the establishment media is an enabler of endless wars and illegitimate oligarchic power

Greg Maybury
DISPATCHES

Inside the Submissive Void
Propaganda, Censorship, Power, and Control

Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government, 1768.

PREAMBLE: The use of propaganda and censorship is more frequently associated with totalitarian, corrupt and/or despotic regimes, not modern democracies. Yet the history of how western governments and their ever-vigilant junkyard dogs in the media, financial, and business spheres have controlled the political narrative of the time via these means is a long, storied and ruinous one, going back well before 1914. 

Along with serving the contemporaneous political objectives of its perpetrators as contrived, such activities often continue to inform our understanding, and cement our interpretation, of history. If as the saying goes, “history repeats itself”, we need look no further than this as to the main reason why. In this wide-ranging ‘safari’ into the propaganda, fake news, myth-making, and disinformation wilderness—The Big Shill—Greg Maybury does indeed look further, and concludes that “It’s the narrative, stupid!”

— Free-diving into the Forgettery —

The following yarn may be may or may not be true, but either way the ‘moral of the fable’ should serve our narrative well. The story goes like this: sometime during the height of the Cold War a group of American journalists were hosting a visit to the U.S. of some of their Soviet counterparts. After allowing their visitors to soak up the media zeitgeist, most of the Americans expected their guests to express unbridled envy at the professional liberties they enjoyed in the Land of the Free Press. That they were indeed impressed was in no doubt. One of the Russian scribes was in fact compelled to express his unabashed ‘admiration’ to his hosts…in particular, for the “far superior quality” of American “propaganda”. 

Now it’s fair to say his hosts were taken aback by what was at best a backhanded compliment, or maybe an attempt at Russo-Slavic humour or irony that escaped the Americans. After some collegial ‘piss-taking’ about the stereotypes associated with Western “press freedom” versus those of the controlled media in the Soviet system, one of the Americans called on their Soviet guest to explain what he meant. In the fractured English for which our Russian brethren are well known, he replied: ‘It’s very simple…In Soviet Union, we don’t believe our propaganda. In America, you believe yours!’

As perennially amusing as this anecdote might be, the reality of the Russian nee Soviet journo’s jibe doesn’t simply remain true now; that ‘belief’ has become even more delusional, farcical, and above all, dangerous. And at least until the arrival of Covid, and more recently with the Ukraine crisis, in few cases was the “delusional”, “farcical”, and “dangerous” nature of this conviction been more evident than with the West’s continued provocations of Russia, with “Skripalgate” in Old Blighty (see here, and here), and “Russia-Gate” stateside (see here, and here) being prime, though far from the only, exemplars we might point to.

Of course, some may recall at the height of the Russia-Gate hullabaloo, the hugely entertaining dog n’ pony show that was the much-touted London “media freedom” conference, organised under the auspices of the so-called Media Freedom Coalition (MFC), a UK/Canadian ‘initiative’. As the name suggested, this was the establishment’s lip-service effort to be seen to be upholding or ‘defending’ media freedom, and initiating stronger strategies and frameworks for the ‘protection’ of journalists and defence of freedom of the press. 

Up until that time I couldn't recall many previous events that so perfectly embraced the Orwellian playbook, absent any hint of irony or embarrassment from the parties involved. To illustrate, after noting that ‘the world is becoming a more hostile place’ for journalists, the MFC website then righteously intones: …‘[they face dangers beyond warzones and extremism, including increasing intolerance to independent reporting, populism, rampant corruption, crime, and the breakdown of law and order….’

The cynic might be tempted to add: ‘And that’s just in our Western democracies!’

And who can forget the infamous “integrity initiative” that preceded it, whose lofty ambitions aimed to ‘defend democracy against disinformation’? This is faux-elite code for limiting—if not eliminating—free speech; this is already happening at a rate of knots, with the powers that be ‘setting up new perimeters’ online and offline. The prevailing efforts by a range of people to make it a crime to criticise Israel or boycott the country is arguably the most egregious example. The efforts by the MSM to designate genuine, independent analysis by alternative media as “fake news” is another one. The BigTech behemoths increasingly draconian attempts to control the flow and substance of free speech does not go unnoticed.

Such is the sophistication and ubiquity of the narrative control techniques used today—afforded increasingly by ‘computational propaganda’ via automated scripts, hacking, botnets, troll farms, and AI algorithms and the like, along with the barely veiled censorship and information gatekeeping practised by Google and Facebook and other tech behemoths—it’s become one of the most troubling aspects of the technological cum social media revolution. (See here, here, and here.)

