Taxpayer-Funded Mercenaries Serving Both U.S. & Foreign Aristocracies

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Far fetched? Not as much as the intentionally provocative image might suggest. The Nazi edge of US ruling class policy is seen more clearly abroad, where its crimes, cynicism and brutality cannot be hidden so easily behind a curtain of lies. At home, the disinformation about America's role and purpose in the world is constant and ubiquitous, the populace saturated with narcissistic narratives from cradle to grave. Nauseating hypocrisy rules the day.

A country where the makers of missiles, and of other military tools (“weapons”), are owned or at least controlled privately (like are Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, etc.), instead of controlled publicly by the government (like in Russia and China) — is a country whose aristocracy can profit from wars and invasions (such as against Iraq 2003, Lybia 2011, and Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015-). A country like this, engages in ceaseless invasions. Profits are to be made by aristocrats, not only by their increased weapons-sales to their own and allied governments for those invasions, but also by suborning their own nation’s military to serving essentially as their private international gendarmes or enforcers, at the expense of their own nation’s taxpayers, so that their general public are actually subsidizing these international corporations — not only like Lockheed Martin and other firms that are at the core of the military, but like ExxonMobil and other extractive international firms that thereby gain this free usage of their nation’s military in order to coerce other nations to accept their offers or “deals” for extraction and for distribution of those targeted nations’ natural resources. Residents in those targeted nations aren’t what’s valuable to aristocrats (though the capturing and selling of slaves is an exception). The land itself is. The residents there are treated as nuisances to be eliminated, suppressed, expelled, or enslaved and sold to foreign aristocracies. Those residents are handled like pests or like farm animals, but the media in the exploiting nation allege, instead, that the invaders themselves are the superior people: like “Deutschland über alles,” or “America First” — or like the U.S. being “the one indispensable nation” (which was said by President Obama soon after conquering Libya in 2011) so that the real message is that all other nations are “dispensable” — the conquerors of those allegedly ‘inferior’ nations constitute a point of national pride for the serial-invader, rather than being a matter of international shame and embarrassment. Hitler’s Germany was shameless this way, and so is today’s America — invading and destroying nations one after another, all for the benefit of the profiting aristocrats, who control those ‘democracies’, to behave in this barbaric manner, which is so respected, and groveled-down to.

THE US MILITARY IS basically a mercenary operation for U.S.-and-allied aristocracies, and it routinely destroys the lives of millions of people in many countries, but since there is no accountability, it keeps getting even worse. At the basis of it is something fundamentally wrong: not only is it the world’s imperial military, but it is a largely privatized military.

Furthermore: though the U.S. public pay by our tax-dollars the salaries and benefits for U.S. soldiers and for the U.S. military’s purchases of weapons from these weapons-firms and from other massive international corporations that are controlled by some of America’s wealthiest investors who have no justifiable claim on such taxpayer-subsidization as that, this U.S. military — ‘our’ soldiers and U.S.-made weapons — are being supplied not only to serve the conquest objectives of America’s aristocracy, but also to serve the conquest objectives of that aristocracy’s allied aristocracies in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere. Especially, these are the aristocracies of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Israel, all of whom hate Iran; so, the U.S. Government does too (and its media make sure that the American people do, as well, though Iran never threatened America, and though the U.S. Government has harmed Iranians ever since imposing a dictatorship there in 1953, whose tortures Western media still hide and discuss only in comparison with the worst features of the Islamic regime that came after the U.S.-imposed dictator — hide it in order to ‘justify’ the U.S. Government). So, America’s taxpayers serve the conquest-goals of foreign aristocracies, not only of American ones — and America’s taxpayers aren’t being informed of this important fact, but are instead lied-to constantly about international relations, so as to cover it up.

Donald Trump meets with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March 14, 2017. It's literally impossible to find a ruling clique more medieval, criminal and corrupt than the Saud mafia, and yet all US presidents bow and scrape before them, the Bush clan parading them as almost "family", all compelled to do so by the plutocratic interests at home they represent. The EU powers do the same, including the British royals. Few periods in history show the corrupting power of money over principle as clearly as this era, in the twilight of the US empire. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

An example of such taxpayer-subsidization of the wealth of war-billionaires (U.S. and foreign-allied aristocrats), is the war against Yemen, which is being waged not only by those foreign aristocrats’ governments, but also — and without the Constitutionally required congressional authorization — by the U.S. government, in service, actually, to the royal families who own Saudi Arabia and UAE, who are trying to conquer Yemen.

Those royal families receive, from the U.S. (and pay our aristocrats hadsomely for), weapons, and now also increasingly U.S. troops, in order to help them conquer Yemen, which they blockade and starve, and plague into submission — or so these U.S.-taxpayer-subsidized aristocrats hope and intend.

As Darius Shahtahmasebi headlined and documented on 17 August 2017, “Saudi Arabia Is Destroying an Entire Country — and the US Is Helping Them Do It”. That country is Yemen.

US-armed coalition and Saudi bombing of a funeral left over 140 dead. The imperial signature in Yemen.

The main aggressors against Yemen are the Saud family, which is, by far, the world’s wealthiest family. On 20 May 2017, Donald Trump’s first foreign trip as the U.S. President culminated in what is by far the world’s biggest-ever international sale of weapons, with the Sauds committing to buy, during a ten-year period, $350 billion in weapons from U.S. manufacturers, such as Lockheed, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. Less than a year later, that $350 billion was hiked to $400 billion. So, now, the Sauds virtually own the U.S. Government too (not only their own). But politicians need to hide this crucial fact from the public. Here is how they do that:

On 13 November 2017, Politico headlined “House declares U.S. military role in Yemen’s civil war unauthorized” and reported that “The nonbinding resolution adopted 366-30, does not call for a halt to the American support” to America’s biggest foreign buyer of U.S. weapons, the Saud family, but “that U.S. military operations [in Yemen] are authorized to fight only Al Qaeda and other allied terrorist groups in Yemen, not Shiite Muslim rebels [such as the Houthi, which still continue to be the actual main targets of the owners of Saudi Arabia and of UAE and of their U.S.-made weapons against Yemen].” House members didn’t want to be blamed for this invasion, which is disfavored by Americans, so they didn’t authorize it, but they still wanted the campaign donations from Lockheed Martin and such, and from those firms’ lobbyists etc., so didn’t block it, either. A “Nationwide Voter Survey – Report on Results – January 28, 2018” asked 1,000 scientifically sampled American voters, “Question: Congress is considering a bi-partisan bill to withdraw U.S. forces from the Saudi-led war in Yemen. Would you say that you support or oppose this bill?” It reported that, “Support” was 51.9%, “Oppose” was 21.5%, no opinion was 26.6%; and, so, 71% of the opinions were “Support”; only 29% were “Oppose.” That’s more than two-thirds supporting this bill to consider withdrawing U.S. forces from that war. But, when the vote was actually held in the U.S. Senate regarding whether to consider the matter, it was 55% opposing consideration of it, and 44% supporting consideration of it (and not voting there was 1% of the 100 Senators). So: 55% of Senators didn’t want the Senate to even consider the matter; though, by over two-to one, Americans who had an opinion, were in favor of the Senate’s considering the matter.

It’s hard to see how legislators such as those, are actually representing U.S. taxpayers, much less fulfilling their own obligations under the U.S. Constitution. Why are they elected and re-elected, then?

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]ven the normally pro-invasion New York Times seems to think that things are going too far, in this matter. On May 3rd, the NYT headlined “Army Green Berets Secretly Help Saudis Combat Threat From Yemen Rebels”, [threat to whom we might ask?—Ed] and reported that “With virtually no public discussion or debate, the [U.S.] Army commandos are helping locate and destroy caches of ballistic missiles and launch sites that Houthi rebels in Yemen are using to attack Riyadh and other Saudi cities.” They didn’t mention that Yemen’s missile-invasions of Saudi Arabia are in response to the Sauds’ constant air-force bombing and missile-invasions of Yemen, and to the Sauds’ demand to control who will be the leader of Yemen. The Sauds started their bombings of Yemen long before Yemen started responding by missile-attacks against Riyadh, but the NYT mentions only the retaliation, not what had sparked it. [A classical and typical elimination of historical context to plant a lie.—Ed] The aggressors are clearly America and its allies, though readers of that article wouldn’t get to know this. Furthermore, just as the U.S. is allied with Al Qaeda in Syria, it is allied with ISIS in Yemen, and even the CIA-written Wikipedia is admitting that, “The Islamic State has proclaimed several provinces in Yemen and has urged its adherents to wage war against the Houthi movement, as well as against Zaydis in general.[228]” (The linked-to article there indicates that Al Qaeda and ISIS are competing in Yemen, but it failed to note the important fact, that Al Qaeda, like ISIS, were also fighting against the Houthis; so, the U.S. is allied with Al Qaeda also there.) ISIS, the Sauds, the UAE royals, and the U.S. Government, as well as both ISIS and Al Qaeda, are allied together, in this anti-Houthi, anti-Shiite, anti-Iran, war — a fundamentalist-Sunni war against Shia Islam. (The NYT’s article gives the false impression that the U.S. in Yemen is against ISIS and Al Qaeda, without noting that the U.S. supports both groups against the Houthis, just like The U.S. supports them both against Assad in Syria.) Israel, too, is allied with the Sauds in this: on 4 January 2013 the Jerusalem Post bannered, “YEMEN CHARGES MAN WITH SPYING FOR THE MOSSAD”, and, on 23 March 2018, Middle East Eye headlined “Abdul Malik al-Houthi claimed Israelis had participated alongside UAE officers in planning some military activities in Yemen”, and reported that, “Abdul Malik al-Houthi told the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar on Friday that ‘our announcement that we are prepared to send fighters in any Israeli war against Lebanon or Palestine, is based on our principles’.” The U.S., of course, is fiercely anti-Palestinian, and is clearly on the aggressors’ side in all of these military engagements.

