Chapter 28. Wi-Fi Empowering the Powerless

This is a chapter from the book, Economic Democracy; The Political Struggle for the 21st Century. Visit that link for more information about the book.

The thoughts of society have been controlled for the benefit and protection of the powerful through funding of think-tanks, biased professors, and universities—most unaware of their own biases—by foundations, corporations and intelligence services; through covert establishment of supportive (hard right) media with public (intelligence service) funds; and through world events being run through intelligence services’ wordsmiths who restructure them to the desired view of the world (Chapter six). If a country needs to be brought under control (Iran, Libya, Nicaragua, Cuba, Yugoslavia, et al.—countries which have killed very few of their citizens and, before they were destabilized, were more democratic than America and give their citizens broad rights), there will be loud rhetoric of human rights abuses, state terrorism, or of a particularly vicious dictator. When a country is needed as an ally (Syngman Rhee in South Korea, Suharto in Indonesia, Somoza in Nicaragua, all of whom killed tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of their own citizens), one will hear, at the best, only a rhetoric of authoritative governments and at the worst (which is most the time) they are called democracies.

These created views of the world are put out while massive slaughters by monopoly capitalism’s covertly supported dictators are totally ignored, downgraded, or blamed on others. Thus the public is not aware that many violent events—planned, financed, armed, and guided by powerful nations’ intelligence services—even happened.

Sincere but unwitting professors and equally sincere and unaware writers and reporters, not realizing how this massive fraudulent information was planted, have put out articles and books by the thousands based on this badly tainted and frequently totally false information, and continue to do so.

Thousands of novels produced to entertain the masses are based on this created view of the world and all are making a lot of money producing as both serious education and entertainment propaganda nonsense for the masses.

Some Frauds of History

The battle of Saint-Mihiel is recorded in virtually every history book as the turning point of WWI. Five hundred and fifty thousand Allied troops were supposedly involved and tens of thousands of Germans captured. Yet no such battle occurred. “There was not one German soldier or one German gun within forty or fifty miles.” One “blundering war correspondent,” as George Seldes called himself, and “two United States Army artists ‘captured’ the town,” hours before the Allied army arrived.1

What became written history was the timed press releases the army had prepared in advance—a clear example of the creation of social-control-paradigms creating “frameworks of orientation” to control the thoughts and actions of the masses. The same was true of much of the first months of the Korean War. Until the Chinese joined North Korea, it was a war of U.S. military press releases.

Certainly there were some hard battles in the Korean War. But, as we documented above, many battles describing “hordes of North Koreans” never happened, and horrendous naval and aerial assaults against defenseless North Korean civilians designed to prevent the North Koreans from accepting a peace settlement were excluded from the news and from history.2 (Western leaders were programming the world so they could arm and fight covert wars, overt wars, their Cold War, and now the war on terrorism.) The same is true of much else in history.a

The turning over of many European governments to fascism during the Great Depression when the entrenched power-structures were threatened with the loss of that power through the vote (known only to a few in-depth researchers) is one example of history that needs to be addressed in popular literature.3 With the masses unaware of how democratic solutions were avoided in that crisis, the potential for a replay if democracy again threatens to break out is high (such as suppressions through America’s Patriot Act).

The improperly named Spanish Civil War took place in the one country in which the powerful did permit a truly democratic election and the alliance of aristocracy and wealth lost control of the government. The fascists used foreign military power to take back Spain. Analyzing that history makes it evident that fascism is an arm of the world’s wealthy powerbrokers and the wars they start are either to protect their monopoly powers or decide among themselves over who will establish the rules of unequal trade (World Wars I and II).

With government information services, intelligence services, and think-tank press releases; with foundation, corporate, and intelligence service funding of the propaganda process; and with negligible resources among the impoverished, the politically weak, or motivated researchers, the beliefs of the world stay to the right of the political spectrum. There is no left and no functioning middle. There is only a right and an extreme right, which, because there is no true left or true middle, are viewed by the people as a political right and a political left.b

Restructuring the Media to cover the Full Political Spectrum

Instead of only the agenda of the managers-of-state and the powerful being supported and promoted by these carefully crafted interpretations of national and international events, cheap Wi-Fi communications can provide spokespeople for groups or societies under assault (the true middle and the true left) with equal space and time to present their side.

