The American Oligarchy, Civil Rights and the Murder of Martin Luther King:
The 'Foundations' of Social Control
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAR20101130&articleId=22168
by Andrew Gavin Marshall
November 30, 2010
Civil Rights and Social Control
As the American civil rights movement emerged in the 1950s, the
established American oligarchy, in all its various forms and avenues
of influence, set in motion simultaneous attempts to control the
evolution of the movement, in order to both divide the movement and
its leaders against each other, and also to control its direction.
The Civil Rights Movement arose as an independent and people-driven
movement in a struggle for black rights in America. In this, the
movement presented a great threat to the establishment oligarchy, as
historically the subjugation of black people within western society
was not merely a result of western policies, but lies at the very
foundations and bedrock of western 'civilization', politically,
socially, and economically. Thus, challenging the segregation of race
inevitably challenges the entire political, economic and social system.
The National Security State and its various apparatus, such as the
CIA, FBI, police and military structures, saw the Civil Rights
Movement as a threat to the status quo (as it was), and treated it as
an 'enemy of the state'. The apparatus of the National Security State
were spying, infiltrating and disrupting the civil rights movement,
and were ultimately planning for its elimination. Simultaneously, the
major philanthropic foundations of America's richest families and
billionaire elites (whose imperial interests are served through the
National Security State), moved in to actively fund the Civil Rights
Movement, so as to control its progress and make it 'safe for
Capitalism.' The idea was to prevent the Civil Rights Movement from
remaining an organic people-driven movement and taking its natural
course, which falls outside the false boundary of the social
construct of race, and would seek to unite all oppressed and
impoverished people of the world in one struggle against the system,
itself. The role of the billionaire philanthropies was to ensure that
the 'Civil Rights Movement' remained race-based, and that it became
about black people being absorbed into and rising within the system,
instead of fighting against it. It was about financially co-opting
the movement to suit the interests of the ruling oligarchy.
Martin Luther King, the most articulate, intelligent and respected
leader of the Civil Rights Movement, was also the most hated by the
ruling oligarchy. The wealthy philanthropies attempted to co-opt him,
the political establishment attempted to use him and the 'National
Security State' despised him and hated him. King was tolerated by the
oligarchy so long as his focus was on the issue of race, as the
oligarchy has always functioned on the basis of 'divide and conquer',
so 'identity politics' – that is, basing political, economic and
social views based upon one particular identity you have (whether it
is race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc) – lends itself to
being easily controlled. If everyone adheres to 'identity politics',
then people will remain divided and the overall power structures of
society will remain intact, and actually increase in legitimacy.
When Martin Luther King began speaking about more than race, and
openly criticized the entire social structure of empire and economic
exploitation, not simply of blacks, but of all people around the
world and at home, he posed too great a threat to the oligarchy to
tolerate him any longer. It was at this point that the National
Security State chose to assassinate Martin Luther King, and the
philanthropies greatly expanded their financing of the Civil Rights
Movement to ensure that it would be led in their desired direction.
Civil Rights and the National Security State
A Congressional investigation in the 1970s revealed that the FBI,
under J. Edgar Hoover, began a program in 1956 called COINTELPRO
(Counterintelligence Program), which was "a secret, often illegal FBI
campaign of surveillance and sabotage against a wide variety of
right-and left-wing groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Black
Panthers and the Fair Play for Cuba Committee."[1] Among the key
targets of COINTELPRO was the Civil Rights Movement, which largely
emerged in 1955 with Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The
Boycott was organized by a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther
King, Jr., who was thrown into the national spotlight as a result:
COINTELPRO involved not only wiretapping, but as the investigation
showed, attempts to disrupt, discredit, and defame perceived
political radicals. Hoover targeted few figures as relentlessly as
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The charge, Communist influence in
the civil rights movement.[2]
Of particular note, was in August 1963 when King gathered more than a
quarter of a million Americans in the march on Washington to champion
Civil Rights. Hoover was not amused:
That march spurred Hoover to action. A little more than a month
later, the FBI Director petitioned the Attorney General, then Robert
F. Kennedy, to approve a wiretap on King's telephone. Kennedy only
agreed, according to his attorney Nicholas Katzenbach, in order to
protect King.[3]
In fact, in December of 1963, no more than a month after the John F.
