Eight Thoughts On The Christchurch Attack

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Amid the hand-wringing and furor, we should not lose sight that incidents like these allow for a further tightening and policing of free speech on social media. And that's of benefit to the plutocratic system's managers, those who created a culture in which maniacal acts like these are bound to occur—spontaneously or aided by agents provocateurs. A regime of 100% security for all is impossible, a delusion in this or any other society. Caitlin is quite right, therefore, when she warns that, " it is also important to remember that the threat of domestic terrorism is used by the empire to justify taking away civil rights on the pretense of protecting the citizenry. Demanding the expanded use of that term is ultimately demanding more surveillance, torture, arbitrary detention, and the erosion of legal and constitutional protections for everyone. It’s important to be aware of the potential propagandistic leverage in the language and causes we advocate."—PG

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hree people are currently in custody in New Zealand for terrorist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch. As of this writing, 49 people are dead and 48 people are being treated for gunshot wounds. Explosives were found in two vehicles but none were detonated. It was the worst attack of its kind in New Zealand’s history.

One of the three individuals, a 28 year-old Australian man, live-streamed himself shooting mosque attendees and published a white nationalist manifesto explaining his motives. I don’t feel like linking to either of these things, the former because sharing it would be gross and the latter because the manifesto contains calls for further acts of terrorism and suggestions as to how they might be carried out, as well as instructions on how best to circulate white nationalist propaganda. It’s currently unclear to what extent the other two individuals were involved.

I’m not used to these things happening in my neck of the woods and I’m still a bit frazzled about it, but I’ve got a few thoughts on the matter that I may as well spit out even if they’re sloppy. Here they are in no particular order:

1 – The most common point of discussion I’m seeing online about all this is the designation of the “terrorist” label. Whenever an attack like this is perpetrated by a Muslim I see right wingers screaming at every media outlet that doesn’t label them a terrorist, and whenever a white person does it I see those on the left screaming at every media outlet that doesn’t label them a terrorist. And I totally get it; it’s unfair to see white people labeled “gunman” and “shooter” when a Muslim would not receive the same treatment from certain outlets.

But it is also important to remember that the threat of domestic terrorism is used by the empire to justify taking away civil rights on the pretense of protecting the citizenry. Demanding the expanded use of that term is ultimately demanding more surveillance, torture, arbitrary detention, and the erosion of legal and constitutional protections for everyone. It’s important to be aware of the potential propagandistic leverage in the language and causes we advocate.

2 – There is definitely a correlation between war propaganda and mass murder. I can’t cite any studies for that claim because nobody’s doing them, but there is no way that being told mass murder is acceptable day in and day out by highly adept manipulators doesn’t make a civilian more prone to committing acts of mass murder. Australians always get sucked into the western empire’s wars, and thus receive the same kinds of war propaganda through our mass media. There’s only so far you can twist a mind into accepting the unacceptable before it breaks.

3 – Relatedly, Islamophobia has been exponentially inflamed by the mass media since 9/11 to justify the empire’s need to keep slaughtering human beings who happen to be walking around on top of oil and geostrategic locations. In his manifesto the attacker explicitly stated that he chose Muslims as the group of immigrants to target with his racist vendetta because “They are the most despised group of invaders in the West, attacking them receives the greatest level of support.” The reason Muslims are so despised is because the flames of Islamophobia have been fanned by propagandists who need us not to care about the cold-blooded murder of a million Iraqis.

4 – The Christchurch attack was evil and horrific. And, also, it was no more evil or horrific than the violence routinely inflicted upon Muslims in the Middle East by the US war machine.

5 – The manifesto was really dumb, with the final three-quarters containing nothing but sermonizing on the need to start killing brown-skinned people to ignite a western racial and ideological war which will balkanize into separate ethnostates. The guy babbled on and on about the need to protect “European” nations (which for him included majority-white nations like Australia and the USA) and “European” heritage, without ever touching on the fact that Europeans were all constantly killing each other until a few decades ago. They all hated each other, and in many cases still do, because nothing unites them besides the relative absence of melanin on their skin. They’re a bunch of completely different nations with completely different cultures.

6 – The following three beliefs about “white culture” are stupid: (1) that it exists, (2) that it is under attack, and (3) that it is worth saving. There is no such thing as “white culture”; the absence of melanin is not a culture. There is Irish culture, Italian culture, Spanish culture, German culture, but there is no “white culture”. I feel no special kinship with anyone who shares my skin pigmentation in the way that two Black Americans or Aboriginal tribesmen might, and neither does any other white person who hasn’t gone out of their way to make a moronic, artificial construct out of “white identity”. Two ancestors of American slaves have a shared collective history and experience unifying them, two Australian Aboriginals have tribal culture and tradition, but two white people have nothing beyond “Yeah we both need to put on sun screen at the beach or we’ll get cancer.”

White culture isn’t a thing, and if it was it wouldn’t be anywhere remotely close to being under attack, and even if it were it wouldn’t be worth saving anyway. White people have succeeded in murdering, raping, pillaging and bulldozing their way across the planet, and now our entire species sits on the brink of extinction thanks to the “advancements” of white society. We’ve got nothing to be proud of and it would be fine if we faded softly into obscurity.

