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By Paul Buchheit

In 2015 it was reported that up to 50 million American adults had negative wealth and thus numbered among the poorest 10% of the world’s adults. This was disputed by Vox writer Matthew Yglesias, who said, “..that’s absurd. The poorest people in the world are the people with rock-bottom material living standards.”

It’s difficult for many Americans to admit the truth about extreme poverty in our country. Our poorest citizens may not be living in a farming village where they eat millet soup and walk a mile for water. But they have to deal with homelessness, alcoholism, mental health disease, opioid addiction, stress-inducing indebtedness and inequality, and pollution levels that are the highest in the developed world. All of that makes for rock-bottom living standards. According to Credit Suisse data over the past three years, anywhere from 4 to 10 percent of the world’s poorest decile are Americans. That’s 20 to 50 million adults. It’s likely that many of them are only temporarily in debt, and that they have a much better chance than a third-world villager to climb out of poverty. But it’s just as likely that they’ll be replaced by other impoverished Americans, especially with an aging population woefully unprepared for retirement, and with the great majority of new job prospects temporary or contract-based, without security or benefits.

A Second Denial

“There are millions of Americans whose suffering, through material poverty and poor health, is as bad or worse than that of the people in Africa or in Asia.” That’s the conclusion of Princeton researcher Angus Deaton, who along with his wife Anne Case documented the “marked deterioration in the morbidity and mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanics in the United States after 1998.” In a recent opinion he cites the rising mortality rates from drugs, alcohol and suicide. Based on World Bank and Oxford numbers, he estimates that over 5 million Americans are absolutely poor by global standards.

Again a Vox writer takes exception, this time Ryan Briggs, who argues that “poor people in rich countries often receive many non-cash benefits that boost consumption without boosting income.” But it goes both ways. As Deaton points out: “An Indian villager spends little or nothing on housing, heat or child care, and a poor agricultural laborer in the tropics can get by with little clothing or transportation.” Overall, the cost of living is much lower in such places. More importantly, among a deeply troubled class of Americans there are aspects of life that too often outweigh the cash or non-cash benefits. For that we need to look more closely at the meaning of poverty.

Poverty Is Not Just an Income Number

Using a “dollar a day” estimate to compare poverty levels is impossible. A Brookings report notes: “There is a sad irony in the fact that the analytical tools used to assess welfare in the U.S. are poorly equipped to capture those whose lives are most precarious.” Furthermore, it’s an insult to desperate Americans to suggest that their state in life is better than they might think.

Poverty is not just the few dollars a day coming into the household, cash or non-cash. There is poverty in the diminishing quality of life for the bottom half of America. Poverty is the stress of overwhelming debt; the inability to pay for medical treatment during years of declining health; the lack of community support as part of a true safety net; the near-absence of retirement savings for over half the population; the steady decline of jobs that pay enough to support a family; the well-documented impact of America’s inequality on its citizens’ physical and mental well-being. Part of the definition of poverty is “the state of being inferior in quality.” The extreme level of inequality in the U.S. is battering the poor with a sense of inferiority. It’s ripping apart once-interdependent communities, and it’s triggering a surge in drug and alcohol and suicide “deaths of despair.”

This is not to understate the miserable conditions in many third-world communities. The point is that there are different forms of impoverishment. And, of course, some similar forms. While many villagers in the developing world don’t have sufficient food and water, it’s equally fair to say that millions of Americans have been exposed to contaminated drinking water and live in food deserts, often in frigid climates with substandard housing and insufficient heating. Also, while third-world villagers may not have the opportunities available in the U.S., those very opportunities are becoming less and less available to the neediest Americans.

It’s hard for people with wealth and power to admit all this. Because then they might feel obligated to do something about it.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago.

13 Februaray 2018

Source: https://cuba-networkdefenseofhumanity.blogspot.my/2018/02/millions-of-americans-are-among-poorest.html

By Elliott Gabriel

Critics contend that Operation Pacific Eagle Philippines is aimed at strengthening Washington’s grip on the long-subjugated people of the Philippines, defeating a half-century leftist insurgency, and securing the country for the interests of U.S. multinational corporations

In the first part of this MPN exclusive, we speak to Ka Oris of the New People’s Army and Professors William I. Robinson and Roland Simbulan about the new U.S. intervention in Asia, which raises the Philippines to the same level as Syria and Iraq for the Pentagon’s war plans.

In the second part, we will look at the 1999-2015 counterinsurgency initiative “Plan Colombia” as a template for Operation Pacific Eagle, as well as the use of the operation to continue the encirclement of China by U.S. bases.Last month, the U.S. Armed Forces finally admitted that a new mission was underway in the Philippines. Dubbed “Operation Pacific Eagle – Philippines,” the operation allows for an unlimited budget to be set aside for the purpose of armed U.S. operations in the Southeast Asian region.

Designated on Sept. 1, 2017 by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis amid total secrecy in the U.S. and the Philippines, the overseas contingency operation – an official designation for the military theaters of the former “War on Terror” – is presented as a continuation of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. military’s crusade against the Islamic State group (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.

Pacific Eagle, an open-ended mission aimed at “countering radicalization and violent extremism” in the Southeast Asian region, could see the U.S. military re-establish itself as a virtually permanent fixture in a former U.S. colony described by President Donald Trump as a “prime piece of real estate.”

Critics contend that the operation is aimed at strengthening Washington’s grip on the long-subjugated people of the Philippines, defeating a half-century leftist insurgency, and securing the country for the interests of U.S. multinational corporations.

The ‘ISIS’ specter
The operation comes to light months after the conclusion of the bloody siege of Marawi, a now-pulverized city in the southernmost island of Mindanao that became the scene of a ruinous counterinsurgency campaign by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against hundreds of alleged “Islamic State affiliates” of the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups.

The campaign entailed the declaration of martial law in Mindanao until the end of 2018, the displacement of thousands of families, and the deployment of U.S. Special Forces to the city as advisors and drone operators assisting the Philippine military.

A recent video released by Philippine Army Special Operations Command, highlighted by Interaksyon, noted the clear evidence of U.S. logistical support to the AFP campaign, including M4s rifle optics, PEQ-2 laser designators, machine guns, grenade launchers and Harris tactical radio systems.

The U.S. participation was seen by the country’s leftists as proof of President Rodrigo Duterte’s hypocrisy, exposing his angry anti-U.S. statements and pledges to align with regional powerhouses such as Russia and China as the empty bluster of a U.S. puppet.

A report published for the U.S. Congress last Friday by Lead Inspector General Glenn Fine repeatedly invokes “ISIS-Philippines” as justification for the report while subtly mentioning “other terrorist organizations” that remain unnamed:

OPE-P is described as the comprehensive counterterrorism campaign by the DoD, in coordination with other U.S. Government agencies and international partners, to support the Philippine government and military in their efforts to isolate, degrade, and defeat Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) affiliates and other terrorist organizations in the Philippines.”

Critics see the use of the term “other terrorist organizations” as a red flag signaling that the Pentagon’s focus is far from limited to those who are seeking to help establish a global “caliphate” from the Southeast Asian archipelago.

For, Roland Simbulan, a professor at the University of the Philippines and scholar of U.S. military activities in the region, Operation Pacific Eagle represents a new stage in the counterinsurgency against the Maoist guerrillas of the New People’s Army (NPA).

“The Operation Pacific Eagle marks a new era of U.S. military intervention in the Philippines,” Simbulan told MintPress News:

Internally, it is directed against the Philippine left and externally, to use the Philippines as a springboard to reassert U.S. military power in the Pacific. It is Trump’s way of supporting the creeping authoritarianism in the country while using U.S. military forces and assets to make sure that Duterte does not change the U.S. military presence [in relation to] China.”

The Philippine Revolution
For nearly 50 years, the NPA – affiliated with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) – has waged a prolonged insurgency against successive governments in Manila, which it accuses of serving U.S. imperialist interests rather than the interests of poor people and Indigenous communities in resource-rich rural areas desired by multinational mining firms and local exporters.

Duterte once called himself a “socialist” and “anti-imperialist,” and even expressed sympathies for the red fighters in a manner considered taboo in a country that, for decades under former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, once nursed a single-minded hatred of the left.

Since 1986, however, Manila has taken part in intermittent peace talks with the banned Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) through the National Democratic Front, an alliance of social movements affiliated with the clandestine party.

While Duterte initially championed the peace process, which hinged on the implementation of an ambitious socio-economic reform agenda, the negotiations were derailed last May after his declaration of martial law in Mindanao.

