Dear Friend,
Imperialist imprint in the just carried out Bolivia coup is visible. Donald Trump, the US President, has said in a statement: “The United States applauds the Bolivian people for demanding freedom and the Bolivian military for abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution.” Who these “people” are? The fascists, the rich, the appropriators, and the lumpen elements money of the rich hired. They are not the poor, the dispossessed, the humble, the sections of the Bolivian society with whom Evo Morales was striving to organize a humane society.
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Imperialist imprint in Bolivia coup
by Farooque Chowdhury
Imperialist imprint in the just carried out Bolivia coup is visible. Donald Trump, the US President, has said in a statement: “The United States applauds the Bolivian people for demanding freedom and the Bolivian military for abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution.” Who these “people” are? The fascists, the rich, the appropriators, and the lumpen elements money of the rich hired. They are not the poor, the dispossessed, the humble, the sections of the Bolivian society with whom Evo Morales was striving to organize a humane society.
Imperialist imprint in the just carried out Bolivia coup is visible. Donald Trump, the US President, has said in a statement: “The United States applauds the Bolivian people for demanding freedom and the Bolivian military for abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution.”
Who these “people” are? The fascists, the rich, the appropriators, and the lumpen elements money of the rich hired. They are not the poor, the dispossessed, the humble, the sections of the Bolivian society with whom Evo Morales was striving to organize a humane society.
And, the “military”? Leadership of which is mainly and broadly tied to imperialist masters although constitutionally bound to uphold and safeguard interests of the people of Bolivia, as it’s the people that pay salary to the armed body. The bayonets the armed body fixes on its rifles, the bullets the body uses to intimidate the people are purchased with the people’s money. The armed forces’ act of “protecting the constitution” was compelling a constitutionally elected leader with majority of the people’s verdict to renounce presidency.
What’s the character of “freedom” being secured through the coup? It’s freedom of capital, national and imperialist, to appropriate and loot the people and natural resources. And, it’s the freedom to tie the country into imperialist war-plan – strategic and tactical – against the peoples of Latin America.
The White House issued the US presidential statement that began with the following sentence: “The resignation yesterday of Bolivian President Evo Morales is a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere.”
The “democracy” that is cherished in the statement has been ensured through the forced exit of an elected president. The election sought people’s verdict. And, the majority of the people expressed their will – Evo – with a more than 10 percent majority. Now the imperialist power finds “democracy” in forced, and obviously, unconstitutional ouster of elected leader. The “democracy” the imperialism is marketing and imposing at opportune moments on countries convenient to it is the “democracy” of imperialism. Only fools, and lackey of imperialism run and beg to imperialism for this variety of “democracy”. The type of “democracy” imperialism loves is for the rich, for the exploiters, for the plunderers. And, these type of lackeys are not only in Bolivia and Venezuela. They reside and engage with politics in other countries also. And, they, with auxiliary role played by a certain type of NGOs, depend on imperialism for their type of “democracy”. In some countries, a group of “left” elements joins them.
The US Presidential statement issued on November 11, 2019: “Morales’s departure preserves democracy and paves the way for the Bolivian people to have their voices heard.”
Can anyone claim the forced – unconstitutional – ouster of an elected president preserves democracy? Can anyone cite a single example of trampling a people’s verdict lets people’s voices heard in any country, from any page of history-book, from real life experience? Shall any imperialist state accept such act within its political mechanism? No, and never.
What was the “people’s” voice heard in Bolivia on its streets, in front of and in elected official’s residences? For weeks, the streets were blocked. The streets saw vandalism with full force, mob violence to its extreme. Elected officials, at least one of them was women and from indigenous community, were threatened, howled at, beaten, assaulted, dragged out of office, humiliated. A part of media has carried those photos. At least one people’s representative, a woman, was confined in a town hall while the hall was set on fire. She was allowed to leave the alighted building after the fire raged around. Even, this “people” – a fascist gang – set the residence of Evo’s sister on fire. Even, Evo’s residence has been vandalized and looted.
