On this day in 1836, the very beautiful Arc de Triomphe is inaugurated in Paris, France. It remains one of that nation's most cherished and beloved landmarks.
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On this day in 1848, the Irish nationalist Tipperary Revolt against British rule takes place during the Irish Potato Famine. It is unsuccessful.
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On this day in 1900, King Umberto I of Italy is assassinated by the anarchist Gaetano Bresci.
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On this day in 1907, the Brownsea Island Scout camp is set up by Sir Robert Baden-Powell in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp ran until August 9, 1907, and is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement.
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On this day in 1921, after first joining the organization as a government infiltrator/spy, Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party, later known as the Nazi Party.
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On this day in 1976, in New York city, David Berkowitz (aka the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.
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On this day in the year 1981, England's Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer, and they lived happily ever after.
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On this day in 1987, hippy ice cream entrepreneurs Ben & Jerry team up with Grateful Dead front man Jerry Garcia to create a popular new flavor: Cherry Garcia. Subsequent partnerships with other musicians, resulting in such flavors as Grape Slick, Strawberry Pearl Jam, and M&Eminem&M, were nowhere near as successful.
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On this day in 2005, astronomers announce their discovery of the dwarf planet Eris.
On this day in 1777, Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.
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On this day in 1839, twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinqué take over the slave ship Amistad. Spielberg eventually makes a movie about it.
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On this day in 1881,Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from an infection on September 19.
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On this day in 1897, Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London.
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On this day in 1934, the Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Brownshirts leader Ernst Röhm.
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On this day in 1937, an over-ambitious Amelia Earhart disappears over the Pacific ocean while attempting to be the first woman to circumnavigate the globe, inadvertently proving once and for all that chicks have no sense of direction.
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On this day in 1950, the Ed Wood science fiction classic Plan 9 From Outer Space debuts in a single Hollywood theater. One of the worst films ever made, it still beats the hell out of Battlefield Earth.
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On this day in 1962, the first ever Wal-Mart store opens for business in Rogers, Arkansas.
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On this day in 1964, US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places. At the time, LBJ said "The Democrats have just lost the South for a generation." Turns out he was under-estimating the damage by a couple generations.
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On this day in 1966, the French military explodes a nuclear test bomb code-named Aldébaran in Mururoa, their first nuclear test in the Pacific.
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On this day in 1976, after the fall of "free" South Vietnam, Communist North Vietnam declares their union to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
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On this day in 1986, Rodrigo Rojas and Carmen Gloria Quintana are burnt alive during a street demonstration against the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile.
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On this day in 2000,Vicente Fox Quesada is elected the first President of México from an opposition party, the Partido Acción Nacional, after more than 70 years of continuous rule by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional.
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On this day in 2001, the AbioCor self-contained artificial heart is first implanted.
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On this day in 2002, millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett becomes the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.
On this day in 1633, the Roman Catholic Church forces Galileo Galilei to disavow his theory that the Earth orbits around the Sun, rather than vice-versa. Three hundred and sixty years later, in 1992, the Vatican admits it made a mistake, and that Galileo was right. Which leads yer old pal Jerky to wonder... how long do you think it will be before they finally admit to making up all that GOD crap in order to keep the rabble in line?
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On this day in 1783, a poisonous cloud created by the eruption of the Laki volcanic fissure system in Iceland reaches the French mainland. All told, six million people around the world would die due to Laki’s multiple eruptions over a two year period, making it the deadliest volcanic event in history.
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On this day in 1813, after learning of American plans for a surprise attack on Beaver Dams in Ontario, Canada, a plucky gal by the name of Laura Secord sets out on a 30 kilometer journey on foot to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon. Chocolate ensues.
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On this day in the year 1847, Captain Hanson Gregory took the top of a round tin pepper box and pressed it down into one of his mother's uncooked miniature fried cakes, creating the world's first doughnut! Today, doughnuts are considered a separate food group in Canada, and they make up roughly 35% of the average police officer's diet.
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On this day in 1941, in one of the worst missteps of World War II, Hitler’s Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Needless to say, things do NOT go Hitler’s way.
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On this day in 1954, in Christchurch, New Zealand, Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme murder Pauline's mother by caving in her skull with a rock. This they do because they believe dear old mum is interfering in their “close” friendship. In 1994, Peter Jackson made a movie about it - Heavenly Creatures – which also introduced Kate Winslet to the world.
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On this day in 1956, playwright Arthur Miller defies the House Committee on Un-American Activities by refusing to "name names," as they used to call it.
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On this day in 1969, the incredibly polluted Cuyahoga Rivercatches fire – yep, you read right, a RIVER caught fire – in northeast Ohio. It is one of those watershed moments (no pun intended) that called attention to ecological concerns and led to an increase in environmental awareness the world over.
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On this day in 1978, American astronomer James W. Christy discovers Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto. Creepy name for a creepy moon!
On this day in 1782, the US Congress adopts the Great Seal of the United States, using a design that is fairly dripping with occult significance. Read all about it.
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On this day in 1793, inventor Eli Whitney applies for a patent on his cotton gin, but regulators prove reluctant when they find out you can't drink it. Not without getting cottonmouth, anyway.
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On this day in 1837, Queen Victoria succeeds to the British throne, thus kicking off the Victorian Era.
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On this day in 1840, inventor Samuel Morse receives the patent for his telegraph machine. Therefore, Di-di-di-dit Di-dah Di-dah-dah-dit Di-dah-dah-dit Dah-di-dah-dah, Dah-di-di-dit Di-dit Di-dah-dit Dah Di-di-di-dit Dah-di-dit Di-dah Dah-di-dah-dah Dah-di-dah-di-dah-dah!
