NGOs

Dark Green IX: UN Agenda 21 and US Land Grab

By M.K. Styllinski

“One of the big lies about UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is that it ‘builds strong communities’. It does. But not in the way you would expect. It is managed democracy and manufactured consensus.”

– Rosa Koire, Executive Director, Post-Sustainability Institute

If we are to live our lives supporting and deriving benefit from Nature’s bounty, sustainable development must be an essential part of human destiny. However, in the hands of our leaders the concept of sustainability in its present incarnation may be very far from what many environmental activists believe it to be.

One of the many initiatives to come out of the Rio conference in 1992 was a 300 page document called Agenda 21 which the UN defines as: “… a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and major groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment.” Out of the summit came a National Strategy for a Sustainable America which led to the announcement in July 1993 by US President Bill Clinton of the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) to implement a “national Strategy” for sustainable development. By 2010, this had advanced to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s mission of advancing the principles and goals of sustainable development through partnerships, collaboration, and outreach. ^[1]

The 1992 Earth summit’s Rio Declaration on Environment and Development set out 27 principles intended to guide future sustainable development around the world. The PCSD also had a set of “We Believe Statements” outlining 16 principles which paraphrase the Rio Declaration. Both these sets of principles are incorporated into Agenda 21 (“21” refers to the 21^st Century).

The Agenda 21 document comprises of 40 chapters grouped into 4 sections:

Section I: Social and Economic Dimensions
Combating poverty in developing countries, changing consumption patterns, promoting health, achieving a more sustainable population, and sustainable settlement in decision making.
Section II: Conservation and Management of Resources for Development
Includes atmospheric protection, combating deforestation, protecting fragile environments, conservation of biological diversity (biodiversity), control of pollution and the management of biotechnology, and radioactive wastes.
Section III: Strengthening the Role of Major Groups
The roles of children and youth, women, NGOs, local authorities, business and workers and strengthening the role of indigenous peoples, their communities, and farmers.
Section IV: Means of Implementation Science, technology transfer, education, international institutions and financial mechanisms. ^{^[2]}

In the above, we find the complement to the Earth Charter, where the opposite poles of political beliefs come together to create maximum noise ratios and thus obscure any rational discourse on the issue. A “divide and rule” friction is set up between so called “lefties” and “right-wing whackos” for which Agenda 21 is the devil incarnate or a practical framework for a sustainable future. Is Agenda 21 an innocent “soft law” platform for change? Or are the “radical right, conspiracy theorists” correct and this is an an attempt to impose a vast template for technocratic global governance?

© infrakshun

The UN Commission on Global Governance established in 1992 with full support from then Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali published a report in 1995 called “Our Global Neighbourhood.” Sustainable development (SD) and environmental protection are seen as integral step to the long-term security of that vision. As the report confirms: “The concept of national sovereignty has been immutable, indeed a sacred principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation.” And further: “Regionalism must precede globalism. We foresee a seamless system of governance from local communities, individual states, regional unions and up through to the United Nations itself.” ^{^[3]}

The problem that many have with this process as it is being developed in both EU and the United States, is that it removes the public from the decision-making process, by default. If elected officials are by-passed by non-elected officials who have been tasked with an agenda, however well-intentioned, it means that democracy and civil liberty is side-lined in favour of a consensus that may have no relation at all to the values, culture and self-determination of the country involved. Regionalism and the communitarianism are fine ideas – even welcome theories for socio-economic development. However, the devil is in the details. The overriding importance for members of the UN and Establishment circles is the dismantling of national sovereignty and the absolute control of the domestic population with the means to see that come about. When you get these people whole-heartedly supporting such potentially massive changes you can be absolutely sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with the greater good but the interests of the “lesser evil.”

Areas which are prompting most concern involve policy making procedures defined by collaborative consensus building a conflict resolution label appropriated by SD and SMART redevelopment and is inaugurating drastic changes in the way public policy is created in the United States. This consensus process as defined in Agenda 21 and the “We Believe” Statements of the PCSD serves to circumnavigate elected officials and place power in the hands of unelected officials who then determine Agenda 21 policy. This gives a free reign to a multitude of SMART redevelopment programs, where government and the corporate sector merge in ethically compromised, ideologically questionable ways.

With the United States having already had much of its constitution eviscerated by both the Bush-Cheney and Obama-Biden Administrations, the legitimate concern here for this one-time Republic and for the nations of Europe is that governments are exercising entirely undemocratic powers through seemingly benign programs. They do this because such passion can be usefully diverted to agendas which piggy-back the initial intent from public and officials, which is sincere. The Agenda 21 platform certainly has collectivist principles to its policy changes which immediately causes the political right to raise its hackles at the merest hint of such a thing. Since the US has an appalling record on global resource use and environmental safeguards in general, the kinds of changes which are being demanded under Agenda 21 will mean that there will be a forced redistribution of wealth and the confiscation of private property under the guise of “protecting the environment.” Therefore, the “social equity” in such a context, is a collectivist dream.

The concept of sustainable development does require a system of governance that is even more centralised under an integrated package of social equity, environmental protection and economic activity. (And we haven’t even looked at carbon tax yet). The PCSD brought the concept of Sustainable Development (SD) into the policy process of every agency in the US federal government. In partnership with the same environmental organisations who drafted Agenda 21, federal government agency grants are allowing SD programs to be seeded into the infrastructure of American life. So, while the UN cannot impel communities to adopt Agenda 21 policies its influence and beliefs are outsourced to hundreds of environmental groups and NGOs – the latter often paid quangos for government meddling – who carry out its operations so that Agenda 21 dove-tails seamlessly into future SMART growth infrastructure.

As a prelude to the Agenda 21 framework and The Convention on Bio-Diversity which has yet to be ratified, the Ecosystem Management Policy spear-headed by the UNEP is up and running in many US states. This means that where federal management of ecosystems exists it would inevitably expand federal control of the use of privately owned land and increased restrictions on the use of public lands for economic purposes. Since ecosystems do not have a defining boundary, private lands would be included in an expanded regulatory framework with the imposition of restrictions and guidelines mandated by law. The scope for the abuse of power would be limitless.

In Agenda 21’s vision for America, the protection of the ecosystem and sustainable development would take precedence over economic activity and private property rights. If the authority for implementing ecosystem management eventually meshed with Agenda 21 and continues to lie with the federal government, the vested interests of stakeholder input and authoritarian environmental activists, a massive transfer of power from the individual to the state is the only possible outcome.

The political and social equality pushed in Agenda 21 does not necessarily equate with a free society.

The repeated statement that a “transformation of society” is required includes an irreversible change in the process through which decisions affecting citizens are made. Extensive land use planning delivering SD to local communities dispenses with these democratic processes, or as commentator Henry Lamb correctly observes: “The fundamental principle that government is empowered by the consent of the governed is completely by-passed in the process … the natural next step is for government to dictate the behavior of the people who own the land that the government controls.” ^{^[4]}

The lure of partnership-privatisation, be it water or forestry management and the wider issues involved, are often eclipsed by the approach of financial dividends. Everyone is always keen to make a buck and nothing is more seductive when one’s conscience is perceived to be clean while doing it. Bailing out bankers is a euphemism for maintaining an exploitative system. Such bailouts can operate under corporate lawyers and foundation executives offering financial assistance while making sure that they can gain much more for their money in return. Local officials and rural communities are seldom aware of what they are being “sold” and wouldn’t know a biodiversity clause or an Agenda 21 stipulation if it was deftly flashed in front of them on an i-pad screen. But it would sure look benevolently green.

One of the most surprising and little known facts related to SD and the present land grabs which are now taking place in the USA are the Executive Orders No.11490 and No.11647 enacted by President Richard Nixon on February, 10, 1972. The United States was divided into 10 Regional Councils, each federally controlled by bureaucrats for the improvement of coordination of activities between different levels of government. These 10 federal regions were to be given powers over everything pertaining to regionalism. Within those regional divisions, this included conservation, land use, water and all other natural resources within the United States. Fairly momentous and dramatic contributions to the US yet very few people know about it thanks to a compliant media and a corrupt Congress.

Standard Federal Regions

A bureaucratic binding has now arrived in the form of four federally chartered regional commissions: the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), signed into effect by President Kennedy in 1963 and amended numerous times up until the present; The Delta Regional Authority (DRA) signed into effect by President Ronald Reagan (1988) and the Northern Great Plains Regional Authority (NGPRA) signed into effect in 1994 and the Denali Commission (DC) signed into effect in 1998 – both by President Clinton, the latter being the only commission targeting a single state (Alaska).

Each commission is responsible for a variety of legislative operations and procedures implementing a long term economic plan:

ARC: On top of a mandate to improve “regional infrastructure, reducing regional isolation; water and wastewater management resources; natural resources development; and human resources development, including housing, education, job skills, and health care” the Truman Administration expanded this to “… promot[e] economic development in the region; and establishing a framework for joint federal and state efforts in developing basic facilities essential to promoting coordinated regional responses to the region’s problems.”
DRA: “The Rural Development, Agriculture, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for FY1989.9 Title II of that act, known as the Lower Mississippi Delta Development Act, authorized the creation of the Lower Mississippi Delta Development Commission (LMDDC […] the Commission’s legislative mandate was to identify the economic needs and priorities of the Lower Mississippi Delta region, and to develop a 10-year economic development plan for the region.
NGPRA: “… directed it to study and make recommendations for improving the economic development prospects of residents of rural Northern Great Plains communities. The Commission was charged with developing a 10-year rural economic development plan for Northern Great Plains (NGP) with the assistance of interested citizens, public officials, groups, agencies, businesses, and other entities. […] “The act charged the NGPRDC with developing a 10-year plan that would address economic development, technology, transportation, telecommunications, employment, education, health care, housing, and other needs and priorities of the five-state region. The act encouraged the NGPRDC to develop the plan in collaboration with Native American tribes, federal agencies, non-profit and specific issue areas: value-added agriculture, international trade, business development, telecommunications, transportation infrastructure, health care, and civic and social capacity.”
DC: “… the Commission’s mission included providing job training and other economic development assistance to distressed rural areas in the state. The act also charged the Commission with providing for rural power generation and transmission facilities, modern communication systems, water and sewer systems, and other infrastructure needs of remote areas in the state.” ^{^[5]}

All these Commissions are in turn, focused on a highly complicated jumble of state and local county development programs many of which are integrated or in the process of being integrated into the Agenda 21 blueprint. What Nixon and the Clinton-Gore administration did was to create a new government eco-bureaucracy or “regional” government placing the states into the aforementioned Ten Regions and their requisite federal funding. However, as regional government was the assigned vehicle for federal fund distribution it meant that local government officials were unaware that they were effectively reducing their power by being answerable to administrators of regions. Local authorities would be bypassed in favour of regionalism which isn’t just a system of grant distribution but an extension of State power.

The justification for all these eco-imperatives comes from the United Nations which – in much the same way as the Eurocrats in Brussels – overrides democratically elected decision-makers in favour of SD and SMART associated stake-holder legislations. Fusing management and administration systems based on new technology, redevelopment and eco-imperatives are making regionalism very far from democracy and constitutional accountability. We are faced with a situation where decisions are rubber-stamped by international regional government administrators and their connected councils serving a desperately hierarchical world management system which has nothing whatsoever to do with serving Mother Earth or its people.

The concept of Sustainable Development as it was sold to the public was never a grassroots ignition. It is a top-down product of a world management system dressed up in green language which will allow yet another vast channel of technocratic control to merge with fake land ethics, laws, and regulations. Environmental protection of fauna and flora will certainly take place but society will be in no position or have the legal right to enjoy it! Nature’s new found liberalisation, sagely bestowed by global stewards will always know best it seems.

The UN works through the emerging civil society which is actually made up of thousands of NGOs with largely the same beliefs as UN personnel. They are not necessarily representative of society as a whole. Via summits, national and international conferences, seminars and local outreach groups policy documents are formulated drawn from the gospel of Agenda 21, they are all overseen by Maurice Strong’s UNEP. Under the ever-present influence of NGOs and environmental pressure groups, local governments become un-elected members of “stakeholder councils” managing “empowerment zones”, or “enterprise committees” and “visioning councils” determined to adhere to the concepts of SMART growth. *

Despite many recommendations still to be implemented, the UN has spent – and continues to spend – millions of dollars whilst holding various international meetings which are attended by hundreds of political leaders, corporate CEOs and thousands of other non-governmental organizations who expend equal amounts of time drafting massive policy documents. Clearly, this is much more than a whimsical green distraction. They mean business. Although Agenda 21 is entirely “voluntary” and “non-binding” that is not how it’s playing out on the ground. Using an array of Delphi-based psychological techniques a veritable army of “facilitators” are descending on American cities and part of the neighbourhood councils and planning associations. Often, eco-SMART NGOs are nothing more than pincer movements into communities in order to extract support for redveelopment proposals under Agenda 21/SMART auspices. Most importantly, they represent a fusion of corporate and government sponsorship which stands to make a lot of money for both parties at great expense to specific communities, most notably in suburbia. As these new vested interests are drawn from Rockefeller-type Foundations and corporate CEOs it does not bode well for the future that will be defined by the disempowerment of civil society and the dilution, if not disappearance of truly representative local government and community.

The ubiquity of SD activists and advocates becomes especially problematic when so many of these people are tuning in to what is after all, a genuine wish to protect the environment and improve the quality of societies for future generations. Yet there is a refusal and a lack of knowledge as to how an ideology and system can be co-opted and used for something quite different. The young’s natural passion to protect the Earth is strong, so too are the dangers of the dogma and fascism that are intimately connected to the history of the environmental movement. With the present global economic system in terminal decline and media propaganda as potent as it has ever been, we are reminded of Peter Staudenmaier’s observation in the context of rising fascism: “The attraction such perspectives exercised on idealistic youth is clear: the enormity of the crisis seemed to enjoin a total rejection of its apparent causes. It is in the specific form of this rejection that the danger lies.” ^[6]

So Agenda 21 network continues to infiltrate by stealth every aspect of society and local development plans from biosphere reserves, wetlands, greenways, railways, carbon footprints, partnerships, conservation /environmental protection, land use, heritage areas and planning, to name but a few. While securing more legislation and government control it reduces the rights of the individual and usurps power from local, democratically elected councils. Perhaps most importantly, after our exploration of eco-fascism and depopulation we should be extremely concerned when a vast blueprint for ecological management and sustainable development is sourced from those who cheerily support perpetual war, state-sponsored terror, cartel capitalism, eugenics, forced sterilisation; a global tax, (usually on those who will be least able to pay) and massive reduction of the human population by any and all means to reach that objective.

So, the perceived belligerent fears from the right-wing resistance to Agenda 21 stems from a much more complex dynamics playing out in plain sight. Therefore, there needs to be much more bipartisan support for rooting out what really gives on this issues both politically and within the public. The refusal to address legitimate fears from liberal and left-wing groups displays the same tunnel vision.

© infrakshun

Building on the advances made from the 1992 Rio summit, the Rio+20 Summit on Environmental Sustainability took place in late June of 2012. Though no real breakthroughs or commitments were forthcoming, the “larger achievement [may have been] making global sustainable development goals a priority on the international agenda” according to a recent Council on Foreign Relations report. The summit produced Rio+20’s outcome document, The Future We Want the greatest contribution of which “… catalyses a global call to make sustainable development priorities central to global thinking and action.” ^[7]

Whether this is a turn for the better for humanity is entirely dependent on whom we choose to preside over this transformation. Some of the perceived enemies of environmental activism such as large polluting corporations and bureaucratic government departments also play a part as effective double agents on the panoramic stage of social engineering. Presenting and even encouraging the rifts between the two serves to prop up the illusion that the overall conflict is real when it is all part of the programming. That is not to say that is ALL a conscious ruse. Clearly not. But we can hopefully begin to see how these ambitious macro-social projects connect like a vast net across the globe. And a big part of this eco-Intelpro involves the confiscation of land.

The rush to grab land and resources across the world has defined a new form of colonialism in the 21^st century. China, America, Britain and other European countries are leading the way in carving up African land under the pretext of offering environmental or humanitarian assistance. ^[8]But how many of us know about the vast tracts of land which are being bought up by federal government programs in partnership with Establishment families, and hundreds of conservation trusts and environmental groups a bit closer to home? In the US these “buffer zones” and “rural corridors”; heritage sites and designated conservation areas of “re-wilding” which are falling under the protection of SD and biological diversity legislation sometimes run into anything from 100,000 to 25 million acres where human presence is seen as “interference.” ^[9]

The re-introduction of species which have died out in specific regions, the management of forests and lakes, reservoirs and various types of land reclamation rides on the powerful and deep-seated wish for people to care for their environment. Difficult as it may be to accept – especially for ecologists and environmentalists who are traditionally some of the most passionate in their beliefs – the US is experiencing a gradual but inexorable large-scale theft of US land by those with money and power in order to turn almost 50 percent of America into protected habitats and reserves for the good of biological diversity. It is a theft because the vast majority of the public has neither access to, nor the necessary information to make an informed decision as to where they stand on the issue. Thanks to the usual lack of proper investigative reporting by the US media and the constant noise and distraction of Republican and Democrat knockabouts, the required public awareness on this agenda is non-existent and thus proceeds with ease, with locals and their councils oblivious to the larger implications, all too often embroiled in the impenetrable bureaucracy that SD has spawned.

The Wildlands Network (formerly the Wildlands Project) is more radical than the vision of SD though it is sitting alongside its ideological platform quite comfortably. The United Nations gave its seal of approval in its “Global Biodiversity Assessment” when it mentioned The Wildlands Project as a possible approach to preserving biological diversity. ^[10]It is vast in scope, extending from one end of the continent to the other. Equally impressive is the enormous list of Wildlands Network affiliated organisations and groups, councils and foundations which in turn have sub-categories of affiliates which are thousands in number. And what do you know? The Rockefeller Foundation is there among the donators as is The Turner Foundation, from media mogul and depopulation advocate Ted Turner, the largest sponsor of environmental causes in the country. The Environmental Grantmakers Association makes sure a steady stream of cash keeps this long-term project afloat and on course.

The network was created from the concept of “re-wilding” a term first coined by conservationist and activist Dave Forman, one of the founders of the group Earth First! The term described the creation of “reserve networks” across the United States which would provide vast areas of wildlife habitat, the goal being to maximize biological diversity across the land. Humans, however, do not feature in this grand plan. Having laid the blueprint for the Wildlands Network in the 1980’s with colleagues Howie Wolke, and Bart Koehler, conservation biologists Michael Soulé and Reed Noss continued to build on the ideas, most notably in an influential paper published in 1998. ^[11]While Forman’s involvement has faded somewhat, Reed Noss, has become the leading spokesman for the Plan, expanding the possibilities with federal government support.

The philosophy which suffuses the Wildlands Network is Deep Ecology. In the words of Forman, from his popular 1991 book Confessions of an Eco-Warrior: “The only hope of the Earth is to withdraw huge areas as inviolate natural sanctuaries from the depredations of modern industry and technology. Move out the people and cars. Reclaim the roads and the plowed lands.” Deep Ecology is essentially a mix of the rich tradition of Pantheistic nature worship with streams of Taoism, Buddhism and American and German eco-revivalism thrown in. It is in fact, a beautiful philosophy. However, in radical hands it becomes something quite different.

Norway’s premier Philosopher Arne Naess and recognised pioneer of the Deep Ecology movement drew up eight basic principles that describe the philosophy:

The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves. These values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realisation of these values and are also values in themselves.
Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs.
The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life demands such a decrease.
Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening.
Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present.
The ideological change is mainly in appreciating life quality rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to try to implement the necessary change. [Emphasis mine]

Eminently sensible. Except that this same philosophy is also embraced by eco-fascists who define our “obligations”, in slightly more authoritarian ways thereby hoping to change political policies to a situation “deeply different from the present.” We might hazard a guess what they might be prepared to do to get that ideal differential.

Deep Ecology has many positive connections to past traditions which involve co-creating with Nature rather than exploiting it, thus exhibiting a much needed humility. Nonetheless, since it appeals to those harbouring eco-fascistic views and authoritarian designs it is easily absorbed into the Agenda 21 framework. Despite the central premise of Deep Ecology as philosophical (which often means impractical) and a guide to a deeper awareness of nature and our relationship to it, in the context of Pathocracy it becomes another nail in the coffin of true awareness; the case of the horse bolting before the cart. When Deep Ecology becomes grafted on to the State – much like anything other truth – it cannot become anything else but subverted. The radicalism of the Wildlands Network in combination with Agenda 21 and Deep ecology advocates has the potential to become something quite different to the romance of us all returning to a more harmonious connection to the Earth. Such radicalism invites it as John Davis, editor of Wild Earth magazine exemplifies: “Does all the foregoing mean that Wild Earth and The Wildlands Project advocate the end of industrialized civilization? Most assuredly. Everything civilized must go …”

So, to what does the Wildlands Network comprise? Reed Noss defines it in the following terms: “A wilderness recovery network is an inter-connected system of strictly protected areas (core reserves), surrounded by lands used for human activities compatible with conservation that put biodiversity first (buffer zones), and linked together in some way that provides for functional connectivity of populations across the landscape.” ^[12]

The 4C’s meets the 3E’s

The characteristics of these core areas include the expansion of parks and “wilderness areas to include adjacent old growth, roadless areas, and ecological areas,” where size means “bigger is better.” (So much for E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful) Existing roads would be closed and “Human access greatly reduced or eliminated altogether.” Noss interjects that: “Many ecologists (myself included) would just as soon see huge areas of land kept off limits to human activities of any kind.” ^{^[13]} “Buffer zones” allow for some human activity, while “corridors” permit wildlife to travel freely from one core area to another, extend reserve habitats; allow seasonal migration genetic interchange between core reserves; “provide for long distance migration in response to climate change” with the average width of corridor one mile wide where little or no human use is encouraged. All of which seems to confirm the idea of that humans are to be controlled and managed in order to preserve Nature. The Integration and marriage of the natural world of which we are a part seems an unworkable hypothesis, but such segregation would certainly appeal to a super-rich Elite who have made it their long-term purpose to live in these reserve habitats while the rest of us get used to living in Mega-cities.

SD principles and the parallel visions of conservation biology share a special place in collectivist minds. The three pillars of SD which can be found in almost every article or paper related to Agenda 21, ecology and environmental ethics are: “Equity”, “Economy” and “Environment” or “The three E’s of Sustainability.” (See above). Each sector requires a total transformation towards global government. The “transformation of society” under the auspices of the UN and its agencies, the Club of Rome and many other think tanks and non-elected institutions and NGOs is not about a paradigm shift to more freedom and ecological emancipation but to accept a carefully engineered set of beliefs in order to welcome its exact opposite. Equity, Economy and Environment are embedded in the collectivist-corporatist ethos of the 4Cs of: commercialisation, consolidation, centralisation and control. Equity is about social justice that will put nature before humans and thus create the conditions by which private ownership is diluted and eventually seen as “eco-unfriendly” and against the “greater good”. Integrated into a SMART infrastructure a police state will be relatively “soft” due to the pervasive sanitising of consciousness drawn from socio-eco-engineering principles. In this way, Fabian economics has always been behind much of the new ecological visions currently capturing the minds of the Western young bureaucrats and technocrats. It is the core force behind the 4Cs, the 3Es and the 3EM.

Ecologists, environmental activists, politicians and bureaucrats are so bound up in green visions or the cash incentives for green technology that they cannot seem to entertain the possibility that such huge projects may serve a totalitarian game-plan. As discussed the shadow of right-wing paranoia and conspiracy theory lunacy, rather than a cold-bloodied appraisal of some obvious sign-posts holds sway. One wonders if the Rockefeller, Oppenheimer, Windsor, and Rothschild dynasties and the protégés of One World, eco-fascists are going to be inhabiting the carefully regulated, SD-designed SMART cities of the future where everything conforms to a bland monotony of ecological and technocratic “efficiency”. I doubt it. The poor of course will remain where they always have – in centralised systems, on the margins of society scratching a living without access to nature (or nurture) while the middle class will be suffocated under more and more eco-SMART technocracy with very little ability to free themselves from biometric “convenience.” The Elite will be residing in “secure zones” with grand ranches, mansions and resorts set deep in the wilderness away from the human species that does not respect her; like demi-Gods on earth whose stewardship and spiritual status demand their presence as custodians of the New World Religion. The World State writ large. Meantime, the rest of humanity will be corralled into cities known as “safe zones” and far away from “sacred” wild lands. These mega-cities will house what’s left of the human populations, after wars, disease and manufactured crises have done their work…

Dystopian fantasy? Hysterical hyperbole? Or perhaps we really believe that all of this is really for us, and everyone will be happily paragliding, hiking and rafting the rapids at their leisure from core wilderness centres to the grand corridors of their choosing?

In the next post we will look deeper into the Sustainable Development, UN Agenda 21 and how it is currently affecting cities in America.

* In the unlikely event that you still unclear as to what SMART growth actually means, wikipedia provides as good a summary as I can come up with describing it as:

“… an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term ‘smart growth’ is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms ‘Compact City’ or ‘urban intensification’ have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.”

As we get to the section on Technocracy you’ll see how snugly all this “exciting” and “liberating” SMART technology fits into Sustainable Development and Agenda 21.

See also: What Is Sutainable Development? By James Corbett

Notes

[1] ‘Sustainable development,’ U.S. Department of Agriculture.
[2] http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/agenda21/
[3] The Commission on Global Governance, Our Global Neighbourhood, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
[4] ‘Is your private property in jeopardy?’ By Henry Lamb, October 31, 2005 | http://www.sovereigntinternational.com
[5] CRS Report for Congress Received through the CRS Web, Federal Regional Authorities and Commissions: Their Function and Design Updated September 21, 2006, By Eugene Boyd, Analyst, Government and Finance Division. http://www.hsdl.org
[6] op. cit. Staudenmaier.
[7] ‘Examining Rio+20’s Outcome’ Authors: Suan Ee Ong, Senior Research Analyst, Multilateralism Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University Rômulo S. R. Sampaio, Professor of Environmental Law, Getulio Vargas Foundation Andrei Marcu, Senior Advisor and Head of Carbon Market Forum, Centre for European Policy Studies Agathe Maupin and Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, Research Fellow and National Director, South African Institute of International Affairs. http://www.cfr.org/ July 5, 2012.
[8] The Land Grabbers: The New Fight Over Who Owns The Earth by Fred Pearce. Published by Eden Project Books. 2012.
[9] The Wildlands Project: Summary: http://www.wildlandsprojectrevealed.org
[10] Section 13.4.2.2.3, page 993, ‘Global Biodiversity Assessment’ Cambridge University Press, 1995.
[11] Michael Soulé and Reed Noss, “Rewilding and Biodiversity: Complementary Goals for Continental Conservation,” Wild Earth 8 (Fall 1998) 19-28.
[12] “The Wildlands Project: Land Conservation Strategy, ”by Ross F. Need, Wild Earth Journal, .January 1992.
[13] Maintaining Ecological Integrity in Representative Reserve Networks by R. Noss, World Wildlife Fund Canada Discussion Paper, 1995. p.12.

