George Orwell explained by former KGB defector--useful idiots

While rummaging aroud YouTube today I came across an intriguiging video dating to the "end" of the Cold War, or so we are lead to believe. Two years ago, I would have brushed aside the critique of the U.S. body politic as a cynical, self-serving, self-aggrandizing statement by one Yuri Bezmenov

Bezmenov stated that he was also instructed not to waste time with idealistic leftists, as these would become disillusioned, bitter, and adversarial when they realized the true nature of Soviet Communism. To his surprise, he discovered that many such were listed for execution once the Soviets achieved control. Instead, Bezmenov was encouraged to recruit the persons in large circulation, established conservative media, rich filmmakers, intellectuals in academic circles, and cynical, ego-centric people who lacked moral principles.

Read that paragraph from Wikipedia again: one of the to-be-cultivated classes of individuals were

cynical, ego-centric people who lacked moral principles.

Does that description resonate with anyone here at c99? For a more in depth insight as to what the covert machinations described by Bezmenov,[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLqHv0xgOlc] watch this video.

Do not be deceived by the sexist title, this interview has NOTHING to do with misogyny. It does pertain to the present situation.

Let us be clear on salient facts, after attending to Bezmenov's timeline for governmental undermining and destabilization. This video is long, but well worth full viewing.

The United States is on the verge of a constitutional crisis as we approach a perfect storm brewing th shatter this nation as we know it or would hope it to become:
1. The impending nomination of not one, but two major party presidential candidates, who precisely fulfill Bezmenov's criterion: cynical, ego-centric people who lacked moral principles. The naming of names here would be purely rhetorical at this point.
2. Both presumptive presidential aspirants ARE under Federal investigation into illegal (and in the case of one candidate, potentially treasonous) activities.
3. Both potential candidates are backed by fanatical "true believers", whose confirmation biases are so strong that they fulfill another of Bezmenov's critical points: followers who refuse to acknowledge facts.
4. Wide spread government corruption, thanks to Citizens United.
5. Newly unearthed governmental incompetency as revealed by Emailgate 2.0, involving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
6. Obvious acquiescnce to, if not overt endorsement of mis-handling of top secret government documents by the Nation's Chief Executive.
7. A crippled supreme court, by virtue of its 4 against 4 ideological standoff compounded by lack of a ninth Justice to decide closely held political decisions. A 4-4 tie relating to new matters of law, as opposed to upholding or reversing Appellate Court jugments, completely negates the value of the Judiciary.
8. A completely corrupt Congress, bought and paid-for by Big Money. They don't even have the courage to enact meaningful gun control legislation, amongst many other issues.
9. The spectre of break-up of the two main parties within the next five months.

Watch this video. Scoff if you will. Cringe if you will. But be very, very alarmed.

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of us here will be heading to the gallows. But the sheep over at some other places will be just fine. Been nice knowing ya Ed...

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in Vilnius, Lithuania.
I can't even explain it. Torture. Psy ops. Executions. People on that tour who had been in combat in Viet Nam were unable to finish the tour, unable to speak.
I will absolutely watch this film. Don't care how long it is.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Our crisis and 5 seconds was 9-11, ya think?

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

IowanX's picture

This IS an interesting video, and thanks for sharing it. But it wasn't Mondale, and it wasn't Andropov. It was Reagan and Gorbechov, so the 20 years of "disillusionment" worked both ways...and "America won". Gorbechov got kicked out, Yeltsin came in and allowed the Soviet Union to be broken up and looted (privatized) with the advice of our Neoliberals from Harvard. George H.w. Bush promised not to move NATO to Russia's doorstep, but we lied. So the Russians have elected Putin, then Medvedev, then Putin, whose approval rate is above 80% in Russia. I believe Russians know the stakes about Western aggression, while Americans have NO idea what NATO is doing in our name. We just announced "NATO" will be putting four Divisions on Russia's border this week, to combat their "aggression". I call BS.

I will say that Mr. Bezmenov's characterization of stages in political change are not wrong. Stage 1: Demoralization--How about increasing productivity for America with no wage gains from it for the past two generations? That's demoralization, so that work is done; but it was done by American capitalism, and the "shareholder value" model that had become the mantra to enable corporate leaders to become the one-tenth of one percent, and following the meltdown, the Fed's complicity with free money and no prosecutions for too-big-to-fail banks.

