AMERICA'S CIA LIE FACTORY EXPOSED

AMERICA'S CIA LIE FACTORY EXPOSED  I LOVE YOU, RUSSIA http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/russian-troll-who-came-cold/ri15987 The Russian Troll Who Came in from the Cold Russian “Troll Factory” story revisited Yana Dianova Subscribe to Yana Dianova Mon, Aug 8, 2016 | 3,622    Comments  The author is a Moscow based private practice lawyer. The first part of her investigation was published in RI here Trolling has become America’s top export since the dawn of the 21st century. It has become the new American reality, through which every self-imposed tragedy is viewed, attributed and resolved. Facts can no longer be separated from fiction, and if anyone finds fault with this bold, new paradigm, then just blame Russia. Or Putin! It was widely reported by the American  mainstream media that Russia-based Internet trolls have been working hard in social networks for the last several years disseminating pro-Kremlin and anti-Western talking points on blogs and in the comments sections of news websites in Russia and abroad. The revelations were made by an “activist” Lyudmila Savchuk who worked at an alleged ″troll’ factory″ - the Agency of Internet Researches located at 55 Savushkina Street, St. Petersburg that purportedly employed as many as 400 people, from January through March 2015.   Ms. Savchuk, a single mother of two, who allegedly signed up for the 40,000 to 50,000 Rubles ($700-870) monthly salary, must have worked under extremely dire conditions, for no video clip, email communications, trolling screenshot, salary slip or bank record has been spirited out to corroborate her allegations. Not even a cafeteria slip at the “troll factory” paid with a credit card. Security must have been tight; so tight that the cavity checks the FBI had subjected Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, over allegations of visa fraud and tax evasion, would have paled [by] comparison. Either that or the Russians may possess a magical delete button that can wipe out every incriminating nanobyte from existence. We can be sure that Hillary Clinton would have paid a premium for this technical marvel but for now, she has to settle for the hordes of trolls she probably helped create. Furthermore, no hard evidence regarding the sponsorship of this trolls’ Agency by the Russian government was ever provided either by Ms.Savchuk or her lawyers while the Kremlin officially repudiated any connection therewith.  [comment:  LOL.  I love the Russians.  They're so funny.  OMG, I can't believe he got cavity checked (that means BUTT!) over a minor administrative type of matter.  If this is what the FBI do to DIPLOMATS over routine inquiries, IMAGINE what the Americans do to *ordinary* people who are powerless, compared to a foreign diplomat.   The US-Anglo Capitalist Empire REALLY IS the EVIL EMPIRE.   ] It would have taken much audacity on the part of  Ms. Savchuk, a freelance journalist, whose only visible occupation according to her VKontakte profile and some other sources is the ″Information Peace″ movement (″Информационный мир″) ″created in 2014 by St. Petersburg citizens as counterbalance the official propaganda and paid trolls activities″, to engage in such an undertaking as exposing ″Kremlin propaganda trolls″ and filing a lawsuit against the Internet Research Agency for a failure to formalize employment relations with her.  Luckily, she was assisted by an informal association of lawyers and journalists  "Team 29" which  ″has picked up the baton from the Freedom of Information Foundation that had been defending the rights for information access for ten years before the Ministry for Justice of Russia marked it as a "foreign agent" NGO.". The Freedom of Information Foundation (FIF) was founded in 2004 by an advocate Ivan Pavlov and ″defended right to access to information on activities of government bodies and bodies of local self-government″.  [comment:  LMAO.  I love Russia.  Kick them all out.  Please give me asylum.  Western freedom is a lie and the phony 'progressive' West sucks hard. ] Among the sponsors of FIF according to its Web site were such institutions as:     The National Endowment for Democracy, ″launched in the early 1980s, premised on the idea that American assistance on behalf of democracy efforts abroad would be good both for the U.S. and for those struggling around the world for freedom and self-government″, supported by the U.S. Congress;  CIA Director William J. Casey worked with senior CIA covert operation specialist Walter Raymond Jr. to establish NED in 1983. Casey – from the CIA – and Raymond – from his assignment inside President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council –  focused on creating a funding mechanism to support groups inside foreign countries that would engage in propaganda and political action that the CIA had historically organized and paid for covertly.  