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Gruwelijke Russische doomsday wapens: o.a. walvissen, krekels en Pokémon

Posted on by Telmo Claro

Je zou wellicht denken dat onze reguliere media bij tijd en wijle knettergek zijn met het herhalen van bijvoorbeeld aantoonbare VS leugens, maar zelfs dat kan men bij de makers van die leugens, dus de VS, altijd nog veel beter.

Het volgende uiterst humoristische en sarcastische artikel, geschreven door Caitlin Johnstone en afgelopen donderdag gepubliceerd, moet je lezen, maar let op: het gevaar bestaat dat je in een lachstuip blijft!
Whales, Crickets, And Other Fearsome Russian Doomsday Weapons

Caitlin Johnstone

Headlines were blaring the word “Russian” again the other day because the mass media narrative managers found yet another reason for westerners to feel terrified of the icy potato patch that we’d barely ever thought about prior to 2016. I’d like to talk about the Kremlin’s latest horrifying horrific addition to its fearsome doomsday artillery, and recap a few of the other incredibly frightening and terrifying tactics that those strange Cyrillic-scribbling demons of the East are employing to undermine truth, justice, and the American way. Just to make sure we’re all good and scared like we’re supposed to be.
Gather the kids, clutch your pearls and sign off on hundreds of billions of dollars of extra military spending, my patriotic brethren! Here are five super scary ways the Red Menace is trying to destroy you and everything you hold dear:

1. Whales

Headlines and TV news segments from virtually all mainstream outlets were falling all over themselves the other day to report the fact that some Norwegians found a tame beluga whale with a harness on it, and “experts” attest that the animal may have been part of a covert espionage program for the Russian navy.
While there is no indication that this spying cetacean has been trained in the arts of sonar election meddling or shooting novichok from its blowhole, the Guardian helpfully informs us that the harness was labeled “Equipment of St. Petersburg”, and was equipped to hold “a camera or weapon”.

“Marine experts in Norway believe they have stumbled upon a white whale that was trained by the Russian navy as part of a programme to use underwater mammals as a special ops force,” the Guardian reports.
The Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang, which picked up on the discovery well before the breathless English headlines began gracing us with their presence, is a teensy bit less Ian Flemingesque in its reporting on the matter: the harness is equipped for a GoPro camera. The words “Equipment of St. Petersburg” are written in English.
Why is the Russian military writing “Equipment of St. Petersburg” in English on the garments of its aquatic special ops forces, you may ask? If there were indeed a secret beluga espionage squad assembled by Russian intelligence services, would they not perhaps avoid writing the home address of the whales on their harnesses altogether, and maybe, you know, not let them run free in the wild?

And to that I would say, stop asking so many questions. That’s just what Putin wants.

2. Crickets

Glenn Greenwald

✔@ggreenwald

NBC and MSNBC Blamed Russia for Using “Sophisticated Microwaves” to Cause “Brain Injuries” in U.S. “Diplomats” in Cuba. The Culprits Were Likely Crickets. https://theintercept.com/2019/01/07/nbc-and-msnbc-blamed-russia-for-using-sophisticated-microwaves-to-cause-brain-injuries-in-u-s-diplomats-in-cuba-the-culprits-were-likely-crickets/ …

2,228

6:54 PM – Jan 7, 2019

NBC and MSNBC Blamed Russia for Using “Sophisticated Microwaves” to Cause “Brain Injuries” in U.S….

We now have what might be the most vivid, reckless and dangerous illustration yet of how NBC functions.

theintercept.com







A report seeded throughout the mainstream media by anonymous intelligence officials last September claimed that US government workers in Cuba had suffered concussion-like brain damage after hearing strange noises in homes and hotels with the most likely culprit being “sophisticated microwaves or another type of electromagnetic weapon” from Russia. A recording of one such highly sophisticated attack was analyzed by scientists and turned out to be the mating call of the male indies short-tailed cricket. Neurologists and other brain specialists have challenged the claim that any US government workers suffered any neurological damage of any kind, saying test results on the alleged victims were
misinterpreted.
The actual story, when stripped of hyperventilating Russia panic, is that some government workers once heard some horny crickets in Cuba.
*cough*

3. Puppies

Ye gads, is is nothing sacred? Is there any weapon these monsters won’t use to transform the west into a giant, globe-spanning Mordor?
That’s right, in 2017 puppies became one of the many, many things we’ve been instructed to fear in the hands of our vodka-swilling enemy to the east, with mass media outlets reporting that a Facebook group for animal lovers was one of the sinister, diabolical tactics employed by St. Petersburg’s notorious Internet Research Agency. As the Moon of Alabama blog has explained, the only evidence we’ve seen so far actually indicates that the Internet Research Agency’s operations in America served no purpose other than to attract eyeballs for money. As journalist Aaron Maté wrote of the highly publicized Russian Facebook meddling, “Far from being a sophisticated propaganda campaign, it was small, amateurish, and mostly unrelated to the 2016 election.”
The late, great Robert Parry, one of the earliest and most outspoken critics of the Russiagate narrative, covered this one for Consortium News in an article he authored a few months before his untimely passing:

“As Mike Isaac and Scott Shane of The New York Times reported in Tuesday’s editions, “The Russians who posed as Americans on Facebook last year tried on quite an array of disguises. … There was even a Facebook group for animal lovers with memes of adorable puppies that spread across the site with the help of paid ads.”

Now, there are a lot of controversial issues in America, but I don’t think any of us would put puppies near the top of the list. Isaac and Shane reported that there were also supposedly Russia-linked groups advocating gay rights, gun rights and black civil rights, although precisely how these divergent groups were “linked” to Russia or the Kremlin was never fully explained. (Facebook declined to offer details.)

At this point, a professional journalist might begin to pose some very hard questions to the sources, who presumably include many partisan Democrats and their political allies hyping the evil-Russia narrative. It would be time for some lectures to the sources about the consequences for taking reporters on a wild ride in conspiracy land.

Yet, instead of starting to question the overall premise of this “scandal,” journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, etc. keep making excuses for the nuttiness. The explanation for the puppy ads was that the nefarious Russians might be probing to discover Americans who might later be susceptible to propaganda.

“The goal of the dog lovers’ page was more obscure,” Isaac and Shane acknowledged. “But some analysts suggested a possible motive: to build a large following before gradually introducing political content. Without viewing the entire feed from the page, now closed by Facebook, it is impossible to say whether the Russian operators tried such tactics.”

4. Pokémon

Yes, Pokémon.
This Russia hysteria has been a long, wild ride, and sometimes it’s honestly felt like they’re just experimenting on us. Like they’ve been testing the limits of how ridiculous they can make this thing and still get mainstream Americans to swallow it. Like the establishment propagandists are all sitting around in a room smoking blunts and making bets with each other all,
“I’m telling you, we can sell a Pokémon Go Kremlin conspiracy.”
“Do it!”
“No way. There’s no way they’ll go for it.”
“Yeah well you said that about the puppy dogs!”
And then they release their latest experiment in social manipulation and place bets on how many disgruntled Hillary voters they can get retweeting it saying “God dammit, I knew that jigglypuff looked suspicious!”
The October 2017 CNN report which sparked off a full day of shrieking “OMG THEY’RE EVEN USING PIKACHU TO ATTACK OUR DEMOCRACY” headlines was titled “Exclusive: Even Pokémon Go used by extensive Russian-linked meddling effort”, and it reported that Russia had extended its “tentacles” into the popular video game for the purpose of election meddling. Apparently the Internet Research Agency attempted to hold a contest using the game to highlight police brutality against unarmed Black men, which of course is something that only an evil autocracy would ever do.

Not until the fifteenth paragraph of the article did we see the information which undercut all the frantic arm flailing about Russians destroying democracy and warping our children’s fragile little minds:

“CNN has not found any evidence that any Pokémon Go users attempted to enter the contest, or whether any of the Amazon Gift Cards that were promised were ever awarded — or, indeed, whether the people who designed the contest ever had any intention of awarding the prizes.”


Mmm hmm.

5. Laughter

Mark Ames

✔@MarkAmesExiled

Turns out jokes are a Russian disinformation conspiracy.
Is nothing safe? What will those barbarian Others think of next? Weaponizing our tears? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46567364 …

587

6:45 PM – Dec 15, 2018

Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during his meeting with athletes at the Russia in October 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during his meeting with athletes at the Russia in October 2018

How Putin’s Russia turned humour into a weapon

Russia’s government wants people to have a laugh – as long as it’s at its opponents’ expense, and not Mr Putin’s.

bbc.co.uk







Late last year the BBC published an article titled “How Putin’s Russia turned humour into a weapon” about yet another addition to the Kremlin’s horrifying deadly hybrid warfare arsenal: comedy. The article’s author, ironically titled “Senior Journalist (Disinformation)” by the BBC, argues that Russia has suddenly discovered laughter as a way to “deliberately lower the level of discussion”.
“Russia’s move towards using humour to influence its campaigns is a relatively recent phenomenon,” the article explained, without speculating as to why Russians might have suddenly begun laughing at their western accusers.
Is it perhaps possible that Russian media have begun mocking the west a lot more because westerners have made themselves much easier to make fun of? Could it perhaps be the fact that western mass media have been doing absolutely insane things like constantly selling us the idea that the Kremlin could be lurking behind anything in our world, even really innocuous-looking things like puppy dogs, Pokémon and whales? Could we perhaps be finding ourselves at the butt end of jokes now because in 2016 our society went bat shit, pants-on-head, screaming-at-passing-motor-vehicles insane?

Nahhh. Couldn’t be. It’s the Russians who’ve gone mad.
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Caitlin Johnstone | May 2, 2019 at 12:54 pm |

Verenigde Arabische Emiraten bewapenen ISIS en Al Qaida

Posted on by Telmo Claro
De Jemenitische ‘oorlogsheer’ Abu Al-Abbas, eerder fondsenwerver voor Al Qaida, een man die men verdenkt lid te zijn geweest van IS (ISIS), wordt van wapens voorzien door de Verenigde Arabische (terreur) Emiraten, ofwel : VAE (je weet wel, dictaturen waarmee ons koningshuis goede banden onderhoudt…)….
Al-Abbas is één van de bondgenoten van de VS, waar Middle East Monitor (MEMO) stelt dat de VS hiermee een vreemde bondgenoot is, daar hij eerder op de zwarte lijst van de VS stond, een lijst met terroristen en terreurgroepen……. Ik begrijp wel dat MEMO niet al te negatief wil berichten over de VS, daar je als mediaorgaan uit het Midden-Oosten niet de woede van de VS op de hals wilt halen, maar men weet bij MEMO dondersgoed dat de VS ondanks haar ‘oorlog tegen terreur’, eerder al is betrapt op het bewapenen van IS en andere terreurgroepen….. Sterker nog: de VS stond aan de wieg van IS, niet in de laatste plaats om deze terreurgroep te gebruiken tegen regimes die de VS niet welgevallig zijn, zoals het bewind van Khadaffi in Libië en het Assad bewind in Syrië…
De Washington Post (WaPo) wijst op de vreemde bondgenootschappen van alle strijdende partijen in Jemen, waar de Post uiteraard ook doelt op ‘het bondgenootschap’ tussen de Houthi rebellen en Iran, terwijl daar tot nu toe niet één steekhoudend bewijs voor kon worden geleverd (dit terwijl deze fantasie al meer dan 3 jaar oud is!)….. Uiteraard is MEMO een soennitische organisatie, dat zal dan ook wel de reden zijn dat men zich daar van de domme houdt en spreekt over vreemde bondgenootschappen, terwijl deze in het geheel niet vreemd zijn….
Wat is er vreemd aan de VS dat terreurgroepen en de Saoedische terreurcoalitie steunt? Een coalitie die met hulp van de VS en Groot-Brittannië een genocide uitvoert op de sjiitische bevolking van Jemen….. Volgens zeggen zouden er al 85.000 Jemenitische kinderen het slachtoffer zijn geworden van deze genocide, waar nu zelfs de levens van 2 miljoen kinderen groot gevaar lopen door die genocide, (niet alleen door het bombarderen van diverse burgerdoelen, van huizenblokken tot ziekenhuizen, maar deze genocide wordt ook gevoed door honger, cholera en difterie….) In totaal zouden nu 20 miljoen mensen het gevaar lopen het leven te verliezen…….
Het is vreemd dat men bij de reguliere media nog steeds de VS de handen boven het hoofd houdt, terwijl men daar toch ook moet weten dat zonder de VS er geen genocide zou bestaan in Jemen…… Je kan zelfs stellen dat zeker de reguliere westerse massamedia mede verantwoordelijk zijn voor die genocide, dit vanwege de gekleurde pro-VS houding van deze media, waar men zonder enig bewijs Iran keer op keer durft aan te merken als één van de strijdende partijen in Jemen en men de situatie die in dat land is ontstaan niet bij de naam durft te noemen: een ‘volwaardige’ genocide…….
IS en Al Qaida kregen onderdak in Jemen van de vorige president Al-Hadi, waar deze groepen ook werden gebruikt door de terreurgroepen van Al-Abbas…… Deze soennitische terreurgroepen gingen tekeer tegen de sjiieten in Jemen, zelfs moskeeën waren niet veilig voor dit geteisem…… Het voorgaande was dan ook de reden voor de Houthi’s om in te grijpen en op te trekken tegen Al-Hadi, waarna deze aftrad en vluchtte naar Saoedi-Arabië….. Deze reli-fascistische terreurstaat dwong Al-Hadi zijn presidentschap weer op te pakken, zodat hij S-A te hulp kon roepen tegen de sjiitische Houthi’s……. De rest is geschiedenis, een geschiedenis die resulteerde in de aangehaalde genocide op de sjiitische bevolking van Jemen…….
Zoals al vaak op deze plek gevraagd: hoe is het mogelijk dat de wereld alweer wegkijkt terwijl er een genocide gaande is in Jemen..?? Na Rwanda durfde het westen te stellen dat dit de laatste keer zou zijn geweest dat de wereld wegkijkt terwijl er een genocide wordt uitgevoerd……

Het volgende artikel werd eerder gepubliceerd op MEMO en werd door mij overgenomen van Anti-Media:

UAE Arms Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen: Report

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor UAE Arms Al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen: Report
January 2, 2019 at 9:33 am
(MEMO) — A Yemeni warlord who has also been a fundraiser for Al-Qaeda and at one point is believed to have belonged to Daesh is being armed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) the Washington Post has discovered. In a startling interview, Abu Al-Abbas revealed that he has received millions of dollars in weapons and financial support for his fighters from the UAE, which is one of Washington’s closest Middle East allies, despite the fact that he was once a member of militant groups on the US terrorist list.

