vheadline.com

Published: Sunday, May 07, 2006
Bylined to: Stephen Lendman

VHeadline.com commentarist Stephen Lendman writes:? Once again I’ll try talking some sense to two individuals who who email their strange views of the world to VHeadline.com and need some straightening out. To spare them further embarrassment, they shall remain nameless.

I know where they get their ideas, and I tried before explaining to them and others that when you hang out with the wrong people you get wrong ideas.

I’m referring to the dominant corporate media, especially the most virulent strain of it (outside of Venezuela where it may be the worst in the world) in the US that’s harmful to your health and welfare when you take regular doses of it. They specialize in closing minds after they first fill them with the worst and most dangerous kinds of rot and mush.

And once they’re filled, it may require major surgery to undo the damage they cause.

But it can be done successfully for those who want it.

I’ve now got my trusty scalpel in hand, am preparing to make an incision, and they don’t call me ‘Mr. Fix-It’ for nothing. I’ll try to excise their delusions about the so-called “drug wars” and some loony “commie” conspiracy. I urge them and others who think like them just to take a deep breath, relax, and let me try again to save them from the world of their delusions.

Here’s how I’ll do it:

Some readers may recall how in times past, large crowds would come to see a local strongman take on all comers courageous enough to see if they were stronger or could at least last long enough against him to win a prize offered to those who tried and did. The local champ usually took on opponents one at a time and most often dispatched them all with ease. I’ll go one up on them and take on two at a time responding to two VHeadline.com antagonists. I hope I can help straighten them out as well as others afflicted with the same mental malady. I also need a diversion. I spend so much time on serious work, I need some occasional comic relief to break the tension. These two characters, only a mischievous right wing extremist could love, never fail to deliver it.

• Their prattle is always good for a belly laugh, although in responding I intend to discuss serious issues while rapping their knuckles at the same time.

I shouldn’t belittle them too much. I imagine they really believe the stuff they write even though the relationship between the facts and their fiction is plain to those who know the difference. That makes me feel like I’m not playing fair even going one against two because both these characters make it so easy for me or anyone who knows what’s going on to shoot them down. I wish they’d at least offer a decent challenge, but having gone head-to-head with them both before and others like them, I guess that’s too much to expect. So despite the mismatch, I’ll take on these two lost souls and in the process set the record straight.

My Imitation of a Strongman in An Unfair Fight
First: The Hoax of the So-Called “War on Drugs”

First the latest “thinking” of one emailer who warned us of a “secret communist/socialist plot … a conspiracy to undermine the US.” I was trembling as I began to read it … but not after the first sentence. The sender must still be shaking since he believes a corporate media flack claiming the US is losing the war on drugs in Latin America even after supposedly spending US$5 billion against it. I can’t really blame his ignorance on this subject because he has lots of company who feel as he does — even if they have it all backwards.

I’ve written some on the so-called “war on drugs,” and with the help of others doing the research and learning the facts, explained this is just another government scam to scare us so we’ll buy into any reckless scheme they have in mind. The only way they can do it is to scare us enough so we’ll go along.

• We all know about the king of scams — those now you see ‘em, now you don’t WMDs.

But the tried and true sure-fire all-time winner is to declare war on something, anything. So we have a “war on drugs,” a “war on terrorism,” and all of us over 25 remember the most golden of the oldies — the “cold war.”

It was a scam too, and when it ended and we no longer had the Soviets to blame for all the world’s problems, our masters of deceit in Washington were desperate to find a replacement. They settled on the “war on terror” which was a resurrection of the Reagan era “war on international terrorism” no one now remembers.

I know it’s hard to believe, but back in the 80s, Ronald Reagan actually convinced half the public that the Sandinistas in Nicaragua were a threat to invade Texas, head north from there and threaten the country. ?He tried to get Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid to go along with him … he had to decline, saying if he did 70 million Mexicans would die laughing.

I can barely contain myself just writing about it.

In the US, these scare tactics are invented as needed all the time.

I love the PR geniuses who come up with this stuff, first test market them (something I once did in my business life) to see if they work (it’s called a trial balloon in Washington) and then go with them if they do. These three would win “Oscars” in Hollywood if there was a category on awards night for best propaganda deception by a government body or most effective lies to sell bad government policy.

