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Integrity Initiative – The HSBC Connection

Real Media | February 3, 2019

“2 Degrees of separation” – a theory whistleblower Nicholas Wilson has, that wherever in the world a financial scandal occurs HSBC is to be found nearby.

Nicholas has been campaigning for 13 years after blowing the whistle on a High Street fraud of excessive bank charges applied to store cards administered by HSBC. He has recently been vindicated by a Financial Conduct Authority ruling and HSBC have had to begin paying back some of the money defrauded from customers. He was dubbed “Mr. Ethical” by his boss at the time for refusing to defraud debtors.

In this first of several interviews for Real Media, he connects Government funding and the security services to the recently revealed psyops outfit, Institute for Statecraft and its ‘integrity initiative’.

He asks whether there might be a connection with the suspicious death of auditor Sergei Magnitsky, who was working for the Hermitage Fund there. HSBC bankrolled and jointly managed the Hermitage Fund with Bill Browder, who appears in Institute of Statecraft’s documents.

Browder, convicted of tax fraud in Russia connected with the Magnitsky affair, has spent years pointing the finger at the Russians over both the killing and the disappearance of nearly quarter of a billion pounds, but a film by Andrei Nekrasov casts suspicion on Browder and HSBC. If the film is to be believed, it would make sense that Browder is involved with a shadowy group set up to counter Russian “disinformation”.

Nicholas Wilson reveals the close associations between HSBC and the UK security forces, and asks whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office should be giving public funding to the Institute of Statecraft.

More HSBC revelations at nicholaswilson.com

February 6, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Video | , | Leave a comment

Britain lurches Deeper into Brexit Crisis as its Population Remains Deeply Alienated from the Political Establishment

By Leon Tressell | Dissident Voice | February 4, 2019

The British political establishment is experiencing an unprecedented crisis over the issue of exiting the European Union. The Conservative government staggers from crisis to crisis over its Brexit deal while politicians of all colours bicker and argue as the UK lurches towards a potentially devastating No Deal scenario. This had lead to a huge distrust in the political class amongst the long suffering public.

As the clock ticks down towards the 29 March exit date it is worth while recalling how this crisis came about in the first place. Regardless of which Brexit option the UK takes over the next period it will not detract from the fact that there is a huge chasm between large sections of a bitterly discontented population and the political establishment that does not bode well for the future stability of a key American ally.

A recent poll of 33,000 people revealed that an overwhelming majority felt that whatever Brexit option is adopted it will not address the rampant inequalities, political alienation and disenchantment that lay behind the vote to leave the EU in 2016.

In June 2016 the UK vote to exit the EU shocked the financial and political elites and led to turmoil on global stock markets. The corporate media was full of shocked pundits lamenting the democratic decision of British people for Brexit. Brexit voters were being blamed for everything from the rise in racism against immigrant families to the increased dangers of terrorist attacks.

The corporate media both in Britain and internationally was and still are furious with the British electorate for voting for Brexit. They never saw it coming and still don’t fully understand why ordinary people voted for Brexit. More than this, they still don’t understand how the Brexit vote reveals how completely out of touch the corporate media and the political/financial elites are with the millions of working class people who voted for Brexit.

Let’s be very clear about this: the vote for Brexit was a working class rebellion against the financial and political elites of Britain who have presided over a massive redistribution of wealth in favour of the super rich leaving a fifth of the population in poverty. Analysis of the referendum vote shows how the poorer an area was the higher the vote was for Brexit.

The working class stood up to massive pressure from the Bremain camp that included: all of the mainstream political parties, the Bank of England, CBI, IMF, ECB, Obama, the World Bank and the trade union bureaucrats.

The vote for Brexit revealed how out of touch the establishment advocates of the EU are with working class people. Millions of working class people are struggling to get by with low wages, incessant benefit cuts, zero hour contracts, food banks and poor housing that are putting their families and communities under intense strain. On top of this, working class people suffer the most from the cuts to the welfare state and the incessant cuts to local council services.

Working class people are not stupid they can see how the EU is a fundamentally undemocratic organisation that is completely unaccountable to them. The secret negotiations that took place between the EU and the Obama administration over TTIP, which members of the European Parliament had no say over, proved conclusively how this is an organisation run for the benefit of the too big to fail banks and the multi-national corporations.

They can see how the undemocratic EU has bludgeoned the people of Greece into living in permanent austerity and mass poverty despite a referendum last year that decisively rejected austerity measures. Obama’s favourite economist Paul Krugman called the EU’s intervention into Greece in 2015 a ‘coup d’etat’.

The advocates of Bremain in 2016 such as Mark Carney (ex-Goldman Sachs), then Prime Minister Cameron (from a tax avoiding banker family) then Chancellor George Osborne (son of a Baronet) warned working class people that Brexit would lower their living standards more than any other group in UK society.

However, millions of working class people were not taken in by the crocodile tears coming from those responsible for creating a massively unequal society. Quantitative easing and ZIRP have made the super rich fabulously richer as they have benefited from the massive bubbles on the stock market and in property. The top 10% of society own 45% of all wealth totalling over £5 trillion while the bottom 50% of society own a pathetic 9% of the wealth.

Prime Minister Cameron’s government presided over a savage attack upon welfare benefits which have led to one and half million benefit sanctions leaving people totally destitute and leading to hundreds of people committing suicide. The attack on welfare benefits for disabled people has been so severe it prompted the UN to launch an investigation into the human rights violations of disabled people. In 2018 the UN accused the UK government of ‘’systematic violations’’ of disabled people’s rights.

