Ecuador Elections to Test President Moreno and Governing Party Following Split

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

by Jonathan Nack • March 22, 2019

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]UENCA, ECUADOR - Sectional elections will be held throughout Ecuador this Sunday, March 24, 2019.  At stake are the elections in all 24 of the country's provinces of prefects (the highest elected official in a province), mayors, and urban and rural municipal council seats.

The election occurs in the context of a stagnating Ecuadorian economy.  The government of President Lenín Moreno has implemented budget cuts and layoffs, and also negotiated new loan agreements with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to deal with Ecuador's budget deficit and national debt.  Ecuador is OPEC's smallest producing member country, nevertheless the government receives significant income from oil exports and has suffered in recent years from low oil prices.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-imf/ecuador-inks-4-2-billion-financing-deal-with-imf-moreno-idUSKCN1QA05Z

The election also comes midway through President Moreno's four year term as President, and will be seen as a measure of his popularity.  Opinion polls published this month showed Moreno's approval rating has plummeted, continuing a year long decline.

Pence sealing imperial subordination pact with new acolyte Moreno. Welcome to the imperialist club!

President Moreno has broken sharply with the politics of his predecessor, former President Rafael Correa.  Moreno had worked closely with Correa for many years, serving as Correa's Vice President for 6 years, from 2007 to 2013 and narrowly won election as President with Correa campaigning for him).   Despite all this, Moreno dramatically turned against Correa only months after being elected president.  Moreno accused Correa and his government of rampant corruption, running up the national debt, and cronyism in government and judicial appointments, including stacking Ecuador's highest courts.Since then, government prosecutors have been investigating Correa for allegedly ordering the kidnapping of an opposition lawmaker who was hiding from Ecuadorian justice in Colombia, as well as allegations of corruption.  Correa was ordered to appear in court in Ecuador, and when he declined, offering to testify via video link instead, a warrant was issued for Correa's arrest.  Numerous figures in Correa's administration have been and are being prosecuted on corruption charges.

Moreno's own Vice President, Jorge Glas, a close associate of Correa, was arrested, tried for corruption, convicted, and is now in prison.  Glas has continued to insist he is innocent and at one point went on a long hunger strike while in prison.  https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/ecuadors-ex-vp-jorge-glas-fights-justice-amid-right-wing-push  This past January, a story broke that a telecommunication company, named Teleconet, had agreed to return $13.5 Million to the government of Ecuador that had been invested by Glas' uncle because it said it was “corrupt money.”
https://cuencahighlife.com/ecuador-recovers-13-5-million-in-corrupt-money-in-case-involving-uncle-of-former-vice-president/

Fomer president Rafael Correa.

Ecuador requested that Interpol issue an arrest warrant for Correa, who currently lives in Belgium, but Interpol rejected the request, stating that the evidence presented wasn't strong enough to order the arrest of the former President.  Interpol practically said that Ecuador's case against Correa was likely politically motivated.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/interpol-arrest-ecuador-rafael-correa/249698/

Moreno has returned to neoliberal economic policies as reflected in the loan agreements negotiated with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, in sharp contrast to Correa's severing of relations with those institutions.  He has also changed the country's geopolitical orientation and warmed relations with the United States, eschewing Correa's anti-imperialist rhetoric, while turning away from former leftist allies such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba.  Moreno has recognized U.S.-backed Juan Guaidó as the interim President of Venezuela.
https://nacla.org/news/2019/03/15/elected-left-governing-right

Moreno has sought dialog, consensus and compromise with many of Ecuador's diverse political factions, including those representing the oligarchy and moneyed classes, rather than adopt Correa's more combative approach.

While Moreno has changed many policies and moved markedly to the right, he has also sought to retain some credibility in left circles.  In an interview, Moreno claimed he was a new type of socialist, using the ideology of the right to produce, while the government distributes equitably and helps the poor according to the ideology of the left. https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2019/01/lenin-moreno-establish-ideology-190103060748796.html?fbclid=IwAR3KhfQi7lnABflOzfrgZTgSDXQuAIr_RJouTBG85xRtiUr9tDqwOnPau2U

Moreno said in 2018 speech at the United Nations that politics are successful when they serve everyone, especially “the poorest and the abandoned.” https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/09/1020442  He has also sought to be seen as a champion against government corruption, a deeply rooted problem with a very long history, highlighted by the prosecutions of leading figures from Correa's government, and even his own.

Moreno has won praise from the U.S. and its allies.  The corporate media has lauded his new approach as a restoration of democratic norms, including freedom of the press, as opposed to their narrative about Correa's dictatorial and undemocratic tendencies.  However, his popularity among Ecuadorians has taken a nose dive from 75 percent approval in early 2018, to only 30 percent in the very recent poll.

Two Ecuadorian polling organizations, Cedatos and Pefiles de Opinion, announced their findings at a press conference on March 7th.  "The population realizes that this economic restructuring was not taking place, this real fight against corruption was not taking place (...) and that made the approval of the president turn downward," said Polibio Córdova, President of Cedatos, according to a report by the Reuters news service.   Perfiles de Opinion's Director, Paulina Recalde, revealed that its survey found that 80 percent of respondents believe that the government is on "the wrong road."
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fradioluzyvidafm.com%2Fdesciende-aprobacion-al-presidente-lenin-moreno-segun-encuestas%2F

Though President Moreno will not be on the ballot in Sunday's elections, nor will any seats in the National Assembly, the President's party, Alianza PAIS (“AP”), has a lot to lose.  It, along with allied parties, currently holds the majority of the prefectures, mayor's offices, and local council seats in the country.  AP, by itself has 11 of the 24 prefects, 67 of 221 mayors, and 527 of 1305 council seats in the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAIS_Alliance

By comparison, the party with the next most sectional offices, Avanza (Get Moving), a centrist party with a social democratic ideology loosely allied with Alianza PAIS, has 36 mayors, 196 council seats, but only 1 prefecture.  Avanza holds no seats in the National Assembly. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAvanza&sandbox=1

AP has undergone a transformation since the last sectional elections in 2014.  Moreno's fight with Correa led to a brief struggle for control of AP in early 2018. Moreno won control of the party based on some controversial judicial decisions.  Correa was expelled from the party of which he had been the founding leader.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Correistas left AP en masse and immediately began organizing a new party.  (I use the term “Correista” advisedly to describe those on the Ecuadorian left and center-left grouped around and allied with Rafael Correa, because it gives the incorrect impression that there is some specific ideology that they adhere to, or that they are a monolithic block, or worse, that they are uncritical fanatics dedicated to Correa.  Nevertheless, this is the term most commonly used to describe this political group.)

The Correistas view Moreno as a traitor to the struggles for social justice and equality, as well as their larger projects of building a Citizen's Revolution and regional political and trade alliances independent of U.S. hegemony, and their ultimate goal of developing an Ecuadorian version of what Correa calls Socialism for the 21st Century.

Most ominous for Moreno was a finding in a recent Perfiles de Opinion poll of residents of Guayaquil, Quito, and Cuenca, Ecuador's three largest cities, which found that an astonishing that 70 percent of the respondents declared "being sorry" for having given their vote to Moreno, “which reflects a distancing from their base of popular support,” said Recalde at the March 7 press conference.

