In theory, statistics should help settle arguments. They ought to provide stable reference points that everyone – no matter what their politics – can agree on. Yet in recent years, divergent levels of trust in statistics has become one of the key schisms that have opened up in western liberal democracies. Shortly before the November presidential election, a study in the US discovered that 68% of Trump supporters distrusted the economic data published by the federal government. In the UK, a research project by Cambridge University and YouGov looking at conspiracy theories discovered that 55% of the population believes that the government “is hiding the truth about the number of immigrants living here”.

Rather than diffusing controversy and polarisation, it seems as if statistics are actually stoking them. Antipathy to statistics has become one of the hallmarks of the populist right, with statisticians and economists chief among the various “experts” that were ostensibly rejected by voters in 2016. Not only are statistics viewed by many as untrustworthy, there appears to be something almost insulting or arrogant about them. Reducing social and economic issues to numerical aggregates and averages seems to violate some people’s sense of political decency.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/19/crisis-of-statistics-bi...

Statistics applied to economics and politics are useful to mask conspiracies from the public. As I have mentioned many times on this site, politics and economics are not sciences. They only rely on accepted values and opinions. Nothing scientific about these. But these stats can be use to create impressions, including maintain long terms conspiracies which are designed to enrich the rich and let the poor in poordom... Nothing new in illusion, except the magic tricks becomes more precise — with stats to boot.

HOW THE C.I.A. TRICKED THE WORLD'S BEST WRITERS

JOEL WHITNEY

"Another odd episode steps out from the Cold War's shadows. Riveting."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Listen to this book, because it talks in a very clear way about what has been silenced."
—John Berger, author of Ways of Seeing and winner of the Man Booker Prize

"It may be difficult today to believe that the American intellectual elite was once deeply embedded with the CIA. But with Finks, Joel Whitney vividly brings to life the early days of the Cold War, when the CIA's Ivy League ties were strong, and key American literary figures were willing to secretly do the bidding of the nation's spymasters." —James Risen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War

“A deep look at that scoundrel time when America's most sophisticated and enlightened literati eagerly collaborated with our growing national security state. Finks is a timely moral reckoning—one that compels all those who work in the academic, media and literary boiler rooms to ask some troubling questions of themselves...” —David Talbot, founder of Salon and author of The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America's Secret Government

read more:

http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/finks-by-joel-whitney/

I believe that Hollywood was in on the sting from the start... Hollywood has no redeaming features...

While all eyes were on Washington over the weekend as one billionaire officially entered public office, another touched down in Australia to be entertained by our public officers.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch, together with his wife, model and thespian Jerry Hall, were the main attraction at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's sundowner soiree at Kirribilli House on Saturday.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity/rupert-murdoch-and-jerry-hall-star-attractions-at-malcolm-turnbulls-business-drinks-20170121-gtw3gz.html

What is impressive in this article by Jenna Clarke is the description of frocks. If the same article had been written by a bloke, other parts of the duo would have been mentioned. But what is telling is the tentacular spread of Uncle Rupe. Not only he has Nigel Farrage to comment on his FOX network, we are told:

The appointment (Nigel Farrage) adds weight to the recent New York Magazine report that Murdoch, who also owns Sydney's Daily Telegraph, The Sun and The Times papers in London, is working hard to establish a relationship with the newly installed President by speaking to Trump three times a week.

While 'Jupert' are down under, Murdoch's ex-wife Wendi Murdoch was on the ground in Washington enjoying the inauguration celebrations with her close friend, Ivanka Trump.

Yep. Would you believe the man who the planet should deeemed responsible for the Trump ascendency (the Ruskies had nothing to do with it) will work hard to speak to El Trumpo three times a week — possibly one time personally— mano a mano — and twice on the blower like he did with G W Bush?

What sort of loony tunes will our Uncle Rupe place in Trumbelina's caboosh? Hum... We know that "they" don't want to shirtfront Putin. So how are they going to by-pass the anti-Russian "hawks" on both sides of politics in the USA? Is the plan more sinister than "détente" and have a design to commute the friendship with Putin as a long term way to "take over" Russia? Attracting the bear in a honey trap? Am I too much of conspiracy sniffer for my own good? Or is the air full of genuine genuinity?

Read from top....

see also: regime change...

and: the hacking is now official: gus apologises...

and: a stacked deck ...

and: and on the sixth day, god....

At this level, Uncle Rupe is a natural. I am not, but to a great extend I am a seer...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vogJh9giEDU

Hey Madonna!  A vote for Bernie woud have been a good start... Are you ready? Read from the top... There WAS a conspiracy to install Hillary Clinton at the helm — by most crooked means... NOT FUCKING LOVE....

WAKE UP and make me happy....

Apparently Madonna tried to bribe males to vote for Hillary Clinton:

While introducing comedian Amy Schumer at a recent show at New York City's Madison Square Garden, the 58-year-old superstar vowed to perform oral sex on anyone who voted for the Democratic nominee. 

“If you vote for Hillary Clinton,” Madonna told the crowd, “I will give you a blow job.”

She didn't stop there: “I'm not a douche, and I'm not a tool. I take my time. And I have a lot of eye contact.”

read more:

http://www.dailydot.com/layer8/madonna-blowjob-hillary-clinton/

https://off-guardian.org/2017/01/25/requiem-for-the-suicided-gary-webb/

When the Clinton campaign said it would join the recount in three Rust Belt states narrowly lost to Donald Trump, it didn’t say its motive was overcoming the vote totals but instead to find out if there was “foreign interference” in the election.

“This election cycle was unique in the degree of foreign interference witnessed throughout the campaign,” wrote Clinton campaign counsel Marc Elias. “The U.S. government concluded that Russian state actors were behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and the personal email accounts of Hillary for America campaign officials.”

During the campaign Hillary Clinton made no secret of where she thought that foreign interference might be coming from. She repeatedly blamed Russia for trying to sway the election.

When the Green Party’s Jill Stein launched her recount campaign in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (the three states that gave Trump the victory), Stein’s announcement quoted her on her website as saying that because “foreign agents” had “hacked into party databases, private e-mail servers, and voter databases in certain states, many Americans are wondering if our election results are reliable.” Stein’s page was then updated to eliminate reference to “foreign agents” in her quote.

But her recount petition filed in Wisconsin begins by saying “it was widely reported that foreign operators breached voter registration databases in at least two states and stole hundreds of thousands of voter records.” The petition then says the U.S. intelligence community is “confident” Russia was behind the hacks. There is “well-documented and conclusive evidence of foreign interference in the presidential race before the election ... [that] call[s] into question the results and indicate the possibility that (a) widespread breach occurred,” Stein’s lawyers wrote.

In fact the intelligence community has never made public its evidence for independent computer experts to weigh in on. After the election, the Obama administration said it had no proof of Russian interference in the election tallies and that the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people.”

read more:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/blaming-russia-to-overturn-the-elect...

Within the section titled, “Methodology,” the report admits:

Despite repeated requests by Amnesty International for access to Syria, and specifically for access to detention facilities operated by the Syrian authorities, Amnesty International has been barred by the Syrian authorities from carrying out research in the country and consequently has not had access to areas controlled by the Syrian government since the crisis began in 2011. Other independent human rights monitoring groups have faced similar obstacles.

In other words, Amnesty International had no access whatsoever to the prison, nor did any of the witnesses it allegedly interview provide relevant evidence taken from or near the prison.

