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BBC, other MSM guilty of ‘clear & consistent bias’ against Corbyn, study finds

RT | July 29, 2016

British news channels are blatantly biased against Jeremy Corbyn, giving far more airtime to commentators who openly criticize the Labour Party leader than those who support him, a second study of the phenomenon shows.

New research by the Media Reform Coalition and Birkbeck University of London shows there has been a “clear and consistent bias” both online and on television against Corbyn since the coup against his leadership was launched after the EU referendum.

Similar conclusions were drawn earlier in July by a similar London School of Economics (LSE) study.

Birkbeck academics studied news reports published in the wake of the June 23 vote, when a series of shadow cabinet members resigned en masse in the hope of forcing Corbyn to stand down.

Outlets, including the BBC, were found to have given Corbyn opponents double the airtime afforded to Corbynistas.

The report found “a marked and persistent imbalance in favour of sources critical of Jeremy Corbyn, the issues that they sought to highlight, and the arguments they advanced.”

It also found a “strong tendency within the main BBC evening news bulletins for reporters to use pejorative language when describing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, including words like ‘hostile’ and ‘hard core.’”

Media critic Roy Greens said the findings should force reporters and editors to face “the reality of their bias.”

Compiled by Dr. Justin Schlosberg, the study compared news pieces about Corbyn’s leadership struggle as seen through the lens of the BBC, ITV, the Daily Mail, the Huffington Post, IBTimes, the Mirror, the Independent, the Guardian and the Telegraph.

And as far as opinion pieces were concerned both the Telegraph and the Daily Mail failed to publish any article supportive of the leader of the opposition.

The outlet most sympathetic with Corbyn was the Huffington Post, which divided its coverage between 50 percent pro-Corbyn comment and 50 percent critical or unclear.

“Amidst the social fracturing and polarisation of democratic life post-Brexit, the need for a more plural and inclusive mainstream news media has never been more urgent,” Schlosberg said.

“We hope that broadcasters and editors will respond positively to our call to consider the impact of imbalanced reporting on the democratic process.”

Earlier research by LSE echoed Schlosberg’s conclusions, finding that three quarters of newspaper reporting on Corbyn in his first months as leader either ignored or “distorted his views.”

“Allowing an important and legitimate political actor, i.e. the leader of the main opposition party, to develop their own narrative and have a voice in the public space is paramount in a democracy,” LSE’s Dr. Bart Cammaerts said.

July 29, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

Union boss claims state undercover agents sabotaging Corbyn’s Labour leadership

RT | July 22, 2016

Union boss Len McCluskey has accused British intelligence agencies of using agents provocateurs to undermine Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The Unite general secretary said he believed spies were using “dark practices” in an attempt to “stir up trouble” and suggested they could be behind the abuse of MPs on social media.

McCluskey told the Guardian he thought the truth would come out in 30 years, when classified government documents are released into the public domain.

Asked if he believed online abuse of Corbyn’s critics was posted by people trying to discredit his supporters, he said: “Of course, of course. Do people believe for one second that the security forces are not involved in dark practices?

“We found out just a couple of years ago that the chair of my union then, the Transport and General Workers Union, was an MI5 informant at the time that there was a strike taking place that I personally as a worker was involved in. [In] 1972, I was on strike for six weeks. And 30 years later it comes out that the chair of my union at that time was an MI5 informant.”

When asked again if he believed classified documents would reveal the involvement of British intelligence agents in Corbyn’s leadership strife, McCluskey said: “Well I tell you what, anybody who thinks that that isn’t happening doesn’t live in the same world that I live in.

“Do you think that there’s not all kinds of rightwingers who are not secretly able to disguise themselves and stir up trouble? I find it amazing if people think that isn’t happening.”

Labour MP Angela Eagle, who dropped out of the leadership race to back ‘unity candidate’ Owen Smith, dismissed McCluskey’s comments as “over the top.”

“These are serious issues. Rape threats, death threats and organized bullying are not something to be ignored or minimised. We have a democracy and we need Labour politics of solidarity to avoid the kind of anger and hostility that the politics of division inspires,” she said.

There is a historical precedent to provocateurs both in the UK and the US.

In 2009, Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake accused the police of using undercover agents to incite the crowds at the G20 protests in London.

In the US, the FBI ran a secret program called COINTELPRO from 1956 to 1971 which infiltrated groups such as the Black Panther Party and peace activists such as Martin Luther King Jr.

The FBI conducted systematic plots and surveillance to discredit and harass King, including false allegations he was influenced by communists and a threatening letter sent by agents in 1964 calling him “an evil, abnormal beast,” just one year after he delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.

July 22, 2016 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Guardian’s Corbyn survey

By Seamus Padraig | OffGuardian | July 21, 2016

Here we go again!

Ever since Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership of Labour last September in a record-breaking landslide victory, the Blairites have tried every desperate ruse and tactic imaginable to oust or undermine him. First, there were the baseless accusations of misogyny; then came even more baseless accusations of ‘anti-semtism’; and then, after the Brexit referendum, Corbyn was absurdly blamed for the defeat of Remain, prompting his own shadow cabinet to resign en masse and try, unsuccessfully, to oust him. It seems about the only thing the Blairites haven’t tried yet to get rid of Corbyn is a car-bomb! (On second thought, we probably shouldn’t say that out loud; it might give them ideas.)

And all the while, The Guardian (with a few honourable exceptions, such as Gary Younge) has consistently operated as the house organ of the Blairites, eager to spread the latest slander and calumny against Corbyn. Their latest hit-piece on him, like so many others, desperately tries to convince us that night is day and day is night. Bearing the authoritative sounding title, ‘Labour supporters have cooled on Corbyn, Guardian survey finds’, the article spends a considerable amount of time implying that Labour Party members are now turning against him: “Enthusiasm for Jeremy Corbyn has waned since the start of the year among Labour supporters, according to a survey of more than 100 constituencies across the country.” The article later lists a veritable catalogue of calamities—present and future—for which Corbyn, presumably, should be held responsible:

The survey also reveals:

  • A reluctance to acknowledge that the party might split, though some expressed fear that this is an inevitable outcome of the current divisions.
  • Fears that Ukip could exploit the chaos, especially in seats where they are the second largest party after Labour.
  • Complaints that many of the new members were not turning up at constituency party meetings or helping with leafleting.
  • Reports of intimidation and bullying – widespread across the country.
  • Little support so far for deselection of MPs.

