The Rise Of The US Surveillance State
November 26, 2009 by admin
Filed under Brother Nathanael Kapner, Featured
CENTRALIZING POWER INTO THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH is yet another ploy of the powerful Zionist-Jewish network in America to consolidate their influence-peddling into a single power bloc.
The Jew-bought President Obama in his approach to National Security Agency surveillance, CIA renditions, drone assassinations, and military detention, has embraced the expanded executive powers championed by his predecessor, George W Bush and his Zionist-Jew enablers.
We should not be surprised then, when, in the midst of our fabricated “crisis society,” advanced surveillance methods developed in our recent wars migrate from Baghdad, Kandahar, and Tel Aviv to our own neighborhoods – ALL by Executive order with Congressional (a record number of Jews are now in Congress) approval.
US wars abroad have been living laboratories for the undermining of a free society at home, a process which has brought covert Counter-intelligence penetration to the homeland.
Wartime Geospatial intelligence mapping, unmanned reconnaissance & spy drones, portable wireless data transfer by satellite to a central biometric data base, microchip-tracking, facial/body imaging & movement profiling, electronic eavesdropping, iris scans, advanced camera technology, and disinformation tactics translate into an invasive internal security apparatus that is now being utilized in the War on Terror’s latest target, American citizens.
And Zionist Jews, both on Capitol Hill, the White House, US government agencies, and the myriads of Jewish organizations & lobbies, are plotting the destruction of our once free society and the throttling of the dissenting voice of White Gentile Americans through their beloved Jew-created agency, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with its security technology imported from US wars abroad.
Homeland Security/NSA now has a wiretapping program in place, code-named STELLAR WIND, interfaced with Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN); the Pentagon’s Counter-Intelligence Field Activity (CIFA)/Threat & Local Observation Notice (TALON); and FEMA database of American citizens, code-named MAIN CORE. All began operating in concert in 2002 to monitor anti-war groups such as the Quakers, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), Greenpeace, and alternative-news journalists. Wayne Madsen Report Here.
THE JEWS BEHIND HOMELAND SECURITY SPYING
US HOMELAND SECURITY LAUNCHED its most frightening spy maneuver in the discharge of Predator-B drones to patrol the North Dakota-Manitoba border that Congressional leaders, (the same ones who disavowed the recent Goldstone Report on Israeli war crimes), called America’s “weakest link.”
US border official, Michael Kostelnik, when describing “future drone operations” during the launching ceremonies, said that in these “dangerous times it’s more important than ever for both countries to know who and what is crossing the border.”
But who launches a $10 million drone to watch out for cows crossing the America-Canada border? The Jew-inspired US Homeland Security spy-on-you apparatus that’s who. See Future Drone Operations Here.
In conjunction with the US Justice Department in 2002, Homeland Security, led by the Talmudic Jew, Michael Chertoff, launched Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) which planned for millions of postal employees, American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees and others to aid the government by spying on their fellow Americans.
Such citizen surveillance sparked strong protests, forcing Homeland Security and Talmudic Jew Senator Joseph Lieberman, who chaired the powerful Senate Government Operations Committee at the time & who opposed the patriotic protesters, to bury the program.
Lieberman, through Zionist TOTAL CONTROL of our Jew-bought Congress, who is currently Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, (how did a Talmudic Jew whose loyalties are to his own tribe NOT Americans become Chairman?), and Zionist Jew, Carl Levin, who is an Associate member of DHS and Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, (how did a Zionist Jew whose loyalties are to his own tribe NOT Americans become Chairman?), are now vigorously pushing the Patriot Act Extension Act. The current Act with all of its intrusions on our liberties expires the end of 2009.
The key sponsor of the Bill, is, of course, a Zionist Jew — Senator Dianne Feinstein — a member of the House Judiciary Committee and the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. (How did a Zionist Jew whose loyalties are to her own tribe NOT Americans become Chairman?)
The Bill allows for greater freedom of “government roving wiretaps to monitor suspects who may switch cell phone numbers” and to track “lone wolves” who “act on behalf of foreign powers.” (Jews like Lieberman, Levin, and Feinstein, are the “wolves” who act “on behalf of a foreign power” known as the State of Israel.) And, of course, Obama, pathological liar that he is, who promised to abolish the Patriot Act, supports the Jew-inspired Bill.
CYBER SECURITY & FREEDOM-HATING JEWS
IN A BID TO SEIZE CONTROL OF THE INTERNET, the freedom-hating Jew, Congressional Representative Jane Harman introduced with full support of Abraham Foxman of the Anti Defamation League, a Zionist “thought crime” legislation known as the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.
The ACT proposed a national commission (made up of Jews of course) to “combat the threat posed by homegrown terrorists.” The Bill passed the House by an overwhelming 404 to 6 vote before stalling, and then dying, in a Senate slightly more mindful of civil liberties.
Harman’s legislation focused on “cyber security,” that is, Zionist control of the Internet, our last bastion of free speech, stating in the Bill in typical Zionist lying fashion:
“The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the US by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to American citizens.” View Harman’s Bill Here.
SENATOR JOSEPH LIEBERMAN announced his plans on October 30, 2009 for a “cyber security czar” to operate out of the White House in co-ordination with Homeland Security which Lieberman chairs. Lieberman’s agenda will give Zionists control of the Internet by manipulating with their billions of Jewish dollars only “one” White House “czar,” rather than numerous department heads. The following captures the essence of Lieberman’s plans:
“We need to establish a Cyber Security Coordinator within the Executive Office of the President. This position would have the authority to monitor civilian networks. Currently, Homeland Security has this responsibility by Executive Order but it lacks the direct cooperation from the White House to succeed.” View Entire Story Here.
Lieberman is acting in concert with the pending Cybersecurity Bill S. 773 which will give Obama “emergency powers” to control the Internet. The Bill grants Obama the authority to shut down all online traffic by taking control of private networks in the event of a “Cyber-Emergency.” The problem is, a “Cyber-Emergency” is not defined.
Zionist Jews fear the Internet. Why? Because it is the only venue that exposes their lies, their agendas, and their quest for world domination. They MUST be stopped!
http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=463
Brother Nathanael Kapner is a “Street Evangelist” who grew up as a Jew and is now an Orthodox Christian.
You can visit his website at Real Zionist News. He can be reached at: bronathanael@yahoo.com
Brother Nathanael Kapner is a regular columnist for Underground Dissident
Will Israel Ensure that History Repeats Itself?
October 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Jeff Gates
The lead-up to the first U.S.-Iran talks in three decades saw a replay of the same modus operandi that induced the U.S. and its allies to invade Iraq in March 2003. Then as now, the invasion of Iran is consistent with a regime change agenda for Greater Israel described in a 1996 strategy document prepared by Jewish-Americans for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As with Iraq, the threat of weapons of mass destruction is again marketed as a causa belli. As with Iraq, the claim is disputed by weapons inspectors and intelligence analysts. The Iraqi program had been shut down a dozen years before the invasion. In Iran, there is no evidence that uranium is being enriched beyond the low levels required for energy and medical purposes.
Reports of a “secret” processing plant failed to note that Iran suspended uranium enrichment from 2003 until 2005. Seeing no change in the political climate except more sanctions and more Israeli threats to bomb its nuclear sites, Iran began building and equipping a new facility.
As with Iraq, there is no direct threat to the U.S. As with Iraq, mainstream U.S. media focused not on Israel—the only nation in the region known to have nuclear weapons—but on Iran. Enrichment is relatively easy compared to the steps required to design, build and reliably deliver a nuclear warhead. Activity around each of those steps can be readily detected.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that even if Iran were attacked, that does nothing to alter Iran’s nuclear prospects—except provoke them to develop the very weapons that the evidence suggests are not now being produced. Is this a calculated move to exert pressure on Tehran? Or to provoke them? Or is this a move by Washington to buy time from an “ally” that threatens an attack—with disastrous effects on U.S. interests and those of its genuine allies?
To catalyze a climate of insecurity among Jews, pro-Israelis periodically claim that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposes to “wipe Israel off the map.” A correct translation confirms that what he urged is that “this occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time.” Akin to the widely sought demise of the oppressive Soviet regime, that proposal enjoys the support of many moderate, secular and non-Zionist Jews who have long recognized the threat that Jewish extremists pose to the broader Jewish community.
No one can explain why Iran, even if nuclear armed, would attack Israel with its vast nuclear arsenal estimated at 200-400 warheads, including several nuclear-armed submarines. In mid-July, Israeli warships deployed to the Red Sea to rehearse attacks on Iran. As in the lead-up to war with Iraq, former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is again beating the war drums. This is the same adviser who, four days after 9-11, advised G.W. Bush to invade Iraq.
Citing Iran’s “covert” facility, Wolfowitz claims it is “clear that Iran’s rulers are pursuing nuclear weapons.…Time is running out.” Without a hint of irony, he argues that Iran (not Israel) “is a crucial test of whether the path to a nuclear-free world is a realistic one or simply a dangerous pipe dream.” In calling for “crippling sanctions,” Howard Berman, Jewish chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed similar concerns as did Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, senior Republican on the Committee and also Jewish.
If pro-Israelis cannot induce a war with Iran, the ensuing stability will enable people to identify who fixed the intelligence that deceived the U.S. to invade Iraq. Only one nation possesses the means, motive, opportunity and stable nation state intelligence to mount a covert operation over the lengthy period required to pre-stage, staff, orchestrate and successfully cover-up such an act.
The evidence points to the same network of government insiders and media proponents now hyping Iran. Who benefitted from war with Iraq? Who benefits from war with Iran? Not the U.S. or its allies unless, despite the evidence, Israel is viewed as an ally–rather than an enemy within.
Can the U.S. Muster a Breakthrough Strategy?
Like Afghanistan, Iran does not have a military solution. Nor does Iraq. Geopolitically, the greatest casualty of war in the region was the United States – its credibility tattered, its military overextended and its finances devastated by a debt-financed war that Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz projects could reach $3,000 billion. Compare that with the speedy exit and a $50 billion outlay that Wolfowitz assured policy-makers could be recovered from sales of Iraqi oil.
Those who induced that invasion persuaded Americans to commit economic and geopolitical hari-kari. Noexternal force could have defeated the sole remaining super power. Instead the U.S. was deceived—by a purported ally—to defeat itself by an ill-advised reaction to the provocation of a mass murder on U.S. soil.
The only sensible and sustainable solution is one that serves unmet needs in the region while also restoring the credibility of the U.S. as a proponent of informed choice and free enterprise. While making transparent the common source of the deceit that induced the U.S. to war, policy-makers can also lay the foundation to preclude such duplicity in the future. That requires consultation among the U.S., its true allies and those nations in the region most affected by this treachery.
Only a design solution can counter today’s systemic sources of conflict, including the extremism fueled by extremes in education, opportunity, wealth and income. As with the fixed intelligence that induced the U.S. to war in Iraq, those sources of conflict are obscured by a compliant and complicit media with an undisclosed pro-Israeli bias.
A transnational network of think tanks could expose in real time how facts are displaced by what “the mark” can be deceived to believe. With the media dominance of pro-Israelis in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany and other Western allies, that task must include the capacity to show how this deceit operates in plain sight yet, to date, with impunity. Absent such transparency, systems of governance reliant on informed consent will continue to be manipulated to their detriment by those who hide behind the very freedoms that such systems are meant to protect.
Running parallel with that transparency initiative must be an education program that deploys the best available technology to close the gaps in learning that sustain extremes in opportunity. Only a truly international effort can succeed in that essential task. Only trans-cultural education can preempt the mental manipulation that induced war in Iraq and now pursues war with Iran as proponents of The Clash of Civilizations gradually transform that concept into a reality.
What we now see emerging is yet another example of how wars are induced in the Information Age. Why would anyone expect modern warfare to be waged in any other way? As the common source of this duplicity becomes transparent, the solution will become apparent.