The U.S. Government accuses Vladimir Putin of demanding to control whom the leader of America will be; but, even if that were the case (which has never been proven and might be just more lies from the U.S. aristocracy and its agents), Russia doesn’t blockade and bomb the U.S. in order to control who will become America’s President, like the U.S. and its allies do to Yemen. But that’s what Saudi Arabia’s royal family and its allies (including the U.S.) persist in trying to do to Yemen. And, yet, U.S. taxpayers are funding both U.S. aristocrats who own Lockheed Martin and other such corporations, and also the Saudi and UAE aristocrats who want to grab control over Yemen. What do U.S. taxpayers have at stake in helping their (and allied) aristocrats to conquer Yemen? These Green Berets etc. should be paid not by U.S. Government money, our tax money, but instead directly by their (and our) real masters, those aristocrats, who so crave conquest of foreign lands, and whose work ‘our’ military does, destroying one land after another, for private profits to billionaires.

And this isn’t even mentioning that U.S. taxpayers donate to the Sauds’ ally Israel, each year $3.8 billion,to buy U.S.-made weapons, so that Israel can use those against Palestinians and against Iran, and for the Sauds and Israel, both of whom hate Iran as much as America’s aristocrats do. Why should U.S. taxpayers fund those aristocrats’ conquest-aims, too? Isn’t it bad enough that we’re funding U.S. aristocrats’ conquest-aims?

About the author

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. Besides TGP, his reports and historical analyses are published on many leading current events and political sites, including The Saker, Huffpost, Oped News, and others.

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Military wars—South China Sea, Indian Ocean and Pentagon’s ‘String of Pearls’ Strategy

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Hello again, Dear Reader,

For this edition of my gratis newsletter I want to share with you a selection from my book, Target China. I was invited to China for the first time in April, 2008, just before the much-anticipated Beijing Olympics and just after a CIA-instigated Color Revolution in Tibet designed to make the Beijing Government "lose face" before the world. That did not succeed.

Since that first visit, a promotion of the Chinese edition of my best-selling A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics, I have had the rare opportunity to return to China by now a total of sixteen times over almost a decade, to visit cities from north to south, from Shanghai to Chengdu to Kunming to Xi'an. In the course of my visits, discussions with Chinese intellectuals, former ministers, students and military strategists, I had an exceptional chance to see, with other eyes, vulnerabilities of the New China should Washington one day decide to "cut China to size."

My book, Target China, is the product of those observations, written in the form of describing a NATO effort at containing China and subduing her into the West's globalized New World Order. Now a new American President in Washington explicitly makes China a "target" of his policies. I hope you will find this portion of my book, Target China, written during the Obama term, useful to better comprehend our world today.

As always I converted the text to a pfd-file for a better reading experience which you can find in the attachment of this mail. It's 29 pages in A4 format.

Thank you again for your interest,

F. William Engdahl

www.williamengdahl.com

A few Amazon Reader Reviews of Target China:

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"An extraordinary book...“ -- Amazon Customer

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“A good read and highly recommended“ -- Phil Bourgeois

"Another eye opener by Mr. Engdahl... A must read for all Americans!“ -- James Sisneros

"Good read and full of info not found in the normal media.“ – Audi Steinwand

Chapter Five:

Military wars—South China Sea, Indian Ocean and Pentagon’s ‘String of Pearls’ Strategy

The US Navy has markedly increased its activities in the Pacific with a view to stifling China's development and exercise of sovereign regional rights.

China today, because of its dynamic economic growth and its determination to pursue sovereign Chinese national interests, merely because China exists, is becoming the Pentagon new “enemy image,” now replacing the false “enemy image” of Islam used after September 2001 by the Bush-Cheney Administration to justify the Pentagon’s global power pursuit. The new US military posture against China has nothing to do with any aggressive threat from the side of China. The Pentagon has decided to escalate its aggressive military posture to China merely because China has become a strong vibrant independent pole in world economics and geopolitics.

Pentagon Targets China

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the nominal end of the Cold War some twenty years back, rather than reducing the size of its mammoth defense spending, the US Congress and US Presidents have enormously expanded spending for new weapons systems, increased permanent military bases around the world and expansion of NATO not only to former Warsaw Pact countries on Russia’s immediate periphery; it also has expanded NATO and US military presence deep into Asia on the perimeters of China through its conduct of the Afghan war and related campaigns.

On the basis of simple dollar outlays for military spending, the US Pentagon combined budget, leaving aside the huge budgets for such national security and defense-related agencies of US Government as the Department of Energy and US Treasury and other agencies, the US Department of Defense spent some $739 billion in 2011 on its military requirements. Were all other spending that is tied to US defense and national security included, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates an annual military spending of over $1 trillion by the United States. That is an amount greater than the total defense-related spending of the next 42 nations combined, and more than the Gross Domestic Product of most nations.

China officially spent barely 10% of the US on its defense, some $90 billions, or if certain defense-related arms import and other costs are included, perhaps $111 billion a year. Even if the Chinese authorities do not publish complete data on such sensitive areas, it is clear China spends a mere fraction of the USA and is starting from a military-technology base far behind the USA.

The US defense budget is not just by far the world’s largest. It is dominant to everyone else completely independent of any perceived threat. In the nineteenth century, the British Royal Navy built the size of its fleet according to the fleets of Britain's two most powerful potential enemies; America's defense budget strategists declare it will be "doomsday" if the United States builds its navy to anything less than five times China and Russia combined. “ [1]

If we include the spending by Russia, China’s strongest ally within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, their combined total annual defense spending is barely $142 billions. The world top ten defense spending nations in addition to the USA as largest and China as second largest, include the UK, France, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, India and Brazil. In 2011 the military spending of the United States totaled a staggering 46% of total spending by the world's 171 governments and territories, almost half the entire world. [2]

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]learly, for all its rhetoric about peace-keeping missions and “democracy” promotion, the Pentagon is pursuing what its planners refer to as “Full Spectrum Dominance,” the total control of all global air, land, ocean, space, outer-space and now cyberspace.[3] It is clearly determined to use its military might to secure global domination or hegemony. No other interpretation is possible.

Obama Doctrine: China is the new ‘enemy image’

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter almost two decades of neglect of its interests in East Asia, in 2011, the Obama Administration announced that the US would make “a strategic pivot” in its foreign policy to focus its military and political attention on the Asia-Pacific, particularly Southeast Asia, that is, China.

During the final months of 2011 the Obama Administration clearly defined a new public military threat doctrine for US military readiness in the wake of the US military failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. During a Presidential trip to the Far East, while in Australia, the US President unveiled what is being termed the Obama Doctrine.[4]

The following sections from Obama’s speech in Australia are worth citing in detail:

With most of the world’s nuclear power and some half of humanity, Asia will largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation…As President, I have, therefore, made a deliberate and strategic decision -- as a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future…I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority...As we plan and budget for the future, we will allocate the resources necessary to maintain our strong military presence in this region. We will preserve our unique ability to project power and deter threats to peace…Our enduring interests in the region demand our enduring presence in the region.

