Category Archives: Global domination

Edward Snowden Asked: Do You Want to be Watched?

This question applies to everyone, inclusive of those watching and ultimately a future for their children being watched and grandchildren having no privacy.

These days I always notice the cameras in lights. I am aware of the monitoring of Smart Meters.  I am conscious of cyber security used as a means of accessing people’s data and breaching privacy and justifying this intrusion by utilizing threats as bonifide reasons.  I am conscious of mass data gathering and I see it as a much greater threat than the cold war or nuclear postures.

I am monitoring government and business who may not be holding the public interest above all interests.  I am in service to humanity.

This video is on Edward Snowden who has risked his life to expose criminality and breaches of civilians privacy and indeed security.

My concern is the lack of empathy, human wellbeing and basic respect of a human’s right to privacy and safety through anonymity.

Australian Bill of Rights NOT Passed 24/3/2020

The Australian Bill of Rights Bill was not passed on the 24 March 2020.  I have posted the details of the Bill followed by my own experience as to why an Australian Bill of Rights is Essential for Public Safety.

This is a link to Dr. Patch Adams and the fact he cried of Human Rights.  He travels the world to the places where people are deeply disadvantaged. I travelled to Russia with him and I saw him cry over a little girl who was deaf and dumb, he made her smile, she was fascinated by him.  I filmed their interaction. He is a deeply kind man. Kindness matters today and will change the future.  Visit:  https://wpas.worldpeacefull.com/2018/09/patch-adams-cried-over-human-rights-abuses/

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6404

Bills not passed (current Parliament)

FINANCIAL IMPACT

The bill will have no financial impact.

Australian Bill of Rights Bill 2019

Type
Private
Sponsor(s)WILKIE, Andrew, MP
Originating house
House of Representatives
Status
Not Proceeding
Parliament no
46

Track (What’s this?)

Permalink

Summary

Gives effect to certain provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment by: declaring an Australian Bill of Rights; providing that any Commonwealth, state or territory law that is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights is invalid to the extent of the inconsistency; specifying that Commonwealth, state and territory laws must be interpreted consistently with the Bill of Rights; and providing the Australian Human Rights Commission with a range of additional powers and functions in relation to the rights and freedoms in the Bill of Rights.

Progress

House of Representatives
Introduced and read a first time 16 Sep 2019
Second reading moved 16 Sep 2019
Removed from the Notice Paper in accordance with (SO 42) 24 Mar 2020

Documents and transcripts

You can open the pdf or Word document’s below to read about the rights the politicians didn’t want us to have.

Text of Australian Bill of Rights

Word Format PDF Format HTML Format

 

Explanatory memoranda

Word Format PDF Format HTML Format

Proposed amendments

No proposed amendments have been circulated.

 

Schedules of amendments

No documents at present

A Personal Rationale as to why an Australian Bill of Rights is Essential for Public Safety

In the public interest.

I have spent 7 hours non stop writing about why we need an Australian Bill of Rights.  After my story I have pasted the government legislation that was proposed by Andrew Wilkie MP for Dennison (Tasmania).  It clearly is not wanted by the majority of politicians as it wasn’t passed. 

The 24th of March 2020 (5 days ago) was a day Australians will not realise was the most important day of our 200 year history.  Australians were in the midst of having all their rights to movement shutdown with the spread of the coronavirus. We as a people, and others around the world, are experiencing dictatorial edicts for the first time where we are being told we do not have the rights to engage in business on site (must go online), we are learning new words like ‘social distancing’, people are becoming unemployed as millions are likely to lose work given many live from pay cheque to pay cheque and industries are being shutdown given a virus.  I note that President Trump is stating his nation will go back to work next month as the virus affects the elderly and vulnerable and he sees that action can be taken to protect them and that the rest are healthy.  Our government is saying 6 months which could completely collapse the Australian economy.  However, on a brighter note people are talking about a new social contract, they get time with families, time to think about global issues and the sort of world we are moving into.  So maybe this little virus is timely for transformational change.  As we lose rights maybe we will gain more rights in the future as we awaken. 

I’ve been inspired for some time to advance an Australian Bill of Rights. This writing below has been inspired as I wasn’t able to stop typing and went deeper and deeper into this topic as it is dear to my heart.   This focus occurred as I experienced directly my own rights been violated and suffered greatly as I had to find truth to stop the pain I felt.

I have been denied the right to shelter, to housing, to social security (revoked due to conscientious objection to corruption), to early release of superannuation under severe hardship (no money, no shelter), to equality before the law (no access to legal representation).

Eviction

When evicted from my home due to a landlord breaching Council by-laws, there was no right to be rehoused. I was on a low income and had no ability to pay rent as rents were unaffordable.  On route up north I was informed by a Centrelink officer (welfare), that I was not in equal partnership inside Centrelink, outside the system I have equal status.  I said I am a citizen and I am equal. It made no sense that I give up my rights because they give me income support which is my right as a citizen under the Australian Constitution (Section 51, subsection 23a).  Under a public/private contract system privatised job providers create a contract and have job seekers (welfare recipients) sign in a unequal agreement to activities which, in my case I knew would not get me work as I was professionally trained and I was having to apply for low wage jobs.  The class system was evident in the welfare sector, had I been at a professional agency I would be given coffee, sit in plush suites and offered jobs starting at $50,000 – $200,000.  At the privatised welfare agency I am offered $17 per hour in one case and I was not informed who the employer was, the treatment was evidently discriminatory breaching human rights but normalised in a unquestioned class system where a demographic serves.  In addition to ineffective job provision I had real concerns about the program Work for the Dole which did not build skills but kept people working against their will, breaching the other human rights protocols. In a professional setting there is no way a person would accept working for no payment in areas that had no bearing on their work.  It wasn’t even an apprenticeship training program.  I have been to bonded slavery camps where people worked for free their whole lives and their fingers were worn to the bone.  I was not lost on slavery.

Judiciary

In the Judiciary I was confronted with perverting the course of justice, misconduct and clear inequality before the law. I had no way to navigate the judicial system or have legal advice to ensure I knew my rights and had a strategy on how to defend myself to ensure justice happened.  I was not prepared for legal trickery, deceptive conduct, using the courts for advantage, selecting judges, intimidation and demonisation. I knew I was confronting a form of subtle bullying using the fear of jail and costs to ensure compliance when I was innocent.  I was even told that principled people get chewed up in the system, as if to be principled is a boon for lawyers, given they make more money if a person fights for what is right or moral, upholding principles as more valuable than making money out of cost orders or legal precedents.  I found the comment disconcerting and at the same time an insight into those who seek justice and lose everything.  Issues of misogyny were evident and inequality was in plain sight given comments about my low status and gender. Abuse was discounted as not important as I was the Appellant not the one who started the legal process.  I lost my right to an Appeal given I was put through a process on another matter to then have it turn instantly into a quick Appeal then set aside.  I was pressured, not unlike a forced confession, to sign an informal undertaking when the reverse is what happened to me. My perseverance was due to my desire to ensure a matter was resolved. The allegations I confronted were false and occurred after I reported sexual harassment. I knew the real loss was that the other party was not held to account, not as a form of punishment, but realisation as the behaviour causes harm. This included those in positions of power who were behind the attempted criminalisation (bullying) of the matter.  If they are not held to account and justice not done then a silent green light conveys deception, misconduct and illegality works. This makes it unsafe for others in the future.  I felt a duty of care for those coming after me who had no idea what they were up against. I didn’t want them to suffer as I had, I felt this duty deeply, particularly as an older woman.  

I came to learn that lawyers are engaged in activities that are not honest and wording is changed to hide information legally and signatures changed. They play tricks as if it is a game that the uninformed can’t possibly see or understand as most haven’t studied a law degree for 6 years.  I was most definitely at a disadvantage.  I learned that judges were immune from prosecution no matter their conduct. I felt that was wrong as no-one should be above the law if we are equal. I discovered I had no right to have injustice addressed by regulators as my detailed report style of complaints were technically not accepted, although they were read, as I did receive a response as part of the rejection of the complaint. This in itself was a miracle but likely due to my 500+ page report.  Again, analysis and justification in the regulator response was not accurate and implied mental health issues which appears a ‘modus operandi’ to discredit a person. What do you do when you are completely silenced and unsupported? Where to from here? 

A last point, I spoke to a lawyer yesterday who left the legal profession as he saw Justice was not done. He didn’t believe in it anymore. He saw people get off crimes due to technicalities and he said it was ‘not right’.

The business of law is a key issue where the objective is profit not justice. Justice is a noble principle and I believe it is the very basis of peace building in our society. If Justice is not done then trust in public institutions diminishes and the law becomes a tool of abuse.

Corruption

This raised the issue for me of corruption and it made me feel more concerned as the desire to be heard intensified, it is like a cry for help. I saw and felt human rights as a central issue as it came up overtime again and again. With perseverance I found the words to express what had happened that was concealed but loudly felt in my experience.  Unfortunately, human rights are hard to prove as abuse can be subtle and collusion covered over through collegial relationships and status.  If you have no witnesses or advocates you cannot find parity or justice to ensure those in positions of power uphold standards, accountability, legality, transparency and justice.  Their offices must be free of corruption as they may have many people under their control and if they do not respect people on a basic level they will do harm.

No Rights

The experience of not having rights leaves you in a position of utter powerlessness, or at least you perceive you are powerless as no matter what you do or say nothing happens, you cannot affect change.  It is not unlike trying to defend yourself against an attack you cannot clearly see as there is no evidence trail but you know what is happening is harmful.  You are confronting those who know the system and know how to remain unseen.  Bullying is normalised and it is a key tactic.  Bullying is a repeated negative behaviour, that is not a misunderstanding, but designed to intimidate and harm.  You will suffer deep trauma as it goes on so long and you cannot understand why you are treated with such disrespect and lack of care. It personally hurts as the suffering is ignored. You will honestly assert your case over and over believing you are not understood, you then try to find a solution, you will seek help, you try to be heard, and you then seek another pathway to resolution via mediation so that the other party can understand how their actions impacted. Yet over and over you find people who see you as unequal as this sentiment permeates many areas, you become a number and unless you tick the criteria you are moved on. You know instinctively that parity must happen if social stability and harmony is to occur.  If it doesn’t then toxic behaviour is rewarded and this becomes ‘how we do things around here’ as there is no rebalancing of the scales of justice.  You realise you are not heard and a sense of no exit from the problem, as the path leads to a desperate desire to suicide.  I have lay on the floor in the fetal position in agony desperately seeking the courage to finish.  I had no mental health issue, it was in response to non-resolution, silent abuse (silent treatment) and the knowledge that I had no rights.  It was extremely painful.  I wrote so many reports as I had to solve the problem to find my power, as I felt disrespected and I realised my deeply felt values of equality were being confronted.  It impacted me at a very deep level, it was more than cultural beliefs, it was a sense of my humanity being threatened.  When you announce your experience of desiring to suicide to those in positions of authority they remain silent sending a message indicating they don’t care at all about your life.  It weighs heavily on your heart as you realise you are not valued, respected and have no way of getting help.  It is like a silent scream. You cannot let it go as it feels fundamental, much of what you feel you can’t articulate for a long time.

Truth Matters

In my case, I persevered as a peacemaker as I had to know the truth as I felt the pursuit of power and control was the barrier to peace in our community.  I knew I had to find out and understand the nature of power. At times it is a desperately lonely road and isolating situation and you have to be very strong to survive it. Inner truth was a light in the darkness for me.  To be honest spiritually this light grew brighter the darker it became as I had nowhere to go but within to discover the real power was my sense of love, peace and forgiveness directed towards others.  My life felt threatened at a deep level and it awakened me to the importance of human rights.  Until you go through the revoking of rights you cannot empathise with how incredibly hard it is.

Systemic Structural Violence

Violations of human rights is a form of structural violence that can’t be proved as a violent action but the actual structures are based on inequality e.g. income (access), private education (privilege, status), gender superiority, career path history and prominent groups who are silently validated professionally and ideologically. The public are not aware of these contrived signals, traditional pathways and economic structures that filter the right people into positions of power who share an ethos or membership of recognised groups and ideologies.  Therefore, there is silent bias is in the system and this has consequences for those on low to middle level incomes who cannot afford prolonged court cases rendering justice out of their reach.  This is how resentment builds in the community, it has its basis in unfairness due to inequality.  

Freedom of Information is not free

Another area of inequity is the Freedom of Information (FOI) process that can be entered by the public to gain access to their own information held by the public sector (providing they are not privatised).  In this process it becomes evident that users pay costs is used to charge people to access their own information.  The barrier of costs means that people will not consent to long searches as they have to pay every 15 minutes in some cases or by the page and they can’t know the final cost or if they can afford it.  Moreover, when making the request they can’t know or identify the person who would know where their information is as they don’t have insider knowledge.  It is expected that they identify officers and dates. There are legal barriers to prevent access to information which is essential if the public need to check if information held is correct or to identify corruption, illegality or incompetence in information gathering, storage and accuracy.  When you go through these processes you can see how lawyers have set the bar high to block sensitive information, particularly in contentious cases which is necessary for a functional democratic society. When this becomes difficult you know that the balance of power has changed and you are not being served.

Conscience or Power?

