Western Apoligism, Racism and the Playing Down of Right Wing Political Terrorism- Wake up Europe!

St James the Apostle trampling over Moors. (Popular household image across Spain)

Anders Behring Breivik, the author of the massacre and bomb attacks in Norway, is a political terrorist. Not just a "crazy person", not just an "Al-Qaeda like terroristic extremist", but a home-grown European political terrorist.

The heinous act committed was politically motivated and driven, not by madness, or affinity with  the strategies of Al Qaeda, but by Europe-born extreme right wing beliefs. Beliefs grounded on a neo-fascist political philosophy which is national chauvinist and racist, and not unique to this one terrorist, but part of a significant and growing movement across a socially, economically and culturally collapsing continent. A continent again playing a very dangerous game of see no evil, hear no evil, and which seems to systemically and historically prefer to ignore the true entrenchment in their societies of right wing fascist extremism, until it’s too late.

A monstrous politically driven crime has been committed by a racist, neo-fascist, ultranationalist, Christian fundamentalist, but we will never read that in a news headline. No matter how many doctors are killed, or women clinics burned down, refugee centers bombed, or idealist youth gunned down at a summer camp, there will never be a right wing extremist violent attack carried out by a member of the dominant culture framed as equally systemic, intentional and reflective of the sentiments of a movement as are other acts of terrorism from non-dominant origins. We will have to be satisfied with Insane Person, or worse, A Random Killer’s Act of Islamic-like Terrorism! Yes, a random Islamic like killer, which, as we come to find out on paragraph two, is also a member of a Christian fundamentalist, ultra-nationalist, neo-fascist continental movement. 

Not that any of that makes any difference, mind you. He is just a crazy, white, blond, blue eyed fluke, that’s all we really need to know. So shed your tears and move on, there is nothing further to make of this except, maybe figure out how to limit the flow of brown people immigration so our white natives won’t get this restless again, or at least for a while…

This speaks volumes to the inherent racism with which the western media and dominant political establishment chooses to treat how terror is used by different actors, and as a political weapon for threatening a given society’s security and stability; People of Arab or middle eastern decent or with Islamic beliefs -and also those with far left convictions- are the ones that commit systemic and ideologically calculated driven acts of terrorism. White, Christian, ultra-capitalist, right wing actors, even when targeting the state and not just minority groups, are doing insane “terroristic”, “horrific” things, i.e., being crazy white people, not practicing systemic terrorism as a political tool and echo of the true sentiments of countless others just like them!

The recent attack in Norway is not just a heinous act of political terrorism. As anyone with their eyes open, and who has spent any decent amount of time in Europe over the last couple of decades knows, this is also not an “out of the blue” incident without a social reference to a wide movement supporting racist and xenophobic positions and ideologies. Racially motivated crimes driven by fascist political principles are not new to post WWII Europe. The scale of this particular barbarity is indeed unprecedented in northern Europe, but right wing violence, including deadly violence against immigrants (mainly those immigrant who are non white and of non-European origins), has increasingly become common place in all European social landscapes, including Norway’s. 

I had conversations about this with truly dear friends on my last visit to Norway. Even as I myself one night became a target of obvious racist violence, my white Norwegian friends, all of honest progressive labour and socialist party stock, refused to accept that what had just occurred to me was part of a growing social trend in the country towards racially motivated violence. Instead, I was told how sorry everyone was than an intoxicated, violent person had attacked me for no reason…I suppose that the fact that this guy has swastikas tattooed on his arms and chose to target me as the only dark-skinned, non Norwegian person in a group of about 100 other people, spoke little to my friends as to the possible racial motives for this attack. 

Interestingly enough, when I shared the same experience with other folks of color living in Norway, the story resonated as very familiar to them. I heard of similar attacks committed against them, ranging from insults from strangers driving by, racial profiling by authorities, to actual brutal acts of random assault and battery. I also heard about the perplexing denial by their white sisters and brothers about the race driven and socially consistent nature of such attacks.

There is no denying that average white native Norwegians, regardless of their personal political orientation or personal non-racist stances, have one set of lived and perceived realities as members of the dominant group in what, even today, is still a largely racially homogeneous society. Those of other races or religious beliefs, including those with Norwegian citizenship, have obviously a completely different set of everyday realities and experiences.

Stated this way, the experiential differences expressed above seem almost harmless. Yet, when the dominant culture refuses to take a real honest look at what these differences actually entail and translate into in terms of societal power dynamics, then they clearly become a very dangerous racist elephant in the room...The dominant group can afford to play this hide and seek game, rarely can the minority group being affected afford such luxuries of privilege…

The refugee/immigration policies of the Norwegian state are not the issue here. A real analysis of the racial aspect of how Norwegian immigration policy is administered would require a whole different piece. It is indeed true that there are plenty of good government funded programs aimed at facilitating the integration into greater society of newly arrived refugees from all countries.  Yet it is also true that according to most public opinion polls and as reflected in recent election results, most Norwegians today seem to feel that there is too much money and too many programs. Racist resentment among the dominant group has an unchecked origin here. While the policies are good, little work has gone on institutionally into truly deconstructing the racism that is fueling resentment against these initiatives and policies and the people benefiting from them. 

At the individual level, significant numbers of interracial social relationships could indicate a disposition by a large number of individuals from the white dominant culture towards antiracist positions. Yet, these choices are mostly personal and always within the context of their own cultural dominant environment, i.e, from a position of power of the member of the dominant group in the choice and in the relationship.

Individuals, as a whole, even when expressing their ardent discontent with particular immigrant friendly policies, do not see themselves as harboring any racist feelings. Some of their best friends are Pakistani…This does not mean that the various manifestations of racism have been fully understood and thus are being actively deconstructed by these individuals. 

Racism then, under these social paradigms, simply becomes a question of how one chooses to present itself to the rest of society on the race issue, and not so much how much one has managed to deconstruct the underlying critical issue of racial supremacy. Blinders on, deeply rooted racist constructs in society that involve complex racial power dynamics just become invisible to the dominant group. This disconnect can prove devastating to the psyche of the member of the minority, but is inconsequential to the member of the dominant group entrenched in their “generosity of supremacy” approach to racism and convinced nothing they could ever do could ever be racist. 

Individual declarations of lack of racism in a mostly homogeneous culture suffice to let the issue of racism be put to rest. The “I married one, didn’t I?” construct… Done. That is, until something like this happens, but even then, the fact that the killer targeted whites –as traitors to their race-, lends itself for many to play down the true racist and national chauvinistic motivation of this attack, and instead treat it as a tragedy perpetrated by one mentally ill Norwegian on all healthy Norwegians.  It remains to be seen if the Norwegian people will rise to the occasion and come to understand this horrible tragedy for what it is; i.e, an almost surreal extreme manifestation of a very real emerging neo-fascist ideological movement taking hold in their society and driven by an unwillingness in the culture to understand the deeper manifestations of racial supremacy.

