Dennis Kucinich – most courageous Congressman

The Fight Americans Can’t Afford to Lose Everyday Americans are in the fight of their lives. Their jobs, their homes, their pensions, their savings, a modest standard of living – all under assault by rising prices, tightened credit, corporate greed, and a Congress that has bailed out Wall Street financial interests at the expense of taxpayers and to the detriment of struggling homeowners. The fight is far from over, and the ONE Congressman who has been the leader in defending your interests needs your help to continue being your voice in Washington. Dennis Kucinich has been sounding the alarm for years. He has led the opposition to these obscene giveaways to corrupt interests that have been gambling with your hard-earned dollars. He’s been demanding direct assistance to Americans whose lives and futures are at risk – proposing real economic recovery programs that will create millions of jobs and put money in the pockets of working men and women all across the country. But, as Dennis continues fighting for the interests of everyday Americans, he’s also fighting to hold on to his seat in the House of Representatives against a Republican who’s raising money, spending money, and aggressively seeking to put Ohio’s 10th Congressional District into GOP hands. The honest, decent, hard-working families of this country can’t afford to lose the fight of their lives. And they can’t afford to lose Congressman Dennis Kucinich. His voice is crucial to our future. And your support has never been more important.

WHY US THINKS IRAN HAS WMD – US GAVE THEM BLUEPRINTS

The Bush administration is prolonging the hunting season against journalists. The latest victim is James Risen, The New York Times reporter for national security and intelligence affairs. About three months ago, a federal grand jury issued a subpoena against him, ordering Risen to give evidence in court. A heavy blackout has been imposed on the affair, with the only hint being that it has to do with sensitive matters of “national security.” But conversations with several sources who are familiar with the affair indicate that Risen has been asked to testify as part of an investigation aimed at revealing who leaked apparently confidential information about the planning of secret Central Intelligence Agency and Mossad missions concerning Iran’s nuclear program.

Risen included this information in his book, “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration,” which was published in 2006. In the book, he discusses a number of ideas which he says were thought up jointly by CIA and Mossad operatives to sabotage Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

 

One of these ideas was to build electromagnetic devices, smuggling them inside Iran to sabotage electricity lines leading to the country’s central nuclear sites. According to the plan, the operation was supposed to cause a series of chain reactions which would damage extremely powerful short circuits in the electrical supply that would have led to failures of the super computers of Iran’s nuclear sites.

According to the book, the Mossad planners proposed that they would be responsible for getting the electromagnetic facilities into Iran with the aid of their agents in Iran. However, a series of technical problems prevented the plan’s execution.

Another of the book’s important revelations, which made the administration’s blood boil about James Risen, appeared in a chapter describing what was known as Operation Merlin, the code name for another CIA operation supposed to penetrate the heart of Iran’s nuclear activity, collect information about it and eventually disrupt it.

Operation Merlin

The CIA counter proliferation department hired a Soviet nuclear engineer who had previously, in the 1990s, defected to the United States and revealed secrets from the Soviet Union’s nuclear program. His speciality was in the field of what is called weaponization, the final stage of assembling a nuclear bomb.

The scientist was equipped with blueprints for assembling a nuclear bomb in which, without his knowledge, false drawings and information blueprints were planted about a nuclear warhead that was supposedly manufactured in the Soviet Union. The plan’s details had been fabricated by CIA experts, and so while they appeared authentic, they had no engineering or technological value.

The intention was to fool the scientist and send him to make contact with the Iranians to whom he would offer his services and blueprints. The American plot was aimed at getting the Iranians to invest a great deal of effort in studying the plans and to attempt to assemble a faulty warhead. But when the time came, they would not have a nuclear bomb but rather a dud.

However, Operation Merlin, which was so creative and original, failed because of CIA bungled planning. The false information inserted into the blueprints were too obvious and too easily detected and the Russian engineer discovered them. As planned, he made contact with the Iranian delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and handed over to them, also as planned, the blueprints.

