Feminism's Radical Turn

A great opinion piece on the West's struggle with the feminism movement. Feminism movement was made by humans / people who don't have any ability to see / predict the future. Circumstances are always evolving & one's situation is never same as the other. Hence, feminism movement was not only short-sighted to start with, it lacked inclusion of all women from different backgrounds; based on ethnicity, religion, race, culture etc.

The idea of feminism was women are equal to men. Which they definitely are. No doubt. Problem was, & still is, that women were expected to act & do things exactly like what men were doing. As Jessa Crispin notes in her book that "feminism sold women a bill of goods by framing work as self-fulfillment and self-actualization. Women who rose to positions of traditional male power in corporations, in politics, in the military, on boards, like Clinton or Sheryl Sandberg became feminist role models." Essentially, a woman's self-worth was how much money she was earning by working in male-dominated sectors of the economy; heck, it didn't have to be male-dominated sectors of the economy. Period. That's why, some women in pornography industry are very happy & rose to the level of company CEOs themselves, & on their way to the top, debased other women, because they themselves have become millionaires; their self-worth is being measured in cold hard cash by themselves & the society around them.
As the writer details Jessa Crispin's thoughts on feminism in the following paragraph, it becomes evident that women were only fighting for equal rights & jobs as men, as long as those jobs were of privileged positions in the society. Women were not fighting to get in menial jobs. After all, those menial jobs are also held by men.

Equality is another issue in Western ideal of feminism; equality based on racial, ethnic, cultural, & social grounds. It seems that feminism became the movement-du-jour for the Caucasian / white privileged women. Every other women didn't get the memo; be they be women of African descent in America or of Latin descent in Northern & Southern America, or Muslim women in Middle East & South Asia or Hindu & Buddhist women in Asia. As Crispin correctly "echoes the sentiment in her rejection of the condescending attitude of Western feminists toward women in Muslim countries—this idea that these women need to be rescued (itself a masculine model) from their head scarves and their traditions."

In the name of feminism, women were driven out of their homes to work alongside men, & to become one more bread-winner for the family. However, nobody worked towards sharing the house work, & hence, women's responsibilities became child-bearing, child-rearing, all house work, & corporate work. Men still enjoyed their work outside the house & that was the end of their day's work.

What the general public has forgotten now that the women were driven out of the house to create a two-income family, to essentially, increase GDP in North America. The public & private sectors weren't creating any more jobs & GDP increases when the public spends on house & home purchases. Wages had become stagnant. So, instead of increasing wages or creating more jobs, women were encouraged to get out of the house, be independent, & make their own money; helping to keep up the lifestyle the public was used to; all in the guise of gender equality.

Here, I am going to bring feminism in Islam. The West & now, even the East, thinks that Islam, as a religion, suppresses Muslim women & their rights. In Islam, women are equal to men. Islam recognizes them as EQUAL, not as IDENTICAL. Both genders are complementary to each other & need one another to create a fully-functional, proper society.

This is all beautifully summarized by a letter to editor in the May issue of Maclean's magazine, by a Dr. Howard Taynen, from Ancaster, Ontario, Canada:

"... I am struck yet again by a routinely mistaken fundamental in this ever-present & evolving subject - equal is confused with identical. Thankfully, men & women are not identical anatomically, physiologically, temperamentally or psychologically. We are a magnificent complementarity of great potential value to ourselves, our children & the world. Eliminate the abuse, not the difference! It is naive & futile to defy nature by arbitrarily imposing identical roles in parenthood, marriage or the world in order to be equal. We are equal & different. It is a partnership that can function wholesomely without trying to change the differing roles & their respective strengths."

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http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/feminisms-radical-turn/

Literary Critic Jessa Crispin clearly appreciates the value of a catchy title. Her blog was named Bookslut. Now her new book, Why I Am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto, seems calculated to grab attention at a moment when feminism is portrayed as either trending or dead—or trending because it’s dead.

Feminism’s most recent and much exaggerated death spiral can be traced to the assumption, an absurd one, that the U.S. election provided a referendum on the topic. “Hillary Clinton’s loss in the presidential election to America’s most famous sexist instantly plunged the feminist cause into crisis,” The New Republic proclaimed hours after Trump’s win, as if the “feminist cause” is a single entity run out of a central command. If anything, the reverse proved true: the political upset galvanized organized protest driven by fear that the advances made by the feminist movement over the past 50 years would be reversed. The New York Times was bleaker: “Feminism lost. Now what?” ran a headline that suggested Clinton was herself synonymous with an ideology that dates back more than a century.

It’s precisely that conflation of a powerful, high-achieving woman with modern feminism that Crispin denounces in her slim, bracing polemic. The thought-provoking, sometimes frustrating book is part of a new literary groundswell: works grappling with the complex inequities of sexual equality and the ever-shifting gender see-saw a half century after “women’s lib.” Toronto writer Stephen Marche also wades in with his trenchant new book, The Unmade Bed: The Messy Truth About Men and Women in the 21st Century, in which he recounts leaving his job to be primary caregiver to his son so his wife could fulfill her career ambition. A countervailing groundswell is simultaneously at work: this vocal contingent calls for a return to the zero-sum game of the alpha husband, beta wife just as more than a third of women out-earn their husbands. The Alpha Female’s Guide to Men and Marriage by Suzanne Venker, the niece of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, laments that “society is creating a crop of women who are unable to love” and advises “it’s liberating to be a beta!” Similar messaging underlines the North Carolina billboard that sparked outrage last month. “Real men provide,” it read. “Real women appreciate it.”

Taking a cue from Crispin’s title, the media have described its message as more piling on the feminism-is-dead pyre: “The fall of feminism,” read the headline of a Los Angeles Times’ review. “Why this literary critic rejects modern-day feminism,” said CBC Radio.

Yet Crispin sits at an extreme rarely discussed in modern-day feminism: she’s a self-professed radical feminist, hell-bent on dismantling a patriarchy she blames 20th-century feminism for buttressing. “I am angry,” she writes. “And I do pose a threat.”

