Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 5

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

280 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the first anniversary of Bill Clinton’s election, the Yuppie Democratic administration still has neither changed the military interventionist nature of U.S. foreign policy, abolished the CIA, diminished the special influence of transnational oil companies, the Big Five insurance companies and the global media conglomerates or reduced unemployment too much. In September 1993, for instance, California’s official jobless rate jumped to 9.4 percent, New York State’s official unemployment rate still exceeded 7 percent, New Jersey’s official unemployment rate jumped to 7.7 percent and over 12 percent of African-American workers were still officially unemployed in the United States.

Despite all the favorable media hype following Bill Clinton’s speech on health care reform, Public Citizen health expert Dr. Sidney Wolfe calls the Clintons’ health care reform plan “a cruel fraud,” and Physicians for a National Health Plan leader Quentin Young calls it “a formula for total disaster.” (In These Times, 10/4/93). The Clintons’ Administration seems out of touch with the freedom-now aspirations of people in the United States 280 days after the Clintons’ first inauguration.

(Downtown 10/27/93)

294 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

One year after his election and 294 days after the Clintons’ inauguration, “Slick Willie” Clinton—like former CIA Director Bush I—still doesn’t seem to really have any domestic agenda for democratizing U.S. society, restoring [permanent] economic prosperity and insuring full employment for all U.S. citizens, or ending institutional sexism and institutional racism in the United States.

Like Bush I, the Clintons still seem more concerned about what happens to [then-] Russian Dictator Boris Yeltsin than what happens to the brothers and sisters who are forced to live out on the streets of the United States. Instead of emulating Japan’s more practical “Fortress Japan” foreign policy of the 1990s, the Clintons’ Administration seems too eager to keep playing an impractical, costly “cop of the world” role in a different foreign country each month—despite having its own U.S. domestic economic, political, environmental, cultural, health and moral crisis to confront. No wonder former Nixon Foundation Director Perot still looks like he’ll be able to defeat Clinton in the Big Media’s 1996 election [unless the Big Media is again able to rig the U.S. presidential election process in favor of the Clintons].

(Downtown 11/10/93)

308 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As the November 1993 election results seem to indicate, 308 days after the Clintons’ inauguration people who vote don’t appear that eager to vote for candidates that Bill “Carter” Clinton or Hillary “Sister Frigidaire” Rodham-Clinton endorse. With the official unemployment rate in October 1993 still 9.8 percent in California, 10.8 percent in New York City and 7.1 percent in Florida under the Clintons, U.S. voters have good reasons to be dissatisfied with those Democratic Party incumbents who are still pals of the Clintons.

(Downtown 11/24/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 6

Where Was The "Change" During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 4

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

238 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Former Nixon Foundation Trustee Ross Perot is apparently considering an attempt to win the Republic Party presidential nomination in 1996 by running in the Republican Party primaries...

Bill Clinton may have a lot of difficulty winning any Democratic Party primary in 1996 [in the absence of being able to obtain Big Media-backing in 1996] if his administration’s next 238 days produce as little genuinely democratic change in the United States as the Clintons’ Administration’s first 238 days. In the absence of huge cuts in Pentagon weapons spending, a huge tax increase for transnational corporations and the super-rich, and a massive federal public works program to employ the jobless, provide homes for the homeless, combat environmental pollution and create more customers for middle-class shopkeepers, it’s not likely that the Clintons’ Administration will restore [permanent] economic prosperity for the Multiple Love Generation under a declining U.S. capitalism.

(Downtown 9/15/93)

252 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the 30th Anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination, Bill Clinton has still not shown much eagerness to let the people of the United States know who was really responsible for the elimination of JFK. Nor has the Democratic Party Establishment in Washington, D.C. shown much ability to restore economic prosperity for working-class and middle-class people in New York City during the first 252 days of the Clintons’ Administration.

