Pierre Omidyar, the billionaire founder
of eBay, helped the U.S. government finance the coup in Ukraine, it
turns out. This is the same guy who snookered Glenn Greenwald, Laura
Poitras (both involved in the exposés
of NSA crimes by whistleblower Edward Snowden), Jeremy Scahill (a
thorn in the side of the U.S. government for his constant coverage of
U.S. drone and other atrocities against civilians) and other
dissident journalists into going to work for a website he's funding.
[1]
A guy working hand
in glove with U.S. imperialism to subvert and overthrow a foreign
government and replace it with one hand-picked by the U.S. doesn't
sound like someone I'd want anywhere near the documents Snowden
managed to liberate from the NSA. Yet now he's lured into his embrace
those very journalists who now possess the documents- the Guardian
newspaper of Britain having been forced to destroy their copies by
the British government and secret police. [2]
And Omidyar is no
novice at subversion. He also helped fund a program that infiltrated
the Indian parliament with paid legislative assistants, a program
India shut down. [3]
Perhaps
the worst crime Omidyar has committed was funding a Peruvian state
terrorist, one Hernando De
Soto. Omidyar gave $5 million to De Soto's propaganda and
indoctrination center in Peru three years ago. De Soto was a close
adviser to and “drug czar” for Peruvian dictator Alberto
Fujimoro, and closely interfaced with the death squad elements of the
Fujimoro regime. Another key figure was secret police chieftain
Vladimiro
Montesinos,
a
regular lecturer at the notorious “School of the Americas” (since
renamed due to bad PR) at Fort Benning, GA. Montesinos was
misleadingly referred to as a “spymaster” in the U.S. media,
which was infatuated with the Fujimoro terror regime, especially the
New
York Times,
from which much of the rest of the U.S. corporate propaganda system
takes its cues. One of Montesinos' numerous atrocities was the time
his “security forces” kidnapped some “leftist” students and
professors, cut up their bodies, and strewed the chunks of
human meat along
a beach, I suppose as
a “warning” to others to not think wrong thoughts. All this was
presented- omitting the gory details- in the U.$. media as heroically
fighting the Maoist “terrorist” Shining Path. [The
Omidyar Network website still has a boast on it about giving $5
million to the state terrorist De Soto. Hey, why not? It's all about
liberty and empowering people. And the Vietnam War was a noble
cause...]
After
Fujimoro eventually fell, and after a long interlude was imprisoned,
his daughter ran for president partly on a platform of springing her
dictator dad from prison. De Soto was heavily involved in her
campaign. This was 2011, the same year Omidyar gave him the $5 mil.
Just a coincidence, I'm sure. Could it be that Omidyar favored a
return to the neo-fascist economics promoted by De Soto and his
“think tank”? If not, what other possibility is there?
So
on the one hand, the bourgeoisie promote “free market economics,”
and on the other, people who have a dissenting view get chopped up
and scattered on a beach, to terrorize everyone else who might have a
complaint about the system and social reality. This is the essence of
totalitarianism. No deviation from approved thought allowed. Without
apparent irony, De Soto's propaganda and indoctrination outfit which
Omidyar funded is called the
“Institute
for Liberty and Democracy.” This from a guy who participated in a
coup and was a key member of a terrorist regime. [4]
Doesn't lead one
to believe that Omidyar's politics or ideology are progressive,
pro-civil libertarian or pro-human rights, now does it?
This Omidyar
character obviously isn't interested in weakening U.S. power or
subverting the American establishment. So why would he hire all the
journalists who are precisely those making the most trouble for the
U.S. rulers and government? The answers can only be sinister.
Obviously he now
has them under his control, as He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune.
He can steer their coverage, misdirect them, and manipulate them.
With the tech expertise at his disposal, he can help the NSA find out
what documents Snowden took, something the NSA desperately wants to
find out. He can find out how many copies exist and where they are.
Software bombs could be planted in the data to destroy it. There are
numerous possibilities for malevolent mischief here. Just getting
details on Greenwald's movements and habits will be valuable for U.S.
attacks on him, burglary attempts, malign plots, and so on.
By hiring them
away, Omidyar has severed these journalists' connections with
reputable, more trustworthy organizations. Greenwald had formerly
been working with the Guardian of Britain, for example.
One telling
giveaway that Omidyar is up to no good, and NOT trying to increase
exposure of U.S. malfeasance and criminality, are the hosannas in the
corporate media that Omidyar's move was greeted with. No attacks or
negativity- very odd, given who he was hiring, people who are treated
as enemies by the establishment, and whom he was allegedly going to
bankroll handsomely to continue to reveal things the establishment
doesn't want revealed.
I was dubious from
the very start, when this venture was first announced by a
totally-suckered Glenn Greenwald, a person who has done very
important work as a journalist and has provided a public voice
against U.S. lawlessness and the total police state it is perfecting.
