Monday, September 29, 2014
Smooth Talkers: Marketing Imperial Civil Society
After the Vietnam War, big dogs in the Democratic Party transitioned from belligerent blowhards to smooth talkers. The party of cold warriors became hot stuff. Capitalizing on the popular subculture of peace and love, the Democrats under President Clinton initiated the era of "humanitarian" war. As such, American hegemony could be repackaged as philanthropic.
Ironically, the breakthrough in marketing imperial civil society came about as a result of Clinton's misadventures with his Oval Office intern Monica Lewinsky. When Big Dog got caught with his pants down, the Democratic Party turned to social media for support. Mobilizing support through the NGO MoveOn, Democrats were able to turn a national embarrassment into an organizing opportunity. As time went on, social media would prove to be a useful tool for social engineering.
As servants of Wall Street, the Democrats -- through MoveOn -- began what would become a tsunami of deceptive devices, from Avaaz to Purpose. As pro-war promoters, these NGOs were able to divert attention from high crimes and focus public attention on false pretenses, in turn used to justify perpetual militarism. With the capture of boards at nominally progressive NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the neoliberals represented by Clinton introduced a sophisticated new psychological warfare element to the public arena.
With laundered funding aplenty -- available through neoliberal foundations like Clinton, Gates, Soros, Ford and Rockefeller -- Wall Street (with help from Madison Avenue) has managed to consolidate its war-making portfolio of investments, while simultaneously acquiring a controlling interest in big international NGOs. As civil society institutions (living on pre-coup residual creds), the NGOs, in turn, legitimate the neoliberal incarnation of fascism.
As the architect of NAFTA, Clinton's bonafides on Wall Street are rock solid. While his star faded as a result of the 1999 WTO Ministerial in Seattle, the Clinton Global Initiative to implement Wall Street's Millenium Development Goals seems to have resurrected his pathetic leadership to gold. Perhaps -- like his Wag the Dog war in Sudan -- in time, the memory of Clinton sucking up to the daughter of Uzbekistan's president (known for boiling his political opponents alive) in order to finance his foundation (on proceeds from slave labor) will be forgotten.
Ironically, the breakthrough in marketing imperial civil society came about as a result of Clinton's misadventures with his Oval Office intern Monica Lewinsky. When Big Dog got caught with his pants down, the Democratic Party turned to social media for support. Mobilizing support through the NGO MoveOn, Democrats were able to turn a national embarrassment into an organizing opportunity. As time went on, social media would prove to be a useful tool for social engineering.
As servants of Wall Street, the Democrats -- through MoveOn -- began what would become a tsunami of deceptive devices, from Avaaz to Purpose. As pro-war promoters, these NGOs were able to divert attention from high crimes and focus public attention on false pretenses, in turn used to justify perpetual militarism. With the capture of boards at nominally progressive NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the neoliberals represented by Clinton introduced a sophisticated new psychological warfare element to the public arena.
With laundered funding aplenty -- available through neoliberal foundations like Clinton, Gates, Soros, Ford and Rockefeller -- Wall Street (with help from Madison Avenue) has managed to consolidate its war-making portfolio of investments, while simultaneously acquiring a controlling interest in big international NGOs. As civil society institutions (living on pre-coup residual creds), the NGOs, in turn, legitimate the neoliberal incarnation of fascism.
As the architect of NAFTA, Clinton's bonafides on Wall Street are rock solid. While his star faded as a result of the 1999 WTO Ministerial in Seattle, the Clinton Global Initiative to implement Wall Street's Millenium Development Goals seems to have resurrected his pathetic leadership to gold. Perhaps -- like his Wag the Dog war in Sudan -- in time, the memory of Clinton sucking up to the daughter of Uzbekistan's president (known for boiling his political opponents alive) in order to finance his foundation (on proceeds from slave labor) will be forgotten.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Pro-War NGOs
Thursday, September 25, 2014
PR vs. News
In their recent book, “The Death and Life of American Journalism,” Robert McChesney and John Nichols tracked the number of people working in journalism since 1980 and compared it to the numbers for public relations. Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they found that the number of journalists has fallen drastically while public relations people have multiplied at an even faster rate. In 1980, there were about .45 PR workers per 100,000 population compared with .36 journalists. In 2008, there were .90 PR people per 100,000 compared to .25 journalists. That’s a ratio of more than three-to-one, better equipped, better financed.
–PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms, Pro Publica
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Unconscious Milieu
I recently called out TRNN and FAIR for hypocrisy in covering up the Klein cult con. They rant about broadcast media giving biased attention to 350's climate march, while self-censoring on behalf of Naomi.
I believe this is a matter of stupidity, not malice, which just goes to show how naive the orthodox left is in the US.
This is what I term reversion to infancy, where responsibilities are ceded in the face of overwhelming crises, and political illiteracy is enshrined.
The HEAD case progression (hysteria/euphoria/anger/depression) of the Klein cult is a fascinating phenomenon. The 350 swooning over partnership with Wall Street aristocrats like Rockefeller Brothers gives new meaning to self-delusion.
The celebrity worship we are witnessing, by these adherents of advertising, indicates they have already become groupies of gala. For all their claims to raising consciousness, The Climateers are a distinctly unconscious milieu.
Whenever progressives come up with another ineffective response to a crisis, they fall back on the consciousness-raising excuse as justification. They are very good (and experienced) losers.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Skirting the Real News
It's fine that Hedges and DeChristopher decry frauds like Jones, but given 350's many hoaxes funded by Wall Street (i.e. KXL, Clean Energy, Divestment, New Economy), when are independent journalists going to examine Klein and 350, itself a Big Green NGO on the payroll of Rockefeller Brothers and Warren Buffett. If you're going to investigate major fraud, you might want to get real about the agenda of Avaaz, Purpose and 350. Skirting around the issue of hijacked activism that 350 represents aids Wall Street, not Main Street.
Climate Change Clean Up
With Wall Street, the UN, 350 and the Rockefellers all on the same side, can it be long before they announce a new partnership to invest in clean energy?
Could this be modeled on REDD and the 2008 bank bailout?
Sure! Just give Wall Street the keys to the U.S. Treasury.
Wait, I forgot, they already have them. I wonder what they will name this fiasco?
Maybe with the World Bank as a partner, it could be Climate Change Clean Up.
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Fellow Travelers
Garikai Chengu explains Islamic terrorism as a product of U.S. policy, funding and intervention on behalf of Israel, Wall Street and the military elite.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Rapture in Blue
Witnessing the radical blue rants, escalating in anticipation of this weekend’s revival in Manhattan, one is reminded of charismatic church gatherings that in 1999 preceded the millenium celebrations. Lots of hysteria, little reason.
Using the three strikes analogy, so popular in the US, Naomi Klein — the charismatic leader seemingly destined to soon rival Oprah — struck out with her climate week plan to flood Manhattan with a People’s Climate March. As with her two previous strikes — the KXL hoax, and the divestment diversion — the Charms of Naomi only benefit Wall Street, not democracy or the environment. Klein’s new economy campaign, so seductive to A Culture of Imbeciles, likewise, will in time prove to be nothing but bubbles–or as Klein put it in her vapid new book, an “effervescent moment.”
Our only hope is informational public health. The delusions of grandeur in the Klein cult house of cards will eventually collapse. At that point, the present hysteria might look tame by comparison.
Never Land: The Chimera of Clean Energy
The Climateers demand to end fossil fuels is so nonsensical, no one but progressives would suggest it. This gets into the Never Land fantasies, so pervasive in this milieu. Our society would collapse without fossil fuels, yet the chimera of clean energy (whatever that is) lures Klein groupies like the sirens. Seductive energy tales, like most fairy tales, contain a little bit of truth and a whole lot of fantasy.
The Klein mantra against capitalism as the culprit for climate change oddly never mentions the word consumerism. Blaming Wall Street is popular; challenging American gluttony is not. If the capitalist system is supported by consumerism, militarism and racism, then we would benefit from targeting them.
Klein’s radical chic persona as anti-capitalist Superwoman — marketed everywhere in media — obscures the fact that capitalism is perpetuated by brainwashing, propaganda and social engineering. Something Klein and 350 have a lot of experience at.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Join the Blue Team
Moral Theatrics Careers
Careers in the moral theatrics industry are not hard to come by, given all the corporate money available for this purpose. What is hard to come by are honest, reflective people in this industry, willing to examine the social engineering perpetuated by the foundations that fund the NGOs they work for. And willing to walk away from the grants, paychecks and prestige once they recognize the hypocrisy and fraud they have become a part of.
