159. The fight for Democracy.

In the last decennium we had quite a few peaceful ‘revolutions’, often referred to with a color.

We had Serbia, Georgia, Ukraïne, Venezuela, Burma, Tunesia, Egypt, Libya and Syria.

It has become clear now that all these revolutions were not a coïncidence.

They happened because potential  revolutionary groups were coached, and sponsored with money from America. 
All revolts were inspired by the books of Gene Sharp, who showed how to make a non-violent revolt succesful.  

In june there was a short documentary on Dutch tv which made it all quite clear.

Of course we had heard it from other sources like Thierry Meyssan and William Engdahl, but this documentary shows us the people who did it, and they tell us who paid them.

It is quite sure that Otpor is paid by the Americans, although they deny it. 
But Paul B, McCarthy (NED) said so in a NYTimes interview in 2000 with RogerCohen.

And a sister –organisation in Ukraïne tells us in this doc.that they received 1 million $ from America.  

The Dutch documentary is called:

 Revolution out of the book: the link  between Otpor and the Arab revolutions.

You can see it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew5fEzpMGiM

Some people speak English.  
What is not said in English I have summarized below. 

The revolt in Egypt a few months ago looked like a spontaneous action. 

But it was all prepared in a detailed manner by Serbian Students from an organisation called Otpor!

The leaders of the Egyptian revolt were trained in Serbia.

Otpor! started in Belgrado as a students organisation.

On the 5^th of october in  2000 the sudents revolted in Belgrado. 
The protesters had a protest that looked like a party: singing , dancing etc.

Since that time these students have ‘schooled’ potential revolutionaries from 50 countries on "how to have a peaceful revolt".

Tunesia was the first arab country which practised the Sharp protest.

Amin Ghali shows  photographs made in 2007  of his Otpor! course in Marocco.

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At 2.50 min:

Popovics is the Otpor spokesman.  He tells how to make revolution: 

"Have everybody busy… make fun, have  music etc."

Then Egypt came to revolt.  Here too it were students who started the revolution. Non violent protest, playful actions, music.

Mohamed Abdel tells that  the same strategy was used in Egypt.

In 2000 the Serb students made pamflets and organised pop concerts.

A documentary was made about their way of protesting: Bringing down a dictator 

The Serbs organised pop-concerts that ended in political manifestations. 
All strictly non violent.

Popovics is one of very few Otpor! people who are allowed to speak to the press. 
(Why would that be ?  Is there a secret to be kept ? )

Popovics: We worked with 37 countries after 2000, and 5 revolutions were succesful: Georgia, Ukraïne, lebanon, Maledives,   Tunesia  and Egypt.

The fist is the Otpor symbol.

We saw it in many countires:  Serbia, Russia,  Georgia, Iran, Egypt and Venezuela.

It is not sure where Otpor gets the money from. It is generally thought that America is an impotant sponsor.

Otpors trainingscentre is called Canvas.  This was paid for by America

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Engdahl.  (At 6 min) 

William Engdahl explains in short how the system works:  ‘America pays the Sebian Otpor agents who act as if they are so happy with their succes that they want to help the whole world now. And that is what they do: they work for regime change in those countries where America wants regime change.

Popovics says that its strictly private money they get, and not American money. One Slobodan Djinovics is their biggest donor….  

At 7 min:

Mr Sharp wrote the inspiring book in 1973.

In Sharp’s book gives 198 ways of non-violent resistance.

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Ukraïne

Dmytro Poteschin: flowers, dancing, music. It is all important.

(Dutch commentator : ” In 2004 in Ukraïne there was American money provided”)

“In 2004 I was heading an … education campaign that had a budget of 1 million $ . It was not because American experts wanted to protest Janoekowics ,but because Janoekowics tried to steal the election..”

( This is ALWAYS he case: the legitimation always comes from the other party trying to steal the election… in Ukraine, Georgia, Burma, Iran etc.:  everywhere where elections were held, the color revolution started with the rumor that the elections were stolen.

Is this a rule written in Sharp’s book ?  )

Poteschin: “The US and Europe and others, they are serious about democracy…. “  ( Little does he know..)

Now, 7 years later,  Dmytro Poteschin is a trainer himself for revolutionaries from countries all over the world.

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In Belgrado the Otpor people now have made a internet game for making revolution. The game was created in cooperation with the US organisations. Listen to Ivan Marovic: about the difference in games:  fight  against corruption is an easier game than fight against  a dictator.

Now that the revolution was succesfull, the people in Egypt and Tunesia realise themselves that there may follow an islamist government . The young revolutinaries hope that democracy will evolve, though. (The Americans don't care, I am sure of that. And the Zionists hope for chaos and poverty.)  

So far the Dutch documentary. 

Below is some information of the Institutions that provided the money, and about the not so relevant question whether Gene Sharp himself did some of the training and consultin. 

Democracy

The US has always been a fighter for democracy. Why ? I will write about that in my next blog.

Here I will show a few of the lesser known elements of this fight. 

I will show that some official US organisations ( NED and IRI) are funding an institute ( Einsten Institute) of which the founder ( Gene Sharp) has developed a handbook for succesfull toppling of governments.