7 – The manifesto gripes about miscegenation (interracial reproduction) and dwindling birth rates constantly, which shows you why white supremacists are also reliably awful misogynists. The reason birth rates are down in the west is because that’s what happens when you give women money, education and legal equality. When women get those things, we tend to take full ownership of our reproductive systems, and guess what? We don’t feel like having ten kids anymore. High birth rates are the result of desperate, powerless, under-educated women being forced to pound out children at a high rate by men who regard them as property in a hyperpatriarchal society that doesn’t care how draining having a lot of kids is for a mother, and that’s what white supremacists want to see western women reduced to. The fact that they also want to stop us from having sex with brown-skinned men is just another symptom of this slaveowner mentality.

8 – One of the things which gives me hope for humanity is how when horrible things happen, most of us rally around and start helping each other. There’ve been some really beautiful stories about what (white) passers-by did to help the shooting victims, and watching the outpouring of love for New Zealand and the Muslim community from all around the world has been making me cry all day. Humans are so fucking gorgeous. I really hope we stick around.

_______________________

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About the Author

Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

PERTINENT VIDEOS

CBC News

Published on Mar 15, 2019

Forty-nine people were killed and dozens injured in shootings at two New Zealand mosques. According to Australian media reports, the accused is Brenton Tarrant, 28, from Grafton, Australia.

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

A Nonviolent Strategy to Defeat a US Military Invasion of Venezuela

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Strategies & Tactics

Robert J. Burrowes

To the People of Venezuela

[dropcap]R[/dropcap]ecently I wrote an article explaining how you could defeat, using nonviolent strategy, the US coup attempt that is taking place in your country. See ‘A Nonviolent Strategy to Defeat the US Coup Attempt in Venezuela’.

I would like to complement that article by now briefly explaining how you can also defeat a military invasion by the United States and any collaborating invaders by using a strategy of nonviolent defense as well.

In making this suggestion, I acknowledge the extraordinary difficulties inflicted on Venezuela by the US sanctions imposed over many years as part of its ‘undeclared war against Venezuela’ (partly designed to destroy its progressive social banking model), explained straightforwardly by Ellen Brown in her article ‘The Venezuela Myth Keeping Us From Transforming Our Economy’ as well as alternative proposals to resolve the crisis, ranging from that by several governments to facilitate dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition – see, for example, ‘Russia Proposes Venezuelan “Peaceful Measures” Initiative to UN’ – to Stephen Lendman’s suggestion that a peacekeeping force be deployed to Venezuela by such countries as Russia, China and non-aligned nations. See ‘Save Venezuelan Sovereignty: Oil Economy Destabilized. Peace-keeping Role by Russia, China, Non-alligned Nations?’

Late generation Venezuelan fighter bomber received from Russia. Would Venezuela's weapons count for much against a "shock & awe" attack unleashed by Washinhgton and its allies?

I understand that your first reaction to the idea of a strategy of nonviolent defense might be one of scepticism or even outright disbelief. However, if you are willing to consider what I write below, I will briefly explain why a strategy of nonviolent defense is theoretically and empirically sound, has often been successful in a wide range of contexts in the past, and why I believe it is important and how it can be done.

Of course, I am well aware that this history of successful nonviolent defense is little known because it has been, and still is, suppressed. And yet the history of nonviolent resistance in many diverse contexts clearly demonstrates that a strategy of nonviolent defense has the best chance of defending your country while minimizing the death and destruction in doing so (which does not mean that it would be without cost).

Moreover, if you want to read many carefully documented historical accounts of nonviolent struggles that were successful against military opponents, including those that were ruthlessly violent, you can do so in The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach. The book also carefully explains why these successes occurred without incurring heavy casualties on the defense, particularly in comparison to military campaigns and guerrilla struggles.

In my view then, the idea of implementing a strategy of nonviolent defense is important to consider for two essential reasons.

First, you are dealing with an opponent that is insane – see ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’ with a more detailed explanation in ‘Why Violence?’ and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’ – incredibly ignorant – see this interview of US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo ‘Venezuelan military will realize Maduro’s time is up: Mike Pompeo’ which is critiqued in these articles ‘Pompeo: America “obligated” to fight “Hezbollah” in Venezuela to save “duly elected” Guaido’ and ‘Pompeo Attempts to Link Iran, Hezbollah to Crisis in Venezuela’ – and grotesquely violent – see ‘The History - and Hypocrisy - of US Meddling in Venezuela’ and Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II – that, history teaches us, is highly likely to destroy your country to gain the geostrategic advantage and natural resources that control of your country offers, as the people of Iraq and Libya, for example, can testify.

SIDEBAR
DISINFORMATION AGAINST VENEZUELA AT WORK, THE FOX NEWS TOUCH

Pompeo whining about EU's new vehicle to bypass US sanctions on Iran.

Editor's Note: Many in the US working class are fed a constant diet of vile imperialist manure by Fox, Rupert Murdoch's rightwing television disinformation engine, and they have become accustomed to watching that source as a visceral rejection of much of the rest of the mainstream media, which follows the liberaloid slant to the same empire's official narrative.

[bg_collapse view="button-orange" color="#4a4949" expand_text="Disinformation on Venezuela at work—click on this button" collapse_text="Show Less" ]Note the apparent conviction of this female nincompoop as she "presents" the "news". Is it any wonder that watching this shameless kind of manipulation day and day out, and believing it, the US public is thoroughly confused?

