Puppet MastersS


Attention

How close are we to 1984?

Justin King
Digital Journal
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 01:18 UTC
George Orwell
© Wikimedia
With every step in the march towards tyranny, some muffled voice in the media decries the move as "Orwellian." It happens so often that George Orwell's novel may have lost its power as a cautionary tale.

It may be time to conduct an inventory of society and see how well we match the dystopian prediction. George Orwell was an unrelenting social critic constantly tormented by a vision of the future that he imagined. In what many consider his masterpiece work, 1984, he brings this vision to life.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.

The novel (spoiler alert) follows Winston through his life living under the watchful eye of Big Brother, an ever-present and fictional figurehead that takes care of the constantly warring nation. Most citizens truly adore Big Brother, and the constant surveillance makes certain those that don't at least behave as though they do.

Winston commits acts of mental rebellion with the encouragement of a colleague named O'Brian. He falls in love, with another young thought criminal named Julia. In the end, O'Brian turns out to be working for Big Brother and Julia and Winston are sent to the Ministry of Love for imprisonment, torture, and reeducation.

More disturbing than the actual plot is the amazing detail Orwell uses to describe the society and the mechanisms by which the ruling elite maintain control. It provides a ready description of mechanisms that citizens should be wary of, or a ready template for an oppressor to establish a government. Those mechanisms and their modern counterparts are discussed below.
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Pirates

Stupidly rich Dubai sheikh hires 60 young Italian women to be his family's 'personal shoppers'


The Guardian
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 12:49 UTC
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A wealthy Dubai sheikh is scouring Venice for a small army of female assistants to help him spend his cash

It seemed like an April Fools' joke. On Tuesday 1 April, news circulated in Italy that a Dubai sheikh had a job opening - in fact, he had 60 of them. The advertisement was posted on behalf of an, as yet unknown, Sheikh from Dubai. The candidate requirements? Applicants must be female, attractive, stylish, aged (or at least look) between 18 and 28, from the province of Venice, able to speak English (French and Arabic a bonus) and, most importantly, possess supremely sharp shopping skills.

In return they would be offered €100 (£83) a day and the opportunity to join the sheikh on a visit to Europe, where they would attend various high-end dinners and events, stay in luxury accommodation and fly "by private jet only" between Madrid, Paris, London, Stockholm, Ibiza, Milan and Venice. The role itself? To assist his numerous wives and daughters with their shopping.

Mauro Belcaro, owner of Italian fashion company Rosy Garbo and casting agency Padua DOC, is in charge of recruitment. He quickly confirms the ad's legitimacy. "I got a call from an agency in Dubai because we regularly cast fashion models and other roles in the industry," he says. They wanted Italian women because of "their strong taste in fashion".
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Che Guevara

Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro meditates regularly, grew up listening to John Lennon and Led Zeppelin and says he never wanted to become leader

Seumas Milne & Jonathan Watts
The Guardian
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 12:32 UTC
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Whole lotta love: Maduro 'the hippy' reared on Led Zeppelin and Lennon

It might seem an unlikely claim for Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, to make after weeks of violent unrest in the country but the burly, moustachioed, former bus driver describes himself as a bit of a hippy and a fan of John Lennon's campaigns for peace and love.

Both have been in short supply in Venezuela in recent months as the country's worst civil conflict in a decade has left up to 39 dead, many more injured and several opposition figures jailed for inciting violence. Protesters have continued an often violent campaign to overthrow the government, including arson attacks on universities, bus stations and other public buildings.

But the president at the centre of this storm shrugs off opposition accusations that he has been acting like a dictator and using excessive force. Instead, Maduro insists that he and his ministers would have joined the protests themselves if they had really been about shortages - and are inspired by musical and political icons who championed non-violent protest.
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Che Guevara

Best of the Web: Nicolás Maduro: Protests by rich are U.S. attempt to steal Venezuela's oil and subvert our democracy

Seumas Milne & Jonathan Watts
The Guardian
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 11:28 UTC
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In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Venezuela's president claims the Obama administration is fomenting unrest with the aim of provoking a Ukraine-style 'slow-motion' coup

Venezuela's president has accused the US of using continuing street protests to attempt a "slow-motion" Ukraine-style coup against his government and "get their hands on Venezuelan oil".

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Nicolás Maduro, elected last year after the death of Hugo Chávez, said what he described as a "revolt of the rich" would fail because the country's "Bolivarian revolution" was more deeply rooted than when it had seen off an abortive US-backed coup against Chávez in 2002.

Venezuela, estimated to have the world's largest oil reserves, has faced continuous violent street protests - focused on inflation, shortages and crime - since the beginning of February, after opposition leaders launched a campaign to oust Maduro and his socialist government under the slogan of "the exit".

"They are trying to sell to the world the idea that the protests are some of sort of Arab spring," he said. "But in Venezuela, we have already had our spring: our revolution that opened the door to the 21st century".

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Rocket

NASA stupidly decides to end most activities with Russia - putting astronauts at risk‏

Laura Smith-Spark
CNN
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 03:21 UTC
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NASA is suspending much of its work with Russia in light of its actions in Ukraine but said it will continue to collaborate with Russia's space agency on International Space Station operations.

The decision by the U.S. space agency to halt "the majority of its ongoing engagements" with Russia's Roscosmos comes amid heightened tensions sparked by Russia's annexation last month of Ukraine's southern Crimea region.

A statement sent out by NASA on Wednesday said the U.S. space agency was acting "given Russia's ongoing violation of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
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Control Panel

CIA revolution foiled in Cuba: U.S. government set up fake social media network in order to spark 'Cuban Spring' - White House sez: "So what? We do it all the time"


RT
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 11:09 UTC
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Sneaky Social Network: US busted over subversive Cuban Twitter campaign

America's International Development agency admitted to running a Twitter-like social network in Cuba, However, it dismissed allegations it was an attempt to undermine the government, saying everything it did was completely within the law. But as RT's Gayane Chichakyan reports, not everyone's convinced.

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Dollar

The real economy is underground commerce

James Hall
The Daily Business Report
Wed, 02 Apr 2014 10:33 UTC
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© BATR
As the deadline for filing yearly income taxes is rapidly approaching, businesses especially hard pressed to make a profit in a depressed economy struggle with their tax compliance. Reporting legitimate deductions and costs is the easy part. When you are losing money, disclosing a diminished income stream based upon lower margins, is not a difficult decision. Nevertheless, small enterprises burdened with government regulation costs and tax obligations, often are unable to conduct business and retain a net return. Self-proprietorships frequently are so scared that many look to the cash underground economy to hide income earnings.

This shadow commerce, practiced throughout the world, is the real economy. Actually, in the United States, tax compliance is quite high by comparison. With the acceptance of instruments of credit, the banking system has become more of a tax reporting service than a financier of a healthy economy. The taxman would have you believe that voluntary transactions in cash constitute a black market in illegal dealing. Casting the dispersion of seedy activities upon the motivation to subsist is a common practice of governmental revenue agents.
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Stormtrooper

Illegitimate Kiev government launches 'anti-terrorist operation' against protesters in Kharkov, East Ukraine


RT
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 10:16 UTC
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Ukraine's Interior Ministry has launched an anti-terrorist operation in the eastern city of Kharkov by blocking the city center, said acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. At least 70 activists have been arrested by the police.

"The anti-terrorist operation has begun. The center of the city and Metro stations are closed. As soon as we finish the operation, we will unblock them," wrote Avakov on his Facebook page, "The building of Regional State Administration is totally free from the separatists who seized it earlier."

According to Avakov, no weapons have been used during the operation.

On Monday police clashed with anti-coup protesters in an effort to push the activists back from the city administration building. Kharkov demonstrators in the second-largest Ukrainian city took control of the building earlier in the day, after proclaiming independence of the region from Kiev.

Police reportedly used fire-hoses, stun grenades, and tear gas to push the crowd back from the building. In response, protesters threw several Molotov cocktails at the building and set a pile of tires on fire. The blaze soon spread to the first floor of the building.


Comment: So the protesters in Kiev were 'revolutionaries', but the protesters in Kharkov, Donestsk and Odessa are terrorists? Right...

And Yanukovych couldn't arm his security forces against armed 'protesters', but the new regime has no compunction about arming its goons against unarmed protesters? Interesting double standards...

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Quenelle - Golden

The speech that made him prime minister? On anniversary of French 9/11, Manuel Valls spits fury against anyone criticising Jews in France


Haaretz
Thu, 20 Mar 2014 06:15 UTC
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Old anti-Semitism of French extreme right 'feeds off hate for Israel,' France's Manuel Valls says at memorial for Toulouse attack.

French Interior Minister Manuel Valls called anti-Zionism "an invitation to anti-Semitism" at a Paris memorial remembering four Jews who were murdered in Toulouse in 2012.

Valls made his remarks on Wednesday - the two-year anniversary of the fatal shootings at a Jewish day school of Rabbi Jonathan Sandler; his two sons, Arieh, 6, and Gabriel, 3; and Miriam Monsenego, 8.

The old anti-Semitism of the French extreme right "is renewed," Valls said. "It feeds off hate for Israel. It feeds off anti-Zionism. Because anti-Zionism is an invitation to anti-Semitism."

The memorial was organized by the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities on Trocadero Square near the Eiffel Tower, where more than 1,000 participants gathered to remember the victims of Mohammed Merah, the 23-year-old Islamist.
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Light Saber

Best of the Web: Sergei Lavrov's olive branch to the West: "It's not Russia that is destabilising Ukraine - If we don't co-operate soon, chaos may take hold"

Sergei Lavrov
The Guardian
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 04:29 UTC
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© ITAR-TASS/Barcroft MediaA rally for a secession referendum in Lenin Square, Donetsk, Ukraine. Federalization of the country looks like the only solution. Of course, 'balkanization' of Ukraine may have been the goal all along...
The west has been needlessly whipping up tension - if we don't co-operate soon, chaos may take hold

The profound and pervasive crisis in Ukraine is a matter of grave concern for Russia. We understand perfectly well the position of a country which became independent just over 20 years ago and still faces complex tasks in constructing a sovereign state. Among them is the search for a balance of interests among its various regions, the peoples of which have different historical and cultural roots, speak different languages and have different perspectives on their past and present, and their country's future place in the world.

Given these circumstances, the role of external forces should have been to help Ukrainians protect the foundations of civil peace and sustainable development, which are still fragile. Russia has done more than any other country to support the independent Ukrainian state, including for many years subsidising its economy through low energy prices. Last November, at the outset of the current crisis, we supported Kiev's wish for urgent consultations between Ukraine, Russia and the EU to discuss harmonising the integration process. Brussels flatly rejected it. This stand reflected the unproductive and dangerous line the EU and US have been taking for a long time. They have been trying to compel Ukraine to make a painful choice between east and west, further aggravating internal differences.

Comment:
...our country has steadily promoted a system of equal and indivisible security in the Euro-Atlantic area. We proposed signing a treaty to that effect, and advocated the creation of a common economic and human space from the Atlantic to the Pacific which would also be open to post-Soviet countries.
Unfortunately, Sergei, as we're sure you well know, this is precisely what the Anglo-American Western Alliance will not allow. They stirred up two World Wars to prevent it happening. They absolutely hate the idea that the Eurasian landmass will naturally come together and leave their millennial dream of world domination in tatters.

Geopolitics of Empire: Mackinder's Heartland Theory and the Containment of Russia

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