by Finian Cunningham
CROSSPOST WITH INFORMATION CLEARINGHOUSE
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America is exceptional alright. It is the most frightened nation on Earth, subjected to hysterical propaganda over decades warning about foreign enemies and ideologies. No wonder its supposed democratic freedom is in so appallingly bad shape, when the preponderant population is imprisoned by their rulers in a virtual cage of fear.  Clooney with his new bride. For a long time Clooney—an enthusiastic Clinton supporter— has been notorious for his Hollywood brand of chauvinist liberalism, and aggressive shilling for the Anglo-Zionist empire. Whether he’s just alarmingly ignorant, naive, corrupt or a professional political dilettante is still an open question. See Appendix below. Paradoxically, though, the dissonance of supposed freedom could not be more abysmal. At a press conference at the Cannes film festival last week American screen actor George Clooney digressed from his latest movie to talk about Republican presidential contender Donald Trump. Clooney, who is well known for his liberal brand of US politics and a big supporter of Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton, predicted that rightwing business tycoon Trump would not win the forthcoming November presidential contest. Clooney dismissed Trump as a demagogue sowing fear and divisive tensions along racial and xenophobic lines. Which is fair enough. Of interest here is not so much the actor’s views on Trump’s chances of political success. Rather, it is Clooney’s premise that Americans would not succumb to reactionary fear peddling. Seated at the press conference alongside his American co-star Julia Roberts and film director Jody Foster, Clooney told his Cannes audience: «Fear is not going to drive our country… we’re not afraid of anything». Well, sorry George, but you are dead wrong on that score. Fear is the paramount emotional driver in American politics since at least the Second World War, and probably decades before that too. Contrary to Clooney’s bravado, Americans are very, very afraid. The biggest bogeyman for the US public was the Soviet Union, whose specter dominated American politics for nearly 50 years. This specter has been conjured up again through casting Russia and its President Vladimir Putin as intent on «resurrecting the Soviet Union».  Barack Obama talks about Sudan with actor George Clooney during a meeting outside the Oval Office, Oct. 12, 2010. Rubbing elbows with “real power” makes self-doubting lightweights like Clooney feel they are doing something “serious” and “meaningful” in their absurdly privileged and shallow lives. Mia Farrow is another prominent dolt participating in the false Darfur narrative. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) It was Hillary Clinton – Clooney’s political champion – who made the ridiculous and historically illiterate charge that Putin is the «new Hitler». Many other senior US political figures and Western news media have since stampeded like a herd in likewise demonizing the Russian leader. The unquestioned consensus in Washington, from President Barack Obama to his foreign secretary John Kerry, and from senior Congressional figures to the Pentagon chiefs, is that Russia is an existential threat to global security. America’s new NATO military chief General Curtis Scaparrotti has warned that the US-led alliance must be prepared to go to war against Russia at any moment due to alleged Russian aggression towards Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. The Cold War has thus been rehabilitated a quarter of a century since the Soviet Union dissolved. As in former times, fear is once again fueling American politics. Consistently, there is negligible objective basis for this mass phenomenon. Russia today is not a threat to the US or its NATO allies, just as the Soviet Union was not a threat. Bombastic claims about Russian «annexation» and «invasion» of Ukraine are factually tenuous, spurious or devoid. The claims don’t stand up to scrutiny. But that’s hardly the point. The point is that the false narrative – propaganda – of alleged Russian malevolence is amplified and repeated over and over again in Western «independent» media, not unlike the Big Lie technique of Nazi spinmeister Josef Goebbels. US and Western allies, with the help of pliable news media, in effect are able to construct their own false «reality». It is not objective reality. It is a subjective, delusional «reality» one in which Western nations are portrayed to be under threat from a stalking, salivating enemy in the form of Russia. Fear is a powerful lever for control over populations, as English author George Orwell keenly perceived. Get the public to fear for their lives from an external enemy, and they will be easily manipulated into accepting authority, no matter how draconian and illegitimate that authority is. Fear is the key to surrendering democratic rights and submitting to a cage. From the end of