Sovietology: Four Stages Necessary to Destroy a Nation

The two-party system is an illusion. In reality, the two parties are coordinated in a chess game that's being played against us and we are losing. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

So, it's time to take a new look at America, and to stop playing the politics of "divide and conquer" which will only divide and conquer...us. It's time to figure out who the real enemy is, and unite to build a coalition against this common enemy: the corporations, the banks, and, unfortunately, our government whose only interest is propping up the elitist power structure, no matter how much they deny it.

In the video below, someone who knows how the game is played - KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov, a Russian born, KGB trained subverter - describes the four-stage process involved in destroying a nation. This interview was conducted by G. Edward Griffin in 1984.



Excerpts:

"All the American has to do is unplug the bananas from their ears and they can see it. There is nothing to do with espionage. But the main area is not in the area of intelligence at all. Only about 15% of time, money and manpower is spent on espionage. The other 85% is a slow process which we [KGB} call ideological subversion or "active measures" or psychological warfare.

One of the basic elements is to change the perception of reality for every American, to such an extent that despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community and their country. It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages:

Four stages:

1.Demoralization - a process whereby the goal is to create an environment of confusion that capitalizes on the naivete and deliberately created ignorance of the people. That encourages dependence rather than self-reliance; powerlessness rather than empowerment; and that fosters fear rather than courage.

"Most of of it is done by Americans to Americans thanks to a lack of moral standards" Once demoralized, "exposure to true information won't matter anymore. A person who is demoralized will not be able to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof: documents, with pictures...even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom. When a military boot crashes his ass, then he will understand, but not before that. That's the tragic of the situation of demoralization."

2. Destabilization (Takes 2-5 years to destabilize a nation.) "This Time subverter does not care about your ideas, your patterns of consumption..whether you eat junk food and get fat and flabby doesn't matter anymore. What matters is essentials: Economy, foreign relations and defense systems. The influence of Marxist/Leninist ideas in the US is absolutely fantastic [remember, this is 1984]."

3. Crisis "It might only take 6-weeks to bring a country to verge of crisis. You can see it in Central America now."

4. Normalization - "With the violent change of power, structure and economy, you have the process of normalization. It may last indefinitely. Normalization is a cynical expression, borrowed from Soviet propaganda."

More excerpts:

"This is what will happen if you allow the schmucks to bring this country to crisis...to promise all kinds of goodies, and the paradise on earth; to destabilize your economy; eliminate principle of free market competition, big brother government in Washington DC, who will promise lots of things, never mind whether the promises are fulfilled or not....never mind, he will create false illusions that situations is under control. Situation is not under control. Situation is disgustingly out of control. It is only an illusion of being in control"

"Stop the military industrial complex from destroying whatever is left of the free world. And it is very easy to do: No credits. No technology. No money. No political or diplomatic recognition, and of course no such idiocy as deals to [fill in the blank]. [...] Stop aiding a bunch of murderers [...]

Educate yourself, understand what's going on around you. You are not living at a time of peace. You are in a state of war. And you have precious little time to save yourself. There is no other place to defect too."

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Democrats Offer to Triple Cuts in Social Spending While Tsunami of Inflation is Headed Our Way.

As "many workers are barely treading water as their wages fail to keep up with rising prices" the Obama administration and congressional Democrats have offered to triple the amount of cuts in social spending for 2011, from $10 billion to $30 billion, in order to appease congressional Republicans, who, after intense lobbying from the Tea Party, want to cut $61 billion,  before the April 8 deadline. These cuts "would mark the largest-ever federal budget cuts in social spending in a single year."

Despite the  criminal behavior of the ruling class, and, that throughout the bankster-created  crisis, their pay grew at pre-downturn clip, the extreme polarization of wealth, as productivity gains continue, and corporate profits surge, continues. It is not estimated that one in four American households have zero or less than zero net worth.

The modest wage growth appears to reflect lower expectations among the unemployed.

"There's a capitulation on the part of workers," said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities. "They're increasingly willing to accept a lower wage than they might have thought they had to when the recession started. The fact that average hourly earnings are now weak or falling is an indication to me that the market is starting to clear."