But contrary to the CIA’s intention, he added a letter to the blueprints in which he pointed out the mistakes. He did not do this with ill intent or out of a desire to disrupt the operation and harm his operators. On the contrary, he did so out of a deep sense of mission and in order to satisfy his American operators. He hoped that in this way he would simply increase the Iranians’ trust in him and encourage them to make contact with him for the good, of course, of his American operators.

The result was disastrous. Not only did the CIA fail to prevent the Iranians in their efforts to enhance their nuclear program, this operation may also have made it possible for them to get their hands on a plan for assembling a nuclear warhead.

Freedom of the press

In Israel, military censorship would have prevented the publication of details such as these. But in the U.S., where the principle of freedom of the press is sacred and anchored in the constitution, there is no compulsory and binding censorship. There is, however, an expectation there that the press will show responsibility. This expectation has increased in recent years, particularly with the conservative Bush administration and in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Risen is not the first journalist to have been subpoenaed to give evidence before a grand jury and reveal his sources. According to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, some 65 journalists have been summoned for such investigations since 2001. Some agreed, cooperated and testified. Most refused, so that they would not have to reveal their sources. In this way, they exposed themselves to being charged with contempt of court.

There were some who even preferred to be jailed so long as they were not forced to reveal their source. The best-known case was that of Judith Miller, another New York Times writer. The background to her 85-day imprisonment was her refusal to reveal who had leaked the name of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, to the media.

“It is true that there is tension between the Bush administration and the media,” says Steve Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy on behalf of the Federation of American Scientists, an independent body which aims at analyzing the activities of government with a critical eye, “but I would not go so far as to say that the administration is waging war against the media.”

In Aftergood’s assessment, the danger to the freedom of the press comes rather from private citizens and organizations, those who feel themselves harmed by journalistic publications and commentators and who would therefore like to limit the press’ freedom. The most conspicuous of these is Gabriel Schoenfeld, a senior editor at Commentary, who believes that liberal newspapers like The New York Times are not sufficiently patriotic. In his articles and in testimony before a Senate committee that discussed the issue, Schoenfeld claimed that

The New York Times reporters had revealed confidential material that weakened America’s struggle against Al-Qaida. He calls for relinquishing the soft approach which he says the administration has taken against journalists in whose publications, in his opinion, America’s security is harmed.

There are many others who take the opposite approach and believe that the right of journalists to keep their sources secret should be anchored in law. Two Congressmen, the Republican Mike Pence, and Rick Boucher, a Democrat, have proposed legislation to this effect – a law for the free flow of information. The House of Representatives has already approved their proposal but the legislation is being held up in the Senate, to the displeasure of the American Civil Liberties Union.

On the face of it, this is a sensitive issue that is intended to draw the lines between the freedom of information, freedom of the media, and the public’s right to know, against the right of a democracy to defend itself against enemies that are not democratic. But James Risen has no doubt that the correct and just moral act on his part has to be to defend his sources, even if this means he will lose his freedom.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/961337.html

Last update - 20:50 06/03/2008

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<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>Who leaked the details of a CIA-Mossad plot against Iran? <!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>By Yossi Melman

Why War with Iran is Imninent (or) Bomb, Bomb Iran

 

US envoy sees Iran sanctions next week

The Herald Sun – February 22, 2008 8:54 pm – error message states no longer available

“We will succeed in shutting down Iran’s oil bours…. er. I mean, nuclear weapons program!” — Official White Horse Souse

Take a good look at the photo labeled “Heavy water plant.” That’s actually a set of refinery cracking towers. Heavy water plants, like uranium enrichment plants, consist of cascades of centrifuges. The lies just never stop coming. – M. R. – alternative news source

 

 

Well-funded special-interest groups have unbalanced our democratic system so what are we are we going to do now? Jurgen Habermas deduced that as capitalism developed, the uneven distribution of wealth & mass media would damage our public sphere. During the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle, 1999, online activists mobilized protests against globalization in what came to be known as ‘the Battle in Seattle.” My son was involved in that protest almost ten years ago. Very naively, no one in my seemingly safe world understood what was going on there, nor did we even bother to find out. My extended family was unsympathetic when I mentioned my son was hit by a rubber bullet. He must have done something wrong. It is sad to me that only after returning to school I finally learned what that protest was all about. (Long after my son was killed in 2001. )

