45

The World is Burning, while Western Left is Quarreling

by Andre Vltchek


It really is a shame, and it is tiring, but it is actually nothing new: there is now total disarray amongst those countless ‘progressive’ and ‘semi-left’ Western intellectuals, publications, movements and political parties.
Cowardice, bloated egos, lack of discipline and intellectual pettiness are often to blame, but that is not all.
It is now absolutely clear that the Western left lost patently and shamelessly. It has almost no power, it has no courage to fight or to take risks, and it counts on no real political following in Europe, North America, Australia or New Zealand. ‘The masses’, those proverbial ‘oppressed masses’, have lately been electing and voting in various semi-fascist populists, unapologetic right-wing demagogues, and mainstream pro-business brutes.
Entire Marxist ‘theoretical certainties’ have been collapsing in front of our eyes. Or at least they have been in the West.

*

To a great extent, what is now happening is absolutely natural. The European left betrayed as early as in the 1980’s, by becoming too soft, too undisciplined, too cautious and too self-centered. It put pragmatism above the ideals. It rapidly adopted the lexicon of the liberal ideological establishment, complete with Western perceptions of human rights, democratic principles and political correctness. It ceased to be revolutionary; it essentially stopped all revolutionary activities, and it abandoned the core element of any true left-wing identity – internationalism.
Without at least some basic internationalist principles, the left is now essentially reduced to some sort of local trade union level: “Let us fight for better labor conditions and health care at home, and to hell with all that neo-colonialist plunder of the world which is expected to pay for almost all of our benefits. As long as we eat well and have long vacations, why should we rebel, why should we fight?”
The Western left has also failed to honestly address global history and especially the role which both Europe and North America have been playing in it. Many so-called ‘progressive’ Western thinkers have essentially adopted the imperialist rhetoric and revanchist interpretation of various key historic events, hence becoming ‘anti-Communist’ themselves.
After that, almost everything was lost, went down the drain.
Revolutionary flags were burned, at least metaphorically. Good old slogans were ditched. Then, instead of marches and violent demonstrations and clashes with the authorities representing the regime, increasingly comfortable couches in front of the latest high-definition television sets got quickly filled with millions of flabby over-indulgent bodies.

*

Now really ugly fights over the shrinking pie are raging. Theoretical Trotskyists and theoretical Maoists are at each other’s throats. There are, of course, Leninists, and others, many others.
Things went much further, still: these days, in the West, most ‘progressives’ go ‘by the issues’, refusing to commit to anything greater, full-heartedly. This position is increasingly in vogue, and it essentially shouts: ‘I have my own philosophy. I don’t need any ideology at all.’
No revolution has ever been won like this. But in the West, there is no desire for true revolution. Belonging to left is mainly just a pose, with a social media account and a selfie. It is not serious, and it is not intended to be.
There are, of course, Anarcho-syndicalists with their air of superiority and lofty theories that would be outrightly rejected and laughed at by the great majority of the truly oppressed people in places like Asia or Africa.
Lately, I don’t even know, anymore, who is who, in that small and petty world. I am not monitoring it, I hardly participate in theoretical discussions.
I write, using basically just two publications as my platform, from which my writing goes to the world, in various languages.
But that ‘small and petty world’ is obviously monitoring me. And what it sees, it does not like.

*

After launching with one of the mightiest publications in the West (I don’t really want to name the publication, but my readers, most likely know which one I’m talking about) some 300 essays in the last 7 or 8 years, I was literally dumped by it at the very end of 2017. I will never find out the real reason, but most likely it was due to my ‘too left wing’ convictions, and too anti-Western, too open rhetoric. And yes, there was actually some hint: The editors did not like it that I write for ‘Russian state-sponsored media’, which in turn has some links to allegedly radical left-wing sites in the U.S.
In the eyes of the anti-Communist, ‘we-go-by-the-issues’ Western media, any ‘state sponsored’ or ‘state controlled’ media is bad, extremely bad!
Even if it belongs to those countries that are heroically fighting against Western imperialism, trying to save our Planet. Or perhaps it is considered especially bad if it belongs to such countries. It obviously applies to the Chinese, Russian, Venezuelan, Cuban, or Iranian media outlets. In summary – it applies to all media worldwide that is fighting to prevent the Western monstrous imperialist endgame from taking place; to the media that is fighting with force and zeal, and with (lately) tremendous success.
Instead of obediently waiting for the Western right or Western left, to define the world, now the Chinese, Russians, Latin Americans and the Middle Easterners are suddenly daring to re-define events that are taking place on this Planet. They are interviewing Westerners themselves, while holding a mirror to those monsters that became both the European and North American societies.
And instead of letting only Westerners speak, there are suddenly African, Asian, Russian, Arab and Latin American people appearing in front of the cameras.
Instead of that ‘noble’ “look what we are doing to the world”, the true victims but also true revolutionaries are leading passionate debates.
Instead of some PhD professor in London debating whether China is truly Communist or not, it is now Chinese people speaking up, clarifying what their own country is and is not.
And the Western left does not like it. It is clear that it does not like such developments at all.
The Western left ‘does not like any state-sponsored media’. It does not like it when others are speaking. Well, it may be even deeper than that: it appears that it does not really like anyone who is really fighting and who is winning: it does not like the left that is actually holding power!
Because the Western left is much more part of the West than of the left.
Because deep down, it is comfortable, even obsessed with its exceptionalism.
Because despite those horrid centuries of colonialist and imperialist plunder of the world by Europe and North America, it does not truly believe that the crimes were committed because of Western culture and way of thinking.
Because, deep down, it really does not think that the non-Western nations and their media and thinkers are capable of defining and describing the world accurately, or even describing their own countries accurately. Non-Westerners simply cannot and should not be trusted. Only Western intellectuals have some sort of inherited right to make fully qualified decisions on such important topics as: whether China is Communist or not, whether Russia under President Putin is a progressive country or not, whether Iran is socialist or just a brutal religious state, whether Assad’s government is ‘legitimate’, whether the North Korean leadership is ‘insane’ or whether President Maduro of Venezuela ‘just went too far’.

