Inside the Submissive Void — Propaganda, Censorship, Power, and Control

Greg Maybury
Pox Americana

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government, 1768.

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Brief: The use of propaganda and censorship is more frequently associated with totalitarian, corrupt and/or despotic regimes, not modern democracies in the West. Yet the history of how western governments and their ever-vigilant overlords in the media, financial, and business spheres have controlled the political narrative of the time via these means is a long, storied and ruinous one, going back well before 1914. Along with serving the contemporaneous political objectives of its perpetrators as contrived, such activities often continue to inform our understanding, and cement our interpretation, of history. If as the saying goes, “history repeats itself”, we need look no further as to the main reason why. In this wide-ranging ‘safari’ into the fake news, myth-making, and disinformation wilderness—aka The Big Shill—Greg Maybury concludes that “It’s the narrative, stupid!”

— Controlling the Proles —

The following yarn may be apocryphal, but either way the ‘moral of the fable’ should serve our narrative well. The story goes like this: sometime during the height of the Cold War a group of American journalists were hosting a visit to the U.S. of some of their Soviet counterparts. After allowing their visitors to soak up the media zeitgeist stateside, most of the Americans expected their guests to express unbridled envy at the professional liberties they enjoyed in the Land of the Free Press. 

One of the Russian scribes was indeed compelled to express his unabashed ‘admiration’ to his hosts…in particular, for the “far superior quality” of American “propaganda“. Now it’s fair to say his hosts were taken aback by what was at best a backhanded compliment. After some collegial ‘piss-taking’ about the stereotypes associated with Western “press freedom” versus those of the controlled media in the Soviet system, one of the Americans called on their Russian colleague to explain what he meant. In fractured English, he replied with the following: ‘It’s very simple…In Soviet Union, we don’t believe our propaganda. In America, you actually believe yours!’

As amusing as this anecdote is, the reality of the Russian journo’s jibe doesn’t simply remain true now; that ‘belief’ has become even more delusional, farcical, and above all, dangerous. One suspects that Russian journos today would think much the same. And in few cases has the “delusional”,“farcical”, and “dangerous” nature of this conviction been more evident than with the West’s continued provocations of Russia, with “Skripalgate” in Old Blighty (see here, and here), and “Russia-Gate” stateside (see here, and here) being prime, though far from the only, exemplars we might point to.

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Then CIA is Invoking Wikileaks to Push for the Expansion of a Cold War Era Secrecy Law

Kevin Gosztola
Mint Press News

When the CIA and other agencies in the United States government pushed for the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) in 1981, it was crafted to exclude “covert agents” who resided in the U.S.

There was consideration by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of how the legislation might “chill or stifle public criticism of intelligence activities or public debate concerning intelligence policy.”

More than three decades later, the CIA is apparently unsatisfied with the protections the bill granted “covert agents. It has enlisted a select group of senators and representatives to help expand the universe of individuals who are protected, making members of the press who cover intelligence matters more vulnerable to prosecution.

Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee, was involved in adding language to expand the IIPA to the Intelligence Authorization Act moving through Congress.

“Schiff is once again putting the interests of the intelligence agencies in concealing their misdeeds ahead of protecting the rights of ordinary Americans by criminalizing routine reporting by the press on national security issues and undermining congressional oversight in his Intelligence Authorization bill,” declared Daniel Schuman, who is the policy director for Demand Progress.
Schuman added,

Schiff’s expansion of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act beyond all reason will effectively muzzle reporting on torture, mass surveillance, and other crimes against the American people—all at the request of the CIA. Schiff is clearly the resistance to the resistance, and he should drop this provision from his bill.”

The CIA put their specific request for what language they would like amended in writing and sent it to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Their request was essentially copied and pasted, with no changes, into the intelligence bill.

“Undercover agency officers face ever-evolving threats, including cyber threats,” the CIA argued. “Particularly with the lengths organizations such as WikiLeaks are willing to go to obtain and release sensitive national security information, as well as incidents related to past agency programs, such as the RDI investigation [CIA torture report], the original congressional reasoning mentioned above for a narrow definition of ‘covert agent’ no longer remains valid.”

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Bipartisan Support for Trump’s Aggressive Iran Policy Reveals the Hollowness of Russiagate

Whitney Webb
Mint Press News

In early May, MSNBC news host Rachel Maddow — known as one of the top promoters of the new Cold War and Russiagate in American media — emphatically endorsed regime change in Venezuela after she claimed that President Donald Trump’s hawkishness towards the South American country had changed, all because of a single phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. 
 
