We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Truth as an Issue

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from VoltaireNet.
One of the challenges of preparing for the Geneva conference is to write the history of Syria. The NATO powers and the Gulf Cooperation Council are trying to impose their version of events which would give them a clear advantage at the negotiating table. Hence a sudden avalanche of articles and summary reports in the Western and the Gulf press.
It seems to me that the propaganda cover for promoting this war by the Empire and the Gulf Cooperation Council will play a secondary role in the negotiations and used mostly for public consumption as it was always designed to be used. It is real politics that will be the primary driving force in the negotiations. It will be the concrete material interests of the Empire, and the various components that comprise it, that will primarily determine the outcome of the negotiations.

Nevertheless, in this article Meyssan provides a broad view of this brief historical episode as a counter-narrative to the Empire's propaganda version which I think is very credible and useful. Because he doesn't attempt to document the elements and elaborate on the arguments that make up his version (it would have resulted in a very lengthy article), one has to rely on his record as a credible source. I believe that he has well established his knowledge and credibility over the past several years with his numerous writings about the Syrian conflict and other related matters in the Middle East.