Written by: Rick Staggenborg, MD on Apr 18, 2010 3:06 PM PDT
This essay is dedicated to Azar Nifisi whose brilliant Reading Lolita in Tehran revealed to the average American the painful experience of losing hard-won freedoms. In this poignant book, she helps the empathetic person understand the pain of being subject to the whims of men who wanted to control the thoughts and actions of others. Her undaunted courage shines through in her account of the resistance of a small group of women to those who invoke moral authority that they themselves cannot comprehend.
When I was attending Portland State University in the late 70s, the school was populated by a large segment of Iranian students sent there by the then-secular government or by their oil-rich parents. The latter could be recognized by the beefy Trans-Ams they invariably drove to impress American girls who were looking for excitement and a generous date who would provide a taste of the good life that many could not otherwise experience and with which the ads in the Western corporate media tantalized them.
The other group of Iranian students was comprised of those who were trying to understand and take home the more important lessons that living in a democracy could teach them. They hoped to better their lives and those of their families and friends upon their return home. Among them was a brilliant and studious young woman who I met when we were both tutoring other students. In my loneliness I worshipped this beautiful, idealistic patriot and lover of freedom. In the more tolerant United States at that time, I and any young man or woman who wanted to attend college could do so because education was commonly understood to have a value to society. The corporations that had begun to seize power in America had not yet succeeded in crippling our system of higher education in their effort to squeeze the last public dollar for their profit instead of the needs of the People.
In the days before Reagan rose to power with the help of the corporatocracy, the American people maintained the fiction lost during the Vietnam era that we are all one people who had each risen through hard work in a society that understood the concept of a level playing field. This was our reward for freeing the world from the grip of Fascist tyranny at the cost of hundreds of thousands of young American lives. The so-called Greatest Generation had reaped the benefits that they and their children then enjoyed. We were the products of the resulting baby boom and innocently expected that we would continue America’s proud tradition of taking care of its workers and their families forever.
Events moved swiftly in those days. The Iranian students began demonstrating regularly at PSU. I watched with curiosity as these determined men and woman agitated for the American people to understand that the government of Reza Shah Pahlevi was a puppet of the CIA that had put the cowardly Shah into power. Pahlavi maintained his grip on the forcibly secularized Iran through a repressive regime backed by the Gestapo-like Savak. The universities flourished in the new society, which was secularized and allowed woman such as Nifiski to not only learn but to teach other young men and women.
The CIA had installed the Shah to assure the control of the Iranian oil supply for the benefit of their masters, the economic elite in the US and the oil rich countries of the Mideast. These were the nations that formed OPEC, the great little tool that American, British and French-based transnational oil corporations found so useful. Iran had made the mistake of nationalizing the rich oil fields that this criminal cabal considered its own. Among these allies were Goldman-Sachs and its friends in the IMF and the WTO. Also profiting from this arrangement were the various corporations internationally that comprised the military-industrial complex.
This arrangement was convenient for everybody concerned, except the citizens of the nations involved. Among them, only Americans as a whole failed to worry about the growing power of these international corporations and the increasing irrelevance of nations. They failed to recognize that 1984 was just around the corner. The Hydra that is the cabal of international criminals thus busied itself unencumbered in the task of enslaving the world.
They happily made war, subjugated the poor people of the Mideast and fed money to keep well-oiled the Israeli war machine that they thought could alone ensure the security of their joint enterprise. They pumped just enough oil to soak Europe of its wealth and subsidize the fat and happy middle class in the US. The Puppet Masters of the Senate used cheap oil in America to keep the middle class complacent and willfully ignorant through the skillful manipulation of the corporate media. The media had become drunk with their success in revealing the threat to democracy of Watergate and CIA spying in America. In its stupor the Hydra grew stronger, feeding off the suffering of millions throughout the world. The media have not yet awaken, nor have the American people who depended on its integrity to understand the workings of its government, the former leaders of which had slunk off into the shadows.
