Rural > City > Cyberspace The Biggest Migration In Human History.

Rural > City > Cyberspace

The Biggest Migration In Human History.

Nicholas Carr,

Aseries of psychological studies over the past 20 years has revealed that after spending time in a quiet rural setting, close to nature, people exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory, and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper. The reason, according to attention restoration theory, or ART, is that when people aren’t being bombarded by external stimuli, their brains can, in effect, relax. They no longer have to tax their working memories by processing a stream of bottom-up distractions. The resulting state of contemplativeness strengthens their ability to control their mind.

The results of the most recent such study were published in Psychological Science at the end of 2008. A team of University of Michigan researchers, led by psychologist Marc Berman, recruited some three dozen people and subjected them to a rigorous and mentally fatiguing series of tests designed to measure the capacity of their working memory and their ability to exert top-down control over their attention. The subjects were divided into two groups. Half of them spent about an hour walking through a secluded woodland park, and the other half spent an equal amount of time walking along busy downtown streets. Both groups then took the tests a second time. Spending time in the park, the researchers found, “significantly improved” people’s performance on the cognitive tests, indicating a substantial increase in attentiveness. Walking in the city, by contrast, led to no improvement in test results.

The researchers then conducted a similar experiment with another set of people. Rather than taking walks between the rounds of testing, these subjects simply looked at photographs of either calm rural scenes or busy urban ones. The results were the same. The people who looked at pictures of nature scenes were able to exert substantially stronger control over their attention, while those who looked at city scenes showed no improvement in their attentiveness. “In sum,” concluded the researchers, “simple and brief interactions with nature can produce marked increases in cognitive control.” Spending time in the natural world seems to be of “vital importance” to “effective cognitive functioning.”

There is no Sleepy Hollow on the internet, no peaceful spot where contemplativeness can work its restorative magic. There is only the endless, mesmerizing buzz of the urban street. The stimulations of the web, like those of the city, can be invigorating and inspiring. We wouldn’t want to give them up. But they are, as well, exhausting and distracting. They can easily, as Hawthorne understood, overwhelm all quieter modes of thought. One of the greatest dangers we face as we automate the work of our minds, as we cede control over the flow of our thoughts and memories to a powerful electronic system, is the one that informs the fears of both the scientist Joseph Weizenbaum and the artist Richard Foreman: a slow erosion of our humanness and our humanity.

It’s not only deep thinking that requires a calm, attentive mind. It’s also empathy and compassion. Psychologists have long studied how people experience fear and react to physical threats, but it’s only recently that they’ve begun researching the sources of our nobler instincts. What they’re finding is that, as Antonio Damasio, the director of USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute, explains, the higher emotions emerge from neural processes that “are inherently slow.” In one recent experiment, Damasio and his colleagues had subjects listen to stories describing people experiencing physical or psychological pain. The subjects were then put into a magnetic resonance imaging machine and their brains were scanned as they were asked to remember the stories. The experiment revealed that while the human brain reacts very quickly to demonstrations of physical pain – when you see someone injured, the primitive pain centers in your own brain activate almost instantaneously – the more sophisticated mental process of empathizing with psychological suffering unfolds much more slowly. It takes time, the researchers discovered, for the brain “to transcend immediate involvement of the body” and begin to understand and to feel “the psychological and moral dimensions of a situation.”

The experiment, say the scholars, indicates that the more distracted we become, the less able we are to experience the subtlest, most distinctively human forms of empathy, compassion, and other emotions. “For some kinds of thoughts, especially moral decision-making about other people’s social and psychological situations, we need to allow for adequate time and reflection,” cautions Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, a member of the research team. “If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states.” It would be rash to jump to the conclusion that the internet is undermining our moral sense. It would not be rash to suggest that as the net reroutes our vital paths and diminishes our capacity for contemplation, it is altering the depth of our emotions as well as our thoughts.

