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Annotated by Patrice Greanville
1. BY JOHN WIGHT: Of sycophants & lickspittles
Sanity, says John Wight, an uncompromising observer of contemporary society, died in Britain along with Queen Elizabeth. I tend to differ with that assertion, thinking that QE II actually buttressed the whole rotten edifice of privilege for generations, and that the British realm has seen plenty of rottenness and insanity in the recent past, all under her dignified watch. Still, what Wight says under that headline is largely irrefutable:
The madness that has ensued since the death of the UK’s longest reigning monarch bears witness to a failed revolution, while watching thousands flock to be part of this public spectacle leaves you pondering a human condition that reveals a propensity to idolatry. It also leaves you in no doubt of the chilling effect of a media that provides no space for dissenting voices when it comes to this regressive and rebarbative institution that sits at the apex of British society and public affairs.
Since Elizabeths’s death a carnival of royal worship has ensued, during which off the wall sycophancy has spewed from every mainstream news channel, every newspaper, and every correspondent, royal or otherwise. Even more chilling has been the arrest of various anti-monarchy protesters for merely protesting. Such a prolonged period of gushing royal worship is chilling to behold, providing us with a glimpse of what totalitarianism would look like in Britain.
And Wight, obviously, has not succumbed to Prince Charles'—I mean King Charles—slender charms:
Charles in truth is a corrupt, tax dodging reprobate, who reminds us that you can get away with just about anything in Britain if you’ve got a posh accent. Currently he’s getting away with being a king, aided and abetted in the doing by a media and political class colonised by lickspittles and moral midgets.
Read the rest of this provocative essay here.
2. WHODUNIT? BY BERNHARD (MOON OF ALABAMA)
Moon of Alabama (MoA), edited by "B" (Supposedly Bernhard, a German citizen who prefers to remain anonymous) is one of the Internet's most potent disseminators of truth. His analyses are seldom off the mark. And so it is with the blowing up of the Russian gas pipelines, Nordstream I and Nordstream II, indisputably an act of brazen terrorism designed to damage, not just the Russian interests involved (not exactly of minor consequence as the pipelines cost billions to plan and build, and the Baltic has already absorbed about a $1 billion in escaped gas) but, some would say in disbelief, the European Union itself. The question is why? Who carried out this outrageous act of sabotage precisely as European populations are beginning to stir for a restoration of gas supplies (and heating in the face of a threatening freezing winter), all of which would imply a lifting of sanctions against Russia?
MoA (along with Gonzalo Lira and a small number of other astute observers) have already rounded up the most logical suspect in this crime, and we entirely agree. It is none other than Uncle Sam:
Whodunnit? - Facts Related to The Sabotage Attack On The Nord Stream Pipelines
For decades the U.S. opposed European projects to receive energy from Russia. It wants Europe to buy more expensive U.S. oil and gas.
the Lemniscat @theLemniscat - 15:56 UTC · Sep 27, 2022
US plan was always to stop EU buying Russia's gas
2014
Rice:"You want to change the structure of energy dependence. You want to depend more on the North America energy platform ... to have pipelines that don't go through Ukraine & Russia"
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aF0uYIjaTNEEurope's, and especially Germany's industry, depends on cheap energy from Russia. Without it Europe will be de-industrialized and go broke.
The U.S. had threatened to disable the pipelines connecting Europe to Russia.
ABC News @ABC - 9:59pm · 7 Feb 2022
Pres. Biden: "If Russia invades...then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."
Reporter: "But how will you do that, exactly, since...the project is in Germany's control?"
Biden: "I promise you, we will be able to do that."
abcn.ws/3B5SScxCurrently the U.S. is winning its war on Europe's, mainly Germany's, industries and people. Yesterday's sabotage attack on the Nord Stream I and II pipelines, which are supposed to bring Russian natural gas to Germany, mean that the the war on Germany has entered its hot phase.
A question remains: Whodunnit?
Russia has no motive to destroy the pipelines it owns. These are valuable, long term assets and the gas that escaped from them yesterday was on its own worth some $600 to $800 million.
