CIA Adds Economy To Threat Updates

White House Given First Daily Briefing

By Joby Warrick

Washington Post Staff Writer 
Thursday, February 26, 2009; Page A04

The daily White House intelligence report that catalogs the top security threats to the nation has a grim new addition, reflecting the realities of the age: a daily update on the global financial crisis and its cascading effects on the stability of countries through the world.

The first Economic Intelligence Briefing report was presented to the White House yesterday by the CIA, the agency's new director, Leon Panetta, revealed at a news conference. The addition of economic news to the daily roundup of terrorist attacks and surveillance reports appears to reflect a growing belief among intelligence officials that the economic meltdown is now preeminent among security threats facing the United States.

"We've seen the impact of a worldwide recession occur throughout the world," said Panetta, who described the agency's newest product at his first news briefing since his confirmation. Instigated at the request of the White House, the daily report will ensure that U.S. policymakers are "not surprised" by the aftershocks from bank failures and rising unemployment, he said.

The spy agency is following worrisome trends in many corners of the globe, from East Asia to Latin America. In private meetings yesterday, Latin American intelligence officials warned their U.S. counterparts of a crisis spreading throughout the hemisphere, particularly in Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela, Panetta said.

"Clearly, it's related: What happens in the economy, and what's happening as a result of that, is affecting the stability of the world," he said.

Other key intelligence officials have raised similar alarms in other settings. The new director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, told a Senate panel this month that economic woes have largely replaced terrorism as the country's No. 1 security challenge.

Blair repeated the theme yesterday in testimony before the House intelligence committee, noting that three European governments have fallen because of economic issues. Central and Eastern Europe "are under tremendous strain," and much of Eurasia, Latin American and sub-Saharan Africa lack sufficient cash reserves and access to international aid, he said.

"Our analysis indicates that economic crisis increases the risk of regime-threatening instability if it continues for a one- or two-year period," Blair said. "Instability can loosen the fragile hold that many developing countries have on law and order."

The economic crunch adds to a formidable list of global concerns facing the new administration's security team. Panetta said the CIA continues to regard al-Qaeda as a serious threat, as the terrorist movement retains its stronghold along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and gains momentum in Somalia and Yemen.

Mexico Is in Free Fall

February 26th, 2009

Via: Guardian:

Shortly before the US elections last November, then vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden was widely criticised for predicting that an Obama administration would almost certainly be tested by what he called a “generated” international crisis, in much the way that the Soviet Union “tested” John F Kennedy shortly after he assumed office. Biden did not point to a specific region of the world, but mentioned the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and Russia as the likeliest sources of trouble for the new president.

Impolitic or not, Biden’s anxieties seem to have informed several of the administration’s early foreign policy decisions. These include his own extension of an olive branch to Russia at the recent Munich security conference, and Barack Obama’s appointment of Richard Holbrooke as special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan – and of George Mitchell to a similar post for Israel-Palestine.

But, as pressing as the Middle East, south Asia, and Russia (as well as Iran and North Korea) are, another crisis far closer to home could create as much peril as a nuclear-armed Iran, an aggressively resurgent Russia, or even an Islamist-dominated Pakistan.

That crisis is located in Mexico, which is in free fall, its state institutions under threat as they have not been since at least the Cristero uprising of the late 1920s and possibly since the Mexican revolution of 1910. While the Obama administration is obviously aware of what is happening south of the Rio Grande, the threat simply does not command the attention that its gravity requires.

The crisis consists in nothing less than an effort by the major drug cartels to tame and suborn the Mexican state, and not just in the strip along the US border, though the epicentre of the crisis is there. Obviously, the cartels’ leaders do not have designs on Mexico’s presidential palace. But, through a policy of terror extending from Oaxaca in the south, through Acapulco on the Pacific coast, and up to the great border cities of Tijuana and Juarez (Mexico’s sixth and seventh most populous cities, respectively), they have made it abundantly clear that they are trying to achieve impunity.

The only recent parallel in Latin America was a similar effort 15 years ago by the Colombian drug cartels. That disguised coup failed – barely – and there is no guarantee that the result will be similar this time around in Mexico.

Journalists with long experience of war zones report being more worried about their safety in Mexico border than when they were in Bosnia, Afghanistan, or Iraq, though much of the violence is internecine. Of the thousands who have been killed, often after being horribly tortured, many, if not most, have been members of the drug cartels and their families.

But it is the campaign of targeted assassination against any Mexican official who seems to pose a serious threat to the cartels’ operations that makes the crisis so dire. First, in May 2007, the cartels killed Jose Nemesio Lugo Felix, the general co-ordinator of information at the national centre for planning and analysis to combat organised crime. Soon after, a hitman murdered Edgar Milan Gomez, Mexico’s highest ranking federal police official.

In November, 2008, a plane carrying Juan Camilo Mourino, Mexico’s national security adviser, crashed under mysterious circumstances. And very recently, the retired General Mauro Enrique Tello Quinones, one of the most decorated officers in the Mexican army, was abducted, tortured, and killed less than a week after assuming a new position as anti-drug chief in the resort city of Cancún.

Israel: unelected former general "running the country"

The militarisation of Israeli society. Israel’s Mephistopheles by Jonathan Cook

Global Research, February 26, 2009

Nazareth: It is not entirely surprising that Amos Gilad, an Israeli general who once sued his own government for “irreversible mental damage” caused by his role in the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, has publicly courted controversy again.

