Yearly Archives: 2021

Saturday Matinee: Valley Girl

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80S BITS: VALLEY GIRL

By Richard Grey

Source: TheRealBits.com

With the release of a fourth American Pie film this year, one that largely looks back at the highs and lows of the 1999 original, it is tough to imagine a time when teen sex comedies weren’t a dime a dozen. When reflecting on Martha Coolidge’s 1983 hit film Valley Girl, what makes it stand out is just how much hasn’t changed in the last three decades. Some of the fashions might have altered, the music is now retro and valley girls have been parodied in everything from Frank Zappa music to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yet there remains a central familiarity that this film set the tone for in many ways.

In fair California, where we lay our scene, Julie Richman (Deborah Foreman) is a rich valley girl who has everything a young lady could dream of: cool parents, money, a gaggle of friends and the hottest boyfriend in town. After hanging out with her valley friends Loryn (Elizabeth Daily), Stacey (Heidi Holicker), and Suzi (Michelle Meyrink), she decides that Tommy (Michael Bowen) doesn’t respect her anymore and unceremoniously dumps him. When she meets Hollywood punk Randy (Nicolas Cage) at a party, the pair share an instant connection, and Randy falls in love hard, showing her a world she never knew existed. Yet Julie’s friends don’t approve, and she must decided whether to go with Randy or cave to peer pressure and reconcile with Tommy.

The disparity between rich and poor, and the class war it created, was a major theme in the films of the 1980s, proving to be the Romeo and Juliet stumbling block that stopped couples from uniting in Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful to name but a few. Just as the decade of decadence was getting underway, the familiar trope is pulled out here not so much as a cheap cash grab, but rather as a parody of the popular youth culture of the 1980s. More so than any other film that has lampooned or been set in the 1980s since, Valley Girl captures the era perfectly, from the plastic image-focused girls of the valley, to the New Wave punks of Hollywood, just as caught in the scene as the sex-obsessed girls.

Where most teen comedies are the fantasies of the middle-aged, who vicariously live out deflowering fantasies that they missed out in their own formative years, female filmmaker Martha Coolidge creates a world inhabited with real kids. Much of the film cleverly sits back and observes conversations, adopting an almost documentary approach to exposition. Refreshingly, this means that catching girls out in the nude or obtaining a pair of panties as a trophy are not the ultimate goals in the film, nor is there a contest to be the first past the cherry-popping post. These young characters are sexual active, aware of their own bodies but in contrast conflicted over the dichotomy between their feelings and social status. Through the mere act of listening, we find out their fears and their desires. Who knew that girls talk about sex almost as much, if not more than, boys?

Valley Girl is fuelled by a terrific New Wave soundtrack, making liberal use of  The Plimsouls and Josie Cotton, who both appear in the film. Peppered with minor hits of the 1982-83 charts, “I Melt with You” by Modern English serves as an unofficial theme song for the film. The film originally had a lot more on the soundtrack, with the music rights costing $250,000 on top of the film’s original $350,000 budget. However, while The Clash, Culture Club, Bananarama, and The Jam all originally appeared in the credits to the film, none of their songs can be found in the actual picture thanks to an inability to secure the rights. Frank Zappa, whose satirical 1982 song “Valley Girl” served as the basis for the film, unsuccessfully attempted to sue the film’s makers for capitalising on his song’s name.

Trivia fans will know that this was the first film in which a young Nicolas Coppola first used his more famous stage name of Nicolas Cage, but the legacy of the film goes well beyond beginning the career that launched a thousand hairpieces. Apart from popularising the highly imitable “Valspeak”, Valley Girl opened the door for frank and open explorations of youth anxiety and sex, far more than the Porky’s films ever did. Indeed, a direct line can be traced between Valley Girl‘s star-crossed lovers and the Jane Austen-inspired Clueless. Like, totally for sure.

 

Watch the full film for free here: https://youtu.be/9VbyTLnRXCs

 

Enemies of the Deep State: The Government’s War on Domestic Terrorism Is a Trap

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By John W. Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

“This is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don’t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends. What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life? [The proposed legislation could create] a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.”—Tulsi Gabbard, former Congresswoman

This is how it begins.

We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, “domestic terrorism” has become the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties.

Of course, “domestic terrorist” is just the latest bull’s eye phrase, to be used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.”

Watch and see: we are all about to become enemies of the state.

In a déjà vu mirroring of the legislative fall-out from 9/11, and the ensuing build-up of the security state, there is a growing demand in certain sectors for the government to be given expanded powers to root out “domestic” terrorism, the Constitution be damned.

If this is a test of Joe Biden’s worthiness to head up the American police state, he seems ready.

As part of his inaugural address, President Biden pledged to confront and defeat “a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism.” Biden has also asked the Director of National Intelligence to work with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in carrying out a “comprehensive threat assessment” of domestic terrorism. And then to keep the parallels going, there is the proposed Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021, introduced after the Jan. 6 riots, which aims to equip the government with “the tools to identify, monitor and thwart” those who could become radicalized to violence.

Don’t blink or you’ll miss the sleight of hand.

This is the tricky part of the Deep State’s con game that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.

It follows the same pattern as every other convenient “crisis” used by the government as an excuse to expand its powers at the citizenry’s expense and at the expense of our freedoms.

As investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald warns:

“The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago. This New War on Terror—one that is domestic in name from the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting ‘extremists’ and ‘domestic terrorists’ among American citizens on U.S. soil—presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion, activism and protests.”

Greenwald is referring to the USA Patriot Act, passed almost 20 years ago, which paved the way for the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since Sept. 11, 2001.

Some members of Congress get it.

In a letter opposing expansion of national security powers, a handful congressional representatives urged their colleagues not to repeat the mistakes of the past:

“While many may find comfort in increased national security powers in the wake of this attack, we must emphasize that we have been here before and we have seen where that road leads. Our history is littered with examples of initiatives sold as being necessary to fight extremism that quickly devolve into tools used for the mass violation of the human and civil rights of the American people… To expand the government’s national security powers once again at the expense of the human and civil rights of the American people would only serve to further undermine our democracy, not protect it.”

Cue the Emergency State, the government’s Machiavellian version of crisis management that justifies all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.

This is the power grab hiding in plain sight, obscured by the political machinations of the self-righteous elite. This is how the government continues to exploit crises and use them as opportunities for power grabs under the guise of national security. Indeed, this is exactly how the government added red flag gun laws, precrime surveillance, fusion centers, threat assessments, mental health assessments, involuntary confinement to its arsenal of weaponized powers.

The objective is not to make America safe again. That has never been the government’s aim.

Greenwald explains:

“Why would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should be criminalized by new ‘domestic terrorism’ laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because—just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws—their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition.”

So you see, the issue is not whether Donald Trump or Roger Stone or MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell deserve to be banned from Twitter, even if they’re believed to be spouting misinformation, hateful ideas, or fomenting discontent.

Rather, we should be asking whether any corporation or government agency or entity representing a fusion of the two should have the power to muzzle, silence, censor, regulate, control and altogether eradicate so-called “dangerous” or “extremist” ideas.

