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

September 18, 2012

Part three of an investigative report by Cory Morningstar

Avaaz Investigative Report Series 2012 [Further Reading]: Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI

Avaaz Investigative Report Series 2017 [Further Reading]: Part I • Part II • Part III

 

Indoctrinated Subservience and Whitism

“If I have a cup of coffee that is too strong for me because it is too black, I weaken it by pouring cream into it. I integrate it with cream. If I keep pouring enough cream in the coffee, pretty soon the entire flavor of the coffee is changed; the very nature of the coffee is changed. If enough cream is poured in, eventually you don’t even know that I had coffee in this cup. This is what happened with the March on Washington. The whites didn’t integrate it; they infiltrated it. Whites joined it; they engulfed it; they became so much a part of it, it lost its original flavor. It ceased to be a black march; it ceased to be militant; it ceased to be angry; it ceased to be impatient. In fact, it ceased to be a march.” – Malcolm X

In the 1960s at the height of the civil rights movement, a roundtable discussion took place in which the topic was the effectiveness of the movement itself. The panel included Alan Morrison, Malcolm X, Wyatt T. Walker and James Farmer along with a moderator. Malcolm X was in enemy territory due to the fact that the others on the panel were part of the mainstream civil rights movement that focused almost exclusively on the marches, voting and legislation. Malcolm X was alone in speaking the truth, which, succinctly, was that the white male power structure was far more powerful than his peers led the public to believe; that the freedom they sought was something that legislation would never give them; and that the racist underbelly of all the institutions in America were (and are) so soaked in white supremacy that they are unsalvageable. The panel was combative towards him on his truth – not unlike what we witness today to those who speak the truth.

MALCOLM X: Debate with James Farmer, Alan Morrison and Wyatt Tee Walker (Running time: 6:05)

http://youtu.be/xyyFGOAwTYM

Fast forward almost 30 years. The moderator, Wyatt T. Walker and James Farmer are the only ones still alive. When a follow-up roundtable with just these men is asked by the moderator if Malcolm X was more in tune with the truth of what was going on back then, Walker was very forthcoming. Walker stated that Malcolm X had a better understanding of what they were really facing at that time and the naïve belief that they were a few years away from the fair and just society that Martin Luther King was talking about. Farmer, who was more begrudging, did acknowledge that Malcolm X was more on point. [http://youtu.be/SKLSM4Rk_t0]

 “The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.” — Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd, 1895

Today, in comparison, the OWS movement is comprised of impressionable, naïve, well-intentioned youth who do not yet possess the life experience that allows one the understanding and knowledge of the depth and severity of our dire realities and the very crux and root causes that underlie most all our many escalating crises – racism, imperialism, industrialized capitalism and militarism. The fact that many youth are thirsty for such unadulterated truths makes it all the more critical to the hegemonic powers that such truths be avoided. This is where the NGOs and the power elite come into play. Occupy serves the state and hegemonic powers in many ways: as a cooling off/venting mechanism for growing intolerance and mounting frustration; indoctrinating the pacifist ideology that protects the state while disempowering and domesticating the people; minimizing focus on capitalism and maximizing focus on reform; focusing on electoral process as a solution rather than exposing it as a distraction; the purposeful neglect in analyzing (in order to abolish) the illusory monetary system, racism, speciesism, voluntary servitude/self-inflicted obedience to the state and militarism. (Of course the dialogue on foundation funding via corporate power is non-existent.) Why do we continue to feed the killing machine via taxes (primarily income tax), mortgage payments, investments and savings – all of which are annihilating our species, all life and the planet? Why do we invest in our own annihilation? Occupy successfully creates a naive illusion of power shifting from the institutional political arena/the oligarchy, to “the people” even though, in fact, no power is shifting whatsoever. Lastly, Occupy offers the funding oligarchy a bird’s-eye view into the dynamics within the next generation of those who must be socially engineered for increased globalization and subservience.

“Habit soon consolidates what other principles of human nature had imperfectly founded; and men, once accustomed to obedience, never think of departing from that path, in which they and their ancestors have constantly trod.” — David Hume, Of the Origin of Government

Consider that economists Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz and Milton Friedman all earned Ivy League degrees, yet discuss/ed and teach/taught economics as if there are unlimited resources, even though a five-year old would understand that only so much of anything can exist in a finite world (before that child is indoctrinated into this culture, mind you). This is why the OWS movement is just as deluded as your average Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative. They simply do not understand the depth of corruption in pursuit of power. The non-profit industrial complex ensures they never do. Thus, the privileged continue to applaud and fawn over empty “suits” such as McKibben who are happy to perpetuate an illusory delusion that the “green economy” is the solution to our multiple crises, rather than simply conveying the truth: that we must learn to live with much less. In stark contrast to current realities, such as collapsing ecosystems, the OWS struggle is centred on the quest for a bigger slice of the pie. Indoctrinated by their educational institution (shaped by, influenced and funded by the likes of Rockefellers and other members of the oligarchy), they view global issues in socio-economic terms like most Westerners, upholding the false belief that we are a couple of legislative moves away from fixing our multiple, escalating crises via reform – just like those who sat at the roundtable with Malcolm X four decades ago.

Yet one cannot reform an abomination and the industrialized capitalist system is just that. Today, a successfully indoctrinated populace, deep in denial and wrapped in a cloak of cognitive dissonance, defend such “leaders” and illusions, gobbling up the fantasies like candy. The reason being, such reformism is the path of least resistance. The real path for a true revolutionary society, were it to develop, would require hard work, creativity, intense discipline and flat-out rejection of the consumerism that constitutes the Western lifestyle, which worships greed and individualism – something that our society is not willing to face. Palliative reforms implemented under the auspices of the bourgeoisie serve to treat only the symptoms of oppression, exploitation and injustice, while leaving the disease – capitalism – intact.

