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Revolutionary Terror: Mark Steven’s ‘Splatter Capital’

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By Michael Grasso

Source: We Are the Mutants

Splatter Capital: The Political Economy of Gore Films
By Mark Steven
Repeater Books, 2017

“Splatter confirms and redoubles our very worst fears. It reminds us of what capital is doing to all of us, all of the time—of how predators are consuming our life-substances; of how we are gravely vulnerable against the machinery of production and the matrices of exchange; and of how, as participants of an internecine conflict, our lives are always already precarious.”

—from the Introduction to Splatter Capital

Political readings or interpretations of horror films are nothing new. But in Mark Steven’s 2017 study, Splatter Capital, an explicit connection is made between the bloody gore of what Steven terms “splatter” horror films and the dehumanizing, mutilative forces of global capitalism. Moreover, Steven posits the artistic motivation behind splatter horror as an explicit repudiation of this system: “It is politically committed and its commitment tends toward the anti-capitalist left.” In splatter films, Steven tells us, the images of gory dismemberment do double duty. They both offer a clear metaphor for capitalism’s cruelty, and act as a cathartic revenge in which the bloody legacy of capitalist exploitation is often visited upon its perpetrators and profiteers among the bourgeoisie.

Some definitions are in order here, given that Steven’s schema of genres—“splatter,” “slasher,” “extreme horror”—draws distinctions that might not be apparent even to horror fans. Splatter horror, according to Steven, is all about the violence that can be visited upon the human body and all the abjection that follows. It is machinery tearing apart flesh, blood, and guts: the moment a human body becomes meat. It differs from the personalized and often sexualized “hunt” of the slasher flick. The protagonist in a slasher movie is an individual (often female) resisting violent death at the hands of another individual (often male). In victory against Jason, Freddy, or Michael Myers, this protagonist, in Steven’s words, “restores a social order, which is all too regularly white, middle-class, and suburban.” Splatter horror not only expands the horizons of mutilation and violence allowable in a horror film but systematizes it. The splatter enemy is an implacable, impersonal force, full of shock and awe; its grudge is not personal, but instead overwhelming, inescapable, and, most importantly, class-based.

The language of violence and horror has been with Marxist thought from the beginning. Steven gives us a good précis of Marx’s use of explicitly Gothic (along with bloody and cannibalistic) imagery throughout his works, as well as a splatter-tastic explanation of the exploitation behind surplus value, using an imaginary case study in the manufacturing of chainsaws and knives. The October Revolution in Russia is viewed as a reaction to the inhuman mechanized slaughter of the first World War; Eisenstein’s early filmic paeans to the necessity of revolution such as Strike (1925) demonstrate, thanks to Eisenstein’s pioneering use of montage, capitalism’s role as butcher. Steven also discusses avowed leftist filmmakers from outside the Soviet Union such as Godard, Makavejev, and Pasolini—specifically their use of gore to embody the cruelty of the ruling classes.

As we enter the world of Hollywood film in Chapter Three, Steven examines splatter film as a specifically American reaction to the constant churning crisis of capitalism. Specifically, Steven looks at the two peaks of gore-flecked horror—the mid ’60s through the early ’80s, and the post-Cold War “torture porn” trend of the early ’00s—as expressions of two very important economic and political shifts. The first splatter peak in the ’70s is seen as a clear reaction to the slow, inexorable widening of neoliberal and globalist postindustrial economics and its impact on the American industrial worker. (The aftermath of this trend continues into the 1980s with the evaporation of industry and the establishment of a new information-and-finance-based economy.) The splatter/torture porn trend of the ’00s and beyond is a reaction to the crises of capitalism under a new world order of neocolonialist conflict: the War on Terror, the final disestablishment of the Western industrial base in favor of cheap labor in the developing world, and the new interconnected, networked world’s rulership by speculative capital in the form of the finance sector.

Steven cites too many splatter movies to cover in this review, but central to his thesis is the seminal 1974 Tobe Hooper film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. The death of local industry leads Leatherface and family to keep their slaughterhouse traditions alive by carving up and eating young people. These young people, Steven is quick to point out, are only here at all because they were unable to get gas for their car (thanks to the first of two 1970s oil crises). American decline is everywhere; betrayal by global economic forces are central to the trap that’s being laid by the cannibals. (Of course, the carnage of the Vietnam War can’t be overlooked here either, given the visual language of ambush, capture, and torture; Hooper himself has cited this in subsequent interviews.) Steven notes that the victims in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre are representative of a bourgeoisie who don’t know how the sausage is made. It’s important and vital, Steven says, that the cannibalistic side of splatter involves the bourgeoisie being forced to eat members of their own class. It’s Burroughs’s famous “naked lunch“: “the frozen moment when everyone sees what is at the end of every fork.”

As the neoliberal takeover of the world economy begins in earnest in the 1980s, as complex and largely ephemeral systems of mass media and finance take the place of the visceral, grinding monomania of industrial capitalism, splatter horror follows suit. Steven’s analysis of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983) is especially sharp, examining the links between the body horror of the film and the Deleuzian body without organs. Max Renn’s body becomes an endlessly modular media node, able to accommodate video cassettes, to generate and fuse with phallic weapons (used to assassinate and destroy the media forces who’ve made him this way), to mesh and mold and mix with the hard plastic edges of media technology. By the end of the film, Renn is a weapon reprogrammed and re-trained on the very media-industrial complex that made him. More body horror: the cult classic Society (1989) and its shocking conclusion posits the ruling class as a cancerous monster, an amorphous leviathan straight out of a Gilded Age political cartoon, eating and fucking and vomiting, red in tooth and claw and pseudopod. Barriers between bodies break down; the system begins swallowing up all alternate possibilities.

By the time the Cold War is finished, the era of post-9/11 eternal war, of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, led to the popular new splatter sub-genre of “torture porn.” Steven identifies the genre’s distinguishing aesthetic feature: the indisputable, systematic, and worldwide victory of capitalism and the hypnotic Spectacle that accompanies it. In this era, there are no longer any alternatives. Everyone, rich and poor, is trapped in the system, and the system reintegrates torture into a worldwide video spectacle. This is embodied in both the global conspiracies of the wealthy in Roth’s Hostel series and in the Jigsaw Killer’s industrially-themed Rube Goldberg devices in the Saw franchise—devices of dismemberment explicitly linked to moral quandaries reminiscent of capitalism’s impossible everyday Hobson’s choices for the working class. The system will go on consuming you, whether you’re unlucky enough to be a splatter film’s victim, or “lucky” enough to wield the power to splatter (for example, Hostel: Part II‘s reversal of fate on the ultra-wealthy hunters, or the Jigsaw Killer’s death from cancer in Saw III—ultimately due to… a lack of health insurance).

Possibly the most intriguing aspect of this already very good book is Steven’s interspersing of personal anecdotes on when and where he discovered some of his favorite horror and genre films. By placing his personal and psychological experience of splatter films front and center, and linking it to his personal growth and increasing political maturity, he demonstrates the personal impact of the political, and the necessity of personal epiphany, mediated by culture, to achieve political awareness. Splatter Capital ultimately is not a book for the already-convinced and committed leftist, the Marxian thinker already well-versed in theory. (Another of Splatter Capital‘s very strong points is how Steven largely eschews jargon and obscurantism for an approachable tone and topic that laypeople can dive into easily.) It is for the fans of these films who’ve always wondered about the ineluctable appeal of visceral, shocking violence on screen, and perhaps why it all feels so strangely familiar.

Conspiracy Theory

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By Paul Craig Roberte

Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org

In the United States “conspiracy theory” is the name given to explanations that differ from those that serve the ruling oligarchy, the establishment or whatever we want to call those who set and control the agendas and the explanations that support the agendas.

