Thursday 29 August 2013

PNAC Redux in Wikileaks Syria Document

If there is there anybody reading this who has not read the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) 2000 document, 'Rebuilding America's Defenses [sic], I urge you to do so; it can be read on their own website here.

If you haven't got time (and it is rapidly running out), the salient points from it are that it was sponsored by some extremely Machiavellian individuals and it includes the infamous line:

'A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing [sic] event - like a new Pearl Harbor.'

This one sentence has been focal to much speculation surrounding the events of 11th September 2001 and subsequent US military misadventures. The attacks have been called the New Pearl Harbor and the phrase was used in the title of a book by Professor David Ray Griffin which presented many convincing arguments that the US Government or elements therein had been involved in order to manufacture domestic support for neocolonial wars of aggression.

It was with a sense of deja vu that I read a blog from Channel Four News reporter Alex Thompson about one of the Wikileaks documents from 'a military officer writing up a report on a meeting with US military intelligence officers and gives telling insight into their view of matters inside Syria. It was written at 00:49am, 7 December 2011.' It read:

'There still seems to be a lot of confusion over what a military intervention involving an air campaign would be designed to achieve. It isn’t clear cut for them geographically like in Libya, and you can’t just create an NFZ (no fly zone) over Homs, Hama region. This would entail a countrywide SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses [sic]) campaign lasting the duration of the war. They don’t believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Gaddafi move against Benghazi.'

I guess we just experienced the prerequisite media attention on a massacre. No doubt the air intervention will follow shortly.

Further reading:

BBC News uses 'Iraq photo to illustrate Syrian massacre'
Daily Telegraph 27th May 2012

Friday 23 August 2013

The Degradation of Humanity

If one imagines, for a moment, that the planet has been colonised by alien invaders and that the invaders have enslaved the Earth's population, what (if the colonialists spoke English) would they call their captive workforce? Assuming that the planet bore minerals and other substances which were of interest to the aliens, it would be unsurprising if the slaves were considered with little, if any, greater value than the materials which they needed. So, perhaps they would regard us as mere human resources.

This term has, since I first stopped to think about it several years ago, always made me feel, as a person, of little value; after all, the noun in the term human resources is 'resources', 'human' is just the adjective describing those resources.

Devaluing and degrading the general population is the strategy of all totalitarianism and it is increasingly evident that humans are becoming surplus to requirements to the corporations who actually do regard us as resources. The indicators are subtle but incremental but nonetheless very tangible to those who exist at one extreme of the economy.

The UK national minimum wage which is supposed to ensure reasonable living standards for even the poorest worker is actually causing the lowest standards of living to fall. More and more employers are only paying what they are legally bound to pay (and many are not even meeting the legal minimum) whilst the cost of living soars. The unemployed are expected to look further afield to find work - Job Centre staff have been told that claimants should be prepared to travel 90 minutes to and from work (a total of three hours travelling per day) which, when costs are analysed, is effectively an increased tax on work. The national minimum wage remains static but still considered a fair rate of pay.

Forcing many more wages down to a minimum are a number of factors. One factor is the migration of workers from poorer countries who are willing to work for less money or, as is often the case, live in poor conditions; so whilst a resident worker could not afford to pay their rent if paid the national minimum wage, a migrant worker sharing a caravan with several other people could. Many migrants are employed seasonally which again puts a resident wanting full time work at a disadvantage. I do not bear any malice toward the migrants - their circumstances make their willingness to travel to find work perfectly understandable.

But the net effect is that residents are unable to afford to work and thus claim benefits. I am aware that there are businesses who employ migrants whilst renting housing out to unemployed UK residents claiming housing benefit - the rent they receive trickles through their accounts and pays the wages of people who have come to work from eastern Europe. Much of this capital exits the country either directly back to the worker's family or savings or indirectly via the eastern European aisle in Tesco. Many employers advertise jobs in eastern European languages which discriminates against resident workers and I know from one employee that their employer stated quite openly that they will only employ migrants because they are willing to work for less.

The phenomenon of zero hour contracts is another factor which adversely affects wages - companies are paying the legal minimum hourly rate but not guaranteeing employees that they will even be doing any work but at the same time forbidding them to work for anybody else. The psychological damage of not knowing whether or not one is going to earn enough to live from one week to the next is unimaginable.

