A RECOVERING NEOCON speaks out

"Two years ago I was a neocon. I supported Bush’s war on Iraq and I called everyone who didn’t a liberal Kool-aid drinker. I voted for Bush in 2000 and I listened to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and just about any right-winger on the radio that I could get a four-word talking point from to use against liberals. I would say things such as "liberals won’t defend America," "shut up and sing," "freedom is on the march," and "you’re a great American." I supported the war at first because I bought into the lies and propaganda.

I no longer do. I’m a recovering neocon.

The fact is, the neocon movement is a lot like a cult. I don’t remember how I got so involved and the details are hazy on how I got out. I just woke up one day and said "WTF!" and then ran outside to rip the "bring it on" sticker off of my car bumper. What pulled me in to the neocon cult however was a combination of American nationalism and group mentality. It was a time when questioning the government’s response to Iraq divided you between being with your country and government at a time of need, or against them. I wanted to be with them.

So this cult took me in and I watched Fox News, I bought Factor Gear and I was brainwashed into common reflexes for liberals and dissenters. When I heard dissent in the media over Iraq I’d call it liberal bias. If someone presented me any website that mentioned a "war for oil" or the phrase "illegal war" I would blow the site off as conspiracy hogwash. When someone would talk ill of the President and his march to war, I would call them a liberal and anti-American. When someone would say that Saddam was not a threat after I was done calling them part of the liberal "hate America" crowd, I would launch into a diatribe that Saddam was Hitler-like and hell bent on world domination. If someone persisted I would take out my wild card: "Saddam believes he’s the reincarnation of King Nebuchadnezzar, and he’s harboring Al Queda!"

I couldn’t believe these liberals. I was outraged. The audacity of them to question our President during a time of war! I listened to similar sentiments on right wing radio while driving to work to reinforce my belief.

Little did I know at the time, but I was an important part of the neocon movement. I was but a tiny wheel in the machine of neoconservatism, but the survival of the neocon agenda depends on millions of us tiny wheels, or it cannot go anywhere. Most of all the neocon agenda depends on a much bigger wheel, the media. For the neocon machine to roll, the big wheel of the media must pull the millions of tiny wheels without the tiny wheels knowing they are being pulled.

This is a difficult trick that requires the media to be an active participant in government deception. To imply that they do so knowingly would be too conspiratorial, and it would be too grand an operation to be plausible. In truth, the mainstream media doesn’t believe they are participating in lies.

During the build-up to the war they were being pulled without knowing it, by the engine of the U. S. government. This swarm of nationalism begat a pro-American media, a complacent media, a lapdog media and a corporate media that to this day will not inform the American public.

When the Bush Administration was found to be creating fake news propaganda for public consumption the media did not inform the public. When the Bush administration marched towards pre-emptive war with Iraq the media was a lapdog instead of a watchdog. When the Bush administration described the assault on the Iraqi public as Shock and Awe, the media used that phrase to scroll alongside the words "War on Terror" without questioning if the assault on Iraq had anything to do with terrorism. When the Bush Administration tore into the U. S. Constitution with the Patriot Act, causing the illegal imprisonment of American citizens while denying them counsel, the media acted more like a timid cocker spaniel than an aggressive Doberman pincher, and failed to defend a sacred American document. When the UK’s Downing Street memo implicated the Bush Administration as being hell bent on a pre-emptive invasion on Iraq before even going to the UN, the American media was silent and once again failed to inform the public.

But the tiny wheels still want to call the media liberal. The tiny wheels still want to say the media isn’t reporting the good things happening in Iraq. Most of all the tiny wheels do not know about the big wheel that’s pulling them. But now I do. That’s why I am an ex-neocon and I am in recovery. It’s more clear to me now than ever that the most American thing one can do is speak out against the actions of their country because it means you love your country.

And in the end it doesn’t matter if we are liberals or conservatives because all that matters is that we are on the side of the U.S. Constitution and of international law. Both of which have been thrown into the toilet by this administration. At least the Qur’an has company."

LINK

George Carlin - Who Really Controls America


Recently I had participated in an online forum on American "intervention " in other parts of the world. The debate centered around a group of American college students who argued that America was still a force for good and that it's 'altruism' and 'selfless "help"' continues to make the world a safer place, freed of "Radical Islam" & "Terrorism", where 'Democracy' and 'Freedom' prevails under the bastion of the Liberty Flag.
I could hardly contain myself.
Here's one response to the "Help" America has been so good to extend to the "oppressed".