The failure of all Europeans to look at this incident for what it really is, would only fuel the escalation of such violent racism. It is also not something which states alone can fix through just laws and legislation, even if it was trying to. Generous governmental policies alone cannot change how racism plays itself out in their streets, in popular culture, in how society is affected when the dominant group chooses to manifest their privilege and turn a blind eye to what lies in front of them and go on about their business as if  nothing at all was happening.

Real comprehensive antiracism and multicultural education and self-education at all levels of society is urgently needed. Norway and other European countries have in recent decades grown more and more diverse, yet generally speaking, most of what we see in terms of educational policies focus on the immigrants or refugees themselves. To be fair, in Norway, for instance, there are indeed some real good education programs for children about the cultures of the main immigrant communities present in their communities, but this is not comprehensive antiracism education. This does not deconstruct racism as a relationship of power and privilege of which everyone is part, including those in the dominant group who feel they are not racist.

This type of good-feeling, “we are all the same”, “why can’t we all get along?” altruistic approach, does not necessarily result in the individual of the dominant culture looking at how they, as a member of that dominant culture, practices and benefits from race privilege every day;  how this privilege shields them and protects them from countless social and economic affronts, humiliations and discriminations; how it impacts the social and power relationships of their communities as a whole, and in particular, the lives and social psychology of its minorities.

I recognize that I am not an academic authority in European racism or racial relations. Yet it is my experience, personal and political, that there has been very little momentum for the development of a social or institutional movement around in-deph deconstruction of racism in Europe in recent decades. Quite the opposite, it would seem like even now, and after this horrible experience, most people don’t feel this is a really necessary exercise for their societies to have to go through.

The popular notion is that immigrants are still being treated well and benefiting from the generosity and kindness of their governments and communities, and that as a rule, “real” racism,  remains an underground and random far right phenomenon, not a problem in their communities. Therefore, a problem needing to be dealt by law enforcement and not by in- depth collective cultural introspection as to the constant manifestation of racism in one’s own everyday life, at one’s dinner table…

Until the inherent danger in this type of entrenched denial becomes clear to all Europeans, and they begin to move beyond paternalism and towards real comprehensive society-wide racism education and deconstruction, Europe will continue to experience both, the rise of racist sentiment- already way beyond just a far right favorite-, and the multiplicity of barbarities that often become its physical manifestations. Particularly in periods of economic instability and social transformation such as the ones we are presently living, when the confusion and fears of the general population and the complacency of its supposedly progressive sectors, can both become easy targets and dangerous weapons at the hands of unrepentant fascist demagogues and racist political opportunists.

The Real Indecency of US Politicians

The Weiner hype/scandal is yet another bewildering case of the pathetic notion that passes in this country for morality, what is offensive to our sensitivities and what needs to be punished as indecent.

The naked body is surely offensive and indecent, that we've known...Unless, of course, you can make millions marketing it as a perversion, then it's ok. The same seems to apply to an individual's "non-profit" sexual projects, like talking, or sharing their own ideas and images related to fucking with other consenting adults, if some capitalist pig somewhere is not making millions selling it to children and the repressed masses, then neither the public display of the naked body nor the open manifestations of human sexuality are decent and must, therefore, be punished...

Yet, fabricated wars for capitalist profit that kill hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings are not deemed indecent (BTW, people who love and feel, and cry and laugh just like us, not some sort of alien dark skinned sub-specie that somehow suffers less than you); neither is deemed indecent the denial of comprehensive support for the unemployed and struggling families while we still manage to give away trillions in corporate welfare; nor are the policies that destroy mother nature to secure those same corporate profits; nor allowing for financial institutions to steal the future of millions of working class families with impunity, or the selling of lies and violence to our own children to make them good little slaves instead of providing them with decent public schools where they could learn to think for themselves; or our collective shameless apathy in the face of all these brutal injustices and crimes...those are the real fucking indecencies, the real naked truths we should be ashamed of...Not Weiner's wiener, for fucks sake!

Yes, severe punishment of the political class is indeed long overdue...and maybe this guy too would need to spend a few years of hard labor at a re-education camp of the people's choice, but for partaking in all of the above REAL and truly egregious crimes against humanity, not for showing his dick on the internet to what thus far appears to be other consenting adults.

Over and out...

Spain's Supreme Court Decision is Overturned!

Upon Bildu's appeal to the Constitutional Court, the previous decision of the Supreme Court disallowing the political organization's participation in the upcoming Basque elections was overturned.

In a 6 to 5 vote the Constitutional Court declared that the democratic rights to of the members of Bildu were being violated without due cause by the decision of the Supreme Court.

Bidu will be able to present all of their 254 candidates in the upcoming election.

The right wing party, the PP, has said that they disagree with the decision and that it does not mean that it is a "done deal" and is appealing to the security forces to continue to search for and collect evidence of Bildu's links to ETA...

To be continued...

Spain's Political Repression Gamble in Euskadi

Spain's Tribunal Supremo (Supreme Court) has again politically capitulated to the pressures of its reactionary political establishment led by the Partido Popular (PP) and the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) against efforts to allow for democratic participation in the electoral process of all political forces in Euskadi (Basque country).

In a nine to six vote, the tribunal declared illegal all the candidatures presented by Bidu for the upcoming May 22 regional elections ( Bidu means "to gather" in Basque, and is a united coalition of leftist Basque nationalist forces, composed of Eusko Alkartasuna, Alternatiba, Araba Bai, Herritarron Garaia, and several other leftist independent groups) .

In addition to this decision, the tribunal also moved to declare illegal 10 of the 19 political affiliations presented by the state's attorney's office for certification.These are all Izquierda Abertzale (Patriotic Left) organizations.

These judicial decisions are the culmination of months of antidemocratic repressive efforts by the Spanish state -and it's right wing Basque collaborators- aimed at preventing the participation in the democratic process of any political organization that advances a radical leftist social economic agenda and supports sovereignty for Euskadi.

The justification, again as it was in the last bout of a very similar judicial process against another leftist nationalist coalition named Sortu, is the coalition's supposed link to the armed independentist group, ETA and it's outlawed political wing, Herri Batasuna.

It would take a much lengthier piece than I've intended to produce here to explore the complex history of leftist Basque nationalist groups, or their relationship over the last 40 plus years to the armed group ETA. For now, and for the purposes of this particular piece, it is sufficient to say that ALL the members of Bidu have publicly renounced violence as a means for achieving independence.