Feminism sold women a bill of goods, Crispin states, by framing work as self-fulfillment and self-actualization. Women who rose to positions of traditional male power in corporations, in politics, in the military, on boards, like Clinton or Sheryl Sandberg of Lean In fame, became feminist role models. Crispin doesn’t buy it, noting Clinton dismantled social welfare programs and supported international interventions that killed thousands.

Only spaces occupied by privileged men were desirable, Crispin points out; women, who’d always worked, but in menial positions, weren’t fighting for jobs held by poor men, labourers or miners, for whom the workplace and society would become increasingly hostile. The consequence, she writes, is a “kind of hyper-masculinized world, where women are participating—and absolutely expected to participate in this world by feminists—in patriarchal values.”

Crispin also takes aim at “universal feminism”—her term for a non-confrontational feminist status quo that bends over backwards to be agreeable to avoid the “man-hating” stereotype of decades earlier. This mainstream, she believes, is preoccupied with identity politics, narcissistic “self-empowerment” and whining about TV shows rather than the hard work of bridging to universal human rights. It’s a pop star battle: on one hand, Beyoncé embraces the “feminist” label; on the other, Taylor Swift, never one to rock the boat, prefers “equalism,” the belief that both sexes should be equal without highlighting feminism. “Lifestyles do not change the world,” Crispin writes.

Within this Instagram feminism, shrillness is anathema. That’s a problem, Crispin writes: “I hear the word ‘feminazi’ coming from young feminists’ mouths today way more often than I have ever heard it coming from the mouths of right-wing men.”

The reaction can also be chalked up to marketing forces that have diluted and co-opted “feminist” to sell products with an upbeat, friendly “empowerment” message for decades—from the “You’ve come a long way baby” Virginia Slims ads of the ’70s, to Acne Studios’ “Feminist Collection” featuring a $650 sweater, to the recently published picture book Strong is the New Pretty: A Celebration of Girls Being Themselves.

The fact that anyone can self-define as feminist, or not, also can render the word meaningless. Ivanka Trump claims both she and her woman-objectifying, women-grabbing dad are feminists. ... Marche rejects the self-proclaimed “male feminist,” saying it’s typically used to win points or get women into bed. Just be a decent guy, he writes.

Decades of hindsight offer perspective. For one, “trickle-down” feminism is about as effective as trickle-down economics. Equality has not touched all women equally, and there’s anger, as was evident at the Women’s March in Washington, where I saw a black woman hold up a sign at a largely white crowd: “F–k you and your white imperialistic feminism,” it read. She had a point.

Crispin echoes the sentiment in her rejection of the “condescending attitude of Western feminists toward women in Muslim countries—this idea that these women need to be rescued (itself a masculine model) from their head scarves and their traditions.”
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Non-feminist history also reveals that blaming 20th-century feminism for the glorification of the work and the workplace, as Crispin does, gives it too much credit. Yes, the civil rights movement stirred second-wave feminism and The Feminine Mystique raised consciousness. But other factors, namely the need for dual-income-earning families and the Pill, which let women delay child-bearing or defer it altogether, played a role.

Now it’s evident that the very corporate workplace that women—mostly wives—flocked to in the ’70s was built on a male-breadwinner, female-homemaker model that remained unchanged. Needs of the new working wife and mother were ignored; nor was there a movement to replace or redistribute her labour in the home. The result: that famous Ms. magazine cover “I want a wife,” which also became a common working women’s half-joke.
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That disconnect could explain why, 60 years after the “women’s movement,” reproductive health rights and sexual violence remain barriers to women’s freedom. Female politicians receive death threats. A gender pay gap exists, even in the professions. Yet Crispin isn’t offering an olive branch to men. She slams “casual hatred of men as a gender,” yet in the next breath, tells men it’s not her job to make feminism easy or understandable to them. “Figure it out,” she writes. “I just want to be clear that I don’t give a f–k about your response to this book. Do not email me, do not get in touch. Deal with your own s–t for once.” She offers one consolation: “Everything is more complicated than anyone wants to admit.” And that vague understatement pretty much sums up the long march ahead.

The Deep State and the Power of Billionaires - David Cay Johnston on Reality Asserts Itself

If you are a regular reader of my blog posts, then you will know how I love to talk about how people around the world has a false notion of democracy & think that voting is democracy. Here, in the first part of this interview, the investigative reporter, Mr. David Johnston, talks about how instead of "one-man, one-vote" concept of a true democracy, the whole governmental system is rigged in such a way that the concept of democracy actually becomes "more wealth, more votes."

The naive, or perhaps, ignorant, public thinks that their vote matters. Before every election, the public is cajoled by the media to get out & vote because "your vote matters." Heck, I also vote in every federal & provincial elections in Canada, but I also keep in mind that my vote won't have much of an effect on the final outcome because the system has already decided who will be the next "puppet" or public "face" of the government. Most importantly, the policies of the government never change, or at least, not materially enough, to help make life any better for the poor & stricken public. The rich keep getting richer regardless of who comes in the powerhouse.

Another interesting thing to think, coming out from the interview, is how our education system churns out people who cannot think critically about their surroundings. They only care about their next paycheque. They don't care, or perhaps, trained to think about their own lives only. They are put into such a financial position that they are running from one errand to next, without ever having enough time to sit down calmly & think critically about their situation & the world around them. That's what the governments around the world want their citizenry to be & do; be a compliant little worker, who works like a machine, devoid of any critical thoughts.

One other thing Mr. Johnston briefly touched upon is that the people around the world equate wealth with virtue. Somehow, we still think that if someone is wealthy, then they must be pious & virtuous. Even most Muslims around the world incorrectly assume that if their fellow Muslim is wealthy, then he/she must be a pious person. Why? How so? Most wealthy people nowadays become wealthy by wrong means; be it morally wrong or legally wrong. They try to influence the economic & political policies of the government in their favour. They think that their wealth let them wield more power & votes over the government & the poor masses. Although, those poor masses are the ones who made them that wealth. Consequently, the poor masses stay poor, wealthy keep politicians in their pockets, & the political establishment keeps a facade of democracy on the actual face of oligarchy.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0byZ1Rl8-8

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: What does that do to your vision of America?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Well, it's very troubling, largely because it's not seen by most people and it's not held to any kind of account. And one of the flaws in our notion that we live in a democracy is that a very narrow group of people select who we get to vote for. Someone like Dennis Kucinich might have a lot of popular appeal, but he will never be a serious candidate for president, because those people who have a lot of money in this country are going to use the system to make sure he isn't there.

