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

Saturday, April 10, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, April 10, 2021

AMSTERDAM — Investigative site Bellingcat is the toast of the popular press. In the past month alone, it has been described as “an intelligence agency for the people” (ABC Australia), a “transparent” and “innovative” (New Yorker) “independent news collective,” “transforming investigative journalism” (Big Think), and an unequivocal “force for good” (South China Morning Post). Indeed, outside of a few alternative news sites, it is very hard to hear a negative word against Bellingcat, such is the gushing praise for the outlet founded in 2014.

This is troubling, because the evidence compiled in this investigation suggests Bellingcat is far from independent and neutral, as it is funded by Western governments, staffed with former military and state intelligence officers, repeats official narratives against enemy states, and serves as a key part in what could be called a “spook to Bellingcat to corporate media propaganda pipeline,” presenting Western government narratives as independent research.
Because most Americans believed that they were the "good guys", partly as a result of understandable WWII propaganda but also because of post-war propaganda throughout all institutions (media, entertainment--Hollywood, and education) that continued unceasingly to the present time. Most Americans believe that they are still the "good guys", the "commies" were the new "bad guys", and the rest of the fairy tales the TV and radio corporations told them in the post-WWII years. 
 
The fascist-leaning, world-dominating aspiring ruling class grew inside the State Department initially through efforts like Wall Street lawyers like John Foster Dulles, Sec. of State, and his brother, Allen Dulles, the eventual head of the unaccountable CIA, together with key members of the Council of Foreign Relations. A subversive coterie of people in both organizations swore an oath of secrecy as to their aims of building an empire after defeating the equally gross ambitions of the German Nazis and their dreams of establishing a German Reich.
 
I need at this point to make a slight detour in my essay to deal with the positive implications of two fairly recent posts (here--9th post and here--2nd post) by authors who I hold in much esteem--Alastair Crooke and Pepe Escobar.  On the strength of these positive references, I ordered the book shortly thereafter. But I was severely disappointed. Stephen Wertheim, the author of Tomorrow the World, has written with huge doses of gaslighting approval of these subversive Americans and their quest to build what is now (what I call) the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. Although the description of pro-fascist tendencies of corporate leaders supporting fascist ideas in the 1930s (also here, and my commentary here) is missing in his book, Wertheim devotes almost his entire book on peripheral issues such as "isolationists" vs internationalists with the latter, due to force of circumstances, morphed into imposing American might on the rest of the world to ensure a Pax Americana from a world faced with endless wars! His book is an apologia for this fascist coterie's secret project of building an empire! I have read widely and from a variety of sources on the lead up to WWII, and I have reached a different conclusion (see here and here). This fascist coterie had to swear an oath to secrecy, which Wertheim admits, because they were going against the wishes not only of the FDR administration but the American people. (FDR didn't trust them.) You can read the history of that period by reading a real history of that period in my recommended books section.
 
Back to my commentary on the above article: I was living in Honolulu, HI in the late 1970's when I met a Korean War veteran and prisoner of war who opted to stay in China after the War because he was so disgusted about the US using bio-warfare against the Koreans and Chinese troops that he didn't want to return home (along with many others who refused repatriation). I don't remember his name, but he was given special permission by the State Department to return home to visit his family. I filed this experience away in my memory. Then in early 2017 I read This Must be the Place by Dave Chaddock and I was convinced that US forces used bio-warfare against Koreans and Chinese. (Read my previous posts here and here.) 
 
I also think that the CIA were so taken by their cover story that American prisoners were somehow brainwashed that they began to study methods of controlling individual's minds. I was convinced of this when I later read reports (like this and this) that the CIA had been pursuing such research at McGill University in Montreal. I wondered if they didn't use these techniques on Sirhan Sirhan to assassinate Robert Kennedy after listening to this interview with a lawyer, William Pepper, that attempted to defend Sirhan Sirhan. I wondered further if they didn't use these techniques on domestic "terrorists" reportedly engaged in mass shootings many of whom were mentally ill or unstable.
Presidents come and go, elections take place periodically, but the power and policymaking resides with deep state planners whose loyalty is not to any particular party but rather to the furtherance of imperial objectives regarding America’s presumed global position and privileges.
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