A Plan to End the Wars

A Plan to End the Wars

Submitted by davidswanson on Fri, 2009-07-03 17:16.

• Afghanistan
• Iraq
• Pakistan
• Palestine

By David Swanson

There are a million and one things that people can do to try to end the U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and to prevent new ones in Iran and elsewhere, as well as to close U.S. military bases in dozens of other nations around the world. Certain people are skilled at or interested in particular approaches, and nobody should be discouraged from contributing to the effort in their preferred ways. Far too often proposals to work for peace are needlessly framed as attacks on all strategies except one. But where new energy can be created or existing resources redirected, it is important that they go where most likely to succeed.

In my analysis, we should be focusing on three things, which for purposes of brevity and alliteration I will call: Communications, Congress, and Counter recruitment / resistance. Communications encompasses all public discussion of the wars and impacts all other approaches, including targets I consider far less likely to be influenced by us than Congress, such as the president, generals, the heads of weapons companies, the heads of media companies, the people of Afghanistan, your racist neighbor, etc. If our communications strategy can change the behavior of any of these targets, terrific! We should be prepared to take advantage of such opportunities should they arise. But the first place we are likely to be able to leverage successful communications will be the House of Representatives. Counter-recruitment / resistance is another area that overlaps with communications but involves much else as well, and it is a strategy that we continue to underestimate.

COMMUNICATIONS

Our task is to communicate that:
--the wars are ongoing and will not end without our efforts,
--the wars must be ended,
--the peace movement has had many successes already and should by no means give in to frustration,
--the wars can be ended if a small fraction of the majority that wants them ended makes an effort,
--we have to choose between warfare and healthcare / other social goods,
--minimizing U.S. casualties will not satisfy the demands of the U.S. public,
--neither maximizing nor minimizing foreign casualties will satisfy the demands of the U.S. public,
--there is a personal cost to those who support wars and war crimes,
--Congress members will face opposition through negative communications, disruption of their lives, and electoral challenges if they fund wars.

We don't have to communicate all of that in one interview on cable television, or violate any other laws of physics, but we DO have to communicate ALL of that. And getting our spokespeople on TV has to be part of how it is done. But primarily we need to create our own media and work with decent independent media outlets. Online media has developed to the point where it can influence broadcast and print media. And yet we are still quite capable of creating powerful online media. We cannot overlook the need to work with communities that lack internet access, or the need to use the internet to generate offline activities. But it is very hard to overestimate the importance to our efforts of the internet, and working to get more people access to it might be one of the most helpful efforts we can make.

We stopped Bush-Cheney from invading Iran. They intended to do so, and we prevented it -- largely by exposing the grounds for invading Iraq to be lies. There was no press conference at the White House to announce this failure of theirs and success of ours, but that should have no impact on our claiming a victory and making it known to those who require encouragement and optimism. On the other hand, we have allowed the wars to be spread to Pakistan with barely a peep of recognition, and by proxy to Gaza with only a weak and muddled response. And the push to attack Iran directly or by proxy remains.

We dominated the news and the elections in the United States and shifted power in the House, Senate, and White House to a different political party. And we ended up with a House, Senate, and White House that all favor continuing or expanding wars. But we compelled President Bush to agree to withdrawal from Iraqi localities by the end of last month, complete withdrawal from the nation by the end of 2011, and a treaty that the Iraqi people have the right to reject by the end of this month in a vote that would move the complete withdrawal date to one year from now. I still question the wisdom of our having silently accepted a treaty making three years of war without the consent of the U.S. Senate, but a better way to reject the treaty is now upon us. Our focus for the next month should be on insisting that the Iraqi people are permitted to vote the treaty up or down in a verifiable election (which, of course, means that they will vote it down if those voting bear any similarity to those who have been polled). Everyone who has expressed concern for the voting rights of Iranians should be required to do the same for Iraqis.

The other advantage of our having shifted the partisan balance in our government, even without fundamentally altering our government's approach to war, is that we no longer have to do so. We can now move on to replacing pro-war Democrats with pro-peace Democrats (or Independents, Greens, Republicans, Libertarians, etc.) The claim that we should keep quiet about peace in order to elect Democrats who will then (contradictorily) give us peace can no longer be made and can no longer get in the way. And the advantage of having elected a president of a different party, without having fundamentally changed anything, is that the claim that a new president will give us peace can now be replaced by consideration of whether we should look to presidents at all, or Congress instead, to do such things.

We kept the occupation of Iraq smaller than it would have been and prevented other invasions through the success of counter-recruitment efforts and resistance within the U.S. military. Bush-Cheney having pushed the military to the breaking point is not a story of their incompetence or love for war and empire. It is a story of our efforts pushing back against theirs. The United States will always push the military to the breaking point until we succeed in countering the current militaristic agenda, but our job (one of them) is to make what is available to be pushed smaller.

We need to discuss our successes because nobody else will, and because 70 percent of Americans basically agree with us and do nothing about it, largely because many people do not believe they have the power to change anything. We have been building organizations and websites and Email lists for these past several years, and we have been achieving some successes and coming very close to more. Yet, a common response to "Will you gather signatures on this petition for peace?" is "We've tried that before and it didn't end the war." But it did expose the war lies. It did force Alberto Gonzales out. It did come within 7 votes just last month of -- at least temporarily -- stopping the war funding. And while doing all of these things, the same old tired tools can also build larger organizations, and have been doing so. I'm sure people told abolitionists not to print another newspaper because they'd printed one before and slavery was still around. Yet abolitionism was advancing despite not a single slave yet being freed. And we are advancing, but it is crucial to know where. We must absolutely put our signatures and our time and our money into those organizations that oppose war regardless of political party, and NOT into those organizations that claim to oppose war only when it allows criticism of a particular political party. (Here's a list of which is which:http://afterdowningstreet.org/32heroes The list cannot possibly be complete, of course, and I apologize for whomever I have left off the list of heroes, but the major organizations are all here, listed as either heroes or frauds.)

Just as we should continue to push the corporate media while focusing on building our own, we should continue to push the pseudo-peace organizations to do better, but we should focus on building those organizations that have consistently taken a principled stand and pushed with skill and intelligence (even if not with success) for peace.

