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Imperialist Wars/Occupations

MALI UNDER ATTACK | April 2012 Car Crash Revealed Elite U.S. Commandos/Secret U.S. Operations in Mali

Mysterious fatal crash provides rare glimpse of U.S. commandos in Mali

The military operation in Mali launched on January 11 is another vivid example of special activities aimed at recolonization of the African continent. It’s an orderly and consistent capture of new African territories by Western powers. They have got hold of Sudan by dismembering it (taking away the oil deposits from the major part of the country), the Nigerian oilfields have been captured in accordance with the International Court of Justice rulings, (1), Libya has been captured as a result of direct military intervention, Cote D’Ivoire has been conquered thanks to a small-scale military action conducted under the aegis of the United Nations. The way to do the things differ, but the result is the same. The process of recolonization picks up momentum in Africa… – Military Intervention in Mali: Special Operation to Recolonize Africa, January 14, 2013

FLASHBACK | The True Story Behind the Rwandan and Congolese Genocides

FLASHBACK | The True Story Behind the Rwandan and Congolese Genocides

13 January 2011

Mayday Magazine

by  Antony Black and Christopher Black

“Propaganda”. What does the word invariably suggest, but that we are above it. Certainly we could never fall for the Big Lie and certainly not one of the largest lies to be perpetrated in modern history. A lie whose grim shadow covers the restive ghosts of some three to six millions souls awaiting the truth.

For the truth is that Paul Kagame, his Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and their allies are responsible for the Rwandan “genocide” of 1994 and the multiple follow-up genocides in what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) from 1996 to the present. Kagame and the RPF, the very actors who claimed to be the victims and saviours, share this responsibility with those who allegedly came to their “aid”: i.e. the leading political figures in the United States, Britain, Canada, Belgium, Uganda, and Tanzania. The United Nations was also complicit, as were numerous Western NGOs, prominent American journalists and virtually the entirety of the Western corporate press.

The Most Important COP Briefing That No One Ever Heard | Truth, Lies, Racism & Omnicide

 The Art of Annihilation

Dec 10, 2012

By Cory Morningstar

 

“This was nothing less than a colonisation of the sky. $10 billion is not enough to buy us coffins.” — Lumumba Di-Aping

On December 11, 2009, one of the most important briefings in the history of the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP15) took place in Copenhagen. If we lived in a world in which what we see, what we are told, and what we believe matched our existing reality, this briefing would have become the basis of all future climate negotiations and discussions. Of course, that is not the world we live in. Rather, we live in a world of unfettered illusion that is fed and fetishized by a feast of denial, apathy, subservience, obedience, consumption and distraction.

Leading up to COP15, the institutionalized environmental “movement” united under an umbrella organization/campaign titled TckTckTck, a social media giant, contrived by some of the world’s most powerful corporations and the world’s most powerful marketing executives. (The trademark TckTckTck was registered, on November 30, 2009, by the EURO RSCG firm, a subsidiary of Havas Worldwide). [1] One such TckTckTck partner was the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change consisting of corporations such as Shell, RBF and Coca-Cola. (Signatories here) When this information was uncovered and made public, TckTckTck removed them from their website. (See screenshot).

The Demands

“350 ppm is a death sentence.… The safe level of CO2 for SIDS (Small Island Developing States ) is around 260 parts per million.… CO2 buildup must be reversed, not allowed to increase or even be stabilized at 350 ppm, which would amount to a death sentence for coral reefs, small island developing states, and billions of people living along low lying coastlines.” — AOSIS Briefing 2009 [2]

Despite the “demands” by the hope industry for a “fair, ambitious, binding agreement” – which consisted of an inadequate 40% global emission reductions by 2020, with no disclosed baseline – the G77, AOSIS (Alliance of Small Island States), and the Bolivian government (under the leadership of Indigenous president, Evo Morales) aggressively pursued the scientific targets necessary in order for the world to avoid complete ecological collapse and a global genocide of unparalleled proportions. This empty demand of a “fair, ambitious, binding agreement” was the marketing centre of the campaign that grew from that oligarchy’s wet dream, the corporate social engineering creation, TckTckTck.

Bolivia and the AOSIS called for an agreement to keep the global temperature from exceeding no more than a 1ºC rise and to reduce atmospheric CO2 to 300 ppm. In stark contrast, the corporate nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) “demanded” that temperatures not exceed a +2ºC rise and further “demanded” that world emissions peak within 8 years (meaning that emissions would continue to increase, business as usual, for a further 8 years, at which point we would begin an effort to decrease). TckTckTck includes over 350 international partners (280 in 2009) including Avaaz, 350.org (who signed on at inception – see HAVAS pager/press release), Conservation International, Greenpeace International, World Wildlife Fund (and many more pro-REDD advocates and climate-wealth profiteers) as well as Climate Action Network International [3] who represents (and speaks on behalf of) over 700 NGOs. CAN also lobbies governments for REDD – a false solution that breeds a new form of climate racism and climate colonialism. [“In Africa, REDD is emerging as a new form of colonialism, slavery, economic subjugation and a driver of land grabs so massive that they may constitute a continent grab.”] [During COP15, a representative from the IPCC stated that at an increase of temperature just below 2 degrees above pre-industrial level, the poor, the vulnerable and the disenfranchised would not survive, and below 1.5 degrees there would be a chance of survival.]

Regarding the issue of human rights and climate justice, the hundreds of corporate NGOs, by campaigning to convince the public to accept the global average temperature further rising up to a 2ºC limit, thereby sanction most all species on this planet to an unprecedented annihilation within decades. (Note: Consider that at under +1ºC, we are already committed to a minimum +2.4ºC not including feedbacks [Ramanathan and Feng 2008 paper]. Further, note climate scientist James Hansen’s warning that even 1ºC now looks like an unacceptably high risk.)

While the non-profit industrial complex, including the vast majority of the climate justice movement, may have succeeded in keeping both their eyes wide shut, leaders of vulnerable countries did not. [Who Really Leads on the Environment? The “Movement” Versus Evo Morales].

 Truth

Artist: Abezgus E.V., Koretsky V.B. , Title: Neo- colonialism is nation’s robbery, Year: 1965

 “I would rather die with my dignity than sign a deal that will channel my people into a furnace.” — Lumumba Di-Aping

One of the most inspiring leaders present at the COP15 was the ever so eloquent Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator of the G77. (The G77 bloc is the major group of developing countries, many of which are among the most threatened by effects of climate change, as well as the largest developing country bloc represented at the COP15.) Although Di-Aping was Sudanese by birth, his parents (who called themselves “Lumumbist”) named Di-Aping after the famous Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. (Lumumba, the anti-colonialist democratically-elected prime minister of the Congo, was assassinated in 1960 having been deemed a severe threat by the U.S. due to his uncompromising ideas of freedom and African unity. He played a leading role in the struggle for the liberation of Africa and all of Africa’s resources.)

At the historic press conference which took place on November 11, 2009 in Copenhagen, Di-Aping addressed the international NGO community. The conference room was packed with representatives of the non-profit industrial complex and corporate media complex, which includes the so-called progressive media. In a most direct approach, Di-Aping asked NGOs to support the demand that developed countries cut emissions 52% by 2017; 65% by 2020; and 80% by 2030 (based on a 1990 baseline). Further, Di-Aping asked the NGOs to demand GHG emission cuts well above 100% by 2050, which would (perhaps) keep the global temperature from exceeding a rise of no more than 1.5ºC. These targets, if met, would perhaps allow Africa to merely stay alive.

A 2ºC rise in global temperature, which the non-profit industrial complex campaigned upon, would mean a 3.5ºC rise for Africa. This temperature is certain death for the African peoples – certain death for billions. In addition, a 2ºC global temperature rise guarantees a minimum 4ºC+ global temperature for future generations. In the film footage provided below, one bears witness to Di-Aping speaking directly to the Climate Action Network (International) representatives.

One must note the disturbing irony. After the press conference was finished, a standing ovation erupted. The room shook with an audience both inspired and enraptured. Depending on one’s depth of understanding of foundations, corporate power structures and the non-profit industrial complex, one may or may not be surprised at what happened afterwards, which was, quite simply, nothing. The white ivory towers, ever so acquiescent to their hegemonic rulers, wrote off the African people by continuing their “demand” for “a fair, ambitious, binding agreement.” In other words: “Sorry about your bad luck, Africa. Enjoy your future of hell on Earth … and fuck you.”

The non-profit industrial complex, with CAN and TckTckTck at the forefront, stuck to their 2ºC and other suicidal (non)targets. The climate justice groups dared on occasion to demand that temperatures not exceed 1.5ºC, while any discussion demanding that 1ºC be supported and campaigned upon sent this faction, too, running scared like frightened field mice. Climate justice amounted to nothing more than a branded trademark. Silence and compliance reigned as the champagne circuit discussed career options over cocktails.

Below are excerpts from the only transcript that exists.

 

 “The second issue is the issue of reductions of emissions. There must be radical reductions of emissions starting from now. In our view, by 2017 we should cut, developed countries must cut by 52%, 65% by 2020, 80% by 2030, well above 100 [percent] by 2050. And this is very important because the more you defer action the more you condemn millions of people to immeasurable suffering. So the idea that you start from 4% today and you achieve 80 or 50 in 2050 simply means that you do not care about the lives of those who will be devastated in this period, until you pick up the pace.”

“… and I will say this to our colleagues from Western civil society — you have definitely sided with a small group of industrialists and their representatives and your representative branches. Nothing more than that. You have become an instrument of your governments. Whatever you say, whether you think it’s because it’s tactically shrewd or not, it’s an error that you should not continue to make.”

“So ask yourself, are your executive branches climate skeptics, notwithstanding their addresses like the prime minister of the UK that the cost of inaction on climate change is irreparable. His actions say he’s worse than the worst of climate skeptics. If he had asked bankers to pocket 300 billion dollars because of ‘incentivizing’ profit-seeking activities and he says 500 million is the maximum that the United Kingdom government can afford to pay to support climate change, what are we saying? What are you saying? I wonder what the distinguished colleagues from CAN are saying about that.”

“Many of you equally, and I will say this, and I would have never thought that one day I will accuse a civil society of such a thing. Dividing the G77, or helping divide the G77, is simply something that should be left to the CIAs, the KGBs and the rest [not the NGOs].”

“It’s mind boggling, and I say this having been the beneficiary of absolute support from civil society. Many of you may not know this, I come from southern Sudan. We’ve been through wars for almost 90% of our lives since independence, so I’m not sure what happened exactly to the civil society that I do know or at least knew.”

“If you have received help that enabled you to rebuild your economies and to become prosperous, how come suddenly you have turned mean? Because that 2.5 billion dollars is definitely what some of the big western industrialists lose without a sleep over a trade [lose over a trade without losing any sleep].”

Raw Footage, Lumumba Di-Aping, December 11, 2009 [Running time: 12:30]

Three days earlier, on December 8, 2009, a meeting comprised of approximately 100 African representatives of the non-profit industrial complex was announced. At the onset of this impromptu gathering (which also included a small handful of African parliamentarians), it was requested by the organizers that all microphones be turned off in order to ensure that discussions about to take place would not be recorded. (It must be noted that Di-Aping made a point of turning his microphone on.) Following introductions, Di-Aping was given the floor. Standing before the audience, Di-Aping was still. Initially he did not speak. Rather, he sat silent, as tears streamed down his face. After a long silence, Di-Aping spoke in unabashed candor. He cradled his head in his hands and stated: “We have been asked to sign a suicide pact.” The silence was deafening. The audience froze. People had no idea of how one should react to a powerful negotiator, an African elder if you like, exhibiting – in fact sharing – his raw emotions.

 “This] is asking Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dependence of a few countries. It’s a solution based on values that funnelled six million people in Europe into furnaces.” — Lumumba Di-Aping commenting on the (non-binding) Copenhagen accord

After regaining his composure, in methodical tone, Di-Aping meticulously explained the science demonstrating why the 2ºC target being sought by the leading obstructionist states was not only certain death for Africa, but also representative of a new type of climate fascism being imposed on the African people. Di-Aping pointed out that the African negotiating delegations were weak, due to many having been “bought off” by the industrialized states, while simultaneously members of the South Africa delegation had aggressively sought to disrupt the unity of the bloc. Di-Aping, stressing the urgent need to hold Africa’s negotiators to account and the difficult struggle ahead, was unequivocal in his assessment, bluntly stating, “You have no idea of the powers that are arrayed against you.”

One example of a foundation serving as a front group for US industrialists cited by Di-Aping was the Climate Works Foundation. The CEO of Climate Works is William K. Reilly. Prior to his position with Climate Works, Reilly served as the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, president of the World Wildlife Fund, president of The Conservation Foundation, and director of the Rockefeller Task Force on Land Use and Urban Growth. As well, he headed the U.S. Delegation to the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992.

Di-Aping called upon the NGOs to demand that their African leaders reject the agreement and further, to make very clear demands. Di-Aping suggesting campaigning on the slogans: “One Africa, one degree” and “Two degrees is suicide.”

After the meeting was concluded, Di-Aping apologized to those present explaining that as a child in Sudan, he was taught that it was “better to stand and cry than to walk away.”