What became evident after many years was the fact that no response or accountability meant that conscience did not evoke change, only power moves people of influence.  I believe there is a gender orientation, as women typically are emotionally tuned in and they will respond and empathise readily, with males it is harder, particularly if they are socialised to suppress emotions as a weakness and professionalism projects as control and unfeeling.  I will add that some women can be this way if they are a masculine female.  Some men can be feminine masculine which makes them more feeling. So it is not a hard and fast rule, to be fair. It became clear that abuse is about suppression of emotions, detachment and power behaviours not a simple misunderstanding. Within this context human rights abuses happen as people don’t feel naturally to rectify a situation or from a business perspective have a image or reputation to protect coupled with risk management strategies that protect the legal entity as the people are seen as a threat.  It is very sad this has happened. As innocent people can suffer for years with no resolution at all.

Dismantling of Democracy and Globalisation

We are witnessing the dismantling of democracy, an unequal playing field, globalisation where money talks and the business ideology permeating the public sector as if this is efficiency and the public sector is inefficient.  The reality in my opinion is that the public assets are viewed as cash cows and ownership (privatisation) of public assets ensures a sound revenue base given the secure flow of taxation dollars and if the public/private partnership arrangement is contracted in a Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) with large multinationals, they can sue governments if profits are impacted by cancelling a contract or some other form of disruption. The public have witnessed corruption and issues of corporate welfare where business is rewarded with profits whilst those in the most disadvantaged positions are treated with less rights, lower income and less access to desperately needed services.  It makes you contemplate landlords and surfs – the surfs who should be grateful for the crumbs that fall off the table! They experience diminishing conditions, rising costs, abuses of rights and growing powerlessness and victimisation.  The reality is that power as greed corrupts and corporate concentration (high profits) creates distortions in respect of democratic decision making as corporate donations curry influence or corporates enter politics to ensure favourable treatment or to ensure their industry profits from a restructured government sector. Thus the playing field is biased and increasingly causing harm to ‘We the People’ as those they serve are increasingly corporate interests justified as economic growth.

Silencing and Weakening of Dissent

There are growing concerns here in Australian in the silencing dissent, suppression of media freedom, changes to anti-discrimination legislation, strengthening of religious freedom (favouring one group over another) in a traditionally secular parliament, real income of welfare payments falling below the poverty line, privatisation of public services, increasing users pay for public goods (public sector assets) as ownership is gradually transferred through public/private partnership and the list goes on.  

Sovereignty vs Foreign Interference

The most concerning issue that I realised was the Smart Cities agenda. This complete transformation of the economy is not understood by the public as there is no plebiscite to discuss radical changes to our lives.  Although same sex had a plebiscite referendum which I believe some thought would fail.  There are issues of foreign interference raised by ASIO and others. On the one hand the US is seen to infiltrate through IT sector and contractors and on the other hand there are issues of Chinese influence here.  Others speak of Israel and on it goes.  Sovereignty is a key issue and clearly if powerful interests are paying their way into changing our lives, We the People have a right to know given the public is paying for government and it is supposed to act in the public’s interests, not special interests.  

Digital Transformation of Society without a Plebiscite Referendum

So if there are plans to disrupt the society with replacing human intelligence with artificial intelligence, or jobs with automation and digitisation of all public and private systems forcing people to use online for all their transactions, communications and activities, it sets up a scenario of a cyber reality replacing the physical reality and the implications for privacy are enormous and understated.  Do the public want their identity demanded every time they transact? Do they want online tracking? Do they want voice recordings? Do they want facial recognition? DNA prints? Their debit and credit cards to have tracing chips where everything can be traced, profiled and categorised.  Do they want iPhones that record everything we said generating algorithms directing paid advertisements to pop up acknowledging what is talked about breaching privacy with impunity?

Privacy and Metadata Gathering 

The issue of metadata gathering is a huge issue for the public.  It is often justified under the guise of national security, thus trading off rights for security asserting threats such as the war on terrorism.  We then find out from whistle blowers that criminal cartels are operating at the highest levels of power and have been collecting data for years without our consent and still doing it.  It is shocking as a citizen to find out about illegal black operations as disruptions and high level funding of crime e.g. Deep State and Shadow Government as referenced by ex CIA high level whistle blower Kevin Shipp.  His videos explain the depth of this issue.

https://www.fortheloveoffreedom.net/

Citizens Feel Overwhelmed and Powerless

As a citizen this leaves you feeling that this is out of control.  You feel completely powerless to do anything as politicians are not jumping up and down in outrage, then you wonder who you can trust?  People appear positioned in sensitive portfolios to protect others and you think you are reporting to an authority to discover nothing is done, it raises real questions and fears about who is protecting the public interest as disclosures are protected and criminalised by legislation.  How do we get the right to know what is happening in our government?

When corruption exists as a citizen, if you have bravely spoken up as I have, you don’t feel safe as you are not protected at all.  You find out you phone is monitored by foreign intelligence agencies as I am a peacemaker. You realise that peace people are seen as a threat.  The FBI are documented as having infiltrated peace groups which reveals a pro war stance. I was not anti-war in my work but more interested in developing inner peace and universal values refer www.worldpeacefull.com  I have been astounded how I’ve been deemed a Person of Interest because I want a peaceful loving world.  On radio I recorded whistle blowers and met a few and had no clue that this was deemed threatening, I was innocent in actual fact but just following a thread which lead me down a very long road to where I am now typing away here.

When a person is targeted, and in the knowledge of having dealt with lawyers, that your image can be manipulated, you can be set up, evidence falsified, you can be criminalised and your reputation called into question if you dare to challenge those in power.  I realised that the left/right paradigm was really not true, it was more about challenging power and the need for power and status.  I assumed I was equal.

I know I was vilified and categorised as left wing when I wasn’t left wing or part of culture wars. I found out more about these conflicts later as the real war in my view is about unfettered access to furthering commercial interests without inhibiters.  The underlying issue is addiction to a way of life and the great fear of losing power. Those feeling threatened don’t sit down and question their fear, they will demonise and seek ways to silence rather than hear the critique which in truth is for their highest good. That sentiment is the same in reverse, a genuine critique of me is in my highest good. The fact no-one talks means we don’t know each other, just words on a cyber page and silently categorised without real contact and knowing of what the problem is and how to solve it.  That is what a mature society would do. In our society we still fight wars without conscious understanding that ultimately these fights undermine the orchestrator of it and is a lose/lose for all.  We are connected as humans and what we do to others returns. This is a universal law. That is why empires fall as Gandhi wisely observed.

When you go through these injustices it leaves you stunned and I would say the façade of democracy crashes down as you look for solid ground.  Values for me is the solid ground, corruption is like shifting sand, you never know where you stand and you don’t know who to trust, even those I believed in fell from grace. I understand why people go into denial as they can’t handle the truth of what they thought was solid to be not real at all. 

You realise in the system you have no power or ability to protect yourself from those who do not respect human rights and prefer to take all rights away.  We’ve seen the US and Israel leave the United Nations Human Rights Council. This is extremely concerning and yet there is no real response to it. 

From a public point of view, it is very frightening where we are going and we have to stop and think deeply about this direction as it will impact the children’s future. For myself I see a Brave New World, rising fascism, white supremacists, secrecy, paedophilia, secret societies, monitoring the public, targeting people, secret police forming, misinformation circulating in layers, growing inequality (weakening rights and access), deception (off balance sheet or private status), selling off public assets which renders the public having no rights yet still paying taxation for services they have to then pay for again (users pay) when it should be free. 

Public/Private Organisations and Partnership

The Government Organisational Register reveals how many government departments, government organisations and contractors are engaged in government activity. 

Refer https://www.directory.gov.au/reports/australian-government-organisations-register

See listing of the categories.  The most interesting graphics were found at this link: 

https://www.directory.gov.au/sites/default/files/agor_summary_of_key_statistics_2019-12-31.pdf  

Footnote from Summary of Key Statistics: 

  • Principal bodies (Blue)-bodies connected with government policies, purposes or services which are prescribed under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 and the related rules. 
  • Secondary bodies (Green)- committees, councils, boards, statutory office holders, consultative bodies and working groups linked to the Australian Government. 
  • Other bodies (orange) – Subsidiaries of corporate Commonwealth entities and Commonwealth companies; Joint ventures, partnerships and other companies; National Law bodies; and, Bodies linked to the Australian Government through statutory contracts, agreements and delegations.

The pie chart and bar chart indicated only 15% (Primary, blue) of departments are accountable under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. 

The secondary, other (green, orange) colours appear not to be accountable under the Act.  For me the issue is government oversight and public rights (through ownership).  I felt concerned at this private/public arrangements and what that means for human rights and citizens rights.

Note the ‘other bodies’ (orange) reveal higher proportions in the Departments of – Finance, infrastructure, Transport, Cities and Regional Development (Smart Cities is in this portfolio) and Prime Minister and Cabinet. Does this mean other influencers who are not the public?

I am concerned there are complex multifaceted agendas going on that are not validated by the public interest test.   Given my experience I do not feel the public are safe if they speak up and this challenges power, hence the increasing feeling of repression and laws changing.  I do not believe I am safe when all I want is a peaceful world but I have challenged power in order to speak the truth but not with a negative intention but more an investigative challenge as I felt something was wrong and I felt duty bound to say something as people are often too scared.  I don’t have children or a partner so I have nothing to lose.  I don’t even have assets. 

Good Governance Supports Freedom

I can’t live in a world where I am not free to determine my own life, to live my own dreams and to express who I am without fear or reprisal.  I don’t want to live in fear but in hope and inspiration.  I can’t live in a world that does not respect the people or pathologically cooperates in order to change systems to benefit the few allowing many to be harmed.  I have real concerns about capitalism without government oversight.  I am in support of good government. I do not want the government to fail

I want to live in a world where everyone lives to their highest potential, where they express their voices, talents and build together a culture of peace where we learn to live in harmony with other cultures, ideologies, religions and utilise differences to creatively expand our civilisation together.  I believe there is greatness in the public that is suppressed due to the way we have structured via economics and power. I want to live in a community where we feel happiness and productivity is measures by wellbeing, caring and Gross National Happiness rather than infinite economic growth that only denudes resources and encourages market concentration of power favouring one group over another and excessive exploitation not only of people but the planet.  I want to live in a world where we can use our creativity to envisage a better world to ensure our environment is protected, our wildlife do not become extinct, the oceans are not fished out, that the earth systems are not polluted, damaged or radiated causing cancer.  I want to live in a world where the public around the world have a say over their lives and to have a genuine vote in a system that serves people without the need to control or rig the outcomes.

Despair at the Loss of Equality and the Indifference to Violence

I have cried at the loss of egalitarianism (equality) in my country which is what we are famous for. I have cried at the Royal Commissions into abuse of children, the elderly, disabled, mental health causing harm to those vulnerable.  I have cried at the incarceration of people in private jails who are innocent, forced to work or abused inside and outside are always labelled as ex criminals (no reform or forgiveness).  I have cried for innocent refugees incarcerated in the offshore detention centres desperately uncertain about their futures, left to waste for years in detention, suffering psychological abuse, separated from families and desperate to the point of suicide, some sewing up their lips and their lives oversighted by private companies with military connections.  I marvelled at the billions spent on these centres when they could have roamed freely around society until their applications were processed.  

Actions Taken in Our Name Harming Disadvantaged Persons

As a citizen I am dismayed at what is happening in our name and my own treatment as a citizen who has so much to offer my society yet when perceived as unemployed or homeless I experienced discrimination on the basis of the protestant work ethic and business paradigms. I was even told that I was economically unviable because I was serving society and not placing a money value on my vocation.  I am different I am not motivated by money, what moves me is love and this sense of duty of care.  I sit here aching in my arms and legs having sat for 4 hours straight. I feel passionate as the desire to communicate is so strong. It comes from the deepest part of who I am, it comes with innocence as truth from my perspective must be spoken as my right to freedom of speech is essential for my wellbeing. I desire to contribute to democracy and the right to be human (human rights).

The Duty of Citizenship

I felt a strong sense of citizenship as a duty to speak up as I am a peacemaker.  I dreamed I was teaching peace not as a political statement but as a state of being. I have concerns for the public wellbeing, health and safety.  

Other health issues such as electromagnetic frequency (EMF) radiation emitted by iPhones, computers, electronic devices, smart meters (electro smog) as Wi-Fi is powering the Internet of Things (IoT).   EMF and 5G are reported by a growing number of experts in the media as detrimental to the health and safety of citizens and that inappropriate and inadequate testing has occurred given industry influence in government and this determined push to roll out this IT SMART technological future.  It is evident that private studies skew information as Al Gore demonstrated with environmental studies, the same applies with EMF. 

Lobbyists and revolving doors

The issue of lobbyists is a big issue as they have the resources, expertise and strategies to impact policy, influence politicians and divert public resources to specific industry interests rather than to benefit the public.  Profit is the big issue here as they are utilising this mechanism as a strategic marketing approach to garner influence and market share.  Australia has a Registry for Lobbyist and you can gain an idea of who is influencing decision makers.  It should be noted that influence can be done without money and can be in-kind and hidden in creative ways. However, this link gives an idea of registered lobbyists seeking the best outcome for their industries.  https://lobbyists.ag.gov.au/register 

In addition, lobbyists can go one step further and enter Parliament to advocate for industry interests not the public. This has been clearly evidenced in the United States where each politician has an industry or foreign power influencing their decisions. The Federal Communications Commission head Tom Wheeler who formerly worked as a venture capitalist and lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry. Many speak about the revolving door into industry back into government on a wheel. Wheeler was critiqued for not providing stringent testing for 5G but rather focusing on industry profits which appears the weakness, as government becomes a business not a representative of the public. The public can’t match this type of power or influence as people are individuals not operating as a group, many have been made to feel they have no power or say and then they turn off in resignation. This is where the people lose power.  I felt the same but I persevered and used my experience to learn about power and look for empowerment and insight as the people do have power when they come together. 

