For years I have been wondering: "Why aren't artists speaking out against the vast censorship we have been experiencing? Where are their songs and movies? It appears that they are subject to the same carrots (propaganda) and sticks (censorship) as the rest of us.
This excerpt about USAID is from a 2014 book by Julian Assange, When Google Met Wikileaks:
The received wisdom in advanced capitalist societies is that there still exists an organic “civil society sector” in which institutions form autonomously and come together to manifest the interests and will of citizens. The fable has it that the boundaries of this sector are respected by actors from government and the “private sector,” leaving a safe space for NGOs and nonprofits to advocate for things like human rights, free speech, and accountable government.This sounds like a great idea. But if it was ever true, it has not been for decades.
Since at least the 1970s, authentic actors like unions and churches have folded under a sustained assault by free-market statism, transforming "civil society" into a buyer's market for political factions and corporate interests looking to exert influence at arm's length. The last forty years have seen a huge proliferation of think tanks and political NGOs whose purpose, beneath all the verbiage, is to execute political agendas by proxy.
It is not just obvious neocon front groups like Foreign Policy Initiative. It also includes fatuous Western NGOs like Freedom House, where naïve but well-meaning career nonprofit workers are twisted in knots by political funding streams, denouncing non-Western human rights violations while keeping local abuses firmly in their blind spots.
The civil society conference circuit—which flies developing-world activists across the globe hundreds of times a year to bless the unholy union between "government and private stakeholders" at geopoliticized events like the "Stockholm Internet Forum"—simply could not exist if it were not blasted with millions of dollars in political funding annually…’
Text from Sep 2014, before he was imprisoned in Belmarsh. Extracted from his book, “When Google Met WikiLeaks”. Full text and images for the first chapter are available for free here:
60 Minutes Interview with John Stockwell. Who is John Stockwell? (this is from Grok):
John R. Stockwell (born 1937) is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving in the agency for 13 years. He managed American involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during the CIA's 1975 covert operations. Born in Angleton, Texas, Stockwell spent part of his childhood in the Belgian Congo due to his father's engineering work. After studying at the University of Texas and serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, he joined the CIA in 1964. His career included roles in three major conflicts: the Congo Crisis, the Vietnam War, and the Angolan War of Independence.Stockwell resigned from the CIA in 1976, citing concerns over the agency's methods and the impact of its operations in Third World countries. He wrote "In Search of Enemies," detailing his experiences and criticisms of CIA activities, which became a bestseller. His other notable works include "The Praetorian Guard" (1991) and "Red Sunset" (1982). He has also been a frequent public speaker on issues related to CIA operations.
Why was USAID funding the production of heroin in Afghanistan?
John Kiriakou, who exposed the CIA and went to prison for it: "I went to Afghanistan to do a study on on the heroin Poppy crop. And I'll tell you, nobody liked it. Afghanistan used to be a net food exporter, and as soon as the US takes over, they're producing 93% of the world's heroin. That's right. I'd like to know how the fuck that happened. I get to Bagram Air Base and I said, I'm gonna need a helicopter to Lashkar. We get down there, and it's a god-awful place, but man, I'm telling you, as far as your eye can see, all there is, is Poppy. So I make an appointment to go to this DEA secret site, and they were like, you're in over your head. "There are very powerful forces that want that Poppy to be cultivated." And I said, "Why? It's 93% of the world's heroin." And they said, "Because almost all of that heroin goes to Iran and to Russia, and we want them to be addicted to heroin. It weakens their societies." I'm writing all this up. And [John] Kerry's like, "We're not we're not publishing that." And I was like, ah, they got to him too."
Mike Benz offers the details and they include connections with USAID:
And more details from Benz, including connections to the innocent-sounding "US Institute for Peace:
"And why is USAID’s network partner, the US Institute of Peace, lobbying the Taliban to keep 95% of the world’s heroin supply flowing while taking $56 million from US taxpayers each year?"
As the USAID house of cards continues to collapse, Mike Benz responds to Alexander Vindman's whining:
On a light note, here are more (real) examples of USAID malfeasance:
More recent revelations:
- $1.5 million for DEI in Serbia
- $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland
- $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia
- $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru
This: "$15 million to George Soros's open foundation Over Obama's last four in office alone."
"Advertiser outreach" to censor news outlets.
Funding to thousands of journalists to shape the news.
Many people are assembling lists of USAID fraud. I can't vouch for all of this, but this is one of the many recent lists assembled by users on X:
