70

Wake Up, Damn it!

A Plea to the People of North America and Europe

Andre Vltchek

Year after year, month after month, I see two sides of the world; two extremes which are getting more and more disconnected:

I see great cities like Homs in Syria, reduced to horrifying ruins. I see Kabul and Jalalabad in Afghanistan, fragmented by enormous concrete walls intended to protect NATO occupation armies and their local puppets. I see monstrous environmental devastation in places such as Indonesian Borneo, Peruvian gold mining towns, or the by now almost uninhabitable atoll island-nations of Oceania: Tuvalu, Kiribati or Marshall Islands.

I see slums, a lack of sanitation and clean drinking water, where the boots of Western empires have been smashing local cultures, enslaving people and looting natural resources.

I work on all the continents. I never stop, even when exhaustion tries to smash me against the wall, even when there are hardly any reserves left. I cannot stop; I have no right to stop, because I can finally see the pattern; the way this world operates, the way the West has been managing to usurp it, indoctrinate, and enslave most of the countries of the world. I combine my knowledge, and publish it as a ‘warning to the world’.

I write books about this ‘pattern’. My most complete, so far, being the 1,000 pages long Exposing Lies of The Empire.

Then, I see the West itself.

I come to ‘speak’, to Canada and the United States, as well as Europe. Once in a while I am invited to address Australian audiences, too.

The West is so outrageously rich, compared to the ruined and plundered continents, that it often appears that it does not belong to the Planet Earth.

A lazy Sunday afternoon stroll in Villa Borghese in Rome, and a horror walk through Mathare slum in Nairobi could easily exist in two distinct realities, or in two different galaxies.

Even now, after I slightly misspelled “Villa Borghese”, my Mac immediately offered a correction. It is because Villa Borghese does exist. On the other hand, “Mathare”, which I spelled correctly, was underlined red.

Mathare ‘is an error’. Because it does not exist. It does not exist, despite the fact that around one million men, women and children lives there. It is not recognized by my MacBook Pro, nor by the great majority of my relatively well-educated readers in the West.

In fact, almost the entire world appears to be one big error, non-entity, if observed from New York, Berlin or Paris.

*

I come and speak in front of the Western public. Yes, I do it from time to time, although with decreasing frequency.

Frankly, to face European or North American crowds feels depressing, even humiliating.

It goes like this: you are invited to ‘tell the truth’; to present what you are witnessing all over the world.

You stand there, facing men and women who have just arrived in their comfortable cars, after having good dinners in their well-heated or air-conditioned homes. You may be a famous writer and a filmmaker, but somehow, they make you feel like a beggar. Because you came to speak on behalf of “beggars”.

Everything is well-polished, and choreographed. It is expected that you do not show any ‘gore’. That you do not call your public ‘names’. That you do not swear, do not get drunk on the stage, do not start insulting everyone in sight.

What you usually face is quite a hard, or at least ‘hardened’, crowd.

Recently, in Southern California, when I was asked, by a fellow philosopher and a friend of mine, to address a small gathering of his colleagues, some people were banging on their mobile phones, as I was describing the situation at the Syrian frontline, near Idlib.

I felt that my account was nothing more than a ‘background, an elevator music’ to most of them. At least when I am addressing millions through my television interviews, I do not have to see the public.

When you ‘speak’ in the West, you are actually addressing men and women who are responsible, at least partially, for the mass murders and genocides that are being committed by their countries. Men and women whose standards of living are outrageously high, because The Others are being robbed, humiliated, and often raped.

But their eyes are not humble; they are drilling them into you, waiting for some mistake that you might make, so they can conclude: “He is fake news”. For them, you are not a bridge between those who ‘exist’ and those who don’t. For them, you are an entertainer, a showman, or more often than not: a nuisance.

To learn about war, about the terror that the West is spreading, is, for many in my audience yet another type of luxury, high-level entertainment, not unlike an opera performance or a symphony concert. If necessary, they can even pay, although mostly they’d rather not.

After a titillating experience, it is back to the routine, back to a sheltered, elegant life. While you, the next day, are often catching a plane back to the reality of the others; to the frontline, to dust and misery.

They, your public (but face it, also most of your readers) came to show how ‘open-minded’ they are. They came ‘to learn’ from you, ‘to get educated’, while keeping their lifestyles intact.

Most of them think that they know it all, even without your first-hand experience, they are benevolently doing you a favor by inviting you, and by dragging themselves all the way to some university or a theatre or wherever the hell you are standing in front of them. They did not come to offer any support to your struggle. They are not part of any struggle. They are good, peace-loving, hardworking people; that’s all.

You know, like those Germans, in the late 1930’s; self-righteous, hard-working folks. Most of them love their pets, and recycle their garbage. And clean after themselves at Starbucks.

*

A few days ago, we stopped the coup in Venezuela. I say we, because, although deep in devastated Borneo Island, I had been giving interviews to RT, Press TV, addressing millions. Even here, I never stopped writing, tweeting, always ready to drop everything just fly to Caracas, if I were to be needed there.

To defend Venezuela, to defend the Revolution there, is essential. As it is essential to defend Syria, Cuba, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Bolivia, South Africa and other revolutionary and brave nations that are refusing to surrender to the Western diktat.

While the ideological battle for Caracas was raging, I was thinking: is there anything that could still move the Western public into action?

