Rather December 21 marks the beginning of a new “Long Cycle” in the Mayan calendar system. (See Washington’s Blog, End of the World: Hear the 2012 Prophecy … Direct from the Mouths of the Mayan Priests, Global Research, December 13, 2012)
The End of the World concept is a falsehood and misinterpretation of Mayan thought. What is at stake is a renewal, the unfolding of a new era. For the Mayans, December 21, 2012 marks the beginning of a new long cycle (Ibid).
Meanwhile, “End of the World” stories and commentary are plastered on the news tabloids. While the Western media readily refutes the Mayan prophesy, the apocalypse narrative, when repeated ad nauseam, serves as a distraction and distortion.
A Reuters-Ispos poll conducted last May confirms that 10% of the World’s population believe that: “The Mayan calendar, which some say ‘ends’ in 2012, marks the end of the world”.
Ironically, in sharp contrast to the Mayan prophesy of “renewal, the real World we live in at the outset of the 21st Century is marked by a formidable economic and social crisis which is impoverishing millions of people, literally destroying people’s lives.
In the figurative sense, we are in the midst of an unfolding “doomsday scenario” of a complex political, social and economic nature: it’s man made, it’s “Made in America”; it is the consequence of the fracture of the judicial system, the evolving Homeland Security apparatus, the fraudulent deregulation of financial markets, the mismanagement of the real economy.
These fundamental shifts in America’s institutional and social fabric are coupled with a far-reaching global military agenda and a self-serving US foreign policy.
The latter under the helm of Secretary Hillary Clinton points towards potential a breakdown of the channels of international diplomacy.
War and the Economic Crisis are intimately related. While the global economy is in a state of chaos, marked by the collapse of productive systems, the US and its allies – including NATO and Israel – have embarked upon a military adventure, “a long war” under the disguise of a “global war on terrorism”.
The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. The military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously.
Pentagon war games routinely focus on simulating World War III scenarios. This “End of the World” military agenda potentially threatens the future of humanity.
While World public attention is riveted on the “Mayan apocalypse”, the “Real Crisis” which is affecting humanity is not an object of serious debate. The Pentagon’s “long war” combined with a murky scenario of global impoverishment and economic breakdown is not front page news.
The corporate media plays a central role in providing legitimacy to a destructive military agenda.
The US-NATO weapons arsenal and military deployment in all regions of the World are routinely portrayed as instruments of peace. America’s new generation of tactical nuclear weapons are said to be “harmless to the surrounding civilian population”. Pre-emptive nuclear war, which constitutes a de facto doomsday scenario, is portrayed as a “humanitarian undertaking”.
Central to an understanding of war is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion.
A good versus evil dichotomy prevails.
The perpetrators of war are presented as the victims.
According to the Western media, America and NATO’s “Atlantic area” were attacked by a “foreign power” [Afghanistan] on September 11, 2001: an a absurd proposition.
NATO’s doctrine of collective security, based on the concept of “self defense” was invoked by the Atlantic Council on the morning of September 12, 2001 as a justification to bomb and invade Afghanistan, because Afghanistan had allegedly attacked America.
Meanwhile, the media stands mum: no analysis, no debate. Public opinion is misled.
Breaking the “big lie”, which upholds war as a humanitarian undertaking, means breaking the propaganda apparatus, which sustains a criminal project of global destruction.
War propaganda not only sustains a profit-driven military agenda, it creates in the inner consciousness of millions of people the acceptance of war as a societal project.
It literally stamps out and excludes from the human mindset fundamental human values of peace, compassion and social justice. It transforms people into unconscious zombies.
The corporate media is involved in acts of camouflage. The devastating impacts of a nuclear war are either trivialized or not mentioned.
Against this backdrop, people across the land, nationally and internationally, should understand the gravity of the present situation and act forcefully at all levels of society to reverse the tide of war.
The conduct of global warfare is accompanied by process of Worldwide macroeconomic restructuring. Throughout the World strong “economic medicine” is imposed.
People are led to believe that austerity is the “solution” to crisis when it is in fact the “cause” of economic collapse.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the IMF “Structural Adjustment Program” (SAP) was imposed on the Third World, Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the countries of the former Soviet block. In all these countries, the standard of living plummeted, State social programs were phased out or privatised.
In North America and the European Union, the social crisis has been is marked by the weakening or outright disintegration of Medicare, Social Security and public education.
The civilian economy is in crisis. Tax revenues are reallocated to building a formidable war economy at the expense of social services. Fiscal collapse is the inevitable outcome. State budgets are dictated by the creditor banks, which increasingly decide on the fate of millions of people.
Across America, millions of households have lost their homes. Small businesses are driven into bankruptcy. What remains of social security and Medicare is slated to be scrapped.