The rules would be very basic: all exposures of human rights abuses would be encouraged but no one would be permitted to put out propaganda or promote hatred of another group or society. Of course this would mean that the State Department, intelligence agencies, and their spokespersons (ambassadors and other government agencies) would have to abandon their propaganda. No public institution that preaches peace, freedom, justice, rights, and majority rule can stand if exposed that they are really behind policies of inequality, injustice, violence, and massive state terror.

Subtle, But Explosive, one-liners would alert the Masses

Concerning politics, economics, some sociology, history, and money—all soft disciplines—the world is primarily programmed, not educated (creating inaccurate “frameworks of orientation”). Some of what we are addressing is available in select classes in the university system, but in very narrow fields attended by a very small percentage of students. The proof is visible by simply talking to people. Not only are few aware of the distortions of reality by managers-of-state that this book has addressed in depth, they will be upset at, and disbelieve, any suggestion they were not fully informed.

Occasionally a one-line snapshot of true history is shown, but not with a big enough picture to alert the masses. A vitriolic report on Russia’s Boris Yeltsin’s statement discussed earlier that, “The Russians may have American prisoners over there yet” was followed by such a one-sentence statement, “There were over 730 American Airmen shot down over the Soviet Union during the Cold War.” Those vitriolic statements were meaningless; the real story was that last sentence. If analyzed, along with the knowledge that no Soviet planes were carrying out acts of war across the borders of Western nations, that sentence in all media as opposed to being in only one medium-sized newspaper would blow away some of the fog created by the propaganda that is the lens through which the masses view the world.

As I write this a guest professor/author on Fox news was able to quickly slip in the reality that 200,000 Iraqi’s were killed in the 1st Gulf War, another 1-million were killed by the embargo, and it appeared the slaughter may be worse in this 2nd Gulf War. The newscaster’s facial expression made it obvious he was aware of this history and his quick change of subject demonstrated that this was an unintended release of information.

Whenever discussing the dictator Suharto of Indonesia it would only be necessary to add, “Indonesia’s democratically elected Sukarno was overthrown on the second attempt by the CIA, which resulted in the slaughter of between 500,000 and 1-million civilians.” The public would be instantly alerted, demand to know the facts, and such covert actions would cease. Especially if that sentence was followed by a second: “Between 12-million and 15-million people have been violently slaughtered by such covert and overt actions and the United States has been the primary promoter and supporter of such destabilizations.” Instead, the masses hear volumes of injustices done by others. These claimed injustices are primarily manufactured by the CIA, or other intelligence agencies, and described in government press releases as reality.

When Argentina is in the news surely an alert anchor could point out that, “Roughly 500 of Argentina’s 30,000 disappeared were pregnant women who were imprisoned to term, gave birth by cesarean section, were drugged and loaded on a nightly flight of death over the Atlantic Ocean, and their babies were adopted into military families.” Perhaps another day he or she could slip in, “This slaughter of mostly innocents was well known to the government and, through their confessions to their priests, the church.” We say mostly innocents because they were only speaking up for their rights and most were totally nonviolent.

A news report on Iranian terrorism followed by the sentence, “The Iranians are angry over America’s Operation Ajax, which overthrew their democracy and reestablished the dictatorship of the Shah,” would alert citizens to take a closer look at other violent events around the world.

Whenever a news release comes over the wire about slaughter in Latin America by insurgents such as in the 1970s and 1980s, almost certainly intelligence service and/or State Department press releases, the local reporter only needs to add one line: “U.S. intelligence established and supported death squads during the Cold War which killed thousands of peaceful prospective leaders (potential Washingtons, Churchhills, Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings) of those countries.” Sources should be given so the reader can quickly check on these facts. This would quickly alert the masses to the reality that these were suppressions of the same freedoms Americans fought for in 1776 and the War of 1812.