JAY: And the media.

JOHNSTON: That's right. President Obama--look at how closely he's identified with Wall Street. I chuckle every time somebody says he hates white people. Almost everybody on the staff is white in the White House--overwhelmingly white. He's an enemy of Wall Street. Really? Really? Zero prosecutions of the big bankers for what are well-documented frauds, including by the Federal Crisis Inquiry Commission, whose report Congress paid for and then threw in the round file 'cause they didn't want to look at it?

JAY: Yeah, African Americans may have voted for him, but he is the Wall Street candidate.

JOHNSTON: He absolutely is. And everybody who gets to run is the Wall Street candidate.

And so the fundamental problem we have is, look, most people want to live their lives, and if they can have a reasonably decent place to live and a car that'll start in the morning and a job with a reliable income and they can have a dog if they want one, they're pretty much happy. Part of that is because our education system is designed to make sure that we produce nice, compliant factory and office workers. You can have a better conversation about politics, sociology, wealth, culture with the average waiter in rural Ontario or rural Hungary or rural France than with the average MBA in a suit sitting in the first-class section of an American airplane. Trust me, I've tested this. Alright? And so we live in a society where we just put blinders on to these things we don't want to see.

I mean, think for a moment about this use of drones to take out people who I have no doubt are serious enemies of the United States, but which also have taken out wedding parties and children. Just imagine (and this, I think, can happen with the technology): somebody puts a drone up and they want to take out me because I'm seen as a horrible person, and in the process they take out a whole bunch of children who happen to be standing nearby. Do you think that we would react to that by saying, oh, well, that's just casualty of war? So we aren't thinking very carefully and deeply about the long run.

And, Paul, the biggest observation that all this has made me come to is if you look at our policies in America today, whether they're economic policies, political or diplomatic policies, if you believe, as James Watt, Ronald Reagan's interior secretary, said, that we'd better use up all the resources quickly, because Jesus is coming back and he'll be really ticked off, all of our policies make sense. But if you believe human beings are going to be here for way beyond any period of time they've already been here, our policies don't make any sense at all. We need to be thinking about the fact that we're just stewards for the time that we're here, and we should be thinking about the great-great-great-great grandchildren none of us alive today will ever see.
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JOHNSTON: And we also have this ideology that if you're wealthy, somehow that's virtuous.
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JOHNSTON: ... So within this sphere there are fractious elements, different elements, people who have different and contending interests, people who have no interest in this but care a lot about that.

But nonetheless, yes, there is a power elite, as C. Wright Mills called it. It operates on its own interests and behalf. And it certainly doesn't like people like journalists.

So what do you see has been going on now since the beginning of the age of Reagan? Bumper stickers: "I don't trust liberal media". Really? You're going to trust Fox News, where I can document to you beyond question they just make things up, and they don't correct when they're wrong, and they knowingly mislead? I mean, I've made mistakes. Journalists make mistakes. When journalist make mistakes, we not only run corrections, but the Jayson Blair episode at The New York Times, where this sociopath got loose in the newsroom, 90 percent of what he did was inconsequential stuff, didn't cause any damage--lying, but inconsequential--Times ran a 14,000 word Sunday front page self-exposé. When The Philadelphia Inquirer found out its star political reporter was the mistress of the Democratic political boss of South Philly, they ran--I think it was 32,000 words exposing how they had missed this and not seen it. You ever seen that on Fox News? And yet they tell lies all the time.

And so you understand that an important element of the wealthiest class in America maintaining its position is making sure that most Americans do not think critically about these things, that we have two-income families who are having trouble getting by, so that they are devoted entirely to trying to hold their family together and they don't have the ability to be involved in political activities, to then make it hard to vote, to reduce the number of voting machines, to challenge people's right to vote, to make these robo calls, if you go to the polls and you don't have your ID, you'll be arrested sort of stuff that is nonsense, but people who don't know better are afraid. And it's very, very troubling. And, by the way, many of the very, very wealthy people that I know in this country--and I know lots of them--they are as troubled as you and I are about this. They're just not going to assault it frontally.
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Chris Hedges Interviews Noam Chomsky (Part 2 of 3)

Another interesting interview of Noam Chomsky by Chris Hedges. This one discusses how people around the world, & in the US, have been fed the idea that they are living in the most democratic country in the world. That the world should follow the lead of United States of America when it comes to democracy, liberty, & free speech. However, the reality is very very different.

As Chris Hedges says in the first paragraph that "we are the most monitored, watched, photographed, eavesdropped population in human history." The general public has been given the idea that if you don't concede to government's constant monitoring, then evil people will get you & ruin your life. Fear and hysteria is used to control the masses, & the ignorant masses follow along like a flock of sheep.

Continuing onwards, Chris Hedges puts out another question to Chomsky where he says that how our "liberal" political & legislative institutions have been actually "enslaved" within the power & money paradigm of modern politics. Power & money controls every aspect of modern politics. Those few at the top of social hierarchy who have amassed power & money, usually through illegal or immoral means, wield their significant influences to control the so-called "elected" officials to get what they want from the country.

As Chomsky says that "take a look at the literature, about 70% of the population, what they believe has no effect on policy at all. ... When you get to the top, which is probably, like, a tenth of one percent, they basically write the legislation." How is that even close to democracy? Does it really matter who the masses elect because at the end of the day, the masses will still get the same result, regardless of who is in the office. But, the ignorant & naive public of the West & around the world (US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, India, Australia, Singapore etc.) still believe that democracy exists in developed countries & developing countries are not developed because of a lack of democracy & liberty. Do they even have an idea what democracy actually is because frankly, voting is not democracy. Voting also happens in Egypt & Zimbabwe, for instance, but the public masses won't recognize them as democratic countries.

