cold understandably blamed both its corrupt minister and Exxon Mobil. Violence has frequently erupted that is threatening to escalate into civil war. This is a very typical frequent scenario where Big Oil exploits another oil rich Third World nation and gives back nothing but strife and conflict to the nation’s impoverished people.

Another recent development in the Amazon rainforest of South America has the indigenous tribe of the Achuar people in southeastern Ecuador fearing that their culture and habitat will soon be destroyed by Big Oil. They cite the 2012 ruling of the Inter-American Court on Human Rights in favor of the Sarayaku people that determined that the national government of Ecuador violated Sarayaku people’s rights initiating oil development in their territory “without first executing free, prior, and informed consultation with the community.”

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa campaigned on the apparent false promise (not unlike Obama) to protect indigenous peoples’ rights and their rainforest. The Secretary of Hydrocarbons has targeted eight indigenous leaders who have dedicated their lives to protecting their sacred Amazon lands. The Ecuadorian government was ready to auction off fourteen tracts amounting to ten million acres occupied by the native Achuars to oil companies. Fortunately for now only three tracts received bids. The Sierra Club along with the Ecuadorian Pachamama Alliance are mobilizing an international effort to come to the aid of the Achuar people and other indigenous populations facing similar fascist threats from governments and Big Oil. Citizens of the world must come together to fight for our common human rights against oppressive regimes around the world that are owned and operated by the powerful interests of the corporate elite.

Source: 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/big-oils-global-power-grab-devastating-environmental-and-social-consequences/5383201