“White Helmets” in Venezuela

INTERNATIONALIST 360°

May 3, 2017

Editorial Comment by Internationalist 360:

As the dirty war against the Venezuelan people unfolds at a swift and ruthless pace, the best accounts and analysis are not available in English. The report below is an example of critical information that we need today. I am confident that readers can both understand what is said and make allowances for the fact this is run through a translator.

A.V.

A new star has been born on the scrawny firmament

Investigative Report by Misión Verdad
Approximate Translation from Original Spanish by Google

They say to be there, in the line of contact, risking the skin, fighting against so many adverse factors in a moment of adrenaline and high tension. You see them attending to the victims, you see when they say that they act disinterestedly, mystically, a question of vocation, of trade, and by custom the “noblest of all”: to guard life, health. Something universal.

They say that they were born in adversity, they impact, they move their people. They exalt feelings (without frontiers), stand on the side of the weak, assist them. But they would also come to the fort if they needed it, they say. They are untiring. They are gaining the applause of all. They receive centimetraje in the means. The awards and recognitions await in the near future.

They become untouchable, sacred, angelic.

Thus, without fault in the story, a squad of rescuers, doctors, medical students, but above all uuu-niversitarios: the “white / green cross helmets” emerge without fault, inserting themselves within the Venezuelan and international informative landscape, Of the current political context.

And the strong advertising campaign that promotes them will be anything but innocent. It contains all the symbolic elements, places all the necessary signs and stimulating data that draw a “noblisima” cause.

But the adage says: if it is a story, it sells. We think of images, emotions and stimuli in the first place; Then the brain shapes it in its rational scheme. And not the other way around. That is the tactic with which a product is placed in the market.

Apart from precipitating a priori judgments about the composition of the rescue group, which has become one of the central protagonists in the insurrectional actions of the coup plot, and assuming in advance that the same operative principle is reproduced in which many people Are incorporated and stimulated by what they conceive as nobility or goodwill, just as many people are lumpy in mobilizations whose main operators act with a different and different political intention.

And, in the context of the new information landscape that has developed in the actions of the last month, other signs and data seem to guide everything in another direction.

Of the political as “spot” advertising

“We have no political color, the medicine has no color and we are there to care for whoever is injured, because that is what the Hippocratic oath tells us, we are to care for whoever needs us,” said Daniella Liendo, for all Practical effects spokesman of the group, in an interview with Panampost , signed by Sabrina Martín.

“There are more than 50 volunteer medical students who risk their lives to save those who are constantly demanding democracy in their country,” he says in another point in the same interview. Of his words that even at this point could be admitted approximate to neutral. “We have been growing a lot, people have given us incredible support and now when the demonstrations started we wanted to take up that initiative.”

And at this point the contrast between an alleged objectivity and defined political positions begins:

“The first aid brigade UCV was born at the time of the protests for ‘La Salida’ in 2014, and revived on Tuesday April 4, when the opposition called the first mobilization after knowing the sentences of the Supreme Court of Justice Which officially annulled the competencies of the National Assembly, already caught up in fact, “Liendo says this time for a work with a clear profile of publicity for El Encouragement, in this case signed by Maria Emilia Jorge M.

Organized from another similar political operation, “The Exit” of 2014, can already be circumscribing the sphere of political and ideological identity. A context. “It is not the same to take care of an injured person in an emergency of a hospital that to attend to him in these manifestations in which we are basically in a war”, maintains Liendo in Panampost, with such turn of nut.

The works reviewed for this research coincide in the same “interpretative” traits: youth, freshness, presumed spontaneity, disinterested virtuosity, and unselfish courage. This (deliberately) generalized impression also contributes the projection that they have been having in social networks.

Bring in reputed figures for their experience in putting together dirty information operations, such as Braulio Jatar , the well-known astróloga and web star Venezuelan-Mayamera Mía Astral, or the new 2.0 organizations of the trendiest, such as the Facebook account Trending Tropic . In what is accused, too, an accusatory, elaborate work. More professional than usual.

In the image above, consecrated visually by Donaldo Barros, one of the influencers “of weight.” The image below speaks for itself.

“Before they were 100 chamos who always stayed at the moment of repression, now they are the same 100 chamos, plus the student movement, the leaders of the opposition and the civil society. The departure of a political party of power, now the motives are different: we need people to stop starving, to get medicines to the country, people ask for social change, Liendo analyzes, “according to the note from El Encímulo.

Another disinformation, mystifying element, if you will, is in the number of activists who are assumed part of the grouping. The Stimulus (April 11) talks about 21 volunteers. Panampost, whose work is also on the same date (April 11), already speaks of “more than 50”. Effect Cocuyo puts them in “more than 80” on April 17 .

Reuters, replicated by La Patilla , already speaks of 120 for April 26, the same as the portal France 24 (in English). Both reports offer more than a coincidence: in addition to the voluntary figure, the respective reports come out the same day, with a very similar description of situation, between chaos and “objective” glorification.

Between the chaos and the violence, “the Green Cross arrived”, narrates the report of France24, signed by Esteban Rojas. “When a group of them walks through a protest, protesters stop their cries of ‘No more dictatorship!’ And they begin to cheer them up with cheers and cheers from ‘heroes!’ “Describes Alexandra Ulmer’s work for Reuters.

“The affection and warmth shown by Venezuelans is what gives us strength to continue,” sentence, prefabricated and swallowed Rojas, in France24. Common places, television glorification, political candor, alleged superior intentions that reinforce the “objective” character of the “Venezuelan crisis” and of “peaceful protests.” Epic consolidation attempt.

Not inconspicuous, but rather delicate inconsistencies, which could be assumed as traces of tender premature labor (or bad confessional praxis): “They began to save lives even before they had a license to practice medicine in a care center, and without But they have been formed to do it well “( The Stimulus ). Detailing, in addition, the incorporation of volunteers of the school of odontology of the University Santa Maria (?).

“In the western state of Táchira, bordering Colombia, doctors wear civilian clothing and use pseudonyms to avoid being arrested or attacked by government officials,” notes Reuters’ work, adding a more delicate element in many ways.

They are, as will be seen below, an expression “of the vanguard” of the “humanitarian channel” that Luis Almagro has obsessively advocated from the OAS and the National Assembly in contempt.

The group’s Instagram account was activated on April 7th .

In recent days (this note was published on May 2), in the account of the same network was added the option to receive financing via Amazon and other financing platforms 2.0 style crowd funding . For this, they had to add in their offer to be identified as a company the identification as Medical Company / Medical Company, according to the filter through which their account is visited.

War is also a matter of marketing.

And if one of the rules of marketing is to impact, it is not a good idea that in the first failed attempts at advertising (the image was removed from your account), it might be more effective to place the gas mask on the older lady instead of the sacrificial Rescuer And do not do it on the stairs of the San Ignacio Shopping Center.

Political ties will always reveal the agenda (and stakeholders)

All the works consulted also show the same closure and the general “humanitarian” conclusion: “To return to have inventory, First Aid UCV made this Tuesday a collection of supplies and medicines in the church Our Lady of Guadalupe, in Las Mercedes, Caracas; But also have points of collection in Miami, Houston, Washington DC and New York, the United States, Panama City, Panama, Madrid and Barcelona, Spain, Bogotá, Colombia, and Lima, Peru “(El Encímulo).

Small de facto channels, micro “humanitarian channels” via “direct diplomacy” and “solidarity action”. But everything remains surface. Behind the veil, the details speak more clearly.

Daniella Liendo is a member of the student center of the Medical School of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). It is also part of the NGO ” Doctors for Health “, a very active lobby in the accumulation (under what criteria?) Of figures, data and elements around the construction of the matrix of humanitarian crisis, lack of medicines (Product of “model failure”). The political connection always ends up revealing the usual suspects.

Behind all these formations is Deputy José Manuel Olivares (Vargas, Primero Justicia), president of the Health Sub-Commission and principal promoter of the ” Special Law to address the humanitarian crisis in health “, reverted by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), for its regressive character and its obvious opening of floodgates towards “humanitarian intervention”.

Law from which species such as Article 16 can be extracted: “The National Executive must receive all the International Humanitarian Aid that they offer to the Venezuelan State, even if it comes from an organization or State to which it has not been requested.”

Or for example 17: “The rejection of International Humanitarian Aid, requires in any case the previous authorization by the National Assembly, for which the National Executive must communicate to the legislative body the reasons why it intends to reject International Assistance Humanitarian.

The National Assembly shall decide, by a simple majority of its members, within two days after receiving the communication sent by the National Executive. The ruling of the National Assembly on the acceptance or rejection of the International Humanitarian Aid will be binding for the National Executive. “

Transfer of powers of last word that corresponds to other powers of the State, “soft” suppression of sovereignty, opening of a “humanitarian front” that would hardly deal with the transfer of medicines or medical equipment, but as a point of circulation of logistics equipment, Military, intelligence operators, etc.

Oenegización of the society, dissolution of political borders of the nation-state (Libya, once again). How many humanitarian interventions did Kosovo have in 1998? How much round of sanctions for the same purpose does this seemingly legal certification offer? How much is guaranteed by international law?

From this perspective, and on the syntax in exercise in the immediate reality, in spite of those who participate under the innocent bait of voluntarism (and not of those who obviously fulfill another mission), it is another front of money laundering that has much To do with information war and little with genuine concerns.

Cruz Verde, as you may recall, is also a well-known brand of cleaning products. The irony appears alone.

Shaping the message, “humanitarianism”, precedents

The operation against Venezuela is regional, geopolitical, global. The same thing, we have insisted to the point of being tired from this rostrum. The methods by which contexts and ways to orientate the situation towards “regime change”, the undermining of the social, the resumption of political control that consolidates the financial economy and force the planet’s hot spots towards the expected objectives .