I’m sure that the 90% of all Iraqi Christians who have been killed or exiled since the American invasion of Iraq appreciate our “help.” I’m sure that the millions of Iraqis who have fled their native country since the arrival of the Americans appreciate our “help.” I’m sure that the thousands of Iraqi translators who assisted Americans but have not been allowed to emigrate to the U. S. when their lives were threatened appreciate our “help.” I’m sure that the thousands of innocent Iraqis who were unjustly imprisoned, tortured, and in some cases killed by American mercenaries (such as those employed by Blackwater) and U. S. soldiers appreciate our “help.” I’m sure that the thousands of Iraqi children orphaned and/or maimed as a result of our bombing of their country appreciate our “help.” I’m sure that all Iraqis appreciate the fact that they have less electricity, fuel, and potable water now than they did under Saddam since we came to “help” them.

The ones who do truly appreciate the U. S. invasion and occupation of Iraq are 1. the Chinese government, which is loaning us money to continue this war, 2. the members of OPEC, who have seen all-time high oil prices since the Iraq oil fields cannot operate at full capacity, and 3. the Shiite government in Iran, which is delighted that America overthrew its natural enemy, the Sunni Saddam Hussein, and which is delighted that now a friendly Shiite government is installed in Iraq.

Slowly but surely, Americans are waking up to the reality that their Nation is no longer run by them. Their government by Zionists & other Special Interest Groups; It's halls of power in Washington are infested with lobby groups tirelessly working to further the agendas of International corporations, from Defence Contractors to Oils Giants.
All hovering over the carcass of a once great nation which had stood on the shoulders of great visionaries, scavenging for a bigger piece of the spoils from the countless wars it wrecks on other lands. The 'Founding fathers' who had championed for the rights of the Individual, fought justly against the oppression of the British Empire and it's cabal of European Monarchs, now stir in their graves.Their dream of a free & prosperous people was short lived and had faded into history with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln(refer).

And while America continues to be a superpower in terms of military spending, it lags behind in almost everything else compared to its European & first world counterparts, be it Health care(sicko), social welfare or anything to do with taking care of it's own. Today it is no more than a bully, a terrifying abomination on it's own people( Americans fear Big Brother more than any other citizenry in the liberal world fear their own government) and the rest of the world(1).
While it's citizens continue to foot the bill in terms of trillions in tax dollars, and while they are kept intoxicated on limitless freedoms(except political freedom of course; an illusion of democratic institutes suffices) it has been overrun with a Chinese and Indian skilled workforce. Meanwhile the Home of the Brave-Land of the free has become Home of the lame-Land of the obese.

Even politicians have begun to sense this stirring of unease among the working class Americans, and have started to inculcate such terms as corporate greed and SIG's into their political mambo jumbo( take Obama and his recent speech "Towards a more perfect union").

All the while the rest of the world suffocates beneath it's feet, and we are having to apologize even for that. No one can say it better than Arundhati Roy-

"In the last ten years of unbridled corporate globalisation the worlds average income has increased by an average of 2.5% per year. And yet the number of poor in the world has increased by 100 million. Of the top 100 biggest economies, fifty one are corporations, not countries. The top 1 percent of the world has the same combined income as the bottom 57 per cent and the disparity is growing. Now, under the spreading canopy of War against Terror, this process is being hustled along. The men in suits are in an unseemly hurry. While bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across the skies, while nuclear weapons are stockpiled to make the world a safer place, contracts are being signed, patents are being registered, oil pipelines are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water is being privatized, and democracies are being undermined....Across the world as the free markets brazenly protects western markets and forces developing countries to lift their trade barriers, the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer"

Following is an invaluable Resource Center on War, the Arms Trade, Oil Politics, Israel; how connected everything is, and how irrelevant "Radical Islam" is as far as it being the root of all evil goes, as opposed to it being an invaluable tool in the War on Civil Liberties & Universal sovereignty.WORLD POLICY INSTITUTE

GLOBAL MEDIA GIANTS

A specter now haunts the world: a global commercial media system dominated by a small number of superpowerful, mostly U.S.-based transnational media corporations. It is a system that works to advance the cause of the global market and promote commercial values, while denigrating journalism and culture not conducive to the immediate bottom line or long-run corporate interests. It is a disaster for anything but the most superficial notion of democracy--a democracy where, to paraphrase John Jay's maxim, those who own the world ought to govern it.

