We are at the point Edward Snowden described as “turnkey tyranny.”And on Wednesday night the key was turned a bit more dramatically. Ray McGovern explains.
By Ray McGovern
Gerry Condon, President of Veterans For Peace, was bloodied and “taken to ground,” on Wednesday night for trying to get food to people inside the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. The activists inside, some of whom have lived in the embassy for weeks with permission from the Venezuelan government, are protecting the premises from protestors who support the self-declared president Juan Guaido.
With the acquiescence of Washington police and the Secret Service, the protestors have been able to block food from entering the embassy. On Wednesday night electricity was cut to the building. One activist tossing a loaf of bread to a window was arrested earlier this week for using a “missile.” Now Condon has been manhandled and nabbed for throwing a cucumber.
We are at the point Edward Snowden described as “turnkey tyranny.” On Wednesday night the key was turned a bit more dramatically. Until now it has been an almost imperceptibly gradual process, like the proverbial frog in boiling water.
Photo and video of Condon’s arrest (story continues below):
My friend and colleague @RealAlexRubi captured much clearer video of the moment US @SecretService savagely arrested Vets for Peace President Gerry Condon: https://t.co/ODIDmVVRxK
— Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) May 8, 2019
Of course, this has happened before. I quoted these words in this article I wrote for Consortium News on December 27, 2007:
“There are few things as odd as the calm, superior indifference with which I and those like me watched the beginnings of the Nazi revolution in Germany, as if from a box at the theater. … Perhaps the only comparably odd thing is the way that now, years later….”
The words are those of Sebastian Haffner (pen name for Raimund Pretzel), who as a young lawyer in Berlin during the 1930s experienced the Nazi takeover, and wrote a first-hand account. His children found the manuscript when he died in 1999 and published it the following year as “Geschichte eines Deutschen” (The Story of a German).
The book became an immediate bestseller and has been translated into 20 languages—in English as “Defying Hitler.”
I recently learned from his daughter Sarah, an artist in Berlin, that today is the 100th anniversary of Haffner’s birth. She had seen an earlier article in which I quoted her father and e-mailed to ask me to “write some more about the book and the comparison to Bush’s America. … This is almost unbelievable.”
Sebastian Haffner
More about Haffner below. Let’s set the stage first by recapping some of what has been going on here in the U.S. that may have resonance for readers familiar with the Nazi ascendancy, noting how “odd” it is that the frontal attack on our Constitutional rights is met with such “calm, superior indifference.”
After suppressing for two and a half years the explosive story of the Bush/Cheney surveillance of Americans in gross violation of the Fourth Amendment, top New York Times officials decided to let the rest of us in on the fact that the George W. Bush administration had been eavesdropping on American citizens without the court warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. Not to mention the U.S. Constitution.
The Times had learned of this well before the election in 2004 and acquiesced to White House entreaties to suppress the damaging information.
In late fall 2005 when Times correspondent James Risen’s book, “State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” revealing the warrantless eavesdropping was being printed, Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., recognized that he could procrastinate no longer.
It would simply be too embarrassing to have Risen’s book on the street, with Sulzberger and his associates pretending that this explosive eavesdropping story did not fit Adolph Ochs’s trademark criterion: All The News That’s Fit To Print.
(The Times’ own ombudsman, Public Editor Byron Calame, branded the newspaper’s explanation for the long delay in publishing this story “woefully inadequate.”)
When Sulzberger told his friends in the White House that he could no longer hold off on publishing in the newspaper, he was summoned to the Oval Office for a counseling session with the president on Dec. 5, 2005. Bush tried in vain to talk him out of putting the story in the Times.
The truth would out; part of it, at least.
Unnamed Program
What followed struck me as bizarre. The day after the Dec. 16 Times feature article exposing the Fourth-Amendment-trashing program, the president of the United States publicly admitted to a demonstrably impeachable offense.
Authorizing illegal electronic surveillance was a key provision of the second article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. On July 27, 1974, this and two other articles of impeachment were approved by bipartisan votes in the House Judiciary Committee.
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld leave Pentagon for Rumsfeld’s farewell ceremony, Dec. 15, 2006. (U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen)
Bush took a frontal approach, Far from expressing regret, he bragged about having authorized the surveillance “more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks,” and said he would continue to do so. The president also said:
“Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it.”
On Dec. 19, 2005, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and then-NSA Director Michael Hayden held a press conference to answer questions about the as yet unnamed surveillance program.
Gonzales was asked why the White House decided to flout FISA rather than attempt to amend it, choosing instead a “backdoor approach.” He answered:
“We have had discussions with Congress…as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible.”
It Had to Do With Us
It was not difficult to infer that the surveillance program must have been of such scope and intrusiveness that, even amid highly stoked fear, it didn’t have a prayer for passage.
It turns out we didn’t know the half of it.
Bear in mind that when this illegal surveillance program began, it had nothing to do with terrorism, an issue that did not really appear on the new administration’s radar screen until a week before 9/11. … So this until-recently-unknown pre-9/11 facet of the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” was not related to Osama bin Laden or to whomever he and his associates might be speaking. It had to do with us.
We know that the Democrats briefed on the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, (the one with the longest tenure on the House Intelligence Committee), Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, and former and current chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham, D-FL, and Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, respectively.
May one interpret their lack of public comment on the news that the snooping began well before 9/11 as a sign they were co-opted and then sworn to secrecy?
It is an important question. Were the appropriate leaders in Congress informed that within days of George W. Bush’s first inauguration the NSA electronic vacuum cleaner began to suck up information on you and me, despite the FISA law and the Fourth Amendment?
It started before. (U.S. Navy Photo/Preston Keres.)
Are they all complicit? And are Democratic leaders about to cave in and grant retroactive immunity to those telecommunications corporations—AT&T and Verizon—which made millions by winking at the law and the Constitution?
(Qwest, to its credit, heeded the advice of its general counsel who said that what NSA wanted done was clearly illegal.)
What’s going on here? [December 2007] Have congressional leaders no sense for what is at stake?
Lately the adjective “spineless” has come into vogue in describing congressional Democrats—no offense to invertebrates.
Nazis and Their Enablers
You don’t have to be a Nazi. You can just be, well, a sheep.
In his journal, Sebastian Haffner decries what he calls the “sheepish submissiveness” with which the German people reacted to a 9/11-like event, the burning of the German Parliament (Reichstag) on Feb. 27, 1933.
Haffner finds it quite telling that none of his acquaintances “saw anything out of the ordinary in the fact that, from then on, one’s telephone would be tapped, one’s letters opened, and one’s desk might be broken into.”
But it is for the cowardly politicians that Haffner reserves his most vehement condemnation. Do you see any contemporary parallels here?
In the elections of March 4, 1933, shortly after the Reichstag fire, the Nazi party garnered only 44 percent of the vote. Only the “cowardly treachery” of the Social Democrats and other parties to whom 56 percent of the German people had entrusted their votes made it possible for the Nazis to seize full power. Haffner adds:
“It is in the final analysis only that betrayal that explains the almost inexplicable fact that a great nation, which cannot have consisted entirely of cowards, fell into ignominy without a fight.”
The Social Democratic leaders betrayed their followers—“for the most part decent, unimportant individuals.” In May, the party leaders sang the Nazi anthem; in June the Social Democratic party was dissolved.
The middle-class Catholic party Zentrum folded in less than a month, and in the end supplied the votes necessary for the two-thirds majority that “legalized” Hitler’s dictatorship.
As for the right-wing conservatives and German nationalists: “Oh God,” writes Haffner, “what an infinitely dishonorable and cowardly spectacle their leaders made in 1933 and continued to make afterward. … They went along with everything: the terror, the persecution of Jews. … They were not even bothered when their own party was banned and their own members arrested.”
In sum: “There was not a single example of energetic defense, of courage or principle. There was only panic, flight, and desertion. In March 1933, millions were ready to fight the Nazis. Overnight they found themselves without leaders. … At the moment of truth, when other nations rise spontaneously to the occasion, the Germans collectively and limply collapsed. They yielded and capitulated, and suffered a nervous breakdown. … The result is today the nightmare of the rest of the world.”
