Friday, February 04, 2011

A terra treme no Oriente Médio - Por Lejeune Mirhan

Afastado alguns meses por outros compromissos das colunas semanais do Portal Vermelho, retorno agora ao objeto de meus estudos e pesquisa há quase trinta anos – o Oriente Médio árabe – a convite desta vez do portal da Fundação Maurício Grabois na condição de colaborador. E retorno em um momento especial: a terra treme em todo o Oriente Médio em termos políticos.
Dias de Fúria

Em termos de história, na maior parte do tempo, sejam em atitudes pessoais, atos coletivos e mesmo descobertas e invenções, nem sempre aquilatamos as dimensões que essas atitudes e descobertas podem ter na história da humanidade e no futuro imediato ou de médio e longo prazo.

Pois arrisco um palpite que o caso do jovem de 26 anos Mohammed Boazizi, vendedor de frutas ambulante, mas com formação universitária, é um desses casos. Inconformado com o fato da polícia ter tomado seu carrinho, seu ganha pão, decidiu imolar-se em frente ao palácio presidencial onde governava desde 1988, por longos 23 anos Zine Abdine Ben Ali. A partir desse momento, até a queda do ditador em 16 de janeiro, transcorreram 27 dias de grandes manifestações. A polícia atacou com fúria a multidão diariamente, que, de peito aberto, a enfrentou. O ditador – chamado durante todos esses anos de “presidente” por ser amigo de Washington – fugiu em debelada com sua família e, dizem, com mais de cem malas carregadas de ouro e dólares.

Em vários outros países ocorreram imolações nas capitais árabes. Essa forma de manifestação não é novidade no movimento popular. Foi muito usada pelos monges budistas na década de 1960, contra os EUA na Guerra do Vietnã. Na Guerra dos Bálcãs na década de 1990, em especial na Albânia esses episódios também ocorreram.

Toda a região do Oriente Médio, nos 22 países árabes (incluindo a palestina que ainda não tem seu Estado nacional), possui governos longevos. Ou são monarquias absolutistas ou são ditaduras disfarçadas de democracias, onde a cada cinco ou seis anos, fazem-se “eleições” farsescas, fraudulentas para tentar legitimar ditadores amigos dos Estados Unidos, para garantir ao império norte-americano a defesa de seus interesses nessa estratégica região, em especial a garantia do fluxo de petróleo para a América, a passagem dos seus navios petroleiros e cargueiros pelo Canal de Suez, garantir, fundamentalmente, a existência do estado racista e sionista judaico de Israel, algoz do povo palestino.

No entanto, há uma diferença imensa de alguns protestos e mesmo a derrubada de um ditador na Tunísia, protestos na Jordânia contra o Rei Abdulláh 2º, no Iêmen do ditador Ali Abdulláh Saleh no poder há 32 anos ou até contra o rei Abdulláh Bin Abdel Aziz, da família saudita que governa a Arábia Saudita há séculos (até o nome do país vem do ancestral Ibn Saud) e o que esta agora acontecendo no Egito.

O Egito, cujos protestos iniciaram-se desde a queda do ditador tunisiano, as coisas são completamente diferentes. É o maior país árabe, com 80 milhões de habitantes e aliado estratégico tanto dos Estados Unidos como de Israel, pois se coloca como inimigo dos árabes e dos palestinos.

Pretendia dar um panorama geral de todos os outros países árabes neste momento, com suas encruzilhadas históricas, em especial o Líbano, a Palestina e o Iraque. No entanto, ainda que os problemas desses países que mencionei se insiram no contexto geral de que comentarei sobre o Egito em particular, esta análise ficará por demais longa se tratasse de todos. Ficarão para as próximas colaborações que enviarei.

Egito, um país estratégico

O Egito é um dos países árabes mais milenares, ao lado da Síria. É claro que é justo falar de uma época dos faraós e suas dinastias e outra do momento no século VII quando foi ocupada pelos muçulmanos do Império Árabe.

O marco fundamental do Egito ocorre com a revolução de 1952 que derruba o rei Farouk e instaura a República, foi uma iniciativa dos jovens oficiais livres, liderados pelo coronel Gamal Abdel Nasser. Um presidente interino foi colocado no poder, o general Mohammad Naguib, que durou até 1954. Dessa data em Dante, esse país, que diz fazer eleições regulares para presidente, teve apenas e tão somente três presidentes. O primeiro deles, Nasser, o maior e mais querido líder árabe da história, governou de 1954 até 1970 quando morreu. Anuar El Sadat assume e é assassinado em 1981 e de lá para cá, Hosni Mubarak, o ditador de plantão foi “eleito” e reeleito nada menos que seis vezes, muitas vezes com votações que atingiam quase cem por cento.

Sempre foi amigo dos Estados Unidos. Governou com a mão de ferro esses trinta anos e nem sequer teve a pretensão e nem precisou indicar um vice-presidente. Era vice de Sadat desde 1975, como chefe da Força Aérea. Após a assinatura dos acordos de paz com Israel em 1979, sob os auspícios da administração Carter após as conversações de Camp David em 1978, Mubarak vai ganhando destaque até que, com o assassinato de Sadat por extremistas islâmicos que o consideraram traidor, assume definitivamente a presidência.

O Egito sob o seu governo viveu trinta anos de corrupção e repressão do povo, dos sindicatos e dos partidos de esquerda e progressistas. Reprimiu, em nome de uma suposta laicidade, a organização Irmandade (ou Fraternidade, dependendo da tradução) Muçulmana, fundada por Hasan Al Banna, em 1928, sob a inspiração de Sayyid Qutb (falaremos dela posteriormente).

O Egito é o país do OM que mais recebe ajuda direta do tesouro americano, autorizado pelo Congresso dos Estados Unidos. Isso significa em torno de dois bilhões de dólares ao ano nos últimos trinta anos pelo menos. Israel recebe o dobro, ainda que tenha um décimo da população egípcia.

Não é a primeira vez que as massas egípcias vão ás ruas e mesmo com as atuais dimensões (a manifestação do último dia 1º de fevereiro, terça-feira, atingiu dois milhões de pessoas, apesar da imprensa ocidental e brasileira falar em “alguns milhares”...). O povo já havia protestado contra a ocupação turca e depois britânica nos idos dos últimos anos da década de 1910 no século passado.

No entanto, as características atuais são completamente distintas.

O momento delicado que vive o Egito

Quero a seguir, com base na literatura internacional a que tivemos acesso, tecer diversas considerações sobre a realidade desse histórico e estratégico país, sob diversos aspectos, citando, sempre que possível, a fonte.

1. A economia do país – o Egito vive um modelo econômico de absoluta inspiração neoliberal. Privatizou praticamente metade das suas antigas 300 empresas estatais, em especial as estratégicas. É o chamado capitalismo financeiro, que engordou as contas das famílias e grupos rentistas do país em detrimento da pauperização das amplas massas árabes. Como diz Pepe Escobar em seu blog, é como se o vírus latino-americano contra o neoliberalismo tivesse contaminado o Egito e todo o OM. O desemprego é elevadíssimo e a renda per capita não cresce há anos. O FMI dizia para todo o mundo que o Egito era um “modelo de economia a ser seguido” (corte de gastos, juros altos, sem controle de câmbio, arrocho salarial... aliás, muito parecido com as primeiras medidas do governo brasileiro). Esse é o contexto econômico em que ocorreram as manifestações na Praça Tahrir (Praça da Liberdade);

2. A Questão política – o Egito e qualquer outro país árabe nunca foi exemplo de democracia. Não pelo menos nos moldes do que estamos acostumados no Ocidente e no Brasil desde a redemocratização em 1985. Não há liberdade de imprensa, nem liberdade partidária. No parlamento, o único partido consentido, a Irmandade Muçulmana, elegeu nas eleições parlamentares de 2005, 88 deputados de um total de 454 cadeiras (19,38%).

A parceria estratégica que o Egito mantém com os EUA tem diversos objetivos. O maior deles é o controle do Canal de Suez, por onde passam boa parte dos petroleiros e navios transoceânicos de luxo de todo o mundo. Boa parte da economia mundial depende dessa passagem que liga o Mar Vermelho ao Mediterrâneo. O Canal era explorado pela Inglaterra, mas foi nacionalizado por Nasser em 1956, na mais firme e heroica atitude tomada por um dirigente árabe em toda a história.

Além disso, a mais estratégica passagem entre o Egito e a Faixa de Gaza, a cidade de Rafah, esta sob total controle do governo Mubarak. Para asfixiar Gaza e os palestinos, Mubarak mantém com mão de ferro o total controle dessa fronteira, fazendo o jogo de Israel, que lhe pede repressão maior a cada dia. O exército americano esta inclusive construindo uma muralha de aço para separar a fronteira egípcia e palestina.