*

As the world is finally preparing to defend itself against the inevitable Western aggressions, as the people of Asia, Russia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East are discovering their own voices silenced for centuries by colonialist barbarity, as it is while the governments of these countries are making such discussion platforms possible, the Western left is howling at the moon, beating its chest in self-righteous narcissist gestures, and essentially insulting those who are fighting, standing tall, building much better world and yes – governing!
In several countries of South America, the left has recently been defeated precisely because it was too influenced ‘ideologically’ (or more precisely, ‘anti-ideologically’) by those weak, obsolete and overcautious Western pseudo-revolutionaries. Latin Americans should not, and hopefully will not, make similar mistakes in the future.
No revolutionary country can aim at perfection, yet. Revolution is not a bed of roses, said Fidel. Defending one’s country against brutal foreign invasions is not always a pretty business: it is thoroughly messy and bloody stuff.
The weak and soft-skinned Western left can demand from non-Western revolutionary governments both ‘purity’ and a ‘silk-gloved-approach’, simply because it has no idea (or it doesn’t care) what it is like to govern in countries consisting of millions of men, women and children who have been forced to live in absolute shit, after being robbed of everything by European and North American slave drivers. One simple mistake which those governments make, one sign of weakness, and their countries will go up in smoke, end up in ruins, in oblivion: like Iraq, like Afghanistan, like Yeltsin’s Russia, or like China during the “century of humiliation”.

*

The ‘over-sensitivity’ of the Western left is actually only a façade, it is not real.
Just as an example, the editors of the above-mentioned magazine, which has so unceremoniously stopped publishing my work, never showed any interest in my well-being or safety. I think if I would have dropped dead in one of the war zones I have covered, they’d hardly notice. Articles and essays signed by me would simply stop coming. Everyone is, after all, replaceable. To offer any support would be below their dignity. But to ask, regularly, for the reader’s financial support, never has been.
The ‘State-sponsored’ media in the revolutionary countries does treat their people differently. At least some of it does.

*

And quarreling goes on. I lost interest in the details. It is all time consuming and irrelevant.
In the meantime, I feel more and more comfortable writing for those new and proud media outlets, worldwide, edited far away from the West. I like it when my comrades are getting strong, when they are winning. I want them to govern and to govern well. And I want their countries to survive.
Things are that simple!
It is a great honor to show my films on TeleSur and Al-Mayadeen, to write for the New Eastern Outlook, China Daily, Countercurrents, and Russia Today. I enjoy appearing life, regularly, on PressTV.
I feel that each word that I write and utter through those media outlets are intended for my friends, for my comrades, for our struggle and for a much better world.
And let me repeat: I want my friends and comrades to win, to succeed, and yes, to govern!
The Western left can keep quarreling, chewing itself: ‘Who said what? Who is real left and who is not? Who is pure Marxist and who is simply some social democrat?”
Not all Western left media outlets are as described above. There are still some wonderful writers and editors in the West, too. But the overall situation in Europe and North America is deteriorating.
The governing and struggling revolutionary and internationalist left in the independent countries does not usually have time for lofty debates. We have Moscow, Beijing, Caracas, Havana, La Paz, Damascus and many other wonderful cities behind our backs – to defend. We will deal with the theory later, much later, after we win, after there is real peace, accompanied by justice, after all of us on this planet can proudly be what we really are – ourselves and defined by ourselves!
[This essay was originally published by New Eastern Outlook]


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The abolitionist
The abolitionist
May 19, 2018 12:34 PM

I guess I should add my blog URL, should anyone care to read it:
https://theabolitionary.ca/

The abolitionist
The abolitionist
May 19, 2018 5:10 AM

Although I think that the “left” in the West has indeed capitulated in many ways, I do not think it is a waste of time to point out the limitations of the “left.” Here in Toronto I find the left to be mainly social reformist, with a lot of rhetoric. It is better to expose such rhetoric for what It is. Consequently, I have started my own blog for that purpose. I have no illusions about the radical left either. Most of them either lack any analysis or have subordinated themselves to the reformist left.