My hope now is that I can persuade my friends and loved ones before it is too late what these organizations are really about. The names they have taken upon themselves make them sound like official, trustworthy benefactors – World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the G8 – just the opposite of what they really are. They are individuals organized for the express purpose of making money off the most vulnerable people, those in developing countries. They have no more conscience than a loan shark.

http://www.battleinseattlemovie.com/video.html

Going back to Seattle, 1999 – what happened was many individuals & groups, using their genius, creativity, and knowledge of Internet media linked activists to mobilize real-world action, gaining widespread attention to the cause. Unfortunately, not my attention or that of anyone I knew. The website of the Independent Media Center helped powerless groups frame and disseminate their message, and at the same time, exercise leverage against a powerful international organization (WTO).

The Internet is our threatened public sphere, our modern, but vulnerable network for communicating information & points of view, an e-town hall. The public sphere Habermas observed was the coffee houses of Victorian England in the 18th Century. But he was able to deduce that “as capitalism developed, the uneven distribution of wealth and the emergence of mass media would extinguish the ability of citizens to have their voices heard, damaging the public sphere.” See zeitgeistmovie.com

The Internet is cheaper than the phone, it is easy to publish material either on the web or by email. Circulation is rapid, with global reach, available even in developing countries. New blogging software now allows anyone to become a publisher which is a great freedom. However, I no longer believe it is difficult to control or censor the Internet. As can been seen with cut internet cables and filters, governments will do anything when it suits their agenda.

Also see Petrodollar warfare, Petrobourse

From Wikipedia:

The Iran Petroleum Exchange, International Oil Bourse^[1] or Iranian_Oil_Bourse^[2] (IOB; the official English language name is unclear) is a commodity exchange that IIranian ministries and other state and private institutions have announced they are creating. The IOB is a Petrobourse for petroleum, petrochemicals and gas in various non-dollar currencies, primarily the Iranian rial and a basket of other major currencies. The geographical location is at the Persian Gulf island of Kish which is designated by Iran as a free trade zone.[3].

The Iranian Oil Bourse was inaugurated on 17 February 2008. Mysteriously, undersea Internet cables were cut February 1, 2008 in an attempt to disrupt this inauguration.

See earlier blog: [Internet cables severed last week causing disruptions across the Middle East and parts of Asia, two undersea cables that were cut Jan. 30. They are about 5 miles off the north coast of Egypt, near the port city of Alexandria, and run between Egypt and Palermo, on the Italian island of Sicily. One of the two Mediterranean cables was owned by FLAG. The other, identified as SEA-ME-WE 4, or South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 cable, was owned by a consortium of 16 international telecommunication companies. Egypt’s telecommunication ministry said no ships were registered near the location at the time. The cuts slowed businesses, hampered personal Internet usage and caused a flurry of Internet blogger speculation, including mentions of sabotage. Government authorities and FLAG, which stands for Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe, have refused to comment on the speculation.]

Although opening an oil bourse has been delayed in the past 2 years, Iran has had success in asking its petroleum customers to pay in non-dollar currencies. On December 8, 2007, Iran reported to have converted all of its oil export payments to non-dollar currencies.

Background

The three current oil markets are all US dollar denominated: North America’s West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI), North Sea Brent Crude, and the UAE Dubai Crude. The two major oil bourses are the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) in New York City and the International_Petroleum_Exchange (IPE) in London. The proposed Iranian bourse would establish a fourth oil market, denominated by the Iranian rial, the euro and other major currencies.

Timeline

April 20th, 2007    Bomb, Bomb Iran

December 2007 Iran stops accepting U.S. dollars for oil. [19]

January 2008 Iran’s Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari told reporters that the bourse will be opened during the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution (February 1-11). [2].

