Fake Peace Activism Tied To The Military and CIA

This won't be the most coherent entry. Apologies in advance. The following only recently came to my attention through reading an obscure blogger named Stu Piddy. He posted most of the following links and connections. There is a group of people and institutions who are posing as activists promoting velvet revolutions, those that are non-violent. On the surface it seems like a noble cause. But a closer look shows their intentions are actually insidious. A side story is that one of the founders of this cause has had glowing words for Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos. Seeing how Markos has called the CIA a liberal institution he'd have no problem working for, there is further albeit circumstantial evidence that Moulitsas has been running a fifth column blog.

I have eight links to provide.

Link #1:
The Fund for Authentic Journalism

Narco News and Al Giordano run something called The School of Authentic Journalism. This is a donation page. Matching support of up to $20,000 per contribution is made by International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. This appears to be a classic example of right co-opting left. We can intuit this through taking a closer look at the ICNC.


Link #2:
The ICNC- Who We Are

JACK DUVALL, President
DR. PETER ACKERMAN, Founding Chair

The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict is an independent, nonprofit educational foundation that develops and encourages the study and use of civilian-based, nonmilitary strategies to establish and defend human rights, democracy and justice worldwide. It accepts no grants, contracts or funding of any kind from any government or government-related organization or from any other foundation, corporation or institution. It is funded entirely by the family philanthropy of the founding chair.

Ok, Mr. Peter Ackerman is providing the entire funding. He must be filthy rich. Maybe we need to know who this guy is along with Jack Duvall. Let's start with Duvall.


Link #3:
Who the hell is Jack Duvall? by Jacob Levich

If anyone knows the real story behind Jack Duvall and his International
Center for Nonviolent Conflict, I'd be extremely grateful to hear it.

This guy, who purports to be some kind of pacifist, travels around the world with a dog-and-pony show centering on movies he's produced called "Bringing Down a Dictator" and "A Force More Powerful." His current position on Iraq, which he is selling heavily to college and university crowds, is that the peace movement has no right to oppose the invasion unless it offers an alternative way of getting rid of Saddam. (His suggestion -- don't laugh -- is that the Iraqi people should be encouraged to rise up in a Gandhi-style nonviolent mass movement.)

So far as I can tell, he intervenes whenever the US wants to bring down a government by military force, attempting to refocus any First World opposition away from opposing imperialism and toward "bringing down dictators by non violent means."

I suspect Jack Duvall is a fraud and possibly some kind of spook (see weird career details below) whose aim is to divide the antiwar movement.

The other day, unbidden, he sent a nasty little email screed to the mailing list of the campus antiwar group I belong to. It attacked ANSWER as a tool of Iraqi government propaganda. I won't bore you with further details of the ensuing email exchange, but suffice it to say he seems on the brink of achieving exactly what he desires -- driving a wedge between campus pacifists and leftists. The students who had seen his very slick presentation, it seems, were swept off their feet and reacted furiously to our attempts to criticize him.

Turns out his background is very odd for a "pacifist."

He's a TV producer and PR flack, and a member of the Washington establishment who:

* served in Air Force counterintelligence(!)
* worked in the Nixon White House
* wrote speeches for major-party Presidential campaigns, and
* raised money for warmaker Bill Clinton and Homeland Security architect Gary Hart.

Moreover, Duvall is currently a director of a consulting business called The Arlington Institute (http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/), which does weird "scenario building" for business and government clients. An excerpt from their site:

"Some of our clients want to know about the future of their marketplace, or a major contributing factor to their operating environment, like technology. Others are concerned about possible big surprise events - wild cards - that might blow in unexpectedly and fundamentally shift the status quo. Perhaps your concern is a geographic area - like Africa, or you are considering the purchase of a major asset and want to have a sense of what might change the present situation that makes that a good decision -- all of these are good candidates for scenario planning."

This suggests Arlington is in the business of helping its clients predict and defend against political events and popular movements that might harm their investments.

