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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Dancing with the Revolution

Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice

The Revolution Is Televised

A protest or coup d’etat against one of our dictators may usher in yet another one of our dictators.

As others wage revolutions, we watch. The revolution is televised after all, we say with a sigh of relief. Between Dancing with the Stars, American Idol and college hoops, we can watch a bit of revolution tonight for a change of pace.

There are basically two kinds of mass protest overseas. Those that are orchestrated by America, as rigged by our CIA, or those that are supposedly against us. I say supposedly because a protest or coup d’etat against one of our dictators may usher in yet another one of our dictators.

America has so many dictators up her sleeve. Whichever shell she flips over, there’s a dictator underneath. Though America always trumpets democracy, she always, and I mean always, prefers dictators for her client states. A dictator guarantees “stability,” which is good for (American) businesses. He can also be bought. This tyrant will enrich himself while selling out his country to the USA. To wipe out domestic dissent, this evil “strong man” will send his soldiers to America to learn how to torture and conduct “counter insurgency.”

The year I was born, the CIA orchestrated a coup against South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem, whom it had propped up in the first place. That same year, Abdul Karim Kassem of Iraq was killed in a Ba’athist coup engineered by — guess whom? — the CIA. Out of that mess would rise CIA asset, Saddam Hussein. Ruling Iraq for 24 years, he was one of America’s favorite sumbitches, until he got a few ideas of his own, like trading oil for Euros, for example. That’s when we had to invade his country and string him up. John F. Kennedy was also killed in 1963, but, ah, the CIA is not to be blamed here. Kennedy was simply blown away by a lone, supernaturally gifted sniper.

Our domestic leaders are similarly homogeneous. Our so-called Presidents are remarkably uniform in how they deal, or rather, not deal, with the Pentagon, Wall Street, and Israel, etc, with how they never disturb that awful moloch, our military industrial complex.

The job of White House Press Secretary is rather superfluous, don’t you think? I mean, the President is already a voluble spokesman for the power that be. Our President is a White House Press Secretary. He doesn’t lead or decide so much as talk, talk, and talk. Every four years we throw out the bum, to bring in another hobo. (My apologies to actual bums and hobos everywhere.) We expend so much energy and hope into this merry-go-round that there’s nothing left for real changes, not that we’re really inclined. Life is good as long as Kobe is running back and forth, the corn syrup overflows, and there’s some jive meat in our tacos.

There are six political parties represented in the French Parliament. In the Italian one, there are seven. In the Japanese diet, there are eight parties. These numbers are typical of democracies worldwide, but in the United States, supposedly the beacon of democracy, only two parties dominate all political power and discourse. Moreover, these two parties are two faces of the same corrupt, by now more than worthless coin.

Sharing the same rotten substance, Obama and Bush are both apologists for endless war, torture and massive corruption. Bush found the Department of Homeland Security. Obama increased its budget. Bush invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, fired missiles into Pakistan. In two years, Obama has killed more Afghans and Pakistanis than Bush in five. Obama has increased Bush’s war budget. The only differences between Obama and Bush are their faces and diction, yet when Obama was elected, even our radicals wept tears of joy. Is there any specimen more pitiful, clueless and impotent than the American so-called progressive?

On a California campus long known for its supposed radicalism, I talked to a highly regarded young professor. “You can talk about Fascism nowadays, but if you criticize Communism, people still cringe,” I observed. “Who’s talking about Fascism?!” she responded.

We watch the foreign protests and think, Damn, that’s dangerous! People actually get killed! Our protests, by contrast, are civil displays of brief durations. They threaten and disturb nothing. We ask permission beforehand to be allowed to parade down the street, carrying cute signs. Our protestors vie with each others to come up with the cleverest signs. Though seen by almost no one, they are dutifully photographed by their makers to be posted on FaceBook.

Recently, some of our leading progressive thinkers chained themselves to the White House fence for an hour or so. Though no one noticed, it was considered a success by the organizers. The protestors were demanding that our White House Press Secretary cum President withdraw all American troops from Iraq. Of course, no one expected our military occupation to end simply because two dozen Americans briefly detained themselves, so this action was strictly symbolic.

In fact, all of our protests are strictly symbolic these days. Since we’re reluctant to threaten or even inconvenience the system, or even ourselves, for that matter, nothing can come of our dissent. To press our demands, we don’t even dare to call for a general strike. It’s true that with little union activity, it’s difficult to organize workers, but since our factories are mostly gone, the unions are kaput.

Nowadays, Americans are constantly urged to be vigilant of suspicious activities. Even taking photos in a public place can draw attention from the authorities. I myself have been harassed in several states. Citing the Patriot Act, a bike-riding private security guard threatened to arrest me in Kansas City, KS. In Cleveland, a Greyhound bus driver kicked me off his bus because I refused to store my expensive camera and lenses in the luggage hold. Stories like these abound. With so much hysteria drummed up by Homeland Security, one would think that bombs are constantly being planted all over America, but, in fact, the exact opposite is true. When a bomb plot is actually discovered, more often than not it is the work of the FBI!

In 1969, 93 bombs exploded in New York City. Half were politically motivated. Even in Seattle, 33 bombs went off. Back then, radical Americans targeted military recruiting offices, police stations, government buildings, homes of officials and sometimes banks. Most of these explosives only blew out windows, knocked a few doors of their hinges, but on May 11, 1970, the Atomic Energy Commission in Rocky Flats, CO was bombed, causing $45 million in damage. Rocky Flats was where they made components for nuclear weapons. Now Americans no longer bomb symbols of militarism or crooked finance. We only try to torch and blow up abortion clinics.

Most Americans, left or right, are now opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet our troops are still there, and will remain for a long time. Most Americans opposed the bank bailouts, yet our government bailed them out anyway. After Americans became enraged by the invasive airport scanners, Washington ordered more of these privacy violating, cancer inducing machines. The sex abuse airport groping also continued. When the Pentagon failed to account for $2.3 trillion, that’s right, when $2.3 trillion have been stolen in full view, our political leadership didn’t bat an eye. Our President can now declare anyone a terrorist, and order him locked up without trial or even shot, without anyone knowing. If that isn’t Fascism, stupid professor, what is?!

These televised revolutions are already becoming old hat. What do these pissed off people have to do with us? Where’s that remote control? Let’s switch channels.

Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories and five of poems, and a just released novel, Love Like Hate. He's tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog, State of the Union. Read other articles by Linh.

This article was posted on Thursday, February 17th, 2011 at 8:01am and is filed under Activism, Afghanistan, Democracy, Egypt, Fascism, Iraq, Media, Military/Militarism, Obama, Revolution.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

US, Al-Qaida, and the Arab Revolt

Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice

US, Al-Qaida, and the Arab Revolt

On December 24 2004, I wrote an essay, “America and Islam: Seeking Parallels,” for which I received much heat from Zionist and right-wing bloggers in the United States.

The article made the point that the leaders of al-Qaida believe that they have to carry their war to the home ground of the ‘far enemy’ – the United States, Israel and Western powers – in order to free the Muslim world from foreign domination. This anyone can verify from the numerous communiqués of al-Qaida.

To say this is not to endorse the terrorist methods that al-Qaida employs. This was my moral position then: and it is my moral position now. At the same time, we should not shrink from recognizing that the total wars waged by many states, including the United States, since WWII differ from the methods of al-Qaida only in the infinitely greater scale of the destruction they wreak upon civilians.

The article made another critical point. It argued that al-Qaida, in some measure, reflects the political and moral failings of Muslim societies. If Muslims had shown more spine in resisting local tyrannies through non-violent means, their courage would have scotched the violent extremism of groups like al-Qaida.

This is how I argued this point in my 2004 article:

Above all, the question that the hijackers of 9-11 pose to their Islamic compatriots is this: “What have you risked to oppose your own tyrants, your own ruling cliques, tribes and sectaries, who are so easily co-opted by foreign powers, who have worked so treacherously to enslave their own peoples, who sell off their national treasures, and who have secretly worked with Israel to complete the dismantling of Palestinian society?”

“We engage in this violence against the United States,” they say, “because you force us to, because you have failed to act against the American surrogates in your own countries. Because you have failed to act politically and with courage, we send you this message of horror, of shame. We advertise your shame before the world. We announce the failure of a billion and a half people – keepers of the Qur’an and heirs to a moral civilization – to overthrow the craven ruling classes who commit treachery against their own societies, their own history, every day that they cling to power.”