NED board members and experts representing compromising corporate-financier special interests include: Marilyn Carlson Nelson (NED secretary), a co-CEO of one of the largest privately held companies in the world, Carlson Holdings operating hotels around the world; he also serves on the board of Exxon Mobil and chairs the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board;  Marne Levine (Facebook, Coo, Instagram), Mark Ordan (WP Glimcher – real estate), and with Carl Gershman, Princeton Lyman, Stephen Sestanovich, and Melanne Verveer serving as members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) – a corporate-financier funded think-tank representing the collective economic and geopolitical ambitions of Wall Street, London, and Brussels’ most powerful special interests.  According to a 2013 disclosure (.pdf) NED  is funded by among others, Chevron, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, and the US Chamber of Commerce.     The Open Society Institute (OSI) founded in 1993 by the multibillionaire hedge-fund manager George Soros. Open Society foundations are active in more than 70 countries around the world. OSI, for its part, is chiefly devoted to injecting capital into U.S.-based groups and causes. It reportedly pumped millions into opposition movements and “independent” media in Hungary, Ukraine and Georgia under the guise of strengthening civil society, only to have like-minded individuals nominated by Soros’s own foundation come to power in those countries.     U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) established by executive order of President Kennedy in 1961. It is confirmed that USAID, in particular, played a major role in funding opposition groups prior to the coup in 2014 in the Ukraine. According to 5 Channel reportage Team 29 has been engaged in a scheme for  "laundering" NGOs grants, without registering as a foreign agent as required by Russian law. Mr. Pavlov was hasty to claim on his Facebook page that Team 29 specifically supplied to 5 Channel the false ″insider″ information on handling the grants but did not argue against the very fact of financing of Team 29 by certain non-Russian NGOs. It mentioned that Mr. Pavlov’s wife, an American citizen, Jennifer Gaspar, who had been working in Russia for 10 years ″assisting various NGOs″, in August 2014 was deprived of a residence permit and denied Russian citizenship due to her activities aimed ″at violently changing the constitutional order″, as established by the concerned Russian agencies.  [comment:  OMG.  I love you Russia.  Let me in ... where it's NORMAL and not propaganda, illegitimate ideology, illegitimate policy and an evil program of INVASION.  Help us, Russia.  ] This is the thoroughbred pedigree of the US-sponsored Russian “truth” movement that bases its “human rights” crusades on a pack of lies, innuendoes and relentless trolling; most of which are funded at the expense of the increasingly impoverished US taxpayer.  [comment:  OMG, Russia.  That was sooooooooo good.  Say that again.  ;)  ] http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/russian-troll-who-came-cold/ri15987 COMMENT That's the best thing I've read in ages.  I love you, Russia. Don't let the evil US-Anglo oligarchs win. Look how greedy they are:  it's NEVER enough.  They have vast, unimaginable wealth and still they want to f*ck over other people and nations to exploit them for yet more profits (as if the early 1990s rape of the Russian people was not enough).  Thieves.

Atlantic Council Wants War on Russia

US MILITARY ATLANTIC COUNCIL & US STATE DEPT. WEASELS WANT WAR Plotting War on Russia [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] RT-News Breedlove’s war: Emails show ex-NATO general plotting US conflict with Russia Published time: 1 Jul, 2016 20:09 Edited time: 1 Jul, 2016 20:10 Hacked private emails of the US general formerly in charge of NATO reveal a campaign to pressure the White House into escalating the conflict with Russia over Ukraine, involving several influential players in Washington. The emails, posted by the site DCLeaks, show correspondence between General Philip M. Breedlove, former head of the US European Command and supreme commander of NATO forces, with several establishment insiders concerning the situation in Ukraine following the February 2014 coup that ousted the elected government in favor of a US-backed regime. [Wesley] Clark, who commanded NATO during the 1999 war in Yugoslavia, reached out to Breedlove in April 2014. On April 8, he forwarded “intelligence” obtained by Anatoly Pinchuk and Dmitry Tymchuk, activists close to the new regime, claiming a Russian invasion was in the works. The information was conveyed by Phillip Karber, an ex-Marine and president of the Potomac Foundation, whom Clark calls a “colleague” and “our guy.” Karber wrote about observing the Russian border from inside a Ukrainian tank, and eagerly transmitted Tymchuk and Pinchuk’s calls for support. Contacted by The Intercept on Friday, Karber confirmed the authenticity of several emails in the leaked cache. Reporting on his meeting with Ambassador Pyatt on April 6, Karber wrote: “State is the one trying to be pro-active and recognizes need to do more faster,” while General Martin Dempsey – at that point the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – was “dragging his feet in order to save [military] relations with Russians.” In an email dated April 12, Clark referred to his exchange with “Toria” Nuland – the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, who personally backed the Ukrainian revolution – pushing for open US support for the regime in Ukraine to use force against protesters in the east. Prior to the coup, Washington had strongly warned Kiev not to use force against the anti-government demonstrators in the city. Kiev’s summer “anti-terrorist operation” ended in crushing defeat in August, and the first armistice between the government and rebels was signed in Minsk in September. Meanwhile, the so-called Islamic State jihadist group arose in Iraq and Syria, drawing US attention away from Eastern Europe with gruesome beheadings of Westerners. Frustrated by the White House’s reluctance to back his belligerent agenda in Ukraine, Breedlove reached out to Powell, a retired general and former secretary of state. “I seek your counsel on two fronts,.... how to frame this opportunity in a time where all eyes are on ISIL all the time,... and two,... how to work this personally with the POTUS,” Breedlove wrote to Powell in September 2014. Powell’s response was not made available. Breedlove was introduced to Powell by Harlan Ullman, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of the “shock and awe” doctrine used by the Bush administration in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In October 2014, Ullman urged Breedlove to reach out to Vice President Joe Biden. Aside from Powell, Ullman wrote, “I know of no better way of getting into 1600,” referring to the White House’s address on Pennsylvania Avenue. In November, Ullman also suggested Breedlove should get together with David O'Sullivan, the new EU envoy to Washington. Noting that Europe “seems to be a six letter expletive in the White House,” Ullman adds that “perhaps quiet collaboration between him and NATO (SecGen) as well might be useful.” “Obama or Kerry needs to be convinced that Putin must be confronted,” Ullman wrote in February 2015, before the ‘Minsk II’ talks. He also gave Breedlove pointers on getting into the good graces of Ash Carter, the new Defense Secretary. “I would take or pretend to take careful notes.  Ash is an academic. And he is trained that students who take good notes rise to be A grades.  This may be maskarova.  But it is useful maskarova,” Ullman wrote, misspelling the Russian word for camouflage (maskirovka).  [COMMENT:  Маскировка / Maskirovvka - Russian military deception doctrine, est. start 12th Century - concealment, decoys, dummies, deceptive manoevres, denial, disinformation etc [wikipedia] ] Washington did approve hundreds of millions of dollars in “non-lethal” aid to Ukrainian troops, including the notorious “volunteer battalions,” in the 2016 military budget. Breedlove continued to push for more aggressive US involvement, claiming a heavy Russian troop presence in Ukraine – which was later denied even by the government in Kiev. In March this year, the general was telling US lawmakers that Russia and Syria were “deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve.” Breedlove was replaced at the helm of EUCOM and NATO in May, and officially retired from the military on July 1. He was replaced by US Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, whose public statements suggest a similar level of hostility for Russia. https://www.rt.com/usa/349213-hacked-emails-breedlove-ukraine/ US-ANGLO CAPITALIST PRESS NOT COVERING [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] COMMENT No time to look at this properly, right now. Not even sure I copied this properly.  Oops. Had too much fun playing with the NATO Love Doll.   Got to run.   LOL

Investigative Journalist, John Pilger: US Preparation for Conflict - China on High Alert

HIGH ALERT: CHINA Response to US Aggresssion John Pilger on the Threat of World War Three (Going Underground) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahEdcuxlN1o SUMMARY (BASIC) John Pilger on the Threat of World War Three (Going Underground) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahEdcuxlN1o AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES Classically America-first populist in  Donald Trump or the absolute embodiment of the system that has run seamlessly since 1945 (Hillary Clinton) Sanders - voted to destroy Yugoslavia - voted to put Edward Snowden on trial - called Hugo Chávez (Venezuela) a dictator Pilger: Let's get the quote exactly right.  He was asked about Chávez and he called Chávez a "dead communist dictator" Pilger: I don't think there's anything in Senator Sanders' foreign policy that offers any encouragement to any of us. [...] Sanders has offered health care to the only developed country that doesn't have a proper healthcare system. He wants to do something about the barons of Wall Street.  Good luck.  