Lasting peace requires a Marshall Plan able to accelerate the transition to the Knowledge Society. This systemic challenge cannot be addressed absent a systemic strategy. The restoration of friendly and cooperative relations must include the practical steps required to heal this widening divide with education at the core.
Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution.
Visit his website at: www.criminalstate.com.
Jeff Gates is a regular columnist for Underground Dissident
Anti-Empire Report
October 1, 2009 by admin
Filed under William Blum
Ridding The World of the Sickness of Pacifism…
Picture the scene: Afghanistan, two hijacked tankers filled with highly inflammable fuel, surrounded by a crowd of Afghans eager to syphon off some for free … What’s the last thing you want to do? Right — drop bombs on the tankers. That’s what a German military commander signaled an American drone airplane to do September 4. Kaboom!! At least 100 human beings incinerated. This incident has led to a lot of controversy in Germany, for Article 26 of Germany’s post-war Grundgesetz (Basic Law/Constitution) states: “Acts tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression, shall be unconstitutional. They shall be made a criminal offense.”
But NATO (aka the United States) can take satisfaction in the fact that the Germans have put their silly pacifism aside and acted like real men, trained military killers; although prior to this incident the Germans had engaged in some aerial and ground combat, there hadn’t been such a dramatic and publicized taking of civilian lives. Deutschland now has more than 4,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, the third largest contingent in the country after the US and Britain, and at home they’ve just finished building a monument to fallen members of the Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces), founded in 1955; 38 members (so far) have surrendered their young lives in Afghanistan.
In January 2007 I wrote in this report about how the US was pushing Germany in this direction; that circumstances at that time indicated that Washington might be losing patience with the pace of Germany’s submission to the empire’s needs. Germany declined to send troops to Iraq and sent only non-combat forces to Afghanistan, not quite good enough for the Pentagon warriors and their NATO allies. Germany’s leading news magazine, Der Spiegel, reported the following:
At a meeting in Washington, Bush administration officials, speaking in the context of Afghanistan, berated Karsten Voigt, German government representative for German-American relations: “You concentrate on rebuilding and peacekeeping, but the unpleasant things you leave to us.” … “The Germans have to learn to kill.”
A German officer at NATO headquarters was told by a British officer: “Every weekend we send home two metal coffins, while you Germans distribute crayons and woollen blankets.” Bruce George, the head of the British Defence Committee, said “some drink tea and beer and others risk their lives.”
A NATO colleague from Canada remarked that it was about time that “the Germans left their sleeping quarters and learned how to kill the Taliban.”
And in Quebec, a Canadian official told a German official: “We have the dead, you drink beer.” 1
Ironically, in many other contexts since the end of World War II the Germans have been unable to disassociate themselves from the image of Nazi murderers and monsters.
Will there come the day when the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents will be mocked by “the Free World” for living in peace?
The United States has also engaged in a decades-long effort to wean Japan away from its post-WW2 pacifist constitution and foreign policy and set it back on the righteous path of again being a military power, only this time acting in coordination with US foreign policy needs.
“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
“In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” — Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, 1947, words long cherished by a large majority of the Japanese people.
In the triumphalism of the end of the Second World War, the American occupation of Japan, in the person of General Douglas MacArthur, played a major role in the creation of this constitution. But after the communists came to power in China in 1949, the United States opted for a strong Japan safely ensconced in the anti-communist camp. It’s been all downhill since then. Step by step … MacArthur himself ordered the creation of a “national police reserve”, which became the embryo of the future Japanese military … Visiting Tokyo in 1956, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles told Japanese officials: “In the past, Japan had demonstrated her superiority over the Russians and over China. It was time for Japan to think again of being and acting like a Great Power.” 2… various US-Japanese security and defense cooperation treaties, which, for example, called on Japan to integrate its military technology with that of the US and NATO … the US supplying new sophisticated military aircraft and destroyers … all manner of Japanese logistical assistance to the US in its frequent military operations in Asia … repeated US pressure on Japan to increase its military budget and the size of its armed forces … more than a hundred US military bases in Japan, protected by Japanese armed forces … US-Japanese joint military exercises and joint research on a missile defense system … the US Ambassador to Japan, 2001: “I think the reality of circumstances in the world is going to suggest to the Japanese that they reinterpret or redefine Article 9.” 3 … under pressure from Washington, Japan sent several naval vessels to the Indian Ocean to refuel US and British warships as part of the Afghanistan campaign in 2002, then sent non-combat forces to Iraq to assist the American war as well as to East Timor, another made-in-America war scenario … Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2004: “If Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council, and have the kind of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, Article Nine would have to be examined in that light.” 4…
One outcome or symptom of all this can perhaps be seen in the 2005 case of Kimiko Nezu, a 54-year-old Japanese teacher, who was punished by being transferred from school to school, by suspensions, salary cuts, and threats of dismissal because of her refusal to stand during the playing of the national anthem, a World War II song chosen as the anthem in 1999. She opposed the song because it was the same one sung as the Imperial Army set forth from Japan calling for an “eternal reign” of the emperor. At graduation ceremonies in 2004, 198 teachers refused to stand for the song. After a series of fines and disciplinary actions, Nezu and nine other teachers were the only protesters the following year. Nezu was then allowed to teach only when another teacher was present. 5
Which brings us to Italy, the remaining member of the World War Two Tripartite, or Axis. Article 11 of the 1948 Italian Constitution says in part: “Italy rejects war as a means for settling international controversies and as an instrument of aggression against the freedoms of others peoples.” 6
But Washington laid claim early to Italy’s post-war soul. In 1948 the United States all but took over the Italian election campaign to insure the Christian Democrats (CD) defeat of the Communist-Socialist candidate. (And the US remained an electoral force in Italy for the next three decades maintaining the CD in power. The Christian Democrats, in turn, were loyal Cold-War partners.) 7 In 1949, the US saw to it that Italy became a founding member of NATO. This was not seen as a threat to Article 11 because NATO has always painted itself as a “defensive” organization, even in 1999 when it carried out a 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia as both Italy and Germany supplied military aircraft and a NATO air base at Aviano, Italy served as the main hub for the daily bombing runs. For decades, Italy has been the home of US military bases and airfields used by Washington in one military adventure after another from Europe to Asia.
There are now some 3,000 Italian soldiers in Afghanistan performing a variety of services which enables the United States and NATO to engage in their bloody warfare. And 15 Italian soldiers have also lost their lives in that woeful land. The pressure on Italy, as on Germany, to become full-fledged combatants in Afghanistan and elsewhere is unrelenting from their NATO comrades. 8
The Berlin Wall — Another Cold War Myth
Within a few weeks many of the Western media can be expected to turn on their propaganda machines to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 1989. All the Cold War clichés about The Free World vs. Communist Tyranny will be trotted out and the simple tale of how the wall came to be will be repeated: In 1961, the East Berlin communists built a wall to keep their oppressed citizens from escaping to West Berlin and freedom. Why? Because commies don’t like people to be free, to learn the “truth”. What other reason could there have been?
First of all, before the wall went up thousands of East Germans had been commuting to the West for jobs each day and then returned to the East in the evening. So they were clearly not being held in the East against their will. The wall was built primarily for two reasons:
- The West was bedeviling the East with a vigorous campaign of recruiting East German professionals and skilled workers, who had been educated at the expense of the Communist government. This eventually led to a serious labor and production crisis in the East. As one indication of this, the New York Times reported in 1963: “West Berlin suffered economically from the wall by the loss of about 60,000 skilled workmen who had commuted daily from their homes in East Berlin to their places of work in West Berlin.” 9
- During the 1950s, American coldwarriors in West Germany instituted a crude campaign of sabotage and subversion against East Germany designed to throw that country’s economic and administrative machinery out of gear. The CIA and other US intelligence and military services recruited, equipped, trained and financed German activist groups and individuals, of West and East, to carry out actions which ran the spectrum from terrorism to juvenile delinquency; anything to make life difficult for the East German people and weaken their support of the government; anything to make the commies look bad.
It was a remarkable undertaking. The United States and its agents used explosives, arson, short circuiting, and other methods to damage power stations, shipyards, canals, docks, public buildings, gas stations, public transportation, bridges, etc; they derailed freight trains, seriously injuring workers; burned 12 cars of a freight train and destroyed air pressure hoses of others; used acids to damage vital factory machinery; put sand in the turbine of a factory, bringing it to a standstill; set fire to a tile-producing factory; promoted work slow-downs in factories; killed 7,000 cows of a co-operative dairy through poisoning; added soap to powdered milk destined for East German schools; were in possession, when arrested, of a large quantity of the poison cantharidin with which it was planned to produce poisoned cigarettes to kill leading East Germans; set off stink bombs to disrupt political meetings; attempted to disrupt the World Youth Festival in East Berlin by sending out forged invitations, false promises of free bed and board, false notices of cancellations, etc.; carried out attacks on participants with explosives, firebombs, and tire-puncturing equipment; forged and distributed large quantities of food ration cards to cause confusion, shortages and resentment; sent out forged tax notices and other government directives and documents to foster disorganization and inefficiency within industry and unions … all this and much more. 10
Throughout the 1950s, the East Germans and the Soviet Union repeatedly lodged complaints with the Soviets’ erstwhile allies in the West and with the United Nations about specific sabotage and espionage activities and called for the closure of the offices in West Germany they claimed were responsible, and for which they provided names and addresses. Their complaints fell on deaf ears. Inevitably, the East Germans began to tighten up entry into the country from the West.
Let’s not forget that Eastern Europe became communist because Hitler, with the approval of the West, used it as a highway to reach the Soviet Union and wipe out Bolshevism forever. After the war, the Soviets were determined to close down the highway.
In 1999, USA Today reported: “When the Berlin Wall crumbled, East Germans imagined a life of freedom where consumer goods were abundant and hardships would fade. Ten years later, a remarkable 51% say they were happier with communism.” 11
About the same time a new Russian proverb was born: “Everything the Communists said about Communism was a lie, but everything they said about capitalism turned out to be the truth.”
Health care: ignoring the huge red elephant in the room
In the frenzied search of recent months for a better way of delivering health care to the American people, the American media has often discussed health-care systems in other countries, particularly Europe. Usually, little, if anything, is mentioned about Cuba’s system, where everyone is covered, for everything, where pre-existing conditions do not matter, and no patient pays for anything; i.e., nothing at all. The reason the Cuban system is seldom mentioned in the mass media is probably that it’s kind of embarrassing that this otherwise poor country, laboring under the awful yoke of (choke, gasp) socialism, can deliver health care that most Americans can only dream of.
Now we have a new book by T.R. Reid, former correspondent for the Washington Post and commentator for National Public Radio. It’s called “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care”. Reid does not avoid giving some credit to the Cuban system, but he makes sure that the reader knows that he’s not taken in by any commie propaganda. He refers to the Cuban government as “a totalitarian Communist fiefdom”, and adds: “In every country (except, perhaps, a police state like Cuba) there is one group of citizens who are not bound by the unified health care system: the rich.” 12 Thus, the fact that Cuba has an egalitarian health care system is made to seem like something negative, something one could expect to find only in a police state.
In discussing the World Health Organization’s giving Cuba high marks for fairness in its system, Reid points out: “Of course, fairness and equal treatment extend only so far; when Fidel Castro himself fell ill in 2007, medical experts were flown in from Europe to treat him.” 13 Aha! I knew it! Americans, and not just the right-wing crazies, would never accept a medical system where everyone got completely free care for all ailments if the president ever got any kind of special treatment. Would they? We could at least ask them.