[/bg_collapse]

END OF SIDEBAR

And second: no matter how committed and courageous are the (loyal) members of your military forces and civilian militia (the National Bolivarian Militia of Venezuela), and the military forces of any allies who will stand with you in the defense of Venezuela, even a ‘successful’ outcome, such as that which Syria may be on the verge of ‘celebrating’, will only come at enormous cost in terms of human lives, infrastructure (including national heritage), ecological impact and time, all of which can be far more gainfully employed to continue building Venezuela, including overcoming outstanding problems, as you decide.

The Background

As I know that you are well aware, given the declared interest of the US elite in stealing your natural resources, including oil – see, for example, ‘“Good for business”: Trump adviser Bolton admits US interest in Venezuela’s “oil capabilities”’ and ‘Regime Change for Profit: Chevron, Halliburton Cheer On US Venezuela Coup’ – the US elite has long interfered with – see, for example, ‘US Influence in Venezuela Is Part of a Two Centuries-old Imperial Plan’ – and threatened military invasion of Venezuela to seize control of these resources in clear violation of international law. For recent examples only, see ‘Trump pressed aides on Venezuela invasion, US official says’ and ‘Time for talks “long passed”: US weaponizes aid amid push for regime change in Venezuela’.

Consequently, the US administration has finally used the pretext of an unfair election result in 2018 to call for the overthrow of your government despite the widely accepted result, verified by independent sources, and even the testimony of a former US president that your electoral system is without peer. See ‘Former US President Carter: Venezuelan Electoral System “Best in the World”’.

Moreover, the US puppet Juan Guaidó, anointed by the US to replace your elected President, has effectively indicated his support for US intervention, which clearly reveals where his loyalties lie, his willingness to now provide a pretext for a US invasion, and his complete disregard for the well-being of those Venezuelans who will inevitably be killed, injured and/or dispossessed during an invasion to support the ‘neocon regime-changers’ in Washington. See ‘Venezuela’s self-proclaimed “president” Guaido isn’t ruling out “authorizing” US intervention’ and ‘The Cynicism of Empire: Sen. Rubio Tells Venezuelans to Overthrow Their Government... or Starve!’

This threat of military intervention, as the historical record clearly demonstrates, has every prospect of being carried out. See ‘Before Venezuela: The long history of U.S. intervention in Latin America’ and ‘Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List’.

Despite this threat, as you are aware, President Nicolás Maduro has persisted in offering to discuss the issues arising from this conflict while also calling on the international community to ‘“Stop Trump’s insane actions!” Venezuela’s Maduro talks to RT about avoiding war’ and even writing an appeal to the people of the United States which, of course, was ignored by the corporate media so that it does not even reach a wide audience. See ‘An Open Letter to the People of the United States from President Nicolas Maduro’.

While I applaud your President for his persistent calls for dialogue to resolve this issue – for a recent example, see ‘Maduro Asks International Community to End US’s Threats of War’ – there are simply three realities that make it highly unlikely that his call will be heeded, whether by the US administration that has already rejected such a call – see ‘Time for talks “long passed”: US weaponizes aid amid push for regime change in Venezuela’ – or by the international community, a substantial section of which has already declared their support for the US puppet Juan Guaidó, who has been carefully groomed for a decade for the role he is now playing. See ‘The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader’.

These three realities are those I mentioned above: You are dealing with an insane, incredibly ignorant and grotesquely violent opponent: an elite that seeks geopolitical control and endless resources for profit no matter what the cost to fellow human beings and the biosphere, as the record demonstrates.

Moreover, in seeking to secure its objectives, the US elite will endeavour to control the narrative in relation to Venezuela. Hence, as you have noticed, the corporate media is lying prodigiously about Venezuela as it ‘beats the drums of war’. See, for example, ‘Dissecting the jingoistic media coverage of the Venezuela crisis’, ‘Venezuela Blitz – Part 1: Tyrants Don’t Have Free Elections’, ‘Venezuela Blitz – Part 2: Press Freedom, Sanctions And Oil’ and ‘The BBC and Venezuela: bias and lies’.

For you and those of us outside Venezuela who have some knowledge of your country’s history, we are well aware of the enormous gains made by the Bolivarian movement, despite the enormously damaged country that the movement inherited. See, for example, ‘Venezuela: From Oil Proxy to the Bolivarian Movement and Sabotage’.

This progress, of course, does not mean that all problems have been resolved, most of which have been exacerbated by the sanctions imposed in recent years by the United States government. See, for example, the report by Alfred de Zayas on behalf of the United Nations Human Rights Council – ‘Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on his mission to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Ecuador’ – which identified the crisis the US ‘economic warfare’ was precipitating. See ‘Former UN Rapporteur: US Sanctions Against Venezuela Causing Economic and Humanitarian Crisis’.

Defending Against a US Military Invasion of Venezuela

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]o, while your effort to defeat the coup attempt continues, even if the United States military invades Venezuela before or after this issue is resolved, you have the powerful option of resisting any invasion effectively by employing a strategy of nonviolent defense.

Putin with Maduro. While absolutely favoring the USA, logistically the burdens of a Russian military intervention in Venezuela as in Syria are simply prohibitive, and Russia does not wish to risk an all-out showdown with an insane superpower, and neither do the Chinese.

I have explained the essential points of this strategy on the website Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy. The pages of this website provide clear guidance on how to easily plan and then implement the twelve components of this strategy.

