Three New Reads – September
Philip Roddis
Some folks – I’m tempted to call them psychological sectarians, more interested in ‘othering’ those outside their cosy club than effecting change in this Vale of Tears – will slam me for this, but all three of my picks this month are in CounterPunch. Worse, one is by the infamous Louis Proyect.
I’ve been slated before for citing, “approvingly”, verboten sources – variously: Caitlin Johnston, Noam Chomsky, Stephen Gowans, Grayzone. In no case was specific argument raised against the content of my citings, nor of their relevance to wider points I was making. Which omissions – trust me on this small point: I did time in that most acrimonious of jailhouses; the trotskyist left of the eighties – are textbook signs of the sectarian outlook.
In some radical circles, CounterPunch is equally off limits. And to be sure, I often find pieces there that would sit comfortably in the Guardian, but what of it? If I see something of merit in the Guardian on a political issue of core significance (rare, I’ll grant you) I’ll acknowledge the fact. Ditto the Economist, Al-Monitor, CIA Factbook or any number of media best approached with circumspection, if not a g-clamp tightly attached to both nostrils.
Not that I place CounterPunch in such company. For all its frequent vapid pieces, it also – even more frequently – houses fine analyses. These three reads, I submit, merit that descriptor.
*
Myths of the White Working Class (2400 words)
In February of this year, below the line of an OffGuardian version of my post, The Syrian Army in Idlib, the author of this my current pick made a comment which sparked heated exchanges. I got my own two penn’oth in:
I get this weird sense of disconnect with Louis Proyect. On the one hand this is the man who sees that vile comment on Vanessa Beeley – and photoshopping the face of an interlocutor he took exception to onto an image of a cockroach – as valid debating method. The man who so often ‘argues’ by means of links to specious sources that don’t – on factual accuracy, logic and/or relevance grounds – withstand a moment’s careful scrutiny. As is the case here.
On the other hand I was only last night reading a really good CounterPunch piece by him on Malcolm X. It’s well reasoned, lucid and with a good balance of personal experience and objectivity. Had I not known that other Louis, I’d have wanted to meet the author and buy him a drink.
Weird.
A few chipped in, Louis included. Follow the discussion here. In a subsequent BTL comment at OffGuardian, below another of my pieces, a commenter using a pseudonym but identified by the Administrator as the one and only Mr Proyect called me a cunt.[1]
All the same, the Mr Hyde aspect to this strange man’s character does not in my view negate the value of his Dr Jekyll offerings. This thoughtful piece (actually a book review) on race, class and ‘bourgeoisified’ blue-collar workers in an imperialist state is a case in point.[2]
The weird sense of disconnect is heightened by the fact that in this piece a man who calls me a cunt and describes Vanessa Beeley – a reporter who defends Damascus and rightly condemns the dirty war on Syria – as “too ugly to fuck” actually uses the female universal pronoun.
I could go on, really I could…
*
The US is Using the Guardian to Justify Jailing Assange for Life. Why is the Paper So Silent? (5061 words)
I’m a long term admirer of Jonathan Cook. This former Guardian journalist is remarkably skilled at dissecting both ruling class devilry – without ever using such terms – and media collusion with said devilry. His language is always calm, simple and on the nail.
Journalism is an activity, and anyone who regularly engages in that activity qualifies as a journalist. It is not the same as being a doctor or a lawyer, where you need a specific professional qualification to practice. You are a journalist if you do journalism – and you are an investigative journalist if, like Assange, you publish information the powerful want concealed…
…Assange was doing exactly what journalists claim to do every day in a democracy: monitor power for the public good. Which is why ultimately the Obama administration abandoned the idea of issuing an indictment against Assange. There was simply no way to charge him without also putting journalists at the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian on trial too. And doing that would have made explicit that the press is not free but works on licence from those in power.
In this Cook is saying what others have; Craig Murray and me for starters. But roughly a third of the way in we get to what makes this piece so worthy of attention:
On the one hand, Assange needed the manpower and expertise provided by big-hitting newspapers like the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel to help Wikileaks sift through vast trove to find important, hidden disclosures. He also needed the mass audiences those papers could secure for the revelations, as well as those outlets’ ability to set the news agenda in other media.
Liberal media, on the other hand, needed to court Assange and Wikileaks to avoid being left behind in the media war for big, Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, for audience share and for revenues. Each worried that, were it not to do a deal with Wikileaks, a rival would publish those world-shattering exclusives instead and erode its market share.
For a brief while, this mutual dependency just about worked. But only for a short time. In truth, the liberal corporate media is far from committed to a model of unmediated, whole-truth journalism. The Wikileaks model undermined the corporate media’s relationship to the power establishment and threatened its access. It introduced a tension and division between the functions of the political elite and the media elite.
Over the remainder of the piece, Cook elaborates on these three paragraphs. That lucid and simple prose he so excels at is seen here alive and kicking. As good journalists do – and good essayists, good poets; indeed, good communicators of whatever stripe, field or genre also do – he moves seamlessly between the universal (the nature of media funded by advertising) and the particular (the nature of such media as it plays out in the case of Julian Assange).
An absorbing if painful read.[3]
*
The Plot Against Libya: an Obama-Biden-Clinton Criminal Conspiracy (3506 words)
The quality of writing here speaks for itself, as does its overall thrust, in these its opening paragraphs:
The scorching desert sun streams through narrow slats in the tiny window. A mouse scurries across the cracked concrete floor, the scuttling of its tiny feet drowned out by the sound of distant voices speaking in Arabic. Their chatter is in a western Libyan dialect distinctive from the eastern dialect favored in Benghazi. Somewhere off in the distance, beyond the shimmering desert horizon, is Tripoli, the jewel of Africa now reduced to perpetual war.
But here, in this cell in a dank old warehouse in Bani Walid, there are no smugglers, no rapists, no thieves or murderers. There are simply Africans captured by traffickers as they made their way from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, or other disparate parts of the continent seeking a life free of war and poverty, the rotten fruit of Anglo-American and European colonialism. The cattle brands on their faces tell a story more tragic than anything produced by Hollywood.
These are slaves: human beings bought and sold for their labor. Some are bound for construction sites while others for the fields. All face the certainty of forced servitude, a waking nightmare that has become their daily reality.
This is Libya, the real Libya. The Libya that has been constructed from the ashes of the US-NATO war that deposed Muammar Gaddafi and the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The Libya now fractured into warring factions, each backed by a variety of international actors whose interest in the country is anything but humanitarian.
But this Libya was built not by Donald Trump and his gang of degenerate fascist ghouls. No, it was the great humanitarian Barack Obama, along with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Susan Rice, Samantha Power and their harmonious peace circle of liberal interventionists who wrought this devastation. With bright-eyed speeches about freedom and self-determination, the First Black President, along with his NATO comrades in France and Britain, unleashed the dogs of war on an African nation seen by much of the world as a paragon of economic and social development.
But this is no mere journalistic exercise to document just one of the innumerable crimes carried out in the name of the American people. No, this is us, the antiwar left in the United States, peering through the cracks in the imperial artifice – crumbling as it is from internal rot and political decay – to shine a light through the gloom named Trump and directly into the heart of darkness.
There are truths that must be made plain lest they be buried like so many bodies in the desert sand.
I rest my case.[4]
* * *
NOTES:-
[1] Ordinarily OffGuardian, for historic reasons averse to censoring comments, would nevertheless have removed such a crude ad hominem. It didn’t in this case, precisely to make a point I endorse.