Have they – Europeans and North Americans – become totally indifferent to their own crimes? Have they developed some sort of emotional immunity? Is their condition ideological, or simply clinical?

Here we were, in the middle of a totally open coup; an attempt by the West to overthrow one of the most democratic countries on our planet. And they did almost nothing to stop the terrorism performed by their regimes in Washington or Madrid! At least in Indonesia in 1965 or in Chile in 1973, the Western regime tried to hide behind thin fig leaves.

At least, while destroying socialist Afghanistan and the Communist Soviet Union by creating the Mujahedin, the West used Pakistan as a proxy, trying to conceal, at least partially, its true role. At least, while killing more than 1 million people in Iraq, there was this charade and bunch of lies about the ‘weapons of mass destruction’. At least, at least…

Now, it is all transparent. In Syria, Venezuela; and against North Korea, Cuba, Iran, China, Russia.

As if propaganda was not even needed, anymore, it as if the Western public has become totally obedient, posing no threat to the plans of the Western regime.

Or more precisely, the once elaborate Western propaganda has become extremely simple: it now repeats lies, and the great majority of Western citizens do not even bother to question what their governments are doing to the world. The only thing that matters are ‘domestic issues’; meaning – the wages and benefits for the Westerners.

There are no riots like during the Vietnam War. Now riots are only for the better welfare of European workers. No one in the West is fighting in order to stop the plunder abroad, or the terrorist attacks unleashed by NATO against non-Western countries, or against those countless NATO military bases, against the invasions and orchestrated coups.

*

How much more can the Western public really stomach?

Or can it stomach absolutely everything?

Would it accept the direct invasion of Venezuela or Cuba or both? It has already accepted the direct intervention and destruction of Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria, to name just a few terrorist actions committed by the West in recent history.

So, how much more? Would an attack against Iran be acceptable? Let’s say, 2-3 million deaths?

North Korea, perhaps? A few more millions, a new mountain of corpses?

I am asking; it is not a rhetorical question. I really want to know. I believe that the world has to know.

Has the Western public reached the level of the ISIS (or call them IS or Deash)? Is it so self-righteous, so fanatic, so convinced of its own exceptionalism, that it cannot think, clearly, analyze and judge, anymore?

Would provoking Russia or China or both into WWIII be acceptable to people living in Bavaria or South Carolina, or Ontario?

And if yes, are they all really out of their minds?

And if they are, should the world try to stop them, and how?

*

I want to know the boundaries of the Western madness.

That there is madness is indisputable, but how massive is it?

I understand, I have now accepted the monstrous fact that the French, Yanks, Canadians, Brits or Germans do not give a shit about how many millions of innocent people they kill in the Middle East, or Southeast Asia, Africa or in ‘places like that’.

I accept that they know close to nothing about their colonial history, and want to know nothing, as long as they have football, plenty of meat and 6 weeks vacations on exotic beaches.

I know that even many of those who can see monstrous crimes committed by the West, want to blame everything on Rothschilds and ‘Zionist conspiracy’, but never on themselves, never on Israel which its West’s outpost in the Middle East, never on their culture which expresses itself through the centuries of plunder.

But what about the survival of our planet, and the survival of humankind?

I imagine the eyes of those people who come to my ‘combat presentations’. I tell them the truth. I say it all. I am never holding back; never compromise. I show them images of the wars they have unleashed.

Yes, “they”; because the citizens are responsible for their own governments, and because there is, clearly, something called collective guilt and collective responsibility!

Those eyes, faces… I will tell you what I read in them: they will never act. They will never try to overthrow their regime. As long as they live their privileged lives. As long as they think that the system in which they are the elites, at least has some chance of surviving in its present form.

They play it both ways, some of them do: verbally, they are outraged by NATO, by Western imperialism and savage capitalism. Practically, they do nothing tangible to fight the system.

What is the conclusion then? If they do not act, then others have to. And I am convinced: they will.

For more than 500 years the entire world has been in flames, plundered and murdered by a small group of extremely aggressive Western nations. This has been going on virtually uninterruptedly.

Nobody finds it amusing, anymore. Where I work, in places that I care about, nobody wants this kind of world.

Look at those countries that are now trying to destroy Venezuela. Look closely! They consist of the United States, Canada, majority of Europe, and mostly those South American states where the descendants of European colonialists are forming majority!

Do we want another 500 years of this?

North Americans and Europeans have to wake up, soon. Even in Nazi Germany, there were soldiers who were so disgusted with Hitler, that they wanted to send him to the dogs. Today, in the West, there is not one powerful political party which believes that 500 years of Western colonialist plunder is more than enough; that torturing the world should stop, and stop immediately.

If Western imperialism, which is the greatest and perhaps the only major threat our planet is now facing, is not decisively and soon dismantled by its own citizens, it will have to be fought and deterred by external forces. That is: by its former and present victims.

First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook

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Categories: empire watch, latest, Russia
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Nightshade
Nightshade
Jun 25, 2019 12:02 PM

You sound like a prize narcissistic virtue signaller to me, and you lost all credibility when you advocated supporting North Korea.

gog
gog
Jun 24, 2019 9:17 PM

don’t worry.
the phone in your pocket is making you sterile.
her eggs are destroyed by wifi.
the great dying has already begun.
the meek shall inherit the earth.