Kennedy assassination, FBI officials met in Washington to explore
ways to "neutralize King as an effective Negro leader."[4]
When, in 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared, Martin Luther
King "publicly questioned whether the FBI had done enough to
safeguard the lives of civil rights activists and black citizens. An
enraged Hoover then began to publicly denounce King, telling
reporters that King was, 'The most notorious liar in the country'."
Hoover had "decided that Martin Luther King was an enemy to the
country." The FBI then began a massive campaign to discredit King,
with the FBI compiling "a tape recording of Reverend King with extra
marital lovers." King was sent a copy with an anonymous note which
said, "King, there is only one thing left for you to do. There is but
one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy,
fraudulent self is bared to the nation," and "King and his advisors
interpreted the note as calling for him to commit suicide."[5]
Important in understanding the nature of COINTELPRO, is that,
"COINTELPRO was not just surveillance, it was active disruption. It
was putting agents into the movement to incite rivalries, a jealousy,
to try to get people fighting against each other and not trusting
each other."[6]
As a Congressional investigation into the activities of COINTELPRO
revealed, "the infiltration of an informant into the top post of the
United Klans of America, then largest of several major Ku Klux Klan
organizations, was seriously considered in 1967." Further, "in the
early 1970s the leadership of the Black Panthers was so riddled with
FBI informants that the bureau virtually ran the organization."[7]
Even the National Security Agency, the massive intelligence agency
that dwarfs the CIA in its size, had begun in the 1960s, compiling a
watch list of US citizens whose phone calls were wiretapped. In 1967,
"the list was expanded to include the names of U.S. citizens involved
in antiwar and civil-rights activities."[8]
The Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964, which banned discrimination
based on "race, color, religion, or national origin" in employment
practices and public accommodations. Martin Luther King was awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize the same year. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act
was signed. In 1966, Black Power was created as a group designed to
be armed and ready to take on the Ku Klux Klan, and was made most
famous by the Black Panther Party.
In April of 1967, Martin Luther King gave a speech entitled, "Beyond
Vietnam," in which he most publicly and famously spoke out against
not just the Vietnam War, but all war. He declared that he could not
confront the evils of poverty without confronting "the greatest
purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government." King
stated, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money
on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death."[9]
After delivering such a monumental speech against war and empire,
King was attacked by the national media; with Life Magazine calling
the speech, "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio
Hanoi," and the Washington Post saying that, "King has diminished his
usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."[10]
Martin Luther King was vastly contributing to the use of the
apparatus of government in expanding and strengthening the democratic
nature of society. This was largely at odds with the aims and methods
of the National Security State "secret government," operating through
the realm of 'deep politics.' This was particularly prescient as the
civil rights movement coalesced with the antiwar movement, posing a
significant political threat to the established powers. When King
spoke out against the Vietnam War and imperialism, the 'secret
government' could no longer tolerate him. Protests in the civil
rights and antiwar movements were often becoming violent, and
prompted violent state responses. In regards to COINTELPRO, "efforts
to discredit Reverend King intensified as he began to criticize as he
began to criticize the Vietnam War."[11]
In 1967, "the National Guard was called out twenty-five times to deal
with rioting, gunfire, arson, and looting." In 1968:
The Pentagon took unusual steps to combat civil disturbance. A plan
and command, named Operation Garden Plot, was devised for "DOD
[Department of Defense] components [that is, U.S. armed forces] to
respond to reasonable requests from the FBI for military resources
for use in combating acts of terrorism."[12]
Under Operation Garden Plot, "Military Intelligence – working with
the FBI, local county and state police forces – undertook and
directed a massive domestic intelligence-gathering operation."
