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US administration to block vote on Turkey 'genocide' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8553013.stm Ny vot tyt on choto podrygomy pesinky pel... Sen. Barack Obama Discusses Armenian Genocide ...

Ny vot i tak! Chto teper? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8550765.stm http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/03/04/...sa-armenia.html http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-wor...0,6057070.story http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&so...sa=N&tab=wn

Ok fair enough your forum your rules but let me tell you that the existing threads on some subjects are like 150 pages if not more... Don't you think it's better to start new threads instead of squeezing everything in to one which in effect discourages people from even reading the damn posts?

Puzzles Of State Transformation: The Cases Of Armenia And Georgia By Dr. Nicole Gallina for Caucasian Review of International Affairs In the South Caucasus, questions of state reform and state territoriality have dominated the post-Soviet situation. In particular, the insufficient consolidation of state territoriality has had a great impact on the overall state capacities, often characterized by large military budgets and low social spending. Instable territoriality and separatist tendencies led to military conflicts in both Armenia and Georgia – most recently in Georgia in August 2008. The example of Georgia has clearly shown the importance of territorial questions in post-Soviet political development. The first hot conflict phase in the early 1990s resulted in the heavy destruction of infrastructure and in the degradation of living conditions. In both Armenia and Georgia the development of the state was very slow in terms of institutionalizing democratic state structures and tackling endemic corruption. International organizations such as the World Bank and academic research consent1 that weak state structures have been an important factor in their negative assessments of the level of development, the management of territorial questions and the state as a whole. In analyzing both the state structures and the territory of the South Caucasian states, it quickly becomes clear that it is difficult to speak of consolidation. In Georgia some territory was regained, such as the quasi-autonomous territory of Adjara, but similar political courses of action failed in the cases of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the August 2008 war led to the probable loss of those two territories. By contrast, Armenia and Azerbaijan are involved in an international conflict over the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, where a large number of ethnic Armenians live. Although the two conflicts have fundamental differences (e.g. international relevance, interested parties and degree of escalation), they are both unresolved and the potential of conflict escalation remains. Here, the next question arises – of who is responsible for this situation. As regards the August 2008 war in Georgia, international observers have agreed that the Georgian political leadership bears responsibility for the conflict in provoking conflict escalation.2 Other examples in the South Caucasus have underlined the importance of elite conduct in determining the trajectory of territorial questions and of state-building. In Armenia political leadership has proved a hindrance to democratic state development and the solution of territorial conflict, in terms of not being able to find a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and in dedicating high attention to security tasks. The political elite are arguably those responsible for non-consolidation after 1991 and the unclear situation, as they offer no clear road maps for conflict resolution. Thus, elite conduct could neither stabilize the state structures nor solve the conflicts in a sustainable way. In this sense, this paper aims to show the linkage between state-building, conflict and the conduct of the political elite. First, the paper provides a brief overview of the theoretical assumptions on the connection between state-building, conflict and the political elite. It links the frozen conflicts to the character of the elite system and the post-independence achievements in state development of Georgia and Armenia, with a focus on recent developments. The paper also discusses the similarities and differences of both cases regarding state structures, territoriality and separatism and emphasizes the gap between the state reform attempts and the conflict situation the state has to face. The aim is to present some empirical findings on the connection between institutional state and elite structures and conflict. On the effect that the elite have, the paper highlights the role of the respective state presidents regarding conflict resolution. It concludes with a general assessment of the state in an insecure environment. State-Building, Conflict and the Political Elite The literature on State Theory has discussed the prerequisites and the intricate ways for building a functioning state, often in the context of contested territories within the state itself. This aspect has been also relevant in the transition of post-Soviet states. However, the academic discussion on post-communist state-building has instead assumed a linear path of state development in regard to the transition and consolidation of political systems.3 The discussion also centers on the establishment of a civil society–controlled democratic political system and the introduction of market capitalism. As such, the construction of a functioning state has been understood as the institutionalization of central state powers and the inclusion of social powers, and has to some extent neglected the destructive effects of the unsolved question of national security. Therefore, it is of value to account for the insights of classic state theorists who underline the importance of state territory consolidation in order to build a functioning state. They hold that the precondition for building a stable state is the intactness of a state, which can be understood as the State having the capability to ensure both the territorial integrity and the security of the population living within its territory. Here, state-building is understood as the institutionalization of central state powers and the reform of old state structures, namely the military, security agencies and other (police) forces. If state-building occurs before nation-building and territorial consolidation, it has the effect that these efforts of institutionalization will face strong constraints.4 In this sense, the power of the State becomes important. State theorists hold that a state in which power is centralized and actions are coordinated has advantages in the process of development over a state that does not display such features. To achieve those goals of development, political actors either adhere to infrastructural power, i.e. political elite decisions that are controlled and in line with civil society, or despotic power, which is characterized by paternalistic elite decisions.5 Overall, a strong and capable state should be characterized by the subordination of political actors, namely the political elite, within the formal institutional framework of a state and a dynamic competition between the elite. However, state-building remains a process that enforces political power upon social and economic spheres, and has to be followed by an overall consensus on the chosen political system, whether that system is democratic or authoritarian. Thus, state-building, to a large extent, depends on the citizens of the State and how they accept and back state structures. Concerning the political elite, they have a considerable weight as they are capable of building and influencing state structures more directly than ordinary citizens, namely in their function of directly taking and enforcing political decisions. If the political elite of a given state guarantee and agree on the prerequisites of democratic state-building and enforce them, then the essential prerequisites for a dynamic state transformation are set.6 But it is not only elite consensus that play an important role, elite consensus has to be enduring, and the elite that ensures the construction of a strong state have to remain in office and act according to the formal institutional framework – notably according to formal legislation that supports the build-up of a strong state. The opposite phenomenon can be described as elite fragmentation: Elite fragmentation is a situation in which there are strong differences apparent within the governing elite and serious problems between the governing and the oppositional elites.7 This includes trench-mentality and the positioning of elites into “enemy-categories”. In an atmosphere of elite fragmentation, oppositional elite lack serious political oppositional power and instead focus on extra-political activities to generate power. Such behavior is only one example, but it is a strong indicator that the political elite themselves are fragmented and have serious problems within the institutional framework. On an institutional level, elite fragmentation signifies the discord of the political elite over the requirements for building a democratic system. Elite fragmentation as such is based on the overall principles of informality and power proximity and focuses on personalized relationships which stand diametrically opposite to the requirements for a democratic system, but which function well within autocratic political frameworks. Elite fragmentation poses serious challenges for transformation toward democratic systems, and generally efficient state institutions. “Frozen State Developments” in the South Caucasus Elite fragmentation between different elite groups was clearly evident in the perestroika years and as a result of the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. A new nationalist elite emerged in the Caucasus and challenged the communist-based powers in different ways. In Armenia the national movement assumed power after independence and formed a coalition with the communist-based elite, but was destabilized in the long term by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the attempts to resolve it. As a consequence, the old communist elite resumed power by relying at once on the national factor and strong power networks. In Georgia the attempt by the nationalist-inclined elite to overtake the independent state failed and led to a civil war. According to theorists on Caucasian conflicts,8 post-Soviet Caucasian polities were susceptible to violent conflicts because they were characterized by power struggles on central and sub-national levels, most notably in Georgia. Here, ethnic groups were demanding autonomy, on the one hand, and on the other hand, central state structures were almost non-existent (e.g. the state was unable to provide public goods and did not have a monopoly over the police and the military).9 Additionally, stability was challenged by the nationalist elite on national and sub-national levels. The structures of the disintegrating Soviet Empire proved too weak to contain nationalist developments in the initial period while new structures did not work, and a state-building process in the above-mentioned sense did and could not take place. As a result of conflict and the weakened nationalist elite, the old communist-based elite took their chance and could step in again. They succeeded in building a strong power elite, but the elite system remained unreformed as such and, therefore, could not serve as a base for democratization and state reform. In Georgia the different levels of elite fragmentation are also present. The result of armed conflict in Georgia was that the old communist leader Eduard Shevardnadze was able to assume the position as president, and remained there with his old garniture until the so-called Rose Revolution in 2003. In contrast to Armenia, where the communist-based elite managed to include the nationalist elite within the power structures, in Georgia the nationalist Georgian elite had discredited themselves in the early 1990s, and lost power in favor of Shevardnadze. The presidencies of Eduard Shevardnadze and Mikheil Saakashvili largely put an end to internal elite fragmentation, i.e. the political opposition remained weak and could not provide political input. However, the elite system in Georgia continued to be fragmented, i.e. founded on principles of informality and power proximity. In this sense, both the post-communist and the nationalist-inclined political elite proved incapable of assessing the potential of corruption or conflict situations to escalate within the country (and, put slightly differently, they provoked the re-escalation of territorial conflict) In general, contested state territory is a highly volatile political factor that has a strong impact on the quality of the state system. States have to cope with a highly insecure environment when facing secession of territorial entities or territorial conflicts with neighboring states. As the old state structures of the Soviet Union had disappeared, former Soviet entities gained their independence, and several ethnic groups within states such as Georgia claimed more autonomy, if not independence (which was also due to awakening nationalism).10 Accordingly, unstable situations emerged and state performance was low, characterized by incertitude, short-term politics and corruption. Violent conflict did not lead to territorial consolidation, but to consolidation in the elite sphere, mostly in terms of maintaining old (post-communist) elite structures. The cases of Armenia and Georgia show the impact of the territorial factor on the political elite. In Georgia the nationalist governing elite headed by Zviad Gamzakhurdia was ousted by opponents after proving incapable and old power structures reinstalled under Eduard Shevardnadze. In Armenia the nationalist and post-communist elite formed a strong coalition, being inclined to use measures that can be described as autocratic to remain in power. In the following sections, this paper explains that on an institutional level those both variants of elite rule affected the development of the state negatively – both in terms of institutional performance and of the nature of the political system.11 Formally, the fragmentation between the nationalist and the post-communist elite has ceased in both Georgia and Armenia. According to theory, such a unified elite should lay the prerequisites for socio-economic development. Consulting development data, a rather bleak picture appears. In the recently published 2009 Human Development Index, out of 177 countries, Armenia is ranked 84th, and Georgia 89th.12 Thus, the question is whether there are structures beyond the formal consolidation of nationalist and post-communist elite that influence state development. Comparing Armenia with Georgia, Armenia displays an autocratic elite which leads a strong state. Despite the strong character of the state in Armenia, institutional performance remains weaker than in Georgia as expressed in the 2009 Transparency Corruption Perceptions Index, with Armenia given a rating of 2.7, and Georgia one of 4.1.13 The more corrupt a state, the weaker its institutions, which are meant to provide common goods, as well as the distribution of common goods in terms of infrastructure (energy, roads, etc.) and welfare. Elite system–based categories impeding institutional development might include the importance of personal networks and clientelistic structures and the degree of personalization of public office. Here, the principle of informality and the necessity of proximity to power structures to provoke decisions of any kind are very relevant. This phenomenon can be also called frozen elite structures. Another question is whether post-conflict containment could be explained by the nature of elite structures. The linkage between frozen elite structures and the fact that the territorial conflicts go unresolved is an interesting point. In any case, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as the Georgian territorial conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia have become frozen conflicts, i.e. conflicts where the central state does not recognize the secession of a given territory and where political settlement cannot be achieved. Such conflict is “stalled”, and the situation is one of conflict perpetuation, with the risk of new conflict escalation being real – as the example of Georgia has proved.14 The relation between elite structures and conflict will be elaborated underneath in more detail for the example of the role of the state presidents and conflict management. The following section examines the linkage between the elite and institutional system. It will concentrate on the institutional and on the policy-making (political elite) levels. In this context, the next paragraphs shall give an impression of the linkage between weak state development, elite conduct and the overall imperative of the territorial question for the leading political elite. The Institutionalization-Elite Nexus in Armenia and Georgia Considering post-Soviet political developments, the two countries have certain similarities. Both have to face post-communist political realities, i.e. economic decline, state structures that do not function for the public’s well-being and questions of territorial inclusion and exclusion. Unresolved issues of territoriality stand beside the necessity for the development of the institutional system and the state as a whole.15 The territorial conflicts are of a different nature. In Armenia the state authorities succeeded in exercising control over the national state and the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh that formerly had not been part of the Armenian state.16 The conflict on Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territories can also be treated as an external problem, but it has determined political and economic development of Armenia decisively. In Georgia problems are connected to territories that legally were part of the Georgian state. The Georgian political leadership had, and has, to face a quasi-disintegration of the contested territories, sc. South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The conflicts have been handled in a similar manner, i.e. there have been military rather than political attempts to resolve them. In general, those conflicts led to the “nationalization” of politics. In Armenia, for example, the elite from Nagorno-Karabakh became the leading political force, and determined the issue, in particular in its degree of politicization. Here, the Nagorno-Karabakh military elite managed to grasp important political power positions in Armenia, and thus provoked a merger between the military and political elite, a recent example of which is the presidency of Serzh Sarkisian. In Georgia the military nationalist elite of the early 1990s could not establish themselves in such a way, as they were out-powered by the political elite attached to Shevardnadze. Nevertheless, after the Rose Revolution President Mikheil Saakashvili made the issue of the secessionist regions a top priority, and emphasized military-political issues.17 The political framework of both countries cannot be called a consolidated democracy. Armenia is considered semi-authoritarian, while Georgia is rated a little better.18 If a weak democratic framework is in place, then this leaves room for corruption and elite pacts that go uncontrolled by formal structures. Analysts of post-Soviet countries have observed an inclination toward authoritarian policy-making, as self-interested politicians look for institutions that provide them policy-making posts and control over the policy process.19 In addition, local observers have criticized the gap between formal legislation and actual political deeds.20 Armenia formally established a semi-presidential system in 2005 based on an amendment made to the 1995 Constitution.21 This included the formal strengthening of the rule of law, that is, legislation on civic freedoms. For example, the Law on the Freedom of Information was formally ratified, but practically not implemented. The formal strengthening of the control of institutions and provisions on rule of law and civic freedoms stand in contrast to practical politics. A first and important point is that executive agencies dominate the country (the role of the president will be analyzed in detail below). In Armenia a powerful police and security apparatus is employed to strengthen the current elite system, for example, in suppressing oppositional unrest and activities. Powerful executive agents