the Second World War in 1945, the West immediately needed the Cold War with the Soviet Union as a bulwark against more progressive, democratic development within their own countries. American writer David Talbot in his book, The Devil’s Chessboard, clearly depicts how Wall Street, the Pentagon and ideologically inclined politicians were able to construct the monstrous military-industrial complex and its gargantuan consumption of economic resources for the enrichment of an elite ruling class – based on Cold War angst and trepidation about the «evil Soviet Union». When a minority of skeptical, more independently intelligent politicians, authors or artists questioned the Cold War assertions they were peremptorily ostracized as «Reds», «traitors» or indeed assassinated by the military-industrial complex, as David Talbot convincingly argues in the case of President John F Kennedy. This perverse distortion and waste of US economic resources – a $600 billion military budget year after year overshadowing all other social needs – is engineered precisely through fear. American military might must be supreme and sacrosanct in order to «defend» or «protect» US vital interests and those of its allies from «existential threats». Russia, and to a lesser extent China, continues to be designated in the role of global threat. To this end, Americans have been subjected to a relentless psychological program – euphemistically referred to as «news» – for the past seven decades. Europeans too. Perhaps in the whole of Europe the British media is the most toxic and reactionary when it comes to demonizing Russia. The manipulation of the Western public mind is flagrant. The claims against Russia are preposterous, but astoundingly the manipulation, to a degree, succeeds. However, the domination through fear is not as omnipotent as it once was. During the former Cold War, the Western public were far more susceptible to the depiction of «evil» Soviet menace. This is no longer the case. Western media have long been discredited over fabricating lies, such as the pretext for the Bush-Blair war on Iraq and other criminal US-led regime-change operations, including Libya, Syria and Ukraine. Today, Western citizens have more access to alternative information sources, including Russian mass media and critical internet news outlets within their own countries. The Big Lie technique, while still potent, is not quite as effective as it was in former times. This new historical development in public awareness is reflected in the growing, popular discontent across Europe towards governments that are seen to be slavishly toeing Washington’s policy of aggression against Russia. Citizens are angrily questioning why they are made to accept economic austerity while US-led sanctions against Russia are hitting their jobs, businesses and export revenues. Citizens are rightly furious that they are told there are no financial resources for public services and infrastructure, while billions of dollars are pumped into NATO forces to recklessly provoke tensions with Russia. Of course, the anomalies in Western government priorities with regard to meeting public needs are ludicrous, unjustifiable and unsustainable. And the only way that Western rulers can get away with such absurd denial of democratic realities is to play the fear factor. Nowhere has the fear factor been played more than in the US – ironically, the nation which proclaims from the rooftops to be exceptional, free and democratic. George Clooney would do better to stick to the silver screen where his heroics and valor shine larger than life – in fiction. «The American people are not afraid of anything», he claimed in real life. George, with respect, your people are the most scared on the planet; and the brainwashing system is so good, that you and they don’t even know that. Indeed, haven’t even an inkling of the gross manipulation. |
Originally from Belfast, Ireland, Finian Cunningham (born 1963) is a prominent expert in international affairs. The author and media commentator was expelled from Bahrain in June 2011 for his critical journalism in which he highlighted human rights violations by the Western-backed regime. He is a Master’s graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in journalism. He is also a musician and songwriter. For many years, he worked as an editor and writer in the mainstream news media, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. He is now based in East Africa where he is writing a book on Bahrain and the Arab Spring.
SELECT COMMENTS (ORIGINAL THREAD)
We publish them as part of our mission to reflect the total reality of what goes on in America and the world. Some comments may strike you as stupid, and they are. Some are brilliant and add insight to the main article.
Washington76 · 1 day ago Nov 26, 2015: 1 in 4 Americans Know Government is the Enemy https://youtu.be/o1sptCll8JU
Washington76 · 23 hours ago September 29th, 2015: Gallup: 60% of Americans Want a New Political Party.
