Sunday, March 02, 2014

328 Ukraïne.

UPDATE  augustus 2025:    Maidan moord al in maart 2013 gepland ? 




this blog:  http://tiny.cc/sum9bx

Update: Today, march 5, a conversation was put on youtube between Cathy Ashton and mr. Paet, the Estonian minister for Foreign Affairs. ( 10 minute version) ( RT version 4 min.
Paet: its sure that the SAME snipers killed police and protesters on Maidan. Peaple understand that this was not done by Yanukovich. The new government does not want to investigate it.
This is really important news, of course. 
But as The Saker writes:  it will soon be forgotten.
I will copy The Sakers blog here, on my blog nr. 329.  He has been in intelligence, and describes how these essential proofs of what is the truth, are swept under the carpet.  
A group of people who investigate Syria have written on their blog:  "we couldn't help but notice a very familiar pattern in the recent culmination of unrest in the Ukraine. Our research has led some contributors to believe that part of the reasons for escalation in Syria and other places have been snipers of unknown identity shooting at both protesters and police forces." ( List) ( Talk
Earlier I wrote about the 'men in Black', which is an earlier version of the tactic: ( blog)  


Here are some facts that are leading me in my interpretation of what is happening there.

1. The USA has spent 5.000.000.000 $ in the last 20 years to bring 'democracy' in Ukraïne.

( So said the assistent Secretary of State for Ukraine, Victoria Nuland: Video . Note: Nuland is married to Robert Kagan, who co-founded the PNAC report:  how to create the American Empire.)

We know that all wars of the USA are waged under humanitarian flags. For the benefit of the Vietnamese they waged a war there that killed 3 million of them. ( It was very beneficial for the USA war industry. And the huge American Army gave Wall Street all the power it needed.
They killed 30 % of the North Koreans with napalm, 15 years earlier.
They caused the Russians to invade Afghanistan.
They invaded Iraq, using lies for motives, and then caused civil war deliberately.
They supported the destruction of Libya and Syria.

All these wars are in reality never motivated by humanitarian goals. If that were true, then why would they be big friends with countries like Saudi Arabia end Bahrein. Why would they have killed Lumumba, Allende and all the other leaders?

No, their wars have one or more of these goals:
1- Make America stronger.
2- Make America's adversaries weaker.
3- Have the US tax-payer for creating a real strong US army, which gives Wall Street more clout.
4- Make Israel's adversaries weaker.

2. Putin is a strong leader who will not give Russia to the USA/Wall Street, like Yeltsin did. Putin wants to build a group of several countries to form a block that will resist the USA.(*)   Ukraine must be part of this block. Now its called the 'customs union', but I think even China might join this group in the future, as they are also attacked by the USA.
(*)  Ghadaffi tried to do the same among African countries, and got killed for it.

3. So, if America can make the Ukraïne turn away from Russia, that will be a strategic blow dealt to a (potential) ennemy.

4. Creating a revolution in another country is what the USA is specialised in.

Gene Sharp wrote a manual about it.( Video)   Otpor is one of the groups that is effectuating it. ( Dutch video, English video)  But also lots and lots of NGO's are working on it, as Hillary Clinton told herself so clearly: Video.
The whole 'action' is under the banner of 'ending a bad regime', but very often the regime is the best that one can have, given the circumstances. And àlways, after the 'humanitarian revolution', the country is devastated and the people are in much worse circumstances. But: the USA and often Israel are in a better position.
One time they use 'Communism' as a reason to destroy a country ( Vietnam). Then it is 'dictatorship' ( Panama). Or hiding a terrorist ( Afghanistan) . Then it is 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' ( Iraq).  Next time it is supposed plans to bomb his own population ( Ghadaffi) . Or the effort to stop a coup by religious fanatics ( Assad). Or the possible development of a nuclear bomb ( Iran).

Our Humanitarian Friends have bombed 33 countries since WW2. ( bombs)
Other countries and International Law was often against these interventions. (Scheme)

But how are we to know?
They controle our Media.  They decide what we know about the world.

5. How do they do it? (1)
I think by brainwashing and selection. Most people are probably genuine in their opinions: they really believe that America is a democracy, and that JFK was killed by a Magic Bullit, and that buildings fall down in free fall after office fires ( WTC7), and that Saddam had WMD's and that Ghadaffi would have thrown bombs on his own people etc. etc.
But there must be a group of people who create this brainwashing. How is that possible?  I find that a difficult question.  Many of these people are jewish. And they have brainwashing in their culture. Their history is made up of pogroms. But never they will learn what caused these pogroms. Hate and revenge is what drives them. ( Lysson)
Rabbinical Judaïsm is like an  eternal war,  declared by the jews on the Christians.  Non-religious jews do use their fellow jews as a tool to conquer the world. To divide their opponents. That is in a few words what I think is happening.


6. How do they do it?  (2)
Every country has people who hate the government. They send in do-gooders who appeal to these disgruntled groups. An already divided country is easy: tell the Sunni's that they ought to rule their country. Tell the West-Ukraïnians that Europe wants to help them, if they revolt.
Have a peacefull demonstration, and combine this with big support of Western Media. Make the demonstration last longer and longer. ( In Kiev it was the police that was peacefull, and the demonstraters that were violent. That is how afraid Yanukovich was of being labeled as a tyrant.)
And finally: send in the snipers.  Let them shoot people on boths sides.
In Sarajewo the snipers killed muslims and serbs.  
In Benghazi there were snipers too probably.
In Daraa ( Syria) the snipers killed policemen ànd peacefull demonstraters.
In Kiev the snipers killed policemen ànd demonstraters, the day after a peace-agreement was made!

Killing people on both sides makes everybody hate the opponent.
That is the goal you want to reach: that people see their friends die.
They will not ask what has really happened.
They will get in a state of blind anger, willing to torture and kill every opponent.
Solders who fought in wars have often described this.

-----------------

That is the situation we have now in Kiev.
Yanukovich has left.
Of course he was a corrupt oligarch, but all his competitors were also corrupt oligarchs.  From 2005 to 2010 the Ukraïne was led by a pro-USA president, Yushchenko, and he was not any better.
Ukraïnians lived in poverty, but were not killed or harrased by thugs.  

Now the thugs have taken over. ('Interahamwe') ( Muzychka )  ( police )
Now Ukraïnians live in poverty ànd can be killed by criminals.

Ukraïnians may hope for a better standard of living, and may expect this to come from collaboration with The West.  I could understand that.  But Europe is broke, and the USA is only interested in frustrating Putin.
Where did the USA ever make a population happy?
Not even in the USA people have the comfort that Ghadaffi's people had under Ghadaffi.

Those Ukraïnians who expect a better life from cooperating with The West are deluded.
The thugs who simply want to get away from Russia because they hate Russia, well, in a way I can understand them: they remember the holomodor.
They are also anti-semitic, which can also be understood if you know what happened in the Ukraine in the last 500 years. ( Lysson)
But is this hatred of these thugs a sound reason for taking Ukraïne away from Russia?
No, because it will lead to more blood-shed.

I think it would be best if the Ukraïne would stay in the Russian sphere of influence.

        ----------------------------------------------------
                -----------------------------------


Here is an article by William Engdahl, where he writes about the snipers:

The Rape of Ukraine: Phase Two Begins

By F. William Engdahl

February 28, 2014 "
Information Clearing House - "21st Century Wire" - The events in Ukraine since November 2013 are so astonishing as almost to defy belief.

An legitimately-elected (said by all international monitors) Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovich, has been driven from office, forced to flee as a war criminal after more than three months of violent protest and terrorist killings by so-called opposition.

His “crime” according to protest leaders was that he rejected an EU offer of a vaguely-defined associate EU membership that offered little to Ukraine in favor of a concrete deal with Russia that gave immediate €15 billion debt relief and a huge reduction in Russian gas import prices. Washington at that point went into high gear and the result today is catastrophe.

A secretive neo-nazi military organization reported linked to NATO played a decisive role in targeted sniper attacks and violence that led to the collapse of the elected government.

But the West is not finished with destroying Ukraine. Now comes the IMF with severe conditionalities as prerequisite to any Western financial help. 

After the famous leaked phone call of US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland (photo, left) with the US Ambassador in Kiev, where she discussed the details of who she wanted in a new coalition government in Kiev, and where she rejected the EU solutions with her “Fuck the EU” comment,[1] the EU went it alone. Germany’s Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier proposed that he and his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius, fly to Kiev and try to reach a resolution of the violence before escalation. Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski was asked to join. The talks in Kiev included the EU delegation, Yanukovich, the three opposition leaders and a Russian representative. The USA was not invited.[2]

The EU intervention without Washington was extraordinary and reveals the deeping division between the two in recent months. In effect it was the EU saying to the US State Department, “F*** the US,” we will end this ourselves.

After hard talks, all major parties including the majority of protesters, agreed to new presidential elections in December, return to the 2004 Constitution and release of Julia Tymoshenko from prison. The compromise appeared to end the months long chaos and give a way out for all major players.

The diplomatic compromise lasted less than twelve hours. Then all hell broke loose.