The explanations imposed on us by the ruling class are themselves conspiracy theories. Moreover, they are conspiracy theories designed to hide the real conspiracy that our rulers are operating.

For example, the official explanation of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory. Some Muslims, mainly Saudi Arabians, delivered the greatest humiliation to a superpower since David slew Goliath. They outsmarted all 17 US intelligence agencies and those of NATO and Israel, the National Security Council, the Transportation Safety Administration, Air Traffic Control, and Dick Cheney, hijacked four US airliners on one morning, brought down three World Trade Center skyscrapers, destroyed that part of the Pentagon where research was underway into the missing $2.3 trillion, and caused the morons in Washington to blame Afghanistan instead of Saudi Arabia.

Clearly, the Saudia Arabians who humiliated Ameria were involved in a conspiracy to do so.

Is it a believable conspiracy?

The ability of a few young Muslim men to pull off such a feat is unbelievable. Such total failure of the US National Security State means that America was blindly vulnerable throughout the decades of Cold War with the Soviet Union. If such total failure of the National Security State had really occurred, the White House and Congress would have been screaming for an investigation. People would have been held accountable for the long chain of security failures that allowed the plot to succeed. Instead, no one was even reprimanded, and the White House resisted all efforts for an investigation for a year. Finally, to shut up the 9/11 families, a 9/11 Commission was convened. The commission duly wrote down the government’s story and that was the “investigation.”

Moreover, there is no evidence to support the official conspiracy theory of 9/11. Indeed, all known evidence contradicts the official conspiracy theory.

For example, it is a proven fact that Building 7 came down at freefall acceleration, which means it was wired for demolition. Why was it wired for demolition? There is no official answer to this question.

It is the known evidence provided by scientists, architects, engineers, pilots, and the first responders who were in the twin towers and personally experienced the numerous explosions that brought down the towers that is described as a conspiracy theory.

The CIA introduced the term “conspiracy theory” into public discourse as part of its action plan to discredit skeptics of the Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Any explanation other than the one handed down, which is contradicted by all known evidence, was debunked as a conspiracy theory.

Conspiracy theories are the backbone of US foreign policy. For example, the George W. Bush regime was active in a conspiracy against Iraq and Saddam Hussein. The Bush regime created fake evidence of Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction,” sold the false story to a gullible world and used it to destroy Iraq and murder its leader. Similarly, Gaddafi was a victim of an Obama/Hillary conspiracy to destroy Libya and murder Gaddafi. Assad of Syria and Iran were slated for the same treatment until the Russians intervened.

Currently, Washington is engaged in conspiracies against Russia, China, and Venezuela. Proclaiming a non-existent “Iranian threat,” Washington put US missiles on Russia’s border and used the “North Korean threat” to put missiles on China’s border. The democratically elected leader of Venezuela is said by Washington to be a dictator, and sanctions have been put on Venezuela to help the small Spanish elite through whom Washington has traditionally ruled South American countries pull off a coup and reestablish US control over Venezuela.

Everyone is a threat: Venezuela, Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, tribes in Pakistan, Libya, Russia, China, North Korea, but never Washington. The greatest conspiracy theory of our time is that Americans are surrounded by foreign threats. We are not even safe from Venezuela.

The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, and the rest of the presstitutes are quick to debunk as conspiracy theories all explanations that differ from the explanations of the ruling interests that the presstitutes serve.

Yet, as I write and for some nine months to date, the presstitute media has itself been promoting the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump was involved in a conspiracy with the president of Russia and Russian intelligence services to hack the US presidential election and place Trump, a Russian agent, in the White House.

This conspiracy theory has no evidence whatsoever. It doesn’t need evidence, because it serves the interests of the military/security complex, the Democratic Party, the neoconservatives, and permits the presstitutes to show lavish devotion to their masters. By endless repetition a lie becomes truth.

There is a conspiracy, and it is against the American people. Their jobs have been offshored in order to enrich the already rich. They have been forced into debt in a futile effort to maintain their living standards. Their effort to stem their decline by electing a president who spoke for them is being subverted before their eyes by an utterly corrupt media and ruling class.

Sooner or later it will dawn on them that there is nothing they can do but violently revolt. Most likely, by the time they reach this conclusion it will be too late. Americans are very slow to escape from the false reality in which they live. Americans are a thoroughly brainwashed people who hold tightly to their false life within The Matrix.

For the gullible and naive who have been brainwashed into believing that any explanation that differs from the officially-blessed one is a conspiracy theory, there are available online long lists of government conspiracies that succeeded in deceiving the people in order that the governments could achieve agendas that the people would have rejected.

If liberty continues to exist on earth, it will not be in the Western world. It will be in Russia and China, countries that emerged out of the opposite and know the value of liberty, and it will be in those South American countries, such as Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia that fight for their sovereignty against American oppression.

Indeed, as historians unconcerned with their careers are beginning to write, the primary lesson in history is that governments deceive their peoples.

Everywhere in the Western world, government is a conspiracy against the people.

As US Empire Fails, Trump Enters a Quagmire

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By Kevin Zeese

Source: Information Clearing House

A quagmire is defined as a complex or unpleasant position that is difficult to escape. President Trump’s recently announced war plans in Afghanistan maintain that quagmire. They come at a time when US Empire is failing and its leadership in the world is weakening. The US will learn what other empires have learned, “Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires.”

During the presidential campaign, some became convinced that Trump would not be an interventionist president. His tweets about Afghanistan were one of the reasons. In January of 2013, he tweeted, “Let’s get out of Afghanistan. Our troops are being killed by the Afghanis we train and we waste billions there. Nonsense! Rebuild the USA.” Now, we see a president who carries on the interventionist tradition of US Empire.

While Afghanistan has been a never-ending active war since 9-11, making the 16-year war the longest in US history, the truth is the United States became directly involved with Afghanistan some 38 years ago, on July 3, 1979. As William Rivers Pitts writes “On that day, at the behest of National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter signed the first directive in an operation meant to destabilize the Soviet-controlled government of Afghanistan.” In fact when the US dropped the MOAB bomb, Trump was bombing tunnels built with the assistance of the CIA in the 1980′s for the mujaheddin and Bin Laden.

Trump’s Afghan policy is inaccurately described as a new approach but has only one element that is new – secrecy, as Trump will not tell us how many soldiers he will send to this war. His so-called new strategy is really a continuation of the permanent war quagmire in Afghanistan, which may be an intentional never ending war for the empire’s geopolitical goals. Ralph Nader reviews 16 years of headlines about Afghanistan, calling it a “cruel boomeranging quagmire of human violence and misery… with no end in sight.”

Another Afghan Review Leads To Same Conclusion: More War

During his campaign for president, Trump called for the US to pull out of Afghanistan. Early in his administration, President Trump announced a review of the Afghanistan war. This week when he announced escalation of the war, Trump noted this was his instinct. Unfortunately, the president did not trust his previous instincts and missed an opportunity to end the war.

We have seen how President Trump refuses to admit mistakes, so it is highly unlikely he will change course from this mistaken path. His rationale is so many US soldiers have given their lives that we must stay until the United States wins. This is the quandary – the US must continue the war until we win because soldiers have died but continuing the war means more will die and the US must stay committed to war because more have died.

After we read President Trump’s Afghanistan war speech, we went back and re-read President Obama’s Afghanistan war speech given in March 2009.  It is remarkable how similar the two speeches are. When Russian president Putin was interviewed by filmmaker Oliver Stone as well as when he was interviewed by Megyn Kelly, he made a point proven by US policy in Afghanistan, “Presidents come and go, and even the parties in power change, but the main political direction does not change.”