Accordingly, the end of last year’s peace talks eventually led to Duterte designating the Philippine communists, both armed and unarmed, as “terrorists.”

“I will follow America, since they say that I am an American boy,” Duterte noted. “OK, granted, I will admit that I am a fascist. I will categorize you already as a terrorist.”

The clandestine party and its military wing have both been included in the official U.S. government list of foreign terrorist organizations since 2002.

Duterte’s accusations came shortly after U.S. President Trump’s visit to Manila for the ASEAN leaders’ summit last November, drawing criticisms that the Philippine president was acting under the direction of his “idol and puppet-master” from Washington.

“Duterte’s martial law against the so-called ‘ISIS’ in Mindanao set a perfect backdrop for the reentry of U.S. troops and their permanent basing in the country without a signed treaty,” the CPP Information Bureau said in a statement released last month:

His termination of the peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and subsequent declaration of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army as ‘terrorist organizations’ further set the stage. The declaration, which was made specifically in line with the U.S. State Department’s foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) listing, bolstered Duterte access to the U.S.’ budget for overseas contingency operations (OCO), the Pentagon’s bloated ‘anti-terror’ slush fund.”

Mindanao’s riches The material incentives of the United States government are key to understanding why the U.S. declared Operation Pacific Eagle, according to Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos, the spokesman for the New People’s Army (NPA) National Operations Command.

“ISIS in the Philippines is more imagined than real,” Ka Oris told MintPress News:

By using the general catchphrase ‘radicalization and violent extremism,’ the U.S. is encompassing all armed groups resistant to its puppet state’s rule, both existing and those bound to emerge due to its interference. In Mindanao, this includes legitimate Moro groups/clans fighting for their ancestral lands and right to self-determination.”
The lush island has long been known for its lucrative natural gas and mineral deposits and its wide tracts of land ideal for large-scale commercial plantations operated by multinational corporations based in the U.S., Ka Oris explains.

Multinationals have also looked covetously at the Liguasan Marsh, a huge and biodiverse complex of rivers, channels, lakes, freshwater marshes and ponds.

Viewed as sacred patrimony for the Maguindanaoan Muslim tribe, the 220,000-hectare marsh was described in U.S. diplomatic cables from 2006, obtained by WikiLeaks, as containing untapped mineral wealth totaling anywhere from $840 billion to $1 trillion.

Manila government officials at the time described the region as a “treasure trove” of mineral resources — including gold, copper, chromites, nickel, manganese, silver, iron ore, lead and zinc. According to subsequent surveys carried out by U.S. oil engineers, the natural gas reserves of Liguasan alone amount to $580 billion.

“At the same time, the island is also home to robust people’s movements and has a strong presence of armed groups, including the NPA,” Ka Oris notes.

In hopes to advance their demands for self-determination from the distant Manila government, Maguindanaoans have long taken part in armed insurgencies led by groups such as the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) — both groups that faced accusations of terrorism” from Manila and the U.S. Both groups have since signed peace deals and now hope to finalize a law granting autonomy to local elites.

Controversially, Duterte has tied the granting of autonomy to a new push to drastically raise the constitutional ceiling limiting the right of foreign investors to own Philippine land, among other measures that have raised the ire of watchdogs and opposition figures. Filipinos who oppose Duterte see the reform of foreign land ownership laws as key ingredients of a recipe for a return to colonialism in the country.

Manila also hopes a new law on autonomy can smooth over the lingering rage provoked by Marawi’s destruction. According to Moro advocates, the city’s Islamist insurgency was itself rooted more in a neglect of Moro people’s legitimate interests than in locals’ interest in the ISIS program.

“The U.S. even acknowledges that the Marawi siege may have further complicated the Moro situation in this part of the country,” Ka Oris explained.

Local Moro advocates see recent developments, such as plans to build a second major military camp in the city, as proof that Manila intends to transform Marawi City into a de facto “military reservation” directly owned and operated by the U.S. armed forces. The developments cast new light on the overuse of force against the city’s civilian infrastructure and neighborhoods for the purpose of quelling a relatively small number of Islamist insurgents.

Ka Oris notes:

The U.S. is sure to consider the city as one of its potential bases, as it hosted the main U.S. base in Mindanao in the 1900s (then known as Camp Keithley). Duterte has already displaced almost all its civilian population and is in the process of building a military base there. Resistance, both armed and unarmed, to this latest injustice is bound to intensify.”

Making the Philippines safe for global capitalismWhen former dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972 — ostensibly to contain the communist insurgency of the CPP-NPA and growing unrest in the cities and schools — the neocolonial status of the Philippines was drastically deepened. The country was transformed into a laboratory for neoliberal experiments, free-market policies, special economic zones, and a lifting of protectionist laws under World Bank structural adjustment loan requirements.

U.S. multinational corporations, operating through loyal elites and oligarch clans, gained unprecedented access to the country’s riches — including its banking, petrochemical, construction, telecoms, and mineral extraction industries, among other strategic sectors.

For William I. Robinson, an author and professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, a new period of martial law and militarization would come as little surprise:

Both Trumpism and Duterteism are far-right authoritarian responses to crises of state legitimacy and internecine feuding among the elite. Militarization and authoritarianism in the United States and the Philippines will become more closely linked through Operation Pacific Eagle.”
Even in the past, when Manila abstained from the iron-fisted policies of Duterte, the country’s governance entailed the violent displacement of millions throughout the country and the resultant export of several millions of displaced Filipinos to all corners of the globe as “guest workers” lacking rights in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, North Africa. While women find work as domestic laborers, servers, caregivers, nurses, or hospitality industry workers — where they are often vulnerable to rape, physical assault, and murder — men find hazardous jobs as construction workers and agricultural laborers. Some reports claim that around 6,000 are forced to leave the country to seek work every day.

“The export of this surplus labor has provided a political escape value to an explosive situation of displacement and mass immiseration,” Robertson told MintPress News.

Likewise, he continues,

Agro-industrial zones have spread through the countryside and the export-industry that first took off in the 1980s has eclipsed national industrial development and has been expanding, as has the transfer of transnational corporate services – call centers, Facebook censors – to the Philippines. These transnational agro-industrial, industrial, and service complexes, along with the global export of Philippine labor, are the face of capitalist globalization in the Philippines.“
Such processes can only accelerate in a “hot-house fashion,” as global markets and the transnational capitalist class seek temporary fixes to their deepening financial worries in resource-rich yet poverty-stricken countries such as the Philippines, Robertson suggests — ensuring that Operation Pacific Eagle will embroil the U.S. in a deeper role policing the internal social turmoil within the country.

Robinson also sees Operation Pacific Eagle as quite similar to Plan Colombia, the 1999-2015 counterinsurgency aid program that saw billions of dollars in weaponry poured into Colombian security forces and paramilitaries for the purpose of destroying the FARC’s left-wing insurgency and, ostensibly, continuing the “war on drugs.”

The New People’s Army is prepared to weather the storm, according to Ka Oris, who sees continued revolutionary rigor as key to the survival of the Filipino people and New People’s Army:

Expanding the mass base, strengthening and expanding the people’s army through training and mass recruitments, making sure that revolutionary work is done in a comprehensive manner – [this is how we can] ensure that the guerilla forces and bases can withstand and outlast relentless attacks from enemy forces. These, alongside the study and adaptation of the NPA and the people to U.S. sophisticated weapons, such as surveillance and attack drones, that the local armed forces are already using against civilian communities.”
For the Filipino revolutionaries, it remains unclear as to whether Operation Pacific Eagle marks a new phase in Washington’s militarization of the Philippines. The interventionist policies of the United States have been a constant since the end of the Spanish colonial period when the U.S. military waged a brutal war that claimed around one million lives in the country.

However, Ka Oris notes, Operation Pacific Eagle is clearly consistent with the past administration’s so-called “pivot to the Pacific” and the United States’ push to maintain military supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region. For the Pentagon’s war-planners, the Philippines remains key to their plans for containing an increasingly strong and confident China.

Elliott Gabriel is a former staff writer for teleSUR English and a MintPress News contributor based in Quito, Ecuador.

13 February 2018

Source: https://cuba-networkdefenseofhumanity.blogspot.my/2018/02/operation-pacific-eagle-in-philippines.html

By Marco A.Gandásegui h.