Through fear & propaganda of false information, the West has made it seem to the world that it is democratic & the rest of the world must follow its lead. Powerful elites has redefined democracy, knowing fully well that the ignorant masses will accept the propaganda without giving it a second thought. How can the masses fight back & bring true democracy back when they are sound asleep? That's why, political activism is dead nowadays & the public is easily controlled & manipulated by a small minority of the powerful elites in North America & around the world.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFyFzTq1Wws

CHRIS HEDGES, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: But that system, of course, is constant. But what's changed is that we don't produce anything anymore. So what we define as our working class is a service sector class working in places like Walmart. And the effective forms of resistance--the sitdown strikes, going back even further in the middle of the 19th century with the women in Lowell--the Wobblies were behind those textile strikes. What are the mechanisms now? And I know you have written, as many anarchists have done, about the importance of the working class controlling the means of production, taking control, and you have a great quote about how Lenin and the Bolsheviks are right-wing deviants, which is, of course, exactly right, because it was centralized control, destroying the Soviets. Given the fact that production has moved to places like Bangladesh or southern China, what is going to be the paradigm now? And given, as you point out, the powerful forces of propaganda--and you touched upon now the security and surveillance state. We are the most monitored, watched, photographed, eavesdropped population in human history. And you cannot even use the world liberty when you eviscerate privacy. That's what totalitarian is. What is the road we take now, given the paradigm that we have, which is somewhat different from what this country was, certainly, in the first half of the 20th century?

NOAM CHOMSKY, LINGUIST AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's pretty much the same, frankly. The idea still should be that of the Knights of Labor: those who work in the mills should own them. And there's plenty of manufacturing going on in the country, and probably there will be more, for unpleasant reasons. One thing that's happening right now which is quite interesting is that energy prices are going down in the United States because of the massive exploitation of fossil fuels, which is going to destroy our grandchildren, but under the capitalist morality, the calculus is that profits tomorrow outweigh the existence of your grandchildren. It's institutionally-based, so, yes, we're getting lower energy prices. And if you look at the business press, they're very enthusiastic about the fact that we can undercut manufacturing in Europe because we'll have lower energy prices, and therefore manufacturing will come back here, and we can even undermine European efforts at developing sustainable energy because we'll have this advantage.

Britain is saying the same thing. I was just in England recently. As I left the airport, I read The Daily Telegraph newspaper. Big headline: England is going to begin fracking all of the country, even fracking under people's homes without their permission. And that'll allow us to destroy the environment even more quickly and will bring manufacturing back here.

The same is true with Asia. Manufacturing is moving back, to an extent, to Mexico, and even here, as wages increase in China, partly because of labor struggles. There's massive labor struggles in China, huge, all over the place, and since we're integrated with them, we can be supportive of them.

But manufacturing is coming back here. And both manufacturing and the service industries can move towards having those who do the work take over the management and ownership and control. In fact, it's happening. In the old Rust Belt-- Indiana, Ohio, and so on--there's a significant--not huge, but significant growth of worker-owned enterprises. They're not huge, but they're substantial around Cleveland and other places.

The background is interesting. In 1977, U.S. Steel, the multinational, decided to close down their mills in Youngstown, Ohio. Youngstown is a steel town, sort of built by the steelworkers, one of the main steel-producing areas. Well, the union tried to buy the plants from U.S. Steel. They objected--in my view, mostly on class lines. They might have even profited from it. But the idea of worker-owned industry doesn't have much appeal to corporate leaders, which means bankers and so on. It went to the courts. Finally, the union lost in the courts. But with enough popular support, they could have won.

Well, the working class and the community did not give up. They couldn't get the steel mills, but they began to develop small worker-owned enterprises. They've now spread throughout the region. They're substantial. And it can happen more and more.

And the same thing happened in Walmarts. I mean, there's massive efforts right now, significant ones, to organize the service workers--what they call associates--in the service industries. And these industries, remember, depend very heavily on taxpayer largess in all kinds of ways. I mean, for example, let's take, say, Walmarts. They import goods produced in China, which are brought here on container ships which were designed and developed by the U.S. Navy. And point after point where you look, you find that the way the system--the system that we now have is one which is radically anticapitalist, radically so.

I mean, I mentioned one thing, the powerful effort to try to undermine markets for consumers, but there's something much more striking. I mean, in a capitalist system, the basic principle is that, say, if you invest in something and, say, it's a risky investment, so you put money into it for a long time, maybe decades, and finally after a long time something comes out that's marketable for a profit, it's supposed to go back to you. That's not the way it works here. Take, say, computers, internet, lasers, microelectronics, containers, GPS, in fact the whole IT revolution. There was taxpayer investment in that for decades, literally decades, doing all the hard, creative, risky work. Does the taxpayer get any of the profit? None, because that's not the way our system works. It's radically anti-capitalist, just as it's radically anti-democratic, opposed to markets, in favor of concentrating wealth and power.
But that doesn't have to be accepted by the population. These are--all kinds of forms of resistance to this can be developed if people become aware of it.

HEDGES: Well, you could argue that in the election of 2008, Obama wasn't accepted by the population. But what we see repeatedly is that once elected officials achieve power through, of course, corporate financing, the consent of the governed is a kind of cruel joke. It doesn't, poll after poll. I mean, I sued Obama over the National Defense Authorization Act, in which you were coplaintiff, and the polling was 97% against this section of the NDAA. And yet the courts, which have become wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state, the elected officials, the executive branch, and the press, which largely ignored it--the only organ that responsibly covered the case was, ironically, The New York Times. We don't have--it doesn't matter what we want. It doesn't--I mean, and I think that's the question: how do we effect change when we have reached a point where we can no longer appeal to the traditional liberal institutions that, as Karl Popper said once, made incremental or piecemeal reform possible, to adjust the system--of course, to save capitalism? But now it can't even adjust the system. We see cutting welfare.

CHOMSKY: Yeah. I mean, it's perfectly true that the population is mostly disenfranchised. In fact, that's a leading theme even of academic political science. You take a look at the mainstream political science, so, for example, a recent paper that was just published out of Princeton by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, two of the leading analysts of these topics, what they point out is they went through a couple of thousand policy decisions and found what has long been known, that there was almost no--that the public attitudes had almost no effect. Public organizations that are--nonprofit organizations that are publicly based, no effect. The outcomes were determined by concentrated private power.