Em recente declaração do vice-presidente dos Estados Unidos, Joe Bidden, este confessou em público o que todos sabem: afirmou com todas as letras que Mubarak não pode ser chamado de ditador. Que seria ele então?

O exemplo tunisiano e algumas imolações ocorridas também no Cairo foi a gota d’água para as manifestações. A imprensa insiste em vincular isso com a questão islâmica, mas isso é um equívoco. O levante é popular e não islâmico. Isso esta claro. São cidadãos egípcios que saem às ruas para pedir um basta à ditadura Mubarak, que até outro dia era chamado de “presidente” por essa mídia internacional e a brasileira, hipócrita como sempre.

O que vimos na imprensa ser chamada de Revolução Egípcia, pode sim ter características de revolução, a depender de quem a dirija e dos rumos que ela possa tomar de ora em diante. Não há como negar que os Estados Unidos lutam com todas as suas forças e armas, para ter o controle de um processo de transição que não faça com que o aliado histórico se afaste de sua órbita de influência (mais abaixo comentarei sobre Israel ainda). O próprio Lênin dava as características de uma situação que pode ser revolucionária, quando ele dizia que “os de cima não mais conseguem governar como antes e os de baixo já não aceitam mais ser governados como antes”. É o caso do Egito.

Ainda assim, a chamada revolução egípcia ainda não da sinais de que tem seu caráter antiamericano, anti-EUA. É sim, de forma clara, uma revolução anti um regime apoiado abertamente pelos Estados Unidos, mas isso é diferente. Sigo de acordo com a opinião da imensa maioria dos analistas internacionais a que pude ler seus despachos, qual seja, de que qualquer regime que suceda Mubarak, é muito pequena a probabilidade de que seja serviçal e dócil com os Estados Unidos. Nesse sentido e por si só, isso já representa uma derrota para o império norte-americano e sinalizam problemas para Obama, mais dos que ele os têm, tanto no front interno e externo. É como se Washington tentasse a todo custo, sequestrar a revolução egípcia, realizando uma transição pacífica e de colaboração que preserve o futuro de Mubarak e seus aliados e os interesses norte-americano e israelenses. E que o modelo neoliberal seja preservado.

Aqui, registro algumas observações:

• Não há uma animosidade contra os Estados Unidos; sintonizo o tempo todo ao vivo a TV Al Jazeera (veja o link http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/) e não vi uma bandeira norte-americana sendo queimada; tampouco vejo animosidade contra os estrangeiros em geral; os cartazes não me parecem ser antiamericanos;
• Como diz Fisk, os egípcios deram gargalhadas quando viram Barak Obama na TV “conclamar” que Mubarak “abrace a democracia”, depois desse ter servido fielmente com sua ditadura aos interesses estadunidenses;
• Soa profundamente hipócrita, segundo Borón, que tanto Obama como sua secretária Hilary Clinton, apelando para que um regime corrupto e repressivo como poucos no mundo inteiro, trilhe agora um caminho de reformas democráticas, econômicas e sociais;
• O movimento popular não mirou em nenhum momento, como seus alvos estratégicos, como diz Chossudóvsky, que poderiam ser simplesmente a embaixada norte-americana no Cairo, os escritórios nacionais do FMI e do Banco Mundial, e mesmo as bases americanas no Egito;
• Vive-se, na visão de Pepe Escobar, uma espécie de Intifada egípcia, nos moldes das duas que ocorreram na palestina, em 1987 e 2000;

3. Os que protestam – como dissemos, a oposição vivia momentos de quase total desmobilização; milhares de seus líderes encontram-se ainda encarcerados e muitos foram cooptados pelo próprio regime. A juventude toma, como sempre, a dianteira. No entanto, os repórteres que acompanham de perto as manifestações na Praça da Liberdade, registram que são, além de estudantes e desempregados em geral, operários, a classe média, advogados e juízes, médicos, professores, doutores da mais antiga universidade do mundo, a Al Azhar, camponeses, teólogos, jornalistas e tantas outras profissões. Quanto à sua religiosidade, temos muçulmanos em sua maioria, mas cristãos cooptas. Mas, em momento algum se viu um caráter religioso das manifestações.

Formam-se neste momento por todo o país, os chamados comitês populares. O Partido Comunista Egípcio emitiu nota contundente condenando toda a repressão, conclamando o “Fora Mubarak” e a formação de um governo de unidade nacional. O povo nas ruas grita que “exército e povo são aliados”. O slogan que mais se escuta nas manifestações é “não a outro mandato; não á uma república hereditária”, em uma alusão a possibilidade de Mubarak indicar seu filho, Gamal, para assumir o poder em setembro (em árabe La lil-tamdid; La lil-tawrith). Nas paredes pichadas, como que lembrando Maio de 1968, lê-se “Queremos derrubar o sistema”. Cidadãos comuns, unidos, carregam a bandeira egípcia com orgulho. Quiçá isso retorne e desemboque na volta do nacionalismo e o pan-arabismo das décadas de 1950 e 1960 do século passado. Ouve-se ainda “Mubarak, vá-se para sempre! Mubarak, mostre alguma dignidade! (em árabe isso até rima).

4. A oposição – como tem dito a grande imprensa, parece que a revolução egípcia não tem rosto, não têm líderes, os partidos quase não aparecem. Quero comentar aqui alguns deles:

• Associação Nacional pela Mudança – é liderada pelo ex-presidente da Agência Internacional de Energia Atômica, Mohammed El Baradei, Prêmio Nobel da Paz. Baradei, um técnico de prestígio internacional e de carreira na ONU, passou quase 15 anos fora do país. Ninguém atinge um posto desse sem ter sido de confiança quase que absoluta dos EUA. No entanto, nos últimos dois anos de seu segundo mandato à frente da AIEA, Baradei desalinhou dos EUA quanto ao programa nuclear do Irã. Cumpriu um papel positivo, no sentido de afirmar ao mundo que os técnicos da agência não atestavam o programa iraniano com objetivos de fabricar a bomba. É claro, ele é um político moderado, independente. Mas, já esta tentando se cacifar pelo menos neste momento de transição e recebeu autorização de cinco partidos para tentar formar um gabinete de transição; pode emplacar ou não;
• Partido Al Ghad – de linha republicana, liderado por Ayman Nour, que disputou com Mubarak a presidência em 2005, sendo esmagado pela fraude eleitoral; de linha centrista;
• Partido Wafd – sob a liderança de Al Sayed Al Badawi, de linha liberal e moderada;
• Movimento “6 de Abril” – uma organização juvenil, de centro-esquerda;
• Kefaya – movimento laico, integrado por sindicalistas e intelectuais de classe média;
• Irmandade Muçulmana – disputam apenas o parlamento e nunca passam de 20% dos votos. Seu atual líder é Mohammad Badias. A Irmandade tem estado discreta nas manifestações, mas sabemos que participa ativamente. O Ocidente quer mostrar que é um pavor a tomada do poder pelos muçulmanos, mas isso apenas como forma de jogar terrorismo e preconceito na cabeça das pessoas. Ate porque esse agrupamento não propõe – assim como o Hamas na Palestina e o Hezbolláh no Líbano, nunca propuseram um estado islâmico (o Hamas na sua fundação propunha, mas mudou de posição). Essa Irmandade egípcia, que inspirou todas as outras nos países árabes, é na verdade uma organização moderada na política. Não falam em ruptura com o modelo capitalista e defendem a propriedade privada. É conservadora também do ponto de vista da moral e dos costumes. Presta mais serviços sociais de apoio à população pobre com baixa atuação na classe média de alta escolaridade e com intelectuais;
• Partido Comunista Egípcio – fundado em 1922, fará, tal qual o PCdoB, 89 anos. Atua na mais absoluta clandestinidade, tem influência em setores sindicais e estudantis. Possui muitos de seus quadros dirigentes encarcerados, mas atua na linha de frente das amplas manifestações deste janeiro.

Pelo fato da Irmandade ser o agrupamento mais importante na política egípcia, vale a pena saber quais seriam as suas propostas neste momento. Defendem a nomeação de um 1º Ministro interino e que uma comissão de juízes faça uma imediata revisão da constituição e que eleições livres e gerais sejam convocadas para o parlamento e para a presidência. Poderia aceitar o moderado do Baradei na linha de frente desse governo provisório de união nacional.

Mubarak ainda não deu sinais, apesar da pressão popular, da opinião pública e mesmo das pressões norte-americana para uma transição mais abreviada, ainda que controlada, de que vai deixar o poder. Para isso nomeou um vice-presidente. Não poderia ter sido pior, pois indicou um tenente-coronel do exército, vinculado ao setor de espionagem e informações, um homem avesso à democracia e ao processo de transição, conhecido torturador. Parece-nos que isso seria uma decisão parecida com a que tomou o Xá do Irã, Reza Pahlevi em 1978, um ano antes de sua queda e fuga para o mesmo Egito atual, quando indicou um 1º Ministro chamado Shapour Baktiar. Mas, tal manobra não surtiu efeito, pois a partir de março de 1979, uma insurreição popular, dirigida pelos setores mais progressista da sociedade iraniana, derrubou o governo despótico do Xá.