As usual, there are plenty of catty-sounding quotes from party officials who’d probably never supported him to start with, such as:

Samantha Atkinson, chair of the CLP (constituency Labour party) in Clacton, which is held by Ukip, expressed pessimism about Labour’s chances at the next general election if Corbyn remains in charge. “If Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected, then I think we’ll fail. In a way, I hope that there’s a snap election and we fail. That way we have a chance to build again.”

But after twenty-two paragraphs of trying to convince us that Corbyn is responsible for just about every misfortune on earth—with possible exception of the Ebola virus—we finally come to this little gem:

James Schneider, a Momentum spokesman, said of the survey: “There does appear to be a disparity between the CLP secretaries and executive officers and the membership as a whole. If you look at the YouGov poll, support for Jeremy Corbyn is up.”

That’s right! This Guardian’s survey is only a survey of Labour’s elites—who, we already know, detest Corbyn: “The Guardian interviewed Labour chairs, secretaries and other office-holders, past and present, as well as councillors from 101 of the 632 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales on Thursday, Friday and Monday.”

The ordinary rank-and-file members love him as much as ever, while new members are still flocking to the party (and Momentum) just to support him. And readers’ comments—not censored for once!—largely reflect this fact:

japabre's screenshot for survey article

July 22, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

‘Thoroughly Delegitimized’: UK Media Slammed Over ‘Vicious’ Corbyn Coverage

Sputnik – July 18, 2016

UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn has long been a critic of his coverage in the British press, and now a new study has found that three-quarters of newspaper stories about the Labour leader’s first months of leadership either distorted or failed to represent his actual views.

Academics from the London School of Economics (LSE) undertook a review of Corbyn-related stories in national newspapers from September 1 to November 1 last year, concluding that the Labour leader had been “thoroughly delegitimized” as a result of the coverage he received.

The research concluded that in 52 percent of articles about the Labour leader, Corbyn’s views were not included in the story, while in a further 22 percent of articles his views were “present but taken out of context.”

Meanwhile, out of the more than 800 articles analyzed, 15 percent presented and challenged Corbyn’s views, while just 11 percent presented the Labour leader’s views without challenge or alteration.

“Our analysis shows that Corbyn was thoroughly delegitimized as a political actor from the moment he became a prominent candidate and even more so after he was elected as party leader,” LSE project director Dr Bart Cammaerts said.

Concerns Over Impact on Democracy

Researchers also pointed to the impact this distorted coverage of Corbyn’s views was having on British democracy.

“These results relating to sources and ‘voice’ are evidently troublesome from a democratic perspective,” Cammaerts added.

“Allowing an important and legitimate political actor, ie the leader of the main opposition party, to develop their own narrative and have a voice in the public space is paramount in a democracy.

“Denying such an important political actor a voice or distorting his views and ideas through the exercise of mediated power is highly problematic.”

The LSE team said Corbyn had been “systematically attacked” ever since coming to prominence last summer, and that the British media had “played an attackdog, rather than a watchdog, role.”

Crazy Marxist and Terrorist Friends

The report highlighted particular examples where Corbyn was portrayed as being a radical leftist or as someone with links to terrorist groups such as the IRA, Hamas and Hezbollah.

“Corbyn is systematically ridiculed, scorned and the object of personal attacks by most newspapers. Even more problematic were a set of associations which deligitimised Corbyn as a politician, calling him loony, unpatriotic, a terrorist friend and a dangerous individual,” the report concluded.

Broadcaster Sky News removed an article from its website last year that referred to Corbyn as “Jihadi Jez” following widespread public criticism.

Corbyn has himself hit out at the media following his portrayal over the past 12 months, banning journalists from asking questions outside the front of his home.

“We have a party under attack from much of the media in this country like it has never been under attack before,” he said earlier this year.

The study featured publications with views ranging all across the political spectrum and included The Sun, The Daily Express, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, the Evening Standard, the Independent, the Daily Mirror and the Guardian.

July 18, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 6 Comments

British politics: The Establishment versus Democracy

By Neil Clark | RT |  July 13, 2016

With the dramatic withdrawal of the pro-Brexit Andrea Leadsom from the Conservative Party leadership race, the coronation of Theresa May, who supported ’Remain’ in the EU Referendum, is confirmed.

Ms. May is expected to be handed the keys to 10, Downing Street on Wednesday.

At the same time, the pro-Iraq war Labour MP Angela Eagle has launched her leadership challenge to the anti-war Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

It’s not hard to see the connection between these two developments. May and Eagle, who says that she thinks ‘Tony Blair has suffered enough’, are the clear choices of the Establishment power brokers; Leadsom and Corbyn are most definitely not. Their appeal is with their party’s membership and the wider public and not with the Westminster/media elites.

What we are seeing played out before our very eyes is an attempt by said elites to reverse the democratization of Britain’s ‘Big Two’ political parties and to restore the power of Establishment insiders to shape the direction which those parties and the country takes. Party members who think differently must be put in their place. They must be seen, not heard.

The aim of this anti-democratic counter-revolution is simple. It‘s to make sure there is no major deviation from elite-friendly, neo-liberal, crony capitalist pro-war policies, whether it be a populist left-wing deviation, which promises re-nationalisation of the railways, wealth taxes and a less aggressive stance on foreign affairs, or a populist right-wing one, which wants the UK to Brexit without further delay and which opposes Blairite ‘liberal interventionism’ in foreign policy.

Anyone who threatens to take us away from the ‘extreme centre’ (a phrase used by Miriam Cotton and Tariq Ali) of crony capitalism, endless war and the cynical use of identity politics as a cover for the most regressive policies, is targeted for destruction.