The political and financial elites who advocated that Britain should stay in the EU were puzzled as to why so many working class people stubbornly supported Brexit in 2016. They were and still are incapable of comprehending the anger, pain and suffering of millions of working class people who feel increasing contempt towards a political and financial elite that has no understanding of their daily lives. Over 13 million live in poverty (1 in 5 of the population) while 15 million live in inadequate housing conditions.

This inchoate anger at the daily reality that confronts them has few outlets in life. The EU referendum provided working class people with a means of sticking two fingers up at the political and financial establishment which now presides over a very divided country along lines of class and geography. This sense of alienation and disenchantment with the political establishment has only increased in the two and half years since the Brexit referendum.

The Brexit vote has led to unprecedented turmoil in both of the main political parties in Britain, particularly the Conservative Party.

The financial and political elites suffered a major defeat in 2016 Brexit vote. The Conservative Party is one of the oldest and most successful political parties in history and has served the British ruling class well for over two hundred years. Now it faces an unprecedented crisis and is unable to effectively govern.

Regardless of which Brexit option the Conservative government takes over the next period the UK will face huge challenges as the world economy continues to slow down and heads towards another devastating recession.

This will pose major challenges for the stability of the UK, whose manufacturing base continues to weaken while its financial services sector loses its dominant position in European capital markets due to Brexit. A discontented population may take inspiration from its yellow vested neighbours across the English Channel.

Leon Tressell is a UK based historian with a research focus upon geo-politics and economics.

February 5, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Reality Check: Is Russia planning to invade Sweden or is UK media spreading more baseless hysteria?

By Bryan MacDonald | RT | February 5, 2019

Two of Britain’s leading newspapers have run delirious headlines this week, warning of a potential Russian assault on neutral Sweden.

“Sweden’s first new conscripts prepare to repel Russian invaders” – the Telegraph.

“First Swedish conscripts in a decade begin training to defeat a Russian invasion” – Daily Mail.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Poor Sweden (population 9 million) getting ready to repel an attack from big, bad Russia (population 145 million).

Furthermore, to make things even worse, the “aggressor” is a military superpower and the “victim” stands alone, without even NATO to protect it. And that bit is really relevant here, as you will soon see.

Anyway, rest easy: Never mind the bollocks, here’s the British media. Armed with its particular brand of hysteria, mendacity, and click-bait calumny.

The Telegraph, which isn’t even pretending to be a newspaper anymore, bases its “Russian invasion” warning on the testimony of a Colonel Stennabb. He highlights how “Russia is prepared to use military means to accomplish political objectives, not just in Crimea but in Syria.”

Hardly a radical concept, even in Europe where many countries, most notably, France (Libya, Ivory Coast, CAR, Chad, etc.) and the UK (Iraq, Syria, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, etc.) aren’t exactly shy about backing up words with firepower.

At no point does Stennabb explain why Russia would want to invade Sweden. Nor does the Telegraph. Which fails to note Sweden doesn’t even border mainland Russia, although it does sit across the Baltic Sea from the tiny Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

After all, Sweden has few resources useful to Moscow and IKEA already has plenty of stores around Russia.

That said, Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, did mention last year that the president is partial to ABBA. But, surely there are easier ways of encouraging them to reform?

The Mail piece largely amounts to a rewrite of the Telegraph’s scaremongering. But they do pad it out a bit, mentioning how “Russia has also been launching incursions into European airspace.”

For illustration, it explains “just last week, a Russian Su-27 fighter was filmed ‘pushing’ an American F-15 out of the way as they patrolled over the Baltic Sea.” Adding how, in a separate incident, “the (US) Pentagon said that a Russian jet came dangerously close to one of its fighters over the Black Sea on Monday.”

So, here we have two American aircraft operating in Europe and this British newspaper is accusing Russia of “launching incursions into European airspace.”

Meaning either the Mail is unaware that Russia is in Europe but the United States is not, or it thinks its readers are stupid.

Anyway, the last major conflict between Sweden and Russia ended in 1790, following a failed Swedish attack two years earlier. Famously, the conflict was started by King Gustav III of Sweden for domestic political reasons.

This present UK media hysteria serves similar ends. Because, in this time of austerity, British Armed Forces spending is squeezed. And what better way to keep the moolah coming than to create a plausible enemy?

Plus, there’s a small, but vocal, bunch both within and without Sweden who hope to drag the traditionally neutral country into NATO. Go figure.

February 5, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Goodbye ‘Freedom and Democracy’ – Hello ‘Rules-based International Order’

By Paul Carline | OffGuardian | February 2, 2019

The banner and the clarion call of western countries, and their own asserted legitimation – especially when they are engaging in illegal wars and coups – used to be “freedom and democracy”: the precious gift they were generously and selflessly offering to a backward world – or one allegedly in the ‘chains’ of Socialism/Communism. There was “Radio Free Europe”, for example, pushing out western liberal propaganda, primarily against the countries of the former Soviet Union.

The Washington-based “Freedom House” organisation, which claims to be independent, has around 150 staff members in Washington and in ‘field offices’ around the world. Its President is Michael J. Abramowitz, who before joining Freedom House in 2017, was director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education. Before that, he was National Editor and then White House correspondent for the Washington Post. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former fellow at the German Marshall Fund and the Hoover Institution. He is also a board member of the National Security Archive. The Board of Trustees is chaired by Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush and co-author of the USA Patriot Act.