"Healthcare Not Warfare" should be our cry (following the example of Progressive Democrats of America), along with "Housing Not Warfare," "Jobs Not Warfare," "Schools Not Warfare," etc. We have to force recognition of the financial choice before us. In that choice we find a solution to the healthcare debate that is almost too easy to be believed, but deadly real. And we find a solution to the misconception that war does not impact the "Homeland." This is a discussion that should discuss the current wars as part of an expansion of military bases around the world, bases that make us less safe but cost us over $100 billion every year. The discussion should include the non-war military budget and the trade-offs involved. We should work harder to build alliances with people and groups focused on advocating for all the things we cannot pay for because we pay for weapons and wars.

But our communications strategy should be dominated by our true central reason for opposing wars, not any secondary reason that we imagine will move someone else. If wars are made cheaper and more efficient we will still oppose them, and that is a real possibility. If American casualties are reduced, we will still oppose wars, and that is the case at the moment. If smart decisions in military terms replace comical blunders, we will oppose wars all the more, and that may be happening. Fundamentally, we oppose wars because they kill people and they are part of hostile occupations that make people around the world hate and resent our nation. When a group like Brave New Films documents the impact of our war on the people of Afghanistan, we should promote those films as far as we are able. When an election leads to the corporate media humanizing the people of Iran, we should highlight that and ask why, if we do not want them killed by riot police, we should want them killed by bombs.

There is enormous potential, but uncertain, value in seeking to end and discourage wars by holding war criminals accountable for their crimes. Those working to end torture are right to emphasize that we tortured in order to generate false justifications for war, even after the war had begun. Those working to end war should emphasize that we tortured people in order to support the lies that at least one of the wars, and arguably all of them, is based on. Every war crime for which we are able to hold anyone accountable by exposing their crimes, unelecting them, impeaching them, finding them liable in civil suits, and prosecuting them at home or abroad, should be discussed as part of the ongoing wars. Congress members should understand that we consider their funding of wars to constitute a war crime. And they should understand that we require them to place peace before party.

One useful tool for mass communications is mass rallies. As argued below, our targets should be Congress members. National mass actions should be focused on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Local actions should target local Congress members. There was an action earlier this year on Capitol Hill aimed at cleaning up the local power plant and raising the demand for action on the climate. While that struggle is far from over, the march and protest suggested a useful approach. A large number of people, including young people, were organized to march and to risk arrest. But people were invited to march without risking arrest, thus boosting the crowd size and reducing the chances of anyone being arrested. This action was held on a weekday with Congress in session, and marched adjacent to the House office buildings. An action like this one on the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, on Wednesday, October 7th, strikes me as the most obvious way to send a powerful message of opposition to wars. Combined, of course, with lobby meetings and in-district actions. And backed by lots of money and staff time.

Where do we get lots of money and staff time? That's where we'll need to be very good communicators. But there are wealthy people tired of funding politicians and ready to fund citizens, not to mention people with money who have watched Republicans prosecute and imprison top Democratic donors like Paul Minor and then watched the Democrats not lift a finger in their defense. There are no limits on contributions to peace and justice groups, and almost no limits on what we could accomplish if funded. More importantly, there are ways to influence Congress that do not require putting anyone on a bus and can be done largely by volunteers -- yes, in their pajamas in the basement eating Cheetos. Read on.

CONGRESS

While we have relatively little in the way of carrots or sticks with which to influence a president or a weapons maker (and influencing the military is discussed below), we have the ability to influence Congress members, at least those who represent districts rather than large states. And we have the ability to end the wars by succeeding only in the House of Representatives. We do not need to persuade a single senator or the president or any cabinet secretaries or any news producers. If we can do so, great. But we can end the wars by winning in the House of Representatives alone. This is because it takes two houses and the president to make a bill a law, but it only takes one house to prevent a bill from becoming law.

The House of Representatives is supposed to represent us and yet, on matters of war as on most other things, does not. Why not? Well, many flaws weaken our elections system, but on any given vote three major corrupting factors can usually be pointed to: party, media, and dollars. On an issue like healthcare, as on many issues, these factors should be listed in the opposite order. It is the dollars of corporate interests that do the greatest share of the corrupting. But on matters of war, party is the greatest corruptor. Of course, political parties are the largest funders of campaigns, so money is still right at the top. Members of Congress in both political parties have voted to fund these wars, over the wishes of their constituents, because their party leadership has told them to do so. Parties can promise money, committee memberships, chairmanships, votes on bills and amendments and earmarks, and press events in a member's district with cabinet members and presidents. Parties can threaten to withhold money, back a challenger, block measures from reaching the floor, and withhold chairmanships. It is very difficult and very rare for Congress members to oppose their parties' strong demands. But it is also rare for citizens to press them to do so, in part because many citizens and the groups through which they approach activism also take their orders from political parties.

The experience of opposing the most recent war supplemental bill, which was combined with funding for the International Monetary Fund, is instructive, especially as Congressman John Murtha has already indicated that there will be another war supplemental bill this year. Because all the Republicans in the House opposed the bill due to the IMF measure (five of them switching their votes to yes only after it had passed), 39 Democrats could have stopped the bill. This would have forced separate votes on the war and the IMF, and both might have passed. Certainly the war would have. But it would have created a serious block of peace votes in the House willing to vote for peace even when it mattered and the Democratic Party commanded otherwise. In the end, we persuaded 32 Democrats to vote No (two of them only in opposition to the IMF, 30 of them in opposition to at least the war). So we actually did establish a block of peace voters. It just contained 30 people instead of 39. And of those 30 people, three, Dennis Kucinich, Jim McGovern, and Lynn Woolsey actually urged their colleagues to vote No. This gives us 30 votes we can count on if we work like hell to hold them, and three leaders we can work with to whip together a larger caucus. And while we lost this vote, we exacted a price. We compelled the White House and the Democratic Party leadership to spend a week working on little other than bribing and blackmailing Congress members. And it will take many weeks to fulfill all the promises made. My own Congressman, who opposed the IMF but voted for it, has thus far held press events promoting himself in his district with the House Majority Leader, with the two top environmental officials in the White House, and has an event scheduled here this month with two members of the cabinet.