The journalist Eliécer Navarro, of the daily Crítica, of the Panamanian capital, revealed that the government of that country “will allow up to 415 members of the US Air Force to occupy national territory during the first half of 2018, wearing uniforms and carrying arms”. The agreement is part of exercises called “New Horizons”. In the past, the US has justified these maneuvers under the assumption that they do this together with the Panamanian Police to protect the Canal. On other occasions they use the excuse of the old “war against drugs”. At times they mention the humid tropical forests as areas to make “exotic” practices. On this occasion, everything indicates that the US is thinking of an invasion of Venezuela. This was manifested by the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, before undertaking a trip through four Latin American countries last week.The US Embassy notified the Panamanian government about the “New Horizons” exercise, on December 11, 2017. The note of response by Panama, accepting the military occupation, was sent nearly a month later, on January 4, 2018. The US troops entered Panama on January 2, two days before the Foreign Ministry’s response. Apparently, the US was going to invade Panamanian territory with or without the authorization of the government. The “New Horizon” exercises are taking place in the provinces of Darién, Veraguas and Coclé. They can be extended to “any other place approved by the government of Panama and the Embassy”, according to the agreement.

The US troops will be assigned “a condition equivalent to that given to diplomatic personnel of an Embassy”. In another point, according to the journalist Navarro, “the Panamanian Government accepts taking responsibility and releasing the US Government from “any demand that is filed (against) US personnel with relation to their mission in Panama”. In the case of demands of third parties for deaths not related to the combat of military personnel, the US will pay in conformity with its own laws.

A few years ago, a soldier murdered a young Panamanian woman. The soldier was removed from the country by the US Embassy and later judged in that country. The families are still asking for justice without the Panamanian government having assumed their responsibility in this case.

The Movimiento Alternativa Popular (MAP) has denounced the US military exercises on Panamanian land. As from January 2 2018, troops are disembarking in Panama, under strict censorship. The real intentions of the exercises and the role of the armed bodies of Panama are still unknown. According to MAP, “it is a clear message from Washington against any Panamanian policy that is not subordinated to their interests. In addition, it places the Panamanian government in the centre of plans to militarily invade the sister country of Venezuela”. According to Panamanian internationalist, Julio Yao, the exercises constitute a flagrant violation of the Neutrality Agreement that regulates the relations between Panama and the US concerning the Canal.

The trip of Rex Tillerson through various countries of the region coincides with the exercises in Panama and also in the frontier areas of Brazil, Peru and Colombia with Venezuela, in the Amazon region. The military presence in Panama is a sign of the intentions of Washington.

Secretary Tillerson began his trip calling on the Venezuelan Armed Forces to stage a Coup d’État against the government. The response to this unusual provocation by the US official came from the Minister of Defence, Vladimir Padrino L., who stated that “…a foreign imperialist cannot give instructions to the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FAND)”.

Venezuela will hold elections in April of this year. With a divided opposition, the triumph of the present leader, Nicolás Maduro, who seeks reelection, is almost certain. The US and some Latin American countries have already declared that they will not recognize the result of the vote. Washington also threatens to declare a blockade of petroleum exports to provoke a financial crisis. China, meanwhile, signed an agreement with Caracas to invest 100 billion dollars in the Orinoco basin to extract the “black gold”.

During his trip, the US Minister reminded Latin American foreign ministries that “Latin America does not need new imperial powers that seek only to benefit their own people”. A message that Panamanians can translate as a threat in the face of the agreements of President Varela with the People’s Republic of China.

Marco A. Gandásegui, Jr is professor of sociology of the University of Panama and associate investigator of the Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos Justo Arosemena (CELA).

13 February 2018

Source: https://cuba-networkdefenseofhumanity.blogspot.my/2018/02/the-silent-us-invasion-of-panama.html

By Cuba-Network in Defense of Humanity

Invited by the Cuban Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists, and Social Movements, otherwise known as the “Network in Defense of Humanity,” we writers, scientists, journalists and editors associated with the Network and present at the Event, state our conviction of the need to propose actions for responding to the neofascist reactionary offensive gathering force on our continent and in other parts of the world.

The following aspects call for particular emphasis:

• The importance of an increased effort by the Network in the current conjuncture, principally to breach the media wall held by powerful groups serving the interests of the Empire and national oligarchies. That wall serves daily to confuse, mislead and misinform public opinion as well as demobilize those who support just causes.

A large part of this disinformation is directed at disparaging progressive leaders and causes, through the wanton fabrication and circulation of lies and inaccurate information. This occurs with complete impunity and is meant to grant legitimacy to the fraudulent and deceitful tactics used to dismantle progressive causes.

• It is essential that this historical period be characterized with the utmost rigor, and that the maneuvers of these reactionary forces, which classify as criminal acts, violating the most elementary legal principles, be denounced. While progressive forces respect the rules of the game, their enemies are acting with complete impunity, with no respect whatsoever for ethical norms.

The Network’s solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, currently under ruthless attack, must remain a continued priority. Just as with the Spanish Republic in its time, the Revolution encouraged by Chávez and continuing under the leadership of Nicolás Maduro is now on the front lines of battle against the imperialist and fascist threat.

• The Network must circulate texts and audio-visual materials that unmask the falsified information coming from the mass media, and it must do so quickly and effectively, using powerful reasoning and understandable arguments that communicate the truth to all social sectors, especially for the young people. Such offensive displays as Trump’s comments in his recent State of the Union speech and Tillerson’s statements in his tour of Latin America must be countered rapidly and convincingly. Our influential abilities are largely contained in the Network’s capacity to distribute messages in a coordinated way, multiplying and uniting voices that defend the truth.

• We must continue working to articulate the work of numerous centers of cultural resistance that exist in the world and to attract activists of the next generations.

The Network of Intellectuals, Artists, and Social Movements “In Defense of Humanity,” founded in 2003 and supported from the outset by Fidel and Chávez, is needed more now than ever before. Every day it must become even more a mechanism to articulate, clarify and mobilize.

Participants present at this meeting included, among others:

Included in those attending the event were: from Venezuela, Luis Britto García, Judith Valencia, Vladimir Acosta, Alberto Rodríguez Carucci, María Teresa Novo, Rafael Salazar, María Antonieta Catania and Ernesto Chávez; from México, Héctor Díaz Polanco; from Colombia, Hernando Calvo Ospina; from Argentina, Víctor Hugo Morales, Graciela Ramírez, Martín Grifo Adorno y Héctor Celano; from Spain España, Pascual Serrano y Joaquín Recio Martínez; from Italy, Luciano Vasapollo and Rita Martufi; from Canadá, Arnold August; from Chile, Jaime Quezada; from Ecuador, Raúl Pérez Torres and Antonio Correa Losada; from Cuba, Abel Prieto Jiménez, Omar González, Luis Suárez, Ernesto Limia, Lillian Álvarez and Enrique Ubieta.

13 Feburuary 2018

Source: https://cuba-networkdefenseofhumanity.blogspot.my/2018/02/statement-from-network-in-defense-of.html

By Jim Miles

The news was released tonight (Friday, February 09) at about 18:30h that the jury in the trial of a Canadian farmer near Battleford, Saskatchewan found him not guilty for the murder of a young native, Colten Boushie. Boushie was killed August 09, 2016.

The episode highlights, for those who care to examine the case, the underlying powerful racial prejudice that exists in Canada today. After the arrest of the farmer social media became filled with racially biased comments, supporting the farmer because of the belief that “Indigenous people are responsible for rising crime in rural Saskatchewan which is leaving farmers scared and with no alternative but violence.”

When the police informed Boushie’s family about the murder, they did not offer any support, but then proceeded to search the home. This is the same RCMP that is up against about 2800 sexual abuse/misconduct charges within its own ranks. If they operate that way internally, it can only be hypothesized that their actions externally are of the same quality.

Background

Racial prejudice is systemic in Canada. It is part of our colonial-settler heritage as the Indian bands were displaced through treaty lies, guns, germs, and steel. Across the Prairies in particular, the Indians – who originally traded fairly with the new European arrivals – were soon pushed out through starvation. The large herds of millions of buffalo the Indians depended on were slaughtered in order to open up the land for farmers, leaving them open to starvation, disease, and subsequent displacement.

Following the many different “resettlement” schemes (really ethnic cleansing) the European settler-colonial governments morphed into more formal government structures that systematically attempted to destroy Indian culture. This occurred through laws banishing Indian religious rituals, denied access to lawyers, stole/kidnapped/removed children from their families and forced them into mostly religious schools where the children suffered various kinds of abuse – physical, emotional, and sexual.