He's not going to be president. Pilger US is in a frenzy of preparation for a conflict of some kind. Conflict of some kind can lead to war of the real kind, against: China & against Russia, on two fronts RUSSIA Greatest (US-led) build-up of forces since WWII has happened in Eastern Europe and in the Baltic States. US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST UKRAINE Since the US paid for for & controlled US coup in that country Ukraine has become an American preserve CIA Theme Park - CIA are all over it - special forces are all over it - American business is all over it - Joe Biden's son is appointed to various Ukraine fracking companies Full American interest has gone to a country that is Russia's borderland through which the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in the early 1940s with the cost of something like 27 million lives Imagine the equivalent in the US:  the border with Mexico, the border with Canada Refers to Russia's cuban situated missiles which almost resulted in WWIII The USA, which constitutionally has the freest media in the world, these war preparations against Russia and against China HAVE NOT BEEN MENTIONED. When China is mentioned, it's about China's 'aggressive moves' in the South China Sea. It's interesting how the public is being primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China WHEN, IN FACT, THEY'RE CLEARLY DEFENSIVE MOVES USA MILITARY BASES THREAT The United States has something like 400 major bases encircling China, starting in Australia, going through Asia, Japan & Korea Looking at Shanghai is Okinawa, which has 32 American military installations Japan has 130 in all Okinawa is about the size of Long Island Imagine Long Island as a Chinese base, looking straight at New York; that's the equivalent Reporter Do you think multinational corporations and Wall Street would allow -- they haven't allowed a full-scale war from President Obama against Beijing and surely ... Pilger: I don't know.  ... China is America's first trading partner.  It is a trading partner. Most of the things that Americans wear are made in China.  ... China has almost replaced Japan in that sense:  the great manufacturing centre of the world. America has this close business relationship with China.  I don't know, is the answer to that. ... What I think is interesting and dangerous, and I don't think it's been recognised is the ascendency of military thinking -- the Pentagon in Washington.  Recently, the State Dept. broke its silence on this and said to the Defence Dept:  let us handle the diplomacy, let us handle the relations with countries, you do the military side of things (paraphrasing) ... an extraordinary outburst coming from an official in the state department, where there is great frustration about this ubiquitous power now of the military, and this seems to be embodied in this Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, who seems to go from conference to conference -- G7; now he's gone to Singapore threatening countries. TRUMP Trump has said he doesn't want to go to war with China or with Russia. Trump wonders why America is all over the world.  He wonders about the power of NATO. This is 'heresy'. (As at 4 June 2016) - US has sent guided missile ships in last two weeks into disputed zone in South China Sea For the first time Chinese fighter jets were scrambled; a week or so later, an American spy plane was intercepted by planes. So many wars begin accidentally, or by mistake. We had one of America's leading and most interesting generals, James Cartwright, talk about this recently. DANGER OF PREEMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES James Cartwright talked about the 'hair trigger system', which now gives the leaders of the country (ie USA), really minutes, in which to decide whether they will launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack or whether they will respond to a pre-emptive nuclear attack. ... at a conference in Virginia, former U.S. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright acknowledged that "there's the potential that you could, in fact, generate a scenario where, in a bolt from the blue, we launch a pre-emptive attack and then use missile defense to weed out" Russia's remaining missiles launched in response. "We're going to have to think our way out of this," he said. "We're going to have to figure out how we're going to do this." [2013 Source] HAIR-TRIGGER ALERT  roots in Cold War http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/hair-trigger-alert CHINA - ON HIGH ALERT One of the most worrying aspects is that China clearly has taken on-board that CHINA IS BEING SERIOUSLY THREATENED. Up to now China has kept it's nuclear weapons have been kept on low alert:  that is, the weapon and the warhead have been kept separately.  Whereas, the US and Russia have always kept their nuclear weapons on high alert.  The literature that's available now suggests that China is on NUCLEAR HIGH ALERT. Just last week (circa 4 June 2016), Chinese submarines armed with nuclear weapons went on patrol in the Pacific for the first time. NONE OF THIS IS EVEN MENTIONED IN THE AMERICAN ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Destruction of Europe