Over the past years, we have -- more often than not -- lacked the coordination and ability to push back hard against such intense lobbying from the other side. This time we surprised Congress and ourselves. Key to this effort was public whipping. We didn't have eight different peace groups keeping their own whip lists of who had promised them what. We had 8,000 citizen lobbyists feeding their reports to one website where the whip count was kept public, and where we promised to thank or spank people as appropriate once they had voted for peace or war. Critical to this effort were all the usual off-line activities of people in each Congress member's district. But the public whipping was central. It organized and encouraged the activism. It inspired the blogging. It infiltrated the corporate media.

Here's a history of this campaign:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/43292
Here's the whip list:
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/Supplemental

Sadly, we've barely followed through on our promises to thank and spank, activities for which the Backbone Campaign offers tools and assistance. We should be celebrating and denouncing those who came through and those who let us down with at least as much energy as we threatened to do so. Otherwise we lose our credibility, and next time will be harder rather than easier. Disturbingly, even some who seemed willing to threaten repercussions to Democrats for voting yes appeared to decide afterwards that it would be inappropriate to follow through, especially since some other Democrats, not to mention most of the Republicans, were worse and never even pretended to be with us. But we're not handing out prizes in the afterlife here. We're trying to move those who might be moved.

Now, there is another reason why the next time is almost guaranteed to be harder. Unless the Democrats choose to include something else as strongly opposed by Republicans as the IMF, most of the Republicans can be expected to vote Yes. There may be nine who oppose the war funding. Combining them with the 30 Democrats gives us our block of 39 after all. (These would be the nine who voted No on the war supplemental before the IMF was added to it. But that was an easy vote. By that measure we had 51 Democrats, so these nine are not solid.) This means that, in a worst case scenario, we need to find -- in addition to these nine -- not 39 No votes, but 209 No votes, and most of them from Democrats. We're starting at 39 if we can hold them and need 179 more. This should not be considered impossible, not if we are succeeding at the communications strategy above and the counter-recruitment / resistance below. If most of the Congress members we have on our side found five more who would vote with them, we'd have a comfortable majority. We need to develop a system to whip Congress members to whip other Congress members. We also have the advantage of being able to tell them this time that when they told us last time that they were voting for the last war supplemental it was a lie.

This strategy of cutting off the funding for war, which can and should be used against standard military/war budget bills as well as supplementals, has always struck some people as a harder hill to climb than passing bills and amendments and resolutions that we approve of, steps that move us somehow in the direction of peace even while funding war. But this thinking ignores the existence of the United States Senate. While we can block a bill in the House, we have to pass a bill in both the House and Senate, and the chances of a good bill passing the Senate are smaller than Dick Cheney passing through the eye of a needle. There may be measures we want to advance in the House for communications purposes. And there may be measures we can persuade the House to slip into other bills the Senate wants to pass. But none of this should be our focus.

Bills that we might want to move in the House for communications purposes might include Rep. McGovern's bill requiring an exit strategy for Afghanistan, or legislation that turned the slogan of "Healthcare Not Welfare" into policy. A bill requiring that for every dollar spent on wars and military at least 25 cents must go into a fund for single-payer healthcare would be rhetorically useful. You can imagine the multitude of possibilities, as well as the impact if such a discussion were to penetrate the healthcare debate.

Bills that we might slip something very useful into and conceivably still get passed include House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's "paygo" bill, which has 159 cosponsors and the support of the Democratic leadership and the White House. This bill requires that any expense be paid for by a tax increase or a cutback elsewhere. But the bill makes an exception for "emergency" legislation, which is of course what war supplementals are claimed to be. An amendment to the paygo bill stipulating that no war already in progress for over five years is an "emergency" would, I think, effectively impose a paygo requirement on war supplementals. And suddenly you'd be unable to pass a war supplemental without explaining where the money was going to come from. In such a situation, it's conceivable that Blue Dogs and Republicans would join us faster than Progressives.

Congress can do other useful things as well, things that it is easier to get them to do. The House can pass a resolution supporting the right of the Iraqi people to a verifiable election this month on whether to agree to the treaty mislabeled a Status of Forces Agreement. The House can hold hearings on the subject. Advancing that issue, through Congress and elsewhere, should be our immediate priority. And in the back of our heads should be plans to demand a public vote for the people of Afghanistan.

We should also be working to sign incumbent and challenger candidates in the 2010 congressional elections onto a platform committing them to voting no funds to continue wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. It's not that we can trust them to keep their word. Only intense immediate pressure can control them. The point is to begin shaping the election in terms of how they will vote on war money between now and the election.

COUNTER RECRUITMENT

I've gone on at too much length to burden you with a detailed discussion of counter-recruitment and resistance when others can provide more expertise than I. The National Network Opposing Militarization of Youth at http://nnomy.org provides excellent resources on the crucial work of keeping recruiters out of schools. NNOMY is holding a national conference July 17-19 in Chicago, and you are invited.

Courage to Resist at http://www.couragetoresist.org provides up-to-date information on efforts within the US military to refuse illegal orders.

Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd's new book "Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent" is good background, as is "Army of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War and Build a Better World," by Aimee Allison and David Solnit.

As Rumsfeld said, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you want. We must deny them the army they want. If we succeed beyond our wildest dreams for the next decade, at some point it might make sense to take into consideration the actual defense needs of the United States. At this point, the best thing our military could do to defend us would be to stop endangering us by doing everything it is doing.

COME TOGETHER RIGHT NOW

There's a national conference at which strategies to end the wars will be deliberated happening in Pittsburgh on July 10-12, and you should try to be there. The event is organized by the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations at https://www.natassembly.org

I've submitted the following action proposal to the assembly and I hope to see you there.

ACTION PROPOSAL

Organize a mass protest march and civil resistance against war funding at House side of Capitol Hill on the 8th anniversary of invading Afghanistan, on Wednesday, October 7th. The House of Representatives is where we have the greatest chance of ending these wars. If we cut off the funding there, nothing else is needed. We can influence House members with activities in districts, online, in the media, and on Capitol Hill. But not on a weekend when they aren't there. We need to be present on a weekday and lobby them before and after we march. There was an action earlier this year on Capitol Hill aimed at cleaning up the local power plant and raising the demand for action on the climate. While that struggle is far from over, the march and protest suggested a useful approach. A large number of people, including young people, were organized to march and to risk arrest. But people were invited to march without risking arrest, thus boosting the crowd size and reducing the chances of anyone being arrested. This action was held on a weekday with Congress in session, and marched adjacent to the House office buildings. An action like this one on the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, on Wednesday, October 7th, could send a powerful message of opposition to wars. Combined, of course, with lobby meetings and in-district actions. While such an action would be open to those willing to risk arrest and those not willing to do so, it would indeed fail to include those unable to participate on a Wednesday (except by making phone calls and holding in-district events). However, it WOULD include the people we intend to influence but which the corporate media cannot be counted on to inform of our doings over a weekend. Some members of Congress would even JOIN us.