Plato’s Climate Justice

It is beyond obvious that the word “justice” loses all of its meaning when the “climate justice” movement 1) refuses to support what is necessary in order for the world’s most vulnerable to simply survive, and 2) refuses to represent those on the front lines of climate change who have pleaded with them to represent the interests of the world’s most vulnerable. In Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus argues that justice is mere trickery – the interest of the strong – nothing more than a name for what the powerful elites or cunning ruler have imposed on the people. This description seems to fit like a velvet glove within this context.

It is interesting to note that the taping of this conference can be found under Rockefeller’s 1Sky (now officially/publicly merged with 350.org) video archives where they highlight under the description: “Pt. 1 includes sections ‘Introduction’, ‘Importance of 1.5 degrees C and 350ppm’, and ‘Unacceptable targets and resulting deaths.’” In both parts 2 and 3 as well as in other video clips of this same press conference, 1Sky neglects to make mention of Di-Aping’s scathing comments regarding the conduct of the NGOs. Thus, 1Sky/350.org provides an inadequate description of the press conference to those they falsely claim to represent – purposely neglecting to highlight the significant fact that the G77 had requested that NGOs campaign on the absolute necessity of deep and immediate emissions cuts. There is no disputing the fact that 1Sky/350.org et al purposely rejected these ambitious emissions targets. [Further reading: Rockefellers’ 1Sky Unveils the New 350.org | More $ – More Delusion andThe Climate Cartel: 1Sky, 350.org and Rockefeller Brothers | Stronger as One]

Of little surprise was the fact that corporate media gave no coverage to the Di-Aping press conference. The so-called “progressive” media, incidentally also funded by the corporate elites via their tax-exempt foundations, were also silent when it came to sharing the very critical issues Di-Aping had spoken of on the international stage. Controlling, manipulating and shaping public opinion has never been such a good investment. It has never been so easy. Ironically, the same “dirty oil money” that funds the “polluters” as decried by “the left” is the same “dirty oil money” that funds the environmental movement. Even the “scruffy little outfits” have lined up to get a taste of the candy. And once they taste it, they’re hooked, bought and sold – all in one breath.

As to be expected, the corporate creation TckTckTck also buried the Di-Aping press conference. TckTckTck boasts 17 million followers. “Followers” is indeed an appropriate description – like sheep to the slaughter. TckTckTck can ask 17 million followers to buy a video game for 9.99 to “save the planet” (“because today you can change the Fate of the world for only $9.99!”) yet they will not and cannot distribute any reports of relevance. 350.org, which claims to have “the most powerful brand in the world,” did not share Di-Aping’s pleas. 350.org promotes climate scientist James Hansen as their “350 messenger” in order to legitimize their “brand,” yet they will not and cannot distribute Hansen’s scientist papers (or even summaries) to their followers. Climate Action Network (CAN) International, “representing” over 700 NGOs, did not share Di-Aping’s pleas. Nor did the climate justice movement itself.

“…[B]eyond 1 degree C may elicit rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage.” — 1990, United Nations Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases

The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis humanity has ever witnessed. The disappearance of the 1ºC maximum temperature rise cited in 1990 by the United Nations may well be considered the greatest crime against humanity of all time. [http://theartofannihilation.com/category/articles-2010/expose-the-2o-death-dance-the-1o-cover-up-part-i/] The greatest danger we face today is continued ignorance, denial and obedience, as methane torches erupt and ice sheets disintegrate at an ever accelerating pace.

One may wonder if grossly undermining the ambitious positions put forward by Bolivia, ALBA states, the G77 and small island states was part of the “critical work” the non-profit industrial complex speaks of.

In fact, it was.

What the public and, tragically, what remains in the charred ashes of the environmental movement itself, neglects to understand is that the critical work that the non-profit industrial complex performs brilliantly is not work to advance civil society, who these self-appointed NGOs falsely claim to represent. Rather, the critical work is performed in the spirit of “bread and circuses” for those who the non-profit industrial complex serves first and foremost – their funders.

The Movement is Racist  

“It is unfortunate that after 500 years-plus of interaction with the West, we [Africans] are still considered disposables.” — Lumumba Di-Aping

The question must be asked: was this deliberate dismissal of Lumumba Di-Aping’s briefing nothing more than blatant racism? The short answer to this question is an unequivocal yes.

An underlying, perhaps subconscious, yet very real and deep-rooted racism (or at least a complete obliviousness to that which is considered “other”) very quietly hums along beneath the entire system – resulting in the EuroAmerican-dominated environmental “movement” acquiescing to the industrialized capitalist system. Thus the reality of those oppressed and exploited on the receiving end of the system is an inconvenient fact that is ignored at all costs by practically everyone (predominantly the privileged white) within the complex.

“Aversive racism is a term coined by Joel Kovel to describe the subtle racial behaviors of any ethnic or racial group act who rationalize their aversion to a particular group based on majority rules and stereotypes. People who behave in an aversively racial way have beliefs in egalitarianism, but will often deny their racially motivated behavior, or shift behavior when dealing with a member of a minority group. Most of this behavior is considered to be implicit or subconscious. Though Kovel coined the term, most of the research has been done by John F. Dovidio and Samuel L. Gaertner.” [Source: Wikipedia]

There is no other sound explanation for how those who state they are “fighting” for “climate justice” were/are willing to undermine countries like Bolivia, Tuvalu and the G77, AOSIS and ALBA states, with a full understanding that millions more lives will be lost. The true grassroots organizations that actually tell the full truth and fight for what is necessary (Earth Peoples, and Global Coral Reef Alliance as just two examples) are marginalized and isolated to the point of invisibility by the complex.

There is no other sound explanation for the dead silence on the ongoing genocide in the Congo since 1996. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, President Hyppolite Kanambe (alias Joseph Kabila) of the Congo are the three “leaders”  facilitating the Western pillage and occupation of Central Africa, responsible in large part for over ten million people dead since the U.S.-backed invasion of 1996. Of course, these are the African faces of Western occupation and imperialism. [4] This genocide far exceeds that of the Holocaust, which to this day is seared into the minds of all EuroAmerican societies. Yet the question must be asked, what if these men, women and children of the Congo were white? After 19 years of suffering and death, the Congo remains locked under illegal occupation by the Imperialist powers, including the United Nations itself.

On September 11, 2001, 3,000 people, predominately white Americans, were killed when the Word Trade Center’s twin towers were destroyed in New York. This operation opened up the door for an unparalleled slaughter in the Middle East, which only continues to escalate. The illegal occupations and covert wars (Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan) are now expanding far beyond Iraq, Afghanistan, most recently with the invasion and decimation of Libya (2011) resulting in as many as or more than 100,000 deaths. This NATO-led imperialist invasion under the guise of “humanitarian intervention” instilled and incited a most horrific and unimaginable racial “cleansing” of the black population, including black women, whose breasts were cut off their bodies with machetes.

Not only was the NGO community silent, 78 NGOs (again, predominantly white) led the way for the invasion. When the “evidence” (which provided a premise for NATO entry into the country) presented by the NGOs was proven false, was the international community horrified? Did the NGOs apologize profusely for their pivotal role in the slaughter and the obliteration of an entire country that, prior to the invasion, possessed the best living standards in all of Africa? No, not on your life. Instead, they are adamant to carry out a repeat performance in Syria. Yet another imperialist-imposed destabilization. And when an Italian grassroots anti-war group organized an urgent appeal to the UN to demand the opposite – no foreign intervention – and distributed it to the international community of NGOs, how receptive was “the movement”? Although the U.S. and Canada have been integral in placing sanctions upon Syria, with the U.S. chomping at the bit to invade, only one organization in Canada and one single organization in the United States endorsed this appeal, in spite of an urgent call-out for signatures including distribution within an international climate justice network. This is important to note as the so-called climate justice movement has full knowledge of militarism’s massive contribution to our escalating climate crisis.

Also in 2011, the non-profit industrial complex was implicated in an attempted destabilization of Bolivia. The NGOs (Avaaz, Amazon Watch, Democracy Center) who led/lead this charge (demonizing Indigenous president Evo Morales) excel in the manipulation of the public while money channeled from US powers (state and foundations) via USAID and CIDOB (Confederación de Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente Boliviano) focus on coercion and manipulation within Indigenous populations, utilizing soft power where tensions may currently already exist. Hard power is the strategy of coercion via force, whereas soft power is coercing via manipulation and seduction – like a slow, methodical, death dance. There are no organizations in a better position to employ soft power methods than those that comprise the non-profit industrial complex.

npicisdirty

This complex has become an essential tool for the power-hungry imperialist states, ever more threatened by the increasing rise of the Global South who resolutely, in unity, work towards severing the chains of enslavement, imperialism and colonialism, once and for all. A long-term strategic objective of Western policy planners is to prevent such independence by any means necessary. Thus, the destruction of any/all independent sovereign states (such as Libya, Syria, Iran, etc.) and the destabilization, isolation and encirclement of the rising global powers (in particular China and Russia) is crucial. Further, the welfare of the people is of absolutely no concern to those who salivate in the wings, waiting for the opportune moment to invade under the guise of humanitarian intervention. Puppet governments installed by the imperialist states don’t serve their citizens (who are completely irrelevant in the eyes of the corporatocracy), but rather provide a false legitimacy for the occupation of the seized state in order to grant business contracts to the colonial powers and global corporations while privatizing all services. Case in point: Despite the Congo being the world’s largest supplier of both copper and coltan, and many other precious minerals, the total tax revenue on these products in 2006-7 amounted to a miniscule £32 million. “This is surely far less than what even the most useless neo-colonial puppet would have demanded.” [Source: http://www.gata.org/node/5651]

Also Ignored by the Non-Profit Industrial Complex at COP15

  • UNFCCC was already, a binding agreement. So was the Kyoto Protocol.
  • The world was already far beyond dangerous interference with the climate system, according to both James Hansen and John Holdren.
  • Although tipping points were almost always spoken of in the future tense, methane hydrates had already begun venting, shocking the scientific community.
  • Bolivia’s position paper cited that global temperatures must not exceed 1ºC and the world must return to 300 ppm. Ignoring Bolivia’s leadership, the “movement” called for a full degree higher (2ºC) and 350 ppm. 350 ppm  is in fact considered the very upper limit / maximum limit for mere stabilization by James Hansen.
  • The fact that climate scientist Kevin Anderson warned the world that by 2050 a mere half billion people would perhaps survive (based on a 4ºC global temperature rise, which is our current minimum trajectory, and a population of 9 billion).
  • That only by achieving zero carbon (as recognized by IPCC) can the Earth even begin to cool.
  • That the Ramanathan & Feng (2008) paper suggests we are committed today to a minimum 2.4ºC rise even if we were to achieve zero emissions tomorrow.
  • That feedbacks, once they are fully operational, are irreversible.
  • That militarism (whose emissions are exempted) is one of the primary contributors to climate change. “My view is that the climate has already crossed at least one tipping point, about 1975-1976, and is now at a runaway state, implying that only emergency measures have a chance of making a difference.… The costs of all of the above would require diversion of the trillions of dollars from global military expenditures to environmental mitigation.” — Andrew Glikson, Earth/Paleoclimate Scientist
  • That industrialized livestock contributes over 50% of all GHG emissions.
  • That the industrialist capitalist system is the very root cause of climate change. The climate crisis can neither be solved nor averted within this economic system.

After COP15 – The People’s Agreement

Why is it that the video of Venezuela’s fiery Claudia Salerno, who refused to stay silent on the bribery and blackmailing taking place within the COP17 corridors, was not publicized by the movement? Why is it that Bolivia’s Forest Proposal received/receives no support from “the movement”? (Instead they chase the REDD scheme, which is being opposed by indigenous groups across the planet.) Why is it, even though “the movement” claims it wants real action on climate change, they absolutely refuse to endorse the People’s Agreement? [5] Further, the same question must be put to civil society: Why is it, although civil society claims to want real action on climate change, they are only interested in symbolic organizations and meaningless token gestures? Why do we have 17 million citizens following TckTckTck and only 438 following the People’s Agreement? Surely civil society must acknowledge that these are the choices we make and that we make alone. No one has a gun to our heads (yet). Is it simply because the world’s most powerful NGOs are composed of largely white “leaders”? We claim disgust at symbolic, empty gestures, yet, when given the choice of what we wish to support – the People’s Agreement or the meaningless “fair, ambitious, binding agreement” – we fall over one another lusting after the shiny green patina that emulates the American empire, an empire of death, racism, genocide and colonialism. And like the empire, with the other rich nations, the international NGO community believes that they are the chosen ones, in control of the world. The champagne circuit is alive, well, wealthy – and predominantly white.

Further Irony

In 1990, an international environmental NGO believed that policy must reflect the understanding that the world must not exceed a 1ºC temperature rise. Approximately two decades later, with a full climate crisis now engulfing the planet, this same NGO “fought” in Copenhagen for a binding agreement that would allow the Earth to further warm to a full 2ºC. Who was this NGO? None other than TckTckTck partner, Greenpeace, at whose helm sits Kumi Naidoo. And who is the chair of TckTckTck? Kumi Naidoo. The token “black” of the non-profit industrial complex, donned with a white mask – the non-profit version of Obama.