 

On Monday, Ehud Olmert, Israel’s outgoing prime minister, suspended Mr Gilad as his envoy to Egypt, responsible for negotiating a ceasefire with Hamas, after Mr Gilad called the prime minister’s truce conditions “insane”.

 

The move threatened to unleash a political storm in Israel. Ehud Barak, the defence minister and a longtime ally of Mr Gilad, rushed to denounce Mr Olmert’s decision. He insisted that Mr Gilad, a defence ministry official in charge of diplomatic and security issues, would continue with his other duties.

 

Mr Gilad’s fingerprints are to be found on most of the hawkish policies approved by the political leadership since the start of the intifada in 2000, including the emasculation of the Palestinian Authority, the “disengagement” from Gaza, and the promotion of civil war between Hamas and Fatah.

 

In a sign of Mr Gilad’s indispensability, Mr Olmert was forced to make an embarrassing climbdown two days later and reinstate the wayward official after Mr Gilad submitted a written apology.

 

Israeli commentators have noted that Mr Gilad has sought over the years to erode the distinction between military and political influence. Writing in Haaretz newspaper, Akiva Eldar has accused Mr Gilad of being “a mephisto in and out of uniform” who has turned his department “into one of the most important power centres in the country”.

 

Popularly known as the “National Explainer”, Mr Gilad opened the rift with Mr Olmert last week when he gave an interview to Maariv, another daily newspaper, over his role in negotiating a renewed ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.

 

Mr Gilad, who brokered the six-month truce that preceded Israel’s recent three-week Gaza offensive, is said to have believed an agreement was at hand in which Hamas would end both arms smuggling into and rocket fire out of Gaza in return for the opening of border crossings.

 

Angered that Mr Olmert effectively stalled the talks at the last minute by also linking the ceasefire to the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured in 2006, Mr Gilad told the paper: “I don’t understand what they are trying to do. Insult the Egyptians? … This is insanity, simply insanity.”

 

Until recently, talks about Sgt Shalit’s release had focused on a prisoner exchange in which Hamas is demanding freedom for hundreds of Palestinians.

 

When Mr Gilad refused to apologise, Mr Olmert suspended him as envoy and lodged a complaint with the Civil Service Commission. Mr Olmert’s move, in the last days before he leaves office, threatened to set him on a collision course with defence officials, who appear keen to agree to a long-term ceasefire with Hamas.

 

Mr Barak’s staff issued a stern rebuke of the prime minister, warning that Israel would “suffer the consequences”. Mr Barak himself called the decision “shameful” and described Mr Gilad as “a dedicated and outstanding civil servant”.

 

Mr Barak’s close ties to Mr Gilad date to his premiership, when Mr Gilad briefed him as head of military intelligence’s research department.

 

Contrary to the pragmatic, almost dovish, image he has now acquired inside Israel, Mr Gilad has traditionally been regarded as an ultra-hawk.

 

It was his briefings at the time of Camp David in 2000, in which he claimed that the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, was determined to use the second intifada to destroy Israel, that gave weight to Mr Barak’s slogan “There is no partner for peace”.

 

Four years later, in June 2004, a series of military officials revealed that Mr Gilad had doctored intelligence reports and presented a false picture to the politicians.

 

In reality, according to the director of military intelligence, Amos Malka, the evidence showed that Arafat wanted to reach a deal with Israel and had been taken by surprise by the ferocity of the popular Palestinian uprising.

 

In response, Mr Gilad defended his briefings, calling Arafat “incredibly dangerous” and comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

 

At the same time, he won a disability allowance from the defence ministry for developing diabetes following what he called “heavy emotional pressure” during the 1982 Lebanon war, which had left him psychologically scarred.

 

Mr Gilad is blamed by some Israeli analysts for fuelling Israel’s hawkish policies throughout the second intifada.

 

Commenting in 2004, Roni Ben Efrat noted that Mr Gilad’s false intelligence had provided the political justification “for isolating Arafat and attempting to replace him with Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas]. It lies today at the root of the plan to disengage unilaterally from Gaza.”

 

However, the false intelligence revelations, as well as claims of mental impairment, did little to dent Mr Gilad’s subsequent influence. He went on to become the army’s co-ordinator in the occupied territories and helped Mr Barak’s successor, Ariel Sharon, engineer the reoccupation of the West Bank and crush the Palestinian Authority.

 

He also promoted the view that Israel was on the front line in the “war on terror”. In Feb 2003, a month before the US invasion of Iraq, he stated that Mr Arafat and Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, “believe in the same path, the path of terror meant to break Israel”.

 

When he took over diplomatic and security issues at the defence ministry in May 2003, Reuven Pedatzur, a military analyst, warned that the appointment marked “another step in the process of militarisation [of] Israeli society”. He added: “Civilians – and civil worldviews – have been totally excluded from any involvement or influence in the diplomatic process.”

 

Since Mr Olmert’s effective resignation in September over corruption allegations, and as Israel still waits for a new prime minister to emerge, government officials have complained that, despite being unelected, Mr Gilad is as good as “running the country”.

