De Mainstream Pers 176

Afgezien van de Amerikaanse oorlog in Vietnam en de aanval van de Sovjet-Unie op Afghanistan is de Koude Oorlog, van 1949 tot 1989, misschien wel de vreedzaamste periode die de moderne mensheid gekend heeft. De diepste oorzaak daarvan is de kernbom.

Zoals in 1945 in Japan was bewezen, is de uitwerking zo verwoestend dat de supermachten en de daarmee verbonden allianties zich geen oorlog konden veroorloven. In tijden van oplopende spanning gingen de partijen tot de rand van de oorlog, maar niet eroverheen.

Dankzij een uiteindelijk beheerste buitenlandse politiek hebben de machtsblokken met het kernwapen leren leven. Het heeft geen actuele invloed meer, behalve in de verhouding tussen Israël en Iran en ook daar raakt het sinds het aantreden van de nieuwe president Hassan Rohani geleidelijk op de achtergrond. Op 23 maart begint in Den Haag de tweedaagse nucleaire topconferentie waaraan 58 wereldleiders en zo’n vijfduizend delegatieleden deel­nemen. Geen halve maatregelen, maar een actueel gevaar valt daar niet te bedwingen.

Henk Hofland. De Groene Amsterdammer. 19 februari 2014

I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was

luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the 

end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; 

Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total

 destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.

Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning 

up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of 

Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of 

Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of

 New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was 

Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was

all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was

dropped by LeMay's command. Proportionality should be a guideline in 

war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing 

them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some 

people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve.

LeMay said, 'If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war 

criminals.' And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as 

war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought 

immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not

immoral if you win?

We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes. I don't know any military commander, who is honest, who would say he has not made a mistake. There's a wonderful phrase: 'the fog of war.' What 'the fog of war' means is: war is so complex it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.

The major lesson of the Cuban missile crisis is this: the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations. Is it right and proper that today there are 7500 offensive strategic nuclear warheads, of which 2500 are on a 15 minute alert to be launched at the decision of one human being?

Robert McNamara. The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. 2003

Wat betekent de bewering van columnist Henk Hofland dat 'de oorzaak' van 'misschien wel de vreedzaamste periode die de moderne mensheid gekend heeft' niets anders is dan 'de kernbom,' als we dit vergelijken met de ervaring van de Amerikaanse voormalige minister van Defensie ten tijde van de beruchte Cuba-Crisis dat 'at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war'? Wel, het antwoord is simpel: de bewering van Hofland is die van een beroeps opiniemaker, wiens 'politiek-literair' inzicht dat van de doorsnee westerse propagandist is. Hij gebruikt de logica van een koorddanser die dag en nacht zijn geld verdient door op een wild zwiepend koord op één kilometer hoogte boven een dal te balanceren en desgevraagd verklaart dat hij juist door het koorddansen zijn leven heeft gered. De vraag is daarom: hoe is het te verklaren dat een insider als McNamara op zijn 85ste jaar zegt:

I'm at age where I can look back and derive some conclusions about my actions. My rule has been try to learn, try to understand what happened. Develop the lessons and pass them on,

terwijl de outsider Henk Hofland op zijn 86ste nog steeds niet geleerd heeft dat zijn logica op niets concreets is gebaseerd, behalve dan dat de nucleaire holocaust nog niet heeft plaatsgevonden, met andere woorden: dat de koorddanser nog niet naar beneden is gestort? De enige serieuze verklaring is dat een mainstream-journalist als Hofland betaald wordt om de gesanctioneerde versie van de werkelijkheid te verspreiden. Zou hij het kapitalisme en de NAVO-doctrine van de Mutual Assured Destruction fundamenteel ter discussie hebben gesteld dan was hij nooit door zijn mainstream-collega's uitgeroepen tot de grootste Nederlandse journalist van de twintigste eeuw. Niet alleen zijn aanzien, maar ook zijn inkomen zou dan aanzienlijk zijn gedaald. Daarom blijft de hoogbejaarde de technologische waanzin verspreiden die de Amerikaanse socioloog C. Wright Mills zo treffend verwoordde met de term 'rationality without reason.' Als men maar dwaas genoeg is, schopt de mens het in elk systeem heel erg ver. Tegelijkertijd worden dissidenten waar dan ook gemarginaliseerd, en wel omdat, zoals de historicus Huizinga uiteenzette 

elke organisatie tot zekere perfectie gekomen en in gang gehouden door haar eigen mechanisme de neiging [heeft], haar doel in haar eigen bestaan en functie te verplaatsen…

Organisatie betekent macht, en macht in zichzelf, niet geheiligd door een volwaardig doel, is een kwaad. Zij kan slechts heilzaam worden, indien zij gedragen wordt door persoonlijke zedelijke verantwoordelijkheid, en haar doel heeft buiten en boven de machtswil en het belang der dragers van die macht. Hierbij maakt het geen onderscheid, of het de macht van één of van miljoenen is.

