Monthly Archive

A specter is haunting America – the specter of technofascism.  We are enmeshed in a global system of conquest and destruction, dominance and deceit in which Wall Street, Corporate America, the Pentagon, the U.S. Government, and the Israeli lobby manipulate and control our lives through money, political power, markets, media, and technology resulting in the loss of political will, civil liberties, collective memory, and traditional culture.

Robots of the world unite against affluenza, technomania, cybermania, megalomania, robotism, globalization, and imperialism:

Affluenza: Overconsumption of more and more stuff 

Technomania: God-like worship of technology which we equate with progress 

Cybermania: Obsession with some of the most anti-intellectual, anti-educational, anti-creativity, and anti-social devices ever conceived which have the potential to destroy community, undermine democracy, dehumanize society, and induce emotional instability.

Megalomania: Mental condition characterized by delusions of great personal power, influence, grandeur, and wealth and the obsessive-compulsive worship of anything that is big.

Robotism: Condition of those who behave as if they were perfectly cloned, mindless automatons, who think the same, vote the same, watch the same TV programs, visit the same Web sites, and buy the same consumer goods.

Globalization: International system of mass production, mass marketing, mass distribution, mass consumption, mega financial institutions, and global telecommunications, which works best if we are all the same.

Imperialism: Foreign policy based on the concepts of full spectrum dominance and imperial overstretch.

Thomas H. Naylor is Founder of the Second Vermont Republic and Professor Emeritus of Economics at Duke University; co-author of Affluenza, Downsizing the U.S.A., and The Search for Meaning.

“Why are you attacking us? Why are you killing our children? Why are you destroying our infrastructure?”

– Television address by Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, April 30, 2011

A few hours later NATO hit a target in Tripoli, killing Gaddafi’s 29-year-old son Saif al-Arab, three of Gaddafi’s grandchildren, all under twelve years of age, and several friends and neighbors.

In his TV address, Gaddafi had appealed to the NATO nations for a cease-fire and negotiations after six weeks of bombings and cruise missile attacks against his country.

Well, let’s see if we can derive some understanding of the complex Libyan turmoil.

The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO and the European Union — recognizes no higher power and believes, literally, that it can do whatever it wants in the world, to whomever it wants, for as long as it wants, and call it whatever it wants, like “humanitarian”.

If The Holy Triumvirate decides that it doesn’t want to overthrow the government in Syria or in Egypt or Tunisia or Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Jordan, no matter how cruel, oppressive, or religiously intolerant those governments are with their people, no matter how much they impoverish and torture their people, no matter how many protesters they shoot dead in their Freedom Square, the Triumvirate will simply not overthrow them.

If the Triumvirate decides that it wants to overthrow the government of Libya, though that government is secular and has used its oil wealth for the benefit of the people of Libya and Africa perhaps more than any government in all of Africa and the Middle East, but keeps insisting over the years on challenging the Triumvirate’s imperial ambitions in Africa and raising its demands on the Triumvirate’s oil companies, then the Triumvirate will simply overthrow the government of Libya.

If the Triumvirate wants to punish Gaddafi and his sons it will arrange with the Triumvirate’s friends at the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for them.

If the Triumvirate doesn’t want to punish the leaders of Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Jordan it will simply not ask the ICC to issue arrest warrants for them. Ever since the Court first formed in 1998, the United States has refused to ratify it and has done its best to denigrate it and throw barriers in its way because Washington is concerned that American officials might one day be indicted for their many war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bill Richardson, as US ambassador to the UN, said to the world in 1998 that the United States should be exempt from the court’s prosecution because it has “special global responsibilities”. But this doesn’t stop the United States from using the Court when it suits the purposes of American foreign policy.

If the Triumvirate wants to support a rebel military force to overthrow the government of Libya then it does not matter how fanatically religious, al-Qaeda-related, executing-beheading-torturing, monarchist, or factionally split various groups of that rebel force are at times, the Triumvirate will support it, as it did certain forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and hope that after victory the Libyan force will not turn out as jihadist as it did in Afghanistan, or as fratricidal as in Iraq. One potential source of conflict within the rebels, and within the country if ruled by them, is that a constitutional declaration made by the rebel council states that, while guaranteeing democracy and the rights of non-Muslims, “Islam is the religion of the state and the principle source of legislation in Islamic Jurisprudence.”