Indeed, as it turns out, it should be “troubling” for any reasonable, rational folks regardless of whether they ‘dress to the left’ or  ‘dress to the right’, though it increasingly seems far less troubling for the former crowd. Notably, the MFC conference came and went after organisers saw fit to exclude legitimate Russian news outlets RT and Sputnik, an ideological ‘fashion statement’ somewhat at odds with the purported premise upon which it was instigated.

Moreover, there was little mention of the ‘pachyderm on the political patio’ Julian Assange—the person who embodies foremost the disconnect between the practice and the preaching of Western media freedom, to say little of underscoring the irony, self-serving opportunism, and double standards that frequently attend any mainstream debate about what it actually means.

Put bluntly, “media freedom” in the West is increasingly ‘more honoured in the breach than in the observance’, with the London confab all about keeping up appearances to the contrary, an event we might say was conceived of by soulless, demented, establishment shills, ‘…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’. This surreal spectacle though must have induced cognitive dissonance amongst pundits, and many head-shaking moments for Assange supporters and genuine truth-seekers alike. And for those of us who’ve spent any time in history’s ‘forgettery’, as we’ll see, we find that the reality of much touted press freedom in the West hasn’t always matched the rhetoric.

As for Wikileaks and Assange himself, it’s worth noting the attitude of the national security state toward him. After accusing Assange of being a “narcissist”, “fraud”, and “a coward”, and labelling WikiLeaks a “hostile intelligence service”, the then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared he [Assange] was ‘eager to do the bidding of Russia and other American adversaries’.

Part Two: Inside the Citadel of Truth and Certitude

Greg Maybury
May 15, 2022

(Photo: Alexander Torrenegra)

‘In the three years since 9/11, we've begun to understand that it's possible to know what happened without knowing what happened.’ — New York Times, "The Public Knowledge of 9/11", September 11, 2004

‘Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and [He] has proclaimed disaster against you.’ — 1 Kings 22:23

Preamble: Since its establishment in 1851, the august New York Times (or “Times”) has enjoyed one of the most enduring reputations of all the world’s leading newspapers. It is often said to have a reach and influence that far transcends its circulation and its readership. Of this few folk would be in doubt, even amongst those who might be less enamoured of the Old Gray Lady’s unique charms.

What’s less certain though is whether such ‘notoriety’ is still deserved after all these years; as heretical as it might be for the faithful to contemplate, perhaps ‘her’ best days are well behind her. After all, even the most deified of divas come with a ‘use-by-date’. Along with looking at the extent to which that influence has played out across the media firmament—and from there how it has shaped the ‘political soundtrack’ of our lives in addition to informing our reflective view of history—we explore whether such ‘heresy’ might hold some substance: That the Times has finally succumbed to the vagaries of the product life cycle.

This being the case, if the ‘Old Girl’s’ most recent edicts from the editorial bully pulpit regarding the hitherto inviolable First Amendment are anything to go by, she’s not going quietly into that good night. In this second instalment of an expansive two parter, Greg Maybury rushes in—foolishly perhaps—to occupy terrain where angels and perhaps even some creatures of a less beatific kind, might otherwise fear to tread.

— The Old Gray Lady (Down and Out)

As noted in our first instalment, the Old Gray Lady (aka the New York Times) has long held the heavyweight title as the most esteemed marque in the establishment media firmament. But as we also observed, any ‘trophies’ that come with the crown haven’t always been earned by investigating thoroughly, reporting honestly, and publishing bravely “all the news that’s fit to print”. Oh that were the case. If the Times’ is the “newspaper of record”, said “record” is a warped and broken ‘platter’!

Or, if as another of its catchphrases goes, “these times demand the Times”, one wonders just where “these times” (or the Times) will lead us. In fact if we cast an eye into the rear-view, we might also ponder to what extent the Times in previous times has been responsible for leading us to where we are right now. On the latter, her ‘bill of particulars’ is a long read, and with benefit of such hindsight, is one we can determine with more assuredness. It is with this in mind we proceed.

In that first outing we took a few deep dives into the ‘Forgettery’ (oka the Memory Hole), therein to discover that the ‘object of our affection’ has her own exclusive ‘patch of dirt’. And as expansive as that initial foray was, we’ve hardly skimmed the surface. Though its reputation suggests otherwise, it turns out that in the Times’ repository of assorted sleights of hand in the performance art that is modern journalistic enterprise, there’s standing room only. This dearth of space however has more to do with the ‘bodies’ buried there than with the number of folk looking to exhume them!