Both presidents conducted a lengthy review early in their administration and both talked with generals and diplomats who convinced them to escalate rather than end the war. Both presidents put forward what they claimed was a new strategy but in reality, was just doing the same thing over again: more troops, building up Afghanistan’s military by working closely with them, using economic and diplomatic power and putting pressure on Pakistan not to be a safe haven for the Taliban and those fighting against the United States.

To ensure a quagmire both presidents said that decisions would not be based on a timeline but on conditions on the ground. Both promised victory, without clearly defining what it would mean; both raised fears of the Taliban and other anti-US militants using Afghanistan to attack the United States again. Trump had the advantage of knowing that President Obama’s approach had failed despite repeated bombings in Pakistan and working with Afghan troops, but that didn’t alter his course.

Afghanistan Victims of a February, 2012 US air strike that killed 8 children in Kapisa, Afghanistan.

Failure To Learn Lessons Ensures Repeating Them

According to Mike Ludwig, since President Obama approved a troop surge in 2009, the war in Afghanistan has claimed at least 26,512 civilian lives and injured nearly 48,931 more. In July, the United Nations reported that at least 5,243 civilians have been killed or injured in 2017 alone, including higher numbers of woman and children than previous in years. Trump seems less concerned than previous presidents with killings of civilians.

Trump noted that the Afghanistan-Pakistan region was now the densest part of the world when it comes to anti-US militants, saying there were 20 terrorist groups in the area. President Obama added tens of thousands of troops to the Afghanistan war, dropped massive numbers of bombs and the result was more terrorism. The US was killing terrorists but the impact was creating more anti-American militants. Trump failed to connect these dots and understand that more US attacks create more hatred against the United States.

After Obama failed to ‘win’ the war by adding tens of thousands of troops, with more than 100,000 fighting in Afghanistan at its peak, Trump should have asked his generals how adding thousands more (reports are between 4,000 and 8,000 soldiers) would change failure to success. Wasn’t there anyone in the room who would tell Trump there is nothing new in the Trump strategy that Obama and Bush had not already tried. Steve Bannon was the most opposed to war in the administration and reportedly fought against more war, but he was not in the room. Did anyone in the room stand up to the hawk-generals?

The policy of working more closely with the Afghan military in order to build them up ended in disaster in the Obama era. The New Yorker wrote in 2012: “We can’t win the war in Afghanistan, so what do we do? We’ll train the Afghans to do it for us, then claim victory and head for the exits.” But, the US discovered that it could not train the Afghans in the ‘American way of war.’ In 2012, the Obama administration ended the program of fighting alongside Afghan soldiers to train them because those soldiers were killing US soldiers. How many US soldiers will die because Trump was ignorant of this lesson?

Trump also took the wrong lesson from the Iraq war and occupation. He inaccurately described the so-called withdrawal from Iraq as hasty. He points to the rise of ISIS as created by the vacuum in Iraq when the US reduced its numbers of troops. Trump said the US “cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake our leaders made in Iraq.”

In fact, ISIS rose up because the killing of hundreds of thousands, some reports say more than a million, of Iraqis, displacement of more than a million more, the destruction of a functioning government as well as war crimes like the Abu Gharib torture scandal made it easy to recruit fighters. Furthermore, the training and supply of weapons to Sunnis during the ‘Awakening’ created armed soldiers looking for their next job.

It was US war and occupation that created ISIS. The seeds had been planted, fertilized and were rapidly growing before the US reduced its military footprint. Trump is repeating the mistake of more militarism, and in the end ISIS or some other form of anti-US militancy will thrive.

The US does not want to face an important reality – the government of the United States is hated in the region for very good reasons. Bush lied to us about 9-11 when he claimed they hate us for our freedoms. No, they hate the US because US militarism kills hundreds of thousands of people in the region, destroys functioning governments and creates chaos.

Victory Means Something Different to an Empire

In trying to understand why the US is fighting a war — a war that has been unwinnable for 16 years — it helps to look at a map and consider the resources of an area.

Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former adviser, predicts the US will be in Afghanistan for the next 50 years. Indeed, that may be the ‘victory’ the empire seeks. Afghanistan is of geopolitical importance. It is a place where the US can impact China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ to Europe where China can take the place of Russia and the United States in providing wealthy Europeans with key commodities like oil and gas. Just as the United States has stayed in Germany, Italy and other European states and Japan after WW II,  and in Korea after the Korean war, the empire sees a need to be in Afghanistan to be well positioned for the future of the empire. Terrorism is not the issue, economic competition with China, which is quickly becoming the leading global economic power, is the real issue.

And, competition with Russia and China is at the top of the list of the bi-partisan war party in Washington. Pepe Escobar points out that “Russia-China strategic partnership wants an Afghan solution hatched by Afghans and supervised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (of which Afghanistan is an observer and future full member). So from the point of view of neocon/neoliberalcon elements of the War Party in Washington, Afghanistan only makes sense as a forward base to harass/stall/thwart China’s Belt and Road Initiative.”

Afghanistan is next to China, India and Pakistan, three nuclear powers that could pose military risks to the United States. Having multiple bases in Afghanistan, to allegedly fight terrorists, will provide the forward deployment needed to combat each of those nations if military action is needed.

Afghanistan also borders on Iran, which could be a near-future war zone for the United States. Positioning the US military along the Afghanistan-Iran border creates a strategic advantage with Iran as well as with the Persian Gulf where approximately 18.2 million barrels of oil per day transit through the Strait of Hormuz in tankers.

Afghanistan’s land contains $3 trillion in rare earth minerals needed for computers and modern technology including rich deposits of gold, silver, platinum, iron ore and copper. The US has spent $700 billion in fighting a failed war and President Trump and empire strategists are looking to make sure US corporations get access to those minerals. Since the US Geological Survey discovered these minerals a decade ago, some see Afghanistan as the future  “Saudi Arabia of lithium”, a raw material used in phone and electric car batteries. US officials have told Reuters that Trump argued at a White House meeting with advisers in July that the United States should demand a share of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.

Jeffrey St. Clair reminds us not to forget the lucrative opium trade. Afghanistan is the largest source for heroin in the world. He writes:

Since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, opium production has swelled, now accounting for more than one-third of the wrecked Afghan economy. In the last two years alone, opium poppy yields have doubled, a narcotic blowback now hitting the streets of American cities from Amarillo to Pensacola. With every drone strike in the Helmond Province, a thousand more poppies bloom.

The decision on a never ending war — with no timetable for exit — is evidence that the Pentagon and intelligence agencies are in charge of US foreign policy with Trump as a figurehead.  Of course, the war also ensures immense profits for the war industry. St. Clair emphasizes that “in 2016, the Pentagon spent $3.6 million for each US soldier stationed in Afghanistan.  A surge of 4,000 to 10,000 additional troops, either as ‘private military units’ or GIs, will come as a welcome new infusion of cash to the dozens of defense corporations that invested so heavily in his administration.”

The firing of Steve Bannon just before the meeting that decided Afghanistan’s future was not coincidence as he was the opponent of escalation. Glenn Greenwald writes in the Intercept that this permanent power structure has been working since his election to take control of foreign policy. He also points to the appointment of Marine General John Kelly as chief of staff and how National Security Adviser, General McMaster, has successfully fired several national security officials aligned with Steve Bannon and the nationalistic, purportedly non-interventionist foreign policy. The deep state of the permanent national security complex has taken over and the Afghan war decision demonstrates this reality.

With these geopolitical realities, staying Afghanistan may be the victory the Pentagon seeks — winning may just be being there. The Intercept reported this week that the Taliban offered to negotiate peace, but peace on the terms of the Taliban may not be what the US is seeking.