Stage 2: Destabilization--2-5 years. The essentials fall apart--the economy, foreign relations, defense systems. Interesting triad, because since the 2008 meltdown, our economy is barely treading water according to official numbers, but we know, in the heartland and elsewhere it's worse than that, as in Greece and southern parts of Europe. Right wing parties are on the rise here and in Europe, and in South America, where Brazil may be structurally unable to hold an Olympics they probably "bought" from the OEC. Venezuela under economic attack, and others.

Stage 3: Crisis--Maybe 6 months. There are too many countries in "crisis" to name, almost all of them intentionally de-stabilized by the US, and we appear to have no strategy to get these countries in crisis to some form of stability. In fact, our recent history suggests that crisis is good for the MIC, so let's let millions suffer, because one thing is sure, they are not going to be on-shored onto America. I would suggest it's not too hard to imagine that in a war situation--which we are cooking up with Russia, for insane reasons--that our Japanese "Internment camps"--or worse--might befall Islamic people from the Mid-East who have or will land on European soil. The right wing is brewing in Europe, because of the blowback from our Middle East adventures in our never-ending quest for oil.

America too is facing a Crisis. It's called the 2016 Presidential Election. This election has shown WAY too many Americans just how messed up our political process is. The R's, because of their (ironically misplaced) Tea Party funding have now got a candidate who they can't get rid of, and who Party Leaders can't support, because he's not part of the R club, and he speaks inconvenient truths, as in America doesn't/can't/won't "win wars"--as if that is possible these days. We're in it to sell arms!

The D's, obviously, have thrown up on their shoes, in public, and the D' fundraising/coronation racket has been exposed to us blue-eyed, blond headed, "middle class" Democrats in a way we cannot ignore. What Bernie Sanders did was a miracle, IMO, and he did it the old-fashioned way--giving speeches and people showed up. He also got tech help, and that raised enough money to compete with the Clinton machine, thereby disproving the DLC myth that D's can only win if D's are co-opted. And I'm not conceding this Presidential race until Sanders does.

Stage 4: Normilization. I don't think this election will lay to rest the "Crisis" part of the deal. It's likely, IMO, that Bernie will not be the Democratic nominee. (But we shall see). I'll wait for polling to determine if Bernie will decide whether or not to run as a Green--but given the seeming evidence that elections can be rigged pretty easily, I would expect that won't be his choice. Assuming a Trump/Hillary election, I think "normilization" is impossible. The D's will claim all is good, but the Hillary recession (or the Trump recession) will call claims into question. Bernie's answers will look even better in retrospect.

I believe Bernie is doing us a tremendous favor as a [temporary] leader. His link has garnered over 10K activists looking to get involved in local and regional politics, and that is what it will take. Bernie is not selling or giving his list to the Democratic National Committee. Instead, he's attempting to PROLONGUE our "Crisis" period, to call out the class, power, and race distinctions, in a proper "Democratic Socialist" way, and build a program where better elected officials make better, more just choices, and given his openness to Modern Monetary Theory, it's an affordable program as well.

Sorry for the super-long comment. I just had to get that off my chest, and your post gave me a structure to do it.

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Alligator Ed's picture

IowanX, you have shown the duality of the convergent processes of disinformation, destabilization, crisis, and normalization. My essay only looked at the issue from the Soviet (er, Russian) point of view. the plotting and counter-plotting are ongoing. Russia is being choked by boycotts. The U.S. is being from a cancer growing with the body politic. When one has cancer, the last thing one wants to do is expend resources (war) rather than tend to self-defense (meaning societal cleansing, not militaristic expansion). The U.S. is at an unstable, unsustainable position, as I hope my list of points explained. The crisis is coming closer to realization every passing day. If the Democratic Party continues to rob the people of the people's choice (Bernie Sanders) combined with Trump's Hatred Party, there very well may be blood in the streets. The 99% are just waking up to totally screwed and sold out they have been. Five months will be adequate time for this seething ferment to escape the kettle and infiltrate the entire house. Like black mold, once the overflow escapes confinement, that house is no longer reparable nor habitable.

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mimi's picture

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mimi's picture

it was not fair to say that without explanations. And the explanations would not be that good either. I take that back. And will redact my comment to something more acceptable.