The Estimable Christopher Bollyn — A one-man 9/11™ Truth Movement

 One such individual not so enamoured of the Lady’s charms is independent writer and investigative journalist Christopher Bollyn, who’s even on record calling out the “newspaper of record” as “un-American”. Describing the venerable masthead in this way for some would’ve been akin to torching “Old Glory” in the town square on Independence Day, a symbolic gesture so made which would be about as “un-American” as we might imagine.

Yet given the trigger for his reaction, the irony here is as thick as it’s palpable. Best known for his valiant efforts in exposing the real backstory behind 9/11™, in order to underscore his point Bollyn, in an early 2013 article he singled out an editorial (not an op-ed mind you) which the Times had run late in the previous year. Space precludes an in-depth analysis of this missive which sparked Bollyn’s umbrage as—not unlike another Times’s editorial we referenced in our first instalment, albeit one of a very different kind—it came ‘packing’ a subtext which would require a separate article in order to unpack the full import. Suffice to say, the editorial unequivocally called for (wait for this), the abolishment of the U.S. Constitution!

With this, a striking anomaly confronts us, the disconnect adding a spare layer to the irony. Penned by Louis Michael Seidman, then a professor of constitutional law no less at Georgetown University (and card-carrying Zionist in thrall to the Promised Land no doubt), in this editorial Seidman declared “obedience to the Constitution” as obsolete, claiming its “downright evil provisions” are to blame for the “broken” system of government in the US.

Now them’s more fightin’ words in anyone’s lingo, and leaves us to chew over who in fact was being the more “un-American”. It also leaves one wondering what the ‘Sanhedrin’ (the Times’s editorial board) was thinking, if indeed it was, by signing off on such an unthinkable, patently “un-American” fashion statement. Readers are in turn invited to contrast this with the editorial we cited at length in our first “expedition” in to the crypt. This is the one in which the Times’s board bemoaned America’s increasing estrangement from the tenets of the First Amendment, the bedrock pillar of the very Constitution which, in an earlier time, the same board mused about having passed its UBD.

For his part Bollyn was having none of this, a feeling one suspects was enhanced by the fact that this was a Times’ editorial no less! Yet the problem as identified by the good professor was not, Bollyn assured us, “obedience” as such, but disobedience to the hallowed Constitution, of the type not unlike like that promoted by Seidman, ‘that is behind the “broken” state of our system of government.’

In identifying the main culprit responsible for the state of affairs so described, Bollyn fingered Congress: The Capitol crowd as far as he was concerned had long ago abrogated its responsibility then abdicated its power to forces not at all beholden to the principles of the Republic’s much ballyhooed ‘instruction manual’. In fact, as far as Bollyn was concerned, these forces were alien to everything America stood for.

Greg Maybury

May 3, 2022

Inside the Belly of the Beast — The ‘Bully Pulpit’ of the New York Times.

‘Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.’ – Exodus 23.1 (KJ Vsn.)

‘Were there no publishers of slander and calumny, there would be no receivers; and were there none to receive them, there would be none to raise them; and were there no raisers, receivers, nor propagators of calumny, lies, etc., society would be in peace. – Adam Clarke, Commentary on Above.

Preamble: Since its establishment in 1851, the iconic New York Times (“The Times” or “Times”) has enjoyed one of the most enduring reputations of all the world’s leading newspapers. It is often said to have a reach and influence that far transcends its circulation and its notional readership. Of this few folks would be in doubt, including those who might be less enamoured of the so named ‘Old Gray Lady’s’ eminence and unique charms.

What’s less certain though is whether such ‘notoriety’ is still deserved after all these years; as heretical as it might be for the ‘faithful’ to consider, perhaps ‘her’ best days are well behind her. After all, even the most deified of divas come with a ‘use-by-date’. Along with examining the extent to which that influence has played out over the decades across the media firmament—and from there how it has shaped the ‘political soundtrack’ of our lives in addition to informing our reflective view of history—we explore whether in fact such ‘heresy’ might hold some substance: That the Times may have finally succumbed to the inexorable vicissitudes of the product life cycle.

That being the case, if the ‘Old Girl’s’ recent unedifying edicts from the editorial bully pulpit regarding the First Amendment are anything to go by, she’s not going quietly into that good night. In this first instalment of an expansive two part series, Greg Maybury rushes in, foolishly perhaps, to occupy terrain wherein angels—along other creatures of a less beatific kind—might fear to tread.