Further, "security forces ranging from Army troops to local police
were trained to implement their contingency plans." The name of this
Army task force that took on this operation was the Directorate of
Civil Disturbance Planning and Operations.[13] In the Army
surveillance of King, as Peter Dale Scott documented:
The 20th Special Forces Group is reported to have used reservists
from the Alabama National Guard, who in turn traded arms for
intelligence from the Ku Klux Klan. In other words the U.S. Army with
these programs, consciously or not, was countering a militant left by
building up and arming a militant right.[14]
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in
Memphis, Tennessee. The murder was blamed on James Earl Ray, a
fugitive who was later arrested in London and extradited to the
United States. Even after King's death, J. Edgar Hoover "continued
the campaign to discredit the civil rights leader."[15]
The King family had for a long time, publicly acknowledged that they
believed the accused killer, James Earl Ray, to have been innocent of
the crime he was accused. In fact, in 1999, the case was taken to
court, in one of the most important, and yet least-widely reported
court cases in the last century. O.J. Simpson's trial became a
national issue seared into the collective cultural subconscious,
while the trial of the charge of government conspiracy in the murder
of Martin Luther King, received barely a whisper of attention. The
jury at the trial concluded that:
Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim's Grill, had participated in a conspiracy
to kill King, a conspiracy that included J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI,
Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, the Memphis Police
Department (MPD), and organized crime. That verdict exonerated James
Earl Ray who had already died in prison.[16]
Upon the announcement of the verdict, Coretta Scott King, Martin
Luther King's widow, said, "There is abundant evidence of a major
high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin
Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has
validated our belief." She continued:
The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was
presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the
conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government
agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband.
The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone
else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up
to take the blame.[17]
William Pepper, the lawyer for the King family who took the case to
trial, and who was previously the lawyer for James Earl Ray, spoke
upon the final verdict of the jury. He stated that Martin Luther King:
took on those forces, powerful economic forces that dominated
politics in this land, they killed him. He was killed because he
could not be stopped. He was killed because they feared that half a
million people would rise in revolution in the capitol of this
country, and do what Mr. Jefferson said needed to be done every 20
years, to cleanse this land. This land has not been cleansed. This
nation has not faced the problems that Martin Luther King, Jr. died
trying to face and confront. They still exist today, the forces of
evil, the powerful economic forces that dominate the government of
this land and make money on war and deprive the poor of what is their
right, their birthright. They still abound and they rule.[18]
As it was revealed at the trial:
Members of the Army's 111th Military Intelligence Group, based at
Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia, had come to Memphis and were
keeping King under 24 hour a day surveillance.[19]
William Pepper, the lawyer for the King family, later wrote a book on
the trial and the evidence for the assassination, titled, "An Act of
State: The Execution of Martin Luther King." In it, he lays out the evidence:
of how Martin Luther King was killed, not by James Ray, a bumbling
patsy, but by a Memphis policeman in league with the Mafia, backed by
soldiers -- some armed with high-powered rifles, others with cameras
to film the event -- in a special Military Intelligence unit.[20]
Judge Joe Brown had presided over James Earl Ray's final appeal of
his conviction, which thrust him into the national spotlight. It was
out of this that he got the job to host the television court program,
"Judge Joe Brown." However, he continued to speak out on matters of
the Martin Luther King assassination. Brown has publicly stated that
James Earl Ray did not shoot King, and that, "Dr. King was shot with
an M-21, which is a specially accurized edition of the M-14
semi-automatic weapon that the military used."[21]
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968,
the Pentagon's Directorate of Civil Disturbance Planning and
Operations emerged "during the massive rioting that broke out in
black ghettos of nineteen cities after the assassination." The
headquarters of the Directorate was in the basement of the Pentagon,
in "the domestic war room." As Peter Dale Scott explained:
In effect, plans and programs were being established to
institutionalize martial law on a long-term or even permanent basis.
A number of steps were taken toward eroding the prohibition,
established in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1876, against the ongoing
use of the army in civilian law enforcement.[22]
The military intelligence operation "was supplemented at various
stages by the CIA, the Secret Service, the Internal Revenue Service,
and the National Security Administration."[23] By 1968:
many Justice Department personnel knew that the military was
preparing to move in massively if needed to quash urban riots, and
some officials feared the development of a large national military
riot force. It was well known among top officials that the Department
of Defense was spending far more funds than the Justice Department on
civil disorder preparations indicative of the growing trend at the
federal level toward repression and control of the urban black rioters.[24]
A US Senator later "revealed that Military Intelligence had
established an intricate surveillance system covering hundreds of
thousands of American citizens." Further:
At first, the Garden Plot exercises focused primarily on racial
conflict. But beginning in 1970, the scenarios took a different
twist. The joint teams, made up of cops, soldiers and spies, began
practicing battle with large groups of protesters...