For some reason that KGB guy sounded to me like the "big brother" of a David Brock-style con-artist double talker. Sorry, totally unacceptable, but that just blew my mind.

Actually I learned a lot during this thread's disputes and through your diary.

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yellopig's picture

Do you agree with that guy? Maybe 30 years ago there was some impending crisis, but I think we missed it. And then the Soviet Union fell, and communism was discredited, yada yada.

But I don't see us moving toward Marxist-style communism here. Maybe toward fascism, but not communism. Even the "democratic socialists" aren't going anywhere near the full soviet communism they had at that time.

He actually sounds like one of those neoliberals, where the market is god.

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“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett

Alligator Ed's picture

what you think it is--or was. There never has been Soviet communism. Never. What you mis-interpret as communism is fascism--state-owned corporations, directed by the State, for the benefit not of the populace, but for the Party Elite. Modern China is no more communistic than a schoolyard sandbox. For the common good? Never! For the people? Never! Call Bezmenov whatever you like (you like the term neoliberal, fine, so be it). Tell me with a straight face that the United States is wading into the river of Fascism--the water just hasn't got high enough to endanger your breathing. Where do you think we will be in 8 years after either Hillary or Trump? Will it be a worker's paradise? With Hillary, we will get bread and circuses. With Trump, we will get concentration camps.

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WindDancer13's picture

under HRC. There is the private prison industry that needs to be fed.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

mimi's picture

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that the police forces are being militarized?

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dfarrah

mimi's picture

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WindDancer13's picture

But what is the purpose?

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

mimi's picture

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mimi's picture

calm. The real danger to the "empire" would be if Veterans and soldiers would revolt. So, I think that they are all hired as contractors to keep them under salary and put them in jobs they have been trained for. It's awful, but I guess the only way to hold them "under control". More dangerous would it be, if they start to show their contempt for the MIC and privatized police forces. Coups usually happen from within the military. I guess nobody wants that to happen.

I could be totally wrong. I don't understand the world anymore. It's too confusing. I hate it and wished often I hadn't read many things I do read.

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be possible that the plan is to use these militarized forces for population control here in the US?

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dfarrah

WindDancer13's picture

America's shameful 'prison camps'

Certainly these reforms are welcome, but they do not go nearly far enough. Our immigration detention system is a national disgrace, and should be abolished. It is costly, wasteful and inhumane. Worst of all, it flies in the face of American values of justice.

To be clear, "immigration detention" is really a euphemism for the network of roughly 250 prisons and jails around the country that house detainees.

If it is okay to imprison people (including children) who have only crossed a border but otherwise have done nothing wrong, then why not those who disagree with you?

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

mimi's picture

to Nazi Germany's concentration camps. Whatever your shameful "Prison Camps" are right now, which you are comparing to (Nazi) concentration camps, it's a huge mistake to make this comparison, imo, and has manipulative qualities. (Aside from a Godwin violation I would even approve of in this case here).

You just open up the discussion and with it the whole site to be seen as some lunatics talking among themselves. I don't like that. I do not mind the criticism of the militarization of the police and its treatment of illegal immigrants who cross the border in prison camps. It's obviously correct to do so.

That doesn't mean you have to hyper up your wording and use the word "concentration camps". To me that word is reserved to Nazi Germany's labor and death camps in which Jews were systematically murdered, ie the holocaust.

To say that you could imagine that to happen under Clinton is just an outrageous failure and it hurts this site, imo.

And your last question is purely rhetorical. Of course it's not ok.

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WindDancer13's picture

Look at the term concentration camp:

a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc., especially any of the camps established by the Nazis prior to and during World War II for the confinement and persecution of prisoners.

Or this description:

Concentration camp, internment centre for political prisoners and members of national or minority groups who are confined for reasons of state security, exploitation, or punishment, usually by executive decree or military order. Persons are placed in such camps often on the basis of identification with a particular ethnic or political group rather than as individuals and without benefit either of indictment or fair trial.

How is Guantanamo Bay not a concentration camp? How are our prisons not becoming places to house minorities?

If we limit ourselves because we don't like the term based on past experiences, we will not see what is happening until it is way too late. Just because people don't like the term or have an emotional response to it doesn't make it any less real. It also ignores the fact that the US has a history of using concentration/internment camps. What was the purpose of herding Native Americans onto reservations? Calling them "internment camps" when the US placed hundreds of thousands of US citizens of Japanese descent does't make them any less a concentration camp. Committing political dissidents to prison sentences has no less an effect than placing them in a concentration camp. Isolating people into ghettos?