Most tellingly, here's a list of Arlington's clients:

U.S. Navy
U.S. Marine Corps
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Coast Guard
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Boeing
Honda
Andersen Consulting
New Directions for News
Project Voyager / OneCosmos


What kind of pacifist sits on the board of directors of a company that does consulting work for the Department of Defense and four branches of the US Military?

Again, if anyone knows the story behind this guy (or knows someone who does) please send word fast. If someone could get a reading from Dellinger that would be helpful -- I suspect his view would mean a lot to the pacifist students.

Jake

The CIA is mentioned in this blog entry's title. Here is that connection.

Link #4
A Force More Powerful:
Promoting 'Democracy' through Civil Disobedience by Michael Barker

In 1989, Dr Ackerman's coauthor Jack Duvall helped found another notable non-profit 'democracy promoting' research center, the Arlington Institute. Like many of the people involved in the previous 'democratic' groups the main person behind this venture, John L. Petersen, is a military man through and through, [17] and the center boasts amongst its cofounders former head of the CIA, James Woolsey. [18] Furthermore, the Arlington Institute's website notes that they specialize 'in thinking about global futures and trying to influence rapid, positive change', which ties in neatly with Jonathan Mowat's description of the Arlington Institute as strategists for the new postmodern coup. [19]

This blog was created in honour of Dave Weintraub who did a lot of good work in exposing Markos Moulitsas. Here is the Kos connection. Above Al Giordano of Narco News was mentioned. This is what he has had to say about the CIA loving founder of Daily Kos. I realise that this and other connections could be seen as guilt by association. But my thinking is that is a strawman argument. If we are what we eat, then we can also be said to be part and parcel of those we associate with. How does one separate Brad Friedman from the Speedway Bomber Brett Kimberlin? How can Michael Rivero separate himself from Curtis Maynard, Alex Jones and the Birdman? How can Patrick Minnis of NASA separate himself from the founder of Chemtrail Central? How can Tinoire of Progressive Independent separate herself from military intelligence? I could go on. But you get the point.

Link #5:
Kos And Alinsky And Election 2008 by Stephen C. Rose'

In a lengthy review of Taking On The System, coming out tomorrow, Al Giordano commends the new book's author, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the influential lefty blog Daily Kos, as "our era's very own Saul Alinsky" and calls the his work "the must-read political book of the year."

Let's get back to discussing the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. Why is this important? This is how Michael Barker puts it.


Link #6
Peace Activists, Criticism, and Nonviolent Imperialism

Paradoxically, one of the main problems of liberal foundations is not that they have colluded with the Central Intelligence Agency, or have and continue to support the work of elite planning groups like the Council on Foreign Relations, but rather that they support all manner of progressive causes -- as a quick perusal of their annual reports (pdf) will demonstrate. Most progressive groups only receive a small proportion of their funding from liberal foundations, but, as many of these groups are regularly on the brink of financial bankruptcy, the money that is distributed by liberal philanthropists is much sought after and has formidable (if rarely acknowledged) influence -- even when there are 'no strings attached' to the funding -- on the contours of civil society.

Earlier criticisms of liberal foundations appear to have simply washed off their backs. However, in the past few years a groundswell of new activists and researchers are openly questioning the antidemocratic nature of liberal philanthropy, so now is the perfect time for activists, all over the world, to really get to the bottom of the funding/activism nexus: only then can concerned people start to create and sustain grassroots movements that will be able to truly challenge capitalism and successfully promote peace.