One only has to consider the relentless smears and attacks that the anti-status quo Jeremy Corbyn has been subject to from the extreme centre since he announced he was standing for the vacant Labour leadership last summer. The attacks intensified after he was elected leader. The plotters of the current ‘Chicken Coup’ against Corbyn, clearly hoped to oust the Labour leader by a procedural technicality – they hoped that Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) would decide that Corbyn needed the nomination of 51 MPs or MEPs in order to stand. However, the NEC voted by 18-14, that Corbyn, as the incumbent, should automatically be on the ballot.

The fact that Labour’s coup supporters tried to keep Corbyn (who was elected with a huge mandate by the party’s members and supporters only last summer) off the ballot shows the utter contempt for party democracy that these people have. Blairites support bombing other countries to smithereens to promote ‘democracy’- but they hate it in their own party!

The coup plotters say that Corbyn is a disaster, yet he has been responsible for a massive surge in Labour party membership – which now stands at over 500,000 – its highest in modern history.

But instead of welcoming the recent membership surge, the anti-democratic Blairites seem appalled that the ‘great unwashed’ are signing up. For supporting Corbyn, Labour members have been called ‘wide-eyed loonies’, ‘rabble’ and even ‘scum’. But of course, let’s just focus on Momentum and Corbyn supporters being rude to Blairites who insult them, shall we?

The arguments given by those representing the extreme center for replacing Corbyn as Labour leader are as bogus as the claims the same people made about Iraq having WMDs in 2003.

We’re told Corbyn has to go because he’s ‘unelectable’ – in fact Labour were the most popular party in May’s local elections. Labour lost millions of traditional supporters during the Blair/Brown years, while Corbyn has encouraged these people – genuine Labour people – to return to the fold.

It’s also patently absurd to argue that in order to ‘reconnect’ with the electorate, Labour needs to ditch Corbyn – who accepts Brexit – and instead have a Blairite or Brownite who is in love with the EU as its leader. And in the very week following Chilcot, it’s an insult to the 1m people killed to have an MP who voted consistently for the Iraq war – and against an inquiry into it – challenging a principled MP (Corbyn) who opposed it.

Although Corbyn will be on the ballot for the leadership campaign, his opponents have done their best to tilt things in the contest in their favour. The NEC decided that only members who signed up before 12th January and those prepared to pay a £25 fee as a ‘registered supporter’ will be able to vote.

In last year’s election the fee for being a registered supporter was just £3: the thinking behind the change is clearly to deter poorer people- who more likely to support Corbyn, from voting.

However, Unite the Union, which supports Corbyn, and is affiliated to Labour, offers 50 pence a week community membership, providing a way for Corbyn supporters to make their voices heard.

If Corbyn is toppled this summer, then we can expect new leadership rules to be introduced by the party to make sure that a popular left-winger who promises a genuine move away from the ‘extreme centre’ can never again lead the party.

In the Conservative Party leadership election, we’ve witnessed a master-class in how the Establishment engineers the result it desires. Theresa May was obviously the anointed one, but in order for her to be crowned a few things had to happen first. The maverick Boris Johnson, who was decidedly dodgy on foreign policy, as I explained here, had to be knocked out of the race. And then, after she had beaten Murdoch’s favourite, Michael Gove, onto the final short-list it was time for the Establishment’s attack-dogs to be unleashed on Mrs. Andrea Leadsom.

Revealingly, the newspaper which did it for Leadsom is also the newspaper that’s been the most unrelentingly and obsessively hostile to Jeremy Corbyn. Rupert Murdoch’s Times is an Establishment organ that regards any deviation from the extreme Blairite/Cameronite center as a heresy that needs to be firmly stamped on. All of course in the interests of ‘democracy’ and ‘moderation’!

Rather naively, Leadsom, who supported Brexit, and said she’d send off Article 50 to the EU in September if she became Prime Minister, consented to be interviewed by the pro-Remain Times.

It was the biggest mistake of her political life.

Deeply shocked when she saw the Times headline on Saturday, she accused the paper of ‘gutter journalism’ for the way they presented the interview. The Times, in response, released a partial audio recording of the interview, but still hasn’t released a full one. The journalist who interviewed Leadsom, Rachel Sylvester, was accused of contradicting her own story about not raising the subject of family and motherhood to her interviewee.

A day later, the Sunday Times, intensifying the pressure on Leadsom, reported that up to 20 Tory MPs would quit the party if she won – in effect warning her that she would have the same problems in Westminster as Jeremy Corbyn. But this report was later denied by MPs.

One doesn’t have to share her politics to acknowledge that Leadsom was stitched up by Murdoch’s Establishment mouthpiece.

She became the target of some pretty unpleasant attacks by Parliamentary colleagues, inside-the-tent journalists and some liberal-leftists too who were only too keen to support The Times against her – not to mention the newspaper’s shameful record of neocon/Blairite warmongering.

It was no surprise that after a tearful weekend,

Leadsom pulled out of the Tory leadership race on Monday. Her campaign manager Tim Loughton said: “It is absolutely not the job of media commentators to ‘big up’ politicians whether in this leadership contest or elsewhere in politics. But neither should it be their compulsion constantly try to trip them up”.

With Leadsom successfully tripped up, and the Tory party’s 150,000 members deprived of having their democratic say in their party’s leadership election, Rachel Sylvester moved on to another outsider who threatens the status quo – Jeremy Corbyn – with an article in Tuesday’s Times charmingly entitled ‘Corbyn’s Labour must be tested to destruction’.

Destroy. Destruction. Weapons of Mass Destruction. These are words the Establishment loves to use in its war against its enemies.

Meanwhile, the fear of ‘the mob’ from those inside-the-tent is there for all to see. ‘If we don’t tame Twitter, we’ll face mob rule’ was the title of one Times comment piece on Monday.