The media, as all people, are conscientious and if they knew how the news was controlled, and if they knew the true history, they would keep slipping in those little one-liners that would expose the propaganda.

Putting the West’s state-sponsored terrorism alongside any other terrorism or human rights abuses would quickly demonstrate who has created the most terror and insecurity throughout the world. Once alerted by the exposure of how propaganda works in a “free” society, the people would easily spot these intelligence agency creations and, because it would mean defeat at election time, propaganda would cease. Their integrity at stake, universities would weed out compliant professors who take intelligence service or corporate money to produce fraudulent research, the corporate funded think-tanks generating most of this disinformation would disappear, and the media would become the responsible reporters of news they want to be.

The Developing World can Leapfrog Decades in the Development Process

As they are in a race against the time when their populations will overwhelm them, each region should be given the communications systems (Wi-Fi radio and TV) to reach all their people with the message of:

how to gain control of their land through Henry George principles and grow and consume high-calorie crops with the proper proportions of the eight essential amino acids for the body to produce its own protein;
how to industrialize their regions, develop a balanced economy, and create buying power;
the population levels their resources will support while protecting the ecosystem;
how Italy, Japan, Germany, China, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Chile, Burma, Cuba, and the Indian state of Kerala slowed their population growths;
achieving large gains in individual living standards from limiting, and especially reducing, their populations;
and how in all industrialized nations a rapid reduction in births took place automatically in step with the gains in quality of life and security.

As citizens will buy their own TV sets, for the cost of producing the documentaries, establishing the satellite/Wi-Fi TV system, providing workbooks, and establishing testing stations, all developing world children of all ages would have access to all grades of education, including a masters or doctorate, for 5% to 15% the cost in the developed world. Satellite broadcasts will cover entire continents and all those countries can share the setup and operational costs. Our writings have suggested this for years and in 2005 Telesur, a television network about Latin Americans produced by Latin Americans will start broadcasting and it is our bet that this opportunity to educate their citizens at little cost will be put into practice.

Education would start on any subject as soon as the education documentaries were filmed. Students or communities able to finance TVs, work tables, notebooks, slates, and other necessities would start their formal education immediately. Those with access to a TV but too poor to afford the other basics, would develop keen enough memories to pass tests, just as their ancestors handed down the wisdom of the ages by memorized stories. As regions become educated and richer, Wi-Fi would be installed to provide citizens with access to all knowledge and make contacts any where in the world.

This restructured educational Wi-Fi system will be an advantage over the developed world. Developed-world education bureaucracies are locked into the current expensive structure so thoroughly that it will be impossible to fully uproot them. Not only can the developing world be educated for from 5-to-15% the cost of the developed world, if they can avoid the false realities of imposed “frameworks of orientation”, will be much better educated, and can actually obtain employment within the wealthy world. Example: publishers are obtaining book cover artwork from South Africa, India, and elsewhere for 20% their previous costs. Art contractors and other high-priced computer assisted labor throughout the wealthy world are at risk.

Think what the developing world could do if they could avoid faulty “frameworks of orientation” masquerading as an honest education, which is the reason the developed world will go to any length to prevent the dependent world from gaining control of its information systems. To lose control of the world’s information systems is to lose control of the imposed beliefs that in turn would eliminate control of the periphery of empire.

Politicians speaking to, and listening to, the People

The purpose of McCarthyism of the 1950s was to lock academics, the media, and all opinion makers inside permitted-parameters-of-debate. Although it destroyed the lives of thousands of conscientious people, it worked brilliantly and is still a powerful force today. It is only because we are so totally immersed in it, and thus consider it customary and normal, that we are unaware of the true hold of this massive social-control-paradigm.