“Mobilize now,” they repeat, “and we will join again your political struggle at home – in the Islamic lands stretching from Mauritania to Mindanao, from Bosnia to Borneo, from Jerusalem to Jakarta, from Tangier to Tanzania, and from Karachi to Kasghar. If you are willing to struggle, to fight, to secure your own homes, your own societies, your enemies cannot bind you through surrogates. America and Israel will have to fight you in your lands. Is America ready to fight a billion and a half people in their own streets, their own squares, their own backyards?”

“God,” the hijackers taunt, “does not change the condition of a people unless they want to change it themselves.”
Some ten years later, the Arab peoples are answering al-Qaida’s taunt. Arab peoples, leaderless and unarmed, have risen against their tyrannies. They have already overthrown two tyrants – in Tunisia and Egypt. Their revolt is spreading to other Arab countries: and if they are not rolled back, it will spread to other corrupt tyrannies in the world.

At no time has al-Qaida been more marginal than it is now. What young man will now answer their call to launch terrorist attacks against local tyrannies or their foreign backers? The attacks of al-Qaida gave the United States the excuse it needed to launch its ‘global war against terror’ – to invade, occupy and destroy two Muslim countries and launch attacks against many more.

This must worry the US and Israel a great deal. Very rapidly, their concocted rationale for waging wars against Muslims lands will lose its credibility with Americans.

The US and its allies must be working overtime to stop the Arab revolt in its tracks, to prevent it from spreading to Jordan, Algeria, and Saudi Arabia.

In Tunisia and Egypt, the United States and its allies will work – and no doubt are working – to save as much of the old regime as possible. In Egypt – at the moment – the US has supported a coup that will allow the military generals, all of them Mubarak loyalists, to ‘manage the transition.’ Will the Egyptian people stand for this? If they want the generals out, will they succeed? Will the US support the people or the generals?

No doubt the US and Israel have a strong interest in opposing the Arab revolt: the latter more than the former.
At the same time, sober heads in the US understand the risks of neutralizing the surge of people power in the Arab world. Pushing back this revolt, or encouraging the military to cheat the Arab peoples of the fruits of their victory, will hand the victory to al-Qaida.

Angry and frustrated, some Arabs will want to oppose their tyrannies by violent means. Others may swell the ranks of al-Qaida, convinced that they cannot defeat the ‘near enemy’ unless they first weaken the resolve of the ‘far enemy.’
Israelis, however, see the Arab revolt as a disaster. It threatens to bring down the Arab tyrannies that have worked with Israel to keep the Palestinians down. Israel will lobby the United States mightily to stand against the Arab revolt.

At this juncture, the United States faces a clear choice between the Arab peoples and al-Qaida. Can we hope that this time the United States will choose wisely?

M. Shahid Alam is professor of economics at Northeastern University. His latest book is Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism (Palgrave Macmillan, November 2009). He may be contacted at: alqalam02760@yahoo.com. Read other articles by M. Shahid, or visit M. Shahid's website.

This article was posted on Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 at 8:02am and is filed under Imperialism, Middle East.

Jimmy Carter’s Gift of “Apartheid”: Use It

Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice

Jimmy Carter’s Gift of “Apartheid”: Use It

Carter Harassed with $5 million Suit by Israeli Lawyers

Eclipsed by the events in Egypt, news from its little neighbor has not gleaned much notice save for media angst that Egyptian democracy might not be as genial as was the Mubarak dictatorship to the relentless, long term ethnic cleansing of an indigenous people, the Palestinians. But news there was as Israeli “human rights” lawyers went public with a libel suit against Jimmy Carter for his precise little book, “Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid.” The stunner to the Israelis lies in a single word in Carter’s title, “Apartheid”

Names, names, names. What constitutes an accurate description of Israel? There are many appellations, none of them appealing. The partisans of Israel like to call it “the Jewish state.” But that name carries a disconcerting note. We do not like “Islamic states,” and “Christian state” calls forth images of fascism, bigotry and Crusades. Does “Jewish state” sound any more tolerant?

Then there is the very old fashioned label, “a people without a land and a land without a people.” Not even the European colonialists of the Americas had the chutzpah to deny the very existence of the indigenous peoples as they were exterminated or put into reservations, the Gazas of the New World. Though that racist little phrase continued to Golda Meir who denied the very existence of the Palestinians, at least by the time of the terrorist Yitzhak Shamir, the Palestinians had transmogrified into “insects” or “cockroaches.” At least Shamir allowed for their pesky, subhuman existence.

Then there is “colonial, settler state,” an accurate name well understood by the developing world as it continues its struggle to throw off the hidden shackles of European domination – but not well understood as yet in the more or less post-colonial West. Of course, there is the “Zionist entity,” again well understood by the oppressed of the Middle East, but a mystery to many in the West who have been trained to perceive it as anti-Semitic.

Carter has popularized the term “Apartheid,” both accurate and easily understood, a term that has a “stench in the nostrils of the world. And it is precisely what is going on in Israel and the territories it occupies. Do you want to call Israel a democracy? Fine if we understand that it is a democracy in the same sense that South African was under Apartheid. The Apartheid in the West Bank is so blatant that it can be seen from a satellite where the Jewish colonists have their own roads in the West Bank. And if the West Bank is a haven for terrorists, why oh why would Israelis keep colonizing on the far side of the great “security” wall; in fact, an Apartheid wall.

And the allegory of South African Apartheid plays itself out in amazing detail here. Gaza, an outdoor prison, is like a Bantustan, a virtual prison where only Arabs reside. Israel proper has Arab “citizens” with diminished rights based on their Arab status, much like the “coloreds” of the old South Africa. And then there are the Arabs of the West Bank, living in poverty adjacent to, and separated from, great wealth of Jews, much like the townships of the old South Africa. Anti-Arab racism cuts across the society in many different ways. It is a core feature of Israeli society and not just superficial.

But the great advantage of the term “Apartheid” is not simply its accuracy but the fact that everyone in the West and on the planet knows it was wrong in South Africa – and wrong in the US where it bore the synonym of Segregation. And so it is also wrong in Israel. By putting this single word into the mainstream of political discourse, Carter has given us a weapon in the struggle against the slow genocide of the Palestinian people. It should always be used – the Apartheid Israeli State or the Apartheid State of Israel or even simpler Apartheid Israel. It is a gift inserted into the mainstream; use it routinely before it fades away.

And now there are “human rights lawyers” from Apartheid Israel attempting to sue Carter and his publisher in New York, claiming that the book’s classification as “non-fiction” violates NY’s consumer protection laws. It is a landmark case of sorts since it is the first time a president and his publisher have been sued for violating consumer protection laws. This sinks even deeper into absurdity than the suit of the Texas cattlemen of Cactus Feeders Inc.against Oprah for libeling beef.

One of the lead lawyers from the Apartheid state is Nitsana Darshan-Leitner who rose to prominence just out of law school in the 1990s when she helped litigate a case on behalf of victims of the Achille Lauro hijacking of 1985 in which, tragically, one Jewish American was killed by terrorists who took over the ship. But she is silent these days on the killing of one Turkish American and six Turks aboard the Mavi Marmara, which attempted to break the blockade of Gaza. There is a crucial difference between the two incidents: the first was the act of individual terorists; the second was the act of a state, which must therefore be labeled a terrorist state, the Apartheid state of Israel. Recently the Turkish government released its report on the incident on the Mavi Marmara which points to nothing less than cold-blooded murder by the agents of the Apartheid state . Precisely what kind of human rights lawyer is Darshan-Leitner and her like? Judge for yourself .

Carter is certainly being harassed for his contribution to the discussion of Israel in the US, but it amounts really to a desperate and flimsy attack on him. Nevertheless it shows just how much the champions of the Apartheid state of Israel fear this stark statement of the truth. There is much in a name. Carter has given us the gift of “Apartheid.” Let us use the term ceaselessly so that the truth about the Apartheid nature of Israel becomes crystal clear.

John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com. Read other articles by John V..

This article was posted on Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 at 8:01am and is filed under Israel/Palestine, South Africa.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

The Shadow Government


Constitution Society

The Shadow Government

Copyright © 1994 Constitution Society. Permission is hereby granted to copy for noncommercial use.

Secret Rule

It is becoming increasingly apparent to American citizens that government is no longer being conducted in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, or, within states, according to state constitutions. While people have recognized for more than 150 years that the rich and powerful often corrupt individual officials, or exert undue influence to get legislation passed that favors their interests, most Americans still cling to the naive belief that such corruption is exceptional, and that most of the institutions of society, the courts, the press, and law enforcement agencies, still largely comply with the Constitution and the law in important matters. They expect that these corrupting forces are disunited and in competition with one another, so that they tend to balance one another.