The global commercial system is a very recent development. Until the 1980s, media systems were generally national in scope. While there have been imports of books, films, music and TV shows for decades, the basic broadcasting systems and newspaper industries were domestically owned and regulated. Beginning in the 1980s, pressure from the IMF, World Bank and U.S. government to deregulate and privatize media and communication systems coincided with new satellite and digital technologies, resulting in the rise of transnational media giants.

How quickly has the global media system emerged? The two largest media firms in the world, Time Warner and Disney, generated around 15 percent of their income outside of the United States in 1990. By 1997, that figure was in the 30 percent-35 percent range. Both firms expect to do a majority of their business abroad at some point in the next decade.

The global media system is now dominated by a first tier of nine giant firms. The five largest are Time Warner (1997 sales: $24 billion), Disney ($22 billion), Bertelsmann ($15 billion), Viacom ($13 billion), and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation ($11 billion). Besides needing global scope to compete, the rules of thumb for global media giants are twofold: First, get bigger so you dominate markets and your competition can't buy you out. Firms like Disney and Time Warner have almost tripled in size this decade.

Second, have interests in numerous media industries, such as film production, book publishing, music, TV channels and networks, retail stores, amusement parks, magazines, newspapers and the like. The profit whole for the global media giant can be vastly greater than the sum of the media parts. A film, for example, should also generate a soundtrack, a book, and merchandise, and possibly spin-off TV shows, CD-ROMs, video games and amusement park rides. Firms that do not have conglomerated media holdings simply cannot compete in this market.

The first tier is rounded out by TCI, the largest U.S. cable company that also has U.S. and global media holdings in scores of ventures too numerous to mention. The other three first-tier global media firms are all part of much larger industrial corporate powerhouses: General Electric (1997 sales: $80 billion), owner of NBC; Sony (1997 sales: $48 billion), owner of Columbia & TriStar Pictures and major recording interests; and Seagram (1997 sales: $14 billion), owner of Universal film and music interests. The media holdings of these last four firms do between $6 billion and $9 billion in business per year. While they are not as diverse as the media holdings of the first five global media giants, these four firms have global distribution and production in the areas where they compete. And firms like Sony and GE have the resources to make deals to get a lot bigger very quickly if they so desire.

Behind these firms is a second tier of some three or four dozen media firms that do between $1 billion and $8 billion per year in media-related business. These firms tend to have national or regional strongholds or to specialize in global niche markets. About one-half of them come from North America, including the likes of CBS, the New York Times Co., Hearst, Comcast and Gannett.Most of the rest come from Europe, with a handful based in East Asia and Latin America.

In short, the overwhelming majority (in revenue terms) of the world's film production, TV show production, cable channel ownership, cable and satellite system ownership, book publishing, magazine publishing and music production is provided by these 50 or so firms, and the first nine firms thoroughly dominate many of these sectors. By any standard of democracy, such a concentration of media power is troubling, if not unacceptable.

But that hardly explains how concentrated and uncompetitive this global media power actually is. In addition, these firms are all actively engaged in equity joint ventures where they share ownership of concerns with their "competitors" so as to reduce competition and risk. Each of the nine first-tier media giants, for example, has joint ventures with, on average, two-thirds of the other eight first-tier media giants. And the second tier is every bit as aggressive about making joint ventures.

In some ways, the emerging global commercial media system is not an entirely negative proposition. It occasionally promotes anti-racist, anti-sexist or anti-authoritarian messages that can be welcome in some of the more repressive corners of the world. But on balance the system has minimal interest in journalism or public affairs except for that which serves the business and upper-middle classes, and it privileges just a few lucrative genres that it can do quite well--like sports, light entertainment and action movies--over other fare. Even at its best the entire system is saturated by a hyper- commercialism, a veritable commercial carpetbombing of every aspect of human life. As the C.E.O. of Westinghouse put it (Advertising Age, 2/3/97), "We are here to serve advertisers. That is our raison d'etre."

Some once posited that the rise of the Internet would eliminate the monopoly power of the global media giants. Such talk has declined recently as the largest media, telecommunication and computer firms have done everything within their immense powers to colonize the Internet, or at least neutralize its threat. The global media cartel may be evolving into a global communication cartel.

But the entire global media and communication system is still influx. While we are probably not too far from crystallization, there will likely be considerable merger and joint venture activity in the coming years. Indeed, by the time you read this, there may already be some shifts in who owns what or whom.

What is tragic is that this entire process of global media concentration has taken place with little public debate, especially in the U.S., despite the clear implications for politics and culture. After World War II, the Allies restricted media concentration in occupied Germany and Japan because they noted that such concentration promoted anti-democratic, even fascist, political cultures. It may be time for the United States and everyone else to take a dose of that medicine. But for that to happen will require concerted effort to educate and organize people around media issues. That is the task before us.