Adding to the list of the rebels’ charming qualities we have the Amnesty International report that the rebels have been conducting mass arrests of black people across the nation, terming all of them “foreign mercenaries” but with growing evidence that a large number were simply migrant workers.

Reported Reuters (August 29): “On Saturday, reporters saw the putrefying bodies of 22 men of African origin on a Tripoli beach. Volunteers who had come to bury them said they were mercenaries whom rebels had shot dead.” To complete this portrait of the West’s newest darlings we have this report from The Independent of London (August 27): “The killings were pitiless. They had taken place at a makeshift hospital, in a tent marked clearly with the symbols of the Islamic crescent. Some of the dead were on stretchers, attached to intravenous drips. Some were on the back of an ambulance that had been shot at. A few were on the ground, seemingly attempting to crawl to safety when the bullets came.”

If the Triumvirate’s propaganda is clever enough and deceptive enough and paints a graphic picture of Gaddafi-initiated high tragedy in Libya, many American and European progressives will insist that though they never, ever support imperialism they’re making an exception this time because …

• The Libyan people are being saved from a “massacre”, both actual and potential. This massacre, however, seems to have been grossly exaggerated by the Triumvirate, al Jazeera TV, and that station’s owner, the government of Qatar; and nothing approaching reputable evidence of a massacre has been offered, neither a mass grave or anything else; the massacre stories appear to be on a par with the Viagra-rape stories spread by al Jazeera (the Fox News of the Libyan uprising). Qatar, it should be noted, has played an active military role in the civil war on the side of NATO. It should be further noted that the main massacre in Libya has been six months of daily Triumvirate bombing, killing an unknown number of people and ruining much of the infrastructure. Michigan U. Prof. Juan Cole, the quintessential true-believer in the good intentions of American foreign policy who nevertheless manages to have a regular voice in progressive media, recently wrote that “Qaddafi was not a man to compromise … his military machine would mow down the revolutionaries if it were allowed to.” Is that clear, class? We all know of course that Sarkozy, Obama, and Cameron made compromises without end in their devastation of Libya; they didn’t, for example, use any nuclear weapons.
• The United Nations gave its approval for military intervention; i.e., the leading members of the Triumvirate gave their approval, after Russia and China cowardly abstained instead of exercising their veto power; (perhaps hoping to receive the same courtesy from the US, UK and France when Russia or China is the aggressor nation).
• The people of Libya are being “liberated”, whatever in the world that means, now or in the future. Gaddafi is a “dictator” they insist. That may indeed be the proper term to use for the man, but it must still be asked: Is he a relatively benevolent dictator or is he the other kind so favored by Washington? It must also be asked: Since the United States has habitually supported dictators for the entire past century, why not this one?

The Triumvirate, and its fawning media, would have the world believe that what’s happened in Libya is just another example of the Arab Spring, a popular uprising by non-violent protestors against a dictator for the proverbial freedom and democracy, spreading spontaneously from Tunisia and Egypt, which sandwich Libya. But there are several reasons to question this analysis in favor of seeing the Libyan rebels’ uprising as a planned and violent attempt to take power in behalf of their own political movement, however heterogeneous that movement might appear to be in its early stage. For example:

1. They soon began flying the flag of the monarchy that Gaddafi had overthrown
2. They were an armed and violent rebellion almost from the beginning; within a few days, we could read of “citizens armed with weapons seized from army bases” and of “the policemen who had participated in the clash were caught and hanged by protesters”
3. Their revolt took place not in the capital but in the heart of the country’s oil region; they then began oil production and declared that foreign countries would be rewarded oil-wise in relation to how much each country aided their cause
4. They soon set up a Central Bank, a rather bizarre thing for a protest movement
5. International support came quickly, even beforehand, from Qatar and al Jazeera to the CIA and French intelligence

The notion that a leader does not have the right to put down an armed rebellion against the state is too absurd to discuss.