. . .

The purpose of rhetorical questions is often to get people to think of implications they have not thought about before. As such they are sometimes used as teaching tools.

In literature, rhetorical questions can be a very powerful persuasive or thought-provoking tool. They can be humorous, obvious, or reflective.

How is attacking the question addressing or solving the problem?

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If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Pluto's Republic's picture

Americans invented concentration camps to corral the survivors of the US continent-wide genocide of Native Americans. The American version is still in use today.

The US has aways had working concentration camps.

Genocides don't work without them.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
WindDancer13's picture

the UK's Boer Wars.

The use of concentration camps/internment camps/detention centers have a long and world-wide history. This article lists examples from just the modern world: List of concentration and internment camps Some had the purpose of genocide; others did not, but the effect was generally the same.

By the way, FDR referred to the internment camps as concentration camps.

They were forcibly removed to 10 concentration camps. The government officially called them “relocation centers,” but Roosevelt himself used the words “concentration camp” in a recommendation as early as 1936, as did a military proposal in 1942. The occupants were kept behind barbed wire, and armed guards kept them from leaving.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Pluto's Republic's picture

As Pulitzer Prize-winning author, John Toland, notes in his book Adolf Hitler (pg. 202):

Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.

He was very interested in the way the Indian population had rapidly declined due to epidemics and starvation when the United States government forced them to live on the reservations. He thought the American government's forced migrations of the Indians over great distances to barren reservation land was a deliberate policy of extermination. Just how much Hitler took from the American example of the destruction of the Indian nations is hard to say; however, frightening parallels can be drawn. For some time Hitler considered deporting the Jews to a large 'reservation' in the Lubin area where their numbers would be reduced through starvation and disease.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
mimi's picture

still I guess the idea of gassing and ovens to burn corpses of Jews, he didn't
get from the US, right?

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WindDancer13's picture

the experimentation of isolating people in the Warsaw ghetto as they were still too free to not starve. There is also the out-of-sight-out-of-mind method that the US used successfully with the Native Americans.

So true:

He thought the American government's forced migrations of the Indians over great distances to barren reservation land was a deliberate policy of extermination.

Looks like an interesting read. Thanks!

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Pluto's Republic's picture

Some figures show that Americans exterminated as many as 80 to 100 million Native Americans to seize this continent, which was largely populated and had been for tens of thousands of years.

Hitler was impressed Americans could get rid of so many bodies, when he was overwhelmed by just a few million.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
mimi's picture

heard about the Native American genocide, I think he would have come up with exactly the same kind of factory style mass murder in the Konzentrationslager.

Somehow this is bordering the absurd. We can agree on many genocides all being unique and different, the only thing they have in common are millions of brutally murdered and killed people, how and in what kind of time frame and with what kind of methods isn't really necessary to compare, imo. The holocaust genocide was unique and I think it therefore has its own unique name and places and method.

May I put the subject to rest? I don't want to dream about it. Smile

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WindDancer13's picture

No matter who it is done to or who does it. Some are worse than others, some much worse.

Sweet dreams.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

WindDancer13's picture

those numbers. The highest estimate of population numbers including ALL of the Americas was 100 million. See Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

mimi's picture

I realized that two sources I used had very different numbers.

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WindDancer13's picture

which comment a response is being made to. I have a terrible time with it when threads get long. My check your numbers comment was to Plato's comment, but it is always good to be careful. = )

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

mimi's picture

to use the word concentration camp for something like internment camps or relocation centers or may be even labor camps, is that I remember many Germans, who were asked if they knew what happened in the Konzentrationlager in Germany (ie if they knew about the gas ovens and systematic mass killings with gas), often answered "No, we didn't know, we thought may these were forced labor internment camps" thus saying they didn't know Jews were gassed. So, you see, that's what makes the dfference in my head. A labor or internment camp is not necessarily a camp were people are mass murdered.

Ok, I think I get it now and may be you get where I am coming from with my word usage.

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WindDancer13's picture

Studies show that most Germans did know what was happening.

This suggests that these atrocities were talked about. Hiltrud Kuhnel confirms not only that the camps were talked about, but also that people knew that they were extermination camps. He says: "You knew that was what they were.

