Tag Archives: geopolitics

The US Government Thinks it Can Fool Us into a War with Russia

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By Nick Bernabe

Source: The Anti-Media

It seems like only a few months ago (because it was) when the government that rules America was condemning the brutal crackdown against protesters by the Ukrainian government. The then-Russian backed regime was fending off large crowds of protesters who were angry about the Ukrainian government’s close ties with Russia, resorting to violence and anti-riot tactics to disperse the crowds.

In a statement issued by the White House on January 19th, before the new Western backed ‘legitimate’ government of Ukraine took power, US officials condemned the violence against protesters:

“We are deeply concerned by the violence taking place today on the streets of Kyiv and urge all sides to immediately de-escalate the situation. The increasing tension in Ukraine is a direct consequence of the government failing to acknowledge the legitimate grievances of its people.

Instead, it has moved to weaken the foundations of Ukraine’s democracy by criminalizing peaceful protest and stripping civil society and political opponents of key democratic protections under the law. We urge the government of Ukraine to take steps that represent a better way forward for Ukraine, including repeal of the anti-democratic legislation signed into law in recent days, withdrawing the riot police from downtown Kyiv, and beginning a dialogue with the political opposition.

From its first days, the Maidan movement has been defined by a spirit of non-violence and we support today’s call by opposition political leaders to reestablish that principle. The U.S. will continue to consider additional steps — including sanctions — in response to the use of violence.”

In a noble yet ironic –selective at best– attempt to stand up for human rights, what the US government said in the above statement made sense. Kind of.

While fighting for freedom of speech is a good thing, it should be stood up for even when it’s inconvenient. Now, as the US and allies in the West deliver billions in loans, tech and intel to the new central-banker-run government in Ukraine, Kiev is fully engaging (and killing) pro-Russian protesters in the East of Ukraine and even in the Southwestern port city of Odessa. Ahh yes, the sweet smell of selective humanitarianism.

Then –lockstep with American political talking heads– US media outlets immediately began referring to these pro-Russian (former)protesters as insurgents, militants, militiamen, radicals, separatists and terrorists just before the killing started a few months ago. They knew it was coming. 40 pro-Russians were burned alive in a building on Friday and there was hardly a mention of it in the news. You see, now the protesters are called terrorists so it’s okay to kill them. When did the media stop calling them protesters and start calling them terrorists? When it became politically convenient. Iraq remembers.

The US government (and citizen by default through taxes) is actively supporting the crony, human rights abusing, unelected Ukrainian regime through billions in loans, military training and equipment of which we can only speculate about.

As an American citizen, I do not consent to this insane foreign policy. And, according to a recent survey by the Wall Street Journal, it seems that at least 47% of Americans agree with me:

Americans in large numbers want the U.S. to reduce its role in world affairs even as a showdown with Russia over Ukraine preoccupies Washington, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

In a marked change from past decades, nearly half of those surveyed want the U.S. to be less active on the global stage, with fewer than one-fifth calling for more active engagement—an anti-interventionist current that sweeps across party lines.

…The poll findings, combined with the results of prior Journal/NBC surveys this year, portray a public weary of foreign entanglements and disenchanted with a U.S. economic system that many believe is stacked against them. The 47% of respondents who called for a less-active role in world affairs marked a larger share than in similar polling in 2001, 1997 and 1995. 

Good! So the propaganda isn’t working, but the government doesn’t really care about public opinion anymore. After all, how many Americans would actually support sending billions of US dollars to an oppressive Ukrainian puppet regime while our own schools and infrastructure dwindle into a bureaucratic wasteland and the country falls $16+ Trillion into debt? Not me.

Another small detail to remember as the US government escalates tensions in Ukraine under the banner of de-escalation (I know it’s Orwellian, but what isn’t nowadays) is that the American government likely helped overthrow the democratically elected, Russian-aligned former government of Ukraine. As this leaked tape of a conversation between diplomats proves, the US government hand picked central banker Arseniy Yatsenyuk to be the new ‘legitimate’ leader of Ukraine long before the coup took place. Oh yeah, “Fuck the EU” while we’re at it!

Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, later haphazardly apologized for her remarks that were recorded and leaked anonymously when she appeared at a press conference, clearly shaken up and taken back by the leak:

So while the US government and their media cohorts continue to push for the West’s version of “stability, democracy and self-determination” in Ukraine, the truth is that they were and continue to be part of the driving force causing these very problems they seek to fix. But hey, what’s new?

In no way do I seek to condone Putin or Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Russia is also a large oppressor in the region and is an oligarchy which is structured and governed much like America, for the rich. The Russian-American proxy war in Ukraine will have one guaranteed loser, the innocent Ukrainian civilians who are caught in the crossfire of this banker resource conflict. Both American and Russian citizens must regain control over their governments or these injustices will continue. Please share this article if you think WWIII is a bad idea.

Inventing a ‘Russian Threat’: Washington’s Full-Spectrum Subversion

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By Mark Hackard

Source: 21st Century Wire

What do postmodern exhibitionists, Islamic holy warriors and marauding ultra-nationalists share in common?

Seemingly little, aside from the fact that these bizarre bedfellows are the star assets of US policy in Eurasia. And despite their use of very different tactics, they all are tasked with the same mission: to undermine Russia, the only great power consistently opposed to American hegemony.

The Sochi Diversion

Today East and West contemplate the possibility of war over the fate of Ukraine, but the popular narrative was tailored for just such a standoff well in advance. Any attentive reader of Western press sources over recent months will have noticed that a dramatic upswing of negative Russia coverage began after Vladimir Putin thwarted Washington’s planned assault on Syria last summer. For just one example of the establishment’s dissemination of absurd Russophobia, look no further than the recent spy film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, which features Kremlin-directed Orthodox Christian suicide bombers attacking Mammonism’s Holy of Holies, the New York Stock Exchange.

As the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics got underway, executives at the six US media giants plus their counterparts at the BBC and elsewhere had a green light to inflict maximum damage. Journalists were looking to fan the flames of any possible scandal at the games, but the stories didn’t add up to their hype.

A number of issues were used to paint Russia in an unflattering light, one at times approaching caricature. Was there some amount of corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency in constructing the new Olympic village in Sochi? Few Russians would doubt it, yet were American reporters really so insular as to expect nothing less than Switzerland? Exposure of bribery and fraud, lest we forget, featured as the epilogue to squeaky-clean Salt Lake City’s 2002 Winter Games. Meanwhile, threats by Islamic terrorists – the same Mujahedin operatives serving as proxies of US policy from Libya and Syria to Kosovo and Chechnya – against the Black Sea resort were amplified considerably with helpful leaks from “concerned” officials in Washington, to the point of convincing American Olympians’ families to stay home in fear[i]. But where were such warnings before two Chechens with connections to US intelligence allegedly bombed the Boston Marathon in April of 2013?