5. A cobertura da mídia – a mídia procurou esconder as manifestações iniciadas em Túnis, capital da Tunísia. De um modo geral, tanto no Brasil, como no mundo, o Oriente Médio é deturpado e mesmo desconhecido. Reforça-se um imenso preconceito contra esse povo e sua religião majoritária, o Islamismo. Estereótipos são reforçados, mostrando-se os muçulmanos como radicais e mesmo terroristas. A ombudsman da Folha, Susana Singer, em sua coluna de domingo, 30 de janeiro, criticou a cobertura do próprio jornal, dizendo que demorou para enviar correspondentes e nunca explicou bem aos seus leitores o significado daquela região do mundo. E agora, recebendo material e despachos das grandes agências, procura ficar na superficialidade e não mostra a questão central, política e ideológica.

Os jornalões brasileiros em particular, só despertaram para enviar correspondentes depois de quase um mês de manifestações e da queda do ditador tunisiano. Descobriram depois de 23 anos na Tunísia e 30 no Egito que ambos os países eram uma ditadura. Chamaram, até uma semana atrás, os respectivos ditadores Ben Ali e Mubarak de “presidente” (sic). E, mesmo quando enviaram correspondentes para a região, estes passaram a cobrir mais os que eles chamaram de atos de vandalismos e saques, desconsiderando o conteúdo político e mesmo revolucionário das manifestações.

Essa mesma imprensa, como diz Fisk, omite que tais saques e vandalismos são feitos por agentes e milicianos ligados ao governo Mubarak, chamados de battagi que em árabe quer dizer literalmente de “bandidos”. São, em sua maioria, ex-policiais, viciados em drogas. Como diz o competente jornalista Antônio Luiz Costa de Carta Capital, “a mídia Ocidental cobre os protestos do Cairo com muito menos entusiasmo do que os ocorridos em Teerã em 2009; protestos só interessam quando são pró-ocidentais e a democracia só convém quando a preferência dos eleitores coincide com os de Washington”. Uma conclusão correta e clara.

6. Ditadores e Legitimidade – ninguém gosta de ditadores. Mas, como disse em longa entrevista que concedi à Rádio CBN de notícias no último dia 30 de janeiro domingo (que o leitor pode ouvir por este link http://cbn.globoradio.globo.com/programas/revista-cbn/2011/01/30/MONARQUIAS-PRO-AMERICANAS-PODEM-SER-AFETADAS-POR-CRISE-NO-EGITO.htm) não se trata de escolher um ditador melhor que o outro. Todos sabem que Saddam Hussein, quando era amigo dos EUA, e bombardeou o Irã em uma guerra absurda em que morreram um milhão de pessoas de ambos os lados, era chamado pela imprensa norte-americana de “presidente” Saddam. Depois que passou a atacar os EUA, passou a ser “ditador” Saddam.

A legitimidade de um governo não provém e nem emana sempre das eleições ditas democráticas nos moldes que conhecemos no Ocidente. A prova disso é que a democracia norte-americana é uma farsa. Praticamente só dois partidos concorrem e só tem chance quem tem bilhões de dólares para pagar a propaganda nas mídias.

Gamal Abdel Nasser praticamente nunca foi eleito nos 16 anos que esteve á frente do governo do Egito. No entanto, era adorado pelos egípcios. As tarefas que ele executou, o conteúdo e o caráter de classe do Estado e do governo egípcios eram claramente antiimperialistas. Sua morte em 1970 levou um milhão de egípcios às ruas em seu funeral e outros milhões em todas as capitais árabes. Ele nunca foi chamado de ditador pela esquerda e pelo imprensa árabe.

Como diz Juan Cole em seu blog, o “estado nasserista com todos os seus problemas, teve legitimidade porque era visto como um estado para a grande massa dos egípcios, tanto para os de fora como os de dentro do país; o atual de Mubarak, é visto no Egito como um estado para os outros: EUA, Reino Unido, França e Israel e é um estado para poucos – os ricos e neoliberais”.

Isso vale para o presidente Bashar El Assad, da Síria. Ele “herdou” o governo de seu pai, Hafez El Assad, morto em 1999 (governava desde 1970). A Síria hoje é o país que mais enfrenta o imperialismo norte-americano, ao lado do Irã. Na sua capital, Damasco, grupos revolucionários, de esquerda, progressistas e patrióticos mantém livremente seus escritórios. É o país árabe que mais apoia a causa palestina. No entanto, as eleições ocorrem nos mesmos moldes que as egípcias. Não há comparação de um com o outro.

Na ciência política marxista costumamos dizer que o que assegura o caráter de classe de um estado pode ser respondida quando a seguinte questão estiver clara: contra quem (qual classe social) e a favor de quem age a máquina do estado. Respondido isso, sabe-se o caráter de classe de um estado. Não estou entre os que veem na democracia um valor universal.

Problemas para Israel. O fortalecimento do Irã

Também sobre isso não tenho a menor dúvida. Quem mais perde neste momento, nesta situação pré-revolucionária ou até mesmo revolucionária, a depender do andamento do processo, é Israel e seu governo reacionário de Benjamin Netanyahu. E essa opinião minha coincide com diversos analistas, em especial M. K. Bradakumar, do Asia Times. E ganha a República islâmica do Irã.

Mubarak é o principal parceiro de Israel. O Egito foi o primeiro país que assinou a paz em separado com Israel, seguido pela Jordânia. Nenhum outro assinou. Tecnicamente, Israel esta em guerra com a Síria e o Líbano, pois confiscou terras desses países (respectivamente as colinas de Golã e as fazendas chamadas de Shebaa). Entre os dias 27 de dezembro de 2008 e 22 de janeiro de 2009, Israel bombardeou sem pena nem dó a Faixa de Gaza. Matou a sangue frio 1,5 mil palestinos, dos quais dois terços crianças, mulheres e velhos, sob o pretexto de atacar o grupo Hamas, legitimo representante do povo palestino. Que fez Mubarak? Ao invés de abrir a fronteira de Gaza para deixar passar alimentos, remédios, materiais de construção pela cidade egípcia de Rafah, acabou fechando-a de uma vez, forçando milhares de palestinos a construir túneis na região de fronteira, reforçando o contrabando e encarecendo os preços.

Já temos notícias que dezenas de diplomatas israelenses e seus familiares já deixaram, há muito, o Cairo. Impera na chancelaria e em geral no governo israelense, um nervosismo excessivo. Isso foi registrado por diversos analistas. Israel sabe que um novo governo egípcio poderá romper o acordo de paz de 1979 e isso fará com que o estado judeu venha a ter que gastar muito mais em armamentos e despesas militares, pois há 32 anos ele desguarnece a fronteira Sul, com o Egito e concentra esforços com a front Norte do país, exatamente onde estão o Líbano, a Síria e Irã. Ruim para Israel isso.

Não tenho dúvidas que Israel vai ficando a cada dia mais isolado. E o Irã que não é um país árabe (é persa), se fortalece a cada dia. Senão, vejamos os motivos que elenquei:

• Papeis recentemente divulgado pelo WikiLeaks (Palestinian Papers), revelaram acordos e negociações secretas entre Israel e a ANP, do grupo Fatah, que fizeram enfraquecer ainda mais o grupo de Abbas e fortalecer novamente o Hamas, que tem apoio do Irã e da Síria;
• O Hezbolláh acaba de conseguir formar um governo de maioria no Líbano, derrubando o governo pró-EUA e Israel de Saad Hariri; registre-se que tal governo é chamado de Bloco Patriótico e é composto, além do Hezbolláh do sheik Hasan Nasralláh, mais o Movimento Patriótico Livre, do general cristão Michel Aoun, mais o grupo Amal, de orientação xiita, cujo líder é Nabi Berri, presidente do parlamento e pelo Partido Comunista Libanês;
• O Irã tem boa influência no governo do 1º ministro xiita do Iraque, Nur El Maliki;
• Desde os primeiros momentos, o Irã deu seu total apoio ao levante popular no Egito; Israel entrou em profundo mutismo e silêncio; reflete na verdade o seu imenso pavor de que todos os regimes árabes moderados e pró-Ocidente sejam derrubados no que alguns autores vêm chamando de Revolução de Jasmim ou Primavera Árabe;
• O Irã tem profundas ligações com a Fraternidade Muçulmana, que Israel tem pavor que assuma o comando do país (de meu ponto de vista esse agrupamento vai participar do novo governo, mas não defenderá um governo o islâmico; o Egito é fortemente laico);
• Todos os fracassos seguidos de Washington de barrar o programa nucelar iraniano para fins pacíficos – apoiado pelo Brasil inclusive – que agora deixa de ser o foco no OM; Israel perde seu discurso central;
• A questão palestina e seu estado nacional, a paz volta a ser o centro das negociações e Israel não vai ter como sair disso.

