Mar 272012
 
 March 27, 2012  Posted by at 6:57 pm Earth

7- I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it is deadly.

 

The Atlantic Magazine features an excellent article by Teju Cole, which explains the mentality that gave rise to some of his “controversial” tweets regarding the African warlord, Joseph Kony, and the reaction of White America. It gets to the bottom line of why so many other populations around the world are skeptical and mistrustful of America’s so-called “humanitarian” aid and interventions – most of the problems we claim to address with these policies are, in the first instance, a function of our imperial capitalist culture itself. If we refuse to acknowledge that destructive aspect of our society, let alone work to change it, then all of those missionaries and activists may as well pack up their things and get the hell out of other peoples’ countries.

Here is an excerpt from his piece – the full article can be found by following the link.

The White Savior Industrial Complex

 

Here are some of the “middle-class educated Africans” Kristof, whether he is familiar with all of them and their work or not, chose to take issue with: Ugandan journalist Rosebell Kagumire, who covered the Lord’s Resistance Army in 2005 and made an eloquent video response to Kony 2012; Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani, one of the world’s leading specialists on Uganda and the author of a thorough riposte to the political wrong-headedness of Invisible Children; and Ethiopian-American novelist Dinaw Mengestu, who sought out Joseph Kony, met his lieutenants, and recently wrote a brilliant essay about how Kony 2012 gets the issues wrong. They have a different take on what Kristof calls a “humanitarian disaster,” and this may be because they see the larger disasters behind it: militarization of poorer countries, short-sighted agricultural policies, resource extraction, the propping up of corrupt governments, and the astonishing complexity of long-running violent conflicts over a wide and varied terrain.

 

I want to tread carefully here: I do not accuse Kristof of racism nor do I believe he is in any way racist. I have no doubt that he has a good heart. Listening to him on the radio, I began to think we could iron the whole thing out over a couple of beers. But that, precisely, is what worries me. That is what made me compare American sentimentality to a “wounded hippo.” His good heart does not always allow him to think constellationally. He does not connect the dots or see the patterns of power behind the isolated “disasters.” All he sees are hungry mouths, and he, in his own advocacy-by-journalism way, is putting food in those mouths as fast as he can. All he sees is need, and he sees no need to reason out the need for the need.

 

But I disagree with the approach taken by Invisible Children in particular, and by the White Savior Industrial Complex in general, because there is much more to doing good work than “making a difference.” There is the principle of first do no harm. There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them.

 

I write all this from multiple positions. I write as an African, a black man living in America. I am every day subject to the many microaggressions of American racism. I also write this as an American, enjoying the many privileges that the American passport affords and that residence in this country makes possible. I involve myself in this critique of privilege: my own privileges of class, gender, and sexuality are insufficiently examined. My cell phone was likely manufactured by poorly treated workers in a Chinese factory. The coltan in the phone can probably be traced to the conflict-riven Congo. I don’t fool myself that I am not implicated in these transnational networks of oppressive practices.

 

And I also write all this as a novelist and story-writer: I am sensitive to the power of narratives. When Jason Russell, narrator of the Kony 2012 video, showed his cheerful blonde toddler a photo of Joseph Kony as the embodiment of evil (a glowering dark man), and of his friend Jacob as the representative of helplessness (a sweet-faced African), I wondered how Russell’s little boy would develop a nuanced sense of the lives of others, particularly others of a different race from his own. How would that little boy come to understand that others have autonomy; that their right to life is not exclusive of a right to self-respect? In a different context, John Berger once wrote, “A singer may be innocent; never the song.”

Home Forums Teju Cole: The White Savior Industrial Complex

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  • #8575
    ashvin
    Participant

    Teju Cole ‏ @tejucole 7- I deeply respect American sentimentality, the way one respects a wounded hippo. You must keep an eye on it, for you know it i
    [See the full post at: Teju Cole: The White Savior Industrial Complex]

    #2110
    FrankRichards
    Participant

    Jee Zuss

    I’m gonna miss this place, but I don’t water ski well enough for competitive shark jumping. I’ve been reading and commenting since Sharon Astyk vectored me here in ’08.

    This is Ash’s second “America is exceptionally horrid but isn’t exceptional” post in the last 10 days. There is a definitional problem there dude.

    And Illargi has been throwing out hints about not believing in peak oil since ’09. Even with his workload, that has been long enough to do the flippin’ research. Every time he talks about it, I get more convinced that he is talking about a ‘big kablooey’ peak oil that no numerate person ever believed in and totally ignoring that 7 years of $100/bbl oil has not managed to raise C&C production by more than 0.5%/year. That dude, is the old ‘undulating plateau’ if anything ever could be.

    #2113
    ashvin
    Participant

    FrankRichards post=1711 wrote: This is Ash’s second “America is exceptionally horrid but isn’t exceptional” post in the last 10 days. There is a definitional problem there dude.

    In all fairness, I’ve been saying stuff like this about American imperialism and capitalism since I started writing. The ironic thing about it is that it is a much more complex argument than “America is unconditionally evil/horrid”, but that’s almost always how Americans interpret it as soon as they see it. I wonder why? Would you care to refute or critique the substance of Cole’s article, or America’s imperial exploits in general?

    Also note that TAE is a site that has always critiqued the destructive policies of the global banking system over the course of decades, both here and in poorer parts of the world, and it is hard to ignore America and the UK’s unique role in that system, as well as the complicit support of Americans and Brits who use it. So why you think it is suddenly “jumping the shark” now, I really have no idea.

