February 7, 2011
Courtesy Of "The Foreign Policy Journal"
…It is this power structure which the Radical Right in the US has been attacking for years in the belief that they were attacking the Communists.[1]
When Professor Carroll Quigley, the eminent Harvard historian, wrote those words in 1966 he was referring to a “network” (sic) of plutocrats largely centered around the Council on Foreign Relations. Since then this “network” has increased exponentially into a vast, interlocking apparatus that has the ability to bring down regimes by manipulating those who believe themselves to be shaping a new and more humane future.
This international subversive apparatus would have turned the old Bolsheviks of the Comintern[2] red with envy. Indeed, when things turned sour for bolshevism with the advent of Stalin, many Marxists joined forces with America in the Cold War via such institutions as the Congress for Cultural Freedom, attracting sundry Bolsheviks, ex-Bolsheviks, Trots, pro-Marxists, crypto-Marxists and social democrats.[3]
From out of the Cold War emerged organizations committed to spreading the “American Dream” throughout the world in the formation of a “new world order.”[4] The eclipse of the Soviet bloc provided an opportunity for this “new world order” to be created, but there remained the Islamic world, the danger of the resurgence of nationalism and traditionalism in the former Soviet bloc states, and other regimes that are regarded as anachronistic roadblocks in creating a “new world order.” One of these was Serbia under Milosevic, who wished to retain state control over the mineral rich region of Kosovo.[5]
When eliminating Milosevic the use of “Muslim terrorists” was considered expedient by the USA, and the Kosovo Liberation Army went from being listed as a heroin-pushing “terrorist organization” by the US State Department, to being noble freedom fighters.[6] They were an example of “good Muslims,” just as bin Laden was a “good Muslim” when he was needed to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
“Neo-conservatism” also emerged out of the Cold War. The term is a misnomer, however. Neo-conservatism is neither “new” nor “conservative.” There is nothing conservative about the “neocons” (a more apt term). The version of “American tradition” advocated by the neocons is that of global Americanization, Sen. McCain stating the doctrine in 2007 as President of the International Republican Institute:
The promotion of freedom is the most authentic expression of our national character. To accept the abridgement of those rights for other societies should be no less false to the American heart than to accept their abridgment in our own society.[7]
The American tradition was to keep out of foreign entanglements,[8] which was reiterated by the “isolationists.”
Neocons are antithetical to “palaeoconservatives” such as Prof. Paul Gottfried,[9] the late Joe Sobran, Pat Buchanan, et al, who are opposed to American globalism and interference in the affairs of other states. They and politicians such as Ron Paul stand for the traditional American outlook. Neocons are the ideological heirs to Wilsonian internationalism, and his revolutionary manifesto of The Fourteen Points, which in the aftermath of World War I sought to create a new international order based on American hegemony, via the League of Nations, just as the same stunt was tried in the aftermath of World War II by the USA via the United Nations Organization, but was squashed by the intransigence of Stalin.[10]
Indeed the position of palaeoconservatism contra the neocons was cogently expressed by the recently deceased columnist Joe Sobran when he stated that:
Anti-Americanism is no longer a mere fad of Marxist university students; it’s a profound reaction of traditional societies against a corrupt and corrupting modernization that is being imposed on them, by both violence and seduction. The very word values implies a whole modern culture of moral whim, in which good and evil are matters of personal preference and sodomy and abortion can be treated as “rights.” Confronted with today’s America, then, the Christian Arab finds himself in unexpected sympathy with his Muslim enemy.[11]
It should not be too difficult to see – if one can think beyond the mass media hype – that the “color revolutions” and the “spontaneous revolts” that have taken place, and are now taking place in the Arab world, have not arisen from “traditional Christian and Muslim Arabs” in a revolt against Americanization and capitalist moral nihilism, as per the statement by Sobran, but rather arose among bourgeois secular youth under the long-term influence of American globalists. Whether the current revolts will be captured by Arab traditionalists and turned into a genuine liberation movement against Americanization remains to be seen.
Genuine stirrings against global Americanization referred to by Sobran constitute the major roadblock to the “new world order,” whether as regimes such as those of Iran or as grass roots phenomena such as the re-emergence of nationalism and traditionalist movements in the former Soviet bloc states, wishing to revive what American globalists consider to be anachronistic ideas, such as those of religion, ethnic identity and nationalism. Against these they postulate a counter-idealism, concentrating on the youth generation, in the same manner by which the American Establishment sought to co-opt and experiment with American youth via the “New Left” during the 1960s.[12]
The American Establishment, or – if you prefer – what Eisenhower in his presidential “farewell” speech called the “military-industrial complex,”[13] seeks to direct the emergence of revolutionary and reform movements throughout the world, albeit presented by media and political commentators as rebelling against America. Hence the present phenomena of “revolt” that has “spontaneously” (sic) swept North Africa, with the public being simplistically told that this is causing the fall of “pro-American dictators.” As I have previously pointed out, the “spontaneous revolts” in Egypt and Tunisia, for example, portrayed with such unrestrained enthusiasm by the Western news media, are the culmination of years of planning, training, networking, and funding “activists,” following exactly the same pattern as that seen in the “color revolutions” of the former Soviet bloc states.[14] A far-reaching network of interlocking organizations has emerged, funded in part by the US Government, and in part by corporate sources, to foment “world revolution.”