REVISED:

Organize a mass protest march and civil resistance against war funding at House side of Capitol Hill on the 8th anniversary of invading Afghanistan, on Wednesday, October 7th -- or alternatively on Monday, October 5th, to be closer to a weekend. The House of Representatives is where we have the greatest chance of ending these wars. If we cut off the funding there, nothing else is needed. We can influence House members with activities in districts, online, in the media, and on Capitol Hill. But not on a weekend when they aren't there. We need to be present on a weekday and lobby them before and after we march. There was an action earlier this year on Capitol Hill aimed at cleaning up the local power plant and raising the demand for action on the climate. While that struggle is far from over, the march and protest suggested a useful approach. A large number of people, including young people, were organized to march and to risk arrest. But people were invited to march without risking arrest, thus boosting the crowd size and reducing the chances of anyone being arrested. This action was held on a weekday with Congress in session, and marched adjacent to the House office buildings. An action like this one on the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, on Wednesday, October 7th (or Monday, October 5th), could send a powerful message of opposition to wars. Combined, of course, with lobby meetings and in-district actions. While such an action would be open to those willing to risk arrest and those not willing to do so, it would indeed fail to include those unable to participate on a Wednesday or Monday (except by making phone calls and holding in-district events). However, it WOULD include the people we intend to influence but which the corporate media cannot be counted to inform of our doings over a weekend. Some members of Congress would even JOIN us.

March on Congress or President?

March on Congress or President?

Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2009-07-07 16:12.

• Activism

By David Swanson

What if you had to choose your top priority for an activist campaign to change a government policy? Would you tell everyone to call and Email and write and try to meet with and protest the president? Would all your marches be to the White House, all your petitions addresses to the president, all your talk be about what the president should do? Or would you focus on Congress instead? Or would you just generally make noise, march around on Saturdays, and hope that both the Congress and the president hear about it? It might be ideal to protest, pressure, and lobby both the Congress and the president, but if you have to choose the top priority, which is it?

If we had an out and out dictatorship, and Congress had completed its transformation into a royal court of sycophants and jesters, the choice would be easy: we would address all grievances to the emperor's throne, assuming he or she any longer permitted the articulation of grievances. If, on the other hand, our government behaved the way its founders intended, and Congress made all the important decisions, while the executive really did just execute the will of Congress, the choice would be similarly clear: we would take all of our concerns to Capitol Hill.

So, one factor to consider in the world we actually inhabit is whether by asking the president to make laws or fund important projects we are contributing to the misunderstanding that he should have the power to do such things. A president should have the power to end wars, just as Congress does, but a president should not have the power to begin or escalate wars, and by asking him to end them without addressing his illegal initiation or escalation of them we could be seen as accepting that he has those powers too. By ignoring Congress, we could easily be seen as accepting the dangerous misconception that a president, but not Congress, should end wars.

But let's set all of that aside. Let's imagine that our behavior has no impact on the ongoing transfer of power from Congress to the president. Let's imagine that only the present moment matters and that the future will take care of itself. It might. Anything's possible. Let's ask ourselves simply this question: how can we best end the current wars? We could ask the same question about how we best pass the Employee Free Choice Act, or single-payer healthcare, or a green jobs program -- although these examples necessarily involve the Senate and the president, whereas the example of ending wars could involve the House of Representatives alone. We could ask the same question about holding criminals accountable for torture, spying, political prosecutions, and aggressive war -- although these examples involve different sorts of accountability depending on whom we target, and these campaigns also throw the Department of Justice into the mix.

So let's look specifically at ending wars. In favor of lobbying the president are a number of factors: Everybody knows who he is and knows that he's a person with a wife and two kids and a dog. He's in the news all the time, so it's easy to imagine that a protest of him would be too, even though they rarely are. He's always asking us to go out there and make him do it, even though he has yet to ever listen to us. People feel personally betrayed by him and are ready now to demand that he do better. If we don't focus on protesting him, somebody might accuse us of protecting him and being afraid to speak truth to power, and that would hurt our feelings. He's not up for election anytime soon, so in the twisted view of despisers of democracy he's actually more likely to listen to us than somebody we could vote out if he doesn't. Or in the analysis of those looking at campaign contributions, he is more likely to defy the demands of his funders since his election is further off. And there's only one of him. We don't have to win over 218 people, but just one -- just a single individual person -- surely we're up to that! Surely that's easier than 218. And we'd need participants from 218 different districts in order to influence 218 Congress members, whereas a medium sized gathering of mostly east coasters could change the president's mind if we have really, really good posters and we block his limousine for 15 minutes.

OK, I'm sorry for the sarcasm. It's not that we shouldn't pressure the president, or that moving him even slightly wouldn't help with moving Congress. But the president has hundreds of millions of constituents and can afford to ignore entire states. As a candidate, not even yet the president, the number one demand on his website was that he keep his promise to vote against telecom immunity. Instead he voted for it and promised to undo it when he was president, but then decided not to. The number one demand put to him during the transition and after he was inaugurated was that he appoint a special prosecutor for the crimes of his predecessors. He has not done so. Of course, these requests made largely by people who swear their loyalty first and ask favors second never stood a chance. If a million serious protesters shut down the streets of Washington D.C. for a week and demanded change, we would get change out of both the president and Congress. But as we struggle to raise the level of resistance from near zero to something approaching respectability, the first place we are going to have an impact is not on the one person we cannot vote out of office anytime soon, a person with no primary challengers, a person bankrolled by hundreds of times the funding of any congress member. But there is a small group of people who could influence the president because he has to work with them, a group whom we in turn might be able to have some influence on, namely the members of the House of Representatives.

