World of Resistance Report: Financial Institutions Fear Global Revolution

Andrew Gavin Marshall

Originally posted at Occupy.com

In Part 1 of the WoR Report, I examined Zbigniew Brzezinski’s warnings to elites around the world of the “global political awakening” of humanity. In Part 2, I looked at the relationship between inequality and social instability, and in Part 3 I examined the World Economic Forum’s warnings of growing inequality and the “lost generation” of youth who pose the greatest threat to oligarchic interests around the world. In this fourth installment in the series, we turn to reports from top banks and financial institutions warning about the growing threats to their interests posed by an increasingly disenfranchised and impoverished population – manifested in protests, strikes and social unrest.

In November of 2011, Bob Diamond, the CEO of one of the world’s largest banks, Barclays, stated in a speech: “We’ve seen violent protests in Greece, public sector strikes across Europe, [and] anti-capitalist demonstrations that started on Wall Street have spread to other places around the world.” Diamond added: “Young people have been especially hit hard by high levels of unemployment. The threat of further social unrest remains if we don’t work together to generate stronger economic growth and more jobs.”

TURKEY’S URBAN UPRISING: THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY AGAINST INEQUALITY, OLIGARCHY, OPPRESSION AND TYRANNY

Andrew Gavin Marshall

It began innocently enough, it seemed, when a plan to turn Istanbul’s Gezi Park – located at Taksim Square – into a shopping mall spurred a small group of environmental activists to occupy the park in protest in late May of 2013. Within a week, a wave of urban uprisings had spread across the country, involving hundreds of thousands of protesters, in dozens of cities, met with massive state repression and violence, resulting in a few deaths and thousands of injuries and arrests. The world is now watching Turkey – the connecting landmass between Europe and Asia – once home to the Ottoman Empire, and now home to a profound lesson for the world’s people in a struggle for democracy against inequality, oligarchy, oppression and tyranny.

Financial protests: Beginning of the end for Western civilization? (VIDEO)

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In Greece there have been continued protests over what the people view as bad policies that the government has taken. In South East Asia there continues to be protests over the governments fiscal policies and austerity measures. Andrew Gavin Marshall says that these incidents are about the collapse of western civilization. Marshall continues and says as the debt crisis spreads, governments will implement fiscal austerity measures and naturally people will protest and riot.




Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  He is co-editor, with Michel Chossudovsky, of the recent book, "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century," available to order at Globalresearch.ca. He is currently working on a forthcoming book on 'Global Government'.

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America’s Strategic Repression of the ‘Arab Awakening’ North Africa and the Global Political Awakening, Part 2

by Andrew Gavin Marshall

Overview

In Part 1 of this series, I analyzed the changing nature of the Arab world, in experiencing an uprising as a result of the ‘Global Political Awakening.’ Ultimately, I assessed that these could potentially be the birth pangs of a global revolution; however, the situation is more complicated than it appears on the surface.

While the uprisings spreading across the Arab world have surprised many observers, the same could not be said for the American foreign policy and strategic establishment. A popular backlash against American-supported dictatorships and repressive regimes has been anticipated for a number of years, with arch-hawk geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski articulating a broad conception of a ‘Global Political Awakening’ taking place, in which the masses of the world (predominantly the educated, exploited and impoverished youth of the ‘Third World’) have become acutely aware of their subjugation, inequality, exploitation and oppression. This ‘Awakening’ is largely driven by the revolution in information, technology and communication, including radio, television, but most especially the Internet and social media. Brzezinski had accurately identified this ‘Awakening’ as the greatest threat to elite interests regionally, but also internationally, with America sitting on top of the global hierarchy.

This spurred on the development of an American strategy in the Arab world, modeled on similar strategies pursued in recent decades in other parts of the world, in promoting “democratization,” by developing close contacts with ‘civil society’ organizations, opposition leaders, media sources, and student organizations. The aim is not to promote an organic Arab democracy ‘of the people, and for the people,’ but rather to promote an evolutionary “democratization” in which the old despots of American strategic support are removed in favour of a neoliberal democratic system, in which the outward visible institutions of democracy are present (multi-party elections, private media, parliaments, constitutions, active civil society, etc); yet, the power-holders within that domestic political system remain subservient to U.S. economic and strategic interests, continuing to follow the dictates of the IMF and World Bank, supporting America’s military hegemony in the region, and “opening up” the Arab economies to be “integrated” into the world economy. Thus, “democratization” becomes an incredibly valuable strategy for maintaining hegemony; a modern re-hash of “Let them eat cake!” Give the people the ‘image’ of democracy and establish and maintain a co-dependent relationship with the new elite. Thus, democracy for the people becomes an exercise in futility, where people’s ‘participation’ becomes about voting between rival factions of elites, who all ultimately follow the orders of Washington.