Armed Al-Qaeda soldier [File photo]
Armed Al-Qaeda soldier [File photo]

“The coalition is still supporting me,” he claimed, but he denied that he is a terrorist. “If I really was a terrorist, they would have taken me in for questioning.”
The Post points out that Al-Abbas’s case underscores the awkward alliances and odd bedfellows that are found on all sides in Yemen’s four-year war. It also raises questions about the UAE’s conduct in the conflict, highlighting its objectionable alliance as well as its part in the humanitarian disaster unfolding in the southern Arabia Peninsula.
Along with its more powerful Gulf neighbor Saudi Arabia, the UAE has been involved in a vicious military campaign in Yemen since 2015. The war is seen widely as a disaster which has created one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Second World War, with an estimated 85,000 Yemeni children having died and a further 20 million facing starvation. The Gulf coalition is seeking to defeat the northern Yemeni rebels known as Houthis and restore the country’s government-in-exile. The deadly conflict has been supported by the US, which assists it Gulf allies with intelligence-gathering, logistical support and the sale of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and equipment.
Officials cited by the Post spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters freely. They said that the UAE “preferred to work with” some Islamic fundamentalists who serve as a “counterweight” to its enemies in the south. Under such circumstances, the official acknowledged, “It’s very easy for Al-Qaeda to insinuate itself into the mix.”
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP as the Yemeni affiliate is known, was responsible for sending parcel bombs on flights into the United States in 2010 and a failed plot to bomb an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, among other attacks against Western targets. Destroying the group is one of America’s major goals in the war on terror.
Ahmed Fadhil Abu Suraima, who is the deputy governor of the central province of Bayda in Yemen, commented on the alliance with both Al-Qaeda and Daesh fighters in Yemen. He questioned the UAE’s motive. “They try to make it appear in the media that they are with the United States and they are fighting against Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State,” he insisted. The implication is that the UAE is, in fact, neither one nor the other.
According to Nicholas Heras, a Middle East expert at the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington-based think tank, someone like Al-Abbas “has become a type of indispensable man for the UAE in Yemen.”
While Al-Abbas denies the terrorism allegations, saying his opponents in Taiz fed the US authorities with false intelligence, he still admits that his militia fought alongside Al-Qaeda and Daesh fighters. Some militants, he explained, operated in areas that he controlled but, “We didn’t approve of their ideology.” His men, he added, later pushed them out.

========================================
Zie ook:
‘Blok (VVD minister BuZa) deelt volkomen onterecht VS zorgen over Iran‘

‘Genocidepleger Saoedi-Arabië klaagt Houthi’s en Iran aan bij VN Veiligheidsraad vanwege terreur‘

‘Frankrijk dreigt journalisten met gevangenisstraf voor openbaarmaking documenten Jemen‘

‘Activistische Franse burgers blokkeren met succes het laden van wapens voor Saoedi-Arabië‘

‘Strijd in Oost-Jemen waar lokale stammen de Saoedische import van militair materieel blokkeren‘

‘Meer bewijs voor VS betrokkenheid bij transport en bevrijding van IS leden‘

‘Al Qaida Jemen krijgt VS wapens van Saoedi-Arabië‘

‘VS heeft Saoedische terreurcoalitie getraind hoe Jemen te bombarderen‘

‘Robin Ramaekers (VTM ‘oorlogscorrespondent’) vertelt Radio1 luisteraars van de NOS over Jemen……‘

‘VS blokkeert VN resolutie tot een staakt het vuren in Jemen, waar VS vriend Saoedi-Arabië een genocide uitvoert‘

‘Facebook censureert foto’s van verhongerende Jemenitische kinderen als ‘sexual content’‘

‘VS heeft vliegend oorlogstuig van Saoedische terreurcoalitie gratis van brandstof voorzien…..‘

‘Marina de Regt (VU en Midden-Oosten Instituut) slaat de Jemenitische plank volledig mis‘

‘VS dreigt Iran met militair geweld op beschuldiging van terreur die de VS zelf op grote schaal uitoefent‘



‘VN bespreekt humanitaire hulp aan Jemen met bewind in Teheran; voorts: hoe de Saoediërs en de VS Jemen vernietigen‘

Yemen Be Damned, Pompeo Doubles Down on US Support for Saudi Arabia

‘Blok (VVD ‘minister’ van BuZA) wenst in VN geen oproep tot wapenboycot te doen i.z. Jemen, in de VS blokkeerde huis van afgevaardigden een debat over de genocide in Jemen‘

‘Trump administratie staat op het punt de Houthi’s in Jemen op de terreurlijst te zetten…….‘

‘Jemen: genocide en oorlog hebben tot nu toe al rond de 200.000 mensenlevens geëist…..‘

‘Amal Hussain, het meisje van 7 dat voor het westen symbool stond voor humanitaire crisis (lees: genocide) in Jemen, is overleden…….‘

‘Jemen: VS politici roepen uiterst hypocriet om een onmiddellijk eind aan de ‘oorlog……’‘

‘Saoedische terreurcoalitie stuurt 10.000 militairen extra naar de Jemenitische havenstad Hodeida >> de genocide in een hogere versnelling‘

‘Jemen: ware dodental door geweld Saoedische terreurcoalitie veel hoger dan eerder geschat‘

‘Jemen genocide: democratische oppositie steunt met bijna 100% Trumps terreuragenda, terwijl ze hem aanvallen op niet bewezen Russiagate……‘

‘Saoedi-Arabië bombardeert busstation in Jemen…….‘

‘Saoedische terreurcoalitie geeft eindelijk toe dat de aanval op een schoolbus niet gerechtvaardigd was……‘

‘Saoedische terreurcoalitie raakt alweer een bus met kinderen, dit keer tijdens een bombardement van een vluchtelingenkamp……..‘

‘Genocide Jemen: ‘eindelijk ontdekt’ door reguliere media VS, nu nog Nederland en de EU‘

‘Saoedische aanval op schoolbus in Jemen: 43 kinderen vermoord……‘

‘Aanval op schoolbus Jemen, door Saoedi-Arabië opzettelijk als doel gekozen, geen reden voor VS veroordeling……‘

‘Bom waarmee schoolbus in Jemen werd getroffen is van VS makelij‘

‘Democratisch congreslid eist antwoorden over de rol van de VS bij de massamoorden in Jemen, zoals de aanval op een schoolbus‘

‘Saoedi-Arabië woedend over VN rapport waarin de waarheid wordt verteld over S-A en de oorlog in Jemen‘

‘Trump wijst elke bezuiniging af op de hulp van de VS voor de genocide die Saoedi-Arabië uitvoert in Jemen‘

‘8 miljoen Jemenieten, inclusief een groot aantal kinderen, dreigen te sterven van de honger……..‘

‘Door VS geregisseerd bombardement op ziekenhuis Hodeida >> 50 doden……‘

‘Jemen, de gemartelde, vermoorde of ‘verdwenen’ Jemenieten, onder verantwoording van de Saoedische coalitie……‘

‘Jemen: de vergeten genocide en haar kinderslachtoffers………‘

‘Saoedi-Arabië geeft toe in Jemen gruwelijke oorlogsmisdaden te hebben begaan…. ‘ (en daarmee is ten overvloede nog eens duidelijk gemaakt dat ook de VS meewerkt aan oorlogsmisdaden en die genocide in Jemen…..)

‘Agressie vanwege een vermeende gifgasaanval op Douma, terwijl de tienduizenden kinderen die in Jemen worden vermoord middels een genocide blijkbaar niet meetellen……‘

‘Congres VS geeft akkoord voor verdere steun aan de Saoedische genocide in Jemen……‘

‘VS versterkt militaire terreur t.b.v. genocide >> deelname aan aanval op Jemenitische havenstad Hodeida…….‘

‘VS en Groot-Brittannië weigeren een onmiddellijk staakt het vuren op haven t.b.v. door genocide geterroriseerd Jemen…..‘ (zie ook de links in dat bericht)

‘Mike Pompeo (ex-CIA, VS min. van BuZa en ‘christen’) liegt openlijk over genocide in Jemen‘ (zie ook de links in dat bericht)

‘Saoedi-Arabië heeft op verzoek van de VS intensief haar islam ideologie (en die van ISIS) verspreid…..‘ (soennitisch, terwijl het merendeel van de Jemenitische bevolking en haar beschermers, de Houthi’s sjiitisch zijn)

ThinkProgress eiste censuur van Facebook en werd inderdaad gecensureerd…. ha! ha! ha! ha!

Posted on by Telmo Claro

Eén van de verdedigers van het neoliberale establishment, ThinkProgress heeft vorige maand een artikel van Casey Michel gepubliceerd waarin Caitlin Johnstone werd uitgemaakt voor Iraanse trol… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! Michel reageerde niet één keer op aan hem gerichte berichten van Johnstone, waarin ze uitlegt dat e.e.a. nonsens is.

In het artikel stelde Michel dat nep-accounts op Facebook niet alleen uit Rusland komen, maar ook uit Iran……. (valt me nog mee dat hij Noord-Korea niet in één moeite mee heeft genomen) Voorts loofde Michel de pogingen van Facebook Iraanse propaganda te weren van haar ‘platform’*, maar heeft eerder Facebook en Twitter meermaals gewaarschuwd actie te ondernemen tegen dergelijke (Russische) beïnvloeding via accounts op hun sites.
Nu is ThinkProgress dus zelf aan de beurt en wordt van Facebook geweerd, dit voor een artikel over Brett Kavanaugh, de ultrarechtse schoft en favoriete kandidaat van Trump voor het hooggerechtshof. De Weekly Standard doet het feiten controleren (fact checking) voor Facebook en vond het bewuste artikel met ‘fake news’ over Kavanaugh.

Volgens Johnstone zal het weren van ThinkProgress op Facebook niet van lange duur zijn. Jonhstone heeft verder geen leedvermaak over deze zaak en ze stelt dan ook terecht dat Facebook zich niet heeft te bemoeien met wat er wordt gezegd op dat platform, al is ze uiteraard tegen het oproepen tot geweld.
Lees het artikel van Johnstone waarin zij o.a. de vloer aanveegt met The Atlantic Council, de ‘psyops‘ fabriek van de NAVO, die samen met de Weekly Standard de censuur regelt op Facebook…… Volkomen terecht pleit Johnstone voor een volledig vrij internet, waar de plutocraten van Silicon Valley, de NAVO en andere (censuur) organen of lijpe psychopaten als Kristol geen zeggenschap hebben over wat er wel of niet geschreven of getoond mag worden (uiteraard met uitzondering van [kinder] porno en oproepen tot het plegen van geweld**):

ThinkProgress Censored By Facebook After Cheerleading Facebook Censorship

In an article last month titled “Facebook announces that fake accounts are now coming not just from Russia”, fauxgressive establishment apologia firm ThinkProgress falsely reported that I have been writing for an outlet that is alleged to be part of an Iranian propaganda campaign. I repeatedly brought this false claim to the attention of Casey Michel, the article’s author, telling him that ten seconds of research or any attempt to contact me would have shown him that the articles published by the outlet in question were just reblogs of earlier publications from my platform, but Michel ignored the many notifications he received from myself and my Twitter followers and went on merrily interacting with other posters. As of this writing, the article remains uncorrected.

In the article, Michel documented Facebook’s heroic efforts to shut down alleged Iranian propaganda outlets, ominously warning his readers that “Russia is by no means the only foreign adversary exploiting social media’s inherent openness.” In other articles for ThinkProgress, Michel is repeatedlyseen wagging his finger at Facebook and Twitter for not doing more to censor “Russian propaganda”, and in a July article titled “Facebook says both sides share fake news, defends Infowars’ presence on its platform — Mark Zuckerberg has an interesting way of prioritizing ‘high quality news’” another ThinkProgress author criticized Facebook for not censoring Alex Jones. Jones was censored by Facebook the following month.