Mounting evidence makes it clear that the situation is far worse than most people think, that during the last several decades the U.S. Constitution has been effectively overthrown, and that it is now observed only as a façade to deceive and placate the masses. What has replaced it is what many call the Shadow Government. It still, for the most part, operates in secret, because its control is not secure. The exposure of this regime and its operations must now become a primary duty of citizens who still believe in the Rule of Law and in the freedoms which this country is supposed to represent.<1>

Transition to Oligarchy

It is difficult to identify a single date or event that marks the overthrow, but we can identify some critical steps.

The first was the Dick Act of 1903, which repealed the Militia Act of 1792 and tried to relegate the Constitutional Militia to the National Guard, under control of what is now the U.S. Defense Department. The second was the Federal Reserve Act, which established a central bank only nominally under the control of the government.

Further erosion of constitutional governance was motivated by several challenges which the powerful felt required them to put aside their differences and unite. The first was the Great Depression of 1933-1941. The second was World War II and the threat from fascism, followed by the Cold War and the threat from Soviet imperialism and from communism.

The third defies credibility, but cannot be avoided. UFOs and aliens. Despite the lack of hard evidence accessible to ordinary citizens, there is enough testimonial evidence to compel a reasonable person to conclude three things: UFOs exist, they are intelligently directed, and they are not ours.<2> Even if that were all that the government knew about them, minds already paranoid from the Cold War could hardly help but perceive such things as a significant potential threat, one that required secrecy, preparation, and disregard for provisions of a Constitution that were inconvenient. There are, however, enough leaks from government officials to indicate that the government knows a great deal about them that it is concealing from the public.

The fourth is the eco-crisis, which combines both the ecological and economic crises. Many leaders have recognized for a long time that we are headed for disaster, not a kind of cyclical downturn like the Great Depression, but an irreversible decline brought about by a combination of resource depletion, environmental degradation, and overpopulation, playing out in an anarchic international system of disparate nation- states, national currencies, national banks, and multinational corporations, exacerbated by traditional tribal rivalries, class conflict, and different languages and religions.<3>

Confronted with the political fact that to deal with the problems faced in the last half of the 20th century, it was difficult enough to pass legislation thought to be needed, without having to also adopt the amendments to the U.S. Constitution necessary to make such legislation constitutional, it became too easy to just adopt more and more legislation without worrying about its constitutionality, and depend on compliant officials and judges to go along with it, which for the most part, they have done. This was facilitated by the lack of sufficiently strong protests from the people, many of whom, ignorant of constitutional rights and limitations on governmental powers, and focused on the problems to be solved, supported much of the legislation.<4>

We can also identify several insidious developments which seemed necessary and harmless at the time, but which led to the present situation. One was the rise of military and civilian intelligence organs during World War II. The need to prevent leaks of military secrets brought a censorship apparatus that gained substantial control over the flow of information through the press, the broadcast media, telephonic and telegraphic communications, and the mail. However, instead of dismantling that apparatus when the war was over, we immediately transitioned to the Cold War, and the information control apparatus only went underground and became somewhat less obtrusive. This led to the present situation in which the intelligence apparatus maintains effective control over the major media, can tap anyone's phone without a court order, reads people's mail, monitors their finances, and gathers information on citizens and their activities that threatens their privacy and liberties.

1947 was a critical year. It was the year in which UFOs became a matter of public concern, and in which it appears we recovered at least one crashed vehicle and perhaps at least one of its occupants. It is also the year that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established, ostensibly to bring together the disparate intelligence agencies that had often been operating at cross-purposes. It was also the beginning of the use of "black budgets" for government programs, the existence of which was kept secret from both the public and most if not all members of Congress. This led later to the establishment of more agencies, such as the National Security Agency, whose entire budget was black, thus preventing effective oversight.

The situation had evolved to the extent that, at the end of President Eisenhower's second term, he warned in a speech of the potential danger to our freedoms from a "military-industrial complex". In fact, by that time, it had become a "intelligence- military-industrial-financial-political-media- criminal" complex, which reached into almost every institution in this country, and into many around the world.

What had developed was beginning to look more and more like the system of political control that prevailed in the Soviet Union, in which real decisions of government were made not by the official organs of government, but by the parallel structure of the Communist Party, backed by the KGB. In competing with the Soviets, we had taken on their methods and attributes of political control.

But this apparatus did not seem to function as an effective Shadow Government, able to make and enforce decisions apart from the official government, until it came together to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. That was the watershed event. After that, too many people had too much to hide to allow the situation to return to governance as usual.

Since then, the Shadow Government has grown and tried to strengthen its grip on every sector of the society, motivated in part by honest concern about the very real threats we have faced, and in part by venality and greed, which brought increasing corruption and the effective incorporation of organized crime into the mainstream of government.

It appears that 1963 is also the year in which the Establishment Media sector of the Shadow Government was given effective control over computerized voting in the United States, through its National Election Service, as part of a deal in which they went along with the coverup of the Kennedy Assassination through the Warren Commission. While campaign money continued to buy influence over elected officials, if it was not sufficient, the Shadow Government had other options. It put officials in compromising situations, then used its evidence to blackmail them into compliance. Failing that, it could easily select the winner of any election, and suppress the support which third-party candidates might attain.

Structure and Decisionmaking

A key question about the Shadow Government is how does it make decisions and carry them out. Where is the center? Some think it lies in a few major financial institutions. Others that it lies in the intelligence apparatus. Still others that it has no permanent center, but operates by consensus, with shifting factions that confer through various mechanisms. Some think that those mechanisms are reflected in public associations such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Tri- lateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Federal Reserve, the World Bank, or the International Monetary Fund.<5>

That the key personalities in every major institution should associate and confer through various associations is not in itself a matter of concern, if all that was involved was the development of a consensus. But there is evidence that a centralized decisionmaking process exists, because too much is done that could not otherwise occur, and that the process is contemptuous of the Constitution and increasingly willing to violate it. That suggests a permanent apparatus, a bureaucracy, and that points to the intelligence and financial bureaucracies. Therefore, the real decisions may be made not by public figures, but by faceless persons operating in secret.

Most available evidence indicates that the center is in the intelligence apparatus, and that it largely controls all the other components of the system, including the financial. However, it also appears that the control is imperfect, subject to resistance if it tries to go too far.

It also appears that there are some distinct factions involved, the two major contenders being those more highly motivated persons concerned about meeting the challenges we face, the other being the more corrupt ones trying to expand their power and wealth. The alliance between these factions appears to be increasingly strained as growing corruption begins to impair the effectiveness of the institutions of society to meet the perceived challenges.

An analogy might be to a sinking ship, in which some want to build and equip lifeboats and others who want to make sure they are the ones who get to go in them. Each needs the other, for the time being, but the latter are beginning to threaten the production and seaworthiness of the lifeboats.

What we have is in many ways a classic oligarchy, with multiple components in an uneasy alliance with one another. No one individual is paramount, and anyone can be replaced if he gets too far out of line, by some combination of the others, each of whom derives his power from the institutions and assets under his influence.

Of course, the ones who get trampled under this regime are the ordinary people, who receive just enough under the deal to keep them quiet. The Powers That Be fear above all that the people might rise up and overthrow them, something that the people could still do if they could ever act in concert. Social control therefore becomes a matter of keeping them placated, divided, and misinformed.

Unfortunately for their scheme, they face the same problem the Roman Empire did. To keep the people placated, they are forced to pay them off, and meet increasing demands for such payoffs, while growth of the productive sector falters, or even shrinks relative to the population. Economic growth and the solutions to our social problems are being impaired by the depredations of the corrupt elements of the Shadow Government, who are concentrating assets in a way and at a rate that threaten the viability of the economy. The Romans solved the problem of keeping their citizens supplied with bread and circuses by predation of outlying provinces. Modern capitalist nations tried the same thing, but that imperial order is breaking down, and the only thing left is economic growth. If that growth falters, the welfare state fails, and with it the social stability on which the Established Order depends.

Shadow Finance

Some of the best indications that the Shadow Government is not centered in the financial sector are the things it has to do to finance itself. Shadow Government is expensive. We can identify the main sources of its revenue:

(1) Black budgets. This is the core of its operations, but is not enough to secure its control over the country and the world.

(2) Drug trade. It has seized control of the major part of the illegal traffic in addictive substances, in part by using the organs of law enforcement to eliminate competition, and by gaining control of the money and the ways it gets re-introduced into the economy.

(3) Raiding financial institutions. This is what was done with the S&Ls, and is being done, more slowly, with the banks. It involves several aspects: diversion of the funds, seizure of smaller institutions by a few large ones under Shadow Government control, with the seizure financed by the taxpayers, and acquisition under distressed prices of the assets of those institutions, many of which are well-positioned business enterprises that give the Shadow Government both control of the key enterprises in most business sectors and sources of revenue. The Savings & Loan raid was used to finance a major expansion of the Shadow Government. However, it is not a method that can be repeated.