Speaking of the right-wing crazies, there was a report in the New York Times which said: “Tomorrow night, getting right into the thick of the battle,” the president will “carry his message to the people in a nationwide television and radio speech” fighting for enactment of his health reform bill, which opponents tagged as “socialized medicine” and “an entering wedge for the takeover of private medicine by the federal government.” The president was John F. Kennedy, the program was Medicare, the Times story was published on May 20, 1962. Despite the speech, the effort failed until passage in 1964. 14
And speaking of the totalitarian communist socialist fascist Cuban police-state dictatorship, Mr. Reid and others might be interested in an article I wrote which demonstrates that during the period of its revolution, Cuba has enjoyed one of the very best human-rights records in all of Latin America.
But how to get past a lifetime of conditioning and reach the American mind with that message? At the recent convention of the AFL-CIO, the country’s leading labor organization, there was a very progressive resolution put forth calling for the right of all Americans to travel to Cuba and for an end to the US embargo against the island nation. But at the end of the resolution the authors reminded us that they’re Americans, calling upon Cuba “to release all political prisoners”. 15
To appreciate what’s wrong with that resolution one must understand the following: The United States is to the Cuban government like al Qaeda is to Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Cuban dissidents typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American government officials, particularly in Havana through the United States Interests Section. Would the US government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds from al Qaeda and/or engaging in repeated meetings with known leaders of that organization? In the past few years, the American government has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents’ ties to the United States, evidence gathered by Cuban double agents. Virtually all of Cuba’s “political prisoners” are such dissidents.
Notes
- Der Spiegel (Germany), November 20, 2006, p.24 ?
- Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1994 ?
- Washington Post, July 18, 2001 ?
- BBC, August 14, 2004 ?
- Washington Post, August 30, 2005 ?
- Wikipedia: “Article 11 of Italian Constitution” ?
- William Blum, “Killing Hope”, chapters 2 and 18 ?
- For further discussion of US opposition to Post-WW2 Axis pacifism, see “Former Axis Nations Abandon Post-World War II Military Restrictions“ ?
- New York Times, June 27, 1963, p.12 ?
- See Killing Hope, p.400, note 8, for a list of sources for the details of the sabotage and subversion ?
- USA Today, October 11, 1999, p.1 ?
- p.234 of Reid’s book ?
- Ibid., p.150-1 ?
- Washington Post, September 9, 2009 ?
- PDF of resolution ?
William Blum is the author of:
- Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
- Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
- West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
- Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org
Email to bblum6@aol.com
William Blum is a regular columnist for Underground Dissident
Death of the West: Our Sexual Identity Crisis
September 29, 2009 by admin
Filed under Selwyn Duke
Perhaps you’ve heard the tragic story of David Reimer. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1966, David was the victim of a botched circumcision that left his penis charred beyond surgical repair. His parents Ron and Janet, no doubt beside themselves, were confused about the best way to proceed. Then, one day, they saw a man named Dr. John Money on television.
Money was talking about his theory of “gender neutrality,” which states that “gender identity” is learned rather than innate. The idea was that the sexes were the same except for the superficial physical differences; this implies that if a child were altered so as to superficially resemble the opposite sex and was raised as one of its members, he would be happy with that sexual identity. Hearing this, the Reimers hoped they had found their salvation.
They took their boy to Money, who told them that their son’s penis could not be restored and that he stood a much better chance of living a happy life if “sex-reassignment surgery” (in reality, reassigning sex is about as possible as reassigning species) were performed and he was raised as a girl. The Reimers agreed, and the surgery was performed when the boy, who would be named “Brenda,” was 22 months old.
In reality, the kindest way to describe Money’s theory is fanciful. His idea of “gender neutrality” was still in vogue when I was a youth, and “vogue,” in the most frivolous sense, is the correct term. It was always more style than science; it was something that I, even as a teen, knew was bunk. Yet who would listen to people such as me? We were old-fashioned, behind the times. And it didn’t matter that Money was Alfred Kinsey redux and believed pedophilia was lovely if it was for “love.” It didn’t matter that David and his twin brother, Brian, said that Money sexually abused them during photo shoots. He was a “doctor,” a Ph.D. on the cutting edge of a brave new world.
Only, David (“Brenda” at the time) wanted nothing to do with that world. Although he was never told he was a boy, had been surgically altered, was dressed and raised as a girl and was regularly seeing Money for therapy, he resisted his “gender assignment” from the outset. He acted like a boy, played with boys’ toys and objected to seeing Money from the age of seven. It wasn’t going well — and it wouldn’t end well.
At the age of 14, in a rare commendable act of teen rebellion, David threatened suicide if he were forced to continue with Money’s prescriptions. This prompted his parents to finally tell him the truth about his condition. With his eyes opened, he then replaced his estrogen treatments with male hormone therapy, took the name “David,” started living as a boy, underwent reconstructive genital surgery and later married a woman who already had children. Yet the damage had been done. His tormented life which began in such a tragic way came to a tragic end: he did commit suicide, at the age of 38.
Dr. Money, too, is now dead. Yet he died with his ideological boots on; not only did he fail to repent, he fraudulently portrayed David’s case — the one for which he was most famous — as a success for years after its failure was obvious. This, and his refusal to ever own up to the failure, only increased the chances that other children would be thus scarred.
As a testimonial to how quickly fashions pass away, Money’s theory has joined him in the grave. The stake through its heart came in the 1990s, with brain research and an improved understanding of intrauterine development proving conclusively that the sexes are different even within the womb and the skull. These new findings expressing old wisdom were related as revelation, reflecting the idea that nothing is truly valid until vindicated by “science.” So there was no collective mea culpa from the psychological establishment for clouding reality and misleading generations of naïve parents. They just continued without missing a beat, as if it were a matter no more significant than recommending the wrong size shoes for the kids. Worse still, they have now moved on to their next mistake.
We have heard about the curious case of Caster Semenya, the 18-year-old South African runner who has been competing as a woman. Semenya has become the focus of suspicion (I’ll use masculine pronouns, as I’m convinced this individual is a boy who experienced abnormal intrauterine development) because of his masculine physique, deep voice, development of facial hair, male mannerisms and the fact that he has been winning races by wide margins. As a result, a battery of medical exams to determine his true sex has been conducted, although the results have not been officially released. Yet the real story here is not what investigation may tell us about Semenya. It is what our reaction to Semenya tells us about ourselves.
This is reflected in comments found throughout the Internet. For instance, consider “JimBob” posting under this Daily Mail piece, who said,
“Why is everyone talking about genetics? What about Caster’s own mind – if she believes within herself that she’s female, then she is.”
Echoing this sentiment here, “Green Is Good” wrote,
“SHE identifies HERself as a female. Done.”
Then, back to the Mail, “Livio” opined,
“This is a clear case of gender identity discrimination. What if she is a man who identifies himself as a woman?”
That’s interesting. What if you’re a lunkhead who identifies himself as intelligent?
Yet it isn’t sufficient to just dismiss this with sarcasm, as this isn’t the rambling of only a few twisted minds.
What these posters are expressing is the handiwork of today’s Dr. Moneys, “transgender” theory. This is the idea that your “gender” can be whatever you want it to be — male, female, both male and female or neither, etc. — that it isn’t limited by biology. If you have a problem with this, bravo, but then you should have a problem with the word “gender” itself. Why? Because its current usage (it used to apply only to words) was originated by people such as Money for the purposes of facilitating the relation of their theories. Understand that while many people use “gender” as a synonym for “sex,” that is not its social sciences definition, which dictates that it refers to social rather than biological differences. Yet people love to use this and other elements of the lexicon of the left. It’s a fascinating phenomenon. If you replace a simple, one-syllable word such as “poor” or “sex” with impressive sounding terms such as “underprivileged” or “gender” for ideological reasons, people, oblivious to the underlying agenda and wishing to sound sophisticated, will glom onto them. You see, simpletons, who are relatively rare, prefer simple words. And the only other group that does is rarer still: true intellectuals. But I digress.
So, returning to Semenya, many people express the shocking idea that his actual sex should have no bearing on whether he should be allowed to compete with women. It’s that modern phenomenon — image is everything, reality is negotiable.
This notion has so taken hold that we’ve recently heard of two stories out of Britain wherein young boys, ages 12 and 9, showed up in school earlier this month as “girls,” sporting girls’ clothing and ponytails and bearing feminine names. And the schools are kowtowing to them, telling other pupils that they’ll be punished if they don’t handle the “sex change” “sensitively.” Yet sensitivity is not for the other children, who are upset and confused. In just the way that David Reimer’s body was mutilated in deference to yesterday’s latest theory, their minds must be mutilated in deference to today’s.
Now, even if someone subscribes to “transgender” theory, it is striking that he would allow a child who is too young to decide to have sex decide what sex he should be. How did we get to this point?
These parents, like Ron and Janet Reimer before them, are listening to the respected social scientists of their day. These “experts” tell them that there is something called “gender dysphoria,” which is the persistent feeling that one is a member of one sex trapped in the body of the other. It’s enough to convince many parents, such as those of German Tim Petras, who received female hormone “treatments” at age 12 and now goes by the name of Kim. Yet on what basis is this diagnosis really made?
Feelings.
It is truly reflective of this age, where relativism has obviated reason. That is to say, if there are no absolutes, no Truth to use as a yardstick for judging among feelings, the feelings themselves become the ultimate arbiter. Then, of course, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a Fig Newton if it feels like one.
But one of the problems with emotion is that it is by its very nature irrational. And if anyone would defend an emotion-based diagnosis such as “gender dysphoria,” note that it’s brought to us by the same psycho-babblers who have given us something dubbed “body dysmorphia.” This is this persistent feeling that a certain body part, such as an arm or leg (or multiple body parts), doesn’t belong on one’s body. And if you think it isn’t taken seriously, know that doctors have amputated healthy limbs on this basis.
Be shocked — that is, unless you accept “gender dysphoria” as legitimate. Then you’d better be introspective. For what is the difference? Why would you accept the emotion-based diagnosis of gender dysphoria but not the emotion-based one of body dysmorphia? Why are the feelings of those who suffer from the latter invalid but the feelings of those who suffer from the former a credible arbiter? Both groups have persistent feelings that their bodies aren’t as they should be. Both groups cannot bear to live in their bodies as they are. Both groups want to have their bodies altered. And both groups have found “experts” willing to put them under the knife. Sure, it strikes us as the most horrid malpractice when a doctor amputates healthy body parts, such as a pair of legs. But, then, should we view it any less dimly simply because those healthy body parts are between the legs?
Lamentably, today the answer is often yes, and this speaks volumes about our society. That is, we’ve all heard that old stereotype of a lunatic, the guy in an asylum who thinks he is Napoleon. Now the asylums have largely been emptied, and I think I know why: we’ve turned the outside world into an asylum. What was once only acceptable to a small group within the scariest of walls — detachment from reality — has now been mainstreamed. You can be a man who thinks he is a woman, yet no straitjacket is slapped on you. It is slapped on the mouths of those who dare say self-image isn’t reality.
And that is the point: there is something called reality. When feelings tell one he is, or should be, something he is not or shouldn’t be — a girl, a legless man or Napoleon — the sane conclusion is that you’re confronted with a psychological problem, not a physical one. It may be intractable, and it is certainly easier to mutilate the body than cure the mind. But you cannot mutilate reality, only obscure it. If a man loses his genitalia in an accident, does he cease to be male? Or, if “gender” is a continuum as today’s Moneys say, is he less male? Did David Reimer cease to be a boy because he was mutilated and given estrogen against his will? Of course, the “experts” would say the answer is no, since he never saw himself as a girl. Again, though, feelings cannot be the arbiters of reality. After all, I may have hypertrichosis like Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy, undergo operations to create a snout, paws and a tail, howl under the moonlight and change my name to Spot. Yet am I sane if I call myself a different species?
So what are we to conclude about “gender” science? Decades ago its “experts” said society could turn your boy into a girl if it felt like it; now they say he can turn himself into a girl if he feels like it. Is it just a coincidence that Dr. Money’s “gender neutrality” theory accorded with his day’s feminist claim that sex roles should be discarded because the sexes are essentially the same? Is it just a coincidence that the current “transgender” theory accords with our day’s homosexual claim that sex roles should be discarded because everyone and his values are essentially different? It is at all possible that these theories have less to do with sound science than the spirit of the age?