But, Why? A Crisis of Legitimacy! When Gallup started polling on this matter in 2003, only 40% wanted a different major party from the two existing major parties. A Gallup poll issued on September 25th is headlined “Majority in U.S. Maintain Need for Third Major Party,” and it opens: “A majority of Americans, 60%, say a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic parties ‘do such a poor job’ of representing the American people.” The only other time when as high as 60% wanted a new major party was in October 2013, when the government shut down — something that now threatens to repeat. No other period had a percentage this high. 78% of independents want there to be another “major” party; 47% of Democrats do; 45% of Republicans do. http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/20…
Washington76 · 23 hours ago May 16, 2016: This U.S. Government Is The Most Corrupt In History—“There Has Never Been A Time, However, When The Government Of The United States Was So Perversely And Systematically Dedicated To Special Interests, Earmarks, Side Deals, Log-Rolling, Vote-Trading, And Sweetheart Deals” http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/05/u-s-govern…
Polly Anna · 23 hours ago: I used to enjoy Clooney’s movies, but he has become another neoliberal scumbag. Is he and Amal, planning another $350.000 per couple fundraiser for criminal Hillary?
rosemerry · 23 hours ago: Of course the American public is terrified of anything or anyone which they can point to as a threat. Communism (which somehow evaporated yet allowed Russia to remain a terrible enemy), Native Americans, Mexicans, African Americans, Japanese-Americans, Muslims……, yet the real threats, eg nuclear annihilation, catastrophic climate change, are cast aside like evolution while the “lawmakers” focus on life of the fetus or “bathrooms” for perverted trans persons.
SAJN · 20 hours ago: Its not a frightened nation, it just pretends it to get hold of tax payer money…Pentagon has the largest militarily budget more then the combined world’s military budget. Don’t tell me that it is doing [that] to protect US citizens. Terrorism is the easiest scare tactic to rule the world and its own people. The elite don’t have to do real works because they are too busy to protect its citizen form evil terrorist.
doray · 20 hours ago: Thanks for the article. It’s astounding how Americans can be so manipulated into believing the incredible BS fed to them on an hourly basis. My entire family has fallen for the whole shebang. It’s nauseating to watch. My sister believes Obushma is a Muslim in waiting, instead of the corporate war criminal he really is. When it comes to Amerika, never underestimate the power of fearful, stupid people in large groups. Denial is NOT a river in Egypt! Check out the DHS document called, “The Domestic Extremism Lexicon.“ It’s a giant list of “Possible non-Islamic domestic extremism threats.” Second on the alphabetical list is “alternative media.” It reads: “A term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets.” That includes this article. The First Amendment is supposed to PROTECT alternative media, but the DHS now sees it as a possible extremist threat.
rusti · 18 hours ago Search:-”George Clooney:_CIA’S ”Volunteer Spokesman for Horn of Afriaca”’ -”Clooney’s job is to divert attention from the real crimes the U.S. is committing in the region..” (in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, etc. etc where his co-conspirator Hitlery-Killery is committing war crimes & genocide) , , ”’U.S,-IsraelWar Against Sudan Masked by George Clooney”’ , , ”’George Clooney Gets Money from Lockheed Martin”’ , , ”’George Clooney Fronting for U.S. War Interests”’ , , ”’George Clooney Paid by War Profiteers” , , ”’Al Jazeera Journalists Found Guilty of Creating Fake ”News” in Egypt”’ , , ”’John Pendergast, a U.S. Operative in Africa & George Clooney His Celebrity Stooge”’ , , ”George Clooney Paid by War Profiteers, Lockheed & Boeing to ”Oppose War Profiteering” Only by Africans Disloyal to U.S. Imperialism”’ . . Fake”humanitarian”warmongers like Killery & Clooney are the most disgusting of all
nick · 18 hours ago: The only thing I fear is the out of control, evil, criminal, US government. The American people are being 100% betrayed by treasonous traitors on all levels. The entire world suffers and is subjected all manners of horror, and manipulation, in order to serve the transnational capital class, the .000001%, and their agenda of evil…
Judith · 18 hours ago: Actually I’m more afraid of Hilary then I am of Trump, and I’m not afraid of Putin at all!