Peter Ackerman, whose family philanthropy is behind the ICNC, is also the head of something called Freedom House. Stephen Gowans claims that it is a "CIA-interlocked think-tank." He cites Chomsky in the footnote as the basis for this factoid. The following is from an article concerning the recent democratic upheaval in Iran. Wow. There is so much to social reality. There are so many complexities. This is how propagandists get away with their shenanigans. Now I am unsure what has really been going on in Iran the last year. My gut told me a we the people campaign was taking ascent there. I saw those who belittled that movement as being a part of the Joos Own The World crowd. And of course many of those bloggers are part of that bullshite. However, the following by Gowans is certainly a big plate of food for thought. (excerpt)

Link #7:
War and Terror: The US' attempted color revolution in Iran

As the head of Freedom House, a CIA-interlocked think-tank [1] that promotes free markets, free enterprise and free trade, Peter Ackerman has been at the forefront of efforts to topple foreign governments that place more emphasis on promoting the welfare of their citizens (and often their own bourgeoisie) than providing export and investment opportunities to US corporations, banks, and investors.

An ex-Wall Street investment banker who was once junk bond trader Michael Milken's right-hand man, Ackerman's speciality these days is regime change civil disobedience –training activists in the use of civil disobedience destabilization techniques to bring down foreign governments.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-Wall Street insiders' group that brings together corporate CEOs and lawyers, scholars, and government and military officials to recommend foreign policy positions to the US State Department, Ackerman also heads the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict (ICNC). Working in parallel with billionaire financier George Soros' Open Society Institute, the ICNC deploys civil disobedience specialists to teach "activists how to agitate for change against" governments on Washington's regime change hit list, "going everywhere from Eastern Europe to train Belarusians to Turkey to coach Iranians." [2]

Ackerman and other civil disobedience imperialists, like Stephen Zunes, a self-styled progressive who acts as chief apologist for Ackerman among leftists who have romantic illusions about popular uprisings, [3] give their efforts to topple foreign governments the deceptively reassuring name "democracy promotion." Democracy promotion, a Bush administration official once said, is a rubric to get people to support regime change without saying the words. [4] Zunes has also sprung to the defense of Gene Sharp, the head of the Albert Einstein Institution, who advised right-wing Venezuelans on how to use civil disobedience to overthrow Hugo Chavez. [5]

And that will lead us to the final link in this humble blog entry. What is up with the US trying to destablise Chavez in Venezuela? Is it mostly about a new wave of fake peace activists (ever hear of Carol Rosin?) with various military and CIA ties whose main goals concern attempts at perverting democratic principles in sovereign nations? Does Kos' support of Ronald Reagan, the CIA, and the El Salvadoran oligarchy add up now or what?


Link #8:
US projects for Venezuela, by Eva Golinger

By the way, I will marry Eva Golinger, no questions asked. (excerpts)

NOVEMBER '07 - FEBRUARY '08

US PROJECTS FOR VENEZUELA

Another ‘Orange Revolution’ after the Ukrainian and Yugoslavian ones, a destabilization plan made in USA

In these days, Venezuela lives a big destabilization plan aiming to overthrow Chavez government and to pave the way for an international intervention. This plan follows a way already putted in practice on other countries like Yugoslavia to overthrow Milosevic, or Ukraine with the ‘Orange Revolution’. This plan was also used in Georgia for the ‘Rose Revolution’.

The text of this plan, written by Gene Sharp, promoter of the Albert Einstein Institution of the United States, promotes the utilization of the civil non-violent resistance to make radical political changes in a country. But Sharp’s plan contains almost 200 actions and strategies for the social, political and economic destabilization; ....


The pupil of Sharp, Ackerman, is now the president of Freedom House financed by the State Department to ‘promote democracy’ in the world by the American way; it has a seat in Venezuela from September 2004, after the revocation referendum against Chavez. Peter Ackerman took up his engagement replacing James Woosley, ex-director of CIA representing the US intelligence and security forces. Also Ackerman is a promoter of the International Centre for Non-Violent Conflict, organization that produced documentaries like ‘Bringing down a dictator’, ‘Orange Revolution’ and books like ‘Strategic Nonviolent Conflict’ and ‘A Force More Powerful’.....