Het is juist op grond van dit besef dat Robert McNamara verklaarde:

We all make mistakes. We know we make mistakes. I don't know any military commander, who is honest, who would say he has not made a mistake. There's a wonderful phrase: 'the fog of war.' What 'the fog of war' means is: war is so complex it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend all the variables. Our judgment, our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.

The major lesson of the Cuban missile crisis is this: the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations. Is it right and proper that today there are 7500 offensive strategic nuclear warheads, of which 2500 are on a 15 minute alert to be launched at the decision of one human being?

Desondanks blijft Henk Hofland met betweterige stelligheid beweren dat juist de politieke en militaire geloofsleer van de Wederzijds Verzekerde Vernietiging de overleving van de soort heeft mogelijk gemaakt. Als we afgaan op Hoflands bewering dan is dankzij het feit dat  één man beslist of de mensheid moet worden uitgeroeid 'de oorzaak' dat we nog steeds leven, en dat van de kernwapen-arsenalen geen enkel 'actueel gevaar' uitgaat. Ook al waarschuwt een insider als McNamara dat 'Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today,' dan nog meent Hofland dat hij precies het tegenovergestelde kan beweren. En hij komt er in Nederland ook nog mee weg, hetgeen de propagandistische rol van de hedendaagse commerciële massamedia zo bedreigend maakt. Hoe misdadig de bewering van Hofland in feite is, wordt duidelijk wanneer u het volgende leest: 

UNITED NATIONS -- Delivering a clarion call for nuclear disarmament, former US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was the focal point of back-to-back sessions at the United Nations on October 17, 2001, including a high level luncheon for key ambassadors and a public presentation before an overflow crowd at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium…

The current United States and NATO nuclear policy is 'absurdly dangerous' Mr. McNamara told some forty ambassadors, dignitaries and representatives from more than twenty countries at the luncheon. The event was hosted by the San Francisco-based Global Security Institute and co-sponsored by the UN Department of Disarmament Affairs, and began with remarks by Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala.

Although Mr. McNamara praised recent pledges by President Bush to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal from its current 7,500 warheads, he said that even an exchange between arsenals reduced to 1,500 warheads each would be catastrophic. Furthermore, he said, the combination of launch-on-warning policy and human error make an inadvertent nuclear war a very real possibility as long as the weapons exist in their current deployment.

Mr. McNamara described the planned response of the United States government in the case of a detected launch of nuclear weapons against the United States. First, he said, the commander of the nuclear forces (who must always be 'within three rings of a telephone') would be informed. He or she must first decide whether the warning was reliable.

'Russia has received many unreliable warnings. We [the United States] receive many unreliable warnings,' Mr. McNamara said. 'You've got to decide whether to launch or not to launch' within only a few minutes.

The commander then makes a recommendation to the president, Mr. McNamara said. 'And then the president is allowed maybe five minutes to think what the hell to do and whom to consult with. The American people? No way. The Congress? No way. The Cabinet? No way. Maybe possibly the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and then he transfers his decision with the codes from that football [the President's brief case containing nuclear weapon launch codes] and they're launched.'

Mr. McNamara blasted this situation and the public ignorance that he believes allows it to continue. 'Now that's what we've gone through for 40 years. And that's where we are today. I think it is absolutely insane and I don't believe any of your people or any of our people who have good judgment would tolerate it if they knew it. They don't know it.'

A longtime advocate of the total elimination of nuclear weapons through verifiable treaty regimes, Mr. McNamara criticized U.S. plans for a ballistic missile defense system on two fronts. First, he said that deployment of such a system would threaten 'strategic stability' by undermining deterrence, a doctrine that Mr. McNamara was instrumental in developing during his tenure as Secretary of Defense.

'Strategic stability does not require nuclear parity,' Mr. McNamara said. 'At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, October '62, we had 5,500 strategic offensive warheads. We believed the Soviets had 350.' However, 'stability existed, because we did not believe we could launch our 5,500 against their 350 and destroy so many of them that so few would be left that they couldn't inflict unacceptable damage. This is absolutely fundamental to security.'