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On this day in 1945, the United States Secretary of State approves the transfer of great big Nazi Wernher von Braun and his team of great big Nazi rocket scientists to America, where they all lived happily ever after.
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On this day in 1963, leaders from the United States and the Soviet Union agree to set up a telephone "Hot Line" to guarantee instant communication at all times, in case of a nuclear emergency. Less than one year later, Stanley Kubrick would have a fictional President Merkin Muffley hilariously inform a drunken Premiere Kissoff that one of his generals… "well, he went a little funny… funny in the head. And he did a silly thing." The film is Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and the President was played by the legendary Peter Sellers, in the absolute funniest one-sided telephone conversation ever caught on film. If you haven't seen this movie yet, what are you waiting for? You think art isn't important? Now more than ever, folks… now more than ever.
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On this day in 1972, an 18½-minute gap appears in the tape recording of the conversations between U.S. President Richard Nixon and his advisers regarding the recent arrests of his operatives while breaking into the Watergate complex.
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On this day in 2003, the WikiMedia Foundation is founded in St. Petersburg, Florida. Its most popular website, Wikipedia, always ranks in the Top Ten most visited websites worldwide, and has become a legitimate source of information.
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On this day in 2009, during protests of the Iranian election, a lady named Neda Agha-Soltan is shot and killed by a pro-government Basij militia member. Her death was captured on video and it spread virally on the Internet, making it one of the most widely witnessed deaths in all of human history. The Iranian government's behavior in the wake of Neda's death is perhaps the best evidence the world has that said nation is run by some of the nastiest assholes around.
On this day in 1919, the Curtiss NC-4 "flying boat" aircraft arrives in Lisbon, Portugal, completing the first-ever transatlantic flight. It took 19 days, including time for numerous repairs and for crewmen's rest, with stops along the way in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Azores Islands. This accomplishment was unfortunately eclipsed in minds of the public by the first nonstop transatlantic flight, made by British Royal Air Force pilots John Alcock and Arthur WhittenBrown, two weeks later.
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On this day in 1930, the Chrysler Building opens its doors in New York City. At the time, it was the tallest man-made structure on Earth, and it remains one of the most symbolically potent. So, hey, why not build your own?
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On this day in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaims an unlimited national emergency in response to Nazi Germany's threats of total global domination.
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On this day in 1962, an out-of-control garbage dump incineration sets an abandoned coal mine ablaze beneath the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. That fire still burns, to this very day.
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On this day in 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he is still in office. Considering the implications, it is their second worse decision of the past 30 years, surpassed only by their decision in Bush v. Gore, 2000.
On this day in 1943, Nazi "Angel of Death" Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed atrocious medical experiments on inmates, especially children and twins. After the end of the war, despite being one of the most hunted human beings in history, he manages to evade arrest, moving from Europe to South America under assumed identities, and some allege he continued his experiments, going so far as to create a "town of twins" in Brazil.
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On this day in 1970, drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union. Workers soon put down their tools and run off, however, when a microphone dropped down the miles-long shaft reveals the screams of the damned being tormented in Hell... or did it?
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On this day in 1991, Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating thousands of Black Ethiopian Jews to Israel... where they are promptly treated like shit and forced to submit to sterilizing birth control injections.
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On this day in 1994, four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison, making the WTC's Twin Towers totally safe for one and all, forever after.
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On this day in 2001, the floor of the third floor of the Versailles wedding hall in Jerusalem, Israel, falls away, killing 23 and injuring over 200. It is the worst civil disaster in Israel's history.
On this day in 1498, friar, preacher, reformer, prophet and heretic Girolamo Savonarola is burned at the stake in Florence, Italy, on the orders of Pope Alexander VI.
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On this day in 1618, four Catholics are thrown out a window in Bohemia, and even though they survive - it was a third floor window and they landed in a pile of horse-shit - it still kicks off the Thirty Years' War. This odd event is referred to as the Second Defenestration of Prague... which means there was a first. Which is weird.
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On this day in 1734, Austrian hypnotist and all-around weirdo Franz Anton Mesmer is born. One of his secrets? Inducing orgasm in female "patients".
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On this day in 1934, American bank robbers-cum-folk heroes Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Black Lake, Louisiana.
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On this day in 1945, one day after being arrested by British forces, Heinrich Himmler, the closest thing to a High Priest of the Nazi Party and the leader-for-life of the elite S.S. "Schutzstaffel" storm-troopers - commits suicide before he can be questioned.
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On this day in 1958, communist dictator Mao Zedong launches China's Great Leap Forward, trying to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern communist society through the process of rapid industrialization and collectivization. The experiment ended in catastrophe, with an estimated death toll ranging from 18 million to 45 million, although some scholars question these numbers. Regardless, the failure led to Mao being criticized in party conferences, which led him to initiate the Cultural Revolution in 1966, with a whole new slew of fresh terrors being inflicted upon that particularly masochistic population.
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On this day in 1961, the Ford Motor Company puts the finishing touches on a specially modified Lincoln Continental convertible sedan for use by the President of the USA. The jet-black Lincoln, with swing-back suicide doors, is dubbed the SS-100-X. Two and a half years later, John F. Kennedy is shot and killed in that very car, making it perhaps the single most widely-seen automobile in history.
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On this day in 1992, Italy's most prominent anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone, his wife and three body guards are killed by the Corleonesi clan with a half-ton bomb near Capaci, Sicily. His friend and colleague Paolo Borsellino will be assassinated less than 2 months later, making 1992 a turning point in the history of Italian Mafia prosecutions.
On this day in 1536, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.