As time went on, "Garden Plot evolved into a series of annual
training exercises based on contingency plans to undercut riots and
demonstrations, ultimately developed for every major city in the
United States. Participants in the exercises included key officials
from all law enforcement agencies in the nation, as well as the
National Guard, the military, and representatives of the intelligence
community.[25]
Garden Plot oversaw suppression of antiwar and civil rights protests
and riots from the 1960s into the 1970s, having been called to a
variety of cities over that period of time. Following the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who
was, at the time, campaigning for the presidency, broke the news to a
large gathering of African Americans in Indianapolis, Indiana. He
spoke, not of campaign issues, but of the man and ideas that King was
and represented:
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in
the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is
not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion
toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still
suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.[26]
The Billionaire Oligarchy and the Civil Rights Movement
The major philanthropic foundations of America (primarily the
Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie
Corporation, and a host of others), represent the interests of the
most highly concentrated sources of power in the world. The
foundations are run by and for major elite interests, who
simultaneously control the economic and political apparatus of entire
nations and the world economy. The foundations were founded in the
early 20th century as a means of these same elites to steer social
progress, and ultimately undertake projects of social engineering. It
was these very same foundations that were the principle financiers of
the eugenics movement, which gave birth to scientific racism and
ultimately led to the Holocaust.[27] In short, these foundations had
one principle aim: to socially engineer society according to the
wishes of their owners. Through the banks and corporations these
elites owned, they came to dominate the global economy. Through the
think tanks they established, they steered politics and imperial
foreign policy, and through the foundations, they engineered
'culture' and co-opted social movements into social engineering
projects. Thus, every threat to the established social order would
become an asset in its advancement and legitimization.
In the 1950s, the Ford Foundation began taking an interest in the
Civil Rights movement, and after convening a study on how to "improve
race relations," the Ford Foundation began giving grants to black
colleges "to improve the quality of their educational offerings."[28]
By 1966, the Civil Rights movement was one of the major areas of Ford
Foundation funding. Against the backdrop of the summer of 1966 in
which there were 43 "urban disorders" (riots in ghettos), which had
been "precipitated by confrontations between blacks and the police,"
the Ford Foundation announced that it would "direct significant
resources to the social justice area." Among the aims of the
Foundation were: "to improve leadership and programming within
minority organizations; to explore approaches to better race
relations; to support policy-oriented research on race and poverty;
to promote housing integration; and to increase the availability of
legal resources through support of litigating organizations and
minority law students."[29]
There was a transformation between 1966 and 1967 of the notion of
'black power', which was increasingly viewed by elites and
'authorities', such as J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, as "the beginning
of a true black revolution." Many advocates of 'black power' saw it
as the beginnings of a revolt against "white western imperialist" America.[30]
The problem for elites was in having such prolific and
anti-establishment leaders of social change movements. King was
accepted by the established powers, although very reluctantly, as it
was a political necessity to support him unless one wanted to risk a
revolution. However, when King moved against not only the issue of
racial inequality, but the issues of poverty and imperialism, and
drawing the connections between these areas and building opposition
to them, King could no longer be tolerated by the established powers.
Thus, they killed him. King, who was without a doubt, the leader of
the Civil Rights movement, was, in his last year, steering the Civil
Rights movement against poverty and empire. This would have been the
natural progression of the Civil Rights movement had King lived
longer, fighting for the rights of all people around the world and at
home, and aiming to unite them all under a common cause of liberation
against systemic oppression. This was simply too much for the
oligarchy to accept, and thus King was killed. With King gone, the
movement lent itself to be more easily steered in "safer" directions.
The Civil Rights movement was originally "launched by indigenous
leadership and primarily mobilized the southern black community."