 

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

 

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

The Deep Politics of Hollywood

In the Parents` Best Interests

By Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham

Global Research, February 26, 2009

Tom Cruise – “the world's most powerful celebrity” according to Forbes Magazine – was unceremoniously sacked in 2006. His dismissal was particularly shocking for the fact that it was carried out not by his immediate employer, Paramount Studios, but rather by Paramount's parent company, Viacom. Viacom's notoriously irascible CEO Sumner Redstone – who owns a long list of media companies including CBS, Nickelodeon, MTV, and VH1 – said that Cruise had committed “creative suicide” following a spate of manic public activity. It was a sacking worthy of an episode of The Apprentice.[i]  The Cruise case points to the overlooked notion that the internal mechanisms of Hollywood are not determined entirely by audience desires, as one might expect, nor are they geared to respond solely to the decisions of studio creatives, or even those of the studio heads themselves. In 2000, The Hollywood Reporter released a top 100 list of the most powerful figures in the industry over the past 70 years. Rupert Murdoch, chief of News Corporation, which owns Twentieth Century Fox, was the most powerful living figure. With the exception of director Steven Spielberg (no. 3), no artists appeared in the top 10. Each of the dominant Hollywood studios (“the majors”) is now a subsidiary of a much larger corporation, and therefore is not so much a separate or independent business, but rather just one of a great many sources of revenue in its parent company's wider financial empire. The majors and their parents are: Twentieth Century Fox (News Corp), Paramount Pictures (Viacom), Universal (General Electric/Vivendi), Disney (The Walt Disney Company), Columbia TriStar (Sony), and Warner Brothers (Time Warner). These parent companies are amongst the largest and most powerful in the world, typically run by lawyers and investment bankers.[ii] Their economic interests are also sometimes closely tied to politicised areas such as the armaments industry, and they are frequently inclined to cozy-up to the government of the day because it decides on financial regulation.  As Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Professor Ben Bagdikian puts it, whereas once the men and women who owned the media could fit in a “modest hotel ballroom,” the same owners (all male) could now fit into a “generous phone booth.” He could have added that, whilst a phone box may not exactly be the chosen venue for the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone, these individuals do indeed meet at plush venues such as Idaho's Sun Valley to identify and forge their collective interests.  Of course, the content of a studio's films is not, as a rule, determined entirely by the political and economic interests of its parent company. Studio CEOs typically have considerable leeway to make the pictures they want to make without direct interference from their ultimate masters. At the very least, however, the content of Hollywood studios broadly reflects their wider corporate interests, and, at times, the parent companies behind the studios take a conscious and deliberate interest in certain movies. There is a battle between “top down” and “bottom up” forces, but mainstream media and academia have traditionally focused on the latter, rather than the former.  Consider last year's blockbuster Australia, the epic from Baz Luhrmann. Two of the film's most salient aspects were that, firstly, it glossed-over the history of Aboriginal people, and, secondly, it made Australia look like a fantastic place to go on holiday. This should come as no surprise – Twentieth Century Fox's parent company (Rupert Murdoch's News Corp) – worked hand-in-hand with the Australian government throughout the film's production for mutual interests. The government benefited from Luhrmann's huge tourist campaign, which included not just the feature film itself but also a series of extravagant tie-in advertisements (all in apparent support of its ham-fisted Aborigine “reconciliation” programme). In turn, the government gave its favourite son tens of millions of dollars in tax rebates. The West Australian newspaper even alleged that Murdoch had his "journalistic foot soldiers" ensure that every aspect of his media empire awarded Australia glowing reviews, an assessment nicely illustrated by The Sun, which enjoyed the “rare piece of good old fashioned entertainment" so much that its reviewer was "tempted to nip down to the travel agent."  There are historical precedents for such interference. In 1969 Haskell Wexler –cinematographer on One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest – had considerable trouble releasing his classic Medium Cool, which riffed on the anti-war protests at the Democrat Convention the previous year. Wexler claims he has Freedom of Information documents revealing that on the eve of the film's release, Chicago's Mayor Richard J. Daley and high sources in the Democratic Party let it be known to Gulf and Western (then the parent company of Paramount) that if Medium Cool was released, certain tax benefits and other perks in Gulf and Western's favor wouldn't happen. “A stiff prick has no conscience,” Wexler told us angrily, referring to Hollywood's business leaders, “and they have no conscience.”  Wexler explained how this corporate plot was enacted so as to minimize attention: “Paramount called me and said I needed releases from all the [protestors] in the park, which was impossible to provide. They said if people went to see that movie and left the theatre and did a violent act, then the offices of Paramount could be prosecuted.” Although Paramount was obliged to release the film they successfully pushed for an X rating, advertised it feebly, and forbade Wexler from taking it to film festivals. Hardly the way to make a profit on a movie, but certainly an effective way to protect the broader interests of the parent.  