The only photographs of the prison are taken from outer space via satellite imagery. The only other photos included in the report are of three men who allege they lost weight while imprisoned and a photo of one of eight alleged death certificates provided to family members of detainees who died at Saydnaya.

The alleged certificates admittedly reveal nothing regarding allegations of torture or execution.

Articles like, “Hearsay Extrapolated – Amnesty Claims Mass Executions In Syria, Provides Zero Proof,” provide a detailed examination of Amnesty’s “statistics,” while articles like, “Amnesty International “Human Slaughterhouse” Report Lacks Evidence, Credibility, Reeks Of State Department Propaganda,” cover the politically-motivated nature of both Amnesty International and the timing of the report’s promotion across the Western media.

read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2017/02/10/amnesty-international-admits-syrian-...

Australian founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, will be greatly relieved as Lasso’s pro-U.S. party has promised to evict Assange from Ecuador’s London embassy. The computer hacker and whistleblower has been holed up there since 2012, following attempts to extradite him to Sweden and then to the USA.

Moreno has said Assange can stay in the embassy but has stipulated that he is:

" ... not to intervene in the politics of countries that are friends of Ecuador."

Before the November U.S. election, the attitude of Donald Trump’s camp towards Assange contrasted with Hillary Clinton’s in Assange’s favour. Last year, Ecuador was pressured by the Obama administration to cut off Assange’s internet access at their London embassy. This followed WikiLeaks releasing thousands of emails damaging to Obama and Clinton, as IA reported in detail in November.

Of course, now Trump is president, there is no telling what the new administration’s stance will be. Assange will have observed current White House volatility and unpredictability as closely as anyone. Just in the last week, Trump has fabricated an incident in Sweden, has been revealed to be unable to live in the White House and has had a retired vice-admiral decline his offer to replace Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign after revelations that he had misled the vice-president about his links with Russia.

Observers who anticipated the right would march on to victory in Ecuador – as has happened in Argentina, Peru, the USA and Chile’s local elections, and is predicted for this year’s European elections – have been proven wrong.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/julian-assang...

read from top...

Following revelations that the CIA can reportedly attribute its hacking activity to others, an anti-virus expert has said that attacks previously blamed on others are now attributable to the CIA, according to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

News that the CIA could make its malware look as if it derived from Russia, China or other actors emerged as part of WikiLeaks’ ‘Year Zero’ data release on Tuesday.

According to the leaked information, the CIA’s malware allows the intelligence agency to not only steal hacking techniques, but also to leave false “fingerprints” to make it appear as if others were responsible for the attack.

Speaking in a livestream on Thursday, Assange announced that WikiLeaks will give tech companies access to the methods used by the CIA in its hacking operations. Assange then said that after the revelation, an anti-virus expert approached WikiLeaks to say that attacks previously blamed on Russia, China and Iran have now been pinned on the CIA.

“The technology is designed to be unaccountable, it’s designed to be untraceable, it’s designed to hide itself. It’s designed to throw off people looking to see where there are fingerprints that might demonstrate who authored that technology," Assange explained.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/380051-assange-malware-cia-fingerprints/

First, Vault 7 completely demolishes the already meager claim in December 2016 from the outgoing Obama administration that evidence of «Russian code» in alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee proved Moscow’s involvement. That argument was absurd on its face even when it was made, roughly equivalent to suggesting that because a gang of bank robbers used a Volkswagen for a getaway car they must have been Germans. Clearly Russian hackers would use anything but Russian software to avoid pointing back to themselves. Wikileaks now confirms the CIA’s use of Russian software for false-flag effect:

«The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques 'stolen' from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation.

«With UMBRAGE and related projects the CIA cannot only increase its total number of attack types but also misdirect attribution by leaving behind the ‘fingerprints’ of the groups that the attack techniques were stolen from.»

Second, Vault 7 should be scrubbed for evidence of coordination between American agencies and those of the other «Five Eyes» Anglosphere countries with which the U.S. closely shares intelligence: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Why? There’s a saying in Washington: never believe anything until it’s been officially denied. Obama has been lawyerly definitive in his denials of ordering taps on Trump and his team or on any American citizen, ever. More precise in his language has been James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who states that «there was no wiretap against Trump Tower during the campaign conducted by any part of the national intelligence community». This begs the question of whether Trump was tapped not by a U.S. «national» agency but by one of the Five Eyes sister agencies, which then passed the information back to their American colleagues, a ploy to avoid legal prohibitions on domestic spying or even a pro formawarrant requirement. A U.S. former intelligence official familiar with the practice tells me that such a maneuver was not only a possible means for the espionage against Trump but probable. The most likely agency to have carried out the task is the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), formal counterpart of the U.S. National Security Agency and its virtual satellite.

read more:

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/03/09/wikileaks-cia-document-...

“If you go to history of the FBI, it has become effectively America's political police. And the FBI demonstrated with taking down the former head of the CIA [David Petraeus in 2012] over classified information given to his mistress that almost no one was untouchable. The FBI is always trying to demonstrate that. ‘No one can resist us,’” Assange told the Australian journalist during the 25-minute interview.

WATCH & READ FULL INTERVIEW HERE

But Hillary Clinton very conspicuously resisted the FBI's investigation. So, there is anger within the FBI because it made the FBI look weak.”

FBI director James B. Comey threw a spanner into the presidential race that threatened to become a Clinton procession last week, when he claimed that the agency had potentially obtained new information pertaining to Clinton’s use of a personal email server, set up shortly after she became Secretary of State in 2009, when they obtained the laptop of Anthony Weiner, the ex-husband of close Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Weiner was being investigated for an unrelated sexting offense.

Clinton has categorically denied mishandling classified information by using a vulnerable personal email address for State Department business. Fox News has alleged that the FBI has obtained new evidence from Weiner’s computer that shows that Clinton was “very likely hacked.”

The right-wing network has also claimed that there is a “high priority” FBI investigation into whether favors were exchanged by Clinton for donations to her husband’s foundation, though other media have refuted these claims, saying that an earlier investigation into the Clinton Foundation, which cleared the power couple, remained closed.

Assange, whose WikiLeaks website has over the last ten monthsreleased three sizable batches of emails, relating to Clinton herself, the Democratic National Committee, and her campaign manager John Podesta, said the FBI has cause to investigate Clinton.

“There's a thread that runs through all of these emails. There is quite a lot of "pay-to-play," as they call it – taking… giving access in exchange for money for many individual states, individuals and corporations. Combined with the cover-up of Hillary Clinton's emails while she was Secretary of State this has led to an environment where the pressure on the FBI [to investigate] increases,” Assange said.

Regardless of whether Clinton ever faces charges, Assange asserted that Clinton was beholden to corporate and political entities that have been hidden from the electorate during the race to the White House.

“She's this centralizing cog, so that you've got a lot of different gears in operation from the big banks like Goldman Sachs, and major elements of Wall Street, and intelligence, and people in the State Department, and the Saudis, and so on. She's is the, if you like, the centralizer that interconnects all these different cogs. She's smooth central representation of all that, and all that is more or less what is in power now in the United States,” stated Assange, who said that the leaked emails presented a clear picture of this nexus of influences.

Assange also insisted that despite his image, projecting hope and change, President Barack Obama became “very close to banking interests” during his own initial White House campaign in 2008.