Smart Cities Technology and Potential Weaponisaion concerns

Weapons experts and ex intelligence officers become whistle-blowers and reveal the intelligence community is being privatised (and weaponised as contractors for private business) and this creates greater risks in respect of public oversight and civilian safety (if deemed the enemy). 

The Smart Cities technologies are sold as labour saving, predictive, automating households.  The NBN networks are sold to provide better downloads yet no information is lost as ex PM Malcolm Turnbull famously said. You research and learn of Smart Meters with sim cards sending data to overseas private companies who gather and compile data determining movement in the house, technologies used, mapping household activities, behaviours etc. without any input from the public.  Then you hear military experts like Mark Steele (ex Naval weapons expert) saying that public infrastructure of lighting can be weaponised through LED lights as energy directed weapons. You discover lights can be used to track and triangulate iPhone locations, gathering personal data, profiling and identifying people as mentioned by the US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.  

As a citizen I actually feel very uncomfortable when I see cameras in lights.  I have been to Russia and this appears worse to me than any politburo.  I have been facially recognised, after I attended a Senate hearing into AFP and Press Freedom.  I gave a poem ‘We the People’ to Senator Kristina Keneally who I recall indicating there will never be a Charter of Rights.  I saw a parliamentary secretary look at me, and tap into a computer. The next day or so I was walking across a plaza, only person there, a bright light came on and a camera, I saw police insignia.  My mother was driving her car at night, which I drove to Parliament, she was pulled over by police a few days later.  Ironically I was walking and saw the flashing lights in the distance, I didn’t know she was being pulled over and breath tested.  We both believe the police thought it was me. It makes you wonder about random drug tests, the collection of everyone’s mobile numbers, IDs, DNA and the intensive monitoring of the public when the issue of violence has not increased other than overseas activities which today are being questioned.  So I don’t feel confident these technologies will protect me, I am more concerned about being harmed by those who do not value the freedoms and values I deeply internalise and defines democracy as my culture.

Foreign Interference Impacting Rights

The issue of government allowing of unregulated foreign IT high tech and telecommunications companies to breach privacy and using data as the new gold standard as billions and trillions can be made by advertisers and associated industries accessing private information for commercial use and resale as a market. 

Again, the targeting of those who disagree or dissent with what is happening can be quietly designated as a form of ‘enemy’ is of great concern in democratic societies. It is not the same as breaking a law and legal action, this type of targeting is of an intelligence nature and removes problems illegally.  That is the concern.

The public in democratic societies are not aware of what oppression is about. They still believe they have the right to speak up, they do not know that the democratic principles are changing to a technocracy where rights will be based on access (consent). No access will occur if you don’t agree with terms and conditions, so you lose the right to say ‘no’ and it impacts your quality of life.  The company protects their legal rights. Thus sections of the community could become increasingly unsafe as those monitoring do not hold the same democratic beliefs or basic respect of human rights and equality.  This is the core issue.

So what can we do?
How can we be protected if we don’t agree with this
Brave New World?

Homeless have No Rights

I became homeless because I didn’t agree with the job provider system and I refused to give consent (sign a contract) with private organisations that were not delivering jobs or real options and pathways.  I was cut off income support (revoked access) as I couldn’t comply with corruption and my democratic right to say ‘no’ to what I believe is not in my interests or harmful to me. I realised private companies were profiting from disadvantage and rorting the system given ABC 7.30 Report disclosures. 

When I became homeless I didn’t know that if I was not on Centrelink for 26 consecutive weeks I lost my right to access homeless services.  I lost my right to access superannuation even though I am in severe hardship.  I contacted politicians and today believe that I was vilification given my rights were not upheld under the Australian Constitution which had far reaching implications.  I had no shelter and no income.  I couldn’t get a basic income or emergency payment as I was outside of the system.  I contacted politicians received confusing letters transferring responsibility to others, others signing letters, referrals and no outcome at all or no response.  The latter was concerning as I recall politicians always responded. Today they don’t and I wondered if it was because I was not deemed important or an industry representative– so status as access.

I contacted the homeless sector, spoke up at conferences, but not one approached me to offer help or advice.  I was not informed that I would not be able to access the sector without Centrelink which meant I kept bumping up against more walls.  If I hadn’t already been through this silent treatment it happened again. There was no compassion.  No pathway. No help as again my life had no value whatsoever.  People just did their job and went home to their warm bed.  The same issue I confronted with Centrelink and the privatised job provider system was evident again in the homelessness sector.  Privatised companies making money out of those in desperate need of help.  The homeless I spoke to and interviewed for radio told me that the rooming houses were charging $250 per week (same amount as Newstart allowance, welfare) so no money for food or anything over and above. Another was begging made $7 in 7 hours.  Another was having a liver transplant and had been discharged from hospital in the awareness of homeless status. I’ve been told by a nurse that psychiatric or mental health cases are discharged onto the streets.  Very concerning.  Another complaint was private belongings stolen in homeless accommodation and no respect by those running the accommodation. Another spoke of police brutality towards a homeless woman. Another spoke of rape and sexual issues another mentioned paedophilia.  A young woman’s mother died and she was rendered homeless.  A young man couldn’t get work became homeless and had a drone monitor him he stated. He had been to jail as a man was rude to him and he had a fight. He was giving up on the system, it was very sad.  I met a lovely older man who was sick and couldn’t afford food. Another was on drugs as his son had died and he needed to cope.  So many stories, tragedies, no support, stigmatisation and the list goes on.  Until you walk in the shoes of a person experiencing homelessness, you cannot know the reality and the human rights abuses.  To not give a person shelter when clearly there is plenty of money is contempt for those in hardship as they are not economically viable. We witnessed billions coming from somewhere for those rendered homeless in the fires (although some reports say the money wasn’t distributed), in the coronavirus situation billions are being made available. So it sends the signal that homelessness could have ended for 116,000 people but the decision was not made based on the value of housing a homeless person compared to a project that brings in economic dividends. Profit over people is the old adage.  Materialism over humanity. We can probably find many dichotomies to highlight the problem.

An Australian Bill of Rights

An Australian Bill of Rights is essential as vulnerable people cannot stand up for themselves, they don’t have the education, the money or the status to be treated as equals and with dignity.  Many don’t vote as they know there is no advocacy for them even though they are citizens.  Some call them useless eaters as they are not valued in a technocratic world where access is about income.  The cashless card issue means that people can’t beg for money or purchase without being traced to retain privacy, so they are not, in my view, stalked.  I regard surveillance without any violence issue or threat as a form of stalking.  I’ve been through the most difficult situations were my wellbeing was ignored and when I had cancer and suicidal no-one cared at all.  I came to experience a mindsets that were detached and disconnected.  There was no empathy and it raised alarm in myself as I saw those with this type of disposition as dangerous.  I felt it as a duty to not remain quiet, but when I did speak up I put myself in harm’s way as those in powerful positions want me to be silent. So for people like myself An Australian Bill of Rights could have removed all the pain and suffering I went through as it set the high bar of an Australian standard enforced by just laws.  Over a decade of seeking a fair resolution to never even receive an apology.  The refusal to hold people to account means a Bill of Rights would have the power to ensure the public are not used and abused.  To see that this bill was dumped tells me the reality I face in respect of my human rights being protected.  What does the International Civil and Political Covenants mean if basic rights are not valued?  What about the Economic Cultural and Social rights Covenant? What about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? The Equal Opportunity Act or the Australian Human Rights Commission? 

Do we just abandon what every soldier fought for, what we have all worked for and identified with?  Do we just go with the money and leave human rights and ethics at the door.  Who do we want to become? Do your values and actions matter?  Absolutely they do. 

My hope is that MP Andrew Wilkie, the former Office of National Assessment Intelligence officer turned whistle blower re-submits this Australian Bill of Rights and I would ask him to NEVER GIVE UP.  As those of us homeless without income and left utterly without any real redress or power they need to have protections in a world increasingly disconnecting through technology, rewiring the neural networks in the brain (STEM, computers), losing empathy, losing community and a sense of responsibility (even to protect) for each other, increasingly self-interested, rewarding greed not kindness and moving towards this Brave New World that desires full spectrum dominance.

I believe I experienced this Brave New World ahead of others.  I did communicate it in another report to government and clearly that was not received in a democratic mode of respect or at the very minimum, problem solving. It is not a world I have voted for and I will not be living in this world. My world will be one of peace, love, kindness, respect and unity.  My world will encourage every person to live to their highest expression, to live out a life based on what they feel called (or inspired) to do and where we see ourselves in each other and know what we do to another returns to the self.  That life has a natural justice and as we harm others we harm ourselves.  This world is about higher truths, higher values and integrity where we no longer need a Bill of Rights but automatically we accord rights as we value everyone equally.  That is how I live today.

MP Andrew Wilkie is an extraordinary politician.  He introduced an Australian Bill of Rights into the Australian Parliament in 16 September 2019.  This bill accords a clear Bill of Rights to all Australians.  It will assist in ensuring we treat each other with respect and equality and retain our democracy. 

Sadly this bill is one of 16 bills NOT PASSED.

In this blog I have shared from my heart all the reasons why a legally enshrined Australian Bill of Rights is critical for public safety.  It will save lives and stop abuses.  That is my deepest wish. I send this wish out like a ‘forget me not’, I blow my words like seeds and pray that they take root in the heart of another soul who shares my deepest wish, then they blow their words as wishes and another plants a seed.  In the end we have a garden, a forest and a renewable earth.  Join with me in wishing this into reality.

Thank you for reading.  I am grateful.  May it serve others.

NOTE:

My websites and blogs have emerged from my questions and visions for a better world as I seek to explore the barriers to peace in our world. May our happy destiny be unavoidable.

www.worldpeacefull.com
http://ha.worldpeacefull.com
https://biz.worldpeacefull.com

http://wpas.worldpeacefull.com
https://pftw.worldpeacefull.com
http://blog.worldpeacefull.com
http://aus.worldpeacefull.com
http://happy.worldpeacefull.com

US Alliances and Imperialism is a Sub-Zero Sum Game

 Below the following quoted extracts is an excellent article which provides insights into the nature of global alliances with a focus on the United States policy which are leading our world to possibly another World War, I felt inspiration around this today.  It feels like a long journey researching but ultimately it lead me to contemplate global war and the deaths of innocent civilians who are the ones who pay the price for military misadventure in what I view as a sub-zero sum game (no-one wins, diminishes real wealth) in the name of peace when peace was never the true intent.

I contemplate the Opportunity Cost of  military/ imperialist/ capitalist strategies and where the money could have gone had it not been funnelled into fighting wars for domination but rather than learning of peace (balance) to ensure homeostasis, equilibrium and harmony.  I use ecological words as this is the real foundation of peace and abundance.  Yet in our primitive states of mind our world has believed that control and dominance is security, when it was always the opposite.  

I deeply contemplate the extraordinary loss of innocent life, the suffering of their families and the real insecurity that has been created by warfare touted as protection. The people’s of the world in actual fact are the ones that always suffer at the hands of those who believe they are either born to rule or somehow appointed by God (god given right) to rule over others, when they are not.  What if our purpose here on earth is to find true happiness and share our wealth as there is no enemy only infinite possibility.  That was the true essence of family.

Here is a important quote highlighting disproportionate wealth. It is a scenario repeating itself today as we don’t learn from history (his story).  What I find interesting is that those who believe this thinking would be the first to evoke the need for a International Court of Justice if their family’s human rights were violated. Such is the hypocracy and nature of objectivization and detached strategic thinking that ignores humanity and the true purpose to maintain peace and security. And points to why the Middle East is a disaster for the people’s of that region and the world. 

George Kennan, head of the US State Department planning staff until 1950, and his comments on US relations with Far East stated:

we have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population….In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity….To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives….We should cease to talk about vague and…unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

George Kennan, U.S. State Department Policy Planning, Study #23, February 24, 1948

A quote that speaks to the real purpose of resource use. This is what I envisage will happen in the future…

Virtually the entire colonial world was breaking free and their resources would be turned to the care of their own people and no longer could be siphoned to the old imperial centers of capital for a fraction of its value.

Another interesting quote about how to control:

Many monarchs were not even local. They were the ones that could be allied to the imperial rulers and counted on to control local populations. As Britain had learned for decades, and so sharply remembered by people of India, large populations could be controlled by relatively tiny administrations by divide and conquer tactics keeping or creating antagonism between local groups, keeping borders small …

And another revealing the power brokers disrupting countries:

Once small weak countries are established, it is very difficult to persuade their rulers to give up power and form those many dependent states into one economically viable nation. Conversely, it is easy for outside power brokers to support an exploitative faction to maintain or regain power. None of this can ever be openly admitted to or the neo-mercantilist world would fall apart. The fiction of sovereign governments, equal rights, fair trade, etc., must continue. To be candid is to invite immediate widespread rebellion and loss of control.

