World War III: Pillage and plunder

A continuation of thoughts from World War III: A status update (2014), World War III: A picture (2012), and A Stateless War (2010)

Another revolution of the same wheel

The word crisis is derived from a word meaning ‘turning point’. For all the crises we think the world has been through, there is very rarely a turn. Indeed, history can appear more like an inexorably straight path with predictable periodic bumps. The tools to effect a real change are available now, but real change would require a real direction and goals. Without these, this revolution will end as all the others eventually have, with new tyrants. – Me, World War III: A picture, 2012

It hasn’t been comparatively long since World War III: A status update, but we are already in need of another update. Not only is it now irrefutably clear that what has been billed for the last few years as a new multi-polar empire will be unabashedly a Chinese feudal empire instead, it looks almost as though it is a fait accompli and the death throes of the US empire-that-never-was may be far less than I anticipated.

China’s new puppet states suddenly include not just NAM and BRICS members but also any US allies that may have been expected to oppose their expansion, including all members of the five eyes themselves. Shell and BP trade LNG to China in exchange for nuclear plants where the UK takes the risk and China receives the energy and rail lines where safety is left to the extremely unsafe Chinese firms. China’s President demands an audience with the UK queen and she is brought forth like an aged Cleopatra, her unwillingness a trophy for the ability of the new empire to bend the old to its will. Even the US, which currently stands alone in denying the new order, has signed away far more sovereignty over their resources than most of their media will admit and their heavily IP dependent economy is very vulnerable to any changes China should choose to make to IP laws and trade agreements. The US military has changed its tone from aggression to a wish for joint exercises, a tolerance of China’s spy ships and a ‘review’ of their defence agreement with Japan.

When corporations rule the world there is no need for invasions, conquest is a simple matter of mergers, acquisitions and trade agreements. There is also no need for resistance as those who own the corporations benefit either way and will sign the deal most attractive to themselves. Those world leaders supposedly in conflict are always open to negotiate and change allegiances with each other and use their media tools to redirect the people’s hatred and fear. They meet and shake hands with each other while they are too afraid to meet or shake the hands of those we call ‘their people’.

The collapse of the former global resource mafia cartel has led to the global resource mafia gang war I outlined in 2012 and it does involve the entire world as predicted. The collapse of the former power and wealth ponzi schemes in some states have led to a decentralized governance by trade mafia which looks exactly like horizontal, egalitarian, libertarian / p2p trade economy is designed to look: survival of the strongest, most tyrannical and most violent, subjection of all who build society and care for the weak. The violence, destruction and senselessness of this gang war will ensure that what will now become a global feudal structure is welcomed as a respite. It will take little reminding of the horrors of the Islamic State, Boko Haram and all the other militias to convince people for a long time into the future that self-governance is impossible.

As the revolution(s) which brought us to a global resource cartel resulted in a far more insidious, all powerful and far reaching tyranny than the military empires it replaced, this latest revolution will convert us into a state of cattle-like product with far less free will than even the current power structure. Trade rivalries are giving way to a crushing global feudal structure which controls all resources with no rivals and tolerates no dissent.

A Dutchman, an American and an Englishman met in a castle

In 1928, the founders of Royal Dutch Shell, Standard Oil (now Exxon) and the future British Petroleum met and formed a secret oil cartel. By the end of the 1960s, they had been joined by four other US based companies and were known as the Seven Sisters. This powerful cartel not only controlled 85 percent of the world’s oil reserves but they dictated governance, controlled the economy and destroyed the economic and environmental life of much of the world. Along with the international banking cartel and other resource corporations they perpetuated the old trade empire and economic slavery of most of the world.

After various mergers, the old seven sisters are now British Petroleum, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell and today they control just 10 percent. According to the Financial Times, the new Seven Sisters are Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Aramco, Russia’s Gazprom, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the National Iranian Oil Company, Venezuela’s PDVSA, Brazil’s Petrobras, and Malaysia’s Petronas. The move by many oil-producing states to nationalization of resources was an attempt to combat the pillage by imperial multinationals. Unfortunately, the trade economy was left intact and decentralized resource mafia remained mafia.

Those states attempting nationalization were embargoed like Iran, corrupted like Nigeria and forced to create polar security states opposing the force of the multi-nationals. The residents of these states were left with the choice of living with corruption, militarization and bad governance within their own government or protesting their governance and leaving themselves open to occupation by the multinationals. A state under siege can justify and be allowed far greater atrocities than would ever be tolerated in a free state. If the people refused either dictatorship, they found themselves in a civil war like Sudan or with the militia and human rights horrors found in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern provinces, under de facto rule by drugged boys with guns feeding off forced labour of children. The more localized the control over resources, the less expertise is available and hand dug mines in Burkina Faso and Indonesia collapse on children working with no protection or medical or environmental expertise.

The price of security is enslavement. Resources are stolen in the name of free trade, ideas are locked in imperial vaults and ‘theft’ from your own commons is criminalized. Nigeria and Brazil swap food self sufficiency for oil and biofuel money, Paraguay and Mali sell their water to corporations from states with more than plenty, Niger poisons its land to power France, and pollution, climate change, drugs and guns devastate entire populations. The multinationals run a protection racket which, when removed, leaves the people open to a shadow trade economy mafia supplied and fed by the global governments. International laws and trade agreements are used to assert legal power over people who never consented to the laws or treaties, and representative governance is used to pretend the consent of the governing is the same as the consent of the governed. Peace in a trade economy is a crushing mafia cartel.

The resource war currently raging all over the world will only get worse as the populations of Africa and India continue to soar and the already huge populations of China and India attain middle class and demand more water, meat, fuel and other luxuries. Global water use has quadrupled in the last century and seven countries, the United States, United Arab Emirates, India, United Kingdom, Egypt, China and Israel, own 60 percent of the water acquired by corporations globally. What is far worse is the precious water resources that exist, from the Guarani aquifer in South America to the Great Lakes of North America, from the Lake Chad Basin in Africa to the Aral Sea region in Central Asia, are being pillaged and polluted by corporations of other industries such as fracking, agriculture and manufacturing. Agriculture accounts for 70% of total water usage world-wide and food production is also being moved to countries which can be locked out when a water shortage appears. The borders which prevent migration by those who need food and water do not prevent pollution and resource theft by the borderless multinationals.

Water and the environment are multi-state shared resources being destroyed by a coercive structure that does not recognize commons property and uses fixed borders to lock out the repercussions of fluid pollution and pillage. The pressure caused by this destruction will and is becoming too great for those physical borders and military violence to contain. Instead of collaborating on solutions to all of the quite solvable crisis before us, the mafia in power have made the decision to let millions, if not billions, die and have invested in military and border security instead.

A current study on population growth projections finds an 80% probability that world population, now 7.2 billion, will increase to between 9.6 and 12.3 billion by 2100. Growth will occur primarily from nations which have suffered from trade pillaging, including aboriginal populations in the Americas. In the wealthy states, as well as the rapidly growing economies such as China, Brazil and India, an ‘epidemic of aging’ is projected instead.

The biggest industries of the shadow trade mafia are all genocidal. The weapons for populations to destroy each other with greater ease and the drugs to increase the violence and incapacitate effective resistance have been supplemented with the rapid growth of the human trafficking industry. People are bought and sold as products for militias, prostitution, marriage, slavery, organ trafficking and even ritual killings. People are tortured for ransom and charged for their passage as refugees. The shadow human trafficking industry is now vying with the arms industry as the top criminal industry in the world, and with the Australian government’s recent sale of refugees to Cambodia it has become openly a government activity as it always has been secretly.

There is also a global gender imbalance which has been caused by the femicidal actions of populations in China and India, the current and projected largest populations in the world, as well as other places. Since China and India are also two of the wealthiest economies, they can afford to spread their severe imbalance to other nations. More than ever in history, women are a global commodity.

The injustice and desperation experienced by those watching their families die, their homes destroyed and their resources stolen result in a natural resistance which is harnessed by rival gangs in the resource war. Any rebel movement of any skill begins to spread influence not by threats with guns but by hoarding and distribution of essential resources, creating need by hoarding then building loyalty and dependence with distribution. As long as there is a trade economy there will be rule by mafia, whether the mafia is local, national or global. There are alternatives to the trade economy and more could be developed if anyone were inclined to do so.

United States: The empire that never really was

As the world knows, the United States was once part of the British empire. As control of trade and currency replaced and supplemented military occupation, the five eyes and their associates continued to act as one, sharing policy and goals. While the United States acted as the imperial military, Canada quietly acted as the imperial resource corporation and the UK and others helped continue one cohesive empire with the illusion of sovereign national states. The transfer of the seat of control from the UK to the US made no real difference to the co-operative alliances.

