Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 2568 Location: One breath from Glory
Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2010 11:47 am Post subject: Why Aren't Americans Fighting Back?"
copied from a Kevin Barrett truth jihad mailing
Quote:
Why Aren't Americans Fighting Back?"
A non-US-citizen celebrates an attack on the CIA, and asks why Americans tolerate occupation
A foreign friend of mine, who must remain nameless here, recently contacted me to wish me a happy New Year and to celebrate the martyrdom operation in Afghanistan that claimed the lives of eight CIA agents. "This is wonderful!" he enthused. "Eight CIA agents at once! They must have had excellent intelligence and pulled everything off perfectly."
I said I found it hard to get excited about a bunch of people getting killed, regardless of what they may have done to deserve it.
"That is the problem with you Americans," he said. "Half of you are too stupid to resist your oppressors, and the other half reject violence even when it is justified and necessary."
I told him I was flattered to be considered part of the non-stupid segment of the American public, but that even as a non-stupid non-pacifist I often find it hard to know when violence is justified or necessary.
"If your country were invaded and occupied by a hostile foreign power, your people slaughtered and tortured, your women raped, your religion and customs violated, your resources looted, would violent resistance be justified and necessary?"
"Of course."
"So when the people of Afghanistan blow up eight CIA agents, are their actions justified and necessary?"
"From their point of view, sure."
"What about from your point of view?"
"As an American citizen, I'm trying to change things peacefully through legal, Constitutionally-protected means of protest."
"You would be much more effective if you built a real resistance movement and blew up CIA agents. Or better yet CIA directors."
I explained to him that I wouldn't have the faintest idea of how to go about blowing up a CIA director even if I wanted to. It's obviously a lot more complicated than "stick a fuse up his ass, light it, and run like hell." And not all CIA directors are 100% bad. Remember William Colby? And what about all those former CIA people who have spoken out for 9/11 truth? What if somebody had blown them up?
"Your country is occupied by CIA-Mossad and the finance mafia that runs it," he said. "They killed the Kennedies. They killed Martin Luther King, Jr. They killed Wellstone. They killed Gary Webb. They kill everyone that gets in their way. They start wars that kill millions. They rig your elections. They listen to your telephone conversations, read your emails, and use your cell phone as a roving microphone. They blackmail everyone of note, and if they can't blackmail them, they frame them or neutralize them or kill them. Every American President since Reagan has been a CIA agent. Your Constitution is a dead letter. It was dead long before 9/11."
I admitted that this was all true.
"Your country is under occupation. In Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and other places, when people are occupied, they fight back. Why won't Americans fight back?"
I explained that a lot of us are fighting back. It's called the infowar.
"Infowar is great," he said. "But it doesn't cost them enough to change their way of doing business. If you want a bad man to change his behavior, you have to give him some incentive for change. You have to raise the cost of the bad behavior until it becomes intolerable. A lot of grumbling on the internet doesn't really cost them very much."
What would be the best way to raise the cost, I asked. A general strike? Riots in the streets?
"Yes, those are time-honored methods," he said.
I explained that the whole point of the infowar is to wake enough people up so that some day soon, when the economy gets bad enough, people will take to the streets, and the cops and troops will be on our side...like the final scene in V-for-Vendetta.
"V wasn't afraid to use violence as part of his infowar," he said. "Nor are the people of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ireland, Somalia, the Basque country, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, Yemen, and everywhere else on earth where people are fighting occupation by the global financiers and their hired guns.
"What counts is having a culture of resistance. Where there is a culture of resistance, everybody pitches in to help. Some people set off bombs or organize attacks on occupation forces. Others, the great majority, fight the infowar and build a support network for the actual fighters. Even the biggest pacifist, where there is a culture of resistance, helps the resistance fighters by providing food, clothing, money, shelter, and encouragement, and by misdirecting the authorities and refusing all cooperation with them and sabotaging them whenever the opportunity arises."
I asked why pacifists would be helping an armed resistance.
"Because they recognize that the violence is coming from the occupier, and that only attacks on the lives and property of the occupier can raise the cost of occupation high enough to end it."
"But most Americans don't perceive themselves as victims of a violent occupation," I said. "We of the smart half see ourselves as occupiers of other countries, while the dumb ones see themselves as potential victims of violent terrorists who attack us because they hate our freedoms."