Secondly, Mr. McNamara said, deployment of an elaborate ballistic missile defense system would be a clear indication of 'our determination to maintain large offensive nuclear forces indefinitely.'

Because this intention is a 'direct violation' of Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which binds the five declared nuclear weapons states to eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, it will further undermine the nonproliferation regime, possibly leading to its collapse.

'And if it collapses, we're not going to then have three aircraft bombs killing 7,000 people,' Mr. McNamara said, referring to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. 'We're going to have three nuclear bombs killing 7 million people. Very, very quickly after the collapse of the nonproliferation regime, there would be proliferation,' the result of a 'latent, pent-up demand for nuclear weapons in many, many parts of the world.'

Therefore, Mr. McNamara called for the United States to work with other nations toward nuclear disarmament.

Pakistani Ambassador Shamshad Ahmad… cited Albert Einstein's comment that 'the fourth world war will be fought with rocks and stones.'

'This is a very meaningful message: that man has an innate tendency to fight and to use whatever he can use as a weapon,' Ambassador Ahmad said. 'So the best and the ideal solution is to root out the causes of conflict.'

However, Ambassador Ahmad said, the United Nations is 'faring no better' than Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations at this task.

Mr. McNamara concurred with Ambassador Ahmad's assessment and called for a sweeping change of the United Nation's structure to make it 'an effective power in the world.'

The American people 'are not yet ready to cede sovereignty as they see it to the UN,' Mr. McNamara said. Nevertheless, 'we're going to have to move in that way, and it requires all of us to help do it.'

http://gsinstitute.org/blogs/event-reports/robert-s-mcnamara-calls-for-nuclear-disarmament-at-united-nations 

Robert F. Kennedy was able to negotiate with the Soviets and the missiles were pulled out of Cuba and returned to the Soviet Union.  The agreement involved that the US remove its missiles from Turkey and Italy and that the US would not attack Cuba.  It also led to a hotline being placed between Washington DC and Moscow so that future problems could be discussed between the two countries.

Ondanks de feiten van deskundigen die door eigen ervaring zijn wijs geworden, blijft de nestor van de Nederlandse journalistiek publiekelijk zijn dwaasheden verkondigen. Wat betreft kernwapens en de morele superioriteit van het Westen verschillen Hoflands veronderstellingen niet wezenlijk van die van de Amerikaanse neoconservatieven als Leo Strauss, waarbij tevens hun beider minachting voor het 'consumerende volk' opvalt, en hun overtuiging dat de taak van de 'politiek-literaire elite' het beschermen is van de elite-belangen. Omdat Strauss' opvattingen zo illustrerend zijn voor de vaak onuitgesproken geestelijke voedingsbodem van het merendeel der mainstream-opiniemakers besteed ik wat uitgebreider aandacht aan hem:

The term 'neoconservative' refers to those who made the ideological journey from the anti-Stalinist (largely Trotsky) Left to the camp of American conservatism. Neoconservatives frequently advocate the "assertive" promotion of democracy and promotion of 'American national interest' in international affairs including by means of military force. The movement had its intellectual roots in the monthly review magazine Commentary. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, claims that most influential neoconservatives refer explicitly to the theoretical ideas in the philosophy of Leo Strauss (1899–1973)…

Neoconservatism draws on several intellectual traditions. The students of political science Professor Leo Strauss (1899–1973) comprised one major group. Eugene Sheppard notes that, 'Much scholarship tends to understand Strauss as an inspirational founder of American neoconservatism.' […] For Strauss, the American awareness of ineradicable evil in human nature, and hence the need for morality, was a beneficial outgrowth of the premodern Western tradition… Strauss influenced Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, editor John Podhoretz, and military strategist Paul Wolfowitz…

Strauss noted that thinkers of the first rank, going back to Plato, had raised the problem of whether good and effective politicians could be completely truthful and still achieve the necessary ends of their society. By implication, Strauss asks his readers to consider whether it is true that noble lies have no role at all to play in uniting and guiding the polis. Are myths needed to give people meaning and purpose and to ensure a stable society? Or can men dedicated to relentlessly examining, in Nietzsche's language, those 'deadly truths,' flourish freely? Thus, is there a limit to the political, and what can be known absolutely?[…] Seymour Hersh also claims that Strauss endorsed noble lies: myths used by political leaders seeking to maintain a cohesive society. In The Power of Nightmares, documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis opines that 'Strauss believed it was for politicians to assert powerful and inspiring myths that everyone could believe in. They might not be true, but they were necessary illusions. One of these was religion; the other was the myth of the nation.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism

In her book, Leo Strauss and the American Right, Shadia Drury, professor of political theory at the University of Calgary, Canada, names current politicians, political advisers, administration and Supreme Court officials, who were followers of the teachings of… Leo Strauss.

