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The Digital New Left as Controlled Opposition, Part 4

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Part 4 of 4

AYM Inaugural Summit

Movements.org’s inaugural summit in 2008, which the April 6 Youth Movement attended, included a gala hosted by MTV in Times Square.[1] Sponsors of the summit were AT&T,[2] Howcast, Google,[3] Facebook, MTV, Gen-Next. Eight representatives of the US State Department were present. Some of the speakers were from Columbia Law School, Facebook, Fortune Magazine, Hoover Institution, MTV et al. Panelists included three members of the Obama presidential media campaign; Shaarik Zafar, senior adviser to the US Department for Homeland Security; and Sherif Mansour, Program Officer for Freedom House.[4]

Among the organizations represented were Young Civilians (Turkey), an online activist network of 2,000,000 comprised of sundry “liberals, leftists, feminists, environmentalists, democrats.” Myanmar has a global network working to bring it into the globalist economic fold, the Burma Global Action Network (BGAN) formed by the “‘Support The Monks’ Protest In Burma” group on Facebook, begun 2007. The group at its peak had 450,000 members, which worked together to organize demonstrations around the world.

No Mas Chavez is dedicated to overthrowing a major bugbear of the globalists and the USA, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, whose aim of a Bolivarian bloc in alliance with other nations such as Russia might pose significant opposition to globalism.[5] No Mas Chavez developed from Facebook networking with 80,000 supporters, and has organized demonstrations against Chavez. Another organization at the summit, opposing Chavez was Sumate.

Cuba Development Initiative flagrantly claims to seek the democratization of Cuba as a means of “joining” its “democratic, economic, and social development [with] international financial resources. . . . CDI works with a vast network of individuals and organizations.” Another organization there that is aimed at subjugating Cuba to globalization is Raíces de Esperanza, Inc.: “Our strategy has been to (a) build and unite a student network of campus groups, (b) sponsor academic conferences for Cuban-American youth, (c) mobilize youth abroad in solidarity, and (d) reach out to our counterparts on the Island. We have a committed volunteer core that works on all levels.” (Whatever happened to the old youth protest slogan: “Hands Off Cuba!”?).

CDI was founded by Felice Gorordo, a businessman who has previously worked with the US Departments of State, Commerce and Homeland Security. Another CDI representative at the 2008 summit was Verónica Nur, who “currently works for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as the Associate Director of Strategic Communications for Policy while also managing the Spanish-language media for the department at large.” Nur “has also served as a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, the Cuban Democratic Directorate, the International Youth Committee for Democracy in Cuba, and Raíces de Esperanza.”

Speakers at the 2008 summit included Prof. Matthew Waxman from Columbia Law School, who has “served in senior positions at the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense and National Security Council.” Larry Diamond, co-editor of the Journal for Democracy, came from the Hoover Institution and is a director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.[6] “He has also advised the U.S. Agency for International Development (whose 2002 report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest, he coauthored), the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental organizations.” Others speakers were from Fortune Magazine, CNN, Facebook, MTV, and PACT (which is said to be the first community youth organization built in the tradition of 1960s New Left revolutionist Saul Alinsky).[7]

Guests included Marc Sageman, founder of Sageman Consulting, who works with think tanks including the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Homeland Security Policy Institute, and is a consultant for the National Security Council, Departments of Homeland Security and of Defense, and “various agencies in the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the U.S. Secret Service.” Ambassador Stuart W. Holiday from Meridian House, a “public diplomacy institution [that] works closely with the U.S. Department of State, other government agencies, NGOs, international governments, and the private sector to create global leadership programs.” Holiday is also a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and “works closely with the U.S. Department of State, other government agencies, NGOs, international governments, and the private sector to create global leadership programs.”

The 2009 Summit

The second AYM was held in Mexico City in 2009 and was opened with a video-relayed talk from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. This summit was sponsored by Causecast.org, Facebook, Gen Next, Google, Hi5, Howcast Media, MTV, MySpace, PepsiCo,[8] Univision Interactive Media, Inc., U.S. Department of State, WordPress.com and YouTube.[9]

With the revolutionary zeal of a corporate Trotsky, Richard Lee, vice president of marketing at PepsiCo International, told the summit:

We support The Alliance of Youth Movements and especially the passion, purpose and creativity that young people possess. Today is a moment in time when one individual, with the use of technology can create positive change in the world . . . and Pepsi will strive to enable this change.[10]

From the US State Department AYM co-founder Jared Cohen[11] stated:

The impact of using online tools and social media to advance positive social change is truly remarkable and exciting. It is critical to encourage and enable today’s youth to apply these technologies as means to catalyze social movements around the world.