Since 1972, Freedom House, whose website sports a warm endorsement by none other than Francis Fukuyama, has produced an annual “Freedom in the World” global map (above), which divides the world into countries which are either “free”, “partly free”, or “not free”. The allegedly “free” countries are coloured green, the “partly free” ones a kind of muddy yellow, and the “not free” ones blue.

Its analysis of “freedom” covers “the electoral process, political pluralism and participation, the functioning of government, freedom of expression and belief, rights of association and organization, the rule of law, and personal autonomy and individual rights”. The word ‘democracy’ is not used in the ratings system, nor is it defined anywhere, but the 2018 analysis is headlined “Democracy in Crisis”.

According to Freedom House, in 2018 45% of the world (by country) or 39% (by population) was “free”, 30% (country) or 24% (population) was “partly free”, and 25%/37% “not free”. Countries are rated on a percentage points system. Sweden, which last year joined in the NATO ‘war games’ – despite not being a NATO member – is given a full 100 points, Canada 99, Uruguay 98, both Chile and the UK 94, France a completely undeserved 90, the USA 86 and Israel an unreal 79. By contrast, China scores 14, Iran 17, and Russia a mere 20, while Tibet and Syria are granted only 1 point each (no bias there). Almost incredibly, Ukraine scores 62 – allowing it to be rated as “partly free”! Very oddly, the FAQ section is available in only two languages – English and Ukrainian!

I suspect that the statement by Freedom House’s President, Michael J. Abramowitz, to the effect that: “A quarter-century ago, at the end of the Cold War, it appeared that totalitarianism had at last been vanquished and liberal democracy had won the great ideological battle of the 20th century”, must induce wry smiles – if not outright anger – in many Off-Guardian readers. Abramowitz predictably refers to “the rise of populist leaders who appeal to anti-immigrant sentiment and give short shrift to fundamental civil and political liberties” and describes “newcomer Emmanuel Macron” as a “centrist” who “handily” (interesting choice of words!) won the French presidency.

Depressingly predictable is his comment on China and Russia, which he labels “the world’s leading autocracies” and which he asserts “have seized the opportunity not only to step up internal repression but also to export their malign influence to other countries, which are increasingly copying their behaviour and adopting their disdain for democracy” (emphasis added; no mention of the massive ‘disdain for democracy’ in the USA, UK, and numerous members of the EU).

According to Abramowitz, “Democratic governments allow people to help set the rules to which all must adhere, and have a say in the direction of their lives and work!” If that were true, there would be lots of direct democracy in all those “free” countries. It’s true that there is some ‘direct democracy’, e.g. popular initiatives and referendums, in a few states of the USA and in a few European countries – with Switzerland far and away the best example, followed by Germany at the regional and local levels, thanks to the efforts over decades of its leading pro-democracy organisation “Mehr Demokratie”, which has been trying to have direct democratic rights established also at the national level, which would really allow the people to “help set the rules”. Germany’s “Basic Law” (it doesn’t have a proper constitution for reasons which I cannot go into here but which will be known to many) actually states: “All power derives from the people” (Article 20) and “State power is exercised by the people in elections and referendums” (emphasis added) – but successive governments have refused to enact the laws that would allow state-level referendums, presumably because they fear the “people power” that is the literal meaning of ‘democracy’.

Given subsequent developments, Kofi Annan’s 2001 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech now strikes a sour note:

“The obstacles to democracy have little to do with culture or religion, and much more to do with the desire of those in power to maintain their position at any cost. This is neither w new phenomenon nor one confined to any particular part of the world. People of all cultures value their freedom of choice and feel the need to have a say in the decisions affecting their lives”

In the 2002 UNDP World Development Report, Annan re-affirmed the true nature of democracy in these words:

“True democratization means more than elections. People’s dignity requires that they be free – and able – to participate in the formation and stewardship of the rules and institutions that govern them”.

According to Abramovitch’s definition, and that of Kofi Annan, there is zero genuine democracy in the U.K. (a purely representative system – especially one still using an outdated and wholly disreputable FPTP system, with rare referendums arranged by the government, which sets the question – is not a legitimate form of democracy).

We may also ask, in parenthesis as it were, who – if not the electorates – is “helping to set the rules”, for example in Europe specifically. As of July 2017, there were 11,327 registered lobby organisations in the EU, employing some 82,096 people – the equivalent of 50,326 full-time personnel – of which nearly 7,000 have access to the Parliament. In Germany there are around eight lobbyists – representing ‘outside’ interests – for every member of the national parliament – and the lobby registers are voluntary. Only seven countries (France, Ireland, Lithuania, Austria, Poland, Slovenia and the UK) have passed any laws on lobbying.

What is extremely interesting and telling is the general absence of references to ‘freedom and democracy’ by our so-called ‘leaders’. Those words have been replaced in the political lexicon by the now clearly favoured expression “the rules-based international order” – which doesn’t have quite the same ring, or the same connotations, as “freedom and democracy”.

One is forced to ask: whose order? whose rules? If Abramowitz is correct, and since we are privileged enough to live in a country which, if we are to believe its FH rating, is little short of perfect, we the people must have been involved in setting those rules. We should at least have been told what they mean! For example, what does ‘international’ mean in this context? It suggests a global compact – but when it is used it specifically excludes certain countries and regimes which we are led to believe are not part of, or indeed are allegedly trying to undermine, this new ‘order’.

