Response to Alan Hart on Palestinian People Power

First of all, thanks to Alan Hart for his article which I read on Salem-News. It takes a brave man to see, and even braver one to speak.

Zionism is indeed the Jews' worst enemy.

However, when we focus on Zionism, we somehow seem to overlook that it was constructed by someone. Who? What for? Who aids and abets it? How has it lasted that long? Which forces drive it so that it has endured for almost 200 years? AIPAC? Chabad? The Knesset? Washington?

My critique of Alan Hart, and of most of the conscionable Western witnesses to the genocidal crimes against humanity being purveyed upon an indigenous peoples in Palestine during our own lifetime (not something we just read about in history books and for which we can do nothing about today), is that they only speak of what they see, rather eloquently too, but almost always superficially. Yes we all can see the dead bodies, doesn't take a Nostradamus to perceive what's already before one's eyes. But they don't speak of what they don't see. Like the iceberg, 90% is hidden from sight. And like the iceberg, it is also known to exist, and to lurk just beneath the surface. It is not secret or esoteric knowledge, nor is it a classified state-secret. And just like it is for the iceberg, most descriptions of it only describe the visible 10% above the surface. I am not sure what profound wisdom is gleaned from reading such narratives. I am sure studying and documenting crimes against humanity is necessary. If eruditely documenting is the main purpose, than I believe people are doing a terrific job of it. Even the senior Bush White House advisor proclaimed this to the New York Times in 2004:

‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’ — Senior Bush Advisor, The New York Times, October 17, 2004

But if changing what the “history's actors” are doing before they accomplish all their goals in incremental stages, is the main goal of dissent, then these erudite documentations etc. are as meaningless as boasted above by the history's actors themselves. This is an empirical fact. Not a matter of opinion.

If no thinker and lauded exponent of Palestine will see the 90% which gives the entire foundational substance to the visible 10%, then their articulation of the problem is only as deep (or shallow) as the 10% visible iceberg. It is forever relegated to studying the “new realities” being daily created by the “history's actors”. As they like to put it with considerable chutzpah and hubris, “to just study what we do.”

So, in my moments of stupidity (since no brilliant peoples like all the Nobel peace prize winners and academic professors and scholars ever seem to think of this, I must be the stupid one to do so), I have to wonder that while how easy it is to see the 10% of the visible iceberg mass for dissent-chiefs, why is it so hard to see the remaining 90% for those who do see the 10%?

Virtually without exception, all famous and lauded narrators of Palestine in the dissent-space keep coming up with faulty frameworks to explain what they do see in Palestine. The rare exception which links it to the larger global agenda in the world, is either immediately marginalized, or ignored. Or, the oddballs inexplicably marginalize themselves in the eyes of rational people who might otherwise pay attention to them, by simultaneously uttering some outlandish gibberish.

This blindsight amidst the learned simply drives me up the wall, especially when peoples, far more knowledgeable and experienced than I, indulge in it.

Why do they do that? Are they blind? Or, are they stupid? Or, am I really really brilliant? I would safely strike out the last item self-servingly put there if I were you, because I don't believe it myself. Nothing I have said in the zillion words on my website is rocket science. Then, is there some other reason for these stupidities which ought to remain unspeakable?

For what little my opinion is worth, I have still tried to address this very question in my May 15, 2010 Pamphlet: "How to Return to Palestine".

And in my view, I am sorry to say that the heartfelt narratives of Alan Hart, as truly heart warming as they always are, seldom do any analytical justice to unraveling the core issues which pertain to the invisible 90%.

I am really sorry to say this of peoples' heroes. But I have to say it because that's the only way to lick this totem pole of hero worship of dissent-chiefs. To boldly challenge the lauded and brand-name narrators and give them the opportunity to think afresh. None of us are god, prophet, or all knowing and all seeing. And unless we begin to acknowledge that fact, that we aren't, that our understanding of reality must always remain tentative and continually subject to correction, that we can actually stand to gain new insights into the problem-space only if we stop pretending that we already understand it all, no freaking sunshine is ever gonna enter the dark-matter between our ears.

People throng to Alan Hart, just like to the other dissent-chiefs. He is respected, widely published, and wins many accolades for his narratives (and also the ire of his Zionist antagonists of course).