Iker Moreno, son of Batasuna's spokesperson

This has always been the claimed critical expectation by the Spanish State of any group wishing to participate in the Basque democratic process. Yet, today, an organization rejecting violence as a way to achieve power no longer satisfies the State. They must now also "condemn" the choice of armed resistance of other organizations as well, even if they are not in anyway associated with that organization. Not doing so, immediately qualifies you as a sympathizer and prone to persecution, prosecution, violation of your constitutional rights and political marginalization.

So, what gives? Why would the Spanish state aim to fabricate circumstantial evidence to show that the these groups are being controlled by the mandates of ETA, even when they've made public and written commitments to non-violent participation in the democratic process? Why would Spain not desire the end of a bloody armed conflict with an enemy it has not been able to defeat in more than 40 years through the integration of it's primary ideological exponent into the democratic political process, not unlike what occurred in Northern Ireland with the IRA?

This is what continues to frustrate all Basques, even moderate rank and file members of the PNV (Partido Nacionalista Vasco). Time and time again, the Spanish State has used the threat of terrorism by Basque Nationalists as an excuse for the political persecution and militaristic intimidation of all leftist nationalist political militants. Violence has been often provoked, constitutional rights have been systemically violated and legal processes blatantly ignored and obscured. All under the banner of fighting Basque nationalist terrorism. Most Basques are seeing through this infamy now, and they are as sick of it as they are of ETA's senseless violence against increasingly ridiculous targets.

Hundreds of thousands marched against political persecution 01-23-11

Using ETA as an excuse, the right-wing Basque nationalist political party, the PNV, and the two major reactionary Spanish national establishment parties have for almost 40 years been able to secure political control over Basque politics and national future. That is why ETA can not be allowed to disappear. A dissolution of ETA as an armed struggle group deemed a terrorist organization, would eliminate any of the present excuses that have allowed Spain to "illegalize" the popular and politically significant civil society voices of leftist nationalism. These voices do have the capacity to challenge the present political status quo in Euskadi. Nobody presently in power is willing to let that happen, by whatever means necessary. Even if it means keeping a senseless bloody conflict alive for another 40 years.

On January 10th 2011, ETA declared a unilateral cease fire. It has since kept it's commitment and made several calls to the Spanish state to accept an internationally mediated dialogue to end the armed insurrection and facilitate the group's transition into the political process. The response by the Spanish state has been to intensify the military confrontations with the group and escalate the political persecution of anyone of any power and significance in the leftist independentist community. It is clear to anyone that is paying attention, that the present Spanish regime is not only not interested in a negotiated end to the violent conflict, but that it actually aims to perpetrate it and provoke it by making it impossible for any revolutionary nationalist left force to participate in the existing democratic process.

The present Spanish state's failure to recognize the folly of its archaic, arrogant and totalitarian entrenchment not only with regards to the the Basque country, but also with regards to the aspirations of the people Catalunya and to a lesser degree of those of Galiza, may yet be the very thing that will eventually lead to braking Spain into four separate and fully independent states.This unwillingness by the post Franco ruling political class to advance a comprehensive constitutional reform that provides a pathway for the formation of a federal republic, and providing the necessary constitutional guarantees for the just and equable integration of all four main nationalities in non-Portugal Iberia, betrays the eternal shortsightedness of Spain’s dominant Castilian political class.

Claiming to be defending the integrity of the nation as whole, while blatantly and shamelessly criminalizing political dissent and violating its own constitutional guarantees to freedom of political assembly and expression in Euskadi, this long conceptually obsolete and always democratically deficient parliamentary monarchy system may actually be hammering the nails of it's own coffin much more effectively than any group of armed Basque nationalists could ever have.

The Royal Wedding: The Criminal Spectacle of a Parasitical Class

Working Class Granny says: Fuck the Royal Wedding!

Everyone ready to shed some tears of joy for the newlyweds?  

How about for the affront this pathetic and costly charade represents against every notion of social, political and economic justice?  

Pick your tears…

Even for an imperialist, militaristic country that has turned the hypocritical promotion of two-faced democratic principles around the world into a science, this open advertisement of its parasitical hereditary monarchy in the XXI century and in the worst economic crisis the country has suffered since WWII, is simply surreally shameful.

 

Adding insult to injury, the extravagant wedding ceremony’s cost, to the beat of $ 48 million, is expected to be paid for by British taxpayers. $48 million on top of the other 80 million a year they have to dish out to maintain that army of royal inbred parasites living in luxury on their backs. These same taxpayers are being told by their government that severe cuts in social services and public spending are inevitable in order to ride out the nation’s economic crisis. 

Pretending that this wedding is an innocent temporary fairy tale distraction to an otherwise harsh global reality, is simply blinding oneself to the facts of how socially, politically and economically offensive this spectacle really is. The costs and adulation of William and Kate’s wedding  is as much an insult against the working people of Great Britain, as the very continued existence of royalty and monarchies are an insult to XXI century humanity.




Written by and

Imperial Madness Continues in Libya

The shift in the news from the hype for intervention in Libya for all the "right" humanitarian reasons, to the nearly non-reporting of the present Western powers' policies that openly aim to support an armed insurrection to achieve regime change, only took about two weeks.

As I write this, the hype is what is left in people's mind as an impression of what is happening in Libya, and not the truth of what is really happening there...For that you have to do your own research, not watch the news...Not even Al Jazeera.

The Libyan "revolution" is in tatters. Even with NATO's and US brutal  air bombardments of government troops and installations, the influx of new heavy weapons sent from Egypt, and hundreds of US military advisers on the ground, the so called rebels have not manage to achieve any considerable military gains.

Why?

Plain and simple. The vast majority of the Libyan population does not support this western fabricated and engineered attempted overthrow of the present regime.  Without the support of the masses, the West is going to keep sending more and more advisers, and more and more military personnel until they themselves directly attempt to overthrow the government of Libya. Just as it happened in Vietnam.

The French and British are already moving to do this. Under whose authority, it is unclear. No international body has authorized military support of the rebels in what is obviously an armed conflict between two sides, and for all intents and purposes, an armed insurrection covertly and overtly supported by western colonialists powers against a still recognized sovereign state in North Africa.

All media hype aside, there was also NEVER any real assessment of the number of Libyan citizens that were supporting this supposed popular uprising.  There was neither ever any official independent confirmation of the media claims about mass murder of civilians by Ghaddafi's forces, the use of airplane bombings on them, or the threat to hurt the non-combatant civilian population of Benghazi.

As if watching a real life version of the motion picture Wag the Dog, where a non existent war is fabricated on TV and convinces the masses that it is truly happening, the "facts" of the situation in Libya that initially led to the call for intervention were largely fabricated, and never independently confirmed.  In the case of the threat to hurt the civilian population, the actual statement was misquoted and manipulated to say what Obama and the west wanted it to, and not what it actually said! I read it. Heard the radio address too, and it did not say any such thing. On the contrary, it clearly stated that not one single non combatant would be hurt. I wrote about this here and flagged it to some news media. For what? I am not sure...