[2] Not all the marx-leninists I’ve crossed swords with over Syria are as debased in their debate methods as Louis. Take John Smith, a true gent and author of the invaluable Imperialism in the twenty-first century, a book frequently cited in my own posts. Despite having broadly similar perspectives on a good many matters political, we differ strongly on Syria.
Why? Not, I think, because of any fundamental difference over the nature and limitations of ba’athism – aka ‘Arab socialism’, aka ‘state capitalism’.
Rather because John is more sanguine than I am over the prospect of an international workers’ revolution. Where I see only two possible stances over Syria – defend its lawful government from imperialist attack, or side with the imperialists – other marx-leninists cry a plague on both houses and demand an “international solidarity with the Syrian working class” that strikes me as rooted in cloud cuckoo land.
(And for all the real differences between ‘revolutionary’ and ‘democratic’ socialists like universalists Owen Jones and George Monbiot, in respect of Syria those differences, to my mind and for all practical purposes, might as well not exist.)
In Louis Proyect’s piece you’ll find that he too refers to the possibility of workers’ revolution. Whether or not this is scheduled to arrive in time to save millions of mainly dark skinned people, now and for the foreseeable future in imperialism’s firing line, is not entirely clear.
While we’re on the subject of Julian Assange, yesterday WSWS ran this very good piece on the kangaroo hearing at the Old Bailey. WSWS is the platform of the Socialist Equality Party, exception to the rule – see footnote 2 – of marx-leninist groups refusing to defend Damascus.
[4] NB the Libya piece features in CounterPunch+ – normally paywalled. It first appeared on September 8 as publicly available “for a limited period”. At time of writing – 06:15 on September 27 – it is still accessible to non subscribers but the rest of us may with all due speed copy and paste to a Word document on our own devices.
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Oh yes, Obama, Clinton, Biden…why stop there, Trump, Pelosi, and so many many more, it is not like these creatures are planning or running these operations, that is utter nonsense. This is global Zionist Communism. The Bolsheviks created Communist Russia, then set about destroying the west through subversion and Israel as their back door into the west. These immoral freaks who work in Washington are not the masters of themselves let alone our destiny, they are mean puppets carrying out orders for their masters. Trump reads form a script, every tweet, every idiotic snippet that flows from his mouth is scripted to support a narrative. We are heading towards a NWO, run out of Israel. 9/11 was the wake up call we should have listened to, we didn’t, now we are paying the price. In the midst of the rush to pass the “Cares Act”, the Congress could not move… Read more »
You”re being too hard on them, T,
Those good little Shabbos have to earn their shekels.
When Adelson has given Trump $20 million, he has to kiss his ring and shine his shoes and jump to attention whenever Adelson picks up the phone. A good Shabbos whore has to stay bought once theyve been bought. When the Nuttyyahoos visit the White House, they bring their dirty laundry with them and hand it over to Trump to launder for them. Literally. Not all his corrupt and criminal deals, but suitcases full of dirty knickers and socks and sheets. And the Orange Faggot jumps up and washes their laundry for them like a good little Shabbos.
I wish this site did not have the stupid “up or down” votes, make these hasbara trolls argue their point instead of voting down the truth. You know it is one of their Zionist lies when you are not allowed to debate it in public. So true what Voltaire said, “to know who rules you, look to see who you are not allowed to critisize”, I’m sure the same criminals were limiting discussion in his time. It is said that the first law the Bolsheviks passed after they destroyed Russia was to outlaw so called “antisemitism”. You can go down the list of their lies: Global warming, 9/11, vaccines, and now covid.
Say what you like but the only organized left tendency operating, with a long history and coherent programme are the Trotskyists. Always fractious and often obnoxious they still have discipline and can fight. As opposed to the layers of careerist wankers who don’t amount to a hill of beans and achieve nothing at all.
Unfortunately the (main?) Trotskite group, the WSWS, unhesitatingly threw themselves under the COVID bus the moment this pathetically feeble vehicle puffed into sight. Not much point in being disciplined and fighting fit when you haven’t a fucking clue what’s clearly staring you in the face.
but this is a marxist coup to bring about a one world marxist government! Its what the trots want!
I tell you. I’m goddam shocked the leviathans like TheGuardian aren’t following the MH17 trial at the Haque.
Just when you thought no court could best the British one at the moment in the proceedings against Jullian Assange, along comes TheHague trying to steal the limelight.
Anyways JOhn Helmer on form as usual.
1. MH17
http://johnhelmer.net/?s=mh17
And Novichok…….the gift that keeps giving.
2. Navalny,
http://johnhelmer.net/?s=navalny
In what universe are Chomsky and the Greyzone verboten?
And where is footnote [3] ?
https://worldchangebrief.webnode.comBREAKING: Deliberate Chinese Propaganda Led Worldwide Lockdowns/
Multiple 911 Services Outage In US/
Michigan Voting Fraud Ring Busted/
FBI Bypassed To Track Antifa Terrorists/
UK Bans Singing and Dancing/
Drones Delivering Human Parts Good?
The Medical Mafia – Ghislaine Lanctot
Virus Mania – Torsten Engelbrecht / Claus Köhnlein, MD
Fear of the Invisible – Janine Roberts
It should be not noted–Kamala Harris is an empty vessel Hillary puppet and Biden is a war criminal.
Kamala Harris an empty vessel filled occasionally by Willy Brown ?
Lol–the fuel that ignited her ignominious political career.
Louie Proyect … nah. His drunken ignorant comments regarding the rape and destruction of Syria are / were unforgivable .
Now he’s an expert on black American radicals is he ?
A sanctimonious hypocrite firing off petulant spiteful garbage from his safe european home.
Needless to say I won’t be reading it.
It is a wonderful example of what is wrong with the so called left ?
It’s a bit like Watergate; only BIGGER! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_spying_contra-Trump_allegations President of the United States Donald Trump and some of his supporters allege that his predecessor as president Barack Obama and his administration conspired to politically surveil Trump’s presidential campaign and presidential transition via inappropriate United States Department of Justice legal investigations, the United States Intelligence Community and the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Trump has nicknamed the series of events, which he calls a major scandal and his critics call an unfounded conspiracy theory, Obamagate.[1][2][3][4] Major elements involved – FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation[8] – Russia investigation origins counter-narrative – Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation[9] – Trump Tower wiretapping allegations[10] – Spygate (conspiracy theory)[11] – Deep state in the United States[12] – Steele dossier, written by former Mi6 Agent Christopher Steele[13] – Inspector General report on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation[14] – Unmasking by U.S. intelligence agencies[15] – United States v. Flynn[16]… Read more »
Plain as day, in Bongino’s intelligent, informed and unfussy style.
Praying for Dan’s health and successful treatment after his recent shock.