Today

Consider the vulgarity of this following fact. One percent of Earth’s citizens are creating 50% of the global GHG emissions. This means that 99% of the non-profit industrial complex and those they protect, in others words, most all those attending the United Nations Conferences on behalf of the wealthy states, are the very ones demanding they be allowed to continue unprecedented gluttony. In the opposite corner, we have Bolivia, many of the African states, and ALBA states – a collective of the poorest people on the planet (in a monetary sense), whose emissions are almost irrelevant – pleading with us to live within reason, simply so they can live at all. Some would describe this as a call for simple decency. While to deny a populace the right to simply live may appear to be normal conduct for state “leaders,” the fact that professional “activists” uphold the same doctrine demonstrates unequivocally that everything can be justified and anyone is disposable when it comes to protecting white privilege.

Three years later at COP18 in Doha, Bolivia once more leads on the world stage. Alone. Again. One would be hard pressed to find even one organization endorsing or promoting Bolivia’s alternate proposal to REDD or any other futurist ideologies that Bolivia has put forward to share with the world – this from one of the most poverty-ridden states in the world. Although poor monetarily, Bolivia’s unsurpassed wealth of knowledge, compassion and visionary philosophies makes it clear that in reality it is the EuroAmerican mindset that is pitiful, starved and depraved.

2ºC = 4ºC = Omnicide

 “Truth is treason in an empire of lies.” — George Orwell

Today, states and complying scientists are quietly recommending a 2ºC to 2.5ºC target; although most subtle, this target is now to be perceived and thus portrayed as transient warming. Meaning it is not being thought of/identified any longer as equilibrium warming, as the specific 1996 EU target was meant to be (the EU target was where the 2ºC guardrail came from: policy, not science). This means that “experts” (influential institutions and scientific bodies who obediently tow the line) are now in effect recommending that we heat the planet to 4ºC. While Professor Kevin Anderson explains that to avoid catastrophic climate change impacts, 1ºC is the new 2ºC and while climate scientist James Hansen states unequivocally that 1ºC is the true danger limit, we are now being prepared to submissively accept 4ºC. The fact is that to avoid 2ºC equilibrium we must limit warming to no more than 1ºC this century. [6] We either drastically conserve and sacrifice today or bury our children tomorrow. And of course, we cannot hold the temperature at 1ºC under the current economic system – the industrialized capitalist system, the very root cause of our climate crisis. The crisis is profound and unprecedented. Collectively, we steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the severity of our multiple crises, our most daunting of challenges and the harshest of realities – all staring at us directly in the face. We look back only to see ourselves.

Why it Matters

“NGOs of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your funding.” — Ashwin Desai

The so-called environmental movement refuses to acknowledge, let alone discuss, the fact that it’s been bought, sold and muzzled, and now lies in ruins in a pile of ashes. Civil society remains largely unaware of this truth, let alone the key factors behind it. And this in itself is tragic, because this issue is one of the key factors as to why we, as a global society, have failed to mitigate our environmental crisis, and why we continue to advance further to the very precipice. Trained from birth to not challenge authority, to not offend, to be obedient, to be polite – we remain silent. Yes, impeccable manners, avoid conflict, and above all, do not question those who “know best.” Our deeply internalized passivism is as great a threat as the forthcoming climate apocalypse itself.

Ignorance really is bliss and I do want change as long as that means nothing really changes. Please pass the soma.

Implications

The implications are many. It is clear that those who claim non-profit status, on the basis that they represent civil society, clearly do not. This then presents the question as to who elected these NGOs who falsely claim to represent civil society, all while serving corporate interests? The logical question that then follows, the question that must be asked, is what constitutes criminal negligence? If countries like Bolivia and G77 are prepared to take the radical, necessary positions to avert annihilation, what does it say about our environmental movement when it resolutely undermines them? If we dismiss this factual information, what does this disclose about us? Do we deserve anything more than the representation we are receiving if we deny the facts? Finally, how can governments expect to take the necessary positions if, when they do, they do not receive the support of civil society?

Lastly, what the hell do we expect when our entire movement is funded by the very same interests that are intent on destroying us? We need to stop defending and finding excuses for those selling us out and start defending our children from a future being shaped and moulded by the global oligarchy. We can’t have it both ways.

 “So, I want just to say join hands with those of us who really want a real change, because I’m confident it will come. And it will come, let me say this, whether you do or don’t. But let it not be the case that western civil society sided with the powers that be in the West. Thank you. [Thundering Applause]” Lumumba Di-Aping

In the volumes of information that will be left on our finite planet when all traces of life have, for the most part, disappeared, the film footage of Ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus-Kaw Di-Aping of the G77 will serve as a testament to who was responsible for criminal negligence, crimes against humanity, and finally, lastly, a global genocide destroying most all life: the non-profit industrial complex.

Notes:

Briefing to Civil Society NGOs by Ambassador Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping. December 11th, 2009.

Full transcript:

 Thank you for, I suppose, inviting me to address you this afternoon. As you know, the last few days since the beginning of this conference we have witnessed many events. I’m going to go very quickly through what I do consider to be the most critical aspects for a successful outcome in this conference. And this is of particular importance to us. We do believe that civil society and the parliament have a very critical role for our success. Without you the executive branches can get away with anything.

 Now, what do we really believe are the critical success factors that we have to unite behind, because these are not simply negotiable for us as developing countries.

 The first fundamental that we have to agree on at 5(4) is the issue of the 1.5 degree Celsius and the 350 ppm. And the centrality of this is because a deal that cannot save God, humanity and nature is not a deal that we should entertain in the first place. Those who articulated a perspective and tried to persuade us that the 2 degrees Celsius is a sound choice have made a trade off between life, humanity, and profit-seeking pursuits. It has no base in science. The very reports that they try to persuade us that they are based on, do not support their case. The IPCC AR4 [4th Assessment Report] says that two degrees Celsius will result in Africa warming up to 3.5[C] and the small islands states equally being threatened by the sea level rise. I will say this and I will say it with absolute conviction. Two degrees Celsius is certain death for Africa, is certain devastation of island states.

 The policy decision maker, the scientists who try to do that, is definitely not only ill-advising others, he is ill-advising himself. So that’s one fundamental, if not the starting proposition for beginning sound negotiations and discussions.

 The second issue is the issue of reductions of emissions. There must be radical reductions of emissions starting from now. In our view, by 2017 we should cut, developed countries must cut by 52%, 65% by 2020, 80% by 2030, well above 100 [percent] by 2050. And this is very important because the more you defer action the more you condemn millions of people to immeasurable suffering.

 So the idea that you start from 4% today and you achieve 80 or 50 in 2050 simply means that you do not care about the lives of those who will be devastated in this period, until you pick up the pace. And this is one of the reasons we have asked the American administration, the American people, President Obama to join the effort and to join Kyoto Protocol.

 We must defend Kyoto Protocol. And those who think that not defending Kyoto Protocol is the way forward are totally misguided because if you eliminate the balance of obligations between developed and developing countries — and I will say this to our colleagues from Western civil society — you have definitely sided with a small group of industrialists and their representatives and your representative branches. Nothing more than that. You have become an instrument of your governments. Whatever you say, whether you think it’s because it’s tactically shrewd or not, it’s an error that you should not continue to make.

Having said that, we do believe equally that a very significant, substantial financial package, both for short term and long term, is necessary. How do we define that? Simple. We must avail, or developed countries must avail in the next 5 years, fast track financing. That fast track financing is the equivalent of 1% of the GNP of developed countries. It’s around 400 to 500 billion dollars depending on where … what happens to their economies. Of this, 150 billion dollars can be issued with immediate effect because, as we speak today, the IMF is sitting over 283 billion dollars’ worth of SDR’s [Special Drawing Rights or supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund] that are not allocated. Simply sitting doing absolutely nothing, when we face a threat.

 Many of you would say 400 billion dollars is a lot of money. Well, think about how much is being poured into your defence budgets and which wars are you fighting. Is there another war greater than this war on climate change?  I don’t think so. But let me equally give you the fallacy related to how big this amount is. The European [Union] today were proud to announce that there would be 2.3 billion or 2.5 billion dollars available from now until 2012. Well, the sad news is 300 billion dollars was the amount of money that bankers in London city pocketed this year.

 So ask yourself, are your executive branches climate skeptics, notwithstanding their addresses like the prime minister of the UK that the cost of inaction on climate change is irreparable. His actions say he’s worse than the worst of climate sceptics. If he had asked bankers to pocket 300 billion dollars because of “incentivizing” profit-seeking activities and he says 500 million is the maximum that the United Kingdom government can afford to pay to support climate change, what are we saying? What are you saying? I wonder what the distinguished colleagues from CAN are saying about that.

 Moreover, would you believe that, what is important here, in this particular conference, is decision making. There is a lot of fallacy being spread that we need a new legal instrument. Well, a decision is a legal instrument. A court decision is binding. An executive decision is binding.

 A legal instrument means that you as civil society are choosing that there shall be no actions for another 15 to 20 years. Think about the journey from the Stockholm Conference to the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change]. How many years did it take the environmentalists to convince many decision makers that right action on environment is actually the pursuit of greener, low-carbon, carbon emissions?

 Many of you equally, and I will say this, and I would have never thought that one day I will accuse a civil society of such a thing. Dividing the G77, or helping divide the G77, is simply something that should be left to the CIAs, the KGBs and the rest [not the NGOs]. [Applause]

 It’s mind boggling, and I say this having been the beneficiary of absolute support from civil society. Many of you may not know this, I come from southern Sudan. We’ve been through wars for almost 90% of our lives since independence, so I’m not sure what happened exactly to the civil society that I do know or at least knew.

 Now, I want to go back to other issues because it’s critical that we be very clear to each other. United States and United States people and United States civil society have a very important role to play. One reason is because United States is P1 [pledge 1? page 1?]. Another reason is because United States is the greatest emitter, historically and by per capita. And it is important because it wields huge power, both of influence and of signalling direction.

 And that basically [is] what led us to conclude and call upon President Obama to join the Kyoto Protocol. We understand the difficulties he is in. The deep sense of conservative isolationism. It’s an American phenomenon that you all know. United States was reluctant to do anything during the catastrophe of the Second World War, until Churchill managed to persuade them to join in. But when they joined, peace prevailed and came into existence in Europe. They have this notion of exceptionalism. And that I think, this day, is to think of ourselves as one human family.

 I thought that [is] what the United States signalled when they voted President Obama into office. So notwithstanding the difficulties in the United States, I think any simple analysis makes one conclude that the problem is not with the Congress, the problem is with the conservative laggard of an industrial complex. So we have to, you have to, play an important role to persuade your Congress and to move forward. Join hands with those children who wrote a letter to President Obama to join, to preserve Kyoto Protocol.

 And I want to say something else. We should stop, equally, pushing this notion that the world must continue along the conflict and misguided sense of competition between the Occidentals and the Orientals … that China is the obstacle [right here?]. Three things we say about China and you all know about it. There are more poor people in China than in the entire of Africa. The only way to help China reduce rapidly its emissions is to help it through transfer of technology. Rapid transfer of technology in order to reduce emissions. Because the third neck of this argument: the poor Chinese have arrived, which we must support and that is [the why?] to development.

 The conservative thinking that it’s all about nationalists trying to take advantage or starting a competitive advantage is not going to happen. So what I ask of Obama is to join as a president, as the leader of the industrialized nations, is to join Kyoto Protocol, is to refuse a deal based on 2% [degrees] that would condemn Africa and small islands to death, and to help finance the global deal on climate change.

 Remember what the United States did, after the war, to Europe. The United States then was … had the size of 66% of the global economy. They launched a Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was 3.2% of the U.S. economy.  And that in addition to the fact, when you factor in the fact that Europe had the capacity and the know-how, you can see that the total package necessary as a starting point for addressing climate change, from public finance, is not less than 5%. And it’s commonsensical. Think about it in this way, without going into economics. If you have a house that has decayed or if you have a school in your neighbourhood that has been built or infected by asbestos, how much would it cost to repair? It’s not less than 30% of the price of that.

 So, I do believe that if the United States did that before, President Obama should follow in that tradition and say to the rest of the world, “We are able. We have more than sufficient financing and capital to help, not only the poor, but to help ourselves because ultimately after we are destroyed, there will be many Katrinas [hurricanes] in the United States.”

 If you have received help that enabled you to rebuild your economies and to become prosperous, how come suddenly you have turned mean? Because that 2.5 billion dollars is definitely what some of the big western industrialists lose without a sleep over a trade [lose over a trade without losing any sleep].

 And I do want you to ask President Obama a simple question. Because as much as he’s an American citizen, he is an extended citizen, if there is such a notion, of Africa. Then doesn’t that lay on him any moral obligation to do what he can? Shouldn’t he commit to the principles of which many of us find ourselves fascinated and grateful that there is somebody like him today being the president of United States. Because if it’s because his advisors are part and parcel of the Bush administration, or the [regularized?] Democrats, then he should do something about that. He is the president after all. If it’s because he is thinking that this will save his political life for a next term, then inaction will actually lead to the opposite. A leader acts, a leader helps formulate the right policies, the right direction. That’s why one is a leader. A leader takes the toughest stance. If health care is so important and he is fighting that battle, climate change is as 100 times more important and it is your job as American civil society to help build that momentum. Yes, your task is a tough one because you’re moving from a very low base, but that’s part of life.