(4) Public authorities. These are quasi- governmental enterprises that control substantial assets, often taxpayer-subsidized, without effective accountability. They include housing, port, energy, water, transportation, and educational authorities.<6> To this might also be added various utilities, and both public and publicly-regulated private monopolies, like local telephone and cable companies. They are also a major source of government contracts.

(5) Government contracts. Major source of diverted funds, but must often be shared with others involved.

(6) Arms trade. Another major source of funds, both direct and diverted. But requires payoffs to local officials.

Shadow Control

The problem with secret government is that to remain secret, it cannot involve too many people who are aware of the situation. The more that become involved, the greater the chance that some of them who retain some sense of honor might defect. An occasional defector can be disabled, killed or discredited, but a flood of them could be disastrous. That is what brought down the Bolshevik regime in the Soviet Union.

Shadow control therefore consists largely of the placement of shadow agents in key positions in all of the institutions that are to be controlled. Since they cannot reveal their true role, they are also somewhat constrained in the actions they can take. What they do has to fit their jobs and not conflict in an obvious way with the mission of the organization, even if they head it. Some of the main targeted institutions are the following:

(1) Top and key lower positions in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Key judges, especially presiding judges who assign cases.

(2) Staff positions under the top positions, such as the congressional staff members who really run Congress.

(3) Intelligence agencies. The CIA<7>, NSA and various military intelligence divisions. Among their functions are death squads that eliminate troublesome persons, although they usually avoid doing that to more prominent ones. They also have developed mind control techniques that can be used to mess up the minds of people they want to discredit or disable.<8> Actually, almost every department of government has an intelligence function, and that function is the Shadow Government's main point of control of the department.

(4) Military organizations, law enforcement, and taxing agencies, especially the IRS. Not only federal, but also state and local, at least in the major cities. The IRS and other agencies are used to harass persons considered troublesome, and sometimes to prosecute them on trumped up charges, in which evidence is planted or manufactured and government witnesses perjure themselves.

(5) Major banks, insurance companies, pension funds, holding companies, utilities, public authorities, contractors, manufacturers, distributors, transport firms, security services, credit reporting services. Forbidden by law from maintaining dossiers on citizens not the subject of criminal investigation, the agencies get around the restriction by using contractors to maintain the data for them, and have amazingly detailed data on almost everyone. When you hire one of the major security services, you are turning over the keys to your premises to the shadow government.

(6) Major media. Newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations. Together, they control the National Election Service, which in turn controls the outcome of computerized elections.<9> They suppress coverage of certain subjects, and are the channel for the Shadow Government's propaganda and disinformation campaigns. A major part of the budget of the CIA is for film and video production. They aren't making training films.

(7) Communications networks. Telephone, telegraph, cable and satellite. The Shadow Government can bug any communication they wish, without bothering with a court order, and they regularly monitor dissidents and other key figures. Major holes in their control here are the Internet and public-key encryption, which the Shadow Government is trying to suppress. Although the Internet can be monitored, it cannot be effectively controlled, and it is emerging as a major threat to Shadow control.

(8) Organized crime. Despite occasional convictions, they are now mostly treated as a profit center and as the executors of the dirty jobs. They are also the providers of vices for the corrupt members of government, which vices are also used to blackmail and control people.

(9) Education. Universities and public education. Universities are the least effectively controlled components, but still important, largely for recruitment. Main aim here is to divert student activists into unproductive channels, or to get students so involved in careerism that they ignore the important issues.

(10) Civic, political, and labor organizations. The two major political parties. Political action committees. League of Women Voters. Trade and professional associations, such as the American Bar Association and the American Medical Association. Labor unions.

(11) International organizations. The United Nations, NATO, the IMF. Multinational corporations.

(12) Governmental and nongovernmental institutions of other countries. We are doing many of the same things there that are being done in the United States, especially in the more advanced countries.

Concentration of Power

A major aim of Shadow Government control has been to bring most of the assets and revenues of the economy under the control of fewer and fewer people. Part of this is causing the failure of smaller organizations and the absorption of them by a few large chains. This is being done with banks and other financial institutions, newspapers and magazines, television and radio stations, agriculture and mining producers, distributors and retailers, computer manufacturers, energy and chemical companies, medical providers, and pharmaceutical companies. Anti-trust enforcement has been weak, used only in a few sectors, and then only after major concentrations of economic power has already been achieved.

The process goes beyond normal tendencies toward monopoly or restraint of trade, or the economies of scale that support the old adage that "the rich get richer". It is an attempt to consolidate political control. The result has been for a smaller and smaller proportion of the population to control a larger and larger proportion of the assets and revenues of the economy, while the middle class shrinks. We are moving away from the original model of the universal middle class, and toward a third-world model of a small upper class and a large poor class, with a small middle class that mainly serve as minions of the rich.

The Shadow Plan

The Shadow Government appears to be operating according to some plan. Many commentators have dubbed this plan the "New World Order", suggested by the use of that phrase in a speech by George Bush, referring to the state of affairs following the end of the Cold War. Actually, that phrase goes back to the beginning of the Republic, and appears on the Great Seal of the United States as the motto, Novus Ordo Seclorum. What the Shadow Government itself calls the plan is uncertain, however, some of its elements are now emerging.

One element is the disarming of the people.<10> There are serious plans and preparations for a general warrantless sweep of every location in the country to confiscate weapons. Information about these plans comes from military and intelligence personnel who are involved in preparing to carry them out. Such an action would mean seizing more than 300 million firearms from more than 70 million citizens. Obviously, after such a sweep there would be so much public outrage that there could not be another election. Therefore, it would also be the formal overthrow of the Constitution.

There are indications that after things settled down, the Shadow Government would allow the establishment of a parliamentary system that would provide a façade of democracy, just as it does in other countries that have such a system, without effective limits on the powers of government, where "rights" endure only as long as there is a sufficiently strong constituency that defends them. Such a system is not a republican form of government, based on the Rule of Law, or a representative democracy, but merely a tool for control by an oligarchy.

There is also suspicious circumstantial evidence that part of the plan is the release of diseases, of which HIV/AIDS is one, to reduce the world population, selectively.

A key part of the plan seems to involve the development and use of mind control techno logies, both electronic and chemical, which allow the elite to disable or discredit dissidents and keep the people compliant and productive. The experimentation that has been done on this is one of the great coverups and abuses of human rights of our time, far exceeding that of the radiation experiments that are now coming to light.<11>

Restoring Constitutional Governance

The restoration of constitutional governance need not require a violent revolution, and we should avoid violence if possible. It can be brought about in much the way it happened in the Soviet Union. This involves several elements:

(1) Exposure ("glasnost"). The Shadow Government, even more than the old Soviet regime, depends on secrecy. Uncover it and it loses most of its power. We need to end black budgets, require the declassification of most classified documents, especially those pertaining to UFOs and aliens, and adopt and enforce sunshine laws to require full disclosure of not just meetings and agreements among officials, but also among major organizations of all kinds which may exercise an undue influence on political decisions. We must also require independent audits of all such organizations.

(2) Restructuring ("perestroika"). We need to enforce strengthened anti-trust laws to break up large enterprises into many competing firms, not just two or three, and forbid interlocking directorates, beginning with the broadcast media and the press. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies need to be broken up into several competing ones, which can serve as effective checks on abuses by one another.

(2) Infiltration and defection. We need to get patriots inside key organizations and encourage insiders to become patriots. The most important are military and law enforcement organizations, whose members must be conditioned to come over to the side of the people if there is a confrontation. We must also provide effective protection for whistleblowers.

(3) Harassment. Lawsuits. Liens. Freedom of Information Act requests. Surveillance of principals. Local prosecution of federal agents.

(4) Local organization and publicity. Revive the constitutional Militia on the Swiss model<12>, set up independent investigation teams, alternative newspapers, talk radio, alert networks. We need to inform the public on what is happening, and to reach those who now are all too willing to trust the government to protect them.

(5) Civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance. Protest demonstrations. Tax protests. Defiance of unconstitutional laws. Refusal of juries to convict.<13>

(6) Armed resistance. This must involve non- provocative, but firm, defense of persons from illegal abuses, and exclusion of illegal governmental actions from local areas, county by county, state by state, with insistence on constitutional compliance.