If the House refuses to fund wars, the Senate can vote for $100 quadrillion, and not a dime of it can be spent. The president can scream for blood (or gently suggest humanitarian bombings) but not send a single drone. It only takes one house to block a bill. A handful of skilled and determined people can often sway the vote of a House member. These representatives have to be elected every two years. They are always worried about elections. They are also very concerned about their portrayals in local media, and generating positive or negative stories about them in local media is very easy. They are bought off by corporate funders, but not nearly as completely as a president is. They, like the president, are all real people with families and pets and wounds and weaknesses. Most of them do not encourage activist pressure against their current positions, because they are afraid of it, unlike a president who thrives on it. It's true that we need 218 of them, instead of 1, but they are a very different sort of creature, and needing only 1 means nothing if you go on needing that 1 forever. In addition, in many instances, we don't need 218, because weird mixtures of motivations provide us with 50 or 100 votes for free, such as Republicans opposing awful bills because they are not awful enough. On the last war supplemental, we only needed 39 Democratic no votes, and we got 32. Also, congress members do not live in fortified mansions with military guards. They can be threatened with electoral defeat, with bad media, and with the very easy disruption of their lives through protests where they work and where they live. And we have seen all of these tactics succeed. And we have seen online whip lists coordinate such action nationally.

Of course, as we get closer to achieving the majority votes we need, it gets harder and harder to get those last few, and the pressure from the White House and the Party leadership in the other direction is intense. But a president forced to fight hard for a narrow victory on an unpopular policy is less likely to continue it in the coming months. Similarly, a Congress pressured less ferociously by the White House to oppose its constituents is less likely to do so. Ultimately, therefore, we are best off applying pressure to both the Congress and the White House. But clearly the top priority is Congress. Targeting only the president leaves congress members free to defy the public will and to join the president in doing so. But targeting only the Congress leaves the president untouched and able to pressure congress members from a position of popularity.

And I would add back in here the very real concern that if we persuade a president to end wars and kidnappings and detentions and torture and political prosecutions, but leave the next president free to start them up again, we'll only delay our destruction, not prevent it. I would advocate, therefore, taking on both branches of our government whenever able to, but Congress alone when forced to choose. I would not encourage massive mobilizations directed only at the White House.

Bloggers' Rights: If you're a blogger, this page is for you.

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Bloggers' Rights

If you're a blogger, this page is for you.

One of EFF's goals is to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger, to let you know you have rights, and to encourage you to blog freely with the knowledge that your legitimate speech is protected.

To that end, we have created the Legal Guide for Bloggers, a collection of blogger-specific FAQs addressing everything from fair use to defamation law to workplace whistle-blowing.

In addition, EFF continues to battle for bloggers' rights in the courtroom:

Bloggers can be journalists (and journalists can be bloggers). We're battling for legal and institutional recognition that if you engage in journalism, you're a journalist, with all of the attendant rights, privileges, and protections. (See Apple v. Does.)

Bloggers are entitled to free speech. We're working to shield you from frivolous or abusive threats and lawsuits. Internet bullies shouldn't use copyright, libel, or other claims to chill your legitimate speech. (See OPG v. Diebold.)

Bloggers have the right to political speech. We're working with a number of other public-interest organizations to ensure that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) doesn't gag bloggers' election-related speech. We argue that the FEC should adopt a presumption against the regulation of election-related speech by individuals on the Internet, and interpret the existing media exemption to apply to online media outlets that provide news reporting and commentary regarding an election -- including blogs. (See our joint comments to the FEC [PDF, 332K].)

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In The News

• APPLE INSIDER | June 23, 2009
• Report details Apple's unusual veil of secrecy

EFF Action Center

Action Center

		Fight Government Secrecy and Reform the State Secrets Privilege Tell Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee to support the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009, a bill designed to curb abuse of the state secrets privilege. The government has used the overbroad privilege to get lawsuits thrown out of court before they have even begun, based merely on the claim that letting courts judge the legality of those programs would endanger national security. The bill would make changes to ensure meaningful judicial oversight and is likely to be marked up soon in an upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. Your support in the fight against government secrecy is needed now more than ever -- tell the committee to support state secrets privilege reform today!

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		Reform The PATRIOT Act: Stop Abuse of National Security Letters Chief among the unconstitutional powers authorized by the Patriot Act are so-called national security letters (NSLs). These secret subpoenas allow the FBI, without any independent oversight or judicial review, to seize private data about ordinary Americans. Now, Representatives Jerry Nadler and Jeff Flake have have introduced the National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009, which would curb the power's worst abuses. With portions of the Patriot Act set to expire later this year, the time has come to tell Congress to begin real reform on privacy and civil liberties issues -- urge your representative to begin by supporting the National Security Letters Reform Act.

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		Act on ACTA: Tell the New Congress to Open the Secret IP Pact Revelations about the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) have emerged, and the news is not good for technology users or digital rights. Instead of concentrating on physical fakes and fraud, recently leaked draft language suggests ACTA will provide expansive powers to customs authorities worldwide to search and seize digital technology at the border on suspicion of IP infringements and to widen the criminalization of previously civil IP law way beyond profit-seeking pirates. An entire section of the trade agreement would create new regulations over the Internet and DRM -- but those details remain secret. Write to your representatives now to demand that Congress bring transparency to this clandestine pact.

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IRAN: WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?

ZBlogs

And Whose Side Are You On?

By David Peterson at Jul 1, 2009

Reese Erlich's "Iran and Leftist Confusion" has enjoyed wide circulation among progressive-types these past three days. Off-hand, I can recall iterations of the piece at CommonDeams, ZNet, Democratic Underground, Portside, Truthout., Twitter. Surely there are others. In fact, there is no telling how many others.

I suppose it goes without saying -- though a lot of people will disagree -- that on the subject of Iran, this embrace of Erlich's "Iran and Leftist Confusion" constitutes an absolute nadir for the Left in the States. At least until the next absolute nadir comes along. Any day now. And receives even more iterations.

The closing 45 words of Erlich's "Iran and Leftist Confusion" read:

A repressive government has killed at least 17 Iranians and injured hundreds. The mass movement may not be strong enough to topple the system today but is sowing the seeds for future struggles. The leftist critics must answer the question: Whose side are you on?

Although I can't pull incontestable evidence from my back pocket (though do see Seymour Hersh's reporting on this topic), does Erlich honestly expect us to believe that there has been no U.S. interference in the lives of Iran's 70 million people, either in 2009 or these past six-years-plus?