– A Few Too Many Shades of Gray

Generally considered one of the world’s most iconic, revered, name-checked, syndicated, and widely read of newspapers, the New York Times (aka the Times) has long claimed bragging rights as “the newspaper of record”. The paper is seen by many as the bastion of old school journalistic standards such as truthfulness, accuracy, impartiality, fairness, and accountability, one which practices journalism as its meant to be practiced: That is, in the public interest with the ‘full disclosure of all known facts, possibilities and sources’. To use the current vernacular, we’re talking “gold standard” reportage here. By some accounts (including a few outside the newsroom), the ever scrupulous Times regularly accomplishes all this “without fear or favour”.

By anyone’s measure, this is no mean feat! It gets even better. Along with holding the heavyweight title of "world's greatest newspaper", with its “careful, deliberative approach to journalism…”, the Times is “catholic in its interests and worldly in its tastes”, all the while seamlessly positioning its brand as synonymous with ‘integrity’ and ‘credibility’. ‘Were the standards of the [New York] Times more broadly emulated’, the patrician, arch-conservative/right-wing National Review founder (and CIA chum) William F. Buckley Jr. once sombrely intoned of the famously liberal, “left-leaning” broadsheet, ‘the nation would be far better informed and more broadly served.’

Certainly the Old Gray Lady (as ‘she’ is fondly esteemed by the faithful), has long been the flagship marque of the U.S. newsprint establishment, its pole position within the legacy media pantheon only rivalled perhaps by the Washington Post. For its former executive news editor Howell Raines—whose stint came to an abrupt, inglorious end in the wake of a much ballyhooed plagiarism and “fake news” scandal involving one of his young reporters Jayson Blair—it is “an irreplaceable American institution”, a “great engine for truth”, and “America’s indispensable newsletter”.

Seemingly unable to rein in his laudatory rumination on the venerable masthead, Raines waxed even more lyrical: The Times was “the ethical keystone of American journalism” he said, [and] it “occupies a central place in our national civic life.”

In anyone’s lingo them’s all ‘fightin’ words’ to be sure!

Howell Raines — Once a Times-man, Always a Times-man?

Given the circumstances of his demise, it’s instructive to note that the veteran newsman voiced such sentiments unattended by any hint of irony or evident humility. Or for that matter, much semblance of contrition derived from genuine self-reflection on his own faults, failings and shortcomings in, or even aside from, the manner of his departure.

It all appeared then as if Raines was attempting to recast himself via the prism of the Times’s past glories and its professed pretensions to journalistic altruism, and through that portal somehow rehabilitate—even if only in his own mind—his tarnished street-cred by declaring himself still simpatico with its corporate mission, vision and purported values. Unless he was angling to get his old job back, it’s difficult to imagine what else he might’ve had in mind. Once a Times’ man, always a Times’ man then?

We’ll return to Raines’s musings throughout, who in a lengthy post-mortem of his tenure offered up for our purposes herein some mighty useful angles on the newspaper’s place in the pantheon, its corporate culture and brand image, the strengths and weaknesses he perceived therein, and its august reputation overall. But for now a few deep-dives into the Memory Hole are necessary to, as it were, establish the mise en scène for our overarching dramatic narrative. It promises to be an ‘all grist to the mill’ affair, with in this case, said “mill” a very hungry beast.

The preceding panegyrics aside then, as not quite befitting the putative status of someone so described, the grande dame of newsprint’s ‘prim and proper’ persona is now somewhat shop-soiled. For her devoted, not-so-small cult following, this will be viewed as rank heresy; but for an increasing number of people this might represent at once a statement of the obvious as much as an understatement.

From Great Wars, Come Great Consequences

The Captains of World Aggression

Greg Maybury

Apr 24, 2022

Editor’s Note: The 25 of April 2022 is ANZAC Day, the 107th Anniversary of the Gallipoli debacle of the even greater debacle that was the Great War 1914-1918. This was a defining moment in the history of my country Australia, though as readers will have already seen in the earlier essay, not in the way that many might interpret such a statement.

I published the following article back in 2017 on my now dormant blog. Whereas the focus of the first article was on the Great War, this one looks at World War Two. I've now republished this second article for my Substack subscribers and readers for the first time. Apart from minor editorial corrections and some formatting and layout adjustments for this forum, I’ve not changed or added to the original content.