Call for an End to War for Empire

It would be a terrible error for people to blame Trump for the Afghanistan war which began with intervention by Jimmy Carter, became a hot war after 9-11 under George Bush, escalated under Obama and now continues the same polices under Trump. The bi-partisan war hawks in Congress for nearly 40 years have supported these policies. Afghanistan is evidence of the never ending policy of full spectrum dominance sought by the US empire. The bi-partisans warriors span the breadth of both parties, Jeffrey St. Clair highlights the Afghanistan war cheering by Senator John McCain and Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Throughout recent decades the United States has failed to show what Kathy Kelly called the courage we need for peace and continues the cowardice of war. In fact, many ask why are we still at war in Afghanistan: Osama bid Laden is dead, other alleged 9-11 attack attackers are caught or killed. This shows that calling Afghanistan the longest running Fake War in US history is right — fake because it was never about terrorism but about business. If terrorism were the issue, Saudi Arabia would be the prime US enemy, but Saudi Arabia is also about business.

We share the conclusion of human rights activist and Green vice presidential candidate in 2016 Ajamu Baraka who wrote for the Black Alliance for Peace that:

In an obscene testament to U.S. vanity and the psychopathological commitment to global white supremacy, billions have already been wasted, almost three thousand U.S. lives lost and over 100,000 dead. It is time to admit defeat in Afghanistan and bring the war to an end. Justice and common sense demand that the bloodletting stop.

When we understand the true motives of US Empire, that conclusion is even worse — to steal resources from a poor nation and put in place permanent bases from which to conduct more war. US hegemony is costly to millions of people around the world and at home it sucks more than 54% of discretionary spending from the federal budget and creates an empire economy that only serves the wealthiest corporate interests that profit from transnational military dominance while creating a record wealth divide where most people in the United States are economic slaves. It is not only time to end the Afghanistan war but to end US Empire.

Recordings Reveal FBI Gave Man a Rifle, Urged Him to Carry Out Mass Shooting to ‘Defend Islam’

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By Matt Agorist

Source: The Free Thought Project

It’s become a near-weekly occurrence. Somewhere in some state, the FBI will announce that they’ve foiled yet another terrorist plot and saved lives. However, as the data shows, the majority of these cases involve psychologically diminished patsies who’ve been entirely groomed, armed, and entrapped by FBI agents. Simply put, the FBI manufactures terror threats and then takes credit for stopping them.

But what happens when they take it too far? What happens if the FBI actually tells someone to conduct a mass shooting? Well, in Milwaukee, WI, we are seeing this unfold first hand.

A little over two years ago, Samy Mohamed Hamzeh, 25, found himself in the midst of an FBI sting. Little did he know that he was being groomed for terrorism by the same government who claims to fight terrorism.

Hamzeh was born in the U.S. but lived much of his childhood in Jordan before moving to Milwaukee when he was 19. For four years, Hamzeh lived an entirely normal life, until one day, he was contacted by people who wanted to radicalize him and give him weapons.

The group, entirely controlled by the FBI was plotting to shoot up the Humphrey Scottish Rite Masonic Center during an event.

In February of 2016, the FBI announced they had foiled a terror plot by a man who was planning to kill at least 30 people to “defend Islam.” Americans cheered, and everyone felt safer — the FBI had saved us from extremists once again.

However, that’s not how things actually happened.

For months, two corrupt FBI informants goaded Hamzeh into obtaining weapons. According to his attorneys, hundreds of hours of recorded conversations show the FBI pressed Hamzeh into getting these weapons and eventually began pushing him to carry out a mass shooting.

Despite the intense peer pressure from people pretending that they were mass murderers, Hamzeh resisted. He didn’t even want the guns. Now, his attorneys have filed a motion to get him released on bond because they say he’s been set up.

The informants, the motion states, “frequently lobbied Hamzeh to get a machine gun despite his repeated protests that all he wanted was a legal handgun to protect himself.”

In spite of the FBI claiming Hamzeh was going to carry out a mass shooting — they were attempting to force him to do — the recordings, according to his attorneys, show he resisted and adamantly refused to ever participate in violence.

Even after the FBI announced their foiled terror plot, they were unable to charge Hamzeh with anything other than possessing a machine gun and a silencer. And even these items had been essentially shoved into his lap by the FBI.

As the Journal-Sentinel reports, a psychiatrist who evaluated Hamzeh in jail concluded he does not fit a profile of someone who would kill strangers and “has a strong moral code with a very prominent conscience and empathy.”

“There is also no evidence that Hamzeh ever made any plans or was doing anything other than making empty boasts to express his resentment about Israel or to gain attention,” reads their brief in support of the bond motion.

Hamzeh has now been in jail for a year and a half because the FBI tried to make him carry out a mass shooting that he didn’t want to do. And, he could be there much longer as each of the charges for the weapons — that he also did not want — carry 10 years a piece.

If Hamzeh never had any intention of carrying out a terror attack and the weapons were forced on him by the FBI, why on Earth would this be on the news and touted as some foiled plot?

Well, the answer to that is simple.

Former FBI assistant director Thomas Fuentes actually reveals the answer as he defends the tactics used by the FBI to set up poverty-stricken men by offering them large sums of money and weapons to commit crimes.

After he defended the FBI’s role in bribing poor, mentally diminished people to get them to commit crimes, he let out a bombshell statement, confirming what many of us already know.

“If you’re submitting budget proposals for a law enforcement agency, for an intelligence agency, you’re not going to submit the proposal that ‘We won the war on terror and everything’s great,’ cause the first thing that’s gonna happen is your budget’s gonna be cut in half,” states Fuentes. “You know, it’s my opposite of Jesse Jackson’s ‘Keep Hope Alive’—it’s ‘Keep Fear Alive.’ Keep it alive.”

There you have it. The FBI puts Americans in danger by grooming otherwise entirely innocent people into doing harm — so they can keep fear alive.

But what would’ve happened if Hamzeh would’ve actually carried out this shooting that the FBI was trying to force on him? Would the FBI still claim they had informants attempting to groom him? Would they admit to forcing him to accept weapons?

David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer, had this to say about these most unscrupulous operations:

“Most terrorists are false flag terrorists, or are created by our own security services. In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI. In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism. We’ve become a lunatic asylum.”

Indeed, we’ve become a lunatic asylum.

 

How Fear of Russia Misleads Americans

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NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake sees grave dangers in the U.S. government and media exaggerating foreign threats as a means to mislead and control the American public, reports Dennis J Bernstein.

By Dennis J Bernstein

Source: Consortium News

Russia has been made “the go-to scapegoat” for distracting Americans from the serious problems afflicting the U.S. government, says Thomas Drake, a former senior executive at the National Security Agency who blew the whistle on multi-billion-dollar waste and violations of the rights of citizens through secret mass surveillance programs after 9/11.

As retaliation, the Obama Administration indicted Drake in 2010 as the first whistleblower since Daniel Ellsberg charged with espionage, carrying a possible 35-year prison term. However, in 2011, the government’s case against him collapsed and he went free in a plea deal. He became the recipient of the 2011 Ridenhour Truth-Telling Prize.

I sat down with Thomas Drake on June 3, 2017, at the home of ConsortiumNews editor Robert Parry in Arlington, Virginia, on the occasion of the awarding of the 2016 Gary Webb Freedom of the Press Award to Oliver Stone.

Dennis Bernstein: I want to ask you about a story. ConsortiumNews has offered quite a different perspective on the relationship between the U.S. government and Russia [questioning the allegations about] Trump collaborating with Putin. What’s your take on this story? Do you think that ConsortiumNews is onto something in terms of really questioning that whole line?

Thomas Drake: Yes. This hyperbolic narrative that is posited almost to the point of hysteria. They would say that Russians are behind everything. “It’s all the Russians’ fault and you can blame Russia.” It’s just pure political pretension and there is a significant amount of propaganda behind it.