This is what can happen when virtually all are intimidated.
Our Founding Fathers were not oblivious to this; thus, James Madison wrote:
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. … The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
We cannot say we weren’t warned.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner city Washington. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and presidential briefer and is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
Ray,
There’s nothing the average citizen can do without risking his future and that of his family. That’s been made clear for decades.
Crusaders get crushed. I’m not going to have my family crushed. They’re more important to me than any damned movement of issue.
And, don’t think I’m a coward…~ 8 years in Marine infantry in th 70’s. At the time, I was a fool. I’m no longer a fool.
I hope that US citizens of conscience and courage will stay here and oppose tyranny, if only on weekends as Delilah suggests.
If U.S. politics were sane, constructive, and for the people, Gerry Condon — President of Veterans for Peace — would possibly be part of a cooperative multi-partisan non-deep-state government of the United States. For instance, it could be…
– President:
Tulsi Gabbard
– Vice President:
Rand Paul
– National Security Advisor:
Jimmy Carter
– White House Chief of Staff:
Ron Paul
– White House Press Secretary:
Glenn Greenwald
– Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency:
Jill Stein
– Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration:
Daniel Ellsberg
– Ambassador of the U.S. to Russia:
Stephen Cohen
– Attorney General:
Trey Gowdy
– Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Michael Flynn
– Director of National Intelligence:
Edward Snowden
– Director of the Central Intelligence Agency:
Ray McGovern
– Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency:
Chelsea Manning
– Director of the National Security Agency:
William Binney
– Secretary of Defense:
Daniel Everette Hale
– Secretary of Education:
Noam Chomsky
– Secretary of Health and Human Services:
Bernie Sanders
– Secretary of Housing and Urban Development:
Donald Trump
– Secretary of State:
Paul Craig Roberts
– Secretary of Transportation:
Ralph Nader
– Secretary of Veterans Affairs:
Gerry Condon
Great list! If you’re going to dream, why not dream BIG!!!
Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency:
? Ray McGovern… (really?? )
‘Turnkey Tyranny’ on the Streets of Washington
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/05/10/how-mueller-report-revelations-are-complicating-lives-richard-burr-other-gop-senators/?utm_term=.5e99f94300d3
– Director of the Central Intelligence Agency:
Ray McGovern
The best for the job.
– Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency:
Chelsea Manning
The one who would never use secrecy to cover up government crimes.
I think Tulsi Gabbard will be president one day. Not this time, but the stars are aligning for her if the Demos don’t beat Trump this time around.
After some Greenwald’s unfounded accusation on Assange, I would like to replace:
– White House Press Secretary:
Glenn Greenwald
with for instance Seymour Hersh, or Chris Hedges… or even better — even when he’s from Australia, anyway part of the US Empire — the most important person today for truth, transparency, and open governments:
– White House Press Secretary:
Julian Assange
Interesting and revealing article.Thank you. But Hitler gained real power only after the many parties voted for the empowering act which passed all the power to Hitler.The Social Democrats were the only ones who voted courageously against the empowering act.They stood up against Hitler and paid a high price for it.
News on the lackey front!: DC water has no idea who turned the water off at the embassy. Further, they are unable to respond to questions about turning it back on! I have never seen such profiles in lackeydom as I have seen lately.
Personally, I think Trump and friends are a “socialist” cabal. Aren’t they always warning of confiscation of private property by socialists? Well so far these upstanding capitalists have confiscated: gold, companies, other financial assets, real property, etc. and now they want this building as well. So much for the sanctity of private property and protection of assets. If they want stuff, they just take it!
The difference between a socialist and a Republican is that the Reps steal for their own benefit.
The fact that the Republican Party supports Trump and his advisors which hold dear that to win they must support the conspiracy theories that promoted the theory that Obama was not a legitimate president because he was born on foreign soil are the same malfeasance riddled stories promoted by our major media outlets.
The news media has devolved into organizations that purvey conspiracy theories as facts and report conspiracy theories generated by the right wing as facts. They support Trumps allegations that he would have won by a majority of voters if not for the millions of rapist murderers entering illegally into the country funded by George Soros (a Jew) to enable them to vote for democrats (Hillary Clinton)
What is the purpose of alleging that millions of undocumented illegal immigrants voted for Democrats that denied Trump his win of the popular vote? It’s purpose is to cultivate the idea that the electoral process is flawed and that election results cannot be trusted.
The Democrats have also played to the hands of the conservatives by insisting that the Russians were responsible for the election result casting more doubt on the integrity of elections in the USA.
This is key. We are living in an era where both parties believe that the democratic process is fundamentally broken.
This is precisely the ambitions of the current administration that they will use to full advantage in the next election. Trump has cut all humanitarian aid to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras specifically to create a crisis on the US Mexican border with a flood of refugees or illegal immigrants. The administrations maneuvers to overthrow the Venezuelan Government has already made Venezuela the largest source of immigrants wanting to leave their country and come to America.
The Trump administration has doubled down on its efforts to create a humanitarian crisis in South America in order to create the crisis at our borders that will enable the US to take extreme measures to fight the onslaught of immigrants.
This administration has a grand vision illustrated by their indifference of the plight of foreigners which it seeks to use as pawns that reinforce their claims that America is under attack.
What is the anticipated effect of the administration?
1. Energizing the base to fight against immigrants which the President has defined as the criminal hoards that seek to overthrow the government with the support of democrats. After all the democrats would not fund the wall that Trump insisted was necessary to curb the murders and rapists who were seeking to infiltrate America and kill us all funded by Jewish supporters of multiculturalism the likes of George Soros.
2. Creating the circumstances where we face an onslaught of immigrants from South America who are fleeing the dire situations in their countries which are the direct result of decades of US foreign policy which is aimed at destroying all governments in South America that have a spine and are willing to challenge the US deeply held belief that all of the natural resources that lie under foreign soil are theirs by right and that any means of gaining control of those resources is the legitimate right of the USA.
3. Casting the Russians, Cubans, Iranians, Chinese and Venezuelans more perfectly as the chief enemies of capitalism by forcing their hand in trying to defend Venezuela thus identifying their motives an assault on freedom and democracy. We will make all these nations our enemies for the want and lust for control of the natural resources of Venezuela.
5. Create the conditions that justify massive military spending as we face all of the new enemies we created. We created the enemy of Iran through our actions and we seek to multiply that effect that is most welcomed by the Military Industrial Complex by alienating the southern continent and making them security threats.
6. Acting to return the investment of the billionaires which were spent to elect Trump. The politicians are now slaves to the wishes of the billionaires and must deliver a return for the investments that created the corrupt Supreme Court. Every politician in Washington knows that they must tow the line laid out by the billionaires or else they will be replaced by extremists that tow the corporate line and support lies to fool and intimidate Americans into believing the nation is under attack.
7. Dehumanizing and vilifying democrats by pinning the blame for the onslaught of illegal immigrants on them because of their failure to fund the border wall and casting them as puppets of the globalists who seek to destroy America. The fact that the current administration is doing its level best to create a national emergency by creating a crisis on our border is lost on the media.
8. Cultivating an atmosphere of intolerance and seeking the support of the military to address the emerging threat which is of our own making,
9. Finally arriving at a state where elections are widely seen as corrupt and aimed at letting the current administration to grant itself to be above the law in order to preserve law and order.
10. Relinquishing the rule of law. The aims of the US Constitution redefined as protection for corporations and not the citizens of the USA
10. Attempting to cause international conflict in order to gain the support of the MIC and other lobbying groups. Enemies are good to have for these folks.
11. A free press which cannot say no to money,
A president who will stoop to any new low in order to win.
Yep, the delegitimizaion of Presidents in the modern era started with the Tea Party.
1944 LANGUAGE DOES NOT LIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D94nHWKkXfo
The various “Patriot Acts” of the US, Canada and England were all passed within a week having been read by none of our “Representatives.” Five Eyes needs to be brought under control.