This unilateral power to muzzle free speech represents a far greater danger than any so-called right- or left-wing extremist might pose.

The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

Yet where many go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.

Eventually, all you will really need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.

The groundwork has already been laid.

The trap is set.

All that is needed is the right bait.

With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents have been busily spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.

It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.

What’s more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state don’t even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate. Computers by way of AI (artificial intelligence) now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks, all of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the government’s choosing.

For instance, police in major American cities have been using predictive policing technology that allows them to identify individuals—or groups of individuals—most likely to commit a crime in a given community. Those individuals are then put on notice that their movements and activities will be closely monitored and any criminal activity (by them or their associates) will result in harsh penalties.

In other words, the burden of proof is reversed: you are guilty before you are given any chance to prove you are innocent.

Dig beneath the surface of this kind of surveillance/police state, however, and you will find that the real purpose of pre-crime is not safety but control.

Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.

This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.

For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

According to one FBI latest report, you might also be classified as a domestic terrorism threat if you espouse conspiracy theories, especially if you “attempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of others” and are “usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.”

Additionally, according to Michael C. McGarrity, the FBI’s assistant director of the counterterrorism division, the bureau now “classifies domestic terrorism threats into four main categories: racially motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anti-authority extremism, animal rights/environmental extremism, and abortion extremism.”

In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.

Again, where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.

In fact, U.S. police agencies have been working to identify and manage potential extremist “threats,” violent or otherwise, before they can become actual threats for some time now.

In much the same way that the USA Patriot Act was used as a front to advance the surveillance state, allowing the government to establish a far-reaching domestic spying program that turned every American citizen into a criminal suspect, the government’s anti-extremism program renders otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist.

In fact, all you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use certain trigger words (like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, limp or stutter, drive a car, stay at a hotel, attend a political rally, express yourself on social media, appear mentally ill, serve in the military, disagree with a law enforcement official, call in sick to work, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, appear confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or smell bad, be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane), stare at a police officer, question government authority, or appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom.

Be warned: once you get on such a government watch list—whether it’s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, a dissident watch list, or a red flag gun watch list—there’s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there.

You will be tracked wherever you go.

You will be flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.

This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it’s been a long time coming.

The government has been building its pre-crime, surveillance network in concert with fusion centers (of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the corporate sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).

If you’re not scared yet, you should be.

Connect the dots.

Start with the powers amassed by the government under the USA Patriot Act, note the government’s ever-broadening definition of what it considers to be an “extremist,” then add in the government’s detention powers under NDAA, the National Security Agency’s far-reaching surveillance networks, and fusion centers that collect and share surveillance data between local, state and federal police agencies.

To that, add tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones and balloons that are beginning to blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that will identify and track you wherever you go and whatever you do. And then to complete the picture, toss in the real-time crime centers being deployed in cities across the country, which will be attempting to “predict” crimes and identify so-called criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms and prognostication programs.

Hopefully you’re starting to understand how easy we’ve made it for the government to identify, label, target, defuse and detain anyone it views as a potential threat for a variety of reasons that run the gamut from mental illness to having a military background to challenging its authority to just being on the government’s list of persona non grata.

There’s always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, you don’t even have to be a dissident to get flagged by the government for surveillance, censorship and detention.

All you really need to be is a citizen of the American police state.

Newspeak in the 21st Century: How to Become a Model Citizen in the New Era of Domestic Warfare

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By Cynthia Chung

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

With President Biden’s inauguration many feel that they can finally breathe a deep sigh of relief. At last sanity has been restored and we can all go back to our predictable lives knowing that the future can only get better during these next four years.

Well…not quite.

There still remains the problem that everybody may not be on board with the progressive changes that Biden’s Administration plans to push through. This, of course, is wholly unacceptable.

Disagreement has become an extremely sensitive issue lately; it was once thought that debate was an essential component to a strong and healthy democracy, however, we are now told that it is extremely dangerous, in fact, it may soon be categorised as a form of domestic terrorism.

As early as mid-Nov 2020, Biden was already discussing the need to pass further laws against domestic terrorism. This is interesting since under the 2001 Patriot Act (which was meant to be a temporary enforcement in reaction to 9/11, however, is still in place 19 years later), domestic terrorism is already defined as;

“activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.”

So, the question begs, what else needs to be added to the Patriot Act, which was recognised at the time of its enforcement as something that should only be temporary since it was understood that it infringed upon civil liberties? Come to think of it, why is the Patriot Act still in place, which allows for the indefinite continuation of human rights violations such as warrantless wiretapping; illegal torture, kidnapping, and detention; mass surveillance; government secrecy; Real ID; no-fly list; political spying; abuse of material witness statutes; and attacks on academic freedom?

As Glenn Greenwald wrote in his formidable paper The New Domestic War on Terror is Coming, “what needs to be criminalized that is not already a crime?”, keeping in mind that as of June 2020, the United States has the highest prisoner rate in the world, followed by El Salvador, Turkmenistan, Thailand and Palau.

Well, the answer is apparently simple and as always for our own good. We have come to a point in time where the enemy is not some radicalized ideology, it is not some foreign despot, it is not even the threat of war (whether it be economic, cyber or nuclear), but rather it is ourselves. We, the people, are the new enemies of the State.

You may protest “Not I! I am a model citizen! I pay my taxes on time, I am never late or call in sick for work, I make sure to be up-to-date with the newest ‘woke’ revelations and I don’t engage with anything outside of the mainstream matrix during my free-time.” People such as yourself think, that when the Biden Administration is calling for tougher laws against domestic terrorism, that it is obviously meant for the ‘other guy,’ those uneducated bigots who are screaming at the top of their lungs “Treason!” and inciting what we are told to be forms of ‘insurrection,’ all in the name of the archaic ideas of ‘patriotism’ and the ‘U.S. Constitution.’

You, unlike so many others, have no problem recognising that the U.S. Constitution is actually part of the problem, that by the standards used today, the U.S. Constitution is itself responsible for ‘inciting violence’ and thus guilty of domestic terrorism, and thus needs to be revoked.

But you see… that’s just not good enough.

Though you are well on your way to becoming a model citizen in the 21st century, you still have a little ways to go. It is for this reason that a guide to 21st century Newspeak has been recently released to make sure that well-intentioned citizens like yourself are fully informed of what is required of you in terms of appropriate behaviour, as well as appropriate thoughts, and though this will take a little more time, appropriate instincts.

21st Century Newspeak

The first alteration that will need to take place is freedom of thought. It has been shown through peer-review studies that individual thoughts are susceptible to forming erroneous beliefs and can lead to dangerous behaviours such as refusal to integrate into a community standard.

Once an individual refuses to integrate into its designated community, it is only a matter of time before this individual shows opposition and even antagonism towards said community. Thus failure to integrate is one of the first signs that an individual is on the path to becoming a domestic terrorist.

Because the individual mind is flawed, it can no longer be trusted to be the standard of its own judgement of what is right and wrong. It is for this reason that we are introducing groupthink. This concept is not new, however, the difference is from now on the individual’s environment will only be allowed to reciprocate the values of groupthink, and all other thoughts outside of groupthink are to be banned and punishable under the new laws.