Then there's the more famous case of Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), the Michael Moore blockbuster which the Walt Disney Company tried to scupper despite it “testing through the roof” with sample audiences. Disney's subsidiary Miramax insisted that its parent had no right to block it from releasing the film since its budget was well below the level requiring Disney's approval. Disney representatives retorted that they could veto any Miramax film if it appeared that its distribution would be counterproductive to their interests. Moore's agent Ari Emanuel alleged that Disney's boss Michael Eisner had told him he wanted to back out of the deal due to concerns about political fallout from conservative politicians, especially regarding tax breaks given to Disney properties in Florida like Walt Disney World (where the governor was the then US President's brother, Jeb Bush). Disney also had ties to the Saudi Royal family, which was unfavourably represented in the film: a powerful member of the family, Al-Walid bin Talal, owns a major stake in Eurodisney and had been instrumental in bailing out the financially troubled amusement park. Disney denied any such high political ball game, explaining they were worried about being "dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle," which it said would alienate customers.  Disney has consistently spread pro-establishment messages in its films, particularly under subsidiary banners such as Hollywood Pictures and Touchstone Pictures (although Oliver Stone's 1995 Nixon biopic is a notable exception). Several received generous assistance from the US government: the Pentagon-backed In the Army Now (1994), Crimson Tide (1995), and Armageddon (1998), as well as the CIA-vetted Bad Company (2002) and The Recruit (2003). In 2006, Disney released the TV movie The Path to 9/11, which was heavily skewed to exonerate the Bush administration and blame the Clinton administration for the terrorist attacks, provoking outraged letters of complaint from former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger.  The nature of Disney's output makes sense when we consider the interests of the higher echelons of the corporation. Historically, Disney has had close ties with the US defense department, and Walt himself was a virulent anti-communist (though reports about him being a secret FBI informant or even a fascist are rather more speculative). In the 1950s, corporate and government sponsors helped Disney make films promoting President Eisenhower's “Atoms for Peace” policy as well as the infamous Duck and Cover documentary that suggested to schoolchildren that they could survive an atomic attack by hiding under their desks. Even now, a longtime Directors Board member of Disney is John E. Bryson who is also a director of The Boeing Company, one of the world's largest aerospace and defence contractors. Boeing received $16.6bn in Pentagon contracts in the aftermath of the US invasion of Afghanistan[iii]. This would have been no small incentive for Disney to avoid commissioning films critical of Bush's foreign policy, such as Fahrenheit 9/11.  It is hardly surprising that when Disney released Pearl Harbor (2001) – a simplistic mega-budget movie made with full cooperation from the Pentagon, and which celebrated the American nationalist resurgence following that “day of infamy”– it was widely received with cynicism. Yet, despite lamentable reviews, Disney unexpectedly decided in August 2001 to extend the film's nationwide release window from the standard two-to-four months to a staggering seven months, meaning that this ‘summer' blockbuster would now be screening until December. In addition, Disney expanded the number of theatres in which the film was showing, from 116 to 1,036. For the corporations due to profit from the aftermath of 9/11, Pearl Harbor provided grimly convenient mood music.  But whilst movies like Australia and Pearl Harbor receive preferential treatment, challenging and incendiary films are frequently cast into the cinematic memory hole. Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986) was a graphic expose of the Salvadorian civil war; its narrative was broadly sympathetic towards the left wing peasant revolutionaries and explicitly critical of U.S. foreign policy, condemning the United States' support of Salvador's right wing military and infamous death squads. Stone's film was turned down by every major Hollywood studio – with one describing it as a “hateful piece of work” – though it received excellent reviews from many critics. The film was eventually financed by British and Mexican investors and achieved limited distribution. More recently controversial documentaries such as Loose Change (2006/2007), which argued that 9/11 was an "inside job," and Zeitgeist (2007), which presents a frightening picture of global economics, have been viewed by millions through the Internet when corporate media wouldn't touch them.[iv]  Universal studios' contemporary output has been less rigidly supportive of US power, as films like Children of Men (2006), Jarhead (2005), and The Good Shepherd (2006) indicate. Still, with movies like U-571 (2000) and Charlie Wilson's War (2007), it makes sense that Universal's parent company is General Electric, whose most lucrative interests relate to weapons manufacturing and producing crucial components for high-tech war planes, advanced surveillance technology, and essential hardware for the global oil and gas industries, notably in post Saddam Iraq. GE's board of directors has strong ties to large liberal organizations such as the Rockefeller Foundation. Whilst ‘liberal' may sound like a positive term after the unpopularity of Bush's brand of conservatism, liberal organizations are cemented firmly in the bedrock of US elites and have frequently been architects of American interventionist foreign policy, including against Vietnam. They are prepared to ally themselves with conservatives over certain issues, particularly national security, so it should come as no shock to find that GE was close to the Bush Administration through both its former and current CEOs. Jack Welch (CEO from 1981-2001) openly declares disdain for “protocol, diplomacy and regulators” and was even accused by California Congressman Henry Waxman of pressuring his NBC network to declare Bush the winner prematurely in the 2000 “stolen election” when he turned up unannounced in the newsroom during the poll count. Welch's successor, the current GE CEO Jeff Immelt, is a neoconservative and was a generous financial contributor to the Bush re-election campaign.  