Though Maddow’s claims were arguably the most extreme in suggesting that Trump was “taking orders” from Putin on Venezuela, she wasn’t alone in making them. For instance, Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks also made the claim that the Trump-Putin phone call on Venezuela was “direct evidence that he is literally taking orders from Putin.” In addition, several corporate media outlets supported this narrative by suggesting that Trump “echoed” Putin’s Venezuela stance after the phone call and directly contradicted his top staffers and even himself in doing so.

Yet now, strangely, those same corporate media voices remain silent on the Trump administration’s other regime-change project — in Iran — despite the fact that the Putin-led Russian government is set to be the biggest winner as tensions between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic boil over and threaten to send the Middle East into a fresh bout of destruction and chaos.  

As tensions between the U.S. and Iran have grown in recent months, analysts in both corporate and independent media have speculated about what country is set to benefit the most from the U.S.’ campaign of “maximum pressure” and regime change against the Islamic Republic. Of the many analyses, two countries have stood out as likely beneficiaries: Russia and China.

The cases for China and Russia’s benefit are somewhat similar given that the Trump administration’s focus on Iran results in less pressure on both Russia and China. This is despite the fact that, officially, the U.S.’ current National Defense Strategy explicitly calls for focusing attention on preparing for a “long war” against Russia and China to prevent either from superseding the U.S. as a global superpower. Yet, with the U.S. focused on regime change in Iran and Venezuela, Russia and China can avoid bearing the brunt of U.S. military adventurism, either directly or by proxy, while the U.S. wears itself thin by trying to do it all at once.

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The Next Economic Crisis, The Looming Post-Multipolar System And Hybrid War Forever

South Front

The Impending Crisis

At one time, specifically during the post-World War 2 Bretton Woods era, it looked like as if the capitalist model could be indefinitely sustainable and avoid plunging the world into major world conflicts. That era began to come to an end during the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, and came to a complete end at the end of the Cold War which ushered in the era of the so-called "globalization" which took form of unbridled competition for markets and resources. At first this competition did not show many signs of trouble. There were many "emerging markets" created as a result of the collapse of the Soviet bloc into which Western corporations could expand. However, the law of diminishing returns being what it is, the initial rapid economic growth rates could not be sustained and attempts to goose it using extremely liberal central bank policies, to the point of zero and even negative interest rates, succeeded in inflating-and bursting-several financial "bubbles". 

Even today's US economy bears many hallmarks of such a bubble, and it is only one of many. Sooner or later the proverbial "black swan" event will unleash a veritable domino effect of popping bubbles and plunge the global economy into a crisis of a magnitude it has not seen since the 1930s. A crisis against which the leading world powers have few weapons to deploy, since they have expended their monetary and fiscal "firepower" on the 2008 crisis, to little avail. The low interest rates and high levels of national debt mean that the next big crisis will not be simply "more of the same." It will fundamentally rearrange the global economy. 

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US Special Forces Command Issues New Guide For Overthrowing Foreign Governments

Zero Hedge

No kidding - this is not our headline, but Newsweek's: "US Special Forces School Publishes New Guide For Overthrowing Foreign Governments" - and as far as we can tell they are the only major mainstream outlet to have picked up on the fact that the US military is now essentially openly bragging on past and future capabilities to foster covert regime change operations. 

The 250-page study entitled “Support to Resistance: Strategic Purpose and Effectiveness” was put out by the Joint Special Operations University under US Special Operations Command, which is the Army's official unified command center which overseas all joint covert and clandestine missions out of MacDill AFB, Florida.

"This work will serve as a benchmark reference on resistance movements for the benefit of the special operations community and its civilian leadership," the report introduces.

The study examines 47 instances of US special forces trying to intervene in various countries from 1941-2003, thus special attention is given to the Cold War, but it doesn't include coups which lacked "legitimate resistance movements" — such as the case of 'Operation AJAX' in 1953 which overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

Though infamous disasters such the abortive CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba are highlighted, the US military report (perhaps predictably) finds that among those nearly fifty covert interventions surveyed, most interventions were "successful". 

"One thing common to all 47 cases reviewed in this study is the fact that the targeted state was ruled either by an unfriendly occupying force or by a repressive authoritarian regime," the author, Army Special Forces veteran Will Irwin wrote. The study focuses on historical regime change operations but in parts hints at the future, saying, "Russia and China have boldly demonstrated expansionist tendencies."

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Tulsi Gabbard - Why she is running for president

Comment: Much as I like Gabbard she won't be allowed to get anywhere near the presidency.