Kathy
Kathy
Jun 23, 2019 10:30 PM

It is difficult to stop the ruling classes from doing what they do. The fault is theirs but the powerlessness and fear and guilt is ours. The futility of protest the futility of shouting is lost in the winds.The pain of baring witness to all the suffering caused and put upon the world breaks my heart. Not in my name do they do what they do. I despise the wars and despair of the shrugging masses who either believe their governments lies or don’t concern themselves over much with what they continue to do. The death toll the tragedy and the trauma eats me up and keeps me awake at night. What is the point of all this pain what could ever justify these crimes but I and many like me are powerless to intervene. Prey god we one day find peace. Blessed be.

Jim
Jim
Jun 23, 2019 9:42 PM

“…That there is madness is indisputable, I want to know the boundaries…” Indeed this world is madness! The flat screens, everywhere, in the streets, busses, trains, airplanes, corridors, some as big as the limit of the skyscrapers, etc.. are there, nobody seems to be aware, that they signify a permanent hold-up of our brains. We, the majority, we did not ask their messages and nobody seemed disturbed by it. Is this not madness? The real makers of the contents, are absent from the eyes. This is outright, because we did not ask for it, also an invasion of our brains and, much more, the diversion of our precious lifetime (Should lifetime not be precious?) and the screen let us deflect our thoughts, most of the time, from the real necessary tasks. Is this the accepted reality? But in fact, who’s reality, imposed by who and what? If we accept such… Read more »

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Jun 23, 2019 8:46 AM

I feel almost everyone here at OffGuardian as well as other sites like Moon Of Alabama, Caitlin Johnstone, The Saker, et al, are actually awake Andre. I would also point out that many in the West are also being crushed by the same highly exploitative system that pillages and rapes countries in the Global South. There are more than a few of us here either homeless, or on the verge of being homeless, many struggling to pay their bills. And tragically, the Left has essentially abandoned the working class for the intellectual psychobabble of identity politics. To repeat what I said to Peter below: the Left has completely shot itself in the foot. And who is there to fill the void? The Populists and Alt Right. I oppose Neoliberalism and Imperialism, and for me, the enemy of humanity, of Mother Earth, of our ecosystems, is the Capitalist system. Profit before… Read more »

Jihadi Colin
Jihadi Colin
Jun 23, 2019 3:17 AM

“How much more can the western public stomach?”

Absolutely anything. The more liberalism is spread in the so called “western” (let’s call it what it is, white-socioChristian) public, the more evil it will eagerly condone in its name.

This is my definition of liberalism:

The mental disease that allows those afflicted to support the invasion, destruction, colonisation and occupation of innocent defenceless non white nations on the other side of the planet, the looting of their natural resources, the forced privatisation of their economies, the imposition of collaborationist stooges in power over them, and the mass murder of the fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons of brown women in order to allegedly secure the right of those brown women to lie naked on the beach.

mark
mark
Jun 23, 2019 4:09 AM
Reply to  Jihadi Colin

Bombing Brown People is good for them.

What vote?
What vote?
Jun 23, 2019 4:56 AM
Reply to  Jihadi Colin

White-socioChristian nations are also experiencing forced privatisation of the economy. Also, somehow, only collaborationist stooges find their way to high places in the government. And no matter who you elect, sinister neolibralism continues to spread and dominate.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Jun 23, 2019 5:21 AM
Reply to  What vote?

One example is Western Australia (State). Their conservative party (now in opposition) has just had a new chairperson (female). Among the first things she announced was to step away from electricity privatisation. And boy did they attack her. She defended herself saying that she was not going to go into the next election campaign with a policy that was so heavily opposed by the population. She will be ousted before she can do ‘damage’, of course, if they find someone who’d want to fill that position. Probably a matter of money from ‘the sidelines’. Generally speaking, the company BlackRock is now regarded as a secret world power. They own strategic share parcels in all significant German companies, other countries I have not really looked at. It is these people whose power we must cut as they only use it for evil. But I do not know how that can be… Read more »

What vote?
What vote?
Jun 23, 2019 12:13 PM
Reply to  Wilmers31

Sad how opposing privatisation may well ruin this chairperson career.

Privatisation is stripping people of their dignity. It is destroying the regulatory framework and transferring the power from government to corporates. We know where Big Corporates’ loyalties lie, and it is not with the workers and not with the society.

mark
mark
Jun 23, 2019 9:25 PM
Reply to  What vote?

The EU ordered Ireland to privatise water. There was zero support for this in the country, but they were told to shut up and do it.

Paddy Jameson P
Paddy Jameson P
Jun 24, 2019 11:22 PM
Reply to  mark

They still haven’t managed to privatise water here. There were massive, continuous protests which put paid to their plans, and water in Ireland is still a public utility.

mark
mark
Jun 25, 2019 4:23 AM

Glad to hear that. I thought they were forcing it through. Rich pickings for some hedge fund.

mark
mark
Jun 23, 2019 9:23 PM
Reply to  Wilmers31

Blackrock is one of a group of 17 companies that control assets of over $50 trillion.

Hayden Redwood
Hayden Redwood
Jun 23, 2019 12:34 AM

Problem is to many lackeys paid a bit of gold snd do as they told. When someone plays and comply with system they get rewarded according so greed plays essential part cause people are not willing you give up there nice incentives paid life. Free fuel card company car etc

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Jun 23, 2019 5:23 AM
Reply to  Hayden Redwood

Apparatchiks are everywhere. NGOs exercise bad influence, too, because they parrot what their money men say.