Thus, it was essential for large foundation funding of the movement,
to effectively control its direction and impetus. This "elite
involvement would seem to occur only as a response to the threat
posed by the generation of a mass-based social movement." The major
foundations "supported the moderate civil rights organizations in
response to the 'radical flank' threat of the militants, while
non-elites (churches, unions and small individual donors) spread
their support evenly."[31] Elite patronage of the Civil Rights
movement "diverted leaders from indigenous organizing and exacerbated
inter-organizational rivalries, thereby promoting movement decay."[32]
Foundation funding for civil rights did not become significant until
1961-62, five years after the Birmingham bus boycott, and the peak of
foundation support for civil rights was in 1972-73, four to five
years after the assassination of King.[33] This indicated that
foundation grants to civil rights were 'reactive', in that they were
designed in response to changes in the movement itself, implying that
foundation patronage was aimed at social control. Further, most
grants went to professionalized social movement organizations (SMOs)
and in particular, the NAACP. While the professional SMOs initiated
only 14% of movement actions, they accounted for 57% of foundation
grants, while the classical SMOs, having carried out roughly 36% of
movement actions, received roughly 32% of foundation grants. This
disparity grew with time, so that by the 1970s, the classical SMOs
garnered 25% of grants and the professional SMOs received nearly 70%
of grants. Principally, the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
were the most endowed with foundation support.[34] Many of the
foundations subsequently became "centrally involved in the
formulation of national social policy and responded to elite concerns
about the riots."[35]
It became clear that the older, established and moderate
organizations received the most outside funding, such as the National
Urban League, the NAACP and the Legal Defense and Educational
Fund.[36] As the black struggles of the 1960s increasingly grew
militant and activist-oriented in the latter half of the 1960s,
"foundation contributions became major sources of income for the
National Urban League, the Southern Regional Council, and the Legal
Defense and Educational Fund."[37]
The NAACP and the National Urban League represent the more moderate
civil rights organizations, as they were also the oldest, with
membership primarily made up of middle class African Americans,
leading to many, including King himself, to suggest they were
disconnected from the reality or in representing poor blacks in
America.[38] The radicalization of the black protest movement led to
the emergence of challenges to the NAACP and Urban League in being
the 'leaders' in civil rights, as new organizations emerged which
represented a broader array of the black population. Among them were
the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Non-violent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC), which Martin Luther King led. Foundations
increased funding for all of these organizations, but as activism and
militancy accelerated in the latter half of the 1960s, the funding
declined for the more radical, militant and activist organizations
and increased dramatically for the established and moderate
organizations. This trend continued going into the 1970s.
In 1967, Martin Luther King's SCLC received $230,000 from the Ford
Foundation, yet after his assassination, the organization received no
more funding and virtually fell to pieces. That same year, the Ford
Foundation gave the NAACP $300,000, and gave the Urban League
$585,000. The Rockefeller Foundation granted the League $650,000,
with the Carnegie Corporation coming in with $200,000. The Ford
Foundation also gave the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) $175,000
in 1967.[39]
In 1968, with the SCLC out of the picture, Ford increased funding for
CORE to $300,000, increased grants to the NAACP to $378,000, and gave
the Urban League a monumental grant of $1,480,000. The same year, the
Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation gave the NAACP
$500,000 and $200,000 respectively. Clearly, the foundations were
supporting the older established and moderate organizations over the
new, young and activist/radical organizations. From the following
year, 1969, CORE received no more grants from foundations, while the
Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations increased their grants to
the NAACP and the Urban League. In 1974, the NAACP received grants of
$950,000 from the Ford Foundation, $250,000 from the Rockefeller
Foundation, and $200,000 from the Carnegie Corporation. The Urban
League received grants of $2,350,000 from the Ford Foundation and
$350,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation.[40]
This co-optation of the civil rights movement was so vital to these
elite interests for the principle reason of the movement taking its
natural course, out of an ethnic or race-based focus and into a class
and global social focus. A. Philip Randolph, a civil rights leader,
spoke in 1963 at an ALF-CIO convention at which he stated, "The
Negro's protest today is but the first rumbling of the 'under-class.'
As the Negro has taken to the streets, so will the unemployed of all
races take to the streets."[41] This was clearly the sentiment of
Martin Luther King in 1967, when he spoke of how poverty, empire, war
and economic exploitation are faced not simply by one race or one
people, but all people, everywhere. It was an issue and an approach
and a natural progression from the civil rights movement, coupled
with the anti-war movement, which would ultimately unite all people
against the prevailing imperial structures and ideas.