And a military quote by S. Brian Willson, a U.S. Vietnam War veteran, now a peace activist highlighting the real destabilising issue of poverty (not terrorism) and how military’s are used for business and financiers objectives:

The most highly decorated Marine Corps General in U.S. history, Smedley D. Butler understood all too well the real nature of the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. foreign policy in general when he concluded after his retirement in 1931 that during his 33 years as a Marine officer operating on three continents, he served as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers…a gangster for capitalism [Smedley D. Butler, America’s Armed Forces, Part 2, Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (Nov. 1935)]. But it seems that that understanding is easily forgotten. General A.M. Gray, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, in 1990 identified threats to the United States as originating from the underdeveloped world’s growing dissatisfaction over the gap between rich and poor nations, creating a fertile breeding ground for insurgencies which have the potential to jeopardize regional stability and our access to vital economic and military resources (Marine Corps Gazette, May 1990). Gray understands the structural social and economic problems, but it apparently does not occur to him that the solution might be to directly address the injustices rather than perpetuate them with the use of military force.
S. Brian Willson, Who are the REAL terrorists?, Institute for Policy Research and Development, 1999


The quote below is the Hebrew meaning of peace, imagine if everyone lived it, we would realise peace.  Perhaps the Jews and Muslims who say ‘shalom’ and mean it as peace can show us The Way home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism_and_peace

The Hebrew word for peace is shalom which is derived from one of the names of God. Hebrew root word for “complete” or “whole” implying that according to Judaism and the teachings of the Torah, only when there is a true state of “wholeness” meaning that everything is “complete” does true “peace” reign.

A last quote on terrorism and real security by Associate Professor Stephen Zunes:

To win the war against terrorism, we need to reevaluate our definition of security. The more the U.S. militarizes the Middle East, the less secure we have become. All the sophisticated weaponry, all the brave fighting men and women, and all the talented military leadership we may possess will not stop terrorism as long as our policies cause millions of people hate us.

President George W. Bush is wrong when he claims we are targeted because we are a beacon for freedom. We are targeted because the support of freedom is not part of our policy in the Middle East, which has instead been based upon alliances with repressive governments and support for military occupation. We would be much safer if the U.S. supported a policy based more on human rights, international law, and sustainable development — and less on arms transfers, air strikes, and punitive sanctions.

Stephen Zunes, Bombing Will Not Make U.S. More Secure, Foreign Policy in Focus, October 8, 2001.

The article below is about the control of resources and US supporting dictators and the rise of terrorism from a range of perspectives. How long is Pinocchio’s nose, such is a lie when told often enough, it keeps growing. What I have learned is that often those who are deceptive (within nation states not nations per se) promote they are doing the opposite. They support human rights, they support charities, care for children, the disabled, invest in sustainability, rebuild, or call out corruption but what I am realising is this is how people hide behind carefully crafted lies, promote themselves as ‘doing good’ whilst undermining others through labels that sticks and repeated enough to become history. The public are not informed so they believe them. Keeping the public ignorant is a strategy. It is how bullying and propaganda works in a world that has lost its way unable to see the whole. Democracy and freedom are words that have been used to justify violence and harm, yet violence is the very opposite of democracy and freedom. Yet no-one says anything blindly believing what they are told as they are trained to obey rather than critically think and ask ‘is it true?’.

My research is to answer the question – what is true? I have a right to know what has happened to my world and how this impacts my life as both are intricately linked. I care about the future of children. Do you? If so, you must educate yourself. Find sources that are credible. This one appears well written and credible to me, I am aware of Noam Chomsky who has studied US policy for 50 years or so. Refer his background. He is American from a Jewish background and a peacemaker living wholeness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky

http://www.globalissues.org/article/260/control-of-resources-supporting-dictators-rise-of-terrorism

Control of Resources; Supporting Dictators, Rise of Terrorism

Author and Page information

  • by Anup Shah
  • This Page Last Updated Monday, December 30, 2002

On this page:

  1. The historic struggle for control of resources
  2. The Middle East at the center for struggle over control of resources
  3. A divided people; The West’s support for dictators and monarchies over democracies
  4. Globalization
  5. Political leaders are in between a rock and a hard place; the struggle for people’s support

The historic struggle for control of resources

As we saw in the previous section, for centuries, due to the power politics and struggle over the control of resources in the Middle East, various powers have supported numerous controversial regimes. The United States, Britain, France, and others supported dictatorships and monarchies, even overthrowing democracies.

To the populations back home the reason often given for this was for freedom, stability, containing the Soviet Union and so on. For the people of the region that had their popular leaders overthrown and replaced with corrupt rulers, this was surely not freedom. Communism was an often used reason around the world, not just the Middle East, even if it was not the case. As Noam Chomsky details, it was often a convenient excuse, but the underlying threat was often that nations might be able to use their own resources and be an example for others to follow.

Furthermore, what was going on around the world at the time of the end of the Second World War and the geopolitical changes that resulted are critical to understanding the policies and events in the Middle East. To summarize (notes for sources are below):

  • With Europe weakened, the majority of the world, which was then under imperial and colonial rule, saw their chance to break free.
  • Nationalist, revolutionary, and independence movements (some violent, some peaceful) all started to take hold and Europe had little ability to maintain control.
  • The sole remaining power that was really intact after the Second World War was the United States.
  • Allied with Europe, the U.S. helped them rebuild with a massive injection of capital. The U.S. was also an imperial power for the past few decades, as pointed out by numerous writers such as Mark Twain, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, J.W. Smith, Walden Bello and many others. The U.S. was now the de facto leader of the West.
  • The Soviet Union, on the other hand, having faced the brunt of Hitler’s forces, (some 80 percent of his armies), like Europe, had lost a considerable amount and had been decimated; there was between 7 to 27 million dead, much industry and infrastructure had been destroyed, much agriculture and livestock had been destroyed, and so on. Like most of the world breaking free, it did not have much economic assistance to rebuild, but was still able to recover quickly to partake in a terrible Cold War (see J.W. Smith quoted below, for more on this).
  • Due to its rapid development and power, the Soviet Union additionally threatened to be an example for the other newly free nations that rapid independent development was possible. But this also meant a massive diversion of the traditional resources that had been flowing out of the global South, to those imperial centers of capital.
  • To the West, then, the Soviet Union, from the start (decades earlier) was seen as evil while to the third world, it was perhaps seen as an example that independent development was possible. It may not have necessarily been seen as a direct model to follow (as its economic policies were flawed, even without the diversion of the Cold War, as well as the horrors and massacres resulting from the paranoia of Stalin, etc), but it was the idea that a nation could develop somewhat successfully, quickly, and without much assistance, that was a real threat to the West’s historic source of resources. Indeed, the Non-aligned Movement was as such yet another alternative, for example.
  • The countryside was reclaiming its resources.

The centuries-old view of the South, from the perspective of the West, was now changing. As Chomsky describes, almost with cruel humor, the South was viewed as a service provider, and if possible that was what had to be maintained, in order to preserve the wealth and balance of power:

The South is assigned a service role: to provide resources, cheap labor, markets, opportunities for investment and, lately, export of pollution. For the past half-century, the US has shouldered the responsibility for protecting the interests of the satisfied nations whose power places them above the rest, the rich men dwelling at peace within their habitations to whom the government of the world must be entrusted, as Winston Churchill put the matter after World War II.

Noam Chomsky, Year 501, (South End Press, 1993), Chapter 2

As J.W. Smith points out, with the weakening of the former Imperial European powers from World War II, Virtually the entire colonial world was breaking free and their resources would be turned to the care of their own people and no longer could be siphoned to the old imperial centers of capital for a fraction of its value.

The result of this is further described just by the chapter title itself from J.W. Smith: The World Breaking Free Frightened The Security Councils of Every Western Nation, Economic Democracy; The Political Struggle of the Twenty-First Century (1st Books, 2002, Second Edition), Chapter 7. (The previous link is a link to the reposting of that chapter. The entire book can be read on line as well.)

This control of resources being the main concern was recognized by the U.S. policy planners and was a major aspect of foreign policy strategy after World War II. Consider for example, George Kennan, head of the US State Department planning staff until 1950, and his comments on US relations with Far East:

we have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population….In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity….To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives….We should cease to talk about vague and…unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

… We should recognize that our influence in the Far Eastern area in the coming period is going to be primarily military and economic. We should make a careful study to see what parts of the Pacific and Far Eastern world are absolutely vital to our security, and we should concentrate our policy on seeing to it that those areas remain in hands which we can control or rely on.

George Kennan, U.S. State Department Policy Planning, Study #23, February 24, 1948. (See also Foreign Relations of the United States 1948, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1976 for the full text where this was first published; The text to the part on realisim of US relations in the Far East; David McGowan, Derailing Democracy, (Common Courage Press, 2000), p.169; Noam Chomsky, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, (Odian Press, 1993), Chapter 2.

The Cold War, then, as well as being a struggle against Communism, also provided an appropriate pretext for actions by the West around the world (led by the United States) that could be attributed to the claims of Soviet involvement, even if there wasn’t any. Chomsky is worth quoting again:

[Mainstream comments about] the overthrow of the parliamentary Mossadegh regime in Iran, observed that Underdeveloped countries with rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid by one of their number which goes berserk with fanatical nationalism. The service areas must be protected from Bolshevism or Communism, technical terms that refer to social transformation in ways that reduce their willingness and ability to complement the industrial economies of the West, in the words of an important scholarly study of the 1950s. Most important, the historical record conforms very well to this commonly articulated understanding of the role of the South.

Radical and nationalistic regimes are intolerable in themselves, even more so if they appear to be succeeding in terms that might be meaningful to oppressed and suffering people. In that case they become a virus that might infect others, a rotten apple that might spoil the barrel. For the public, they are dominoes that will topple others by aggression and conquest; internally, the absurdity of this picture is often (not always) conceded, and the threat is recognized to be what Oxfam once called the threat of a good example, referring to Nicaragua.

Noam Chomsky, Year 501, (South End Press, 1993), Chapter 2

Many nations that were subsequently destabilized by the Americans, British and others were claimed to be due to this Soviet threat, but in many cases (not all), there was no Soviet involvement. In many cases, these were just nations that had gained their freedom trying to develop. In fact, many did not want to follow the Soviet example of centralized planning. (And, as J.W. Smith details in the above-mentioned book and further on in that above-cited chapter, the Soviets themselves realized that their economic system needed changes a few decades later.)

As Smith, Chomsky and others detail, some turned to the U.S. for guidance, given the very good Constitution and other principles. The U.S. helped in some cases, not in others. For some, then, where help was not available, they either turned to the Soviets (the other superpower which had resources to help), or to themselves.

Independent development threatened the loss of power, influence and cheap raw materials for the powerful nations. The Vietnam experience suggested that an empire of the type that Britain once had was not likely to be politically feasible. So instead, a new strategy was needed. As Stephen Zunes describes, the Nixon Doctrine (also known as the Guam Doctrine or “surrogate strategy”) came into being, wherein Vietnamization [reliance on South Vietnamese conscripts and a dramatically increased air war that minimized American casualties] evolved into a global policy of arming and training third world allies to become regional gendarmes for American interests. Many rulers in the third world have been supported into power as a result.(* See below for some sources detailing this perspective and history)

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The Middle East at the center for struggle over control of resources

The Middle East, then, has been quite important, geopolitically, due to the resources, and oil in particular.

  • Because this has formed a backbone to the wealth of many nations today, maintaining control of those resources has been paramount. Hence, presence in the Middle East is for stability of oil flows:

    Saudi Arabia remains the cornerstone, producing 50 percent of the whole world’s [oil] supply. So in order to keep this economic balm flowing, to keep the status quo static and the balance sheets of the major oil companies brimming, we’ve [the U.S.] installed our military as a kind of mega police force in the region. Our official reason for being there is to ensure stability, one of the great buzzwords in the history of business, but this is nothing more than spin — the military is in the Middle East to guarantee that whatever comes out of the ground is exploitable and controlled by American multinationals.

    Johnny Angel, It’s the Oil, Stupid, LA Weekly, September 26, 2001
  • Any chance that those resources would be used in different ways is naturally a threat to those who currently benefit.
  • Furthermore, was there a chance that the Soviet Union could get influence in the Middle East, resources would have been further been taken away from the influence and control of the West, as Smith highlights:

    The old Soviet empire had a long border with the Middle East. The desperation of the West to maintain control stems from the potential for those two regions to join. If that had happened, the Middle East would have had the weapons to protect their resources. The resources of the Soviet Union and the Middle East together would have been comparable to those of the West, and, by virtue of most of the world’s reserves of oil being within the borders of those two empires, and thus the potential for high oil prices, a good part of the West’s wealth could have been claimed by the East. Hence the West’s large military expenditures to maintain control in that volatile region.

    J.W. Smith, World’s Wasted Wealth II, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), pp. 294 – 295. It is also reposted on this web site as part of the previous section.
  • As a standard policy of state, nations have to keep an eye on such things.
  • In the geopolitically and ideologically charged chess games, such threats, if possible, must be contained.