Even if thoughts outside of groupthink appear as harmless to the collective, they are not, for any thought that is not groupthink threatens to lead to a different outcome than that intended by groupthink and thus is a threat to the security of the collective.

In order to ensure commitment to groupthink, it will be mandatory that every individual engage in at least 2 minutes of Hate every hour throughout the day, every day. This can be achieved either by watching 2 minutes of Hate news, or by engaging in a public 2 minutes of Hate with a colleague, a friend or family member via social media.

It is imperative that an individual watch the 15 minute morning and evening “What to Hate” news provided by the Ministry of Truth (or Minitrue), in order to be the most up-to-date with what are the ongoing and new subjects of Hate, and what were previous subjects of Hate which are no longer deemed to be subjects of Hate.

It is most important that an individual never refer to a former subject of Hate as such. Any present subject of Hate must be seen as having always been a subject of Hate and any former subject of Hate must be seen as having never been a subject of Hate.

This may appear as an impossible task, but we assure you it is entirely possible with the use of doublethink, which many of you have already been practising. Doublethink requires that one be both conscious and unconscious of the fact that they are telling deliberate lies while genuinely believing them; to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies. This makes up a part of our new Party slogan: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

Those who excel the most in doublethink will receive the highest stations within our newly organised community, as safe-guards against the renegade, the domestic terrorist.

Another alteration that will need to occur is how we think and refer to the past and the future. With the newly enforced groupthink, the present is what groupthink dictates it to be, which is subject to change, however, must be regarded as having always been.

The past is what the present dictates it to be, if it were not, it could challenge the basis for the present. Thus to preserve the present, the past must serve the present, only justifying why we Hate what we presently Hate and why we Love what we presently Love and can do nothing to contradict these Party lines. There will be permitted no records of an alternative past, there will be no way to prove that the past was ever different from what the present dictates it to be, the only threat to this narrative is the record of the individual mind, and once this ceases to be there will only be the Minitrue record as the recorder of past Truth.

In effect, the model citizen will perceive the past as dead and the future as unimaginable. The future is unimaginable because it is impossible to think of an alternative to the present, in fact, the mere act of thinking of an alternative to the present is considered a challenge to the status quo of the present, and thus is a challenge to groupthink, and thus is a form of domestic terrorism, which we will call from now on thoughtcrime.

Thoughtcrime is essentially any thought pertaining to memory, judgement of right and wrong, thoughts of an alternative reality, and self-reflection, which are now all deemed forms of thoughtcrime. If an individual is to engage in any of these sorts of thoughts, it is only a matter of time before they will come into conflict with groupthink and the Party line, thus private thoughts are banned and punished under the new laws.

It may seem an impossible task at first not to engage in private thoughts, but again, we assure you it is entirely possible using crimestop. Crimestop is the practice of not grasping analogies, failing to perceive logical errors, misunderstanding the simplest arguments, of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop is essentially, protective stupidity.

It is imperative that one practice crimestop during any interaction with another individual, however, it is also imperative that one practice crimestop within their own inner-dialogue, such that even from your own conscience you will be protected from committing a thoughtcrime.

Newspeak will also help dissuade from thoughtcrime. Newspeak is to be the new acceptable vocabulary, anything that references words outside of the most-up-to-date edition of the Newspeak dictionary will be considered Oldspeak and something to be construed as counter to groupthink. It is understood that by reducing the vocabulary to revolve around a few words such as good; which for example can be used as plusgood, doubleplusgood, ungood etc, it will serve to narrow the range of thought an individual is capable of, and thus reduce the capability of committing a thoughtcrime. How wonderful! That in the future we will be unable to commit crime for we will be incapable of its thought! This makes up another part of our new Party slogan: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

In terms of the new laws, in effect, nothing will change. Unacceptable behaviours and thoughts will not be designated as illegal per se; one reason for this is because we do not plan on having any public trials. Anyone who is in violation of conduct will simply be removed either temporarily into a “re-education facility” or will be vaporised. Any subject that has been vaporised will be removed from the collective memory records and can never be referred to as having ever existed.

The reason why no public trials will be held from now on is because, as we have seen, dissent is infectious. Thus, holding public trials risk further encouragement towards dissent. It is for this reason that dissenters must be removed swiftly and quietly in the middle of the night. Such disappearances will occur relatively regularly and will eventually become the new normal, however, it will not be traumatic for the collective. The subject will simply cease to exist as if it were all just a dream, the structure of our daily routine unaffected.

In order to ensure utmost compliance, the collective will be employing the use of children spies, this has already been occurring abroad, and proves to be very effective.

Purges and vaporizations will be a necessary part of the government mechanics and will become the new normal. We have already discussed the necessity for vaporizations, as for the necessity of purges, it is because the community will be built so as to remain in stasis, however, this can only be accomplished through artificial means, for it is not natural that a thing remain the same but rather that it either improves or deteriorates.

However, in order for the Party to maintain absolute control, there can be no change to the present except for that chosen by the Party, thus any change is a challenge to the Party. In order to facilitate an artificial environment of no change, resources must artificially be kept low, and purges need to occur so that this environment of scarcity is tightly controlled and maintained.

In order for us to achieve this, our economy will have to go through stagnation, we will need to decrease the amount of land used for cultivation, we will no longer add capital equipment needed for industrial growth and great blocks of the population will be prevented from working and will be kept half alive by State charity. The wheels of industry cannot be allowed to turn so as to increase the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed, and in practice the only way of achieving this is by continuous warfare.

War will continue under the Old Cold War doctrine. War will always be present, and yet will never be seen by the majority of our citizens, the reason for this being that war will not be about a real threat to security nor about real conquests but rather will be about maintaining the present status quo by exhausting the surplus of consumable goods, while also helping to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs.

However, real war will be purely an internal affair, the war waged by the ruling group against its own subjects, with the object of the war as to keep the structure of society intact and unchanging.

A peace that is truly permanent under this new ideology is no different than an invisible permanent war. For peace in our new era will equate to stability through no change. This makes up our first Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.

Conclusion

All of these means are necessary if we are to realise that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism, and that oligarchy is the only means to achieving peace, freedom and strength for the collective.

However, we are still very far from this ideal and there is much that threatens its becoming, namely, the masses, or what we call the proles. So long as the masses believe that they are entitled to freedom of thought, our endeavours cannot succeed.

The individual must voluntarily relinquish this. It cannot be taken from them no matter the degree of control and no matter the threat of physical harm. An individual’s mind is theirs and cannot be taken, instead, the individual must be led to believe that it is in their best interest to relinquish their mind.

Let us do our best then to convince the individual that they are no longer fit to use their mind and let us pray that we are successful, for if we fail, our entire system of control fails with it.

 

“You would not make the act of submission which is the price of sanity…Reality exists only in the human mind, nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.”