Dark Green VII: The Club of Rome and “World Problematique” (2)

By M.K. Styllinski

“Every man is a moon and has a dark side which is turned towards nobody- you have to slip around behind if you want to see it.”

– Mark Twain

Eco-fascism and World State advocates incorporate a host of well-intentioned people. Such movements work, precisely because the genuine emotions behind the propaganda have been tapped. It does not mean every person involved is somehow part of a nefarious conspiracy – it’s cleverer than that. Knowledge of mass psychology ensures compliance; self-censorship and our adherence to comfortable belief and authority usually proves enough. It is also true that many of those doing their part under the Club of Rome and other organisations we have discussed may be subconsciously aware of these authoritarian principles and have the make up of an authoritarian follower. This doesn’t necessarily make them pathological but it does make them ignorant of the wider spheres of manipulation, thus easily swayed, whether academic or layman, politician or scientist. After all, we tend to jump on the band-wagon of belief that most readily conforms to our childhood programming and personality desires.

The Club of Rome is an outfit designed to appeal to the green arm of those romantic visions of one world unity and eco-authoritarian sensibilities. If World State principles are to have a chance they need to adapt quickly and conform to the Rockefeller ideal of a corporatist-collectivist hybridisation which can foster the needed economics, just as they did after World War II. The directive for institution building was “peace,” here, it is “environmental catastrophe” – regardless of the validity. The psychopath’s mind piggy-backs macro-social imperatives in order to extract the best possible outcome for its minority species. In this case, the survival and dominance of their genetic code, not that of normal people.

The CoR authors state:

“The period of absence of thought and a lack of common vision – not of the world of tomorrow will be, but of what we want it to be, so we can shape it – is a source of discouragement, even despair. […] It seem would that many men and women need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together. In the vacuum such motivations seem to have ceased to exist – or have yet to be found.” [Emphasis mine]

This harks back to the stanza of “Remoulding it to the heart’s desire” and the allusions to commonality, consensus, communitarianism etc. (Remember Common Core and Common Purpose?) Nothing wrong with any of those things but just who is doing the “shaping” here on behalf of humanity? The same movers and shakers are still in control. It’s the difference between self-organised communities independent of State controls or inverted totalitarianism hijacking truth and so far, every indication seems to be it is the latter.

© Cienpiesnf | Dreamstime.com – Green Development Concept Earth Photo

It seems the Club of Rome and its various offshoots have arrived at the idea that we need a “common motivation” being so disempowered and bereft of ideas of our own. Further, we need an “adversary” in order to act together and get organised just like we need an adversary in the shape of a terrorist threat or the nonsense of Vladimir Putin as a Hitlerian instigator of a new cold war. It’s exactly the same dynamic used to hoodwink the mass mind. The CoR is using in plain sight, the same technique to elicit a Pavlovian response from the populace to create the groundswell to “save the planet” and prevent an ecological catastrophe. In the “vacuums” created by power structures and with psychopaths at specific nodes of influence almost anything can be inserted into the mass mind with enough appeal to instinct (fear) and emotion (altruistic desire) to create a potent force upon which the Elite can ride to fruition. We find the same “scientific technique” so favoured by governments everywhere:

“The need for enemies seems to be a common historical factor. Some states have striven to overcome domestic failure and internal contradictions by blaming external enemies. The ploy of finding a scapegoat is as old as mankind itself – when things become too difficult at home, divert attention to adventure abroad. Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one, or else one invented for the purpose.”

No arguments there. Rather than moving away from such a manipulation they decide to employ the exact same tactics simply because it is “green” and the future of the planet is at stake. And here we come to the whole point underlying much of the global warming hysteria of the last twenty years:

Can we live without enemies? Every state has been so used to classifying its neighbours as friend or foe that the sudden absence of traditional adversaries has left governments and public opinion with a great void to fill. New enemies have to be identified, new strategies imagined and new weapons devised. The new enemies are different in their nature and location but they are no less real. They threaten the whole human race and they are and their names are pollution, water shortage, famine, malnutrition, illiteracy and unemployment. [Emphasis mine]

Finally, the dénouement arrives:

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” ^{^[1]}

Transmute our need for bogeyman and graft them onto a sensible, ecological salvation. Notice how State and society are one in the authors’ minds. To combat the perceived threat to the human race deception is necessary for the good of the whole – i.e. The Elite. Similarly, true to eco-fascist principles, the Establishment are not the enemies but “humanity itself” who has been raised and inculcated along the very same lines of perception management that the CoR is proposing here.

Indeed, taking his cue from this propaganda was the late CoR member Prof. Stephen Schneider of Stanford Professor of Biology and Global Change who claimed: “We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination … So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts … Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” ^{^[2]}However, in order to achieve this aim, notions of democracy and freedom must be turned on their heads for the greater good.

In the 1991 edition, (though carefully re-worked in the 1993 edition) we find:

But freedom alone cannot reorganise a state, write a constitution, create a market and establish economic growth, rebuild industry and agriculture and or build a new social structure. It is a necessary and noble, inspirational force but it is far from being an operating manual for a new government. This is why the concept of human rights simply initiates but cannot implement the process of democratization […] The old democracies have functioned reasonably well over the last 200 years, but they appear now to be in a phase of complacent stagnation with little evidence of real leadership and innovation. The slowness of decision-making in a democratic system is particularly damaging at the international level. […]

Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.” ^{^[3]}

They are right: “Democracy is not a Panacea.” Yet, these proffered “Global Revolutions” – as every managed and co-opted revolution in the past – are not offering progressive change that lies with the people but the exact same notions of change residing in global governance and a New Renaissance of World State dreams percolating in the minds of leaders. They are advocating tighter centralisation grafted onto and through the ideological medium of regionalism and Communitarianism. As the “wise man” of new age environmentalism Maurice Strong mentioned in a recent essay for the World Policy Journal: “… our concepts of ballot-box democracy may need to be modified to produce strong governments capable of making difficult decisions.” ^{^[4]}

When you place this in context you see a pattern and you slowly realise that this is ditching democracy in order to replace it with a re-packaging of the 4C’s with the exact same management team that will preside over a new Social Contract using ecological catastrophe as the “enemy”. This is a ruse to seemingly “unite us” but it is a unity that serves the few. The same is happening with economics (manipulated collapse) and society as a whole (SMART growth/sustainable development).

In similar fashion, the UN as a policing body which is, in principle at least, concerned with the enforcement of world disarmament as an achievable goal. Now, think about this from a minority psychopath’s point of view. What would the psychopath do if he wanted to ride normal humanity’s back without the possibility of being discovered? Further, when he was revealed, you could no longer cause him harm? He would feed humanity an array of enticing “foods” and cultivate distractions that would make make it progressively docile and asleep to psycho-spiritual danger. A mass condition of Stockholm Syndrome would arrive, effectively disabling humanity’s ability to SEE evil in its midst. While sleeping, the psychopath caused us to to gorge on mental, emotional and physical inducements devoid of nourishment while eventually removing our teeth under cover of night. When and if we finally awake our will and ability to defend ourselves from psychic infection would be gone.

Whilst violence is not the answer, disarming the population is a standard, historical tactic of the Establishment and ensures compliance to a World Order with the minimum of resistance, both in terms of the mind and regarding the possibility of civil unrest. A future armed resistance from those who would rather have the choice as to whether they are embedded in a pathocratic “SMART society” is an understandable reaction. Yet, even here the fostering of “revolution” in the minds of the masses is also a part of social engineering and a veritable smoke and mirrors of conflicting desires, since every revolution is designed to break down Official culture so that the Establishment can introduce their own “solutions.”

If you think the CoR is doing its level best to defer to those with conscience and use language that would buffer the true meaning – then you would be correct. The real intention is stated far more bluntly by Fred G. Thompson in his article for the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome:

[W]e have temporarily acquired the means to defy Nature, it is only for a short time. If we do not design policies to halt, and then reverse population growth, Nature by default will soon exact a most punishing solution. […] The reduction of human population by default means in plain language the reduction of human numbers by war, disease and famine. […]

Over-consumption is, of course, the basic cause of polluting the atmosphere and global warming. So it must be dealt with.

One possible scenario would be the imposition of birth control by a world government which possesses the capacity to enforce it globally. Not a pretty scene, but an alternative to global war, disease and starvation. ^{^[5]}
[Emphasis mine]

And yet, global war, disease and starvation are exactly the methods and effects which have been used by those that govern us for centuries. Talk about a contradiction! Despite the insistence that: “ ‘Global ‘governance’ in our vocabulary does not imply a global ‘government’ but rather the institutions set up for cooperation, coordination, and common action between durable sovereign states” it is one of many disingenuous statements which amount to semantics. How likely is such a global scenario to play out when those same players that coordinated past disasters are still residing at the top of these institutions which are attempting to become supra-global and when democracy is deemed inefficient and out-dated? How likely is any notion of success to be realised when deception, bad science and blatant determinism is used as the arbiters of a perceived truth?

Democracy has indeed succumbed to the very same forces proposing global consciousness along eco-fascist principles. Democratic decision-making is seen as “damaging at the international level” because of its slow pace. It can also be argued that it can act as a safeguard to precipitous decisions and runaway policies based on reaction and reflex instead of careful thought and transparent arbitration.

The Club of Rome subsequently founded two sister organisations, the Club of Budapest which focuses on social and cultural issues and the Club of Madrid which has a more political emphasis. Both follow the same themes of sustainability and developing new socio-political and ecological frameworks which leave capitalism and democracy behind.

The CoR has also established a network of over 35 National Associations. Although, as of writing, the “Ex Officio membership” at the CoR website is conveniently blank which would have otherwise given a snapshot of the kind of belief from which the CoR has traditionally drawn. A brief summary of current and past members from CoR and its sister organisations include:

Al Gore – former VP of the USA, leading climate change campaigner, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Academy Award winner and Emmy winner. Gore led the US delegations to the Rio Earth Summit and Kyoto Climate Change conference and chaired a meeting of the full Club of Rome held in Washington DC in 1997. Stating in Grist Magazine in 2006: “I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are…” He is most well-known for being opposition candidate to the Bush-Cheney Reich in 2004 and for producing the scientifically compromised but multi-award-winning global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

Javier Solana – is a Spanish physicist and Socialist politician. Secretary General of the Council of the European Union, High Representative for EU Foreign Policy. He is a frequent speaker at the prestigious U.S. based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He was also Secretary-General of NATO from 1995-1999 and gave the Clinton led go ahead for the bombing campaign of the former Yugoslavia as well as giving full support for the invasion of Iraq under the illusion of full European support: “Today’s message to Baghdad is very clear: the UN Security Council resolution expresses the unity and determination of the entire international community to assume its collective responsibility.” ^{^[6]}

Mikhail Gorbachev – The big Daddy of New World Order change; a CoR executive member, former President of the Soviet Union, founder of Green Cross International and the Gorbachev Foundation, Nobel Peace Prize winner, co-founder (with Hidalgo) of the Club of Madrid, co-author (with Maurice Strong) of the Earth Charter. Gorby has come out with some memorable statements: “The threat of environmental crisis will be the ‘international disaster key’ that will unlock the New World Order.”

Most recently the Russian elder statesman had this to say at Lafayette College commenting on the Occupy Wall St. Movement:

“Others, including myself, have spoken about a new world order, but we are still facing the problem of building such a world order…problems of the environment, of backwardness and poverty, food shortages…all because we do not have a system of global governance. We cannot leave things as they were before, when we are seeing that these protests are moving to even new countries, that almost all countries are now witnessing such protests, that the people want change. As we are addressing these challenges, these problems raised by these protest movements, we will gradually find our way towards a new world order.” ^{^[7]}

Diego Hidalgo Schnur – Cutting his teeth at the World Bank from 1968 to 1977, he is the founder and president of FRIDE, (Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior), of the Club of Madrid. He is the Chairman of the Board for DARA (international organization) and Concordia 21. He is also a founding member and senior fellow of the Gorbachev Foundation of North America (GFNA).

Ervin Laszlo – Concert pianist, scientist and philosopher. Founding member of the CoR, founder and President of the Club of Budapest, founder and Chairman of the World Wisdom Council.

Anne Ehrlich – Population Biologist. Married to Paul Ehrlich with whom she has authored many books on human overpopulation. Also a former director of Friends of the Earth and the Sierra Club, and a member of the UN’s Global Roll of Honour.

Sir Crispin Ticknell – former British Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Permanent Representative on the Security Council, Chairman of the ‘Gaia Society’, Chairman of the Board of the Climate Institute, leading British climate change campaigner. Ticknell is a keen believer in Gaia theory stating that: “Gaia has no particular tenderness for humans. We are no more than a small, albeit immodest, part of her.” ^[8]

Maurice Strong – Described by the New York Times as the “Custodian of the Planet” Strong has been Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Chief Policy Advisor to Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the Rio Earth Summit, co-author (with Gorbachev) of the Earth Charter, co-author of the Kyoto Protocol, founder of the Earth Council. He is also a devout follower of the Baha’i religion and propagator of Gaian theology. Strong has also long been a Rockefeller agent of change, having been financially backed by the family since he was knee-high to an oil drum. Yes, Strong, had his beginnings in oil. It is for this reason that Strong has managed to create environmental organisations, think-tanks and foundations as well as being on the board of almost every other environmental initiative and enterprise. (For more on the eco-Intelpro background of Strong please watch James Corbett’s video series on Big Oil).

Here’s what Mr. Strong said in his autobiography, in a section described as a report to the shareholders, Earth Inc, dated 2031: “And experts have predicted that the reduction of the human population may well continue to the point that those who survive may not number more than the 1.61 billion people who inhabited the Earth at the beginning of the 20th century. A consequence, yes, of death and destruction — but in the end a glimmer of hope for the future of our species and its potential for regeneration.” ^{^[9]}A “glimmer of hope” after death and destruction over which he is not only happy to preside, but to encourage. This is key to understanding the impetus behind global warming and other forms of eco-Intelpro: it is eco-fascism of the highest order. Yet commenting on Strong’s legacy of environmentalism Kofi Anaan thought: “It would be a mistake to think of Maurice solely as one of the world’s leading environmentalists. His main cause has been people.” ^{^[10]}It’s a “cause” all right, just one that ignores the true roots of the global crises while promoting Nature over humans.

Robert Muller – former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, founder and Chancellor of the UN University of Peace. No surprise that we found the late Mr. Muller working his magic here and who observed:

“In my view, from all perspectives — scientific, political, social, economic and ideological — humanity finds itself in the pregnancy of an entirely new and promising age: the global, interdependent, universal age … the birth of the global brain, heart, senses and soul to humanity, of a holistic consciousness of our place in the universe and on this planet, and of our role and destiny in them.”

Which may well be, but such gushing statements are quite useful for those wish to build a global consciousness based on the opposite. Muller’s World Core Curriculum was based directly on the Alice Bailey teachings. His role seems to have been to plant the seeds of a New World Religion in the faithful: “We must, together, create an agency within the U.N. and perhaps an independent United Religions Secretariat. What an incredible challenge that would offer to the United Nations, and what untold good it would bring to humanity, which desperately needs a moral and spiritual Renaissance.” ^{^[11]}

Which of course means supporting the CoR and all it stands for.

Other Club of Rome members include Kofi Anaan, Lionel Jospin, George Soros, Hassan bin Talal, Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Javier Perez de Cuellar, Jose Maria Anzar, Bill Gates, The Dalai Lama, Garret Hardin, King Juan Carlos of Spain and his wife Queen Sophia, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Prince Philippe of Belgium and many more. And of course, as ever, David Rockefeller, whom we know a little about.

Project partners and funding for the organisations comes from a variety of foundations and government bodies which by their mere presence is enough to conclude that such organizations cannot be trusted: Cisco Systems; International Economic Club of China; Turkish Future Researches Foundation (TUGAV) United Nations Foundation (UNF) Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Eurasian Economic Club of Scientists; Bertelsman Stiftung; Hunt Alternatives Fund; The Cousin’s Charitable Foundation; Institute for Security Studies (South Africa) Institute on Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) Brookings Institution; Centre for Concern Rethinking Bretton Woods Project. With annual conference sponsorship from the Rockefeller Foundation; Google; Samsung; Microsoft; McKinsey & Co and GDF Suez.

The Rockefeller funding is present in all three CoR organisations.

Rio Earth Summit 1992

Blame it on Rio

The drive to protect the Earth and Nature under attack is obviously an admirable one. The destruction of the rainforests is something that gives me a literal pain in my heart when I see it. But how is all this mass emotional energy actually being used? The last thing the pathocratic Establishment want is an informed and thinking public who are able to discern signposts to eco-social engineering. It seems we still have a long way to go when it comes to green issues and notions of just who is “healing the Earth”.

When the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit arrived in 1992 it was chaired under the ubiquitous Maurice Strong. The Convention on Biological Diversity; The Framework Convention on Climate Change; and the UN Agenda 21 were all birthed there on a wave of green emotion and a sincere desire to take action. Psychological seeding was the intent rather than rapid change. Since then, in concert with SMART society initiatives and land use redevelopment cartels these policies have redrawn the framework of local and national government policy. Regardless of whether they understood the nature of the green mask, change agents were needed; what counted was their iconic presence.

In 1994, Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev, formally introduced the Earth Charter as a civil society initiative and part of the declaration of Rio. The independent Earth Charter Commission, “… was convened by Strong and Gorbachev with the purpose of developing a global consensus on values and principles for a sustainable future. The Commission continues to serve as the steward of the Earth Charter text.” ^{^[12]}Now, one of the principle creators of the Earth Charter was… (drum-roll) … Steven Clark Rockefeller! He was chairman of the Earth Charter international drafting committee and member of the Earth Charter Commission and Steering Committee. He also happens to be an advisory trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund while still finding time to act as professor emeritus of Religion at Middlebury College. The ideal person to create such a UN-driven declaration that: “we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny,” and that a “change of mind and heart” is needed for this global undertaking.

Like Alice Bailey’s “New Group of World Servers,” – who and what exactly, are we ultimately following?

Towards the end of the Earth charter we are provided with more “choices” dressed up as no choices at all:

”As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning. Such renewal is the promise of these Earth Charter principles. To fulfill this promise, we must commit ourselves to adopt and promote the values and objectives of the Charter. This requires a change of mind and heart. It requires a new sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. We must imaginatively develop and apply the vision of a sustainable way of life locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. Our cultural diversity is a precious heritage and different cultures will find their own distinctive ways to realize the vision. We must deepen and expand the global dialogue that generated the Earth Charter, for we have much to learn from the ongoing collaborative search for truth and wisdom.”

“In order to build a sustainable global community, the nations of the world must renew their commitment to the United Nations, fulfil their obligations under existing international agreements, and support the implementation of Earth Charter principles with an international legally binding instrument on environment and development. Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.” ^{^[13]} [Emphasis mine]

When we come to talk about the UN Agenda 21 and its push for SMART growth redevelopment within urban centres and suburbia, you will see why the above is dangerous manipulation – a green diversion, if you will.

By 2000, the Earth Charter text had been taken to activists, NGOs and governments hearts appealing to both romantic and ideological aspirations, with huge glut of conferences, seminars, neighbourhood meetings all attended by suitably paid “facilitators” and lobbyists. Sustainable development in the 1990s was only the first stage. Once SMART growth and society were not merely buzzwords but the technology was there to support it, SD and SMART fused into one. The Earth dialogues followed in 2002, launched by Strong and Gorby as an outgrowth of Green Cross International. These series of annual public forums sought to: “… bring together civil society and the private and public sectors in the search for solutions to resolve the most pressing and interconnected challenges of insecurity, poverty and environmental degradation.” ^{^[14]}

Sounds inspiring doesn’t it? It’s a shame this is another lie. It seems the young have been sucked into yet another Strong/Gorby production: the Earth Charter Initiative where children are sought as “change agents” for the new “Global ethic.” According to the website description:

“The Earth Charter Initiative is the collective name for an extraordinarily diverse, global network of people, organizations, and institutions who participate in promoting the Earth Charter, and in implementing its principles in practice. The Initiative is a broad-based, voluntary, civil society effort, but participants include leading international institutions, national governments, university associations, NGOs, cities, faith groups, and many well-known leaders in sustainable development.” ^{^[15]}

Its objectives regarding education is an example of a familiar dogma:

“The Earth Charter values and principles must be taught, contemplated, applied and internalized. To this end, the Earth Charter needs to be incorporated into both formal and non-formal education. This process must involve various communities, continue to integrate the Charter into the curriculum of schools and universities, and constitute an on-going process of life-long learning.” ^{^[16]}

The best way to gain a commitment from the awakening mass mind is to appeal to their values and shared commonality. The Earth Charter text and initiative are worded in such a way that a form of entrainment occurs which fits seamlessly into grass roots aspirations. Social transformation of young minds can then fit into the Agenda 21 structures currently being implemented. After all, according to Strong: “The real goal of the Earth Charter, is that it will in fact become like the Ten Commandments.” ^{^[17]}

Once again, this isn’t about saving the planet or offering a new template that will empower people to find creative solutions outside of the Establishment. This is about the exact reverse: to homogenise thought and action related to green issues and ecological science by contouring focus into pre-designed, socially engineered parameters, where national parks, land allocation, land resource, the prohibition of private property and SMART ghettoization takes place by stealth. This society will be supremely green and highly efficient but lacking any freedom to choose. Indeed, the whole concept of sustainability and SMART is are already being sold as desirable – even inevitable – choices when in fact, it has all been based on another dialectical formula to herd the population.

New World (Eco) Indoctrination

The reader may remember the late former Assistant-Secretary of the UN Robert Muller, who was a highly influential spiritual guru within the institution and a follower of the Alice Bailey teachings explored in a previous post. The Earth Charter Initiative is overseen by the United Nations University of Peace founded by Muller (yes, Maurice Strong is the President) its governing council a veritable honey-pot of Club of Rome members, including the now retired Secretary-General Martin Lees.

Like the Earth charter initiatives in education, Robert Muller schools continue to pop up all over the world “educating” children towards a singular perception of reality. Yet, the more we look into Muller’s background and what he is advocating, the more troubling it becomes. The laudable sentiments for world peace and harmony on earth are undercut by the same spiritual fascism that we can find in the Bailey writings and militant environmentalists. What is more, it presents a spiritual narcissism so extreme it defies belief that such a man until recently, had such power over the decision-making process in UN circles. Yet it is this very genuine and highly devotional personality that is so often useful in promoting a fake agenda.

The ubiquitous Maurice Strong

“global visionary” Robert Muller

On Muller’s website goodmorningworld.org a series of personal conversations with God ensue:

God: “Dear Robert, congratulations for having finished your 4000 ideas. May I ask you: which one do you consider the most important?”

I: Well, my most important idea and conclusion after all my adult life as a world civil servant is this: The United Nations must be vastly strengthened to resolve the major global problems henceforth increasingly confronting humanity and the Earth. It must be empowered to adopt and enforce world laws and regulations.

God: “Thank you, dear Robert, for what you are recommending. Perhaps after all, the greatest jewel of my Creation, the Earth, can be saved.” […]

Under these circumstances I cannot accept that you consider your 4000 ideas to be the end. You should, you must continue and work hard on implementation. I will help you from heaven, creating the right circumstances and ensuring that your ideas and efforts will be known at the right, highest world levels.” ^{^[18]} [Emphasis mine]

Notwithstanding the assumption that Muller has been hand-picked by God because of the quality of his ideas which will work at the “highest world levels,” he proceeds to enthusiastically trumpet his visions which include the United Nations mandating: “… urgency plans or conferences to halt the rapid decline of Plane Earth’s life giving capacities and wealth,” such as a: “… world emergency plan to stop for at least five years the human population explosion;” “… a world emergency plan for the more rapid reduction of carbon dioxide emissions;” and “… a world emergency plan to avoid further risks of climatic changes;” and many other “ideas” which are, by now, quite familiar. ^{^[19]} All of this, with the enforcement of “world laws and regulations.”

It seems Robert Muller’s delight at being a “world civil servant” is genuine… Is this global governance to be made up of an eco-technocratic elite of civil servants, traditional Iagos and Machiavellian snakes which inhabit all the quangos and corridors of political power, easing, oiling and subverting where necessary? It would seem so. This is not to say that Muller isn’t sincere. He may be a thoroughly decent man. But that isn’t the issue.

Good intentions never have been.

While there is much to praise in Muller’s stream of ideas, his ignorance of the nature of ecology and non-linear change – and more importantly geo-politics – is truly frightening considering the position he found himself. The level of spiritual egocentrism is profound. For example, his comments on population:

“Perhaps the recent increase of terrorism is the beginning of that revolution. The attacks against the US World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were perhaps the opening of it. Among the measures, which can reduce this new world danger, the UN should urgently convene a World Emergency Population Conference. Another is a new, immediate World Marshall Plan, as recommended by the Club of Budapest.” ^{^[20]}

And the Club of Budapest is Muller’s own bar-code of approval touting the same centralisation and homogenization of human creativity. To Muller, unless we get with the picture, it is not just a danger but a “New World danger!” Is there a New World toaster perhaps? Or a New World Supermarket with New World Baked Beans? Has Muller exhausted the call for a New World —– (fill in the blank) enough?

Urgently convening conferences based on Elite blessings and interminable calls for New World authorities and centralisations were Muller’s speciality and therefore, while fairly meaningless, were no less fanatical.

Everything in Muller’s vision is sourced from Alice Bailey and molded into his own prolific worldview which is dangerously naïve, messianic, blind to the dangers inherent in the ideas he is proposing. His impression of humanity is that we: “… are still a very primitive, underdeveloped species” which needs the stewardship of folks like himself desperate for a singular type of New World. Muller further believes: “Communism has died. It is now the turn of capitalism to change or die. The new ideology should be Earthism, the proper management and conservation of our precious, life-nurturing and sustaining Earth. Capital should be used to save the Earth and become eco-capitalism.” Not a word on ponerology, not a word about the fact the very challenges we face are not sourced from the human species but a minority who soil the sandpit. The underdeveloped species of course, clearly doesn’t include Muller who sits on the right hand of God and is therefore his valuable conduit outside such nastiness.^{^[21]}

This isn’t education. It’s indoctrination.