Can Erlich himself produce one shred of evidence that the U.S. Government and its allies in Israel, Britain, across NATO, and in the Mujahedin-e Khalq - National Council of Resistance of Iran haven't attempted to destabilize Iran? Or that the Obama regime cut-off the several-hundred-million dollar destabilization campaign of its predecessor some time prior to June 12, thereby wiping the slate clean?

In lieu of such proof, how should we take Erlich's rush to deny that the U.S. Government and its allies have played any role at all in the demonstrations to date (June 12 - July 1)? And how about Erlich's rush to brand some long-time leftist critics of U.S. imperialism and past campaigns of foreign meddling as the group suffering confusion -- including MRZine, Foreign Policy Journal, Venezuela's Foreign Mnistry, and "prominent academics such as retired professor James Petras," among others?

One point is clear: Erlich's rush to dismiss "left-wing Doubting Thomases" is playing very well among progressive-types. In fact, it's going over so well, I'll bet that if he's so inclined, he could even take his show on the road to the Wall Street Journal or Fox News.

Yet, it is likely that the U.S. Government, U.S. allies, and armed groups sponsored by them have killed more than 17 Iranians and injured a number unknown since the current round of destabilizing Iran kicked-off some time after the last American President announced "Mission Accomplished" from the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. (Again, see Seymour Hersh.)

What is more, taking our starting point as the month of October 2001, the U.S. Government and U.S. allies have killed hundreds of thousands and in all probability well in excess of 1 million foreign nationals (i.e., not just 17 Iranians), also injuring unknown numbers, driving literally millions from their homes, and detaining and torturing thousands of others.

These are just some of the facts the true significance of which the contributors to MRZine and Foreign Policy Journal, or at Venezuela's Foreign Ministry, and James Petras et al. (say, Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann and most of the rest of the G - 192) aren't as quick to forget.

In the final analysis, we all can agree with Reese Erlich that these matters are "no academic debate or simply fodder for bored bloggers," because "Real lives are at stake."

But the rush to affirm the home-grownness of The Opposition inside Iran, and to dismiss the streetwise, historically-minded caveats about enduring U.S. imperial ambitions and foreign meddling as somehow beneath the dignity of the Left in our more sophisticated era, already began to sound like cracks-of-the-whip during the first days after June 12, when all that was solid inside Iran really did seem to be melting into air. By now, going on three weeks later, they are nothing more than the disciplinary tactics of enforcers

Also, they are sowing the seeds of real confusion, and evidence of the further splintering of what remains of the Left in the metropolitan centers. Just like we've witnessed so many other times these past 20 years.

So which side is Reese Erlich really on?

"The Iran Plans," Seymour M. Hersh, New Yorker, April 17, 2006,

"Preparing the Battlefield," Seymour M. Hersh, New Yorker, July 7, 2008

"The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test," George Friedman, Stratfor, June 22, 2009
"The Real Struggle in Iran and Implications for U.S. Dialogue," George Friedman, Stratfor, June 29, 2009

"Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran's Election?" Jeremy R. Hammond, Foreign Policy Journal, June 23, 2009

"Iran: This Is Not a Revolution," Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, MRZine, June 23, 2009

"Some Observations on the Iranian Presidential Election and Its Aftermath," Phil Wilayto, Truthout, June 19, 2009
"Iran: Non-Violence 101," Steve Weissman, Truthout, June 21, 2009
"Iran: The World Is Watching," Steve Weissman, Truthout, June 30, 2009

"The Fourth 'Supreme International Crime' in Seven Years is Already Underway," Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, Electric Politics, May 16, 2006
"Hegemony and Appeasement: Setting Up the Next Target for the 'Supreme International Crime'," Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, Electric Politics, January 29, 2007
"The U.S. Aggression Process and Its Collaborators: From Guatemala (1950-1954) to Iran (2002-)," Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, Electric Politics, November 26, 2007

"Iran and the Americans," ZNet, June 22, 2009
"Non-Violence 101," ZNet, June 30, 2009

By Chris Green at Jul 02, 2009 19:48

I wouldn't be suprised if some US money is reaching some sectors of the anti-Ahmadinejad movement in Iran. But I doubt the US can exert anything approaching a controlling influence on the direction of the movement at this point. It seems to me it would be much more difficult to influence the anti-Ahmadinejad movement than it would be to support the MEK, and the Jundallah terrorists in Pakistan. I don't doubt that the US is continuing to support those two groups in the hope of encouraging them to destabilize Iran. But I don't think the MEK and Jundallah have anything to do with the legitimate grievances and anger of protestors against the status quo in Iran. The manichean view of the situation is taken by people like James Petras who seems to think that because the US is bad and against Ahmadinejad and because the anti-ahmadinejad protesters are treated very sympathetically by the imperialist establishment, then, ipso facto, Ahmadinejad is the "good guy" in the situation and the protests are evil. Ahmadinejad, in spite of his populist rhetoric, has been almost as committed to advancing neoliberalism in Iran as Mousavi is. Mousavi was a state socialist and implicated in terrible human rights abuses in the 1980's but now he has committed himself to economic liberalism and taken the leadership of people who want more political and social freedom, even though he, Mousavi, still quotes the Ayatollah Khomeini in revered tones and wants to keep the basic structure of the Islamic Republic intact. Sure Mousavi and Rafsanjani and such vermin want to privatize every industry in Iran and sell them off to their cronies. But I don't think it follows from that fact that the Mousavi people want to transform Iran back into the US client state days of the Shah.

I think leftist should view any struggle against oppression in relatively friendly tones, no matter how the imperialist establishment wants to exploit such struggles for their own ends. I think what leftists should be most worried about is that pressure will build to use the electoral situation in Iran as an excuse to impose more sanctions, ratchet up US military presence in the region, encourage Israel and/or the US to launch air strikes against Iran,etc. Such policies I think would really destabalize Iran and hurt the people the neocons claim to want to help as well as strengthen the anti-US "hard-liners."

Can Engaging with a Radical Religion Help Save Progressives from Self-Indulgence?

Can Engaging with a Radical Religion Help Save Progressives from Self-Indulgence?

By Robert Jensen, Soft Skull Press. Posted July 3, 2009.

To imagine a just and sustainable world, we need not just a politics but a theology that can help us face our delusional arrogance.

The following is an excerpt from the new book All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice by Robert Jensen from Soft Skull Press.