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Tulsi Gabbard

Stand with Tulsi: https://www.tulsi2020.com | If you share only one thing about Tulsi with your friends and family, make it this video. Over six minutes, this raw and emotional exchange encapsulates the reason she is running for president. 

From Tulsi Gabbard: 

As a soldier, I know the cost of war—on my brothers and sisters in uniform, their families, and the people in those countries where we intervene, whose lives are completely devastated. Over the last two decades, through the Iraq War, the invasion of Libya and the Syrian War, we’ve seen the catastrophic impacts of American intervention. But it’s not only those who are impacted by combat who pay the price—every single American pays the price for these wars.

My mission as president will be to put an end to wasteful and reckless regime change wars, the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, and introduce a Peace Dividend to reinvest the trillions that would be spent on those wars to instead meet the needs of the American people.

Our needs are great—redirecting those trillions of dollars means investing in universal healthcare and education, climate change solutions, clean air and water for our communities, rebuilding our nation's crumbling infrastructure, investing in a green energy economy, and protecting Social Security for seniors.

The people in charge of our foreign policy—the ones ratcheting up tensions with Russia, China and North Korea, the ones who are making the case for regime change war in Syria, Venezuela and Iran, either don’t know or don’t care about the true cost of war and the very real threat of nuclear war in our world today. To effectively address the threats we face in a global economy and as a global community - including nuclear war, climate change and global pandemics—we need to get out of the Cold War mentality that pits one nation against another nation. This is fossilized 20th century thinking that doesn't fit the world we live in today.

We're not in a win-lose scenario anymore—we have to be committed both militarily and economically to a win-win approach based on cooperation for mutual security and prosperity. Regardless of party or label—Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Progressives—we must come together to bring about a sea change in our approach to foreign policy.

This is why I’m running for president: to institute a Peace Dividend by ending regime change war, ending the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, taking the trillions of dollars wasted in these wars and giving them back to the American people. With this Peace Dividend, we can provide Medicare for All, we can protect Social Security, we can ensure our students have access to an affordable education, we can rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and we can protect our air and water, to build a brighter future for all Americans. 

 #TulsiGabbard #TULSI2020 #PeaceDividend #IraqWar #AfghanistanWar #Venezuela

The European Union is obliged to participate in US wars

Thierry Meyssan
The Voltaire network

Since the Treaty of Maastricht, all the members of the European Union (including the neutral countries) have placed their defences under the suzerainty of NATO, which is directed exclusively by the United States. This is why, when the Pentagon delegates the economic headquarters of the countries it wishes to destroy to the US Department of the Treasury (USDT), all members of the European Union and NATO are obliged to apply US sanctions.

After having lost his majority in the House of Representatives during the mid-term elections, President Trump has found new allies in exchange for his discharge by prosecutor Mueller of the accusation of high treason [1]. He now supports the objectives of his generals. US imperialism is back [2].

In less than six months, the foundations of international relations have been « rebooted ». The war that Hillary Clinton promised to start has been declared, but not only by military force.

This transformation of the rules of the game, without equivalent since the end of the Second World War, immediately forced all actors to rethink their strategy, and therefore all the plans for alliance upon which they were based. Those who turn up late will pay for it.

Economic war has been declared

 

Wars will always be mortal and cruel, but for Donald Trump, who was a businessman before becoming President of the United States, it is best that they cost as little as possible. It is thus preferable to kill with economic means rather than by the use of arms. Given that the United States no longer share trade agreements with most of the countries they attack, the real « economic » cost of these wars (in the genuine sense of the term), is in effect supported by third-party countries rather than by the Pentagon.

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The Buried Maidan Massacre and Its Misrepresentation by the West

Ivan Katchanovski
Consortium News

The new Ukrainian government is faced with reopening an inquiry into evidence of an organized mass killing in Kiev that Poroshenko stonewalled. Ivan Katchanovski investigates.

Five years ago, the Maidan massacre in Kiev, Ukraine, of Feb. 18-20, 2014, was a watershed event, not only for the politics and history of Ukraine but also for world politics generally. This mass killing in downtown Kyiv set the stage for the violent overthrow of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine and a new Cold War between Washington and Moscow.

Therefore, it is remarkable that five years after this massacre shook the world, no one has been sentenced for any of the Maidan killings. This was the best documented case of mass killing in history, broadcast live on TV and the internet, in presence of thousands of eyewitnesses. It was filmed by hundreds of journalists from major media in the West, Ukraine, Russia, and many other countries as well as by numerous social media users. Yet, to this day, no one has been brought to justice for this major and consequential crime.