(7) Transition plan. The oligarchy cannot be expected to come up with a plan for an orderly return to constitutional governance. The process must be conducted carefully, to avoid a disastrous collapse.<14> We will need some constitutional amendments, to make legal some of the things the national government can do best. The government needs to end budget deficits and acquire the stock of the Federal Reserve.<15>

Conclusion

The myth is that World War II ended with the defeat of fascism, but what really happened is that fascism got a grip on those fighting it, and is becoming increasingly pervasive and powerful. As it grows, it will induce a reaction, the outcome of which will be a final confrontation. We can all hope that the confrontation will not be a bloody one, and that it will be resolved while we still have time to solve our other pressing problems.

<1> See Reed & Cummings, Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA, 1994, Shapolsky Publishers Inc, 136 W 22nd St, New York, NY 10011, 212/633-2022. Also see Bartlett & Steele, America: What Went Wrong?, 1992, Andrews & McMeel, 4900 Main St, Kansas City, MO 64112; and Walter Karp, Liberty Under Siege, New York: Franklin Square, 1993.

<2> See Timothy Good, Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-up, New York: W. Morrow, 1988; Alien Contact: Top-Secret UFO Files Revealed, New York: W. Morrow, 1993.

<3> For a fairly comprehensive treatment of such views, see Albert Gore, Jr., Earth in the Balance, New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 1992. Also see Paul Ehrlich, Population/ Resources/ Environment, San Francisco: Freeman, 1972.

<4> For one treatment of American history that goes into this, see Clarence B. Carson, Basic American Government, 1993, American Textbook Committee, Route 1, Box 13, Wadley, AL 36276.

<5> There is abundant literature on this theme, most of it lacking hard evidence. An example is Gary H. Kah, Enroute to Global Occupation, 1992, Huntington House Publishers, POB 53788, Lafayette, LA 70505.

<6> One author has identified such public authorities as the Shadow Government, but it seems more likely that they are just a part of it. See Donald Axelrod, Shadow Government: the hidden world of public authorities and how they control $1 trillion dollars of your money, New York: Wiley, 1992.

<7> For a couple of sanitized depictions of this agency, see Loch K. Johnson, America's Secret Power: the CIA in a democratic society, New York: Oxford, 1989; Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, The CIA and American Democracy, New Haven: Yale, 1989.

<8> This is discussed in a paper by Martin Cannon, The Controllers: A New Hypothesis of Alien Abductions, 1990, 8211 Owensmouth Av #206, Canoga Park, CA 91304. $6.00.

<9> This is documented in Collier & Collier, Votescam: the Stealing of America, 1992, Victoria House Press, 67 Wall St #2411, New York, NY 10005. $10.00.

<10> One discussion of this is William R. Tonso, The Gun Culture and its Enemies, 1990, Second Amendment Foundation, James Madison Building, 12500 N.E. Tenth Place, Bellevue, WA 98005.

<11> This is documented in a paper by Julianne McKinney, Microwave Harassment & Mind- Control Experimentation, Electronic Surveillance Project, Association of National Security Alumni, PO Box 13625, Silver Spring, MD 20911-3625, 301/608-0143. $5.00.

<12> For a general discussion of this, see Morgan Norval, The Militia in 20th Century America: A Symposium, 1985, Gun Owners Foundation, 5881 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041. Also see Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed, 1984, Independent Institute, 134 98th Av, Oakland, CA 94603.

<13> For a comprehensive treatment of constitutional history and law, see Bernard Schwartz, The Roots of the Bill of Rights, New York: Chelsea House, 1980.

<14> The ways this might occur are discussed in Joseph A. Taintes, The Collapse of Complex Societies, New York: Cambridge, 1988.

<15> For some views on needed reforms, see Martin Gross, A Call for Revolution, New York: Ballantine, 1993.


Anyone Curious What CIA is Working On at the Moment in Egypt?




February 13, 2011 at 08:00:40

No One Curious What CIA is Working On at the Moment in Egypt?

By Jay Janson (about the author)

opednews.com




What does the CIA have in store for Egypt? What chores will it assign its agents, both American and Egyptian?

Has it managed to infiltrate military factions, political organizations and revolutionary groups to make some arrangements for some "spontaneous' events take place?

These are obvious questions Americans of decent mind toward Egyptians should, at the very least, be asking themselves.

Seems that progressives and even socialists in the U.S. are overly cooperative with mainstream media and Congress in hardly ever asking after our secret CIA shadow government.

But then why would one expect focus on the CIA from American progressive journalists. Have they promoted public interest in the ghastly revelations of the many files the CIA was forced to make public by the efforts of dedicated groups taking advantage of the Freedom of Information Law?


These released documents are devastating to read for anyone harboring affection for JFK or Ike. The horrible tales of the CIA protection and employment of Nazi war criminals; of CIA building a world market poppy growing industry again in Afghanistan after the Taliban had eliminated the CIA's first decade long lucrative secret operation; of CIA involvement in murderous drug running in Colombia and previously in Panama with agent Noriega; these all added to the fully expected corroboration of assumptions that CIA homicides were ordered by "tricky Dick' and Kissinger, along with the infinitely greater ones ordered by Eisenhower and Kennedy. Yet, these revelations have been allowed to slip into insignificance in non-corporate funded publications.

Years ago, New Yorker published investigative reporter Seymour Hersh tried to awaken interest in what the CIA was doing all these years in Iraq during the massive amount of sectarian violence that U.S. government spokespersons and subservient media constantly pointed to as the reason "we have to stay in Iraq.' Almost no one took up this topic in alternative media. Why? For decades CIA has sponsored, provoked, initiated, and or prepared overt invasion and involvement in civil wars in Greece, Korea, Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Lebanon, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Columbia, but become of higher notoriety for its incredibly amazing success in arranging murderous factional fighting to look unprovoked by outside forces. The motive always being to prevent unified independent nations capable of negotiating for their own trade and prosperity.

Associated Press is carrying almost daily reports of furious CIA activity, usually deadly, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but in progressive journalism there is much more debate regarding the words and proposals of the current U.S. president, who surely must be taking orders from, and not giving orders to Robert Gates and the Central Intelligence Agency. A CIA that is by law connected up solely and secretly to the chief executive is in itself a glaring contradiction to claims of democracy in the U.S., but this also goes largely unaddressed even on the progressive sites of the Internet.

Naturally the Network talk shows are, in the wake of Egyptian uprising, all featuring discussions from the farcical point of view that the business interests oriented American government is capable of being occasionally in favor of democracy in nations with U.S. backed dictatorship governments. These discussions swirl around the problem of keeping these nations aligned with a U.S foreign policy of protecting and expanding American investment throughout the world. For anchor and commentators it is what the U.S. president will say, or do, that is supposed to be of paramount interest, not what the awkward-to-speak-of CIA might accomplish.

When Egypt or any other overseas issue is discussed in commercial media, there seems little reason to ask about CIA. The CIA, is considered part of American democracy, understood as merely one of many agencies of a freely elected government. Since it's operations and activities are secret, what is the use of discussing them?

For the business world, nicely ordered formal democracy is working well in the British and American homes of empire. Imperialism is unchallenged in the U.S.A. It's out there among the natives in the neo-colonized nations of the former colonially military occupied third world that democracy is more than worrisome. Democracy is inimical to subjugation and undermining for imperialism.

Here is the way some of us see the ruling hierarchy in U.S. imperialism in functioning order of power.

1
At the top, is the business interest consensus led by a cabal of the most important investment bankers.

2
Next would be the CIA pursuing an agenda as seen necessary by the above mentioned and including, under it's operational umbrella, the Pentagon.

3 and 4
Third in influence and importance depending on current conditions, situations, developments and any sudden uncontrolled and unexpected events, would alternately be either the power of conglomerate owned media penetrating down into schools and up into all the institutions of society, or, the three branches of government owned , as FDR once wrote in confidence, "by a financial element since the days of Andrew Jackson." *

Both these alternating third and fourth ranking power bases will be prosecuting an ideological agenda in tandem with activities of the CIA-Pentagon, but in much more general, flexible, fluctuating and less defined progression.

Today, CIA operatives stationed in every country in the world are the commandos penetrating and preparing political, financial and where necessary military domination. Its four billion dollar base legal budget is known, and its mammoth financial empire fueled by corporate donations and funding and far flung net of banks, enterprises, publications, media outlets and infiltrated agencies within U.S. and foreign governments has been researched, documented and much of it can be found on line. CIA exploits of assassinations, overthrowing elected government and hiring goons to support U.S. business friendly dictatorships is legendary.

If #2 (CIA-Pentagon) comes to dominate #1 (the requirements for the accumulation of private capital), things could get even more dangerous, more unstable, cause more suffering internationally and domestically.