Amitai Rosengart
Amitai Rosengart
Mar 14, 2018 5:57 PM
vexarb
vexarb
Feb 9, 2018 5:50 AM

OK. So we lied, Saddam had no WMDs. So we lied again, Assad did not use poison gas against his people. And we are lying right now, the election is not rigged, Putin will win hands down because he consistently gets more votes than any other leader in every poll that has recently been held in any other country in the world. OK, OK.
But wont you make a donation? So we can uphold the sanctity of facts.
http://www.newsweek.com/now-mattis-admits-there-was-no-evidence-assad-using-poison-gas-his-people-801542
Suckers!

Jonathan Maytham
Jonathan Maytham
Feb 11, 2018 2:37 AM
Reply to  vexarb

But there is evidence that the RAF used poison gas against the Kurds, and Winston Churchill thought it was highly appropriate.

Big B
Big B
Feb 8, 2018 2:50 PM

http://www.periodismosinfronteras.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/marx-caricatura.png
Karl Marx: surrounded by Wall St bankers, and ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt in 1911. From the frontispiece of “Wall St and the Bolshevik Revolution” by Antony Sutton. Perhaps more people should read it? Followed by “Wall St and the Rise of Hitler”: or any of his academic works cataloguing the role of the banksters in the rise of Communism and Fascism …and the transference of technology; particularly with the Soviet Union.

mog
mog
Feb 8, 2018 2:50 PM

@ bevin
I am re-reading Guido Preparata’s ‘Conjuring Hitler’ at present. I recommend it if you are genuinely interested in the arguments of those who assert that there was more to the relationship between international bankers/ financiers and the Bolshevik revolution. Also there is Sutton’s work, which I am sure you have at least heard of.
https://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/Sutton_Wall_Street_and_the_bolshevik_revolution-5.pdf
Ellen Brown is another writer in this vein.
Personally, I am not fully persuaded by these arguments. I am though convinced that there are compelling reasons to suspect that ultimate societal power resides in a tier above the ‘Left-Right’ axis as conventionally understood- i.e. in the control of credit, the control of the money supply. I am also convinced that the Left’s focus on securing ordinary people’s control of the ‘means of production’ rather than ‘the means of exchange’ has led them astray. Over time, those who issue credit end up deciding the control of production because they hold both the market and the state to ransom. This amazing oversight -that pervades both Left and Right thinking, dates back to Adam Smith’s misleading descriptions of money’s origins- as corrected by writers from Gessell to Graeber.
Marx followed in the classical tradition of Smith, and arguably built his theories on the same false foundations (e.g. money as ‘a veil over barter’) that corrupted the liberal market philosophies of his adversaries.
Whilst surely we can discard the attempts at false equivalence between ‘fascism’ and ‘communism’, with the latter being (at heart) driven by compassion and the former by violent racism, the money problem still leaves the door open to the manipulation by the banking elite of both these reactions to artificial dearth.
It is notable that the liberal socialist movements in the UK have been dominated by a Keynesian system that, whilst more socially progressive and equitable than its monetarist and neoliberal successors, still left decisive power in the hands of the money men. Surely Wilson’s experience confirms this. The British liberal Left rejected people like Douglas and Soddy back in the last crisis, and it rejects the monetary reformers of today.
Fundamentally, banking is fraud, it is an inversion of values. This corrupted and corrupting seed has grown to a global power structure and threatens the Earth. If banks ever really were just intermediaries between investors and borrowers then it would be quite justifiable to relegate them into the margins of history. The fact that they are and have always been the creators of money means that history cannot be understood without their role being placed front and centre.
I am waiting for the Left to be upfront in addressing this, rather than hearing it as some kind of crypto fascist signalling about ‘a cabal of Jews running the world’, which it clearly is not.
There other means of exchange.

Big B
Big B
Feb 8, 2018 3:44 PM
Reply to  mog

Arrested Development: did the central bank’s Plunge Protection Team step in to keep the fictitious stock market afloat? PCR thinks so. So long as the return on capital remains financially engineered to outpace economic development by central bank intervention: does it really matter who runs the country?
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/06/another-arrested-equity-correction-paul-craig-roberts/

BigB
BigB
Feb 8, 2018 8:57 PM
Reply to  Big B

Mog: the BoE has kept the base rate unaltered: no doubt forestalled by Monday’s market “sneeze”? With three deferred rises to come? The merest mention of a QE taper or interest rate hike causes the markets to flutter: the financial elite knows it spells “correction”. They know the central banks can NEVER taper QE (not unless they want to precipitate another crisis – which remains a possibility). Trump’s pick for the new Fed Chair, Jerome Powell, admitted as much (in very coded Fedspeak) back in a 2012 FOMC meeting. He was talking about unwinding QE then: just after they had announced QE3.