Shall any elected or, imperialism-backed dictator, without people’s mandate, accept – allow the vandals – to carry out a small fragment of such acts in any part of their country, with any of their elected officials? Shall they allow this in any case of any sibling or offspring of any of their the elected officials? Shall any imperialist state allow burning of governors’ houses within their country or within their legal jurisdiction? Residences of two governors in Bolivia have been burnt by blood-hounding mob, fascist in character, hired with money. Imperialism doesn’t consider legal jurisdiction. Unilateral decision and declaration about deployment of US forces in and actions of the forces around the oil fields in the Kurdish region of Syria is the latest example of imperialist way of “respecting” or “abiding” by law – domestic and international. Has imperialism heard and accepted the voice raised on the floor of the UN General Assembly, only days ago, on the question of US imposed economic blockade against Cuba? It’s the longest ever economic blockade by the most powerful country against a geographically small island-country. The UNGA vote was overwhelmingly against the imperialist act. Only three member-states of the UN including the US voted against the resolution. Audience of global media knows the way Jane Fonda was arrested in Washington DC. She stood for climate – a climate within which people can breathe, can live, and shall not have to abandon their homes, hospitals, schools, agricultural lands and mangrove forests, and cases, cities. Was the voice been listened?
Now, imperialism is delivering sermon – hear “people’s” voice! Is this – the mobocracy and the imperialismocracy in Bolivia over the last few weeks – the way to let people’s voice heard?
The US President’s statement – “Statement from President Donald J. Trump Regarding the Resignation of Bolivian President Evo Morales” – signaled: “These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail.”
The recent political developments in Bolivia are a strong signal, no doubt. It’s a strong signal to, as the statement identifies, “illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua”.
And, the US President said with a confident tone: “We are now one step closer to a completely democratic, prosperous, and free Western Hemisphere.”
Coup against Evo by imperialism pulls imperialism, a mighty machine, closer to democracy! It’s not paradox. It’s contradiction and contradictory in real sense. A mighty machine motivated to subjugate the world is against a man committed to organize a humane life for the exploited people in his country. The machine is so powerful that it was failing to proceed to its cherished “democracy” because of a man, a revolutionary. Does it show might of the machine? The machine knows its weakness.
That’s the reason the machine had to conspire with elites, the most minor part of the society, and a few armed officers commanding an armed force, but having no people’s mandate and depending on the people to pay for their salary, and for arms and ammunition with which these armed persons are trying to trample the people.
Thus, the imperialism imprints its intervention in Bolivia, in the life of the people of the commoners of the Andean country.
The Hill has said the truth with the following heading: “Trump celebrates resignation of Bolivia’s president” (by Brett Samuels, November 11, 2019). It’s celebration, to imperialism! What’s the cause of the celebration? Evo is absent. But, Evo’s absence is for today only. Tomorrow he will come back with his people.
The report said:
“President Trump on Monday hailed the ouster of Bolivian President Evo Morales as a ‘significant moment for democracy’ even as Morales’s supporters and some U.S. lawmakers likened it to a coup.
“Trump issued a statement approving of Morales’s resignation.”
A military act, an act-unconstitutional, is being hailed by a leader of a state, which claims to be a democracy! The bourgeois democracy – centuries-old, an advanced bourgeois democracy – has found one of its best contemporary theoreticians to uncover its character. Shall the bourgeois democracy accept such act in its case, within its state machine, or in case of its imperialist allies?
The Washington Post has said in its report on the coup in Bolivia: The heads of the armed forces and police withdrew their support for the government in recent days amid escalating protests.
Shall the WaPo accept such move by leaders of the armed forces in cases where its interests sleep?
What democracy they are dreaming?
It’s coup-plotters’ democracy. It’s planned to be a democracy of elites, the rich. So, the coup-project is being led by a businessman, Bolivia’s Guaido and Bolsonaro.