Meanwhile, Tony Blair himself is concerned about ‘the mob’, and the way the extreme centre, which he personifies, is currently threatened. “It was already clear before the Brexit vote that modern populist movements could take control of political parties. What wasn’t clear was whether they could take over a country like Britain. Now we know they can”, he bemoaned in the New York Times.

Blair and his disciples – in both Labour and the Conservative parties – want to get back to ‘business as usual, that is, a situation where they and not us are in control. People power has already gone way too far for the party elites and they desperate to put a stop to it.

The coronation of Theresa May boosts their cause, but the Extreme Center also needs to topple Jeremy Corbyn if they‘re to succeed in their One Party Britain anti-democratic project.

The stakes really could not be any higher.

Follow Neil Clark on Twitter @Neil Clark

July 13, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

The Media Against Jeremy Corbyn

The British media has launched an unprecedented campaign of disinformation against Jeremy Corbyn

By Ronan Burtenshaw | Jacobin | July 9, 2016

The British media has never had much time for Jeremy Corbyn.

Within a week of his election as Labour Party leader in September, it was engaging in a campaign the Media Reform Coalition characterized as an attempt to “systematically undermine” his position. In an avalanche of negative coverage 60 percent of all articles which appeared in the mainstream press about Corbyn were negative with only 13 percent positive. The newsroom, ostensibly the objective arm of the media, had an even worse record: 62 percent negative with only 9 percent positive.

This sustained attack had itself followed a month of wildly misleading headlines about Corbyn and his policies in these same outlets. Concerns about sexual assaults on public transport were construed as campaigning for women-only trains. Advocacy for Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies was presented as a plan to “turn Britain into Zimbabwe.” An appeal to reconsider the foreign policy approach of the last decade was presented as an association with Putin’s Russia.

In the months which followed the attacks continued. Particularly egregious examples, such as the criticism of Corbyn for refusing to “bow deeply enough” while paying his respects on Remembrance Day, stick in the memory. But it is the insidious rather than the ridiculous which best characterizes the British media’s approach to Corbyn.

One example of this occurred in January when it was revealed that the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg had coordinated the resignation of a member of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet so that it would occur live on television. Planned for minutes before Corbyn was due to engage in Prime Minister’s Questions, it was a transparent attempt to inflict the maximum damage possible to his leadership.

The bias at Britain’s public broadcaster has become so blatant that it has drawn criticism from prominent former employees. Kuenssberg’s predecessor, Nick Robinson, described himself as “shocked” at the regularity of the attacks, and the former chair of the BBC Trust Sir Michael Lyons, made comments earlier this year condemning the “quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour Party.”

But perhaps the most extraordinary episode has been the accusations of antisemitism levelled at Corbyn and the Labour leadership in the run up to May’s local elections. As Jamie Stern-Weiner demonstrated in this excellent article in OpenDemocracy, “the chasm between the evidence and the sweeping condemnations which have appeared in the press is truly vast.”

In the week-long controversy only one allegation of antisemitism was made against an MP. The rest were based on social media comments made by eight junior party members in a party of hundreds of thousands. Some of these, as in the case of the dispute in Oxford, were even proven to be fabricated. Despite this, media headlines described Labour as a “cold house for Jews,” a “cesspit” and a “racist party.”

Coup Collaboration

The British media’s bias against Corbyn made it a useful weapon in the coup attempt against his leadership orchestrated by right-wing Labour MPs.

In the days after the Brexit vote forty-six MPs resigned from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in forty-eight hours, spacing out their announcements to allow them to occur on an hourly basis live on air. The narrative for these resignations was set up in a BBC article on June 26th by Kuenssberg which accused Corbyn of having “deliberately sabotaged” the Remain campaign despite providing no evidence of such a plot.

This was to be only the beginning of the inaccuracies about Corbyn in the mainstream press.

On June 29, the Guardian reported that Thomas Piketty had resigned as an advisor to Corbyn citing his “weak” leadership of the Remain campaign. This prompted another economic advisor, Anne Pettifor, to release an email sent more than two weeks before the result from Piketty explaining that his resignation was due to “time commitments” and “making clear that I do support Jeremy and his attempt to bring Labour more to the left.”

The next day the Guardian caused a stir at the launch of a report into antisemitism in the Labour Party when it misquoted Corbyn as having compared Israel to ISIS. In fact, as it later had to admit in a correction, he had done no such thing.

This prompted the author of Labour’s antisemitism report, Shami Chakrabarti, to condemn the “deliberate misrepresentation” of Corbyn’s speech, while Daily Mirror journalist Kevin Maguire said that “facts, fairness, rationality and proportionality” had been “lost in a frenzy to destroy Corbyn.”

But it was too late — the controversy had already seen “ISIS Israel” trending on Twitter for most of the day.

On July 1, the Guardian again misreported a crucial detail in relation to Corbyn when it implied that John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, had come out against freedom of movement after Brexit. This drew criticism from many on the Left before McDonnell had to step in to correct the record.

The next day the media had contrived another controversy relating to Corbyn, this time what the Telegraph described as a “furious confrontation” with a journalist at an anti-racism rally. Articles initially reported that Corbyn had “lunged” at a “female journalist.” However, when video of the incident was released, it became clear that he had simply turned around and said “if you want to arrange an interview speak to my press office. Thank you.” The journalist in question later came out to say that she had, in fact, not been “lunged at.”

Media Monopoly

It can be tempting, when examining the media’s response to Jeremy Corbyn, to be drawn to the ridiculous excess of the right-wing press when it criticizes his gardening skills or accuses him of eating noodles, but the problem in the British press runs much deeper than this.

The BBC’s willingness to offer its live broadcasting as a venue for transparent media manipulation by establishment Labour MPs are a timely reminder of its inability to be relied on as a public service broadcaster.

Even the traditionally left-wing media — not only the Guardian and Observer, but also the Daily Mirror — have been more than willing to join the chorus of voices calling for Corbyn to step down. This is not a response to the market but rather a political decision, as their own research demonstrates that their readerships do not agree with this editorial line.