Now there is an Serbian former student- organisation ( Otpor!) that kind of took over this job from Sharp, all under the banner: ‘Lets make the world better, lets bring democracy everywhere.'

The remarkable thing is that they seem to work only in countries that are not submissive to the US yet.  At least, that is the impression I have.

The Otpor students never tried to bring democracy in Saudi Arabia, Bahrein or the Emirates.

They don’t want to admit that they are paid by the US, but a high ranking employee Paul B. McCarthy told the NYT in 2000 that Otpor received 3 million $ to topple Milosevics.  These students are still doing the work for the US, so even if they don’t want to tell us where their money is coming from, we have a pretty good idea.

First I will give some information about the 'actors': Otpor!, NED, IRI , Gene Sharp and Thierry Meyssan. Finally I will explain why these do-gooders are fighting the wrong fight. 

OTPOR 

Otpor! ( Resistance!) was a non-partisan civic youth movement in Serbia that employed nonviolent struggle as their course of action. They were credited for their role in the successful overthrow of Slobodan Milošević in October 2000.

Some students who led Otpor used Serbian translations of Gene Sharp 's writings on nonviolent action as a theoretical basis for their campaigns.

In a November 2000 article from the New York Times Magazine, Times journalist Roger Cohen talked to various officials from the above organizations about the extent of American assistance received by Otpor. Paul B. McCarthy from the Washington-based NED stated that Otpor received the majority of US$3 million spent by NED in Serbia from September 1998 until October 2000. At the same time, McCarthy himself held a series of meetings with Otpor's leaders in Podgorica, as well as Szeged and Budapest .  

The NED. 

The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is a U.S. non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 to promote US-friendly democracy by providing cash grants funded primarily through an annual allocation from the U.S. Congress.

So the government pays, but has no controle over what it does.

The IRI 

Founded in 1983, the International Republican Institute (IRI) is an organization, funded by the United States government, that conducts international political programs, sometimes labeled 'democratization programs'.

According to an April 2011 New York Times article , the IRI and other groups were credited for training activists in the Middle East, ( Wiki) 

Gene Sharp 

Gene Sharp wrote a book which tells you how you can take over power from an adverse ruler and install democracy.  He was inspired by Ghandi and Einstein.

Sharp founded an institute , the Albert Einstein Institute, which helped him do his job: instruct people all over the world how to make a succesfull revolution against a ruler that is not a friend of America.( Is not submissive to America.)  

Thierry Meyssan  

Meyssan is controversial. ( As I write this he is missing in Libya)

Also because he sometimes publishes information that turns out to be wrong afterwards.  The other side of the coin is that sometimes he is earlier than many others with the news.

I find his 2005 article  about  America’s  many occasions of supporting democratic forces in several countries quite informing.  

In an answer to Meyssan, Sharp denies that he was actively working with revolutionaries. He sometimes spoke to them or answered them, but never took action to go and coach them, he writes in this letter, which is at the bottom of Meyssans article.

Also the  famous left wingers Chomsky and Howard Zinn defended Sharp.

Fine.

But I think that is not the point.

It was an American doctrine that stimulated and coached the people how to make a succesfull revolution…… or to put it from the perspective of the American Power Elite: how to succesfully eliminate an adverse government and replace it by one that was probably less anti- American and could be ‘helped’ with advise and money.

Paul B. McCarthy of NED said that they paid 3 million $ to Otpor.  There is some proof already.

To 'help' with advise and money, or shall we just say.. to infiltrate, or should we say: slowly take over its government, induce the government to make 'mistakes' (like lend lots of money) or to advise it to privatise all assets of the country, or to tell them that an Open Society is the way to go. 
All this kind of 'help' is gladly offered by the American Empire. 


They may even advise you to become a multi-ethnic society and be happy ever after.... Anything will do, as long as it slowly wrecks the fabric of society.  

The real question is this :

Are the people in those countries better off now? 

Maybe. 

But in the long run they will be governed by the same puppets of the Power Elite as we in America and Western Europe are governed. 

- They will have the same democracy as the US has:  their government taxes the working class at 40 %  and the rich at 15%.( As Warren Buffet told us last week.)


(Most of these Puppets do not know that they are Puppets, I think. But they understand that being friends with America helps their rise to power.  Blair and Brown went to America before they got in power.) 

- Their democratic government allows the Bankers to play Casino. The profits go in their pockets and the losses are for the tax payer to pay.

- Their democratic government off- shores all their jobs, not caring what will happen to the people in the future.

- Their democratic government has the most expensive Health Care in the world , but the worst service ( See Michael Moore’s Sicko.  See my blog or this video. 

- The US  democracy is not at all a democracy. It is a country where the very rich pay the election- campaigns for those politicians that promise to do what this Power Elite wants. (See the video : the Israel Lobby.  )

- It is a country where no politician can permit himself to criticise Israel, because that will cost him his career. (Again: see the video : the Israel Lobby.  )

Thàt is exactly why America wants every country to become a democracy: because in a democracy the very rich can control the Media in a very sophisticated (*) way and have the people believe that they are free, but they are like the people in the movie 'The Matrix". 
(*) Think about the famous scene with Noam Chomsly and Andrew Marr.