The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay. Indeed, we are already modernizing America’s defense posture across the Asia Pacific. It will be more broadly distributed -- maintaining our strong presence in Japan and the Korean Peninsula, while enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia. Our posture will be more flexible -- with new capabilities to ensure that our forces can operate freely. And our posture will be more sustainable, by helping allies and partners build their capacity, with more training and exercises. We see our new posture here in Australia…I believe we can address shared challenges, such as proliferation and maritime security, including cooperation in the South China Sea.[5]

The centerpiece of Obama's visit was the announcement that at least 2,500 elite US Marines will be stationed in Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory. In addition, in a series of significant parallel agreements, discussions with Washington were underway to fly long-range American surveillance drones from the remote Cocos Islands — an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean. Also the US will gain greater use of Australian Air Force bases for American aircraft and increased ship and submarine visits to the Indian Ocean through a naval base outside Perth, on the country’s west coast.

US military actions in Cocos Islands and Australia are aimed at Chi

The Pentagon’s target is China.

To make the point clear to European members of NATO, in remarks to fellow NATO members in Washington in July 2012, Phillip Hammond, the UK Secretary of State for Defense declared explicitly that the new US defense shift to the Asia-Pacific region was aimed at China. Hammond said that, "the rising strategic importance of the Asia-Pacific region requires all countries, but particularly the United States, to reflect in their strategic posture the emergence of China as a global power. Far from being concerned about the tilt to Asia-Pacific, the European NATO powers should welcome the fact that the US is willing to engage in this new strategic challenge on behalf of the alliance." [6]

As with many of its operations, the Pentagon deployment is far more sinister than the relatively small number of 2,500 new US soldiers might suggest.

In August 2011 the Pentagon presented its annual report on China’s military. It stated that China had closed key technological gaps. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for East Asia, Michael Schiffer, said that the pace and scope of China's military investments had "allowed China to pursue capabilities that we believe are potentially destabilizing to regional military balances, increase the risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation and may contribute to regional tensions and anxieties." [7] He cited Chinese refurbishing of a Soviet-era aircraft carrier and China’s development of its J20 Stealth Fighter as indications of the new capability requiring a more active US military response. Schiffer also cited China's space and cyber operations, saying it was "developing a multi-dimensional program to improve its capabilities to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by adversaries during times of crisis or conflict." [8]

Pentagon’s ‘Air-Sea Battle’

The Pentagon strategy to defeat China in a coming war, details of which have filtered into the US press, is called “Air-Sea Battle.” This calls for an aggressive coordinated US attack in which American stealth bombers and submarines would knock out China's long-range surveillance radar and precision missile systems located deep inside the country. The initial "blinding campaign" would be followed by a larger air and naval assault on China itself. Crucial to the advanced pentagon strategy, deployment of which has already quietly begun, is US military navy and air presence in Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam and across the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. Australian troop and naval deployment is aimed at accessing the strategic Chinese South China Sea as well as the Indian Ocean. The stated motive is to “protect freedom of navigation” in the Malacca Straits and the South China Sea.

Air-Sea Battle's goal is to help US forces withstand an initial Chinese assault and counterattack to destroy sophisticated Chinese radar and missile systems built to keep US ships away from China's coastline.[9]

US ‘Air-Sea Battle’ against China

In addition to the stationing of the US Marines in the north of Australia, Washington plans to fly long-range American surveillance drones from the remote Cocos Islands — an Australian territory in the strategically vital Indian Ocean. Also it will have use of Australian Air Force bases for American military aircraft and increased ship and submarine visits to the Indian Ocean through a naval base outside Perth, on Australia’s west coast.[10]

The architect of the Pentagon anti-China strategy of Air-Sea battle is Andrew Marshall, the man who has shaped Pentagon advanced warfare strategy for more than 40 years and among whose pupils were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. [11] Since the 1980s Marshall has been a promoter of an idea first posited in 1982 by Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, then chief of the Soviet general staff, called RMA, or 'Revolution in Military Affairs.’

The best definition of RMA was the one provided by Marshall himself: “A Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) is a major change in the nature of warfare brought about by the innovative application of new technologies which, combined with dramatic changes in military doctrine and operational and organizational concepts, fundamentally alters the character and conduct of military operations.” [12]

Marshall, a RAND Corporation nuclear expert, was brought by Henry Kissinger onto the President’s National Security Council that Kissinger headed. Marshall was then appointed by President Nixon in 1973, on Kissinger’s and Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger’s recommendation, to direct the Office of Net Assessment, a highly secretive internal Pentagon think tank. Marshall was reappointed by every president thereafter, a feat surpassed only by the late FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover. Andrew Marshall was the only official in the Rumsfeld Pentagon who had participated in strategic war planning throughout virtually the entire Cold War, beginning in 1949 as a nuclear strategist for RAND Corporation, then moving to the Pentagon in 1973.[13]

It was also Andrew Marshall who convinced US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his successor Robert Gates to deploy the Ballistic Missile “defense” Shield in Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Japan as a strategy to minimize any potential nuclear threat from Russia and, in the case of Japan’s BMD, any potential nuclear threat from China.

‘String of Pearls’ Strategy of Pentagon

Already back in 2005 in an Annual Report to the US Congress, a select group of commissioners tied to the US intelligence community issued a report defining their view of the emerging China “danger.” They wrote:

China’s methodical and accelerating military modernization presents a growing threat to U.S security interests in the Pacific. While Taiwan remains a key potential flashpoint, China’s aggressive pursuit of territorial claims in the East and South China Seas points to ambitions that go beyond a Taiwan scenario and poses a growing threat to neighbors, including U.S. alliance partners, on China’s periphery. Recent and planned military acquisitions by Beijing—mobile ballistic missiles, improved air and naval forces capable of extended range operations—provide China with the capability to conduct offensive strikes and military operations throughout the region…

…China wants a military that is capable of performing a variety of essential offshore missions, including protecting its eastern seaboard and ensuring the security of the sea lanes through which it receives resources essential to its continued economic development. But as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld warned a Chinese military audience, ‘‘expanding [Chinese] missile forces’’ and ‘‘advances in Chinese strategic capability’’ worry China’s neighbors and raise questions, ‘‘particularly when there is an imperfect understanding of such developments on the part of others.’’

China’s aggressive pursuit of territorial claims arising from disputes with Japan in the East China Sea and multiple countries in the South China Sea and its forays into the Bay of Bengal give rise to growing regional security concerns in Japan, India, and Southeast Asia. China’s military threat against Taiwan is implicitly a threat to the United States as a result of both explicit and tacit assurances that have been expressed to Taiwan by every U.S. Administration since 1949. Taiwan has successfully converted from authoritarian rule to a functioning democracy, making it an even more significant symbol of American interest in the region and increasing the likelihood that a Chinese conflict with Taiwan will also involve U.S. forces. [14]

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he 2005 China report to the US Congress went on to describe what they saw as Chinese military strategy to defend her access to vital oil from the Persian Gulf and elsewhere:

In addition, a growing dependence on imported energy resources needed to sustain its economic development exposes China to new vulnerabilities and heightens its need to secure new energy sources and the sea lines of communications (SLOCs) from East Asia to the Persian Gulf and Africa needed to move energy supplies to China. With Myanmar’s consent, China operates a maritime reconnaissance and electronic intelligence station on Great Coco Island and is building a base on Small Coco Island in the Bay of Bengal.17 According to an Asian defense analyst, China is helping Myanmar modernize several naval bases as a means of extending its power into the region. Moreover, Indian authorities claim that China has helped build radar, refit, and refuel facilities there to support further Chinese naval operations in the region in the future.[15]

In January that same year, 2005, Andrew Marshall, head of the Office of Net Assessments, issued a classified internal report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld titled “Energy Futures in Asia.” It was the same Marshall behind the Pentagon secret ‘Air-Sea Strategy against China. The Marshall report, which was leaked in full to a Washington newspaper, invented the term “string of pearls” strategy to describe what it called the growing Chinese military threat to “US strategic interests” in the Asian space.[16]

The internal Pentagon report claimed that “China is building strategic relationships along the sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea in ways that suggest defensive and offensive positioning to protect China’s energy interests, but also to serve broad security objectives.”

In the Pentagon Andrew Marshall report, the term China’s “String of Pearls” Strategy was used for the first time. It is a Pentagon term and not a Chinese term.

The report stated that China was adopting a “string of pearls” strategy of bases and diplomatic ties stretching from the Middle East to southern China that includes a new naval base under construction at the Pakistani port of Gwadar. It claimed that “Beijing already has set up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar in the country’s southwest corner, the part nearest the Persian Gulf. The post is monitoring ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea.” [17]

The Marshall internal report went on to write of other “pearls” in the sea-lane strategy of China:

• Bangladesh: China is strengthening its ties to the government and building a container port facility at Chittagong. The Chinese are “seeking much more extensive naval and commercial access” in Bangladesh.

• Burma: China has developed close ties to the military regime in Rangoon and turned a nation wary of China into a “satellite” of Beijing close to the Strait of Malacca, through which 80 percent of China’s imported oil passes. China is building naval bases in Burma and has electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal and near the Strait of Malacca. Beijing also supplied Burma with “billions of dollars in military assistance to support a de facto military alliance,” the report said.