It is amazing how fast the Puppetmasters of the fascist shadow government walked back from the dark side where the shadows dwelt and into the light of day. The vanguard of the re-emerging international Army of the Night was led by such traitors as Ollie North and G. Gordon Liddy. Both had either belonged to or worked hand in hand with the CIA and other minions of the Hydra to undermine democracy in America. These later-day Benedict Arnolds were rewarded for their roles in the October surprise and Watergate with national radio shows.
The more deluded among the Greatest Generation listened to their confused rantings with rapt attention. They lionized the traitor North and nod their heads when Liddy told them to “shoot for the head” when gummint agents come to take their guns that they use them to rape their daughters under the guise of “religious freedom.” Individual freedom uber alles, they silently thought. The powerful just naturally have the right to treat the powerless as possessions, don’t they? They have earned it by servicing the nation and its Puppetmasters, after all.
The silent majority stayed silent while the counter-Revolutionaries proceeded to undermine the intent of the Founding Fathers and those who died to establish our inalienable right to self-determination. The traitorous psychopaths who were the principle owners of these international corporations set about acquiring and consolidating the mass media and brainwashing the eager youth of the far right into accepting the false doctrine of original intent. The more farsighted among them knew that in the end, the plan was to hand all power to the corporate traitors who established the Heritage Foundation, the Heritage Institution, “Liberty” University and the think tanks and law schools from whose dark halls sprang the likes of John Yoo, Bybee, Scalia, Alito, Roberts and the simple-minded sharecropper’s son, Uncle Thomas.
Others merely joined in the effort for profit, not realizing that they were not buying America but selling it out. This is the inevitable fate of a society that forgets that a democratic government is established only by the just consent of the governed and its purpose is to serve the people, provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare in order to secure the blessings of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. These rights were once recognized to be the God-given and therefore inalienable right of men and women. In the cult of greed that arose around the false prophet Reagan, all this was forgotten and then lost.
Meanwhile, back in Iran the power of the people prevailed. The CIA puppet Shah Rezi Pahlavi fell to forces led by the Muslim Fundamentalists who the CIA had deliberately brainwashed into thinking that democracy was evil. Here in Portland, rich and poor Iranians alike cheered. Thank Allah almighty, they were free at last. Little did they know that they had let loose a force that would lead the nation to the brink of self-destruction. In an act of sheer madness, the Ayatollah’s men kidnapped 50 Americans under diplomatic protection. This was how these deluded pseudo-Muslim Fundamentalists slapped the face of the Great Satan whose face they clearly saw, while most Americans did not.
The result was that to save face after this colossal blunder, the Ayatollah made a deal with the devil that sealed their fate. They helped North, Poindexter and other traitors subvert the American government. Unsubtly manipulating the price of oil, OPEC colluded to bring about the recession that put Reagan into power in the stead of James Earl Carter, the peace monger. He was and is a devout Christian who understands the need to eliminate America’s dependence on foreign oil through conservation. Arms were traded for hostages, money was exchanged and the wheels of injustice being properly oiled, the deed was done. The corporate media aided and abetted this coup by ridiculing Carter’s conservation efforts and promoting Reagan’s false promises of making the United States the “shining city on the hill.”
Congress failed to fulfill its responsibility to oversee an out of control CIA after North admitted his treason. Poindexter’s implausible denial of a central CIA role in the coup was accepted by the politicians in charge who feared that the people would be more upset by undergoing the ordeal of another impeachment trial so soon after Watergate than by the subversion of their government by the CIA on behalf of international corporations. Unfortunately they were right, or so proclaimed the corporate media. Even more incredibly, the American people failed to take to the streets to Take Back America after the hunting of President Clinton produced a monkey trial that even they refused to buy into. It is astounding that even after demonstrating his willingness to compromise with the coup regime the persecution did not stop.