The media’s favorite manufactured controversy at the Olympics, moreover, had nothing at all to do with winter sports. Western audiences were led to believe that Russia’s laws banning the promotion of sodomy to children had cast a sinister pall over the games; in an expression of unfeigned displeasure, President Barack Obama skipped attendance (Killing Pashtun and Yemeni villagers with drone-launched Hellfire missiles is praiseworthy – upholding any measure of traditional morality is not[ii]). Try as they might, the press corps could find no evidence of “oppression” of homosexuals at Sochi, with the gay American skater Johnny Weir stating that he was treated “fantastically” by the Russian people during his stay. Even State Department-sponsored provocateurs from the cultural Marxist outfit Pussy Riot, famous for previous acts of obscenity and sacrilege, made a sorry attempt at spectacle before beating a hasty retreat. Unfazed, the Russian national team would go on to win first place for both gold medals and the overall count.

Flashpoint: Ukraine

Western vitriol over the Sochi Olympics represents one component of an information campaign, itself part of a wider US-led geopolitical offensive against Moscow. A variety of policy instruments are used for the objective of “containment,” from NATO expansion and power projection to sanctions against Russian companies. Yet by far the most economical means in the quest to weaken and demoralize Russia has been covert action, operations run under plausible deniability and comprising a broad range of activities. From the years of the Cold War, the Trans-Atlantic establishment has built an entire covert-action apparatus that encompasses not only intelligence services and special units of the military, but also nationalist paramilitaries, crime syndicates, transnational terror networks and a host of well-funded NGOs deeply intertwined with academia, major corporations and the media. In other words, an arsenal for full-spectrum subversion[iii].

Secret wars are waged just as intensively as the overt ones, and on multiple fronts. All the commotion over the Olympics amounted to a distraction from the central theater of action – Ukraine. As the curtain closed on Sochi, political unrest in Kiev climaxed with the overthrow of the undoubtedly corrupt but still legitimate President Viktor Yanukovych by pro-Western forces on February 22nd. The liberal-nationalist coalition that took power through mass protests and street fighting enjoyed extensive support – both public and clandestine – from the United States government. Timed for precisely the moment when Russia’s leadership was absorbed with showcasing its Olympics to the world, the coup’s main objective was to finally incorporate Ukraine as an EU/NATO satrapy.  The Washington-Wall Street agenda envisions stripping the country of its agricultural and industrial wealth and the deployment of US missile defense architecture just a day’s drive from Red Square.

What the events of early 2014 show is how quickly “soft power” can transition to the hard variant; subversion makes inroads for aggression. Washington spent two decades and $5 billion to make Ukraine safe for Chevron and Exxon-Mobil, but now it is reaping far more than it anticipated. Moscow has moved decisively to secure its vital interests in the region, leading to Crimea and the key naval base of Sevastopol being reunited with Russia after 60 years of estrangement. And the Russian-oriented south and east of Ukraine are also rising against an illegitimate regime resolved on virtually giving away strategic assets to multinationals – while sending ultra-nationalist militias to enforce the sales[iv]. From the port of Odessa to the Don River Basin, both Russians and Ukrainians share one thousand years of a unified Eastern Slavic civilization, an ideal that endures in blood and spirit; this reality will long outlive predatory IMF “structural adjustments” and the deformed chauvinism on offer from the current junta in Kiev.

After twenty years of eastward encroachment, the US push into Ukraine is the logical application of a policy to cripple Russia’s recovery and attain unchallenged dominance over the Eurasian heartland and its natural resources. Several consecutive rounds of NATO enlargement, the criminal bombardment of Serbia and subsequent overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic, a string of CIA-orchestrated color revolutions in the former Soviet space and the 2008 Georgia War – far from isolated occurrences, these events show an ever-tightening ring of encirclement. For Kremlin strategists, the Maidan takeover in Kiev proved the point of no return; they’ve seen that the Pax Americana plays for keeps. With their very future on the line, the Russians are fighting back.

Targeted for destabilization, Russia has demonstrated the will to use force in order to protect its people and interests. Short of outright military action, it possesses formidable covert capabilities. The ruthless Cheka-KGB pioneered the practice of human intelligence, and we should remember that most of Ukrainian territory was once the arena of unrelenting partisan campaigns during the Second World War. Given Ukraine’s importance to Russia’s overall geopolitical position, it’s a safe assumption that the contemporary FSB and GRU have developed robust agent networks and operational infrastructure for just the sort of contingency that Moscow confronts today. At the same time, the West’s feverish search for spetsnaz troops in the country is wholly beside the point; resistance in the pro-Russian southeast is organic and growing.

Russia is perhaps the one nation preventing the United States from becoming the last empire, the progenitor of a tyrannical world-state; it is therefore positioned squarely on the front line of a sustained twilight struggle. Globalist oligarchs, the actual controllers of the liberal order, employ multiple vectors of subversion in their ferocious attack on faith, sovereignty and identity. Whether our telescreens depict jihadists wreaking destruction from the Levant to the Caucasus, cells of NGO “activists” waging psychological warfare through the propagation of deviance, or deranged Ukrainian nationalists bent on fratricide, we are assured that all are heroes marching in the grand cause of democracy.

Though retaining effective deterrence is essential for any independent state, the ultimate strength of a Third Rome resurgent lies in its eternal tradition, that ancient Christianity once adopted by a rough-hewn Viking ruler from Kiev. When the Russian lands were threatened by ideological aggression from the West some eight centuries ago, soldier-prince Aleksandr Nevsky defended his people with spirit and sword:

From Adam to the flood, from the flood to the division of tongues, from the mixing of tongues to the beginning of Abraham, from Abraham until Israel’s passing through the Red Sea, from Israel’s Exodus to the death of Tsar David, from the beginning of Solomon’s reign to Tsar Augustus, from the beginning of Augustus to Christ’s Birth, from Christ’s birth unto the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord, from His Resurrection to His Ascension into heaven, from His Ascension into heaven until the reign of Constantine, from the beginning of Constantine’s reign to the First Council, from the First Council until the Seventh – all of this we know well, and from you we accept no doctrine.

In our age Russia is accused by American officialdom of “betraying the New World Order” when the New World Order is betrayal itself, the very crowning of modern apostasy. Let the words of Aleksandr Nevsky be the answer of every free and noble people to the masters of subversion: From you we accept no doctrine.

[i] Dmitro Yarosh, the leader of Ukraine’s fascist Right Sector, called upon the Chechen militant Doku Umarov to carry out terror attacks in Russia just weeks before the latter was killed in March by an FSB special unit. Ukrainian nationalists are known to have fought on the side of Chechen rebels during the 1990s and 2000s. One such figure, the now-deceased Oleksandr Muzychko, “Sashko Biliy,” tortured and murdered at least 20 captured Russian soldiers.

[ii] Coincidentally or otherwise, the top financial donors for the Human Rights Campaign, America’s premiere homosexual lobbying organization, are drone manufacturers from the military-industrial complex.