Perhaps the ultimate in bonded servitude is the use of prison labour. Prisoners' labour has been exploited throughout history; recent traditions of sewing mail bags have evolved, however, and prison workers now compete in modern service industries like call centres. The main focus of objection has understandably been on prisoners working in the insurance industry and the wisdom of giving convicted criminals access to details of people's property; contents and addresses. Little has been said, however, about the economics of this practise and how companies are paying captives a fraction of what they would be legally obliged to pay a free person. The consequencial affect which locking people up without justifiable cause has on a column in a corporate balance sheet may become a factor which is difficult for an ambitious accountant to ignore.

Thursday 22 August 2013

Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack - Is The Answer In Britam Hacked e-mail?

It confounds comprehension to imagine that a government who knows that foreign powers are itching for an excuse to launch an attack would use chemical weapons against its own people whilst UN weapons inspectors are actually in the country. This is what we are being told by the mainstream media and what is being peddled by the war hungry in NATO.

Yet in January 2013 the UK defence contractor Britam had its e-mail hacked - which it eventually acknowledged - and a screen grab of one particular e-mail raised alarmed eyebrows across the internet and was briefly published by The Daily Mail's Mail Online website before disappearing very shortly afterwards. The Mail Online published a retraction which stated that they accepted that the e-mail was fabricated and that there was 'no truth in any suggestion that Britam or its directors were willing to consider taking part in such a plot, which may have led to an atrocity.'

The statement's choice of words is quite revealing. The Mail Online acceptance that the e-mail was fabricated is not a statement that it was indeed fabricated. Maybe Britam simply persuaded them that it was. But also stating that there was 'no truth in any suggestion that Britam or its directors were willing to consider taking part in such a plot, which may have led to an atrocity' does not mean that they had not been approached to do so or in fact that another company may well have been approached and accepted the proposed 'enormous sum'; the e-mail (click on the image below to see it full size) says:

Phil

We've got a new offer. It's about Syria again. Qataris propose an attractive deal and swear that the idea is approved by Washington.
We'll have to deliver a CW to Homs, a Soviet origin g-shell from Libya similar to those that Assad should have. They want us to deploy our Ukrainian personnel that should speak Russian and make a video record.

Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous. Your opinion?

Kind regards
David
 If this e-mail was in fact genuine, whether or not Britam accepted the pproposed offer, it speaks volumes.


Wednesday 21 August 2013

Bradley Manning - Shame Will Rain On America

So, how come Bradley Manning was sentenced to just 35 years?

It's not with any intention to sound controversial that I ask this; in my opinion, he should be a free man and several dozen current and former members of the US government should be donning orange boiler suits along with a few hundred CEOs and military officers. I ask because I think even his supporters who, at best, hoped for a humane sentence feared that he would receive a life term - especially as some extremists called for his death.

It seems to me that the sentence is the result not of justice but of political compromise. Long enough to keep the authoritarians happy whilst not quite so long as to stir up the liberals and libertarians into a riotous and dangerous cocktail.

However, it is a grim prospect for a man who's motives were immensely honourable to be facing three and a half decades in prison and the consequences thereafter. At this moment, it would seem that only the overthrow of the corrupt and vile system which has consumed America and most of the rest of the planet would offer any hope for his exoneration.

There are many fools in positions of power who cannot see the corruption and wickedness in front of their noses and who in their blindness prop up the rot. There are millions who are enslaved by their own ignorance in the belief that the austerity they endure is a necessity for the collective good rather than an element in an osmotic system designed to perpetuate their subordination. The cognitively dissonant who wave the flags of the nations who rob and oppress them must bear the shame of what happened to Bradley Manning, and those like him, as much as the criminal persecutors.

Eyes will reluctantly open as freedom diminishes.



NSA Files Melodrama - UK Government Self-Portrait As Idiots


It is impossible to follow the latest developments in the NSA/Prism/Snowden/Guardian saga without shaking one's head in sheer disbelief at the extremes of oppression and stupidity both emanating from the same source.

It is often said of perceived conspiracies that they are either evil or stupid but here it is impossible to separate the two. The complicity in persecuting a whistle blower who has exposed the tyrannical surveillance of the sinister US National Security Agency in partnership with the insidiously ubiquitous user fiendly corporations Google, Facebook and Apple is clear malfeasance of the highest order in a so-called free society.

But the pantomime which took place in the basement of The Guardian's offices on 20th July 2013 surely exposes the UK government and its agents as the most inept fools imaginable. To quote The Guardian:

A senior editor and a Guardian computer expert used angle grinders and other tools to pulverise the hard drives and memory chips on which the encrypted files had been stored.

As they worked they were watched by technicians from Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) who took notes and photographs, but who left empty-handed.


The editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, had earlier informed government officials that other copies of the files existed outside the country and that the Guardian was neither the sole recipient nor steward of the files leaked by Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor. But the government insisted that the material be either destroyed or surrendered.