So I think it’s understandable that those of us who have been warning of the dangers of internet censorship find it a bit funny to see ThinkProgress now complaining that it has been censored by Facebook.


Glenn Greenwald

✔@ggreenwald

Congratulations to everyone who 1) held up Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard as a responsible, serious, admirable voice; and 2) urged Facebook to become the arbiters of who could & couldn’t be heard on the internet. This is just the start of your work: https://thinkprogress.org/facebook-weekly-standard-fact-check-thinkprogress-6176df1d5749/ …
10:40 PM – Sep 11, 2018

Facebook’s idea of ‘fact-checking’: Censoring ThinkProgress because conservative site told them to

A perfect example of how Facebook is catering to conservatives.

thinkprogress.org

ThinkProgress reports that its traffic from Facebook has been slashed by eighty percent due to a “fact check” by the Weekly Standard which, through a series of moronic mental contortions, found ThinkProgress guilty of reporting fake news about Brett Kavanaugh of all things. In a twist of irony which would be delicious if it weren’t so disgusting, the Weekly Standard is one of Facebook’s authorized “fact checkers”, and happens to be the brainchild of none other than bloodthirsty psychopath and rehabilitated #Resistance hero Bill Kristol.
ThinkProgress is part of a very large and diverse branch of progressive punditry whose ultimate job is to help centrist empire loyalists feel like leftist revolutionaries, and since 2016 one of the many appalling consequences of this bizarre environment has been the embracing of Iraq-raping neoconservatives like Kristol and Max Boot by Democratic Party loyalists. In a bid to stay relevant despite having been consistently wrong about literally everything in foreign policy for the last two decades, these murderous ghouls have repackaged themselves as a woke, cuddly alternative to the Trumpian faction of the Republican Party, and have been rewarded for their efforts with regular platforms on MSNBC and the Washington Post (WaPo).
So with ThinkProgress getting censored by Facebook, you really couldn’t ask for a more clear-cut case of reaping what you sow. Nevertheless, it is wrong for anyone to be deprived of political speech, even if much of their political speech consists of attempts to silence the political speech of others. And if there is anything more gross than political speech being regulated by Silicon Valley plutocrats and a NATO psyop factory, it’s political speech being regulated by Silicon Valley plutocrats, a NATO psyop factory, and Bill Kristol. ThinkProgress should not have its audience restricted.
https://twitter.com/BenjaminPDixon/status/1039606355747856386
All the “let me help you cheer for the establishment while pretending to oppose it” pundits who celebrated Alex Jones’ coordinated de-platforming last month are falling all over themselves to spin this new development in a way that allows them to feel as though they aren’t being proven wrong day after day after day, but of course they are. Facilitating the censorship of anyone’s speech is facilitating the censorship of your own speech in the long run, and we’re not even having to wait long to see it this time around. In a corporatist system of government, corporate censorship is state censorship; the massive new media corporations being implored to regulate which political speech gets an audience and which doesn’t have extensive ties to secretive government agencies and a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
I do not expect ThinkProgress to remain on Facebook’s restricted list for long; the real targets of internet censorship are not partisan outlets which prop up establishment politics and help legitimize America’s two-headed one party system. But that isn’t the point. The point is that Silicon Valley plutocrats, the NATO propaganda firm Atlantic Council, and the Weekly Standard should not be determining who gets an audience in the new media environment and who doesn’t. Nothing that has anything to do with Bill Kristol should ever have any power over anyone. If our choices are between letting people think for themselves and letting the guy who’s always wrong about everything determine what shows up in people’s news feed, the choice is obviously the one which doesn’t involve placing faith in the man who helped deceive America into butchering a million Iraqis***.
_____________________

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying my book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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* Je kan er donder op zeggen dat accounts van bestaande Iraniërs die hun regering voor bepaalde zaken prijzen, worden gezien als overheidsaccounts die louter propaganda maken. Anders gezegd als je niet negatief schrijft over Iran (of Rusland) wordt je versleten als een Russische of Iraanse trol (deel uitmakend van een ‘trollenfabriek’, die in Mordor staat met CEO Sauron….)……..

** Al moet gezegd worden dat het internet bomvol oproepen tot geweld staat, oproepen die niet worden geweerd van het internet (en Facebook) al komen die oproepen van de reguliere media en westerse politici, die bijvoorbeeld het liefst Noord-Korea met een kernaanval van de kaart zouden willen vegen…… Als je als persoon een dergelijke oproep zou doen als reactie op laat ik zeggen de illegale oorlog tegen Irak, die aan meer dan 1,5 miljoen mensen (!!!) het leven heeft gekost, een oproep tot geweld tegen terreurentiteit VS en haar oorlogshond, terreurorganisatie NAVO, je onmiddellijk zal worden gearresteerd……..

*** Het dodenaantal in Irak sinds de VS een illegale oorlog tegen dat land startte in 2003 (met politieke en militaire steun van o.a. Nederland) ligt al boven de 1,5 miljoen vermoorden…. (!!!)

Zie ook:
‘Wie het nieuws controleert, controleert de wereld……‘

‘Facebook en Twitter verwijderen de eerlijke journalistiek en oprechte opinie >> censuur…..‘

Facebook verlaat ‘tranding news’ voor ‘brekend nieuws’ van 80 reguliere mediaorganen, ofwel nog meer ‘fake news…..’‘

‘Facebook komt met nieuwsshows van betrouwbare media als CNN en Fox News…. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!‘

‘Censuur op het internet met vliegende start in de VS, ‘het land van het vrije woord….’‘

‘Facebook en NAVO werken samen in censuur op niet welgevallig nieuws……‘

‘Facebook helpt Saoedi-Arabië: doodstraf door onthoofding van vrouw die het waagde kritiek te uiten…..‘

‘Aanval op alternatieve media ‘succesvol’: meer en meer sites worden van het net geweerd………‘

‘VS staatscensuur op Facebook (ook in de EU)‘

‘Facebook stelt perstituee van New York Times aan als censuur-agent…… ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!‘

‘Het echte Facebook schandaal: manipulatie van de gebruikers en gratis diensten voor eertijds presidentskandidaat Obama…….‘

‘Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook doneerde aan de politici die hem in de VS aan de tand voelden >> in het EU parlement maakte hij gebruik van megalomane EU politici…..‘

‘Facebook wil samen met door Saoedi-Arabië gesubsidieerde denktank censureren…. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!‘

‘Media Too Busy Defending John McCain to Report the News That Actually Affects You‘ Onder andere aandacht voor PRISM.

‘Westerse massa misleiding in aanloop naar WOIII……‘

‘VS gebruikt sociale media om ‘fake comment’ te verspreiden en de bevolking te hersenspoelen met leugens, ofwel ‘fake news….’‘

‘Eis een nee tegen censuur op het internet!‘

Genocide Jemen: ‘eindelijk ontdekt’ door reguliere media VS, nu nog Nederland en de EU

Posted on by Telmo Claro

In het hieronder opgenomen artikel van Caitlin Johnstone, o.a. gepubliceerd op Medium(.com) en Anti-Media, stelt zij dat de reguliere (massa-) media van de VS eindelijk wakker zijn geworden en aandacht besteden aan de vreselijke oorlog van de Saoedische coalitie (inclusief de steun en onmisbare hulp van de VS en GB) tegen de sjiitische bevolking van Jemen….. Een bevolking die ‘godzijdank’ worden gesteund door de de Houthi’s, een uiterst functionele strijdgroep, die ingreep nadat IS en Al Qaida de sjiitische bevolking aanvielen, zelfs in moskeeën……. Deze 2 extreme terreurgroepen kregen in Jemen van de opgestapte president (onder druk van Saoedi-Arabië weer president) al-Hadi onderdak aangeboden…….

Jammer dat Johnstone het woord ‘genocide’ uit de weg gaat, immers daar is op zeker sprake van, een genocide waar de wereld voor het overgrote deel alweer geen aandacht aan schenkt, althans totdat de Saoedische coalitie toegaf een bus met kinderen onder vuur te hebben genomen, om wraak te nemen voor een Saoedische man die omkwam bij een raketaanval van de Houthi’s……. Al spreken ook die media niet over een genocide, ondanks alle bombardementen, honger, cholera en difterie (allen oorzaak van de Saoedische terreur), die al aan duizenden het leven heeft gekost……

Nu is de verontwaardiging groot, zelfs bij MSNBC, die zoals Johnstone in haar vorig artikel stelde in 1 jaar tijd niet één keer aandacht schonk aan de smerige, door de VS gesteunde en gefaciliteerde oorlog tegen het Jemenitische volk, maar wel 455 keer aan Stormy Daniels……* Zonder steun van de VS en GB zou Saoedi-Arabië de oorlog tegen de Houthi’s niet kunnen voeren, zo doet de VS de coördinatie van de bombardementen, tankt het de straaljagers en bommenwerpers van de Saoedische terreurcoalitie (inclusief Marokko**) in de lucht af, zodat ze zo ‘efficiënt’ mogelijk kunnen bombarderen…..
Doelen van deze moorddadige coalitie: huizenblokken, ziekenhuizen, scholen, energiecentrales, waterbedrijven, huwelijks- en begrafenisceremonies en de infrastructuur inclusief de riolering….. Door het laatst genoemde is er zelfs de eerdere genoemde grote cholera uitbraak ontstaan in Jemen, die nog maandelijks honderden doden eist….. Zelfs een ziekenhuis van Artsen Zonder Grenzen (MSF) speciaal voor cholerapatiënten werd door de Saoedische coalitie plat gebombardeerd, voordat de eerste patiënten konden worden behandeld………. (hoeveel bewijs wil je nog hebben dat de Saoedische terreurcoalitie, inclusief de VS en GB, bezig is met een genocide??)
Intussen is er ook de al eerder genoemde difterie uitbraak in Jemen, dit nog naast de hongersnood die intussen al meer dan 2 jaar aanhoudt en waarvoor vorig jaar nog een actie werd gevoerd in Nederland……..

Over Nederland gesproken, ik moet zeggen dat de media hier wel behoorlijk lauw hebben gereageerd op de Saoedische aanval tegen een schoolbus en dat op een drukke markt……. Als Assad iets dergelijks had gedaan had het land op z’n kop gestaan en waren er al vragen gesteld in de Kamer……. Terwijl de keren dat de hysterie toeslaat over het gedrag ‘van Assad’, die opwinding keer op keer onterecht blijkt te zijn, zoals zelfs bevestigd door VN onderzoek, echter dit verandert niets aan de hysterie, men blijft ‘gewoon’ volhouden dat Assad zijn eigen volk afslacht, zonder ook maar een greintje aan bewijs te leveren……..
In de VS begint men wakker te worden nu nog Nederland en de EU!!

Mainstream Media Finally Concedes Defeat on Yemen, Ends Blackout Of Coverage

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor Mainstream Media Finally Concedes Defeat on Yemen, Ends Blackout Of Coverage
August 20, 2018 at 9:45 am
Written by Caitlin Johnstone
(CJ Opinion) — Last month, an article by Fair.org went viral in republications by popular alternative media outlets ranging from Salon to Zero Hedge to Alternet to Truthdig, among many others. The article was initially titled “ACTION ALERT: It’s Been Over a Year Since MSNBC Has Mentioned US War in Yemen”, but many subsequent republications went with variations on the more attention-grabbing headline, “MSNBC has done 455 Stormy Daniels segments in the last year — but none on U.S. war in Yemen”.
The centerpiece of the article was the following graphic, which I saw shared on its own many times in my social media feeds:
That’s about as in your face as it gets, isn’t it?
Ever since the Saudi-led assault on Yemen began in March of 2015, alternative media outlets everywhere have been repeatedly and aggressively decrying the mainstream media in the US and UK for their spectacular failure to adequately and accurately cover the violence and humanitarian disaster with appropriate reporting on who is responsible for it. After the 2016 US election, journalist Michael Tracey wrote an essay documenting how throughout the entire year and a half that Americans were pummeled with updates from the mass media about candidates and their campaigns, not one single question about Yemen was ever asked by any mainstream outlet of any candidate.
This is of course outrageous, but because of how media coverage works, mainstream attention was never drawn to the problem. It hasn’t been a total media blackout, but because it only turns up in mainstream media reports every once in a while with little if any emphasis being placed on who is behind the devastation, it occupies a very peripheral place in western consciousness. The average American would probably be able to tell you that some parts of their government appear to be concerned about Russia, Syria, Iran and North Korea, because those rival nations have been the subject of intense mass media coverage, but if you asked them about Yemen you’d likely be told something like “I think there’s some kind of humanitarian crisis there?”, if anything.
This has all changed in the last few days. Suddenly, the atrocities being inflicted upon the people of Yemen are being pushed into mainstream attention by the mass media outlets which have been ignoring them for more than three years. The Washington Post (WaPo) editorial board published an op-ed titled “End U.S. support for this misbegotten and unwinnable war”. CNN did some actual, real journalism for a change with a viral exclusive documenting which American war profiteers were behind some of the more devastating Saudi bombings. And yes, MSNBC finally did cover the violence in Yemen, breaking its year-long silence to report on a US-supplied bomb which killed 40 children with such urgent condemnation of those responsible you’d never know they’d been consistently ignoring such incidents which have been going on for years.
Now politicians and celebrities everywhere are shoving the horror of their government facilitating the slaughter of innocents into mainstream attention.
Afbeeldingsresultaat voor Mainstream Media Finally Concedes Defeat on Yemen, Ends Blackout Of Coverage