– O’Brien in George Orwell’s “1984”

The American Exceptionalism of Secretary of State Antony Blinken

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By Kevin Gosztola

Source: Shadowproof

“American leadership still matters. The reality is the world simply does not organize itself,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken proclaimed at his confirmation hearing. “When we are not engaged, when we are not leading, then one of two things is likely to happen. Either some other country tries to take our place but not in a way that is likely to advance our interests and values, or maybe, just as bad, no one does and then you have chaos.”

Much like President Joe Biden, Blinken is a neoliberal Democrat who believes in the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny.” He thinks if the United States does not impose its will and shape the world then there will be no law and order. He cannot fathom how countries could survive on their own. At least, that is how he argues for greater American intervention in global regions.

Blinken was confirmed as secretary of state in a vote on January 26. Not a single Democrat in the Senate voted against Blinken.

He is a longtime ally of Biden, and during Biden’s first term as vice president, he was his national security adviser.

During President Barack Obama’s second term, Blinken was deputy secretary of state. He was also a part of President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council from 1994 to 2001.

Making Venezuela’s ‘Regime Enablers’ Finally Feel The Pain Of Sanctions

Blinken’s predecessor Mike Pompeo, a right-wing Christian reconstructionist, was involved in President Donald Trump administration’s failed regime change operation against Nicolas Maduro’s government in Venezuela. Yet, despite its failure, Blinken told Republican Senator Marco Rubio he thought the Biden administration should keep recognizing Juan Guaido as the one and only true “leader.”

“We need an effective policy that can restore democracy to Venezuela, free and fair elections,” Blinken declared. He even embraced sanctions, despite the fact that they have hampered the country’s ability to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Venezuelans.

“Maybe we need to look at how we more effectively target the sanctions that we have so that regime enablers finally feel the pain of those sanctions,” Blinken added.

However, a report [PDF] from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) dated January 22, 2021, indicates the sanctions by both the Obama and Trump administrations were targeted pretty well and imposed to inflict “pain” against 113 Venezuelans and 13 entities.

…President Maduro, his wife, Cecilia Flores, and son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra; Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez; Diosdado Cabello (Socialist party president); eight supreme court judges; the leaders of Venezuela’s army, national guard, and national police; governors; the director of the central bank; and the foreign minister…

Trump imposed sanctions to prohibit Venezuela from participating in U.S. financial markets and block the government’s ability to issue digital currency. Treasury Department officials prohibited corporations from purchasing Venezuelan debt. Venezuela’s state oil company, PdVSA, was aggressively targeted for seeking to evade U.S. sanctions and Venezuela’s central bank was sanctioned too.

Blinken Defends Being Wrong On War In Libya

Obama flouted the War Powers Act and launched a war in Libya against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime without the approval of Congress. It created a power vacuum filled by extremist militia groups and transformed the country into a failed state. Migrants are captured and sold in what the United Nations has referred to as “open slave markets.”

Despite the catastrophe sparked by war, Blinken defended his support for a regime change war. “I think it’s been written about. I — I was the president-elect’s national security adviser at the time. And he did not agree with that course of action.”

Biden was opposed to war in Libya. “My question was, okay, tell me what happens? [Gaddafi’s] gone. What happens? Doesn’t the country disintegrate? What happens then? Doesn’t it become a place where it becomes a petri dish for the growth of extremism? Tell me. Tell me what we’re gonna do.”

Rather than concede President Biden was right and he was wrong, Blinken signaled to Senate Republicans that he would be their hawk when Biden was too dovish.

Blinken bafflingly blamed Gaddafi, who was summarily executed, for what happened in Libya after his death.

“We didn’t fully appreciate the fact that one of the things Gaddafi had done over the years was to make sure that there was no possible rival to his power. And as a result, there was no effective bureaucracy, no effective administration in Libya with which to work when he was gone,” Blinken argued.

The Bothsidesism Of Blinken’s View Toward War In Yemen

Sarah Lazare recalled for In These Times the horrors unleashed on the people of Yemen, as a result of the Obama administration’s support for Saudi Arabia’s war against the Houthis.

“The coalition bombed a center for the blind, a funeral, a wedding, a factory and countless homes and residential areas, and blockaded Yemen’s ports, cutting off vital food and medical shipments — all while the Obama-Biden administration was in power,” Lazare wrote.

“Indeed, the Obama White House was so complicit in war crimes in Yemen in that its own State Department internally warned key U.S. military personnel could be subject to war crimes prosecution, according to a Reuters investigation published in October 2016. By July 2015, a United Nations official was already warning that Yemen was on the verge of a famine, a premonition that horrifically came true.”

One of Pompeo’s final actions was to sanction Houthis, which caused a disruption to aid groups delivering humanitarian assistance. Biden froze the sanctions for one month the same day the Senate confirmed Blinken.

Asked about the intense humanitarian crisis in Yemen, Blinken drew a false equivalency between the actions of the Houthis and the Saudis.

“We need to be clear-eyed about the Houthis. They overthrew a government in Yemen. They engaged in a path of aggression through the country. They directed aggression toward Saudi Arabia,” Blinken contended. “They’ve committed atrocities and human rights abuses and that is a fact. What’s also a fact though is that the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen to push back against

the Houthi aggression has contributed to what is, by most accounts, the worst humanitarian situation that we face anywhere in the world.”

The Houthis were part of the Arab Spring uprising in Yemen against the corrupt government of Ali Abdullah Saleh. State Department officials generally backed these rebellions against autocratic rulers.

According to a 2017 post from Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution, “American intelligence officials said that Iran was actually trying to discourage the Houthis from seizing Sanaa and openly toppling Hadi. Iran preferred a less radical course, but the Houthi leadership was drunk with success. Moreover, Undersecretary of Defense Michael Vickers said on the record in January that Washington had a productive informal intelligence relationship with the Houthis against al-Qaida. He suggested that the cooperation could continue.”

The Obama administration, which included Blinken, did not want to jeopardize a 70-year-plus alliance with Saudi Arabia and backed the monarchy’s intervention.

‘Very Much’ Supporting U.S. Arms Shipments To Ukraine

Blinken expressed his support for arming Ukrainian groups a total of three times. He even reminded Republican Senator Ron Johnson he had the opportunity in 2018 to write an op-ed for the New York Times promoting what senators euphemistically describe as “lethal defensive assistance.”

He told Republican Senator Rob Portman, “I very much support the continued provision to Ukraine of lethal defensive assistance and, and indeed, of the training program as well.”

“To the extent that across a couple of administrations, we’ve been able to effectively train and as well as assist in different ways the Ukrainians, that has made a material difference in their ability to withstand the aggression they’ve been on the receiving end of from Russia,” Blinken asserted.

It is difficult to gauge whether the policy has been effective or helped Ukrainians withstand battles with pro-Russian separatist groups. There is not a whole lot of reporting.

But Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, who was the commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, stated in 2015, “If the U.S. policy changed to provide, say, Javelins, for example, that would probably lead to increased lethality on the battlefield for the Ukrainians. It would not change the situation strategically in a positive way, because the Russians would double down. They would dramatically increase more violence, more death, more destruction.”

“The conflict in Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial east, called Donbass, erupted in April 2014, weeks after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula,” according to the Associated Press. “More than 14,000 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists.”

