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 U.S. 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.[86]
Conclusion
While the “Beat Generation” was 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.
I love your analysis of Steinem’s role in convincing American women that they were being “liberated” by doing double duty in a 40 hour a week job and 20+ hours a week taking care of their husband, children and elderly parents. In my view, her intelligence role in decimating the feminist movement was even more destructive. I (like Betty Friedan, who confronted her publicly at a national meeting) hold her personally responsible for the organizational chaos in the National Organization for Women that drove working class women out of the movement and caused the Equal Rights Amendment to fail.
Less well known is another operation Steinem ran to plant so-called “black feminists” in grassroots African American groups to break them up (see http://rah.posterous.com/black-feminism-the-cia-and-gloria-steinem-fwd). I ran across some of these nasties in Seattle, while working to set up an African American Museum in the late eighties. I write about it in my recent memoir: THE MOST REVOLUTIONARY ACT: MEMOIR OF AN AMERICAN REFUGEE (www.stuartbramhall.com). I currently live in exile in New Zealand.