—B, Moon of Alabama
Indeed. As we pointed out a few days back elsewhere in this site, Russia had no need to destroy her own infrastructure to cut gas supplies to the annoying, Washington-controlled pygmies in the EU. All it had to do was simply shut off the pipelines valves.
I should remind our audience that MoA had already ably dissected the situation and pretty much named the culprit in a previous, equally superb analysis the day before (Sep 27, 2022):
Just yesterday I laid out how the U.S. is winning its war on Europe's industries and people.
That war, hidden behind the U.S. created Ukraine crisis, is designed to destroy Europe's manufacturing advantage compared to the U.S. It is more likely though to strengthen the economic position of China and other Asian economies.
I have argued that Germany must open the Nord Stream II pipeline which can bring Russian natural gas to Germany without crossing other countries' territory. It must also allow Siemens to repair the defect Nord Stream I compressors. It is in fact inevitable if German's industry is to survive.
Others have come to similar conclusion and decided to sabotage the pipelines to make their re-opening impossible:
Three offshore lines of the Nord Stream gas pipeline system have sustained "unprecedented" damage in one day, Nord Stream AG, the operator of the network, said on Tuesday in what one German official has suggested is a "targeted attack”. Nord Stream 2 suffered a gas leak which was then followed by a drop of pressure on Nord Stream 1.
The company also said that it was impossible to estimate when the gas network system's working capability would be restored.
The simultaneous sub sea damage to three pipelines is obviously not an accident.
A German economy official told Tagesspiegel: "We can't imagine a scenario that isn't a targeted attack."
They added: "Everything speaks against a coincidence."
bigger
MoA (Sep 27, 2022)
MoA, so far, provides the most comprehensive and impressive overview of this entire sordid affair, so if you want to learn all the pertinent facts, which are, indeed, sensational, as befits an act liable to go down in history as a turning point, pay a visit. Nothing like this is liable to appear now or in the near future in the whore Western mainstream press, busily selling you cynical US disinformation.
Read the rest of this provocative essay here.
3. IN THE MATTER OF DECEPTION & GENERAL SKULDUGGERY—
REPLY BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Russia and China (and other challengers of the Empire of Chaos and Hypocrisy) are simply pikers when it comes to mass disinformation. This is —by definition—an underhanded tool historically developed and perfected by the Anglo-Americans, whose early mastery of this field issues directly from the natural dynamic of capitalism, a form of weaponised marketing, really, like malignant p.r.
The Anglos had the benefit of early industrialisation, which permitted them a huge leap in media technology that their rivals have yet to match. The Germans are said to have been masters of propaganda, but I doubt it. The claims of such proficiency have been grossly inflated by the Anglos themselves, clearly an effort to reduce the visibility of their own gianormous machinery of undemocratic mass manipulation. The Soviets have also been proclaimed—by the same coterie of Western worthies— to have been masters of public deception, but, friends, let's get real, the Soviet system and Russian culture in general are not exactly cut out for the refined, consistent dispensation of lies. Just by examining the last 75 years of the postwar period we can easily see that, as a rule, while the Soviets and later "capitalist" Russkies generally told the truth and kept their promises (treaties, etc.), the Americans and the Brits did not. Deviousness and chicanery in fact and deed have been the Anglos' official syntax in international relations, and this extends to dealings with their own allies (as the current situation with the EU seem to confirm). This lack of loyalty extends to recent war allies, mind you. The CIA-redacted Wikipedia, no less, offers the following info on just one such incident of mind-boggling treachery concocted by the Brits against the Soviets, who had just emerged as victors over the Nazi horde at the cost of 27 million dead and a country in ruins:
Operation Unthinkable was the name given to two related possible future war plans by the British Chiefs of Staff against the Soviet Union in 1945. The plans were never approved nor implemented. The creation of the plans was ordered by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in May 1945 and developed by the British Armed Forces' Joint Planning Staff in May 1945 at the end of World War II in Europe.[1]
One plan assumed a surprise attack on the Soviet forces stationed in Germany to "impose the will of the Western Allies" on the Soviets. "The will" was qualified as "a square deal for Poland",[2] which probably meant enforcing the recently signed Yalta Agreement. The planners decided that without massive American help Britain would probably fail. The assessment, signed by the Chief of Army Staff on 9 June 1945, concluded: "It would be beyond our power to win a quick but limited success and we would be committed to a protracted war against heavy odds."[3][not specific enough to verify] The code name was now reused instead for a second plan, which was a defensive scenario in which the British were to defend against a Soviet drive towards the North Sea and the Atlantic following the withdrawal of the American forces from the Continent. At no time was either plan shared with the United States or anyone else.[citation needed] When the Labour Party came to power in the 1945 general election, it ignored the draft plan.