Snipers began shooting into the crowd on February 22 in Maidan or Independence Square. Panic ensued and riot police retreated in panic according to eyewitnesses. The opposition leader Vitali Klitschko withdrew from the deal, no reason given. Yanukovich fled Kiev.[3] 

The question unanswered until now is who deployed the snipers? According to veteran US intelligence sources, the snipers came from an ultra-right-wing military organization known as Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self-Defense (UNA-UNSO).


The leader of UNA-UNSO, Andriy Shkil, ten years ago became an adviser to Julia Tymoshenko. UNA-UNSO, during the US-instigated 2003-2004 “Orange Revolution”, backed pro-NATO candidate Viktor Yushchenko against his pro-Russian opponent, Yanukovich. UNA-UNSO members provided security for the supporters of Yushchenko and Julia Tymoshenko on Independence Square in Kiev in 2003-4.[4]

UNA-UNSO is also reported to have close ties to the German National Democratic Party (NDP). [5]

Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the crack-para-military UNA-UNSO members have been behind every revolt against Russian influence. The one connecting thread in their violent campaigns is always anti-Russia. The organization, according to veteran US intelligence sources, is part of a secret NATO “GLADIO” organization, and not a Ukraine nationalist group as portrayed in western media. [6]

According to these sources, UNA-UNSO have been involved (confirmed officially) in the Lithuanian events in the Winter of 1991, the Soviet Coup d’etat in Summer 1991, the war for the Pridnister Republic 1992, the anti-Moscow Abkhazia War 1993, the Chechen War, the US-organized Kosovo Campaign Against the Serbs, and the August 8 2008 war in Georgia. According to these reports, UNA-UNSO para-military have been involved in every NATO dirty war in the post-cold war period, always fighting on behalf of NATO. “These people are the dangerous mercenaries used all over the world to fight NATO’s dirty war, and to frame Russia because this group pretends to be Russian special forces. THESE ARE THE BAD GUYS, forget about the window dressing nationalists, these are the men behind the sniper rifles,” these sources insist. [7]

If true that UNA-UNSO is not “Ukrainian” opposition, but rather a highly secret NATO force using Ukraine as base, it would suggest that the EU peace compromise with the moderates was likely sabotaged by the one major player excluded from the Kiev 21 February diplomatic talks—Victoria Nuland’s State Department.[8] Both Nuland and right-wing Republican US Senator John McCain have had contact with the leader of the Ukrainian opposition Svoboda Party, whose leader is openly anti-semitic and defends the deeds of a World War II Ukrainian SS-Galicia Division head.[9] The party was registered in 1995, initially calling itself the “Social National Party of Ukraine” and using a swastika style logo. Svoboda is the electoral front for neo-nazi organizations in Ukraine such as UNA-UNSO.[10]

One further indication that Nuland’s hand is shaping latest Ukraine events is the fact that the new Ukrainian Parliament is expected to nominate Nuland’s choice, Arseny Yatsenyuk, from Tymoshenko’s party, to be interim head of the new Cabinet.

Whatever the final truth, clear is that Washington has prepared a new economic rape of Ukraine using its control over the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

IMF plunder of Ukraine Crown Jewels

Now that the “opposition” has driven a duly-elected president into exile somewhere unknown, and dissolved the national riot police, Berkut, Washington has demanded that Ukraine submit to onerous IMF conditionalities.

In negotiations last October, the IMF demanded that Ukraine double prices for gas and electricity to industry and homes, that they lift a ban on private sale of Ukraine’s rich agriculture lands, make a major overhaul of their economic holdings, devalue the currency, slash state funds for school children and the elderly to “balance the budget.” In return Ukraine would get a paltry $4 billion.

Before the ouster of the Moscow-leaning Yanukovich government last week, Moscow was prepared to buy some $15 billion of Ukraine debt and to slash its gas prices by fully one-third. Now, understandably, Russia is unlikely to give that support. The economic cooperation between Ukraine and Moscow was something Washington was determined to sabotage at all costs.

This drama is far from over. The stakes involve the very future of Russia, the EU-Russian relations, and the global power of Washington, or at least that faction in Washington that sees further wars as the prime instrument of policy.

Writer F. William Engdahl is a geopolitical analyst and the author of “Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order”.

[1] F. William Engdahl, US-Außenministerium in flagranti über Regimewechsel in der Ukraine ertappt, Kopp Online.de, February 8, 2014, accessed inhttp://info.kopp-verlag.de/hintergruende/enthuellungen/f-william-engdahl/us-aussenministerium-in-flagranti-ueber-regimewechsel-in-der-ukraine-ertappt.html 

[2] Bertrand Benoit, Laurence Norman and Stephen Fidler , European Ministers Brokered Ukraine Political Compromise: German, French, Polish Foreign Ministers Flew to Kiev, The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2014, accessed in
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303636404579397351862903542?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303636404579397351862903542.html 

[3] Jessica Best, Ukraine protests Snipers firing live rounds at demonstrators as fresh violence erupts despite truce, The Mirror UK, February 20, 2014, accessed in 
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/ukraine-protests-snipers-firing-live-3164828 

[4] Aleksandar Vasovic , Far right group flexes during Ukraine revolution, Associated Press, January 3, 2005, Accessed in
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20050103&slug=ukraine03 

[5] Wikipedia, Ukrainian National Assembly Ukrainian National Self Defence, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, accessed in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_National_Assembly_%E2%80%93_Ukrainian_National_Self_Defence 

[6] Source report, Who Has Ukraine Weapons, February 27, 2014, private to author.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Max Blumenthal, Is the US backing neo-Nazis in Ukraine?, AlterNet February 25, 2014, accessed in

http://www.salon.com/2014/02/25/is_the_us_backing_neo_nazis_in_ukraine_partner/ 

[9] Channel 4 News, Far right group at heart of Ukraine protests meet US senator, 16 December 2013, accessed in

http://www.channel4.com/news/ukraine-mccain-far-right-svoboda-anti-semitic-protests 

[10] Ibid








Wednesday, February 26, 2014

327 Homosexuality is used to destabilise countries.

This blog: http://tiny.cc/m2s5bx

We all know how Russia is flooded with NGO's that stimulated homosexuals in Russia to start a fight for emancipation.
Not a natural way to act, of course.
Emancipation of homosexuality has to be endogenous, and has to grow within the population.
I think it can only grow when a country looses its old habits and values, and replaces them for new ones.
Whatever...
We saw what happened in Russia:  The Government had enough of it and and made a law that forbode it to make publicity for homosexuality amongst youngsters.
A safe and modest law, one would think.
Not so, it turned out.

It was used as a tool to bash Putin and Russia.
From the news one would get the impression that homo's had a terrible life in Russia.
Not true.
Their life was OK, untill the Masters of Discourse started to attack Russia.
It angered the right wingers who started to threaten and molest homo's.

But..... this is old news today.
The reason for this blog is a TV program I just saw on Belgian TV.( Video)
A Dutch author, Monique Samuel  (from Egyptian Christian ancestry), herself a lesbian, has lived in Uganda for some time in the last few years.
Her goal: to see the changes in treatement of homosexuals in Uganda.

Here is what she  said:

Life in Uganda was never too difficult for homosexuals.
They were not popular, but they could live their lives.
Two women could live together, and people would not even think anything of it.

Then came some very extreme religious preachers from the USA.
They were forbidden to preach in the USA ( where freedom of speech is like the most important 'right' known to man) .  That's  how fanatic they were.
They started to preach hatred against homosexuals in Uganda.

It made the Ugandans alert on homosexuality.
Now they said: Why are those two women living together in that house?
This caused politicians to be more and more anti-gay. A proces of the last two or three years.

The result of the more  negative publicity towards homosexuality in Uganda had an important consequence:  Western countries like the USA,  Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and others started to criticise Uganda and above all :  Ugandese politicians.
They were pictured as primitive and backwards.

That was the reason for the recent new laws: outlawing homosexualty.
Ugandan politicians felt paternalised by The West, and reacted.
A paper publicised the names of 200 homosexuals in Uganda.

The homosexuals were the victims.
In recent days  some were lynched, some killed themselves, some flew or disappeared from public life.

In the TV debate with mrs Samuel the Belgian minister of Foreign Affairs, Didier Reinders,  said that he is working on sanctions against Uganda, and will stop sending monmey to Uganda.

Mrs  Samuel pleaded for non interference of the West.
She says it is exactly the Western 'humanitarian measurements' that cause all the trouble.

------------------------------

Being a conspirationalist by profession I ask myself:
Was this all scripted?
I think it was.
I do not think that people like Reinders understand the game that is being played.
But I think it was no coïncidence that these American extremists were sent to Uganda.
And it certainly was no coïncidence that all these NGO's in Russia stimulated the Russian gays to start to fight for their emancipation.

P.S. 
Mrs Victoria Nuland recently admitted that the USA had spent 5 billion $ in the last 25 years to split the Ukraïne away from Russia. The USA did everything to create chaos in that country. All the time sayi8ng they are working for the good of the people.
They did the same to Afghanistan,  Iraq, Libia and Syria.  All thes e countries have changed to hell holes after USA-paid snipers created civil war.
For the Ukraïne they have the same future in mind.  And for Russia and Iran, no doubt.
It has to do with Global Power for America and even more with complete regional hegemony for Israel.
About Ukraïne:
Israel Shamir: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37761.htm
The Saker has many great blogs on Ukraïne. Here is one in a series: http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.nl/2014/02/ukrainian-nationalism-its-roots-and.html




Saturday, February 15, 2014

326 'Smear, Divide and Conquer' was àlways the strategy.