The coup-machine – has already started moving through the near-empty streets of La Paz and of other cities. Activists are being hauled, hands cuffed, blindfolded, kneeled, arrested. A Reuter’s photo captioned: “Members of the security forces patrol a street, at the Murillo square, in La Paz”. Enough to perceive the situation.
Before the coup formally unfolded, the coup plotters unleashed hoards of lumpen elements, and those petty-soldiers were kidnapping people, engaging with arsons, threatening political leaders, blocking roads. Shall the Empire allow this in its own territory? Never, never.
What’s in view now there in Bolivia? The Camacho and Mesa duo have spelled out nothing clearly. Their current agenda is repressing the Evo-supporters. They are still relying on violence with their armed goons, and the armed forces and police.
The ringleader in this coup is Bolivia’s Guaido-Bolsonaro – racist, misogynist Camacho – with heavy fortunes in his own pockets and in family coffer. His family is connected to secessionist and far-right anti-democratic activities and enterprises in Bolivia. Imperialism has correctly appointed its orderly in Bolivia – a rich appropriator.
There are the famous NED and IRI, the long arms for imposing Washington-designed “democracy”, activities in countries. US Dollars, millions as their reports show, have been channeled in Bolivia over the years to “seed” their “democracy”. Who knows about activities of their brother “Enterprise” and “Free Labor Unions” to organize their friendly businesspersons and a group of “labor” leaders, lumpen in character? All they do is: Promote rightist agenda.
There are reports of conversations between the Empire leaders and the coup soldiers.
One side, imperialism and its orderlies, thus, are there in Bolivia.
On the opposite, there is Evo. He said during resigning his post: “My sin is being a union leader, indigenous.” He led in imbibing the people with a sense of dignity. He led in the initiatives to lift up 3 million people out of the pit of poverty. The country was the region’s fastest growing economy. He nationalized sectors/enterprises lucrative to imperialism. And, he kicked out US military bases. He represented the commoners.
His is the class war camp of the exploited. Evo’s moves, political and economic, are enough to make imperialism his enemy. So, imperialism has intervened in Bolivia. It may turn more forceful. Nevertheless, the intervention will, hopefully, stumble; because of the state of politics the people there are pursuing since long.
Are other countries including a number of South Asian countries free from similar intervention-possibility? Not at all; not even in any dream. Rather, probably, in some rooms in the Empire’s palace, similar conspiracies for intervention are being hatched, and preparations are going on in full swing.
Farooque Chowdhury writes from Dhaka.
A self-appointed president, soldiers and violence dominate Bolivia, 6 citizens already shot
by Countercurrents Collective
Jeanine Áñez, a senator from the rightist opposition camp, declared herself president of Bolivia on Tuesday although the legislative body failed to meet with the constitutional requirements for such a move.
The Perfectly Legal Ways Foreign Powers Subvert American Democracy
Co-Written by Ryan Summers and Ben Freeman
Foreign powers have a remarkably direct way of making sure their voices are heard in Washington: let their lobbyists script what various members of Congress say. That may sound wild, but it’s actually commonplace. Lee Fang of the Intercept reported a typical example of this recently.
Co-Written by Ryan Summers and Ben Freeman
Foreign influence in America is the topic du jour. From the impeachment inquiry into President Trump’s request that a foreign power investigate a political opponent to the indictment of associates of his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, for illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. elections, the nation has been transfixed by news of illegal foreign influence in the political process. While such efforts to subvert American elections garner headlines, there remains a treasure trove of perfectly legal ways foreign powers are subverting American democracy. And they’re not waiting for election day — they’re doing it every single day of the year.
“Legislation Is Prepared by Lobbyists All the Time”
Foreign powers have a remarkably direct way of making sure their voices are heard in Washington: let their lobbyists script what various members of Congress say. That may sound wild, but it’s actually commonplace. Lee Fang of the Intercept reported a typical example of this recently. He discovered that, on November 13, 2017, Representative Ed Royce (R-CA), then chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, read verbatim into the congressional record a set of talking points given to his office by lobbyists working for the Saudi government. As Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) and a bipartisan group of lawmakers debated invoking the War Powers Act to end U.S. support for the war in Yemen, Ari Fridman, a lobbyist working for Hogan Lovells, itself representing Saudi Arabia, distributed Saudi talking points to Royce and others. In a C-SPAN video from the debate on the floor, Royce can be seen parroting these very talking points, word for word.