It’s intended to distract. It’s intended to keep people from really looking at some of the deeper truths of our own government and so it is very convenient for the political elites, on both sides of what has become the Democratic/Republican divide, which in fact is not a divide; it’s two sides of the same coin, with slightly different narrative – to project all the blame on Russia and particularly the hyper-conflation of the littlest thing that would appear to be that Trump is ruining the country or Trump is the worst thing that has ever happened. Just really taking this
way, way beyond the pale.

And ConsortiumNews — having written for ConsortiumNews going back several years now as a result of my case and mass domestic surveillance and government abuse of power — is one of the few – it’s surreal for me to say this right now – it’s one of the few alternative media outlets who have the courage to stand up to the elite narrative and get behind this hyper-partisan politicization of blaming it all on external entities.

And, in this case, Russia has become the go-to scapegoat, frankly. And it’s easy to simply focus on that as your excuse without having to concern yourself with the deeper trends in terms of the darker history of American politics.

And Gary Webb – I am quite familiar with his case. Remember he had his own profession turn on him because they wanted to curry favor with power and they wanted to have access to power. So it was full access press and power is an aphrodisiac. Henry Kissinger said that. …

DB: Access press, as in, if you don’t say the right thing […] they can toss you into prison.

TD: Yep, precisely. And so you’re willing to overlook what may be done under the cover or blanket of government, the government structure. And so ConsortiumNews is one of the few. …

I was sort of the pre-Snowden Snowden. …

DB: He cites you for opening that door….

TD: Well, he has said there wouldn’t have been him without me. And he has cited a number of people who have preceded him, right? And I was there at the foundation, at this extraordinary willful violation of, in secret, of what I call the subversion of the Constitution. Really, it was a silent coup against the Constitution….

DB: What are the multiple dangers of the way in which information is used now, and slanted to support policy as opposed to inform?

TD: Well, it’s self-interest. It’s largely self-interest driven. You have, what I have sometimes called Gov-Corp, which is a combination of government and corporations and it’s an extraordinarily pathological relationship because they feed on each other. One protects the other and when you have the government corrupting itself to serve very powerful interests at the expense of public interests, guess what? Something has to give and what gives is public transparency. What gives is accountability. What gives is responsible power. What gives is the promise. What gives is “we the people”, right?

Power just… generally at least, power is about the people and it’s pathological, and so unfortunately the checks and balances that have in the past – Ellsberg is eyewitness to this — he’s certainly a key person by simply standing up with his colleague Edgar Russo, standing up to power in terms of the bright and shiny light called Vietnam, right? He clearly brought into the public purview what was really going on with Vietnam and, ultimately, as we know, I was a very young teen growing up in the ’70s. He was already in his early 40s at the time. That, yeah, the government can use power… and that, yeah, power does tend to corrupt. Lord Acton was right.

So, what became known as the imperial presidency of Nixon, this era makes that era look like a hyper type of person, especially post-9/11. It’s just extremely concerning. It’s what I would call the devolution of democracy and constitutional rights following 9/11 and Ellsberg has said and I have said, what was actually unlawful and unconstitutional has been made legal from his time.

And the old, what became the infamous statement made by Nixon, “You know, if the President says it’s okay, it’s not illegal.” I heard almost those exact same words when I confronted the lead attorney in the Office of General Counsel. That was the first week in October 2001. I had already found out about the massive domestic surveillance program that had been unleashed. And I confronted him and he said, “This is great. The White House has approved the program. It’s all legal.” …. The hairs on the back of my neck were like…. I’m having major flashbacks… Wait a minute, just because the White House approves it, it makes it okay? I mean, history is not kind. He says,” Yep, we’re the executive agent – all approved. Yes. Don’t ask any more questions.”

So, because the White House approved it, then it’s okay to violate the Constitution. All those checks were put in place as a result of the … president resigning, the standing committees and intelligence House and the Senate, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and a whole lot of others, right? So that was the check and balance, right? Nah, just, hey 9/11, the failure of the government to provide the common defense. 3,000 people murdered that day. It should never have happened. It really should never have happened. And so we are going to use that as sort of a reverse false flag. We’re going to use that as an excuse, because, “Hey, after all, the Constitution is not a suicide pact… you know, we don’t know where the enemy is.”

So just this weird, everything is existential now. We now know how the enemy is because of 9/11. And so it’s weird for me, having been brought up as a very young lad during the Cold War and remembering alarms going off and they’d turn off the lights and block the hall and face your lockers, right? The air raid sign drills and fears of the nuclear winter. It’s like these people want a World War 2.0.

We have far more in common with the Russians than we don’t. We have far in common than our own disputes. I assume there are some differences, right? I recognize, I am well aware, in terms of historical notes, but hey we have far more in common than we have difference.

DB: I guess what we all have in common is the state of the Earth at this point.

TD: The state of the Earth? We are the third rock from the sun. I mean, this is our home. The world is a much smaller place, in part because of technology and in part because we find out that, yeah, we really are dependent on each other.

And yet there is this addiction to conflict. There is this addiction to have threats. There is this addiction to divide. And this is not pretty. I mean, human history, the dark side of human history, and if the 20th century is not an optic lesson, then I don’t know what is….. I could go back to any of the others, in terms of written history that we know of, right? And yet here we are. And so, to me it is a sign of an empire….

The U.S. is an empire… and it is a sign of an empire that is losing it. And so, just like the Roman Empire, I mean, if you go back to the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, you know…. Those who don’t learn the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them.

DB: Well, and the beat goes on. We’re going to let you join the party.

TD: The beat does go on. Yeah.

DB: But as we speak, there’s a major bombing, frightening bombing in Iran today.

TD: I did not know that. Wow.

DB: After the President of the United States is in Saudi Arabia. When is the last time you heard of a major suicide bomb in Iran?

TD: Not in Iran, no.

DB: So, here we go and who knows what comes next, who know what that’s going to bring in that part of the world. We thank you for all of your courage and all the suffering you did for all of us so we could know more. Thank you very much.

TD: Yeah. No. I have really become a warrior for peace. That’s what I have become. Ultimately it’s about who we are as human beings and who we are for each other and after all it is us, right? And in terms of U.S. culture and background, I think Pogo was right. We have met the enemy and the enemy is us. We are our own worst enemies.

It’s just that, for some of us, it’s critical to hold power accountable. We recognize we don’t govern ourselves very well. If you put people over others, yeah, bad things happen. But bad things tend to happen. And it’s that whole control, power. It’s all about — psychopathy is an area of study that I increasingly have as an issue, because of this idea that people gaining pleasure from the distress of others. So, it’s a disease. It really is. And some of us, at great sacrifice, weren’t going to just sit idly by and watch it all happen.

I care deeply about who we are as human beings. And I’ve spent a lot of time in front of college students and high school students and civic auditoriums and small group settings and churches and college campuses talking about these things. These are things that matter.https://consortiumnews.com/2017/06/20/how-fear-of-russia-misleads-americans/

US Gov’t Proves Love for ISIS as Bill to “Stop Arming Terrorists” Gets Only 13 Supporters

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By Matt Agorist

Source: Activist Post

For the last several decades, the US government has openly funded, supported, and armed various terrorist networks throughout the world to forward an agenda of destabilization and proxy war. It is not a secret, nor a conspiracy theory, America arms bad guys.

Given the insidious history of the American empire and its creation and fostering of terrorist regimes across the globe, it should come as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of politicians would refuse to sign on to a law that requires them to ‘Stop Arming Terrorists.’ And, that is exactly what’s happened.