Leo Strauss (1899- 1973) was a philosopher at the University of Chicago (built by Rockefeller money) where he taught many of those currently involved in the US administration…

According to Jeffery Steinberg in Executive Intelligence review: 'A review of Leo Strauss' career reveals why the label ''Straussian'' carries some very filthy implications. Although nominally a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany (he actually left for a better position abroad, on the warm recommendation of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt), Strauss was an unabashed proponent of the three most notorious shapers of the Nazi philosophy: Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt. Recent biographies have revealed the depth of Heidegger's enthusiasm for Hitler and Nazism.

The hallmark of Strauss's approach to philosophy was his hatred of the modern world, his belief in a totalitarian system, run by ''philosophers'' who rejected all universal principles of natural law, but saw their mission as absolute rulers, who lied and deceived a foolish ''populist'' mass, and used both religion and politics as a means of disseminating myths that kept the general population in clueless servitude.'

Professor Shadia Drury provides a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of the neocons 'Leo Strauss was a great believer in the efficacy and usefulness of lies in politics. Public support for the Iraq war rested on lies about Iraq posing an imminent threat to the United States - the business about weapons of mass destruction and a fictitious alliance between al-Qaeda and the Iraq regime. Now that the lies have been exposed, Paul Wolfowitz [Straussian] and others in the war party are denying that these were the real reasons for the war.

The idea that Strauss was a great defender of liberal democracy is laughable. I suppose that Strauss's disciples consider it a noble lie. Yet many in the media have been gullible enough to believe it. The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treasures would be like throwing pearls before swine. A second fundamental of Strauss's ancients has to do with their insistence on the need for secrecy and the necessity of lies. In his book Persecution and the Art of Writing, Strauss outlines why secrecy is necessary. He argues that the wise must conceal their views for two reasons - to spare the people's feelings and to protect the elite from possible reprisals. The people will not be happy to learn that there is only one natural right - the right of the superior to rule over the inferior, the master over the slave and the wise few over the vulgar many.

I never imagined when I wrote my first book on Strauss that the unscrupulous elite that he elevates would ever come so close to political power, nor that the ominous tyranny of the wise would ever come so close to being realized in the political life of a great nation like the United States. But fear is the greatest ally of tyranny.'

Shadia Drury is by no means alone in her desperate concern. Francis A. Boyle, Professor of Law, University of Illinois law school writes: 'I entered the University of Chicago in September of 1968 shortly after Strauss had retired. But I was trained in Chicago's Political Science Department by Strauss's foremost protégé, co-author, and literary executor Joseph Cropsey. Based upon my personal experience as an alumnus of Chicago I concur completely with Professor Drury's devastating critique of Strauss. I also agree with her penetrating analysis of the degradation of the American political process by Chicago's Straussian cabal.

Chicago routinely trained me and numerous other students to become ruthless and unprincipled Machiavellians. That is precisely why so many neophyte neo-con students gravitated towards the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago became the ''brains'' behind the Bush Jr. Empire and his Ashcroft Police State. Attorney General John Ashcroft received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1967. Many of his 'lawyers' at the Department of Injustice [sic] are members of the right-wing, racist, bigoted, reactionary, and totalitarian Federalist Society, which originated in part at the University of Chicago.

According to his own public estimate and boast before the American Enterprise Institute, President Bush Jr. hired about 20 Straussians to occupy key positions in his administration Just recently the University of Chicago officially celebrated its Bush Jr. Straussian cabal. Only the University of Chicago would have the Orwellian gall to publicly claim that Strauss and Bloom [a Strauss protégé] cared one whit about democracy let alone comprehend the ''ideals of democracy''.'  

