Following: two separate conversations regarding Paul Craig Roberts.
I don’t know what to think. Neither does Jim:
I followed Roberts works for some years and was considering bringing him to speak in Toronto but something in my gut said, leave him on his own, maybe he has a hidden agenda….time will tell.
From: Sandra Finley
Thanks Bennett. What’s going on?! One would have thought that Paul Craig Roberts would have been a NeoCon himself!
He hits hard against what the U.S. is, and has been doing, in the world. Your email caused me to read a couple book reviews of Roberts’ two books that are mentioned. Is this guy real? And googled – – there’s a whack of youtubes.
Coincidentally I just received another email that seems to align with what Paul Craig Roberts is saying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccAJcsOIzg
The elites have really lost their compass.
From my perspective, that which Paul Roberts describes about the U.S. (regardless of whether there are some things one might question) – – the basics of what he is saying is equally advanced in Canada.
It’s why I am doing as much as possible to help spread the word about Bill C-51. It’ll be a frosty day in hell if we can’t stop it.
It is well-known that extensive surveillance machinery is already in place (The Snowden leaks, the interviews of Glenn Greenwald, etc). Bill C-51 adds secret police and further reduces the rights of citizens.
I am concerned that the public debate doesn’t seem to be including another very worrisome feature of C-51: the impact it would have (If passed) on the ability of the Government, Police and Corporate elites to operate outside the Rule of Law (I say “corporate” because torture for example was “out-sourced” to Lockheed Martin Corporation. Most people know about Halliburton, Blackwater, etc – – the corporate players in what’s going on) These elites, including Harper, already hold the view that the Laws of the land do not apply to them. C-51 takes it a step further. Very dangerous, police-state territory we are in.
Our situation is as hard to believe as it is to believe what the U.S. might be doing vis-a-vis Russia. They have become a rogue state. Nice when it’s your next-door neighbour!! And they’ve got the quislings in Canada eating out of their hands.
Can this all be true? With all the propaganda out there, it’s hard to sort out truth from fiction.
Have to be wary. It’s what the Nazis relied on – – the things that were being done by the Govt were outrageous. Some people couldn’t, or did not want to believe they could be true. I’ve forgotten which of Hitler’s men made that statement that they could do the unbelievable for that reason – people wouldn’t believe they could be doing it.
/Sandra
—–Original Message—–
Subject: The Neoconservative Threat To International Relations
By Paul Craig Roberts
Last summer, sitting with Christopher di Armani in his wonderful garden in Chilliwack, he asked me what I thought a neo-conservative was. I mentioned a few names, the Project for a New American Century and the possibility that
9/11 and the wars and loss of rights at home were likely caused by neo-conservatives. That was a rather unfocused answer. If Christopher is reading this, I will let Paul Craig Roberts, one of Ronald Regan’s cronies, answer the question.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41120.htm
At the plenary session yesterday I addressed the threat that the neoconservative ideology poses to international relations. In this closing session I address whether there are any internal restraints on this policy from the US population and whether there are economic restraints.
Just as 9/11 served to launch Washington’s wars for hegemony in the Middle East, 9/11 served to create the American police state. The Constitution and the civil liberties it protects quickly fell to the accumulation of power in the executive branch that a state of war permitted.
New laws, some clearly pre-prepared such as the PATRIOT Act, executive orders, presidential directives, and Department of Justice memos created an executive authority unaccountable to the US Constitution and to domestic and international law.
Suddenly Americans could be detained indefinitely without cause presented to a court. Habeas corpus, a constitutional protection which prohibits any such detention, has been set aside.
Suddenly people could be tortured into confessions in violation of the right against self-incrimination and in violation of domestic and international laws against torture.
Suddenly Americans and Washington’s closest allies could be spied on indiscriminately without the need of warrants demonstrating cause.
The Obama regime added to the Bush regime’s transgressions the assertion of the right of the executive branch to assassinate US citizens without due process of law.
The police state was organized under a massive new Department of Homeland Security. Almost immediately whistleblower protections, freedom of the press and speech, and protest rights were attacked and reduced.
It was not long before the director of Homeland Security declared that the department’s focus has shifted from Muslim terrorists to “domestic extremists,” an undefined category. Anyone can be swept into this category.
Homes of war protesters were raided and grand juries were convened to investigate the protesters. Americans of Arab descent who donated to charities-even charities on the State Department’s approved list-that aided Palestinian children were arrested and sentenced to prison for “providing material support to terrorism.”
All of this and more, including police brutality, has had a chilling effect on protests against the wars and the loss of civil liberty. The rising protests from the American population and from soldiers themselves that eventually forced Washington to end the Vietnam War have been prevented in the 21st century by the erosion of rights, intimidation, loss of mobility (no-fly list), job dismissal, and other heavy-handed actions inconsistent with a government accountable to law and to the people.
In an important sense, the US has emerged from the “war on terror” as an executive branch dictatorship unconstrained by the media and barely, if at all, constrained by Congress and the federal courts. The lawlessness of the executive branch has spread into governments of Washington’s vassal states and into the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank, all of which violate their charters and operate outside their legal powers.
Jobs offshoring destroyed the American industrial and manufacturing unions.
Their demise and the current attack on the public employee unions has left the Democratic Party financially dependent on the same organized private interest groups as the Republicans. Both parties now report to the same interest groups. Wall Street, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and the extractive industries (oil, mining, timber) control the government regardless of the party in power. These powerful interests all have a stake in American hegemony.
The message is that the constellation of forces preclude internal political change.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
From: Sandra (to Jim)
Subject: RE: USSR Putin Ukraine Misperceptions: Nemstov Gorbachev YouTube
SAME THEME (maybe you’ve seen?)
Paul Craig Roberts (American) gave this address on Feb 27th to the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Scholars from Russia and from around the world, Russian government officials, (were in attendance)…
He could as well be describing what is happening in Canada.
Roberts: Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.
I read a few reviews of the 2 books.
There are lots of youtubes by him, looks like they are all highly critical of the U.S.
/Sandra
– – – – – – — – – – – – – – – – – –
From: Jim
Subject: USSR Putin Ukraine Misperceptions: Nemstov Gorbachev YouTube