William Greider, in Who Will Tell the People?, explains how the big guns of those social-control paradigms work. The leaders of Congress know well the rough outline of laws that will be passed. What the public hears is a thunderous rhetoric within narrow parameters to the right of the political spectrum, jockeying for position with the voters. Except for corporations which fund the elections, the public is essentially un-represented and decisions are made far from the public arena. We badly need a book that explains this process within governments as thoroughly as we hope we have explained it on the world scene.

Politics, as now contrived, is hardly amenable to new ideas. Society is kept to the right of the political spectrum and social-control beliefs keep political rhetoric within those permitted-parameters-of-debate. To move outside these parameters is political and social suicide.

Assuming there is no economic crisis, an ideologically programmed population is guaranteed to vote in support of the social policy the current power-structure shrilly promotes; there are no choices outside those parameters. To move to what is a true middle position is to be instantly attacked as liberal, socialist, heretical, un-American, or even Communist—the reductionist clichés of the social-control paradigm of the Cold War, in effect since 1950. Therefore, few knowledgeable leaders can freely say what they believe. They avoid all in-depth analysis and commitments.

These politicians should not be too heavily criticized for their evasions. To admit openly that the Soviet military threat was not real, to recognize that mercantilist principles still dominated world trade, to acknowledge the ongoing suppressions of developing nations’ attempts to gain control of their destiny or to promote truly progressive social policies would cost them their political life.

If a conscientious politician suggested even moderate plans to restructure any of the wasteful segments of the economy we have been outlining, the big guns of the many subtle monopolies would, through cranking up the rhetoric of the operative social-control-paradigm, collectively and immediately sink their political ships.

Ten to 20 reserved TV channels would be needed for serious leaders to present their views. Serious, in this instance, means having a substantial segment of the population to represent—corporations, business people, farmers (all now over represented), women (who have just gained representation), labor (represented but unwittingly supporting suppression of other labor worldwide [the purpose of the propaganda process]), minorities, the poor, conservationists, peace groups, and others (these last four are currently essentially without representation in the government or mainstream media [they do have representation on the margins in academia and full representation in the fast expanding Democracy Now, Free Speech TV, Link TV, and other newly formed media.]).

If there is anywhere politicians must be, it is in the spotlight. Those not attending these in-depth background discussions would be relinquishing their claim to leadership. With authorities such as those cited throughout this book invited to these forums, it would be difficult to duck the issues. There would just be too many questions.

Only when all have the opportunity to present their views and challenge social-control rhetoric, or even make it counterproductive, can there be true democracy. Those who presented a consistent and accurate view of reality, and promoted a policy for the maximum good of the people, would gather a loyal following.

Most of the public would not watch these in-depth discussions, but those who did would gain from the knowledge of these experts. Interested people would make value judgments on the history leading to the present problems, study the different solutions that were presented, and analyze the intelligence and integrity of the leaders proposing these solutions. It is these interested people and their opinions that guide the thinking of the nation.

These opinion makers (intellectuals, leaders, and the news media) would watch the information forums to inform themselves and, in turn, inform the public. To do less would leave one uninformed and lose one’s followers. With elections structured for candidates to prove their mettle—like the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates—the now-informed citizens would be enabled to make responsible voting decisions.

Understanding economics becomes easy when we realize that the classical economists were protecting wealth and power. They consistently insisted that labor should be paid just enough to reproduce itself and that all wealth produced by increased efficiencies of technology should go to capital even as they ignored that this primitive accumulation of capital went first and foremost to grand castles and high living.c

As the common people fought for equal rights, the power-structure protected itself by trumpeting each gain of rights as full and equal rights. But those excess rights of capital promoted by classical economists have never been fully set aside, the full and equal rights promoted by a minority of philosophers has never been attained, and it is this lack of full rights which creates the poverty and violence of today’s world.