The study became the first Cold War-era contingency plan for war with the Soviet Union.[4] Both plans were highly secret and were not made public until 1998[5] – although a British spy for the Soviets, Guy Burgess, had passed on some details at the time.[6]
Wikipedia, Operation Unthinkable
A similar case of heinous deceit, this time directed at their own population, was seen in the US in 1962, as the Pentagon shuffled pretexts to attack Cuba. I'm talking here about the notorious Operation Northwoods, which every American should know about, but which only a minuscule and mostly impotent fraction do, for reasons easy to discern. Again, the Wiki:
Operation Northwoods was a proposed false flag operation against American citizens that originated within the US Department of Defense of the United States government in 1962. The proposals called for CIA operatives to both stage and actually commit acts of violent terrorism against American military and civilian targets, blaming them on the Cuban government, and using it to justify a war against Cuba. The possibilities detailed in the document included the remote control of civilian aircraft which would be secretly a repainted US Air Force plane,[2] the possible assassination of Cuban immigrants, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas,[3] blowing up a U.S. ship, and orchestrating terrorism in U.S. cities.[2] The attacks on Americans were not supposed to be violent, while the attacks on Cuban refugee boats were supposed to be "real or simulated", with the maximum extent of wounding them for media publicity.[4] The proposals were rejected by President John F. Kennedy.[5][6][7]
-Wikipedia, Operation Northwoods
It is useful to keep in mind that in both cases of averred "totalitarian" propaganda (Nazi Germany, Communist USSR) the mind manipulation was, by Western standards. crude or, as some pundits put it, "brutish". Why? Simply because the population was at all times well aware that what they heard and saw came from state agencies and government officials. The powers that be had not succeeded in implanting the approved narrative inside people's heads. The brainwash from cradle to grave had failed. It was not subtle enough and not pervasive enough. This, said the Western savants, helped to discount much of the impact of such blatant propaganda, although I doubt it. For one thing, while the Nazis were almost routinely involved in the Big Lie technique, the Soviets were not. That both omitted some important truths during wartime (in the case of Moscow, including the Cold War) does not make them equally guilty of routine falsifications, nor, to wax teleological, of ultimate evil intent, as the Soviets' goal was to give their population a decent living standard grounded in an honest and fair economic system, something the West, mired in rotting capitalism, was and is completely unable and unwilling to do, except for exogenous historical conditions, such as the immediate postwar boom, which, given America's virtually intact industrial base and impressive natural resources, facilitated the creation of the American middle class, envy of the world for a couple of generations.
All things being equal, however, the Soviet/Russian leadership was far more trusted and trustworthy than their enemies', as confirmed by sociological studies among USSR populations and international diplomats, because, what they said—sooner or later—usually aligned with the truth. In the case of the Ukraine war, by far one of the most repulsively propagandised wars in modern history, with the Big Lie shamelessly distributed by the West through countless propaganda assets and platforms, plus myriad dishonest stratagems developed over more than a century of practice, the average mind is virtually helpless to sort out truth from deceit, a considerable advantage in a world of hybrid wars.