If you like, you can see a diagrammatic representation of this strategy by looking at the Nonviolent Strategy Wheel.

And on the Strategic Aims page you can see the basic list of 30 strategic goals necessary to defeat a military invasion. These strategic goals can easily be adopted, modified and/or added to if necessary, in accordance with your precise circumstances as you decide.

If you want to read a straightforward account of how to plan and conduct a nonviolent tactic so that it has strategic impact, you can do so here: ‘Nonviolent Action: Why and How it Works’.

This will require awareness of the difference between ‘The Political Objective and Strategic Goal of Nonviolent Actions’.

And, to ensure that the military violence directed against you is made as difficult as possible to perpetrate and, in many cases, does not eventuate, you are welcome to consider the 20 points designed to ensure that you are ‘Minimizing the Risk of Violent Repression’ whenever you take nonviolent action to defend yourselves when repression is a risk. This information is useful for both neutralizing violent provocateurs but also to ensure that invading military forces are compelled to deal with complex emotional and moral issues that do not arise against a violent opponent who is threatening them, and which will lead some, and perhaps very many, to desist as the historical record clearly documents. Again, for many examples, see The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

Conclusion

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he US government and its sycophantic allies might not invade Venezuela. It may transpire that the diplomatic and other efforts of your government to defeat the coup and avert a US-led military invasion of Venezuela will be successful. There is also a fracturing of the opposition forces within Venezuela, in several ways, which works against the success of ongoing efforts to remove your government. See ‘Venezuela Regime Change “Made in the USA”’.

However, the extensive historical evidence of US interventions in violation of international law, the geostrategic and natural resource advantages that will accrue to the US elite from an invasion that removes your elected government, the anointment of a puppet president of Venezuela, the recent posturing and declarations by key members of the US administration and many US-allied governments, and the manufacture of public acquiescence by the corporate media all point heavily in the direction of invasion. And, as you are well aware, it is wise to treat this possibility seriously.

The elite conducting these preparatory moves is insane and, if it attacks Venezuela, there is a serious risk it will destroy your country as it has destroyed Iraq and Libya, especially if it meets significant military resistance. Their insanity precludes them caring about you, the people of Venezuela (even as they present any intervention as ‘humanitarian’). See ‘Love Denied: The Psychology of Materialism, Violence and War’. They care about nothing more than geostrategic advantage, eliminating progressive elements of your society’s development, and seizing your natural resources from which they can profit enormously.

Nevertheless, a strategy of nonviolent defense would enable you to defend yourselves and enable every last member of your population, irrespective of age and ability, to be strategically involved, as well as any solidarity activists overseas. It would also minimize the loss of life and destruction inflicted on your country.

Importantly, even if you suffer setbacks, unless and until you accept outright defeat, your strategy of nonviolent defense, ongoingly refined to maintain effective strategic coordination and to retain the initiative, will ultimately prevail.

As always, however, whether or not you decide to consider/adopt my suggestion, you have my solidarity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?‘ . His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com

THIS WORK IS LICENSED UNDER A Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Wake Up! Prez Advisors Bolton Brzezinski Kissinger Mere Hirelings of Powerful Investors in WMD

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON TO KIN, FRIENDS AND WORKMATES

Real historical truth can be uncomfortable as it often challenges our pre-conveived notions.

CIA fed criminal mainstream media constantly keeps the focus on government officials to the detriment of public understanding that it is the ruling unhinged investors in WMD and war, who war promoting government officials like Bolton represent. Before both WW I and WW II too many people watched the continual build up of more and more WMD in fascination instead of fear and action. Are we just watching again now?

Carter’s ‘Helpful’ Criticism

How preposterous! Peace Prize Laureate former Prez Jimmy Carter publicly warns Americans (and maybe the world), "I think John Bolton is a disaster for our country," "Maybe one of the worst mistakes that President Trump has made … is the appointment of John Bolton…. . a "war-like figure, been advocating a war with North Korea for a long time and even promoting an attack on Iran, and who was one of the leading figures in orchestrating the decision to invade Iraq."

Well, let’s see. Yes, what Carter said about John Bolton is absolutely true, however Carter’s warning just reinforces the continual focus the CIA fed criminal mainstream media constantly puts on government officials to the detriment of public understanding that it is the insane investors in war whose investment interests these war provoking government officials represent. Powerful investors in high tech weapons of mass destruction and ever more sophisticated delivery systems forced the appointments of their willing hatchet-men Bolton, Brzezinski, and Kissinger in the first place.

Brzezinski

Carter Appointed the Devil Himself

Given the horrific history of Carter’s own Presidential Advisor and Carter’s silence about it, his warning against the John Bolton appointment seems hypocritical to say the least. Jimmy Carter once elected president, to some important degree for the financial efforts of infamous war profiteer David Rockefeller, appointed Rockefeller’s right hand associate, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as Presidential Advisor, who, in 1979, ‘advised’ Carter to order a CIA operation with allied secret services of both the US backed governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to arm, fund and train a hillbilly warlord Islamic terrorist army in Afghanistan to overthrow the then very popular new women liberating socialist government in Kabul. These warlords had already been ordering executions of teachers sent out to teach girl students. How did peaceful Carter feel presenting Brzezinski with the Presidential Medal of Freedom two years later. (In 1998, Brzezinski would brag openly in a French magazine interview that it was his intention to scare the Soviet Union into sending in its military help to its neighbor nation, and become entrapped.) [Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998, p. 76, translated from the original French by William Blum https://williamblum.org/essays/read/how-the-us-provoked-the-soviet-union-into-invading-afghanistan-and-starting]