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7553.htm

Voor alle duidelijkheid: ik stel hier niet dat Henk Hofland een aanhanger van Leo Strauss is. Wat ik probeer duidelijk te maken is dat zijn 'politiek-literaire elite'-opvattingen uit dezelfde troebele bron komen als die van Leo Strauss, te weten het diep geworteld dédain voor de massa en  een fundamenteel wantrouwen tegen een ware democratie. Hun mens- en wereldbeeld heeft een totalitair aspect, dat overigens voor de elite in het algemeen geldt.  Omdat ze zich psychisch en emotioneel superieur voelt gaat de kapitalistische intelligentsia ervan uit dat het volk naar haar dient te luisteren. Gebeurt dit niet, dan verliest deze elite haar functie en haar raison d'être. Een vuilnisman is onmisbaar voor iedereen, maar de opiniemaker is alleen voor de rijke en machtige onmisbaar, de rest kan hem missen als kiespijn. Zijn voornaamste taak is het beschermen van de belangen van de economische en politieke elite. Die belangen kunnen door een parlementaire democratie worden beschermd, maar ook door een totalitair systeem, én door 'inverted totalitarianism,' zoals de Amerikaanse politiek filosoof, de emeritus hoogleraar van Princeton University, Sheldon Wolin, het huidige systeem noemt. In zijn boek Democracy Inc. Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (2008) wees hij op het volgende:

Paradoxically, while totalitarian regimes had a strong popular element, their principal institutions were self-consciously antidemocratic. They were notorious for trumpeting the 'leadership principle' (Führerprinzip), legitimizing the predominance of elites, and elevating the status of the 'loyal follower.' Power was monopolized, not shared. In addition to unflinching loyalty a strict orthodoxy was required of those who aspired to powerful positions in the hierarchy; as we would say today, they had 'to stay on message.' Further, in both Italy and Germany the most powerful social and economic classes, as well as many of the members of the political elites, were hostile to democracy and, at best, lukewarm to liberalism. Especially potent was the combination of a pre-political demos and highly self-conscious, resentful elites convinced of their natural right to rule. Unlike the political elites of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the elites who gravitated toward totalitarianism were less fearful of the mass than contemptuous of it gullibility.

The denial that democracy could have spawned a totalitarian regime assumes that a 'healthy' democracy would abhor a Nazi-style dictatorship and resist being its accomplice. In one sense, a definitional or conceptual one, a true democracy and a dictatorship are mutually exclusive. Our thesis, however, is this: it is possible for a form of totalitarianism, different from the classical one, to evolve from a putatively 'strong democracy' instead of a 'failed' one. A weak democracy that fails, such as that of Weimar, might end in classical totalitarianism, while a failed strong democracy might lead to inverted totalitarianism. The latter possibility becomes greater if the strong democracy is shallower than advertised — and greater still if, that democracy was acknowledged rather than embraced by elites. 

En precies dat zien we nu zich voor onze ogen voltrekken. Een kenmerkend voorbeeld van hetgeen Wolin beschrijft is het bericht van vandaag, woensdag 26 maart 2014, op de voorpagina van de International New York Times dat als kop heeft 'Obama reassures NATO,' en vervolgens meldt dat 'U.S. will act to counter threats to alliance but rejects force in Crimea,' en dat

President Obama vowed on Tuesday that the United States would use its military to come to the defense of any NATO country that is threatened, sending a warning to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia about the consequences of further aggression along the border with Eastern Europa.

Het is een karakteristiek voorbeeld van niet alleen 'inverted totalitarianism' maar ook van een 'inverted reality' die een virtuele werkelijkheid heeft geschapen. Een schijnwereld die door de politieke en economische elite en hun woordvoerders in de mainstream-media kunstmatig in leven wordt gehouden. Het is de wereld op haar kop, een schijn-democratie die niet langer gelegitimeerd kan worden, waardoor de macht ook geen poging meer waagt om geloofwaardig over te komen, en de mainstream-journalistiek niet weet wat hun publiek voelt, zonder dat ze dit als gemis ervaart. Niets maakt meer uit in een barokke tijd. De democratie bestaat alleen nog in naam, of zoals Wolin stelt 'that democracy was acknowledged rather than embraced by elites.' De bevolking wordt verteld dat de politieke leider van de westerse wereld, die doet wat Wall Street verordonneert, de 'NATO geruststelt' door Rusland te bedreigen. Heeft één van de parlementen van de aangesloten NAVO-landen Obama verzocht om Rusland aan te vallen? Nee. Sterker nog: de burgers van de Europese Unie zien niet in 'Poetin' een bedreiging van haar bestaan, maar in de eigen democratisch gekozen politici die al jarenlang op de bevolking bezuinigen om de neoliberale elite nog rijker te maken, zoals uit wetenschappelijk onderzoek blijkt. Met andere woorden: Obama mag dan wel de economische en militaire elite 'geruststellen' met zijn dreigende taal, maar de Europese en Amerikaanse bevolking ziet er alleen maar een bevestiging in dat de politieke elite het militair industrieel complex steunt, ten koste van de meerderheid der burgers. De journalisten mogen dan wel menen dat de massa te stupide is om te beseffen dat voortdurende oorlogsvoering niet ten koste gaat van onderwijs, gezondheidszorg, sociale voorzieningen, volkshuisvesting, bejaardenzorg etcetera, maar die veronderstelling toont slechts aan hoever de journalistiek van de werkelijkheid is afgedreven. 