For Sidney Powell on the Michael Flynn case, see Media and News at:
https://www.sidneypowell.com
—
Sidney Powell – How to Fix Justice
Mar 11, 2020
Hillsdale College
Sidney Powell on the latest regarding the Flynn case: Well I wish I could tell you it was over, but it’s not. General Flynn is now being persecuted clearly by the courts . . . We will be filing a motion to disqualify him [Judge Sullivan] because the comments he made today reflect pure political ambitions and continuing the prosecution of General Flynn and other actions since the court remanded it to him also do the same. It was absolutely appalling Lou. It was just nothing short of stunning. I would have thought we were in a third world country where political prosecutions are common place . . . Yes, they have gone after him, hammer and tongs. No amount of evidence that has been produced would dissuade them. In fact they way they dealt with that was to simply pretend that it does not exist. It was obvious Judge Sullivan had not even read the… Read more »
Sidney Powell on the latest regarding the Flynn case: Well I wish I could tell you it was over, but it’s not. General Flynn is now being persecuted clearly by the courts . . . We will be filing a motion to disqualify him [Judge Sullivan] because the comments he made today reflect pure political ambitions and continuing the prosecution of General Flynn and other actions since the court remanded it to him also do the same. It was absolutely appalling Lou. It was just nothing short of stunning. I would have thought we were in a third world country where political prosecutions are common place . . . Yes, they have gone after him, hammer and tongs. No amount of evidence that has been produced would dissuade them. In fact they way they dealt with that was to simply pretend that it does not exist. It was obvious Judge… Read more »
Note to Admin
this post (Sep 30, 2020 11:13 PM) is now a duplicate and can be deleted
thank you
Dr. Dave Janda: The Deep-State is panicking, General Flynn is not a game changer, it’s a game ender
Oct 3, 2020
X22Report Spotlight
Website: Dave Janda
http://davejanda.com
1.) Dave Janda talks about how the Deep-State is panicking over Gen Flynn. They need to keep Flynn from talking to the public, he knows where the bodies are buried and he will reveal everything. If the Judge does not dismiss he believes the missing 302 will appear and Flynn will go free.
2.) The debates are not about debating the issues, Trump is using it to rattle and destroy Joe Biden, separate him from his far left base and bring out the corruption into the open.
Even the braindead MPs in the now defunct UK Parliament are starting to realise what’s going on…
I mean, its now or never right?!
That shocked me. 10 minutes of truth and passion from House of Commons.
nope there now acting to the crowd now the laws are all set, so people still re believing in democracy scam
whatever is internet fashionable sellable to the gullible at the time.
He has always been a one trick pony arse!
Look up all his old stand ups.
It’s now estimated that by Christmas more than 5 million people in the UK will be destitute. Not just unemployed, but totally penniless and homeless.
It’s far, far worse in the USA.
It’s one reason why I don’t give those who buy into the covid con the time of day.
It’s absolutely disgusting that this can be allowed to happen.
The deluded covid supporters have a very heavy burden on their souls.
ATCHOO!
I just sneezed, you little pricks.
Go run away and hide in the cupboard under the stairs.
Be gone. You’re a complete waste of space.
These sound interesting but I think they’re really just codifying what we already know. The insoluble problem is “Where do we go from here?”. Our freedom of speech has always been conditional on the speech either conforming to societal norms and beliefs or being intrisically ineffectual. If the speech or organization starts to have a wider appeal then its switftly and firmly dealt with. The get a perspective of the fix we’re in I’d recommend reading some older works. It seems that while times and tools change people don’t. Also, while our tools for handling and disemminating information are vastly more powerful than they used to be the underlying techniques have changed little. At a guess I’d suggest that the class distinctions and economic tensions haven’t changed — there are ripples and eddies in the current, the turd occasionally gets a burnish but ultimately its still a stand off between… Read more »
Off topic I admit but in a world of false and dispiriting news, one occasionally comes across something offering hope.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8780933/Scientists-amazed-trial-artificial-solution-killed-virus-96-infected-ferrets.html
If this is good for all respiratory ailments, it would put a massive dent in Big Pharma’s profits so I presume even now they will be doing everything to kill it dead.
With HCQ it was heart attacks so I presume with this they will say there is a danger your nose will drop off!
This is sad daily mail bollocks at its worst. The infected ferrets are not those who read The Daily Mail, but actually believe, the complete and utter rubbish written there. I admit its sometimes good for a laugh, but you are not supposed to take it seriously.
Would you take a drug for a very close relation to the common cold, almost completely harmless for anyone younger than 90, that was rumoured to have been tested on a ferret?
Do you look anything like a ferret?
Tony
This is from the NHS ‘privacy’ notice being sent, no doubt, to everyone who possesses and email address; who gets to know you? The data processors appointed by us are: NHS Professionals, which is providing registered medical professionals to help contact people who test positive for coronavirus to identify their close contacts Serco UK, which is providing staff to call the contacts of people who test positive and provide guidance on self-isolation SITEL Group, which is also providing staff to call the contacts of people who test positive and provide guidance on self-isolation NHS Business Services Authority, which is sending text messages and developing management information reports Amazon Web Services, which is providing the secure UK-based storage location for the contact-tracing service information The Cabinet Office, which provides the GOV.UK Notify service used to send contact-tracing texts and emails Kainos, which is assisting with the operation of the contact-tracing website… Read more »
So no privacy. Just a load of ‘foreign’ companies handling our personal information.
Not the NHS.
People were warned it was the last chance to save it ahead of Bozos BrexShit End of the Cliff Edge grand finale- but they have been fooled into a modern expert coup without tanks and military!
Now they will eat the shit show of walking back into slavery their illustrious ancestors suffered through the war years, to free these same grandkids from.
Shit Heads.
Additionally, the govt has made sure that legally, they can acquire whatever information they deem necessary, not about the virus, but anything the govt views as a threat. This from the same document: GDPR Article 6(1)(e) – processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller GDPR Article 9(2)(i) – processing is necessary for reasons of public interest in the area of public health, such as protecting against serious cross-border threats to health or ensuring high standards of quality and safety of healthcare (my emph.) Data Protection Act 2018 Schedule 1 Part 1 (3) – public health Where we use personal information for coronavirus-related research, the sections of the law that apply are: GDPR Article 6(1)(e) – processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or… Read more »
The ONS, who I have a great respect for their independence and fact collection have just changed the consents by the people partaking in their definitive study alongside ‘Oxford’ and the US sales conglomerate Iqvia (who will keep data in the US and no doubt use it in the coming private health care/insurance sales bounty in the U.K.) along with a bunch of companies and organisations collecting the most scientific study on tracking the spread of the virus, by allowing the changes in their consent with regards data sharing. Stealthy? Not if you see they are operating like the Cayote with his Acme self defeating scams.
I hope they consider their position and tell the government to fuck off or they withdraw from the project.
Dream on…
“Meeting friends in pubs in the North East is now illegal, under the strictest coronavirus rules yet” The pubs are still open. Why the hell else would you go to the pub, except to meet and make friends, and maybe see a band, and maybe eat a meal. It’s not difficult to get drunk at home alone, though its a lot more fun to get drunk in a pub with friends. If you are alone might even pull a new friend, and go back home for a cup of coffee. Who the hell are these aliens writing these rules? Have they ever been to Newcastle.? The Geordies (who are amongst the friendlest most welcoming people I have ever met in my life) will not eat them and spit them out for breakfast. It would make them vomit. They will simply continue to ignore such arseholes, and carry on as normal.… Read more »
I don’t think people from Newcastle will appreciate you considering them to be Geordie.
Many of my acquaintance have put me right on that over the years.
How have you missed that?
if you’re from Newcastle you are indeed a Geordie. if you’re from Sunderland, you’re a Mackem. source – myself, being from Newcastle.
In the face of adversiity, get out of the house, and express your heart and soul through sport, play, music, art and dance.