Thus, it is inevitable to bring in this point the Syrian case, and within that, to the already renamed “White Helmets”. These multipurpose operators that only act in territories controlled by the jihadist entities, which have carried out more than one false file and with a clear anti-State orientation, its integral defense and its way of representing.

Its dubious “humanitarian work”, in the foreground, is inserted and strengthened from the logic of spectacle and the usual perceptual banalization of the transmission belt of corporate media interested in the overthrow of the government chaired by Bashar Al-Assad, Which then comes with the same logic of realignment and geopolitical subordination to Western interests.

As it is known, they were created by a former British intelligence officer, have been recognized, supported and promoted by how much prize is in the talk of opinion, while receiving moral certification by figures of Western politics and global celebrity. The same ones that today are filing batteries against Venezuela, under similar method.

In the immediate past, the “White Helmets” were the main source for the “Syrian government” chemical attack on Jan Sheyjun’s population, which led to direct US intervention by the Trump Administration , By bombarding with Tomahawlk missiles at the Sharyat airbase.

His dubious “humanitarian work”, on the other hand, has been dissected by a considerable batch of serious investigations, revealing the publicity construct and shedding light on its true nature, purpose, and membership in the humanitarian industrial complex that complements and whitens the actions Pure and hard political intervention.

The researches of Vanessa Beeley , Moon of Alabama , Patrick Henningsen, and even Max Blumenthal (hardly recognizable as a “pro-Assad” figure), are a necessary consultation. Beyond the obvious, for the effects of this work will be emphasized in other subyascentes functions of this class of operations:

The “White Helmets” or Syrian Civil Defense is a complex network of public relations firms, such as the renowned Purpose, heavy investments, dark figures from the oil world (including the Rockefeller Foundation) and the Syrian “exile” . It was partially created by the Office of Transitional Initiatives of USAID (with a first donation of $ 23 million among other donations), has received training from MI6 – the British Foreign Intelligence Service -, is financed by the taxes of the citizen gringos And English. Within this media advertising brokerage, as a high-level “simultaneous news placement” in various media, taxed (or taxed) other global action operations, such as the one led by the Avaaz portal, responsible for gathering signatures that requested An “Air Exclusion Zone” over Syria (ie direct and heavy military intervention), which led to its heightened evidence in the huge campaign against the liberation of Aleppo at the end of 2016. This last operation Others resound in the “meeting of signatures” against the Ombudsman, Tarek William Saab.
In the same way, they act as a non-state actor that assigns state tasks in the area of assistance and rescatismo, since, for example, the Syrian government does have its own civil defense body, specialized in disaster and disaster relief (Active in almost all the territory) and strongly depauperada by the economic blockade product of the sanctions. Similarly, it displaces, hegemonizes and criminalizes the action of other truly humanitarian groups, including the Red Crescent and the International Red Cross, as it also campaigns against the same action by the United Nations on this field of action. A global power that tries to impose itself on local, national.

In summary, scenarios of situations oriented to the Western public, seeking to convey the idea of genuine and legitimate the process of intervention via false flag operations, promoters of disinformation via disaster propaganda, transmitters of the idea of neutrality to be beyond politics.

It is evident everything that could be claimed in contextual jumps, since in operational “phases”, the insurrectional operation in Venezuela is not at the tragic and violent point (and in resistance) in the case of the Syrian Arab Republic . But the precedent, the model, remains.

Situations planned in larval stage?

Finally, as Mission Truth has developed, the panorama of the Venezuelan information battlefield has experienced a dramatic jump in strategies, tactics and methods to produce (dis) information about what happens on the ground, where the battle is Matter, entails, and is intended to climb the same dangerous path.

How much prefiguration and projection into the future have these kinds of operations as here analyzed? To what extent will the procedures that control the narrative be extended in both sphere 2.0, the news, and on the administration of the territory as a privileged scenery? We already saw a test balloon and its results with the incident of April 10 in Las Mercedes.

In recent days, again from his Instagram account, First Aid UCV denounced the treatment that a journalist of Venezolana de Televisión granted them, disregarding any agenda , any war context and appealing to international legislation to certify their selfless work.

If so, they should then also consider all the positive, promotional and exacerbated propaganda that the media clearly added to the coup plot are developing at this time, since it would do the same poor favor.

As a closure, reminder and alert, we will not put the video in which the “White Helmets” perform that simulated antics of the manequin challenge, but a simulacrum of railway accident carried out in England in 2015, as a clear demonstration of how far Can be reached, if you want, in the elaboration and conduction of a message:

Feb 28

2017

newWKOGadnim

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Humanitarian Agencies, Imperialist Wars/Occupations, The International Campaign to Destabilize Syria, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Amnesty International Human Rights Industrial Complex Human Rights Watch Iran Libya Russia Syria Turkey

Human Rights Industry Protects Imperialism

Black Agenda Report

February 15, 2017

by Margaret Kimberley

When so-called Human Rights organizations are financed by the one percent they dependably echo the priorities and prejudices of their influential sponsors. So it is that Amnesty International is an energetic source of war propaganda on behalf of US imperial efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere. Their “report” of a supposed “human slaughterhouse” operated by the Syrian regime is the latest installment in a campaign to justify US intervention in the Middle East.

Humanity is in desperate need of individuals and organizations to speak up for their right to live free from the threat of state violence. Instead we have a human rights industrial complex which speaks for the powerful and tells lies in order to justify their aggressions. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are at the top of this infamous list. They have a pattern and practice of giving cover for regime change schemes hatched by the United States, NATO partners and gulf monarchies like Saudi Arabia.

Amnesty International recently released a report “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass Hangings and Extermination at Saydnaya Prison Syria” which claimed that the Syrian government executed between 5,000 and 13,000 people over a five-year period. The report is based on anonymous sources outside of Syria, hearsay, and the dubious use of satellite photos reminiscent of Colin Powell’s performance at the United Nations in 2003. There is plenty of hyperbolic language like “slaughterhouse” and “extermination” but scant evidence of the serious charges being made.

Human Rights Watch joined the fray just days later, with claims that the Syrian government used chlorine gas against civilians fleeing Aleppo. Once again, the claims had little evidence, just mud thrown against a wall in the hope that some of it will stick. It is the al Nusra front which attacked the Aleppo refugees as they struggled to get within the Syrian army lines. One day there is a report on execution, another day chemical weapons, barrel bombs the next day and so on. These phony organizations never mention that the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria was brought about by western intervention and its head chopping jihadist allies.

The Syrian war isn’t over, but that government and its allies are winning and they will determine the future of that nation. It is Russia, Turkey and Iran who are convening peace talks between Syria and the opposition and that is why the effort to discredit them goes on.

Beginning in 2011 the United States used a tried and true method of getting support for imperialism. A foreign leader is accused of being a tyrant who terrorizes his nation. The claims silence critics, get buy in from corporate media and cynical politicians and ultimately lead to death at the hands of the so-called saviors. There are 9 million Syrian refugees precisely because of collusion between the west and its gulf monarchy allies. The suffering of the civilian population is the fault of these parties and it is only the determination of the Syrians and help from their allies which prevented it from going the way of Libya.

Now that the jihadists are on the run and their one-time backer Turkey has switched sides, the jig is up. But the imperialists will not go away quietly. That is why Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reappear at a crucial moment.

New president Donald Trump is quite literally a wild card. During his campaign he claimed he would not support regime change but his personality and policy are erratic. It is never clear what he means or wants. His staff are equally amateurish and the direction of American foreign policy is anyone’s guess. One day he wants better relations with Russia and the next he makes a futile demand that it return Crimea to its neo-Nazi overlords. But republicans and democrats in the war party are quite clear on their plans. They are not giving up in their quest for hegemony and they need all the credibility they can get. Enter Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to provide propaganda at just the right moment.

If they were at all serious in their stated goal of giving voice to the abused, they could use their ample resources to criticize the United States domestically and around the world. When president George Bush instigated the invasion or Iraq in 1991 they repeated the fable of soldiers killing babies in incubators. They never explained or apologized for their actions. They continued their awful partnership in 2011 when they provided cover for the Obama administration’s attack on and destruction of Libya.

Neither organization will denounce the American carceral state, the world’s worst. They might attack the modern-day police slave patrol which kills three people every day. They could ask why the United States has an implicit right to decide that Libya or Syria or Somalia can be destroyed and their populations be forced to suffer. But taking on those issues would be in defiance of their true mission, creating the conditions necessary to allow the United States to commit aggressions without fear of public opposition.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are not friendly to the people of the world. They pick on the weak and the targets of imperialist attack and tell lies on behalf of those who violate human rights on a mass scale. Despite playing a lead role in the Syrian disaster, the United States was invited to be an observer at the upcoming peace talks. Enter AI and HRW to help make sure that if the Trump administration should participate, it won’t be making any changes they need worry about. The human rights industrial complex is dependably on the side of the evil doers and their dirty deeds.

[Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley (at)BlackAgendaReport.com]

Feb 08

2017

newWKOGadnim

Humanitarian Agencies, Imperialist Wars/Occupations, United Nations, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Boeing Celebrity Fetish Central African Republic Democratic Republic of Congo George Clooney Lockheed Martin Somalia South Sudan Syria The Enough Project The Sentry White Helmets

FLASHBACK: George Clooney Paid by War Profiteers

Counterpunch

July 24, 2015

by David Swanson

May 19, 2012: “Political pals: Clooney and President Obama have met on a number of occasions, like this Darfur event in April”

George Clooney is being paid by the world’s top two war profiteers, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, to oppose war profiteering by Africans disloyal to the U.S. government’s agenda.

