The real enemy of the people
Kevin Smith
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We are all familiar with the terms ‘conspiracy theorist’ and ‘apologist’ used by the establishment and media to smear independent journalists, experts and other commentators. For some time this has been particularly evident in the debates we see over the Middle East wars and Russia. It’s common knowledge that people who use these terms can’t argue rationally so resort to smears.
Western government support for terrorism, staged events and spreading disinformation via groups such as Integrity Initiative has come under closer scrutiny recently. As more revelations of wrongdoing by our governments and misreporting by our media have been exposed, the censorship and smears against independent media has intensified.
A disturbing new rhetoric
I’m sure some of us have noticed that the language used has been ramped up yet again. I came across one example recently of someone promoting the anti-Russia narrative on Twitter making an analogy between one researcher’s legitimate investigation and criticism of Integrity Initiative and the actions of the World War II traitor, ‘Lord Haw-Haw’. And I think many readers will be familiar with this post from John Sweeney of the BBC and clip from his programme on Sputnik News.
Here's our @bbcnewsnight film on Sputnik News in UK. With tensions between Russian and UK growing I was on my diplomatic best behaviour. 1st Q: "what's it like being a traitor?" https://t.co/nml6KTxc9S
https://t.co/MVeaopZP0f— John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) January 17, 2019
To call someone a traitor is probably the most serious accusation you can make so let’s look at its meaning:
traitor – a person who is guilty of treason or treachery, in betraying friends, country, a cause or trust.
And lets consider these ‘betrayals’ and who by extension these accusations of disloyalty might be intended to apply to:
- UK citizens who work for Russian media are traitors to their country. But I guess if you apply this warped viewpoint, foreign nationals working for the BBC are traitors too.
- Independent journalists operating in Syria and reporting the truth that the West and not Russia and the Syrian Government, holds the main responsibility for the war and for supporting Al Qaeda terrorists.
- Researchers, academics and an increasing number of Individuals on social media, who simply question and raise doubts about the anti-Russian and Syrian narrative by the UK press and others such as Bellingcat and Integrity Initiative.
- By extension this betrayal could apply to many western citizens troubled by the wars in the Middle East who care about all humanity and the truth and have grave concerns that the proxy-war in Syria could lead to a global conflict.
Obviously it is ridiculous to label the vast majority of the above groups as ‘conspiracy theorists’, Assad or Putin ‘apologists’ let alone traitors to their country. But this newer language suggests those making these allegations are losing the plot. Watch some of the old McCarthy hearings from the 1950s and compare the language to what we’re hearing and seeing in the media today.
McCarthy claimed he was trying to establish the truth that there were traitors within the US State Department (and everywhere else) and this paranoid and delusional language seems to be playing out more and more these days.
To find the real truth about events in the world, the last people you’d want on the case are the likes of McCarthy and Sweeney. As any detective will tell you, an open mind and studying motive is key.
Establishing the truthful narrative – follow the money.
It’s probably fair to say that there’s little to suggest the majority of the people challenging official narratives are motivated by money, power or ideology. Some sections of the mainstream press have come out with ridiculous notions that there is some huge pro-Russia network operating in the West which is trying to spread disinformation on social media.
This sounds very much like WMD in Iraq and Cameron’s discredited assertion that there were 70,000 moderate rebels in Syria. It sounds McCarthyite. It’s interesting to note that very little of the research carried out and findings (for example on the White Helmets) by independent media and researchers has been shown to be inaccurate. And as history shows, yesterday’s ‘conspiracy theorists’ challenging narratives such as Iraq and Libya have been shown to be spot on.
In contrast those pushing the official narrative over Russia and Syria (and Iraq and Libya before) are motivated by power, money and defending the wars. Murdoch and other newspaper barons have vested interests in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the outcome of Middle East wars. Arm sales and perpetual war sustains the establishment. Highly paid career journalists at the BBC and The Guardian are unlikely to deviate from a government narrative which pursues regime change and war. As recent events show some journalists are even prepared to blatantly lie to enhance or protect their careers.
The US and UK are declining in world power and influence. Illegal regime change is central to defending this empire against this decline and to distract from problems at home. Their track record of war and regime change speaks for itself. In summary, power, money and defending an increasingly under question narrative, to distract from their criminal behaviour in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen are the motives. The establishment is pulling out all the stops. As well as deploying a compliant media, it supports and funds the likes of Bellingcat and shadowy groups such as Integrity Initiative to muddy the waters further.
So the establishment has all the motives to orchestrate wars on false pretexts and mislead their public to maintain the deceit and their huge salaries. I think it’s clear which narrative on world events is the closest to reality.