Whether [now-Columbia University Professor David] Dinkins or [now-2008 Republican Party Presidential candidate Rudy] Giuliani gets elected Mayor in November [of 1993], people in New York City still aren’t too likely to see U.S. society change positively during the next 252 days. In the eyes of the Democratic and Republican Party politicians, we’re still just objects to be manipulated every four years by their highly-paid media consultants.

(Downtown 9/29/93)

266 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Despite Bill “Pinocchio” Clinton’s recent flurry of long-winded speeches, 1996 re-election campaign appearances and White House lawn parties for Big Media talk-show hosts and yuppie journalists, the reality is that 266 days after the Clintons’ inauguration their Yuppie Democratic administration has still not radically changed U.S. society. [Permanent] Economic prosperity has still not been restored to Manhattan. Taxes have still not been cut for middle-class and working-class people. Open lesbians and gay men are still not allowed to receive paychecks from the U.S. military. No federal gay rights bill has yet been passed. Federal funding of abortions is still prohibited. U.S. troops are still in Somalia. No free health insurance has yet been provided by the Clintons’ Administration for the 37 million people [in 1993] who still lack health insurance. No federal crash program to provide either apartments for the homeless or a cure for AIDS has yet been established. The CIA has still not been abolished. No special prosecutor to investigate the CIA’s apparent role in the assassination of President Kennedy has yet been appointed by the Clintons. And U.S. alternative journalists are still not allowed to get on the Big Media’s public airwaves to question the Clintons in an adversarial way about either their “evidence” for the alleged Iraqi “plot” to assassinate former CIA Director Bush I, the Waco, Texas and Baghdad missile attacks, or Hillary Rodham-Clinton’s past legal work for U.S. insurance companies.

But insurance salespeople have never been too famous for their honesty—especially after their customers return from the hospital, receive unexpected medical bills in the mail, and finally start to read the fine print of the policies they were manipulated into purchasing.

(Downtown 10/13/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 5

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 3

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following historical column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

210 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Last year [in 1992] at this time, Bill Clinton was utilizing public funds and corporate contributions to campaign around the United States and promise us that—unlike former CIA Director George Bush I—he had a domestic agenda to rapidly change U.S. society, cut taxes and restore [permanent] economic prosperity to the United States. Yet he’s been practicing his saxophone in the White House for 210 days and there’s still not much change.

Neither the Yuppie Democrats nor the Old Republicans really know what to do to reverse the economic decline of the United States and end the oppression of middle-class and working-class people by the existing U.S. economic system. Until U.S. radicals are allowed to get on the TV screen to encourage U.S. middle-class and working-class people to collectively take U.S. political and economic power out of the hands of the U.S. Establishment and its governing elite, the suffering of the Free Love Generation in the 1990s is likely to continue.

(Downtown 8/18/93)

224 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Bill Clinton has apparently been vacationing in the White House since his inauguration—when he isn’t traveling on a 1996 re-election campaign trip, jogging or playing golf. But he still decided not to sacrifice his August 1993 vacation in order to actually do something positive to help the homeless, the jobless, the poor, people without health insurance, the victims of AIDS, the victims of institutional racism and sexism or members of the Multiple Love Generation. As the New York Times (8/13/93) observed in August 1993:

“The planning of the First Family’s vacation has taken all of the trappings of a bad Washington novel…The latest vacation destination appears to be Martha’s Vineyard…If he does not change his mind—friends warn that he well could—Mr. Clinton will arrive in Massachusetts the middle of next week and stay until the end of the month…The tentative plan to go to Martha’s Vineyard apparently came on the recommendation of Vernon E. Jordan, the Washington lawyer who vacations there and who serves as a member of the president’s informal cabinet..”

As Downtown (12/2/92) previously noted, the Clintons’ vacation advisor and “informal cabinet” member Vernon Jordan “has sat next to Kissinger Associates Chairman Henry Kissinger on the board of directors of American Express” and “has also sat recently on the corporate boards of Bankers Trust, RJR/Nabisco, Xerox, J.C.Penney and the Ford Foundation, as well as being a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld—one of the city’s most important lobbying groups,” according to Louis Rukeyser’s Business Almanac. Despite Bill Clinton’s campaign rhetoric of last year [1992] about not being part of the U.S. Establishment, 224 days after his inauguration most members of the Multiple Love Generation probably recognize that the Clintons have always been puppets of our generational oppressors.