Way back yonder before World War II, war profiteering was widely frowned on in the United States. Those of us trying to bring back that attitude, and working for barely-funded peace organizations, ought to be thrilled when a wealthy celebrity like George Clooney decides to take on war profiteering, and the corporate media laps it up.

“Real leverage for peace and human rights will come when the people who benefit from war will pay a price for the damage they cause,” said Clooney — without encountering anything like the blowback Donald Trump received when he criticized John McCain.

Really, is that all it takes to give peace a chance, a celebrity? Will the media now cover the matter of who funds opponents of the Iran deal, and who funds supporters of the wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.?

Well, no, not really.

It turns out Clooney opposes, not war profiteering in general, but war profiteering while African. In fact, Clooney’s concern is limited, at least thus far, to five African nations: Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, though these are not the only nations in Africa or the world with serious wars underway.

Of the top 100 weapons makers in the world, not a single one is based in Africa. Only 1 is in South or Central America. Fifteen are in Western allies and protectorates in Asia (and China is not included in the list). Three are in Israel, one in Ukraine, and 13 in Russia. Sixty-six are in the United States, Western Europe, and Canada. Forty are in the U.S. alone. Seventeen of the top 30 are in the U.S. Six of the top 10 mega-profiteers are in the U.S. The other four in the top 10 are in Western Europe.

Hillary Clinton, Rob and Alisa Bair, Amal and George Clooney. Photo credit: Adam Schultz. | Clooney called Clinton the ‘one consistent voice’ in the 2016 election. He hosted a lavish fundraiser (that took in 15 million) for Clinton that Bernie Sanders observed as “obscene”.

Clooney’s new organization, “The Sentry,” is part of The Enough Project, which is part of the Center for American Progress, which is a leading backer of “humanitarian” wars, and various other wars for that matter — and which is funded by the world’s top war profiteer, Lockheed Martin, and by number-two Boeing, among other war profiteers.

According to the Congressional Research Service, in the most recent edition of an annual report that it has now discontinued, 79% of all weapons transfers to poor nations are from the United States. That doesn’t include U.S. weapons in the hands of the U.S. military, which has now moved into nearly every nation in Africa. When drugs flow north the United States focuses on the supply end of the exchange as an excuse for wars. When weapons flow south, George Clooney announces that we’ll stop backward violence at the demand side by exposing African corruption.

“United States actor George Clooney (R) embraces former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at a Leaders Summit for Refugees during the United Nations 71st session of the General Debate at the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters in New York, New York, USA, 20 September 2016.”

The spreading of the U.S. empire through militarism is most often justified by the example of Rwanda as a place where the opportunity for a humanitarian war, to prevent the Rwanda Genocide, was supposedly missed. But the United States backed an invasion of Rwanda in 1990 by a Ugandan army led by U.S.-trained killers, and supported their attacks for three-and-a-half years, applying more pressure through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and USAID. U.S.-backed and U.S.-trained war-maker Paul Kagame — now president of Rwanda — is the leading suspect behind the shooting down of a plane carrying the then-presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6, 1994. As chaos followed, the U.N. might have sent in peacekeepers (not the same thing, be it noted, as dropping bombs) but Washington was opposed. President Bill Clinton wanted Kagame in power, and Kagame has now taken the war into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with U.S. aid and weapons, where 6 million have been killed. And yet nobody ever says “We must prevent another Congo!”

What does George Clooney’s new organization say about the DRC? A very different story from that told by Friends of the Congo. According to Clooney’s group the killing in the Congo happens “despite years of international attention,” not because of it. Clooney’s organization also promotes this argument for more U.S. warmaking in the DRC from Kathryn Bigelow, best known for producing the CIA propaganda film Zero Dark Thirty.

On Sudan as well, there’s no blame for U.S. interference; instead Clooney’s crew has produced a brief for regime change.

On South Sudan, there’s no acknowledgement of U.S. warmongering in Ethiopia and Kenya, but a plea for more U.S. involvement.

The Central African Republic gets the same diagnosis as the others: local ahistorical spontaneous corruption and backwardness leading to war.

Clooney’s co-founder of the Sentry (dictionary definition of “Sentry” is “A guard, especially a soldier posted at a given spot to prevent the passage of unauthorized persons”) is John Prendergast, former Africa director for the National Security Council. Watch Prendergast find himself awkwardly in a debate with an informed person here.

Clooney’s wife, incidentally, works for U.S.-friendly dictators and brutal killers in places like Bahrain and Libya.

More nations could soon be spotted by The Sentry. The President of Nigeria was at the U.S. Institute of “Peace” this week pleading for weapons. U.S. troops are in Cameroon this week training fighters.

If the peace organization I work for had 0.0001% the financial support of The Sentry, perhaps the debate would change. So, one thing you can do is support the right antiwar efforts.

Another is to let The Sentry know what it’s missing. It asks for anonymous tips when you spot war profiteering. Have you ever turned on C-Span? If you see something, say something. Let The Sentry know about the Pentagon.

[David Swanson wants you to declare peace at http://WorldBeyondWar.org His new book is War No More: The Case for Abolition.]

Further Reading:

Enough of CIA’s ‘Enough Project’ in Africa! [Avaaz, International Crisis Group, Center for American Progress]

Jan 10

2017

newWKOGadnim

Imperialist Wars/Occupations

Africa Avaaz Burundi Congo ENOUGH Project Establishment Media Samatha Powers Tom Perriello Washington Post

PODCAST: Washington Post Attacks Burundi

KPFA Radio

January 1, 2017

by Ann Garrison

“The end of the unipolar, U.S.-led global order is most dramatically signified by the U.S. loss of its proxy war with Russia in Syria, despite dropping bombs faster than U.S. weapons industries could manufacture them. For the past year and a half, a much quieter struggle has been playing out in the tiny East African nation of Burundi. This week the Washington Post launched its latest salvo in the West’s propaganda war on Burundi.”

https://soundcloud.com/kpfa-fm-94-1-berkeley/washington-post-attacks-burundi

The end of the unipolar, U.S.-led global order is most dramatically signified by the U.S. loss of its proxy war with Russia in Syria, despite dropping bombs faster than U.S. weapons industries could manufacture them. For the past year and a half, a much quieter struggle has been playing out in the tiny East African nation of Burundi.

The U.S. and E.U. nations have repeatedly demanded that Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza step down, but Russia and China have stood up for Burundi, as for Syria, on the U.N. Security Council. Despite its small size, Burundi is, like Syria, very geostrategically situated.

To the east, it borders the scandalously resource rich Democratic Republic of the Congo. To the north, it borders longstanding U.S. ally and military proxy Rwanda. To the East, it borders Tanzania, which also favors Russia and China and borders the Indian Ocean.

Russian and Chinese firms have won Burundi’s major mining contracts, and Russia and China have repeatedly blocked U.N. Security Council resolutions to condemn, sanction or send armed force to Burundi. The U.S. and E.U. nations have punished Burundi by cutting aid, imposing sanctions, and turning a blind eye to Rwanda’s cross border aggression.

Western press and officials, including U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, have also waged a relentless propaganda war against Burundi. On December 26, 2016 the Washington Post published an attack on Burundi with no more evidence than its PropOrNot denunciation of independent news sites or its claims about Russians hacking DNC computers and even the U.S. power grid in Burlington, Vermont.

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza

The story was first titled “They served an abusive regime. The U.N. made them peacekeepers anyway” but was later changed to “U.N. discovers that some peacekeepers have disturbing pasts.” This referred to the 1,130 Burundians serving as U.N. peacekeepers, primarily in Somalia and the Central African Republic, making it the 23rd greatest contributor to United Nations peacekeeping operations as of July 31, 2016.

Aside from its reliance on anonymous witnesses and its dateline Rwanda, the Washington Post story failed to mention that the top 10 contributors of U.N. peacekeeping troops include infamous human rights abusers Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Nepal, Egypt and Indonesia. Ethiopia, where the 6 percent Tigrean minority rules with an iron fist, is the top contributor of U.N. peacekeeping troops, with 8,333 peacekeepers deployed, seven times more than Burundi.

Washington, D.C.-based Ethiopian human rights activist Obang Metho, founder of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, says that Ethiopia escapes criticism by serving the West. “The Ethiopian government – the ruling ethnic minority regime that terrorizes its own people – they are not being criticized because they are the darling of the West. They’re pretty much that from Bush till Obama. Anything that the West will ask of them, they will do that.”

Metho also calls Ethiopia an ethnic apartheid regime. “Ethiopians call it not only an ethnic minority group. People also call it an ethnic apartheid group, because it’s almost like the way it was in South Africa and other countries. This tiny ethnic group, they control the security, the intelligence, the economy – almost every sector – and then they use it to divide and conquer, to divide one ethnic group against the other.”

The U.S. has never called on Ethiopia’s President Mulatu Teshome or his predecessor, Meles Zenawi, to step down, as they have Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza. National Security Council Advisor and Former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice gave a 15 minute tribute to Zenawi at his funeral.

[Oakland writer Ann Garrison writes for the San Francisco Bay View, Black Agenda Report, Black Star News, Counterpunch and her own website, Ann Garrison, and produces for AfrobeatRadio on WBAI-NYC, KPFA Evening News, KPFA Flashpoints and for her own YouTube Channel, AnnieGetYourGang. She can be reached at anniegarrison@gmail.com. In March 2014 she was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for promoting peace in the Great Lakes Region of Africa through her reporting]

Jan 07

2017

newWKOGadnim

Avaaz, Humanitarian Agencies, Imperialist Wars/Occupations, Purpose [Public Relations Arm of Avaaz], Social Engineering, The International Campaign to Destabilize Syria, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Aleppo Avaaz Behavioral Economics of Hatred Media Netwar Propaganda Psyops Purpose Pyswar Regime Change Syria White Helmets

ALEPPO: The Terrorist Cheerleaders Promoted as “Activists” by Corporate Media

SOTT.Net

January 4, 2017

by Paul Mansfield

Lina Shamy Twitter page.