“In fact, one of the most significant Podesta emails that we released was about how the Obama cabinet was formed – and half the [first] Obama cabinet was basically nominated by a representative from Citibank. It is quite amazing,”Assange said.

According to Assange, Clinton’s emails reveal a masterplan, hatched months before the West’s intervention in Libya in March 2011, to make it the signature conflict of her tenure as secretary of state, and a podium from which to realize her presidential dreams.

“Libya more than anyone else's war was Hillary Clinton's war. Barack Obama initially opposed it. Who was the person who was championing it? Hillary Clinton. That's documented throughout her emails,” Assange said.

“There's more than 1,700 emails out of the 33,000 of Hillary Clinton's emails we published just about Libya. It's not about that Libya has cheap oil. She perceived the removal of Gaddafi and the overthrow of the Libyan state something that she would use to run in the general election for president. So late 2011, there's an internal document called the "Libya Tick Tock" that is produced for Hillary Clinton, and it's all the... it's a chronological description of how Hillary Clinton was the central figure in the destruction of the Libyan state.”

But the scheme not only failed on a personal level, after Clinton was largely blamed for allowing a jihadist ransacking of a US compound in Benghazi in 2012, but also continues to haunt the country, which remains in a state of civil war, and Europe.

“As a result, there [have been] around 40,000 deaths within Libya. Jihadists moved in, ISIS moved in. That led to the European refugee and migrant crisis, because not only did you have people fleeing Libya, people then fleeing Syria, destabilization of other African countries as a result of arms flows,” said Assange.

Over the course of the interview, Assange also expounded on his views on Donald Trump, the relationship between WikiLeaks and Russia, and his plan to leave the Ecuadorian embassy, where he has lived as a legal fugitive since 2012.

The full transcript of the interview is available here, and previous excerpts here, and here.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/365404-assange-pilger-clinton-fbi/

Read from top...

see also: 

https://www.rt.com/uk/382986-anderson-assange-love-sex/

Following the ABC broadcast, Ferguson’s executive producer, Sally Neighbour, re-tweeted the following: 'Assange is Putin’s bitch. We all know it!'

The slander, since deleted, was even used as a link to the ABC interview captioned 'Assange is Putins (sic) b****. We all know it!'

In the years I have known Julian Assange, I have watched a vituperative personal campaign try to stop him and WikiLeaks. It has been a frontal assault on whistleblowing, on free speech and free journalism, all of which are now under sustained attack from governments and corporate internet controllers.

The first serious attacks on Assange came from the Guardian, which, like a spurned lover, turned on its besieged former source, having hugely profited fromWikiLeaks’ disclosures. With not a penny going to Assange or WikiLeaks, a Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie deal. Assange was portrayed as “callous” and a “damaged personality”.

It was as if a rampant jealousy could not accept that his remarkable achievements stood in marked contrast to that of his detractors in the “mainstream” media. It is like watching the guardians of the status quo, regardless of age, struggling to silence real dissent and prevent the emergence of the new and hopeful.

Today, Assange remains a political refugee from the war-making dark state of which Donald Trump is a caricature and Hillary Clinton the embodiment. His resilience and courage are astonishing. Unlike him, his tormentors are cowards.

You can access more of the films and journalism of John Pilger at johnpilger.com or follow him on Twitter @johnpilger.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/clinton-assange-and-the-war-on-truth,10845

read from top... At this level of conspiracy, Hillary is more like a devious chauvinistic bloke in woman's feministic pants...

Ecuador has cut Julian Assange’s communications with the outside world from its London embassy, where the founder of the whistleblowing WikiLeaks website has been living for nearly six years.

The Ecuadorian government said in statement that it had acted because Assange had breached “a written commitment made to the government at the end of 2017 not to issue messages that might interfere with other states”.

It said Assange’s recent behaviour on social media “put at risk the good relations [Ecuador] maintains with the United Kingdom, with the other states of the European Union, and with other nations”.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/28/julian-assange-internet-co...

The US interfere with most countries, if not all, including Equador. Time to put an end to Assange's "detention" and let him be free wherever he wants, INCLUDING AUSTRALIA.

Read from top.

Meanwhile:

Twitter users stood up in defense of Julian Assange, who has been cut off from internet access and communications by Ecuadorian officials.

Many Twitter users shouted out in defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is isolated in the Embassy of Ecuador. He can't read their support, of course, since the government of Ecuador announced Wednesday that it has shut down Assange's internet connection and other means of outside communication.

The Twitter posts, united by hashtag #ReconnectJulian, demand that Ecuador restore Assange's internet connection.

A Tweet by Caitlin Johnstone says Ecuador's decision double-crosses the idea of political asylum, as Assange has been given asylum for "speaking truth using the internet" in the first place.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/world/201803291063011591-assange-twitter-internet-connection-reaction/

Can someone nearby give Assange access to WiFi? code word: truth?

The WikiLeaks editor is living in virtual isolation within London’s Ecuadorian embassy after authorities at the State Office scrambled his internet connection. The decision was taken due to Assange’s critical remarks on social media regarding Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont’s arrest (see: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/34708).

It’s understood that Assange will not be allowed to see visitors, after the Ecuadorian government said his recent actions had threatened good relations with nations like the UK and Spain.

READ MORE: Assange’s internet connection cut following ‘agreement breach’ – Ecuador

A host of famous names have now come out in support of the WikiLeaks co-founder, and demanded that the Ecuadorian government reverse their decision to cut his internet access.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/422860-assange-open-letter-reconnect/

Read from top.

We call on the Government of Ecuador to allow Julian Assange his right of freedom of speech.

If it was ever clear that the case of Julian Assange was never just a legal case, but a struggle for the protection of basic human rights, it is now.

Citing his critical tweets about the recent detention of Catalan President Carles Puigdemont in Germany, and following pressure from the U.S., Spanish and UK governments, the Ecuadorian Government has installed an electronic jammer to stop Assange communicating with the outside world via the internet and phone.

As if ensuring his total isolation, the Ecuadorian Government is also refusing to allow him to receive visitors. Despite two UN rulings describing his detention as unlawful and mandating his immediate release, Assange has been effectively imprisoned since he was first placed in isolation in Wandsworth prison in London in December 2010. He has never been charged with a crime. The Swedish case against him collapsed and was withdrawn, while the United States has stepped up efforts to prosecute him. His only "crime" is that of a true journalist — telling the world the truths that people have a right to know.

Under its previous president, the Ecuadorian Government bravely stood against the bullying might of the United States and granted Assange political asylum as a political refugee. International law and the morality of human rights was on its side.

Today, under extreme pressure from Washington and its collaborators, another government in Ecuador justifies its gagging of Assange by stating that:

“Assange's behaviour, through his messages on social media, put at risk good relations which this country has with the UK, the rest of the EU and other nations.”

This censorious attack on free speech is not happening in Turkey, Saudi Arabia or China; it is right in the heart of London. If the Ecuadorian Government does not cease its unworthy action, it, too, will become an agent of persecution rather than the valiant nation that stood up for freedom and for free speech. If the EU and the UK continue to participate in the scandalous silencing of a true dissident in their midst, it will mean that free speech is indeed dying in Europe.

This is not just a matter of showing support and solidarity. We are appealing to all who care about basic human rights to call on the government of Ecuador to continue defending the rights of a courageous free speech activist, journalist and whistleblower.