(Downtown 9/1/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 4

Where Was The "Change" During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 2

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

168 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Last year [in 1992] around this time, the U.S. governing elite was preparing to come into Midtown Manhattan to nominate Bill Clinton as its 1992 Democratic presidential candidate, and rid itself of the 1992 political threat posed by Jerry Brown’s then-anti-Establishment candidacy. And Ross Perot was preparing to, temporarily, suspend his independent 1996 presidential campaign, once it was assured that Bill Clinton—not Jerry Brown—was to be nominated by the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

After 168 days of the Clintons’ Yuppie Democratic Administration, more members of the Love Generation now realize that Jerry Brown’s assertion that Bill Clinton and his yuppie Arkansas, Oxford and Yale cronies were not qualified to radically democratize the distribution of political and economic power in the U.S. was substantially true. Under the Clintons’ Yuppie Democratic Administration, the decline in living standards and the quality of life for members of the Love Generation continues. For Bill Clinton—despite his relatively young face [in 1993]—does not appear to reflect the political and cultural values—or the inner spirit—of the Love Generation.

(Downtown 7/7/93)

182 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

The apparent failure of the Yuppie Democratic Administration of The Clintons to really change U.S. society after 182 days in office probably doesn’t surprise many members of the Love Generation. Even during the 1960s, Bill Clinton did not participate in the 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon and did not oppose U.S. military intervention in Vietnam on moral grounds. As Bill Clinton’s roommate for four years at Georgetown University—former U.S. Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Tom Campbell—recently recalled in The Clintons Of Arkansas: An Introduction By Those Who Know Them Best:

“A huge antiwar rally and march on the Pentagon occurred in October [1967] but none of us took part because we were aiming to be mainstream players and didn’t identify with the marchers…Bill was concerned about the Vietnam War. His objection was not that the United States was immoral but that we were making a big mistake…Those people on the streets and around the Pentagon were no friends of mine. I was going to the marines…”

Bill Clinton’s Georgetown University roommate also described what happened in the Spring of 1967 during Bill Clinton’s undergraduate years:

“The Georgetown Student Council was elected in the spring of 1967, our junior year, and Bill ran again…Bill’s opponent was Terry Modglin, a bookish nonpolitician who stuck Bill with an early version of `Slick Willie’…He tagged Bill as the politico and himself as the agent of change. We lost…”

After warming a seat in the White House oval office for 182 days, “Slick Willie” still appears to be more of a politico and an agent of special foreign corporate interests than an authentic agent of change for the Love Generation.

(Downtown 7/21/93)

196 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the end of Clinton’s second 100 days, it’s still hard for members of the Free Love Generation to detect all that radical change we were promised by Bill Clinton last year [in 1992]. Perhaps Clinton is using the same technique to produce social change as he used to prepare for his Yale Law School exams? In The Clintons Of Arkansas book, former Clinton roommate William Coleman III recalled that “while law school absorbed every ounce of energy I had, I watched in amazement as September passed and October turned into November with Bill having attended few classes” but “magically, before examinations, he…disappeared for three weeks and performed quite well.”

(Downtown 8/4/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 3

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 1

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society.

42 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the Clintons talk about “change” and their “economic plan” to bring back prosperity, you’ve probably noticed that there are still a lot of homeless people walking the streets of the United States. If the Clintons’ “economic plan” is really going to use your tax money to change the United States for the better and restore affluence to the U.S., why has it taken their administration so long to provide apartments—or even hotel rooms—for the homeless? Don’t be surprised if in his next television speech, Bill Clinton tries to sell you on the idea that in order for his “economic plan” to start working effectively on Jan. 21, 1997, it is also required that you re-elect him as U.S. Establishment President first in November, 1996—because Clinton is the only one in the country capable of making his Goldman Sachs & Co. and Blackstone Group-conceived “economic plan” work.

