Babel Inc

by Kerry Bolton

  In so doing the United States projects itself with a revolutionary, even messianic, mission to refashion the world in its own image. Hip hop is another means of subverting the traditional cultures of the world and recreating a global monoculture behind the façade of ‘diversity.’ The real ‘diversity’ of the world, the real ‘cultural enrichment’ is with the traditional cultures, religions and ethics that globalisation is destroying in the name of ‘freedom.’ The subversive intentions of hip hop for the globalists is described by a Brookings Institution report which states that ‘hip hop reflects struggle against authority,’ and expresses a ‘pain’ transcending language barriers, according to Aidi.[8] Hence, when the State Department promotes hip hop among alienated youth it does so as a means of undermining ‘authority,’ not just in Muslim states, but in European states such as France, with the aim of fundamentally changing the traditions of Europe, as Rivkin and others have plainly stated. The globalists go so far as to co-opt the most extreme of Black revolutionist doctrines, Aidi stating of the Brookings Institution report:

  Moreover, note the authors, hip hop’s pioneers were inner-city Muslims who ‘carry on an African-American Muslim tradition of protest against authority, most powerfully represented by Malcolm X.’ The report concludes by calling for a ‘greater exploitation of this natural connector to the Muslim world.’[9]

  While there is really nothing that connects the Muslim world with the Black separatism of Malcolm X, it is apparently a contrived, Americanised version misnamed ‘Islam’ that the United States plans to use to subvert traditional Islam and bring Muslim youth over to a bastardised version that has U.S. roots. The black separatism promoted by Malcolm X was not the type of ‘Afro-American civil rights’ that the globalists wanted within the United States at the time, but it is now apparently suitable for export under State Department auspices. It is a means, in the name of ‘Islam,’ of detaching youth from their elders and their traditional ethics, to be converted to a religion contrived in the United States. Shall we see generations of new ‘Muslims’ bow toward New York rather than Mecca?

  The authors of the Brookings report point out that ‘arts and culture’ have the capacity to ‘move and persuade audiences and to shape and reveal identities.’[10] That is precisely the aim of the globalists: to ‘shape identities’ that conform to the requirements of globalisation. The image-changing methods can take the ‘form of a play, a TV reality show, a novel, or hip-hop music.’ None of this seems to relate to traditional Islam of any type.

  Joshua Asen and Jennifer Needleman, who have been credited as the founders of ‘hip hop diplomacy’ state that the programme grew out of the ‘use of Hip Hop music as a cultural diplomacy tool for government, corporate, and non-profit partners to reach young audiences in target regions, such as the Middle East and North Africa.’ It is notable how Asen and Needleman state the aims of the U.S. government, corporations and ‘non-profit partners,’ converge. They trace the origins to ‘The pilot program, called “I Love Hip Hop in Morocco,” [which] launched the first Hip Hop festival in Morocco in 2005, with a 3-city concert series featuring the leading Moroccan rap and breakdance groups, and became a feature-length documentary film, which has screened at festivals and universities worldwide.’[11] The hip hop festival in Morocco was sponsored by the Coca-Cola Company (a big player in globalisation) and the U.S. Embassy.[12]

  A recent tour as part of the State Department’s U.S. Music Aboard stopped off at New Zealand, where it was hosted by the U.S. Embassy. The band, ‘Audiopharmacy,’ is described by the U.S. Embassy as ‘an up-and-coming hip hop/reggae/dub band from San Francisco.’ The Embassy explains that the band combines styles from across the world and ‘tours the world using music to build a global sense of community.’[13] It is hybrid music for a hybrid, globalised world. It is explained further that

  Audiopharmacy is part of a San Francisco-based artist collective (known as Audiopharmacy Prescriptions) that includes avant-garde musicians, dancers, DJs, photographers, filmmakers, writers, activists, philosophers, and body healers who express their shared consciousness and world view through different means.[14]