[iii] Many are unaware that the CIA is far from a simple intelligence service; like Britain’s MI5 and MI6, its business has been social engineering both at home and abroad. Under the guidance of tax-exempt foundations, its programs have included funding and promoting not just jihadists and nationalist paramilitaries, but control of the media, feminism, the arts, the psychedelic revolution and narcotics trade. This is only a short rendering of cases of dialectics in action, giving one nonetheless a more definite sense of the aims of the “New World Order.”

[iv] Another odd partnership forged on the Maidan against Moscow has been that of Right Sector and Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, the head of the European Jewish Congress and a prominent patron of Zionist causes.

–

Read this and more of Mark Hackard’s work at his online project, Soul of the East.

 Author Mark Hackard is an independent foreign policy analyst. He earned a BA in Russian Language from Georgetown University and an MA in Russian, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies from Stanford University. He studies the intersection of political culture, religion and strategic issues, which he approaches from a traditionalist-conservative position. Some of his major influences are Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortes, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Rene Guenon and Fr. Seraphim Rose.

The Global Money Matrix: The Forces behind America’s Economic Destruction

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By Dr. Gary Null

Source: GlobalResearch.ca

On the Brink of Economic Calamity

We are witnessing unprecedented low points in American economic history as 50 million Americans—17 million of them children—are living below the poverty line[i],[ii] while 47 million citizens rely on food stamps[iii].  All told, the 2008 economic collapse cost over $20 trillion globally[iv]. Millions of people lost their homes and jobs, while many of our nation’s children fell deeper into hunger. According to some figures, 53 million people entered the poverty ranks.[v] In the US and other developed nations, suicide rates skyrocketed due to financial stress and disruption of families. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has listed unemployment at 7.5% — a rate that is irreconcilable with reality. The more reliable figure, calculated by economist John Williams from Shadow Government Statistics, places unemployment at 22%. If we are to believe the analyses of Tyler Cowen at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, we might be looking at an unemployment rate as high as 41%, since 33% of Americans are not working and no longer have the desire to find jobs.[vi]  This group is categorically removed from the government’s labor radar and is absent from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ fudged data. 

 The Global Money Matrix

In the midst of this economic turmoil there is one group that still manages to flourish: the global elite. With more than $32 trillion stashed in offshore banks around the world, the wealth of the so-called “1%” is staggeringly obscene and grows by the day.[vii]  Their aggregate wealth, larger than the US GDP and national debt combined, is a testament to the tremendous influence and lobbying power held by a coterie of private interests that dominate nearly every sector of society.

Instead of reining in the inordinate control exercised by the elite, most of our elected officials have become little more than shills for these corporate overlords, creating policies that favor their campaign donors instead of the American people. Hundreds of millions of dollars were funneled into Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign by donors whose business affiliations run the gamut from real estate and finance to media and law firms. According to Opensecrets.org, “Together, 769 elites are directing at least $186,500,000 for Obama’s re-election efforts — money that has gone into the coffers of his campaign as well as the Democratic National Committee.”[viii] This figure doesn’t even account for the massive contributions to Obama’s reelection by corporate-driven SuperPACs. Obama is just one example of how our politicians are beholden to the elite agenda. A quick glance at the campaign donation figures presented at Opensecrets.org reveals just how much special interests control Washington’s policymakers.

Given the corporatist influence that infects our halls of power, it is little wonder that our tax dollars continue to fund unconstitutional spying, perpetual war, and neoliberal policies that extend the powers of the world’s richest individuals and organizations. As Americans struggle financially, our social safety nets are increasingly losing priority to military and security expenditures that are historically unmatched anywhere in the world. Increasingly, the actions taken by the world’s most powerful corporations and governments seem to be at odds with public perception and wellbeing. Here are a few examples of how this combined influence has increased at the expense of the average American:

ALEC – This conservative group, funded by donors like the Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil and fueled by politicians including Ohio Governor John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker,[ix] writes model legislation calling to “privatize education, break unions, deregulate major industries, pass voter ID laws, and more.”[x] They do so with the stated aim to “form formal internal Task Forces to develop policy covering virtually every responsibility of state government.”[xi] ALEC’s website claims, “Each year, close to 1,000 bills, based at least in part on ALEC Model Legislation, are introduced in the states. Of these, an average of 20% become law.”[xii]

Federal Taxes and Expenditures – In 2014, President Obama plans to spend 57% of his discretionary budget on military, with 6% going to education, 3% to science, and 1% to food and agriculture.[xiii] And while the federal corporate tax rate is 35% in America, a variety of loopholes means that the average rate paid by corporations is 25%, with some companies paying as low as 10%.[xiv]

Citizens United – This US Supreme Court case set the legal precedent for unlimited campaign donations in US elections, qualifying corporate donations as a form a free speech. Since this case concluded, campaign expenditures have tripled.[xv]

TARP, or “the Bailout” – Following the economic crisis of 2008, US taxpayers handed $700 billion to major players in the automotive, financial, and insurance industries[xvi]. According to The New York Times, “Treasury…provided the money to banks with no effective policy or effort to compel the extension of credit. There were no strings attached: no requirement or even incentive to increase lending to home buyers, and…not even a request that banks report how they used TARP funds.”[xvii]  The Huffington Post reports, “Twenty-five top recipients of government bailout funds spent more than $71 million on lobbying in the year since they were rescued.”

In the Name of Security

The most concerning imbalance of power, however, may lie in the ‘security state’. In 2010, there were over 1900 private corporations with government contracts working for Homeland Security and NSA intelligence projects. Just one of these firms, Booz Allen Hamilton, where Edward Snowden was employed, has over 25,000 employees, nearly half of whom have security clearance of “top secret or higher”.[xviii]  Overall, there are an estimated half million individuals in private firms with access to intelligence secrets.[xix]  The federal intelligence agencies only employ 107,000 individuals; therefore, the bulk of intelligence and surveillance operations are conducted by private workforces.[xx] For fiscal year 2013, the country’s budget for intelligence, across 16 agencies, was approximately $52.6 billion, with 70% going to private contractors.[xxi]

Recent revelations by Edward Snowden unearthed the breadth and scope of this surveillance network. The National Security Agency has collected vast amounts of data to spy upon American citizens, elected legislators in Congress, leaders and populations of other nations, multilateral and international administrations, non profit organizations, and a variety of public and environmental advocacy groups. This defines the current trajectory of the US as a failed republic degenerating into a fascist regime.  For both corporate Republicans and Democrats, the rise of surreptitious surveillance on citizens, in direct violation of the Constitution, is perceived as a matter of national security to protect both the country’s domestic and foreign interests.

NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander claimed publicly that intelligence surveillance of the American public “foiled” 54 terrorist attacks by extremists. Independent research confirmed that in fact only one, and a possible second attack, could be directly associated with the war on terrorism.  Speaking on the matter, Vermont Senator Patrick J. Leahy stated,

“There is no evidence that [bulk] phone records collection helped to thwart dozens or even several terrorist plots….These weren’t all plots and they weren’t all foiled.”.[xxii]

The Washington Times reported that “Keith B. Alexander admitted that the number of terrorist plots foiled by the NSA’s huge database of every phone call made in or to America was only one or perhaps two—far smaller than the 54 originally claimed by the administration.” General Alexander, under the questioning of Senator Leahy, also admitted that only 13 of the 54 cases were in any way connected to the U.S.  As the Washington Times clarifies,

“The [NSA phone records] database contains so-called metadata—the numbers dialing and dialed, time and duration of call—for every phone call made in or to the U.S.”[xxiii] 

This is but one example highlighting how the consolidation of corporate and political power comes at the cost of human rights and personal liberties for the average citizen.

 Obama has lied to the American people repeatedly about the extent of the security state and its infiltration into the lives of average citizens, including massive data collection of private phone calls, emails, and internet activity. The NSA revelations of Edward Snowden provide documented proof that intelligence surveillance is far more extensive than ever believed. The activities of the FBI, CIA, Pentagon, FISA courts, USDA and FDA, and the Justice Department contribute to the deterioration of citizens’ privacy and freedom. And a recent report by Essential Information entitled Spooky Business describes how some of America’s largest corporations have engaged in corporate espionage to spy on non-profit organizations. Ralph Nader writes, “In effect, big corporations have been able to hire portions of the national security apparatus, and train their tools of spycraft on the citizen groups of our country.”[xxiv] Thus, the powers of government and corporations are fostered and increased by one another, while those of the average American continue to dwindle

Groupthink and the 15%

It is unrealistic to frame the problem of control and socio-economic manipulation as a war between the 1 and the 99.  The 1 percent cannot achieve its goals without support from armies of technocrats and workforces willing to sacrifice moral values to secure careers in corporations and political parties, regardless of the inhumane ruthlessness behind their undemocratic agendas. The private industrial complexes of Too Big to Fail corporations require minions of technocrats and employees—as well as a large network of contracted small businesses, advisors, and consultants—to exert control over the population.  Therefore, we should realistically be speaking of a 15 versus 85 percent in the war on inequality, control, and power.

 When this additional 45 million people, or 15 percent of the population, are added to the formula for who controls the major stakes of power, wealth, influence and policymaking today, we can more easily understand how the psychology of “group think” creates a protective shield around the power brokers calling the shots.  When the psychologist Irving Janis first used the term “groupthink”, he referred to a collective weakening of individuals’ “mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgment” through pressure to stick with the corporate plan.[xxv]  Among the characteristics common to groupthink, which enables the privileged elite to exert compliance to their mission without dissent, is a false belief in the inherent morality of their jobs. For example, the neoliberal free-market ideology posits that trickle down economics from the top will create more jobs and raise families’ personal income—a persistent myth that has no historical example to prove it as fact.  

The actual facts, according to the 2012 Global Wealth Data Book, show that since the implementation of neoliberal economics in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the financial health of America’s middle class has fallen to 27th globally, behind Qatar, Taiwan, Cyprus and Kuwait. Simultaneously, the US has the most millionaires and billionaires of any other nation.[xxvi]  Groupthink also generates an “illusion of invulnerability,” an insincere and narrow confidence that enables workers to take extreme risks and a distorted group rationalization to deny facts to the contrary of their optimism.  Other characteristics include stereotyping enemies, managerial pressure on nonconformists, and self-censorship of doubts within the organization.  An illusion of unanimity is sustained whereby the image is created and perpetuated that the majority agree with organization’s purpose and mission.[xxvii]

Without the possibility of groupthink and this additional 15 percent passively serving the most powerful 1 percent’s destructive acts, life in the US would be far more democratic, just, and free today. Unfortunately, our society currently necessitates profit for both legitimacy and survival. This unprecedented economic and political atmosphere is giving birth to a new face of fascism.

 The Dominant Culture

When considering the human element in our societal structure, the question arises as to how human beings can act with such blatant disregard for damage incurred. There are varying figures assessing the percent of psychopathology among high level financial and corporate executives. In the general population, approximately 1% can be clinically diagnosed with sociopathic and psychopathic disorders[xxviii]. However, for the wealthy and power elite, estimates are higher.

Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Robert Hare estimates that 4 percent of corporate executives are clinically sociopathic.[xxix] Sherree DeCovny, a former high-powered investment banker now with CFA Financial Magazine, believes it is as high as 10 percent.[xxx] Figures from psychological surveys in the UK place estimates even higher. Psychologist Clive Boddy has argued that the psychopathological behavior of financial executives was a major cause for the 2007 economic collapse. He also notes that individuals with the strongest psychopathic tendencies are those who tend to be promoted fastest.[xxxi]

Research supports this claim. In a survey of 500 senior executives in the US and UK, 26 percent observed firsthand wrongdoing in the workplace and 24 percent believed that it was necessary for professionals in the financial sector to engage in unethical and even illegal conduct in order to be successful. Sixteen percent said they would commit insider trading if they were certain they could get away with it, and 30 percent said that the pressures of compensation plans were an incentive to break the law.[xxxii]

Today, this banking elite owns the lives of millions of Americans by imprisoning them in debt. In the third quarter of 2013, consumer indebtedness reached $11.28 trillion.[xxxiii]  2014 and every year thereafter will see household debt increase. The majority of this debt, in the form of mortgages and outstanding home equity, student loans, auto loans, and credit cards, is money owed to the banking industry. It is by keeping the masses indebted, securing government allegiance and protection to extract money from citizens, that bankers are able to control the economy.

In a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Representative Alan Grayson and three of his Congressional colleagues raised their concern over large investment banks taking over the real economy.  According to their investment relations reports, both banks are engaged in the “production, storage, transportation, marketing and trading of numerous commodities.”[xxxiv] These include crude oil and oil products, natural gas, coal, electric power, agricultural and food products, and precious and rare metals. Additionally, JP Morgan markets electric power and “owns electricity generating facilities in the US and Europe.”[xxxv] Goldman Sachs has entered the uranium mining market.  According to Rep. Grayson, none of these activities have anything to do with the business of banking, and there is no indication that the Fed or any other agency is regulating these irregular business undertakings.[xxxvi]

In early 2013, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich conducted the most thorough analysis of the financial ties between over 43,000 transnational banks and corporations. This was the first empirical study to identify a network where global power and wealth is most heavily concentrated. Their startling results observed that a small faction of 147 super companies controls over 40 percent of the entire transnational network, with an additional 36 million companies below them. 