    #2115

    @ Frank : “America is exceptionally horrid but isn’t exceptional” Did we read the same article? I couldn’t find that quote.

    Personally, I find it quite refreshing that the editors of this site post material which explores the consequence of Global Empire. Far from unexceptional, the American Empire will never be repeated.

    It’s wonderful to have a forum such as this site to gain perspective. Thanks TAE for all your hard work.

    #2116
    MR166
    Member

    As a citizen of the US this article has been very helpful to me. I can now look at the starvation and self induced genocide in Africa and totally ignore it knowing that deep down in my heart I was only “Helping” out of guilt and not Christian compassion for others. Let China and the overgenerous Middle Eastern countries help them.

    #2117
    ben
    Member

    FrankRichards post=1711 wrote: Jee Zuss

    I’m gonna miss this place, but I don’t water ski well enough for competitive shark jumping. I’ve been reading and commenting since Sharon Astyk vectored me here in ’08.

    This is Ash’s second “America is exceptionally horrid but isn’t exceptional” post in the last 10 days. There is a definitional problem there dude.

    And Illargi has been throwing out hints about not believing in peak oil since ’09. Even with his workload, that has been long enough to do the flippin’ research. Every time he talks about it, I get more convinced that he is talking about a ‘big kablooey’ peak oil that no numerate person ever believed in and totally ignoring that 7 years of $100/bbl oil has not managed to raise C&C production by more than 0.5%/year. That dude, is the old ‘undulating plateau’ if anything ever could be.

    your comments are first-rate and i’ve always wished they were more frequent. i feel your pain on the oil question. now that we are nearing the senecan cliff at the end of the undulating plateau, it looks like extend and pretend may just accomplish what it set out to do. cheers, frank.

    since we’re on the topic of chains we can believe in, and i haven’t seen it said anywhere in the forum yet, el gallinazo left the commentariat yesterday. i mention it in order to save people from wondering about his absence.

    #2119

    Good job on getting under people’s skin, Ash. Keep it up

    #2120
    ben
    Member

    SA, get ahold of yourself.

    #2126

    White people! Bringing salvation and civilization to benighted people from the Romans in Gaul to the WMDeliverers in Iraq! Hooray for the saviours, from Holy Crusaders in Jerusalem to the Raj on the Subcontinent!

    Sure, Attila, Genghis, Tamerlane and the Ottomans made it flow the other way, but they didn’t have the staying power of the WMIC (Whiteman Military Industrial Complex if you didn’t get my drift.) The video about Kony is just another small slice of phoney baloney in the pile of smoking meat that whitefellas have left behind in their millennial mission to humaniterrify the unfortunate, uncivilized heathens.

    We’re only here to help! We might have to apply some creative destruction to the village in order to save it, but that’s progress! I’m hearing Kurt Vonnegut’s voice saying “And so it goes…”

    #2131
    FrankRichards
    Participant

    Ash,

    I had already read the Atlantic article before you wrote about it here. I understood it to be a much more general critique of The White Man’s Burden than the edited version that kept all the America-specific bad stuff and left out the swipes at Europe.

    And I do object to your slant on it, because I have long considered the White Saviour Industrial Complex to be a European spesh-i-al-i-ty. The folks from the continent are far better at bungee do-gooding than we yanks.

    #2132
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    Let’s cut right through the false narrative:

    The financial oligarchs who exert tremendous control over the Western nations and their military don’t do anything out of kindness for their subjects.

    Of course, they have to spin it that way so the subjects don’t rebel, but that’s marketing and spin, not the end goal.

    Egypt had NOTHING to do with freedom, hence the acceptance of a military dictatorship and the emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood running the country and no complaints from the oligarchs like we saw ahead of overthrowing that country.

    Libya had NOTHING to do with helping or freedom, either. The oligarchs funded radical Muslims, including al Qaeda, to overthrow Gaddafi and start a civil war where the Western propped up al Qaeda summarily executed thousands upon thousands of dark skinned Africans.

    Oh, BTW, Libya had one of the highest standards of living in Africa. Their social welfare program and education program was outstanding, relatively speaking. That’s not to say he wasn’t a tyrant, he was. But he was FAR from the worst one in Africa.

    But he did have BILLIONS invested with the financial oligarch’s front corporations… I can’t recall if it was Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan or bother. He did have tons of gold and light, sweet crude for the thieving. He was showing that African could develop – and that’s against the policy of the financial oligarchs.

    We Westerners have to stop supporting the chumptocracy. The psychopathic oligarchs play us like chumps and it is painful to watch people play right into it.

    The oligarchs didn’t promote Kony 2012 because they want to help their average African subject (through financial tyranny and propping up dictators in various regions). Far from it.

    They want an excuse to go into Africa and destabilize and asset strip it like they’ve done Libya. And they may well use their “all purpose tool” al Qaeda to do it, too. Just like they are using al Qaeda in Syria.

    The financial oligarchs that have hijacked America and almost every Western nation love to wrap themselves in the flag. They associate their evil and wicked actions with the country as a whole – and that narrative right in. They have NO IDEA that these same oligarchs are waging economic warfare against its American subjects via their fraudulent debt based monetary con game and by systematically eliminating our freedoms.

    And if you remember one thing from this post, make it this.

    NOBODY hates your freedoms more than the tyrants that take them away.

    Sure, they’ll lie to you and tell you they are “protecting you” (as they finance al Qaeda in Libya to create civil war) as they eliminate your freedoms, but that is a centuries old ruse of tyrants.

    After all, Sun Tzu said “war is all about deception.” Only a chump thinks the bad guys would actually tell them the truth.