Monday, September 15, 2014
God and Mammon: Time to Choose
In Let Us Now Praise Wealthy Men?: Structural Poverty, Religiously (Re)Considered, Peter Laarman interviews Joerg Rieger, a leading theological thinker in relation to economic justice. As Rieger notes, wealth is about power, and the goal of the culture we have created is to please them and to follow their wishes. This servility and deference to the rich, says Rieger, has now become normalized, shaping the way we think, dream and believe. To counter the power of corporate owners, he observes, churches and unions need to wake up and join the struggle.
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Climateers Hoodwinked by Buffett
In Keystone XL: The Art of NGO Discourse, Cory Morningstar reveals how Warren Buffett used 350 to herd the climateers into the KXL distraction so his oil-by-rail empire could develop. Obscuring his stock market money via his family foundation NoVo, Buffett then laundered it through TIDES to fund 350, thus creating an illusion of green activism, that in reality was a corporate front. By financing campaigns presented as “grassroots,” Buffet thereby hoodwinked the climateers into doing his bidding.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Guiding Light: Neoliberalism and Ronald Reagan
Neoliberalism is a quaint term, that when applied to its leading lights like Obama and Hillary, seems almost benign. Who could be against the first Black president of the US, and his heir apparent, potentially the first woman president of the US?
Neoliberalism, however, is rooted in the Reagan Revolution of 1980, when this long-time fascist and former Hollywood FBI anti-Communist snitch teamed up with Ed Meese, the former Bay Area anti-free speech prosecutor, to create the most criminal U.S. administration in history. In fact, when campaigning for president in 2008, Obama publicly announced that his ideological mentor was Ronald Reagan.
While Reagan's term as Governor of California in the 1960s was replete with FBI collusion against the Free Speech Movement, initiated by students at UC Berkeley, his career as an informer during the HUAC witch hunts against Hollywood screenwriters and actors were his formative years. The fact Obama chose him as his guiding light says something definitive about Neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism, however, is rooted in the Reagan Revolution of 1980, when this long-time fascist and former Hollywood FBI anti-Communist snitch teamed up with Ed Meese, the former Bay Area anti-free speech prosecutor, to create the most criminal U.S. administration in history. In fact, when campaigning for president in 2008, Obama publicly announced that his ideological mentor was Ronald Reagan.
While Reagan's term as Governor of California in the 1960s was replete with FBI collusion against the Free Speech Movement, initiated by students at UC Berkeley, his career as an informer during the HUAC witch hunts against Hollywood screenwriters and actors were his formative years. The fact Obama chose him as his guiding light says something definitive about Neoliberalism.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
RINGO Revival: The Klein Kids Do New York
The RINGO Revival is starting to resemble The Mouseketeers.
Speaking of which, climate week (September 19-26) in New York is chock full of totally revolutionary events--like wearing the color blue to show Wall Street how formidable they are.
One has to wonder what kind of Kool-Aid the Klein Kids have been drinking.
Speaking of which, climate week (September 19-26) in New York is chock full of totally revolutionary events--like wearing the color blue to show Wall Street how formidable they are.
One has to wonder what kind of Kool-Aid the Klein Kids have been drinking.
Sunday, September 07, 2014
Full Spectrum Dominance
As the infosphere becomes inundated by fossil-fueled front groups like 350, psychological warfare leading up to climate change week in New York (September 20-26) will play a distorting role in the public imagination; spectacle above all! Blaming the fossil fuel industry for climate change — while ignoring the fossil fuel demand by hypocritical consumers — will assuage the public conscience, while offering no practical, honest solutions.
This is Netwar at its most challenging; Communications in Conflict.
For those who actually want to do something constructive, as opposed to engaging in NGO-fostered fantasies, we offer the following:
- Cut fossil fuel consumption! End fossil fuel export!
- Walk, bike, paddle and gallop to a climate convergence near you!
- Stop flying on airplanes for marches, ecotourism and social forums!
- Take no fossil fuel money from Shell Oil, Ford and Rockefeller Brothers Fund!
- Get real! Don’t sell-out like First Peoples Worldwide (Shell) or 350 (Rockefeller)!
Friday, September 05, 2014
The Final Solution
Mark Kernan discusses the World Bank's plans for out sourcing responsibility for social and environmental concerns to financial intermediaries--an escalation of the human rights and ecological catastrophes already well underway by the bank and its transnational corporate partners.
Thursday, September 04, 2014
Up the Revolution
