Alessandro Bianchi from the Anti- Diplomatico in Italy interviewed distinguished author and economist Peter Koenig on Democracy and the Future of the United States. The Interview was published in Italian. Global Research brings the English version of this important interview to the attention of its readers.

Alessandro Bianchi: I would start from a brutal question: what kind of country has become one that offers Donald Trump as the best candidate?

Peter Koenig: The United States is a country, almost hermetically closed to the rest of the real world, brainwashed to the core with lies and propaganda – and every day being told how great America is. This propaganda is not new, though. It has been going on for as long as the US exists, but has rapidly intensified after WWII and especially during the Cold War – and then again after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And thus, Americans, meaning North Americans – not mixing them up with Latin America which is also part of the Americas – the vast majority of the US citizens cannot see what is really going on. They are blinded by propaganda – and immobilized by their comfort. They love comfortable lives, many of them – and although they do realize that something is not as it should be, it would give them an uneasy feeling searching for the truth. The truth they suspect is too hard to swallow.

In such an ambiance someone like Donald Trump can flourish. He is different and he has a personality the populace in general lack. The populace is unhappy with what’s going on in their country, though they are ‘comfortable’ how they live and how they lived all their lives. Change is uncomfortable. Trump personalizes their change, without having to do anything. And Trump reconfirms their values – of a great country – supremacy above all. – Trump is an ‘old Nazi’, while Hillary, better called ‘Killary’ is a new Nazi, or a neo-Nazi.

You see – fascism is difficult to escape in the US of A.

But what’s the alternative to Trump? – Killary? –

With her you know whom she is working for – the Zionists, of whom she is actually part; neoliberals, of whom she is part; corporate and financial elites by whom she is paid; Israel, as the Israeli influence through AIPAC in the US and the US Congress is unparalleled and unbeatable to the point of the going saying that “the tail (Israel, the Zionists) wags the Dog (US)”. They, the Zionists support her, she supports them. The circle is perfect. And both go to war. They want the total chaos in the Middle East, to be dominated by the Israel of Netanyahu and Washington. Killary is the war candidate – perfect for the Pentagon and the Military Industrial Complex.

So – I believe, the ‘system’ – the ‘elite system’ behind the mysterious Lucifer eye on top of the pyramid on the dollar bill, this system will make Killary their next president. She is perfect for them. She and trump are but two sides of the same coin. Therefore, no chance that anything will change towards peace in the US of A in the coming years. Change may come only if people at home wake up and take politics in their own hands – seeking peace, seeking true unification – not dominion – with the rest of the world.

Peoples of the world do not need a sledgehammer, a dictator – one that enslaves them, robs them, rapes and exploits them, kills them if they don’t behave as the Masters in Washington deem necessary. People in the US suffer the same from a Trump or Killary as would the rest of the world. Poverty and injustice, the advancement of the police- and military dictatorship in the US is alarming, depriving citizens of their rights, their livelihood, their freedom. But they must wake up to stop this process.

AB: In a recent survey over 53% of Americans were against both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. How long will we continue to consider the United States a democracy? And why, in your opinion, abstention is the only form of “rebellion” of a completely excluded from the decision-making stage population?

PK: I don’t know anyone, other than the mainstream media (MSM), that considers the US a democracy. Indeed, the last form of ‘rebellion’ – of active protest that no military can stop, is abstention from voting, not going to the polls – staying home. In a system where the people are given the candidates that the evil eye pre-selects for them – and where none of theirs would stand a chance – in such a system NOT voting may be the only solution, the only way to send a strong message of disagreement. It would, however, take an organization of campaigning much harder than folding into the mood of every four years, listening to the same lies and propaganda over and over again – and what’s worse, taking the candidates seriously. Debating Killary and Trump is already taking them too seriously, giving them credit they don’t deserve. They are both criminals – with Killary being a murderer.

AB: Bernie Sanders was really the change that many in Europe have described?

PK: Not at all. Bernie is a fake. He was and I guess, still is a test case for the system. Lucifer wants to see how far he can go – and what is it that the people want to hear. Accordingly, will be adjusted the discourse of the two candidates. Sanders has a (Senate) voting record which does not portray what he pledges to stand for. He is someone who when it suits him to be politically correct, calls Chavez a dead dictator, distancing himself from this great mentor of a free world.

What kind of a worthy candidate would do that?

Sanders, early on has said that if he should not succeed, he would support Killary. Hello! what message does that convey? – That he would support a warmonger par excellence? – Europeans like many Americans have been fooled by Bernie’s charm and rebellious appearance. All fake!

AB: What would happen to the world with a Hillary Clinton’s presidency?