There has been some shallow coverage of the feud between Moreno and Correa in the English language corporate news media , but two important aspects of it have gone virtually unreported.  The split in AP cost it it's majority in National Assembly, as 30 of AP's 74 elected representatives left the party along with Correa and formed their own group in the National Assembly called Movimiento Revolucion Ciudana (Movement for Citizen's Revolution).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Assembly_(Ecuador)#/media/File:Asamblea_Ecuador_2018.svg

Second, the Correistas were prevented from registering as a new party that could compete in Sunday's sectional elections.  While the corporate media is filled with reports of repressive electoral irregularities in Venezuela, the Ecuadorian government's obstruction of the Correistas' ability to compete in elections has been all but ignored.

The Correistas' application to register as a political party to compete in elections was twice rejected by the National Electoral Council (CNE), a separate (and supposedly independent) branch of government that oversees and administers elections in Ecuador.  Each time, the CNE rejected the name of the party, which it must certify in order to begin the registration process.  The first application, to register under the name Movement for Citizen's Revolution was rejected by the CNE on the ground that “Citizen's Revolution” was a slogan of AP.  The phrase Citizen's Revolution was used by Correa often when he was the leader of AP, but since the split, Moreno and other AP officials, no longer use the phrase.

The second application by the Correistas was to register under the name, Movimiento Revolución Alfarista (Alfarista Revolutionary Movement), was again rejected by the CNE. Eloy Alfaro, who the party was to be named after, was President of Ecuador from 1895 to 1901.  He was a reformer credited with helping to modernize Ecuador.  Alfaro came from a province, Manabi,  which continues to be one of the most progressive areas in Ecuador.  The CNE ruled that Alfaro was not a leftist and that the leftist Correistas could thus not use his name for their party. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=https://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/politica/3/cne-niega-la-entrega-de-claves-al-movimiento-revolucion-alfarista&prev=search

The CNE's rejecting of the Correistas applications to form a new party created a bizarre political  phenomenon.  The second largest political grouping elected to the National Assembly (Correistas retain 30 seats), was not approved to register as a party to compete in elections.  This is highly irregular and a huge aberration in democratic process.  It would undoubtedly attract loads of coverage and sharp criticism from the corporate media for being undemocratic and politically repressive, had it occurred in Venezuela.

“The party was kidnapped by Moreno in a not very clear judicial process,” said Fernando Casado, a Political Adviser to the small party, Fuerza Compromiso Social, which has entered into a last minute agreement with the Correistas, allowing them to run some candidates on its line in Sunday's elections.  “Moreno betrayed AP's political platform.  He has systematically broken his commitments to the upholding the domestic and foreign policy platforms AP had agreed to,” Casado told this reporter.

Casado explained that in Ecuador, each party's political platform becomes a notarized legal document and politicians and representatives of a party, including its elected officials, can be recalled by the party if they do not uphold the party's written platform.  Casado believes that under a correct application of Ecuadorian election law, the judiciary should have decided in favor of Correista control of AP, since Moreno has gone against many positions in AP's official platform, but the ruling went to Moreno.

Casado bristled as he recounted the tortured course the Correistas have had to take in order to field any candidates in Sunday's election.  Following the CNE's decisions to twice reject the proposed name of the party, preventing them from even beginning the process of registering their own new party – which process includes the time consuming task of collecting a large number of signatures – Casado said that the Correistas decided to change their strategy.  There wasn't time to make another attempt to begin the registration process if they were going to run candidates in Sunday's elections.

The Correistas first reached an agreement with another party, named Movimiento Acuerdo Nacional (National Agreement Movement), which is known by the initials MANA, which the CNE had approved for the signature gathering process to regain its ballot status.  “We needed to collect 400,000 signatures and we collected 600,000,” recalled Casado.  However, the day before the signatures were to be presented to the CNE, the leadership of  MANA made a surprise announcement in which they renounced the party's agreement with the Correistas, expelled Correa from the party, and announced that they would not be presenting signatures to reinstate the party's ballot status.

Thwarted again, the Correistas were able to scramble and reach an agreement with yet another party, Fuerza Compromiso Social (Social Commitment Force), to run candidates on its ballot line.

Casado said that all the obstacles the Correistas have faced in fielding candidates in Sunday's elections, have meant that they have been able to field candidates in only 25 percent of urban, and 11 percent of rural districts.  “Our goal is to get 4 percent of the national vote,” said Casado, which would give Fuerza Compromiso Social ballot status for the next election.  Casado acknowledges that this will be very difficult, since the party is fielding candidates in less than a quarter of the districts, it will have to receive around 20 percent of the votes in the elections it has candidates in order to reach the 4 percent national total.

“We also hope to win a few major victories in some places to show that our movement is still alive,” said Casado.  The Correistas are focusing on running candidates for prefect and mayor in a number of Ecuador's major cities and provinces, and areas in which they have had a strong base, he explained.

It is an uphill struggle for the Correistas which have been attacked by virtually all other of Ecuador's many political parties and factions.  Their leaders are being investigated and prosecuted for corruption, with some already behind bars.  Ecuador's mass media, which is dominated by privately owned corporations, keeps up a daily barrage of anti-Correa news reports.  In addition to all this, the CNE decisions and surprise betrayal by MAPA have severely limited the Correistas ability to compete in the sectional elections.

Sunday's elections will also be important to parties and politicians on Ecuador's pro-capitalist political right, which are jockeying to the lead opposition to Moreno from that end of the political spectrum.  None of the major parties on the right performed well in the 2013 sectional elections and thus all are in position to make significant gains.  In 2017, the major parties of the right won only 4 of 24 prefectures, 43 of 221 mayor's offices, and 213 of 1,305 council seats. This includes such parties as Movimiento CREO (Creating Opportunities Movement) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creating_Opportunities , Partido Social Christiano (PSC - Social Christian Party)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Christian_Party_(Ecuador) , and Movimiento SUMA (United Society for More Action Movement)  https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fes.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMovimiento_SUMA , .

CREO is the party of Guillermo Lasso, a banker who narrowly lost to Moreno in the Presidential runoff of 2017.  Lasso is again considered to be a top contender for President in 2021.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo_Lasso  The PSC's Jaime Nesbot, the Mayor of Guayaquil, is another potential Presidential candidate.  SUMA is the party of Quito Mayor Mauricio Rodas, another popular politician on the Ecuadorian right.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauricio_Rodas

Another party with a fair amount at stake on Sunday is the Pachakutik Plurinational Unity Movement.  It is a political party which seeks to represent Ecuador's indigenous communities.  Pachakutik has a radical leftist and environmentalist platform and has long been a left critic of AP, including during Correa's Presidency.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachakutik_Plurinational_Unity_Movement_%E2%80%93_New_Country  The party has recently led militant anti-mining struggles to prevent environmental destruction and water pollution.  Pachakutik will be trying to hold on to it's 4 precfectures, 23 mayor's offices, and 92 council seats.  It will challenged in its stronghold of Manabi Province by Correista candidates.

Sunday's election will also feature a local referendum in Giron on whether residents approve of mining in that area.  The referendum became controversial, when the Moreno government sought to stop it on technical grounds.  However, an initial judicial victory by the government was reversed by a higher court and the referendum will go forward.  The Ecuadorian constitution specifies that development decisions, such as areas open to mining and the sale of mining concessions to multi-national corporations, are to be made by the national government, so the results of the Giron referendum are advisory only.