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On this day in the year 1780, in the middle of the afternoon, New England is plunged into almost total darkness. On the day in question, Connecticut State Council wanted to adjourn so members could go home and prepare for Judgement Day, but councilor Abraham Davenport said: "I am against an adjournment. The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought!" To this day, nobody knows what happened... although I gotta figure it probably had something to do with witches.
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On this day in 1943, Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler declares the city of Berlin to be Judenrien, or completely empty of Jewish people. At first, the dictator is proud of his sinister achievement, but when he finds that he can't get a decent smoked meat sandwich to save his life anymore... he begins to secretly harbor regrets.
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On this day in 1953, the Pentagon sets off a nuclear explosion on a remote Nevada proving ground, but unexpectedly strong winds carry fall-out all the way to the town of Saint George, Utah. Today, when looking back at the ecological catastrophe, the plucky people of Saint George say: "No sweat!" It's not that they don't mind that their government's lax safety controls led to their town getting bathed in radiation. It's just that they were born without sweat glands, and literally can't produce sweat.
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On this day in 1962, a birthday salute to President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of Happy Birthday, making the whole presidential extramarital liaison thing just a little too obvious for some folks' liking.
On this day in 1774, Louis XVI becomes King of France, with Marie Antoinette as his Queen. And they both live happily ever after.
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On this day in 1801, the Barbary pirates of Tripoli declare war on the United States of America, thereby kicking off the First Barbary War. It was the first war waged by the United States beyond it's national boundary-lines. Now you know where they get those lyrics: "From the Halls of Montezuma / To the shores of Trip-oh-leeee!" in the Marines 'hymn'.
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On this day in the year 1924, J Edgar Hoover is appointed first head of the FBI, a title he would retain for the rest of his very, very long life. In his 48 years as head of the nation's most powerful law enforcement office, he would break every law imaginable and prove himself to be as shameless as he was without conscience. One of the touchstone figures of American History, and a truly evil man.
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On this day in 1941, Hitler's second-in-command Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland in order to try and negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany. He was arrested, put on trial and then held for decades at Spandau Prison, until he was 93 years old, at which point he hung himself in his cell... or so the official story goes. Many unanswered questions surround this oddest of lose ends from World War II.
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On this day in 1954, Bill Haley & His Comets release Rock Around the Clock, which goes on to become the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts, beginning a trend that wouldn't die until... oh... I'd say the mid-to-late 90's or so.
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On this day in 1994, former "terrorist" Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first black president. And they all lived happily ever after.
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On this day in 2005, a hand grenade thrown by Vladimir Arutinian lands about 65 feet from U.S. President George W. Bush while he's giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia. The grenade fails to go off thanks to the fact that it was wrapped in a red hanky which interfered with its mechanism, and Bush wasn't made aware of the "attack" until hours after the event. Arutinian, who managed to kill Georgia's head of the Interior Ministry's counterintelligence department in a shoot-out before being arrested, sewed his mouth shut for part of his trial.
On this day in 1945, in an underground bunker, Adolf Hitler first poisons his wife, Eva Braun, then blows his own brains out with a pistol. Also, today is Walpurgisnacht, or Germany's Witch's Sabbath. Just a friendly reminder to all you devil-worshipers planning to gather in wooded glades in order to offer blood-sacrifices to Wotan the Horned One... stay alive, don't drink and drive!
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On this day in 1966, a former carnival barker by the name of Anton LaVey shaves his head, buys an abandoned insane asylum in San Francisco and converts it into the Church of Satan. Later he would declare: “The Satanic Age started in 1966. That’s when God was proclaimed dead, the Sexual Freedom League came into prominence, and the hippies developed into a free sex culture.” Nothing quite so fun as pulling the squares’ legs, eh, Anton?
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On this day in 1973, President Richard Nixon announces the resignation of top aides Haldeman, Ehrlichman and other co-conspirators, in what was the first in a series of pathetic attempts to offer up scapegoats in lieu of the big enchilada, himself, who would last another year in the White House, despite everything.
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On this day in 1975, Communist forces gain control of Saigon and the Vietnam War formally comes to an end with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.
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On this day in 1980, upon the abdication of her mother, Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard becomes Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. 29 years later, on this day in 2009, seven people are killed and seventeen injured at a Queen's Day parade in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, when a cuckoo-bird by the name of Karst Tates rams his tiny little Euro-car through the parade route, killing six and mortally injuring himself. Flash forward another four years to this very day, and Queen Beatrix is, herself, abdicating the throne and handing it over to her eldest son, Willem-Alexander, who will be the Netherlands’ first king in 123 years.
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On this day in 1993, deranged tennis fanatic Günter Parche runs onto the court and stabs Monica Seles in the back during a quarterfinal match of the Citizen Cup in Hamburg, Germany.
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On this day in 2004, American media groups release graphic photos of American soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
On this day in 1945, the German army in Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies. Meanwhile, in Germany, the Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.
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After refusing induction into the United States Army over religious objections, world champion heavyweight boxer Muhammad Ali is stripped of his title on this day in 1967.
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On this day in 1992, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King, riots break out in Los Angeles, California. Over the next three days 53 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.
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On this day in 2004, Preznit Dubya testifies before the 9/11 Commission, but only after they agree to his three conditions. First, that the hearing be closed and unrecorded take and place in the Oval Office; second, that they not require him to be sworn in (which, seeing as he was planning to lie, would leave him open to future charges of perjury); and third, that creepy veep Dick Cheney be allowed to hold his hand throughout the grueling ordeal. Fucking pathetic.
On this day in the year 1775, for the last time on European soil, an individual found guilty of the crime of witchcraft is killed in an official, state-sanctioned execution, in Germany.