 We will not give up because the West have power, absolute power, and accept whatever choices they will make.  We will continue to defend the interests of our people and the whole world. This equally applies with Australians, New Zealand and Japan and many other developed countries’ leaders. Many of them have been elected for office because they claim they support climate change, but then you have to give it to the lobbyists — they are definitely smooth operators. They twist their minds in such a short time that somebody like Kevin Rudd suddenly  moves from where he was, somebody who in Bali was the only prime minister who came to Bali to say “Climate change matters.” And then his delegation here is the complete opposite of that.

 So, I want just to say join hands with those of us who really want a real change, because I’m confident it will come. And it will come, let me say this, whether you do or don’t. But let it not be the case that western civil society sided with the powers that be in the West. Thank you. [Applause]

ENDNOTES

[1] SIGNIFICANT OMISSIONS IN TCKTCKTCK: As demands for the TckTckTck (http://tcktcktck.org) campaign for COP15, the organizers, allies and partners were calling for developed states to reduce developed country emissions by at least 40% by 2020. While most developed and developing states were calling for developed states to use 1990 as a baseline, the TckTckTck campaign did not have a baseline. Consequently what they were calling for was way below what developing states were demanding. How could an NGO campaign have a percentage reduction without a baseline date? In the TckTckTck campaign demands, it was stated: “Reduce developed country emissions by at least 40% by 2020.” Is that from 2009 levels? Or Canadian 2006 levels, or US 2005 levels? It is far from what most of the developing states wanted, at least 45% from 1990 levels. Apart from calling for stabilization by 2015, the TckTckTck campaign had no commitment for subsequent years, such as calling for the reduction of global emissions by at least 95% from 1990 levels by 2050. The TckTckTck campaign was silent on a 2050 commitment. The key issues at COP15 were i) the need for a common baseline such as 1990, and the need for developed states to commit to a high percentage reduction of greenhouse gases from the 1990 baseline, and ii) the urgent demand to not have the temperature rise exceed 1 degree above pre-industrialized levels and to return to no more than 300 ppm. The TckTckTck campaign seriously undermined the necessary, bold targets that were advanced by many of the developing states.

[2] “Low lying islands and coastlines can take no further sea level rise. The “targets” of 1.5 degrees C rise and 350 ppm CO2 are a death sentence for coral reefs and a suicide pact for low lying islands and coasts. Summary: The long-term sea level that corresponds to current CO2 concentration is about 23 meters above today’s levels, and the temperatures will be 6 degrees C or more higher. These estimates are based on real long term climate records, not on models. We have not yet felt the climate change impacts of the current excess of greenhouse gases produced by fossil fuels, and the data shows they will in the long run be many times higher than IPCC models project. In order to prevent these long term changes CO2 must be stabilized at levels below preindustrial values, around 260 parts per million. Buildup must be reversed, not allowed to increase or even be stabilized at 350 ppm, which would amount to a death sentence for coral reefs, small island developing states, and billions of people living along low lying coastlines. The good news is that all the tools for reversing global warming and reducing CO2 to safe levels are ready, proven, and cost effective, but are not being seriously used due to lack of policies and funding.” [AOSIS Briefing 2009: “350 PPM IS A DEATH SENTENCE FOR CORAL REEFS AND LOW LYING ISLANDS … THE SAFE LEVEL OF CO2 FOR SIDS IS AROUND 260 PARTS PER MILLION.”] — The author is Dr. Tom Goreau, President of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, an international NGO for restoration of coral reefs, and a member of the Jamaican delegation to UNCCC. Previously he was Senior Scientific Affairs Officer at the United Nations Centre for Science and Technology for Development, in charge of Global Climate Change and Biodiversity Issues, where he contributed to the original draft of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Dr. Goreau developed the HotSpot method used for the last 20 years to predict coral bleaching from satellite data. He was educated in Jamaican schools, MIT (BSc in Planetary Physics), Caltech (MSc in Planetary Astronomy), and Harvard (PhD in Biogeochemistry). He has swum and dived on reefs around the world since he was a small child, including most SIDS. His father was the first marine scientist in the world to use diving as a research tool and founded the Marine Science Program at the University of the West Indies.

[3] The founding of the Climate Action Network (CAN) in 1988 can be traced back to the early players in the environmental nongovernmental organization (ENGO) community, including Michael Oppenheimer of the corporate NGO, Environmental Defense Fund. CAN is a global network of over 700 NGOs. The stated goal of CAN is to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. This goal is severely problematic in (at minimum) two fundamental ways: 1) There is no such thing as “ecologically sustainable levels” of climate change, and 2) as opposed to states having to respond to approximately 700 groups demanding action on climate change, states instead bask in the comfort of having to deal with only one (CAN International), which essentially demands little to nothing. CAN has seven regional offices that coordinate these efforts in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Europe, Latin America, North America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Members include organizations from around the globe, including the largest corporate greens such as World Wildlife Fund [WWF], Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

[4] “Another glaring contradiction which does not bother America’s conscience (if it has any) is that American trained and paid Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers have been deployed as “peacekeepers” in Darfur and Somalia while at the same time they are making the blood of millions of Congolese flow into the ground, while billions of dollars in minerals are extracted from the earth and delivered to their corporate customers – with Rwandan and Ugandan middlemen pocketing their cut. America is also trying to sweep under the carpet the genocide that Rwanda and Uganda have committed in Congo since 1996. As we know, Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1996, ostensibly to hunt down Hutu fighters among millions of refugees from ethnic violence in Rwanda. But the invasion became an occupation that has killed six million Congolese – the world’s greatest holocaust since World War Two. The genocide has been very profitable for Uganda and Rwanda, who have plundered eastern Congo’s mineral resources for sale to multinational corporations, most of them based in the United States and Europe.” [Source: Britain and America Target DR Congo, 12/05/2012]

[5] The exemplary People’s Agreement emerged from the April 2010 World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia. It was endorsed by over 35,000 representatives of civil society, indigenous peoples and various states. During that year, the Bolivian Ambassador to the UN, Pablo Solón, participated in numerous UN processes under the UNFCCC, and valiantly struggled to include the conclusions of the Cochabamba People’s Agreement in the negotiating documents.

The main conclusions of the World People’s Conference were incorporated into the document of United Nations on Climate Change that became recognized as a negotiation text for the 192 countries that congregated in Bonn, Germany, during the first week of August 2010. The most important points that were incorporated for consideration in the negotiations before Cancun were:

 1) 50% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries for a second period of commitments in the Kyoto Protocol years 2013 to 2017

 2) Stabilize the rise of temperature to 1ºC and 300 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

3) Guarantee an equitable distribution of atmospheric space, taking into account the climate debt of emissions by developed countries for developing countries

 4) Full respect for the human rights and the inherent rights of indigenous peoples, women, children and migrants

 5) Full recognition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

 6) Recognition and defense of the rights of Mother Earth to ensure harmony with nature

 7) Guarantee the fulfillment of the commitments from the developed countries though the building of an International Court of Climate Justice

 8) Rejection of the new mechanisms of carbon markets that transfer the responsibility of the reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases from developed countries to developing countries

 9) Promotion of measures that change the consumption patterns of the developed countries

 10) Adoption of necessary measures in all relevant forums to exclude from the protection of intellectual property rights all technologies that are ecologically sustainable useful to mitigate climate change

 11) Developed countries will allocate 6% of their gross national product to actions relative to climate change

 12) Integrated management of forest for mitigation and adaptation, without market mechanisms and ensuring the full participation of indigenous peoples and local communities

 13) Prohibition of the conversion of natural forest to plantations, since monoculture plantations are not forest; instead encourage the protection and conservation of natural forests. [Source: Joan Russow, PEJ News]

[6] The equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) refers to the equilibrium change in global mean near-surface air temperature that would result from a sustained doubling of the atmospheric (equivalent) carbon dioxide concentration (?Tx2). This value is estimated by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) as likely to be in the range 2 to 4.5°C with a best estimate of about 3°C, and is very unlikely to be less than 1.5°C. Values substantially higher than 4.5°C cannot be excluded, but agreement of models with observations is not as good for those values.”  This is a change from the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR, 2001), which said it was “likely to be in the range of 1.5 to 4.5 °C.” A model estimate of equilibrium sensitivity thus requires a very long model integration; fully equilibrating ocean temperatures requires integrations of thousands of model years. A measure requiring shorter integrations is the transient climate response (TCR), which is defined as the average temperature response over a twenty year period centered at CO2 doubling in a transient simulation with CO2 increasing at 1% per year. The transient response is lower than the equilibrium sensitivity, due to the “inertia” of ocean heat uptake.

WATCH: Libya–Race, Empire, and the Invention of Humanitarian Emergency

“What struck me the most about the Libyan case was the acute degree of correspondence and the nature of near simultaneous timing in the messages spread by defecting Libyan diplomats, political leaderships in the U.S. and Europe, the emphases of presentations at the UN, and the work of various NGOs and human rights organizations. I am not sure that I personally have ever before witnessed such a phenomenon, as if I were hearing from a single person who had the ability to instantaneously shape-shift and move from one location to the next almost invisibly….” –  Maximilian Forte

Zero Anthropology

23 October 2012

by

Based on the author’s latest book, Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War On Libya and Africa (Baraka Books, Montreal, 2012), and nearly two years of extensive documentary research, this film places the 2011 US/NATO war in Libya in a more meaningful context than that of a war to “protect civilians” driven by the urgent need to “save Benghazi”. Instead it counters such notions with the actual destruction of Sirte, and the consistent and determined persecution of black Libyans and African migrant workers by the armed opposition, supported by NATO, as it sought to violently overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and the Jamahariyah. This film takes us through some of the stock justifications for the war, focusing on protecting civilians, the responsibility to protect (R2P), and “genocide prevention,” and examines the racial biases and political prejudice that underpinned them. The role of Western human rights organizations, as well as misinformation spread through “social media” with the intent of fostering fear of rampaging black people, are especially scrutinized.

Human Rights and Humanitarian Imperialism in Syria

A view from an African American human rights defender

“This perspective is the cornerstone of white supremacist ideology that has been internalized by the mass populations in Europe and the US, no matter the ethnicity or race. It is an essential element of the normalization and universality of white supremacy as an ideological and cultural phenomenon. From the point of view of the psychologically decolonized ‘other,’ the projection of Western liberal society as the model for all of humanity is absurd. But what makes White supremacy so powerful as an instrument of social conformity and national identity in the US, and dangerous for the non-white world, is not just its ubiquity but also its invisibility….”

by Ajamu Baraka

2012-09-27, Issue 599

Pambazuka

Syria is just the latest in a long line of international crimes perpetrated by Western powers. But what makes the crimes in Syria, as those in Libya, even more offensive, is the cynical use of human rights to advance the diabolical interests of Western imperialism.

As the corporate media beat the drums of war with Syria, led this time by CNN and the New York Times with support from the rear coming from the confused white left/liberal likes of Democracy Now, a now familiar line is conjured up to rationalize intervention – humanitarian intervention as a basis to exercise the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P). David Gergen, the ‘soft neocon’ advisor to both republican and democratic presidents, made the claim on CNN recently that human rights groups would love to see the US intervene in Syria. A claim that is probably accurate for the US-based white, middle-class human rights mainstream. But this position certainly does not represent the positions of the growing, but largely ignored, ‘new human rights movement’ of grassroots organizations of people of color, informed by an African American radical human rights tradition, [1] who are reclaiming and redefining human rights as an anti-oppression, anti-imperialist ‘people-centered’ movement. But before I touch on this new movement let me briefly explore how this new version of the white man’s burden emerged to become the main device for mobilizing public opinion in the US to support war in the guise of humanitarianism.

In a meticulous examination of thousands of national security documents, James Peck demonstrated empirically what many of us already understood from our position in the margins of the human rights movement and from direct experiences with the US settler state. And that was that the human rights idea was severed from its radical potential in the late 1940s and early 1950s, co-opted by ruling class forces in the US and Western Europe in 1970s as a weapon in the ideological battles of the Cold War and had become a ‘new language of power designed to promote American foreign policy’ with little to do with human rights and everything to do with providing a rationale for protecting and advancing US and Western imperialism. [2] Why was the human rights idea important for US propagandists?

Before the 1990s it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to persuade the American people to support intervention into another state with the claim that the intervention was necessary to protect lives or human rights.