Ecuador is a multi-party [bourgeois] democracy with a lot of political parties.  Many are regional and not influential at the national level.  The Ecuadorian political spectrum is skewed to the left in comparison to the electoral spectrum in the United States.  Liberalism, on the left of the electoral spectrum in the U.S., is a right of center ideology in Ecuadorian politics, because of its strong advocacy of capitalist economics.  Parties in the center of the Ecuadorian political spectrum tend to identify themselves as social democratic, progressive, or populist.

The left of the electoral spectrum in Ecuador is occupied by parties which identify with some variant of socialist politics.  It should be noted, however, that the larger parties that identify themselves as socialist have not sought to nationalize industries nor pushed policies to transition from a capitalist economy to a socialist dominated economic system.  The Correistas did very little along those lines when they were in power.  Only smaller socialist and communist Ecuadorian parties advocate moving now to further nationalize industry.  (Ecuador founded a national oil company 42 years ago and it is currently called Petroecuador. Ecuador's oil industry remains open to the private sector and also to multi-national corporations. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecuador-oil-analysis/ecuador-unlikely-to-nationalize-oil-sector-idUSTRE56G70P20090717

Most experts expect that Alianza PAIS will suffer substantial losses in Sunday's elections.  If that occurs, the question is: which parties, those of the right, center, or left, will benefit the most?  Also, how will this election set the stage for the 2021 Presidential election?  Voter turnout will be high, as voting is compulsory in Ecuador for literate people ages 18 to 65, though the voting franchise extends to all those over the age of 16.

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Gimme Some Truth

BE SURE TO PASS THESE ARTICLES TO FRIENDS AND KIN. A LOT DEPENDS ON THIS. DO YOUR PART.

We can only wonder what Lennon would have made of today's utterly cynical and hypocritical world. Would he be just one more comfortable liberal mouthing the Deep State propaganda themes and screaming about human rights?

 

  1. Gimme Some Truth

John Lennon, The Plastic Ono Band

I'm sick and tired of hearing things from
Uptight short sided narrow minded hypocritics
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth
I've had enough of reading things
By neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians
All I want is the truth, just give me some truth

No short-haired, yellow-bellied
Son of tricky dicky's
Gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocket full of hopes
Money for dope, money for rope

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ohn Lennon wrote that song in 1971, and its value as message resonates even better today. His lyrics refer to some as ' uptight , short sided ( he meant ' sighted '? ) narrow minded hypo critics ( he may have even meant those in the media who ' critique ' the news) '. How sad that almost 50 years have passed and our A) Mainstream Media B) Politicians  and C) The Corporate Consumer machine are still at it. They are equal opportunity bullshit artists, undertaking the task of distorting the truth about what is affecting our society. Of course, behind the OZ curtain stand the wizards who control how we working stiffs should think, vote and shop. There was a cogent scene from Robert DeNiro's  2006 film The Good Sheperd. In the film Matt Damon plays a CIA official who visits a Mafia leader ( played by Joe Pesci), asking for some covert help. At the end of their visit, Pesci says ( I am paraphrasing) ' Let me ask you a question. Every group has something that they are known for. You know, the Niggers have their music, we Italians have the family... what do your people have?' Damon looks at him and answers ' We have America, and you're all just visitors.'

The brainwashing has been going on for so long that it's tough for minds to be deprogrammed through basic human discourse. Case in point: This writer has written consistently about my idea for a 50% Flat Surtax on any income over and above $ 1,000,000 a year. The first one million would be taxed at the regular rate of around 37% ( before deductions ) and would have no bearing on the surtax. When I discuss the plan with many working stiffs out there, the overwhelming majority of them  tell me ' Oh that's too much! Why not start at $ 5 million?' There you have it. The American Dream is alive and well in the psyche of our fellows. A good analogy to remember regarding the mainstream news outlets, electronic and print, is this:  You will know when you hear of a good , viable idea when the mainstream news rarely or hardly ever covers it. Ditto for our sacred elected officials. As far as our great Military Industrial Empire, stop believing the lies that are filtered out by both the Pentagon and of course the corporate world. Commercials as to our brave military that keeps us ' FREE' , or commercials about how the ' for profit ' health care industry cares about your wellbeing.... mute that boob tube! Folks, there is no ' truth in advertising' !

March 19th will be the 16th anniversary of one of the most heinous acts by our government... right up there, most assuredly, with 9/11. In both cases, elements within the inner circles of the Bush/Cheney Cabal must have skewed all that they could to arrive at what transpired. The sacrifice of tens of thousands ( in NYC and environs, what with the after effects of the towers being destroyed) and perhaps millions of Iraqi civilians, along with the destruction of one of the most modern countries in the Middle East, should give any decent person the desire, NO the drive, for truth. Those two actions by covert actors is why there is such a refugee crisis in Europe. It is also why there even is an ISIL or whatever our government calls those religious fanatics we actually "weaponised" as a global tool of imperial chaos. If not for US imperialist ( a word not used enough nowadays ) actions in the Middle East, there would be maybe just a few thousand fanatics in all those nations.

John Lennon was spot on in 1971. Without the mass of working stiffs demanding just that, TRUTH, our nation will continue to go down that rabbit hole.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, New York, longshoremen. He has been a freelance columnist since 2001, with more than 300 of his essays posted, besides The Greanville Post, on sites like Consortium News, Information Clearing House,  Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op-Ed News, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., where he writes a great deal about the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has an internet interview show, "It's the Empire... Stupid" with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net

The Russian Peace Threat examines Russophobia, American Exceptionalism and other urgent topics

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France’s ‘Holy Secular Empire’ slurs Yellow Vests as anti-Semitic, bans anti-Zionism

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

The French establishment is openly and cynically weaponising antisemitism. This is a coordinated attack on civil liberties and free speech seen in all soi-dissant "Western democracies".

"Out with Macron!" A cry shared by many.

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ack in November 2008, Rahm Emmanuel, then president-elect Barack Obama’s chief of staff and later the detested mayor of Chicago, famously told The Wall Street Journal, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. … This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not before.” A wave of “socialise the losses” right-wing capitalism followed; millions lost their homes, pensions, jobs, sanity, neighbourhood cohesion, etc.

France is using the anti-establishment crisis of the Yellow Vests in a way that Zionist-supporter Emmanuel certainly approves of: they are using it to criminalise anti-Zionism.

Backtracking from just a day earlier, President Emmanuel Macron threw French liberty under the bus and said that France will now define “anti-Zionism as a modern-day form of anti-Semitism”.

Well I guess I better totally rewrite this article! LOL, not a chance.

France had an atrocious 74% leap in anti-Jewish acts in 2018, which caused nationwide demonstrations against anti-Semitism on February 19.

More against anti-Jew acts… I could not be.

But the demonstrations were a clear manipulation of righteous anti-racism sentiment, because they were orchestrated right alongside an effort to slander the anti-government Yellow Vest movement as a basket of racist, anti-Jewish, hillbilly, intolerant, uncultured deplorables. Now we see they had a second goal, just as I had openly suggested.