Professor Stephen Cohen called attention to the role of neo-Nazi forces in Ukraine. The overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych was a “violent coup” led by fascist conspirators opposed to Russia. They conducted exterminations of ethnic Russians. The Azov Battalion, part of Kiev’s armed forces, is pro-Nazi and was banned from receiving U.S. military aid, but it almost certainly obtained weapons shipped by the Trump administration from the black market.

“We are left then not with Putin’s responsibility for the resurgence of fascism in a major European country but with America’s shame, and possible indelible stain, on its historical reputation for tolerating it, even if only through silence,” Cohen concluded.

US Return To Iran Nuclear Deal Not Happening Soon

It was the United States under Trump that ditched the Iran nuclear deal, not Iran. Still, it is the Biden’s administration position that Iran should first “comply” with U.S. demands before the U.S. rejoins the deal.

“If Iran returns to compliance with the JCPOA [nuclear deal], we would do the same thing and then use that as a platform working with our allies and partners to build longer and stronger agreements — also capture some of the other issues that need to be dealt with, with regard to missiles, with regard to Iran’s activities and destabilizing activities in the region,” Blinken said.

“There is a lot that Iran will need to do to come back into compliance. We would then have to evaluate whether it actually [did] so. So, I don’t think that’s anything that’s happening tomorrow or the next day.”

Meanwhile, as CBS News described in November, Iran has endured a “harrowing, sanctions-fueled coronavirus catastrophe.”

Doctors experience shortages of every supply necessary for fighting the pandemic. “U.S.-led sanctions have choked off Iran’s access to foreign-made chemicals and equipment.”

Iran has begged Biden to lift sanctions that prevent Iran from accessing COVID-19 vaccines.

***

Melodramatically, Senator Marco Rubio feverishly asked Blinken has any doubt that the Chinese Communist Party’s goal is to be the “world’s predominant political, geopolitical, military, and economic power and for the United States to decline in relation.”

“I do not,” Blinken replied.

“You have no doubt?” Rubio chimed.

“I have no doubt,” Blinken restated.

From Obama to Trump, U.S. empire has prepared its forces for what it calls “great power competition” between China and Russia. It fears China will take the place of the U.S., leading to one of Blinken’s nightmare futures.

Much of the public is wary over military interventions in the Middle East. The threat of terrorism is no longer enough to justify expenditures toward an ever-gargantuan military-industrial complex. Countering China, however, is an easier sell.

“Forcing men, women, and children into concentration camps, trying to, in effect, reeducate them to be adherents to the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party, all of that speaks to an effort to commit genocide,” Blinken remarked.

Human rights abuses under Biden will increasingly be weaponized to defend policies and operations that ramp up tensions with China. Whether descriptions of China’s acts are accurate or not, the point will be to silence anyone who questions whether the violations are enough to warrant increased conflict. (Of course, how dare anyone raise the matter of U.S. deportation camps and their horrors or America’s mass incarceration of 1–2 million people to point out any sort of hypocrisy.)

After the House of Representatives voted to arm so-called rebel groups in Syria in 2014, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked Blinken about concerns that arms “could end up in wrong hands.” Blinken brushed aside concerns and maintained the U.S. would vet and give arms to “the right people.”

In March 2016, the Los Angeles Times reported “CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed [militias had] repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo” in Syria.

Blinken may not be rapture ready like his predecessor, Mike Pompeo. He may be more willing to wave the LGBTQIA+ rainbow flag when arming proxy forces or backing regime change operations. However, they are both devout believers in American exceptionalism.

He views Biden as a president who will put the “globe back on its axis” after Trump. He will spend his time at the State Department working to “restore democracy” and “renew” America’s “leadership” in the world. Which means Blinken will continue the many callous, cold, and calculating traditions of U.S. imperialism, promote hubris over humility, and commit himself to cloaking ignoble acts in the rhetoric of human rights.

Return to the Source: Democracy is Dead

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By Margaret Kimberley

Source: Black Agenda Report

By what stretch of the imagination can the US be a democracy when ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does?

“The disregard of popular will is obvious for all to see.”

“Return to the Source” is a series in The Black Agenda Review that reprints previously-published interventions by Black Agenda Reportcontributors. Our title is inspired by an address delivered by Amilcar Cabral  on October 15, 1972 at Lincoln University and reprinted in the collection Return to the Source: Selected Speech by Amilcar Cabral  (1973). Cabral’s address was titled “Identity and Dignity in the Context of the National Liberation Struggle.” In it, he argued that a “return to the source” was critical to revolutionary transformation—a return to the ideas, culture, and demands that served as the foundational impetus for the struggle for African liberation. Guided by Cabral’s analysis, we will return to some of the “classic” interventions by Black Agenda Report contributors, revisiting their tremendous insights into the contemporary conditions of the Black World. 

We are launching the series by reprinting BAR columnist and Prejudential  author Margaret Kimberley’s incisive commentary “Democracy is Dead.” Originally published on April 23, 2014, Kimberley describes the domination of the US democratic process by capital, the abandoning of the working classes by the state, and the perplexing tendency of most US citizens to “suspend disbelief” while holding tight to the myth of US exceptionalism. Her analysis is as relevant now as it was when originally written.

Democracy is Dead 

by Margaret Kimberley

“The notion that this country is a democracy has become openly farcical.”

Too many Americans love to boast that the United States is a democracy. That idea is accepted uncritically and celebrated as proof of this country’s superiority. Every public activity and event is an opportunity for the false narrative to be repeated and indulged. Events as disparate as elections, holiday celebrations, advertisements, school commencements and religious worship are all used to propagandize and create false belief about the degree of power the average citizen has vis a vis their government. Of course all evidence shows that this narrative is and always was a lie. Dictionaries define democracy as government representing the citizens through elected representatives, or as majority rule, or a society which provides equal rights to all. The history of this country has rarely lived up to any of those descriptions but in the recent past the notion that this country is a democracy has become openly farcical. We have nothing but meaningless trappings and any power exercised by the people is sadly in short supply.

This state of affairs has been obvious to anyone who has been paying close attention. Americans not only don’t get what they want from the political system, they actually get the opposite of what they want. The pace of the oligarchic state has quickened lately but the dynamic has been evident for quite some time.

“Americans get the opposite of what they want.”

Even elite academia is taking notice and has given official imprimatur to a conversation that had been ignored. Professors Martin Gilens of Princeton University and Benjamin Page of Northwestern University are the authors of the study  “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens.” While their work does not as news stories suggest use the word oligarchy, the authors are quite clear about their findings. Professor Gilens gave this brief summary  of their conclusions:

“I’d say that contrary to what decades of political science research might lead you to believe, ordinary citizens have virtually no influence over what their government does in the United States [italics mine]. And economic elites and interest groups, especially those representing business, have a substantial degree of influence. Government policy-making over the last few decades reflects the preferences of those groups – of economic elites and of organized interests.”