There's a long record of that going way back. Thomas Ferguson, a political scientist near here, has shown very convincingly that something as simple as campaign spending is a very good predictor of policy. That goes back into the late 19th century, right through the New Deal, right up till the present. And that's only one element of it. And you take a look at the literature, about 70% of the population, what they believe has no effect on policy at all. You get a little more influence as you go up. When you get to the top, which is probably, like, a tenth of one percent, they basically write the legislation.

I mean, you see this all over. I mean, take these huge so-called trade agreements that are being negotiated, Trans-Pacific and Transatlantic--enormous agreements, kind of NAFTA-style agreements. They're secret--almost. They're not secret from the hundreds of corporate lawyers and lobbyists who are writing them. They know about it, which means that their bosses know about it.

And the Obama administration and the press says, look, this has to be secret, otherwise we can't defend our interests. Yeah, our interests means the interests of the corporate lawyers and lobbyists who are writing the legislation. Take the few pieces that have been leaked and you see that's exactly what it is. Same with the others.

But it doesn't mean you have to accept it. And there have been changes. So take, say--in the 1920s, the labor movement had been practically destroyed. There's a famous book. One of the leading labor historians, David Montgomery, has a major book called something like The Fall of the House of Labor. He's talking about the 1920s. It was done. There had been a very militant labor movement, very effective, farmers movement as well. Crushed in the 1920s. Almost nothing left. Well, in the 1930s it changed, and it changed because of popular activism.

HEDGES: But it also changed because of the breakdown of capitalism.

CHOMSKY: There was a circumstance that led to the opportunity to do something, but we're living with that constantly. I mean, take the last 30 years. For the majority of the population it's been stagnation or worse. That's--it's not exactly the deep Depression, but it's kind of a permanent semi-depression for most of the population. That's--there's plenty of kindling out there which can be lighted.

And what happened in the '30s is primarily CIO organizing, the militant actions like sit-down strikes. A sit-down strike's very frightening. It's a step before taking over the institution and saying, we don't need the bosses. And that--there was a cooperative administration, Roosevelt administration, so there was some interaction. And significant legislation was passed--not radical, but significant, underestimated. And it happened again in the '60s. It can happen again today. So I don't think that one should abandon hope in chipping away at the more oppressive aspects of the society within the electoral system. But it's only going to happen if there's massive popular organization, which doesn't have to stop at that. It can also be building the institutions of the future within the present society.

HEDGES: Would you say that the--you spoke about propaganda earlier and the Creel Commission and the rise of the public relations industry. The capacity to disseminate propaganda is something that now you virtually can't escape it. I mean, it's there in some electronic form, even in a hand-held device. Does that make that propaganda more effective?

CHOMSKY: Well, and it's kind of an interesting question. Like a lot of people, I've written a lot about media and intellectual propaganda, but there's another question which isn't studied much: how effective is it? And that's--when you brought up the polls, it's a striking illustration. The propaganda is--you can see from the poll results that the propaganda has only limited effectiveness. I mean, it can drive a population into terror and fear and war hysteria, like before the Iraq invasion or 1917 and so on, but over time, public attitudes remain quite different. In fact, studies even of what's called the right-wing, people who say, get the government off my back, that kind of sector, they turn out to be kind of social democratic. They want more spending on health, more spending on education, more spending on, say, women with dependent children, but not welfare, no spending on welfare, because Reagan, who was an extreme racist, succeeded in demonizing the notion of welfare. So in people's minds welfare means a rich black woman driving in her limousine to the welfare office to steal your money. Well, nobody wants that. But they want what welfare does.

Foreign aid is an interesting case. There's an enormous propaganda against foreign aid, 'cause we're giving everything to the undeserving people out there. You take a look at public attitudes. A lot of opposition to foreign aid. Very high. On the other hand, when you ask people, how much do we give in foreign aid? Way beyond what we give. When you ask what we should give in foreign aid, far above what we give.

And this runs across the board. Take, say taxes. There've been studies of attitudes towards taxes for 40 years. Overwhelmingly the population says taxes are much too low for the rich and the corporate sector. You've got to raise it. What happens? Well, the opposite.

Who Makes US Foreign Policy? - Lawrence Wilkerson on Reality Asserts Itself

Couple points to highlight from this interview of Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson (former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell):

1. As I always blog that there's no such thing as "democracy" in this world. Many countries, & billions of people either say that "they are living in a democratic country" or "they are fighting for democracy", but everyone of them think "democracy" is merely voting in "free & fair elections". That's not democracy. Democracy is not merely about voting in elections, but it's much more. Democracy is when the voice of the majority of a nation are heard on major internal & external issues; issues which are affecting a country.

But, as this interview proves once again, that the wealthy people of United States, for instance, are controlling the government, & hence, all the major decisions American government makes; regardless of it's domestic or foreign matters. As Larry Wilkerson says, that "the oligarchs ... buy the president and thus buy American foreign policy." He also gives example of this is similar to what happens in Putin's Russia. I completely agree with it. Many Americans will of course disagree with it, but it's the bitter truth. There's no "democracy" in US, since it doesn't matter what the general public needs or wants, it's the rich elites who get what they want.

2. Another point I frequently make in my blogs is that arms sales around the world, ironically, by the permanent members of UN "Security" Council, create more chaos & deaths around the world than brutal dictatorships.

Such international arms manufacturing companies as Lockheed & Raytheon vigorously lobby politicians in US, UK, Canada, France etc. to allow them to sell international arms & weaponry to such countries as Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, Nigeria, UAE, Bahrain etc. Then, these countries have to find any excuse whatsoever to use that stockpile, & hence, wars start. Poor people die in large numbers in neighbouring countries like Palestine, Yemen, Syria etc.

But who benefits from all these arms & weapons transactions? Definitely not Saudi Arabia, UAE, or Nigeria. These countries are importing these arms & hence, they are indebted to their Western counterparts. But companies like Lockheed & Boeing, & of course, those politicians who pushed their countries' foreign policies towards more belligerence & wars, benefit tremendously. As Larry Wilkerson says in regards to the re-emergence of another potential Cold War era between US & Russia that "this group alarms me probably more than any other in the world, and particularly my own country--that is interested in a constant state of war, or as near a constant state as possible, because they sit behind all the belligerents and make money."