• Cambodia: China signed a military agreement in November 2003 to provide training and equipment. Cambodia is helping Beijing build a railway line from southern China to the sea.

• South China Sea: Chinese activities in the region are less about territorial claims than “protecting or denying the transit of tankers through the South China Sea,” the report said. China also is building up its military forces in the region to be able to “project air and sea power” from the mainland and Hainan Island. China recently upgraded a military airstrip on Woody Island and increased its presence through oil drilling platforms and ocean survey ships.

• Thailand: China is considering funding construction of a $20 billion canal across the Kra Isthmus that would allow ships to bypass the Strait of Malacca. The canal project would give China port facilities, warehouses and other infrastructure in Thailand aimed at enhancing Chinese influence in the region, the report said. The report reflects growing fears in the Pentagon about China’s long-term development. Many Pentagon analysts believe China’s military buildup is taking place faster than earlier estimates, and that China will use its power to project force and undermine U.S. and regional security. The U.S. military’s Southern Command produced a similar classified report in the late 1990s that warned that China was seeking to use commercial port facilities around the world to control strategic “chokepoints.” [18]

Breaking the String of Pearls

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ignificant Pentagon and US actions since that 2005 report have been aimed to counter China’s attempts to defend its energy security via that “String of Pearls.” The US interventions since 2008 into Burma/Myanmar were of two phases.

The first was the so-called Saffron Revolution, a US State Department and CIA-backed destabilization in 2007 aimed at putting the international spotlight on the Burma military dictatorship’s human rights practices. The aim was to further isolate Burma internationally from economic relations aside from China, especially threatening the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipelines.

US moves to open Burma are aimed at the China Energy Corridor

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]orcing Burma’s military leaders into tighter dependency on China was one of the factors triggering the decision of the military to open up economically to the West. They declared that the tightening of US economic sanctions had done the country great harm and President Thein Sein made his major liberalization opening as well as allowing US-backed dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi, to be free and to run for elective office with her party in return for promises from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of US investment in the country. [19]

The US corporations approaching Burma are hand-picked by Washington to introduce the most destructive “free market” reforms that will open Burma to instability. The United States will not allow investment in entities owned by Myanmar’s armed forces or its Ministry of Defense. It also is able to place sanctions on “those who undermine the reform process, engage in human rights abuses, contribute to ethnic conflict or participate in military trade with North Korea.” The United States will block businesses or individuals from making transactions with any “specially designated nationals” or businesses that they control — allowing Washington, for example, to stop money from flowing to groups “disrupting the reform process.” It’s the classic “carrot and stick” approach, dangling the carrot of untold riches if Burma opens its economy to US corporations and punishing those who try to resist the takeover of the country’s prize assets. Oil and gas, vital to China, will be a special target of US intervention. American companies and people will be allowed to invest in the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise.[20]

Barack Obama also created a new power for the government to impose “blocking sanctions” on any individual threatening peace in Myanmar. Businesses with more than $500,000 in investment in the country will need to file an annual report with the State Department, with details on workers’ rights, land acquisitions and any payments of more than $10,000 to government entities, including Myanmar’s state-owned enterprises.

American companies and people will be allowed to invest in the state-owned Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, but any investors will need to notify the State Department within 60 days.

As well, US “human rights” NGOs, many closely associated with or believed to be associated with US State Department geopolitical designs, including Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Institute for Asian Democracy, Open Society Foundations, Physicians for Human Rights, U.S. Campaign for Burma, United to End Genocide— will now be allowed to operate inside Burma according to a decision by State Secretary Clinton in April 2012.[21]

Thailand, another key in China’s defensive String of Pearl Strategy has also been subject of intense destabilization over the past several years. Now with the sister of the corrupt former Prime Minister in office, US-Thai relations have significantly improved.

After months of bloody clashes, the US-backed billionaire, Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra , managed to buy the way to put his sister, Yingluck Shinawatra in as Prime Minister, with him pulling the policy strings from abroad. Thaksin himself was enjoying comfortable status in the US as of this writing, in summer 2012.

US relations with Thaksin’s sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, were moving in direct fulfillment of the new Obama “strategic pivot” to focus on the “China threat.” In June 2012, General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, after returning from a visit this month to Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore stated: “We want to be out there partnered with nations and have a rotational presence that would allow us to build up common capabilities for common interests.” This is precisely key beads in what the Pentagon calls the String of Pearls.

The Pentagon is now quietly negotiating a return to bases abandoned after the Vietnam War. It is negotiating with the Thai government to create a new “disaster relief” hub at the Royal Thai Navy Air Field at U-Tapao, 90 miles south of Bangkok. The US military built the two mile long runway there, one of Asia’s longest, in the 1960s as a major staging and refueling base during the Vietnam War.

The Pentagon was also working to secure more rights to US Navy visits to Thai ports and joint surveillance flights to monitor trade routes and military movements. The US Navy will soon base four of its newest warships — Littoral Combat Ships — in Singapore and would rotate them periodically to Thailand and other southeast Asian countries. The Navy was pursuing options to conduct joint airborne surveillance missions from Thailand.[22]

In addition, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter went to Thailand in July 2012 and the Thai government has invited Defense Secretary Leon Panetta who met with the Thai minister of defense at a conference in Singapore in June.[23]

In 2014, the US Navy was scheduled to begin deploying new P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance and anti-submarine aircraft to the Pacific, replacing the P-3C Orion surveillance planes. The Navy was also preparing to deploy new high-altitude surveillance drones to the Asia-Pacific region around the same time. [24]

Pentagon targets China Oil Shipping Lanes from Africa and Mideast

India-US Defense ‘Look East Policy’

Several years ago during the Bush Administration, Washington made a major move to lock India in as a military ally of the US against the emerging Chinese presence in Asia. India calls it India’s “Look East Policy.” In reality, despite all claims to the contrary, it is a “look at China” military policy. In comments in August 2012, Deputy Secretary of defense Ashton Carter stated, "India is also key part of our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, and, we believe, to the broader security and prosperity of the 21st century. The US-India relationship is global in scope, like the reach and influence of both countries." [25]

Carter continued in remarks following a trip to New Delhi, "Our security interests converge: on maritime security, across the Indian Ocean region; in Afghanistan, where India has done so much for economic development and the Afghan security forces; and on broader regional issues, where we share long-term interests. I went to India at the request of Secretary Panetta and with a high-level delegation of U S technical and policy experts.” [26]

Indian Ocean

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Pentagon “String of pearls” strategy against China in effect was not of beautiful pearls, but a hangman’s noose around the perimeter of China designed in the event of major conflict to completely cut China off from its access to vital raw materials, most especially oil from the Persian Gulf and Africa. As former Pentagon adviser Robert D. Kaplan noted, the Indian Ocean is becoming the world’s “strategic center of gravity” and who controls that center controls Eurasia, including China. The Ocean is the vital waterway passage for energy and trade flows between the Middle East and China and Far Eastern countries. More strategically, it is the heart of a developing south-south economic axis between China and Africa and Latin America.

Since 1997 trade between China and Africa has risen more than twenty-fold and trade with Latin America, including Brazil, has risen fourteen fold in only ten years. This dynamic, if allowed to continue, will eclipse the economic size of the European Union as well as the declining North American industrial economies in less than a decade. That is a development that Washington circles and Wall Street are determined to prevent at all costs.

Straddled by the Islamic arch--which stretches from Somalia to Indonesia, passing through the countries of the Gulf and Central Asia-- the region surrounding the Indian Ocean has certainly become the world's new strategic center of gravity.[27]

No rival economic bloc can be allowed to challenge American hegemony. Former Obama geopolitical adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, still today along with Henry Kissinger one of the most influential persons in the US power establishment, summed up the position as seen from Washington in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives:

It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geo-strategy is therefore the purpose of this book. [28]

For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…. Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia -- and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained. [29]

In that context, how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's central continent. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources. [30]

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Indian Ocean is crowned by what some have called an Islamic Arch of muslim countries stretching from East Africa to Indonesia by way of the Persian Gulf countries and Central Asia. The emergence of China and other much smaller Asian powers over the past two decades since the end of the Cold war has challenged US hegemony over the Indian Ocean for the first time since the beginning of the Cold War. Especially in the past years as American economic influence has precipitously declined globally and that of China risen spectacularly, the Pentagon has begun to rethink its strategic presence in the Indian Ocean. The Obama Asian Pivot was centered on asserting decisive control over the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean and the waters of the South China Sea.