With everything that’s taking place in our uncertain world at present, there’s a message or two in it for all of us. And not just for Aussies by any stretch. This one's for the whole team!

There can be little doubt about both Britain (and America’s) contribution to the Great War to End all War’s sequel, any more so than it was largely Great Britain’s—not Germany’s—responsibility for initiating the earlier conflagration (see previous post). I’ve often wondered whether some Freudian slip might not have been at play in the mind of the person who declared the First World War “Great”, as it was after all essentially Great Britain’s War, albeit aided and abetted by France and Russia! But I digress!…

As a former teacher of high school history though, I can now say pretty much everything important I ever taught my students about the causes and conduct of both wars was, in a word, bollocks! In fact, it’s arguable that if the victors hadn’t authored the history books, there’d be fewer amongst us chomping at the bit to go to war with Russia over Ukraine. Or GTW with anyone over anything for that matter. (Come to think of it, some of those presently “chomping” at said “bit” may be my former charges! Perish the thought shall we?)

For my part, I did valiantly attempt to correct the record in this regard a few years back. Alas, I’m not sure how many folks read it! As so often happens with such matters, perhaps “too little too late”. More’s the pity I say. Hence this post today.

All up then, as with the Great War, for those who've always accepted it was Germany under Adolf Hitler that was the principal aggressor inciting World War Two, be prepared for an adjustment in your thinking about our collective history, and the faith and trust you place in the people—whether in war or peace, good times or no— who rule over us.

The quote immediately below by Guido Preparata—the author whose book it was that largely inspired this essay—sets the stage for what’s to follow in this outing. If this does not resonate with the contemporary Zeitgeist, you're not paying attention! Take a dive down the Memory Hole with your humble. I can assure you all, one rarely returns empty handed.

.‘…[In] such trying games of conquest, results might never be expected to take shape quickly…Imperial stratagems are protracted affairs. The captains of world aggression measure their achievements…on a timescale whose unit is the generation. It’s within such a frame that the incubation of Nazism should be gauged: it was a long and elaborate plan to eliminate the possibility of German hegemony over the continent. And the stewards of the empire took their time.’ — Conjuring Hitler: How Britain and America Created the Third Reich, Guido Preparata (© 2006).

‘Germany’s unforgivable crime before the second world war was her attempt to extricate her economic power from the world’s trading system and to create her own exchange mechanism which would deny world finance its opportunity to profit.’ — Winston Churchill to Lord Robert Boothby, cited in the Foreword, Propaganda in the Next War (2/e), Sidney Rogerson (2001).

‘Money plays the largest part in determining the course of history’. — The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx (1848)

‘They gorge on God and the world. They do not sow. They just reap. They are the sorcerers in the flesh [who] make gold over the phone…’ — Erich Kästner, Hymn to the Bankers

Brief: With all the talk about a third world war, it is essential to understand the real causes of the first two. Like the proposition it was Germany’s imperial ambition that kindled the First World War in 1914, the notion that the rise of Adolf Hitler was an aberrant manifestation of the chaos prevailing in post-War Germany is one we still teach our kids in school, and embrace without question in our public discourse. Both these ungodly gospels—to this day perpetuated by the custodians of the historical record on behalf of the Anglo-American-Zionist establishment—are perhaps the most existentially dangerous delusions infecting the Western body politic.

There seems no better time to begin appreciating the dire implications of preserving them. To underscore this, it’s sufficient to grasp that the power elite mindsets, economic conditions, and the broad geopolitical objectives that marked the prelude to these cataclysmic events parallel so many of those unfolding now. As we will see, this is not simply a matter of history tripping over itself once again! If as Hegel once mused, the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, then we have proved ourselves most attentive, diligent pupils.

— The Protracted Affairs of Imperial Stratagems —

In economic historian Guido Preparata’s myth-shattering 2006 tome Conjuring Hitler: How Britain and America Created the Third Reich, there are essentially three people who ‘hold court’ in the overarching narrative, none of whom are Adolf Hitler. Off the bat this makes Preparata’s book somewhat unique, to say the least.

These “people” are first and foremost Montagu Norman, the Governor of the Bank of England (BoE); Hjalmar Schacht, then President of Germany’s central bank the Reichsbank, and for a time the Third Reich’s ‘economic Führer’; and Benjamin Strong, the then Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

All three of these men were pivotal to the assuredly remarkable success of the Wirtschaftswunder, the fabled German economic miracle that enabled it to revitalize its economy after the turmoil and chaos of the Weimar era and the devastation of the Great Depression, and from there rebuild its once formidable war machine.