    Benjamin Franklin was well aware of it when he said, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

    IOW, Franklin is calling you a chump if you fall for that centuries old con game. Probably millennia old.

    If the chumptocracy wakes up to the con game, then there is a good chance it will end. Until then, well, we get what we get.

    #2133
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    As for the topic, I think the bad reaction to it is because people took the title personal to themselves… Maybe using the term “white” in the title helped promote that idea.

    Martin Luther King’s whole message was that color doesn’t matter, content of character matters.

    MLK, would not have celebrated Obama’s election BASED ON SKIN COLOR. That’s 100% contrary to his outlook. Surely, MLK would DESPISE Obama’s content of character because he essentially works for the system that illegally invaded MLK’s privacy and more than likely murdered him.

    Even if MLK was initially fooled for a time, Obama’s NDAA claim that the President can order anyone kidnapped, detained, tortured or murdered without any due process and that anyone who protests in a Secret Service area gets slapped with a felony would have woken him up from his slumber.

    The idea that MLK would like Obama because of his skin color or that Obama has a close connection to MLK because of skin color is ABSURD.

    Anyone who thinks the financial oligarch empire, which tricks nation state chumptocracies to do its dirty work, is out to help anyone other than themselves is waaaaay off base.

    #2139
    ashvin
    Participant

    TheTrivium4TW post=1734 wrote: As for the topic, I think the bad reaction to it is because people took the title personal to themselves… Maybe using the term “white” in the title helped promote that idea.

    Martin Luther King’s whole message was that color doesn’t matter, content of character matters.

    Well, as Bukko implied up thread, race does matter in this context. Historical developments have ensured that it does, including centuries of colonialism and this latest iteration of Western neo-colonial expansion. Cole’s title is not meant to impune the character of all white people in the West, but to identify the role white populations of N. America and Europe occupy in relation to non-white populations in much poorer parts of the world, such as North/West Africa and the ME.

    The fact is that much of the world’s wealth is now concentrated in white populations, and many of these people have developed a mentality in which the extremely “poor” must be brought up to their level by re-creating the structures/institutions that surround them, ignoring the fact that these structures have helped contribute to the serious problems facing those populations in the first place, and they usually continue to enrich a very small minority of financial and industrial elites at the expense of everything else.

    There are obviously some tangible benefits to specific forms of humanitarian aid and intervention, but they have no chance of producing sustainable progress in eradicating the poverty, famine, disease and violence that plagues these locations. Of course, there are blacks and other wealthy minorities in the West who feel the exact same way, but they have not primarily defined the “savior” culture over the course of decades.

    #2142
    MR166
    Member

    You will have to excuse me if I go off on a rampage when someone tries to blame western society for the problems in Africa. If it were not for the influence of Western Christian Missionaries they would still be running around with the heads of other tribal leaders on a stick. Do you really think that the Dutch went into the interior of each nation to collect slaves? Of course not, they were the hostages of tribal wars and would have been killed if they did not have a commercial value. The western world has done nothing but bring civilization to Africa. So Teju feels guilty about purchasing an Ipod that is mad in China by underpaid labor. Well get over it Teju, at least they have a job and are earning more than they could on a rural farm. Otherwise they would have moved back a long time ago.

    #2161
    Ken Barrows
    Participant

    MR166,

    Why would white people centuries ago go to Africa if not for slaves? I mean, if Africa was such an awful part of the world, why leave your comfortable corner of the planet? You could have just increased your wealth and avoided danger. Oh, wait a minute…

    #2165
    Glennda
    Participant

    MR said:
    “If it were not for the influence of Western Christian Missionaries they would still be running around with the heads of other tribal leaders on a stick. Do you really think that the Dutch went into the interior of each nation to collect slaves? Of course not, they were the hostages of tribal wars and would have been killed if they did not have a commercial value. The western world has done nothing but bring civilization to Africa.”

    Really now! Such stereotypes -” running around with the heads of other tribal leaders on a stick.” How about reading this Wikipedia article?

    If you read about the Yoruba culture from the area that is now Nigeria, Benin and Togo, you see a rich culture and religion that can be found in many US cities where the Yoruba diaspora spread. So these people “needed” missionaries to dress them up in western clothing to civilize them. What a laugh.

    In 1853, before the US Civil War, we get a comment about the Yoruba – “the most extraordinary republic in the world.”

    My guess is that the “internecine wars” were started from the slave trade which destabilized the whole region and necessitated the move to a ” fortified city”.

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

    Monarchies were a common form of government in Yorubaland, but they were not the only approach to government and social organization. The numerous Ijebu city-states to the west of Oyo and the Ẹgba communities, found in the forests below Ọyọ’s savanna region, were notable exceptions. These independent polities often elected an Ọba, though real political, legislative, and judicial powers resided with the Ogboni, a council of notable elders. The notion of the divine king was so important to the Yoruba, however, that it stayed with them in its various forms from their antiquity to the contemporary era.

    During the internecine wars of the 19th century, the Ijebu forced citizens of more than 150 Ẹgba and Owu communities to migrate to the fortified city of Abeokuta, where each quarter retained its own Ogboni council of civilian leaders, along with an Olorogun, or council of military leaders, and in some cases its own elected Obas or Baales. These independent councils then elected their most capable members to join a federal civilian and military council that represented the city as a whole.

    Commander Frederick Forbes, a representative of the British Crown writing an account of his visit to the city in an 1853 edition of the Church Military Intelligencer,[14] described Abẹokuta as having “four presidents”, and the system of government as having “840 principal rulers or ‘House of Lords,’ 2800 secondary chiefs or ‘House of Commons,’ 140 principal military ones and 280 secondary ones.”[citation needed] He described Abẹokuta and its system of government as “the most extraordinary republic in the world.”[citation needed]”.