“New” is prefixed in front of every possible discipline and domain, from a new political system to a new economics; a new education and a new media and new communications to a new democracy and a new global leadership; a new science and technology to a new anthropology, sociology and new ways of life; a new human biology and a new philosophy, cosmology and long term, view of evolution to a new world ethics and justice and a new world psychology all connected under “the art of planetary management” and group consciousness. A vast homogenous mass – collectivism at the ground level of a clinical, urban wasteland with romantic, warm and fuzzy trigger words to engender conformity. Will you become one of the chosen few who will be living in the assigned zones of ecotopia; with their neighbourhood police and gated SMART-buildings with round the clock security?

The Earth Charter is a set of principles which enhances and streamlines Agenda 21 which is a framework by which a re-shaping of society according to sustainable principles can be implemented. They go hand in hand. The International Covenant on Environment and Development allows a smooth passage of laws in relation to Charter to go through unimpeded and is being prepared by the Commission on Environmental Law at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which is a monolithic agency straddling more than 700 other international agencies. (You will not be surprised to hear that Maurice Strong is giving the Rockefellers a run for their money by being on the board of the directors of the IUCN as well as everywhere else…)

Alongside corporations who are also patrons of the very same UN philosophies and providers of education materials with their logos stamped on every page, thousands of schools and educational organisations are currently promoting Earth Charter materials. Children are being exposed to entrainment that subtly conforms to the habitual group think and group consciousness hitherto discussed. Many of the themes and principles in the Earth Charter are sound and practical – even visionary – but they sourced from a purview of highly contested computer modelling techniques of the Club of Rome, UNEP and the IPCC who work together to fuel fear and alarm alongside the imperative for change via global governance. Underpinning New Age declarations for Global unity is bad science and cynical perception management that most assuredly does not have the best interests of humanity at heart.

Seat of the Universal House of Justice, governing body of the Bahá’ís, in Haifa, Israel

Of utmost importance is education towards the idea of a World State and the imposition of a New World Religion or “spirituality” depending on which agency you are involved in. As such, standard religion has to be side-lined or preferably done away with all together. After all, according to commongood.org a forum for Inter-Religious Groups and Spiritual Leaders “… it is clear that our religious institutions have barely begun to articulate the core values of sustainable development.” ^{^[22]}

It seems the Bahá’í Faith is one of the models which is deemed an exception to the rule.

The New World Religion that is doing the rounds at the UN offices and heavily promoted by Strong and Gorby is the Bahá’í faith. Founded by Bahá’u’lláh in 19^th century, it is a monotheistic religion with, of course, a strong emphasis on world government. This is why New Agers, collectivists and UN acolytes have been persuaded (mostly by Strong) to embed the Bahá’í religion within the UN. Much like the Lucis Trust, it is permitted to have consultative status with the following organisations: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF); United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM); United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); World Health Organization (WHO).

The Bahá’í International Community is an agency under the direction of the Universal House of Justice in Haifa, Israel. Drums, rituals and sacred messages at numerous conferences organised by Strong have featured a background of Bahá’í-inspired rituals in praise of Gaia and Mother Earth. Similar to the Lucis Trust and its “Great Invocation” the Bahá’í religion adds a further layer of institutionalised ritual to the UN.

Perhaps we could say that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of ritual and the rehashing of ancient wisdom. After all, don’t we want to live in a world of peace, harmony, tolerance and social justice? Don’t we want to preserve our emerald lands and provide a sustainable way of life which includes access to clean water and plentiful food for the planet’s inhabitants?

Even if it were based upon entirely authentic intentions, forcing it into being won’t work, and it will be especially hollow if we allow a monoculture of laws alongside a ritually-based platform for an authoritarian band of Word Civil Servants” to control the mass of humanity.

World State Policies IX: Food as a Weapon and GM Crops Unleashed

“If you control oil, you control nations. If you control food, you control people.”

– Henry Kissinger

“Food is power! We use it to change behaviour. Some may call that bribery. We do not apologize.” So said past Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, Catherine Bertini.

One can imagine that humility may be very low down on the list of qualities for a person voted “the most powerful woman in the world” by The Times of London newspaper in 1996. And by a spooky quirk of fate, Bertini is also a member of the Advisory Council at Rockefeller College on Public Affairs and Policy, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Fellow of the Rockefeller supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. If her Elite membership doesn’t tell you all you need to know from the outset then her mentor Henry Kissinger will place her remarks in context.

One of a number of Elite pensioners who seem to live forever while avoiding any kind of accountability for their crimes, Kissinger is one of the most reviled and revered elder Statesman who has never left the political game. CEO of Kissinger Associates, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and a long-time Bilderberger, he is the public face of those who prefer to remain out of the spotlight. He has strong ties to the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), JP Morgan Chase Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation and is international advisor to the Hollinger Group. He has held many public office positions including Head of the State Department and National Security Council under Nixon in the late 1960s and early 70s. He received the Noble Peace Prize in 1973 despite being instrumental in creating the Vietnam and Yom Kippur war between Egypt / Syria and Israel.

Kissinger 1971 (wikipedia)

Kissinger’s presence has been around like a persistent stain on the carpet of US geo-politics since the 1950s and no matter what truth rises to the surface, the old man still appears on T.V. shows and gives authoritative interviews despite volumes of evidence for his crimes including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, alleged child rape and torture. He encouraged the Kurds to take up arms against Saddam Hussein in 1972-75 and then abandoned them to a slow death; his participation in the promotion of South African apartheid; the destabilisation of Angola; the whitewashing of Central American death-squads; political protection for the Pahlavi dynasty in Iran and its system of torture and repression; the genocide of civilian populations in Indochina; the planning of the coup in Chile and the assassination of democratically elected President Salvador Allende and many other crimes extending to Bangladesh, Cyprus, East Timor, and Washington, D.C.

So, it was fitting that Kissinger would continue his crimes undetected by coming up with the policy to use food as a weapon. ^[1]

On Dec. 10, 1974, a 200 page classified study (later de-classified in the 1990s) was completed by the US National Security Council called: “National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests.” Overseen by Kissinger, it landed on his desk for review and then on to President General Ford to be adopted as official policy in 1975. The basic thrust of the study followed the same Malthusian line that population growth in developing countries was a threat to US National Security and therefore had to be curbed by overt and covert means. The former was to be birth control and the latter, the creation of war and famine. It just happened to neatly coincide with political and strategic interests which were underway in countries that were chosen for depopulation. These included: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Mexico, Brazil and Colombia. The power status of each of these countries could not be allowed to exceed the level that would put US interests at risk. The report stated: “Already the most populous country on the continent, with an estimated 55 million people in 1970, Nigeria’s population by the end of this century is projected to number 135 million. This suggests a growing political and strategic role for Nigeria, at least in Africa.” ^{^[2]} Which certainly wouldn’t do since America had grand plans for an unimpeded resource grab. US economic dominance and population control strategies converge in the following paragraph:

The U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries [see National Commission on Materials Policy, Towards a National Materials Policy: Basic Data and Issues, April 1972]. That fact gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States … ^{^[3]} [Emphasis mine]

Many, if not most of the problems now experienced in the developing world are a direct result of Western economic policy. Rockefeller Foundation, Planned Parenthood International and others were still busy in India pushing through birth control policies under threat of economic sanctions just as Kissinger was suggesting to withhold food supplies unless mass birth control became standard practice:

“There is also some established precedent for taking account of family planning performance in appraisal of assistance requirements by AID [U.S. Agency for International Development] and consultative groups. Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.” ^{^[4]}

Spoken like a true Machiavellian. He continued:

“Mandatory programs may be needed and we should be considering these possibilities now,” adding: “Would food be considered an instrument of national power? … Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can’t/won’t control their population growth?” ^{^[5]}

It was only in the late 1980’s that the Brazilian Ministry of Health began investigating reports of systematic sterilisation of Brazilian women and was amazed to find that: “… an estimated 44 percent of all Brazilian women aged between 14 and 55 had been permanently sterilized,” while older women had been sterilized fourteen years before at the start of the program. As they pursued their investigations various American and some Brazilian organisations and agencies were found to be involved including the US Pathfinder Fund, International Planned Parenthood Federation, the Association for Voluntary Surgical Contraception, Family Health International – all under the guiding hand of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). ^{^[6]}

The NSSM 200 study allowed what was essentially a eugenics-based National Security policy for depopulation to secretly develop in third world countries enhancing and expanding the work already carried out by Rockefeller minions twenty years before. Using euphemisms such as “family planning” and “population explosion” the propaganda of imminent population growth tied to the availability of strategic minerals could advance world Establishment designs in a way that had not been possible before the Nixon-Kissinger double act.

Author on geopolitics F. William Engdahl wrote from his 2007 book Seeds of Destruction:

While arguing for reducing global population growth by 500 million people by the year 2000, Kissinger noted elsewhere in his report that the population problem was already causing 10 million deaths yearly. In short he advocated doubling the death rate to at least 20 million, in the name of addressing the problem of deaths due to lack of sufficient food. The public would be led to believe that the new policy, at least what would be made public, was a positive one. In the strict definition of the UN Convention of 1948, it was genocide. […]

Kissinger was, in effect, a hired hand within the Government, but not hired by a mere President of the United States. He was hired to act and negotiate on behalf of the most powerful family within the post-war US establishment at the time — the Rockefellers. ^{^[7]}

The Rockefeller Foundation had already established itself as part of the factions behind post war Washington policy where oil, defence and global agriculture were all integral to the expansion of American hegemony. Or in Kissinger’s words: “If you control oil, you control nations. If you control food, you control people.” ^{^[8]}

Food as a weapon is nothing new but the consolidation of this tactic has reached a degree of technological sophistication not seen for hundreds of years. By 1974, the biggest six companies controlling 95 percent of world food were (and still are) Cargill, Continental, Louis Dreyfus, Bunge, André, and Archer Daniels, Midland / Töpfer all of whom are spawned from an Anglo-Dutch-Swiss food cartel, though all based in the US.

Under the rationale of “efficiency” and “maximizing profit ratios” US agriculture policy drove hundreds of thousands of family farmers into bankruptcy in order to pave the way for the monolithic machine of agribusiness, where the remaining farmers would exist only as serfs to trans-national corporations’ production methods. William Pearce, Cargill’s vice-president of Public Affairs was instrumental in this domination. He was on President Nixon’s 1974 Committee for Economic Development and made sure that US trade policy would leave a clear run for American agrichemical business to monopolize the world market in seeds, pesticides and most importantly, genetically modified plants. From that moment on, corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels would not only reorganize farming policy but work to create a new one.

Cargill food giant logo

All legislation regarding family farm protections were phased out in favour of a rapidly deregulated “free market.” Just like the 2008 financial warfare perpetrated by Goldman Sacs et al and the federally mandated use of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money in bailouts, so too Nixon’s farming policy was to change the face of America and the very nature of food. Wall St. only saw dollar signs as the social fabric of farming was torn apart.

The net result of such a systematic grab for power meant that Third World countries were especially vulnerable to these predator corporations who wanted to divert all self-sufficient and sustainable operations into a long-distance relationship of dependency where only fruits, sugar, coffee and vegetables would feature. US grains and other products were offered in return for payment by exporting their fruit and vegetables. This was to be the open door to massive worker exploitation and the loss of domestic food production. It was to signal the arrival of huge fields with cheaper yields dependent on a host of chemical products while the local and often ancient farming practices either instantly died or were absorbed into mechanised and synthetic “efficiency.”

Rather than ensuring that local farmers could provide for their communities by planting high-protein/high calorie crops and even sell the excess abroad at competitive prices, corporations oversaw the rise of a New World of poverty and its underclass, comprehensively denying them the assistance and ability to become self-sufficient in a monopoly that was both ecologically damaging as it was extraordinarily myopic. Cheap imports devalued their economies whilst access to their land was denied. Ensuring healthy, local economies could prosper was never the objective of American agri-business. Exploitation and ruthless stripping of the land, culture and people was the only way forward to ensure maximum profits divorced from limitations, morals and values.

The infamous General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) underwent several incarnations before finally being replaced with the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1993, fully operational by 1995. During President Richard Nixon’s tenure and through the auspices of the GATT Toyko round he was able to give carte blanche to the new global agribusiness export agenda while ensuring that developing countries would never gain their own independent food production. Nixon proposed to Congress a new way of managing trade negotiations which were termed “fast track”, for which Congress had to vote “yes” or “no” on a particular trade agreement. All changes to U.S. law had to conform to its terms – without any amendments. This was typical of the Kissinger-Nixon tag team. Under fast track, not only had Congress to conduct a vote within a brief 60 to 90 days of the President’s submission of the agreement, but the subsequent debate had to be limited to 20 hours.

As Congress was effectively removed from the negotiation process this opened the way for Nixon’s idea for a system of advisory groups and think-tanks drawn from the private sector. These appointed groups have enormous power and influence. Closed to public scrutiny, the documents are confidential with security clearances in operation for representatives. Indeed, the documents themselves are virtually unreadable to any but the initiated. Independent presidential candidate and social activist Ralph Nader wrote: “Once the agreements are completed – or on those rare occasions when a draft of the agreements is “liberated” – any person who wants to figure out what the agreements say faces a Herculean task. The agreements are very complex and written in arcane, almost impenetrable technical jargon that bears only a passing resemblance to the English language.” ^{^[9]}

Puppets & players on a mission: Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger 1972

This obfuscation is intentional. The last thing the high priests of unfettered corporatism want is for the public, media or any democratic body casting a curious eye over agreements which are inherently anti-human. The big transnational food corporations intend to keep the public ignorant of trade agreements and excluded from the approval process as they know full well that if they were cross-examined the practices would be seen for what they are – a product of unrestrained, cartel capitalism.

What is perhaps the most dangerous development is the use of genetically modified foodstuffs under the pretext of feeding the world’s poor which were made poor by the very same entities and for that very same purpose.

The success of the WTO was mainly down to the Cargill Corporation’s aggressive lobbying of Congress (otherwise known as mass-bribing) through the auspices of the influential Business Round Table group (An off-shoot of the Round Table of European Industrialists) which is an alliance of corporatists pushing for total deregulation of trade. In other words, limitless exploitation of the world’s resources without national borders or bureaucracy. This lobbying took the form of a WTO paper entitled: “The WTO Agreement on Agriculture” which was penned by a gaggle of corporate plunderers such as Cargill, Monsanto, DuPont, Nestlé, Unilever, and others. ^{^[10]}Most of these companies had many thousands of patents on new trans-genic plants. It was to be a perfect platform for GMO companies like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, and Syngenta to merge their monocultures towards the 4Cs: commercialisation, consolidation and centralisation leading to absolute control of the world’s food and its destiny.

The WTO’s remit was to be primarily a global free trade enforcer, a supranational entity fuelled by the insatiable drive of agribusiness and therefore answerable only to private agribusiness companies. Lip-service was paid to the plaintive cries for accountability because it had real power compared to the less efficient GATT agreements of the past. That usually means if the socio-economic and GMO order is not adhered to, the WTO can levy financial penalties to keep countries in line with the agribusiness agenda. For that reason, the WTO was designed to be above the laws of nations, answerable to no public body beyond its own walls. As we shall see presently, this organisation was to be used as the primary means by which genetically modified food and crops would become dominant in the world agriculture market.

By the time the 1986 Uruguay round of GATT talks had arrived and after a successful dismantling of public health and safety provisions in the US and the onset of rapid financial deregulation care of the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, agribusiness was primed to road test its new WTO toy. World cereals and grain supplies, meat, dairy, edible oils and fats, sugar, fruits and vegetables and all forms of spices are controlled by these corporations which operate as a food cartel working in tandem with the various principles of World State visionaries. They can apply enormous pressure to the West and developing countries. In combination with financial warfare and the “shock doctrine”of the World Bank and IMF, infrastructure support and capital goods are routinely denied and so too the possibility for self-reliance and self-sufficiency if a country doesn’t wish to play the game of cartel economics.

Thanks to historic monopolies forged in the dim and distant past these corporations have had a progressively ruthless stranglehold on much of the third world. Most countries don’t have any choice but to import from the food cartel’s export regions or see their populations starve. The shocking disappearance of thousands of global farmers is testament to the power of the food cartel and the crucial part they play in the 4Cs. $90 million in grants for molecular biology and genetic research were dispensed by the Rockefeller Foundation between 1932 -1957, excited at the prospect of seeing their passion for social engineering bolstered by these new fields of science. For the Rockefellers, eugenics was about to become turbo-charged with much greater advances in manipulating the human mind and body.

10 Scientific Studies Proving GMOs Can Be Harmful To Human Health

With the Rockefeller Foundation’s well-established web of micro-biologists and bio-technicians spanning the globe the next war against natural food and human health of the most vulnerable was to proceed. On December 9, 1959, with some extra support from the Ford Foundation and the Philippines government, the Rockefeller’s International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) was established. The Institute’s research headquarters are located on the University of the Philippines campus in Los Baos, south of the Philippine capital, Manila, the largest non-profit agricultural research centre in Asia. With offices in 11 other countries, agricultural research institutes, international development agencies, and philanthropic organisations recently celebrated its 50^th anniversary with much back slapping and congratulations by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who have continued to support its work with hefty donations.

With close ties to business, government and biotech industries in the Philippines, the Manila bulletin gushes about the influence of the Institute and lays out the philanthropic Rockefeller script we’ve come to know so well: “In the 50 years of IRRI, the institute’s work has helped feed much of the world’s population, reduce poverty and hunger, improve the health of rice farmers and consumers, and ensure that rice production is environmentally sustainable. IRRI’s high-yielding rice varieties have helped significantly increase world rice production, especially in Asia, saving millions from famine while protecting the environment and training thousands of researchers.” ^{^[11]}

In fact, the above quote is a woeful misrepresentation of the big picture riding on the assumption that global monoculture farming methods have been a grand success for all concerned, rather than the obvious ecological and social disaster they truly are. Yet, still the Rockefeller Foundation and its enormous corporate and civil society connections thrives on its perceived innovation and philanthropy. The IRRI is major player in the corporate take-over of Asia and its food. Sustainability and assisting sections of the population living in poverty is just another cynical ruse, though many of those employed by these companies no doubt want to believe the fantasy.

Over several decades IRRI has genetically modified over 300 High Yielding Varieties (HYVs) and as Dr Richard Hindmarsh of the University of Queensland points out, prior to such attempts to improve on nature over 100,000 different rice varieties thrived in farmers’ fields. ^{^[12]}Yet once agribusiness technology tore into natural crop diversity and the ecological balance which existed then it was not long before the natural varieties became extinct, often without seed documentation or collection. Once a monoculture dominates, their genetic uniformity is inherently weaker with increasing vulnerability to disease, pest invasions, biological stress and weed proliferation due to intensive fertiliser use. Intensive farming becomes a false economy since it cannot exist without the inflow of high quantities of pesticides, herbicides and the deployment of massive irrigation projects, all of which destroy communities and eventually the land.

Regarding the PR of high yields of rice, with expanding irrigated land and large-scale chemical fertiliser use, IRRI claims that there was significant increase from 2.3 percent per annum before 1964 to 4.5 percent between 1965 and 1980. However, as the Food Security Fact Sheet states, IRRI rice yields at their research farm actually decreased: “… at a rate of 1.25 percent per year from 1966 to 1987, a decline of 27.5 percent in 21 years. From 1966 to 1980, the yield from a variety named IR8 fell from 9.5 tons per hectare to about 2 tons per hectare while still receiving 120 kilograms of pure nitrogen fertilizer per hectare. Yet by 1990, IR8 and similar varieties were planted on about 80 percent of Philippine rice crop area.” ^{^[13]}

Foundations and NGOs lay the groundwork for a new colonisation under the mantle of philanthropy, which is why IRRI’s annual reports from 1963-1982 show grants from a multitude of US and European chemical corporations from such as Monsanto, Shell Chemical, Union Carbide Asia, Bayer Philippines, Eli Lilly, Occidental Chemical, Ciba Geigy (later part of Novartis Seeds / Syngenta), Chevron Chemical, Upjohn, Hoechst, and Cyanamid Far East. ^{^[14]}With bio-safety and regulatory frameworks still to be implemented or reinstated, this new form of monopoly is set to continue regardless of the consequences to ordinary people on the ground. Even IRRI’s host country the Philippines, has been importing increasing amounts of rice every year despite following IRRI’s programs with religious conviction. This is in part caused by geography and climate but the heavy use of insecticide and the resultant poor soil content also caused financial and health-related health problems for farmers, the effects of which were inevitably passed onto consumers.

Marketed and promoted by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations and their bid to gain control over the world’s rice supply and replace it with GM varieties, the IRRI was a big player in riding the mythological wave of this “Green Revolution” and the tag-line of “solving the world’s hunger problem.” A concentrated effort to neglect indigenous rice varieties with a proven high yield was put into action as the start of a multi-pronged campaign to push the developing world into the palm of biotechnology. ^{^[15]}The IRRI; the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation; UN development Program; the World Bank and several other environmental and agribusiness organisations formed a global steering Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR) established in 1972. The much vaunted “success” of this Green Revolution was given a major thumb’s down by Philippines’ famers during a CGIAR Annual General Meeting in 2002 near the offices of IRRI. Demonstrations and street protests called for both institutions to be dismantled with statements decrying the record of the IRRI and CGIAR believing them to be “failed research institutions.” Farmers made it clear that they believed: “… a genuine, farmer-centred research institution should develop technologies that shall liberate farmers from dependence on any agro-chemical TNC [Trans-National Corp.] promote sustainable agriculture, conserve the environment, and protect the health of farmers.” ^{^[16]}

One of the world’s leading experts on rice science Dr. R.H. Richaria, has been warning of the real nature of the “Green Revolution” since the 1980s. His concern over the severe disturbance of the agro-ecological balance has led to: “… intensive use of inputs such as genetically uniform seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, and water and energy, [which] certainly resulted in major environmental degradation, including salinity, soil erosion, desertification, chemical pollution of land and waterways, die-back, loss of crop diversity, and the turning of renewable resources, such as soil and water, into non-renewable resources.” ^[17]

Source: ‘Issues Surrounding Genetically Modified (GM) Products’ by Subhuti Dharmananda, Ph.D., Director, Institute for Traditional Medicine, Portland, Oregon

The global farming revolution was part of an ambitious strategy to steer the world from agriculture towards agribusiness, with an exclusively GM-centred production line. A global concentration of hybrid seed patents would be in the hands of just a few seed companies. The in-built sell-by-date of these GM seeds meant that farmers were forced into a modern-day form of bonded labour from which it is almost impossible to escape.

The creation of vast tracts of land for the planting GM crops displaced many peasant families and communities who wound up in in the poorest parts of cities and therefore vulnerable to exploitation by those same companies who were always on the look-out for cheap labour. Moreover, developing nations were forced into debt to pay for the expensive technology that produced initially high yields only to rapidly fade in the middle to long-term thus becoming the hook to purchase more and more “add-ons” to sustain the fertility of soil and crops. Those who could not afford it had to borrow the money but with interest rates so high many peasant farmers lost their farms (and generations of farming history) to larger land-owners sponsored by trans-national companies. World Bank loans were easily extended while the banking cartels quite literally, had a field day.

The main task of CGIAR was to achieve excellence in the field of agronomy and agricultural science in general and to apply monoculture production back in the US and the developing world. From that blitzkrieg it laid the foundation for the “Green Revolution” which was in fact the pretext for the “Gene Revolution” and the distribution of GMO-based farming, riding on the wave of a deregulated free market. It followed the same 4Cs formula as John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil where the once the seed was planted and in the right way, it was just a matter of time before the planter could monopolise the whole garden and control the parameters of production so that they serve multiple objectives benefiting only the “Master.” Once families like the Rockefellers controlled the food supply they were able to extend their reach over a hundreds of companies and their subsidiaries in the supply line, from petroleum and agrichemicals to irrigation projects and food aid.

Behind this façade of helping the world’s poor quite apart from the obvious ecological and health dangers Rockefellers’ remit is to introduce the science of eugenics (social biology, Planned Parenthood etc.) through as many of societies’ domains as it can. Genetic modification of food is one such important spoke in the wheel. The food chain would be under corporate control matching the aspirations underpinning the human genome program.

Using the banner of a Green Revolution, the agri-chemical business has expanded into Africa courtesy of the Rockefellers and Bill & Melinda Gates foundation’s innocently named ‘The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa’ (AGRA). Its advisory board of directors is riddled with Rockefeller go-betweens such as Strive Masiyiwa, Board Chair (Rockefeller Foundation) Jeff Raikes, Co-Chair, Programs and Policy Committee, (Rockefeller Foundation); Judith Rodin, Co-Chair, Programs and Policy Committee (Rockefeller foundation); Akinwumi Adesina, Associate Director, (Rockefeller Foundation) Pamela K. Anderson, Director of the Agricultural Development Program, (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) ^{^[18]}

Different name, same story.

Looking at the website you would be forgiven for thinking that so many happy, smiling faces denotes an agricultural future where all such agendas and drawbacks are fantasies of the pessimistic and deranged. Africans will be saved from their poverty by the goodness of a corporate West and their utopian world of hybrid seeds and high yields. That is, if you forget that a chemically saturated Africa and the diminishing returns of GM foods will mean that the long-term health and prosperity of Africa and its people is under question.

Amid the UN sex trafficking and abuse scandals Kofi Annan is no stranger to being used as an Establishment tool should the salary be sufficient. Annan’s job as Board Chair Emeritus of AGRA is to penetrate GM crops deep into the African heartland. Along with the geo-political shenanigans of AFRICOM, AGRA represents the same resource grabbing goals dressed up as agricultural emancipation. With the help of the World Bank, USAID, Monsanto, CGIAR member Syngenta AG of Switzerland, handsomely paid African scientists awash with sweeteners, incentives, sponsorships and initiatives, Africa’s governments are being seduced into accepting a New African Order of biotechnology.