In "Scandal in Bohemia," by Arthur Conan Doyle, the detective Sherlock Holmes says to his friend Doctor Watson: "It is a capital error to theorize before having data. Without realizing it, one begins to deform the facts so that they adjust to the theories instead of adjusting the theories to the facts."

The facts are, that 3 days into the "peaceful protests", and after going pretty much ignored by both the civilian population as well as by the Libyan authorities, the "peaceful protesters" brought it up to the next level right quick, and decided to start burning down Benghazi police stations, and storming army weapons depots...After that, it was an armed struggle with casualties on both ends, and it has continued to be.

Now, another fact is that these so called rebels, have rejected the truce negotiations independently designed and presented by the African Union. So has the west. Their reasons? Screw the end of the violence, the killing and the destruction of infrastructure, Ghaddafi must go now. By force, mind you. Not as part of an agreement to a democratic process that would put the power of deciding Libya's future in the hands of the people in the near future, but by the forceful will of what remains a CIA-NATO backed minority insurgency.

We should try pulling that off here and see how we fare...After all, what more mass murdering, factual and verified,  than what the US has committed  in Afghanistan? Not a week goes by where US forces do not kill a dozen civilians or so in Afghanistan or Pakistan, ultimately and supposedly to hunt down terrorists they themselves once created and armed to overthrow the Communist regime in Afghanistan, yet another foe of Empire at the time. Never mind the thousands of civilians killed in Iraq during the war and the occupation, and the recent dead civilians killed in the latest indiscriminate bombing of Libya. Deaths which have been confirmed as fact even by NATO itself.

So what is the moral authority of the US, the French and the bloody Brits? None. What is driving this is these nations' blatant imperialist double standard hypocrisy and our own tacit support, as their citizens, of their hypocrisy.  It is also our own prejudice, our own racism, and our own willingness to accept under-informed founded premises about the situation in Libya that continue to provide cover for the affronts on international law that our country and its allies keep perpetrating in Libya and against other Global South and Muslim countries.

We live in one of the most brutal and corrupt stages of human history, and this stage has major actors. Our country, including its present leadership, direct and act on this stage to the beat of billions of dollars of production money...

Wag the Dog part II  is reality TV at its best..

Special Posting-The Libyan Revolution is Dead: Notes for an Autopsy

What a sham and what a shame...

Thanks to a warmongering and complicit media and to backroom deals brokered between the Western powers and those bastions of eastern democracy, Russia and China, Empire gets to reaffirm its global hegemony over an Arab country, yet again, and will set Libya back 50 years. Leaving it nice ripe for a nice profitable economic reconstruction and nation building by Haliburton and Co. and USAID,  and of course, for some sweet payback oil deals all around for the Great White Saviors.

Pathetic hypocrisy being played out here.

Where are the great western power humanitarians for those being massacred by the US allies in Yemen? Bahrain? And where were they in Egypt when 700 really unarmed protesters were being slaughtered? Watching these global colonialists leadesrs stand there and lie to the world about their righteous indignation over tyrannies and the death of unarmed civilians should be enough for any free thinker, who doesn't have their heads stuck up their own neocolonialist asses, feel sick to their stomachs!

The media has been so complicit in the misinformation and deception campaign, that I can barely find the words to describe what their complicity is tantamount to...An intentional crime against truth and one with deadly consequences, at LEAST.

Before you jump on the media and blogs bandwagon of labeling me and every other person who is flagging this as madness and hypocrisy as the fanatical anti-American tyrant apologists of always, please consider investing ten minutes of your time reviewing  the following insightful and critical analysis piece, NOT from a Ghadaffi-Chavez-Castro lover at all, but from a REAL journalist invested in critical thought and reporting and not in tweeting Empires horn...!

I feel everyone should read this article before throwing their lilte teary-eyed, pro-democracy block party. There's is little to celebrate indeed as the agency of Empire has again succeed in creating yet another deadly, self-serving, costly civil war and intervention in another resource rich Global South country.

The Libyan Revolution is Dead: Notes for an Autopsy 

Posted on Zero Anthropology- 18 March 2011 by Maximilian Forte  

The “Arab Spring” was a short one; what follows, another NATO Summer, will last much longer.

If you do not think about it, there is a lot to cheer about the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, against what this time has been a mountain of advice, questions, and critiques from all imaginable political quarters, and not as the warmongering extremists would have it, from “Gaddafi lovers” (George Will? Pat Buchanan? Richard Haas? Gaddafi lovers?). In previous articles, I have criticized the flip-side enough, meaning the positions taken by Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Daniel Ortega, without sparing Gaddafi in the least–I do not need to repeat any of it here, because it is entirely irrelevant to the discussion now. Instead, this is an autopsy, identifying the weapons used, and the criminals responsible for killing the Libyan revolution. This is no longer a Libyan story–that chapter is now closed. My autopsy is divided into several broad categories of actors: the humanitarians, the rebels, the international organizations, the mass media, and the Americans. Finally, what we should be watching in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.

The “Humanitarians”

A great mass of humanitarian social media addicts and self-styled cyberactivists in their hundreds of thousands signed petitions to beg the United Nations to authorize the bombing of Libya. Bearers of good intentions, no doubt, but perhaps less skilled as historians. Many will not even Google their way to the nearest Wikipedia entry that might cause them to ask some basic questions. On the other hand, history does not always repeat itself, and I am not one to make solid predictions, so perhaps this is not a useful basis for discussing the role of “humanitarian concern” in this debacle.

Instead, I have questions.

For example, exactly what kind of global human rights agenda is it that requires substantial military spending, private defense contractors, and a robust air force?

“We can’t stand by and do nothing”–and why not, when it is precisely what you are doing every day when it comes to the slaughter of civilians in Afghanistan (courtesy of our own troops), when it comes to the “secret” war in Pakistan, the “secret” war in Yemen, the “secret” war in Somalia, or for that matter, the killing of civilian protesters today in Yemen and Bahrain? How about how we stood by and did nothing, as our allied torture state, Uzbekistan, boiled alive opponents and the detainees sent to them by the CIA? Boiled alive–whisper it, because not even Gaddafi has imagined perpetrating such horrors. Whisper it, so you can forget it again: “Andijan massacre;” “Uzbekistan: Repression Linked to 2005 Massacre Rife;” “500 bodies laid out in Uzbek town;” “‘High death toll’ in Uzbekistan;” “’700 dead’ in Uzbek violence.” Surely, by now, we have abundant practice in doing nothing at all–we must be a hardened people, with very thick skin, and an ability to ignore the screams coming from the basement whenever we like. So why must Libya be this exception? What made you wake up, and wake up in such a way that you wanted to be the hero of someone else’s story?