At the time of writing there is not a single mainstream media outlet in Britain with an editorial line supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. This is despite the fact that, under Corbyn, Labour this week became the largest social-democratic party in the Western world with 600,000 members.

A representative media environment, even one that was responding to market pressures, could be expected to reflect this groundswell of support. But Britain does not have such an environment.

Around 70 percent of Britain’s newspapers are owned by just three companies: Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, the Daily Mail’s General Trust, and Trinity Mirror. In broadcast media over 80 percent of the national audience share goes to Murdoch or to the BBC. This concentration of media ownership allows for a tiny clique in Britain to effectively control the flow of information to 65 million people. Their power to do so is not held to any meaningful account, and their willingness to use their position to subvert the democratic will should not be doubted.

Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the leadership of the Labour Party was an earthquake in politics which reflected a deep disillusionment in the political and economic system. His tenure in that position has been shaped by a media environment which is no less in need of such an earthquake.

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Top 5 Quotes from Corbyn’s Powerful 2003 Anti-War Speech

teleSUR | July 8, 2016

top_5_quotes_from_corbynxs_powerful_2003_anti-war_speech.jpg_916636689In the wake of the Chilcot report’s release, which details the the U.K.’s role in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, current U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-war speech from 2003 has been making the internet rounds.

Speaking at a rally in Hyde Park in London on February 15, 2003, on a day where over 600 similar demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq were occurring worldwide, the then-British MP delivered a bold speech to a crowd of nearly 2 million people.

While Corbyn is currently embroiled in turmoil, with “Blairites” in his party turning on him since last week’s EU referendum results, where senior members of his Cabinet have resigned and 172 Labour MPs have signed a vote of no confidence in his leadership, he still maintains his anti-war convictions.

But sources say he won’t resign until former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair is “crucified” for his imperial aggression against Iraq, details of which can be found in the Chilcot report.

Here are five of the most powerful quotes from Corbyn’s Hyde Park anti-imperial speech.

1. “I find it deeply distasteful that the British prime minister can use the medieval powers of the royal prerogative to send young men and women to die, to kill civilians and for Iraqis to die.”

Corbyn expressed his disgust that Blair could make the decision to go to war on his own and declared that he wanted a vote in British Parliament.

2. “8,000 deaths in Afghanistan brought back none of those who died in the World Trade Center.”

Addressing those who justified the war as it would bring more peace and security to the world, Corbyn listed the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan, a country that was being pummeled with U.S. imperial might soon after 9/11 in the so-called war on terror.

3. “This will set off a spiral of conflict, of hate, of misery, of desperation, that will fuel the wars, the conflict, the terrorism, the depression and the misery of future generations.”

Predicting early the cyclical nature of such offensives, Corbyn warned that going to war in Iraq will not only cause unnecessary destruction and grief, but would produce more of it in years to come.

4. “Those … George Bush, Tony Blair … who want war, they are the ones who are isolated and alone and desperately searching for friends.”

Looking among the nearly 2 million people that had gathered in London that day to voice their opposition against war, Corbyn cited it is they, the demonstrators, that are united and that the political leadership of those looking to incite more war are the ones left scrambling for supporters.

5. “British government stop now, or pay the political price.”

Signing off with this terse statement, the crowd roared with applause as Corbyn exited the stage.

Watch his full speech below:

July 8, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | 1 Comment

Jeremy’s Jewish Friends

By Gilad Atzmon | July 2, 2016

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn could do with better advisers. Yesterday, in a press conference Corbyn announced, “our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu Government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.” This ‘equivalence’ of the Jews and the Muslims is weak.

Despite Israel’s devastating record of war atrocities, the vast majority of the world’s Jews support the Jewish state and identify with Zionism. The Jewish lobby dominates American, British and French foreign affairs. This lobby pushes for criminal immoral interventionist wars. Corbyn obviously knows this since he has consistently voted against these wars. None of these factors apply to Muslims or Islam. Only a fraction of Muslims worldwide support the Islamic state. In fact, the vast majority of Islamic leaders denounce Isis politically, religiously and culturally. There are no Islamic lobbies operating in our midst and pushing for wars. Finally, unlike Jewish oligarchs such as Haim Saban and George Soros, Muslim billionaires do not attempt to buy our political system. So I can’t imagine what led Corbyn to make such a comparison.

And who are these ‘Jewish friends’ to whom Corbyn referred?

Is the pro- Israel Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mrivis, who was quick to denounce Corbyn, one of Corbyn’s Jewish friends? Probably not.

Is the former Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, who added his voice to the complaint that Corbyn’s comparison was “demonisation of the highest order, an outrage and unacceptable.” Is he one of Corbyn’s Jewish friends?

Are the Labour Friend Of Israel, who have utilised every trick in the Book of Esther to destroy Corbyn, Corbyn’s Jewish friends?

Maybe Corbyn reckons that the Jews who pushed for the suspension of the heroic Ken Livingstone and many other Labour politicians and members, maybe they are his Jewish friends. Who knows?

Corbyn probably thinks that ‘Jews for Corbyn’ are his true Jewish friends. However, they formed their group only after it was clear that Corbyn was about to win Labour in a storm, and this was done so they could control the opposition.

No, as far as I can see, Corbyn has only ever had one true Jewish friend and his name is Paul Eisen. Paul Eisen was the first ‘Jewish friend’ to support Corbyn, the first ‘Jewish friend’ to praise the old proletariat leader, the first ‘Jewish friend’ to believe in Corbyn’s ability to win the Labour leadership and even to bring change to this country.

Such a pity that Corbyn dropped Paul the moment his ‘Jewish friends’ told him to.

July 2, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , , | Leave a comment

From Brexit to Nicaragua : Liberal Contempt for Ordinary People

By Tortilla Con Sal | teleSUR | July 1, 2016

After the Brexit vote on June 23,  no one reading the coverage by liberal media like the U.K.’s Guardian and Independent newspapers, or the New York Times in the U.S., could possibly mistake the fierce anti-democratic, neocolonial metropolis mentality of the attacks against the mainly working class people who voted for Britain to leave the European Union.