International Republican Institute (IRI)
The IRI is a neocon version of the Comintern. Its by-line is “Advancing Democracy Worldwide” (even if you don’t want their version of it, and then that’s when the bombs start landing). The creation of IRI was supposedly inspired by the words of President Ronald Reagan, who in 1982 called for a “crusade for freedom” throughout the world, stating before the British Parliament that America’s version of democracy, and one might add its concomitant versions of culture[15] and economics, is “the inalienable and universal right of all human beings.” Like Communism, it provides ideological justification for interference in the life sovereign nations, including ultimately the use of force as per Serbia and Iraq.
IRI states that Reagan provided the ideological impetus for the formation in 1983 of the National Endowment for Democracy (which helps fund IRI) to “support democrats worldwide.” This led to a network of fronts: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Center for International Private Enterprise, and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity.[16]
IRI President is Lorne W Craner, former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor; 1992-93 he served at the National Security Council as a Director of Asian Affairs; John McCain’s legislative assistant for foreign policy 1986-89; and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Daniel W Fisk, IRI Vice President for Policy and Strategic Planning, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs on the National Security Council 2005 –2009; Council on Foreign Relations.[17]
The “Mission” of the IRI includes development of “political parties [and] civic institutions.” Do constituents realize that the party they might be voting for might be a tool of the USA, funded and trained by such outfits as NED, Soros, IRI, etc.? The IRI should be acknowledged for its chutzpah is openly declaring its role in interfering in the internal political processes of what are supposed to be sovereign states. When the USSR was accused of training and funding operatives in other states they were damned for their international subversion and revolutionary agitation, and their perceived agents were often jailed. US Senate and Congressional committees were formed to investigate Soviet infiltration and subversion. How are the US operations any different in practice? When a sovereign state seeks to exclude the activities of Soros’ OSI, NED and other operations there is a hue and cry from the USA that democracy is being suppressed.
“Political Party and Candidate Development”
Since the fall of the Soviet bloc, itself a maneuver that included the impress of outside forces such as Soros, “IRI’s political party efforts have been central to helping the post-communist countries of Europe consolidate their democracies.”[18] The first area of interference IRI specifies is Macedonia:
In Macedonia, IRI has worked to strengthen political party structures since the country’s independence in 1991. The Institute’s work helping parties communicate more effectively, strengthening branch structures, and developing youth and women’s organizations have made IRI an honest broker for parties of both the left and right, ethnic-Macedonian and ethnic-Albanian.[19]
What can be discerned from this is that IRI has seemingly reconstructed the political process of Macedonia to suit its globalist objectives, and has laid down the foundation for what the political party rules of play are to be. It has delineated what the “Left-Right” dichotomy is to be, and that dichotomy will be thoroughly bogus, designed to ensure there is no genuine alternative opposition to American globalism from either “Left” or “Right.” The IRI/Neocon version of the “Right,” the definition of which has now been widely accepted by media and academe, is synonymous with “Free Trade,” which was never a doctrine of the “Right” historically. IRI continues to describe its strategy in Macedonia, presumably as a prototype for its role in the political process elsewhere throughout the world:
The 2006 parliamentary elections marked a watershed in Macedonian politics, when both the incumbent Social Democrats and the opposition VMRO-DPMNE parties relied on IRI polling data to construct their messages and strategies. Both sides waged a highly issue-oriented campaign giving the voters are real choice between ideas.[20]
Interpreting the Orwellian doublethink, what the IRI-contrived political campaigns provided was no real alternative; just the phony IRI “Left-Right” dichotomy, in a win-win situation for Neocon aims. The IRI, on its own account, delineated the limits of “opposition.” The “real choice” orchestrated by IRI and their allies is about as meaningful as the “one party list” of candidates in former totalitarian states such as the Soviet bloc, a crucial difference being however that at least one was under the former regimes more likely to get candidates who were not beholden to outside ideologies, money and advice.
The IRI “civil initiatives” are the same as those of Soros, NED and others, and since the aims are the same, all these networks work in tandem. The “Civil Society initiatives”[21]being referred to here by IRI are those in Iraq, where IRI sponsors “coalitions” of women, ethnic minorities, religions and youth.[22] Presumably the Baath Socialist Party need not apply.
IRI has a special division focusing on using women in politics, called the “Women’s Democracy Network,” which works in 65 countries. One of the rewards for dutiful service to Neocon ideals is the chance to win the “Jeane J Kirkpatrick Award. Women are also a major focus of Soros’ “civil initiatives,” especially in promoting feminism as a means of thwarting any resurgence of tradition and religion which are anachronisms in a globalized free market economy.
Another prime focus is youth, who are providing the vanguard for the “color revolutions” throughout the world. The example provided is Afghanistan, where IRI set up the “Afghan Youth National and Social Organization (AYNSO).[23] Hence, should the USA ever leave Afghanistan and a regime not to America’s liking somehow emerges, one can expect a “spontaneous revolt” (sic) of Afghani youth to serve as the vanguard for another “regime change.”