February 2008 On February 4, the Iranian Cabinet approved the creation of the oil bourse in two stages – first a raw oil exchange and secondly an oil byproducts exchange. The Ministry of Finance and Economics, the Oil Ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Central Bank of Iran are required to create a workgroup to coordinate the project, and the Iran Commodities Bourse Company is given the task of carrying out the project. The communique from the Cabinet states that the “Ministry of Finance and Economics is required to take measures in making the petrochemical byproducts bourse operational by the end of February 2008.” [20]

On February 17 2008, the Iranian Oil Bourse was inaugurated in a video conference ceremony from the capital Tehran attended by ministers of oil, finance and economic affairs as well as chairman of Iran’s Stock Exchange and a number of other officials and financial experts.[21] The transactions will be made in Iranian rial and other major currencies. [22] The Iranian Oil Bourse will likely accept Russian ruble as well.^[23]

3-10-2008 Somebody thinks the conspiracy theories are dismissed because Tehran’s cut internet cables were quickly rerouted through Turkey. Sounds like a perfect plan to me. They are more accessible there than underwater. If the U.S. military only uses satellite for its internet, sounds like anything less should be considered unsecure.

1. ^ KFZO MD: Investment in oil and gas in Kish is competitive and justified. Kish Free Zone Organization (2008-02-09). Retrieved on 2008-02-10.
2. ^ ^{a b} Iran Oil Bourse to deal blow to dollar
3. ^ Kish Oil Exchange Planned, Iran Daily, January 24, 2006
4. ^ Iran stops selling oil in U.S. dollars -report, Reuters, December 7, 2007
5. ^ The Iranian line in the sand, Dan Crawford, The Republic (Vancouver), August 18 to 31, 2005
6. ^ A star rises in the east, Stella Farrington, April 2005
7. ^ Speaking freely: What the Iran ‘nuclear issue’ is really about, Chris Cook, January 21, 2006, Asia Times/energybulletin.net
8. ^ A frenzied Persian new year, March 22, 2006, Asia Times
9. ^ Iran oil bourse next week, April 26, 2006, Iranian.ws
10. ^ Ministry to offer IOB Articles of Association in two months, May 19, 2006, Mehr News Agency
11. ^ Iranian Journel, building has been purchased and new date is September, accessed July 6 2006
12. ^ Iran’s oil bourse to be launched, September 15, 2006, Mehr News Agency
13. ^ Iran May Reduce Use of Dollar, Tehran Papers Say, December 6, 2006, Bloomberg
14. ^ Press TV – Iran’s Baghdad embassy shifts to euro
15. ^ China shifts to euros for Iran oil, The Scotsman, 27 March 2007
16. ^ IRI to stop pricing oil in dollars, IRIB News, 31 March 2007
17. ^ Iran asks Japan to pay in yen, not dollars for oil purchases, Tokyo, 14 July 2007, IRNA
18. ^ UPI: “Analysis: Iran moves to ditch U.S. dollar”
19. ^ RIA Novosti: Iran stops accepting U.S. dollars for oil. TEHRAN, December 8, 2007
20. ^ The cabinet approves the opening of the International Oil Bourse. Kish Free Zone Organization (2008-02-04). Retrieved on 2008-02-07.
21. ^ 1st phase of Iran oil stock inaugurated on Kish Island, IRNA Reports, Feb. 17, 2008
22. ^ Oil bourse opens in Iran’s Kish Island Retrieved 17 February 2008
23. ^ IIran Oil Bourse may use Russian ruble , Press TV Reports, Feb. 15, 2008

Literature

• Clark, William R.: Petrodollar Warfare : Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar, New Society Publishers, 2005, ISBN 0-86571-514-9