Bovendien beseft de bevolking beter dan de journalisten dat na ruim een decennium van massaal geweld onder aanvoering van de VS de westerse, miljarden kostende, interventies telkens weer in totale chaos eindigen. Hoewel opiniemaker Hofland meent dat het volk geen nieuwe militaire avonturen wil, omdat het geen 'vaderlandse eerzucht en strijdlust' heeft, is de werkelijkheid dat de doorsnee mens, in tegenstelling tot Hofland, zijn gezond verstand laat spreken en zich dus afvraagt waarom de NAVO moet worden 'gerustgesteld'? Immers: wie wil er eigenlijk oorlog? Niet de parlementen, die niet geraadpleegd zijn, niet de bevolkingen van de NAVO-landen, die ook niet gehoord zijn, dus wie dan wel? Geert Mak's 'Brussel' waar 'Jorwerd' zijn bestaansrecht aan moet ontlenen? Wie is 'Brussel' anders dan de neoliberale elite, die er de overgrote meerderheid van de 20.000 lobbyisten naar toe gestuurd heeft? Wie is de NAVO? En namens wie spreekt de 'NAVO'? Waarom wordt er een spelletje gespeeld met de burgers? Ik kan maar één reden verzinnen: om de economische elite tevreden te stellen door een gewapend conflict niet uit te sluiten, en oorlog is goed voor business en verlegt de aandacht van de binnenlandse problemen, wat gunstig is voor de macht, nu de politiek van de elite door een toenemend aantal burgers ter discussie wordt gesteld. Het feit dat de westerse massamedia Rusland 'agressie' verwijten, nadat westerse staten met miljarden dollars en euro's het straatgeweld van de zogeheten 'democratische oppositie' in Kiev financierden om de democratisch gekozen regering ten val te brengen, is een illustratie van de wijze waarop 'inverted totalitarianism' in de praktijk werkt. Uit naam van de democratie wordt de democratie om zeep geholpen, en zijn nu in Oekraïne miljardairs aan de macht gekomen, en heeft de Europese Commissie van 'Geen Jorwerd zonder Brussel' alvast 11 miljard euro aan belastinggeld doorgesluisd naar de niet democratisch gekozen neoliberale elite in Kiev, terwijl de bezuinigingen op de eigen Europese en Amerikaanse bevolking gewoon doorgaan. Ondertussen houdt de mainstream-journalistiek de mythe hoog dat het Westen de 'democratie' en de mensenrechten beschermt, en weigert de 'vrije pers' in te gaan op de vraag waarom Washington 5 miljard uittrok om in Oekraïne een regime-change te forceren, terwijl dat geld beter gebruikt had kunnen worden voor de eigen bevolking van wie nu bekend is dat

Half of America is In or Near Poverty

Published: Monday 24 March 2014

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that without food stamps and other safety net initiatives, the poverty rate would be double the official rate... The bottom half of America own just 1.1 percent of the country's wealth, or about $793 billion, which is the same amount owned by the 30 richest Americans. ZERO wealth is owned by approximately the bottom 47 percent.

http://www.nationofchange.org/more-evidence-half-america-or-near-poverty-1395672039

En hoewel de scepsis onder de westerse bevolking blijft toenemen terwijl het vertrouwen in de politiek en de massamedia almaar blijft dalen, kan het systeem van 'inverted totalitarianism' niet anders dan de werkelijkheid negeren. Opvallend daarbij is datgene wat professor Sheldon Wolin als volgt omschreef:

Unlike the political elites of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the elites who gravitated toward totalitarianism were less fearful of the mass than contemptuous of it gullibility.