"Forget the dumb half," he said. "You need to convince the smart half that they are not occupiers. Why should Americans identify with the evil * who are raping the planet? Americans are under violent occupation, just like the people of other occupied lands, and they should build an effective resistance. You need to convince them to start thinking of it as an actual war, not just an infowar. In an actual war, the only thing that matters is reducing the enemy's ability to wage war, and to raise the cost of his continuing to wage war until the cost becomes intolerable."
I said I had no idea how to do that. Wouldn't attacks on lives and property be counterproductive?
"It depends whose lives and property," he answered. "Attacking ordinary Americans in their passenger airplanes and office buildings helps the occupiers, not the resistance. That's why the occupiers are behind so much false-flag terrorism. But attacks on the leading men behind the occupation of planet Earth...now that could be very productive. Attacks on their property, kidnapping of their loved ones, and of course assassinations, these tactics would raise the price of their behavior. If the powerful men who craft the evil policies had to live in fear, they would have a powerful disincentive to continue crafting evil policies."
Kidnappings? Assassinations? Are you kidding?! That would be WRONG, I screamed, Nixonesque in my self-consciousness, that would be SO wrong! Why, the very idea! How utterly APPALLING! Don't you realize that the bad guys could be listening in even as we speak?!
My friend just chortled, remarked on what a hopeless bunch of boobs Americans are, told me that he wouldn't ask me to celebrate any more blastings of CIA agents, wished me well in my infowar, and went back to wherever he came from.
I chewed over his words for quite some time. I decided I'm not sure I entirely agree with him, but I'll tell you this: they'd have to waterboard me quite a bit before I'd give up his name.
_________________ JO911B.
"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places " Eph.6 v 12
Last edited by fish5133 on Tue Jan 19, 2010 11:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 1959 Location: South London
Posted: Mon Jan 04, 2010 3:06 pm Post subject:
WHY VIOLENCE IS NOT THE WAY
Thanks to Kevin and Fish for this. Here's my twopennoth
The ruling elite are much better armed than the public is, from tazers to nukes. The hand-guns, which Americans seem to believe is a civil right to possess, will be useless against the US state.
It is poor tactics when choosing weapons for the struggle to choose the kind of weapon that the enemy is infinitely more powerful in. That is one reason why non-violence is more likely to bring the desired results than violence.
M K Ghandi’s example is an inspiration to many although it did not bring about Ghandi’s ultimate aim: a restructured non-violent society. However it did bring about the end of British rule in India.
If we use violence, they will certainly use violence against us and we will lose any public support we might have had. The public want a quiet life with their families and fear those who they believe initiate violence. Use violence and we will be doing the ruling elite’s job for them by giving them plenty of reasons to justify draconian control (oppression) in the eyes of the public. They will no longer need to undertake false flag operations because we will create the violent attacks they need to justify their oppression.
Violence begets violence, unleashes war, brings about Hell on Earth. It may bring about ultimate control by those who have rebelled, but control over what kind of society? One which is ruled autocratically by a new elite, the "New Class" as Milovan Djilas termed it - The kind of autocratic society which people partially successfully rebelled against by non-violent methods in eastern Europe during the 1980s.
Lenin’s and Mao’s revolutions were only partially successful. Neither produced the kind of society sought by the revolutionaries: a society of peace, goodwill, caring and sharing - in short a utopian communism. Neither has the Islamic revolution in Iran brought about a universally popular society. The French revolution, while also aiming for admirable ideals, brought about twenty years of warfare, huge loss of life and an oppressive empire.
If we are religious, we may, through using violence, encourage the attitude of others that our religion is a violent one. Some maintain religion itself is a cause of division, war and violence.
If our goal is a revolution from the status quo, we should bear in mind that the forms of society set up by revolutions are shaped by the nature of those revolutions. Violent revolutions bring about government which can only be sustained by violence i.e. oppression. It creates enemies who will seek by any means to come back into power and it creates violent oppressive means to defend itself from them. Non-violent revolutions tend to bring about gentler, freer societies though none are perfect.
