Phi Beta Iota: To those who have been leveraging the below, thank you for your interest. It seemed like a good idea to go ahead and post a version of the chart showing in red all of the pre-conditions of revolution in the USA that are now actively present. The failure of leadership to manifest ethics and to nurture education is particularly harmful–white collar criminals do not prosper when the political leadership is ethical and upholds its responsibility to protect the public interest. The ONLY thing–the one RIGHT thing–that needs to be done to make everything else possible is Electoral Reform (1 Page, 9 Points). If the various parties and committees and alliances claiming to represent the public interest fail to sponsor this one simple fix, they reveal themselves for what they are: partisan quasi-criminal organizations operating in betrayal of the public trust, with no interest in restoring America the Republic, America the Beautiful.
EDIT: For those who really do not understand the integrity of the above in today’s context, we will make this explicit:
1. The country has been run into the ground–the bottom 98% have had their seed corn stolen and eaten by the top 2%. There is no going back, neither revenge nor expropriation will do. What has been done is done, get over it.
2. There isn’t a leader or leadership team or party or “elite” network on the planet that can put the USA back together again [except perhaps We the People Reform Coalition].
3. HOWEVER, “bottom up” collective intelligence is agile, intuitive, ethical in the aggregate, and so on. This is REALLY SIMPLE: restore the integrity of the electoral system (local to national) and get out of the way. This is called Epoch B Leadership. It is also the root “good” of Advanced Information Operations You start by empowering your own public and not lying to them.
To have even a basic understanding of Nicaraguan culture it’s important to first know a little about the land’s history. In the Pre-Columbian era, the region now called Nicaragua was inhabited by several tribes culturally related to Aztec and Maya civilizations. Not long after Christopher Columbus first reached Nicaragua in 1502, an attempt was made to conquer the region by Gil González Dávila in the 1520s. On April 17, 1523, Dávila first met with Cacique Diriangen, leader of the Dirian peoples. Dávila gave the tribe a three day deadline to become Christians but rather than comply Diriangen led an attack, making him the first known resistance fighter of Nicaragua.
A statue of Diriangen at the entrance to the town of Diria.
During over 300 years of colonization, countless indigenous people died of diseases, rival conquistadors waged war on each other, Caribbean pirates raided cities along Lake Nicaragua, British forces fought the Spanish in Nicaragua during a sub-conflict of the the Seven Years’ War, and in 1610 Momotombo volcano erupted, destroying the old capital city of León. In 1838, Nicaragua became an independent republic. Within a few decades, during a power struggle between León and Granada, filibusterer William Walker was hired by the government of León to fight on their side but he exploited the region’s instability and briefly established himself as President of Nicaragua before being forced out of the country a few years later. Three decades of conservative rule followed, during which the U.S. began formulating plans to build a canal across Nicaragua (which may soon become a reality with funding from Chinese corporations). However, when the U.S. shifted their plans to Panama, President Jose Santos Zelaya attempted to negotiate with European partners. Because of the potential threat Zelaya posed to U.S. hegemony and his ambitions to unite the Central American nations, the U.S. government compelled him to resign with the threat of military force and funding of conservative opposition groups, replacing him with a series of puppet regimes. Attempting to prevent insurrection, Nicaragua was occupied by U.S. Marines from 1912 to 1933. From 1927 (the start of Somoza’s rise to power though the National Guard), national hero Augusto César Sandino led a guerrilla war against the conservative government and the U.S. Marines. Shortly after a peace agreement was reached with a newly elected Sacasa administration, the Marines left Nicaragua and the head of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza García ordered Sandino’s assassination. Sandino was killed by National Guard troops on February 21, 1934. His body was hidden and never found. In 1937 Somoza ousted the Sacasa government in a rigged election.
A statue of Sandino at the Augusto C. Sandino Library, a museum located in the house where he grew up in the town of Niquinohomo (Valley of the Warriors).