Predictably, almost all of the 147 super companies were financial institutions, with Barclays, Capital Group, the Vanguard Group, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Bank of New York among the top of the list.[xxxvii]  With financial instruments of speculative trade insufficient to satisfy greed, such companies have every incentive to move into new territory, particularly resources and services that are essential to life. This includes fuel, water, food and minerals. As it stands, at least twenty-five major US companies have more wealth than entire countries.[xxxviii]

The prediction can be suggested that with current trends, the largest global banks will become the world’s most powerful “nations,” acting with complete autonomy outside of international laws that apply to sovereign states.  As corporate groupthink increases and infiltrates the larger civilian community, the transnationalist mind will persist as a breeding ground for psychopathology.

Conclusion

The consequences of today’s cowboy free market culture have sent the US middle class and economic mobility spiraling downward. Laid off workers have nowhere to use their skills to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families. Consequently, the worker is unable to meet expenditures and falls into a lower income bracket or poverty.  Mortgage defaults, credit card payments, and loans drag him further into debt. Without work and hence unable to pay taxes, the state, county and town suffer. In turn, local entities are forced to reduce their workforce and public services. The final result is the decline in the national quality of life, and the gradual deterioration of the US.  The inequality gap widens as the wealthy get richer and more powerful, while growing numbers of families become destitute.

A clear conflict exists between the values that we promote in the home and those values that are rewarded in the workplace. Unless we apply the same moral requirements to governments and corporations as we do to ourselves, friends, and families, the revolving door at the top of society will continue to consolidate power and wealth at any cost.

Notes

[i] Fessler, Pam. “How Many Americans Live In Poverty?” NPR. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/11/06/243498168/how-many-americans-live-in-poverty (accessed December 2, 2013).

[ii] National Center for Children in Poverty. “Child Poverty.” NCCP. http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html (accessed December 1, 2013).

[iii] Plumer, Brad. “Why are 47 million Americans on food stamps? It’s the recession — mostly.” WashingtonPost.com. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/23/why-are-47-million-americans-on-food-stamps-its-the-recession-mostly/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

[iv] Melendez, Eleazar. “Financial Crisis Cost Tops $22 Trillion, GAO Says.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/financial-crisis-cost-gao_n_2687553.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [v] Moench, Brian. “Death by Corporation, Part II: Companies as Cancer Cells.” Truthout. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/17705-death-by-corporation-part-ii-companies-as-cancer-cells (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [vi]  “The real jobs numbers: 41% of America unemployed, 1 in 3 doesn’t want work at all – RT USA.” RT.com. http://rt.com/usa/jobs-us-employment-welfare-749/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [vii] Vellacott, Chris. “Super Rich Hold $32 Trillion in Offshore Havens.” Reuters.com. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/22/us-offshore-wealth-idUSBRE86L03U20120722 (accessed December 13, 2003).

 [viii] “Barack Obama’s Bundlers.” Opensecrets RSS. http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/bundlers.php

[ix] “What is ALEC?.” ALEC Exposed. http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F#Who_funds_ALEC.3F (accessed December 3, 2013).

[x] Nichols, John. “ALEC Exposed.” The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/article/161978/alec-exposed# (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xi] “History.” ALEC American Legislative Exchange Council. http://www.alec.org/about-alec/history/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xii] Ibid.

[xiii] “Where Does the Money Go? Federal Budget 101.” National Priorities Project. http://nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ (accessed December 2, 2013).

[xiv] The Economist Newspaper. “The Trouble with Tax Reform.” The Economist. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/02/corporate-tax_reform (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xv] “Daily Kos.” : Buying Elections: Campaign Spending TRIPLES Since Citizens United. If You Can’t Win, Cheat + News!. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/11/1193246/-Buying-Elections-Campaign-Spending-TRIPLES-Since-Citizens-United-If-You-Can-t-Win-Cheat# (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xvi] Stein, Sam. “Top Bailout Recipients Spent $71 Million On Lobbying In Year Since Bailout.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/top-bailout-recipients-sp_n_346877.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xvii] Barofski, Neil. “Where the Bank Bailout Went Wrong.” NYTimes.com. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/opinion/30barofsky.html (accessed March 12, 2013).

[xviii] Murphy, Dan. “Booz Allen Hamilton, federal contractor.” Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2013/0610/Booz-Allen-Hamilton-federal-contractor (accessed December 4, 2013).

[xix] Jonathan Fahey, Adam Goldman. “NSA Leak Highlights Key Role of Private Contractors,”  Huffington Post. June 10, 2013  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/nsa-leak-contractors_n_3418876.html

[xx] Barton Gellman, Greg Miller.  “US Spy Network’s Successes, Failures and Objectives Detailed in ‘Black Budget’ Summary,”  Washington Post. August 29. 2013  http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-29/world/41709796_1_intelligence-community-intelligence-spending-national-intelligence-program

[xxi] Aubrey Bloomfield. “Booz Allen Hamilton: 70% of the US Intelligence Budget Goes to Private Contractors,”  Policymic.  http://www.policymic.com/articles/48845/booz-allen-hamilton-70-of-the-u-s-intelligence-budget-goes-to-private-contractors

[xxii] Waterman, Shaun. “NSA chief’s admission of misleading numbers adds to Obama administration blunders.” Washington Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/2/nsa-chief-figures-foiled-terror-plots-misleading/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Nader, Ralph. “Corporate espionage undermines democracy.” The Great Debate RSS. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/11/26/corporate-espionage-undermines-democracy/ (accessed December 2, 2013).

[xxv] “Groupthink in Service of Government.” BATR. http://www.batr.org/wrack/080413.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [xxvi] “How Does America’s Middle Class Rank Globally?.” A Lightning War for Liberty. http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/07/23/how-does-americas-middle-class-rank-globally-27/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xxvii] BATR.  Ibid.

[xxviii] Hare, Robert. “Focus on Psychopathy.” FBI. http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/july-2012/focus-on-psychopathy (accessed December 1, 2013).

 [xxix] Bercovici, Jeff. “Why (Some) Psychopaths Make Great CEOs.” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/ (accessed December 2, 2013).

[xxx] Decovny, Sherree. “The Financial Psychopath Next Door.” CFA Magazine, Mar. – Apr. 2012. http://www.cfapubs.org/doi/pdf/10.2469/cfm.v23.n2.20 (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [xxxi] Boddy, Clive R.. “The Corporate Psychopaths Theory Of The Global Financial Crisis.” Journal of Business Ethics 102, no. 2 (2011): 255-259.

  [xxxii] LaCapra, Lauren Tara, and Leslie Adler. “Many Wall Street Executives Say Wrongdoing is Necessary: Survey.” Reuters. http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/10/business-us-wallstreet-survey-idUKBRE86906G20120710 (accessed December 3, 2013).

[xxxiii] Salas Gage, Caroline. “Household Debt in US Climbed 1.1% in Third Quarter, Fed Says.” Bloomberg.com. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-14/household-debt-in-u-s-climbed-1-1-in-third-quarter-fed-says.html (Accessed December 4, 2013.)