There are those who are heartened by the ease with which our minds are adapting to the web’s intellectual ethic. “Technological progress does not reverse,” writes a Wall Street Journal columnist, “so the trend toward multitasking and consuming many different types of information will only continue.” We need not worry, though, because our “human software” will in time “catch up to the machine technology that made the information abundance possible.” We’ll “evolve” to become more agile consumers of data. The writer of a cover story in New York magazine says that as we become used to “the 21st-century task” of “fitting” among bits of online information, “the wiring of the brain will inevitably change to deal more efficiently with more information.” We may lose our capacity “to concentrate on a complex task from beginning to end,” but in recompense we’ll gain new skills, such as the ability to “conduct 34 conversations simultaneously across six different media.” A prominent economist writes, cheerily, that “the web allows us to borrow cognitive strengths from autism and to be better infovores.” An Atlantic author suggests that our “technology-induced ADD” may be “a short-term problem,” stemming from our reliance on “cognitive habits evolved and perfected in an era of limited information flow.” Developing new cognitive habits is “the only viable approach to navigating the age of constant connectivity.”

These writers are certainly correct in arguing that we’re being molded by our new information environment. Our mental adaptability, built into the deepest workings of our brains, is a keynote of intellectual history. But if there’s comfort in their reassurances, it’s of a very cold sort. Adaptation leaves us better suited to our circumstances, but qualitatively it’s a neutral process. What matters in the end is not our becoming but what we become. In the 1950s, Martin Heidegger observed that the looming “tide of technological revolution” could “so captivate, bewitch, dazzle, and beguile man that calculative thinking may someday come to be accepted and practiced as the only way of thinking.” Our ability to engage in “meditative thinking,” which he saw as the very essence of our humanity, might become a victim of headlong progress. The tumultuous advance of technology could, like the arrival of the locomotive at the Concord station, drown out the refined perceptions, thoughts, and emotions that arise only through contemplation and reflection. The “frenziedness of technology,” Heidegger wrote, threatens to “entrench itself everywhere.”

It may be that we are now entering the final stage of that entrenchment. We are welcoming the frenziedness into our souls.

Nicholas Carr is the former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. He is well-known for his cover article in The Atlantic which asked, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” He explored this question in more depth in his latest book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Carr lives in Colorado and blogs at roughtype.com

Excerpted from The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brainsby Nicholas Carr (c) 2010 by Nicholas Carr. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/99/nicholas-carr.html

GCHQ's cover for Optic Nerve provided by legislation introduced in 2000

Section 8 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act permits GCHQ to perform indiscriminate trawls of external data 

Nick Hopkins

Giving evidence to MPs before Christmas, Sir Iain Lobban, the director of GCHQ, used the analogy favoured by the security agencies to explain what they do. He likened the gathering of intelligence to building a haystack and said he was "very well aware that within that haystack there is going to be plenty of innocent communications from innocent people".

The latest revelations from the Edward Snowden files show this haystack also includes webcam images of millions of internet users, some of whom are involved in deeply adult forms of in flagrante"communication".

Surveillance of this kind puts a new spin on William Hague's defence ofGCHQ's snooping programmes: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."

In some ways, the Guardian story about GCHQ's Optic Nerve operation brilliantly illustrates the tangle that ministers and the intelligence services have got themselves into. And it poses a big question mark over the repeated assertion that mass surveillance is proportionate and necessary.

The agencies do not regard the "unselected surveillance" as revealed by Optic Nerve as snooping. As Lobban said to MPs last November: "My people are motivated by saving the lives of British forces on the battlefield, they are motivated by fighting terrorists and serious criminals. If they were asked to snoop, I would not have the workforce. They would leave the building."

Nick Pickles, the director of Big Brother Watch, takes a different view. "Secretly intercepting and taking photographs from millions of people's webcam chats is as creepy as it gets.Orwell's 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual."

GCHQ insists the activity is legal. And doubtless it is, if you believe that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which was passed in 2000, was drafted with this kind of surveillance in mind.

But even the parliamentary intelligence and security committee – not a body known for challenging the agencies with any robustness – is now questioning whether ministers and the agencies can really use Ripa for cover. The collection of webcam material was probably secured by getting an "external warrant" under paragraph four of section 8 of Ripa.

In most Ripa cases, a minister has to be told the name of an individual or firm being targeted before a warrant is granted. But section 8 permitsGCHQ to perform more sweeping and indiscriminate trawls of external data if a minister issues a "certificate" along with the warrant. It allows ministers to sanction the collection, storage and analysis of vast amounts of material, using technologies that barely existed when Ripa was introduced.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-insists-optic-nerve-program-legal-legislation-2000

Intervene? Or End Syrian War?

