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

Showing posts with label power structure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label power structure. Show all posts

Sunday, May 2, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Sunday, May 2, 2021

  • Biggest Cover-Up Since Iraq Exposed by Journalist Aaron Maté and featuring Jimmy Dore,  exposing the lies related to the coverup of the official OPCW investigation of chemical weapons used by the Syrian government against their own people. (Note: Aaron Maté has especially devoted lot of work in uncovering this major censorship story. Read this, this, and this for starters, only a part of which I posted many articles on my website.) My reaction: the concentration of ownership of corporations of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire has gone on so long that the CIA and other secretive "intelligence" agencies have over the past 75 years completely turned US, other foreign media corporations, and even some UN agencies toward serving the agenda of world conquest by the Empire. This is understandable when you've seen Bill Gates, as a top funder of the UN's World Health Organization (notice how this is reported in US media corporations--often their reporting is only listed by governments.), overwhelmingly adopt measures advocated by Gates with the latter billionaire influencing the coverage of international media corporations.
  • 💥Brave New Cancel Culture World by Pepe Escobar from "The Saker" weblog. This is a best post. (Note: You should be familiar with the terms "woke revolution" (see this and this) and "cancel culture" (see this and this).) My reaction: I commonly consider the first term as meaning "to wrap yourself in virtue" which implies a fake ethical position, and a corollary of that is "cancel culture" which is used to mean that you don't have to listen to anybody if they offend you, and in order to justify censorship or the allegation of "fake news). The ruling class uses the latter term to shame those they consider "anti-vaxxers", to justify the denial for such people to access to private and public services, and to censor opinions that differ from what the ruling class approves. I consider both terms to be useful for the ruling class to justify their policies of self-serving virtue and intolerance of those opposing their diktats (def.).
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Sunday, February 28, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Sunday, February 28 , 2021

  • Socialism-in-Practice Was a Nightmare, Not Utopia by Richard M. Ebeling from American Institute for Economic Research. (Note: I am posting this as an example of an anti-socialist propaganda that is often used in various forms to put-down any hint of support of socialist aspirations reflected in the writings of mostly young people.) My commentary follows:
I was immediately turned-off when I read this post about the Soviet Union. It is a piece which illustrates anti-Russian propaganda and the way in which socialism is taught in US schools beginning in elementary school through major universities, throughout every other institution, and throughout much of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. It is almost impossible for students to escape being taught this history of the Soviet Union. I sensed this in my own education, and consequently I relied mostly on university libraries and from original writings about Russia’s Revolution of 1917 to obtain an accurate history about their revolution. Nowadays, writers about the subject, and even most radical activists, have a severely distorted history of this constantly maligned country by all the institutions of capitalism.

It obvious that education in capitalist countries must of necessity distort knowledge of this subject because the true history of this period reveals the most heinous acts of Western capitalist countries against the Soviet Union following their revolution. Socialism/communism is the direct opposite of capitalism. The former advocates public control and ownership of the economy whereas in the latter the economy is owned and controlled by private parties which inevitably results in what we have today: gross inequality of wealth, income, and opportunities, that is, a tiny class of powerful billionaires who control everything throughout the capitalist empire among an ocean of powerless, poverty stricken people and indebted nations to banks controlled by capitalists. Only a few nations have resisted this trend--Russia, China, and Iran. But to leaders of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, any independence from their control of the world is unacceptable.

Eberling ignores, or is missing, the real history of these recalcitrant nations. Anywhere in the world where socialist-minded leaders have taken power, they were immediately met with powerful opposition from capitalist nations: in Cuba, Chile, Iran, Russia, China, etc. Lessor nations that evince any independence will be crushed in one way or another (debts to the IMF, sanctions, subversion, color revolutions), and failing all these methods—outright military invasions.

The Soviet Union was a first intentional socialist project that was attempted by dedicated revolutionaries. After their revolution in 1917 they we were met with invasions from 14 different capitalist nations, primarily Britain but including substantial military forces of the USA, Czechoslovakia, and Japan. Russia was already experiencing severe hardships from their participation in WWI, and following the revolution they had to deal with the White Army of the opposition that were mostly funded by the British. The revolutionaries had to contend with a civil war in an impoverished nation while fighting off the invasions of other countries.