This might seem like an extraordinary success for any lobbyist of a foreign power, but it’s actually quite common. A report by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), co-authored by Ben Freeman, for instance, documented multiple examples of foreign agents writing speeches, even legislation, for members of Congress. Most notably, their investigation unearthed documents showing a foreign agent had provided track-change edits on a proposed bill to a staffer working for Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI). When the legislation was finally introduced by the senator, it included the exact language the lobbyist had suggested. Asked about this, that agent responded, “It’s not unusual for us to comment back and forth” with Congressional staff about legislation. He added, “Proposed legislation is prepared by lobbyists all the time.”
In our post-Citizens United world where, thanks to that 2010 Supreme Court decision, money is considered speech when it comes to campaign finance, agents working on behalf of foreign governments regularly “speak” with their pocketbooks. The Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy (CIP), where we work, has repeatedly reported on how agents of foreign governments make campaign contributions to the congressional representatives they’re contacting on behalf of foreign powers.
Sometimes they even make such donations on the very day they meet with the member of Congress. In investigating the Saudi lobby in 2018, we found at least five instances when lawmakers received campaign contributions on the day they or their staff spent time with someone working for the Saudis. Firms representing Saudi Arabia gave this way to Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Representative Mike Conaway (R-TX). Even more striking are contacts (and contributions) made just prior to important votes on Capitol Hill. Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), for instance, received a total of $3,000 from Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a firm representing the Saudis, in the four days before a March 20th, 2018, vote on a War Powers Resolution introduced to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. (One of those contributions came on the day of the vote.) Nelson, who has since lost his Senate seat, ended up voting against the Yemen resolution in line with Saudi interests.
While foreign nationals are prohibited from making campaign contributions — exactly what presidential lawyer and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s Ukrainian associates are accused of orchestrating — nothing prohibits citizens working on their behalf from such donations. Some would argue that gestures of this sort look remarkably like bribery, but they are perfectly legal, according to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), as long as any contributions an agent reports are “from your own funds and on your own behalf.”
Buying Think-Tank Thinking
Foreign powers have ample ability, through their lobbyists, to directly influence congressional legislation. They also have at least three indirect, perfectly legal avenues for trying to shift U.S. foreign policy in their favor: think tanks, the media, and academia.
As CIP’s recent report on the influence of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in America documented, lobbyists hired by foreign powers often work directly with influential think tanks to shape the narrative about the countries they represent. They meet with think-tank experts, provide them with talking points, offer research assistance, and sometimes even give them all-expense-paid trips to the country in question.
Such talking points are disseminated to think-tank pundits in part to influence what they’ll write or say. Their work, in turn, is often shared by various congressional offices. This process is effectively talking-point laundering. A foreign power’s message is communicated to sympathetic think-tank experts who then echo the talking points in their work, speeches, or even testimony before Congress without having to disclose their connections to that country.
For example, as our UAE report documented, Michael Knights, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has an extremely close relationship with lobbyists working on behalf of the UAE and his public comments often echo their talking points. An article Knights wrote on June 14, 2018, on the UAE’s move to “liberate” the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, deeply embroiled in the Saudi-UAE war in that embattled land, closely mirrored an article disseminated by Hagir Elawad & Associates, a firm working on behalf of that country. It, in turn, had been written by Anwar Gargash, the current UAE minister of state for foreign affairs.