The “activists” were out in full force during the last days of the final liberation of Aleppo, decrying what they saw as the fall of the city and transmitting their “last” messages as they awaited death or abduction by the “evil Assad regime” forces. They made quite an impact in social media and some were picked up for 15 minutes of fame in the regime-change-shilling Western media. Meanwhile foreign independent and Syrian journalists continue to present a narrative which is anathema to the mainstream, hence their exclusion from any coverage.

Lina Shamy has been a real hit on regime-change-cheerleading media such as Al Jazeera. She solemnly tells us people are living through an Assad genocide, many having lain under the rubble of bombed Aleppo buildings, with what she calls the civil defence, or more accurately, the ‘White Helmets’, unable to rescue them. Incidentally, the White Helmets are not the real Syrian Civil Defence. They have been set up as a shadow state institution, colonizing and subverting the provision of emergency response in this war-torn country.

There is a real Syrian Civil Defence, naturally enough performing under the mandate of the legitimate, internationally recognised Syrian government. It comes as no surprise then that it is the certified civil fire and rescue organisation according to the International Civil Defence Organisation (ICDO). Shamy is quite careless with her interpretation of who the civil defence is, and the carelessness doesn’t end there.

Shamy, interviewed on Al Jazeera, said she had to flee her house in Aleppo with nothing but her clothes. Yet those hanging on her every video report will be pleased to know she still managed to bring her electronic devices, so she can continue to tell the world about the genocide being committed by the regime. How fortuitous is that.

Shamy is one of the sources of the accusations that Syrian soldiers and militias walked the streets of Aleppo, executing entire families and burning 60 people to death hiding in a basement. She claimed if the Syrian soldiers think there is the remotest connection to the rebel groups they will execute civilians. She is a rather vague source however, not having witnessed any of this herself.

She is in actual fact a secondary source, recounting what “activists” have said about alleged atrocities. Once the reality behind the horrific headlines is unpacked however, the credibility of the accusations starts to crumble away. It is difficult to know if the allegations are true or if they are plucked from thin air. Thankfully she can rely on propagandist bullhorns such as Al Jazeera to promote her claims.

Shamy is famous, along with other activists, for posting her “last video.” It all seems very well coordinated in a chaotic war environment. If it was conceived and coordinated from public relations operatives from abroad we could understand how slick and attention grabbing the “last this, last that” theme is. But I am sure we are not as cynical as to believe we are being duped, are we?

If Shamy’s allegations of widespread executions are true, we may be entitled to question how she, as an activist in the so-called firing line, managed to leave Aleppo unscathed. Her fans must be grateful that she is now in Idlib, tweeting that the “flag of the revolution is fluttering high. ” Undoubtedly she is honing her media performances to tell us of future Assad “atrocities” in Idlib.

https://twitter.com/Linashamy/status/814841936414707712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Bilal Abdul Kareem is another ‘activist’ who has been advocating for direct western intervention in Syria since at least 2013, while simultaneously opposing attacking Islamist groups. In other words, wage war on the people of Syria and give ISIS and Al-Nusra a free pass. This scenario could only lead to another Libya, with ISIS and al-Qaeda struggling for control of the country and its gas and oil reserves. Speaking to Channel 4 News just after the Ghouta chemical attack on 21 August 2013 Kareem said, “There needs to be more dialog with these Islamic fighters because what they’re fighting for and what the west actually wants, really isn’t so incompatible. And I’ve said this before.” When asked about why radical Islamists should be supported he responded with the glib, “I don’t think there’s anything radical about wanting to save lives.”

He said the west would find a ‘compatible partner” in the Islamist fighters.

Kareem, in an interview in 2015, gave a platform for former Al-Nusra spokesman Abu Firas to justify the forceful imposition of an Islamic state on secular Syria and the bloodshed necessary to achieve this goal. He also interviewed Abdullah Muhaysini, the Saudi Jihadist ideologue who says all able-bodied Sunni Muslims are obliged to travel to Syria to wage Jihad. He says Syrians today are standing strong against the Shia coming at them from more than ten countries, obliging Sunni from abroad to fight for their Sunni brothers.

Apparently he’s fine with the idea of Muslims killing Muslims. He calls the Alawites enemies who also must be wiped out. Muhaysini claims to be an independent sharia scholar, but is believed to be a senior Al-Nusra (now Jabhat Fatah al-Sham) leader. He was added to the US government’s list of designated terrorists in November 2016.

Terrorist supporter and darling of Western media, Bilal Abdul Kareem

Kareem also got on the “last video” bandwagon saying, “This might be close to, if not the last communication.” He clearly saw this as the fall, not the liberation of Aleppo, and was determined to spread a gloomy perspective that has not been shared by thousands of Syrians relieved and thankful to be liberated in East Aleppo.

Political analyst Andrew Korybko points out how this “shadowy figure” who has been “actively spinning the Orwellian narrative that the ‘rebellious locals’ are under ‘deadly oppression’ by the SAA” has been touted and feted by the mainstream media as an “independent journalist” who can provide reliable, on-the-ground information. With his Islamist leanings, it is more accurate to say Kareem is “infamously contributing to the epidemic of fake news,” while fakerstan media such as CNN and Al Jazeera are infamously promoting the cause of violent jihadism in Syria.

In contrast, Korybko points out that the work of the outstanding independent journalist, Vanessa Beeley, who has been on the ground in Aleppo conducting interviews, taking videos, providing photographic evidence of the large scale humanitarian operation and the feelings of relief and joy among liberated Syrians, is ignored by the western mainstream media. When you actually give the people of Syria an unfiltered voice not shaped and redefined through the ministry of truth you become persona non grata in fakerstan medialand.

Bana Alabed. (Photo: Twitter)

Bana Alabed, the seven-year-old girl who has become a Twitter sensation and until recently lived in East Aleppo, always seemed to be able to tweet in Wifi-less Aleppo. But if you have an account you could tweet from anywhere. Bana accumulated followers at a staggering pace at the same time the Syrian army and its allies were repelling counteroffensives by the opposition and preparing for the final push to liberate Aleppo.

Her tweets were faithfully retweeted by the Syrian opposition and figures from the mainstream Western media, and she even gained a fan in J. K. Rowling, who sent a Harry Potter book – in English of course – to the little girl who can only recite rote-learned short sentences in English. Whoever is writing the tweets, it is clearly not Bana (it’s probably her mother, who can be seen whispering answers to her in post-liberation interviews).

This child is clearly a prop being used to cynically manipulate us to believe in Russian and Syrian war crimes and that the “civilised” world must urgently intervene to stop the murderous rampage.

Bana constantly tweeted about her house being bombed, of the terror she and the family feel, that the Syrian army will target them because of the tweeting, that death could be imminent, of nearby bombings killing numerous civilians, and appealed for help to western leaders including Barack Obama to rescue them from the clearly evil regime deliberately targeting her and other innocent children.

There is an overwhelming and pervasive emotional tugging at the heart strings here, with the dual message that the “regime” is bombing and killing civilians and, you, the western public must demand your leaders intervene to save them. The no-fly zone is already pre-destined as the form of intervention, so this is what “Bana” is really asking for.

Very sophisticated for a 7-year-old girl.

In reality this is an extremely cynical use of an innocent child to promote a now failed regime change project. A project that has cost thousands of lives, forced people to flee their homes, and in some cases their country, has left Syria in ruins and a people heartbroken. Heartbroken; but resilient, brave, and determined to defeat the NATO/GCC backed terrorists and rebuild Syria.

Bana was recently photographed with Recep Erdogan. So after all the tweets fearing death at the hands of the Syrian Army, she, along with her family (not to mention thousands of terrorist fighters) were safely evacuated. She may be disappointed if she thinks Erdogan is going to be Al-Nusra’s saviour, as he seems to have joined the Russia/Syria/Iran alliance which has taken upon itself the task of resolving the Syrian war.

There were others posting similar “last tweets”, “last videos”, goodbyes, etc. who, if they really were in East Aleppo, had a genuine fear for their lives in a war zone. However what is objectionable is the attribution of blame solely to Syrian and Russian forces and the lack of acknowledgement of the atrocities carried out by the opposition, whom it must be remembered held government controlled areas of Aleppo under siege for over three years. One such person was Abdulkafi Alhamdo, a teacher and activist who in one of the worst pieces of acting you will see, complete with regular sighs for dramatic effect, claimed Russia and Syria did not want to see them leave alive, they wanted them dead and that he expected coming massacres.

Abdulkafi Alhamdo together with fellow Twitter star Bana Alabed.

It is a very small leap of faith for those who accept this at face value to believe the massacres did happen as reported.

Article after article in the Western mainstream media condemns Russia and Syria for alleged war crimes spun by the above mentioned activists. Kirill Koktysh, Russian political scientist, associate professor of International Politics at Moscow-based MGIMO University, speaking to Sputnik News summed up the value for Washington in this misleading narrative:

Commenting on a recent article in the US media decrying once again Syria and Russia for their “atrocities” in Aleppo, with, of course, no proof whatsoever of the “crimes against humanity” proffered other than some jihadist propaganda, a Russian political scientist explained to Sputnik that Washington relies on articles like this to “save its face.”