Jen
Jen
Jun 23, 2019 12:01 AM

Perhaps if Andre Vltchek were willing to speak with the Gilets Jaunes protesters he has derided in previous posts and their equivalents in other Western countries, he will find the very Western public he seeks to convince.

Talking to philosopher friends, film-makers and other intellectuals, and the audiences at the talks and conferences they organise will always backfire on him. These are closed circles within a layer of the technocracy that supports the political elite. Some of the university and college audiences may also be security people monitoring the institutions hosting these events for political correctness. No wonder he cannot make any headway.

Peter M
Peter M
Jun 23, 2019 1:48 AM
Reply to  Jen

From what I gather, Mr. Vltchek is exactly the same as the folks he talked to – stay in his intellectual circle and despise the unwashed as they do not appreciate the fineries of a high brow discussion of world affairs. He is part of the problem if like the Clinton gang in the States he talks about the the deplorables because those poor schmucks finally clued into the truth that nobody gives a shit about their problems to have to work multiple jobs to be able to house and feed themselves or at worst get the dough to by fentanyl or oxy. By talking to them instead of firing up folks like the Gilet Jaunes he is none better than this neoliberal gang that runs affairs with their morals of “taking care” of those poor folks that are so oppressed without the help from the West and need democracy… Read more »

mark
mark
Jun 23, 2019 2:11 AM
Reply to  Peter M

Yes, but they’re giving us toilets for trannies.
What more do you want?

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Jun 23, 2019 3:04 AM
Reply to  Peter M

Bingo. Could not have said it better myself. The Left has completely shot itself in the foot with this Identity Politics garbage. Working Class? Sniff.

Eric Blair
Eric Blair
Jun 23, 2019 4:02 AM
Reply to  Peter M

+1
You’ve nailed it. While I get Vltchek’s sentiments, he is absolutely stuck in bourgeoisie mode and can’t see beyond that. He casually mentions his jetting around the world as if everyone in Europe and North America can do that. He is simply out of touch with the reality working people in these countries face. The fact is, as you say, he is talking to bourgie “left” liberals like himself while ignoring the people who actually are fighting back. Only a very out of touch person can make such a massive and obvious error.

The left will never succeed as long as it is dominated by bitter trust fund “revolutionaries” like Vltchek on one side and identity politics and well off academics with their endless talking and books of “theories” (but never any action) on the other.

Gezzah Potts
Gezzah Potts
Jun 23, 2019 6:11 AM
Reply to  Eric Blair

Bingo. You nail it as well Eric.

passerby
passerby
Jun 22, 2019 7:30 PM

Last one who tried to make me feel guilty was a Jesuit priest. Didn’t work then either.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Jun 22, 2019 9:39 PM
Reply to  passerby

Conversely, “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims… but accomplices” (George Orwell)

passerby
passerby
Jun 23, 2019 1:25 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Correct. If the people in Africa keep electing corrupt politicians they are not victims, but accomplices.

Vltchek states that the people in the West are rich because the people in Africa are poor. I state that even if the West were to magically disappear tomorrow, Africa would not become rich.

Headlice
Headlice
Jun 22, 2019 2:39 PM
mark
mark
Jun 23, 2019 12:15 AM
Reply to  Headlice

I’m surprised they limited themselves to “2 million.”
In Egypt, when they wanted to get rid of the elected Moslem Brotherhood guy who the Chosen Folk didn’t like a couple of years ago, it was “30 million”, “33 million”, and finally “34 million”, demonstrating in Cairo.
This was “people’s democracy.”
When it happens in Paris or London or Washington, it’s mob rule.
Someone qualified in these things did a Google Earth search on the demonstrations and calculated from the area involved it was about half a million.
But the Chosen Folk got a pliable puppet dictator back to serve their interests, and that’s the main thing.

These people do like their “millions.”

Steve Hayes
Steve Hayes
Jun 22, 2019 2:14 PM

“the by now almost uninhabitable atoll island-nations of Oceania: Tuvalu…” Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one (not even philosophers) is entitled to their own facts. The population of Tuvalu is growing, not decreasing as would be the case if Tuvalu was almost inhabitable. Moreover, the life expectancy of the population is over sixty-eight for women and sixty-four for men, facts which are not reconcilable with the notion that the country is uninhabitable. People who make up facts destroy their own arguments.

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Jun 22, 2019 12:29 PM

Fun fact – most western intellectuals are either blind or indifferent to the consequences of late stage capitalism (Jordan Peterson being an exemplar). Of course they have no such blind spots when it comes to the dangers of communism, post-Tsar Russia, or Mao but no matter how much damage is inflicted by western oligarchies they seem to be so focussed on the aforementioned targets that they fail to notice the unfolding environmental apocalypse, extreme wealth extraction, endless bouts regime change or the collateral damage arising from them. As Yuval Harari said “Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.” Moral of story? If you want to change conditions that rightly drive Andre to despair… Read more »

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Jun 22, 2019 4:51 PM
Reply to  Harry Stotle

Great post Harry. Thanks. We are certainly in need of a new “myth” adequate to our rather dire situation if we hope to alter our course – and no it won’t be one manufactured by yet another well paid Madison Avenue ad agency entrenched in the status quo.