But is it rocket science that he actually misses by a mile on the hidden but only in plainsight 90% of the iceberg?

If I can see it, why can't Alan Hart? He is, I wholly admit just by looking at his imposing credentials, far more experienced, accomplished, and politically astute, than a lowly plebeian.

Omissions are a serious offence. So serious in fact, that Aldous Huxley stated it thusly:

‘The greatest triumphs of propaganda have been accomplished, not by doing something, but by refraining from doing. Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects, by lowering what Mr. Churchill calls an “iron curtain” between the masses and such facts or arguments as the local political bosses regard as undesirable, totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals. But silence is not enough. If persecution, liquidation and the other symptoms of social friction are to be avoided, the positive sides of propaganda must be made as effective as the negative.’ — Aldous Huxley, Preface (circa 1946) to Brave New World, 1931, Harper, pg. 11

If curious about how an ordinary plebeian thinks bluntly on the 90% that no Westerner who is famous as an academic, a journalist, or a scholar, will touch with a ten-foot pole in their erudite scholarship, see the first three parts of My Confusion Series. Part-2 and Part-3 are perhaps directly pertinent as a response to Alan Hart's most significant omissions. Here is a link.

Unless Alan Hart goes there, my going there is ineffective and wasted effort - because, I don't carry an imposing resume like Alan Hart. No one ever listens to a plebeian. But people pay much attention to someone like Alan Hart. When I sent my maiden 2003 manuscript to 30 publishers via Fedex at considerable cost, only six bothered to say no thanks. Twenty four didn't reply. I don't even know if they ever got to the right person. The publisher who published John Perkins' Confessions of Economic Hitman in 2004, on Perkins' kind referral (since I had requested him to refer me to his publisher after learning that his book too had been turned down dozens of times), talked to me by phone only to let me know that publishing is not about a cause, but about profits. An unknown first of all is hard to publish because he does not have readership. Secondly, as the Berrett-Koehler representative had put it, and this was the most disconcerting to me, one with a Middle Eastern name will be presumed to be biased by the American readers since his own peoples are being killed, hence no one will buy my book - so sorry.

In those days, I still greatly admired Noam Chomsky as he had been one of my most inspiring professors at college. My maiden manuscript sat in Chomsky's in-basket for review for months, as it did on almost all brand-name dissent-chiefs I had ever met in my life (including names like Daniel Ellsberg and Tariq Ali – to both of these prominent chiefs I had hand-delivered my manuscript, in those days I was still a bit green behind the ears), before Chomsky let me know that he will likely never get to it. He said he was too busy and there were just way too many things in his in-basket, which I interpreted as there were too many important peoples ahead of me in his in-basket.

Howard Zinn, what a remarkable teacher that late historian was, on a cold call from me to his home in Boston, immediately agreed to review my manuscript after we chatted a bit about his own million copy bestseller. In fact, Howard Zinn reviewed two drafts for me. And when I was unsuccessful in lining up any prominent publisher, Zinn even wrote me a short but stellar commendation letter to send to publishers. Despite all that, I got zero interest from any mainstream publisher. Seven Stories Press who had published Chomsky's 911 booklet also talked to me, said my book was interesting, but that they liked first-hand research (whatever that meant). In fact the title for my essay “They Dared to Knock on my door” which was the first part of my manuscript, if I recall correctly, was suggested by Greg at Seven Stories Press. As I now recall, he had also noted that as an unknown in this crowded field where mainly brand-names are magnets, and others have to have some unique hook, my narrative as a Muslim complaining about Islamophobia in America and America's fictitious war on terror just won't sell. I should look into self-publishing. Sorry.

I am not sure that Alan Hart has had such problems.

All those publisher turndowns back in 2003, at least in my case, were partly symptomatic of what is empirically obvious.

We, as part of our human nature, naturally tend to listen to those in positions of power, those with titles, those with published accolades, those who have met kings and queens, prime ministers and presidents, those who look sharp and talk sharp, and tend to accept from them, on the slenderest evidence, that which already meets with the presuppositions of our own worldview. And we concomitantly reject that which doesn't, despite preponderance of evidence, continually demanding more, more, more. It's as if cognitive dissonance prevents us from giving up our old beliefs, even reaffirming them to make them even more strongly held when shown to be wrong.