Second, I think we are actually at a point of encouraging risk-taking, and that should give us pause. Investors really do understand now that we will be there to prevent serious losses. It is not that it is easy for them to make money but that they have every incentive to take more risk, and they are doing so. Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the credit spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You can almost say that that is our strategy.
My third concern—and others have touched on it as well—is the problems of exiting from a near $4 trillion balance sheet. *[Now $4.5tn]* We’ve got a set of principles from June 2011 and have done some work since then, but it just seems to me that we seem to be way too confident that exit can be managed smoothly.

So, with no significant raise in interest rates – if the central banks conspire, through the BIS, to hyper-normalise QE – markets can continue levitate like a cheap Indian Fakir?
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/418057-us-stock-crash-banks/
The only problem is the bond market with “Zombie Corporations” like Carillion and Capita?
The economy is broken by central bank intervention. The return to production and prosperity for the majority is a fallacy no one seems to want to challenge? The paradigm is broken: then there is the excess energy equation. We will never return to the leveraged prosperity of cheap fossil fuels …Fossil capitalism is dead. It’s last act is the biggest transfer of wealth in history: our future is being foreclosed only to be realised as short term earnings for the upper one percent …facilitated by the central banks. I wonder if the rest of us will ever notice, until it’s too late?

mog
mog
Feb 9, 2018 11:26 AM
Reply to  BigB

It all reads like Quigley’s end game.

bevin
bevin
Feb 8, 2018 3:51 PM
Reply to  mog

I am inclined to agree with much of what you write. The tortured relationship between Marx’s theorising (and particularly that of the various schools claiming to be marxist) and the various Enlightenment ideologies, including Political Economy but also the various strands in positivism-the searching after laws governing the economy and human nature- undermine his greatest contributions.
My objection is not to the assertion that bankers worked hand in glove with the Soviet Union-bankers will make money anyway that they can and they most certainly did- but to the idea that fascism and communism were both similar and inferior to imperialism. In fact fascism is a form of imperialism. The story of communism is much more complex, its relationships with capitalism much more subtle and equivocal-from the first it had the character of a wager, depending upon a revolution that never came. A revolution that, perhaps, it played a great part in postponing.
I agree with all that you say about banking and the obsession among social democrats with Keynesianism and, by implication, the need for the constant accumulation of new capital.
The answer, as the great Kenneth Horne was wont to say “lies in the soil.’ And in the way of the campesino. William Cobbett knew that-he also knew that banking was a fraud- and so did the generations which made the English working class.

mog
mog
Feb 9, 2018 11:32 AM
Reply to  bevin

Agree bevin.

Mikalina
Mikalina
Feb 8, 2018 12:49 PM

It has occurred to me, whilst reading some of the comments, that I know very little about the October Revolution other than the pseudo junk history with which I’ve been indoctrinated so I’ve decided to buy and read Andre Vltchek’s “October Revolution”. Firstly, I would like to understand more about an international workers’ revolt; secondly, I would like to support Andre against the ‘disappearance’ of his (and others) work. Seymour Hersch has shown us that you cannot write against “Assad’s use of gas”. Likewise, Vltcheck shows us the censorship against any other viewpoint than “Kagame is a hero”; “Duterte is a brute” and that there is such a thing as sustainable palm oil.
Andre Vltchek wrote this when he was seriously ill with a foot infection. He didn’t compromise his opinions or experiences to hold on to a publishing contract. He did the only thing he knows how to do – fight. The flabby Counterpush will be the loser.
Andre Vltcheck quoting Chavez: “Here, no-one surrenders!”

setinstone
setinstone
Feb 8, 2018 3:24 PM
Reply to  Mikalina

Here are a few problems with American “liberals” and the barely breathing US “left”. There are a lot more of the former, as their superstars are Obummer and Big Money Hillary. And the real left (national bank, nationalization of all great corporations, Pentagon budget cut by 50% , breaking Goldman Sachs and the like into pieces), is never allowed on the MSM.
As for US ‘liberals”:
1. They supported Hillary, who arguably is a war criminal, and definitely a mascot for Wall St.
2. They have bought the Russia Hoax hook, line and sinker, like the dumbest of fish!
3. Hillary got a lot of her DEM primary wins in the South, largely because black women voted for her. But Hillary never had a chance to win those states in the general. This is similar to her electoral college massacre in the general.
4. There can be no left without minority support. Supporting Hillary showed that blacks and Hispanics are not ready for change. Sanders is weak tea, if minorities can’t accept him, you get Trump!
5. Identity politics in the extreme. “Microaggression, safe spaces. and cultural appropriation are made-up fake things that promote ridicule. Whites, especially males, have been told they are the cause of all violence on this planet, ever. If you reject an entire group of people, they will drift the other way.
6. Support of immigration. This could be an election killer. Americans do not want to keep or expand the current system. The “family reunification” program must go, it should have never been enacted at all. Migrants made a choice, if they want family they can go back home, or make frequent visits. Much of Europe is rapidly developing into 2-part nations. One being the normal Euro life, and the other is totalitarian fatalistic Islam. USA, with 330 million, needs no more.
5. The “liberal” media (MSNBC, CNN, NYT, WashPo, LAT, WSJ, FoxNoise, Time, The Guardian) is having a credibility problem, which they make worse every time they promote the Russia Hoax.
Apparently they know they are Fake News, as DC and Europe are working hard to “protect” citizens from real news by censorship ripping the Constitution.