The US military base at Okinawa, Japan was being rebuilt as a major center to project US military power towards China. As of 2010 there were over 35,000 US military personnel stationed in Japan and another 5,500 American civilians employed there by the United States Department of Defense. The United States Seventh Fleet is based in Yokosuka. The 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa. 130 USAF fighters are stationed in the Misawa Air Base and Kadena Air Base.

The Japanese government in 2011 began an armament program designed to counter the perceived growing Chinese threat. The Japanese command has urged their leaders to petition the United States to allow the sale of F-22A Raptor fighter jets, currently illegal under U.S law. South Korean and American military have deepened their strategic alliance and over 45,000 American soldiers are now stationed in South Korea. The South Koreans and Americans claim this is due to the North Korean military’s modernization. China and North Korea denounce it as needlessly provocative.[31]

Under the cover of the US war on Terrorism, the US has developed major military agreements with the Philippines as well as with Indonesia’s army.

But the military base on Diego Garcia is the lynchpin of US control over the Indian Ocean. In 1971 the US military depopulated the citizens of Diego Garcia and build a major military installation there to carry out missions against Iraq and Afghanistan. China has two Achilles heels—the Straits of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Malacca near Singapore. Some 20% of China oil passes through the Straits of Hormuz. And some 80% of Chinese oil imports pass through the Strait of Malacca as well as major freight trade.

To prevent China from emerging successfully as the major economic competitor of the United States in the world, Washington launched the so-called Arab Spring in late 2010. While the aspirations of millions of ordinary Arab citizens in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and elsewhere for freedom and democracy was real, they were in effect used as unwitting cannon fodder to unleash a US strategy of chaos across the entire oil-rich Islamic world from Libya in North Africa across to Syria and ultimately Iran in the Middle East. [32]

The US strategy within the Islamic Arch countries straddling the Indian Ocean is as Mohamed Hassan, a strategic analyst of the Islamic world put it,

The US is therefore seeking to control these resources to prevent them reaching China. This was a major objective of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but these have turned into a fiasco. The US destroyed these countries in order to set up governments there which would be docile, but they have failed. The icing on the cake is that the new Iraqi and Afghan government trade with China! Beijing has therefore not needed to spend billions of dollars on an illegal war in order to get its hands on Iraq’s black gold: Chinese companies simply bought up oil concessions at auction totally within the rules.

One can see that the USA's imperialist strategy has failed all along the line. There is nevertheless one option still open to the US: maintaining chaos in order to prevent these countries from attaining stability for the benefit of China. This means continuing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and extending it to countries such as Iran, Yemen or Somalia.[33]

South China Sea

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he completion of the Pentagon “String of Pearls” hangman’s noose around China to cut off vital energy and other imports in event of war by 2012 was centered around the increased US manipulation of events in the South China Sea. The Ministry of Geological Resources and Mining of the People's Republic of China estimated that the South China Sea may contain 17.7 billion tons of crude oil (compared to Kuwait with 13 billion tons). The most optimistic estimate suggested that potential oil resources (not proved reserves) of the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea could be as high as 105 billion barrels of oil, and that the total for the South China Sea could be as high as 213 billion barrels. [34]

The presence of such vast energy reserves has become a major energy security issue for China, understandably. Washington has made a calculated intervention in the past several years to sabotage those Chinese interests, using especially Vietnam as a wedge against Chinese oil exploration there. In July 2012 the National Assembly of Vietnam passed a law demarcating Vietnamese sea borders to include the Spratly and Paracel islands. US influence in Vietnam since the country opened to economic liberalization has become decisive.

In 2011 the US military begun cooperation with Vietnam including joint “peaceful” military exercises. Washington has backed both The Philippines and Vietnam in their territorial claims over Chinese-claimed territories in the South China Sea, emboldening those small countries not to seek a diplomatic resolution.[35]

In 2010 US and UK oil majors entered the bidding for exploration in the South China Sea. The bid by Chevron and BP added to the presence of US-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in the region. That move is essential to give Washington the pretext to “defend us oil interests” in the area. [36]

In April 2012, the Philippine warship Gregorio del Pilar was involved in a standoff with two Chinese surveillance vessels in the Scarborough Shoal, an area claimed by both nations. The Philippine navy had been trying to arrest Chinese fishermen who were allegedly taking government-protected marine species from the area, but the surveillance boats prevented them. On April 14, 2012, U.S. and the Philippines held their yearly exercises in Palawan, Philippines. On May 7, 2012, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying called a meeting with Alex Chua, Charge D'affaires of the Philippine Embassy in China, to make a serious representation over the incident at the Scarborough Shoal.

From South Korea to Philippines to Vietnam, the Pentagon and US State Department is fanning the clash over rights to the South China Sea to stealthily insert US military presence there to “defend” Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean or Philippine interests. The military hangman’s noose around China is being slowly drawn tighter.

While China’s access to vast resources of offshore conventional oil and gas were being restricted, Washington was actively trying to lure China into provocations and incidents that amount to a sophisticated form of economic warfare, namely trade war and use of the WTO as America’s biased cop in those wars.

Endnotes:

[1] Winslow Wheeler, The Military Imbalance: How The US Outspends the World, March 16, 2012, accessed in http://www.iiss.org/publications/military-balance/the-military-balance-2012/press-statement/figure-comparative-defence-statistics/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, 2010, edition.engdahl, Wiesbaden.

[4] President Barack Obama, Remarks By President Obama to the Australian Parliament, November 17, 2011, accessed in http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/17/remarks-president-obama-australian-parliament.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Otto Kreisher, UK Defense Chief to NATO: Pull Your Weight in Europe While US Handles China, July 22, 2012, accessed in http://defense.aol.com/2012/07/19/uk-defense-chief-to-nato-pull-your-weight-in-europe-while-us-ha/?icid=related4.

[7] BBC, China military 'closing key gaps', says Pentagon, 25 August 2011, accessed in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14661027.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Greg Jaffe , US Model for a Future War Fans Tensions with China and inside Pentagon, Washington Post, August 2, 2012, accessed in http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/139681/us-model-for-a-future-war-fans-tensions-with-china-and-inside-pentagon.html.

[10] Matt Siegel, As Part of Pact, U.S. Marines Arrive in Australia, in China’s Strategic Backyard, The New York Times,

April 4, 2012, accessed in http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/asia/us-marines-arrive-darwin-australia.html.

[11] Greg Jaffe, op. cit.

[12] F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totallitarian democracy in the New World Order, Wiesbaden, 2009, edition.engdahl, p. 190.

[13] Ibid., p. 190.

[14] US-China Economic Security and Review Commission, 2005 Report to Congress of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, November 2005, accessed in http://www.uscc.gov/annual_report/2005/annual_report_full_05.pdf, pp. 115, 118.

[15] Ibid., p. 120.

[16] The Washington Times, China Builds up Strategic Sea Lanes, January 17, 2005, accessed in http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2005/jan/17/20050117-115550-1929r/?page=all#pagebreak.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Wall Street Journal, An Opening in Burma: The regime's tentative liberalization is worth testing for sincerity,

Wall Street Journal, November 22, 2011, accessed in http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204443404577049964259425018.html

[20] Radio Free Asia, US to Invest in Burma’s Oil, 7 November, 2011, accessed in http://www.rfa.org/english/news/burma/sanctions-07112012185817.html

[21] Shaun Tandon, US eases Myanmar restrictions for NGOs, AFP, April 17, 2012, accessed in http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jmwmJ3e0yIjyD-7N52GAFISnweAA?docId=CNG.a8c1c3e2edf92a30cc1b3c9bd5ed11c1.131

[22] Craig Whitlock, U.S. eyes return to some Southeast Asia military bases, Washington Post, June 23, 2012, accessed in http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-seeks-return-to-se-asian-bases/2012/06/22/gJQAKP83vV_story.html

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Zeenews, US-India ties are global in scope: Pentagon, August 02, 2012, accessed in

http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/us-india-ties-are-global-in-scope-pentagon_791212.html

[26] Ibid.

[27] Gregoire Lalieu, Michael Collon, Is the Fate of the World Being Decided Today in the Indian Ocean?, November 3, 2010, accessed in http://www.michelcollon.info/Is-the-fate-of-the-world-being.html?lang=fr

[28] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives, 1997, Basic Books, p. xiv.

[29] Ibid., p. 30.

[30] Ibid., p. 31.

[31] Cas Group, Background on the South China Sea Crisis, accessed in http://casgroup.fiu.edu/pages/docs/3907/1326143354_South_China_Sea_Guide.pdf

[32] Gregoire Lalieu,, et al, op. cit.

[33] Ibid.