We ask that his basic human rights be respected as an Ecuadorian citizen and internationally protected person and that he not be silenced or expelled.

If there is no freedom of speech for Julian Assange, there is no freedom of speech for any of us — regardless of the disparate opinions we hold.

We call on President Moreno to end the isolation of Julian Assange now.

Pamela Anderson, actress and activist

Jacob Appelbaum, freelance journalist

Renata Avila, International Human Rights Lawyer

Sally Burch, British/Ecuadorian journalist

Alicia Castro, Argentina’s ambassador to the United Kingdom 2012-16

Naomi Colvin, Courage Foundation

Noam Chomsky, linguist and political theorist

Brian Eno, musician

Joseph Farrell, WikiLeaks Ambassador and board member of The Centre for Investigative Journalism

Teresa Forcades, Benedictine nun, Montserrat Monastery

Charles Glass, American-British author, journalist, broadcaster

Chris Hedges, journalist

Srećko Horvat, philosopher, Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25)

Jean Michel Jarre, musician

John Kiriakou, former CIA counterterrorism officer and former senior investigator, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Lauri Love, computer scientist and activist

Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, Presidential advisor

John Pilger, journalist and film-maker

Angela Richter, theater director, Germany

Saskia Sassen, sociologist, Columbia University

Oliver Stone, film-maker

Vaughan Smith, English journalist

Yanis Varoufakis, economist, former Greek finance minister

Natalia Viana, investigative journalist and co-director of Agencia publica, Brazil

Ai Weiwei, artist

Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer and activist

Slavoj Žižek, philosopher, Birkbeck Institute for Humanities

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/the-isolation-of-juli...

Gus calls upon the Brits to do the right thing and give up their sadistic vengeance against Assange as well. We call on the Government of Great Britain to let Julian Assange leave the Embassy without any concequences and let him use his rights to the freedom of speech.

it's clear that the case of Julian Assange was never a "legal case", but a bloodymindedness to eliminate Assange's basic human rights, as well as lying to the public about it. Time to clean up the slate of the State.

Oh! I can see some pink pigs flying pass my window. There's hope.

Gus Leonisky

Old Agent for truth and rights, the humanistic way.

Read from top.

...

On Friday morning, after Rusbridger tweeted about his “emotional” last day as editor, the Wikileaks Twitter account replied: “Even more emotional than 5 years of our editor being detained without charge after you invited him to the UK to be your source.”

It added that no doubt “Mr Snowden” was “wiping away a misty tear”.

While Snowden is living in exile in Russia, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange remains living the Ecuadorian embassy in London facing extradition to Sweden on sex charges if he leaves.

Asked about this, Rusbridger says: “I was with Edward Snowden in Moscow for seven hours the week before last and he couldn’t have been clearer that he thinks The Guardian has treated him incredibly well.

“We’ve looked after him and we’ve stayed in touch with him so I know for a fact that Assange doesn’t speak for Snowden.

“As for Assange, he hasn’t spent the last few years in exile because of anything to do with publishing. It’s something else completely.”

Read more of The Guardian delusions at:

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/alan-rusbridger-on-hacking-snowden-wikileaks-and-losing-300m-to-make-the-guardian-financially-secure/

Nononono... Assange is in "self-exile" not BECAUSE OF SOMETHING ELSE. Assange, has spent the last few years in the Ecuador Embassy because of EVERYTHING TO DO WITH PUBLISHING. Nothing to do with a pseudo-fling in Sweden...

The USA have a dossier of charges against Assange and should he get out (or be booted out) he will be extradited by the UK government (a member of the five eyes spy network — a network which is giving the EU the shits in Brexit negotiations) to the USA for having PUBLISHED stuff the USA wanted kept secret. 

Meanwhile The Guardian has not helped any of their sources such as Snowden and Assange survive the nasty onslaughts from governments...

Read from top. 

As treasurer, Keating actively sought to facilitate News Corp’s domination of the Australian press

ROBERT MANNE

in regard to The Guardian (see above "wiping away a misty tear..."):

After the Guardian released an anonymously-sourced report on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s alleged meetings with Julian Assange, Wikileaks says it was asked for comment, but its denial was not included in the article.

The report by Guardian’s Luke Harding, which is light on relevant details and based on unnamed “well-placed sources,” claims that Manafort, who managed US President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and is currently in jail on related charges, met with Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange three times during Assange’s ongoing exile in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

The article says it’s unknown what the two supposedly discussed, but hints heavily that it was related to Russia’s alleged interference in the election – namely the leak of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails. Those documents were “stolen by Russian intelligence officers,” the Guardian claims.

As such, Harding writes, the meetings could be of interest to FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been trying and failing to find definitive proof of Trump’s supposed “collusion” with Russia.

Except the meetings didn’t happen, Wikileaks says. The whistleblowing website is so adamant about this, it’s willing to bet “a million dollars and its editor’s head” on it.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/444995-assange-manafort-wikileaks-guardian/

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Residing in Ecuador’s London embassy since 2012, Assange’s safety became precarious last year when Ecuador elected President Lenin Moreno, a more pro-US voice than that of predecessor Rafael Correa and a man who described Assange as a “stone in our shoe.”

Assange has since had his internet at Ecuador’s UK embassy cut, his visitation rights severely curtailed, and Moreno’s government has revoked the diplomatic credentials of London ambassador Abad Ortiz, Assange’s last diplomatic contact in the UK. Add the reported existence of a sealed indictment into the mix, and things aren’t looking good for the WikiLeaks boss.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/445009-assange-sends-embassy-cat-away/

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ISIS to launch false flag chemical attack on Syrian Kurds – and Russian military is watching closely

Sounding the alarm during a panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, Suzanne Spaulding, former deputy secretary for cyber and infrastructure protection at DHS in the Obama administration, said that one of RT’s methods when it comes to its influencing vulnerable Americans is… telling the truth.

As an example of this worrisome and effective truth-telling, Spaulding cited one of RT’s weekly shows, America’s Lawyer, hosted by prominent US trial lawyer Mike Papantonio. The theme of this show, Spaulding revealed to the audience is that the US justice system is “corrupt and broken” and has been “taken over by politicians and the elite for their own corrupt ends.”

They feature every week, stories from our courts all across the country to demonstrate the truth of this statement. I don’t think there’s anything in there that is a lie.

A truthful news show dedicated to exposing the corruption of the American justice system? Terrifying!

Adversaries like Russia, Spaulding said, are “using information operations, sometimes enabled by cyber, to weaken us” – but the reason it can be so effective, she said, is that the information doesn’t have to be a lie.

Oftentimes, they don’t even have to make things up, they simply replay, they take kernels of truth, they take existing divisions and weaknesses of our own making and reproduce them, put them out, retweet them indefinitely in a very one-sided way.

Now, to many Americans, this might sound like some worthwhile viewing, but to Spaulding it is still “propaganda”because the ultimate objective is to weaken the country by revealing its flaws and stirring up trouble.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/445084-truth-is-dangerous-former-homeland/

Pilger told RT’s Afshin Rattansi that he finds it “difficult to believe” how some journalists “should go along, should allow themselves to be indulged by the British government at a time when there is a litany of lies about Russia, about China — about so many issues that endanger us.”

“I've never known such a grotesque absurdity as the elevation of Russia and China and the perceived enemies to the kind of Cold War status they had when I was a child,” he said.