We have gone from the proposition that “gender” can be whatever society says it is to the proposition that it can be whatever the individual says it is without ever stopping to wonder if the second idea is just a crank like the first. But most won’t wonder because today we place more faith in doctors than doctrine, and today’s doctors say that eternal common sense and yesterday’s doctors’ nonsense are wrong. Yet the most significant thing that distinguishes them from Dr. John Money is that they are still alive — and their theory is not yet dead.
Selwyn Duke is a writer, columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show and has been a regular guest on the award-winning Michael Savage Show. His work has appeared in Pat Buchanan’s magazine The American Conservative and he writes regularly for The New American and Christian Music Perspective.
He can be reached at: SelwynDuke@optonline.net
Selwyn Duke is a regular columnist for Underground Dissident
The U.S. Creeps Closer to a Police State
September 28, 2009 by admin
Filed under Featured, Shamus Cooke
When word first arrived that the G-20 would be meeting in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, activists began organizing protest demonstrations. Events like this are what freedom of speech is made for. What better occasion to protest than a meeting of the world’s 20 top leaders — most of them deservedly hated — where they will be imposing policy on billions of people worldwide?
The majority of protesters consisted of labor and community groups; they encountered an army of police…literally. The New York Times paints an intimidating picture:
“…the police were out in force, patrolling on bicycles, foot and horseback, by river and by air … protesters trying to march toward the convention center…encountered roaming squads of police officers carrying plastic shields and batons. The police fired a sound cannon (a new weapon) that emitted shrill beeps … then threw tear gas canisters that released clouds of white smoke and stun grenades that exploded with sharp flashes of light.” Rubber bullets were used in a separate incident.
And:
“Riot fences lined the sidewalks. Police helicopters, gunboats and Humvees darted to and fro. City officials announced they had up to 1,000 jail cells ready after county officials freed up additional space last week by releasing 300 people who had been arrested on minor probation violations.” (September 25, 2009).
What threat required such a military-like response? None was given. The New York Times article and many like it imply that the mere existence of marching protesters warrants a colossal reaction. Of course the presence of “anarchists” is used to further scare readers into accepting such foolishness, as if this breed of protester is especially lethal (the vast majority of anarchists are like all protesters — they do not attack the police or anybody else, though some protesters respond aggressively when being confronted with the above mentioned police weapons).
The G-20 police presence is not a terrible surprise to anyone who has attended a legitimate, community-organized protest over the years. Non-provoked usage of brutal weaponry is becoming commonplace; the police-enforced use of “free speech zones” at protests — small areas surrounded by fences in some cases — is nothing new.
But the staggering police presence at the G-20 confirms that the stakes have been raised. Two turning points that deserve special attention — since the mainstream media continues to ignore them — are last years Democratic and Republican National Conventions. In both cases incredible abuses of police powers were witnessed, with the Republican Convention (RNC) showcasing the most extreme cases of state repression.
At the RNC the unlawful tactic of mass arrests were used when, in separate incidents, a public park and bridge were surrounded by police, trapping everyone in the dragnet. The documentary, Terrorizing Dissent, has excellent footage of both episodes (www.terrorizingdissent.org). Police brutality was also a regular occurrence at the RNC — including much unnecessary usage of pepper spray and tasers — while occurring alongside an even more troubling episode.
The group now referred to as the RNC 8 consists of eight community organizers potentially facing years in jail for helping organize protests at the RNC. The original charge was the Orwellian Conspiracy to Riot in the second degree in Furtherance of Terrorism (other terrorism-related charges were later added). These terrorism charges were the first ever usage of the Patriot Act toward political activists. And although the terrorism provisions of the charges have since been dropped, due to public pressure, the attempt to equate terrorism with activism has incredible, non-accidental implications for the future.
When the Patriot Act was first enacted, there was no shortage of writers and activists warning about the potential of misuse. These predictions have been fully confirmed. Both the Military Commissions Act and the Patriot Act have created what many believe to be the framework for a full-fledged police state, with the initial flurry of abuses creating a series of dangerous precedents.
One famous precedent is the so-called Telecom scandal, where tele-communication corporations colluded with the Bush-controlled National Security Agency to illegally spy on an unknown number of innocent people. No one has gone to jail for this. Indeed, as a Senator, Obama was one of many Democrats who supported Bush’s telecom immunity bill, which excuses those who broke the law while creating new powers to make spying on Americans legal.
Equally outrageous is the Military Commissions Act, created under Bush to destroy a fundamental democratic right: habeas corpus, or due process. This right says that the government cannot jail a person unless there is proof of crimes committed, while also giving that person a chance to challenge these charges in a legal court with a jury.
Bush created a separate category of person called an “enemy combatant,” which he claimed was too dangerous to be treated constitutionally. An “enemy combatant” can be tried in a military court with secret or no evidence; or they can be jailed forever without even the symbolic military trial. Of course, it is only a hop and a skip away for political activists charged with terrorist crimes to be considered “enemy combatants” or “domestic terrorists.”
Obama continues to uphold Bush’s destruction of due process. Obama has said publicly that many so-called enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay will be held “indefinitely” without being tried for their alleged crimes. Supposedly, they are “the worst of the worst.” If this is true then evidence should be produced to prove it, since anyone can accuse anybody of the most heinous crimes. Without evidence, however, such accusations correctly fall on deaf ears. But no more. Now, accusations of “terrorist activities” warrant life sentences. No crime need be committed, only a vague intention — even if such intentions were formed by the suggestions of an FBI informant and are impossible to implement. The media blares these absurd “terrorist plots” as facts, and the rationale behind the destruction of civil liberties is re-enforced.
It must not be forgotten that many of the “crimes” Guantanamo Bay inmates are being accused of are merely acts of resistance to the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, something they have every right to do.
The grossly illegal Guantanamo Bay is not being closed down like Obama promised, but moved. The equally illegal Bagram air base in Afghanistan is getting an upgrade, this according to the Independent:
“The air base is about to undergo a $60 [million] (£42m) expansion that will double its size, meaning it can house five times as many prisoners as remain at Guantanamo.” (February 22, 2009).
Not only will Bagram continue to be an institution of terror, but also some analysts estimate that there remain 18,000 people held worldwide in foreign U.S. facilities — so-called black sites — with no legal rights. The absence of even Red Cross observation at these prisons insures that “harsh interrogations” (torture) will remain a regular habit.
The above abuses of the Patriot Act have trickled down from high-profile terrorism cases (some who have made confessions under torture), to regular usage against alleged gang members, drug dealers and immigrants.
For example, one section of the Patriot Act gives police the power to search people’s home secretly without notifying the homeowner — called “sneak and peeks,” a blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment. The logic again was that “special powers” were needed to track down “terrorists.” The Huffington Post reported, “Only three of the 763 “sneak-and-peek” requests in fiscal year 2008 involved terrorism cases… Sixty-five percent were drug cases.” (September 23, 2009).
The illegal entry and searching of immigrant’s homes — or anyone suspected of being an immigrant — is widely known by the Latino community and continues to include the terror-inducing tactics of pre-dawn raids with guns drawn.
Once anti-constitutional behavior is applied to alleged terrorists, and extended to immigrants and people suspected of being gang members or drug dealers, such police behavior becomes normalized, and can then be easily expanded to all people accused of being “criminals.” Police are widely known to consider political activists, protesters, and striking workers as criminal types, beliefs encouraged by the mainstream media.
Which brings us to why? Why does the destruction of democratic rights that accelerated under Bush continue with Obama? With every political “why” question one must first answer: who benefits?
In this case the benefiting parties are the giant corporations that dominate politics in the U.S. The people steering these companies had good foresight: they saw that the global capitalist economy necessitated a race to the bottom for workers’ living standards. As U.S. corporations faced stiffer competition abroad for international markets, wages and benefits for U.S. workers would have to shrink, especially when U.S. corporations were investing heavily in emerging economies — China, India, etc., — for their slave wages.
U.S. corporate executives also understood that China became a police state out of necessity, so that its dollar-a-day workers could be brought into line (U.S. corporate investment rose sharply after the Tiananmen Square massacre). The trend of U.S. workers’ wages leads logically to similar conclusions.
The creation of NAFTA to extend the dominance of U.S. corporations to Mexico and Canada would also have predictably negative effects on workers’ living standards. Now, with two unpopular wars taking place and a third on the way (Pakistan) to further extend the profit margins of U.S. corporations, a breaking point is nearing.
Public money is being used to bail out banks and wage foreign wars while the recession continues to destroy jobs and drive down wages. This unpopular policy is viewed as a necessity for U.S. corporations, and Obama has no intention of reversing course. The police-state foundation created by Bush and continued under Obama is a stern warning to the U.S. working class to accept our fate or face dire consequences. It is already a fact that many people are too afraid of police repression to attend a protest, just as some workers are too afraid to be on a picket line during a strike.
Ultimately, a real democracy cannot function where there exists tremendous inequalities in wealth, where large sections of the population are in poverty. This is why democracies are not viable in poor countries: the super-rich use their power over the state — including dictatorships and mass repression — to crush social movements that challenge the status quo, as we are witnessing today in Honduras. The same dynamic is being created in the United States, where the vast majority of people are clamoring for real change, while those in the two-party system are using all means available to keep their rotten system in place.
Shamus Cooke is a regular columnist for Underground Dissident
He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com
Anti-Zionists: The New Heretics
August 20, 2009 by admin
Filed under Jeff Gates
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”– George Santayana
How quickly we forget. With the Inquisition still fresh in memory, America’s Founders embraced democracy as a means to protect liberty from the manipulations of faith. That’s why facts were enshrined at the core of self-governance grounded in the rule of law. The duplicity at the heart of the U.S.-Israeli relationship puts that founding principle at risk.
For seven terrifying centuries, heretics were punished under canon law. In 1633, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was condemned for “grave suspicion of heresy” when he showed that the Sun—not the crown—was the center of the universe despite what the King’s subjects—with help from the Church—had been induced to believe.
With the merger of church and state in the 4th Century Roman Empire, anyone daring to dispute papal authority—by challenging with facts the One True Faith—was condemned as both a heretic and an enemy of the state. That practice continues in modern times.
The New Heretics are those few who challenge America’s faith in its “special relationship” with an extremist enclave granted nation state recognition in 1948 by a Christian-Zionist president, Harry Truman. Critics of this enclave invite condemnation as “anti-Semites,” a modern form of social excommunication.
Defenders of the Zionist Faithful were forced to become more vigilant in monitoring this heresy after Israeli troops used U.S.-provided arms and munitions to kill more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza, one-third of them reportedly children.
That well-timed attack, planned for more than a year, was scheduled between Christmas and the January 20th presidential inaugural. Within 48 hours of ending its assault, Israel had dispatched an army of bloggers to counter anti-Zionist websites. By early February, the Anti-Defamation League was bemoaning a “pandemic of anti-Semitism.” The massacre fueled outrage worldwide even as the ADL portrayed that anger as “anti-Semitism.”
By early March, Israeli policy was being described as a threat to international peace and security, a violation of international human rights and a crime against humanity. By associating the U.S.—its ally—with this behavior, the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship” fueled anti-American hatred, fanned the flames of extremism and set the stage for more terrorism. Meanwhile a wave of modern-day excommunications swept college campuses:
• At Hampshire College in Massachusetts, students urged the school to divest from firms whose operations support the Israeli occupation of Palestine. When Israeli policies were compared to apartheid-era South Africa, Zionist Law Professor Alan Dershowitz condemned the students as “rabidly anti-Israel” (enemies of the state).