There are however still vestiges of regimes that do not conform to the “brave new world,” and Belarus is cited as an extant culprit. Here, “Europe’s last dictator” has been marked by IRI. A front called the “Unified Democratic Forces,”[24] is backed by IRI for the purposed of “regime change.”
In December 2007, IRI hosted a delegation of the UDF in Washington, DC, where they met with President George W. Bush and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and received widespread support for their democratic struggle.[25]
IRI alludes to “cracks” appearing in the regime, so one can expect a “spontaneous revolt,” a “color revolution” to “suddenly appear” as if by magic, not that anything had been planned well in advance.
World Capitalist Revolution
IRI operates on a regional basis with regional directors, like other globalist operations.[26] Naturally, at the moment IRI is greatly interested in the unfolding events in North Africa and the Middle East where, we are told by media and political pundits, the region is being engulfed by “anti-American” (sic) sentiment fomented by organizations and individuals which, based on the sources of training and funding, seem to be, rather, mere lickspittles of the USA.
One might well ask: why have IRI, NED, etc., been so avidly involved in training and funding “activists” for years to foment the very unrest that is now unfolding, if the “revolts” are really against staunchly pro-American regimens that are being sustained by the USA?
Commenting on what it calls Egypt’s “deeply flawed” elections in 2010, IRI boasts of what seems to have been the virtual creation of political opposition against Mubarak:
In preparation for these elections, IRI focused on providing Egyptian political and civil society activists with training on strengthening political parties, conducting broad based advocacy efforts, increasing oversight of local councils and sharing information about the value of public opinion research. IRI seminars have been conducted in Morocco, Dubai and Jordan, drawing trainers from Canada, Europe and the United States.[27]
IRI has been sponsoring “activists” from Egypt since 2005. The present “spontaneous revolt” has presumably been at least six years in the making, with a “robust training program… exchange visits for Egyptian activists to see firsthand working models of political participation and the role of civil society in elections.” In 2010 IRI “launched an online Democracy University web portal to make training materials and other information available to a wide audience within the Egyptian activist community.” The Egyptian Government, like some governments in the former Soviet states in regard to the Soros operations, saw the subversive nature of IRI and others and, “in 2006, the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested that IRI and similar U.S. democracy organizations [to] halt program activity within Egypt pending official registration (which remains pending).” IRI simply used the expedient of “training programs for Egyptians outside the country.”
As in other states, IRI et al has created the opposition, training candidates in political techniques, “designing and implementing effective communications strategies, utilizing new media and public opinion research and training women candidates,” giving advice on how political parties can improve structures, write platforms to dupe the masses and raise funds.[28]
Ex-Reagan ambassador Richard S Williamson, an IRI Board Member, writing in the Neocon magazine, The American, published online by the American Enterprise Institute, urged US support for the revolt against Mubarak, and condemned the Egyptian and Tunisian regimes. With typical “spin,” Williamson has also sought to portray this as a “spontaneous revolt” by the young, never mind that IRI is more open about its role in training, funding and organizing this “spontaneity” over the course of six years:
These protesters were something new. Young and sophisticated with social networking media, they were able to communicate and organize. They were not driven by a leading personality. There was no ideology. It was a body with no head, driven by pent-up rage. Their numbers grew.[29]
In a 2006 statement NED’s President Carl Gershman, a veteran Trotskyite,[30] had already laid down strategies for Egypt, referring to Pres. Bush’s address on the 20th anniversary of NED, when Bush stated that “democracy” must sweep over the Arab world as it had over the Soviet bloc, and called for a “forward policy of freedom in the Middle East.” While Gershman stated at the time that such a strategy seemed to have stalled it should not be “consigned to the dustbin of history.” (Note the use of the famous, albeit poorly translated, term coined by Leon Trotsky?). Gershman called for a long-term strategy, engaging “activists” who could be induced to become “future leaders of centrist political parties.” Of particular interest is Gershman’s call to incorporate “Islamists” into the mainstream political process, where they could be rendered harmless, calling this “Muslim Democracy.” [31]
IRI also operates in the Gulf states, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, West Bank and Gaza. Comment on their programs in all these states would be superfluous, as they follow the same pattern.[32]
In the Asian region, Burma or Myanmar might be of special interest because of the abortive “Saffron Revolution” in 2007. IRI sates it has been building the opposition since 1992.
IRI provides training and consultative advice on political campaign tactics and strategies to political individuals and organizations who work inside the country and who are living in exile. Topics include strategic planning, volunteer and membership recruitment, local level mobilization and voter turnout. Between late 2007 through May 2008, these activists utilized skills gained through the “Vote No” campaign, which was organized to urge Burmese citizens to reject the regime-drafted constitution during the May 2008 referendum.[33]
The interest of IRI and others in Burma/Myanmar might be explained more by the state’s autarchic economic policy than the question of “human rights.” Soros has long been interested in the state, the Open Society Institute having a special section called “The Burma Network: SE Asia Initiative.” The “Burma Project” was created by OSI in 1994 and expanded into the rest of Southeast Asia in the late 1990s, with a focus on Indonesia after the fall of Suharto in 1998.[34] OSI initiatives are of the same type as NED and IRI.