The leaders, mainly Lenin and Trotsky, had no illusions about the prospects of victory. They saw that they needed revolutions in advanced capitalist countries, mainly Germany, to have a chance at all. But after the assassinations of Germany's radical leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebnecht, the German revolution was defeated. A few years after the successful Russian Revolution Lenin soon died after being wounded in an assassination attempt, and that left Trotsky as the only ideologically inspired leader of the government. Stalin managed to take control of the bureaucracy and, as they say, the rest is history. Stalin’s control of the Soviet Union was characterized by a ruthless, one man rule, and resulted in a gross distortion of socialism that relied on a bureaucracy inherited from Czarist Russia. Although the Russians in WWII broke the back of the invading Nazi armies and was responsible in large part for the defeat of Nazi Germany, after the war the bureaucracy evolved into a self-serving, privileged ruling class in control of workers and the rest of Russian society. An accurate history of the Russia revolution and subsequent events, which I, with difficulty, managed to obtain from original sources, supports this interpretation.
  • America Condemns Putin & Xi but Supports Gangsters by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation. (Note: Zuesse, like all writers for major online weblogs, have to use circumlocutions for the word ruling class. Here he uses the feudal term "aristocracy" which means ruling class. This is because the latter words are verboten in polite intellectual society, or any word that is in the Marxist lexicon. That is because Marxism is strictly verboten or any related concept like communism or "socialism" in the Marxist definition. Socialism is often currently used, but the ruling class authorities have redefined the concept from that of public ownership of the economy to the current meaning: a more generous capitalist ruling class that provide extra welfare support for the workers--the provision of nationalized medical benefits is the latest related concept. Such intentionally used Marxist words are thought-crimes in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire.) 
My reaction: This an adult take on political reality. If you believe that "authorities" are good and you believe what they tell you to believe, you are indulging in childish fantasies. The reality is that we are being ruled by organized gangsters like Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud or prominent political friends of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. These gangsters, through their well-paid hacks (def--see nouns), go to great lengths to make you believe in their legitimacy or the legitimacy of their government or their social arrangements.
  • Precedent Trump from his weblog The Corbett Report featuring James Corbett (via a 47:32m video) making progress by piercing through political illusions that have been created by the ruling class for (at least) the last 75 years. (Note: If you want to learn about that large segment of the US population who are confused about political issues, you must listen to this post. At least Corbett has reached an understanding that voting is not a solution to our many problems. However, Corbett has not destroyed all illusions of capitalist rule to reach an understanding that capitalism is the problem, but he is making progress.)
  • Privatizing Emotions by John Steppling from his weblog. (Note: Steppling (who now lives in Norway) has had a long career in theater mostly as a playwright. He shares his insights, and those of others, about power and powerlessness.)
  • US NED 2021 - Thailand: More Money, More Sedition featuring Brian Berletic, an ex-Marine who is now living in Thailand, from his weblog Land Destroyer Report reporting in a 8:58m video on NED's funding of agencies interfering in Thailand politics. (Note: NED funds agencies in every nation that the Deep State, the secretive directorate of the capitalist ruling class, regards as important for their strategic interests. This is only one example. See the next example, Ecuador, in the post that follows this.)
  • How We Go Extinct, a 3:13m video (via YouTube) featuring retired scientist Guy McPherson from his channel on YouTube.
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Sunday, February 21, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Sunday, February 21, 2021

  • Musings From Dystopia, a 29:40m video featuring Dave Cullen from his channel Computing Forever on Bitchute. My commentary follows: 
I object to his and other dissidents' statements impugning the climate crisis that we already in. The climate crisis is real and the ruling capitalist classes know it, but they themselves are guilty of causing it. Furthermore, they have chosen the wrong solution--depopulation of "useless eaters", that is, people who don't contribute to the profits of corporations. 
 