• At Canada’s Ottawa College, Students Against Israeli Apartheid were prohibited from displaying a poster condemning Zionist policies that president Jimmy Carter had already condemned in his 2007 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
• At the University of California, Santa Barbara, Professor William Robinson (Jewish) was attacked as an anti-Semite in an ADL-coordinated silencing campaign. His heresy: sharing with students a photo-essay critical of Israeli policy that had circulated for weeks online. [See “Treason in Plain Sight? [1]” and “The ADL Thought Police. [2]”]
Media-Manipulated Mindsets
Meanwhile Pope Benedict XVI attacked an Argentine cleric whose excommunication he had lifted. As head of the Roman Catholic Church, Benedict claimed he was unaware that Bishop Richard Williamson had challenged key facts of the Holocaust. When condemned by the Pontiff, Williamson apologized. The Vatican insisted he recant, a concept lifted directly from the Inquisition.
Critics suspect this early February dispute was meant to distract attention from the carnage in Gaza and create sympathy for Israel by evoking memories of the Holocaust. No media outlet mentioned that this German Pope, the first since 1523, previously led the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a direct descendant of the Church’s 16th century tribunal, the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition.
Media Magnate Haim Saban an “Israeli-American”
The fiercest condemnation of the bishop’s reluctance to recant came not from Rome but from Angela Merkel in Berlin who was elected German Chancellor in 2005. No media outlet mentioned that in 2003 Zionist media mogul Haim Saban acquired control of ProSiebenSat.1, Germany’s second largest broadcaster.
While wielding a major opinion-shaping media outlet during Merkel’s ascendancy as Germany’s first female chancellor, Saban described himself as an “Israeli-American” and “a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel.” Steve Rattner, Saban’s financial adviser, explained the motive for his media acquisition: “He thinks Germany is critical to Israel.” Rattner re-emerged as president Barack Obama’s auto industry “car czar” before resigning in mid-July due to a pension fund scandal.
To put these media-dependent developments in historical perspective requires a grasp of how—in the Information Age—warfare is waged not on a traditional battlefield but in the shared field of consciousness. In the public’s shared mindset—where consensus opinions are created, shaped and sustained—facts are routinely displaced with what “the mark” can be induced to believe.
That’s why national security agencies must monitor media czars such as Saban who is candid about using his influence to advance Zionist goals. In June 2006, a Saban-led group acquired Univision, the largest Spanish-language broadcaster in the U.S. With Latinos the fastest-growing voting bloc in the U.S., Univision is critical to Israel’s ability to sustain its control of U.S. foreign policy. Univision is the fifth largest television network in the U.S., reaching 98% of Spanish-speaking households through 62 television stations, 90 affiliate stations and more than 2,000 cable affiliates. [See “How the Israel lobby took control of U.S. foreign policy. [3]”]
For a system of self-governance reliant on informed consent, it is difficult to overstate the threat to democracy when policy-making is filtered through the pro-Israeli bias of media-owning Zionists. In addition to emerging as a reliable EU advocate for Israeli policies, Merkel threatened to arrest Williamson for Holocaust denial on a EU-wide warrant. A search of her phone records would doubtless uncover a discussion with a key supporter, Haim Saban.
Zionists and the lawmakers they groom are well positioned to advance a modern-day Inquisition—as when Bishop Williamson simultaneously faced arrest in Europe and expulsion from Argentina, the site of a seminary he directed and home to the largest Jewish population in Latin America.
The People In Between
In October 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates coined a generic phrase to describe the most perilous combatants when waging what he called “unconventional warfare.” A former C.I.A. Director, he portrayed this enemy as “the people in between.” Between Galileo and the facts was Church doctrine deployed to displace science with beliefs or, in modern-day parlance, with consensus opinion. Between the German people and the ballot box was Haim Saban for whom the election of Angela Merkel was critical to Israel. Next is Univision.
To gain credence (believability) for the displacement of facts with beliefs requires that the public’s shared mental environment be fed a steady diet of supportive impressions. Thus the agenda-advancing assistance when “unrelated” events emerge in the same timeframe to reinforce the intended orthodoxy. For example, following the Israeli assault on Gaza, news reports in February included several high profile accounts, including:
• The suspension of U.K. diplomat Rowan Laxton for allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks while riding an exercise bike in a London gymnasium.
• Reports of police protection provided in Dubai to Andy Ram, an Israeli tennis star, reinforcing the media-induced narrative that Israelis were at risk.
• A White House announcement that the Obama administration would attend a planning session for a 2009 World Conference Against Racism but may boycott it.
These narrative-advancing impressions were reinforced by the release in 2008 of eight Holocaust-themed films, including The Reader starring Kate Winslet who received a high profile Academy Award for best actress in a leading role. She even joked about the influence wielded by pro-Israelis in Hollywood and popular culture. In a 2005 filming of Extras, a comedy series in which she played herself, an actor congratulated her on her role in a Holocaust-related film, to which she responded:
“I don’t think we need another film about the Holocaust, do we? It’s like, how many have there been? We get it. It was grim. Move on. No, I’m doing it because I’ve noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust, [you're] guaranteed an Oscar. I’ve been nominated four times—never won. The whole world is going, ‘Why hasn’t Winslet won one?’ That’s it. That’s why I’m doing it. Schindler’s bloody List. The Pianist. Oscars coming out of their ass!”
Duplicity – From Antiquity to Modernity
Framers of the U.S. Constitution viewed democracy as a form of governance that resides not in a royal court or the papacy but in a mindset shared by its participants. Where else could self-governance reside? Thus the key role envisioned for media as an “in-between” domain essential to convey the facts required for informed consent. Absent widespread access to unbiased information, liberty would succumb to the exploitation of those skilled at preying on ignorance and beliefs. On that key point, the Framers were proven correct.
Thus the perils when those who mean to live free rely on media with an undisclosed bias. It is precisely such “people in between” that routinely displace facts with what an unsuspecting public (“the mark”) can be deceived to believe. In an Information Age, such fraudulent behavior is not akin to treason, that agenda-advancing duplicity is treason. Haim Saban is unusual only in conceding the pro-Israeli bias he brings to his media operations.
This duplicitous modus operandi works the same in modernity as in antiquity. The impact on informed consent is identical regardless whether the media-enabled deceit is a false belief in Iraqi WMD, a consensus faith in the infallibility of unfettered financial markets, or a shared opinion that this Zionist enclave is a democracy and an ally rather than what the oft-recurring fact patterns confirm: an enemy within.
Such treachery is at least as old as the use of canon law to silence critics of Church doctrine. The only modern component of this deceitful craft is the global reach of contemporary media and its capacity to manipulate minds and emotions on an unprecedented scale.
A 1578 handbook for inquisitors explained that its harsh penalties were “for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit.” The New Heretics chronicle the costs of the U.S.-Israel relationship in blood, treasure, insecurity and credibility. Those who yearn for freedom from such manipulation can no longer afford America’s entangled alliance with an extremist enclave notorious for waging war by way of deception.
Jeff Gates is author of Guilt By Association, Democracy at Risk and The Ownership Solution.
Visit his website at: www.criminalstate.com.
Jeff Gates is a regular columnist for Underground Dissident
Keeping Track of the Empire’s Crimes
August 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under William Blum
If you catch the CIA with its hand in the cookie jar and the Agency admits the obvious — what your eyes can plainly see — that its hand is indeed in the cookie jar, it means one of two things: a) the CIA’s hand is in several other cookie jars at the same time which you don’t know about and they hope that by confessing to the one instance they can keep the others covered up; or b) its hand is not really in the cookie jar — it’s an illusion to throw you off the right scent — but they want you to believe it.
There have been numerous news stories in recent months about secret CIA programs, hidden from Congress, inspired by former vice-president Dick Cheney, in operation since the September 11 terrorist attacks, involving assassination of al Qaeda operatives or other non-believers-in-the-Empire abroad without the knowledge of their governments. The Agency admits to some sort of program having existed, but insists that it was canceled; and if it was an assassination program it was canceled before anyone was actually assassinated. Another report has the US military, not the CIA, putting the plan — or was it a different plan? — into operation, carrying out several assassinations including one in Kenya that proved to be a severe embarrassment and helped lead to the quashing of the program.1
All of this can be confusing to those following the news. And rather irrelevant. We already know that the United States has been assassinating non-believers, or suspected non-believers, with regularity, and impunity, in recent years, using unmanned planes (drones) firing missiles, in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, if not elsewhere. (Even more victims have been produced from amongst those who happened to be in the same house, car, wedding party, or funeral as the non-believer.) These murders apparently don’t qualify as “assassinations”, for somehow killing “terrorists” from 2000 feet is morally and legally superior to doing so from two feet away.
But whatever the real story is behind the current rash of speculation, we should not fall into the media’s practice of at times intimating that multiple or routine CIA assassination attempts would be something shocking or at least very unusual.
I’ve compiled a list of CIA assassination attempts, successful and unsuccessful, against prominent foreign political figures, from 1949 through 2003, which, depending on how you count it, can run into the hundreds (targeting Fidel Castro alone totals 634 according to Cuban intelligence)2; the list can be updated by adding the allegedly al Qaeda leaders among the drone attack victims of recent years. Assassination and torture are the two things governments are most loath to admit to, and try their best to cover up. It’s thus rare to find a government document or recorded statement mentioning a particular plan to assassinate someone. There is, however, an abundance of compelling circumstantial evidence to work with. The list can be found here.
For those of you who collect lists about splendid US foreign policy post-World War II, here are a few more that, lacking anything better to do, I’ve put together: Attempts to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which had been democratically-elected.
After his June 4 Cairo speech, President Obama was much praised for mentioning the 1953 CIA overthrow of Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh. But in his talk in Ghana on July 11 he failed to mention the CIA coup that ousted Ghanian president Kwame Nkrumah in 19663, referring to him only as a “giant” among African leaders. The Mossadegh coup is one of the most well-known CIA covert actions. Obama could not easily get away without mentioning it in a talk in the Middle East looking to mend fences. But the Nkrumah ouster is one of the least known; indeed, not a single print or broadcast news report in the American mainstream media saw fit to mention it at the time of the president’s talk. Like it never happened.
And the next time you hear that Africa can’t produce good leaders, people who are committed to the welfare of the masses of their people, think of Nkrumah and his fate. And think of Patrice Lumumba, overthrown in the Congo 1960-61 with the help of the United States; Agostinho Neto of Angola, against whom Washington waged war in the 1970s, making it impossible for him to institute progressive changes; Samora Machel of Mozambique against whom the CIA supported a counter-revolution in the 1970s-80s period; and Nelson Mandela of South Africa (now married to Machel’s widow), who spent 28 years in prison thanks to the CIA.4
- Gross interference in democratic elections in at least 30 countries5
- Waging war/military action, either directly or in conjunction with a proxy army, in some 30 countries
- Dropping bombs on the people of more than 30 countries
- Attempts to suppress dozens of populist/nationalist movements in every corner of the world6
The Myths of Afghanistan, past and present
On the Fourth of July, Senator Patrick Leahy declared he was optimistic that, unlike the Soviet forces that were driven from Afghanistan 20 years ago, US forces could succeed there. The Democrat from Vermont stated:
“The Russians were sent running as they should have been. We helped send them running. But they were there to conquer the country. We’ve made it very clear, and everybody I talk to within Afghanistan feels the same way: they know we’re there to help and we’re going to leave. We’ve made it very clear we are going to leave. And it’s going to be turned back to them. The ones that made the mistakes in the past are those that tried to conquer them.”7
Leahy is a long-time liberal on foreign-policy issues, a champion of withholding US counter-narcotics assistance to foreign military units guilty of serious human-rights violations, and an outspoken critic of robbing terrorist suspects of their human and legal rights. Yet he is willing to send countless young Americans to a living hell, or horrible death, or maimed survival.
And for what? Every point he made in his statement is simply wrong.