The only sectors of the US economy which are booming are the luxury goods sector geared to the “One Percent” and the state of the art weapons industry, largely composed of the defence conglomerates including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, British Aerospace et al.
The war economy is booming, F35 fighter jets are to be sold at half a billion dollars a piece. Not included in this price is another 300 million dollars of related maintenance and upkeep of these state of of the art fighter jets.
Canada and Norway be acquiring a large number of these planes at the expense of their social programs. “The overall cost of the program to the US military is estimated at a staggering $1.51 trillion over the so called life cycle of the program, namely $618 million per plane. (Shalal-Esa, Andrea. Government sees lifetime cost of F-35 fighter at $1.51 trillion., Chicago Tribune, April 2, 2012).
War and globalization including the imposition of deadly austerity measures are intimately related. Global Warfare is good for business. It feeds billions of dollars into what Dwight D. Eisenhower call the “Military Industrial Complex”. The fanciful headlines regarding the upcoming Apocalypse serve to overshadow the grim realities of the US-NATO led wars.
Several new weapons systems have been introduced in the course of the post Cold war era. The emphasis is on unconventional warfare. Unmanned warfare, killing from a computer screen,
a new generation of nuclear weapons made in America, not to mention the use of depleted uranium ammunition which causes cancer.
The backdrop is a culture of violence in Hollywood where war, police brutality, torture and extrajudicial killings are the “new normal”;
Meanwhile the Fukushima disaster is a nuclear war without a war, conducive to massive contamination and radiation, the consequences of which are still to be fully assessed.
Who are the main actors behind the US led war? The military industrial complex also described as the defence contractors, including the mercenary and security outfits on contract to the US Department of Defense (DoD)
the biotech conglomerates, agribusiness and big Pharma, which produce genetically modified seeds, chemical and biological weapons. This sector overlaps with the military industrial complex,
the Anglo-American oil conglomerates and energy companies,
The media conglomerates which constitute the cornerstone of the US imperial propaganda.
Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems.
Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc “punitive” operation directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than an all out war.
The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others. It is not viewed as a threat to humanity, as a doomsday scenario. Quite the opposite: it is viewed as a humanitarian endeavor which contributes to enhancing an illusive concept of global security.
The “End of the World” is an ongoing man made process. What we are witnessing in the 21st Century is the outright destruction of entire countries.
Erasing the Achievements of Post War Economic and Social Development. Dismantling the Welfare State
The European Union – which had reached a high level of economic and social development – is now beset with mass unemployment and the dismantling of the post World War II Welfare State. The governments of sovereign countries are controlled by a shadow financial establishment.
Almost one quarter of Europe’s young people are without work, with the highest youth jobless rate (52.1 percent) recorded in Greece and Spain. In Greece and Spain, the overall unemployment rates now stand at the record levels of 21.9 percent and 24.6 percent, respectively.
In both countries unemployment has risen sharply in the past year. In May 2011, unemployment stood at 20.9 percent in Spain and 15.7 percent in Greece. (See Christoph Dreier, Record Unemployment in Euro Zone, Global Research, July 03, 2012 World Socialist Web Site 3 July 2012 At the height of the great depression of the 21st century, economic chaos prevails, the possibility of financial breakdown can not be dismissed.
Known and documented, the mega-banks which oversee the economic restructuring of the European and North American economies are routinely involved in money laundering and the drug trade. Pervasive links to organized crime have been established.
The banks work hand in glove with the drug cartels.
HSBC was sued for collaborating with the Mexican drug cartel. This is not an isolated event. All major financial institutions are involved in the laundering of drug money.
And lest we forget, the drug economy is part of a long history of international trade. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation founded in 1865 in the British colony of Hong Kong was an offshoot of the British East India company (BEIC). Starting in the late 18th century, protected by the British Empire, the BEIC was involved in the lucrative opium trade.
Produced in Bengal and then shipped to China, the revenues were used to finance Britain’s imperial expansion.
When the Chinese imperial government ordered the opium to be destroyed in 1839, Britain declared war on China, initiating what was called the “first opium war”. Britain’s casus belli was that China – by destroying the opium – had violated the tenets of 19th Century “free trade”.
The HSBV is no exception. Today, corporate capital continues to protect the drug trade and the most respected banking institutions annually launder billions of narco-dollars. It is worth noting that since 2001, Afghanistan’s war shattered economy supplies more than 90 percent of the World’s heroin.
The highly lucrative drug trade out of Afghanistan is protected by the US-NATO occupation forces on behalf of powerful financial interests: a multibillion dollar bonanza for the banks and the criminal syndicates involved in the Golden Crescent drug trade. The resulting flow of narco-dollars is largely laundered in the Western banking system.
( via globalresearch.ca )