Dit verklaart ook waarom opiniemakers als Henk Hofland zo verontwaardigd en zelfs verbolgen reageren op het feit dat, ik citeer hem:

het grote publiek minder dan ooit geneigd [is] om de gezagsdragers op hun woord te geloven. De nieuwe, geëmancipeerde internetgebruiker is ervan overtuigd dat hij, ongeacht zijn kennis van zaken, in staat is om zijn eigen conclusies te trekken,

terwijl toch duidelijk dient te zijn dat hij als 'De Beste in zijn Vak' de aangewezen persoon is om het publiek te vertellen binnen welke neoliberale context de werkelijkheid zich voltrekt. Want dames en heren, laten we eerlijk zijn, nu de éminence grise van de polderpers niet langer meer het monopolie op de berichtgeving en daarmee op de waarheidsbepaling in handen heeft voelen

Bestuurders zich in het nauw gedreven, aan de ene kant doordat het onvermijdelijke internet ook een middel tot voorbarige openbaarheid kan zijn, aan de andere kant doordat ze daarmee worden uitgeleverd aan het onmiddellijke oordeel van de dan plotseling goedgelovige massa. De verborgen zwakte van internet is dat het oorzaak kan zijn van een laaiende volkswoede,

aldus Hofland zelf, de voornaamste woordvoerder van het establishment. Inderdaad, Wolin heeft zelfs letterlijk gelijk wanneer hij constateert dat 'de elites die aangetrokken werden tot het totalitarisme waren niet zozeer bang voor de massa maar neerbuigend over haar goedgelovigheid.' Niet het systeem van culturele deprivatie waarop het neoliberalisme steunt is de oorzaak van wat Hofland de 'plotseling goedgelovige massa,' betitelt, maar volgens hem 'internet,' oftewel 'het middel tot voorbarige openbaarheid' waardoor 'bestuurders zich in het nauw gedreven' voelen en 'uitgeleverd worden aan het onmiddellijke oordeel van de dan plotseling goedgelovige massa.'

Hofland heeft gelijk, zonder te beseffen hoe gelijk hij heeft: internet, dat de democratisering van de berichtgeving op gang heeft gebracht, is een levensgevaarlijke bedreiging van de neoliberale democratie die het afgelopen decennium illegale oorlogen en grootscheepse bloedbaden legitimeerde en de handel in lucht sanctioneerde tot die zwendel in 2008 definitief explodeerde en de rekening gepresenteerd werd aan de belastingbetalende burger. Privatizing the profits and socializing the costs, oftewel staatsuitkeringen voor de rijken. En in plaats van zich beschaamd afwenden hebben de vlerken in de journalistiek ook nog het hoogste woord. De gekte bereikt nu een dieptepunt. Het enige positieve aan deze ontwikkeling is dat de Hoflanden, de Makken en al die andere dwazen ineens gezien worden voor wat ze zijn: de keizer zonder kleren. Piemelnaakt paraderen ze aan ons voorbij, er heilig van overtuigd dat ze vorstelijk gekleed gaan. Ze hebben nog niet echt door dat ze naakt zijn. Omdat ze nooit gedwongen zijn geweest werkelijk na te denken en werkelijk te kijken wat er gebeurt, blijven ze evenwel wanhopig doorparaderen, en zijn ze het vlees geworden absurdisme geworden. Hoe nu verder? Volgende keer meer. 

'My fellow Americans, with a heavy heart, and in necessary fulfillment of my oath of office': How JFK would have announced WW3 if the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone wrong

• 'If we go in, we go in hard': Cold War documents found in stash of Robert F Kennedy's papers
• Other revelations include a mafia-assisted plot to kill Fidel Castro
• ... And RFK also found time to doodle in the margins

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 23:11 GMT, 15 October 2012 | UPDATED: 12:36 GMT, 16 October 2012

President John F Kennedy had a speech prepared in October 1962 announcing to the American people a full scale invasion of Cuba, it has been revealed.

He planned to deliver the speech if Soviet ships carrying strategic nuclear missiles reached the island, according to papers released from Robert F Kennedy’s personal files by the John F Kennedy Presidential Library.

The Cuban Missile Crisis began 50 years ago this week, but even now the world is still learning just how close it was to nuclear Armageddon during those 13 tense days. 

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Dire times: President John F Kennedy (right) is seen with his brother and closest confidant Robert F Kennedy at the White House before the crisis began in October 1962

'My fellow Americans, with a heavy heart, and in necessary fulfillment of my oath of office, I have ordered - and the United States Air Force has now carried out - military operations with conventional weapons only, to remove a major nuclear weapons build-up from the soil of Cuba,' read a draft speech JFK planned to read. 

Those remarks were among the many private thoughts revealed in new papers released by the estate of Robert F Kennedy, who served as Attorney General and his brother's closest confidant during the missile crisis. 

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Harvard University professor and Cuban Missile Crisis scholar Graham Allison writes in the Christian Science Monitor that an American strike would have been an almost certain precursor to World War III, which would have cost hundreds of millions of lives - at least. 