  Funded by the State Department, AMA sends American musicians overseas to engage with global audiences and share America’s rich musical heritage, including Blues, Bluegrass, Cajun, Country, Folk, Latin, Native American, Gospel, Hip hop/Urban, Indie Rock, Jazz, Punk, R&B, Zydeco, and more.[15]

  The message from the United States to the world is that anyone can be anything they like and adopt the lifestyle they like if they accept the nihilistic ‘freedom’ offered by the United States and make the ‘American Dream’ their dream too. It is the ‘global me’ lauded by Zachary et al. One’s birth, which is also to say one’s birthright and heritage, are of no consequence as anyone can reinvent themselves. This state of perpetual individual flux is another form of ‘planned obsolescence’ also known as following fashions and trends, and creates an ever-expanding market. A stable and slowly evolving culture, what we call the Classical, rooted in land and people, is as useless for ever-expanding markets as an automobile that runs excellently forever. There must be high sales-turnovers whether for cars or for music. It is turning the arts into a commodity, and is why many artists in the epochal aftermath of World War I—such as Ezra Pound, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, et al.—were concerned about the impact of mass merchandising literature, theatre, and music, etc., on the quality and durability of the arts.

  The U.S. Embassy in New Zealand alludes, without specifically saying so, to the origins of this international music programme in the context of the Cold War when, as we have previously seen, music and other forms of culture, were used as a psychological weapon. The present-day programme is a continuation of that Cold War weapon.

  The AMA program traces its roots back to the great American Jazz Ambassadors of the 1950s and 1960s, when the U.S. Government sent the likes of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, and Duke Ellington abroad to spread human truth and foster goodwill. Today’s AMA artists are a different generation but just as fine ambassadors of American culture and people-to-people connections without borders.[16]

  ‘Without borders’ is the crux of the matter. Sold as something idealistic, ‘people-to-people,’ the road to peace and brotherhood, something sponsored by the U.S. State Department should rather obviously be considered as nothing more than a tactical manoeuvre to bring the world under the iron heel of globalism as a softer method than the bombs that have been dropped on Iraq or Serbia. If a regime needs bringing down by means other than bombs and US/NATO/United Nations troops, or by economic sanctions, then waves of alienated youth, fed on MTV, Twitter, Facebook, and Coca-Cola, can be brought onto the streets, ‘spontaneously,’ to create a ‘colour revolution.’

  This description by Dr. Curtis Sandberg, Senior Vice President for the Arts Meridian International Center, on Jazz Ambassadors is instructive:

  More than 50 years ago, at the height of the Cold War, there was little room for intercultural dialogue—and U.S. government officials looked at how to bridge the gap. European powers were giving up long-held possessions in Asia, Africa and the Pacific, and a competition developed between the Soviet Union and the United States to court these newly independent nations.

  One of the ways the USSR accomplished this was through culture—folk and classical music, and an established school of dance. In this battle for the “hearts and minds” of the world’s peoples, the United States developed an unlikely but remarkably effective response to Soviet initiatives: building international friendships through jazz. Music that was unique to America and represented a fusion of African and African-American cultures with other traditions was a democratic art form that helped others to understand the open-minded and creative sensibility of our country.[17]

  Here we see a number of important points that support the contentions of this book:

  As we have seen, the post-
World War II era became a scramble between the United States and the USSR to fill the places vacated by the war-ravished and bankrupted European colonial powers. The United States was at least as active in backing anti-colonial and anti-European movements as the USSR.

  The USSR since the time of Stalin had rejected much of the Bolshevik doctrine[18] in favour of a new Slavic empire that was based on a return to traditional culture; and condemned ‘rootless cosmopolitanism’ in the arts as a strategy for imposing a ‘one world state.’[19] Ironically, the USSR fought against what most of the ‘Right’ accused the Soviet Union of promoting, when in fact the real subversive power was the United States.

  Countering Soviet ‘folk culture’ the United States promoted African beats through jazz, as it now does through hip hop and rap.