This gives businesses an additional cushion at a time of higher commodity costs.

"Companies are in the dominant bargaining position," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, a consultancy. "They don't have the added problem of paying more for their wages as well."

And, if that's not depressing enough, according to the National Inflation Association a tsunami of inflation will hit the U.S. due to the Japan crisis.

Links:

It's the Inequality, Stupid

Greenspan Returns to De-Regulation

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Gradual Subversion of the Democratic Party

Many of the traits that we either have or admire in other people...that make us human - loyalty, trustworthiness, faithfulness, a tendency to seek out heroes, etc. - unfortunately, also makes us more likely to ignore evidence that contradicts what we believe to be true. In fact, the evidence to the contrary can manifest itself as large as an elephant, yet we still ignore. In other words, our humanness makes us vulnerable to master manipulators who may very well be less than human.

This brings me to why I believe in the co-option of the left.  The modern liberal – typically associated with the Democratic Party - fears the extremes of wealth and poverty under unrestrained capitalism; thinks all citizens are entitled to the basic necessities of life; champions the protection of the environment, and puts the welfare of all people above the ability of a few to profit enormously from what we’ve been led to believe is the “free market”.

Unlike the Republicans - who,  regardless of their status in life, seem to support the less humanitarian, less "bleeding heart" values of those who dwell at the apex of society - the positions that the Democrats  usually take, make the Democratic Party, in particular, more threatening to the powerful and wealthy. Simply put, the Democrats [used to] believe in speaking truth to power, whereas the ruling class is not interested in truth...only in growing and keeping all of their their wealth and power to themselves.

Therefore, it makes sense, that if the elitists want(ed) to secure their power base, throwing the Democrats/progressives/liberals off their scent...even better, engaging them in the task of defending/supporting their "cause" just might make their road a little easier.  So, why not push their agenda through the Democratic Party; albeit, much more covertly than they do, through the Republican Party.

How?

That's simple, when you consider the aforementioned traits that make us human. It's all about making good use of timing; infiltration, semantics (Orwellian doublespeak); consensus making -  placement of "change agents" or "facilitators" and "divide and conquer" technique (Delphi technique), and let's not forget the Hegelian dialectic (problem-reaction-solution), and/or psychological warfare.  In other words, deceiving the liberals by embedding their operations in issues that appeal to the left.

The evidence for this transformation is right in front of our eyes.  Ever since President Clinton took office, the Democratic Party has gradually moved so far to the right that it's transformed into the Republican party. Moreover, from "the environment" to "family planning", the issues or causes that the Democrats have traditionally supported have been, more or less, co-opted by the ruling class to mask their true motives. 

“I think Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we’ve had in a while.”

MR. RUSSERT: Let me pick up on some interviews that you’ve given this week as you’ve been touring, talking about your book, “The Age of Turbulence.” You said this: “I think Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we’ve had in a while.” Republican?

MR. GREENSPAN: I’m sure he doesn’t like that joke, but if you look at his record compared to what I think appropriate policy ought to be, he’s for free trade, he’s for globalization, he was for welfare reform, fiscal restraint and—true enough, he’s not a Republican. I’m sorry, President Clinton, I didn’t mean to say that. But I must say, I had to follow an awful lot of your particular guidelines and found them very compatible with my own.

Remember DADT/DOMA-signing President Clinton promising that NAFTA wouldn't hurt a bit? Welfare Reform Act of 1996? Repeal of Glass-Steagall Act? DADT?

Fast forward a bit and we have President Bush 2.0 Obama who is a master at cloaking his almost neo-con "actions" in moderate, democratic rhetoric.  Obama, who Jeremy Scahill called "Blackwater's New Sugar Daddy" has upgraded America’s network of overseas detention facilities or ‘black sites’; approved the assassination of American citizens; signed a defense bill that blocks his bid to close Guantanamo Bay;  supports a 3-year extension of Patriot Act surveillance; extending the Bush-era tax cuts for two years, etc. Sure President Obama throws a bone to his base every once in a while, just like the Clinton administration did, but, for the most part, it's just a bone. Unless he's got some super secret strategy I'm unaware,  President Obama is as "Republican" as former President Clinton.

