NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

The Voice of War and Oil

By Rand Clifford

09/09/08 "ICH" -- -- Albert Einstein defined insanity as "...doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." And he said, "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who didn’t do anything about it."

Control of America by wealthy elite enmeshes Americans in a veritable web of insanity. Presidential elections are a prime example, herding people through the same old motions and emotions, lies and battle cries, in the slog toward an outcome predetermined by the elite. After the long and intense grind of voter manipulation, agents of the elite manipulate the vote count—a process fully embedded with no real change since 2000, when against their will the people were condemned to at least 8 years of neocon nightmare via Cheney and Bush (as Karl Rove says, the next election is problematic...subject to "events.")

Will Cheney and Bush simply walk away from powers they have usurped? If so, and the rotten cash-‘n-carry election pageant culminates, the same old thing over again...another puppet of the elite will perpetuate the status quo. Police-state environments of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, including preemptive arrests for simple suspicion of protest says it all—shut up and conform, or else. Preemption. Criminalizing dissent. Thought crime. Orwellian nightmare in your face.

The vast scope of elite control over the American system has made "what can we do?" the dominant refrain of American people who still think for themselves. "WHAT CAN WE DO!?" Though our realistic options are so choked, a meaningful method of influence endures: Turn Off mainstream corporate media (CorpoMedia). Ignore it, avoid it, wither it. The elite and their government still cannot force CorpoMedia on an individual. The programmed brain drain is still optional. The insanity of continuing to believe the lies and propaganda can end with the flick of a switch.

Five enormous corporations control virtually all of CorpoMedia, their "news" dictated by corporate government (CorpoGov). If working class Americans can rally the wisdom and will to hit CorpoMedia in the profits by squeezing their advertising revenue—as we are already doing with newspapers—at least the chances of something positive happening are no longer zero. Information is power. Ignorance, misinformation, and dogma about utter American eminence feeds helplessness. A solid niche created for truth in news beyond what already flourishes on the Internet could help empower the people by combating the helplessness pushed by the elite. CorpoMedia virtually never delivers unbiased information when it comes to anything related in any way to corporate profits—there’s always an agenda, always "spin." CorpoMedia simply manipulates viewers toward "proper" thinking...toward what the elite want the people to think, which is rarely in the peoples’ best interests. Corporations siphoning wealth from the working class that in a healthy nation, creates the wealth, is reaching proportions lethal for any nation, and they have the whole world in their sights.

Increasing corporate profits, that’s CorpoMedia’s ultimate concern, so two foundational issues dominate all the rest: war, and oil—king and queen of corporate profit generation. CorpoMedia’s standard motif involves reducing a complicated and dynamic world down to the simplicity of good versus evil, something in full play regarding the recent conflict in Georgia.

Despite the usual camouflage of florid rhetoric about freedom and democracy—and in this case, "...naked aggression" of the Russian Bear—America’s involvement orbits fossil energy (oil and gas; for convenience here, simply oil).

Back in the early 1990s, the world’s most promising new source of oil was the Caspian Sea basin. Big Oil rushed in and had little trouble coaxing former Soviet Republics in the region to sign contracts. (MAP) The big trouble was logistical—how to move all the billions of barrels of proven reserves from the landlocked Caspian to Western markets, without involving Russia, which all existing pipelines passed through.

By the mid 1990s, the Clinton administration devised a plan to convert newly-independent Georgia into an "energy corridor." America poured military aid and training into Georgia, and built a first pipeline to move oil from Azerbaijan to a Georgian port on the Black Sea. Then, in 2006, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was completed, running 1000 miles from Azerbaijan, through Georgia, and on to a Mediterranean port in Turkey. (MAP)

Russia had been weakened, and was obviously alarmed by such surging American presence in their backyard. But since then, Vladimir Putin has helped drive the resurgence of Russia as a world power. Russia is now asserting itself more like America always does. In fact, many have noted that Russia’s reaction in Georgia signaled the end of an era where America has maintained a virtual monopoly on the use of military force....

After years of America recruiting former Soviet Republics as client states, raking in vast profits from their militarization, and profiting on oil considerations, Russia has finally drawn the line. Russia still dominates Eurasia and its vast fossil fuel deposits. America intends to control the region—but Russia is powerful and can’t be intimidated like the others. America is in a dangerous game to provoke Russia and pad the profits of our industrial-military-congressional complex.... without pushing the Bear too far, too soon. Russia basically prefers diplomacy to conflict; America is bent on conquest. After partly surrounding Russia with military bases in former Soviet Republics...the next step of installing missiles on Russia’s borders is too much. Russia has said simply that they will not allow deployment of American missiles along their borders—missiles supposedly for defense—but clearly intended to neutralize Russia’s nuclear arsenal, if not for simple attack. How might America react to Russia installing missiles along our borders with Canada and Mexico?