Tim Shorrock

✔@TimothyS

Astonishing graphic from @CNN, identifying civilian massacres in Yemen with the bomb makers – Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. This should be standard in war reporting. Searing images. https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike-intl/index.html …
10:52 PM – Aug 18, 2018

Michael Tracey

✔@mtracey

You know the world has been turned upside down when the Washington Post editorial board opposes a US military intervention https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/end-us-support-for-this-misbegotten-and-unwinnable-war/2018/08/18/35a1f256-a249-11e8-93e3-24d1703d2a7a_story.html …
12:10 AM – Aug 20, 2018

Opinion | End U.S. support for this misbegotten and unwinnable war

Whether the United States enabled the killing of 40 Yemeni children makes a world of difference.

washingtonpost.com

What’s interesting here is that nothing at all has changed except for the coverage. US-supplied bombs have been dropping on marketplaces, hospitals and funerals and slaughtering civilians in far more deadly incidents for years, and the US has also been providing extensive assistance to Saudi airstrikes, as well as attacking Yemeni targets directly. The only thing that has changed is that now it’s being reported with an urgency and volume that is appropriate for such a horrific incident instead of an occasional low-profile mention with little or no mention of responsibility.
Nobody with their eyes open believes that the mainstream media have just suddenly developed a conscience and now deeply care about the mass murder of Middle Eastern civilians. So why the change? If you ask some of the Trump supporters I’ve seen responding to the shift, it’s because their president can now be unfairly blamed for a military campaign which began long before he took office. But that doesn’t really hold water, does it? I mean, the aforementioned year in which MSNBC didn’t cover Yemen took place entirely during this administration, and every American with cable TV knows that MSNBC markets itself as the anti-Trump network. If they’d wanted to use Yemen as another angle from which to criticize this administration they would have done so, instead of not doing so at all. The entirety of mainstream media have been grossly neglecting this issue up until the last week despite having every opportunity to condemn Trump for it.
For the record, while we’re on the subject, I personally don’t much care if Trump gets all the blame for the Yemen catastrophe at this point. I’ve spent 2017 and 2018 fighting the insane corporate liberal notion that all American depravity began in January of last year, but at this point I’m happy with literally anything that just ends the death and devastation. A year into the war, the 30-year CIA veteran Bruce Riedel said that “if the United States of America and the United Kingdom tonight told King Salman that this war has to end, it would end tomorrow, because the Royal Saudi Air Force cannot operate without American and British support.” If using this as an opportunity to attack Trump creates the necessary political pressure to end the bombings, blockades, starvation and disease that is killing untold thousands of Yemeni civilians, then fine, whatever, I’m all for it.
But again, from what I’m seeing right now I don’t believe that this is about Trump. Not directly anyway. From what I can see right now, I think what we are witnessing is a clear instance in which alternative media successfully caused the establishment to lose control of the narrative on an important issue.
In the US, criticism of Saudi Arabia is nearly as taboo as criticism of Israel. As we saw explained in a leaked State Department memo last year, it is standard US policy to use human rights abuses as a bludgeon with which to attack rival governments, while sweeping the atrocities committed by allies under the rug. Because of its lucrative petrodollar deal with the US, and because its opaque and unaccountable monarchy makes it capable of nefarious maneuvers to advance geopolitical agendas that an ostensible democracy would have a hard time getting away with, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of America’s most important allies. And the plutocrat-owned media, whose controllers have a vested interest in protecting the establishment upon which their kingdoms are built, consistently fall right in line with that same State Department policy.
This, and the fact that the control of a key strategic region is at stake, is why we’ve been seeing the Saudi war crimes in Yemen and the US facilitation thereof downplayed for years by the mass media. And they would surely remain downplayed indefinitely were it possible.
But it wasn’t possible. The story kept getting pushed toward mainstream consciousness year after year, and eventually the fact that an outlet which upholds itself as the flag bearer of Trump’s opposition has been completely ignoring this administration’s facilitation of war crimes was made viral. At a certain point a Dem-voting audience which is being told day in and day out that Trump presents a unique and unprecedented level of danger to the world will lose trust in the outlets which market themselves to that demographic if they refuse to make a big deal about the fact that this administration is helping tyrants murder busloads of children.

Jim Carrey

✔@JimCarrey

40 innocent children killed on a bus in Yemen.
Our ally.
Our missile.
Our crime.
10:18 PM – Aug 17, 2018
For this reason, western mainstream media have been forced to finally report on the cruelty being inflicted upon the people of Yemen by Saudi Arabia and its allies in order to avoid losing credibility. The story got out, and the story about their lack of coverage of that story got out, and now they’re all reporting on it like they’ve been doing so this entire time. Which, if it continues, will make it very difficult for the US/UK/Saudi war machine to retain the consent of the governed for its mass slaughter.
In my opinion, we can safely call this a win for alternative media. The voices who aren’t beholden to the empire and its geopolitical agendas refused to let this story die, and eventually succeeded in overtaking the dominant narrative. Not because media-controlling oligarchs like Brian L Roberts and Jeff Bezos gave them permission to, but because unauthorized truth was spoken and carried by many ordinary people into mainstream consciousness via Facebook shares, Twitter retweets and speaking out loud and proud wherever possible. A people’s information battle was fought and won by the people.
If things go as I am hoping they will go, we will see more and more such populist hijackings of dominant narratives in the future, and ultimately a failure of the oligarchs to continue manufacturing consent for their omnicidal, ecocidal, Orwellian agendas. We will have to be aggressive, we will have to be creative, and we will have to be interesting enough to catch the eye of the casual citizenry, but the fact that trust in the mass media is at an all-time low and our ability to network and share information is at an all-time high combines with the fact that we have truth on our side to create some very exciting possibilities. I find this all very encouraging.

 Support Caitlin’s work on Patreon or Paypal.
Opinion by Caitlin Johnstone / Republished with permission / Medium / Report a typo
================================

* Zie: ‘MSNBC (‘verzetszender’ tegen Trump), bracht in een jaar tijd niet één artikel over de VS steun aan de genocide in Jemen…..‘

** Marokko zou deel uitmaken van de coalitie, ook volgens de alternatieve media, echter de laatste 6 maanden heb ik die bewering niet één keer teruggezien, tot Johnstone het weer noemde in haar artikel. Enig onderzoek toont aan dat dit inderdaad zo is. Verder bestaat de Saoedische terreurcoalitie uit de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten, Egypte en uiteraard S-A. ‘Leuk’ voor de Marokkanen die straks weer met dienstplicht te maken krijgen, waarna ze mee mogen doen aan de genocide die in Jemen plaatsvindt……. (deze smerige oorlog zal voorlopig nog doorgaan…..)

 Zie ook:
‘Pentagon: nieuwe geheime operatie voor steun aan Saoedische coalitie die genocide uitvoert in Jemen……‘

‘Jemen: genocide en oorlog hebben tot nu toe al rond de 200.000 mensenlevens geëist…..‘

 ‘Amal Hussain, het meisje van 7 dat voor het westen symbool stond voor humanitaire crisis (lees: genocide) in Jemen, is overleden…….‘

‘Jemen: VS politici roepen uiterst hypocriet om een onmiddellijk eind aan de ‘oorlog……’‘

‘Saoedische terreurcoalitie geeft eindelijk toe dat de aanval op een schoolbus niet gerechtvaardigd was……‘

‘Saoedi-Arabië woedend over VN rapport waarin de waarheid wordt verteld over S-A en de oorlog in Jemen‘

‘Saoedische terreurcoalitie raakt alweer een bus met kinderen, dit keer tijdens een bombardement van een vluchtelingenkamp……..‘

‘Democratisch congreslid eist antwoorden over de rol van de VS bij de massamoorden in Jemen, zoals de aanval op een schoolbus‘

‘8 miljoen Jemenieten, inclusief een groot aantal kinderen, dreigen te sterven van de honger……..‘

‘Jemen, de gemartelde, vermoorde of ‘verdwenen’ Jemenieten, onder verantwoording van de Saoedische coalitie……‘

‘Door VS geregisseerd bombardement op ziekenhuis Hodeida >> 50 doden……‘

‘Jemen: de vergeten genocide en haar kinderslachtoffers………‘

‘Saoedi-Arabië geeft toe in Jemen gruwelijke oorlogsmisdaden te hebben begaan…. ‘ (en daarmee is ten overvloede nog eens duidelijk gemaakt dat ook de VS meewerkt aan oorlogsmisdaden en die genocide in Jemen…..)

‘Agressie vanwege een vermeende gifgasaanval op Douma, terwijl de tienduizenden kinderen die in Jemen worden vermoord middels een genocide blijkbaar niet meetellen……‘

‘Congres VS geeft akkoord voor verdere steun aan de Saoedische genocide in Jemen……‘

‘VS versterkt militaire terreur t.b.v. genocide >> deelname aan aanval op Jemenitische havenstad Hodeida…….‘

‘VS en Groot-Brittannië weigeren een onmiddellijk staakt het vuren op haven t.b.v. door genocide geterroriseerd Jemen…..‘

‘Mike Pompeo (ex-CIA, VS min. van BuZa en ‘christen’) liegt openlijk over genocide in Jemen‘ (zie ook de links in dat bericht)

Media tonen ware gezicht door weigering Julian Assange te verdedigen

Posted on by Telmo Claro
Door de weigering Assange te verdedigen, tonen de reguliere media hun ware gezicht, aldus de kop van een artikel van Caitlin Johnstone op Media.com en hieronder overgenomen van Anti-Media. Een top advocaat van de New York Times (NYT), David McCraw waarschuwde een zaal vol rechters dat de vervolging van WikiLeaks journalist Julian Assange een gevaarlijk precedent zal scheppen en zou kunnen eindigen met het beschadigen van de reguliere (massa-) media….. (ha! ha! ha! Wat er nog te beschadigen is aan de reguliere media is me een raadsel, gezien het enorme gehalte aan nepnieuws [‘fake news] en de leugens die daar dag in dag uit ten toon worden gespreid…..)
Volgens McCraw zullen wetshandhavers uiteindelijk weinig verschil kunnen zien tussen een internetplatform als WikiLeaks en mediaorganen als de New York Times en de Washington Post (WaPo)….. Lullig werden de woorden van McCraw niet gepubliceerd in ‘zijn eigen’ NYT….. (!!) Echter zolang de reguliere media de leugens van politiek en geheime diensten maar blijven herhalen, zal er geen vuiltje aan de lucht zijn…..
Het publiceren van o.a. uitgelekte gegevens die geheim werden gehouden voor het volk, is in feite de taak van de echte journalistiek, immers het is de taak van de journalistiek om de machthebbers te controleren, het volk daarover in te lichten* en het publiek tevens te leren kritisch naar de machthebbers te kijken…..
Daar wringt dan ook de schoen aldus Johnstone, de reguliere media hebben deze taken al lang bij het grofvuil gezet en schikken zich naar de eisen van overheid en degenen die deze media in handen hebben, miljardairs en beursgenoteerde bedrijven……… Niet voor niets dat de journalisten van de reguliere media Assange keer op keer demoniseren en de leugens van de politiek en geheime diensten als CIA en FBI (notoire leugenaars) over bijvoorbeeld de zogenaamde bemoeienis van Rusland met de VS verkiezingen blijven herhalen, ook al is er geen nanometer bewijs voor……

Daarover gesproken: hoorde onlangs een Belgische ‘journalist’ die het gore lef had te zeggen dat hij de ‘stapel aan bewijzen’ voor die Russische inmenging met de VS presidentsverkiezingen had gelezen, een keiharde leugen, daar die bewijzen (nog steeds) niet bestaan…..

Lees deze korte mooie analyse van Caitlin Johnstone:

In Refusing to Defend Assange, Mainstream Media Exposes Its True Nature

July 29, 2018 at 10:24 pm
Written by Caitlin Johnstone
(CJ Opinion) — Last Tuesday a top lawyer for the New York Times named David McCraw warned a room full of judges that the prosecution of Julian Assange for WikiLeaks publications would set a very dangerous precedent which would end up hurting mainstream news media outlets like NYT, the Washington Post, and other outlets which publish secret government documents.
“I think the prosecution of him would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers,” McCraw said. “From that incident, from everything I know, he’s sort of in a classic publisher’s position and I think the law would have a very hard time drawing a distinction between The New York Times and WikiLeaks.”
Do you know where I read about this? Not in the New York Times.
“Curiously, as of this writing, McCraw’s words have found no mention in the Times itself,” activist Ray McGovern wrote for the alternative media outlet Consortium News. “In recent years, the newspaper has shown a marked proclivity to avoid printing anything that might risk its front row seat at the government trough.”