“Young Fathers – SHAME”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdYvkaYsaU
Tony
Did someone swear? I know I keep banging on about it, but Murray is a liability to Assange. He’s a hothead who loves to create trouble in courtrooms. It’s the last thing that Julian needs. Thankfully, he’s too busy with a court case of his own. (And I’m please to say that I warned him against behaving like that in court. Did he listen? Oh, the good Laird knows best, of course!) He’s like Gates in some ways. A potentially dangerous self publicist who thinks he’s right about everything. He surrounds himself with yes men and yes women who worship him. Those that criticise him (even in good faith) are liable to become victims of his over protective goon squad. Peter Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday professes hatred for Assange, but very strongly champions his freedom and criticises his fellow journalists for their silence. He’s late to the party,… Read more »
Ffs pretty polly! Will you ever stop with your disappointment with being so publicly jilted on CMs site?
Get a grip man. Move on. You seem otherwise sensible.
I mean that sincerely.
Craig Murray is who he is: upper class with upper class leanings and upper class tastes.
Not necessarily a spook, but definately no stranger to them.
Bare faced LIE by you.
NEED I SAY MORE “It is a delicate balancing act that politicians like Clinton and Biden have to carry out. They understand that they have to offer incentives to a middle-class voter but not to the point of alienating their major funders. Biden made a point of reassuring them that their interests were the same as his, as reported in WAPO.” The largest segment of the population are non-voters–110 million strong are not interested in participating in the “let’s play democracy game.” I think after JFK’s assassination and the 2000 election it’s been made clear to the public they have little to say about who occupies the Oval Office. When I read the sentence “Democratic Party pundits insist that unless it connects with these types of workers, it will lose to demagogues like Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump” an eerie chill swept over me. I’m reading the “Challenger Revealed” by Richard… Read more »
The Dems want to lose. There is no other interpretation that explains the absurdity of the facts.
The Dems main priority was to rid themselves of Bernie and then to nominate a crooked reactionary like Biden. At that point it doesn’t make a difference if they win or lose.
I suspect that they are actually humiliating their base by propping up Biden.
No fvcks given, anything goes. “They do not pity the fools!” -Mr. T.
It’s obvious the Dems only pander to affluent liberals and never Trumper Republicans.
Dronebama got help from Citigroup in his balancing act. A lot of help. =)
Citigroup picked Obama’s cabinet. I think that was exposed by Assange.
I especially like the opening remarks of “The Plot Against Libya : An Obama-Biden-Clinton Criminal Conspiracy” .The true meaning of conspiracy indeed.The words ring so true as I watched and read what was actually happening on the ground with the war expanding to absolute barbarity with the lies committed by US / NATO ending with the vile voice of Clinton laughing about it to top it all off .The destruction of the most advanced African country in the continent and now the world is silent . Clinton is still walking free .The impunity is sickening .
Precisely !
How do I read the full article for free, cos its probably quite funny.
“‘Project Fear!’ How a Tory MP silenced the Commons with a furious rebuke of Whitty and Vallance
Sir Desmond Swayne derided the new Covid rules – and suggested Boris Johnson has been ‘abducted’ and ‘reprogrammed’ by Government scientists ”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/28/project-fear-tory-mp-silenced-commons-furious-rebuke-whitty/
A star is born.
https://twitter.com/DesmondSwayne/status/1310617497389989889
On fire. Well worth a viewing.
No1 Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq Paperback – Illustrated, 15 Oct. 2010 Ms. Susan Lindauer (Author) No2 Murder in Samarkand – A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror Paperback – 1 Feb. 2007 by Craig Murray (Author) No3 Scum of the Earth by Arthur Koestler These are real life stories of their authors’ Experiences. They didn’t make it up. After the first few pages, you not only relate to them – cos you know what they are writing is true, they get inside your head, as if you are them, and you can’t fall asleep you have just got to read the next page. Far better than watching The Telly. The writers are inside your head. Real Life is Much Better, but you have got to get off your arse and travel, and… Read more »
Right on, Tony! I turned the TV off back in the sixties, gave up on the newspapers about the same time, opted out of corporate life in the early seventies, got myself a TEFL certificate before it became corporate, and went itinerant. Some of the jobs weren’t all that well paid, but, if I lived like a local, sustainable. Plus, I felt like I was permanently on vacation what with the teaching and sailing, the constantly changing environments, the people, the food. My miserable social security cheque reflects that insouciance, but fuck it. I’m now married; living in France, and now that my wife’s retired, we get by. Fortunate to have done what I was able before this shitstorm hit.
Three reads:
Das Kapital
The Bible, Koran or any scripture that your culture embraces (I say that as someone who’s not the least bit religious)
The usual stuff by Huxley and Orwell.
I’ll make sure to avoid all of those, although their headlines give them away.
The cockroach who photoshopped a cockroach is obviously the shrill voice of the CIA. Nicaragua? Programming since 1968? Marxism? Smear tactics? Pro-war?
Thanks for the heads up.
Anyone here have that article which was a compendium of other articles about masks.
It was a female author.
This one?
https://www.naturalblaze.com/2020/06/new-meta-analysis-raises-doubts-that-masks-work-to-prevent-covid-infection-and-transmission.html
Or this?
https://www.qeios.com/read/1SC5L4
It was neither of those- what I was speaking of was a collection of articles on masks that someone had compiled in one place.
Thanks for those.
Tangent: I did a couple of searches on DuckDuckGo for “collection of articles on masks”, “articles critical of masks”, etc.
I didn’t attempt a systematic, comprehensive survey of precisely-worded search terms, but the few I tried brought up page after page of pro-mask results. They ranged from technical and quasi-scientific “masks work” reports to news stories “reporting the controversy”, interspersed with advertorials promoting either effective or stylish/fashionable new masks.
DuckDuckGo may be less monolithic and insidious than Google, but it seems to present Google-style results. It even copies, or mimics, Google’s insidious propaganda technique of importing slanderous Wikipedia character assassination text as blurbs on the prominent informational summaries at the top right of the page.
I don’t know much about how DuckDuckGo organizes its searches, so this may be innocuous. But it doesn’t inspire confidence in this ostensibly “alternative”, superior search engine.
I thought I heard that DDgogo changed hands or something like this? Not really sure.
The research is not too difficult if you’ve been doing it for a while and know “how to go about doing it” which is to say that in fact it is rather arduous nowadays for those who aren’t so OCD (like myself) not to mention it’s downright like playing against a dealer with a loaded deck if you haven’t navigated the waters.
Funny though it usually only takes a few bits of “leaked” info to break through the wall of propaganda. For my part I pass out literature to numerous students every week.
“Roddis doth protest too much, methinks.”
The fact that the ORGANS call themselves intelligence agencies is a giveaway.
They give their creations anodyne names like NGOs. But for their royal-butt licking selves…
There has never been anything intelligent about plods.
Why did I post that? I was thinking of Dostoyevsky’s Demons and saw a parallel, a mirror image… the nihilist and the cop.
Plus I just love the Tsarist nomenclature, the organs of the state. The gizzards, the military offal.
Where would we be without the insights, the sheer intelligence, of Russia that produced the world’s greatest literature.
No, 77th dullards, that’s a statement not a question. Go and read. Improve yourselves, take a chance… or die a wastrel.
Unlike you I care less about the provenance than the insight.
“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”
Dostoevsky
I think you mean this Is that what we fear opening to?
For those unwilling to see, will see nothing and hear nothing.
I think we fear reopening to true desire because that is where our deepest pain of separation originates, and so we play in substitutes derivatives and masking realities. To be restored to true desire is to be moved in new ways, from a new place as a fulfilment that cannot be articulated, because we are one with the movement of step or word.
Another way to say that is that we are afraid of love, and use fear as a masking diversion. Yet there is no fear in love – only in the human self-contradiction.