I believe that we, the peoples of the world,  are all the result of the survival skills of our ancestors. 
One of the essential skills is that, if necessary, one is willing to fight. 
So, with the genes that we have in us, we may expect there to be a war every now and then.
I would call this War 1.0 :  
The struggle for scarce means leaves no room for peoples who are completely pacifist.  

But there is also a War 2.0 
Here war is not done for survival, but for the benefit of the already Super Rich. Here the peoples are misled by these Super Rich  by False Flag attacks.  The animosity is created by the Super Rich.  

In the article below John Pilger gives us the authors and books who show us that the Korean War was just fabricated.  
There is even a book that shows us that WW2 was not inevitable ! 

The same people who created the Korean War and bombed 32 other countries since 1945, all in the name of 'Peace' ( and so killed 12 million people)  are already  smearing  Putin and Russia and are  preparing for war with China. This again has nothing to do with survival of the 300 million American people, but with the Power of the very small 0,1 % Super Rich. 


'Good' and 'Bad' War - and the Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting

The regime that Washington created in the South, the “good” Korea, was set up and run largely by those who had collaborated with Japan and America.

By John Pilger

February 13 2014 "Information Clearing House - "The New Statesman" -  Fifty years ago, E.P. Thompson's 'The Making of the English Working Class' rescued the study of history from the powerful. Kings and queens, landowners, industrialists, politicians and imperialists had owned much of the public memory. In 1980, Howard Zinn's 'A People's History of the United States' also demonstrated that the freedoms and rights we enjoy precariously - free expression, free association, the jury system, the rights of minorities - were the achievements of ordinary people, not the gift of elites.

Historians, like journalists, play their most honourable role when they myth-bust. Eduardo Galeano's 'The Open Veins of Latin America' (1971) achieved this for the people of a continent whose historical memory was colonised and mutated by the dominance of the United States.
 
The "good" world war of 1939-45 provides a bottomless ethical bath in which the west's "peacetime" conquests are cleansed. De-mystifying historical investigation stands in the way. Richard Overy's '1939: the countdown to war' (2009) is a devastating explanation of why that cataclysm was not inevitable.
 
We need such smokescreen-clearing now more than ever. The powerful would like us to believe that the likes of Thompson, Zinn and Galeano are no longer necessary: that we live, as Time magazine put it, "in an eternal present", in which reflection is limited to Facebook and historical narrative is the preserve of Hollywood. This is a confidence trick. In 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', George Orwell wrote: "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
 
The people of Korea understand this well. The slaughter on their peninsula following the second world war is known as the "forgotten war", whose significance for all humanity has long been suppressed in military histories of cold war good versus evil.
 
I have just read 'The Korean War: A History by Bruce Cumings' (2010), professor of history at the University of Chicago. I first saw Cumings interviewed in Regis Tremblay's extraordinary film, 'The Ghosts of Jeju', which documents the uprising of the people of the southern Korean island of Jeju in 1948 and the campaign of the present-day islanders to stop the building of a base with American missiles aimed provocatively at China.
 
Like most Koreans, the farmers and fishing families protested the senseless division of their nation between north and south in 1945 - a line drawn along the 38th Parallel by an American official, Dean Rusk, who had "consulted a map around midnight on the day after we obliterated Nagasaki with an atomic bomb," wrote Cumings. The myth of a "good" Korea (the south) and a "bad" Korea (the north) was invented.
 
In fact, Korea, north and south, has a remarkable people's history of resistance to feudalism and foreign occupation, notably Japan's in the 20th century. When the Americans defeated Japan in 1945, they occupied Korea and often branded those who had resisted the Japanese as "commies". On Jeju island, as many as 60,000 people were massacred by militias supported, directed and, in some cases, commanded by American officers.
 
This and other unreported atrocities were a "forgotten" prelude to the Korean War (1950-53) in which more people were killed than Japanese died during all of world war two. Cumings' gives an astonishing tally of the degree of destruction of the cities of the north is astonishing: Pyongyang 75 per cent, Sariwon 95 per cent, Sinanju 100 per cent.  Great dams in the north were bombed in order to unleash internal tsunamis. "Anti-personnel" weapons, such as Napalm, were tested on civilians. Cumings' superb investigation helps us understand why today's North Korea seems so strange: an anachronism sustained by an enduring mentality of siege.
 
"The unhindered machinery of incendiary bombing was visited on the North for three years," he wrote, "yielding a wasteland and a surviving mole people who had learned to love the shelter of caves, mountains, tunnels and redoubts, a subterranean world that became the basis for reconstructing a country and a memento for building a fierce hatred through the ranks of the population. Their truth is not cold, antiquarian, ineffectual knowledge." Cumings quotes Virginia Wolf on how the trauma of this kind of war "confers memory."
 
The guerrilla leader Kim Il Sung had begun fighting the Japanese militarists in 1932.  Every characteristic attached to the regime he founded - "communist, rogue state, evil enemy" - derives from a ruthless, brutal, heroic resistance: first to Japan, then the United States, which threatened to nuke the rubble its bombers had left. Cumings exposes as propaganda the notion that Kim Il Sung, leader of the "bad" Korea, was a stooge of Moscow. In contrast, the regime that Washington invented in the south, the "good" Korea, was run largely by those who had collaborated with Japan and America.
 
The Korean War has an unrecognised distinction. It was in the smouldering ruins of the peninsula that the US turned itself into what Cumings calls "an archipelago of empire". When the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s, it was as if the whole planet was declared American - or else.
 
But there is China now. The base currently being built on Cheju island will face the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai, less than 300 miles away, and the industrial heartland of the only country whose economic power is likely to surpass that of the US. "China," says President Obama in a leaked briefing paper, "is our fast emerging strategic threat." By 2020, almost two thirds of all US naval forces in the world will be transferred to the Asia-Pacific region. In an arc extending from Australia to Japan and beyond, China will be ringed by US missiles and nuclear-weapons armed aircraft.  Will this threat to all of us be "forgotten", too?

Monday, February 10, 2014

325 The Money shows who is really in power in the USA.

Washington’s Military Aid to Israel 
Fake Peace Process, Real War Process 
By Chase Madar
We Americans have funny notions about foreign aid. Recent polls show that, on average, we believe 28% of the federal budget is eaten up by it, and that, in a time of austerity, this gigantic bite of the budget should be cut back to 10%. In actual fact, barely 1% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid of any kind.
In this case, however, truth is at least as strange as fiction. Consider that the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid over the past three decades isn’t some impoverished land filled with starving kids, but a wealthy nation with a per-head gross domestic product on par with the European Union average, and higher than that of Italy, Spain, or South Korea.
Consider also that this top recipient of such aid -- nearly all of it military since 2008 -- has been busily engaged in what looks like a nineteenth-century-style colonization project. In the late 1940s, our beneficiary expelled some 700,000 indigenous people from the land it was claiming.  In 1967, our client seized some contiguous pieces of real estate and ever since has been colonizing these territories with nearly 650,000 of its own people. It has divided the conquered lands with myriad checkpoints and roads accessible only to the colonizers and is building a 440-mile wall around (and cutting into) the conquered territory, creating a geography of control that violates international law.
“Ethnic cleansing” is a harsh term, but apt for a situation in which people are driven out of their homes and lands because they are not of the right tribe. Though many will balk at leveling this charge against Israel -- for that country is, of course, the top recipient of American aid and especially military largesse -- who would hesitate to use the term if, in a mirror-image world, all of this were being inflicted on Israeli Jews?
Click here to read more of this dispatch.

Copied from: http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.nl/2014/02/tom-engelhardt-52.html

Monday, December 30, 2013

324 Gilad Atzmon: Left wing jews are NOT speaking about the most important fact.

This blog: http://tinyurl.com/qa6x7x3 or  tinyurl.com/qa6x7x3



Here I want to give you 3 articles: 

1.  Gilad Atzmon: "The role of the Left ... is to stop us from looking 
into Jewish power"

2. ) French filosopher Finkielkraut gives an interview to Der Spiegel. he states: Left denies Cash of Civilizations ( This clash is between Islam and the West,  whose Civ. has been destroyed).

3. Gilad Atzmon's critique on Finkielkraut:It's the French Left (jewish!)  that has destroyed Western Civilization, and now suppresses discussion about the real situation:  Jewish hegemony.

I find the first article an eye-opener. 
Yes, people like Amy Goodman and Chomsky are indeed not talking about the real elephant in the room: the fact that the Jews decide which subjects are discussed, and which are not discussed. 
They controle the Media.  They are, as Israel Shamir calls it:  the Masters of Discourse.

The result is that most people have no idea what is happening in this world. 
Not when Israel is involved.
Yes, we know about the intifada, about the iron Wall, about the Gaza War etc.  But those are the visible things.  Most people have no idea that Iraq and Iran and Syria were destroyed because it is good for Israel. 
If it were not good for Israel, they would never have been destroyed. 
If it were not good for Israel, 911 would never have happened. 
If it were not good for Israel , we would not see all this muslim-bashing in the media. 


I have changed nothing in the text. But I made some remarks myself: in red. 
And I made bold some parts in the original text, and underlined some sentences.   