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On this day in 1868, shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu surrenders Edo Castle to Imperial forces, marking the end of Japan's Shogun era and the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. This development came about partly because, after American Commodore Matthew Perry showed up in Japan accompanied by an impressive fleet of technologically advanced warships, Japanese elites collectively freaked out. They hatched a plan to get rid of the samurai class and the feudal, agrarian system over which they presided and replace it with a more forward-thinking oligarchy, headed up by a hereditary figurehead, the aforementioned Emperor Meiji. In less than half a century, the combination of rapid cultural change, techno-fetishism, the sublimation of a disgruntled samurai remnant and increasingly obsessive Emperor worship would lead to some of the most unfortunate chapters in the history of all mankind.
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On this day in 1876, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks is first organized. They remain one of the leading fraternal orders in the United States, with over one million dues-paying members.
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On this day in 1941, the Nazis take over Germany's most popular Jewish weekly newspaper. The abrupt change in editorial tone proves unpopular with subscribers. Sales plummet.
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On this day in 1951, less than four months after its theft from Westminster Abbey by Scottish nationalist university students, the Stone of Scone is discovered hidden beneath the altar of Arbroath Abbey in Scotland. The origins of the so-called "Stone of Destiny", which played a minor role in the recent film The King's Speech, is shrouded in mystery. Some claim that it dates back to Antiquity, or even that it is the legendary "Stone of Jacob", the rock upon which the biblical patriarch was resting his head when he was delivered a "divine revelation" from Jehovah, as detailed in the Book of Genesis. But it's probably just a rock.
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On this day in 1961, the trial of fugitive Nazi technocrat Adolf Eichmann begins in Jerusalem. After World War II, Eichmann had fled to Argentina under an assumed name, where he worked for Mercedes-Benz until he was identified, located, then kidnapped by the Mossad, who brought him to Israel to stand trial for his central role in organizing the Holocaust. He was found guilty and hanged in 1962, the only person ever to be executed in Israel based on the findings of a civilian court.
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On this day 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into existence, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing to individuals based on their race. At the time, pondering the effect this might have on voters in the formerly Democratic-leaning South, Johnson is said to have said: "We've lost them for a generation." It turns out he was way, WAY, too optimistic.
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This day in 2001 saw the ignominious conclusion to the Hainan Island Incident, the first real crisis of Preznit Dubya's heart-breaking White House career. On April Fools Day, an American spy plane had to make an emergency landing on a Chinese island after being bumped out of the sky by a Chinese fighter jet. It was on this day, ten days later, that the 24 American crew members were released by the Chinese government, but not before the White House issued a groveling apology, which they preferred to characterize as "an expression of regret and sorrow" over the death of the Chinese driver... I mean pilot. A coincidence of note is that the American aircraft was a Navy EP-3E ARIES II signals intelligence aircraft, and the incident took place while the sun was in the Zodiac House of Aries. Aries is ruled by the planet Mars, God of War.
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And, finally -- last but definitely not least -- on this day in 2002, an attempted coup d'état takes place in Venezuela, resulting in the temporary ouster of President Hugo Chávez. If you relied on Western media to inform you about those infuriating, exasperating, incredibly inspiring days, then you have no idea what happened. I strongly urge you to give your undivided attention to the documentary, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. It's one of the most important documents ever produced in terms of its revelations about the the true nature, focus and direction of American policy towards Latin America. Just find it and watch it. From beginning to end. I'm serious. It will infuriate you, and you will never forget the lesson it teaches.
The following notes were taken by myself during viewings of the film. The text presented includes some direct references to statements made on camera (indicated by quotation marks), as well as a number of observations, side references and potential avenues for further inquiry that came to mind as I watched. I do this because I believe this film to be an important document in the field of parapolitics, and anything I can do to help get it seen by more people - and, in particular, the RIGHT people - I see as worth doing. Secondly, as I did with my relatively popular concordance for The Net, I wanted to create an easy-to-use text and image based "concordance" that both documents and compliments the information presented in the film. As always, I leave it for you readers to decide whether or not I have succeeded on that count. - YOPJ 15/12/2014
“This film contains controversial subject matter. Interview subjects and creators of some source material may not agree with certain views presented. The Power Principle is a non-profit documentary and has been released online for free.”
PREAMBLE
In the years between the end of World War II and 1989, when it fell, 171 people were killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall. With the Cold War over, why didn't Eisenhower's prophesied Military Industrial Complex collapse? Why did Clinton’s promised "Peace Dividend" fail to appear in any truly significant way? Why did most of the meager cuts to the military budget simply migrate to private enterprise, where taxpayers still ended up footing the bill?
Ah, but all those pressing questions became totally moot on September 11, 2001. The USA now spends over 1 TRILLION DOLLARS a year on the military. As much as the rest of the world combined. There are over 800 military bases in 150+ countries. More money is now spent on air conditioning for American military personnel than the entire budget of NASA. Cuts to war spending are now all but unthinkable.
This film sets out to examine the reasons why.
PART ONE – EMPIRE
Adam Smith and George Washington both believed America would one day become an Empire. Most historians agree that the project really got started with the Monroe Doctrine (1823). But it kicked into high gear after the Second World War, in the wake of which the world had only two Superpowers, or potential Empire builders: the USA and the USSR. There was, however, a significant power imbalance. The USA was far wealthier and 20 million Russians had just been slaughtered by the Germans.
It's true that the Red Army expanded into Europe in the years after WWII. Before the breakup of the Soviet bloc, people from Poland, Hungary, Checoslovakiaet al experienced real repression. But did this make American atrocities, ostensibly committed in the "fight against communism", legitimate? Was the idea of a Global Communist Conspiracy realistic? Or was it just propaganda?