But let’s delve even further into our subconscious mindsets. To give up the Western lifestyle with which the majority of society has been enthralled since the Industrial Revolution (that is, a lifestyle that is predicated on carbon) begs an unspeakable question: what then would it mean to be white? Losing the psychological bearings of “whiteness” is something that “suits” like those who constitute Avaaz fail to grasp the seriousness of – even when presented with a brick wall of apathy amongst the Western denizens when it comes to climate change.

“Prince” William, Tuvalu, 2012. It is difficult to imagine the humiliation these Tuvaluan men must have felt being subjected to further colonial/white imperialism exploitation that, rather than being eradicated in the 21st century, continues to expand.

The reality is this: with ZERO carbon emissions, whiteness means nothing. And subconsciously, most men that society deems noble, such as outspoken climatologist James Hansen, have been living a life of white privilege for so long that they simply cannot give it up. They cannot risk losing status. They know no other way. Therefore, they give false solutions of reformism and incrementalism, knowing deep down that it is far too little, far too late. So deep are such myths as the reform of industrialized capitalism as a solution to our crisis perpetuated and institutionalized into our culture that it is easier for a well-intentioned man such as Hansen to have no trouble envisioning 100-foot ice sheets, and even the annihilation of all life on Earth, all while being absolutely incapable of imagining a world in which civil society eradicates both our predatory industrialized capitalist system and our addiction to growth. In a culture where whiteness, privilege, greed and excess have been fetishized, telling the truth, that no amount of symbolic incremental change will even touch the disaster we brought upon ourselves, is a sure-fire way to not only bite the hands that feeds, but to chop it off completely.

Further, one must remain critical of many further components of the Occupy movement – not for what it purports to represent, but for its hypocritical acquiescence to the elite through overt cooperation with police and the FBI. It is true that the OWS movement has highlighted one severe hypocrisy – that of the direct connection to the Democratic Party. (The direct connection being that of MoveOn.org, which, with Res Publica, is the founder of Avaaz.)

However, they fail to mention – thus far – the inherent weaknesses in Occupy campaigns organized by Liberal leftists  throughout the US: Occupations that don’t really occupy much of anything; enacting Occupy codes of conduct demanding participants attempt no mechanisms of self-defense; and employing self-policing strategies where Occupiers are expected to cooperate with authorities and, in fact, turn one another in to said authorities.

“The complex network of NGOs, including alternative media segments, are used by the corporate elites to mould and manipulate the protest movement ….

 

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

 

“The purpose is not to repress dissent, but, on the contrary, to shape and mold the protest movement, to set the limits of dissent.” — Michel Chossudovsky

[In this lecture, Dr. William Rees, best-known for co-inventing the “ecological footprint,” thoroughly discusses biological and cultural myths. If we continue to deny these myths, rather than confront them, our collective denial will serve as the instrument to our own annihilation: http://vimeo.com/25059671#at=0]

On 5 October 2011, Enaemaehkiw Túpac Keshena posted in the article Watching the Petty Bourgeoisie in Motion this quote from Omali Yeshitela:

 “The petty bourgeoisie is often radicalized – not withstanding what its complexion is. To see a petty bourgeois force in motion demanding revolution is not necessarily the same thing as seeing a revolutionary force in motion. The petty bourgeoisie is radicalized precisely because of the contradictions of imperialism. Precisely because of the contradictions of capitalism. Precisely because as a class force it is a dying force, and often the contradictions of imperialism accelerate its disintegration. Its impending death is something that comes to its notice and it is then thrust into motion.” — Omali Yeshitela, 30 June 1984

 October 5, 2011, OWS, New York City, U.S: “Watching the Petty Bourgeoisie in Motion”

October 2011, Libya: Libyan government spokesman Dr. Moussa Ibrahim confirmed the presence of women in the Libyan resistance of Sirte and Bani Walid as combatants in their own right. (No balloons or other nonsense to be found)

Pan African News Wire on the Libyan Liberation Front (LLF) Resistance (formed to resist US-NATO puppet regime), 8 November 2011:

“A LLF spokesperson was quoted as saying that movement is launching a campaign of assassination targeting the 500 top officials and operatives of the NTC regime. The resistance movement stresses that ‘We are ready to initiate a campaign to eliminate all the leaders of the National Transitional Council, killing them one by one. This is only the first list that we intend to draw up. There are names of all the traitors that deserve the death penalty.'”

The difference between the Libyan Liberation Front (and many other resistance armies throughout the world) and our so-called revolutionary movements in America and Europe as proclaimed by the dominant left is that Libyans are being annihilated on a daily basis and fighting for their very lives. The irony is that we are being annihilated also, yet our annihilation is at much slower, more methodical, more comfortable pace so we don’t recognize it. Further, our slow annihilation is self-inflicted. The privileged classes cannot even imagine having to employ the use of weapons for self-defense, so instead they vow to uphold the “virtues” of pacifism and judge those who defend themselves against oppression, exploitation and tyranny. It’s just so damned convenient. Besides, who has the time to commit to a revolution when one’s favourite television show comes on every night at 9 pm? The sad truth is that the West is only interested in hearing about a revolution if it comes with a bag of popcorn and a Coca-Cola.