Not very long ago, Iraq and Libya were the two most modern and secular states in the Mideast/North Africa world with perhaps the highest standards of living in the region. Then the United States of America came along and saw fit to make a basket case of each one. The desire to get rid of Gaddafi had been building for years; the Libyan leader had never been a reliable pawn; then the Arab Spring provided the excellent opportunity and cover. As to Why? Take your pick of the following:

• Gaddafi’s plans to conduct Libya’s trading in Africa in raw materials and oil in a new currency — the gold African dinar, a change that could have delivered a serious blow to the US’s dominant position in the world economy. (In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced Iraqi oil would be traded in euros, not dollars; sanctions and an invasion followed.) For further discussion see here.
• A host-country site for Africom, the US Africa Command, one of six regional commands the Pentagon has divided the world into. Many African countries approached to be the host have declined, at times in relatively strong terms. Africom at present is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. According to a State Department official: “We’ve got a big image problem down there. … Public opinion is really against getting into bed with the US. They just don’t trust the US.”
• An American military base to replace the one closed down by Gaddafi after he took power in 1969. There’s only one such base in Africa, in Djibouti. Watch for one in Libya sometime after the dust has settled. It’ll perhaps be situated close to the American oil wells. Or perhaps the people of Libya will be given a choice — an American base or a NATO base.
• Another example of NATO desperate to find a raison d’être for its existence since the end of the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact.
• Gaddafi’s role in creating the African Union. The corporate bosses never like it when their wage slaves set up a union. The Libyan leader has also supported a United States of Africa for he knows that an Africa of 54 independent states will continue to be picked off one by one and abused and exploited by the members of the Triumvirate. Gaddafi has moreover demanded greater power for smaller countries in the United Nations.
• The claim by Gaddafi’s son, Saif el Islam, that Libya had helped to fund Nicolas Sarkozy’s election campaign could have humiliated the French president and explain his obsessiveness and haste in wanting to be seen as playing the major role in implementing the “no fly zone” and other measures against Gaddafi. A contributing factor may have been the fact that France has been weakened in its former colonies and neo-colonies in Africa and the Middle East, due in part to Gaddafi’s influence.
• Gaddafi has been an outstanding supporter of the Palestinian cause and critic of Israeli policies; and on occasion has taken other African and Arab countries, as well as the West, to task for their not matching his policies or rhetoric; one more reason for his lack of popularity amongst world leaders of all stripes.
• In January, 2009, Gaddafi made known that he was considering nationalizing the foreign oil companies in Libya. He also has another bargaining chip: the prospect of utilizing Russian, Chinese and Indian oil companies. During the current period of hostilities, he invited these countries to make up for lost production. But such scenarios will now not take place. The Triumvirate will instead seek to privatize the National Oil Corporation, transferring Libya’s oil wealth into foreign hands.
• The American Empire is troubled by any threat to its hegemony. In the present historical period the empire is concerned mainly with Russia and China. China has extensive energy investments and construction investments in Libya and elsewhere in Africa. The average American neither knows nor cares about this. The average American imperialist cares greatly, if for no other reason than in this time of rising demands for cuts to the military budget it’s vital that powerful “enemies” be named and maintained.
• For yet more reasons, see the article “Why Regime Change in Libya?” by Ismael Hossein-zadeh, and the US diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks — Wikileaks reference 07TRIPOLI967 11-15-07 (includes a complaint about Libyan “resource nationalism”)

William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Rogue State: a guide to the World’s Only Super Power and West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir. He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com

London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared-and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls

The Clash

To all those British intelligencia who attributed the recent riots that rocked the streets of London, Birmingham, Bristol, Gillingham, Nottingham, Manchester and Liverpool to hooligans, you’re as wrong as the myriad free enterprise economists who swore we had nothing to fear from a deregulated marketplace. You’re as wrong as the killing of an innocent man.  You’re as wrong as holding the poor accountable for the errors of the elite.  You’re as wrong as an economy that creates an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nothings.

Prime Minister David Cameron finds fault with everyone but the policies of his ruling party or indeed the increasingly conservative policies of his predecessors in the opposition.

In the prevailing world of British politics, entrenched poverty does not fit into the equation of civil unrest.  It has nothing to do with thirteen million impoverished citizens but rather to do with discipline in the schools.  It has nothing to do with low wages and rising unemployment but rather to do with excessive tolerance for aberrant behavior.  It has nothing to do with the deprivation of ethnic minorities and everything to do with moral depredation.

As income inequality rises to levels unprecedented in the modern era, Mister Cameron promises a crackdown on the rising turpitude of the ungrateful poor in Britain’s booming slums and the polite society applauds as if to acknowledge a fine golf shot.

What the Prime Minister and his colleagues are desperately trying to deny is the relationship between the riots in England and the events in Cairo, Tripoli, Damascus and Athens.  The combination of inequity, inequality and poverty is a potent brew that leads inevitably to civil unrest.  The only difference is a matter of degree.