George
George
Feb 8, 2018 8:18 AM

In addition to the impotent divisions of the Left – which are no doubt encouraged by the Right – I have also felt that the ruling class learned a great deal from the protests of the 60s i.e. they made a resolution that such protests would never be permitted to happen again. The basic tactic is to encourage any movement that looks daring and radical but will only lead to further division e.g. the intellectual flatulence know as “post-modernism”.

NowhereMan
NowhereMan
Feb 8, 2018 9:45 AM
Reply to  George

The left in the west has been incorporated into neo-liberalism, repackaged and consumed as another status symbol in the cult of the individual, its teeth removed as the idea of the collective has been dismantled along with actual communities.
Identity politics are the token ‘progressive’ guilt-assuaging bone thrown at traditional left-leaning voters who now find themselves voting for allegedly left-of-centre market fundamentalist corporate stooges because the alternative is a fruitcake. The word ‘socialism’ has been bastardised and the goalposts moved; it now means anything that aims merely to mitigate the effects of some of the contradictions of neo-liberalism within existing boundaries, subsidising people rather than business, e.g. Labour under Corbyn, which has been dismissed as radical, unrealistic and dangerous. For those who have led us here, after 40 successful years of dividing people and trousering the wealth, those pawns seeing beyond their individual right to identify and instead joining forces can’t be allowed to happen.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Feb 7, 2018 11:17 PM

When One can buy what One wants, when One wants, and when people stop
and listen to Ones pronouncements , One has achieved ‘Godhood’.
It’s a delusion of course, but the One Per Cent zealously believe it.
And so do the Banksters, the Communist hierarchy, the Religious Right, Zionists, the Muslim hierarchy and ‘God’ wannabes everywhere.
Until we have ‘No Gods or Masters’ we are doomed to repeating the God delusion through each generation until we wake, or the end arrives.

vexarb
vexarb
Feb 8, 2018 11:20 AM
Reply to  Fair dinkum

@Fair dinkum. “Until we stop singing Britons never shall be Masters we shall continue in our slavery” — GBS

Alan
Alan
Feb 7, 2018 8:15 PM

Mr Vitchek’s optimism and courage are something to be proud of, thank you for your part of our responsibility. For what it’s worth I’ve seldom been swayed by either side of the coin, as the ghost of Zola’s character from Germinal, Étienne Lantier seems always present.

Red Allover
Red Allover
Feb 7, 2018 7:57 PM

The Russian working class overthrew capitalism in 1917, certainly not “banksters”. One of the first things the new communist Soviet government did was to repudiate the tens of billions owed to foreign banks by the czarist regime and nationalize the foreign owned factories. Wall Street hated them with good reason and made President Wilson send millions of dollars & thousands of troops to try and crush the socialist revolution.

bevin
bevin
Feb 8, 2018 1:54 AM
Reply to  Red Allover

I look forward to the replies to this argument which has always seemed to me a ‘clincher’. It was not only Wall street either, it was London and, even more Paris where half of the bourgeoisie owned shares in every manner of enterprise plus the repudiated debt.
On the other hand most of those putting the fascism equals communism argument are themselves halfway towards fascism so perhaps they think that they are being friendly.

Leslie Campbell
Leslie Campbell
Feb 7, 2018 6:56 PM

The more I find out about Fascism vs communism or left vs right the more I come to appreciate that it is all a ruling class trick.
And there a two simple steps we must unite and fight for.
Root out the evil of child sexual abuse and paedophile rings that are still (for the moment) an absolute unconscionable abomination. They are used to entrap, control, blackmail and silence in return for wealth beyond our imagination. Do it for our children. Truth for reconciliation.
Abandon the global monetary system of international banks that enslaved us through debt. What do they produce? What value is it to our world? 1% own 86% of the planets wealth. Each sovereign nation prints its own, interest free money. Pay off its debts to the banks in pieces of paper.
Oh and one more thing. All NGO’s, think tanks, charities, humanitarian organisations, corporations, secret societies, any unelected body need to be subject to common law, freedom of information, disallowed a voice in our democratic institutions of governance.
#WeThePeople