Conclusões preliminares

É um jogo ainda em andamento. As cartas estão na mesa e os jogadores se posicionando, articulando. Não se pode prever exatamente os resultados. Mas quero arriscar alguns palpites:

1. Obama perde nesse processo. Seu discurso do Cairo em julho de 2009, estendendo a mão para os muçulmanos provou-se uma farsa, uma hipocrisia. Não deu passo algum para respeitar os muçulmanos e os árabes em geral. Insiste em classificar, quase que à revelia da maioria dos países, os Partidos políticos Hamas e o Hezbolláh como “terroristas”; são movimentos de resistência e de libertação nacional;

2. Qualquer governo, por mais moderado que seja, não terá, jamais, as mesmas relações de subserviência com os norte-americanos como sempre teve Mubarak. O que tanto os Estados Unidos sempre tiveram pavor, poderá mesmo acontecer concretamente, que é a participação com destaque da Irmandade Muçulmana no futuro governo egípcio; isso não dará caráter religioso ao governo;

3. Israel sai profundamente derrotado e isolado. Perdeu seu discurso de que o maior inimigo é o Irã, que este precisaria ser derrotado e bombardeado e seu programa nuclear visa a construção da bomba atômica (fala como se ninguém soubesse que tem pelo menos 200 ogivas);

4. Ganham os palestinos, que devem se fortalecer na sua luta e na busca de seu estado nacional. Eu só lamento ainda a existência da divisão entre o Hamas e o Fatah e outras organizações. Espera-se até meados do ano eleições gerais, ou pelo menos municipais;

5. Um novo Oriente Médio será construído e isso é perfeitamente possível. O modelo neoliberal pode sofrer abalos. Deverá crescer a democracia mais ampla, os partidos terão maiores liberdades, bem como a imprensa. Eleições gerais devem ocorrer em curto prazo no Egito e na Tunísia. O OM nunca mais será o mesmo depois desse imenso tremor político ocorrido; mudanças profundas podem ocorrer inclusive nas monarquias da Arábia Saudita, Jordânia, Kuwait entre outras;

De minha parte, espero, com sinceridade que avancem as massas populares, no rumo de uma verdadeira revolução democrática, popular, patriótica e nacional. Que avancem os partidos comunistas e socialistas e de feições populares, independente da confissão religiosa de seus dirigentes. São todos árabes, sejam muçulmanos ou cristãos e mesmo judeus dos 22 países árabes.

Termino este artigo com uma frase de Helena Cobban, de seu blog, muito ferino contra os EUA: “no caso da política de Obama para o OM, são cegos guiando cego e cegos aconselhando cego no salão oval da Casa Branca”, em uma clara alusão a Bill Daley, Ben Rhodes, Tony Blinken, Denis McDorough, John Brennan e Robert Cardillo, assessores e conselheiros de diversos cargos de Obama, todos, indistintamente, militantes fanáticos pró-Israel e à serviço do lobbyie judaico. Como diz elas, que venham os arabistas de Washington.

PS: esclareço aos leitores que este é um típico artigo de Internet. Ele pode se dar ao luxo de ser longo, mas é datado, ou seja, vale para este momento histórico, em que a terra treme, no sentido político. De um dia para outro, a conjuntura pode ser alterada completamente.

_________



Sociólogo, Professor, Escritor e Arabista. Membro da Academia de Altos Estudos Ibero-Árabe de Lisboa e da International Sociological Association e colunista da Revista Sociologia da Editora Escala.

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: Lord Cromers

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: Lord Cromers: "I like the White Man in the West when they set conditions for elections in the Arab world. I like when they said: that people can participate in elections provided they forswear violence. It is ironic because no one has used, and is using, more violence than the puppets of the US in the region. "


Egyptian blogger @suzeeinthecity has tweeted what she says are the seven demands of the protesters (see the four drawn up by youth groups we detailed at (5.05pm)


1. Resignation of the president

2. End of the Emergency State

3.Dissolution of The People's Assembly and Shora Council

4. Formation of a national transitional government

5.An elected Parliament that will ammend the Constitution to allow for presidential elections

6. Immediate prosecution for those responsible of the deaths of the revolution's martyrs

7. Immediate prosecution of the corrupters and those who robbed the country of its wealth.

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

The Brotherhood factor By Pepe Escobar

A million marching in the streets of Cairo this Tuesday, a million more marching towards the Egyptian presidential palace in Heliopolis in the upcoming "Friday of Departure". The top graffiti - also scrawled on khaki-colored US Abrams tanks - as well as the top slogan, remains "the people want the system to fall". The army seems to have chosen its side, tacitly affirming it "will not resort to use of force against our great people".

With Brent crude oil futures smashing the barrier of US$100 a barrel for the first time since September 2008; mounting fears for the oil flow through the Suez Canal; banks, schools and the stock market closed; people's committees running security; some police burning their uniforms and joining the protests; and rows of activists, protesters and bloggers tapping furiously at banks and banks of laptops to send the word (before the President Hosni Mubarak system "bravely" shut down the last functioning Internet service provider), the Egyptian revolution might be approaching the end game.

The Pharaoh and his "successor" Omar "the suave torturer" Suleiman's strategy to use the army to intimidate, and then reclaim, the street could only work if the Nile turned blood red this week. That seems unlikely. Still this ruthless military dictatorship will do whatever it takes to cling to power.

As the multiform Egyptian street sees it, the point is not, as the Wall Street Journal so quaintly put it, "maybe the new phase is a happy one for Washington". Those masses at Tahrir Square (Liberation Square) protesting with their lives couldn't care less - as they couldn't care less for the security of oil supplies to the West or the security of Israel. This is about Egypt, not America.

On Sunday, US President Barack Obama urged a meek "shift in Egypt's administration" - while the streets are yelling "out with the dictator". Al-Jazeera had to come out with an editorial reminding everyone that Obama's definition of "reform" simply cannot mean the same corrupt/repressive regime with a facelift.

This is a classic revolutionary situation; those few on top cannot impose their will like they used to, those many below refuse to be dominated like they used to. Infinitely puzzled, Washington and European capitals may play at best minimalist background vocals to the sound and the fury in the street. The street wants a solid political and institutional life, and to be able to make a decent living in a less corrupt environment. And that has proved to be impossible under the immutable rules of the game - the "our" dictator system supported by the industrialized West.

Among silly conspiracy theories that the Egyptian revolution is being funded by the Jewish lobby, the US Central Intelligence Agency, American financier George Soros or all of the above, the Egyptian street couldn't care less whether or not the Pharaoh decides to "lead an orderly transition"; they won't settle for anything less than his one-way ticket, perhaps to embrace his friends in the House of Saud. Especially now that the street has seen how, with Suleiman, Mubarak is pulling a Shah of Iran in 1978, when he installed Shapour Bakhtiar as his prime minister (it didn't work).

Talk to the Sphinx 

The sensible way ahead points to an Egyptian civic alliance dominated by all the sectors opposed to the regime (virtually everyone in the country) and the inevitable component, the army. As much as sectors of the Washington establishment and US corporate media may have been frantically spinning it, there are no objective conditions for an Islamist takeover; this is just plain silly.

Washington may be about to give the green light to Mohamed ElBaradei - who has been crucially endorsed by the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet not even the Sphinx in Giza knows whether this will be enough for the street.

ElBaradei is a credible outsider. During the Pharaoh's hardcore years he was abroad. He is no pushover, and stoically stood his ground against the George W Bush administration as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency over Iran. ElBaradei, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, may in fact emerge as the "bridge" before free and fair elections, a new constitution and a new order in Egypt.

But there's no evidence he will concoct an economic policy much different from the usual International Monetary Fund-World Bank "structural adjustment" scam, with lots of dodgy privatizations mixed with that hazy Davos mantra, "good governance". If that's the case the street is bound to get really angry - again.

For the moment, there's not much evidence that Egypt could go the way of Iran in 1979. The secular left was in charge of Iran's post-revolutionary government (in Egypt, the left has been decimated by repression). Iran only became an Islamic republic months later, after a national referendum (were that to happen, Egyptians would overwhelmingly support a secular republic). The most probable, positive, scenario is that by 2012 Egypt may be closer, politically, to Turkey.

That leaves us the burning unanswered question to burn them all; what will be the post-revolutionary role of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)?

Brothers to the rescue 

The MB elicits panic fear all across the West because the Mubarak regime always effectively equaled them to al-Qaeda. This is nonsense.

The MB was founded by Hasan al-Banna in the port of Ismailia in 1928 - then moved to Cairo. Its initial concern was to concentrate on social services, establishing mosques, schools and hospitals. Over these past decades, the MB managed to become the most important fundamentalist political force in the Sunni world. It's also the largest dissident party in Egypt, with 88 seats of the 454 in the lower house of parliament.