The primary result of transferring control of empire from the UK to the US was it enabled a very different method of empirical control. The US constitution promoted what was billed as an extreme lack of governance in the name of ‘freedom’. This was not a real lack of governance as both the institutionalized violence and the new ownership laws enabled the mafia to take control and crush all who would build or maintain the previously existing societies. Freedom and legal protection for all who were strong enough to steal from the commons and the insistence that all were equally able to care for themselves very predictably resulted in governance by mafia. Privatization of state functions extended even to intelligence and military and soon formalized into a corporate structure free to do exactly as they wished worldwide as a free roaming mafia with no effective state ties. As Blackwater founder and current mercenary to Chinese corporations Erik Prince points out, the US was founded by militias.

Canada was formerly a resource corporation known as the Hudson’s Bay Company. There is very little difference between that former corporation and a state in which every Prime Minister for many decades was financially dependent on or actually related to the principals of Power Corporation. Canada’s laws have aided the more than 75% of the world’s resource corporations registered there to avoid legal responsibility for their human rights and environmental disasters worldwide. The governments of the five eyes have never had any claim to being nations despite their violent national rhetoric. All were set up as a resource mafia cartel to control the rival gangs.

The corporate freedoms which stripped society, governance and the commons from the people and dissociated people from their interdependent nations have also neatly packaged all control of these regions into saleable entities. These countries now have very little legal recourse against their corporate free agents being collected tidily in China’s basket, and their legal protection is less every day.

The so-called US empire may historically be seen as part of the collapse of the British empire or the transition between the British and Chinese empires, between a militarized trade empire and a global corporate feudal empire.

It is hard to imagine anything worse than the US empire with its mass assassinations by robot and cultural decay, but a worse alternative would probably include mass citizen trials and thousands of pigs floating in the drinking water. Unlike the US, China does not pretend to value individual rights or freedom above the state and is open about methods of thought reform. Neither does the Chinese ruling party dissemble about their status as the new empire or their lack of admiration for the intelligence and competence of other nations.
 Unlike the US, China has concentrated on building infrastructure globally instead of military bases, but the quality of that infrastructure has too often shown corruption and a lack of concern for human life.

The binary thinking and Good Guys vs Bad Guys narrative that has been the defining theme of corporate propaganda has many thinking that any state opposing the US empire must be a saviour. China does not oppose the US. The light rivalries between the governments of the world never put them on opposite sides. The enemy of your enemy is very much the same as them and they are both working against you. The new feudal structure also has many continuing the fantasy of a multi-polar empire, but a glance at trade agreements and foreign investment is enough to show clearly that the multi-polar feudal lords have all pledged allegiance to China. It does not matter at all where the headquarters of the empire is in any case, those holding power are all allies and none of them are going to save their natural enemies, all of those below them.

The trade economy ponzi scheme has reached its natural conclusion in the new global empire. The people most likely to overthrow Chinese or global corporate rule are not the US military or any other rival state, but the Chinese people and the people of the world. In order for this to occur, the people of the world would have to accept that no messiah will save them and see the root principles of the ponzi schemes of power and wealth that enabled the empire. Most of all, for any revolution to result in actual change, there must be a new path built with new principles.

To be continued ….

Related:

Binding Chaos
Autonomy, Diversity, Society
Releasing Chaos

World War III: A picture

     Member and observer countries of Non-Aligned Movement plus Russia are in blue.

Exactly two years ago, I started this blog with a post about A Stateless War which discussed an upcoming conflict of “The military industrial complex against the anonymous cloud, with an ignorant populace as the prize.” That conflict is largely behind us: few in the world are as ignorant as they were two years ago, and we are beyond the point where information alone can correct the social and political disasters we see around us.

Based on our current still entirely alterable trajectory, by the end of 2012 it will be apparent that we are in a new war, this time involving states. World War III will do as a name, or we can call it the Military States against the Resource States. Of course that sounds like something we’ve been in for decades; the difference is it is starting to look a lot more two sided.

Since the Cold War, the world has been socially controlled by methods which may have been lifted from Hollywood high school movies. The US state cables showed us a world in which the United States largely controls all international forums and debates with a mixture of threats and bribes and a circle of allies who do not dare risk expulsion from the inner circle by disagreement. The inner circle has largely echoed the previous imperial world, with IMF loans replacing direct occupation, but potential membership is held out as an incentive to others as well. Countries such as Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) are invited to the bigger parties, and given trade deals, military sales and social protection in exchange for their support of the inner circle. The BRICS countries then wield their own social power in similar fashion in their own regions.

As in all Hollywood movies, stability for the inner circle ends when the bullying gets out of hand. When social ostracization becomes so extreme it threatens actual survival, as it does for Cuba, Palestine, Iran, Somalia, North Korea and others, when no negotiation short of complete obliteration of self is acceptable, the entire social structure is threatened, more so as more members are outcast. The world has watched as Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and many others have been inhumanely tormented with no possibility of reprieve or negotiation and no defence from any stronger nation. If extreme bullying such as that detailed in the Palestine Papers is combined with any sudden unexpected weakness in the bully or strength in the bullied, the result is predictable and instant.

And so it has been.

The weaknesses in the US and other NATO countries have been very well researched and documented in recent years, but except for the obvious economic collapse they have not received widespread discussion. Here are some other points that may become key very soon.

1. The US does not actually control their own military or intelligence and the private corporations that do, do not operate from patriotic loyalty and are available to the highest bidder. They do not work if they are not paid. Many are not even citizens of the US. Not just the people, at the highest ranks, but even the military hard assets are frequently privately owned.

2. US trade relies heavily on intellectual property and increasingly draconian laws to protect and increase the value of that property. Intellectual property is a concept, not a good, and it does not exist if trade partners do not acknowledge it. Even loan interest typically comes with a contract and some trust which will be lost if the contract is broken; there is nothing to be lost by people who refuse to pay for intellectual property. For years the industry has tried to make the case that if intellectual property were not copyrighted and patented, creative activity would halt, but the open source and pirate movements have proven the opposite to be true. Since it is very rarely the creators who control the intellectual property rights to their own work, or have the resources to fight infringement, the moral argument that creativity ought to be compensated by IP laws is also very weak. This leaves the G20 countries, US particularly, with no protection other than force and increasingly controversial extraditions to claim income from intellectual property. In a time of war, this would be a very precarious basis for trade, particularly since the US is the sole beneficiary of the extreme laws today and the rest of the G20 would benefit from a relaxation of IP law.

All of the statistics on this site are very interesting. Here are a few:

74% of exports– or $1 trillion– are driven by American IP-intensive industries. (Global Intellectual Property Center: “IP Creates Jobs for America,” NDP Consulting, May 2012.)

Among the 27 tradable industries, only six industries reported trade surpluses—five of which were IP-intensive industries, generating an average $14.6 billion in trade surplus each year. (“The Impact of Innovation and the Role of Intellectual Property Rights on U.S. Productivity, Competitiveness, Jobs, Wages and Exports,” NDP Consulting, 2010)

G20 economies have lost 2.5 million jobs to counterfeiting and piracy. (Frontier Economics, Estimating the Global Economic and Social Impacts of Counterfeiting and Piracy, February 2011.)

India and Pakistan both made the “Top Ten Source Countries” this year due to seizures of counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceutical seizures accounted for 86% of the value of IPR seizures from India and 85% of the value of IPR seizures from Pakistan. (Customs and Border Protection, Intellectual Property Rights – Seizure Statistics: Fiscal Year 2011)

3. As the world’s most capitalist economy, the US has arguably the least societal support in the event of a collapse. Years of competitive and unhealthy consumerism, in which consumers are divorced from production, in the world’s most addicted and most incarcerated population create a societal helplessness not seen in most places. All of the G20 countries have favoured corporations over people to the extent that surviving in a collapsed economy is difficult to impossible without rewriting many property ownership and usage laws.

NATO countries are in green.

The Acronyms and Isolation

As in the prelude to the past world wars, many economic and defence treaties have been negotiated over the years to protect US dominance in each region. A favoured bullying tactic has been to exclude countries from these international clubs to cripple their economies and ability to defend themselves. There has been increasing activity to combat this practise.

The United Nations and all of its arms have served to protect the inner circle on a global level. In 1961 the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was formed to represent countries not aligned with either the US or the USSR. In the Havana Declaration of 1979, Fidel Castro identified the purpose of the organization to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries” in their “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics”.

The 120 member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations’s members and contain 55% of the world population before adding the 21 other observer countries. The Summit last week in Tehran included representatives from 130-150 countries, shown in the map at the top of this article. (There are only approximately 192 countries in the world.) Attendance at the highest level included 27 presidents, 2 kings and emirs, 7 prime ministers, 9 vice presidents, 2 parliament spokesmen and 5 special envoys as well as the Secretary-General of the UN. Resolutions included condemnation of the blockade of Cuba and the Paraguay coup, support to Argentina regarding the Malvinas, known in the UK as the Falklands, support to Ecuador over the UK’s threats to its embassy, calls for transformation of the United Nations, calls for the US to stop its illegal drone attacks in Pakistan, calls for disarmament and much more. The reaction in the NATO countries was to ignore the Summit except when deriding its relevance, but it is hardly possible to seriously deny the relevance of a gathering of over 7000 people from the top levels of approximately 150 countries creating a final resolution which included over 700 clauses on world policy. If these countries were all to leave the UN, or begin to vote as a bloc at the UN, there would be a split between NAM countries and NATO countries.