The idealism of former President Ronald Reagan’s ‘moral’ crusades against Communism and the success of a new phenomenon in the post Cold War era – a North-South war in the form of the United Nations endorsed war against Iraq – suggested to the ruling elements that significant progress had been made moving public opinion away from the geo-political restraints imposed by the ‘Vietnam syndrome,’ (the irrational, from the point of view of the ruling elites, reluctance to support military actions outside of the US). However, it was still not certain that public opinion would support the violence and brutality of war if the terms and interests were more murky than the simple ‘good versus evil’ binary offered by the anti-Communism of the Cold War. What was needed in this period – when it seemed that growing numbers of people in the US would become more inwardly-looking, concerned with issues of domestic economic development, inequality, and environmental justice among a number of domestic issues – was an ideological weapon that would mask US geo-political and economic interests while simultaneously providing a moral rationale for US intervention. Human rights activists gave them the perfect weapon – humanitarian intervention to protect human rights.

Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War | Part II

September 11, 2012

Part two of an investigative report by Cory Morningstar

The Avaaz Investigative Report Series 2012 [Further Reading]: Part IPart IIPart IIIPart IVPart VPart VI

Avaaz Investigative Report Series 2017 [Further Reading]: Part IPart IIPart III

 

 Corporate “Green” Pedophilia

After the success of TckTckTck, Havas (a global advertising firm) cut out the middleman (that being the NGO), creating their own NGO named One Young World. One Young World could be defined as predatory corporate pedophilia. On the TakingItGlobal website, under the headline How to Mobilize Youth Globally to Support the Goals of the Rio 2012 Summit [the illusory “green” economy], a IYY HLM (INTERNATIONAL YOUTH YEAR – HIGH LEVEL MEETING) RSVP event is described as follows: “The vast networks represented by AVAAZ, Taking IT Global, Peace Child and One Young World represent an excellent way of building on the momentum of the IYY to promote the Rio+20 goals through online media, advertising and PR – and good, old-fashioned campaigning…. The Rio+20 Summit is as good a moment as any to mark that watershed moment: young people – through their schools, their community groups and their online network are well-placed to support the UN and its member states to explain that transition and embed it in the hearts and minds of the general public. This side meeting will raise the profile and importance of the Rio+20 meeting in the minds of all who attend the IYY HLM – and send them home with new skills and new inspiration to support the UN to achieve a stunning success in Rio in June 2012.” Featured speakers included David Jones (founder/director, One Young World; director, Havas Global Advertising) and Jeremy Heimans (founder/board member of AVAAZ.org; director of Purpose Inc.). At breakneck speed, One Young World is establishing partner organizations throughout the globe (H. W. Bush is an endorser in the One Young World Pittsburgh org). It has also secured a partnership with Association Internationale des Étudiants en Sciences Économiques et Commerciales (AIESEC); present in over 110 countries and territories and with over 82,000 members, AIESEC is the world’s largest student-run organization.

The Commerce of Trust

One must recognize that the non-profit industrial complex, not unlike the oligarchy, retains its power via a constant influx of corporate cash (via foundations). When an NGO becomes as wealthy as the corporations who made such wealth possible, the necessity to funnel the corporate funding through foundations is no longer necessary. Recent examples are Coca-Cola partnering with World Wildlife Fund for $3 million and Nature Conservancy merging with Dow Chemical for a cool $10 million. This does not begin to take into account the money doled out by the US administration to NGOs under the guise of “humanitarianism.” [PR Newswire, WASHINGTON, 24 May 2012, “NGOs welcome Senate leadership in international humanitarian funding; The Senate FY2013 State, Foreign Operations appropriations bill provides for $52.1 billion in discretionary spending for the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other international development and humanitarian assistance programs….”]

Today, in 2012, with the recent “approved” invasion and annihilation of Libya, which, prior to the NATO-led invasion, had the highest standard of living in Africa, the imperialist states are frothing at the mouth over the prospects of invading/ occupying Syria under the carefully orchestrated guise of “humanitarian intervention.” The imperialists steal and plunder every last drop of wealth from resource-rich countries – both monetary and cultural, as well as ecological. Of equal importance to the imperialists is protection of the decaying US dollar and Euro and keeping resource-rich countries poor via debt. (Case in point: Libya had no debt. Further, Gaddafi was working toward the introduction of the gold dinar, a single African currency, made by gold, which was to be a “true sharing of the wealth” for the African people that would have resulted in their oil no longer being traded in American or Euro currency, thus liberating them, to some extent, from the chains of imperialism.) If one looks closely, we can witness a steady transformation, well underway within the meticulously maintained, well-greased gears of the propaganda machine – a machine that continues to be refined. The blurring of lines between corporate power, the corporate media complex, the non-profit industrial complex, and the United Nations continues to accelerate, while simultaneously the veil begins to lift.

The Cat is Out of the Bag

In the 21 December 2011 Strategic Culture Foundation article, “A Third-Rate Intelligence Agency for a Failing Super-Power: The CIA’s Global Demise,” the author closes by stating:

“The CIA’s political influence operations around the world are also being exposed every day. Run in tandem with international financier George Soros and his network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and not-for-profit foundations, the CIA’s attempts to foment rebellions through ‘themed revolutions’ and election engineering are becoming better understood, ironically through the media that Soros and the CIA champion the most – social networking. From the streets of Egypt and Syria, where the CIA’s and Soros’s involvement in artificially-created uprisings is no longer a secret, to Russia, Venezuela, Belarus, and China, where political intervention by the CIA and its team of Soros ‘do-gooders’ is now being met with strong opposition, the cat is out of the bag.

 

“While the CIA has for decades enjoyed the luxury of hiding behind NGOs, missionaries, aid workers, and journalists, the Internet has allowed CIA influence networks to be exposed and its agents, shills, and dupes to be identified. Time magazine has named as its ‘Person on the Year’ for 2011 the generic ‘protester.’ However, as the CIA’s worldwide operations become further exposed, the ‘protester’ lauded by Time will no longer be a paid provocateur working for the CIA or Soros – taking orders and money from Human Rights Watch and Global Witness – but one who is genuinely protesting the interference and aggression of the United States. And that protester will be found not only in Cairo, Moscow, Caracas, and Beirut but in New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles.”

The Open Society Institute (renamed in 2011 to Open Society Foundations) is a private operating and grantmaking  foundation founded by George Soros, who remains the chair. Soros is known best as a multibillionaire currency speculator who became known as “the man who broke the bank of England” when he gained one billion (US) in investment profits in a single day on September 16, 1992. Soros is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), created in 1924 by the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations. The CFR is essentially the promotional arm of the ruling elite in the US with most all US policy initiated and written by the exclusive membership within the CFR. Soros has deep ties to the Trilateral Commission, which is the international counterpart of the CFR created in 1973 by David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski (who worked with CIA operant Gloria Steinman) and McGeorge Bundy. Soros also is privy to the exclusive Bilderberg Group, which functions behind closed doors. The Bilderberg Group is an offshoot of the CFR, founded by David Rockefeller; Dean Rusk, former head of Rockefeller Foundation; Joseph Johnson, head of Carnegie Endowment; John J. McCloy, Ford Foundation Chair, and some notables of the European oligarchy. Most revealing, Soros is an avid supporter of Occupy Wall Street.

New York City Occupy Wall Street Embraces Otpor and Bombing for Peace

 “Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.” — Étienne de La Boétie, Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (Discours de la servitude volontaire), c. 1553

Murray N. Rothbard asks, “Since despotic rule is against the interests of the bulk of the population, how then does this consent come about? Again, La Boétie highlights the point that this consent is engineered, largely by propaganda beamed at the populace by the rulers and their intellectual apologists. The devices – of bread and circuses, of ideological mystification – that rulers today use to gull the masses and gain their consent, remain the same as in La Boétie’s days. The only difference is the enormous increase in the use of specialized intellectuals in the service of the rulers.”

There is little doubt that if he were alive today, Étienne de La Boétie would consider the non-profit industrial complex an integral component, indeed the intellectual apologists, of the oligarchy. La Boétie wrote, “This is the establishment, as it were the permanent and continuing purchase, of a hierarchy of subordinate allies, a loyal band of retainers, praetorians, and bureaucrats.” La Boétie considered this factor “the mainspring and the secret of domination, the support and foundation of tyranny.”

The following text contains factual information/evidence obtained from many months of research that undoubtedly will be met with much hostility and resentment by many. Yet, analyzing such information is critical if we are to see the light through our veils and illusions. As only then does the possibility for a real influence and positive outcome arise from orchestrated events that are being engineered with a false exterior to serve corporate and imperialist interests. The very forces we claim to oppose continue to successfully reabsorb us into the very system destroying us – the very system we must starve, struggle against and ultimately dismantle. This is where we fail. If we continue to deny these truths rather than confront them, our collective denial will serve as the instrument for securing our own annihilation.

This is NOT TO SAY that there are not legitimate Occupy Wall Street (OWS) sects that have broken off from the core, neoliberal-funded and dominated OWS reform movement.

A reconnaissance of corporate funding (via foundations), coupled with a rock solid understanding of history, is vital. The understanding of how our movements have been financed, designed and controlled by the forces we seek to oppose, of the very sequence of events that has led society to the present moment, is vital if we are to transcend the barbed wire barriers that keep us enslaved within the system.

It should come as little surprise that MoveOn.org, founder of Avaaz with Res Publica, heavily promoted Occupy Wall Street. (Both MoveOn and Res Publica will be discussed further in this report.)

Image: The Otpor/Canvas logo as prominently featured on the New York City General Assembly website

“Youth enamored with lofty, naïve notions of ‘freedom’ sold to them by corporate-fascist funded NGOs were brought into the streets to create chaos and division which was then capitalized on by covert political and even military maneuvering by the West and its proxy forces.” 2011-Year of the Dupe

From 2011-Year of the Dupe: February 17, 2011: “The London-based National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) calls for a Libyan “Day of Rage” [note the hijacked term from the real revolutionary Weather Underground movement] to match the US-destabilization rhetoric used in Tunisia and Egypt. The NFSL has been backed by the CIA-MI6 since the 80’s and had made multiple attempts to overthrow Qaddafi’s government with both terrorist attacks and armed insurrection.

 Note the “EnoughGaddafi.com” signs. EnoughGaddafi.com’s webmaster is listed on the US State Department’s Movements.org as the “Twitter” to follow.

“A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington.

“The article would also add, regarding the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED): “The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department.

“It is hardly a speculative theory then, that the uprisings were part of an immense geopolitical campaign conceived in the West and carried out through its proxies with the assistance of disingenuous foundations, organizations, and the stable of NGOs they maintain throughout the world. As we will see, preparations for the “Arab Spring” and the global campaign that is now encroaching on both Russia and China, as predicted in February 2011’s “The Middle East & then the World,” began not as unrest had already begun, but years before the first “fist” was raised, and within seminar rooms in D.C. and New York, US-funded training facilities in Serbia, and camps held in neighboring countries, not within the Arab World itself.

“December 3-5, 2008: Egyptian activists from the now infamous April 6 movement were in New York City for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) summit, also known as Movements.org. There, they received training, networking opportunities, and support from AYM’s various corporate and US governmental sponsors, including the US State Department itself. The AYM 2008 summit report (page 3 of .pdf) states that the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James Glassman, attended, as did Jared Cohen who sits on the policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of State. Six other State Department staff members and advisers would also attend the summit along with an immense list of corporate, media, and institutional representatives.

“Shortly afterward, April 6 would travel to Serbia to train under US-funded CANVAS, formally the US-funded NGO ‘Otpor’ who helped overthrow the government of Serbia in 2000. Otpor, the New York Times would report, was a ‘well-oiled movement backed by several million dollars from the United States.’ After its success it would change its name to CANVAS and begin training activists to be used in other US-backed regime change operations.” [Source: 2011-Year of the Dupe]

Foreign Policy Magazine (a major organ of the Council on Foreign Relations promoting globalization) would report in their article, “Revoluton U,” that CANVAS assisted protesters in the ‘Rose Revolution’ of Georgia, the ‘Orange Revolution’ of the Ukraine, and is currently working with networks from Belarus, Myanmar (Burma), all across the Middle East and North Africa, as well as with activists in North Korea, and 50 other countries.”

 Above screenshot: Occupy Wall Street Screenshot featuring an Avaaz destabilization campaign against the Syrian Government. Note the red Otpor logo (fist).

 

Above screenshot: Earth.350.org.blog: Leading up to the 15 October 2011 Occupy movement, Rockefellers 350.org’s past presenters include Ivan Marovic, founder of US-funded Otpor (22 September2011), Srdja Popovic founding member of Otpor and Slobodan Dinovic, one of Otpor’s original organizers (29 September 29 2011).

Like the Egyptian “Revolution,” the change in venue and transition of key players we witness today has been anything but spontaneous. And although it is tragic that most of the entire globe has been conned, far worse is the fact that global society as a whole, with “the left” movement at the forefront, continues to swallow and perpetuate the lies that the continued “uprisings” of the countries targeted for destabilization are spontaneous revolutions. The logic being, if the revolutions were spontaneous uprisings, then the Occupy movement was also spontaneous; arising from the people, not orchestrated by the ruling classes. “The left,” in an act of insanity and denial, has committed itself to supporting what the ruling classes, via corporate media and a network of Soros-funded NGOs, have framed as “revolutionaries” in sovereign states under strategic invasion, while in reality, these so-called revolutionaries are foreign-backed insurgents/terrorists, including the CIA-created Al-Qaeda terrorist cell, which the US now acknowledges publicly as having partnered with.