I didn’t say it, Dostoyevsky did.
People aren’t afraid of love, Brian. They are afraid of loss. Loss of love. Loss of life. Loss of meaning. Loss of illusions.
You restated what you read from Dostoyevsky as a meaningful act? This is what ‘people’ have made of love. So you are right – it is impossible to fear love for it is a state in which no fear is. You cannot REALLY hate yourself. But you can have the experience and use it as a basis to call on death to save you. (or project the hate to others and call down vengeance on them likewise). Any identity set in loss of love, of life and of meaning to hollow illusions set under terrors, masked over perhaps with layers and levels of hiding, their illusion of love (masking in virtue) is all the little they hath – and even that shall be taken from them – or rather revealed to be illusory. So we may come to recognise that fear is used as a mind-diversion to protect or mask… Read more »
“You restated what you read from Dostoyevsky as a meaningful act?”
Not at all. It was in the context of a response to MC’s comment about Russian Literature, specifically in regards to the conformity we have been witnessing since the lockdown.
You misinterpreted my comment. Again.
Then you quoted Dostoyevsky as your meaningless act. Groupthink is incapable of a new basis from which to think by definition. Including its own self-referencing. I was not concerned with your special ‘meaning’ but with what Dostoyevsky said. And I have commented to what he said – regardless what you ‘meant’. It is not about you. Nor about me – unless you insist – in which case you are welcome to play on in your interpretations alone. When people engage in the person as a way to evade the issue, there is some obfuscation going on. If you take offence in your person – apart from the generality of claiming to be misunderstood – point me to where I have offended you. For if there is substance there I will address it openly. I cannot prop up your wish the world conform to your terms and conditions. But I am… Read more »
Here is how limited hangout propaganda operations work Philip. Democracy Now ran arguably the best coverage going during the Dakota Access pipeline protests late in the Obama presidency, drawing no doubt many new viewers interested in that issue to the DN site. While at the DN site, reading credible worthwhile coverage of the Dakota Access pipeline protests (coverage which of course helped establish the – “credibility” – of the DN site itself) – these readers were then also exposed to DN’s shameless repetition of State propaganda supporting the regime-change operations in Libya and Syria, right down to shilling for the White Helmets. In other words, if you tuned into Democracy Now because of its credible reporting on an environmentally related issue you were interested in – you got shameless shilling of American foreign policy propaganda along with that credible pipeline protest reporting. Thus the concept of – “limited hangout.” Promoting… Read more »
And Amy GoodNot makes 700k per year and still begs for donations.
DNow funded by the Ford Foundation and Open Society among others. A total cut-out for the cryptocracy.
Quite a racket Ms. Amy has going, eh? She owes it all to that old labor faker fraud Leslie Cagan.
She did some good work in East Timor some years back .
Yeah heard that story too. How she faced down death.
She seems more a teller of stories and less one that critiques the situation behind them. Got the impression she was no where close to honesty.
As to one of her “ex-partners” Schahill, his reporting on Yugoslavia could have been scripted by the CIA. Need one mention Syria or Libya?
Pacifica has been such a disappointment. Liked the late Robert Knight though.
This should be posted WITH the article.
CP also “disappeared” poet, essayist, and photographer Linh Dinh; his sociopolitical views have taken some odd turns since, and he now has a home at the Unz Review. But that’s neither here nor there. I thought of Linh Dinh because, as with C.J. Hopkins, the way CP banished them is a “tell” for CP’s perfidy. I wasn’t particularly invested in CP’s squabbles with contributors, but in both cases (not sure about the others), I started to take notice when CP at first denied banishing them. When these writers protested their abrupt and unceremonious disappearance from the lineup, Jeff St. Clair (IIRC) first denied that they’d been dropped. Instead, he claimed that the non-appearance of submissions was the result of a misunderstanding or communications breakdown– something that ought to have been smoothed over and resolved. But after both writers publicly challenged the claim, and established that the exclusion was obviously deliberate, not accidental, St.… Read more »
Sometime back now, I used to wonder if someone who was an intelligence asset had quietly managed to gain some level of editorial control at CP. I wondered which editor(s) were responsible for axing anti-imperialist writers while they continued to publish the pro-regime change propagandists. I even had a few very interesting and rather testy email exchanges where I ‘wondered this aloud’ in my emails to CP editors. Suffice to say – “I no longer bother to wonder.”
You’ve got a good “crap detector.”
How long ago was it that I ditched Counterpunk? I can’t really remember but it was sometime in the mid 2000s when they had this ridiculous physicist from the Lawrence Livermore labs, Dr. Manuel Garcia Jr., who was the leading shill for the government’s 9/11 narrative. He was relentlessly sarcastic and ad hominemist towards anyone who questioned 9/11. For a long time he wouldn’t deign to explain from a physicist’s point of view his explanation of what happened. He said it was so obvious he couldn’t be bothered. When his hand was somewhat forced he resorted to explanations replete with equations that only PhD level physicists would understand. Then he came up with the most cockamamie explanation I’ve ever seen in all the annals of 9/11. He found a story of a 1938 (?) bridge collapse caused by a severe windstorm. He said the airplane strikes and subsequent fires provoked… Read more »
Interesting background on 9/11 – thanks for sharing that Patrick. I remember being completely incredulous some years ago reading posts by several of the editors explaining how they just “didn’t believe in conspiracy theories” – (relating specifically to JFK’s assassination and 9/11) – as if one could even begin to understand world without understanding what goes on in secret behind the scenes of powerful institutions every single day. As if believing that the wealthy and powerful actually plan ways to retain wealth and power while amassing even more – is somehow the equivalent of believing in angels or miracles. At that point it was clear these people were no longer capable of acting in “good faith.”
‘Stunning graphic in Sunday Times puts this over-reaction in context. Every dot is 10,000 of UK’s 66.8m population, so 6,680 dots. The 4 black ones are total deaths, the 14 green ones are hospital admissions and even cases only 42 dots. What’s this fuss about?’
(original tweet source linked below)
https://twitter.com/FarleyP/status/1310208676888707074?s=20
clearly 66. 6 million would be obvious
or maybe not as the case may b
these freaks really like the kaballa numbers
82 million more like
66.8
New COVID guidelines – disposable gloves must be put in separate bins. Two people sneezed yesterday thus proving that cross contamination may lead to a spate of Ridley Scott alien chest busters!
Separate bins that contain disposable safety-binbags and must themselves
be disposed of preferably by controlled either very fast or exceedingly slow
demolition. This needs be, and together we will make it happen.
While staying safe and observing the rules.
Just make sure you don’t mix colours. It is scientifically proven that mixing red with blue is a definite source of COVID. It also makes your willie fall off. Ban the Union Jack!
Good reads also….
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/23/syria-leaks-uk-contractors-opposition-media/
https://freenet.space/read-blog/275_op-hmg-trojan-horse-from-integrity-initiative-to-covert-ops-around-the-globe-par.html
Looks like ‘our’ spooks having been giving the ‘Head-Choppers’ the champagne lifestyle at the taxpayer expense
Oh and it provides the names and costs and who got the shill oil
Hopefully this will get a bit play… and lying rats that make up the mainstream media will have to answer…..