Fred · 17 hours ago: ICH,ers aren’t afraid tune in this weekend for the deep state forum / false flag reality at NOLIESRADIO.ORG http://noliesradio.org/archives/114460
Carol · 17 hours ago: The American people (as ordinary people around the globe) are as they have always been; fundamentally good. In the US, it’s those that call themselves our leaders that are and have always been the problem. A handful of the least talented who’s correspondingly inflated egos allow them to believe that they are the only ones with the capacity to decide the direction of the country and the quality of all our lives. The fear that pervades this country has more than one origin. It’s the fear of the undeserving who know their privilege is disproportional and undeserved. It’s the fear based on the profound ignorance of the ruling classes. It’s the fear that powerful but enormously unpopular special use to control and direct the energies of the rest; much of it manufactured and magnified by what used to be the Fourth Estate and entertainment industry. The most frightening of all is what will happen not only to our nation but the rest of the world if this violent, deeply evil and monstrously selfish cabal continues on its’ current trajectory.
Schlüter · 13 hours ago: The US might not be the most frightening Nation on Earth, but it has the most frightening Power Elite, thus being the most frightening State on Earth! And the dominant force in the US Power Elite are now the Neocons of which Hillary Clinton is the spearhead in the Democratic Party! And the Neocons have monstrous concepts “in the pipe”: “US Power Elite Declared Bio War on the Southern Hemisphere, East Asia and all Non-Western Countries in September 2000”: https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/us-powe…
DeathValley · 11 hours ago : America is exceptional alright. It is the most frightened nation on Earth, subjected to hysterical propaganda over decades warning about foreign enemies and ideologies.” I couldn’t go one sentence further. I liked Finian Cunningham in the early days but he lost me along the way. Either you talk in the realm of fact or fck off, I don’t discriminate. The united states of america is a jewish corporation. Full stop. Who here can handle the truth? PAP is PAP. Who’s responsible for it’s disgusting regurgitation? Who lives in this false reality like it’s fcking REAL???
Catman · 11 hours ago: Between the endless fear mongering, the appeal to Americans ego, always telling us we’re ‘exceptional,’ the overwhelming concentration of sports that have dumbed many and the hostility Americans generate toward Muslim nations, we’re so frightened we’re scared of our own shadow, brought on by our impotency. We don’t care how many nations are destroyed or how many people get killed, just keep us safe and BTW, is that the Bill of Rights you’re holding, ’cause I need some TP. But don’t worry, it will soon be over. When the banksters install HRM Hillary as the next dictator, she won’t waste any time getting us into WWIII.
peterhindrup · 8 hours ago: ‘Nowhere has the fear factor been played more than in the US’ Not so. While US citizens have always been afraid of their own shadows, Israel Jews are equally terrified of …. well everything!
rusti · 7 hours ago See:-”’The Controversy in the U.S. Over Transgender Access to Public Bathrooms”’ (how the fake ”liberals” divert activism from the Robber Barrons’ genocidal economic & military wars on the global working class by focusing on such secondary issues), ”’Barack Obama & a Quarter Century of Wars”’ , , ”’Democratic Party Establishment Witch Hunts Sanders’ Supporters”’ (also criticizes Sanders as a sheepdog & warmonger while crediting his supporters who are largely unaware of that) , , ”’The 2016 Election, WSWS”’ . Very incisive articles despite its slight side criticism of all governments for not being Trotskyist enough.
APPENDIX
George Clooney Paid by War Profiteers
by DAVID SWANSON
George Clooney is being paid by the world’s top two war profiteers, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, to oppose war profiteering by Africans disloyal to the U.S. government’s agenda.
Way back yonder before World War II, war profiteering was widely frowned on in the United States. Those of us trying to bring back that attitude, and working for barely-funded peace organizations, ought to be thrilled when a wealthy celebrity like George Clooney decides to take on war profiteering, and the corporate media laps it up.
Clooney and similar clueless or stupid celebrities are cynically used by the Deep State for its own criminal purposes. Intellectual deficits or simply laziness or plain egotism may also play a part in these characters’ actions.
“Real leverage for peace and human rights will come when the people who benefit from war will pay a price for the damage they cause,” said Clooney — without encountering anything like the blowback Donald Trump received when he criticized John McCain.
