Eric Zuesse
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How the U.S. Government Harvests the Public at Home & in Its Colonies
Let’s take as an example, Politi-Fact, in the United States itself:
On 4 July 2024, I headlined “WHY IS JOE BIDEN NOT BEING TRIED FOR BRIBERY & CONSPIRACY? And why are America’s ‘news’-media covering this up?” I noted there that Politi-Fact has been protecting Biden by misrepresenting the evidence, and that it’s “owned by the Poynter Institute, funded by 11 Democratic billionaires and one Republican one”. Those were 11 ‘non’-profits, but they also are funded by U.S.-and-allied Governments; and, in fact, at least one of the 11, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) seems to be almost entirely so, though it might additionally have more direct but secret funding from or on behalf of U.S. billionaires. And, if we look at the IWPR’s top 11 listed donors or “Supporters”, 3 of the 11 are the U.S. State Department; 3 more are its equivalents for Norway, Netherlands and UK; and the others are the European Commission, the Dutch Postcode Lottery Fund, the UK Conflict Stability and Security Fund, the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, and the U.N.’s Entity for Gender Equality. So, all 11 of the IWPR’s top “Supporters” are wholly or largely controlled by the U.S. Government. That list is introduced by the IWPR by saying: “This broad support enables us to maintain intensive programs while avoiding over-dependence on any single source. We are especially grateful to those donors who support us through multi-year assistance to strengthen existing activities and those who provide precious institutional assistance.” In addition, the IWPR lists 25 “Partners,” such as Reporters Without Borders, and the International Republican Institute. The IWPR’s International Board is co-headed by a member of the UK Governance Committee, and a member of the “U.S. & NL Governance Committees.” The IWPR was founded in 1991 so as to assist reporters to have a ‘balanced perspective’ on the breaking-up of Yugoslavia (which the CIA was secretly already stoking).
Another good example (besides the ‘news’-coverage — or absence of same — regarding the extraordinarily strong bribery & conspiracy case that is not being pursued against the U.S. President) concerns the Philippines, whose Government has, for some reason, been allowing the U.S. Government militarily to increasingly re-occupy that ‘former’ U.S. colony and to place soldiers and weapons there to facilitate an invasion of China. A superb investigative reporter who has been covering this is the independent Brian Berletic, who on 2 November 2023 headlined “US Shapes Philippines into Southeast Asia’s ‘Ukraine’” (land from which to invade China, instead of land from which to invade Russia), and he quoted from sources such as: “Reuters in its article, ‘Exclusive: U.S. military in talks to develop port in Philippines facing Taiwan,’ would report: ‘U.S. military involvement in the proposed port in the Batanes islands, less than 200 km (125 miles) from Taiwan, could stoke tensions at a time of growing friction with China and a drive by Washington to intensify its longstanding defence treaty engagement with the Philippines.’” Berletic went on to quote an official U.S. Government historian describing the brutal 1899-1902 Teddy-Roosevelt-led war that conquered the Philippines and made them a U.S. colony. He noted the U.S. Government’s carefully designed program to reward, with Fulbright scholarships and other inducements, the Philippines’ upper crust. And he said that, “In reality, all the US is building in the Philippines are military bases meant to drag both it and the region into greater instability, economic stagnation, and possibly even war.” His focus was on the constant U.S. propaganda-machine to fool Filippino voters to elect pro-U.S.-anti-China politicians, such as its current President, Bongbong Marcos, the only son of the extremely corrupt U.S.-imposed dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Berletic didn’t, however, mention such highly relevant facts as that “The Philippines ranked 77th out of 81 countries globally in the student assessment conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 15-year-old learners.” (Incidentally, China was excluded from that year’s PISA study because in the prior, 2018, one, China topped the list and the U.S. regime was outraged.) Keeping the voters ignorant is important to do if the imperial regime, the U.S. regime, is to be able to exploit its victim — the colony — ‘democratically’ by means of elections. And this is also the reason why four of the five countries (out of the 81) that scored even worse than the Philippines in this PISA were U.S.-controlled banana republics. All of these countries have long been under the thumb of American billionaires. Furthermore: in terms of life-expectancy, the Philippines scores significantly lower even than the U.S. itself does, and almost all of the countries which score even worse than the Philippines are ‘former’ colonies of France, Netherlands, Belgium UK, and other European regimes. So, the historical record is clear that colonialism (imperialism) destroys countries.
