We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Returning Syrian Refugees Were Fleeing US Proxy War, Not “Assad”

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook
Why would people – enjoying refugee status in neighboring countries and even in Europe, risk returning to Syria where “brutal dictator” Bashar Al Assad not only still remains in power – but has decisively defeated his opponents through the use of “barrel bombs,” “chemical weapons,” and other forms of indescribable brutality?

The answer is simple – refugees were fleeing the US-backed war and the terrorists it had armed to divide and destroy the country – not the Syrian government. The vast majority of Syria’s displaced remained inside Syria – and simply moved into areas under government protection. Now with many other areas of the country having security restored by government forces with Russian and Iranian backing – hundreds of thousands more are returning from abroad, including from Europe – according to the BBC itself.

Great effort had been put into misrepresenting the refugee crisis the Syrian conflict triggered – specifically because the specifics of the crisis clearly revealed who Syrians were really fleeing and why. Analysis of Syria’s internally displaced refugees was intentionally and systematically omitted by the BBC and other Western media organizations in their reports over the years to obfuscate the fact refugees were fleeing militants, and voluntarily returning once militants were pushed out of various regions across Syria.
Cartalucci concludes that the BBC does not report news, but functions purely as a propaganda machine. He should also have concluded that all Empire-controlled media corporations serve the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, and as such are all propaganda machines.

This transnational Empire controls not only their media corporations, but all institutions (for the latest example, see this) in the nations under their control; and they, like never before, insure that all institutions serve their capitalist Empire. When this control breaks down, our capitalist masters have no hesitation and no qualms about calling out their military forces to impose violence on their populations. France is the current illustration. The Empire's capitalism has inevitably evolved into fascism with their thorough use of deception and violence, the last stage of capitalism.

All ruling classes, and especially the capitalist ruling class which has refined deception into nearly a science. They rely on deception to maintain their illegitimate exploitation of working people. Nowadays I witness deception everywhere in corporate media coverage as well as in statements made by official representatives of the ruling class. Being retired, I am fortunate to have the time to read in order to check out sources, but the average working stiff has little time left over after struggling to survive, and thus is rather easily deceived. When they can no longer deceive working people is when they resort to the mailed fist of fascism. So where lies hope?

It appears to me that the capitalist system now faces some unsolvable crises, crises beyond the usual ones of boom and bust, wars, widening gaps between rich and poor, uncontrollable and ever expanding debt that characterize capitalism. Now the capitalists’ obsession with never ending pursuits of profits and power have come up against finite environmental limits for many decades. Their obsession is constantly degrading the environment and threatening catastrophic destabilization of our climate


Perhaps as working people experience the shocks of widespread unemployment, loss of home ownership, less educational opportunities for their children, more debts for those in advanced education, desertification, violent changes in climate, etc., corporate media along with corrupt official representatives and spokespersons will become thoroughly discredited. Then maybe it will be possible to organize working people to take back their government, to create their own media, to create a just and peaceful, sustainable society. My constant anxiety is that by that time, it will be too late.