 [xxxiv]“Giant Banks Take Over Real Economy As Well As Financial System … Enabling Manipulation On a Vast Scale.” Washingtons Blog. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/giant-banks-take-over-real-economy-as-well-as-financial-system-enabling-manipulation-on-a-vast-scale.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

  [xxxv] Hopkins, Cheyenne. “Fed Said to Review Commodities at Goldman, Morgan Stanley.” Bloomberg.com. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-01/fed-said-to-review-commodities-at-goldman-morgan-stanley.html (accessed December 3, 2013). 

[xxxvi] “Giant Banks Take Over Real Economy As Well As Financial System … Enabling Manipulation On a Vast Scale.” Washingtons Blog. http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/giant-banks-take-over-real-economy-as-well-as-financial-system-enabling-manipulation-on-a-vast-scale.html (accessed December 3, 2013).

 [xxxvii] Upbin, Bruce. “The 147 Companies That Control Everything.” Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-control-everything/ (accessed December 3, 2013).

Kony 2012 Redux

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PHONY 2012

Two years ago it was difficult for most of us online to avoid the KONY 2012 viral video. It was a slickly produced ad by the Invisible Children advocacy group for their campaign to assist efforts to capture or kill Joseph Kony, leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (a militia infamous for using child soldiers). The video spread rapidly through social media, getting millions of views. Criticism and suspicion towards Invisible Children spread just as rapidly as people spoke out against the group’s methods and started noticing how the majority of their money went towards advertising, staff, and transportation rather than children of Uganda. Many also questioned the group’s motives, pointing out that Kony hasn’t been seen for years and how Uganda happened to be a source of natural resources the U.S. government has an interest in such as oil and valuable minerals. Uganda’s President and friend of Obama, Yoweri Museveni, has also used child soldiers and was the focus of a recent Human Rights Watch report uncovering his government’s high-level corruption. Possibly as a result of the public pressure, about two weeks after the release of KONY 2012 leader and co-founder of Invisible Children, Jason Russell, had a very unusual and scandalous public breakdown.

Despite the rapid loss of much of their public support following the incident, Invisible Children’s campaign still impressed the U.S. government enough to extend a military advise-and-assist mission to central Africa the following month (if we are to believe their stated motives). In addition, the European Union established a Joint Operations Centre to assist central Africa’s counter-LRA regional task force in a show of support (again, if we take them for their word). Congress also passed the Rewards for Justice Bill authorizing $5 million for information leading to Kony’s capture in January 2013.

Just last Sunday, the Obama administration announced the deployment of about 150 Special Operations troops and military aircraft to Uganda, ostensibly to search for Joseph Kony. According to the Pentagon, at least four CV-22 Osprey aircraft will arrive in the country by midweek, together with refueling planes and Special Operations forces airmen to fly and maintain them.

For more information on Kony, Invisible Children and the recent troop surge, read Patrick Henningsen’s report at 21st Century Wire: KONY 2014: Obama Orders New Troop Surge to ‘Find Ugandan Warlord’

Obama to Putin: Do as I Say Not as I Do

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ralph_nader

By Ralph Nader

Originally posted at Counterpunch.org

Dear President Obama:

As you ponder your potential moves regarding President Vladimir V. Putin’s annexation of Crimea (a large majority of its 2 million people are ethnic Russians), it is important to remember that whatever moral leverage you may have had in the court of world opinion has been sacrificed by the precedents set by previous American presidents who did not do what you say Mr. Putin should do – obey international law.

The need to abide by international law is your recent recurring refrain, often used in an accusatory context toward Mr. Putin’s military entry in Crimea and its subsequent annexation, following a referendum in which Crimean voters overwhelmingly endorsed rejoining Russia. True, most Ukrainians and ethnic Tatars boycotted the referendum and there were obstacles to free speech. But even the fairest of referendums, under UN auspices, would have produced majority support for Russia’s annexation.

Every day, presidential actions by you violate international law because they infringe upon national sovereignties with deadly drones, flyovers and secret forays by soldiers – to name the most obvious.

President Bush’s criminal invasion and devastation of Iraq in 2003 violated international law and treaties initiated and signed by the United States (such as the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter). What about your executive branch’s war on Libya, now still in chaos, which was neither constitutionally declared, nor authorized by Congressional appropriations?

“Do as I say, not as I do,” is hard to sell to Russians who are interpreting your words of protest as disingenuous. This is especially the case because Crimea, long under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, became part of Russia over 200 years ago. In 1954, Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea to Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union, out of sympathy for what Ukraine endured under the Nazi invasion and its atrocities. It mattered little then because both “socialist republics,” Ukraine and Crimea, were part of the Soviet Union. However, it is not entirely clear whether Khrushchev fully complied with the Soviet constitution when he transferred Crimea to Ukraine.

Compare, by the way, the United States’ seizure of Guantanamo from Cuba initially after the Spanish-American War, which was then retained after Cuba became independent over a century ago.

The Russians have their own troubles, of course, but they do have a legitimate complaint and fear about the United States’ actions following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Led by President William Jefferson Clinton, the United States pushed for the expansion of the military alliance NATO to include the newly independent Eastern European countries. This was partly a business deal to get these countries to buy United States fighter aircrafts from Lockheed Martin and partly a needless provocation of a transformed adversary trying to get back on its feet.

As a student of Russian history and language at Princeton, I learned about the deep sensitivity of the Russian people regarding the insecurity of their Western Front. Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union took many millions of Russian lives. The prolonged Nazi siege of the city of Leningrad alone is estimated to have cost over 700,000 civilian lives, which is about twice the total number of United States soldiers killed in World War II.

The memories of that mass slaughter and destruction, and of other massacres and valiant resistance are etched deeply in Russian minds. The NATO provocation was only one of the West’s arrogant treatments of post-Soviet Russia, pointed out in the writings of Russian specialist, NYU professor Stephen Cohen (see his pieces in The Nation here:http://www.thenation.com/authors/stephen-f-cohen). That sense of disrespect, coupled with the toppling of the elected pro-Russian President of Ukraine in February, 2014 (which was not lawful despite his poor record) is why Mr. Putin’s absorption of Crimea and his history-evoking speech before the Parliament, was met with massive support in Russia even by many of those who have good reasons to not like his authoritarian government.

Now, you are facing the question of how far to go with sanctions against the Russian government, its economy and its ruling class. Welcome to globalization.

Russia is tightly intertwined with the European Union, as a seller and buyer of goods, services and assets, and to a lesser but significant degree with the United States government and its giant corporations such as oil and technology companies. Sanctions can boomerang, which would be far worse than just being completely ineffective in reversing the Russian annexation of Crimea.

As for sanctions deterring any unlikely future Russian moves westward into Ukraine, consider the following role reversal. If Russia moved for sanctions against the United States before Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other attacks, would that have deterred either you or George W. Bush from taking such actions? Of course not. Such an outcome, politically and domestically, would not be possible.