Domestic things first: France’s Holy Secular Empire rallies to attack tolerance & democracy

Given that they are calling for the resignation of the president and his cadres, from the very beginning of the Yellow Vest movement the government has obviously done everything they could to portray the Yellow Vests as such… and also as radicals, rioters and rejects of society – anything but legitimate.

Massive rally in Bordeaux: the herd cynically manipulated.

But the marches show that (what I refer to as) France’s “Holy Secular Empire” has sprung back into action. The Holy Secular Empire is characterised by pro-French jingoism, intolerance for those who are deemed not tolerant enough of the “correct” things (no matter how morally repugnant and intellectually incorrect said things may be), and a hypocritical subversion of France’s constitutionally mandated and culturally revered laïcité (political secularism) towards all things regarding race and religion only when certain cultural groups are targeted.

Paris, 2015—Shameless sanctimonious hypocrisy: most of the criminal world leaders who created the "terror" crisis engulfing Europe march to denounce the inevitable consequences of their treacherous actions and inactions. In photo: Hollande, Merkel, Tusk, Netanyahu, et al.

The apex of the Holy Secular Empire was the Je Suis Charlie marches in 2015, when fake-leftists worldwide wept for the right to draw a picture of Prophet Mohammad with his butt cheeks spread open and star covering his anus and also Mohammad directing a pornography movie. (Yes, those are among the cartoons they published.)

The arrival of the anti-austerity, anti-neoliberal, anti-EU, anti-Eurozone, anti-1% Yellow Vest movement has forced the HSE’s fake-leftist ideals back to the fore. The last week has seen a massive media and political blitz which aims to instrumentalise the fight against racism as a way to turn public opinion against the Yellow Vests, and eventually put a stop to their marches.

It's easy to proclaim bravery in an affluent suburb of Paris. Images like this one attest to a typical bourgeois sensibility. Would this mother allow her child to be protesting in Gaza, exposed to the tender mercies of the Israeli army?

The slur campaign went into overdrive when the atrociously right-wing and pro-Zionist writer Alain Finkielkraut was filmed at the Yellow Vest demonstration on February 16th being insulted (being correctly labelled) with the phrase “dirty Zionist”. Finkielkraut is a former leftist who renounced his leftist ideals for reactionary ones, and such sellouts – those who can perhaps best critique the left because they understood it at one time – are always adored by the 1% and the Mainstream Media.

SIDEBAR
L'Affair Finkielkraut—A turncoat and rightwing zionist justly rejected by the masses

As the author states, many among the Gilets Jaunes know who Finkielkrait is, and they treat him accordingly. Many Gilets Jaunes understand politics far better than the ordinary confused American, and they know who their enemy is. You can't fault them for that. Besides, it is the constant and heinous crimes of Israel (the state which, as was to be expected, pioneered the weaponization of anti-semitism), and the disgusting hypocrisy and sanctimony of the zionist-controlled media and the entire Western political class, with their treachery and identity politics, and endless wars, that created this situation of mass alienation in the population of many Western states, a phenomenon perhaps more advanced and visible in Europe than in the US, but certainly present throughout the imperial west. It does not help, of course, that Finkielkraut, billed as a "philosopher", a title also appropriated by revolting poseur Bernard-Henri Lévy, another "public intellectual" and imperial apologist of the most insidious kind protected by the mainstream media (note the alarming headlines, like "philosopher Finkielkraut violently insulted..."), is also a notorious turncoat, a former leftist who is now deeply and comfortably ensconced in the folds of the class he once correctly excoriated.

Below, an example of typical anti-Gilet Jaunes coverage by French media, by a channel properly classified as establishmentarian/right wing.

BFMTV
Published on Feb 17, 2019

"Barre toi, sale sioniste de merde", "grosse merde sioniste", "nous sommes le peuple", "la France elle est à nous".  Le philosophe et académicien Alain Finkielkraut a été injurié et sifflé ce samedi en marge de la manifestation des "gilets jaunes" dans le quartier de Montparnasse à Paris, selon des vidéos diffusées sur les réseaux sociaux et qui ont déclenché une vague d'indignation au sein de la classe politique.

"Go away, dirty Zionist shit", "big shit Zionist", "we are the people", "France is ours". The philosopher and academician Alain Finkielkraut was insulted and booed this Saturday on the sidelines of the demonstration of "yellow vests" in the Montparnasse district of Paris, according to videos broadcast on social networks and which sparked a wave of indignation within the [bought] political class.

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But, firstly, what is Alain Finkielkraut doing at a Yellow Vest march? Of course they hate him – he was similarly booed and shooed away at the leftist, Occupy-inspired Nuit Debout protests in 2016. The French say “once does not make a custom”, but it seems as if every leftist movement can now count on Finkielkraut getting back in the spotlight by annoying them with his presence. Of course, just like in 2016, Finkielkraut wants people to believe in 2019 it’s just anti-Jew hatred, but he clearly refuses to accept that people legitimately resent and detest him for being one of the French’s 1%’s leading intellectual toadies.

I saw Finkielkraut being interviewed on right-wing BFM TV just after the incident: he was doing his usual rear end-kissing of the average Frenchman’s bygone culture. He was going on and on about how the Roman Catholic French Church is a natural ally of the Jews, begging for their support and fraternity… and never mentioning Islam as their third Abrahamic brother. That’s odd, considering that much of the Koran’s very first chapter calls for unity with Jews and Christians, declares that Islam does not discriminate against their apostles and embraces them, how the children of Israel are exalted above other nations, and on and on and on. I asked a Middle Eastern Christian colleague why Finkielkraut didn’t include Islam, considering these obvious facts?

“Ramin,” he said, “why do you think Alain Finkielkraut would commit career suicide?”

LOL, good point. But this is why people on the left hate Finkielkraut – he makes bad things worse by insisting that la belle France réactionnaire doesn’t have to change.

The Finkielkraut episode, combined with a couple recent typical pro-Nazi graffiti taggings, allowed the Mainstream Media to point the finger at the Yellow Vests. Ever obliging, and you cannot make this up: French Parliamentarians rushed to try and ban anti-Zionist speech!

Surprised – why? In 2014, during Israel’s latest war on Gaza, France became the first country to ban pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Foreign things second: Since when do French politicians care about the French?

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]anning anti-Zionism is – without a doubt – truly dangerous for the safety of the French, ruinous for France’s international image, ruinous to France’s cultural values…but since when do French politicians care about France?

The Parliamentarians said the debate ban was on the grounds that “anti-Zionism” is the same as “anti-Semitism”.” For several days this falsity was relayed by every major news organisation with zero comment or a question. Clearly, the Holy Secular Empire is a mighty force, but not an enlightened one. (Same slanderous and illegal arguments are being made across the channel, as the utterly corrupt bipartisan establishment and their media whores seek ways to block the ascension of Jeremy Corbyn.—Eds.)

"I am an anti-Zionist Jew." BUT: one cannot be both pro-Jew and anti-Zionist… not even if you are a Jew. But brave Jews who stand up for justice are the best barrier to genuine anti-semitism.