It didn't make sense to me that the billionaire founder of eBay, a
man with nothing to indicate an interest in social justice, would
suddenly come out of nowhere and dangle a quarter of a billion
dollars in front of the noses of Greenwald and company and claim he
wanted to fund radical (in establishment eyes) journalism. [5]
Journalism that was the subject of hysterical denunciations by
that establishment, including threats of criminal prosecutions
against Greenwald. (Laura Poitras had been subjected to years of
heavy harassment by the U.S., including scores of airport searches of
her sensitive journalistic material.[6]) I figured there had
to be a catch. But since the arrangement was presented as a black box
to the public, without any explanation of how this had come about, of
what had transpired between the obviously very crafty and
manipulative billionaire Omidyar and the targets he lured into his
money web, a specific analysis wasn't possible.
But
now with the revelations of his participation in the U.S. coup in
Ukraine, his obviously close and cooperative ties with U.S.
imperialism are revealed- thus making it glaringly obvious that he
can't possibly be interested in exposing U.S. government secrets. At
a minimum, he will be giving the sinister U.S. police state a heads
up on coming articles by Greenwald et
al, in order that the
U.S. government and commentariat
can prepare preemptive responses or strategies for dealing with the
stories when they are published. Moreover, with intel about stories
in the works, the U.S. could possibly cut off, intimidate- or worse-
sources and witnesses for such stories. (The idea that the
journalists will refuse to tell Omidyar anything at all about what
they're working on is ludicrous, and should be dismissed out of hand.
By and by, a manipulator like Omidyar will insinuate his way further
into their activities. Plus, having the IP addresses of the
computers and other devices they use to communicate with him has
enabled the NSA to plant its spyware remotely on those devices
already.)
Omidyar, like all billionaires, is
insatiably greedy. So greedy that he has to extort money from the
world's poorest people by loansharking operations
euphemistically called “micro-lending.” [7]
Omidyar's other
anti-social crimes include a covert assault on public schools and
teachers' unions. He showed his talent for deception and tricking his
targets in that case too by luring teachers into his web of intrigue.
[8]
Omidyar's company, eBay, the source of
his billions, conspired with other tech companies in a massive,
illegal scheme to depress the wages of tech employees, in violation
of antitrust law. [9]
The initial
response to all this, from Greenwald, has been disappointing and
inadequate. He labeled the criticism “dumb.” He also said he knew
nothing about the activities of the nefarious Omidyar Network, the
vehicle through which Omidyar conducts his malign activities. “Ask
them,” he said, passing the buck and acting as if it's none
of his concern, I'm afraid that doesn't cut it. If a drug lord, say,
was funding theintercept.org, the news site sugardaddy Pierre funded for
him, Greenwald couldn't brush aside the questions so cavalierly. I
certainly want to see Greenwald and the others continue to do their
important work, but I fear they have walked right into a trap which
they don't understand.
2] We have unimpeachable
smoking-gun evidence of the U.S. pulling the strings of its Ukrainian
puppets from the notorious phone call between Assistant Secretary of
State Victoria Nuland and the U.S. Ambassador in Ukraine, the veteran
of subversion ops Geoffrey Pyatt. The two are heard plotting, and
picking and choosing the new Ukrainian government-to-be once the
violent mob attack on the seat of government in Kiev, with fascists
at its core and backed by the U.S., succeeded in overthrowing the
elected regime. See
“U.S.Enlisted UN Stooges in Ukraine Subversion,”
5]
Of course the figure of
a quarter billion dollars is ludicrous, and is a dead giveaway that
Omidyar is running a con. Unfortunately the journalists who were the
marks in Omidyar's con were too bedazzled by the number to smell a
rat. Since they are all under heavy psychological and other pressure
from the enraged superpower, it must have seen like a lifeline from
heaven when Omidyar suddenly appeared as a saviour, descending like
an angel from the capitalist clouds above. I wonder which U.S.
government psychological warfare specialists Omidyar conspired with
to concoct this perfectly manipulative scheme aimed at the precise
mental vulnerabilities of their targets- relief from unrelenting
pressure, financial support, protection, freedom to pursue stories. A
Fairy Godfather story indeed!
7] Micro-lending
sounds like a good idea. But as in all things, the devil is in the
details. The details of micro-lending as it actually exists are very
ugly. For one thing, hundreds of Indians have been driven to suicide
by it- some at the direct instigation of the lenders. Victims of
natural disasters have been coerced into handing over their relief
aid, as happened in Bangladesh.
The simpering billionaire Pierre Omidyar. Isn't he groovy? (By the way, the Nature Conservancy is this bourgeois outfit that buys up land so rich people will have nice places to hike in. Who could object to that?)