The Somoza regime was Nicaragua’s longest lasting hereditary military dictatorship, having ruled for 43 years. The father of the dynasty, Anastasio Somoza García, was famously called “our son of a bitch” by FDR and was assassinated by 27 year old poet Rigoberto López Pérez in León in 1956. In response to increasingly corrupt and reactionary policies of the Somoza government, Carlos Fonseca, Silvio Mayorga, and Tomás Borge led the formation of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional or FSLN, named after and inspired by Augusto Sandino) in 1961. In 1972 a major earthquake hit Managua killing 6000 people, injuring tens of thousands and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. President Anastasio Somoza Debayle mishandled the situation by failing to distribute essential aid and supplies. When it was later revealed that the government was siphoning relief money for personal gain, popularity and membership of the FSLN greatly increased. Hundreds of Chilean refugees also joined their ranks after a CIA-backed coup assassinated Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973 and installed the dictator Augusto Pinochet the following year.
A display at the Carlos Fonseca Museum in Matagalpa.
When Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, editor of the national newspaper and critic of Somoza, was assassinated by the government on January 10, 1978, a mass insurrection was triggered. By the end of Summer, armed youths took over Matagalpa while factions of the FSLN and civilian recruits had the National Guard under siege in Managua, Masaya, León, Chinandega and Estelí. On July 19, 1979, FSLN forces entered the capital and officially assumed power. Just two days before, Anastasio Somoza Debayle resigned and fled to Miami. He was killed a year later by a rocket attack from members of the Argentinian Revolutionary Workers Party while in exile in Paraguay.
Though the Sandinista government inherited a country in ruins and over a billion dollars in debt, they had an ambitious platform which included:
nationalization of property owned by the Somozas and their supporters
improved rural and urban working conditions
free unionization for all workers, both urban and rural
price fixing for commodities of basic necessity
improved public services, housing conditions, education
abolition of torture, political assassination and the death penalty
protection of democratic liberties
equality for women
non-aligned foreign policy
The Sandinistas had early successes with their education and literacy programs but were soon hindered by emerging conflicts with counter-revolutionary Contra forces heavily financed, armed and trained by the CIA. Investigations into the Iran-Contra scandal revealed some of the funding was acquired through arms sales to Iran and drug shipments to U.S. inner cities (read Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance for more about this). Despite strong support for the opposition by the U.S., the FSLN’s Daniel Ortega won the 1984 elections. Less than a year later the Reagan administration implemented a complete embargo on U.S. trade with Nicaragua that would last five years. By the late 80s, the continuing Contra campaign was notorious for human rights violations, corruption and terrorism. In August 1987, Costa Rican president Oscar Arias Sanchez created a peace accord which led to a ceasefire signed by Contra and Sandinista representatives a year later. Disillusioned by conflict and economic strife (made worse by Reagan’s embargo), Nicaraguan voters elected conservative administrations throughout the 1990s and early 2000s but seeing little improvement and much corruption, they reelected FSLN member Daniel Ortega in 2006 and 2011. So far, there has not yet been radical reforms that corporate investors feared and that more radical liberals hoped for, but Ortega has maintained a skepticism towards capitalism while simultaneously maintaining relations with the U.S. and rivals such as Iran, Libya and Venezuela.
As for how the average Nicaraguan feels about their current situation, opinions seem to vary but I plan to share some of the impressions I got in a future post.
Last week Nick Margerrison posted a follow-up to his inspiring essay, The Global Awakening published last year on Disinfo.com. In Improve Yourself First, he reminds us of the importance of inner development as a means to avoid violent revolutions which replace one form of tyranny with another. He also makes the connection between today’s internet-based self-improvement movement and how printed culture facilitated the age of enlightenment. In his words: “the most important revolutionary aspect of the printed page: it allowed people to learn how to improve themselves and change the way they thought. This is the driving force behind any meaningful long term social change ever experienced in any society“. For these reasons, authoritarians love censorship, controlling what people think and controlling how to think.
Based on trends he has observed, he writes “the entire notion of a hierarchical dictatorship is coming apart” in part because “leaders lead by controlling information and the communications revolution makes this impossible.” Furthermore, “victory in the oncoming ‘war on information’ is beyond their power, no matter how hard they try, just like the ‘war on drugs’. The Western World’s massive financial difficulties limit their ambitions for now but make no mistake, the internet is causing them to lose their grip on reality.”
As an antidote, he encourages the practice of questioning ideas requiring others to follow orders and suggestions (even his own). In other words, thinking critically and independently, which an uncensored internet facilitates. The true path for a revolution in Margerrison’s view begins with self improvement and learning “not what to think but how to think…The biggest most important changes that you can make to your world are the ones you can make right now to yourself and the way you think.” In his long-term view, the more people who take up the challenge of self improvement, the less unlikely the wider changes needed in society will be. By making such personal efforts in myriad ways, “we might well all move in different directions but the definition of the word “revolution” will move away from something which involves violence and brings long term suffering.”