“All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to. The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, but their power of forgetting is enormous.” So wrote Adolf Hitler in “Mein Kampf.” Combine the above with the fact that half the American public is on an eighth grade reading level or less, and you expect a functioning system of representative government?
sick of amereeka – amereeka the sick moron of the planet – another masterpiece from Ray
Me too
Learn Spanish, French, Chinese. That’ll give you a variety of countries to flee too. Re China, they need educated English teachers still, and for all the PRC’s flaws, they are not at all submissive to Uncle Sam. If you live in Changchun, e. g., no drone or SEAL deathsquad will kill you.
Social Democrats (Sozis) & Cimmunists (Kozis) had paramilitary outfits comparable to the Brown Shirts. But when the to fight came, they didn’t fight. Kozis had orders from Moscow. Sozis took Marxist determinism & the inevitable triumph of Socialism far too seriously.
Thanks for telling about Haffner’s account. I will try to read it.
Joachim Fest’s books are good, too, such as THE FACE OF THE THIRD REICH, about who supported Hitler, and PLOTTING AGAINST Hitler, about the various assassination attempts.
If you think the police are your friends, it just means you have never been beaten by these thugs.
mike k-
My theory of the three “P”‘s.
Policeman, Priest, and Politician are the three professions which attract exactly the wrong type of person for the job. Chances are if you want to be one, no one should let you. I believe many people’s experience besides my own would support my theory.
Delilah jumps on my sentence to lecture, why i don’t much comment on CN! You don’t even know if I can walk to “get out on the street”. I’ve been aware for years that we have fascism in the US. Americans are asleep, biggest consumers in the world who drive this insanity, and humans are trashing our planet, driving other species to extinction, ultimately our own demise. Don’t just protest, either; cut consumption way down and especially plastic! So MYOB, Delilah, and focus on Ray’s good article, not some negative you read into another’s simple statement.
https://harpers.org/blog/2008/01/madison-on-gradual-encroachments-against-freedom/
You forgot to mention the USA bankers and industrialists that financed The Nazis. It is in the Congressional Record of Trumans insistance that war profiteers be prosecuted. JP Morgan Rockefeller and others transferred funds to Hitler through Prescott Bush bank. The fall guy for all of them was Prescott Bush who did a few months in a luxury detention as the Lt Calley token sacrificial goat. Testimony from merchant marine sailors from several ships proved that Rockefeller oil was taken directly to uboat bases in the Atlantic till at least late 1943.
You also overlooked that Nazis arose independently across Europe because of the Bolshevik sponsored Holocausts against Christians and Ctholics all across Europe starting around 1905. The Armenians,poles and Ukrainians suffered the most at over 25 million executed or starved, The Ukraine Holdomor as it is now called, netted the familiar ^ million dead number that someone else claimed later. These were all against followers of Christianity. The Bolsheviks 3x in the 1920;s attacked and attempted the overthrow of a duly elected goverment of Germany. These are all Historic facts. Not popular by current goverments anywhere who have adopted themselves as God and fear an example of humanity Like The Christ. If you look you will easily find this information
Our Founding Fathers were not oblivious to this; thus, James Madison wrote:
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. … The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
We cannot say we weren’t warned. — Ray McGovern
Our Founding Fathers were not oblivious to this; thus, James Madison wrote:
“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. … The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
We cannot say we weren’t warned. — Ray McGovern
;;
A prominent face-to-face question for Ray McGovern is this;
? :”: ?
Why has your stand in favor of /
and in protection of / this bogus
ill-legitimate USA / POTUS
self-inspired titillation-ist
(Roget’s #504) or Edgar Poe’s
“A Descent Into The Maelstrom
( Roget’s #3653) as facilitation /
Co-Habitation of False Commutation
Overthrowing Co-Habitants N2 Foes
Divide & Rule is the Lock & Key INTO
Manifest Destiny / Ownership Society
The Traits of
The Dragon;
That I followed
led to the Death
Of my Physical
happiness
(as I knew it)
But my Birth
laid a crown
on my head/
and,
only the dragon
knew
I was dead… .
There is so much factual error there that I am forced to reject it all. Name a “Bolshevik sponsored Holocaust” against Christians (for being Christians). The Armenians were slaughtered in 1915 by Turks, not Bolsheviks, and not for being Christians. What three “Bolshevik” attacks in the 1920s to overthrow the government of Germany?
I guess 10 or 20 odd million Christians slaughtered by the Bolsheviks were missed in your study of the Bolshevik Revolution (which was only possible by the support received directly and personally from Wall Street)… It’s not hard to find in the history books about that event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
Seeing anti-communist takes on here is rather ironic, given that the foundation of fascist ideology is opposition to fraudulent “Judeo-Bolshevism,” and that it was the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) martyrs and comrades who formed the most active anti-Hitler resistance outside of the regime’s inner circle. It’s NATO propaganda to claim that the churches played the biggest role, used to downplay the appeal of leftism to Europeans during the Cold War and distract from the former Nazis running the FRG.
Socialism generally, be it the National Socialism of Hitler, or the International Socialism of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin are pathways to totalitarianism. Only someone who likes totalitarian forms of government would support either system.
And yes, I am anti-communist, but I think you’re conflating the fate of normal Russian citizens during the Bolshevik Revolution with the politics of post WW1 Germany. The socialists and the conservatives factions of the German government BOTH rolled over to allow Hitler’s National Socialists to take over when he didn’t have a majority.
Tiu, that is false. Hitler’s “National Socialist Party” was in no sense socialist other than controlling large industry. They had a plurality due to fragmentation of German parties due to the Depression combined with WWI reparations, etc., and ended the 11-year rule of the socialist Social Democratic Party.
I’m sure that you have no evidence that the Bolsheviks were sponsored broadly by Wall St, versus a few investors. Any such arrangement during WWI is extremely unlikely.
I guess you missed my statement “(for being Christians).”
You could have a point, apart from the minor detail that Marxist Socialists had a policy of abolishing all religions. They also destroyed mosques and synagogues as well as churches. Russia was predominantly a Christian empire, and their priests were particularly targeted for slaughter, but if you like to think they were targeted for some other reason than their religion that’s fine by me. Likewise with Hitler’s National Socialists (which had very Socialist policies prior to the war), you are free to consider their policies however you deem appropriate as well.
There were also plenty of leading western politicians and power players who were also equally enamoured with Marxism and Socialism, here’s a quote from one of them…
“Marx’s great book Das Kapital is at once a monument of reasoning and storehouse of facts.”
Lord Alfred Milner (British War Cabinet 1917, founder of the Round Table organisation, the RIIA (CFR in the US), inheritor of Rhode’s fortune and mission, instigator of the Boer War and first prime minister for South Africa, leader of Milner’s Kindergarten etc., etc.).
Some Wall Street names who financed the Bolsheviks (and where noted * who went to Russia and were actively involved):
Andrews, James W. Treasurer to the American Red Cross Mission to Russia; Barr*, Robert I Chase Securities Co (vice-pres). Chase National Bank (vice-pres). American Red Cross Mission to Russia, Deputy commissioner American Red Cross Mission to Russia; Cochran*, William, McCann Co. American Red Cross Mission to Russia, Advertising for American Red Cross Mission to Russia; Crane*, Charles Richard, Westinghouse. Crane Co. Friend, backer and advisor to President Wilson. Former chairman of Democratic Party finance committee. Involved in first and second stages of Russian Revolution (Kerensky gov – referred to as the “Provisional Government” from the start). Travelled with Trotsky 26/3/1917 on S.S. Kristianiafjord; Creel, George, US Committee on Public Information; Davison*, Henry P. J.P. Morgan (partner) American Red Cross Mission (Chairman), Chairman of the 1910 NY fundraising committee, later became Chairman of the War Council of the American Red Cross. Three weeks after Bolshevik phase of revolution received cable from Robins urging President to recognise Bolsheviks as a response to cable from President “desiring the withholding of direct communications…[by US reps]… with the Bolshevik government”; Emery*, Henry Crosby, Guaranty Trust. American Red Cross Mission. Temporarily held by Germans 1918, then moved to represent Guaranty Trust in China.
And I’ll leave it there, believe me there are loads more – that’s only upto the E’s on my list! If you want a good book on it I’d recommend “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution” by Antony C. Sutton. It sounds like you need to read up on the subject!