    #2172

    First, thanks to Ash for having the courage to post this.

    That said, look no further than the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for a prime example of the White Savior Industrial Complex as described in the article.

    Very large, expensive, and technocratic “solutions” to intractable problems faced by the multitudes not privileged to live in wealthy industrialized countries. The best philanthropy that billions of dollars in American corporate profits can buy. Or is it?

    At any point do they bother to ask those same people what they need the most? Do they make any effort to enable or empower homegrown solutions, by the people and for the people who actually live there and know better than anyone what the problems are?

    No, of course not. Why would they? Look at how rich and powerful they are, obviously they must be smarter than the people they feel so self-righteously obliged to “help”.

    I dunno, maybe it’s in our genes:

    Thermo/Gene Collision – On Human Nature, Energy, and Collapse

    https://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1703/tsc_17_3_hanson.shtml

    #2173
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    ashvin post=1740 wrote: Well, as Bukko implied up thread, race does matter in this context. Historical developments have ensured that it does, including centuries of colonialism and this latest iteration of Western neo-colonial expansion. Cole’s title is not meant to impune the character of all white people in the West, but to identify the role white populations of N. America and Europe occupy in relation to non-white populations in much poorer parts of the world, such as North/West Africa and the ME.

    The fact is that much of the world’s wealth is now concentrated in white populations, and many of these people have developed a mentality in which the extremely “poor” must be brought up to their level by re-creating the structures/institutions that surround them, ignoring the fact that these structures have helped contribute to the serious problems facing those populations in the first place, and they usually continue to enrich a very small minority of financial and industrial elites at the expense of everything else.

    There are obviously some tangible benefits to specific forms of humanitarian aid and intervention, but they have no chance of producing sustainable progress in eradicating the poverty, famine, disease and violence that plagues these locations. Of course, there are blacks and other wealthy minorities in the West who feel the exact same way, but they have not primarily defined the “savior” culture over the course of decades.

    Ashvin, I don’t think you made the case that color is important in this discussion. The problem is a lack of character in the West – especially in the Western controllers, but also in the apathy and lack of morality in the society at large.

    If everyone’s skin color reversed overnight, nothing would change. Skin color truly doesn’t matter UNLESS you can be convinced it does.

    Divide and conquer is probably the best social control mechanism out there and the Big Finance Capital social engineers know this very well. That’s why they make sure education and media divides people based on various lines, one of their favorites being race.

    Big Finance Capital sold trash to everyone’s pension fund.

    Big Finance Capital files false paperwork to steal everyone’s home – white people don’t get a pass.

    Big Finance Capital robs segregated accounts regardless of skin color… nobody at MF Global got their money back based on them being white.

    But Big Finance Capital and MLK knew one thing well – every minute focused on race is a minute NOT focused on the criminal tyrants and their Trojan Horse fraudulent monetary system and their criminal impoverishing of their host countries.

    So they weaponize the media and the education system with the net effect of DIVIDING people. It doesn’t work with me. It is absurd for someone to judge me based on my skin color. Just as absurd as it is for me to judge others based on skin color.

    Skin color is only an issue in as much as we allow it to be an issue.

    The real root cause is a lack of moral compass… the leadership are Machiavellian murderous psychopathic thieves and the population cares so little about themselves and others that they don’t pay attention to what is going on and allow the evil people to have their way with others and even themselves.

    If everyone’s color changed over night, nothing would change – because skin color is not the root cause of the problem.

    It is a distraction that is only made real if the social engineers can get us to buy into it – kind of like the vampire needing the home owner to invite them in.

    I criticize the average Western citizen to know end for not caring enough about anyone to engage what is becoming a pretty obviously evil system. And I mean EVIL.

    As an example, I watched “A Film Unfinished” on Netflix – a documentary that reviewed some footage Hitler had taken at the Warsaw ghetto a couple weeks before he sent these people to the death camps.

    As I was watching it, a question developed in my mind… “What is the difference between Hitler’s Warsaw ghetto and Big Finance Capital’s sub-Sahara African “ghetto” other than 1. location, 2. lack of walls and 3. size of land?”

    Oh, and 4. marketing.

    As of today – they are the same thing – and Big Finance Capital has engineered ~25 million deaths a year where Hitler could only dream of such “efficiency.”

    Americans are told Africans are “backwards” and somehow deserve their condition.

    Hello?!? Shut down the power in America and give it a month – we’d be backwards on a level that would stun the Average African.

    Big Finance Capital uses debt to rob Africa blind. They prop up puppet governments and provide weapons to all sides in order to keep the murder machine going.

    Another good documentary is “The Empire in Africa” – it gave me a visceral reaction… I’m still angry just thinking about it.

    But I don’t despise Big Finance Capital based on their skin color – I despise them because they lack character.

    When I interact with people, I envision their character (has real value), not their skin color (what does this have to do with the price of tea in China).

    Big Finance Capital sure wants people angry over race, though – that means they aren’t angry at the social engineers who are manipulating them.

    That message won’t come out of the media or the education system… everyone will have to consider what I’m saying and ask themselves… why does skin color matter?

    Does skin color control the character?

    Or does a low content of character allow one to grasp onto something irrelevant (like skin color) in order devalue another human being?

    I think MLK was right – the root cause is content of character, not skin color.