Brzezinski called for a holy war of Islam against the Soviets and the Kabul government and invited Muslim fighters into Afghanistan from everywhere and especially from Saudi Arabia, an invite which would include the CIA funding Osama bin Ladin’s participation. [Watch Brzezinski calling for Jihad.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9RCFZnWGE0]

After the Soviet military withdrawal and the terrorist defeat of the Kabul socialist government two years later, the most brutally savage second civil war between the American backed warlords brought even greater destruction and utter social disintegration until the restoration of peace by the rise of the Taliban (“Students” in Arabic), which founded the Islamic State of Afghanistan. In 2001, after the 9/11 attack suicide attack by Saudi Arabians in New York and Washington, came the US invasion of Afghanistan, the murderous overthrow of its government, and seventeen years of occupation war by a coalition that has included every single nation of Caucasian population in the world.

Now back to the point of the title of this tract. Was it Brzezinski’s idea or his boss, David Rockefeller’s idea to ‘advise’ President Carter to commit the crime of attacking the government of a friendly nation, and did Carter have the option of saying ‘no, I will not commit the crime you are advising me to commit?’ We can’t ask Brzezinski, he died in 2017.

Are National Security Advisor Advised Crimes by Otherwise Peaceful Presidents Committed Consensually?

Though the cat is long out of the bag, Peace Prized Jimmy Carter, originator of thirty-nine years of death and destruction in Afghanistan, has kept an unforgivable silence. Does Jimmy really want to keep silent, when speaking out could help bring an end to the continual loss of lives. Or must Jimmy keep silent in the same way he felt he had to commit the crime, even though a President is thought to be in charge of his own conscience as well as the whole nation?

Ordering a secret attack on a friendly and smaller nation of people was surely not Carter’s own personal wish, as probably neither were the other crimes he signed his name to. Can one imagine peace loving Jimmy Carter himself wanting to give the go ahead for the Kwangiu Massacre of the student led popular uprising against military rule of General Chun Doo Hwan Chun in Korea ? Chun was later tried and condemned to death (Of course Carter wasn’t condemned to death - Carter got the Nobel Peace Prize). Or do we think it was by his own free will that Carter facilitated the weaponry used in the brutal Indonesian government’s exterminating war on the Timorese? Do we see Carter by his own free will answering the Vietnamese requesting the two billion in reparations promised them in the negative with the cruel words, “The destruction was mutual.” Carter can be his own ‘nice guy’ self now that he is not in office only up to the point of not making waves for the ruling investors. Would any ex-US president be free to confess regret for crimes the Deep State had made him commit in the name of all Americans while in office?

‘A Financial Element in the Centers of Power has Owned the Government Since the Early 1830s,’ FDR in 1932

Like the magician who keeps his audience’s attention on one hand, while his other hand prepares the magical deception, USA’s criminal media cartel keeps viewer, listener and reader attention focused on US presidents, their appointees, the whole corruption that is Congress and the courts of the Justice department, while nearly continuous genocidal illegal military action keeps going forward at the nod of USA’a real rulers, namely, that ‘financial element in the centers of power, [which] has owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson’ to quote the last wealthy aristocrat insider American President, Franklin Roosevelt. [“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” Letter to Col. Edward House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373]

Ike’s Conscience Bitten Last Words Warn of the Military Industrial Complex He Served and Made $ For

Perhaps the best example of a president being ruled by his appointees representing what some are now calling the ‘Deep State’ (but up to now without reference to FDR’s “financial element”), is President Eisenhower. This likable ‘Ike,’ out of character ordered the bloody overthrow of democratically elected popular governments of Iran, Guatemala and Congo; ordered the brutal bombing of little Laos; blocked an already agreed upon all-Vietnam election because everyone knew hero Ho Chi Minh would win; ordered a CIA prepared invasion of Cuba and threatened North Korea with nuclear destruction (the real Ike had earlier denounced the A-bombing of Japanese cities as unnecessary and unwarranted). But in the last hour of his eight years in office, the perhaps conscience bitten real Eisenhower warned the nation and world of the military industrial complex he himself had collaborated with in giving criminal orders, very often committing genocidal crimes.

Ike with Secy of State John Foster Dulles—the Wall Street enforcer inside the administration.

Were Ike’s genocidal decisions thought through, or was he convinced and conned by the notorious Dulles brothers, John Foster his Secretary of State and Allan, heading up the newly founded CIA, an insidiously criminal secret government agency war profiteer David Rockefeller nurtured?