PK: The short answer – WWIII – if it hadn’t already started as one of Obama’s last agenda item to be achieved before leaving office. Killary and Israel – they would certainly not stop from annihilating the Middle East on the way to achieve The PNAC’s (Plan for a New American Century) sole objective – Full Spectrum Dominance – controlling the world. To do so, wars with Russia and China are unavoidable. I still hope – Hope dies last! – that Presidents Putin and Xi, the real visionaries and excellent chess players in this geopolitical game, will be able to gently pull out all the plugs from the monster octopus, deflating the beast economically – so as to spill as little blood as possible -and, so as the rest of the world can continue living with a peaceful economic and monetary system, the one being designed by Russia, China, India (the BRICS, now without the ‘B’), the central and eastern Asian countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and those also belonging to the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union) covering some 50% of the world population and controlling about a third of the world’s economic output.

AB: What did you feel when you saw Obama speaking recently at Hiroshima not apologizing for what was done by his country and declaring almost sarcastically – as the head of the world’s first atomic power – to hope for a world without nuclear weapons?

PK: Utter disgust – a hypocrite on top of his class.

AB: Will the growing US expansionism come to a breaking point and collision with China?

PK: As I said before, let’s hope China and Russia will be able to deflate the monster’s steady aggressions through encroachment of Russia by NATO and China by the US Navy fleet in the South China Sea. They are a constant provocation. But so far Russia and China haven’t fallen into the trap.

What is more worrisome – the European vassals, especially Germany, France and the UK, they are totally enslaved- or bought? – by Washington. They let the expansion of NATO going on, even pay for it!!! – while not realizing – are they really so blind? – that the next war, WWIII, would play out again in Europe? – Europe the third time in 100 years the theatre of war, destruction and annihilation. This time to the end of life – very likely.

AB:Although it is NATO that is bringing his installations more and more to the east, in Europe our information feeds a danger of an aggressive Russia. Who benefits feed this feeling of Russophobia?

PK: The information in Europe and elsewhere in the western world is controlled to literally 90% by 6 giant Anglo-Zionist media corporations. Every piece of propaganda news – LIES – is repeated at nauseatum by all the MSM outlets. It’s an old doctrine, Hitler and many before him knew, when you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. That’s happening to an agonizing degree in Europe – a sheer continent of vassals. – They harm themselves most – and, of course, support Lucifer behind his clandestine eye on top of the pyramid.

AB: Since the advent of the so-called Arab Spring, which began with the famous Obama’s speech at the University of Cairo in 2009, the Eastern Mediterranean has become a powder keg. Was it an external plan planned destruction of states hostile rulers in Washington, Libya and Syria in particular, or real quest for democracy and freedom?

PK: Well, my friend, you know that it had and has nothing to do with democracy. The ‘Arab Spring’ was as planned by the CIA, Mossad and other secret services of the evil powers as were the so-called Color Revolutions in the former Soviet Republics – and of course, the last one we have witnessed to the extreme, Ukraine, where Washington didn’t relent before a pure Nazi Government was installed; a Nazi Government – for which such (in)famous newspapers like the Swiss NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) seek support by asking the west to go to war against Russia. Can you imagine!

None of the destroyed states were ‘hostile’ to Washington. It is, as always, the other way around, hostility is instigated by Washington, to provoke wars and ‘regime change’ that’s precisely what has happened in the Middle East – and continues to happen until all those countries that have to fall – as it is planned in the PNAC – will eventually fall. The only ones that can stop that merciless killing machine are Russia and China.

AB: Is right to define today Aleppo as the “Stalingrad of Syria” and “the cemetery of the dreams of fascist Erdogan” as stated by the Syrian President Assad?

PK: Yes, President Assad may be right. This is an interesting allegation and association. But then again – Aleppo still stands today and Mr. Putin will not let it fall.

AB: What do you think will be the final scenario for Syria. It risks a crystallization like Cold War-style situation between the two blocks – Damascus, Russia and regional allies, on the one hand, and Kurds with the United States on the other – with Raqqa which will become a new Berlin?

PK: It’s very difficult to predict the outcome of the Syria conflict – a US instigated conflict, let me make that very clear. In any case, as it stands now, the axis Syria-Iran is still alive and well. China, the single largest client of Iran’s hydrocarbons, will not let Iran fall. Mr. Putin, likewise, will, in my opinion, not let Mr. Assad be overthrown by Lucifer and his minions. And let’s hope that they prevail. To prevail, however, Washington would have to take some major blows, some weakening blows. This is currently the case. The empire is on its last legs, as many say – breathing heavily, like an angry beast in agony – it lashes around itself and kills indiscriminately whatever it can, so nobody may survive its demise. This could well happen. The US triggering WWIII – a nuclear annihilation. But let’s hope it will NOT happen.

AB: What role, in your opinion, the human rights NGOs play in the current international context?

PK: What Human rights NGOs? – There is none left that deserves the term. They are all bought. Have you ever seen, for example, Amnesty international accusing the empire of whatever human rights abuses they have carried out – the most flagrant human rights abuser in the universe is never mentioned by AI? – What a joke! – Same with Human Rights Watch and others. They are all subdued, even Green Peace – probably all financed by the dollars of which the FED has taken on its own the power to create unlimited quantities from thin air.