The singular theme of these testimonies (in contrast to testimonies of reporters like Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett) is how unconvincing they are. They feared for their lives in East Aleppo, and if it was because of Russia bombs or the Syrian army, then blaming Russia or Syria is myopic in the extreme. The Syrian army, aided by Russia, literally liberated East Aleppo from years of occupation by Western-sponsored terror groups.

Not once did they deliberately attack civilians. Why would they? On the other hand, the brutalisation of civilians in the four years of terrorist group rule was intentional and designed to strike fear in the hearts of people, to ensure they were too scared to rise up or resist. The murder of 27 East Aleppo civilians who had the temerity to protest their captivity was intentional. The torture, execution and dismemberment of civilians found in mass graves was intentional, gruesome and sadistic, as too was the execution by terrorists of 100 soldiers in defiance of the withdrawal agreement. Syria News reported on the discovery of a mass grave of civilians shown on Syria TV:

“Syrian TV showed another horrible massacre in the eastern part of Aleppo, the part which was controlled by the “rebels.” The recent report was of a mass grave of 23 victims in al Kallas district, which was a terrorist headquarter. It was found after those terrorists were transported to Idlib. The video shows the bodies of mostly massacred women and children, shot at close range. Many of the victims also had their legs and hands amputated.

This is what the West-backed “moderate monsters” left behind. What’s more, they were planning to use those victims to attribute their crimes to our government, as they are used to doing. This propaganda is always being supported by mainstream media like CNN, the English speaking Qatari Al-Jazeera etc.”

The terrorists seem to have little time for any notion of international or humanitarian law, something unlikely to be reflected on by US/NATO/ Gulf States, even as they squirm with embarrassment at these gruesome revelations. The irony of the squawking hysteria by western leaders and fakerstan media of unproven Russian/Syrian/Iranian atrocities compared to the firm evidence of these horrific executions is quite prophetic.

We are constantly assailed with the truism that Russian media is state controlled, and therefore is nothing more than state propaganda. The mention of RT comes with the mandatory adjunct of “Kremlin controlled.” And, as Russia is the root of all evil, and is to blame for everything, obviously its media can be nothing more than a pack of lying newshounds.

On the subject of the war in Syria, or the war on Syria, depending on where you stand, those who dissent from the regime change party line are dismissed as Russian trolls, Kremlin puppets, or Putin’s useful idiots. This includes well respected and credentialed journalists, activists and even ordinary people expressing their views via social media. We have all been willingly or unwillingly duped to follow the Kremlin line, to our eternal condemnation and to the never ending suffering of Syrians at the hands of the barbaric dictator Bashar Al-Assad and the Russian bully boy, Vladimir Putin.

So while Western governments would have us believe that Russian media lies all the time, somehow this total control of media output does not apply to the Western mainstream media or our politicians when it comes to their reports from the ground in “rebel” held areas of Syria, most notably in Aleppo.

The terrorists – let’s be frank here, that is what they are – who controlled Aleppo are not exactly shining examples of press freedom or independent reporting. If they were included in the World Press Freedom Index, they would languish at rock bottom.

Take Lina Shamy for example who filmed with terrorists walking along in the background carrying their guns. That’s real independent media right there. She no doubt had the freedom to walk alongside armed terrorists and brazenly report a narrative not approved by their leadership.

Or consider Bilal Abdul Kareem (mentioned above) interview of a spokesman for John Kerry’s favorite terrorist group ‘al-Nusra’. Kareem is a long-time confidante and proxy spokesperson for the terrorists. He even interviewed a terrorist supposedly evacuating Aleppo with an explosive vest. How far would Kareem be able to go if he departed from the Nusra line? Are we ever likely to hear those in fakerstan media call him a “Nusra troll,” or will he remain a respected “independent journalist.”

The icing on the cake when it comes to disseminating propaganda though has to be The White Helmets. Formed in 2013 by former British special forces soldier, John Le Mesurier, it was a UK Foreign Office/ State Department operation from the very beginning. There was no agonizingly-slow growth of a grass roots movement struggling to even stump up the cash for office pens here. It is a slick intelligence operation pivotal to the psyops war which has been funded to the tune of $100 million and counting. It has now been funded by many countries all keen to show they are committed to the Atlanticists and the dictators in the Gulf States.

The ‘White Helmets’ as humanitarian outfit is the stuff of Hollywood. The aura surrounding them is that of adored movie stars. They have been pumped up with claims of having rescued over 78,000 people in Syria, been nominated for the Nobel peace prize, complete with an intense lobbying effort, which if successful would have been the biggest insult to peace since Barack Obama’s shameful award. The White Helmets have stained democracy by being feted at the French parliament, been gushingly praised by the sycophantic Boris Johnson, applauded without due scrutiny by the western media, been the subject of a slick documentary which continues the theme of carefully crafted public relations serving the purposes of further demonizing Bashar al-Assad, deflecting criticism from the sponsorship of terrorism by NATO/Gulf States and helped build the case for direct intervention by openly calling for a no fly zone. To top it all off, we now have literally one of the biggest names in Hollywood, George Clooney planning a film on the White Helmets, thus elevating them to the status of some sort of Hollywood deity.

Image by Cory Morningstar of Wrong Kind of Green

The synopsis of The White Helmets documentary on the IMDB website propagates the myth of the heroic first responders:

“As daily airstrikes pound civilian targets in Syria, a group of indomitable first responders risk their lives to rescue victims from the rubble.”

This synopsis of the movie reinforces the idea of the fearless volunteers risking life and limb to rescue their fellow Syrians, while, without directly naming them, demonizing the governments of Bashar al-Assad and Russia, as they of course are the ones delivering the airstrikes. No mention here of the alternative view that the White Helmets stage manage their “rescues” are affiliated with terrorist groups, or that Russia and Syria are targeting terrorist groups and not civilians.

Clooney appears to have missed the fact that the White Helmets have been caught out time and again posing with terrorist groups, brandishing guns, accompanying terrorist groups as they abduct and kill Syrian soldiers and calling Syrian soldiers “Shabiha” whose dead bodies are to be thrown in the trash.There is an abundance of video and photo evidence out there in social media, easy to track down if you are inclined to do so. So-called diligent corporate media journalists could not fail to uncover this material, yet they see nothing, report nothing.

White Helmets stand on the bodies of Syrian Arab Army soldiers and flick the victory sign.

On the contrary, the fakerstan media has made it their duty to target and vilify alternative media journalists who are prepared to look beyond the hype and glamour to uncover the murky underbelly of the White Helmets beast.

Eva Bartlett, who gave a monumental performance at a recent United Nations panel discussion on Syria, finds herself being set up to be discredited, vilified, humiliated, and ultimately silenced. First she was questioned as to whether she was at the panel on the behest of the Syrian government. No, she was there as an independent journalist of high repute, which she has been for a very long time.

Vanessa Beeley is routinely accused of being a “paid propagandist” a “shill for Assad.” Baseless claims are made that she is only allowed in Aleppo because the Syrian government like what she has got to say. Beeley, like other western journalists who have been able to freely travel into Aleppo, is protected by the Syrian Army in war zones, which is exactly what you would expect. Their opinions make no difference to the Syrian Army who have a duty to protect all those under their care.

The real problem is that Beeley is providing an abundance of evidence of the liberation of Aleppo and how happy people are that they have finally been liberated. This is what the media and so called activists can’t stand, that she is letting the people speak for themselves, and their message is:

“We are free, we are liberated, and we hated the terrorists who controlled East Aleppo.”

Liberation of East Aleppo: Hanano (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

Beeley has told of how, among all the people she spoke to in East Aleppo, not one knew who the White Helmets were. When pressed they would say:

” Ah yes, the Nusra Front civil defence that only worked with the terrorists and did not help civilians“.

Beeley spoke to people who said the Al-Nusra dominated groups ruled through “fear, torture, humiliation, starvation and brutality.” She mixed with groups of children able to finally raise a smile. She gathered the testimonies of residents who recounted the living hell they had experienced. Beeley says:

“The testimonies we filmed testified to starvation, wholesale deprivation of humanitarian aid, summary executions, torture and the use of civilians as human shields.”

Beeley has been in Aleppo where the warehouses full of humanitarian aid denied to civilians by the terrorist groups were revealed. She was there when the horrifying report broke of the discovery of mass graves of civilians, with many women and children shot at close range. She was also there when the discovery was made of the 100 Syrian soldiers executed by the terrorists prior to being given safe passage to Idlib where they can resume hostilities and possibly perpetrate future atrocities on civilians and government fighters.

The stories of Syrian army and militia massacres were nowhere to be seen. Nor were the accusations that Assad is entirely to blame for their suffering. Beeley also was there as the peaceful evacuation took place, contrary to reports which claimed otherwise, including the claims that hundreds of men went missing from East Aleppo.

This reporting is consistent with what the Bolivian actress and filmmaker Carla Ortiz found. Telesur reports on her time spent in Syria and the film she is about to release titled “Voice of Syria,” in which “she documents the peaceful evacuation process from Eastern Aleppo, effectively debunking mainstream media narratives claiming the opposite.”

During a recent interview with Fox 11 News, Ortiz said:

“I was right there in six different front lines, and I talked to the people when they were getting in the buses…at the shelters, and actually the evacuation wasn’t burning, there was not mass shooting anywhere on the streets.”

So the caravan of media and activist propaganda rolls on. Their next stop is Idlib; the last remaining stronghold of the non ISIS dominated terrorist factions. Undoubtedly it is all going to be barrel bombs, White Helmet heroics, deliberate bombing of schools and hospitals, and valiant resistance from “rebel” groups.

That the presence of a hard line, mass murdering group such as Al-Nusra (Jabhat Fatah al-Sham) is hidden beneath the moderate rebel tag is an absolute scandal and will continue to obfuscate the truth of the dirty US/NATO/Gulf State/Israel war on Syria.