But in such a development there is also a not so remote possibility of more rationality and less of ongoing insanity of material over human progress. For if human beings, even in the military, were in charge, instead of automatons managing accumulation of capital for its owners and using the military amorally, some speck of human compassion might halt the drive toward the use of our WMD in another world conflict just to make a whole lot of money.

Ralph Waldo Emerson warned well over a hundred years ago that "Things are in the saddle and ride herd over men." Seems that right now the revolution in Egypt is counting on Egypt's military to take over from their erstwhile amoral international capital serving wealthy minority.

This hierarchy of power in place for centuries in almost the entire planet since the time of previous empires will inevitably be seen by aroused individuals, such as those who are leading revolution in Tunisia and Egypt, as a house of cards built on the assumption that the great mass of wonderfully ordinary people at its base will continue to believe themselves to be powerless.

In the meantime, #3 (media) will continue to keep the focus away from #2 (CIA) and #1 (capital accumulation) and on #4 (U.S. President, Congress and Supreme Court), with a perhaps unintended but still disappointing concurrence in critical progressive Internet media.

[* "The real truth of the matter is, as you, and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a letter to Colonel Edward House, October 34, 1933]


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Hold the Celebration: Egypt's Struggle Just Began




February 12, 2011 at 14:08:40

Hold the Celebration: Egypt's Struggle Just Began

By Stephen Lendman (about the author)

opednews.com


Hold the Celebration: Egypt's Struggle Just Began - by Stephen Lendman

Hopefully beneath celebratory euphoria, Egyptians know ousting Mubarak was simple, especially since Washington long wanted him out. Covertly with Egypt's military, it facilitated long-planned regime purging for with new faces under old policies. In other words, have everything change but stay the same, a common imperial bait and switch con.

As a result, the real liberating struggle continues against long odds for success because Washington, Egypt's military, Israel, Western powers, and big money will do everything to prevent it. The usual scheme was hatched - a facade of change that may or may not work, and will be months, maybe years, to know.

For now, however, Al Jazeera headlined, "Post-Mubarak era dawns on Egypt....just four weeks after Tunisians toppled their....ruler." Or did they? Their struggle also continues against comparable long odds. People throughout the region face them against powerful dark forces, representing imperial/monied interests, not theirs.

Al Jazeera, however, reported:

"Egyptians have woken to a new dawn after 30 years of rule under Hosni Mubarak." All night celebration preceded it. "Fireworks lit the night sky, cars honed under swathes of read, white and black Egyptian flags and people hoisted children above their heads. Some took souvenir pictures with smiling soldiers atop their tanks city streets," unaware that military commanders are enemies, not allies, a reality they'll confront ahead and should prepare.

For now, opposition figure Ayman Nour called February 11 "the greatest day in Egyptian history. This nation has been born again. These people have been born again, and this is a new Egypt."

Al Jazeera correspondents said street euphoria was "indescribable," "an explosion of emotion," quoting one pro-democracy campaigner, Dina Magdi, saying:

"I have waited, I have worked all my adult life to see the power of the people come to the fore and show itself. I am speechless. The moment is not only about Mubarak stepping down, it is also about people's power to bring about the change that no one....thought possible."

Supportive Media Reports

Euphoria also characterized most US media reports. Notably, however, unless Washington plans war or wants foreign adversaries denigrated, rarely ever are overseas events covered, especially uprisings against purported allies. Yet, for days, Egypt's was main-featured on television and in print, including unheard of anti-regime views, meaning official Washington supported them against an out-of-favor leader.

American (and Western) media reports manipulate public opinion on official foreign and domestic policies. Their managed news unabashedly supports monied interests, imperial wars, and police state laws, while paying scant attention to corporate lawlessness, eroding democracy, sham elections, government and corporate corruption, civil liberties and human rights concerns, rule of law issues, a growing wealth gap, unmet human needs, and increasing poverty, hunger, homelessness and despair for growing millions globally, including at home besides countries like Egypt.

As a result, had Mubarak been in favor, spotty coverage would have called protesters agitators, rabble-rousers, insurgents, terrorists and jihadists, never pro-democracy heros.

On February 11, Nation magazine's Katrina vanden Heuvel headlined, "Triumph in Egypt," saying:

"After eighteen days of protest, Mubarak's nearly thirty-year reign over Egypt was brought to a triumphant close today. Ousted by the people, Egyptian protesters stood strong, exhibiting nothing short of sheer jubilation as the news broke."

New York Times writer David Kirkpatrick headlined, "Egypt Erupts in Jubiliation as Mubarak Steps Down," saying:


Egypt's revolution "overturn(ed) the established order of the Arab world. (Mubarak) was toppled by a radically new force in regional politics - a largely secular, nonviolent, youth-led democracy movement that brought Egypt's liberal and Islamist opposition groups together for the first time under its banner....Mr. Mubarak's fall removed a bulwark of American foreign policy in the region."

In fact, he became a major obstacle to Washington's Greater Middle East Project (renamed the New Middle East) and had to go. Notably, the day Cairo protests erupted, January 25, key Egyptian military commanders, including Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Sami Hafez Enan, were in Washington. For years, State Department and Pentagon officials wanted him out because he opposed key US policies, including Iran's nuclear program and Bush's 2003 Iraq war.

Egypt's New Leader

Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi is new head of state as chairman of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces of Egypt, ruling with its Supreme Constitutional Council - effective February 11. He also served as Minister of Defense, Military Production, Deputy Prime Minister, Commander of the Presidential Guard, and chief of the Operations Authority of the Armed Forces.

He's a powerful old regime stalwart closely aligned with Washington, though US diplomats call him "aged and change-resistant.... "Charming and courtly, he is nonetheless mired in a post-Camp David military paradigm that has served his cohorts' narrow interests for the last three decades. (He's also) opposed both economic and political reform that he perceives as eroding central government power."

Whether he'll cooperate or conflict with Washington remains to be seen. If not, he'll go next, the same anti- Mubarak process resurrected against him and others less than fully compliant.

Earlier, he participated in Egypt's 1956, 1967 and 1973 wars as well as in America's Gulf War "coalition." As part of Egypt's old guard, he'll most likely become president, installed, of course by military coup d' etat.

His mission: preserving the status quo, serving global monied interests, supporting Washington's imperial agenda, and making few substantive constitutional and other old order changes, including little in the way of jobs, independent unions, higher wages, and other essential services - social, economic and political.

Why expect them from a man who led a military, not populist, coup against a sitting ruler, no matter how corrupt, illegitimate and ruthless! They're both cut from the same mold, representing power, not popular interests.

As a result perhaps, on February 12, Reuters headlined, "Egypt protest leaders vow to protect their revolution," saying:

In two overnight communiques, core organizers "demanded the dissolution of the cabinet Mubarak appointed on January 29 and the suspension of the parliament elected in a rigged poll late last year."

They also want "a transitional five-member presidential council made up of four civilians and one military person to prepare for an election to take place within nine months, and (a) body to draft a new democratic constitution."

Moreover, they demand media and (professional) syndicates freedom, military and emergency courts abolished, free formation of political parties, and since protests began, immediately ending Egypt's Emergency Law, enacted in 1981. Surprisingly, however, it wasn't in either communique though clearly a top priority.

Pharmicist Ghada Elmasalmy told Reuters:

"The army is with us but it must realize our demands. Half revolutions kill nations. Now we know our place. Whenever there is injustice, we will come to Tahrir Square."

According to Al Arabiya television, army officials will soon dismiss Mubarak's cabinet and suspend parliament. In addition, the Constitutional Court head will join the military council and participate in Egypt's governance.

One protester, Mohammed Farrag, spoke for others saying:

"(W)e will not give up on Egypt as a civilian state, not a military state. If things move away from our demands, we will go into the street again, even if we have to die as martyrs."

Hopefully, he and others mean it because doing it again will prove urgent. Otherwise, all is lost and nothing gained beyond substituting one strongman for another, backed by the full might of Egypt's military, armed and financed by Washington.

Nonetheless, Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, its main opposition group, called Mubarak's ouster a "historic victory," America and Israel the main losers. Whether true, however, remains to be seen. For sure, it's too soon to tell or know how far Egypt's people power can go before bucking stiff resistance sure to come.

"The victory scored by this revolution is in the first place directed against the United States," said Brotherhood members, "which so far sponsored the toppled regime, and wanted it as a strong ally and defender of the Zionist entity and an enemy of the Arab jihad and resistance movements."

Other Regional Protests

On February 1, Jordan's King fired his government after protests over high fuel and food prices, slowed political reforms, high unemployment and poverty levels, as well as other economic and social issues. Nonetheless, Jordanians want more, including new Prime Minister Marouf al-Bakhit's resignation. In addition, members of its Farmers Union tossed tomato crates onto the Karak-Aqaba highway over low prices paid them.