The omnipresent think tank the Council on Foreign Relations that, as one would expect, is represented by members in both IRI and OSI, has its own Task Force Burma, which includes Maureen Aung-Thwin, who is also director of Soros’ Burma Project. George C Biddle, a committee member of the CFR’s Task Force Burma, was formerly vice president of the International Crisis Group, another globalist think tank from which Egyptian leader-in-waiting ElBaradei has emerged,[35] touted as the potential leader of Egypt by IRI’s Williamson in the aforementioned article.[36]
What is more likely to perturb the globalists than “lack of democracy” is that the Burmese military established a command economy, and has provided credit to family farms and local industry, rather than going to the International Monetary Fund, not getting itself in hock to usury and then having to sell its assets and resources to transnational corporations in good “democratic,” free market fashion. The World Bank and IMF report on Myanmar states that there has not been an IMF supported program since 1981-1982. The World Bank has not approved any new lending since 1987 and “does not have an active program in Myanmar.”[37] A state that is not in debt to the international financial system is an anachronism in the “brave new world,” and one in dire need of a “spontaneous” revolt.
The region of “Eurasia’ is of special interest to George Soros and to IRI. As previously mentioned, Belarus is a particular culprit to be “regime changed.” IRI’s primary front group in the region is the Baltic-Eurasia Inter-Parliamentary Training Institute, initiated with a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy. IRI provides input and “links” to the new era of democratic politicians in Lithuania, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, to ready them for incorporation into the European Union; and advises government officials. The IRI program provides training seminars “on drafting legislation, committee procedures, information technology, research, the budget process, constituent service and parliamentary oversight.”[38]
In the target state of Belarus, in addition to the Unified Democratic Forces, previously mentioned there are other projects such as,
training the next generation of political leaders by offering them cross-cultural exchanges and trainings. The exchanges offer the Belarusian youth a forum in which they can freely discuss the issues that challenge them and devise strategies to tackle those issues while cultivating contacts and building networks with like-minded activists in neighboring countries.[39]
The IRI program in Russia follows the same pattern as elsewhere. What is interesting is the presumptuous, arrogant attitude of IRI, as well as of George Soros, et al that Russia needs the benefits of change as formulated by the globalists. Again IRI cultivates “civic leaders,” youth, women, etc. in the pursuit of a more “democratic society.” “IRI has been able to foster and educate civil leaders who are capable of establishing constituent-focused processes and advocating for reforms. …IRI has also been supporting Russia’s civil society by providing online and offline networking opportunities and high-quality expert advice.” IRI has established its front group, the “Women’s Democracy Network” in Russia.[40]
IRI’s program in Europe focuses on Central and Eastern Europe, “most notably through the Leadership Institute for Central and Eastern Europe. IRI has also been involved in the development of the European People’s Party, the primary centrist grouping in the European Parliament, which includes France’s Sarkozy, and encourages European relations with the USA. In Macedonia there is the Ohrid Institute for Economic Strategies and International Affairs.[41] In Latin America and the Caribbean, IRI follows the same path, and in particular encourages “civic groups” among Cubans, without mentioning specifics.[42]
Other fronts fomenting the “world capitalist revolution,” many stemming from NED, and most if not all aligned with the IRI, include the following:
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI)
NDI was established in 1983, coincidentally the same year as the National Endowment for Democracy. Apart from the same activities of the type fostered by NED, OSI and IRI etc., NDI is involved in the construction of political parties, including advising on the formulation of party platforms.[43]
NDI, although working in tandem with IRI, which claims to be based on “conservative” Republican Party ideals expounded by Reagan, sates that it “draws proudly on the traditions of the U.S. Democratic Party.” Hence, it is an example of the convergence of globalists from both Republican and Democratic parties. “NDI is the only organization that enjoys official standing in the international groupings of Social Democratic, Liberal and Centrist Democratic political parties.” It claims to have worked with “more than 50 political parties around the world” over the course of 25 years.[44]
Like IRI, NDI states that, “In a given country, NDI typically works with parties from across the ideological spectrum to foster a genuine multiparty political system.” Therefore, NDI is engaged in developing a false political dichotomy that is giving the illusions of choice, or what might be termed the Left and Right wings of the same globalist buzzard. Something of this nature can be seen by NDI’s boast of its official standing within the internationales of social democrats, liberals and centrists. NDI receives largesse from the US Government, stating that it has sponsorship from The National Endowment for Democracy; U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Middle East Partnership Initiative; United States Agency for International Development (USAID); 18 Governments in addition to that of the USA; OAS, World Bank Group, United Nations organs; and the types of Foundations that one would expect, including Citigroup Foundation, Ford, Soros’ OSI., etc.[45]
The Chairman of NDI is former US Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, who also serves on the Board of Directors of the omnipresent Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).[46] Vice Chairs: Sen. Tom Daschle, CFR[47] and Marc Nathanson, CFR.[48] President of NDI is Kenneth Wollack, who has served as legislative director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Center for International Private Enterprise
One of the primary organizations aligned with IRI is the Center for International Private Enterprise CIPE), disclosing precisely what type of “democracy” is being sought throughout the world: free market economics, economic globalization and privatization, such as that imposed on Serbia, and on South Africa under the guise of “black liberation.”