Avaaz’s Founder and MoveOn.org Announce the US “Spring”

100,000 Americans will Train for Passive Obedience in the US Fake Spring, Funding Generously Provided by Rockefeller and Soros

“If things are to change, one must realize the extent to which the foundation of tyranny lies in the vast networks of corrupted people with an interest in maintaining tyranny.” — Étienne de La Boétie, The Politics of Obedience, in The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude

And while liberal sycophants worked themselves up into fervour over a young woman being harassed by a dick named Limbaugh, demanding that Obama personally “make things right,” the “left” had nothing to say about relevant issues – such as illegal invasions of sovereign states that are nothing less than crimes against humanity. Rather, the professional left busied themselves getting ready for their very own fake spring, the hypocrisy so openly blatant, the ridiculousness of it so over the top, that one wonders how much further well-intentioned individuals can be duped. The hypocrisy: Since the incredibly suspect OWS came into inception, the “non-violent” pacifist dogma preached to the masses has been nothing less than full-out indoctrination. Yet at the same time that the White Ivory Towers of Justice preach on why damaging any corporate property is in fact an act of violence (which will not be tolerated by the “leaders”), the same White Ivory Towers of Justice convince their followers that foreign intervention (that is, bombs/invasion/warfare) is, in fact, “humanitarian.” This takes the word “training” to a whole new level. Yes, War is Peace. Orwell is rolling in his grave.

The non-profit industrial complex has been and continues to be an integral tool of foreign policy, predominantly on behalf of the US. When coercion or bribery are not enough to ensure US foreign policy implementation on sovereign states, specifically via National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and ICI, military force becomes essential. Rather than subjecting themselves to extreme scrutiny and torrents of backlash from an outraged citizenry, the US has now successfully enlisted NGOs such as Avaaz, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as the retailers of war, the hustlers – the pimps. They package it beautifully with slick videos that play on one’s emotions: “Try it on, you’ll like it. We’ll make you feel good.”

The non-profit industrial complex targets the predominantly white, privileged, middle class status quo that embraces the elite centrism that the complex represents. Reality demonstrates that this demographic actually prefers compromise and symbolic actions that do not incite true changes. This includes a massive majority of self-described “activists.” Superficial is good. Uncomfortable realities are best avoided. Cognitive dissonance has never been so vital. Supportive narratives, provided by Avaaz and friends, have never been more vital for silencing one’s perhaps nagging conscience while reassuring oneself that ignorance is strength, war is peace.

And where the primary Occupy message of “non-violent direct action” and absolute pacifism has been pounded into the left movement like a religious dogma by the “professional left,” we are now entering an era where the opportunity to defend ourselves, by any means necessary, to safeguard our children’s future, by any means necessary, is a window that is closing rapidly. Because soon, no move will be left unmonitored. No dissent will be tolerated. The Occupy Movement, rather than mobilizing to destroy the very systems that are destroying us, protected them. The movement, saturated with the professional left, successfully quelled dissent, thus protecting the state, while civil rights were slowly stripped away – all while the empire expanded its lust for power and the Earth’s final remaining resources.

Activists within the existing “movements” vocalize much opposition to corporate power and control, yet at the end of the day they are on their knees with open palms in hopes the oligarchy will deem them fit for further funding. The fact is this: if we truly understand that corporate domination/industrialized capitalism is collectively destroying us, we must learn to live outside of this system – you can’t have it both ways. This starts now. As long as our “revolutions” are fondly funded, maintained and controlled by corporate interests, we will never be emancipated from the industrialized economic system annihilating most all life on our finite planet.

“A strategy for survival must include a liberation theology – call it a philosophy/cosmology if you will – or humankind will simply continue to seek more efficient ways to exploit that which they have come to respect. If these processes continue unabated and unchanged at the foundation of the colonizers’ ideology, our species will never be liberated from the undeniable reality that we live on a planet of limited resources, and sooner or later we will exploit our environment beyond its ability to renew itself.” — John Mohawk, Scholar of the Haudenosaunee, 1977

True activists seeking revolutionary change have thus had to co-opt Occupy itself. From the onset, we witnessed those choosing to deal with root causes splitting away from the groups led by and infiltrated with the liberal left. Indigenous and people of colour have been extremely marginalized, while the lack of respect and severe lack of understanding of the root causes behind the most critical issues facing humanity is almost intolerable. Rather, the primary concern echoed within the chambers of the movement is centred on the accumulation and distribution of monetary wealth – most all of which is derived from the extraction economy and economy of the military industrial complex.

The marginalization of the Indigenous is made clear in a 31 May 2012 article titled Decolonizing Occupy, written by Jay Taber:

“As Occupy evolves into organic political structures to effect the changes expressed in its demonstrations and assemblies, it would do well to include discussions with leaders from the movement for liberation of Indigenous peoples. As the most educated, organized and active segment of humankind today, the world’s Indigenous peoples have learned a lot about the foes of Occupy. Fourth World nations — including many Indigenous political entities in Europe — are in fact leading the fight against neoliberalism, as they did against colonialism…. As we witness the merging of interests between Fourth World liberation and Occupy, the issue of governance is clearly foremost in participants’ grievances, but before these distinct movements can coalesce in pursuit of democratic renewal, Occupy would do well to brief itself on the Indigenous perspective toward such things as sovereignty, autonomy and self-determination.”

9 March 2012, “OCCUPY IMPERIALISM: Crisis, Resistance, Solidarity” – National Convention, 9-10 June [read the statement in its entirety here]:

“Thousands of white people have been in motion as well in the loose-knit Occupy Movement that targets the criminality of the bankers and corporations, yet chooses to ignore the Wall Street-backed terror against Africans and Mexicans right here, and against oppressed peoples on every continent.