“If the world does nothing, the message to dictators will be: ‘Just kill your own people, we will look away’.” They got that message already, and they are still doing just that, thankful that we are all focused on Libya alone. Indeed, some of them even helped to divert our attention toward Libya.

But how about if we just do not finance them, arm them, school them, and otherwise embrace them to begin with? At the very least, wouldn’t that be the cost effective thing to do? And wouldn’t that start the story with us, by placing responsibility on us first, so we don’t have to send planes in to destroy the planes we sold them? I mean, can one be a humanitarian and logical at the same time, or are these now mutually exclusive?

Either way, “the humanitarians” have validated the military-industrial complex: “The military hierarchy, with their budgets threatened by government cuts, surely cannot believe their luck – those who usually oppose wars are openly campaigning for more military involvement” (source).

“I usually don’t support foreign military intervention, but…” is how some lead their apologies. But…you know what? You do favour foreign military intervention, and having done so you automatically disqualify yourself as a hypocrite next time you try to pretend to oppose it.

The Rebels

I have no intention of simply lambasting those who tried to fight for their freedom, and I think that I can understand their cheers in Benghazi more than ours. However, I cannot deny feeling sadness, watching them cheer, as if victorious, when in fact they had just surrendered. Here too questions remain to be raised/addressed.

This is no longer their story. A major break has occurred. Whatever is written now, it will likely include stories of UN meetings, jet fighters, aircraft carriers, bombs, and the tactical cleverness of Hillary Clinton. Libyans have been displaced as authors of their own destiny. Whatever they wrote, has now become a series of paragraphs in yet another chapter of imperial “morality” deployed from overseas.

One opposition leader reportedly said, “We asked for a no-fly zone to be imposed from day one.” From day one? He’s not kidding either. So why were you prepared to hand over the reins of power to foreign actors, so soon, so quickly? You boasted of defections from the military, of vast popular support, of marching on Tripoli–it did not sound like you needed any global cavalry to come in and save your day. Why did you ask, and then demand?

Elements of the rebel leadership have stained their own name, and stained their revolution. That is inescapable now. But what is damaging to all of us is the narrow, self-centered, provincialism of what is clearly a neo-colonial elite of former regime insiders serving as self-appointed “representatives of the Libyan people,” elites who like the neo-colonized, depend on aid from abroad as part of their self-fulfillment. Cheering for what will be a NATO-led operation, is a validation and legitimation of that organization, and in a time when budgets for education, health, public works, and programs for the poor are all being slashed across the West, they help to validate the need for maintaining heavy military spending. Nobody is out in the streets cheering universities and hospitals, but apparently they are out in the street cheering the bomb. Their provincialism was displayed in their lack of solidarity, or even passing concern, with social justice and anti-war activists in the West, in cases berating those of us who felt we should have a voice–these are, after all, our planes, our bombs, and our political leaders–because all we needed to know was that “Libyans” asked for this intervention. If that is a reflection of the kind of political work and solidarity-building they did at home, then no wonder they had to turn to artificial, prosthetic solutions. Not just the anti-war movement, and the anti-secrecy movement, will be damaged here, as the clock is turned back to 2003–it is the very meaning of “revolutionary,” which can now be made to include those who would be clients of imperial patrons.

In the meantime, a theory is circulating–that the West deliberately delayed so that the rebels would be militarily degraded, and more dependent than ever on NATO, which will now have the upper hand in stage managing their revolt. We will have to see if there is any evidence that comes to light to support that.

The International Organizations

If one were to read the speech given by Alain Juppé, the French Foreign Affairs Minister, at the UN Security Council meeting that passed 1973, one should have an awfully difficult time understanding how everything he said could not also be said about the NATO war, his war, against the people of Afghanistan, and the dictator that they prop up there. Yet, this is what sets the code by which to administer Libya. As for the five countries that merely “abstained” from voting (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Germany)–what portraits of courage. They opted for diplomatic wiggle room and plausible deniability.

The Arab League’s decision to first call for a no fly zone can only invite the most scornful mockery. This is a club of dictators, who found the ideal opportunity to remove a competing dictator that they have long resented and detested. Soon after their vote, Saudi Arabia sent its troops into Bahrain to smash peaceful, unarmed protesters, and the Gulf Cooperation Council agreed to intervene against the fight for democracy there. Human rights have always been the least of the Arab League’s concerns.

But Washington, skillful and cynical, pressed the Arab League to speak first in favour of a no-fly zone, so it could then use that thin pretense of “answering” the calls of authentic Arabs. Never mind that the U.S. would need their overflight “permission” anyway, for sorties to be flown from U.S. airfields in Iraq, against Libya.

The Mass Media

Here I will focus on one of the other great disappointments in this story: Al Jazeera (with whom I have terminated my relationship). Al Jazeera’s coverage has been heavily slanted, in terms of amount of coverage, to the story of Libya, rather than other cases where tyrants were beating and killing peaceful and unarmed protesters at the very same time: Yemen and Bahrain, to name just two. Today, while they wait for NATO bombs to drop, they have turned a little to Yemen, which has turned much uglier–but is an ally of the U.S. in the “war on terror,” and no UN meetings have been called. When the UN passed the latest resolution against Libya, the Al Jazeera correspondent in Benghazi, Tony Birtley, engaged in obscene and undignified cheering and gloating. Utterly delirious. Never, he said, had he been hugged so much since the birth of his daughter. Rich symbolism. The liberating angel embraced. Had this been Fox News, we would all be slamming it as propaganda. It is. And it covers for the Emir of Qatar, Al Jazeera’s paramount if not exclusive financial sponsor, who by all means has topped anything Rupert Murdoch could ever dream of being powerful enough to do: the Emir is an interventionist in his own right, supporting the Saudi invasion of Bahrain, the crushing of peaceful protest, to which he may add more Qatari forces, while also promising support for the implementation of the no fly zone against Libya. If Murdoch had done just half of that, American protesters would likely reduce Fox News studios to rubble. Al Jazeera is not the voice of the Arab Spring after all, as some of us thought.

The Americans

Good morning America! It’s a great day to be an American again! Finally, a bad guy, who isn’t American. Finally, a good guy, who is American. Once again, another crazy murderous Arab, easy to mock and hold up as the target of mass orchestrated contempt. The kids got all busy making viral “zenga zenga” videos, and the media proudly featured them, enjoying the fruit of their own labour in shaping young minds. Hey and guess what? This evil Arab tyrant might also have some WMDs! Every night I watched CNN’s Anderson Cooper, hot, breathless, turgid, anally righteous, spewing venom against the dictator–much of it deserved, some of it resting on ignorance and fabrication–the dictator’s “lies,” “keeping them honest,” all principles never directed back at CNN. Expect to see pictures of Gaddafi’s dead sons happily featured on evening broadcasts. The blood thirsty ghouls are back.