Psychological projection
As I say, the narrative and language being used by the establishment is becoming more unhinged and desperate. When this happens the offenders become openly irrational, more brazen and project their wrongs on to their opponents. Projection is about shifting blame. Broadly, psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which an individual attributes characteristics they find unacceptable in themselves to others.
Examples of projection are evident in several world leaders involved in the Syria war. Encouraged by the lack of any statesmanship and moral leadership in the West, Erdogan and the Saudi leadership accuse their opponents of supporting terrorism while being the biggest supporters of terrorism in Syria and elsewhere. Likewise Netanjahu of Israel projects his criminal aggressive behaviour on to others such as the Palestinians and Iran.
Bolton and Pompeo in the US regime accuse other states of the same type of crimes they routinely commit and as recent statements from these two have shown, their delusions are off the scale. Like their predecessors these people are power freaks and dangerous psychotics who hide behind patriotism, projecting their lack of credentials in this respect on to their opponents.
Establishment ‘liberals’ justify their support for continuous war by hiding behind ‘humanitarian intervention’. They project their lack of humanitarian values and empathy on to their critics in a similar way.
This mind-set has become the norm to the media acclimatised to 25 years of war under Clinton, Blair, Bush and Obama. The media legitimises regime change, support for terrorism and mass murder, by projecting western crimes on to those states under attack like Syria and particularly Russia which is trying to prevent the chaos.
The media are the propaganda wing and an extension of a psychotic establishment, which explains why we are seeing more and more journalists reacting aggressively when challenged over their lies. And calling others traitors is shifting their share of the betrayal of the public on to their opponents and critics.
The enemy within – the real traitors
But for those of us living in the real world, what does all this mean? Well, we know the truthful narrative and we’re not the ones betraying our country. In fact, we are the patriots trying to stop our countries being obliterated by the selfish, ignorant fools who would cause a global war.
It seems from the lastest language being used that the establishment including the media are becoming increasingly delusional and dangerous. The media have a professional and moral duty to report the facts – not least because they have such a huge influence on world events. So they share the responsibility for all the wars which could have been prevented, had they done their jobs.
But calling someone a traitor is a serious business as I said before but perhaps by reflecting on the list of events below, this word can be assigned to where it really belongs. A reminder of the definition again:
traitor – a person who is guilty of treason or treachery, in betraying friends,country, a cause or trust.
And a list of some of the betrayals.
- The West invades Iraq under a false pretext – ISIS are created and terrorist attacks are later carried out in the West, allegedly by Al Qaeda and ISIS. Many refugees flood Europe from this conflict.
- The West attacks Libya and supports islamist groups against the government. Again, the same terrorists who the UK and the West support go on to attack the UK and Europe. Refugees arrive in Europe and to this day Libya is in chaos.
- Syria is attacked, the West using Al Qaeda as a tool for regime change. More refugees in Europe and after seven years the UK and other governments are still supporting Al Qaeda through taxpayers funds. Bombing has been carried out on Syria on no evidence of chemical attacks by the Syrian Government and parts of Syria are occupied illegally. On more than one occasion the continued interference and attacks have nearly caused a direct confrontation with Russia. The media misreporting of all these events have made these wars possible and encouraged escalation.
- The Salisbury incident, Ukraine and other events. Over the last few years, Russia has been blamed for various events. These accusations have been hasty and with little evidence. An anti-Russia propaganda media campaign has ensued, dramatically increasing tensions and the risk a spark which could start World War III. The rhetoric of some journalists has been reckless to the extreme and in some cases have been proved to be bare-faced lies. This climate of hysteria has been generated by the government with the assistance of the media. Anyone outside of this bubble with any common sense can see continuing on this path represents a grave risk to humanity.
- Further disinformation campaigns. Various organisations, like Integrity Initiative have been created specifically to shore up the establishment narrative on regime change wars and Russia. In the background of highly unstable leaderships in the West, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, these organisations through their lies and distortions only increase further the risk of a major conflict.
So I would suggest that if we are going to use a word such as ‘traitor’ in these debates the above would be a more accurate list of behaviours to attribute it to. Creating floods of refugees and terrorists to our shores and funding terror through our taxes goes against all our interests and is a betrayal. Recklessly creating the conditions in Syria and elsewhere for a full scale nuclear war is the ultimate betrayal.
If the likes of John Sweeney, Integrity Initiative, Bellingcat, Oliver Kamm, Luke Harding, Carole Cadwalladr and others can’t or won’t accept they share a responsibility for the escalating conflicts in the world, it may only be a matter of time before their dereliction of duty and betrayal comes back to bite them hard. That day could come quite soon considering the speed their credibility has been crumbling lately.