Intervene? Or End Syrian War?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Whether saber rattling or not, word is out that the White House is “rethinking its options” on intervening in the Syrian war.

The collapse of John Kerry’s Geneva 2 talks between the rebels and regime, the lengthening casualty lists from barrel-bomb attacks, and a death toll approaching 150,000, are apparently causing second thoughts.

All the usual suspects are prodding Obama to plunge in, if not with troops, at least with a no-fly zone to prevent Bashar Assad from using his air power.

Our frustration is understandable. Yet it does not change the reality. This is not America’s war. Never was. As Obama said, it is “somebody else’s civil war.”

Still, the case against intervention needs to be restated.

First and foremost, Obama has no authority to go to war in Syria, for Congress has never voted to authorize such a war.

An unprovoked attack on Syria would be an impeachable act.

Last August, the American people were almost unanimously opposed to intervention. The firestorm they created was why Congress ran away from the Obama-Kerry plan for missile strikes.

So if Obama has no authority to attack Syria, and America does not want a war, why, after Iraq and Afghanistan, would Obama divide his nation and plunge his country into that civil war?

What are the arguments for intervention? Same old, same old.

America has a moral obligation to end the barbarism. At the time of Rwanda we said, “Never again!” Yet it is happening again. And we have a “Responsibility to Protect” Syrians from a dictator slaughtering his own people.

But while what is happening in Syria is horrible, all Middle East ethnic-civil-sectarian wars tend to unfold this way.

And if there is a “moral” obligation to intervene, why does it not apply to Israel and Turkey, Syria’s nearest neighbors? Why does that moral duty not apply to the European Union, upon whose doorstep Syria sits? Why is it America’s moral obligation, 5,000 miles away?

It is not. The Turks, Israelis, EU and Gulf Arabs who hate Assad would simply like for us to come and fight their war for them.

The Washington Post says we must address not only the moral “nightmare,” but also the “growing threat … to vital U.S. interests.”

Exactly what “vital interests” is the Post talking about? Syria has been ruled by the Assads for 40 years. And how have our vital interests been imperiled?

And if our vital interests are imperiled, how much more so are those of Israel and Turkey? Yet neither has chosen to invest the blood of their sons in bringing Assad down.

If we have an enemy in this fight, it is al-Qaida, the al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, all of which are terrorist and implacably anti-American.

And who is keeping these enemies of ours out of Damascus?

Assad, Hezbollah, Iran and our old friend Vladimir Putin.

And who has been supplying the terrorists? Our friends in the Gulf, with weapons funneled through Turkey, our NATO ally.

Have the interventionists who are beside themselves watching all these insurrections and wars breaking out thought through what is likely to happen if we intervene?

The Syrian war would become a more savage affair, as Assad would know he was now in a fight to the finish. As U.S. air power was committed to the defeat of Assad, his allies would likely provide more weapons for his defense. Casualties could soar and the probability of a wider war would increase geometrically.

Should Assad fall, his routed soldiers and Alawaites and Christians would face reprisals for which we would be morally responsible, as it was our intervention that brought this about. We might have to intervene with troops to stop a massacre by jihadists.

And if Assad fell, pro-Western rebels would likely have to fight the al-Qaida rebels for power. Syria could come apart, and we would own it.

Obama’s frustration is understandable. He said two years ago Assad must go. Assad flipped him off. Obama said use of chemical weapons would be a “red line” which, if crossed, would bring serious consequences. Assad’s troops apparently crossed that line.

What did we do? Worked with Russia to remove the weapons.

Washington is enraged that Putin continues to support Assad.

But Assad’s regime is the recognized and legal government of Syria. Russia has a naval base in Latakia, is owed billions by Damascus, and has been Syria’s ally for decades.

Why should Putin abandon Assad at our request?

What have we done for him lately? Besides send Billy Jean King to his Olympics? Why, Putin might ask, should he abandon his Syrian allies rather than us, the Turks, and Gulf Arabs abandoning ours?

There is a grave moral issue here – for us.

How, under just war theory, can we continue to sustain a conflict that is killing thousands every month with no end in sight? Are we not morally obliged to try to stop such a war?

COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM

http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2014/02/27/intervene-or-end-syrian-war/

Nazis, Islamists, And The Making Of The Modern Middle East Book Review

Nazis, Islamists, And The Making Of The Modern Middle East

Book Review By Dr. Ludwig Watzal

27 February, 2014
Countercurrents.org

Barry Rubin/Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Yale University Press, New Haven 2014, 360 pp. $ 35.