The MB does not endorse violence - although it did in the past, until the 1970s. The aura of violence is mostly related to the legendary Sayyid Qutb, considered by many as the spiritual father of al-Qaeda. Qutb, a literary critic who had studied in the US, joined the MB in 1951, and split years later.

Qutb's ideas were radically different from al-Banna's - especially his concept of a "vanguard", which is more Lenin than the Koran. He was convinced that parliamentary democracy was "a failure" in the Islamic world (unlike the overwhelming majority of Egyptians today, who are fighting for democracy; the MB, moreover, is a full participant of civil and political society.) Qutb does not even qualify as the most influential modern Islamist thinker; mainstream political Islam, personified by the authority of the imam of al-Azhar in Cairo, mercilessly refuted him.

Contrary to US neo-conservative propaganda, the MB also has nothing to do with fascist movements in 1930s Europe or socialist parties (they are in fact in favor of private property). It is above all an urban, lower middle class nativist movement, as defined by University of Michigan professor Juan Cole. Even before the revolution, the MB was committed to bring down the Mubarak regime, but peacefully and politically.

The Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1930s in Mosul, is now the Iraqi Islamic Party, and an important political actor who always had a dialogue with Washington. And in Afghanistan, the Jamiat-I Islami party was inspired by the MB.

The MB certainly does not shun technology and intellectual innovation.

It's very much everywhere in the streets of the Egyptian revolution, but very careful not to display an "in your face" attitude. According to spokesperson Gamel Nasser, they see themselves only as a small sector of the revolution. And the revolution is about the future of Egypt - not Islam.

Some may argue once again this is what the mullahs were saying in Tehran in 1978/1979. The shah was indeed deposed by virtually all sectors of society, including the Communist Party. Then the theocrats took over - violently. According to its background over the past three decades, there's no evidence the MB would have the reach to attempt the same move.

It's hard for outsiders to imagine how brutal has been the Mubarak repression machine/police state. The system relies on 1.5 million police - that's four times more people than the army. Their salaries are paid to a great extent by the annual $1.3 billion of US "aid", which also served to crack down really hard on the working class and virtually every progressive organization.

This state of things has been in place way before Mubarak. History will ask questions directly to the ghost of former president Anwar Sadat. Sadat built a trifecta to make his intifah policies work; the IMF advised him to build a rudimentary export economy, he manipulated religion to extract funds from Saudi Arabia and thus undercut the MB, and he got billions from the US for cutting a deal with Israel. The key inevitable consequence of all this was a mammoth police state bent on, among other repressive gems, a total crack down on working class organizations.

Meet the antidote to al-Qaeda 

Even also being ravaged during the Sadat/Mubarak decades, the MB at least kept a structure. In free and fair elections the MB would certainly get at least 30% of the votes.

Global corporate media could do worse than trek to the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, in El Malek El Saleh, and learn something. The new head of the MB, Mohammed Badie, is more concerned with the social than the political arena. On the possibility of Egypt eventually becoming an Islamic state, he insists the decision will be "by the people".

Unlike Badie, Sherif Abul Magd, an engineer professor at Helwan University and the head of MB in Giza, was much more loquacious talking to Italian daily La Stampa. He was careful to point out that the protesters should not antagonize the military. He emphasized, "Our people already control the streets."

Above all he delineated the MB strategy for the next stage; to an interim prime minister should be added five judges to set up a presidential committee charged of rewriting the constitution and then calling for elections for parliament and the presidency.

Magd was adamant: "An Islamic state is not in conflict with democracy - but the people should be able to choose it." Washington already knows it, but will be alarmed anyway that the MB does not believe in that famous geopolitical cadaver - the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; "peace is impossible without a deal with Hamas." As for al-Qaeda, "today it is just a CIA invention to justify the war on terror."

The Arab street knows - and largely approves of - the fact that the MB has always opposed the 1978 Camp David accords, and does not recognize Israel. Strategically, the MB has realized it's counter-productive to project itself now; later it's another story. The crucial point is that the MB is adamantly opposed to violence against civilians - and thus resolutely dismisses al-Qaeda. An MB refuting violence and very active in civil politics in Egypt cannot possibly spook the West. As an established party of political Islam, the MB could not be a better antidote to al-Qaeda style fanatics.

Contrary to alarmist rightwing sirens, there's no "Islamic fervor" enveloping the Middle East. On the contrary - what one finds at the moment is plenty of moral turpitude, on top of it on the wrong side of history.

Israel's position is self-explanatory - from the Jerusalem Post describing the Egyptian revolution as "the worst disaster since Iran's revolution" to a columnist in Ha'aretz newspaper blaring that Obama betrayed "a moderate Egyptian president who remained loyal to the United States, promoted stability and encouraged moderation".?

As for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he phoned Mubarak to say how sorry he is for all this mess; and then ordered his goons to stop Palestinians demonstrating their support for democracy in Egypt.

There's no question - with the MB as part of an Egyptian government, a really sovereign Egyptian government, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt will be renegotiated (the MB favors a referendum). And so we reach the heart of the matter. After this revolution, US and Israeli interests cannot possibly converge - even as optical illusion.

This is not an anti-American revolution; it's a revolution against an American-supported regime. A legitimate, sovereign, post-Mubarak government cannot possibly be a Washington puppet - with all the regional implications that entails. And that goes way beyond the MB. This is about the millenarian heart of the Arab world possibly on the verge of a dramatic seismic shift.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

THE ROVING EYE - Masters of hate locked and loaded By Pepe Escobar




THE ROVING EYE 
Masters of hate locked and loaded 
By Pepe Escobar 

NEW YORK - There is an eerie, direct connection between hate rhetoric reaching a fever pitch in the United States, the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, calls to take out WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and the ninth anniversary of the infamous US detention facility at Guantanamo in Cuba. This disturbing connection should send shivers down the spine of anyone even remotely concerned with human rights. Yet it doesn't. At least not in the US. 

Assange will be back in court in London on February 7 for a full two-day hearing on his possible extradition to Sweden, connected to the ultra-murky case of alleged broken condoms and "sex by surprise", co-starred in by two Assange groupies in sultry Stockholm last August. 

Yet Assange's lawyers wasted no time in getting to the heart of the matter: if he is extradited to Sweden, the US government will pull out all the stops to extradite him to the US. Assange could then face the death penalty, or its "war on terror” twin - forever languishing in legal limbo in Guantanamo. For the US, the fact that human-rights treaties prohibit extradition under these conditions is a minor detail. 

Gullible, well-intentioned souls may remember that US President Barack Obama promised to close Guantanamo. That won't happen. The US Congress will destroy any possibility of transferring "enemy combatants" to the US mainland so they can have a proper trial. The White House is about to condemn at least 40 of these prisoners to Guantanamo forever - no formal charge, no trial, just a black void. And Bagram, in Afghanistan, will follow the same path. Forget about the US constitution and international law. 

Human rights had to be a crucial part of the seven-point Assange defense strategy - as a possible extradition violates Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Thus Assange's legal team, in their 35-page skeleton summary of their strategy, had to stress the concrete possibility of Assange being subjected to illegal rendition and the "real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty. It is well known that prominent figures have implied, if not stated outright, that Mr Assange should be executed." 

And to press the point on global public opinion, WikiLeaks itself put out a press release drawing the inevitable parallel between the "take out Assange" rhetoric (former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin would say "reload", and then shoot) and the overall US right-wing hate-master narrative that culminated, for now, in the shooting of Giffords. Palin is mentioned as she has urged the Obama administration to "hunt down the WikiLeaks chief like the Taliban". 

The road ahead spells radicalization - as hate festers amid a configuration briefly described by Assange himself as "Orwellian". As much as the attacks on WikiLeaks have never been stronger, so has been the global support. And there's more to come. Only 2017 US diplomatic cables have been published so far (at this pace the full monty won't be released before the end of the decade). Bank of America is the next mega-target. And there's still the treasure troves on China, the United Nations and yes, Guantanamo. 

Although the partnership between WikiLeaks and some global media publications seems to have found a point of equilibrium, in journalistic terms a war is bound to keep raging between those who defend the media as - the term spells it out - mediating institution, and those who support the WikiLeaks ethos of unloading slivers of reality with minimal intervention. Although nothing beats raw information, some editing and contextualization is essential. It's up to the reading public to compare the raw and the filtered versions. 

Much more worrying is the fact that WikiLeaks' crucial point - if politicians and media personalities in the US are promoting homicide they should be legally pursued for it - does not resonate in the US as much as in the rest of the world. Inevitably, as WikiLeaks argues, if the group continues to be stigmatized as a sort of new al-Qaeda, other tragedies similar to Tucson, Arizona, are bound to happen. 