The GM crop leaders are presently the United States, Canada, India, Argentina, Brazil, and China. 1996 – 2006 saw the biggest leap in the production of genetically modified foodstuffs and crops with new countries signing up including South Africa, Paraguay, Uruguay and Australia. The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) has stated that the world’s farmers planted 148m hectares of genetically modified crops in 29 countries in 2009. The USA is the leader in GM cultivation at 66.8m hectares over 2 million more than the previous year. ^{^[19]}

Brazil’s economic boom (and inevitable bust sometime in the future) has meant that Genetically Modified Organisms have been included in the ascent with some 10m hectares planted since 2008 overtaking Argentina as the second-biggest grower in 2010. By 2011, that had reached 303,000 km2. ^{^[20]}50 percent of GM crops grown worldwide were grown in developing countries, with the largest increase in Brazil in the same year. There has also been rapid and continuing expansion of GM cotton varieties in India since 2002 (Cotton is a major source of vegetable cooking oil and animal feed) with 106,000 km2 of GM cotton harvested in India in 2011.

By 2004, global GM crop acreage had hit the 167 million mark. By 2010, Latin America had been breached with Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Honduras and Costa Rica all yielding an average of 0.1 million hectares. Negligible but present nonetheless. Asia and Latin America are providing many hectares set aside for GM crops and associated biotechnology. The rise in GM farming is likely to increase year by year on these continents and in the developing world.

Agri-business makes the idea of choice a pipe dream. Soyabean crops have wreaked ecological destruction on much of Latin America producing huge profits for invested companies. Soya and herbicide resistant crops remain the most popular products that farmers ending up needing once stuck on the monoculture system. GM crop production is still not popular with Europeans due to an ethical and environmental reasoning which has expressed itself through an organised activist movement at local and national levels. Europe is also subject to clear restrictions on growing GM crops. Nevertheless, creeping acreage is appearing with GM maize production having taken place in Spain, Portugal, Germany and France and more recently in the Czech Republic, Sweden, Poland, Slovakia and Romania, all with an average of 0.1 million hectares. ^{^[21]}

As Africa is invaded by Chinese, European and American corporations, so too the potential for GMOs to hitch a ride. Burkino Faso and Egypt are the latest victims (or innovators depending on your position) with Pakistan, the newly and conveniently “liberated” Myanmar and the Philippines following closely behind. ^{^[22]} Iran climbed aboard in 2005.

See also:

Redesigning Nature

Update: Big Biotech’s big lie: National sciences group concludes GMOs do not increase crop production

Notes

[1] ‘The Case Against Henry Kissinger Part One The making of a war criminal’ by Christopher Hitchens
Harpers magazine, March 2001. | http://harpers.org/archive/2001/02/the-case-against-henry-kissinger-2/
[2] National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200) 1974.
[3] Ibid.
[4] ‘Kissinger’s 1974 Plan for Food Control Genocide,’ by Joseph Brewda, December 8, 1995 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
[5] Ibid.
[6] op. cit. Engdahl (p.53)
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid. (p.41)
[9] ‘The Globalisation Agenda – Grave New World – The Democracy Grab’ by Ralph Nader and Lori Wallach from The Case Against the Global Economy and For a Turn Towards the Local by E. Goldsmith and Jerry Mander – Sierra Club Books, 1991.
[10] http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/14-ag_01_e.htm
[11] ‘International Rice Research Institute celebrates its 50th Anniversary’ December 9, 2009, Manilla Bulletin.
[12] http://www.panap.net/docs/analysis/gerice.pdf
[13] Rice, Trade and Biotechnology in the Philippines by Steve Suppan Food Security Fact Sheet No. 5, September 1996.
[14] ‘Laying the Molecular Foundations of GM Rice Across Asia’
[15] IRRI powerbase.info.
[16] ‘Richaria’s study proves deliberate neglect of indigenous varieties’ by Bharat Dogra Leisa India Supplement December 1999.
[17] IRRI powerbase.info. dismantal IRRI / CGIAR.
[18] http://www.agra-alliance.org/
[19] Ibid.
[20] ‘The adoption of genetically modified crops – Growth areas’ Feb 23rd 2011, The Economist online.| ‘ISAAA Brief 43, Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2011’ By James C (2011). ISAAA Briefs. Ithaca, New York: International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).
[21] Op. cit. The Economist
[22] Ibid.

World State Policies IV: Common Purpose

In tracing Corporatist-Collectivist thinking since the 1950s, it has become clear that its proponents have been very busy making sure their interests are fulfilled far from public scrutiny and if they are discovered, their agencies are cloaked in double-speak and “pro-active” corporate jargon to avoid suspicion. Common Purpose is a quasi-political, semi-secret UK organisation which appears to fall under this category and like so many of its affiliated organisations it relies on public ignorance to successfully carry out its mandate. Spawned from the Liberal, Anglo-American corner of the Three Establishment Model (3EM) (the others being Zionist and Conservative) it is closely associated with Fabianism, New Age beliefs, humanism, technocracy, green living and vertical collectivism.

The organisation has been tailored to infiltrate British public and private industry at the local and national level in order to head-hunt potential candidates for leadership and thus fulfil World State policies and the emergence of inverted totalitarianism. No doubt, there is much guffawing and scoffing at such an idea. Yet, this has been the nature of social engineering programs for a very considerable time. Future leaders are groomed with a pre-disposition for authoritarianism via a fusion of Marxist and Conservative appeal. As such, movers and shakers are found within both labour and conservative ranks.

It has taken over fifteen years for the British public to even hear its name thanks to its highly secretive nature. The fact that anyone knows it exists at all is largely due to the work of Brian Gerrish a former Royal Navy Lieutenant * who, since his retirement now works full time to expose the objectives of the organisation. He discovered Common Purpose (CP) when he was involved in initiatives to help people find jobs whereby council support was withdrawn due it seems to the projects stepping on CP objectives. When Gerrish tried to continue alone without council support it quickly led to a threatening situation:

“When we started to explore why we were being threatened we were absolutely staggered to find a very strange organisation called Common Purpose operating in the city. And we were absolutely amazed that there were so many people involved but they were not declaring themselves …”'[Common Purpose] was operating throughout the structure of the city, in the city council, in the government offices, in the police, in the judiciary. Essentially we discovered what is effectively, at best, a quasi secret society which doesn’t declare itself to ordinary people.’ ^{^[1]}

Common Purpose has increasingly come under fire thanks to the work of Gerrish and other concerned members of the public. The accusations have been rather unsuccessfully fielded by the board trustee member Sir David bell who dismisses the concerns as unfounded. The charges are numerous and include:

Undue secrecy and zero transparency.
A pervasive, undemocratic influence with social engineering at its core.
Change based around principles of collectivism or its sub-category of New Age glossed “communitarianism”.
Masquerading as an ‘educational charity’ when it is in fact a political organisation.
Many of its activities are funded by tax payers money.
Undue and unaccountable influence in all societal domains.
One of its core principles is to eventually merge the private and public sectors by deceitful means.
To bypass democratic accountability and replace current legitimately elected or chosen posts in favour of CP graduates who have unfair advantage.
Working to affect change so that Britain is irrevocably changed towards EU-directives and Fabian beliefs by stealth.
Closely associated with Bilderberg beliefs and associated pet projects such as Agenda 21, technocratic SMART-city initiatives which includes merging sustainable development frameworks without due consultation and beyond civic consultation. In other words, collectivist, World State policies.

At first glance, rather like most political think tanks and organisations that we have looked at on this blog so far, CP has taken the mask of an educational charity founded in 1989 registered in the UK under number 1023384. According to its website: “… to date, more than 30,000 people have participated in our leadership development courses internationally. The idea spread and Common Purpose programmes are currently run in France, Germany, Ghana, India, Sweden, Turkey, Ireland, Hungary and South Africa.”

It ostensibly provides leadership and networking development training for potential high flyers within the police, judiciary, civil service, social services, education, media and politics. Remaining true to the “scientific technique” and philosophy of the Fabians and humanist education it has become a well-placed organisation of “change agents” at the heart of the British Establishment.

commonpurpose.org.uk states further:

“… the advancement of education for the public benefit and in particular but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing to educate men and women an young people of school age, from a broad range of geographical, political, ethnic, institutional, social and economic backgrounds in constitutional, civic, economic and social studies with special emphasis on civil and social awareness and responsibility in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.”

The statement sounds as bland and innocuous as we’ve come to expect from such Euro-led outfits.

Evidence suggests that the notorious Tavistock Institute had a part to play in the formation of Common Purpose training courses. The CP concept was started there, fine-tuned at Oxford University and then ‘exported’ to the US joining together with Harvard’s Advanced and General Management Programmes which:

“… brings together members of the executive committee, heads of business units and functional areas, as well as leaders of governmental agencies and non-profit organizations.” (www.exed.hbs.edu/programs) GMP follows exactly the same formula as CP and “is designed primarily for executives with recently acquired or significantly expanded general management responsibilities, and for senior functional managers who need a broader perspective on company operations or who will soon become business-unit, division, or regional leaders.” ^{^[2]}

On his website literature Brian Gerrish states: “It was then re-imported to UK via Julia Middleton Chief Executive of CP, who was miraculously given £500,000 to start CP programmes throughout UK.” A former editor for Marxism Today, civic society campaigner, co-founder of think-tank Demos and Deputy Chair of the Media Standards Trust Board, Middleton has been its CEO since its inception but it is unlikely that she was the sole creator of such a complex social engineering program. She had a bit of help from Stephen Heintz who acted as President of CP. Once his job was done he assumed his position as President of … surprise, surprise…the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Demos is also an Establishment arm advocating Fabian-driven principles akin to Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg group. In a BBC News report by Catrin Nye from September 30 2011, entitled: ‘Is the internet rewriting history?’ the think-tank recently warned against the dangers of free speech and “conspiracy theories” which “rewrite history” on the internet. DEMOS was founded in 1993 by another former Marxism Today editor Martin Jacques, and Geoff Mulgan in response to what they saw as a crisis in British politics and the social fabric. It remains a key link to CP as a whole.

In fact, CP likes to say that there is no CEO, which begs the question: Where does CP get its directives?

Delving a bit deeper into the roots of CP we find that the board of the Media Standards Trust are Sir David Bell who sits on various other influential media boards, Goldman Sacs member Charles Manby and Anthony Salz of another usual suspect: NM Rothschild. CP observes the same rules of secrecy observed by the Trilateral Commission, Bilderbergers, Council on Foreign Relations and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. This convention is defined as the “Chatham House Rule” where members must not reveal the details of individuals who attend nor the subjects under discussion. This camouflage is maintained by the Common Purpose Charitable Trust (CPCT) who carries out its activities through the subsidiary charities of: Common Purpose International, Common Purpose UK and its trading arm Civilia Ltd.

Improving society so that it is more “efficient” is underpinned by the use of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, elements of the Delphi Technique and strains of political correctness across all issues which, alongside a lack of transparency, are extremely difficult to counter without appearing reactionary and “old school.” Common Purpose is modernising society for a “New Order” which – if we are to read their benign messages on their websites – is all for our benefit. So much so, that it must be carried out with minimal participation from the public – unless of course you are ambitious, well-placed and harbour a mind-set that is amenable to CP aims.

Clearly, to re-engineer society you need the funds to do it which is why CP charges considerable sums for their candidates whom they head-hunt and entice with promises of advancement should they decide to embark on this particular gravy train. Blog journalist Ken Craggs’ tells us: “Over 120,000 leaders have contributed to or participated in a Common Purpose programme and this grows by at least 3,000 people each year. Common Purpose charge substantial figures for their courses. Matrix costs £3,950 plus VAT, a course for a high-flying leader can be as much as £9,950 plus VAT.” ^{^[3]}The key motivation behind these training courses appears to be to groom potential leaders according to Common purpose principles so that when they are placed in suitable positions by virtue of being CP “graduates” they will carry out their allotted tasks.

So, what are these principles?

The usual elitist beliefs to which the reader will by now be accustomed such as reducing national sovereignty, the erosion of national identity, the destruction of democracy, undermining of traditional beliefs and values in order to replace them with one world, technocratic and collectivist visions. More elitism by those who consider they know best. Which is why such people use Orwellian double-speak and NLP to “train” its members towards a singular view so that they think and act according to their own objectives. Key issues such as education, immigration, European policy, NHS, climate change and local and regional councils are similarly changed by indoctrinated CP agents, most of whom probably consider they are working for the greater good. Thus, multiculturalism and progressive modalities are applied to funnel critical thinking on these complex issues into beliefs which always conform to the much anticipated technocratic World State. Once this vast network is embedded in every sector of society – which is well on the way to being realised – the Establishment can sleep in their beds safe in the knowledge that their dutiful minions are carrying out their wishes. Such a program starts early and compliance is rewarded with career advancement. Conversely, signs of independent thinking and questioning is met with closed doors and a rapid descent.

Common Purpose shows signs of being a cult along the lines of Scientology according to website www.eutruth.org.uk/. For example, while using psychology and mind games to seduce and entrain would-be graduates, a classification is used: – ‘Suns’ (people of established power and influence), as ‘Stars’ (those of rapid but unpredictable rise to power and influence), and ‘Moons’ (those individuals whose power is diminishing). Those who will not help Common Purpose, or who challenge it, are called ‘Black Holes’.

For an avowed educational charity it appears to benefit everyone but those in most need. CP has been receiving money from local authorities and government agencies for training which has been paid for by the tax payer. As mentioned, these training courses do not come cheap. This unlawful allocation of money spent on CP training has nothing to do with benefiting communities but everything to do with increasing the CP agenda outside the democratic process.

The organisation is clearly political and is thus in breach of the Charity Commission rules which states: “An organisation will not be charitable if its purposes are political.” Yet, local councils and authorities CP operates outside the law but actively seeks to influence law enforcement, the judiciary and the politicians across all parties. In fact, all CP members who should be acting as public servants breach the seven principles of Public Life as set out by the Committee. If we are suspicious about the rising surveillance state and the easy purloining of our bio-metric data then we should also be concerned about the Common Purpose penchant for secrecy and data collection. Indeed, CP has been reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office for alleged breaches of data protection law:

“Leadership training charity Common Purpose has been reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office for alleged breaches of data protection law.

The Northwest Regional Development Agency, which made the complaint, has also apologised to a person whose name it inadvertently passed on to Common Purpose after he made a request under the Freedom of Information Act about its dealings with the charity.

The name was then included by Common Purpose in a list of previous FOI requests about the charity that it distributed to public authorities receiving new requests. The charity said it distributed the list to illustrate the high number of FOI requests being made about it and to help authorities decide whether to treat new requests as vexatious.” ^{^[4]}

Common Purpose revealed the name of a legitimate enquirer under the Freedom of Information Act in an apparent fit of pique. And it wonders why so many inquiries arrive at its door? No action was taken.

The idea of acting beyond and outside established authority is ironically a large part of Fabian, Marxist and Common Purpose ideology. CEO Julia Middleton’s book Beyond Authority (1982) conforms to the ethos of change through Fabian or Marxist gradualism. As Brian Gerrish informs us, it is a text book for CP’s leadership philosophy, with some interesting tit-bits on the kind of manipulation that is required to make sure CP agendas are listened to and acted upon. On one occasion we read in the book that some helpful UK Parliamentary peers took her aside and told her all that was required was a: “… small committed and coordinated group of people producing pressure from the outside. Two or three determined fifth columnists on the inside. And the stamina from both groups to keep on and on and on putting them on the agenda until they eventually had to be discussed …”

Another passage in the book reveals:

‘I spoke to a friend recently who described how she had set someone up. Using all her charm and flattery, she had drawn him in and then installed him as a convenient useful idiot … My friend’s intention was to get him to produce a report which she knew full well would be a perfect smokescreen for her own activities …’

‘Have I ever done this? Yes … it was certainly useful to produce the distraction of creating a sub-committee, led by someone who did not really understand the big picture, to look into an issue in depth, with no timetable, so we could get on with what we saw as important issues.’ ” ^{^[5]}

There is the evidence that CP routinely flouts British laws in favour of their own authority. The webmaster of Stop Common Purpose.org had this to say on the legal concept of Ultra Vire, latin for ‘Beyond the powers.’:

A Common Purpose quote: “People who lead beyond their authority can produce change beyond their direct circle of control”.

Leading beyond authority can mean acting ultra vires. Ultra vires a legal concept. It is Latin for ‘beyond the powers’. It can apply to any body which has rules, such as a charity or a local authority. An ultra vires act is one that is outside the specified and/or implied constitutional objects and powers of the body in question. It is ‘beyond the powers’ and therefore illegal.

Also, what are the implications of ‘leading beyond authority’ for services which require a hierarchical management structure to ensure discipline and cohesion, like the armed forces and police which can be manipulated from within for political purposes? ” ^{^[6]}

Meshed with other Establishment think-tanks, NGOs and government agencies the symptoms of CP influence has been plain to see over the last fifteen years which has directly led to cultural disintegration; constant surveillance; the rise of Orwellian double-speak; House repossessions; Rapidly falling incomes; widening gap between the rich and the poor; high unemployment; unregulated immigration; social fragmentation; destructive policies within the NHS, rampant political correctness; trenchant bureaucracy in line with SMART technology; erosion of the middle class and economic enslavement. Is it all down to CP training? Unlikely. But as one factor in a many-headed hydra of social engineering, it is potentially significant.

Like the New Group of World Servers triangulating their occult influence throughout corridors of power, so too we have the same mind-set targeting business and politics with the same goals this time through programs such as the Global Leader Experience (GLE) which is designed for university students in order to: “… develop … leadership skills to help influence the future of the world, as well as establish a genuinely global network.” ^{^[7]} All packaged carefully along CP lines of course. And what better examples of “leadership do we have waiting in the wings? CP’s Corporate partners such as:

BP
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
HSBC
Goldman Sachs
Oxfam
DLA Piper
BBC
International Red Cross
Siemens
London Fire Brigade
Santander
Brunswick Group LLP

They even have programmes for new African leader so that a Round Table tradition can continue with well-placed nodes at their disposal.

Common Purpose is effectively the United Kingdom equivalent of organisations tied into SMART growth and Agenda 21 over in the US which are ideologically, exactly the same but appealing to young business leaders. (See UN Agenda 21 and Land Grab)We have discussed how capitalism, communism and Zionism have been embraced by the 3EM. Communitarianism is a further belief that cements the building blocks of inverted totalitarianism of the past and forms the local and national strategies of Common Purpose. Also known as the “Third Way” It can lie at the centre of many beliefs but is most at home in socialist, Neo-Conservative, Green and New Age activism as the primary tools of the Liberal Establishment ideologues.

Alaskan Journalist Niki Raapana summed up the belief succinctly by stating: “Communitarianism is a Dictatorship of the Community. Unlike communism, which established a Dictatorship of the Proletariat, communitarianism is the more advanced stage of human social evolution.” ^[8] And it seems CP requires the full compliance of every corner of society to achieve its communitarian ends, without any public interference. In order that a comprehensive network of what amounts to “soft” social control has been implemented with the same happy, smiling faces of mediocrity. Nothing wrong with communitarianism but it depends entirely on who is initiating such a new social divergence and whether this plan is genuinely benevolent. And so far, it is easy to discern that it is not.

As we know, the best of intentions can just as easily lead to the highest expression of evil when the concept of social evolution is gravely misunderstood by allowing psychopathy to distort and co-opt the benign. As journalist James Corbett recently asked:

“Even if Common Purpose by itself were the most benign organization imaginable, though, it is difficult to justify the secretive nature of this public charity which receives funding and support from various public agencies. The question once again becomes: to what extent is the public comfortable having an organization of questionable aims and means training the next generation of world leaders in secretive seminars, largely at taxpayer’s expense. And, to the extent that the public is uncomfortable with the influence that groups like this have over the political and business world, what precisely can they do about it?”

The first step is to dispense with the kind of secrecy favoured by CP and introduce genuine transparency partnered with the kind of organisations and board members which historically advocate the same rather than institutional protection.Until that time, to suggest that Common Purpose is just a non-political charity is not only false it is a blatant deception.

We’ll leave the last word on Common Purpose from Brian Gerrish:

Common Purpose promotes the ’empowerment of individuals’, except where individuals challenge the activities of CP, and public spending on CP. These people are branded vexatious, extremist, right wing or mentally unsound. Mrs Julia Middleton, the Chief Executive of Common Purpose, praises the work of German bankers. Deutsche Bank is, of course, a major power behind Common Purpose. Mrs Middleton, earning circa £80,000 p.a. from her charity, is also very happy to promote the term ‘Useful Idiots’ in her book ‘Beyond Authority’. Are we, the General Public the USEFUL IDIOTS, or are the Elite Common Purpose Graduates? You decide.

* Brain Gerrish has done great work in outing the methods of Common Purpose. However, it always pays to be careful about certain whistleblowers and Gerrish falls into this category for a number of reasons. He is staunchly conservative and is on a rather right wing and identified with his mission, as he sees it, to purge Britain of communism and Marxism. This is hardly an objective view rather a very simplistic one. He also has a military background hailing from the Navy no less, who have a particular tradition for military intelligence shills and PSYOPS. Gerrish may well be one of those sent out to counter elite factions. i.e. Pan-European Synarchy blowing the whistle on the Liberal arm of the 3EM. It does not mean common purpose is suddenly smelling of roses, only that Gerrish may have an agenda of his own which is not all that it seems. Anyone that excludes too much information in favour of a pushing a narrow belief needs to be watched closely. Always keep the bigger picture.

Notes

[1] http://www.cpexposed.com/
[2] http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/gmp/
[3] ‘Leaders with a Common Purpose’ By Ken Craggs, May 20th, 2011.
[4]‘Charity reported over data protection issues’ by Paul Jump Third Sector, January 20, 2009.
[5] op.cit Gerrish
[6]http://www.stopcp.com/
[7] http://commonpurpose.org/leadership/programmes/students/global-leader-experiences/london/
[8] ‘Niki Raapana talks to herself about communitarianism’ October 2010 | http://nikiraapana.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/niki-raapana-talks-to-herself-about.html
[9] The Corbett Report – Charity or Change Agent February 5 2013. | https://www.corbettreport.com/common-purpose-charity-or-change-agent/

The Light Bringer II: The Lucis Trust

“Alice and Foster Bailey were serious students and teachers of Theosophy, a spiritual tradition which views Lucifer as one of the solar Angels, those advanced Beings Who Theosophy says descended (thus “the fall”) from Venus to our planet eons ago to bring the principle of mind to what was then animal-man. In the theosophical perspective, the descent of these solar Angels was not a fall into sin or disgrace but rather an act of great sacrifice, as is suggested in the name “Lucifer” which means light-bearer.”

– lucistrust.org

After years of contact with her “spirit masters” Russian esotericist Helena Petrovna Blavatsky was contacted by the Master Morya in 1851. A co-founder of the Theosophical Society in 1875, she went on to publish the hugely influential Isis Unveiled in 1877 while establishing Lucifer, an occult magazine in London in the same year. The equally controversial and occult classic The Secret Doctrine followed in 1888.

Alice Ann Bailey and her husband 32° mason Foster Bailey had become acquainted with students of Madam H.P. Blavatsky and joined the Theosophical Society soon after in 1917. Master Koot Humi had apparently been in “telepathic contact” with Bailey since 1895 which paved the way for contact with another hierarchical master, “the Tibetan” otherwise known as Master Djwhal Khul who asked her to assist him in some dictation work in 1919. As this was all carried out via telepathy it is hardly surprising that Bailey who had been raised a devout Christian, was little put out. Her refusal to act as a PA to Khul’s esoteric “overshadowing” was short-lived, apparently “persuaded” by Koot Humi to be the needed channel for telepathic dictation.

Twenty-four books of esoteric philosophy were produced by Bailey over the next thirty years and would become the foundation of much of the New Age or Human Potential Movement. The basic premise behind these 24 tomes was to prepare humanity for the “re-appearance of the Christ” and “the externalization of the Hierarchy.” This is to include several of the Masters descending from “the etheric plane” and setting up shop in cities around the globe. With what appears to be an army of planetary civil servants rather than spiritual advisors, these Masters will begin reshaping economics, religion, education and politics and everything else on their own particular anvil of reality so that they can usher in their New World Order for us all, which would lead to peace, prosperity and right human relations …

Artist’s rendering of alleged Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul

To that end, the Baileys founded The Lucis Trust in 1922, as a non-profit service organisation incorporated in the United States with headquarters in New York City, London, and Geneva. The trust was primarily set up to further the distribution and dissemination of the books under the banner of the “ageless wisdom teachings” which served as a template for affiliated organisations which included:

The Arcane School – “The Arcane School was established by Alice A. Bailey in 1923 to help meet an obvious and growing demand for further teaching and training in the science of the soul. The Arcane School was created as a training school for adult men and women in meditation techniques and the development of spiritual potentiality. The School provides sequential courses of study and meditation, and practical training in group service.” ^{^[1]} The school had 20,000 graduates by 1954. A veritable occult university, its remit is to continue to be the main training ground for New Age disciples.

World Goodwill – founded in 1932, has been recognized by the United Nations as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), and is represented during regular briefing sessions for NGOs at the United Nations. The Lucis Trust has consultative status at the roster level with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The dropping of the atomic bomb is seen by freemasonic initiates as the spiritual manifestation of Luciferian light. The UN is seen as the harbinger and enforcer of a monopoly over all countries so that global governance and One World principles can supersede national sovereignty. It is a Federalist dream. Consequently, World Goodwill works directly with the “world federalists,” and follows closely the explication as found in Bailey’s The Externalisation of the Hierarchy that gives the work of the UN and its agencies to externalize a so-called Hierarchy of “Illumined Minds,” bringing forth an “Age of Maitreya,” an esoteric label for the return of Christ.

Lucis Trust insignia

Triangles – Founded in 1937, is the name for a global network of cells, whose members use a prayer called the “Great Invocation,” ^{^[2]} especially on the night of the full moon, when members can be influenced by the astrological signs of the zodiac. “A triangle is a group of three people who link each day in thought for a few minutes of creative meditation. They invoke the energies of light and goodwill, visualising these energies as circulating through the three focal points of each triangle, and pouring out through the network of triangles surrounding the planet.” ^{^[3]}

The Beacon magazine – “Alice and Foster Bailey established The Beacon in 1922. They conceived it as a forum for esotericists to contribute their visions, share their experiences and develop their ideas about the evolution of humanity and the unfolding Plan for our world. The quarterly magazine “… focusses its work on the nature of man, of God and the universe, on the Plan for humanity, the Hierarchy of Masters, the reappearance of the Christ, the emergence of new age principles in the world…” ^{^[4]}

The Findhorn Foundation deserves a mention here, a magical place on the one hand and fairly compromised on the other. While the Lucis trust could be said to the intellectual centre of the New Age movement the Findhorn Foundation could be seen as its emotional centre.

Formed in 1962 and famous for being the “Vatican of the New Age” it is one of the first of such centres in the world. The foundation offers an eclectic mix of nature-based, ecological and spiritual courses, out-reach programmes, seminars and workshops. It has a community eco-village and plays host to conferences on a range of topics from “Angels,” “Sexing the Spirit” to “Love, Magic, Miracles” promoting the idea of a “New Spirituality” in line with the the core philosophy of the Lucis Trust.

Like the Lucis Trust, Findhorn has enormous potential and creativity, heavily focussed on what are termed the realm of angelic and nature spirits which brought it initial fame care of its now deceased owners Eileen and Peter Caddy. Experiments in ecology and “co-creating” with Nature had impressive, if not phenomenal results. However, like any movement that becomes popular and starts to expand – most especially when it has a spiritual in focus and therefore threatening to darker forces – without sufficient understanding of either negative para-physical realms and knowledge of ponerology, then corruption is inevitable.

I attended three conferences and found many wonderful people there. After attending several workshops and conferences in the late 1990s I also found a high proportion of participants exhibiting various stages of mental illness ranging from delusional to psychotic states. This appeared to be drawn from the sensitivity of the individuals’ personality married to an insufficient knowledge of non-physical realms and a naive embrace of that which was assumed to be “spiritual” which was quite clearly to me – and I suspect a few others – anything but.

The notion of deception as the primary mode of attack appears to be entirely blanketed with a feeling-based interpretation of phenomena. Angels, earth spirits, and new age speakers are embraced without any psychic protection or analysis whatsoever. And when certain psycho-physiological symptoms of what might called possession occurred, this was put down to various rationalisations ranging from “etheric adjustment” or unresolved “karmic resistance”.

The New Age movement contains some extraordinary people who are inspiring and gifted in their teachings and intutive renderings of new visions. It is also wide open to various forms of abuse at the emotional and para-physical levels which has effectively derailed an awful lot of good work.

It is for this reason that the new age centres remain the primary mode of spiritual obfuscation and deception in our current times. Which brings us back to the Lucis Trust as the foundation to such centres and its subtle twists on ancient wisdom and perennial philosophy.

“The Fallen Angel” by Gustave Doré | “Alice and Foster Bailey were serious students and teachers of Theosophy, a spiritual tradition which views Lucifer as one of the solar Angels, those advanced Beings Who Theosophy says descended (thus “the fall”) from Venus to our planet eons ago to bring the principle of mind to what was then animal-man. In the theosophical perspective, the descent of these solar Angels was not a fall into sin or disgrace but rather an act of great sacrifice, as is suggested in the name ‘Lucifer’ which means light-bearer. ” lucistrust.org

Perhaps a small hiccup and indication of where their sentiments lay was seen in the naming of The Lucifer Publishing Co. in the early 1920s. Probably realising that this was a little inflammatory even for their theosophical brethren, they changed the name to Lucis Publishing Co. in 1925. In Latin lucern ferre translates to “light-bearer” and lucis means “of light.” However, we read on the Lucis Trust website that: “The Baileys’ reasons for choosing the original name are not known to us, but we can only surmise that they … Sought to elicit a deeper understanding of the sacrifice made by Lucifer.” ^{^[5]}

It is certainly true that “Lucifer” means Lightbringer, Lightbearer, Bringer of Dawn or Morning Star. The latter meaning having its origins in the planet Venus. There are also those who associate the Fallen Angel of Lucifer to the Fall of Man or humanity. The negative attributes – as with all the shadow sides of archetypes, Gods and Goddesses – are used on the left hand path of black magick. It is also safe to say that Lucifer and its various cultural incarnations have become associated with a strictly satanic pathway long before the Bailey’s arrived on the scene. So, why choose this emblem? What quality of Promethean light is it bringing? Is it an alchemical fire or the fire of inversion which distracts and deceives – “even the very elect”?

Nonetheless, the objectives of the Lucis Trust as stated in its charter are:

“To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, science and art; to encourage every line of thought tending to the broadening of human sympathies and interests, and the expansion of ethical religious and educational literature; to assist or to engage in activities for the relief of suffering and for human betterment; and, in general, to further worthy efforts for humanitarian and educational ends.” ^{^[6]}

It all sounds thoroughly noble and worthy. *

We can, however, read the same nebulous sentiments and platitudes from affiliated think-tanks and clubs, ostensibly for world economic and geo-political harmony from the likes of Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) Trilateral Commission (TC) and Bilderberg Group (BG). A cursory look at all four websites (with the exception of BG who decided not to give us that pleasure) the average person would come away thinking very little was amiss and nothing but butter would melt in their mouths. Dig a little deeper however and something is very much amiss with some obvious red flags, right from the get-go.

Alice A. Bailey circa 1930s

“The Plan” as espoused by the Lucis Trust appears to be a direct mirror of Establishment worldviews. Freemasons and New Agers have joined the throng in propagating collectivist symbolism and motifs that are both pagan and pantheistic. Nothing wrong with nature-religions but animal totems and the God of Materialism also have pride of place in existential Satanism. It is no coincidence that the Lucis Trust lies at the heart of the occult foundation of New World Order philosophy which has been enthusiastically embraced by all the usual globalist suspects, in full awareness – or inexcusable ignorance.

This fact alone should give us pause.

The Lucis Trust is intensely political as it is occultly religious. Globalist ideology can be read on every page of its books and articles promoting centralisation and group consciousness – something quite different to being group conscious – at the expense of individuality.

The Trust founded its “World Goodwill” initiative in 1937 which just so happens to be embraced by a host of pathological signatories for whom corporatism, exploitation and globalism is the prime-mover of their beliefs. Anyone with a modicum of awareness should have their alarm-bells ringing at such a discovery. Some of these luminaries are: Helmut Schmidt, former Chancellor of West Germany; Malcolm Frasier, former Australian Prime Minister; Robert McNamara, former US Foreign policy advisor and Secretary of Defence; Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve and recent chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Barack Obama. And of course, elder statesman and psychopathic insider: Henry Kissinger.

The Lucis Trust is run through an international board of trustees whose membership is said to have included: John D. Rockefeller, Norman Cousins, Thomas Watson, Jr. (IBM, former U.S. Ambassador to Moscow) and Henry Clauson, Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, 33rd Degree, and Southern District Scottish Rite.

“World Goodwill’s activities are essentially educational” and it has three main purposes:

To help mobilise the energy of goodwill;
To cooperate in the work of preparation for the reappearance of the Christ;
To educate public opinion on the causes of the major world problems and to help create the thought form of solution.” ^{^[7]}

Lucis Trust programming is essential for a New World Religion and a New Social paradigm to be sold to the masses. It’s template must tick all the feel good boxes for aspiring neophytes whilst appealing to the metaphysical-freemasonic intelligentsia who have attained certain degrees from other esoteric schools. Then there are the children, the new generations to which the Lucis Trust and it’s United Nation vehicle must direct its spiritual energies.

In 1968, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) spearheaded a lobbying effort – along with the United Nations Economic and Social Council headed by new age educational guru Robert Muller – to adopt Resolution 1296 which grants “consultative” status to certain NGOs. In 1970, the Lucis Trust was one of the first to be granted such a status on the UN roster. Muller, a former Assistant Secretary General to the U.N., had good reason to set about his task in further integrating the Lucis Trust with the United Nations. As a devoted disciple of Alice Bailey, he took inspiration from her book A Treatise on White Magic, and “Education in the New Age” in order to create his vision of education for the world. This eventually formed the basis for the Robert Muller schools.^{^[8]}

In 1995, Muller delivered a speech at the University of Denver from which we can glean some understanding as to what brand of education he and UNESCO were preparing for the world’s generation of children.

He stated:

“I had written an essay which was circulated by UNESCO, and which earned me the title of “Father of Global Education.” I was educated badly in France. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only correct education that I have received in my life was from the United Nations. We should replace the word politics by planetics. We need planetary management, planetary caretakers. We need global sciences. We need a science of a global psychology, a global sociology, a global anthropology. Then I made my proposal for a World Core Curriculum.” [Emphasis mine] ^{^[9]}

Muller’s Curriculum offers a primary objective which involves:

“… Assisting the child in becoming an integrated individual who can deal with personal experience while seeing himself as a part of … the greater whole. In other words, promote growth of the group idea, so that group good, group understanding, group interrelations and group goodwill replace all limited, self-centred objectives, leading to group consciousness.”

The World Core Curriculum Manual says: “The underlying philosophy upon which the Robert Muller School is based will be found in the teachings set forth in the books of Alice A. Bailey, by the Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul.” This “enlightened” individual wants a New World Order ethos which displaces diversity and the “one in manyness” in favour of ONE THOUGHT expressed through regulated building-blocks of servitude dressed up as spiritual holism. This is global, One World philosophy which lends itself to something diammetrically opposite to “holding hands across the ocean.” This is a curricula for homogenity of the kind where bland conformity is the new normal. (For Muller’s work in environmentalism along aide Maurice Strong see: Dark Green VII: The Club of Rome and “World Problematique”)

Muller’s ideas simply mirror the Alice Bailey teachings where “World Citizenship” and a “World Federation” will begin to manifest as a result of the activation of the “World Brain” developed by so-called “enlightened” individuals or “World Servers.” ^{^[10]}

And who would preside over this “enlightened” Synarchy?

Once again, the constant harping on global consciousness as the only way to be harmonious means subservience to a centralised global order where the individual is secondary to the Group Mind. Education is a means to introduce uniformed thinking where diversity and creativity exist insofar that it conforms to One World philosophy. This description could be straight out of a Marxist or Fabian treatises tied up with a rainbow ribbon of New Age floss. (Keep in mind the agency of UNESCO which served to introduce the same agenda from a humanist perspective. (It is also interesting in terms of Common Purpose in the UK and Common Core education initiatives causing so many problems in the U.S.

The Tetrahedron or “triangular pyramid” logo of the World Core Curriculum

This is where fascist Synarchists, elements of Theosophy and the gradualism of Fabian socialists had close ties precisely due to their common ground on forging a World State. Unusually for a woman, Annie Besant founded the British Federation of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry and was heavily involved with Fabian socialism, eventually co-founding the Fabian Society.

This potent occult mix drew together Gnostic Christians and Spiritualists, including Frank Podmore, later Lord and Lady Passfield, the Freemason William Clarke, Viscount and Viscountess Snowden, British Prime Minister J. Ramsay Macdonald, Lord Sidney Oliver, Lord Thomson and Soviet agent Lord Haldane, and others. In the same year, Scottish noble Douglas Dunglas Home – who had sponsored Blavatsky as early as 1858 and given séances for the Czar – returned to Great Britain, where, with support of the Cecil family, he founded the Society for Psychical Research, whose members included Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Balfour, John Dewey, William James and Lord Bertrand Russell.

Along with 33rd degree mason C.W. Leadbeater, Annie Besant joined the theosophical society in 1907 after digesting Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine, finally becoming the leader of the movement. Besant cultivated further cult status by grooming a young Indian adept Jiddu Krishnamurti as the new messiah. As is often the case with best laid plans, the no-nonsense Indian rejected the mantle much to the chagrin of Besant and her followers. With no love lost between her rival, Bailey was able to take over the theosophical Plan allowing it to continue on its way, despite these messianic setbacks.

By the 1930s, the British Establishment and intelligence services employed Satanist Edward Aleister Crowley and his Order of the Golden Dawn (or Stella Matutina) which joined hands with his aforementioned off-shoot of Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) Germany’s Thule Society which, in turn, oversaw the rise of the Nazi Party. The Corporatists and International bankers did the rest. Much of the re-building from World War II came directly from occult imperatives, the principles of which overshadowed ALL of the new institutions that arose out of its purposely created ashes.

Whitehall, London

Any directive must allow free-will and the opportunity for humanity to decide their own destiny without interference. As the Lucis Trust works with such people who support the principles behind an authoritarian brand of a New World Order, then we have to question what kind of spirituality the trust is really promoting. As the vast majority of global governments and their leaders are, without doubt psychopaths or sub-categories of psychologically deviant individuals, then what kind of Plan do we think is going to manifest?

World Good Will to all men?

The Lucis Trust would likely give all kinds of esoteric reasoning that the old world is dying and the New World Servers are ushering the New Age of true spiritual freedom and “right human relations”. However, real spiritual guidance needs no subtle forms of coercion and what amounts to forced choices. To that end, it is very clear to see which “Plan” is in operation at this present time characterised as it is by certain themes and signs which denote status, hierarchy, centralisation, group consciousness and an entirely autocratic brand of spirituality.

What underlies the Lucis Trust’s particular type of “education” is the placing of our energy, faith and responsibility in an external authority; a force of “supermen” based on hierarchical principles instead of our own independent and collective empowerment. Surely, if there is such a thing as “Christ consciousness” then it will manifest through a co-linear network of like minds where “right human relations” can emerge naturally without systems of belief instead of being focused in a “divine” saviour or group of “Ascended Masters” now so ubiquitous in the New Age Movement as a whole.

Arcane School Triangles – disbursing energy to crumble the Old Order… But do we know who is behind this New Order? A Treatise on white magick or merely a more sophisticated rendering of black magick?

Corralling human thought into a prescribed and rigid belief system is seldom creative or sustainable but often incendiary, as it is drawn from invocations from so called “white magic.” The Lucis Trust describes occult meditation as: “a means of consciously and purposefully directing energy from a recognized source to the creation of some specific effect.” And this is the essential problem with “Magick” of any kind, (the “k” emphasizes occult ritualistic elements involved) especially with its focus on group consciousness and status. It seeks to create effects in the external world; to manipulate matter to gain some specific outcome and to “invoke” a particular thought form and/or entity. Whether it is a Baal or a Lord Maitreya is irrelevant. White and black magick are two sides of the same coin. White magick is simply more coy about its intent to manipulate matter towards its perception of what is perceived as “good.”

There is no need to base Synarchist precepts upon a world that does not operate according to elitist beliefs systems whether termed “spiritual” or otherwise. The implicit message from the Lucis Trust is that ordinary men and women need to be schooled and instructed by those in the know, which at the moment comprises authoritarian followers and social dominators of various degrees. The last thing humanity needs is to have its spirituality defined by more authority, yet that is exactly what the Lucis Trust and the United Nations would have us adopt.

Working on ourselves can naturally manifest the effects in the outer world without recourse to a centralised belief system and it’s hierarchy of spiritual administrators. We surely have to be extremely careful that such a funnelling of potent human energy is being directed to the correct quarters and to pose the question: for what purpose? No such public discussion has taken place as to whether organisations like the Lucis Trust should be sitting at the table of hundreds of influential think-tanks and NGOs, not least the United Nations. We only have Alice Bailey’s word that what she was channelling was indeed benevolent. And given the evidence, it appears slick and heavy with a technical integration of Western magick and Eastern techniques but ultimately devoid of anything approaching spiritual emancipation.

Given the nature of “The Absolute” and the Mixtus Orbis of this world characterised by deception so that we may learn to see the unseen, do we really think that such monolithic expressions of occult authority are actually offering something genuinely liberating? Or are they merely offering the illusion of such a possibility?

In order to try and answer that question we will have to look at the possible roots of Alice Bailey’s “overshadowing” Tibetan.

* I must confess some personal interest in the Lucis Trust. I was a member of the Arcane School for five years in my early twenties and attended many of their seminars and conferences based in Whitehall, London. It is only now in hindsight that I realise what an extremely clever and high-level disinformation project it truly is. This does not discount the many and varied expositions on esoteric truth contained within. However, it’s important to be aware exactly how spiritual information of this kind can be co-opted and distorted exactly because so much of the nature of our hyperdimensional reality has been left out.

It is especially sad, since there are many genuine and well-intentioned people within its ranks who come from a variety of backgrounds. An overwhelmingly white, middle-class demographic, many are drawn from UN-linked NGOs, the civil service and corporate machine. What defines this group is a centre of gravity focused in the intellect, a strong pull towards status (though often subconscious) and a genuine desire to serve humanity. These of course, can be recognised at the lower and mid tiers of the freemasonic degree process. An overriding emphasis on a Christ figurehead and his hierarchy of “Masters” is the proffered carrot despite the insistence on inner work and soul integration. In my view, the original ancient wisdom – even from the mix of theosophy from which the Bailey works were drawn – suggests that a “Christ consciousness” will manifest through a network of individuals rather than focused in an architecture of authority managed through a network of a New Group of World Servers structured around magical invocation, often at the Establishment level. At the higher levels of freemasonic operations, it is anyone’s guess what is occurring, but given what we know about ponerology and the red flags all over the Lucis Trust itself, the prognosis isn’t good.

However, I would urge readers to discover the nature of Alice Bailey / D.K. material in order to judge for yourselves. It will require deep study in parallel to other esoteric systems and with a keen inner eye cognizant of how such a system of spiritual teaching is now being used in our present culture. There is, at one level, much to commend it – up to a point. Then you might like to compare it to Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way Teachings and the latter day Fourth Way School of paleo-Christianity, both of which can be found at cassiopaea.org and paleochristianity.org.

Notes

[1] www.lucistrust.org/en/arcane_school/introduction/about_the_arcane_school

[2] ‘The Great Invocation’
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men-
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

[3] http://www.lucistrust.org/en/service_activities/triangles
[4] http://www.lucistrust.org/en/books/the_beacon_magazine
[5] ‘The Esoteric Meaning of Lucifer’ – http://www.lucistrust.org/en/arcane_school/talks_and_articles/the_esoteric_meaning_of_lucifer
[6] Luci Trust Charter | http://www.lucistrust.org
[7] http://www.lucistrust.org/en/service_activities/world_goodwill/purposes_objectives
[8] A Treatise on White Magic By Alice A. Bailey, Published by Lucis Publishing Co. 1934. http://www.alice.bailey.it/testi…/A-Treatise-on-White-Magic.pdf
[9] ‘A World Core Curriculum for Global Education Framework of Our Global Knowledge| http://www.unol.org/rms/wcc.html | http://www.robertmuller.org/rm/R1/World_Core_Curriculum.html
[10] Education for a New Age By Alice A. Bailey, Published by Lucis Publishing Co. 1954 | Updated in PDF online version 1998: http://www.bailey.it/images/testi-inglese/Education-in-the-New-Age.pdf

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Outsourcing Abuse III: Dyncorp, Plan Colombia and Private Armies

By M.K. Styllinski

“America provides the guns, Colombia provides the dead.”

“The pretext of Al-Qaeda infesting the country was used. It was the same propaganda employed in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and most of Africa – in fact, any other country which has bountiful resources. As the US government retained control, Dyncorp was airlifted in with a fat $10 million contract in the following year for “peacekeeping” and “logistical support,” thus replacing the more costly presence of US combat forces. In other words, this was a proxy army to complete the proxy government.”

Before we return to the topic of Establishment child rape networks I want to continue with the legacy of Dyncorp and other private security firms as outposts of an emerging Pathocracy. They are important nodes in the expansion of a bankrupt empire and their links to covert drug and the sex trade. Inevitably these companies always have links back to the original source of pathological disease. Dyncorp’s role in Latin America and in particular Colombia is instructive in this regard.

The Free Trade agreements of the Americas walked over the remains of the dead economies of South America, hacked off at the roots by years of U.S. interventionism and later under the auspices of the IMF and World Bank. The colonization has changed but is on schedule and Dyncorp is right in the thick of it to ensure its completion.

The U.S. $1.3 billion Plan Colombia was one example. Critics said that the corporation was involved in “counter insurgency” operations in the war on drugs as well as the monopolisation of oil interests in the region. Paramilitaries and mercenaries are co-mingling in a mix of dirty interests. The corporation’s activities also extend into Bolivia and Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil and Panama where it is also carries out drug interdiction, transport, reconnaissance, search and rescue missions, medical evacuation and aircraft maintenance.

The fact that President Bush had substantial ties to Harken Energy Inc., of Houston, Texas, is well known. Bush Jr. opted for a comfortable desk job with the company in 1986 and received $2 million in stock options, a $122,000 consulting job and a seat on its board of directors for his trouble. Meanwhile, in the Magdalena Valley where Harken Energy and other oil companies peddle their business, right wing paramilitary groups comprising of Colombian military officers, drug traffickers, cattle ranchers and fighting guerrillas are paid to protect oil pipelines. Civilians in Colombia have become the prime targets as rapacious parties compete for territory. The murder of peasants is common place if they do not respond to threats and intimidation to leave land targeted for mining, oil exploration and agriculture. Harken continued to rake in the cash on the backs of dead civilians in the Magdalena Valley, with help from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.

Paramilitaries protected corporate interests in the region. Death squads operated on behalf of U.S. oil companies and political parties, which were closely entwined in a network of intelligence agencies with the CIA as the guiding hand. After all, Colombia is both the leading recipient of US military aid in the hemisphere and the worst violator of human rights. Connection?

“Plan Colombia” was inflicted on the country for ill-advised reasons during President Bill Clinton’s presidency. The $1.3 billion aid package which was mostly military aid to Colombia and its neighbours, was to usher in “peace, prosperity, and the strengthening of the state” ^{^[1]} by proposing a military strategy to stop illicit drug cultivation and trafficking. The plan was to be carried out by providing military assistance to the Colombian armed forces and police, and the creation of three anti-narcotics army battalions. However, aside from a slight drop in cocoa plant production, it did none of those things. What it actually did was to build on the destabilisation in the region thanks to 1990s Reaganomic policies and to “increase the dispersion and proliferation of organized crime and the expansion and intensification of political crime and guerrilla warfare.” ^{^[2]} The plan served to increase politically motivated killings and where “counter-narcotics operations in Plan Colombia fail[ed] to target drugs cultivation in areas under long-standing paramilitary control.” ^{^[3]}

After a whopping expenditure of $4.72 billion from 2000-2006 with $3.84 billion (81 percent) going to Colombia’s military and police forces, things have only got worse. The reason being, over 50 percent of Colombia’s land is owned by paramilitaries, the monopoly of which is drawn from the paramilitary control of members of Colombia’s Congress at around 30 percent. It suggests that the CIA, true to its colours, wished to gain control of an important financial resource rather than to decrease its influence in any genuine way.

Dyncorp wasn’t the only one slicing into the pie. AirScan, a based in Rockledge, Florida provides High-Tec air surveillance and is responsible for patrolling the Colombian jungle in Cessna Skymaster electronic surveillance planes, spotting coca plantations and guerrilla threats to the Cano Limon oil pipeline. Military Professional Resources Inc. based in Alexandria, Virginia provides a consultancy service run by former US generals. Its mercenaries were responsible for training the Colombian Army and police officers. An Alabama company working out of the Maxwell Air-force base, Aviation Development Corporation (ADC) flies Cessna spotter planes for the CIA in Peru and Colombia to help target aircraft used by drug smugglers.

Cocaine monopolisation: Funding American interests

It was this latter company that caused a brief headache for the PR branches protecting the so called “drug war” when a small plane carrying US missionaries was shot down in Peru by a military pilot killing a young woman and her seven-month-old baby girl. The missionaries’ plane was first spotted by a US Cessna Citation surveillance plane piloted not by the US military but by private contractors hired by ADC. This echoed the shooting down of a Dyncorp helicopter and the subsequent rescue of its pilots by their own search and rescue teams which culminated in a shoot-out with the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Nothing like a spot of Hollywood intrigue to keep the shareholders happy.

Another minor glitch in its operations was discovered in late 2001 when online news journal The Nation managed to obtain a document of a monthly DEA intelligence report from May 2000 in which officers of Colombia’s National Police force intercepted a US-bound Federal Express package at Bogota’s El Dorado International Airport with a parcel containing two small bottles of a “thick liquid” with the same consistency as “motor oil”. The communiqué reported that: “… the liquid substance ‘tested positive for heroin’ and that the ‘alleged heroin laced liquid weighed approximately 250 grams.’” DynCorp spokeswoman Janet Wineriter stated: “… the viscous liquid that the Colombians tested was not, in fact, laced with heroin; it was simply “oil samples of major aircraft components’ that DynCorp technicians are required to take and send to the US ‘on a periodic basis.’ ” ^{^[4]}

While the package was traced back to an unnamed employee of Dyncorp who was sending it on to the Andean operations headquarters at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, the government and Dyncorp were tight-lipped regarding details as to why this was entirely innocent and the result of faulty testing equipment. After a slippery tossing of the hot potato between the US Embassy, the Colombian National Police Force (CNP) the DEA and the Colombian State Department (and of course Dyncorp) the problem was shoved under a decidedly rank carpet courtesy of the CNP whose forensic unit decided it prudent not to pursue the matter.

The testing equipment called NARCOTEX was to all intents and purposes, also found to be bogus by the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Drug Recognition Experts. They could find no evidence of drug technology with that name. A token military doffing of its hat towards those that were intent on its eradication, was all that was needed. (Like the “War on Terror,” the “War on Drugs” is also largely bogus, a topic we will return to much later).

Dyncorp’s presence in Latin America has stuck like mud against the aspirations of its inhabitants since the early 1990s. It was during one of its contracts for helicopter maintenance that some of the long held suspicions about the multinational were further confirmed when one of those helicopters crashed in the Peruvian jungle in 1992. On board were three DynCorp employees, including Robert Hitchman, a covert-ops specialist, who had worked for the CIA in a number of operations ranging from the CIA front, “Air America,” to Libyan black-ops for Colonel Kaddafi. Hitchman was in fact, flying DEA agents and the Peruvian military on missions into guerrilla territory to destroy cocaine labs and coordinate the herbicide spraying program. True to Dyncorp services, he was also training Peruvian pilots to fly combat missions.^{^[5]} Colombia was to be a much more extensive capturing of a country’s destiny where Colombian army, paramilitary groups and toxic spraying and fumigation would be stepped up to a degree that would pay big money to ex-military veterans and black ops personnel.

Toxic spraying and fumigation

As part of this propaganda the corporation dutifully and profitably went about its $200 million^{^[6]} contract to spray 2,550 Square miles of Colombia with Monsanto’s “Round-Up Ultra” herbicide from 2000-2005, under the pretext of eliminating the illegal cocoa crops. An environmental disaster loaded on yet more suffering for the Colombian peoples already being squeezed by Bogota and the U.S. government. With 82 percent of the population living under the poverty line, growing their own food would have been one possibility to feed their families, when they often have no option but to grow cocoa for the insatiable demand in the States.