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Feb 7, 2018 6:46 PM

I have spent over 30 minutes trying to find out what out what Andre Vltchek thinks about 9/11, and whilst I have accidentally discovered some very interesting stuff, and can state that I throughly agree with most of the articles, that Andre has written, I have so far not discovered what Andre thinks about 9/11. It is entirely possible that the answer lies within some interview – he has done many, or in one of the many books he has written, but so far I have drawn a blank.
If anyone can answer this question – even perhaps Andre himself, I would be very interested.
The vast majority on “The Left” give “The Noam Chomsky reply”, but I simply do not find that acceptable.
Can all these please just answer the question.
Thank You,
Tony

vexarb
vexarb
Feb 7, 2018 8:19 PM
Reply to  tonyopmoc

@Tony. Perhaps Vitchek and Chomsky, both of whom deal — and deal very well — in words and concepts rather than in things and mechanisms, are less concerned with what actually happened on 911 and more concerned with what it signifies. Personally, being a “hard science” graduate, I prefer the Dragnet approach: first the facts, then work out how it was done, then track down who done it; leaving the trial to the judge and the significance to posterity. For facts, what two wordsmiths think about them is less relevant than what “Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth” think about the physical facts. For tracking the perpetrators, personal opinion is less relevant than detailed reports of financial dealings, improper instructions and suspicious characters. The author’s cry of pain, like Alan Ginsberg’s poem “Howl”, seems to have touched the nerve of a generation; but the cry seems too diffuse to risk operation on a particular nerve.
“I hear a sudden cry of pain / It is a rabbit in a snare / And now I hear that cry again / But I cannot tell from where”.

tonyopmoc
tonyopmoc
Feb 7, 2018 9:27 PM
Reply to  vexarb

vexarb,
Whilst I agree with nearly everything you have written there, the world is increasingly run, on the propaganda that such wordsmiths promote. Discovering and telling the truth, has very powerful real world implications, for those who have the analytical skills, hard science knowledge, honesty and courage to tell the truth. It certainly did for me. It took me, nearly 18 months of hard research, to become completely convinced, that the Official story, was completely impossible. I had a powerful personal motive for finding out the truth. the Grandmother of Twin Girls , my wife was looking after at the time, was in one of the Twin Towers when it was attacked. For more than 24 hours we thought she was dead, when the phone call to the mother went blank. She actually got out and survived.
I was so completely convinced, that I naively told everyone I knew, and showed them the evidence. Nearly everyone, including my employer, thought I was having a nervous breakdown. This had an exceedingly negative effect, not just on my employment prospects (effectively I had to leave), but also on my family and social life. I was now someone perceived as having gone completely mad. Eventually, I learned to keep my mouth shut, as it was causing me too much grief.
However, it didn’t cause me as much grief as it did to many millions of people across the world, many of who’m are completely innocent, and now dead, mutilated or massively brainwashed, because people such as Chomsky wouldn’t tell the truth.
The evidence of this is overwhelming, and the future looks very bleak.
The world cannot progress to sanity, when most people, are brainwashed into believing a pack of lies, and almost all our major institutions are totally corrupt.
Tony

vexarb
vexarb
Feb 8, 2018 12:01 PM
Reply to  tonyopmoc

@Tony. I sympathise and, like you, have learnt that truth hurts. But the pain from truth is salutary, whereas the comfort from falsehood festers. People within living
memory have not only lost a job and alienated a family for truth, but even died for truth. Dr.David Kelly, RIP. So we have not, as some pundits proclaim, arrived at The End of History. People today are confronted with exactly the same choices as 2000 or 2500 years ago: “You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you Free” but “Do not assume that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ‘A man against his father, a daughter against her mother, … etc” — Matthew 10:34

BigB
BigB
Feb 7, 2018 6:32 PM

Andre laments the flabby Western Left – I can’t argue with that. He celebrates the internationalist revolutionary, just getting on with it – a view I can only support. There is no time for debate when you are running a revolution. There is no need for Western Left permission, approval, or even solidarity …though it would be progressive if forthcoming. But is he really suggesting that Moscow and Beijing are backing and defending the internationalist revolutionary left? And Damascus? If so, l want some of that revolutionary hopium or navel fluff he’s smoking. There is no anti-capitalist internationale developing. Andre would do well to listen to the ecosocialist debate and movement coming out of Caracas, La Paz and Havana if we are to progress toward international solidarity? And maybe encourage the Western Left to participate?

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Feb 7, 2018 3:30 PM

Revolutions are probably Bankster funded & guided.
Both Communism & Fascism were founded, funded & fostered by Banksters.
1955 book by WWII Canadian naval intelligence officer, William Guy Carr: Pawns in the Game.
Carr spent 42 years plus researching why mankind was not prospering better, & came up with the one-word answer: Banksters.
G. Edward Griffin’s book brings the story more up to date: The Creature from Jekyll Island.
To fall into dividing Man into Left vs Right is surely to fall into the paradigm the Banksters desire?
John Doran.

Tony_Opmoc
Tony_Opmoc
Feb 7, 2018 4:09 PM
Reply to  jdseanjd

John Doran,
“Both Communism & Fascism were founded, funded & fostered by Banksters.”
Very interesting comment, and I am almost certain you are correct.
As regards Andre Vltchek, well I’m not sure if he is still getting paid by the likes of Counterpunch, but I still regularly read his articles from various websites on the internet, and have for several years. Occasionally, he writes something quite brilliant and inspiring (or maybe I just happen to be in a very receptive mood at the time I am reading his work)
However, I feel Andre sometimes complains far too much about the country or organisation, he is temporarily visiting. Whilst what he writes maybe completely true, I think its highly inadvisable to be offensive to your hosts, particularly if they are paying you to be there, or paying for your work.
I cite as an example, his piece from Counterpunch 2015
“In the USA – “I Cannot Write!””
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/19/in-the-usa-i-cannot-write/
Tony

bevin
bevin
Feb 7, 2018 7:54 PM
Reply to  jdseanjd

I look forward to your explanation of the motives behind the “Banksters'” funding, founding and fostering communism. I’m guessing that it will be something to do with their embarassment at being so wealthy and powerful.
Perhaps they were also behind the Occupy Wall Street movement. Did they invent Trade Unions too?
I’m puzzled though by the idea that, having invented Communism they went on to invent fascism which, essentially, existed to fight communism.