RFK detailed a plan offered by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to bomb Cuba with 500 sorties and then invade with 90,000 American troops if Soviet ships broke a blockade and brought strategic nuclear missiles to the nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

'If we go in, we go in hard,' RFK wrote. 

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Intelligence: This is the missile base the U.S. military planned to strike

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Brink of war: The National Security Council provided JFK's key advice during the missile crisis, though RFK said only his brother was able to lead the world away from the edge of disaster

RFK scribbled notes during a meeting about a possible airstrike on Cuba. 'Invasion must follow!!' was McNamara's message.

WEAPONS SPARKED TERROR WITHOUT EVER BEING FIRED

The strategic nature of the Russians' nuclear weapons was one of the reasons why their close proximity caused such alarm at the White House.

Strategic nuclear weapons are used to attack, as their name suggests, particular strategic targets, such as military installations, missile command centers or cities.

Tactical nuclear weapons tend to be smaller devices that are used on the battlefield.

Professor Allison believes that the Russians would have responded to an invasion with tactical nuclear rockets - striking American ships and troops.

Americans had no knowledge that these smaller nuclear weapons were already on the island. 

The Americans would have likely used nuclear weapons of their own, almost certainly drawing in a further Soviet nuclear response. 

RFK's papers reveal that outcome didn't happen only because JFK and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev both realized the severity of what was coming. 

The Soviet ships carrying missiles to Cuba turned back thanks to a series of public, private and secret concessions - including the withdrawal of NATO missiles from Turkey. 

INSIDE THE NOTES: KILLING CASTRO AND DOODLES OF THE LIBERTY BELL

Though the documents, released just shy of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, don't rewrite Cold War history, they do provide insight into the personal thoughts of the era's key figures, historians say.

Kennedy advised John F. Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the missile crisis, key moments during his brother's presidency.

His title as attorney general ‘disguised his real position, which was the closest adviser to the president and the president's confidant and the person the president trusted most,’ said journalist and historian Michael Dobbs, who blogs for Foreign Policy.

‘That's the interesting point of this, that he kind of reflects his brother's thinking.’

The seven boxes of newly released material include telegrams, reports, meeting transcripts and handwritten notes by Kennedy, some with doodles and quotes in the margins.

Historical marginalia: Robert Kennedy doodled the Liberty Bell and wrote down a quote from a Polish World War II memorial in Italy

‘It gives you a sort of insight into what was on his mind, what he doodled,’ Dobbs said. ‘It's interesting from a human perspective.’

One page, sandwiched between lined pages of notes on the Bay of Pigs invasion, includes a sketch of the Liberty Bell with a summarized quote from a Polish World War II memorial in Italy.

‘We the Soldiers of Poland for your liberty and ours give our souls to god, our bodies to Italy and our hearts to Poland,’ Kennedy wrote in pencil.

The 1961 botched invasion sought to oust communists with the help of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and veiled U.S. support. More than 100 members of the CIA-sponsored invasion team were killed and many were captured by Cuban forces.

One CIA document offers a profile of Castro: It calls him intelligent but ‘not very stable’ and ‘touchy, impatient and rash.’

Another outlines plans to assassinate Castro, including a 1964 plan with connections to the Mafia.

Key moments: In his role as attorney general between 1961 and 1964, RFK (pictured) advised his brother President John F. Kennedy during the Bay of Pigs invasion and the missile crisis

Nuclear fears: This newspaper map from the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis shows the distances from Cuba of various cities on the North American Continent

The mob and ‘patriotic Cuban exiles’ eventually settled on a payment of $100,000 for assassinating Castro, $20,000 for his brother Raul and $20,000 for revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, plus $2,500 for expenses.

Another prominent thread throughout the documents is the 13-day crisis over Soviet missiles in Cuba.

On one white page from a meeting on October 16, 1962, the first day of the crisis, Kennedy wrote out two columns: proponents of a blockade against Cuba and supporters of a military strike.

‘It's interesting to see in his handwriting who's on which side,’ Dobbs said.

The blockade won out.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2218288/Cuban-Missile-Crisis-Robert-Kennedys-notes-reveal-US-invasion-plans-brought-WWIII.html#ixzz2x4vxM2E5 

Zowel in West-Europa als in Amerika zijn bij een zeer groot deel van het publiek de vaderlandslievende eerzucht en de strijdlust verloren gegaan. 

Henk Hofland. Mondiale krachtmeting. 12 maart 2014