Consortium News@Consortiumnews

Though The New York Times itself has not reported it, it’s No. 2 lawyer told a group of judges that the prosecution of Julian Assange could have dire consequences for the Times itself, explains Ray McGovern.https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/25/the-gray-lady-thinks-twice-about-assanges-prosecution/ …
3:40 PM – Jul 26, 2018

The Gray Lady Thinks Twice About Assange’s Prosecution

Though The New York Times itself has not reported it, it’s No. 2 lawyer told a group of West Coast judges that prosecution of Julian Assange by the U.S. government could have dire consequences for…

consortiumnews.com

So let’s unpack that a bit. It is now public knowledge that the Ecuadorian government is actively seeking to turn Assange over to be arrested by the British government. This was initially reported by RT, then independently confirmed by The Intercept, and is today full mainstream public knowledge being reported by mainstream outlets like CNN. It is also public knowledge that Assange’s asylum was granted by the Ecuadorian government due to a feared attempt to extradite him to the United States and prosecute him for WikiLeaks publications. Everyone from President Donald Trump to Attorney General Jeff Sessions to now-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to ranking House Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff to Democratic members of the US Senate have made public statements clearly indicating that there is a US government interest in getting Assange out of the shelter of political asylum and into prison.
The New York Times is aware of this, and as evidenced by McCraw’s comments it is also aware of the dangerous precedent that such a prosecution would set for all news media publications. The New York Times editorial staff are aware that the US government prosecuting a publisher for publishing important documents that had been hidden from the public would make it impossible for the Times to publish the same kind of material without fear of the same legal repercussions. It is aware that the maneuvers being taken against Assange present a very real existential threat to the possibility of real journalism and holding power to account.
You might think, therefore, that we’d be seeing a flood of analyses and op-eds from the New York Times aggressively condemning any movement toward the prosecution of Julian Assange. You might expect all media outlets in America to be constantly sounding the alarm about this, especially since the threat is coming from the Trump administration, which outlets like the New York Timesare always eager to circulate dire warnings about. You might expect every talking head on CNN and NBC to be ominously citing Assange as the clearest and most egregious case yet of Trump’s infamous “war on the free press”. Leaving aside the issues of morality, compassion and human rights that come with Assange’s case, you might think that if for no other reason than sheer unenlightened self interest they’d be loudly and aggressively defending him.
And yet, they don’t. And the fact that they don’t shows us what they really are.

Belinda Noakes@belindanoakes

A fine piece of work. I see a handful of international journalists brave enough to write about this. Where are the others? Can they not see that if Assange is persecuted to death, they’re next?

stefania maurizi@SMaurizi

Dear Readers, our op-ed on Julian #Assange and #WikiLeaks published in @consortiumnews https://consortiumnews.com/2018/07/19/inside-wikileaks-working-with-the-publisher-that-changed-the-world/ … has been shared by more than 10,000 readers, as for now we have 100 comments: THANK YOU! Without you, our work would be completely useless

12:46 AM – Jul 26, 2018

WikiLeaks

✔@wikileaks

Replying to @belindanoakes
They’re not next. Very few will ever publish anything substantive enough to generate serious blowback.
1:15 AM – Jul 26, 2018
Theoretically, journalism is meant to help create an informed populace and hold power to account. That’s why it’s the only profession explicitly named in the United States Constitution, and why freedom of the press has enjoyed such constitutional protections throughout US history. The press today is failing to protect Julian Assange because it has no intention of creating an informed populace or holding power to account.
This is not to suggest the existence of some grand, secret conspiracy among US journalists. It’s just a simple fact that plutocrats own most of the US news media and hire the people who run it, which has naturally created an environment where the best way to advance one’s career is to remain perpetually inoffensive to the establishment upon which plutocrats have built their respective empires. This is why you see ambitious reporters on Twitter falling all over themselves to be the first with a pithy line that advances establishment agendas whenever breaking news presents an opportunity to do so; they are aware that their social media presence is being assessed by potential employers and allies for establishment loyalism. This also why so many of those aspiring journalists attack Assange and WikiLeaks whenever possible.
“Everyone hoping to gain admission to the cultural elite must now strenuously cultivate their social media so as to avoid controversy,” journalist Michael Tracey observed recently. “Eventually they will internalize controversy-avoidance as a virtue, not a societal imposition. Result: a more boring, conformist elite culture.”
A great way for an aspiring journalist to avoid controversy is to never, ever defend Assange or WikiLeaks on social media or in any media outlet, and certainly under no circumstances allow yourself to look like the sort of journo who might someday publish the sorts of materials that WikiLeaks publishes. An excellent way to prove yourself is to become yet another author of yet another one of the many, many smear pieces that have been written about Assange and WikiLeaks.

Common Dreams@commondreams

Why Americans Need to Defend Julian Assange’s Freedom http://ow.ly/qUJ130l9O1G
2:10 AM – Jul 28, 2018

Why Americans Need to Defend Julian Assange’s Freedom

Criminalizing the act of publishing through the Espionage Act destroys the First Amendment as the guardian of democracy.. Over 50 years ago, in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, addressing a…

commondreams.org

Mainstream media outlets and those who thrive within them have no intention of rocking the boat and losing their hard-earned privilege and access. Conservative mass media will continue to defend the US president, and liberal media will continue to defend the CIA and the FBI. Both will help advance war, ecocide, military expansionism, surveillance and police militarization, and none will leak anything that is damaging to the power structures that they have learned to serve. They will remain innocuous, uncontroversial defenders of the rich and powerful at all times.
Meanwhile, alternative media outlets are defending Assange ferociously. Just today I’ve seen articles from Consortium News, World Socialist Website, Disobedient Media, Antiwar and Common Dreams decrying the persecution of the most important government transparency advocate living today. Alternative media outlets and independent writers aren’t bound by establishment servitude, so the value of WikiLeaks is clear as day. One’s eyes are only blinded to the pernicious behaviors of power when power is signing one’s paycheck.
Mass media outlets in America and around the world have fully discredited themselves with their failure to defend a publisher who actually holds power to account and brings facts into the light of truth to create an informed populace. Every day that goes by where they don’t unequivocally condemn any attempt to prosecute Assange is another day in the pile of evidence that corporate media outlets serve power and not truth. Their silence is a tacit admission that they are nothing other than stenographers and propagandists for the most powerful forces on earth.
Support Caitlin’s work on Patreon or Paypal.
Opinion by Caitlin Johnstone / Republished with permission / Medium / Report a typo

=====================================
* In Nederland durfde de zwaar over een keeshondendrol getilde zakkenwasser Max van Weezel, die zich godbetert journalist durft te noemen, te zeggen ‘dat hij zich voor kan stellen bepaalde zaken niet te publiceren…….’ Ondanks deze uitspraak en een onnoemelijk aantal andere ‘journalistieke’ uitglijders, wordt deze kwezel geëerd door het grootste deel van de andere Nederlandse ‘journalisten…’ Wat dan weer genoeg zegt over ‘de kwaliteit’ van de Nederlandse reguliere journalistiek…… Voor berichten met blunders van van Weezel, klik op het label met zijn naam, direct onder dit bericht. (als na een aantal berichten het laatste telkens wordt herhaald, even opnieuw op dat label klikken en wel die onder het laatst gelezen bericht)

PS: het is vrijwel zeker dat Ecuador Assange op de Londense straat (hij zit al jaren in de ambassade van Ecuador in Londen) zal zetten en hij na zijn arrestatie zal worden uitgeleverd aan VS……

Zie ook:
‘Julian Assange, valse beschuldigingen, Big Brother en VS steun voor terrorisme‘

‘Westerse massamedia lopen aan de leiband van plutocraten, de neoliberale politiek en geheime diensten‘

‘Russiagate en Assange: The Guardian wordt nu zelfs door collega’s voor zot uitgemaakt‘

‘The Guardian: ondanks een enorme misser (fake news) gaat men door met de valse beschuldigingen t.a.v. Assange……‘

‘WikiLeaks belooft The Guardian 1 miljoen dollar als het haar leugens i.z. Assange en Russiagate kan bewijzen…….‘

‘Julian Assange gedemoniseerd door media die hem zouden moeten steunen, waren ze bevolkt geweest door echte journalisten……..‘

‘WikiLeaks toont aan dat VS en GB een gezamenlijke gewelddadige en bedrieglijke buitenlandpolitiek voeren‘

‘De prijs op het hoofd van Julian Assange: 1 miljard dollar…..‘

‘Assange kan niet voor spionage worden vervolgd, immers hij is journalist >> aldus Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) in een video‘

‘Westerse bevolkingen worden bespeeld door regeringen, massamedia, grote bedrijven, financiële instellingen en geheime diensten……‘

‘Assange is journalist en zou alleen daarom al niet mogen worden vervolgd, een artikel o.a. voor de huidige ‘journalisten’ van de reguliere media en de gebruikers van die media‘

‘WhiteHouse: US, Ecuador Coordinating About Future Of Assange Asylum‘

‘Stop de isolatie van Julian Assange!’

‘JulianAssange (Wikileaks) haalt hypocriete Britse regering onderuit voorwijzen op belang van vrije en onafhankelijke media‘

‘Volkskrant en Nieuwsuur Fake News over ‘Russische hacks…..’‘

‘VS waarschuwde regering van Zweden voor Wikileaks in aanloop verkiezingen, Assange ‘moest en zou hangen’, ofwel de zoveelste VS manipulatie van verkiezingen elders……‘

Palestijnse slachtoffers Israëlisch bloedbad in Gazastrook krijgen schuld in schoenen geschoven door VS massamedia………………………..

Posted on by Telmo Claro

Ongelofelijk hoe de reguliere westerse media hebben gereageerd op de slachting die het terroristische Israëlische leger aanrichtte onder ongewapende Palestijnse demonstranten op de dag dat de VS ambassade in Jeruzalem werd geopend. Bij dat geweld werden 61 mensen vermoord en viel er een enorm aantal (ook zwaar) gewonden…… Als je niet beter wist zou je warempel denken dat Israël het slachtoffer was van Palestijnse terreur, terwijl er aan Israëlische kant slechts 1 lichtgewonde soldaat was ‘te betreuren…..’

De media in de VS gingen wel het meest ver met hun smerige pro-Israël propaganda, nogmaals NB naar aanleiding van een ware slachting onder ongewapende Palestijnen en dat zijn toch echt ook mensen en niet een soort van plaagdieren, zoals Israël ze meer en meer ziet…….

Sinds 30 maart jl., toen de Palestijnen begonnen met de Great Return March zijn er meer dan 100 ongewapende mensen door Israël vermoord, waaronder: -11 kinderen, 2 journalisten en 4 mensen met een handicap….. (ja ja, ‘echte helden’ die Israëlische militaire scherpschutters….)

Nee in de ogen van de reguliere media in de VS zijn de Palestijnen barbaren die de ‘heldhaftige’ soldaten van Israël aanvallen. In een andere mediaorgaan, dat van Bloomberg werd zelfs gemeld dat de afscheiding tussen Israël en de Gazastrook het slachtoffer werd van Palestijnse agressie…. (je gelooft je ogen niet!)

Echter ook in de reguliere media in de rest van het westen, wijst men naar Hamas en de Palestijnen als de schuldigen voor deze slachting, alsof het één groot vakantieoord is in de Gazastrook, i.p.v. een openluchtgevangenis waar het de bewoners aan van alles ontbreekt, in de eerste plaats veiligheid tegen Israëlische terreur…… Een situatie die zo wanhopig is dat men toch gaat demonstreren ook al belooft Israël te zullen schieten op iedereen die een stap zet dichterbij dan 300 meter tot de afscheiding tussen de Gazastrook en Israël…… Ofwel: Israël schiet ongewapende demonstranten neer op het grondgebied van de Gazastrook, een enorme oorlogsmisdaad en een misdaad tegen de menselijkheid….