DIED FOR EUROPE Red Army fighting for Kiev WWII https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bILVAc1wPo -------/\/\/ WAR ON EUROPEANS Ukraine US Capitalist Filth CIA Coup Destruction of Eastern Euorpe  [IMAGE] COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. -------/\/\/ WAR ON EUROPEANS MIGRANT TSUNAMI 2013 Yes — 3 Years Ago For f*ck's sake   https://youtu.be/bCK_m3ds1fU -------/\/\/ WAR ON EUROPEANS GERMANY MIGRANT INVADER OPEN THREATS  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFb7cmFsPoc -------/\/\/ WAR ON EUROPEANS MIGRANT INVADER ATTACK 60 Minutes Crew In Sweden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42jpuXJPk0w -------/\/\/ WAR ON EUROPEANS EUROPEANS ATTACKED Location Unknown Likely Calais, France Red NPA flags: The Left is the Enemy of Europeans Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) 'New Anticapitalist Party' - France - (ATTACK VIDEO BELOW) f. 2009 /  far left associated with postal worker Olivier Besancenot middle-class 'commie' *looks like they're trying to cover up their Trotskyism & their 'patriarchy theory' -- opposing all forms of discrimination -- aim to overthrow existing institutions eventually -- LCR's distinctive identification with Trotskyism supposedly discontinued -- patriarchy theory is not mentioned (as per earlier LCR documents) -- active in various social movements -- produce weekly newspaper: Tout est à nous! -- ie. 'Everything is ours!' -- same slogan shouted at rallies -- 2010: hijab controversy - hijab-wearing 21-year old party candidate -- headscarf: incompatible with feminism -- choice of candidate considered: radical pragmatism -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Anticapitalist_Party Claim to be opposed to capitalism & have grand aim of overthrow of existing institutions ... *eyeroll*. Yep, sure ... middle-class boys.  Bring on 'the revolution'. This lot would be the first to go in the event of civil unrest. However, they serve the agenda of capitalism that is destroying Europe. Is this party a capitalist sponsored shill? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAeyOp_INUI -------/\/\/ WAR ON EUROPEANS US GENERAL ADVOCATES EUROPEAN GENOCIDE source:  redicecreations [saved / archived] -------/\/\/ WAR ON EUROPEANS US-NATO AGGRESSION Encroachment on Russian Borders [CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE] WAR ON EUROPEANS EUROPE F*CK THIS SH*T Did the ancestors of European peoples fight this hard and sacrifice their lives for their people and their nations to become US-Anglo capitalist colonies and to hand their nations over to hostile invading foreigners  while European ancestral lands are turned to sh*tholes & Europeans are displaced on the lands of their forefathers per capitalist, European Union, & US-NATO directive ...  along with the coercion & fascism of nation-destroying capitalist shills in the left of politics & 'activism'? WAR ON EUROPEANS SAVE EUROPE -------/\/\/ DIED FOR RUSSIA Audio | Zavvoina Soviet Song WWII DID NOT DIE FOR INVASION OF EUROPE DIED FOR GERMANY Volksarmee People's Army "Let's Go" or "V Put" Deutsch von Nationale Volksarmee Audio | Unterwegs

Naomi Klein 'The Shock Doctrine' - El Modelo is Finito & Neo-Liberalism Sucks

Transcript: [confirm audio, for quotation purposes] [transcript directly below via Big Think channel YouTube - LINK] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKTmwu3ynOY Naomi Klein on Global Neoliberalism Published on 23 Apr 2012 Naomi Klein on the end of "El Modelo" Question: Why did you write The Shock Doctrine? Naomi Klein: It came out of reporting that I was doing in Iraq after the invasion the first year of occupation. But I guess it dates back earlier than that. I happen to have been in Argentina making a documentary film when the war in Iraq began. And it was a really amazing time to be in Latin America. This was 2002, 2003. And this was, I guess, the beginning of what we now think of as this pink tide that has swept Latin America. But it was a moment in Latin American history -- certainly a moment in Argentinian history -- where the economic model that Latin Americans call neo-Liberalism, Americans call the free market. But these policies of privatization; free trade . . . the so-called free trade deregulation in the interest of corporations; deep cuts to social spending; healthcare and education cuts; things like that, in Argentina they actually just call this "el modelo" -- the model. Everybody knows what the model is. It's the so-called Washington Consensus. It's the policies that have been imposed on Latin America first through military dictatorships, then as conditions attached to loans that were needed during economic crises . . . the so-called "debt crisis" of the 1980s. When I was in Argentina the model was collapsing, and Argentinians overthrew five presidents in three weeks. So it was this moment of incredible tumult and political excitement because people were trying to figure out what would come next. But it went beyond Argentina. In Bolivia they hadn't yet elected Evo Morales, but they had these huge protests against water privatization. And Bechtel had just been thrown out of Bolivia. And in Brazil they had just elected Lula. And of