What is interesting is that the ones saying that average Germans did not know are the Jewish and Holocaust sites. It may be too painful to admit that people knew and did nothing. If it were the case that the people did not know, why not? Why was no one asking questions about the trains and the people being loaded on them or when the people were marched through the towns on their way to the train stations and other incidents that would have clearly shown that something was not right?

The US had reports of what was happening in the camps and chose not to do anything. There was wide-spread anti-Semitism at the time (and still persists) illustrated by the plight of the ship the St. Louis was turned away from the US with its 936 Jewish refuges in 1939. Cuba, Canada and Europe also turned them away. Eventually, they were able to land in Belgium and some countries allowed smaller groups to enter.

I understand that you are sensitive to this topic, and I am trying to keep my remarks low key, but I cannot hide facts.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

mimi's picture

for what you say were internment camps in the US and elsewhere.

Sorry for the confusion. For me concentration camps were the Konzentrationslager in Nazi Germany. And to me they are of a special "quality".(sorry sounds awful - I have no other words). As they were very different compared to labor or internment camps in their intentions, size and genocidal massive killings, I made a difference in my mind.

I am sorry for having different emotional connotations to the word. I guess it's just a language thingy.

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WindDancer13's picture

While I don't think that anything can be a greater tragedy than what happened in Germany and in no way wish to minimize it, I think it is important for people to understand the the USA is in no way incapable of doing something similar, and in fact already has.

Here is a big hint: Mayor Wonders If We Need WWII-Style Internment Camps After Paris Attacks

A Virginia mayor opposed to aiding Syrian refugees in the wake of the Paris attacks floated the idea of World War II-style internment camps Wednesday, stating that the “threat of harm to America” is just as high as it was back then.

This is from a Democrat.

Internment camp. concentration camp, detention center can pretty much be used interchangeably when the accomplish the same goal. For world-wide background, if you are interested, I suggest this list: List of concentration and internment camps

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

mimi's picture

let's see what kind of repercussions this mayor's thinking will get.

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WindDancer13's picture

There was no big media coverage. Just his quiet removal from a HRC campaign role with a mild rebuke:.

Following comments that his city should reject refugees in the way the U.S. interned Japanese-American citizens during World War II the mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, has lost his spot on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s Virginia Leadership Council.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

TheOtherMaven's picture

a meaningful identity. It's up in the south arse end of the Shenandoah Valley, and not just bordering Appalachia - it's IN Appalachia. The Yahoo population is denser than it is in Frederick County (which is on the Appalachia border) and may approach that seen in the more benighted sections of Westbygod Virginia.

One of the wrinkles in the political system - Winchester and Frederick County have it too, so it may be a Virginia thing generally - is that people shut out of the official party nominations (or who just feel like it) can run as Independents. Bowers did that in 2008 to unseat a fellow Democrat, Nelson Harris (both of them IMHO are actually Conservocrats).

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

WindDancer13's picture

him as a conservative. How many others that we don't know about feel this way, though?

Thanks for the information.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

http://www.bosqueredondomemorial.com/

and it certainly seemed to me like it was a concentration camp for the Navajo and Mescalero Apache.

Concentration camps -- something else to get people to shout "USA USA #1 #1 #1"

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There are concentration camps created in the minds of some who rule out the potential for both male and female politicians to do great harm.

Imo, while the comment you responded to would not get my thumbs up, I do not have a crystal ball and will keep an open mind. Good to see so many others willing to do the same.

Happy Father's Day to your loved ones.

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Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking

mimi's picture

"concentration camps" and "genocides". When I was young those words were reserved for camps in which tens of thousands or even hundred thousands were systematically murdered.

Today almost any oppression, unlawful imprisonment and murder of any ethnic group in the hundreds (be it in a camp or civilians on the streets) is described with the same words. I watched that development and sort of never liked it. My personal kind of sensitivity. YMMV. May be it is because of my German native language. We used the words "Konzentrationslager" und "Volkermord" for our Nazi past. Otherwise one would refer to Gulag, Labor camps etc. It's only in the US of the mid to late nineties that I became aware of the wording genocide, holocaust and the US concentration camps.

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Meteor Man's picture

Can we call mass slaughter of entire tribes in Africa genocide? Are Syrians fleeing mass slaughter victims of genocide?