Provide equal rights through our suggested slight changes in the structure of property rights (with its huge gain in full and equal rights) eliminates the current unacknowledged subtle land, technology, and money monopolies that are the essence of today’s economy. At minimum cost and without waste use-values are relatively equally distributed to all. The quality of life rises rapidly even as the hours of required labor and the GDP drop precipitously. The drop in GDP measures the previously wasted labor, capital, and resources of a subtly monopolized economy. The GDP then rises as people utilize their new free time to develop their many artistic talents or to simply socialize with friends.

Under a modern commons within democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)- capitalism the just rights of private property are fully protected, individualism and competition are strengthened, and money no longer flows through subtle monopolies to the interceptors of wealth. Society’s production is instead, through applying Henry George principles of conditional title to natures wealth, distributed to the producers of that wealth. Through equal sharing of productive jobs, each will have a just claim to their proper share and there will be no severe poverty. Under those rules of equality, the need for massive military forces and their attendant massive slaughters disappear.

Those owning and working within the superstructure of those subtle monopolies are the world’s brightest and most talented. That is why they reached for and attained those positions and they will unanimously dispute their redundancy even as a few of them finance and guide the enormous propaganda process which protects their excess rights. The gains to society will be enormous when under a system of full and equal rights with a sharing of productive jobs these talented and brilliant people will be producing wealth instead of intercepting wealth.

This is an opportune moment to stake a claim to the moral high ground, share the enormous productivity of technology, eliminate most poverty, protect the world’s ecosystems, and gain the respect and loyalty of the world. Any nation, or group of nations, which leads the world down that path to world peace and prosperity will go down in history as a moral and conscientious society which led the world to peace and prosperity.

Compassion, good judgment, and very possibly even the survival of humankind, require that the world trading system be restructured from the current corporate imperialism, with its violence, poverty, and despoiling of environments to a caring democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism with a minimum level of violence and poverty and a rebuilding of the ecosystems so crucial for the survival of all life.

Under a modern commons within democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism the just rights of private property are fully protected, poverty is eliminated, and the ecosystems so crucial for the survival of all life are rebuilt. In the words of John Maynard Keynes, “Ultimately, mankind would be freed of the morbid love of money to confront the deeper questions of human existence—how to live wisely and agreeably and well.”4

Turning Weapons into Consumer Products

If the world’s managers-of-state were to abandon the interception of wealth through corporate imperialist control of technology and trade, guarantee secure borders, industrialize impoverished societies, collect and destroy their weapons, and reduce the weapons of the super-powers in step with world disarmament, global peace could become a very real possibility.

If there were no arms among the disaffected, and an honest international body was overseeing peace, hostilities and minor clashes might develop, but wars would be impossible. With weapons adequate only for internal security, with borders guaranteed, and with honesty in sharing the fruits of nature and technology, societies would give up the losses from conflict for the gains from cooperation.

As stated previously, President Woodrow Wilson knew all this. His trusted political confidant, Edward Mandell House, studied the European secret agreements to divide the Ottoman Empire and

was dismayed by their contents…. [He told the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour], “It is all bad…. They are making it a breeding place for future war.”… [A]board ship enroute to the peace conference in 1919, [President] Wilson told his associates that “I am convinced that if this peace is not made on the highest principles of justice, it will be swept away by the peoples of the world in less than a generation. If it is any other sort of peace then I shall want to run away and hide … for there will follow not mere conflict but cataclysm.”5

President Wilson fought for those goals even when he was severely ill with a stroke. But the political forces arrayed against him were too great and he failed to get the United States to join and lead the League of Nations in gaining and guaranteeing rights for all. President Franklin D. Roosevelt repeatedly tried to abandon the imposed inequalities of trade that created so much of the world’s conflict. His “attempt to replace aggression with international understanding had failed in China and Spain. Undaunted, he wrote [Britain’s] Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain proposing a great conference at which treaties would be altered without resorting to force and all nations assured access to raw materials. Chamberlain declined.”6

Although he was at first carried along by the nation’s cold warriors, President John F. Kennedy also spoke about peace and justice for the world. Just weeks before he was assassinated he spoke of a strategy for peace: “Not a Pox Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war … not merely peace for Americans, but peace for all men; not merely in our time but peace for all time.”7