This was complemented by a series of Indian hospitals that again removed children from their families and placed them in abusive environments ostensibly for their health. Accompanying all this was the systemic bias of the imposed culture itself and its British/Christian imperial heritage in which Indians were simply savages that needed “civilizing”. It ran – and runs – through the governments, the judicial, and the legislative parts of our government as well as within the media.

But back to the courtroom

After the court’s not guilty verdict some of the details of the trial demonstrate this racial bias. In his defense the farmer said that when he leaned into Boushie’s car to get the keys the gun “accidentally” fired. As reported on the news, supporting this argument was an argument made by a non-witness and non-expert that guns will sometimes “delay” “somehow” when they are fired. Before the verdict, the courts, the police, and the civic leaders were asking everyone to remain calm, an obvious sign they acknowledged the deep racial divide within the community.

Given the RCMP actions, given the inherent racial bias, given the poor testimony as presented in the news, at the least this case calls for a retrial. It also should be the basis of a demand for a parliamentary/judicial inquiry – containing civilians outside the system of both races. Should the current Liberal government fail to do so only adds to the frustration of the Indian people in face of current government actions that seem to be only paying lip service to the Indian population without actually doing anything but harvesting media publicity as being good guys and gals.

Solutions

Solutions are difficult because the white residents of the country are loath to give up some of their privileges and some of their stolen wealth. Most treaties have not been honoured except for the lip service of consultation concerning matters that might concern them (e.g. hydro electric dams, mines, forestry, agriculture, infrastructure).

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 provided British Royal protection to Indian lands – at the time as a means of securing territory against the French and British, but being upheld in courts of law ever since. The Indian Act of 1876 carries this forward, but more generally acts as a governmental means of controlling Indian actions across Canada – giving the government control of Indian lands, financing, status, settlements, et al. The Canadian Constitution Act incorporates these previous Acts but again provides limits that essentially allow for continued misrepresentation of all original treaties.

The real solution, as I have argued several times before to the government of Canada, involves honouring those treaties to their full intent (not the European forked tongue intent but the commonly represented understanding). It involves reparations for lands damaged or removed by various settler processes – the railways, and especially in the Prairies the land grant process used to encourage more white farmers to settle the area, now conveniently devoid of Indians.

It involves returning land to the Indians, current manufacturing and resource harvesting industries not withstanding. The latter could continue subject to acceptance of the Indians involved who were more than likely never consulted in the first place if it had an impact on their treaty rights for hunting, fishing, harvesting, and cultural practices (all recognized in the above documents). Or as in the provinces of British Columbia, Quebec, the Maritimes and much of the north, the vast majority of the land still belongs to the Indians who retain unceded title.

Another large step would be the removal of the Indian Act and its archaic and ethnically prejudiced laws in order to truly deal with the Indians “nation to nation.”

The current Trudeau government has argued that the government of Canada needs to honour this nation to nation relationship. Apart from a few apologies, and a few commissions (another relic of the British empire that more closely resembles an avoidance mechanism), their has been no apparent implementation of much that assists the Indians of Canada.

First step

The first step is as indicated above, to have a retrial with a representative jury, or an investigation that covers the evidence, the RCMP handling of the case, and the role of the judiciary[1] and government within the overall structure of the Constitution and the UN Treaty on Indigenous Rights. I am no authority on the trial or its arguments, but what was presented through the media (mostly the CBC) indicates that much needs to be done in order to overcome Canada’s systemic racial prejudices toward its Indians.

[1] It should be noted that the Indian bands have been quite successful with actions moved before the Supreme Court, usually land claims. The criminal courts, the lower courts, are where this comment’s intention refers.

Jim Miles is a Canadian educator and a regular contributor/columnist of opinion pieces and book reviews for The Palestine Chronicle.

11 February 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/11/canadas-deep-systemic-racial-bias/

By Rene Wadlow

The holding of the Winter Olympics in South Korea from February 9 to 25, followed by the Paralympics on March 9-18, may be an opportunity to undertake negotiations in good faith to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula and to establish, or re-establish, forms of cooperation between the two Korean governments.

Such negotiations in good faith would be in the spirit of what is known as the “Olympics Truce”. Truce in classic Greek meant a “laying down of arms”. A truce was usually announced before and during the Olympic Games to ensure that the host city was not attacked and athletes and spectators could travel safely to the Games and return to their homes.

In 1924, Winter Olympics were added to the Summer Olympics which had been revived earlier in an effort to re-establish the spirit of the Classic Greek games. At the 2000 Sydney games at the opening ceremony, South and North Korean delegations walked for the first time together under the same flag. Today, with greater tensions, there needs to be more than symbolic gestures. There needs to be real government-led negotiations to reduce tensions. In addition to the two Korean States, the USA, China, Russia, and Japan are “actors” in the Korean “drama”.

There have been over the years since the 1953 armistice periodic increases of tensions related to the policies of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Currently, the nuclear program and missile launches of North Korea, the establishment of sophisticated anti-missile systems in South Korea, increased sanctions against North Korea voted by the United Nations (UN) Security Council as well as a new administration in Washington has led to an escalation of tensions. While tensions in the past have been managed by diplomatic discussions or changes in policy, there are always dangers that conflict management may fail due to miscalculations, misinterpretations of military moves, misinterpretations of aims and strategies. The misinterpretations and the failures of conflict management were important factors in the start of the Korean War in 1950 as well as the intervention of Chinese “volunteer” troops. (1)

Today, we are at a time when crisis triggers are ready. Crisis triggers are actions which occur prior to the onset of overt physical hostility between adversary States. Fortunately, not all triggers are pulled. Yet we must ask ourselves if the current tensions could slip out of the control of conflict management techniques.

For Korea, certain “rules of the game” of conflict management have been worked out. Rules of the game constitute a framework for standards of behavior which maintain restraint, unless there is a breakdown or serious miscalculation. There needs to be some degree of common interest among the parties which makes possible the development of these rules of the game for conflict management. Objectively, a lowering of tensions and a return to the status quo anteshould be possible. But objective conditions do not always keep the rules of the game in place.

Today, the tensions around the two Korean States, the USA, China, Russia and Japan are somewhat like the pre-1975 Helsinki period when tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Powers periodically rose, fell, and rose again. Certain rules of the game had been set but were not formalized in treaties. Tensions, but also conflict management were largely US-USSR affairs. Other countries in Europe were on the sidelines. Neutrals such as Finland, Sweden and Switzerland were largely ignored.

During the prelude to the 1975 Helsinki Conference, there were useful unofficial contacts among non-governmental organizations and academics – what is now called Track II processes. These contacts and exchanges of publications helped pave the way for later governmental negotiations. As with the 1975 Helsinki Conference, Track II leadership may be an important factor in highlighting shared stability concerns and a strengthening of the rules of the game. (2)

As the representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) we have very limited influence on the decision-making process concerning Korea of the six governments most directly involved. The Association of World Citizens (AWC), as other NGOs, has made appeals for positive action to these governments as well as to the UN Secretary-General. Many of the positive suggestions have concerned what is often called a “freeze for freeze” agreement: a suspension of the yearly United States (U. S.)-South Korean war exercise and a progressive reduction of U. S. troops stationed in South Korea and elsewhere in Asia, especially Japan in exchange for a ban on North Korean nuclear and missile testing and negotiations to replace the 1953 Armistice with a Peace Treaty.

The AWC has also made proposals for economic cooperation, more numerous meetings among separated family members and cultural exchanges. However, as the saying goes “Do not hold your breath waiting”. For the moment, we look in vain for enlightened governmental leadership. The appeals for calm by the Chinese authorities have not been followed by specific proposals for actions to decrease tensions.

Today, there is a need for a coming together of non-governmental organizations who are primarily focused on the resolution of armed conflicts with those groups concerned with the abolition of nuclear weapons. The current Korean tensions are based on the development of nuclear weapons and missile systems and the pressures and threats to prevent their development. The Olympic Truce period should be taken as an opportunity to advance “Track II” efforts on the part of NGOs to see on what topics fruitful governmental negotiations could be set out.

Notes

1) See Glenn D. Paige, The Korean Decision June 24-30, 1950 (New York: The Free Press, 1968) and Allen S. Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu. The Decision to Enter the Korean War (New York: McMillan Co. 1960)

2) For a good overview of Track II efforts in different parts of the world, see Oliver P. Richmond and Henry F. Carsey (Eds), Subcontracting Peace: The Challenges of NGO Peacebuilding(Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2005)

Prof. René Wadlow is President of the Association of World Citizens.