Why the backtracking by Macron? I thought he was pro-Nazi? Let’s not forget that last November Macron was forced to call off his planned tribute to Vichy France leader and Nazi collaborator Marshal Petain – that makes him more responsible for the recent spike in anti-Jewish acts than anyone, no? People follow the lead of the leader, and he praised Nazi-era France.

From the beginning I openly said on social media that the timing of the marches made their legitimacy even more suspect: they were the night before the French President’s annual genuflecting before CRIF, the umbrella of Jewish groups which serves as France’s influential Jewish lobby. I felt bad for France’s Jews – the timing of these marches already seemed more like political manipulations which aimed to culminate in the criminalisation of anti-Zionism, but the timing helped perpetuate the idea that Jews are overly powerful among the French elite.

The annual genuflecting also shows that, while individual and anecdotal violence against Jews needs far steeper penalties in France, on the institutional level France’s Jews are not just well-represented but punching above their weight: there is no similar annual genuflecting by the French president at an French Muslim organisation, even though Muslims are 10 times the number of Jews in France. Each new French president even has the gall to create their own, preferred “new, improved, Franco-Muslim group”, which no Muslim takes remotely seriously but which the Mainstream Media takes as, LOL, legitimate.

Macron made his backtracking at the CRIF dinner. Ugh…bad for Jews, bad for France, bad for Palestinians, bad for those who oppose terrorism in France (i.e everyone) and on and on.

Global things third: we still have the Yellow Vests, at least. Also: I hate Zionism

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]all the cops on me….

The reality is that mainstream journalists simply won’t stand up for the difference between Zionism and anti-Semitism – even if brave Jews like that one in the photo do – and even if such inaccuracies hurt the image of the everyday Jew.

But such is the effectiveness of Israeli hasbara (1), counter-information propaganda aimed at Western audiences, that even the word “Jew” cannot be broached. The Western concept that the word “Jew” is somehow a racial slur was hilariously lampooned by the US TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

And it affected this article, too: I thought the title should be, “France’s ‘Holy Secular Empire’ slurs Yellow Vests as anti-Jew, bans anti-Zionism” – and why not? It’s shorter, and I like to pretend that column inches still matter in digital media. It’s also more accurate: “Semitic” is a language – meaning the branch which includes Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic – yet it has been appropriated/given to the adherents of Judaism, regardless of national origin, for so long that the average person now associates “Semite” solely with Jews.

For example, I just had a fine English colleague proofread my upcoming book, Socialism’s Ignored Success Story: Iranian Islamic Socialism, and in one part I discussed out how the “non-Semitic Iranians” might have been predisposed to disagree with certain early Islamic leaders who pushed pro-Arab, and thus ethnically sectarian, policies. This intelligent journalist noted in red next to “the non-Semitic Iranians” the following: “?”. LOL, I changed it, because this is even more of a lost cause than my effort to use “Southwest Asian” instead of the Eurocentric “Middle East”. And I changed the headline because I thought that many half-hearted anti-racists would see “anti-Jew” and hysterically think, “I am too turned off to click on this link – the language is too harsh. The writer must be a nut.”

The Yellow Vests do not believe that “Jews are secretly in charge” – what they oppose is the continuation of this caste culture, which allows high finance, careerist politicians and hipster Parisians to be the only ones writing public policy. The Yellow Vests, I’m sure, are majority pro-Palestinian, but I’m even more sure that they view this banning of anti-Zionism as a truly dangerous distraction which will not keep them from relying on food banks at the end of the month.
The mistake made by that young anti-Zionist Jew – who is my brother from another mother – is that he went to the wrong demonstration that night: he went to the fake-leftist / hipster / bobo (bourgeois bohémien) / politician photo-op / pro-Zionist / anti-Yellow Vest demonstration at Place de la République, when he should have been with me at Ménilmontant in the Arab part of town.

I covered that demonstration for PressTV. It was organised by the Union of French Jews for Peace, a wonderful group I have interviewed for years. Heck, some of the very best pro-Palestinian activists in France are Jewish! That is where this young man belonged. The protest was expressly against all racism and expressly against the attempt to slur the Yellow Vests as anti-Semitic.

We numbered about 700 people, with plenty of Yellow Vests, and we garnered far less media coverage (in French: At Ménilmontant, a demonstration of real anti-racists’ against anti-Semitism), but plenty of Israeli hasbara. The Times of Israel headline read, “At Ménilmontant a man yelled ‘Netanyahu licks the (rear end) of Hitler”. If this is how they treat those who are protesting against anti-Semitism, imagine how they treat Palestinians, LOL….

As usual, the people I interviewed there put it better than I could, even though that’s my job:

The Yellow Vests are not ethnic nor religious – they are social, political and fiscal. These are workers who work yet still can’t pay their bills at the end of the month, even though France is such a rich country. If there are anti-Jews in the Yellow Vests, well, 58% of the country supports the Yellow Vests, which equates to 39 million people: out of 39 million people you will find some jerks, and also some racists, but the slurring of the Yellow Vests as anti-Jew is only because the establishment and their toadies will do anything to stop the Yellow Vest movement… which will absolutely not stop.

It won’t stop because, as I wrote at the very beginning of the movement: there is simply no political pathway for the Yellow Vests’ political ideas to be implemented. Therefore, they have no choice but to continue because political demands aren’t whims, but are almost implacably formed over time – in this case, eight years of far-right economic austerity. Yellow Vests can only turn to other Yellow Vests.

At the big demonstration at Place de la République there were 20,000 people – this is a very rare instance of a demonstration in France not being obviously undercounted by authorities; many put the official numbers of the Saturday Yellow Vests at 1/3rd the official total.

But I wasn’t going to to République to celebrate the fake-leftist idea of anti-racism, even though most everyone else did. You had Catholic bishops there,  even though they are supposed to not get involved in political demonstrations; you had Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy; you had plenty of attractive, young, hip people in the very heart of hipster Paris. What’s certain is that everyone was breaking their arms patting each other (and themselves) on the back for being so very progressive, tolerant, modern and leftist.

That made it really quite similar to the largest ever gatherings of the Holy Secular Empire: the 4-million person marches after the Charlie Hebdo attacks (see pictures above), which was at Place de la République too. I was there doing my usual dissident thing in very unwelcoming environment, LOL, and back then what all those fake-leftists hemmed and hawed about was the answer to this simple question: “How is drawing a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad bent over, with his butt cheeks spread, and a star over his anus, or a cartoon of Mohammad filming a porn movie not inflammatory / impolite/ dangerous / racist / Islamophobic / yelling “fire “in a crowded theater?” Fake-leftists still have no answer for that, of course, but they marched just the same and got teary over the sacred glories of French “liberty”.

Real leftists said, “Well, political science ain’t science, so like can attract like here: that stuff is dangerous and reactionary so I’m not surprised who they ran into….”

Another iteration of the media wing of the HSE was on the very day of the 2017 presidential election: French fake-leftist newspaper nonpareil Libération knowingly broke a law insisting on media neutrality just prior to elections by printing a cover which read, “Do what you want but vote Macron”.