David Rockefeller

David Rockefeller, who died recently at age 102, for seven decades, the most powerful leader among investors in profitable but illegal warfare, best represented what is being called the ‘Deep State.’ Tale-telling photos come to mind. David Rockefeller with Saddam Hussein, David Rockefeller with Gen. Jorge Videla just before his bloody coup in Argentina, David Rockefeller with his arm around the shoulders of a young Senator Obama. During the presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr. and Obama, three corrupt confidants of one evil mastermind had been the major long term managers of a US massively genocidal foreign policy of invasions, occupations, undeclared wars, bombings, military threats, CIA led violent overthrows and assassinations throughout the third world.[see Demonic David Rockefeller Fiends Dulles Kissinger Brzezinski - Investor Wars Korea thru Syria 17 August, 2012, OpEdNews

A Dangerous Hawk is Media Made

Bolton

Back again to John Bolton representing investors in WMD. At the moment, Bolton is not a heavily connected person of influence like David Rockefeller’s men, the Dulles brothers, Brzezinski and Kissinger were. If criminal mainstream media did not treat him seriously, Bolton would be seen as a silly man yelling Wolf into the wind. But for argument’s sake, and because he has wars-supporting-criminal-media behind him, let’s assume for the moment that Bolton will be blown up to serious hawk stature. Then we might ask, was Bolton Trump’s own choice or a ‘choice’ mandated by the investors in WMD and war?

This is all to question whether President Trump knew it would be safer for him to appoint the most hawkish representative of the powers that be, loud mouth John Bolton, or whether it is a ploy for him to have a hawk as National Security Advisor to throw the Deep State off and give him the chance to do his own thing in the opposite direction of the military conflicts that are desired by the most powerful on Wall Street.

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]our author has always suggested that Trump has some serious backing on Wall Street from investors whose portfolios are not weighted in the manufacture of WMD and high tech delivery systems, investors who see it in their long range interests to forego the immense profits from cheap overseas’ labor, turn the ship around and invest in the USA before they become swamped economically by the rise of China and soon after by the economic rise of the massively populated nations of the Southern hemisphere. However, it seems for sure that the more substantial amount of powerful investors ruling the US and the world have their investments so heavily weighted in the super lucrative military industrial complex, that they must desperately count on the West's overkill military dominance to assure Western control of the world far into the foreseeable future. A glance at our vastly over-militarized world, continuing massively destructive wars and steady impoverishment of half of humankind would seem to be sufficient to assume the primacy of investments in the profitable but criminal use of Armed Forces and CIA.

It seems likely that Trump feels forced to act, in part, according to the demands of the military industrial complex establishment, which was supposed to have been captained by Hillary Clinton, butcher of the Middle East regime change invasions, bombings and false flag incidents to promote them. So are all Trumps theatrics meant to keep the situation fluid enough for two factions on Wall Street? And how serious does Trump take the threat of assassination which was openly discussed in mainstream criminal media, amazingly immediately after his election with stories of Trump keeping his own body guards, etc. Once elected, Trump has been careful not to criticize past US foreign policy, and a year after his election, met with Deep State representatives Condoleeza Rice, who was Secretary of State during the Iraq genocide and recently, the evil genius of genocide, Henry Kissinger.

When Only a Candidate, Trump Was Able to be his own man

Wars promoting CIA fed mainstream media has done its best to make sure few Americans remember that Trump, since early in the election campaign, had been maintaining, among other things, that the US should seek friendship with China and Russia; that he likes Xi Jinping and Putin, (America's perennial and sacrosanct mortal enemies!) and that he would probably get along fine with them, that NATO is obsolete; that the five trillion dollars spent on wars for regime change in the Middle East should have been spent in the US rebuilding its infrastructure; Trump had called two-term fellow Republican President, George Bush, a liar for having lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and has voiced suspicion about the 9/11 attack that happened so easily on Bush's watch. Trump had disputed hailing former presidential candidate Senator John McCain, 2008 Republican presidential candidate, a hero for having been shot down while bombing Vietnam. Trump had asked, "why must the United States lead the world everywhere on the globe and play the role of the world's policeman, now for example in Ukraine? " Trump had asked, "why does the United States always pursue regime changes -- Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and now it wants a regime change in Syria, Damascus, when the result is disaster." He had stated that his opponent "brought death and disaster" outside the US.

At a campaign rally Trump had cried out, “Obama is the founder of ISIS! The founder! Crooked Hillary is the co-founder!” (British tabloids headlines already four years earlier had claimed that USA was behind the Islamic terrorists entering Syria - and in 2015, the Guardian, UK, headlined see “Now the truth emerges: how the US fueled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/us-isis-syria-iraq Where would ISIS have otherwise have gotten that constant supply of brand new white Toyota trucks and an endless supply of heavy weapons and ammunition?

Most importantly, Trump had condemned and still ridicules eighty percent of US media's reporters and commentators as pathetic liars, which comes close to the what is in reality that one hundred percent who are willing to preposterously describe America's running crimes against humanity as heroic deeds in defense of American freedom. It seems the abomination that is the US criminal cartel of giant entertainment news and information corporations has indeed managed to have its captive audience, even most critical independent journalists, ‘forget’ what Trump said during the 2016 election campaign.

The height of Trump's 'dangerous unpredictability' saw Trump defending his respect of President Putin. When challenged by his interviewer Bill O'Reily on his Feb. 5, 2017 show, "But Putin is a killer!" Trump answered, "There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" Trump later added, "I was against the invasion of Iraq - a lot of people were killed." "He's running his country and at least he's a leader, unlike what we have in this country," In December of 2015, Trump had told MSNBC's 'Morning Joe,' "I think our country does plenty of killing also, Joe, so you know. There's a lot of stupidity going on in the world right now, a lot of killing, a lot of stupidity."