(1) Gilad Atzmon: "The role of the Left ... is to stop us from looking
into Jewish power"

Radio interview with Ryan Dawson

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/ryan-dawson-interviews-gilad-atzmon-very-interesting.html

27 Oct 2013

"In fact, I actually argue that the so-called anti-Zionists are actually
far more dangerous - and this is crucial. You see, I like to talk about
Jewish power: there is no doubt that the Jewish power plays a major role
in contemporary politics, banking and so on. The Jewish Lobby openly
pushes for a war in Syria; and, before that, conflict with Iran and so
on. There is no doubt about it.

"However, I argue that all those events can be easily checked - you can
read my book, and John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about the Israeli
Lobby, you can read James Petras, you can read Jeff Blankfort, and so
on. I argue that what they describe is not Jewish power; it is just
symptoms of Jewish power.


"The real meaning of Jewish power is the capacity to stop us from
talking about Jewish power.
The Jewish power is not the embodiment of
the pro-Zionists, for instance. ... Jewish power is the successful
tendency to stop us from looking into it. Now this is not done by
Dershowitz, or Foxman - ADL Foxman. This is done by the Jewish Left, and
the Left in general. The role of the Left, and the Jewish Left in
particular, is to stop us from looking into Jewish power. In other
words, the definition of Jewish power is the capacity to stop us from
looking into Jewish power."


"And this is exactly what Noam Chomsky did on Democracy Now, when he had
to discuss John Mearsheimer. He dismissed his whole approach, instead of
discussing it. Finkelstein – Norman Finkelstein - did pretty much the
same thing. By the way, Democracy Now should have brought Stephen Walt
and John Mearsheimer to debate Chomsky; but they didn't. They operated
as an instrument of Jewish power, diverting attention from the issue.

"Now, it is not a secret, that the vast majority of Progressive
organizations in America, the vast majority of Palestinian NGOs, the
vast majority of Palestinian Solidarity groups, are supported by George
Soros' Open Society, who also support the Zionist liberal J Street. And
this is why we see a suspicious similarity between the ideas presented
by liberal Zionism and the progressive network. And this is what
transforms the Left - which stands for beautiful values, that I respect
to a certain extent - this is what transforms the Left into a dubious
network of Controlled Opposition.
"




(2) Finkielkraut: Left denies Cash of Civilizations (Islam vs a West
whose Civ. has been destroyed)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-french-philosopher-finkielkraut-on-muslims-and-integration-a-937404.html

French Philosopher Finkielkraut: 'There Is a Clash of Civilizations'

Interview Conducted by Mathieu von Rohr and Romain Leick

French society is under threat, argues philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in
a controversial new book. The conservative spoke to SPIEGEL about what
he sees as the failure of multiculturalism and the need for better
integration of Muslim immigrants.

Alain Finkielkraut is one of France's most controversial essayists. His
new book, "L'Identité Malheureuse" ("The Unhappy Identity," Éditions
Stock ), has been the subject of heated debate. It comes at a time when
France finds itself in the midst of an identity crisis. But rather than
framing things from a social or political perspective, Finkielkraut
explores what he sees as a hostile confrontation between indigenous
French people and immigrants. He was interviewed in his Parisian
apartment on the Left Bank.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Finkielkraut, are you unhappy with today's France?

Finkielkraut: I am pained to see that the French mode of European
civilization is threatened. France is in the process of transforming
into a post-national and multicultural society. It seems to me that this
enormous transformation does not bring anything good.

SPIEGEL: Why is that? Post-national and multicultural sounds rather
promising.

Finkielkraut: It is presented to us as the model for the future. But
multiculturalism does not mean that cultures blend. Mistrust prevails,
communitarianism is rampant -- parallel societies are forming that
continuously distance themselves from each other.

SPIEGEL: Aren't you giving in here to the right-wingers' fears of demise?

Finkielkraut: The lower middle classes -- the French that one no longer
dares to call Français de souche (ethnic French) -- are already moving
out of the Parisian suburbs and farther into the countryside. They have
experienced that in some neighborhoods they are the minority in their
own country. They are not afraid of the others, but rather of becoming
the others themselves.

SPIEGEL: But France has always been a country of immigrants.

Finkielkraut: We are constantly told that immigration is a constitutive
element of the French identity. But that's not true. Labor migration
began in the 19th century. It was not until after the bloodletting of
World War I that the borders were largely opened.

SPIEGEL: Immigration has had more of a formative influence on France
than on Germany.

Finkielkraut: Immigration used to go hand-in-hand with integration into
French culture. That was the rule of the game. Many of the new arrivals
no longer want to play by that rule. If the immigrants are in the
majority in their neighborhoods, how can we integrate them? There used
to be mixed marriages, which is crucial to miscegenation. But their
numbers are declining. Many Muslims in Europe are re-Islamizing
themselves. A woman who wears the veil effectively announces that a
relationship with a non-Muslim is out of the question for her.

SPIEGEL: Aren't many immigrants excluded from mainstream society
primarily for economic reasons?

Finkielkraut: The left wanted to resolve the problem of immigration as a
social issue, and proclaimed that the riots in the suburbs were a kind
of class struggle. We were told that these youths were protesting
against unemployment, inequality and the impossibility of social
advancement. In reality we saw an eruption of hostility toward French
society. Social inequality does not explain the anti-Semitism, nor the
misogyny in the suburbs, nor the insult "filthy French." The left does
not want to accept that there is a clash of civilizations.

SPIEGEL: The anger of these young people is also stirred up by high
unemployment. They are turning their backs on society because they feel
excluded.

Finkielkraut: If unemployment is so high, then immigration has to be
more effectively controlled. Apparently there is not enough work for
everyone. But just ask the teachers in these troubled neighborhoods --
they have major difficulties teaching anything at all. Compared to the
rappers and the dealers, the teachers earn so ridiculously little that
they are viewed with contempt. Why should the students make an effort to
follow in their footsteps? There are a large number of young people who
don't want to learn anything about French culture. This refusal makes it
harder for them to find work.

SPIEGEL: These neighborhoods that you speak of, have you even seen them
firsthand?

Finkielkraut: I watch the news; I read books and studies. I have never
relied on my intuition.

SPIEGEL: In the US the coexistence of communities works better. The
Americans don't have this European adherence to a national uniform culture.

Finkielkraut: The US sees itself as a country of immigration, and what
is impressive about this truly multicultural society is the strength of
its patriotism. This was particularly evident after the attacks of
September 11, 2001. In France, however, the opposite could be seen after
the attacks on French soldiers and Jewish children in Toulouse and
Montauban last year: Some schoolchildren saw Mohamed Merah, the
assailant, as a hero. Something like that would be unthinkable in the
US. American society is a homeland for everyone. I don't think that many
children of immigrants here see it that way.

SPIEGEL: America makes it easy for new arrivals to feel like Americans.
Does France place the hurdles too high?

Finkielkraut: France prohibits students from wearing headscarves at
school. This is also for the benefit of all Muslims who don't want a
religious cage for themselves, for their daughters and wives. France is
a civilization, and the question is what it means to participate in it.
Does this mean the natives have to make themselves extremely small so
the others can easily spread themselves out? Or does it mean passing on
the culture that one possesses?

SPIEGEL: But this has worked for a long time. The Italians, Spaniards,
Poles and European Jews had no difficulties becoming French patriots.
Why is this no longer working?

Finkielkraut: Why is there today such aggression toward the West in the
Islamic world? Some say that France was a colonial power, which is why
those who were colonized could not be happy. But why has Europe been
subjected to this massive immigration from former colonies over the past
half a century? France still has to pay for the sins of colonialism and
settle its debt to those who vilify it today.

SPIEGEL: You yourself are the child of immigrants, the progeny of a
persecuted family. Does your personal will to integrate explain your
radical commitment to the values of the Republic?

Finkielkraut: I defend these values because I probably owe more to my
schooling than do the Français de souche, the hereditary French. French
traditions and history were not laid in my cradle. Anyone who does not
bring along this heritage can acquire it in l'école républicaine, the
French school system. It has expanded my horizons and allowed me to
immerse myself in French civilization.

SPIEGEL: And made you into its apologist?

Finkielkraut: I can speak and write more openly than others precisely
because I am not a hereditary Frenchman. The natives easily allow
themselves to be unnerved by the prevailing discourse. I don't have such
complexes.

SPIEGEL: How do you define this French civilization that you speak of?

 >Finkielkraut: I recently reread a book by the admirable Russian writer
Isaac Babel. The story takes place in Paris. The narrator is in a hotel
and at night he hears the lovemaking sounds of the couples next door.
Babel writes: This has nothing to do with what one hears in Russia --
it's much more fiery. Then his French friend responds: We >French
created women, literature and cuisine. No one can take that from us.

SPIEGEL: Those are idealized clichés that nations create for themselves.

Finkielkraut: But it is true, or at least it was in the past. France
can't allow itself to bask in its own glory. But it has evidence of its
civilization, just like Germany -- it has its sights, its squares, its
cafés, its wealth of literature and its artists. We can be proud of
these ancestors, and we have to prove that we are worthy of them. I
regret that Germany -- for reasons that are understandable -- has broken
with this pride in its past. But I believe that German politicians who
speak of Leitkultur -- the guiding national culture -- are right. The
Leitkultur does not create an insurmountable barrier to newcomers.