CIPE focuses on the propagation of free market doctrine as the global economic model, stating that “democracy’ is predicated on “market reform.”[49] “CIPE programs are supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Middle East Partnership Initiative, and the U.S. Embassy in Iraq Office for Private Sector Development.”[50]
The Chairman is Gregori Lebedev, who has served as an aide to Henry Kissinger and is presently a senior advisor to the Robertson Foundation for Government. Others include directors from General Electric, Fairfax Group, Facebook, The Heritage Foundation, Split Rock International, et al[51]
American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS)
This works in conjunction with the Center for International Private Enterprise, leaving one to wonder what type of labor reforms these erstwhile trades unionists are seeking. Couldn’t this be interpreted this as the infiltration of the trades union movement just as the communists sought to infiltrate the trades unions; where one supposes that the benefits of the Free Market are expounded to the working masses, rather than that of Marxism? Its by-line is: “Promoting worker rights worldwide.” CIPE seems to be the typical bastard offspring that emerged from Trotskyism as factions aligned themselves to the USA during the Cold War, providing the ideological impetus for the neocon movement, and indeed for the establishment of NED at the suggestion of veteran neo-Trotskyite labor organizer Tom Kahn.[52]
ACILS was launched in1997 by the AFL-CIO. “Funding sources include the U.S. Agency for International Development, the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Labor, the AFL-CIO, private foundations, and national and international labor organizations.” Hence, another jack-up between “labor” and plutocracy, a recurring phenomenon that has been taking place for decades.
World Movement for Democracy (WMD)
The proletarian advocates of ACILS meet in conclave with their comrades from CIPE and IRI, along with NED, and the Rockefeller dynasty’s Asia Society USA,[53]Central and East European Law Initiative,[54] International Forum for Democratic Studies,[55] AFL-CIO, US State Dept., Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe,[56] World Bank, in yet another globalist endeavor, the World Movement for Democracy, with the unfortunate acronym, WMD. [57]
WMD was initiated by NED in New Delhi in 1999 with the familiar aim of being“a global network of democrats, including activists, practitioners, academics, policy makers, and funders, who have come together to cooperate in the promotion of democracy.” NED serves as WMD’s Secretariat.[58] In other words WMD is a NED front.
Among WMD’s so-called “assistance foundations” are a collection of socialists and free marketers, including the Dutch Labour Party’s Alfred Mozer Foundation, ACILS, CIPE, the French Socialist Party’s Fondation Jean Jaures, the German Social Democratic Party’s Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, IRI, NED, the Swedish Social Democratic Party and Labour Confederation’s Olof Palme International Center, OAS and others…[59]
Freedom House
Freedom House was founded in 1941 and was thus a part of the US schemes for a post-war “brave new world” that was supposed to be constructed on the foundations of the United Nations Organization. It is therefore something of a precursor of the multiplicity of subversive American networks that emerged during and after the Cold War. In terminology now echoed by hundreds of such organizations, FH states:
Throughout its history, Freedom House has opposed tyranny around the world, including dictatorships in Latin America, apartheid in South Africa, Soviet domination of Central and Eastern Europe, and religiously-based totalitarian regimes such as those governing Sudan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.[60]
Like the other organizations considered here, Freedom House has its own offices spread throughout the world to train “activists.”
The Board of Trustees includes trades unionists, plutocrats and some familiar neocons such as Joshua Muravchik; Thomas Dine, who was the Executive Director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and was president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; Stuart Appelbaum, a prominent trade unionist; Antonia Cortese, a teacher’s union organizer; Ken Juster, a Partner and Managing Director at Warburg Pincus, formerly in government service; Andrew Nathan, who serves on the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch Asia; Richard S Williamson, former ambassador, previously mentioned as a board Member of the International Republican Institute; among others…
Among the regional programs, for the Americas the main targets of Freedom House are Cuba and Venezuela. “Freedom House seeks to strengthen the capacity of civil society activists in Cuba by providing training and education, material support, and institutional links to counterparts from abroad.”[61] In Venezuela, Freedom House supports what it terms HRDs (Human Rights Defenders),
Providing HRDs with technical assistance, advice and professional tools to monitor, document, and raise awareness on a wide range of human rights topics; Delivering training and support in coalition building and legal strategies in the prosecution of human rights violations; and Facilitating strategic alliances between Venezuelan HRDs, international human rights organizations, and regional networks.[62]
The FU focus in Eastern Europe is based on a front group, The American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus, targeting the region it regards as best for destabilizing Russia and reducing her influence.[63] The other primary area in the destabilization of Russia is in Central Asia, where Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are yet to receive the benefits of “color revolutions.” In Kyrgyzstan, FU has established an opposition press, creating the Media Support Center Foundation.[64]
In Egypt FU strategy is the same as that of other similar organizations in targeting youthful “activists” especially with the use of the new technology.
A new generation of young Egyptian citizens is dedicated to expanding political and civil rights in their country. Referred to as the “YouTube Generation,” many of these courageous men and women are supported by Freedom House to enhance their outreach, advocacy and effectiveness.