National Security Document #68, which states: “US military superiority is a policy which the US would peruse whether or not there was a Soviet Union”, gives us cause to wonder. Let’s look at Five Interventions during the Cold War to put this theory to the test:
INTERVENTION ONE - IRAN (8:00)
- 1951. Mohammed Mossadegh wins landslide elections, but the Brits and Americans are disturbed. Dr. Mossadegh was elected on a policy of partially nationalizing that nation's oil. This would endanger Western control of oil supplies (Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. being the old name for none other than British Petroleum, aka BP).
- Nafeez Ahmed's book War on Freedom is an excellent resource. Here is his blog.
- Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of Teddy), along with MI6 and the CIA and a bunch of oil industry businessmen organized the coup that overthrew Mossadegh. Needless to say, this was illegal.
- Despite his claims to be able to transform into a puma at will, John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man, offers some decent insights, here. Also, anybody interested in parapolitics should probably have a link to his website bookmarked, regardless of whether or not they agree with everything he says.
- The Shah of Iran was re-installed by the coup plotters. So the USA put an un-elected KING back into power in Iran, replacing a democratically elected secularist. This unfortunately fits in with the West's tradition of supporting anti-Democratic "strongmen" wherever it suits Big Business (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, etc, etc, etc).
- "In 1976, Amnesty International concluded that the Shah's CIA-trained security force, SAVAK, had the worst human rights record on the planet. ... It went on to claim that the torture techniques the CIA had taught SAVAK were 'beyond belief'." It was from this boiling well of resentment from which the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamist Shi'a revolution rose.
- And yet, despite this, even Jimmy Carter wasn't above publicly supporting the Shah, calling his Iran "an island of civility" in the region. It should be noted that, despite occasionally violent covert operations undertaken against it by the USA and Israel, Iran has not initiated aggression against another country in over 200 years.
- As an "appendix" of sorts to this section on Iran - more of an expansion, really - be sure to watch this highly entertaining and highly illuminating History of Oil by British comedian/activist Robert Newman. It will help to round out your understanding of the issues and probably disabuse you of some long-cherished beliefs about history (sorry about that).
INTERVENTION TWO - GUATEMALA, 1954 (15:40)
- Whenever you hear politically savvy comedians making jokes implying that the Rockefeller-owned produce company United Fruit - global purveyors of everybody's favorite brown bag lunch fruit, Chiquita Bananas - is actually kind of sinister, it is the 1954 CIA coup d'etat in Guatemala to which they are making sly reference. So, now and forever more, you, too, are in on the joke. You're welcome. But really, it's not that funny.
- This section begins quite bluntly with CIA man Howard Hunt admitting, on camera, that the US waged Nazi-inspired terrorism against the democratically elected leader Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. His exact words are astonishing:
"What we wanted to do was have a terror campaign to terrify Arbenz, particularly - terrify his troops - much as the German Stuka bombers terrified the population of Holland, Belgium and Poland at the onset of World War II, and has rendered everybody paralyzed."
- Howard Hunt, Head of CIA Operation, Guatemala, 1954
- When Arbenz took office, 2% of the population owned 70% of the arable land. He initiated some progressive programs, including granting some unused land to landless peasants for agriculture, giving labor unions the right to exist, and other modest, moderate reforms. He was not a communist, and had no links to communists. But he also wasn't willing to play ball with United Fruit, who just so happened to "own" 43% the land in that country (with only 1/3 of that land cultivated, and several hundred thousand unemployed peasants who were happy to farm it). Therefore, by the logic of Empire, democratically elected or not, the man had to go.
- Of course CIA director Allen Dulles - one of the most evil characters in the parapolitical milieu; we're talking Project Paperclip, MK-Ultra, Bay of Pigs, the JFK assassination, the Warren Commission cover-up, etc, etc, ad nauseum - is up to his neck in this bloodbath.
- But how to legitimize a coup when Arbenz wasn't a communist, and Guatemala didn't even have diplomatic relations with the USSR? Enter Edward Bernays, "double nephew" of (and hardworking promoter of) Sigmund Freud, and one of the early pioneers of advertising, the "public relations" (PR) industry, as well as advanced, psychological propaganda techniques. Bernays also happened to be a firm believer that democracy simply didn't work, and that an "elite" or "vanguard" needed to be in control of society, with platoons of public relations experts on the payroll, helping to control the masses by engineering consent.
- One of documentarian Adam Curtis's best works is his multi-part documentary about propaganda, , The Century of the Self. This introduction gives a pretty good taste of what the series is about, which is mainly: "how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy." It is "must watch" material and I will be doing a group-watch, concordance of it eventually. Keep your eyes on this space!
- John Stauber of the Center for Media and Democracy links Bernays to Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels, and points to the fact that this "liberal Jewish intellectual" was "completely comfortable" with playing a part in the anti-democratic coup against Arbenz as proof of the man's moral culpability.
- How did Bernays help the coup? By doing what he did best and organizing a wide-ranging, well-funded propaganda campaign! His "media blitz" linked Arbenz to Guatemala's grass-roots communist organizations in all the most influential newspapers, magazines and media outlets of the day. This was a lot easier to do back then, with no Internet and far less suspicion of power elites among the working and middle classes.
- Binghampton University Professor Emeritus James Petras explains how Arbenz was removed to restore the right-wing regime of Carlos Castillo to power and how, between 1954 and 1990, somewhere close to a quarter million native people were massacred by government forces in what can only be described as an attempted genocide. Maria Esparza founded the Historical Memory Project to document this atrocity as well as other often poorly documented events in South and Central America.