SPIEGEL: Is the modern French identity still shaped by the Revolution of
1789?

Finkielkraut: Back in 1989, on the 200th anniversary of the revolution,
I signed a petition against the Islamic headscarf. For me it had to do
with the notion of secularism, which is running into criticism around
the world these days. France believed at the time that this was a model
for the world, and is today reminded of its distinctiveness. It is no
longer a question of exporting our model. We have to remain modest, yet
steadfast.

SPIEGEL: But doesn't French secularism today also serve to justify the
aggressive rejection of Islam?

Finkielkraut: How is that? We have prohibited the veil; we have not
banned the individual. Previously schoolgirls were urged to place under
their blouses or sweaters the crosses or medallions of the Virgin Mary
that they wore on their necklaces. That is not asking too much, merely a
bit of restraint on everyone's part. This has nothing to do with
aggression against Muslims.

SPIEGEL: Hasn't Islam long since become a part of Europe, a part of
France and Germany, as former German President Christian Wulff once put it?

Finkielkraut: Former French President Jacques Chirac made a similar
statement. Islam may one day belong to Europe, but only after it has
Europeanized itself. It is not an insult to the others to point out
their otherness.

SPIEGEL: Well, the Muslims are here now. So don't they also belong?

Finkielkraut: The question is: How are they here? Immigrants lose
nothing when they recognize their difference from the established
population. Today the Muslims in France like to shout in an act of
self-assertion: We are just as French as you! It would have never
occurred to my parents to say something like that. I would also never
say that I am just as French as Charles de Gaulle was.

SPIEGEL: In France immigrants are covered by the jus soli , or "right of
the soil," meaning that every child born there has a right to French
citizenship. Do you want to abolish this?

Finkielkraut: No. But all equality of rights aside, such a child has
become a French national in a manner that differs from descent. The
automatic right to French citizenship by being born on French territory
makes many French people feel uncomfortable these days, because the act
of wanting to be French gets lost in this process. Like most other
Europeans, the French have the feeling that immigration has become an
uncontrolled process -- something that happens, not something that is
willed into being. The countries are not directing this process; at
most, they are escorting it.

SPIEGEL: Isn't it extremely easy to attribute all problems to poverty
immigration from the developing world?

Finkielkraut: A public political debate on the issue is the least that
one could expect. Instead, this field is ceded to the extreme right.

SPIEGEL: How do you view the political rise of Marine Le Pen and her
far-right National Front party?

Finkielkraut: This disturbs me, of course. But the National Front would
not be continuously on the rise if it had not discarded the old issues
of the extreme right. Nowadays the National Front focuses on secularism
and the republic.

SPIEGEL: That sounds as if you could imagine voting for the party.

Finkielkraut: No, I would never do that because this party appeals to
people's base instincts and hatred. And these are easy to kindle among
its supporters. We can't leave these issues to the National Front. It
would also be up to the left, the party of the people, to take seriously
the suffering and anxiety of ordinary people.

SPIEGEL: What do you say to people who call you a reactionary?

Finkielkraut: It has become impossible to see history as constant
progress. I reserve the possibility to compare yesterday and today and
ask the question: What do we retain, what do we abandon?

SPIEGEL: Is that really any more than nostalgia for a lost world?

Finkielkraut: Like Albert Camus, I am of the opinion that our
generation's task is not to recreate the world, but to prevent its
decline. We not only have to conserve nature, but also culture. There
you have the reactionary.

SPIEGEL: When you see all these problems in France -- the debts,
unemployment, educational crisis, identity crisis -- do you fear for the
future?

Finkielkraut: I become sad and feel a growing sense of anxiety. Optimism
would seem a bit ridiculous these days. I wish the politicians were able
to speak the truth and look reality in the face. Then, I believe, France
would be capable of a true awakening -- of contemplating a policy of
civilization.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Finkielkraut, thank you for this interview.

Translated from the German by Paul Cohen

Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@gmail.com>

21 December 2013 09:30




(3) Gilad: French Left destroyed Western Civ., now suppresses discussion
of Jewish hegemony

Alain Finkielkraut, Jews, and Immigration

Friday, December 20, 2013 at 11:28AM

By Gilad Atzmon

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/alain-finkielkraut-jews-and-immigration.html
http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/12/alain-finkielkraut-jews-and-immigration/

Along the second half of the 20th century many Jewish intellectuals,
activists and artists positioned themselves at the forefront of Western
advocacy of immigration and multiculturalism.
 
Occasionally we were also expected to believe that immigration, tolerance, pluralism and
multiculturalism are intrinsic to Jewish culture and thought.


But as the West became gradually aware of the scale of Israeli racism
and intolerance towards migrant communities, more than just a few
intellectuals were courageous enough to point at a clear discrepancy
between the progressive ideas Jews claim to represent and what their
Jewish State happens to be. 
There aren't many countries that are more anti-immigration than Israel. 
The Jewish State is also very selective 
when it comes to multiculturalism. Israel happily integrated humus and
falafel into its cuisine. It even let a few juicy Arab swear words into
its emerging Hebraic dialect but it has been far less enthusiastic about
Palestinian mourning their own plight and the Nakba in particular.

However, Jewish passion for immigration is clearly fading away these
days. It is not a secret that mass immigration of Muslims and Arabs made
many Western Jews feel uncomfortable to say the least. In recent years
we have been monitoring rapid surge of Jewish involvement in
anti-immigration political and intellectual activity.
Some so-called
'progressive' Jews fight the veil in the name of 'feminism,' others
insist on eradicating Islamic symbolic identifiers in the name of
'secularism.' I guess that even Jewish 'progressive tolerance' has its
limits, especially when it comes to Muslims. However, Zionists are
actually slightly more consistent in that regard: they openly ally
themselves with ultra-nationalist groups such as the hawkish EDL.
Anti-Islam positions are often promoted by Hasbara, interventionist and
neocon outlets such as Harry's Place.
The xenophobic message is also
disseminated via literature, academia and general media. Here in
Britain, journalist celebrity Melanie Phillips published her notorious
Londonistan.


Jewish past support of pro-immigration and multiculturalism is easy to
explain.


For the obvious reasons, many Jews prefer to live in multi-ethnic and
fragmented societies, being one minority amongst many. Identity
politics, pro-immigration and multiculturalism are there to dismantle
the cohesive national and patriotic bond
in favor of a manifold complex
structure consisting of a fragile and dynamic exchange between a
manifold of minority groups.

Jews are often threatened by the possibility that indigenous
lower-middle and working classes may follow their nationalistic and
patriotic inclinations and turn against them.
In that regard, a radical
demographic boost of the working class with a varied mixture of foreign
ethnicities is regarded by progressive Jews as a necessary preventative
measure against anti-semitism.

In many countries jewish people were almost the only minority. The rest of the country was rather homogenous: all christians for instance. All whites. o for this only minority it might be usefull to have more minorities.  The 'white christians' could now direct their frustrations or unhappyness to another scape-goat:  people from Mexico ( USA), India (UK), Surinam( NL), Algeria ( Fr), Turkey or Morocco. 
Where I differ from Atzmon is this: I think there was one more motive for the jews to support immigration:  a 'Multi' society can easily be destroyed, simply by creating internal animosity. So I think that the old strategy of 'devide and conquer' was ALSO a reason for the mass immigration that was promoted by the jewish Masters of Discourse.

But here is an interesting development. Last week Spiegel published an
intriguing interview with Alain Finkielkraut, a French so-called
philosopher and also a Jew and son of immigrants. Finkielkraut is no
longer threatened by 'the lower middle classes.' Quite the opposite, he
actually pretends to be their ally and he even makes himself their
ambassador: "the French that one no longer dares to call Français de
souche (ethnic French) are already moving out of the Parisian suburbs
and farther into the countryside. They have experienced that in some
neighborhoods they are the minority in their own country. They are not
afraid of the others, but rather of becoming the others themselves." In
other words, the ethnic French are now "otherized" together with the
Jews by a tidal wave of Islamic tsunami.

It doesn't take Finkielkraut long before he points directly at the
'enemy within.' "Many Muslims in Europe are re-Islamizing themselves. A
woman who wears the veil effectively announces that a relationship with
a non-Muslim is out of the question for her." I guess that Finkielkraut
finds it unacceptable that Muslims do not buy into the Mendelsohnian
Jewish 'assimilation' paradigm — be a Goy in the street and a Jew in
your dwelling —
the façade of pretending to blend into the masses, yet
adhering to tribal and exclusive supremacy in clandestine fashion.
Muslims, so it seems, are not collectively buying into this duplicity
mode. Seemingly, they are not shy of their love for Allah. They are
actually proud of their symbolic identifiers. These facts alone indeed
have managed to challenge the notion of left and progressive tolerance.
And it isn't exactly a secret — the Left has failed in this tolerance test.

Left and Islam

Finkielkraut may not be a sophisticated mind, but he is not a complete
idiot either. He rightly points at the deceitful nature of the
contemporary progressive and Left call. "The left" he says, "wanted to
resolve the problem of immigration as a social issue, and proclaimed
that the riots in the suburbs were a kind of class struggle. We were
told that these youths were protesting against unemployment, inequality
and the impossibility of social advancement. In reality we saw an
eruption of hostility toward French society." The Jewish thinker then
voices his exact and very particular concern — "social inequality does
not explain anti-Semitism."