Lees het volgende artikel van Gregory Shupak, overgenomen van Anti-Media (de video’s in het artikel werken niet, de wel werkende video’s vind je onder het artikel):

How American Media Blames the Victims of Israel’s Gaza Massacre

May 19, 2018 at 2:53 pm
Written by Gregory Shupak
(FAIR) — Israel massacred 60 Palestinians on Monday, including seven children, bringing to 101 the total number of Palestinians Israel has killed since Palestinians began the Great March on March 30. In that period, Israel has killed 11 Palestinian children, two journalists, one person on crutches and three persons with disabilities.
Monday’s casualties included 1,861 wounded, bringing total injuries inflicted by Israel to 6,938 people, including 3,615 with live fire. Israel is using bullets designed to expand inside the body, causing maximum, often permanent damage: “The injuries sustained by patients will leave most with serious, long-term physical disabilities,” says Médecins Sans Frontières (Ha’aretz, 4/22/18).
On the 70th anniversary of Israel’s so-called “declaration of independence,” the United States opened its new embassy in Jerusalem—a city Israel claims as its own, despite what international law says on the matter—and Palestinians undertook unarmed protests in reaction to the move and as part of the Great Return March. Although to this point, the only Israeli casualty during the entire cycle of demonstrations has been one “lightly wounded” soldier, considerable space in coverage of the massacres is devoted to blaming Palestinians for their own slaughter.
NBC (5/14/18) mentions “what Palestinians refer to as their ‘right of return’”; actually, it’s what international law calls it, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights‘ proclamation that “everyone has the right…to return to his country.”*
Two of the first three paragraphs in an NBC report (5/14/18) provided Israel’s rationalizations for its killing spree. The second sentence in the article says that the Israeli military accused Hamas of “leading a terrorist operation under the cover of masses of people,” adding that “firebombs and explosive devices” as well as rocks were being thrown towards the barrier.
A Washington Post (WaPo) narticle (5/14/18) devoted two of its first four sentences to telling readers that Palestinians are responsible for being murdered by Israel. Palestinian “organizers urged demonstrators to burst through the fence, telling them Israeli soldiers were fleeing their positions, even as they were reinforcing them,” read one sentence. “At the barrier, young men threw stones and tried to launch kites carrying flames in hopes of burning crops on the other side,” stated the next one, as though stones and burning kites released by a besieged people is violence remotely equivalent to subjecting people to a military siege and mowing them down.
The New York Times (5/14/18) said that “a mass attempt by Palestinians to cross the border fence separating Israel from Gaza turned violent, as Israeli soldiers responded with rifle fire,” painting Israel’s rampage as a reaction to a Palestinian provocation. Like FAIR (2/21/18) has previously said of the word “retaliation,” “response” functions as a justification of Israeli butchery: To characterize Israeli violence as a “response” is to wrongly imply that Palestinian actions warranted Israel unleashing its firing squads.
A Yahoo headline (5/14/18) described “Violent Protests in Gaza Ahead of US Embassy Inauguration in Jerusalem,” a flatly incorrect description in that it attributes the violence to Palestinian demonstrators rather than to Israel. The BBC (5/15/18) did the same with a segment called “Gaza Braced for Further Violent Protests.”
In Bloomberg‘s account (5/14/18), the fence seemed to be the real victim.
One Bloomberg article (5/14/18) by Saud Abu Ramadan and Amy Teibel had the same problem, referring to “a protest marred by violence,” while another one (5/14/18) attributed only to Ramadan is headlined “Hamas Targets Fence as Gaza Bloodshed Clouds Embassy Move,” as though the fence were Monday’s most tragic casualty. Ascribing this phantom violence to Palestinians provides Israel an alibi: Many readers will likely conclude that Israel’s lethal violence is reasonable if it is cast as a way of coping with “violent protests.”
The second paragraph of the Bloomberg article solely written by Ramadan says that

Gaza protesters, egged on by loudspeakers and transported in buses, streamed to the border, where some threw rocks, burned tires, and flew kites and balloons outfitted with firebombs into Israeli territory.

This author—like the rest in the “Palestinians were asking for it” chorus—failed to note that Israel’s fence runs deep into Palestinian territory and creates a 300-meter “buffer zone” between Palestinians and Israeli forces, which makes it highly unlikely that the kites and balloons of the colonized will have an effect on their drone-operating, rifle-wielding colonizers, let alone on people further afield in Israeli-held territory.
The New York Times editorial board (5/14/18) wrote as though Palestinians are barbarians against whom Israel has no choice but to unleash terror:

Led too long by men who were corrupt or violent or both, the Palestinians have failed and failed again to make their own best efforts toward peace. Even now, Gazans are undermining their own cause by resorting to violence, rather than keeping their protests strictly peaceful.

The board claimed that “Israel has every right to defend its borders, including the boundary with Gaza,” incorrectly suggesting that Palestinians were aggressors rather than on the receiving end of 100 years of settler-colonialism.
Moreover, like the Times and Bloomberg articles discussed above, the editorial attempts to legitimize Israel’s deadly violence by saying that it is defending a border that Palestinians are attempting to breach, but there is no border between Gaza and Israel. There is, as Maureen Murphy of Electronic Intifada(4/6/18) pointed out, “an armistice line between an occupying power and the population living under its military rule” that Palestinians are trying to cross in order to exercise their right to return to their land.

The Washington Post (5/15/18) condemned the “cruel, cynical tactic” of trying to exercise the internationally guaranteed right of return.**
A Washington Post editorial (5/15/18) called the Palestinians hunted by Israel “nominal civilians.” Apart from being a logical impossibility (one either is or isn’t a civilian), the phrase illuminates how too much of media think about Palestinians: They are inherently threatening, intrinsically killable, always suspect, never innocent, permanently guilty of existing.
A Business Insider piece (5/14/18) by columnist Daniella Greenbaum described “Palestinian protesters who ramped up their activities along the Gaza strip and, as a result, were targeted by the Israeli army with increasing intensity.” Greenbaum’s use of the phrase “as a result” implies that it was inevitable and perhaps just that Palestinians’ “ramped up activities” led to Israel mowing down a population it occupies, 70 percent of whom are refugees Israel refuses to allow to return to their homes.
Greenbaum then climbs into the intellectual and moral gutter, claiming that

absent from the commentary that children have unfortunately been among the injured and dead are questions about how they ended up at the border. On that question, it is important to recognize and acknowledge the extent to which Palestinians have glorified violence and martyrdom — and the extent to which the terrorist organization Hamas has organized the “protests.”

In her view, dozens of Palestinians died because they are primitive savages who take pleasure in sacrificing their own children, not because Israel maintains the right to gun down refugees in the name of maintaining an ethnostate.
In a rare instance of a resident of Gaza allowed to participate directly in the media conversation, Fadi Abu Shammalah wrote an op-ed for the New York Times (4/27/18) that offered an explanation of why Palestinians are putting their lives on the line to march. Life for the people of Gaza, including for his three young sons, has been “one tragedy after another: waves of mass displacement, life in squalid refugee camps, a captured economy, restricted access to fishing waters, a strangling siege and three wars in the past nine years. ” Recalling the concern for his safety expressed by his seven-year-old child, Shammalah concludes:

If Ali asks me why I’m returning to the Great Return March despite the danger, I will tell him this: I love my life. But more than that, I love you, Karam and Adam. If risking my life means you and your brothers will have a chance to thrive, to have a future with dignity, to live in peace with all your neighbors, in your free country, then this is a risk I must take.

Palestinians have a right to liberate themselves that extends to the right to the use of armed struggle, yet as Shammalah wrote, the Great Return March signifies a “nearly unanimous acceptance of peaceful methods to call for our rights and insist on our humanity.” Nevertheless, based on media coverage, readers could be forgiven for concluding that it was Palestinians, not Israel, who carried out what Doctors Without Borders called “unacceptable and inhuman” violence.

By Gregory Shupak / Republished with permission / FAIR.org / Report a typo

* De video in het artikel werkt niet hier de video waar men naar verwijst:

** Hetzelfde wat voor de video hierboven geldt is van toepassing op deze video, hier de link die wel werkt:

Hoe kan je mensen nog meer opzetten tegen het uitermate hypocriete westen…????

Zie ook: ‘Israël vermoordde minstens 16 ongewapende demonstranten tijdens grootschalig protest‘

en: ‘Pro-Israël propaganda in de reguliere westerse media, amper aandacht voor Palestijnse protesten‘

en: ‘Nederland voorzitter VN Veiligheidsraad, maar heeft tegelijkertijd geen commentaar op Israëlische moorden op ongewapende demonstranten………‘

en: ‘Gazastrook 2018 – Sharpeville 1960 >> terreur tegen vreedzame demonstranten‘

en: ‘Schieten op ongewapende vreedzame demonstranten volgens Israël uit zelfverdediging……..‘)

en: ‘Israëlische terreur: niet alleen het schieten op ongewapende demonstranten, maar ook de vele andere standrechtelijke executies, ofwel moorden op bekende Palestijnen‘

en: ‘Israël gebruikt nieuw chemisch wapen tegen Palestijnse demonstranten in de Gazastrook‘ (Wel aandacht voor ‘Syrische gifgasaanval’ in Douma, maar als Israël daadwerkelijk dit wapen inzet, blijft het doodstil….Israël, samen met Egypte, de twee landen die nog steeds chemische wapens ontwikkelen, produceren, opslaan en…. exporteren!! Wellicht leveren deze landen ook aan de terreurgroepen, ofwel de ‘gematigde rebellen’ in Syrië, die met instemming van het westen over voorraden gifgas beschikken…… Zowel Israël als Egypte staan achter de psychopathische terreurgroepen in Syrië, groepen die in het westen, zoals gezegd, ‘gematigde rebellen’ worden genoemd…..)

en: ‘Palestijnen en groot deel wereld rouwen om tweede door Israëliërs vermoorde journalist……….‘

 en: ‘VS ambassade Jeruzalem gedompeld in Palestijnenbloed……..‘

en: ‘Israël test nieuwe smerige technologie op demonstrerende Palestijnen‘
en: ‘Israël schiet 20 raketten af op openluchtgevangenis Gazastrook na wanhoopsdaad Palestijnen…….‘


en: ‘Israel: White Phosphorus Use Evidence of War Crimes‘

en: ‘Israëls wil tot vredesoverleg met Palestijnen’: 2.500 nieuwe huizen op West Bank…………..‘

en: ‘Gazastrook: waarom vooral jongeren demonstreren en daar zelfs hun leven voor op het spel zetten‘

en: ‘Israëlische ‘heldhaftige’ scherpschutters vermoordden 21 jarige verpleger, die bezig was eerste hulp te verlenen………‘

en: ‘Israël vermoordde nog eens 4 ongewapende Palestijnen over de grens met de Gazastrook, totale dodental ligt nu op 124‘

en: ‘Moeder van vermoorde Palestijnse medisch hulpverlener Razan al-Najjar maakt werk dochter af‘

en: ‘Israëlische scherpschutters vermoorden met opzet kinderen en de witte westerse wereld blijft wegkijken…….‘

en: ‘At Least 525 Palestinians Wounded by Israeli Troops on Gaza Border‘

en: ‘Israëlische advocaat benoemd tot voorzitter van het Mensenrechtencomité van de VN…….‘

en: ‘Gaza Freedom Flotilla tegen de blokkade van de Gazastrook, met een overlevende van de USS Liberty‘

en: ‘Israël verbiedt nu zelfs Palestijnen uit de Gazastrook het land te verlaten als zij een medische behandeling nodig hebben……‘

PS: na plaatsing nog toegevoegd dat het om de Palestijnse demonstratie ging, op de dag dat de VS ambassade in Jeruzalem werd geopend.

Saoedi-Arabië heeft oorlog nodig om grote tekorten te verdoezelen, de VS en GB helpen graag ‘een handje…’

Posted on by Telmo Claro

Er is al veel gezeur gepasseerd over de crisis in Saoedi-Arabië, waar vooraanstaande personen en leden van de enorme grote koninklijke familie werden vastgezet en van hun eigendommen zijn ontdaan.

Lullig genoeg durft men in het westen te stellen dat kroonprins Mohammed bin Salman het land wil hervormen, dat leidt men af aan het toestaan van autorijden door vrouwen*, wat men volgend jaar wil invoeren als ik me niet vergis.

Volgens Darius Shahtahmasebi is er echter meer aan de hand. In een artikel gaat hij eerst in op de invloed die Saoedi-Arabië uitoefent in andere islamitische landen (soennitisch), waar S-A de laatste 30 jaar miljarden heeft gestoken in de bouw van moskeeën en madrassa’s (‘koran scholen’). Niet vreemd dat in die moskeeën en madrassa’s het wahabisme wordt uitgedragen, het wahabisme dat door de Saoediërs wordt beleden…. Hiervoor voert Shahtahmasebi een Washington Post (WaPo) artikel aan van Fareed Zakaria.

Terecht wijst Shahtahmasebi op het financieren van terreur door Saoedi-Arabië, al is dat niet alleen de reden voor fiks wat islamterroristen om tekeer te gaan tegen anders gelovigen. De grootschalige barbaarse terreur die het westen o.l.v. de VS keer op keer aanricht in het Midden-Oosten, gecombineerd met een ‘strak onderwezen’ uitleg van de islam, zijn minstens, zo niet meer de oorzaak van ellende o.a. op de Europese straten…..