Since President Kennedy was eliminated in 1963, people in the U.S. have been doing a lot of sacrificing while waiting for the times to change positively. But the times still haven’t changed enough.

(Downtown 3/3/93)

56 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although Bill Clinton promised the U.S. Baby-Boom Generation that he’d act as an agent of change and end our collective misery if he were elected, the times still don’t seem to be a-changing’ too much, as we begin to approach the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s first 100 days. Clinton has been spending a lot of your tax money campaigning around the country for re-election since his inauguration, but “The Permanent Campaigner” still doesn’t appear too interested in just relaxing in his White House office, slashing the Pentagon budget, providing homes for the homeless or reducing your work-week to 28 hours.

(Downtown 3/17/93)

70 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only 30 days left until his first 100 days in office are over, Bill “Carter” Clinton still hasn’t brought much “change” to the United States. He has, however, spent a lot of time jogging in Washington, D.C. and entertaining the leaders of foreign governments, as well as preparing himself to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” on St. Patrick’s Day, at the same time that Irish Lesbian Gay Organization [ILGO] marchers were being arrested.

(Downtown 3/31/93)

84 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only 16 days to go before the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s first 100 days, not much spare change has yet been provided for homeless people in the U.S. by the Clinton Administration. And not much democratic change has yet been brought about in the way political and economic decisions are made in the U.S. in the 1990s. U.S. Establishment President Clinton has, however, spent a lot of time rehearsing in the White House for a scheduled Hollywood appearance on the Cheers television comedy show.

(Downtown 4/14/93)

98 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only two days to go before the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s “First 100 Days,” it may be obvious to most people in the U.S. Baby-Boom Generation that the Clintons have no interest in working for the establishment of economic democracy in the United States. The Democratic Party which currently governs in Washington, D.C. also still appears unwilling to hold televised congressional hearings to investigate who was actually responsible for the elimination of President Kennedy in Democratic Party Establishment-controlled Texas on Nov. 22, 1963.

(Downtown 4/28/93)

126 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the face in the White House was changed on Jan. 20, 1993, we still don’t seem much closer to peace and prosperity in the United States than we were 126 days ago.

(Downtown 5/26/93)

140 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Last year at this time, Bill “Carter” Clinton was apparently paying about $200 for each haircut he received from his Hollywood hairstylist, at the same time he was promising rapid social change, a return to prosperity and no tax increases. Although he’s been warming his Oval Office seat in the White House on behalf of the Baby Boom Generation for 140 days (in-between 1996 Presidential campaign stops), it’s still hard to locate all that “change” Clinton promised us. But at least Clinton’s $200 haircut still photographs well on the TV screen and on the cover of Time magazine.

(Downtown 6/9/93)

154 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the Big Media pushed Bill “Carter” Clinton as its candidate for Democratic Party presidential nominee last year—especially after it began to look like the more anti-Establishment Jerry Brown was going to win the New York State Democratic Presidential Primary—even Big Media journalists are now starting to concede that Bill Clinton ain’t too great a political leader.

Between 1977 and 1991, Bill “The Permanent Campaigner” Clinton apparently spent so much time preparing for his 1992 presidential campaign that he evidently failed to think about what he would actually do once he got into the White House. After 154 days, the Yuppie Democratic Administration of Bill Clinton still doesn’t appear to have changed things enough for members of the Love Generation.

(Downtown 6/23/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 2

Remembering Philip Agee's 2003 Critique of CIA-Funded "NGOism"

Philip Agee, the former CIA operations officer who exposed many of the CIA’s undemocratic covert activities in his Inside The Company: CIA Diary book in 1975, died a few days ago, at the age of 72. Agee also wrote a 1987 book, On The Run, which described how the CIA attempted to prevent the publication of Inside The Company. In addition, in 2003 Agee indicated how the CIA has, historically, used Non-Government Organizations [NGOs] to achieve its anti-democratic political objectives around the globe. In an essay that appeared in the Summer-Fall 2003 issue of Socialism and Democracy, titled “Terrorism and Civil Society as Instruments of U.S. Policy in Cuba” http://www.sdonline.org/34/philip_agee.htm , Agee wrote:

“Going back to the Reagan administration of the early 1980s, the decision was taken that more than terrorist operations was needed to impose regime change…Now Cuba would be included in a new worldwide program to finance and develop non-governmental and voluntary organizations, what was to become known as civil society, within the context of U.S. global neoliberal policies. The CIA and the Agency for International Development (AID) would have key roles in this program as well as a new organization christened in 1983 The National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

“Actually the new program was not really new. Since its founding in 1947, the CIA had been deeply involved in secretly funding and manipulating foreign non-governmental voluntary organizations. These vast operations circled the globe and were targeted at political parties, trade unions and businessmen’s associations, youth and student organizations, women’s groups, civic organizations, religious communities, professional, intellectual and cultural societies, and the public information media. The network functioned at local, national, regional and global levels. Media operations, for example, were underway continuously in practically every country, wherein the CIA would pay journalists to publish its materials as if they were the journalists’ own. In the Directorate of Operations at CIA headquarters, these operations were coordinated with the regional operations division by the International Organizations Division (IOD), since many of the operations were regional or continental in scope, and some were even worldwide.

“Over the years the CIA exerted phenomenal influence behind the scenes in country after country, using these powerful elements of civil society to penetrate, divide, weaken and destroy corresponding enemy organizations on the left, and indeed to impose regime change by toppling unwanted governments. Such was the case, among many others, in Guyana where in 1964, culminating ten years of efforts, the Cheddi Jagan government was overthrown through strikes, terrorism, violence and arson perpetrated by CIA international trade union agents. About the same time, while I was assigned in Ecuador, our agents in civil society, through mass demonstrations and civil unrest, provoked two military coups in three years against elected, civilian governments. And in Brazil in the early 1960s, the same CIA trade union operations were brought together with other operations in civil society in opposition to the government, and these mass actions over time provoked the 1964 military coup against President Joao Goulart, ushering in 20 years of unspeakably brutal political repression.

“But on February 26, 1967, the sky crashed on IOD and its global civil society networks. At the time I was on a visit to Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, between assignments in Ecuador and Uruguay. That day the Washington Post published an extensive report revealing a grand stable of foundations, some bogus, some real, that the CIA was using to fund its global non-governmental networks. These financial arrangements were known as `funding conduits.’ Along with the foundations scores of recipient organizations were identified, including well-known intellectual journals, trade unions, and political think tanks. Soon journalists around the world completed the picture with reports on the names and operations of organizations in their countries affiliated with the network…

“President Johnson ordered an investigation and said such CIA operations would end, but in fact they never did. The proof is in the CIA’s successful operations in Chile to provoke the 1973 Pinochet coup against the elected government of Salvador Allende. Here they combined the forces of opposition political parties, trade unions, businessmen’s groups, civic organizations, housewife’s associations and the information media to create chaos and disorder, knowing that sooner or late the Chilean military, faithful to traditional fascist military doctrine in Latin America, would use such unrest to justify usurping governmental power to restore order and to stamp out the left. The operations were almost a carbon copy of the Brazilian destabilization and coup program ten years earlier…

“Fast forward to now. Anyone who has watched the civil society opposition to the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela develop can be certain that U.S. government agencies, the CIA included, along with the Agency for International Development (AID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), are coordinating the destabilization and were behind the failed coup in April 2002 as well as the failed `civic strike’ of last December-January [2003]. The International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party even opened an office in Caracas…

“In order to understand how these civil society operations are run, let’s take a look at the bureaucratic side. When I entered the CIA’s training course, the first two words I learned were discipline and control. The U.S. government was not a charitable institution, they said, and all money must be spent for its exact, designated purpose. The CIA operations officer that I would become is responsible for ensuring this discipline through tight control of the money and of the agents down the line who spend it. Orders to the agents on their duties and obligations are to be clear and unambiguous, and the officer must prevent personal embezzlement of money by an agent, beyond the agent’s agreed salary, by requiring receipts for all expenses and for all payments to others. Exceptions to this rule needed special approvals.