Perhaps GE/Universal's most eyebrow-raising release was United 93 (2006), billed as the “true account” of how heroic passengers on 9/11 “foiled the terrorist plot” by forcing the plane to crash prematurely in rural Pennsylvania. Although the film made a return on its relatively low investment, it was greeted with a good deal of public apathy and hostility prior to its nation-wide release. At the time, Bush's official 9/11 story was being seriously interrogated by America's independent news media: according to the results of a 2004 Zogby poll, half of New Yorkers believed “US leaders had foreknowledge of impending 9/11 attacks and ‘consciously failed' to act,” and, just one month prior to the release of United 93, 83% of CNN viewers recorded their belief “that the US government covered up the real events of the 9/11 attacks.” With the official narrative under heavy fire, the Bush Administration welcomed the release of United 93 with open arms: the film was a faithful audio-visual translation of the 9/11 Commission Report, with “special thanks” to the Pentagon's Hollywood liaison Phil Strub tucked away discreetly in the end credits. Soon after the film's nationwide release date, in what might be interpreted as a cynical PR move and as gesture of official approval, President Bush sat down with some of the victims' family members for a private screening at the White House. [v]  GE/Universal's Munich (2005) – Steven Spielberg's exploration of Israeli vengeance following the Palestinian terrorist attack at the 1972 Olympics – raises similar suspicions. Although the Zionist Organisation of American called for a boycott of the film because they felt it equated Israel with terrorists, such a reading is less than convincing. Indeed, by the time Munich's credits begin to roll its overriding messages have been stamped indelibly into the brain by the film's Israeli Special Forces characters: “Every civilization finds it necessary to negotiate compromises with its own values,” “We kill for our future, we kill for peace,” and “Don't f*ck with the Jews.” Predictably, Israel is one of GE's most loyal customers, buying Hellfire II laser missiles as well as propulsion systems for the F-16 Falcon fighter, the F-4 Phantom fighter, the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, and the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. In Munich's 167 minute running time the voice of the Palestinian cause is restricted to two and a half minutes of simplistic dialogue. Rather than being an “evenhanded cry for peace,” as the Los Angeles Times hailed it, General Electric's Munich is more easily interpreted as a subtle corporate endorsement of the policies of a loyal customer.  On the most liberal end of the spectrum for movies in recent years has been Warner Bros. – JFK (1991), The Iron Giant (1999), South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut (1999), Good Night and Good Luck (2005), V for Vendetta (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006), Rendition (2007), and In the Valley of Elah (2007). It is indicative that following complaints about racial stereotyping in Warner Bros.' Pentagon-sponsored action adventure, Executive Decision (1996), the studio took the unusual step of hiring the services of Jack Shaheen, an on-set adviser on racial politics, resulting in what was critically received as one of the best films of its genre in a generation, Three Kings (1999).[vi]It may be no coincidence that Warner Brothers' parent company, Time Warner, is less intimately tied to the arms industry or the neoconservative clique.  But to have an idea of what happens to movies when you remove multinational interests from the industry, consider the independent distributor Lions Gate Films, which is still very much a part of the capitalist system (formed in Canada by an investment banker) but not beholden to a multibillion dollar parent corporation with multifarious interests. Although Lions Gate has generated a good deal of politically vague and blood ‘n' guts products, it has also been behind some of the most daring and original popular political cinema of the past ten years, criticizing corporatism in American Psycho (2000), US foreign policy in Hotel Rwanda (2004), the arms trade in Lord of War (2005), the U.S. healthcare system in Michael Moore's Sicko (2007), and the U.S. establishment in general in The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006).  It hardly needs re-stating that Hollywood is driven by the desire for dollars rather than artistic integrity. As such, cinema is open to product placement in a variety of forms, from toys, to cars, to cigarettes, and even state-of-the art weaponry (hence the “special thanks” to Boeing in the credits of Iron Man (2008)). Less obvious though – and less well investigated – is how the interests of the studios' parent companies themselves impact on cinema – at both systemic and individual levels. We hope to see critical attention shifted onto the ultimate producers of these films to help explain their deradicalised content, and ultimately to assist audiences in making informed decisions about what they consume. As we peer up from our popcorn it is as well to remember that behind the magic of the movies are the wizards of corporate PR.  Matthew Alford is author of the forthcoming book “Projecting Power: American Foreign Policy and the Hollywood Propaganda System.” Robbie Graham is Associate Lecturer in Film at Stafford College. References available on request. NOTES [i] Most memorably, Cruise declared his love for Katie Holmes whilst bouncing up and down on Oprah (the chat show, not the woman).  [ii] The 2008 Fortune Global 500 list placed General Electric at no. 12 with revenue of $176bn. Sony was at 75, Time Warner at no. 150, The Walt Disney Company at no. 207, and News Corp at no. 280. By way of comparison, Coca Cola is at no. 403.  [iii] Interestingly, Disney's CEO Michael Eisner was personally involved when it pulled Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect show after the host committed the cardinal sin of saying that the US use of cruise missiles was more cowardly than the 9/11 attacks, with Eisner “summoning Maher into his office for a hiding” according to Mark Crispin Miller in the Nation.  [iv] A less convincing but nevertheless intriguing case can be made for high political/economic influence over the distribution of John Carpenter's satirical sci-fi They Live (1988), which depicted the world as being run by an invading force of evil space aliens, allied with the US establishment. The film was well received by critics (with the notable exceptions of the NYT and Washington Post) and opened at number one in the box office. It easily made its $4m investment back over the weekend, and although by the second weekend it had dropped to fourth place, it still made $2.7m. The distributing studio, Universal Pictures, published an advertisement during its run that showed a skeletal alien standing behind a podium in suit and tie, with a mop of hair similar to that of Dan Quayle, the new US Vice-President-elect. The Presidential election had been just a few days previous, on November 8th. Co-star Keith David observed: “Not that anybody's being paranoid but suddenly you couldn't see it [They Live] anywhere – it was, like, snatched”.  [v] We stated elsewhere that representatives from Universal attended the screening. This was erroneous.  [vi] Shaheen also later assisted on Warner Bros.' Syriana (2005).

