I watched Ian Hislop’s Fake News: A True Story last night. I blogged about it a few days ago after reading the blurbs for it in the Radio Times. It seemed to me that part of the reason for the programme’s production was the Beeb, and by extension, the mainstream media as a whole, trying to reassure the public that they were truthful and reliable by tackling what is a genuine problem. I don’t think I was wrong. Hislop is a good presenter, and the programme was well-done, with eye-catching graphics. As you might expect from Hislop’s previous programmes on British heroes and the the British education system, it was strong on history. He pointed out that while Donald Trump used it to described factual news that he didn’t like, because it criticised him, the term actually predated Trump all the way back into the 19th century. He illustrated this with quotes and contemporary cartoons. But it was also a very much an establishment view. The last piece of fake news created by the British state it mentioned was a story concocted during the First World War that the Germans were boiling down human bodies for their fat and other chemicals. It presented the main threat to truthful reporting as coming from the internet, specifically software that allows the mapping of a public figure’s face onto the body of another to create fake footage of them, Alex Jones and Infowars, and, of course, the Russians and their adverts and propaganda for the American election. We were assured that the British state no longer interfered in the politics of other countries. A former BBC official, now running the New York Times, appeared to talk to Hislop about how papers like his now spend their time diligently fact checking stories. He also talked to the MP, who called for an inquiry into fake news in parliament. All very reassuring, and very misleading.
The New York Sun Moon Hoax and the Spanish-American War
The programme began with the 1836 Moon hoax story run by the New York Sun. The Sun was one of the first tabloid newspapers, aimed at a working class audience with the low price of only a cent, a price a sixth that of its competitors. It published a series of articles claiming that an obscure British astronomer had discovered man-bats, unicorns and bison on the Moon. The story ran for six days until it was exposed as a hoax by a rival newspaper. The next item in this list of journalistic infamy was about the attempts by Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst to start a war with Spain in support of Cuban rebels at the end of the 19th century. There wasn’t much fighting going on, and there weren’t any available reports of Spanish atrocities to inflame the patriotic, moral sentiments of the American public. So they made them up. The papers first claimed that a young American woman had been brutally strip-searched by suspicious Spanish male officials. Well, not quite. She had been searched, but privately by a respectable older Spanish woman. When that didn’t work, they seized on an explosion that destroyed an American ship in harbour. In all likelihood, the ship was destroyed by an accident. The papers claimed, however, that it had been destroyed by the Spanish, while issuing a small caveat stating that the cause had yet to be determined. And so the papers got the war they wanted.
The programme then moved on to the American Civil War, and the exploits of one of the world’s first photojournalists. This gentleman used photography to bring home with hitherto unknown realism the horrors of that conflict. But he was not above faking some of the photographs. One of these was of a young Confederate soldier lying dead in a trench. In fact, the photographer had dragged the corpse into the trench from elsewhere, move the head so that it faced the camera to make it even more poignant, and added a rifle that the photographer himself always carried. This little episode was then followed by the story of William Mumler and his faked spirit photographs. Mumler ended up being prosecuted for fraud by one of the papers. However, while the judge sympathised with the papers, the prosecution hadn’t proved how he had faked it. They merely showed he could have done it in nine different ways. And so the case was dismissed, Mumler went back to faking his photos for a satisfied, grieving clientele, one of whom was the widow of Abraham Lincoln.
Deepfake and the Falsification on Online Images
This brought Hislop on to the Deepfake software, used by pornographers for adding the features of respectable actors and actresses onto porn stars. This was used to map Hislop’s own features onto the mug of a dancer, so that he could be shown doing the high kicks and athletic moves. He also interviewed a man, who had used it to parody Barack Obama. Obama’s face was mapped onto a Black actor, who mimicked the former president’s voice. This produced fake footage in which Obama said, with statesman like grace and precision, that Donald Trump was a complete dipsh*t. He also interviewed another young man, who was producing fake stories on the internet, which were nevertheless clearly labeled satire, intended to rile the Alt-Right by feeding their hate and paranoia. Hislop asked him if he wasn’t actually encouraging them. The man stated that he wasn’t converting anyone to the Alt-Right. They were already angry, and stupid if they didn’t read the statements that what they were reacting to was fake. He was just showing up their stupidity.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The programme then moved on to the noxious Tsarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is one of the main sources for the bogus conspiracy theories about the Jews running everything. He pointed out that it was first run in Russian newspaper, which blamed them for introducing capitalism and democracy into Russia. Then in 1917, they were updated to claim that the Jews once again were responsible for the Bolshevik Revolution. Hislop said very clearly, waving a copy of the infamous book he’d managed to get hold of, that it was long and contradictory. It had also been disproved as long ago as the 1920s, when the Times in a series of articles showed that it was based on an 18th century novel that had nothing to do with Jews. This showed how the press could correct fake news. He himself said that, whereas when he started out as journalist, he spent move of his time trying to get new stories, now he spent most of his time checking them. Despite its falsehood, the Protocols were seized on by Goebbels, who insisted that it was spiritually true, if not literally, and had it taught in German schools. This was a different approach to Hitler, who had argued in Mein Kampf that it’s very suppression by the authorities showed that it was true. Nevertheless, the wretched book was still available all over the world, illustrating this with Arabic versions on sale in Cairo bookshop.
Infowars and Pizzagate
The programme also showed a contemporary conspiracy theory. This was the tale spun by Alex Jones on Infowars that the Comet pizza parlour was supplying children to be abused and sacrificed by the evil Democrats. Talking to the parlour’s owner, Hislop heard from the man himself how he and his business still suffer horrendous abuse because of this fake story. But it got worse. One day a few years ago a young man, incensed by what he had heard online, came into the story with a high-powered rifle, wishing to free the children. The conspiracy theory about the place claimed that there was a basement and tunnels running to the White House. The proprietor tried explaining to the man that there was no basement and no tunnels. The gunman went through the building until he found a locked door. He fired a few rounds into it, destroying the store’s computer. Hislop found this ironic, considering computers were the medium that spread it in the first place. The man then lay his gun down, put his arms up and let himself be arrested. It was a peaceful end to a situation which could have resulted in many people dead. But even this horrible incident hadn’t silenced the conspiracy theorists. They still believed that the stories were true, and that the incident had been faked with an actor as a false flag.