Freedom House’s effort to empower a new generation of advocates has yielded tangible results and the New Generation program in Egypt has gained prominence both locally and internationally. Egyptian visiting fellows from all civil society groups received unprecedented attention and recognition, including meetings in Washington with US Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, and prominent members of Congress. In the words of Condoleezza Rice, the fellows represent the “hope for the future of Egypt.”[65]
FU records that in 2009 “16 Egyptian activists” met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “at the end of a two-month fellowship organized by Freedom House’s New Generation program.”[66]
The financial sponsorship for FU comes from the same sources as those that provide for IRI and the others: NED, US State Dept., USAID. Other sponsors include Citigroup, Open Society Institute, Dow Jones Foundation, Bank of America…
Conclusion
Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto predicted that capitalism in its last stage would become international or what is today called globalization. He wrote that “the need for a constantly expanding market” would see the “bourgeois” “nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere,” “over the whole surface of the globe.” This was giving a “cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country.”[67] The “world market,” free trade and “uniformity in the mode of production” was diminishing national boundaries[68] So far from deploring this incipient globalization, Marx welcomed it as a stage in the dialectical process that would lead to communism by destroying traditional craft, proletarianizing the former artisans and peasants and eventually even much of the “bourgeois” and paving the way for a global – communist – order. The enemy of this process were the “Reactionists,” whom Marx condemns in part three of The Communist Manifesto as advocating “reactionary socialism,” in opposing the free market globalizing process.[69]
Marx stated in 1847, “the protectionist system today is conservative, whereas the Free Trade system has a destructive effect… precipitating the social revolution. And only in this revolutionary sense do I vote for Free Trade.”[70]
While Marx predicted the globalizing tendency of capitalism, Spengler was a more acute analyst and stated in response to Marxism:
“Capitalism” and “Socialism” are both of an age, intimately related, produced by the same outlook[71] and burdened with the same tendencies. Socialism is nothing but the capitalism of the lower classes. The Manchester Free Trade doctrine of Cobden and the Communist system of Marx were both born in 1840. Marx even welcomed free-trade capitalism.[72]
Marx thought that dialectically capitalism would pave the way to socialism. Rather, it could be contended dialectically that socialism paved the way for international monopoly capitalism, by serving as a transition in destroying tradition-oriented societies. Zbigniew Brzezinksi, speaking for the globalists, suggests as much in his Between Two Ages, writing that Marxism was “a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man’s universal vision,” [73] so this hypothesis does not entirely come from left field.
Marxism became passé and has metamorphosed into sundry forms of other pseudo-revolt, culminating in the present phenomena of the “color revolutions.” Carefully planned for over a decade, the “spontaneous revolts” (sic) have been wreaking havoc on the ex-Soviet bloc states, and lately have put one of the last bastions of tradition, the Arab world, into turmoil, again as part of a dialectical process of capitalism. It remains to be seen whether the “revolution” will backfire on the plutocrats.
Notes
[1] Carroll Quigley, Tragedy & Hope – A History of the World in Our Time (New York: MacMillan Co., 1966), p. 39.
[2] “Communist International,” founded in 1919. Stalin shut down the Comintern in 1937, with an interesting comment to Dimitrov that “all of you in the Comintern are hand in glove with the enemy.” Interestingly also, Stalin stated that “international revolution” was passé, the tasks now being national. Robert Service, Comrades: Communism – A World History (London: Pan books, 2007), pp. 220-221.
[3] Francis Stonor Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the world of Arts and Letters (New York: The New Press, 1999).
[4] George H W Bush, “State of the Union Address,” United States Capitol, January 29, 1991. The concept is an integral part of the Messianic legacy of the founding of the USA, Bush referring similarly to “the new order of the ages” envisaged by the Founding Fathers. G H W Bush, Second Inaugural Address, United States Capitol, January 20, 2005. This in turn refers to the slogan of the Great Seal of the USA. The globalist groups here being considered repeatedly refer to the “revolutionary mission” of the USA.
[5] The center of mineral rich Kosovo in the “Trepca Complex,” where there has been mining since pre-Roman times. http://www.kosovo-mining.org/kosovoweb/en/mining/minerals.html
Ferronikeli, one of the largest nickel mining and smelting operations in Europe, was “put up for sale” in 2005 by “U.N. authorities.”
“A recent report by the World Bank and Kosovo’s Directorate of Mines and Minerals, DMM, valued Kosovo’s total mine resources at 13.5 billion euros, including 6.5 billion at the Sibovc lignite mine just outside Pristina.” Balkan update: http://balkanupdate.blogspot.com/2005/04/privatization-continues-in-kosovo-with.html
500 formerly state owned enterprises have been privatized, with a further 200 to be sold off.
…Privatisation offers excellent opportunities to both domestic and foreign investors to obtain access to valuable natural resources, production facilities with infrastructure, land, equipment and entire enterprises with trained and skilled employees.
…Kosovo’s banks are now private with some being foreign-owned.
“Doing business in Kosovo,” http://www.kosovafair.com/DoingBusinessInKosovo/tabid/177/language/en-US/Default.aspx
“Privatization” of Kosovo’s mines might be of more relevance to discerning the reasons for the war and “color revolution” against Serbia than crap about “human rights” and “democracy.”