The Great “Global Crisis of Maturity” and the New World Order

Daniel Taylor
Old-Thinker News
February 23, 2009

"Although technological powers will be vast and progress will likely be made, the normal level of social resistance and political stalemate is likely to oppose change. Thus, it may take an occasional environmental collapse, global wars and terrorism, or yet unknown calamities to force the move to global consciousness." — William E. Halal, Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity

The technological revolution that will re-shape humanity and our world is well underway. A cacophony of crises, both real and manufactured, are being heralded as birth pangs of a new global order. Some analysts say that we can no more fathom the political, technological, and social world that will emerge as "…chimpanzees in the forest can comprehend what goes on among humans in a nearby village." [1]

We witness piecemeal examples of the steady buildup to this catalyst every day in the media. However, they fail to connect them in a coherent picture to demonstrate their interwoven nature. The "big picture" gets lost to many. We leave it to the "experts" to interpret these events and developments, but they often present solutions that come directly from the establishment. 

To begin, let’s take a look at the technological revolution. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information science and cognitive science (NBIC) are converging to form what has been called the largest leap in technological progress in human history. The Transhumanist movement is eagerly anticipating this revolution. Some foresee the fusion of the human brain with computer circuitry as leading "…to a truly revolutionary upheaval for the human race." [2] Brain-machine interfaces; cloning; genetic engineering of food, plants, and animals; artificial intelligence; nanomaterials; these all stem from the NBIC convergence.

Some countries are currently serving as testing grounds for technologies that are expected to be implemented globally in the near future. For example, South Korea’s "U-city" or "ubiquitous city" called New Songdo - hailed as the city of the future - is nearly fully functional. The city is wired from the ground up with RFID sensors and other advanced computing devices to automate traffic, surveillance and e-government. The marketing campaign for the city is heavily focused on consumer convenience aspects of the technology, reminiscent of the sci-fi thriller Minority Report. The U-city model, being tested in New Songdo, is anticipated to be exported world-wide. There is a reason this technology is being tested in South Korea. As the New York Times reports,

"Much of this technology was developed in U.S. research labs, but there are fewer social and regulatory obstacles to implementing them in Korea," said Mr. Townsend [a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California], who consulted on Seoul’s own U-city plan, known as Digital Media City. "There is an historical expectation of less privacy. Korea is willing to put off the hard questions to take the early lead and set standards." [3]

Some believe that ubiquitous computing technology, also known as the "Internet of Things", is heralding the beginning of a "unified global intelligence." This global intelligence will consist of a vast network of places, things and people that have been given a virtual representation in a computer network. William E. Halal, professor emeritus of science, technology and innovation at George Washington University writes,

"Even with the turmoil that is sure to follow, this will mark the serious beginning of a unified global intelligence, what some have forecast as the emergence of a "global brain" - a fine web of conscious thought directing life on the planet." [4]

Brain-machine interfaces

The current and ongoing technological revolution has - as shown with the above example - a whole array of implications attached to it. Advancements in brain-machine interfaces provide one of the most startling examples. Fred C. Ikle, former undersecretary of defense for policy under the Reagan administration, and author of The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within,is anticipating the development of advanced brain-machine interfaces. It is this development that Ikle sees as the most revolutionary. He writes,

"In my judgment, the greatest, most profound transformation of the human condition will not derive from the prolongation of life, or from the anxiously debated - and probably vastly overrated - possibilities of human cloning and "designer babies." Instead, I see an effective synthesis of the computer with living human brains as the agent that will lead to a truly revolutionary upheaval for the human race."[5]

These interfaces, Ikle writes, could spark a race between superpowers to create a super-advanced think tank. This brain-computer symbiosis would come from a group of individuals connected to a central computer.

"Its purpose would be greatly to enrich and expand what advanced computers can do by creating a symbiosis between, on one side, a computer system designed for this purpose, and on the other side, the judgmental capacities and essential emotive functions of the human brain. The contribution of the living human brain would probably not come from one individual "hooked up" to a computer, but from computer linkages to an expert committee or group of policy advisors. Such a symbiosis would be far more advanced than the latest brain-computer links."[6]

Transhumanism

Brain-machine interfaces lead us inevitably to the Transhumanist movement, which sees technologies like this as heralding a new era of human enhancement. Most researchers anticipate these technologies to be developed at first to serve a medical purpose - such as restoring sight, allowing paralyzed individuals to move robotic arms using their minds, etc. The initial focus on providing aid to disabled individuals is giving technologies like brain-machine interfaces public acceptance and support because of its benevolent nature. Eventually, however, these technologies will be used for enhancement purposes and not out of any specific medical necessity.

The June 2002 conference Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, organized by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce, discussed this NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information science and Cognitive science) revolution. The lengthy report demonstrates the intense attention that is being given to these rising technologies. The report calls for the training of a new generation of scientists to aid in the coming convergence.

"Education and training at all levels should use converging technologies as well as prepare people
to take advantage of them. Interdisciplinary education programs, especially in graduate school,
can create a new generation of scientists and engineers who are comfortable working across fields
and collaborating with colleagues from a variety of specialties… education projects need to be launched at the intersections of crucial fields to build a scientific community that will achieve the convergence of technologies that can greatly improve human capabilities." [7]

The Knowledge NBIC Project, funded by the European Union, is conducting research into the political and social implications of the NBIC convergence. One of the project’s recent reports details the potential applications of these enhancement technologies,

"…people may come to think of themselves as ‘always already disabled’, that is, on the verge of falling behind in a social world where regular neurochemical upgradings are expected as a precondition for adequate performance. The first stirrings of this general problem have already entered public view in controversies concerning the use of drugs to enhance competitive athletic and academic performance. The political responses so far suggest that this… agenda may well be subject to considerable regulation but it is very unlikely that its advance will be stopped altogether."[8]

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense report DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036 is also anticipating the use of this technology.