Then there is the problem that violence seduces people into it because it is sexy. It produces revolutionary heroes and war heroes. Use of the jibe “you coward” leads people (particularly men) into choosing violence. Even sporting violence produces heroes, as is attested to by Roman graffiti in admiration of gladiators. War games with toy guns or computer games induce a fascination with violence among boys, later leading to an acceptance of military violence.
Non-violence has its own weapons: the strike, the boycott, publicity, street protests, whistle-blowing etc – not so sexy perhaps, but ultimately more successful in bringing about desirable ends.
Those of us who want to reduce violence need to begin with a clear-eyed view of who is perpetrating violence, where it is occurring and why, and to what extent WE are responsible.
So: please open your eyes and recognize that more than 99% of all violence is state violence. (If we add violence against nature, violence against human dignity, etc. then we should say it's state/corporate violence.)
If you pay taxes you are paying for the mass murder of people abroad and the mass kidnapping (and murder if the victims resist) of people at home. We are trained to believe that "the state" has the right to murder and kidnap ("imprison") people. But there is no such thing as "the state," it's just an label for the coordinated actions of the powerful. For example, the state killed Martin Luther King, Jr. via the CIA, FBI, US Army, and the mafia. Of these agencies, organized crime may well be the most powerful bureaucracy of "the state." But there's really no difference -- the state IS organized crime. (Re: Sibel Edmonds on the Russian-Israeli-NY mafia & 9/11.)
Given the fact that virtually all violence is state violence in this extended sense, we should not pretend that we are being nonviolent if we protest nonviolently yet pay taxes and otherwise participate in the system that is perpetrating nearly all the violence.
In the best of all worlds, we would find a way to avoid contributing to state/corporate violence while using nonviolent means to bring down the state/corporate system.
In the world as it is, people who genuinely want to bring down, say, the Israeli state, or the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the US empire, or the New World Order, may reach the conclusion that directing at least a small fraction of their enemies' violence back at those enemies may be one effective tool among many. Personally I couldn't pre-judge any particular act of violence without knowing its specific circumstances. Examples: I might support the police kidnapping a murderer here in Wisconsin, just as I would support the Iraqi resistance kidnapping a Blackwater torturer in Iraq; while I would oppose many other prospective kidnappings ("jailings"). See "In Defense of Anarchism" by Wolff for the philosophical background.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 1959 Location: South London
Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2010 11:37 am Post subject:
And a certain David S, also from the US, who has for some reason been unable to register on this forum, has sent this:
If you can persist in the face of repression, you communicate to your adversary that what they’re doing isn’t so much bad, which it probably is, as much as it is ineffective. Then you begin to drive a wedge between the liberals and conservatives in power. The liberals moan and complain, ”They’re making us look so bad, can’t we think of something to give them to get them to go away?” The conservatives respond, “No, no, no. If we’re a little more brutal, we can break them.” Nevertheless, IF you can persist in the face of repression, you push that wedge further and further between the factions of power. Here’s the key: the better the nonviolent discipline, the further the wedge will go for any given level of effort and sacrifice. The smoother the wedge, the further it goes. The rougher the wedge, the slower it proceeds.
Those of us who want to reduce violence need to begin with a clear-eyed view of who is perpetrating violence, where it is occurring and why, and to what extent WE are responsible.
So: please open your eyes and recognize that more than 99% of all violence is state violence. (If we add violence against nature, violence against human dignity, etc. then we should say it's state/corporate violence.)
The trouble with making this 99% claim is that you have to convince others of the truth of it and to do that you have to believe it yourself. Personally I'm not convinced of it. For my eyes to be opened to the truth of that assertion I need proof.
I'm primarily interested in convincing people that we have been deceived as to who the perpetrators of 9/11 were. When people become convinced of that they begin to open their eyes to the possibility that this kind of state/media deception is not confined to 9/11 but must be a characteristic of the way powerful people operate.
I keep getting into convoluted discussions with people which end when I say something which causes them to conclude I am mad. I see the shutters come down and a pitying look come over their face as much as to say "Ah! You're one of those people who believe in little green men in flying saucers".