The “progressive left,” in order to save face, has sided with the 1% they claim to oppose – millions, no doubt, unwittingly. Well-intentioned citizens who believe themselves to be progressive in their ideologies, who believe they are of sound intelligence, continue to cling to this position as volumes of evidence dispels all myths of Gaddafi having turned on his own people. If tens of thousands must die in order for the “left” EuroAmericans to feel good about themselves, then so be it. No one wants to be the dupe. The oligarchy understood this unequivocally. And while Occupy preached the virtues of non-violent direct action, the imperialist countries advanced their destabilizations, invasions and occupations in the Middle East and Africa at an unparalleled speed – murdering, some estimate, as many as 100,000 Libyans in the process. The silence of dissent was deafening. Very few of us have despaired at our complicity; most people simply turn a blind eye to the truth so they don’t have to feel bad about their coffee shop assent.

The Occupy Wall Street “movement” website www.15October.net was registered and paid for on 12 July 2011 by Paulina Arcos, spouse of Francisco Carrión Mena, the Permanent Representative of Ecuador to the United Nations.

Meaning, by 12 July 2011, certain individuals were aware of, planned and banked on “spontaneous” global occupations that would take place 15 October 2011 – long before the rest of us knew anything. The address provided for the October15.net domain is identical to that of Francisco Carrión Mena’s address at the UN. One can safely assume that the credit card used to pay for the domain was a United Nations corporate credit card; if it were Arcos’s personal credit card, the domain registration would display her home residence address rather than the UN address. On 19 October 2011, the 15October.net domain registration was changed to a (web) domain privacy service that protects the registered owner’s information and other relevant information. [13 October 2011, Occupation & Infiltration: Questions Regarding 15October.net http://thewrongkindofgreen.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/pertinent-questions-regarding-the-websitecampaign-www-15october-net/]

The WikiLeaks Connection

Santiago Carrión has founded and/or partnered with, and/or is affiliated with the following organizations:

  • 15 M
  • 15October.net
  • EuroRevolution.net
  • Future Press
  • Roar Magazine
  • Take the Square
  • The Global Square
  • United for Global Change (May 12)
  • US Day of Rage
  • WikiLeaks Central
  • WikiLeaks World

 

The son of Arcos and Carrión is Santiago Carrión, a partner/collaborator of Europe’s TakeTheSquare.net, partner/affiliate of Roar Magazine (Reflections on a Revolution), founder of EuropeanRevolution.net, FuturePress, 15October.net, United for Global Change (also known as May 12), The Global Square, and a writer specializing in WikiLeaks cable analysis. [From WL Central (the Wikileaks-endorsed news site): “We are Pedro Noel and Santiago Carrión Arcos, two Philosophy graduates from different origins, who met while studying in Spain. We were always concerned with politics and human rights, so when Wikileaks broke into the scene we decided to contribute by writing cable analysis…. From November 2010 we have been working on a daily basis in different fields of Internet activism and journalism anonymously. We have decided, however, to become public. The reasons are many, our personal security being the main one…. Recently, we have also collaborated in running the @wlfind Twitter account, hoping to provide a complete record for findings in the latest crowd-source initiative #wlfind, started by Wikileaks.]

Santiago Carrión’s associate, Pedro Noel, is a Brazilian Internet media activist known in the Romanian media as “the man who made 700 thousand Spaniards take the streets.” In 2011, along with other internet activists, researchers and volunteers, Pedro Noel started the project The Global Square in partnership with Delft University of Technology and its project Tribler. Roarmag.org website lists the founders of The Global Square as volunteers of the following organizations: Take the Square, United for Global Change, 15october.net, European Revolution, and Reflections on a Revolution (ROAR). Note that all of these organizations are founded by or affiliated with Carrión.

On 5 November 2011 at 10:04pm, WikiLeaks tweeted: “The Global Square: an online platform for our movement,” citing the link: http://wlcentral.org/node/2328.

On 16 February 2012, Truth-out announced that Wikileaks is now “dabbing” in social media: “Wikileaks is dabbling in social networking. In March, the whistleblower website will launch its “Global Square” project – which Wikileaks calls the, “first massive decentralized social network in the history of the Internet.”

In truth, we have approximately 2 people, openly identifiable (who, until recently worked in complete anonymity), at the helm of designing and shaping the entire global occupy “movement” into the ultimate platform for the accumulation, coordination and dissemination of information. A platform “where people of all nations can come together as equals to participate in the coordination of collective actions and the formulation of common goals and aspirations” (bold emphasis added).

With a massive throng of WikiLeaks supporters that has only grown stronger with the attack on WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is there anyone, in any spectrum of the left, who won’t trust Carrión’s, Noel’s and Wikipedia’s Global Square project? While steadfastly upholding lost values with which the left wishes to be associated, Assange has been vilified by the very forces that the left opposes. Thus, Assange has embodied impenetrable hero, if not martyr, status. Could this be the most brilliant psyops ever conducted via internet technology, utilizing the world’s leading technocrats and global social media – or has WikiLeaks simply been infiltrated? Will the Global Square serve to be the ultimate coup de grâce on a society both manipulated and intoxicated by the non-profit industrial complex? Interestingly, this infrastructure very much follows the strategy behind the Climate Action Network (CAN), co-founded by Michael Oppenheimer (Environmental Defense Fund) in 1988, which successfully reigned in and presided over a global network of environmental organizations, thus ensuring that no movement would ever threaten economic growth. Occupy/15M, now transcending into The Global Square, is quickly being established as the official clearinghouse for all dissent, direction, communication – and as the global technological superpower for social engineering, soft power destabilizations and a cooling mechanism to keep the public passive and controlled.

One major theme within all of the aforementioned organizations has been the persistent framing of imperialist destabilizations as revolutions and uprisings, prior to and during the unprovoked annihilation of Libya, and the heavily financed destabilization now well underway in Syria. [Case in point: On 15 June 2012, Take the Square posts the article Syria Sectarian Divide Takes Alarming Turn, which states: “A perpetual and repugnant war is likely to replace the collective aspirations for equality, freedom and democracy that fuelled the non-violent uprising nearly 15 months ago.”] The demonization of Gaddafi, Assad, and other governments of sovereign, resource-rich states in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, has been key, thus mirroring and amplifying the very sentiments put forward by the US State Department. On the WikiLeaks Central website we find several Avaaz petitions. Most striking are the headlines: Stop the Massacre – Save the Libyans and To the UN Security Council, both posted on 03/22/2011. The second highlighted the Avaaz petition demanding a no-fly zone be imposed on Libya.

Carrión and Noel perhaps should be considered the Marovic, Popovic (Otpor/Canvas) adaptation for Europe. Whether Santiago Carrión’s and Pedro Noel’s intentions (along with many others) were or are sincere, whether they are naive patsies or CIA operatives – matters little. The global Occupy movement was the psyops needed, and brilliantly executed, that would build a cohesion of silence within the left against the deliberate destabilization of the Middle East and Africa. For the “revolutionaries” cannot be wrong. The “revolutionaries” are united as one. To admit that the revolutions were strategically set into motion and financed by the ruling plutocrats is to admit we’ve been co-opted by the very forces we seek to oppose – yet again.

And the need of imperialists and corporate interests to expand their growing corral of such recruits teamed with social media/marketing executives extraordinaire has never been greater:

“Pressing for unchallenged hegemony in the Western Hemisphere, Washington keeps the populist regimes in Latin America under permanent pressure. Outwardly, the U.S. Administration pledges not to resort to military force to displace the ALBA governments in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, or Cuba, but in reality Washington’s efforts to undermine them are a constant background of the continent’s political picture. The activity began under president G. Bush and shows no signs of subsiding under president Obama. Supposedly, plans are being devised in the White House that a series of color revolutions will erupt across Latin America in 2013-2014 and derail the continent’s advancement towards tighter integration in the security and other spheres. As the fresh experience of Libya showed with utmost clarity, Washington’s new brand of color revolutions will – in contrast to the former coups which used to be accompanied with outpourings of pacifist rhetoric – involve ferocious fighting and massive fatalities.” — 4 February 2012: Destabilizing Arsenals Concealed in US Embassies. Emphasis in original.]

And as Avaaz coordinated the OWS live stream in 2011, perhaps one single tweet is the most revealing of all.

An OWS “tweet” to over 86,000 followers on 20 October 2011 exclaims: “Congrats Libya! Your struggles against the #Gadhafi regime is [sic] over. Let’s hope for a bright future #solidarity.” @OccupyWallSt states it is an “official account” of https://occupywallst.org, followed by 86,347 as of that date (155,565 by 26 March 2012). The “tweet” echoed the sentiments of the imperialist states and “leaders” such as Hillary Clinton, and demonstrated a total upside down ideological pandemonium by a so-called “leftist” movement. This sentiment of “congratulations” over the horrific murder of the brother leader of a sovereign nation who refused to abandon his people was “retweeted” by over 100 “followers.” Yoshie Furuhashi summed it up best via Twitter: “IMHO, capitalists have nothing to fear from #OccupyWallStreet, who can’t tell imperialist regime change from popular revolution.”

Jump forward to the present. In a 6 July 2012 article titled SYRIA: Wikileaks – hard at work for NATO, Jorge Capelán wrote:

“With the decision to commit this act of psy-warfare against Syria, Assange himself may have provoked doubt as regards the seriousness of his request for political asylum. Publishing 2 million e-mails is not an overnight action. It takes weeks and months of preparation, not to mention the time required to establish appropriate contacts with international media.”

It would be a mistake to dismiss the possibility of the CIA working in tandem with or within the United Nations (Carrión) or WikiLeaks when it has been documented that Kofi Annan, the United Nations “Peacekeeper” was handpicked by the CIA (30 March 2012, Kofi Annan: black skin, white mask].

Consider that in June 2011 LulzSec claimed responsibility for an attack on both the FBI and CIA websites. Flash forward to March 2012 to find that the leader of the hacker group LulzSec (affiliated with Anonymous) was exposed as an FBI operant.

Video: Uploaded 1 August 2011, the group Anonymous promotes the Global Occupy Demonstration to take place on 15 October 2011:

http://youtu.be/RPd25yDiOwU

Veterans Today, Military and Foreign Affairs Journal, 23 January 2011:

“It is illuminating that none of Assange’s document dumps have revealed any notable scandals involving Great Britain or Israel. No US public figures have had to resign because of anything Wikileaks has done. No major ongoing covert operation or highly placed agent of influence has been blown. After all these months, there are still no US indictments against Assange, even though we know that a US grand jury will readily indict a ham sandwich if the US Attorney demands it. If the CIA had wanted to silence Assange, they could have subjected him to the classic kidnapping aka rendition, meaning that he would have been beaten, drugged, and carted off to wake up in a black site prison in Egypt, Poland, or Guantanamo Bay. Otherwise, the CIA could have had recourse to the usual extralegal wetwork [not sic; euphemism for murder or assassination]. We must also assume that the new US Cybercommand with its vast resources would have little trouble shutting down the Wikileaks mirror sites, no matter how numerous they might be. The same goes for Anonymous and other flanking organizations of Wikileaks. But these considerations are purely fantastic. Assange emerges today as the pampered darling and golden boy of The New York Times, Der Spiegel. The Guardian, El Pais – in short, of the entire Anglo-American official media Wurlitzer. He reclines today in baronial splendor in the country house of a well-connected retired British officer who should be quizzed by the media about his ties to British intelligence. The radical-chic world, from Bianca Jagger to Michael Moore, is at Assange’s feet.” — Webster Griffin Tarpley, in Nihilists of The World Unite: Wikileaks Is The “Cognitive Infiltration” Operation Demanded by Cass Sunstein

Unidentified “Freedom of Speech”

The iNEWP – Freedom of Speech (formed in 2010) is yet another new highly suspect “news media” outlet where one can find highlighted a recent Avaaz destabilization campaign against the Morales (MAS) government of Bolivia. It lists its affiliates as Anonymous, The Occupy Movement (note the red Otpor/Canvas fist above the featured Avaaz campaign in the screenshot prior), The Sun Maker, TesfaNews, and VVVPR (VVV Public Relations: BPR + Guerrilla Marketing). This once very public information (accessed 30 March 2012) has since been removed from the iNEWP website. One must wonder how an organization such as iNEWP – Freedom of Speech solidifies and retains a partnership with an Anonymous group (that being Anonymous), and how the Occupy Movement has partnered with this organization without a democratic vote of its occupiers, considering the Occupy Movement claims there are no leaders. One may also question why iNEWP – Freedom of Speech uses a (web) domain privacy service that protects the registered owner’s private information, offers first names only of their international staff, and purposely neglects to offer any information as to who they are funded by. Further, one must ask oneself exactly if any entity within or outside of the Occupy Movement is paying VVV Public Relations for their services. There is one item of interest disclosed in the domain registration of iNEWP and that is the address listed as 666 NY, New York. This should be considered an inside joke whereby they are mocking the masses. They are playing with us.