There has been an intense collaboration and cooperation between Nazi Germany and the Islamists forces like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and others that determine the course of events in the Middle East till today. These forces not only collaborated with the Nazi regime but they also provided thousands of Nazis with a safe haven after the war.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husaini, was a Jew hater and an advocate of Islamist radicalism who spent the war years in Berlin where he lived in luxury. He was the only Muslim figure who supported Hitler in his evil and sinister crime against European Jewry. In return, Hitler promised the Mufti that the extermination of Jews in Palestine would start as soon as Rommel would arrive there. Thanks to the British, he never made it.

The authors, Barry Rubin and Wolfgang Schwanitz, came up with new archive material that inspired them to formulate provocative and highly problematic theses. They make astonishing and weird claims: For them, al-Husaini was the supposed architect of the “Final Solution”. They argue that the mufti had such great influence on the Nazi top brass that he might have well authored the mass murder of the Jews of Europe . To put it bluntly, the mufti as the string-puller behind Hitler seems outlandish.

Rubin and Schwanitz want to prove that “ eliminationist anti-Semitism” drives the Islamic Middle East, and that al-Husaini was worst than Hitler. Consequently, his influence on Islamist movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, is blown up by the authors. “When Islamism revived in the 1970s, its ideology bore the mark of al-Husaini and the other wartime collaborators, especially the Muslim Brotherhood.” The authors demonstrate an apparent influence of former German Nazis in the Arab world. A political alliance between the Third Reich, Arab nationalists and Muslim religious authorities was forged that have survived until today. In contrast, the authors waste no words to the close cooperation between Fascism and Zionism that was documented in Lenni Brenner's book “Zionism in the Age of Dictators”.

According to the authors, Israel came only into being because the mufti rejected the White Papers and opposed the U.N partition plan of 1947. Rubin and Schwanitz should know better that the establishment of the State of Israel was due to the successful diplomatic lobbying of the then Zionist leadership, the interest of the imperial powers, the military superiority of the Zionist forces and the disorganized resistance by the Palestinian Arabs. All the political problems of the Middle East are blamed by the authors on the Muslim side, as these could never shake off their "Nazi past". The fact that the problems of the Middle East have been primarily caused by the Zionist colonization and the brutal policies of the Israeli political establishment, apparently does not reach the authors' mind.

After having read the book, one gets the impression that the authors want to pursue a political agenda by establishing a close connection between the Nazi ideology and Islamist thinking. Some quoted material is heavily biased against Islam like the work of Bernard Lewis, Ephraim Karsh and others. This is not surprising since Schwanitz is an associate fellow of the Middle East Forum, headed by the notorious Daniel Pipes. Schwanitz is also a visiting professor at the Global Research in International Affairs Center of the Interdisciplinary Center, Israel, of which Barry Rubin was the director till he passed away shortly after the book was published.

Although the authors have processed enormous amounts of archive material and literature, they partly devalue the results of their work by their ideological bias and their bizarre theories. Whether this politically motivated and distorted historical retrospect contributes anything substantial to the understanding of the present Middle East , must be questioned.

Dr. Ludwig Watzal works as a journalist and editor in Bonn , Germany . Her runs the bilingual blog “between the lines”http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de

The Moazzam Begg Arrest

The Moazzam Begg Arrest: Part of the Effort to Criminalize Muslim Political Dissent

By Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain

Moazzam Begg, a native-born British citizen of Pakistani descent, spent three years incarcerated in the most notorious detention camps created in the post-9/11 “War on Terror”: all without ever being charged with any crime.

Arrested in Pakistan in 2002, he was transferred to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, where he suffered torture and witnessed U.S. interrogators beat an innocent taxi driver to death, and then onwards to Guantanamo Bay where he would be detained for the next three years in conditions he’d describe as “torturous”.

Throughout this time Begg, now 45, was repeatedly deprived of legal counsel and was prohibited from even viewing the alleged evidence against him. After public outcry in his home country resulted in hisrepatriation to England in 2005, Begg went on to become a human rights activist — writing books, and advocating for other post-9/11 detainees through his organization Cageprisoners, whose self-described mission is: “working to empower communities impacted by the War on Terror”; “campaigning against the War on Terror”; and “working with survivors of abuse and mistreatment across the globe.”