AB: 14 years ago, the coup in Venezuela against the democratically elected President Hugo Chavez failed and began the US exit from Latin America. Shortly after, the US invaded Iraq. Today that the hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean wobbles, Washington uses all its weapons known to return in Latin America. Was in your opinion the President Rafael Correa right when he says that we are facing a new Plan Condor in the region?

PK: Of course, President Correa is right, when he refers to a new Plan Condor. It is happening very fast. Thinking of it makes one sick. We – those who foster hope to the end – have been hoping that at least one important part of the world, Latin America, or especially South America, will withstand the pressure of Washington. But no. These governments, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, they seem to be too honest – maybe not astute enough – to use the same weapons the neoliberals do. For example, it goes beyond me that Dilma Rousseff did not stop the propaganda media, kick them out, declare Martial Law to reinstate the rule of Law, of the democratically elected Government. Macri, as you know, closed immediately TeleSUR, the only media that brings the truth to South America. He got away with it. He is the neo-Nazi leader of Argentina.

The same with Mr. Maduro. Why does he not order the military to distribute food to the stores and assure that the electricity grid functions? We know that food is available, but the distribution is interrupted by the local rightwing forces supported and trained by Washington. The same that the CIA did in Chile to organize a coup against President Allende – they interrupted the food chain, and people took to the streets. It’s all orchestrated from Washington. Old methods in new clothes. Especially if it worked the first time, why wouldn’t it work a second and third time? – People have very short memories.

AB: And if so, considering also what happened in Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia, which techniques are used today?

PK: The techniques of infiltration. Vulnerable, buyable locals from the opposition are bought, trained in the US or even sometime on location, by the CIA and other foreign and western forces – some in the form of foreign do-gooder ‘NGOs’, to create and instigate peoples’ unhappiness – through strikes, blockages, as mentioned before, interruptions of food chains. The media propaganda. In all these countries the foreign media is by far domineering. And the local media are in the hands of oligarchs, the elite, and of course want any left-leaning government to disappear as fast and lasting as possible. And they get the steady support from Washington. The ‘election coup’ in Argentina was orchestrated largely by the media. Although there was some fraud going on during and after the elections. But most of it was done by the western rightwing media.

The ‘parliamentary coup’ in Brazil, and before in Paraguay in 2012, were remote-guided from Washington. That is not surprising. But what is surprising to me is that people just let it happen, that Dilma Rousseff just looked on as her government was being destroyed – by corrupt scoundrels who themselves should be and will eventually be in prison. Michel Temer, Brazil’s interim President, is constitutionally not allowed to stand for public office for the next at least 8 years, as he is convicted for corruption in the ‘Car Wash’ scandal. Yet, he heads Brazil’s interim government. What a farce. It’s like kids’ play – they – Lucifer’s vassals – go as far as they can, until somebody stops them. Nobody, inside or outside Brazil has had the guts to say ‘stop’ and take the necessary actions.

Never forget, money is plentiful. May it cost whatever ridiculously astronomic amount is needed to influence and buy people, money is just being produced by the empire which still has the dollar monopoly – that the rest of the world – except Russia and China – adheres to. So, that’s how everything is financed – weapons, including a destructive media bulldozer. Other, ‘normal’ countries do not have access to unlimited amounts of money. Therefore, they will not win a media war. Unless, they do what they are allowed to do: stop a slander and lie-driven media campaign, by force. This has nothing to do with free-press or freedom of expression. The Government has a democratic and constitutional right to stop lies and slander. Dilma did not use her power to stop the media lies and slander.

AB: The future of the world offers at the moment two possible tracks: a US unilateralism, particularly in the event of Clinton’s presidency, made up of areas of “free” trade treaty around the world on the NAFTA model (such as the TTIP in Europe), with millions the desperate poor products, profits only for multinationals and the planned destruction of all countries who rebel against this vision in Libya and Syria style; or, second hypothesis, a period of multilateralism, respect for sovereignty, self-determination and peace if to prevail is the alternative project to the Washington Consensus of the Brics and the regional integration in Latin America designed and built by Chavez, Lula and Kirchner. Are we a lot far from reality? And which of the two views will prevail in your opinion?

PK: US unilateralism, or a free world of sovereign countries, peacefully trading with each other… well, you know which one should prevail, and I must say that a positive outlook has a lot to do with what eventually will happen. The ‘power of the mind’ effect of human thinking and will-power is amazing. But, indeed, it may take a long time until we will be living in a world of peace, justice and equality. Foremost, it will take awakening of the “We, the People” to a different consciousness. Even if darkness will prevail for a while longer – light will overwhelmingly outshine darkness, eventually.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, Chinese 4th Media, TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.