FARA filings show as well that Knights has a very close relationship with Richard Mintz, managing director of the Harbour Group, which also represents the UAE in Washington. He reportedly coordinated with Knights on four separate trips to visit UAE forces in Yemen. Afterward, Knights would write a distinctly uncritical analysis about UAE operations in Yemen, never, for instance, mentioning the targeted-assassination program that UAE officials oversaw there or the fact that those same forces gave U.S.-supplied weapons to al-Qaeda and other militant groups in that country. He also dismissed accusations of war crimes by UAE forces as just the work of “local proxies.”
While registered foreign agents legally have to declare anything they distribute on behalf of a foreign power, there is no such requirement for think-tank experts. In fact, such institutions don’t even have to disclose that they receive funding from foreign powers. Under current law it’s perfectly legal for scholars whose work is funded by a foreign government to craft an article with that government’s registered foreign agents without disclosing any of their ties.
This can become particularly problematic when such experts testify before Congress without disclosing their potential conflicts of interest. The House of Representatives requires witnesses to fully reveal foreign funding before testifying, but in many instances, such experts don’t disclose the money their institutions receive from foreign governments. A POGO report found that the existing House rule relating to testimonial transparency is remarkably weak, allowing many witnesses to adopt a particularly narrow interpretation of the “issues related” to their testimony. In the process, they simply don’t disclose their foreign ties.
Experts from the Atlantic Council, which received at least $2,585,000 in foreign funding in 2018, for example, failed to disclose this funding when appearing before Congress. Perhaps most notably, two Atlantic Council experts who testified on “reforming the National Security Council” and “defeating terrorism in Syria” didn’t reveal the more than $1 million dollars the Atlantic Council received from the United Arab Emirates embassy in Washington, even though the UAE undoubtedly had an interest in each of those issues.
Shaping the Media Narrative
Media outlets are another prime target of foreign influence operations. Some governments, of course, run their own media outlets in America and many of these are required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. China’s CCTV and Russia’s RT, which was deemed “the Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet” in the Director of National Intelligence’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, are obvious examples. And, of course, foreign powers continue to engage in a number of illegal Twitter and Facebook activities meant to influence domestic politics, as well as American views of their own countries. In early November, for example, two former Twitter employees were charged with spying for Saudi Arabia and accessing the private information of the Kingdom’s critics in the U.S.
Generally ignored, however, are the ways in which foreign powers often engage in legal media manipulation that neither they, nor such outlets, are required to tell viewers or listeners about. One of the most common tactics is simply to work closely with reporters covering issues of importance to them. No surprise then that the Center for International Policy’s investigations have consistently found journalists among the top targets of registered foreign agents. In some cases it’s fairly easy to see how this influence gets converted into extremely positive spin on their behalf.
Take, for example, OZY, which brands itself as “news for the disruptive.” Its reporters were contacted repeatedly by UAE agents in late 2017 and early 2018 regarding “story ideas” and to arrange interviews. This courtship culminated in two extraordinarily flattering OZY pieces, one describing Dubai’s “Museum of the Future” and the other portraying Dubai as “one of the world’s new fashion capitals,” ignoring the fact that you can face up to three years in prison, especially if you’re a woman, for dressing inappropriately there.
Foreign Influence in the Ivory Tower
While foreign influence in Washington has consistently made front-page headlines, it’s arguably just as pervasive at American universities. Chinese influence has, for instance, garnered considerable attention in recent years. That country’s Confucius Institutes, ostensibly language and cultural centers at American colleges paid for by the Chinese government, have been the focus of eye-opening congressional investigations on the role foreign governments can play on campus. As a Senate investigation reported in early 2019, “Confucius Institute funding comes with strings that can compromise academic freedom,” allowing the Chinese government to play censor at academic conferences on U.S. soil and even censor course materials critical of China.
Chinese influence on campus has garnered headlines, but that country is just one of more than 100 that have funneled $9-plus billion in foreign money to U.S. college campuses in the past five years, according to the Department of Education — and China isn’t even the biggest player among them. That honor, believe it or not, goes to little (but wealthy) Qatar, which has given more than $1.3 billion to American universities since 2014, nearly three times as much as the Chinese. Its officials, in turn, have gone to great lengths to ensure that the strings attached to such funding aren’t known to the public. They even sued the state of Texas to prevent Texas A&M, one of its top grantees, from having to disclose the details of its relationship with Qatar.