These US organizations, with the Freedom House, its centre of Venezuela and the funds of the State Department, are working for a new ‘coloured revolution’. This last week was the proof that this plan is in progress. Groups like ORVEX (organization of Venezuelan self-exiles in USA), Ofensiva Ciudadana and the Comando de Resistencia Nacional are trying to put in practice the ‘Gene Sharp’ plan to create chaos and insecurity in the country, causing repression to promote the international intervention. With their ‘guarimbas’ actions (sabotages, provocations of groups of people that make blocks and clashes with the police), their violence in the streets (1) and the utilization of the young Venezuelan people faces, they manipulate the world public opinion, obtaining the effect that multilateral organisms, like OAS (Organization of American States), European Community, US government or international associations for the human rights, are making critical statements about the Venezuelan government and support the destabilizing groups.

Though they didn’t carry out their objectives, the proofs show that they will keep on applying these strategies to obtain international support and the power to attack once again the Venezuelan democracy and the welfare of the people. Put an end to the actions of groups like Freedom House and the International Republican Institute would be the right way to defend the nation. These organizations are used by the State Department and CIA and are working freely in Venezuela.

Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos Is Not A Progressive

Francis Holland has a very interesting blog titled The Truth About Kos. He gets a few things wrong here and there, but his overall presentation is very impressive and correct for the most part. Moulitsas gave an interview in 2006 to the Commonwealth Club. He spoke of the CIA as being a liberal institution he'd have no problem working for. Now I have to be upfront right away. I became a lefty, progressive peacenik at age 18. One of the first things I learned about was the disgusting, historical record of the CIA. No lefty in their right mind would ever support their existence. In the interview, Kos said he applied for a position in 2001, and that it was a six-month process. He also said he went all the way to the end and decided against accepting a clandestine spy job to instead work for Howard Dean. The problem is the Dean job started in 2003. While Holland is a bit too adamant about saying Markos admitted to working for the CIA, it's really not his problem. For how does a six-month interview process take up to two years?

Francis has an advantage over others who have looked into this. He can read Spanish and has been able to read through documents that English only speaking folks aren't able to. One of them pertained to statements made by Kos that he was a poor immigrant. Now I am not too upset with Kos for calling himself an immigrant even though he was born in Illinois. He left America at an early age for El Salvador and then returned to America. My two biggest problems with Kos' story is his astroturfing concerning El Salvadoran history, and that he comes from a poor to middle class background. The two lies converge to show that he is a right winger dressing himself in progressive clothes.

I haven't seen one word out of him concerning right wing death squads that have operated out of El Salvador. I came of age during a period when the two biggest stories coming out of Central America were about conflicts in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and how there was heavy right-left debate in America over our foreign policy. As a lefty, I didn't appreciate the Reagan Administration's support of the Contras in Nicaragua. Subsequently, I did not appreciate the US support of a murderous regime in El Salvador. Basically, I was on the right side of history by being on the left.

I dare anyone to find anything ever written by Kos that has been intellectually honest about the conflict in El Salvador. What you will find is that he has placed the onus for heavy bloodshed on the rebels. He makes it seem his family was forced to flee El Salvador because of the guerrillas. He never mentions the death squads. I'm not going to do anyone's homework. I don't make one cent off of blogging. This is all pure history.

Myself, Francis, and a few others are people referred to as amateur, internet cybersleuths. It is a hobby for me. I feel it has been time better spent than playing video games. I do believe that the personal is political. I, like many, became a blogger because I wanted to partake in democracy. Yet, at each stop of mine in the progressive blogosphere, I found myself deeply disappointed in this vehicle being purported as one which can help the world along the way to peace and social justice. Huffington Post was too big. They have a bit of censorship. They have too much of a rotating news cycle, so no good insights can be developed. Things get pushed to the archives the next day. I was there for Cindy Sheehan's posts. I was amazed at the amount of trolling she had to absorb. That was the start of my disillusionment with the left-o-sphere. Throw in the amount of puff pieces Huffington offers and the number of vacuous bloggers Ariana employs, and I was out the door. Never banned, but gone.