Regarding the co-opting of issues,  take global warming, of which a very strong argument can be made proving it's not man-made.  To be sure, the issue of global warming falls under the category of a "liberal" cause; however, if you dig deep enough and research Agenda 21, "sustainable development" and Global Biodiversity Assessment (the blueprint for Agenda 21) you will find a huge profit motive whose carbon reducing methods exploit all of us, but especially, those who have the least.

In the US, tighter controls on levels of consumption, and standards of living, intrusive carbon taxes, tolls, massive land grabs, conservation easement, zoning restrictions, energy audits, forcing small business to become energy efficient,  etc. are supposed to take place. Some already have.

"... an ‘agricultural world’ in which most human beings are peasants, should be able to support 5 to 7 billion people, probably more if the large agricultural population were supported by an industry-promoting agricultural activity. In contrast, a reasonable estimate for an industrialized world society at the present North American material standard of living would be one billion…” -- U.N. Global Biodiversity Assessment Report, states at page 773:””Whittaker and Likens (1975)

Former President Kennedy defined a liberal as the following:

“ ...someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal', then I’m proud to say I’m a 'Liberal'.

Granted, as a 'Liberal', he didn't make it far, and maybe that's why he was our second to last liberal president. Former President Johnson was probably our last.

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Great Depression For Low Income Workers.

Total unemployment has more than doubled over the past two years, and the number of underemployed; i.e., those persons working part time for economic reasons, has also more than doubled. In addition, the nation’s labor force shrunk by nearly one million over the past year rather than rising by 1.5 million as earlier projected by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

However, no one has addressed the question, "Which American workers suffer the most from the deep deterioration in labor markets?" Until now, that is.

A new unemployment study reports that low income groups face unemployment on a massive and unprecedented scale --unemployment levels over 30%. At the same time, America's top income brackets are experiencing lower than average unemployment rates of anywhere from 3-4%. As if things weren't bad enough, underemployment and hidden unemployment (individuals who have given up) rates are also at record levels for lower income groups with rates at the 16% for those at the bottom, and 1-1.5% at the top.

If you break it down, professional employment is up 2%, management down 3%, clerical work down 10%, and construction and production work is down 22%. Although, if you depend on the mainstream media for your information, you would think things are reversed as they tend to portray atypical examples of the unemployed...financial managers, professionals and Wall Street employees.

Meanwhile, back at the Beltway, the U.S. Senate prepares to hold a vote on the $15 billion jobs bill (will need 60 votes to pass) aimed at spurring job creation (est. 180,000 new jobs) when lawmakers return Monday. The centerpiece of the bill includes a payroll tax break for employers who hire new workers, unemployed more than 60 days. It also includes measures aimed at improving access to capital for small businesses, an extension of the current federal subsidy formula for road and bridge repairs carried out by states, and a modest expansion of federally subsidized bonds to help local governments raise funds for infrastructure projects.

However, just last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) replaced a bipartisan job- creation bill with a more streamlined version of the legislation because, as sources said, McConnell would not agree to bring the bipartisan jobs bill to the floor quickly and Reid became concerned McConnell would drag out the process and the bill would ultimately fail.

So, is this a case of Republicans publicly calling for a jobs bill, but privately working to derail it?

According to Roll Call, Republican Senate leaders told more than 100 lobbyists yesterday that they plan to oppose the bill because of the process -- not because of the actual policy.

"The feeling is they aren't going to say anything in opposition to the bill, except to say it's incomplete," a lobbyist who attended the meeting said. "They are not opposed to the bill, they just believe their rights as the minority have been abridged."

Is it me, or are the Republicans acting like a bunch of school girls?

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Politically Wild

Politically Wild is your chance to become immortalized without turning yourself into Mr. Freeze Pop. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican you can comment on Political Wild's blog and they just might select your comment to add to either the Republican deck of cards or Democrat deck of cards.

You can chime in on any topic you want including gay marriage, gun control, social security, economy, health care, Iraq War, abortion, taxes, immigration, or you can make a clever comment about a political celebrity or a politician like this one:

Rudy GiuliaNO!