Knowing that the enormous productivity of capital can produce a respectable lifestyle for all assures that most of the developing world will accept disarmament as the price of capitalization. Those elusive goals of capitalization and peace are what progressive developing world leaders have been fighting for anyway. In 1950, conservative Senators Brian McMahon and Millard Tydings “made dramatic speeches in the Senate … moral crusade for peace” and a $50-billion ($300-billion 1990 dollars) “global Marshall Plan” financed by the United States and augmented by an undertaking by all nations to put two-thirds of their armament expenditures to “constructive ends.”8

An Offer the Impoverished World cannot refuse

In plain and unambiguous language, this should be the offer of the powerful industrialized nations to the world: the cancellation of all unjust debts; the conversion of industrial capital once producing arms to production of industrial tools for the developing world; a fully democratized United Nations or a fully federated earth to oversee the balanced and peaceful capitalization of the developing world; the borders of all countries to be guaranteed; the newly democratized United Nations or a federated earth given the authority, soldiers, and the arms to back up that guarantee; and a worldwide embargo to go into effect automatically against any country that attacks or subverts another country (covertly or overtly). We should emphasize, however, that most movements for a federated earth will not be creating power blocks to compete with other power blocks but encourage the inclusion of every nation on earth.

Due to those major powers’ addiction to living cheaply off other societies and the potential for cheating, perhaps earlier international efforts for sustained world peace were premature. However, with Wi-Fi TV and radio soon to be present in most homes worldwide, it is possible for the entire world to have a basic understanding of the problems (people must be told the problems honestly instead of propagandized) and satellites can spot any major arms production or troop movement anywhere in the world.

The major powers could disarm in step with the disarmament of the world and could turn the industry currently wasted on arms production towards capitalizing the undeveloped world, rebuilding the world’s soils, and protecting the ecosystem. The same expansion of industrial and trade rights to the entire world as is intended to be extended only to allies within the current trading bloc would eliminate the need for military waste and free that productive capacity and those resources and labor for sustainable development of the world.

Whoever firmly establishes disarmament and expands it to developing world industrialization will go down in history as one of the world’s greatest leaders, far exceeding the reputations of Presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, or India’s Mahatma Gandhi. Once other nations declare their willingness to disarm and place their security in the hands of a fully democratized United Nations or a federated earth, the developed nations will be hard-pressed to find excuses not to utilize their surplus productive capacity to provide those all-important industrial tools to the developing world.

Since most arms are normally used either to repress a country’s own population or for external powers to provide support for a faction within a country, the foregoing guarantee should extend to the protection of existing democratic governments from internal overthrow by force. But there also must be guarantees of free elections, constitutional governments, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. A fully democratized United Nations should have the authority to oversee the disarming of belligerents, the establishment of democracies, and the holding of free elections in any country torn by revolution. Once those countries are disarmed legitimate leaders can be elected.

The World Can, and Will, Disarm

Under the guarantees against both internal and external aggression described, and with promises of capitalization and the sharing of markets and resources, the military weapons of developing states—above those needed for normal police duty—should be collected and destroyed.

Once the rest of the world is disarmed, and all are therefore safe from attack, the weapons of mass destruction can be destroyed and adequate conventional weapons can be transferred to a world body to oversee peace. With destruction of the weapons of war and equal rights to capital, resources, and trade, all societies could eventually produce for, and provide equal rights for, all their citizens.

As a condition of receiving capital, emerging nations would have to agree to permit inspection of any factory suspected of weapons production. The only way this can happen is if the dominant powers—and that now means only the United States and its allies—recognize the potential for peace and take the lead in disarming and capitalizing the world.

Powerful Nations will not willingly give up Their Superior Rights

Powerful nations respond only to equal power. However, just laying out the simplicity of eliminating poverty by full and equal rights for all severely weakens these mighty powers. It remains for all weak nations of a region to ally together for the power to gain their freedom. With that power they can negotiate to trade resources for technology and they can negotiate for equality of pay for equally-productive work. To not do so is to stay in poverty and watch their natural wealth become someone else’s consumer/capitalized wealth.