The stronger, more powerful nations are obviously better equipped with more political, economic and military means. Therefore, they can be more effective in getting and ensuring their way. This makes sense from a power politics perspective. One of the main responsibilities (if not the main one) for heads of states is to ensure their nations interests are met. Diplomacy and so forth are directed by such interests.

Hence, as mentioned above, those frightened security councils were frightened at the prospect of losing more control. To them, their freedom was at stake. Yet, not mentioned to the populations back home was that this freedom was based on centuries of war and conquest and in the Middle East this was all about control of resources and geopolitical power. Hence, the freedom of some was based on non-freedom of others. (See also this web site’s section on behind consumption which provides more statistics and details of economic policies that lead to this skewed use of resources around the globe.)

The United States and Western Europe were therefore prepared to protect one of the sources of their wealth and power. They was prepared to go to many lengths to do so. For example,

  • Massive amounts of capital injection direct, and indirect, via Japan and international institutions, helped in developing and extending freedoms to various other East Asian nations. This would serve to contain threats such as Soviet expansion. Wars were fought, or dictators supported, if needed. (See Smith, Chomsky, Gowan, Bello, etc. mentioned below in the sources for more details.)
  • Throughout Latin America and Africa, various democracies were overthrown and dictators supported, or malleable pseudo democracies were supported. (See the Noam Chomsky Archive, also mentioned below, for far more details, including detailed research on destabilization of various Latin American democracies that did not have Soviet influence that was claimed. See also this site’s section on conflicts in Africa, and on the arms trade.)
  • In the Middle East, control of natural resources has been centuries-old politics. It had not changed, although the players may have, slightly.

Indian author and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy, describes in the British newspaper, The Guardian, the result of American sponsored actions: millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel — backed by the US — invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list. (Arundhati Roy, The algebra of infinite justice, The Guardian, September 29, 2001)

With almost all the above, as researched heavily by Chomsky, Smith and others, these were nations where there was a possibly successful independent development; independent from Western influence and, in many cases, independent from Soviet influence. However, the Soviet/communist excuse was used as a pretext for these interventions. Various well-known criminals and human rights abusers were trained by the United States, for example. The School of the Americas is a well known example of this, as also mentioned on this web site (see the previous link). The United States therefore participated directly, or indirectly, in many wars and conflicts. In the Middle East, it was no different. William Blum, investigative journalist, and former employee at the U.S. State Department, where he resigned in 1967 over the Vietnam war is worth quoting here:

The Eisenhower Doctrine stated that the United States is prepared to used armed forces to assist any Middle Eastern country requesting assistance against armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism. The English translation of this was that no one would be allowed to dominate, or have exclusive influence over, the Middle East and its oil fields except the United States, and that anyone who tried would be, by definition communist.

William Blum, Rogue State, (Common Courage Press, 2000), pp. 131 – 132

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A divided people; The West’s support for dictators and monarchies over democracies

Already, before World War II, as mentioned in the previous section, various monarchs had been put in place in various countries whose borders had been defined mainly by British and French colonial administrations. Many monarchs were not even local. They were the ones that could be allied to the imperial rulers and counted on to control local populations. As Britain had learned for decades, and so sharply remembered by people of India, large populations could be controlled by relatively tiny administrations by divide and conquer tactics keeping or creating antagonism between local groups, keeping borders small and so on, so as to make uniting as difficult as possible. (Of course, it proved not to be impossible.) It is worth quoting Smith again, to highlight the geopolitical significance of this:

Once small weak countries are established, it is very difficult to persuade their rulers to give up power and form those many dependent states into one economically viable nation. Conversely, it is easy for outside power brokers to support an exploitative faction to maintain or regain power. None of this can ever be openly admitted to or the neo-mercantilist world would fall apart. The fiction of sovereign governments, equal rights, fair trade, etc., must continue. To be candid is to invite immediate widespread rebellion and loss of control.

J.W. Smith, World’s Wasted Wealth II, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), p. 294. It is also reposted on this web site as part of the previous section.

()

In this web site’s section’s Africa introduction, it is pointed out how in 1885, the Berlin Conference saw the European nations create borders in Africa that met the interests of the Europeans, and allowed them to try to share the spoils of Africa between them. European culture at that time had already labeled the African people and their cultures as non-civilized and not having rights, and hence justified such things as slavery, carving up borders as they saw fit, etc. As mentioned earlier, Middle Eastern people (Arabs and Jews) were also likewise described in negative light for centuries to justify action and exploitation there.

European geopolitics in the earlier half of the 20th century in the wider Middle East region contributed to a lot of instability overall and to a similar carve up that Africa had experienced just a few decades earlier, and is still coming to grips with. The British Empire, especially, played a major role in the region. During World War I, in 1916, it convinced Arab leaders to revolt against the Ottoman Empire (which was allied with Germany). In return, the British government would support the establishment of an independent Arab state in the region, including Palestine. Yet, in contradiction to this, in 1917, Lord Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Minister, issued a declaration (the Balfour Declaration). This announced the British Empire’s support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.

As a further complication, there was a deal between Imperial Britain and France to carve up the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire and divide control of the region. The spoils of war were to be shared. As in 1885 in the Berlin Conference where Africa was carved up amongst the various European empires, parts of the Middle East were to also be carved up, which would require artificial borders, support of monarchies, dictators and other leaders that could be regarded as puppets or at least could be influenced by these external powers.

But also as with Africa, the imposition of artificial borders, unpopular rulers etc would not be accepted without struggle and following World War II, the region became even more important for its energy sources.

In the Middle East, the Arab people had a common faith that bound them together. This meant that even more extreme measures for subjugation and control would be needed. One such result was the extremely heavy militarization of the region. Millions of dollars worth of weapons were poured in to support the puppet regimes. As described in the arms trade section of this web site, it is still the most heavily militarized region in the world, with the majority of military aid going to that region, from the powerful nations.

With harsh rulers and authoritarian regimes like the Monarchy of Saudi Arabia, or the Shah of Iran, counter-militancy and falling back on the most extremist interpretations of Islam resulted. Extreme militarization was resulting in extreme militancy and fanaticism.

As also detailed in the previous section, an Iranian revolution took hold in 1979 with the Ayatollah Khomeini and an extremist Islamic state being formed. In a documentary on PBS in 2000, (I do not recall exactly when, unfortunately), those women interviewed had initially supported the revolution because of the oppression of the Shah. They had believed that the revolution would lead them to a better future. However, in just a few years, they were to find that one form of extremism had been replaced by another, and women in general had not gained as they thought they would. (In recent months or years, it seems that the Iranian government is trying to become more moderate. Future developments, geopolitics and time will tell how that turns out.) Throughout the region, various human rights groups have documented the harsh conditions and lack of progress in development for many in those societies.

However, from this Islamic revolution (and other such struggles), combined with the feeling of hopelessness of other avenues, the perverted realization that Islamic extremism, anti-West sentiments etc may hold the answer, started to ferment.

In addition, as detailed further below, as part of the Cold War, the U.S. via Pakistan helped develop and train Islamic extremist mujahdeen fighters in an attempt to destabilize the Soviet Union. The religious call for mujahadeen fighters also attracted extremists from the Middle East (such as Osama Bin Laden and others).

The National Security Archives project at the George Washington University published declassified U.S. documents revealing the extent of U.S. propaganda efforts in the Middle East during the early years of the Cold War. While not as effective as would have been preferred, it gives an idea of the extent to which the U.S. was willing to go to gain support for geopolitical and ideological purposes.

Many in the region see the oppression from their leaders coming from the support by the West, America in particular. In some of the regimes friendly to the United States, some of the worst human rights abuses are described.

Turkey is one such example:

  • While one of the more democratic regimes, it has had a long conflict with neighbours, and segements of its own people, such as Kurd separatists.
  • As mentioned on this site, and pointed out by Amnesty International and others, there have been over 30,000 deaths in the last 14 years in the struggle and conflict against the Kurds.
  • Yet, the overwhelming number of these 30,000 deaths, not to mention widespread mutilation and rape, are the responsibility of the Turkish military, as the British newspaper, The Guardian, points out.
  • Turkey, as mentioned in this web site’s arms trade section, is one of the largest recipients of US military aid.

Saudi Arabia is another example, as all these reports by Amnesty International testify to.

In other cases, regimes that have previously been friendly to the United States have been supported for geopolitical reasons, regardless of how they treat and rule over their people. Only when they have gone too far (i.e. affected national interests) are they demonized or in some ways regarded as hostile (often appropriately so).

Iraq is an example of this:

  • As described by various links in this web site’s section on Iraq, when Sadam Hussain committed his murderous acts of gassing Kurds and others in his own land, and in the war against Iran, using chemical and biological weapons etc, it was during the time of U.S. support of Sadam to wage war against Iran and the new revolution.
  • The weapons and technology for biological and chemical weapons had come from the West.
  • The invasion of Kuwait and the resulting Gulf War allowed the U.S. to highlight these crimes but without mentioning how he had been able to get these means.
  • Furthermore, the Gulf War saw the death of an estimated 200,000 Iraqi’s, 100,000 of which were civilian.
  • And since the sanctions, the United Nations point out that 1,000,000 people have died and UNICEF points out that some half a million children have died, some 5000 per month, to which Madeline Albright has commented on public television that this price was worth it.
  • The U.S. and U.K. are largely the ones keeping the sanctions in place, despite objections from other nations and resignations of U.N. programme coordinators over this.
  • These sanctions have turned out to be a weapon of mass destruction!
  • Arab people throughout the Middle East are naturally infuriated to see their own people suffering (all while Sadam Hussein remains unaffected).
  • See the Iraq section on this site for more details and sources. (See also Gowan, sourced below.)

Afghanistan is another:

  • As is well known and accepted now, the CIA aided and funded terrorist regimes, such as the mujahadin and Osama Bin Laden, with the aid of Pakistan, to get the Soviets involved in Afghanistan and to ultimately help defeat them.
  • The vile and extremist Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, accused of terrible human rights violations (especially against women), oppressive extremist religious practices, and so on. (See for example, all the Amnesty International Afghanistan reports for more details.)
  • It is a large conduit for illegal drugs as well.

Some aspects have not escaped the mainstream media either. America’s NBC, for example, captures the result of all this quite well:

At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback.

Michael Moran, Bin Laden comes home to roost, MSNBC, Aug. 24, 1998

Roy describes a sickening twist of power politics in light of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11:

In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the communist regime and eventually destabilise it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union’s Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, through the ISI, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mojahedin from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America’s proxy war. The rank and file of the mojahedin were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam. (The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself.) … After all that has happened [with the September 11, 2000 terrorist attacks in America], can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan?

Arundhati Roy, The algebra of infinite justice, The Guardian, September 29, 2001

Israel has always been a sensitive issue. For regional support, as mentioned earlier, the West has often sought support, in the forms of likeable dictators/monarchs etc. It has even supported and fueled wars against each other. Israel has been another country that has received enormous amounts of military aid.

  • The peace process, the Arabs have felt, has been grossly one sided, with the influential U.S. constantly backing the side of Israel as pointed out by Chomsky in the previous link.
  • Ordinary Arab citizens have additionally been extremely frustrated at their own leaders for not helping Palestinians.
  • Those states or organizations that have provided support, including for example, Lebanon, the Hizbollah, Syria, etc. have been branded unofficially or officially, terrorist or rogue states. (Sometimes, justifiably, and such crimes should not be belittled, either.)

An often-heard argument in the West is that Arabs have got themselves in this plight because of their constant bickering and disunity. This is partly true, but this almost blanket statement negates this larger history and complications of political maneuverings and support for various regimes (by the West as well). (See this web site’s section on the Palestine/Israel conflict for more links and sources on that issue.) Furthermore, a part of the disunity comes from the frustration and disagreement on how to handle what they see as unilateral U.S. interests in the region. Supporting Israel no matter what has further infuriated Arab citizens:

International isolation [of the United States and Israel] increased in the mid-1970s, when virtually the entire world endorsed a modification of UN 242 [calling for peace along with Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories resulting from land captured after the 1967 Israel-Arab war] to include a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Washington was compelled to veto a Security Council resolution to this effect in January 1976, to vote regularly against subsequent UN resolutions, and to block other diplomatic initiatives from Europe, the Arab states, the PLO, and others.

Noam Chomsky, Israel, Lebanon, and the Peace Process, April 23, 1996

The following list from Stephen Shalom lists some specific incidents of U.S. policy in the Middle East since the Second World War ended. (The original article also points out that this list misses out other long term policies such as those mentioned above. Nonetheless, it begins to give an idea why there is anti-West sentiment and anti-US in particular, in the Middle East.)