Although the word ‘international’ is often taken to be a synonym for ‘global’ or ‘universal’, its literal meaning is ‘between nations’. The UN has of course long promulgated and endorsed all kinds of ‘universal’ rules (the ICC rules on aggression for instance) – many of which are routinely flouted by the countries which most loudly lay claim to being ‘democracies’ and loyal observers of the “rules-based international order”.

But we are now seeing a new type of literally ‘inter-national’ agreements being made in Europe, often merely between two governments at a time (with no democratic endorsement by either parliaments or people) and where the suspicion is that this is a new way of hiding from the general public what is really going on in Europe – specifically the step-by-step implementation of the “United States of Europe” project which dates from at least 1946.

There seems to be an undue haste to complete the creation of a unified military establishment that would not be answerable to the individual nation states which are contributing their forces (and infrastructure!) and which would also appear to include a much closer working relationship between military and police forces. Does the urgency have to do with the level of chaos in Europe and the threat – now materialised in the form of the “Yellow Vest” protests – of widespread civil unrest and potentially public revolt?

So Prime Minister Theresa May can pretend to the public that the ‘Brexit’ approved by a majority of voters will take place i.e. that Britain will “come out of” the EU, while at the same time, and largely in secret or behind closed doors in completely undemocratic meetings, the government is committing the entire UK military establishment, step by step, to the new ‘unified European defence establishment’. The UK enters into a special relationship with France (and thereby with the EU). France and Germany have just signed a new treaty – the Aachen Treaty – so does the UK automatically acquire the special relationship with Germany? And will this “two-step” approach eventually link all willing states (one could imagine Hungary, perhaps Italy and Greece also, not being so willing) in the ‘new European order’?

In struggling to understand the “rules-based international order” I found this definition by the RAND Corporation very helpful:

Since 1945, the United States has pursued its global interests through creating and maintaining international economic institutions, bilateral and regional security organizations, and liberal political norms; these ordering mechanisms are often collectively referred to as the international order.

In recent years, rising powers have begun to challenge aspects of this order. This report is part of a project, titled “Building a Sustainable International Order,” that aims to understand the existing international order, assess current challenges to the order, and recommend future US policies with respect to the order.

This report is the first of those and reflects the project team’s attempt to understand the existing international order, including how US decision makers have described and used the order in conducting foreign policy, as well as how academics have assessed the mechanisms by which the order affects state behaviour.

When discussing policy responses to a fraying international order, the first challenge is to understand what we mean by the term. Order has various meanings in the context of international politics, and specific orders can take many forms.1 For the purposes of this project, we conceive of order as the body of rules, norms, and institutions that govern relations among the key players in the international environment. An order is a stable, structured pattern of relationships among states that involves some combination of parts, including emergent norms, rulemaking institutions, and international political organizations or regimes, among others.

– RAND Corporation 2016, Understanding the Current International Order

This more recent observation was both insightful and amusing:

“The rules-based international order is being challenged, quite surprisingly, not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor, the US,” Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said as the summit meeting got underway in Quebec’s picturesque resort town of La Malbaie on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.

The trans-Atlantic rift manifested itself in a behind-the-scenes debate about the wording of the traditional summit communiqué. The American side objected to including the phrase “rules-based international order,” even though it is boilerplate for such statements, according to two people briefed on the deliberations. The Europeans and Canadians were pushing back, but it remained unclear whether the Trump administration would ultimately sign the statement or be left on its own.

– NYT June 8, 2018 Michael D. Shear

So the ‘rules-based international order’ is, in reality, the expression of America’s “global interests”. Other parties – such as British and other governments – may be allowed to put on the mask of the Eagle, whilst claiming to be on the side of justice, truth, human rights … and yes, democracy. And since it’s a US construct, the US and its allies can feel free to ‘make it up as they go along’.

February 2, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Western Anti-Russia Paranoia Reaches Fever-Pitch

Strategic Culture Foundation | February 1, 2019

Western corporate news media have got to be one of the most irresponsible and toxic entities. In particular, their contribution to distorting international relations with Russia and stoking tensions is bordering on incitement.

It is astounding and atrocious that such paranoid thinking is displayed on a massive scale. Western establishment news media, without a hint of irony, proclaim to be independent, critical, free-thinking and defenders of democracy. How delusional. They are increasingly serving up war propaganda like ministries of disinformation in a truly Orwellian scenario. And yet Western media have the arrogant hypocrisy to vilify Russia for malign intent.

German media recently accused Russian news channels of “propaganda” and demanded their shutdown. British media, including supposedly “quality” brands, run sensational reports about Russian warships “menacing” Britain and Europe because those vessels sailed through proximate international waters. Alleged Russian cyberattacks are aiming to destroy civil society and infrastructure. And so on.

But this week, it was American news media that once again excelled in irresponsible anti-Russia paranoia. The CNN news channel “informed” its viewers of how Russia and North Korea were “teaming up” as “two of America’s most dangerous adversaries”. The brief report is worth studying for its sinister use of images and innuendo to convey alleged nefarious intentions imputed to both Russia and North Korea towards US national security.

A day before that report, the Washington Post published an equally hollow article claiming that Moscow had offered Pyongyang a deal to build a nuclear power plant in exchange for North Korea dismantling its ballistic weapons. The alleged deal, according to the Post, “marked an attempt by Moscow to intervene in high-stakes nuclear talks as it asserts itself in a string of geopolitical flash points from the Middle East to South Asia to Latin America.”