course Chavez was already in power in Venezuela, but he had successfully overcome a coup attempt. He had been brought back to power. So there were all of these things going on in Latin America that were all connected in this rejection of this economic model. So to be in Latin America when the invasion of Iraq began was a really unique vantage point from which to watch the war. I'm very grateful to have had that experience to have been able to watch that through the eyes of my Latin American friends who saw the war so differently from . . . from the way it was seen, I think, by so many of us in North America. They saw a real connection between their rejection of these economic policies and the fact that the same economic program was being imposed in Iraq through tremendous violence. And you really saw and felt those connections in Latin America. You know Bechtel just thrown out of Bolivia suddenly shows up in Baghdad with the exclusive contract to rebuild their water system. And what it felt like was that . . . was that there was a change going on; that this model that had been imposed coercively though peacefully through the International Monetary Fund, through the World Bank, through the World Trade Organization -- that that wasn't working anymore. People were rejecting it that the legacy of these policies . . . the legacy of inequality was so dramatic that the sales pitch of "Just wait for the trickledown" wasn't working anymore. And so now there was this new phase. And it wasn't even asking, and it wasn't negotiating. It was just imposing through raw violence. And that's where I came up with the thesis for the book, which is we have entered this new phase that I'm calling "disaster capitalism"; or The Shock Doctrine using a shock -- in this case the shock and awe invasion of Iraq -- to impose what economists call "economic shock therapy". So I think it was . . . It was definitely that experience of seeing it from Latin America -- a continent in revolt against these policies -- that made it easier to identify this as a new phase. And once I identified that I started to see these patterns recurring. After the Asian tsunami there was a very similar push to use the shock of that natural disaster to push through, once again, these same policies. Water privatization, electricity privatization, labor market [flexibilisation]..., displacing poor people on the coasts with hotel developers. So a sort of social re-engineering of societies in the interest of corporations, which I think is what we've been doing under the banner of free trade. But now it's under the banner of post-disaster reconstruction. [above transcript, via Big Think channel YouTube - LINK] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKTmwu3ynOY -------/\/\/ Continued: Further (DIY) transcript beginning at 4:48 [of 14:24]  [confirm audio, for quotation purposes] 4:47 - Is shock necessary for imposing neo-liberal economic policies? Naomi Klein Well, if we look at the history of the advancement of this really quite radical economic model of privatising key state assets, deep cuts to these key social spending areas that people tend to protect, like healthcare and eduction, or these reform to labour laws that take away protections, take away pensions, take away the safety net. What we know is that when politicians try to do this during normal circumstances, people tend to organise and resist, because they like their healthcare systems and they actually like, you know, having labour protections. So the use of crisis for political ends has been a part of the advancement of this ideology in many lesser ways. You know, in my country -- in Canada -- we have a public healthcare system, we have a pretty strong social safety net. This is really how we distinguish ourselves from the United States. We lost a lot of these protections in the mid-1990s.  Not because the Canadians wanted to.  In fact they had just elected a Liberal government that ran on the platform slogan "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs."  But we ended up getting an austerity budget with deep cuts to a lot of the social protections because there was a debt crisis.  That's another kind of a shock, and it was really hyped in the media.  If we think back, it's true in the United States, as well, this endless rhetoric that, you know, our countries are going to go bankrupt unless we do deep, deep, welfare reform or reform of unemployment insurance. So, what I do in The Shock Doctrine is that I take another look at 35 years of history in which this economic model has swept the globe, from former Eastern bloc countries, China, Latin America, Africa, and North America.  And I look at how crisis -- various different kinds of crises have facilitated the advancement of this ideology -- have prepared the ground. What I'm arguing in the book is that the shocks are getting bigger, that a debt crisis no longer does the trick, that a hyperinflation crisis isn't enough to disorient a whole society ... or convince them to accept their bitter medicine; that there needs to be something more disorienting and, so, what we are seeing now is that bigger shocks are being harnessed. But I do believe that crisis is required to rationalise policies that would be rejected under normal circumstances. It's not a secret that people do protect those policies that make their lives easier. 