Really, is that all it takes to give peace a chance, a celebrity? Will the media now cover the matter of who funds opponents of the Iran deal, and who funds supporters of the wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.?
Well, no, not really.
It turns out Clooney opposes, not war profiteering in general, but war profiteering while African. In fact, Clooney’s concern is limited, at least thus far, to five African nations: Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, though these are not the only nations in Africa or the world with serious wars underway.
Of the top 100 weapons makers in the world, not a single one is based in Africa. Only 1 is in South or Central America. Fifteen are in Western allies and protectorates in Asia (and China is not included in the list). Three are in Israel, one in Ukraine, and 13 in Russia. Sixty-six are in the United States, Western Europe, and Canada. Forty are in the U.S. alone. Seventeen of the top 30 are in the U.S. Six of the top 10 mega-profiteers are in the U.S. The other four in the top 10 are in Western Europe.
Clooney’s new organization, “The Sentry,” is part of The Enough Project, which is part of the Center for American Progress, which is a leading backer of “humanitarian” wars, and various other wars for that matter — and which isfunded by the world’s top war profiteer, Lockheed Martin, and by number-two Boeing, among other war profiteers.
According to the Congressional Research Service, in the most recent edition of an annual report that it has now discontinued, 79% of all weapons transfers to poor nations are from the United States. That doesn’t include U.S. weapons in the hands of the U.S. military, which has now moved into nearly every nation in Africa. When drugs flow north the United States focuses on the supply end of the exchange as an excuse for wars. When weapons flow south, George Clooney announces that we’ll stop backward violence at the demand side by exposing African corruption.
The spreading of the U.S. empire through militarism is most often justified by the example of Rwanda as a place where the opportunity for a humanitarian war, to prevent the Rwanda Genocide, was supposedly missed. But the United States backed an invasion of Rwanda in 1990 by a Ugandan army led by U.S.-trained killers, and supported their attacks for three-and-a-half years, applying more pressure through the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and USAID. U.S.-backed and U.S.-trained war-maker Paul Kagame — now president of Rwanda — is the leading suspect behind the shooting down of a plane carrying the then-presidents of Rwanda and Burundi on April 6, 1994. As chaos followed, the U.N. might have sent in peacekeepers (not the same thing, be it noted, as dropping bombs) but Washington was opposed. President Bill Clinton wanted Kagame in power, and Kagame has now taken the war into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with U.S. aid and weapons, where 6 million have been killed. And yet nobody ever says “We must prevent another Congo!”
What does George Clooney’s new organization say about the DRC? A very different story from that told by Friends of the Congo. According to Clooney’s group the killing in the Congo happens “despite years of international attention,” not because of it. Clooney’s organization also promotes this argument for more U.S. warmaking in the DRC from Kathryn Bigelow, best known for producing the CIA propaganda film Zero Dark Thirty.
On Sudan as well, there’s no blame for U.S. interference; instead Clooney’s crew has produced a brief for regime change.
On South Sudan, there’s no acknowledgement of U.S. warmongering in Ethiopia and Kenya, but a plea for more U.S. involvement.
The Central African Republic gets the same diagnosis as the others: local ahistorical spontaneous corruption and backwardness leading to war.
Clooney’s co-founder of the Sentry (dictionary definition of “Sentry” is “A guard, especially a soldier posted at a given spot to prevent the passage of unauthorized persons”) is John Prendergast, former Africa director for the National Security Council. Watch Prendergast find himself awkwardly in a debate with an informed person here.
Clooney’s wife, incidentally, works for U.S.-friendly dictators and brutal killers in places like Bahrain and Libya.
More nations could soon be spotted by The Sentry. The President of Nigeria was at the U.S. Institute of “Peace” this week pleading for weapons. U.S. troops are in Cameroon this week training fighters.
If the peace organization I work for had 0.0001% the financial support of The Sentry, perhaps the debate would change. So, one thing you can do is support the right antiwar efforts.
Another is to let The Sentry know what it’s missing. It asks for anonymous tips when you spot war profiteering. Have you ever turned on C-Span? If you see something, say something. Let The Sentry know about the Pentagon.
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