What a perfect war this will be. No troops on the ground. Do you hear that, suicide bombers? No troops on the ground. No roadside bombs. This will be clean and surgical, the way spectators imagine high-tech war to be. Death from above, baby. War will be spectacularized once again, with an appropriate focus on ordnance, impressive gadgets, mellow-voiced professional pilots, and a wonderful assortment of planes. Already, talk that this will be a cakewalk. Cakewalk, baby.

America is on top again. Iraq? Afghanistan? Fuck you! If anyone in the world for a moment thought these did any damage to the American soul, or to the fact that America remains “the indispensable nation,” then someone missed the fact that Americans have finally been cheered as liberators, in Benghazi. Iraq syndrome? As if! Humanitarian imperialism is back, NATO is cool, America thank you, cakewalk.

Who imagined that this, political satire with puppets, would rise to the status of a documentary? Who expected this to become the liberation charter, the theme song, for both desperate, groping Libyan opportunists and Americans thirsting for patriotic self-validation? The world policeman…is back, baby.

What to Watch For

These are just some of the things we will want to watch for over the coming hours, and years:

1. Which nation’s planes will be the first to bomb? After that, in the overall number of sorties, how many will have been flown by U.S. pilots? This will be important to see how the U.S. ensures that, in terms of image management, an illusion that the U.S. is not in the lead is created.
2. When civilians are killed from aerial bombardment, who will get the blame?
3. Gaddafi is a dead man–and he knows it. Will he just resign to the fact stoically? Last night he said: “If the world is crazy, we will be crazy, too.” Will Gaddafi outlive the coming air war? How will he be removed from power?
4. Will hostilities on the ground be escalated? Will there be larger numbers of refugees?
5. Fracturing of the opposition. Will the “Interim Transitional National Council” become truly national, or remain a creature of Benghazi? Will it seek to become somewhat less “interim,” and somewhat more secure in its hold on power?
6. Opportunistic infiltration, by that other group also desperate for renewed validation: Al Qaeda. Yes, indeed, Gaddafi hurled all sorts of “crazy” allegations that the opposition comprised Al Qaeda terrorists. Interestingly, however, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton partly backed him up (not that many bothered to comment on this): “many of the Al-Qaeda activists in Afghanistan and later in Iraq came from Libya and came from eastern Libya which is now the so-called free area of Libya.” Clinton also noted: “It’s important to recognize that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the motives, the opportunism, if you will of people who are claiming to be leaders right now.” This also means that the U.S. reserves for itself the right to decide who will be treated as legitimate, and who will be treated as the enemy.
7. How will the U.S. exercise leverage over the opposition/government in waiting? Will it be slow to lift sanctions in order to obtain concessions?
8. American media coverage: how much time will be spent describing the hardware? How lovingly will fighter pilots and their machines be portrayed? How many times will you hear American voices, compared to Libyan voices?
9. The bases used for operations: there has been no buildup of U.S. aircraft carriers in the region. Expect flights from land bases nearby. Will this be used to legitimate the American need to hold on to those bases?
10. Will there be continued subdivision of the left in the West? Are we seeing the emergence of a rift between the Arab left and the Latin American left, whose leaders have been resolutely anti-intervention and in some cases pro-Gaddafi? What about divisions within the left inside the West, and with regard particularly to the anti-war movement?
11. Will there be diminished cuts to military spending, or no cuts at all in coming years?
12. How will the U.S. manage yet another war added to its roster, which includes: the lingering occupation of Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the “secret” wars in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia…and now Libya? How much of this weight will have to be shouldered by NATO partners, and their tax payers?
13. Will dissent and critique of this war be silenced, marginalized, and virtually criminalized as it has in all of the other recent Western wars? Which politicians’ fortunes will be made on the basis of this war, and who will be made to suffer for not supporting it?
14. If this ends up being a fiasco, or with the need for foreign troops on the ground, will it be the final act that breaks the back of empire?
15. Which questions would you add here?

Random Hangover Dec 25 Thoughts About the Self-Centered

 In their delirium of grandeur, the self-centered come to believe that there is strength -and even power over others- in their unwillingness to be generous of spirit or give of themselves. I believe it is quite the opposite. This form of emotional usury can never make you stronger, it only makes you weaker. 

Only those prepared to give and take emotionally can claim to

In Defense of Wikileaks

How dare you bust me! You be dead now boy!

The rats are calling the cats dirty rodents...

The maniacs running the Empire are outraged that their filthy backroom dealings and corrupt political operations have been exposed, so instead of feeling shame and recognizing the madness and dishonor of their actions, they keep on going and want to crucify the truth bearers. The arrogance! Hillary, the mother of all fascists should resign, not be allowed to defiantly keep attacking her exposers and playing the victim !!!

Whether the leaks are about human rights violations and war crimes in Iraq, or exposing the incriminating content of insulting diplomatic cables, these are the TRUTH! When the truth is "detrimental" and becomes a liability to your aims, then maybe you are obviously doing something very wrong!? I mean, just a thought... Hello? Anybody home in fascist land?

We've seemed to have become so corrupt as a society that instead of calling for the criminal prosecution and resignation of this filth, we seem more than happy to allow them to attack truth and go on controlling the public discourse via the imperial dominant paradigm, i.e., not only can we commit these crimes, but we have the right to hide them, and furthermore, to destroy those who expose and place at risk its perpetrators! Am I supposed to feel worried about the safety of torturers, spies, killers, and corrupt diplomats? Really? Wow! This same scum of the earth have the gall to call Wikileaks a terrorist organization! Who are the true terrorists, if not them?


Now, I do not know if the rape charges against Julian Assange are legitimate or not. An accusation like that is always very serious indeed and should never be dismissed outright. All I know is that it feels awfully suspect how and when its being brought into the attention of the international public...They have always gone for character assassination of all significant political enemies first. When this fails to eliminate them as a threat, then they go for the real assassination. Any doubts? Empire always strikes back...brutally and swiftly.

The Politics of Fear-Engineering Domestic Repression and the Building of Empire

Revisualizing Fascism

Fomenting social insecurity through fear and misinformation has been the stuff of repressive regimes since the beginning of bad governance. The objective being fundamentally twofold: A) To enable a regime to act with impunity through the institutionalization of policies aimed to weaken the rule of law, democracy, civil liberties and human rights, and B) To deflect attention from real insecurity, such as critical socio-economic issues, which  the regime is unwilling to solve or  is inherently incapable of solving.