go hand in hand with the use of administrative resources to ensure support for the governing party (viz. the Republican Party). The army still is estimated (real numbers are a state secret) to include over 40,000 soldiers, for a population of three million, and military expenses account for a significant portion of the budget.22 Questions of armed conflict often take precedent over questions of state reform, as security issues are an overarching and recurring theme. The territory in question and the future of the country runs counter to the institutionalization of central state power in terms of government, parliament and jurisdiction, including police, tax administration or basic social welfare. Compared to president’s powers, other political institutions remain weak (namely Parliament). Prime minister enjoys relatively little power. In theory, however, they should be important political players since Armenia has a semi-presidential system. Political parties have little to offer beyond national rhetoric, and could be considered informal associations to secure individual needs and power. The opposition has seen its role reduced to post-election protests (“institutionalized” since 1995), being almost invisible in between. The fact that single persons dominate the political landscape underlies the importance of leader-figures and personalized relations to generate proximity instead of the necessary institutional development and democracy.23 The fact that Armenian parties in general are passive can be also explained by their informal ties to the governing structures. In this context, the elite fragmentation on public display between the governing and the oppositional parties would be only part of the game, and efficiently conceal back-door agreements. Indeed, informal ties between party members exist, but formally, government and opposition parties blame each other for political failures and electoral fraud, and maintain the formal picture of party fragmentation. Another interesting aspect is that politicians provoke unrest during elections and channel popular unrest. For example, in March 2008 the Armenian government restricted the citizens’ right to freedom of assembly and allowed the authorities to prosecute demonstrators. In between elections, the political elite are left to their own resources. In those periods, parliamentary representation mostly follows business interests and lobbies for their respective interests. In Armenia, for example, speaker of the parliament Hovik Abrahamian is also well known for being an important businessman. MPs can also be reproached for voting “on demand”. The judiciary, which is another pillar of the institutional system that should lay the backbone for institutional development, is largely dependent on the political leadership. The 2007 Global Integrity Index speaks clearly on this issue: It allocated 34 (out of 100) points to Armenia for law enforcement, stating that despite having a respectable legal framework, the implementation of laws is lacking.24 The media faces intimidation, especially in times of elections. During the 2008 presidential election campaign, most broadcast media failed to give an objective picture of the campaign and were harassed if trying to do so.25 As far as the institutionalization of democratic institutions and the role of executive forces and security agencies are concerned, similar political constellations can also be observed in Georgia.26 A major difference between Georgia and Armenia, however, has been that the Georgian population managed to question the trajectory of state transformation after independence from the Soviet Union, as well as that of the communist-based political leadership installed in the early 1990s. As the political elite turned increasingly authoritarian and self-assertive, popular protest showed its discontent with the old guard in 2003. This elite power replacement – of Shevardnadze for Saakashvili – gave hope to the Georgian public for breaking the vicious circle of unresolved conflict, undesirable institutional developments and elite fragmentation. Indeed, the new governing elite initiated a serious discussion on state transformation, such as tackling organized crime and political corruption, and managed to pacify executive agencies that had become increasingly uncontrollable (in particular the traffic police and customs officials).27 Georgia was thus seen as a hope for democracy based on elite change in the Caucasus. The constitutional amendments enacted in February 2004, however, spoke another language. In contrast to Armenia, which decreased the formal (but not the actual) power of the executive structures, the amendments strengthened the power of the Georgian President. As such, he is allowed to dissolve parliament twice within one (five-year) presidential term. Since 2008 the role of the president was also strengthened in light of a possible military conflict. In particular, he was given the right to dismiss ministers, such as those of the justice, the interior and the defense, which gave him power over military decisions. The frequent amendments to the Constitution in both countries might prove that the Constitution has not been regarded as a document laying the foundations of an institutionally strong state but as an instrument to ensure political power. Another interesting fact in this respect was the transfer of the Georgian Constitutional Court to Batumi in July 2007, where it has been “forgotten” ever since. The concentration of power in the hands of the executive branch in Georgia has consequences for the use of administrative resources and emergency instruments.28 The use of administrative resources has been widespread in the form of electoral engineering in order to influence presidential and parliamentary elections, e.g. to allow only the minimum period of two months to organize the election campaign. An important emergency instrument was the power to declare a state of emergency that was used against demonstrators, as in November 2007.29 In Georgia, institutional powers which should function as instruments of democratic control, namely Parliament and the Prime Minister are weak. The ruling party (the UNM – United National Movement) currently has a two-thirds majority in Parliament, which enables it to pass legislation and constitutional amendments. Such a political constellation is also facilitated by a favorable election framework and the reallocation of constituencies approved by Parliament. Ministers and prime ministers are appointed on the grounds of loyalty and have little expertise; they are also changed rather quickly.30 In addition, the volatility of MPs does not allow for long-term political reforms and concepts to be developed and implemented by the legislative bodies. An elite system composed of both nationalist and communist-based elite and rooted in the executive agencies dominates the scene. This is also demonstrated by the fact that Parliament has been used to approve legislation in favor of the President and his party. Political parties, especially the opposition parties, have not succeeded in unifying and are highly polarized and fragmented. Mutual antagonisms impede the emergence of a strong oppositional bloc. Moreover, opposition parties have boycotted parliamentary work after the 2008 elections, and stuck to extra-parliamentary opposition connected to demonstrations, with little effect. In contrast to Armenia, Georgia regularly experiences high-level political scandals, such as the death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, the arrest of the politician Irakli Okruashvili and the intimidation of the owner of the Imedi television station, the late Badri Patarkatsishvili. The conduct of the political elite in Georgia more openly includes harassment, intimidation and criminal methods.31 The judiciary is also largely dependent on the elite system, a fact that completes the picture of executive dominance (or its takeover by the unified nationalist, communist-based elite). The Office of the Public Defender, or the Ombudsman, was installed, but its ability to act as a counterweight and whether his reports criticize Georgia’s lack of judicial and electoral independence highly depends upon the personality of the ombudsman.32 International reports, such as the Global Integrity Report, underline the lack of the independence of the judiciary, and point out that the pressure on judges and attorneys to act in a certain way is high.33 Independent media coverage has been regularly hindered, with a focus on nationwide media. A particular case was the closing of the independent television channel Imedi in November 2007.34 As a consequence of the tensions and the war of August 2008, Russian TV stations and websites were closed and blocked in Georgia.35 Such decisions, not only in Georgia but also in Armenia, underlined that the conflict situation worked in detriment to institutional development, and was used by the political elite to maintain and generate political power. The elite-system supports strong executive structures that have overtaken the institutional system and are personalized by the President. The next section will show in more detail the effects of political leadership, institutional control and conflict escalation for the cases of Armenia and Georgia. Strong Leadership and State Integrity In general, unconsolidated democratic political systems, but also authoritarian-inclined political systems, do not rely on formal structures but on informal networks and on persons who present themselves to the public, for example, as charismatic or decisive rulers, and have in common that they personalize political power – and that this is the only possibility for achieving stable rule. The façade of “all is under control” is filled with populist rhetoric and the use of administrative resources. Such methods of ruling fail to consolidate the State but often succeed in maintaining the picture of a political leadership that is in control of power and the political agenda. Within the context of elite fragmentation, a strong political leader plays an important role. He has to ensure his power over his networks and resources to defeat any real or imagined opponents. In a setting of formal elite fragmentation, the political leader has to ensure that either side will be satisfied with their resource allocation. In a conflict-prone setting of fragmentation, strong leadership becomes especially important to unify the elite against opponents and to ensure success. Armenia is an example of successful elite unification in order to dominate territory for the Armenian side, while Georgia is not. Independent of the outcome, in conflict-ridden societies the role of the political leader has developed into an especially important one. Indeed, his role is a double-edged one: his leadership can lead to the resolution of conflict, but also its escalation, while other institutional powers can do little to prevent the escalation of both conflict situations. In a setting of weak institutionalization and strong leadership, it is the President who provides crucial incentives for conflict resolution. In this respect it is important to examine the role of the Armenian and Georgian political leaders in conflict resolution. The problem-solving capacities of Georgian presidents are ambiguous. The first post-independence president Zviad Gamsakhurdia did not prevent the rise of paramilitary groups in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. President Shevardnadze could stabilize the country after the post–independence civil wars, but he could not solve the conflicts, which turned into “frozen” ones.36 The third Georgian president after independence, Saakashvili, was determined to find a resolution both to the state and territorial crises. He established supra-presidential control over the political institutions, as well as with respect to resolving the territorial conflicts of the country. In regard to conflict resolution, he chose a thoroughgoing way for dealing with the separatist territories. His methods were accompanied by rhetoric (“with a heavy hand”) and high military spending. The political instruments applied were mainly nationalist rhetoric and the accusation of the opposition or oppositional criticism as unpatriotic. He used these methods to retain and consolidate power. The presidential policy was arguably partly justifiable as Russia supported Abkhazian and South Ossetian secession ambitions, e.g. by distributing passports to the population in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or imposing an economic embargo on Georgia. President Saakashvili demonstrated a stick-and-carrot approach combining democratic and autocratic elements including threats to use force, but not showing a clear line to resolve the conflict. The Georgian political leadership did not define long-term strategies and a road-map for state development and conflict resolution.37 The stick-and-carrot approach was not helpful in settling the territorial conflicts for either side, and the result was the August 2008 war. In Armenia, Robert Kocharian played a decisive role in the occupation of the wider Nagorno-Karabakh territory. As a result of the conflict and the war, the political elite from Nagorno-Karabakh were able overtake the elite system and play a decisive role in the management of the conflict, leading to its current situation. The period between 2003 and 2008 was characterized by a political stalemate, with the opposition boycotting the Parliament, and the President having an open field to act without (even if limited) parliamentary control. When it came to Nagorno-Karabakh, the issue was used politically to camouflage urgent structural tasks and state problems, and used to distract attention from other issues. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been highly emotionalized in Armenia, in particular in presenting it as one of the most urgent national problems, and has been the source of sharp rhetoric on both sides.38 The conflict afforded legitimacy to the political leadership and excuses for power accumulation and the application of political instruments, such as the declaration of the state of emergency by outgoing president Robert Kocharian in March 2008. In Armenia the support of and need for strong political leaders is emphasized by Armenian researchers.39 However, those strong leaders did little for real conflict resolution. Instead, they relied on the prevailing institutional fragility and the existing power gap between the executive and all the other political branches. This political constellation did not support the management of the conflicts toward a sustainable solution for the involved parties. Even if the conflict-setting suggested that the presidents acted for the sake of national interest, much self-interest was involved in influencing state development and national security policy.40 To date, the presidents, mainly in Armenia, managed to satisfy group claims, but this so far did not work in favor of sustainable state integrity and a reconciliation concerning Nagorno-Karabakh. Conclusion In sum, the analysis of the role of the political leaders in Armenia and Georgia and their actions to resolve the frozen conflicts and to prevent them from turning “hot” does not provide a very positive image. Presidents strongly focus on their role and image as a strong political leader to manage both domestic and external threats. The actions of the Armenian and Georgian presidents have mainly proved that security threats can cause a political stalemate and impede fundamental state transformation. In Georgia and Armenia, heated debate on inclusion and exclusion of both elite and territory influences political discussions and the building of state structures. The “specialty” of the political elite is that they rely on populism and nationalist slogans to reach their political goals, but are not capable of resolving the territorial questions. An example has been the rhetoric of the Georgian President Saakashvili about South Ossetia and Abkhazia before and after the August 2008 war. However, an interesting turn of events is the recent attempts of rapprochement and signing of protocols between Armenia and Turkey (which has caused tensions in Azerbaijan fearing that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict would be solved to the detriment of the country). But the fact is that decades after the eruption of the tensions none of the conflicts has been solved by a formal peace treaty and mutual reconciliation. The conflicts of Georgia and Armenia are of different nature, taking place in different institutional and elite settings. But both Georgia and Armenia were so far unable to reform their states, and one reason has been that they are confronted with questions of external and domestic integrity. State development must remain incomplete in this insecure environment, and the task of territorial consolidation dominates political decisions and structures explicitly or implicitly. Unsolved territorial and ethnic minority issues most often were not new but a legacy from Soviet times, and they developed into serious problems in the late years of the Soviet Union and afterward. Here, it could be suitable to speak of a political and a cultural-ethnic fragmentation that has severely impeded state-building. Questions of unresolved territorial issues, identity, nation and ethnicity are confronted with weak state institutions. The general situation in both states is characterized by low spending on public goods related to health, infrastructure and education, and high spending on goods related to combat readiness. The structures that are necessary to found a stable state are not strong enough to support state-building efforts, especially in terms of the judiciary and the rule of law, central political institutions, Parliament and political opposition. From a state-building point of view, the goal of constructing a state that provides a minimum of social welfare, guarantees sustainable economic development – i.e. in supporting productive industries or services – and generates infrastructure has not been achieved. Analyzing the cases of Georgia and Armenia, one can observe common points that are important: elite characteristics and interpretation of political rule, and patterns of elite leadership that prevent conflict resolution. In this context, according to state theorists that elite determination in building up a functioning state within a consolidated territory should be carried out without the use of the tactics of informality – namely informal, personalized structures and the necessity of power proximity. The observation in both countries is that the decision-making processes are not transparent, and are highly personalized – as well as that the influence of democratic political institutions (which could serve to drive conflict resolution) is marginal. The personalization and concentration of power in the hands of the state presidents, and executive branches, such as the resilience of authoritarian politics are the visible outcomes of undemocratic thinking of the political elite. It is possible that the understanding of politics as a power struggle, in which the highest political representative is not allowed to make concessions, greatly contributed to the inability to resolve the frozen conflicts in both Georgia and Armenia. The general political atmosphere in both countries is tense and characterized by the polarization between the governing elite and the political opposition, and an overall lack of political alternatives. Moreover, in the course of instable political developments, informal structures – namely the elite system – have undermined formal provisions and the political institutions such as Parliament. The corruption rates, for example, show that both states are not ready to accept the formal regulations of the political framework that restrict individual governing.41 A common feature has persisted in both countries: The political elite, in general, do not feel compelled to adhere to a democratic code of conduct. Thus, the conviction prevails that the elite can do whatever they feel like, even with regard to conflict resolution. In this context, self-criticism and the capability for compromise between political leaders is unimaginable. Political transparency, openness and creativity are rather understood as power-endangering. The political landscape has been dominated by a lack of dialogue, political compromise and respect for political diversity. Furthermore, the ruling elite use conflicts as political instruments in order to render legitimate a politically strong leader who acts and makes decisions that are incompatible within a democratic political framework. Military intervention has gone hand in hand with additional legitimacy of