There are many lesser alliances that have worked to enable US and NATO domination in past decades. One of the oldest alliances, created in 1948 out of previous pan-American alliances formed since 1826, is the Organization of American States. This is the organization the US used to create an embargo on Cuba in 1962, an embargo refused only by Canada (who was not a member till 1990) and Mexico. In 2013 there will be 41 member states in the OAS. In 2004 the Cuba-Venezuela Agreement was signed and it proposed an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The alternative coming out of the Cuba-Venezuela Agreement is known as ALBA and now includes eight (soon to be eleven) countries. In 2008, the 12 member Unasur agreement, which includes a defence treaty, was signed, and in 2011 CELAC was created. CELAC members include all members of the OAS except the US and Canada.

In 1947 the Rio Treaty (TIAR) was signed for ‘hemispheric defense’ and was later invoked by the US against Cuba. During the Malvinas (Falklands) war, the US sided with the UK, and during the Iraq war only four countries joined the US. Mexico and Canada are not members, all members of ALBA withdrew in June of 2012, and the treaty is now largely ignored in favour of the Unasur defence agreement.

These new organizations come amid objections to the US and Canada preventing any resolutions from going through at the OAS. These two countries have repeatedly blocked resolutions agreed to by all of the rest of the 35, such as inclusion of Cuba, new solutions to the drug war and solidarity with Argentina over the Malvinas/Falklands. The OAS is a consensus based organization, so it can and has been run, in the words of Venezuela’s Chavez, as a ‘dictatorship’ by those who refuse to negotiate, the two NATO countries.

In August of 2012, an emergency meeting of the OAS was called to decide whether to hold a second meeting to discuss a resolution on the embassy dispute between Ecuador and the UK. The US and Canada (and Trinidad & Tobago) argued against a subsequent meeting and were overruled this time by a vote. After a weekend of hurried meetings of ALBA, Unasur, and others, the OAS meeting in Washington DC was held and also put to a vote. The US delivered a sullen agreement and Canada a more petulant refusal, but in a population of 33 the one consensus breaking vote was irrelevant. While media in NATO countries concentrated on the resolution itself, calling it largely ineffective, the resolution was not the point. The two countries which had ruled the 35 country bloc with their vetos were this time made irrelevant. The message in both the vote and the rhetoric was clear; if the OAS is to survive in any form and not be replaced by CELAC, the NATO countries will no longer be permitted to simply block resolutions.

The two countries which excluded Cuba from the OAS have become, as a direct result of an organization started by Fidel Castro, the two that are now themselves excluded. The countries that have lobbied for sanctions against Iran have been ignored by the 120 members and 21 observers of the NAM which have selected Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the current chairperson. In 2015 the chair will be handed over to Venezuela, another arch-enemy of the US as the organization continues to define itself along lines set out by Fidel Castro in 1979. Ecuador, a member of ALBA, Unasur, CELAC and NAM as well as many other alliances, has already threatened sanctions against the UK over the Malvinas/Falklands.

The NATO countries are suddenly in very real peril of having sanctions imposed against themselves. How real is the threat of solidarity among NAM members? Within days of the summit, Canada had closed the Iranian embassy in Canada and Netanyahu was berating Obama over not delivering stronger ultimatums to Iran. Iran does not think that is a coincidence.

NATO Partnerships

Does the 1% need the 99%?

It is very evident that in terms of population and resources the side I will call the NAM countries are in a superior position. It is equally evident that in terms of military, the NATO countries are vastly superior; NATO countries control over 70% of the world’s military spending. So while resource trade embargos could quickly plummet NATO countries into what they would probably consider dystopia, or a state resembling that of the global south, NATO countries could also use their military to wipe out populations in the NAM countries, using unmanned and even autonomous drones, and they could create embargos by blocking trade between NAM countries.

What is the loyalty between the NATO countries? How many will stand together in the face of embargos? In the case of the intelligence, defense science and technology sharing countries, particularly the countries known as the five eyes, their governments’ loyalty to each other has been shown to be similar to that of a gang or a cult. What they know of each other is probably enough to ensure allegiance unless their governments are completely taken over by new people and trials started for crimes against humanity and war crimes. More importantly, their corporate ties are far too strong to break. At the moment they are too invested in protecting each other for a split.

Japan’s spat with China coming at this time may put them firmly on the five eyes’ side. Or not. Japan rejected bilateral or regional agreements for many years and has far less explicit ties than most countries. As the third or fourth largest economy, they may also be able to afford independence. And their biggest trading partner is still China. Trade relationships are handy to help us make predictions, although they are by no means the whole story, potential trade relationships may be an even bigger influencer at this point as many countries try to back away from troubled economies.

The key then becomes whether individual NATO countries feel it is easier to back a new BRICS led empire, or back the existing US empire, since none of the core NATO countries is strong enough to build a new empire on its own and their corporate powers will not back a real democracy. At this moment, none have shown any inclination to prefer a BRICS led NAM alliance, but the EU members may be far too preoccupied with matters at home to involve themselves in global issues, on either side. Many NATO partners will choose individually as they have conflicting agreements, while some like Israel are easy to predict.

The corporations control the money and therefore the military and the NATO countries. The people provide labour for the corporations, including the military. There are far more people than the corporations and the few who control them actually need for labour, but the world in general is facing an imminent shortage of young people to care for their aging populations. Whether care for aging populations will be a priority remains to be seen. Automated warfare has made it much harder for people to regain control of their own military. The general populaton would have to track the few people who control the corporations, the governments and the military and regain control by removing control from those who hold it currently.

What is the power of the people over the corporations? On the NATO side, very little to none. On the NAM side, that is possibly the most interesting place to watch, which countries, if any, will attempt co-operative governance which benefits people ahead of corporations, and whether that will break the NAM alliance in two or even completely disintegrate it into many civil wars. Or even possibly work in some countries, and if some countries do implement governance by the people, will it look again like communism, with a corrupt central core and a corrupt military required to stop the capitalist imperialists from invading, or will there be a new model? If there is a new model, how will it stop the corporate invasion?

The NAM countries are hardly a unified bloc either. While they are largely all against NATO dominance, most of them (particularly BRICS countries) want a ‘multi-polar’ world, or a world with multiple tyrants including themselves. Outside of BRICS, the smaller countries want a place for the elite of every country. There is no real political representation of control by the people which has any power at this moment. How can governance by the people gain control in this conflict?

Who will win? At this point, it hardly matters. If NATO wins it is status quo, if some form of NAM wins it will quickly become the new NATO, using the threat of the old NATO to justify its own imperialism. This is the pattern we have seen in every revolution since the beginning of society, sometimes appearing instantly, sometimes edging forward in a few decades.

How can we create real governance by the people out of this conflict?

The word crisis is derived from a word meaning ‘turning point’. For all the crises we think the world has been through, there is very rarely a turn. Indeed, history can appear more like an inexorably straight path with predictable periodic bumps. The tools to effect a real change are available now, but real change would require a real direction and goals. Without these, this revolution will end as all the others eventually have, with new tyrants.

The latest crisis will disrupt every corner of the world. By the end of 2015 we will have either a new system or new tyrants. For us to create real change from this, there needs to be a working venue, an uncensorable place to communicate both locally in person and globally online. There needs to be a new system of collaboration that will be stronger than the systems of governance we have had so far. We need a system that can react quickly and powerfully enough, with enough knowledge and expertise, to allow collaboration on a massive scale and still provide enough autonomy for local governance.

I will be writing a lot about both the communication and the collaboration soon, starting here.

2011-01-03 US Dep’t of State Internet Freedom Programs

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) are looking for organizations interested in submitting proposals for projects that support what the document terms ‘internet freedom’. Specifically, they have US$30 million for

projects that will foster freedom of expression and the free flow of information on the Internet and other connection technologies in East Asia, including China and Burma; the Near East, including Iran; Southeast Asia; the South Caucasus; Eurasia, including Russia; Central Asia; Latin America, including Cuba and Venezuela; and Africa. Programming may support activities in Farsi, Chinese, Russian, Burmese, Spanish, Vietnamese, Arabic, French, and other languages spoken in acutely hostile Internet environments.

 

The State Department’s previous attempts at promoting ‘internet freedom’ met with a lack of success, according to Foreign Policy because “By aligning themselves with Internet companies and organizations, Clinton’s digital diplomats have convinced their enemies abroad that Internet freedom is another Trojan horse for American imperialism.” The statement from the link above: “DRL and NEA support programs … in countries and regions of the world that are geo-strategically important to the United States.” may have helped convince their enemies. They will have the opportunity to disprove that idea when all of the following technology is turned in all other directions, as history shows it will be. Always assuming any of the new projects work better than, for instance, Haystack.

Counter-censorship Technology: … to get around firewalls and filters in acutely hostile Internet environments.