This is the way I imagined the paper’s budget meeting that day: the hysterical female journalists and the namby-pamby male journalist at Libé (or the namby-pamby female journalists and the hysterical male journalists – that’s fine by me) were sitting around their meeting room table and swearing before their atheistic god that they simply could not risk democracy taking place without fetters; their technocratic creed and noblesse oblige forced them – Gandhi-like – to flout the law in order to save the establishment from the far-right Marine Le Pen… even if that meant putting in the far-right (economically) Macron (who is also now a far-right imperialist, too). If history judged their efforts not the equal of Gandhi’s, Libération had but one choice: to formalise and protect a caste system, also like Gandhi.

The Yellow Vests do not believe that “Jews are secretly in charge” – what they oppose is the continuation of this caste culture, which allows high finance, careerist politicians and hipster Parisians to be the only ones writing public policy.

The Yellow Vests, I’m sure, are majority pro-Palestinian, but I’m even more sure that they view this banning of anti-Zionism as a truly dangerous distraction which will not keep them from relying on food banks at the end of the month.

Those slurs won’t stick, but the Yellow Vests will – more marches are certain. Jews welcome… but only if they are Yellow Vest sympathisers – this is a class-based political movement, of course! Practitioners of identity politics will never be welcome.

As far as Macron… ugh. You have not failed to disappoint, and I openly expected you to be worse than Marine Le Pen, who is terrible. Macron proves, once again, that capitalism-imperialism is far worse than (and is the cause of) racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, sectarianism, etc.

Feel free to distribute (Plus on est de fous...)

Crossposted with The Saker, a fraernal website. 

Appendix

Do you know what hasbara is? Let an Israeli journalist tell you.

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Below, an excellent explanation of what "hasbara" means as a tool of Israeli global public relations.

By

Published November 13, 2011

Hasbara: Why does the world fail to understand us?

A short discussion of the Israeli term used to describe the ongoing, ever-growing, national propaganda effort.

A sign at an event hosted by “The Israel Project” (photo: Noam Shiezaf)

I have used the word “Hasbara” pretty freely recently, and so do more and more people, without stopping to explain what it actually means. The use of this term has been widespread in Israeli Hebrew for many years now, usually with a positive meaning, though not always in a positive context – there is a never-ending debate on “the failure of Hasbara” – yet I often wonder how many people outside Israel actually know it, let alone understand what it stands for. So here are a few words on Hasbara.

Hasbara is a form of propaganda aimed at an international audience, primarily, but not exclusively, in western countries. It is meant to influence the conversation in a way that positively portrays Israeli political moves and policies, including actions undertaken by Israel in the past. Often, Hasbara efforts includes a negative portrayal of the Arabs and especially of Palestinians.

The Hebrew meaning of the word Hasbara (הסברה) is “explanation” (the term “propaganda” has a different word in Hebrew – תעמולה). I believe that the popular use of this term also reflects a widespread public notion that a better effort of explaining Israel’s actions to the world will generate better understandings of Israel’s policies, and more international support. A less common use of the verb “to explain” (להסביר), which has to do with welcoming someone, was used in the past by the Tourism Ministry in campaigns urging Israelis to show a hospitable approach to tourists.

Hasbara represents only one side of propaganda, as it is mostly aimed at foreign audience. The use of the Hebrew term Hasbara in a critical context, rather than “propaganda” or “public diplomacy” (the title of the Wikipedia entry on the issue), is necessary, because Hasbara efforts are wider and their goals much more ambitious than any similar activities taken by all democracies and most non-democracies. Hasbara targets political elites, opinion makers and the public simultaneously; it includes traditional advocacy efforts as well as more general appeals made through mass media, and it is carried out by government agencies, non-governmental organizations, lobbying groups, private citizens, students, journalists and bloggers.

The Israeli government encourages all citizens to actively engage in Hasbara. Recently, it even distributed brochures with talking points to all Israelis traveling abroad (a Hebrew web version of the campaign can be viewed here). Israelis are asked to engage in politically-oriented conversations with their hosts and contacts abroad. Rather than discuss the Palestinian conflict, they are advised to cite Israeli technological achievements, mention environmental policies and take pride in notable cultural works. The West Bank is to be discussed – under its ancient Hebrew name, Judea and Samaria – as a potential tourist marvel.

Until a few years ago, the main government agency carrying out Hasbara work was the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its Media and Hasbara department. Under Ehud Olmert’s government, and more so under Netanyahu’s, there was a considerable increase in Hasbara efforts. Prime Minister Netanyahu has launched for the first time a Hasbara Ministry, headed by a government minister (the current hasbara minister is Yuli Edelstein). The Hasbara Ministry includes a situation room, which operates in five languages; it has a new-media team that can reach, according to the office’s web page, 100,000 volunteers on social media networks, as well as many bloggers.

UPDATE: The Ministry of Hasbara is hiring! “Advantage to minorities and representatives of the gay community.” More details here.

On top of the Hasbara Ministry, there is a Hasbara branch in the Prime Minister’s Office (in charge of both local and international PR). The IDF Spokesperson has an international arm with a new media branch, which makes Hasbara efforts and does not limit itself to providing information on army activities. Other government agencies, such as the Ministry of Tourism or the Ministry of Culture, also take part in ad-hoc Hasbara activities. There are other agencies that have gradually moved into greater involvement in Hasbara – perhaps the most notable is The Jewish Agency, which used to serve as a liaison to Jewish communities abroad, and now trains its envoys to American campuses to engage in propaganda.

Under Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the Foreign Ministry was instructed to take a bigger role in the Hasbara effort (a popular rant against the foreign ministry for many years was that it deals with peacemaking instead of advocacy, and Lieberman has promised to solve that). I was contacted awhile ago by a private agency that won a contract with the foreign ministry; they were looking for professionals to play hostile journalists in simulations with Israeli diplomats.

Much of the Hasbara work carried out outside official channels – but with heavy official influence – is carried out through non-governmental organizations such as Stand With Us, The Israel Project and more. These organizations produce resources – booklets, slideshows, flyers, maps, polls and more – and spin news events in ways which are favorable to the Israeli government. A lot of thought is put into influencing opinion-makers: journalists and bloggers are flown on a regular basis to tours in Israel, accompanied by government officials, while Israeli representatives – former diplomats, journalists, soldiers and officers – are brought to give lectures at campuses, think-tanks, conferences and other public events around the world. Organizations also try to influence the grassroots level by granting Hasbara fellowships to international students in Israel.

(Noam Sheizaf is an independent journalist and editor. He has worked for Tel Aviv’s Ha-ir local paper, for Ynet.co.il and for the Maariv daily, among others.)

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European Parliament backs US-led coup in Venezuela

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

By Alex Lantier and Alejandro Lopez

02/03/2019

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he European Parliament has voted a resolution supporting the brazen US-led coup to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, endorsing the Trump administration’s aggressive policy.

While right-wing oppositionist Juan Guaidó unilaterally declared himself president amid a mass rally in Caracas on January 23, Trump Tweeted: “Today, I have officially recognized the President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the Interim President of Venezuela.”

On Thursday night, the EU parliament voted 439 to 104, with 88 abstentions, to support Maduro’s ouster. The resolution “recognises Mr Guaidó as the legitimate interim president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela” and urges that EU “Member States adopt a strong, unified stance, and recognise Juan Guaidó as the only legitimate interim president of the country.” It also asks EU states to let Guaidó’s allies take over their Venezuelan embassies, by deciding to “accredit those representatives to be appointed by the legitimate authorities” of Venezuela. 