Pilger also discussed the growing scandal around the UK government-funded Integrity Initiative which had posed as a charity fighting disinformation, but had been conducting secret influence campaigns across Europe and working hand-in-glove with selected journalists to maintain high levels of anti-Russian sentiment within the mainstream media.

The full interview with Pilger will air on Saturday on RT.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/uk/446898-john-pilger-rt-interview/

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So the corporate media have gone and done it again. As they have, repeatedly, for the last two and half years, they shook the earth with a “bombshell” story proving beyond any reasonable doubt that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton, or at least committed an impeachable felony in connection with something to do with the Russians, or Ukrainians, or other Slavic persons … which story turned out to be inaccurate, or not entirely accurate, or a bunch of horseshit.

This time it was BuzzFeed’s Jason Leopold, “a reporter with a checkered past” (i.e., a history of inventing his sources) who broke the “bombshell” Russiagate story that turned out to be a bunch of horseshit. Leopold, and his colleague Anthony Cormier, reported that Trump had directed his attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about plans to construct a Trump Tower in Moscow, thus suborning perjury and obstructing justice. Their sources for this “bombshell” story were allegedly “two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.”

Approximately twenty-four hours later, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office (i.e., the office “involved in an investigation of the matter”) stated that the BuzzFeed story was “not accurate,” which is a legal term meaning “a bunch of horseshit.” BuzzFeed is standing by its story, and is working to determine what, exactly, Mueller’s office meant by “not accurate.” Ben Smith, BuzzFeed’s Editor-in-Chief, has called on Mueller “to make clear what he’s disputing.”

Liberals and other Trump-obsessives have joined in the effort to interpret the Special Counsel’s office’s cryptic utterance. French hermeneuticists have been reportedly called in to deconstruct the meaning of “accurate.” Professional Twitter semioticians are explaining that “not accurate” doesn’t mean “wrong,” but, rather, refers to something that is “accurate,” but which the user of the word doesn’t want to disclose publicly, or that legal terms don’t mean what they mean … or something more or less along those lines.

Glenn Greenwald, in August 2018, reporting on another “bombshell” story that turned out to be a bunch of horseshit, compiled a partial list of Russiagate stories that the corporate media had published and promoted over the course of the previous eighteen months which turned out to be a bunch of horseshit (i.e., the stories did, not Greenwald’s list). In the wake of this latest horseshit story, Greenwald revised and renamed this list “The 10 Worst, Most Embarrassing U.S. Media Failures on the Trump/Russia Story.”

But Greenwald’s list is just a small sample of the Russiagate stories that have turned out to be horseshit. For the record, here are several more:

• “Seventeen intelligence agencies” confirm Russia interfered in the U.S. elections (New York Times)
• Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum (The Guardian)
• Russia interfered in the German elections (Reuters)
• Russia hacked the French elections (Politico and numerous other outlets)
• Michael Cohen conspired with the Russians in Prague (BuzzFeed)

My personal favorite remains the one about how Hillary Clinton may have been poisoned by Putinist operatives back in 2016. And then there’s the pot-smoking, prostitute-banging, incompetent Novichok perfume assassins, the African American-brainwashing memes, the Putin-orchestrated Yellow Vest rebellion, the brain-eating Russian-Cubano crickets, and various other bunches of horseshit.

I am using the terms “horseshit” and “a bunch of horseshit” (as opposed to terms like “failures” and “errors”), not just to be gratuitously vulgar, but, also, to try to make a point. One is not supposed to use these terms in connection with “serious,” “respected” news outlets. Which is why journalists like Greenwald and Aaron Maté (who have extensively reported on the corporate media’s ongoing production and dissemination of horseshit) do not use such terms in the course of their reporting, and instead use less inflammatory terms like “false,” “inaccurate,” “mistake,” and “error.” Principled journalists like Greenwald and Maté are constrained by (a) their journalistic ethics, (b) their integrity, and (c) their belief in the idea of a “free and independent press,” which is one of the pillars of Western democracy.

Being neither a respected journalist nor a believer in the existence of an “independent press,” I am under no such constraints. Because I’m not trying to get or keep a job, or maintain a “respectable” reputation, I’m free to call a spade a spade and a bunch of horseshit a bunch of horseshit. I am also free to describe “journalists” like Leopold, Luke Harding, Craig Timberg, Franklin Foer, and many of their corporate media colleagues (not to mention TV clowns like Rachel Maddow) as the liars and rank propagandists they are. I don’t need to pretend their fabricated stories are simply the result of “shoddy journalism,” or “over-reliance on official sources,” or any other type of “error” or “failure.” These people know exactly what they are doing, and are being extremely well paid to do it. They went to school to learn how to do it. Then they butt-sucked and back-stabbed their way up the ladder of establishment power to be able to do it.

Yes, of course, there are still principled journalists working for the corporate media, but they are doing so by walking a very fine line. No one has to tell them where it is. Every professional journalist knows precisely where it is, and what it is there for. Though they are permitted to walk right up to it, occasionally (to keep them from feeling like abject whores), one step over it and they will be cast into the Outer Darkness of the Blogosphere and excommunicated from the Church of Respectable Journalism. If you don’t believe me, just ask Seymour Hersh, or John Pilger, or any other journalistic heretic.

If Russiagate serves no other useful purpose, it is at least exposing the corporate media as the propaganda factories that they are. Given the amount of obviously fabricated horseshit they have disseminated during the last two years, you’d have to be a total moron or a diehard neoliberal cultist not to recognize the function they perform within the global capitalist ruling establishment (which is essentially no different than the function the establishment media perform in any other society, namely, to disseminate, maintain, and reify the official narrative of its ruling classes).

Sadly, there’s no shortage of morons and cultists. I don’t blame the morons, because … well, they’re morons. The cultists are another species entirely. These are people who, no matter how often the corporate media feed them another “explosive,” “bombshell” Russiagate story that turns out to be a bunch of horseshit, will defend the concept of the “independent media” like head-shaven, bug-eyed Manson followers. Confront them with facts contradicting their beliefs and they close their eyes and start chanting and humming and repetitiously babbling banishing spells. The notion that the Western corporate media may serve the interests of the ruling establishment (just like the media in every other society serve that society’s ruling classes) is unimaginable and tantamount to heresy.

This fetishization of “the independent press” is a phenomenon unique to Western capitalism. Basically, it’s a childish fairy tale, like believing that Santa Claus is an actual person or that voting in elections in a corporate oligarchy has anything to do with actual democracy. Think about it dispassionately for a minute. Why would any ruling establishment permit a genuinely “independent” press to disseminate ideas and information willy-nilly throughout society? If it did, it wouldn’t last very long.

Most people understand this intuitively, which is why the corporate media relentlessly repeat the mantra-like phrase, “free and independent press,” over, and over, and over again. Seriously, switch on NPR, or have a look at The Guardian or the Washington Post, or any of the other corporate media repeatedly reminding you how “independent,” “free” and “democratic” they are. It’s essentially Neuro-linguistic programming.

So let’s not be shocked when the corporate media continue to bombard us with “bombshell” stories about Trump and Russia that turn out to be horseshit. Personally, I welcome these stories. The more corporate media horseshit the better! Who knows, if they dish out enough blatant horseshit, more people might lose their “trust in the media,” and begin to investigate matters themselves. I know, that makes me a Nazi, right? Or at least a Russian propagandist? I mean, encouraging folks to distrust the corporate media? Isn’t there some kind of law against that? Or have they not quite gotten around to that yet?