9 February 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/09/korea-olympic-truce-time-concerted-nongovernmental-efforts/

By Andre Vltchek

They say Propaganda! In the West, both the mainstream media and even some of the so-called progressive outlets are shouting: “Those Russians and Chinese and the others like them, they are at it again! Their vicious propaganda is infiltrating our democratic, freedom-loving countries, spreading confusion and chaos!”

Yes, ban or at least curb RT, contain TeleSur, and if at all possible, throw Press TV to the dogs. And put the writers of NEO, Sputnik, Global Times and other foreign outlets on that proverbial Western mass media ‘no fly list’.

How truly democratic. How open-minded, how ‘objective’!

It goes like this:

“We have been indoctrinating the entire Planet for centuries, mostly unopposed, but if anyone dares to bite back, we will do our best to discredit, even to muzzle them, in no time.”

Then if you protest, if you dare to say that kicking out and gagging alternative media sources stinks of the lowest grade of censorship,and of imposing some sort of monopoly on propaganda, you’d be shouted at: “What do you know about propaganda? You really want to see some hard-core propaganda, look at those colorful military parades and political speeches coming out from Pyongyang!” Naturally, these are taken out of context and presented (or framed) in a certain way, and only after that are they always readily available on the BBC and other, should we say‘reputable’ and ‘objective’, European and North American television channels.

What you will not be told is that if you happen to live in New York or London, Paris or Sydney, Munich or Madrid, you yourself are most likely in the highest bracket of propaganda consumption in the world; that in fact, you could easily be a true propaganda junkie – hooked on it, fully dependent on it, seeking it, even regularly demanding it, at least subconsciously.

Propaganda, what is it really?

We all ‘propagate’ or ‘propagandize’ something. At least we publicize what we think and believe in our emails, we are spreading it in the pubs, or while out meeting friends and loved ones.

Some of us do it professionally. We write essays, books, give speeches, make films. We go to politics. We join revolutionary movements. We want to change the world. We speak, write about what we believe.

It is all propaganda – spreading our ideas, trying to influence others. What is done in the church or mosque, is clearly propaganda as well, although it is rarely defined as such publicly.

All of us have some opinions, some worldview. You know, at least some very basic one… Or when it comes, for instance, to the mainstream media outlets, their bosses and owners definitely have quite clear designs, opinions and goals (employees, those journos siting in plastic cubicles, are simply doing their well-paid job of presenting the ideas of their masters in a standard, elegant and grammatically correct prose).

In brief: whenever we want to influence the world, we try to ‘package’ and present our thoughts beautifully, extracting the most powerful and attractive parts and passages of our ideals and principles.

There is nothing wrong with that. We communicate, we propagate our thoughts and dreams, as we are trying to improve the world. Such propaganda is, I believe, healthy.

The true problem begins when the same tactics and techniques are used for something absolutely destructive and objectively evil: like colonialism, racism, imperialism or the attempt to control and plunder entire nations and continents. And an even greater problem arises, when it happens with almost unlimited funding, and as a consequence, some of the most capable brains get involved, including those of the communication experts, educators, and even psychologists.

When such a scenario develops, it is not suddenly anymore about ‘discussion’ and ‘finding the best way forward for our humanity’. It is about total, full control of people’s brains, about the elimination of all alternatives.

That is brutal, fatal propaganda. And it is exactly the propaganda which has been domesticated in the West, and is rapidly spreading its metastases all over the world.

If unchecked and unchallenged, such developments may lead to the absolute destruction of humans’ ability to think freely, to compare and to analyze, but it may also eradicate the ability to feel, to dream and to dare.

This most likely, is the aim of Western neo-colonialism. Its ‘success’ depends on the total, dogmatic cultural and ‘intellectual’ monopoly imposed by Europe and the United States on the rest of the world. Such a monopoly can only be attained through aone-sided interpretation of current affairs as well as world history.

The main goal is the absolute and unconditional control of the Planet.

After the destruction of the Soviet Union and during the rapid pro-market reforms in China (and the Western infiltration of China’s education system) in the same period of time, the West came extremely close to achieving its goal.

The world fully abandoned to Western imperialism and market fundamentalism, began suffering from a monstrous wave of privatization, theft of natural and other resources, and consequent social collapse of entire huge nations, from Russia to Indonesia.

Then ‘something happened’. The impact on the Planet became so devastating that many parts of the world abruptly stopped following the Western dictate. Russia had risen to its feet. China, under the guidance of the Communist Party and especially under the leadership of President Xi, returned to ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, putting a much greater accent on the quality of human life, culture and ecology, than on financial markets. Latin America began its new wave of the struggle for independence against the US and its own European elites. Many other countries, from Iran to South Africa, Eritrea, Syria and DPRK, refused to surrender.

They got demonized by Western propaganda, demonized day and night, systematically and relentlessly.

Whoever has stood for the interests of his or her people, be they a Communist, a socialist, a patriot, or even a populist, has been incessantlysmeared, ridiculed and humiliated. President Assad or Ahmadinejad, Putin, Xi, Duterte, Zuma, Maduro, Castro, it mattered nothing how popular they were at home; it matters nothing! Simple as that: Whoever stands tall and fights for his people, faces character assassination in the Western media, which, in turn, directly or indirectly controls most of the media outlets in the world!

To get all of the patriotic and progressive leaders out of the way, openly serves the interests of the Western Empire and its business offshoots.

No one has doubts about this, anymore. It would take tremendous discipline not to see it.

Yet the opposite is being constantly repeated by the Western television stations, newspapers, magazines, and even the universities.

Ignoring facts, manufacturing conspiracy theories, denying that white is white, black is black, refusing to admit that human blood is red, that our hearts are on the left, and that above all, people are desiring their own identity, culture, justice and safety, isn’t this the highest level of propaganda, of indoctrination, of total brainwashing?

Those who are trashing ‘state-owned’ and ‘state-sponsored’ media outlets in non-Western countries, should be asking some very essential questions: “Is there any difference between those ‘private’ or ‘state’ media outlets in the West? Is there any substantial ideological drift between the CNN, BBC, The Independent, The New York Times, France/24 or DW?”

In Europe and in North America, as well as in their ‘client’ states, business interests control the government. They are actually the ones who are electing, or call it ‘selecting’ the government. Private or state-funded, the Western mass media is towing the same line. It is part of the apparatus.

In non-Western countries, the state-supported media outlets are beginning to propagate various new lines, mostly defending and highlighting the interests of their own countries, which in a way is a revolutionary development.

So, there is finally some global competition, isn’t there, dear comrades imperialists and capitalists? But what do we see… suddenly you don’t like it? You want your global monopoly? Is that your idea of freedom and ‘free competition’?You want your propaganda to be the only one on Earth!

Several years ago, when I was making the film and writing a book with Noam Chomsky (“On Western Terrorism – From Hiroshima To Drone Warfare”, Pluto Press), we spoke a lot about Western propaganda.

Noam brought to my attention, that Nazi Germany was extremely impressed by the U.S. advertising industry.

Then, in a way, Western propaganda also became shaped by shameless advertisingproduction, by brainless and outrightly deceiving commercials.The continuous downpour of pseudo-reality has been melting away all human decency and rationality, ever since.

I have written about this issue a lot, too, particularly in the pages of my book “Exposing Lies of The Empire”.

Television, Hollywood, but also indoctrinating, intellectually sterilizing and the grotesque way of ‘spreading knowledge’ by the North American and increasingly also by the European universities –it all has very little to do with the realityin which the world is living, as well as with the true concerns of the people; with their hopes, fears, and desires and aspirations.

Western commercials, entertainment, educational institutions – these are all powerful tools of propaganda. They propagate, force and inject into human sub-consciousness extremely primitive, false but powerful messages: “No matter what, our present arrangement of the world is correct and just. Our economic and social system is the most natural in the world. Our political system is not perfect, but it is the best nevertheless.”

Noam Chomsky seemed to be fascinated with my past, and for some good reasons: I myself was totally indoctrinated, endlessly brainwashed by Western propaganda, when I was a child, and then a very young man.

I was born in the beautiful city of Leningrad, Soviet Union. My mother is a Russian-Chinese architect, father a Czech scientist. I grew up in Pilsen, in then Czechoslovakia. Pilsen was only 60 kilometers away from Bavaria. To be a ‘dissident’ there, at the age of 15 or so, was absolutely obligatory, otherwise one would have been considered an absolute loser, even a freak. That was naturally hammered into our brains by the BBC, Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, West German television channels like ARD and ZDF. We were all listening to Radio Luxemburg, to Bavaria 3, we read ‘samizdat’ literature.