This article is based on The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism (Cassell, 1997), co-authored with Edward S. Herman.
LINK

WARFARE & THE GLOBE
MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX (MIC) - (1) (2) (3) EU MIC
How the spooks took over the news

NADER WHO?

I support Ralph Nader's candidacy.
But let's face it, no way is an independent candidate ever gonna make it, not without the blessings of Corporate Behemoths and their keepers. But I'm thankful that at least this one man has dared to stand up, time after time, against a malignant kafkaesque neo-fascist establishment, that has made a mockery of the very virtues the United States markets as the sacred pillars of a representative democracy.
The institutions of the Executive, the Legislative & the judiciary, the Media & Press, The Electoral Process (super delegates!?! Duh! ), have all been been Gang raped by that same ruling class of Higher-Policy-Elites, beneath this veneer of supra Nationalism.(The kind that continues to suck the life force out of the rest of the world).
And While Obama has been able to tap into the growing uneasiness among the doped/duped working class Americans, and however charismatic and lovable he maybe, has neither the will nor the free hand to disobey his masters.
I'm not going to say anything about that Medusa.

INTERVIEW with Democracy Now
NADER TO BUSH:TAKE YOUR TIME

THE SAUDI CONNECTION
'The hijackers recruited for the September 11 outrage were not illiterate, bearded fanatics from the mountain-villages of Afghanistan. They were all educated, highly-skilled, middle-class professionals. Thirteen of the nineteen men involved were citizens of Saudi Arabia. The three Alghamdis are clearly from the Hijaz province of the Kingdom. Mohamed Atta, born in Egypt, travelled on a Saudi passport.

Regardless of whether he gave the order or not, what is indisputable is that the bulk of Osama Bin Laden's real cadres (as opposed to footsoldiers) are located in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, the two principal allies of the United States in the region barring Israel. Support for Bin Laden is strong in Saudi Arabia. He was a close friend of the Saudi boss of Intelligence, Prince Turki bin Faisal al Saud, who was dismissed recently after his failure to curb attacks on US personnel in Riyadh. The real reason is probably his refusal to take sides in the fierce faction fight to determine the succession after the death of the paralysed King Fahd. Both sides are aware that too close an alignment with the United States could be explosive. That is why till now the Saudi regime despite its support for the US is not 'allowing its bases to be used'.

In normal times the Saudi Kingdom is barely covered by the Western media. The Ambassadors report to their respective chanceries that all is well and the continuity of the regime is not threatened. It requires the imprisonment of a American or British citizen or for a British nurse to be chucked out of a window for attention to focus on the regime in Riyadh. Even less is known about the state religion, which is not an everyday version of Sunni or Shia Islam, but a peculiarly virulent, ultra-puritanical strain known as Wahhabism. This is the religion of the Saudi royals, the state bureaucracy, the army and air-force and, of course, Osama Bin Laden, the best-known Saudi citizen in the world, and an indispensable CIA asset currently resident in Afghanistan(or so we are told).

Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul Wahhab, the inspirer of this sect, was an 18th century peasant who became tired of tending date palms and grazing cattle and began to preach locally, calling for a return to the pure beliefs of the seventh century. He opposed the excessive veneration of the Prophet Mohammed, denounced the worship of holy places and shrines and stressed the 'unity of one God'. On its own this was harmless enough, but it was his social prescriptions that created problems even in the 1740s: he insisted on Islamic punishment beatings and more: adulterers should be stoned to death, thieves amputated, criminals executed in public. Religious leaders in the region objected when he began to practice what he preached and the local chief in Uyayna asked him to leave. Wahhab fled to Deraiya in 1744 and won over its ruler, Mohammed Ibn Saud, in 1744. Ibn Saud, the founder of the dynasty that rules Saudi Arabia today, utilised Wahhab's revivalist fervour to inculcate a sense of discipline in the tribes before hurling them into battle against the Ottoman Empire. Wahhab regarded the Sultan in Istanbul as a hypocrite who had no right to be the Caliph of Islam and preached the virtues of a permanent jihad(holy war) against Islamic modernisers, hypocrites as well as the infidel. The Ottomans hit back, occupied the Hijaz and took charge of Mecca and Medina, but Wahhabi influence remained and the heroic battles became part of local folk-lore.This proto-nationalism was utilised by Saud's successors to expand their influence throughout the peninsula.