Much of this work has included investigating the claims of others who were tortured with the complicity of the British government. It is in retaliation for this activism, he says, that he has been repeatedly harassed, including repeated interrogations and the confiscation of his passport last December at Heathrow Airport, when agents told him it was “not in the public interest” for him to retain it. In an article he published about that incident, Begg two weeks ago wrote: “I am certain that the only reason I am being continually harassed….[is because of] investigations and assertions based on hard evidence that British governments, past and present, have been wilfully complicit in torture.”

On Tuesday, Begg was arrested in an “anti-terror raid” on his home outside Birmingham, charged with “terrorism” offenses for having allegedly traveled to Syria to assist Syrian rebels. He was among four other people arrested that day, all due to Syria-related offences.

Curiously, however, Begg’s last visit to Syria was in the relatively distant past. He visited the country last in December 2012 — for what he said were advocacy purposes and to continue his investigation on torture victims renditioned to the country by Western intelligence agencies. Several individuals of Syrian descent were notoriously renditioned to the Assad regime by the U.S. for interrogation and torture, including the Canadian citizen Maher Arar, whose treatment resulted in a formal apology from the Canadian government and compensation of close to $10 million.

Crucially, it appears that Begg was given explicit permission to take this trip to Syria by Britain’s MI5. In his last article, he described:

[I]n October 2012, I was called by an MI5 officer who said they wanted to talk to me about my views on the situation in Syria…I agreed to speak to them and meet at a hotel in East London. Both MI5 and I had our lawyers present. At the end of the meeting I was assured by MI5 that my proposed return to Syria to continue my work would not be hindered, and it wasn’t.

This raises the obvious question: if the British government had concerns about his involvement with militant groups in Syria, why did it specifically meet with him to green-light his trip there? Furthermore, if his arrest was related to his December 2012 trip, why would the government wait more than a year to arrest him for it?

That’s all independent of the bizzare spectacle of charging someone with “terrorism” offenses for allegedly helping rebels which the U.S. government itself is aiding and for whom intervention was advocated by the U.S. president as recently as last year. Indeed, in 2012, the year Begg made his trip, the widespread view in the West of Syrian rebels was that they were noble freedom-fighters who deserved as much help as possible, not “terrorists” whom the law made it a crime to assist. In the same year another major visiting supporter to the opposition movement was John McCain – an indication of how much mainstream Western support the uprising enjoyed at the time.

Begg has long been a vituperative critic of the British government’s conduct during the War on Terror but throughout this time he has always been a public figure under constant media and government scrutiny. The notion that he’d be able to engage in terrorism surreptitiously on a trip sanctioned by MI5 — then hide this for over a year — seems dubious in the extreme.

While the timing of his arrest makes little evident sense from a national security perspective, it does appear to correspond remarkably to his advocacy work. Cageprisoners’s media officer, Cerie Bullivant, yesterday noted: “Moazzam has been very open about his international travel and his objectives, including importantly exposing British complicity in rendition and torture. …[T]he timing [of his arrest] coincides with the planned release of a CAGE report on Syria and a major news piece that was due to be televised soon.”

In his last, seemingly prescient Facebook post, published just hours before his arrest, Begg wrote: “Sometimes knowing too much can be a curse.” UK-based human rights investigator Nawaz Hanif told The Intercept that the charges against Begg are a transparent attempt at silencing political dissent:

The arrest of Moazzam Begg under British anti-terror laws is eerily similar to the detention of David Miranda a few months ago – both utilizing vague terror allegations to stifle investigations into abuses of power….It is pertinent to ask British authorities why Moazzam is being arrested a day before his report on torture and rendition is to be released, and over a year since he last stepped foot in Syria.”

This explanation is all the more credible given the exploitation of terrorism charges by both the U.S. and UK governments throughout the post-9/11 era. There has been a consistent attempt by government authorities to stifle political activism among those criticizing civil rights abuses as well as foreign military expansionism. Predominantly, the brunt of this suppression has focused on Muslim minority communities in the West.