  • 1948: Israel established. U.S. declines to press Israel to allow expelled Palestinians to return.
  • 1949: CIA backs military coup deposing elected government of Syria.
  • 1953: CIA helps overthrow the democratically-elected Mossadeq government in Iran (which had nationalized the British oil company) leading to a quarter-century of repressive and dictatorial rule by the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi.
  • 1956: U.S. cuts off promised funding for Aswan Dam in Egypt after Egypt receives Eastern bloc arms.
  • 1956: Israel, Britain, and France invade Egypt. U.S. does not support invasion, but the involvement of its NATO allies severely diminishes Washington’s reputation in the region.
  • 1958: U.S. troops land in Lebanon to preserve stability.
  • early 1960s: U.S. unsuccessfully attempts assassination of Iraqi leader, Abdul Karim Qassim.
  • 1963: U.S. reported to give Iraqi Ba’ath party (soon to be headed by Saddam Hussein) names of communists to murder, which they do with vigor.
  • 1967-: U.S. blocks any effort in the Security Council to enforce SC Resolution 242, calling for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the 1967 war.
  • 1970: Civil war between Jordan and PLO. Israel and U.S. prepare to intervene on side of Jordan if Syria backs PLO.
  • 1972: U.S. blocks Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat’s efforts to reach a peace agreement with Israel.
  • 1973: Airlifted U.S. military aid enables Israel to turn the tide in war with Syria and Egypt.
  • 1973-75: U.S. supports Kurdish rebels in Iraq. When Iran reaches an agreement with Iraq in 1975 and seals the border, Iraq slaughters Kurds and U.S. denies them refuge. Kissinger secretly explains that covert action should not be confused with missionary work.
  • 1975: U.S. vetoes Security Council resolution condemning Israeli attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.
  • 1978-79: Iranians begin demonstrations against the Shah. U.S. tells Shah it supports him without reservation and urges him to act forcefully. Until the last minute, U.S. tries to organize military coup to save the Shah, but to no avail.
  • 1979-88: U.S. begins covert aid to Mujahideen in Afghanistan six months before Soviet invasion in Dec. 1979. Over the next decade U.S. provides training and more than $3 billion in arms and aid.
  • 1980-88: Iran-Iraq war. When Iraq invades Iran, the U.S. opposes any Security Council action to condemn the invasion. U.S. soon removes Iraq from its list of nations supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred to Iraq. At the same time, U.S. lets Israel provide arms to Iran and in 1985 U.S. provides arms directly (though secretly) to Iran. U.S. provides intelligence information to Iraq. Iraq uses chemical weapons in 1984; U.S. restores diplomatic relations with Iraq. 1987 U.S. sends its navy into the Persian Gulf, taking Iraq’s side; an overly-aggressive U.S. ship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290.
  • 1981, 1986: U.S. holds military maneuvers off the coast of Libya in waters claimed by Libya with the clear purpose of provoking Qaddafi. In 1981, a Libyan plane fires a missile and two Libyan planes shot down. In 1986, Libya fires missiles that land far from any target and U.S. attacks Libyan patrol boats, killing 72, and shore installations. When a bomb goes off in a Berlin nightclub, killing two Americans, the U.S. charges that Qaddafi was behind it (possibly true) and conducts major bombing raids in Libya, killing dozens of civilians, including Qaddafi’s adopted daughter.
  • 1982: U.S. gives green light to Israeli invasion of Lebanon, killing some 17 thousand civilians. U.S. chooses not to invoke its laws prohibiting Israeli use of U.S. weapons except in self-defense. U.S. vetoes several Security Council resolutions condemning the invasion.
  • 1983: U.S. troops sent to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force; intervene on one side of a civil war, including bombardment by USS New Jersey. Withdraw after suicide bombing of marine barracks.
  • 1984: U.S.-backed rebels in Afghanistan fire on civilian airliner.
  • 1987-92: U.S. arms used by Israel to repress first Palestinian Intifada. U.S. vetoes five Security Council resolution condemning Israeli repression.
  • 1988: Saddam Hussein kills many thousands of his own Kurdish population and uses chemical weapons against them. The U.S. increases its economic ties to Iraq.
  • 1988: U.S. vetoes 3 Security Council resolutions condemning continuing Israeli occupation of and repression in Lebanon.
  • 1990-91: U.S. rejects any diplomatic settlement of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (for example, rebuffing any attempt to link the two regional occupations, of Kuwait and of Palestine). U.S. leads international coalition in war against Iraq. Civilian infrastructure targeted. To promote stability U.S. refuses to aid post-war uprisings by Shi’ites in the south and Kurds in the north, denying the rebels access to captured Iraqi weapons and refusing to prohibit Iraqi helicopter flights.
  • 1991-: Devastating economic sanctions are imposed on Iraq. U.S. and Britain block all attempts to lift them. Hundreds of thousands die. Though Security Council had stated that sanctions were to be lifted once Saddam Hussein’s programs to develop weapons of mass destruction were ended, Washington makes it known that the sanctions would remain as long as Saddam remains in power. Sanctions in fact strengthen Saddam’s position. Asked about the horrendous human consequences of the sanctions, Madeleine Albright (U.S. ambassador to the UN and later Secretary of State) declares that the price is worth it.
  • 1993-: U.S. launches missile attack on Iraq, claiming self-defense against an alleged assassination attempt on former president Bush two months earlier.
  • 1998: U.S. and U.K. bomb Iraq over the issue of weapons inspections, even though Security Council is just then meeting to discuss the matter.
  • 1998: U.S. destroys factory producing half of Sudan’s pharmaceutical supply, claiming retaliation for attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and that factory was involved in chemical warfare. U.S. later acknowledges lack of evidence for the chemical warfare charge.
  • 2000-: Israel uses U.S. arms in attempt to crush Palestinian uprising, killing hundreds of civilians.

(See also works from the above-mentioned William Blum for a similar list as well. As an example, see his book, Rogue State, (Common Courage Press, 2000).)

This is not a complete set of examples, but not atypical of the region either. As also mentioned in the previous section, numerous areas in the region were carved into different territories with monarchs put there. Not all were necessarily oppressive in physical ways. Some restricted cultural, political, and/or economic freedoms. The net result was they did not (and do not) necessarily represent (or perhaps even respect) the actual people of the region entirely.

Furthermore, with the large commissions that accompany arms sales, and the heavy militarization, many accuse their leaders of being easily corruptible. There has also been frustration that the Arab leaders are divided, interested in their own power games within their region and hence unable to unite or present one voice on many issues, including Palestine/Israel.

In that respect, after decades of this, some have felt limited options of where to turn; religion has failed them, their leaders have failed them, those that tried are either seen as bought out, or isolated or in some way not delivering. Fanatics and militants see easy recruitment for their causes, as a result. Hatred is easy to teach. Extremist views are easier to preach (especially with the success of Afghanistan and the Taliban regime in fighting off the Soviets, another feared power).

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Globalization

With the Cold War over and the West victorious, globalization in its current form was able to spread further. Conflicts also broke out between nations that were within the sphere of Soviet influence, especially in Central Asia, where many were Islamic. Extremist regimes and organizations were involved in participating in those conflicts for separation.

In addition, with globalization, came the increasing spread of western culture to the global South. In the Middle East as well, western products and more importantly, culture, was coming in more so. While around the world, not just the Middle East there has been increasing concern at what is described as cultural imperialism, because of the extremes in the Middle East, for the extremists and fanatics, this has added to the concerns and anti-West feelings that have spilled into violent actions and hatred.

Hardly touched upon on this page has been the economic policies that have accompanied these geopolitical policies. Harsh Structural Adjustment imposition on the Third World for example, as described on this site (see previous link), has deepened poverty for most in the world. Walden Bello, professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines, and co-director of Thailand-based research organization, Focus on the Global South, describes the harsh geopolitical ramifications well:

[T]he Southern policies of all the key Northern governments on the eve of the twenty-first century are marked by similar features. These include continued support for structural adjustment in the Third World; creation of a new Berlin Wall to prevent the entry of refugees fleeing the devastation of the South; exploitation of tribal fears of racial and ethnic minorities to deflect domestic attention away from structural causes of economic distress; and demonization of Southern figures or institutions, such as Islam, as the new enemy in the post-Cold War era. … Not surprisingly, the dark vision of the twenty-first century as an era of North-South polarization between privileged white citizens and colored barbarian hordes, or between the Christian West and the Islamic-Confusion Connection, has begun to take hold in the writings of Northern intellectuals.

Walden Bello, Shea Cunningham, Bill Rau, Dark Victory; The United States and Global Poverty, (Food First, Pluto Press, 1994, 1999), p.6

The political economy of globalization therefore has been accompanied by all nations vying to best represent their interests. Of course, the more powerful and stronger nations are better able to represent their interests, which can also have the effect of undermining others. The United States being the most successful and powerful nation on the international political scene therefore weilds incredible power and influence, as Professor Wade of the prestigious London School of Economics, for example, vividly highlights:

These power relations and exercises of statecraft are obscured in the current talk about globalization. Far from being just a collapsing of distance and widening of opportunities for all, the increasing mobility of information, finance, goods and services frees the American government of constraints while more tightly constraining everyone else. Globalization and the global supervisory organizations enable the United States to harness the rest of the world to its own rhythms and structure.

Professor Robert Hunter Wade, America’s Empire Rules an Unbalanced World, January 3, 2002

Because we live in such times, it is hard to see or accept that today’s global political system, from the perspective of many in the third world, is a continuation of the system of previous decades and centuries, but of course evolved with its own nuances and complexities. Oftentimes, then, military solutions and other aggressive courses of actions are supported without understanding or considering the deeper and long term causes of various situations. S. Brian Willson, a U.S. Vietnam War veteran, now a peace activist highlights an aspect of this quite well:

The most highly decorated Marine Corps General in U.S. history, Smedley D. Butler understood all too well the real nature of the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. foreign policy in general when he concluded after his retirement in 1931 that during his 33 years as a Marine officer operating on three continents, he served as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers…a gangster for capitalism [Smedley D. Butler, America’s Armed Forces, Part 2, Common Sense, Vol. 4, No. 11 (Nov. 1935)]. But it seems that that understanding is easily forgotten. General A.M. Gray, former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, in 1990 identified threats to the United States as originating from the underdeveloped world’s growing dissatisfaction over the gap between rich and poor nations, creating a fertile breeding ground for insurgencies which have the potential to jeopardize regional stability and our access to vital economic and military resources (Marine Corps Gazette, May 1990). Gray understands the structural social and economic problems, but it apparently does not occur to him that the solution might be to directly address the injustices rather than perpetuate them with the use of military force.

S. Brian Willson, Who are the REAL terrorists?, Institute for Policy Research and Development, 1999

Such factors in the Middle East on top of the heavy militarism and political oppression have also contributed to extremism.

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Political leaders are in between a rock and a hard place; the struggle for people’s support

Political leaders throughout various regions, be it the Middle East, or Western countries, are in a tough situation, on many fronts. The following is perhaps an oversimplified number of fronts but gives a hint of the challenges:

The people front
Democracy or no democracy, people can and will only take so much. At some point, they will rise up and ask for their demands to be met. This can be via democratic processes, or through various movements, violent or peaceful.
The extremist front
There are always extremists on all sides, everywhere. They are able to exert some influence, to varying degrees and try to garnish popular support if possible. This can be very destabilizing depending on many circumstances and conditions.
The corporate/geopolitical front
There are various interests pulling at leaders to either do or not do something, in relation to some event. This might be to go to war, to enforce economic sanctions, some other form of diplomacy, or deal with such things coming at one’s country from others. These interests are often not always the interests of the majority of people.

With various fronts also influencing the mainstream media of that nation/region, then other actors or some of these above actors can have more say, directly or indirectly. One such example is the arms industry, as mentioned in this web site’s section on that issue. (See this web site’s section on the mainstream media for more examples.) Such influences can affect popular opinions and create support or lack of support on various issues. Gaining popular support or convincing the population has been of major importance. For dictators etc, such propaganda also serves to try to minimize the risk of an uprising. For democracies, where the media’s democratic institutions are weak or subject to influences, propaganda can create support.

Hence, in the West, our perceptions of the Middle East are subject to these influences in the mainstream media and elsewhere, just as we point out how the perceptions of the West in the Middle East are subject to influences of extremism.

As a result of these decisions, lives of ordinary citizens, be it the West, Middle East, or elsewhere can be affected.

Stephen Zunes, associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, as well as a senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project is worth quoting here, in light of the September 11, 2001 atrocity and resulting actions:

To win the war against terrorism, we need to reevaluate our definition of security. The more the U.S. militarizes the Middle East, the less secure we have become. All the sophisticated weaponry, all the brave fighting men and women, and all the talented military leadership we may possess will not stop terrorism as long as our policies cause millions of people hate us.

President George W. Bush is wrong when he claims we are targeted because we are a beacon for freedom. We are targeted because the support of freedom is not part of our policy in the Middle East, which has instead been based upon alliances with repressive governments and support for military occupation. We would be much safer if the U.S. supported a policy based more on human rights, international law, and sustainable development — and less on arms transfers, air strikes, and punitive sanctions.

Stephen Zunes, Bombing Will Not Make U.S. More Secure, Foreign Policy in

Quasicrystals, Shape Shifting Human Invisibility??

The universe brings me information to my great surprise. I was prompted to discover quasicrystals. My first thought on reading below was the technology is too advanced, the humanity underdeveloped and the population kept in a space of ignorance. This is not unlike silent weapons for silent wars philosophy, making haste slowly, or the boiling frog whereby these technologies are created quietly in the background and then suddenly humanity is exposed to them with no ability to defend themselves as they have no idea what they are dealing with.  How can they deal with this type of technology coming out of military applications and this silent war that regards any form of opposition as an enemy?  This is why democracy must be reclaimed.