"By 2035, an implantable information chip could be developed and wired directly to the user’s brain. Information and entertainment choices would be accessible through cognition and might include synthetic sensory perception beamed direct to the user’s senses. Wider related ICT developments might include the invention of synthetic telepathy, including mind-to-mind or telepathic dialogue. This type of development would have obvious military and security, as well as control, legal and ethical, implications."[9]

The RAND corporation has its sights on this technological revolution as well. RAND’s 2001 report,The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015 covers these issues. Among other trends, it foresees expanded globalization, reduced privacy and potential societal unrest as a response to revolutionary technologies.

"The results could be astonishing. Effects may include significant improvements in human quality of life and life span… continued globalization, reshuffling of wealth, cultural amalgamation or invasion with potential for increased tension and conflict, shifts in power from nation states to non-governmental organizations and individuals… and the possibility of human eugenics and cloning."[10]

The Scientific Planners

"Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man’s side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well." — CS Lewis, The Abolition of Man

The influence of wealthy and important interests in shaping current and past events cannot be ignored when studying what the future may hold. Elites have always sought to project their dominance into the future, and this modern world is no different. Trends can either be products of an organic process or a deliberate method.

As we progress into the future, prominent analysts see a trend toward global government and a "global consciousness" as a natural, logical, and organic process of evolution. What these experts often fail to mention is the fact that it has been a prime directive of institutional schooling to prepare andcondition youth to accept world governance for decades.

In 1954 the Reece Committee, chaired by Carroll B. Reece, produced its findings regarding the influence of tax-exempt foundations in the field of education. The Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation and others were discussed during the Committee hearings. A predominant theme in the Committee’s findings was the desire of the foundations and those behind them to create a system of world governance. The use of propaganda and social engineering were identified as the means to achieve this goal.

The Reece Committee cited a report from the President’s Commission on Higher Education, published in 1947. The cited report states,

"In speed of transportation and communication and in economic interdependence, the nations of the globe are already one world; the task is to secure recognition and acceptance of this oneness in the thinking of the people, as that the concept of one world may be realized psychologically, socially and in good time politically.

It is this task in particular that challenges our scholars and teachers to lead the way toward a new way of thinking. There is an urgent need for a program for world citizenship that can be made a part of every person’s general education.

It will take social science and social engineering to solve the problems of human relations. Our people must learn to respect the need for special knowledge and technical training in this field as they have come to defer to the expert in physics, chemistry, medicine, and other sciences." [1]

Futurists and government analysts often point to global warming and terrorism as defining crises of our time, as a natural part of the "global crisis of maturity." Today, these issues are often presented as a justification for a system of world governance. William E. Halal writes,

"Intercultural conflict, weapons of mass destruction, and threats of environmental collapse are likely to force the move to some form of global community as the best means for managing such nagging problems." [2]

Again, what we are not being told is that these issues were identified by powerful interests many years ago to serve as a pretext to prepare the way for "global solutions." In a 1991 report titled "The First Global Revolution", published by the Club of Rome, we find the following statement:

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." [3]

In order to gain a deeper perspective, let’s take a look at the earlier 1976 Club of Rome report "Rio: Reshaping the International Order" which details a strategy to create a system of economic and world governance. The report states,

"At the highest level, the level of world affairs, international institutions must form the prime movers of planned change."

"The achievement of this global planning and management system calls for the conscioustransfer of power - a gradual transfer to be sure - from the nation State to the world organization. Only when this transfer takes place can the organization become effective and purposeful."[4]

Halal continues in his Futurist article, praising the Club of Rome for its anticipation of these events,

"The major conclusion from this analysis is that the world is facing a global crisis of maturity, the most salient example being the near-collapse of the global banking system in October 2008. Warnings of massive transformations have been anticipated for decades by the Club of Rome and many others. Today, however, the acceleration of change seems to be producing a mounting series of severe global disruptions - energy shortages as oil supplies peak, impending climate change and environmental decline in general… continuing terrorism… as globalization inexorably strains old systems to the breaking point."[5]

As these crises develop amidst the rising technological revolution, we are entering an "Age of Transitions" in which the elite of society - who have foreseen, and in many cases manufactured these crises - hope to emerge on top.

The Great Transition

"It will be necessary to replace today’s cumbersome social systems, religious dogmas, heated emotions, partisan ideologies, and other commonly outmoded forms of thought and consciousness that now form the major obstacles to progress." — William E. Halal, Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity

There are several futurists, think tanks and high level government analysts that are both eagerly anticipating and warning that there will be great social conflict during this "great transition". They are nearly uniform in calling for a casting aside of "outmoded forms of thought" to pave the way for a new era. By holding on to "ancient ideas" of government and religion, people are holding back the progress of the great technological revolution and a resulting "planetary civilization". Some have compared the potential impact of this transition to the social and political impact of the Industrial Revolution. This new revolution, however, is on a much grander scale.