“In the CIA, activities to penetrate and manipulate civil society are known as Covert Action operations, and they are governed by detailed regulations for their use. They require a request for money in a document known as a Project Outline, if the activity is new, or a Request for Project Renewal, if an on-going activity is to be continued. The document originates either in a field station or in Headquarters, and it describes a current situation; the activities to be undertaken to improve or change the situation vis-à-vis U.S. interests; a time-line for achieving intermediary and final goals; risks and the flap potential (damages if revealed); and a detailed budget with information on all participating organizations and individuals and the amounts of money to go to each. The document also contains a summary of the status of all agent personnel to be involved with references to their operational security clearance procedures and the history of their service to the Agency. All people involved are included, from the ostensible funding agencies like officers of a foundation, down to every intermediate and end recipient of the money.

“In addition to these budget specifics, a certain amount of money without designated recipients is included under the rubric D&TO, standing for Developmental and Targets of Opportunity. Money from this fund is used to finance new activities that come up during the project approval period, but of course detailed information and security clearances on all individuals who would receive such funding is always required. A statement is also required on the intelligence information by-product to be collected through the proposed operation. Thus financial support for a political party is expected to produce intelligence information on the internal politics of the host country.

“Project Outlines and Renewals go through an approval process by various offices such as the International Organizations Division and depending on their sensitivity and cost, they may require approval outside the CIA…When finally approved the CIA’s Finance Division allocates the money and the operation begins, or continues if being renewed. The period of approvals and renewals is usually one year.

“Both the Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy without doubt have documentation requirements and approval processes similar to the CIA’s for project funding in the civil societies of other countries. All the people involved must receive prior approval through an investigative process, and each person has clearly defined tasks. An inter-agency commission determines which of the three agencies, the CIA, AID or NED, or a combination of them, are to carry out specific tasks in the civil societies of specific countries and how much money each should give. All three have obviously been working to develop an opposition civil society in Cuba.

“One should note that the high-sounding National Endowment for Democracy has its origins in the CIA’s covert action operations and was first conceived in the wake of the disastrous revelations noted above that began on February 26, 1967…

“…The successes of revolutionary movements in Ethiopia, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Grenada, Nicaragua and elsewhere brought `cold warrior’ Democrats and `internationalist’ Republicans together to establish in 1979 the American Political Foundation (APF). The foundation’s task was to study the feasibility of establishing through legislation a government-financed foundation to subsidize foreign operations in civil society through U.S. non-governmental organizations.

“Within APF four task forces were set up to conduct the study, one for the Democrats, one for the Republicans, one for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and one for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Together their work became known as the Democracy Program. They consulted a vast array of domestic and foreign organizations, and what they found most interesting were the government-financed foundations of the main West German political parties: the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung of the Social Democrats and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung of the Christian Democrats. When these foundations were first set up in the 1950s, their task was to build a…civil society based on the Western parliamentary model while lending their weight to repression of communist and other left political movements.

“From early on the CIA channeled money through these foundations for non-government organizations and groups in Germany. Then in the 1960s the foundations began supporting fraternal political parties and other organizations abroad, and they channeled CIA money for these purposes as well. By the 1980s the two foundations had programs going in some 60 countries and were spending about $150 million per year. And what was most interesting, they operated in near-total secrecy.

“One operation of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung shows effective they could be. In 1974, when the fifty-year-old fascist regime was overthrown in Portugal (a NATO member), communists and left-wing military officers took charge of the government. At that time the Portuguese social democrats, known as the Socialist Party, could hardly have numbered enough for a poker game and they all lived in Paris and had no following in Portugal. Thanks to at least $10 million from the Ebert Stiftung, plus funds from the CIA, the social democrats came back to Portugal, built a party overnight, saw it mushroom, and within a few years the Socialist party became the governing party of Portugal. The left was relegated to the sidelines in disarray.