H.R.608 – Stop Arming Terrorists Act was introduced by Rep. Gabbard, Tulsi [D-HI] on January 23 of this year. The bill doesn’t have any crazy strings attached and its original cosponsors are a mix of Republicans and Democrats — highlighting that it transcends party lines.

“For years, our government has been providing both direct and indirect support to these armed militant groups, who are working directly with or under the command of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, all in their effort and fight to overthrow the Syrian government,” Gabbard said in an interview earlier this year.

The text of the bill is simple. It merely states that it prohibits the use of federal agency funds to provide covered assistance to: (1) Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or any individual or group that is affiliated with, associated with, cooperating with, or adherents to such groups; or (2) the government of any country that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) determines has, within the most recent 12 months, provided covered assistance to such a group or individual.

The only thing this bill does is prohibit the US government from giving money and weapons to people who want to murder Americans and who do murder innocent men, women, and children across the globe. It is quite possibly the simplest and most rational bill ever proposed by Congress. Given its rational and humanitarian nature, one would think that representatives would be lining up to show their support. However, one would be wrong.

After nearly 5 months since its introduction, only 13 of the 535 members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors. What this lack of support for the bill shows is that the federal government is addicted to funding terror and has no intention of ever stopping it.

To add insult to treason and murder, Senator Rand Paul [R-KY] introduced this same legislation in the Senate. He currently has zero cosponsors.

Given the overwhelming lack of support for a bill that simply asks the government to stop giving money to people who behead children and video it, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump signed hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons deals with other countries who also fund these people.

As Americans bicker over Trump’s bogus and non-existent Russian scandal, he’s signing a deal worth hundreds of billions of dollars with the largest state sponsor of terror in the world — ensuring decades of future wars and the continuation of the cycle of terrorism.

What’s more is the fact that less than one week after publicly reprimanding Qatar for terrorism, President Trump signed off on the sale of $12 billion in weapons to the country he referred to as a “funder of terrorism.” This move, in Trump’s own stance, makes him a de facto funder of terrorism now.

What this lack of support for the bills and the recent moves to arm the terrorist regimes illustrates is the fact that the US has no intention of ever stopping terrorism. Trump, just like Obama and Bush before him, will continue to foster the growth of terrorism to enrich those who profit from war.

Terrorism is necessary for the State. War, is the health of the State.

Without the constant fear mongering about an enemy who ‘hates our freedom’, Americans begin questioning things. They challenge the status quo and inevitably desire more freedom. However, when they are told that bogeymen want to kill them, they become immediately complacent and blinded by their fear.

While these bogeymen were once mostly mythical, since 9/11, they have been funded and supported by the US to the point that they now pose a very real threat to innocent people everywhere. As the recent attacks in the UK illustrate, ISIS is organizing and spreading. Even the terrorists in the UK had ties to the British government who allowed them to freely travel and train with ISIS-linked groups because those groups were in opposition to Muammar Gaddafi, who the West wanted to snub out.

It’s a vicious cycle of creating terrorists, killing innocence, and stoking war. And, unless something radical happens, it shows no signs of ever reversing.

The radical change that is necessary to shift this paradigm back to peace is for people to wake up to the reality that no matter which puppet is in the White House, the status quo remains unchanged.

Trump is proving that he can lie to get into power and his supporters ignore it. If you doubt this fact, look at what Trump did by calling out Saudi Arabia for their role in 9/11 and their support for terror worldwide prior to getting elected. He now supports these terrorists and his constituency couldn’t care less.

This madness has to stop. Humanity has to stop being fooled by rhetoric read from teleprompters by puppets doing the bidding of their masters.

Please share this article with your friends and family to show them how their supposed ‘leaders’ — except for a few good ones — are content with funding the enemy, laying waste to rights, and condone the murder of innocence.

America’s Retarded Awareness

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By Denis Conroy

(RINF)

Alternative ideas don’t come easily to Americans. It seems that Americans imported colonial hierarchal practices from Europe to cultivate them to their own advantage. Over millennia, Europeans had come to accept the authority of Church, Monarchy or State Principalities to be the places where the ‘rightful-centres’ existed. The ‘rightful-centre’ was always beyond the reach of the masses. Pontiffs and warlords alike had built their power base upon the belief that the common people should accept the fact that the centre of power was somewhere above their heads and that it was the lot of underlings to live the life of fellow travellers.

The Confucian idea, that the centre was everywhere, had failed to penetrate the European pantheon.  In Asia, actions and their consequences were measured in language that was neither hierarchical nor internalised within rhetorical borders, but connected to truths that had their origin in humanity-oriented-grass-root realism…ethics. Europe, for its part, went the way of evangelical Christianity by legitimizing religion as the celebrity voice par excellence. Operating in space above the heads of the common folk, Emperors and Popes engaged in the practice of issuing edicts that instructed the commoners on how they should think and respond to the celebrity classes doing their thinking for them.

Branding religion was the event that opened the door to the branding of everything. Patriarchal authority, the central tenet of the Old Testament, reappeared again in the guise of male-dominated New Testament culture when it was integrated into the Roman state. Rebranding regulations to secure the authority of the power-base required a narrative that sought to recluse authority from popular critique. The Founding Fathers in Rome or Washington, became very astute in crafting directives and devices that enabled them to toss their bountiful wisdom to an amorphous flock that would forever defer to their ‘wisdom’. The creation of an inscrutable Machiavellian dimension…secrecy…put in place to coddle the aspirations of the commoners, had the desired effect of separating them from the business of government.

By these means, the State as a force-unto-itself came into being, with lawmakers, merchants and agents of the evangelical stripe committing rank, energy and capital to fulfilling a dream of progress that would see them on a path to seeking mastery over all things…nature included…per subjugation of all things. This was the philosophy that the colonial mind found prepossessing…business-as-usual as a staple operation that would take devotees of their exceptional ilk anywhere they chose to go to, expropriate whatever resources were available to them, while defiling the health of the planet in the process…and think about what we Westerners became and what we did and to whom in the process?

When the genie was released from Europe’s empirical arse-crack, was it because the grass looked greener across the vast expanses of America’s prairies which appeared to be there for the taking? Was the Australian bush an all too alluring opportunity to rebrand someone else’s homeland? Europeans, living midway between science and barbarism went across the world to smote the idyllic ‘innocents’ living midway between paradise and paralysis, believing them to be inferior. With a pugnacious conviction born of arrogance, they swarmed through the greener-grasses with scant regard for life or limb.

So, moving on to present day America…which sees itself as the leader of the free world… who or what can explain the introverted perspectives that draw the national psyche into an ever-expanding empirical loop. There is much evidence available to show that a covert passion for Great-Game memes continues to haunt the power-elites in Washington. It now seems that American presidents may come and go but Henry Kissinger is here to stay. Henry…who served first as Nixon’s national security adviser and then as his secretary of state 1969 until 1974… and nowadays frequently seen slumped in a chair in the Oval Office, looking like a grim medieval gargoyle, whose drooping flesh and demeanour convey an image of intransigence…worthy of Machiavelli’s attention… hovering there to counsel the many presidents who pass through the White House, in the art of genuflecting before Zion. Henry, the Zionist Pope, keen to examine the credentials of all those aspiring to occupy this high office, conjures up the inevitable question; at what point in time did this secondary space and highest office in the land become a Zionist habitat?

Strangest of all, the recent election happened and hardly anybody gave a fig about the destructive consequences of America’s wars abroad. It was like permanent war was o.k. so long as it happens in somebody else’s country…or benefited Israel. The public, before-during-and-after the election, expressed zilch concern for the millions of people their government had destroyed. After all, the American corporate juggernaut was unstoppably hooked on exploiting the globe…leave no paddock unexploited…and the electorate, the fellow travellers… who accepted the propagandized narrative coming per media…from above their heads…would always accept corporate branded salve.