I had an example of this last Sunday. I was talking to a man who was saying reasonable things about the need to stop the ongoing wars. When I said I thought he should examine whether or not we have been told the truth about 9/11, the event which started all these wars, he said:
"Oh Al Qaeda just got lucky"
I asked him if he realised the 9/11 commissioners have now denounced their own report and accused government agencies of lying to them. He clearly hadn't. He told me Osama bin Laden had admitted responsibility for the attacks so there could be no doubt about who perpetrated them.
Inevitably I asked him how he could explain the fact that over varoius broadcasts OBL had managed to change the shape of his face. That was when the shutters came down and there could clearly be no more reasonable discussion.
Kevin Barrett wrote:
If you pay taxes you are paying for the mass murder of people abroad and the mass kidnapping (and murder if the victims resist) of people at home. We are trained to believe that "the state" has the right to murder and kidnap ("imprison") people. But there is no such thing as "the state," it's just an label for the coordinated actions of the powerful. For example, the state killed Martin Luther King, Jr. via the CIA, FBI, US Army, and the mafia. Of these agencies, organized crime may well be the most powerful bureaucracy of "the state." But there's really no difference -- the state IS organized crime. (Re: Sibel Edmonds on the Russian-Israeli-NY mafia & 9/11.)
This may be true but there is no way I can use it with ordinary Joe Public to convince them we have been lied to about 9/11. To achieve such convincement I would have to start from mutually accepted grounds.
Kevin Barrett wrote:
In the best of all worlds, we would find a way to avoid contributing to state/corporate violence while using nonviolent means to bring down the state/corporate system.
In the world as it is, people who genuinely want to bring down, say, the Israeli state, or the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, or the US empire, or the New World Order, may reach the conclusion that directing at least a small fraction of their enemies' violence back at those enemies may be one effective tool among many. Personally I couldn't pre-judge any particular act of violence without knowing its specific circumstances.
Nor could I. It's not my role to judge. And I would never condemn people for defending themselves violently against oppression, though I might suggest to them non-violent methods they could use which would be more likely to achieve what they want.
I think humour is a good alternative way of approaching it, though I find it hard to be humourous about such serious issues. So thanks for the link to the Volker Pispers comedy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOZd3iCknZU&feature=related
While enjoying that there is also a French comedian who is extremely effective: Jean-Marie Bigard (also subtitled in English on You Tube) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMEifruB0X8
Unfortunately in the UK we have no comedian who has yet been prepared to take on the 9/11 issue.
Joined: 04 Dec 2007 Posts: 226 Location: Buckinghamshire
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 1:16 am Post subject:
Quote:
Unfortunately in the UK we have no comedian who has yet been prepared to take on the 9/11 issue.
With 60 British deaths in the twin towers, 57 on our own soil, the deaths of servicemen let alone countless thousands of men, women and children killed in US sponsored wars, putting on comedy show may be a bit tricky.
For my point of view I don't want people to have a good laugh, I want them to get FCUKING angry.
Of the events regarding 911, personally I find the cases of the official story of disappearing planes in both pentagon and Shanksville holds even less credibility that of the events in New York. (You don't need to be scientist to figure out a plane with 128 meter wingspan will not fit in hole 6 mtrs. wide.)
Best of luck with your next encounter. _________________ Truth Movement Clips: www.truthtotell.co.uk
I think one of the main reasons that people dont fight back is that the people who order the insanity seem to be well hidden. People who start looking for accountability seem to discover that politicians (where the buck stops for the general populace) are not so near the top table, generally speaking.
I get the impression that there are battles done behind the scenes to stem the flow of evil. I also get the impression that most of us are content to hope that works or gives us time to educate the whole world.
I personally dont think that can work.
'men go insane in herds and recover their senses, slowly and one by one.'
And there will always be people that you cannot reach.
Maybe there are people who have identified the main culprits. Maybe they are working on them right now. Maybe we'll never know.
'never doubt that a small dedicated group of people can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has'
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 1959 Location: South London
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 11:28 am Post subject:
Pugwash wrote:
I don't want people to have a good laugh, I want them to get FCUKING angry.
So do I, Pugwash, but if the mind is closed to a serious appraisal of facts but open to a bit of levity, I don't care what method is used to get through to them so long as it works. Besides humour keeps our spirits up.