And, he is wrong about associating the coronavirus strategies used by capitalist governments with socialism/communism. Cullen's views have been shaped by schools in capitalist Ireland. He mentions billionaires and the rich, but he doesn't associate this with anything--it's just a fact of life like the air we breathe, not a system that capitalists have created to serve their needs of wealth and power. Again, like a good anarchist, he targets the "state" as being the villain. The Irish capitalists will love him for this. But I agree with the rest of his observations regarding the governments' solutions.
  • Is there a remedy for the PCR disease? (Part 1) by T.P. Wilkinson from Dissident Voice. (This article features an important 48:49m video in which "Dr Füllmich, a German attorney, explains why the evidence to date warrants not only charges of fraud (not negligence) and crimes against humanity".)
Amidst mass protests against their US-backed dictator, Abby Martin covers how the American Empire has determined the destiny of the Haitian people for generations. 
  • The Urge to Dominate by Nathan J. Robinson from Current Affairs. (Personal note: I remember in the late 1980s I went to a San Francisco store that advertised as having 10,000 games. I wanted to purchase a cooperative game, but I discovered they had none. I think this experience illustrates the power of a ruling class to shape all institutions in society, even games. Unlike the author, I think cooperative games can be fun, but it teaches values and methods of cooperation not competition which is incompatible with the underlying capitalist system or any other authoritarian and class-based system.
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Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Wednesday, December 2, 2020

  • The Elitists Who Control You featuring comedian and satirist JP Sears (via YouTube channel--to 7:28m) doing a parody on the ruling class (aka "elites") who are addicted to control (you). My reaction: He understands that more than wealth, control of you is what they're all about, that is, what really motivates them.
  • John Titus on Central Bank Digital Currencies featuring a James Corbett conducting a interview with Titus who explains what is currently going on with money, and what is planned in the Great Reset, and posted on The Corbett Report. 
(Note: I haven't thought about money for several years, and I needed this update. I would be presumptuous to claim that I understand his explanation about a phenomenon that has taken over 10,000 years to evolve into what is today--debt money. I thought I understood money, but I had so money questions that I wanted to ask Titus to clarify his explanations.  
I know that issuing digital money gives the Federal Reserve, which is owned by private bankers, near total control over us. I know that BIS, Bank of International Settlements, is a bank in Switzerland that serves a central bank to all central banks. I know that when, in 1971, the USA removed some gold backing from our currency, and instead replaced it with oil-backed petro-dollars in exchange for protecting Saudi Arabia, and their agreement to sell their oil only in US dollars (Kissinger largely engineered this arrangement). I know that when the Fed issues money, it does so by putting the USA deeper in debt to them with interest. I understood a little, but not much else of his explanations. I will revisit this subject, and I encourage you to do likewise by visiting the many links offered in Corbett's show notes and other links, especially links in my website by typing in "money" in the search boxes or accessing the label "money" near the right-hand bottom of the website or "Understanding money" page on the top right-hand side. It's time to revisit this vital subject, to update our understanding of it, and take control of this money-issue in order to ensure that it serves our interest instead of that of the interests of the financiers, the core of our ruling class.)
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Saturday, May 2, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Saturday, May 2, 2020

Caleb Maupin is a widely acclaimed speaker, writer, journalist, and political analyst. He has traveled extensively in the Middle East and in Latin America. He was involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement from its early planning stages, and has been involved many struggles for social justice. He is an outspoken advocate of international friendship and cooperation, as well 21st Century Socialism.
  • Gun-toting protesters in US occupy streets amid virus chaos from PressTV (Iran). (My reaction: I can sympathize with the protestors who oppose the elimination of their jobs. But they need to raise their political consciousness to see that the present stage of capitalism is responsible for this dilemma, and work for efforts to establish a real socialist economy, an economy under their control and serves their interests.)
My commentary: Johnstone argues that the ultimate use of capitalism, the generator of wealth for the "owners" of productive enterprises, is secondary to power that they wish to impose over the populations that capitalist ruling class control. This is in contrast to what I have argued many times in the past that profit and power are essentially two sides of the same coin. Reading her arguments, I am reconsidering my position. She offers examples where profit is trumped by power/control, which is the essence of fascism--the end stage of capitalism.
  • "Conclusion" from "The Breaking Of The Corporate Media Monopoly" by David Edwards, a co-editor, from Media Lens. (Note: Because this is from a British website and presents arguments from British media and society, I am reproducing below the last segment ("Conclusion") from this 2017 article which I think is most critically important for American workers to read. The full post is here.)
Conclusion – The Corporate Media Monopoly Is Broken
One week before the election, the Guardian reported that ‘a new force is shaping the general election debate’:
‘Alternative news sites are run from laptops and bedrooms miles from the much-derided “Westminster bubble” and have emerged as one of the most potent forces in election news sharing, according to research conducted for the Guardian by the web analytics company Kaleida.’
These alternative articles were ‘being shared more widely online than the views of mainstream newspaper commentators’. Remarkably, ‘Nothing from the BBC, the Guardian or the Daily Mail comes close’ to the most-shared alternative media pieces. The Canary reported that it had doubled the number of visitors to its site to six million in May. A story by Evolve Politics, run by just two people, was shared 55,000 times on Facebook and was read at least 200,000 times. These websites ‘explicitly offer a counter-narrative to what they deride as the “MSM” or mainstream media’.