[34] GlobalSecurity.org, South China Sea Oil and Natural Gas, accessed in http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/spratly-oil.htm

[35] Agence France Presse, US, Vietnam Start Military Relationship, August 1, 2011, accessed in http://www.defensenews.com/article/20110801/DEFSECT03/108010307/U-S-Vietnam-Start-Military-Relationship

[36] Zacks Equity Research, Oil Majors Eye South China Sea, June 24, 2010, accessed in www.zacks.com/stock/news/36056/Oil+Majors+Eye+South...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, Engdahl is the son of F. William Engdahl, Sr., and Ruth Aalund (b. Rishoff). Engdahl grew up in Texas and after earning a degree in engineering and jurisprudence from Princeton University in 1966 (BA) and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholm from 1969 to 1970, he worked as an economist and freelance journalist in New York and in Europe. Engdahl began writing about oil politics with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. His first book was called A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order and discusses the alleged roles of Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Ball and of the USA in the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran, which was meant to manipulate oil prices and to stop Soviet expansion. Engdahl claims that Brzezinski and Ball used the Islamic Balkanization model proposed by Bernard Lewis. In 2007, he completed Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation. Engdahl is also a contributor to the website of the anti-globalization Centre for Research on Globalization, the Russian website New Eastern Outlook,^[2] and the Voltaire Network,^[3] and a freelancer for varied newsmagazines such as the Asia Times. William Engdahl has been married since 1987 and has been living for more than two decades near Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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The Europe That Can Say No?

BE SURE TO PASS THESE ARTICLES TO FRIENDS AND KIN. A LOT DEPENDS ON THIS. DO YOUR PART.

by GARY LEUPP

Federica Mogherini: a rare voice of reason and even hope in a continent now accustomed to vassalage.

EU president and Polish politician Donald Tusk says the U.S. acts with “capricious assertiveness.” With friends like this who needs enemies?” he asked the other day, adding, “If you need a helping hand you will find one at the end of your arm.”

EU vice-president Federica Mogherini met with European and Iranian representatives after the U.S. decision to leave the Iran nuclear agreement. She committed Europe to the following:

The protection of European Union economic operators and ensuring legal certainty:

And last but not least, the further development of a transparent, rules-based business environment in Iran.”

Meanwhile U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton asks rhetorically on ABC: “Why would any business, why would the shareholders of any business, want to do business with the world’s central banker of international terrorism?” He threatens secondary sanctions on nations that, adhering to the agreement, expand trade with Iran.

Some including RT commentators predict Europe will buckle to U.S. pressure and cancel contracts. But maybe not this time. Maybe Europe will become the Europe That Can Say No.

“We are working on finding a practical solution … in a short delay of time,” Mogherini says. “We are talking about solutions to keep the deal alive. We have a quite clear list of issues to address. We are operating in a very difficult context … I cannot talk about legal or economic guarantees but I can talk about serious, determined, immediate work from the European side.”

Immediate work to diminish the damage done to world peace and stability by Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement.

Some including RT commentators predict Europe will buckle to U.S. pressure and cancel contracts. But maybe not this time. Maybe Europe will become the Europe That Can Say No.

According to EU Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulus, the EU is preparing legislation to block U.S. sanctions targeting Iran. Its members know that if Iran reaps no sanctions relief from the agreement it will also withdraw, charging betrayal. France’s Total S.A. and Germany’s Siemens have indicated they may back out of contracts with Iran due to fears of U.S. secondary sanctions. The U.S. strives to use access to its marketplace to shape others’ investment options, in this case options that can lead to war. No matter that this violates the sacred bourgeois principle of Free Trade.

There are all kinds of good reasons for Iran and the rest of the world to expand trade ties. (French cooks would like access to Iranian pistachios—the world’s best—and saffron.) And there’s no reason for other governments to embrace Bolton’s view that the Iranian government is the central banker of international terrorism. (Surely that is Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading supporter of Salafist Sunni Islamism, which supports the Syrian Liberation Front, the Army of Conquest, and Ahrar al-Sham. The Saudi monarchy, presiding over a society far more oppressive than Iranian or Syrian society—but spared media outrage—pursues its unholy alliance with Israel to bring down the regime in Tehran, preparing for the coming confrontation by invading Bahrain, isolating Qatar, pulverizing Yemen and bombing Syria at U.S. behest and kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister in order to influence Lebanese politics and diminish the role of Hizbollah.)

And there are all kinds of reasons for Europe to stand up to the U.S. and say, “Your sanctions are not our sanctions.” And maybe add: Your intentions for further regime change in the Middle East are not popular in Europe, which fears more waves of refugees. And also add: The sanctions you’ve demanded we impose on Russia following the February 2014 coup in Ukraine and consequent Russian reassertion of sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula are hurting Europe and should be lifted.

There should be a multilateral world. It already exists, actually, but the U.S. ruling class, wedded as it is to “full-spectrum dominance” and notions of U.S. “exceptionalism” resists acknowledging it. Bolton’s remarks are telling.

A suckup-kickdown bully, and dual nationality Neocon (Israel/US), JohnBolton is surely one of the most odious figures in modern history.

“I think the Europeans will see that’s in their interest ultimately to go along with this,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper over the weekend. Asked if the U.S. would apply sanctions to European firms, he said vaguely, “It’s possible. It depends on the conduct of other governments.” He notes legal devices available to the U.S. such as the denial of licenses. He threatens to pull out all the stops to impede the world’s effort to conciliate Iran. He wants to coordinate Saudi, Israeli, U.S. and MEK efforts to effect regime change in Tehran; as he told an MEK audience in July 2017, he expects this by 2019!

This is the U.S. National Security Advisor, serving an unusually unbalanced, ignorant U.S. president. (The British demanded his withdrawal from the Libya talks in 2004 because he was overbearing, indeed acting like a madman.) He is saying, confidently, Europe will go along “when they see it’s in their interest.” Maybe he and Trump miscalculate. The EU even without Britain rivals the U.S. in population and GDP. If it once needed to obey, it might not need to (or want to) now. The U.S. these days does not smell of freedom, democracy, liberal values, calm reason, tolerated dissent. It reeks of white nationalism, racist exclusion, institutional police violence and murder, and seemingly irrevocable tendency towards the concentration of wealth in the .01%. It is a fundamentally unfair, unjust, unadmirable society that tortures its youth by offering them low-paying jobs and endless student debt if they were lucky enough to go to college. It denies its people the normal standard of public health care and charges them twice the Canadian fees.

It is a basically a fucked-up country. After its (ongoing) disasters in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon and elsewhere, it has no moral leg to stand on in lecturing Europe to maintain sanctions on Iran. After siding 100% with Israel, on everything imaginable, it has lost any credibility as an honest broker in international relations. [Never had much, if any, credibility with any intelligent person.—Ed]

The EU comprises various imperialist countries who of course exploit workers throughout the world, competing in the process with the U.S. They are not morally different from the U.S. But their governments increasingly chafe under U.S. hegemony, and this particular nut-case hegemon, Donald Trump.

Angela Merkel said last week that Europe can no longer count on the United States to protect it. “It is no longer such that the United States simply protects us,” she declared, “but Europe must take its destiny in its own hands. That’s the task of the future,” she said during a speech honoring French President Emmanuel Macron, who said European nations should not allow “other major powers, including allies” to “put themselves in a situation to decide our diplomacy [and] security for us.” Trump was all over this guy in his last visit but the bromance ends here. You do not order proud France to cease trade ties with Iran just because you’re looking for another war. Europeans are tired of that. Tired of being taken for granted as slavish allies when the U.S. decides to attack somebody. The Truman Doctrine is dead, the Cold War over, Europe despite Brexit increasingly united in its ability to collectively respond to U.S. pressure.

Let there be an intensification of inter-imperialist contradictions! Let Germany say, yes, brothers and sisters, let us make Mercedez-Benz in Tehran! Let us sell you Airbus passenger airliners! Let us buy your walnuts and pomegranates and carpets. And let us tell the Americans the “American century” is not gonna happen.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, (AK Press). He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Comment here or on our Facebook Group page.

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

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Today’s Poor People’s Campaign: Too Important Not to Criticize

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

BAR's Bruce Dixon

Introduction

On the progressive website OpEdNews (OEN), I recently posted a QuickLink to an article published in Black Agenda Report by its managing editor Bruce Dixon. Seeking to get Dixon’s piece maximal attention, I titled my framing introduction to it “The Most Important Political Article in Ages.” Despite the appearance of advertising puffery, I was not exaggerating.

To grasp why I find Dixon’s timely piece so hefty, readers must understand my constant political perspective—as an activist analyst intensely focused on strategy and organizing. Like Karl Marx in his Theses on Feuerbach, I’m inclined to say, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” If the world we desperately wish to change is the hellhole of U.S. politics, nothing remotely rivals in importance the current attempt to revive Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign (PPC).