If we are in the mainstream, our heroes are the mainstream heroes. We don't hear dissent. And if we are in the dissentstream, our heroes are invariably the dissent-chiefs and we applaud ourselves for our brilliance that we are not sheep. But empirically, we are each beholden to our natural inclinations, to our worldviews howsoever we may have acquired them, whether by inheritance, or vicariously implanted by the Mighty Wurlitzer.

And each of us have our own heroes and storytellers we generally gravitate toward. And it is they, our heroes, people whom we respect and admire, who invariably inform us what is the matter with whatever they might be interested in. This aspect of our natural propensity was partly captured by Bertrand Russell thusly:

'What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index to his desires – desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts [or worldview], he will scrutinize it closely, and unless [and at times even when] the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts [or worldview], he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence.' — Bertrand Russell, Proposed Roads to Freedom, 1919, page 147

What Bertrand Russell neglected to mention is that we tend to accept such narratives on “the slenderest evidence” more easily when it is brought to us by our respective heroes. But Adolph Hitler didn't. He not only recognized, but also capitalized on such shrewd understanding of human psychology (see below).

Therefore, having become acutely aware of all this through my own successive failures to convince anyone of anything (unless I am preaching to the choir - and what's the great benefit of that), I began tackling peoples' heroes directly, beginning with my own hero in my earlier life, Noam Chomsky. In the slenderest hope that if I can get someone's hero to interlocute with a plebeian, and can miraculously change his mind, his flock will naturally follow. It hasn't happened yet, but I keep trying.

To you, the reader, what I say will be dismissed trivially. But have the same thing be stated by the pundit/scholar/chief you admire – well, try your own experiments. I know someone who even did the following experiment: sent one of his rejected articles again, by doing some simple word substitution, mainly replaced his own name and put “Thomas Friedman” and mailed it back. The same article which had been rejected on specious grounds of racism earlier, was accepted with that made up authorship of a Jewish brand-name, and substituting two words identifying one people with another people. I think the reader can well guess what those might have been. Later the person let the publication know that he had only done that experiment to prove to them the natural perception bias, not to mention vile prejudice which had gone into rejecting his first submission.

Therefore, through this response to Alan Hart's article, I once again try to interlocute with a brand-name chief. I invite Alan Hart, the narrator of Palestinian travails, to offer a response to an ordinary plebeian's missive by examining what's argued in Part-2 above. If I am shown the errors in my thinking, I will humbly bow my head in shame and quietly slink away to rethink and relearn from the master.

I have previously also challenged Alan Hart's other narratives - perhaps he never saw it. This appeared as comment on January 18, 2009 on Abidullah Jan's famous (now defunct) dictatorshipwatch.com.

The response article from which that comment was excerpted, seems to be found nowhere on the web. I just uploaded the full article PDF which was written in response to Alan Hart's in Jan 2009:

Obviously, no two people agree on anything. So, the reader might well ask, what's wrong with everyone having their own point of view in dissent? It is, after all, dissent. Dissent means to disagree – don't it? The most powerful description of dissent I ever saw is this, by Vaclav Havel:

'I too think the intellectual should constantly disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provocative by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressure and manipulations, should be the chief doubter of systems, of power and its incantations, should be a witness to their mendacity. For this very reason, an intellectual cannot fit into any role that might be assigned to him, nor can he ever be made to fit into any of the histories written by the victors. An intellectual essentially doesn't belong anywhere; he stands out as an irritant wherever he is; he does not fit into any pigeonhole completely.' — Vaclav Havel, cited in Responsibility of Intellectuals – Redux, March 03, 2007

So, what's wrong with each one of us standing alone, in our own little Hyde Park screaming corner, blaring our own irritants into the ears of power? Okay, some have more prominent perches than others, but that's just capitalism, egalitarianism, meritocratism. What's wrong with that? You are just upset that the NYT does not publish you or pays any attention to your submissions – why don't you go back to engineering where you still have some earned credibility, and evidently were also quite successful? What do you have to show for ten years of activism anyway? By your own admission, you haven't changed a single mind! Such cynicism is what I constantly hear from both my trusted friends, as well as my antagonists (those who were formerly my friends but today I suspect just hate my guts because I refuse to suffer fools any longer).