The political success of the misinformation fabricated by a regime is highly dependent on the complicity of a subservient media feeding it to the public. Additionally, it also relies on the systemic erosion of public education and civil participation institutions to further curtail the citizens’ ability to participate and exercise critical analysis of information. Once a society is robbed of its ability to empirically analyze and challenge information, there is little left standing between the system’s fabrication of the lie and its capacity to act with impunity in response to it.

In the US, we have always identified these social and political conditions with foreign regimes. Preferably those who presently oppose US policies or those that, in dramatic black and white vintage war footage, were defeated by the just hand of our armed forces. We have been “educated” in our schools and through the media about the qualifying criteria for these repressive/totalitarian states: The absoluteness of their imposition of ideology and values, control of political information production and dissemination, the murder and persecution of anyone considered an enemy of the state, the mass incarcerations of all political opposition, etc. What we are not being taught at school, or by the History Channel, is how the methodologies of these supposedly textbook repressive regimes have informed the governing methodology of our own modern capitalist “democracies”.

In light of the historical lack of long-term sustainability of ideological totalitarianism, the corporate state has instead aimed to produce a system that is not dependant for its survival on any sort of absolutist value system or ideology, like Nazi Germany or Franco’s Spain were in their time. The new rhetoric is not aimed at blind and obedient adherence to a state’s orthodox ideology, or else. No. The modern capitalist system is instead fueling repression through the ethos, logos, and pathos of the free market; i.e. the rhetoric of selling political ignorance and mindless consumerism.

In other words, for as long as it can be sustained, capitalist repression will not come to us in echoes of macabre black and white footage of goose-stepping evil Nazis marching into our neighborhoods. The new Gestapo at the service of global capital does indeed visit our homes from time to time, and selected subversives are regularly disappeared into the dark corners of our judiciary system or secret torture facilities, but the bulk of the disempowerment of the common citizen comes at us through corporate-controlled mass communications marketing a steady diet of mindless entertainment, misinformation, and bigger and better lies aimed to keep the spectacle of fear, mistrust and ignorance alive. Without a single mass concentration camp or extermination campaign, political leaders and PR firms at the service of the corporatocracy have successfully managed to impose a complete redefinition of democracy, freedom and progress on our society. 

Mass propaganda tools have been perfected to secure the stage for the capitalist state to misgovern, oppress, and wage war with complete impunity while most of our fellow citizens think they have exercised democracy by voting in no choice elections and by making goods and services purchasing choices (preferably through debt). A regime that has mass-conditioned most of its citizens to be more worried about the house arrest of some filthy rich decadent celebrity or the unveiling of the I-phone than about the omnipotent power corporations exercise over their lives, makes Goebbels propaganda achievements in Nazi Germany seem to me like child’s play.

Price vs True Cost

In one of his many witty aphorisms critical of late Victorian English society, Oscar Wilde wrote: “Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” I thought that if we were to add a new variable to best connect this aphorism to post-modern capitalist society, it might have to read something like: “Nowadays people know the price of everything, but the true cost of nothing”. 

For instance, what is the true cost of goods produced in a neighboring state for close to slavery wages? We know the price tag of such goods at the store, but do we understand its true costs? To the worker’s family not earning a living wage? To that society’s social instability? To our own nation’s poisoned experience with immigration? We are bombarded by political pundits in the media with the price tag of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but do we know its true cost? To public education, public health, environmental protection, food autonomy or a sustainable economy? To our own long-term real security as a nation? To our place as a people in the eyes of the world? We know the price tag for bailing out corporations and financial institutions that sent millions of us into economic demise, but does anyone know the true costs of placing these agents of a failed system back in the driver’s seat of the economic and social directives of our society? 

Sadly, and with horrible consequences, most people do not know the answer to these questions and are not being educated to learn how to ask them either. A clear understanding by the citizen of the true costs of an imperialist corporate state does not serve the interests of those who benefit from and thrive in this type of system. After all, our political class is “the corporation”. Our media outlets are “the corporation”. More and more, our public institutions are also fast becoming “the corporation”; from public schools, to universities, to hospitals, to the military.  What is important, we are told, is not that we live under an oppressive, war mongering, fear mongering, Orwellian corporatocracy set on using the state to impose the interests of the few over those of the many. What’s important is that GDP indicator figures grow along their projected trajectory. Are the policies of the regime we voted for producing the necessary “economic growth” numbers to keep our system alive? If yes, then there is nothing to worry about. Keep silent. Don’t ask at what environmental or social true costs did that 5 growth come. Watch some more TV and be patient. Those economic growth figures may never translate into improvements of social services or infrastructure for our communities, or an increase in real wealth of the average family, but sooner or later, it is sure to trickle down into new lines of credit for us to keep buying and consuming more than we need. After all, that’s what makes the system work. What keeps us happy and what we value as a culture. That’s what we are conditioned to kill and die for. We must always be able to buy and consume more crap no matter what.

In order to secure the pursuit of this neoliberal nirvana, we need enemies, not knowledge. We need threats to the future happiness of our children. But threats which have nothing to do with the real ones to their futures, like global warming, the lack of functional and just public education institutions, a media that keeps them addicted to junk food and violent video games, or a society alienated from the world community and living in constant fear and state of war. No. Not those threats. To secure the stability of the modern capitalist state regime we need to fabricate others. We need a constant flow of new enemies and challenges to our security that cannot be defeated or solved by good policy and comprehensive governing directives. We don’t need a threat solved by comprehensive investment in the protection and conservation of our resources and strengthening of our communities, scientific research that places nature and people before profits, or by implementing foreign policies which advance global sustainability and the ability for all nations to exist in peace and self-determination. No. What we need is the threat of millions of non-existent Al Qaida crazies setting up camp along the Canadian border ready to blow themselves up and kill our children just to upset out trip to Whole Foods. We need a culture of hate and intolerance. We need chaos. We need just the right measure of fear to keep us pathologically purchasing useless goods that fabricate security and enrich the ones engineering our real insecurity.

Bi-Partisan Deceptions and Fear Mongering

The “honest” right holds no punches. They blame the poor for their own condition and believe the wealthy and privileged are better off because they are simply born better people. They deny institutionalized oppression and believe their class and race privileges and access to power as inherent, and are willing to send others to wars to die for it. They also understand that to keep their supremacist status quo they need numbers and must appeal, not just to their own class, but also to disenfranchised whites who are suffering economically but don’t know exactly why. These politics of white race solidarity over working class solidarity have been largely successful (in large part thanks to the failure of white progressives to organize their own communities instead of trying to “help” people of color fight oppression in ours*) In this context then, poor whites become the displaced victims of minorities, of big government, of international law, of immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, Blacks, environmentalists, unions, the imaginary liberal media, secularists, gays, other whites that disagree, and of the countless dangerous foreign governments set on destroying our way of life… It’s never Monsanto, General Electric, institutionalized injustice, or their own elected neoliberal governments’ economic agendas that destroyed the profitability of the family farm, moved good paying blue collar industrial jobs to another country, or made the costs of a decent education forbidden to most families. No. The enemy is Juan, the undocumented laborer stealing a job most whites would never want. The culprit is the single mom in Detroit who keeps having children to get more welfare!  So says Fox News, so it must be true.