While at least two dozen universities are severing ties with Confucius Institutes, schools have been far more reluctant to cut ties with other authoritarian governments. After the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, for example, universities and think tanks faced considerable pressure to sever ties with Saudi Arabia, but few did. Since 2014, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the most prestigious universities in the country, has received the most money from the Saudis — at least $77 million, according to Department of Education records.
Following outrage after Khashoggi’s brutal murder, MIT began a reassessment of its financial ties with the Kingdom. However, in February, when that assessment was finished — and outrage over Khashoggi’s murder was no longer front-page news — a letter sent to the school’s students and teachers concluded that the faculty should be able to “continue their current engagements with colleagues, students, and public and private research sponsors in Saudi Arabia… as long as these projects remain consistent with MIT policies and procedures and U.S. laws and regulations.”
Saudi influence on campus can be even more direct than funding. In at least one case, a registered foreign agent working on behalf of that country was a professor on a college campus. According to a report by Brian McGlinchey, an expert on Saudi influence in America, in 2018 Bill Smullen, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, was more recently a registered agent working on behalf of Saudi Arabia while serving as director of the Maxwell School of National Security Studies at Syracuse University. FARA filings show that Smullen was paid to provide “public relations support” for the Saudis, while serving as the head of that prestigious national-security program. When asked if the Saudi money might lead him to show them in a more favorable light at Syracuse, Smullen quickly dismissed the idea, saying, “I don’t think there is any conflict of interest.”
Expanding the Spotlight to Perfectly Legal Foreign Influence
The scrutiny placed on malign actors like Rudy Giuliani’s associates and their alleged dealings with Ukrainian elites to compromise an American election is certainly warranted. We live in a world in which the ability of foreign powers to undermine American democracy (as this country once undermined democracies elsewhere) remains a genuine threat. Seldom, however, does anyone even think about the influence operations of foreign powers — operations that are perfectly legal and don’t garner headlines.
The American political system, which has always been vulnerable to outside influence, is arguably more susceptible to foreign meddling now than it has been in decades — and most of it is perfectly legal. From woefully inadequate disclosures regarding conflicts of interest by witnesses testifying before Congress to foreign agents filling campaign coffers and literally writing our laws, as well as influencing think tanks, media outlets, and universities, there remain a host of legal ways for foreign powers to try to bend our policies and thinking to their will. While it’s imperative that we be vigilant in rooting out illegal foreign influence, if American democracy is to remain “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” a bright light should be directed onto all forms of influence that seek to undermine it.
Ryan Summers is a research associate with the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy.
Ben Freeman, a TomDispatch regular, is the director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy and co-chair of its Sustainable Defense Task Force.
Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel (the second in the Splinterlands series) Frostlands, Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power and John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II.
Originally published by TomDispatch
Armistice And Remembrance Day: What Does It Mean To Palestinian People And Dream Of Universal Peace?
by Irwin Jerome
The world has just honored yet another Armistice Day – Remembrance Day – Veterans Day for all those who lost their lives in armed defense of their nation’s right to exist and remain a free people. Nation’s like the United States, Canada, Australia, UK and Israel pay constant tribute to those key battles and wars that once determined their continued existence and survival.
Water Water Everywhere……
by Philip A Farruggio
We have many more cities like Flint all over USA. We have bridges and roads that are in disrepair. Our train system pales in comparison to any other one in any other of the industrialized nations. This is just for starters. This writer belongs to a non partisan nationwide group that demands that 25% of our current military spending be cut and sent back to our
states and cities for use on infrastructure and other local emergency needs. One would speculate that having safe and secure drinking water should be on top of any such list. Apparently, John Mica and his fellow hypocritical Two Party colleagues did not agree with that. No, they continued and still continue to allow this Military Industrial Empire to chug along over the worn out and wounded majority of us. Sad.