The wrong people are in charge… that’s pretty obvious. But what is not so obvious is how they got there? And once having found an open gate, why have we left them to graze the best pastures while we grovel around in the barren fallow?
A very strange phenomenon…
This World is run by those of whom the great majority have absolutely no qualifications to be at the helm of anything – not even a small rowing boat. Yet, somehow or other, there they are perched in their palaces, surveying their empires – while simultaneously engaging in the systematic degradation of planet Earth.
Doesn’t matter whether they are generals, headmasters, corporate executives, CEOs of banks, media moguls, ministers or prime ministers, or just about any big bosses – they have the distinction of all acting in unison. While by contrast, the great majority of intelligent and able bodied citizens of this planet, only manage to act – or react – in sporadic and discordant bursts; if at all.
The current controlling masters – and it hasn’t changed much over many centuries – have a commonality of intent: to extract the last ounces of profit and prestige from any and all assets and opportunities that fall into their grasp.
Yet even that isn’t enough for some of them. Profits get a bit boring when they come in the tens of millions year after year, and one has occupied the prime suite at Claridges for the past six months. No, there always needs to be just one more thing that can be ‘owned’ and brought under control, so as to satisfy the false agrandissement that is part and parcel of an endless, and ultimately fruitless, attempt to become omnipotent and untouchable by ordinary mortals.
Such is the aphrodisiac called ‘power’.
Time and again, those who suffer most from a sense of being inwardly dispossessed are the very ones to seek, as compensation, the maximum level of outer possessiveness. And this is the mechanism whereby the wrong people get to be in charge.
Ironically, many who do not suffer such delusional power urges are quite happy to just tick along fulfilling their aspirations and daily needs as best they can. Yet in doing so, they unwittingly allow the magalomaniacs a direct route to the seats of power.
Those who are secure enough in themselves to take a responsible attitude towards the life around them seldom come forward to take-on positions of authority and civil responsibility. Their preference is to leave it to others – and in too many cases these ‘others’ often harbour barely disguised ulterior motives.
Yet we look on, aghast, as our world is torn apart by duelling crooks and madmen, each more desperate than the other for the top job in the race for planetary ecocide. Each more desperate than the other to fill any power vacuum that might emerge. Each more desperate than the other to hold a cosh over the disinterested daily workers who struggle on, trying not to notice how bad it’s gotten.
Where do you belong in this mad scrum?
The wrong people are in charge and the right people don’t want to bother themselves unduly to do anything about it. That just about sums-up the dire state of our post industrial ‘civilisation’. Something has to give…
The question is what?
Will a critical mass of the 99% finally act to bring back some genuine self autonomy through wresting control from the 1%?
Or will the 1% finally complete their annihilation job, trashing our planetary assets and crushing our human propensities once and for all? That is the question.
But none of us are free to sit back and play at second guessing the outcome. We are all in there. We are part of the pack. Our every move, whether we see it or not, is either promoting or resisting the despot’s master plan. There is no such thing as being ‘in between’ in this game. The fence you once sat on is broken. The wires are hanging limp. There is no no-man’s-land left to hide in.
At some point soon, those who are fit to lead must take over from those who are unfit. It may be a bloodless coup – or it may be a bloody insurrection. One way or another, the shift has to happen.
Forget about Divine intervention. There will be no Divine intervention unless and until there is a very visible human determination already out of the starting blocks and heading for the finishing line. Only then is it possible that higher energies will join the race to bring justice back to this battered World.
We are approaching the point of no return. If we don’t respond to the myriad calls for help that are echoing around this World at an ever-increased velocity each day, then we will be condemning ourselves – and those who call upon us – to being forever stranded upon a desolate and barren shore.
That help starts with helping each other to break free from our learned and self-induced state of fear and pacifism. A combination that pretty much guarantees an unwillingness to act. An unwillingness to act even when presented with the choice of participating in a mass genocide or opposing it.
This unwillingness is giving voice to the notion that ‘no action’ is the spiritual choice of the knowing. That to retire into a cul-de-sac of meditation and inward-looking self examination can ‘change the world’ by dint of a shifted value focus. Can serve to hermetically seal the self away from the trials and tribulations of the outer world and thereby help avoid any confrontation with that which demands a full and spontaneous response.