  Ghetto Whores and Pimps for Toddlers: Bratz and Flavas

  Moreover, the creation of younger generations of consumers has even descended to the level of forming pre-teens into mass consumer markets, with their own fashion and make-up trends and music, and dolls such as ‘Bratz’[20] promoting ‘street wise’ ghetto fashions for children. Some who object to it are describing this as a type of corporate paedophilia. Bratz is a series of dolls, multi-ethnic, and dressed and made-up in modes suggestive of ghetto whores and pimps, that are marketed to pre-school girls. Accoutrements include colouring books, school bags, make-up, clothes, a movie, a television series, music, video games, board games, etc. MGA Entertainment markets the dolls. They were first released in 2001. MGA has received criticism for the dolls being made by cheap labour in China. The American Psychological Association has considered the products as part of the corporate ‘sexualisation of children.’ The creation of a whole new global mass market based on children, down to toddlers, is concomitant with the same processes used to create new mass markets through multiculturalism. Of this the American Psychological Association stated:

  Although extensive analyses documenting the sexualization of girls, in particular, have yet to be conducted, individual examples can easily be found. These include advertisements (e.g., the Skechers ‘naughty and nice’ ad that featured Christina Aguilera dressed as a schoolgirl in pigtails, with her shirt unbuttoned, licking a lollipop), dolls (e.g., Bratz dolls dressed in sexualized clothing such as miniskirts, fishnet stockings and feather boas), clothing (thongs sized for 7- to 10-year-olds, some printed with slogans such as ‘wink wink’), and television programs (e.g., a televised fashion show in which adult models in lingerie were presented as young girls). Research documenting the pervasiveness and influence of such products and portrayals is sorely needed.[21]

  A rival line of multi-ethnic ghetto pimps and whores, Flavas, was launched by Mattel in 2003. The name derives from a hip hop term and the whole hip hop style is promoted, including speech, style, and ‘attitude.’ The Mattel promotion of the line, aimed at girls aged 8 to 10, stated,

  Mattel asks girls: What’s your Flava? In an all-new line of fashion dolls. Flava, according to Hip Hoptionary: the Dictionary of Hip Hop Terminology, means personal flavor or style. . . . With the introduction of Flavas (pronounced Flay-vuhz) the first reality based fashion doll brand that celebrates today’s teen culture through authentic style, attitude and values Mattel created a hot hip-hop themed line that allows girls to express their own personal flavas. . . . Reflecting how today’s teens change their looks based on their personality and mood of the moment, Flavas will also feature multiple looks of the same character in every product wave.[22]

  Here the supposed idealism of corporate multiculturalism works in tandem with the ‘sexualization of children,’ as a method of creating a new market. Moreover, the corporations are creating youth identities right down to pre-teens. A feature of this Mattel-created identity is the fluidity of character for girls that is promoted: the planned obsolescence of personality to maintain the constancy of markets. This pitch to children is the same marketing technique that is a feature of globalisation in general, and what makes this culture ‘lethal.’

  Gregory Fortuin, a South African Coloured and supporter of the ANC who became Race Relations Commissioner in New Zealand, observed that ‘There’s a youth culture in the country that is large, very different and transcends ethnic cultures.’[23] This is a cogent description of what the globalists aim for on a worldwide scale. While Fortuin saw it as a progressive development that would obliterate ethnic divisions, what he was lauding was the globalist ‘crucible’ that works throughout the world to forge youth into a standardised consumer market that is not rooted in a specific tradition, but comes out of a ragbag of everything. These progressive liberals do not seem to realise that this ‘youth culture’ is a form of what the liberal-Left would otherwise condemn as ‘American cultural imperialism.’ However, because it is derived from the ghettos it is acceptable, like jazz before it, and is even regarded as laudable.

  [1] Bolton, Revolution from Above, 138–43.

  [2] Hishaam Aidi, ‘Levering hip hop in U.S. foreign policy,’ Al Jazeera, 7 November 2011, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011103091018299924.html.

  [3] Ibid.