Mr B J Mann
Mr B J Mann
Feb 8, 2018 10:21 AM
Reply to  bevin

You need two sides to fight a war?

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Feb 9, 2018 9:05 AM
Reply to  bevin

You really need to read the two books I ref’d.
In short, Banksters, & their cronies, profit from wars: wars are run on loans, which earn them interest. Countries are rebuilt after wars on loans, which earn them interest.
Carr traces this from the English revolution, through the French revolution & up to 1954. Griffin focuses on the US Fed Bank.
The European Financiers who funded the English revolution were rewarded with a charter for the Bank of England 1694 which kept these financiers anonymous, to this day. It made legal the fraud of lending out at interest money the bank does not have in its vaults.
This is known as fractional reserve banking/lending: a bank can loan out £!000 for every £100 it has on deposit. You figure the profits.
The Kings’ & nowadays the politicians’ debts are shoved onto the taxpayers’ shoulders via the National Debt.
It is in the Banksters long-term interests to fund opposing political factions: conflict = profits. & nowadays they are “Too Big To Fail”.
We see this today in the Rohingya situation, which is a Western attack on Chinas’ oil & gas pipelines through Myanmar dressed up as a Muslim vs Buddist conflict. Banksters will fund opposing religious factions just as readily as political factions.
The Banksters present main policies are: Depopulation, Deindustrialisation & World Totalitarian Govt based on the UN.
http://www.c3headlines.com
Click on Quotes.
John Doran.

Eric Blair
Eric Blair
Feb 11, 2018 8:00 AM
Reply to  jdseanjd

The banksters are so brilliant they can create entire ideologies and spread their influence around the world? Wow, the internet really did a number on your brain. People believing in crackpot theories based on superficiality persuasive “evidence” that doesn’t actually prove whatever pet theory they are invested in has become an epidemic.
Ambiguity and uncertainty can’t be banished by pretending they do not exist.

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Feb 12, 2018 8:10 AM
Reply to  Eric Blair

Another book to help you wake up:
Our Occulted History do the global elite conceal ancient aliens? By award-winning journalist Jim Marrs. Enjoy.
John Doran.

Binra (@onemindinmany)
Binra (@onemindinmany)
Feb 7, 2018 3:23 PM

Reeking with disappointment?
The goalposts changed and are still moving while the way we thought was right – or left! – as the thinking that held the promise of a better world is turned to Babel.
I zoom in on the last sentence. If we define ourselves, we identify in our own thinking and defend it against ‘other’ while seeking reinforcement and support. In this way our sense of self becomes defined by what we hate – by who we insist we are not – and are against. It takes two to tango. Mutually reinforcing polarized identity is the device of the exclusion of the balanced embrace of all that we are. Not more nor less.
The personality level or overlay is not our being, but we tend to look to it as if it were, because it is our adaptative strategy for a world we were defined by in our infancy of a family and a culture and a humanity that has become so locked in its own definitions as to have gained a world and lost (awareness of) Soul – which is our capacity to feelingly know our experience within and its unconditional embrace.
Power struggle is exhausting, depleting and futile. But while the promise of a better world induces the neglect and denial of this one, fresh sacrifice is raised up to keep a fantasy ‘alive’.
True disillusionment is freedom. But the depth of our disappointment in our world or our life is the measure of how much we WANTED it different. Different to what? Different to the definition of the self and world that we inherited and acquired to them act FROM as if true, justified and deserving.
Acting out inner conflicts upon the world, upon each other, becomes a deadly serious ‘play’ when hate and attack are justified and defended as our right against their wrong. Hate given power to hurt is at odds with all that lives. It distorts and corrupts all things to serve vengeance. If you cant have what you want, you can hate and seek to bring down those who you ‘blame’ for the hatred you feel. And believe that their destruction is victory.
It takes all sorts to make a world…
Oh and I am revealed and renewed in the extension and recognition of relationship. Not in the use and exploiting of relationships for a self defined or private agenda.
The good news of social solidarity is when moves FOR a common good and not when subverted to the mind-capture of against a common evil. The difference is all the difference. Every truly loving movement is subverted to the fear of losing power in the world. If we recognize and own our own part in this we no longer have to hate those who play out the role for us.
A true foundation from which to live is not the best weapon (power) to bear against the evils or problems of the world (as current thinking defines and accepts them to be). When the false is seen as false – the true, of itself becomes obvious.
“Fool me once, shame on you”, is the calling to account for false witness.
“Fool me twice shame on me”, is the failing to take account of our own neglected responsibilities.
The idea that war can be ‘won’ is the means by which to keep the mind under subjection.