Indeed, the evidence is now simply overwhelming – the 100-year big business monopoly of the mass media has been broken.

It is obvious that the right-wing press – the Daily Mail, the Sun, The Times and Telegraph – play a toxic role in manipulating the public to favour elite interests. But many people are now realising that the liberal press is actually the most potent opponent of progressive change. Journalist Matt Kennard commented:
‘The Guardian didn’t get it “wrong”. It is the mouthpiece of a liberal elite that is financially endangered by a socialist program.’
In truth, the Guardian sought to destroy Corbyn long before he became Labour leader (see here and here). This means that it did not target him because he was an ineffective leader imperilling Labour. And this hostility was no aberration, not a well-intentioned mistake that they got ‘wrong’. To this day, the Guardian remains Blair’s great cheerleader, despite his awesome crimes, just as it was Hillary Clinton and Obama’s cheerleader, and just as it was Bill Clinton’s before them.

While employing a handful of compromised fig leaves, the Guardian has ruthlessly smeared anyone who has sought to challenge the status quo: Julian Assange, Russell Brand, Hugo Chavez, Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, John Pilger, George Galloway and many others. It has also been complicit in the great war crimes of Iraq, Libya and Syria – accepting fake government justifications for war at face value, ignoring expert sources who made a nonsense of the claims, and propagandising hard for the West’s supposed ‘responsibility to protect’ the nations it so obviously seeks to destabilise and exploit.

In our view, the corporate journalists who should be treated with most caution are precisely those celebrated as ‘dissidents’. Corporate media give Owen Jones, George Monbiot, Paul Mason and others immense outreach to draw 100,000s of progressives back to a filtered, corporate version of the world that favours established power and stifles progressive change. Above all, as Jonathan Cook says, the unwritten rule is that they will not speak out on the inherent structural corruption of a corporate media system reporting on a world dominated by corporations.

This is crucial, because, as last week confirms, and as we have been arguing for 16 years, if change begins anywhere, it begins with the public challenging, exposing and rejecting, not just the right-wing press, but the corporate media as a whole, the ‘liberal-left’ very much included.

In the last month, we witnessed astonishing numbers of people challenging all media, all the time on every bias – we have never seen anything like it. The young, in particular, are learning that they do not need highly-paid, privileged corporate employees to tell them what to think.

We don’t need to tolerate a corporate-filtered view of the world. We can inform ourselves and each other, and we can do so with very much more honesty, courage and compassion than any corporate journalist. If there is one message from last week, it’s a simple one – dump the corporate media; all of it.
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Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, February 25, 2020

This rather lengthy piece addresses a very important subject: social-economic and ultimately coercive power. He starts off with a fundamental description of what it is, and ends up with a specific discussion of its presence in the current US election scene. I've long considered this power as a crucial problem that humans have not been able to overcome.
I think power is a fatal human flaw which will end in the extinction of human and many other species. Only in the roughly last 10,000 years have we seen the appearance of self-serving ruling classes. During this history we have seen, because of human cleverness, a vast increase in the number of humans. This period is nearly a "drop in the bucket" compared to the 200,000 years of the appearance of humans on our planet Earth. But during this micro period of "civilization" we've seen one system after another (capitalism is the latest) that created tiny ruling classes through the use of power.
Our evolution has been largely shaped by the last 190,000 years when we lived in tiny bands which became dispersed all over the planet. Human species has not had time to evolve the means to cope with the vast increases of their population in this current period that is required to counter the power of the current ruling classes. Thus, our weakness in confronting powerful ruling classes is our fatal flaw that will end in our extinction due to the ruling classes' destruction of our habitat.
  • Bolivia: Anatomy of a CIA Coup by Hugo Turner from Internationalist 360°. (Note: What struck me about this essay is that the same methods have been used here in the USA with modifications in order to preserve the fiction of "democracy". But after Sanders is neutralized(def.#1) one way or another by the capitalist ruling class, I predict that even this well-worn fiction will be ultimately shattered and ordinary people of the USA will find themselves much like citizens of poorer countries. Then things could get really hot!)
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Thursday, May 23, 2019

Democracy vs. the Putin-Nazis

Click here to access article by C.J. Hopkins from The Unz Review.