The Russians were not in Afghanistan to conquer it. The Soviet Union had existed next door to the country for more than 60 years without any kind of invasion. It was only when the United States intervened in Afghanistan to replace a government friendly to Moscow with one militantly anti-communist that the Russians invaded to do battle with the US-supported Islamic jihadists; precisely what the United States would have done to prevent a communist government in Canada or Mexico.
It’s also rather difficult for the United States to claim that it’s in Afghanistan to help the people there when it’s killed tens of thousands of them simply for resisting the American invasion and occupation or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time; not a single one of the victims has been identified as having had any kind of connection to the terrorist attack in the US of September 11, 2001, the event usually cited by Washington as justification for the military intervention. Moreover, Afghanistan is now permeated with depleted uranium, cluster bombs-cum-landmines, white phosphorous, a witch’s brew of other charming chemicals, and a population, after 30 years of almost non-stop warfare, of physically and mentally mutilated human beings, exceedingly susceptible to the promise of paradise, or at least relief, sold by the Taliban.
As to the US leaving … utterly meaningless propaganda until it happens. Ask the people of South Korea — 56 years of American occupation and still counting; ask the people of Japan — 64 years. And Iraq? Would you want to wager your life’s savings on which decade it will be that the last American soldier and military contractor leaves?
It’s not even precise to say that the Russians were sent running. That was essentially Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev’s decision, and it was more of a political decision than a military one. Gorbachev’s fondest ambition was to turn the Soviet Union into a West-European style social democracy, and he fervently wished for the approval of those European leaders, virtually all of whom were cold-war anti-communists and opposed the Soviet intervention into Afghanistan.
There has been as much of the same “causes” for wars that did not happen as for wars that did.
Henry Allingham died in Britain on July 18 at age 113, believed to have been the world’s oldest man. A veteran of World War I, he spent his final years reminding the British people about their service members killed during the war, which came to about a million: “I want everyone to know,” he said during an interview in November. “They died for us.”8
The whole million? Each one died for Britain? In the most useless imperialist war of the 20th century? No, let me correct that — the most useless imperialist war of any century. The British Empire, the French Empire, the Russian Empire, and the wannabe American Empire joined in battle against the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire as youthful bodies and spirits sank endlessly into the wretched mud of Belgium and Germany, the pools of blood of Russia and France. The wondrous nobility of it all is enough to make you swallow hard, fight back the tears, light a few candles, and throw up. Imagine, by the middle of this century Vietnam veterans in their 90s and 100s will be speaking of how each of their 58,000 war buddies died for America. By 2075 we’ll be hearing the same stirring message from ancient vets of Iraq and Afghanistan. How many will remember that there was a large protest movement against their glorious, holy crusades, particularly Vietnam and Iraq?
Supreme nonsense
Senate hearings to question a nominee for the Supreme Court are a supreme bore. The sine qua non for President Obama choosing Sonia Sotomayor appears to be that she’s a woman with a Hispanic background. A LATINA! How often that word was used by her supporters. She would be the first LATINA on the Supreme Court! Dios mio!
Who gives a damn? All anyone should care about are her social and political opinions. Justice Clarence Thomas is a black man. A BLACK MAN! And he’s as conservative as they come.
Supreme Court nominees, of all political stripes, typically feel obliged to pretend that their social and political leanings don’t enter into their judicial opinions. But everyone knows this is rubbish. During her Senate hearing, Sotomayor declared: “It’s not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It’s the law.”
The former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Charles Evans Hughes, would not agree with her. “At the constitutional level where we work,” he said, “ninety percent of any decision is emotional. The rational part of us supplies the reasons for supporting our predilections.”9
By Sotomayor’s own account, which echos news reports, she was not asked about her position on abortion by either President Obama or his staff. But what if she is actually anti-abortion? What if she turns out to be the swing vote that overturns Roe vs. Wade?
What if she’s a proud admirer of the American Empire and its perpetual wars? American dissidents, civilian and military, may depend on her vote for their freedom from imprisonment.
What does she think about the “War on Terror”? The civil liberties and freedom from torture of various Americans and foreigners may depend on her attitude. In his 2007 trial, Jose Padilla, an American citizen, was found guilty of aiding terrorists. “The jury did seem to be an oddly cohesive group,” the Washington Post reported. “On the last day of trial before the Fourth of July holiday, jurors arranged to dress in outfits so that each row in the jury box was its own patriotic color — red, white or blue.”10 No one dared to question this blatant display of patriotism in the courtroom; neither the defense attorney, nor the prosecutor, nor the judge. How can we continue to pretend that people’s legal positions exist independently of their political sentiments?
In the 2000 Supreme Court decision stopping the presidential electoral count in Florida, giving the election to George W. Bush, did the politics of the five most conservative justices play a role in the 5 to 4 decision? Of course. Judges are essentially politicians in black robes. But should we care? Don’t ask, don’t tell. Sonia Sotomayor is a LATINA!
Given the large Democratic majority in the Senate, Sotomayor was in very little danger of being rejected. She could have openly and proudly expressed her social and political positions — whatever they may be — and the Democratic senators could have done the same. How refreshing, maybe even educational if a discussion ensued. Instead it was just another political appointment by a president determined to not offend anyone if he can help it, and another tiresome ritual hearing. The Republican senators were much less shy about revealing how they actually felt about important issues.
It didn’t have to be that way. As Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun.org pointed out during the hearings: “Democratic Senators could use their time to ask questions and make statements that explain why a liberal or progressive worldview is precisely what is needed on the Supreme Court.”
NATO and Eastern Europe resource
No one chronicles the rise of the supra-government called NATO like Rick Rozoff in his “Stop NATO” mailings. NATO has become an ever-expanding behemoth, making war and interfering in political controversies all over Europe and beyond. The United States is not the world’s only superpower; NATO is another, as it surrounds Russia and the Caspian Sea oil reserves; although the distinction between the two superpowers is little more than a facade. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the NATO/US 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia. On April 23, 1999 missiles slammed into Radio Television Serbia (RTS) in downtown Belgrade, killing 16 employees. The station, NATO claimed, was a legitimate military target because it broadcast propaganda. (Certainly a novel form of censorship; not to mention the fact that NATO could simply have taken out the station’s transmitter.) What apparently bothered the Western powers was that RTS was reporting the horrendous effects of NATO’s bombing as well as passing footage of the destruction to Western media.
To mark the anniversary, Amnesty International recently issued a demand that NATO be held accountable for the 16 deaths. Amnesty asserts that the bombing was a deliberate attack on a civilian object (one of many during the 78 days) and as such constitutes a war crime, and called upon NATO to launch a war crimes probe into the attack to ensure full accountability and redress for victims and their families.
Readers might consider signing up for the “Stop NATO” mailing list. Just write to: rwrozoff [at] yahoo.com. Rozoff scours the East European press each day and comes up with numerous gems ignored by the mainstream media. But a warning: The amount of material you’ll receive is often considerable. You’ll have to learn to pick and choose. You can get an idea of this by reading previous reports at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages.
Notes
- The Guardian (London) July 13, 2009 ?
- Fabian Escalante, “Executive Action: 634 Ways to Kill Fidel Castro” (Ocean Press, 2006) ?
- William Blum, Killing Hope, chapter 32?
- William Blum, Rogue State, chapter 23 ?
- Ibid., chapter 18 ?
- Rogue State, chapter 17, intermixed with other types of US interventions ?
- Vermont TV station WCAX, July 4, 2009, WCAX.com ?
- Washington Post, July 19, 2009 ?
- William O. Douglas, “The Court Years, 1939-1975″ (1980), p.8 ?
- Washington Post, August 17, 2007 ?
William Blum is the author of:
- Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
- Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower
- West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
- Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org
Email to bblum6@aol.com
William Blum is a regular columnist for undergrounddissident.com
Obama and the Denial of Genocide
Writer-activist David Boyajian’s investigative articles and commentaries have appeared in Armenian media outlets in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Armenia and the Newton Tab and USA Armenian Life newspapers named him among their “Top 10 Newsmakers of 2007.” So, when Barack Obama paid a visit to Turkey last month, it seemed like a good time to ask Boyajian for his take on the new president’s approach to the issue of the Armenian genocide.
Map: http://www.armenianchurch.net/heritage/history/map.html
Mickey Z: This April, President Barack Obama broke campaign promise #511, namely to explicitly acknowledge the Armenian genocide as U.S. President. What happened on his recent visit to Turkey? What are the ramifications of his breaking this promise?
David Boyajian: President Obama visited Turkey from April 6 to 7, where he did not use the word “genocide” when referring to the 1.5 million murders committed by the Turkish Ottoman Empire against its Armenian citizens from 1915-1923. As a candidate, Obama had promised several times to do so. His statement in Turkey that he had “not changed his views”-implying he still believes it was genocide-was still a clear breach of his promise to use the “G word.” It was a case study in verbal gymnastics and political duplicity and should be studied in political science courses. Obama’s broken promise obviously eroded his credibility. The same holds true for Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who, as senators, supported the Armenian genocide resolution. They’ve since fallen disgracefully silent. Dr. Samantha Power should also be embarrassed. She’s the National Security Council’s genocide expert and a Pulitzer Prize winning author. As a campaign advisor to Obama, she made a video telling Armenian Americans that as president, Obama would definitely acknowledge their genocide. “Take my word for it,” she said.
Appeasement of a genocide-denying country such as Turkey is bad policy because its message is that genocides can be committed without consequence. Appeasement also erodes U.S. credibility on human rights and its stated desire to be a leader in genocide prevention. Unlike what lobbyists for Turkey would have U.S. believe, Armenian genocide affirmation by America would not harm U.S. national interests. Turkey depends on the U.S. for weapons systems, support for billions in loans from the International Monetary Fund, security guarantees through NATO, advocacy for Turkish membership in the European Union, and more. Some 20 countries, including Canada, France, and Switzerland, as well as the parliaments of the EU and the Council of Europe, have acknowledged the Armenian genocide. None has ever experienced much more a Turkish temper tantrum in retaliation.
MZ: Two days prior to Armenian Genocide Remembrance day- which annually falls on April 24-Turkey and Armenia announced that they had agreed to a “roadmap” to normalize relations. What was the significance of this timing? What does the “roadmap” contain?
DB: Behind the scenes, the U.S. State Department had long been twisting Armenia’s arm to agree to a so-called “roadmap” with Turkey before President Obama issued what has become a customary “April 24 statement” by U.S. presidents marking Armenian genocide memorial day. The “roadmap,” announced on April 22, provided political cover for Obama to not use the “G word” on April 24. That is, since there was now supposedly a roadmap for normalization of relations-no matter how vague and hurriedly slapped together- Obama could say that he did not want to upset Turkey and the touted-as-highly-delicate Turkish-Armenian negotiations by using the “G word.” Notice that Obama did not consult with Armenian-Americans or Armenia about this. So much for promises and moral principles. It’s disgraceful that Obama, simply to help Turkey save face, not only broke his promise, but showed blatant disregard for the activists-not just Armenians-who labored so hard for many years for the cause of recognizing all genocides.
Armenia has always said that it was ready to normalize relations with Turkey-which would include Turkey’s re-opening its border with Armenia-without pre-conditions. Suddenly, however, Armenia has had pre-conditions imposed on it in this “roadmap.” According to the Turkish press, the “roadmap” allegedly contains pre-conditions such as: Armenia’s agreeing to a joint commission to examine the veracity of the Armenian genocide-yes, you heard right, Armenia’s formal recognition of current Turkish boundaries-which contain the Armenian homeland, and, possibly, Armenia’s accepting Turkish mediation in the conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijan over the disputed Armenian region of Karabagh-which is absurd since Azerbaijan and Turkey are allies. It appears that Armenia’s president, whose electoral legitimacy is in question, has been worn down in these negotiations by Turkey, the West, and possibly even Russia. And because the Armenian president is grappling with his legitimacy, he is not heeding the cautions being voiced by the people of his own nation about the “roadmap.”
