We Predicted Global Anti-Gov't Protests: What's Next? … It is a matter of record! The spate of seething, youth-inspired Middle East uprisings that are toppling governments, reshaping the geopolitical landscape and roiling world markets blindsided the world's intelligence community. Not the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff or National Security Council saw it coming. Mossad and MI5 missed it! None of the mainstream media's star-studded stable of scholars, experts and think-tank policy wonks were thinking ahead. But what was breaking news to them was yesterday's news for Trends Journal readers. In the summer 2010 issue, we wrote: "What's happening in Greece will spread worldwide as economies decline. There are no organizations behind this response, it's a public response. This is a 21st century rendition of ‘Workers of the World unite'" – Trends Journal, Gerald Celente
Dominant Social Theme: When she blows, she blows.
Free-Market Analysis: Gerald Celente is one of the savviest trend forecasters around; no one beats him at his best. But this analysis (excerpted above) was puzzling to us. Its viewpoint travels to the heart of what we have been discussing regarding these color revolutions. There has been much reported on them, and we will discuss the reporting and the evidence that these are manipulated revolutions below.
We will compare and contrast Celente's perspective with ours to see how we differ and why he has come to the conclusions he has. We disagree profoundly that these revolutions are spontaneous. They may end up being uncontrollable – that's a risk of the Internet era – but the idea that the West has played no part in them or has not in some sense set them in motion seems odd to us given what the alternative press has increasingly maintained.
Celente states it's a matter of record that Western powers-that-be did not foresee these color revolutions: "Not the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff or National Security Council saw it coming. Mossad and MI5 missed it! None of the mainstream media's star-studded stable of scholars, experts and think-tank policy wonks were thinking ahead."
He then cites a Trends prediction from summer 2010 stating that the riots that took place in Greece were going to spread worldwide. There are no organizations behind this response, he argues. It is a public response. "When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it."
He also predicted an arsenal of digital/Internet weapons via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. would be deployed by young revolutionaries that "would bypass corporate/government media, outwit intelligence agencies, outflank the military and police and rally the populace into the streets and onto the barricades."
The reasons for these revolutions had to do with "bread and butter issues [rather] than politics." Declining economies mean that unemployment rises, taxes are raised and services cut. Therefore, these revolutions are not being driven by freedom issues but by simple inequality. "A few at the top have too much, and too many others have too little." The higher prices go, the more volatile the world will get. He forecasts that the current unrest will spread to Europe and other parts of the world and will not simply be restricted to the Middle East.
What we find strange about this argument, as we noted above, is the factual documentation that Western elites have set these color revolutions in motion. Even the raised-fist logos that appeared during the Eastern Europe color revolutions have reappeared in Tunisia and Egypt, like recycled props. But there is much more. We've already noted a much-discussed UK Telegraph article that reported on US intel involvement in training Egyptian "youth" on various protest tactics prior to Egypt's recent upheavals. The training apparently went on for at least two years.
And we've reported on AYM, The Alliance for Youth Movements (AYM), which began with a December 2008 summit in New York City to, as Wikipedia puts it, "to identify, convene, and engage 21st century movements online for the first time in history. The United States Department of State partnered with Facebook, Howcast, MTV, Google, YouTube, AT&T, JetBlue, Gen-Next, Access 360 Media, and Columbia Law School to launch a global network and empower young people mobilizing against violence and oppression."
Wikipedia lists the backers of AYM, an elitist who's who: "Jared Cohen, former advisor to both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton and now Director of Google Ideas at Google, Jason Liebman, CEO and co-founder of Howcast and Roman Tsunder, co-founder of Access 360 Media. Speakers at the 2008 summit included actress Whoopi Goldberg, Facebook Co-Founder Dustin Moskovitz, The Obama Campaign's New Media Team, and then-current Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs of the United States James K. Glassman."
A 2010 article at Wired.com covered an AYM summit that gathered youth activists from more than 18 countries to "learn more about using online tools to promote their extraordinary range of social movements and promote non-violent change … You can sense the scale of their practical ambition from the title of some of the sessions: one is called Tech Solutions to Repressive Regimes; another is titled Effective Strategies for Mobile Content to Increase Empowerment." Hillary Clinton herself gave a keynote address at the 2009 AYM conference in Mexico City.
So we are puzzled that Celente sees the uprisings as entirely spontaneous. Even grant his argument that they are being driven by higher food and commodity prices, we would ask who created these prices in the first place. Celente's view is that the Federal Reserve is "exporting" price inflation via its quantitative-easing programs. But do those who orchestrate such programs really not understand the ramifications?
The trillions pumped into the world's economy are surely driving the price inflation that is in turn driving these revolutions. But given the deliberate orchestration of revolutionary fervor in Africa and the Middle East we begin to see a kind of metaphorical pincer movement. Price inflation from America's massive quantitative easing drives up the costs of survival while US intelligence interests organize overseas "youth" in the art of "non-violent" change.
To call these revolutions spontaneous at this point is to ignore substantive evidence that they are not. Even the way they are unrolling – one to the next like some kind of power point presentation (or keynote if you will) – is very strange. The orchestration seems undeniable. That is not to say, however, that these events once put into play are entirely controllable. We have emphasized many times before that in the Internet era the dominant social themes of the elite only go so far. People are both more aware and less included to be manipulated.
On this issue, then, we agree with Celeste. These protests will continue and likely engulf Europe (once again) when the weather grows warmer. (In Greece, they've never really stopped.) And no, here we are not referring metaphorically to global warming. The Anglo-American power elite apparently believes in its arrogance that it can set the world ablaze and then control the outcome.
The idea, as one insightful Bell feedbacker suggested recently, is that revolutions provide an outlet for rising social tension. Having lanced the metaphorical boil, business-as-usual can be re-established, or some other sociopolitical environment can be created – perhaps a series of Islamic republics that will buttress the reality of the West's long-running war-on-terror.
All this may lie ahead as the Middle East and then Europe and perhaps even America begin to convulse. Whatever the power elite has in mind, these are astonishingly high stakes. And the 21st century in our view is nothing like the 20th.