That explains a lot about why these newspapers’ coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean has always been hostile to every progressive government in the region. These media outlets’ foreign affairs reporting has consistently attacked progressive governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, despite all the huge achievements of those governments on behalf of the region’s impoverished majority over the last 15 years.

The latest example of this comprehensive psychological warfare campaign is the Guardian’s attack on Nicaragua’s Sandinista government using the same lazy, skewed reporting and dishonest editorial practice Western liberal media routinely apply to Venezuela, Ukraine, Syria or any other foreign news story the Western elites need to misrepresent for propaganda purposes. Nina Lakhani’s June 26 report “Nicaragua suppresses opposition to ensure one-party election, critics say,” is a text book example of malicious innuendo with close to zero factual content, purposefully edited to obscure and confuse rather than clarify and explain. The most pernicious feature of this kind of propaganda attack is that general readers never see a strong fact-based rebuttal and even if they were to do so would find the detail relentlessly boring. Only specialists are likely to take an interest. So in practice, the liberal and progressive minded public, virtual captives of their own media taste, are entirely at the mercy of liberal media psychological warfare unless they have a special interest in seeking out more truthful reporting.

The most important political reality in Nicaragua since 2011 has been the solid and growing popular support for Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista Front for National Liberation. A poll by a center-right polling consultancy, published over the same weekend that the Guardian’s article appeared, confirmed that 60 percent of people in Nicaragua say they support the FSLN and Daniel Ortega. That augurs a total vote of probably around 70 percent for Daniel Ortega in the forthcoming national elections in November this year. Lakhani’s report ends with a quote from a U.S. academic acknowledging this reality, “The opposition are poorly organized, bereft of ideas and spend too much time fighting amongst themselves …. there’s no one in opposition capable of beating Ortega. He’s too popular – it was always going to be one-horse race.”

But that truth is buried at the end of an arbitrary disinformation pot pourri, jumping from one anti-Sandinista falsehood to another. Much more interesting than the routine falsity of the Guardian’s report is the fundamental assumption underlying it, namely that the opinion of a cosseted, self-interested neocolonial managerial class is worth more than the opinion of at least 60 percent of people in Nicaragua.

This reality was roughly stripped of its usual suave cosmetic makeover by the commentary in all the Western liberal media, almost universally attacking what they regarded as the ignorance and lack of education of the voters supporting Britain’s exit from the European Union. The political expression of that duplicity and cynicism has been the attack on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the British Labour Party by party MPs largely carried over from the dead-end neoliberal era of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who are talking openly about splitting to form a new political grouping. So at precisely the moment when the governing right-wing Tory Party is at its lowest ebb since the last general election, these avowed social democrats have chosen to attack the most faithful progressive expression of working class people in Britain. They cannot accept the stark challenge to the privileged status quo of which they are beneficiaries that the June 23 Brexit vote represents. There’s a very clear precedent for this moment in British politics and it comes from … Nicaragua.

After the Sandinista Front lost the 1990 election, a strong debate developed between those who believed in staying faithful to the principles of the Sandinista Revolution and those who believed in a move towards European style social democracy. Daniel Ortega lead those who insisted on fighting to defend strong government intervention in a mixed economy and an anti-imperialist foreign policy. The social democrat faction, led by former Vice-President Sergio Ramirez, argued for a shift to a more free market economic policy and an accommodation with the reality of U.S. power in the region. Through 1993 and 1994, Ramirez and his allies organized a parliamentary coup leading a majority of the 39 Sandinista deputies elected in 1990 to work with right-wing factions, railroading through the National Assembly restrictive changes to the 1987 Constitution with zero popular consultation.

In May 1994, the Sandinista Front held a national party congress in which Sergio Ramirez and his sympathizers lost a series of positions in the party structure while Daniel Ortega strengthened his grass roots support to consolidate his leadership. In the subsequent national elections in 1996, Daniel Ortega lead his party to important electoral success in the legislature with 36 out of 93 seats but, amid blatant electoral fraud, failed to win the Presidency. Sergio Ramirez’s Sandinista Renewal Movement polled a negligible vote, winning a solitary seat in the legislature as a result of questionable adjudication by the head of the Supreme Electoral Council, who was also the wife of the candidate in question. Over the subsequent decade, the MRS went into steady decline eventually disappearing as a formally constituted political party after the national elections of 2006.

There may well be a lesson in that history for Britain’s Labour Party. Nicaragua’s economy and society were in deep crisis in 1994 with opinion extremely polarized and a large floating vote desperate for policies to alleviate the crisis. The right wing only won the presidential elections of 1996 and 2001 by ruthless fear-mongering. Daniel Ortega and the Sandinista Front finally won the 2006 presidential election through astute alliances and positive policy proposals, insisting on national unity and reconciliation. In office, Ortega’s team successfully implemented those policy proposals despite being in a minority in the legislature. Their success enabled the Sandinista Front to win the 2011 election with over 63 percent of the vote, while the MRS social democrats by then had disappeared as a national political force. Parallels between Nicaragua in 1994 and Britain now may seem far fetched, but the political logic is strikingly similar. A progressive, relatively radical leader with a massive grassroots mandate faces a rebellion from a privileged social democratic parliamentary clique in a national context dominated by the right wing.

That configuration of forces may well foreshadow, for the social democrat Labour MPs a steady decline into oblivion and, for Jeremy Corbyn, a clear trajectory into office, if not immediate power. The Nicaraguan precedent will not be lost on Corbyn, who for decades has been a strong supporter of progressive movements in Latin America. What is common to both Britain and Nicaragua is the sheer contempt with which social democrat politicians have treated their party and the cynical opportunism of their timing.

The Brexit vote expresses both ordinary voters’ recognition of that cynicism and opportunism and, certainly in England and Wales, their rejection of it. The attitudes of the West’s social democrat political and media class to progressive political movements in Latin America evince the same obtuse, cynical neocolonial arrogance they apply to their own electorate. And that is why it is a waste of time hoping for a coherent, truthful account of events in Latin America and the Caribbean from media disinformation outlets owned and operated by that political and social class, as the Guardian’s latest inaccurate, phony report on Nicaragua demonstrates yet again.