There's no evidence US hatemongers festering in the politics/talk show crossover swamp are about to be chastised. There's no evidence Republican party leaders will publicly take a stand against the "take out" rhetoric. The Arizona massacre that killed six people and wounded 14 others is already being dismissed en masse in right-wing circles as the usual isolated act of the usual deranged loner. 

Thus, there's no evidence the graphic, endemic, accelerating rush to fascism in American society is about to be seriously addressed. Abandon all hope those who yearn for an adult, serene, rational debate in American politics. It's a sorry affair, and one that French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville predicted over a century and a half ago, in Democracy in America

Today it's Giffords. Tomorrow it could be Assange. But the real target is all of us. 

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). 
He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein warned of ‘fascism’ rising in Israel 60 years ago

New York, Dec. 2, 1948

TO THE EDITORS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine.


The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents.

Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin’s behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement.

The public avowals of Begin’s party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future.

Attack on Arab Village

A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants (240 men, women, and children) and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin.

The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party.

Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model.

During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute.

The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots.

Discrepancies Seen

The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a “Leader State” is the goal.

In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin’s efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin.

The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism.

(signed)

Isidore Abramowitz, Hannah Arendt, Abraham Brick, Rabbi Jessurun Cardozo, Albert Einstein, Herman Eisen, M.D., Hayim Fineman, M. Gallen, M.D., H.H. Harris, Zelig S. Harris, Sidney Hook, Fred Karush, Bruria Kaufman, Irma L. Lindheim, Nachman Maisel, Symour Melman, Myer D. Mendelson, M.D., Harry M. Orlinsky, Samuel Pitlick, Fritz Rohrlich, Louis P. Rocker, Ruth Sager, Itzhak Sankowsky, I.J. Schoenberg, Samuel Shuman, M. Znger, Irma Wolpe, Stefan Wolpe

New York, Dec. 2, 1948

Monday, January 03, 2011

Threats against President Dilma's life

The following is a message I received from a friend in Brazil:

Desde o sábado, dia 1, posse da Dilma, a rede Twitter foi inundada com recados ameaçadores de morte da nova presidente. Falou-se em franco atiradores, em morte com tiros na cabeça e outras ameaças fascistas. Por muito menos, nos EUA, um cara que ofendeu Obama amargou prisão e processo imediato. Aqui neste nosso Brasil, que ainda engatinha em sua democracia epoder judiciário, não sabemos o que pode ocorrer. Lamentável
Translation mine:
Ever since the inauguration of President Dilma on Saturday, January first, Twitter was inundated with messages threatening the life of the new president. They spoke of snipers, shots to the head, and other fascist threats. At least in the USA, a man who threatened Obama was arrested and tried immediately. Here in our Brazil, that is still crawling in its democracy and judiciary power, we don't know what will happen. Lamentable

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Wikileaks, the United States, Sweden, and Devil's Island

The Anti-Empire Report

Wikileaks, the United States, Sweden, and Devil's Island

December 16 ... I'm standing in the snow in front of the White House ... Standing with Veterans for Peace ... I'm only a veteran of standing in front of the White House; the first time was February 1965, handing out flyers against the war in Vietnam. I was working for the State Department at the time and my biggest fear was that someone from that noble institution would pass by and recognize me.
Five years later I was still protesting Vietnam, although long gone from the State Department. Then came Cambodia. And Laos. Soon, Nicaragua and El Salvador. Then Panama was the new great threat to America, to freedom and democracy and all things holy and decent, so it had to be bombed without mercy. Followed by the first war against the people of Iraq, and the 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia. Then the land of Afghanistan had rained down upon it depleted uranium, napalm, phosphorous bombs, and other witches' brews and weapons of the chemical dust; then Iraq again. And I've skipped a few. I think I hold the record for most times picketing the White House by a right-handed batter.
And through it all, the good, hard-working, righteous people of America have believed mightily that their country always means well; some even believe to this day that we never started a war, certainly nothing deserving of the appellation "war of aggression".
On that same snowy day last month Julian Assange of Wikileaks was freed from prison in London and told reporters that he was more concerned that the United States might try to extradite him than he was about being extradited to Sweden, where he presumably faces "sexual" charges. 1
That's a fear many political and drug prisoners in various countries have expressed in recent years. The United States is the new Devil's Island of the Western world. From the mid-19th century to the mid-20th, political prisoners were shipped to that god-forsaken strip of French land off the eastern coast of South America. One of the current residents of the new Devil's Island is Bradley Manning, the former US intelligence analyst suspected of leaking diplomatic cables to Wikileaks. Manning has been imprisoned for seven months, first in Kuwait, then at a military base in Virginia, and faces virtual life in prison if found guilty, of something. Without being tried or convicted of anything, he is allowed only very minimal contact with the outside world; or with people, daylight, or news; among the things he is denied are a pillow, sheets, and exercise; his sleep is restricted and frequently interrupted. See Glenn Greenwald's discussion of how Manning's treatment constitutes torture. 2
A friend of the young soldier says that many people are reluctant to talk about Manning's deteriorating physical and mental condition because of government harassment, including surveillance, seizure of their computer without a warrant, and even attempted bribes. "This has had such an intimidating effect that many are afraid to speak out on his behalf." 3 A developer of the transparency software used by Wikileaks was detained for several hours last summer by federal agents at a Newark, New Jersey airport, where he was questioned about his connection to Wikileaks and Assange as well as his opinions about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 4
This is but a tiny incident from the near-century buildup of the American police state, from the Red Scare of the 1920s to the McCarthyism of the 1950s to the crackdown against Central American protesters in the 1980s ... elevated by the War on Drugs ... now multiplied by the War on Terror. It's not the worst police state in history; not even the worst police state in the world today; but nonetheless a police state, and certainly the most pervasive police state ever — a Washington Post study has just revealed that there are 4,058 separate federal, state and local "counterterrorism" organizations spread across the United States, each with its own responsibilities and jurisdictions. 5 The police of America, of many types, generally get what and who they want. If the United States gets its hands on Julian Assange, under any legal pretext, fear for him; it might be the end of his life as a free person; the actual facts of what he's done or the actual wording of US laws will not matter; hell hath no fury like an empire scorned.
John Burns, chief foreign correspondent for The New York Times, after interviewing Assange, stated: "He is profoundly of the conviction that the United States is a force for evil in the world, that it's destructive of democracy." 6 Can anyone who believes that be entitled to a full measure of human rights on Devil's Island?
The Wikileaks documents may not produce any world-changing revelations, but every day they are adding to the steady, gradual erosion of people's belief in the US government's good intentions, which is necessary to overcome a lifetime of indoctrination. Many more individuals over the years would have been standing in front of the White House if they had had access to the plethora of information that floods people today; which is not to say that we would have succeeded in stopping any of the wars; that's a question of to what extent the United States is a democracy.
One further consequence of the release of the documents may be to put an end to the widespread belief that Sweden, or the Swedish government, is peaceful, progressive, neutral and independent. Stockholm's behavior in this matter and others has been as American-poodle-like as London's, as it lined itself up with an Assange-accuser who has been associated with right-wing anti-Castro Cubans, who are of course US-government-supported. This is the same Sweden that for some time in recent years was working with the CIA on its torture-rendition flights and has about 500 soldiers in Afghanistan. Sweden is the world's largest per capita arms exporter, and for years has taken part in US/NATO military exercises, some within its own territory. The left should get themselves a new hero-nation. Try Cuba.
There's also the old stereotype held by Americans of Scandinavians practicing a sophisticated and tolerant attitude toward sex, an image that was initiated, or enhanced, by the celebrated 1967 Swedish film I Am Curious (Yellow), which had been banned for awhile in the United States. And now what do we have? Sweden sending Interpol on an international hunt for a man who apparently upset two women, perhaps for no more than sleeping with them both in the same week.
And while they're at it, American progressives should also lose their quaint belief that the BBC is somehow a liberal broadcaster. Americans are such suckers for British accents. The BBC's Today presenter, John Humphrys, asked Assange: "Are you a sexual predator?" Assange said the suggestion was "ridiculous", adding: "Of course not". Humphrys then asked Assange how many woman he had slept with. 7 Would even Fox News have descended to that level? I wish Assange had been raised in the streets of Brooklyn, as I was. He would then have known precisely how to reply to such a question: "You mean including your mother?"
Another group of people who should learn a lesson from all this are the knee-reflex conspiracists. Several of them have already written me snide letters informing me of my naiveté in not realizing that Israel is actually behind the release of the Wikileaks documents; which is why, they inform me, that nothing about Israel is mentioned. I had to inform them that I had already seen a few documents putting Israel in a bad light. I've since seen others, and Assange, in an interview with Al Jazeera on December 23, stated that only a meager number of files related to Israel had been published so far because the publications in the West that were given exclusive rights to publish the secret documents were reluctant to publish much sensitive information about Israel. (Imagine the flak Germany's Der Spiegel would get hit with.) "There are 3,700 files related to Israel and the source of 2,700 files is Israel," said Assange. "In the next six months we intend to publish more files." 8
Naturally, several other individuals have informed me that it's the CIA that is actually behind the document release.