From the start, the dominant narrative promoted by the Ukrainian and Western governments and mainstream media has placed the blame for this tragedy firmly on the Yanukovych government. It contends that forces loyal to former President Victor Yanukovych— either snipers and/or the Berkut, a special anti-riot police— massacred peaceful Maidan protesters on the direct orders of Yanukovych himself. Such charges against Yanukovych, his ministers and commanders and a special Berkut unit—whose five ex-members were tried for the murder of 48 Maidan protesters on Feb. 20, 2014 — are generally taken at face value. With some limited exceptions, challenges to this narrative are treated dismissively.

For the most part, mainstream news media in the U.S. and other Western countries ignored trial evidence, public statements by officials and politicians and scholarly studies that put the standard narrative under question. This includes non-reporting about my own academic studies of the Maidan massacre.

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John Pilger: ‘NATO is a US Invention Designed to Impose US Power on Europe’

Stop The War Coalition 

It has just been announced that Donald Trump will be attending the London NATO conference in December. What kind of role do you think NATO is likely to be discussing in a Trump led western alliance? 

I'm not sure Trump is leading the NATO alliance; one day he hates NATO, the next he thinks it's a good thing as long as it does what he wants. The Pentagon will play its usual dominant role; the generals and their allies in the national security establishment and Congress have been the political force in Washington since Barack Obama gave them the key. There will be pressure to build up forces on Russia's western flank (a Pentagon favourite) and to declare Iran a renewed enemy (a Trump/Pence favourite). Britain will sing from its anti-Russia playbook, especially if the current Defence Secretary (known among Tories as Private Pike) is still in the job. On foreign policy, the EU is so weak and deferential - Germany aside - it's impossible to say which American insanity will be adopted. 

NATO likes to present itself as a force for peace and stability in the world. What is your assessment of the strategic role of NATO during the Cold War? 

NATO was, is, an American invention designed to impose American power on Europe. The Alliance achieved this during the Cold War and successfully spread the illusion - long debunked in declassified files - that Russia was a threat to all we hold dear. Today, Nato exists as a provocateur to post-Soviet Russia, with its undeclared American goal of breaking up the Russian Federation. Some of the Europeans running NATO's war bureaucracy are as zealous as the Americans, such as the secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, a rabid propagandist. 

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Pierre Omidyar's Funding of Pro-Regime-Change Networks And Partnerships With CIA Cutouts

Alexander Rubinstein & Max Blumenthal
MintPress News

"To [Omidyar] it's about... integrating things together to give technocrats, business executives and government officials a God's-eye view of the world - to manage and control society more efficiently."

  -- Yasha Levine, author of Surveillance Valley: The Military History of the Internet

 As we have seen in part one of this investigation, billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar has partnered closely with many of the U.S.-funded outfits that fulfill the role the CIA used to play during the Cold War in backing opposition media and civil society in countries targeted for regime change. However, Omidyar has also sought state-of-the-art design solutions from a shady U.S. government national security consulting firm with a myriad of ties to the hawkish D.C. foreign policy establishment.

In February of last year, USAID's Global Development Lab published a series of reports furnished for it by a small, Arlington, Virginia-based company focused on design solutions for national security problems, with a mere 10 employees listed on its website and eight on its LinkedIn page. Those reports caught the attention of journalist Michael Igoe at Devex on Tuesday.

The company, Frontier Design Group, analyzed the feasibility of essentially militarizing USAID. The report proposals like "Rapid Expeditionary Development" (RED) teams. Those teams would be embedded with U.S. Special Forces, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration outside of typical USAID areas of operation.

They would be "trained and authorized to conduct themselves as a force-multiplier able to contribute a full suite of security skills as needed," the documents suggested. RED team officers would also be trained for "survival, evasion, resistance, and escape," negotiations, civil reconnaissance, "and weapons qualification courses."

The report also analyzed the possibility of creating a "Civilian Response Groups" - an organization that sounds like the White Helmets if they were directly controlled by Washington.

Frontier interviewed 36 experts for its report, including a 15-year USAID veteran who told them, "we have to be involved in national security or USAID will not be relevant." The issue identified by many in the report was that USAID was losing its cutting edge and was hamstrung because it was not allowed to operate in conflict zones.

USAID told Devex that it is "still working on the details in formulating the Rapid Expeditionary Development Teams initiative."

Another Frontier Design Group client is the Omidyar Group, further demonstrating the eBay founder's proximity to shady government contractors.
 