I tried a few other places. Democratic Underground. Randi Rhodes. Progressive Independent. BradBlog. None of them worked out. The moderating was too heavy-handed and reeked of being controlled by grifters and disinfo peddlers. One of my last attempts at being a blogger was at the Daily Kos. After being censored by DU concerning my exposing of election integrity fakes, I figured DKos would be different. However, I soon learned that DKos is no different than the others. I was taken out by MajorFlaw and Alexandrovna. That's when I learned of Dave Weintraub. I ended up meeting him at his blog. Unfortunately, he died of a heart attack a few days later. I researched his story. I soon learned more about astroturfing than I'd ever could have imagined. It all led back to right wingers, grifters, and disnformation peddlers acting as if they come from the left.

One interesting find Francis made was of a Moulitsas vanity website covering his wedding. The domain is no longer available. Hmmm. But thankfully due to the wayback machine, one can still see it.



Also because of the wayback machine, we are able to read disingenuous statements made by Markos. I will supply some Spanish text excerpts written by Jesús Henríquez for laprensagrafica.com and do my best to translate. I know a bit of Espanol to go with babelfish.

El blog Daily Kos es considerado en la actualidad un referente de la cultura política estadounidense. Esta página fue creada en mayo de 2002 por Markos Moulitsas Zúniga.

(The Daily Kos is considered a microcosm of American political culture. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga created it in May, 2002.)

That's pretty strange stuff. The Daily Kos was created during the time period that Kos was in close contact with the CIA.

Nacido en 1971 en Chicago, vino a El Salvador en 1976 y regresó con su familia a Estados Unidos en 1980, cuando comenzaba el conflicto en nuestro país.

“De los primeros años me recuerdo poco”, dice. “De nuestra casa, de mi familia, de ir a la iglesia con mi abuelita, de dos gatos que tenía.”

Pero también alberga algunas imágenes de la violencia que ya comenzaba a vivir el país.

(Born in Chicago in 1971, he went to El Salvador in 1976 and then returned to the U.S. with his family in 1980, when the conflicts in the country began. He said, "Of those early years I remember- our house, going to church with my grandma, the two cats we had." Yet this also dislodged memories of violence that had begun to engulf [El Salvador].)

Markos then insinuated the violence as being the fault of the guerrillas. He had nothing to say about right wing death squads nor of the oligarchy which has controlled a nation with rich, poor, and few in between.

“Con el inicio de la guerra, me acuerdo mucho de balazos y explosiones. De ver guerilleros con sus máscaras en varios lugares o en televisión”, explica.

A pesar de haber desarrollado su vida en Estados Unidos, aún mantiene vínculos con El Salvador que lo hacen viajar y reconoce: “Lo que más me gusta es el espíritu salvadoreño. Trabajamos duro”.

("At the war's beginning, I heard many gunshots and explosions. I saw mask wearing guerrillas on television," he explains. Even though he has developed a life in the U.S., he still maintains bonds with and travels to El Salvador and recognises: "What I like most is the Salvadoran spirit. We work hard.")

Let's jump ahead.

“En el mundo antes de internet, alguien como yo nunca hubiera tenido ese nivel de éxito. No tengo dinero. No vengo de familia famosa o poderosa. Era inmigrante en Estados Unidos (...) La tecnología me dio la oportunidad de crear una publicación con más de un millón de lectores diarios sin tener que tener mucho dinero. Los costes de lanzamiento eran cerca de $100”.

("Before the internet age, someone like me would never have had this level of success. I had no money. I didn't come from a famous or powerful family. I was an immigrant in the U.S.. (...) This technology game me the opportunity to create an outlet with over a million daily readers without having much cash. The launching costs were about $100.")

Now let's move to the wedding pictures that are now only available through archive.org. I think Moulitsas deleted this domain, because in it was the revelation that got Holland's attention a few years ago and led him to prove that indeed Markos Moulitsas Zuniga comes from a famous and powerful El Salvadoran family. The Zunigas are part of the haves. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga comes from the rich side of the divide in El Salvador. This is why he says he has no idea about the CIA's shady history. It can be shown that the CIA was involved with the death squads.

