Orwell, in his own time, struggled over what year his novel should be set in. Likely, we’re still not quite there yet. After all, it was set after the nuclear war [...]
How can it be that in virtually all of the Presidential-candidate head-to-head Democratic versus Republican polling that was done of both Democratic and Republican candidates during the primaries, the preferred Democratic candidate against any one of the Republican candidates was Bernie Sanders, but he almost certainly won’t be that Party’s nominee (and there’s more on that here); and the preferred Republican candidate against either one of the Democratic candidates was John Kasich, but he certainly won’t be the Republican nominee?
Sanders and Kasich also scored the highest in his respective Party for net favorability rating, but almost certainly neither candidate will even be on the ballot for voters on November 8th. What kind of ‘democracy’ is this?
How can it be that in the UK, the ‘Labour’ Prime Minister Tony Blair served as George W Bush’s lap-dog on the invasion of Iraq in 2003 to eliminate «Saddam’s WMD» (which didn’t even exist) – it wasn’t a Conservative Prime Minister who did that extremely conservative (i.e., aggressive, invasion, especially on the basis of lies) thing? What kind of ‘democracy’ is that?
And how can it be that throughout the EU, the public are against GMOs, toxic chemicals such as Roundup or glyphosate, and toxic ‘trade’ treaties such as TTIP, but the political leaders are pushing as hard as they can for all of those things? That’s the way to stay in public office? Not in a democracy.
A dictatorship is a national government that rules the public, instead of being ruled by the public. There are various types of this, such as communist (‘workers’ dictatorship), fascist (corporate dictatorship), etc., but those are merely terminological fine points on basically the same terrible beast, and all variants of the beast have two classes of people: the aristocracy, who rule, and the public, who are ruled. No dictatorship has equality-of-rights before the law, because any type of dictatorship treats the aristocracy as being above the law, and legally unaccountable to the public when violating the law, and it treats the public as being arbitrarily (depending upon whether cooperative with the aristocrats, or not) fully accountable to the government (the aristocracy), for any violation of the law. (E.g., the homeless go to jail, while banksters get bailed out.)
The rulers are unseen in many dictatorships; those rulers are behind-the-scenes, unofficial, but the nominal rulers then are representatives of the aristocracy, they’re not actually representing the public. Unseen rulers (actually mainly the personal representatives of unseen rulers) meet in international conclaves like the Bilderberg conferences, and Trilateralist conferences, instead of in national legislatures. Unseen rulers tend to be very discreet, the opposite of ostentatious – hardly the «political» type – not braggarts at all. They don’t need to impress anybody. They want only to be obeyed.
On May 17th, the British Member of Parliament (MP) Craig Murray, who is that rare thing a fully committed democrat who also happens to be a member of his country’s national legislature, headlined at his terrific blog, «The Conservatives Will Be Protected From Their Election Fraud», and he documented that there is «blatant state propaganda manipulation» and that «in this country, electoral law is not enforced against those in power». Power-holders in the UK can violate the law with impunity, even where the violation is clearly documented – he showed that.
In the United States, the only scientific study of whether the US is a democracy found it’s not. It examined 1,779 separate pieces of proposed national legislation since the year 1980, and found that only the concerns of rich people («oligarchs») affected a bill’s fate; the concerns of the public (as had been reflected in public-opinion polls regarding the given matter) did not.
Consequently, though the democratic nations (plus, importantly, the communist dictatorship, the USSR) defeated fascism in 1945, the democratic nations are no longer democracies; they’re all «oligarchies» ruled by some sort of aristocracy or another.
The capstone to this development would be the passage-into-law of US President Barack Obama’s proposed international ‘trade’ treaties, TTIP, TPP, and/or TISA, to transfer national sovereignty (regardless of whether or not of a democratic kind) to an international corporate dictatorship, which will prohibit increases in regulations of food-safety, product-safety, workers’ rights, and of global warming and other environmental matters, and will transfer the power over those to the top stockholders in international corporations.
The question at the present time is whether democracies have already been so severely compromised, so that treaties such as these that Obama is pushing, can be approved by ‘democratic’ governments. If the answer to that question is yes, then we’re already in the Brave New World of fascist international victory – though it’s post-WWII, the fascists will finally have won, not just maybe, but clearly, and decisively, throughout all of the foreseeable future – perhaps even permanently, because international treaties, especially ones that entail many nations, are virtually impossible to end. (A good example of that permanency is NATO: its very raison d’etre terminated when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact military alliance ended in 1991; but, yet, it continues even today, and threatens now to bring about WWIII, which would be its culmination.)
If the idea that we live in a dictatorship seems far-fetched because we’re surrounded by propaganda to the contrary, then there is still the inspiration of the central character Winston Smith in the allegorical novel about fascism, 1984 – he soured on the propaganda that he was editing, but finally switched back, and saw the light: Big Brother was his savior, after all. The former US Senator Gary Hart wrote recently from the standpoint of the earlier, disillusioned, Winston Smith, but, perhaps, even people such like him will also see the light, and stop saying such things as, «Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, the American Republic is massively corrupt». Perhaps everyone has his price, and, once it’s paid, he’ll see the light, too. But, even if he won’t, he has provided there a remarkably accurate description of the reality that Orwell’s book had merely allegorized – way back in 1948. Winston Smith would have been shocked at such a kindred spirit, writing not in 1984 but 2015.
Orwell, in his own time, struggled over what year his novel should be set in. Likely, we’re still not quite there yet. After all, it was set after the nuclear war. The international agreements – the alliances – seem to have been already in place, for some time. Maybe Orwell’s novel should have been instead called something like «2025». Just a few more years; we can hardly wait (if we’ll be among the survivors).
Such are the ways of the international aristocracy. If we’ll tolerate them. But if we won’t, what then? Nothing is more powerful than they are. But is that the end of the story? Are they a terminal plague? Can NATO be ended without it culminating? Or, is there some other way?
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The American political theorist and Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University, Robert A. Dahl (1917−2014) left in his immense scientific writing opus considerable remarks on democracy. Here, I would like to summarize his theoretical approaches to democracy.Historical development of democracyAccording to him, democracy was created there, where existed the best conditions for its development. R. A. Dahl assumes, that this happened already in the time when people lived in a system of tribal bonds. He thinks, that democracy was the standard and universal form of the government in prehistoric society. Later, democracy was replaced by other political systems and ...
Note: This article was first published in January 2015.Since 9/11, the imperial playbook has consisted of a favorite and time-tested tactic: the false flag operation.Carry out or facilitate a spectacular atrocity. Blame it on the enemy of choice. Issue a lie-infested official narrative, and have the corporate media repeat the lie. Rile up ignorant militant crowds, stoke the hatred, and war-mongering imperial policy planners and their criminal functionaries get what they want: war with the public stamp of approval.Here we are again.The Charlie Hebdo incident is being sold as “the French 9/11”. It certainly is, in all of the most ...
After the Russian military victory over the Ottoman Empire in the 1877−1878 Russo-Ottoman War it was signed the San Stefano Treaty between these two states on March 3rd, 1878. According to the treaty, a Greater “San Stefano” Bulgaria, under the direct protection by Russia, had to be established within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. However, an idea of “San Stefano Bulgaria” directly affected three Balkan nations: the Serbs, Greeks and Albanians as some of their ethnic and historical territories had to become part of a Greater Bulgaria. The “San Stefano Bulgaria” was projected by the Russian authorities to cover ...
Yet again, a conference here in the Lithuanian capital dedicated to combating fascism and antisemitism is announced, without there having been a public call for papers, without a single speaker from among those who actually combat fascism and antisemitism in the country, with nobody from the democratically elected Vilnius Jewish community (not even the long-time editor of Jerusalem of Lithuania who has exposed and combated antisemitism for decades). No Holocaust survivors. None of the nationally relevant questions of the day can be found on the conference program. As ever, outstanding academic personalities from abroad are recruited to lend the gravitas and provide serious papers ...