7:34 How do you reconcile this with China & India's development? Naomi Klein: My argument is not that no-one benefits. My argument is that the legacy of this economic system is tremendous inequality. It's an opening up of a gap -- a gaping gap -- between the haves and the have nots. And that's certainly the case in China.  That's certainly the case in India.  And in both countries, you have governments that have identified inequality as their greatest political challenges to, what the Chinese call, 'social stability'; because when you have such a dramatic gap between a peasant still living on $1 a day and the super rich, who are part of the Davos stratosphere, it creates a tremendous amount of resentment and instability within a country.  So, in China, they're seeing unprecedented levels of protest for this era, that had 87,000 [comment:  what?  error?  that's abt. 280 a day] protests a year ... starting in 2005 and the number of protests have been going up and up, which has required more and more surveillance, more and more repression, particularly in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, a lot of concern about this instability. So, I think the difficulty, really, about this economic model of free trade is generalising the idea that you can just talk about 'Is it good for China?' or 'Is it good for India?' It's definitely --  it's good for a lot of people in India, it's good for a lot of people in China. It's brutal for a lot of people in both of those countries, because part of these policies require displacement in the name of mega-projects, in the name of building a new export processing zone. So a huge part of this economic model requires displacing millions of people from where they live. So then they become migrants.   Where do they go?  Well, they go to the cities first and move to the slums. And, so, the flip side of this economic model of the sort of dazzling version where the world is flat is the explosion of slum dwellers, with the projections that one in three people in the world will be living in slums within the next decade. So, you really can't make these generalisations.  And that's what we know from having lived with these economic policies now for some three decades.  I think in the early stages of this economic transformation, it was possible to just use the language of 'GDP', you know, 'growth' is going to 'trickle-down', and all the promises that were a part of the first phase of this expansion.  But now you have all these parts of the world that have actually tried it.  Right? And the legacy in Latin America is this legacy of following the rules. In countries like Argentina, which were held up as the model students of the 1990s -- the model students of the International Monetary Fund --  and then so much inequality, so much capital flight, that 60% of the population fell into poverty. So that's why the model's in crisis:  the model's in crisis because people have a track record and they can measure the rhetoric against the reality. 10:59 - What system works? Naomi Klein: I think that mixed economies work better than a fundamentalist market system. I'm not a utopian and I don't believe it's perfect:  there's still going to be violence, there's still going to be repression, there's still going to be poor people -- but acceptable to UN measures of standard of living. What we see is that countries which have a mixed economy -- ie have markets, so that people are able to go shopping, so I'm not talking about a totalitarian Communist state -- but also have social protections that identify areas that are too important to leave to the market, whether it's education, healthcare -- the minimal standards of life that everybody must have. There are countries that really commit themselves to that vision of a mixed economy. The Scandinavian countries are the obvious example. Canada, before this restructuring that I'm referring to, in the 1990s was another. But it's certainly, in comparison to the United States and Britain, it continues to be. Germany as well, before their transformation.  I mean, by UN rankings, these are the best countries in the world to live in. And the countries that are trying to resist liberalism -- this economic model -- are being vilified as tyrannical, Communist and all the ways that Hugo Chavez is being vilified right now in the United States.  If you actually look what the economic program is, it's pretty Keynesian.  And it's really just a recovering of some of these principles that the state can have a role in the redistribution of wealth. And these ideas are treated as very radical, when they're coming from poorer countries that have traditionally played an economic role of straight extraction ... they've just straight supplied, whether raw resources, labour.  