Russian Interference
The programme then went on to talk about Russian interference in American politics, and how they had set up a bot army to spread adverts aimed at influencing the result of the American election. RT was deeply involved in this, as the Russian state-owned news service was defending the country and its leader, Putin, from allegations that this had been done. It had also spread lies denying that Russia was responsible for the Skripal poisoning.
British Propaganda and the First World War
Had the British state done anything similar? Yes, in 1917. This was when the War Office, tired of the First World War dragging on, had seized on the news that the Germans were boiling down animal carcasses for their fat, and elaborated it, changing the corpses into human. Some might say, Hislop opined, that this was justified, especially as the German had committed real atrocities. But if we told lies like that, that meant we were no better than they. Stafford Cripps, who served in Churchill’s cabinet during the War, said that if winning it meant using such tactics, he’d rather lose. The fake story about human carcasses also had an unforeseen, and deeply unpleasant aftereffect. Following the realisation that it was fake, the first news of what the Nazis were doing in the concentration camps was also initially disbelieved. We don’t do things like that now, he said. And in a side-swipe at the ‘Dodgy Dossier’ and Saddam Hussein, he said, that no-one would believe stories about a mad dictator possessing weapons of mass destruction.
The Message: Trust the Mainstream Media
Hislop and his interlocutors, like the MP, who’d called for an inquiry into fake news, agreed that it was a real problem, especially as over half of people now got their news from online media. But the problem wasn’t to regard it all with cynicism. That is what the retailers of fake news, like Putin and RT want you to do. They want people to think that it is all lies. No, concluded Hislop, you should treat online information with the same scepticism that should apply to the mainstream media. Because there was such a thing as objective truth.
The Mainstream Media and Its Lies: What the Programme Didn’t Say
Which is absolutely right. There is an awful lot of fake news online. There’s also an awful lot of fake news being retailed, without any objection or scepticism by the lamestream media. And the only people tackling this fake news are the online blogs, vlogs and news sites. I’ve mentioned often before the anti-Semitism smears against Jackie Walker, Marc Wadsworth, Ken Livingstone, Mike, Martin Odoni, Tony Greenstein, Chris Williamson, and too many others. It’s all fake news, but there is not a word against it in the lamestream press, including the Eye. I’ve also mentioned how the British state during the Cold War had its own disinformation department pushing fake news, the IRD. This also turned to smearing the domestic, democratic Left in the shape of the Labour party and CND by claiming that they had connections to the Communist bloc. And in the case of Labour, that they supported the IRA. This is documented fact. Is it mentioned by the Beeb and the rest of the lamestream media? Don’t be daft! Is it still going on today? Yes, definitely – in the shape of the Democracy Institute and the Institute for Statecraft, which have connections to British intelligence and the cyberwarfare section of the SAS. And they are smearing Corbyn as too close to Putin, along with other European dignitaries, officials and high ranking soldiers. And we might not seek to overthrow government, but the Americans certainly do. The CIA has a long history of this, now given over to the National Endowment for Democracy, which kindly arranged the 2012 Maidan Revolution in Kiev, which threw out the pro-Russian president and installed a pro-Russian one. As for the New York Times, the editors of Counterpunch showed in their book on official propaganda in the American media, End Times: The Death of the Fourth Estate, how the Grey Lady ran a series of articles of fake news to support George Dubya’s invasion of Iraq. The Beeb has also done its fair share of broadcasting fake news. It’s supported the bogus allegations of anti-Semitism against Corbyn and his supporters. It altered the footage of the fighting between police and miners at the Orgreave colliery during the miners’ strike to show falsely the miners attacking the police. In reality, it was the other way round. And then there was the way they edited Alex Salmond in a press conference during the Scottish Referendum. The Macclesfield Goebbels, Nick Robinson, had asked Salmond a question about whether the Edinburgh banking and big financial houses would move south if Scotland gained its independence. Salmond replied with a full answer, explaining that they wouldn’t. This was too much for the Beeb, which edited the footage, subsequently claiming that Salmond hadn’t answered fully, and then denying that he had answered the question at all. It was fake news, courtesy of the Beeb.
Mike and the Sunday Times’ Smears
None of this was mentioned, unsurprisingly. The result is a cosy, reassuring view of the mainstream media. Yes, fake news is out there, but it’s being done by internet loons and nasty foreigners like the Russians. But never fear, all is well. The mainstream media can be trusted to check the facts, and give you the truth. Except that they don’t check the facts, or when they do, immediately ignore them. As Gabriel Pogrund and the editor of the Sunday Times did when they wrote their nasty hit piece on Mike. Pogrund rang Mike up, Mike explained very clearly that he certainly was no kind of Jew-hater and certainly did not deny the Holocaust. Pogrund and his editor ignored that, and published their piece anyway. Complaints to IPSO then followed. Mike won, but some people still continue to believe the lies.
You can’t trust the lamestream media. Instead, I thoroughly recommend you go for corrections and alternative views to the left-wing blogs, vlogs and news sites like Mike’s, Vox Political, Another Angry Voice, Zelo Street, the Skwawkbox, Gordon Dimmack and the American sites, Sam Seder’s Majority Report, The Michael Brooks’ Show, the David Pakman Show, Democracy Now! and the work of Abbie Martin attacking the American Empire and Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing. Those sites provide an important corrective to the lies and falsehood being daily fed to us by the lamestream media. Including the Beeb.
The news yesterday that a number of EU countries had followed Britain’s lead and expelled Russian diplomats is alarming. This is ratcheting up the tension with Russia to Cold War levels. Despite the lack of definitive evidence that the Russians were behind the poisoning of the Skripals, May and nearly the rest of the countries in the EU have decided that Putin is responsible. And I’m afraid that the tensions they’re fomenting will ultimately lead to war.