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/01/24/the-fetishization-of-the-corporate-m...

Read from top. See also:

In the article at top, I wrote:

Most women don’t trust Pilger, especially journalists. “He goes to far.” “His views are too controversial.” “He makes me uncomfortable” “He sees too many conspiracies everywhere” “His views are UNBALANCED”. This last one is a bit rich coming from females who often see “balance" as accepting “good and bad” in the same feelings.
John Pilger pushes on regardless, more and more controversially determined, while being always accurate.

I've always been curious as to (really) why John Pilger "made many women uncomfortable"... Though women tend not to see the world in black and white, it's the voice and the (condescending) tone of Pilger that they feel creepy and patronising about (they take it personally as if his views were an attack on their "naive" woman sense of balance) as well as being annoyed by his certainty... (they prefer "balanced" views and rarely subscribe to "conspiracy theories"). The feeling is subconscious, a bit like an allergy, unlike the Aussie general media hating Julia Gillard's voice, poise and arse in order to denigrate her skills. Some mediatic women really hated her...

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Chelsea Manning has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury, but the reason why is unknown. Not even Manning — a former army intelligence analyst-turned-speaker and trans advocate who served four years in military prison for leaking classified government documents to WikiLeaks — seems to know what’s up.

“Given what is going on, I am opposing this,” Manning told the The New York Times. “I want to be very forthright I have been subpoenaed. I don’t know the parameters of the subpoena apart from that I am expected to appear. I don’t know what I’m going to be asked.”

Though the reason for the subpoena remains unconfirmed, Times correspondent Charlie Savage suspects that it has something to do with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, pointing to the fact that the subpoena was issued by the Eastern District of Virginia, which also filed undisclosed criminal charges against Assange in November.

After learning about the subpoena, a group of activists mobilized to support Manning under the name Chelsea Resists!, the Sparrow Project reports, raising funds to combat what they believe to be a retaliatory act of government suppression.

“By serving Chelsea Manning with a grand jury subpoena, the government is attempting once again to punish an outspoken whistleblower for her historic disclosures,” the group said in a statement. “By employing these tactics against her, the government is using a roundabout method to further punish Chelsea for her past actions, adding to the seven years of trauma, imprisonment and torture she has already endured.”

Read more:

https://www.out.com/news/2019/3/01/us-government-just-subpoenaed-chelsea...

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JENNIFER ROBINSON: Since 2010, we’ve warned that Julian Assange would face prosecution and extradition to the United States for his publishing activities with WikiLeaks. Unfortunately, today, we’ve been proven right. Mr. Assange was arrested this morning at about 10:00 at the Ecuadorean Embassy, after the ambassador formally notified him that his asylum had been revoked, and he was arrested by British police. We’ve today received a warrant and a provisional extradition request from the United States alleging that he has conspired with Chelsea Manning in relation to the materials published by WikiLeaks in 2010.

This sets a dangerous precedent for all media organizations and journalists in Europe and elsewhere around the world. This precedent means that any journalist can be extradited for prosecution in the United States for having published truthful information about the United States.

I’ve just been with Mr. Assange in the police cells. He wants to thank all of his supporters for their ongoing support. And he said, “I told you so.”

KRISTINN HRAFNSSON: Well, the only thing to add to this is the fact that this is a dark day for journalism. As Jennifer said, this sets a precedent. We don’t want this to go forward. This has to be averted. The U.K. government needs to make a full assurance that a journalist will never be extradited to the United States for publishing activity. This pertains to publishing work nine years ago, publishing of documents, of videos of the killing of innocent civilians, exposure of war crimes. This is journalism. It’s called “conspiracy.” It’s conspiracy to commit journalism. So this has to end. And we urge everybody to support Julian Assange in fighting this extradition. Thank you.

Read more:

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/11/a_dark_day_for_journalism_wikileaks

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From John Pilger

THE GLIMPSE of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage.

Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years. 

That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for "democratic" societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD).

But to hell with that. Let the thugs go in. Directed by the quasi-fascists in Trump's Washington, in league with Ecuador's Lenin Moreno, the British elite abandoned its last imperial myth: that of fairness and justice.

Imagine Tony Blair dragged from his multi-million pound Georgian home in Connaught Square, London, in handcuffs, for onward dispatch to the dock in The Hague. By the standard of Nuremberg, Blair's "paramount crime" is the deaths of a million Iraqis.

Assange's "crime" is journalism: holding the rapacious to account, exposing their lies and empowering people all over the world with truth.

The shocking arrest of Assange carries a warning for all who, as Oscar Wildewrote, 'sow the seeds of discontent [without which] there would be no advance towards civilisation". The warning is explicit towards journalists. What happened to the founder and editor of WikiLeaks can happen to you at a newspaper, you in a TV studio, you on radio, you running a podcast.

Assange's principal media tormentor, The Guardian, a collaborator with the secret state, displayed its nervousness this week with an editorial that scaled new weasel heights. The Guardian has exploited the work of Assange and WikiLeaks in what its previous editor, Alan Rusbridger, called, "the greatest scoop of the last 30 years". The paper creamed off WikiLeaks' revelations and claimed the accolades and riches that came with them.

With not a penny going to Julian Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardianbook led to a lucrative Hollywood movie. The book's authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, turned on their source, abused him and disclosed the secret password Assange had given the paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing leaked U.S. embassy cables. 

With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, Harding joined the police outside and gloated that "Scotland Yard may get the last laugh". The Guardian has since published a series of falsehoods about Assange, not least a discredited claim that a group of Russians and Trump's man, Paul Manafort, had visited Assange in the embassy. The meetings never happened; it was fake. 

But the tone has now changed.'

The Assange case is a morally tangled web,'  the paper opined,

'He [Assange] believes in publishing things that should not be published ... But he has always shone a light on things that should never have been hidden.'

These "things" are the truth about the homicidal way America conducts its colonial wars; the lies of the British Foreign Office in its denial of rights to vulnerable people, such as the Chagos Islanders; the exposé of Hillary Clinton as a backer and beneficiary of jihadism in the Middle East; the detailed description of American ambassadors of how the governments in Syria and Venezuela might be overthrown and much more. It's all available on the WikiLeaks site.

Read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/the-arrest-of-assange...

Meanwhile:

Julian Assange is the man who can finally reveal who handed the Democratic National Committee's (DNC) documents to WikiLeaks in 2016 and thus sort the "Russian interference" issue once and for all. The question then arises as to whether Donald Trump would jump at the opportunity to unveil this mystery in case Assange is extradited to the US.

"Anything is possible in that respect", Adam Garrie, a geopolitical analyst and director of Eurasia Future, told Sputnik. "Trump's justice department could attempt to attain what in US courts is called a plea bargain in respect of Assange. Essentially, if Assange were to discard his own policy of never revealing Wikileaks sources in exchange for clemency or a pardon, perhaps Trump and his justice department would strike a deal".

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201904151074157313-assange-dnc-seth-rich/

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Unfortunately the public cannot believe that our governments are so corrupt, because the sun shines every morning, there is petrol to fill up the tank of our car and we earn $17.50 an hour plus a promise of a Christmas bonus... Mr Murdoch and the other media polish the governments buttons with praise, daily, as long as we don't know how the rats in the kitchen eat from the benches and the floor...