To this day, the Western public has been flooded with cynical lies about the motives and conduct of Russian forces in Ukraine. Accusations of horrid crimes such as the cavalier bombing of maternities, mass rape of minors followed by torture and murder; of intentional starvation of entire populations; of wholesale torture and murder of innocent civilians and the reckless shelling of their abodes, have been common since the conflict began in February (2022), and, if anything, gotten even more inflammatory as time wore on. Many if not the vast majority of these lies were concocted by the Ukrainians. They received unquestioned acceptance among Western media, with precisely the calculated effect of brainwashing multitudes throughout Europe and North America—precisely the people without whose consent and support this entire filthy operation couldn't have taken off. In the art of lying the Ukrainians have shown themselves extremely gifted, adept at executing their NATO tutors' directions in all areas of competence, callousness, and depravity, often even surpassing them.
Facts on the ground ultimately count a great deal, however, even if the truth, when it finally emerges, may no longer be able to punish the guilty or spare the innocent. In this context, and rather belatedly, the Russian information apparatus is beginning to stir. The Russians' strength resides in the truth, and they are trying, as usual, to make it count. This is far from easy, as recent events at the United Nations show. Widespread political corruption in the West, radiating from the Empire itself to its many vassals and cowed nations and individuals around the globe, prevent the swift dissemination and acceptance of any important truth. Still, the Russian government has to try, for many outside the West—the global citadel of "Woke imperialism"— believe in its word and mission, and the values it represents. On Sep 27, 2022 the Russian government released the following document, which, literally speaks for itself:
Statement by the Russian Federation on the false allegations against the Russian Federation made by the Ukraine to cover-up its own violations of international law and military crimes against the civilian population of the Donbass in in the Kharkov, Kherson and Zaporozhie regions
- Ukraine's allegations are based on distortion of facts, unproven allegations and fraudulent arguments.
In the media, as well as on international platforms including the International Court of Justice Ukraine groundlessly blames Russia for 'brutal use of force against Ukraine, including indiscriminate shelling of residential areas, systematic executions of civilians, deportation of children, razing of Mariupol, blockade of ports and other atrocities' during the special military
operation commenced by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022.
The Ukraine’s allegations are based on the blatant distortion of facts, unsubstantiated allegations, and fraudulent arguments. With clearly selective and manipulative approach, Ukraine blames Russia for military crimes committed by its own armed forces and other security agencies, as well as by the nationalistic battalions.
Kiev has descended to staging bloody incidents to demonize Russia in the eyes of the international community and create an emotional background in order swing foreign states and international bodies into adopting anti-Russian political decisions. Such incidents have been already seen in Bucha, Mariupol, Kramatorsk, and Kremenchug.
1. Bucha The most egregious example of Ukraine's misrepresentation of facts is a fictional story of the Bucha massacre’. The Ukrainian and western mass-media have also distributed multiple picture of the 'bodies found in a street in Bucha in April 2022’, taken from propagandist visuals spread by Ukrainian mas-media in early April 2022.
Russian Federation
You can read the whole document here.
China, by the way, although making steady progress in the area of mass political and cultural communications, still leaves much to be desired. Which means that, as far as China and Russia are concerned, the cultural ambit needs to be improved for world consumption, something that, for a variety of complicated reasons—including the huge globalised cultural power of the West (think Hollywood, Netflix, Marvel comics, Game of Thrones, other big household TV shows, globally influential legacy media, plus mostly American-owned social media and the rest), is not liable to happen overnight. To protect herself from Washington's constant torrent of lies, cultural corruption, and distortions, and prevent the manipulation of their own population, China wisely decided to protect her information space by erecting an Internet wall, the "Great Firewall". Other nations would be well advised to do the same. I'll leave you with this quote by Caity Johnstone, which sums up rather niely the disparity in disinformation between the US and its self-assigned rivals:
One of the craziest things happening in the world today is the way westerners are being trained to freak out all the time about Russian propaganda, which barely exists in the west, even as we are hammered every day with extreme aggression by the immensely influential propaganda of the US-centralized empire. You know you are living in a profoundly sick society when the world’s most influential newspaper runs propaganda for World War Three while voices pushing for truth, transparency and peace are marginalized, silenced, shunned, and imprisoned.
Caitlin Johnstone
—PG
Media critic and geopolitical analyst Patrice Greanville is founding editor of The Greanville Post.
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