DunGroanin
DunGroanin
Jun 22, 2019 11:16 AM

Mid summer nights madness 1. Sacrificial US air-personnell and others, totalling 35 – NOT targeted. Instead the Drone sent to record the moment of the beginning of war for posterity of the writers and owners of world history to dance to inperpetuaty – did get swatted. Lol. 2. The coronation of the new tory PM moves to its concluding phase as the stalking horse is let off the leash, to crash and burn. Leaving only one viable choice for the constituency chairmen to rubber stamp, as they did previously. Membership vote my arse! Double lol. 3. The media and troll bots are in a tiz about what line they are supposed to take on the grand narrative. And still not a single journalistic piece /blog (or even troll bots) on the SCO and it’s objectives under it’s new presidency – Russia! Which are being implemented in the ME theatre. I… Read more »

TFS
TFS
Jun 22, 2019 11:00 AM

Again, man holds the key to changing Empire SpartUSA and the West of its ways.

It requires no real effort, no marching, no demonstrating…it’s a couch potatoes dream and better still MLK and Ghandi would be proud.

You wanna make a change? Use the voting right in your pocket, the $,£…….

Fed up with SpartUSS’s wayward ways across the planet, the attacks on Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning?

Change your browser search settings to DuckDuckGo.

SpartUSA will hear loud and clear.

The Alternative Media like Offguardian, TheCanary, Caitlin Johnstone, Jimmy Dore etc have a opportunity to come together.

There is another way.

Question This
Question This
Jun 22, 2019 2:48 PM
Reply to  TFS

Maybe research who owns/runs duck duck go before advocating its neutrality.

the griffin
the griffin
Jun 22, 2019 10:06 AM

Use to google translate to get the Latin for “west” then look up the Latin for “kill”, the difference is “rent”!

Headlice
Headlice
Jun 22, 2019 9:29 AM

https://www.rt.com/usa/462437-amazon-patents-surveillance-delivery-drones/

Got to love Tucker Carlson. He is just the best. His old man was some dude too.

But what about that US hospital ship which just set out for a tour of the Carribean.? Is it going to get the same treatment as USS Liberty.?

By lumping for the ‘disproportionate’ factor Trump may have unwittingly mousetrapped himself. I think they want him to make a series of refusals. After a number of refusals have been stacked up they will use the hospital ship or the Brits or the Frogs will unleash some Novichok to frame the Iranians/Russians/Syrians.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Jun 22, 2019 9:08 AM

‘Daddy?’
‘Mmm’
‘They won’t let the world end, will they?’
‘Mmm’
‘Daddy?’
‘Daddy!!’
‘What?’
‘Of course not’
‘Let’s see what’s on the Disney channel, hey’

Rhys Jaggar
Rhys Jaggar
Jun 22, 2019 9:05 AM

Mr Vltchek You have found a way to get paid through fighting the system. As a result, you can eat every day. You may be tired, but your pictures do not make you look malnourished. Just remember, only about 250-1000 slots globally exist for folks like you. The other 1bn Westerners need another source of income. Embracing the rules which go with that… Tell me this, Mr Vltchek: do you advocate parents risking the health of their children by speaking out and getting the sack, because trust me, if you call Uk PMs what they deserve to be called as a citizen, the hounds of Establishment hell come circling to make you unemployable. Is not taking your children to a food kitchen more important than expressing your true feelings from a position of political powerlessness? Reality dictates that you need independent wealth or wealthy backers. Wealthy backers will have two… Read more »

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Jun 22, 2019 10:29 AM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

You make some valid points RJ, but shooting the messenger is a tad disingenuous.
Andre may indeed be ‘eating’ but we know nothing of his lifestyle or his personal wealth.
The One Per Cent and their smug middle class devotees must be exposed at every opportunity.
The psychopaths who rule will not give an inch, so it’s up to those who give a shit to chart their own course/s through the coming chaos.

Peter M
Peter M
Jun 22, 2019 12:19 PM
Reply to  Fair dinkum

I do not agree that Jaggar shoots the messenger, that he is pointing out that the author is exactly talking to those that hold the power as opposed to the 90% that have to make a living at all cost or sleep on the streets. That those that he is not talking to are also trapped in a system that allows them a live at a better level of those the author reflects on but also as powerless as those. The economic system is rigged for the 1% to increase their wealth, and their wealth is power that they do not let threaten by anyone – this is the message Jagger gives rightly. Our lives are better than those the author reflects on, we have somewhat better security of housing, food, education – but only a long as it makes economic sense to the elites to further their wealth and… Read more »

andyoldlabour
andyoldlabour
Jun 22, 2019 12:43 PM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

Another insightful and accurate post Rhys.
The author of this piece would do well to target the 1%, rather than the others such as myself and my wife who are definitely NOT “outrageously rich”.
Our political system gives unthinking people, the illusion that they can vote for change, when in actual fact their vote will be turned into politicians doing whatever the rich and powerful want, and ignoring the wishes of the electorate.

mark
mark
Jun 22, 2019 5:23 PM
Reply to  andyoldlabour

Voting just legitimises and perpetuates a rigged, destructive, simply evil system.

mark
mark
Jun 22, 2019 5:21 PM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

Very well put, Rhys. People shouldn’t be demonised for just trying to get by. Despite the limitations of our sham democracy and lying MSM, 30 million demonstrated against Iraq in 2003 – and much good it did anyone. The Gilets Jaunes on the 1,000 euro a month SMIC have been taking on Macron and his Fascist Boot Boys for the past 6 months, despite the blindings and the maimings, the smearings of the MSM, and the paid controlled opposition provocateurs of Antifa.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Jun 22, 2019 5:33 PM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