Few people know that, in fact, in those years, overseas aircraft inflicted an unpunished blow on the Soviet territory. It happened in the Far East in October 1950.On October 8, 1950, at 4.17 p.m. local time, two Lockheed F-80C Lockheed "Schutting Star (Meteor)" violated the state border of the USSR and, having deepening into the territory for almost a hundred kilometers, attacked the Soviet military airfield Suhaya Rechka 165 kilometers from Vladivostok, in the Hasan district. As a result of firing by the US Air Force seven Soviet squadron aircraft were damaged, one completely burnt in the parking lot.That autumn ...
The interesting detail of the Lockerbie bombing was the extent of how far the plotters went to divert blame to Libya.There can be no better example of the old saying “a lie can travel half way around the world before the truth is even putting its shoes on” than Lockerbie. This tragic story of a U.S. passenger flight brought down by a bomb over the small Scottish village just a few days before Christmas in 1988 is heartbreaking on a number of levels. But the main one is that even to this day, the Americans continue to keep the huge ...
NATO has expanded dramatically after the collapse of its primary rivals, the USSR and the Warsaw Treaty Organization, Canadian Professor Michael Jabara Carley notes, posing the question whether NATO was founded as a defensive or an offensive alliance.The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance aimed against the Soviet Union, was established on April 4, 1949; and only seven years after the formation of NATO the Warsaw Treaty Organization was established bringing together eight nations (versus 15 NATO member-states).So, who was the real “aggressor”? What alliance was an offensive one?“There has been much discussion recently of NATO in the mainstream and alternate media. Why was ...
The Albanian nationhood as understood in the 19th century was part of a romanticist notion of nationality, i.e., the Albanians were the Balkan people whose mother tongue was Albanian regardless of any confessional division of Albanian people into three denominations (Moslem, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox). Within the north Albanian tribes, especially among the Miriditi, the Roman Catholic Church was very influential. The Roman Catholic Church became the main protector of the Albanian language and cultural heritage and the main protagonist of the national identity of the Albanians in Northern Albania.[1] The expression of common notions of the Albanian nationhood ...
General James Mattis, the US Secretary of Defence, visited Macedonia on September 17 and declared that “We do not want to see Russia doing [in Macedonia] what they have tried to do in so many other countries. No doubt that they have transferred money and they are also conducting broader influence campaigns.”His observations were made in the run-up to the referendum to be held on September 30 in which Macedonians will vote on a deal reached in June with Greece that would change the country’s name to the Republic of Northern Macedonia. The referendum question is “Do you support EU and NATO ...
South-East Europe, and especially the Balkan Peninsula as the main part of it, have traditionally been the object of numerous geopolitical, geostrategic, and publicist analyses, as well as the subject of debates among the Balkan, European, and global experts in international relations. The new Iron Curtain or the Cold War 2.0 between western and eastern Europe was not the end of the Balkan’s importance for the US administration and NATO as well. At present, along with the Serbian and Macedonian national questions, the most controversial issue is the Albanian national question or, more precisely, the question of the Kosovo knot.[1] ...
Most people have no idea of who is pictured above, but you should. The sight of this man should cause a similar revulsion to that of seeing Mussolini, Mao, Stalin or Hitler, as he committed an African genocide that resulted in the killing of over 10 million people in the Congo.His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.Most of the people never learned about him in school, and have also most likely never heard about him in the media either. This is because he’s not included in the popular narrative of oppression (which includes things like U.S. slavery and the ...
It is not a secret that the American government has been supporting terrorist groups during the entire Syrian conflict. One of these days, another fact proving this statement was recorded.On September 20, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) militants with their allies launched an offensive on the Syrian Arab Army positions, north-east of Hama city, The National reported.Most likely, the attack of the militants was orchestrated by the U.S. intelligence agencies, which had provided them with the information on the locations and the military strength in the region.It is also reported that the militants' main object was the units of the Russian ...