So does the majority of American or Russian public want their countries at each other's throats? Or how about the new Asian pivot of America? Does the majority of Americans want US & its Asian allies (Philippines, Japan etc.) banding together against China? I don't think so. But do they have any say in this matter? Of course not. So is this "democracy" when the general public suffers because their tax dollars, which they are paying just so they can get better public infrastructure, education, healthcare etc., are actually being used towards military hardware & a perpetual war against the world?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZW8T4NA3Is

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Larry, you were right at the center of the State Department. Back when you were there, and then sort of extrapolating to today, who runs U.S. foreign policy? 'Cause there's this sort of feeling there's this grand design and, grand machinations and chessboard-playing and all of that. Where are the centers of power for making U.S. foreign policy? 'Cause it seems to me it's not just the president.

COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, FMR. CHIEF OF STAFF TO COLIN POWELL: I think you're right. And part of what I teach--and I teach post-World War II policy more than anything else, but we have to go back into the past to understand that policy. Part of what I teach is how since World War II and the acquisition of this enormous power by what in essence is the new Rome in the world, the United States, part of the shift that takes place in manipulating and managing that new power is a centralization of foreign policy away from the old cabinet places where it used to take place, most prominently through the Foreign Service and through the secretary of state, to the White House and to the creation of the 1947 National Security Act, the National Security Council. So if you ask me pro forma where does it exist today, it exists more in the National Security Council and its staff than it does anywhere else, certainly anywhere else in the cabinet. So what I'm saying is it's centralized in the White House.

But what does that mean in terms of, I think, your real question, who's behind the White House, and who's therefore behind U.S. foreign policy, more or less? I think the answer today is the oligarchs, which would be the same answer, incidentally, ironically, if you will, for Putin in Russia, the people who own the wealth, the people who therefore have the power and who more or less ... buy the president and thus buy American foreign policy. ...

JAY: There seems to also be centers or circles of power. For example, Lindsey Graham and John McCain seem to represent an alignment of forces. It seems that the fossil fuel industry, military-industrial complex--and certainly not that they are exclusively backing McCain and Graham. They have their hooks into both parties and to--they're kind of a hidden hand throughout much of American politics. But it seems to be a somewhat distinct center. And then Wall Street seems to have even--although it's not monolithic, it's a distinct center of power. What's the actual dynamic? Like, how do they influence National Security Council decisions? How do these processes take place? Where do the discussions take place?

WILKERSON: I think it's probably less fundamental and less precise, and therefore less in the interest, often, of the United States than you might think or that the American people might think. Because of what you've just suggested, that there are many poles in American foreign-policy, from the Congress to even the Supreme Court, to the White House, to the State Department, the Foreign Service, and so forth, it's a very complex mix, and it's rarely ever articulated in a way or manifests itself in a way that good leadership can control it, handle it, and manage it toward a real strategic objective. That's part of our problem in the world today.

But I would submit to you that certain oligarchs, anyway, big food, big pharmacy, big energy, oil, real estate, things like that, they like it this way because then they can flow into the void in the particular region or function or both that they want to control, that they want to manipulate, and do so effectively, whether it's subsidies from the federal government for oil companies or whether it's massive efforts by the government, clandestinely or otherwise, to influence someone like Monsanto being able to operate in Latin America and do the things that it does. So it's incredibly complex, difficult to analyze from a strictly governmental standpoint.

But when you start probing and you start analyzing, you begin to discover that there are centers in this mess, if you will, that are getting what they want. And what they want is basically wealth and power. And they then turn that wealth and power back into political contributions, which now almost have no limits, no constraints on them, and they influence people like John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez and Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank when he was in there and so influential with the banking committee, and they get what they want in terms of legislation that oftentimes I'm convinced the legislatures do not even realize they're doing. They don't understand that they're fulfilling this objective of a particular oligarch or conglomeration of oligarchs. And yet they're doing it, and they're doing it because they are well paid for doing it, in the sense that their PACs are flush and full and they get reelected.

Is John McCain motivated entirely by this? Is Bob Menendez motivated entirely by this? Of course not. They're not intellectual giants, and they don't spend lots of time analyzing this situation in the complex ways that we do. So they think they're actually fulfilling their principles and bending over a little bit to accept the money and the cash necessary to do that. So that's how the system works. That's not even half the explanation, but that's how the system works. And, incidentally, it has worked that way for a very long time, I would say probably since about Andrew Jackson coming into the White House after we'd really established ourselves.

JAY: I think it's a really interesting point, because those of us that sit back doing this geopolitical analysis--and we look at what are the objective interests of the powers and what are the objective interests of the different parts of these powers, and then we kind of think there's people making policy the same way, but they kind of ... what's the crisis that I'm going to deal with today? How am I going to make money out of this tomorrow? It seems to me that with the odd exception of ... the Brzezinskis and these type of people that seem to think in a broader way--most of it seems to be what is in it for me today, the hell with tomorrow, & not so conscious of the forces. I mean, one of the things that always hits me is when you look at the predictions of who would win World War II. Most of what I've seen is by 1940, '41, it was pretty clear Hitler's going to lose. Now, if you're in the German monopoly capitalist class doing analysis, you'll say, well, this is not leading to anything good for us; why aren't we bailing? But the forces of refusing to accept the reality of it were far too strong.

WILKERSON: Well, that's a good point. I would say--and I don't subscribe to conspiracy theory normally, but I would say there were forces behind that shadow, if you will, who were doing quite well, Swiss, German, American, and others who were more or less feeding off the conflict and got very wealthy feeding off the conflict, just as they did off World War I, even more dominantly with respect to the United States in particular, German reparations and so forth. We made a ton of money off of World War I, and we really didn't contribute a whole lot, if you'll remember. We were only really there substantially for a very short period of time, roughly April 1917 to Armistice Day. So there is a group that's interested in this kind of thing--and this group alarms me probably more than any other in the world, and particularly my own country--that is interested in a constant state of war, or as near a constant state as possible, because they sit behind all the belligerents and make money.