While this study has however briefly changed public discourse, it is important to note that the disregard of popular will is obvious for all to see. If this were not true, the minimum wage would be higher, there would be no cuts to entitlement programs, and Americans would have a single payer health care system. There would be no NAFTA or TPP free trade agreements which force a race to the bottom for workers, destroy entire eco-systems and violate national and popular sovereignty. If this country were truly democratic, the city of Detroit would not have filed for bankruptcy for the simple reason that voters in Detroit and in the state of Michigan voted to repeal the emergency manager law which brought bankruptcy into being.

“Disregard of popular will is obvious for all to see.”

Americans don’t want the increasingly frequent interventions abroad forced upon by them by president after president yet that is what they get. We want to address the problems created by human made climate change. We don’t want hydraulic fracturing, or the pollution or earthquakes that come with it, but that is what we have. We don’t want rich people to control the political process but the Supreme Court has said time and again that money equals speech and those decisions prove the point of the study. Simply put, money talks and those without money have no voice.

If that were not the case, American workers would not be poorer than their counterparts in the rest of the world. The so-called middle class  workers in this country had the distinction of being better off than their peers around the world. That is no longer the case with stagnating wages and job loss and a country that does not practice income distribution that would keep people out of poverty. In a democratic country, Walmart and its low wages would not be the largest employer. The manufacturing that once dominated the economic landscape would still employ the bulk of the work force with its higher wages and other benefits that provide economic security.

In a democracy, the financial services industry that created the worldwide economic meltdown would not have been bailed out. Workers would be bailed out. Corporations wouldn’t get tax breaks and other government subsidies. Workers would get them. And if the average person had any say in the matter, the big time banksters would now be behind bars.

“In a democratic country, Walmart and its low wages would not be the largest employer.”

The myth of American democracy is just one of many that are cherished out of ignorance and suspension of disbelief but that is not a reason to continue the confusion and self-delusion. The only time we get any taste of democracy is when we proclaim that we don’t have it but assert plainly and loudly that we intend to get it.

The phony narrative wears thin as the quality of life diminishes. The United States of America is not a democratic nation if the only right that citizens have is to go to a polling place every few years. It is time to stop fetishizing what clearly does not work for the majority of people and start talking about something new. After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. The only result we have to show is rule by the elites and if that is acceptable then the people have gone truly insane.

Biden and the Democrats will Sow Chaos in Latin America

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By Timothy Alexander Guzman

Source: Silent Crow News

Election Interference, Regime Change and a Possible Humanitarian Intervention is on Washington’s Agenda 

US President Joseph Biden, a relic from Washington’s old political establishment will continue the same imperialist policies in Latin America as did his predecessors including that of Donald Trump.  There is a clear indication that Washington’s hostilities towards Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro will continue under a Biden administration.  The day before Biden’s inauguration, Reuters’ had published a report on what we can expect from the new administration when it comes to Venezuela, ‘Biden will recognize Guaido as Venezuela’s leader, top diplomat says.’ which means that Washington will continue to support the opposition leader, Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s “legitimate” president.  According to the report, Anthony Blinken said “U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will continue to recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as the South American country’s president.” Not only Washington would recognize a political figure who was selected by Washington, it would continue to use targeted sanctions on the Latin American country coinciding with humanitarian aid:

Blinken told members of the U.S. Senate that Biden would seek to “more effectively target” sanctions on the country, which aim to oust President Nicolas Maduro – who retains control of the country. Blinken said the new administration would look at more humanitarian assistance to the country

US hostilities towards Venezuela did not start with Trump, there were tensions between Washington and Caracas with the Obama and Bush regimes.  An article from the Associated Press (AP) in 2015 ‘Venezuela’s President Accuses Vice President Biden of Plotting to Overthrow Him’ said that Washington had imposed “new visa restrictions on Venezuelan officials and their families.”  The former White House Communications Director under Obama, Jen Psaki who is now on Biden’s team as the White House Press Secretary said that “the U.S. was showing clearly that human rights violators and their families “are not welcome in the United States.” Washington’s actions earned condemnation from Maduro who said that “he would write a letter to Obama over what he called an attempt to violate Venezuela’s national sovereignty” and that Washington’s long-time policies which are basically strong-arm tactics used on Venezuela and its close allies in the region will lead to failure “U.S. policy toward Venezuela has been kidnapped by “irresponsible, imperial forces that are putting the United States on a dead-end.”  Maduro’s response towards Washington’s sanctions at the time was on a televised national address which he criticized Obama’s Vice-President, Joe Biden:

In a televised address over the weekend, Maduro claimed that Biden sought to foment the overthrow of his socialist government during a Caribbean energy summit Biden hosted last month in Washington. According to Maduro, Biden told Caribbean heads of state that the Venezuelan government’s days were numbered and it was time they abandon their support.  “What Vice President Jose Biden did is unspeakable,” Maduro said

And of course, Washington dismissed Maduro’s claims as “ludicrous.”  With Joe Biden in charge, expect more of the same bi-partisanship actions including more sanctions, regime change operations and even the possibility of an assassination attempt on  Maduro’s life.  With a number of war hawks appointed under this new administration including humanitarian interventionist, Samantha Power who will lead the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) tweeted “What’s happening in Venezuela is flying under the radar in the US, but it is incredibly serious” shows what direction Washington will move towards.  “In the past week, the opposition banned from competing in April presidential elections, UNICEF warns of child malnutrition crisis, IMF predicts 13,000% inflation in 2018” meaning that Power will push for a humanitarian intervention in some form or another.  Power has supported military interventions in Syria and was a cheerleader for the war in Afghanistan and Libya.  There will be bi-partisan support from both the democrats and republicans for regime change in Venezuela.  But a war against Venezuela under Biden is also quite possible since they have the world’s largest oil reserves on the planet.  Tensions between Washington and Caracas will only escalate in the upcoming months.

Nicaragua will be also on Washington’s radar as they are scheduled to have Presidential elections in November.  Expect some sort of election interference to oust long-time enemy of Washington, Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega.  In a September 5th tweet, Biden said “Nicaraguan asylum seekers fleeing oppression deserve to have their cases heard.  Instead, they’re being deported back into the tyrannical grip of Daniel Ortega without a chance to pursue their claims.  President Trump’s cruelty truly knows no bounds.”  Venezuela and Nicaragua will experience hostilities from the Biden team, a continuation of policies from previous US regimes is assured.