External links

• Iran Oil Bourse to deal blow to dollar www.PressTV.ir, January 2008
• [1] Hysteria Over Iran and A New Cold War with Russia: Peak Oil, Petrocurrencies, and the Emerging Multi-Polar World, December 2006
• PetroTalk Portal for petro related Articles, Discussion, Links and more
• Iran oil bourse next week, Persian Journal, Apr 26, 2006
• Iran takes on west’s control of oil trading, The Guardian
• The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target: The Emerging Euro-denominated International Oil Marker
• Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse
• The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
• Trading oil in euros – does it matter?
• Will the Iranian Oil Bourse Threaten the Dollar?
• Petrodollars and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation: Understanding the Planned Assault on Iran, Centre for Research on Globalization, February 10, 2006
• The Iranian line in the sand
• Petrodollar or Petroeuro? A new source of global conflict
• The Iranian Threat: The Bomb or the Euro?
• The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target
• Strange ideas about the Iranian oil bourse (a counterpoint with countercounterpoints in comments…)

• Iranian Oil Bourse opening IOB will open amid hurdle:

  Iranian Oil Bourse Opening by Steve Austin – 2008/02/06

• Unlike other bourses, the IOB relies on a peer-to-peer trading model, using the Internet. IOB has been in the works for several years and encountered many hurdles on the way, the last of which are severed underwater internet cables creating an Internet outage throughout the Middle East days before the IOB’s opening and prompting conspiracy theories. In recent years the US has outfitted some of its submarines with the capability to splice optical fiber underwater so these theories may not be far-fetched.
  Having the world’s second largest oil reserves of 136 gigabarrels, Iran will likely extend its influence on financial markets when the IOB opens. Although under-reported by the media, this historical shift and its consequences should be watched closely.

From: justforeignpolicy Subscribe Unsubscribe Joined: 10 months ago Videos: 5

John Bolton, recently US ambassador to the United Nations, admitted on a conference call in January that he actually WANTED Iran to withdraw from the nonproliferation treaty or to expel nuclear inspectors.

This casts doubt on the official justification for an aggressive posture against Iran – and suggests that some administration officials are simply looking for an excuse for war.

A threat to our public sphere? Sabotage in Middle East? Government refuses comment.

Cut Gulf Internet cable

By KATARINA KRATOVAC, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 8, 2:24 PM ET

CAIRO, Egypt – An abandoned anchor was responsible for cutting one of the undersea Internet cables severed last week, causing disruptions across the Middle East and parts of Asia, the cable’s owner said Friday. A FLAG Telecom repair crew discovered the anchor near where the fiber-optic cable was severed Feb. 1 in the Persian Gulf, 35 miles north of Dubai, between the Emirates and Oman.

Weighing more than 5.5 tons, the anchor has been pulled to the surface. The company did not immediately explain whether the anchor moved and snapped the cable or whether the cable itself was drifting when it was sliced.

 

It remains unclear exactly how any of the cuts occurred.

… A second FLAG repair ship continued work on two undersea cables that were cut Jan. 30. They are about 5 miles off the north coast of Egypt, near the port city of Alexandria, and run between Egypt and Palermo, on the Italian island of Sicily. One of the two Mediterranean cables was owned by FLAG. The other, identified as SEA-ME-WE 4, or South East Asia-Middle East-West Europe 4 cable, was owned by a consortium of 16 international telecommunication companies.

 

Egypt’s telecommunication ministry said no ships were registered near the location at the time. The cuts slowed businesses, hampered personal Internet usage and caused a flurry of Internet blogger speculation, including mentions of sabotage. Government authorities and FLAG, which stands for Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe, have refused to comment on the speculation.

 

Reports of additional cuts in Middle East Internet cables could not be confirmed. FLAG, in a statement posted on the company Web site, said it has surveyed the cable cut off Egypt with remotely operated robots.

 

The FLAG spokesman said this week that it was laying a new cable underwater between Egypt and France that would be “fully resilient” against cuts such as last week’s and “provide a diversity in routes.” He did not say what that resilience entailed, but said it would take months to set up the new cable.

 

“It is difficult to comment right now on this,” said a FLAG spokesman, reached over the telephone. “We are doing our own investigation.” He spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with company policy. Ovum analyst Matt Walker said undersea cable networks are highly vulnerable to deliberate attack and need enhanced security.

 

… “The economic cost of losing, or even just slowing down, international communications is extremely high,” said Walker. “This risk has to be factored into the calculations behind the investment level and design of undersea optical networks.” …

 

AP Business Writer Matt Moore contributed to this report from Frankfurt, Germany.