But as we support that campaign, nothing is more crucial than keeping it true to the spirit—and depth of underlying political analysis—of Dr. King. Rightly conducted, today’s PPC could be (pun intended) just what the doctor ordered. This is why principled PPC critics like Dixon (who shares King’s race and radical socialist leanings, if not his religion) deserve our close and serious attention.

PPC’s Enormous Potential: To Lead Us from Our Political Desert

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]or a movement having, in King’s day and now, roots in U.S. black churches, religious allusions and metaphors are of course highly appropriate. So in saying today’s PPC could lead us out of our political desert, I am implying it could lead us into the Promised Land. Not, of course, that anyone acquainted with the nightmare of human history should expect the PPC to establish the millennium. But as a climate justice activist deeply influenced by Naomi Klein, I do think addressing humanity’s climate emergency will require a level of rapid-fire moral maturation unprecedented in human history. Our stark choice is between maturation and climate catastrophe, perhaps even between maturation and climate Armageddon. As a broad movement crying out for moral maturation—across an interrelated spectrum of issues including climate—today’s PPC is the closest approach anyone has made to a viable climate justice movement. It’s also the first movement—unlike Democrats’ pussy-hatted, Russophobic “McResistance”—offering a potentially deep response to the ghastly symptom of bipartisan disease known as Trump.

"As a climate justice activist deeply influenced by Naomi Klein, I do think addressing humanity’s climate emergency will require a level of rapid-fire moral maturation unprecedented in human history..."

Provided, of course, today’s PPC attacks the bipartisan disease. Since doubts on that score are what I find most compelling in Dixon’s critique, I’ll say much more on that soon. But first I must dispose of the points—few but crucial—where I disagree with Dixon.

Religion and Morality: Where Dixon Seems Off Base

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]ny close reader of Dixon’s piece, and of my words so far, might have guessed (correctly) that my differences with him relate to religion and morality. Indeed, my previous section strongly hints that I’m comfortable with the PPC’s religious origins and morality-based language in ways that Dixon is not. In fact, I find in the PPC’s religious origins and moral language unique sources of effectiveness where Dixon sees only defects. But before elaborating on my two chief differences with Dixon, I wish to emphasize that they’re far outweighed by debt we owe him for his gutsiness in criticizing the PPC. I imagine that for many supporters, today’s PPC has already reached such iconic status that its critics must seem as perverse as detractors of Mom and apple pie would have seemed to characters in early 1960s sitcoms. Dixon honestly stuck his neck out for urgent public purposes, and even where his critiques seem mistaken, they’re hardly shallow or ill-willed, but instead rooted in realities clear-sighted people must acknowledge.

Now, anyone reading Dixon’s piece will instantly notice its snarky tone toward religion. As a frequent reader of Black Agenda Report (a black leftist publication, after all), I find this par for the course and hardly unjustified; how often, after all, has religion—especially U.S. Christianity—been used to buttress the powers that be? Or, in other words, to provide respectable support—even God’s sanction—for a ruthless capitalist or militarist establishment or even Nazis? Much more often, I’d venture, than it’s been used for the vastly more Christian purpose of “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” And that’s above all true when the comfort or affliction were to be offered in this-worldly terms; religion’s notorious postponement of any reckoning to the afterlife of course underlies Marx’s famous jibe at religion as “the opiate of the masses.”

For those who know Marx’s context (see the link just provided), not even Marx is as purely hostile toward religion as he’s typically portrayed. But given humanity’s vastly improved capacity to alleviate human misery via science, technology, and democratic institutions—resources that didn’t exist when religions like Christianity were founded—no religious voice should now be trusted that hasn’t come to terms with Marx. Dixon’s snarkiness is totally appropriate to shallow religion, whereas the religion behind the PPC, in its vigilance about universal human sinfulness, is capable of critiquing shallow establishment religion in terms as scathing as anything found on the Marxist left. A fact driven home for me by recent readings in The Radical King and some works by prominent Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, a significant influence on King. Given the scholar-activist backgrounds of Revs. William Barber and Liz Theoharis (Theoharis actually on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary, Niebuhr’s long-time home), leadership of today’s PPC seems in good, uncompromising hands.

And no one cognizant of the role churches played in the civil rights movement, as well as earlier social movements like abolitionism and woman’s suffrage, should doubt their immense value as community bases for political organizing. This seems especially true in a society that increasingly isolates individuals, and where labor unions, formerly powerful resources for organizing, have been decimated by successful political attacks. Now embracing Unitarian Universalism, that least dogmatic of religious faiths, I personally can (from an organizing standpoint) only regret I hadn’t been “churched” in my incarnations as an anti-fracking, and later Bernie or Bust, organizer. Belonging to a church gives one special access not only to members of one’s own church, but to interfaith political organizing—a powerful weapon wielded by today’s PPC.

To close (very willingly) my criticisms of Dixon, morality seems the area where he’s most off base. To berate the PPC for its emphasis on political issues as moral ones is probably to attack its greatest strength—a strength quite evident in King. Dixon rather amazingly overlooks the crucial role moral appeals played in eliminating such societal horrors as slavery, dueling, public torture, family vendettas, child labor—and in the civil rights movement itself. What’s more, he flies in the face of cognitive scientist George Lakoff’s important advice to liberals and progressives: that we need to start articulating the moral foundations of our political positions with the same dedication that conservatives, through their well-funded foundations and think tanks, have.

Like many liberals in the 1920s and '30s, in a world buffeted by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism, Niebuhr gained fame and admiration for his cogent criticism of capitalism and even espoused socialism. Sadly, but not surprisingly, the same man, soon effected a complete about face. arguing now from a "Christian Realist" platform saturated with fierce anti-communism. In the 1950s, Niebuhr described Senator Joseph McCarthy as a force of evil, not so much for attacking civil liberties, as for being ineffective in rooting out Communists and their sympathizers. In 1953, he supported the execution of the Rosenbergs, saying, "Traitors are never ordinary criminals and the Rosenbergs are quite obviously fiercely loyal Communists... Stealing atomic secrets is an unprecedented crime." (Wikipedia)

But even in his biggest misstep, Dixon is neither shallow nor ill-willed; his mistake is intertwined with valid, important concerns. On the one hand, Dixon contrasts the PPC’s insistence on morality with a class struggle analysis he (unsurprisingly for a leftist) rightly finds missing. In its efforts at broad-based coalition building, the PPC, which never hesitates to give moral criticism, is unduly chary of giving political criticism based on unjust imbalances of economic (and thereby, of political) power. A strange stance indeed for a movement seeking to eliminate poverty and racism—and a radical neglect of crucial insight from Niebuhr, who saw such unjust imbalances as brutal instances of collective immorality. Class and power balance issues are moral issues, and Niebuhr saw collective immorality as even more pernicious for societies than the individual kind.

Finally, even Dixon’s off-kilter criticism of PPC’s moral language veils an extremely valid related concern. When Dixon (mistakenly) says “ labeling your political opponents, their leaders, their misguided values and their persons as ‘immoral’ is never a persuasive political tactic” (ignoring the numerous social evils defeated by precisely moral critiques), his words do suggest a totally legitimate concern about the targets of such critiques. The powerful are in a radically different position of responsibility from the powerless; almost needless to say, Trump supporters—generally victims of propaganda in a system that offers few valid choices (Clinton was hardly a good alternative)—bear considerably less moral responsibility than Trump and the staffers of his thuggish regime. In politics, we should always fire our moral weaponry at the powerful; the powerless, rather like bystanders of armed conflict, should be left to infer the implications of associating closely with parties rightly under moral assault. Creating shame by proxy, without the resentment provoked by personal blame, is the needed moral tactic.

Democrats, Russiagate, and Third-Party Voices: What Dixon Gets Crucially Right

Given the great value I find in Dixon’s courageous article, I regret the amount of space I had to use for specifying my criticisms; if anything, that was because I had to disentangle even his weaknesses from intimately related strengths. Praising his unalloyed merits is a much more gratifying task.

Now, in splitting claims of merits between the PPC and Dixon, I’m inclined to say the PPC (as a movement with religious roots making moral criticisms) has a better toolkit for doing the needed political job than Dixon actually realizes. But on the existing evidence, I’d credit Dixon with a better understanding of what the job actually is. So I’d strongly urge the PPC to enlist Dixon (or someone with a similar perspective) as an adviser on its project, lest it botch that project by misapplying its powerful tools—or failing to use others it may need.