London is calling and Washington should be listening.  By every measure the circumstances are worse in America than in Britain.  The poor are poorer, the disparity between the rich and the rest is greater, the social safety net is less intact and the burden of poverty falls even greater on minorities.

Everywhere across the globe the tide of suffering rises and governments have decided that the only solution is to shift the burden downward.  The European Union has become an enforcement mechanism for an age of austerity.  Budgets for relief of the afflicted and assistance to the poor are slashed to protect the corporate profit margin.  In America a presidential candidate complains that the poor do not pay income taxes.  Convinced by their own propaganda machine that the poor are unworthy leaches on society, legislatures in Florida and elsewhere order drug testing of to qualify for unemployment insurance.  Increasingly draconian laws are passed to further stigmatize immigrants at the bottom of the economic spectrum.

Blame the victim has become the mantra of the financial elite, passed down to the working ignorant, spreading like a plague on the nation.

When we have punished the poor all that we can, when we have pushed the once thriving middle class into poverty, when we have evicted families from their homes, when we have forced the family business into bankruptcy, when we have stripped the undocumented of all rights and deported as many as we can, only then will we begin to realize we have been duped.

Civil unrest is the last recourse and the natural consequence of austerity.

Fear not.  The authorities are prepared for this contingency.  Stripped down security forces will be mobilized to protect gated communities.  Violence will be contained in the poor neighborhoods.  Slums will burn.  Crowd control will become increasingly brutal.  Blood will flow on the streets of poverty.  Violence will beget violence in a vicious circle of disorder and ruin.

As in Britain, whoever is president will decry the decay of moral fiber and pledge to fight gangs and criminal elements to restore law and order.

There will be no more discourse on economic policy.  There will be no more talk of universal healthcare.  There will be no more protests against job exportation, free trade agreements or deregulation of industry or financial markets.  We will dutifully elect leaders who promise to crack down on lawlessness.  Our elections will become contests on who can project ever-greater toughness.  We will look for someone to play hardball with the unruly masses.

The erosion of civil rights and civil liberties that began long before September 2001 will continue to accelerate.  The right to privacy is the first casualty.  City streets and public squares will be under fulltime surveillance.  Telephone conversations and communications media will be monitored.  The right to speak freely will come under attack.  The right to assemble in protest will be relegated to obscure and closely guarded locations far from public access where the eyes of the corporate media never travel.

There will be no more mass protests against wars of choice and wars for oil as more and more of our sons and daughters line up to fight – not out of patriotism but as the only means of escaping destitution at home.

For all the unrest, for all the violence and destruction, there will be no revolution.  The government of the United States will not be threatened.  Unlike Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, there are no overlords of justice that will come to our aid.  We the people will stand helpless before the most powerful government in the history of the world.

We will rise up and we will be beaten down.  We will rise again and the government’s response will go beyond what any democratic state can bear.  What then?

What is happening before our eyes is that the governments of the world in concert with their sponsors in the corporate empire have devised a plan to revise the social order.

It has taken me longer than it should have to imagine what the end game of the new world order looks like.  The corporate mind is unscrupulous and greedy but it is not ignorant or foolish.  I have speculated that corporations were so fixated on short-term profit that they refused to see the long-term consequences of their actions.  By destroying the working middle class they were eliminating the very consumers on which they depend.

But it seems to me they have discovered a new consumer class.  Because of the sheer numbers in China and India, they can prosper for decades without a working consumer force.  They intend to replace the working middle class in Europe and America with a management middle class in Asia.

It is the only way it makes sense.  It is a plan laden with risk and it demonstrates an incredible disdain for working people.  It is risky enough depending on the stability of a corrupt democracy in India and an authoritarian state in China.  It is even more risky to create a permanent class of the working poor in the democracies of Europe and America.  There will be pushback.

In the end their plan for a corporate world will fail because the spirit of self-determination, the desire for freedom and the yearning for democracy will prevail. We will ultimately press our cause at the ballot box.  Despite all the technology and resources mobilize to control our minds, we will overcome.  Whether it takes a decade or a hundred years, we will prevail because we are on the right side of history.

Jack Random is the author of Jazzman Chronicles (Crow Dog Press) and Ghost Dance Insurrection (Dry Bones Press.)