Killary began all this nonsense about Russia interfering in western elections as a way of diverting blame from herself for his massive failure to convince Americans to vote her. She’s a horrible candidate – a massively privileged, neoliberal corporatist, who has absolutely no sympathy for the working class, and whose policies on drugs with her husband actively damaged the Black community. She took working class votes for granted and didn’t even bother to campaign in many traditional Democrat states. Instead, she did what Blair did over here and went chasing the upper and upper-middle classes. As a result, she alienated many voters, who would otherwise have voted Democrat. She did get a million or so votes more than Trump, but lost through the machinations of the Electoral College, a very undemocratic institution that was originally set up to allow slave-holding states to count their slaves as less than human so they would have voting equality with free states. She could have blamed the electoral and demanded its abolition. Many others have. But she didn’t. Obviously, she’s quite happy with that very undemocratic part of the American electoral system.
Unable to accept her responsibility for losing the election, and a strong supporter of the status quo, she turned to blaming Russia. In doing so, she joined a number of far right organisations, including eugenicist groups founded by former Nazis, who believed that the poor and Blacks are biologically unfit and so should be denied state welfare. And even before she lost the election, she showed a very strong hostility to Russia.
From reading articles in Counterpunch, it appears that the current policy in the White House and the Pentagon is for ‘full spectrum dominance’. That means that America should be the world’s only superpower, with an unchallenged military dominance of the rest of the world. What America, and its elite leader, including Hillary Clinton, fear is the rise of the multipolar world. They cannot tolerate the emergence of political and economic rivals, such as Russia, or China, or India, for that matter. Hence the massive increase in military spending. Under Obama’s administration, Hillary’s foreign policy towards Russia and China was militantly hostile and she seemed keen to ramp hostility to both these nations to dangerous levels.
And on this side of the Pond, various NATO generals also forecast war with Russia. One of them, a deputy-head of NATO, actually had a book published a couple of years ago entitled 2017: War with Russia, in which he predicted last year that Russia would invade Latvia, and this would spark a war between Russia and NATO. He predicted it would all happen last May. Fortunately, the month came and went and Russia didn’t. But NATO troops were massing on Russia’s borders, which would serve as a provocation to the Russians. Russia is encircled by NATO bases, and has sent military advisers to the Fascist regime in Ukraine.
As I’ve blogged many times before, much of this renewed American hostility to Russia has nothing to do with concerns about democracy and human rights. It’s purely economic. The American multinationals that poured millions into backing Yeltsin at the end of the Cold War did so in the expectation that the ensuing massive privatisation of Russian state assets would allow them to dominate the Russian economy. But Putin has stopped that. Thus the massive corporate anger against Putin’s Russia. Putin is a thug, who has his critics and opponents beaten and killed, but that’s not the reason the American political elite and their counterparts over here hate him.
I’m very much afraid that this latest round of expulsions will end by creating more tension, in a cycle that will end in a war with Russia, perhaps using a manufactured incident as a pretext for invading them. The pressure the government placed on Porton Down to state that the chemical used to poison the Skripals was definitely Russian is very, very similar to the pressure Blair and his cronies put on MI6 to ‘sex up’ the dodgy dossier and claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that he could launch within 45 minutes. He didn’t. The British and American publics were lied to, and despite massive opposition the west invaded Iraq. And the result has been nearly two decades of chaos and carnage.
And I’m afraid the same process is going on here to create another war for the benefit of the American military-industrial complex and big corporations desperate to get their hands on Russian resources and industries.
It needs to be stopped. Now. Before war really does break out, a war that could see millions die, and our beautiful planet turned into an irradiated cinder.
Quite a few people have put up pieces tearing great, raw chunks out of the government’s story that the Russians are responsible for the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Salisbury. Last week, Leftwingnobody, one of the great commenters on this blog, posted up a link on his blog to a piece in the Irish Times, which stated that it was unlikely the Russians were responsible. Leftwingnobody’s link is at https://leftwingnobody.wordpress.com/2018/03/14/unlikely-that-vladimir-putin-behind-skripal-poisoning/?wref=tp. Go to it, and follow the link for more information.
Craig Murray, who was formerly our man in Uzbekistan, before being kicked out because he had moral objections to our dealing with a corrupt, repressive tyrant, has also cast doubt on the government’s story. And Mike has also posted up continuing developments, which add more questions. Today he put up a piece quoting the Russians, who said that if they had used military grade nerve agents, then far more people would have been affected than the Skripals and the poor cop, who was poisoned. And they would all be dead, not incapacitated. Which is how it struck me. Furthermore, the Russians couldn’t use their original stocks of the Novichoks poison, because this would have decayed after 27 years. Quite apart from the fact that the international chemical weapons authority confirmed the Russians had destroyed them. But as the scientist, who developed the toxin revealed, the knowledge of how to manufacture it is now out in the public sector, and so any number of countries or individuals could be behind the attack. Porton Down has refused to confirm that the Russians were responsible, and stated only that the nerve agent was of ‘Russian manufacture’.
But as far as May and the Tories, and their lapdogs in the Beeb are concerned, the Russians are responsible, and we’re facing a new threat from Putin. Who, according to BoJo, is now like Hitler. At least in the way he’s going to use next year’s world cup in Moscow, which will be like the Berlin Olympics in 1938.
I caught May pontificating on the Six O’clock News about how the Russians were threatening us and our European allies. The report also said she was trying to persuade the other European leaders to join her. Queue a shot of Angela Merkel going down a corridor, looking grim and serious. Then it moved on to Boris, saying that he wasn’t trying to stoke tensions with his wild comparison with Hitler. And on the local news this evening, they were also talking about the Salisbury poisoning and described the chemical used as ‘the Russian nerve agent’, although this is still open to doubt. Back to the Six O’clock News, the Beeb showed an Estonian diplomat talking about the Russian threat.
This is dangerous talk, whatever nonsense BoJo might try to bluster in order to justify his absurd comments. The Russians lost 20 million people fighting Hitler during the War. Millions of their squaddies were starved and worked to death as slave labourers after being captured as P.O.W.s by the Nazis. It’s therefore highly offensive for BoJo to make this stupid, insulting comparison. Also, as Simon Reeve showed in his documentary series about Russia a few months ago, the Russians are genuinely proud of their armed forces and the way they defended their homeland during the Great Patriotic War. Their equivalent of Remembrance Day/ Veteran’s Day is far more like a party, with food and drink, as well as marches and speeches, than the very solemn and austere ceremonies we go through every November 11.