Building the Technology Capacity of Digital Activists and Civil Society in Hostile Internet Environments in the Near East: Training on and access to communication platforms to share electronic information securely; training for activists, bloggers, citizen journalists, and civil society organizations to allow them to safely and anonymously participate in online forums; and promotion of peer-to-peer data sharing between mobile devices.

Virtual Open Internet Centers: … identify and archive censored content and creatively reintroduce content and counter-censorship tools into those online environments. … Competitive proposals will include centers focused on two or more of the following languages: Farsi, Chinese, Arabic, Vietnamese, Russian, Spanish, and Burmese, in addition to languages of other countries with hostile Internet environments.

Emergency funding: Establishment of an emergency fund for netizens under threat because of their web-based activism. …

Internet Public Policy: Support for projects focused on media law reform in countries where changing legal and regulatory frameworks for the Internet have the potential to create acutely hostile Internet environments. …

From Foreign Policy:

“The Internet is far too valuable to become an agent of Washington’s digital diplomats. The idea that the U.S. government can advance the cause of Internet freedom by loudly affirming its commitment to it — especially when it hypocritically attempts to shut down projects like WikiLeaks — is delusional. The best way to promote the goals behind the Internet Freedom Agenda may be not to have an agenda at all.

Get Healthy Get Strong, Get Educated and Informed

And start contributing to your own governance. If you want a democratic society, that is. I try not to get too preachy here, but the western population has been programmed towards a certain end, and if we are going to change the world, we need to at least be aware of this. The things we have been taught and fed for decades were part of a system meant to create an uneducated, ignorant, distracted populace. The military industrial complex has been with us for a long time and they have thought about these things. In order to fight them, we have to stop playing their games.

Get healthy: There is a very real reason why people are being fed food, pharmaceuticals, and environmental hazards that destroy their health. It is impossible to concentrate on the world’s problems when you are suffering from any of the myriad autoimmune and other diseases everyone seems afflicted with. And it is impossible to think clearly through the brain fog and personality disorders being triggered by all the pollutants we are fed. The subsequent foggy thinking and miserable angry feeling are then fed by substandard education systems and violence in all media until we have a population that greets the Collateral Murder video with open youtube arms and sets it to music. When people start bouncing and singing to a video of civilians and children being slaughtered, we have a problem. When the reaction to an organization that tries to give people information and make them think, is that someone should send a drone after the organization, we have a problem. Anyone that tries to correct the unhealthiness of the population is greeted by a media storm of ‘promoting eating disorders’, ‘always rely on trusted medical personnel, not the internet, etc.’. Some people have a big interest in keeping you from taking charge of your own health.

Get strong: When you have no home and nothing to eat, when you are terrified of medical bills and surrounded by violent crime, it is hard to care about the greater good for humanity. Civilized societies have well defined morals. Attributes such as bravery, kindness, generosity and concern for others are valued. In these days when everyone can see the abyss in front of them, it seems more prudent to scramble over each other for our own security. Elite schools stress the three A’s, arts, academics and athletics, and concentrate on building a superior human for the upper ranks. Character is almost never taught any more, even though it seems obvious to wonder what benefit to society is a superior human who has never been taught to use their advantages for the overall good. When society has enough, and the people feel secure that they will continue to have enough, maybe we will stop seeing preschool mothers shoving their children to the front of the line and college fathers bribing officials. We can hope. The problem is not usually the amount we possess, but rather the widespread fear that we may lose it or that others have more. This disease is fed every day in the media

Get educated: It is hard to judge the world without context. Any education is better than no education, and it should continue all of our lives. The clogging of western brains with poor health choices has been accompanied for decades with an anti-intellectual movement that has grown to such proportions that the US could seriously elect Sarah Palin for president simply because she doesn’t sound “elite”. Education is not bad any more than physical fitness is bad. Being programmed by video games and state/industrial propaganda is easy, but it’s not fun, it tends to make us restless, angry and discontent, while feeding the self-perception that the population is not as competent to govern themselves as the educated. Education brings excitement, pride and a kind of peace.

Get informed: I truly believe that nobody is seriously interested in the ‘news’ plastered over the media now. I believe this not just from wishful thinking and projecting my own opinions onto others, but from the comments (facebook groups, etc.) that constantly say they are sick of hearing about these people. There has been a growing revulsion for the topics of today’s media which gets worse every year. It is unfortunately usually displaced into hatred for the subject instead of the media. A new media would allow us to walk away, to step into a new world where we do not have to hear about haircuts and what people we don’t care about look like with no makeup on. We could look for real information that is relevant to what we need to know and have a right to know. And we would wake up every day interested in the news again.

Then of course, we are ready for the last one: start contributing to our own governance.

The Intelligence Mafia

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What is the difference between a terrorist and a soldier? The actions are now identical, both act to produce terror, so probably the only standing difference is that terrorists are non-government agencies. Remember that.

The US intelligence infrastructure is not just huge, it is colossal, a parallel society living among us (yes, us, wherever you live). That has been amply illustrated by the investigative journalism project Top Secret America. According to their research, there are 1200 government agencies, more than 3,666 private companies, 17,000 locations, and 854,000 people in the US that have Top Secret security clearance. Top Secret. None of the cables released by Wikileaks this week are Top Secret. Can you even imagine the amount of data here? This is what the US calls “information dominance” and a “global surveillance system”.  Almost all IT and communication companies in the US are a part of the network, and they reach across the globe.

In 2007, 70% of all intelligence budgets were spent on private contractors. That was 3 years ago, and we don’t know how that has changed because all intelligence budgets are classified, but the trend since then has been a definite shift towards more private contractors. Obama likes to use the terms “american intelligence” and “american military” to play games with the truth (see “american troops pull out of Iraq”). If they are private contractors, they aren’t american intelligence, right? And there are other much more important reasons for private contractors, they are allowed to make huge donations to political parties from their billion tax dollar contracts.

Like the military contractors, the private companies also are not bound by government procedure, their contracts are classified so most of the government has no idea what they are doing, and they are private companies who do not have to disclose information to the public. They also have a classified bid system that makes corruption between private companies and politicians particularly easy. Again, like military contractors, they are not being used in secondary roles, they are used in training and in developing and operating all the high tech industries. They are paid with huge amounts of tax money, and in turn, are in a position to drastically influence governmental policies.

“Not only were private contractors involved in the extreme interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, they have taken over the training of military interrogators at the U.S. Army’s Intelligence Center in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. And in hotspots around the world, private contractors are taking the place of government operatives. In Pakistan, for example, three-quarters of the officers posted at the Islamabad CIA station since 9/11 have been private contractors. In the Baghdad CIA station, contractors have sometimes outnumbered government employees and have taken supervisory positions overseeing what CIA agents do every day.”

Not frightened yet? Well, leave it to Xe (Ze evil Blackwater dudes).  By yet another name, they are Total Intelligence Solutions, which is a private intelligence contractor headed by the former head of CIA counterterrorism who ran the extraordinary rendition program for Bush. This private company, staffed by ex members of all branches of US government intelligence, has been aggressively marketing to Fortune 1000 companies. They state that they can bring CIA type services to the corporate boardroom. Former CIA agent contacts and classified knowledge is being put on the open market internationally. This is from a company that runs a completely parallel intelligence and military to the US government and is headed by a man who said “Blackwater is a private company. There is a key word there. Private.” For those who only care about the US, yes they can contract to other countries.

There are only two possible explanations for a sovereign nation to bankrupt its own citizens and its government in order to set up a huge international surveillance and military system, “the finest fighting force the world has ever seen” that they do not actually own or control. One, everyone is completely insane, or two, it has not been a sovereign nation for a long time. Now is the time to remember the definition of a terrorist.

They Act With Impunity Now

The US president orders the assassination of a US citizen without a trial. The Canadian prime minister signs Canada up for another three plus years of war, after explicit promises not to, and says he does not have to ask parliament. The Swedish justice system, in full view of the eyes of the world, railroads a private foreign citizen through a kangaroo court with no due process. What on earth is going on, you may ask, if you haven’t been paying attention.

Why are the world’s leading democracies looking so indistinguishable from fascist states? Because we didn’t listen all those years ago when US president Eisenhower told us about the military industrial complex. In 1961 he said, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists … We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Apparently, we weren’t up to the task. Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power”. Yes. When the state is forcing it’s citizenry like cattle through radiation and violations of their personal and human rights and dignity and fining them if they refuse, all to award billions to a military industry, we are there. When the armies we once loved and respected have turned into an international gang of marauding mercenaries and professional killers, we are there. When trade has nothing to do with what people need or want and all to do with what industry can force on a populace for a profit, we are there. Unpredictable and ever changing legal systems, police that fight the people and guard the criminals, media that advertise the lies instead of the truth, food, shelter, safety, communication, and even sex controlled by industry, military and government, we are there. Look around and say hello to the worldwide corporate fascist government.