In fact, I was even informed by one of my very wise colleagues in Pakistan when I had offered him a copy of my unpublished manuscript as keepsake, that I was wasting my time if I expected it to make any difference even if it was published by Simon & Schuster and became a bestseller on the New York Times list. His opinion was that people don't change their mind by reading a book. (At that time I of course didn't want to believe it, but now I am convinced of that fact myself.) My uncle too had reliably informed me that I will be “disappeared” the moment I came into notice of the intelligence apparatus – and since the FBI had already visited me twice, my days were surely numbered. (That I did believe, and still do fear – but seek refuge in none except in my own faith.) All that was back in 2003 when I first started opening my mouth, and that was after I had already been exercising my legs and my lungs in anti-war protest marches since 2002-2003.

So what difference does dissent make? What has the bold courage of a handful really changed? Whether it be of those much sought after brand-named dissent-chiefs, or of the unknown tens of thousands of other individuals who feel an inner compulsion to not accept villainous matters as they are?

I sincerely believe the following: that those who principally side with truth, those who bear witness, those who seek fair justice for their fellow man, and take personal risks in doing so when they don't need to – when they could just as easily be pursuing their own 'American Dream' like the rest of silent bystanders – are all principally holding the same book (the book of justice, metaphorically speaking).

But we are not all on the same page. Obviously. That is our undoing. Why? Why do all of us have to be on the same page?

Because, we are often unable to separate the myriad obfuscating issues into their proper causal relationships of cause and effect. The causality is also hierarchical, and often obfuscated by lower order less significant bits masquerading themselves as the higher order bits. We also often seem to confuse dependent variables of a complex system with its independent variables which are often calculatingly masked by the dependent variables for obvious reason.

In other words, the subject of hegemony in modern times is very complex - even though it may be as old as mankind - far more complex than simply the dead bodies strewn from Palestine to Iraq to Afghanistan to Pakistan which all can see.

To separate out the causal relationships which are often highly nuanced, and almost always cloaked in deception, is not easy. It requires a great deal of commonsense - a commodity which appears to be less common than the name might suggest.

So, here is a test of commonsense for the reader whose moral compulsion drives him or her to no longer remain a silent bystander: all see the power of AIPAC and Chabad, some write major treatise on how they influence the United States to favor Israel. From Paul Findley in 1985 (They Dare to Speak Out) to Mearsheimer and Walt in 2007 ( The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy), and in the ten thousand articles across the Israel-Palestine landscape, these Zionist lobby groups are indicted for their unelected power-wielding upon the elected representatives of the people. Can you suggest what makes these Zionist Lobby groups so powerful? The brand-named academics and former elected officials who write those narratives haven't. Can you, dear reader? It isn't rocket science.

My own limited thinking on this matter is argued in the cited Pamphlet. I am sure others with more wherewithal can do much better. The problem is – all whom one imagines as having more wherewithal don't want to go there! This unspeakable iron wall no one desires to breach.

When it comes to Zionism and Palestine, a land that was taken over by deception and treachery, and whose narratives are replete with both "beneficial cognitive diversity" (ala Cass Sunstein) and Trojan Horses (ala fifth columnists from among the Palestinians themselves), all effectively lead the struggle away from focussing on what and who are Zionistan's real primemovers.

The struggle for Palestine has been replete with red herrings (a smelly fish that a fugitive drags across the path in order to put the pursuing dogs off the trail). Every single one of these, as far as one can tell, is either been planted by, or aided and abetted by, lauded dissent-chiefs with brand-names. Don't believe it? See it for yourself in “The Endless trail of red herrings”.

Thus, the direct addressing of the behind the scene powers which can potentially add some efficacy to the otherwise sterile pursuit of justice in Palestine, is made impossible when no one will go there. Either deliberately as fabricated or controlled dissent, or out of sheer ignorance, or out of self-preservation.