I don’t doubt that Putin will try to exploit the World Cup to promote his government and his country, but the accusation that he will is more than a little hypocritical. Every government uses international sporting events like the World Cup, or the Olympics, to promote themselves. I can still remember the Americans at the Atlanta Olympics in the 1980s. As for Russia threatening Europe, in many cases it’s the other way. Russia is ringed by NATO bases right along its borders. This was after the original treaty with Gorbachev pledged NATO not to expand up to its borders in return for Gorby withdrawing all their troops from eastern Europe and allowing the former satellites to go their own way. I’m sympathetic to the fears of the Baltic States, who were reincorporated into the USSR after a brief period of independence when Stalin threw the Germans back in World War II. But at the same time, the Estonians are building monuments to Nazi collaborators as national heroes. And the supposedly democratic government of the Ukraine includes real, uniformed Nazis, who are now out on the streets of Kiev to keep order. But you won’t find that mentioned on the news, because obviously, the vast majority of people in this country will not want to support a blatantly Fascist regime.
So once again, we’re being fed lies by the Tories and the media, lies which could take us to war. And who benefits? Well, May and the Tories, obviously. She was seven points behind Labour in the polls, and the Tories are looking at being wiped out in London. Thus, she’s trying to copy Thatcher, and act like a ‘bargain-basement Boadicea’, rattling her sabre furiously. The real reason for this tension is less a military threat from Russia, and far more the fact that the American multinationals, who thought they would get to control the Russian economy under Yeltsin, have found themselves stymied by Putin. It’s like the Iraq invasion all over again: dodgy claims of weapons of mass destruction, and economic motives – western corporate interests – disguised as an attack, or resistance to, an evil tyrant.
Putin is a thug, and a real enemy of democracy. Journalists and opposition politicians in Russia have been arbitrarily arrested, jailed, beaten and murdered by his thugs. And I don’t doubt that at least some of the 14 Russians, who’ve died over here in suspicious circumstances, have been assassinated by him. But Corbyn is right about the Salisbury poisoning. It isn’t clear that he’s behind it, and we need far more proof before stoking up international tensions.
But the Tories are doing it anyway, for their own cynical electoral advantage, and those of their corporate financers. And if there is a war, the people who will pay the price will be ordinary working people. When Bush invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the Republican Neocon leadership were very careful to make sure that none of their sons or daughters were likely to be posted to the conflict zone. As opposed to the poor and working class, whose districts were targeted by the recruiting sergeants.
As for Boris, looking at the way he has conducted himself as foreign secretary, I can only agree with the Russians. It is amazing that he is the spokesman of a nuclear power. Actually, it’s downright terrifying.
For all our sakes, we need the media to hold May and the rest to account, to ask the hard questions that Laura Kuenssberg and the rest of the Beeb’s pro-Tory lackeys aren’t asking. Before the Tories start another war for the benefit of multinational capital.
Florence, one of the great commenters to this blog, alerted me the other day about a decision by YouTube. Apparently they’re planning to link any posts about conspiracies to pages in Wikipedia debunking them. She’s understandably very concerned about this because it is the first step to policing our minds, and telling us all what we should or should not believe.
There are indeed some very pernicious conspiracy theories around, which do need debunking. Like the stupid, murderous ideas that the Jews are conspiring through their control of the banks, media and Communism to destroy the White, ‘Aryan’ races. Or that they have been actively trying to destroy Islam and the Arabs since the days of Mohammed. And then there’s all the nutty ideas about the US government being in cahoots with evil reptoid aliens from Zeta Reticulum. And so on.
But there are also real conspiracies. Lobster as a magazine is dedicated to exposing them. Mostly these real conspiracies are about clandestine groups of activists, ideologues, business leaders, lobbyists and various intelligences agencies conspiring towards distinct short-term goals. Like the implementation of a set of policies, like neoliberalism, and attacking and undermining Communism during the Cold War. Or producing suitable pretexts for more western imperialism, like the Neocons in the US and Britain started faking material to suggest Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
These conspiracies certainly exist. And when Al-Jazeera showed Shai Masot at the Israeli embassy discussing with various Friends of Israel the people he wanted in May’s cabinet, Mike rightly called it a conspiracy. But because he used the term, the Blairites and Zionists in the Labour party have accused him of being anti-Semitic, because ‘conspiracy’ = the bogus, malign conspiracy theories of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other malign lies of that sort.
Lobster had published a number of articles over the years on the difference between real and fake conspiracy theories. One of these was by Jeffrey M. Bale in issue 29, entitled ”Conspiracy Theories’ and Clandestine Politics’, on pages 16-17, 19-22. It’s part of the introductory chapter to his Ph.D. thesis, The ‘Black’ Terrorist International: Neo-Fascist Paramilitary Networks and the ‘Strategy of Tension’ in Italy, 1968-1974, University of California at Berkeley, 1994. He begins by discussing why mainstream academic writers ignore real conspiracies. He writes
Very few notions generate as much intellectual resistance, hostility and derision with academic circles as a belief in the historical importance or efficacy of political conspiracies. Even when this belief is expressed in a very cautious manner, limited to specific and restricted contexts, supported by reliable evidence, and hedged about with all sort of qualifications, it still manages to transcend the boundaries of acceptable discourse and violate unspoken academic taboos. The idea that particular groups of people meet together secretly or in private to plan various courses of action, and that some of these plans actually exert a significant influence on particular historical developments, is typically rejected out of hand and assumed to be the figment of a paranoid imagination. The mere mention of the world ‘conspiracy’ seems to set off an internal alarm bell which causes scholars to close their minds in order to avoid cognitive dissonance and possible unpleasantness, since the popular image of conspiracy both fundamentally challenges the conception most educated, sophisticate people about how the world operates, and reminds them of the horrible persecution that absurd and unfounded conspiracy theories have precipitated or sustained in the past. So strong is this prejudice among academics that even when clear evidence of a plot is inadvertently discovered in the course of their research, they frequently feel compelled, either out of a sense of embarrassment or to defuse anticipated criticism, to preface their account of it by ostentatiously disclaiming a belief in conspiracies. They then often attempt to downplay the significance of the plotting they have uncovered. To do otherwise, that is to make a serious effort to incorporate the documented activities of conspiratorial groups into their general political or historical analyses, would force them to stretch their mental horizons beyond customary bounds and, not inadvertently, delve even further into certain sordid and politically sensitive topics. Most academic researchers clearly prefer to ignore the implications of conspiratorial politics altogether rather than deal directly with such controversial matters.