Were American Japenese locked up in concentration camps? Are American immigration prisons concentration camps? How about the nationwide American Prison Gulag?

Maybe we need a new word.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

mimi's picture

May be I don't understand the meaning of both and don't understand the differences.

Til the late seventies in Germany I had not heard both words. In the eighties in US I heard both of above words for the first time. Is the killing of hundred people based on their ethnicity the same as the systematic killing of millions in a Nazi concentration camp?

And yes to me it would be helpful to describe mass killings on the basis of tribes, ethnicities or religions as exactly as possible. They are all in a way unique and different in style and execution.

New words might be helpful.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…because they are all over the place.

Genocide is when a tribe that is indigenous to the land (evolved there 20,000 - 60,000+ years) is exterminated on their native lands by racially non-idigenous invaders, such as what happened to Native Americans in the United States.

Genocide can also be used when racially foreign immigrants/tribes that have settled in foreign lands are systematically exterminated by the indigenous peoples. This was the case for Jews in Europe, living among the indigenous caucasians/whites.

Holocaust can only be used when referring to Jews exterminated in Germany. The word is otherwise off-limits, I am told.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Meteor Man's picture

Classification Symbolization Dehumanization Organization Polarization Preparation Extermination Denial

Genocide is a process that develops in eight stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.

http://www.genocidewatch.org/aboutgenocide/8stagesofgenocide.html

That strikes me as a thorough analysis of genocide.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

WindDancer13's picture

Going through that list and applying it to the lower classes of US America is a bit worrying. Although, some stages seem to be happening simultaneously.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

mimi's picture

I thought. It would be used in the German translation differently

holocaust =
Holocaust ‘“ comes from the Greek meaning ‘whole burnt.’ It was first used in conjunction with a mass killing of Jewish people in the Middle Ages. It continued to be used synonymously with genocide until World War II when Hitler’s unprecedented extermination of Jews let the word holocaust to be used as proper noun to describe that specific atrocity.

It was reserved for the systematic and brutal annihilation of the Jewish population in Nazi Germany during the 2nd World War in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler. Only in Konzentrationslager (German word for concentration camps) did those specific atrocities take place. Therefore I associate with the English word concentration camps the Nazi Konzentrationslager. Apparently that is not the way the word is understood in the US. I realized that but somehow never liked it. My bad. didn't know that this word is used in English for different kind of internment camps. I guess they are all bad enough, no matter what, but Konzentrationslager are special.

genocide=
Genocide ‘“ refers to the systematic destruction of a certain group of people based on their race, religion, or citizenship. Destruction can take place through outright murder, creating intolerable living conditions, imposing birth control and/or sterilization methods, or removing all children from that group and bringing them up in another group.

Through the inclusion of the syllable - cide, this refers to mass killings, ie Ruanda's 800000 Tutsis killed by Hutus was a genocide, It was a mass murder of a political or religious group by another group/tribe in a country. Yet it was not a holocaust.

Genocide ‘“ was finally codified by the United Nations in 1948. Systematic killings of specific ethnic groups had been going on for thousands of years, but only when the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was codified did it become an international law subject to punishment by international tribunal, no matter who perpetrated the crime.

Ethnic Cleansing = The word cleansing in ethnic cleansing says it all. It is a systematic attempt by one political or socio-religious group to remove a particular ethnic or religious group from a specific area through coercive (and sometimes through killings) means. It includes both forced migrations as well as brutal killings to terrorize a minority population and force them to leave a particular territory.

The only difference that separates ethnic cleansing from genocide lies in the fact that ethnic cleansing is more of the nature of forced migrations whereas genocide strictly involves mass murders and brutal killings. The recent killing of 800000 to 1 000 000 Tutsi people by Hutu tribe in Rwanda classifies as genocide, whereas forced migration of 100000 to 150000 Hindus from the state of Jammu and Kashmir by terrorists by terrorizing them through destruction of their property, rape and assault classifies as ethnic cleansing.

You know it just would sound pretty "funny, or better totally unacceptable" if a German would say that he expects that a certain German politician could be up to building Konzentrationslager. That's what basically was said about HRC. It didn't sound right to me.
Thus the dispute over it.

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Meteor Man's picture

I dunno. There is a whole lot of senseless slaughter by Israel.