    BTW, I think MLK would DESPISE Obama… the man who would slap MLK with a felony for protesting inside a Secret Service zone.

    You see, MLK looked BEYOND simple skin color… he looked for content of character. Something Obama lacks… and completely unrelated to his skin color and 100% related to his lack of character.

    But Obama, believing the people are properly misguided, claims MLK support based on his having the same skin color…

    We have to elevate the thought process, IMHO, if we are going to get out from under Big Finance Capital’s social control grid.

    #2174
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    @Board:

    I recommended my son do a book report on Socrates. I asked him what it was about and he said, “He thinks about things.” I asked about what. “He thinks about words.”

    Eric Blair highlighted the control of language in his book 1984.

    Language is important – it can actually act a weapon or as cover for those who would control society.

    “The West” isn’t me. “America” isn’t me. I’m an individual in the West, I’m an individual in America, but people who use that term do not have the ability to include me, as an individual, when they use those terms.

    When America supports al Qaeda to overthrow a sovereign, non threatening Libya (to other countries) and create a black African genocide and start a civil war… that isn’t me!

    But the criminals that do this sort of thing want to HIDE under the banner of “America.” I don’t let them – and I hope more people take my position.

    The “left,” duped by a focus on race, doesn’t seem to believe that a brown skinned man would do anything evil to other black skinned people.

    That’s naive. When these criminals are white, they don’t give white people quarter. When these criminals are black, they don’t give black people quarter.

    It isn’t black vs. white, it is good vs. evil (content of character).

    The average racist white guy is a fool – the same psychopaths that seem to like to beta test their evil on darker skinned people (due to a lack of content of character, not b/c their skin color compels them!) are also waging war against white people all around the world.

    The LAST thing these Big Finance Capital psychopaths want to see is humanity, and I mean ALL of it – OWS, Tea Party, dark brown, light brown, white, gay, straight, tall, short, skinny, fat, strong, etc…, standing TOGETHER and looking Big Finance Capital and their various mega corporate fronts and telling them “we see you for the criminals that you are.”

    So they work overtime to ensure that all those groups are in fighting so they can’t get together and fight the real threat.

    I know what these criminals don’t want to see and I work towards making it happen.

    Oh, and when “America” hands out guns like candy to the Wachovia drug money laundering Sinaloa drug cartel, that IS NOT me doing it… and those criminals don’t do it in my name.

    When “America” grows 7,700 tons of heroin in Afghanistan and CIA pilots fly it into Europe every year, that IS NOT me doing it.

    Folks, don’t be so naive… 7.700 tons are not being taken from Afghanistan to Europe via donkeys under the U.S. military’s radar… this is another in a long line of CIA criminal operations that rely on a completely gullible public.

    I’m repulsed by the evil these criminals wage all across the globe (including right here in America). They are following the highest of Sun Tzu’s Art of War principles against the American populace… and war is all about deception… rule #1.

    Socrates was right – words matter and don’t let the criminals “disappear” by manipulating the definition of words.

    #2178
    seychelles
    Participant

    Frank Richards said
    “…el gallinazo left the commentariat yesterday…”

    Well that is certainly BAD news. Some will regard this as being in the wrong thread, but what was the feather that broke the vulture’s back? Whatever, hard to image he won’t get over it. Let’s hope soon.

    #2180
    MR166
    Member

    TheTrivium4TW, I liked your comments but have have a different opinion about the Left. The hard core Left know exactly what they are doing when they encourage an “Arab Spring”. World chaos is at the very heart of their game plan. Here in the US, they are hoping that the OWS movemnet will grow into riots. The Trayvon Martin shooting has been turned into a race issue in the hopes of starting a riot. For the president to fan the flames as he did is beyond excusable. At worst, this is a case of a person using poor judgement and killing someone. There are tens if not hundreds of black on white murders in the US each year that create little or no media outrage. Exactly why is that?

    #2181
    ashvin
    Participant

    TheTrivium4TW post=1776 wrote: [quote=ashvin post=1740]
    Ashvin, I don’t think you made the case that color is important in this discussion. The problem is a lack of character in the West – especially in the Western controllers, but also in the apathy and lack of morality in the society at large.

    If everyone’s skin color reversed overnight, nothing would change. Skin color truly doesn’t matter UNLESS you can be convinced it does.

    That’s quite a counter-factual scenario. Why would any such thing ever happen? If it did, then a lot of things we know about evolutionary systems would be flat out wrong.

    I get where you’re coming from with regards to TPTB, but I don’t think you can say the same. There is nothing about Cole’s argument that can be distilled down to “black vs. white”. He would never presume that the color of one’s skin is the “root cause” of anything, or that black people are not capable of mistreating other blacks, or white people aren’t capable of being mistreated by black and white leaders alike.

    No one here is trying to construct a race-based litmus test to determine whether people are ethical and have good character. The only reason race is an important thing to consider here is because, like you said, it has become deeply ingrained in the way many people view other cultures, as well as themselves and their own cultures. Let’s go at it this way:

    Do you agree that there exists a “savior industrial complex” in the Western world? Whether or not it has naturally arisen or has been “installed” by TPTB through propaganda over the course of decades is irrelevant to me. Either way, it is a mentality and mode of operation that exists within our culture and serves to propagate the system that you label “evil”. What races of people are the ones who have primarily done the “saving” and what races of people are the ones who needed to be “saved”?

    “Disaster capitalism” is another variation on this same concept, and more alone the lines of the intentionality of the TPTB that you refer to. Until very recently, these practices were almost exclusively targeted towards poorer parts of the world, whether we are talking about Central/South America, the ME or Africa. It is hard to deny the stark color/racial contrasts that have existed between the politicians, bureaucrats, corporate execs, etc. that have set up shop in these locations, and the indigenous populations.