Kevin Smith is a British citizen living and working in London. He researches and writes down his thoughts on the foreign wars promoted by Western governments and media. In the highly controlled and dumbed down UK media environment, he’s keen on exploring ways of discouraging ideology and tribalism in favour of free thinking.
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This is a very good examination of the subject. But please replace the word psychotic with psychopathic. It’s a very important distinction.
Yes BC, I agree. I was going to say the same thing and found your comment was first cab off the rank. Kevin, ‘psychopath’ or my preferred ‘sociopath’, is clearly a better descriptor for these men. Also, clearly they are not ‘fools’, they are highly intelligent and highly networked based on there shared self interest. This is what makes them very dangerous people. Describing there propaganda techniques as projection also, I believe, also misses the mark. This is less about projection and more about social control strategies. Keep in mind the following quote from Herman Goerring: “Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war neither in Russia, nor… Read more »
Can anyone find an article in the Fraudian which is a surprise to those who know its unprincipled ethos? Any investigative journalism which runs contrary to their obsessive anti-democratic agenda? Any unexpected investigative discoveries?Any articles which critique the greedy and immoral?? The US? Israel? Or are there people who really believe that the sun shines and sets out of Jonathan Freeland’s backside?
Excellent article Kevin, Cheers. These creatures are not journalists. They are criminals – wilfully pushing the World to the brink of catastrophe. As you said “recklessly creating the conditions in Syria and elsewhere for a full scale nuclear war is the ultimate betrayal”. Luke Harding and John Pilger. Both journalists. What’s the difference? One is a disgusting cretin who licks the feet of his masters (and elsewhere – use your imagination) who grovels and bows to power and can safely be termed an establishment stenographer. The other speaks truth to power, who challenges the establishment narrative and speaks with integrity and honesty. As I’ve mentioned before, I avoid the sewerage in the mainstream ‘media’ except to check what bizarre fairytales they’ve cooked up that day. When people like Julian Assange are labelled ‘traitors’ I think – traitors to what? A blood drenched Empire responsible for millions of deaths, and the… Read more »
Notice also on the domestic front how a media that is supposed to hold authority to account actually does the opposite – making excuses for those in charge while smearing or mocking the opposition parties. Look at how journalists from as far afield as the Guardian and the BBC to the Mail and the Sun, never criticise or challenge Theresa May or her government, while at the same time disparaging or telling outright lies about Jeremy Corbyn and other opposition politicians, or trying to pin the blame for May’s abject incompetence on to David Cameron, Corbyn, the Welsh government, Sadiq Khan and numerous others.
It has become very clear our mainstream media is rotten to the core. Not only are they pushing a foreign policy agenda that is not in the national interest, they are trying to stop democracy functioning properly in this country too.
The BBC is sympathetic to May and doesn’t blame her or her government for anything. In fact it is everyone else who is to blame because they can’t/won’t agree to her crappy deal. The focus in the run up to a potential No Deal is to pre-blame Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. This is the function of the alleged journalists in case May’s bluff doesn’t come off. The Centre Right ( Cameronists – for want of a better description ) staff the BBC and various newspapers these days and they rail against the right ( Farage) and the left (Corbyn) and ideally they would vote for May’s deal. The illusion that the BBC is a Remain supporting organ is just that. We have to bear in mind that the main reason for the Referendum was to avoid the Conservative Party from splitting into three. It has all gone wrong… Read more »
”The net at the moment is democratic and that’s the danger to the PTB. the solution would be to close the net down but that can’t be done”. No? But they can do you for ‘THOUGHT CRIME’. Harry Miller from Lincoln, Humberside, has been investigated by a ”Community Cohesion Officer” over a Limerick he re- posted on Twitter after an officer claimed it constituted a ‘hate incident’ against transgender people. Following a complaint that had been made about his social media posts. Citing 30 potentially offensive tweets, the PC GUL singled out a limerick Mr Miller had retweeted which questioned whether transgender women are biological women. Saying “I’ve been on a course and what you need to understand is that you can have a foetus with a female brain that grows male body parts and that’s what a transgender person is and even though NO CRIME was committed, sharing the… Read more »
Hi Tom. Thanks for your comment but I would like to offer this thought; We are brought up to believe that the media “is supposed to hold authority to account” but clearly, when it comes to privately owned media, this is a myth that serves the interests of the elites who own them. Media is ostensibly about making profit (ie the interests of the owners, not the public) but if we are to live in a better more democratic world we all need to grow up and see that the media is really a propaganda arm of the elites, nothing more and mothing less. As for publicly owned media corporations such as the BBC or in Australia the ABC, they are subject to almost as much control by elites as privately owned ones. The sooner we realise the implications of this, the sooner we can really start voting out the… Read more »
There are undoubtedly some among our “representatives” who would like a nuclear conflagration, just to see what it would be like.
People like Bolton, Blair and the rest of the psychopaths who seek high political office because it is well paid and, well, really sort of nice watching us ants scurrying about trying to avoid their cloddish feet.
“Why No One Trusts the Mainstream Media” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pzZvMzotMc&feature=youtu.be is always worth watching for a summary of what I have dubbed MMSMT (Modern MainStream Media Theory).
It is as well to remember that the media has ALWAYS been biased, one of my teachers in the 60s ably demonstrated this in a single lesson by the simple exercise of asking us to read reports of the same incident/event in both the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express and then think about what they were really saying. Truly eye-opening.
I remember the 60s too. When teachers were actually allowed to teach, and the curriculum was decided by other teachers with great experience in actual teaching, instead of by office workers whose idea of a top promotion is to become PowerPoint/Microsoft Executive Managing Director in the Ministry of Education…
Not to put too fine a point on it: Teaching today sucks.
And right on cue we have this monstrous turd-buger.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/27/no-pity-for-corrupt-maduro-who-has-broken-his-country-democracy-must-have-its-day
It’s so unimaginably bad I imagine Kit must be feverishly deconstructing it as we speak.
In short the article consists of the usual lies and disinformation imploring a western audience to support ranother brutal egime change (in Venezuela).
Apparently the body count in Syria, Libya and the Yemen is no deterrent to shiny-eyed disciples of the Empire – somehow, so called liberals have morphed into fascist sympathisers.
Thanks for the link Harry.
I must have blinked and missed the Graun’s reporting of the Gilets Jaunes and there demands for democratic reforms and the failed Macron presidency. Or maybe because of integrity they didn’t report it at all?
@tutisicecream . . .
Alternatively , Deep State inspired ‘D’ – Notices ?
Kat Viner ? Certainly nothing related to any integrity initiative 😉
Tutisicecream, try : https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/02/france-is-deeply-fractured-gilets-jaunes-just-a-symptom , and all the other articles the Guardian published since then. You probably won’t agrre with any of them anyway but don’t just imply they’re not there.
Harry Stotle: Exactly. They couldn’t give a flying rats tinker how many innocent human beings die. Including children (Madeleine Albright) nor the outright lies they peddle. All for Empire, all for us. All your George Clooney types, Bono, Meryl Streep, and all the other idiots who hobnob with, and suck up to power. Who praised the White Helmets as ‘humanitarians’ and who were completely silent and looked the other way when Obama was President. Sickening.
Yes, it is all very reminiscent of 1984, where Winston Smith, who dares to have an independent mind, finds himself under surveillance of the thought police as an ‘agent of Goldstein’ and Eurasia. One of his cardinal sins is his possession of ‘The Book’ ‘The theory of oligarch collectivism’ which guarantees him a visit to Room 101 for ideological rectification. I consider myself to be a British patriot. This insofar as I am opposed to Britain’s national interests being prostituted by the agents of the Anglo-Zionist empire who control the media and political and financial/business establishment in the UK. Britain, like the rest of Europe is under occupation by a foreign power, the US-Isreal axis. The US-Israeli axis is hot for a war against Russia. A war against Russia is decidedly NOT in the interests of the UK. The real traitors are the ones who have sold out the UK… Read more »
Francis: I’m with you! It is time to differentiate the “permanent interests” of the state are not remotely the interests of the people. The state, as a constructed entity, takes on its own ideological identity, wants, needs, and permanent interests. These further the identity and the construct of the state, not the people. The two – the state and people – are divergent and differential trajectories as plotted through time. It is the role of the state ideological apparatuses to con the people that the two trajectories are congruent and co-extensive …they are not. They are divergent. Those – such as Winston – who notice the lies and manipulations of the ideology become enemies of the state. We are all Winston now. Will these strange Winstonian ‘attractor points’ congregate into ‘basins of attraction’ or attractor states that initiate a new dynamical system – a new state and process of change?… Read more »
i think the reason it is so difficult to identify the louse among us, is that we fail to realize the nation state is an armed construct designed by Oligarch consent and constructed by politicians, military persons, banker and corporate class persons.
Invariably the constructed as designed nation state provides information feedback to the designers who use it to instruct the politicians and to tweek the design so that the nation state better regulates the behaviors of the masses it regulates and controls.
Ditto Francis.