During the campaigning, media just ignored what candidate Trump was saying about peace with Russia and China and concentrated on keeping the public’s attention on sex scandals and Trump’s personal brash behavior. Policy makers within the Deep State must have been concerned that if this maverick candidate for the presidency didn’t shut up, the public might begin to suspect that all the regime change death and destruction starting with Korea and Vietnam was wrong.

This week, Trump appointed hawkish John Bolton National Security Advisor, called Putin to congratulate him on his reelection, and following NATO’s example, kicked out 60 Russian diplomates.

How to Distinguish Between When the Person Is Acting on His or Her own and When the Person Is Acting As a Representative of WMD Investments

Plausible answer: Peace instead of conflict with Russia and China is intelligent, so that must have been the real Trump talking. Conflict with Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela is unintelligent, so that must be the acquiescent-to-malevolent-power Trump talking. Attacking Iran to protect himself from the Israelis, Cuba to keep the Florida vote, Venezuela for US business, and North Korea for the CIA and Pentagon.

Criminal media TV commentators and interviewers all keep harping on about a crazy, unstable, unpredictable Trump. But everyone should know that media’s job is to keep the public focused on the president and everything around him, so no one asks if there isn’t something at the bottom of it all. Remember what the most decorated ever Marine General Smedley Buttler wrote in his book War Is A Racket, “A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”

Why was there a First World War, at a time when the European empires were enjoying a bonanza of incoming wealth plundered from Asia, Africa and the Americas? A more than plausible answer is: the investment in weaponry and munitions became so consummate, so overwhelmingly intense, that investor control of the press dictated the war that would bring a handsome return on these monstrous investments - for example, profits to wealthy Nobel of Nobel Prizes, the inventor of dynamite. In 1934, the US Senate’s Nye Committee investigative report found that the US was pushed into war for the benefit of huge corporate earnings. The press even managed to rile up socialist majority legislators in Germany and France to vote for war against each other. The public at large seemed caught up in the fascinating technical progress of the time, machine guns able to fire through a propeller, monstrous tank vehicles, ever larger cannons and so on. How many people watching the European empires’ arms race worried that the weapons would be so massively used?

In the 1930s, the world watched America’s corporations invest in, and joint venture with, a prostrate Nazi Germany to bring Hitler’s Wehrmacht up to the strongest military in the world and able to destroy the socialist Soviet Union.[see 27 Million Died in Russia Because Wall Street Built Up Hitler's Wehrmacht to Knock Out Soviet Union, OpEdNews, 8/11/2017 ] Best investment ever made, the Second World War made Wall Street owned USA the wealthiest of nations and the single world superpower. Investor controlled media had long backed Fascism against Communism before selling the war as a good war against Fascism. (FDR seems to have been forced to mostly stand by and watch, as his friends and business cronies wildly invested in and joint ventured with the Nazis.)[see Anthony Sutton, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler ,1976, 13 editions]

Right now, why is Deep State having its CIA managed cartel of entertainment/information/news conglomerates prime the public to hate Russians, if not to soon win a return on investments in WMD and perhaps more importantly, to avoid a loss of economic and military hegemony in an eventual multi-polar world in which the Chinese will have the most economic power and thus most influence in world affairs? Perhaps even more ominous for the Anglo-American West, is the economic rise of the whole populous Southern hemisphere.

Your archival research peoples historian, writing with permission to use Attorney Ramsey Clark’s name in support of this tract ends with two reminders of the precariousness of our present situation of helplessly watching the nuclear weapons race, the TV watching majority engrossed in listening in fascination to prattle of the hirelings of our real rulers, the insane and unhinged investors in WMD and war. The citizens of the world united can stop this insane expenditure, with genocide in mind.

1. On November 9, 1979, Presidential Advisor Brzezinski was woken at 3 am by a phone call with a startling message: The Soviets had just launched 250 nuclear weapons at the United States. Minutes later, Brzezinski received another call: The early-warning system actually showed 2,000 missiles heading toward the United States. As Brzezinski prepared to phone President Jimmy Carter to plan a full-scale response, he received a third call: It was a false alarm. An early warning training tape generating indications of a large-scale Soviet nuclear attack had somehow transferred to the actual early warning network, which triggered an all-too-real scramble.[ "The 3 A.M. Phone Call". National Security Archive]

The media never tells the public that Einstein was a socialist, either.

2. The greatest mind of the past century warned humankind in 1950, well before the CIA had completed its Operation Mockingbird that oversees, feeds and tightly controls the gigantic news and entertainment media corporations that produce an estimated 98% of all sources of information available to the American public. Einstein described why our civilization continues to be "like an axe in the hand of the pathological criminal," [* ]"Under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights." -- [Albert Einstein, Essays in Humanism]

In a Dec 1917 letter to Zangger, Einstein wrote

“How is it at all possible that this culture-loving era could be so monstrously amoral? More and more I come to value charity and love of one’s fellow being above everything else. … All our lauded technological progress—our very civilization—is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JAY JANSON, Resident Historian, Distinguished Collaborator • Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents and others; now resides in NYC; First effort was a series of articles on deadly cultural pollution endangering seven areas of life emanating from Western corporate owned commercial media published in Hong Kong's Window Magazine 1993; Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his; Weekly column, South China Morning Post, 1986-87; reviews for Ta Kung Bao; article China Daily, 1989. Is coordinator of the Howard Zinn co-founded King Condemned US Wars International Awareness Campaign, and website historian of the Ramsey Clark co-founded Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign, which Dissident Voice supports with link at the end of each issue of its newsletter.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Things to ponder

While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.

