Monday 10 January 2011

‘Shamocracy rules America’ — Anthony Lawson

Via MCS



- 11. Jan, 2011

Rahya of Press TV’s U.S.Desk, talks with Anthony Lawson (known professionally as Tony Lawson),  a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over, who has recently opined, edited and produced several political videos about US/Israel absurd and damaging relationship and the complicity of  the  Mainstream Media and the International community in waging unjust wars in the Middle East .
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The United States has long been in decline but the U.S. government continues to subdue the nation by affecting the American populace with feelings of awe, says activist and film director Anthony Lawson.

“Americans have allowed themselves to be overawed by their politicians, which I find very strange, but which has been going on since the excesses which led to the decline and fall of Rome,” opined Lawson in an exclusive interview with Press TV’s U.S. Desk.

He also questioned the democratic system in the U.S. and noted, “Although the United States goes through the formalities of trying to demonstrate to the rest of the world that it is a democracy, every four years (with intermediate elections every two years), it is not a democracy, it is closer to a plutocracy or an oligarchy, but maybe a newer word should be used:  Shamocracy (I can’t find a first usage, but it has been around for some time).”

“It is interesting that the word ‘sham’ (pretense, deception) is also a part of the word ‘shambles’ (disorder, ruin, mess), although there does not appear to be an etymological link.  Nevertheless, when votes can be bought by the highest bidder, which is what is happening increasingly in all of the so-called developed nations, then there is bound to be an imbalance, and it looks as though the U.S. is really heading towards a shambolic state, being over-influenced by its absurd and damaging attachment to Israel, with many duel American-Israeli citizens in very powerful positions in the U.S. administration,” he went on to say.

Lawson recounted some instances of corruption in U.S. history and said, “I became much more aware of the corruption when Kennedy was assassinated and it was quite clear that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone, if at all. Then came Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin deception or sham (there’s that word again) followed by Nixon.  In Nixon Americans voted into the presidency a man who was a known liar.  After his defeat in the California governorship election to Democrat Pat Brown, Nixon famously stated, you don’t have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”

“…widely taken by the press and the population to mean that he was out of politics forever, but the American public voted him into office as president in 1968.  They voted for a liar to be president, and he didn’t disappoint them.  He did not immediately put a stop to the Vietnam War as his election promises indicated he was going to do, instead he was persuaded by Henry Kissinger to increase the bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos at a terrible cost in lives and against the environments of those countries. And he lied again, over Watergate, and, ever since, American presidents have been telling lie after lie.”

Lawson also made reference to a number of untruthful assertions made by U.S. leaders about Iran, Iraq and other countries and said, “Bill Clinton [lied] over his affair with a woman, and other more serious matters; George Bush the younger over 9/11, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Saddam Hussein’s non-existent connection to Osama bin Laden, and much else, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions, of course.  He was followed by Barack Obama, he of many more broken election promises; over the Afghan war; the occupation of Iraq, which came under his control; refusing to admit, to Helen Thomas, during his first White House press conference, that he knew that Israel had nuclear weapons; failing in his pledge to bring the Guantanamo Bay political prisoner’s-without-trial situation to an end, then lying to the world about Iran not meeting its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, at the G-20 Pittsburgh Summit in September, 2009.”

The activist reiterated that American’s have constantly been exposed to false promise and comments by the nation’s politicians and noted, “How can you teach your children to be decent and not lie, when the presidents of the most powerful nation on earth have been and continue to do it on a daily basis? Yes, America is in a terrible decline, a moral decline with liars for presidents, and its congress and senate shot through with, mostly men, but also a few women who would not be re-elected if they dropped their support for the policies dictated by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), because their campaign donations would simply dry up. AIPAC is the most powerful lobby in Washington, with a membership of about 100,000 people who are dictating policies to the U.S. administration, particularly with regard to the Middle East, thereby outweighing the 310,000,000 other people who live, work and pay their taxes in the United States in a staggering ratio of one AIPAC member per 31,000 other Americans.”
Lawson portrayed a gloomy picture for the U.S. political arena and said, “The situation is not only absurd, it is very dangerous for everyone. Americans are being told, about as often as their presidents and politicians open their mouths, the greatest lie of them all: America, your great country, is a democracy. Of course America is not a democracy, but it is the most dangerous nation on the planet, made even more dangerous because it is under the influence of the worst elements inside Israel’s ruling elite.”

FACTS & FIGURES

Barack Obama campaigned on a pledge to bring change to the United States, vowing to upend the lobbying culture in Washington, put an end to the Iraq war, stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, and drag the U.S. economy out of the doldrums.

He also pledged to reverse most of other Bush-era policies and bring transparency to Washington.

Yet two years into his presidency, President Obama has failed to deliver on a significant number of his campaign slogans, a failure many analysts believe has thrown into question Obama’s promised era of transparency and change.
Obama’s promise of diplomatic engagement with the Islamic world has also given way to increased drone attacks in Pakistan, high civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, and unlawful economic sanctions on Iran.

The president’s pledge to remove all combat troops from Iraq by the end of August 2010 was never fulfilled as some 50,000 American troops are still stationed in the war-torn country.

In Afghanistan, which was invaded with the aim of overthrowing the Taliban regime back in 2001, an olive branch is being extended to the Taliban leaders after hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, wounded or have become homeless.

In addition, most U.S. citizens, including one-third of those who elected him, now say President Obama does not have a solid strategy to solve U.S. problems or create jobs, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

VIEW ANTHONY LAWSON VIDEOS!

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

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