A number of complex cultural and historical factors contribute to this reflexive and unwarranted reaction, but it is perhaps most often the direct result of a simple failure to distinguish between ‘conspiracy theories’ in the strict sense of the term, which are essentially elaborate fables even though they may well be based upon a kernel of truth, and the activities of actual clandestine and covert political groups, which are a common feature of modern politics. For this and other reasons, serious research into genuine conspiratorial networks has at worst been suppressed, as a rule been discouraged, and at best looked upon with condescension by the academic community. An entire dimension of political history and contemporary politics has thus been consistently neglected. (P. 16).
The article goes on to discuss some of the classic, bogus conspiracy theories, like those around the Bavarian Illuminati, or Prince Clemens von Metternich’s claim in the 1880s that there was a central committee in Paris directing all the radicals in Europe in their campaigns to overthrow their governments; and the murderous Tsarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He distinguishes the common elements amongst these malign conspiracies. These theories state that the members of the conspiratorial group are evil incarnate. They are monolithic and unerring when pursuing their goals. They are omnipresent and virtually omnipotent, and are the motive force of all history.
He contrasts this with real conspiracies, whose members are recognisable human, and very definitely not monolithic. These conspiracies are in competition with many other similar groups trying to pursue their goals. They are also restricted in time and space. He states
There is probably not a single secret organisation anywhere which has existed continuously from antiquity to the present, and only a small number could have had a continuous existence for more than a century. And, with the possible exception of those which are created and sponsored by the governments of major nations and the world’s most powerful business and religious institutions, the range of activity of specific clandestine groups is invariably limited to particular geographic or sectoral arenas. (Pp. 20-1).
Mike over at Vox Political has already put up a piece commenting on the Tory and right-wing Labour attacks on Jeremy Corbyn for his response to the government declaring that Putin is responsible for the nerve gas attack in Salisbury on Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Corbyn stated in his speech that he totally condemned the attack, but wants absolute proof that Putin is responsible before blaming Russia and retaliating. This is just too much for the Tories, who when they find themselves confronted by a real statesman, rather than someone who just sabre-rattles and strikes nationalistic poses, immediately start lying. So the Labour leader has been vilified as Putin’s puppet, and for failing to condemn Russia for the attack in Salisbury. Despite the fact that Corbyn has condemned the attack. And the Beeb in their coverage was absolutely delighted when they showed the Tories cheering on the Labour backbenchers, who attacked Corbyn. This must have been music to the ears of their news editor, Laura Kuenssberg, who presented that piece. But Mike’s article shows how Corbyn is absolutely right, along with the support he has amongst thousands of people online sick and tired of Tory and Blairite lies, people who also make extremely good arguments in the Labour leader’s favour.
In this piece from the Jimmy Dore show, the American comedian and his co-hosts, Ron Placone and Steffi Zamorano, also discuss the smears against Corbyn. They make the same points Mike has made, and then apply it to the situation in America, where the Republicans and the Corporate Democrats are doing their level best to smear Bernie Sanders. And so Sanders has been reviled as racist, misogynist, wearing expensive clothes, you name it, they’ve flung it at him. This is, Dore states, how the establishment deals with anti-war progressives. It’s also, as they point out, the way the Democrats are attacking Trump. He’s being attacked as Putin’s puppet by that section of the Democrats that is now even further right than the Republicans.
He goes further, and describes his own vilification and smearing by his right-wing opponents. He has 300,000 subscribers to his channel, which is much smaller than The Young Turks’ 3 million. But he’s been smeared, his videos edited to make it appear that he’s saying things he isn’t and misquoted. He states that mostly he doesn’t respond to the smears, as this would elevate them and bring them to more people’s attention. With the exception of the Washington Post, when he decided he’d have a little fun. He makes the point that when Bernie announces his candidacy for the presidency, the abuse against him is going to make that against Corbyn pale.
Dore also makes the point that all this material from the intelligence community, like MI6, which supposedly points in the direction of Putin, really isn’t convincing either, given the way the intelligence services lied about there being weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And Steffi Zamorano also finds it very strange that the British government is leaping to attack Putin, but has declared that everyone in Salisbury is safe, and has not called the incident a terrorist attack.
Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, who was sacked and smeared because he was too honest, is also very critical of the identification of the nerve agent used in the attack. This has been identified as Novichoks, a toxin created by the Russians. But he presents evidence that casts considerable doubt on that identification, and the assertion that the Russians must be responsible. He concludes
1) Porton Down has acknowledged in publications it has never seen any Russian “novichoks”. The UK government has absolutely no “fingerprint” information such as impurities that can safely attribute this substance to Russia.
2) Until now, neither Porton Down nor the world’s experts at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were convinced “Novichoks” even exist.
3) The UK is refusing to provide a sample to the OPCW.
4) “Novichoks” were specifically designed to be able to be manufactured from common ingredients on any scientific bench. The Americans dismantled and studied the facility that allegedly developed them. It is completely untrue only the Russians could make them, if anybody can.
5) The “Novichok” programme was in Uzbekistan not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with Karimov, not by the Russians.
Some of the commenters on this blog have also pointed out that with an election coming up, and May seven points behind Corbyn, she definitely needs to start sabre-rattling to get the nationalists on her side. Plus, international tensions are delight to the arms industries, who want to sell more kit to our forces. And Porton Down, our chemical weapons research centre, has now been £50 million to build a new research factory. Which is just amazing, considering the government is pleading that there isn’t enough money to support the NHS, the sick, disabled, unemployed, the poor, schools or provide anything like the funding a really civilised society needs.
And as for supplying money to Porton Down, this comes rather late. As Mike points out, Labour set up a special regiment to deal with chemical weapons attacks. But this was closed down by Cameron in 2011.
