Category: Propaganda

CIA, Empire, Geopolitics, Neoliberalism, Propaganda, US Empire, War

Nations Under Attack (Part 2): The US War Machine

In Part 1 of this series I examined how global elites have shaped the world so as to advance their own personal wealth and power. They have done this through a variety of means, including economic trickery, political manoeuvring and through both hot and cold warfare. Since World War II, the Western elites mostly associated with the USA and Europe have acted through the power and reach of the USA and its apparatus of public and private organisations that collectively constitute the US War Machine. This article briefly describes the elements of the US War Machine and then covers the main components of the toolkit deployed against targeted nations. Part 3 deals with narrative as a tool of war.

The US War Machine has become one of the distinguishing features of that nation. Since World War II, both the state bodies and private industry have combined to form what is collectively terms a military industrial complex of huge magnitude so that in 2018 the US military budget rose to over $700 billion (including budgets for the various intelligence agencies totaling some $71.1 billion) and further allocations for interfering in other nations, which in 2014 was some $47.8 billion.  These numbers do not even include budget allocations for outside the Defense Department budget, such as for atomic weapons research and production, Veterans Affairs and military pensions, State Department financing of foreign arms sales and military-related development assistance, the Department of Homeland Security and counter-terrorism activities of the FBI. In total, the combined budget for the US War Machine in 2019 is certainly well over $1 trillion. At an economic level, the main goal is to channel money from the public purse into the hands of private suppliers of military equipment and services, while opening new opportunities to exploit resources, sell weapons and develop new markets in other countries—usually with assistance of corrupt local politicians and elites who are granted a slice of the pie in return for selling out their country.

Continue reading “Nations Under Attack (Part 2): The US War Machine” →
CIA, Conspiracy Theory, Economics, Neoconservatism, Neoliberalism, Politics, Propaganda, Refugees, US Empire, War

Nations Under Attack (Part 1): In the Empire’s Gunsights

This is the first in what I plan to be a series of articles examining the current world situation which appears to be increasingly headed to another major economic crisis and the possibility of a major world conflict. Either of these events will undoubtedly devastate the lives and livelihoods of billions of ordinary people across the planet. This comes at a critical time in history, when in the face of a climate crisis and ever more voracious exploitation it seems that corporate profits and governmental paralysis are dooming many species to extinction—and perhaps the humanity itself. Part 2 briefly describes the elements of the US War Machine and then covers the main components of the toolkit deployed against targeted nations. Part 3 deals with narrative as a tool of war.

War is a Con

War has never about defending human rights or spreading democracy; every war is at heart a conflict manufactured by elites of one or other country and enacted against the ordinary people of both the aggressor nation and its victim of the moment. As author, activist, journalist, and radio host David Swanson points out in War is a Lie, all wars are, and have always been, based on lies. This is so even for the wars we commonly think of as having been necessary defences of democracy or for some humanitarian purpose, such as George HW Bush’s first Iraq war (see The First Iraq War Was Also Sold to the Public Based on a Pack of Lies by Joshua Holland). The eternal truth is that no matter how they are sold to the public and history, all wars are fundamentally acts of one set of elites against other elites to acquire coveted resources and power. 

Continue reading “Nations Under Attack (Part 1): In the Empire’s Gunsights” →
CIA, Neoliberalism, Politics, Propaganda, US Empire

Shaping the News: Propaganda, Media Ownership and Influence Networks

The idea that much of the mainstream media in the USA is now controlled and shaped by some six corporations is not new. For instance, a Business Insider blog post These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America by Ashley Lutz dated Jun. 14, 2012 shows a popular infographic/meme from the Frugal Dad weblog. Continue reading “Shaping the News: Propaganda, Media Ownership and Influence Networks” →

Activists, CIA, Conspiracy Theory, Neoliberalism, Politics, Propaganda, Refugees, Surveillance, US Empire

A Conspiracy Theory, Part II

Part I of this article sets out the background to the discourses surrounding the terms “Conspiracy Theorist” and “Truther” as rhetorical devices to negatively position narratives that expose and oppose official narratives about egregious governmental conspiracies and activities. The article then looked at the works of Zbigniew Brzezinski as a flawed but active roadmap for a US based global hegemony as a conspiracy to dominate and reshape the world.  Continue reading “A Conspiracy Theory, Part II” →

Activists, CIA, Conspiracy Theory, Neoliberalism, Politics, Propaganda, US Empire

A Conspiracy Theory, Part I

The thinking for this post originated in a Twitter exchange where I posted a link to an article at Global Research as a response to a New Zealand academic’s tweet about Trump describing Haiti as a “shit hole.” My point was to draw attention to the way the Clinton’s are reported to have extensively abused that country since the earthquake well in advance of Trump’s current attack on the island nation.

When this academic, whose Twitter profile describes him as a Director, Centre for Strategic Studies at an Australasian university, chose to respond to the link in terms of the Conspiracy Theorist / Truther discourse based merely on the source url (globalresearch.ca), it struck me as an intellectually lazy response from an academic and said so. He then responded with a moon landing conspiracy video.    Continue reading “A Conspiracy Theory, Part I” →

Activists, CIA, Neoliberalism, Politics, Propaganda, Social Media, Surveillance, US Empire, Women

Six women challenging the world order right now

Being a New Zealander, the role of women as equal and active participants in civic affairs is not a unsurprising to me—New Zealand was the first country in the world where women achieved universal suffrage (in 1893). Only twenty years ago, New Zealand was the first country in the world to have the five highest offices of power simultaneously held by women, with the Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II of New Zealand, Governor-General Silvia Cartwright, Prime Minister Helen Clark, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives Margaret Wilson and Chief Justice Sian Elias. In 2017, the country has just elected the dynamic and articulate 37 year old Jacinda Ardern as its third female Prime Minister.

Against this background, it is not a huge shock to me that the advance of women in the public sphere has been a notable aspect of the modern international resistance to the chaos that has been unleashed upon the world in the 21st Century. Rather, I find it encouraging that so many strong, highly motivated women seem to be taking a lead in exposing the corruption and moral bankruptcy of the political and corporate so-called “leaders” that front the criminal elites. Elites, who for their own greed and lust for power, have taken the world into seemingly endless wars, poverty and starvation for millions, a global environmental catastrophe and, perhaps even, our ultimate extinction as a species.

So, I would like to tell you about six women who have been an inspiration to me in my own personal journey to make sense of what is happening around us, who is responsible for the situation in which we find ourselves and, just perhaps, what we can do about it. Continue reading “Six women challenging the world order right now” →

CIA, Neoliberalism, Politics, Propaganda, Refugees, US Empire

Primer on Inhumanity: The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World (Author: Douglas Valentine)

Callous inhumanity of a magnitude that shocks to the core of one’s being is my over-riding impression after reading Douglas Valentine’s follow-up to his 1990 book The Phoenix Program which documented the secret war and tactics used by the CIA against the civilian population during the Vietnam war. Valentine’s work on the CIA’s Phoenix program, which was informed by his inside interviews with numerous CIA agents and others associated with the agency, forms a large part of the background to this book. It does not matter if you have not read the earlier work, this latest book provides sufficient detail to give a strong sense of the systematic way the CIA went about establishing an all encompassing terror program aimed at pacifying the civilian population of Vietnam using psychological operations (psyops), kidnapping, brainwashing, blackmail, torture and mass murder.

Continue reading “Primer on Inhumanity: The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World (Author: Douglas Valentine)” →