Even the most inexperienced amateur in the field of espionage must have realised that it was very likely that copies may have been made - and given that the drives being destroyed had been components in computer equipment at The Guardian; i.e. they were not the vehicles by which the data was delivered, it must have been obvious that they were not, by any reasonable deduction, original. Mr Rusbridger even made it quite explicitly clear that other copies existed stating that there were known to be copies in Brazil and America (it would be surprising if there were not dozens of copies secreted around the globe). But the government agents had their theatre to perform and supervised as the two employees of The Guardian destroyed the computer drives like a pair of Mafia goons tripping on power.

The butter cream came today with the revelation that Liberal Democrat (yes, Liberal Democrat) leader and Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg had said that he supported the government action. Most people are aware that David Cameron is just a posh thug who is doing the bidding of the corporate elite and has instigated a holocaust on the underclasses to protect their obscene capital. Nick Clegg is merely a timid little boy who has been allowed o wear a prefect's badge who, having had his first taste of railway gravy, is too cowardly to contradict his seniors except with their say so.

Guardian told to destroy NSA files for national security, says Clegg

Tuesday 20 August 2013

1953 Iran CIA Coup - No Longer Just A Conspiracy Theory

Whenever the CIA's role in the coup which overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq has been discussed, it has often elicited from the listener the glazed look which accompanies mention of anything remotely conspiratorial in the eyes of those who are plugged into the embedded news channels. Despite the growing irrelevance of the mainstream news networks in the newly connected world, in great part due to their inability to propagate the truth, it is of great significance when such an acknowledgement is made via their channels.

The CIA has had its filthy tentacles in coups and assassinations throughout its 66 year history and no doubt in the preceding years when it was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

As the newly released documents attest, the CIA was acting with MI6 not in the name of US national security but for private business interests, namely the Anglo-Persian Oil Company which went on to become British Petroleum (BP).

In light of this information, which is anything but a revelation to those who have charted real history rather than the propaganda version approved by governments, perhaps the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti might the encourage the dormant who ridicule those who question orthodox opinion to awaken:

'A consistent thinker is a thoughtless person, because he conforms to a pattern; he repeats phrases and thinks in a groove.'

CIA documents acknowledge its role in Iran's 1953 coup

Monday 19 August 2013

United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) Leaked Agenda 21 Report? No!

 An article on a website called Williams Tea Party purports to expose an unconfirmed UN report documenting a proposed phased disarming programme of America under Agenda 21 - it appears on several sites but as this was the first on which it was seen, it has been used as an example. Its central item of evidence is an image of the report itself (see below).

Whilst UNODA does exist, there is nothing on their site about a Civilian Weapons Confiscation Study Group. It could, of course, be argued that it being a covert programme, there would be little, if any, public information. Not being knowledgeable about UN documents, it is difficult to make an assessment of the authenticity of the document from a layout perspective but on reading the text, the following stands out quite prominently as it is difficult to read to make sense:

'6. Finally, codification of laws to completely makes any and all firearms illegal to own, possess or use outside of military and law enforcement usage'.

Who is supposed to have written this illiterate garbage?



Congressman McConnell’s secretary confirms Obama planning to use U.N. troops against Americans

Postscript.

The QR code on this 'document' and the reference seem to refer to the following considerably less sinister document:

 http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/CN.10/L.70

Thursday 15 August 2013

Alex Jones and the Fox News Anti-Welfare Poster Boy



A few hours ago I wrote something defending (up to a point) Alex Jones regarding an attack by a mob of rentallectuals. But as much as the attack was unwarranted and highly defamatory, Jones is not beyond reproach and before long he was frothing at the mouth like a Daily Mail reader over a beach bum who lives on food stamps.

British readers will be aware of the phenomenon of indignant benefits churnalism in which the Daily Mail - or more specifically, the Mail Online website - specialises. Take a completely unrepresentative benefits recipient who has somehow played the system to their advantage and hold them up as being a typical benefits scrounger - thus ignoring the millions of people who are struggling in debt and queueing for cans at charity food banks. The tactic of perfidiously convincing the very poorly paid that people who don't work are handed more than them succeeds in turning those on the lower rungs of society against each other.

Step forward, then, Jason Greenslate, a 29 year old who spends his life surfing and eating lobster; or so the Fox News report would have us believe. Apart from the mathematical unlikelihood of such a lifestyle on $200 pcm, this episode either ignores or is an attempt to sidestep the millions of Americans who are in genuine need of assistance. Jones doesn't see or make this point, he behaves like a Rottweiler with a lard soaked rag doll being waved in its face at which he foams and snaps.

For somebody who openly proclaims that 9/11 was an inside job, Jones is remarkably willing to swallow this story whole. Maybe he is real? Who knows? But for somebody who makes a very comfortable living out of what some call doom porn, endorsing such trash laden right wing propaganda is pretty feeble. Willingly or not, Jones is complicit in the establishment's game of divide and rule. Why? Because despite his regular claims to have seen through the left right paradigm, he is a right wing reactionary.

If This Guy Is What The Future Of America Looks Like, We Are In BIG Trouble

Ruminant Defamation by MSNBC Rentallects



I'm no fan of Alex Jones. He is a bully and exaggerates to the point of outright dishonesty and that discredits him. Alex Jones is his own biggest fan and worst enemy. However, like many who have conspiracy careers, much, if not most, of what he says is based on fact. I'm pretty sure that deep down he has integrity even if he portrays himself as a lunatic every time he gets the opportunity to address a wider audience in the mainstream media. Such forays provide the establishment with all the ammunition necessary and Jones' self-inflicted character assassinations are anti-viral and this segment includes a clip of his appearance on the BBC's Sunday Politics which, interestingly, shows more of Andrew Neil's 'we had an idiot on the show this week' and 'lunatic' hand signals than Jones himself.

Giving a dumb presenter the opportunity to look intelligent by giving them a pseudo-intellectual script to read may massage their ego and, in a culture of celebrity worship and hunger for fame, it is understandable, up to a point, why somebody with limited analytical capacity and a desire for glamour would take a huge salary to appear smart by attacking who they have been told are the nation's enemies.

But the 'proper' intellectuals who weigh in are the true ignoramuses here. They trot out nonsense without the embarrassment of a theatre reviewer who slates a play without ever having seen it - it is crystal clear that they are reading their information from a pro-establishment fact file on Alex Jones which was compiled during a game of Chinese whispers.

In the piece, Jones is accused of being a lying racist hate criminal which, even as somebody who frequently cannot listen to his verbal barrages, I have to say, is categorically undeserved and seriously libelous. But the table of intellectuals who made the proclamations with such aloofness are, by far, the most worrying aspect of this sorry example of media bullshit, for they exemplify the academic bubble in which the herd mentality is as inflencial as in the football stadium. None dare even look at the evidence lest it forces them open to persuasion.

Alex Jones Responds to MSNBC’s Defamation

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Ain't Living in a Police State Fun?!


I'm not really sure how much fun can be had from power-tripping by denying people permission to enter the country, oggling at their naked body scans and accepting bribes (albeit virtual) but for anybody who is consideringy fascism as a career direction and wants to try it out, there is a simulation game just for you. Papers, Please.

Check out the video before you let the power go to your head.


The People's Voice: Uncensored?

When Barack Obama denied that the NSA was spying on the world's e-mail, we all laughed because we all knew that it was a lie proven by historical facts, David Icke included. So, when David Icke talks of a censorship free new media channel, should he not be judged by the same measure?

He has said that The People's Voice will be free of censorship except for libel [sic], I assume that what he means is that it will be free from censorship except in the avoidance of libel but that morcel of pedantry aside, is there any evidence to suggest that we can expect an unexpurgated outlet for the vox pop?

Actually, no. In fact the opposite is true. David Icke's website has a forum on which posts are routinely deleted not, it needs to be said, in the avoidance of libel - many libelous an offensive posts remain unchallenged. They are removed because they do not toe the David Icke line to one degree or another, often on the whim of a moderator. And David Icke has in fact made comments which suggest that he would welcome libel action to give his claims a day in court.

Yes, I hear you say, but the forum is not administered by David Icke, it is run bypeople working for him and he has very little, if anything to do with the forum. That is very true - but those very same people who administer the forum are the ones who are currently working on launching The People's Voice.

Before I am accused of being simply a David Icke detractor, I should point out that I actually think that a very large chunk of what he says is true; we are ruled by a powerful elite who have used the banking system, global corporate power and violence on an apocalyptic scale to enslave humanity. However, I am of the 'turd in a punchbowl' school of thought (the term coined by Infowars radio tyrant, Alex Jones who, ironically, I believe to be another such turd for slightly different reasons). David Icke discredits himself (and his followers) by pursuing theories for which the evidence is largely untested (to put it kindly).

I regret that I have little faith in The People's Voice achieving its stated ambitions. I suspect that there will be a free for all of so-called 'free speech' whilst any voices of reason will be silenced - pretty much as they are on the David Icke forum.