INTERVENTION THREE - CONGO, 1961 (27:00)
"I wanted to mention one case in particular, the painful one of the Congo. Unique in modern history, this shows how one can flout, with total impunity and the most insolent cynicism, the rights of peoples. Under the United Nations flag, Patrice Lumumba was killed in the Congo. And it's the same United Nations which the Americans want to send to inspect our own territory!
- Che Guevara, UN speech, 1961
- The Post-World War II era gave birth to a number of revolutionary and anti-colonial movements around the world. The Powers That Be soon figured out that, instead of outright massacres and military suppression - neither of which were particularly good for business - better to give the restless natives a semblance of independence while retaining covert control behind the scenes. Thus did the era of colonialism give way to the era of neo-colonialism.
- Author and educator Peter Linebaugh (here's his blog)explains the main difference between colonialism and neo-colonialism thusly:
Colonialism is when one political economy dominates and conquers another. Neo-colonialism is when the imperial power takes down its flag and a local or national one puts up its flag. But the economic relations remain the same. That is, the imperial country still extracts value from the human beings in the colony, but now it's done in the name of trade. Neo-colonialism means so-called independence for states. But all that basically means is they have their own flags, sometimes their own airlines, their own stamps and sometimes their own coinage.
- In the Congo, between 8 and 10 MILLION people were KILLED in an incredible slew of atrocities perpetuated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by the colonial forces of King Leopold II of Belgium. Therefore, there was a lot of hope when, after decades of struggle, Patrice Lumumba - an educated man of humble origins - was elected Prime Minister in the newly liberated country. It took all of 12 weeks for The Powers That Be to put the kaibosh on that nonsense.
- Here was the problem with Lumumba in a nutshell. Immediately upon being elected, he wanted Belgium to vacate its military. Belgium refused, so Lumumba went to the UN, who backed Belgium. He then approached the USA and asked for support, stating with almost heartbreaking sincerity: "It's with great pleasure that I find myself today in the United States, home of democracy and freedom!" But Eisenhower rejected him. So he approached the USSR for help. Even though Khrushchev offered only minor material support, Lumumba had signed his own death warrant.
- Another problem was the fact that Lumumba felt that some of the wealth generated by the Congo's vast mineral resources should stay in the Congo and be used to better the lot of its people. Obviously, another unforgivable sin.
In 2001, the minutes of a long buried meeting of the National Security Council were revealed to the public. During the gathering, President Eisenhower told CIA chief Allen Dulles that Lumumba had to be "eliminated".
- Once again, a public relations propaganda blitz painted Lumumba as a communist stooge of the USSR. The CIA readied an assassination-via-poisoning plot cooked up by CIA witch-doctor Sidney Gottlieb - head of the nefarious MK Ultra mind-control division and a truly despicable sack of sub-human filth - which was eventually abandoned in favor of a more brutal and direct option: a Belgian-sponsored military coup. Cameras rolled as a sad-eyed Lumumba was hanged by his captors. He was replaced by Joseph Mobutu, who looted the nation, and let Belgium continue to do the same.
INTERVENTION FOUR - GRENADA, 1983 (34:00)
The United States has been engaged in an effort to stop the advance of communism in Central America by doing what we do best: by supporting democracy. Grenada, that tiny little island... it isn't nutmeg that's at stake in the Caribbean and Central America. It is the United States' national security.
- Ronald Reagan, 1983
- In the 1970's, the teensy-tiny island nation of Grenada saw the rise of something called the New JEWEL Movement. Led by a young lawyer named Maurice Bishop, it's aim was a "Joint Endeavour for Welfare, Education and Liberation". After the NJM gained power in Grenada, literacy and disease rates dropped precipitously as the new government accepted labor and donations from anybody willing to help. They made the mistake of accepting free labor from Cuba in the building of an airport (which was actually funded mostly by the UK). Then, in early October of 1983, an internal power struggle led to Bishop being first detained, then executed, by former NJM partner, Bernard Coard. This combination of minor communist connections and political instability put Grenada square in the middle of the Pentagon's incredibly simplistic and oft-debunked Domino Theory of incipient communist take-over efforts... and the Reagan administration's cross-hairs.
One of the leading themes of the Cold War has been the Domino Theory; what critics call "the danger of a good example". ... You could call it the Mafia Doctrine. The Godfather does not tolerate disobedience. It's too dangerous. If some small storekeeper doesn't pay protection money, the Godfather may not care about the money, but he does care about the refusal. ... The Domino Theory is always ridiculed after the dominoes don't fall. ... There's nothing ridiculous about the theory. That's why it keeps being resurrected. The Mafia principle is correct.
- Noam Chomsky
- A 7,300-strong force of American Army Rangers, Airborne Paratroopers and Delta Force commandos, as well as Navy SEALS, were joined by a couple hundred Jamaican soldiers for Operation Urgent Fury. Their opponents? 1,500 troops from Granada, reinforced by 720 Cubans and a couple dozen North Koreans. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the most ridiculously mis-matched war in the history of military combat.
- Something this otherwise excellent documentary fails to point out is that the American-led invasion of Grenada took place only two days after a terrorist drove a truck loaded with 2000 lbs of TNT and compressed gas into the lobby of Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of over 300 American Marines and affiliated personnel. It was an unmitigated disaster, brought about as a direct result of the President's purely political choice to maintain a land-base rather than a more easy-to-defend flotilla, a decision that flew in the face of advice from military brass at the time. In context, it seems very likely that Grenada simply fell victim to an unfortunate coincidence of timing. It was the invasion of Grenada, by the way, which inspired the satirical film Wag the Dog.
INTERVENTION FIVE - CHILE, 1973 (45:00)
General Pinochet and bosom buddy Henry Kissinger
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."