    If we completely ignore that aspect of the situation, then we are refusing to confront the historical reality, and without confronting it, I don’t think there is much hope of moving past it. As a non-white person, I don’t say any of this lightly, because I know it sounds as if I am trying to place the “blame” on other people, and that’s not at all what I want to do. I simply want to understand the various ways in which human civilization has operated and continues to operate.

    In short, Cole is asking white Americans to soul-search and ask the really tough questions about their historical roles in our current systems, so that they can gain a better perspective on what needs to change. It’s not the color of their skin that needs to change, but their mentality as members of a culture that has distinct racial overtones and has been centuries in the making. It takes a lot of courage to confront the momentum of such a culture and work to escape it.

    As Big Finance Capital and the system in general begin the devour their own central hubs, which is already well underway, then I think one potential positive result will be that people of all races will be forced to confront the true nature of their cultures and how it is destroying both human societies and the planet. Of course, the exact opposite could happen as well, with the casting of blame along racial lines only growing larger, and it could all be too little, much too late.

    #2217
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    MR166 post=1783 wrote: TheTrivium4TW, I liked your comments but have have a different opinion about the Left. The hard core Left know exactly what they are doing when they encourage an “Arab Spring”. World chaos is at the very heart of their game plan. Here in the US, they are hoping that the OWS movemnet will grow into riots. The Trayvon Martin shooting has been turned into a race issue in the hopes of starting a riot. For the president to fan the flames as he did is beyond excusable. At worst, this is a case of a person using poor judgement and killing someone. There are tens if not hundreds of black on white murders in the US each year that create little or no media outrage. Exactly why is that?

    MR166, always keep in mind what Socrates and the socieal engineers know – that words have meaning and, if that meaning can be distorted, then confusion can easily transform into divide and conquer.

    Of course the high level “establishment left” are completely evil and fronting for Big Finance Capital. We agree 100% there simply because it is so obviously true at this point.

    Then again, why only point to the “establishment left” as being evil when the “establihsment right” works for the exact same power structure?

    Neither establishment party works for the populace, though. They BOTH work for Big Finance Capital.

    Vladimir Lenin said “the best way to control the opposition is to lead it.” The social engineers have learned well. The population has some catching up to do.

    There is an establishment left and right that work for the criminal, murderous, thieving, lying psychopath oligarchs and then there is a society divided by these criminals who have been tricked into believing that the oligarch controlled parties either 1. represent them or 2. been trained to despise the other “team” so much they vote for the evil that think is “lesser,” never contemplating that a single evil controls both parties.

    The social engineers use words in ways that allow them to hide.

    The news media says, “Isreal is contemplating an attack on Iran” in order to deceive. The average Israeli CAN’T STAND THEIR CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT don’t support attacking Iran. But the criminal oligarchs that have hijacked Israel’s control structure want to hide their will, which is contrary to the will of most of Isreal, as being separate than the will of the nation.

    “America” didn’t fund al Qaeda to create a civil war in Libya, kick the genocide of dark skinned Africans, grease the skids for the mega banks to steal Gaddafy’s billions of dollars at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, steal his tons of gold and roll up all that light sweet crude under their mega corporate oil company fronts… the criminals who have hijacked Aemrica did that.

    But every single time they they say “America” did this or that and the population repeats when they heard without every applying Socrates’ level of discernment, the idea that “America” actually did something, as opposed a very few number of Big Finance Capital servants, is ingrained in the American psychy!

    The Republicans have supported EVERYTHING Obama has done since they took control of the House… Why? Because they could defund any project that they determined was bad for the country.

    But they don’t – because the “projects’ basically help out the criniminal financial oligarch interests.

    The con is pretty simple. You know what the criminal oligarchs value based upon the “continuity of agenda” between administrations (regardless of party). I could make a laundery list here – but this shold be a puzzle activity for the reader to sharpen their perception.

    Then there is the divide emotional issues that basically split the population in half – and those are used to keep the populace at their own throats so the financial oligarchs skate under the radar – even though they are, by far, the biggest threat to humanity, and have been so for centuries. Butt hat history isn’t taught by an oligarch controlled education system. At least not to the proles.

    #2219
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    Hi Ashvin,

    Again, color isn’t an issue. There is no genetic trait that is tied to skin color that CAUSES the evil we see in the world.

    The more people focus on NON ROOT CAUSES, the better for the ROOT CAUSE, no? What is the root cause? A very few criminal, thug, murderous, thieving, lying, genius level Machiavellian psychopaths that rigged the monetary system to covertly asset strip ALL PEOPLE, REGARDLESS OF SKIN COLOR, and to transfer the wealth to themselves.

    They then leveraged this “Alladin’s Lamp” of fraudulent wealth to seize control of society and impoverish it.

    Race isn’t the root cause and it can’t be changed – so let’s focus on more productive areas. I’m white. You are my equal. You don’t have to fight for that position, you have it. It is your inaliencable place. Now, if I lacked the character to be confident among EQUALS, I might try and put you down or treat you bad for being different than myself.

    That’s a content of character issue – and that needs to be addressed. There is nothing wrong with your skin color (or eye color or any other body feature), so there is nothing there to fix.

    MLK understood this, even in the midst of a lock of character that probably seemed to be everywhere.

    Now, if you want to discuss how a lack of character leads down the path to be manipulated by something as nonsensical as race, I’m all for it. But that’s a character discussion, not a race discussion.