 

U.S. heading to war in Iran, says former inspector

BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior Staff Reporter

08/02/08 “Cleveland Jewish News“ — – The former chief United Nations weapons inspector and a retired Middle East diplomat recently warned that America was heading straight toward imminent war with Iran.

John McCain April 20, 2007: Bomb, Bomb Iran

 

Depoliticization of a subculture using artifacts

http://it.stlawu.edu/~global/glossary/bighegemony.subculture.1c.html
from McGuru Tim on the mike about subculture MC …
“Human beings need community. Human expressions in the forms of language, song, clothing, dance, can serve to identify an individual’s membership and status in a community. In order to preserve their corporate standing, the mass media must appeal to a huge population of people. These, as well as all other, institutions of mature capitalism must do their best to covertly homogenize this huge population, offering them up each month’s new pseudo-individualized Headbanger’s Ball rock hero or Swim Suit Issue blonde. In turn communities have for the most part actually become one big homogenized global Coka-Cola village.

“The nation- or world-wide population that they create is actually much too large to fulfill any of the real human need for community and it’s cultural signs are often much too expensive to be available to all it’s members. Consequently, many smaller groups of people become jaded with this poor simulacrum of a community and have sought to construct their own culture via more personalized and available cultural signs. They become a “sub-culture” or more specifically a real culture. These sub-cultures, using any accessible communication medium, both threaten the economic status of corporate sign makers and stand in direct opposition to the hegemony which preserves the existence of such money-deities.

For this reason, society has evolved mechanisms that depoliticize subcultures, sucking them back into the mainstream and into compliance with the current dominant hegemony. Evidence of this phenomena can be seen in advertisements. Why is it that advertised images of urban gang members who in reality declare “fuck the police” instead demand “wear Starter clothing”? Why are leather-clad “live to ride” bikers selling 200-dollar department store booties? How can images of drug and sex experimenting beatniks come to symbolize the ideal Toyota driver?

The production of such decontextualized and distorted images of these subcultures serves to fulfill what Dick Hebdige classifies as the two methods of “recuperation”: “the commodity form,” turning the signs of these subcultures into “mass-produced objects,” and “the ideological form,” “re-defin[ing] the actual “deviant behaviour.” In hundreds of ads we see what were the unique and usually inexpensive folk-art creations of those in the subculture turned into commodities for those with the cash. Such ads also show one type of the ideological form: all of these deviant subcultures are turned into safe fashion possibilities.

… there are certain desires in the consuming audience. The rebellion, community and identity-deprived members of the mainstream will thrive as long as there is some “other” whose styles can be stolen, whether it be from the mythic past or the contemporary streets. Those who live within the sign-constructs of the capitalist main stream, (in America: the white upper class) decorate their voices and bodies with the commodified artifacts of these othernesses: hobos, blues guitarists, street hustlers, gamblers, etc.This theft of style does not always occur in one giant leap; there are many steps between the ghetto rap act and Vanilla Ice. Whenever a group of people borrows the signs of another group of people they are decontextualizing it. If the borrower has other ideals or experiences than the previous owner, the signs original intent becomes diffused or reshaped.”

 

 

 

http://it.stlawu.edu/~global/glossary/bighegemony.subculture.1c.html
“The general direction in which a society develops is always in the interests of a ruling class or dominant group of one sort or another. If a society did not move in a direction in the interest of a dominant group then that group would no longer, of course, be the ruling class. Some other fraction would assume power. But society is made up of more than just the dominant group, of more than just the ruling class of the elites. In every society, there are numerous other factions that could be differentiated, whether by class, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, age, etc. And these subordinate groups do not always have the same interests as the dominant class. Each group would like to see the society move in a direction predicated on their own interests. …… Some of the institutions which function to maintain and expand the hegemony of the elites include the news media, the entertainment industry, the art world, the publishing industry, the university culture; political parties and governmental institutions; the legal system and the courts; and (not in the least exhausting the list) the adversiting industry.