Onder andere volgens Shahtahmasebi verkeert S-A in grote financiële problemen en heeft het de grootste moeite om de met de VS (en Groot-Brittannië) gesloten wapenaankopen te kunnen betalen, daarbij gaat het om miljarden orders……. Dit zou dan ook de reden zijn voor het oppakken van hoogwaardigheidsbekleders en leden van de koninklijke familie, waarbij een gering aantal van hen zelfs werd vermoord……. Het verbeurd verklaren van eigendommen, waaronder miljarden aan banktegoeden, was dan ook de eerste opzet van het dictatoriale bewind in Riyad……

Bin Salman, de kwaadaardig kroonprins, is verder uit op oorlog tegen Iran en Hezbollah in Libanon, niet voor niets dat het fascistische apartheidsbewind in Israël goede banden onderhoudt met het Saoedische bewind. Oorlog leidt bovendien binnenlandse onvrede af van het rampzalige financiële beleid dat de Saoedische dictatuur heeft gevoerd en nog voert……. De agressie van S-A is vooral ingegeven door de haat tegen de andere vorm van islam, die Iran en Hezbollah aanhangen, het sjiisme…… Niet voor niets voert de Saoedische coalitie, gesteund door de VS (ook militair) en GB, een genocide uit op de sjiieten in buurland Jemen……**

Lees de visie van Shahtahmasebi, die hij redelijk heeft onderbouwd:

What You’re Not Being Told About the Royal Crisis in Saudi Arabia

November 7, 2017 at 4:55 pm
(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — According to the Washington Post’s Fareed Zakaria, in order to understand how traditionally secular Muslim countries became hubs of radicalization in recent years, you need just one example: Saudi Arabia. Zakaria explains:
“In Southeast Asia, almost all observers whom I have spoken with believe that there is another crucial cause [behind the ‘cancer’ of Islamic extremism] – exported money and ideology from the Middle East, chiefly Saudi Arabia. A Singaporean official told me, ‘Travel around Asia and you will see so many new mosques and madrassas built in the last 30 years that have had funding from the Gulf. They are modern, clean, air-conditioned, well-equipped – and Wahhabi [Saudi Arabia’s puritanical version of Islam].’ Recently, it was reported that Saudi Arabia plans to contribute almost $1 billion to build 560 mosques in Bangladesh. The Saudi government has denied this, but sources in Bangladesh tell me there’s some truth to the report.” As The Week explained two years ago, Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars “investing heavily in building mosques, madrasas, schools, and Sunni cultural centers across the Muslim world. Indian intelligence says that in India alone, from 2011 to 2013, some 25,000 Saudi clerics arrived bearing more than $250 million to build mosques and universities and hold seminars.”
The Week made it quite clear that these “institutions and clerics preach the specifically Saudi version of Sunni Islam, the extreme fundamentalist strain known as Wahhabism or Salafism.”
This isn’t just some unfriendly version of Islam that may or may not be linked to terror attacks aimed at Western countries – this is the same standard of Islam ISIS and al-Qaeda adhere to. Remember this next time a Donald Trump supporter accuses you of being an “apologist for Islam” while their leader sells these puritanical extremists more arms than they can afford to buy in the first place.
Not to mention that since early 2015, Saudi Arabia has been locked in a brutal quagmire in neighboring Yemen, engaging in war crimes and using banned munitions.
Despite Saudi Arabia’s documented behavior, everything that moves right now in the Middle East is somehow purported to be due to Iran’s “malignant” activities. A missile that was launched into Saudi Arabia’s capital city, which may or may not have been intercepted, was immediately and baselessly blamed on Iran. Saudi Arabia has been called the event an act of war (initiated by Iran). The meltdown of Lebanon’s internal politics has also been blamed on Iran, yet Saudi Arabia is clearly the one trying to pull the strings to create internal strife in the country.
In actuality, the available evidence that has come to light in recent weeks is that it was Saudi Arabia that actively coordinated an act of aggression on the sovereign nation of Syria in 2013. It has also come to light that a leaked cable, written in Hebrew, allegedly shows Saudi-Israeli collusion to provoke a war with Lebanon. It should be noted that the mainstream media and the governments that run in tandem with the media have paid close to zero attention to this, despite how damning the conclusion is.
So what can one make of what is happening directly inside Saudi Arabia even as we speak? One can only describe the recent developments as a crackdown that makes Bashar al-Assad’s pale in comparison given very senior and royal Saudi figures have already been killed and arrested in just over a weekend of action. The media has advanced that this is merely a crackdown by a reformist leader in the hopes of putting Saudi Arabia on a path to modernity and creating some domestic social and economic reforms. No one will be willing to admit it, but the House of Saud is in trouble.
Don’t listen to the Guardian as it tries to James Bond-up Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince with ludicrous titles such as “Saudi arrests show crown prince is a risk-taker with a zeal for reform.”
According to Bruce Riedel, director of the intelligence project at the Brookings Institution, Saudi Arabia is more or less looking at an economic recession. The country can barely afford the arms deals it agreed to with both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and its expenditures on the illegal war in Yemen are starting to take their toll. Perhaps this is the real reason the crackdown targeted three of the Kingdom’s richest profiles, which will result in the confiscation of $33 billion for the Saudi Kingdom to use at its leisure. The country is facing economic hardship, as the Washington Post explains:
“The International Monetary Fund said in July that the kingdom would run a deficit of about 9.3 percent of gross domestic product this year. Unemployment was running around 12.3 percent. It said that non-oil growth was projected to pick up to 1.7 percent but that relatively weak oil prices would keep overall GDP growth ‘close to zero.’”
Saudi Arabia’s chickens are coming home to roost. The extremist nation should know this more than anyone considering they have tried their hand at overthrowing multiple governments in the region.
Once a crackdown as blatant as this one begins, there will be no turning back for the Islamic Kingdom.
While some may celebrate the fall of Saudi Arabia, the downside is that desperate times will undoubtedly call for desperate measures in the face of the Kingdom’s dying status as a regional player.
The only viable option to maintain the illusion of domestic strength and international prowess is to find a scapegoat, and the Saudis have had the perfect scapegoat for years. Even as we speak, the war rhetoric targeting the Iranian government and its allies is beating ever louder as it becomes clear that the oil-rich nation may have no other way of distracting from its own inner turmoil than to launch further aggression against Iran.
It is already somewhat evident that Donald Trump has given his full support for this to happen — and that Trump’s sword-dancing meeting with Saudi Arabia earlier this year set the scene for something far more sinister than we could have ever predicted.
As the Washington Post explained:
“Mohammed Bin Salman’s domestic power grabs have often been accompanied by major foreign policy moves. Many regional observers therefore fear that Hariri’s resignation, announced in Riyadh with a sharply anti-Iranian speech, could trigger a political crisis intended to end with a military campaign against Hezbollah. Such a move would fit the pattern of bold foreign policy initiatives launched in the expectation of a rapid, politically popular victory. It would also very likely follow the pattern of such initiatives rapidly collapsing into a bloody, destabilizing quagmire.”

=================================================

* Het is te hopen voor andere verkeersdeelnemers dat vrouwen die autorijden, niet volkomen gesluierd hoeven rond te rijden:


 ** Vandaag werd bekend gemaakt, dat de Saoedische coalitie de blokkade van Jemen voor hulpgoederen heeft opgeheven, terwijl ook zonder die blokkade de Saoediërs (met hulp op zee van de VS) maar mondjesmaat hulpgoederen toelaten tot Jemen, een tactiek die is gekopieerd van Israël (de smerige blokkade van openluchtgevangenis Gazastrook….)

Zie ook: ‘Libanon: premier al-Hariri treedt af, ‘toevallig’ tijdens zijn bezoek aan Riyad……‘

 en: ‘Saoedi-Arabië beschuldigt Houthi’s en Iran van raketbeschieting en noemt dit een oorlogsverklaring…………‘


en: ‘Jemen, de hel op aarde >> Saoedi-Arabië en de VS (plus hulp van GB) plegen een genocide‘

 en: ‘Genocide op Houthi’s in Jemen: daders Saoedi-Arabië, de VS en de Arabische Emiraten………….‘

 en: ‘Media Silent As Saudi Arabia Devastates Yemen Into Famine‘

 ‘Saoedi-Arabië en VS nu ook verantwoordelijk voor difterie in Jemen, aandacht van media alleen voor ‘Houthi raketten……’‘

en: ‘VS senator beschuldigt zijn ‘land’ van oorlogsmisdaden in Jemen…….‘



en: (met mogelijkheid tot vertaling in ‘Dutch’): ‘U.S. and U.K. Continue to Participate in War Crimes, Targeting of Yemeni Civilians‘


 en: ‘Koenders nog steeds stil: Saoedi-Arabië bezig met etnische zuivering op eigen bodem en nog steeds levert het westen wapens aan terreurstaat S-A….‘

De VS ‘begint geen oorlogen’, ze wordt erin getrokken…….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!

Posted on by Telmo Claro

De reguliere massamedia in de VS spreken de afgelopen maanden over de VS, als zou ‘het land’ in de Syrië oorlog worden getrokken (door krachten van buitenaf)…….. ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! De eerste plannen voor een staatsgreep in Syrië, dateren uit de 80er jaren, de tijd van opperschoft Reagan! In 2006 werd dit plan nieuw leven ingeblazen, nadat bleek dat het bewind van Assad weigerde pijpleidingen over haar grondgebied toe te staan, pijpleidingen voor olie en vooral gas transport richting EU.

Twee vliegen in één klap, daar het bewind Assad, zeer tegen de zin van de VS, goede banden onderhield en onderhoudt met Rusland…….. In de besprekingen die de VS in 2006 startte met landen als Groot-Brittannië, Turkije, Saoedi-Arabië en een paar andere arabische landen, zette men in op een opstand in Syrië, die zou moeten uitmonden in een staatsgreep tegen Assad en de opdeling van Syrië…..

Vanaf 2011 heeft de VS jaarlijks 1 miljard dollar aan wapens en training in de zogenaamde oppositie gestoken……. Zogenaamde oppositie, daar het overgrote deel van de ‘gematigde rebellen’, uiterst gewelddadige buitenlandse terroristen zijn zoals die van Al Qaida en IS……. De VS liet na de val van Khadaffi in Libië (ook al via een door de VS georganiseerde opstand en illegale oorlog) een groot aantal terroristen transporteren naar Irak, om van daaruit Syrië in te trekken en daar het Assad bewind omver te werpen…….

De media in de VS stellen echter keer op keer, dat de VS de beste bedoelingen heeft en in een oorlog wordt gelokt, i.p.v. het vervolmaken van een jarenlange uitgedachte strategie om bijvoorbeeld in het Midden-Oosten (maar ook in Oekraïne) de lakens te kunnen uitdelen. Elk land waar een regime aan de macht is, dat niet klakkeloos knielt voor de VS, wordt door de VS als een gevaar voor het eigen voortbestaan afgeschilderd, zowel door de politiek als door de reguliere massamedia…….

Telkens weer wordt onomwonden gesteld dat de VS wordt aangevallen en zich derhalve dient te verdedigen……. Vanaf WOII tot het jaar 2000 heeft de VS meer dan 20 miljoen mensen vermoord in conflicten die door de VS zelf werden gecreëerd….. Sinds het begin van deze eeuw heeft diezelfde VS al 2 miljoen moorden op het geweten, alleen in Irak al meer dan 1,5 miljoen, middels de in 2003 illegaal begonnen oorlog tegen dat land (één van de grootste oorlogsmisdaden en daarmee terreuruitoefeningen die men kan bedenken……)……..

Uiteraard moeten Rusland en Iran het ook ontgelden in de reguliere VS media, als zouden zij i.p.v. de VS illegale oorlogen beginnen en opstanden op poten zetten waar het maar uitkomt………

Mensen het ligt er allemaal zo dik bovenop, dat je niet snapt dat de reguliere media en ‘intellectuele opiniemakers’ in de rest van het westen, zich zo laten gebruiken door de grootste terreurentiteit op aarde, de VS…….. Zonder amper enige kritiek loopt men achter de VS aan, de enige uitzondering is Trump, die sinds zijn aantreden als joker wordt neergezet. Lullig genoeg vinden deze media en intellectuelen verder zo ongeveer alles wat Trump en zijn leger flikken over de wereld, boven elke kritiek verheven…….

Hier een artikel van Adam Johnson, die haarfijn met feiten uitlegt hoe e.e.a. in elkaar steekt. Het artikel werd eerder geplaatst op Fair.org en overgenomen door de redactie van Anti-Media:

Syria Is Just the Latest Example of the US Gov’t Pretending to Be Dragged Into War

June 24, 2017 at 6:48 pm
(FAIR) — A recent headline in The Atlantic (6/9/17) earnestly pondered if the US was “Getting Sucked Into More War in Syria.” “Even as Washington potentially stumbles into war…” was how the article’s discussion began.
One of the most common tropes in US media is that the US military always goes to war reluctantly—and, if there are negative consequences, like civilian deaths, it’s simply a matter of bumbling around without much plan or purpose.
Syria War
This framing serves to flatter two sensibilities: one right and one vaguely left. It satisfies the right-wing nationalist idea that America only goes to war because it’s compelled to by forces outside of its own control; the reluctant warrior, the gentle giant who will only attack when provoked to do so. But it also plays to a nominally liberal, hipster notion that the US military is actually incompetent and boobish, and is generally bad at war-making.
This is expressed most clearly in the idea that the US is “drawn into” war despite its otherwise unwarlike intentions. “Will US Be Drawn Further Into Syrian Civil War?” asked Fox News (4/7/17). “How America Could Stumble Into War With Iran,” disclosed The Atlantic (2/9/17), “What It Would Take to Pull the US Into a War in Asia,” speculated Quartz (4/29/17). “Trump could easily get us sucked into Afghanistan again,” Slate predicted (5/11/17). The US is “stumbling into a wider war” in Syria, the New York Times editorial board (5/2/15) warned. “A Flexing Contest in Syria May Trap the US in an Endless Conflict,” Vice News (6/19/17) added.
“Sliding,” “stumbling,” ”sucked into,” “dragged into,” ”drawn into”: The US is always reluctantly—and without a plan—falling backward into bombing and occupying. The US didn’t enter the conflict in Syria in September 2014 deliberately; it was forced into it by outside actors. The US didn’t arm and fund anti-Assad rebels for four years to the tune of $1 billion a year as part of a broader strategy for the region; it did so as a result of some unknown geopolitical dark matter.
Syria especially evokes the media’s “reluctantly sucked into war” narrative. Four times in the past month, the Trump administration has attacked pro-regime forces in Syria, and in all four instances they’ve claimed “self-defense.” All four times, media accepted this justification without question (e.g., Reuters, 6/19/17), despite not a single instance of “self-defense” attacks occurring under two-and-a-half years of the Obama administration fighting in Syria. (The one time Obama directly attacked Syrian government forces, the US claimed it was an accident.)
Why the sudden uptick in “self-defense”? Could it be because, as with the bombing of ISIS (and nearby civilians), Trump has given a green light to his generals to adopt an itchy trigger finger? Could it be Trump and Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who has a decades-long grudge against Iran, want to blow up Iranian drones and kill Iranian troops? No such questions are entertained, much less interrogated. The US’s entirely defensive posture in Syria is presented as fact and serves as the premise for discussion.
When US empire isn’t reluctant, it’s benevolent. “Initially motivated by humanitarian impulse,” Foreign Policy‘s Emile Simpson (6/21/17) insisted, “the United States and its Western allies achieved regime change in Libya and attempted it in Syria, by backing rebels in each case.”
“At least in recent decades, American presidents who took military action have been driven by the desire to promote freedom and democracy,” the New York Times editorial board (2/7/17) swooned.
“Every American president since at least the 1970s,” Washington Post’s Philip Rucker (5/2/17) declared, “has used his office to champion human rights and democratic values around the world.” Interpreting US policymakers’ motives is permitted, so long as the conclusion is never critical.
In contrast, foreign policy actions by Russia are painted in diabolical and near-omnipotent terms. “Is Putin’s Master Plan Only Beginning?” worried Vanity Fair (12/28/16). “Putin’s Aim Is to Make This the Russian Century,” insists Time magazine (10/1/16).
Russia isn’t “drawn into” Crimea; it has a secret “Crimea takeover plot” (BBC, 3/9/15). Putin doesn’t “stumble into” Syria; he has a “Long-Term Strategy” there (Foreign Affairs, 3/15/16). Military adventurism by other countries is part of a well-planned agenda, while US intervention is at best reluctant, and at worst bumfuzzled—Barney Fife with 8,000 Abrams tanks and 19 aircraft carriers.
Even liberals talk about war in this agency-free manner. Jon Stewart was fond of saying, for example, that the Iraq war was a “mistake”—implying a degree of “aw shucks” mucking up, rather than a years-long plan by ideologues in the government to assert US hegemony in the Middle East.
War, of course, isn’t a “mistake.” Nor, unless your country is invaded, is it carried out against one’s will. The act of marshalling tens of thousands of troops, scores of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and coordinating the mechanisms of soft and covert power by State and CIA officials, are deliberate acts by conscious, very powerful actors.
Media shouldn’t make broad, conspiratorial assumptions as to what the bigger designs are. But neither are they under any obligation to buy into this mythology that US foreign policy is an improvised peace mission carried out by good-hearted bureaucrats, who only engage in war because they’re “sucked into” doing so.