    The other problem is that the majority group feels a false sense of security. I have news for white folks out there who think they are better than other folks based on something as absurd as how the light reflects off their skin – YOU ARE BEING SYSTEMATICALLY IMPOVERISHED BY A CRIMINAL, MURDEROUS OLIGARCHY.

    You aren’t safe. You are at great risk – and it isn’t “the dark skinned man”) that is the threat.

    Do you think the oligarchs targeted MF Global segregated accounts because of their skin color?

    Do you think the oligarchs don’t file false paperwork to steal homes from white folks?

    Do you think that white soldiers aren’t exposed to aerosol depleted uranium when they fire it or they follow up after it has blown up some hut somewhere?

    Do you think the white soldier’s risk of having a deformed child doesn’t explode, too?

    Did Gary Webb avoid CIA assassination for exposing the CIA’s links to the crack epidemic in South Central Los Angeles and around the country (BTW, this was a duopoly operation – the same duopoly criminals that pose as the arbiter of racial issues they work over time to create!).

    https://www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/start.htm

    Do you think white folks will get their $100s of billions in student loans cancelled when others won’t?

    Do you think white folks don’t have their grandmothers strip searched at the airport?

    While the justice system lacks character and, therefore, treats darker skinned people far worse, white folks are still busted by the millions for using the duopoly’s (Big Finance Capital and their captured government) drugs that they conspire to bring into the country and launder their profits through the mega-banks (reference your previous article)

    Do you think white people got a memo not to drink the low dose toxic waste that the oligarchs filter through our children without ever completing a randomized, double blind placebo study to prove it was one iota effective to prevent tooth decay? No oligarch gave me this memo…

    https://www.nteu280.org/Issues/Fluoride/NTEU280-Fluoride.htm

    https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8903910725020792574

    Do you think that debt based money hasn’t asset stripped white folks – that we get a rebate at the end of the year or something?

    As I’ve stated before, the psychopathic, murdering, criminal oligarchs love to hide themselves within larger groups and they love to divide and conquer.

    Both these tactics, and they are military grade tactics being executed with utmost precision (the Pentagon’s resources are easily accessible to the Big Finance Capital controlled military / industrial mega complex) are apparent in the “Jewish Conspiracy” meme.

    “Jews” aren’t running the world, a bunch of neo-fuedal control freak, criminal oligarchs runt he world. Some (*some*, not all – EVIL comes in a variety of forms) might be able to reasonable associate themselves with a “Jewish ancestry,” but the idea that would impune any other person is absurd.

    We are INDIVIDUALS. Respect a person as such. Race is a grouping… and over generalization BY DEFINITION.

    Grouping people and demonizing groups is classic divide and conquer – and the more we are mad at each other, the less we understand the real historical risk facing humanity….

    DEMOCIDE.

    My goal is simple. The help people understand that Debt Dollar Tyranny is alive and well, that the social controllers who set this up are treasonous criminals and we all, regardless of “background” or “orientation” need to bad together and fight off these criminals before…

    THEY DESTROY US ALL, REGARDLESS OF RACE, RELIGION, BACKGROUND, ABORTION STANCE, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, ETC…

    I’ve blown a whole lot of time on nonsensical race (it really doesn’t matter unless we allow it to matter – I don’t consent to the con, I simply respect the dignity of all people until their actions prove their character is lacking), but hopefully I’ve been able to do so in a way that also highlights the real criminals who use these psychological warfare tactics against the populace as part of their oligarch / government duopoly war covert (but less and less so) mechanism.

    Oh, and why do you think the fake “media” was silent when two CENTRAL STATE CRIMINAL THUGS (white men), face planted a wheel chair bound man (black man) and then lied about in on their official police report…

    https://jonathanturley.org/2011/05/25/disabled-man-thrown-face-down-from-wheelchair-by-police-police-later-claim-he-fell-out-of-the-chair/

    Why didn’t Big Finance Capital promoted African American crowd go berzerk over this ENTRENCHED Central State crime?

    BTW, I bet these criminal, lying pieces of character content lacking trash (who happen to be white) are still getting a pay check – the entire system is a CESSPOOL of corruption.

    This might shed some light on the Big Finance Capital tactic at play…

    “We should hire three or four colored ministers (implicit in this is that they would use their media control to promote their “hired” help), preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.”
    ~Margaret Sanger (found Planned Parenthood)

    …but have stooped to lying about the Martin / Zimmerman incident?

    https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=204135

    The answer is simple. One case makes the criminal duopoly look evil (which it is – research “democide”) and the other case pits the citizenry at each other’s throats – or at least those people that don’t see this divide and conquer military grade psy op for what it is.

    I value people who value justice, goodness, kindness and who care about themselves, their family and their neighbors enough to resist the criminal tyranny that is controlling and accelerating within our society.

    Skin color? Give me a break. It means nothing UNLESS you can be conned into believing that it does.

    THEN, and only then, does it become Big Finance Capital’s divide and conquer psy op.

    I agree that racism is a HUGE issue – even today. But the root cause isn’t the skin color itself, it is the fact people have fallen for the divide and conquer psy op designed to distract the population from the root cause of the problem – a few criminal psychopath murderers that control all the major institutions and corporations in the world.