They know who they are… and now so do we
Let the sports begin
Some of the gang
https://adamsmithinternational.com/who-we-are/our-leadership/
Mr Roddis! The ever readable, Jonathan Cook , is always informative and as far as my experience of his work goes is worth reading for true insight (maybe he did say something on Greta and XR which I didn’t quite accept) – He was after all the Foreign Correspondent of the Groan before being booted out for his truthful reporting of the Zionist crusade. I infrequently check his site to see what he may written ( not a daily poster) As for Proyet (who professed his support forMalcolm X from a dim and distant decade and what sounded like an apocryphal recollection of his youth, so probably just a lie) – it is just a book review and again prob not the best. The Libya story is weird but not so much – it is election time after all – who would it appeal to? White Democrats? Black Democrats? Or… Read more »
That was remarkably good for you. Unlike Bernhard Hoftsman of MOA, who seems to have gone from the light into the dark, maybe you can see a chink of light. I will be impressed if you can keep it up. I know you want your Scottish Independence, and I have no problem with that, but why the hell, when you nearly got it, and would have done apart from gross postal and other voter fraud, did you want to remain controlled by The EU unelected fascists, and even more bizarrely want to keep The English Pound? What is wrong with the Scottish Groat ? It used to be worth fourpence which is better than nowt. I do like Craig Murray, but he flexes with the wind. He was all English in 2009, when I very nearly campaigned for him. I do like Norwich and have some friends there. Most of… Read more »
Tony, Dung lives in London. He’s not a Scottish nationalist, just a fanboy.
(Note to Dung. You told me months ago. I once made the same mistake as tony).
Compo – you really are displaying symptoms of the Last of The Summer Wine.
You think I’m Scottish?
You must also see that doing another piece on Assange here is just repeating what has already been said hundreds of times. I think the readership on OffG is pretty well informed on Assange, but we’re still looking for valid suggestions as to what can be done about this atrocity.
OffG has no reason I can think of to “ignore” the proceedings, and people like Craig Murray keep us up-to-date in any case.
Oh-Gee has another readership to Murray that’s why they should reprint every one of CMs reports.
Oh -Gee has NO other reporting on the details of The Biggest Political Trial of C21 so far.
Just like On- G, OG ignores it! They will happily republish any number of 911/Covid/opinion pieces daily -but not Craig Murray, begging for reruns of his reports, in the face of the massive oppression by FB/Twitter. Which OG cares little about except when they claim they are equally being targeted.
Come on wardroppet, you say there is nothing to see here? You don’t find it even a little odd?
The Covid Deception
Paul Craig Roberts
Too long to reproduce here. Go straight to the horses mouth for a definitive assessment of the COVID farce.
Best thing he has written in ages, though I have been a big fan of his for years, even though I consider myself a left wing libertarian. Left/Right Labels are now pretty meaningless. The real political landscape is now about people who at the top of the scale want the power to dictate and control every aspect of our lives, and people like me at the bottom of the scale, who want these evil bastards to leave us alone, so we can do what we want to do. The idea that these controlling people, are in any way caring for us, is well beyond a joke. They care so much, that they will lead us straight to the death chambers, formerly called hospitals. I note that most of them now have a big furnace with a big chimney to dispose of medical waste. If we don’t RESIST, that is where… Read more »
Sorry, it’s too late for me ever to take PCR seriously again, after his extremely aggressive shilling for Covidiocracy for far too long…
Agreed, and he doesn’t even mention his complete 180 on the covid operation.
Funny, he was a true believer in Covid during the first couple of months at least. Even lectured people criticizing the lockdown as making a big deal out of nothing. It was very surprising and disappointing to say the least, especially given his courage speaking out about 9/11. Good to see he has started to come around. I think he focuses too much on Trump, though, and fails to appreciate the global nature of the coup.
While the Rape of Libya had many objectives by our Overlords, the most dominant one was to prevent Gaddafi and some allied African countries from issuing the Pan African Gold Dinar, based on Libya’s possession of 165 tons of gold, This would have ended the petrodollar, and thus the USD as the world’s “reserve currency” in short order. Furthermore, Gaddafi stated that after the release, Libya would only sell its top value sweet crude for payment only in gold. He basically signed his death warrant with this.
One might also note that this 165 tons of gold have disappeared from our planet. Perhaps in the immortal words of Jon Cozine, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and then Senator from New Jersey, it “vaporized.”
Yes. Gadaffi also went after the vaccines and denounced them publicly. Vaccines are the crux of their Extinction and “Insight” Operations among others.
Lockerbie was obviously a false flag military attack.
Great selection , if a little soft on the Obomber regime regarding Assange?
And far too generous to the master of slime, Louis Proyect. I get the concept of credit where its due, but he doesn’t need to be legitimised in any form.
I have no idea who the oft referred to cyber space threat Louis Proyect may or may not be
Let reverse engineer what they want. This is the second time the UK has activity destroyed its own economy by order of the USA via Brexit. Johnson et al are taking orders, they are not making them. Nobody destroys their own economy if they don’t need to. 1. Closures: i) Close office, making all communication go via US media, video services. No secrets anymore. ii) Indebting vassal nations to force cutting of public services for asset stripping of natural resources. (IMF method). iii) Increase economic destruction in vassal states for US or Local wealthy takeovers asset stripping of firms. iv) Closure of universities, imprisonment of students to prevent protests. v) Outbreaks in abattoir, removal of meat from populations diet. vi) Irradiation of small business for increate Corporate markets. 2. The Masks: i) Stops communication: prevents fermenting of Anti lockdown movements, political decent. ii) Makes shopping uncomfortable: so people Shift to… Read more »
As in so many other instances, I blame those who carry out the commands. In the COVID case, that would be The People. If a maniac walks up and says “Here, take this gun and shoot yourself in the head – I want to see what happens!” It’s up to the individual being handed the gun to refuse the invitation.
The UK did not destroy its own economy via Brexit. Up until this whole corona shit show took off the British economy was doing fine.
Brexit had very little to do with America for the people at the bottom of the pile. They had seen their livelihoods and communities threatened and have been on the receiving end of neo-liberal orthodoxy since the times of Thatcher. They had learned first hand over that time the results of that thinking as well as the reality of where they were in the societal pecking order.
They had been demonised and marginilised and discriminated against to the point where opportunities and chances for their families were being destroyed. Brexit was a chance, the first chance, for them to say enough.
The rest of your comment I largely agree with.
Brexit like Covid is an American operation, since they are the only ones who benefit. You will understand that better as the plot thickens. Brexit has not yet destroyed the British economy because it has not happened yet, but it will and it will enrich a few in the Washington elites a lot.
It’s a red herring to pretend that the attitudes of the British people affect in any way the geopolitical advantage wanted by the USA. The British people were wound up into a racist frenzy to get Brexit passed the finish line, by US alt-right preachers, Google and Facebook, Just ask Steve Bannon how he pulled it off.
dissent, not decent. sorry for the pedantry but it changes the meaning totally.
I agree totally with your 4 points, but as to your intro – another story. Obama was President in June of 2016, at the time of the referendum, and would be so for over another half year. He came over to the UK prior to the vote and basically said any voter in the UK would have to be plum loco to vote for Brexit. If Putin had done something like that, the ICBMs would have been flying over the North Pole in a NY minute. That is the USA pressuring the UK to leave the EU?? Secondly, with the scamdemic and Johnson’s draconian lockdowns, based on Horny Boy Ferguson’s remarkable prophesies, it would be quite impossible to sort out what the effect was and is of a now probable hard Brexit on the UK economy. The 2nd quarter GDP of the USA fell almost 40%, unheard of in world… Read more »
The direction things are going – every single politician will be out of a job anyway – replaced by the World Economic Forum et al
The good people in the Houses of Parliament are enabling what Winston Churchill fought against in WW2
Then they better vote to end the Covid restrictions, or they are of no use to anyone.