EU support for the coup in Venezuela marks a new exposure of the EU’s pretensions to be the gentler, more democratic alternative to US imperialism. It is ultimately no less ruthless and willing to resort to war than Washington in pursuit of its predatory interests. As Washington escalates its confrontation with Russia and China, EU countries are stepping up social austerity and moving to pour hundreds of billions of euros into their own armies...
The resolution calls for strong-arming Maduro into holding new elections. It urges EU authorities “to engage with the countries in the region and any other key actors with the aim of creating a contact group ... with a view to building an agreement on the calling of free, transparent and credible presidential elections.”

The resolution “condemns the fierce repression and violence, resulting in killings and casualties,” which it blames exclusively on Maduro.

Venezuelan Ambassador to the EU Claudia Salerno criticized the vote, warning, “The important thing is to ask whether the European Union is willing to take a step forward to bring Venezuela into a situation of civil war; that is the question that must be asked.” She said the EU is not “above the UN Security Council,” where Maduro can rely on Russian and Chinese support.

Pro-coup Venezuelan oppositionist Antonio Ledezma told Euronews, however, that the EU “contact group” should only be used to hasten regime change: “If they’re going to create a workgroup or something like that, then it has to be clear that we would only accept a workgroup to define the terms of the end of usurpation. Not false statements or negotiations that back Maduro.”

Most of the main EU powers endorsed the coup: Germany, Britain, France and Spain all issued an ultimatum, going beyond the EU parliament resolution, for Maduro to step down in eight days. Italy’s right-wing government broke with the consensus, however.

While the hypocrites in Europe rush to join the gangster acts of the Trump administration, the Venezuelan people reiterate their support for the Bolivarian Revolution. This took place on Sat. 2, 2019.

Foreign Minister Manlio di Stefano of the Five-Star Movement (M5S) condemned the coup, declaring: “Italy does not recognize Guaidó because we are absolutely against the fact that a country or group of external countries can define the domestic politics of another country. This is known as the principle of noninterference and it is recognized by the UN.” Citing the 2011 NATO war in Libya, he warned that a coup could lead to war: “The same error was made in Libya; today everyone must recognize that. We must prevent the same thing from happening to Venezuela.”

Di Stefano’s position was publicly contradicted by Junior Foreign Minister Guglielmo Picchi of the neo-fascist Lega party, however. Picchi Tweeted, “Maduro’s presidency is finished.”

EU support for the coup in Venezuela marks a new exposure of the EU’s pretensions to be the gentler, more democratic alternative to US imperialism. It is ultimately no less ruthless and willing to resort to war than Washington in pursuit of its predatory interests. As Washington escalates its confrontation with Russia and China, EU countries are stepping up social austerity and moving to pour hundreds of billions of euros into their own armies to join in the imperialist scramble to plunder profits and markets around the world.

In this scramble, Washington and the European powers are ultimately rivals—a rivalry that in the previous century twice plunged humanity into world war.

As the EU aligned itself with Trump in Venezuela, it announced the launch of a financial instrument to skirt the US dollar and US sanctions against Iran to allow trade in humanitarian goods. Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, the founder of a Europe-Iran business forum, hailed it as “an experiment and as part of a bigger project to strengthen EU economic power. … The EU is doing something despite the position of the US, and in opposition to the US. This is something new.”

In Venezuela, however, the EU powers apparently prefer to extend their influence at Russian and Chinese expense by backing a right-wing US coup, for now at least.

Some of their calculations were laid out in a University of Hamburg briefing, titled “China is Challenging but (Still) Not Displacing Europe in Latin America.” It wrote that Europe “still holds the upper hand as the principal investor in Latin America,” with €1.2 trillion invested in the region but only $110 billion from China. However, it worried that while “China has not really displaced Europe in terms of Latin American trade … this might change in the future.”

On this basis, Ouest France sounded the call for a coup to oust China and Russia from Venezuela. Its January 31 editorial, “Venezuela divides the world,” stated: “Russia and China are faithful allies of the regime and will not easily abandon Maduro. Behind the ideological veneer, economic and geopolitical realities come first. Russia is Caracas’s top arms supplier and China its top creditor, lending it over 50 billion euros in exchange for oil. So Nicolas Maduro’s collapse would be a shock for Beijing, which is already facing the greatest slowdown of its economy in 40 years.”

It noted the conflict in Europe between those “more sensitive to Russian and Chinese support, like Italy,” and London, Paris, Berlin, The Hague, Lisbon and Madrid, who “exercise progressive pressure so normal elections take place. Failing that, these countries will recognize Juan Guaidó.”

Despite its invocations of democracy, Ouest France made clear it looks to the Venezuelan generals to oust Maduro, hailing “the decisive role of the army.” After noting “the absence, for now, of shifts from the army brass in favor of Guaidó,” it added: “But the situation is fluid, including among the officers. And US pressure is very strong.”

EU condemnations of repression in Venezuela are utterly hypocritical. Beyond their support for a coup in Caracas, their own regimes at home are turning themselves ever more into authoritarian police states deploying violence against opposition in the working class. While it denounces Maduro’s repression of right-wing protests in Venezuela, the EU is silent on the repression by the French government—with thousands of arrests and hundreds of casualties—of “yellow vest” protests against social inequality.

The Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) government, which holds multiple political prisoners after cracking down on the 2017 Catalan independence referendum, aggressively campaigned for regime change last week in Latin America. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stopped in Santo Domingo to denounce the Nicaraguan Sandinista government, after working to expel it from the social-democratic Socialist International. He then traveled on to Mexico to pressure it to back the Venezuelan coup.

Top PSOE official Alfonso Guerra made clear what methods Madrid is considering in Venezuela with remarkable comments endorsing the bloody 1974-1990 dictatorship of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet. While military dictatorships are “at least effective in the economic field,” Guerra said, Maduro is “useless.”

Citing surging inflation in Venezuela, Guerra added: “Between the horrible dictatorship of Pinochet, and the horrible dictatorship of Maduro, there is a difference: in one place the economy did not collapse, in another it has.” Guerra’s preference for a military regime carrying out mass murder over Maduro is an unambiguous signal that the EU supports a bloody coup in Venezuela.

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UN Panel Details White Helmets’ Staged Chemical Attacks, Organ Thief; MSM Silent

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

By EVA BARTLETT

An utterly cynical anglo-american propaganda project from the start, the White Helmets, hailed as heroes by the presstitutes, were in reality key actors in the West's numerous false flags against Syria's legitimate government.

Utter silence. That is the sound of Western corporate media days after a more than one-hour-long panel on the White Helmets at the United Nations on December 20.

Journalists were present, so the silence isn’t due to lack of access. And in any case it was live streamed on the UNTV channel, and remains available on Youtube for keen observers to watch.



More likely, the silence is due to the irrefutable documentation presented on the faux-rescue group’s involvement in criminal activities, which include organ theft, working with terrorists — including as snipers — staging fake rescues, thieving from civilians, and other non-rescuer behaviour.

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n the panel was one of corporate media’s favourite targets to smear, British journalist Vanessa Beeley, who gave a fact-based lecture on her years of research into the founding, funding and nefarious activities of the White Helmets, research which includes numerous visits to White Helmets centers, countless testimonies from Syrian civilians, and even an interview with a White Helmets leader in Dara’a al-Balad, Syria.