Regarding the “war on drugs” deception, I won’t go into great detail here on what illicit drug trafficking is all about. I’ll just discuss it briefly to explain how important this trade is to our economy, and that we do everything possible to keep it flourishing. The one thing we won’t tolerate is eliminating it. We really are spending those billions mentioned above, but not to stop illicit drug trafficking. They’re intended only to help right wing governments like Colombia fund their military and complicit paramilitaries fight opposition groups like the FARC and ELN as well as crush trade unions in support of US corporate interests.

Those interests include keeping coca production high … but not in FARC or ELN controlled areas where aerial eradication tries to weaken these groups and eliminate competition in the trade. I was startled to learn that the annual take now from illicit drugs is $400-500 billion.

• That’s about double the sales volume Big Pharma reported in 2005.

Also, those profiting big time from it include more than the “kingpins” and organized crime. It’s well known the CIA has been involved in drug trafficking throughout its half century existence and now is up to its neck veins in the huge heroin business in places like Afghanistan. They also love the revenues they get from cocaine and most other high profit illicit drugs. It’s a known, documented fact that the CIA literally partners with criminal syndicates worldwide. It guarantees the crime bosses easy market access and the CIA a huge revenue stream. For both sides it’s a marriage made in heaven and one neither party would ever want to put asunder.

And if anyone’s wondering — what about those big drug busts we hear about. They’re just part of the scam to convince the public we’re really cracking down and succeeding. It’s all an illusion, what they call in Hollywood “special effects” to manufacture anything they want us to see. And oh by the way, the US DEA is also in on this scheme, and their so-called “anti-drug effort” is just cover for big-time trafficking so they too can get a cut of the take.

It’s also another known, documented fact that many banks in the US, including the major international money center ones, profit handsomely from “laundering” drug money. There’s so much of it around, this activity is one of their important profit centers, and they’ll do all they can never to allow it to dry up.

A quick comment on how we know all this … it’s from a combination of great investigative journalism and insiders from CIA, DEA, and the Justice Department who got fed up enough to tell what they knew.

• Lots of credible books have been written on this including by some of these people. And the truth has been out in the open for some time.

The corporate media would never report it and went so far as to destroy the career of one courageous journalist who did, Gary Webb, and then his life as well some years later. So all this activity is allowed to go on sub rosa while simultaneously the propaganda system rails against the evils of “dangerous drugs” and the wicked traffickers who profit from them.

The message is slick and effective and proves again you can fool lots of people all the time.

That message, however, is false and misleading even though I don’t recommend using any illicit drug (or most legal ones either which too often are even more dangerous). I’ve never used an illegal drug, never would, and rarely even use a legal one. But unknown to most people cocaine is not a drug, and its use was legal in the US until the federal government classified it as one in 1914 for the first time. Coca leaf, in fact, has been cultivated in the Andean region of Latin America for the last 4,000 years, and its consumption has been part of the culture there since before the Incas. It has many safe uses including to relieve fatigue, suppress appetite, as a communal activity in tea or wine and to offset altitude sickness.

Even the US Embassy in Peru recommends it for the latter purpose … but you won’t ever hear that mentioned on Fox News or the other so-called news and information programs (aka the official channels of state propaganda, lies, deception and sanitizing).

The Lunacy of a “Commie” Plot

As for some commie/socialist or whatever plot, the only ones I know about come out of the Hollywood bad dream factory. I know all the brainwashed faithful love their work, and when some matinee idol on the silver screen or your TV one reads his or her lines it sounds real and convincing even though some writer made it all up and sold it for a big payday. But hold on. Even a talented Hollywood screen writer or producer won’t buy into some lunatic notion of a Chavez/Castro plot to corner the cocaine market, buy guns, jets and missiles with the huge profits, and then help some mysterious Commies no one ever heard of or whoever take over the US and the world.

Try selling that idea and they’ll laugh or throw you out of their office before you can say “radical left wing conspiracy” three time fast. And you won’t even get that out once if you say Chavez (and maybe Castro too) is building a nuke to detonate in LA or Houston. They’ll think you’re inhaling some of the stuff you’re railing against — a lot of it.