But firstly, by way of a fitting entrée into the main course of our narrative, the following anecdotes should serve us well. In his book Preparata recounts the occasion when Hitler acolyte Joachim von Ribbentrop, later to become Germany’s U.K. ambassador and then her foreign minister, travelled to Britain in May 1935 to ‘negotiate’ of all things, German naval rearmament ratios with the so-called stewards of the British Empire. During his trip the then military attaché of the Japanese embassy in London, Capt. Arata Oka, bent the ear of the former booze salesman cum Nazi diplomat with this sage advice:

“…Never forget….the British are the most cunning people on earth, and that they graduated to absolute masters in the art of negotiation as well as in that of manipulating the press and public opinion.”

Clearly, neither Ribbentrop nor his boss appreciated the implications of this sage advice. Had they done, things might have turned out somewhat differently. Another enticing ‘what-if’…then…

From Great Games, Come Great Wars

The Animus of Over-Privileged Belligerents 

— The Secret War of the Over-Privileged Belligerents —

Whilst it may not always be treated as accepted wisdom, Winston Churchill's indelible sound-bite 'History is written by the victors' is an all too familiar refrain for many people when engaged in everything from casual after-dinner discourse, to studied dissection of past events. It is up there with George Santayana's 'Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it', and Henry Ford's 'History is bunk'.

Although less familiar, for his part Churchill—presumably musing on how one might not simply influence but arbitrarily pre-determine, the collectively desired outcome of grand political machinations—had this to say: 'the first quality that is needed is audacity'. As we'll see, all of these insights referencing the nature and substance of war then as now have singular relevance to the narrative to follow.

With this in mind, if Gerry Docherty and James Macgregor‘s meticulously researched, myth-busting ‘must-read’ Hidden History – The Secret Origins of the First World War is anything to go by, the Great Pontificator was right on both counts.

Which is to say, whether writing (or rewriting) history, or demonstrating “audacity” in the pursuit, preservation and expansion of empire—along with literally dictating the official record of such endeavours in that regard—Churchill and his conspiratorial contemporaries (the so-called Milner Group, or as referred to by the authors, the “Secret Elites”, and around whom the book’s central narrative revolves), arguably have few peers.

As the first epigraph above illustrates, when on the eve of what was to become known as The Great War the 'pfennig' finally dropped for the naive, hapless Kaiser Wilhelm and his own imperial coterie, he was all but moved to marvel at the sheer mastery of the grand Machiavellian deception to which he'd been subjected by the British imperial stewards. 

Yet the Kaiser and his advisors, diplomats and generals barely knew the half of it! If ever any great power, nation or empire was in contention for fatally underestimating or misreading the machinations and motives of its main rival and ostensible enemy, Germany has to be leading contender for first prize in the modern history narrative. The 'Brits', in furtive collaboration with the French and the Russians to be sure, played the 'Krauts'—and most of the rest of the world including my own country Australia, one of the Empire's numerous satraps—like a finely tuned 'Strat' in the hands of the estimable Jimi Hendrix at the top of his game!

It's no exaggeration to say then that in this cognitive dissonance-inducing account of the intrigues leading to the Great War's outbreak, these two Scotsmen have debunked virtually everything we think we know about it. To be sure they are not the first to provide a revisionist interpretation of the causes and origins of this most pivotal and consequential of events. They in fact openly acknowledge those who have bravely traversed similar pathways, some at the expense of their own academic standing and professional well-being, a not uncommon outcome for those who dare to challenge the victors' official version of events.

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© 2022 Greg Maybury

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Greg Maybury—"a self unemployed writer" in his own words, is an Australian-based researcher, freelance writer, blogger, and former teacher of history and politics. His broad areas of exploration and analysis are the U.S. political economy, foreign affairs, social and economic history, international relations, the national security state, the media, and American society and culture in general. His articles and essays have appeared on a diverse range of alternative and independent news sites here in Australia, the U.S. and elsewhere, including Consortium News, Russia Insider, Op Ed News, Contra Corner, International Policy Digest, The Hampton Institute, Gumshoe News, Dandelion Salad, and The Greanville Post. Greg‘s key areas of interests embrace concerns about—and critiques of—both the neoliberal and neoconservative influence that prevails in social, economic, foreign, financial, military, trade, and national security policy formulation in the U.S., and how this policy framework impacts the American and Western body politic, along with the rest of the world.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

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