[Peace-discuss] Obama adviser who brought us Al Qaeda

[C. G. Estabrook]

[1] One can oppose intervention, invasion, and occupation while acknowledging 
that in the recent history of Afghanistan the Russian case is far better than 
the American. The role of the US in the 1970s -- specifically, of a liberal 
Democratic administration -- in making the situation far worse (indeed, 
constructing modern jihadism) should be recognized.

[2] The compromise -- if that's the way to put it -- of 1933 in the US depended 
on there being a large politically aware segment of the American populace. They 
made it necessary for the Roosevelt administration to "inject money into the 
system" in their interest.

The difference with the present is the triumph of American PR.  Three 
generations of control of the ideological institutions -- universities, media, 
schools -- has meant the silencing of the institutions, notably unions, that 
could carry that understanding.  Note the childish treatment of the term 
"socialist" in the last election, and compare the average American's more 
sophisticated understanding of it in 1933.

[3] The treatment of the depression of the 1930s in three important countries 
-- Germany, the USSR, and the US -- was remarkably similar, despite the 
different circumstances.  In each, a charismatic leader (Hitler, Stalin, FDR) 
rescued the profits of the elite by enforcing state control of the economy with 
what seems from our historical distance to be remarkably similar propagandistic 
exhortations, and by providing some protection for the populace.

Until war amongst the three obscured the fact, the most successful in 
ameliorating the effects of the world-wide depression on its populace was 
Germany, the most brutal the USSR.  The US was in the middle on both points.

[4] As people within the Republican Party [sic] noted in the generations after 
the US Civil War, there's not much difference between chattel slavery and wage 
slavery.   If one must give up control over what makes him human -- his work of 
head and hands -- to someone else, in order to eat regularly, one can hardly be 
said to be free.  But of course there are many degrees of comfort in both forms 
of slavery, to put it ridiculously mildly...

The work of the leaders of the 1930s was to control the national economy to 
remove just enough distress to prevent an effective demand for a human and 
humane social arrangement -- a free association of producers that would 
necessarily eliminate the ruling class (at least in their class role, if not as 
individuals).  But that demand is an independent variable -- it can be raised or 
lowered by consciousness (which is why there's been such -- successful -- 
emphasis on the "manufacture of consent" ever since.)  --CGE


unionyes wrote:
> Two points Carl.
> 
> 1) Before the Soviet Union invasion of Afganistan in the early 1980's, 
> Afganistan had a progressive revolution and a left-wing populist government
> where women were members in the government cabinet ( and even wore skirts and
> pants ). There was land reform, an end to corruption, and a check on the
> power of the tribal warlords, and a secular co-ed educational literacy
> program instituted. The tribal leaders and the Islamic fanatics were
> outraged. This point circa 1978-1979 is when the CIA began a destabalization
>  program against the Afgan government under the direction of Brzezinski. When
> the Afgan government was close to collapse, the Soviets invaded to prevent a
> Islamic right-wing government from coming to power. Then the CIA began to
> recruit and form Al Queda.
> 
> 2) The sollution to the U.S. domestic political / social / class war unrest
> will NOT be money injected into the syatem, instead it will be NORCOM, the
> brigade of U.S. troops that have been re-deployed to the U.S.. In other
> words, the ruling class has no intention of compromising like they did in
> 1933. They are prepared to murder and jail us in homeland security / FEMA
> concentration camps.
> 
> I don't want to imply that " resistence is futile ", on the contrary ! Just
> that we need to approach this with no illusions, and be prepared for the
> worst. But resist we MUST ! The alternative is corporate feudal slavery, and
> personaly I would rather be dead than to submit to being a slave.
> 
> People DO have the power. If we ALL refuse to cooperate and shut them down
> where no one works and nothing works they will be forced to submit to us. 
> Getting the majority of working people in this country to realize this will
> be the challenge. Most American working people are not class conscious. But
> the U.S. ruling class is. And they will continue to distract us with their ;
> corporate news, American Idol, and so called reality TV shows, as well as all
> of the sporting events.
> 
> David J.
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu> To:
> "peace-discuss" <peace-discuss at anti-war.net> Sent: Saturday, February 21,
> 2009 3:29 PM Subject: [Peace-discuss] Obama adviser who brought us Al Qaeda
> 
> 
>> [Zbigniew Brzezinski was President Carter's National Security Adviser when
>> he arranged for the CIA to fund armed religious fanatics and send them into
>> Afghanistan (note: before the Soviet invasion) "to give the Russians their
>> own Vietnam," as he later bragged to a French magazine.  He justified the
>> plan by saying, "What is most important to the history of the world? The
>> Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or
>> the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War."  The
>> stirred-up Muslims came back in September 2001 and so became the Obama
>> administration's lying excuse for killing people in Afghanistan today in
>> support of its geopolitical goals. --CGE]
>> 
>> 
>> Brzezinski: ‘Hell, There Could Be Even Riots’
>> 
>> Brzezinski fears class warfare.  Not Mika. Zbigniew.  And not 
>> Barney-Frank-on-Meet-the-Press class warfare.  Real, blood-in-the-streets
>> riots.
>> 
>> Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Adviser expressed his concern about
>> the possibility of riots on Morning Joe today.  To stave them off, he
>> proposes the creation of a voluntary National Solidarity Fund, whose
>> contributors would be those who made out very well in recent times.
>> 
>> JOE SCARBOROUGH: You also talked about the possibility of class conflict.
>> 
>> ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I was worrying about it because we’re going to have
>> millions and millions of unemployed, people really facing dire straits. And
>> we’re going to be having that for some period of time before things
>> hopefully improve. And at the same time there is public awareness of this
>> extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals at levels
>> without historical precedent in America . . . And you sort of say to
>> yourself: what’s going to happen in this society when these people are
>> without jobs, when their families hurt, when they lose their homes, and so
>> forth?
>> 
>> We have the government trying to repair: repair the banking system, to bail
>> the housing out.  But what about the rich guys? Where is it? [What are
>> they] doing?
>> 
>> It sort of struck me, that in 1907, when we had a massive banking crisis,
>> when banks were beginning to collapse, there were going to be riots in the
>> streets. Some financiers, led by J.P. Morgan, got together.  He locked them
>> in his library at one point. He wouldn’t let them out until 4:45 AM, until
>> they all kicked in and gave some money to stabilize the banks: there was no
>> Federal Reserve at the time.
>> 
>> Where is the monied class today? Why aren’t they doing something: the 
>> people who made billions, millions.  I’m sort of thinking of Paulson, of
>> Rubin. Why don’t they get together, and why don’t they organize a National
>> Solidarity Fund in which they call on all of those who made these
>> extraordinary amounts of money to kick some back in to [a] National
>> Solidarity Fund?
>> 
>> A bit later, Zbig made his fears explicit.
>> 
>> BRZEZINSKI: And if we don’t get some sort of voluntary National Solidarity
>> Fund, at some point there’ll be such political pressure that Congress will
>> start getting in the act, there’s going to be growing conflict between the
>> classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could
>> be even riots!
>> 
>> Note: This might have been Zbig’s first Morning Joe appearance since he
>> sneeringly dismissed Scarborough as “stunningly superficial.” 
>> Unfortunately, from a selfish entertainment-value perspective, there was no
>> renewal of those fireworks, all parties being on their best behavior. Mika,
>> apparently off on vacation, is certainly relieved.
>> 
>> http://finkelblog.com/index.php/2009/02/17/brzezinski-hell-there-could-be-even-riots/
>>