With political rights you are politically free but may still be ill-fed, ill-clothed, and poorly housed. Provide equal economic rights for all people through efficient and productive democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism and all people can be well-fed, well-clothed, and live in a respectable home.

Certainly those powerful nations will manufacture excuses as they always have (words such as the leaders of these new breaks for freedom are killers, dictators, and terrorists) and send in the military to suppress these allied breaks for freedom. But, if these newly allied nations firmly hold their ground and communicate their position throughout the newly-wired Wi-Fi world; a few hundreds of millions will no longer be able to preach peace, freedom, justice, rights, and majority rule while simultaneously using their military to suppress those very same rights for billions of people.

Mahatma Gandhi of India showed that to the world. When the people of India stood up together, refused to fight, but also refused to accept British rule, the British had to leave. All wealth comes from natural resources and those resources are primarily in the impoverished world. If the developing world refuses to work those mines, cut those forests, pump that oil, drive those trucks, or load those ships, (just as the followers of Gandhi did) the powerful nations will have no choice except to negotiate in good faith.d This war of words is a war they cannot win if we seriously engage them in that battle. The truth is too simple and too obvious

But before people can organize they must fully understand why they are poor while others are rich. Our research provides those simple reasons why and also provides a roadmap out of poverty; democratic-cooperative-(superefficient)-capitalism.

Footnotes

Yes America did get attacked on 9/11/2001 demolishing the twin towers of the World Trade Center, a part of the Pentagon, and over 3,000 innocent lives were lost. But what all the rhetoric and propaganda kept hidden from the Americans was that, in the process of keeping the world from breaking free, their government had leveled entire countries, killed between 12 million and 15 million innocent people, and hid all this behind a propaganda barrage that these people were dictators and aggressors. Back to text
And they are moving the entire nation further to the right all the time. The so-called left is mouthing words today that the hard right would not have dared mouth 10 years ago. The entire nation has such a distorted view of the world that the only way they balance back to reality is by another economic crash or if enough of the world allies together to deny the aggressors the resources to run either their economy or their war machine. In short, bring on that economic collapse. Only when they and their children are homeless and hungry does a propagandized population take a close look at reality. The three choices are: a collapsed world economy, the world breaking free and forcing the powerful nations to share equally, or fascist control of the world (or a 4th, WWIII). Remember, the definition of fascism is corporate control of governments and military control of populations. No one will challenge that corporations rule America and the populations being militarily controlled are the populations of the impoverished world. Back to text
Michael Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation (London: Duke University Press, 2000), especially p. 91: Thomas C. Patterson, Inventing Western Civilization (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1997). There were a few exceptions. Gerard Winstanley in the 16th century, Jean Jacques Rousseau in the 17th century, Johann Herder in the 18th century, and Karl Marx in the 19th century spoke to the rights of labor (Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism, Chapter 3). Back to text
Germany’s industrial sector was occupied by France after WWII. When German labor refused to work, France was forced to abandon the occupation. Back to text

Endnotes

George Seldes, Even The Gods Can’t Change History (Secaucus, N.J: Lyle Stuart, 1976), p. 16. Back to text
I.F. Stone, The Hidden History of the Korean War (Boston: Little Brown, 1952). See Chapter seven in this work for a synopsis. Back to text
John Gray, False Dawn (New York: The Free Press, 1998), pp. 196, 211; Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957), Chapter 20, especially p. 38. Back to text
William Greider, Secrets of the Temple (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), pp. 173-74. Back to text
David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace (New York: Avon Books, 1989), pp. 257, 262. Back to text
William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, Bantam (New York: Bantam Books, 1975), p. 178. Back to text
Ibid, pp. 989-90. Back to text
Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York: W.W. Norton, 1987), p. 377. Back to text