The Christian population that had made up one fifth of the Ottoman Empire’s population was wiped out in waves of violence by successive Ottoman and Turkish republican governments that left Christians a tiny minority in Anatolia, two Israeli scholars have said in a new study.The controversy over the killings of the Armenian Christian minority living in Anatolia during the last days of the Ottoman Empire is already well known – while the majority of the scholarly community and many international states recognise the killings as genocide, Turkey accepts that killings took place but rejects they constituted a genocide.Israeli historians Benny ...
Columbus made four voyages to the New World. [1] The initial voyage reveals several important things about the man. First, he had genuine courage because few ship’s captains had ever pointed their prow toward the open ocean, the complete unknown. Secondly, from numerous of his letters and reports we learn that his overarching goal was to seize wealth that belonged to others, even his own men, by whatever means necessary.Columbus’s Spanish royal sponsors (Ferdinand and Isabella) had promised a lifetime pension to the first man who sighted land. A few hours after midnight on October 12, 1492, Juan Rodriguez Bermeo, ...
A Father of the NationUkraine is an East European territory which was originally forming a western part of the Russian Empire from the mid-17th century. That is a present-day independent state and the separate ethnolinguistic nation as a typical example of Benedict Anderson’s theory-model of the “imagined community” – a self-constructed idea of the artificial ethnic and linguistic-cultural identity. According to Anderson, the nation is an abstract and firstly subjective social construction that defy simple, objective definition yet has been for the last two centuries the crucial basis of conflict in world politics and international relations, through the assertion of ...
Terrorists attacked the Macedonian city of Kumanovo on 9 May, but one wouldn’t know that by reading the Western media’s reaction to the tragedy, despite the fact that they typically mention that 8 police officers were killed and another 37 wounded during the firefight. The media’s disingenuous ‘reporting’ reeks of ulterior motives, which is evidenced most visibly by their reluctance to use the word terrorist without putting it in questionable quotation marks, but also takes more subtle forms such as casting suspicion on the government for complicity in the attack and/or inferring that the attack was some type of legitimate ...
CNN explained well “5 surprising lessons from Trump’s astonishing win”, and the historic crushing failure of traditional Presidential-year American politics, but it really boils down to one simple fact: In the battleground states, where most of the advertising dollars and get-out-the-vote money was being spent, the Trump organization made use of the Republican-Party organization in those portions of the campaign-operation that benefited from those established contacts and its tried-and-tested methods and techniques, but not in the portions of the campaign-operation that needed to be improved and to function better than in all prior U.S. Presidential elections.The simple fact is that ...
Part IThe basic cornerstones of the Croat ultraright nationalistic ideologyFrom the point of the ideology of the extreme Croat nationalism, the cardinal goal of ultraright nationalistic parties, groups, ideologists and politicians was to create for the first time after 1102 an independent, as much as a Greater and finally “Serben-frei” Croatia. In the 1990s it was an exactly ultraright nationalistic ideology that provided the main background for creation of a new normative order and values in the HDZ’s Croatia. This ideology had five cardinal cornerstones which gave the framework for building a new institutional order, political values and means to ...
A Serb from Bosnia, General Mladic, protected Muslim civilians and gave them buses, food, and water to leave fighting zones. There was no genocide over the Muslim population in Srebrenica like mainstream media want you to believe – there was no genocide over Bosniaks because all Bosnian Muslims victims were jihad fighters who had been killed during fight (in war). Even the so-called „tribunal“ in The Hague for ex-Yugoslavia admitted that there was no genocide!The President of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 1990s, Alija IzetbegovićIn Srebrenica, there was a massacre over Serbian civilians: the youngest victim was a 4 years old boy ...
A study by a Toronto-based consulting and research company has revealed that over the past fifty years mainstream reporting about Israel has been distorted to portray the Jewish state in positive terms while ignoring the plight of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. The media study, based on a computer analysis of 50 years of data, found that major U.S. newspapers have provided consistently skewed, pro-Israel reporting on Israel-Palestine. The slanting in news coverage included subtle manipulations like using word associations favorable to Israel and derogatory to Palestinians as well as the persistent publication of stories praising Israel while also avoiding reporting ...