To imagine a just and sustainable world, we need not just a politics but a theology that can help us face the delusional arrogance and disastrous self-indulgence of humans, especially we humans of the modern industrial era. These qualities have put us on a collision course with natural forces more powerful than we can ever hope to understand fully or control much at all.

There's a chance -- with no guarantee, of course -- that we can draw on the best of our traditions and find the strength within ourselves that will be required to alter that course and create a world that is both just and sustainable. If we cannot create such a world, we will need that deepest strength to cope with the grim realities we will face in a future that we cannot now imagine.

These are the end times, of a sort. I am not talking about Rapture and tribulation, but about rupture and triangulation. The challenge isn't to anticipate the return of Christ but to face the reality that we modern humans have created unsustainable social and ecological systems that have ruptured the world, and we need the insights of all our best traditions to triangulate from multiple viewpoints and devise new ways to live.

We are facing the end of an era of irresponsible human domination of the planet, which cannot -- and will not -- continue much longer. I do not fear the apocalypse as it is imagined by end-time Christians (a dramatic finish with the saved being lifted up and the damned left behind), but rather a steady erosion of the conditions that make possible a minimally decent human existence in the context of respect for other forms of life.

With those realities, threats and challenges in mind, I offer the following thesis:

There is no God, and more than ever we all need to serve the One True Gods.

All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice is an attempt to make sense of that apparently nonsensical sentence with its deliberate singular/plural confusion. In proposing this idea to those who are religious, I have to defend vigorously the first clause in the sentence, the assertion that there is no God. That task wouldn't be quite so difficult if we would keep reminding ourselves of one simple reality:

Humans created religion; religion did not create humans.

Whatever one believes about the nature of the divine, it clearly was humans who developed the doctrines and ceremonies to express spirituality. That means we can change and update those traditions as we learn more about ourselves and the world around us.

To those who are secular, the second clause -- the assertion that "we all need to serve the One True Gods" -- needs considerable explanation. But the statement wouldn't seem so obscure if we could keep reminding ourselves of another fundamental reality:

Inanimate matter created life; life did not create inanimate matter.

At a point when human activity is threatening to undermine the capacity of the ecosystem to sustain human life as we know it, it's crucial that we keep our arrogance in check and remember that we are not a creator but instead a part of Creation.

Taken together, these two simple reminders suggest that when we look to the spiritual realm and religion for insights into how we should live in this world, we must remember that religion is our creation. Likewise, when we look to the secular realm and science for insights into how the world works, we must remember our place in Creation.

I want to articulate a conception of theology, and argue for its importance, in a way that may provoke some folks on all sides -- religious fundamentalists and relativists, as well as secular fundamentalists and relativists.

Although I have a deep contrarian streak in me, that instinct is not the motive force here. I have spent most of my 50 years studiously ignoring theological debates, which seemed annoying and irrelevant. I still often find them annoying, but I no longer feel I have the luxury of opting out of theological conversations. After a period of listening to the conversations of others, I have concluded that two important things must happen if we are to move forward. Stated provocatively, by design:

To the fundamentalists on both sides: Grow up. To the moderates on both sides: Buck up.

Both religious and secular fundamentalists tend to be convinced that they really know what they claim to know, which makes them unrealistically confident in their judgments based on those knowledge claims. These are childlike claims; respectfully, I will argue that people who make them need to grow up.

Moderates, both religious and secular, typically are less insistent about the absolute truth of what they claim to know, and as a result often are hesitant to judge. These are irresponsible positions; respectfully, I will argue that people who take them need to buck up.

Although these two "requests" are formulated in what could be seen as harsh language ("grow up" and "buck up" typically are instructions to the immature and the weak-willed), they are not meant that way. It is not difficult to understand why so many people seek certainty in a complex and confusing world, nor is it hard to understand the desire to avoid making judgments about others when one is aware of the limits of one's own knowledge. The crucial work of theology today is to help us abandon any pretense of secure knowledge, but at the same time provide the confidence and courage to judge -- and act on those judgments -- despite the inevitable risks that come with human limits.

It's time to face questions for which we have no answers, to address problems for which there may be no solutions. We have to accept the radical uncertainty of our lives, yet meet the challenges that life puts in front of us.

To help us cope, what kind of theology -- what ideas about what it means to be a human being at this moment in time -- will we need?

See more stories tagged with: politics, religion, progressives, theology

Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. His latest book, All My Bones Shake: Radical Politics in the Prophetic Voice, will be published in 2009 by Soft Skull Press. He also is the author of Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity (South End Press, 2007).

PEOPLE: IF THEY ARE NOT FOR US, THEY ARE AGAINST US

Various Sources

The Global Crisis and the Ultimate Secret of Empire

In a nutshell, the theme or at least the proposition that underlies much research today and connects them is that there is a secret world (or quasi-global) government which is by definition neither democratically elected nor publicly accountable, and which may have been able to connect with or tap into a wide variety of dark "forces" that originate outside of the mainstream. Though not all the research makes the same allegations, which some authors such as John Perkins or Peter Dale Scott may not agree with, they all bring various pieces to the puzzle we are trying to construct – or unravel, and all demonstrate and conclude that the global socio-political and “scientific” reality is not what most people are taught and subsequently believe it is. What are, in brief, the elements of proof or the indications which lead us toward a stunning and yet not unprecedented conclusion?

Many authors, even among those of relatively traditional, mainstream, consensus and even conservative persuasion, have shown or acknowledged what Nafeez M. Ahmed calls “the increasing criminalization of the state” at the global level, but particularly applying to the most powerful or leading states, beginning with the “sole superpower” and its closest allies: the UK, Israel and other NATO members.

Ahmed asks in the same article entitled “Torture, Rendition, Terror and Oil: a Primer on Deep Politics”: “In the service of what powerful vested interests are states acting in this increasingly criminal manner?” and provides in response the definition coined by Peter D. Scott for “deep politics”: “(a system) in which institutional, non-institutional and para-political bodies, criminal syndicates, politicians, judges, media, corporations and leading government employees, resort to decision-making and enforcement procedures outside…law and society. What makes these supplementary procedures “deep” is the fact that they are covert or suppressed, outside public awareness as well as outside sanctioned political processes” (in “Drugs, Oil and War”).