Maxim Grigoriev, the director of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy (a member of the UN’s Global Counter-Terrorism Research Network) spoke at length, detailing some of the over 100 eyewitnesses his foundation has conducted interviews with.

These include over 40 White Helmets members, 15 former terrorists, 50 people from areas where terrorists and WH operated, with another over 500 interviewed by survey in Aleppo and Daraa.

Among testimonies presented by Grigoriev were numerous accounts of the White Helmets’ involvement in organ theft.

A head of nursing in Aleppo is cited as seeing the body of his neighbour who had been taken by the White Helmets to Turkey for “treatment”. “I lifted the sheet and saw a large wound cut from the throat to the stomach… I touched him with my hand and understood there were clearly no organs left.”

Another interviewee said: “A person receives a minor injury, is rescued… and then brought back with their stomach cut open and with their internal organs missing.”

The interviews with civilians, White Helmets and terrorist members themselves put to rest NATO’s and their lapdog media’s explanations that in the White Helmets there are a few bad apples but in general these are humanitarian rescuers.

For example, a Syrian civilian, Omar al-Mustafa, is cited as stating:

“Almost all people who worked in nearby White Helmets centers were al-Nusra fighter or were linked to them. I tried to join the White Helmets myself, but I was told that if I was not from al-Nusra, they could not employ me.”

Still more testimonies detail staged fake rescues and staged chemical attacks. Omar al-Mustafa was cited as stating:

“I saw them (White Helmets) bring children who were alive, put them on the floor as if they had died in a chemical attack.”

The testimonies incriminate not only the White Helmets organization, but also the doctors who, in 2016, Western corporate media fawned over.

According to one interviewee, Mohamed Bashir Biram, his attempt to take his father to a White Helmets affiliated al-Bayan hospital, failed. He said: “Since my father was not a fighter, the doctors in the hospital refused to help him and he died.”

But in 2016, the Western media was praising the same valiant doctors, in their crescendo of war propaganda around Aleppo.

Many other independent journalists have corroborated aspects of what the panelists — also comprising Syrian journalist Rafiq Lotef, and Russian and Syrian Representatives to the UN, Ambassadors Vassily Nebenzia and Bashar al-Ja’afari — described in detail.

In my own visits to eastern Ghouta towns last April and May, residents likewise spoke of organ theft, staged rescues, the White Helmets working with Jaysh al-Islam, while an Aleppo man likewise described them as thieves who steal from civilians, not rescuers.

Copy-paste corporate media silence

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ournalists present at the panel were not interested in asking follow-up questions on organ theft, staged rescues, or any of the content presented, unsurprisingly, instead asking questions about other Syrian issues.

A CBS journalist didn’t have a single question about what had just been presented, although CBS has previously repeatedly reported on the White Helmets. But their reporting, like most in corporate media, spun the transparent propaganda that is corporate media coverage of the group.

001

Four days after the UN panel, to my knowledge, not a single corporate media outlet has covered the event and its critical contents.

This is in spite of the fact that the Western corporate media has been happy to propagandize about the White Helmets for years, and to attack those of us who dare to present testimonies and evidence from on the ground in Syria which contradicts the official narrative.

Russian, Syrian, and Lebanese media did report on the panel, and of course if Western corporate journalists ever do bother to mention it, they will ignore the incriminating evidence presented by panellists and instead accuse Russia of bullying the White Helmets.

Prior to the panel, a number of publications came out with articles echoing one another, and in fact echoing claims already repeatedly uttered about a “Russian disinformation campaign” against the White Helmets.

That’s right, that’s the best they’ve got.

‘Big bad Russia’ tarnishing the pristine image of the White Helmets, a theme rerun ad nauseum over the last year or two, and one which I addressed in early January 2018 when I was under attack for questioning the White Helmets.

In my rebuttal to a mid-December 2017 Guardian smear, I pointed out that it was not Russia which began looking into the White Helmets’ affiliations, funding, and role in the propaganda war, but two independent North American researchers.

Canadian journalist Cory Morningstar in September 2014 exposed the role of the New York based PR firm, Purpose Inc, in marketing campaigns for the White Helmets.

And as I wrote, “In April 2015, American independent journalist revealed that the White Helmets had been founded by Western powers and managed by a British ex-soldier, and noted the “rescuers” role in calling for Western intervention—a No Fly Zone on Syria.”

These, and the subsequent numerous investigations by Vanessa Beeley, including on the ground in Syria, taking countless testimonies of Syrian civilians on the matter of the White Helmets, far precede any Russian media reporting on the group.

That Russian media and bodies have since done their own investigations does not equate to a “disinformation campaign”, but rather doing the job corporate media are clearly incapable of, and unwilling to do.

Why haven’t the media written about the panel, or as per the corporate media norm, issued yet more smears against panellists?

They haven’t because they are cornered, and while they can always try their standard juvenile character smears and libel, they cannot refute the facts, the countless testimonies which corroborate yet still more testimonies taken by independent journalists over the years.

Or as Ambassador Nebenzia said:

“We understand why #WhiteHelmets are being defended by #Western capitals. They do not hide that they provided substantial financial support to this organization and instrumentalized it to pursue political goals under humanitarian cover. It’s logical to protect your asset.”

Last week, it came out that German reporter for Der Spiegel, Claas Relotius, winner of the German Reporter Award 2018, had falsified a number of his articles. One article on the fakery noted Relotius had, “confessed to have fabricated at least 14 of 55 articles,” including a “story about a Syrian boy who believed he triggered the civil war in the country with his graffiti, an article that won the German Reporter Prize just three weeks ago but which was made up.”

Former German journalist, Udo Ulfkotte, in 2014 reached his tipping point and admitted to having for years lied for Western, anti-Russia interests, admitting to making propaganda against Russia after having been bribed by billionaires, and by the Americans, to “not to report exactly the truth.”

As 2018, a year of staggering corporate media fake news, draws to a close, so do the last vestiges of credibility of media lauding the White Helmets.

Given the scandalous depth of their lies, it is unlikely corporate journalists will have an Ulfkotte moment and admit to their manifold deceptions.

But it doesn’t really matter, because more and more, Western corporate media, and the propaganda construct known as the White Helmets they support, are becoming irrelevant.

With its terrorist proxies defeated in Syria, and a full US troop pullout, Israel has no other recourse but to assume the task of toppling Assad by aerial bombing Damascus from Lebanese airspace.

White Helmets leadership have been repatriated to Canada, UK and other EU countries for future “humanitarian” missions.

Meanwhile, the SDF will work with the regular Syrian Arab Army as the US troops are leaving them.

Interestingly, the US will still allocate $500 million for the Kurdish-led SDF even with US pullout. This is typical of all Western militarist interventions everywhere, i.e. creating a pretext for intervention abroad is how they ultimately bleed their own taxpayers dry.

All of the above is proof enough that even in the halls of the United Nations, the Deep State is no longer in control.

About this author
Eva Bartlett is a freelance journalist and rights activist with extensive experience in the Gaza Strip and Syria. Her writings can be found on her blog, In Gaza.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Revolutionary wisdom

Words from an Irish patriot—