Now, there is compelling evidence to show that for over 30 years, members of the U.S. military and the CIA have helped organize, train, and fund death squad activity in El Salvador.

Yet, Markos says it is a liberal institution he'd have no trouble working for. This is as clear as spring water. This is why Markos doesn't write much more than scanty descriptions of his family background. They own a fancy hotel. Francis linked his family to not only the tourism board but also a wealthy salt company. Markos Moulitsas comes from a very wealthy background.

The Suites Jaltepeque is our family-owned hotel on El Salvador's Costa del Sol -- the largest uninterrupted beach in Central America.

I hadn't been downtown San Salvador since my family fled the country in 1980. The city offers a stark contrast between rich and poor -- you are basically one or the other. But the underlying changes gave me cause for hope. There were a great number of dark-skinned people in business suits, something that was much rarer in the past. The capital had erased most of its scars from the civil war that drove my family to the US...

...we drove up to the very impressive Puerta del Diablo (Devil's Gate), so called because it's a favorite place to commit suicide or drop off your murder victims.

While Markos does have a parent from Greece, I think he is dark-skinned enough to be implying that he was on the poor side of the Civil War. I'm also curious why he mentioned "Devil's Gate" as a "favorite place... to drop off your murder victims." That is a rocky area. Perhaps it was a guerrilla controlled area. I'm not sure. But it wouldn't surprise me. People are encouraged to check out Francis' blog and put on their thinking caps. I also encourage you to read up on the death squads, and how the Reagan Administration supported the oligarchy. Before Markos became a "progressive," he used to be a big supporter of Ronald Reagan and other prominent Republicans.

More on Rivero and Jew Hating

I'm not sure Rivero is an idiot. Yes, he can be tied to idiotic claims and links. My theory is that he is a propaganda tool. I think he is a deliberate strawman. I think he is what he frames some upcoming war with Iran that has been pushed for years as being imminent. Rivero is the ultimate distraction.

I found some interesting links, interesting in that they are merely about the bullshite astroturfing an inane Jooish global conspiracy theory.

At Desertpeace, Rivero is published as saying Jesus was not Jewish and Palestinians have direct lineage to him. It's a clever Rivero way of saying the Jews are still killing Jesus. Wasn't it the Romans who killed Jesus? Jesus wasn't Jewish?

I found that link through a website called New World Order 101. They also have a post titled, "The Frankfurt School and how it destroyed western culture via a Marxist Communist Ideology." I believe these elements are all part of the same scam to drive the ideals of socialism into the ground. According to NWO 101, the frankfurt School's goals included the following:

1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity
6. The promotion of excessive drinking
7. Emptying of churches
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family

The truth is many of the members of the Frankfurt School were Jewish. They were forced to leave Nazi Germany and many relocated to America. They were looking forward to this transition. However, what they found on their arrival was that the West was some form of cultural wasteland with heavy ties to the Military-Industrial Complex, inequality, and a culture industry. In short, these were the greatest sociologists and social-psychologists of the twentieth century.

Nwo101.com is one of the most insidious Jew-hating websites I have come across. They link to a place called RealJewNews.com. Here are some of that place's latest title entries.

Obama’s Homosexual Agenda & The Jews Behind It

Zionist Jewish Mind Control - A Case Study # 128

Is Alex Jones A Zionist Shill?..Controversy Swirls

Goals Of The New World Order Jews

Here is a page of theirs titled, "The Jewish Question Revisited."

It's fairly disgusting stuff. What I find even more interesting is that the layout of this website is very similar to one disinformation writer "Fintan Dunne" used to carry around. I sincerely believe that an insidious network of propagandists are all over the internet. Over the last couple years I have tried to prove this to the best of my abilities. I think because I was successful at showing a high probability that I am correct, that a sophisticated cybersmear script was put in place against me. I have proven that was done. Now why would a nobody like me have been attacked to this extent, if I hadn't been able to figure out this hornet's nest?