Friday 29th of March 2024

just how far our media has fallen in only thirteen years...

wilson

In 2006, to mark the 30th anniversary of Harold Wilson’s retirement, the BBC release the above documentary: The Plot Against Harold Wilson. It details how, throughout Wilson leadership, MI5 and the CIA were engaged in plans to undermine Wilson – even to the extent of having plans in place for a full-blown military coup should the need arise.

The tactics included attacking Wilson’s staff and key allies, accusing him of being compromised by the Kremlin, and labelling him as “soft on the IRA”.

These probably sound very familiar to anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to British politics.

Given Mike Pompeo’s recent comments about America’s willingness to overthrow Corbyn, if they deem it necessary, these past events take on a new significance.

Perhaps the greatest lesson we can take from this is just how far our media has fallen in only thirteen years. 

The BBC was never the bastion of truth it pretended to be, but ask yourself: would the BBC make this documentary now? Would not this be deemed “conspiracy theory” in our modern media landscape?

Even Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Guardian in 2006, did not question the truth of this. Instead, deeming it “Britain’s Watergate”, in his usual incredibly subtle way.

And yet, that same man has systemically taken part in very similar manoeuvres to undermine both Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump. Smearing both as “antisemite” and “tool of the Kremlin” respectively, and even throwing around words like “traitor” and “treason”. These are moves straight out of the CIA playbook.

We know for a fact that the Israeli embassy had agents trying to undermine Corbyn, and that the US Secretary of State outright stated they would removed Corbyn from power. There’s even been rumblings of potential anti-Corbyn military coups in the past.

None of these received the coverage that the anti-Wilson plots did, just 13 years ago.

So what has happened to our media? Did they change their minds? Were they brainwashed? Bought off? Was the appearance of impartiality always just a thin veneer?

It’s impossible to say.

One key difference, of course, is the time elapsed. Writing about something that happened 30 years ago, is very different from writing about something that’s happening right now. Writing about the past, one can take the “thank god we’re not like that anymore” angle, “haven’t things improved”, “wasn’t Nixon dreadful” etc.

Writing about topical Deep State operations actually puts the agenda at risk, and that’s something the media are totally unwilling to do. They will question old narratives, but not current ones.

I wasn’t alive in 1976, but I can guess there was very little media coverage of these ideas then. I don’t know if they threw around the “conspiracy theory” epithet with the gusto they do today, but I can guess anyone suggesting the Deep State was trying to bring down Wilson’s government probably found it difficult to get column inches in the mainstream press.

It’s now a matter of record, uncontested by the British press, that the US/UK Deep State attempted to destabilise the elected government of the United Kingdom in the 1970s, they may well have succeeded in driving Wilson out of office.

It’s also a fact that the current Secretary of State has said they would do the same again against Corbyn. The increasingly controlled corporate media has shown they would be an ally in this.

It falls to the public, and the alternative media, to prevent this the only way we can. Spreading awareness. Telling the truth.

Please share widely.


WATCH: The Plot Against Harold Wilson


2006 BBC Documentary Newly Relevant In Wake of Pompeo Leak

Kit Knightly

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/06/12/watch-the-plot-against-harold-wilson/


Cartoon at top from Gus' Collection of stuff (old London Evening Standard)

a vaudevillian trick loosing traction...

Brexit is the reason the Conservatives are choosing a new leader, yet the competition has become a race to change the subject. Candidates are being judged not by any probability of success in taking the UK out of the EU, but by the ability to comfort fellow Tories that there is life for their party on the other side, once the deed is done.

How to get there is a side issue.

Boris Johnson is the frontrunner because he is a master of misdirection – the conjuring technique for steering an audience’s eyes away from sleight of hand, deception passed off as magic. The whole “Boris” persona – carefully careless hair and linguistic prestidigitation – is a vaudevillian trick that Johnson plays on British politics, manipulating debate away from his lying incompetence, idleness, philandering self-obsession and intellectual vacuity.

Johnson’s only credentials for the leadership are a charismatic energy that makes grassroots Tories feel good, and their belief that this power extends to other voters. It is a nebulous proposition (and an electorally questionable one) unrelated and ill-suited to the job of completing Brexit.

But it is also a pitch that Johnson’s rivals struggle to defeat, since none of them has a more credible plan for getting Britain out of the European Union before the 31 October deadline. Their manifestos are all based on the same rhetorical pivot – a gymnastic manoeuvre that launches off from the current intractable situation and lands with a flourish in a place where Brexit has already been “delivered” to a grateful nation. There is a missing middle section in the routine that involves contact with other countries and parliament.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/11/tory-contest-brexi...

combating antisemitism...

Guardian Deletes Open Letter Defending Chris Williamson

Document signed by noteworthy Jewish artists and intellectuals removed “pending investigation”

 


THE LETTER:

We the undersigned, all Jews, are writing in support of Chris Williamson and to register our dismay at the recent letter organised by Tom Watson, and signed by parliamentary Labour party and House of Lords members, calling for his suspension (Anger over return of MP who said Labour was ‘too apologetic’ over antisemitism, 28 June).

Chris Williamson did not say that the party had been “too apologetic about antisemitism”, as has been widely misreported. He correctly stated that the Labour party has done more than any other party to combat the scourge of antisemitism and that, therefore, its stance should be less apologetic. 

Such attacks on Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters aim to undermine not only the Labour party’s leadership but also all pro-Palestinian members.