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The Planning of a Coup against Venezuela: Chile, September 11, 1973: The Ingredients of a Military Coup. The Imposition of a Neoliberal Agenda

Michel Chossoudovsky
Global Research

The main objective of the US-supported military coup in Chile was to impose the neoliberal economic agenda. “Regime change” was enforced through a covert military intelligence operation. Sweeping macro-economic reforms (including privatization, price liberalization and the freeze of wages) were implemented in early October 1973.

Author’s Introduction

***

More than forty-five years ago on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military led by General Augusto Pinochet, crushed the democratically elected Unidad Popular government of Salvador Allende.

The objective was to replace a progressive, democratically elected government by a brutal military dictatorship.

The military coup was supported by the CIA. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger played a direct role in the military plot.   

Is Washington’s ongoing initiative directed against Venezuela modelled on Chile?

In early 1970s, in a note to the CIA in relation to Chile, Henry Kissinger recommended “Make the economy scream.” Visibly the same concept has been applied to Venezuela, with advanced techniques of financial warfare, which were not available in the 1970s.

Today it’s Mike Pompeo and John Bolton who are calling the shots, in tandem with the CIA.

Bolton has gone far beyond the Nixon-Kissinger agenda formulated at the height of the Cold War. Bolton refers to “The Troika of Tyranny”. The US sponsored coup against Venezuela is also directed against Cuba. And from Washington’s standpoint “after Venezuela, Cuba is next”.

“The troika of tyranny in this hemisphere—Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua—has finally met its match. In Venezuela, the United States is acting against the dictator Maduro, who uses the same oppressive tactics that have been employed in Cuba for decades.”  (John Bolton)

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“Israel’s” “Secret War” on Syria Is a Lot Like the US’ “Secret War” on Laos

Andrew Korybko
Global Research 

Observers have been struggling to find an historical comparison for the War on Syria since it first broke out over 8 years ago, and while the conflict is veritably a unique one in its own right, the best comparison that can be made to its current phase over the past couple of years is Laos because of how “Israel’s” ongoing secret war on the Mideast country in the New Cold War somewhat mirrors the former campaign that the US waged on the Southeast Asian state in the Old Cold War. 

The “Worst-Kept Secret” In The Mideast 

Netanyahu just acknowledged that “Israel” was responsible for the latest bombing attack on Syria earlier this week when his armed forces shelled a hill, observation post, and hospital near the occupied Golan Heights in response to what he said was “Iran and its attempts to entrench itself in the region”, specifically reminding the world that “Israel’s” forces literally “operate every day” on this front.

His remarkable chutzpah confirms what the former “IDF” chief revealed last month about how “Israel” “struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit” on a “near-daily” basis, which was already more or less known to the world as the Mideast’s “worst-kept secret” after the Russian Ministry of Defense practically said as much after the tragic mid-September downing of its spy plane in Syria.

RT reported at the time that the Ministry’s spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that “[Israel’s] jets carried out more than 200 strikes against targets located in Syria over the past 18 months alone”, which would conservatively average out to at least one attack every two and a half days or so. 

Interestingly enough, Iranian Foreign Minster Zarif told the world about this well over half a year before Russia did when he accused“Israel” in February 2018 of “mass reprisals against its neighbours and daily incursions into Syria, Lebanon”, which the author admittedly thought was a gross exaggeration for perception management purposes but now humbly accepts that it was the closest public representation of the truth at the time. The question therefore arises of why neither Russia nor Syria touched upon this before then, but the answers might be “politically inconvenient” for most of the Alt-Media Community.

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Escobar: Are The Neocons Ready For Their Tropical Vietnam?

Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture Foundation

Cold War 2.0 has hit South America with a bang – pitting the US and expected minions against the four key pillars of in-progress Eurasia integration: Russia, China, Iran and Turkey.

It’s the oil, stupid. But there’s way more than meets the (oily) eye. 

Caracas has committed the ultimate cardinal sin in the eyes of Exceptionalistan; oil trading bypassing the US dollar or US-controlled exchanges.

Remember Iraq. Remember Libya. Yet Iran is also doing it. Turkey is doing it. Russia is – partially – on the way. And China will eventually trade all its energy in petroyuan.

With Venezuela adopting the petro crypto-currency and the sovereign bolivar, already last year the Trump administration had sanctioned Caracas off the international financial system.

No wonder Caracas is supported by China, Russia and Iran. They are the real hardcore troika – not psycho-killer John Bolton’s cartoonish “troika of tyranny” – fighting against the Trump administration’s energy dominance strategy, which consists essentially in aiming at the total lock down of oil trading in petrodollars, forever.

Venezuela is a key cog in the machine. Psycho killer Bolton admitted it on the record; “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” It’s not a matter of just letting ExxonMobil take over Venezuela’s massive oil reserves – the largest on the planet. The key is to monopolize their exploitation in US dollars, benefitting a few Big Oil billionaires.