JAY: And there seems to be sectors of the economy that profit from volatility, brinksmanship, geopolitically, which leads to massive arms sales. And I've mentioned before on air that I was at this dinner of this organization that does military advice and policymaking to Middle Eastern countries, mostly about arms purchases, and of course who backs the organization's advice is Lockheed Martin and Boeing and, all the military manufacturers. So the brinkmanship sells weapons. And then, of course, Wall Street also does great in volatility, 'cause--especially if you're one step ahead, which the insiders are. But then there's other parts of the economy. ... if you're trying to sell stuff to the American public, massive volatility is not particularly good for you.

WILKERSON: No, it's not. The real economy in this country, though, has shrunken so dramatically since World War II--I show the stats to my students, and I usually use the CIA stats. I can't remember them precisely right now, but I can give you general idea. In 1945, we were about 25% or so services and about 60% or so what was called heavy, medium, or light industry, manufacturing mostly. It's completely the opposite today. It's about 11% to 12% manufacturing, and the latest stat--and this is a precise number from the CIA--76% services. So you don't have the same real economy, if you will, and you don't have the same GDP reflective of that real economy. And that's a very different economy to wage war under than the one we had when we entered World War II, for example. Very different. And you could say in some respects this shadow behind the power that makes money off war, period, no matter who's the belligerent, makes money off that volatility now, especially with computers that are able to assist them in doing so, like currency manipulation, for example, or just general speculation. With computers you can do it at lightning speed and you can do it in a nanosecond, and you can make billions in that nanosecond, and you don't care about what you're doing to the real economy, because you're raking in the dough.

JAY: Has the American elite, including that section which profits on near war and profits on actual war--but in general has there come to a conclusion now that ... if you want a really good Cold War, a really good arms race, then Russia's the right one to do it with?

WILKERSON: That's an interesting speculation. ... I think what's happening is people are beginning--people, these people I'm talking about, who really understand the dynamics in the world--and some of those are in the White House, no question about it. Some of them are people bearing the burden of public policy. No question about it. ... what's happening ... with Ukraine and with Russia, of course, is what you just said: hey, ... we yearn for the solidity and the stability of the Cold War, and my God, Putin's giving it back to us. Let's accept the offer.
...

JAY: ... Is this coming from the Obama administration? Or is it coming from--and this is where I get to who makes U.S. foreign-policy--how many lines of this kind of policy exist that kind of circumvent the White House and the National Security Council?

WILKERSON: I don't think they necessarily circumvent it. I think they are at times in tension within it, but I don't think they necessarily circumvent it, like, for example, Dick Cheney did in the Bush administration. I think what you have is you have people like Samantha Power and Susan Rice who are right-to-protect-people. This is very traditional. This is messianic Christianity manifesting itself in a secular way. This is we have to bear the brown person's burden, we have to go fix these problems in the world. So this is not something new. It's just got a more sophisticated manifestation in 2014.

And it makes a difference. It made a difference in Somalia when Madeleine Albright and Boutros Boutros-Ghali were pushing for state building in Somalia, when any anyone with a brain could have seen impossible task, you're going to fail, and you're going to have to leave ignominiously, which is exactly what Bill Clinton had to do. It manifested itself in the Balkans and in Kosovo. Two days of bombing and Milosević will cave. 78 days later and the threat of ground forces and Milosević finally caves.

So there's that strain, a messianic strain that's always been there.

Then there is a strain of real power, realpolitik. And that's people who are actually trying to achieve American interests, whatever they may be, and the way they think they should be achieved. I would put President Obama in that category.

And then you've got people who are closet neoconservatives, who really do feel that America has to assert itself periodically at a minimum in order to teach the rest of the world that it can't climb the hill on which America is the king.

JAY: But Ukraine is setting up we have to teach Putin a lesson, except you helped create the conditions where you have to teach Putin a lesson ... and more or less play into Putin's hands.

WILKERSON: Well, this is a chess game, to a certain extent, played on multiple levels simultaneously. And when you have a person like Putin with the capabilities that Putin has--I would suggest to you that the KGB and the GRU or NKVD, whenever you want to talk about, were probably the best intelligence people in the world for a long time. When you've got those kind of capabilities, you can do things, and particularly when you're operating on interior lines.

I'll take you into a military jargon here. Interior lines means I've got a border with you and I can move my tank 15 feet and kill you. But I am the person going to contest that tank, and I'm 10,000 miles away, and I've got to fly my tanks into your country before I can even take you on. The advantage of operating on those interior lines is really, really huge. It'd be like us doing something in Mexico and Russia trying to object or us doing something in Cuba and Russia trying to object. It's really difficult. You can do it, but it's really difficult.

So there are a lot of things operating with respect to Crimea, Ukraine, Odessa, and so forth, Georgia, right now that play into what some of these people, like ... John McCain, Lindsey Graham, would love to see happen, and that is the development of a new Cold War, a new Cold War with old antagonists.
...

WILKERSON: ... When Jim Baker and George H. W. Bush really accomplished what I think was one of the real diplomatic feats of the end of the 20th century, the reunification of Germany, whether we agree with that or not, they did it, and they did it without a shot being fired. It was wonderful to watch H. W. Bush do that, and Jim Baker. But one of the reasons they could do it was because they assured Gorbachev, and later Yeltsin, that NATO would be quiescent, it wouldn't move, it wouldn't threaten Russia. In fact, I was there when we told the Russians that we were going to make them a member -- observer first and then a member and so forth.

Well, that fell apart on the fact that they perceived right quickly that we weren't really serious. And then we start, under pressure from Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and others, to sell weapons to Poland and weapons to Georgia and weapons to Romania and everybody else we could bring into the fold. Under those pressures and others, we started to expand NATO and stuck both our fingers in the Russian eye, so to speak, immediately. It's clear to me why Putin responded in Georgia and why he's now responding to Crimea in Ukraine. This is what great powers do when they get concerned about their so-called near abroad.
...