I am becoming deeply aware of this mindset and I will sit with it in this now moment.  I will relay what I feel… crystals are intelligent firstly, quasi crystals are not.  The intent behind the creation of this by scientists is typically exploratory those funding it are not seeking to expand the vistas of human ingenuity but are focused on control.  Why?  They seek to ensure a pattern is non changing and predictable yet use a technology where the patterns change thus changing its shape as its atomic number changes. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_number I feel strongly the connection with genetic modification and the commercial interests that have driven the expansion of this biotechnology.  My inner feeling shows me that those inventing this have no awareness of the whole, the symmetry of the natural geometry.  How the sum of the parts is the whole. So when the atomic numbers change, the parts change and the whole changes as all are interconnected, not separate.  When those in power do not have highly evolved abilities to understand and feel a harmonic resonance with the whole they de-construct what is stable.  I get the image of a nuclear bomb, thus the atom split.  Massive release of energy, then I see fusion, forcing atoms together through an unnatural application to produce endless energy outcomes.  This is unstable. 

So back to homeostasis, this arises when the scientist is in harmony (balance) with his or her true nature.  The subject and object are not separate, one creates the other in synergy and symmetry. Thus those funding the exercise are in harmony with their true nature produces harmony if not, then the opposite. I felt the wailing wall here, releasing the pain, not atomic energy, at the wall of their own making.  There is no them or us, there is only us as we are made of the same stuff and what you do to another returns to the self.   The law of cause and effect, is a universal natural law.

So shapeshifting robots, humans etc. This is to gain advantage, the element of surprise rather than the element of celebration or indeed the element of natural science.  The purpose is to be ahead, to be free, not stopped and still fighting the perceived ‘other’.  Shapeshifting robots adapt to the environment, nature does this through adaptation as genes in harmony with nature, are naturally selected.  Because technocracy disconnects from humanity it is unable to see the whole, this is the weakness in technocracy.  AI cannot feel humanity, it is based on iterations, bio-feedback algorithms, changing neural wired networks to adapt to change, but unable to feel the god particle, as it is not a biological organism created by higher intelligence. This is not to say higher intelligences are not involved in shape-shifting, it is likely they are.  The malevolent intent is about power not love, this is why in the end it fails.  Intent is either life producing or destructive, the latter is not naturally selected as the resiliency of a species arises from harmony.  There are many forces at work here, on many levels is my feeling.  Again, the idea of the camel as the thread passing through the needle is the metaphor for the impossible becoming possible or indeed a portal to higher awareness.  This portal cannot open unless frequency changes, as one cannot see beyond their frequency no matter the technology.  The operative word appears to be ‘matter’.

Inspiration is an amazing journey.

 

Quasicrystals Are Nature’s Impossible Matter

 

“There can be no such creature.”

 
by Daniel Oberhaus
May 3 2015, 9:02pm

 

Al-Pd-Re, a lab made quasicrystal. Image: via

What do a frying pan, an LED light, and the most cutting edge camouflage in the world have in common? Well, that largely depends on who you ask. Most people would struggle to find the link, but for University of Michigan chemical engineers Sharon Glotzer and Michael Engel, there is a substantial connection, indeed one that has flipped the world of materials science on its head since its discovery over 30 years ago.

 

The magic ingredient common to all three items is the quasiperiodic crystal, the “impossible” atomic arrangement discovered by Dan Shechtman in 1982. Basically, a quasicrystal is a crystalline structure that breaks the periodicity (meaning it has translational symmetry, or the ability to shift the crystal one unit cell without changing the pattern) of a normal crystal for an ordered, yet aperiodic arrangement. This means that quasicrystalline patterns will fill all available space, but in such a way that the pattern of its atomic arrangement never repeats. Glotzer and Engel recently managed to simulate the most complex quasicrystal ever, a discovery which may revolutionize the field of crystallography by blowing open the door for a whole host of applications that were previously inconceivable outside of science-fiction, like making yourself invisible or shape-shifting robots.

While most of the current applications of quasicrystals are rather mundane, such as the coating for frying pans or surgical utensils, Glotzer and Engel’s simulation of a self-assembling icosahedral quasicrystal opens up exciting new avenues for research and development, such as improved camouflage.

“Camouflage is all about redirecting light to change the appearance of something,” said Glotzer. “Making camouflage materials or any kind of transformation optics materials is all about controlling the structure of the material, controlling the spacing of the building blocks to control the way light is absorbed and reflected.”

 

Icosahedral quasicrystals (IQCs) are one of the several unique structures which have something called a photonic band gap, which dictates the range of photon frequencies which are permitted to pass through the material. Photonic band gaps are determined by the spatial arrangement of an atomic lattice. In other words, whether or not a photon becomes “trapped” in the lattice depends on the photonic frequency (measured as a wavelength) in relation to the space between atoms and the way these atoms are arranged (periodically, aperiodically, etc). If the wavelength falls within the range of the photonic band gap for the specific material, then the photons will not be able to propagate through the structure.

Thus, being able to manipulate photonic band gaps means that one can manipulate atomic structures in such a way that the material will only be visible within determined photonic frequencies, a critical advancement for those concerned with making people invisible, which probably at least partly accounts for why the US Department of Defense and the US Army both helped fund Glotzer and Engel’s study.

While the existence of photonic bandgaps is nothing new, being able to manipulate solid-state matter in such a way that allows one to fully exploit these bandgaps has remained elusive. In this sense, Glotzer and Engel’s simulated quasicrystal represents a return to the fundamentals of crystallography, rather than something entirely novel.

 

According to the team, before their simulation, scientists knew that mixing certain metals in the right thermodynamic conditions (pressure, temperature) would result in the formation of a quasicrystal. They also knew that given the correct environmental conditions, it was possible for quasicrystals to form in nature (two natural quasicrystals have been discovered to date: the first in 2009 and the second was reported on March 13, coming from a 4.5-billion year old meteorite in Russia).

What scientists didn’t understand, said Engel, was what was happening in the reaction to make these quasicrystals form. There was an input and output, but what went on inside the blackbox remained a mystery. Glotzer and Engel’s experiment was a first step in solving this a-list conundrum in materials science.

“For a long time people have looked for methods to actually model [how icosahedral quasicrystals form],” said Engel. “This is more of a fundamental importance, it doesn’t necessarily make [IQCs] have better properties or applications, but it allows us to study how these crystals form.”

Understanding how these quasicrystals form is the first step in manipulating them toward desired ends. While this ability to manipulate quasicrystals is still in a very young phase, increasing technical sophistication could conceivably lead to some pretty wild developments in the future, like Terminator-style shape-shifting robots.

 

Part of the reason robots modeled after T-1000 don’t roam the Earth already is because our understanding of matter and our ability to find useful applications for the staggering variety of metals found in nature is still relatively rudimentary. Understanding how quasicrystals form will fill in a huge gap in our knowledge of solid-state physics and chemistry. Increasing this knowledge in all of its forms is essential to future physical manipulation, whether or not this manipulation is directly linked to quasicrystals.

“It’s not that the icosahedral quasicrystal itself would necessarily be the structure you would shoot for [in shapeshifting materials], but it represents the kind of complexity and control that one would like to have over the building blocks of matter,” said Glotzer. “If you understand what is required to get a certain structure, than you could imagine that we could change conditions and change the structure that we get. Everything about a material depends on its structure.”

T-1000 Shapeshifter in Terminator

The quasicrystalline structure was discovered by Dan Shechtman, a professor of materials science at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, in 1982 while he was observing an alloy of rapidly cooled aluminum and manganese with an electron microscope.

What he saw defied the laws of nature as they were understood at the time.

Rather than finding a random collection of atoms as expected, Shechtman observed a diffraction pattern with ten-fold rotational symmetry, something which was thought to be impossible (subsequent experiments would demonstrate that what Shechtman had discovered was actually five-fold symmetry).

 

Shechtman’s five-fold symmetry defied the basic definition of a crystal which had stood unchallenged since crystallography’s inauguration as a science some 70 years prior. According to the received wisdom at the time, a crystal was something which by definition was both ordered and periodic, meaning that it exhibited a certain pattern at regular intervals. On this definition crystals were only capable of exhibiting a two, three, four, or six-fold rotational symmetry (the ability to retain symmetry after being rotated so many times along an axis—in other words, after rotating the crystal along an axis so many times, it will look the same as when you started).

Upon his discovery of a diffraction pattern with five-fold symmetry, Shechtman allegedly exclaimed that “there can be no such creature.” His colleagues agreed with him.

Electron diffraction pattern showing five-fold symmetry from an aluminum-copper-iron quasicrystal. Image via

“Since 1912 all crystals that had been studied were periodic—hundreds of thousands of different crystals were studied. People did not believe that there was anything different because so many thousands of excellent scientists developed the field and found only crystals which were periodic,” Shechtman told me over Skype.

Thus, when Shechtman revealed his discovery, which would earn him a Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2011, he was met with not only incredulity, by outright hostility. Upon hearing of Shechtman’s discovery, the head of his laboratory allegedly told him to revisit a textbook covering the basics of x-ray diffraction, so that he might understand why his “discovery” was impossible. When Shechtman informed him that he had no need of the book since his discovery was not included in the material, he was told that he was a disgrace to the team.

 

He would be discredited by scientists around the world, including heavyweights such as Linus Pauling, the two time Nobel Prize winning chemist who dismissed Shechtman’s results as the product of “twinning,” the fusion of two normal crystals at an angle.

“When I came out with my results, people found it difficult to accept. It was easier to say ‘Don’t they know anything about crystallography at Technion? Don’t they read the books?’ I had to defend it awhile,” said Shechtman. It took two years from the initial discovery for Shechtman to publish his results. After their publication, according to Shechtman, “all hell broke loose.

“Shortly after the first publication, there was a growing community of avant-garde young scientists from around the world who all supported me and joined the fight, so I was not alone anymore,” he said. “But in the first two years I was alone.”

Dan Shechtman displays a model in his lab in Israel. Image via

Shechtman’s discovery prompted the International Union of Crystallography to redefine just what was meant by a crystal in 1992. The current definition now reads that a crystal is defined by “discrete diffraction patterns,” which accounts for both the periodic structures which traditionally defined a crystal, as well as the aperiodic quasicrystalline structures discovered by Shechtman.

“Quasiperiodic crystals are still crystals—they have nothing to do with amorphous materials,” said Shechtman. “Amorphous materials are non-ordered (like glass), quasicrystals are crystals, but the atomic relation within them is different than periodic crystals. It is perfectly ordered, but not periodic.”

 

The math underlying Shechtman’s design has a long history, dating back to Leonardo Fibonacci who in 1202 sought to discover how fast rabbits could breed in ideal circumstances (the sequence ‘discovered’ thereby actually long pre-dated Fibonacci in Indian mathematics—Fibonacci is most accurately credited with introducing it to the West).

Fibonacci began his thought experiment by assuming that two rabbits are placed in a field and produce a new pair of rabbits at the end of a month. It takes each new pair one month before they are able to breed another pair. The question Fibonacci sought to answer was how many pairs there would be at the end of one year. The sequence inaugurated by this pattern (1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144) is known as the Fibonacci sequence wherein the next number can always be derived by adding the two numbers which precede it in the sequence.

The Fibonacci sequence can be seen as a 1-D analog to Shechtman’s quasicrystal, in which there is order without repetition. The 2-D analog was discovered in 1974 by the famous English mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose.

That’s what order means: there is correlation between how it looks in one place versus another.

In addition to proving that black holes could result from the gravitational collapse of stars, Penrose discovered a method of tiling a plane aperiodically, which became the first demonstration of five-fold rotational symmetry. (Or the ability to rotate 72 degrees without changing the pattern.) In Penrose’s initial iteration, he used four different shapes all related to a pentagon. He would eventually narrow this down to an aperiodic tiling which used only two rhombuses, a “fat” rhombus and a “skinny” rhombus.

 

“Locally [Penrose tiles] are a very simple structure: there are only two building blocks and the way that they are put together means that it is not perfectly repeating,” said Engel. “But still there’s always a discrete number, a finite number of ways that you can arrange them. The fact that you only have these finite ways of arranging them makes it such that even if you are infinitely far away from where you started building the structure, it’s still in a way predictable. So there is correlation, meaning they are not independent of one another and that’s what order means: there is correlation between how it looks in one place versus another.”

Translate Penrose Tiling to a three-dimensional atomic lattice and you have the essence of a quasicrystal. The important takeaway here, according to Shechtman, is that “there is not a motif of any size that repeats itself. So there is order, and yet there is no periodicity.” The order is derived from the fact that anyone could reconstruct the Fibonacci sequence or Penrose tiles, yet despite this order, if the sequence or tiling is shifted in anyway it is impossible to derive an exact repetition.

Roger Penrose stands on Penrose Tiling, the first instance of Penrose inception in recorded history

In the 30 some years since Shechtman’s discovery, hundreds of quasicrystals have been discovered, many of which are aluminum-based alloys. The first naturally occurring quasicrystal, icosahedrite, was found in Russia in 2009. Quasicrystals, both natural and artificial, are divided into two primary types: polygonal and icosahedral quasicrystals. The former category exhibits periodicity in one direction (perpendicular to the quasiperiodic layers); the latter exhibits no periodicity whatsoever, which is precisely what makes Glotzer and Engel’s simulation such a big deal.

“The icosahedral quasicrystal is the most exotic,” said Engel. “It’s the most spatially or geometrically complex.”