The next time you look at a trial and think, oh, that isn’t right, I’ll sign a postcard, the next time you watch a country fight each other about which of two identical dictators will be terrorizing them for the next four years or so, as if the choice was a choice at all, the next time you wonder why everything in the entertainment industry is mindless porn and violence and where did all the intelligent, beautiful  art go, remember. The world is being run by the mafia. In the immortal words of George Carlin, they don’t care about you.

But they don’t have to. Get healthy, get strong, get educated and informed, and start contributing to your own governance. The point of fascism is the few are controlling the many. That only works until the many wake up. I wish George could have been here to see it.

New Orwellian Dictionary (NOD)

Who controls the words controls your thoughts.

A dictionary to be used to understand the new Doublespeak. All words and definitions in this dictionary have been discovered in use.

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a punk rock band: Pussy Riot for those with editors.

a sexual orientation: Rape, torture, abduction, and sometimes murder and dismemberment of children by powerful men.

action: Blowing people up. Archaic: a physical fitness program

adulthood: A state of resignation, obedience and complete childlike dependence on authority. When children reach an age of autonomy and independence they are placed in a state ordered transition period called ‘youth’, and coerced into becoming dependent, fearful adults.

active theatres: Places being bombed.

activist: Person who does anything.

affluenza: Successful criminal defence against prosecution on the grounds that your parents are rich. (US)

aggressive interrogation methods: Torture.

al Qaeda: Adjective used to turn any career into a war crime, ie. taxi-driver = al Qaeda courier, journalist = al Qaeda propagandist, child = al Qaeda royalty. Former term: communist. Obsolete: see ISIS.

allies: Self definition of those who threaten to abandon their professed principles every time anyone says anything offensive to them.

active theatres: Places being bombed.

an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us: Suicide by Guantanamo detainee (US)

assets: Informants and traitors.

asylum seeker: Refugee.

axis of evil: Countries that are going to be hard to conquer, but are first on the list.

axis of hate and terror: Countries the US hates and is terrified of.

backscatter or body imaging x-ray machines: Pornoscope.

bad guys: We can torture, murder, indefinitely detain them. Laws don’t apply because they are bad guys.

behavior detection officers: Stalkers.

belligerent Arab: All Arabs. Reason genocide is permissible. But see non-belligerent Arab for theoretical others. (Israeli)

biased: Critical of the US.

beyond the axis of evil: Countries that are really annoying and will be bombed when the US has a minute.

bringing home US troops: Leaving private contractors.

Canada: The resource corporation formerly known as the Hudson’s Bay Co. Currently a subsidiary of Power Corp.

cannot store, export, print or transmit images: Able to store, export, print or transmit images.

cartel: Men with guns in South America or Mexico.

cash for access scandal: influence peddling, possible crime.

causing terrorism, pandemic diseases and nuclear proliferation: Releasing state department cables.

cavity search: Rape.

checkpoint: Black hole where no human rights exist.

child porn: 1. Media documenting the rape, torture, abduction, and sometimes murder and dismemberment of children. 2. An excuse to invade / occupy / control the internet and increase the control by the powerful paedosadist rings.

child sex: Rape, torture, abduction, blackmail and sometimes murder and dismemberment of children by the powerful.

child prostitute: Child who has been raped, tortured and sometimes abducted, blackmailed, murdered and/or dismembered by the powerful.

child soldiers: Acceptable if they played a crucial role in global counter-terrorism efforts:

choose not to have the right of choice: Negotiate with Israel.

CIA: Great job, travel the world, meet interesting people, kill them …

coalition of the willing: Coalition of the billing.

collateral damage: Dead people not from the US.

communist: Obsolete. See al Qaeda.

community control: Incarceration for billionaires, allows frequent travel to New York and private islands in the Virgin Islands.

conditioning techniques: Torture. Archaic: part of a physical fitness program

contingency location: US military base in Africa.

cooperative security location: US military base in Africa.

corruption: Something most Nigerians think is going on in their government when it is actually mere stealing.

counter: The rhetorical equivalent of leading zeros.

counter-attack: Attack.

counter-cyber: See cyber security.

counter-offensive: Offensive, invasion.

counter-proliferation: Proliferation.

counter-terrorism: Terrorism.

cowboy: Criminal too rich or powerful to arrest. (US)

cyber security: Cyber attacks by the NSA.

dangerous on a strategic scale: Exercising free speech.

detained: Illegally assaulted and held captive. Not to be confused with arrested, charged or tried in a court of law.

detained in his absence: Media smeared without talking to him.

detainee: Word used to create a black hole of no human rights between the 3rd Geneva Convention protecting the rights of POWs and the 4th Geneva Convention protecting the rights of civilians. The ICC says you are protected by one or the other but the US has its own international law.

detention centre: Prison for those illegally imprisoned with no trial or criminal charges, frequently refugees including children. Not to be confused with the disciplinary room in high schools.

diplomacy in action: Secret government deals, once they are no longer secret.

diplomatic: Military.

diplomatic brief: Must contain credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers, frequent-flyer account numbers, iris scans, fingerprints and DNA, current technical specifications, physical layout and planned upgrades to telecommunications infrastructure and information systems, networks and technologies used by top officials and their support staff, as well as details on private networks used for official comunication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys and virtual private network versions used. Necessary to discuss policy.

diplomatic dwarf: Brazilian. (Israeli)

direct: Invade.

direct action: Killing people.

disarmament: Excuse for war (and increased weapons sales).

disruptive: Preservation of the status quo. Technology following rigid conformity and narrow usage created by teams of three caucasian men and rewarded by billions in investment.

drugs: An excuse to invade / occupy / control American countries.

due process: Impunity for the powerful.

educated: Indoctrinated. Taken from a state of acknowledged and easily remedied ignorance to a state of closeminded conceit in order to prevent learning.

egotistical goat: NSA attack. The empire is ruled by 12 year olds.

egotistical giraffe: NSA attack. The empire is ruled by 12 year olds.

endanger the peace process: (1) Publish the truth. (2) Prosecute war crimes.

endanger the troops: Publish the truth.

engage: Murder.

enhanced coercive interrogation technique: Torture.

enhanced patdown: Pre-flight fondling and groping, drinks not included.

escalation: 1. Invasion.  2. 227 Palestinians murdered in Gaza.

escalation of force: Immediate death with no warning.

ethics scandals: Rape, torture, abduction, blackmail and sometimes murder and dismemberment of children by the powerful.

exigent circumstances: Excuse to seize private property without a warrant or reason – used in harass and detain.

expeditionary warfare: Empire expansion.

extrajudicial: Illegal.

extrajudicial assassination: Murder.

extraordinary rendition: Abduction, usually followed by torture.

extreme psychological stress: Torture.

fast, glamorous women: Teenage girls in the company of a prince.

find, fix and finish: Murder.

foreign nationals: Bad guys.

forward operating site: US military base in Africa.

freedom: Free dumb. Also just another word for nothing left to lose.

freedom of the press: The US constitution guarantees the right of its media corporations to invade other countries and support coups, incite civil wars and promote the interests of its corporations. Freedom of speech by the people, the right most of the world agreed to, is suppressed by disinformation and noise from the free press.

gang: Men with guns in the five eyes or EU.

good guys: May torture, murder, indefinitely detain people. Laws don’t apply because they are good guys.

government: The highly ineffectual complaints department of the corporation you live under.

government actors: Can legally kill people, are not unprivileged combatants even if unidentified and using remote weapons like drones. (US only, duh)

harass and detain: Appropriate response to people the government does not like but has no legal case against.

highly trained security agent: High school dropout.

historic: Anything that has actually happened.

historic child sex abuse inquiry: Inquiry into all of the dead people involved in the rape, torture, abduction, blackmail and sometimes murder and dismemberment of children by the powerful. Used to distract attention from the exponentially increasing living people involved in the industry.

homeland security: Reason for starting wars in Africa and the middle east.

homosexual sex scandal: Rape, torture, abduction, blackmail and sometimes murder and dismemberment of little boys by the powerful.

honour: 1. Something one receives from the behaviour of other people. If the behaviour of others is not satisfactory, murdering them will restore honour to the first party. 2. Something one receives from a flag or powerful imaginary friend. If another person insults the flag or powerful imaginary friend, murdering them will restore honour to the first party.

honour the troops: Keep fighting.

hostiles: People not from the US.

housing bubble: A system designed by banks and governments where people would borrow ever increasing amounts for their homes until they could afford no more, at which point the people would be evicted from their homes and the government would pay the banks money from the people’s taxes instead. A very good joke since the banks did not actually have the money they loaned anyway.

human rights activist: Not a sociopath.

hysteria: Speech by women.

illegal immigrant: Refugee.

incursion: Invasion.

inflection point: Points at which wars are announced as ending/having ended after it becomes apparent that they did not.

information terrorism: Free speech.

innovation management: Preventing disruptive technology from disrupting the paradigm that made the management billionaires.

instability: What would happen if people stopped having bombs dropped on their heads.

intergenerational sex: Rape of children.

intermediate milestones: Points at which wars are announced as ending/having ended after it becomes apparent that they did not.

international law: Retroactive US body of law created in 2006 to govern all people internationally. See murder in violation of the law of war.

innocent civilians: Informants and traitors.

innocent lives: Lives of people from the US. Also informants and traitors.

insurgents: People not from the US. Also, boy over 9 years old.

internet provocateur: ‘Whistleblower website’ after pentagon renaming initiative.

iris scans, fingerprints and DNA: Necessary for diplomatic communication.