That non-entity report was then “cited” by CNN subsequently to make its breathless case that Russia and North Korea were “teaming up” against the US.

This non-stop fingering by Western news media of Russia as a malign nation is not “news information” to the public. It is simply disinformation, distortion and demonization. It is war propaganda. The caricature of Russia as being an evil enemy is not based on facts or evidence. It is based on repetition of lies and innuendo.

Western news media are a disgrace to any claims of being independent “public information”. They are the antithesis of critical journalism.

This incendiary role comes at a time when international relations are acutely strained. Russia’s deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned this week that the world has never been in greater danger in recent decades as it is now of an all-out military confrontation. He was speaking at a conference held in Beijing on nuclear arms controls attended by the US, Russia, Britain and France.

Ryabkov was referring to the threat by the US to abandon the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty. If the treaty collapses then international security is gravely weakened.

Russia and the US accuse each other of breaching the INF. Moscow points to the actual installation of short-range US ballistic missile systems in Romania and Poland. For its part, the American side has not provided evidence to back up its claims against Russia.

The point is, however, that the claims and counter-claims should be resolved through negotiations and dialogue. The unilateral abandonment of the INF by the US is reprehensible and reckless.

But such high-handed conduct by Washington is based to a large extent on the sinister imaging of Russia as a “dangerous enemy”.

This is why the Western news media deserve reproach. The Russophobia that they churn out on a weekly, daily basis has directly fomented a prejudice detrimental to international relations.

Western state policies of antagonism towards Russia are being fashioned based on false perceptions. Those policies are partly enabled by public passivity inculcated by Western media constantly portraying Russia as a “bad actor”.

The so-called “Russiagate” scandal has been running for almost two years in the Western corporate media. Yet, there is still no proof to substantiate the sensational claims that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential elections with the aim of getting Donald Trump elected.

Nonetheless, the Western media continue to propagate that threadbare narrative. This week, the top US intelligence official, Dan Coats, claimed that Russia was going to interfere in the 2020 election on a much greater scale that it had allegedly done in 2016. The news media reported without any skepticism or investigation.

Fortunately though, the establishment Western media has come to be seen by many people in Western states and around the world as a farce. The repetition of lies and fiction regarding Russia – by supposedly august titles like the New York Times, London Times, BBC, Der Spiegel and many more – has totally discredited Western so-called news media.

Public trust in what is supposed to be an institution upholding “democracy” appears to be at an all-time low. The baneful condition is correlated with Western media and government anti-Russia paranoia being at an all-time high.

This growing public distrust and contempt is good and a mercy. For if the deranged Western media and governments had their Russophobia fulfilled, the world would be plunged into war.

One thing that emerges clearly is the past Cold War hostility towards the Soviet Union is recycled into animosity towards Russia. In the Cold War, the Western states could at least claim they were fighting against an unwanted ideology. There is no basis for such a claim post-Cold War, yet the aggression continues. That means the hostility emanates from the West. Why? That is a question Western populations should be asking about their media and governments and their foreign policies. What is the immanent need for such hostility?

The Western media’s function is to keep the mass of people drugged from asking searching questions about their condition and the imposition of irrational war-like mentality.

February 1, 2019 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Of Suspected Spies & Cathedrals… and Western Media Hypocrisy

By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 27.01.2019

It’s hilarious to see the double standards of Western media applied in the case of alleged American spy Paul Whelan who is being detained in Russia and facing trial.

Whelan, a former US marine, was denied bail this week in a Moscow court after it emerged that he had been found in possession of state secrets while supposedly holidaying in Russia.

Western media widely aired the theory that the American man has been “set up” by Russian state security after he had received a USB computer stick from someone while staying in a Moscow hotel last month. The person whom he received the disk from has not been identified, but presumably he or she was known to the American, otherwise why would he have accepted the item?

Whelan claims he was in Russia as a tourist and that he didn’t check the contents of the computer mini-disk at the time because he assumed it contained “images of a cathedral he had visited”. He was reportedly arrested soon after receipt of the disk, on December 28, by Federal Security Service (FSB) officers.

This sounds eerily familiar. Remember the two Russian men who visited Salisbury in March last year at around the time of the alleged poisoning of former Kremlin spy Sergei Skripal? Months later, those two men were identified as “suspects” on British CCTV cameras whose images were broadcast by media. Both then promptly came forward to give an interview to Russian media in order to clear their names, which they confirmed as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.

Petrov and Boshirov claimed they were in Salisbury around March 4 as tourists, not as Kremlin assassins as the British media were sensationally alleging. Asked why they were in Salisbury, the pair said it was to visit the medieval English town’s “famous cathedral” and its 123-meter spire.

The immediate reaction by British media in particular was to pour scorn and ridicule on the men’s story. The British government rubbished their claim as “obfuscation and lies”. Journalists and pundits lambasted the pair with guffaws and mockery.

Petrov and Boshirov denied they had any involvement in the alleged poisoning of Skripal – supposedly with a deadly Soviet nerve agent – and they said they were not Kremlin agents but rather worked in the sports nutrition business.

There is no indication thus far that the men’s story is false. Also, what really happened to Skripal and his daughter Yulia remains a mystery since the British authorities won’t reveal where they are – 10 months after the alleged poisoning incident.

The only follow-up media report on the Russian men’s alleged security service affiliation was by the dubious UK-based Bellingcat website, which has a history of fabricating anti-Russian propaganda, such as alleged chemical weapons attacks in Syria and the alleged shooting down by Russian-backed separatists of a Malaysian civilian airliner in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

In the case of Paul Whelan, a former US elite soldier who possesses four passports and who apparently visited Russia several times and had become familiar with the country, he is permitted by Western media to plead his innocence invoking an interest in cathedrals and churches. Not a wink of skepticism here.

However, in the case Petrov and Boshirov, who have no known background in military, they are immediately scoffed at for their declared interest in Salisbury’s medieval cathedral, which by the way is world famous and attracts thousands of visitors every year, including many Russian tourists.

What’s more, in the case of Whelan, the Western media has gone further to report that he is being set up by Russian agents, who planted the state secrets in the USB disk. It is speculated in the Western media that the Kremlin is using the American as a bargaining chip in a potential prisoner-exchange deal for Russian citizen Maria Butina. Butina was jailed at the end of last year in the US after she pleaded guilty to espionage charges, following months of isolated detention. The Kremlin said she had no association with its agencies.

Moscow categorically denies that there is an ulterior agenda for doing a prisoner swap. Russian authorities have said that Whelan was simply “caught red-handed” with state secrets and is being prosecuted accordingly. The classified information is believed to contain the names of individuals who work for Russian secret services.

Whelan’s family back in the US maintain he is innocent and that he was in Russia to attend the wedding of a friend. If found guilty, he could be facing up to 10-20 years in jail.

Who knows, maybe the American was set up in a dirty game of state intrigue.

The case of Maria Butina appears to be a disturbing one of the American state framing up a Russian citizen to bolster a political agenda of alleged Russian interference in US elections. Her pre-trial detention in solitary confinement certainly amounts to a form of psychological torture to pressure a confession. Butina is facing several years in prison, despite many observers considering her to be innocent.

But one thing seems glaringly obvious: the double standard being used by Western media which is borne out of its relentless Russophobia.

A former US marine is seen as a plausible tourist interested in viewing cathedrals whom, the Western media claim, is now being persecuted by despotic Russian authorities; while two Russian civilians are pilloried for plying a “ridiculous cover story” about Salisbury’s 123-meter spire.

January 27, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Why Does the State Hate Alex Salmond?

Compilation by Craig Murray

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January 24, 2019 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Councils have cut services but spend millions on CCTV

TruePublica | January 23, 2019

Most people in the UK think quite wrongly that they live in a country where freedom and privacy is the basic right of all citizens. The UK currently holds the record for the largest number of CCTV cameras per person. Although Britain contains only contains 1 per cent of the world’s population, its citizens are watched by 20 per cent of the world’s CCTV cameras. Research in 2013 estimated that there are up to six million cameras in the UK, and the network is expected to expand even further, which according to a recent report it has achieved. But there’s more.

To add to worries of illegal state surveillance – “the risk potential for intrusion on citizens has significantly increased both by lawful operators of surveillance camera systems and those individual or state actors who seek to hack into systems,” Surveillance Camera Commissioner Tony Porter said.

In addition, we should not forget the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system. ANPR is one of the largest non-military databases in the UK, with around 9,000 cameras nationally that captures between 25 million and 40 million pieces of data per day, while up to 20 billion “read” records are held.

Porter described this activity as “formidable”, saying:

“The nature of its capabilities to intrude on privacy by building patterns of travel and the provision of imagery should not be underestimated.”

“I firmly believe that this system needs legislative oversight and that the Government should place this system on a statutory footing.”

It is estimated that there are over half a million CCTV cameras in London alone where the average person is photographed or videoed approximately 300 times every single day.

And if mass state surveillance, much of which has been deemed illegal by the highest courts in the land is of concern, then diverting much needed public funds from important social support programmes to surveillance is utterly appalling.

Reported in The Times is an article about how councils are now spending millions of pounds spying on residents despite cutting services in almost every other area.

“Local authorities in England have spent more than three-quarters of a billion pounds on CCTV over the past decade, an increase of 17 per cent a year since 2010. Over the same period councils have reduced spending on street cleaning by 12 per cent, food safety by 16 per cent, trading standards by 32 per cent and libraries by 35 per cent.

Critics said the increase in spending on CCTV while other departments had their budgets cut was “offensive”.”

Big Brother Watch Director, Silkie Carlo, said:

“Research consistently shows that public cameras are ineffective at deterring, preventing or even solving crime, but that too much CCTV does curb citizens’ freedom. The UK is already one of the most surveilled nations in the world, with six million CCTV cameras recording us every day. Surveillance is no substitute for policing and this will prove to be a terrible waste of money.”

January 23, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

UK-funded psyop outfit Integrity Initiative locks Twitter account after wiping content from website

RT | January 23, 2019

After wiping its website clean pending a ‘probe’ into embarrassing leaks, the British state-funded Integrity Initiative (II) has hidden its Twitter account from the public, meaning only ‘approved’ followers can see its activity.

The Scotland-based organization, which received roughly £2 million in government funding over the last 18 months, had fashioned itself as a benign charity fighting “disinformation” online.

That was until a series of leaks, posted online by a group that claimed to be associated with the Anonymous hacker collective, revealed that it had been working with “clusters” of journalists, politicians and academics to engage in shady anti-Russia ‘influence’ campaigns across Europe, as well as a domestic smear campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who it tried to frame as a tool of the Kremlin.