Wasn’t there an article here a week or so ago which made precisely the point that none of the western nations can, in all truth, call itself a “democracy” any longer?
Whose side do the police ALWAYS take if it comes to a confrontation between the government and “the people”?
Ditto the army, navy and airforce.
Ditto the drug-corporation-dependent medical establishment.
Ditto the judges.
The people need a Plan B for dealing with these “authorities”. They are not listening to our peaceful protests. There are times, as even Jesus Christ showed, when anger and outrage are appropriate, and they are hardly peaceful manifestations of the human spirit, are they?
As a wise person I know once said, “Be angry, but don’t become the anger…”
churchill was on the make and take just like bolshevik donmeh turk boris
both where born in new york and where owned by the bankers
if old winston was alive today he would be taking millions from astro zeneca and smith kleinfelt and beacham vaccine corp
let us not leave out is not real and the empire of the city of london
was it not a french government minister that mentioned meetings in 2009 about getting rid of gadaffi
where did the gold of ukrainia go iraq and libya what happened to the sovreign wealth funds
qui bono
city of london ashkanazim central new york aipac washington
While James Corbett would disagree, suggesting to new conspiracy theorists that they should avoid mainstream media links, there is an argument for accessing and reusing selective articles. A few years back I had a letter in The Guardian about the lack of an inquest into David Kelly’s death. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/dec/29/inquest-for-david-kelly There have been editorial changes since and perhaps today such a letter would not see printer’s ink. As a young man I was proud to have a non-political but critical letter published in the Spectator. It was utterly establishment and right wing then but recently it has been critical (as much as it is allowed) of the COVID-19 saga, one of the better mainstream outlets. It was also critical of the Falklands War (from a financial perspective). So there is a case for selective use of MSM articles. And where would we be without characters like Luke Harding? Come on, even… Read more »
I would never consider any publication to be “off limits” – especially when it is a depressingly common propaganda device to deliberately taint information by associating it with a “non-PC” source. This is especially relevant now when the MSM is clearly attempting to taint all suspicion of the COVID narrative by associating such suspicion with the extreme Right.
The need is to re-educate so as to have a basis for critical evaluation of what used to pass as information or news. So it is never a matter of rules so much as contextual understanding. In the short term, breaking an addiction or habit might be a decision to rule it out so as to ‘recover’.
The CIA’s Google app is now compulsory in all London pubs and restaurants. This is a US facist take over of the UK. If you are poor you need to buy a new Apple phone or stay home. And the flimsy cover story about a virus is looking more and more ridiculous. Yes this is the big genocide.
What about if you don’t carry a cell phone?
I’d love to effect change in this ‘vale of tears’ by pointing out that ‘the antiwar left in the US’ shouldn’t see Trump as part of the warmongering empire and elite they rightly hate and oppose. The deep state, the neo-cons, big pharma and major corporate interests, the DC establishment, the Chamber of Commerce, the MSM etc etc all hate Trump and want him gone in November, not just because ‘draining the swamp’ will greatly intensify following a Trump landslide, but also because he’s a peacenik who’s pulling the US out of endless war, bringing peace deals to the Middle East (and the Serbia-Kosovo conflict), exposing and ruining elite control of US democracy and, crucially, ending its disastrous interventionist foreign policy and the US as global policeman. By ‘othering’ or demonising Trump, leftists are simply helping the deep state remove the only president in decades who wasn’t their puppet, and… Read more »
Fox News, the voice of the neo-con DC establishment, and big pharma with major corporate interests loves Donald Trump. Fox News is the highest rated cable news network on air in America and has been throughout his presidency. No honest person would discount Fox News as anything but MSM.
You complain loudly, and very often, about poor Mr. Trump, the downtrodden, misunderstood maverick who can’t get a fair shake, yet he’s been propped up by our war-mongering propaganda machine from day one. The victim mentality shared by you and your cohorts is on par with that of BLM and the rest of the ‘woke’ crowd. It’s a bit pathetic really.
All very interesting .
There’s another period of house arrest coming so we may want to stock up on some reading material.
Here’s two books I can highly recommend to anyone wondering what has been going on in recent years and why we are here now .
Dr E. Michael Jones , culturewars.com
logos rising
The jewish revolutionary spirit
I think he has been dropped from amazon and youtube
You like The Grayzone, and you like the work of Vanessa Beeley? Well instead of repeating terms of abuse expressed by deplorable nonentities against her and her work, maybe you could point to the excellent piece by Ben Norton on the exposure of the incredible level of collusion between Western intelligence cut-outs and the media in the propaganda against Syria. White Helmets included in the offer, of course.
Here it is: Leaked docs expose massive Syria propaganda operation waged by Western govt contractors and media, Ben Norton, The Grayzone, September 23, 2020:https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/23/syria-leaks-uk-contractors-opposition-media/
If the Trump administration wasn’t behind this propaganda operation, then who or what was driving the incredible collusion between the MSM and western intelligence? We Trumpers argue that Obama supported and armed Islamist insurgents against Assad, and cared nothing about starting another disastrous war of intervention. Trump put a stop to all that by viewing Islamist insurgents and a Syrian collapse as a much much greater threat to regional peace and stability than Assad. Nor was he fooled by the massive media operation to make the world think evil Assad was using chemical weapons against kids. That was clearly designed to provoke more US military intervention and a major clash with Putin. No wonder the military industrial complex and deep state want Trump expunged from reality; what a tragedy so many leftists do too.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police apparently arrested Shehroze Chaudhry (25) for voilation of its terrorism hoax laws, claiming fraudulent fabrication of experience as a Takfiri ISIS (DAESH) member personally involved in executions and terrorism in Syria. The NYT produced a podcast “Caliphate” in which it featured Abu Huzyfah as a character to portray those fabrications; If the times cannot prove its claim that it geolocated Huzayfah on the banks of the Euphrates in Syria, does that mean audiences wrongfully impacted by pdocast “Caliphate” are entitled to just compensation? https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/09/28/635176/US-New-York-Times-Caliphate-Daesh-
Counterpunch managed to have an interview recently with a Turkish diplomat in Sri Lanka about the need to fight the Fethullah Gülen network. I might as well have been reading the Turkish mainstream media, and any interview with any diplomat carries a media health warning – someone once defined a diplomat as a good person whose job is to lie on behalf of his or her country.
I teach a lot of diplomats here in Brazil but would define them more as naive do-gooders than as simply ‘good’.
”I teach a lot of diplomats here in Brazil …” Wow! No wonder Brazil is such a basket case. Just a joke ….. just, by a hair’s breadth.
Now how about some of your enlightened musings on ‘Marxism’. As I recall last time it was the ‘Transformation Problem. which you described in the most sublime elegance. Now what can we have today, Hmmmm, what about, I know ….The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Criticism first published in February 1845. I wait with baited breath for your Tour de Force.
You teach diplomats. Teach them what? Trollery 101 in Portuguese?
Thanks for your state dept. creds.
That was indeed a bizarre contribution from TrumpBot.
Can’t tell if the Language-Generator Algorithm burped, or if it was some kind of inadvertent disclosure…
The boastful, self congratulatory slip.
Finger taps nose.
You once again cut to the quick, ‘Searcher.
I hadn’t realised that Counterpunch was subscription only. Goes to show how long it is since I last looked at Counterpunch!
No signs of a paywall when I looked just now. Very little worth reading there nowadays though unfortunately.
As far as I can see, it’s not pay-per-view (or pay-to-play) for the entire site. It’s clearly marked that CP+ is behind the paywall. That said, I don’t bother with them much anymore. OffG even published one of my rants on that subject way back in 2018, I think.
Pardon me for the boldness and straying off-topic. I just couldn’t stop myself.
Three New Reads
Reads that can especially benefit us : books already written about what happens in history in situations like ours, more or less.
Orwell’s 1984 etc.
Jack London’s Iron Heel : browsing through it, I came across some useful ideas on oligarchic tactics, and frailty of human nature
Books on the Third Reich,
on the Spanish Civil War…
Cultural revolution
Other revolutions
Coup d’etats
Civil wars
Books that describe people’s behaviour under duress
Reading suggestions, and critical remarks about books, are welcome.
Where are we, strategically? What can be supposed to happen, and what would be a basic mistake to assume? a modicum of guidance would help.
For what it’s worth, time and again I return to this outline:
General Crises in Civilizations, by Professor Carroll Quigley
http://www.carrollquigley.net/Lectures/General_Crises_in_Civilizations.htm
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler for the cultist mind of the current bureaucracy.
Imperium by Ryszard Kapuściński for the petty rules by which an empire ingratiates itself.
Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky for nailing in 1871 the nihilist, postmodern mind.
Anything by China Miéville for our adaptability and powers of resistance.
“In some radical circles,” Go away.
Nice one. Brevity is the soul of wit.
Love that one, thanks
Victor Hugo to his publisher: “?”
Publisher to Victor Hugo: “!”
I recall tales of two examination essays which were brief and got full marks.
To the question: “Is this a question”, Bertrand Russell’s entire essay was: “If this is an answer.”
But Sartre’s was better. To the question, “What is audacity?”, Sartre wrote two words: “This is!”
…And it today’s headlines, Finland and Czech Republic are training DOGS to detect covid “carriers”.
Can’t make this stuff up!
Imagine a world that combines the worst things that have ever happened, and the worst things that have ever been imagined that might happen.
This is not a new (normal?) one.. That canard was already in circulation two or three months ago. Was it right after they tried to scare us into believing flushing was a major “covid virus” spreader?
But now, apparently, they’ll train the DOGS to detect seasonal flu as well, hopefully… “Twindemic” (covid + flu !!! the novel menace with the return of the autumn !! ) oblige !
I’m still waiting for socialists, trades unions and the Left to fight back. Or the general public even.
Dream on
If leftists could respect and treat non-leftists as equals rather than as inferiors (‘the general public even’ exudes disdain), a more united resistance might grow.
You left the left but where did you go? Please expand.
Lead by example then.
The Left will never fight back on this one. They are convinced the virus IS the revolution.
As a trade unionist myself I am also (forlornly) waiting. When UNISON endorsed Starmer (it seems like years ago now) that’s when I knew without doubt the fix was in. Watch as Christine McAnea is triumphantly “elected” to replace the ponce ‘Dave’ Prentis. Watch as members haemorrhage, myself included, never to return. Arseholes top to bottom and I include myself for thinking that sticking up for my members was enough to compensate for this corruption. It’s a percentage of our wages feeding this shitshow. Ah well, the road to hell etc etc etc ☣️
Will they still detect drugs (I’m sure some people are wondering)
No just assholes
all that just to bring them back to their original state then
they’re really looking for a reset
I have zero time for establishment individuals like ex Guardian employee Jonathon Cooke or former British ambassador (!) Craig Murray who was a liberal democrat and was turned down as a candidate by the SNP because he’s an all round embarrassment, even to them. That is anyone with promotes their establishment status.
Cooke describes The Guardian as a ‘big-hitting newspaper’ not the Integrity Initiative intelligence front many of us know it as. That is he biggest clue to the reality of WikiLeaks.
This is the vastly superior James Corbett on the incredibly obvious psyop that is Wikileaks.
Starts at 16:11
At 26 minutes in the above April 2019 video Corbett anticipates the Great Reset.
A viewer asks the usual beginner question: If the big families make their money from fossil fuels and energy, why would they be pushing the “climate change” agenda and how could they possibly profit from a carbon neutral economy.
That economy is exactly what they plan to roll out now
https://youtu.be/0Zd3j5lZTMg?t=1583
“The idea of online anonymity is a pipedream” Kind of like Winston Smith imagining he’d outwitted the telescreen
“Corbett anticipates the Great Reset.”
He sure does. Thanks for pointing that out.
I also recently watched his interview with Patrick Wood from about the same time, and it feels like Patrick is prefiguring Covidiocracy so closely, it’s uncanny!
Thanks for this link with the comments on Assange. I thought that Webster Tarpley made some good point with relation to JA but when OG put that article up it drew some of the most belligerent remarks from most commenters and it seems obvious to me that JA is a “no go area” when it comes to critique. I noted that, back before COVID when the WSWS still had some credibility, the topic of JA would utterly swamp everything else whenever it came up. Corbett has the most sensible attitude i.e. not wasting time on trying to figure out whether Wikileaks is a witting or unwitting decoy – because it really doesn’t matter.
Whenever I think of Assange I recall the words of the late and much missed Dave McGowan on Timothy Leary: “a patently obvious CIA asset”.
If Intelligence agencies wanted to discredit Wikileaks, it would say it was a friend of theirs. No matter what people think of Assange, the treatment of him is astonishingly malevolent.
I find it interesting that Miles W. Mathis- who finds almost everything to be faked- has not touched Assange.
“much missed Dave McGowan”- yes, indeed.
correction: “THEY would say…”
Why would Intelligence agencies want to discredit Wikileaks? They want to present it as a bastion of rebel activity i.e. as something they hate.
I agree that the treatment of Assange is deplorable. It’s possible that the deep state used him and then turned on him when the latter course was more congruent with their aims.
Cherry picking – this Corbett clip is old and Assange’s current situation, as documented by many with a firm grip on reality (have your hands fallen off?), is dire. An odd situation for an intelligence asset, eh?
The clip is from last year. Since then Assange has been moved to Belmarsh from the embassy where his fanboys tell us he was tortured, the result being two children. The horror. How often was Assange in the embassy ? We know he was there to have discussions with his celebrity visitors (more torture). We know their conversations were secretly record. If he was in the embassy, Assange must have known the system was installed. How often is he in Belmarsh ?We don’t know. ‘Ecuador bankrolled a multimillion-dollar spy operation to protect and support Julian Assange in its central London embassy, employing an international security company and undercover agents to monitor his visitors, embassy staff and even the British police, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Over more than five years, Ecuador put at least $5m (£3.7m) into a secret intelligence budget that protected the WikiLeaks founder while he… Read more »
You post a clip of a man who, himself, is often accused of being a CIA asset, and the irony sails straight over your head. That’s just too funny 🤣.
Who by, the tooth fairy collective ? LOL !
World history is a madhouse. Trump is half-German, Biden Irish, Farrage and BoJo have German and Von der Leyen American ancestors. Lennon’s Hitler drawings achieved top prices. https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-travel-beatles-hamburg-germany-20190512-story.html
Crazy enough, the English, who are genetically and culturally much closer to us, were our worst mortal enemies. Hamburg (the city where the Beatles grew up) was razed to the ground. The Americans cultivated the Hamburgers. Although we Hanseatic citizens were much closer to the British than to those cruel alpine lederhosen wearers like Hitler.