 

“Responding primarily to the effects of imperialism’s crisis on the white middle class, the Occupy Movement fails to challenge what Wall Street and capitalism mean for the majority of people on this planet….

 

“We are concerned that while African, Mexican and Indigenous people strike out daily in organized and unorganized resistance against the intensifying iron hand of the police state imposed upon them, this is a non-issue for an Occupy movement concerned generally about student loans, mortgages and pensions and the rights of white people.

 

“We are concerned that there is little outcry about the deepening Wall Street-backed terror being waged by the Obama administration against the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Iran, the Congo, Uganda, Somalia and throughout Africa, as well as in Central and South America as a desperate imperialism attempts to push back the people’s anti-imperialist movements and governments.”

+++ In effect, Occupy Wall Street serves as a cooling off mechanism for soft activism, or, more precisely, reformism for the predominantly white middle class. It is ironic to observe that a primary goal of OWS appears to be an attempt to restore precisely the very thing that revolutionary radicals of the 1960s were rejecting outright – essentially, that of a kinder, gentler, more “fair” and inclusive type of capitalism – as if there is any such thing when you are on the receiving end of the capitalist exploitation stick. The question that is not at the centre of debate is this: Why is the demand for nothing beyond incremental, palliative reforms within the boundaries of the existing economic system and state deemed as acceptable by the majority? Why reform over revolution, meaning the dismantling of the industrialized capitalist system and abolition of government? Why the reluctance to fundamentally transform society and thereby emancipate all humanity from their own enslavement?

AVAAZ

“We have to realize that we are facing a mighty engine of power and economic exploitation, and therefore that, at the very least, libertarian education of the public must include an exposé of this exploitation, and of the economic interests and intellectual apologists who benefit from State rule. By confining themselves to analysis of alleged intellectual ‘errors,’ opponents of government intervention have rendered themselves ineffective. For one thing, they have been beaming their counterpropaganda at a public which does not have the equipment or the interest to follow the complex analyses of error, and which can therefore easily be rebamboozled by the experts in the employ of the State. Those experts, too, must be desanctified, and again La Boétie strengthens us in the necessity of such desanctification. In such an age as ours, thinkers like Étienne de La Boétie have become far more relevant, far more genuinely modern, than they have been for over a century.” — Murray N. Rothbard, in Ending Tyranny Without Violence

At the helm of the non-profit industrial complex are the NGOs that make up the Soros network. At the helm of this matrix, we find the organization Avaaz residing over the complex, with key players replicating their ideologies throughout the global matrix. Avaaz has morphed into one of the primary gate-keepers of the oligarchy. Part II of this investigative report will discuss information and alliances of the key gate-keepers who co-founded and comprise Avaaz, as well as many key sister/partner organizations and affiliates of Avaaz; the founders; Res Publica, GetUp, and MoveOn, and the new up and coming Purpose, Globalhood, and SumOfUs. Also touched upon will be the indispensible Movements.org, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others, who, along with Avaaz, make dreams come true for imperialist states. Further in the series, the investigation will discuss the newly emerging trend of corporate media/NGO partnerships in which Avaaz could be considered the test-model for the imperialist/capitalist powers that be.

 

Next: Part IV

 

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

Through the Looking Glass

Intercontinental Cry

September 11, 2012

By Jay Taber

Players and Pawns

Intercontinental Cry

By Jay Taber

Aug 22, 2012

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

 

A Tear for Africa: Humanitarian Abduction and Reduction

“Inciting hatred and racial fear by spreading false rumours, which then resulted in violence with a genocidal aim? Is that not a crime under international law any longer? Or does the law by implication never apply to the white people who called for it? This is interesting, to see how Amnesty International makes business for itself at both ends of genocide, and never, of course, never, offering as much as an apology or a simple admission to being wrong.

Instead, what accomplished humanitarian elites, whether in the media, NGOs, think tanks…or the Swedish government, like to do when speaking of their favourite topics (such as female genital mutilation…in Africa, not their own kind), is to celebrate themselves. And they celebrate themselves with a nice big slice of n*gger cake:”

 

Helpless, pleading, wanting, needing, small, weak, staring at you, black–this is the anti-bogeyman invented by Western humanitarianism, what passes as morality in the ideology of empire (yet again). Past the time of a London Missionary Society, we now have the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the moral dogma of a white, western elite that projects its abusive notion of “protection” everywhere it is not wanted. Hence we have the “smug self-congratulation” marking Obama’s “Atrocity Prevention Board” and empowering the U.S. to undertake global police work. Part of a long history of casting wars as “humanitarian,” the “moral compass” of Western imperialism has an appropriately nautical sound in this commercial that declares the U.S. Navy to be “a force for global good” (nautical or extraterrestrial perhaps: the images are inspired by the opening of Star Wars, and the narration echoes Darth Vader). Well past the time of “emancipation,” we can now help Africans by owning them yet again–as children, in that state of infancy that we have long associated with primitiveness itself. We thus have the perfect therapy for the racial fear of blackness: shopping, that is, shopping for humans. Whole peoples in need of our “protection” (and the military-industrial racket of defense contractors and mercenaries that makes “protection” possible)–finally, our guilt washed away in their gratitude. For just the price of a cup of coffee–and the occasional high-altitude bombing by faceless “heroes” who never confront their victims–you too can buy yourself a piece of Africa, “the new frontier”. Then you can monitor and police its subordination, with AFRICOM.