Tunisians ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali with no resolution so far. As a result, they're demanding all his cronies ousted, including interim Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi. They also want attention given deep social needs, including jobs, higher wages, and right to unionize. Hundreds rallied in Tunis, calling themselves a "Caravan of Liberation," one man saying "We have come to bring down the rest of the dictatorship." In addition, civil servants and primary school teachers aren't working, instead protesting against interim officials representing old policies.

In Rabat, Morocco, hundreds of protesters demanded badly needed public sector jobs to help alleviate high unemployment. They also want social inequality and government corruption issues addressed.

Similar anger riled protesters in Algeria, Yemen and elsewhere over unaffordable food and fuel prices as well as shocking levels of extreme poverty, unemployment and state repression.

Occupied Iraq is now affected, demonstrations occurring in numerous cities across the country. Earlier, Hamza protesters stormed government buildings and a police station over political corruption, repressive occupation, and shortages of power, food and jobs. The UAE's The National quoted organizer Abu Ali saying:

"There will be a revolution of the hungry and jobless in Iraq, just as there was in Egypt. It was a march by the unemployed, by those who have lost hope and who see (Prime Minister) Nouri al Maliki and the new government becoming another dictatorship."

On February 10, protests occurred in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Karbala, Diwaniyah, Kut, Ramadi, Samawah and Amara. In Sadr City, they were over public corruption, poverty, unemployment, and lack of social services. In Karbala, a sign said:

"We have nothing. We need everything. Solution: Set ourselves on fire," referring to Tunisia's Mohammed Bouazizi, an unemployed graduate working as a vegetable seller who self-immolated in protest over police confiscating his merchandise for operating without a permit he couldn't get.

Najaf farmers demanded help they haven't gotten. Basra protesters want changes in food ration policies leaving families unable to afford high prices. Others in Baghdad called for ending judicial corruption and prisoner abuse, including torture in Iraqi prisons. In Karbala, the lawyers' guild head mocked inadequate funds replacing rations for cooking oil, rice, flour and sugar.

Near Baghdad's Green Zone, placards read, "Where are your electoral promises, food rations and basic services?" Others said "Tahrir Square Two." Reuters reported that:

"Almost eight years after the US-led invasion, Iraq's infrastructure remains severely damaged. The country suffers a chronic water shortage, electricity supply is intermittent and sewage collects in the streets."

Iraqis also suffer from extreme levels of unemployment, poverty, epidemic-like illnesses, massive environmental contamination, repressive security forces, and pervasive levels of desperation and dispair.

On February 12, Al Jazeera reported clashes between Algerian security forces and pro-democracy protesters in Algiers, demanding democratic reforms, jobs, and regime change. Thousands breached a security cordon joining others in May First Square. Earlier, police closed all city entrances and arrested hundreds.

AFP said, "Large quantities of tear gas grenades had been imported. Anti-riot vehicles were seen parked not far from the square where (a February 12) rally is scheduled to begin....and police in uniform patrolled surrounding streets."

Hundreds more protested around the country, including in Annaba, Sidi Ammar and Raffour. Moreover, in recent weeks, about 20 people tried setting themselves ablaze. Three succeeded and died.

Al Jazeera also said thousands protested in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down. AP reported government forces beating them and arresting at least 10. Unconfirmed accounts also said police used live fire, killing at least one demonstrator. Like elsewhere in the region, millions are deeply impoverished. Many also face chronic hunger, living on less than $2 a day.

A Final Comment

Globally with rare exceptions, including at home, democracy endangers entrenched power. As a result, subverting eruptions are crucial, allowing only controllable facades under anti-populist leaders - how America's process works.

As a result, it's fake. Mock elections pretend to be real. The process is kabuki theater run by political consultants and PR wizards, supported by major media misreporting, featuring horse race issues, not real ones. Everything is pre-scripted. Secrecy and back room deals substitute for a free, fair and open process. Party bosses choose candidates. Big money owns them. Key outcomes are predetermined, and cheated voters get the best democracy deep pockets can buy.

Egypt can expect the same thing, carefully scripted pretense, not democratic change Washington and Egypt's military won't tolerate. Unless millions demand better and fight for it, they'll get old wine in new bottles, again cheated like for 30 years under Mubarak. Forewarned is forearmed. Hopefully savvy protesters understand and plan well their next move.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at Email address removed. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/ .



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February 13, 2011 at 04:09:46

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Hold the Celebration: Egypt's Struggle Just Began

By Stephen Lendman (about the author) Page 4 of 4 page(s)
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"Almost eight years after the US-led invasion, Iraq's infrastructure remains severely damaged. The country suffers a chronic water shortage, electricity supply is intermittent and sewage collects in the streets."

Iraqis also suffer from extreme levels of unemployment, poverty, epidemic-like illnesses, massive environmental contamination, repressive security forces, and pervasive levels of desperation and dispair.

On February 12, Al Jazeera reported clashes between Algerian security forces and pro-democracy protesters in Algiers, demanding democratic reforms, jobs, and regime change. Thousands breached a security cordon joining others in May First Square. Earlier, police closed all city entrances and arrested hundreds.

AFP said, "Large quantities of tear gas grenades had been imported. Anti-riot vehicles were seen parked not far from the square where (a February 12) rally is scheduled to begin....and police in uniform patrolled surrounding streets."

Hundreds more protested around the country, including in Annaba, Sidi Ammar and Raffour. Moreover, in recent weeks, about 20 people tried setting themselves ablaze. Three succeeded and died.

Al Jazeera also said thousands protested in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, demanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh step down. AP reported government forces beating them and arresting at least 10. Unconfirmed accounts also said police used live fire, killing at least one demonstrator. Like elsewhere in the region, millions are deeply impoverished. Many also face chronic hunger, living on less than $2 a day.

A Final Comment

Globally with rare exceptions, including at home, democracy endangers entrenched power. As a result, subverting eruptions are crucial, allowing only controllable facades under anti-populist leaders - how America's process works.

As a result, it's fake. Mock elections pretend to be real. The process is kabuki theater run by political consultants and PR wizards, supported by major media misreporting, featuring horse race issues, not real ones. Everything is pre-scripted. Secrecy and back room deals substitute for a free, fair and open process. Party bosses choose candidates. Big money owns them. Key outcomes are predetermined, and cheated voters get the best democracy deep pockets can buy.

Egypt can expect the same thing, carefully scripted pretense, not democratic change Washington and Egypt's military won't tolerate. Unless millions demand better and fight for it, they'll get old wine in new bottles, again cheated like for 30 years under Mubarak. Forewarned is forearmed. Hopefully savvy protesters understand and plan well their next move.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at Email address removed. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/ .


I was born in 1934, am a retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

The Egyptian Tinderbox: How Banks and Investors are Starving the Third World

Dissident Voice: a radical newsletter in the struggle for peace and social justice


The Egyptian Tinderbox

How Banks and Investors are Starving the Third World


What for a poor man is a crust, for a rich man is a securitized asset class.

— Futures trader Ann Berg, quoted in the UK Guardian

Underlying the sudden, volatile uprising in Egypt and Tunisia is a growing global crisis sparked by soaring food prices and unemployment. The Associated Press reports that roughly 40 percent of Egyptians struggle along at the World Bank-set poverty level of under $2 per day. Analysts estimate that food price inflation in Egypt is currently at an unsustainable 17 percent yearly. In poorer countries, as much as 60 to 80 percent of people’s incomes go for food, compared to just 10 to 20 percent in industrial countries. An increase of a dollar or so in the cost of a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread for Americans can mean starvation for people in Egypt and other poor countries.

Follow the Money

The cause of the recent jump in global food prices remains a matter of debate. Some analysts blame the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” program (increasing the money supply with credit created with accounting entries), which they warn is sparking hyperinflation. Too much money chasing too few goods is the classic explanation for rising prices.

The problem with that theory is that the global money supply has actually shrunk since 2006, when food prices began their dramatic rise. Virtually all money today is created on the books of banks as “credit” or “debt,” and overall lending has shrunk. This has occurred in an accelerating process of deleveraging (paying down or writing off loans and not making new ones), as the subprime housing market has collapsed and bank capital requirements have been raised. Although it seems counter-intuitive, the more debt there is, the more money there is in the system. As debt shrinks, the money supply shrinks in tandem.

That is why government debt today is not actually the bugaboo it is being made out to be by the deficit terrorists. The flipside of debt is credit, and businesses run on it. When credit collapses, trade collapses. When private debt shrinks, public debt must therefore step in to replace it. The “good” credit or debt is the kind used for building infrastructure and other productive capacity, increasing the Gross Domestic Product and wages; and this is the kind governments are in a position to employ. The parasitic forms of credit or debt are the gamblers’ money-making-money schemes, which add nothing to GDP.