ISIS: Former term: see al Qaeda. Obsolete: see Boko Haram.

Israeli-Palestinian violence: 227 Palestinians murdered in Gaza.

Jean-Luc Picard: Gen Keith Alexander, NSA chief.

job: Occupation which enriches the powerful and enables capitalism.

joint priority effects list: Hit List.

justice: Just is.

justice system: Co-option of social justice by the powerful. Created to appoint the judges, silence the witnesses and control the outcome.

kill list: Way to keep track of all the people you should be trying to kill when you blow things up, but accidents happen. See looking forward.

land of the free: Country with the highest documented incarceration rate in the world.

lasting peace and security: Occupation.

laws of war: The US, which does not obey any of the laws of war created by international organizations and international law, has created their own laws of war. The US laws are to be obeyed only by people who are not from the US.

leader of the free world: Head of an international network of prisons and torture camps.

libertarians: People who think taxation is a physical assault but childbirth is something not worth paying for.

looking for terrorists: Cyber attacks by the NSA.

looking forward: Refusing to prosecute illegal behaviour because it was in the past (Obama). Explains a lot about preventive detainment.

lurid speculation: When those on the bottom accuse those on the top.

massacre: 3 US citizens killed.

media polls: Used in Canada to decide citizenship and human rights entitlement.

medic: US commando if they are killed in battle.

men with guns: The solution to bringing peace to the world. Hasn’t worked yet because there aren’t enough of them and they need bigger guns.

mercs: Sometimes used to describe people from the US, sometimes a short form of mercenary army. Interchangeable for most of the world.

message force multipliers: Generals delivering the propaganda news.

military: Men with guns in state employment.

military analyst: Generals delivering the propaganda news.

militia: Men with guns in Africa.

mission: War.

moral panic: Concern over threats or crimes against women and children. See also hysteria.

murder in violation of the law of war: A child killing a professional killer from the US.

national human intelligence collection directive: Spying directives for diplomats.

national security: Protects royals and politicians from the torches and pitchforks of the nation. Security of the state from the nation.

negate their capacity in the battlefield: Assassinate in bed.

neutralized: Murdered.

non-belligerent Arab: Person who must be relocated from the place they are a citizen of to somewhere unspecified. The problem this poses is only theoretical, see belligerent Arab. (Israeli)

normal torture: The kind that is legal in US prisons.

not a journalist: We can kill them.

not a US citizen: We can kill them.

NSA files: Files of journalists’ emotions about their job and each other. Feeds a daily column in most international news outlets.

Official Secrets Act: Created to block any inquiries into high level paedosadist rings in the opinion of the UK police.

opened our aperture: Allowed children of all ages to be legitimate targets.

one of the very core powers of the president as commander in chief: Murdering US citizens without a trial.

onionbreath: NSA attack on Tor. The empire is ruled by 12 year olds.

orchestrate: Invade.

our on-going diplomatic activity: Wars.

our troops: Blackwater.

our way of life: World domination.

outposts of tyranny: Countries being tyrannized by the US.

panelists: Unelected politicians in power.

peace process: Process by which peace is perpetually postponed by the pretense that peace itself is an action instead of the discontinuance of actions.

peacekeepers with aggressive mandate: Soldiers. Also, warmakers.

peccadillo: Rape, torture, abduction, blackmail and sometimes murder and dismemberment of children if committed by the powerful.

pedophile/paedophile [child lover]: Establishment approved name for those who rape, torture, abduct, blackmail and sometimes murder and dismember children.

perverting the course of justice: Telling anyone that you were raped by a powerful man.

piracy: An excuse to invade / occupy / control personal communication.

played a crucial role in global counter-terrorism efforts: Fought on the same side as the US.

populist: Democracy which produces results benefiting the people in the voting nation instead of the powerful in the US.

post-combat: Combat.

power vacuum: What is created when the US is not in power. Leads to instability.

preventive detainment: Kidnapping and holding someone without trial, for something they may do in the future. See looking forward.

privacy: Something that must be protected for the rich and powerful at all costs. No one else is entitled to any privacy because the risk to the rich and powerful would be too great. ‘The risks of political embarrassment to the Government is rather greater than the security danger.’

prosecution to include discovery practice: Torture.

public propagandist without portfolio: Me.

pursue justice without making a political mess: Don’t allow accusations of powerful people.

radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists: activists, according to Stratfor.

reasonable expectation of privacy: In the US, if you do not expect privacy, you are not entitled to it, ie. no reasonable person expects privacy in a US airport, so it is no longer a right.

reassess our posture towards them next year: Response to use of child soldiers by allies.

reduce  the escalation: Attack.

rent boy: Boy who has been raped, tortured and sometimes abducted, blackmailed, murdered and/or dismembered by the powerful.

rogue nations: Sovereign countries that disobey the president of the US.

satire: Hate speech against those the powerful like to demonize.

saving lives: Killing people.

scandal: Crimes committed by the powerful

search and seizure: random theft of goods by authorities, protected against by the US constitution unless you fly.

security contractors: Professional criminals.

serious torture: The kind that is not legal even in US prisons.

sex: Rape, torture, abduction, blackmail and sometimes murder and dismemberment of children by the powerful.

sex scandal: Rape, torture, abduction, blackmail and sometimes murder and dismemberment of children by the powerful.

sexy: prosecuting a tortured child in a kangaroo court on a trumped up charge that allowed the death penalty.

sick, un-American espionage efforts: Journalism.

social panic: Threats to the freedom of sadists to do as they wish.

soften up: Torture.

special methods of questioning: Torture.

single most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks: Torture.

stabilizing: Occupying.

Stipulation of Fact: Fictional work prepared by US military and signed by torture victims.

stress position: Torture.

strike: Blow people up.

student loans: Indentured servitude.

suicide: Something you should be prepared to kill yourself to avoid. (Nigerian – ok just PJ.)

support the troops: Increase military spending.

sustained diplomacy: Occupation.

targeted counter-terrorism missions: Wars.

telegenically dead: Murdered by Israel. Any reporting will be considered terrorist propaganda.

terrorist: Men with guns in the Middle east or predominantly Muslim parts of Africa.

terrorism: 1. Threats to powerful men or corporations. 2. An excuse to invade / occupy / control Middle Eastern countries.

the five eyes: The Illuminati. The UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand who share intelligence about the entire world in their quest for world domination. Not to be confused with the Illuminati.

The Truman Show: Documentary about Canada.

theatre: Place where wars are staged. Exactly what it sounds like.

themes and messages: Propaganda

thing that has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war: Death.

Thought Leaders: Paid by establishment to lead your thoughts.

threats to our way of life: Countries fighting back.

time for reflection, not retribution: Time when CIA ought to be prosecuted for torture, etc.

tools necessary to protect the American people: Torture.

tools needed to continue to fight the war on terror and bring these evil people to justice: Torture.

training mission: War.

treason: The act of helping an enemy of the US, by anyone, including foreign enemies of the US.

truth: Terrorism.

un-American: Rogue Swedish Australians.

undisclosed remediation packages: Secret bribes to avoid criminal charges.

unemployed: Unwaged.

unknown unknowns: Excuse for war.

unlawful enemy combatant: Flexible term used to apply the following law:
US special forces and anyone Obama says is a ‘government actor’ can legally kill children.
It is a war crime for children to kill US Special Forces.

unnatural sexual proclivities: rape, torture and sometimes abduction, blackmail, murder and/or dismemberment by the powerful.

unreliable: countries which let the law stop them from killing / torturing / abducting people.

unspecified global threat: excuse to drone Yemen.

US defense: US Empire.

US interests: World assets, comprising natural resources and industries.

war: murder of helpless civilians in Gaza.

war crime: 2006: It is ok for US soldiers to kill children, but it is a war crime for children to kill US special forces commandos.
2013: It is a war crime to return aggressive force on members of an invading army if the UN has assigned them blue helmets.

We Protect: PR initiative undertaken by the paedosadism industry. Objectives are to block all search results of paedosadist stories from the Internet and arrest any victims and others involved in the industry who may be thinking of testifying.

witch hunt: Attempts to bring powerful torturers and murderers, including Catholic priests, to justice.

work: Creating wealth for the wealthy.

wrinkle: Invasion.

Xe: Ze evil Blackwater Academi, new names, same games.

Orwellian Circus: Khadr’s Trial

Omar Khadr was taken as a child from his home in Canada to live in Afghanistan. When he was 15, he was caught in a battle with US forces. He lost his vision in one eye, was shot in the back twice, and was confined in US torture camps from the time he was 15 until he was 24, without a trial, and without access to a lawyer for years. Despite years of UN protests that he should be rehabilitated as a child soldier, not tried, he was brought before seven US officers in a military trial for committing “murder in violation of the law of war.” Yes, that’s right, seven officers in the US military. Who haven’t obeyed any of the rules of war since we have been watching.

