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Conspiracy?

by Elysian Wednesday, Feb. 07, 2001 at 6:54 AM

These days something else is going on behind the scenes. Even the most heart-felt and passionately desired efforts of either side are oddly deadlocked in every meaningful way. The recent election stands as a symptom of this acute case of strange political paralysis.

By Diane Harvey

2-1-01



The floor of this world is littered knee-deep in conspiracies, no question about it. For that matter, wherever there are a group people agreeing to act together about anything at all, a conspiracy blossoms accordingly. And when it comes to politics, the roots of our two-party system ensure veritable jungles of full-blown conspiracies as a way of political life. We might say that this fundamentally polarized form of political thinking demands and insists on conspiracy in order to work at all. Therefore the reality of left wing and right wing conspiracies is a given: of course they exist. The only questions are: what forms are they taking, how well are they working, and are they the actual prime movers of events in our country these days?



My premise here is that both types of longstanding Machiavellian political conspiracies have been hollowed out and subverted. The virtue, so to speak, has gone out of them. Our national game of left wing/right wing politics is still the formality being observed, but power and money have been siphoned off, and the IV draining these away runs along the floor out of sight. Whoever looks at this matter from a detached perspective will see that poor beleaguered folk trying to push either right wing or left wing agendas are neither one of them getting very far these days. And this in itself is an intriguing metamorphosis in the body politic. Not so long ago, these two wings of the national eagle more or less took turns flapping, and whether they liked it or not, acted together through time to move the nation along. Each wing had its moments of steering, correcting, and overcorrecting. There are advantages and disadvantages to this, as to any other system of political thought, but as a long-range flight design, it has worked reasonably well. The architects of this alternating current form of left/right politics knew exactly what they were doing.



These days something else is going on behind the scenes. Even the most heart-felt and passionately desired efforts of either side are oddly deadlocked in every meaningful way. The recent election stands as a symptom of this acute case of strange political paralysis. I propose that this is a natural outcome of what is going on now in back of the tattered remains of our political system. Those who in previous decades were primarily using our two-party system in order to further their plans, have now withdrawn from that stage in many important respects. They are busy forming a single invisible unit above all national political loyalties and operations. To the reasonable argument that such groups have always been there, I would answer: Yes, but what we are looking at here is nevertheless a far more cohesive, powerful and sinister version than has yet existed.



One hears a great deal of emotional speech referring to socialist plots , communist plots and the left wing media . Likewise there is a broad range of equally vociferous explanations of right wing plots , the religious right and the conservative agenda . These various types of conspiracies, or groups of like-minded citizens, certainly try to sway public opinion and political policy. But when I look at this country I don t see any of these factions as particularly powerful. And some of these popular conspiracies don t seem to exist at all in the forms people think they do. Take the idea of a left wing media conspiracy. This is not even theoretically possible: a very few corporations own almost all media outlets in this nation. I have yet to see a powerful corporation demonstrate a left wing orientation. And neither have you. Corporations exist to profit from our existence any way they can, and keep the loot- that s it. This is not what left wing conspiracies are made of, any way you look at it. Left wing conspiracies exist to take public monies and spread them around. Agree or disagree with the political attitude, this bears no resemblance to corporate behavior. Of course there are left wing conspiracies, but this isn t one of them.



Or take the idea that there is a right wing conspiracy to retain private ownership of guns. The liberal rhetoric around this issue is not based on even a theoretical possibility. To speak of a conspiracy here is merely a cloud of meaningless noise generated by an inability to think at all. This is not a right wing conspiracy but a crucial cornerstone of the psyche of a nation founded on personal responsibility. The very real problem of out-of-control violence will have to be solved in some other way- period. Namely by looking into who is deliberately causing this and profiting from it. And what about a genuine right wing conspiracy? I don t see that the conservative agenda is having its way either, in the sense that the best part of it would like to see common sense restored to public life. I am not referring to window dressing, or a change of suits at the White House. I am referring to the grotesque modern culture of death that permeates everything we breathe, drink, eat and see. Neither the left wing agenda nor the right wing agenda will ever make a dent in this, since it is engineered behind the scenes by powers far greater than sincere political thinking of either end of the spectrum.



We are citizens of a country rapidly devolving into secret totalitarian rule, which cares nothing for either political ideology, or any of its ancillary sub-conspiracies. Who are these people then, behind the scenes, and what do they want? We will not find out if we cannot occasionally set aside attachments to the old national levels of normal political conspiracy thinking, and look for the Metaconspiracy beyond. Because this unified group is now determining the real direction of our nation, and the very fact that these people remain invisible as they gain more and more power ought to have our full attention.



It is commonplace in Metaconspiracy circles, and has been for a long time, to name this hidden dynamo as the corporate/military/government establishment. And so it is. This is exactly what it is, and then some. But this is just the beginning of the investigation into the dreadful hidden machinations of the dark group-mind driving us down a one-way dead-end road. It is not enough to know this much. Everything and everyone responsible for what has happened to our country in the last fifty years must eventually be dragged out into the light of day. To all the bone-weary and depressed observers of the fall of the United States of America into the hands of dark forces, the battle is against seemingly impossible odds. Yet to fight back in every way possible remains our destiny all the same. We are performing revolutionary acts through improving the health, ethics, emotional strength, mental perceptions and spiritual vision of our families and ourselves. The simplest of healthy daily life realities are now revolutionary acts because in order to live well at all, we must continually strive uphill, against every kind of pressure working against these inalienable rights. Of course we must also engage in direct activities to stave off encroaching darkness in this perpetual warfare against the vicious culture of totalitarian death. The historical truth of our times is that the more pleasant alternatives life might have offered us have already been devoured. Whether the long and difficult struggle before us leads to the victory or defeat of the Metaconspiracy, this struggle is nevertheless, as the remnant of a free people, all we have left. To collectively give up, to give in, would be the death of the very soul of freedom.









