We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Smart Power & The Human Rights Industrial Complex [a must-read]

Click here to access article by Patrick Henningsen from UK Column. [article of the month]

This lengthy study of corrupted human rights organizations reveals how many of them have been heavily influenced by the power of money to serve as ideological weapons for the many shady purposes of the Empire. The proliferation of such organizations and their influence over media and UN bodies only scratches the surface of a deeper ideological war: a massive effort to penetrate every institution of Western societies to insure citizens' compliance and support of Empire objectives of profit and power. The author only focuses our attention on one sector--human rights organizations.
Due to increased funding from corporate interests and direct links to government and policy think tanks in recent years, these organisations have become even more politicised, and more closely connected with western 'agents of influence.' As a result, an argument can be made that, on many levels, these 'human rights' organisations may be contributing to the very problem they profess to be working to abate: causing more suffering, death and instability worldwide through their co-marketing of the foreign policy objectives of Washington, London, Paris and Brussels.

The problem is both systemic and institutional in nature. As a result, many of the western world's leading human rights organizations based in North America and Europe have become mirror reflections of a western foreign policy agenda and have become virtual clearing houses for interventionist propaganda.
Because I am retired I have the time to be informed on the huge manipulative efforts of Empire directors, but this study (not merely an article) left me feeling rather discouraged at the prospects of coping with their massive display of power over the minds of ordinary citizens. Only a small fraction of the public will read this and similar articles, and fewer will understand all the implications it has for the urgency of an organized effort on the part of ordinary people to combat the powerful influence of the Imperial propagandists.