Is Gaza a concentration camp yet? Will Netenyahu accept anything short of a final solution? I dunno.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

sojourns's picture

People forget that Marx was an economist, not a politician. It takes politicians to fuck everything up.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

yellopig's picture

I'm pretty sure you were agreeing with me there. Not sure what you meant by

Tell me with a straight face that the United States is wading into the river of Fascism

Maybe a misplaced "not"? Because you seem to agree that that is the direction we're going. And weirdly, the people shouting that we should "free the markets!" (like the guy in the video) are the people taking us in that direction.

The image of the armed police ringing the stage at the Nevada caucus tells me that Hillary is ready to take us there, same as Trump.

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“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett

Alligator Ed's picture

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Aardvark's picture

in my opinion, yellowpig, is the United States.

Communism requires a sort of unification which a nation with the diversity of the United States does not have.

In effect, what keeps the United States from achieving anything like a system in which workers own the means of production - not the state, which I believe is what you intend, that is something precisely not what communism espouses - is that to have corporate ownership, you have to have a working class which is 1) well educated universally 2) able to recognize that everyone working with them is essentially one of their own. General impoverishment precludes the first, and the institutional racism of communities precludes the second.

The Russian Empire also faced a similar problem: A nation of around 150 languages, dominated by the Russians for centuries. Imagine the United States, except that the Native Americans were 20 percent of the population.

Anyway, I think that the ideological battle here is about challenging perceptions of who is the other. In that sense, the discussions concerning our LGBT brothers and sisters is a good and necessary start. Yet we are faced with the fact that vast parts of the United States are segregated culturally. Without a unifying movement, something more than a flag, a fake enemy, etc., it is never going to happen.

Bernie Sanders came as close as possible to establishing such a movement, but it is far from adequate. Mrs. Clinton works on personal apathy and self-interest: vote for me, and I will make sure you never have to face moral or political issues that question your assumed ideology of consumerism and self-important lifestyle.

Peace and love be with you, reader.

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A "democratic" President who rules like a Republican and makes sure that they don't lose dominance. He keeps the useful idiots in positions of power so that they remain useful to those who seek to exploit them.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

k9disc's picture

Ouch.

I agree with that. The war on Terror is 85% domestic ideological subversion, 15% outward focus...

The NSA Net is not about finding a needle in a haystack, it's about finding the hay on particular, problematic individuals.

Scary piece here.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Politicians talk about it as if that is going to "fix" the problem of money in politics.

It's worth remembering that Robert Rubin pushed to dismantle the last parts of Glass-Steagall involving the Citi-Travelers merger and within a month or so of repeal, he left as Treasury Secretary and was working for Citibank.

Rep. Billy Tauzin was the lead negotiator on Medicare Part D and fought against having Medicare negotiate drug prices, so as to maximize the cost to taxpayers. Within two months of passage he got a job as the head of PhRMA and increased his salary ten-fold. These are just a couple notorious cases, but they aren't exceptional.

The privatization push is part of the legalized corruption racket. The revolving door is part of that racket. The idea that a presidential "team" could rake in over $150 million in speaking fees and $2 billion for a family foundation is part of that racket. Lucrative signing advances for books that no one wants to buy, are part of that racket.

Campaign finance is part of the equation, but in a way, it's ironic that Citizens United, which was originally designed as to take-down of Hillary Clinton, and the McCutcheon case in 2014 which ended limits on donations, have been exploited most effectively by Clinton.

Politicians, even Clinton, are happy to talk about the campaign finance side of the equation, because frankly, it's annoying, and humiliating to have to spend so much time begging for money. On the other hand, there's a lot less talk about the revolving door and the personal enrichment schemes that also play a major role in corrupting the political decision making process. Personally, I'd even be willing to pay more to staffers and members of Congress if they were prohibited from engaging in these kind of pay to play schemes. If they want to do things like speeches as part of civic education and as an extension of their public service -- that's fine. But they shouldn't be able to profit off it. And if they are able to profit from it, they should be barred from re-entering public office and restricted from lobbying people who remain in public office.

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mimi's picture

This essay post is psychological warfare in itself.

That's it.

I wished it would be Mother's Day today. Aggressive

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Not that you should care, but I will never support Mrs. Clinton. She does not share my values. Senator Sanders and his supporters do, for the most part.