Another minor point were pointing out is that the Chase Bank was the only bank (foreign or local) that didn’t get nationalised by the Bolsheviks.
Another name worth adding to the list is: Thompson*, William Boyce, Federal Reserve Bank NY (Dir). American Red Cross Mission to Russia. Connection with Guggenheims and Morgan-Rockefeller interests. Subsidized Bolshevik propaganda. In Petrograd during Kerensky gov, undertook mission to support American propaganda and for a “Liberty Loan”. 2/12/1917 cabled request to Morgan for $1m cabled to National City Bank, Petrograd – Thompson’s personal contribution to the Bolsheviks for spreading doctrine in Germany and Austria, left Russia 4/12/1917. Also financially support Bolsheviks opponents in South Russia.
17/12/1917 attacked (along with Col. R. Robins and Red Cross) in Moscow paper “Why are they so interested in enlightenment? Why was the money given the socialist revolutionaries and not to the constitutional democrats? One would suppose the latter near and dearer to hearts of bankers.”
Financed both Kerensky and Bolsheviks with the aim of keeping Russia at war with Germany and to prevent Germany establishing commercial links with Russia.
Safest way to look at these people is as a pack of wolves, out to scatter the herds as they move in on the resources and power more than trying to find a political or religious angle.
It’s tragically ironic that the most Rapture believing, born-again Christians salivating for war with Venezuela, Iran and most certainly Russia are US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US Veep Michael Pence.
The basic Nazi ideas were routine throughout the Western world, so doing business with Nazi Germany would have normal. The extermination of the Indians, the Jim Laws, were inspiring to the Nazis.
The US is run by a regime of lawless political gangsters whose removal the world might not survive.
That we are tyrannized by “political gangsters whose removal the world might not survive” is the most profoundly accurate, bottom-line assessment of our true circumstances I have read anywhere.
Thank you, Mr. McNulty, for implicitly stating the one fact too many of us conveniently ignore: how dare we revolt when we know our enemy will nuke the planet to a cinder rather than surrender ?
Why do you argue for capitulation to tyranny? The use of the selfishness of the US tyranny to claim that we “dare not” destroy tyranny for fear that tyranny will “destroy the world” is contrary to reason and the goals of every citizen. They will be destroyed by domestic processes, and will not have that opportunity. Those who claim dangers are usually either hiding from the duties of citizens, or deliberately serving tyranny, by creating exactly the fears that the persecution of Assange and protesters are intended to do.
The sanctions break my heart. It’s cold killing war designed to break the resistance of peoples of Venezuela, Palestine, Iran, and soon everywhere else to the US Empire, with millions of children dead justified by US newspapers and “intellectuals.” Even I didn’t think they could stoop this low to justify their plans for “liberal democracies,” which, as Ray pointed out, they deny to their own citizens by attacking protestors and muzzling the media not owned or manipulated by multinational corporations.
It is still fairly unbelievable to me that this is actually our country, we starve millions around the world in the name of democracy and overthrow legitimately elected governments in the name of resource acquisition, the United States government is no better than the autocratic despots we originally rebelled against.
Turning even into a more odious nation. And so many “blind” people all over the globe still in awe of this poison.
How many people will know that a peace activist was bloodied for trying to feed someone? Didn’t hear it on ABC, didn’t hear it on NBC., didn’t hear it on CBS. Only heard it here. The MSM is right there with those who “keep silent” at the indecent behavior of those in power.
You know those dystopian movies where a futuristic dictatorship covers all protests as “terrorism” via their state media and where inequality is such that a few titans vie for control.
That’s America 2019,
Except that there is no coverage of resistance at all, even to demonise it. It’s just the 24-hours-hate against “enemy” countries which have no history of attacking the USA
Thanks Ray, as always. The most important point I think you raise here is that they were doing the surveillance before 9/11, whereas it is always presented as a response to 9/11. Not enough has been written about this, or about similar rank mendacity we have been subjected to with respect to most of the significant adverse actions taken against civil liberties after 9/11, and the concomitant corruption of constitutional authority: the Patriot Act was a response to 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan was a response to 9/11. No they weren’t. The Patriot Act had been written up before 9/11; it’s length and complexity alone should have given that away. The invasion of Afghanistan was planned before 9/11 (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2001/11/afgh-n20.html). These points are crucial and undermine the entirety of all the post-9/11 cant that has been brazenly thrust in our faces to cover the government’s hamfisted power grab. Talking up this point must become the new paradigm for those opposed to the coming round of war and repression. If truth has any influence anymore, then it must be confronted.
As the likely Democratic candidate in 2020 has proudly proclaimed, he wrote the Patriot Act in 1995 (but it took 9/11, 2001 to move his legislation into Law). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act_of_1995
The agendas have been in place for some time. Presidents cannot untrack these long term projects (although the heads of the projects were greatly upset in 2016 at the prospect of an Ousider disrupting these agendas! Trump is “on track” now.)
Clarence is correct about the pre-9/11 origin of the Patriot Act. If memory serves, it was written by Clinton AG Janet Reno and her staff, was originally presented as an anti-crime bill in ’98 or ’99, and — despite the regime’s high-pressure sales effort — was resoundingly rejected by Congress as too draconian.
Again we see how the Trump/Pence Regime’s victories are but the concluding acts of the coup begun 22 November 1963.
This video clearly shows that we do not have law enforcement officers in the US. I will go so far as to state that this seems like treason to me. These officers and the DC police are working on behalf of a foreign national against US citizens.
For a long time now I have seen the lawless violence of police against the people. This is a violation of their oaths, which obviously don’t mean anything–these are people without honor. They are in fact cowards. It really doesn’t take a pack of wolves to arrest this man. Are the police/feds really that incapable of making an arrest without doing violence? Clearly, this is an act done to intimidate and create fear as a deterrence to anyone else who may try to get food and medicine through.
If you see what happened to water protectors, to occupy, to black lives matter, (just to name of few instances) we see this pattern of extraordinary violence used against citizens again and again. This is what the full faith and credit of the US has come to mean. Bull Conner is the enforcers way, truth and light.
Law enforcement has pretty much completely turned on the people of our nation. This is what a society breaking down into fascism looks like. I am scared. I am angry. I am sad. And I will oppose this.
Very true; democracy is lost; the dictatorship of the rich prevails.
@ “For a long time now I have seen the lawless violence of police against the people. This is a violation of their oaths, which obviously don’t mean anything–these are people without honor. They are in fact cowards.”
“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of the colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.” — Robert F. Kennedy
Me thinks many people are waking up and will oppose this too…it will just take one incident that will let the dam burst; it will be war for a moment but we have the numbers and the second amendment…beware those doing harm for the oligarchy and beware oligarchy as your end is nigh too for the peoples response will be just as ruthless as yours have been…probably more so for it will need to be quashed completely and utterly this last time. When the Japanese commander sailed away after Pear Harbor bombing he said something along these lines: I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping lion. We are the lion.
Thanks for your great article, Ray, as usual. Increasing populations worldwide and powerful technological advancement have been combined to bring humans to this point of control. But it is our choice to reject it and not get caught in the noose of being a “Not See”. Which means, read alternative websites for information and ignore the TV bubble blather, or at least see through it. More people are awakening since they see the rotten fruit we have been fed. While these times may seem terrifying, we cannot be afraid. I applaud the brave protectors of Venezuela’s resistance to the District of Corruption thugs.
The problem as I see it is America has not been subjected to the real horrors of war since the Civil War. Europeans, on the other hand, know full well the destruction war brings. You say…..I applaud the brave protectors of Venezuela’s resistance to the District of Corruption of thugs….Yellow Vests are continuing their fight against Macrone and on today’s news, ships at the French dock were waiting to be supplied with arms, weapons for sale to the Saudi’s to be used against the people of Yemen. The French people tried to block the shipment. I do not know if they were successful. The Marxist socialists causing this destruction around the world are hiding here in the US. They are protected by laws that they have enacted over many decades. We the people need to get into the streets now. I know we have jobs and families but we can do what France has done and go to the streets on weekends.
How on Earth do you blame the attacks by the US on Venezuela on “Marxist socialists” in complete contradiction of your comment?
