thousands have cultures have been destroyed by invaders seeking resources, usually land, not by violence or weapons, but by undermining the way of life of the people. The risk is growing it could happen in the West Bank

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When missionaries assault an indigenous community, with the goal of stealing its resources and destroying its culture, they often begin by attempting to appear kind. They give them metal knives and tools and cooking utensils. They give them tobacco and alcohol. These are a lure to get the people addicted to the consumer culture, addicted not only to substances, but also THINGS, and to the idea of the consumer economy.

Once they get the "thing" addiction started, the invaders offer the people opportunities to earn money to buy more things. This breaks the people out of their traditional ways of living, usually only working a few hours a day, what's necessary to survive, and puts them into close to slave labor conditions, doing mindless work-- mining, farming, carrying.

This is a tried and tested approach that has been used to break and finally wipe out thousands of cultures and communities.

And so, today, there's an article in the Wall Street Journal reporting how "success" may be coming to the West Bank. The article reports that recently a Mercedes dealership has opened up. A boutique selling $3000 Prada purses recently opened. The article reports that "economic growth raced at 9% through the first half of 2010, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Most telling is this line from the article, " Proponents of putting economic progress ahead of political progress are betting that prosperity may bring some calm, or at least change the situation by giving activists something to lose if violence flares again. Few people here say the present calm will hold indefinitely."

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Will Trinkets succeed where bombs and violence have failed? (Flickr Photo by Wonderlane)

Israel and AIPAC and their supporters have failed, using force and violence, to daunt the Palestinians in their fight to gain their freedom and independence.

Capitalism could be the weapon, and it is often a brutal one, that does what settlers and bombs and demeaning restrictions have failed to do. The addictive nature of the consumer culture could wipe out the resolution and strength the Palestinians have shown in standing up to Israel and its proxies.

We've seen the biggest democracies weakened or taken down entirely by the corporate consumer culture and globalism. We've seen the smallest cultures annihilated by invaders using the soft power of things and substances to lure people to give up their freedoms.

In Avatar, Jake Sully mocks the attempts to get the ten foot tall blue natives, the Nawi, to give up their home, "for what, blue Jeans?"

It may be that the same threat could be very real for the people of Palestine. They have suffered so long and had so little. They have been immersed and marinated in the messages of the west, through TV and movies. It would be tragic if they went the way of so many indigenous cultures, lured to their doom by trinkets large and small.

Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.

Check out his platform at RobKall.com

He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity

He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com

more detailed bio:

Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.

Rob Kall Wikipedia Page

Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel

Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel

Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.

Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.

To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.

For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.

Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table

Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..

To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.

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