In 1970, pamphlets were circulating in which it was said that the
black woman "allies herself with the have-nots in the wider world and
their revolutionary struggles." While in the past, wrote Patricia
Robinson in one pamphlet, the poor black woman did not "question the
social and economic system," now she must, and "she has begun to
question aggressive male domination and the class society which
enforces it, capitalism."[42]
Ultimately, the methods, amounts and sources of elite financing for
civil rights organizations had the desired effects. The strategy for
civil rights became integration and reform, not agitation and
revolution. The distinctly anti-capitalist sentiments of many in the
civil rights movement, as well as exponentially increasing criticisms
of American imperialism and campaigns against poverty, not simply as
a racial issue, but as social and class issues, all ceased to
accelerate and advance. From this point on, civil rights procedures
took a distinctly institutionalized approach, preferring the legal
route rather than the activist route. The legal route was
instrumental in advancing notions of black integration into the
system (ex: 'affirmative action'), as opposed to black
activist-inspired reorganization or revolution of the system. In this
sense, the major foundations had the effect of co-opting one of the
most promising social movements in recent history, so that it did not
negatively damage the prevailing systems and structures of power, and
instead, focused on 'reforming' appearance rather than substance, so
that blacks can be included within the system, thus removing the
impetus for them to fight against it.
Elite Ideology: Social Movements are "Dangerous" to Democracy
It is important to briefly address some of the institutional
ideologies of the elite, so as to understand their motivations for
co-optation of social movements and their preference and proclivity
for social engineering.
In 1970, David Rockefeller became Chairman of the Council on Foreign
Relations, while also being Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan. In
1970, an academic who joined the Council on Foreign Relations in 1965
wrote a book called Between Two Ages: America's Role in the
Technetronic Era. The author, Zbigniew Brzezinski, called for the
formation of "A Community of the Developed Nations," consisting of
Western Europe, the United States and Japan. Brzezinski wrote about
how "the traditional sovereignty of nation states is becoming
increasingly unglued as transnational forces such as multinational
corporations, banks, and international organizations play a larger
and larger role in shaping global politics." David Rockefeller had
taken note of Brzezinski's writings, and was "getting worried about
the deteriorating relations between the U.S., Europe, and Japan," as
a result of Nixon's economic shocks. In 1972, David Rockefeller and
Brzezinski "presented the idea of a trilateral grouping at the annual
Bilderberg meeting." In July of 1972, seventeen powerful people met
at David Rockefeller's estate in New York to plan for the creation of
the Commission. Also at the meeting was Brzezinski, McGeorge Bundy,
the President of the Ford Foundation, (brother of William Bundy,
editor of Foreign Affairs) and Bayless Manning, President of the
Council on Foreign Relations.[43] So, in 1973, the Trilateral
Commission was formed to address these issues.
The Commission's major concerns were to preserve for the
"industrialized societies," in other words, seek mutual gain for the
Trilateral nations, and to construct "a common approach to the needs
and demands of the poorer nations." However, this should be read as,
"constructing a common approach to [dealing with] poorer nations." As
well as this, the Commission would undertake "the coordination of
defense policies and of policies toward such highly politicized
issues as nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and aerial hijacking, and
such highly politicized geographic areas as the Middle East or
Southern Africa."[44]
In 1975, the Trilateral Commission published a Task Force Report
entitled, "The Crisis of Democracy," of which one of the principal
authors was Samuel Huntington, a political scientist and close
associate and friend of Zbigniew Brzezinski. In this report,
Huntington argues that the 1960s saw a surge in democracy in America,
with an upswing in citizen participation, often "in the form of
marches, demonstrations, protest movements, and 'cause'
organizations."[45] Further, "the 1960s also saw a reassertion of the
primacy of equality as a goal in social, economic, and political
life."[46] Huntington analyzed how as part of this "democratic
surge," statistics showed that throughout the 1960s and into the
early 1970s, there was a dramatic increase in the percentage of
people who felt the United States was spending too much on defense
(from 18% in 1960 to 52% in 1969, largely due to the Vietnam War).[47]
Huntington wrote that the "essence of the democratic surge of the
1960s was a general challenge to existing systems of authority,
public and private," and that, "people no longer felt the same
compulsion to obey those whom they had previously considered superior
to themselves in age, rank, status, expertise, character, or
talents." Huntington explained that in the 1960s, "hierarchy,
expertise, and wealth" had come "under heavy attack."[48] He stated
that three key issues which were central to the increased political