Ahmed adds that this situation generates “a form of police-crime symbiosis where the defining parameters of which side controls the other are no longer clear.” John Perkins is one of several expert witnesses who, as a former actor within the system (“an economic hit-man” as he defines himself) has documented and shown how this criminal hidden ruling structure spread its tentacles to control global economy and politics. He provides a vivid illustration of the operational methods used by the global powers-that-be, some of which were analyzed by Noam Chomsky in his books “ Manufacturing Consent ” (1988, with Edward S Herman) and “ Necessary Illusions ” (1988).

Paul Hellyer said as much in Hawaii: “ It appears that [our] real government has passed from elected accountable representatives of the people to an unelected, unaccountable elite group of senior government officials and industrial leaders .” This is the covert state that Senator Daniel K Inouye of Hawaii described as “a shadowy government with its own Air Force, Navy and fundraising mechanism…free from the law itself ...” which Lewis Laphan called the “permanent government” as opposed to the visible elected one.

The implication is that agencies, known or unknown to the public, have used information - and possible access - to further their goals of global domination, justified by the imperative of planning for against any and all possislbe and potential threats, camouflaged as national security preparations against a foreign enemy, formerly defined as the USSR and now as China, Russia and accessorily the international Islamic threat, embodied either by an amorphous terrorist network such as Al Qaida or by a regional power like Iran. This broadly was the initial conclusion reached by M W Cooper in his brochure “The Secret Government”.

Several high level figures including President Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter, have confessed being kept in the dark, as well as Barry Goldwater and at least one CIA Director, James Woolsey. President Bill Clinton himself is recorded telling veteran White House correspondent Sarah McClendon during his tenure that there was secret government which he did not control.

These hitherto unproven claims could be dismissed as silly rumours and baseless conspiracy theory if it were not for the fact that a large number of historically documented facts tend to show that certain contacts have been made at the “official” level in the USA and possibly in other countries as well. In 1979 Lord Clancarty (Brinsley Le Poer Trench) introduced a resolution in the House of Lords to lift the cover-up on some of the secrets, but his motion was defeated as were several others in democratic assemblies of other countries (USA and Japan among others, and the UN General Assembly where an attempt was made by Sir Eric Gairy, Prime Minister of Grenada, in 1978), which could be seen as confirming the widely held suspicion that the powers that be do not want such matters raised, even though they publicly make light of them to deflect attention.

It is difficult to explain why so many unrelated persons would come out with such stories, at great risk to their credibility and even personal safety, if they were mere inventions. Many of them have been tested by psychologists and are not delusional or insane. Their motives for telling these seemingly unbelievable tales are hard to fathom unless they are simply trying to share very disturbing experiences that have changed their lives. Various self-confessed participants in the secret joint research projects being allegedly carried out at Dulce and other facilities (Bob Lazar, Phil Schneider, Dan Burisch, Michael Wolf) have provided independent confirmation of at least some of Bennewitz's claims.

All those testimonies cannot be ignored even though they must be weighed against the body of evidence and we may abstain from lending them unconditional acceptance. Many people will, often for cultural or religious reasons, simply reject any statement or even evidence which is not officially confirmed and accepted by the majority of mankind. We should respect their choice, but that should not deter us from looking at each case on its own merits.

Systematically dismissing everything that contradicts the prevalent belief system and denigrating inconvenient or counter-intuitive claims does not allow for any evolution or progress. Prejudice and unquestioning conservatism are often confused with rationalism and good sense. The late illustrious Harvard Psychology Professor John Mack pointed out in several writings that modern society is conditioned to reject anything that is not a part of its cultural consensus, thereby confirming the contention that every civilization is a conspiracy, at least between its influential beneficiaries. However, one of the most troubling signs that we are all being lied to can be found in the colossal amount of funding that the “ black budget ” of the United States has attracted in the last decades , to the point of hollowing out a number of government and private institutions by diverting their resources to unknown ends.

An undetermined proportion of those funds are allocated to the Agency's own COPs (Covert Access Programmes) and to the DoD's SAPs (Special Access Programmes), many of which, started and regulated by unpublished Executive orders and NSC directives, are “waived”, which means that their coordinators do not provide written reports to the chairmen of the relevant Congressional Committees.

The so-called military-industrial complex therefore enjoys discretionary power over all aspects of public policy and budgeting. This virtual omnipotence is not dissimilar to the hegemony that the Chekha, later the KGB, achieved in the former Soviet Union when it took control of the CPSU, but it is more insidious and covert. It appears that this silent coup took place gradually in the 1950s, following the creation of the National Security Council and the major Intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, NRO) by President Harry Truman. The NSC is indeed a state within the state which keeps its own counsel and does not have to report to any outside authority, not even the President.

The role played by certain shadowy elite secret societies such as the US, Yale-affiliated Brotherhood of Death, better known as “Skulls and Bones”, the annual Bohemian Grove conclave, the Bilderbergers, Cecil Rhodes's Secret Society or Inner Circle, the “Black Network” reported by police investigators into the 1991 BCCI scandal, the Pilgrims Society, and other Masonic or putatively Templar (“Illuminist”) cryptocracies is not easy to define, but some might serve as antechambers to the “Sanctum” of the global oligarchic control structure whose tentacles and ramifications extend, through a web of interlocking partnerships and cross-holdings, to the major banking, financial, energy-owning, high-tech defense and intelligence-related equipment manufacturing corporations, and at whose core is the US Federal Reserve system, controlled by its private owners since its inception in 1913. The latter effectively controls global credit through its monopoly on the Dollar as the world's reserve currency.

According to an article by Joel van der Reijden, dated 29 July 2008, for the site of Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics, the Belgium Gendarmerie investigation's ATLAS Report into the 1994 Comuele financial scandal includes these revealing lines: Our conclusion would be that at least over the last twenty years the economic powers, some of which Mafia types, have allied themselves with political forces and organized criminal structures and reached the fourth stage of money laundering, namely absolute power. It has been specified to us that… these characters control 50% of the world economy. One should not lose sight of the fact that this network would control the majority of the financial traffic as well as the highest political leaders worldwide.

In the current context of global financial collapse, one cannot avoid asking questions about the role possibly being played by that mysterious and ominous entity which would indeed be in a position to trigger a systemic economic heart attack by emptying banks of their assets at short notice for their own ulterior motives, such as further expanding their control and bolstering their monopoly on currency. This is precisely what has been happening in the years 2008 and 2009 so far, with internationally devastating results.