political leadership, being best observed in Armenia, where the Nagorno-Karabakh political elite dominate the Armenian elite system. Securing regime continuity becomes more important than proposing future visions of state composition and development. In the long-run an understanding of politics as based on conflict and elite fragmentation has a negative impact on the political culture and on conflict settlement. Thus the unresolved conflict has strengthened authoritarianism vis-à-vis democratic policy-making. In Georgia the inclination to oust President Saakashvili after the war of August 2008 and the subsequent political developments have not been very successful. Questions of political power and state development that surfaced in the mid-2000s were set back, as the future of the whole state is still contested. In Armenia a fundamental political change seems desirable neither for the political elite nor for the Armenian population until Armenia and Azerbaijan have resolved the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.42 In the end, those conflicts slow the modernization of the state and lead to a frozen state development. But this slowly undermines the legitimacy of the whole state (even if the elite refer to such conflicts to generate legitimacy). This connection of conflict, the elite and state development could be called a vicious circle. The question is how to break this circle that provokes long-term instability – even if the South Caucasian states cannot be regarded as failed states at the moment, especially Georgia, which confronted periods of territorial, social, economic and political disintegration and partial collapse. One solution could be political elite reform. It is crucial how and if the political leadership succeeds to subdue under a formal institutional framework for the sake of state-building. Unfortunately, there have been not very many efforts toward this requirement. The Presidents of Armenia and Georgia have so far demonstrated little political commitment for peaceful conflict solution, and we get a dubious picture of political leadership in both countries. Mutual mistrust among the political elite prevails, and informal networks and patron-client relationships are used to retain political power. In this context, a strong political leader who relies on strong informal groups, police forces, and security agencies is perceived as necessary to guide the country through an insecure environment. If we examine contested territoriality and weak state structures, it is additionally interesting to ask what impact those factors have on public behavior, and if their toleration for weak state structures correlates with the intensity of conflict. In Armenia when political protests occurred, they were not about Nagorno-Karabakh but against political corruption. Here, a part of the population protested, mainly tied to the Armenian political opposition, for example, in April 2004 or in February 2008 as a reaction to the results of the presidential election. However, those protests largely aimed at the transfer of political power from one power-network to another. In Georgia the population in general unified with the government against the secessionist population. When public protests broke out, they had the goal of a real change in the political culture and conceptions of power. The protests did not include the territorial issues in the first place. For example, one can recall the protests in 2003/4 that led to a transfer of power in January 2004.43 In the context of the August 2008 war, the situation changed to a certain degree, as President Saakashvili was blamed for having contributed to conflict escalation. But he managed to stay in office on account of, among other factors, the public’s tendency to avoid demanding a change in the political leadership when territorial conflict is perceived as a direct threat. Again, the vicious circle becomes visible: If conflict settlement has developed into a prerequisite for fundamental political change and the development of state structures, there is a need for constructive proposals and serious negotiation (it also requires the same willingness to negotiate on the side of the adversaries). One hope here has been the recent rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey, which has proved that at some point elite change is possible. Also, the defection of some high-level government officials to the opposition in the aftermath of the presidential election in February 2008 in Armenia proved that the elite are not a coherent bloc, and changes might be possible. However, institutional changes and reforms remain fragile as long as questions of territorial integrity are unresolved. In particular, social and economic reforms cannot be called sustainable if the threat of an armed conflict is acute and great portions of the state budget are dedicated to the military and adjacent agencies (or disappear in diffuse channels). In this sense, public unrest might bring changes for elite renewal, even if former attempts have failed. Maybe it is up to the public to remind the political elite that the resolution of unresolved territorial conflicts remains at the heart of state reform in the South Caucasus. Dr. Nicole Gallina is a research associate at the Interfaculty Center for Central and Eastern Europe at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. This paper has been prepared in line with a research project on conditions for state building in former Soviet Union countries. This article first appeared in the Caucasian Review of International Affairs, Vol. 4 (1) Winter 2010 edition, pages 20-34, (http://cria-online.org/10_3.html). The Caucasian Review of International Affairs is a German-based, quarterly peer-reviewed free, not-for-profit and online academic journal. The article is reprinted with permission. NOTES: 1 See World Bank, World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) and Joel S. Midgal, State in Society. Studying how States and Societies Transform and Constitute one another (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 2 Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia, Report, 30 September, 2009, http://www.ceiig.ch/Report.html (accessed 30 December 2009). 3 See the discussions on the transition paradigm, e.g.: Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan, “Toward Consolidated Democracies,” Journal of Democracy, vol 7:2 (1996): 14–33; and Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,” Journal of Democracy, vol 13:1 (2002): 5–21. 4 Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, AD 990-1992 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002); and Charles Tilly “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,” in Bringing the State Back In, ed. Peter D. Evans et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 169. 5 Charles Tilly, “Western State Making and Theories of Political Transformation,” in The Formation of National States in Western Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), 10; and Michael Mann, “The Autonomous Power of the State. Its Orgins, Mechanisms and Results,” in States in History, ed. John Hall (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 113. See also the example of Armenia in the article of Lucan Way, “State Power and Autocratic Stability. Armenia and Georgia compared,” in The Politics of Transition in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Eduring Legacies and Emerging Challenges, ed. Amanda E. Wooden and Christoph H. Stefes (London: Routledge, 2009). 6 Nicole Gallina, “The Impact of Political Elite Conduct on State Reform: The Case of Ukraine,” CEU Political Science Journal, vol. 3:2 (2008): 183–200; and Anna Grzymala-Busse and Pauline Jones Luong, “Reconceptualizing the State: Lessons from Post-Communism,” Politics & Society, vol. 30:4 (2002): 529–554. 7John Higley and György Lengyel, Elites After State Socialism. Theories and Analysis (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). 8 The reasons for conflict in the Caucasus have been discussed by, among others, Christoph Zurcher in The Post-Soviet Wars: Rebellion, Ethnic Conflict, and Nationhood in the Caucasus (New York: New York University Press, 2007); and Svante Cornell, Small Nations and Great Powers. A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus (London: Routledge Curzon, 2005). 9 Here, the legacy of Soviet ethno-federalism may be important. In this system, territory was linked to an ethnically defined titular group. As central power disappeared, this system would be increasingly questioned. In particular, two Georgian entities – South Ossetia and Abkhazia – have sought independence before and after the break-up of the Soviet Union. In Armenia it has been the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that has strongly influenced politics since 1988. 10 See footnote 8 on conflict theorists for Caucasian countries and their explications for internal conflict. 11 See Way’s article (footnote 5) on how the political party elite have influenced the formation of an autocratic (Armenia) or pseudo-democratic regime (Georgia). 12 UNDP, Human Development Report 2009. Fact Sheet Armenia, 2009, http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/coun...ty_fs_ARM.html; (accessed 30 December 2009); and UNDP, Human Development Report 2009. Fact Sheet Georgia, 2009, http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/coun...cty_fs_GEO.html (accessed 30 December 2009). 13 On the Transparency International Indices “10” is the rating for the least corrupt and “1” for the most corrupt. Transparency International, “Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Map,” 2009, http://media.transparency.org/ imaps/cpi2009/ (accessed December 6, 2009). On Armenia read “Armenia Again Slides In Global Graft Rankings,” Azatutyun, November 17, 2009, http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/1880702.html (accessed December 6, 2009). 14 On conflict theory see Zurcher (above); Kalevi Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Aytan Gahramanova, “Peace strategies in ‘frozen’ ethno-territorial conflicts: integrating reconciliation into conflict management. The case of Nagorno-Karabakh” (working paper, University of Mannheim, 2007), www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/publications/wp/wp-103.pdf for frozen-conflict theories and the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Authors that apply the frozen-conflict term do not consent on the factors that determine whether peace or war will succeed. 15 Jon Elster, Clauss Offe and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies. Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 16See a timeline of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, “Nagorno-Karabakh: Timeline Of The Long Road To Peace,” rferl.org, February 10, 2006, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/...f351a1ef0c.html (accessed December 6, 2009). 17For the military-political aspects in Georgia, see, for example, Vicken Cheterian “Georgia’s arms race”, Open Democracy, July 4, 2007, http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflicts/cau...eorgia_military. And on the Armenian political elite’s link with military, see “Armenia: New Government Takes Shape,” rferl.org, April 17, 2008, http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1109586.html (accessed December 27, 2009). 18Freedom House Nations in Transit Reports. Freedom House, “Country Report Georgia (2008),” Nations in Transit, http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?p...2&year=2008 (accessed December 6, 2009); and Freedom House, “Country Report Armenia (2008),” Nations in Transit, http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm? page=47&nit=444&year=2008 (accessed December 6, 2009). 19 Philip G. Roeder, “Varieties of Post-Soviet Authoritarian Regimes,” Post-Soviet Affairs, vol. 10:1 (1994): 61–101; and Marina Ottaway, Democracy Challenged. The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003). 20 Former Armenian foreign minister Vartan Oskanian in an interview with azatutyun.am. (Karine Kalantarian, “Oskanian Questions Government Commitment To European Values,” azatutyun, November 11, 2009, http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/1875502.html [accessed November 29, 2009].) On a more general level, Nicole Gallina discusses the gap between formal legislation and informal practices in Political Elites in East Central Europe (Opladen: Budrich, 2008). 21 Alexandr Markarov, “Macroinstitutional Political Structures and their Development in Armenia,” Demokratizatsiya, vol. 14:2 (2006): 159–170. 22 Find some information in: Sargis Harutyunyan, „Ex-Official Concerned Over Actual Military Budget Cut,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 6 October 2009, http://www.armenialiberty.org/content/ article/1845045.html (accessed 30 December 2009). As a consequence of the tight military-political elite nexus, the relationship between the army and the State remains problematic in Armenia. See, for instance, Philipp Fluri and Viorel Ciboratu (eds.), Defence Institution Building: Country Profiles and Needs Assessments for Armenia, Azerbaidjan, Georgia and Moldova (Geneva: The Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2008). The 2009 World Development Indicators list the following military expenditures: Armenia, 18.1% of central government expenditures (2007). Georgia, 32.7% of central government expenditures (2007). International Bank for Reconstruction and Development: World Development Indicators (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2009). 23 Political parties are mostly the creations of single political leaders. For a discussion of this topic regarding Georgia see Ghia Nodia and Álvaro Pinto Scholtbach, The Political Landscape of Georgia. Political Parties: Achievements and Prospects (Tbilisi: Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, 2006). 24The overall impression of the system was “very weak” (Global Integrity “Armenia: 2007,” http://report.globalintegrity.org/Armenia/2007 [accessed December 5, 2009]). Georgia scored similar rates, having a very large implementation gap: Global Integrity “Georgia: 2008,” http://report.globalintegrity.org/Georgia/2008 (accessed December 5, 2009). 25 Observations of the author in Armenia 2008, and Blanka Hancilova and Olga Azatyan, “Armenian Presidential Elections Decided by the Past?” CACI Analyst, February 6, 2008, http://www.cacianalyst.org/ ?q=node/4788 (accessed November 29, 2009). 26 Charles King, “Potemkin Democracy: Four Myths about Post-Soviet Georgia,” The National Interest, No. 63 (2001): 93–104; Ghia Nodia, “Georgia: Dimensions of Insecurity” in Statehood and Security: Georgia after the Rose Revolution, ed. Bruno Coppieters and Robert Legvold (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005); and Jaba Devdariani, “Georgia: Rise and Fall of the Façade Democracy,” Democratizatsiya, vol. 12:1 (2004): 79–115. 27 Nodia 2005 (footnote 23). 28 Zurab Chiaberashvili and Gigi Tevzadze, “Power Elites in Georgia: Old and New,” in From Revolution to Reform: Georgia´s Internal Struggle with Democratic Institution Building, ed. Philipp, H. Fluri and Cole Eden Vienna: National Defence Academy and Bureau for Security Policy, 2005), 187–207. David Darchiashvili, “Power Structures in Georgia,” in IDEA, Building Democracy in Georgia. Power Structures, The Weak State Syndrom and Corruption in Georgia, (Discussion Paper No. 5, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm, 2005), 8–15. 29 International Crisis Group, “Georgia: Sliding towards Authoritarianism,” Europe Report N°189, December 19, 2007, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5233&l=1 (accessed November 29, 2009). 30 For example: Zurab Noghaideli – 2005–07; Lado Gurgenidze – 2007/8; and Grigol Mgaloblishvili – 2008/9. Since independence (1991) there have been sixteen different prime ministers (fourteen in Armenia). 31 Both opposition and government elite receive death threats. A recent case was that of the Georgian businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili who died under suspicious circumstances in February 2008 (“Georgia: Sudden Death of Opposition Billionaire Stirs Political Pot,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, February 13, 2008, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/...C3E8915F48.html [accessed November 29, 2009]). 32 Sozar Subari, the Georgian Ombudsman from 2004 to 2009, turned into a prominent critic of the Saakashvili government, and complaints to the office jumped from 1,400 to 5,100 annually (Tara Bahrampour “Georgia’s Counterweight to Power. Ombudsman Thrives Even as President Increases His Control,” The Washington Post, July 24, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ory/2009/07/24/ ST2009072400097.html [accessed November 29, 2009]). His successor was determined to “be an assistant to state structures” (“Incoming Public Defender Speaks of Priorities,” Civil Georgia, July 31, 2009, http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=21312 [accessed November 29, 2009]). 33 Another interesting point was the October 2008 merger of the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Ministry of Justice. The official is empowered to start criminal proceedings against all high political officials (only the President is empowered to dismiss him). The Ombudsman claimed that the Office of the Prosecutor General and the Interior Ministry had become repressive political instruments, in particular to apply pressure on the courts. 34 See the reports in RFE/RL and Freedom House: Claire Bigg “Georgia's Neighbors On Edge After Week Of Unrest,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 9 November 2007, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/ 2007/11/35A73AAC-67DF-4329-B748-D25F465FAAAA.html (accessed November 29, 2009). On general scores that are both low for Georgia and Armenia, see the IREX Media Sustainability Index: “Media Sustainability Index - Europe and Eurasia,” IREX, http://www.irex.org/programs/MSI_EUR/2009/exec.asp (accessed December 5, 2009). 35 IFJ/IFEX, “IFJ endorses joint Russian and Georgian demand to end media restrictions,” 10 November 2009, http://www.ifex.org/georgia/2009/11/10/ media_restrictions/ (accessed 30 December 2009). For the August 2008 situation see: RSF/IFEX, “Several Georgian, Russian websites blocked following attack by rival groups, hackers,” Ihttp://www.ifex.org/georgia/2008/08/14/several_georgian_russian_ websites/ (accessed 30 December 2009). 36 See R.G. Suny on elite problems of Georgia in the 1990s: “Elite Transformation in Late-Soviet and Post-Soviet Transcaucasia, or: What Happens When the Ruling Class Can´t Rule?” in Patters in Post-Soviet Leadership, ed. Timothy J. Colton and Robert C. Tucker (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1995), 141–167. 37 Interview with the Georgian analyst Ghia Nodia in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Robert Parsons, “Georgia: Analyst Ghia Nodia Assesses Saakashvili's Attempts To Transform Country,” Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, June 15, 2006, http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005 /6/404C8894-8F48-4403-8045-BFDA6D4764EE.html (accessed November 30, 2009). 38 Levon Zourabian, “The Nagorno-Karabakh Settlement Revisited: Is Peace Achievable?” Demokratizatsiya, vol. 14:2 (2006): 252–265. 39 Vahe Sahakyan and Artur Atanesjan, “Democratization in Armenia: Some Trends of Political Culture and Behavior,” Demokratizatsiya, vol. 14:3 (2006): 347–354. 40 Richard Giragosian, “Redefining Armenian National Security,” Demokratizatsiya, vol. 14:2 (2006): 223–234. Also, the above-cited Cornell/Starr work underlines that the nationalist movement in Armenia co-opted the clan structures, while the nationalist movement was to a large extent ousted in Georgia. 41 The issue of wide-spread corruption remained crucial for national security. One can even speak of the systemic corruption that undermines the state together with presidential power and unresolved conflict. If corrupt structures have proved their efficacy in controlling economic resources, political decision-making and the manipulation of political and social opponents, they are hardly changed. 42 The respective sites offer lengthy and recurring articles on the topic, e.g. the homepage of azatutyun.am, http://www.azatutyun.am/. An example of an article is Jamil Bayramov, “Double Standards Hinder Karabakh conflict settlement,” News.az, November 21, 2009, http://www.news.az/articles/3043 (accessed November 25, 2009). 43 Jonathan Wheatley, Georgia from National Awakening to Rose Revolution. Delayed Transition in the Former Soviet Union (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). http://www.eurasiareview.com/2010/02/31968...sformation.html

Prognosis 2012: Towards a New World Social Order Prognosis 2012: Towards a New World Social Order by Richard K. Moore Global Research, February 27, 2010 Historical background – the establishment of capitalist supremacy When the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, in the late 1700s, there was lots of money to be made by investing in factories and mills, by opening up new markets, and by gaining control of sources of raw materials. The folks who had the most money to invest, however, were not so much in Britain but more in Holland. Holland was the leading Western power in the 1600s, and its bankers were the leading capitalists. In pursuit of profit, Dutch capital flowed to the British stock market, and thus the Dutch funded the rise of Britain, who subsequently eclipsed Holland both economically and geopolitically. In this way British industrialism came to be dominated by wealthy investors, and capitalism became the dominant economic system. This led to a major social transformation. Britain had been essentially an aristocratic society, dominated by landholding families. As capitalism became dominant economically, capitalists became dominant politically. Tax structures and import-export policies were gradually changed to favor investors over landowners. It was no longer economically viable to simply maintain an estate in the countryside: one needed to develop it, turn it to more productive use. Victorian dramas are filled with stories of aristocratic families who fall on hard times, and are forced to sell off their properties. For dramatic purposes, this decline is typically attributed to a failure in some character, a weak eldest son perhaps. But in fact the decline of aristocracy was part of a larger social transformation brought on by the rise of capitalism. The business of the capitalist is the management of capital, and this management is generally handled through the mediation of banks and brokerage houses. It should not be surprising that investment bankers came to occupy the top of the hierarchy of capitalist wealth and power. And in fact, there are a handful of banking families, including the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, who have come to dominate economic and political affairs in the Western world. Unlike aristocrats, capitalists are not tied to a place, or to the maintenance of a place. Capital is disloyal and mobile – it flows to where the most growth can be found, as it flowed from Holland to Britain, then from Britain to the USA, and most recently from everywhere to China. Just as a copper mine might be exploited and then abandoned, so under capitalism a whole nation can be exploited and then abandoned, as we see in the rusting industrial areas of America and Britain. This detachment from place leads to a different kind of geopolitics under capitalism, as compared to aristocracy. A king goes to war when he sees an advantage to his nation in doing so. Historians can 'explain' the wars of pre-capitalist days, in terms of the aggrandizement of monarchs and nations. A capitalist stirs up a war in order to make profits, and in fact our elite banking families have financed both sides of most military conflicts since at least World War 1. Hence historians have a hard time 'explaining' World War 1 in terms of national motivations and objectives. In pre-capitalist days warfare was like chess, each side trying to win. Under capitalism warfare is more like a casino, where the players battle it out as long as they can get credit for more chips, and the real winner always turns out to be the house – the bankers who finance the war and decide who will be the last man standing. Not only are wars the most profitable of all capitalist ventures, but by choosing the winners, and managing the reconstruction, the elite banking families are able, over time, to tune the geopolitical configuration to suit their own interests. Nations and populations are but pawns in their games. Millions die in wars, infrastructures are destroyed, and while the world mourns, the bankers are counting their winnings and making plans for their postwar reconstruction investments. From their position of power, as the financiers of governments, the banking elite have over time perfected their methods of control. Staying always behind the scenes, they pull the strings controlling the media, the political parties, the intelligence agencies, the stock markets, and the offices of government. And perhaps their greatest lever of power is their control over currencies. By means of their central-bank scam, they engineer boom and bust cycles, and they print money from nothing and then loan it at interest to governments. The power of the banking elites is both absolute and subtle... "Some of the biggest men in the United States are afraid of something. They know there is a power somewhere, so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it." -- President Woodrow Wilson The end of growth – capitalists vs. capitalism It was always inevitable, on a finite planet, that there would be a limit to economic growth. Industrialization has enabled us to rush headlong toward that limit over the past two centuries. Production has become ever more efficient, markets have become ever more global, and finally we have reached the point where the paradigm of perpetual growth can no longer be maintained. Indeed, that point was actually reached by about 1970. Since then capital has not so much sought growth through increased production, but rather by extracting greater returns from relatively flat production levels. Hence globalization, which moved production to low-waged areas, providing greater profit margins. Hence privatization, which transfers revenue streams to investors that formerly went to national treasuries. Hence derivative and currency markets, which create the electronic illusion of economic growth, without actually producing anything in the real world. If one studies the collapse of civilizations, one learns that failure-to-adapt is fatal. Continuing on the path of pursuing growth would be such a failure to adapt. And if one reads the financial pages these days, one finds that it is full of doomsayers. We read that the Eurozone is doomed, and Greece is just the first casualty. We read that stimulus packages are not working, unemployment is increasing, the dollar is in deep trouble, growth continues to stagnate, business real estate will be the next bubble to burst, etc. It is easy to get the impression that capitalism is failing to adapt, and that our societies are in danger of collapsing into chaos. Such an impression would be partly right and partly wrong. In order to understand the real situation we need to make a clear distinction between the capitalist elite and capitalism itself. Capitalism is an economic system driven by growth; the capitalist elite are the folks who have managed to gain control of the Western world while capitalism has operated over the past two centuries. The capitalist system is past its sell-by date, the banking elite are well aware of that fact – and they are adapting. Capitalism is a vehicle that helped bring the bankers to absolute power, but they have no more loyalty to that system than they have to place, or to anything or anyone else. As mentioned earlier, they think on a global scale, with nations and populations as pawns. They define what money is and they issue it, just like the banker in a game of Monopoly. They can also make up a new game with a new kind of money. They have long outgrown any need to rely on any particular economic system in order to maintain their power. Capitalism was handy in an era of rapid growth. For an era of non-growth, a different game is being prepared. Thus, capitalism has not been allowed to die a natural death. First it was put on a life-support system, as mentioned above, with globalization, privatization, derivative markets, etc. Then it was injected with a euthanasia death-drug, in the form of toxic derivatives. And when the planned collapse occurred, rather than industrial capitalism being bailed out, the elite bankers were bailed out. It's not that the banks were too big to fail, rather the bankers were too politically powerful to fail. They made governments an offer they couldn't refuse. The outcome of the trillion-dollar bailouts was easily predictable, although you wouldn't know that from reading the financial pages. National budgets were already stretched, and they certainly did not have reserves available to service the bailouts. Thus the bailouts amounted to nothing more than the taking on of immense new debts by governments. In order to fulfill the bailout commitments, the money would need to be borrowed from the same financial institutions that were being bailed out. With the bailouts, Western governments delivered their nations in hock to the bankers. The governments are now in perpetual debt bondage to the bankers. Rather than the banks going into receivership, governments are now in receivership. Obama's cabinet and advisors are nearly all from Wall Street; they are in the White House so they can keep close watch over their new acquisition, the once sovereign USA. Perhaps they will soon be presiding over its liquidation. The bankers are now in control of national budgets. They say what can be funded and what can't. When it comes to financing their wars and weapons production, no limits are set. When it comes to public services, then we are told deficits must be held in check. The situation was expressed very well by Brian Cowan, Ireland's government chief. In the very same week that Ireland pledged 200 billion Euro to bailout the banks, he was being asked why he was cutting a few million Euro off of critical service budgets. He replied, "I'm sorry, but the funds just aren't there". Of course they're not there! The treasury was given away. The cupboard is bare. As we might expect, the highest priority for budgets is servicing the debt to the banks. Just as most of the third world is in debt slavery to the IMF, so the whole West is now in debt slavery to its own central banks. Greece is the harbinger of what is to happen everywhere. The carbon economy – controlling consumption In a non-growth economy, the mechanisms of production will become relatively static. Instead of corporations competing to innovate, we'll have production bureaucracies. They'll be semi-state, semi-private bureaucracies, concerned about budgets and quotas rather than growth, somewhat along the lines of the Soviet model. Such an environment is not driven by a need for growth capital, and it does not enable a profitable game of Monopoly. We can already see steps being taken to shift the corporate model towards the bureaucratic model, through increased government intervention in economic affairs. With the Wall Street bailouts, the forced restructuring of General Motors, the call for centralized micromanagement of banking and industry, and the mandating of health insurance coverage, the government is saying that the market is to superseded by government directives. Not that we should bemoan the demise of exploitive capitalism, but before celebrating we need to understand what it is being replaced with. In an era of capitalism and growth, the focus of the game has been on the production side of the economy. The game was aimed at controlling the means of growth: access to capital. The growth-engine of capitalism created the demand for capital; the bankers controlled the supply. Taxes were mostly based on income, again related to the production side of the economy. In an era of non-growth, the focus of the game will be on the consumption side of the economy. The game will be aimed at controlling the necessities of life: access to food and energy. Population creates the demand for the necessities of life; the bankers intend to control the supply. Taxes will be mostly based on consumption, particularly of energy. That's what the global warming scare is all about, with its carbon taxes and carbon credits. Already in Britain there is talk of carbon quotas, like gasoline rationing in wartime. It's not just that you'll pay taxes on energy, but the amount of energy you can consume will be determined by government directive. Carbon credits will be issued to you, which you can use for driving, for heating, or on rare occasions for air travel. Also in Britain, the highways are being wired so that they can track how many miles you drive, tax you accordingly, and penalize you if you travel over your limit. We can expect these kinds of things to spread throughout the West, as it's the same international bankers who are in charge everywhere. In terms of propaganda, this control over consumption is being sold as a solution to global warming and peak oil. The propaganda campaign has been very successful, and the whole environmental movement has been captured by it. In Copenhagen, demonstrators confronted the police, carrying signs in support of carbon taxes and carbon credits. But in fact the carbon regime has nothing to do with climate or with sustainability. It is all about micromanaging every aspect of our lives, as well as every aspect of the economy. If the folks who are running things actually cared about sustainability, they'd be investing in efficient mass transit, and they'd be shifting agriculture from petroleum-intensive, water-intensive methods to sustainable methods. Instead they are mandating biofuels and selling us electric cars, which are no more sustainable or carbon-efficient than standard cars. Indeed, the real purpose behind biofuels is genocide. With food prices linked to energy prices, and agriculture land being converted from food production to fuel production, the result can only be a massive increase in third-world starvation. Depopulation has long been a stated goal in elite circles, and the Rockefeller dynasty has frequently been involved in eugenics projects of various kinds. 'The War on Terrorism' – preparing the way for the transition The so-called War on Terrorism has two parts. The first part is a pretext for arbitrary abuse of citizen's rights, whenever Homeland Security claims the action is necessary for security reasons. The second part is a pretext for US military aggression anywhere in the world, whenever the White House claims that Al Qaeda is active there. I emphasized the word 'claims' above, because the terrorism pretext is being used to justify arbitrary powers, both domestically and globally. No hard evidence need be presented to Congress, the UN, or anyone else, before some nation is invaded, someone is kidnapped and tortured as a 'terrorist suspect', or some new invasive security measure is implemented. When powers are arbitrary, then we are no longer living under the rule of law, neither domestically nor internationally. We are living under the rule of men, as you would expect in a dictatorship, or in an old-fashioned kingdom or empire. Part 1: Preparing the way for a new social order In a very real sense, the terrorism pretext is being used to undo everything that The Enlightenment and the republication revolutions achieved two centuries ago. The very heart of the Bill of Rights – due process – has been abandoned. The gulag, the concentration camp, and the secret arrest in the night – these we have always associated with fascist and communist dictatorships – and now they are not only functioning under US jurisdiction, but being justified publicly by the President himself. Is there really a terrorist threat to the homeland, and would these measures be a sensible response to such a threat? People sre strongly divided in their answers to these questions. Quite a bit of hard forensic evidence has come to light, including links to intelligence agencies, and my own view is that most of the dramatic 'terrorist' events in the US, UK, and Europe have been covert false-flag operations. From an historical perspective this would not be at all surprising. Such operations have been standard practice – modus operandi – in many nations, though we usually don't get proof until years later. For example, every war the US has been involved in has had its own phony Gulf of Tonkin Incident, or its Weapons of Mass Destruction scam, in one form or another. It's a formula that works. Instant mobilization of public opinion, prompt passage without debate of enabling resolutions and legislation. Why would the War on Terrorism be any different? As regards motive: while Muslims have only suffered as a result of these dramatic events, our elite bankers have been able to create a police-state infrastructure that can be used to deal with any foreseeable popular resistance or civic chaos that might emerge as they prepare the way for their post-capitalist future. With the collapse, the bailouts, and the total failure to pursue any kind of effective recovery strategy, the signals are very clear: the system will be allowed to collapse totally, thus clearing the ground for a pre-architected 'solution'. Ground Zero can be seen as a metaphor, with the capitalist economy as the Twin Towers. And the toxic derivatives illustrate the fact that the collapse is actually a controlled demolition. It seems to me inevitable, given the many signals, that martial law will be part of the transition process, allegedly to deal with the problems of economic collapse. Perhaps a collapse in the food-supply chain, due to a collapse in the energy-supply chain. The US emergency responses in New Orleans and again in Haiti give us more signals, actual test trials, of what kind of 'emergency response' we can expect. First and foremost comes the security of the occupation forces. Those suffering in the emergency are treated more like insurgents than victims in need of help. In the case of Haiti, the US response can only be described as an intentional genocide project. When people are pinned under rubble in an earthquake, the first 48 hours, and 72 hours, are absolutely critical points, as regards survival rates. When the US military systematically blocked incoming aid for those critical hours, turning back doctors and emergency teams, they sealed the fate of many thousands who could have been saved. One can imagine many nightmare scenarios, given these various signals, these ominous signs. World Wars 1 and 2 were nightmares that really happened, with millions dying, and these same banking dynasties orchestrated those scenarios and then covered their tracks. We must also keep in mind the Shock Doctrine, where catastrophe is seen as opportunity – when 'things can be done that otherwise could not be accomplished'. We are still being impacted by the shock waves that were sent out on 9/11, and again when the financial system collapsed. And the the really big shock, the general collapse of society, is yet to come. The ultimate version of the Shock Doctrine: 'If the collapse is total, we can accomplish any damned thing we want to accomplish'. I won't venture a guess about how this transition process will play out, but I do expect that it will be a nightmare of one description or another. Already the growing homeless population is suffering a nightmare, by any civilized standards. One day you're living in a home whose value is going up, commuting to a good job, and the next thing you know your family is out on the streets. That's a nightmare. The transition time will be a difficult time, but it will be a transition, it will be temporary, like a war. And like a war, it will enable social and economic reconstruction in the aftermath. Consider how Japan and Germany were socially and politically transformed by the postwar reconstruction process. Those were exercises in social engineering, as were the preceding transformations under Mussolini and Hitler. Although the outcomes were quite different, in each case a total collapse / defeat was the preamble to reconstruction. A total collapse of the capitalist economy is simply the application of a proven formula. The second part of the formula will be some new social order, or perhaps some old social order, or some mixture. Something appropriate to a non-growth, command economy. That's part 1 of the War on Terrorism: it has enabled the creation of the police-state infrastructures required to to deal with the collapse of society, and to provide security for the reconstruction process. Part 2: Preparing the way for global domination Part 2 of the War on Terrorism is about the geopolitical dimensions of a non-growth-based global economy. Earlier I suggested that geopolitics was different under capitalism, than it was under sovereign monarchs. The whole dynamic was different, and outcomes were weighed on a different scale. Similarly, many things will change in a shift from chaotic, growth-oriented capitalism, to a centralized, micromanaged, economic regime. Consider, for example, the significance of control over oil reserves. In a growth economy, profits were the prize, and controlling the markets and the distribution channels amounted to holding a winning hand in the game. The local dictators could manage things as they pleased, and take their cut of oil revenues, as long as they honored their contracts with the oil majors, who were happy to sell to the highest bidders. In a non-growth economy, where the focus is on direct control over the supply and distributions of resources, it becomes necessary to secure, in the military sense, the sources of petroleum, and the routes for its distribution. It is no longer sufficient to merely profit from unbridled operations. Securing of the sources, and directly allocating the distribution, is the foundation for micromanaging the non-growth economy. This applies to other critical resources as well, such as uranium, and the rare minerals needed by the 'defense' and electronics industries. In fact we are in the midst of a resource-grab war, with China and Russia making long-term energy deals with Iran and Venezuela, China buying up agricultural land in Africa, Washington making long-term deals for Brazilian biofuels, and there are many other examples. In many ways imperialism is reverting to colonial days, when direct administration was the model, rather than the capitalist model: profiting from corporate investments under dictators who suppress their populations. There is a natural reversion to the dynamics of the 'good old days of empire' when the Great Powers of Europe focused their economic activity within their individual spheres of influence. Everyone knows that global resource limits are being reached, partly from population pressures, and partly from resource-exploitation practices. For this reason alone, we have the peaceful part of the resource-grab war. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and now in Pakistan and Yemen, the US, with NATO support, is playing a very non-peaceful hand in the resource-grab game. It's the hand of a bully, 'I have the biggest gun, so I'll take what I want'. These aggressive actions are very provocative to Russia and China, and threatening to their vital economic interests. An attack on Iran would be more than a provocation, it would be a direct slap in the face, a challenge: 'Fight now or resign yourself to being subdued piecemeal'. In addition to all this petroleum grabbing, the US has been surrounding Russia and China with military bases, and has recently accelerated the installations of anti-missile systems on their borders, over the strong objections of Russia and China. The US is being intentionally provocative, and it is threatening vital interests of these potential adversaries. Alliances are being formed in response, on a bilateral basis, and in the form of the SCO. China and Russia are very close in their military cooperation, and technology sharing. Their strategic planning is based on the expectation of a US attack, and their strategic response is based on the principle of asymmetric warfare. For example, a million dollar missile capable of taking out a multi-billion dollar aircraft carrier. Or perhaps a handful of missiles capable of disabling the Pentagon's command-and-control satellite systems. Meanwhile the US is spending astronomical sums developing a first-strike capability, with space-based weapons systems, control-of-theater capability, forward-based 'tactical' nukes, etc. The new anti-missile systems are an important part of a first-strike strategy, reducing the ability of Russia or China to retaliate. These systems are more than just provocative. They are the modern equivalent of marching your armies up to your adversary's border. If there is a nuclear exchange between the major powers, historians will cite all of these things I've mentioned as 'obvious signs' that war was coming. Parallels would be drawn to the pre-World War 1 scenario, when Germany was eclipsing Britain economically, as China is eclipsing the US now. In both cases a 'desperate attempt to maintain hegemony' would be seen as the cause of the war. There may or may not be a World War 3, but all of these preparations make it clear that our banking elite intend to preside over a global system, by hook or by crook. If they wanted a peaceful arrangement, a splitting of the third-world pie, so to speak, it could be easily arranged at any time, along with substantial nuclear disarmament. China and Russia would like to see a stable, multi-polar world; it is only our elite bankers who are obsessed with world domination. It is possible that nuclear war is a 'desired outcome', accomplishing depopulation, and making the collapse even more total. Or perhaps China and Russia will be given an offer they can't refuse: 'Surrender your economic sovereignty to our global system, or face the consequences'. One way or another, the elite bankers, the masters of the universe, intend to preside over a micromanaged global system. The collapse project is now well underway, and the 'surround your enemy' project seems to be more or less completed. From a strategic perspective, there will be some trigger point, some stage in the economic collapse scenario, when geopolitical confrontation is judged to be most advantageous. It's a multi-dimensional chess board, and with the stakes so high, you can rest assured that the timing of the various moves will be carefully coordinated. And from the overall shape of the board, we seem to be nearing the endgame. Prognosis 2012 – a Neo Dark Age 2012 might not be the exact year, but it's difficult to see the endgame lasting much beyond that, and the masters of the universe love symbolism, as with 911 (both in Chile and in Manhattan), KLA 007, and others. 2012 is loaded with symbolism, eg. the Mayan Calendar, and the Internet is buzzing with various 2012-related prophecies, survival strategies, anticipated alien interventions, alignments with galactic radiation fields, etc. And then there is the Hollywood film, 2012, which explicitly portrays the demise of most of humanity, and the pre-planned salvation of a select few. One never knows with Hollywood productions, what is escapist fantasy, and what is aimed at preparing the public mind symbolically for what is to come. Whatever the exact date, all the threads will come together, geopolitically and domestically, and the world will change. It will be a new era, just as capitalism was a new era after aristocracy, and the Dark Ages followed the era of the Roman Empire. Each era has its own structure, its own economics, its own social forms, and its own mythology. These things must relate to one another coherently, and their nature follows from the fundamental power relationships and economic circumstances of the system. In our post-2012 world, we have for the first time one centralized global government, and one ruling elite clique, a kind of extended royal family, the lords of finance. As we can see with the IMF, WHO, and the WTO, and the other pieces of the embryonic world government, the institutions of governance will make no pretensions about popular representation or democratic responsiveness. Rule will be by means of autocratic global bureaucracies, who take their marching orders from the royal family. This model has already been operating for some time, within its various spheres of influence, as with the restructuring programs forced on the third world, as a condition for getting financing. Whenever there is a change of era, the previous era is always demonized in mythology. In the Garden of Eden story the serpent is demonized – a revered symbol in paganism, the predecessor to Christianity. When republics came along, the demonization of monarchs was an important part of the process. In the post-2012 world, democracy and national sovereignty will be demonized. This will be very important, in getting people to accept totalitarian rule, and the mythology will contain much that is true... In those terrible dark days, before the blessed unification of humanity, anarchy reigned in the world. One nation would attack another, no better than predators in the wild. Nations had no coherent policies; voters would swing from one party to another, keeping governments always in transition and confusion. How did they ever think that masses of semi-educated people could govern themselves, and run a complex society? Democracy was an ill-conceived experiment that led only to corruption and chaotic governance. How lucky we are to be in this well-ordered world, where humanity has finally grown up, and those with the best expertise make the decisions. The economics of non-growth are radically different than capitalist economics. The unit of exchange is likely to be a carbon credit, entitling you to consume the equivalent of one kilogram of fuel. Everything will have a carbon value, allegedly based on how much energy it took to produce it and transport it to market. 'Green consciousness' will be a primary ethic, conditioned early into children. Getting by with less is a virtue; using energy is anti-social; austerity is a responsible and necessary condition. As with every currency, the bankers will want to manage the scarcity of carbon credits, and that's where global warming alarmism becomes important. Regardless of the availability of resources, carbon credits can be kept arbitrarily scarce simply by setting carbon budgets, based on directives from the IPCC, another of our emerging units of global bureaucratic governance. Such IPCC directives will be the equivalent of the Federal Reserve announcing a change in interest rates. Those budgets set the scale of economic activity. Presumably nations will continue to exist, as official units of governance. However security and policing will be largely centralized and privatized. Like the Roman Legions, the security apparatus will be loyal to the center of empire, not to the place where someone happens to be stationed. We have seen this trend already in the US, as mercenaries have become big business, and police forces are increasingly federalized, militarized, and alienated from the general public. Just as airports have now been federalized, all transport systems will be under the jurisdiction of the security apparatus. Terrorism will continue as an ongoing bogey-man, justifying whatever security procedures are deemed desirable for social-control purposes. The whole security apparatus will have a monolithic quality to it, a similarity of character regardless of the specific security tasks or location. Everyone dressed in the same Evil Empire black outfits, with big florescent letters on the back of their flack jackets. In essence, the security apparatus will be an occupying army, the emperor's garrison in the provinces. On a daily basis, you will need to go through checkpoints of various kinds, with varying levels of security requirements. This is where biometrics becomes important. If people can be implanted with chips, then much of the security can be automated, and everyone can be tracked at at all times, and their past activity retrieved. The chip links into your credit balance, so you've got all your currency always with you, along with your medical records and lots else that you don't know about. There is very little left as regards national sovereignty. Nothing much in the way of foreign policy will have any meaning. With security marching to its own law and its distant drummer, the main role of so-called 'government' will be to allocate and administer the carbon-credit budget that it receives from the IPCC. The IPCC decides how much wealth a nation will receive in a given year, and the government then decides how to distribute that wealth in the form of public services and entitlements. Wealth being measured by the entitlement to expend energy. In a fundamental sense, this is how things already are, following the collapse and the bailouts. Because governments are so deeply in debt, the bankers are able to dictate the terms of national budgets, as a condition of keeping credit lines open. The carbon economy, with its centrally determined budgets, provides a much simpler and more direct way of micromanaging economic activity and resource distribution throughout the globe. In order to clear the way for the carbon-credit economy, it will be necessary for Western currencies to collapse, to become worthless, as nations become increasingly insolvent, and the global financial system continues to be systematically dismantled. The carbon currency will be introduced as an enlightened, progressive 'solution' to the crisis, a currency linked to something real, and to sustainability. The old monetary system will be demonized, and again the mythology will contain much that is true... The pursuit of money is the root of all evil, and the capitalist system was inherently evil. It encouraged greed, and consumption, and it cared nothing about wasting resources. People thought the more money they had, the better off they were. How much wiser we are now, to live within our means, and to understand that a credit is a token of stewardship. Culturally, the post-capitalist era will be a bit like the medieval era, with aristocrats and lords on top, and the rest peasants and serfs. A definite upper class and lower class. Just as only the old upper class had horses and carriages, only the new upper class will be entitled to access substantial carbon credits. Wealth will be measured by entitlements, more than by acquisitions or earnings. Those outside the bureaucratic hierarchies are the serfs, with subsistence entitlements. Within the bureaucracies, entitlements are related to rank in the hierarchy. Those who operate in the central global institutions are lords of empire, with unlimited access to credits. But there is no sequestering of wealth, or building of economic empires, outside the structures of the designated bureaucracies. Entitlements are about access to resources and facilities, to be used or not used, but not to be saved and used as capital. The flow of entitlements comes downward, micromanaged from the top. It's a dole economy, at all levels, for people and governments alike – the global regimentation of consumption. As regards regimentation, the post-capitalist culture will also be a bit like the Soviet system. Here's your entitlement card, here's your job assignment, and here's where you'll be living. With the pervasive security apparatus, and the micromanagement of economic activity, the scenario is clearly about fine-grained social control, according to centralized guidelines and directives. Presumably media will be carefully programmed, with escapist trivia, and a sophisticated version of 1984-style groupthink propaganda pseudo-news, which is pretty much what we already have today. The non-commercial Internet, if there is one, will be limited to monitored, officially-designated chat sites, and other kinds of sanitized forums. With such a focus on social micromanagement, I do not expect the family unit to survive in the new era, and I expect child-abuse alarmism will be the lever used to destabilize the family. The stage has been set with all the revelations about church and institutional child sexual abuse. Such revelations could have been uncovered any time in the past century, but they came out at a certain time, just as all these other transitional things have been happening. People are now aware that widespread child abuse happens, and they have been conditioned to support strong measures to prevent it. Whenever I turn on the TV, I see at least one public-service ad, with shocking images, about children who are physically or sexually abused, or criminally neglected, in their homes, and there's a hotline phone number that children can call. It is easy to see how the category of abuse can be expanded, to include parents who don't follow vaccination schedules, whose purchase records don't indicate healthy diets, who have dubious psychological profiles, etc. The state of poverty could be deemed abusive neglect. With the right media presentation, abuse alarmism would be easy to stir up. Ultimately, a 'child rights' movement becomes an anti-family movement. The state must directly protect the child from birth. The family is demonized... How scary were the old days, when unlicensed, untrained couples had total control over vulnerable children, behind closed doors, with whatever neuroses, addictions, or perversions the parents happened to possess. How did this vestige of patriarchal slavery, this safe-house den of abuse, continue so long to exist, and not be recognized for what it was? How much better off we are now, with children being raised scientifically, by trained staff, where they are taught healthy values. Ever since public education was introduced, the state and the family have competed to control childhood conditioning. In religious families, the church has made its own contribution to conditioning. In the micromanaged post-capitalist future, with its Shock Doctrine birth scenario, it would make good sense to take that opportunity to implement the 'final solution' of social control, which is for the state to monopolize child raising. This would eliminate from society the parent-child bond, and hence family-related bonds in general. No longer is there a concept of relatives. There's just worker bees, security bees, and queen bees, who dole out the honey. Postscript This has been an extensive and somewhat detailed prognosis, regarding the architecture of the post-capitalist regime, and the transition process required to bring it about. The term 'new world order' is too weak a term to characterize the radical nature of the social transformation anticipated in the prognosis. A more apt characterization would be a 'quantum leap in the domestication of the human species'. Micromanaged lives and microprogrammed beliefs and thoughts. A once wild primate species transformed into something resembling more a bee or ant culture. Needless to say, regular use of psychotropic drugs would be mandated, so that people could cope emotionally with such a sterile, inhuman environment. For such a profound transformation to be possible, it is easy to see that a very great shock is required, on the scale of collapse and social chaos, and possibly on the scale of a nuclear exchange. There needs to be an implicit mandate to 'do whatever is necessary to get society running again'. The shock needs to leave people in a condition of total helplessness comparable to the survivors in the bombed-out rubble of Germany and Japan after World War 2. Nothing less will do. The accuracy of the prognosis, as prediction, is of course impossible to know in advance. However each part of the prognosis has been based on precedents that have been set, modus operandi that has been observed, trends that have been initiated, sentiments that have been expressed, signals that have been given, and actions that have been taken whose consequences can be confidently predicted. In addition, in looking at all of these indicators together, one sees a certain mindset, an absolutist determination to implement the 'ideal solution', without compromise, using extreme means, and with unbridled audacity. World wars have been rehearsals for this historic moment. The police state infrastructure is in place and has been tested. The economy is in the process of collapse. The enemy is surrounded with missiles. Arbitrary powers have been assumed. If not now, the ultimate prize, then when will there be a better opportunity? Our elite planners are backed up by competent think tanks, and they know that the new society must have coherence of various kinds. They've had quite a bit of experience with social engineering, nurturing the rise of fascism, and then engineering the postwar regimes. They understand the importance of mythology. For example there is the mythology of the holocaust, where the story is all about extermination per se, and the story is not told of the primary mission of the concentration camps, which was to provide slave labor for war production. And some of the companies using the slave labor were American owned, and were supplying the German war machine. Thus does mythology, though containing truth, succeed in hiding the tracks and the crimes of elite perps, leaving others to carry the whole burden of historical demonization. So I think there is a sound basis for anticipating the kinds of mythology that would be designed for leaving behind and rejecting the old ways, and seeing the new as a salvation. There is a long historical precedent of era changes linked with mythology changes, often expressed in religious terms. There will be a familiar ring to the new mythology, a remixing and re-prioritizing of familiar values and assumptions, so as to resonate with the dynamics of the new regime. The nature of the carbon economy has been somewhat clearly signaled. Carbon budgets, and carbon credits, are clearly destined to become primary components of the economy. As we've seen with the elite and grassroots supported global warming movement, the arbitrary scarcity of carbon credits can be easily regulated on the pretext of environmentalism. And peak oil alarmism is always available as a backup. As elite spokespeople have often expressed, when the time comes, the masses will demand the new world order. The focus on control over consumption, resources, and distribution is implicit in the emphasis on energy limits, is latent in the geopolitical situation, as regards depletion of global resources, and is indicated by the need for a new unifying paradigm, as the growth paradigm is no longer viable. The nature of the security apparatus has been clearly signaled by the responses to demonstrations ever since 1998 in Seattle, by the increased use of hardened-killer mercenaries at home and abroad, by excessive and abusive police behavior, by airport security procedures, by Guantanamo and renditions, by the creation of a domestic branch of the army, dedicated to responding to civil emergencies, and by the way Katrina and Haiti have been handled. It would be a major mistake to think of those last two as bungled operations. They were exercises in collapse management of a certain kind, to be applied to certain populations, where the training and equipment appropriate for combat in Afghanistan is seen as being appropriate for administering aid to civilian disaster victims. These selected disaster victims will be seen primarily as threats to civil order, or perhaps undesirables to be incarcerated or eliminated. They will be demonized as rioters and looters. Assistance will comes later, if at all. And it can all be broadcast on TV, and somehow be seen as the way things have to be. These two exercises were not bungled at all. They were alarmingly successful, most notably in the case of the realtime PR mythology. The limited role of national governments, being primarily allocators of mandated budgets, has been clearly signaled by long-standing IMF policies in the third world, and by the way the bankers have been dictating to governments, in the wake of the over-extended bailout commitments. The carbon entitlement budgeting paradigm accomplishes the same micromanagement in a much more direct way, and is the natural outcome of the push toward hard carbon limits. Richard K. Moore is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Richard K. Moore

Azerbaijan Warns of "Great War" in South Caucasus by Afet Mehtiyeva Global Research, February 28, 2010 Reuters - 2010-02-25 BAKU - Azerbaijan warned on Thursday the risk of conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh was rising and that a "great war" in the South Caucasus was inevitable if Armenian forces do not withdraw. Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, backed by Christian Armenia, threw off rule by Muslim Azerbaijan in fighting that broke out as the Soviet Union headed towards its 1991 collapse. An estimated 30,000 people died before a ceasefire was agreed in 1994, but the threat of fresh conflict is never far away in the strategic South Caucasus, a region criss-crossed by pipelines taking oil and gas to the West. "Diplomats could not achieve concrete results for 15 years, and Azerbaijan cannot wait another 15 years," an Azeri Defence Ministry statement cited Minister Safar Abiyev as telling France's ambassador in Baku, Gabriel Keller. "Now it is up to the military, and this danger is gradually approaching. If the Armenian occupier does not liberate our lands, the start of a great war in the South Caucasus is inevitable." Oil-producing Azerbaijan frequently makes threats to take Nagorno-Karabakh back by force, but tensions have increased in the past year over moves by Armenia and Azeri ally Turkey to open their border, which Ankara closed in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan. A trio of mediators from the United States, France and Russia say they are making progress in talks between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, but diplomats say neither side appears ready to commit to painful concessions in order to seal a peace accord. Forces on the frontline frequently trade fire, and last week Azerbaijan said three of its soldiers had been shot dead by Armenian snipers. The Nagorno-Karabakh authorities denied any clashes had taken place. Faced with a backlash from Azerbaijan -- a key potential supplier for Europe's planned Nabucco gas pipeline -- Turkey has backed away from opening its border with Armenia since signing accords in October last year, saying Armenian forces should first pull back from lands captured during the war. Writing by Matt Robinson; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton Global Research Articles by Afet Mehtiyeva

Ross Kemp investigates the Neo-Nazi movement in Moscow http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4784767647228050785#

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...y-into-law.html

This guy knows what his is talking about!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlr0qf0eTHU

Fall Of The Republic - The Presidency Of Barack H Obama - The Full Movie HQ

Dami i Gospoda ochen sovetuy posmotrets etot film yesli dazhe smozhite perevedite i rasprastranite chtobi lydi poniali kak eto vso delaetsa.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6_i8zuffs...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whVSw5X2pVU...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPddW3da2aA...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dbb4U8v3YQ...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPZcxQhUc9E...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMiedzHeUzg...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPST2cqgVQs...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBSNTxPM3mU...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnig3LwEs3Y...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsirWiQ5kv0...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAtVUx8_Rps...feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvEPPsC3Xfs...feature=related

Salbuchi - Global Financial Collapse - Part 1 Salbuchi - Global Financial Collapse - Part 2

http://showone.ru/interview/cbc/kat_von_d_...e_girl-picture/

You are very welcome Lazar jan....

Lazar jan ampaiman nai es filmere... The Obama Deception Blueprint For Global Enslavement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM6US0Qk5_8 America Freedom to Fascism http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1...edom+to+Fascism# 911 Missing Links http://www.911missinglinks.com/ Eskane helavor....

Welcome to the Brave New World The Science Fiction film genre has often shown us a future of a dystopic nature in which the very essence of humanity has been altered and tyranny has been perfected to an exact science. Some have called it a scientific dictatorship. http://www.oldthinkernews.com/Articles/old...e_new_world.htm

Deconstructing The Power of the Global Elite: Part1 Brute Force, The Power to Hurt, and Psychological Control http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...a&aid=10493 Psychological Control: States of Mental Disempowerment: Part2 Deconstructing the Power of the Global Elite http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...a&aid=10687

The COMMUNIST-CAPITALIST ALLIANCE By Dr. Harold Pease, Ph.D. Professor of History at Palo Verde College http://autarchic.tripod.com/files/alliance.html

Brother they are all the same Communists were the creation of the Rothschild banking family in London... Carl Marx was financed by Bankers from London and New York... The Left and Right paradigm is c r a p... It's for sheep the masses who don't know any better...

The COMMUNIST-CAPITALIST ALLIANCE By Dr. Harold Pease, Ph.D. Professor of History at Palo Verde College http://autarchic.tripod.com/files/alliance.html

It is normal for people to react when there’s a problem. Often they blame people improperly like their fathers, mothers, girlfriends, boyfriends or people around them. The drugs divert them so their critical thinking doesn’t develop to a level where they can understand complex issues. Drugs create a rift between older generations and young people and tend to break up families. When people are emotionally hurt by broken families, they can’t think straight. This leaves them insecure, paranoid and open to manipulation. In the case of many of the legal psychiatric prescription medications being doled out like candy the long term effects actually cause permanent damage to the frontal lobe and an ensuing loss in higher brain functions. People mistakingly think the drugs help them because they don't feel as depressed when what is really happening is they simply don't think anymore. It is in effect a mild chemicle lobotomy. Depression is a higher brain function telling your concious mind that something is wrong. You don't want people to figure out what is wrong because God forbid they might wake up and do something to fix the problem. Something the couch therapist psychologist used to help people accomplish. Psychology has been taken over by Psychiatry. Psychology concentrated on helping the individual understand themselves and the world arround them. Psychiatry concentrates simply on behavioral modification and operates on the principles of suppressing the symptom of the problem. The added benifits include shortened lifespan due to the myriad of health complications which supports the depopulation agenda and a population that becomes enslaved to the dependency of the drugs results in the willing enslavement of people who trade their productivity for a continued supply of the drugs. Drug abuse in Indigenous communities is not random. Someone wants us to be pacified and to push us to have a total social breakdown. They want our brains, morals and ambition destroyed. They want our Indigenous youth to be criminalized and minimized. Drug abuse creates misfits and society dropouts who are supposed to be discarded and discredited. It stops us from campaigning for our social and political rights. It’s an old strategy. Going back to the 1830s Britain was the world’s major drug trafficker. The Europeans were jealous of the Chinese. They had so many beautiful items like silk, porcelain, spices, etc. Britain only had wool to trade, which the Chinese did not need. The Europeans had to get silver to trade with China. They also had tobacco from Turtle Island. To increase demand for tobacco they cut it with opium from India. Before long, huge numbers around the trading ports in Canton [the modern city of Guangzhou] were addicted. Silver began draining out of China and ruining the economy. The Chinese emperor passed a law forbidding the import of opium. They wrote to Queen Victoria asking her to control her nationals and stop the illegal trade. The Chinese announced all opium would be seized and burned. U.S. traders ignored the ban and brought in a shipment to Canton. It was confiscated and burned in public. The Americans got the British to declare war on China. The “Opium War” was to defend the “right” of drug dealers. The Chinese were not warlike. They did not have a big army to defend themselves from the British. The British won the war and forced the Chinese to give them a lot of land around Hong Kong. This has since been returned to them. China was forced to make opium legal along with unrestricted propagation of Christianity. The affect was devastating. A lot of research was done on how a few were able to defeat a population of millions through drugs. In the end the Chinese regained their independence. Shouldn’t we ask why the U.S. is in Afghanistan? It is the source of over 90% of the world’s opium! Does somebody want the whole world to be stoned! The Taliban prior to the invasion had wiped out its production and today it is back again in full production. In the 1940’s, British writer Aldous Huxley, who wrote “Brave New World”, went to the U.S. He recruited Allen Watts who became the guru of a nationwide Zen Buddhist cult in California in the 1950s and 1960s. He founded the “Pacifica Foundation” which sponsored two radio stations that pushed the “Liverpool sound”. This was the British imported “hard” rock twang of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and the Animals. They also pioneered “acid rock” and eventually “psychotic punk rock”. In 1943 LSD was developed by Albert Hoffman, a chemist at Sandoz A.B. – a Swiss pharmaceutical owned by banker, S.G. Warburg. [He’s a Federal Reserve shareholder]. British and U.S. intelligence were directly involved. The book “Aquarian Conspiracy” described how new age philosophy was blended with the promotion of the drug culture. “The introduction of major psychedelics in the 1960s was largely attributable by the Central Intelligence Agency CIA’s investigation for possible military use”. It was codenamed “MK Ultra”. In the 1960s kids in the U.S. were protesting against the Vietnam War. The U.S. establishment did not know what to do. On May 4, 1970, the National Guard shot four kids at Kent State University in Ohio. They were protesting against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia ordered by President Nixon. The shooting was meant to quell the demonstrations against the war. It didn’t work. To divert the youth, a humongous drug movement was started. The 1968 mega concert at Woodstock in Sullivan County New York was part of the drug and “free love” movement sponsored by companies like Capitol Records. In New York City the “Ed Sullivan Show” displayed these groups nationwide to promote the drug culture. For the U.S. to continue its warmongering it had to corrupt and destroy its opposition, the youth. According to recently released CIA documents, Allen Dulles, the then head of the CIA, purchased over 100 million doses of LSD – most of which flooded the streets of the USA during the late 1960s. [illuminaticonspiracyarchives.com]. The plan is for every instinct for survival to be controlled by drugs. The drugs produced naturally by the body are being replaced by drugs being manufactured by the multi-national corporations. Today, as a result of 911, the climate of fear has been promoted over the U.S. and Canada. The kids are told that fear can be shut out by going into this false artificial world created by drugs, pills and music. The kids lose touch with reality and are not able to understand or cope with social abuse. Today multi-national corporations and pharmaceuticals have control of recording companies, music, radio stations, television programming, films, mainstream news [msn] and advertising [almost total mind control]. A common theme is U.S. based “ghetto rap”. They are producing these themes for the vulnerable minds of the young people to confuse and control them. The kids learn to switch into rap and drug culture talk. Computers, games and cell phones are programmed to take them into this world. It is normal for people to react when there’s a problem. Often they blame people improperly like their fathers, mothers, girlfriends, boyfriends or people around them. The drugs divert them so their critical thinking doesn’t develop to a level where they can understand complex issues. Drugs create a rift between older generations and young people and to break up families. When people are emotionally hurt by broken families, they can’t think straight. This leaves them insecure, paranoid and open to manipulation by big business. Drugs have replaced the residential school program as a means of committing genocide. The difference is that they’ve persuaded our youth to commit the crimes on themselves. Anyone who wants to get out of it can if they are determined. Elders are there to counsel them. While they are off the drugs they start talking to them and get them back into reality and with their families. After treatment they need help and support and to occupy themselves. It’s an uphill battle for these counselors. Drugs are being flooded into Indigenous communities to stop people from thinking or asking questions. The GLOBALISTS want to be able to lure us into giving up everything we have. In the majority of cases the youth experiment with drugs and then reject it. They get on with their lives. The oldest and the youngest are not involved. Those escaping it are able to stay in school. They are taught to deal with enticement from other kids and dealers. In any society the youth in between are vulnerable. Many of our elders know there’s hope for this generation. Marijuana is many times more powerful than it was in the 1960s. Other drugs are even more dangerous. Some, like chrystal meth, cause brain damage after one shot. The teachers and medical personnel get children on Ritalin and other drugs. Some parents use it to shoot up. It’s vicious! Those Indigenous people who are bringing drugs into our communities have been colonized into wanting power and control over us. Thus, the push for more powerful drugs onto our people! For this plan to be effective, they need to keep us idle and spaced out. Some government or police agents or medical personnel who say they are fighting drugs are actually promoting drugs. The whole dirty business keeps a few people rich. In some cases the dealers are co-opt to become “snitches” in exchange for protection. They purportedly supply information on us and are free to provide drugs to the community to weaken and destroy us. They’re never busted when there’s a “crack down” or a raid! Why?

TAVISTOCK (Brainwashing) "I want to tell you something very clear. Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, October 2001 The Brainwashing of America The "master plan" has been to disguise the true nature of Zionism and the deep roots of Jewish supremacism, from which it sprang. The Zionist's singular goal, "the...negation of exile," (ie returning to the Holy Land) was a fraud, according to the neocon prophet Leo Strauss, who confessed that they had harbored an equally important secondary objective of proving that "the power of religion has been broken." (from Leo Strauss review of Freud's Future Of An Illusion) Their real intention was to force a reversal of world history, all the way back to pre-exile Eretz Yisrael. The plan was to force the fulfillment of "The Birthright," without God's help, creating a kingdom of Jews without God, enthroning themselves at the center of the world. Zionism is an atheistic movement masquerading as the fulfillment of religious prophecy. Zionism is a plan for an end run around God's. It is Satanism. The Zionist "neocons" had inherited the corporate/government machinery that had been taken over by previous Zionist agents, incorporating the brainwashing techniques developed from the psychiatric methods created by mostly Jewish psychologists. [7] They had developed their theories of psychotherapy and social engineering through their study of deviant human nature and anti-Semitism in Nazi psychological indoctrination in the heart of fascist Europe. The Zionist social scientists studied the world which had been distorted by fascist nationalism, seeking to create a science to manipulate personalities, hoping to change the fascist mindset, so that it might truly happen "never again." The corporate government propagandists who had studied their work on the aberrant psychology of the worst of all human beings developed highly coercive manipulative group psychotherapy techniques. The therapeutic conditioning which had been created by Sigmund Freud and his associates became the foundation for brainwashing techniques and a reverse conditioning process, intended to produce a new generation of fascists here in America and wherever else it was to be used. Now variants of these psy-ops techniques are being used in every strata of society, to control and to manipulate large groups of people, most notably through advertising, government disinformation and the "entertainment" industry. Intellectual Jewish refugees, who had fled to America and England from Nazi Germany and Austria, brought different elements of the new Nazism with them, which they later formulated into their specialized sciences by interpreting their own personal experiences and research. The neoconservative students of those scholars fashioned their research into a science of political indoctrination, based on their combined knowledge of fascist tactics of deception and intimidation. The Zionist neoconservatives didn't build the government machinery; they merely inserted themselves into the driving seats and forced the American people to line-up quietly behind them. Through fear and terrorist intimidation, they forced the people to accept a fascist/racist ideology that they would never willingly accept otherwise. They had inherited a government of self-seeking "public servants" who had stopped serving the public long ago, most of which had been indoctrinated with the new ideology at foundations (mostly associated with the Tavistock Institute). Their mentors, the Jewish psychologists and social scientists who were key players in the history of Tavistock, had done their preparatory work very well, from their seats on the thousands of think tanks and foundations. The Tavistock Institute is a $6 Billion a year network of Foundations in the U.S., consisting of ten major institutions, 400 subsidiaries, and 3000 other study groups and think tanks. It is funded by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. From these positions of power, they applied the manipulative psychological techniques that had been developed by Sigmund Freud and his students. Sigmund Freud (avowed atheist with admitted Oedipal impulses toward his own mother) considered mankind to be the vilest of all of God's creation. Freud's work reflected his own repugnant beliefs: "The individual is essentially an enemy of society and has instinctual urges that must be restrained to help society function. 'Among these instinctual wishes are those of incest, cannibalism, and lust for killing.' His view of human nature is that it is anti-social, rebellious, and has high sexual and destructive tendencies. The destructive nature of humans sets a pre-inclination for disaster when humans must interact with others in society. 'For masses are lazy and unintelligent; they have no love for instinctual renunciation, and they are not to be convinced by argument of its inevitability; and the individuals composing them support one another in giving free rein to their indiscipline.' So destructive is human nature, he claims, that 'it is only through the influence of individuals who can set an example and whom masses recognize as their leaders that they can be induced to perform the work and undergo the renunciations on which the existence of civilization depends.' All this sets a terribly hostile society that could implode if it were not for civilizing forces and developing government..." - From The Future Of An Illusion, by Sigmund Freud. Freud equates religion with an instinctual drive, the product of a childlike mind: "Religion is an outshoot of the father-complex, and represents man's helplessness in the world, having to face the ultimate fate of death, the struggle of civilization, and the forces of nature. He views [belief in] God as a child-like 'longing for [a] father.' In his words '...gods...must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them'." - Future Of An Illusion The psychologists and social scientists associated with Tavistock have woven the degenerate ideas of Freud into the neoconservative ideology. There they have implemented their mass-conditioning techniques as part of the plan to create a fascist Zionist America and a fascist world. The plans for us are almost completed. According to Dr. John Coleman, in his revelatory work, CONSPIRATORS' HIERARCHY: THE STORY OF THE COMMITTEE OF 300 "The ideology of American foundations was created by the Tavistock Institute...study the effect of shellshock on British soldiers who survived World War I... to establish the breaking point of men under stress, under the direction of the British Army Bureau of Psychological Warfare...its prophet, Sigmond Freud,...Tavistock's pioneer work in behavioral science along Freudian lines of controlling humans...Tavistock Institute developed the mass brain-washing techniques which were first used experimentally on American prisoners of war in Korea...All Tavistock and American foundation techniques have a single goal---to break down the psychological strength of the individual and render him helpless to oppose the dictators of the World Order." At Tavistock, German refugee, Kurt Lewin originated the anti-Germany propaganda campaign to "turn the American public against Germany and involve us in World War II...James Paul Warburg, son of Paul Warburg who wrote the Federal Reserve Act, and nephew of Max Warburg who had financed Hitler, set up the Institute fir Policy Studies to promote [LSD]... and the New Left counter-culture." "[The] National Training Laboratories... operation revolves around the particular form of Tavistock degenerate psychology known as 'group dynamics,' developed by German Tavistock operative Kurt Lewin...In a Lewinite brainwashing group, a number of individuals from varying backgrounds and personalities, are manipulated by a 'group leader' to form a 'consensus' of opinion, achieving a new 'group identity.' The key to the process is the creation of a controlled environment, in which stress is introduced (sometimes called dissonance) to crack an individual's belief structure. Using the peer pressure of other group members, the individual is cracked, and a new personality emerges with new values. The degrading experience causes the person to deny that any change has taken place... At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance & Commerce, the indoctrinated are taught how to produce cooked statistics known as econometrics from the Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates. At the Institute For The Future they work to manipulate government to control large groups of people, writing position papers advocating destabilizing actions intended to be negative catalysts for change in America, such as "liberalizing abortion laws, drug usage and that cars entering an urban area pay tolls, teaching birth control in public schools, requiring registration of firearms, making use of drugs a non-criminal offense, legalizing homosexuality." The Stanford Research Institute "emphasis on mind control research and future sciences... Stanford Research is plugged into at least 200 smaller think tanks doing research into every facet of life in America...At present Stanford's computers are linked with 2500 sister research consoles." At the Rand Research and Development Corporation, "there are literally thousands of highly important companies, government institutions and organizations that make use of RANDS's services...brainwashing remains the primary function of RAND." At Tavistock, Alexandre Kojève's studies of Hegelian dialectics provided the final pieces of the puzzle for the Zionist plotters seeking to force the new fascist ideology on to the unsuspecting American people. It was Kojève's interpretations of "Hegel through the lens of Marx," in his "End of History" thesis that produced the "clash of civilization" theory of Francis ***uyama. Using the dialectic method, they constructed a credible "bogeyman," in the form of Islamic terrorism, with which to herd the frightened American sheeple right into Israel's open arms, since the Zionist state would logically appear to be the antithesis of the Islamists. Since the 9/11 attacks the Islamists have been inflated into an almost supernatural menace. A dark whisper campaign has nearly succeeded in equating all Islam with terrorism. The echo chamber of the corporate media has amplified their reputations as terrorists by focusing on their former exploits against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The coining of the deceptive term "Islamofascists" linked Islamic ideology to the Nazis, providing the propagandistic ammunition needed for the brainwashing campaign. In the indoctrinated neo-fascist ideology, modeled after National Socialism, liberals are traitors, the enemies of the growing police state, while anti-liberals (conservatives) are the new anti-Semitic super-patriot agitators. Their mind-numbing campaign of fear and intimidation created a state of dissonance within the minds of the targeted American populace, making the people susceptible to suggestion. Utilizing the brainwashing methods of group dynamics, they made this new paradigm the new national "consensus." Hyper-patriotism became a guilt weapon, used to bludgeon the new fascist group identity into the scrambled conscious of post 9/11 America. The historical lessons taught by Jewish refugee George Mosse (mentor of neoconservative agitator Michael Ledeen) on the psychological and political indoctrination skills used by the Nazi propagandists, showed the way to the fascist transformation of American political parties, using the new mythology of Islamofascism. The object of that government/media campaign was to make the people easily suggestible through the psychology of "learned helplessness." The mixture of hyped patriotism, guilt, fear and helplessness made us true sheeple, who could only trust the new fascistic government to shepherd us to safety past all those scary Muslims. According to another Jewish psychologist, Martin Seligman, the author of "Learned Optimism" (the alleged psychological antidote to learned helplessness), human minds can be trained to passively accept unpleasant situations, "...nullifying the natural reactions, which normally cause attempts to escape or to control the situation. It is a state of deep depression, brought on by prolonged immersion in a reality of learned helplessness...A person with learned helplessness easily gives in her/his goals if s/he failed few times in achieving them. Such persons show apathy, no motivation, depression and pessimism."The American military is now developing virtual reality computer simulations, based on the theory of learned helplessness, to help it plan psy-ops operations to help it manipulate the populations of entire nations. The intent is to "...test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners. By applying theories of economics and human psychology, its developers believe they can predict how individuals and mobs will respond to various stressors... They try to anticipate how stressed-out populations can be manipulated by increasing the fear and anxiety-induced helplessness, through the introduction of panic-causing events." The A. I. thinking of the massive computer simulations used in the program is based upon the theories of Israeli-American cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman.

Lazar many people do not want to be bothered with the truth. They have themselves set up comportable in their own delusions and ignorance. They may actually just enjoy their life as it is, or maybe they have too many personal issues and they can't even handle those very well. It is very easy for such people to brush it off and justify themselves by thinking it is all a bullshit conspiracy theory. Very easy indeed because it is in fact a conspiracy. What makes it just a theory to them is their own ignorance which they embrace by choice. Lifting oneself to see and face the painful reality is painful and frankly is a heavy burden if your the type of person who truely cares about others. Ignorance is bliss and if you never wake up you can just sleep through life in a delusional dream until one day you hit your brick wall.

Haskanymem ko tesakete im kartsike mikich yrisha dera masin kanivor patmakan shat fakter kan yev aisorva Global Politik iravichake bertyma miain en hartisn vo irok et yzhere kan yev irok stextsvyma nor mi hamashxarain yzh... Baits amenakarevore imanalna te incha yzym et yzhe zhoxovyrtits... Patasxane ynem yerkar tariner hetaxyzelyts heto.. Lav Lazar jan es bazhni mech chem geri hesa mihat hatyk ko mekel bolor Angleren haskatsox mer Hayeri hamar shat hetakerkir materialner tsyts ketam...

Lazar jan lav hetakerkir materialner ynem Angleren lezvov Globalni Politikai masin mekel Novi Miravoi Poridaki masin karoxa yzenas kartas?