[6] US envoys insisted that the KLA was a “Muslim terrorist organization,” but it was nonetheless removed from the State Dept. “Terrorism List” in February 1998. History Commons, “Context of ‘February 1998: State Department Removes KLA from Terrorism List,’” http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=western_support_for_islamic_militancy_2124
[7] IRI Chairman, Senator John McCain, 25th Anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s, Westminster Speech, June 20, 2007. http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2009%20IRI%20Brochure.pdf
[8] “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world,” George Washington’s Farewell Address. “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none,” inaugural pledge of Thomas Jefferson.
From 1789 until the Second World War, excepting only our relationship with Panama, the United States refused to enter into treaties of alliance with anyone, David Fromkin, “Entangling Alliances,” Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, July 1970.
[9] Prof. Paul Gottfried is credited with coining the term palaeoconservative to distinguish traditional non –interventionist conservatism from the necons. See: http://www.paulgottfried.com/
[10] K R Bolton, “Origins of the Cold War: How Stalin Foiled a ‘New World Order:’ Relevance for the Present,” Foreign Policy Journal, May 31, 2010, http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/05/31/origins-of-the-cold-war-how-stalin-foild-a-new-world-order/all/1
[11] J Sobran , “Why?”, Sobran’s The Real News of the Month, Volume 8, No. 11, November 2001.
[12] For example the statement by Carl Oglesby, former head of Students for a Democratic Society:
What we have to contemplate nevertheless is the possibility that the great American acid trip, no matter how distinctive of the rebellion of the 1960s it came to appear, was in fact the result of a despicable government conspiracy…. If U.S. intelligence bodies collaborated in an effort to drug an entire generation of Americans, then the reason they did so was to disorient it, sedate it and de-politicize it. Carl Oglesby, “The Acid Test and How It Failed,” The National Reporter, Fall 1988, p. 10.
[13] Dwight Eisenhower:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Military-Industrial Complex Speech,” 1961, Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040, http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
[14] K R Bolton, “Tunisian Revolt: Another Soros/NED Jack-Up?”, Foreign Policy Journal, January 18, 2011, http://foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/01/18/unisian-revolt-another-sorosned-jack-up/aa/1
“What’s Behind the Tumult in Egypt?,” FPJ, February 1, 2011, http//:www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/01/whats-behind-the-tumult-in-egypt/all/1
[15] Maj. Ralph Peters, military strategist:
Our cultural empire has addicted – men and women everywhere – clamouring for more. And they pay for the privilege of their disillusionment…. If religion is the opium of the people, video is their crack cocaine… There will be no peace… Our military power is culturally based… Our American culture is infectious, a plague of pleasure… But Hollywood is preparing the battlefield and burgers precede the bullets. … What could be more threatening to traditional cultures?, “Constant Conflict,” Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Summer 1997.
[16] International Republican Institute, “History,” http://www.iri.org/learn-more-about-iri/history
[17] IRI, “Officers,” http://www.iri.org/learn-more-about-iri/board-directors-and-officers
[18] IRI, “Political Party and Candidate Development,” http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2009%20IRI%20Brochure.pdf
[19] IRI, “Political Party and Candidate Development,” http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2009%20IRI%20Brochure.pdf
[20] Emphasis added.
[21] “Civil society” being a euphemism for the creation of subversive organizations and the training of “activists.”
[22] IRI, “Civil Society Initiatives,” http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2009%20IRI%20Brochure.pdf
[23] IRI, “Youth Leadership Development,” http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2009%20IRI%20Brochure.pdf
[24] “Closed Societies,’ http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2009%20IRI%20Brochure.pdf
[25] Ibid.
[26] “IRI Around the World” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/
[27] “IRI Around the World: Egypt,” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/middle-east-and-north-africa/egypt
[28] “IRI Around the World: Egypt,” ibid.
[29] Ambassador Richard S Williamson, “Freedom’s March: Egypt at the Tipping Point,” The American, February 1, 2011; “IRI Board Member Urges Support for Democracy in Egypt,” http://www.iri.org/news-events-press-center/news/iri-board-member-urges-support-democracy-egypt
[30] Gershman was an adherent to the Shachtmanish faction of US Trotskyism, which became so anti-USSR as to – like Trotsky’s widow and other Trotskyites – end up adhering to the USA during the Cold War, and hence forming a foundation for what became the neocon movement.
[31] Carl Gershman, “Democracy Promotion in the middle East: time for a Plan B?”, NED, December 4, 2006, http://www.ned.org/about/board/meet-our-president/archived-remarks-and-presentations/120406
NED provides much of the funding for IRI, ACILS, CIPE, NDI, etc.
[32] IRI, “Middle East and North Africa,” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/region/middle-east-and-north-africa
[33] IRI, “Burma: Political Parties and Organizations,” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/asia/burma
[34] http://www.soros.org/initiatives/bpsai/about
[35] K R Bolton, “What’s Behind the tumult in Egypt?, ‘ElBaradei: Leader-in-waiting’”, Foreign Policy Journal, February 1, 2011, http//:www.foreingpolicyjournal.com/2011/02/whats-behind-the-tumult-in-egypt/all/1
[36] Ambassador Richard S Williamson, “Freedom’s March: Egypt at the Tipping Point,” op. cit.
[37] “Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative: Country Implementation Status notes,” IMF/world Bank, May 11, 2001.