This excellent piece about reality deserves so much more of my attention, but I am short of time--I have other tasks to accomplish first. First, of all, this isn't the usual excellent piece of satire that he usually does. In this article he is very serious and insightful.

 The post reminds me of a famous quote from Karl Rove who was so influential in the Bush, Jr. administration.
We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
Because our masters have so much power--they own everything--they can create self-serving "realities". When one reads in the newspapers, see on TV, read in books, hear on the radio from NPR the same "realities", they become reality that is accepted by the people. Our capitalist masters have always done this, but they are now doing it at much greater intensity simply because they own or control every significant media. And also, they have so frequently succeeded in imposing these "realities" on us that they have the confidence that we will believe the most ridiculous "realities".
The “Democracy versus The Putin-Nazis” narrative is our new “reality,” whether we like it or not. It does not matter one iota that there is zero evidence to support this narrative, other than the claims of intelligence agencies, politicians, the corporate media, and other servants of the ruling classes. The Russians are “attacking democracy” because the ruling classes tell us they are. “Fascism is on the march again” because the ruling classes say it is. Anyone who disagrees is a “Putin-sympathizer,” a “Putin-apologist,” or “linked to Russia,” or “favored by Russia,” or an “anti-Semite,” or a “fascist apologist.”

Question the official narrative about the Gratuitously Baby Gassing Monster of Syria and you’re an Assad apologist, a Russian bot network, or a plagiarizing Red-Brown infiltrator.
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Saturday, December 1, 2018

Foreshadowing, Ritual and Symbology in Film

Click here if you wish to access Bonnie Faulkner's 56 minute interview with Jay Dyer directly from her website. (As you may know, she was even too "controversial" for the censors at KPFA, a listener sponsored radio station in Berkeley, California, and as a result she has gone independent.) I regard this as a "best post".
Jay Dyer discusses his book, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film. We take an in-depth look at Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Clockwork Orange; Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, The Ninth Gate and Chinatown; The Manchurian Candidate and The Parallax View, as well as television programs The Lone Gunman and G.I. Joe, with special emphasis on predictive programming, mind control and the influence of the military and intelligence on Hollywood productions.
In the following interview Dyer explains the thesis of his book as being the focus on the connections of a society's power structure on art, particularly film-art in today's capitalist societies. 

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Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Capitalist speech versus people speech

by political cartoonist Matt Wuerker.

This cartoon very well illustrates the truth that a tiny class of capitalists, who rule the US, have overwhelmingly more opportunities to influence decisions than the vast majority of Americans. In addition, it shows the hypocrisy of the propaganda that we are all subject to: "the people have spoken". What is missing from the satire is the power of wealth also enables capitalists to hide a very "inconvenient truth": Their wealth enables them to control both political parties and select their candidates. It's not a perfect system as they discovered in the recent election, but it is sufficient to fool most Americans into believing that they live in a "democracy".

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Wednesday, September 28, 2016

The Media as watchdogs of American hegemony

Click here to access article by James George Jatras from Katehon. 

After examining his resume in various government functions, I thought he could not really deliver on what he promised in this introductory post. After a lengthy reading of his full article, I was rather impressed with how far he went to provide an understanding of the existing power structure in the US, but I also concluded that he stopped safely short of examining any unifying ideology or class structure. 

This article can be considered as an introduction to his longer article "How American Media Serves as a Transmission Belt for Wars of Choice" which I read. In the latter article there was no mention of capitalism or capitalists in the article, and no class structure. The closest he came was his brief designation of an "investor class" at the end of page 35 (PDF). In his section entitled "A note on the role of ideology" there was none to describe the ideology of the US governing deep state. And my final criticism is that he at one point suggests that the only path to bring about change in this deteriorating governing structure is to work within the two party system--even though they have been thoroughly captured by the capitalist ruling class!
...the only path for even marginal change is an insurgency within one of the two established parties. As it happens, in 2016 there was rebellion in both parties. This is not coincidental. The failures of the two-party consensus are evident in voter fury directed against Republicans and Democrats alike....
Still, in spite of its limitations, I regard the article as a very good read.
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Sunday, April 10, 2016