Prices have been driven up by too much money chasing too few goods, but the money is chasing only certain selected goods. Food and fuel prices are up, but housing prices are down. The net result is that overall price inflation remains low.

While quantitative easing may not be the culprit, Fed action has driven the rush into commodities. In response to the banking crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve dropped the Fed funds rate (the rate at which banks borrow from each other) nearly to zero. This has allowed banks and their customers to borrow in the U.S. at very low rates and invest abroad for higher returns, creating a dollar “carry trade.”

Meanwhile, interest rates on federal securities were also driven to very low levels, leaving investors without that safe, stable option for funding their retirements. “Hot money” – investment seeking higher returns – fled from the collapsed housing market into anything but the dollar, which generally meant fleeing into commodities.

New Meaning to the Old Adage “Don’t Play with Your Food”

At one time food was considered a poor speculative investment, because it was too perishable to be stored until market conditions were right for resale. But that changed with the development of ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and other financial innovations.

As first devised, speculation in food futures was fairly innocuous, since when the contract expired, somebody actually had to buy the product at the “spot” or cash price. This forced the fanciful futures price and the more realistic spot price into alignment. But that changed in 1991. In a revealing July 2010 report in Harper’s Magazine titled “The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away with It,” Frederick Kaufman wrote:

The history of food took an ominous turn in 1991, at a time when no one was paying much attention. That was the year Goldman Sachs decided our daily bread might make an excellent investment. . . .

Robber barons, gold bugs, and financiers of every stripe had long dreamed of controlling all of something everybody needed or desired, then holding back the supply as demand drove up prices.

As Kaufman explained this financial innovation in a July 16 interview on Democracy Now:

Goldman . . . came up with this idea of the commodity index fund, which really was a way for them to accumulate huge piles of cash for themselves. . . . Instead of a buy-and-sell order, like everybody does in these markets, they just started buying. It’s called “going long.” They started going long on wheat futures. . . . And every time one of these contracts came due, they would do something called “rolling it over” into the next contract. . . . And they kept on buying and buying and buying and buying and accumulating this historically unprecedented pile of long-only wheat futures. And this accumulation created a very odd phenomenon in the market. It’s called a “demand shock.” Usually prices go up because supply is low . . . . In this case, Goldman and the other banks had introduced this completely unnatural and artificial demand to buy wheat, and that then set the price up. . . . [H]ard red wheat generally trades between $3 and $6 per sixty-pound bushel. It went up to $12, then $15, then $18. Then it broke $20. And on February 25th, 2008, hard red spring futures settled at $25 per bushel. . . . [T]he irony here is that in 2008, it was the greatest wheat-producing year in world history.

. . . [T]he other outrage . . . is that at the time that Goldman and these other banks are completely messing up the structure of this market, they’ve protected themselves outside the market, through this really almost diabolical idea called “replication” . . . . Let’s say, . . . you want me to invest for you in the wheat market. You give me a hundred bucks . . . . [W]hat I should be doing is putting a hundred bucks in the wheat markets. But I don’t have to do that. All I have to do is put $5 in. . . . And with that $5, I can hold your hundred-dollar position. Well, now I’ve got ninety-five of your dollars. . . . [W]hat Goldman did with hundreds of billions of dollars, and what all these banks did with hundreds of billions of dollars, is they put them in the most conservative investments conceivable. They put it in T-bills. . . . [N]ow that you have hundreds of billions of dollars in T-bills, you can leverage that into trillions of dollars. . . . And then they take that trillion dollars, they give it to their day traders, and they say, “Go at it, guys. Do whatever is most lucrative today.” And so, as billions of people starve, they use that money to make billions of dollars for themselves.

Other researchers have concurred in this explanation of the food crisis. In a July 2010 article called “How Goldman Sachs Gambled on Starving the World’s Poor – And Won,” journalist Johann Hari observed:

Beginning in late 2006, world food prices began rising. A year later, wheat price had gone up 80 percent, maize by 90 percent and rice by 320 percent. Food riots broke out in more than 30 countries, and 200 million people faced malnutrition and starvation. Suddenly, in the spring of 2008, food prices fell to previous levels, as if by magic. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has called this “a silent mass murder”, entirely due to “man-made actions.

Some economists said the hikes were caused by increased demand by Chinese and Indian middle class population booms and the growing use of corn for ethanol. But according to Professor Jayati Ghosh of the Centre for Economic Studies in New Delhi, demand from those countries actually fell by 3 percent over the period; and the International Grain Council stated that global production of wheat had increased during the price spike.

According to a study by the now-defunct Lehman Brothers, index fund speculation jumped from $13 billion to $260 billion from 2003 to 2008. Not surprisingly, food prices rose in tandem, beginning in 2003. Hedge fund manager Michael Masters estimated that on the regulated exchanges in the U.S., 64 percent of all wheat contracts were held by speculators with no interest whatever in real wheat. They owned it solely in anticipation of price inflation and resale. George Soros said it was “just like secretly hoarding food during a hunger crisis in order to make profits from increasing prices.”

An August 2009 paper by Jayati Ghosh, professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Dehli, compared food staples traded on futures markets with staples that were not. She found that the price of food staples not traded on futures markets, such as millet, cassava and potatoes, rose only a fraction as much as staples subject to speculation, such as wheat.

Nomi Prins, writing in Mother Jones in 2008, also blamed the price hikes on speculation. She observed that agricultural futures and energy futures were being packaged and sold just like CDOs (collateralized debt obligations), but in this case they were called CCOs (collateralized commodity obligations). The higher the price of food, the more CCO investors profited. She warned:

[W]ithout strong regulation of electronic exchanges and the derivatives products that enable speculators to move huge proportions of the futures markets underlying commodities, putting a bit of regulation into the London-based exchanges will not alleviate anything. Unless that’s addressed, this bubble is going to take more than homes with it. It’s going to take lives.

What Can Be Done?

According to Kaufman, the food bubble has now increased the ranks of the world’s hungry by 250 million. On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed a Wall Street reform bill that would close many of the regulatory loopholes allowing big financial institutions to play in agriculture commodity futures markets, but Kaufman says the bill’s solutions are not likely to work. Wall Street innovators can devise new ways to speculate that easily dance around cumbersome, slow-to-pass legislation. Attempts to ban all food speculation are also unlikely to work, he says, since firms can pick up the phone and do their trades through London, or arrange over-the-counter (private) swaps.

As an alternative, Kaufman suggests a worldwide or national grain reserve, so that regulators can bring wheat into the market when needed to stabilize prices. He notes that we actually kept a large grain reserve in the Clinton era, before the mania for deregulation. President Franklin Roosevelt pledged to maintain a large grain reserve in his second Agricultural Adjustment Act in 1938.

Chris Cook, former director of a global energy exchange, maintains:

The only long term solution is to completely re-architect markets. Firstly, cutting out middlemen — which is a process already under way. Secondly, a new settlement between producer and consumer nations — a Bretton Woods II.

Speculative markets today are driven more by fear, says Cook, than by greed. Investors are looking for something safe that will give them an adequate return, which means something they can live on in retirement. They need these investments because their employers and the government do not provide an adequate safety net.

At one time, federal securities were a safe and adequate investment for retirees. Then federal interest rates plunged, and investors moved into municipal bonds. Now that market too is collapsing, due to threats of bankruptcy among bond issuers. Cities, counties and states floundering from the credit crisis have been denied access to the quantitative easing tools used to bail out the banks — although it was the banks, not local governments, that caused the crisis. See “The Fed Has Spoken: No Bailout for Main Street.”

Meanwhile, pensions are being slashed and social security is under attack. Arguably, along with the grain reserves institutionalized under Franklin Roosevelt, we need an Economic Bill of Rights of the sort he envisioned, one that would guarantee citizens at least a bare minimum standard of living. This could be done through job guarantees when people were able to work and social security when they were not. The program could be funded with government-created credit or government-bank-created credit, and this could be done without causing hyperinflation. To support that contention would take more space than is left here, but the subject has been tackled in my book Web of Debt. In the meantime, the credit needed to get local economies up and running again can be furnished through publicly-owned banks. For more on that possibility, see http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.

Niko Kyriakou contributed to this article.

Ellen Brown is an attorney in Los Angeles and the author of 11 books. In Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free, she shows how a private banking cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Read other articles by Ellen, or visit Ellen's website.

This article was posted on Saturday, February 5th, 2011 at 8:00am and is filed under Economy/Economics, Egypt, Finance, Food/Nutrition.