- Henry Kissinger
- "Nowhere was the danger of a good example more apparent than in Chile." Ah, yes. Now we reach the OTHER September 11th. September 11, 1973, which saw the American-orchestrated coup d'etat that ousted Chile's democratically-elected leader: Salvador Allende. Under Fascist military dictator August Pinochet, soccer stadiums became concentration camps, thousands began to disappear without a trace, women were kidnapped, impregnated, forced to give birth (the children were farmed out to Chilean elites), then dumped into the sea from military helicopters. Keep that in mind as you read about this regime's cozy relations with Henry Kissinger (America's own Merlin), the Bush Crime Family, revolutionary economist Milton Friedman, and various other Friends in High Places, listed below.
Poet and singer/songwriter Victor Jara
[Victor Jara] was taken to the stadium where he was a source of strength for his fellow prisoners, singing for them until soldiers beat him to the ground and smashed his hands. In his last poem, smuggled out of the stadium, he wrote: "What horror the face of Fascism creates / They carry out their plans with knife-like precision / For them, blood equals medals / How hard it is to sing when I must sing of horror / In which silence and screams are the end of my song." After two days, they killed him.
- John Pilger, "The War on Democracy" (2007)
General Pinochet with high school sweetheart Maggie Thatcher
- The Fascist "Generalisimo" Pinochet found an unlikely confederate in self-declared "small-l libertarian" Milton Friedman, the "Free Marketeer" and "Laissez-Faire" theorist of the Chicago School who, as a European Jew who fled the Nazis, you would think might have some issues with a regime with a penchant for concentration camps, torture chambers, political reeducation prisons, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Rather, he went around telling anyone who would listen about how he and his chums, the Chicago Boys, had helped precipitate a Miracle in Chile!Jeepers Creepers! Gosh Golly Wow! Too bad it didn't last... and probably never actually ever happened, depending on how you measure such things. Oh, the excuses they made! But hey, you know, it's all water under the bridge now. Or rather, blood. Endless gushing rivers of blood.
"It's an honor for me to be here to pay tribute to a hero of freedom: Milton Friedman. He has used a brilliant mind to advance a moral vision. We have seen Milton Friedman's ideas at work in Chile, where a group of economists called the Chicago Boys brought inflation under control and laid the groundwork for economic success."
- George W. Bush
- Graeme McQueen, co-founder for Center for Peace Studies and author of The 2001 Anthrax Deception(forget about Building 7, guys, THIS is the "smoking gun" of Neoconservative involvement in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001), explains quite succinctly the difference between the two types of Market Fundamentalism. First, there is the sincere form that evinces a deep faith in the power of the market to solve economic and other kinds of problems. The second type of Market Fundamentalists are, in reality, "Bullet Fundamentalists". They believe in FORCE, and the market is just one among many things that they will use.
HERE COME THE GLOBALISTS! (57:00)
"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini
Over a very short period of time overlapping parts of the 80's and 90's, the so-called "economic miracles" of free market reforms led to huge increases in misery and precipitous declines in the standard of living for millions upon millions of people in Brazil, Mexico and elsewhere. In Argentina, in less than a decade, neo-liberal "austerity" reforms caused unemployment to rise from 3% to 20%, and saw the number of people living in "extreme poverty" swell from 500,000 to five MILLION. The "economic miracle" in Argentina ended in Apocalyptic food riots. Fucking FOOD RIOTS. Before free market measures were put in place, Argentina was, like, the Canada of South America. Then, all of a sudden, formerly middle-class people were reduced to foraging for food in garbage dumps. It was insanity.
- A good topic for further study is the concept of what is now referred to as "Grand Area" Strategy or Planning. Cooked up by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Working Group in the cauldron of World War II and the early days of the Cold War, it lays out a plan for a planet-straddling "command and control" apparatus evolving away from the British-style rule of Empire to a Pax Americana. Basically, the uncontested control of populations and resources around the world. Global Domination. Full Spectrum Dominance.
- Chomsky explains that Soviet imperialism after World War II did take place, but interventions took place in a narrow way, within Eastern Europe. "That was their domain." For the US, it was the rest of the world. "The history of the Cold War was wars against independent countries by the Superpowers."
THE MARSHALL PLAN, GREECE, AND ITALY (1:03:30)
- After World War II, with the Marshall Plan, the US pumped vast sums of cash to its European allies, ostensibly to help rebuild obliterated infrastructure, but also to help dissuade them from turning towards communism. And yet, even so, of the 50 BILLION dollars committed, only five billion went towards non-military purposes.
- The first real test to America's commitment to democracy was in Greece, where the peasant-led anti-Nazi resistance had evolved into a non-Stalinist form of grass-roots, bottom-up, semi-communist "self government" that caught fire and spread from village to village. The churches supported this new way of governing, simultaneously insisting upon a separation of church and state. Winston Churchill called it "anarchy" and insisted that Greece put King George back on his throne, with a Fascist puppet dictator by his side. This precipitated the Greek Civil War, which saw the UK, the USA and allies provide arms and support to the very Fascists and Nazis that they'd just spent the better part of a decade trying to remove from power! 150,000 dead Greeks later, nothing much was changed. Afterwards, when crushing the school teachers and farmers of highland Greece didn't prove to be sufficient to dampen their revolutionary spirit, the US supported the first direct revival of Fascism in Europe after WW II, which took place there and lasted until 1974.
"Adhereing strictly and faithfully to our agreement of October... During all the long weeks of fighting the Communists in the streets of Athens, not one word of reproach came from Pravda or Izvestia."
- Winston Churchill
Z by Costa-Gavras
- Chomsky: "Italy has been the target of more CIA action than anywhere else in the world up until at least the late 1970's, at which point the historical record runs dry."