And the backbench Labour rebels, who were attacking Corbyn seem mostly seem to be members of the Labour Friends of Israel. So the Israel lobby in the Labour party is seizing its chance to attack Corbyn, and try to get back into power that way. More smears by those, who manufactured the smears that Labour is full of anti-Semites and Nazis. I suppose I really shouldn’t be surprised. They’re very strongly connected to the corporatist Blairites, and it was Blair, who put pressure on MI6 to ‘sex up’ the dossier so it would provide a pretext for the Iraq invasion. So more lies from them.
Putin is a thug. In Russia he actively stamps on and persecutes opposition parties and politicians. Journalists and other critics of his regime are regularly beaten, and many have died in very suspicious circumstances. 14 other Russians have also died in similarly suspicious circumstances over here. But we have to be absolutely sure that he is responsible, not jump to conclusions, and make sure our response is proportionate and reasonable.
But May’s hysterical nationalism will play well with the jingoistic hordes of the Scum, Fail, Express and the rest, who will even now be salivating at the thought of making her into another belligerent Thatcher. Even if that means precipitating another, dangerous crisis in international relations.
I put up a post this morning about a book I’ve reviewed for Lobster, the conspiracy/parapolitics magazine, of Richard Griffiths ‘What Did You Do in the War?’ on the activities of the British Fascist and pro-Nazi right from 1940 to 1945. This has been rather late being posted, as the webmaster is very busy with work. I am very pleased to say that it has now gone up, along with the first parts of Lobster 75, the new issue of the magazine for summer 2018. The magazine comes out twice yearly.
Apart from my article, there is editor Robin Ramsay’s own column and roundup of news of interest to parapolitics watchers, ‘The View from the Bridge’, Garrick Alder on how Richard Nixon also tried to steal documents covering his lies and crimes in Vietnam, and his sabotage of the 1968 peace talks years before the Watergate scandal. Part II of Nick Must’s article on using the UK Foia. There is also a review of Jeffrey M. Bale’s book The Darkest Parts of Politics, which is an extensive examination of corruption, violence, terror committed by governments and political organisations around the world; And John Newsinger’s devastating review of Gordon Brown’s My Life, Our Times. Brown’s book is intended to present him as some kind of lefty, but Newsinger shows that instead Brown was a consistent supporter of Blair’s neoliberalism, who had no qualms about sucking up to Rupert Murdoch and Paul Dacre, with whom he is still friends. He also wanted to impose a graduate tax following Blair’s imposition of student fees. He also argues that Brown’s protestations of innocence about the claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction is similarly unconvincing. Brown claimed that MI6 lied to them. Newsinger argues instead that either Brown’s very naïve, or he’s also lying. And he shows how the humiliation the British army has suffered in Basra in Iraq and Afghanistan was due to cuts imposed by New Labour. Oh yes, and Brown’s also a close friend of Benjamin Netanyahu, the right-wing maniac now running the Israeli government and ethnically cleansing the Palestinians.
He also argues that if Brown had won the 2010 election, austerity would now be imposed by a New Labour government, there would be a state visit arranged for Donald Trump – Brown recently went over there to give a very sycophantic speech to Congress, as well as more privatisation, more cuts to welfare services, and the graduate tax.
The Beeb really does seem as determined as possible to spread as much Tory and right-wing American lies as they can, even if it brings us closer to a needless war with Russia.
Mike has already commented yesterday on the Beeb’s highly biased reporting of the sexual abuse scandal now engulfing parliament. The Beeb has seized on the Kelvin Hopkins story, and has been banging on about this, while casually ignoring the even bigger scandal about the number of Tory MPs, who sexually harass staff. Hopkins was briefly a member of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet before retiring to the backbenches. He is accused of harassing Ava Etamadzadeh, to whom he allegedly sent an inappropriate message, and held his body close to hers when they shrugged. The major question here is whether Corbyn knew about the allegations when he appointed Hopkins to the shadow cabinet.
The Beeb has been endlessly promoting this story, with Corbyn stopped in the street by a Beeb reporter. And Laura ‘Arnalda Mussolini’ Kuenssberg, who tweeted thirteen times about the allegations but has made no mention of the far greater number of Tory MPs accused of sexual harassment.
While it’s unclear if Corbyn knew anything about Hopkins, the MPs has been suspended from the party and the Labour whip withdrawn. Unlike the Tory party, where Theresa May certainly knew about the unwelcome attentions 36 of her MPs were foisting on their staff in a weekly reported nicknamed ‘the Ins and Outs’. So far, none of the MPs accused have been suspended and they are not being investigated. The only casualty so far seems to have been Michael Fallon, who resigned from his role as Defence Secretary. But Kuensberg wasn’t interested in this, preferring – as good Tory propagandist – to continue harping on about Hopkins instead.
Then last night the Beeb decided it was going to retail once again Killary’s lies that she lost the election due Russian hacking and meddling in the US election on Have I Got News For You. They reported that Trump’s aides Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort were arrested for their corrupt links with Russia and Ukraine.
This is debatable. I can’t comment on Papadopoulos, but the FBI file on Manafort only mentions Ukraine. It doesn’t mention Russia.
The show also claimed that all the files that incriminated Hillary, showing her corrupt dealings in the Democrat party and her connections to Wall Street, were also released through Russian hacking.
They weren’t. As WikiLeaks themselves have said, and indeed the former British diplomat who took custody of the documents for them, the information was leaked by a disgruntled Democratic insider. Russia had nothing to do with it.
Now there’s probably a big story there about Manafort’s connections with Ukraine. Ronald Reagan patronised and supported the ex-pat Ukrainian organisations during the Cold War, giving their leaders posts in the various anti-Communist propaganda departments. These organisations and their leader, Vladimir Stetso, were former Nazi collaborators with a virulent hatred of Jews. Just as the current ruling Ukrainian coalition contains fully paid up, unreconstructed Nazis from the Pravy Sektor.
But we ain’t supposed to know about them. It might put us off the lie that the Maidan Revolution of 2012 was entirely spontaneous and democratic, instead of being stage-managed by Obama’s State Department under Victoria Nuland, George Soros, and the National Endowment for Democracy, which took over the CIA’s task of engineering ‘regime change’ when the Agency became too notorious for fomenting coups.