Adoption: Abduction

A massive earthquake just happened. Hundreds of thousands dead and homeless. A nation destroyed. Moments later, disembarking from a night flight, returning from Haiti where few other planes could land, a group of very large white Americans, waddling and smiling through the airport, pushing double strollers displaying their newly harvested tropical produce: Haitian babies, spirited away from home. In many cases, they were simply stolen. In other cases, stolen for the sake of some very “Christian” people.

There is a lot more behind the African adoption craze than the simple desire of the large infertile ones to claim the fruit of others’ loins. Many already know that an industry has sprouted that serves as a conveyor belt for babies from Africa, passed straight into the hands of the “gimme” crowd in Europe and North America. A Web search for “Africa Adoption” returns a river of links to agencies such as: Sunrise Adoption/Africa, Americans for African Adoptions Inc. (from the managing director: “When you look into the eyes of a hungry African child, if you have any heart, you will not walk away and forget”–no, instead you will snatch the child apparently), and a few more. Each of these are part of a complex that serves up images of staring African children, lost, needing you (even when they have parents). Not usually listed as such in any international trade statistics compiled by the enemy, children are another of Africa’s exported commodities, forming part of a growing commercial industry. “The number of children from Africa being adopted by foreign nationals from other continents has risen dramatically,” the BBC said very recently, quoting this 2012 report from the African Child Policy Forum:

In the past eight years, international adoptions increased by almost 400%, the African Child Policy Forum has found. “Africa is becoming the new frontier for inter-country adoption,” the Addis Ababa-based group said. But many African countries do not have adequate safeguards in place to protect the children being adopted, it warns. The majority of so-called orphans adopted from Africa have at least one living parent and many children are trafficked or sold by their parents, the child expert group says. More than 41,000 African children have been adopted and taken out of home countries since 2004, the ACPF report says.

The adoption scandals have been plenty in number of the years, but there is nothing like imposed protection and enforced gratitude to keep the gates open to an abducted continent.

There is, I think, an important conceptualization of “abduction” that needs to be developed (different from the sense found in Alfred Gell’s Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory, also see here). Specifically, what I mean is that in order for one to presume to “care” for another, that other must be seen as living in a state of some sort of neglect and unfulfilled need. That other thus becomes like an object, that is first seized so that it can be set free. It is an object set low within a hierarchy, one that resembles old cultural evolutionist schemes where Europeans were always on top, and Africans locked far down below, in a Permanent Paleolithic time zone. Western “humanitarianism” thus works as an imperialist ideological framework: that object, “Africa,” needs our “protection” (we are the prime actors, they the recipients). This requires that we do at least two things that one would expect of imperialists. First, we need to construct images of “Africa” as a dark place of gaunt, hungry, pleading quasi-humans, where we effectively open the door to ourselves, and usher ourselves in as their self-appointed saviours. This is not the same thing as abduction in the form of kidnapping (not yet anyway): it is more of a virtual abduction, an imaginary capture that places “Africa” on a lower scale of welfare and self-fulfillment, and implies our “duty” to rescue them by “raising” them “up” to where we are. Second, we can work to ensure that the material conditions of need are effectively reproduced: we can do that with “aid” (see below), with “investment” (an odd word, because in practice it means taking away), with “trade” (where the preconditions are that Africans privatize themselves), and with direct military intervention to bomb back down to size any upstart that threatens to repossess his dignity (Libya). This too then is a capture. And then there is actual capture: seizing children, indicting “war criminals,” or inviting students to come on over and “learn” like we do so that they can become “educated”–or stay there, and let our students examine you. Humanitarians just cannot get over themselves, in other words, and they never tire of telling stories of their own greatness.

Examples abound, and they will keep on abounding as time passes, as they have in the past with an endless slew of stereotypes of “broken, helpless Africans”. We thus have the Christian Children’s Fund of Canada (CCFC), producers of awful Christmas-time videos that surely warrant a boycott, whose website produces a majority of pictures of desperate African children, or smiling African children (because they received our aid).

Blood Is Thicker Than Coffee (But Propaganda Is a Lot Like Cake)

The websites of Save the Children and Act for Peace similarly offer the same amount of African poverty pornography that remind you that you are the giver and that the power to breathe dignity into these dark objects is all yours. That also helps to numb and distract you from your own powerlessness in your own society, unless of course you happen to be one of the “one percent”. “For just the price of a cup of coffee”…the everyday humanitarian has such lofty sentiments, but they rarely include direct political action to get their own society from intervening in and harming African nations to begin with. If you care that much, cancel the debt, stop the bombing, and you can keep your coffee.

“Poor starving African children” is not just virtually a category of its own on YouTube, it is the actual title of some videos, like this one:

http://youtu.be/KUGtE7QZV6Y

Very similar to the video above, there is this one from some R2P missionaries, the International aid agency of the National Council of Churches in Australia which is responsible for this R2P video–note which group of people predominates in the images shown:

One could also mention the infamously exploitative and lying “Stop Kony” campaign of conveniently pious imperialists, led by a mentally discordant junior celebrity, not heard from since his naked public rampage against Satan (see more Kony references below). That makes him guilty of “masturbating in public”…twice. Do we sometimes steal other people’s dignity because we lack any ourselves? It’s easy to take apart the motives of someone like Jason Russell, who at another time declared his campaign to be an “adventure” and that “we can have fun while we end genocide….We’re gonna have a blast”:

The more relevant point however is that Russell is showing himself to be an excellent entrepreneur in the field of abduction: seizing African children, as the victims of a Lord’s Resistance Army that is a mere shadow of its former self, in order to back further U.S. military intervention in Uganda, where the LRA is not present but where U.S. special forces are. Neither AFRICOM nor the International Criminal Court could be more thankful for this viral imperial moralism, and the mindless crowd hype that propelled it. Of course, it’s not just Uganda that “benefits” from #Kony2012, but other nations of central Africa as well that are part of AFRICOM’s hunt for the “big game” that Joseph Kony has become, as official U.S. moralism easily blends with militarism. This has become everything that “Save Darfur” dreamt it could be. A clearer case than “my humanitarianism requires your abduction” could not be made better than the Stop Kony campaign. Or, maybe I speak too soon: “Stuff White People Link n. 135: Humanitarian Intervention”.