Scapegoating, again. It’s not just the Marxists fault. Give credit to Dispensationalists, too, and American Exceptionalism nonsense, too.
Just watched the video of Gerry Condon being manhandled and arrested by the American Nazis. 7 or 8 young, dedicated, patriotic Nazis manhandling an elderly man for throwing some food to people who are besieged in the embassy. From the video it appears like these Nazi are proud to “do their job”. History does repeat itself.
I remember when Obama killed, via Kill List, a couple of US citizens. The excuses made at the leftish website I then read, were exceedingly childish. They must’ve been Bad cuz bad things only happen to bad people! Obam’s one of us, we can trust him to do the right thing! No one thought *they* could be murdered by a dead th squad. Bad things only happen to other people.
Obama issued Executive Order 13692 on March 8, 2015, declaring a national emergency with respect to the situation in Venezuela. The Venezuelans were aghast that Obama could do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUq7ZWTzNxM
Trump and his out-of-control (but approved by Rachel Maddow) John Bolton, with evil Eliott Abrahms in the wings, has escalated the situation. However it is not a Trump/ Republican issue, hegemony over Venezuelan oil has the full support of most Democrats and Congress. It is just more naked aggression by the neolibs and neocons intent of stealing resources from poor, 3rd world countries.
The World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) condemned Obama’s blatantly unconstitutional act, and the cowardice of the press and politicians who supported it, and the “pseudo-lefts” who supported it.
Obama continued Bush’s criminal wars and started new ones (Libya, Yemen, Syria), which have devastated formerly relatively developed countries in the Middle East, creating havoc and misery.
Obama’s “change you can believe in” cut in half the wages of autoworkers, shoveled Trillions of dollars to the banks and wealthy, continued the destruction of social programs and generally further impoverished the population.
Obama refused to prosecute the war criminals who violated the constitution (Think Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gina Haspel, known torturer who now heads the CIA). But he did prosecute whistleblowers who exposed the war crimes – Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling and reporter James Risen. And prepared secret charges against Julian Assange.
The WSWS.org has led the defense of Assange and of Manning.
America, America!
Comparing these traitors of the country and the people to the Nazis is an insult to Nazis. Nazis were good at least to their own people.
No they weren’t.
Indeed Zhu, to my recollection of reading done many ages ago the Nazis went after the – German – Socialists, the mentally and physically handicapped, children and adults (on whom they practiced methods of killing from injections to gassing – in vans with exhaust fumes), gay men, before they turned to the Jews, the Slavs (including the Russians) and the Roma.
We forget this – indeed there may be a generation or two who are completely unaware of the whole panoply of Nazidom’s genocidal programs.
All very true! Is he trying to imply that the Jews weren’t German citizens or “true Germans?”
So, you basically deny that people were corralled and mass transited into concentration camps, then exterminated?
One great problem is that the four “death camps” in the east were liberated by the Red Army. Everything we think we know about what happened there comes to us filtered through the Soviet propaganda machine. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable as well. Many think they’ve seen piles of corpses at Auschwitz when no such photos exist, but are rather of Bergen-Belsen and its satellite camps in Germany itself. SHAEF’s Psychological Warfare unit spent nine days in Ohrdurf, for one example, arranging “evidence” before the newsreel cameras showed up. The details of its “black ops” campaign to demoralize the German people with atrocity stories about their government remains classified as top secret to this day.
Reading serious, philosophical, history isn’t harf, nor is thinking about implications, consequences. I haven’t watched much TV since the 70s, which leaves more reading time. More time to talk with survivors of that era, like my parents.
My statement was only rhetorical in order to make a point. I hope, it worked.
Just wait and see how the current story ends. After that, it will be the time to make comparisons.
It’ll end with global warming. We will be as extilct or Indus
Valley Civilitzatio.
Can you spell chemtrails? Global weather manipulation for military purposes.
Well, chemtrails also seem to serve corporate interests and stock market manipulation.
The Nazis persecuted dissidents and any German who was anti-Nazi. The first people sent to concentration camps were Communists and the political opposition.
Very important to remember this, as Jews have hijacked any historical account of what actually occurred in Germany after February 2, 1933, the Reichstag fire. First to be targeted were political dissidents who didn ‘t support the Nazi Party. I was just reading a German account of how this worked. Not everyone the nazi Regime didn’t want to have arouind was shipped to a concentration camp. First they came for political dissidents. And either sent them for reeducation” or “encouraged” them to leave the country. Those who could see the writing on the wall left at this time. After 1936 and the Nuernberg Laws was when Jews, those who could afford to, started to flee en masse.
Get your history right.
First it was about political dissent, not about antisemitism.
Scapegoating again
Good one! The entire dnc and Rnc leadership are all in the bankers pockets. Yes like Manafort who was initially under clinton/biden/kerry/psenator who goes by pelosi. not her legal name., sponsorship in the 1990;s to establish EU shell companies they would with McCains help send “foreign Aid”( aka as working peoples tax dollars) $ into instead of the actual goverment. then most was streamed back to them. Example: Uraine Foreign aid ,aprox $3.3 billion, was transferred to Hunter Biden & & J Kery’s sons company there . Last audit revealed $1.9 billion disappeared.. both J Biden and McCains private companies were gaettting millions in “fees” from the Ukrainian company the sons sit on board of directors on.
Anyway, they realised before the election that their hilary wasnt going to win despite their nationwide vote fraud, so they officially made Manafort persona nongrata in USA. Yes that is an actual legal status. He has the dirt on both rnc and dnc stealing foreign aid from all EU. Then look at what they did to Seth Rich after he filed lawsuit against DNC and Hilary for vote fraud and election rigging in 2016. he didnt live 48hours.
good one
I hope that fate takes a large dump in the lives of all those involved in this disgraceful siege of both the embassy and the country
Since Maduro invited the activists inside the building, he should see that food is delivered to them and he should fight to have the electricity turned on. If necessary he (and countries supporting him) should go before the United Nations to protest this flagrant usurpation of international law.
Shame on President Trump and every individual running for President and every member of Congress for not abiding by the treaties we are signatories to.
The U.S. Constitution says that “all treaties signed by the United States shall be regarded as THE HIGHEST LAW OF THE LAND.
Where is Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Sen. Mike Gravel (both are candidates for president)?
Their leadership is needed NOW.
I don’t understand why the Embassy people or some else doesn’t take out a court injunction against these hoodlums outside the embassy ?
Because the US Government approves the blockade of the Embassy and wants Maduro’s appointees replaced by their strawman’s. Why do you suppose the police are permitting and not preventing the blockade?
Yeah right. Venezuelans are going to stand up to the most powerful military in the world, in the USA ? At Washington DC ?? You might as well sign your death warrant.
Mike Gravel has called out the Guaido thugs, apparently paid employees of the weapons companies, and the odious “Reagan Battalion” for smearing the Embassy Defenders.
As you might expect, Tulsi is silent…
No to barbaric capitalism
Yes to people and Earth friendly SOCIALISM now.
Dear Douglas
No to barbaric socialism.
Yes to people and Earth friendly capitalism now.
PS. In the future, I suggest you consider engaging with valid, objective arguments instead of cheap slogans.
jandro – “Earth friendly capitalism” wow! That’s a good one! LOL! That’s kind of like arguing for “human rights respecting fascism!”
Thank you Ray, for all your work and courage.
The psychology of mass-abdication is a very worthy and actual subject, on which much has to be published. Hopefully your bright example will be a beacon for others.
If I may, there is one quite significant difference in both situations, from what I can see.
Germany was at that time the pariah of the Western world, trampled on and abused in Versailles and beaten with brutal sanctions to make sure she would remain under the victor’s boot.
The US at the turn of the century was and is the accepted emperor of the world, arrogantly dictating its wishes to the world’s nations.
It seems that such opposite backgrounds might have to be taken into account at one point, if one compares the reactions of the nation’s populations.
Thank you again and we hope that truth-tellers like you may receive the honor and publicity that is due to such courage and work. If not the present, future generations will know who the brave were.
It’s not the US, but the ones usurping its policies and exploiting its citizens till their last drop of blood.