This strategy also has its benefit for the maintenance of American power in the region. While dictators have their uses in geopolitical strategy, they can often become too independent of the imperial power and seek to determine the course of their country separate from U.S. interests, and are subsequently much more challenging to remove from power (i.e., Saddam Hussein). With a “democratized” system, changing ruling parties and leaders becomes much easier, by simply calling elections and supporting opposition parties. Bringing down a dictator is always a more precarious situation than “changing the guard” in a liberal democratic system.

However, again, the situation in the Arab world is still more complicated than this brief overview, and American strategic concerns must take other potentialities into consideration. While American strategists were well aware of the growing threat to stability in the region, and the rising discontent among the majority of the population, the strategists tended to identify the aim as “democratization” through evolution, not revolution. In this sense, the uprisings across the Arab world pose a major strategic challenge for America. While ties have been made with civil society and other organizations, they haven’t all necessarily had the ability to be firmly entrenched, organized and mobilized. In short, it would appear that America was perhaps unprepared for uprisings to take place this soon. The sheer scale and rapid growth of the protests and uprisings makes the situation all the more complicated, since they are not dealing with one nation alone, but rather an entire region (arguably one of, if not the most strategically important region in the world), and yet they must assess and engage the situation on a country-by-country basis.

One danger arises in a repeat in the Arab world of the trends advanced in Latin America over the past decade: namely, the growth of populist democracy. The protests have brought together a wide array of society – civil society, students, the poor, Islamists, opposition leaders, etc. – and so America, with ties to many of these sectors (overtly and covertly), must now make many choices in regards of who to support.

Another incredibly important factor to take into consideration is military intervention. America has firmly established ties with the militaries in this region, and it appears evident that America is influencing military actions in Tunisia. Often, the reflex position of imperial power is to support the military, facilitate a coup, or employ repression. Again, this strategy would be determined on a country-by-country basis. With a popular uprising, military oppression will have the likely effect of exacerbating popular discontent and resistance, so strategic use of military influence is required.

This also leaves us with the potential for the ‘Yemen option’: war and destabilization. While presenting its own potential for negative repercussions (namely, in instigating a much larger and more radical uprising), engaging in overt or covert warfare, destabilizing countries or regions, is not taboo in American strategic circles. In fact, this is the strategy that has been deployed in Yemen since the emergence of the Southern Movement in 2007, a liberation movement seeking secession from the U.S.-supported dictatorship. Shortly after the emergence of the Southern Movement, al-Qaeda appeared in Yemen, prompting U.S. military intervention. The Yemeni military, armed, trained and funded by the United States, has been using its military might to attempt to crush the Southern Movement as well as a rebel movement in the North.

In short, the ‘Arab Awakening’ presents possibly the greatest strategic challenge to American hegemony in decades. The likely result will be a congruence of multiple simultaneously employed strategies including: “democratization,” oppression, military intervention and destabilization. Again, it could be a mistake to assume one strategy for the whole region, but rather to assess it on a country-by-country basis, based upon continuing developments and progress in the ‘Awakening’.

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VIDEO: Brzezinski’s Feared “Global Awakening” Has Arrived

Monumental worldwide rallying cry for freedom threatens to derail new world order agenda


by Paul Joseph Watson
GLOBAL RESEARCH

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s much feared “global political awakening” is in full swing. Revolts in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and other countries represent a truly monumental worldwide rallying cry for freedom that threatens to immeasurably damage the agenda for one world government, but only if the successful revolutionaries can prevent themselves from being co-opted by a paranoid and desperate global elite.

During a Council on Foreign Relations speech in Montreal last year, co-founder with David Rockefeller of the Trilateral Commission and regular Bilderberg attendee Zbigniew Brzezinski warned of a “global political awakening,” mainly comprising of younger people in developing states, that threatened to topple the existing international order.

Reading the full extent of Brzezinski’s words in light of the global revolts that we now see spreading like wildfire across the planet provides an astounding insight into how crucially important the outcome of this phase of modern history will be to the future geopolitical course of the world, and in turn the survival and growth of human freedom in general.