Some call it the "Age of Transitions", others the "Global Crisis of Maturity". Zbigniew Brzezinski called it the "Technectronic Era".  However it is labeled, it brings with it major change and upheaval to humanity. Fred C. Ikle, author of The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within, sees a widening gap between the "two souls" of society. One is dedicated to the scientific outlook that has been freed from religious and political bindings, while the other clings to the "stubborn past" of tradition and religion. Ikle sees this expanding gap as a great danger to all governments world-wide. Ikle writes,

"This widening chasm is ominous. It might impair the social cohesion of societies, and of nations, by drawing the human psyche in two directions: to the personal and national identity that resides in acquired beliefs, memories, and traditions of the past; and to the promise of greater wealth and power offered by untrammeled technological progress… In the scientific sphere, we are neither emotionally tied to our cultural and religious heritage, nor pining for a final redemption. But when animated by the world’s old soul, we seek to protect our identity by clinging to ancient artifacts from our ancestors and hallowed legends from the distant past."[1]

William E. Halal stated in the March-April 2009 edition of The Futurist that, "Some new form of global order is needed to avert disaster." He continues, "The transition could happen anytime, but it is hard to conceive of a future in which today’s systems could survive much beyond 2020, let alone 2030." Halal writes,

"It will be necessary to replace today’s cumbersome social systems, religious dogmas, heated emotions, partisan ideologies, and other commonly outmoded forms of thought and consciousness that now form the major obstacles to progress."[2]

Halal cites prominent pollster John Zogby’s new book The Way We’ll Be as he discusses the rise of a new "global generation." His description of this generation fits current economic trends that point to dramatically lower standards of living, but frames this as a "sustainable" lifestyle. The "First Globals" as he calls them will be "…intent on living sustainable lives in a unified world." Zogby writes,

"…we are in the midst of a fundamental reorientation of the American character… away from wanton consumption and toward a new global citizenry in an age of limited resources." [3]

Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist and futurist, believes that the globe is moving towards what he calls a "Type 1" civilization. This civilization, according to Kaku, will be technologically superior and constitute a world-wide system of governance, a global language, culture, and global economy. The transition may not be smooth, however. As kaku has repeatedly stated, there will be resistance to the rise of this "Type 1" civilization. In a 2006 interview Kaku stated,

"It’s the most dangerous of all transitions because there are some people who don’t want to be in type 1. They instinctively in their gut know that a type 1 system will be a system of different discourses, of different ideas and clashes of ideas and so on and so forth and these people who don’t want this transition are the terrorists.

In their gut, the terrorists know that we’re headed for type 1. They can’t articulate it, they don’t know the larger outlines of it, but in their gut they don’t like it."[3]

In an earlier 2005 BBC interview Kaku said,

"…look at the economies. NAFTA, European Union, Trading blocks, the birth of a new economy is taking place.

Now there are people who don’t like this transition, who feel in their gut feel more comfortable being in a Type minus 1. They’re the terrorists. They in their gut realize that a Type 1 civilization has flowing ideas, challenging orthodoxies, new bigger, wondrous ideas popping forth. That’s Type 1." [5]

As the world faces unparalleled economic turmoil, America’s decline is marking a historical geopolitical time period. The re-ordering of the globe is underway. The "Global Crisis of Maturity" - as envisioned by the elite - is ushering in a new world order as advancing technologies dramatically alter society.

It is vitally important that everyone, especially young people, gain their own understanding of what we are facing. The school system may prepare you for the future, but only in a manner that is self-serving to the establishment and kept within safe confines to prevent organic change. This study must involve not just a study of potential technological developments, but an understanding of the nature of power and the elites that wield it. Social engineers and opinion molders will be working overtime to shape society during this "Age of Transitions" as societal norms are broken and reshaped, and the political battlefield is thrown into chaos.

Related articles:

Trends to a New World Order: Part 1

Trends to a New World Order: Part 2

Anticipatory Conformity: Will the Growing Surveillance Panopticon Cause us to Self-censor?

Global warming hysteria serves as excuse for world government

Orwellian Ubiquitous Computing May Build Ultimate Surveillance Society

EU Set to Move ‘Internet of Things’ Closer to Reality

Educators Seek Shift in U.S. Schooling to Stress "Global" Values, See Nationalism as "Obsolete"

Citation:

The Technological Revolution:

[1.] Ikle, Fred Charles. The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within. Columbia University Press, 2006. Page 33

[2.] lbid 1, Ikle.

[3.] "Korea’s High-Tech Utopia, Where Everything Is Observed."  The New York Times. October 5, 2005. Available at:

[4.] Halal, William E. "Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity." The Futurist.March-April 2009.

[5.] lbid 1, Ikle.

[6.] lbid 1, Ikle. Page 32.

[7.] Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, National Science Foundation. "Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance." Arlington, Virginia 2002. Page 21. Available here:

[8.] Project coordinator: Nico Stehr Ph.D. F.R.S.C. "Knowledge Politics and New Converging Technologies: A Social Science Perspective." Available here:

[9.] "DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036."

[10.] Philip S. Anto´n, Richard Silberglitt, James Schneider. "The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015." RAND Corporation. 2001. Available here:

The Scientific Planners:

[1.] United States. Cong. House Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations. 1954.

[2.] Halal, William E. "Technology’s Promise: Highlights from the TechCast Project", The Futurist,Nov-Dec 2006.

[3.] Alexander King & Bertrand Schneider. The First Global Revolution. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991. Page 115.

[4.] Jan Tinbergen. RIO: Reshaping the International Order: A Report to the Club of Rome. 1976. Page 100.

[5.] lbid 2, Halal.

The Great Transition:

[1.] lbid 1, Ikle. Page 16.

[2.] lbid 2, Halal.

[3.] lbid 2, Halal.

[4.] 2006 interview with the Conscious Media Network. Available here:

[5.] BBC Hard Talk Extra. Gavin Esler interviewing Michio Kaku. April 22, 2005. Available here: