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UK waged ‘dirty’ propaganda operation in Africa

Secretive British ‘dirty tricks’ unit smeared Kenya’s leftist vice president during the Cold War

Samizdat | August 7, 2022

A covert unit within the British Foreign Office targeted Kenya’s first vice president, Oginga Odinga, in the 1960s as part of a “black propaganda” campaign, The Guardian reported on Saturday, citing newly declassified documents. After Kenyan independence from the UK in 1963, London perceived the left-wing politician as a threat to its interests, according to the papers.

Odinga is said to have been subjected to a three-year campaign by the Information Research Department (IRD), a clandestine unit initially established by the post-WWII Labour government to spread anti-Communist views. The effort was led by the Special Editorial Unit (SEU), a highly secretive “dirty tricks section” of the IRD, the report says.

After Kenya broke free from British rule in 1963, London apparently viewed President Jomo Kenyatta as the preferred leader of the country. However, the UK seemed to have been worried that the vice president, Odinga, a left-wing figure who was open to relations with the Soviet-led bloc and communist China, could somehow replace Kenyatta in the future. These apprehensions led the British ‘black ops’ units to scramble to undermine Odinga, despite British diplomats recognizing that he was not actually a communist, the report says.

The declassified files detail four campaigns to smear Odinga, according to The Guardian. In September 1965, the Daily Telegraph reported on a pamphlet issued by a fictitious organization called the ‘People’s Front of East Africa’ that branded Kenyatta’s government as “reactionary, fascist and dishonest” while touting Odinga as “a great revolutionary leader” who would ascend to power with the help of a new socialist party, the outlet says.

However, this was, apparently, a sophisticated propaganda ploy meant to arouse suspicion that Odinga was in league with communist China. The IRD is said to have distributed the pamphlet among “leading personalities and the press.” The story gained significant traction in Kenya and successfully convinced many of the country’s ministers that the pamphlet was genuine.

According to historian Dr. Poppy Cullen of Loughborough University, as quoted by The Guardian, all of this “clearly shows that Odinga was considered the main threat to British interests.” It also demonstrates the lengths to which the British were prepared to go to undermine him, he added.

However, the Kenyan vice president smelt trouble, the report says. In 1964, he accused the British press of a “spate of vilification and facile criticism,” decrying the allegations in their reports that he was plotting against Kenyatta.

In another instance, the SEU reportedly created a leaflet from what was called the ‘Loyal African Brothers’ that castigated Odinga as “a tool of the Chinese” communists.

Although this organization never really existed and was merely the creation of British propagandists, over nearly ten years the fictitious group produced 37 leaflets claiming to want “to free Africa of all forms of foreign interference.”

In April 1964, Kenyatta voiced suspicions that Odinga might attempt to overthrow him, which, The Guardian says, prompted plans for British military intervention should a coup take place. In the aftermath of these propaganda efforts, the homes of Odinga and his supporters were raided, but no evidence that a coup was being prepared was found, and the vice president kept his post, at least for the time being.

In 1966, Odinga resigned and established his own leftist party, the Kenya People’s Union. In 1969, the party was banned, and Odinga was placed under detention and later jailed by Kenyatta’s successor, Daniel arap Moi. Nonetheless, Odinga’s son, Raila Odinga, is set to take part in Kenya’s upcoming presidential election.

“The story of British propaganda operations in Kenya is a reminder that the days of a declining empire were not as much pomp and circumstance as deception, disinformation and dirty tricks,” Professor Scott Lucas, a specialist in British foreign policy at the University of Birmingham, told The Guardian.

In May, The Guardian revealed how, from the 1950s to the 1970s, London sought to drive a wedge between Moscow, Beijing, the Arab world, and Africa through disinformation in an attempt to undermine their global influence.

Documents declassified back in 2021 and seen by the newspaper also showed that the British propaganda campaign had played a role in the mass slaughter of communists in Indonesia in the 1960s. Although the propaganda unit was officially disbanded in 1977, similar efforts allegedly continued for nearly another decade, according to the outlet.

August 7, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Eight-Day Strike Over Below-Inflation Pay Offer Looms at UK’s Biggest Container Port

By James Tweedie – Samizdat – 05.08.2022

The bank of England warned on Thursday that the British economy was headed for a recession in the fourth quarter of the year, while think-tank the Resolution Foundation predicted inflation could hit 15 percent by the start of 2023.

Dockworkers at the UK’s biggest consumer goods port are set to strike later this month over pay — as inflation soars amid sanctions on Russia.
More than 1,900 members of Unite, Britain’s largest trade union, will walk out at Felixtowe port on the North Sea in Suffolk for eight days from Sunday August 21 to Monday August 29.

That was after employer Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, refused to increase its pay offer of seven per cent. Dockworkers accepted a rise of 1.4 percent in 2021.

“Strike action will cause huge disruption and will generate massive shockwaves throughout the UK’s supply chain,” said Unite national officer for docks Bobby Morton, but insisted that “this dispute is entirely of the company’s own making.”

“It has had every opportunity make our members a fair offer but has chosen not to do so,” Morton said. “Felixstowe needs to stop prevaricating and make a pay offer which meets our members’ expectations.”

Further talks between the union and management are scheduled for Monday.

The bank of England warned on Thursday that the British economy was headed for a recession in the fourth quarter of the year, while think-tank the Resolution Foundation predicted inflation could hit 15 percent by the start of 2023.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the firm and its parent company were “massively profitable and incredibly wealthy,” and “fully able to pay the workforce a fair day’s pay”.

“The company has prioritised delivering multi-million pound dividends rather than paying its workers a decent wage,” Graham charged. “Unite is entirely focused on enhancing its members’ jobs, pay and conditions and it will be giving the workers at Felixstowe its complete support until this dispute is resolved and a decent pay increase is secured.”

Workers in other sectors are threatening or have already taken industrial action over pay as the cost of living has soared — driven by a combination of massive government relief payments during the COVID-19 lockdown and the embargo on energy imports from Russia as retaliation for its special military operation in the Ukraine.

Rail Unions RMT and ASLEF held strikes in June and July, with more on the cards as talks with employers remain deadlocked.

Even doctors have threatened to walk out over their demand for a 30 percent rise this year.

August 5, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | | Leave a comment

UK policy on Ukraine must change before the public suffer any more

By Anthony Webber | TCW Defending Freedom | August 5, 2022

It is increasingly evident that the UK government under Boris Johnson got its policy over the Russia-Ukraine war wrong from the start. What good it did for world security and stability for our government to be involved in stirring up tensions in Ukraine is open to serious questions.

With hindsight it seems that Nato miscalculated: we should have left well alone and not interfered in this area of the world beyond encouraging talks with Russia.

Our failure to do that has brought calamity for Ukraine, and energy and food consequences which dramatically affect Europe and much of the rest of the world. It has allowed a US-led Nato to be influenced by globalist vested interests whose stated aim has been to bring down Russia, arguably to control the vast natural resources of both Russia and Ukraine.

Looking at the facts, Ukraine has 5 per cent of the world’s natural and mineral resources. Its reserves of lithium are amongst the largest in Europe. In terms of extraction, it is second globally in gallium, fifth in germanium, sixth in titanium, seventh in iron and eighth in manganese.

Ukraine has the second biggest gas reserves in Europe, apart from Russia-Asia (much of it not exploited). Europe is dependent on 40 per cent of its supplies from Russia, which Russia also supplies about 13 per cent of the world’s crude oil.

Ukraine produces 50 per cent of the world trade in sunflower oil, 14 per cent of rapeseed, 12 per cent of the maize and 9 per cent of barley. It produces 9 per cent of the world’s wheat. Russia itself is the world’s third largest producer of wheat.

Ukraine supplies 0.8 per cent of the world’s fertilisers, while Russia supplies 15 per cent.

This brief glance shows the importance of these commodities to the rest of the world. It is clear that a shortage in any of these areas will send up prices. So it should have also been clear that any sanctions against such a major supplier as Russia would only rebound on the sanctioning countries, harming them far more.

The damage done to Ukraine’s economy is inestimable. The dire effects on the economies of major European countries are reported daily. Spain is controlling the use of air conditioning. The lights have gone out in Berlin. Germany’s entire manufacturing industry is threatened. This winter will see serious energy rationing as well as unprecedented price rises and inflation

Much of this could have been avoided had not Europe committed itself to suicidal net zero policies. But there is no doubt that Britain and the EU’s intransigent position and refusal to countenance a diplomatic solution has acted as a catalyst of this crisis.

The deep irony is that it looks as if Zelensky’s Ukrainian government will have no choice but to open talks with Russia and have unnecessarily put their country through destruction, turmoil and loss of territory. At the same time the ‘Western’ countries, especially the UK, are putting their citizens through an entirely avoidable nightmare.

Johnson’s involvement with the Zelensky cause in Ukraine was always suspect. He needed a convenient distraction from the ‘partygate’ scandal. The man who never visited Afghanistan when he went along with Nato’s sell out ‘deal’ with the Taliban, letting down millions of Afghans and of course all the veterans who were sacrificed there, was ready to go to Ukraine for freedom fighting photo opportunities. There were no British interests involved in Ukraine and no defence obligations.

As this foreign proxy war progressed into a disastrous mess the media encouraged continued involvement, telling the public that Russia was hopeless and Ukraine were winning though the truth is they had been losing since day one, at a cost to the UK of more than £4.5billion, most in military aid.

The best thing the UK government under a new PM can do now is to carry out an urgent damage-limitation exercise. This means adopting a neutral position in the Ukraine conflict, stopping sanctions against Russia, and encouraging a peaceful resolution. The UK must look after its economic interests, which are not served by taking sides in this region. This is essential to halt the escalating energy, fuel and food crisis.

About a week ago the two Conservative leadership contenders had the opportunity to change their Ukraine policy when the issue came up at a debate. They both failed miserably and instead had the gall to say that they expected the public to contend with more suffering to support their Ukraine policy.

The public does not have to stand by silently. A Parliamentary petition has been started that makes the simple point that the policy on Ukraine has no electoral mandate. It states that it is the British public who must be given the right by referendum to decide on this issue if the government will not change the policy themselves.

Please click this link, sign, share and promote this: it involves the future of our country.

August 5, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Young woman shares horrific side effects of ‘transitioning’: ‘Wasn’t prepared to have a hysterectomy’

LifeSiteNews | August 4, 2022

What does it take to get medical professionals to sign off on sex change surgeries for those suffering with gender dysphoria? According to one young woman, a mere two and a half hours of counseling.

Sam is a 26-year-old woman from the Midlands in central England who began to wonder if she might be male at the age of 21, after many identity struggles throughout her teen years. When she discovered the online transgender collective, she wondered if she might also be transgender. Their testimonies of transition bringing happiness appealed to her. She sought medical help, but was told that a backlog meant that getting an appointment with the National Health Service (NHS) would be at least two and a half years. She began to explore private options instead.

She procured an appointment, told the doctor that she identified as a “transgender man” (after a bit of Googling), and after only two appointments, found herself cleared to take hormones and have her breasts removed. Armed with a prescription for cross-sex hormones, she began taking them in December of 2017, and procured a double mastectomy a mere five months later, despite the rules stating that patients must have identified as male for a minimum of a year prior to this (permanent) surgery.

The effects were almost immediate. As Sam tells it:

I was able to have the surgery just a year and nine months after I first discovered trans people. I was so happy after the surgery because I had been binding my breasts for years. It felt like a huge relief. The hormones worked really quickly and within a few months, my voice had dropped, I grew body and facial hair and even developed a micro penis.

My hairline also began to recede a little, and I noticed a huge change in my emotions. Whereas I’d once been a very emotional person, it felt as though the testosterone had numbed the heights of my emotions. Nothing made me feel incredibly happy, and nothing made me incredibly sad any more. I had moved from working in childcare to working in a very male-dominated job working with trains, and when I first met people, nobody knew I had transitioned from female.

Only two years after her surgery, Sam began to suffer more serious side effects. By mid-2020, vaginal atrophy set in. Those entering transition are almost always unaware of the fact that sex change surgeries can turn them into lifelong patients, with many aspects of their existence abruptly medicalized. Vaginal atrophy is when the female sex organ tissue begins to die due to the absence of the female hormones which keep the vagina healthy. Vaginal atrophy contributes to risk of cancer. In Sam’s case, it led to awful pain. She began to have second thoughts.

When her originally scheduled NHS appointment finally arrived, Sam told the doctors that she wanted to de-transition. She was stunned when they told her that her only option was a hysterectomy, which she did not want.

“I wasn’t prepared to have a hysterectomy at the age of 24,” she said. “I felt distressed as didn’t feel properly informed about the side effects that came with taking testosterone.”

I was experiencing imposter syndrome. I didn’t feel like the other men I was around, and I felt like I was constantly pretending. So I started questioning why I wanted to identify as a man. I didn’t want to regret my decisions but I was no longer comfortable living as a male. I researched more and I discovered a group of detransitioners, so I explored the femininity that I had suppressed for all of these years and I came to accept that I was female. Against the advice of my doctors, I stopped taking my hormone medication.

Sam now speaks about her experience to warn others of the dangers of rushing into transition. “Although I still love having a flat chest, I won’t be able to breastfeed if I ever have children and it has taken away the opportunity to learn to love my womanhood,” she explained.

I don’t want to put my body through breast reconstruction but I know that I would’ve learnt to love my body in its entirety. I have also started to menstruate again, which took around a year to come back to after I stopped taking testosterone, although I have been left with excess body hair and a deeper voice.

“I am talking about my experience,” she said, “because it is important to discuss these topics because, using their hindsight, detransitioners can help spot red flags and help others when it comes to making these important decisions.”

My family have always been supportive of me, but I have found that quite a lot of friends have drifted away since I have detransitioned. There seems to be a huge emphasis in society in supporting trans people, almost to the point that it is seen as what I did as being anti-trans. When I told people I was transitioning to male, I was met with overwhelming excitement and support from my friends. But when I revealed I would be reversing the process, I was met with questioning and distance from so many people I considered to be friends. The people who matter to me are here for me and I am in a much better place now and looking forward to the future.”

The entire culture encourages gender transition, and frowns on de-transition as an experience that threatens the basic tenets of transgender ideology and biases people against rapid transition. Most de-transitioner voices are shouted down. It is for precisely that reason that Sam is speaking out.

There are thousands just like her, and we are finally starting to hear their tragic stories.

August 5, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Stand up. Speak out. Resist. Create ripples.

By Alison Harvey | TCW Defending Freedom | July 31, 2022

‘Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.’ ― Robert F Kennedy

The last two years have taught us many things – to question everything we thought we knew; to do our own research and listen to many voices; to switch off the narrative and think for ourselves; to reflect on our own personal morals/values, our lines in the sand. In extremis, what we would go to prison for, what we would die for?

For many of us it has brought a spiritual reawakening, a peaceful calmness that helps us rise above the fray and find the courage to speak our truth to those around us.

Many of us have discovered we have little in common with those we once considered close, while finding new friends who seem to be on the same wavelength as us. Whether healers or gardeners, artisans or unemployed, technology folk or lawyers, my new friends share a desire to focus our energies on creating a better world than the one currently being destroyed or that envisaged by the Great Reset.

Because of a medical condition I cannot wear a mask so July 24, 2020, was one of my red lines.  I started listening to doctors, scientists and lawyers, realising that those putting career, reputation, wealth in jeopardy spoke more sense than those profiting from the Covid response.

I silently thank those who raised awareness of our inalienable rights to bodily autonomy, freedom of speech, assembly and association; of our individual sovereignty as a living man or woman; of the hierarchy of laws and the difference between the law of this land and that of the sea; who helped us understand the scientific arguments against masks, PCR tests, social distancing, lockdowns, use of midazolam, remdesivir and experimental gene therapies; and reminded us of the importance of boosting our immune systems, natural immunity and cheap, effective early treatments.

This year I complained to my GP about the practice’s behaviour towards us maskless ones. Despite being polite, I was subjected to hostility and rudeness when I went for routine blood tests or to pick up my medical record. I was treated like a bio-hazard by the nurse, even as she drew blood, and told never to return. I pointed out the evidence that masks do not stop a virus but can cause physical, mental and psychological harms, the unlawfulness of denying my right to bodily autonomy, the illegality of denying my right to informed consent, and the NHS guidance which highlights that there are many reasons people cannot wear a mask and that these should be respected.

The practice subsequently de-registered me, having neither denied the behaviours nor apologised for them. I was offered no advice about my existing medical condition or what I should do without access to medication. How many others now avoid GPs altogether, regardless of the health implications? How many of the rising deaths at home are due to people avoiding the totalitarian dictatorship their practice has become?

The caring profession? Not any more.

We all choose how we react – that is a power they cannot take from us. I could have chosen to be bullied into compliance, to get angry, to join a different Covid-obsessed practice. Instead I found natural remedies and weaned myself off the pills. Seven months later I have no symptoms of the illness. I am not suggesting everyone could or should ditch their meds – just that everyone has choices and more power than we realise.

The decision to throw away all previously agreed pandemic preparedness plans in favour of treating the entire population as though sick is surely one of the most dangerous and diabolical experiments ever inflicted on humanity.

A GP recently blogged anonymously about medical ethics as he feared his profession had forsaken them. I find the words powerful and relay some of them below. How many doctors reading this could truthfully say they have honoured their oaths over the past two years?

The health and wellbeing of my patient will be my first consideration;

I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties even under threat.

A physician will:

– Respect a competent patient’s right to accept or refuse treatment.

– Not allow his/her judgment to be influenced by personal profit or unfair discrimination.

– Certify only that which he/she has personally verified.

– Act in the patient’s best interest when providing medical care.

Any (all) preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical intervention is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information.

The Nuremberg Code ….

We could be cowed into submission yet, every day, more question how we allowed ourselves to:

– be muzzled

– accept that non diagnostic test results equal a pandemic

– allow loved ones to die alone

– deny natural immunity

– accept a Covid-only ‘health’ service

–  reject the benefits of early treatment

– become guinea pigs in a dangerous experiment

– allow our economy to be destroyed

– submit to a 24/7 fear based, media led psy-op.

Every time we speak out or write something, we are creating ripples in their narrative. I have given feedback to the Care Quality Commission and the Royal College of General Practitioners. Perhaps those reading such letters will find the courage to speak out and honour the principle to First Do No Harm. One can but hope.

July 30, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

UK schools push Ukraine propaganda, gag Palestine solidarity

By Robert Carter | Press TV | July 30, 2022

London – A new study has revealed a shocking disparity by British schools which have gone to great lengths to promote Ukraine solidarity among their students, in stark contrast to how Palestinian solidarity is suppressed in the classroom.

Human rights group CAGE carried out the survey, which received 532 responses from parents, students and teachers. The group said the survey revealed a ‘cavalier attitude to due diligence’, including collaboration with organizations with far-right links and the soft penetration of security think tanks and those linked to the UK’s so-called prevent counter-extremism program.

Some of the survey’s findings include 96% of respondents confirmed proactive engagement on the Ukraine issue by their school, including holding non-uniform days, activities or donation appeals. 62% indicated their schools had fundraised or hosted donation drives for Ukraine.

While 17% also mentioned schools promoted the Ukraine flag, such as encouraging children to wear blue and yellow for non-uniform days, or hoisting the Ukrainian flag on school grounds. And perhaps most shockingly, alleged funding from some schools was intended to provide military gear for the war.

In 2021, Israel’s bombing of Gaza drew huge international backlash as millions took to the streets worldwide.

British students also joined the outpouring of support for Palestine. However, British schools responded negatively. With students being punished for waving a Palestinian flag or branded “racist” for expressing solidarity.

In early July, London’s High Court dismissed a legal challenge by CAGE against the Department for Education for issuing “discriminatory” guidance that led to the censure of dozens of schoolchildren showing support for Palestine during the Israeli bombing last year. The whole saga appears to have proven beyond reasonable doubt that the UK is indeed biased when it takes a stand on Human Rights.

July 30, 2022 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

The All-American Lie Factory

Government and the media work together to promote war on Russia

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JULY 26, 2022

This article is derived from a speech I made at the July 23rd Peace and Freedom Rally in Kingston New York

There are some things that I believe to be true about the anarchy that purports to be US foreign policy. First, and most important, I do not believe that any voter cast a ballot for Joe Biden because he or she wanted him to relentlessly pursue a needless conflict with Russia that could easily escalate into a nuclear war with unimaginable consequences for all parties. Biden has recently declared that the US will support Ukraine “until we win” and, as there are already tens of billions of dollars of weapons going to Ukraine plus American “advisers” on the ground, it constitutes a scenario in which American and Russian soldiers will soon likely be shooting at each other. The President of Serbia and columnists like Pat Buchanan and Tulsi Gabbard believe that we are already de facto in World War 3 and one has to wonder how the White House is getting away with ignoring the War Powers mandates in the US Constitution.

Second, I believe that the Russians approached the United States and its allies with some quite reasonable requests regarding their own national security given that a hostile military alliance was about to land on its doorsteps. The issues at stake were fully negotiable but the US refused to budge on anything and Russia felt compelled to take military action. Nevertheless, there is no such thing as a good war. I categorically reject anyone invading anyone else unless there is a dire and immediate threat, but the onus on how the Ukraine situation developed the way it did is on Washington.

Third, I believe that the US and British governments in particularly have been relentlessly lying to the people and that the media in most of west is party to the dissemination of the lies to sustain the war effort against Russia in Ukraine. The lies include both the genesis and progress of the war and there has also been a sustained effort to demonize President Vladimir Putin and anything Russian, including food, drinks, the Russian language and culture and even professional athletes. The latest victim is a Tchaikovsky symphony banned in Canada. Putin is being personally blamed for inflation, food shortages and energy problems which more properly are the fault of the Washington-led ill-thought-out reaction to him. There is considerable irony in the fact that Biden is giving Ukraine $1.7 billion for healthcare, while healthcare in the US is generally considered among the poorest in the developed world.

I believe that Russia is winning the war comfortably and Ukraine will be forced to give up territory while the American taxpayer gets the bill for the reckless spending policies, currently totaling more than $60 billion, while also looking forward to runaway inflation, energy shortages, and, in a worst-case scenario, a possible collapse of the dollar.

All of the above and the politics behind it has led me to believe that the United States, assisted by some of its allies, has become addicted to war as an excuse for domestic failures as well as a replacement for diplomacy to settle international disputes. The White House hypocritically describes its role as “global leadership” or maintaining a “rules based international order” or even defending “democracy against authoritarianism.” But at the same time the Biden Administration has just completed a fiasco evacuation that ended a twenty-year occupation of Afghanistan. Not having learned anything from Afghanistan, there are now US troops illegally present in Syria and Iraq and Washington is conniving to attack Iran over false claims made by Israel that the Iranians are developing a nuclear weapon. Neither Syria nor Iraq nor Iran in any way threaten the United States, just as the Russians did not threaten Americans prior to a regime change intervention in Ukraine starting in 2014, when the US arranged the overthrow of a government that was friendly to Moscow. The US has also begun to energize NATO to start looking at steps to take to confront the alleged Chinese threat.

The toll coming from constant warfare and fearmongering has also enabled a steady erosion of the liberties that Americans once enjoyed, including free speech and freedom to associate. I would like to discuss what the ordinary concerned citizen can do to cut through all the lies surrounding what is currently taking place, which might well be described as the most aggressive propaganda campaign the world has ever seen, far more extensive than the lying and dissimulation by the White House and Pentagon officials that preceded the disastrous Iraq war. It is an information plus propaganda war that sustains the actual fighting on the ground, and it is in some senses far more dangerous as it seeks to involve more countries in the carnage while also creating a global threat perception that will be used to justify further military interventions.

Part of the problem is that the US government is awash with bad information that it does not know how to manage so it makes it hard to identify anything that might actually be true. Back in my time as an intelligence officer operating overseas, there were a number of short cuts that were used to categorize and evaluate information. For example, if one were hanging out in a local bar and overheard two apparent government officials discussing something of interest that might be happening in the next week, one might report it to Washington with a source description FNU/LNU, which stood for “first name unknown” and “last name unknown.” In other words, it was unverifiable hearsay coming from two individuals who could not be identified. As such it was pretty much worthless, but it clogged up the system and invited speculation.

My personal favorite, however, was the more precise source descriptions developed by military intelligence using an alphabet letter followed by a number in a sequence running from A-1 to F-6. At the top of an intelligence report there would be an assessment of the source, or agent. A-1 meant a piece of information that was both credible and had been confirmed by other sources and that was also produced by an agent that had actual access to the information in question. At the other end of the scale, an F-6 was information that was dubious produced by a source that appeared to have no actual access to the information.

By that standard, we Americans have been fed a lot of largely fabricated F-6 “fake information” coming from both the government and the media to justify the Ukraine disaster. Here is how you can spot it. If it is a newspaper or magazine article skim all the way down the text until you reach a point towards the end where the sourcing of the information is generally hidden. If it is attributed to a named individual who indeed indisputably had direct access to the information it would at least suggest that the reporting contains a kernel of truth. But that is almost never the case, and one normally sees the source described as an “anonymous source” or a “government official” or even, in many cases, there is no source attribution at all. That generally means that the information conveyed in the reporting is completely unreliable and should be considered the product of a fabricator or a government and media propaganda mill. When a story is written by a journalist who claims to be on the scene it is also important to check out whether he or she is actually on site or working from a pool operating safely in Poland to produce the reporting. Yahoo News takes the prize in spreading propaganda as it currently reproduces press releases originating with the Ukrainian government and posts them as if they are unbiased reporting on what is taking place on the ground.

Another trick to making fake news look real is to route it through a third country. When I was in Turkey we in CIA never placed a story in the media there directly. Instead, a journalist on our payroll in France would do the story and the Turkish media would pick it up, believing that because it had appeared in Paris it must be true even though it was not. Currently, I have noted that a lot of apparently MI-6 produced fake stories on Ukraine have been appearing in the British media, most notably the Telegraph and Guardian. They are then replayed in the US media and elsewhere to validate stories that are essentially fabricated.

Television and radio media is even worse than print media as it almost never identifies the sources for the stories that it carries. So my advice is to be skeptical of what you read or hear regarding wars and rumors of wars. The war party is bipartisan in the United States and it is just itching to seize the opportunity to get a new venture going, and they are oblivious to the fact that they might in the process be about to destroy the world as we know it. We must expose their lies and unite and fight to make sure that they can’t get away with it!

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

July 26, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Net Zero Policies Will Turn Europe Into a “Trivial and Incapable” Backwater

BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC |  JULY 24, 2022

The social and economic destructive power of the political Net Zero agenda across the European Union, and by extension the U.K., is laid bare in a damning new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation. In a long and detailed presentation, energy writer John Constable warns that the European Green Deal seems all but certain to break Europe’s economic and socio-political power – “rendering it a trivial and incapable backwater, reliant on – and subservient to – superior powers”.

It is easy to read into the report that “superior powers” include countries that supply Europe with vital oil and gas and make the industrial goods required to enjoy current lifestyles. If they wish, European consumers and politicians can continue to indulge in monumental green virtue signalling, print money until kingdom come and even consider resurrecting old economic and social disasters like pointless Covid restrictions. The TalkTV host Julia Hartley-Brewer often notes that Net Zero is “borderline insanity”. The use of the word “borderline” seems superfluous.

The collapse in competitive manufacturing capacity is nowhere more evident than in the renewable sector itself, says Constable.

It is clear that renewable energy equipment manufacturing has no future in the EU, and indeed manufacturing of any kind exposed to international competition will struggle to survive, except in niche areas.

The all but total collapse of the Spanish solar industry within eight years is highlighted. Constable describes it as “extraordinary” and in large part explained by the curtailment of subsidies. Overall, he says, “subsidised deployment in Europe has failed to give European industries a secure position in the world markets for renewable energy equipment. The field is now dominated by China”.

Again, it might be noted that if you can’t even pay companies to produce hardware under local economic conditions, Boris Johnson’s promise – backed it seems by almost all politicians – to bring plentiful green jobs in the U.K. across the ‘Red Wall’ is just windy rhetoric.

News of an impending Net Zero calamity is rarely far from the headlines. Tata Steel has been trying to obtain subsidies approaching £1.5bn from the U.K. Government to pay decarbonising costs and keep Port Talbot steelworks operational. “The new Prime Minister is unlikely to be willing to hand over subsidies on this scale, not least because every other industry hit by demands for decarbonisation would insist on handouts too,” said Dr. Benny Peiser, Director of Net Zero Watch. “It is becoming more evident by the day that the Climate Change Committee misled Parliament over the true cost of Net Zero,” he added.

The lack of Net Zero discussion in the current Tory leadership battle is interesting. Savvy politicians are starting to become aware of the disaster that is hurtling towards society as it seeks to quickly remove the cheapest and most efficient fuel it has from the energy mix and replace it with intermittent sources – described by Constable as “thermodynamically incompetent”. On the other hand, large swathes of the population have become convinced that the climate is breaking down, as evidenced by the hysteria that surrounded the recent brief heatwave. The science is ‘settled’, although a more realistic interpretation is that green activists and financiers have pursued a ruthless 30-year campaign to outlaw the scientific method from atmospheric climate science.

Constable argues that a change of course is inevitable to undo the “deeply embedded” harm of nearly 30 years. Moving towards “fundamentally cheaper energy” will require substantial reductions in European living standards. “Explaining this to the European people will form the greatest political challenge of the next 50 years,” he says.

In his wider report, Constable attempts to demonstrate that the enthusiastic adoption of the green agenda in the 1990s and early 2000s “has effectively produced gradual industrial and economic disarmament”. The ‘”resultant enfeeblement” compared to Europe’s competitors will make arresting the decline difficult: “Recovering the situation entirely may be impossible.” The author lists numerous body blows to overall competitiveness. Electricity prices to industry in the EU between 2008-2018 have been about 30% above those in the G20, an organisation that includes China, India and Russia. Gas price were 20-30% higher. Electricity prices were 80% and 30% higher respectively for industry and households,  and this would have hit competitiveness hard and placed heavy energy costs on some of those least able to afford them. Petrol prices were approximately 30-50% higher, and diesel 10-40%, figures again that were guaranteed to destroy competitiveness outside the EU’s protective internal single market.

Meanwhile, energy consumption in the EU has been falling and is now said to be at levels last seen in the early 1990s. Such a deep and sustained decline is said to be unprecedented in the modern era. In the U.K., electricity consumption is reported to have fallen back to levels not seen since 1970. Energy efficiency, of course, plays a part, but Constable notes the effect of “price rationing and demand destruction”. The report labels Europe’s “green experiment” as a “costly failure”, noting that “carbon dioxide abatement costs in the EU are on average several times greater than even high-end estimates of the social cost of carbon”. This is said to indicate that the economic harm of the EU’s mitigation policies “is greater than the climate change it aims to prevent”.

Politicians – and green activist commentators – often blame inflation, high energy prices and food shortages on recent events such as Russia’s war in Ukraine. But Constable argues that the Ukrainian war, while bringing the failures of climate policies into sharper focus, does not mean that the harm is of recent origin. “On the contrary,” he argues, “the environmental policies have been damaging to the EU’s interests, and advantageous to those of its rivals, from the very beginning.”

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Wrong, Legacy Media, Climate Change Is Not Causing Summer Heatwaves in the U.S. and Europe

By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | July 22, 2022

This past week, both the U.S. and Europe have had significant localized heatwaves. The one in Europe is particularly bothersome for the media, since the area is not prepared for temperatures that exceed 100°F like areas in the in the United States in places like California, Texas, and Oklahoma, where air conditioners are the norm, regularly experience. The mainstream media has uniformly blamed the heatwaves on human caused climate change. This attribution is wrong.

The headlines have been truly apoplectic, and absolutely wrong. For example:

With Record-Breaking Heat, Europe Glimpses Its Climate Future [Scientific American]

Climate change is killing people’: Europe’s extreme heatwave continues [EuroNews]

‘Climate change affects everyone’: Europe battles wildfires in intense heat [Reuters]

And in the United States, the media hype is just as wild and just as false:

Record-breaking heat waves in US and Europe prove climate change is already here, experts say [Yahoo News]

The climate crisis is driving heat waves and wildfires. Here’s how [CNN]

How the heat dome in Texas is related to climate change [Yahoo News]

Every summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it gets hot; that’s what summers do. Also, every year, a localized heatwave occurs somewhere in the world.

The error that is common to all of these news articles is the fact that weather is not climate.

Weather is an event that might last for minutes to a few days. A heatwave is a weather event that is typically linked to large scale weather patterns, such as a high-pressure cell which can create heat-domes in the summer. Climate is an average of weather over a thirty-year period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. Note my highlights:

Each of these stories trying to link climate change to the heat wave does so without any proof whatsoever. They are nothing more than speculative fearmongering.

And, it isn’t limited to print and Internet media, the TV stations are overhyping it as well to make it seem like a crisis with the use of color. Figure 1 is a comparison of TV graphics on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Summer 2012, versus Summer 2022.

Figure 1: Comparison of TV weather Maps from the BBC in summer 2012, left, and summer 2022 right. Source: BBC

Note that in 2012, some of the temperatures were actually higher, and they didn’t need to fill in areas with red to make it look worse than it actually is.

Another thing that you won’t find reported in the BBC on in the newspapers/Internet media is the fact that while record heat was going on in Western Europe, Eastern Europe was experiencing well below average temperatures. Figure 2 below shows the juxtaposition of heat in the UK and Europe compared to the below normal temperatures in Eastern Europe, which the press has ignored.

Figure 2: Surface Temperature map for UK and Europe on July 19, 2022. Image from ECMWF output via WeatherBell Inc.

That dramatic regional temperature difference seen in Figure 2 is a sure sign of this being a weather pattern, and not global scale climate change aka global warming as the media would have you believe. The same applies to the heat wave in the U.S. as seen in Figure 3. It is regional in its scope, not global.

Figure 3: Maximum Temperature for the Contiguous United States July 21, 2022. Source NOAA

As reported in Climate at a Glance: U.S. Heatwaves,

… in recent decades in the United States, heat waves have been far less frequent and severe than they were in the 1930s.

The all-time high temperature records set in most states occurred in the first half of the twentieth century.

The heat wave of 1936 was far deadlier. To their credit, The Washington Post got it right in this report:

The killer U.S. heat wave of 1936 spread as far north as Canada, led to the heat-related deaths of an estimated 5,000 people, sent thermometers to a record 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Steele, N.D., and made that July the warmest month ever recorded in the United States.

But the real issue is that extended high temperatures like the U.S. and Europe have experienced this month have happened before climate change became the universal go-to for blame. It only takes a small amount of research to discover these facts.

A search of the term heatwaves, on Wikipedia, for instance, finds that a heatwave and drought in 1540 in Europe lasted for 11 months, and that a heatwave in 1757 was the hottest in the past 500 years until 2003. Also, Netweather Community TV, called the 1906 heatwave in the U.K during August and September, “one of the most exceptional heatwaves to ever occurred in the UK.” A 1911 heatwave in France contributed to more than 41,000 premature deaths. More recently, in Europe, there was a massive months-long heat wave in 1976. This came at a time when the Earth was experiencing a 30 year cooling trend, that led many scientists to warn the next ice age was looming. Wikipedia’s entry on the 1976 event reports:

The summer of 1976 was considered to be the hottest summer in Europe, and especially the United Kingdom, during the 20th century. A large high-pressure area dominated most of Europe for all of the summer months. The pressure system moved into place in late May 1976 and remained until the first traces of rain were recorded on 27 August.

. . .

For the entire period much of Europe was bathed in continual sunshine with the United Kingdom seeing an average of more than 14 hours of sunshine per day. 1976 was dubbed “the year of the ladybird” in that country due to the rise in the mass numbers of the insect brought on by the long hot period. In the United Kingdom, the summer coincided with a 16-week dry spell, the longest recorded over England and Wales since 1727.

That high pressure pattern is almost identical to what has been seen in UK and Europe today. The difference is that the media today immediately goes to blame climate change rather than weather patterns, and in the case of this article in The New York Times, they even try to convince you that comparisons between the hot summers of 1976 and 2022 are somehow “misleading.”

“Yet the comparison to 1976 is misleading. The highest recorded temperature then was 35.9 degrees Celsius, whereas on Tuesday it surpassed 40 degrees.”

The BBC reported:

“Thermometers hit 40.3C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire, while 33 other locations went past the UK’s previous highest temperature of 38.7C, set in 2019.”

Figure 4. Graph of Temperature at RAF Base Coningsby for July 19th, 2022 showing a max temp of 104°F, Source: WeatherUndergroud.com

What the BBC and the NYT don’t tell you is that the 40 degree Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) was set at a Royal Air Force (RAF) base next to the heat absorbing sea of runway asphalt and tarmac. Figure 4 shows the temperature hour-by-hour that day and where it was recorded.

By contrast, the BBC reports “… the [previous] highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom was 101.7 degrees, observed in Cambridge [at Cambridge University Botanic Garden] in July 2019.“

A botanical garden is an entirely different environment than an RAF air base.  The latter would be expected to be much warmer due to the lack of shade, the heat absorbing materials present, and the hot air expelled from jet engines. So, the “misleading” claim of the NYT is really about the lack of solid journalism in reporting the environment under which these temperatures were recorded.

It is well-known that the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect can contribute to warmer high temperatures, and given the UK went from 56 million people in 1976 to 67 million in 2020, it isn’t the least bit surprising that the UHI increased as infrastructure to support that 11 million extra people was added to that island nation.

The final word comes from meteorologist Cliff Mass, PhD, who did a thorough analysis of the short-lived heatwave event and writes (emphasis his):

The truth and overwhelming scientific evidence provide a different story: the recent European heatwave is mainly the result of natural processes but was enhanced modestly by human-caused global warming.

The situation is very much like the [Pacific] Northwest heatwave of last summer; with many of the same elements.

…

The bottom line is that the recent European heat wave was caused by an amplification of the northern hemisphere wave pattern, with global warming contributing perhaps 5-10% of the warmth. Natural variability of the atmosphere was the proximate cause of the warmth and does not represent an existential threat to the population of Europe.

Clearly, there’s no cause for alarm, no matter what the media says. But the media won’t tell you any of that, because it ruins their narrative of being able to blame the heatwave on climate change, while hoping you don’t notice their distortion of the truth about ordinary weather events we see every summer.

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

New Prime Minister will have to pause Net Zero or face the demise of UK’s steel industry

Net Zero Watch | July 22, 2022

London – With the exorbitant costs of Net Zero plans threatening Port Talbot steelworks with closure, the next Prime Minister will be faced with a stark choice: pause Net Zero plans for energy-intensive industries or preside over the end of the UK steel manufacturing.

The warning comes from the director of Net Zero Watch, Dr Benny Peiser.

Tata Group, the owner of the UK’s largest steel manufacturer, has threatened to shut down operations if the government does not agree to provide £1.5bn of subsidies to help it reduce CO2 emissions.

The crisis for UK steel demonstrates that the cost of Net Zero is an existential threat to British industries and manufacturing.

As an energy-intensive manufacturer of internationally traded commodities, the steel sector is particularly sensitive to the astronomical cost of decarbonisation. It is the first to acknowledge that the industry simply can’t survive Net Zero without multi-billion handouts – but it won’t be the last.

Tata Steel and the energy-intensive sector more broadly can be regarded as a canary in the coalmine, giving early warning of a more general economic and industrial disaster, as the rising costs of Net Zero trickle down to the rest of the economy.

Dr Peiser said:

“The new Prime Minister is unlikely to be willing to hand over subsidies on the scale demanded by Tata, not least because every other industry hit by demands for decarbonisation would insist on handouts too.

“It is becoming more evident by the day that the Climate Change Committee misled Parliament over the true cost of Net Zero. Most energy-intensive businesses in the UK won’t be able to survive the looming Net Zero cost crisis unless the new Prime Minister takes swift action.”

July 23, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

UK police told to back off “offensive” tweets and get back to real crimes

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | July 23, 2022

New interim guidance by the UK’s College of Policing says police should focus on catching criminals rather than social media “offensive” speech. The guidance reminds police that they have to respect freedom of speech and avoid getting involved in lawful debate on social media simply because an individual has been offended.

Last year, former police officer Harry Miller successfully challenged the recording of non-crime hate incidents after he got a visit from an officer from the Humberside Police over a tweet that was considered transphobic.

The Court of Appeal ruled that the recording of non-crime hate incidents was “plainly an interference with free speech.”

While records of no-crime hate incidents do not appear on the basic Disclosure and Barring Service checks, they could appear on the thorough searches conducted on those applying for jobs as carers and teachers.

CEO of the College of Policing Andy March said that police should not interfere with “lawful debate.”

“The public rightly expect the police to focus on cutting crime and bringing criminals to justice,” he said.

“While we work to protect the most vulnerable in society, we also have a responsibility to protect freedom of speech.

“This updated guidance puts in place new safeguards to ensure people are able to engage in lawful debate without police interference.”

The new guidance tells officers not to record non-crime incidents that are “trivial or irrational” and when there is “no basis to conclude it was motivated by hostility.”

“Individuals who are commenting in legitimate debate, for example, on political or social issues, should not be stigmatized simply because someone is offended,” the guidance states.

It also says that if an officer must record a non-crime hate incident, they should do so in the “least intrusive way possible,” and should avoid specifying locations and using names.

“The police regularly deal with complex incidents on social media. Our guidance is there to support officers responding to these incidents in accordance with the law, and not get involved in debates on Twitter,” Marsh added.

July 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Patronising, selective, abusive – the vaccine propaganda machine at its worst

By Laura Perrins | TCW Defending Freedom | July 22, 2022

ONE thing I will say about Wednesday night’s BBC programme Unvaccinated  is that it had to be seen to believed. It managed to be patronising, ignorant, selective and abusive all at the same time. I doubt if even my extraordinary talents can quite convey the level of vaccine propaganda that the national broadcaster engaged in.

If you did not see it, Unvaccinated (available on iPlayer) was a programme whereby the BBC picked a group of people who have exercised their right to medical choice and bodily autonomy and decided not to be injected with an mNRA ‘vaccine’, and got them together, Big Brother-style, in an attempt to change their minds. They were subject to a regime of gaslighting, ‘heated debate’ and an odd jelly-bean experiment. Along the way to help these poor ignoramuses see the error of their ways were a presenter, The Scientists and some bloke from Full Fact, ‘the UK’s independent fact checking organisation’.

The low point was when a young participant explained how a friend started having seizures days after her first jab. This has devastated her life. Unsurprisingly this made the attendee ‘hesitant’ about receiving the Covid vaccine. The response from the presenter was, How can you be sure it was the vaccine that caused the seizures? Maybe it was something else? Just how is a young girl supposed to prove that a serious side-effect such as a seizure was not caused by the vaccine taken only days earlier? As she rightly pointed out, given the age of the victim, it is highly unlikely that this would have occurred naturally. But it’s not impossible, replied the presenter. Sure, it is not impossible, just like pigs might indeed sprout wings and fly.

This gaslighting came after a lengthy session on how mild side-effects are often imagined. Placebo side-effects were real – namely if you thought you would get a side-effect then you were more likely to experience this side-effect. So, you just imagined that blood clot.

Then there was a discussion on myocarditis – this was when the jelly-beans came out to demonstrate how unlikely it is one would suffer such a side-effect after the vaccine. You are more likely to suffer myocarditis from Covid, we were told. The jelly-bean experiment didn’t seem to convince anyone, and positively enraged one attendee.

Then the Unvaccinated met The Scientists, who explained how they were able to develop the mNRA vaccine in an ‘unprecedented’ time scale: ‘The vaccines that we are using in this country at the moment are quite different from vaccines that we have used in the past.’ (They certainly are.)

They were developed at such breakneck, too-good-to-be-true, never-before-done-in-the-history-of-mankind speed because they got critical information from China. The Scientist explains, ‘We were able to get the code for the spike protein on the virus within a matter of weeks from China, and that code was enough to make the spike protein.’ (I am sure you are fully reassured now, dear reader. The code for the spike protein came from China. So you’re all good.) That didn’t really fill me with confidence, I have to say. (For some very real worries about this rushed vaccine, turn to Paula Jardine’s disturbing report for TCW  here.)

The other reason for the high-speed development and rollout was, according to the presenter, who heard it from an academic, good old ‘bureaucracy’, or at least the lack of it.  Allegedly, all The Scientists were able to clear their diaries so they could make meetings immediately instead of three months down the line and, ta-dah – the vaccine appears! ‘They got rid of everything else in their diary and this was the priority.’ Praise be.

The gang at Full Fact got a slot to explain all about the trouble with ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ and all the rest of it.

The biggest elephant in the room was the fact that the virus presents little if any threat to the attendees, who were all young. If the risk of the virus to the attendees isn’t analysed then there is no point in talking about how likely mild or serious the side-effects of the vaccine are.

Much of the programme came down to emotion v The Science and the manipulation of statistics, in particular confusing causation with correlation. It is right we should always be careful of statistics. Ultimately, however, I believe the attendees’ gut instinct is against this vaccine but these days, emotion or instinct is routinely dismissed. Nothing can come above The Science, and The Charts and The Technocrats and The Experts. Sir Roger Scruton defended instinct as an entirely appropriate way upon which to make a decision. It is another word for wisdom and common sense built up over a lifetime of experience. One can apply common sense and wisdom when considering the advice given by an expert, but that advice should not trump the commonsense decision which has to be made by the ordinary person.

Experience tells me that in the face of a virus which presents a tiny risk to me, or indeed anyone, it is best not to be injected with a vaccine developed in record time using an entirely new method and relying on information from communist-run China.

My life experience tells me I have an immune system and I trust that more that the government, Big Pharma, China or indeed the BBC. In fact, when a jury consider a verdict in a criminal trial they are directed to apply their common sense and life experience when considering the evidence and coming to a verdict. If common sense is good enough to convict someone of a criminal offence, it should be good enough when considering whether to have a vaccine.

One of the attendees observed that you have only one life and one body, so you have to be careful what you put into it. That really sums it up. Despite the BBC’s best efforts, I doubt that they will have changed any minds with this programme.

July 23, 2022 Posted by | Film Review, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

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