No, it’s the American people, no one else, who are to blame.
You often say that, Zhu, but cannot argue the point.
Listen to those who know more about this country.
Really? What do you think they could do?
Well, it is not the scapegoat du jour who is to blame.
Hello, Lieve. It is interesting that you would make a point of this distinction, and, if possible, your conclusion on it would be welcome to help understand what you’re after. Apparently a beaten down or humiliated people have more excuse for supporting a brutal Nazi regime than a people amidst material surfeit, and possibly (some of them) crowing right along with their political administrators, as with the neo-con full-spectrum dominance crowd after collapse of the Soviet Union? I am not sure of the significance of what you have asked, or if I’m on the right track. Perhaps you could clarify?
In my view it is a little too much to expect the same kind of interest by the populace in both instances. I would think the earlier one, with the German people, would be more interested in compliance with an authoritarian system, as with reversing the humiliation (hence more vulnerable to brainwashing) versus the later American one, already surfeited with manipulations and falsity in government over many decades, let alone a declining economy, let alone the ubiquitous nature of the material life, in terms of “dropping out” of political concerns.
What seems important to me in considering the two backgrounds is that, for the American public, given an overall easy life apart from (for a few) concerns of drift toward increasing globalism/militarism, we should focus more clearly on the behavior of the government, which has increasingly taken on the trappings of the way Hitler and the Nazis gradually rose up and took over the population. The Nazis certainly showed the way on false flags and various deceptions, including exuding noble tones about “defending the homeland” and such, and how “enemies of the people” lay all about. This approach is now in full throat as with Pompeo.
Further, while we’re making distinctions, I suggest there’s another parallel that could be observed, and that is that the overall pusillanimous behavior of the official allies of the countries that the Nazis eventually attacked–in the name of defense–refused to take the threats seriously toward world war, as with England and France. And we are now, again, seeing this kind of deference from the world to US policies being engineered by the Pompeo-Bolton administration. For example, how many countries at this time support the entirely false allegation that Guaido is the proper leader of Venezuela, that Maduro is a dictator, that he is illegitimate, that the 2018 election was somehow false? And that it is Iran that is being provocative and war-mongering against “the good cop” America?
“The United States is moving dangerously forward in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to provoke a war with Iran, apparently based on threat intelligence provided by Israel. The claims made by National Security Advisor John Bolton and by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that there is solid evidence of Iran’s intention to attack US forces in the Persian Gulf region is almost certainly a fabrication, possibly deliberately contrived by Bolton and company in collaboration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“[…] the Iranians would be wise to avoid confrontation until the sages in the White House move on to some easier target, which at the moment would appear to be Venezuela.
“The influence of Israel over US foreign policy is undeniable […] It is becoming increasingly apparent that foreign politicians have realized that the easiest way to gain Washington’s favor is to do something that will please Israel […]
“Juan Guaido, the candidate favored by Washington for regime change […] has proven willing to make some time to say what Benjamin Netanyahu wants to hear, as reported by the Israeli media. The Times of Israel describes how ‘Venezuela’s self-proclaimed leader Juan Guaido is working to re-establish diplomatic relations with Israel and isn’t ruling out placing his country’s embassy in Jerusalem, according to an interview with an Israeli newspaper published Tuesday.’
“One would think that Guaido would consider his interview sufficient, but he has also taken the pandering process one step farther, reportedly displaying huge video images of the flags of both Israel and the United States at his rallies.
“This deference to Israel’s interests produced an almost immediate positive result with Netanyahu recognizing him as the legitimate Venezuelan head of state, followed by an echo chamber of effusive congratulations from US (sic) Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, who praised the Jewish state for ‘standing with the people of Venezuela and the forces of freedom and democracy.’ Donald Trump’s esteemed special envoy for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, also joined in, praising the Israeli government for its ‘courageous stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people.’
“[…] Guaido’s promises to Israel reveal that the foreign policies of Tel Aviv and Washington have become inextricably intertwined”
Pandering to Israel Means War With Iran
By Philip Giraldi
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/05/09/pandering-to-israel-means-war-with-iran/
Note that Israel’s support for an extreme-Right politician like Guaido is in line with what appears to be their deliberate and organized support for the fundamentalist Right in the US.
Guaido’s supporters were flying the Israeli flag a bunch of times from what I’ve seen. Bibi strongly backs the fascist Bolsonaro regime, which recently banned all teaching of philosophy and art, and the Macron regime, which has used Israeli DNA marking technology to target and jail Gilets Jaunes. According to a left-wing, pro-Corbyn website, the Mossad is behind the Iran “threat” fake news (also propped up by American psychos Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo) https://redrevolution.co.uk
Blame the Dispensationalists, eager for Armeggedon, the Rapture, the Second Coming.
Always defending the Israelis. There are some real protestant zionists, but most are opportunists. They want career gains, the disguise of a cause, MIC profits, tribal acceptance. So the question is why do they see opportunity in zionism? Because the Israel Lobby controls US elections and mass media. Explore that and you will see that it is true. There is no racism or carelessness in observing zionist misconduct.
Dispensationalism fantasies are likely involved, too, in attempts to provoke war with Iran
Can the deliver food parcels via drone and dropped through the chimney or deposited on the roof?
The state does not enforce existing laws against lawbreakers in both the US and France. Instead, legislators write new laws restricting the general peaceful citizens.
Why do legislators write bad laws restricting ordinary neighborhood citizens?
Evolution is accelerating at an accelerating rate. It must be stopped or capitalism will evolve into an advanced constituent assembly as the central facet of a seven facet form of government.
There is a picture of it on http://www.constituentassembly.org
Excellent article by Ray McGovern. Indeed the US public is intimidated, confused, driven by ignorance, selfishness, hypocrisy and malice into easily-manipulated tribal factions. Few have courage, interaction, principles, or social contract.
But I’ll add that we are there already: we already have the best Naziism money can buy: whatever can be marketed to cowardly fools who have no life beyond entertainment propaganda. No doubt Naziism would have succeeded if packaged like ours. It was a necessary experiment in selling the dictatorship of the rich.
Remember, a large share of the US populace is terrified of bevoming homeless, and with good reason. Politics is a much lower priority.
Yes, Zhu, the lower middle class and lower are afraid of losing work, and so are tyrannized, silenced, and forced by economic power to parrot the MSM. Those of the middle class and above simply want more. Few of either group have intellectual life beyond entertainment propaganda, and practicing false declarations of principle to their congregation and work group. Few have any principles, nor the education to connect truth and justice with facts.
H.L. Mencken said (approx.) that “The average man avoids truth [because] it is dangerous, no good can come of it, and it doesn’t pay.” Oligarchy can rely upon a combination of fearmongering and mass media repetition of nonsense and exclusion of criticism. They also rely upon suppression of dialogue in the primary workplace venues of discourse, and threats to employment security. And of course oligarchy has the rewards that support the duopoly racketeers and their supporters. Most know that the path to wealth and power is adoption of the very rationales that enslave them.
Just as the bullied may become the bully, the tyrannized population becomes susceptible to the leadership of tyrants, present in every group, promising to defend them against the original bully. The leadership of the their tyrants soon makes them the bully among other groups, especially nearby victims whose resources can be taken to support the tyrant class.
It is not just by silence that people look the other way. EQUALLY important is the silencing of those willing to expose evil for what it is and who it is who are doing it. CONSIDER the methods and means by which millions and millions of people are silenced; bribes, incentives of every kind, coercion, isolation, arrests, defamation, deplatforming, murder and set ups. Therefore FEAR is harnessed to bend the knees when other methods fail. Then there is economic warfare: lack of food, water, clothing and shelter. A man arrested for throwing up a cucumber at a Venezuelan embassy. Another for bread to help feed the hungry inside the embassy. I ADVOCATE LOVE FOR HUMANITY AND COMMON SENSE. Love yourself. Love others. Do do good. Be good.Trust God. Have faith. KEEP UP THE GOOD FIGHT!
Last weekend, I had lunch with two friends visiting my neck of the woods from Washington, D.C. – they’re a married couple who work in the district and live just outside it. One is a tenured university professor in political science; the other, a longtime lawyer in the federal government. Each with more than one degree from Ivy League and other elite institutions. Both obviously would consider themselves politically informed.