The No Separate Justice campaign, along with the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, have documented numerous cases of Muslim political activists who have been arrested and detained for their public criticisms of the conduct of the War on Terror — usually under the guise of highly-tendentious terrorism charges. Individuals such asTarek Mehanna, Fahad Hashmi, Jubair Ahmad, Emerson Winfield Begolly, and others have come to the attention of authorities for their highly public expressions of dissent, charged with terrorism, and then handed long prison sentences under extreme circumstances of incarceration rivaling those at Guantanamo.

The largest civil rights organization in the U.S., CAIR, was smeared by the DOJ in 2003 as “an unidicted co-conspirator” in a terrorism case (but given no opportunity to contest the innuendo), while the nation’s largest Muslim charity was prosecuted on terrorism charges for the crime of sending money to Palestinians deemed terrorists by the U.S. Government. Federal courts in the U.S., and to a lesser extent in the UK, have been subservient in the extreme to national security claims by the government, all but ensuring that accused Muslims are convicted evenwhen the evidence is at its flimsiest. All of this, coupled withwidespread community surveillance, has sent a message that aggressive political dissent among Muslims will not be tolerated and can easily be criminalized as “terrorism”.

For his part — and despite his horrific experiences — Begg has always maintained that whatever animosity he has felt has not been towards America but to the government which abused him, saying in a 2006 interview: “I’m absolutely clear in my mind that there are a great number of American soldiers who are good, decent people. … Do I hate Americans? No. Do I hate the administration? I think unreservedly.”

While government suppression of activists usually begins by targeting unpopular minority groups such as Muslims, it is clear that the dragnet is already beginning to expand, as exemplified by the recent threats and detentions of journalists, whistleblowers and other activist groups under terrorism laws.

The arrest of one of the West’s most prominent Muslim war on terror critics is almost certain to further stifle political activism within the Muslim community and more broadly as well.  Utilizing extremely dubious terrorism charges against domestic dissidents has been a hallmark of the national security state in the post-9/11 era. That such tactics are commonly condemned when implemented by authoritarian governments such as China, Egypt and Russia - and yet enthusiastically implemented at home with little objection – exemplifies the corrosive measures and accompanying mentality which are undermining the foundations of Western freedoms.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/27/moazzam-begg-arrest-part-effort-criminalize-muslim-political-dissent/

Criticizing Repression of Protest Abroad, Practicing it at Home

What if Americans Demanded the Ouster of This Government?

by DAVE LINDORFF

Ukraine’s new rulers, in one of their first acts, have disbanded that country’s riot police.

Now without getting into the complex politics of the ongoing struggles in that country, or into the question of the covert role of the US in backing the protests that brought down the old government in Kiev, this elimination of a brutal paramilitary police organization got me to thinking: If Ukraine, which has just gone through a spasm of deadly violence, and which is still in a very dangerous and politically unsettled situation, can get along without riot police, why can’t the United States?

Lately, with political struggles occurring in the streets of Venezuela, Thailand, Ukraine and a number of other places, the US government has been declaring over and over that the governments being challenged should not resort to violence against their own people.

Here’s US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Venezuela:

“We support human rights and fundamental freedoms – including freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly – in Venezuela as we do in countries around the world.” 

And here is President Obama, speaking about the police violence in Ukraine:

“We hold the Ukrainian government primarily responsible for making sure that it is dealing with peaceful protesters in an appropriate way, that the Ukrainian people are able to assemble and speak freely about their interests without fear of repression.”

Even in Thailand where, unlike in Venezuela or Ukraine, the US is backing the government against protesters seeking new elections, with State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf still insisted that the US supports:

“…a democratic process to resolve the ongoing political tensions in Thailand…We also continue to urge all sides to refrain from violence, exercise restraint and respect the rule of law…and we do, I would note, applaud the restraint shown thus far by government authorities in this regard.”

Now let’s compare those fine, high-minded scoldings and warnings — and remember, we’re talking about three countries where the protesters have been seeking the overthrow of their existing governments, not just for reforms in the system, and protesters, particularly in Ukraine and Venezuela, who have themselves resorted to violence and especially to property damage — to how our own government these days responds to peaceful public protest.

We need only look back just a little over two years to the brief and numerically rather small Occupy Movement that, beginning in September of 2011, swept the country from Wall Street in lower Manhattan to Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle and from Chicago to Miami. Within weeks of the inception of that protest against the power of the financial industry, against the destruction of ordinary working class and middle class people, and against the rank corruption of the US government, police in almost every jurisdiction where there was some occupation protest began using deliberate, amped-up violence, often quite brutal, to drive protesters from the public spaces they were occupying. We witnessed the random spraying of mace into faces, the firing of tear gas and potentially lethal concussion grenades, the firing of rubber bullets and bean-bag projectiles, often at close range, the widespread use of truncheons, and there were mass arrests.

It turned out, based upon communications obtained through various Freedom of Information requests, that this violent police crackdown in city after city was no coincidence. Rather, it was orchestrated by federal authorities at the FBI, the US “Justice” Department and the Department of Homeland Security, which were passing instructions, guidance, and tactical lessons from one city to others — for example the idea applied first in Oakland Calif. to raid occupiers at night, using maximum force, while excluding the media — an approach which was later adopted in most other cities.

We learned that in Houston, the FBI actually knew of, and did nothing about, an apparent plot, possibly by some unidentified government agency or by corporate security units, fortunately never activated, to use “suppressed sniper rifles” to kill “the leaders of the Occupy Movement” in Houston. The Bureau never prosecuted anyone for that plot, which one FBI memo suggests is still active but perhaps on hold.

In some cities, undercover police “joined” occupiers and assisted them, in some cases providing needed crucial equipment and leading ideas about tactics, to engage in obstructive tactics such one where a group of Houston occupiers chained themselves to the entrance to the Houston port in an effort to close it. During the trial of those protesters, it came out through the legal discovery process that undercover police had provided the specialized, hard-to-cut, PVC-covered chains used in the action, and charges had to be dropped.

Significantly, the federal government documents show that the Occupy Movement protests were all classified by the FBI and Homeland Security as “terrorist” actions, not as First Amendment-protected public assemblies. (One of the “recommended” actions communicated to all cities where there were occupation actions, was to simply deny any requests by protesters for permits to occupy public spaces — a strategy designed to give police the authority to then drive protesters from public squares and to brutalize and arrest those who wouldn’t leave.)

More generally, police across the US are being supplied with riot gear, including dangerous high-decibel sound generators, microwave beam “canons” that cause the body to feel intense pain from internal heating, military assault rifles, and surplus armed and armored personnel carriers, making them functionally into a domestic military force, rather than simply police. These paramilitary cops have been on display and in action for years now at public demonstrations like quadrennial political party conventions, and at anti-war and other protests. Federal agencies from Homeland Security to the Social Security Administration have been getting supplied with hundreds of millions of rounds of deadly hollow-point bullets, with the government refusing to explain why even departments with no police function would need such ammunition.

Where demonstrations are planned, police, encouraged by the federal government, or actually working for the federal government, have with some predictability used undercover personnel to lure naive young people into actions that they are later arrested for on trumped-up terrorism charges, as just happened recently in Chicago.

What all this boils down to is the the US government, while talking in a high-minded manner about the importance of the right to protest and criticizing governments that use police in a repressive manner, is actually doing the same thing here at home. Making the US government all the more hypocritical is the fact that most protests here in the US are tame compared to those that the US government is defending abroad. Where protesters in Ukraine, Venezuela and Thailand, for example, have been seeking the overthrow of their governments, Occupy protesters in the US, protesters at US drone bases, and protesters opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline, as well as most other protest actions, are not seeking the overthrow of the government in Washington at all. They generally have specific government actions that they are demanding be halted, but that is hardly an existential threat. Nonetheless, the US, beginning with the Bush/Cheney Administration, and moving on to the Obama Administration, is proving to be in full repression mode against any form of protest against the government or its policies or even against the banking, munitions, oil or agribusiness industry.

The massive spying of the National Security Agency has to be seen in this light. The sweeping collection of all kinds of electronic communications, and the total monitoring of the actions, relationships and travel of all Americans, is the ultimate repressive act, unmatched in the long history of repressive regimes. This police-state espionage against the American public has nothing to do with the stated objective of “combatting terrorism” and “keeping Americans safe,” and everything to do with intimidating and subverting all forms of protest. It is the East German Stasi or the Soviet KGB but with 21st-Century technology.

Instead of taking this government’s empty words in support of democratic rights for protesters abroad seriously, we Americans need to start studying and emulating the actions of those protesters abroad who have shown the courage to face down their paramilitary police, and to demand the ouster of regimes that they consider repressive. If we wait too long here to demand a halt to the growing US police state, when we finally do act, given all the paramilitary training and the surplus military gear being provided to our $100-billion-a-year local police, and given the growing power of our federal police agencies, we will find that this government’s response will make Ukraine’s now disbanded riot police look like amateurs.

Dave Lindorff is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/27/what-if-americans-demanded-the-ouster-of-this-government/

America vs. the World

Freedom Rider: America vs. the World

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“A superpower can foment conflict anywhere it wants to at anytime it chooses.”

The word imperialism fell into disuse in recent decades. If it seems slightly retro, that is only because there aren’t enough Americans committed to telling the ugly truth about their government.

During the cold war era we were told that communism increased in influence via a domino effect, knocking down nations one by one and forcing them into Moscow’s or Beijing’s orbit. In the 21^st century there is a new domino theory which puts every part of the world into America’s cross hairs.

Barack Obama has succeeded in expanding America’s influence in ways that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney could only dream about. The neo-conservative project for a new American century has reached full fruition under a Democratic president, who now has many notches on his gun. He and the rest of the NATO leaders began the trail of destruction with Libya, tearing that country asunder under the guise of saving it.

Using lies and their servants in the corporate media, they constructed a tale of a tyrant and a people yearning for protection. That evil success emboldened them and their gulf monarchy allies further and they decided that Syria would be the next domino.

The system can no longer sustain itself and brute force is the only out.”

That plan didn’t work quite as well as Obama and the rest of murder incorporated team thought it would. When the British parliament said no to new military adventures Obama was left sputtering on national television. He was forced to back down [8] from an adamant position he had taken just days earlier.

The semi-comedic setback was only temporary because the monster must be fed at all cost. The system can no longer sustain itself and brute force is the only out. There is nothing old fashioned about imperialism. This malevolent force is still alive and well.

George W. Bush made efforts to overthrow [9] the democratically elected Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela when he plotted with the opposition against the late Hugo Chavez. Obama is clearly more committed to violence than his predecessor and has helped to stir up right wing Venezuelans who want to rid themselves of Nicolas Maduro. Maduro has been weakened by the ginned up protests and is now forced into talks with an opposition that won’t be satisfied until he is dead and gone too.

The Venezuelan people have voted for their revolution numerous times. The U.S., a country that never ceases to call itself a democracy, has thwarted their clearly expressed will time and time again. But that is the essence of empire after all.

While armed force against Syria was temporarily blocked, the West, the Persian gulf monarchies, Israel, and jihadists have not given up their effort to topple [10] the Bashir al-Assad government in Syria. The savage war has made thousands of Syrians homeless and starving refugees, all because the empire needs its next domino.

Not only does United States meddles in its own backyard, it also relentlessly interferes on the other side of the world in far away Ukraine[11]. Popular discontent against that country’s president became a successful effort to bring that country into the western sphere of economic influence but with the awful strings of austerity attached. Ukraine has the choice of going bankrupt or being bailed out and dying a slow death a la Greece.

“Every invasion, occupation and disruption in recent years can be laid at the feet of the United States and its allies.”

While the machinations were afoot, president Obama warned Vladimir Putin away with threats of sanctions. The scenes of sometimes violent street protests in Ukraine made a fortuitous tableau for the United States which claimed the infamous “responsibility to protect” which never protects anyone who actually needs help and which has brought so much suffering to people around the world. Every invasion, occupation and disruption in recent years can be laid at the feet of the United States and its allies. Iraq has been destroyed quite literally, Iran has been destroyed economically. Libya was taken out and Syria is on the brink.

The United States quite openly makes it clear that it wants to have its way in the world. If Russia attempts to use its influence then it is vilified and caricatured as a cruel dictatorship controlled by a tyrant. No matter how many elections Chavez and now Maduro won, they are called dictators by American talking heads.

A superpower can foment conflict anywhere it wants to at anytime it chooses. Venezuelans must knuckle under or face the prospect of more turmoil and violence. Ukraine must sign onto economic policies which have already proven disastrous. The United States leaves its fingerprints in these and many other places and that is the essence of imperialism. It is all about control with the rawest brute force available.

The United States hasn’t officially made Venezuela or any other a colony but it doesn’t have to do that. It just has to show that it is boss and the dominos will fall wherever it chooses.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. [12] Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/print/content/freedom-rider-america-vs-world