And that's a very profitable relationship for a North American and European multinational, so when those countries challenge that and say, "Actually, we'd like an economic system more like yours," right, then there's tremendous push-back. But, historically, if we follow the US military coups -- the CIA backed coups, starting with Mosaddegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala -- you have this pattern of presenting developing world leaders as much more radical than they actually are. Mosaddegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala (these were the first two CIA coups in 1953 and 1954):  they were economic nationalists who were trying to build mixed economies and their attempts to build those mixed economies stepped on the toes of some powerful multinationals. In the case of Mosaddegh, it was BP, and in the case of Arbenz, it was the United Fruit Company. That is actually what led to the blow-back. -- 14:15 - end audio -- -------/\/\/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'%C3%A9tat Bechtel Bechtel Corporation -- largest construction and civil engineering company in USA -- ranking as 4th-largest privately owned company in USA -- HQ, San Francisco -- f. 1898, Warren A. Bechtel, construction of railroads w. team of mules -- series of railroad contracts during the early 1900s -- incorporated 1925, as leading construction company Western USA -- worked w/ California Standard Oil Company building pipelines & refineries -- 1931 - joined consortium contractors Hoover Dam - won bid. -- Warren Bechtel died unexpectedly in Moscow on business 1933. -- Hoover dam was finished 1935, Bechtel's first megaproject -- got rich building WWII x60 cargo ships with no prior cargo experience -- worked pipeline Yukon to Alaska for US Dept. of War -- expanded abroad; turnkey projects (concept pioneered by Stephen Bechtel -- 1940 Venezuela Mene Grande pipeline - first project abroad -- 1947 - Trans-Arabian Pipeline, Saudi Arabia + Jordan + Syria, ending Lebanon -- expansion 1940s Middle East -- 1949 - working w. nuclear power:  Experimental Breeder Reactor I Idaho -- built Dresden Generation Station, first commercial nuke for Illinois 1957 -- Trans Mountain Pipeline in 1952 (Canada) -- preliminary study for the English Channel (1957) -- Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system (1959) -- 1960s & 1970s, Bechtel involved in constructing 40% USA nuke plants -- 1972 - Bechtel involved in abt. 20% of all US new power-generating capacity -- by end 1970s moved from nukes construction to nukes clean-up projects -- clean-ups incl. Three Mile Island 1979 -- built the Ankara-Gerede Motorway in Turkey (part network of roads Europe & Turkey) -- project management:  undersea tunnel linking the UK and France (Channel Tunnel) -- recession 1980 ->> goes environmental clean-up + alternative energy projects -- Gulf war, Bechtel - extinguishing oil well fires in Kuwait in 1991 -- part of rebuild the infrastructure of Kuwait -- numerous other big projects abroad -- Bolivia:   2000, after a protest against water prices being raised by Bechtel owned co. -- Bechtel owned company pulls out of Bolivia & sues for $25 million in losses -- settled claim 2006 for $0.30 GOOD LUCK DOING THAT UNDER THE AMERICAN FREE TRADE CORPORATE SLAVE GIVE UP NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY AGREEMENTS - NO CHANCE -- 2003, Bechtel won a $680 million contract -- rebuilding infrastructure in Iraq for U.S. Agency for International Development WHAT A RORT -- ILLEGALLY DESTROY THE COUNTRY & THEN GIVE U.S. COMPANIES CONTRACTS TO REBUILD     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechtel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKTmwu3ynOY ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT This was a random video selection. Deregulated trade sounds:  crap. Just as I thought, everyone will be in slums. Why don't governments make the bulk of capital non-transferrable, to prevent companies starving the poor when they decide they've had enough of bleeding one location, in preference for bleeding another for greater profit?   India and China are creating a massive gap between the wealthy and poor, and they're supposed to be socialists of some kind.  That's just not right.  Everyone should suffer equally.  ;)  No, I mean it.  :) America's a complete write-off and an appalling disgrace.  It's oligarchs' paradise with no safety nets and no anything, but modern-day slavery at an Amazon warehouse.   Nations that enslave their populations have no right to lecture the world on human rights, democracy, freedom, women's rights or whatever else these oligarch-serving politicians and their oligarch-funded NGO echo-chambers use as pretexts to open new slave markets abroad. The US masses are beyond help.  It must be some amazing kind of brainwashing that has kept the masses down, self-flagellating ... wearing a 'kick me' sign, begging to remain oligarch-enslaved.  That's quite an education and media indoctrination achievement.  Wow.  I'm impressed. I've not read Klein's book.  I'm just ranting whatever comes to mind. Once the US free trade agreements are signed up, we're all f*cked ... and we can look forward to living in slums.