Amnesty International has been excellent at cashing in on atrocities, reporting rumours of “African mercenaries” in Libya, only to backtrack (after many of us popularized #RacistRebels incessantly in the Twitter news stream): now AI is finding black Libyans and Sub-Saharan Africans targeted for ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, torture, rape and murder–and AI can now announce that there never were any such mercenaries. Either way, Amnesty wins, its budget is ensured as it ensures its relevance to any profitable crisis, not to mention its recent public support for the U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan to “save its women” (an angle ZA covered here, here, here, and here). AI’s double-stand on Libya has been well documented and exposed in the video documentary, “The Humanitarian War,” by Julien Teil:

Inciting hatred and racial fear by spreading false rumours, which then resulted in violence with a genocidal aim? Is that not a crime under international law any longer? Or does the law by implication never apply to the white people who called for it? This is interesting, to see how Amnesty International makes business for itself at both ends of genocide, and never, of course, never, offering as much as an apology or a simple admission to being wrong.

Instead, what accomplished humanitarian elites, whether in the media, NGOs, think tanks…or the Swedish government, like to do when speaking of their favourite topics (such as female genital mutilation…in Africa, not their own kind), is to celebrate themselves. And they celebrate themselves with a nice big slice of n*gger cake:

Abduction yet again, this time with an assault on a human dessert cart. It’s an amazing picture of a European cannibalistic feeding frenzy of fantasy, a black cake saturated with neocolonial racism, and the promotion of very paternalistic attitudes towards African women, however much some of the Swedes above may fancy themselves “feminist”. It also seems that these characters took the bait of a clever artist, and ate it.

Sure, pick on Europeans. Say what you want, but at least “Spain is not Uganda”. Yet, by some measures that Europeans cherish, the argument turned against the Spanish Minister’s feeling of “natural” superiority over African primitives: Spain’s unemployment level is 24%, while Uganda’s is 4.2%; Spain’s GDP growth was –0.1% while Uganda’s was 5.2% in 2010; nor is Uganda currently the subject of emergency “bailout” plans. A good example of successful abduction, this is not, but it was nonetheless an attempt.

To Study, Study, Study You Is To Own, Own, Own You: And I Do, and I Do

Perhaps as many as 20% of the graduate students in the Department that year chose to do their “fieldwork” in Africa. In what kinds of locations? You should be able to guess by now: a garbage dump, a cemetery, and a hospital for AIDS victims. Then they shared stories of how being white women earned them endless drooling commentary from African men. They won three times: capturing Africans in their most miserable state, scoring themselves a high “hotness” rating, and getting an advanced degree.

African feminist Ifi Amadiume shared this story of a young, white, female anthropologist:

“I asked a young White woman why she was studying social anthropology. She replied that she was hoping to go to Zimbabwe, and felt that she could help women there by advising them how to organize. The Black women in the audience gasped in astonishment. Here was someone scarcely past girlhood, who had just started university and had never fought a war in her life. She was planning to go to Africa to teach female veterans of a liberation struggle how to organize! This is the kind of arrogant, if not absurd attitude we encounter repeatedly. It makes one think: Better the distant armchair anthropologists than these ‘sisters’.”

Surely we are not all so crass? “One of the intended outcomes of my research about this community is to share with them my analysis of their situation, so they can better organize their own praxis and self-representation; that by having an outsider hold a mirror up to them, they can benefit from further self-examination.” AnthroFail subtitles itself with “Anthropology: You’re doing it wrong”. Yes, but “fieldwork”–fieldwork makes everything so much better–we should be sending out more of ours to do fieldwork in their societies. At the very least, we can harvest more African data for the American or British journals. Then “open access” will make everything better again.

Aid: Degrade

“We give oh so much aid to Africa, that it just proves how great we are. Africans are not better off? Well, that may be, but then that shows how rotten they are. We win again!” I have heard similar assertions so often, that I now have a question: why don’t you all lobby the U.S. Congress or the Canadian House of Commons to officially rewrite your respective national anthems so you can include the words between the quotation marks? When you’re that great, you should at least sing about it, especially in your football stadiums and hockey arenas. I will not challenge the fact of their “giving,” but I will question the taking–better yet, Kenyan economist James Shikwati has already done so:

“Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

“When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program–which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It’s only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it’s not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa …

SPIEGEL: … corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers …

“Hunger should not be a problem in most of the countries south of the Sahara. In addition, there are vast natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds. Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated. In the industrial nations, there’s a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn’t do all that poorly either.

“AIDS is big business, maybe Africa’s biggest business. There’s nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

“If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.”

As Shikwati explains elsewhere in the interview, Africa’s “hunger problems” as we see them could easily be solved by greater intra-Africa trade, and by breaking down European-drawn borders–in other words, by letting the African Union work. But we don’t much like the real leaders who pushed hard to realize the full potential of the African Union–we instead prefer to see them like this.

Abduction always stands against dignity–and though done much better by many others, many times before, this essay was a necessary second installment in a series of six on Dignity.