  [4] For the use of social media in fomenting revolt, see Bolton, ‘Twitterings of the Revolution,’ in Revolution from Above, 235–40. This strategy is conducted under the auspices of the Alliance of Youth Movements, also known as Movements.org, sponsored by Google, MTV, Pepsi, YouTube, Facebook, et al., and in ‘public partnership’ with the U.S. State Department, and was founded by the CEOs of Howcast and Google. They hold seminars with such agencies of U.S. foreign policy as the RAND Corporation and Freedom House.

  [5] Hishaam Aidi, op. cit.

  [6] Ibid.

  [7] Ibid.

  [8] Ibid.

  [9] Ibid.

  [10] Kristina Nelson and Cynthia P. Schneider, ‘Mightier than the Sword: Arts and Culture in the U.S.-Muslim World Relationship,’ Brookings Institution, June 2008, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2008/06/islamic-world-schneider.

  [11] Joshua Asen and Jennifer Needleman, ‘Hip Hop Diplomacy: About Hip Hop culture and geopolitics,’ http://hiphopdiplomacy.org/about/.

  [12] Ibid., ‘Case studies,’ ‘I Love Hip Hop in Morocco, June 2005,’ http://hiphopdiplomacy.org/case-studies/.

  [13] U.S. Embassy, New Zealand, Audiopharmacy dispenses hip hop and more,’ http://blogs.newzealand.usembassy.gov/ambassador/2013/04/audiopharmacy-dispenses-hip-hop-and-more/.

  [14] Ibid.

  [15] Ibid.

  [16] Ibid.

  [17] Curtis Sandberg, ‘Does jazz have a healing role in a world divided by conflicting ideologies?,’ Jazz Ambassadors, http://www.meridian.org/jazzambassadors/.

  [18] Bolton, Stalin: The Enduring Legacy, 28–54.

  [19] ‘Welcome to Bratz: The only girls with a passion for fashion,’ MGA, http://www.bratz.com/.

  [20] Bratz, MGM Entertainment. See www.bratz.com.

  [21] ‘Sexualization of Girls,’ American Psychological Association, http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx.

  [22] ‘Mattel asks girls: What’s your Flava? In an all-new line of fashion dolls,’ Mattel, 29 July 2003, http://investor.shareholder.com/mattel/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=115032.

  [23] Fortuin speaking at River of Life Church, Kapiti, New Zealand, 26 February 2006 (Kapiti Observer).

  Purse Strings

  As a strategy for the breaking down of separate cultural and ethnic identities across the world, the multicultural agenda that to a considerable extent emanates from the United States, is not only for export but also for the home market. While military strategist Ralph Peters refers to America’s ‘lethal’ culture undermining traditional states, the cultural virus that it exports dominat
es the United States itself. The U.S. oligarchy is as zealous to impose cultural nihilism on the United States as on any other nation. Because these oligarchs are not loyal to anything other than their money or their own dynasty, the United States is to them just the current host of their parasitic activities.

  The oligarchy has no more interest in seeing the development of an ‘American people,’ an ‘American nation,’ and an ‘American culture,’ than it does in seeing the maintenance or revival of peoples, nations, and cultures anywhere else in the world. What is the American people, nation, and culture other than a diversity of individuals held together by a way of life called the ‘American Dream’ which is nothing more than the pursuit of money, and a superficial ‘patriotism’ based on loyalty to legalistic documents: a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, heralded as ‘patriotism’ when a war needs fighting in the interests of faraway investments? The oligarchy that rules the United States is no more ‘American,’ than its counterparts elsewhere, past and present, have been ‘British,’ ‘French,’ ‘Dutch,’ or ‘German.’ If the United States self-destructs due to the parasitism of the oligarchy on its host, that oligarchy would be looking to pack its bags and ensconce itself elsewhere. When America has shown signs of developing a strong nativist nationalism, such as the movement that was emerging around Senator Joseph McCarthy, it has been crushed by the oligarchs and their dupes in the news media, Congress, and Senate.[1]