Two centuries later they laid the foundations of what is now Saudi Arabia, but it was the discovery of liquid gold that changed the region forever. Fearful of the competition from Britain, the United States merged Esso, Texaco and Mobil to form the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO). This link established in 1933 was strengthened during the Second World War, when the USAF base in Dhahran was deemed crucial to 'the defense of the United States.' The Saudi monarch was paid millions of dollars to aid development in the Kingdom. The regime was a despotism, but it was seen as an important bulwark against communism and nationalism in the region and, for that reason, the United States chose to ignore what took place within its borders.

The entry of the United States and the creation of the Kingdom has been brilliantly depicted in one of the most remarkable contributions to Arabic fiction: the 'Cities of Salt' pentalogy by the exiled Saudi novelist, Abdelrahman Munif, whose own birth in 1933 coincided with that of the new state. Munif's multi-layered fiction---savage, surreal and satirical---- angered the Royal Family. He was deprived of his nationality and banned from ever returning to the country. His books became delicious contraband circulating everywhere including the royal palaces." The 20th century is almost over, but when the West looks at us all they see is oil and petro-dollars. Saudi Arabia is still without a constitution, the people are deprived of all elementary rights, even the right to support the regime without asking for permission. Women, who own a large share of private wealth in the country are treated like third-class citizens. A woman is not allowed to leave the country without a written permit from a male relative. Such a situation produces a desperate citizenry, without a sense of dignity or belonging..."

Denied secular openings in a society where the royal family---a clan with multiple factions and micro-factions...... and its tame clerics dominates all aspects of everyday life, there were a number of rebellions in the 60s and 70s. One of Munif's novels, The Trench, has a striking finale. Two revolutions are being plotted, one of them by angry young men inspired by modern ideas. The other, invisibly, inside the palace. Everything ends in tears with curfews and tanks in the street. The young revolutionaries discover that the wrong revolt has succeeded. The reference was to the assassination of King Feisal in 1975 by his own nephew, Prince Faisal Ibn Musaid. Ten years earlier Ibn Musaid's brother Prince Khalid, a fervent Wahhabite, had demonstrated in public against the entry of television into the kingdom. Saudi police entered his house and shot him dead. To this day Prince Khalid is venerated by hardline believers and years later the Taliban government paid its own tribute by the public burning of audio cassettes and videos and a ban on television.

But Wahhabism remains the state religion of Saudi Arabia, imported with petro-dollars to fund extremism elsewhere in the world. During the war against the Soviet Union, Pakistani military intelligence requested the presence of a Saudi prince to lead the jihad in Afghanistan. No volunteers were forthcoming and the Saudi leaders recommended the scion of a rich family, close to the monarchy. Ossama Bin Laden was despatched to the Pakistan border and arrived in time to hear President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezinski, turban on head, shout: "Allah is on your side."

The religious schools in Pakistan where the Taliban were created were funded by the Saudis and Wahhabi influence was very strong. When the Taliban decided to blow up the old Buddhas there were appeals from the ancient seminaries of Qom and al-Azhar to desist on the grounds that Islam was tolerant. A Wahhabi delegation from the Kingdom advised the Taliban to execute the plan. They did. The Wahhabi insistence on a permanent jihad against all enemies, Muslim and non-Muslim, was to leave a deep mark on the young boys who later took Kabul. The attitude of the United States in those days was sympathetic. A Republican Party packed with Christian cults could hardly offer advice on this matter and both Clinton and Blair were keen on advertising their Christianity.'

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the internal opposition became totally dominated by religious groups. These core Wahhabis now saw the Kingdom as degenerate because of the American connection. Others were depressed by the failure of Riyadh to defend the Palestinians. The stationing of US soldiers in the country after the Gulf War was a signal for terrorist attacks on soldiers and bases. Those who ordered these were Saudis, but Pakistani and Philipinno immigrants were sometimes charged and executed in order to appease the United States.'

The balkanization of West Asia through selective destabilization & installation of puppet regimes and inbreeding of religious zealots as programmed enemies of "Freedom", is in the strategic interests of the united states that revolves around
a) securing an uninterrupted supply of oil from a despotic Saudi royal family appeased on petrodollars
b) the viability & security of the State of Israel
c) realizing the visions of a New American Century, thats Post colonial Neo-imperialistic Hegemony for the rest of us.

In effect forming The true Axis-of-Evil, that Holy trinitas of tyranny representing the greatest threats to global peace:

Zionism-New American Imperialism-Royal Houses of hijaz & their Wahhabism

What oil buys
The Gulf War: Secret History