Setting tool and job metaphors aside, the existing evidence suggests Dixon’s diagnosis of our political woes is nearly identical to mine: the deep corruption, by plutocratic and militarist interests, of both parties in a structurally two-party system, with Republicans as the more straightforwardly extremist party and Democrats as their insincere, ineffective, and in fact enabling “opposition.” If it’s true, as Noam Chomsky states, that U.S. Republicans are “the most dangerous organization in human history,” it’s likewise true that Democrats like it that way, for only contrast with such a vile party could justify to voters corruption as deep as Democrats’ own. Dixon obviously prefers the Green Party to either (as do I), and if we face simple facts, Greens are almost infinitely closer to Dr. King’s values—and almost infinitely more willing to fight the PPC’s “four evils”—than either party with a prospect of actually holding power. Finally, any accurate diagnosis of our political woes must acknowledge that both major parties use every dirty trick in the book to keep intraparty reformers, let alone reformist third parties, from ever gaining power; and that both command vast media resources, likewise corrupted by plutocratic and militarist interests, that serve as propaganda organs to keep legitimate criticisms and political issues inconvenient to both parties from ever being aired.

While the PPC is quite willing to denounce the vile moral consequences stemming from this diagnosis—and to use civil disobedience to spread the message that those consequences are intolerable—they seem utterly unwilling to spread (by civil disobedience or any other means) the message of the underlying diagnosis.

If my political instincts (and Dixon’s) are correct, the PPC’s denouncing of the consequences of the diagnosis—without daring to pronounce the diagnosis itself—risks reducing the PPC to the role of ineffectual moral scolds, no matter how much civil disobedience they engage in. Why this is so is tellingly explained in terms of one of Dixon’s most spot-on criticisms: the PPC’s unlikelihood ever to denounce Democrats’ pernicious Russiagate narrative.

Taking matters at face value, the PPC would have more stake than anyone in being skeptical of Russiagate. After all, if Russia really is a dangerous enemy hellbent on destroying U.S. democracy, a considerable portion of U.S. military expenditure—such as updating our nuclear arsenal—is fully justified. Ditto for whatever vast new expenditures are required to ward off Russian cyberattacks. And since nuclear weapons are unusable (having value only as deterrence), countering [putative] Russian global aggression will likewise require vast spending on conventional defense. So, accepting the premise that Russia is our determined enemy means kissing goodbye to the domestic spending required for the PPC’s cherished aims, such as fighting poverty or rebuilding our infrastructure to address climate change. And speaking of addressing climate change, we can likewise kiss goodbye to cooperation with Russia—a petrostate whose close collaboration we desperately need—in arresting climate catastrophe. And beyond all this, the clampdown on civil liberties that comes with an active state of war merits mentioning; in a wartime state, the civil liberties of a dissenting movement advocating peace (like the PPC) are most apt to be curtailed.

All in all, a pretty chilling blow to the PPC’s aspirations. Unless Russiagate is the overblown hysteria narrative—the self-serving Democratic propaganda narrative—Bruce Dixon and numerous other principled progressives are virtually certain it is. It’s curious—to say the least—that the PPC doesn’t amplify their voices (as only a movement can) in denouncing a [mendacious and high-handedly fabricated] narrative that thwarts its every aim.

But for fear of offending its Democratic Party supporters, the PPC seems content to let stand Democratic propaganda narratives—lies of fact or omission—that sabotage its own noble aims. So again, Dixon is totally justified in criticizing the PPC for accepting Greens and other left-of-Democrats progressives in its ranks provided they’re kept off stage and placed under a gag order about uttering certain “inconvenient truths.” Like, say, that Green Party principles and policies are infinitely closer to Dr. King’s than those of Democrats. Or, say, that the Democratic National Committee defended its right to rig primaries in court and has subsequently shown its determination to continue suppressing party progressives (see here and here).

Perhaps, ultimately, the PPC shares Chomsky’s view of Republicans as “the most dangerous organization in human history and fears telling the ugly truth about Democrats will cause the election of Republicans. But can’t a disciplined, tightly knit movement simultaneously tell the truth about Democrats while imposing the view that Republicans are worse and are under no circumstances to be voted for? I think of Adolph Reed’s “support” for Hillary Clinton in his superb piece “Vote for the Lying Neoliberal Warmonger: It’s Important”; this piece seems especially appropriate, since “lying neoliberal warmonger” seems to fit Democrats’ controlling leadership and not just Hillary Clinton. Thus portraying the Democratic Party seems much better preparation for practicing civil disobedience against—or issuing ultimatums to—corrupt Democrats the PPC had elected for purely defensive reasons. Like, say, the ultimatum of having its vast membership work to build the Green Party for 2020 if Democrats don’t seize the chance to shape up the PPC offered them in 2018.

If the PPC refuses to use its movement bully pulpit to tell hard truths about Democrats, Dixon’s words about its “lack of any political endgame” will prove prophetic: what good does it do to “vote like never before” when there’s no candidate in either major party worth voting for?

About the Author

Distinguished Collaborator Patrick Walker is co-founder of Revolt Against Plutocracy (RAP) and the Bernie or Bust movement it spawned. Before that, he cut his activist teeth with the anti-fracking and Occupy Scranton PA movements. No longer with RAP, he actively seeks collaborators to build a Bernie or Bust successor movement--one dedicated to fighting neoliberals of both parties (but especially neoliberal Democrats) under Trump. A happily if belatedly married man, Patrick resides with his wife, stepdaughter, and three beloved Sheltie dogs in Williamsville, NY. Patrick can be reached at: pjwalkerzorro@yahoo.com.

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

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The Social Disease Menacing Humanity And Its Cure

BE SURE TO PASS THESE ARTICLES TO FRIENDS AND KIN. A LOT DEPENDS ON THIS. DO YOUR PART.

The name of the disease is capitalism.
And it can't be said often enough.

“We believe the economy should be democratically owned and controlled in order to serve the needs of the many, not to make profits for the few.”

Economic bigotry is at the root of most if not all our problems and while the victims of that bigotry grow in number we are reduced to seeing only certain of them from certain groups often identified because they are indeed subjected to even more bigotry than most. But this amounts to the same old lesser evil politics that pit the majority against one another while a rich minority rules over all. The suppression of a potential majority that could bring about national and help in creating global democracy for the first time in recorded history results in identity group minorities gasping for breath by climbing up and over other groups to achieve their goals commonly mis-identified as dreams, while actually enabling and accomplishing the goals and even dreams of all ruling classes: division of the peasants-workers-citizens potential majority into easily controlled minorities at war among themselves while remaining relatively oblivious to their rulers.

The richest minority in the history of planet earth, with a relative handful of individuals amassing fortunes of billions of dollars while billions of humans live precariously, with many in abject poverty.

Can supporters of the NRA and personal firearms ownership find unity with those who oppose weapons production itself? Can members of Black Lives Matter ever unite with those who believe that white lives don't? Will men who are sexually frustrated ever be able to communicate with women who are sexually set upon? They, and countless other divided humans, can never hope to unify as long as all of us are ruled by market forces under the control of minorities working for private profit before any - if any - consideration for public benefit. Those forces will always produce some gun owners and weapons opponents, some allegedly black and allegedly white people, and legitimately male and female humans who do well enough to be manipulated into competing to achieve even more comfort at the market by having more guns or less, more freedom or less, and more sex or less. But a large and expanding population which is barely able to get by, joined with a growing population that can’t get by at all are unable to compete at this alleged free market where nothing is free and are thus reduced to the totally un-organized status of people without representation at all, except by isolated disorganization or default.

While the upper professional classes among the population find outlets for their problems in gaining college educations and thus a bit more market place presence even while carrying enormous debt, those outlets are becoming more expensive and evasive, leading to greater frustration even among the relatively privileged – and ever more diverse - minority that is programmed to see only those slightly more or less privileged as enemies with little notice if any of those so privileged as to be members of what amounts to almost another race of beings:

To maintain this degree of unfairness based on cosmetic affluence only available at great debt, programmed divisions among the population keep a shrinking minority in varying degrees of comfort but always convinced others are threatening that comfort from below, rarely looking above to the commanding heights so far beyond their reality it can seem a heaven achievable only to the highest priests, ministers, rabbis or imams, or more realistically their secular owner-employers, the super rich so far beyond normal humanity in wealth they might as well be gods superior to past pharaohs, kings, queens or other shamans.

That deplorable condition of humanity is not only maintained but strengthened, at least temporarily, by conditioned adherence to the religious doctrine of market forces under the domain of private control exercised exclusively and primarily in the pursuit of private profit. In order to change the situation for the human race, personally, socially, nationally and most importantly in our global environment, we will need to act on and realize what the opening quote from a group of organized global patriots clearly and succinctly states. If you forgot:

“We believe the economy should be democratically owned and controlled in order to serve the needs of the many, not to make profits for the few.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Frank Scott is founding editor of legalienate.blogspot.com. He lives in Richmond, California.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

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