“…Even before Congress established the NED, Reagan set up what was called Project Democracy in the U.S. Information Agency…A secret Executive Order at the time, soon leaked to the press, provided for secret CIA participation in the program. An early grant was $170,000 for training media officials in El Salvador and other right-wing authoritarian regimes on how to deal with the U.S. press…

“In November 1983…Congress created the National Endowment for Democracy and gave it an initial $18.8 million for building civil society abroad during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1984…Whereas the CIA had previously funneled money through a complex network of `conduits,’ the NED would now become a `mega-conduit’ for getting U.S. government money to the same array of non-governmental organizations that the CIA had been funding secretly.

“…The NED…gives money directly to `groups abroad who are working for human rights, independent media, the rule of law, and a wide range of civil society initiatives.’ [Quoted from NED website May 2003]

“The NED’s non-governmental status provides the fiction that recipients of NED money are getting `private’ rather than U.S. government money…

“Reagan’s new programs in civil society started out with a huge success in Poland. During the 1980s the NED and the CIA, in joint operations with the Vatican, kept the Solidarity trade union alive…The program was agreed between Reagan and Pope John Paul II when Reagan visited the Vatican in June 1982. They did it with intelligence information, cash, fax machines, computers, printing and document copying equipment, records, TVs and VCRs, supplies and equipment of all kinds, even radio and television transmitters…Years later, in May 2001, Senator Jesse Helms introduced legislation to provide $100 million to duplicate in Cuba, he said, the successes of the CIA, NED and Vatican in Poland.

“One may wonder why the CIA would be needed in these programs. There were several reasons. One reason from the beginning was the CIA’s long experience and huge stable of agents and contacts in the civil societies of countries around the world. By joining with the CIA, NED and AID would come on board an on-going complex of operations whose funding they could take over while leaving the secret day-to-day direction on the ground to CIA officers. In addition someone had to monitor and report the effectiveness of the local recipients’ activities. NED would not have people in the field to do this, nor would their core foundations in normal conditions. And since NED money was ostensibly private, only the CIA had the people and techniques to carry our discreet control in order to avoid compromising the civil society recipients, especially if they were in opposition to their governments. Finally, the CIA had ample funds of its own to pass quietly when conditions required. In Cuba participation by CIA officers under cover in the U.S. Interests Section would be particularly useful, since NED and AID funding would go to U.S. NGOs that would have to find discreet ways, if possible, to get equipment and cash to recipients inside Cuba. The CIA could help with this quite well…”

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 1

Wiretapping In Chicago Historically Under Illinois Dem Rule

An Illinois Democrat named Barack Obama looks like he still has a chance to be the 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate (especially if white U.S. anti-war women voters and most African-American voters refuse to vote for former Democratic President Bill "Lewinsky/Yucaipagate" Clinton’s wife in the remaining 2008 Democratic presidential primaries) . But under Illinois Democratic Party rule in Chicago, the Chicago Police Department was allowed, historically, to use wiretapping methods to violate the democratic rights of U.S. anti-war activists. As Frank Donner noted in a chapter titled “Chicago: The National Capital Of Police Repression,” which appeared in his 1990 book Protectors Of Privilege: Red Squads And Police Repression In Urban America:

“…A Cook County Grand Jury convened to determine whether the police had violated the law.

“On Nov. 10, 1975, the grand jury issued a report, `Improper Police Intelligence Activities,’ strongly condemning the red squad: `The evidence has clearly shown that the Security Section of the Intelligence Division assaulted the…constitutional right to privacy.’ The panel heard considerable testimony from several police witnesses that they were aware that electronic surveillance was used to gather intelligence information. In addition to illegal electronic surveillance, police officers admittedly engaged in burglaries, thefts, incitements to violence, destruction of mailing lists, and other criminal acts, because `they believed it their duty.’”

(Downtown/Aquarian 8/14/96)

Next: Remembering Philip Agee’s 2003 Critique of CIA-Funded “NGOism”