British women thought they'd found boyfriends who shared their beliefs. They were actually undercover police

Two years ago, Queensland woman 'Ellie' got a call that changed her life. It was from her first love, a man named James. 

She had met him in 2001 when she was living in London. She was just 21 and he was 33, but that didn't seem to matter. They were good together.

"We just clicked. He was chatty and a good listener. He was very charming," Ellie said. 

They were together for about a year before James broke it off. He had to move away, but they remained friends.

But in 2018, he phoned her in Australia to make a startling confession: he'd been living a lie. He was an undercover police officer who'd been sent to spy on her and those in her friendship circle.

"It was basically a con. An 18-year con," she said.

"He was one of my oldest friends. So, to find out it was a complete lie was a lot."

Ellie, who's never spoken publicly before, is one of at least 30 women who were tricked into having relationships with undercover officers working for London's Metropolitan Police Service.

Some undercover officers, including James, adopted the identities of dead children and infiltrated environmental protest groups.

A handful fathered children with their targets.

Another former officer started a new life in Australia, before his target tracked him down in Sydney.

The long-running scandal has finally culminated in public hearings of the Undercover Policing Inquiry, one of the biggest in UK legal history.

Ellie is hoping it will deliver her some answers.

In 1968, a secret unit was established within the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, known as the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). 

That same year, more than 200 people were arrested and many others injured, including police, during anti-Vietnam war protests in central London.

In the decades that followed, SDS's reach expanded as it gathered intelligence on more than 1,000 political groups, often feeding that information to the security service, MI5. 

Some right-wing organisations were infiltrated, but the majority of targets were left-wing groups that challenged the status quo.

Some activists adopted extreme measures, like violence, vandalism and firebombing.

Many others were peaceful. But that didn't stop police from prying.

As a 21-year-old working in a London animal hospital in 2001, Ellie wasn't of much interest to police. But her friend 'Wendy' was.

Wendy was a member of a hunt saboteurs' group, which aimed to disrupt organised fox hunts.

Foxes would be chased and killed by packs of dogs, usually with a group of horse riders following close behind.

In England, confrontations between animal welfare groups and hunt participants would sometimes turn violent, but Wendy said her group knew the law and used it to their advantage.

"Our goal was to be there all day and annoy the shit out of them and stop them killing as much as possible," Wendy told the ABC.

"And we were very effective at doing that."

Effective as they may have been, they were also compromised. A police officer had secretly joined their ranks. He told the women his name was James Straven.

James had a posh accent which made him stand out from other saboteurs, but he was a committed member of the crew and soon won Wendy's trust.

"We became friends very quickly," she said.

Wendy and Ellie worked together at the animal hospital and also shared a flat.

In 2001, James began a sexual relationship with Ellie that lasted nearly a year.

"I liked the fact that he was intelligent and we shared the same political beliefs. I knew him through Wendy so I trusted him," Ellie said.

Ellie and James did the things most young couples do together: they travelled and went to gigs. 

But James seemed unusually interested in her friend Wendy's whereabouts.

"He'd call [Ellie] and just ask about what I was doing," Wendy said.

James told the women he worked as a location scout for the BBC, which explained why he would often disappear on trips away.

They now know he was returning to his real life.

James Straven was a cover name used by an officer known as HN16, who is now a central participant at the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

He also used the name Kevin Crossland, belonging to a child who died in a plane crash in 1966.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-06/uk-women-discover-boyfriends-were-undercover-police-officers/12949940

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by James Bovard

Biden’s “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” report last week declared that “enhancing faith in American democracy” requires “finding ways to counter the influence and impact of dangerous conspiracy theories.” In recent decades, conspiracy theories have multiplied almost as fast as government lies and cover-ups. While many allegations have been ludicrously far-fetched, the political establishment and media routinely attach the “conspiracy theory” label to any challenge to their dominance. 

According to Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law professor and Obama’s regulatory czar, a conspiracy theory is “an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.” Reasonable citizens are supposed to presume that government creates trillions of pages of new secrets each year for their own good, not to hide anything from the public.

In the early 1960s, conspiracy theories were practically a non-issue because 75 percent of Americans trusted the federal government. Such credulity did not survive the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Seven days after Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963, President Lyndon Johnson created a commission (later known as the Warren Commission) to suppress controversy about the killing. Johnson and FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover browbeat the commission members into speedily issuing a report rubberstamping the “crazed lone gunman” version of the assassination. House Minority Leader Gerald Ford, a member of the commission, revised the final staff report to change the location of where the bullet entered Kennedy’s body, thereby salvaging Hoover’s so-called “magic bullet” theory. After the Warren Commission findings were ridiculed as a whitewash, Johnson ordered the FBI to conduct wiretaps on the report’s critics. To protect the official story, the commission sealed key records for 75 years. Truth would out only after all the people involved in any coverup had gotten their pensions and died.  

The controversy surrounding the Warren Commission spurred the CIA to formally attack the notion of conspiracy theories. In a 1967 alert to its overseas stations and bases, the CIA declared that the fact that almost half of Americans did not believe Oswald acted alone “is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization” and endangers “the whole reputation of the American government.” The memo instructed recipients to “employ propaganda assets” and exploit “friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out… parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists.” The ultimate proof of the government’s innocence: “Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States.” 

However, the CIA did conceal a wide range of assassinations and foreign coups it conducted until congressional investigations in the mid-1970s blew the whistle. The New York Times, which exposed the CIA memo in 1977, noted that the CIA “mustered its propaganda machinery to support an issue of far more concern to Americans, and to the C.I.A. itself, than to citizens of other countries.” According to historian Lance deHaven-Smith, author of Conspiracy Theory in America, “The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited…with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.” (In 2014, the CIA released a heavily-redacted report admitting that it had been “complicit” in a JFK “cover-up” by withholding “incendiary” information from the Warren Commission.)

The Johnson administration also sought to portray critics of its Vietnam War policies as conspiracy nuts, at least when they were not portraying them as communist stooges. During 1968 Senate hearings on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara denounced the “monstrous insinuations” that the U.S. had sought to provoke a North Vietnamese attack and declared that it is “inconceivable that anyone even remotely familiar with our society and system of government could suspect the existence of a conspiracy” to take the nation to war on false pretenses. Three years later, the disclosure of the Pentagon Papers demolished the credibility of McNamara and other top Johnson administration officials who indeed dragged America into the Vietnam War on false pretenses. 

Condemnations of conspiracy theories became a hallmark of the Clinton administration. In 1995, President Bill Clinton claimed that people who believed government threatened their constitutional right were deranged ingrates: “If you say that Government is in a conspiracy to take your freedom away, you are just plain wrong…. How dare you call yourselves patriots and heroes!” The same year, the White House compiled a fevered 331-page report entitled “Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce,” attacking magazines, think tanks, and others that had criticized President Clinton. In the following years, many of the organizations condemned in the White House report were targeted for IRS audits, including the Heritage Foundation and the American Spectator magazine and almost a dozen individual high-profile Clinton accusers, including Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers. Despite Clinton’s protestations that he posed no threat to freedom, even the ACLU admitted in 1998 that the Clinton administration had “engaged in surreptitious surveillance, such as wiretapping, on a far greater scale than ever before… The Administration is using scare tactics to acquire vast new powers to spy on all Americans.”