Bedrijven maken veelal de dienst uit, ten koste van de democratie, op naar de nieuwe fascistische orde!!

Posted on by Telmo Claro

Het volgende artikel van Chris Hedges (en Matt Taibbi in de bijgevoegde video) op Information Clearing House (overgenomen van ‘Truth Dig’) handelt over de neergang van de democratie en haar instituties t.b.v. grote bedrijven, banken en het militair-industrieel complex, noodzakelijk voor de uiteindelijk beoogde fascistisch machtsovername…… (Bedrijven functioneren uitstekend in een fascistische staat….)

De vakbonden zijn verworden tot grote instituties waar kapitalen worden verspild en die nog amper van enige betekenis zijn. De reguliere (massa-) media zijn in handen van enkele figuren en dienen als eerste het belang van die topgraaiers en vervolgens het belang van de zittende neoliberale regering (althans als die goed voor de bedrijven werkt….). Wat betreft de publieke zendgemachtigden, zoals de BBC (en de NOS in ons land), is het dienen van het belang van de zittende regering overduidelijk….. Ach ja, wiens brood men eet……….

Het is in ons land al zo zot, dat men het normaal vindt, dat de Eerste Kamer bestaat uit figuren die in het (grote) bedrijfsleven werkzaam zijn en uiteraard lobbyen voor die bedrijven (bedrijven inclusief de financiële maffia en het militair-industrieel complex….). Een zienswijze die wordt gedeeld door de reguliere massamedia……..

In de VS gaat men zover, dat kritische studenten worden weggezuiverd van de universiteiten……. Ook de rechterlijke macht fungeert, meer en meer als een klassen-justitieel systeem, waar de belangen van het neoliberalisme worden gediend…… Dat geldt overigens ook voor een groot deel voor Nederland, zo besloot vanmorgen de hoogste bestuursrechter in Nederland, de Raad van State, dat er naar gas mag worden geboord bij Terschelling……..* (klik ook op het label ‘klassenjustitie’, dat u onder dit bericht terugvindt).

Lees dit uitstekende artikel en zie de bijgevoegde video (onder het artikel kan u klikken voor een ‘Dutch’ vertaling, dit neemt wel enige tijd in beslag):

The Elites Won’t Save Us
By Chris Hedges
February 13, 2017 “Information Clearing House” – “Truth Dig” – The four-decade-long assault on our democratic institutions by corporations has left them weak and largely dysfunctional. These institutions, which surrendered their efficacy and credibility to serve corporate interests, should have been our firewall. Instead, they are tottering under the onslaught.
Labor unions are a spent force. The press is corporatized and distrusted. Universities have been purged of dissidents and independent scholars who criticize neoliberalism and decry the decay of democratic institutions and political parties. Public broadcasting and the arts have been defunded and left on life support. The courts have been stacked with judges whose legal careers were spent serving corporate power, a trend in appointments that continued under Barack Obama. Money has replaced the vote, which is how someone as unqualified as Betsy DeVos can buy herself a Cabinet seat. And the Democratic Party, rather than sever its ties to Wall Street and corporations, is naively waiting in the wings to profit from a Trump debacle.
“The biggest asset Trump has is the decadent, clueless, narcissistic, corporate-indentured, war-mongering Democratic Party,” Ralph Nader said when I reached him by phone in Washington. “If the Democratic strategy is waiting for Godot, waiting for Trump to implode, we are in trouble. And just about everything you say about the Democrats you can say about the AFL-CIO. They don’t control the train.”
The loss of credibility by democratic institutions has thrust the country into an existential as well as economic crisis. The courts, universities and press are no longer trusted by tens of millions of Americans who correctly see them as organs of the corporate elites. These institutions are traditionally the mechanisms by which a society is able to unmask the lies of the powerful, critique ruling ideologies and promote justice. Because Americans have been bitterly betrayed by their institutions, the Trump regime can attack the press as the “opposition party,” threaten to cut off university funding, taunt a federal jurist as a “so-called judge” and denounce a court order as “outrageous.”
The decay of democratic institutions is the prerequisite for the rise of authoritarian or fascist regimes. This decay has given credibility to a pathological liar. The Trump administration, according to an Emerson College poll, is considered by 49 percent of registered voters to be truthful while the media are considered truthful by only 39 percent of registered voters. Once American democratic institutions no longer function, reality becomes whatever absurdity the White House issues.
Most of the rules of democracy are unwritten. These rules determine public comportment and ensure respect for democratic norms, procedures and institutions. President Trump has, to the delight of his supporters, rejected this political and cultural etiquette.
Hannah Arendt in “The Origins of Totalitarianism” noted that when democratic institutions collapse it is “easier to accept patently absurd propositions than the old truths which have become pious banalities.” The chatter of the liberal ruling elites about our democracy is itself an absurdity. “Vulgarity with its cynical dismissal of respected standards and accepted theories,” she wrote, infects political discourse. This vulgarity is “mistaken for courage and a new style of life.”
“He is destroying one code of behavior after another,” Nader said of Trump. “He is so far getting away with it and not paying a price. He is breaking standards of behavior—what he says about women, commercializing the White House, I am the law.”
Nader said he does not think the Republican Party will turn against Trump or consider impeachment unless his presidency appears to threaten its chances of retaining power in the 2018 elections. Nader sees the Democratic Party as too “decadent and incompetent” to mount a serious challenge to Trump. Hope, he said, comes from the numerous protests that have been mounted in the streets, at town halls held by members of Congress and at flash points such as Standing Rock. It may also come from the 2.5 million civil servants within the federal government if a significant number refuse to cooperate with Trump’s authoritarianism.
“The new president is clearly aware of the power wielded by civil servants, who swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not to any president or administration,” Maria J. Stephan, the co-author of “Why Civil Resistance Works,” writes in The Washington Post. (WaPo) “One of Trump’s first acts as president was a sweeping federal hiring freeze affecting all new and existing positions except those related to the military, national security and public safety. Even before Trump’s inauguration, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives reinstated an obscure 1876 rule that would allow Congress to slash the salaries of individual federal workers. This was a clear warning to those serving in government to keep their heads down. Trump’s high-profile firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates, who refused to follow the president’s immigration ban, sent shock waves through the bureaucracy.”
A sustained, nationwide popular uprising of nonviolent obstruction and noncooperation is the only weapon left to save the republic. The elites will respond once they become afraid. If we do not make them afraid we will fail.
The four-decade-long assault on our democratic institutions by corporations has left them weak and largely dysfunctional. These institutions, which surrendered their efficacy and credibility to serve corporate interests, should have been our firewall. Instead, they are tottering under the onslaught.
Labor unions are a spent force. The press is corporatized and distrusted. Universities have been purged of dissidents and independent scholars who criticize neoliberalism and decry the decay of democratic institutions and political parties. Public broadcasting and the arts have been defunded and left on life support. The courts have been stacked with judges whose legal careers were spent serving corporate power, a trend in appointments that continued under Barack Obama. Money has replaced the vote, which is how someone as unqualified as Betsy DeVos can buy herself a Cabinet seat. And the Democratic Party, rather than sever its ties to Wall Street and corporations, is naively waiting in the wings to profit from a Trump debacle.
“The biggest asset Trump has is the decadent, clueless, narcissistic, corporate-indentured, war-mongering Democratic Party,” Ralph Nader said when I reached him by phone in Washington. “If the Democratic strategy is waiting for Godot, waiting for Trump to implode, we are in trouble. And just about everything you say about the Democrats you can say about the AFL-CIO. They don’t control the train.”
The loss of credibility by democratic institutions has thrust the country into an existential as well as economic crisis. The courts, universities and press are no longer trusted by tens of millions of Americans who correctly see them as organs of the corporate elites. These institutions are traditionally the mechanisms by which a society is able to unmask the lies of the powerful, critique ruling ideologies and promote justice. Because Americans have been bitterly betrayed by their institutions, the Trump regime can attack the press as the “opposition party,” threaten to cut off university funding, taunt a federal jurist as a “so-called judge” and denounce a court order as “outrageous.”
The decay of democratic institutions is the prerequisite for the rise of authoritarian or fascist regimes. This decay has given credibility to a pathological liar. The Trump administration, according to an Emerson College poll, is considered by 49 percent of registered voters to be truthful while the media are considered truthful by only 39 percent of registered voters. Once American democratic institutions no longer function, reality becomes whatever absurdity the White House issues.
Most of the rules of democracy are unwritten. These rules determine public comportment and ensure respect for democratic norms, procedures and institutions. President Trump has, to the delight of his supporters, rejected this political and cultural etiquette.
Hannah Arendt in “The Origins of Totalitarianism” noted that when democratic institutions collapse it is “easier to accept patently absurd propositions than the old truths which have become pious banalities.” The chatter of the liberal ruling elites about our democracy is itself an absurdity. “Vulgarity with its cynical dismissal of respected standards and accepted theories,” she wrote, infects political discourse. This vulgarity is “mistaken for courage and a new style of life.”
“He is destroying one code of behavior after another,” Nader said of Trump. “He is so far getting away with it and not paying a price. He is breaking standards of behavior—what he says about women, commercializing the White House, I am the law.”
Nader said he does not think the Republican Party will turn against Trump or consider impeachment unless his presidency appears to threaten its chances of retaining power in the 2018 elections. Nader sees the Democratic Party as too “decadent and incompetent” to mount a serious challenge to Trump. Hope, he said, comes from the numerous protests that have been mounted in the streets, at town halls held by members of Congress and at flash points such as Standing Rock. It may also come from the 2.5 million civil servants within the federal government if a significant number refuse to cooperate with Trump’s authoritarianism.
“The new president is clearly aware of the power wielded by civil servants, who swear an oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not to any president or administration,” Maria J. Stephan, the co-author of “Why Civil Resistance Works,” writes in The Washington Post. “One of Trump’s first acts as president was a sweeping federal hiring freeze affecting all new and existing positions except those related to the military, national security and public safety. Even before Trump’s inauguration, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives reinstated an obscure 1876 rule that would allow Congress to slash the salaries of individual federal workers. This was a clear warning to those serving in government to keep their heads down. Trump’s high-profile firing of acting attorney general Sally Yates, who refused to follow the president’s immigration ban, sent shock waves through the bureaucracy.”
A sustained, nationwide popular uprising of nonviolent obstruction and noncooperation is the only weapon left to save the republic. The elites will respond once they become afraid. If we do not make them afraid we will fail.
Chris Hedges, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
“Insane Clown President”

Chris Hedges and Matt Taibbi

Video

How a reality TV star became our president.

Chris Hedges examines the spectacle of the 2016 presidential election and the system that created President Donald Trump with Matt Taibbi, author of “Insane Clown President”.




Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French, translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.

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* Lees en teken a.u.b. de petitie tegen gasboringen bij Terschelling!

Voor meer berichten n.a.v. het voorgaande, klik op één van de labels, die u onder dit bericht terug kan vinden, dit geldt niet voor de labels: Arendt, Nader, M.J. Stephan en Taibbi.