The right to secrecy

Many of us are pretty tired of supporters of Israel labeling as "anti-Semitic" most any criticism of Israeli policies, which is virtually never an appropriate accusation. Consider the Webster Dictionary definition: "Anti-Semite. One who discriminates against or is hostile to or prejudiced against Jews." Notice that the state of Israel is not mentioned, or in any way implied.
Here's what real anti-Semitism looks like. Listen to former president Richard Nixon: "The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality. ... most of our Jewish friends ... they are all basically people who have a sense of inferiority and have got to compensate." This is from a tape of a conversation at the White House, February 13, 1973, recently released. 9 These tapes, and there are a large number of them, are the Wikileaks of an earlier age.
Yet, as the prominent conservative Michael Medved pointed out after the release of Nixon's remarks: "Ironically, though, no American did more to rescue the Jewish people when it counted most: after the 1973 Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack destroyed a third of Israel's air force and killed the American equivalent of 200,000 Israelis, Nixon overruled his own Pentagon and ordered immediate re-supply. To this day, Israelis feel gratitude for this decisiveness that enabled the Jewish state to turn the tide of war." 10 So, was Richard Nixon anti-Semitic? And should his remarks be kept secret?
In another of his recent interviews, Julian Assange was asked whether he thought that "a state has a right to have any secrets at all." He conceded that there are circumstances when institutions have such a need, "but that is not to say that all others must obey that need. The media has an obligation to the public to get out information that the public needs to know." 11
I would add that the American people — more than any other people — have a need to know what their government is up to around the world because their government engages in aggressive actions more than any other government, continuously bombing and sending young men and women to kill and die. Americans need to know what their psychopathic leaders are really saying to each other and to foreign leaders about all this shedding of blood. Any piece of such information might be used as a weapon to prevent yet another Washington War. Michael Moore has recently written:
We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a Wikileaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.
And, dear comrades, let us not forget: Our glorious leaders spy on us all the time; no communication of ours, from phone call to email, is secret from them; nothing in our bank accounts or our bedrooms is guaranteed any kind of privacy if they wish to know about it. Recently, the FBI raided the midwest homes of a number of persons active in solidarity work with Palestinians, Colombians, and others. The agents spent many hours going through each shelf and drawer, carting away dozens of boxes of personal belongings. So what kind of privacy and secrecy should the State Department be entitled to?

Preparing for the propaganda onslaught

February 6 will mark the centenary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. The conservatives have wasted no time in starting the show. On New Years Day a 55-foot long, 26-foot high float honoring Reagan was part of the annual Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. To help you cope with, hopefully even counter, the misinformation and the omissions that are going to swamp the media for the next few months, here is some basic information about the great man's splendid achievements, first in foreign policy:
  • Nicaragua
    For eight terribly long years the people of Nicaragua were under attack by Ronald Reagan's proxy army, the Contras. It was all-out war from Washington, aiming to destroy the progressive social and economic programs of the Sandinista government — burning down schools and medical clinics, mining harbors, bombing and strafing, raping and torturing. These Contras were the charming gentlemen Reagan called "freedom fighters" and the "moral equivalent of our founding fathers".
  • El Salvador
    Salvador's dissidents tried to work within the system. But with US support, the government made that impossible, using repeated electoral fraud and murdering hundreds of protestors and strikers. When the dissidents took to the gun and civil war, the Carter administration and then even more so, the Reagan administration, responded with unlimited money, military aid, and training in support of the government and its death squads and torture, the latter with the help of CIA torture manuals. US military and CIA personnel played an active role on a continuous basis. The result was 75,000 civilian deaths; meaningful social change thwarted; a handful of the wealthy still owned the country; the poor remained as ever; dissidents still had to fear right-wing death squads; there was to be no profound social change in El Salvador while Ronnie sat in the White House with Nancy.
  • Guatemala
    In 1954, a CIA-organized coup overthrew the democratically-elected and progressive government of Jacobo Arbenz, initiating 40 years of military-government death squads, torture, disappearances, mass executions, and unimaginable cruelty, totaling more than 200,000 victims — indisputably one of the most inhumane chapters of the 20th century. For eight of those years the Reagan administration played a major role.
    Perhaps the worst of the military dictators was General Efraín Ríos Montt, who carried out a near-holocaust against the indians and peasants, for which he was widely condemned in the world. In December 1982, Reagan went to visit the Guatemalan dictator. At a press conference of the two men, Ríos Montt was asked about the Guatemalan policy of scorched earth. He replied "We do not have a policy of scorched earth. We have a policy of scorched communists." After the meeting, referring to the allegations of extensive human-rights abuses, Reagan declared that Ríos Montt was getting "a bad deal" from the media.
  • Grenada
    Reagan invaded this tiny country in October 1983, an invasion totally illegal and immoral, and surrounded by lies (such as "endangered" American medical students). The invasion put into power individuals more beholden to US foreign policy objectives.
  • Afghanistan
    After the Carter administration provoked a Soviet invasion, Reagan came to power to support the Islamic fundamentalists in their war to eject the Soviets and the secular government, which honored women's rights. In the end, the United States and the fundamentalists "won", women's rights and the rest of Afghanistan lost. More than a million dead, three million disabled, five million refugees; in total about half the population. And many thousands of anti-American Islamic fundamentalists, trained and armed by the US, on the loose to terrorize the world, to this day.
    "To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom," declared Reagan. "Their courage teaches us a great lesson — that there are things in this world worth defending. To the Afghan people, I say on behalf of all Americans that we admire your heroism, your devotion to freedom, and your relentless struggle against your oppressors." 12
  • The Cold War
    As to Reagan's alleged role in ending the Cold War ... pure fiction. He prolonged it. Read the story in one of my books. 13
Some other examples of the remarkable amorality of Ronald Wilson Reagan and the feel-good heartlessness of his administration:
Reagan, in his famous 1964 speech, "A Time for Choosing", which lifted him to national political status: "We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry each night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet."
"Undermining health, safety and environmental regulation. Reagan decreed such rules must be subjected to regulatory impact analysis — corporate-biased cost-benefit analyses, carried out by the Office of Management and Budget. The result: countless positive regulations discarded or revised based on pseudo-scientific conclusions that the cost to corporations would be greater than the public benefit."
"Kick-starting the era of structural adjustment. It was under Reagan administration influence that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank began widely imposing the policy package known as structural adjustment — featuring deregulation, privatization, emphasis on exports, cuts in social spending — that has plunged country after country in the developing world into economic destitution. The IMF chief at the time was honest about what was to come, saying in 1981 that, for low-income countries, 'adjustment is particularly costly in human terms'."
"Silence on the AIDS epidemic. Reagan didn't mention AIDS publicly until 1987, by which point AIDS had killed 19,000 in the United States."
– Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman 14
"Reagan's election changed the political reality. His agenda was rolling back the welfare state, and his budgets included a wide range of cuts for social programs. He was also very strategic about the process. One of his first targets was Legal Aid. This program, which provides legal services for low-income people, was staffed largely by progressive lawyers, many of whom used it as a base to win precedent-setting legal disputes against the government. Reagan drastically cut back the program's funding. He also explicitly prohibited the agency from taking on class-action suits against the government — law suits that had been used with considerable success to expand the rights of low- and moderate-income families."
"The Reagan administration also made weakening the power of unions a top priority. The people he appointed to the National Labor Relations Board were qualitatively more pro-management than appointees by prior Democratic or Republican presidents. This allowed companies to ignore workers' rights with impunity. Reagan also made the firing of strikers an acceptable business practice when he fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Many large corporations quickly embraced the practice. ... The net effect of these policies was that union membership plummeted, going from nearly 20 percent of the private sector workforce in 1980 to just over 7 percent in 2006. "
– Dean Baker 15
Reaganomics: a tax policy based on a notion of incentives which says that "the rich aren't working because they have too little money, while the poor aren't working because they have too much."
– John Kenneth Galbraith
"According to the nostrums of Reagan Age America, the current Chinese system — in equal measure capitalist and authoritarian — cannot actually exist. Capitalism spread democracy, we were told ad nauseam by a steady stream of conservative hacks, free-trade apologists, government officials and American companies doing business in China. Given enough Starbuckses and McDonald's, provided with sufficient consumer choice, China would surely become a democracy."
– Harold Meyerson 16
Throughout the early and mid-1980s, the Reagan administration declared that the Russians were spraying toxic chemicals over Laos, Cambodia and Afghanistan — the so-called "yellow rain" — and had caused more than ten thousand deaths by 1982 alone, (including, in Afghanistan, 3,042 deaths attributed to 47 separate incidents between the summer of 1979 and the summer of 1981, so precise was the information). President Reagan himself denounced the Soviet Union thusly more than 15 times in documents and speeches. The "yellow rain", it turned out, was pollen-laden feces dropped by huge swarms of honeybees flying far overhead. 17
Reagan's long-drawn-out statements re: Contragate (the scandal involving the covert sale of weapons to Iran to enable Reaganites to continue financing the Contras in the war against the Nicaraguan government after the US Congress cut off funding for the Contras) can be summarized as follows:
  • I didn't know what was happening.
  • If I did know, I didn't know enough.
  • If I knew enough, I didn't know it in time.
  • If I knew it in time, it wasn't illegal.
  • If it was illegal, the law didn't apply to me.
  • If the law applied to me, I didn't know what was happening.

