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

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Saudis Dominate Among Suicide-Bombers [a "best post"]

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Zuesse cites a number of studies which point to Saudi Arabia as the source of actual terrorists and the funding of terrorists. These have been conveniently used to advance the agendas and interests of both the medieval kingdom of Saudi Arabia (and associated kingdoms) and the US Empire.
...Saudi Arabia — the font of fundamentalist Sunni belief worldwide, and biggest global funder of fundamentalist Sunni clergy and of jihadists generally — has been the biggest steady source of jihadists, ever since at least 1979, when the born Polish nobleman, the American Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, came up with the idea of the U.S. and Saudi governments’ sponsoring Al Qaeda and other jihadist organizations to infiltrate and take over Afghanistan and other countries that the U.S. aristocracy and the Saudi royal family, want to control. This tactic was then seen as being the cheapest means of foreign conquest, because jihadists readily become human bombs that can blow up precise targets which would otherwise be expensive to destroy by means of a traditionally armed invasion.
The problem I have with Zuesse is that he frequently uses the term "aristocracy" to refer to the ruling capitalist class in the US. This inaccurate term effectively serves to obscure the nature of this ruling class. Now I don't know if he does this to protect his job opportunities in institutions of higher learning or opportunities to get his articles posted in major websites that are usually liberal in their orientation. 

Once again this morning, I tried to get some biographical information on him, and once again failed. He is usually described as an historian or an investigative historian, but I found other descriptions such as this which didn't even mention "historian" but included a variety of other descriptions such as journalist and anthropologist. It appears that he has made strenuous efforts to protect his background for whatever reason. He is obviously highly educated (but where? and what are his credentials?) and writes scholarly articles.