The decision to lock its Twitter account comes just a day after the II announced (via that Twitter account) that it had deleted all content from its website pending an investigation into the “theft” of its data.

A statement posted on the site claimed that some of the leaks had been “falsified” but didn’t include any evidence to back that up, leading to speculation that the organization was simply trying to clean house and prepare a credible excuse in the wake of the disturbing leaks.

That perception has only intensified since it decided to hide its tweets from the public, with some wondering why the group would need to delete all of its content and hide its social media activity from the public if there was nothing questionable in its history.

Academic Tim Hayward tweeted that it was strange that a person now had to be an “accepted” follower in order to see how the II defends them from disinformation. Hayward said the move should force the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to “reconsider” its funding for the sketchy operation.

Others complained that the general public should be allowed to view the activity of a taxpayer-funded organization and suggested that it would only make its account private if it had something to hide.

The II has faced sharp criticism from alternative news outlets and independent journalists since the first batch of leaks were dumped in November, but little coverage from British and US mainstream media which has preferred to stay away from the story despite many questions about its funding and activities being left unanswered.

January 23, 2019 Posted by | Deception | | Leave a comment

The Integrity Initiative and the British Roots of the Deep State: How the Round Table Infiltrated America

Kissinger’s takeover of the State Department ushered in a new era of British occupation of American foreign policy

By Matthew Ehret | Oriental Review | January 23, 2019

With the nearly weekly revelations that the British Foreign Office, MI6, and GCHQ have been behind the long standing agenda to undermine the Presidency of Donald Trump and undo the peaceful alliance between nationalist leaders in America, Russia, China and elsewhere, a new focus on the British hand in undermining the United States has become a serious thought for many citizens. In the first week of the new year, fuel was added to this fire when internal memos were leaked from the British-run Integrity Initiative featuring a startling account of the techniques deployed by the anti-Russian British operation to infiltrate American intelligence institutions, think tanks and media.

For those who may not know, The Integrity Initiative is an anti-Russian propaganda outfit funded to the tune of $140 million by the British Foreign office. The January 2019 leak, featuring documents dated to the early period of Trump’s election, demonstrate that this organization, already active across Europe promoting anti-Russian PR and smearing nationalist leaders such as Jeremy Corbyn, was intent on spreading deeply into the State Department and setting up “clusters” of anti-Trump operatives. The documents reveal high level meetings that Integrity Initiative Director Chris Donnelly had with former Trump Advisor Sebastien Gorka, McCain Foundation director Kurt Volker, Pentagon PR guru John Rendon among many others.

The exposure of the British hand behind the scenes affords us a unique glimpse into the real historical forces undermining America’s true constitutional tradition throughout the 20th century, as Mueller/the Five Eyes/Integrity Initiative are not new phenomena but actually follow a modus operandi set down for already more than a century. One of the biggest obstacles to seeing this modus operandi run by the British Empire is located in the belief in a mythology which has become embedded in the global psyche for over half a century and which we should do our best to free ourselves of.

Debunking the Myth of the “American Empire”

While there has been a long-standing narrative promoted for over 70 years that the British Empire disappeared after World War II having been replaced by the “American Empire”, it is the furthest thing from the truth. America, as constitutionally represented by its greatest presidents (who can unfortunately be identified by their early deaths while serving in office), were never colonialist and were always in favor of reining in British Institutions at home while fighting British colonial thinking abroad.

Franklin Roosevelt’s thirteen year-long battle with the Deep State, which he referred to as the “economic royalists who should have left America in 1776″, was defined in clear terms by his patriotic Vice-President Henry Wallace who warned of the emergence of a new Anglo-American fascism in 1944 when he said:

“Fascism in the postwar inevitably will push steadily for Anglo-Saxon imperialism and eventually for war with Russia. Already American fascists are talking and writing about this conflict and using it as an excuse for their internal hatreds and intolerances toward certain races, creeds and classes.”

The fact is that already in 1944, a policy of Anglo-Saxon imperialism had been promoted subversively by British-run think tanks known as the Round Table Movement and Fabian Society, and the seeds had already been laid for the anti-Russian cold war by those British-run American fascists. It is not a coincidence that this fascist Cold War policy was announced in a March 5, 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri by none other than Round Table-follower Winston Churchill.

The Empire Strikes

When the Round Table Movement was created with funds from the Rhodes Trust in 1902, a new plan was laid out to create a new technocratic elite to manage the re-emergence of the new British Empire and crush the emergence of American-inspired nationalism globally. This organization would be staffed by generations of Rhodes Scholars who would receive their indoctrination in Oxford before being sent back to advance a “post-nation state” agenda in their respective countries.

As this agenda largely followed the mandate set out by Cecil Rhodes in his Seventh Will who said “Why should we not form a secret society with but one object: the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, and for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire?”

With the help of an anglophile, racist president in America, leading figures organizing these think tanks first advanced a program to create a “League of Nations” as the solution to the “nationalist problem” which humanity was told “caused” World War One. Nationalist forces in America rejected the idea that the constitution should be rendered obsolete and the plan for global governance failed. However that did not stop the Round Table Movement from trying again. Leading Round Table controller Lord Lothian (British Ambassador to the USA) complained of the “American problem” in 1918.