Charlie
Charlie
Feb 7, 2018 3:08 PM

So what publication were you “dumped” by?

vexarb
vexarb
Feb 7, 2018 3:43 PM
Reply to  Charlie

@Charlie. “The facts, Ma’am, just gimme the facts”. — Dragnet

David C. Lee (@worldblee)
David C. Lee (@worldblee)
Feb 7, 2018 9:41 PM
Reply to  Charlie

Andre’s Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_Vltchek) notes that he has written for the Guardian, so perhaps that is it. I’m curious myself.

Terje M
Terje M
Feb 8, 2018 12:32 AM
Reply to  Charlie

Did Andre just get kicked out from Counterpunch?
A cursory check shows that his last essay in Counterpunch was on Dec 1. 2017.
The magazine has been moving a steadily to the mainstream the last few years and lost fair amount of its edge.
Vltchek writes:
“After launching with one of the mightiest publications in the West (I don’t really want to name the publication, but my readers, most likely know which one I’m talking about) some 300 essays in the last 7 or 8 years, I was literally dumped by it at the very end of 2017.”

bevin
bevin
Feb 8, 2018 1:49 AM
Reply to  Terje M

You could be right. The troll Louis Proyect is a regular there. Ashley Smith, the NATO man from the “Socialist Worker” has written a couple of full blooded Assad Must Go pieces. I suspect that fear of the ghost of Alex Cockburn is all that prevents the new editor from throwing in his lot with the left Clintonites, foaming at the mouth about the Kremlin and ruining the franchise the way The Guardian went.
Black agenda Report is far superior.

Terje M
Terje M
Feb 8, 2018 3:17 AM
Reply to  bevin

The problem (seen from the angle of the Powers That Be) is that if a magazine becomes a dinosaur, then they can only surf so long on their credibility before the readers simply move on to new places.
It will be interesting to see if Consortium News can keep it up after Robert Parry passed away. On the on hand they just published the magnificent Caitlin Johnson for the first time, On the other, they had a fairly bland article by Graham Fuller yesterday (Yes, that Graham Fuller, the mastermind behind the failed coup in Turkey).

Eric Blair
Eric Blair
Feb 8, 2018 2:14 AM
Reply to  Terje M

Pretty sure it is Counterpunch. His last piece there was published on December 1, 2017 and they used to run his articles regularly and often. Jeffery St. Clair seems like a bourgie champagne socialist who is quite high on his own pungent fumes and Counterpunch has become overrun with whiny identity politics pieces and “In the Age of Trump” type yawners that are a waste of space and ink. They could have gotten rid of the al-Qaeda supporting, professional slanderer and fake Marxist Louis Proycect or any number of boring, mediocre writers who have nothing interesting to say. If Diana Johnstone gets the chop something is definitely up at Counterpunch.

Schlüter
Schlüter
Feb 7, 2018 2:48 PM

See also:
“US Power Elite Declared Bio War on the Southern Hemisphere, East Asia and all Non-Western Countries in September 2000”: https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/us-power-elite-declared-war-on-the-southern-hemisphere-east-asia-and-all-non-western-countries-in-september-2000/
Regards

vexarb
vexarb
Feb 7, 2018 4:21 PM
Reply to  Schlüter

@Schlueter. Because of the West’s recent spate of senseless “Wars for Whores”, I have just finished re-reading Homer’s Iliad, specifically the final “Wrath of Achilles” chapters. It struck me that, in our own “bestial fury” (daVinci’s phrase for war) we have inflicted, for the most part, no more horrific injuries than Achilles inflicted with his stout spear and sharp sword. But Bio-Weapons are a different matter entirely: something neither The Illiad nor The Inferno dreamed of. Here is my first clip from the search words “genetic defects atomic bomb”: Mental retardation was often accompanied by reduced head size and … faulty brain architecture. An IQ test administered to about 1670 school age children who were in utero at the time of the bombings showed a general decrease in IQ of about 25 IQ points at 1 Gy for those who were 8 to 15 weeks postconception at exposure. Other evidence pertaining to school achievement and convulsive disorders are also consistent with dose-dependent neurological effects.
Achilles, with all his “bestial fury”, only killed people once and for all. But, with Uranium bombs in Hiroshima and Plutonium-tainted artillery shells in Serbia and Fallujah, we have managed to poison men and women so that they and their offspring will give birth to monsters from generation to generation. And that is just the beginning of what sociopathic government scientists have in store for our children and our childrens children.

estatestyle
estatestyle
Feb 8, 2018 2:32 PM
Reply to  vexarb

JUST READ Georgia guide stones & your answer lies there to start then read Wes Penre papers to learn the true truth it’s as close as you’ll ever get to knowing why but you will not learn who other than it;s a group that’s 6000 yrs old & hide behind the Bankers & control the slaves of the money which is us.