For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive… The resulting global political activism is generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination… The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening… That awakening is socially massive and politically radicalizing… The nearly universal access to radio, television and increasingly the Internet is creating a community of shared perceptions and envy that can be galvanized and channeled by demagogic political or religious passions. These energies transcend sovereign borders and pose a challenge both to existing states as well as to the existing global hierarchy, on top of which America still perches…

The youth of the Third World are particularly restless and resentful. The demographic revolution they embody is thus a political time-bomb, as well… Their potential revolutionary spearhead is likely to emerge from among the scores of millions of students concentrated in the often intellectually dubious “tertiary level” educational institutions of developing countries. Depending on the definition of the tertiary educational level, there are currently worldwide between 80 and 130 million “college” students. Typically originating from the socially insecure lower middle class and inflamed by a sense of social outrage, these millions of students are revolutionaries-in-waiting, already semi-mobilized in large congregations, connected by the Internet and pre-positioned for a replay on a larger scale of what transpired years earlier in Mexico City or in Tiananmen Square. Their physical energy and emotional frustration is just waiting to be triggered by a cause, or a faith, or a hatred…

[The] major world powers, new and old, also face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low. To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

It is important to stress that Brzezinski was not lauding the onset of this “global political awakening,” he was decrying it. As one of the of the chief architects of the “existing global hierarchy” to which he makes reference, Brzezinski himself is under direct threat, as is the continuing ability of the global elite in general to control world affairs.

Brzezinski laments the fact that the Internet has made it almost impossible for the global elite to control the political environment, to control the thoughts and behavior of one million people, which is precisely why Egypt moved to shut down the world wide web yesterday in a desperate bid to prevent activists from organizing against the state.

  

As is routine whenever riots and revolutions suddenly appear as if out of nowhere, history warns us to not take what we see at face value, and to recall the numerous contrived “color revolutions” that have served little purpose other than to allow the IMF/World Bank global elite to overthrow a rogue power and seize the country via the backdoor through puppet regimes it subsequently installs.

However, the domino-like effect of the global revolution that has accelerated in recent weeks seems to be born out of a genuine, grass roots, organic yearning for real freedom, and an end to dictatorial regimes that the United States and the banking elite have helped to prop up.

The global revolt spreading across the Middle East and North Africa, having already touched Europe with the riots and strikes in Italy, France, Greece and the United Kingdom last year, is characterized as a backlash against dictatorship, police brutality, and political repression. These factors have been seething undercurrents of resentment for years, but only thanks to greater education and easier access to information and the ability to organize through the Internet has a new generation of activists finally said enough is enough. Spiraling food prices, fuel inflation, lower wages and high unemployment have also played a central role.

As Andrew Gavin Marshall writes in his excellent article, Are We Witnessing the Start of a Global Revolution?, “We must not cast aside these protests and uprisings as being instigated by the West, but rather that they emerged organically, and the West is subsequently attempting to co-opt and control the emerging movements.”

In the case of Egypt, Yemen and Tunisia, all three regimes have enjoyed the multi-decade support of the US military-industrial complex. All three were fully compliant vassal states for the new world order. There was no need for contrived or staged “color revolutions” to be prompted by the global elite in these countries.

Indeed, the die was cast when the Obama administration expressed its support for 30 year dictator Hosni Mubarak in the form of a PBS interview yesterday when Vice-President Joe Biden implied that the protesters demands were illegitimate.

“The reflex action of the imperial powers is to further arm and support the oppressive regimes, as well as the potential to organize a destabilization through covert operations or open warfare (as is being done in Yemen),” writes Marshall. “The alternative is to undertake a strategy of “democratization” in which Western NGOs, aid agencies and civil society organizations establish strong contacts and relationships with the domestic civil society in these regions and nations. The objective of this strategy is to organize, fund and help direct the domestic civil society to produce a democratic system made in the image of the West, and thus maintain continuity in the international hierarchy. Essentially, the project of “democratization” implies creating the outward visible constructs of a democratic state (multi-party elections, active civil society, “independent” media, etc) and yet maintain continuity in subservience to the World Bank, IMF, multinational corporations and Western powers.”

Remember – any country that retains its own sovereignty, acts primarily in its own interests and attempts to build itself up as a strong, prosperous, and culturally strong state is an enemy to the globalists. The international hierarchy demands compliance, dependence, weakness and a dilution of heritage and culture in order for every nation to be enveloped within the sphere of global government control.

Make no mistake about it, we are seeing a global revolution, the age of rage is falling upon us like dominoes reaching to every corner of the planet. Whether or not the outcome will topple the current global hierarchy, as Zbigniew Brzezinski fears, remains to be seen, but it will surely depend upon who controls the new governments that will replace the ousted rulers – the people who started the process of change, or the World Bank, IMF, NGO’s and the rest of the global elite who are desperate to save their world government agenda from being derailed.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.

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