Once again, the curse of natural resources is in play. Venezuela must not be allowed to profit from its wealth on its own terms; thus, Exceptionalistan has ruled that the Venezuelan state must be shattered.

In the end, this is all about economic war. Cue to the US Treasury Department imposing new sanctions on PDVSA that amount to a de facto oil embargo against Venezuela. 

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A New Narrative Control Firm Works To Destroy Alternative Media

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium

The frenzied, hysterical Russia narrative being promoted day in and day out by western mass media has had two of its major stories ripped to shreds in the last three days.

A report seeded throughout the mainstream media by anonymous intelligence officials back in September claimed that US government workers in Cuba had suffered concussion-like brain damage after hearing strange noises in homes and hotels with the most likely culprit being "sophisticated microwaves or another type of electromagnetic weapon" from Russia. A recording of one such highly sophisticated attack was analyzed by scientists and turned out to be the mating call of the male indies short-tailed cricket. Neurologists and other brain specialists have challenged the claim that any US government workers suffered any neurological damage of any kind, saying test results on the alleged victims were misinterpreted. The actual story, when stripped of hyperventilating Russia panic, is that some government workers heard some crickets in Cuba.

Another report which dominated news headlines all of yesterday claimed that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort (the same Paul Manafort who the Guardian falsely claimed met with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy) had shared polling data with a Russian associate and asked him to pass it along to Oleg Deripaska, who is often labeled a "Russian oligarch" by western media. The polling data was mostly public already, and the rest was just more polling information shared in the spring of 2016, but Deripaska's involvement had Russiagaters burning the midnight oil with breathless excitement. Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall went so far as to publish an article titled "The 'Collusion' Debate Ended Last Night", substantiating his click-generating headline with the claim that "What's crystal clear is that the transfer to Kilimnik came with explicit instructions to give the information to Deripaska. And that's enough."

Except Manafort didn't give any explicit instructions to share the polling data with Deripaska, but with two Ukrainian oligarchs (who are denying it). The New York Times was forced to print this embarrassing correction to the story it broke, adding in the process that Manafort's motivation was likely not collusion, but money. 

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1968: The Birth of New Conformism

"... the movement that emerged in response to postwar conformism was to realise a new form of conformism. In the period between 1970 and 1990, most of the ideas associated with the countercultural movement became absorbed by mainstream society. The 1960s obsession with individual self-fulfilment and emotional and personal issues was thoroughly written into society’s cultural script.

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Frank Furedi
Spiked

From the standpoint of history, 1968 represents a brief interregnum. It did mark the end of the apathetic era of the 1950s. But it also foreshadowed the era of depoliticised conformism that kicked in in the early 1970s.

To understand the meaning of 1968, one has to understand that, during the late 1940s and 1950s, Western societies were haunted by the legacy of the interwar era – an era in which the social structure, and the largely liberal values on which it was purportedly based, were called into question. Such was the postwar fear of drawing attention to what amounted to a crisis of legitimacy that critical thought was banished to the margins of intellectual life. The marginalisation of critique and dissent was aided by the postwar boom, which served to distract society from the political impasse prevailing over public life. The Cold War was useful in this respect. It reinforced the mood of political passivity, channeling the public’s attention towards uniting against an external enemy.

But suddenly, out of nowhere, the 1960s countercultural movement appeared on the scene. To many at the time, it seemed as if the world had been turned upside down. As the head of the conservative Adenauer Foundation in West Germany put it, ‘The revolt of 1968 destroyed more values than did the Third Reich’. The 1960s countercultural movement succeeded in forcing significant sections of society to question the values that underpinned their daily existence.

The highpoint of the countercultural moment was the revolt of French students in May 1968. Their revolt, which helped mobilise French workers and precipitated a general strike, appeared to many as the precursor of an era of radicalism. With good reason: in the months after May, student protests proliferated, the civil-rights movement grew further, and mass demonstrations against the war in South-East Asia continued to dominate the headlines. Yet, in spite of what appeared to be a building momentum, the radical moment soon passed away. By the early 1970s, the counterculture had become de-radicalised, and it gradually entered the mainstream in the form of youth culture.

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Mass Hysteria Grips the United Nations Security Council: Russophobia Is a Dangerous Psychosis

Carla Stea
Global Research

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “The Cold War is back —with a vengeance but with a difference. The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present.” (April 13, 2018)

The deadly recurrence of Russophobia bears comparison to the psychosis of the Salem witch trials, several centuries ago, and with the pathology of McCarthyism in the USA in the 1950’s.