Who’s in Charge? The Power Structure and Foreign Policy

Click here to access this book review by Martin Oppenheimer from New Politics.
Wall Street’s Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics 1975-2014
By: Laurence H. Shoup
Monthly Review Press, 2015. 400 pp. Hardcover, $34, $36 Can.
In books like this, one can learn who really runs our government and in whose interests these "deciders" really serve. In short, one can learn about the "deep state" that pulls the strings of government puppets. Or would you rather be distracted by following websites that cover what's happening with the puppets?
The CFR was founded immediately after World War I and “has been pursuing a world-spanning hegemonic project” that is promoted through a foreign policy “suitable to the U.S. capitalist class” since that time (10-11). Shoup tells us that the consequences of this “neoliberal geopolitical empire” has been “the destruction of unions and working class communities, privatization, speculation, grotesque economic inequality, ecological destruction, and … war and conquest”. This is quite an indictment; the book is a carefully documented effort, largely successful, to provide the evidence for that description.
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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Click here to access a 53.5 minute audio recording of an interview with Alyssa Katz, author of The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life featured on Against the Grain program of KPFA, a listener sponsored radio station in Berkeley, California.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a primary advocacy non-profit organization promoting the interests of corporations that operate mostly within the United States. This organization also serves corporations by mediating disputes among corporations in order to influence government legislation that favors business interests within the US. Katz explains how this organization differs from other such groups like the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, details about its role in promoting corporations, and its history from its origin in 1912.

In the past I have posted many articles about leading capitalist non-profit think tanks, such as Brookings and the Council on Foreign Relations, that function to influence foreign policies (known generally as "neoliberalism") on behalf of transnational financial and industrial corporations. I have also presented a rather tentative theory about a growing contest between nation-based capitalists and transnational capitalists (see especially this, this, and this) in which the latter are winning whenever there are conflicts of interests. 

This contest is played out in various arenas, one of which is revealed in the current election campaigns. Noticeable in corporate media is their bias in favor of Hillary Clinton who represents neoliberal capitalists and against other candidates, especially against Donald Trump who is an uncontrollable maverick capitalist that has much more of a nation-based view of US foreign policies. The fact that corporate media favor Clinton is another bit of evidence that neoliberals are the dominant faction within the US ruling class.
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Sunday, April 6, 2014

Hersh: Turkey Behind Sarin Attacks In Syria

Click here to access article by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama.

Bernhard provides an excellent summary to the much longer article by Seymour Hersh carried in the London Review of Books. Hersh essentially provides an update on all the Empire's secret machinations of the their direct, and indirect support via Turkey, of the jihadist opposition forces in Syria. The crucial events were the bombing of the US embassy and CIA offices in Bengazi, Libya which brought a halt to direct weapons transfer to Turkey (the "rat line"), and the desperate act of Turkish authorities to instigate the false-flag operation of the gas attack supposedly launched by the Syrian government.

It is always interesting and a challenge to tease out the actual decision-makers in the US government. Notice that Hersh's unnamed, but trusted, sources frequently use the expression "the White House" in reference to decisions made, although occasionally the reference is to Obama. It is important to be aware that the White House is not only the residence of the president, but also contains the powerful National Security Council and the White House staff. Obama functions formally, and probably literally, as chairman of the NSC. 

From my observations over many years, I have concluded that the president's main role, especially for the last few decades, is largely that of a public relations officer for the ruling class's government. It is unclear to me who functions as primary "deciders" within the National Security Council. Notice in one part of the article that the Chief of the White House Staff apparently made a very important decision independently:
In the months before the attacks began, a former senior Defense Department official told me, the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] was circulating a daily classified report known as SYRUP on all intelligence related to the Syrian conflict, including material on chemical weapons. But in the spring, distribution of the part of the report concerning chemical weapons was severely curtailed on the orders of Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff. ‘Something was in there that triggered a shit fit by McDonough,’ the former Defense Department official said. ‘One day it was a huge deal, and then, after the March and April sarin attacks’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘it’s no longer there.’ The decision to restrict distribution was made as the joint chiefs ordered intensive contingency planning for a possible ground invasion of Syria whose primary objective would be the elimination of chemical weapons.
And, behind the National Security Council and the While House staff functions the general foreign policy making center of the US, the Council on Foreign Relations.

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