Pilsen is a little town of 180,000 people, known for its heavy industry and beer, but when I was a child, it had a permanent opera house, countless libraries including a science one, several small avant-garde theatres (which, yes, all tried to put on stage something that could be read ‘between the lines’), great bookstores, 6 cinemas, including an excellent cine-club where we basically saw all the great existential and experimental films from Europe, Japan, U.S. and Latin America.

Communist Czechoslovakia was to some extend gray, but extremely well educated, cultural and actually, really fun.

When I first visited Italy, I was shocked by its slums around Naples, by the sad lot of African immigrants. But I was conditioned to see the world as it was presented by Western propaganda. I protested against the ‘occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union’, because that is what the World Service of the BBC prepared me to do. Despite being educated on great literature, poetry and music, I saw Rambo as a freedom fighter, and Maggie Thatcher as a liberator of the ‘free world’.

I still somehow believed in the ideals of the Soviet Union, in the internationalism. But my brain was fried – it was a goulash that consisted of pseudo images coming like an avalanche from the West, and of solid and the not too colorful reality of socialist Czechoslovakia.

My two Czech uncles were true internationalists, and they built sugar mills, steel mills, pharmaceutical factories and other great things, in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and China. They did it with honest zeal and the love for humanity. I considered them to be two losers, idiots, ‘fanatics’. In reality, they were great people, and I was simply sick, brainwashed and blind then!

Then, as now, Western propaganda spat at everything pure, altruistic, and honest. Western media is scared of true heroes, of people who are helping others to gain independence, of strong, truly free men and women.

I emigrated. I wrote total shit, my first book of poetry, I got involved in the Solidarity movement in neighboring Poland, hit the bottle while chain smoking some 50 cigarettes a day, and emigrated. Or more precisely, I was kicked out, or whatever… You know, a Soviet kid in Czechoslovakia, writing dissident stuff… It was embarrassing, so they just suggested I go to the West, where I loved it so much.

I went. To make my story short, after I got my political asylum in the US, I was at Columbia University Film School in New York City, when the U.S. performed its first strike against Libya.

That week was crucial. Film Faculty students quickly clarified to me, what was going on, in regard to Libya. Then, in the pub, they asked me about those ‘bread lines’ in Czechoslovakia. I humbly explained about all the sorts of delicious fresh-baked breads available in Pilsen, but they couldn’t believe me. They kept asking about censorship… I was much better read than they were, and apart from Hollywood productions, I had seen more great films, but that, again, was shocking to my new friends.

From the windows of East Campus, we watched the endless fires burning in Harlem. It was pre-Clinton Harlem, real tough stuff.

All around me, in New York, I saw misery, despair, discontent, but also total obedience and resignation. But there was no ‘going back’.

I began visiting Harlem, by car service, as no yellow cab would take me there. I discovered a little wonderful jazz club, the Baby Grand. I would drink there and listen to jazz, and at night I’d cry holding onto the owner, a big African-American mama. I still remember one night; puke all over the floor, and spilt beer. “I was so stupid!” I howled! “I was such a fool!” She caressed my hair and repeated: “Hush… It could be much worse. My people have had it much, much worse… Be strong, young man!” I was 19… Or 20, I forgot. In Harlem, they clearly explained to me, what it is America.

Later I was married into a multi-millionaire’s family in Texas, and I saw what was going on ‘inside’. The oil, the hatred of ‘big government’. As a simultaneous interpreter (I was moonlighting doing that work, supporting my writing), I was present during some of the most horrible negotiations between the Western ‘private sector’ and what was then left of the Soviet Union, and then Russia. What the West did to my country, to the Soviet Union and then to Yeltsin’s Russia, was theft, just shameless looting. In those days, I was making over 1,000 dollars per day, ++. I quickly understood what capitalism was, and imperialism. I wanted to die. I almost killed myself. I ran. I ran away from all that. I ran to Peru, to write about then the most brutal civil war on Earth. I hit the road. I shed all my identity. I became an internationalist. And I never stopped being one.

And I never returned to Europe or to the United States in order to live there. I only come to show my films, to launch my books, or to give one or two insulting speeches, as I did two years ago at the Italian Parliament in Rome.

It took some time to understand. I did. After living and working in more than 160 countries, after listening to tens of thousands of real stories, after almost losing my life on at least ten occasions, I understood.

I understand perfectly well, and I despise profoundly, what Western propaganda has done to the world. And I fight it, with all my might, day and night, for those millions, for billions of boys and girls, who are now, like me so many years ago, getting thoroughly indoctrinated, lobotomized and brainwashed by brutal professionals in London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles.

I say and write what I want to say, what I want to write.

I also say and write what thousands of people whom I have met, in Asia, Oceania, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, want me to convey. They cannot do it themselves, they are too lost, too debilitated, too confused. They tell me the stories, not even hoping that anything can ever change or improve. They believe that their misfortune is permanent and fatal.

Then, I write my ‘propaganda’ pieces! I take sides. I speak of the horrors created by the Western neo-colonialist regime. Am I ‘subjective’? You bet! And I am telling you openly that I am.

I am an Internationalist, a Cuban-style internationalist. I am not hiding what I am. It is all honestly spelled out in my essays, in my profiles, in my books.

I ‘propagandize’ what I think, in what I believe. In fact, I’d much rather be called a ‘propagandist’ than a journalist, which is, lately, synonymous with ‘the oldest profession’.

People who are like me, are free, and they write, speak, make films, precisely as they want.

If we join the Russians, Chinese, Cubans, Venezuelans – we do it because that is what we want, because we think that what they are doing right now is generally right. Itis not a job, it is a struggle, a battle, a true life!

Tough, not easy, but life, which I’d never trade for anything else.

But they, our adversaries in the West, those journos, are simply cowards, hypocrites or much, much worse!

They pretend that they are ‘objective’, while no ‘objectivity’ can really exist in this time and age, particularly not in the West. They are hiding their true shameful trade behind their impeccable Oxford accents. They are still getting great mileage from being white.

They simply lie, openly and shamelessly, solely by refusing to openly admit who is paying them, what is expected of them, and what would happen to their careers in case they’d dare to tell or write the truth.

My propaganda is my own. Or it is designed (by myself) to help my comrades, and the countries and governments that I admire and support.

Am I fully objective? Please read this carefully: “NO! Definitely not. And I am not aiming at any false objectivity! I select the places where I go, I select the stories that I want to cover. That is how I ‘maneuver’ politically. But once there, once at the frontline, I tell the truth, and I produce images that simply cannot lie!”

My opponents from the Western mass media, from their governments, multi-nationals and advertising companies, are lying day and night. And they never admit what game they are playing.

That is why their propaganda is ‘bigger’ than mine.

I freely write what I think is correct, and my readers are reading my stuff freely (or sometimes even despite great obstacles).

My adversaries from the West, are using the lowest state and business apparatus, even fear, to penetrate people with their lies. They have psychologists, demagogues, business gurus at their disposals: to help with spreading their fabrications all over the world.

Technically, they are so good at what they are doing, that even the poorest of the poor, even those who have already been robbed of everything, are readily buying into their ‘worldview’. Just go to Kenya or to Indonesia, go to the slums there, and you will see.

For many of the victims,the greatest honor is still to become as indoctrinated (and well-spoken) as those who have already robbed the world of almost everything.

This, my dear Comrades, is an outcome ofperfectly successful and evil propaganda!

I’m terribly sorry, but I’m sticking to my own. My propaganda may be perhaps transparent, Imperfect and raw, but it is sincere.

And I’m not afraid, at night, to look at the mirror!

[This essay was first published by New Eastern Outlook (NEO)]

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist.

9 February 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/09/propaganda-pardon-mine-really-bigger/

By Eric Zuesse

Newsmedia effectively ban reporting corruptness of newsmedia — even of media that stand on the opposite side of the political divide.

The ‘news’media in the U.S. and allied countries never report the corruption (including lying) perpetrated by any except the very few non-mainstream media that are authentically pro-democracy (or “anti-Establishment” or “anti-elitist” — which doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as “anti-elite”) in those countries — and these few pro-democracy sites are the least-corrupt newsmedia, the few ones that are careful to report only truths — no lies, no propaganda at all. They do it even if all the others call such news sites ‘fake news’ — because they are committed, above all, to conveying the truth, and nothing but the truth.