While a class-action lawsuit was filed in Washington, DC, on behalf of 10,000 farmers in Ecuador and the AFL-CIO-related International Labour Rights Fund, (ILRF) it may not save the thousands of children already suffering the effects of fumigation and spraying. After the initial veiled threats from Dyncorp CEO Paul V. Lombardi, towards Bishop Jesse DeWitt president of ILRF, the lawsuit for indigenous Quiches and farmers from the state of Sucumbío, Dyncorp subsequently used its State Department leverage to ask “…the judge to dismiss the case because it involves national security interests of the United States.” Luckily the Judge after consulting material derived from an investigation by Ecuador’s Acción Ecológica came to the conclusion that Dyncorp had “committed crimes against humanity, torture and cultural genocide.” ^{^[7]} This ruling finally led to the 2003 court rulings ordering the suspension of aerial fumigation of coca and poppy crops until environmental and human impact studies can be carried out.

However, in clear violation of Colombian law, President Alvare Uribe, a U.S. puppet, continues to do the State Department’s bidding and the spraying has continued. According to Narco News, a Latin American journal that reports on the drug war and (the lack of) democracy in Latin America: “Food crops have been destroyed, rainforest ravaged, tens of thousands of peasants have been displaced because their crops, livestock and water sources have been poisoned.” ^{^[8]}

Colombia’s armed conflict is the longest-running guerrilla war in the Americas, and with U.S. involvement, shows no signs of decreasing in intensity. According to the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, in 2002 alone “an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 civilians were killed in fighting; were targeted in political assassinations or were ‘disappeared.’ By comparison, the death toll was 3,000 to 3,500 in the previous year and where 4,077 children suffered violent deaths, including political violence and common crime, according to the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office (Ombudsman, Defensoría del Pueblo).” ^{^[9]}

The crux of the problem in the declining fortunes of the Colombian people and the next generation of children being born into such chaos is U.S. sponsorship and support of guerrilla groups, paramilitaries, government armed forces and national police that have consistently perpetrated violence and abuses against civilians, particularly children and adolescents. There is widespread grievous bodily harm (GPH) and instances of rape in conflict and in domestic life.

Human Rights Watch place the incidences of rape of adolescent girls as 2.5 per every 1,000 young women. “Rape, sexual torture and other forms of sexual violence against women and girls are used as tactics to destabilize the population.” Despite a 2006, $20 million budget to help fund Colombia’s paramilitary demobilization process; the commercial sex trade is gaining ground, with estimates ranging from 20,000 to 35,000 children forced into commercial sexual work. ^{^[10]} A steady unchecked business in arms trafficking and an equally plentiful supply of child soldiers parallels the figure of over 3 million children who do not attend school. A high percentage of indigenous and Afro-Colombian child soldiers of Between 11,000 and 14,000 are often targeted for recruitment. The U.S. State Department becomes uncharacteristically silent on the subject of support for Uribe and government armed forces that are known to use children as informants and “counter-insurgency” propaganda activities. ^{^[11]}

Former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez

Paramilitary leaders unilaterally declared a cease-fire in late 2002, with much trumpeting of the U.S. negotiations which were heralded as more evidence of the US bending over backwards to “assist.” If we look deeper, this “assistance” represents more attempts to find ways to circumvent the maze of interests that continue to carve up Colombia. Most paramilitary leaders at the negotiating table are there due to the possibility of extradition to the U.S. under the demobilisation laws and are haggling away their wealth that was illegally-acquired. Paramilitaries and drug barons are putting themselves forward as human bargaining chips to avoid imprisonment should the need arise. In truth, before 2005, demobilization had not been enforced due to the absence of a legal framework and served to act as yet another sop for Congress. Human Rights Watch reported in 2004: “…the government has been holding ceremonies in which thousands of purported paramilitaries turn over their weapons and become eligible to receive stipends and other benefits. As a result, there is a real risk that the current demobilization process will leave the underlying structures of these violent groups intact, their illegally acquired assets untouched, and their abuses unpunished.” ^{^[12]}

The U.S. and the European Union actively encouraged the tragically misplaced naming of “Ley de Justicia y Paz” (Justice and Peace Law) while the United Nations Security Council sheepishly turned a blind eye. The Colombian Congress dutifully passed in June 2005 the legal framework for the demobilization of the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), the worst Human rights offender responsible for 80 percent of the most appalling abuses country-wide. They have been a dominant factor in the drug trade with various AUC leaders being extradited to the United States for prosecution on drug trafficking charges. Prison sentences are limited to a maximum of eight years and prosecutors are given a very limited leeway in which to present their charges. Big-wig criminals including drug barons are often blurring the lines between paramilitary groups. It means that they are protected from extradition to the United States by legal semantics and loopholes. Furthermore, safe in the assurance that they will be protected from the harsh realities of their crimes, the turning in of arms amounts to window dressing for Congress and NGO’s because they will not be required to reveal information about the paramilitary financing and methods. On top of this, they will not be detained for any undue length of time.

The CIA and its corporate covers in the monopolisation of the drug wars wish to hold onto and protect their assets while expanding and mopping up drug operations. Drug lords are bought off and given immunity in exchange for their illegal wealth while ex-paramilitaries are “re-integrated” back into the community. The latter means, of course, that these psychopaths have been hired back into the national police and army with a ridiculous assurance that no arms will be given to these men. Given Colombia’s record, this is nonsense. It is also an interesting example of the U.S. predilection for recycling military and special ops personnel back into its cover corporations abroad. We may well have the same practice happening in Colombia, with the priority going to private security firms, replicating the standards that Dyncorp is now so famous for. It seems everyone is a winner, except that is, the citizens of Colombia and its lost children. After all, mechanics, trainers, maintenance and administrative workers, logistics experts, rescuers and pilots and CIA agents with fat pay packets are all busy helping to fleece what is left of the country on a variety of support operations. For Dyncorp and CSC, exploitation ratios are its primary measure of success.

In an article by Journalist Uri Dowbenko he includes an explication of the financial mechanics behind Dyncorp’s free reign in the “War on Drugs” propaganda. Catherine Austin Fitts, former FHA Commissioner in the Bush Sr. Administration and former CEO of Hamilton Securities outlines how they do it where she refers to the creation of Stock Value or Capital Gains as “Pop” in Wall Street jargon:

If DynCorp has a $60 million per year contract supporting knowledge management for asset seizures in the United States,” she says. “The current proxy shows that they value their stock, which they buy and sell internally, at approximately 30 times earnings. So, if a contract has a 5-10percent profit, then per $100 million of contracts, DynCorp makes about $5-$10 million, which translates into $150 million to $300 million of stock value. That means that for a $200 million contract, with average earnings of 5-10percent ($10 million to $20 million), DynCorp is generating $300 million to $600 million of stock value.

Pug Winokur of Capricorn Holdings appears to have about 5 percent ownership, which means that his partnerships’ stock value increase $15-$30 million from the War in Colombia. If the DynCorp team kills 100 people, as an example, then that means they make $1.5 – $3 million per death. That way the Pop per Dead Colombian can be estimated, or, how much capital gains can be made from killing one Colombian. Since DynCorp was also in the Gulf and in Kosovo, we should be able to calculate the relative value of killing people in various cultures and nationalities. Pug Winokur’s partnership, under these assumptions, makes $75,000 to $250,000 of Pop per Dead Colombian. ^{^[13]}

Of course, Bush’s anti-terror bill injected more financial aid to President Alvare Uribe’s right-wing government and managed to destroy much of the progress on human rights of the last few decades. It also smoothed the way for a doubling of the number of US troops and US contractors allowed in Colombia such as Dyncorp and Textron (the military helicopter firm) which continued from 2005 to 2009. The displacement of an already acutely oppressed people has reached 3 million and is worsening as a direct result of U.S. policy and the outsourcing of its global agenda.

Dyncorp is nothing more than the extension of the Pentagon’s foreign policy strategies from Bosnia to Colombia, Somalia to Haiti. Regime change required? Then call in a private security firm to sow the seeds of discontent by arming and training the waiting oppositions. This is exactly what happened when Somalia had the briefest window of opportunity for a democratic peace. After warlords had controlled the country for over fifteen years the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) had managed to wrest control from these chaotic and bloody factions during the summer of 2006. Despite the very real chance of a respite from war and carnage the US was in the region busily training Ethiopian troops who then invaded Somalia in December of that year backed up by US air raids.

The pretext of Al-Qaeda infesting the country was used. It was the same propganda employed in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and most of Africa – in fact, any other country which has bountiful resources. As the US proxy government was placed back into power Dyncorp was airlifted in with a fat $10 million contract in the following year for “peacekeeping” and “logistical support,” thus replacing the more costly presence of US combat forces. In other words, this was a proxy army to complete the proxy government. ^{^[14]}

After the CIA-backed coup in Haiti and the toppling of Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, Dyncorp was drafted in by the U.S. State Department to protect Boniface Alexandre, yet another US puppet wheeled into to their bidding. Dyncorp is now busy training police in the country. ^{^[15]}

The U.N. General Assembly adopted the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries in 1989 where around nineteen states ratified the Convention and nine states have signed but have yet to ratify. This followed with a further amendment to the convention in 1992 which was similarly ignored. It was also declared that “the use of mercenaries is a threat to international peace and security,” and that all were “Deeply concerned about the menace that the activities of mercenaries represent for all States, particularly African and other developing States” as well as “Profoundly alarmed at the continued international criminal activities of mercenaries in collusion with drug traffickers…” ^{^[16]} At least three of the countries are officially known to have flouted the Convention. ^{^[17]} The twenty-two States that have completed the constitutional procedures that bind them to the Convention are: Azerbaijan, Barbados, Belarus, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Italy, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Suriname, Togo, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uruguay and Uzbekistan. The nine other States that have signed but not ratified it are: Angola, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Germany, Morocco, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia and … The United States. ^{^[18]}

The extent of this indignation and concern was shown in the 1997 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on mercenaries regarding the growth market in mercenary activity: “In what appears to be a new international trend, legally registered companies are providing security, advisory and military training to the armed forces and police of legitimate Governments. There have been complaints that some of these companies recruit mercenaries and go beyond advisory and instruction work to become involved in military combat and taking over political, economic and financial matters in the country served.” ^{^[19]} With the United States maintaining a military presence in 148 of the 192 United Nations countries, it is set to remain both a lucrative and controversial field of activity well into the future. ^{^[20]}

While Dyncorp’s associations with the UN already reek of hypocrisy, these naïve protestations are further laid bare when we realize that Lifeguard Security, a company linked to Executive Outcomes, a U.K. mercenary company, was responsible for guarding U.N. offices and residences in Sierra Leone’s capital of Freetown in 2004. The refusal of the U.K. a major manufacturer of weapons and source of mercenaries to sign the Convention was given an embarrassing exercise in exposition with the Equatorial Guinea Mercenaries Coup affair. Sir Mark Thatcher and Simon Mann’s forays into the arms business were highlighted in spectacular fashion, revealing an industry that rarely gets a mention yet is so instrumental in the destinies of government coups everywhere. ^{^[21]}

Let’s have a brief look at some of these companies.

The Vinnell Corporation, part of the Northrop-Grumman merger in 2000, employs ex-military and CIA personnel as well as having close connections with concurrent U.S. administrations. It has had a contractual relationship to train the Saudi Arabian National Guard since 1975. This led to Bush condemning an attack in Riyadh in May 2003 that killed at least 30 people. it was blamed, of course, on Al-Qaeda.

True to the infantile propaganda that is circulating so effectively via the U.S. media every violent event and atrocity is traced back to the insidious tentacles of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. This is very often the role of security companies such as Vinnell that act as foreign policy enforcers. They are there to prop up the regime and to keep dissidents at bay, hence they become targets. This is not dissimilar to the “insurgents” in Iraq who attack those intent on planting bombs and creating the seeds of a civil war. Under cover of chaos it is far easier to go about your business of fleecing the countries resources and laying plans for future geo-political monopolies. The terror wars are fuelling the security business growth and in turn, it is ensuring that terrorism remains a global menace, much to the delight of arms dealers everywhere. Companies such as Vance International specialize in American corporate executives travelling overseas, wealthy foreigners visiting the United States and the extravagance of Hollywood stars. It is renowned for using mostly ex-military men for “asset protection.”

Global Options which provides high-end security, intelligence and investigative services, billing itself as a “private CIA, FBI, State Department and Justice Department wrapped up into one.” Not forgetting its emphasis on “defending corporate America” which should fill us all with confidence. ^{^[22]}Control Risk Grp., and MPRI specialise in providing training mercenaries for armies worldwide. Although many corporations would feign incredulity at such heinous accusations, security corporations all provide services of “risk mitigation” and “executive or asset protection;” hired by governments, intelligence agencies and the 1% elite to do their dirty work outside of Congressional or Parliamentary oversight. Which makes Sandline International CEO Tim Spicer’s attempt to take the moral high ground particularly ridiculous. With the winding up of his company’s operations he left a petulant message on his now defunct website bemoaning lack of “government support”:

“On 16 April 2004 Sandline International announced the closure of the company’s operations. The general lack of governmental support for Private Military Companies willing to help end armed conflicts in places like Africa, in the absence of effective international intervention, is the reason for this decision. Without such support the ability of Sandline to make a positive difference in countries where there is widespread brutality and genocidal behaviour is materially diminished.”

The reality was that Sandline got caught red-handed doing what it shouldn’t and the government pulled up the ladders and claimed no knowledge which is what they do. The fact that an historical Western corporatism and its pathocratic enablers are the original cause of endemic corruption and destablisation within those countries also seems to have escaped the colonel’s worldview.

Other security contractors making mega-bucks in 2014 include:

Erinys – guarded most of Iraq’s vital oil assets
Academi – (formerly Blackwate r and Xe) owns and runs one of the most advanced private military training facilities in the world.
Unity Resources Group – active in the Middle East, Africa, the Americas and Asia
Triple Canopy – won a security contract in Iraq worth up to $1.5 billion
Aegis Defense Service – works with the UN, US, and oil companies
Defion Internacional – recruits thousands of fighters from developing countries
G4S (orginaly known as the Wackenhut Corp.) – the largest security contractor in the world that has it’s dirty fingers in most of the globes conflicts. (more on Wackenhut’s history in the next post)

Ethics are not going to be top of the list in any of these businesses that would clearly kill the local nursery teacher if the contract fee was high enough. What is more, the nature of the US Army and Navy means that they are chock full of the kinds of psychological profiles most attracted to such work which would include psychopaths, sociopaths, jackals and skirtoids which are then used as the pool from which private security firms draw their personnel. Former FBI agents, intelligence directors, Delta-Force, Air-Force, SWAT, Army Intelligence operatives, Secret Service agents, CIA veterans, Navy Seals and ex-Marines – you name it, the demand is there for such men and women. Security services and mercenaries for hire act as funnels to the US military and secret service in order to save money, resources and to actualise foreign policy moves beyond the radar of independent media and the public. Remember of course at a certain level, there is no such thing as a former FBI or CIA agent or any government intelligence operative.

As controversy about rendition and torture continues to bubble, private security firms are merging with the free-market to produce a boom in private finance deals both in Europe as well as the US Private-sector firms are even sponsoring academics and researchers and helping to formulate government penal and criminal justice policy, no doubt tailored towards an increasing reliance on profit over public interest. Stephen Nathan, editor of Prison Privatisation Report International said, regarding then Denmark-based Group 4 and its services: “The increasing influence of the private sector in the criminal justice system means shareholders’ interests come first. Who shapes criminal justice policy? Is it professionals, politicians and the public? Or is it Group 4 shareholders?” ^{^[23]}

Though the tired suggestion that it is simply market forces and intense competition that has led to the prison services adopting more aggressively commercial approaches, this does not address the issue of rising crime rates of young offenders. For those ready to provide the means to sweep problems out of sight and out of mind it promises to remains an unending money-spinner.

End Note: This particular piece was written almost a decade ago. Since that time, Dyncorp International has certainly smartened up its PR and marketing. It has a slick website and a special “Social Responsibility” section and even an “A” rating on the Defence Companies Anti-Corruption Index. Unfortunately, a predator is a predator. While it may do its best to change it’s spots – even extinguish internal corruption and crime about which you will read below – it is still a corporation which outsources “guns for hire,” complete with logistical and technological know-how. As such, it continues to act as a de-facto arm of the American Empire and fans the flames of conflict simply by doing its job.

The whole idea of US policing the world and is thus an “interference” is a view offered by the progressive left and it is missing the point. It is far worse than this. Companies like Dyncorp are a hugely lucrative part of Corporate America. As the Empire becomes over-stretched, their remit is to facilitate long-term presence in countries through private means. This is not a misguided policy of over-protection and policing, as though this is somehow about good intentions gone awry. It is about the maintenance of a sprawling corporate-security complex offering further geopolitical leverage without committing further troops on the ground. It has the added advantage for military-corporate partnerships to remain a little deeper under the radar when comes to the mainstream media.

The presence of men “addicted to adrenalin” adds to the probability of civil conflict and abuse. Sure enough, this still proves to be the case, despite Dyncorp’s probably genuine attempts at instilling ethics and values training for its office workers. It even supports a children’s charity in the region which, from an historical perspective is truly ironic. Corporate philanthropy and conflict has always gone hand in hand because it’s good PR. But all this is a drop in the ocean when the overarching directive of such companies is destabilisation. When you have ex-veterans walking around with automatic weapons, hearts pumping and looking for action; roaming around a country that has been destroyed by the very same forces – it’s hardly likely to end well. Corporations working for military, intelligence and US defence attending a children’s charity gala while acting as a stay-behind occupying force won’t work.

What Afghanistan and Iraq really need is ZERO American military presence and CIVILIAN personnel from genuine NGOs who have no political and military affiliations.

Reports in from 2011-2014 suggest that initiatives like Village Stability Operations (ALP) are a euphemism for creating a network of staging posts which maintain a massive presence in regions across Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries formerly trashed by the Anglo-American-Israeli invaders. The only reason these private armies are there is to maintain presence. Re-building infrastructure and assisting the population in recovering from Western aggression only occurs as an incidental practice. The primary objective is to create a country contoured toward Western strategies as they play out in the regions.

Mint Press News reported on the studies by the Congressional Research Service, titled “Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security and U.S. Policy”, a report which drew attention to the negative effects private security forces have in regions suffering from civil war, tribal conflict and geopolitical sensitivity. Although, it seems to me that is precisely why such companies are there in the first place …

The report stated:

“An outgrowth of the Village Stability Operations is the Afghan Local Police (ALP) program in which the U.S. Special Operations Forces conducting the Village Stability Operations set up and train local security organs of about 300 members each. These local units are under the control of district police chiefs and each fighter is vetted by a local shura as well as Afghan intelligence. There are about 23,000 ALP operating in nearly 100 districts. A total of 169 districts have been approved for the program, and there are expected to be 30,000 ALP on duty by December 2015. However, the ALP program, and associated and preceding such programs discussed below, were heavily criticized in a September 12, 2011, Human Rights Watch report citing wide-scale human rights abuses (killings, rapes, arbitrary detentions, and land grabs) committed by the recruits. The report triggered a U.S. military investigation that substantiated many of those findings, although not the most serious of the allegations. … In May 2012, Karzai ordered one ALP unit in Konduz disbanded because of its alleged involvement in a rape there. ALP personnel reportedly were responsible for some of the insider attacks in 2012.” ^{^[24]}

But you won’t hear about that on Dyncorp’s website because outsourcing the empire is unlikely to fade away any time soon. But keep pushing those values and training programs. Who knows? Perhaps that will deliver enough rationalisations for those working within a corporation which actively profits from extending America’s security and logistical reach into resource-rich countries.

We help destroy your country and make money.

Then we help rebuild it and make money.

That way the banksters are also happy. And that, as we know, is all that matters.

Notes

[1] The Center for International Policy’s Colombia Project http://www.ciponline.org/ The Plan Colombia (Copy obtained from the Colombian Embassy to the United States, October 1999.) ‘Plan Colombia: Plan For Peace, Prosperity, and the Strengthening of the State.’
[2] Drug Trafficking, Political Violence and US Policy in Colombia in the 1990s Dr. Bruce Michael Bagley, Professor of International Studies, School of International Studies, University of Miami, CIDE ciencias socials, http://www.cide.edu/
[3] ‘Colombia: Stoking the fires of conflict’ Amnesty International, Terror Trade Times, 2001.
[4] ‘DynCorp’s Drug Problem’ by Jason Vest, The Nation, July 3, 2001.
[5] Private Warriors by Ken Silverstein, published by Verso July 2000.
[6] ‘A Plane is Shot Down and the US Proxy War on Drugs Unravels’by Julian Borger, The Guardian, June 2, 2001.
[7] ‘DynCorp Charged with Terrorism Lawsuit Unites U.S. Workers & Ecuador Farmers vs. Fumigation’ Part I of a Series By Al Giordano ‘Lawsuit in U.S. vs. Fumigation on Ecuador Border’ Narco News narco.com.
[8] ‘Fumigations Continue in Colombia Despite Court Ordered Suspensions’ Uribe and Bush Administrations in Clear Violation of Colombian Law By Peter Gorman The Narco News Bulletin April 29, 2004. http://www.narco.com
[9] ‘Colombia’s War on Children’ February 2004, Womens’ Commission http://www.watchlist.org/
[10] ‘The Effects of Armed Conflict on Colombian Children’ October 2004, U.S. Office on Colombia http://www.usofficeoncolombia.org.
[11] Ombudsman’s Office, Human Rights Watch, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, 2003,www.hrw.org/
[12] Human Rights Watch Colombia: ‘Human Rights Concerns for the 61st Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights,’ March 2005.
[13] Catherine Austin Fitts quoted in Dirty Tricks, Inc: The DynCorp-Government Connection 2002, by Uri Dowbenko.
[14] ‘DynCorp International’ Company profile by Phil Mattera | http://www.crocodyl.org May 19, 2010
[15] Ibid.
[16] United Nations Resolution A/RES/47/84, 89th plenary meeting, 16 December 1992. Use of mercenaries as a means to violate human rights and to impede the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination. http://www.un.org/
[17] International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, Resolution 44/34,72nd plenary meeting 4 December 1989. United Nations General Assembly, http://www.un.org/
[18] ‘International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries’ http://www.sourcewatch.org
[19] The Debate on Private Military companies 1997 report by the UN Special Rapporteur.
[20] ‘Ron Paul says U.S. has military personnel in 130 nations and 900 overseas bases’ Politi Fact.com Tampa Bay Times:http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/14/ron-paul/ron-paul-says-us-has-military-personnel-130-nation
[21] ‘Straw: We did know of Africa coup’ By Antony Barnett and Martin Bright, The Observer, November 14, 2004
[22] http://www.globaloptions.com1047 ‘Crime pays handsomely for Britain’s private jails’ By Nick Mathiason, The Observer, March 11 2001.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Exclusive: Private Security Contractors, Fanning The Flames In Afghanistan? (AUDIO) Presence of US-backed private security in Afghanistan seems only to contribute to the ongoing violence. By Jo Erickson | October 16, 2013.

Outsourcing Abuse II: Dyncorp Revealed

By M.K. Styllinski

“The people of DynCorp International (DI) leverage our global presence and reach, international business experience, language capabilities, and deep cultural understanding to benefit every mission. We provide the highest level of professional intelligence training, collection and analysis, and mission support to meet the intelligence needs of our customers. The team also delivers flexible and rapidly-deployable, integrated security solutions to suit any situation in any part of the world.”

– Dyncorp International

The above quote can be summarised in a sentence: “We outsource American Empire”. And of course, since the Establishment in America is concerned with invading and stealing other nation’s resources under the pretext of democratic intervention, then it stands to reason that what “needs” Dyncorp is delivering to their “intelligence customers” is simply more of the same morally bankrupt dynamics employed by the World state psychopaths in power. I’m quite sure their “deep cultural understanding” helps intel operatives enormously as they find new ways to extend their reach.

Outsourcing and private security contracts have boomed over the last decade. The United Nations isn’t the only Establishment organisation to have suffered from the effects of institutional sexual abuse and expanded these pathologies via outsourced channels. A cross fertilization is taking place between Private securities companies (private armies) prisons, the military and intelligence agencies.