But, anyway, Berletic’s article was still too true to satisfy the U.S. regime; and, so, the Philippine branch of a U.S. ‘fact-checking” ‘charity’, the Poynter Institute (which owns in the U.S. PolitiFact — which helped America’s ‘news’-media to hide from Americans Joe Biden’s intense corruption) simply lied, and published on 23 November 2023, “FACT-CHECK: US not building new military bases in the Philippines”. Their ‘argument’ was that
“The EDCA, which was signed in 2014, grants US troops access to designated Philippine military facilities, the right to build facilities, and preposition equipment, aircraft, and vessels. It does not allow US military permanent positioning or basing in any Philippine military facility or base.”
That was implying Berletic had alleged the bases that the U.S. regime is building in the Philippines are to be “permanent,” or sovereign U.S. territory within the Philippines, but Berletic had actually neither said nor implied any such thing. Poynter’s Philippine branch simply lied. They gave Berletic’s article the “Rating: FALSE” because the treaty didn’t use the word (nor any equivalent) “permanent,” though nowhere did Berletic’s article say or imply that it did. In other words: the Poynter Institute presumes that the Filippino people aren’t merely uneducated but stupid, and it also presumes that this gives the Poynter Institute the right to deceive them. It’s the same attitude, the same haughty contempt, that slave-holders generally have toward their slaves.
As usual, censorship — which is what ‘fact-checking’ ‘services’ actually do — is a tool of dictatorship, but it NEVER is a tool of democracy, because democracy cannot function unless only each individual on one’s own makes the determination BY AND FOR ONESELF, what is true and what is false. Dictatorship thrives with censorship, and democracy dies with censorship. There is no actual authority except one’s own scientific analysis of a situation. If the analysis is not scientific, then one will come to false conclusions; but, NO analysis that comes from anyone else will be trusted by a scientist — that analysis will instead be investigated by the scientist; and, then, if believed to be true, will be believed by that person to BE scientific. Expertise exists, and will be respected by a scientist, but authority DOES NOT, and CAN NOT. Only a fool will contract-out to some ‘authority’ his/her own judgment, because to do that is to enslave oneself.
Existing ‘fact-checking’ ‘services’ represent not science, but the agenda of their funders. And ALL censorship is toxic to democracies.
Appendix
US Shapes Philippines into Southeast Asia’s “Ukraine”
BY BRIAN BERLETIC
Dateline: 02.11.2023
With the rise of China, so too rises Southeast Asia. Southeast Asia has slowly transformed in terms of economics, infrastructure, tourism, industry, and politically over the last two decades as Chinese influence increases and inevitably displaces US influence over the region.
At its height, US influence resulted in a major war spanning two decades, engulfing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The US maintained military bases across the region, including in Thailand and the Philippines. However, when the US finally lost its war against Vietnam, it withdrew much of its military. And in the following decades, the region slowly shifted from depending heavily on trade with the US and its allies, including Japan, over to China.
Today, China stands as the largest trading partner, investor, source of tourism, and infrastructure partner for most of Southeast Asia. This includes the Philippines.
According to Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, China stood as the Philippines’ largest export market. Between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, over 30% of exports from the Philippines go to China. The US and Japan combined account for only around 25%.
China also stands as the largest source of imports into the Philippines at around 33% while the US accounts for around 6% and Japan around 8%. China is indisputably the Philippines’ largest trade partner.
China is also the Philippines’ best chance at developing badly needed modern infrastructure.
However, while other nations across Southeast Asia are expanding their relationship with China and building the region together, the Philippines finds itself irrationally cutting itself off from China, laying out a foreign policy demonstrably contradicting its own best interests.
The Philippines Sacrifices Progress to Become US Provocateur
As Chinese-built high-speed rail networks begin operating in Laos and Indonesia and another continues construction in Thailand, the Philippines has recently canceled several joint-Chinese rail projects.
US government-funded Benar News reported in its recent article, “Philippines drops funding deal with China for 3 railway projects,” that not only will the Philippines no longer seek funding from China, it will also seek out alternative contractors to build the rail projects. Since no other nation is capable of building such projects in the region, the Philippines has for all intents and purposes put infrastructure investment on hold.