The “dishonest” right practices a slightly more convoluted, but similarly deceptive strategy. They market a rhetoric that implies to serve the interests of our society as a whole. To serve as a just economic broker in a free enterprise society between the interests of the rich and powerful and those of the working person. To advance a culture of tolerance, justice, fairness, peace and understanding. Yet, a little digging from the left or a little push at their positions from the honest right, and the progressive pretenses of these “fascists with a heart of gold” soon dissipate. In other words, the actual commitment of the liberal intelligentsia is to the sustainability of the capitalist status quo, not to the interests of the people. Their idea is to advance only the change that is necessary to make capitalism more functional and sustainable long term.  To “fix” capitalism, and make it safe from mass revolt, but without really ever challenging the dominant political and economic power paradigm.

As their cheap, populist rhetoric becomes exposed and discredited every single time they gain power, they too must then resort to the fabrication of false threats and enemies to distract the electorate’s attention from their unwillingness to generate any real change. As proven in the last year alone, neither criminal financial institutions, exploitative and polluting multinational corporations, war criminals, the enemies of public health, or the agents of the military industrial complex inside their own administration have anything to fear from this “most progressive” of liberal administrations. Quite the contrary, the Obama administration brought us The New Deal Part Two: Where Keynes meets Reagan. Capitalism is saved again through government intervention, but not by stimulating the economy from the bottom up though government investment in public works and social infrastructure development projects this time, but by funding and rewarding the culprits of the economic meltdown so they could save themselves first and trust that their good fortunes would then trickle down to the rest of us.

Only the truly fanatic or blind can’t see that those posing as friends of the working class and as promoters of a new culture in national and foreign policies have shamelessly continued to serve as loyal agents of the corporatocracy. If the intention for REAL change had ever been part of the Democratic Party’s agenda, the opportunity could not have been better than after two Republican engineered failed wars and biggest economic crises in the nation’s history. The present administration has instead capitulated by surrendering the struggle for economic, environmental and social justice against corporate power at home, and by advancing ever more aggressive war efforts and regressive foreign policies abroad.

This betrayal and capitulation of the Obama administration has delivered a death blow to whatever real progressive momentum might have been there in the mainstream after the fascistic fiascos of the Bush administration. Of course, according to those in power it is not them, nor their party that have failed to challenge corporate dominance and the failed policies of previous administrations. They have simply  not been allowed to decisively end the illegal war an occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, or to stop building military bases in Colombia, or to normalize relations with Cuba, or stop killing civilians in Pakistan with drone attacks, or prosecute the criminal activities of the CIA,  or improve access to higher education by the poor, or protect the rights of immigrant workers, or launch a truly comprehensive and progressive economic recovery plan, or promote a truly effective climate change policy, or, or, or… The fault for all of this impotence is the Enemy. The Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, McCain, Newt, Beck, Fox News, and other pesky racists, right wing extremists and neo cons set on undermining the noble intentions of the new administration. Not only are they to blame for everything they have not done (and done), but if we do not vote for the democrats again in November our nation will surely be overrun by these dangerous right wing enemies of reason, world peace, and class and racial harmony. For sure we’ll be doomed then…So says MSNBC, so it must be true.

As American as Apple Pie

In addition to the fears and lies being fabricated by both sides of the capitalist status quo against each other as they jockey for political position, there are also the jointly manufactured ones needed for the perpetration of Empire whose expansion and survival is the mandate of both parties.  Of course, in both sides of the mainstream political discourse the astronomical price tag for the Defense Department budget (a record high $708 billion for 2011 in the middle of an economic recession!), is not at all meant to advance US military and economic hegemony and for making the world safe for Exxon, Lockheed, Boeing, and Halliburton profits. Not at all. According to the political class and their punduits in the media, this is a critically necessary expenditure to fend off domestic terrorists determined to burn down every ski resort in Colorado, Islamists trying to take over the public school curricula of Texas, the imminent Iranian drone missile attack of Salt Lake City, North Korea’s clear intentions to nuke American Samoa, and to nip in the bud, Hugo Chavez’  intentions of becoming the 45 president of the United States by mobilizing a Chinese armed army composed of nothing but undocumented workers presently encamped somewhere in Arizona and feasting on food stamp purchased fajitas!...and then some.

Bring it down a couple of notches and the actual justifications given by the regime for the build-up of an imperial army are no less ridiculous in their premises than what I’ve stated. Fear mongering by the whole of the US political class, including Hilary Clinton’s State Department,  has not only enabled the build up of our military for foreign conquest and intervention, but has also served as the core justification to assault civil rights and political liberties at home. Bipartisan implementation (or tacit support) of draconian national policing policies such as the militarization of our borders, the infiltration and surveillance of legal political and civic organizations by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, the persecution and intimidation of non-violent political activists suddenly reclassified as domestic terrorist threats, and the mass arrests and trials of undocumented workers have become the rule and not the exception in the regime’s strategy to deal with domestic political and social pressures.

 There are no accidents or miscalculations in the running of Empire. The criminal and repressive policies that the capitalist state institutes and that when exposed the complicit media frames as random cases of bad policing, poor policy decisions, bad information or intelligence based decisions, abuses of governmental power by a few rotten apples, or misinformed law enforcement directives are no such things. Torture, assassinations, spying on its own citizenry, false incarcerations, illegal wars and interventions in the affairs of other nations, are not accidents! They are the results of an intentional political strategy based on lies and fear and created by both Republican and Democrat administrations over the course of our nation’s history in order to advance and protect US capitalist interests abroad, and an unsustainable culture and economic system at home. 

Policies and practices instituted by the state and aimed at physically controlling, intimidating and eliminating any resistance to Empire at home and abroad, are as American as apple pie. It just happens that these practices become much more blatant and brutal whenever capitalism and US hegemony falls into one of its inevitable periodic crises-as we have now- and Empire then needs to come out swinging for its very survival.  The Empire is corrupt and it is collapsing, but it is far from dead.  Change will come. Some believe from the inside, others from the outside, but I’m afraid not before the wounded beast does a lot more damage to humanity and the planet in its desperate struggle to keep madness alive.

By Adrian Boutureira

Houston, October 25, 2010