- Few people understand what went on in Italy during and immediately following World War II. As Chomsky explains, the anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist resistance in Italy had been so successful in chasing out the Axis powers that the Americans and Allies were actually forced to re-install Fascist police, military, business leaders and even politicians in order to crush the increasingly pro-Communist resistance forces.
- Although this documentary doesn't go into this topic, during the post-war period, the Left in Italy was so popular and well organized that NATO and the CIA - under the leadership of former top Nazi "super-spy" Reinhard Gehlen, a prize Paperclip pig second only, perhaps, to Werner Von Braun - initiated a Strategy of Tension code-named GLADIO. Essentially, Fascist and Nazi agents either funded or outright committed savage acts of terrorism that were then blamed on left-wing and Communist agitators in order to terrify various European populations into the arms of "strong" conservative, anti-Communist political leaders. Thousands died and, perhaps more insidiously, the political life of Europe became something like a vast, Satanic chessboard. And the going price for pawns was dirt-fucking-cheap.
THE GREAT SPANISH TRAGEDY (1:18:00)
The embrace of Fascist leaders by the West is often explained as a product of Cold War necessity, yet the reality is more complex. From the very beginning of the Fascist movement, many Western business leaders not only praised Fascists, but offered significant intellectual, financial and moral support. The case of Spain provides one of the most striking examples. When peasants and workers took control of production, consumption and social life across much of the country, world leaders united in opposition against them. Their system of self-government threatened not only the Fascists and Communists, but also the liberal democracies in America and the rest of the world.
- The documentary that we are currently studying features some choice excerpts from the 1997 film Living Utopia, considered "a jewel" by historians, students of documentary film, and rebel hearts the world over. It features first-hand recollections of the rise of the anarchist Spanish Revolution in the mid-1930's. It is well worth your time and attention, so I link it here, as a reminder, in case you'd like to watch it later.
"Fascism is a very rational system. It is an instrument by the ruling plutocracy to distract the people with the accouterments of a false revolution. ... Much of politics is the rational use of irrational symbols. So when people study Italian Fascism or Nazism, especially, they focus on it as a kind of insane movement that just happened... In fact, what they tried to do is direct the real grievances of the German people towards irrelevant enemies. ... And when the Fascists came into power, they cut wages by 50%, they destroyed every labor union, they destroyed every opposition party and every newspaper, they abolished all inheritance taxes for the rich or cut them drastically, they abolished all cartel taxes for the corporations, pretty much what's being done here without having to go, politically, all that far. So Fascism is an instrument whereby the plutocracy can control and hopefully effect a Final Solution to the class struggle. ... What substantiates what I just said ... is the way in which the plutocracy reacted to the Fascists."
- Michael Parenti, historian and author
- Journalist Russ Baker points out that there were a great many "industrialists" and Wall Street types who had a great deal of sympathy for Hitler and Mussolini and who were very much in tune with their beliefs. This included those pesky Dulles Brothers, Allen and John Foster, not to mention Prescott Bush, father to George Herbert Walker "Poppy" Bush and grandfather to George W. Bush. As President of Brown Brothers Harriman, Prescott was even charged under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
- Yes, that's right... as all you old time Daily Dirt readers were already aware, I don't call them the Bush Crime Family for nothing.
- The Power Principle 1 - Empire ends with a truly breathtaking montage of footage from World War II and a quote from maverick progressive politician Henry Wallace, who predicted that the Cold War would lead to "a century of fear."
- Closing to the strains of Richard Wagner's epic orchestral composition Siegfried's Death and Funeral March was an altogether fitting choice, in my opinion.
- Stay tuned for my concordance to The Power Principle II - Propaganda, coming soon.
This November marks the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's election. The best way to honor his legacy is to muster the courage to walk again through the "dark history" associated with his short but consequential presidency, in order to learn its lessons and discover its hope. Jim Douglass's JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters, which Touchstone is reissuing this month as a trade paperback, is a reliable guide for that demanding task.
On this day in 1919, the CurtissNC-4 "flying boat" aircraft arrives in Lisbon, Portugal, completing the first-ever transatlantic flight. It took 19 days, including time for numerous repairs and for crewmen's rest, with stops along the way in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and the Azores Islands. This accomplishment was unfortunately eclipsed in minds of the public by the first nonstop transatlantic flight, made by British Royal Air Force pilots John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, two weeks later.
On this day in 1930, the Chrysler Building opens its doors in New York City. At the time, it was the tallest man-made structure on Earth, and it remains one of the most symbolically potent. So, hey, why not build your own?
On this day in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaims an unlimited national emergency in response to Nazi Germany's threats of total global domination.
On this day in 1962, an out-of-control garbage dump incineration sets an abandoned coal mine ablaze beneath the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. That fire still burns, to this very day.
On this day in 1943, Nazi "Angel of Death" Josef Mengele becomes chief medical officer of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed atrocious medical experiments on inmates, especially children and twins. After the end of the war, despite being one of the most hunted human beings in history, he manages to evade arrest, moving from Europe to South America under assumed identities, and some allege he continued his experiments, going so far as to create a "town of twins" in Brazil.
On this day in 1970, drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union. Workers soon put down their tools and run off, however, when a microphone dropped down the miles-long shaft reveals the screams of the damned being tormented in Hell... or did it?
On this day in 1991, Israel conducts Operation Solomon, evacuating thousands of Black Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
On this day in 1994, four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 are each sentenced to 240 years in prison, making the WTC's Twin Towerstotally safe for one and all, forever after.
On this day in 2001, the floor of the third floor of the Versailles wedding hall in Jerusalem, Israel, falls away, killing 23 and injuring over 200. It is the worst civil disaster in Israel's history.