Jan 06

2017

newWKOGadnim

Avaaz, Humanitarian Agencies, Imperialist Wars/Occupations, Purpose [Public Relations Arm of Avaaz], Social Engineering, The International Campaign to Destabilize Syria, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

Avaaz Behavioral Economics Behavioral Economics of Hatred Media Netwar psywar Purpose Storytelling Syria White Helmets Whiteness & Aversive Racism

WATCH: White Helmets – The Mask of Terror ( with English subtitles)

Anna News

January 6, 2017

In liberated Aleppo the ANNA-News crew was able to uncover evidence that sheds light on the true activity of the so-called rescue workers in Syria. This terrorist group, the White Helmets, is a project of the New York public relations firm Purpose (sister org. of Avaaz).

“In interviews he is nearly always credited with setting up GetUp and Avaaz, and this is constructed as the natural evolution for setting up his current corporate consultancy and campaigning organisation, Purpose, in 2009. As outlined earlier in the chapter Purpose is a “social business that helps build movements”, it works on building large-scale issue campaigns, as well as working with corporate actors to use storytelling and brand relations techniques to create mass supporter movements. On its website it lists 23 organisations that it has worked for, most are well known non-profits such as Oxfam, Habitat for Humanity, ACLU and the Services Employee International Union, but also includes for-profit companies such as Ben and Jerrys, Audi and Google. Seven organisations are listed as Incubators, which means that Purpose has started them as campaigns and built them, these include: AllOut working on GLBTQI rights internationally, the controversial Syria Campaign that started White Helmets, and Foodstand that tries to build an informed community about good food.” [Source: Vromen, Digital Citizenship and Political Engagement, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-48865-7_6]

VIDEO CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES, VIOLENCE AND POSSIBLE WAR CRIMES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iy39AnTkBU

Further reading:

WHO ARE SYRIA’S WHITE HELMETS?

SYRIA: Avaaz, Purpose & the Art of Selling Hate for Empire

Dec 14

2016

newWKOGadnim

350.org / 1Sky, Avaaz, Greenpeace, Imperialist Wars/Occupations, Indigenous Environmental Network, Neo-Liberalism and the Defanging of Feminism, Pacifism as Pathology, Purpose [Public Relations Arm of Avaaz], Sierra Club, Social Engineering, Whiteness & Aversive Racism

350.org Anthropocentrism Avaaz Behavioural Change Coloured Devolutions Flood Wall Street Militarism Mosaic Solar Other98 Purpose Social Engineering Standing Rock Storytelling Technology The Bishnoi The New Economy The Other 98

Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits [Part 6 | Conclusion]

Wrong Kind of Green

December 14, 2016

Part six of an investigative report by Cory Morningstar

Standing Rock Investigative Report Series [Further Reading]: Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Addendum

To conclude the series, Cory Morningstar wraps up her deep and thorough analysis of the detour and smokescreens the current and carefully engineered, “clean energy revolution” has traversed. The mass movement meant to corral “millennials” and well-intentioned citizens to get in step with the 21st century is not meant to end the reliance on fossil fuel, only to transform the package. Profits are still reaped but at who’s expense? Manufactured activism thrives at the NGO, corporate and individual level in order to sustain the wolves in sheep clothing who are the Executive Directors, Hedge Fund managers, Philanthropists and private Investors….all profiteers in one sense or another. Corporate warfare is being waged via the most gentle form of soft power. The non-profit industrial complex is the clearinghouse for the distribution of these soft power mechanisms. Collectively, Western society has been conditioned to believe that anthropocentrism is environmentalism and anthropocentrists are environmental activists. It is quite possible that this may be one of the best examples of successful social engineering to date, as financed by the world’s most powerful oligarchs.

Coloured Devolutions

Environmentalism is dead. Today we bear witness to 21^st century anthropocentrism. The goal is no longer to protect nature and all living things. In stark contrast, the goal is to now propel technology at the expense of nature and all living things. A “clean energy revolution”, at the expense of what little remains of nature and non-human life, for the gratification of human desires. In this sense western societies have collectively devolved to the most contemptible depths imaginable. Yet, as a conditioned society, few notice. As always, youth are targeted and groomed, the sacrificial lambs for continued capitalism. [Further reading: From Stable to Starr-The Making of North American Climate Heroes]#HerdingSheep

Wear blue. Wear red. Wear yellow. Photos-ops. Branding. Playful gimmicks for the bored, privileged masses. Those with the highest social metrics receive the most funding. It’s a race. A race to the bottom.

Flood Wall Street marketing: Wear blue. #Other98

Climate March Delhi India, September 2014. Wear blue.

Standing Rock marketing. Wear blue. #Other98

Wear Red: Red Lines for Climate Actions Manual, COP21, Paris. [No matter what action you do, please also share your action on social media so the rest of the world can see it. Take a photo or video and post on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (if it’s on Facebook, please make sure it’s public) and then use make sure you add #D12 or #redlines. You can also send an email to socialmedia@350.org”][Source]

COP21. The above photograph appears in an article titled “Indigenous Peoples Take Lead at D12 Day of Action in Paris – Official response to COP21 agreement”. 350.org’s “red” campaign is interwoven into the statement. [Source] The reality is that Indigenous Peoples are used as photo-ops by NGOs to advance an elite and patriarchal agenda that only propels further Indigenous genocide.

“The process of influencing a mass audience to respond reflexively to induced prompts — like marching in parades or flooding financial districts wearing the color blue — requires looking beyond the civil society fad of I-pad revolution, and examining modern social “movements” as cults. Icons like Klein are as interchangeable as Hollywood starlets, but mass hypnosis of social activists by Wall Street titans using foundation-funded NGO is a troubling development.”— HIJACKING THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT, April 25, 2016

The Bishnoi: Eco Warriors Since the 15th Century (India) – In 1730, 363 Bishnoi men, women and children gave their lives to protect trees from being lumbered to build Maharajah Abhay Singh of Jodhpur’s new palace.

Solar Technology | Marketing in 21^st century anthropocentrism

To prevent the king’s men from cutting down their forest, Bishnoi men, women and children gathered around the trees and hugged them.

Wind turbine technology | Marketing in 21^st century anthropocentrism

This tragic event, known as the Khejarli Massacre, is also the first recorded event of the Chipko movement (hugging trees to prevent destruction, or just to love them) in history… long before the 1970s. [Source] Today we chop trees down for “green” biomass, solar and wind projects.

The new environmentalism created by the NPIC. Climate March Delhi India, September 2014. Wear yellow.

Avaaz climate campaign

The above image captures the dreams and aspirations of 21^st century anthropocentrism: solar, wind, wealth. Nature is virtually non-existent in the “climate factory” poster. It floats in the background as an afterthought.

Above: 350.org style guide: “Focus on people. Whenever possible, use visuals to emphasize that climate is a real, tangible human problem – not an abstract ecological issue.”

Collectively, Western society has been conditioned to believe that anthropocentrism is environmentalism and anthropocentrists are environmental activists. It is quite possible that this may be one of the best examples of successful social engineering to date, as financed by the world’s most powerful oligarchs.

Storytelling has always served as an integral, influential and dynamic component of human development and evolution. Today our stories are being scripted by those in power and used as subtly persuasive but powerful weapons – against ourselves. Whereas in the past environmentalism was the fight to protect nature and non-human life, today’s anthropocentrism serves to protect first world privilege, human life (Anglo) – at the EXPENSE of nature and non-human life (as well as non-Anglo human life). Today storytelling is a key component of behavioural change experts, marketing executives and NGOs who employ effective storytelling to sell us anything they wish, inclusive of death and war. [SYRIA: Avaaz, Purpose & the Art of Selling Hate for Empire] Yet, in this sense, we could categorize these soft-power “movements” as those that fall in the category of “colour revolutions”.

CONCLUSION: Manufactured Activism & Rebranding Control of Dissent

Militarism and Genocide in Exchange for the Maintaining of Privilege – An Agreed Upon Alibi

Collectively, American citizens have been most tolerant of a buildup of fascism and militarism over the past years and decades. Providing this is carried out in a somewhat covert manner with a charismatic veneer (The Obama administration/democrats) it is not only acceptable, but has resulted in a pro-war “left” that has cheered on (or been silent on) illegal invasions, occupations and coups throughout the middle east and global south. However when the same blatant racism, classism and fascism is carried out by an openly fascist leader (who lacks the political correctness that the imperial-liberal left demands) the same imperial-liberal left brigade cries a river of crocodile tears.

In this same way, American citizens have been most tolerant of the Bakken genocide that feeds their oil addiction and ensures their highly consumptive lifestyle, and most importantly, ensures their privilege remains intact. This is an unspoken known. How many Americans actually recoiled at the words of Madeline Albright “we think the price is worth it” in response to the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children? The ugly truth is, we are willing to participate, to stay silent, provided we are guaranteed the right to pretend otherwise. As just one example consider the ongoing and endless Congo holocaust to service our tech desires. The response is silence. Collectively it is understood and agreed upon that “we think the price is worth it.” We want our technology. New cell phones, computers, renewable energies, electric cars. Like the Obama charisma that created a veneer of fabricated innocence and American exceptionalism, giving imperial-left liberals full license to ignore the millions that have suffered and died under his murderous administration, the NODAPL gives license to imperial-left liberals to appropriate a similar alibi. We can brand ourselves as moral citizens standing in unity with Indigenous nations, all while we maintain and propel a system that promises further genocide to Indigenous people in the Bakken and throughout the globe.