Among the “guests, hosts and sponsors” were Juan M. Henao, International Republican Institute; Mick Duffy, PepsiCo International; Sarah Cliffe, The World Bank, et al. There were eight from the US State Department.

Among the participating organizations were reps from the Burma Global Action Network, Corporación Foro de la Juventud Guayaquil, Ecuador; Iranian oppositionist newspaper Etemad Melli; Genç Siviller (Young Civilians, Turkey); JuventudDes (Peru); Tehran Bureau, a “virtual” journalism project; ThinkMoldova, a catalyst for the 2009 so-called “Twitter Revolution” which succeeded in ousting a pro-Russian governing party that wasn’t pleasing to “civil society.”

Raíces de Esperanza, the Cuban oppositionist youth movement, was represented again.

Opponents of Hugo Chavez were represented by Latytud Project who, “So far . . . have established alliances in Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, and Bolivia.” Another was Movimiento Joven de Venezuela, its representative at the AYM summit being Yon Goicoechea, who is also President of the Caracas Youth, Member of the National Board of Directors of the First Justice Party and Representative of the Movimiento Joven de Venezuela, an NGO dedicated to training and organizing young democratic leaders. Another anti-Chavez organization present was Un Mundo Sin Mordaza.

“Moderators, speakers and panelists” included Jack Dorsey, Chairman, Twitter; James Eberhard, Mobile Accord; Kristen Morrissey, Principle New Business Development, Google; Mario González, CNN Español; Matthew Brady, Program Director, Freedom House; Nicole Lapin, CNN; Steve Grove, Head of News and Politics, YouTube; and Tara Lemmey, Founder and CEO, LENS, a corporation involved with technology and security issues, among others.

Among guest luminaries were Juan M. Henao from the International Republican Institute; and Mick Duffy and Richard Lee from PepsiCo International; and Sarah Cliffe, The World Bank, along with the AYM executives and others from Howcast, MobileBehavior, Google, GenNext, and Edelman.

From this it can be seen that particularly well represented were the US State Department; Obama’s media experts; opponents of Hugo Chavez; PepsiCola, Freedom House and the International Republican Institute, the latter two particularly involved with training and funding activists of the “velvet revolution” around the world.[12]

Conclusion

While the 60s generation were too whacked out on LSD to comprehend how they were being manipulated by the CIA and others, what is one to make of the “digital generation”? Are they too stupefied by the puerility of MTV, Twitter, Facebook, and Pepsi to find anything questionable about being involved with the US Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Defense; with AT&T, NED, World Bank, Rand Corp., etc., in the name of “revolution,” “human rights,” and “democracy”? It is a generation that has been sold on “ideals” that lead to nothing more than the global shopping mall. Their “ideals” offer the “democratic right” for Muslim, Latin American, Asian, and East European youth to become part of that same consumer society that is a manifestation of a civilization in its cycle of decay.

Notes

1. Movement.org, “The Summit: New York City,” 2008, http://www.movements.org/pages/the-summit#2008

2. A corporate member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

3. A corporate sponsor of the Council on Foreign Relations.

4. “Alliance of Youth Movement Summits,” New York City 2008, “Attendee Biographies,” http://allyoumov.3cdn.net/f734ac45131b2bbcdb_w6m6idptn.pdf

5. K. R. Bolton, “An ANZAC-Indo-Russian Alliance?: New Zealand & Australia’s Geopolitical Alternatives,” India Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 2 April–June 2010.

6. For the role of the National Endowment for Democracy see: K. R. Bolton, “The Globalist Web of Subversion,” Foreign Policy Journal.

7. Alinsky was the organizational guru of the 1960s New Left.

8. Corporate member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

9. “Alliance of Youth Movements Summit,” 2009, Howcast, http://info.howcast.com/youthmovements/summit09

10. “Alliance for Youth Movements Second Annual Summit,” http://www.movements.org/pages/284/

11. Cohen serves on the U.S. Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff.

12. K. R. Bolton, “The Globalist Web of Subversion.”