Earlier this year, the Philippines also signed a military basing agreement with the United States. The Washington Post in its article, “U.S. reaches military base access agreement in the Philippines,” would report that:
Since then, the Philippines has also begun talks with the US for the development of a port dangerously close to China’s island province of Taiwan.
Reuters in its article,“ Exclusive: U.S. military in talks to develop port in Philippines facing Taiwan,” would report:
While the United States justifies its growing military presence in the Philippines by citing maritime disputes in the South China Sea, it should be noted that maritime disputes are common both around the world and particularly in Southeast Asia. Not only do many Southeast Asian states have disputes with China, they also have overlapping claims and resulting disputes with one another.
These disputes can result in sometimes dramatic public displays. Malaysia, for example, in 2017 sank nearly 300 foreign fishing boats seized amid these disputes, including fishing boats from the Philippines, Nikkei Asia reported. While these disputes become somewhat heated, they are always resolved bilaterally all while nations in the region, including China, maintain otherwise constructive and even close economic and diplomatic ties.
Thus, the US is using common maritime disputes as a pretext to insert itself militarily into the region, attempting to escalate ordinary disputes into a regional or even global crisis. In reality, the US is building up its military presence, not to defend its supposed allies, but to encircle and contain China while transforming host nations into battering rams against China.
This US strategy has had varying success across Southeast Asia, with the Philippines being by far its greatest success. This is owed to the unique and unfortunate history of the Philippines as a US colony from 1898-1946 and its defacto subordination to the US ever since.
The Philippines as an American Foothold
The US State Department’s Office of the Historian in a publication titled, “The Philippine-American War, 1899–1902,” would admit that the US seized the Philippines as a US colony from Spain and then waged a brutal war of subjugation against the Philippine people.
The US State Department admits:
It also admitted that:
While the US granted the Philippines “independence” in 1946, the US has maintained varying degrees of political and military control over the nation ever since. Under the presidential administration of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines attempted unsuccessfully to expel the US military presence. President Duterte’s successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has since rolled back the incremental gains in sovereignty and dignity achieved during Duterte’s term in office.
To explain the deep, institutional subordination of the Philippines to US interests, demonstrably at the cost of the Philippines’ own best interests including economic development, trade, and infrastructure, Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo would explain at a Washington-based April 2023 talk hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the core of his nation’s political leadership has been shaped by decades of US indoctrination.
Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo would explain:
The Fulbright program, created by the US State Department, claims on its website that it “expands perspectives through academic and professional advancement and cross-cultural dialogue.” By “expanding perspectives” it means indoctrinating potential leaders in politics, media, business, education, and culture to adopt a pro-US worldview and create a US-influenced cadre of administrators in nations around the world.
Together with other US government programs, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which funds political parties, education programs, media platforms, and many of the “civil society partners” Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo referred to in his speech, the Fulbright program is part of the toolset the US uses to politically capture a targeted nation.
An example of this is Maria Ressa. She is a 1986 Fulbright alumni who founded the media platform “Rappler” funded by the US government through the NED. Both Ressa and her Rappler media platform are loud advocates for greater US influence over the Philippines and the rolling back of relations with China. Rappler’s media content is indistinguishable from US government talking points because Rappler is an extension of US government influence.
In terms of political capture, the Philippines represents one of Washington’s success stories. Enduring US influence, first as the Philippines’ colonial master and then through decades of indoctrination and political interference via the NED and programs like Fulbright, Washington has convinced Manila to forego the benefits of trade and economic development together with China and the rest of Asia in exchange for positioning itself as Southeast Asia’s “Ukraine.”
Just as Kiev attempted to convince the Ukrainian people that the West would provide a superior substitute for the nation’s long-standing ties with Russia only to instead find itself abandoned at the end of a self-destructive proxy war, Manila is likewise attempting to convince the people of the Philippines that the US, Australia, and Japan will provide better alternatives to Chinese-driven trade, economic progress, and infrastructure development. In reality, all the US is building in the Philippines are military bases meant to drag both it and the region into greater instability, economic stagnation, and possibly even war.
Only time will tell if China’s patient rise and ability to build up the rest of the region will outlast America’s desire and ability to divide and destroy Asia. The Philippines, for its part, serves as an indicator of which direction the region may move in. Sadly, for now, it seems the US capacity for dividing and endangering the region is still very much intact.
Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
- In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
- Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
- Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.
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