The “murder”, a 15 year old boy throwing a grenade in a battle at a professional killer and invader, is one he has denied for the duration of his imprisonment despite constant “interrogation” since he was 15 years old. There is no evidence that he threw the grenade, and there is a great deal of evidence that he didn’t, including initial US military reports. There is a video of him at Guantánamo crying in “interviews”. A US medic has described Khadr weeping and shackled in Bagram. The “confession” the US military has finally obtained after nearly a decade of torturing a child, is referred to in court as a “stipulation of fact“. It is presented to the jury without allowing them to know that Khadr was offered a plea bargain in exchange.

The rumoured plea bargain will not include any recognition of the years he has already served, he will be sent to the maximum security level at Guantánamo despite not giving any security concerns during all of his years of imprisonment, and the “interrogation” is to continue. It is likely that he will be recommended for transfer back to Canada after the first year, but there has been no interest from the Canadian government in enabling that.

Here are some of the more bizarre items coming out in the tweets and reports from attendees at the trial. *

Children killed by professional killers do not matter. Professional killer’s children matter. The court listened for one hour (or 45 minutes, according to some tweets) to testimony from the US professional killer’s widow about how his death has impacted her family. Has any US soldier listened to any family of any of the civilians they have killed/tortured/raped/kidnapped? According to the professional killer’s widow, her “children are good, loving, wonderful people. They didn’t deserve to have their father taken by someone like you.” Asked by a jury member if she would see Khadr in a different light if he had been dressed in the uniform of an “enemy soldier” during the firefight, she said “yes.” The former fifteen year old apologized to the widow of the professional killer, but she shook her head and told him he would  “forever be a murderer.” It  is ok for US soldiers to murder children, but it is a war crime for children to murder US soldiers.

There is lengthy testimony from a US psychiatrist who explains the hate and resentment he feels certain is burning below the surface (where no one has been able to find any evidence of it) in Khadr. He cites Khadr’s family as being a big influence on him. (Khadr has been in a US torture camp since he was 15. He is now 24.) He also says Muslim militants look up to Khadr’s dead father. And Khadr is surrounded by Muslim militants. Therefore he is a risk of causing further violence. Immediately after the psychiatrist, the professional killer’s widow took the stand. She described how her son told everyone on Remembrance Day that everyone in the US military looked up to his dead father. They all came to his funeral. They named a clinic after him. His father’s US militant friends explain how they spend as much time as possible with him. “Army rocks, bad guys stink,” says the son of the professional killer. The courtroom weeps.

After hearing the psychiatrist’s views that Khadr being a “devout” Muslim made it impossible for him to ever be “deradicalized”, the professional killer’s friends take the stand to describe him. Captain E says Speer made “peace with the war around him.” Asked to give one word to sum up his friend, Captain E said “Super stud”.  Super studs who are comfortable with war are better people than devout Muslims. (In recognition of this, the defense lawyer provided evidence that Khadr wasn’t that devout.)

The same psychiatrist says of Khadr, he is very dangerous because “he’s physically resilient”, “socially agile”,  “street smart”, “the other detainees give him regard”, athletic and taller than most detainees, “charming”, speaks various languages and that he “has attracted more attention to Cuba than Fidel”. Also, he is a prayer leader and speaks fluent English so can communicate with guards and has become a leader. He has the “stardust of royalty”, is “devout”, “identifies with his family,” and has become his family’s “white sheep”. He is “charming” and carries himself with “grace.” On a “superficial” level he seems very “Westernized.” And he is a “rock star” of Guantánamo. All of this makes him very dangerous.

Worst of all, the psychiatrist repeatedly states that Khadr has been  “marinated in jihad” at the US torture camps. Because he has been imprisoned without a trial since he was 15, he has met all the wrong sort. Plus, since he was tortured by US soldiers, he might hate them.

As if being a tall, athletic, ambitious, charismatic, graceful, resilient, street smart, charming, multi-lingual, prayer leader was not enough, he has read Harry Potter. Which is escapism. For someone to want to escape Guantánamo or Bagram seems strange to this psychiatrist. He has also read CS Lewis, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, Ismael Beah, Danielle Steele and John Grisham, along with many educational texts etc., but Harry Potter seemed much more worthy of note. He is obviously not a Christian.

He must serve his sentence in the maximum security level at Guantánamo, despite his guards being almost universal in their opinions that he is a nice kid, because he called one a “bitch”. Also a “whore”. And once he said “fuck”.

Going to Canada would be bad, because Canada doesn’t have real  “de-radicalization therapy”. The prosecution asked a professor at small Christian college if her college has a “deradicalization program on campus.” No. And anyway, “How will a devout Muslim integrate into Canada?”

The jury of seven impartial US officers will make their deliberation after an impartial and fair trial in which they will be told that Khadr pled guilty. They won’t know about his negotiated plea sentence or the threats of death, rape or torture that were used and admitted to by “interrogators”. They will see an FBI simulated 10-second clip of a Humvee explosion as an example of something that Khadr might have done, if it had happened, but it didn’t.

*For first hand reporting, and accurate quoting, follow the hashtag #Khadr. Most of the people tweeting are reporters who are at the trial. Most have links to their own articles on their twitter accounts. The tweeting by them has been excellent.

Update: The closing arguments were not less bizarre.

“The accused is not a soldier” and any reference to him as one does a “disservice” to men and women in uniform. Because professional killers are better people than civilians defending their country.

“They fight for no country. They fight for a religon.” Because fighting for your country is morally superior to fighting for your religon.

The US decided to put the Canadian in Guantanamo and offered him no “de-radicalization” program, but to release him to Canada would be wrong because Canada’s “deradicalization programs” are not good enough.

The prosecution points out that Khadr was a very mature 15 year old. He spoke four languages. Intelligence is bad. Possibly criminal.

The defense summed up the position of the prosecutor. “Omar Khadr was a lawful target but he didn’t have the right to fight back.”

The tweeters have added great links to letters between Khadr and the english professor from Alberta, a painting by Khadr, and letters from Speer’s children, the oldest four years younger than Khadr was at the time of his imprisonment and torture. Also two minutes from a documentary You Don’t Like the Truth, and a video of a speech from his defense lawyer. Coverage that includes exhibits.

The End: After the prosecution requested a sentence of 25 years, after the jury were told they could consider the 8 he had already served, after they were told they could consider the fact that he was a child, they came back with a sentence of 40 years more. That’s 48 in total. Not in a prison, in solitary confinement in a torture camp where he is still allowed to be “interrogated”. For a crime the US military themselves said he did not commit until they had to invent a reason for keeping him in prison. For a sentence of 10 years or more, 6 of the 7 jurors had to agree.

At the sentencing of a tortured child to solitary confinement, the widow of the professional killer gave a fist pumping cheer. U!S!A! Fuck Yeah!

But the most perverse thing in this whole trial? This will make the people of the US feel safer. They honestly will.

Beyond the End: Now we have the release of the plea deal and the diplomatic exchange between Canada and the US. Beyond the general sleaze of such a deal, there is some very specific sleaze.

Khadr must:

d. Knowingly and voluntarily waive and relinquish any request for any forensic or scientific testing of any physical evidence in the United States Government’s possession, including, but not limited to, DNA testing. I fully understand that as a result of this waiver I will not have another opportunity to have any physical evidence in this case submitted for any testing or to employ the results of any testing to support any claim of innocence regarding the offenses to which I am pleading guilty. In addition. I understand the United States Government may dispose of such physical evidence upon sentencing by a Military Commission in this case. He is not allowed to test the prosecution forensic evidence or bring his own.

g. Not initiate or support any litigation or challenge, in any forum in any Nation, against the United States or any official in their personal or official capacity with regard to my capture, detention, prosecution to include discovery practice, post conviction confinement and/or detainee combatant status. I further agree to move to dismiss with prejudice any presently pending direct or collateral attack challenging my capture. detention, prosecution and/or detainee combatant status; to implement this aspect of this agreement, following announcement of the sentence in this case, I direct my counsel to submit a motion to dismiss the petition for habeas corpus in my case currently pending in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia as well as all claims currently pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. New Orwellian term for torture: “prosecution to include discovery practice”.

i. While in the continued custody of the United States, submit to interviews whenever and wherever requested by United States law enforcement officials, intelligence authorities, and prosecutors. I understand the requesting parties will notify my legal counsel of the interviews. However, I waive any right I may have to my attorneys being present for the interviews. I understand I must be completely truthful during these interviews. I also agree, while in U.S. custody, to appear, cooperate, and testify truly, before any grand jury. any court, military court or hearing, military commission or any other proceeding requested by the United States Government. He has to appear as a defense witness for the US, and if he tells the truth then, he will be convicted for his perjury now. He has to do this without legal advice, which he is also denied during “interviews”.

j. I agree and understand that if I am not truthful in any testimony I may provide, I may be prosecuted for perjury, false statement or other similar offense before any court or Military Commission having jurisdiction over me. See above.