Each of the mainstream ‘news’media is funded by (and advertises) the corporations of billionaires and centi-millionaires (the people who control all of the large corporations and virtually all of the media). These people’s corporations advertise in, and donate to those media, and those mega-business-owners don’t want the public to know that all of the mainstream (and many even of the non-mainstream) ‘news’media are actually propaganda-agencies for what those super-rich want to happen (their governmental agendas). They not only advertise so that you will buy their products and services, but they also report — and exclude from reporting — so that you will vote for their politicians who will impose their governmental agenda in this ‘democracy’, and will vote against their opponents. This is the governmental control-system (which is proven and explained — and shown to function in the U.S.A., by that link to ‘democracy’).

A good example of this phenomenon is the way that the Nunes Memo (about ‘Russiagate’ & Trump), which was released on Friday February 3rd, has been covered in all of the ’news’media.

On the Democratic Party side, which is funded by billionaires who control the Democratic Party and who own Democratic Party ‘news’media, there have been efforts to discredit, or else to minimize the significance of, what the Memo said.

On the Republican Party side, which is funded by billionaires who control the Republican Party and who own Republican Party ‘news’media, there have been efforts to credit, and also to maximize the significance of, what the Memo said.

It’s a Republican memo, so that’s understandable on strictly partisan grounds. If either of those Parties represented the public instead of the billionaires who fund them, then there would be a possibility of overcoming the ugly reality that’s documented in that link about our ‘democracy’ — and actually having a democratic government instead of our existing dictatorship — but unfortunately, neither Party does represent the public (which is why what was reported in that link to ‘democracy’ happened to be the case).

However, when I emailed on February 2nd, to all major and many minor ’news’media in the U.S. and its allied countries, submitting to them a news-report exposing the corruptness of one particular major U.S. ’news’medium’s news-story on the significance of what the Memo said, no mainstream U.S.-and-allied ’news’medium published it, and only two non-mainstream ones did: washingtonsblog, and RINF.

Although I hadn’t seen this tweet from the head of Judicial Watch, I had just explained the basic reasoning that stood behind it — so, here’s the significance of the Nunes Memo, in a nutshell (and my article, which was published only by washingtonsblog and RINF, provides the actual case):

https://twitter.com/TomFitton/status/959481196446183426?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.infowars.com%2Fdeep-state-death-spiral-dems-in-denial-over-damning-fisa-memo%2F

Tom Fitton, President, Judicial Watch

Memo:  No FISA warrant without [Steele] Dossier.  Which means no Russia collusion story without Dossier.  Which means no Mueller special counsel without Dossier paid for by Clinton/DNC.  Shut it down.

9:38 AM – 2 Feb 2018

This happens to be in line with the Republican PR campaign on the matter, but even Republican ‘news’-sites refused to publish the article I wrote, because it exposed the fraudulence of a certain Democratic news-site — and this is unfortunately a journalistic no-no.

In other words: Not only do ‘news’-sites not expose journalistic wrongdoing that’s on their own political side, but they also hide the journalistic wrongdoing that’s on the opposite side of the political divide. Both sides actually work together, to fool the public in ways that are acceptable to — or even required by — the billionaires. This is the phenomenon that’s documented, in that link to ‘democracy’ — documented actually to exist in the U.S., and to control the U.S. Government.

Unless the journalistic taboo, hiding from the public the lies (including all of the easily preventable false and misleading assertions) that are published by other ‘news’media — thereby leaving such lies to pile up in basically the way that please all billionaires (and centi-millionaires) of all political parties — ends, there is no hope for democracy. Not even a hope. There is just the extension of the present real nightmare, into the future.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

9 February 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/09/newsmedia-u-s-allied-countries-never-report/

By Tapan Bose

Photos of grieving women and old men hugging the casket soldier killed on the Jammu and Kashmir border skirmish are appearing on the front pages of newspapers almost every day. Dressed in battle fatigues and bullet proof jackets, Indian army jawans and personnel of the Border Security Forces are constantly moving through border hamlets and paddy fields to take position to fire across the border. Devastation is visible all around — blood stains on the floor, broken windows, injured animals and splinter marks on the walls. By mid -January this year (2018) a chain of hamlets and towns along the Indo-Pak border in R.S.Pura sector have become empty. Over 40,000 villagers have abandoned their homes to escape heavy shelling by Pakistani forces. The BSF had fired over 9,000 rounds of mortar shells across the Jammu IB in the last few days as part of “pinpointed” retaliatory action against this “unprovoked” firing from across the border. In Nichal village in Samba district, an old man waiting to receive body of his son felled by Pakistani bullets appealed to Prime Minister to either engage Pakistan in dialogue, or engage it in a full-fledged war to get lasting peace in Jammu and Kashmir. It is the Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has virtually frozen all high-level contacts with Pakistan and vowed to continue doing so until Islamabad stops providing all logistical support for the anti-Indian insurgency in Kashmir. There is no indication that Mr. Modi is going to change his stance in near future.

Bilateral relations between India and Pakistan has been virtually reduced to soldiers firing at each other across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. During 2017 there were nearly 860 hostile military actions on the Indo-Kashmir border. According to information in the first month of 2018 there were more than five incidents of exchange of fire every day on the Jammu Kashmir border. Earlier this month, the Press Trust of India (PTI) cited a report from Indian intelligence sources that claimed 138 Pakistan military personnel were killed in the preceding year in “tactical operations and retaliatory cross-border firings” along the LoC. The same sources put the death toll of soldiers on the Indian side at 28. Both militaries are known for boasting of enemy fatalities, while downplaying casualties on their own side.

In retaliation of heavy Pakistani firing and shelling that killed Border Security Force Constable K.K. Appa Rao, Indian army in August 2017 had initiated “Operation Arjun”, which targeted farms and residences of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officers and retired Pakistani Army officers. An official document accessed by IANS revealed that “Operation Arjun” continued till September 24, with the BSF using small and medium arms as well as aerial weapons, causing heavy casualties and damage on the Pakistani side. According to reports, in January 2018, Indian side has fired around 9000 rounds of mortar shells across the international border in Jammu as part of “pinpointed” retaliatory action against this “unprovoked” firing from across the border.

With both sides accusing the other of “unprovoked firing” across the Line of Control (LoC) the situation is on a knife’s edge. These violations in the Jammu and Kashmir region are significant as these compound bilateral military, political, and diplomatic tensions. These have the potential to escalate into bigger military engagement in the aftermath of terror incidents.

Since late 2008, India-Pakistan “comprehensive peace dialogue” has been in limbo. However, till 2016 the incidents of violation of ceasefire were about 300 per year. On September 28, 2016, India responded to the Uri attack by mounting surgical strikes on militant bases. After the “surgical strike” the incidents of ceasefire violations have increased exponentially. The cross border firings spread to the international border in Punjab as a result of which villages on both sides of Punjab had to be evacuated. The US endorsed India’s Sept. 2016 “surgical strikes” inside Pakistan. While India asserts terrorist infiltration from Pakistan is the primary cause for cease fire violations, Pakistan claims that the outstanding bilateral disputes are the issue. Even if terrorist infiltration were to end, there is no certainty that the ceasefire violations would end. The situation is complicated by the new military belligerency which is behind the massive rise in the cease fire violations during last year.

A further consequence of Washington’s downgrading of relations with Pakistan in favour of India, is that it has emboldened the Indian ruling elite in its dealings with Pakistan. Seizing on the deterioration in US-Pakistani relations, General Bipin Rawat, the Chief of Indian on January 12, 2018, issued a warning to Pakistan. He said that Indian forces were ready to call Pakistan’s ‘nuclear bluff’ and cross the border to carry out any operation if asked by the government. Pakistan Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif responded the next day, with his own warlike message. He said, Indiana army chief’s statement “Amount to (an) invitation for (a) nuclear encounter. If that is what they desire, they are welcome to test our resolve. The general’s doubt would swiftly be removed, inshallah [God willing].” Earlier in the day, Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor had also responded to the Indian army chief’s ‘nuclear bluff’ assertion by warning that India will be given a befitting response if they engage in any misadventure.

Pakistan has been stockpiling strategic nuclear weapons for several years. There are reports that recently it has deployed tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons as its first line of defence against any large-scale Indian invasion or impending invasion. Pakistan claims that Indian has been planning attack them under its “Cold Start” strategy.