    #2220
    TheTrivium4TW
    Participant

    MR166 post=1783 wrote: TheTrivium4TW, I liked your comments but have have a different opinion about the Left. The hard core Left know exactly what they are doing when they encourage an “Arab Spring”. World chaos is at the very heart of their game plan. Here in the US, they are hoping that the OWS movemnet will grow into riots. The Trayvon Martin shooting has been turned into a race issue in the hopes of starting a riot. For the president to fan the flames as he did is beyond excusable. At worst, this is a case of a person using poor judgement and killing someone. There are tens if not hundreds of black on white murders in the US each year that create little or no media outrage. Exactly why is that?

    Hi MR166,

    Re: OWS – I do believe that the fake left (controlled by Big Finance Capital. they also control the right – there really is no difference in that there is really no difference between police in the “good cop / bad cop” psychological operation) thought they could manage the OWS movement. When it became apparent they couldn’t, they started cracking heads and threatening slaves with felonies for exercising their long gone “rights” that the criminal duopoly has completely subverted.

    Please don’t think “the right” is going to fix anything. They won’t – and every dollar spent by Obama in the past 18 months or so has been given the Republican stamp of approval as the House controls funding and the Republicans control the House.

    Funny how this FACT is never reported in the media… they hope the citizenry is so inured to their fake two party psy op they simply can’t ever figure this FACT out and, if someone like me spoils their 5 minutes of “hate” on the “other team,” that they emotionally can’t accept the obvious ramifications.

    As for the Martin case, I addressed that to a degree in my response to Ashvin.

    The system promotes what benefits the Big Finance Capital’s current agenda. If something can be used to divide and conquer, it will be.

    I think the fact that Obama is such an obvious duplicitous demon has the social engineers concerned (it is harder to rig an election that is a landslide).

    Therefore, they need to give the naive left, as opposed to the naive right, some cannon fodder to get their minds off of the war mongering, societal asset stripping, nation impoverishing, black genocide creating, al Qaeda funding for nation state over throws, oligarch slobbering demon in the Presidency.

    That’s opposed to the last demon that was in the Presidency – there is no real difference when it comes to the oligarch’s “continuity of agenda” program.

    All the world’s a stage – and, just like in poker, if you don’t know who the stage chump is, that means it is you.

    We have to anger the tyrants and “think!”

    “How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don’t think.”
    Adolf Hitler

    #2262
    Supergravity
    Participant

    He’s not only ineligible, he’s not even a citizen.
    Barry Soetoro has no legal immigration status.

    He’s still a ‘foreign exchange student from Indonesia’, except that he’s not currently a citizen of that country, or of Kenia, or of the US by any admissible evidence of legal status [excluding obvious forgeries].
    He was not born a citizen and was never naturalised.
    Therefore the person currently impersonating the POTUS, having previously impersonated a US senator, is in fact a stateless combatant, an unpriviledged enemy belligerent and hostile agent, so engaged in espionage, sabotage, subversion, terrorism and various acts of war against the US, as well as identity fraud.
    He cannot be criminally convicted of treason for misauthorising the Libya war if he’s not a citizen, it would be a warcrime or terrorism instead, but he can be readily impeached for it.

    Every legal document which carries the signature of ‘Barack Obama’ is legally void and is criminal evidence of signature fraud.

    28 U.S.C. § 1361 : US Code – Section 1361: Action to compel an officer of the United States to perform his duty-

    This statute may be employed to obtain a court order to force congress to impeach this person and enemy infiltrator impersonating the POTUS for any of the impeachable offenses committed so far, especially for the Libya treason and for opening the UN security council, under penalty of felonious dereliction of congressional duty.

    Also:
    https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.CON.RES.107:

    “Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.”
    Its treason, then, and concurrently misprision of treason if congress does not impeach.

    #2264
    FrankRichards
    Participant

    FWIW, ’twas Ben, not me, that reported el G’s departure. I know nothing of it.

    #2272
    ashvin
    Participant

    TheTrivium4TW post=1823 wrote:

    The more people focus on NON ROOT CAUSES, the better for the ROOT CAUSE, no? What is the root cause? A very few criminal, thug, murderous, thieving, lying, genius level Machiavellian psychopaths that rigged the monetary system to covertly asset strip ALL PEOPLE, REGARDLESS OF SKIN COLOR, and to transfer the wealth to themselves.

    As long as you keep thinking like this, you aren’t going to appreciate what I’m saying. Of course those types of people exist and operate extensively, but to label them a “root cause” of all our predicaments to the exclusion of every other significant factor, including our own passive support and complicity (which necessarily ties in with racial and cultural issues), is completely missing the point. Like I said before, whether our complicity has naturally evolved or has been gained through top-down manipulation (or a combination of both) is irrelevant to the fact that it exists and must be confronted if there is to be any meaningful change at ANY scale of society.

    As to the specifics of conspiratorial meta-narratives, perhaps you missed the discussion between El G, RE and I on the other thread, or perhaps you would like to reignite the discussion. That’s fine with me, but my position on that hasn’t changed. Not everything that happens in this world is an elaborate psy-op perpetrated by the evil psychopaths who have planned it all beforehand, and are watching it unfold while they sip on some fine champagne and nibble on a few dinosaur eggs.

    #2282
    seychelles
    Participant

    OOps! Sorry for the misquote, FR. My failing vision just naturally gravitated to the heavy print.

    #2287
    ben
    Member

    hi seychelles,

    yeah it was me. as to your question upthread, I see it as the birdman staying on the cutting edge. are we?

    in early summer 2009 the commentariat was engrossed, over several threads, in speculation over the Chiasso bearer bonds incident. the two japanese nationals detained at the swiss/italian border with more than 100B dollars.

    michael salla says it’s about black gold. and I don’t mean oil. shadow banking of epic proportions:

    https://exopolitics.org/Study-Paper-14.htm

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