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Sunday Frank Rich Post

SIR, I don't know, actually": The fact that America's surrogate commander in chief, David Petraeus, could not say whether the war in Iraq is making America safer was all you needed to take away from last week's festivities in Washington. Everything else was a verbal quagmire, as administration spin and senatorial preening fought to a numbing standoff.

Not that many Americans were watching. The country knew going in that the White House would win its latest campaign to stay its course of indefinitely shoveling our troops and treasure into the bottomless pit of Iraq. The only troops coming home alive or with their limbs intact in President Bush's troop "reduction" are those who were scheduled to be withdrawn by April anyway. Otherwise the president would have had to extend combat tours yet again, mobilize more reserves or bring back the draft.

On the sixth anniversary of the day that did not change everything, General Petraeus couldn't say we are safer because he knows we are not. Last Sunday, Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the C.I.A.'s Osama bin Laden unit, explained why. He wrote in The Daily News that Al Qaeda, under the de facto protection of Pervez Musharraf, is "on balance" more threatening today that it was on 9/11. And as goes Pakistan, so goes Afghanistan. On Tuesday, just as the Senate hearings began, Lisa Myers of NBC News reported on a Taliban camp near Kabul in an area nominally controlled by the Afghan government we installed. It is training bomb makers to attack America.

Little of this registered in or beyond the Beltway. New bin Laden tapes and the latest 9/11 memorial rites notwithstanding, we're back in a 9/10 mind-set. Bin Laden, said Frances Townsend, the top White House homeland security official, "is virtually impotent." Karen Hughes, the Bush crony in charge of America's P.R. in the jihadists' world, recently held a press conference anointing Cal Ripken Jr. our international "special sports envoy." We are once more sleepwalking through history, fiddling while the Qaeda not in Iraq prepares to burn.

This is why the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq, including those more accurate than Mr. Bush's recent false analogies, can take us only so far. Our situation is graver than it was during Vietnam.

Certainly there were some eerie symmetries between General Petraeus's sales pitch last week and its often-noted historical antecedent: Gen. William Westmoreland's similar mission for L.B.J. before Congress on April 28, 1967. Westmoreland, too, refused to acknowledge that our troops were caught in a civil war. He spoke as well of the "repeated successes" of the American-trained South Vietnamese military and ticked off its growing number of combat-ready battalions. "The strategy we're following at this time is the proper one," the general assured America, and "is producing results."

Those fabulous results delayed our final departure from Vietnam for another eight years just short of the nine to 10 years General Petraeus has said may be needed for a counterinsurgency in Iraq. But there's a crucial difference between the Westmoreland show of 1967 and the 2007 revival by General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. Westmoreland played to a full and largely enthusiastic house. Most Americans still supported the war in Vietnam and trusted him; so did all but a few members of Congress, regardless of party. All three networks pre-empted their midday programming for Westmoreland's Congressional appearance.

Our Iraq commander, by contrast, appeared before a divided and stalemated Congress just as an ABC News-Washington Post poll found that most Americans believed he would overhype progress in Iraq. No network interrupted a soap opera for his testimony. On cable the hearings fought for coverage with Britney Spears's latest self-immolation and the fate of Madeleine McCann, our latest JonBenet Ramsey stand-in.

General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker could grab an hour of prime television time only by slinking into the safe foxhole of Fox News, where Brit Hume chaperoned them on a gloomy, bunkerlike set before an audience of merely 1.5 million true believers. Their "Briefing for America," as Fox titled it, was all too fittingly interrupted early on for a commercial promising pharmaceutical relief from erectile dysfunction.

Even if military "victory" were achievable in Iraq, America could not win a war abandoned by its own citizens. The evaporation of that support was ratified by voters last November. For that, they were rewarded with the "surge." Now their mood has turned darker. Americans have not merely abandoned the war; they don't want to hear anything that might remind them of it, or of war in general. Katie Couric's much-promoted weeklong visit to the front produced ratings matching the CBS newscast's all-time low. Angelina Jolie's movie about Daniel Pearl sank without a trace. Even Clint Eastwood's wildly acclaimed movies about World War II went begging. Over its latest season, "24" lost a third of its viewers, just as Mr. Bush did between January's prime-time address and last week's.