References

ACPF. (2012). Africa: The New Frontier for Intercountry Adoption. Addis Ababa: The Africa Child Policy Forum.

AGOA: The U.S. Africa Growth and Opportunity Act.

Allimadi, Milton. (2012). “Invisible Children, Makers of KONY2012, Spied For Ugandan Regime–WikiLeaks”. Black Star News, April 8.

Amnesty International. (2011). “Libya: Organization Calls for Immediate Arms Embargo and Assets Freeze”. Amnesty International, February 23.

— . (2011). “Tawarghas must be protected from reprisals and arbitrary arrest in Libya”. Amnesty International, September 7.

— . (2011). “New Libya ’stained’ by detainee abuse”. Amnesty International, October 13.

— . (2012). “Libya: Deaths of detainees amid widespread torture”. Amnesty International, January 26.

AOPIG. (2001). African Oil: A Priority for U.S. National Security and African Development. Washington, DC: African Oil Policy Initiative Group.

Araia, Semhar. (2012). “Joseph Kony 2012: It’s fine to ‘Stop Kony’ and the LRA. But Learn to Respect Africans”. Christian Science Monitor, March 8.

BBC. (2012). “Adoption from Africa: Concern over ‘dramatic rise’.” BBC News, May 29.

— . (2012). “Spain is Not Uganda. Discuss”. BBC News, June 12.

Benesch, Susan. (2004). “Inciting Genocide, Pleading Free Speech (media in Rwanda)”. World Policy Journal, Volume XXI, No 2, Summer.

Black Acrylic. (2012). “The Anti #Kony2012”. Black Acrylic, March 8

BSN. (2012). “KONY 2012, Invisible Children’s Pro-AFRICOM and Museveni Propaganda”. [Editorial] Black Star News, March 8.

Chossudovsky, Michel. (2012). “JOSEPH KONY, AMERICA’S PRETEXT TO INVADE AFRICA: US Marines Dispatched to Five African Countries”. Global Research, March 16, 2012

Davis, Whitney. (n.d.). “Abducting the Agency of Art”.

Durden, Tyler. (2012). “Uganda is Not Spain”. Zero Hedge, June 12.

Fisher, Max. (2012). “The Soft Bigotry of Kony 2012”. The Atlantic, March 8.

Forte, Maximilian C. (2009). “In Afghanistan It’s Now All About the Little Girls”. Zero Anthropology, August 9.

FriaTider. (2012). “Shocking photos show Swedish Minister of Culture celebrating with ‘n*g*er cake’”. FriaTider, April 17.

Gell, Alfred. (1998). Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ghanea, Nazila. (2011). “Prohibition of Incitement to National, Racial or Religious Hatred in Accordance with International Human Rights Law.” United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Glazebrook, Dan. (2012). “The imperial agenda of the US’s ‘Africa Command’ marches on”. The Guardian, June 14.

Gosztola, Kevin. (2012). “Why Most Wars Are ‘Humanitarian Interventions’”. The Dissenter, April 15.

Guanaguanare. (2012). “Would You Have Eaten the Cake?” Guanaguanare: The Laughing Gull, April 22.

Hanifi, M. Jamil. (2009). “Engineering Division, Instability, and Regime Change with Naheed, Neda, and Allah”. Zero Anthropology, July 31.

— . (2009). “Afghanistan’s Little Girls on the Front Line, Part 2”. Zero Anthropology, August 17.

— . (2010). “Is TIME’s Afghan ‘cover girl’ really a victim of mutilation by the Taleban?” Zero Anthropology, August 5.

Harvard Law Review. “International Law. Genocide. U.N. Tribunal Finds That Mass Media Hate Speech Constitutes Genocide, Incitement to Genocide, and Crimes against Humanity. Prosecutor v. Nahimana, Barayagwiza, and Ngeze (Media Case), Case no. ICTR-99-52-T (Int’l Crim. Trib. for Rwanda Trial Chamber I Dec. 3, 2003)”. Harvard Law Review, Vol. 117, No. 8 (Jun.), pp. 2769-2776.

Haywood, Eddie, and Lantier, Alex. (2011). “US deploys Special Forces troops to central Africa”. World Socialist Web Site, October 17.

Holligan, Anna. (2012). “Invisible Children’s Kony campaign gets support of ICC prosecutor”. BBC News, March 8.

International Stability Operations Association formerly known as the International Peace Operations Association

Mason, John Edwin. (2012). “A Brief History of African Stereotypes, Part 1: Broken, Helpless Africa”. John Edwin Mason, March 9.

Michael, Marc. (2012). “Stuff White People Link n. 135: Humanitarian Intervention”. Jadaliyya, April 11.

Moreno, Antonio. (2011). “U.S. Imperialism Creeps Into Uganda, Central Africa Under Guise of Human Rights”. Anti-Imperialism.com, November 14.

Puryear, Eugene. (2012). “What’s behind Kony 2012? U.S. military intervention cannot be a force for progressive change”. Liberation, March 8.

Savage, Charlie, and Shanker, Thom. (2012). “U.S. Drug War Expands to Africa, a Newer Hub for Cartels”. The New York Times, July 21.

SourceWatch: Amnesty International

Spiegel. (2005). “For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!” Spiegel Online International, April 7.

Straziuso, Jason. (2011). “Somalia, Libya, Uganda: US increases Africa focus”. Associated Press, October 27.

Timmermann, Wibke Kristin. (2006). “Incitement in international criminal law”. International Review of the Red Cross, Volume 88 Number 864, December.

Van Stokkom, Henk. (2012). “The Invisible Christians of #Kony2012” Digital Archive, March 19.