Mark – The Government Media Mouthpiece British Brainwashing Corporation….after all it is controlled by MI5 who in turn promote MK Ultra or Brainwahsing Bullsh*t C…. as I have heard it referred to.
The traitors to Humanity and the Earth are circling the wagons.
Their time has come.
Their reign is done.
On Earth , as it is in Heaven … ?
Vatican Bankers ? ! or pedophile w*nkers ?
No worries FD , Confucius has already seen & recorded the Dark Side of the Moon of Alabama 🙂
Three wheels on my wagon and i’m still rolling along …
Over to you , Fair dinkum, Balky trusts that you’ll do an equitable job on the humanitarian People’s
** ‘ Lord’s Prayer ‘ **
Give us this day , our daily thread and lead us not into . . . ???
Incantation ? Incarceration ? Incapacitation ?
just a thought … 🙂
Brilliant, thank you
Very well written piece, Kevin. Thank you for your work and the courage it takes to put it where all can see.
Yes Pecosinrat, takes a lot of work and courage to reduce several years of Middle Eastern conflict into simplistic bullet (excuse the unintentioned pun) points like that. Don’t know how Kevin does it.
It helps to visualise the out-of-control establishment as a cancer.
As it has metastatised in the human world it has created further tumours in all its organs. The media, academia, commerce, defence…
Of course the cells of these organs don’t consider their mutation into the establishment as a deadly cancer that will ultimately kill the whole – including themselves. Their purpose is to keep the cancer to spread even further.
Any cell that resists the cancer is thus a ‘traitor’ to the cancer.
There are some correspondences but our model of cancer is anthropomorphic – the rogue breakaways from the Federation! The theory of cancer spreading is unsubstantiated. Is blood for donation screened for cancer? Does it ‘spread’ to connected or adjacent organs? There is the mechanism of a cancer being ‘self’ – as with an embryo – and so not being attacked by immune response – and thus being set up with blood vessels for food and taking nutrition and energy away from the host/parent. It may also be associated with shocks, in which a trauma can – in a sense be encapsulated in the body – as an expression of a loss of supply and support and COMMUNICATION. Restoring full communication may effect greater healing than cutting, poisoning and burning the rogues. Dissociated from the Field without which all parts of the body would act apart – it operates parasitically –… Read more »
Yes – Binra.
I think the analogy is good as I’ve been posting recently.
If you haven’t come across it before I give you the late great Dennis Potter and ‘Rupert’.
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/1055970/index.html
Media hacks and hackettes tip their hands in many ways, if they even bother to try to conceal the membership cards they are holding. “Claim” is verb which it seems, only those with a different view to said hack(ettes) or their paymasters can do. So conspiracy (cabalistas) theorists (vivid imaginistas) ‘claim’ , while allies who are privy to the Gospel according to St. Murdoch do not ‘claim’, they state, convey , share or impart and they do it “insightfully”, , “perceptively”, and their statements are “telling”, “penetrating”, or “analytic”.Or even more persuasively, what they say is simply stated as unattributed “fact” and it is up to the reader to ascertain this. Reading the news media now requires a course in interpretation. Furthermore it is time for there to be an editorial preamble for every article, given that readers mistrust the content and even more, the intent. What prompted this topic,… Read more »
And there is repeated misuse of the word “undeniable” and its derivatives by MSM commentators and politicians alike, to strengthen the commonly perceived credibility of the lies they spin. It’s “undeniable” that Putin was behind the Skripal ‘poisoning, that Russian separatists brought down MH17, that Assad used chemical weapons against his own people etc etc. To anyone with an ounce of awareness, what they cite as fact is always anything but “undeniable” but they persist in using the term regardless.
Agree, maybe there already is a media weasel word primer. If not, it could be called a Primer on Media for (those they treat as) Dummies.
Framing the false assertions or accusation or smear in such a way as to make any criticism a ‘denialism’.
Learning to read the framing is seeing the phishing bait as phishing bait. Not seeing it is to have ALREADY reacted. Be vigilant for your peace because when you have lost it – you have ALREADY reacted to a false framing – and are struggling within something that is not true – in the full belief you are defending or protecting yourself.
Fossil fuels creating CO2 which next changes the present climate has also been declared “undeniable”. This kind of “science” suffers from the same ailment as present “journalism”: no separation of recorded facts from self interpretations, not leaving a gap to let others draw different conclusions.
Spin / PR / propaganda.
Someone needs to ask Sweeney what it’s like being a third rate bought and paid for presstitute media hack, peddling the lies and poison of the Government Media Mouthpiece BBC.
I don’t understand. Why would anyone need to ask that?
It looks like Sweeney has been to the Donald Trump School of Diplomacy.