You can't blame the public for changing the channel. People realize that the president's real "plan for victory" is to let his successor clean up the mess. They don't want to see American troops dying for that cause, but what can be done? Americans voted the G.O.P. out of power in Congress; a clear majority consistently tell pollsters they want out of Iraq. And still every day is Groundhog Day. Our America, unlike Vietnam-era America, is more often resigned than angry. Though the latest New York Times-CBS News poll finds that only 5 percent trust the president to wrap up the war, the figure for the (barely) Democratic-controlled Congress, 21 percent, is an almost-as-resounding vote of no confidence.

Last week Democrats often earned that rating, especially those running for president. It is true that they do not have the votes to overcome a Bush veto of any war legislation. But that doesn't mean the Democrats have to go on holiday. Few used their time to cross-examine General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker on their disingenuous talking points, choosing instead to regurgitate stump sentiments or ask uncoordinated, redundant questions. It's telling that the one question that drew blood” are we safer? ” was asked by a Republican, John Warner, who is retiring from the Senate.

Americans are looking for leadership, somewhere, anywhere. At least one of the Democratic presidential contenders might have shown the guts to soundly slap the "General Betray-Us" headline on the ad placed by MoveOn.org in The Times, if only to deflate a counterproductive distraction. This left-wing brand of juvenile name-calling is as witless as the "Defeatocrats" and "cut and run" McCarthyism from the right; it at once undermined the serious charges against the data in the Petraeus progress report (including those charges in the same MoveOn ad) and allowed the war's cheerleaders to hyperventilate about a sideshow. "General Betray-Us" gave Republicans a furlough to avoid ownership of an Iraq policy that now has us supporting both sides of the Shiite-vs.-Sunni blood bath while simultaneously shutting America's doors on the millions of Iraqi refugees the blood bath has so far created.

It's also past time for the Democratic presidential candidates to stop getting bogged down in bickering about who has the faster timeline for withdrawal or the more enforceable deadline. Every one of these plans is academic anyway as long as Mr. Bush has a veto pen. The security of America is more important — dare one say it? — than trying to outpander one another in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate need all the unity and focus they can muster to move this story forward, and that starts with the two marquee draws, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It's essential to turn up the heat full time in Washington for any and every legislative roadblock to administration policy that they and their peers can induce principled or frightened Republicans to endorse.

They should summon the new chief of central command (and General Petraeus's boss), Adm. William Fallon, for tough questioning; he is reportedly concerned about our lapsed military readiness should trouble strike beyond Iraq. And why not grill the Joint Chiefs and those half-dozen or so generals who turned down the White House post of "war czar" last fall? The war should be front and center in Congress every day.

Mr. Bush, confident that he got away with repackaging the same bankrupt policies with a nonsensical new slogan ("Return on Success") Thursday night, is counting on the public's continued apathy as he kicks the can down the road and bides his time until Jan. 20, 2009; he, after all, has nothing more to lose. The job for real leaders is to wake up America to the urgent reality. We can't afford to punt until Inauguration Day in a war that each day drains America of resources and will. Our national security can't be held hostage indefinitely to a president's narcissistic need to compound his errors rather than admit them.

The enemy votes, too. Cataclysmic events on the ground in Iraq, including Thursday's murder of the Sunni tribal leader Mr. Bush embraced two weeks ago as a symbol of hope, have never arrived according to this administration's optimistic timetable. Nor have major Qaeda attacks in the West. It's national suicide to entertain the daydream that they will start doing so now.

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John Edwards is My Kind of Democrat

John Edwards goes straight to the heart of the matter and attacks our real enemy, corporate America, whether they are Democrats or Republicans. To be fair, he is not the only Democrat who in unafraid to challenge the status quo; Dennis Kucinich goes even further than John Edwards on many issues but unfortunately, Kucinich does not seem to have what it takes to attract the press.

After the Bush Administration, we need a leader like John Edwards who cuts through all the smoke and mirrors and is not afraid to get his hands dirty.

"Let me tell you one thing I have learned from my experience," Edwards said last week. "You cannot deal with them on their terms. You cannot play by their rules, sit at their table, or give them a seat at yours. They will not give up their power -- you have to take it from them."

-- John Edwards

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