 “But there is one state function which, if fully privatised across the world, would make the profits made even from essentials such as health care and education look like peanuts. That is the most basic and essential state function of all, indeed the whole raison d’etre for the state: security.” – Dan Glazebrook

And where consumerism made the plutocrats monetarily rich in the 20th century, the 21st century riches will flow from privatized security. One can safely assume the Occupy Movement (promoted heavily by the Democratic Party and the Rockefeller/Soros NGOs such as MoveOn – sister organization of Avaaz) will assist in advancing “the imperative” to expand privatized security [See Council on Foreign Relations: Armies Without States: The Privatization of Security]and the “need” to override civil liberties and freedoms by introducing fascist censorship and legislation; the most recent example being martial law itself in the U.S. The plans that we witness being unveiled today are years, if not decades, in the making. Nothing is left to chance.

15M – Europe’s Occupy Movement

In Europe we find the “revolutionary movement” 15M who identifies itself as “global Occupy/15M movements.” They are heavily promoted by a slew of NGOs from the Soros network (one being that of Global Voices, whose sponsors include the Ford Foundation and the Soros Open Society Institute) to Take the Square, whose partners include US Day of Rage (this terminology was discussed earlier in this report; it is terminology we continue to witness, as in Libya, being co-opted by NGOs funded by globalists). US Day of Rage (a finance reform organization founded by Alexa O’Brien that seeks to distract by directing their followers to believe in the US electorate, marketing the phrase One citizen. One dollar. One vote. O’Brien also is identified as a founder of Occupy Wall Street by Wired as well as a reporter for WikiLeaks Central.) US Day of Rage lists its partners, all promoting 15M, as: EuroRevolution (over 30,000 Facebook followers), Anonymous (over 300,000 twitter followers, and whose logo bears uncanny resemblance to the logo shared by the United Nations), Roar Mag, WikiLeaks Central, and Take the Square – all founded by and/or affiliated with (with the probable exception of Anonymous, whose primary focus is the highlighting/promotion of #OWS) Santiago Carrión. It is worth noting that the movement is also referred to as the Spanish Revolution. The creator of this web platform is none other than Chris Moya, software developer and author for the Soros Global Voices network.

And where did the 15M movement originate? Was the 15M campaign also founded in part by Santiago Carrión, or as in many cases, was this simply a case of co-opting a legitimate concept from near inception in order to corral it, thus absorbing it into the NGO matrix where it can be controlled. The following facts speak volumes.

15M.cc was launched in September of 2011 with the intent not to represent the movement but rather to serve as the umbrella for data/history/projects organized (past, present and future) on behalf of the 15 May 2011 mass demonstration/movement organized by Democracia real YA! (Real Democracy NOW! or DRY!). It is publicly stated that there are 3 key people behind the 15M.cc initiative: an entrepreneur/developer and self-described “founding father” of P2P (peer to peer) social networking (Pablo Soto), a filmmaker (Stéphane M. Grueso) and an expert in marketing, design and journalism (Patricia Horrillo).

AOL/Time Warner’s Huffington Post “explains” 15M on 25 May 2011 (see excerpt below) while Soros’s Global Voices highlighted 15M on 17 May 2011. This mass demonstration was also referred to by these outlets as the #spanishrevolution. On 5 July 2011, leading “progressive left media” outlet/Soros shill, Democracy Now! really lays it on in an interview with DRY founder Olmo Gálvez in Madrid, Spain. Amy Goodman continually employed specific language such as “grassroots movement” and “crowd-funding platform” – phrases that provoke the idea of credibility and legitimacy behind the idea of spontaneous uprisings rather than corporate engineered/managed venting mechanisms. [For more information on Democracy Now! Read: DEMOCRACY NOW! AND “PROGRESSIVE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA”: CHEERLEADERS FOR IMPERIALISM AND WAR.]

The Huffington Post’s vague description on who is behind the #spanishrevolution is pitiful yet revealing:

“The #spanishrevoution is an internet movement that was started by leading figures on the internet, including top bloggers and internet entrepreneurs, to harness the distress of the Spanish people into action ahead of this past weekend’s elections.

 

Some of the most important figures/initiators of the 15M movement are Fabio Gándara (who has been part of the movement since the beginning), Jon Aguirre Such (DRY’s spokesperson) and Olmo Gálvez (whom El País calls a social networking “crack”). It’s interesting to point out that all three of them are quite young, between 26 and 30, and didn’t know each other until shortly before 15M….

 

As I already mentioned, most of the initiators didn’t know each other at the beginning and only met in person a couple of weeks before the 15M event. The main platforms enabling them to join forces were social networks like Facebook and Tuenti, and of course platforms like Twitter and hundreds (or even thousands) of blogs that supported the movements and spread the word. The sit-in at Plaza del Sol even has its own TV channel, with a mind-blowing 11 million accumulated views so far. Around 45 million people live in Spain.” (Emphasis added)

RoarMag.org disclosed one key player while stating that the other key the player wished to remain anonymous:

“Fabio Gándara, the man at the origin of it all, a 26-year old lawyer, started the social mobilization project with two friends: Eric Perez and another person who prefers to remain anonymous.”

Although Huffington tells us that it “was started by leading figures on the internet, including top bloggers and internet entrepreneurs,” the author only discloses three names: Fabio Gándara, Aguirre Such and Olmo Galvez. Gándara is a campaigner for Change.org – a for-profit NGO. Gándara states:

“Before joining Change.org as campaign organizer, I worked as a lawyer in the prestigious law firm Cuatrecasas, Gonçalves Pereira, in the areas of Spanish and European Public Law. I also have been working as an activist in a Spanish grassroots organisation, Democracia Real Ya, seed of the #Spanishrevolution.”

The Commerce of Exploitation: Change.org

“And nobody’s making more money from online petitions than Change.org. I wonder how many people visiting a change.org petition know that despite its dot-org name, the organization is a for-profit lead generation business. Just take a look at their partners page, and you’ll see what they do…. Change.org is being deliberately deceitful through the use of the change.org name. I’d suspect that the average change.org user does not know that Change.org is a for-profit corporation, and that the corporation plans on using the contact information being provided to them to earn revenue.” — Clay Johnson, Information Diet

Change.org (based in San Francisco, CA), founded in 2005, was launched on 7 February 2007 by current CEO Ben Rattray (with a background in economics), with the support of current CTO Mark Dimas and Adam Cheyer (co-founder of Siri software and director of engineering in the iPhone group at Apple). As of February 2012, the site has 100 employees with offices on 4 continents. By the end of 2012, Rattray “plans to have offices in 20 countries and to operate in several more languages, including Arabic and Chinese.” It was reported on 5 April 2012 that Change.org hit 10 million members, and is currently the fastest-growing social action platform on the web. They are currently receiving 500 new petitions per day. [Source: Wikipedia]

The founding Change.org team of advisors include Darren Haas, developer of financial trading and currency exchange software with Euronet Worldwide; Sundeep Ahuja, founder/product manager/marketing/strategy advisor/investor/co-founder/president at blissmo, Kiva.org, indiegogo, DailyFeats, Sparked.com, richrelevance, friendput, MySpace, and an actor, to boot; and Joe Greenstein, software developer and co-founder and CEO of Flixster.

Change.org is a member of George Soros’s Media Consortium. Change.org is subtle yet clear in their affiliations. Ample media coverage provided by Media Consortium partners and social media/tech sites, etc. Change.org seldom fails to mention the other effective organizations – Avaaz.org, Sumofus.org, and 38degrees.org.uk.

On the Change.org partner page, the corporation states they have hundreds of partners, yet only 5 are made public. Yet they make no secret of their expanding empire:

“We’re Hiring!: Change.org is a rapidly expanding and profitable social venture, growing by more than a million new members a month by empowering people across the globe to win social action campaigns on a wide range of issues such as human rights, global poverty, and environmental protection. Our current partners include hundreds of the world’s largest nonprofits, including Amnesty International, Sierra Club, Human Rights Campaign, and the United Nations Foundation.”

Change.org  is the darling of corporate media powerhouse TIME magazine, which having named change.org founder Ben Rattray, as one of TIME’s, 100 Most Influential People of 2012 while profiling of Olmo Gálvez in TIME Magazine’s 2011 Person of the Year – The Protestor. Goodman (of Democracy Now!) describes Gálvez as “a young entrepreneur with experience in several countries….” Such corporate-controlled entities lend credibility and legitimacy to “leaders,” movements and ideologies that secure and protect corporate power. Such well-greased mechanisms are essential in establishing a collective consent to the hegemony of the ruling oligarchy. Other recent instances of corporate-sponsored NGO “leaders” that have been praised by the likes of TIME and foundation-funded “progressive” media include “green” capitalist Al Gore, who is also deemed by TIME as one of the 100 Most Influential, while Rockefeller’s lovechild Bill McKibben seems to have taken up symbolic residence at the studio of Democracy Now! In a patriarchal society, charismatic fellows such as Gore and McKibben are key members of a manufactured, managerial elite, building global public acceptance for the illusory green economy – formerly known as industrialized capitalism – the goal being to protect capitalism, thereby protecting the current structures at all costs, by any means necessary, by every means available.

Francisco Polo is now director of Change.org Spain, after founding Actuable, a Spanish-based campaign platform that merged with Change.org in 2011. Prior to this, Polo was coordinator of Amnesty International in Barcelona. On 7 October 2011, techPresident reports the following in an article titled Change.org’s International Move:

“This was a crucial night for the protestors calling themselves ‘indignados,’ who had descended upon Puerta del Sol on May 15 intent on staying until national elections in Spain. Frustrated with a political system they feel does not work for them, many of them out of work, they stayed to protest in defiance of a national law that prohibits discussion of electoral politics so close to the elections. But it was also a crucial night for Actuable, an online petitions platform then just a few months old. Protesters wanted to tell Spanish elections authority, the Junta Electoral Central, that they had a right to be heard. While they rallied in Madrid despite the electoral rules, they also went online – to Actuable, where a petition asserting their right to demonstrate, even immediately before an election, collected 200,000 signatures….

 

“Actuable co-founder Francisco Polo told techPresident in a recent interview. ‘It was an unprecedented way to empower people.’ It’s hard to know what impact the petition actually had, but the chance to see use by the indignados was a moment in the sun for Actuable. Founded last year, Actuable was always intended to operate in the style of Change.org – which recently acquired the Madrid-based platform. Now it is a new international presence for Change.org, and part of the company’s new plans to expand globally….

 

“Polo is now director of Change.org Spain, and Actuable will be rebranded with Change.org’s colors over the next few months….

 

“A company spokesman says that the two platforms will be completely merged by 2012, with languages and campaigns localized for each visitor. Actuable’s 720,000-some-odd members will be rolled into Change.org’s user base, which already grows – or so the company claims – by about 400,000 users a month.

 

“Actuable rolling into Change.org comes as ‘indignados’ emerge in Mexico City, and one of our own commenters points us to student protesters advocating for education reform in Chile.”

One must ask oneself if these European organizations founded by Carrión, with deep UN connections, are involved in the US Day of Rage campaign. Adbusters (originator of Occupy Wall Street, announcing it 12 June 2012, one day prior to the registration (via UN) of the 15Octber.net website) features 15M in their June 2012 issue in an article titled Spain’s Indignados, written by Marta Sánchez at, none other than, ROARmag.org. The article focuses exclusively on the 15M movement. Almost from inception, www.15October.net has been publicly affiliated with Adbusters in videos (25 September 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y3X2VFruLM) and other branding/marketing campaigns while Anonymous has also actively promoted it (15 August 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPd25yDiOwU). Under the Adbusters website link “Get Involved,” Adbusters recommends going to the website Takethesquare.net “for international perspective.”

The founder of US Day of Rage (and Occupy Wall Street) cites four principles:

  1. Non-Violence
  2. Principles before Party – US Day of Rage will never endorse, finance, or lend our name to any candidate or party.
  3. Volunteer – Every US Day of Rage organizational committee on the state, city, and federal level should be entirely self-supporting, declining outside contributions from any political party, association, or candidate. US Day of Rage is not a money making operation. We are volunteers.
  4. Autonomous Except in Matters Affecting the Whole – We do not support, for example, violations to our principle of non-violence. USDayofRage.org is here to help facilitate city and state level organization, and to organize the federal protest at the US Capitol.

And although volunteers of US Day of Rage are told to decline outside contributions, this did not stop the founder’s other venture, Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Wall Street affiliates, from accepting $3.6 million from George Soros. Although some media found this interesting enough to cover, it was of little interest to the Occupy Movement itself, who downplayed the connection or ignored it altogether. Soros gave $1.1 million to MoveOn.org (founder of Avaaz) and tossed $8,900.00 to Rockefeller’s 350.org. [October 14, 2011]

When organizations set up Twitter accounts, it is always revealing to see who has been added “to follow” first and foremost as this demonstrates their closest affiliations. In the case of 15M, it is important to note Take the square (@takethesquare) was the sixth account to be “followed” by @15M_cc twitter upon registration, with the first three chosen to follow being that of the founders of original 15M concept: (1) Pablo Soto, @pabloMP2P (2) Patricia Horrillo, @patrihorrillo (3) Stéphane M. Grueso, @fanetin (4) Acampada Sol TL, @acampadasolTL (5) tomalosbarrios, @tomalosbarrios (6) Take the square @takethesquare: “Tweeting from the #spanishrevolution to connect our struggle with people all around the world. Global problems, global uprising. https://takethesquare.net

[For more information on 15M within Latin America (including Periodismociudadano.com), read the investigative report titled FUNDACIONES GLOBALISTAS y ONGs -15M.]