The mass media have ignored the huge support for Chris both within and beyond the Labour party. Support that includes many Jews. The party needs people like him, with the energy and determination to fight for social justice. 

As anti-racist Jews, we regard Chris as our ally: he stands as we do with the oppressed rather than the oppressor. It should also be noted that he has a longer record of campaigning against racism and fascism than most of his detractors.

The Chakrabarti report recommended that the party’s disciplinary procedures respect due process, favour education over expulsion and promote a culture of free speech, yet this has been abandoned in practice. We ask the Labour party to reinstate Chris Williamson and cease persecuting such members on false allegations of antisemitism.

Noam Chomsky, MIT
Norman Finkelstein, Lecturer and writer
Ed Asner, Actor
Prof Richard Falk, Princeton University
Leah Lavene and Jenny Manson, Jewish Voice for Labour
…and more than 100 others.

For the full list of signatories, click here. This letter was previously published in The Guardian, but was removed “pending investigation”.

 

Read more:

https://off-guardian.org/2019/07/09/open-letter-in-defence-of-chris-will...

 

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a neo-nazi cell in italy...

Shortly after reputed Western media dramatically misquoted an Italian police statement on a huge missile seized from a neo-Nazi cell fighting for Kiev in eastern Ukraine, the original has been altered to become markedly vague.

Italian state police made big headlines across Europe when it reported of raids and arrests on a neo-Nazi underground organization taking place all over the country. An air-to-air missile was seized from an ultra-right group that also managed to stockpile Nazi memorabilia and dozens of military-issue firearms. Police said the group has fought on the side of the Ukrainian government forces in the breakaway eastern region of Donbass.

A host of Western media, such as Reuters, CNN, the Guardian, BBC and CBS, got the latter part profoundly wrong and reported that the busted gang was fighting alongside the Donbass rebels. RT reported on the embarrassing gaffe on Monday evening, but a day later, only BBC and Reuters seem to have taken notice and altered their stories.

 

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/464308-italy-police-edit-website-donbass/

 

 

 

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his butler was a tory...

 

from Neil Clark 

...

 

There was a story about Mountbatten (whether it’s true or not I don’t know) that once a Tory canvasser came along to the Mountbatten stately home. The canvasser asked if he could count on his Lordship’s support. Mountbatten quipped that he voted Labour, but his butler was a Tory. Why not speak to him?

The Labour government elected in a landslide in 1945 appointed Lord Louis as Viceroy of India in 1947, with the job of beating a retreat from Empire. The withdrawal was rushed and much bloodshed ensued. Mountbatten’s wife, Lady Edwina, famously had an affair with Pandit Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister.

Afterwards, Mountbatten continued to hold top positions in the Armed services. In 1968, it is claimed he came close to joining a plot against the then Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, hatched by newspaper baron Cecil King, to replace the government with a coalition government.

Being asked to ‘save the nation’ would no doubt have appealed to Mountbatten’s ego, despite his Labour sympathies.

A friend of mine, who served under him in the 1960s, says Mountbatten was an accomplished man but ‘a bit of a glory hunter’. He may have been quite conceited, but he did have a dry sense of humour. When asked what he was going to do in retirement he replied ‘I’m going to try not to die’. He achieved that successfully for fourteen years, until that fateful Bank Holiday Monday. Just three weeks before he was killed he said in an interview: ‘Dying doesn’t worry me: I’m looking forward to my own funeral. It should be good fun!‘

Ironically the anniversary of his death comes at a time when the British Royal Family faces another big test- the renewed scrutiny relating to the Duke of York’s connection with Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced paedophile, who according to the coroner’s report, committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial earlier this month.

Mountbatten, the man who acted as a mentor to the Prince of Wales, hasn’t escaped fresh scandal either. It’s been revealed in the new biography that he was under surveillance by the FBI for more than thirty years on account of his sexual behaviour . It was alleged that Mountbatten had a penchant for young men and was driven to gay brothels. One aristocratic source in the FBI files claimed Mountbatten had a ‘perversion for young boys’.

None of this of course, was in the news following Mountbatten’s dramatic killing which shocked and saddened the nation, and it‘s important to stress that Mountbatten is not here to answer some of the more serious allegations made against him.

On the day after his state funeral on 5th September 1979 Paul Johnson wrote the main comment piece in the Daily Mail. It was entitled ‘Why must the heroes of today stay unsung’. Johnson wrote: ’When Lord Mountbatten was interred yesterday, did we bury with him, more than his mortal remain- did we bury the notion of the national hero? Let us pray that Mountbatten will not be the last of the real heroes’.

Was Mountbatten a hero? Some will say yes, undoubtedly, remembering his wartime activities, others, no. Some will see him as a hero, but a flawed one.

Tangentially, there’s another reason why we need to remember Mountbatten and the tragic events of 27th August 1979.

The ’Troubles’ in Ireland, which claimed the lives of so many innocent people across the sectarian divide, were brought to an end with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The ‘soft’ border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is seen as a key part of the peace process. Could that be threatened by Brexit and a failure to find a solution to the problem of what would be the UK’s only land border with the EU? Or are the dangers of renewed conflict being over-hyped? Forty years on, Lord Mountbatten is still provoking debate.

Follow Neil Clark @NeilClark66 and @MightyMagyar

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201908271076655167-remembering-lord-l...

 

 

Also keep a eye on Prince Andrew....

 

 

 

 

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