Nrmis wrote:
I think one of the main reasons that people dont fight back is that the people who order the insanity seem to be well hidden. People who start looking for accountability seem to discover that politicians (where the buck stops for the general populace) are not so near the top table, generally speaking.
Yes the more I look into this business the more I think there are hidden, powerful forces of callous self-interest.
Nrmis wrote:
I get the impression that there are battles done behind the scenes to stem the flow of evil.
There must be. There must also be the tendency for theives to fall out with each other. I'm not convinced by those who argue it is a monolithic global elite.
Nrmis wrote:
I also get the impression that most of us are content to hope that works or gives us time to educate the whole world.
Well I'm not content to hope. It's a case of that Burke quotation: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Another appropriate Burke quotation here is: "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
And from Handel's Messiah: "Why do the nations so furiously rage together and why do the people imagine a vain thing?"
Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 2568 Location: One breath from Glory
Posted: Wed Jan 06, 2010 1:45 pm Post subject:
I think another reason is the slow desensitization that takes place in peoples minds. A slow brainwashing for want of a better description. Take sex bad language and gratuitous violence on TV and Film. Like most (i presume) on this forum I am old enough to see how acceptance of these things have changed. The dumbing down of programmes also has its effect. Move that into the political arena and a slow drip feed of deceptive propaganda and along with the "I am alright jack" mindset then people dont see any real need to rock the boat (That is unless you are the receiving end of it --then you get called a terrorist for defending your rights and values that are being violated by another power. ) Hitler and his gang managed to convince the masses that Jews were vermin and of lesser value. Its just a similar thing this time the Fundamental Islamics who hold different values and customs (many contrary to western bad values) that are targeted.
2nd world war Britain wasnt prepared to fight until the threat became visible and close to home ( hence false flags 9/11 and possibly7/7 style)
Nowadays the PTBs dont need the masses to take up arms given the levels of high tec weaponry they possess and the weapons capability of the enemy so any propaganda is more of a mind game to justify rather than encouraging people to take up arms.
One hope I draw from is a biblical verse that "Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach" Proverbs 14:34. This suggests nations reach tipping points. The importance of spreading the alternative views of what the Govts and PTBs games are will hopefully bring a nation back and the balance towards righteousness (of course this also includes personal values as well as collective). One would like to think that any changeable swings can be achieved without the need for just violence .
Another hope is that if the truth of the real perpetrators of 9/11 can come out then this may have a "swords to ploughshares " effect
Whilst I also hope the biblical verse Ephesians 4:3
Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace can work itself out through all peoples, i see history (global and local) does not always work out this way. _________________ JO911B.
"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places " Eph.6 v 12
Most Americans still don't know if what is being spoken about conspiracy is truth. No one really wants to stop believing in Santa Claus. What I mean a person's sense of order and rights that are being taken for granted do not want to consider a Hitler or a Stalin rising in America and taking those rights away. It cost a lot of pain and a lot of blood once for those freedoms to come to America. The price to keep that freedom in America will cost more blood and pain before these traitors of America are removed from power.
Well, I do hope so very much that everyone is right about following in the footsteps of ghandi.
I caught some tv 'news' today and found myself forcibly laughing out loud. Its about ll I can do to keep a lid on it.
Is it just me? It can't be.....
David Kelly report
Look, we killed him ok? And we are not going to show you how for 70 years, if at all.
Iraq Inquiry report
Look, it was already planned, you already know why. No-one is going to rock the boat now, see above.
Terror Alert Upgrade report
Shut up, go to work, give us your taxes so we can kill you. Shut up.
And all I can muster is a forced insane laugh to stop me crying.
I think to myself 'what can I do?'
And the answer isn't much is it?
I could ask who is this Lord Hutton is, where does he live and how do we hold him accountable. Now. Today. But that would be met with..... dont know, past caring.
So I decide I'll come here and have a bitch and a moan about it instead as that will probably go down better.
If India wasn't the free and fair utopia that it is, I would have doubts about the truth movements direction.
Furthermore, it has crossed my mind on occassion that the perpertrators of 911 and 7/7 may have underestimated the power of the internet. But if they had a choice of reaction that the spreading of truth would bring, and they were offered 'the movement could be led by a principle of peaceful resistance, based on ghandi', they would take it, without hearing any other option.
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