A revealing January 2002 article by Insight magazine’s Kelly Patricia O’Meara (below) was followed up in November of the same year with The Guardian’s piece on the American defence and security contractor DynCorp. This opend the proverbial can of beans…The corporation had branches in Salisbury, UK and dealt with the contracts of American officers working for the international police force in Bosnia. Dyncorp unfairly dismissed Kathryn Bolkovac, a UN police officer for reporting colleagues involved in the Bosnian sex trade and threatening their “lucrative contact” to supply officers to the UN mission. According to the report: “UN peacekeepers went to nightclubs where girls as young as 15 were forced to dance naked and have sex with customers, and those UN personnel and international aid workers were linked to prostitution rings in the Balkans. The employment tribunal accepted that Ms Bolkovac, an American who was employed by DynCorp and contracted to the UN, had been dismissed for whistle blowing.” ^{^[1]}

‘US: DynCorp Disgrace’ by Kelly Patricia O’Meara, Insight Magazine January 14th, 2002

DynCorp had the contract to provide police officers for the 2,100-member UN international police task force in Bosnia which was supposedly created to restore law and order after the civil war. In the British tribunal Ms Bolkovac’s evidence highlighted the underground sex trade that was “thriving among the 21,000 NATO peacekeepers and thousands of international bureaucrats and aid workers” and that still remains one of the most extensive trades in the world. ^{^[2]}

Dyncorp forged documents, trafficked women, aided illegal cross-border transports and tipped off sex club owners about imminent raids. Bolkovac also described how UN police, NATO troops and humanitarian, NGO employees were “regular customers.” ^{^[3]} Bolkovac uncovered evidence “of girls being beaten and raped in bars by their pimps while peacekeepers stood and watched.” Even one UN policeman who was meant to be investigating the sex trade: “paid £700 to a bar owner for an underage girl who he kept captive in his apartment to use in his own prostitution racket.”^{^[4]} Ultimately, the company fired the eight employees for their alleged involvement in sex trafficking and illegal arms deals. Madeleine Rees, the head of the UN Human Rights Commission office in Sarajevo, was: “… in no doubt that trafficking in women started with the arrival of the international peacekeepers in 1992.” ^{^[5]}

Again we find that where sexual abuse is occurring the police are not far behind and unfortunately on the wrong side of the law. After a two year battle at an employment tribunal court, testimony was heard that one of the most senior UN officials Dennis Laducer, Deputy Commissioner of the International Police Task Force, was found to attending one of the most notorious brothels. He was subsequently sacked and Kathryn Bolkovac finally awarded $110.000 [some reports say $173,000] in 2002, with DynCorp forced to foot the bill. ^{^[6]} Inspired by the story of Bolkovac, The Whistleblower hit the cinemas in 2010. Directed by Larysa Kondracki, written by Eilis Kirwan and Kondracki with Rachel Weisz playing Bolkovac, the film is a largely fictionalised dramatization of Bolkovac’s experiences in Bosnia though with enough mixing of fact and fiction to lend teeth to the film’s central premise: that sex trafficking, rape and murder took place under the eyes of the UN and with active involvement of an outsourced security firm Dyncorp (given the moniker “DemocraCorp” in the film). The end result is a motion picture which does an admirable job of raising awareness of the problem despite senior UN officials’ attempts to belittle it and play down the facts upon which the film is based. Similarly, rather than paying attention to one woman’s courage and the appalling suffering she brought to the world’s attention, the UN allowed the shutting down of anti-trafficking initiatives by its own gender affairs chief in Bosnia even though it was deemed to be producing tangible results. The chief in question Madeline Rees was then fired by the UN for “poor performance” but took her case to a UN disputes tribunal and won. She is now General Secretary for the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Former police investigator Kathryn Bolkovac. | http://www.bolkovac.com/

One of Bolkovac’s allies during the ordeal and played by Vanessa Redgrave in the film, Rees had been the UN Officer for gender issues for many years and supported her attempts to raise awareness of what was taking place under the cover of UN humanitarian aid. Rees commented: “I went to work with large numbers of women who had been the victims of rape during the war but I ended up working as much with women who were being trafficked and raped by soldiers and police officers sent to keep the peace.” ^{^[7]}She described the mechanisms by which such crimes and corruption was able to take place:

“Countries get rated by the US Trafficking in Persons report on their records in dealing with trafficking, for which you need to show results. If you don’t prosecute or repatriate enough people, your rating is downgraded, thereby your financial support. So when there were raids, the girls would be shipped home to Ukraine or wherever, probably to be retrafficked. It was a repatriation factory, run by people who had an anti-immigration approach, and didn’t want women to try to get into western Europe – no focus on the system or rights of the women. Our approach, by contrast, was slow and beginning to work, so it had to be killed off.” ^{^[8]}

DVD and Poster promotion for The WhistleBlower

Former General Secretary Kofi Annan and successor Ban Ki-moon are fond of promoting the idea that these crimes are a result of a “few rotten apples” rather than the obvious endemic and systematic effects of a much deeper malaise. As Rees points out regarding the UN hierarchy: “They have to understand that this outrageous practice is endemic in the male hegemony of a militarised environment – it’s part of locker-room bravado and the high levels of testosterone in fighting armies. These crimes are perpetrated by individual men who rape and torture girls on mission, then go home to their wives. And it’ll carry on until there’s a knock at the door and they find themselves getting arrested in front of the wife and kids.” ^{^[9]}

While the UN claimed to have dealt with the rotten apples and Dyncorp professed to have made a thorough and “aggressive” investigation into the crimes, the trafficking still continues right under the UN’s nose. As the film’s director stated in her address to the UN leadership at a screening which the organisation grudgingly agreed to: “I know we are going to hear a lot about what has been done since the time depicted in this film, but rhetoric only goes so far. The situation has escalated.” ^{^[10]} (In 2010 sexually related allegations against U.N. military forces rose by 12 percent with some of the allegations involving minors). ^{^[11]}

The UN investigator was not the first to blow the whistle on the corporation. Ben Johnson, a former Texan helicopter mechanic won his lawsuit just hours after Bolkovac where his claims included allegations of men having sex with girls as young as 12. His claims also concerned a nightclub in Bosnia frequented by DynCorp employees, where young women were sold “hourly, daily or permanently”.^{^[12]} Johnson believes Dyncorp was not only dealing in illicit arms and fraud but heavily involved in the peddling and promoting of the burgeoning sex trade that was thriving precisely because this was a war torn region.

Where there is war there is a surplus of the vulnerable and a perfect cover for trafficking. The sex slaves were ordered from Russia, Romania and the primary trafficking hub of Moldova, being imported directly by Dyncorp and the Serbian Mafia working in concert: “These guys would say ‘I gotta go to Serbia this weekend to pick up three girls.’ They talk about it and brag about how much they pay for them usually between $600 and $800. In fact, there was this one guy who had to be 60 years old who had a girl who couldn’t have been 14. DynCorp leadership was 100 % in bed with the mafia over there. I didn’t get any results from talking to DynCorp officials, so I went to Army CID and I drove around with them, pointing out everyone’s houses who owned women and weapons.’ ” ^{^[13]}

Since 1998, several DynCorp employees have been sent home from Bosnia but none have been prosecuted. All this scandal led George W. Bush to respond by creating the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) established in March 2003 “as the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security,… comprising of four integrated divisions that form a 21st century law enforcement agency with broad responsibilities for a number of key homeland security priorities.” ^{^[14]} The amount of assets seized from human smugglers and human trafficking organizations totalled 27 million in 2005 and with no seizures at all for 2003. Compared to the billions of dollars circulating, this is the equivalent of loose change. Far from suggesting a major improvement, it shows a dismal response on the part of the State Department even while it cheerfully reported with no hint of irony that: “Since ICE was created, more than a dozen child sex tourists seeking to exploit children in eight separate countries have been arrested and now face justice in the US.” ^{^[15]}

With sex tourism proving to be a major problem in the West we are supposed to believe that the arrest of 12 child sex tourists since 2003 is an example of “significant law enforcement progress”?

We also have the proud declaration of “investigations into human trafficking and the related crime of human smuggling, [which] have resulted in more than 5,400 arrests, 2,800 criminal indictments, and 2,300 criminal convictions.” ^{^[16]} These successes were diluted by contractors and security firms which are mostly extensions of the US government.

Indeed, the corporate-security complex aggressively lobbied for provision after provision until, according to a Chicago Tribune report: “…significant aspects of the Pentagon’s proposed policy might actually do more harm than good unless they’re changed. These experts have told the Pentagon that the policy would merely formalize practices that have allowed contractors working overseas to escape punishment for involvement in trafficking, the records show.” ^[17]And it was probably designed that way.

Human trafficking main origin, transit, and destinations

On March 11th 2005, in a House Hearing on FY06 Department of Defence Budget hearing Senator Cynthia McKinney focused on the Dyncorp scandal, taking then Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld and General Carl Myers to task, in no uncertain terms. (see end of article). It was a rare opportunity to see a lone voice in politics trap Rumsfeld and place him firmly in the hot seat. The Neo-Con war hawk bridled as he was forced to listen to the facts.

Not only has the Pentagon yet to ban contractors from using forced labour, but the same corporations are being effectively rewarded for their past and present criminal behaviour, by obtaining contracts set far into the future. (As part of a consortium of bidders, the British government’s Ministry of Defence awarded the company a 60m contract to supply support services for military firing ranges. ^{^[18]} With the help of lobbyists from Dyncorp and Halliburton, subsidiaries such as KBR has over 200 subcontractors carrying out the multibillion-dollar US Army contract for privatization of military support operations in the war zone. Trafficking and bonded labour appear inconsequential in the face of exorbitant profits. Yet the US military continue to deny responsibility for its out-sourcing of conflict even when there are continuing and numerous incidents that show the liability of its sub-contractors. ^{^[19]}

Dyncorp represents the new breed of private contracts taking the place of traditional forces most recently employed by the United Nations itself. Once again we can see how sexual exploitation can be used as a political and corporate terrorism outside military and international law. But security firms also represent that same homogenization of the private sector funnelled into new forms of political control.

If we were to visit the California-based Computer Sciences Corporation website (csc.com) we might be forgiven for thinking this is a financial services company humbly dedicated to bettering the world as well as its investors. Unfortunately, the low key nature of the site design masks the meaning of this fortune 500 multi-national with its high-level enabling skills for U.S. Federal government. The corporation currently holds contracts with more than 40 federal agencies including the Pentagon, State Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Energy and Justice Departments.

This giant government contractor bought Dyncorp on March 7^th 2003, creating “a company that ranks as one of the top information technology and outsourcing services providers to the U.S. federal government.” The revenues from the federal sector alone were estimated to be around $6 billion at the end of that fiscal year, with projections in excess of $14.5 billion at the end of 2004. 2005 saw a steady increase in profits due to its monopoly on US Government contracts which are now expanding into Europe. This net profit was more than $810.2 million during fiscal year 2005, an increase of 56 percent over 2004. ^{^[20]} The purchase of Dyncorp not only saved its bacon but allowed it to claim the dubious honour of being the third largest IT services provider behind Lockheed Martin and second place provider EDS Corp.

CSC Chief Executive Van B. Honeycutt gave a wonderful example of the art of masking with his comments on why the Dyncorp merger went ahead: “‘DynCorp, with approximately 98 percent of its total revenue coming from the U.S. federal government, complements our overall federal business, allowing a great breadth of end-to-end solutions and significantly increasing our exposure to the growth area of federal government, IT and functional outsourcing…” He continued: “The capabilities of the new federal sector organization will allow CSC to provide more comprehensive services and solutions to our government customers…” These “customers” are none other than the US military and the Department of Homelands Security who will apparently benefit from: “… the resources and security expertise of CSC, coupled with those of DynCorp, will position us extremely well as the federal government expands and accelerates its efforts to enhance U.S. national security.’ ” ^{^[21]}

No doubt.

It sounds reasonable enough if we don’t think about what this actually means. “The growth area of federal government” and “U.S. National Security” is intimately linked to the “War on Terrorism,” numerous examples of human rights abuses and the dismantling of the constitution from within.

When the United States created the Office of Homeland Security, CSC chairman Van B. Honeycutt was one of the first advisers to the new agency having already handled the position of Chair of the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) under President Clinton. Effectively, the corporation is an extension of the government and its policies, with an incestual exchange of employees and profit, which the website tenderly calls “client intimate organizations.” With its headquarters in Reston, Virginia, close to the CIA and the Pentagon, there is no doubt that Dyncorp has a deeply intimate (and lucrative) connection that is mutually binding.

Dyncorp contractor in Afghanistan

Prior to the merger, DynCorp was among the largest employee-owned technology and out-sourcing firms headquartered in the United States, with approximately 26,000 employees in some 550 locations throughout the world. According to CSC: “… the U.S. Department of Defense represented 49 percent of DynCorp’s revenue in 2001, which before the merger netted 2.3 billion.” ^{^[22]}

During 2008–2010, CSC was heavily criticised for spending $4.39 million on lobbying and not paying any taxes which is nonetheless standard practice for most large corporations. In fact, the company received $305 million in tax rebates, on top of a profit of $1.67 billion. ^{^[23]}

By the end of 2004 CSC had sold off units of Dyncorp to private equity firm Veritas Capital for $850 million. With Dyncorp International eventually dropping under the net of private equity investment firm Cerberus Capital Management $1 billion and finalised in the summer of 2010. CSC still retains the rights to the name “DynCorp” while the new company became DynCorp International now listed on the New York Stock Exchange despite receiving 96% of its more than $3 billion in annual revenues from the US federal government. ^{^[24]} Dyncorp Inc. earned a whopping $2,398,874,000 from its “defence” contracts alone in 2011.

The number of lawsuits and scandals hitting Dyncorp International range from allegations of sex trafficking to a variety of human rights abuses and black operations involving drugs and military targets. This is largely due to the hiring of former Special Operations military personnel and CIA personnel. One would think that the screening of employees would have been stepped up after so much bad publicity. Yet why should they worry when the biggest contractors are the US and its war machine driven by the arms industry itself? Logistical and IT services may well be a great part of the civilised PR of Dyncorp but in reality, the real focus of this corporation could be categorized as “private mercenaries” which allows operations to be sub-contracted to the bidder that is most ideologically and professionally sound. It also conveniently abdicates responsibility for the US army and their civilian deaths while avoiding unnecessary media spotlights. Outsourcing their wars beyond the prying eyes of press and congress is an effective way to ensure the success of geo-political policies such as regime change.

Secrecy is obviously an important part of the company’s rules. If employees happen to get rubbed out on their various covert “missions” then the paper trail is as sparse as possible. Janet Wineriter, a spokeswoman at DynCorp’s headquarters frequently tells the media that she cannot discuss the company’s operations because of its contractual obligations to its client – the State Department. When this fails then black-outs are affected. Information regarding the real activities of these private mercenaries is intentionally obscure and shielded from investigations. There is no “right to know.” The last people they want to inform are Congress or the public. As a Guardian article stated “Today’s mercenaries in the drug war are provided by private companies selling a service and are used as a matter of course by both the state and defence.” ^{^[25]}

Dyncorp has little to do with “Information Systems, Information Technology Outsourcing and Technical Services” though this certainly plays a part in extending its monopolistic war games. Controlling and monitoring information systems for federal agencies such as the FBI, DOJ and SEC, are within the corporation’s remit which is rather handy should any “impropriety” surface – which of course is the name of the game. Subversion and corruption is endorsed and legitimized via a corporate and federal relationship that gives the Cosa Nostra a run for its money.

Cynthia McKinney does what she does best and grills Donald Rumsfeld over Dyncorp’s activities. This is the only time we are likely to see this psychopath get hauled over the coals for any of his state-sponsored crimes.

***

Update 2017: See: BOMBSHELL: Solving The Puzzle – “It’s DynCorp behind the mass shootings you see in America”

Notes

[1] ‘American firm in Bosnia sex trade row poised to win MoD contract’ by Jamie Wilson and Kevin Maguire, The Guardian, November 29, 2002.

[2] ‘British firm accused in UN ‘sex scandal’: International police in Bosnia face prostitution claims By Antony Barnett and Solomon Hughes, The Observer, London, 29th July 2001.

[3] Ibid.

[4] ‘Woman sacked for revealing UN links with sex trade’ By Daniel McGrory How a tribunal vindicated an investigator who blew whistle on workers in Bosnia, The Times, August 07, 2002.

[5] Ibid.

[6] ‘Sins of the peacekeepers’ Sunday Herald, 30 June 2002.

[7] ‘Has the UN learned lessons of Bosnian sex slavery revealed in Rachel Weisz film?’By Ed VulliamyThe Observer, January 15, 2012.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] ‘U.N. Mum on Probes of Sex-Abuse Allegations’ By Steve Stecklow and Joe Lauria, Africa News, March 21, 2010.

[12] ‘American firm in Bosnia sex trade row poised to win MoD contract’ by Jamie Wilson and Kevin Maguire, The Guardian, November 29, 2002.

[13] ‘DynCorp Disgrace’ Jan. 14, 2002, Insight magazine, By Kelly Patricia O Meara. http://www.insightmag.com

[14] Bureau of International Information Programs, US Department of State. Web site: http://www.usinfo.state.gov

[15] ‘US Law Enforcement Steps Up Hunt for Human Traffickers’ 11 January, 2006 http://www.usinfo.state.gov/washfile

[16] Ibid.

[17] ‘US stalls on human trafficking – Pentagon has yet to ban contractors’ from using forced labor By Cam Simpson December 27, 2005.

[18] http://www.dyncorp.com/

[19] But one example from The Chicago Tribune which: “retraced the journey of 12 Nepali men recruited from poor villages in one of the most remote and impoverished corners of the world and documented a trail of deceit, fraud and negligence stretching into Iraq. The men were kidnapped from an unprotected caravan and executed en route to jobs at an American military base in 2004.”“Dyncorp and Friends: Securing Private Politics” (2007) an article written by the author which fleshes out Dyncorp and other UK and US private companies.

[20] Data Monitor /Computer Wire / http://www.computerwire.com/ 2005.

[21] ‘CSC and DynCorp Combine to Create Federal IT Powerhouse’ – http://www.csc.com/

[22] http://www.csc.com/

[23] ‘30 Major U.S. Corporations Paid More to Lobby Congress Than Income Taxes, 2008-2010’ By Ashley Portero, International Business Times, http://www.webcitation.org, December 9, 2011.

[24] ‘Cerberus completes DynCorp acquisition’ Washington Business Journal, July 7, 2010.| Washington Tech. Top 100: http://www.washingtontechnology.com/toplists/top-100-lists/2011/dyncorp.aspx

[25] ‘A Plane is Shot Down and the US Proxy War on Drugs Unravels’ by Julian Borger, The Guardian, June 2, 2001.

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Amerikan Beauty II: Civilised Slavery

“Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.“

– Edmund Burke

We have discussed the networks of Establishment led child abuse. But what of other streams of exploitation which inevitably provide a steady supply of victims of cross-cultural victims with home grown pathologies adapting and shifting to the demands of globalisation? Rapid transformation from the underworld of crime into an overworld of deep politics fusing with mafia-led supply and demand. It is this criminal psychopathy which is determining the trajectory of the vulnerable and dispossessed, assisted by the Structural Adjustment Team, world state policies and trans-national corporations.

Commensurate with this change is the lucrative slaved trade which is back with a vengeance. In fact it never went away, it adapted to the rapid global changes that have swept the globe in the last few decades resulting in more then 35. 8 million adults and children classed as slaves worldwide. ^{^[1]}Human trafficking, immigration, narcotics, bonded labour, prostitution, money laundering, the weapons industry – all interconnect and weave in and out of each respective well of misery since they are all rooted in the same toxic dance of perennial exploitation. As the disasters of Shock Doctrine economic plunder reverberate around the world we are seeing the tangible results come home to roost. Be it the mass exodus of displaced populations in Africa and the Middle East from the West’s manipulated wars, or the destruction of social welfare in countries of Europe, the steady rise of human trafficking and its brutal slavery is rising up through the tattered cloth of Western cultures in ways which will not be ignored for much longer.

With the disappearance of border controls in Europe and and new countries keen to join the European Union there is effectively nothing to stop the commensurate trade in humans feeding this demand. Deregulated capitalism as given a green light to organised crime. Many young men and women desperate to leave their homelands due to high unemployment and poverty the American Dream is an alluring prospect. However, this idealism can become a literal death trap for the vulnerable, most of whom have no idea of the realities of exploitation. Nor is this restricted to those without income or struggling to survive, and where visions of “the grass is always greener” often determine choices made.

Author Victor Malarek described it in the following terms:

“Crime syndicates use a variety of methods to capture young women. A girl walking down a road in Moldova is forced into a car. An overflowing Romanian orphanage receives a visit from ‘social workers’ offering ‘apprentice programs’ for adolescent girls. A young Ukrainian woman desperate to help her starving parents responds to a newspaper advertisement for au pairs to work in Germany. An ambitious young graduate signs up with what appears to be a legitimate foreign corporation at a job fair at a Russian university.” ^{^[2]}

The vulnerable are the new commodity in the 21st century. According to the U.S. Department of Justice human trafficking is the second fastest growing criminal industry – just behind drug trafficking – with children accounting for roughly half of all victims. Of the 2,515 cases under investigation in the U.S. in 2010, more than 1,000 involved children. ^{^[2]} For an industry now worth at least $32-billion worldwide and surpassing the sale of arms, it is the new source of shadow employment set to engage law and justice authorities well into the future – that is, if they are not partaking in the dividends themselves.

The United States has another form of slavery which is perhaps more Orwellian/Huxleyian than overt slavery. But the two authoritarian mindsets are inextricably linked.

Global Slavery Index 2014

Women’s Stats project (wikipedia)

Walk Free Foundation (2013) Wikipedia

A March 2002 report from The Coalition against Trafficking in Women found that trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation is a national problem, and one that is increasing in scope and magnitude. The U.S. government estimates that 50,000 women and children are trafficked each year into the United States, primarily from “Latin America, countries of the former Soviet Union and Southeast Asia.” Their report was the first of its kind drawn from national and international data along with interviews with prostitutes themselves. However, NGO’s and charities put the total number of women and children trafficked into the US as 100,000 with speculation that this is another conservative estimate. Six years later up to 2.5 million people trafficked were from 127 different countries into 137 countries around the world. ^{^[3]}By 2013, the number of UK-born children trafficked for sexual exploitation had doubled in 2013 – a rise of 155% according to the National Crime Agency.

If there is a problem with obtaining accurate statistics for any issue then human trafficking will be found at the top of such a list. This is due to both confusion between the terms “trafficking” which uses forms of transport and coercion and “smuggling” which implies voluntary acts and financial remuneration. Trafficking itself is also a highly dynamic process interconnected with a host of other entities which oil the wheels of its progress. Corrupt governments, outsourced agencies and other lesser-known financial intermediaries ensure that trafficking and other crimes necessarily intersect making real statistical analyses of the problem fraught with difficult. Where does it end and begin?

It is also true that figures tend to be inflated in much the same way as the Climate Change industry – if there is money to be made from erecting a vast subset of anti-trafficking NGOs and related bureaucracies then money tends to flow in greater quantities when figures are high. Even by 2009, The Global Report on Trafficking in Persons admitted that the exact scope of international trafficking is still “one of the key unanswered questions.” ^{^[4]}

“[S]ex trafficking and mass rape should no more be seen as women’s issues than slavery was a black issue or the Holocaust was a Jewish issue. These are all humanitarian concerns, transcending any one race, gender, or creed.”

― Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Mexico and South America as a whole has historically been a place of exploitation for the North America. With sex trafficking businesses burgeoning in Colombia and Venezuela and with Curacao or Aruba within sight of the Caribbean Islands “Spotters,” can be paid to watch for women on vacation as potential sex slaves. Guiding them into situations which leave them drugged and transported to a waiting car and boat for transportation to the mainland or island brothels is a relatively easy enterprise. Yet this is simply mirroring the developing trade within the US itself.

Back in 1997 one San Francisco resident, 36 year-old Catalina Suarez, testified before the United Nations about her ordeal as a sex slave. She told the San Francisco Examiner how she was 9 years old when “… a grandfatherly neighbour lured her with a gift, kidnapped her and kept her chained her to a bed in a rural Puerto Rico shack, forcing the child to have brutal sex with a succession of men.” There are hundreds of similar accounts. Federal and State officials told the San Francisco Examiner that: “The multimillion-dollar sex-slave trafficking stretches from Thailand to San Francisco, from Russia to New York City. The U.S. Justice Department in Washington, D.C., is conducting a nationwide investigation of the prostitution slavery of Thai women and girls.” ^{^[5]}

This report is over ten years old and since that time, the market has steadily and significantly increased.

US Human rights groups, immigration attorneys and former workers have revealed that thousands of domestic servants are being brought into the United States from impoverished countries and then severely exploited by foreign employers, many of whom work for embassies and international organisations, particularly in the Washington area. ^{^[6]} There have been a number of prosecutions involving the trafficking and/or forced prostitution of children. For example:

two defendants in Maryland who brought a 14-year-old girl from Cameroon and, with threats and sexual and physical assaults, forced her to be their domestic servant.
A businessman in California trafficked numerous young girls into the United States to work in prostitution and a group of defendants recruited approximately 40 girls aged 12-17 from Georgia for prostitution, threatening them with violence if they tried to leave.
A wealthy landlord from Berkley, California was charged with buying two teenage girls in India and bringing them to the United States for forced labour.
A couple in Eastern New York State pleaded guilty to a variety of charges related to smuggling Peruvians into the United States with the same intention.

These cases have resulted in jail sentences for the defendants and orders that restitution be paid to the victims. Such examples are typical.

Washington State is reported to be a hotbed of trafficking in brides, sex workers, domestic workers and children. The director of the US State Department, John Miller was forced to confront the issue that slavery was “still alive”: ‘I’m reading about how they lured these girls from Asian nations, promised them restaurant jobs, modelling jobs, … seized their passports, beat them, raped them, moved them from brothel to brothel,’ he said. This was not happening in some distant Third World nation, however. ‘There it was in civil Seattle …’ ^{^[7]}

The US government would have us believe that forced prostitution and trafficking is predominantly an external problem. This is far from the truth. The international trade in women and children is fast becoming more prevalent in the US than many other destination and transit countries. Jody Raphael, of the Women and Girls Prostitution Project at the Centre for Impact Policy Research, based in Chicago, believes that this control extends across all levels of the industry:

“‘For example, police who pick women up from the ‘stroll’ on Halsted and North/Clybourn (west of downtown Chicago) say a lot of the girls are from Milwaukee or Tennessee. They’re being moved around. It helps them avoid detection and gives the customers a variety of new girls. From our grassroots studies, I’m learning to no longer make such a distinction between local and international trafficking.’ […]

‘Men will go to recruit girls at shopping malls, places like that, they’ll find girls who have run away from home,’ explains Raphael. ‘They’ll say you can earn a lot of money, it will be really glamorous, they’ll tell a girl she’s beautiful and does she want to be in a movie or make a music video. Then they’ll drive her to Chicago and not let her leave. She’ll be watched day and night by these goons. This happens with more frequency than people want to admit.’ ^{^[}^{^8]}

Women and children within the United States of America and abroad who are locked into poverty are far more likely to become victims of exploitation, most particularly trafficking. This inevitably leads to a catch-22 of long-lasting physical and psychological trauma; disease (including HIV/AIDS), violence/abuse; drug addiction; unwanted pregnancy; malnutrition; social ostracism; and in many cases, death. All this is exacerbated and prolonged by the growing market in sex tourism from both the United States and Europe. ^{^[9]}

One journalist described sex trafficking as “systemic rape for profit” the likes of which hasn’t stopped the profit-making prison business cashing in. One would think that victims of trafficking would receive counselling in government sponsored facility but this is not the case. Trafficked children inside the US are frequently arrested on prostitution charges, incarcerated and treated like criminals despite being minors. Juvenile detention is the next port of call where more stress and trauma is overlaid on already deep wounds.

According to The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking America’s Prostituted Children: “… they typically are given a quota by their trafficker/pimp of 10 to 15 buyers per night. Utilizing a conservative estimate, a domestic minor sex-trafficking victim would be raped by 6,000 buyers during the course of her victimization through prostitution.” ^{^[10]}Change is coming albeit slowly. In 2008, “New York established a Safe Harbor Law to decriminalize underage victims of sexual exploitation. Since then, 9 states have followed suit, but in the remaining states, children who are bought and sold for sex are still sent to jail.” ^{^[11]}

Visit covenanthouse.org and help to stop sexual exploitation of children

image credit: Natalie Lubsen | Sources: victimsofcrime.org

Perhaps one of the most shocking stories to finally receive some public attention in recent years are the child rape camps of San Diego County, California, involving hundreds of Mexican girls between 7 and 18 that were kidnapped or subjected to entrapment by organised criminal sex trafficking gangs.