Vine, David. (2012). “Yes, Let’s #STOPKONY, But What Happens If the Bad Guy Is Us?” Huffington Post, March 14.

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Walt, Stephen M. (2012). “Is the ‘Atrocity Prevention Board’ a good idea?” Foreign Policy, April 24.

UNDERSTANDING THE PROPAGANDA WAR AGAINST SYRIA

Rape and Torture: Weapons in the Propaganda War

 May 29, 2012
Eric Draitser
StopImperialism.com

Rape and torture have become standard issue in the propaganda arsenal of Western media.  Reports from organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the UN Human Rights Council that claim to document the systematic use of rape and torture by the “enemies” of the West have become usual fair in the soft war against whomever the imperialists have chosen to attack.  We have seen these claims used to legitimize aggression against Libya, Iraq, and now Syria.

In an article published in The Telegraph, the author cleverly uses a quote from a Deputy Director at Human Rights Watch making a general statement about the use of rape in detention facilities in order to humiliate, degrade and instill fear.  However, he makes no direct reference to Syria, though the article clearly attempts to draw that abstract connection.  In fact, as one reads further, the claims of rape and torture at the hands of Syrian security forces come from “activists” (the usual anonymous term applied to any quotable voice parroting the Western talking points regarding Assad and the regime) who have fled Syria.  In fact, the so-called activists are, in many cases, wanted terrorists who have fled Syria not in fear of persecution but for fear of being brought to justice for their crimes.

It is significant to note that, even with the obvious bias from the “eyewitnesses” and the authors of the article, there is still no mention of actual Syrian forces engaging in these actions. Instead, it is all chalked up to “militias loyal to the Assad regime”, an important distinction which goes conveniently understated.  In fact, the only mention of “security forces” involved in this sort of behavior is added in brackets by the authors of the article themselves.  This shows how the Western media constantly manipulate quotes and facts in order to shape them to fit the narrative that the Western propagandists want. →

Total War

Intercontinental Cry

Editorial

By Jay Taber

Jun 21, 2012

Why Do We Trust NGOs?

by The Global Journal May 18, 2012

The Credibility of Transnational NGOs: When Virtue is Not Enough, by Peter Gourevitch, David Lake, Janice Gross Stein, €24.39, $32.99.

We live in a world where NGOs are not only multiplying in number, but are increasingly entrusted with a role as the de facto guardians of the common interests of humanity. Major international – or ‘transnational’ NGOs in particular, have assumed a unique position in global governance processes. These institutional heavyweights are able both to mobilize substantial funds, as well as shape global norms – and therefore social change – in a way that has no precedent in history. Yet, as the editors of this volume ask, why do we trust transnational NGOs? Though The Credibility of Transnational NGOs is a collection of theoretically framed political science researches, this central theme has more than scholarly interest. Many of the activities in which NGOs engage – from humanitarian relief to human rights monitoring, microcredit lending to ethical certification – are premised on their position as impartial, principled actors. Credibility is a ‘valuable asset’ that NGOs strive to acquire and protect. Through a series of in-depth case studies covering organizations as diverse as Rugmark, Amnesty International, Islamic Relief and Kiva, the authors featured in The Credibility of Transnational NGOs investigate the sources of NGO credibility, as well as the strategies NGOs employ to augment their reputations and further their ‘brand’. While many of the findings would appear self-evident – the importance of common values, for example – the very fact that scholars are turning their rigorous gaze towards an under-researched sector is nonetheless a step in the right direction.

 

NATO’s Slow Genocide in Libya: Syria is Next

What the world has to look forward to if NATO and the UN gets its way in Syria

April 19, 2012

by Tony Cartalucci| Land Destroyer

Global Civilians For Peace In Libya

 

April 19, 2012 – While Qatari government propaganda outlet Al Jazeera is busy whitewashing the NATO-led terrorist take-over of Libya with “documentaries” like “Gaddafi: The Endgame – State of Denial,” depicting the evisceration of one of Africa’s most developed nation-states as a pro-democracy revolution yielding a promising tomorrow – Libya in reality has been plunged into perpetual violence, destabilization, and division. And as militants battle each other while carving the once unified Libya into a myriad of fiefdoms, genocidal death squads continue a campaign of extermination nationwide.

One group of Libyans hit hardest are the people of Tawargha – who were either exterminated or exiled from their city of 10,000-30,000 during the NATO-led destruction of Libya last year. Since then, their refugee camps have been raided, and survivors who have not yet fled Libya are being systematically imprisoned, tortured, and murdered.

Now, the very network of corporate-funded and directed NGOs charged with “human rights advocacy,” who assisted the Libyan rebels in willfully lying to the world over violations of “human rights” in the lead up to NATO’s military intervention, are finally reporting the widespread atrocities being carried out by the rebels themselves. In fact, organizations like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, both funded by convicted criminal and Wall Street speculator, George Soros, began reporting such atrocities back in 2011, but only long after NATO bombs were already falling on Libya and the process of “regime change” was already irreversible. And, at critical junctures, such as the sieges of Bani Walid and Sirte, where NATO itself was committing systematic war crimes by air in tandem with terrorist forces on the ground – organizations like HRW and Amnesty International were altogether mute. →

NGO crackdown: Egypt Denies Licenses to 8 U.S.-based Non-profits

By Anne Sewell

Egypt has denied licenses to eight US-based non-profit groups, saying they violated the country’s sovereignty. Many states are concerned that foreign government-backed NGOs are really agents for their sponsors, rather than independent action groups.

NGOs: The Missionaries of Empire

by Devon DB

Global Research | March 3, 2012