The maintenance of hegemony requires the work of numerous specialists, persons trained, consciously or not, to strengthen and expand the ideological penetration and manipulation of the subordinate classes. These intellectual specialists include writers, artists, clergymen, grade-school teachers, university professors, journalists, movie makers, musicians; scientists, doctors, lawyers, politicians, labor leaders; philosophers, theorists and thinkers; and of course, ADVERTISERS — all people/institutions involved in the creation and dissemination of knowledge, ideas, and belief systems. Educational institutions function to create the intellectuals, the specialists who will maintain intellectual and social hegemony of the interests of the other groupings. Students attend these institutions to gain greater cultural capital. …

… The individuals who will be trained to specialize in hegemony can often, ironically enough, be drawn from the very groups that the hegemony works to subordinate. This is a base form of appropriation from subculture. Advertisements serve to create an appealing view of the dominant class and desire to become part of this group which teaches one to assume the behaviors, beliefs, ideologies of the dominant paradigm. In addition, they often appropriate the markers of signs of subcultures like hip hop, grunge and recently punk, and incorporate them into fashion which depoliticizes their content. The ironic fact of drawing from subordinate groups is a measure of the efficiency of hegemony. By drawing away the best and the brightest individuals and styles of other groups, hegemony works to prevent the possibility that those individuals/styles might be attracted to some alternative that might challenge the control of the dominant class.

Yet in a roughly democratic educational system, where attempts are made to extend intellectual training to many sectors of society, and to not keep it confined to the ruling elites, problems for hegemony arise. The system creates a vast number of more-or-less educated individuals whose economic expectations can not be met by a material system under the ever more efficient control of the elites and their ideology. When the economic system can’t meet these constructed desires for an ever higher standard of living for all those who have been socialized (through the ideological media of advertising and others) to expect nothing less, a great amount of dissatisfaction is bound to result. The vast majority of those trained to think, (or not to as the case might be) to maintain the hegemony of the ruling class, can never achieve the status of privilege held by those elites. In fact for vast sectors of the college- to high school-educated population will never be able to find an economic situation that is not in some regards alienating. And things are even worse for those who have never been educated in the first place. Institutions of hegemony have so far been able to divert the anomie and frustration felt by many to behavior that is not threatening to the hegemony, and in fact in some cases, as with consumerism, reinforce the economic control of corporate capitalism. The hegemonic ideology prevents most from ever realizing the reality of their material situation, or from doing anything active about it. … the tight control on ideological hegemony by dominant culture institutions, means that openings for alternatives to the status quo hegemony might have to come from crises in the material system of the current regime.

Hegemony is a “moving equilibrium” between the interests of a dominant class and a number of allied but subordinate classes. It is a self-contradictory compromise, though, that is always shifting, fluid. Since it is always in a state of flux, due to the shifting nature of the compromise between classes, it is not a universal state, always under the control of the same ruling class, though it does have pretensions of eternity.

Hegemonic power, which ‘naturalizes’ a certain set of social relationships can, however, be deconstructed, be read oppositionally, and, occasionally, be altered greatly. The naturalization that hegemonic ideology renders gives to the vast majority of society’s members a ‘common-sensical’ explanation for why the world is the way it is. “I don’t know why. That’s just the way it is. It’s common sense.” The common sense of hegemony suffocates questions, denies challenges, prevents alternative answers. For a subordinate group to gain power to shift the directions of the hegemonic power, however, is next to impossible in a stable society. The very forces of hegemonic influence which sustain the power of one group, prevents other groups from gaining enough alternative economic, military or intellectual resources to change the equilibrium in their favor. It can be seen that the times in which these shifts in the hegemony do occur are times of great crisis and change. In a world ordered and explained by the invisible, silent and omnipresent movement of common sense, how does one bring forward a challenge? …

… hegemony is never a monolithic force. It is a term used to describe a generalized tendency on the part of human societies to be oriented ideologically according to the interests of the institutions of a dominant ruling class, reflective of their material control of a society’s economic resources.”