What I fail to grasp is why should the Palestinians in Diaspora refuse to go there? They have everything to gain, and only their good 'American Dreams' to lose? Is that even a fraction of what their brethren brave daily in their existential struggle on ground zero, still refusing to give in despite burying their dead daily, like the un-identified child in the photograph in Alan Hart's article ( salem-news.com/gphotos/1310003079.jpg )? But we equally see such omissions in the Palestinians' own narratives as well. This is amply demonstrated in my responses to Salman Abu Sitta, Antoine Raffoul, Ismail Zayid, Khalil Nakhleh, Shadi Nassar, Mustafa Barghouti and Anna Baltzer, Jeff Gates, Jeff Blankfort, et. al.

Our collective inability to analyze causality has been deliberately made prodigious. Either through co-option, or through dumbing us down while letting us pretend that we are super-smart! I call it the “IVY League Morons Syndrome” and there is an article with that title on my website. The upshot of it all is that it ultimately succeeds in keeping us from opening the book of justice which we all evidently care about, on its most significant page simultaneously. That, is the real purpose of introducing "beneficial cognitive diversity" through "cognitive infiltration" (sic!).

Let's change that calculus of subterfuge and energetic runs on treadmills to soothe the conscience, which have been in any case crafted for us by the “history's actors” themselves.

But firstly, one can't change anything by patting oneself on the back for one's efforts in the pursuit of justice. Which is unfortunately largely the tenor and character of modern day dissent-chiefs as well as their flock. Not everyone is like that, but many appear to be on ego trips for their own narrow self-interests, their shrill laments on behalf of the poor victims notwithstanding.

Secondly, the rank and file of dissent, when we are conscionable peoples who do lend our consciences to our moral endeavors as an inner compulsion, primarily do so to soothe our own consciences. This should be self-evident, but isn't. We, generally speaking, haven't the capacity nor the wherewithal to shrewdly employ both mind and hand to ENGINEER a struggle.

I really don't understand that when we easily see the crimes against humanity are diabolically engineered, that both consent and dissent is Machiavellianly manufactured – the engineering of consent – why we persist in feeling that we can counter villainous tyranny un-engineered? That, by just randomly, and largely symbolically, exercising our consciences, our lungs, and our pens, for whatever strikes our immediate fancy, we can make a difference whatsoever? Today that fancy is the BDS and Sailing to Gaza. Yesterday it was the endless weekend-only protest marches of a few hours before people returned to the pursuits of their 'American Dreams' on weekdays.

Not to take anything away from the courageous people who are participating in these exercises – even the optimists will have to admit they are largely symbolic. BDS is deconstructed here.

And I will openly admit that if I had a tenth of the courage and a hundredth of conscience of these moral activists who are putting their precious lives on the line sailing to GAZA, even if symbolically, for symbols of resistance are equally important to any struggle, I would have joined them. Since I am thus far unwilling to brave Israeli bullets whizzing by my head, I am unwilling to say anything further on the subject except to point out that these symbols of resistance are indeed entirely symbolic. Ten million sailing to GAZA from all directions however, would surely alter that calculus. That requires engineering. Hope and wishful thinking don't create engineering, nor do moral compulsions. The actual exercise of engineering does. That requires enormous focus, enormous resources, and more than some iota of brains to orchestrate it.

A prerequisite to engineering an effective struggle for change which doesn't solely run on the treadmill, is to understand the myriad forces which maintain the status quo. Many of these forces are masked and layered in deception. They almost always stay behind the scenes leaving their henchmen to be visible. So we neither know ourselves very well, nor unfortunately our enemy. Sun Tzu's following wisdom on the Art of War makes our shortcomings rather apparent:

'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.'

The main harbingers of engineering any change against villainous tyranny, I have lamentably come to realize, are not going to be ordinary peoples like us plebeians. Typically, we are just the crowd who follow our leaders. I am sure you reading this is an exception. But most of dissent falls into this category.