Pakistan has long viewed Afghanistan as vital to giving it “strategic depth” in its rivalry with India. Washington’s promotion of India as a major player in Afghanistan is exacerbating tensions in the region. Trump administration’s encouragement of India has helped expand the Indo-Pakistan strategic conflict onto Afghan soil. It has emboldened Afghanistan which, has adopted an increasingly hostile and aggressive policy towards Islamabad. Islamabad frequently accuses Indian intelligence of working in tandem with Afghan intelligence to foment terrorist attacks inside Pakistani territory, including by supporting the separatist insurgency in Baluchistan.

The Pakistan claims that US government’s efforts to upset the “balance of power” in the region has forced them to deploy tactical nuclear weapons and expand its military-strategic ties with Beijing. With the US government providing India access to its most advanced weapon systems, and Pakistan moving to strengthen its strategic ties with China, the region is increasingly being polarized into rival Indo-US and raising the danger that a war between India and Pakistan could draw in the world’s great powers.

As we have seen in the past, when India and Pakistan dialogue process on key disputes is under way, cease fire violations go down. When the governments stop talking to each other, and bilateral tensions go up, the forces deployed on the line of Control, gain autonomy and local factors tend to have a dramatic influence on ceasefire violations. Instead of resuming bilateral dialogue, which is the only way disputes can be resolved, both governments have adopted unsustainable militarist approach which has the potential of engulfing the region in a larger war, which would cause massive bloodshed and enormous damage to both countries.

The fear that under the BJP rule, India will be increasingly drawn into US imperialism’s game plan for extending its hegemony over this region to counter China’s growing economic and military power is real. The USA has always fought their wars in other people’s territories bringing utter devastation to the people and the economy. That continuous localized military clashes, can lead to large-scale war is an established historic fact. We have become so used to this perpetual cycle of instability and constant confrontations, along the Indo-Pakistan border that we have lost sight of the inherent danger that these confrontations pose to peace in South Asia. As a result, despite our best efforts, the next big war in the Asia-Pacific, like most military conflicts, may come as an apparent surprise when we least expect it. For what is clear is that the current instability in the Asia-Pacific cannot endure indefinitely.

The present confrontation and jingoism has to stop, it harms lives of people on both sides. There is grave concern that after 70 years of independence a large proportion of the populations of both countries are still steeped in poverty, hunger, disease and homelessness. It is incumbent that the concerned citizens of both countries lead the way by giving a joint call emphasizing the absolute need for the two countries reestablish the relations that existed at the end of last century or beginning of this century when both governments were talking to each other. The dialogue should however not be limited to politicians, the armies or bureaucrats. Civil society organisations of both the countries must be a party to the dialogue as they alone will persuade the states to alter their course.

Tapan Bose is an independent documentary filmmaker, human rights and peace activist, author and regular contributor leading journals and news magazines in India, Nepal and Pakistan.

9 February 2018

Source: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/09/india-pakistan-coming-war/

By Rania Khalek

The ease with which American foreign policy “experts” can suddenly reinvent themselves, switching focus as the DC mood changes, exposes the Washington think tank racket as a giant sham designed to manipulate opinion.

When protests broke out in Iran at the end of 2017, Washington think tanks were ecstatic. They saw an opportunity to push for regime change and they went for it. Almost overnight, all of the self-proclaimed “Syria experts” who spent the last several years arguing for the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad shifted their focus to Tehran.
The Hudson Institute, a conservative pro-war Washington outfit funded by major corporations and oil companies, is a case in point. On January 16, Hudson hosted a panel of so-called experts, titled “Iran Protests: Consequences for the Region and Opportunities for the Trump Administration.” The panel featured a who’s who of warmongers discussing how to weaken yet another Middle Eastern state.

The most notorious among them was regime change aficionado Charles Lister, a “senior fellow” (read lobbyist) at the Middle East Institute, an influential DC think tank that receives tens of millions of dollars from the United Arab Emirates, a country whose leadership is committed to regime change in Iran. Before he was an “Iran expert,” Lister rose to prominence agitating for regime change in Syria. He is perhaps best known for cheerleading Salafi jihadist Syrian rebel groups like Ahrar al-Sham and Nour al-Din al-Zenki, which Lister insisted were moderate despite their explicitly stated intention to wipe out minorities in Syria and their open alliance with Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate. Anyone who dared to criticize such groups or highlight their genocidal agendas quickly became targets of Lister over the years – he would brand them dictator lovers and Assadists.

It’s unclear whether Lister speaks any Arabic or whether he’s ever spent any significant amount of time in Syria or the Middle East more generally. But he says what the foreign policy establishment wants to hear, and for that, he is quoted extensively in the mainstream press on everything from Syria to Iran to even Egypt, with the New Yorker’s Robin Wright labelling him “an expert on Jihadism.”

During the Hudson panel, Lister argued against the US participating in locally negotiated ceasefires in Syria that have played a major role in de-escalating the violence that tore apart the country. Ceasefires benefit Hezbollah and Iran, warned Lister, who would apparently rather the bloodshed continue if it helps the US and its jihadist proxies. Lister also painted Israel as the ultimate victim of Iran in Syria and suggested the CIA assassinate Major General Qasem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Soleimani heads Iran’s elite Quds Force, which conducts operations outside of Iran in both Iraq and Syria. He has been credited with helping to turn the tide in both countries against Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) which has led to American fears that he threatens US hegemony in the region.

Blind Eye
Hudson’s in-house counterterrorism expert Michael Pregent, who previously accused Iran of refusing to fight IS while arguing that the sometimes IS-allied Free Syrian Army was the only force capable of defeating the terrorist group, also agitated for the assassination of Soleimani, but he called for Israel to do the dirty work rather than the CIA.

Omri Ceren from the right-wing Likud-aligned Israel Project was also on the panel. Echoing Israeli government talking points, he called for the US to spread a “freedom agenda” in Iran – which is code for regime change.

Another speaker was Brian Katulis from the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank that also receives funding from the UAE. Katulis employed empty slogans about supporting “freedom and justice” in Iran. Almost everything he said was forgettable. The UAE funding might explain why these experts continually blasted Iran for supposedly destabilizing Yemen without mentioning a word about the punishing Saudi-imposed siege which has led to famine and a cholera outbreak of epic proportions that kills a Yemeni child every 10 minutes.

The Hudson panel perfectly encapsulates how these establishment experts have no actual expertise, just fancy titles and shady funding that gives them a veneer of scholarly seriousness. They shift from one country to the next and are considered authoritative without any real credentials other than being white men who provide the intellectual backbone to Washington’s permanent war agenda, which all the panelists have a history of supporting. The fact that their policy prescriptions have ended in disaster for the people of the region doesn’t slow them down.

Death Toll  
The war in Iraq killed over a million people and catapulted the region into violent sectarian warfare from which it has yet to recover. The Western intervention in Libya threw that country into chaos, transforming what was once the richest nation in Africa, with the highest literacy rates, into an ungovernable gang-run state home to IS slave markets. And then there’s Syria, where the US poured billions into funding Al-Qaeda-linked rebel groups to overthrow the government, creating the worst refugee crisis since World War Two.

The men who made up the Hudson panel supported all of these disastrous wars, which goes to show that being wrong gets you places in Washington. In fact, being wrong seems to be a prerequisite for promotion in Beltway circles.

No one epitomizes this dynamic more than Peter Bergen, a national security analyst at CNN. Two decades ago Bergen produced a rare interview with Osama bin Laden and he’s been capitalizing on it for 20 years. Since then he has fallen up to expert status on any and all issues pertaining to national security, counterterrorism and the Middle East, no matter how wrong he is. He supported the conflicts in Iraq and Libya. And here he is debating an actual expert, journalist Nir Rosen, and like always, Bergen argues for more war.

Another example is Ken Pollack from the Brookings Institute. He pushed hard for the war in Iraq and US interference in Libya and Syria. Despite the disastrous consequences of these policies, he is still described as an “expert” and recently penned a report for the Atlantic Council on countering Iran.

Destabilizing Iran has long been a policy goal of the US and its Israeli and Saudi allies. But the reality is that Iran is the most stable country in the Middle East and it played a crucial role in protecting the region from IS and Al-Qaeda. Whatever one thinks of the government in Iran, and there are of course many legitimate critiques as is true of any government, Iran’s only crime is that it acts independently of American interests and for that, it must be strong-armed into submission. So, let’s hope the experts don’t have their way.

Rania Khalek is an American journalist, writer and political commentator based in the Middle East.

7 February 2018

Source: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/418132-iran-protests-syria-experts-warmonger/