Neither of them had heard anything about what was going on at the Venezuelan embassy until I brought it up. They were, however, well prepared to discuss the ups and downs of the various Democratic presidential candidates (though things got kind of quiet when I mentioned Tulsi Gabbard).
Creating such people is the triumph and strength of the U.S. establishment, its educational system and media. It cannot or will not learn and evolve; it will remain rigid and unconscious until it finally shatters when the world has diverged from it sufficiently that the contradictions become unsustainable.
Glenn Greenwald Just interviewed Gabbard
https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2018/06/glenn-600-111-1530203657.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&h=160
You might want to send them a link
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/09/watch-interview-with-democratic-congresswoman-and-2020-presidential-candidate-tulsi-gabbard/
Most Americans, I fear, are raised from childhood to be uncritical, of themselves, and especially of the political/social status quo. We are raised to be very conformist, as de Tocqueville noticed.
Nothing will ‘defeat’ the Oligarchs. Waving signs? Signing online petitions? Protesting in ‘Free Speech Zones’ under a freeway overpass surrounded by wire and men with guns itching to use them on you?
What, you think this is something new going on? Not even close to reality. This has always been the basis of the USA. It used to be called ‘Colonialism’ and ‘Capitalism’ hundreds of years ago, but the Fascist just really got going after the US government imported thousands of freaking Nazis after WWII and gave the power to set up the CIA to the Nazi spy chief who should have been hung at Nuremberg. Did he do a great job or what designing the CIA or what?
You think the wealthy, who tried to overthrow FDR in 1934 and establish a Fascist government aligned with Hitler, went away when Pearl Harbor happened?
Hell, the Fascists who wrote/signed the Progress for the New American Century SAID they needed a new Pearl Harbor to complete their plans. Dick f**king Cheney and the Nazi grandpa Prescott Bush’s little flake of a grandson knew exactly what they were doing. And they never got sent to Nuremberg for trial and hung for war crimes, did they? Obama made sure of that.
There are two classes in this country and always have been; the working class and the leisure class, and the latter knows exactly how to get part of the former to enforce and brutalize the rest. Give them a few perks above the rest and educate them that they are ‘better’ than the rest of the poor schmucks, add in that the violent gov enforcers get immunity to anything and everything they do to the rest and the weapons to do it with, then make sure to create an economy designed to impoverish and keep the working class struggling to pay the bills.
Divide and conquer has ALWAYS worked.
This country is done, it is a Fascist one-party state. I knew this as a teenager in the 60s living with a stepmom Peace & Freedom Party anti-war activist and high school teacher who gave me far too many books and lesson talks about this reality on what this country has ALWAYS done to anybody not ‘following the program.’ She had first-hand knowledge, she was taken to a concentration camp as a San Francisco child in 1942. Slanted eyes and off her family went.
But don’t worry, ongoing Catastrophic Climate Collapse is going to solve all our current problems in short order. And unfortunately there isn’t anything we can do about that, either, anymore than we can reverse the effects of Fascist rule. But the physical reality of one will certainly teach the ideological reality of the other a lesson in absolute power. Too bad it is doubtful that any of our species will be around to see the conclusion of that battle.
Note: You folks did read Ralph Nader’s little article on Repub political hack Frank Luntz who invented the cheapened term ‘climate change’ to get people to quit worrying about the climate? Link:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/06/note-to-the-environmental-community/
I’m wondering if good old Frank might be the one who came up with the ‘Homeland’ moniker, too!
sealintheSelkirks
Seal, what actually is new, is that more and more people are waking up to what is really going on worldwide. And the ruling classes are worried, but not terribly so. They should be much more worried. I myself, am not a violent person. I’ve spent my entire career tenderly caring for and listening to my patients, but there are a growing number of “Precariat” as the great Guy Standing has written about, who are not afraid to fight back against travesty after travesty, and indignity after indignity, all over the world. They are growing in numbers daily. Like Jill, who comments below, I am frightened by the insane bellicosity of the people running this country. Somewhat cleverly disguised under the perfidious Obama’s reign, now they are out there, loud and proud and crazy as nine kinds of bat guano. Pompeo is a nutty, end-times Christian fundamentalist, who seems to get a woody salivating over the possibility of Armageddon. The book of Revelations must be his favorite book of the Bible. And Bolton- another crazed, bombastic dangerous fool. Trump hired both of these hit men. Can anything help us out of this mess? We have control over nothing much except our own responses to the madness. Peace, to all commenters here at my favorite site, CN. Thank you, Ray.
Re Operation Paperclip, it persuades me that Goebbeks may have been right, when he said that, given access to the US media, he could persuade us to join Germany in an anti-Communist Crusade.
There are many things I like about Ray McGovern — most things actually — but I have to say Hitler and NAZI analogies have become meaningless to me. Whats that thing – Godwin’s Law or something? These types of analogies are always taken out of context to the situation in Post WWI and post 1929 Germany. They always ignore the fact that we helped a godless ideology take over half of Christian Europe which they held onto for 50 years. And, they ignore the fact that our leaders knew Stalin was the biggest psycho around at the time. Its as if we keep demonizing Germany so nobody considers the actual truth of the results of the war in Europe.
There is indeed a lot cheap rhetoric, in the US, about Nazis, but you can still learn from reala
historical study. Eg, most Nazi party members were ordinary people, not monsters from another planet. We’re all capable of evil deeds. Modern political organization and the Industrial Revolution allows them to be done on a gigantic scale.
Thanks Ray that was terrifyingly informative. I’ll forward this to others.
Jill, I’m really scared too and thoroughly depressed by the mental state of our country and particularly the people who are running it. I’m so disappointed in the House Dems who truly seem to have no spine and no comprehension of life outside the beltway.
The (House) Dem DO have spine. Their job is not to work for the ordinary people and for peace. Their job is to PRETEND to do so, to play good cop bad cop(with the Repugs), to infect the ordinary folks with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrom) and thereby keep them distracted from the real issues (war and peace, climate change, income inequality, loss of our domestic freedom, etc.) so that the OLIGARCHY can continue to rule. I actually admire the chutzpah of the Dems. I admire their spine to fool all the sheeple that follow the Dems.
Thanks Ray, I forwarded this to my son’s beautiful girlfriend who is like a daughter to my wife and I, as she spent a week in the Venezuelan Embassy and brought home the truth to us for what is going on in this unnoticed drama of people power against the enemies of true democratic rule. Normally I would be mad as hell for the lack of news coverage of this event but, with the way our MSM lies it is probably better it go unreported by these bought and paid for media hacks.
9/11 will always remain a huge turning point of America’s love for freedom and individuals independence. It’s with this loss of individual rights I suspect 9/11 was an inside job. Hopefully one day the truth will come out and the evil plotters will be exposed… but don’t hold your breath for this to happen any time soon. Until then stay alert and stick to your beliefs of a better tomorrow.
Again thanks Ray. Joe
Thank you for looking back at the crimes of the Bush administration Ray. I recall Obama, when shortly after he was first elected stated “We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards”. This was a big mistake. Without accountability for those who break the law you have no rule of law. This decision not to investigate and prosecute came from the President who was a constitutional lawyer. Shame on you President Obama. This speaks volumes about our justice system and our government. The law makers are law breakers who cover up their crimes and protect themselves. Our Constitution, thus far, has not deterred their connivance and corruption. When the interests of the Rulers trumps the interests of the people, then Constitutions everywhere become null and void. According to the Venezuelan Constitution, President Maduro can not be replaced, while in office, unless he is incapacitated or has abandoned his post. US recognition of random guy is illegal. To freeze and confiscate billions of dollars worth of Venezuelan assets is illegal. To attempt to overthrow the legitimately elected President of Venezuela is illegal. The activists who reside in the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington are there with the permission of President Maduro which makes their residency legal. Supporters of the activists who have attempted to deliver food and medicine to them have been abused and arrested. Guido supporters have surrounded the Embassy and harass the occupants 24/7. They have on occasion broken into the building but have not been arrested by authorities who are on the seen. This reflects poorly on the Secret Service and the DC Police. Their conduct is shameful, disgraceful, and inhumane. Now add to that, that the electricity to the Embassy has been cut off.