Escalation over the question of controlling Caspian basin oil was sparked by America’s orchestrated aggression of Georgia toward South Ossetia. The swift and decisive response by Russia—the complete rout of American backed and trained Georgian fighters has our neocon war party at the top of Washington’s food chain in a lather. CorpoMedia is of course portraying the aggressor, America’s little cats-paw Georgia, as the victim, with Russia the villain—a classic example of their lack of truth in reporting.

While nuance shades certain precursor events, the Bush administration "doesn’t do nuance," and CorpoMedia is their mouthpiece, so this whole event is essentially framed simply as a clash between good and evil. Hypocrisy gushing from CorpoGov is led by Bush’s: "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century." Could it be that with his sights so firmly set on bullying and intimidating Iran, our "Decider" has already forgotten our invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan?

Other gems of hypocrisy include Secretary Rice’s huffing about Russia "Attacking a sovereign nation!" before insisting that "Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that’s its military power. That’s not the way to deal in the 21st century." Then she flew to Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, and ordered Russian troops to withdraw from Georgia immediately.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, Democrats and Republicans united in their demand that Russia "be taught a lesson." Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham declared that "Russia’s aggression is a challenge to the World Order."

In Barak Obama’s convention speech was the threat to "curb Russian aggression."

Not to be underdone, John McCain muttered that "The impact of Russian actions goes beyond their threat to democratic Georgia." And he told Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that "I know I speak for every American when I say to you today, we are all Georgians." Mr. Senator, perhaps that’s a good hint at much you "know?"

Despite such an awesome supporting cast in Washington, it seems Saakashvili was the starring thug in all this. America essentially "installed" Saakashvili as president of Georgia in the bloodless coup of 2003 known as the Rose Revolution. The instability of Saakashvili is well known, his erratic behavior with sometimes dangerous emotional swings. And while he has been an effective guardian of the pipelines, his intentions of taking back the former Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia—even punishing the people for their independence—has been clear.

The dynamics of Washington’s role are somewhat muddied, but perhaps it is safe to say simply that President Saakashvili was overexposed to neocons. War crimes ensued, with the Georgian army attacking Tskhinvali, capital of South Ossetia. It was a massacre of unarmed civilians. Georgians intentionally destroyed the town’s only hospital. And though most of the townspeople had already fled into Russia, by the time Russians arrived a day later, more than 2,000 civilians had been slaughtered.

Georgian troops fled in panic, assuming the Russians would stop at the Georgian border. Russian armor stayed in hot pursuit, into Georgia, driving Saakashvili into hiding—and idiotically declaring war on Russia! Russians ended up not only occupying South Ossetia and Abkhazia, they pursued Georgian forces deep into Georgia, flushing out thousands of American and Israeli military and intelligence, as well as diplomatic personnel. Saakashvili screamed that he was being abandoned....

Was Saakashvili under assignment to provoke Russia into overreacting militarily, thereby showing America’s European allies the major threat to their national security posed by Russia? Apparently so. And did Washington’s attempt at a relatively safe confrontation-by-proxy with the Russians backfire into demonstrating instead the ultimate vulnerability of pipelines through Georgia, spooking investors? While that also appears so, one thing that’s certain: a huge boost in profits for the military-industrial-congressional complex from a revival of the Cold War. Upping the stakes this time around, Russia has flatly stated that American domination of world affairs is unacceptable. While apparently few Americans have actually read what is perhaps the most important documentation regarding their future, the neocon’s Project For The New American Century, many people around the world are very keen on it—none more so than the Russians.

Meanwhile, CorpoMedia, the voice of war and oil, good and evil, will strive to keep the American people as ignorant and misinformed as ever, their hallmark. People...help prove that we deserve better. Turn them off. Start learning what our neocon CorpoGov plans for the world by reading their play book for world domination that transparently calls for "a new Pearl Harbor" to jump start their designs. That was 9/11, and the rest is so far proceeding somewhat according to plans. Be sure and pay special attention to the document, "Rebuilding America’s Defenses".

When it comes to realizing it takes dedication and effort to maintain one’s country in a healthy state free of elitist diseases, and realizing that without their country they have nothing, Americans probably come in near the bottom of the world’s people. The taking for granted of ones country, the ignorance and helplessness regarding what it takes to counter the ever-threatening manipulations of the elite, mass denial of being well down the road to police-state tyranny, and slavery...it’s all no more of an accident than CorpoMedia, the perpetuator. Or is that terminator?

Rand Clifford is a writer living in Spokane, Washington, with his wife Mary Ann, and their Chesapeake Bay retriever, Mink. Rand's novels CASTLING, TIMING, VOICES OF VIRES, and PRIEST LAKE CATHEDRAL are published by StarChief Press: http://www.starchiefpress.com

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