Obama’s 2009 Coup in Honduras is a Warning to Anti-Imperialists in Latin America 

Joe Biden’s history with Latin America as vice-President to Obama should be considered a warning sign of things to come.  As soon as Obama was selected for office, they went to work on their backyard with a shovel in hand and set their sights on the small nation of Honduras.  Before, the US approved the coup against its Democratic leader, Manuel Zelaya because he wanted to rewrite the constitution. Zelaya administered an opinion poll for a referendum so that a constitutional assembly can legally reform the constitution that would allow Honduran citizens to have a legitimate voice in the political process.  Honduran officials, members of the Supreme Court and even members of his own party who are under Washington’s control declared Zelaya’s plans as unconstitutional.  Officials from the Obama regime including Hillary Clinton who was the Secretary of State at the time, all agreed Zelaya had to be removed from power.  Zelaya was also too friendly with Washington’s enemies in the region including Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela.  Zelaya had also helped people in need as he raised the hourly minimum-wage, funded scholarships for students, authorized the distribution of milk and basic food necessities for children and even helped distribute energy-saving light bulbs among others for the Honduran people. Washington also considered Zelaya a threat to its interests concerning the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and its US troops stationed at the Palmerola military base if Zelaya decided to cancel the CAFTA deal or stop US troops from entering Honduras.  For decades, Washington has trained soldiers and officers in the Honduran military through the former U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) which is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

On June 28th, 2009, with permission from the Supreme Court of Honduras issued an order for the military to arrest and detain President Zelaya  who was taken to the Hernan Acosta Mejia Air Base located in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and was exiled to Costa Rica.  The aftermath of the coup resulted in Honduras becoming one of the most dangerous countries on the planet with one of the highest murder-rates in Central America. Roberto Micheletti became the interim-president following the coup.  Under his leadership, the Honduras government became a repressive force that lead to an increase of Hondurans deciding to immigrate to the US.  Human rights groups and activists lives were threatened.  In 2016, one of the death threats became a reality for a well-known Indigenous rights and environmental activist by the name of Bertha Caceres who was assassinated in her home.  Caceres was known for preventing one of the world’s largest corporations that builds dams from completing the Agua Zarca Dam at the Río Gualcarque.  Life in Honduras became worst after Washington’s intervention to oust a democratically elected leader who wanted to make things a little better for his people which constitutes a criminal act under Washington’s political establishment.

What Does An Imperialist Power Under Joseph Biden Mean for Latin America?

The gloves will come off.  Joe Biden wants to get the job done for the Military-Industrial Complex.  The Biden regime will be more aggressive and dangerous to left-wing Latin American leaders who have disobeyed Washington’s political establishment.  That’s why they are all on the hit-list to be removed from power so that Washington’s preferred candidates can regain control to benefit their corporate and military interests that has plunged Latin America into a cycle of civil wars, debt and poverty since the end of the Spanish-American war.  Biden and the Democrats will try to prove to the Republicans who can be more “tough” on Latin American leaders and others around the world who defy Washington’s policies.  Biden’s presidency might prove that his administration will be more hawkish than the Republicans on Venezuela and the rest of Latin America’s anti-imperialist governments.

Raskolnikov’s Dream Come True

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By Edward Curtin

Source: Behind the Curtain

“Something is happening here,
But you don’t know what it is,
Do you, Mr. Jones?”
— Bob Dylan, Ballad of A Thin Man

It’s hard.

Life today seems like a dream, doesn’t it?  Surreal to the point where everything seems haunted and betwixt and between, or this against that, or that and this against us.

Something.

Or a Luis Buñuel film.  The logic of the irrational. Surrealistic.  A film made to draw us into an ongoing nightmare.  Hitchcock with no resolution. Total weirdness, as Hunter Thompson said was coming before he blew his brains out.  A life movie made to hypnotize in this darkening world where reality is created on screens, as Buñuel said of watching movies:

This kind of cinematographic hypnosis is no doubt due to the darkness of the theatre and to the rapidly changing scenes, lights, and camera movements, which weaken the spectator’s critical intelligence and exercise over him a kind of fascination.

Here we are in Weirdsville, USA where most people, whether of the left, right, or center, are hypnotized by the flickering screens.

That’s what movies do.

That’s what long planned psychological operations do.

That’s what digital technology allows corrupt rulers and the national security state with its Silicon Valley partners in crime to do.

We now live in a screen world where written words and logic are beside the point. Facts don’t matter. Personal physical experience doesn’t matter.  Clear thinking doesn’t matter. Hysterical reactions are what matter.  Manipulated emotions are what matter.  Saying “Fuck You” is now de rigueur, as if that were the answer to an argument.

It’s all a movie now with the latest theatrical performance having been the January 6, 2021 stage show filmed at the U.S. Capital.  A performance so obvious that it isn’t obvious for those hypnotized by propaganda, even when the movie clearly shows that the producers arranged for the “domestic terrorists” to be ushered into the Capital.  They let the “Nazis” in on Dr. Goebbels orders.  Thank God Almighty they were beaten back before they seized power in their Halloween costumes.

Now who could have given that order to the Capital and D.C. police, Secret Service, National Guard, and the vast array of militarized Homeland Security forces that knew well in advance of the January 6 demonstration?

Who gave the stand-down orders on September 11, 2001, events that were clearly anticipated and afterwards were described by so many as if they were a movie?  Surreal. Dreamlike.

As with the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent anthrax attacks, the recently staged show at the Capital that the mainstream media laughingly call an attempted coup d’état will result in a new “Patriot Act” aimed at the new terrorists – domestic ones – i.e. anyone who dissents from the authoritarian crackdown long planned and underway; anyone who questions the vast new censorship and the assault on the First Amendment; anyone who questions the official narrative of Covid-19 and the lockdowns; anyone who suggests that there are linkages between these events, etc.

Who, after all, introduced the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act in 1995 that became the template for the Patriot Act in 2001 that was passed into law after September 11, 2001?  None other than former Senator Joseph Biden. Remember Joe?  He has a new plan.

Of course, the massive Patriot Act had been written well before that fateful September day and was ready to be implemented by a Senate vote of 98-1, the sole holdout being Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.  In the House of Representatives the vote was 357-66.

For those familiar (or unfamiliar)  with history and fabricated false flags, they might want also to meditate on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964 that gave Lyndon Johnson his seal of approval to escalate the war against Vietnam that killed so many millions. The vote for that fake crisis was 416-0 in the House and 88-2 in the Senate.

In the words of Mark Twain:

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

Harry Houdini, the magical performer who was able to escape from any trap, any nightmarish enclosure, any lockdown, once said, “It’s still an open question, however, as to what extent exposure really hurts a performer.”

The question has been answered.  It doesn’t hurt at all, for phony events still mesmerize millions who are eager to suspend their disbelief for the sake of a sad strand of hope that their chosen leaders – whether Biden or Trump – are levelling with them and are not playing them for fools. To accept that Trump and Biden are scripted actors in a highly sophisticated reality TV movie is a bit of “reality” too hard to bear.  Exposing them and their minions doesn’t hurt at all.  There’s no business but show business.

Houdini knew well the tricks used to deceive a gullible audience hypnotized by theatrics. “A magician is only an actor,” he said, “an actor pretending to be a magician.”  This is a perfect description of the charlatans who serve as presidents of the United States.

Life today seems like a dream, doesn’t it?

“Will wonders ever cease,” said Houdini, as he closed his shows.

When I was a child I had a repetitive dream that I was trapped in a maze.  Trying to escape, all I could hear as I tried desperately to find an exit was a droning sound.  Droning without end.  The only way I could escape the maze was to wake up – literally.  But this dream would repeat for many years to the point where I realized my dreams were connected to my actual family and life in the U.S.A.

Then, when I was later in the Marines and felt imprisoned and was attempting to get out as a conscientious objector, the dream changed to being trapped in the Marines, or the prison I was expecting if they didn’t let me go. Even when I got out of the Marines and was not in prison, the dreams that I was continued.

