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A think tank is an organization wherein highly-paid academics pour their collective brainpower into coming up with convincing arguments that it would be good and smart to do something evil and stupid. At one such think tank, the Hudson Institute, former John Bolton advisor and current Mike Pompeo lackey Brian Hook had his neocon cuddle party interrupted by CodePink activist Medea Benjamin Wednesday morning. Benjamin excoriated the Director of Policy Planning for Pompeo’s Iran Action Team, decrying the Trump administration’s crippling sanctions following its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.
“That is the most ridiculous thing I have seen,” Benjamin exclaimed while security staff worked to muscle her off the stage. “The world community wants to keep the Iran nuclear deal. Our allies—the Germans, the French, the British—they want to keep in this deal. The world community wants to keep the deal. Let’s talk about normal countries. Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia. Is that who our allies are? They are the biggest threat to the world community. And let’s talk—you’re hurting me. You’re actually hurting me. I want to ask: Do you think these sanctions are hurting the regime, or are they hurting the Iranian people? They’re hurting the Iranian people. You are making a case for war with Iran. How did the war with Iraq turn out? You’re doing exactly the same thing we did in the case of Iraq. We don’t want another war in the Middle East. Let’s see, how did Iraq turn out? How did Libya turn out? We have the people of Syria suffering. And how dare you bring up the issue of Yemen? It’s the Saudi bombing that is killing most people in Yemen. So let’s get real. No more war! Peace with Iran!”
The think tank ghouls chuckled and mocked her, but the damage was done and the video went viral.
As a reminder, the Trump administration has not only leveled crippling sanctions upon Iran with the goal of fomenting civil unrest, but has also escalated CIA covert operations led by Trump-appointed officials and cultivated an intimate relationship with the MEK terror cult, which is spearheading a social media propaganda campaign against the Iranian government directed at western audiences. The Trump administration’s approach to Iran is in these ways mirroring the Obama administration’s approach to Libya and Syria, and has been called a regime change policy in all but name due to the many unrealistic demands being made of the Iranian government in order to deescalate. These escalations could easily erupt into direct hot war in the future, especially with this administration being stuffed to the gills with virulent Iran hawks at the highest levels.
Video: Peace activist Medea Benjamin of @codepink disrupted a speech Wednesday by Trump's special envoy to Iran, questioning the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia and accusing the administration of trying to stoke war with Iran https://t.co/MUZhTgRMaH pic.twitter.com/7NPEq8yqyl
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) September 21, 2018
The Medea Benjamin video is so tasty I’ve watched it several times. It feels like it’s attuning my cells and reminding me what it takes to put up real time resistance in the stifling atmosphere of opposition by breaking through the somnolent hypnosis of tribal dynamics.
This is what it takes. But this is all it takes. Interrupt our regularly scheduled programming with a burst of truth and humanity will inevitably rouse a few more from their hypnosis, and a few more awake is a few more towards tipping point. While Democrats are holding demonstrations in support of longstanding neocon agendas against Russia and leftists are gathering to punch racist nobodies in the face, this feisty little sheila threw her body into the bright lights of the brainwashing machine and jammed it right up until they had to physically remove her.
Are we seeing the heart of the anti-war left kick back into life? I sure fucking hope so. Unlike the impotent busybox of Russiagate, this is the resistance to Trump that is real, and it will work. Attacking the Trump administration on their continuation of Bushbama’s warmongering ecocidal, omnicidal policies and refusing to fall in line with longstanding neocon agendas runs interference on the very lifeblood of the parasitic elite that seek to suck the tax dollars of working Americans into murdering humans and fattening Raytheon profit margins.
Destroying the war machine fixes everything from climate change to living standards, terrorism, famine, homelessness, mental health, slavery, plus all the horrors that war always necessarily births into the world such as rape, black markets, human trafficking, refugee crises and so on. Not to mention the butchery of humans for profit which is what war is. Putting up resistance by breaking the hypnotic effect of war propaganda works. No one actually wants war apart from a handful of powerful elites who fund these think tanks to weave lies and manipulate truth into stories that will manufacture consent for endless military bloodbaths. Simply using the truth to run interference on these lies and spin is enough.
Medea Benjamin is my hero. People are going to tell me that you and your organization haven’t been exactly 100 percent perfect on every single issue every single day, because this is the left and that’s what the left does. But I don’t care; anyone who’s willing to throw a hammer in the gears of the machine to any extent is a hero to whatever extent that they did so. Enough of us doing what Medea Benjamin did would bring the entire machine crashing down.
Medea Benjamin, thank you. I salute you.
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Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician.
Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
^5000The mainstream imperialist media lie CONSTANTLY. Literally 24/7. And it's getting worse. All of them do it: radio, tv, the newspapers, the movies. The internet. No exceptions. The corporate Big Lie is pervasive and totalitarian. CBS does it. NBC does it. ABC does it. CNN does it. FOX does it. NPR does it. And of course the NYTimes and WaPo do it. Thousands of "diverse" voices telling you the same lies. Enough to convince anyone. 