His own defense was determined by the prosecution:

a. I will not seek to offer any testimony, in any form, from any detainee presently held at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay:
b. I will not seek to obtain any depositions to be offered at the presentencing hearing, nor will I offer any depositions at the presentencing hearing;
3 c. I will not seek to offer the testimony, either in court or via VTC of any witness, other than: (I) Dr. Katherine Porterfield: (2) Dr. Steven Xenakis. (3) Captain McCarthy; and (4) Dr. Arlette Zinck, all of whom the Government has agreed to produce at U.S. Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for sentencing. (understand that sentencing proceedings will not be delayed to if these witnesses are unavailable.)

h. … my transfer to Canada is contingent upon the consent of the Government of Canada … which is to say, it is dependent on what the US tells Canada to do.

Note: This article was a quick response to what was happening at the trial as it was being conducted. Since the trial, there have been many thoughtful articles written about the case which are well worth reading. A start:

The National Post – Tony Keller

The Star – Michelle Shephard

Andrea Prasow – senior counter-terrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch

The Miami Herald – Carol Rosenberg

The Iraq War Logs – The Medium is the Message

The Afghanistan documents released by Wikileaks were criticized for not having enough material redacted. The Iraq documents are criticized for having too much redacted. The US government says there is nothing interesting or newsworthy in any of the information. The US military says the information contains important secrets that the public should not know. Some members of the public say they contain important secrets that we all desperately need to know. Have we all completely forgotten?

The medium is the message. At a huge, historical, society changing level, it does not matter at all what any of the documents Wikileaks has released actually said. All that really matters is, these were secrets, kept by very powerful organizations, and now we all have these secrets. The conclusion to be drawn from all of this data is not just how many Iraqi children were killed by US soldiers at checkpoints, and the desired result is not just trials for war crimes. The conclusion is that we can have access to the secrets of any powerful organization, and the result is that the powerful, by virtue of this one new fact, have lost a very significant portion of their power.

Control of information is such an integral and essential part of power today that we can, given the proper motivation, use our new access to information to strip the world’s most powerful organizations of all the rest of their power. Yes, that may happen to some through trials for war crimes, but if it happens to them, it can happen to anyone.

For a very long time, power and wealth have been held by thinner and weaker threads, until bank accounts begin to look like vapourware. A century ago, the very wealthy owned tangible assets and produced tangible goods. The McCain family sold potatoes, the Seagrams made whiskey, the Eatons bought and sold goods in their stores. The 70’s saw leveraged buyouts and playing the stock market, real estate speculation and hostile corporate takeovers. Money in the 80’s became completely separated from real life. Dot coms in the 90’s accustomed people to obscenely huge numbers as personal wealth. The new international trade relationships have removed business deals to a small group of the internationally powerful that deal with each other and block access to everyone else.

Even tangible possessions are only ours by the conventions of the society we live in. We all agree to the rules, or it does not work. If someone steals my iPod, and I cannot find out who did it and prove to the police that I own it, then I lose possession of it. If I load my iPod with stolen music, and I cannot be prevented, that rule no longer works in our game. The rules, and with them the ownership of the iPod or the music, just changed.

Today, most people have no idea who the rich and powerful are or how they got to be that way. For those who do know, it is terrifyingly apparent that all it would take is for an informed populace to stand up and say “The emperor has no clothes!” and all the money and power would be gone along with the translucent gauze left holding it.

The people who are currently in possession of both power and money in the world are not in possession of either because we as a society have agreed to it. They rarely have equivalent physical possessions, and they almost never have unique abilities which give them rights to power. They are theoretically there because we have agreed to the rules that put them there. But in actuality, we almost never have. Who in a ‘democracy’ really wants any of the two or three ‘choices’ we are given to be our leader and make all of our decisions for us? Who really agrees with the power for all choices impacting our health and environment lying within the hands of a few members of the military industrial complex? Only the very lazy and disinterested.

The powerful of the last few decades have been powerful for one reason only; we did not know how to stop them. Now we do.

Activate Reston 5.

Extradition and Sovereignty

Extradition has been a touchy subject between Canada and the US at various times in history. During the Vietnam War, the US was infuriated by Canada’s refusal to return draft dodgers, but those were the days when Canada had a very liberal government that annoyed the US and stood up for widely held Canadian values whenever they thought they could get away with it. Times have changed.

Gary Botting wrote a paper http://www.law.utoronto.ca/documents/zcalt04/bottling.doc that is well worth reading about the new (1999) Extradition Act and cases leading up to it, as well as the subsequent results. Botting quotes the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice, who said of the need for a new Act, “Even with countries with a similar legal tradition such as the United States, we have heard on numerous occasions how difficult it is to obtain extradition from Canada.” The implication would be that extradition ought to be easy, so easy in fact, that formal sworn affidavits and charges ought to be waived, and only a request from a US prosecutor obtained. No Canadian court would accept such a request as ‘evidence’ from a Canadian prosecutor. And in fact, no Canadian prosecutor is permitted to submit the same to the US; these changes to the evidence required are not reciprocal! Botting states, “The new Act effectively reduces extradition in Canada from a traditionally judicial process (as it remains in the United States) to an essentially administrative process.”

In contrast to the extradition treaty between Canada and the US, where Canada behaves as a lesser US territory instead of a sovereign state, Canada has no extradition treaty with China. The reasons for this are China’s poor human rights record and death penalty. But despite all of the high profile cases where the US has kidnapped, tortured, fixed evidence, jailed with no trial, and violated all human rights with their prisoners, despite the huge and unknown number of jails the US operates internationally and their continued use of torture and other human rights violations in those jails, despite a US judge threatening sentences extended to the maximum and US prosecutors threatening prison rape for those who challenge their extradition order (see paper by Botting), and despite the fact that the US has one of the highest rates of incarceration of all wealthy nations, Canada hands its citizens over to US courts after nothing more than a request from a prosecutor. There have also been frequent cases where Canada will deport a person after an extradition request has been made, as an alternative and quicker method of extradition. And, despite having full legal power and a UN human rights obligation to request that the US death penalty not be imposed, Canada has frequently refused to make such a request.

The US – Canada Extradition Treaty (1976 plus amendments) states that extradition applies in cases where the “offenses are punishable by the laws of both Contracting Parties by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year.” The Canadian Extradition Act (1999) specifies two years as the sentencing requirement. For some reason, the treaty with a country that has far harsher sentencing and far worse prison conditions than Canada, has half the sentencing requirement of any of our other extradition partners. In either case, the first point of law is that the offense must be of a specified serious level in both countries. According to the Department of Justice, the role of the extradition judge is to determine if there is enough evidence presented that, if the “conduct had been carried out in Canada, the judge would order the person to stand trial in Canada.” This control has been thrown out in many recent cases involving such things as selling marijuana seeds, online spamming, and Renee Boje’s sloppily handled and ridiculous case. Canada had no intention of prosecuting any of these ‘offenses’. In the cases involving Canadians, the US prosecutors stated, if Canada was not going to enforce laws the US felt were appropriate, then they would. In each case, the US prosecutors stated that these people were not to think they could disobey US law. Referring to Canadians. In Canada.

The US attitude towards Vancouver is well summed up by the Washington Post headline Canada’s Extradition Laws Help Make Vancouver a Grifter’s Haven. It is no coincidence that the lawyer most known for fighting extradition is based in Vancouver. While cities like Toronto or Ottawa, with their close economic ties to the US, may seem comfortable to the DEA and friends, Vancouver, with its nude beaches and shooting clinics, apprently looks like ‘the Wild West’. It is also very much an Asian city where the commercial, family, economic, and criminal ties are also largely connected to Asia, not the US. On the books, Toronto is the economic capital of Canada, the place where all the legal money is made and controlled. Off the books, a look at the lifestyle or real estate prices tell a completely different story, a reflection of the volume of illegal or offshore family money in Vancouver.

The US attitude towards Vancouver is rather that of a disciplinarian uncle towards a rebellious nephew, and the encroaching DEA, FBI, etc., have a “If you won’t discipline him, I will,” stance, completely inappropriate to one sovereign state negotiating with another. Towards Ontario or the prairies, where the same multinational corporations are influencing the policies of both governments, any questioning of US law is just considered gross impertinence. Canadian sovereignty is not properly recognized in either case, and that is entirely the fault of the Canadian federal government.

According to Botting, the Canada US Extradition Treaty has never been ratified and is not, in his opinion, even legal. Whether it is, or is not, there is still far more room for due diligence to be demanded in the extradition requests from the US. Requests which do not meet the dual criminality requirement, which would not be prosecuted in Canada, need to be refused (this would obviously include all Canadians operating in Canada). The Canadian government needs to demand at all times that the death penalty not be imposed, in accordance with the UN’s resolution. When Canadians are tried and sentenced in the US, the Canadian government needs to start meeting their responsibilities to bring prisoners home to serve their sentences.