participation in the 1960s were:
social issues, such as use of drugs, civil liberties, and the role of
women; racial issues, involving integration, busing, government aid
to minority groups, and urban riots; military issues, involving
primarily, of course, the war in Vietnam but also the draft, military
spending, military aid programs, and the role of the
military-industrial complex more generally.[49]
Huntington presented these issues, essentially, as the "crisis of
democracy," in that they increased distrust with the government and
authority, that they led to social and ideological polarization, and
led to a "decline in the authority, status, influence, and
effectiveness of the presidency."[50]
Huntington concluded that many problems of governance in the United
States stem from an "excess of democracy," and that, "the effective
operation of a democratic political system usually requires some
measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals
and groups." Huntington explained that society has always had
"marginal groups" which do not participate in politics, and while
acknowledging that the existence of "marginality on the part of some
groups is inherently undemocratic," it has also "enabled democracy to
function effectively." Huntington identifies "the blacks" as one such
group that had become politically active, posing a "danger of
overloading the political system with demands."[51]
Huntington, in his conclusion, stated that the vulnerability of
democracy, essentially the 'crisis of democracy,' comes "from the
internal dynamics of democracy itself in a highly educated,
mobilized, and participant society," and that what is needed is "a
more balanced existence" in which there are "desirable limits to the
indefinite extension of political democracy."[52] Summed up, the
Trilateral Commission Task Force Report essentially explained that
the "Crisis of Democracy" is that there is too much of it, and so the
'solution' to the crisis, is to have less democracy and more 'authority'.
This is the principle ideology behind the political, economic and
social institutions and apparatus of power: to control people and
protect and expand centralized authority. 'Democracy' used in this
sense simply implies maintaining an 'image' of democracy, with a
legislature, judiciary, and executive branch, and of course, voting.
Ultimately, a system in which the political, economic and social
spheres are directed by and serve the interests of a tiny elite
(national or international in composition) is not a true democracy.
Voting is a cruel fraud on the people promoting a façade of democracy
by allowing the people to vote between two elite-chosen candidates.
This is not 'democracy,' this is oligarchy.
The Civil Rights Movement is an excellent example of how the imperial
structures of society can be turned against an indigenous social
movement to either crush or co-opt it. The natural progression of the
Civil Rights Movement as a global struggle for liberation against not
only racism, but empire, poverty and exploitation was interrupted and
deconstructed; but it should not be forgotten. We are coming to a
time, now, where the world is more ready for a resurgence of the
ideas of Martin Luther King, the very ideas he was articulating in
his final year alive, and the very ideas that are capable of uniting
all of humanity against our common oppressors. All power structures,
in every facet of society, should have their legitimacy challenged
and ultimately have their power withdrawn in place of indigenous
power: people power. What systems and structures arise will be
plentiful and with successes and failures, and no one can say what
the "right" system is; but what is very evident, is that the current
system is wrong, and should be challenged on every level, and by every person.
--
"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world
revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of
values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented"
society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers,
profit motives and property rights are considered more important than
people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are
incapable of being conquered... The choice is ours, and though we
might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of
human history."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.,
"Beyond Vietnam," 1967
--
Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for
Research on Globalization (CRG). He is co-editor, with Michel
Chossudovsky, of the recent book, "The Global Economic Crisis: The
Great Depression of the XXI Century," available to order at
Globalresearch.ca. He is currently writing a book on 'Global
Government' due to be released in 2011 by Global Research Publishers.
--
Notes
[1] Time, The Nation: FBI Dirty Tricks. Time Magazine:
December 5, 1977:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915760,00.html
[2] Ed Gordon, COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying.
NPR: January 18, 2006:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5161811
[3] Ibid.
[4] Maria Gilardin, Who Killed Martin Luther King? Dissident
Voice: April 4, 2008:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/who-killed-martin-luther-king/
[5] Ed Gordon, COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying.
NPR: January 18, 2006:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5161811
[6] Ibid.