Rhy – what you say is quite accurate. Meanwhile – at the very same time – what Mr. Vltchek says is also quite accurate – that is that we in the West continue to live like kings compared to the rest of humanity. We live this way because our governments in the West have pillaged and continue to pillage the rest of the planet century after century. You and I and our children benefit from this pillage. This is an incontestable fact of history past and present. At what point do we look in the mirror Rhy? At what point do the children of the poor around the world impacted by policies that keep our clothing affordable, our cars filled with cheap petrol, and that keep cheap food on our tables rate the same consideration as our own children? This is Vltchek’s message as I see it. If we the… Read more »

Nick Dyson
Nick Dyson
Jun 24, 2019 4:26 AM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

I have to disagree here. It is not the common citizen of the west that benefits from the evil deeds our governments do. Sure, we live like royalty compared to most of the world but still it isnt us that benefits from this evil, it is the bankers, the brokers, the politicians, the investors, the millionaires and billionaires. I’m quite certain if our governments simply minded their own business and operated with honesty and integrity toward the world, the average citizen would be just as comfortable. The difference would be the absence of these super wealthy oligarchs. So as much as I DO emphasize with the rest of the world., I am nowhere near the wealth or status of those who do benefit from the horrible actions of our “leaders”. I am also in no position to do much about it other than seek truth, expose people to it insomuch… Read more »

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Jun 24, 2019 6:33 AM
Reply to  Nick Dyson

Nick – I hear what you are saying and I totally empathize. I come from a working class background in Detroit. I’ve watched most of my childhood friends die early deaths related to the poverty, depression and drugs that came as our factories closed down and they lost their jobs. I have no illusions that the working class in the West is living any cushy life of luxury. But along with that reality are other realities. One of them sadly is that the reason you can afford inexpensive clothes for your kids, and I can afford inexpensive clothes for my grandkids is intimately tied to our Western nations continuing to plunder the rest of the world not only for cheap resources, but for cheap labor. Labor that in many cases falls just short of slavery conditions in it’s brutality and working conditions and reimbursement. From that cheap clothing, to the… Read more »

Robyn
Robyn
Jun 23, 2019 12:43 AM
Reply to  Rhys Jaggar

To my mind, Mr Vltcheck is a hero. He might not have done it your way, Dr Jaggar, or used the words you would use, but he has dedicated his life to exposing the corruption that rules us and the misery of people most affected by that corruption. He is obviously a very competent writer/journalist – in more than one language, I might add. Clearly, he could have made a comfortable living using his talent. He might even have, deep in his heart, yearned for a nice quiet life mostly at home with family and a regular income. Instead his life has been one of dedication. From what I have gleaned from his articles, his life has been one of constant travelling, living with the poor and downtrodden to experience their misery first-hand, often facing danger, all the while recording what he sees and hoping to inspire people to get… Read more »

Headlice
Headlice
Jun 22, 2019 8:27 AM

https://southfront.org/mines-dont-jump-alternative-version-of-oil-tankers-attack-in-gulf-of-oman/

Seems the oil tankers in Strait of Homuz were struck by hellfire missiles launched by MQ series drones.

mark
mark
Jun 22, 2019 5:31 PM
Reply to  Headlice

Very plausible, H. Unless the IRGC have invented flying mines and torpedoes.
Tried to upvote but it rejected it.

Francis Lee
Francis Lee
Jun 22, 2019 7:36 AM

There is a tendency for the critics of empire to underestimate the views of the man in the street; they are not as stupid and myopic as many of the soi-disant enlightened seem to imagine. In my conversations with the motor mechanics, truck drivers, female shopworkers et. al., they KNOW, through their lived experience that capitalism is a racket. They don’t need telling as they are at the receiving end of a brutal, exploitative system. They voted in the UK for leave in the Brexit referendum, they demonstrate on the streets of Paris against the depredations of the system. They don’t want war, neo-liberalism, flexible labour markets, uncontrolled immigration, or shrinking public services. They are the sleeping giants of the contemporary world order. Will they ever wake up against the existing order – who knows? The real demented fanatics of the piece are the petit-bourgeois, outer-party, the anglo zionist fanatics… Read more »

STR
STR
Jun 22, 2019 1:25 AM

‘Fire on Iran & US will be opening the gates of hell’
– George Galloway

For George Galloway the gates of hell represent complete madness.

The reality is there are gigantic investments accumulated decade after decade for the purpose to engineer ‘Hell’. Hell in all aspects: politically, economically, socially and the crown goes to ‘Militarily’. Thanks to the annual trillion dollar budget allocated to the US army and their foreign intervention schemes.

What we are seeing as ‘mistakes’ by the Zio-Anglo Empire, are simply tactics to achieve their full spectrum dominance through spreading chaos and misery * on the planet.

* To chaos and misery, add diseases ; just as an example, the push to use Glyphosates, and getting governmental approval for its use, all over the planet.

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Jun 22, 2019 5:28 AM
Reply to  STR

I have run out of answers other than “don’t let them use you – don’t enlist”.