What helped them to ignore the consequences of permanent war was an inhouse injunction…the American narrative had become a religion that represented all that was good for business as gospel…and that was that! Confirming the only ‘reality’ they knew, the fellow travellers passively accepted a piece of the action. America’s brutality in the world at large would continue, signalling that ‘butcher shop’ carte blanche would go on, regardless of who was elected.

The election focused on brand and who would control the narrative. The winner was ‘more-of-the-same’…and that was good for business. The election was merely about people choosing their favourite celebrity, but the one who succeeded failed to fulfil the expectations of the liberal-elite and that meant a ‘wigs-on-the-green’ melee was in the offing. An awareness-deficient electorate left the rest of the world wondering if there was much difference between educated and uneducated Americans.

Where were the voices that might have stormed the barricades with rhetoric that condemned the American practice of sending its apprentices…butcher-boys all…abroad to kill! Kill! Kill! Awareness was absent because the electorate was too comfortable with the hierarchical world above their heads…Wall Street, the Pentagon and the accompanying galaxy of job opportunities available to the educated and uneducated alike. After all, inclusion in the system was all that mattered come payday… and after all, cash cows R us!

“According to U.S. Census 2013 data, 1.68 percent of Americans over the age of 25 have a PhD. This equates to approximately 2.5 million people. People with professional degrees such as MD or DDS make up 1.8 percent of the U.S. population making the total percent of Americans referred to as doctors equal to 3.16 percent.

The vast majority of adults in the U.S., over 88 percent, have a high school diploma or additional education. Around 31 percent of the population has a bachelor’s degree or higher, and almost 12 percent have a master’s degree or higher”…which begs the question; how can so many people live with so much carnage? Can it be that the American dream of freedom and independence, for so long the playbook of the straight white man expressing racial bravado in his quest for dominance, is now beginning to show evidence of him falling…in slow motion…upon his own petard? 

As America grew bigger and bolder and wealthier, the echelons attached to the running of the state multiplied too. In subtle ways, the business of the people operating in the zone above the level of the common people became ever more numerous and secretive…after 9/11, the main perpetrators of secrecy became the CIA and the FBI, regulating the level of fear to kept the public focused on fabricated threats designed to promulgate the ‘war-on terror’ mantra. In the process, the temporal beast grew an extra dimension of the mystical kind to extend its purview beyond its own borders so that the people could believe that greatness was now a context in which America and Americans could shine and shove it to the world. What was happening abroad was bound to enrich them…and to hell with the consequences.

Americans, surfing the contours of their very own exceptional imperial arse-crack, in quest of ever easier access to mother nature’s assets, deluded themselves into believing that the assets allocated to sand-bunnies and other assorted detritus were mistakes that needed correcting. Deriving emotional security from the possession of their vast stock of ballistic missiles, the American imperial persona descended into a state of amnesia as a convenient way of ignoring the increasing problem of the body-count forever multiplying in the countries they were rendering dysfunctional. American boots on the ground had come to spell venality abroad and valour at home.

What was happening abroad was inconsequential…reportage at home became more heated, but it had little impact on a critique-resistant ‘exceptional’ entity like astigmatic America. Retarded awareness was turning the ‘great’ society into an intellectual cadaver…critique had caught some fatal disease that caused ‘John Brown’s Body’ to mournfully turn in its grave.

As Uncle Sam, in horizontal locomotion style, cast his war-ware across the Muslim world, people came to recognized the familiar appearance of the grim reaper, hidden in the folds of the stars and stripes, as their great airpower transported democracy eastwards. They were aware that death and destruction in their country had long ceased to receive much attention in Western media. America was too busy navel-gazing.

To be too preoccupied with one’s own anatomy or infrastructure is likely to cause serious problems for people who live in glasshouses. America’s post traumatic rage over the result of the 2016 presidential election might have gained something if people had stopped a moment to reflect on proverbial insightfulness for a moment, “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”.

Ad hominem warfare in America is spreading like wildfire. The population is determined to leave no stone unturned. A veritable ‘kristallnacht’ of sorts, affecting the secondary classes…celebrity classes…more than the ‘deplorable-class’ suggests that the America dream and its affiliations with politic heft and hove is up shit-creek. The current brand of stone thrower lives in that space above the common people’s heads and personifies the American dream from a specific perspective; status, power, money, independence et al… and nothing gels!

But on second thought, perhaps proverbial wisdom needs revision; for example; insular people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw tantrums or missiles.

And there’s more; Wall Street, AIPAC, The Pentagon, The FBI, The CIA, The State Department, T.V. Talk Hosts, Established Media, Hollywood, Silicon Valley and countless other membranous boundaries that represent the hydra-headed social order are all insular to a man (or woman). Insularity however, inevitably means more trouble for the uninitiated masses excluded from the banquet… secrecy being the better part of valour…but?

So, we don’t ever really know what goes on behind closed doors. Nobody ever comes through the door to explain why evangelical America threatens 150 million Russian Christians with nuclear annihilation. Nobody comes through the door to explain why American bombing throughout the Middle East is Guernica writ large in perpetuity…as was the case with Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc. etc., Nobody knows who decides which democratically elected government abroad is next in line for regime change. Nobody, on the other hand, is ever allowed to enter the closed doors that conceal the little men who ruminate over charts, statistics, numbers, surveillance data and funding dossiers that help insular careerists to navigate a path ever deeper into Doctor Strangelove’s hoary entrails where drone strikes and Armageddon is contemplated.

The American Constitution, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington all have their place in history as instructors…and instructors are there to advise one on how to move forward. The great achievement of the new great country which embarked on so many projects to develop infrastructure, failed to acknowledge that developing at so great a tempo left no time to reflect on the consequences of its actions. As it rushed headlong into the future, it lost sight of where it was coming from.

On becoming a country without a past, its memory span disappeared more and more as the locomotion of its enterprise took America ever deeper into an illusion that the country had to keep its foot on the accelerator 24/7 to achieve greatness for all. In the absence of grass-root ethics that might have revealed the connection between object and subject, respecting and being respected, ‘greatness’ became a synonym of pedigree and power… ‘us-and-them’ a code for superior and inferior, exceptional and unexceptional. The America of superman fame adopted the eagle as super-bird, not as a Phoenix rising in a new world, but as a symbol of a bird of prey with a mission to destroy…the corporeal devouring the spiritual! …History does repeat itself!

“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest”…………..Confucius, 551—479 BC……..

Corbyn Teaches Us to Embrace the Change We Need

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By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers

Source: The Unz Review

The shocking election result in the United Kingdom – the Conservatives losing their majority and the creation of a hung Parliament; and Jeremy Corbyn being more successful than any recent Labor candidate – cutting a 20 point Theresa May lead down to a near tie – gives hope to many that the global shift to the right, fueled by the failures of governments to meet the basic needs of their population and growing economic insecurity, may be ending.

Corbyn is a lifelong activist whose message and actions have been consistent. He presented a platform directed at ending austerity and the wealth divide and was openly anti-war. There are a lot of lessons for the Labor Party in the UK from this election but there are also lessons for people in the United States. We review what happened and consider the possibilities for creating transformative change in the United States.

The Corbyn Campaign Results

The Corbyn campaign showed that a political leader urging a radical progressive transformative agenda can succeed. Many in his own party, the neo-liberal pro-war Blairites, claimed Corbyn could not win, tried to remove him from leadership, and sabotaged and refused to assist his campaign.