MZ: The U.S. administration and mainstream media would have us believe that Turkey is seeking to “reconcile” with Armenia. Is “reconciliation” really a possibility, or have we misunderstood what’s going on?
DB: The word “reconciliation” in relation to Armenian-Turkish relations is largely an invention of U.S. policymakers, their emissaries, and the mainstream media who take their cues from them. What the U.S. and Europe would like to see is a more stable Caucasus-that is, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia-with open borders. Open borders, you see, would facilitate laying more oil and gas pipelines that would originate in the Caspian Sea region and proceed west to Turkey and then to energy-hungry Europe and Israel. The U.S. and Europe don’t want to put it quite that crudely-no pun intended-so they try to depict Armenia and Turkey as possibly “reconciling” and thus resolving all their differences. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 out of sympathy with its ally Azerbaijan, which was in a war with the Armenians of Karabagh, a historically Armenian-populated autonomous area within Azerbaijan that Stalin handed to Azerbaijan. Turkey has also been infuriated that Armenia and Armenians worldwide have been demanding that Turkey acknowledge the genocide it committed against Armenians.
Turkey has to acknowledge the genocide or there will never be peace between it and Armenia. And although the Armenian government has not put forth any claims for reparations arising out of the genocide, or for territory, many Armenians do have these goals. They cite the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920, which provided for Armenian sovereignty over Armenian lands upon which Turkey committed the genocide, and which have since been incorporated into what is now eastern Turkey.
MZ: The countries of the Caucasus are Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Most Americans, including the mainstream media, could not find these small countries on a map. Why are Russia and the U.S.-the latter being thousands of miles from the region-so interested in these three small countries?
DB: The Caucasus is truly Ground Zero in Cold War II, the ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S.-along with Europe and the NATO military alliance-regard Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan as middlemen between the West and the gas and oil-rich regions around the Caspian Sea. The West has already laid gas and oil pipelines from Azerbaijan through Georgia and then on to Turkey and the west. The U.S. wanted those and future pipelines to bypass Russia and Iran because those two countries could shut such pipelines to pressure the U.S. and others. The only possible pipelines routes, therefore, are through Georgia or Armenia. But Turkey shut its border with Armenia in 1993, and Azerbaijan closed its border with Armenia even earlier due to the conflict between it and the de-facto Armenian region of Karabagh. That left Georgia as the only place for these Western pipelines. After the Russian-Georgian was last year, however, opening an alternative route has become more urgent. That largely explains the West’s renewed interest in Armenia. Conversely, Russia sees the Caucasus as within its traditional sphere of influence, and regards U.S. and European interest in the region as hostile acts.
Simultaneously, NATO has been pushing into the region. Georgia, Azerbaijan, and to some extent even the ex-Soviet republics on the other side of the Caspian Sea, are on the path to joining NATO. Russia was already upset that, following the Cold War, NATO had absorbed the former Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe. NATO is now attempting, in effect, to do the same thing on Russia’s southern border. Russia fears that it will eventually be virtually surrounded by NATO. As a result, we have Cold War II: The U.S. and NATO are trying to push into the Caucasus and Central Asia, while Russia is trying to keep them out.
MZ: Why is Israel interested in the Caucasus, and what role is that country playing? Why are Israel and the pro-Israel lobby dead set against recognition of the Armenian genocide by the U.S. Congress?
DB: Israel is interested in getting some of the oil and gas that flow out of the Caspian Sea region. That is, from countries such as Azerbaijan, oil and gas flow west through Georgia, and then on to Turkey and other countries, possibly including Israel. After all, the U.S. and Turkey, which are important players in these pipelines, are obviously also very friendly with Israel. Israel also welcomes all non-Arab supplies of energy since they would make its Western allies less dependent on Arab oil and gas. And Israel has long had what it calls its Periphery Policy. Historically, Israel has not had good relations with its Arab neighbors. Therefore, to serve as counterweights, Israel befriends those countries further away, especially Muslim countries that aren’t necessarily sympathetic to Israel’s Arab neighbors or Palestinians. Azerbaijan, the only Muslim nation in the Caucasus, and some Muslim nations to the east, such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, are such countries. Fortuitously for Israel, they also possess significant deposits of gas and oil.
For decades, Israel and Turkey have had very good relations, mainly because they have a common ally, the U.S., and common adversaries, namely Arab nations. In the 1990′s, Israel and Turkey signed a number of military, economic, and political agreements that solidified their relationship. Even before that, but particularly after that, Turkey felt that it did not have sufficient lobbying muscle in Washington. So the Turks asked Israel to convince some of the pro-Israel lobby-the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and others-to serve as advocates for Turkey. The Jewish lobby groups agreed. So these groups, as part of their deal with Turkey, deny or call into question the Armenian genocide and work to prevent U.S. acknowledgement of that genocide. These groups won’t tolerate anyone questioning of the Holocaust, and yet hypocritically work against acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide. Interestingly, for the last 2 years, Armenian Americans have exposed the ADL’s hypocrisy. In Massachusetts, for example, fourteen cities severed ties with an anti-bias program sponsored by the ADL because of the latter’s hypocritical and anti-Armenian stance (see NoPlaceForDenial.com). Armenians are determined to challenge genocide denial whenever it occurs.
MZ: Is there a problem with the way the mainstream media has been covering Armenian issues?
DB: Yes. The mainstream media have several problems. First, they know very little about the Caucasus or Armenians. Reporters tend, therefore, to copy each other and repeat clichés and falsehoods-such as that Armenia and Turkey are on the verge of a historic “reconciliation.” Media also tend to accept at face value the propaganda issued by Western governments whose interest in the Caucasus is-let’s be frank-not “reconciliation,” democracy, or human rights, but rather self-interested economic, political, and military political penetration of the Caucasus.
Turkey has about 30 times more people and territory, and 50 times more Gross Domestic Product, than Armenia. The power differential is enormous. Turkey has infinitely more allies in Western media, governments, think tanks, and multi-national corporations-and knows how to use them. Commentators who have a vested interest in touting Turkey for their own political and even financial reasons have particularly come out of the woodwork to deride legitimate Armenian demands. But we rarely hear commentators speak of how a small country that has been the victim of genocide, that has had most of its territory stripped from it, and that has been blockaded by the denier of that genocide-Turkey-is being threatened by that very same unrepentant denier. Mainstream media largely fail to appreciate the foregoing facts. Hopefully, Mickey, this interview will help the media and your readers understand the issues and the region a bit better.
David Boyajian can be reached at David_Boyajian@Yahoo.com
Mickey Z. is a self-educated writer, personal trainer, martial artist, and vegan who lectures on US foreign policy at MIT in his spare time. He has appeared in martial arts films and was known as the Underground Poet for hanging his poetry in the NYC subway. He is the author of numerous books, including, most recently, “CPR for Dummies” and “No Innocent Bystanders”. He lives with his wife Michele in New York City. You can contact him at: info@mickeyz.net. Visit him on the web at Mickeyz.net
Mickey Z is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com
Stopping Truth at the Border
May 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Selwyn Duke
Banning Michael Savage from Britain…
When I awoke Tuesday morning, I ambled over to the computer, as is my wont, and made my usual cyber rounds. I logged on to the Drudge Report and, lo and behold, saw the following headline, “RADIO HOST MICHAEL SAVAGE BANNED FROM UK FOR ‘EXTREME VIEWS’….” “Wow,” I thought, “Britain strikes again.”
The prohibition is the handiwork of England’s Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, who included Savage on a list of 16 unwelcome individuals whom she wanted to “name and shame.” According to Beverley Rouse writing in The Independent, Smith says this is “so others could better understand what sort of behaviour Britain was not prepared to tolerate.”
Yeah, such as telling the Truth, I suppose.
Believe it or not, I can’t really say I’m surprised at Smith’s actions. I keep my nose to the news, and nary a week goes by that I don’t read about a couple more examples of political correctness on steroids coming out of formerly Great Britain. If you think I exaggerate, try these on for size: The country’s National Children’s Bureau, funded mainly with government money, issued anti-racism guidelines stating that if a toddler says “yuk” in response to foreign food (it’s rumored that most U.K. toddlers say yuk in response to British food), it could be a sign of “racism.” Then there was 14-year-old schoolgirl Codie Stott, who was arrested and jailed on a “racial offense” for requesting to be in a discussion group with English-speaking students. English in England? What an outrage. And if that makes any Brits’ blood pressure rise, never fear, because certain local governments are using taxpayer funds to encourage chip shops to use salt shakers with fewer holes, which, supposedly, will reduce sodium consumption. Hey, you can’t make this stuff up.
So, if it’s any consolation to Michael Savage, I would say that cause for alarm would be if Britain’s 1984 government endorsed him. I mean, Britain’s Jacobin jobsworths have clearly lost hold of their sanity as the nation has gone from empire to about to expire, from rum and the lash to leather bars and the leash.
Really, though, this story strikes pretty close to home for me, as I make regular appearances on Savage’s radio program “The Savage Nation.” So, I have to wonder, will I next have the honor of being banned from Nanny State Central? After all, I’m to the right of Savage on immigration and am known for acid-penned commentary. And what about Savage’s 10 million listeners? My guess is that about 9 million of them agree with his “extreme views.” Will they get the boot, too? Alas, we’ll probably just have to accept the humbling reality that we’re too small for Orwell’s children abroad to trouble over . . . for now.
Yet, comedic tone aside, this is no laughing matter. As Codie Stott and many other “hate-speech” law victims around the Western world prove, the left is determined to stifle dissenting views. And labeling Savage a persona non grata is an example of this. I will point out that if you peruse the 16 banned individuals on the Home Office’s list, it’s a what’s-wrong-with-this-picture experience. Savage is lumped in with neo-Nazi and terrorist murderers simply because he espouses unfashionable positions. Moreover, the Home Office wrote that he was “seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence.”
Now, the above is a bald-faced lie. I have listened to Savage’s radio show for years and can say with assurance that nothing is more contrary to his personality. He is passionate, he does wear his heart on his shirtsleeve – and he can administer a good tongue lashing – but it’s not in his heart to incite violence.
Yet critics will say that Savage’s commentary can raise ire. And it’s a point Michael himself cedes, as he has said that while his views are “not violent in any way,” they “may be inflammatory.” But is this to be condemned?
Remember that just as physical inflammation can have a positive effect by helping to fight infection, inflammatory words can help combat political and cultural infections. And think about it: Was Patrick Henry not inflammatory when he proclaimed “Give me liberty or give me death”? Why, it was the Founding Fathers inflammatory words that sparked the American Revolution and birthed our nation. Was one of the greatest Englishman to ever live, G.K. Chesterton, not inflammatory when he said, “It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged” (I wonder if a vision of the future, of Jacqui Smith perhaps, inspired him to thus lament)? He sure was, and in today’s 1984 Britain, the jolly, rotund philosopher might be charged with hate speech and inciting violence.
The point is that inflammatory rhetoric is used by commentators of all stripes. This is for a simple reason: Virtually all opinions on matters of import are inflammatory to a degree. Why do you think we have the saying “Never discuss religion or politics”? Anytime you express any opinion – especially on matters that lend meaning to people’s lives – some will side with you and others will oppose you; it is by definition divisive. But how will people react? Well, whether they’re inspired to virtue or incited to violence depends on the person more than the positions.
So, obviously, it doesn’t matter whether views are inflammatory or not. The critical factor is whether they’re true. Yet, to leftists, who are moral relativists, Truth means nothing. Thus, they simply define anything contrary to their agenda as out-of-bounds.