If you want continued Russian cooperation, as you do, on the critical Iranian and Syrian negotiations, ignore the belligerent baying pack of neocons who always want more United States wars, which they and their adult children avoid fighting themselves. Develop a coalition of economic support for Ukraine, with European nations, based on observable reforms of that troubled government. Sponsor a global conference on how to enforce international law as early as possible.

Drop the nonsense of evicting Russia from the G8 – a get-together forum of leaders. Get on with having the United States comply with international law, and our constitution on the way to ending the American Empire’s interventions worldwide, as has been recommended by both liberal and conservative/libertarian lawmakers, along with much public opinion.

Concentrate on America, President Obama, whose long unmet necessities cry out from “sea to shining sea.”

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer and author of Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition.

Editor’s note: Those unfamiliar with the life and career of Ralph Nader should check out the excellent documentary “An Unreasonable Man” (2006), which happens to be available on YouTube:

News Video Roundup

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3/3: PressTV interviews Dan Dicks of Press for Truth on the erosion of freedom of the press in the U.S.

3/3: Gerald Celente speaks out on the rash of recent banker suicides and speculation on a connection to a coming global economic collapse at NextNewsNetwork.

3/4: At Global Research TV, geopolitical analysts from across the board explain how the Ukrainian coup has been deliberately provoked by outside agents to promote a combination of US, EU, NATO and IMF interests, and the possible implications.

3/4: Excellent episode of Breaking the Set in which Abby Martin covers the Ukraine conflict and Washington DC’s shadow lobbyists.

3/5: An inspiring story from WeAreChange.org about libertarian crossfit gym owner Danny Lopez-Calleja who overcame drug abuse and homelessness to become a catalyst for change.

3/6: Over 80 people were shot during riots in Kiev a few weeks ago. Now new evidence is coming out that opposition snipers were behind shootings of police and protesters on both sides:

On the lighter side, the Onion reports on disturbing findings from a new marijuana study. It’s even funnier (or more disturbing) watching it stoned.

Did the CIA Kill Hugo Chavez?

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Chavez

Today marks the first anniversary of the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. As Washington DC and U.S. corporate media do everything in their power to shift popular support towards the conservative opposition, now is a good time to remember what Chavez and his party stood for, why the U.S. hated him so much, why his people loved him, and how and why the CIA may have assassinated him. These and other topics are discussed in the interview transcript below with author and historian William Blum by John Robles first published by Stop NATO. For more details about likely CIA involvement in the death of Hugo Chavez, read http://www.madcowprod.com/2013/03/08/who-killed-hugo-chavez/.

The CIA has Attempted to Assassinate 50 Foreign Leaders Including Chavez

The late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was warned by Fidel Castro to be careful of a very specific attack, namely a quick jab from an infected needle. Such a warning coming from a leader who has reportedly been the target of CIA assassination plots more than 600 times in over 50 years, was sure to be heeded.

Was the illness of Hugo Chavez a completely deniable assassination by the CIA? William Blum spoke with the VOR’s John Robles and discussed this issue and more.

Robles: I’ve read your Anti-Empire report regarding Hugo Chavez. Can you give us your comments on speculation that he was assassinated by the CIA?

Blum: I cannot prove it of course, but I believe he was. It would be totally in keeping with the entire history of the CIA and its attitude towards people like Hugo Chavez.

The CIA has attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders and successfully at least half the time. And very few of them were as despised by the US government as Chavez was, I would say. So, there would be no reason at all to expect that the CIA would not at least plan on killing, and the nature of his ailment is very odd.

He went from a cancer, which would not go away despite several sessions of chemotherapy and what have you. Then it went to serious lung infections, which would not go away no matter what they did. And then it went to, suddenly, a massive heart attack. All in the same man with no apparent cause, he was only 58-years-old, and as far as we know he was a very healthy until this happened, it is all very odd.

And given the great motivation that the US Government and the persons in the CIA has put for killing a man like Hugo Chavez, I’m pretty sure that the CIA played a role in this.

Robles: Do you know or have you heard of any credible new technology or new programs that could deliver such a cancer?

Blum: The means would be a needle with a quick, sharp jab and what you need is getting one person close enough to Chavez to do that.

Chavez was always in the public eye, he was always embracing people. There must have been countless occasions in the past few years when he was vulnerable to a quick jab by a needle that would be the method of transmitting the ailments.

Robles: Did he ever complain that he had been poked by something in public? Were there any reports of anything like that happening that you had heard about?

Blum: He did mention that Fidel Castro warned him about just that. He said: “A quick jab with a needle, and they’ll do…I don’t know what!” Actually he was told by Fidel.

Robles: A quick jab with a needle. Do you think that happened with Fidel because he had become very ill?

Blum: Well, Fidel…According to Cuban intelligence, there were more than 600 attempts on the life of Fidel Castro by the CIA. There is an entire book on that subject by Cuban intelligence.

And many of the methods were pretty bizarre, including an exploding cigar, but over the course of 50 years the Cubans claim there were more than 600 attempts on his life and it may have taken just one with Chavez.

Robles: Have you heard anything from your sources or from where you get some of your information? Have you heard anything detailing any connection between these two US Air Force attaches that were expelled from the country and the death of Hugo Chavez?

Blum: No. I would assume that there is a connection but I don’t know if the Venezuelan government has actually said so.

Getting back to Chavez’s case, we have to keep in mind that four other South American leaders, prominent people on the left, all came down with cancer within the past year or two.

Robles: I think it was seven, wasn’t it, altogether?

Blum: The four that I named in my report…You can add the ones that you know just for my information… were Cristina Fernandez…

Robles: De Kirchner, right…

Blum: of Argentina, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, the former Brazilian head of state Lula da Silva. Who would you add into that list?

Robles: Well, and then of course Hugo Chavez himself…

Blum: Castro is one of them…

Robles: I would add Castro to the list and Kirchner’s husband who died of a mysterious heart attack as well.

Blum: Right.

Robles: We might add that as a mysterious illness, not exactly a cancer but…

Blum: Right! If the CIA was involved it doesn’t have to be cancer necessarily of course.

Robles: Oh, sure, it could be anything. Have you heard anything about cancer strains or any kind of killing weapons like this, any kind of biological weapons that would give maybe cancer-like symptoms, not exactly a certain type of cancer?

Blum: I very well may have read of such over the years. I have read so much about the CIA, but at the moment I can’t think of anything to supply you with that information. Although we do know, it is well known, that for decades the CIA was looking for a method of killing somebody which would not leave a trace. The CIA itself has used those words. For the entire period of the Cold War that was a major stated project of the CIA. But where that stands today, I have no idea.

Robles: Yes, of course that is all very secret and no one is going to talk about it, but perhaps there are some echoes or some whispers? Maybe somebody has come out and said something? What other reasons would you give to back up the argument that he was assassinated?