Kissinger forever

I really can't say much on this story, since it might be considered overtly anti-American & then who wants to deal with its "consequences". But, this is still a great opinion piece on one of the most powerful men in the world. Reading this piece reminded me of a piece Canadian Business magazine did back in August 2013 in which it showed that Henry Kissinger is the only man in the world who is a member in all of the 3 most powerful & elitist organizations in the world (World Economic Forum, Bilderberg Group, & Trilateral Commission).

Henry Kissinger is also the one who said that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac." In my personal experience, whoever loves power so much, he/she will certainly abuse it & will hurt a lot of people in the process. This piece made me think that the way this man thinks, he has done & will still do anything to achieve what he wants more, which is, power. We try to teach our children that "with great power comes great responsibility," but, as this piece suggests, Kissinger's hunger for power almost makes him a sociopath.

As the piece below states how Kissinger supported prolonging the Vietnam war & the secret Cambodian war, in which hundreds of thousands people died. His powerful actions in the hallowed halls of government irreversibly changed the lives of millions around the world, from Latin America to North America to Asia. He apparently loved to attack other countries to show American military prowess. He loved more violence, government secrecy, militarism & ruling with the classic dictatorial "divide & conquer."

The piece ends with an excellent, & rather unfortunate, line that the world's humanity still has dark days ahead, since, his methods are still being employed by the American government & he is still deeply involved with the foreign policies of US governments.

But, hey, he will not be tried, for his actions, in the International Criminal Court (ICC) or any other court of justice in this world. Per my last quote picture of Criminal Minds here, the society is definitely not taking the place of thousands of victims & on their behalf demanding any atonement for Kissinger's push for military actions against innocent people around the world. At least dictators like Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi, Joseph Stalin, Robert Mugabe, & several others from Latin America, Africa, or Asia killed innocent people of their own country. Henry Kissinger's actions made the life hell for thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, Panama & who knows wherever else. So who is the bigger dictator here? Where is the justice coming from the largest self-anointed "just" & "fair" country of the world?

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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/08/kissinger-america-book-150823083842452.html

In 1950, Henry Kissinger - who would go on to serve as an inordinately powerful US National Security Adviser and Secretary of State - wrote that "life is suffering, birth involves death".

As historian Greg Grandin documents in his just-released book "Kissinger's Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most Controversial Statesman", the man's "existentialism laid the foundation for how he would defend his later policies". In Kissinger's view, Grandin explains, life's inherently tragic nature means that "there isn't much any one individual can do to make things worse than they already are".

Of course, the victims of Kissinger-sanctioned military escapades and other forms of inflicted suffering might beg to differ. Among the countless casualties are the dead and maimed of the Vietnam War - a disaster Kissinger fought to prolong despite recognising that it was unwinnable - and the secret US war that was launched on neutral Cambodia in 1969.

'Power for power's sake'

A pet project of Kissinger and then-President Richard Nixon, the bombing of that country killed more than 100,000 civilians in four years, according to Ben Kiernan, the director of Yale University's Cambodian Genocide Program.

To this day, the cluster bombs with which the US saturated sections of southeast Asia continue to wreak deadly havoc.

And from Chile to Panama to Iraq to Angola to East Timor, there's no dearth of evidence linking increased earthly suffering to Kissingerian policy & tradition, which still exert a preponderant influence over the US political establishment. (Complaints could even be filed by impoverished victims of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Kissinger unofficially helped negotiate years after leaving office.)

As Grandin notes, Kissinger had an "outsized role… in creating the world we live in today, which accepts endless war as a matter of course".

Embracing the pursuit of "power for power's sake", Kissinger advocated for war in order to "show that action is possible", Grandin writes, and to thus maintain American power - the purpose of which "is to create American purpose". With such an approach to existence, it's perhaps no wonder the former statesman found the whole phenomenon to be rather dismal.

Campaign against history

Grandin details Kissinger's contributions to the "rehabilitation of the national security state" in the US around a "restored imperial presidency", which, he contends, was based on "ever more spectacular displays of violence, more intense secrecy, and an increasing use of war and militarism to leverage domestic dissent and polarisation for political advantage".

A key aspect of Kissinger's own dominant role in contemporary history is his philosophy of history itself, which Grandin summarises as follows: "For Kissinger, the past was nothing but 'a series of meaningless incidents'". According to this mindset, under no circumstances must history be seen as a collection of causal relationships capable of guiding current policy choices.

The concept of blowback, for example, is conveniently disappeared - such that Kissinger, for one, is excused from having to acknowledge the reality that US military aggression against Cambodia in fact helped propel the Khmer Rouge to power. Instead, further US military aggression was deemed to be the proper antidote to the new state of affairs.

Two and two

The forcible severing of cause from effect has also come in handy in places like Afghanistan, a country whose history is often reduced to one date: September 11, 2001. But go a bit further back in time, as Grandin does, and you'll find that the conversion of the country into a base for transnational jihad was in no small part an effect of policies put into place by - who else? - Kissinger.

These included facilitating destabilising behaviour vis-a-vis Afghanistan by the shah of Iran, Pakistani intelligence, and Saudi Arabia, and encouraging the flow of weapons to radical Islamists.

Naturally, none of this history prompted an internal questioning of US qualifications to spearhead the post-9/11 war on terror. Now, nearly 14 years and trillions of dollars later, it might be a good time to start putting two and two together - particularly given the expansion of the war to encompass the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an entity the US helped create in the first place.

Dark days

In an interview last year with radio host Todd Zwillich, Kissinger defended his infamous bombing of Cambodia on the following grounds: "The current administration is doing it in Pakistan, Somalia". The "it" apparently refers to Barack Obama's covert drone strikes on countries with which the US is not at war.

But as Grandin points out, this retroactive justification fails to account for the fact that "what [Kissinger] did nearly half a century ago created the conditions for today’s endless wars". In Cambodia and elsewhere, he "institutionalised a self-fulfilling logic of intervention", whereby US "action led to reaction [and] reaction demanded more action".

Of course, if power depends on the constant proof that "action is possible", this seems like a pretty logical - if sociopathic - arrangement.

As for Kissinger's shadow, it doesn't appear to be budging anytime soon - portending many a dark day ahead for humanity.


Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.