For this reason, we saw the San Francisco Board of Supervisors issue a resolution condemning Michael Savage for “hate speech” while saying nothing about vile college professors Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill. And, hewing to the mainstream-media meme of blaming talk radio for violence, Bill Moyers did a segment titled “Rage on the Radio – What happens when America’s airwaves fill with hate?” In it he discussed Jim David Adkisson, the man who opened fire on parishioners at a Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tn., in July of last year. Moyers mentioned that a copy of Savage’s book Liberalism is a Mental Disorder was found in Adkisson’s apartment, and the implication was clear: Talk radio hosts use their tongues irresponsibly and incite violence. Ah, the perils of inflammatory prose.
Yet, Moyers didn’t do a feature on how Al Gore’s book Earth in the Balance – with certain passages highlighted – was found in the possession of Ted Kaczynski. Now, in case that name has faded into the past, he was none other than the Unibomber, the friendly neighborhood liberal who mailed off homemade explosive devices, murdering three innocent people. Yet will Gore be banned from Britain as someone whose words can foment violence? I suspect not, as Gore didn’t inflame the right people: Newspaper editors and media talking heads.
However, should these esteemed newsmen ever resolve to connect the carbon-credit con man with the Luddite bomb man, I have a title at the ready: “Blood and Gore – What happens when environmental extremists take to the pen?” And there are other stories to be explored as well. The media could draw a connection between Colin Ferguson – the black Long Island Railroad gunmen who targeted whites – and the kind of rhetoric disgorged by a Reverend Jeremiah Wright in a report called “Rage in the Pulpit – What happens when black churches fill with hate?” But I won’t hold my breath waiting. Far more likely is that I’ll be called a hater for daring to criticize black churches.
So my complaint is not that leftists observe what is inflammatory. It is that they’re numb to what should be inflamed and what should be soothed, to what is true and what is a lie. It is that they have thrust us into what George Orwell called “a time of universal deceit,” where “telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” This is why we have Canadian “human rights tribunals” (talk about a euphemism) that have ruled that Truth is not a defense against a hate-speech charge. I guess that the Truth will set you free, but not in Canada.
This all reminds me of Charles Robert Jenkins, an American soldier who spent 39 years in captivity in North Korea. Why? Well, listen to what he said about the communists: “In North Korea, when you lie they think you are telling the truth, and when you tell the truth they think you are lying. You learn real quick to say no when you mean yes, and yes when you mean no.” The further a society drifts from Truth, the more it will hate those who speak it. This is the real problem Michael Savage has. And it’s the problem we will all have, increasingly, unless we’re willing to live those fashionable lies – or able to defeat the fashionable liars.
Selwyn Duke is a writer, columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show and has been a regular guest on the award-winning Michael Savage Show. His work has appeared in Pat Buchanan’s magazine The American Conservative and he writes regularly for The New American and Christian Music Perspective.
He can be reached at: SelwynDuke@optonline.net
Selwyn Duke is a regular columnist for Underground Dissident
How The New ‘US Hate Laws’ Will Change Our Lives
May 5, 2009 by admin
Filed under Brother Nathanael Kapner
REVEREND TED PIKE, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL PRAYER NETWORK, is the publisher of the world-renowned Web Site, Truth Tellers.
Reverend Pike, who is often featured on the Rense Radio Program, has played a key role in defeating federal hate crimes legislation in the past. This time it may be quite different…
Brother Nathanael: On April 29, 2009, the US House of Representatives passed the Federal Hate Crimes Bill, HR 1913. The Bill was approved despite compelling testimony by House Republicans who were constrained by a Democrat-imposed “closed rule” on debate and amendments which limited the debate to only one hour and twenty minutes.
Only the day before, apparently in co-ordination with House Democrats, Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy introduced his Senate version of the Federal Hate Crimes Bill, S 909. If the Hate Crimes Bill is enacted into law, what are the implications for freedom of speech in America?
Reverend Ted Pike: The current Hate Crimes Bill builds upon the Hate Crimes Law of 1968, inspired by Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights legislation. This law criminalizes those who incite a crime committed against a targeted group. However, the law could not be enforced due to State & Local law enforcement prerogatives which created many barriers against federal intrusion.
BUT, the pending Hate Crimes Bill will remove all barriers against federal intrusion of State & Local law enforcement rights. Thus, the Federal government can go after anyone they want to for both “hate” and “felonies” – despite State & Local protection. A Federal police state with absolute power will thus be created. Herein lies the attack on our freedoms, especially, freedom of speech.
Incidentally, the number chosen for the pending Hate Crimes Bill is “HR 1913.” Any number may be chosen, but why “1913?” I don’t think it’s an accident that this number was chosen by the Zionists. For in “1913,” three threats to our freedom occurred: The establishment of the Anti Defamation League (ADL), The Federal Income Tax, and the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. Now the greatest of all threats is about to occur using this ominous date, “1913.” View Entire Story Here, Here & Here.
This current Hate Crimes Bill will eventually enforce the ADL-definition that “hate equals bias” against newly-formed federally protected groups: Homosexuals, Jews, and Muslims. These groups will receive special federal protection in violation of both the 1st & 14th amendments. Thus, if the pending US Hate Crimes Bill becomes law, freedom of speech will be effectively annihilated in America once and for all.
Br Nathanael: Why an “ADL-definition” of what constitutes hate? What does the Anti Defamation League have to do with the pending US Hate Crimes Laws?
Rev. Ted Pike: The Anti Defamation League of the B’nai B’rith, as it was formerly called, is behind it all, that’s why. This super powerful Jewish religious, educational, fraternal, and charitable organization, that is, the B’nai B’rith, has persuaded 55 nations (in which it has 2100 lodges and 200,000 Jewish members) to unite under the authority of a central Hate Crimes command center. It is called the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The establishment of this international Hate Crimes organization by the B’nai B’rith is but the apex of their hate crimes agenda. Such descends to the community level via the civil rights arm of the B’nai B’rith, the Anti Defamation League. Through their No Place For Hate & A World Of Difference programs in cities and communities throughout America, the ADL intensively organizes city governments, schools, modernist & Zionist-oriented churches, civic organizations, and citizen groups to combat “hate and homophobia” (Bible-Believing Christians) in their communities. The ADL has already infiltrated our public schools with their propaganda with various training and “educational” programs.
Indeed, a national and global hate crimes Gestapo is being created right before our very eyes, if we can only open them to see it. A “thought police” bureaucracy, led by the ADL, will soon harass and indict Christians and the politically incorrect here in America, as they now do in Canada.
Br Nathanael: Can you tell us more about the B’nai B’rith and their role in the pending US Hate Crimes legislation?
Rev. Ted Pike: Americans must understand that the ADL’s parent group, the B’nai B’rith, has established many “tolerance-oriented” lobby groups throughout the world in connection with various political & governmental spheres.
Organizations such as, B’nai B’rith Center for Human Rights and Public Policy, B’nai B’rith Office of United Nations Affairs, and B’nai B’rith Inter-American Convention Against Racism and Xenophobia, have maneuvered themselves into influential governmental realms. The B’nai B’rith boasts of having established the Canadian hate laws bureaucracy in 1971. Of course, money and politics plays a big part in the operations of powerful lobby groups, like the B’nai B’rith lobby.
Br Nathanael: How did the ADL begin its campaign of promoting Hate Crime Laws?
Rev. Ted Pike: The ADL began its promotion of Hate Crime Laws worldwide in 1988 following the infamous Hofstra Conference through which the ADL formed their model “Anti-Hate” legislation proposals with the deception that their proposals only targeted “violent physical hate crimes.” This is exactly what the ADL told lawmakers in Canada, Britain, and Sweden.
Yet, soon after the ADL’s Hate Bill was passed in those countries, it broadened to outlaw “verbal violence” against protected groups. Thus, laws to end “violent hate crimes” soon criminalized free speech.
Br Nathanael: What then is defined as “verbal violence?” And who defines what is “hate” in a person’s verbal articulations?
Rev. Ted Pike: Again, we must point to the Anti Defamation League as the culprit in defining that which constitutes “verbal violence” & “hate.” The ADL, which presently administers the US government’s Hate Crimes Enforcement Program, says that “hate equals bias” against federally protected groups.
Now, what document is most biased against homosexuality? The Holy Bible. Christians thus become potential “hate criminals.” And it is Christians in particular who are the ultimate target of ADL’s twisted and self-serving definitions of hate crimes.
Soon to follow homosexuals, will be another federally protected group, the Jews. Any person critical of the conduct of Jews, (even as the New Testament justly censors the conduct of unbelieving Jews), will be criminalized as perpetrators of “hate speech.” Of course, this is what the ADL is really after, forbidding Christians and all Gentiles to articulate valid criticism against Jewish supremacists.
Br Nathanael: What about the Internet? Will the US Hate Crime Laws prohibit freedom of speech on the Internet?
Rev. Ted Pike: Indeed it will. Today, the ADL/B’nai B’rith Hate Law bureaucracies are proliferating throughout the world, ending free speech and free talk radio.
This has happened already in Canada, England, France, Germany, and Australia with the establishment of ADL’s/B’nai B’rith’s, Department of Global Anti-Semitism in the US State Department, and a 55-nation Hate Crimes bureaucracy centered in Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, as I mentioned earlier.
The threat to free speech on the Internet posed by these groups with their promotion of Hate Laws is an increasingly urgent subject for discussion on talk radio, especially for shows with Internet access.
Br Nathanael: Who will be targeted on the Internet by the Anti Defamation League?
Rev. Ted Pike: Internet talk radio hosts or Internet publicists who criticize homosexuality, Israel, or matters Jewish, will be targeted as “haters” according to the ADL’s International Network Against Cyberhate (INACH).
The purpose of this ADL entity is to implement legal, political, and technological means to end the free speech of such “haters” on the Internet. Quite recently, on March of 2009, INACH shut down a Catholic Website in the UK for being critical of “extremist Jews.”
Curiously, while the ADL/B’nai B’rith/INACH has no problem with the exercise of free speech by homosexuals and pornographers on the Internet, it has a huge problem with those who criticize all matters Jewish.
Br Nathanael: Are we headed for a Zionist-inspired police state?
Rev. Ted Pike: We certainly are. The pending US Hate Crimes Law creates a bias-motivation justice system for America, just like Canada’s. Suspicion of bias motivation behind a crime will justify federal invasion of local law enforcement as I discussed earlier. Such unity of federal and local jurisdiction is the definition of a police state.
And the powerful Jewish group, the ADL, with its Hate Crimes Training has already infiltrated hundreds of local police forces throughout the United States.
Br Nathanael: Is there a chance that the pending US Hate Crimes Bill, HR 1913, can still be defeated?
Rev. Ted Pike: Yes, there is still a chance, if we all do our part. You see, unlike the House, there is a very small margin of Democrats & Republicans in the Senate. If public outrage is overwhelming enough this coming week, then there is a chance that several Democrats will come over and vote with the Republicans against the Hate Crimes Bill. This is what occurred two years ago due to the protests of concerned Americans.
During the recent mark-up in the House Judiciary, Republicans boldly discredited the Hate Crimes Bill as a “pedophile-protecting” Bill. This is documented in my recent video, Stop The Pedophile-Protecting Hate Bill.
Everyone should now protest to members of the Senate by calling Toll Free, 1-877-851-6437 or 202-225-3121, and say, “Please Don’t Vote For The Pedophile-Protecting Hate Bill, S-909!” I am calling everyone to demand hearings in the Senate Judiciary. This will slow down the passage and encourage Senate Republicans.
The Democrats had hoped to push through the Senate Hate Bill, S-909, as rapidly to passage as the House Bill was. But if a ground swell of protest continues this coming week, there is a very real chance that the Hate Bill can be defeated either by a filibuster or a majority vote against it. So, please call and protest NOW!
http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=398
Brother Nathanael Kapner is a “Street Evangelist” who grew up as a Jew and is now an Orthodox Christian.
You can visit his website at Real Zionist News. He can be reached at: bronathanael@yahoo.com
Brother Nathanael Kapner is a regular columnist for Underground Dissident