 

Next: Part III

 

[Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. She resides in Canada. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation, Counterpunch, Political Context, Canadians for Action on Climate Change and Countercurrents. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can follow her on Twitter @elleprovocateur]

 

A Colossal Fraud

August 22, 2012

Continuity

By Jay Taber

As documented by Jerry Sanders in his book Peddlers of Crisis, Cold War hawks in Washington made their bones by producing and disseminating misperceptions about the Russian threat, that in turn justified the inordinate military buildup by the US and NATO. In essence, says Sanders, the national security military industrial complex, while perhaps warranted at some level, was nevertheless a colossal fraud concocted by Washington insiders at Langley and the Pentagon.

Deliberately falsified information and wildly exaggerated threats were, in fact, used to enable not only the looting of the US Treasury to meet these false threats, but also to promote some notorious characters into the halls of power. People like Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney and Richard Armitage.

Today, through agencies like National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID, lessons in psychological warfare learned by Cold War hawks and private sector friends like George Soros are still being applied in the interest of US hegemony, albeit in more creative ways. As noted in this article about NED-funded political opposition groups in Russia, the exaggerations, while containing an element of truth, are leveraged to perpetuate popular myths that can be capitalized on by US interests.

With a perfunctory nod to prior creative operators at the National Security Agency (NSA), I have to admit that the Pussy Riot affair must rank right up there. While Cartalucci acknowledges a lack of direct connection, the witness list of the pussy defense is loaded with NED funding.

As illustrated by this article at Wrong Kind of Green, arguing against Russian gangster capitalism, while important, is best left to authentic journalists and human rights activists, not US State Department proteges, Ford or Soros funded puppets. Monitoring Russian elections for fraud is one thing, disturbing the peace and distorting reports in order to destabilize Russian society is best left to the CIA. As seen in the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, innocent people get hurt.

Players and Pawns

Intercontinental Cry

By

Aug 22, 2012

Image via Deep Green Resistance: “How do you learn the truth when the media lies?”

 

In 1996, when David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla wrote their prophetic paper  on netwar, they foresaw the powerful impact new forms of social organization could have on international politics. Using the Zapatistas and other examples of networks involved in opposing such things as globalization, Ronfeldt and Arquilla went so far as to suggest that civil society might have the upper hand — at least for a while — as institutional actors scrambled to catch up with the dynamics involved.

Examining the 1999 WTO Ministerial in Seattle, Paul de Armond expounded on the netwar aspects of anti-globalization networks. In 2001, Ronfeldt and Arquilla examined its usage by terrorists and transnational criminal networks, in addition to social activists as they engage in the fight for the future. In 2005, Michelle Shumate, J. Alison Bryant and Peter R. Monge looked at how storytelling in the form of narratives about globalization are deployed in netwar.

Today, as noted by observers like Wrong Kind of Green, it appears institutions have caught on. Using corporate and government funding to create and co-opt international NGOs like Amnesty International, covert agencies like the CIA now work hand in hand with State Department puppets manipulated by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy.  Able to choreograph fake revolutions as well as control dissidents, institutions like the National Security Agency are arguably back in the drivers seat.

Networks, of course, are only as effective as their understanding of conflict, and that means having a working knowledge of the principles of psywar.  False front networks, with the aid of corporate media, might be able to deceive public opinion, but they also present an opportunity to illustrate the difference between cover stories and back stories through investigative journalism. Using authentic communications networks to differentiate between players and pawns exposes both the hubris and moral corruption of institutions, while simultaneously using research as organizing tool.

Keeping our eyes open to the reality of netwar is as vital to indigenous networks as any. Given our limited resources, we need to conserve our energy, choose our battles, and pick our targets, before we marshall our resources. Otherwise, we risk being played against each other by powerful forces working behind the scenes.


[Jay Taber is an associate scholar of the Center for World Indigenous Studies, an author, a correspondent to Fourth World Eye, and a contributing editor of Fourth World Journal. Since 1994, he has served as the administrative director of Public Good Project.]

Amnesty International is US State Department Propaganda

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

by Tony Cartalucci

Land Destroyer Report

Amnesty run by US State Department representatives, funded by convicted financial criminals, and threatens real human rights advocacy worldwide.

Image: From Amnesty International USA’s website, “Free Pussy Riot.” “Help Amnesty International send a truckload of balaclavas to Putin.” This childish stunt smacks of US State Department-funded Gene Sharp antics – and meshes directly with the US State Department’s goal of undermining the Russian government via its troupe of US-funded “opposition activists” including “Pussy Riot.” That Amnesty is supporting the US State Department’s agenda should be no surprise, it is run literally by the US State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations, Suzanne Nossel.   

….

August 22, 2012 – Mistakenly considered by many as the final word on human rights worldwide, it might surprise people to know that Amnesty International is in fact one of the greatest obstacles to real human rights advocacy on Earth. In its most recent 2012 annual report (page 4, .pdf), Amnesty reiterates one of the biggest lies it routinely tells:

“Amnesty International is funded mainly by its membership and public donations. No funds are sought or accepted from governments for investigating and campaigning against human rights abuses. Amnesty International is independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion.”

This is categorically false. Amnesty international is indeed funded and run by not only governments, but also immense corporate-financier interests, and is not only absolutely entwined with political ideology and economic interests, it is an essential tool used for perpetuating just such interests.

Amnesty International’s Funding

Finding financial information on Amnesty International’s website is made purposefully difficult – specifically to protect the myth that the organization is “independent.” Like any organized criminal operation, Amnesty separates compromising financial ties through a series of legal maneuvers and shell organizations. Upon Amnesty’s website it states:

“The work carried out through Amnesty International’s International Secretariat is organised into two legal entities, in compliance with United Kingdom law.  These are Amnesty International Limited (“AIL”) and Amnesty International Charity Limited (“AICL”). Amnesty International Limited undertakes charitable activities on behalf of Amnesty International Charity Limited, a registered charity.”

And it is there, at Amnesty International Limited, where ties to both governments and corporate-financier interests are kept. On page 11 of Amnesty International Limited’s 2011 Report and Financial Statement (.pdf) it states (emphasis added):

“The Directors are pleased to acknowledge the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Oak Foundation, Open Society Georgia Foundation, the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Programme, Mauro Tunes and American Jewish World Service. The UK Department for International Development (Governance and Transparency Fund) continued to fund a four year human rights education project in Africa. The European Commission (EuropeAid) generously awarded a multi-year grant towards Amnesty International’s human rights education work in Europe.”

Clearly then, Amnesty does take money from both governments and corporate-financier interests, one of the most notorious of which, Open Society, is headed by convicted financial criminal George Soros. In March, 2012, it was reported that a Bloomberg’s report, “Soros Loses Case Against French Insider-Trading Conviction,” indicated that an appeal based on a “human rights” violation against Wall Street speculator George Soros had been rejected by the “European Court of Human Rights.”

Soros, whose Open Society also funds Human Rights Watch and a myriad of other “human rights” advocates, literally attempted to use the West’s human rights racket to defend himself against charges of financial fraud in perhaps the most transparent illustration of just how this racket operates.

Soros, who was convicted and fined for insider trading in 2002 regarding French bank Société Générale shares he bought in 1988, has built an empire out of obfuscating global criminal activity with the cause of “human rights.” His support, as well as that of the British and European governments, of Amnesty International aims solely at expanding this obfuscating.

Amnesty International’s Leadership

Amnesty’s leadership is also telling of its true agenda. Suzanne Nossel, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, for instance was drawn directly from the US State Department – again, utterly contradicting Amnesty’s claims of being “independent” of governments and corporate interests. Nossel continued promoting US foreign policy, but simply behind a podium with a new logo, Amnesty International’s logo, attached to it. Amnesty International’s website specifically mentions Nossel’s role behind US State Department-backed UN resolutions regarding Iran, Syria, Libya, and Cote d’Ivoire.

Image: Same lies, different podium. Suzanne Nossel previously of the US State Department, is now executive director of Amnesty International USA. Her primary function of dressing up aspirations of corporate-financier global hegemony as “human rights advocacy” has not changed.

SPECIAL REPORT: EXPOSING U.S. AGENTS OF LOW-INTENSITY WARFARE IN AFRICA

The “Policy Wonks” Behind Covert Warfare & Humanitarian Fascism

August 8, 2012
by Keith Harmon Snow

Conscious Being Alliance

This special report includes three unpublished video clips of interviewees from the Politics of Genocide documentary film project: Ugandan dignitary Remigius Kintu, former Rwandan prime minister Fautisn Twagiramungu, and Nobel peace prize nominee Juan Carrero Saralegui.

               From the 1980s to today, an elite group of Western intelligence operatives have backed low-intensity guerrilla warfare in certain African ‘hotspots’.  Mass atrocities in the Great Lakes and Sudan can be linked to Roger Winter, a pivotal U.S. operative whose ‘team’ was recently applauded for birthing the world’s newest nation, South Sudan.  Behind the fairytale we find a long trail of blood and skeletons from Uganda to Sudan, Rwanda and Congo.  While the mass media has covered their tracks, their misplaced moralism has simultaneously helped birth a new left-liberal ‘humanitarian’ fascism.  In this falsification of consciousness, Western human rights crusaders and organizations, funded by governments, multinational corporations and private donors, cheer the killers and blame the victims—and pat themselves on the back for saving Africa from itself.  Meanwhile, the “Arab Spring” has spread to (north) Sudan.  Following the NATO-Israeli model of regime change being used in Central & North Africa, it won’t be long before the fall of Khartoum. 

SPLA tank South Sudan LR.jpg

SPLA Tank in South Sudan: An old SPLA army tank sits in the bush in Pochalla, Jonglei State, south Sudan in 2004.  Israel, the United States, Britain and Norway have been the main suppliers of the covert low-intensity war in Sudan, organized by gunrunners and policy ‘wonks’.  Photo c. keith harmon snow, 2004.


It is, oh! such a happy fairy tale!  It begins as all happy fairy tales do, in fantasy land.  The fantasy is one of human rights princes and policy ‘wonks’ in shining armor and the new kingdom of peace and tranquility, democracy and human rights, that they have created.  That is what the United States foreign policy establishment and the corporate mass media—and not a few so-called ‘human rights activists’—would have us believe about the genesis of the world’s newest nation, South Sudan.

“In the mid-1980s, a small band of policy wonks began convening for lunch in the back corner of a dimly lit Italian bistro in the U.S. capital,” wrote Rebecca Hamilton in the recent fairytale: “The Wonks Who Sold Washington on South Sudan.”  Hamilton is a budding think-tank activist-advocate-agent whose whitewash of the low intensity war for Sudan (and some Western architects of it), distilled from her book Fighting for Darfur, was splashed all over the Western press on 11 July 2012. [1]

The photos accompanying Hamilton’s story show a happy fraternity of ‘wonks’—what exactly is a ‘wonk’?—obviously being your usual down-jacket, beer- and coffee-slurping American citizens from white America, with a token black man thrown in to change the complexion of this Africa story.  Their cups are white and clean, their cars are shiny and new, their convivial smiles are almost convincing.  There is even a flag of the new country just sort of floating across Eric Reeves’ hip.

Because of Dr. Reeves’  ‘anti-genocide’ work in Sudan, Boston College professor Alan Wolfe has written that the Smith College English professor is “arrogant to the point of contempt.”  (I have had a similar though much more personal experience of Dr. Reeves’ petulance.)

71002505.jpg

“John Prendergast (L-R), Eric Reeves, Brian D’Silva, Ted Dagne and Roger Miller [sic]—pose for a photograph in this undated image provided to Reuters by John Prendergast,” reads the original Reuters syndicated news caption for the posed image of the Council of Wonks.  (U.S. intelligence & defense operative Roger Winter is misidentified as “Roger Miller”.)

The story and its photos project the image of casual, ordinary people who, we are led to believe, did heroic and superhuman things.  What a bunch of happy-go-lucky wonks!  Excuse me: policy wonks!  And their bellies are presumably warmed by that fresh Starbucks ‘fair trade’ genocide coffee shipped straight from the killing fields of post-genocide [sic] Rwanda… where, coincidentally, Starbucks reportedly cut a profit of more than a few million dollars in 2011.

This is a tale of dark knights, of covert operators and spies aligned with the cult of intelligence in the United States.  Operating in secrecy and denial within the U.S. intelligence and defense establishment, they have helped engineer more than two decades of low intensity warfare in Sudan (alone), replete with massive suffering and a death toll of between 1.5 and 3 million Sudanese casualties—using their own fluctuating statistics on mortality—and millions upon millions of casualties in the Great Lakes of Africa.

Behind the fantasy is a very real tale of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocides real and alleged, and mass atrocities covered up by these National Security agents with the aid of a not-so-ordinary English professor—their one-man Ministry of Disinformation—Dr. Eric Reeves.