It is a rite of passage for each incoming president to commit a war crime ASAP, thus ensuring that no prosecution of the previous administration can happen. What we really need to do is return to “the rule of law”; but with every branch of government totally corrupted, that is much easier said than done.
Obama (and his “looking back”, among other things) was the plan, and not a mistake. It is just too easy to fool the people, and the dems (and the Repugs) know this.
Qwest was soon defunct and it’s CEO imprisoned after noncooperation with spying.
Tip of the iceberg of the evidence that VIPS doesn’t do:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israel-s-cyber-spy-industry-aids-dictators-hunt-dissidents-and-gays-1.6573027
Abe,
I notice that in a subsequent comment you referred to one of VIPSer Phil Giraldi’s pieces. Phil is among the best and most outspoken analysts of Israel’s role, and has done such a good and pointed job that The American Conservative has banned him from its pages. On occasion, Phil has also been principal drafter of VIPS Memoranda on related subjects; this one, for example: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/25/trump-should-withdraw-haspel-nomination-intel-vets-say/
So, please, keep reading what Phil and other VIPSers are writing, paticularly on the Israeli issue and I think you will find that it is uniquely well covered. We do not always attempt to create a formal, corporate VIPS memo at every juncture that might ideally merit one; rather, we are pleased to point frequently to the good work done on Israel and other issues by individual VIPS members.
Thanks for your interest. I hope this helps to address your concern. If not, please let me know.
Ray McGovern
Ray McGovern,
Why are you standing
up for this Donald
Trump and Associate ””s
Obvious Criminal ELEMENT/
Thrusting Their Middle Finger
Up The Rumps of ?We the people?
“we the people” feel that finger
everyday as we hold our jobs ”
being raped,solemnized and sodomized as
Eyes of prison guards and “public/defenders”
/ politicians and systems of deceit
like “food stamps” and ” Vouchers”
Lockup “SOCIAL-WORKERS” as
Labor goons for The Establishment !!!
Paycheck flunkeys ‘do’n their j o b
w/ years worked in a pliant system
of Nationalist Bigotry /Favoritism
“Take Our Country Back” symbolism
as THE Voice of White Americanism
as if , …. as if …. as if . … .. .,
you, Ray McGovern haven’t witness the persistently acceptant inequality . …
Why does this looney’s lengthy, incoherent and contradictory comment get posted when my pointed and coherent comments are often blocked?
Giraldi may be good on Israeli politics, but he’s weak on US Christian Zionists, & Protestant Fundamentalist Dispensationalists, who provide most of Israel’s clout in America. I heard him tell Scott Horton about going to a Christian Zionist conference & being deeply puzzled, because his background was Catholic.
I can understand why secular people find Dispensationalism distasteful and don’t want read myriad boring books by Hal Lindsay, et al., about Revelations, Daniel, the 38th chapter of Ezeliel, etc.,, & how they fit in this or that political development. I feel the same when I have to read Marxist blah blah. But Marxism has been important over the last
c entury & Dispensationalism is important today, like it or not.
The protestant zionists do not have a belief system that can be traced to the usual confusion of traditions with values. They are the fools of tribalist ministers getting funds or promises from right wing zionist opportunist organizers. Nothing could be more absurd than their “belief” that promoting the financial interests of the worst extremists among the Jews would somehow advance values advocated by Christ whose purpose was to establish a different religion, fundamentally rejecting the money-changers in the temple.
No protestant would go along with that utter nonsense unless financially and socially dependent upon his/her local church group controlled by tyrants, as most “religious” people are. Those tyrant protestant demagogue ministers follow the money, as do their followers without daring question the zionist propaganda.
Challenge the protestant zionist for evidence and argument, and you will get nothing but propaganda phrases and efforts to coordinate a tribal attack on you as a truthteller. That is not a belief system, it is low-end totalitarian tribalism, and nothing more. They are a propaganda army waiting for bribes, as the zionists discovered. My grandfather was a protestant minister who discovered the truth about their racism in the South and resigned. His father was a protestant minister who enjoyed the power and stayed with the narrative.
Love this comment
Count me in on everything you just wrote. I have some further observations. I see a lot of supine acquiescence but I also see an active cheering on of the loss of people’s rights. I remember the rabid crowd surrounding those who said Iraq did not participate in 9/11. I remember Oprah attacking a young woman for even raising a question about the need to make war on Iraq. I was in the U. of Michigan law school auditorium when Harold Koh announced Obama felt he had the right to kill anyone, anywhere on his own say so. There was literally only about 10 people who sat through his standing ovation.
I notice that Trump must cut welfare to the poor so that he can have welfare for the wealthy bankers and war contractors. Where is the DC police dept. getting the money to lackey up for Trump? Maybe the UK is sending it to them, now that they have some spare millions since Assange was arrested?
People have been turned on each other and this has enabled repression to take hold. There isn’t much sense of a common set of rights which ought to be defended regardless of which cult, I mean political party, one belongs to. Brother against brother. Sister against sister. We are doing the work of cruel, evil people because we can’t reach out to each other.
The US is bullying the entire world and I’m not certain why at least some of our allies don’t step in to stop us. We are on a collusion course to ruin this nation and the world. I am so scared.
Only unity will defeat the oligarchs
Jill great comment… you nailed it. Joe
Thank you Jill, for expressing so eloquently, what so many of us are feeling. Cheers. Peace. ML
Jill –
I hope that you are well. I have a few comments on your observations/comments.
Afghanistan did not participate in the September 11th false flag, nor is there any credible evidence that anyone based in Afghanistan did. Thus, that invasion and occupation is in violation of international law.
Not only did Obama give himself the “right” to kill U.S. citizens without any legal process, he exercised that “right”.
He also modified the Posse Comitatus Act (enacted in 1878), giving the U.S. Northern Command a greater role in domestic policing and intelligence gathering, and “affirming” the military’s “right” to indefinitely detain ( rendition ) U.S. citizens.
The Pentagon cannot account for trillions of dollars (isn’t fraud a crime?). I’m sure some of that money finds its way to the D.C. police and others to facilitate a variety of unconstitutional activities.
Fear is a very useful tool in dividing people and getting them to give up their rights. Divide and rule, politics 101. First and foremost, the September 11th false flag was a psychological operation on the American people to create the “war of terror” and maintain a perpetual climate of fear. Openly exposing the egregious lies we have been fed counters the elite sociopaths ability to control the general population through said lies and fear.
While the entire world is very tired of being bullied by the U.S., 800+ military bases and a crippling reliance on the sagging and massively overextended PetroDollar keep most of the world, including our EU allies, in line for the time being. China*, India and Russia are quietly leading an effort to end the PetroDollar era which, barring “successful” interventions in Yemen,Venezuela and Iran (in that order, most likely), could come sooner than many think.
*China created a gold-backed PetroYuan last September. China, Russia and many other notable countries are stockpiling gold reserves as fast as possible.
I hope to see you and at least 500,000 other peace lovers in the streets of Washington D.C. later this year!
Be well.
Jill, you are not alone. My stomach churns when I read articles like these especially since there is nothing I can do
Jill, so am i. The allies won’t step in to stop the crazies in the US government. Everybody can see that by watching the treatment of Julien Assange through the UK and Sweden. There is a painful silence about these atrocities by the mainstream media everywhere in Europe. The allies are nothing but cowards and lackeys to the US. They are incapable any independant action and there is no resistance against the US preparations of war in Germany against Russia.
Nazis will always turn against their own people. They did that in Germany and the are doing it now in the US.
Thank you, Ray, for this splendid article.
Well said. My stomach churns!
OMG, Ray, you are one each scary sumbitch. I’ve been pushing back for years against those that say “we’re tending toward fascism”, “we’re tending toward authoritarian government” by saying, we’re not tending any godd*mned place. We’re THERE. And I’ve been listening to Frank Zappa for decades now:
It can’t happen here
I’m telling you my dear
It can’t happen here.