I just interviewed former World Bank staff member and geopolitical analyst Peter Koenig via telephone at his home in Geneva. Koenig had just returned from South America , a place where he has travelled to many times . One of the issues that he is very passionate about is the agenda by ( so called ) world health and finance organizations to privatize water… especially drinking water! He understands how dangerous it is to allow private for profit companies to control our drinking water, whereupon the old saying of ‘ Profit over People’ rings so true. This all made this writer think of when I turned on C-Span a few short years ago and caught the congressional hearing on the Flint water crisis. It made me so angry that I wanted to scream out loud!: ‘ You morons! Why is there no one there who will connect the dots!?’ ‘You had the former Mayor of Flint, the former EPA regional exec and the former ‘ Emergency City Mgr. all under the gun from those diligent bulldog congress people. The blame game was in full swing, and to some extent it was and is justified. The mayor and the other band of bureaucrats did get early on information as to the harm the river water and lead filled pipes was doing to the citizens of Flint. Yet, there is a much more diabolical aspect of this story, and it filters out to many other municipalities throughout America. Part A of this aspect was shared by Mr. Early, the former Emergency Mgr. of Flint when he told anyone who would listen that ” We did not have the $ 18 million it would cost ” . He was referring to the charges made by almost everyone at that hearing as to why he did not heed the complaints he was receiving and switch back to the much safer Detroit Water Systems’ water for Flint. Early was no saint, not at all. He, like the EPA exec and the Mayor, ignored the mountain of resident complaints and fears ( and the whistleblower’s warnings ) as to the lack of safety in the river water ( and of course the lead in the pipes ). Part B of this is why the Governor did nothing to help out the city of Flint from this horror. When push comes to shove, though, it was really about Da Money or lack of it. Why?
My Florida congressman, John Mica, really took the mantle and lashed into the group of bureaucrats for ignoring the warnings etc. Yet, as with I am sure most and most likely all of those others on the committee ( and in the whole damn Congress ) Mica had continued to support any military spending proposal that came his way. It matters not, and it mattered not, whether it be under the Republican Bush Jr. or the Democrat Obama, Mica and the rest of those hypocrites allowed over 50% of your federal tax money to go towards military spending! They supported the illegal invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq and the illegal U.S. led NATO carpet bombing and regime change in Libya. Of course, they voted to support most, if not all , of the Pentagon’s new weapons systems, nuclear subs and attack aircraft which are, in plain English, Overkill on steroids! These hypocrites and phony patriots voted to support our 1000 + bases worldwide and finance to the tune of over $ one million dollars yearly to keep one soldier in Afghanistan ( of course the cost of private mercenaries.. oh sorry .. private contractors is another add on to that cost ). Imagine, if you would, that keeping 18 U.S. service people in Afghanistan for one year equals the $ 18 million Flint needed to stay with the clean water in the first place!
We have many more cities like Flint all over our great nation. We have bridges and roads that are in disrepair. Our train system pales in comparison to any other one in any other of the industrialized nations. This is just for starters. This writer belongs to a non partisan nationwide group that demands that 25% of our current military spending be cut and sent back to our states and cities for use on infrastructure and other local emergency needs. One would speculate that having safe and secure drinking water should be on top of any such list. Apparently, John Mica and his fellow hypocritical Two Party colleagues did not agree with that. No, they continued and still continue to allow this Military Industrial Empire to chug along over the worn out and wounded majority of us. Sad.
Listen to the radio interview here
Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 300 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘ It’s the Empire… Stupid ‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.
Death of Secular And Democratic India
by Swapna Gopinath
India is in a crisis; and Indians, a huge majority of them, refuse to comprehend this reality. The mass mediated images of an invincible leader who can lead the nation to great heights have percolated into the society and offers the illusion of hope to millions who feel abandoned and helpless against the onslaught of the neoliberal market; as consumers and as producers. This sense of impotency acts as the fertile ground to a toxic
masculine Hindutva agenda that is set to destroy the secular and democratic structure of India.
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