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

Friday, May 30, 2014

Farcical ’Elections’ in Ukraine

Click here to access article by Daniel Patrick Welch from The 4th Media.

Empire directors often use managed elections in order to dress up their victims in "democratic" clothing. It is a major tool in their imperial arsenal, a fig leaf to cover the obscenity of their subversive activities.
The US will scream and bellow that, an election having been held, he will have every right to take such actions—which by sheer coincidence dovetail with the US’ own agenda. An ’elected president’ can quite legitimately (according to those who accept him as such) order the suppression of rebellion on his country’s territory. He can have deserters and traitors shot and imprisoned, and consolidate and focus military force as he deems fit.
Meanwhile, let us switch to another Empire victim who just completed an election with a 95% victory claimed for a US armed and trained military general. Stephen Gowans writes:
Apart from underpinning Egypt’s role as an agent of US influence in the Arab world, Washington’s military aid program to the country—surpassed only by aid to Israel—is a source of handsome profits to US military contractors.
Every year US taxpayers fork over $1.3 billion to the Egyptian military to submit large orders for weaponry and equipment to US arms manufacturers. In concrete terms, the bullets Egyptian soldiers used to mow down Morsi supporters were purchased by US taxpayers.
 Adding to Cairo’s value as a US ally is that fact that it grants the Pentagon virtual carte-blanche access to its territory.