"f--k that...I think your experiment with the C99p is about to fail." Do you care to rephrase this in a polite civil manner? Early comment up top

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Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking

mimi's picture

anything to do with supporting Clinton or not doing so? It's a strange way to interpret my comment.

I explained somewhere in this threat why I was nervous about the essay. The author missed to give the full picture of the KGB guy and his interviewer and the time frame in which the interview was conducted.

My antennas blinked and my guts told me to make some noise ... I din't like that an important part was missing in that analysis of that interview and not giving the full picture. It became clear only through other (very good) comments in this thread, thankfully.

For my not civil enough comment I apologize, but honestly if I think it's not a big deal, because the issue is too important to not to be pointed at.
People in the thread here, have very well commented and explained what I had just a ranting answer to. I feel you are trying to make me feel guilty for being uncivil and impolite and shut me down. I am not in the mood to adhere to your advice in this case.

The analysis itself was fine. Just not complete without giving the context in which the interview came about and was conducted.

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I love the first two rules of the other other place. I see them every time I visit the site. Sorry it doesn't happen here consistently without revisions and civil reminders.
For those who feel entitled to curse and disrespect other members, please remember some of us will remember and some of us will leave the site, short term or long term or gbcw.
Thank you, hawking fan.

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mimi's picture

I didn't mean that to be a personal attack. Sorry, if it was taken that way.
To hawking fan, my apologies.

Well, something doesn't feel right to me. I will think about what it is.

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mimi's picture

I was a bit critical of Alligator Ed's essay because he missed to explain the context of the interview he analyzed, so if I should apologize for that, hereby I do.

Wow, not my day today, I guess. Sigh.

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Cachola's picture

but your first comment on this thread was highly disrespectful.

This one: You did cut and paste this comment from where?
No paragraphs. Too well prepared?

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We are no longer accepting the things we can not change, we are changing the things we can not accept.

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Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur.

mimi's picture

but myself. I will take it back, because it would be too complicated to explain why I wrote this.

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mimi's picture

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mhagle's picture

your objection. ????

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

mimi's picture

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riverlover's picture

I enjoy your comments. You have a very different history than many of us here. Have you ever essayed about your life? I know that is scary, to us all, but yours does sound sooo different in many ways. That, if you have done so, I would like a pointer to, if not, such could help many of us who are concerned (mildly) about your frustrations with c99 at times. I don't mean to be interfering or nosy or anything like that, I do suspect your life story (so far) would be of interest in our little chummy group. No emoticon, but half-smile.

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

mimi's picture

and it's also nothing special. The little bit I have let out sometimes is more than enough. I actually don't like it at all, when it happens.

I am also not frustrated with the c99p site. There is lots to read I like to understand, it's just a bit too much some times and it's too easily to get confused. No problem. I come here often and find always some things which engage me, mostly emotionally unfortunately. I am an emotional kind of person.

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I'm supposed to believe someone who doesn't mention Ronnie Raygunz and his efforts to eliminate the rights of the people to defend America against his corporatist takeover of the USA? REALLY?

We've had about 30 years to see how this guy's predictions worked out, and the majority of those "benevolent dictators" happened to be KKKGOP and not KGB.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

Meteor Man's picture

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Bezmenov

In 1984, he gave an interview to G. Edward Griffin, who at that time was a member of the John Birch Society, an anticommunist group. In the interview, Bezmenov explained the methods used by the KGB for the gradual subversion of the political system of the United States.[4]

We have to take Bezmenov's characterization of the strength of the American left with a grain of salt, because he clearly had the approval of his CIA handlers to grant this interview.

I suspect this interview was part and parcel of the CIA's propaganda war against the American left.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Everyone should know that I do not believe, on first brush, that former KGB agents ever change their modus operandi. With that caution of trust but verify, my support for free speech gives this person the right to post this on youtube. My gratitude is extended to a few discussion forums that allow for civil discussion of dissenting views. For that I am extremely proud.

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Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. Stephen Hawking

mimi's picture

he was interviewed and when and if he had not rang the "alarm bell", ie be very very alarmed at the end of the essay, it would have been a more acceptable essay, imo.

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They love to tell you exactly what they are doing - by accusing you of doing it. Everything Bezmenov claimed (mostly truthfully) the Soviets were doing the American fascists are doing.

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On to Biden since 1973