Even though they might develop more and more drones and it will be ‘things’ which fight the wars, they might run out of operators. 74 years after the war, and while I was not in it, my life continues to be be impacted by WWII. I grew up in West Berlin – my parents were there in the 1930s but did not participate politically. They were also ignorant, wanted to build a life and therefore wore blinkers.

Gary Weglarz
Gary Weglarz
Jun 22, 2019 12:16 AM

“I want to know the boundaries of the Western madness.” – Andre Vltchek Short answer Andre, there are none. There are no “boundaries” whatsoever. Witness the three amoral clowns at the helm of U.S. foreign policy – Bolton, Pompeo and Trump – playing an ongoing game of nuclear ‘chicken’ in the Gulf. Their mad attempts to bully and intimidate the world moving with frenetic speed from Syria, to Nicaragua, to North Korea, to Venezuela, to Russia, to China, to Iran to who knows where next? And where in any Western MSM is the illegality and immorality of Western international policy so much as mentioned as a sidebar? No, this “Western madness” is quite “boundless.” And yes, we are all a part of it, willingly or unwillingly. Informed or uniformed. Active or passive. I am aware of no convenient moral fig leaf we might hoist to cover our shame and to… Read more »

Wilmers31
Wilmers31
Jun 22, 2019 5:34 AM
Reply to  Gary Weglarz

I was fully in it, growing up in West Berlin we did not want to live like in East Berlin. Then the Western system in the guise of the Kohl-Regime showed their true colours. A veil was torn from my face – all they said they stood for was a lie. It turned me and I started to see their other lies which I used to dismiss as ‘maybe we need that to avoid the STASI or Stalin”.
Wrong question, wrong answers.

mark
mark
Jun 21, 2019 11:40 PM

Most of what AV says is quite true. Over half of humanity lives on less than $3 a day. When I was living in Africa, many people were being paid 20p/ 25 cents an hour. In India, women sweeping the street with brooms were paid 50p/ 65 cents a day. Many people blame poor governance for this, kleptocratic clowns like Mobutu and so many others. But in most cases these were stooges put in power and kept there to serve the interests of the global power elite – just like the kleptocratic clowns in western countries. And the global economy is rigged to keep them down. I’m not so sure about him blaming ordinary people in western countries. They are not all a smug, complacent, affluent, indifferent elite. 30 million demonstrated in 2003 against Iraq. What good did that do? It was just ignored. If they did the same over… Read more »

STR
STR
Jun 22, 2019 1:33 AM
Reply to  mark

“When I was in America, I was surprised how totally ignorant most people were of the outside world.”

Mind control is amazingly effective, as they are also led to believe, the more ignorant and out of touch they are, the more exceptional they become!

It’s like some kind of a movie plot where the actors become euphorically delighted; unkown to them, they are digging their own graves.

Headlice
Headlice
Jun 21, 2019 10:57 PM
BigB
BigB
Jun 21, 2019 8:41 PM

I cannot fault radical responsibility, critical realism, and critical consciousness. When fully developed: they know no bounds. Radical responsibility: brought to you on a MacBook Pro …assembled by a hyper-exploited unperson in a Chinese free-market “Special Economic Zone”; perhaps one with parts assembled by Foxconn …whose dehumanised workers can no longer commit suicide because of the nets, suicide watch and counseling …Apple’s concession to labour; made from conflict minerals dug up by child miners from Chile to the DRC; supervised at gunpoint; whose wages go to fund the world’s secret shameful techno-genocide …claiming perhaps 10 million …which will claim 10 million more to provide for the technocracies rising … But only in the West? Radical responsibility with boundaries is hypocritical, not critical realism. It is a global neoliberal expansionism, extactivism, and hyper-exploitative techno-genocide regime that is costing the earth …our only home. To which the progressive pseudo-socialists, green neoliberals, crypto-capitalists,… Read more »

Pieter
Pieter
Jun 21, 2019 7:41 PM

I’m completely with you, but I also have a question for you. What can an average citizen like myself do about it, since the masses seems to be completely indoctrinated by our press that mostly condone this actions. Even prepare the people for more. In my country are some who try by “playing by the rules”, a.k.a. they start a political party and try to do something about it. They’re ruthlessly attacked by the media, ridiculing them, quoting them out of context to make them appear dangerous, even charge them for some minor technicality and make it a political show process. To discourage others to protest. The ones who go to the streets to protest, do so against the ones I mentioned before that want to change it. These protesters appear to be full of hatred and often threaten them (implicitly or even explicit) with violence. So hence my question:… Read more »

Ash
Ash
Jun 21, 2019 8:34 PM
Reply to  Pieter

Indeed, there are many of us who do get it and would like to take meaningful action. Enough that we could convince our friends, families, colleagues, neighbors etc. if they were reachable. But most of them aren’t. Mr. Vltchek hit on the best explanation when he says that most are not only clueless about what goes on in their names, but don’t want to know. They also live embedded in a media ecosystem that carefully massages their reality so as not to allow inconvenient ideas to intrude. There’s also a strange level of cognitive dissonance where tens of millions of people are suspicious (or worse!) of the news media and their lies yet simultaneously convinced their core narratives built upon these same malleable “facts” must be true. In other words, they often don’t believe the charlatans put forth before them but they won’t allow themselves to even reconsider the idea… Read more »