According to libertadlatina.org (now defunct) who have tried to campaign for this information to be given a mainstream hearing, the victims: “were brought to San Diego County, California. Over a 10 year period these girls were raped by hundreds of men per day in more than 2 dozen home based and agricultural camp based brothels.” ^{^[12]} The girls were sold to farm workers – between 100 and 300 at a time – in small “caves” made of reeds in the fields. Many of the girls had babies, who were used as hostages with death threats against them, so their mothers would not try to escape. It was only in January of 2003 when the Mexican paper El Universal published a three part series on the trafficking and brothel camps that interest began to take place further afield.

The cover-up was evident not just for the zero coverage from the MSM but for another reason: A Latina medical doctor employed by a U.S. federal agency provided condoms to the victims for years, and was told by her supervisors not to speak out and organise efforts to rescue the victims. This doctor was ordered under threat of legal action to keep quiet about the mass victimization of children in “rape camps.” Numbers of murdered immigrant teen girls are still being found in San Diego, possibly linked to trafficking rings. Despite a programme filmed by a local T.V. station and occasional arrests of supposed ring leaders who only receive minor jail terms – the camps continue to exist.

With crime networks emerging as the channels for the new and strengthened forms of trafficking, narcotics and arms we can see parallel increase in the commercial sector – the seemingly “presentable” face of exploitation. In the United States research has revealed that between 244,000 and 325,000 American children are at risk of being victimized by commercial sexual exploitation each year.

Dr. Melissa Farley of Prostitution Research and Education, and Dr. Richard Estes of the University of Pennsylvania have provided the American public with a snapshot of the commercial sex trade in the US today. Dr. Farley’s interviews with 130 people working as prostitutes in the San Francisco area revealed that:

83 percent have been threatened with a weapon;
82 percent have been physically assaulted
68 percent have been raped (59 percent of these have been raped four or more times)
84 percent reported past or current homelessness.
49 percent reported that pornography was made of them in prostitution
75 percent have a drug abuse problem
50 percent now have a physical health problem
88 percent want to leave prostitution
57 percent were sexually abused as children. ^{^[13]}

This latter figure confirms a correlation with the sexual abuse in society and its connections to other forms of non-familial systems of exploitation.

If the US government’s “ownership society” is allowed to continue, where the richest 1 percent of households already owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined; one out of six Americans has no health insurance and one out of eight Americans live below the official poverty line, then exploitation can only increase still further. (This equally applies to Europe, the Latin American and African continents).

We should not be surprised that The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services program Rescue & Restore Victims of Human Trafficking, remains terminally under-funded. ^{^[14]} Indeed, the Bush Administration’s feckless attempts to prove their credentials regarding the slave trade went the way of most of their legislative promises by waiving any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia. Up until to this year, the Saudis were one of the closest Arab allies in the phony “War on Terrorism so it made perfect sense for the Neo-Cons and why ”The Saudi government has consistently failed to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced labourers. ^{^[15]} Despite falling out with its oil-hungry allies it remains one of the most repressive regimes on the planet.

© infrakshun

Ten years later and President Obama has at least taken the step to address this particular issue (if nothing else) stating in a recent speech for the Clinton Global Initiative: “For the first time, at Hillary’s direction, our annual trafficking report now includes the United States, because we can’t ask other nations to do what we are not doing ourselves.” (Once this is extended to almost every foreign and domestic policy in the US there may well be the kind of hope and change we can all believe in.)

Perhaps the most contentious response to human trafficking in the US is California’s recently passed Proposition 35 which has dropped like a large stone into a very complex set of influences that make up pornography, sex workers and human trafficking. The law exacts harsher sentences on human traffickers, requiring them to register as sex offenders and disclose internet activities and identities. The maximum sentence for traffickers is now 12 years with crimes involving children extended to a life sentence. For a first time offence the fines have increased from $100,000 to $1.5 million. ^{^[16]}

Aside from the possibility that such huge sums would “wipe out traffickers’ assets and prevent victims from suing for restitution” Prop 35 also expands the trafficking definition to include the distribution of child pornography. If the reader recalls the difficulties and corruption associated with anti-sexuality and child pornography operations discussed previously we can see the same misunderstanding of the issues appearing in this legislation which probably does very little to either address the issues as to why trafficking is present in societies and on the increase. Although marketed as a bill targeting human traffickers it is actually targeting those most vulnerable and operating at the margins of society. Confusion stems from US states which have their own trafficking laws which blur the lines between existing laws covering child labour and prostitution. Much of the advocacy is concerned with purely increasing penalties and allocating more resources for Federal authorities to enforce these emerging laws. Relying on greater power for law enforcement to place more traffickers in prison amounts to bailing out a boat which fills up with water day and day out – the faster you do it the more water comes seeping in. Since Prop 35 is founded on the erroneous premise that tougher sentencing prevents crime it is destined to fail.

In response to the primary campaigner of Prop 35, John Vanek, a retired lieutenant from the San Jose Police Department’s human trafficking task force asked: “how has higher sentencing worked for our war on drugs on California? It may cut down on recidivism when that person is in custody, but it doesn’t prevent crime. That thinking is flawed…” ^{^[17]}

Author and journalist Melissa Gira Grant’s excellent article on Prop 35 goes to the heart of the matter and reveals why US laws so often fail to address serious social problems due to ignorant, though well-intentioned wishes coupled with the inevitable politicization it attracts.

Backed by millions from Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook Chris Kelly and Daphne Phung, executive director of the new non-profit Californians Against Slavery who had no previous experience working on trafficking and no legal qualifications it follows the same pattern of community (or celebrity) reaction against issues which need both the expertise and financial support of civic society not the Rule of Law as advocated by law enforcement and government who are more often than not taking a slice of the pie themselves aside from the legislative issues which give rise to the problems in the first place.

Rather than protecting Californians, Grant’s research has shown that “… it will expose their communities to increased police surveillance, arrest, and the possibility of being labeled a ‘sex offender’ for the rest of their lives.” What the anti-trafficking advocates are trying to legislate for in many states is a standard law along the lines of Prop 35 which is part of an emerging “war on trafficking.” If there is one thing that anyone worth their salt knows in law, justice and social work is that a “war” on anything never works – it only exacerbates the problem.

© infrakshun

Melissa Gira Grant explains that under the current Under Prop 35 legislation “… anyone involved in the sex trade could potentially be viewed as being involved in trafficking, and could face all of the criminal penalties associated with this redefinition of who is involved in ‘trafficking,’ which include fines of between $500,000 and $1 million and prison sentences ranging from five years to life.” Grant reminds us that this is quite apart from the mandatory registering as a sex offender which will mean the person accused will have to: “… surrender to lifelong internet monitoring: that is, turning over all of one’s ‘internet identifiers,’ which includes ‘any electronic mail address, user name, screen name, or similar identifier used for the purpose of Internet forum discussions, Internet chat room discussion, instant messaging, social networking, or similar Internet communication.’ ” ^{^[18]}

The end result is that the conflation of the sex trade which will endanger sex workers and prove counterproductive for survivors of trafficking, where the merging of very different crimes that merit very different charges will inevitably produce many miscarriages of justice. Grant underlines the fact that retroactive charges will be enforced under the law which means: “… anyone in California convicted of some prostitution-related offenses as far back as 1944 to also register as a sex offender and submit to lifelong internet monitoring.” ^{^[19]}

She relates the example of Naomi Akers, the Executive Director of St. James Infirmary, an occupational health and safety clinic run by and for sex workers in San Francisco, who [came] out hard against the bill. In a Facebook image that spread quickly through sex worker communities online, Akers wrote: “I have a previous conviction for 647a” – that is, lewd conduct, one of several common charges brought by California law enforcement against sex workers – “when I was a prostitute on the streets and if Prop 35 passes, I will be required to register as a sex offender.” ^{^[20]}

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California were also against the Prop 35 precisely because: “the measure requires that registrants provide online screen names and information about their Internet service providers to law enforcement – even if their convictions are very old and have nothing to do with the Internet or children.” ^{^[21]}

Finally, Grant summarizes the problem of moral panic in addressing societal issues which can so easily be used for the opposite of their intended purpose. She states: “Historically and to this day, these charges have been used disproportionately against women in sex work (cisgender and transgender), transgender women whether or not they are sex workers, and women of color, as well as gay men and gender non-conforming people. This is a misguided and dangerous overreach in a bill ostensibly aimed at protecting many of these same people.” ^{^[22]}

And as one sex trade survivor worker commented on the nature of these laws: “It’s frightening. There’s a sense of emotional reaction, married to this really strong anti-sex worker rights agenda. And it’s playing on the public’s emotions.” ^{^[23]}

This is exactly why it is so easy to keep the public and political change permanently ring-fenced from real transformation.

Notes

[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/179459/million-adults-children-slavery-worldwide.aspx

[1]The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade by Victor Malarek, Arcade Publishing 2004.|ISBN: 1904132545.
[2] ‘Human trafficking a growing crime in the U.S.’ By Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press January 22, 2012.

[3] ‘UN-backed container exhibit spotlights plight of sex trafficking victims’. Un.org. February 6, 2008.

[4] ‘Dark Numbers: Challenges in measuring human trafficking’ By Erin O’Brien 2010 | http://www.polsis.uq.edu.au/dialogue/articleerin2.pdf

[5] ‘Global Sex Slavery’ by Seth Rosenreid, San Francisco Examiner, 6 April 1997.

[6] Hidden Slaves: Forced Labour in the United States. A 2004 report from the Human Rights Center at University of California – Berkeley and the Free the Slaves organization, concerning contemporary trafficking and slavery in the United States.

[7] ‘The Abolitionist’ by Anne Morse, World Magazine, October 2004.

[8] ‘Women and Children First: The Economics of Sex Trafficking’ by Kari Lydersen, Women and Girls Prostitution Project, Center for Impact Policy Research, April 15, 2002.

[9] A largely Western influx of men are fuelling the demand for sex tourism. Many find their victims via the internet. An extract from one of these websites follows: “This web site is an interactive discussion and archive database dedicated to providing information about prostitution, escort services and sex tourism. Here you will find articles both past and present providing information about escorts throughout the world. This is not a porno site that boasts millions of “hardcore” images. Rather, it is a place where fellow hobbyists gather to share information with one another through real time discussion boards on a variety of topics that deal with prostitution, escort services and sex tourism.” Upon viewing some of the topics and “exploits” I found the first-hand accounts detail how and where to pick up often underage prostitutes by city and country.

[10] The National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (2009) By: Linda A. Smith, Samantha Healy Vardaman and Melissa A. Snow for Shared Hope International | http://www.centerforchildwelfare2.fmhi.usf.edu/kb/humantraf/SHI_National_Report_on_DMST_2009%5B1%5D.pdf

[11] ‘Selling American Girls: The Truth About Domestic Minor Sex-Trafficking’ By Brooke Axtell Contributor, Forbes.com March 12, 2012.

[12] Latino Women and Children at risk: ‘The San Diego Child Sex Trafficking Scandal’ updated article: November 2005 by libertadlatina.org

[13] Statement of Joseph Mettimano Child Protection Policy Advisor, World Vision Before the Subcommittee on the Constitutional, Civil Rights and Property Rights of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate July 7, 2004.

[14] ‘Anti-Sex-Slave Trafficking Program Underfunded’ newsday.com, January 2006.

[15] ‘Bush Waives Saudi Trafficking Sanctions’, Associated Press, September 21, 2005.

[16] ‘Prop 35 Passes: California Voters Approve Harsher Sentencing For Human Traffickers’ The Huffington Post, By Anna Almendrala, November 7, 2012.

[17] ‘Proposition 35 All Sex is now called Human Trafficking’ By Melissa Gira Grant, Truth Out republished from RH Reality Check, a progressive online publication covering global reproductive and sexual health news and information.

[18] Ibid.a

[19] Ibid.b

[20] Ibid.c

[21] Ibid.d

[22] Ibid.e

[23] Ibid.f

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Good Intentions I

By M.K. Styllinski

“The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”

– Albert Camus

The genesis of evil has so often sprouted from the best of intentions where the highest of ideals are inverted towards goals which can only lead to a negative outcome. Empathy and altruism are the jewels in humanity’s crown. Relieving the suffering of others is a natural desire and an evolution of a psychological mechanism that seeks to reinforce group cohesion. For psychopaths however, they are amusing qualities ready to be used against us should we not be armed with the knowledge of how that subversion can take place within individuals, groups or governments.

The ability to empathise – to place ourselves in the emotional and intellectual position of another and thereby understand what s/he is feeling or thinking – is one of the highest expressions of the human condition yet it is also one of the most precarious. Altruism is naturally opposed to selfish, egoistic needs and concerned with promoting the welfare of another without thinking of the benefits one would receive from such behaviour. In the presence of a rising narcissism in Western society, true altruism seems to be somewhat rare.

How important is it that people know how big your heart is?

How far does our unconscious need to feel wanted, loved and appreciated determine the roots behind some of our altruistic actions?

Pathological altruism is an implied motivation to promote the welfare of another but in fact, leads to negative consequences to the instigator and / or the recipient. Free-will and choice are often ignored in favour of the desire “to help” and replaced with subtle manipulations amounting to force in order to achieve those goals. At root is the irrational feeling that the instigator “knows what’s best for you” while also feeding his or her own desire to be the saviour (or martyr) according to the dynamics involved. In the end, pathological altruism helps no one and increases chaos.

Martin Luther-King, Gandhi, J.F. Kennedy and other individuals, despite their very human flaws may be outside this pathology as their ultimate objective was truth, inspiring many to reach for the same standard. The effects from their actions were entirely beneficial and remain a common ideal counter to the prevailing psychopathy. It may also be why such people seldom last. In a world carved out by social dominators they activate the existing and natural traits in the human family to cooperate and create and are therefore een as potent threats to the status quo.

If a government knows what’s best for you and insists on pushing through reforms without a referendum; if a person insists on sending you their subjective interpretation of what constitutes “love and light” when you expressed your wish not to receive it; if an individual refuses to see the negative attributes of her partner preferring to focus on his nicer qualities – even to the point that she excludes his violent tendencies; when the hoarding of animals is used to support the hoarder’s own emotional needs while the true needs of the animals are left unmet – these are all examples of pathological altruism which may or may not have the extra influence of psychopathy in the background fuelling the extremes. Either way, pathological altruism maybe a component of a dependent personality disorder, characterised by an adaptive or maladaptive altruism. The evidence shows that the spectrum of psychological disorders must be widened significantly to include this condition.

Fundamental to pathological altruism is the idea of a dependency on an external object that can be changed, rescued and somehow altered in order to alleviate the unresolved conflict the instigator is feeling. Projecting our subconscious suffering onto the external world in order to achieve change is endemic in the world. Inevitably, it will be a multitudinous mix of pathologies that will subvert genuine intent, so often framed by bureaucratic processes and political pressures coming to bear on the institutions in question. We will take a look at NGOs and charitable organisations in this context. This is not a veiled attack on children’s charities, merely an exploration of possible issues in direction, most notably in the present climate of fear surrounding accusations of abuse and sexual exploitation.

Fear and Funding

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty against Children (NSPCC) has a long history and a solid reputation for protecting children and raising awareness of children’s rights. After focusing on adults in the previous round, their £1.5 million, 2004 advertising campaign concentrated on going directly to children themselves, encouraging them to go to organisations rather than work it through within the family. Unfortunately, there were concerns from child advocates and academics that highlighted the dangers of placing undue importance on agencies outside the family.

Campaigns of this kind, marketed and advertised directly to children, were creating a fine line between alleviating a deep-seated problem and actually adding further layers to an already potent fear which has been injected into society. According to one academic: “This creates a poisonous atmosphere, in which both mistrust and suspicion thrive,” he said. “People who are concerned about the effect of advertising on children ought to be concerned about this.” ^{^[1]}

Children must be protected from the often subtle influence of self-confirming beliefs and assumptions regarding the powerfully sensitive issue of abuse, not least the substantial history of a growing injustice that goes with it. A sensationalist crusade is not what is required, yet this so often seems to be the preferred strategy. Increasing the powers of professionals to speak on children’s behalf is not the same as empowering children to have the confidence to understand and take action in concert with protective guardians. Society needs very little conspiratorial manipulation, if the seeds of subjective beliefs merely attach themselves to the right meme. ^*

“Bathroom” – Brand name: NSPCC Product: NSPCC Childline | Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi

Charities like NSPCC use a significant part of their funding base to mount huge advertising campaigns. The climate of suspicion rather than evidence is gaining ground. Though many offer up the tired old polarity between left-right agenda politics behind criticism of traditionally liberal institutions one can see that “political correctness” and the staid conservatism of yesteryear are both part of the problem. There is cause for concern that children and parents are being demonized by activities that, while prevalent, are not taking place in every household. Yet the NSPCC spends over 38 million a year on campaigning, PR, administration and public education with 28 million on actual children’s services. ^{^[2]}

Does this advertising really work? Reports suggest that “shock and awe” tactics projected into families already struggling with innumerable problems may not be the answer.

Part of NSPCC’s drive to protect children also includes those who have themselves been abused with a monitoring that pushes the boundaries of what can be termed “protection.” We can also seeing another form of pre-emption emerging: “From 2002 onwards we are developing this work to help young people who have not yet abused others, but show signs of doing so in the future.” According to a recent report by The Spectator from September 2002 The Data Protection Register lists: “…details of sex life, political opinions, ethnic origin and religious beliefs on offenders and alleged offenders and their relatives. Possible recipients of this data include employers and voluntary and charitable organisations.” ^{^[3]}

If it was just a case of inappropriate PR and advertising, propaganda and selective data, it would be alarming enough. However, the track record of child advocacy and social services regarding child abuse cases in many instances is less than exemplary. (America’s CPS is most definitely turning into something very disturbing in this context. For more on their record see Police State Amerika IV: The New Brutality).

The report also mentions the case of the Victoria Climbie ^{^[4]} who was tortured over a nine-month period in 1999 and finally murdered by members of her family, one of a number of cases which were missed in the last two decades. Serious inaction on the part of social services, police child-protection units and two hospitals were found to be the cause of the death with the NSPCC sharing a central part of the blame. Victoria Climbie had been beaten, burned with cigarettes and forced to sleep in a bin liner inside an empty bath. The eight year old died in February 2000 with 128 separate injuries to her body along with contributory symptoms of hypothermia and malnutrition. Yet she was ignored.

Some of the reasons for the Climbie tragedy lay directly at the door of the charity yet a new multi-million pound campaign to stop child abuse on completion of the Climbie report could be said by some to have distracted criticism away from any more probing into the NSPCC. True to form, junior police officers were also alleging that they were made scapegoats in the case. Though we could say it is unfair to single out a case such as this, where one “slipped through the net”, there have since been several others which follow a similar catalogue of failures along with cases which do not necessarily make headline reports.

The emphasis on advertising campaigns and big corporate donation drives, active lobbying and hi-tec expenditure have placed the NSPCC in the position of receiving the most donations charity in the UK. It shows that there must be something deeply flawed in the system which allows a child to be tortured and abused to death from an error of data management that was “inadequate and incomplete.” The Climbie case was high profile – what of the cases which do not reach the press?

It is a matter of record that:

They failed to check on Victoria for a week after she was referred to them in August 1999 because they were busy planning a party.
They did not act on the eight-year-old’s multiple injuries for several months despite her being referred to them as an urgent case.
Once the referral had been received vital clarification of the information and the expectations of social services were not sought.
NSPCC officials had altered documents to show they closed the case. ^{^[5]}

Apologies were offered with little attempts to reason why the above happened. There were also denials that this was an indication of a cover-up, although that is precisely what it was. Since that time there have been scores of other cases where children have been not not only neglected but left to die at the hands of their abusers. This is not to say that the majority of our charities do not do great work, they obviously do. In the context of Official Culture, is the status and way of life of this charity – indeed any charity – more important than its primary goal?

An article from 2012 from the opinionsite.org entitled: NSPCC maintains abuse hysteria as donations fall goes into some detail as to the problems with NSPCC’s trajectory. Though I don’t agree with all the author’s recommendations he makes some very valid points highlighting:

A report by New Philanthropy Capital which was covered by the Guardian newspaper in 2007 concluded that despite spending £250 million in its ‘Full Stop’ campaign, the NSPCC had been singularly ineffective in making any significant difference to the abuse of any children. It also noted the NSPCC’s addiction to high-profile PR campaigns, effectively drawing public attention to child abuse through exaggeration and less than accurate research. The report said the campaign was something that “…had very little bearing on whether a substance-abusing parent neglects their child behind closed doors, or whether a sexual offender chooses to abuse a child when they have the opportunity to do so in secret.”

Disturbing allegations that the NSPCC can be viewed as an arm of government propaganda is also levelled:

The NSPCC is the only charity with statutory powers of investigation and referral. This means that the charity is 100% an arm of the government of the day and as such, is allowed to continue its dishonest practices with impunity.
Its activities and falsely secured respectability mean that the government has a ‘fall guy’ when a policy goes horribly wrong. Ministers just blame the NSPCC advice and its alleged ‘research’ and claim the government was acting in good faith.
The royal family and celebrities have strong funding connections with the NSPCC. They give it an air of further respectability and surround it with a protected status that most will not even dare to criticize.

No doubt great lessons were learned in terms of logistical planning, data collection and the like. But questions still remain as to the overall awareness of the deeper implications of abuse in general, where on more than one occasion the charity’s own figures and myths concerning child abuse contradicted its own high profile campaigning messages.

According to NSPCC about 1 percent of UK children are abused by a parent, most usually the mother, not the biological father as so many reports suggest. Other listed abuse is shown to have come from relatives, brothers or stepbrothers at the top end of the scale. Significantly, the researchers estimate that about 13-14 percent of sexual abuse involves non-relatives – which is to say, people outside the family. It has long been known that even in the United States as far back as 1989, that: “ … non-biological fathers were almost four times as likely as natural fathers to sexually abuse children in their care” according to one University study. It went on to state: “Another report found that, although mothers’ boyfriends contributed less than 2 percent of non-parental child care, they committed almost half of all the child abuse by non-parents.” Which follows the pattern of paedophiles who manipulate mothers into a relationship in order to gain access to the child or children. That said, the study also aligned with other research revealing: “… mothers to be more violent toward children than fathers are. Yet the NSPCC study omits the further disturbing factor, brought out in American reports that such physical abuse is most likely to occur among lone mothers. In one such survey, unwed mothers reported a rate of ‘very severe violence’ toward their children that was 71 times higher than the rate among mothers who lived with fathers.” ^{^[6]}

Expensive media campaigns defined by powerful images targeting the insecurities of parents can produce unnecessary destabilisation. Over simplification of complex issues seems to be the prerogative of our soundbite culture. The media inevitably distorts and reconfirms the myth of the family in the United Kingdom as an inherently dangerous place. After the many miscarriages of justice fuelled by sensationalist media reports how much does charity PR and media bias actually inform the public and thereby raise awareness? Or can it serve to introduce new tensions of guilt, hyper-sensitivity and political correctness into families already being squeezed by child laws and socioeconomic strictures that increase family fragmentation?

Family abuse does unquestionably take place but dealing with the problem may not lie in hugely expensive advertising campaigns bypassing parents and instilling fear and doubt in the young. It is one thing to tell children the truth in ways that are manageable and that can be healthily assimilated and made sense of, but quite another to garner profit from the creation of fear plucked from essential truths and to then seed it in the child’s mind with no reference point for understanding. This amounts to programming of a very destructive kind.

There is also evidence that charities and NGOs across environmental activism, child exploitation and medical research are being funded by the very sources that are part of the problem, giving ammunition to those who see such moves as the assimilation of civic society by corporatism and politics. NGOs rely on funding from individual donors, foundations, corporations and governments; therefore, a case could be made that these funding sources can affect NGO policy, subtly twisting decision-making in favour of corporate designs. The core legitimacy of many NGOs and charities then becomes debatable.

Since Live Aid, most independent charities have been transformed into businesses channelling millions of pounds and dollars into a multitude of projects. The strategy of maintaining growth and the payment of its employees as the consumption and production becomes ever greater, is of paramount importance. With the income of the UK’s top 500 fundraising charities topping £8.6bn in 2004 one can imagine that financial steerage and conditional donations is becoming a greater issue. ^{^[7]} Where there is new direction in sources of funding, politics will not be far behind.

The humanitarian NGO Care International and the murder of its director Margaret Hussein, is a case in point. The organization had most of its donations from the US government and therefore never publicly condemned the war in Iraq for fear of losing its income, very likely contributed to the belief that Hussein had sold out to Western colonialism. Or what about Save the Children, describing itself as “the world’s largest independent global organisation for children” relies on huge donations from corporations and governments. The US counterpart of the charity came down hard on its UK branch as it condemned the military in Iraq for breaching the Geneva Convention when US military forces blocked humanitarian aid. Future withdrawal of funding from the US government was implied in several heated exchanges.

Governments and corporations have become the new donors rather than the voluntary sector of the public, where operational independence has been removed. If you look carefully, you can see that the higher principles of service to humankind have been vastly diluted. Or as a recent report from the Association of Charitable Foundations mentioned: “In a world where funding comes from service contracts, there is a danger that the passion is neutralised, in the interests of financial survival. People do what they are paid to do, rather than what they care deeply about doing.” ^{^[8]}

The painful irony is that there is certainly networks of systematic abuse which are organised and sealed behind the closed doors of the powerful. Occasionally the bleed-through into their resource (the public) does occur and we are able to see examples of a progressively pathologised society. But are the vast sums of money spent on NSPCC’s campaigns justified and do they produce results – targeting the real purveyors and sources of high level abuse?

* The term “meme” was coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, which refers to a unit of cultural information transferable from one mind to another. Or as Dawkins said, ‘Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches’.

Notes

[1] “Campaign by NSPCC “poisons families’ ” The Sunday Times Monday, January 19, 2004
[2] “A UK children’s charity has come under fire for spending more on advertising and administration than directly on children’s services.” – BBC News, 13 December, 2000.
[3] http://www.nspcc.org.uk/
[4] The Victoria Climbie Inquiry http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/
[5] Officers in Climbie case ‘scapegoats’ BBC News, Monday, 18 February, 2002.
[6] ‘Myths Aside, Traditional Families Protect Kids Best British Report Stirs Up Debate about Sexual Abuse’ The Times, December 22, 2000.
[7] ‘Top charities’ income rises 42 per cent’ Society Guardian, June 30, 2004.
[8] http://www.acf.org.uk/ Association of Charitable Foundations UK Offices.