Win! Credit: Solar Mosaic and US Department of Defense | “The US military knows better than anyone the importance of energy independence,” Mosaic president Billy Parish was quoted in a company press release. “Mosaic is pleased to offer more Americans the opportunity to tangibly support this by investing in rooftop solar energy for military families. As a father, I’m working everyday to create a secure home, nation, and planet for my children.” [Source]

Once again, the NPIC is succeeding at sanitizing a critical discussion that should be centered on Indigenous peoples and an ongoing Indigenous genocide due to colonization, assimilation and industrialization (which NGOs will only further via global campaigns for “clean” energy). Instead of focusing on these issues as well the key issue of sovereignty, the NPIC works to ensure the masses focus on a singular pipeline, a subterfuge to marginalize and reframe all systemic issues. We focus on the transportation method of oil (in this case, again, a pipeline) rather than what is the driving force of oil itself. What we do not touch upon and what is never discussed is the question of who benefits – at the expense of what groups and nations of people are sacrificed. Nor does non-human life enter the discussion, let alone the thought-process whatsoever. This is due to the fact the environmental movement that materialized decades ago is now obsolete. Via the conditioning of our societies and the non-profit industrial complex who work at the bequest of their elite financiers, cultivated “activists” are in truth anthropocentrists. Manufactured “activism” today must be re-defined as full blown anthropocentrism en masse. Today’s 21^st century “activism” (anthropocentrism), has nothing to do with the protection of nature, of Earth, or her non-human inhabitants. Further, this “green” anthropocentrism, born of European-American ideologies shaped, molded, and nurtured by elite power structures, is an anthropocentrism that believes in, and caters to white supremacy, even if this belief is subconscious or subtle (aversive racism).

Today’s 21^st century anthropocentrism is given more credence when barely an eyebrow is raised by the fact that NGOs now partner with and aid militarism [October 14, 2016: A Cynical Environmentalism: Protecting Nature to Prepare for War] and even produce terrorist factions under the guise of humanitarian assistance. One key question is this: why do we remain blind to the fact that NGOs who push for a new global infrastructure of “clean” energy are financed to further advance imperialism?

October 14, 2016 from the article: A Cynical Environmentalism: Protecting Nature to Prepare for War:

“Altendorf was speaking on September 5 in Honolulu, Hawaii, at a panel discussion hosted by the US State Department entitled “Department of Defense Conservation: A Good News Story.” The event was held at the US Pavilion of the World Conservation Congress (WCC), a gathering organized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This year’s WCC, attended by over 10,000 conservationists, scientists, government leaders, NGOs and members of civil society from 192 countries, also included representatives of the Army, Navy and Air Force who were eager to talk about caring for the natural world.” — A Cynical Environmentalism: Protecting Nature to Prepare for War, October 14, 2016

“By rebranding itself as a guardian of nature, the military improves its own public image and achieves a veneer of unassailability while bolstering its primary mission, which is, of course, the ability to wage war. In reality, war’s brutal and merciless goal of domination and control is the furthest thing imaginable from nurturing or preservation.” [Source]

Remix: : “By rebranding itself as a guardian of Indigenous sovereignty, the non-profit industrial complex improves its own public image and achieves a veneer of unassailability while bolstering its primary mission, which is, of course, the ability to protect current power structures. In reality, the oligarchies merciless goal of domination and control is the furthest thing imaginable from nurturing or preservation.”

+++

Revolution doesn’t always come in the form of a gun nor does enslavement always come by way of man. The 21st century version of colonialism has found a new weapon in NGOs.

The last word goes to Assata Shakur: “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of people who oppressing them.”

Epilogue

The Army Corps Of Engineers having announced a pause in the development of the Dakota Access Pipeline has prompted 350.org’s Bill McKibben to declare a “a smashing victory” for Indigenous activists, “one that shows what nonviolent unity can accomplish.” This sentence alone, which further romanticizes “nonviolent direct action” (the key talking point of the entire campaign), prompts critical questions deserving of critical analysis.

On the surface, this appears to be a victory for Indigenous sovereignty (albeit if only temporary). However, a rerouting of the final segment of this particular pipeline (87% completed) is not a victory to the Earth in any way, shape or form. The chair of the Standing Rock tribe was clear in his statement that the rerouting of the pipeline was all that was required to make the situation go away (Oct 28, 2016: “Reroute this pipeline, and this will all go away.”) So why did NGOs – that have never shown any meaningful interest in the welfare or land rights of Indigenous peoples nor their sovereignty, worm their way into this particular Indigenous struggle?

Many questions arise. Was this decision made simply to completely disperse the growing crowds that took many months to mobilize, in order to commence construction at a later date with no remaining resistance? Will the application simply be resubmitted in a few weeks time to be approved under the Trump administration? Will the protest be utilized to stall the pipeline, protecting the interests of Warren Buffett’s BNSF (crude via rail)? A few thing are certain. One: In a global economy close to stall speed, amidst a world swimming in excess oil, there is no urgency for the completion of this pipeline. Two: Warren Buffett’s BNSF profits are already taking a hit. The completion of the Dakota Access (like KXL) would further impact BNSF profits in a slowing economy. Three: Buffett has funneled well over 30 million dollars through his family’s foundation (NoVo) into the Tides Foundation which then disperses the funds amongst selected NGOs carrying out anti-pipeline campaigns.

Regardless, elite powers including the Clinton Global Initiative, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and the Bush Foundation have a new billion dollar model for rolling out the third industrial revolution under the guise of “clean energy”. The tribes are key. A model for the continued pillaging of the planet, under a protective, if not scared, Indigenous veneer. The capitalists have finally found a use for the Indigenous nations. Continued patriarchy and imperialism repackaged as matriarchal self-reliance. Reflect upon the fact that 90 trillion dollars are required to build the “new economy” infrastructure. The fact that this very industrialization (from 1740 to today) has brought us to the precipice of our own extinction is altogether lost. The race for what little remains of our ruthlessly plundered planet accelerates.

We have entered the 21^st century where social engineering via behavioural change expertise has become paramount in shaping whole societies to the desires of global hegemony. Corporate warfare is being waged via the most gentle form of soft power. The non-profit industrial complex is the clearinghouse for the distribution of these soft power mechanisms. The Standing Rock protests have undoubtedly served as an experiment in the study of manipulation, conformity, obedience, assimilation and neocolonialism. Consider the organizing surrounding the Standing Rock protest has been referred to as “a template” for the future by 350.org executive director May Boeve.

This is not to suggest that this campaign was engineered (or co-opted) from inception exclusively for experimental/observational purposes (although this too is possible). Rather, it is more probable, that once underway it was recognized as a prime opportunity for the NGOs (extensions of elite power) that comprise the non-profit industrial complex, to apply, test and observe methods of manipulation and exploitation following their initial engagement. Although this hypothesis may sound implausible to some, the fact that the NPIC has begun its foray into training programs across the globe, makes such speculation both sound and rational.

Can citizens of other cultures, in other countries, many/most of non-Anglo descent, be coerced to disregard and ultimately disband their own traditions, customs, beliefs, by their own will, in exchange for American ideologies? To achieve this, without force, surely is a most effective method. What better way to observe the successes and failures of such a mission than Standing Rock. A separate and distinct culture, right here on (stolen) American soil.

Akin to the global contagion of both Christianity and Catholicism, can a global belief in “the new economy” as constructed and desired by elite powers also be pounded into the masses? Can the masses be conditioned to live and breathe this ideology like are we breathe – without notice? Can a pathology of pacifism be reconstructed as sacrosanct – where non-obedience to the pacifist dogma would be paramount to the seven deadly sins?

This is sought occupation, not physical, but of hearts and minds. Which will undoubtedly prove far more powerful than physical occupation of lands and citizens via force. Obedience and subservience are in fact the pathway to the “new economy”. This series has attempted to give readers a glimpse into how this is to be achieved and for what purpose.

[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 and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. You can support her independent journalism via Patreon.]

Edited with Forrest Palmer, Wrong Kind of Green Collective.

Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits [Part 1]

Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits [Part 2]

Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits [Part 3]

Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits [Part 4]

Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits [Part 5]

Nov 27

2016

newWKOGadnim

Imperialist Wars/Occupations

#HastaSiempreComandante Fidel Castro Imperialism Revolution

Salute to a Great Freedom Fighter: The Indomitable Spirit of Fidel Castro will Live Forever

Libya 360° Internationalist News Agency

By Gerald A. Perreira

On behalf of Organization for the Victory of the People, Guyana, South America

Fidel with Salvador Allende in Chile, 1971

“I am Fidel Castro and we have come to liberate Cuba.”

Fidel Castro can never die. Today he departed the physical plane but he will live on forever. His intellectual prowess and wisdom were extraordinary among mortals. His legacy and influence is global and monumental. This humble man, from a small Caribbean country, can truly be said to have changed the world. One of his greatest contributions to humanity is the example of his unwavering revolutionary determination and courage, in the face of enormous obstacles placed in his path. He became an inspiration to all who fight for true independence from the Empire and its trail of poverty, racism, death and destruction. Here in the Caribbean he stood, and will stand forever, as one who refused to believe that our fate is sealed by the absurd concept of ‘geographical and historical determinism’. So many Caribbean misleaders, cowards and satraps of the Empire, have accepted this fate, that our future and destiny is shaped by the fact that we reside in the US’s so-called backyard. However, in the words of the late revolutionary leader of Grenada, Maurice Bishop, “We are in nobody’s backyard”. The same Maurice Bishop, inspired and assisted by Fidel, aptly described him as “incomparable”. Every revolutionary initiative in the Americas and the Caribbean, and for that matter worldwide, since 1959, owes a debt of gratitude to Fidel Castro and the Cuban revolution.

