Compromised NGOs Part II
As I’d said about Part I, some of this diary might cause readers discomfort in varying measures. All I’d ask is that you set aside your preconceptions for a bit to examine some of the facts and opinions, and gauge how much of it resonates, even over time, as…believable. I’ll wait until Part III to discuss organizational and personal Liberal Climate Change media brands; those may be harder to accept, as I’ve discovered only too well in the past (smile).
First I’d like to talk about Amnesty International by using the understandings of Sonia Tejada: ‘Amnesty in the Twilight of Human Rights and Imperialism’, as well as the very damning photograph above. I was thrilled to find it, as I had a similar Libyan version that burned up with one of my past laptops, and I had tried and failed to find it again online….anywhere. My recollection as to whether the Libyan one was HRW or AI is quite fuzzy, though. A few pithy clips:
“I have been a supporter of Amnesty International for years, because I care deeply about the causes it promotes. However, I find myself at odds supporting an organization that condones military intervention as a mean of advancing human rights. I am unequivocally opposed to all wars, because there are no good wars. I reject all forms of imperialism, colonization and oppression of foreign nations. This past week, Amnesty came under fire for a poster it displayed, urging NATO to safeguard women’s rights in Afghanistan. The poster reads, NATO: Keep the Progress Going. I saw the poster and my blood started to boil, because NATO and progress should not be in the same sentence.
It’s an insult that Amnesty is asking NATO to safeguard the progress made on women’s rights in Afghanistan, when NATO has been assassinating their children, fathers and brothers for the past ten years. Is that the progress Amnesty wants NATO to preserve? I think that Afghan women deserve better.” (the rest is here)
She notes that the West would have done their bidding in Syria save for China and Russia (I’d add, and the UK’s Parliament).
Avaaz, the largest NGO whose name you’ve probably never even heard
Their website is a glorious testament to effective World in Action™ citizen power, isn’t it? And they may actually do some good things. But they are also pimps for Western military adventures, preferring (ahem) light-skinned people…For instance:
‘Rio Summit “Good Versus Evil” Advert Displays Blatant Racism and Imperialism at Core of Avaaz’, wrongkindofgreen.org
(The Avaaz “Good Versus Evil” campaign for the Rio Summit (Rio+20 on Sustainability, 2012) . Above: A downloadable poster as found on the Avaaz Press Centre published in the Financial Times. Vilification: Note the dark cast/ugly sky behind the leaders Avaaz would wish you to believe are “evil,” versus the light and sun shining through over the Imperialist, obstructionist “leaders” that Avaaz is attempting to convince you are “good.”)
Edward Bernays smiles from the afterlife…
Avaaz.org’s 2007 ‘Climate Wake Up Call’ (who got da gun, who got da teddy bear?)
Café Babylon: ‘Introducing Avaaz’, (and their campaign against Burundi.), Jan. 3, 2016 (And from Ann Garrison at blackagendareport: ‘African Union Refuses to Invade Burundi’, Tue, 02/02/2016, a month later.)
Ah, shoot (so to speak), the wrong kind of green collective have too many exposés on: ‘“Human Rights” front groups (“Humanitarian Interventionalists”) Warring on Syria’ and ___ (fill in the blank). This one’s Syria, never mind Libya, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and the beat goes on. Dark, if they’re right about MSF, et.al. But Roth at HRW: a toady to the Imperium for certain.
‘Activists Want the U.S. Institute of Peace to Favor Peace’ by David Swanson
“George Orwell, had he lived to see USIP, might have been less surprised than most. In fact, USIP was created by a law signed by President Ronald Reagan in the year 1984, the year for which Orwell had named his dystopian novel back in 1948, when the U.S. Department of War had just been renamed the Department of Defense, and its mission of offensive war-making had been clearly announced to observers fluent in doublespeak. ”The Orwellian U.S. Institute for Peace is staffed and steered by some of our most committed proponents for war and mayhem, many of whom are in the revolving door between government and military contractors,” Alice Slater tells me. Slater is New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and serves on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War.
“Instead of supporting efforts for diplomacy and peaceful settlement of disputes,” she continues, “the ill-named Peace Institute advises Congress and the press on how [the United States] can bomb and arm nations around the world. We need to replace the warmakers with peacemakers and have an Institute that really serves the cause of peace in the 21st century when war is so obviously unworkable.”
“…the Institute is designed to further U.S. empire and create a unipolar world where the United States dominates economically, militarily and politically.”
He includes a (broken now) link to a petition the USIP with text indicating that “the USIP claims that it is forbidden to oppose U.S. wars or to lobby against them or to promote peaceful alternatives to contemplated military actions, a careful reading of the 1984 law that created USIP reveals that this just isn’t so. In fact, USIP regularly lobbies the rest of the U.S. government and the U.S. public in favor of wars, including the overthrow of the Syrian government — and occasionally against wars, as in the case of USIP’s support for the nuclear agreement with Iran.”
‘On the Eve of an Illegal Attack on Syria, Avaaz/350.org Board Members Beat the Drums of War’, wrongkindofgreen.org Aug 30, 2013
“Here’s the awful truth: even if every person, every automobile, and every factory suddenly emitted zero emissions, the earth would still be headed, head first and at full speed, toward total disaster for one major reason. The military produces enough greenhouse gases, by itself, to place the entire globe, with all its inhabitants large and small, in the most imminent danger of extinction.” — Barry Sanders, The Green Zone
Read the rest and watch 350.org’s Van Jones pimpin’ for war (but ask Congress!…and…wretch.
The second place in carbon emissions is factory agriculture, promoted at every moment by the glorious philanthropists touting Monsanto and Sygenta’s genetically modified corp seeds and chemicals in the name of ‘efficiency and feeding the world’s hungry, but…yes to ‘the military’s being #1!!!! Of course, the ‘world’s agriculturalists are NOT hungry for their shite, but dying of it. (see India’s Vandana Shiva, for one)
Ah, phooey; sometimes all that’s left is to laugh and dance! (South African singer Titi Tsira; woot!
Comments
thank you, jTc
for front-paging this. it's okay if the rest of the images aren't centered, isn't it? it made my eyes go googledy trying to detect which code was an image.
You're welcome Wendy...
and thank you for posting this fine series here. I'll center the images and tubes, no probs.
I've sent you a private message, please check it out.
we just discovered
our phone is down, and the repair person won't come until mebbe monday. the last two or three times this happened recently, the internet went down as well after a bit. if i'm absent...that's what's up.
Good luck.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
DSL
Sometimes the central office switch needs reset. Unplug everything plugged into a phone jack, wait a few minutes and plug them back in. Is/was there allot of background noise? And slow Internet? If so, you probably need new DSL line filters. They have them at home improvement stores.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
i'll sure give that a try, NCTim.
it's never worked before, but that's not to say it wouldn't this time.
the internet is fine this time, though, oddly. we live in the sticks, and in a canyon whose phone lines are apparently quite...old and compromised. on the last visit, the repairman said he'd switched us to a 'better' cable (fiber-optics, perhaps? i dunno all this stuff). but shoot, mebbe some squirrel nibbled on a wire at the house junction box; ought to check the box again.
but i'm just grateful the router/modem is still working. waaaay more important to me than the phone (dang, i hate to talk on the phone). (smile)
Dance you say? So the kids they dance and shake
their bones ...
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
thank you,
sea otter person. it's still up, i can't quite believe it....
Well, as we all here know,
Emma Goldman would have something to say about dancing
"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon
(grin) yes, lapsed lawyer.
and didn't she also say that if voting changed anything for the better, they'd make it illegal? ('nother grin)