[38] IRI, “Baltic-Eurasia Inter-Parliamentary Training Institute,” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/eurasia/baltic-eurasia-inter-parliamentary-training-institute
[39] IRI, “Belarus,” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/eurasia/belarus
[40] IRI, “Russia,” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/eurasia/russia
[41] IRI, “Europe,” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/region/europe
[42] IRI, “Latin America and Caribbean,” http://www.iri.org/countries-and-programs/region/latin-america-and-caribbean
[43] “About NDI: Political Party Building,” http://www.ndi.org/about_ndi?page=0,2
[44] NDI, “Political Parties,” http://www.ndi.org/content/political_parties
[45] NDI, “Who supports Our Work,” http://www.ndi.org/who_supports_our_work
[46] “CFR Membership Roster,” http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=A
[47] “CFR Membership Roster,” http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=D
[48] “CFR Membership Roster,” http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=N
[49] CIPE, “Who We Are,” http://www.cipe.org/
[50] CIPE, http://www.cipe.org/about/index.php
[51] “CIPE Board of Directors,” http://www.cipe.org/about/board/index.php
[52] Kahn remained a follower of the Shachmanite faction of Trotskyism, which supported America’s role in Vietnam and other Cold War policies. Tom Kahn, “Max Shachtman: His Ideas and His Movement,” Democratiya 11 (2007), 258. Reprinted in Dissent Magazine: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d11Khan.pdf
[53] Asia Society, founded in 1956 by John D Rockefeller III as a type of forerunner of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission. Luminaries include Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and Henry Kissinger. It represents the pro-China faction of the US Establishment. http://asiasociety.org/about/mission-history
[54] Central and East Europeans Law Initiation is a program founded by the American Bar Association to lay down the law American-style in the former Soviet bloc states, founded in 1991, and receiving funding from the US State Dept. and USAID. One of the primary activities is to document cases against former Serb soldiers and politicians who opposed the globalization of Kosovo.
[55] IFDS was set up in 1994 as another NED front. IFDS is co-directed by Marc F Plattner, CFR. http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=P
The other Co-director is Larry Diamond, a member of the CFR Task Force on US Policy; previously with USAID and Toward Reform in the Arab World.
http://www.stanford.edu/~ldiamond/cv.html
[56] IDEE started in 1985 as an “extension of the Committee in Support of Solidarity, which had supported Poland’s underground Solidarity movement since the imposition of martial law in December 1981.” “It provided direct financial and material assistance” to opposition groups in the Soviet bloc states as a prelude to the “color revolutions.” Like the other organizations discussed here, it provides funding and training for “activists”, in this instance in Eastern Europe as well as in Cuba. Since 1994 IDEE has focused on the ex-Soviet states that did not succumb to the globalist ideals of government. Here again, Belarus is a major concern. IDEE operates through “Centers of Pluralism,” which in turn have spawned sundry fronts. “What is IDEE?”, http://www.idee.org/idee.html
Among the donors to IDEE are: Freedom House, IRI, NDI, NED, Soros’ Open Society Institute, Rockefeller Bros. Fund, USAID, and several other US state departments. “Centers for Pluralism and IDEE Partners,” http://www.idee.org/ideelinks.html
[57] WMD “Second Assembly: North America,” http://www.wmd.org/assemblies/second-assembly/participants/north-america
[58] “About the World Movement,’ http://www.wmd.org/about
[59] WMD, “Member Profiles,” http://www.wmd.org/networking/assistance-foundations/member-profiles
[60] Freedom House, “About Us,” http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=2
[61] “Cuba,” http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=66&program=73
[62] “Venezuela: Support for Human Rights,” http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=66&program=74
[63] http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=66&program=75
[64] “Programs for Central Asia,” http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=66&program=82
[65] “New Generation of Advocates: Empowering Civil Society in Egypt,” http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=66&program=84
[66] Press Release: “Egyptian Activists Stress Democracy, Human Rights in Talks with U.S. Secretary of State,” May 28, 2009, http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=989
[67] K Marx (1848), The Communist Manifesto (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), p. 46.
[68] K Marx, ibid., p. 71.
[69] K Marx, ibid., pp. 77-80
[70] K Marx, Appendix to Elend der Philosophie; cited by Oswald Spengler, (1933) The Hour of Decision (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1963), pp. 141-142.
[71] They were both products of the same zeitgeist or “spirit of the age” of the 19th Century, that of rationalism and concomitant materialism. Spengler was stating that the antithesis of capitalism because it is motivated by capitalism, will have the same outlook, rather than being a total rejection of it. A total rejection would have implied opposing materialism and advocating a return to tradition, which is what Marx condemned in part three of his Manifesto.
[72] Oswald Spengler, op. cit.
[73] Zbigniew Brzezinksi, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era (New York: The Viking Press, 1970), pp. 33-34.
K R Bolton is a Fellow of the Academy of Social and Political Research, and an assistant editor of the peer reviewed journal Ab Aeterno. Recent publications include 'Trotskyism and the Anti-Family Agenda,' CKR website, Sociology Dept., Moscow State University (October 2009); 'Rivalry over water resources as a potential cause of conflict in Asia,' Journal of Social Political and Economic Studies, and Russia and China: an approaching conflict?, Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring 2010; Vol. 34, no. 2, Summer 2009. Read more articles byDr. K R Bolton.
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