BigB
BigB
Jun 22, 2019 10:57 AM
Reply to  Pieter

I wish I had THE solution, but there isn’t one. There are lots of micro-solutions – that may one day precipitate meso- and macro-solutions …but those will have to gestate and wait, for now. The problem is neoliberalism is an anti-democratic depoliticisation project of the ‘New Class’ cognitive elite. We can vote, and politicise …they may tailor their agenda (BigData, surveillance capitalist consent) …but they will not change it. They may forestall, but the agenda has been the same since before you or I were born. No matter what your age may be. The problem is paradigmatic: what is good for humanity is at the opposite end of the scale of neoliberal globalism. The real power behind the proconsul ‘thrones’ moved offshore. Again, starting post-war, before we were born. The ideologues and ‘inner party’ are hidden corporate ‘shadow sovereigns’. We know some of their names …but they have para-statal buffers… Read more »

Karin Heinitz
Karin Heinitz
Jun 22, 2019 2:00 PM
Reply to  BigB

If your friends etc won’t come along … Ahem, where to? Where different values prevail? Where people are not afraid of fighting a long and desparate battle knowing they won’t win, at least not for a very long time? Being anti-globalist or anti-anything or for anything is just like being against a thunderstorm and for sunshine. The death throws of the Capital are violent and it can still take a while before the last profit opportunity is gone, before there is nothing more to steal, everything conquered or dead. What good is hope for? How about a calm assessment of what is possible for whom and where that might lead for yourself. I’d rather prepare myself mentally for more than one possible outcome including that everything goes pearshaped – particularly as the economic phase of WW3 is already in full swing and the pushers for war are just waiting for… Read more »

Martin Usher
Martin Usher
Jun 21, 2019 7:23 PM

I think people do care but nobody listens to them. The whole reason for off-Guardian is that the Guardian newspaper went through a phase of inviting comment from their readership as “Comment is free” and were somewhat taken aback by what people were saying to them, especially about issues like the Iraq war. This has resulted in a considerable pullback — censorship — which was underscored by the new, more friendly, relationship between this paper and the UK security services. For many, though, they just see and hear stock phrases about certain countries and topics that are inserted in articles about those topics. Often these are added in the name of ‘balance’ but what they do in reality is perpetuate a sort of Party Line about a topic. So, for example, the trade war with China is a ‘tit for tat’ affair, quietly maneuvering China as the actor, the bad… Read more »

john deehan
john deehan
Jun 21, 2019 7:15 PM

Unfortunately, Andre forgets that 40 years of Neoliberalism has reduced many in the West to focus on day to day week to week survival. It takes most of their energy to stop falling into the gutter never mind lifting their heads out of the gutter.

jo6pac
jo6pac
Jun 22, 2019 2:02 AM
Reply to  john deehan

Sadly very True

intp1
intp1
Jun 21, 2019 6:39 PM

Extraordinarily well said!

I´m totally with you but the apathy of the mass-hypnotized is overwhelming.

wardropper
wardropper
Jun 21, 2019 6:39 PM

Yes, the countries named here HAVE become indifferent to their own crimes, not because they have chosen to ignore them, but because they have become ACCUSTOMED to them.
When you are used to something, you tend not to think about it.
Heaven help the next generation, which will never have known anything else.
Chaos will seem normal to them.

Loverat
Loverat
Jun 21, 2019 7:20 PM
Reply to  wardropper

Great, well said Andre – some of those thoughts I’ve been having recently following the escalations against Iran. Certainly a job analysing all the reasons people are as they are . As Wardropper says, international crime has become normalised. Even acceptance that the UK pays millions to Al Qaeda in Syria, people don’t bat an eyelid. However when you add that it comes out of their wage packet through income tax they start to become interested. Sadly I think you have to appeal to peoples self interest or fears. Tell them these wars and terrorist funding comes out of their wages. If that fails tell them they or their kids likely to be wiped out in a nuclear war. Both true and hardly scaremongering looking at events lately. On another note did I read the family of ISIS Jack or whatever he’s called have been convicted of sending him a… Read more »

JudyJ
JudyJ
Jun 21, 2019 11:28 PM
Reply to  Loverat

Loverat “…the family of ISIS Jack or whatever he’s called have been convicted of sending him a few hundred quid”. I sometimes think that those of us who can see through what is going on must be living in a parallel universe. You’ve got Julian Assange locked up for no good reason other than being ‘the good guy’, whilst war criminals like Tony Blair walk free making millions on the back of their crimes; you’ve got the UK Government funding the terrorist White Helmets to the tune of “[over] £38.4m as at 31 March 2018” ( confirmed in an FCO reply to a Freedom of Information request – does the wording imply that the funding is ongoing??), (supplemented by nearly £200k given to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in Coventry supposedly to fund video and sound recording equipment) but prosecuting people supplying terrorists with a few hundred pounds;… Read more »

mark
mark
Jun 22, 2019 3:56 AM
Reply to  JudyJ

Lewis Carroll explained it all quite well.
If the Mad Hatter or the Cheshire Cat suddenly turned up at the White House or Downing Street, nobody would bat an eyelid.

They already seem to have adopted the Queen of Hearts’ precepts on jurisprudence. Sentence first, then the trial, then the evidence.

And they certainly manage to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
Skripal, Douma, Russiagate, Iraqi WMD, Iranian nuclear weapons, David Kelly,

Paul
Paul
Jun 21, 2019 8:42 PM
Reply to  wardropper

It’s worse than that in England where they CELEBRATE the Empire.