Finkielkraut is indeed partially correct, and the 'Left' is indeed
wrong, deluded and misleading. Yet, in a symptomatic attempt to conceal
the truth, Finkielkraut diverts the attention from the vast French
institutional political support of Israel, its racist policies and the
impact of the Jewish lobby in France. Accordingly, it may as well be
possible that anti-Jewish sentiments within migrant communities in
France are provoked by the French pro-Israeli attitude. In other words,
we are dealing here with a clear rational sense of 'inequality' that is
ethnically and politically driven (rather than merely materially).

After all, France is actively and enthusiastically engaged in the
destruction of more than just one Arab State. The ultra-Zionist Bernard
Henri Levy was the leading advocate for the intervention in Libya. In
the last few weeks France went out of its way in its attempts to
jeopardize a UN deal with Iran. Thus, it is only natural that some
Muslims find it hard to accept the unbalanced French pro-Israeli policy.
Would Parisian Jews support France if it decided to bomb an Israeli
Government headquarters in Tel Aviv as a response to Israeli crimes
against humanity? In short, it is more than likely that what
Finkielkraut describes as anti-Semitism is actually a direct reaction to
Jewish power.

Yet, the French Left cannot deal with such a development for the obvious
reason that the Left is in itself an instrument of such power – it is
there to suppress the discussion on issues to do with Jewish political
hegemony and influence.

Civilization: Jewish and Left Perspectives

Finkielkraut continues, "the left does not want to accept that there is
a clash of civilizations." Finkielkraut is correct, for a change, but
for the wrong reasons. The Left cannot accept the notion of such a
'clash' because the Left, similarly to Jewish identity political
discourse, lacks a lucid understanding of the notion of 'civilization'.

This point needs a bit of elaboration. Zionism, according to its early
mentors, was set to 'civilize' the Jew by means of 'nationalization'.
Early Zionists contended that that the diasporic Jewish existence was
actually 'uncivilized'. Interestingly enough, in spite of the Zionist
dream, Hebrew doesn't offer its users a word for 'civilization' and this
is not exactly a coincidence. When Palestinian Israeli MK Azmi Bishara
suggested to civilize the Jewish State and transform it into a 'State of
its Citizens' he became Israel's 'No 1 enemy.' He had to run for his life.

Similarly, the Left is also dotted with a clear animosity towards the
traditional notion of civilization. The progressive commitment to social
change is driven by an attempt to undermine the 'bourgeois'
(reactionary) order. In retrospect, it was the '68 Students Revolution
and its long list of mentors from Antonio Gramsci to the Frankfurt
School that eventually succeeded to devastate the West and to cleanse it
of its most precious traditional assets. Targeting 'hegemony' as the
'enemy of the people', the new Left systematically uprooted every aspect
of Western philosophical and categorical thinking, destabilizing every
cultural, spiritual, intellectual and political domain.

In the name of liberation, the Left and the progressive have managed to
eradicate a sense of authenticity and belonging. Typically we, the
indoctrinated post-revolutionary subjects, often refer to ourselves as
'as a [something]', (as a Jew, as a black, as a lesbian, as an Arab, as
a Gay etc'). Instead of thinking authentically and exploring creatively
the deep dynamic meaning of the 'I', we deliver our thoughts by means of
projections driven by sets of collective identifications. Our sense of
'selfhood' has been hijacked by a contemporaneous, phenomenological,
post-modernist and vain relativism. But in fact phenomenology,
relativism and post-modernism are rootless, they are actually the
complete opposite of civilization or rootedness. They are flaky, they
are contextually and hermeneutically detached and they are also soil-less.

I guess that the Left's imperviousness to the notion of civilization may
explain why the Left has failed systematically in its attempt to bond
with working classes. Marx, I believe, failed to grasp that the working
class is also an expression of rootedness. It is defined by heritage,
patriotism, nationalism, spirit, culture, devotion, dialect, cuisine,
defiance, or shall we say civilization. The working class is also
defined by the negation of other classes' culture and civilization. The
Left's failure to grasp this dialectical mode of thinking that extends
far beyond (dialectical) materialism also explains the Left's incapacity
to bond with Muslims, Europe's current working class. This is indeed
tragic yet far from being a coincidence.

Nevertheless, when the French 'philosopher' Finkielkraut was asked to
define 'French civilization' he had nothing to offer. He referred
initially to French 'fiery' love making. The Spiegel interviewer wasn't
impressed. Then in order to rescue his case Finkielkraut continued and
quoted a 'friend'; "we, French, created women, literature and cuisine.
No one can take that from us." Embarrassingly yet symptomatic, the
'defender' of French civilization himself has a very limited
understanding of the true meaning of France nor can he grasp its
civilization. Finkielkraut happily reduces France to a banal material
symbolism consisting of Brigitte Bardot, baguettes and Balzac, but it is
hard to imagine what kind of 'Muslim Jihadist' would insist to bring
such 'France' down. On the contrary, if French contemporary civilization
is shaped by the powerful Jewish Lobby Crif, Bernard Henri Levy's
interventionist megalomania and tribal philosophy a la Finkielkraut, it
is actually easy to grasp why some French Muslims are irritated by their
republic and its state of affairs.

The Post-Political Condition

There is nothing in Finkielkraut that differentiates him from far
right-wing ideologists except of course his intellectual lameness and
theoretical lacking. Yet, for some peculiar reason, Finkielkraut doesn't
like to be associated with those who promote the politics he actually
preaches. When asked by Spiegel "how do you view the political rise of
Marine Le Pen and her far-right National Front party?" Finkielkraut
replied, "This disturbs me, of course. But the National Front would not
be continuously on the rise if it had not discarded the old issues of
the extreme right. Nowadays the National Front focuses on secularism and
the republic." I guess that Finkielkraut finds it difficult to admit to
himself that he is a hard core Right-winger, it simply doesn't fit
nicely into his Jewish assimilationist image. However, this ideological
discrepancy doesn't mature into a cognitive dissonance. It instead
manifests itself as a disingenuous spin.

Notably, Spiegel didn't fall into the trap. It obviously notices that
the 'new French philosopher' is obviously a right-wing hawk: "That
sounds as if you could imagine voting for the party." To which
Finkielkraut replies, "No, I would never do that because this party
appeals to people's base instincts and hatred. And these are easy to
kindle among its supporters. We can't leave these issues to the National
Front. It would also be up to the left, the party of the people, to take
seriously the suffering and anxiety of ordinary people."

Typically, the man who presents himself as the 'defender' of French
Civilization, the one who voices the plight of the 'lower middle class'
is apparently repulsed by French people's 'base instinct'. Like many
'progressives', Finkielkraut is actually dismissive of the working
class' inclinations and their way of thinking. Finkielkraut prefers
instead to transform the Left into an Islamphobic, national socialist
front. Finkielkraut probably realizes very well that the Left is no
longer an ideological standpoint — it is detached from any form of
universal or ethical thinking. It is only dedicated to its political
survival and its paymasters.

Sadly enough, Finkielkraut's pragmatism may prove to be successful. In
the 'Liberal' West in which we are living in, Left and Right have become
merely political instruments that facilitate similar policies whether it
is perpetrating Zionist interventionist wars or enabling our further
enslavement to bankers and big monopolies. From a popular perspective,
'Left' and 'Right' are means of identification (instead of theoretical,
analytical or political dynamic instruments). This political,
intellectual and ideological paralysis is indeed symptomatic to the
current post-political era.

With Jewish Lobby groups such as the Crif, AIPAC and CFI dominating the
Western political discussion and its outcome, democracy is just a
façade.
But far more disturbing is the fact that in contemporary France,
a uniquely lame mind such as Finkielkraut's is considered a
'philosopher'. In that regard, I would actually argue that Finkielkraut
is himself the ultimate emblem of the collapse of Western Civilization
or at least an evidence of the eradication of the French one.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

323. Demonstrators are often stupid: they work for their future oppressors.

Prof. James Petras, a life long Marxist if I am correct, does have a lot of correct analyses.

Of course I do not agree with his Marxist ideas, but I agree with him that quite often 'the People' are manipulated into demonstrations which do not serve these people, but serve a party that simply wants to take over govenment.
They use the dissatisfaction of the masses to topple the old regime, and then take over power.