 

In their experiment, Glotzer and Engel set out to answer one of the fundamental questions dogging the field of crystallography: How can long range order be generated from local interactions which exhibit no periodicity? While most real quasicystals are made of two or more elements, the University of Michigan team ran simulations using only one type of particle, another first in the field.

In essence, the team was attempting to determine what thermodynamic conditions favored the formation of icosahedral quasicrystals given certain initial parameters which determined the force field, or the way the particles would interact with one another. These parameters were designed so that they could be recreated in a laboratory setting. For instance, one parameter dictated that the particles were only allowed to interact with other particles which were within three particle distances of themselves.

10 fold???”: A page from Shechtman’s notebook the day he discovered the quasicrystal. Image: via

“Basically, we were solving Newton’s equation of motion,” said Glotzer. “What you have is a bunch of particles and they interact according to a certain force field. So that means at a given time, every atom in the system has a force exerted on it by every other atom in the system. You add up all those forces on every atom, and then you solve F=ma. By adding up all those forces you can solve for the acceleration which tells you how to move the particles. Then you do this for all the particles in the system.”

The end results of these calculations tells the team where the particles “want be” under varying thermodynamic conditions, such as pressure and temperature. Given these initial conditions, the crystal “self-assembles” in the simulation.

 

“All we know are the force fields between the particles and Newton’s equation,” said Glotzer. “We don’t know what will come out when we start—it’s very different from building [icosahedral quasicrystal] by hand.”

As the team discovered, the interaction of their particles in such a way that a quasicrystal was formed was favored by interactions governed by the golden ratio. The golden ratio is an irrational number which starts as 1.61803, and is derived from the ratio of two numbers whose ratio to one another is the same as that between their sum and the larger integer. It is related to the Fibonacci sequence insofar as each digit you progress in the sequence, the ratio between the current digit and the one before it approaches the golden ratio—it is an infinite approximation.

In a talk given by Penrose at the Royal Institution in 2014, the renowned scientist speculated that icosahedral quasicrystals might be governed by quantum mechanical interactions, given that a complex aperiodic structure demonstrated long range order solely from local potentials, or interactions. Glotzer and Engel’s findings suggest this might not be the case.

“Our simulations suggest that maybe quantum mechanics are not even necessary,” said Engel. “Maybe you can get it from classical, non-quantum interactions. How that works, exactly, is a wide open question. Right now we hope to address this question with our model.”

 

While shape-shifting robots derived from quasicrystalline principles may be a long way off, quasicrystals are already beginning to play a major role in everyday life. They are most commonly found as a reinforced coating (such as on a frying pan or surgical tool) but are increasingly being added in small quantities to normal metal alloys to reinforce them while retaining lightness. They are also becoming very popular in additive manufacturing, otherwise known as 3D printing, due to their low friction and resistance to wear.

Where the future of quasicrystals will take us is relatively uncertain at the moment. What is, known however is that quasicrystals, nature’s “impossible matter,” provide us with a very important missing link in the study of matter, and may very well hold the key to the total manipulation of the solid universe in the future.

Former Victorian Premier Brumby Quits Huawei Board and Joins La Trobe University

My first feeling in this is of the IT trade war between China and the United States.  My next feeling is those in prominent positions joining industry and the revolving door that exists between government and industry.  The original intent of government was that these entities were separate as government ensured neutrality so that it could represent the people.  Unfortunately in the ruling class they all know each other, they discuss the Boards the are on and they have their own agendas.   Business is business.

The video I produced today is on greed.  I see the blindness of economic objectives outside of human wellbeing.  The disconnect is furthered as industry profits become the goal and the impact on civil society a minor issue.  This becomes increasingly evident when one investigates the range of views about 5G and the race between the US and China with IT industry lobbyists taking up positions in Communications as the regulator of the industry.  Clearly it is not possible to regulate an industry in the public interest if a person has come from the very industry that is to be regulated. That means they know the people, and often, if not always, have an agenda to promote that industry. This is where the public interest is neglected.  We have seen this in the United States and the health implications for civil society are sending out alarm around the world.

The article below informs that the former Victorian Premier John Brumby was on the board of Huawei.  There is discussion about Chinese criminality and the potential for the Communist party to spy and gather data.  I would assert all the IT companies are spying and data gathering and are contracted to share data with intelligence agencies, notably the 5 Eyes spy network.  When you investigate the Boards of IT companies you see the vested interests sitting there which include multinational companies, big data, IT companies, military, intelligence, Accounting firms, universities, former government ministers or public servants and the list goes on.  In the country they operate in, the people believe the company is owned by the nation or they have no idea that their data is traded without real consent and used to sell products and services.  The greed is what moves this disregard for privacy.

Clearly Huawei would be influenced, if not directed, by the Chinese Communist Party, they are the largest telecommunications company in China note $8.7 billion in profits.  Refer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei

The issues for Australia are to what extent can the Chinese government penetrate Australia through high level appointments and economic power?  Refer foreign ownership of homes (real estate):  https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/buying/fears-one-million-aussie-homes-could-soon-be-owned-by-foreign-buyers/news-story/c50a4112bab4f3ed8fae27277f313f54

Australian land sales https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/china-increases-its-stake-in-australian-land-20181220-p50ng0.html

I recall Alexander Downer some years ago attempting to ban protests of Falun Gong outside the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. The government went to court with Falun Gong and the latter won.   Refer http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1389732.htm

I interviewed on radio a Chinese woman whose husband had been murdered in China as they practiced Falun Gong.  Just last week I noticed they were protesting in Melbourne about organ harvesting of practitioners.  This is the very core of the argument about recoupling human rights to trade.  Clinton was the one who decoupled human rights.   This link refers to Hiliary Clinton favouring economics over human rights when it serves US interests refer https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/4735087/Hillary-Clinton-Chinese-human-rights-secondary-to-economic-survival.html

The issue of Guantanamo Bay, 911, the Middle East wars, rendition and its own human rights violations inclusive of leaving the UN Human Rights Council are largely ignored internationally.  One rule for one another rule for others. It is all about the money but the argument will frame it as benefiting the people.

The core issue is the economic war that seeks to use issues to weaken the competitor. This is where the nation state serves economic interests and is not representing the people. Refer https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/10/sanctions-over-china-human-rights-may-strengthen-us-position-in-trade-talks.html

Therefore, where do executives and high profiled people draw the line or is there no line?  If the focus is strongly on career, profits, political and business interests at the expense of the public interest then where do we end up?  We are walking in the shadow of the United States and the ideological economic rationalism of privatisation of public assets. This utilises government taxation to take on the risk in projects to enable the private sector to lower risk and project high profits and in some cases the public asset is transferred to them.  This dominates the discussion as equity financing replaces government taxation attracting high interest rates (exponential) and demands profits through users pay e.g. toll ways. The original purpose of government provision of public services quietly transforms into private provision of government services in million and billion dollar public/private partnership deals.

The contraction of global markets with a mentality of cut and move on (acquisitions, arbitrage, futures markets, speculation in profit maximisation) diminishes the public purse which typically had longer horizons with cross subsidisation built into government funding planning to ensure egalitarianism as advancing Australia Fair and public order.

Ultimately under the new rules of private engagement the public pay more (in taxation, GST, direct fees, fines, taxes) out of ever more diminishing incomes.  The multiple propensity to consume (MPC) shrinks which impacts economic growth but is hidden by activity from both foreign and domestic companies.  The chairs rearrange.

This most favoured status given to the megolithic multi-nationals (changing names, subsidiaries, rebranding) gives the impression of wealth but the reality is equity finance is expensive, the risk is carried by the firm and attracts high costs and interest rates. It deepens indebtedness which is the lever that can be used to influence domestic policy that would have funded social programs. This is the opportunity cost in favour of business. Thus the left/right propaganda is used to weaken calls for public expenditure as unrealistic and economically unviable. This is how the middle class becomes pauparised as the extremes start to polarise between those with extreme wealth and those living in extreme poverty.  This is how policy creates social unrest and blames the public through repressive techniques.  The shape changer of democracy takes on a totalitarian profile with increasing calls for surveillance, funding a security apparatus with intrusive technologies (purchased from these IT companies) removing human rights and privacy to ensure control rather than squarely facing the reality of an economic mismanagement and greed as the driver of market concentration and serving of specific foreign interests.  Egalitarianism and social democracy transforms into a compliance framework that favours the few over the rights of the many and is ultimately de-stabilising globally as we are all connected.  The public believes the propaganda that budgets are balanced when the debt is off the balance sheet as the risk was transferred.

So powerful companies like Huawei and Google for example, both titans in the IT industry have disproportionate concentration of power and hence, political influence and penetration into markets to serve interests and agendas that may provide token jobs (benefits) but ultimately are the old paradigm of profit maximisation. The profits move off shore and we see the economic cake unravel to be replaced by AI and automation.  At the same time ‘greed’ as dis-ease is not in balance with ecological limits (silent spring) takes more than it needs and is non responsive to natural rhythms that rebalance planetary systems. This is why the titanic is sinking and the planet is groaning under the strain of humans who have no real connection to themselves, each other or the natural sytems.  The nature of ‘greed’ is to follow selfish interests not respond to expanded best interest that includes resources (natural bounty).  This disconnect renders many of the capitalist/communist (whatever) business interests blind to the dangerous situation they have set up.  Some may smile and decide to fly to the moon or mars, but ultimately karma follows as the real problem was never solved at its inception. The real insecurity, fear and greed fuelling imbalance. When this is investigated inequality disappears, natural imbalances recalibrate and we begin to see ourselves in each other. This is the shift in consciousness I refer to in my video.  I felt the video permeate this blog as I feel inspired to integrate it into an example given by the article.

So a few questions for society to consider:

  • Is it in the national interest for political or influential figures to join with foreign multinational companies and share their knowledge, resources and networks?
  • Given the US trade war any persons or entities involved in Huawei becomes a ‘threat’ as US penetration in Australia evokes its influence in networks, government, policy, security and regulatory environments.  Is this in the Australian public interest?

Thus the wicked webs we weave that continues on a trajectory spiralling to the bottom until we awaken.  Only the truth sets us free.

https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/brumby-quits-huawei-board-days-after-us-criminal-charges-outlined-20190201-p50v10.html

Brumby quits Huawei board days after US criminal charges outlined

Former Victorian premier John Brumby has resigned from the board of Huawei’s Australian operations in a damaging blow to the Chinese technology giant just days after the US government outlined a criminal case against it.

Mr Brumby’s decision to quit comes two days after The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald revealed that Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive at the centre of the alleged global criminal conspiracy, established and oversaw the company’s activities in Australia between 2005 and 2011.

Former Victorian premier John Brumby.
Former Victorian premier John Brumby.CREDIT:PAUL JEFFERS

The former Labor politician’s future at Huawei Technologies (Australia) has been under a cloud since June, after he announced he was reviewing all his directorships upon assuming the role of Chancellor of Melbourne’s La Trobe University.

This week’s release of an indictment against Huawei and key executives by the US Justice Department has increased interest in Mr Brumby’s position on the company’s board.

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Mr Brumby said on Friday that the timing of his resignation, which will be effective from next month, was unrelated to the scandal enveloping the company.

He said he had informed the board a year ago of his intention to resign and was proud of the firm’s local growth.

‘‘We have had some challenging times … Huawei Australia has continued to go from strength to strength.’’

Ms Wanzhou is alleged by the US to have been a key player in a conspiracy to defraud international banks and US officials about the company’s Iran operations. The criminal case against Huawei also involves allegations it stole trade secrets from rival T-Mobile.

Though there is no suggestion that Ms Wanzhou was engaged in any criminal activity in Australia, the US Department of Justice case against her and the company includes the period of time she was overseeing Huawei’s corporate governance and strategy in Australia.

The December arrest of Ms Wanzhou in Canada at the request of the US government triggered a strong response from Beijing, with two Canadian citizens and Chinese-born Australian writer Yang Hengjun detained in China.

Mr Brumby will become Chancellor of La Trobe University in March.
Mr Brumby will become Chancellor of La Trobe University in March.

Ms Wanzhou is the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, a former engineer in the Chinese military.

Mr Brumby joined the Huawei board in Australia in 2011 shortly before the departure of Ms Wanzhou. Former foreign minister Alexander Downer and former Navy rear-admiral John Lord were also appointed to the Huawei board in an effort by the company to build political and defence credibility.

The high-profile Australian trio have been outspoken in defending Huawei against criticism from Australia and the US, whose respective intelligence agencies fear the company could be vulnerable to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party to spy on or sabotage data and phone networks.

Mr Brumby, Mr Lord and, until his 2014 appointment as Australia’s high commissioner to the UK, Mr Downer, have all previously pointed out that there has been no hard evidence produced anywhere to show Huawei was involved in espionage activities on behalf of the Chinese government.

The company has made a priority of ensuring its Australian directors have been looked after well at home and abroad. It is understood some Australian-based directors have been paid as much as $250,000 a year, though Huawei has declined to confirm this.

Despite its high-powered Australian board, Huawei has been prevented by successive Australian governments from participating in the NBN rollout and the 5G mobile network, with security agencies warning against the involvement of the Chinese firm.

Australia’s hard line position on Huawei has emboldened other western allies to restrict the Chinese company’s involvement in sensitive infrastructure.

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In a statement released in the wake of the US charges, Huawei said it was disappointed to learn of the charges and believed the US courts would find no evidence Ms Meng or the company breached US laws.