[7] Time, The Nation: FBI Dirty Tricks. Time Magazine:
December 5, 1977:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,915760,00.html
[8] Patrick Radden Keefe, Chatter: Uncovering the Echelon
Surveillance Network and the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping.
(Random House: New York, 2005), page 147
[9] Rev. Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break
Silence. Speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4,
1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church
in New York City: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html
[10] Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, The Martin Luther King You
Don't See on TV. FAIR: January 4, 1995: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2269
[11] Ed Gordon, COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying.
NPR: January 18, 2006:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5161811
[12] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the
Future of America. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007),
pages 27-28
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid, page 29.
[15] Ed Gordon, COINTELPRO and the History of Domestic Spying.
NPR: January 18, 2006:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5161811
[16] Maria Gilardin, Who Killed Martin Luther King? Dissident
Voice: April 4, 2008:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/who-killed-martin-luther-king/
[17] The Transcription of the King Family Press Conference on
the MLK Assassination Trial Verdict. The King Center: December 9,
1999: https://www.thekingcenter.org/KingCenter/Transcript_press_conference.aspx
[18] Ibid.
[19] Maria Gilardin, Who Killed Martin Luther King? Dissident
Voice: April 4, 2008:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/who-killed-martin-luther-king/
[20] Douglas Valentine, An Act of State: The Execution of Martin
Luther King. Counter Punch: February 11, 2003:
http://www.counterpunch.org/valentine02112003.html
[21] NPR, James Earl Ray's Undying Appeal for Freedom. NPR:
April 4, 2008: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89372294
[22] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the
Future of America. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), page 28
[23] Ibid.
[24] Frank Morales, U.S. MILITARY CIVIL DISTURBANCE PLANNING:
THE WAR AT HOME. Covert Action Quarterly, No. 69, Spring/Summer 2000:
http://cryptome.info/0001/garden-plot.htm
[25] Ibid.
[26] NPR, Robert Kennedy: Delivering News of King's Death. NPR:
April 4, 2008: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89365887
[27] Edwin Black, The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi
Eugenics, History News Network, 23 November 2003:
http://hnn.us/articles/1796.html
[28] Lynn Walker, "The Role of Foundations in Helping to Reach
the Civil Rights Goals of the 1980s," Rutgers Law Review,
(1984-1985), page 1059
[29] Ibid, page 1060.
[30] Robert C. Smith, "Black Power and the Transformation from
Protest to Policies," Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 96, No. 3,
(Autumn, 1981), page 438
[31] J. Craig Jenkins and Craig M. Eckert, "Channeling Black
Insurgency: Elite Patronage and Professional Social Movement
Organizations in the Development of the Black Movement," American
Sociological Review, Vol. 51, No. 6, (Dec., 1986), page 814
[32] Ibid, page 815.
[33] Ibid, pages 819-820.
[34] Ibid, page 821.
[35] Ibid, page 826.
[36] Herbert H. Haines, "Black Radicalization and the Funding of
Civil Rights: 1957-1970," Social Problems, Vol. 32, No. 1, Thematic
Issue on Minorities and Social Movements, (Oct., 1984), page 38
[37] Ibid, page 40.
[38] Martin N. Marger, "Social Movement Organizations and
Response to Environmental Change: The NAACP, 1960- 1973," Social
Problems, Vol. 32, No. 1, Thematic Issue on Minorities and Social
Movements, (Oct., 1984), page 22
[39] Ibid, page 25.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States
(Harper: New York, 2003), page 464
[42] Ibid, page 465.
[43] Holly Sklar, ed., Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission
and Elite Planning for World Management. South End Press: 1980: pages 76-78
[44] Richard H. Ullman, Trilateralism: "Partnership" For What?
Foreign Affairs: October, 1976: page 5
[45] Michel J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki,
The Crisis of Democracy. (Report on the Governability of Democracies
to the Trilateral Commission, New York University Press, 1975), page 61
[46] Ibid, page 62.
[47] Ibid, page 71.
[48] Ibid, pages 74-75
[49] Ibid, page 77.
[50] Ibid, page 93.
[51] Ibid, pages 113-114.
[52] Ibid, page 115.
.
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