As for Killary, when in government she was one of the most hawkish members of Obama’s team, and was needlessly ramping up tensions with Russia and China. And the people backing her story about how it was due to the Russians, rather than her own venality and colossal lack of sympathy for the American people, are another bunch of sordid Nazis. They include the Von Mises Society, which is dedicated to privatising the state and destroying what little is left of American welfare provision. They also used to subscribe to eugenics and pseudoscientific racism. That means, they published a series of pamphlets and other literature intended to demonstrate that Blacks were thicker than Whites, and that America should not set up a welfare state, because this would simply be a waste of money. If people were poor, it was because they were biologically unfit. Particularly Blacks.
This is the kind of people, who are promoting Hillary’s lies about the Russians stealing the American election. And the Beeb seems happy to repeat this garbage, even if it means creating another wretched Cold War of the time that dam’ nearly destroyed the world the last time under Reagan.
I don’t know why the Beeb is actually doing this, apart from the issue of right-wing bias within the Corporation. Possibly its part of the whole Atlanticist mindset, which permeates much of the British governing class since America superseded us as a world power after the Second World War. We can only be a major force on the world stage by riding on America’s coat-tails. Everything they do, we have to follow. One British ambassador was told by his superiors in the Foreign Office that his job in Washington was to get up the Americans’ backside and stay there. And so Blair enthusiastically joined Bush in invading Iraq, creating the ‘dodgy dossier’ and lying about weapons of mass destruction in order to do so. And certain NATO generals were predicting that by May this year we would be already fighting Putin’s forces in the Baltic States.
That fortunately hasn’t happened, but I wonder if the generals, civil servants and politicians, who promoted this feel disappointed.
As it stands, it certainly looks like the Beeb are keen to defend Killary, even to the point of lying about Russian involvement and ratcheting up the Cold War a further notch or two.
And showing further that you cannot trust the Beeb to tell the truth about either the Labour party or the real state of affairs in eastern Europe.
At last, after the mindless, terrifying posturing of Trump and Kim Jong In, there’s a bit of common sense in this latest nuclear crisis. A group of Democrat politicos, including Mark Lew, are demanding a change in legislation that would strip the American president of his current power to launch a nuclear attack without Congress’ authorization. This piece of legislation is currently backed by 50,000 signatures from the American public. A previous version of the law was signed by 500,000 people.
In this clip from The Ring of the Fire, the front man not only welcomes this piece of legislation, which would restrain Trump as someone too dangerously unstable to have this power, but asks why it was never passed before. All the past presidents, including Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan and George Dubya, had the power to launch a nuclear missile somewhere without having to seek Congress’ approval. This means that they could destroy a region anywhere, and leave it uninhabitable for 30 years. The presenter makes the point that no-one should power.
He’s absolutely right. The British comics writer and creator, Pat Mills, made a similar point back in an edition of Diceman, a comic whose strips were all Role-Playing Games. In one of these, the reader played Ronald Reagan, who had to go back in time to undo the series of events which were about to start a nuclear war with the former Soviet Union. Mills wrote in the notes to the game a piece detailing how little operational machinery there was in place to check a president’s decision to launch a nuclear attack, or halt hostilities once they had began. These procedures were so few that, if America had been on the brink of a nuclear to the point where the president had gone aboard Airforce 1 to escape an attack on the White House, his chance of contacting the Russian premier to negotiate a peace and pull back from Armageddon would depend literally on a three mile length of wire dangling from the aircraft as an emergency aerial.
And this was under Reagan, whose rhetoric and conduct towards the USSR and Communism was especially belligerent. He nearly started a nuclear holocaust himself with that stupid joke he made at a Republican rally. He stood in front of the cheering crowd, and declared that ‘Congressed has passed legislation outlawing the Soviet Union. Bombing begins in five minutes’. A little while later, the Observer reported under the headline, ‘Nearly the Last Laugh of All’, that after Reagan made that stupid joke, one of the Soviet nuclear bases in Siberia went on red alert for half an hour before standing down.
We can’t have the power to start a nuclear war, and turn this planet into a lifeless cinder, unilaterally held by the President, without a comprehensive system of check. It shouldn’t be held by Reagan, Barack Obama or Clinton, let alone a pratt like Trump.
I have a feeling that the system may have been set up the way it has been for swiftness of response. If Russia had fired nuclear missiles at America, the president could have launched a rapid counterattack in the precious last few minutes the country still existed, instead of seeking Congressional approval.
But the Americans discussing abandoning their ‘no strike first’ policy, removing this power from the presidency is a small price to pay for increased global security.
It’s also similar to a proposal in Britain to strip the Prime Minister of the right to start a war without the consent of parliament. This is precisely what Blair and his cronies did when they joined Bush in the invasion of Iraq. Looking through Waterstone’s shelves the other month, I saw a book by a British general arguing against the proposal, on the grounds that it would hinder Britain’s ability to wage war.
A fair reply to this argument would be ‘Good.’
The Iraq invasion was an illegal act of aggression, launched on a tissue of lies that Saddam Hussein was planning another attack, and had weapons of mass destruction. He wasn’t and didn’t. The result has been the destruction of one of the richest, most secular nations in the Middle East, the devastation of its priceless antiquities, and millions dead, wounded and displaced not only in Iraq itself but across the Middle East.
It plunged the country into a vicious, sectarian civil war, in which the American occupying forces gave material aid and sanction to Shia death squads, while the mercenaries employed by the West ran completely out of control. These private military contractors were responsible for prostitution to murder, sometimes just killing ordinary Iraqis and Arabs just for kicks.
There is a very strong case for hauling Blair, Bush and the other warmongers up before the Hague as war criminals. This has been tried by British, Canadian and Greek lawyers, but American pressure on the Hague War Crimes Tribunal put a stop to it. And a few weeks ago a British court also ruled that Blair could not be indicted as the war criminal he is.
Considering the horror Blair unleashed through his decision to go to war, against the wishes of over a million ordinary Brits, who marched against it – Christian, Muslim, atheist, whatever, then it’s only too right that the Prime Minister should have to call parliament before they declare war.
This week Trump’s administration officially put Iran ‘on notice’ for the crime of testing a ballistic missile in their own country. The missile wasn’t capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but nevertheless Trump and his Nazis accused it of preparing to acquire them.
In this edition of RT’s Redacted Tonight, the host, comedian Lee Camp, suggests the real reason Trump has warned Iran of a possible invasion should they not comply with America’s wishes, has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. No, it’s for the simple reason that Iran is planning to ditch the dollar as the currency for trade in oil. He cites newspaper reports and Perkins’ Confession of an Economic Hitman to show that one of the reasons for the Iraq invasion was that Saddam Hussein was also considering abandoning the dollar. As was Colonel Gaddafi. Gaddafi wanted to set up the gold dinar as Africa’s and the Middle East’s rival to the dollar and euro.
As for Iran being put ‘on notice’, Camp remarks that they just might have worked out that America was threatening to invade them through the number of US bases encircling the country.
Camp then contrasts the ire of America’s corporate elite to this financial outrage, with the way Trump tolerates and encourage the destruction of the environment. BP has just been allowed to resume drilling again in the Gulf of Mexico, despite the oil spill that devastated the region’s ecosystem the other year. And what are they calling their new rig? Mad Dog II.
He also discusses Nancy Pelosi’s terrified reaction when a young member of a TV audience put her on the spot by telling her that Millennials don’t support capitalism. This is true. A recent poll showed that American young people don’t. Cue nervous laughter from Pelosi and the hurried response that ‘We’re capitalists’. She then went on to burble bilge about ‘stakeholder capitalism’, and so, as Camp remarked, try to position herself as supporting capitalism and working people simultaneously. He also jokes about the Democrats’ extremely weak response to opposing the Republicans.
He also talks to Naomi Karavani about the Republican’s criminalisation of the DAPL protestors. North Dakota is considering passing legislation to allow drivers to run down protestors. They also have footage of some politico claiming that the protestors were all paid and bussed in specially, and that after leaving the DAPL protests they will simply go on to the next one. He also reports how the DAPL protestors, including elderly ladies, who have done nothing except peacefully block the way and pray, are now ‘terrorists’. They also want to amend the laws on rioting so it includes simply standing there when told to go away.
Finally on the show he talks to John F. O’Donnell about Trump’s intention to repeal the Dodd Frank Act. This is the act that obliges the big financial firms to put away hundreds of millions of dollars to provide against another financial crash. This would allow the banks to pay out millions to shareholders, but it would mean that they would once more become that bit more vulnerable to financial collapse. O’Donnell also discusses Trump’s abolition of the financial regulator, that has forced pay day loan companies and other companies to pay money back to victims of financial wrongdoing.
He reports Bernie Sanders’ response to this, in which the veteran left-wing Democrat called Trump what he is: a fraud. Trump had promised during his election campaign that he was going to reign in Wall Street. Now he’s doing his best to strengthen it and expand its power.
Warning: Camp is one of the young, edgy comedians, so there is language and some might find some jokes offensive. Like when compares the tired excuses of the American military for their warmongering, that they’re attacking to prevent the other side from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, to a couple with Alzheimer’s in a retirement home.
Camp is, however, exactly right in his criticisms and the report about Iran and its intention to move to an alternative currency instead of the dollar has more than the ring of truth. Greg Palast in his discussion of the Iraq invasion in his book, Armed Madhouse, states that the American economy is to a very large extent insulated from many of the financial crises that hit the rest of the world’s countries because the dollar is the world currency for the oil industry. The moment an alternative currency is set up – such as Gaddafi’s Gold Dinar – much of America’s economic strength is wiped out. Hence the aggressive response to any oil producing state that dares to do so.
We’re being threatened with being taken into another war, simply to keep American oil billionaires rolling in it. More of our brave squaddies may die, and the innocent people of another country massacred and its oil and other industries looted.
In this short segment from the Jimmy Dore Show, the American comedian and his team rightly tear into an add for the New York Times. The newspaper has been running an ad campaign with the slogan ‘The truth isn’t cheap’. This provokes mocking laughter from Dore and his team, who comment that the lies come free and are posted above the centre line. He also makes a pointed comment about Judith Miller, one of the Time’s journalists, getting a job with Fox News. He also states that in the case of the NY Times, the truth definitely isn’t free, as if you tell it, it could cost you your job. The segment ends with the comedians attacking various Democrat politicos for not protesting against Trump as much as they should, and stating that they need to ‘drain the swamp’ on their side of the House because of the terrible state the Democrats are in.
Dore is quite right to attack the Times, and its specious claim to truthful journalism. In fact, the newspaper has acted as the conduit for government lies, especially during the run up to the Iraq Invasion. The editors of the American radical magazine, Counterpunch, Patrick Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair, have published a series of articles about the way the Times carried the lies from the Bush administration about Saddam Hussein’s non-existent ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in order to whip up popular support for the invasion. And one of the few journalists on the newspaper, who did try getting the truth out, was summarily sacked.
I’m well aware that Dore is an American, commenting on an American newspaper, but this also has implications over here. Since Donald Trump’s elections we’ve had organisations like the BBC state that they are going to set up special taskforces and departments to critique and refute ‘fake news’. The Beeb, however, has stated that it will confine this to the internet, and not take on the fake news coming out of Fleet Street. While there is a problem with racist fake news on the internet, the most pernicious lies are those retailed by the mainstream media. Like the New York Times and Fox News in America. In the case of the latter, media researcher found that 75 per cent of the news broadcast by Fox was actually false. Watching Fox News actually makes you less informed than if you didn’t watch it. And the same could be said for the right-wing media over here, comprising the Murdoch press and the rags owned by Paul Dacre, Dirty Desmond and the rest of them. And this also includes the Beeb, which has a very definite right-wing bias. The Beeb’s news programmes do not like anyone challenging the idea that austerity is somehow necessary, as shown by Barry and Saville Kushner in their book, Who Needs the Cuts. Researchers at Edinburgh, Cardiff and Glasgow Universities have shown that the Beeb prefers to accept the views and give coverage to Conservatives and business leaders than members of the Labour party and trade unionists. And this is quite apart from the grotesque and flagrant anti-Labour, anti-Corbyn bias of La Kuenssberg.
Never mind the New York Times. The British media also desperately needs a few well-placed sneers at its pretensions to tell the truth. And that means the Beeb and the Times, as well as well-worn targets like the Scum.
Beastrabban\'s Weblog 