July 1, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | 4 Comments

Corbyn: Clowns to the left of him, Jokers to the right

By Stuart Littlewood | Dissident Voice | June 30, 2016

A political beacon is about to be extinguished unless he breaks with the doomed Labour Party and sets up on his own.

Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight
I got the feeling that something ain’t right,
I’m so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I’m wondering how I’ll get down the stairs,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in the middle with you.
Yes I’m stuck in the middle with you,
And I’m wondering what it is I should do,
It’s so hard to keep this smile from my face,
Losing control, yeah, I’m all over the place,
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right…

— Lyrics from ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’, a 1972 recording by Stealers Wheel

Only last December I was writing a piece titled ‘You have better things to do than captain a sinking ship – Message to Corbyn: dump the baggage, build from new’.

That message said:

Commiserations, comrade.

Last Wednesday – ‘Let’s Bomb Syria Day’ – was a day of infamy. Tomorrow you’ll need to come to terms with the UK Labour party’s unswerving death-wish.

Its integrity is in tatter, brand image beyond repair, and the very voters it needs to win round regard it as a joke. And the thousands who became your supporters in the heady days of the leadership campaign, exhilarated and inspired by the promise of better politics, are dismayed that their high hopes can never be delivered through such a bitterly divided party machine.

In that debate on bombing Syria senior Labour MPs and shadow ministers supported the Tory warmongers. In particular Hilary Benn (son of the illustrious Tony) played on human fears, ignored operational shortcomings and discounted the risk of reprisals against ‘soft’ targets on our streets. His scare tactics were exactly what the warmongers wanted to hear and his speech was triumphantly applauded by Tory Government benches and praised in the media. The party’s Blairite rump, who had shamed the nation by blindly voting for the Iraq war 12 years earlier, trooped into the lobbies to vote for war in Syria.

In a recent speech to Labour Friends of Israel Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, dishonestly called the rogue state “a vibrant democracy”, talked of shared values and claimed the bonds between it and the Labour party were “strong and run deep”. The puzzle was how Jeremy Corbyn could have appointed such a person to that key post. Earlier this week Corbyn finally sacked him, a move that set off a vengeful chain reaction.

Only 10 months ago Corbyn came from nowhere and panicked the Westminster Establishment by winning the Labour leadership with nearly 60% of first-choice votes. His nearest rival mustered only 19% so he had sufficient mandate to silence plotters who threatened a coup if he won. They have smouldered ever since.

The Conservatives reacted by broadcasting that Corbyn and Labour were “a serious risk to our nation’s security, our economy’s security and your family’s security. Whether it’s weakening our defences, raising taxes on jobs and earnings, racking up more debt and welfare or driving up the cost of living by printing money – Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party will hurt working people.”

So slender was his support in the Parliamentary Labour Party (as opposed to the party membership) that his shadow team inevitably included many critics. Mounting an effective opposition has thus been near impossible with so many colleagues willing him to fail, although he has chalked up a number of successes. Of course, the effectiveness of a leader depends in large measure on the performance of his senior colleagues.

Just lately the pressure on Corbyn to step down has been ratcheted-up, with accusations that he didn’t try hard enough to galvanise the Remain vote in the EU referendum. The official party line is pro-EU but ‘Old Labour’ Corbyn has been opposed to the EU for decades and knew perfectly well that at least one-third of Labour supporters would vote Leave.

This week there were mass resignations from his shadow team, at such regular intervals that they were clearly orchestrated for maximum effect. Replacements were hurriedly appointed. In the House of Commons David Cameron made an unusually good joke of it. Welcoming the newly elected Labour MP for Tooting he advised her to “keep her mobile switched on – you might be in the shadow cabinet by the end of the day”.

On Corbyn’s referendum effort Cameron quipped: “I know he says he put his back into it. All I’d say is, I’d hate to see him when he’s not trying.” That might have been funny except that Cameron, when setting up the referendum, couldn’t be bothered to appoint a team to examine the way forward in the event of a Brexit win. Hence the damaging post-Brexit confusion that will probably go on for months.

Then, very rudely, Cameron turned on Corbyn, telling the House: “It might be in my party’s interest for him to sit there, it’s not in the national interest and I would say, for heaven’s sake man, go!”

To illustrate the depths of silliness to which the campaign to oust Corbyn has sunk, the Labour Party today released a report on antisemitism. In a speech introducing it Corbyn said: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.”

Fair comment, you might think. But it was eagerly seized on for wild accusations that he was making direct comparison between the Israeli government and Isis, which calls itself the Islamic State, although several other terrorist groups use the same name. A Labour councillor said on Twitter: “For that alone, he should resign. I am red with fury.”

The Telegraph quoted a statement by Lord Sacks in which the former Chief Rabbi accused the Labour leader of comparing the State of Israel to ISIS and “demonisation of the highest order, an outrage and unacceptable”.  He added: “Israel is a democratic state with an independent judiciary, a free press and a diverse population of many cultures, religions and creeds. ISIS is a terrorist entity whose barbarities have been condemned by all those who value our common humanity.”

No, you couldn’t make it up.

And the current Chief Rabbi is reported calling Corbyn’s comments “offensive, and rather than rebuilding trust among the Jewish community, are likely to cause even greater concern”.

On top of everything Ruth Smeeth, a Labour MP, stormed out of the press conference complaining she was verbally abused by a Corbyn supporter who accused her of being part of a ‘media conspiracy’, and Corbyn failed to intervene. “I call on Jeremy Corbyn to resign immediately and make way for someone with the backbone to confront racism and antisemitism in our party and in the country,” she announced. Reports omit to mention that Smeeth is a former director of BICOM, a pro-Israel propaganda organisation.

So the picture is bleak for Jeremy.

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am…

That song is possibly running through his mind repeatedly, and won’t go away.