“In 1692 the Massachusetts Bay Colony executed fourteen women, five men, and two dogs for witchcraft. The sorcery materialized in January. The first hanging took place in June, the last in September; a stark, stunned silence followed. Although we will never know the exact number of those formally charged with having ‘wickedly, maliciously, and feloniously’ engaged in sorcery, somewhere between a hundred and forty-four and a hundred and eighty-five witches and wizards were named in twenty-five villages and towns. The youngest was five, the eldest nearly eighty. Husbands implicated wives; nephews their aunts; daughters their mothers; siblings each other. …Few probed the subject of witchcraft as intently as did Cotton Mather, who had entered Harvard at eleven and preached his first sermon at sixteen. He knew that the hidden world was there somewhere. He would relinquish no tool to exhibit it.” (The New Yorker, September 7, 2015)

Today the atmosphere at the UN Security Council resembles the insanity of the witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts only several hundred years ago. There is a witch hunt, and according to eleven members of the Security Council, the birthplace hatching these witches is Russia (and North Korea). The atmosphere of hysteria, irrationality and demonization overtaking the majority of the members of the Security Council is accurately described by Russian Ambassador Nebenzia as a “collective psychosis.” This primitive behaviour is totally inaccessible to reason, and is perilous.

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MI5 Poisons Another Russian Asset to Smear Putin in Ongoing Propaganda War

Joe Quinn
Sott.net

As you may have noticed from the title, I'm cutting to the chase on this one. Context is everything these days when attempting to understand major geopolitical events.

Sergei Skripal is a former Russian army colonel who worked for Soviet military intelligence during the Cold War. In the late 1990s he was recruited by MI6 as a double agent. In December 2004, Skripal was arrested and charged with "high treason in the form of espionage", convicted and sentenced to 13 years in prison. In July 2010, he was released as part of a spy exchange for ten Russian agents who had been arrested in the United States as part of the 'Illegals Program'. Skripal was then settled in the UK by MI6 in the town of Salisbury. Yesterday he was found on a public bench with his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia. Both were incoherent and/or incapacitated. When medical personnel arrived, some of them also allegedly became ill.

Within a few hours of the discovery of the pair, the British media and politicians had decided that they had been poisoned at the behest of Vladimir Putin himself, with some as yet "unknown substance". British newspapers said it, so it must be true. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson threatened fresh sanctions against Russia if it is proven to have poisoned a Russian double agent and branded the country "a malign and disruptive force". No evidence was cited to back up any of these allegations, because everyone 'knows' that Putin is a ruthless dictator who just loves to bump off people that he doesn't like. British newspapers and politicians said it, so it must be true.

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But I Thought the Cold War Was Supposed to Have Been About Ideology

Eric Zuesse
Strategic-Culture.org

Was the Cold War against communism, or against Russia? Russia was our ally in World War II, and we’d have a Nazi world today if 26 million Russians hadn’t died from Hitler’s bombs and attacks while Russia fought on with courage amidst desperation, finally to crush his regime.

But Russia was communist, so the Cold War developed after that alliance (the Allies in WW II) ended. Then, Russia abandoned communism in 1990, and ended its own Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, while America’s military alliance NATO expanded right up to Russia’s borders — and yet the West claims that Russia and not NATO are the ‘aggressor’ here? Sorry: I don’t get it. I really do not. Not at all.

The Cold War should have ended in 1991 when communism and the Warsaw Pact did, but instead it continued on in the form of NATO (very profitable for what Dwight Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex” — and its U.S. military is also the employer, direct or indirect, of much of our workforce, especially when arms-manufacturers are counted in). And now Donald Trump is being called by haters-of-Trump (who are almost exclusively lovers-of-Hillary) a U.S. national-security risk because he wants to end the Cold War on the U.S. side — 25 years after it had ended in 1991 on the communist side. Oh, it’s still too soon to do that? Really?

On December 12^th, appeared a call for a re-do of the election (technically it was a letter to the CIA urging an immediate report to members of the Electoral College on whether Trump is a secret Russian agent or won by means of Russian manipulation of the election), and it was signed by 9 Electoral College electors for Hillary Clinton, and by 1 Electoral College elector for Donald Trump (the latter of whom, Chris Suprun of Texas, had written in the New York Times on December 5th pouring hatred against Trump and lauding George W. Bush, who “led us through the tragic days following the [9/11] attacks. His leadership showed that America was a great nation” — so we won’t need to wonder what type of President he admires).