Blum: I will mention there is no one in the entire universe who was more hated, no leader more hated than Chavez was by the US government. In the eyes of the US power that be, Chavez was worse than Fidel Castro and Salvador Allende.

Robles: Why was he so hated?

Blum: Because he was the most outspoken leader in the world when it came to criticizing US foreign policy. He never pulled his punches for a moment, he made a claim that it was all crimes against humanity and the US leaders were war criminals, and he said so explicitly. It is unusual for a head of state to be talking that way. And at the UN he attacked Bush in front of the whole world.

Robles: Oh yes, I remember he said that the Devil had been there the day before or something, and it still smelled like sulfur.

Blum: Yes, Bush had spoken to the UN before Chavez from the same platform. And Chavez said there was a smell of sulfur in the air because of that.

Robles: That’s usually the domain of the United States, I mean… Isn’t it? I mean Bush was calling everybody the axis of evil, and all this stuff, branding everyone evil. Wasn’t that kind of a shock to see the same thing done to an American leader?

Blum: Yeah, it is a shock for anyone under any circumstances to be so outspoken in the criticism of the US foreign policy. It is a point in Chavez’s favor that he could have the honesty and the courage to say such things, which very much needed to be said.

Robles: So, you supported the way he stood up?

Blum: Well, in general yes. I think there certainly were times when he may have overdone it, even for me. I mean, he felt obliged to comment on everything under the sun, and I thought several times that he could have held off on saying certain things, they were not serving any good purpose. But that’s a minor criticism of his overall marvelous record.

Robles: You say he had a marvelous record. What do you think were his major achievements in your opinion?

Blum: What he’s brought to the poor people of Venezuela in the way of education and healthcare, and housing, and what have you. And what he brought to the rest of the South America, he formed various anti-US empire blocs which stood in the way of expansion of the US influence.

He and others formed a new…A counter to the OAS, the Organization of American States, which for decades has been dominated and corrupted by the US and Canada. And they formed a new organization in South America excluding the US and Canada. So it was that simple.

Robles: Do you think his achievements will continue or do you think the US will be successful in rolling back everything he did? Which of course I assume they would want to.

Blum: Yes, they would want to. But if Maduro who was chosen and backed by Chavez, wins, and he is expected to win in the election next month, then most of it will continue, I assume.

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Arrest of Middle Eastern Mercenary in Venezuela, a Possible Game Changer

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By Arturo Rosales, writing from Caracas

Originally posted at Axis of Logic

In the conclusion to the recently published article on Axis of Logic Déjà vu – History tends to repeat itself we ask rhetorically what the next phase of destabilization will be in Venezuela in the US’ quest to secure the largest proven oil reserves in the world.

As of yesterday we may have the first evidence of an answer to this scary and ultimately decisive question. This could be a game changer in the development of the current destabilization effort in Venezuela by paid mercenaries masquerading as “disillusioned students”.

The breakthrough

At 4am on Monday 24th February in a hotel in northern part of the city of Maracay in Aragua state, an individual of Middle Eastern origin and two other people were captured by the Bolivarian Security Forces (SEBIN). Aragua governor, Tareck El Aissami reported the evidence available at that time in several posts on his Twitter account, @TareckPSUV.

El Aissami stated that they had captured a “big fish” in Aragua who was identified as Jayssam Mokded Mokded along with two other people in his company, both of whom have military backgrounds and training.
Jayssam Mokded Mokded


In the raid of the hotel room the security forces found electronic communications equipment – 11 satellite phones for communicating with the US and Colombia – computers and documents linking him with companies in Miami. His vehicle, a Toyota Model FJ was armored with bullet proofing and in it explosives, a keg of gun powder and logistical equipment to set up barricades in the streets were discovered.

It was also established that Mokded Mokded has access to a bank account in Miami with some US$250,000 and had made various transfers of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Miami and other destinations. In Colombia he has another bank account with a balance of some US$10,000. It was also noted that all his dealings with Venezuelan banks were limited to Banesco – a bank that had been involved in laundering finance for the 2002 – 2003 coup attempts but which was said to have changed its ways in recent years.

The purpose

All the evidence points to the fact that Mokded Mokded was fully equipped to carry out terrorist acts in Venezuela and it is known that he had been staying at the hotel in question since February 9th. The Venezuela security forces had been tailing him for several days and he had made visits to several upper and middle class urbanizations. The suspicion is that these visits were reconnaissance missions in order to find the most devastating spot to park car bombs and start sowing terror in Venezuela.

Bombs have been used in the last decade to sow terror in Venezuela and the perpetrators of the 2003 attacks, the Colina brothers, escaped to Florida where a judge refused to extradite them back to Venezuela. This is another example of the US protecting terrorists that carry out black operations against “unfriendly nations”. The last car bomb planted in that terror campaign by the opposition was the one placed under the seat of Danilo Anderson’s Toyota SUV, killing him on November 17th 2004. Anderson was the state prosecutor investigating those who carried out the April, 2002 coup attempt.

Reaction in Florida

Mokded Mokded lives in Doral, a city located in north-central Miami-Dade County in the US state of Florida where he is known as a “businessman”. Florida records show Mokded Mokded is president of CJ International Services, 10580 NW 27th St., in Doral.  He is also the president of Soloblackberry.net.inc with offices in Doral and Porlamar, Venezuela.

On Saturday, thousands met at J.C. Bermudez Park in Doral to express their solidarity with the opposition in Venezuela. Miami’s Doral area is known as “Doralzuela” for its anti-Chavez Venezuelan migrant population which is as radical and as permeated with hatred against chavista Venezuela as is the population of “Little Havana” against fidelista Cuba.

Concerns and Conclusions

The worrying aspects of the arrest of Mokded Mokded is that his possession of explosives, gunpowder and evidence of his reconnaissance for placing car bombs could mean that a new phase of terror is about to be unleashed on Venezuela.

Looking at this development from any angle, it could be a game changer,
escalating violence and hatred, the fuel of these protests throughout the country.

State Governor El Aissami has confirmed that authorities are already on the trail of other mercenaries and will hopefully be able to extract confessions and information from Mokded Mokded and his accomplices about other terror cells waiting to act in Venezuela.

In the hotel raid, a communiqué was found from Mokded Mokded to the Capriles Radonski presidential campaign in Venezuela demonstrating that politically, this “businessman” and apparent terrorist has been in contact with the Venezuela opposition. The opposition is getting nearer to full exposure as collaborators with terrorists “brought here” for the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Nicolas Maduro.

Actually, none of this is a great surprise but cause for great concern as more innocent lives are now at risk. Massive loss of life due to any terrorist acts will be manipulated by the international media in cahoots with US imperialist lies to blame the Maduro government – as it has been in Syria against President Bashar al Assad.

It is the same script written either by writers in the CIA at Langley or by aides of John Kerry in the State Department – both consorting with the Father of the Paramilitary Death Squads, Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe Vélez.