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

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10 Ways You Can Help the Standing Rock Sioux Fight the Dakota Access Pipeline

=By= Jay Syrmopoulos

Editor's Note

Stand with the folks at Standing Rock. They are brave and committed, but it is flesh against steel as they are try to hold the line until either the courts or Obama put a stop to this drive across sacred land. Help however you can - including spreading the message about what is going on.

Cannon Ball, ND – While many Americans passively support the Standing Rock Sioux’s fight to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, aside from showing up in Cannon Ball, North Dakota (which many simply can’t do) – to actively participate in the protests – most people are unsure of what they can actually do to support the Sioux at Standing Rock aside from posting on social media.

Here is a list of ten things that people can do to show their support. Some methods may be more effective than others, but the key is utilizing multiple avenues of resistance in an effort to provide full spectrum resistance against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

1. Call North Dakota governor Jack Dalrymple at 701-328-2200. When leaving a message stating your thoughts about this subject please be professional.

2. Sign the petition to the White House to Stop DAPL: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/…/stop-construction…

3. Donate to support the Standing Rock Sioux at http://standingrock.org/…/standing-rock-sioux-tribe…/

4. Donate items from the Sacred Stone Camp Supply List: http://sacredstonecamp.org/supply-list/

5. Call the White House at (202) 456-1111 or (202) 456-1414. Tell President Obama to rescind the Army Corps of Engineers’ Permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline.

6. Contribute to the Sacred Stone Camp Legal Defense Fund: https://fundrazr.com/d19fAf

7. Contribute to the Sacred Stone Camp gofundme account: https://www.gofundme.com/sacredstonecamp

8. Call the Army Corps of Engineers and demand that they reverse the permit: (202) 761-5903

9. Sign other petitions asking President Obama to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Here’s the latest to cross my desk – https://act.credoaction.com/sign/NoDAPL

10. Call the executives of the companies that are building the pipeline:

a. Lee Hanse Executive Vice President Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 800 E Sonterra Blvd #400 San Antonio, Texas 78258 Telephone: (210) 403-6455 Lee.Hanse@energytransfer.com

b. Glenn Emery Vice President Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 800 E Sonterra Blvd #400 San Antonio, Texas 78258 Telephone: (210) 403-6762 Glenn.Emery@energytransfer.com

c. Michael (Cliff) Waters Lead Analyst Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. 1300 Main St. Houston, Texas 77002 Telephone: (713) 989-2404 Michael.Waters@energytransfer.com

The most effective means of showing support for this cause is to actively participate in protecting this sacred land. Anyone who is able to travel to the peaceful encampments is encouraged to do so. For those unable to make the journey to North Dakota, please utilize the alternate methods provided to show your support for the Standing Rock Sioux who have united over 100 tribes from across the U.S. Please join this effort to stop this pipeline, which desecrates sacred lands and has serious potential to damage or destroy the Standing Rock reservations lifeblood – its water.

Be the change you wish to see in this world. — Mahatma Gandhi

Jay Syrmopoulos writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared.

Source: The Free Thought Project.

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What is the tipping point? Everyday authoritarianism in America.

Henry A. Giroux
Cultural Critic and Public Intellectual

Editor's Note

In this interview, Giroux focuses on the role that authoritarianism plays within the current disenfranchised environment. Authoritarianism provides an easy, simplistic response. The anger that is generated becomes a tool to craft an identity that can strike our violently at "the other." In the case of the US, this is focusing around an exclusionary white race identity. While this might seem to be constrained to only a small segment of the society, it is not. While the extreme fringe may be relatively small, the broader swath of population is deeply impacted by both the extreme levels of inequality and power, and the ploys of fear that are continually used to prod the public in one direction or another.

When you can’t translate private troubles into larger public issues, you have no way of understanding the forces of oppression in which you find yourself. One of the great successes of neoliberalism has been to eliminate all questions of the structural, the social – and how they work against people in ways that suggest that they should not be involved in collective action. It represents a form of organized powerlessness at the heart of neoliberalism.

Cultural critic Henry Giroux explains how a new strain of authoritarianism has seized American politics and culture, injecting and celebrating violence and militarism into our media and economy, creating disposable scapegoats of the marginalized, and ultimately devaluing the cornerstones of democratic thought – reason, solidarity and equality.

Interview on This is Hell.

Henry A. Giroux, Contributing Editor

Currently holds the Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department and a Distinguished Visiting Professorship at Ryerson University. His books include: Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism (Peter Land 2011), On Critical Pedagogy (Continuum, 2011), Twilight of the Social: Resurgent Publics in the Age of Disposability (Paradigm 2012), Disposable Youth: Racialized Memories and the Culture of Cruelty (Routledge 2012), Youth in Revolt: Reclaiming a Democratic Future (Paradigm 2013). Giroux’s most recent books are America’s Education Deficit and the War on Youth (Monthly Review Press, 2013), are Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education, America’s Disimagination Machine (City Lights) and Higher Education After Neoliberalism (Haymarket) will be published in 2014). He is also a Contributing Editor of Cyrano’s Journal Today / The Greanville Post, and member of Truthout’s Board of Directors and has his own page The Public Intellectual. His web site is www.henryagiroux.com.

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