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Clinton Plans to Destroy Russia

strategic-culture.org

 

Leaked emails are filling in the picture of a Bill-and-Hillary-Clinton plan to destroy Russia — a plan which had originated with U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1990, and which has been followed through both by his son George W. Bush, and by both of the Clintons, but which has only recently started to become documented by leaked publications of personal communications amongst the key operatives who were the insiders running this operation behind the scenes, and who include Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Victoria Nuland, Jeffrey Feltman, Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman al-Saud, and the Emir of Qatar.

This operation came out into public view only briefly when the news site Zero Hedge headlined on 6 October 2015 “Saudi Clerics Call For Jihad Against Russia, Iran” and linked to a number of sources, including to a Wall Street Journal report the day before, which simply ignored the Saudi involvement and headlined “U.S. Sees Russian Drive Against CIA-Backed Rebels in Syria”, as if this matter were merely a U.S.-v.-Russia issue, not an issue involving the Saud family at all. By contrast, the zerohedge article closed with “‘This is a real war on Sunnis, their countries and their identities,’ said the statement [by the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which is based in Qatar, whose ruling family, the Thanis, work closely with the Saud family]. It urged the rebels to join a ‘jihad against the enemy of God and your enemy, and Muslims will back you every way they can.’” As a British news-site for jihadists put the matter, “According to experts, by issuing this statement they seek to encourage Saudi, Gulf, and Muslim youths to fight against Russian forces, similar to the recruitment of young fighters during the Afghan-Soviet war.” (That joint U.S.-Saudi operation, which was assisted by the Pakistani military and by Pakistan’s heavily-Saudi-influenced Islamic clergy, was the brainchild of Saudi Prince Bandar and of the born Polish aristocrat Zbigniew Brzezinski, and its success at breaking up the Soviet Union is an enduring topic of pride for today’s jihadists.) On 5 October 2015, the British mainstream ‘news’ site Reuters had called these “Saudi opposition clerics”, and alleged that they “are not affiliated with the government,” but Reuters’s statement (especially that these were “Saudi opposition clerics”) was simply false, and even ridiculously false, likely an outright lie, because Saudi laws don’t allow any “opposition clerics,” especially not Islamic ones, since those would be executed for publicly questioning the legitimacy of the country’s rule by the royal Saud family, which is what an “opposition cleric” in Saudi Arabia would, by definition, be doing, if any of them existed there and hadn’t been executed yet. 

The pretense, by Reuters, that Saudi Arabia is a religious-freedom country, is an insult to their readership, but this falsehood helps to keep their readership thinking that somehow the West can be allied with the Sauds and yet still call itself ‘democratic’ and allied only with ‘democratic’ governments, not with some of the world’s worst tyrannies. Realism in foreign affairs (such as to acknowledge that some of the world’s worst regimes are our government’s allies) is fine, but it can’t include lying to one’s own public, because that necessarily entails misinforming the voters on the basis of which any actual democracy receives its very legitimacy as being a democracy, which seems less and less what countries such as the U.S. and UK are, at least after 9/11. A “democracy” and a “deceived public” cannot coexist in the same country — and, at least in the United States, a deceived public is what predominantly exists (as a consequence of the many deceiving ‘news’ media).

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U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Great for Business

The Intercept

 

The escalating anti-Russian rhetoric in the U.S. presidential campaign comes in the midst of a major push by military contractors to position Moscow as a potent enemy that must be countered with a drastic increase in military spending by NATO countries.

Weapon makers have told investors that they are relying on tensions with Russia to fuel new business in the wake of Russian’s annexation of Crimea and modest increases in its military budget.

In particular, the arms industry — both directly and through its arsenal of hired-gun, think-tank experts and lobbyists – is actively pressuring NATO member nations to hike defense spending in line with the NATO goal for member states to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

Retired Army Gen. Richard Cody, a vice president at L-3 Communications, the seventh largest U.S. defense contractor, explained to shareholders in December that the industry was faced with a historic opportunity. Following the end of the Cold War, Cody said, peace had “pretty much broken out all over the world,” with Russia in decline and NATO nations celebrating. “The Wall came down,” he said, and “all defense budgets went south.”

Now, Cody argued, Russia “is resurgent” around the world, putting pressure on U.S. allies. “Nations that belong to NATO are supposed to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks. “We know that uptick is coming and so we postured ourselves for it.”

Speaking to investors at a conference hosted by Credit Suisse in June, Stuart Bradie, the chief executive of KBR, a military contractor, discussed “opportunities in Europe,” highlighting the increase in defense spending by NATO countries in response to “what’s happening with Russia and the Ukraine.”

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