Fidel Castro And Malcolm X At The Hotel Theresa, Harlem NY 1960

Fidel taught us that our destiny is determined by faith and an enduring belief in our principles and in our ability to empower ourselves and the masses of our people. He showed us true empowerment by virtue of the fact that one man and a nation of just over 11 million people could play such a decisive and significant role in the liberation of people all over the world. We will never forget Cuba’s military response to the forces of Apartheid at the historic and decisive battle of Cuito Cuanavale, when Cuban troops defeated the racist forces of South Africa’s regime, and in so doing, forced the Boers to the negotiating table. While others condemned apartheid with words, it was Fidel who sent troops across the world to do what had to be done. He would later admit that this battle exerted such a strain on Cuba’s military resources that it put Cuba’s own national security at risk. However, as Fidel explained, “We have a commitment to Africa, for African blood flows freely through the veins of every Cuban”. The airlifting of Cuban fighters to Angola was codenamed “Operation Carlota” after an African woman, enslaved in Cuba, who led an insurrection against her Spanish slave-masters. This is why the great African freedom fighter, Kwame Ture, could have called Fidel Castro “the blackest man in the Americas”, and why Nelson Mandela said, ”The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character.”
Fidel Castro turned Cuba into a powerhouse of health, education and solidarity. He sent doctors and teachers to every part of the globe to assist countries ravaged by decades of the neo-liberal capitalist project. Cuba is always the first on the ground when it comes to responding to natural disasters in the region and afar, from Haiti to Pakistan. Despite being a relatively poor nation with few natural resources, Cuba’s literacy rates, infant mortality rates, life expectancy rates and other indicators rival that of any nation on earth, including the wealthiest nations of the world. Surely, this is the true measure of democracy.

1977: Gaddafi with Cuban leader Fidel Castro | Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features

Of course, the need for change and adjustments to any political and economic system put in place in 1959 is inevitable. What must be remembered, and something which may not be well understood by this generation, who are too young to have experienced the world as it existed in 1959, is that Cuba’s alignment with the then Soviet Union was inevitable in a world characterized by two superpowers engaged in a ‘Cold War’. The Cuban conceptualization of a socialism shaped by Soviet Marxism which saw private property and small, privately owned business as synonymous with capitalism was erroneous, and now needs rectification. Following the Cuban revolution, other nationalist revolutions with socialist objectives, have learnt from this mistake. Carlos Tablada and many other Cuban theoreticians and economists, with full support of the revolution, have themselves addressed these issues and proposed measures to resolve these problematics. All political and social systems must evolve and change or otherwise become stagnant and perish. However, this in no way deflects from the outstanding achievements of Fidel Castro and Cuba in their historic fight for human advancement and dignity. The changes and transformations that Cuba is currently pursuing are not about taking Cuba in the direction of capitalist restoration, but rather about finding ways to make the socialist project more viable and sustainable. This has been one of the Cuban revolution’s most enduring legacy; to teach us how to remain steadfast, courageous and relevant in an ever-changing world, ravaged by neo-liberal capitalism and the flawed liberal-democratic notion of what constitutes democracy, that is, where 1% own and control everything, and where the resources and wealth of a nation do not benefit all the people. The Cuban revolution’s ability to survive all these years in the face of the contradictions, double-standards, hypocrisy and the bullyism of global capitalism and the Empire is a testimony to the leadership of Fidel Castro.

Celia Sanchez became the de-facto second in command after Fidel Castro in Cuba. Celia Sanchez was considered to be one of the fiercest guerrilla fighters as well as one of the most intelligent and level headed decision makers within the Cuban revolutionary forces. [Source]

“A brigade of Cuba’s Territorial Troops Militia (MTT), in a 1990 photo. The MTT is a volunteer military force which continues the fighting tradition of those who fought at Playa Giron and against banditry, the latest incarnation of the citizens’ active participation in the defence of the nation. In the MTT, as in all of Cuba’s armed forces, women play an important role.” [Source]

“Children from Chernobyl, Ukraine, visit Cuba in 1989 (left). Since the 1986 nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, some 13,600 children and 2,500 adults affected by the intense radiation have received treatment in Cuba. This major act of international solidarity with the victims of Chernobyl began at the height of the Special Period in Cuba.” [Source]

Former South African President Nelson Mandela and Cuban leader Fidel Castro embrace during a visit by Castro on Sept. 2, 2001 in Johannesburg, South Africa | Nelson Mandela, 1991: “From its earliest days, the Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration for all those who value freedom. We admire the sacrifices of the Cuban people in maintaining their independence and sovereignty in the face of the vicious imperialist and orchestrated campaign to destroy the awesome force of the Cuban revolution. Long live the Cuban Revolution! Long live comrade Fidel Castro!”

After 57 years, despite the arduous struggle involved when a small nation stands up to the might and brutality of Empire, despite the sacrifices that had to be made by the Cuban people, there is an outpouring of grief and sadness on the streets of Cuba today. Cubans, both young and old, have expressed not only their grief at the loss of a man who is seen as the father of this nation, but also their determination to honour the life of their heroic leader by continuing the struggle for Cuba’s right to self-determination and true independence. This is surely the litmus test of any revolution. Thanks to Fidel Castro and this remarkable revolution, the people of Cuba are highly educated and politically conscientized. The revolution has given them the education and knowledge to advance their struggle and to avoid the pitfalls of what we refer to as conceptual and intellectual incarceration. Cuba’s revolution has truly removed not only the physical and material shackles that enslave us, but most importantly, the shackles on the minds of the people. In this sense, the Cuban people can be said to be truly free, unlike so many of their counterparts throughout the region, where the Empire still calls the shots, and so many people continue to be manipulated by the Empire’s propaganda machinery.

13 August 2006: Hugo Chavez at Castro’s bedside in Havana. “Fidel, for me, is a grand master. A wise man should never die; a man like Fidel will never die because he will always be part of the people.” – Hugo Chavez, 2007

In the Caribbean, we lovingly call him Uncle Fidel. Regardless of the absurd and nonsensical rantings of the 1%, and their servants in academia, the corporate media and neo-colonial regimes, Uncle Fidel will forever live on in the hearts and minds of the millions of oppressed and dispossessed people worldwide. He will eternally remain an inspiration for all those who struggle for our inalienable right to self-determination, justice and human dignity. He will be loved and revered by those who know the truth: that he is a hero and undefeated freedom fighter. Farewell Commandante – in truth, words are indeed inadequate to express our gratitude to you. Like all great revolutionaries, you had no rest in this life, instead you made the ultimate sacrifice, dedicating your life to benefit humanity. May you now rest in peace and power. We know that the best way to live up to your legacy is to renew our pledge, on this day, to continue the struggle for all that you stood for.

Fidel Castro with Che Guevara in 1959, the year Mr. Castro took power after leading a communist revolution in Cuba and toppling the American-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

“On December 18, 1956, Fidel and I were in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra, in a place called Cinco Palmas. After our first hug his first question was: ‘How many rifles do you have?’ I answered five. And he said, ‘I have two. That makes seven. Now we can win the war.”– Raul Castro (“This is Fidel” by Luis Baez)

Nov 18

2016

newWKOGadnim

Humanitarian Agencies, Imperialist Wars/Occupations, Purpose [Public Relations Arm of Avaaz], Social Engineering

Syria Ukraine White Helmets

WATCH: NGOs: Grassroots Empowerment or Tool of Information Warfare?

South Front

September 30, 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1byfe5vUM&t=4s

Nov 08

2016

newWKOGadnim

Avaaz, Humanitarian Agencies, Imperialist Wars/Occupations, Purpose [Public Relations Arm of Avaaz]

Amy Goodman Avaaz Democracy Now Naomi Klein Netflix Purpose White Helmets

Instruments of Power

Public Good Project

November 5, 2016

By jay Taber

The purpose of Purpose (et al.) is the social engineering and deployment of the masses that will successfully conform whole societies to the policies and desires of the dominant classes.

In the introductory episode of Deconstructing the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, investigative journalists Vanessa Beeley and Cory Morningstar join social commentator Forrest Palmer in a 90-minute podcast about NGOs as “instruments of power.” On this thought-provoking program, these international thought leaders from France, Canada and the US discuss how the complex has become an “apparatus to escalate conflict” against challenges to US hegemony, while maintaining a humanitarian veneer.

Examining the Syria conflict–rooted in the competition between the Turkey-US pipeline and the Iran-Russia pipeline–these members of the communication avant-garde expose the void of alternative media coverage about the funding of PR campaigns by the “upper echelon of white power” at the World Bank, UN and Wall Street through such instruments as Avaaz, Purpose, and Democracy Now. With the Netflix propaganda film White Helmets on fast-track to an Oscar nomination, the cabal of oil mafia-funded NGOs is indeed “shifting the narrative.”

Combined with the post 9/11 brainwashing in academia, social indoctrination has made questioning authority unacceptable in both schools and social media. Meanwhile, the “controlled left,” i.e. Amy Goodman and Naomi Klein, exemplify ‘radical’ white privilege, while simultaneously covering up the corporate corruption they are an essential yet clandestine part of.

[Jay Thomas Taber is an associate scholar of the Center for World Indigenous Studies, a correspondent to Forum for Global Exchange, and a contributing editor of Fourth World Journal. Since 1994, he has served as communications director at Public Good Project, a volunteer network of researchers, analysts and journalists engaged in defending democracy. As a consultant, he has assisted indigenous peoples in the European Court of Human Rights and at the United Nations.]

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→

Archives

A new star has been born on the scrawny firmament

Of the political as “spot” advertising

Political ties will always reveal the agenda (and stakeholders)

Shaping the message, “humanitarianism”, precedents

Situations planned in larval stage?

Coloured Devolutions

CONCLUSION: Manufactured Activism & Rebranding Control of Dissent

Epilogue