The unfortunate reality is that very few people think independently. I have found so much truth in the oft quoted statistic by poets and sociologists alike, that "less then 2% people in any population actually think, 8% think they think, and 90% wont be caught dead thinking". Bertrand Russell too made the observation that "most people rather die than think, and they do." Hitler capitalized on that observation in Mein Kampf and in constructing the Third Reich. The same is being capitalized in constructing the Global Fourth. I have deconstructed the manufacturing of both consent and dissent, an engineered product of latter day hectoring hegemons that is entirely based on that sociological empiricism, in my report "Manufacturing Dissent" available on my website. Here is a short extract from Hitler's Mein Kampf:

Begin excerpt

In journalistic circles it is a pleasing custom to speak of the Press as a 'Great Power' within the State. As a matter of fact its importance is immense. One cannot easily overestimate it, for the Press continues the work of education even in adult life. Generally, readers of the Press can be classified into three groups:

First, those who believe everything they read;

Second, those who no longer believe anything;

Third, those who critically examine what they read and form their judgments accordingly.

Numerically, the first group is by far the strongest, being composed of the broad masses of the people. Intellectually, it forms the simplest portion of the nation. It cannot be classified according to occupation but only into grades of intelligence. Under this category come all those who have not been born to think for themselves or who have not learnt to do so and who, partly through incompetence and partly through ignorance, believe everything that is set before them in print. To these we must add that type of lazy individual who, although capable of thinking for himself out of sheer laziness gratefully absorbs everything that others had thought over, modestly believing this to have been thoroughly done. The influence which the Press has on all these people is therefore enormous; for after all they constitute the broad masses of a nation. But, somehow they are not in a position or are not willing personally to sift what is being served up to them; so that their whole attitude towards daily problems is almost solely the result of extraneous influence. All this can be advantageous where public enlightenment is of a serious and truthful character, but great harm is done when scoundrels and liars take a hand at this work.

The second group is numerically smaller, being partly composed of those who were formerly in the first group and after a series of bitter disappointments are now prepared to believe nothing of what they see in print. They hate all newspapers. Either they do not read them at all or they become exceptionally annoyed at their contents, which they hold to be nothing but a congeries of lies and misstatements. These people are difficult to handle; for they will always be sceptical of the truth. Consequently, they are useless for any form of positive work.

The third group is easily the smallest, being composed of real intellectuals whom natural aptitude and education have taught to think for themselves and who in all things try to form their own judgments, while at the same time carefully sifting what they read. They will not read any newspaper without using their own intelligence to collaborate with that of the writer and naturally this does not set writers an easy task. Journalists appreciate this type of reader only with a certain amount of reservation.

Hence the trash that newspapers are capable of serving up is of little danger--much less of importance--to the members of the third group of readers. In the majority of cases these readers have learnt to regard every journalist as fundamentally a rogue who sometimes speaks the truth. Most unfortunately, the value of these readers lies in their intelligence and not in their numerical strength, an unhappy state of affairs in a period where wisdom counts for nothing and majorities for everything. Nowadays when the voting papers of the masses are the deciding factor; the decision lies in the hands of the numerically strongest group; that is to say the first group, the crowd of simpletons and the credulous. — Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler, Vol. 1, Chapter X (page numbers vary by edition and translation)

End excerpt

Empiricism suggests that the main harbingers of change throughout history have always been chiefs, inspiring leaders who head their own flock who invariably follow them blindly. And unless these leaders are patsies standing in for the puppetmasters, one presumes that they are the third category of people who “have learnt to regard every journalist as fundamentally a rogue who sometimes speaks the truth.”

Such people, often the opinion makers for their own flock, by opening the book on the same most significant page simultaneously, and genuinely pursuing the logic which naturally falls out on that page, can surely engineer a focussed struggle for real efficacy rather than as a commodity to soothe one's conscience, or line one's pocketbooks, as it lamentably is today.

The unpleasant reality today is that narratives in favor of the 'untermenschen' (German word for 'the lesser peoples'), showing dead children and dead bodies, be they in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, or elsewhere along the 'arc of crisis' in the 'global zone of percolating violence' (both those terms are due to the architect of The Grand Chessboard, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski), have become a commodity. It spans the full gamut of narrow self-interests.