Corbyn showed he could win the leadership of the UK in the future, maybe sooner than later. While Theresa May is in the process of forming a minority government with a small radical conservative party from Northern Ireland, there has already been a backlash, mass petitions and protests against it and UK history has shown in similar circumstances that the second place finisher, may, in the end form the government. Corbyn is taking bold and radical actions. He is preparing to present a Queen’s speech in which he will say that he and his party are “ready to serve” and will continue to push his program through Parliament. He is calling on other parties to defeat the government in Parliament.

Corbyn did better than any recent Labor leader. Jonathan Cook, a British political commentator, writes in “The Facts Proving Corbyn’s Election Triumph” that Corbyn received 41 percent of the vote against May’s 44 percent. This was a big improvement in Labor’s share of seats, the largest increase since 1945. Cook points out that Corbyn won more votes than “Ed Miliband, Gordon Brown and Neil Kinnock, who were among those that, sometimes noisily, opposed his leadership of the party.” Even Tony Blair does not look all that good compared to Corbyn, Cook recounts:

“Here are the figures for Blair’s three wins. He got a 36 per cent share of the vote in 2005 – much less than Corbyn. He received a 41 per cent of the vote – about the same as Corbyn – in 2001. And Blair’s landslide victory in 1997 was secured on 43 per cent of the vote, just two percentage points ahead of Corbyn last night.

“In short, Corbyn has proved himself the most popular Labour leader with the electorate in more than 40 years, apart from Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.”

Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor of Jacobin, writes that Corbyn was not only campaigning against the Tories and Theresa May, but battling his own party – yet he still “won”:

“This is the first election Labour has won seats in since 1997, and the party got its largest share of the vote since 2005 — all while closing a twenty-four point deficit. Since Corbyn assumed leadership in late 2015, he has survived attack after attack from his own party, culminating in a failed coup attempt against him. As Labour leader he was unable to rely on his parliamentary colleagues or his party staff. The small team around him was bombarded with hostile internal leaks and misinformation, and an unprecedented media smear campaign.

“Every elite interest in the United Kingdom tried to knock down Jeremy Corbyn, but still he stands.”

The Blairites were taught a lesson by Corbyn. Many of his harshest critics are now changing their tune and embracing Corbyn. Hopefully they will join in creating a party in Corbyn’s image – a party for the many, not the few. Corbyn has rebuilt the mass base of Labor. The party is now the largest in Europe with half a million members. It is time for the “leaders” of Labor to follow the lead of the people and of Jeremy Corbyn.

What can we learn regarding US politics?

Sunkara argues Corbyn demonstrated that a winning campaign strategy is “to offer hopes and dreams to people, not just fear and diminished expectations.” In current US terms that means it is insufficient just to oppose Trump, a positive vision for the future that shows what a candidate and party stand for is needed, e.g. it is not just enough to defend the failing Affordable Care Act and oppose the Republican’s American Health Care Act, you must stand for something positive: National Improved Medicare for All. This is one example of many.

Sunkara provides more detail:

“Labour’s surge confirms what the Left has long argued: people like an honest defense of public goods. Labour’s manifesto was sweeping — its most socialist in decades. It was a straightforward document, calling for nationalization of key utilities, access to education, housing, and health services for all, and measures to redistribute income from corporations and the rich to ordinary people.

“£6.3 billion into primary schools, the protection of pensions, free tuition, public housing construction — it was clear what Labour would do for British workers. The plan was attacked in the press for its old-fashioned simplicity — “for the many, not the few” — but it resonated with popular desires, with a view of fairness that seemed elementary to millions.

“The Labour left remembered that you don’t win by tacking to an imaginary center — you win by letting people know you feel their anger and giving them a constructive end to channel it towards. ‘We demand the full fruits of our labor,’ the party’s election video said it all.”

Corbyn showed how important it is to have the correct analysis on foreign policy. Twice during the campaign, the UK was hit by a terrorist attack. Corbyn responded by telling the truth: part of the reason for terrorism is the UK foreign policy, especially in Libya. He also opposed the use of nuclear weapons. The Conservatives thought these anti-war positions would hurt Corbyn, instead they helped.

This is even more true in the United States with the never ending wars the country is fighting. But, the unspeakable in the United States, as Paul Street calls it, is acknowledging that terrorism is conducted by the US. This taboo subject makes it hard for people to understand that the US is constantly committing acts of terrorism around the world, which lead to predictable blow back from US militarism, regime change and war. No elected official will tell these obvious truths, which the people of the United States would instinctively understand if they were voiced.

Although the U.S. is often portrayed as a ‘center-right’ nation and progressives are called extremists, the reality is that there is majority support for a progressive agenda. There is a developing national consensus in the United States for transformational change, and Bernie Sanders articulated some of that consensus, at least on domestic issues, in his run for president, but the problem is that U.S. elections are manipulated by the elites in power who make sure that their interests are represented by the winner

Sunkara ends his article on Corbyn saying “Also, Bernie Sanders would have won.” We do not know what would have happened in a Trump-Sanders election. The closest example may be McGovern’s 1972 campaign against Nixon which he lost in a landslide. In that campaign, the Democrats deserted their candidate, even the AFL-CIO and big unions did not support McGovern and Nixon demonized him in the media. Would Clinton-Democrats have stood with Sanders or would they have sabotaged him like the party did to McGovern?

A key to Corbyn’s success was retail politics. The population of the UK is 65 million, compared to the US population of 321 million. Retail politics can work in the UK, while in the US paid media advertising drives the campaign, which means money often determines the outcome. This gives great power to big business interests, and while it can be overcome, it is a steep hill to climb.

Despite their significant losses, the Democrats are still controlled by Clinton-Obama Wall Street and war neo-liberals as we saw in the recent DNC chair election where Clinton protégé, Tom Perez, was elected. We are not optimistic that the US can apply the Corbyn model within the Democratic Party because it has been a party representing the oligarchs from its origins as the party of plantation slave-owners.

The duopoly parties that represent Wall Street, war and empire will not allow voices that represent “the many, not the few” to participate in US elections. They shut them out whether they run as an insurgent inside a party, as people learned from the mistreatment of Bernie Sanders by the DNC, or if they run outside of the two parties. The bi-partisans make independent party runs nearly impossible with unfair ballot access laws, barriers to voter registration, secret vote counting on unverifiable election machines, exclusion from the debates and exclusion by the corporate media, who are in cahoots with the bi-partisans.

It Comes Down to Building An Independent Mass Political Movement

We live in a mirage democracy with managed elections, as we describe in the article “Fighting for A Legitimate Democracy By and For the People,” on the long history of wealth dominating politics in the U.S.

Historically, transformations have occurred because of mass social movements demanding change and participating in elections through independent parties that have grown out of a movement with candidates from the movement (Corbyn has been involved in every anti-war movement, anti-apartheid, anti-austerity, pro-peace and human rights movements among others). Showing mass electoral support, even without winning, has resulted in significant changes – union rights, women’s voting rights, the eight-hour workday – indeed the New Deal came out of third party platforms. It is important to resist the duopoly parties in order to get to the root of the problems we face; as Patrick Walker explains, the “grassroots resistance must oppose Democrats as well as Trump.”

A broad and diverse social movement whose demands are articulated by an independent party platform has forced one of the two parties to capitulate to the movement or disappear. That still seems to be the most likely path to real change for the US.

Corbyn teaches that we should embrace the radical transformational change that is needed, whether in elections or as a movement, to inspire people to take action and shift the realm of the possible. The people thirst for change as their economic situation becomes more insecure. There needs to be a movement that addresses that insecurity through a human rights lens, or else the insecurity will be channeled towards hatred and violence.

The key first step is to show the many, we are with them; that we are listening and acting consistent with their beliefs. Taking this correct first step, lights the path ahead of us.

 

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers co-direct Popular Resistance.

 

Related Article: The Breaking of the Corporate Media Monopoly