Notes

  1. Sunday Telegraph (Australia), December 19, 2010
  2. Salon.com, December 15, 2010, "The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention". See also his attorney's account of Manning's typical day; and Washington Post, December 16, 2010
  3. The Guardian (London), December 17, 2010
  4. New York Times, December 19, 2010
  5. Washington Post, December 20, 2010
  6. Diane Rehm show, National Public Radio, Dec. 9, 2010
  7. The Guardian (London), December 21, 2010
  8. Information Clearing House, December 23 2010, "WikiLeaks to Release Israel Documents in Six Months"
  9. Washington Post, December 12, 2010
  10. From Medved's radio show, December 14, 2010; "Nixon: The Anti-Semitic Savior of Israel"
  11. Al Jazeera, December 22 2010, Frost Over the World: Julian Assange interview
  12. March 21, 1983, in the White House
  13. "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II", p.17-18. Also for the five countries listed above, see the respective chapters in this book.
  14. June, 2004; Mokhiber is editor of Corporate Crime Reporter; Weissman, editor of the Multinational Monitor, both in Washington, D.C.
  15. April, 2007; Baker is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC
  16. Washington Post columnist, June 3, 2009
  17. "Killing Hope", p.349

William Blum is the author of:
  • Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2
  • Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower
  • West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir
  • Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire
Portions of the books can be read, and signed copies purchased, at www.killinghope.org
Previous Anti-Empire Reports can be read at this website.
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Monday, December 27, 2010

2011: A Brave New Dystopia by Chris Hedges


The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Orwell warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure. Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent was brutally punished. Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth or information. Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering, was merely the prelude to Orwell. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement. Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse. 

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” Orwell wrote in “1984.”  “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin uses the term “inverted totalitarianism” in his book “Democracy Incorporated” to describe our political system. It is a term that would make sense to Huxley. In inverted totalitarianism, the sophisticated technologies of corporate control, intimidation and mass manipulation, which far surpass those employed by previous totalitarian states, are effectively masked by the glitter, noise and abundance of a consumer society. Political participation and civil liberties are gradually surrendered. The corporation state, hiding behind the smokescreen of the public relations industry, the entertainment industry and the tawdry materialism of a consumer society, devours us from the inside out. It owes no allegiance to us or the nation. It feasts upon our carcass. 

The corporate state does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader. It is defined by the anonymity and facelessness of the corporation. Corporations, who hire attractive spokespeople like Barack Obama, control the uses of science, technology, education and mass communication. They control the messages in movies and television. And, as in “Brave New World,” they use these tools of communication to bolster tyranny. Our systems of mass communication, as Wolin writes, “block out, eliminate whatever might introduce qualification, ambiguity, or dialogue, anything that might weaken or complicate the holistic force of their creation, to its total impression.”

The result is a monochromatic system of information. Celebrity courtiers, masquerading as journalists, experts and specialists, identify our problems and patiently explain the parameters. All those who argue outside the imposed parameters are dismissed as irrelevant cranks, extremists or members of a radical left. Prescient social critics, from Ralph Nader to Noam Chomsky, are banished. Acceptable opinions have a range of A to B. The culture, under the tutelage of these corporate courtiers, becomes, as Huxley noted, a world of cheerful conformity, as well as an endless and finally fatal optimism. We busy ourselves buying products that promise to change our lives, make us more beautiful, confident or successful as we are steadily stripped of rights, money and influence. All messages we receive through these systems of communication, whether on the nightly news or talk shows like “Oprah,” promise a brighter, happier tomorrow. And this, as Wolin points out, is “the same ideology that invites corporate executives to exaggerate profits and conceal losses, but always with a sunny face.” We have been entranced, as Wolin writes, by “continuous technological advances” that “encourage elaborate fantasies of individual prowess, eternal youthfulness, beauty through surgery, actions measured in nanoseconds: a dream-laden culture of ever-expanding control and possibility, whose denizens are prone to fantasies because the vast majority have imagination but little scientific knowledge.”

Our manufacturing base has been dismantled. Speculators and swindlers have looted the U.S. Treasury and stolen billions from small shareholders who had set aside money for retirement or college. Civil liberties, including habeas corpus and protection from warrantless wiretapping, have been taken away. Basic services, including public education and health care, have been handed over to the corporations to exploit for profit. The few who raise voices of dissent, who refuse to engage in the corporate happy talk, are derided by the corporate establishment as freaks.

Attitudes and temperament have been cleverly engineered by the corporate state, as with Huxley’s pliant characters in “Brave New World.” The book’s protagonist, Bernard Marx, turns in frustration to his girlfriend Lenina:
“Don’t you wish you were free, Lenina?” he asks.
“I don’t know that you mean. I am free, free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody’s happy nowadays.”
He laughed, “Yes, ‘Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We have been giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she repeated.
The façade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley’s “Brave New World” to Orwell’s “1984.” The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back. The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security. The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity. The bleakness of our post-industrial pockets, where some 40 million Americans live in a state of poverty and tens of millions in a category called “near poverty,” coupled with the lack of credit to save families from foreclosures, bank repossessions and bankruptcy from medical bills, means that inverted totalitarianism will no longer work.

We increasingly live in Orwell’s Oceania, not Huxley’s The World State. Osama bin Laden plays the role assumed by Emmanuel Goldstein in “1984.” Goldstein, in the novel, is the public face of terror. His evil machinations and clandestine acts of violence dominate the nightly news. Goldstein’s image appears each day on Oceania’s television screens as part of the nation’s “Two Minutes of Hate” daily ritual. And without the intervention of the state, Goldstein, like bin Laden, will kill you. All excesses are justified in the titanic fight against evil personified.

The psychological torture of Pvt. Bradley Manning—who has now been imprisoned for seven months without being convicted of any crime—mirrors the breaking of the dissident Winston Smith at the end of “1984.” Manning is being held as a “maximum custody detainee” in the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia. He spends 23 of every 24 hours alone. He is denied exercise. He cannot have a pillow or sheets for his bed. Army doctors have been plying him with antidepressants. The cruder forms of torture of the Gestapo have been replaced with refined Orwellian techniques, largely developed by government psychologists, to turn dissidents like Manning into vegetables. We break souls as well as bodies. It is more effective. Now we can all be taken to Orwell’s dreaded Room 101 to become compliant and harmless. These “special administrative measures” are regularly imposed on our dissidents, including Syed Fahad Hashmi, who was imprisoned under similar conditions for three years before going to trial. The techniques have psychologically maimed thousands of detainees in our black sites around the globe. They are the staple form of control in our maximum security prisons where the corporate state makes war on our most politically astute underclass—African-Americans. It all presages the shift from Huxley to Orwell.

“Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling,” Winston Smith’s torturer tells him in “1984.” “Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.”

The noose is tightening. The era of amusement is being replaced by the era of repression. Tens of millions of citizens have had their e-mails and phone records turned over to the government. We are the most monitored and spied-on citizenry in human history. Many of us have our daily routine caught on dozens of security cameras. Our proclivities and habits are recorded on the Internet. Our profiles are electronically generated. Our bodies are patted down at airports and filmed by scanners. And public service announcements, car inspection stickers, and public transportation posters constantly urge us to report suspicious activity. The enemy is everywhere.

Those who do not comply with the dictates of the war on terror, a war which, as Orwell noted, is endless, are brutally silenced. The draconian security measures used to cripple protests at the G-20 gatherings in Pittsburgh and Toronto were wildly disproportionate for the level of street activity. But they sent a clear message—DO NOT TRY THIS. The FBI’s targeting of antiwar and Palestinian activists, which in late September saw agents raid homes in Minneapolis and Chicago, is a harbinger of what is to come for all who dare defy the state’s official Newspeak. The agents—our Thought Police—seized phones, computers, documents and other personal belongings. Subpoenas to appear before a grand jury have since been served on 26 people. The subpoenas cite federal law prohibiting “providing material support or resources to designated foreign terrorist organizations.” Terror, even for those who have nothing to do with terror, becomes the blunt instrument used by Big Brother to protect us from ourselves.
“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?” Orwell wrote. “It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself.”

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.  His most recent book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle