Denis Rancourt

Psycho-biological basis for image leverage – General model

Family and friends keep the First World financial-corporate elite bosses from murdering brown people in the developing world. Not directly of course but via a psycho-biological survival reflex: We don’t feel secure living with overt psychopaths.

In other words, for the elite bosses to continue practicing genocidal predation for power and profit it is necessary that the predation be cast in a false cover of humanitarian aid, democratic development, solidarity, progress, and the like, and that the most overtly murderous practices be cast as necessary in a fight against evil.

If sufficient care is not taken to secure this cover of mental imagery, then the bosses’ actions will appear more to be what they are, murderous and psychopathic, and the bosses’ children may not feel comfortable sitting on the bosses’ laps and the bosses’ partners may not feel comfortable sleeping in the same bed…

Actually, this problem is solved within the elite nuclear family with a strong family culture of elitism and racism. And it is solved in the bosses’ communities of friends with a strong community culture of classism, elitism, and racism.

But these gated communities are not hermetic. The elite classes have contacts and interactions with the more vibrant broader society. That’s where things get tricky. If the broader society sees the bosses as being psychopathic then by reflection the gated community will see itself as defective and this will represent a serious challenge to its self-image and to its sense of security.

One reaction is for the gated community to further isolate itself, to deepen its elitism, classism, and racism and to build higher walls around its community but this strategy is not sustainable [1]. Often, just the potential for the broader community to develop a negative impression of the elite bosses is enough to somewhat keep the elite psychopaths in check.

A main battlefield therefore is the mental environment in the broader society. The elite bosses own the media and control the schools and the institutions. They work hard and continuously at branding themselves and their finance-corporate projects in a positive light. Energy extraction giants are “green”, in fact greener than ever. Finance giants bring development to the world – one wonders why we need NGOs. NGOs alleviate any guilt or second thoughts from the rampages of exploitation and wholesale destruction. An elaborate mesh of lies is constantly constructed and maintained in order to keep the bosses hidden and their dirty work clean.

More »

Stephen Lendman

[Wikileaks: Collateral Murder (VIDEO). This video shows men gathering on a Baghdad street on July 12, 2007, shortly before they were fired upon. View related photos wikileaks.org]

On April 16, journalist John Cole wrote:

"The message is clear - you torture people and then destroy the evidence, and you get off without so much as a sternly worded letter. If you are a whistle blower outlining criminal behavior by the government, you get prosecuted."

In fact, it's worse. Under Bush, torture was official policy. It remains so under Obama who absolved CIA torturers, despite unequivocal evidence of their guilt. But leaking it risks criminal prosecution for revealing state secrets and endangering national security.

On June 7, New York Times writer Elisabeth Bumiller headlined, "Army Leak Suspect Is Turned In, by Ex-Hacker," explaining that US Army intelligence analyst Specialist Bradley Manning told Adrian Lamo that he leaked the following materials to WikiLeaks:

● "260,000 classified United States diplomatic cables and video of a (US) airstrike in Afghanistan that killed 97 civilians last year," and

="#712F26">● an "explosive (39 minute) video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency." Manning called it "collateral murder," a crime he felt obliged to expose.

Lamo told the military, saying "I outed Brad Manning as an alleged leaker out of duty. I would never (and have never) outed an Ordinary Decent Criminal. There's a difference." He didn't explain or how any criminal can be decent.

More »

Middle East Monitor (MEMO)

ACTION ALERT:

MK Haneen Zoubi (BALAD) faces death threats as the Israeli Knesset House Committee votes to revoke her Parliamentary privileges for participating in the Gaza-bound humanitarian aid Flotilla and protesting against the blockade.

An Appeal to Parliamentarians Worldwide

On June 7, 2010, the Knesset House Committee of the Israeli parliament voted by a majority of seven-to-one to recommend that the parliamentary privileges of MK Haneen Zoubi (NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC ASSEMBLY-BALAD) be revoked. In accordance with the committee's decision, MK Zoubi will be stripped of three rights usually enjoyed by members of the Israeli parliament. First, her diplomatic passport will be rescinded. Second, her privileges regarding travel abroad will be curtailed. Third, her legal costs incurred while in service will no longer be covered by the Knesset. Before taking effect, the revocation of these privileges must be approved by the Knesset plenum. A vote on these matters may take place as early as next week.

The House Committee decision followed several stormy days in the Knesset, during which MK Zoubi was accused by fellow parliamentarians of being a "terrorist" and a "traitor," and subjected to racist and sexist remarks so offensive and abusive, that some were ordered stricken from the public record. In light of this hateful atmosphere, it is likely that the Knesset plenum will approve the House Committee's recommendations.

More »

F. William Engdahl

The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States “could go on for years and years … many years.” [1]

According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.” [2] Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

More »

Jeff Halper

From a 2008 humanitarian flotilla: Boisterous
reception...Lauren Booth, one of the activists.

Jeff Halper exhorts Israelis to shun the “victim” mentality that blinds them to Palestinian suffering. In an open letter specifically to the Israeli Jewish public, published in Hebrew on the popular website Ha'oketz before the attack on the Freedom Flotilla, he says Israelis must embrace the campaign to end the Gaza siege – for the sake of humanity and their own self-interest.

If we were not Israeli Jews, if the nine ships bringing 800 peace-makers from 40 countries would be sailing with humanitarian aid to an imprisoned population of a million and a half to, say, Haiti, the flotilla now on its way to Gaza would be hailed as a monumental event and the government of Israel would donate another 50 tons of food and materials and a brigade of army volunteers from the “rescue corps”. But we are Israelis, and the fact that such an operation is being launched against a siege we imposed on a civilian population three years ago – actually, the blockade goes back to the late 1980s – should cause us all to reflect upon how we and our country have arrived at this sorry state – how the “light unto the nations” has become one of the most oppressive states on earth, subject to international protests like this one.

The flotilla is sailing with a number of messages. First and foremost, to the government of Israel: Lift the siege on Gaza! The siege is absolutely illegal in international law, and for those of us who believe that the rule of law and human rights is the only recipe for a better world, it is incumbent upon us to join the flotilla’s call to lift the siege. Civilians cannot be the object of military and political attacks, as is the case in Gaza (which the Goldstone report roundly criticized), nor can they be collectively punished for the policies of their political leaders. The very idea that people can be brought to their knees and forced to accept being permanently controlled and dominated, which is the thrust of Israeli policy, is both unconscionable and counter-productive. As the situation in Gaza shows, it has only stiffened resistance to the occupation.

More »