Confrontation, in this view, is a negative, reactionary manifestation that undermines ‘peace’ and the supposed tranquility of a chimeric world, which takes over from rational observations and becomes the new reality. A ‘virtual reality’.
This is a deeply flawed and dangerous ethos. For it splits in half that which is whole and sets the two halves in opposition to each other.
We are ‘of nature’ not above or outside it. We go forth and we return. That is the Tao. Universal forces all dance to this tune. Breath, ocean waves, cycles of birth and death, growth and decay, all is in motion and at rest, all the time. There is no contradiction.
Outward action and inward contemplation are two halves of one whole. They are synonymous. One should move between the two constantly and joyously.
“When injustice become law, resistance becomes duty”
Well, injustice has become law – yet resistance remains doggedly muted, and the search for an escape route remains the preferred option.
Cultivate spirit, wisdom and deep awareness – yes. Yet not as an alternative to toppling our oppressors from their corporate thrones, but as part of it.
Don’t be fooled. There is a war on. We are all called to the front. Just as the white corpuscles of our bodies are fighting off attempts by the pathogens to take hold – all the time. We should be doing the same – all the time.
Everyday we should be conjuring-up and putting into affect actions to end the draconian government/corporate dictatorship that continues to herd great swathes of humanity ever faster towards a sheer and genocidal cliff.
We can have no ‘peace’ until the criminals at the master control consulate are ejected from their padded leather chairs and are forced to confront the true price of their obscene power games.
Peace and enlightenment, at the individual level, are only possible if we are engaged in this battle. The battle to rid both ourselves and this planet of that which seeks to dominate and destroy the true well-spring of life.
The road to victory also requires the wise and aware to form a council of responsible oversight to step-in to the void once the despots are dethroned. That is an essential ingredient of any uprising determined to manifest genuine justice.
The lessons of history teach that fickle rebellion simply replaces one bunch of power predators with another. That is no longer an option; we are now at the point of no return. This time we have to get it right.
Footnote: some may see this as being at odds with my essay “Reverse Engineering the Illuminati Mind Set,” I don’t believe it is. The action I speak of here does not eclipse the need to draw deeply upon compassion. However, to exercise compassion one needs to be in a position of strength, not slavery.
About the Author
Julian is a committed international activist, writer, farmer and actor. He is an early pioneer of UK organic farming methods and is currently involved in the front line of efforts to keep Poland free from genetically modified organisms. Julian is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside. His book Changing Course for Life can be purchased on www.changingcourseforlife.info. His latest book In Defence of Life – a Radical Reworking of Green Wisdom is available at Amazon or can be requested on http://www.julianrose.info/
This article is offered under Creative Commons license. It’s okay to republish it anywhere as long as attribution bio is included and all links remain intact.
Though I’m not familiar with Russell Brand’s work as an actor, judging from interview clips he’s a pretty good comedian and social critic in the tradition of Bill Hicks. In this excerpt from the BBC program Newsnight he defends his choice not to vote and voices concern for a number of topics not usually discussed on television.
While I understand the position of not voting, I believe in the U.S. there’s still good reason to vote at least for local elections, initiatives or referendums. Voting may be a form of coersion but in some cases it can block the enaction of policies leading to greater coersion. If one uses absentee ballots voting doesn’t take much time and effort and though vote rigging is a problem, not all elections are rigged and voting can in some cases make it more difficult to do. For now in this country, with education and organization, voting can still lead to positive change or prevent things from getting worse, and of course one’s political activity shouldn’t be limited to voting. However, when it comes to presidential elections, low turnouts are one way to send a message of illegitimacy and disgust. Despite political disagreements I’m glad public figures such as Brand use their fame as a platform for thoughtful and substantive ideas not usually found in the world of corporate media. It seems he’s been on a roll lately because just last month he was banned from the GQ Awards for this speech:
And earlier this year he made a mockery of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program:
While Brand may have good reason to be annoyed with the hosts, it’s unfortunate that he resorted to lewd jokes near the end. Stooping to their level undermines the effectiveness of his critique, in my opinion.
Among the topics covered: KMO’s intro to podcasting, peak oil, epochalism, technology, critical junctures, industrial society, Fight Club, the Unabomber, activism and conscious revolution.
After the Crash 