If valid cynicism be allowed to air for a minute (I am sure I will incur the wrath of the pious), gallant people playing dissent with empire are often funded by the instruments of empire itself. Mercenaries and useful idiots alike – imperial military strategy documents refer to the latter as “surrogates”, civilians who act on the military's behalf without realizing it themselves (greed, false patriotism, being a “house nigger”, and being “tickled”, equally make convenient stooges) – willingly go on reconstruction projects from Iraq to Afghanistan in the name of bringing the bombed out peoples a taste of Western “democracy”. Witness where they draw their paychecks from? The very same Military-Industrial-Academe-Media-Nonprofit-UN complex which ab initio creates the furor and “legal legitimacy” for aggressive war under various pretexts, and which directly benefits from bombing the “poor devils” out in the first place! The manifest absurdity of this scam of destroy-build-destroy-build cycle when one is reaping its benefits, becomes rocket science to comprehend even for people with Ph.D.

The rising monetary cost of war (see costofwar.com) is a great method of creating unpayable national debt, no matter who spends the money or how it is spent. Cui bono national debt? The relationship between rising national debt, the strangulation of the United States itself as a sovereign nation-state, and the construction of one-world government of the financial oligarchy, has been explored and documented in considerable depth on my website. Suffice it to simply state the obvious here that dissent – controlled or self-serving doesn't matter – benefits from the hegelian dialectic of their venture in many tangible as well as intangible ways.

Narratives purporting to favor the 'untermensch' often make their authors quite rich and famous. Even win them prizes for their eloquence, and sometimes accolades from the very instruments of those whom they seemingly oppose in their dissent. The absurdity of this too, of course, is entirely lost on their gullible flock who in point of fact, cheer wildly for their heroes on such occasions and carry them even more proudly upon their shoulders. They fail to take notice of the distemper that their gallant heroes of mankind themselves covet these prizes and honors, and proudly display them on their resumes. But I am sure that these gallant dissent-heroes donate every penny of their windfall proceeds back to the Palestinians, to the very victims whose narratives make them wealthy and famous.

Here is Noam Chomsky, “arguably the most important intellectual alive” as anointed by the New York Times – the accolade proudly adorning many a backcover of his books which of course does not hurt selling the brand-name of Noam Chomsky to the public – gallantly giving away the proceeds of his books. And here is a Palestinian lawyer in the West Bank doing it for the Orwell prize he gladly accepted for his narrative from the very people who instrumented the cataclysm upon his peoples which he narrated thereof.

It is very straightforward to recognize specious opinion-makers. They generally tend to share the one common trait: they all see the sun after it shines and hear the thunder after it roars. That is, they see the 10% visible iceberg, after the fact, and describe it with great eloquence. Sun Tzu captured the obviousness of it with remarkable eloquence when defining the characteristics of a true warrior in the Art of War 2500 years ago:

'8. To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.

9. Neither is it the acme of excellence if you fight and conquer and the whole Empire says, "Well done!"

10. To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear.' — The Three Political Dialogs, compiled by Project Humanbeingsfirst.org, pg. 7 tinyurl.com/political-dialogs

I hope dissent-chiefs like Mr. Alan Hart, because of their vast celebrity appeal and consequent flock, might be of the third type mentioned by Hitler in Mein Kampf, and not just self-policing, self-serving, controlled dissent. That, they might in fact be more like the skilled warrior described by Sun Tzu. That he, Alan Hart, is able to evaluate what he reads not based on which of his own heroes might have written it, or his own natural proclivity to favor his own a priori worldview as Bertrand Russell effectively described it, but what it's actually saying. If Alan is that man, then by reading part-2 and part-3 of my confusion series mentioned in this article, he will either be persuaded by it and will logically open that mighty book of justice on the right page himself. Or, he will refute it.

Short of any of that transpiring, to just respond to Alan Hart's largely rhetorical question embedded in the title of his article, there is no real Palestinian power – people or otherwise. Disenfranchised masses, the wretched of the earth, like any other mob, are only power in the hands of Machiavelli. This is self-evident. It is even a truism. In the case of Palestinians on ground zero, they stand at the threshold of annihilation while those in Diaspora look on. The only recourse for Palestinians today to overturn that dismal existential state of affairs they have been brought to, is to clean their own house first of their house negroes and fifth columnists.

I could be wrong about everything in this article – judge for yourself. Don't let someone else do the thinking for you.

Thank you for reading the words of a plebeian.

ENDS

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