An example which you will not find with Petras is this: The jews used the masses to topple the Tsar, and then took power themselves.  The masses were in much bigger trouble than before: in the next 50 years 60 million of them would be killed by their own government. ( R J Rummel) ( B. Russell)


Here is Petras's article, unchanged from ICH :


Oligarchs, Demagogues, and Mass Revolts against Democracy

By James Petras

December 27, 2013 "Information Clearing House - In ancient Rome, especially during the late Republic, oligarchs resorted to mob violence to block, intimidate, assassinate or drive from power the dominant faction in the Senate. While neither the ruling or opposing factions represented the interests of the plebeians, wage workers, small farmers or slaves, the use of the ‘mob’ against the elected Senate, the principle of representative government and the republican form of government laid the groundwork for the rise of authoritarian “Caesars” (military rulers) and the transformation of the Roman republic into an imperial state.
Demagogues, in the pay of aspiring emperors, aroused the passions of a motley array of disaffected slum dwellers, loafers and petty thieves (ladrones) with promises, pay-offs and positions in a New Order. Professional mob organizers cultivated their ties with the oligarchs ‘above’ and with professional demonstrators ‘below’. They voiced ‘popular grievances’ and articulated demands questioning the legitimacy of the incumbent rulers, while laying the groundwork for the rule by the few. Usually, when the pay-master oligarchs came to power on a wave of demagogue-led mob violence, they quickly suppressed the demonstrations, paid off the demagogues with patronage jobs in the new regime or resorted to a discrete assassination for ‘street leaders’ unwilling to recognize the new order’. The new rulers purged the old Senators into exile, expulsion and dispossession, rigged new elections and proclaimed themselves ‘saviors of the republic’. They proceeded to drive peasants from their land, renounce social obligations and stop food subsidies for poor urban families and funds for public works.
The use of mob violence and “mass revolts” to serve the interests of oligarchical and imperial powers against democratically-elected governments has been a common strategy in recent times.
Throughout the ages, the choreographed “mass revolt” played many roles: (1) it served to destabilize an electoral regime; (2) it provided a platform for its oligarch funders to depose an incumbent regime; (3) it disguised the fact that the oligarchic opposition had lost democratic elections; (4) it provided a political minority with a ‘fig-leaf of legitimacy’ when it was otherwise incapable of acting within a constitutional framework and (5) it allowed for the illegitimate seizure of power in the name of a pseudo ‘majority’, namely the “crowds in the central plaza”.
Some leftist commentators have argued two contradictory positions: One the one hand, some simply reduce the oligarchy’s power grab to an ‘inter-elite struggle’ which has nothing to do with the ‘interests of the working class’, while others maintain the ‘masses’ in the street are protesting against an “elitist regime”. A few even argue that with popular, democratic demands, these revolts are progressive, should be supported as “terrain for class struggle”. In other words, the ‘left’ should join the uprising and contest the oligarchs for leadership within the stage-managed revolts!
What progressives are unwilling to recognize is that the oligarchs orchestrating the mass revolt are authoritarians who completely reject democratic procedures and electoral processes. Their aim is to establish a ‘junta’, which will eliminate all democratic political and social institutions and freedoms and impose harsher, more repressive and regressive policies and institutions than those they replace. Some leftists support the ‘masses in revolt’ simply because of their ‘militancy’, their numbers and street courage, without examining the underlying leaders, their interests and links to the elite beneficiaries of a ‘regime change’.
All the color-coded “mass revolts” in Eastern Europe and the ex-USSR featured popular leaders who exhorted the masses in the name of ‘independence and democracy’ but were pro-NATO, pro-(Western) imperialists and linked to neo-liberal elites. Upon the fall of communism, the new oligarchs privatized and sold off the most lucrative sectors of the economy throwing millions out of work, dismantled the welfare state and handed over their military bases to NATO for the stationing of foreign troops and the placement of missiles aimed at Russia.
The entire ‘anti-Stalinist’ left in the US and Western Europe, with a few notable exceptions, celebrated these oligarch-controlled revolts in Eastern Europe and some even participated as minor accomplices in the post-revolt neo-liberal regimes. One clear reason for the demise of “Western Marxism” arose from its inability to distinguish a genuine popular democratic revolt from a mass uprising funded and stage-managed by rival oligarchs!
One of the clearest recent example of a manipulated ‘people’s power’ revolution in the streets to replace an elected representative of one sector of the elite with an even more brutal, authoritarian ‘president’ occurred in early 2001 in the Philippines. The more popular and independent (but notoriously corrupt) President Joseph Estrada, who had challenged sectors of the Philippine elite and current US foreign policy (infuriating Washington by embracing Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez), was replaced through street demonstrations of middle-class matrons with soldiers in civvies by Gloria Makapagal-Arroyo. Mrs. Makapagal-Arroyo, who had close links to the US and the Philippine military, unleashed a horrific wave of brutality dubbed the ‘death-squad democracy’. The overthrow of Estrada was actively supported by the left, including sectors of the revolutionary left, who quickly found themselves the target of an unprecedented campaign of assassinations, disappearances, torture and imprisonment by their newly empowered ‘Madame President’.


Past and Present Mass Revolts Against Democracy: Guatemala, Iran, and Chile

The use of mobs and mass uprisings by oligarchs and empire builders has a long and notorious history. Three of the bloodiest cases, which scarred their societies for decades, took place in Guatemala in 1954, Iran in 1953, and Chile in 1973.
Democratically-elected Jacobo Árbenz was the first Guatemalan President to initiate agrarian reform and legalize trade unions, especially among landless farm workers. Árbenz’s reforms included the expropriation of unused, fallow land owned by the United Fruit Company, a giant US agro-business conglomerate. The CIA used its ties to local oligarchs and right-wing generals and colonels to instigate and finance mass-protests against a phony ‘communist-takeover’ of Guatemala under President Arbenz. The military used the manipulated mob violence and the ‘threat’ of Guatemala becoming a “Soviet satellite”, to stage a bloody coup. The coup leaders received air support from the CIA and slaughtered thousands of Arbenz supporters and turned the countryside into ‘killing fields’. For the next 50 years political parties, trade unions and peasant organizations were banned, an estimated 200,000 Guatemalans were murdered and millions were displaced.
In 1952 Mohammed Mossadegh was elected president of Iran on a moderate nationalist platform, after the overthrow of the brutal monarch. Mossadegh announced the nationalization of the petroleum industry. The CIA, with the collaboration of the local oligarchs, monarchists and demagogues organized ‘anti-communist’ street mobs to stage violent demonstrations providing the pretext for a monarchist- military coup. The CIA-control Iranian generals brought Shah Reza Pahlavi back from Switzerland and for the next 26 years Iran was a monarchist-military dictatorship, whose population was terrorized by the Savak, the murderous secret police.
The US oil companies received the richest oil concessions; the Shah joined Israel and the US in an unholy alliance against progressive nationalist dissidents and worked hand-in-hand to undermine independent Arab states. Tens of thousands of Iranians were killed, tortured and driven into exile. In 1979, a mass popular uprising led by Islamic movements, nationalist and socialist parties and trade unions drove out the Shah-Savak dictatorship. The Islamists installed a radical nationalist clerical regime, which retains power to this day despite decades of a US-CIA-funded destabilization campaign which has funded both terrorist groups and dissident liberal movements.
Chile is the best-known case of CIA-financed mob violence leading to a military coup. In 1970, the democratic socialist Dr. Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile. Despite CIA efforts to buy votes to block Congressional approval of the electoral results and its manipulation of violent demonstrations and an assassination campaign to precipitate a military coup, Allende took office.
During Allende’s tenure as president the CIA financed a variety of “direct actions” –from paying the corrupt leaders of a copper workers union to stage strikes and the truck owners associations to refuse to transport goods to the cities, to manipulating right-wing terrorist groups like the Patria y Libertad (Fatherland and Liberty) in their assassination campaigns. The CIA’s destabilization program was specifically designed to provoke economic instability through artificial shortages and rationing, in order to incite middle class discontent. This was made notorious by the street demonstrations of pot-banging housewives. The CIA sought to incite a military coup through economic chaos. Thousands of truck owners were paid not to drive their trucks leading to shortages in the cities, while right-wing terrorists blew up power stations plunging neighborhoods into darkness and shop owners who refused to join the ‘strike’ against Allende were vandalized. On September 11, 1973, to the chants of ‘Jakarta’ (in celebration of a 1964 CIA coup in Indonesia), a junta of US-backed Chilean generals grabbed power from an elected government. Tens of thousands of activists and government supporters were arrested, killed, tortured and forced into exile. The dictatorship denationalized and privatized its mining, banking and manufacturing sectors, following the free market dictates of Milton Friedman-trained economists (the so-call “Chicago Boys”). The dictatorship overturned 40 years of welfare, labor and land-reform legislation which had made Chile the most socially advanced country in Latin America. With the generals in power, Chile became the ‘neo-liberal model’ for Latin America. Mob violence and the so-called “middle class revolt”, led to the consolidation of oligarchic and imperial rule and a 17-year reign of terror under General Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. The whole society was brutalized and with the return of electoral politics, even former ‘leftist’ parties retained the dictatorship’s neo-liberal economic policies, its authoritarian constitution and the military high command. The ‘revolt of the middle class’ in Chile resulted in the greatest concentration of wealth in the hands of the oligarchs in Latin America to this day!


The Contemporary Use and Abuse of “Mass Revolts”: Egypt, Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand, and Argentina

In recent years “mass revolt” has become the instrument of choice when oligarchs, generals and other empire builders seeking ‘regime change’. By enlisting an assortment of nationalist demagogues and imperial-funded NGO ‘leaders’, they set the conditions for the overthrow of democratically elected governments and stage-managed the installment of their own “free market” regimes with dubious “democratic” credentials.
Not all the elected regimes under siege are progressive. Many ‘democracies’, like the Ukraine, are ruled by one set of oligarchs. In Ukraine, the elite supporting President Viktor Yanukovich, decided that entering into a deep client-state relationship with the European Union was not in their interests, and sought to diversify their international trade partners while maintaining lucrative ties with Russia. Their opponents, who are currently behind the street demonstrations in Kiev, advocate a client relationship with the EU, stationing of NATO troops, and cutting ties with Russia. In Thailand, the democratically-elected Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, represents a section of the economic elite with ties and support in the rural areas, especially the North-East, as well as deep trade relations with China. The opponents are urban-based, closer to the military-monarchists and favor a straight neo-liberal agenda linked to the US against the rural patronage-populist agenda of Ms. Shinawatra.
Egypt’s democratically-elected Mohamed Morsi government pursued a moderate Islamist policy with some constraints on the military and a loosening of ties with Israel in support of the Palestinians in Gaza. In terms of the IMF, Morsi sought compromise. The Morsi regime was in flux when it was overthrown: not Islamist nor secular, not pro-worker but also not pro-military. Despite all of its different pressure groups and contradictions, the Morsi regime permitted labor strikes, demonstrations, opposition parties, freedom of the press and assembly. All of these democratic freedoms have disappeared after waves of ‘mass street revolts’, choreographed by the military, set the conditions for the generals to take power and establish their brutal dictatorship – jailing and torturing tens of thousands and outlawing all opposition parties.
Mass demonstrations and demagogue-led direct actions also actively target democratically elected progressive governments, like Venezuela and Argentina, in addition to the actions against conservative democracies cited above. Venezuela, under Presidents Hugo Chavez and Vicente Maduro advance an anti-imperialist, pro-socialist program. ‘Mob revolts’ are combined with waves of assassinations, sabotage of public utilities, artificial shortages of essential commodities, vicious media slander and opposition election campaigns funded from the outside. In 2002, Washington teamed up with its collaborator politicians, Miami and Caracas-based oligarchs and local armed gangs, to mount a “protest movement” as the pretext for a planned business-military coup. The generals and members of the elite seized power and deposed and arrested the democratically-elected President Chavez. All avenues of democratic expression and representation were closed and the constitution annulled. In response to the kidnapping of ‘their president’, over a million Venezuelans spontaneously mobilized and marched upon the Presidential palace to demand the restoration of democracy and Hugo Chavez to the presidency. Backed by the large pro-democracy and pro-constitution sectors of the Venezuelan armed forces, the mass protests led to the coup’s defeat and the return of Chavez and democracy. All democratic governments facing manipulated imperial-oligarchic financed mob revolts should study the example of Venezuela’s defeat of the US-oligarch-generals’ coup. The best defense for democracy is found in the organization, mobilization and political education of the electoral majority. It is not enough to participate in free elections; an educated and politicized majority must also know how to defend their democracy in the streets as well as at the ballot box.
The lessons of the 2002 coup-debacle were very slowly absorbed by the Venezuelan oligarchy and their US patrons who continued to destabilize the economy in an attempt to undermine democracy and seize power. Between December 2002 and February 2003, corrupt senior oil executives of the nominally ‘public’ oil company PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela) organized a ‘bosses’ lockout stopping production, export and local distribution of oil and refined petroleum produces. ,Corrupt trade union officials, linked to the US National Endowment for Democracy, mobilized oil workers and other employees to support the lock-out, in their attempt to paralyze the economy. The government responded by mobilizing the other half of the oil workers who, together with a significant minority of middle management, engineers and technologists, called on the entire Venezuelan working class to take the oil fields and installations from the ‘bosses’. To counter the acute shortage of gasoline, President Chavez secured supplies from neighboring countries and overseas allies. The lockout was defeated. Several thousand supporters of the executive power grab were fired and replaced by pro-democracy managers and workers.
Having failed to overthrow the democratic government via “mass revolts”, the oligarchs turned toward a plebiscite on Chavez rule and later called for a nation-wide electoral boycott, both of which were defeated. These defeats served to strengthen Venezuela’s democratic institutions and decreased the presence of opposition legislators in the Congress. The repeated failures of the elite to grab power led to a new multi-pronged strategy using: (1) US-funded NGO’s to exploit local grievances and mobilize residents around community issues; (2) clandestine thugs to sabotage utilities, especially power, assassinate peasant recipients of land reform titles, as well as prominent officials and activists; (3) mass electoral campaign marches, and (4) economic destabilization via financial speculation, illegal foreign exchange trading, price gouging and hoarding of basic consumer commodities. The purpose of these measures is to incite mass discontent, using their control of the mass media to provoke another ‘mass revolt’ to set the stage for another US-backed ‘power grab’. Violent street protests by middle class students from the elite Central University were organized by oligarch-financed demagogues. ‘Demonstrations’ included sectors of the middle class and urban poor angered by the artificial shortages and power outages. The sources of popular discontent were rapidly and effectively addressed at the top by energetic government measures: business owners engaged in hoarding and price gouging were jailed; prices of essential staples were reduced; hoarded goods were seized from warehouses and distributed to the poor; the import of essential goods were increased and saboteurs were pursued. The Government’s effective intervention resonated with the mass of the working class, the lower-middle class and the rural and urban poor and restored their support. Government supporters took to the streets and lined up at the ballot box to defeat the campaign of destabilization. The government won a resounding electoral mandate allowing it to move decisively against the oligarchs and their backers in Washington.
The Venezuelan experience shows how energetic government counter-measures can restore support and deepen progressive social changes for the majority. This is because forceful progressive government intervention against anti-democratic oligarchs, combined with the organization, political education and mobilization of the majority of voters can decisively defeat these stage-managed mass revolts.
Argentina is an example of a weakened democratic regime trying to straddle the fence between the oligarchs and the workers, between the combined force of the agro-business and mining elites and working and middle class constituencies dependent on social policies. The elected-Kirchner-Fernandez government has faced “mass revolts” in the a series of street demonstrations whipped up by conservative agricultural exporters over taxes; the Buenos Aires upper-middle class angered at ‘crime, disorder and insecurity’, a nationwide strike by police officials over ‘salaries’ who ‘looked the other way’ while gangs of ‘lumpen’ street thugs pillaged and destroyed stores. Taken altogether, these waves of mob action in Argentina appear to be part of a politically-directed destabilization campaign by the authoritarian Right who have instigated or, at least, exploited these events. Apart from calling on the military to restore order and conceding to the ‘salary’ demands of the striking police, the Fernandez government has been unable or unwilling to mobilize the democratic electorate in defense of democracy. The democratic regime remains in power but it is under siege and vulnerable to attack by domestic and imperial opponents.


Conclusion

Mass revolts are two-edged swords: they can be a positive force when they occur against military dictatorships like Pinochet or Mubarak, against authoritarian absolutist monarchies like Saudi Arabia, a colonial-racist state like Israel, and imperial occupations like against the US in Afghanistan. But they have to be directed and controlled by popular local leaders seeking to restore democratic majority rule.
History, from ancient times to the present, teaches us that not all ‘mass revolts’ achieve, or are even motivated by, democratic objectives. Many have served oligarchs seeking to overthrow democratic governments, totalitarian leaders seeking to install fascist and pro-imperial regimes, demagogues and authoritarians seeking to weaken shaky democratic regimes and militarists seeking to start wars for imperial ambitions.
Today, “mass revolts” against democracy have become standard operational procedure for Western European and US rulers who seek to circumvent democratic procedures and install pro-imperial clients. The practice of democracy is denigrated while the mob is extolled in the imperial Western media. This is why armed Islamist terrorists and mercenaries are called “rebels” in Syria and the mobs in the streets of Kiev (Ukraine) attempting to forcibly depose a democratically-elected government are labeled “pro-Western democrats”.
The ideology informing the “mass revolts” varies from “anti-communist” and “anti-authoritarian” in democratic Venezuela, to “pro-democracy” in Libya (even as tribal bands and mercenaries slaughter whole communities), Egypt and the Ukraine.
Imperial strategists have systematized, codified and made operational “mass revolts” in favor of oligarchic rule. International experts, consultants, demagogues and NGO officials have carved out lucrative careers as they travel to ‘hot spots’ and organize ‘mass revolts’ dragging the target countries into deeper ‘colonization’ via European or US-centered ‘integration’. Most local leaders and demagogues accept the double agenda: ‘protest today and submit to new masters tomorrow’. The masses in the street are fooled and then sacrificed. They believe in a ‘New Dawn’ of Western consumerism, higher paid jobs and greater personal freedom … only to be disillusioned when their new rulers fill the jails with opponents and many former protestors, raise prices, cut salaries, privatize state companies, sell off the most lucrative firms to foreigners and double the unemployment rate.
When the oligarchs ‘stage-manage’ mass revolts and takeover the regime, the big losers include the democratic electorate and most of the protestors. Leftists and progressives, in the West or in exile, who had mindlessly supported the ‘mass revolts’ will publish their scholarly essays on ‘the revolution (sic) betrayed” without admitting to their own betrayal of democratic principles.
If and when the Ukraine enters into the European Union, the exuberant street demonstrators will join the millions of jobless workers in Greece, Portugal, and Spain, as well as millions of pensioners brutalized by “austerity programs” imposed by their new rulers, the ‘Troika’ in Brussels. If these former demonstrators take to the streets once more, in disillusionment at their leaders’ “betrayal”, they can enjoy their ‘victory’ under the batons of “NATO and European Union-trained police” while the Western mass media will have moved elsewhere in support of ‘democracy’.
James Petras, a former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York, owns a 50-year membership in the class struggle, is an adviser to the landless and jobless in Brazil and Argentina, and is co-author of Globalization Unmasked (Zed Books).