Some “conspiracy theory” allegations comically expose the naivete of official scorekeepers. In April 2016, Chapman University surveyed Americans and announced that “the most prevalent conspiracy theory in the United States is that the government is concealing information about the 9/11 attacks with slightly over half of Americans holding that belief.”  That survey did not ask whether people believed the World Trade Centers were blown up by an inside job or whether President George W. Bush secretly masterminded the attacks. Instead, folks were simply asked whether “government is concealing information” about the attacks. Only a village idiot, college professor, or editorial writer would presume the government had come clean. Three months after the Chapman University survey was conducted, the Obama administration finally released 28 pages of a 2003 congressional report that revealed that Saudi government officials had directly financed some of the 9/11 hijackers in America. That disclosure shattered the storyline carefully constructed by the Bush administration, the 9/11 Commission, and legions of media accomplices. (Lawsuits continue in federal court seeking to force the U.S. government to disclose more information regarding the Saudi government role in the attacks.)  

“Conspiracy theory” is often a flag of convenience for the media. In 2018, the New York Times asserted that Trump’s use of the term “Deep State” and similar rhetoric “fanned fears that he is eroding public trust in institutions, undermining the idea of objective truth and sowing widespread suspicions about the government and news media.” However, after allegations by anonymous government officials spurred Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, New York Times columnist James Stewart cheered, “There is a Deep State, there is a bureaucracy in our country who has pledged to respect the Constitution, respect the rule of law… They work for the American people.” New York Times editorial writer Michelle Cottle proclaimed, “The deep state is alive and well” and hailed it as “a collection of patriotic public servants.” Almost immediately after its existence was no longer denied, the Deep State became the incarnation of virtue in Washington.

The media elite can fabricate “conspiracy theory” designations almost with the flip of a headline. A week after Election Day 2020, the New York Times ran a banner headline across the top of the front page: “Election Officials Nationwide Find No Fraud.” How did the Timesknow? Their reporters effectively called each state and asked, “Did y’all see any fraud?” Election officials answered “no,” thus proving that anyone who subsequently questioned Biden’s victory was promoting a groundless conspiracy. While top liberal politicians denounced electronic voting companies as unaccountable and dishonest in 2019, any doubts about such companies became “conspiracies” after that headline in the Times. The Times helped spur a media cacophony drowning out anyone complaining about ballot harvesting, illegal mass mailing of absentee ballots, or widespread failures to verify voter identification. 

Actually, “conspiracy theory” accusations helped Biden win the 2020 presidential election. As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently noted, if Americans believed that the COVID-19 virus was created in a Chinese government lab, Trump would have likely won the election because voters would have sought a leader who could be tough on China. But the lab origin explanation was quickly labeled a pro-Trump heresy. The Washington Post denounced Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR,) for suggesting the virus originated in the lab, which supposedly was a “conspiracy theory that was already debunked.” Twenty-seven prominent scientists signed a letter in the Lancet: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin… Conspiracy theories do nothing but create fear, rumours, and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this virus.” The Lancet did not reveal until last week that one of the signers and the person who organized the letter signing campaign ran an organization that received U.S. government subsidies for its work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab. President Biden has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to take another look to seek to determine the origin of COVID-19. 

Will “conspiracy theory” charges provide a “get out of jail free” card for the FBI and other federal agencies regarding the January 6 clash at the Capitol? After Fox News’s Tucker Carlson featured allegations that FBI informants or agents may have instigated the ruckus, the Washington Post speedily denounced his “wild, baseless theory” while Huffington Post denounced his “laughable conspiracy theory.” It doesn’t matter how often the FBI instigated terrorist plots or political violence in the past 60 years (including the plot to kidnap the Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer last November). Instead, decent people must do nothing to endanger the official narrative of Jan. 6 as a horrific private terrorist event on par with the War of 1812, Pearl Harbor, and the 9/11 attacks. 

“Conspiracy theory” is a magic phrase that expunges all previous federal abuses. Many liberals who invoke the phrase also ritually quote a 1965 book by former communist Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Hofstadter portrayed distrust of government as a proxy for mental illness, a paradigm that makes the character of critics more important than the conduct of government agencies. For Hofstadter, it was a self-evident truth that government was trustworthy because American politics had “a kind of professional code… embodying the practical wisdom of generations of politicians.”

 Much of the establishment rage at “conspiracy theories” has been driven by the notion that rulers are entitled intellectual passive obedience. The same lese-majeste mindset has been widely adopted to make a muddle of American history. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the court historian for President John F. Kennedy and a revered liberal intellectual, declared in a 2004 article in Playboy, “Historians today conclude that the colonists were driven to revolt in 1776 because of a false conviction that they faced a British conspiracy to destroy their freedom.” Was the British imposition of martial law, confiscation of firearms, military blockades, suspension of habeas corpus, and censorship simply a deranged fantasy of Thomas Jefferson? The notion that the British would never conspire to destroy freedom would play poorly in Dublin. Why would anyone trust academics who were blind to British threats in the 1770s to accurately judge contemporary perils to liberty? 

How does the Biden administration intend to fight “conspiracy theories”? The Biden terrorism report called for “enhancing faith in government” by “accelerating work to contend with an information environment that challenges healthy democratic discourse.” Will Biden’s team rely on the “solution” suggested by Cass Sunstein: “cognitive infiltration of extremist groups” by government agents and informants to “undermine” them from within? A 1976 Senate report on the FBI COINTELPRO program demanded assurances that a federal agency would never again “be permitted to conduct a secret war against those citizens it considers threats to the established order.” Actually, the FBI and other agencies have continued secretly warring against “threats” and legions of informants are likely busy “cognitively infiltrating” at this moment.  

“Conspiracy theory” will remain a favorite sneer of the political-media elite. There is no substitute for Americans developing better B.S radars for government claims as well as wild-eyed private balderdash. In the meantime, there’s always the remedy a Washington Post health article touted late last year: “Try guided imagery. Visualizing positive outcomes can help clamp down on the intense emotions that might make you more vulnerable to harmful conspiracy theories.”

James Bovard is the author of Lost Rights, Attention Deficit Democracy, and Public Policy Hooligan. He is also a USA Today columnist. Follow him on Twitter @JimBovard.

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Pilger, who is a member of CN‘s board, began his career as a reporter in 1958 in his native Sydney, Australia before moving to London where he joined the staff of the Daily Mirror. In the 1960s he became a foreign correspondent, covering the Middle East and then the Vietnam War. 

“Still in his twenties, he became the youngest journalist to receive Britain’s highest award for journalism, Journalist of the Year and was the first to win it twice. Moving to the United States, he reported the upheavals there in the late 1960s and 1970s. He marched with America’s poor from Alabama to Washington, following the assassination of Martin Luther King. He was in the same room when Robert Kennedy, the presidential candidate, was assassinated in June 1968,” says his official biography. 

Pilger’s 1970 documentary, Vietnam: The Quiet Mutiny has been followed by more than 50 other films. This week Pilger tweeted:

Having reported from across the world, I have rarely known anything approaching the dynamism and high standards of Joe Lauria's Consortium. If you yearn for an 'old fashioned' newspaper of the left, one with real news and authentic ethics, please support https://consortiumnews.com

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/09/07/john-pilger-on-cns-rare-dynamism-high-standards/

SEE ALSO: https://johnmenadue.com/revisiting-john-pilgers-2016-warnings-about-us-warmongering-against-russia-and-china/

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