Clinton’s gift to the shadow government after the coup was signing on to the Global Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Apparently, the man from Hope had lost hope that Americans would rise up and take re-establish democracy. Having thrown in his lot with the counter-Revolutionaries, he discovered that the corporate elite did not take kindly to having the Office of the President occupied by someone who had struggled up on his own and who wanted to represent the People. He was not fully appreciative of their important role in ruling the nation by virtue of birthright. It was out of a sense of duty as much as self-interest that the moneyed elite thought it necessary to destroy the Presidency of this aspiring leader of the ostensibly free world.
Perhaps Clinton’s mistake was that in his naiveté, he challenged the privilege of the medical-industrial complex without fully appreciating the extent to which the traitors now in control of the government also controlled the corporate media. Having allowed him to win the election, they set about tightening their control of the media in preparation for their final assault on democracy.
Now the stage is set for what Christians call Armageddon. According to the Mayans and Nostradamus, this outcome was so obvious that it was foreseeable thousands of years ago. It would appear that the End of the World as we Know it was destined to come about from the beginning of time, in a manner of speaking. However, others believe that the prophecy of Armageddon was not a promise but a warning, one that Mohammed clearly described in the fourth to the last Sura. Humankind was created with free will and we may collectively choose to determine that the End of the World as we Know it will be a wonderful thing. If we can shift the collective human consciousness from survival of the fittest to survival and spiritual growth of all, it will be as if Heaven and Earth will have become one.
Those who live for wealth and power are headed for a fiery death. Whether it is the one that they expect to happen here on Earth or whether it will be in another dimension of existence, their end is near. The Soldiers For Peace throughout the world outnumber them one million to one and we are not going to allow them to impose their design of worldwide slavery while we are alive to stop them. We operate in cyberspace, where the Matrix is seen for the illusion that it is. We cannot be detected by those who lack the vision to see the world as we do. The world as it is teetering on the balance between stability and self-destruction. We do not choose for those who we love to die for the cause of allowing the apparently powerful to destroy humanity.
The easy way to avoid the war between Iraq and Israel that both governments seem to be itching for is to establish an international consortium consisting of the United States, Israel, Russia, Germany and France. This group would under inspection build and launch a geosynchronous communications satellite above Tehran. The hardliners in the Iranian government can scream bloody murder, but if they shoot it down they will have to evacuate Tehran first or murder even more innocents than they are already doing. This would merely hasten the fall of the government of Iran and the Ayatollah, hereafter referred to as Tehranysaurus Rex, the King of Tyrants in our beleoved Persia. The will of today's Iranian students will not be defied if the US and Israel truly want peace.
ATT may cry foul at the thought of providing anyone with free Internet services, especially since the FCC recently approved the illegal merger of this behemouth with Comcast. The oil inndustry may whimper that if a free Iran opts out of OPEC, their splendid little arrangement will fall apart when Chavez joins in the effort to undermine their control of world oil prices. How, they will ask, can we justify never-ending war if neither oil nor terrorism can be used as an excuse? Oh, well. No one ever promised them that they could rule the earth for a thousand years after Armageddon. Jesus is not coming down on a white horse with a flaming sword to slay the bad guys and save the faithful who only wait and do not save themselves. The last Jihad will be the first, a peaceful one in which the death of the ego is complete and the Eternal One becomes a stable entity of peace and harmony throughout the Universe.
In the words of REM (which also is a dream state):
That's great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane.
Lenny Bruce is not afraid. Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn.
World serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs.
Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt no, strength no.
Ladder structure clatter with fear of height, down height.
Wire in a fire, represent the seven games in a government for hire and a combat site.
Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the furiesbreathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trump, tetheredcrop.
Look at that low plane! Fine then.
Uh oh, overflow, population,common group, but it'll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself. World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed.
Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, brightlight, feeling pretty psyched.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower.
Slash and burn,return, listen to yourself churn.
Lock him in uniform and book burning, blood letting.
Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate.
Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down.
Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh,this means no fear - cavalier.
Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies.
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.
The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide.
Mount St. Edelite.Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs.
Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic,slam, but neck, right? Right.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it.
It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine...fine...
Rick Staggenborg, MD
Portland, Oregon