July 1, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Guardian sinks into gutter on Corbyn – again

By Jonathon Cook | June 30, 2016

This is way beyond a face-palm moment.

Jeremy Corbyn today launched a review into the Labour party’s supposed “anti-semitism crisis” – in fact, a crisis entirely confected by a toxic mix of the right, Israel supporters and the media. I have repeatedly pointed out that misleading claims of anti-semitism (along with much else) are being thrown at Corbyn to discredit him. You can read my criticisms of this campaign and Labour’s reponse here, here and here.

In his speech, Corbyn made an entirely fair point that Jews should not be blamed for the behaviour of Israel any more than Muslims should be for the behaviour of states that are Islamic. He said:

Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Muslim friends are for those of various self-styled Islamic states or organisations.

But no matter what he said, the usual suspects are now accusing him of comparing Israel with Islamic State, even though that is clearly not what he said – not even close.

First, even if he had said “Islamic State”, which he didn’t, that would not have meant he made a comparison with Israel. He was comparing the assumptions some people make that Jews and Muslims have tribal allegiances based on their religious or ethnic background. He was saying it was unfair to make such assumptions of either Jews or Muslims.

In fact, such an assumption (which Corbyn does not share) would be more unfair to Muslims than to Jews. It would suggest that some Muslims easily feel an affinity with a terror organisation, while some Jews feel an affinity with a recognised state (which may or may not include their support for the occupation). That assumption is far uglier towards Muslims than it is towards Jews.

But, of course, all of this is irrelevant because Corbyn did not make any such comparison. He clearly referred to “various self-styled Islamic states or organisations”. A spokesman later clarified that he meant “Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran or Hamas in Gaza”. In other words, “various self-styled Islamic states and organisations” – just as he said in the speech.

Surprise, surprise, the supposedly liberal Guardian’s coverage of this incident is as appalling as that found in the rightwing Telegraph. The Guardian has an article, quoting rabbis and others, pointing out the irony that Corbyn made an anti-semitic comment at the launch of an anti-semitism review – except, of course, that he didn’t.

In fact, contrary to all normal journalism, you have to read the Guardian story from bottom-up. The last paragraph states:

This story was amended on 30 June to correct the quotation in the second paragraph. An earlier version quoted Corbyn as saying: “Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions for the actions of Israel or the Netanyahu government than our Islamic friends are responsible for Islamic State.”

Or in other words, the Guardian reporter did not even bother to listen to the video of the speech posted alongside her report on the Guardian’s own website. Instead she and her editors jumped on the same bandwagon as everyone else, spreading the same malicious rumours and misinformation.

When it later emerged that the story was a complete fabrication – one they could have proved for themselves had they listened to what Corbyn really said – they simply appended at the bottom a one-pargraph mea culpa that almost no one will read. The Guardian has continued to publish the same defamatory article, one based on a deception from start to finish.

This is the very definition of gutter journalism. And it comes as the Guardian editor, Kath Viner, asks (begs?) readers to dig deep in their pockets to support the Guardian. She writes:

The Guardian’s role in producing fast, well-sourced, calm, accessible and intelligent journalism is more important than ever.

Well, it would be if that is what they were doing. Instead, this story confirms that the paper is producing the same shop-soiled disinformation as everyone else.

Save your money and invest it in supporting real independent journalism.

June 30, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Too many heads stuck in the sand on Brexit

By Jonathon Cook | June 27, 2016

There are some heads stuck deeply in the sand at the moment. Typical were the dismissive responses to my piece Brexit and the diseased liberal mind. I had focused on one exceptional piece by one Guardian writer, it was claimed.

I chose Zoe Williams’ article because it is fully representative of liberal reaction to Brexit in the British media. I could have cited hundreds of other examples – not least just about everything currently appearing on the BBC.

But Williams and the rest of the media are not making these arguments in a vacuum. After all, much of the Labour shadow cabinet has just resigned and the rest of the parliamentary party are trying to defy the overwhelming democratic will of their membership and oust leader Jeremy Corbyn. His crime is not that he supported Brexit (he didn’t dare, given the inevitable reaction of his MPs) but that he is not a true believer in the current neoliberal order, which very much includes the EU.

Here is what one of the organisers (probably a shadow cabinet minister) of this coup-in-the-making says:

The plan is to make Corbyn’s job as leader extremely difficult in the hope of pushing him to resign, with most MPs refusing to serve as shadow ministers, show up on the frontbench in the House of Commons, support him at PMQs or formulate policy under his leadership.

This was presumably said with a straight face, as though Corbyn has not been undermined by these same Blairite MPs since day one of his leadership. This is not a new campaign – it has simply been forced to go more public by the Brexit vote.

Labour MPs do not just want to oust a leader with massive support among party members. They have hamstrung him from the outset so that he could not lead the political revolution members elected him to begin. And now he is being made to pay the price because he privately backs a position that, as the referendum has just shown, has majority support.

This is where we on the progressive left are, and the Brexit vote is a huge challenge to us to face facts. We want to believe we are free but the truth is that we have long been in a prison called neoliberalism. The Conservative and Labour parties are tied umbilically to this neoliberal order. The EU is one key institution in a transnational neoliberal club. Our economy is structured to enforce neoliberalism whoever ostensibly runs the country.

That is why the debate about Brexit was never about values or principles – it was about money. It still is. The Remainers are talking only about the threat to their pensions. The Brexiters are talking only about the role of immigrants in driving down wages. And there is good reason: because the EU is part of the walls of the economic prison that has been constructed all around us. Our lives are now only about money, as the gargantuan bail-outs of the too-big-to-fail banks should have shown us.

There is a key difference between the two sides. Most Remainers want to pretend that the prison does not exist because they still get privileges to visit the living areas. The Brexiters cannot forget it exists because they are never allowed to leave their small cells.

The left cannot call itself a left and keep whingeing about its lost privileges while denouncing those trapped inside their cells as “racists”. Change requires that we first recognise our situation – and then have the will to struggle for something better.

June 27, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 1 Comment

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