”There is a fundamentally different concept in regard to this question between Great Britain and the United States  as to the necessity of civilized control over politically backward peoples…. The inhabitants of Africa and parts of Asia have proved unable to govern themselves…. Yet America not only has no conception of this aspect of the problem but has been led to believe that the assumption of this kind of responsibility is iniquitous imperialism.

They take an attitude towards the problem of world government exactly analogous to the one they [earlier] took toward the problem of the world war. If they are slow in learning we shall be condemned to a period of strained relations between the various parts of the English-speaking world. [We must] get into the heads of Canadians and Americans that a share in the burden of world government is just as great and glorious a responsibility as participation in the war”.

A Chinese leader of the American-inspired republican revolution of 1911 named Sun Yat-sen warned of the likes of Lord Lothian and the League of Nations in 1924 when he said “The nations which are employing imperialism to conquer others and which are trying to maintain their own favored positions as sovereign lords of the whole world are advocating cosmopolitanism [aka: global governance/globalization -ed] and want the world to join them… Nationalism is that precious possession by which humanity maintains its existence. If nationalism decays, then when cosmopolitanism flourishes we will be unable to survive and will be eliminated”.

New Name. Same Beast

By 1919, the Round Table Movement changed its name to the Royal Institute for International Affairs (aka: Chatham House) with the “Round Table” name relegated to its geopolitical periodical. In Canada and Australia, branches were created in 1928 under the rubrics of “Canadian and Australian Institutes for International Affairs” (CIIA, AIIA). However in America, where knowledge of the British Empire’s subversive role was more widely known, the name “American Institute for International Affairs” was still too delicate. Instead the name “Council on Foreign Relations” was chosen and was chartered in 1921.

Rhodes Scholar William Yandall Elliot surrounded by a few of his leading disciples: Sir Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski Samuel Huntington and Pierre Trudeau

Staffed with Rhodes Scholars and Fabians, the CFR (and its International Chatham House counterparts) dubbed themselves “independent think tanks” which interfaced with Rhodes Scholars and Fabians in academia, government and the private sector alike with the mission of advancing a foreign policy agenda that was in alignment with the British Empire’s dream of an Anglo-American “special relationship”. One such Rhodes Scholar was William Yandall Elliot, who played a major role mentoring Henry Kissinger and a generation of geo-politicians from Harvard, not the least of whom include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Pierre Elliot Trudeau and Samuel (Clash of Civilizations) Huntington.

The Round Table in Canada and the Coup Against FDR

In Canada, five leading Rhodes Scholars were busy creating the League of Social Reconstruction as a self-described “Fabian Society of Canada” in 1931 which was meant to be a fascist/technocratic answer to the chaos of “greedy nationalism” that supposedly caused the economic collapse of Black Friday in 1929. During the same time in America, a different path to fascism was taken by these networks during the early 1930s. This plan involved installing a General named Smedley Butler into power as a puppet dictator steered by the Anglo-American establishment. Luckily for America and the world, General Butler blew the whistle on the coup against Franklin Roosevelt at the last minute.

Kissinger’s British Takeover of America

Though it took a few assassinations throughout the post war years, Kissinger’s takeover of the State Department ushered in a new era of British occupation of American foreign policy, whereby the republic increasingly became the “Dumb Giant” acting as “American Brawn for the British brains” using Churchill’s words. While a nihilistic generation of youth were tuning in on LSD, and an old guard of patriots surrounding Wallace and Kennedy had fallen to the “red scare” witch hunt, geopolitical theory was fed like a sweet poison down the throat of a sleeping nation, replacing a policy of peace and “win-win cooperation” advanced by true nationalist patriots as FDR, Wallace and the Kennedys, with an imperial clone masquerading as a republic.

Sir Kissinger did nothing less than reveal his total allegiance to the British Empire on May 10, 1981 during a Chatham House conference in Britain when he described his relationship with the British Foreign office in the following terms: “The British were so matter-of-factly helpful that they became a participant in internal American deliberations, to a degree probably never practiced between sovereign nations… In my White House incarnation then, I kept the British Foreign Office better informed and more closely engaged than I did the American State Department… It was symptomatic”.

During this period, Kissinger worked closely with CIA director George Bush Senior, who was later rewarded for his role in advancing the British-planned first war on Kuwait with a knighthood. This war set the stage for the second wave of Middle East wars beginning with the Anglo-Saudi orchestrated operation known as 9/11 and the ushering in of the new “post-nation state order” by Kissinger and Blair.

This was the era which was celebrated by both Kissinger and Bush in sundry places as “the New World Order”.

The Dystopic New World Order Threatened by a New Deal of the 21st Century

It is this dystopic geopolitical order which has been challenged by the Russia-China alliance which arose in earnest with Xi Jinping’s 2013 announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative as the Grand design for large scale infrastructure projects internationally and in September 2015 with Vladimir Putin’s intervention into Syria which defeated the Hobbesian regime change paradigm which poisoned the west. In 2016, the election of nationalist American President Donald Trump opened the door for the first time in over 50 years to a true national coalition of sovereign nations to eliminate the cancer of colonial thinking forever from the earth.

It is this same British-run deep state which owns Robert Mueller, who along with the Integrity Initiative, Five Eyes and other Deep State operatives are dedicated to overthrowing President Trump from office and undoing the great potential now facing the world as outlined by the Schiller Institute and American statesman Lyndon LaRouche: 1) an FDR-style re-organization of the bankrupt banking system and 2) the unleashing of a global New Silk Road as the New Deal of the 21st Century.

Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review.

January 23, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

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