It took me years to learn how to escape.

I mention such dreams since they seem to encapsulate the feelings so many people have today. A sense of being trapped in a senseless social nightmare. Prisoners. Lost in a horror movie like Kafka’s novel The Castle in which the protagonist K futilely seeks to gain access to the rulers who control the world from their castle but can never reach his goal.

But these are dreams and The Castle is fiction.

On a conscious level, however, many people continue to rationalize their grasp of what is going on in the United States as if what they take to be reality is not fiction. Trump supporters –despite what are seen by them as his betrayals when he said on January 7 that “The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy….My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation.” – still cling to the belief that he is the man they believe in and was going to “clean the swamp” but was sabotaged by the “deep state.” Biden supporters, driven by their obsessive hatred for Trump and the ongoing delusions that the Democratic Party, like the Republican, is not thoroughly corrupt, look forward to the Biden presidency and the new normal when he can “build back better.”  For both groups true faith never dies. It’s very touching.

As I have written before, if the Democrats and the Republicans are at war as is often claimed, it is only over who gets the larger share of the spoils. Trump and Biden work for the same bosses, those I call the Umbrella People (those who own and run the country through their intelligence/military/media operatives), who produce and direct the movie that keeps so many Americans on the edge of their seats in the hope that their chosen good guy wins in the end.

It might seem as if I am wrong and that because the Democrats and their accomplices have spent years attempting to oust Trump through Russia-gate, impeachment, etc. that what seems true is true and Trump is simply a crazy aberration who somehow slipped through the net of establishment control to rule for four years.  A Neo-Nazi billionaire who emerged from a TV screen and a golden tower high above the streets of New York.

This seems self-evident to the Democrats and the supporters of Joseph Biden, and even to many Republicans.

For Trump’s supporters, he seems to be a true Godsend, a real patriot who emerged out of political nowhere to restore America to its former greatness and deliver economic justice to the forgotten middle-Americans whose livelihoods have been devastated by neo-liberal economic policies and the outsourcing of jobs.

Two diametrically opposed perspectives.

But if that is so, why, despite Trump and Biden’s superficial differences – and Obama’s, Hillary Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s for that matter – have the super-rich gotten richer and richer over the decades and the war on terror continued as the military budget has increased each year and the armament industries and the Wall Street crooks continued to rake in the money at the expense of everyone else?  These are a few facts that can’t be disputed. There are many more. So what’s changed under Trump?  We are talking about nuances, small changes.  A clown with a big mouth versus traditional, “dignified” con men.

Trump’s followers were betrayed the day he was sworn in, as Biden’s will be shortly unless they support a crackdown on civil rights, the squelching of the First Amendment, and laws against dissent under the aegis of a war against domestic terrorism.

I’m afraid that is so.  Censorship of dissent that is happening now will increase dramatically under the Biden administration.

Now we have the “insurrection,” also known as an attempted “coup d’état,” with barbarians breaching the gates of the sacred abode of the politicians of both parties who have supported bloody U.S. coups throughout the world for the past seventy plus years. Here is another example of history beginning as tragedy and ending as farce.

But who is laughing?

If you were writing this script as part of long-term planning, and average people were getting disgusted from decades of being screwed and were sick of politicians and their lying ways, wouldn’t you stop the reruns and create a new show?

Come on, this is Hollywood where creative showmen can dazzle our minds with plots so twisted that when you leave the theater you keep wondering what it was all about and arguing with your friends about the ending. So create a throwback film where the good guy versus the bad guy was seemingly very clear, and while the system ground on, people would be at each other’s throats over the obvious differences, even while they were fabricated or were minor. This being the simple and successful age-old strategy of divide and conquer

I realize that it is very hard for many to entertain the thought that Trump and Biden are not arch-enemies but are players in a spectacle created to confound at the deepest psychological levels.  I am not arguing that the Democrats didn’t want Hillary Clinton to win in 2016.  I am saying they knew Trump was a better opponent, not only because they could probably defeat him and garner more of the spoils, but because if he possibly won he was easily controlled because he was compromised.  By whom?  Not the Democrats, but the “Deep State” forces that control Hillary Clinton and all the presidents.  A compromised and corrupt lot.

The Democrats and Republicans were not in charge in 2016 or in 2020.  Their bosses were.  The Umbrella people.  Biden will carry out their orders, and while everyone will conveniently forget what actually happened during Trump’s tenure, as I previously mentioned, they will only remember how the Democrats “tried” to oust this man in the black hat, while Biden will carry on Trump’s legacy with minor changes and a lot of PR. He will seem like a breath of fresh air as he continues and expands the toxic policies of all presidents.  So it goes.

Throughout these recent days that the corporate mainstream media have devoted to this Trump/Biden saga, Julian Assange, a truth teller if ever there were one, remains tortured and locked up in an English high-security prison cell.  His plight has been a minor note at best for the corporate media that is focused on the American “coup d’état.” The spectacle rolls on as an innocent journalist who exposed the vast murderous crimes of the American government is left to slowly die in a horrible prison cell. A man who, if free, could report the truth of this current charade and expose the bloody underside of this magic show.

Long ago in Russia, another dissident, Fyodor Dostoevsky, was also sentenced on trumped up charges to prison and exile in Siberia for being “freethinking” and a socialist enemy of the state. When he was finally released, he wrote a novel that was published in 1866.  It was Crime and Punishment, a masterpiece about a man named Rodian Romanovich Raskolnikov who, like Dostoevsky, is sentenced to exile and imprisonment in Siberia.  In Raskolnikov’s case, it was for killing an old woman pawnbroker to see if he was “above the common ruck.” The story explores Raskolnikov’s dual consciousness and the right to murder; prideful intellect versus compassion; rationalism versus spiritual values; freedom versus determinism; the individual versus the state.

Like Nietzsche twenty years later, Dostoevsky sent out a warning long ago about the terrifying consequences that would follow in the wake of certain forms of thinking that would result in nihilism. To be “above the common ruck” and murder at will; to play with people as though they were what Raskolnikov calls the woman he murders – “louses”; to create divided minds in a game of social schizophrenia through antitheses that conceal the magician’s devious truths.

At the end of Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov, while still in Siberian prison exile, feels that he, like Lazarus, has been raised from the dead.  He realizes that there is a solution to his split mind and that he has found it as he transitions “from one world into another…his initiation into a new, unknown life.”

But such a resolution that I will not divulge is preceded by a very strange dream, one that rings a bell today when life seems like a dream with something happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?

When he [Raskolnikov] was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious.  He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible strange new plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia.  Everyone was to be destroyed except a few chosen ones.  Some sort of new microbe was attacking people’s bodies, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will.  Men attacked by them became instantly furious and mad.  But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible.  Whole villages, whole towns and peoples were driven mad by the infection.  Everyone was excited and did not understand one another.  Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands.  They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know who to blame, who to justify….The alarm bells kept ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew….The plague spread and moved further and further.  Only a few men could be saved in the whole world.  They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices.

Have you?