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Let me out!

by Antonio X Wednesday, Feb. 07, 2001 at 6:51 PM

So much for importing the progressive movemnet to Cuba.

Published Tuesday, February 6, 2001, in the Miami Herald

Cuba frees two Czech citizens

Pair signed paper admitting they had broken the law

BY ANITA SNOW

Associated Press

HAVANA -- Cuba on Monday freed two prominent Czech citizens after they signed a statement admitting they had broken Cuban law. They had been held in a Havana jail for more than three weeks on subversion charges for meeting with dissidents.

Immediately after their release, Czech lawmaker Ivan Pilip and Jan Bubenik left Cuba's Foreign Ministry building in a car, saying they would hold a news conference later.

Chilean Congressman Juan Pablo Letelier, the human rights representative of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, confirmed that the men had been freed and would be leaving the island in a few hours.

The announcement came after the pair admitted before a group of foreign diplomats that they had broken Cuban laws when they met with dissidents here last month.

In the signed declaration, Pilip, 37, an ex-finance minister, and Bubenik, 32, a former student leader, admitted to ``the error of not knowing Cuban law and of violating Cuban law,'' Marco Antonio Loustaunau, Mexico's commercial attaché here, told reporters. The statement did not contain an apology.

A copy of the document was not made available to reporters.

Diplomats from countries including Sweden, Chile, and Great Britain were among others seen entering the Foreign Ministry building for the meeting, which was arranged by Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque .

President Fidel Castro had earlier suggested that the case could be resolved if an apology were offered.

``Offer an apology to our country . . . there must be an excuse,'' Castro said during a six-hour speech that ran into the early hours of Saturday.

Tension between the two countries ran high in recent weeks, with Castro calling the Czech embassy in Havana ``a cave of spies,'' which had ``spent 10 years spying.''

If convicted on charges of acting against the island nation's security and inciting a rebellion, the Czechs could have faced up to 20 years in prison.

Cuban authorities remain angry about the Czech Republic's role last year in introducing a United Nations resolution to condemn Cuba for its human rights record. Poland, another former socialist ally, cosponsored the resolution, which was later approved at a meeting in Geneva.

Johnson said he met three times with Castro since arriving in Havana last Wednesday, as well as with Cuba's National Assembly president, Ricardo Alarcón, in hopes of helping free the pair.

Letelier, president of the Inter-Parliamentary group's human rights committee also attended the meetings. He is the son of Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean ambassador to the United States who was slain in Washington in 1976 by a car bomb blamed on anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

The parliamentarians also met with the jailed Czechs, as well as Czech Senate President Petr Pithart, who traveled to Havana last week in hopes of helping free the pair. The lawmakers' group became involved in the case because Pilip is a parliamentarian and the Cuban government allowed its representatives to take on a mediation role several days ago, Johnson said.

According to Prague radio, Pithart on Monday said he had information that Pilip and Bubenik were the first people to be accused under Cuban Law 88 from 1999, which Cuba says was a reaction to the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. The Helms-Burton Act says that Americans have a right to sue foreign firms that do business in Cuba using property that used to belong to Americans.

The pair was arrested Jan. 12 after they met with dissidents in the central Cuban province of Ciego de Avila. Cuban authorities claim the Czechs were acting on behalf of American interests, accusations U.S. officials have branded as ``ludicrous.''

Had they been convicted on charges of acting against the island nation's security and inciting a rebellion, the Czechs could have faced up to 20 years in prison.

Herald translator Renato Pérez contributed to this report.

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It's not conspiracy, it's reality

by Awake Wednesday, Feb. 07, 2001 at 10:35 PM

It's not conspiracy, it's reality. In more honest times, such closed-door decisions and policymaking was called corruption, graft, and racketeering. The term conspiracy helps keep the mainstream public in denial.

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What's The Connection Here?

by BrownOneYQue Thursday, Feb. 08, 2001 at 1:24 AM
BrownOneYQue

So what is the connection here between the meandering discussion of

conspiracies above and the arrest of two Czech's in Cuba. Is the

implication that the Czech's are mere agents of some larger Western

agenda to further tarnish Cuba's image in the global scheme of things?

As absurd as it would sound, I would at least entertain the idea, since

when do former Eastern European communist-controlled countries make it

their business to meddle in the human rights affairs of the only bastion of

communism in the western hemisphere. I could see the connection of suffering

under communism, but to pick on Cuba seems like the bastard children of

Goliath picking on a miniscule David. How come none of these boo boo

heads address the human rights abuses in the former soviet union, where

muslims are treated like shit, or even in the U.S., where black people still

can't get their vote counted. As problematic as it may sound, I support

Castro in his effort to protect his people and movement from potential

wolves in sheeps clothing. Sympathy for Cuban dissidents is a noble

cause but it must be done separate from the sphere of Cuban-U.S.

politics where it is too easily co-opted in the U.S. agenda of undermining

Castro and the Cuban people--that is where I definitely see a conspiracy

and a reality.





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