The Kind of “Friendship” No One Wants

Just one more thing. I’ve neglected another emailer, and must at least give him a paragraph or two. I don’t need much more than that to dispatch him, but I know he’s been waiting patiently. Anyone believing the US and Venezuela are still good friends may also believe playing the lottery is a good way to get rich or US elected officials are in office to serve the public and not the dominant corporate interests that put them there.

The plain truth is that with friends like the US, Hugo Chavez needs no enemies.

I’ve grown tired explaining to the uninformed the US has already tried and failed three times to oust the man and is now with 100% certainty well along in its plans for a fourth attempt possibly to include a military assault and assassinations this time. I wrote a whole article about this posted on this web site. You can find and read it, so I won’t repeat it now. A friendship between these two countries is the one way I’d never characterize the relationship. Mortal enemies would be more like it.

US plans to oust Hugo Chavez for the fourth time picking up steam

The evidence for this keeps pouring out and heating up which was evident in the anti-Chavez rhetoric on the front page page of the Wall Street Journal on April 24. In a feature article, the Journal headlined “Chavez Plans to Take More Control of Oil Away From Foreign Firms.” The Journal went on to claim Hugo Chavez is “planning a new assault on Big Oil, potentially taking a major step toward nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry that could hurt oil-company profits, reduce production and put further pressure on global oil prices.” And they said that all in one breath.

For all followers of the ongoing very real soap opera pitting the US against Venezuela, the Journal article is a clear sample of real fighting language — hostile, inflammatory and plain cockeyed false and misleading as the Journal writer surely knows but wrote it anyway. He had to do it because that’s implicit in his job description, and if he wants to keep it, he’ll do as he’s told in dutiful service to the empire his employer represents and speaks for.

What the Journal and other corporate media sources won’t tell you is that Venezuela and all other nations have every right to majority ownership of and most of the benefits from their own natural resources.

• They belong to them, not us … they also have the right to be able to collect a fair and equitable amount of tax revenue from their foreign investors who are profiting handsomely from their investments there.

So what is the Journal so upset about?

Under the new government plan, foreign oil companies operating in the oil rich Orinoco River basin (like US based Exxon-Mobil and ConocoPhillips and the French company Total SA) will have their oil royalties raised to 30% from the current level of 16.7%, and their taxes raised from 34% to 50%. Sound unreasonable? Not to me. I think both numbers aren’t high enough and should be raised further, but that notion wouldn’t go down well in corporate boardrooms. I do have a suggestion for them if they’re unhappy enough. They’re free to leave.

• I’m quite sure other oil companies will be delighted to come in and take their place.

Now some hard facts that support my case for Venezuela and against Big Oil. In 2005, Exxon-Mobil (I do tend to pick on them a lot, but they make it so easy for me) showed it’s currently the biggest company in the world. In its annual report to shareholders and Wall Street investors, it reported the highest annual profit ever earned by a publicly traded company. It was a breathtaking $36 billion on sales revenue of $371 billion. The good times just keep rolling for this oil giant as it just reported its operating results for its 2006 first quarter, and they’re better than ever: profits were up 7% from last year to $8.4 billion (their highest ever for a first quarter) and sales were up as well by 8.4% to $89 billion.

Now to put that in perspective, their reported sales revenue in 2005 was over 2.8 times the total Venezuelan GDP last year of about $130 billion (I used that figure although I found five different numbers reported ranging up to about $160 billion which was an estimate). And if Exxon-Mobil were a country, it would rank in size ahead of nearly 75% of all countries in the world.

• Anyone want to get out a crying towel for them?
• Does anyone think Exxon-Mobil can’t afford to ante up a little more?

And shall we ask for volunteers to take up a collection for them to make up for the extra amount they’ll now have to pay if they want to play. I don’t see any hands.

The Empire Has a New Spokesperson — AKA Flack

On second thought, I do see one. It’s from the newly appointed Bush press secretary and former Fox (who else) reporter Tony Snow. Having done the same job with his last employer, he should make a seamless transition to his new assignment for the empire. The man was a former speech writer for the elder Bush when he was president where he learned his craft and then perfected it at his Fox desk. So we can all breathe easily knowing every time Tony holds a presidential briefing for reporters - he’ll always deliver a first-rate Snow job.

More Evidence of US Plans Against Venezuela

A further point. The US is now building permanent military bases in the Dominican Republic which shares the same island territory in Central America with Haiti (which the US also now controls despite the February election of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide ally Rene Preval).

It currently has between 12-15,000 troops stationed there, and it’s been reported that large quantities of weapons of all types are being shipped in.

For what? There’s no conflict in the DR, and there’s still a large contingent of so-called UN peacekeepers in Haiti as the nation having finished its runoff legislative elections prepares on May 14 (as now scheduled) for the inauguration of Rene Preval as the new President. We can only speculate what’s up at this point. But two possibilities stand out: those forces may be used to move into Haiti if needed (meaning to repress the public in their demands for equity and justice still far from their reach).

However, more ominously, it’s possible they’re intended for an invasion of Venezuela in an all out assault there to overthrow the Chavez government forcibly.

At the same time, they may also be used against Bolivia to unseat President Evo Morales in response to his May 1 nationalization of the country’s gas reserves and his intention to nationalize the country’s other natural resources like forests and mines. Stay tuned to this web site for the latest developments as they unfold.

And now my response to a second emailer. I can see his computer is still working, but I think it needs a little lubrication or tuning up from the kind of material he’s sending out over it. Long ago I might have washed my young kids’ mouths out with soap for lots less than his kind of vitriol against one of the best, most informative and accurate of all sites on the worldwide web. Editor Roy Carson has done a magnificent job all by himself and on a shoestring. He stands resolute and tall working every day reporting accurately and as fully as possible on events in Venezuela and issues affecting the country and region. He’s also generous in giving a forum to commentaries on other important subjects like some of the ones I often write about.

• Anyone reading VHeadline.com daily can stay well-informed and gain understanding and insight from it on many crucial issues affecting us all.

You’ll find none of that on your TV screen or in the morning paper where only corporate and state approved doctrine is allowed — all of it designed to keep viewers and readers like mushrooms: well-watered and in the dark. And that’s the best thing I can say about them.

VHeadline.com readers are spared all that … they get real information in depth from many commentators, and with it they’re well-equipped and immunized against the state propaganda machine this emailer is still getting his lines from. I know it’s hard for him to understand and appreciate that … but that’s the price you pay for watching Fox News and all the others that try to imitate it. When all you get is the “party line” that follows the inviolable rule that facts unfavorable to the empire are never to be reported, what other opinions could you possibly have than the ones they fill your head with.

But Mr. X, Mr. X “wherefore art thou?” Mr. X. Didn’t I explain how those people work in my last response to you. Now don’t tell me you didn’t read it. I wrote it just for you. I tried hard to tell you how they use you, fill your head with mush and bilge, play you for a fool and then laugh at you behind your back knowing they have lots of others like you out there they control like mindless puppets believing every nutty thing they tell you. From your comments I can see they’re right. You’re regurgitating their lines, the party line, the propaganda. I’m ashamed of you. Can’t you tell the difference after I showed you how? Go back and read what I wrote again and take notes this time. It’s not rocket science. All you have to do is pay attention. Everything you wrote shows you and others like you have it all backwards, and you apparently don’t even know the difference between a “stoolie” and a “tool.” If you own a dictionary, look ‘em up and find out.

A final comment for you. No one pays Roy Carson or all of us who write commentaries for VHeadline.com, including myself, ten cents for what we do. We’re all volunteers working hard to bring readers real and important information so they’ll understand what’s really going on, why, for whose gain and at whose expense. We’re beholden only to a committed desire and effort to get the facts right and explain them clearly and plainly to our readers.

Isn’t that what journalism and honest commentary is supposed to be all about.

• I’m sorry if you can’t handle the truth and don’t like what you’re reading. How could you when your brain is washed and conditioned by the kind of rot you get on Fox and its imitators, and you’re foolish enough to believe them.

So to this individual and others like him him, it’s time to recognize you have a serious problem. Call it an information deficit disorder … it’s contagious, and if left untreated can be fatal. In your condition, you need help, lots of it. I’m trying to give it to you, but so far you seem to think “the truth hurts.”

Maybe, but only until you acclimate to it …

Once you do. and get used to what real news and information is like, I guarantee you’ll agree with me that it will also set you free.

Stephen Lendman
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net

• Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago
  and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net

http://www.vheadline.com/lendman