Puppet Masters

From dodgy dossiers to the sacking of Whitlam, the British Empire is revealed

Matthew Ehret
Strategic Culture Foundation
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC

In my last article, I reviewed the case of Gough Whitlam's firing at the hands of the Queen's Governor General Sir John Kerr during a dark day in November 1975 which mis-shaped the next 45 years of Australian history. Today I would like to tackle another chapter of the story.

I used to believe as many do, in a story called "the American Empire". Over the last decade of research, that belief has changed a bit. The more I looked at the top down levers of world influence shaping past and present events that altered history, the hand of British Intelligence just kept slapping me squarely in the face at nearly every turn.

Who controlled the dodgy Steele dossier that put Russiagate into motion and nearly overthrew President Trump? British Intelligence.

How about the intelligence used to justify the bombing of Iraq? That was British Intelligence too.

How about the Clash of Civilizations strategy used to blow up the middle east over decades? That just so happened to be British Intelligence's own Sir Bernard Lewis.

How about the CFR takeover over of American foreign policy during the 20th century? That is the British Roundtable Movement in America (created as Britain's Chatham House in America in 1921).

Who did Kissinger brag that he briefed more than his own State Department at a May 10, 1981 Chatham House seminar? The British Foreign Office (1).

The environmental Nakba: Palestine under Israeli colonization

Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Mohammed A. Abusarhan
Quds News Network
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 00:00 UTC

Prior to the 1948 war and even the Zionist Congress of 1897, Palestine had some thirteen hundred villages and towns, each with a small and manageable population living sustainably with nature. The land was owned or worked by the Palestinian people, who were 85 percent Muslim, 9.2 percent Christian, and 5.3 percent Jewish. This structure changed radically when mostly European Jews mobilized for massive migration to Palestine and began to assume colonial control over the land. In its long recorded history, Palestine has indeed undergone significant environmental and demographic changes, but it is really only in the past century that these changes took on a colonial dimension. The best-known of these changes is the forcible removal of the indigenous population, which reached its peak between 1948 and 1950. During those years, five hundred villages and towns were destroyed by Zionist militias, resulting in the largest wave of refugees after the Second World War. But the environmental dimensions of the catastrophe, or Nakba, is little talked about. In 1967 Israel occupied the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine, namely Gaza and the West Bank, and built settlements throughout these occupied territories in contravention of to international law (the Fourth Geneva Convention). These dramatic transformations were detrimental to the people and nature of Palestine. Here, we focus on the environment and sustainability in Palestine, an often overlooked casualty of the colonial occupation.

BDS progresses: Gives Israel a black eye; legal blow to pro-Israel lobby

Asa Winstanley
Middle East Monitor
Fri, 19 Jun 2020 01:00 UTC

The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) had a landmark legal victory against Israel last week. The European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously against the convictions of Palestinian-rights campaigners by French courts for BDS protests they staged more than a decade ago.

In September 2009 and May 2010, the group of 11 activists entered a supermarket in Illzach, a town in north-east France, wearing t-shirts bearing the words "Boycott Israel". They chanted slogans and passed out flyers urging shoppers not to buy Israeli goods, and also asked them to sign a petition requesting the supermarket chain to stop stocking such products altogether. Their actions were entirely peaceful, so much so that the company did not even file any legal charges against them.

However, the public prosecutor took a different view and launched a case against the activists, claiming that they had incited "hatred or discrimination" by calling for a boycott of Israel. This was, of course, entirely spurious. And entirely political, because France's Minister of Justice had ordered local prosecutors to go after BDS activists. They were sentenced in French courts to pay punitive fines and costs. It was an object lesson in "justice" against the "crime" of standing up for equality and human rights.

Now, after a long legal struggle, the French BDS activists have been vindicated completely. The tables have been turned, and France has been ordered to pay each of the activists about €7,000 in damages, plus their legal costs.

Comment: Israel conflates the pushback against BDS with an anti-Semitism stigma, a double punch. Deflection has always been Israel's signature move. There is a lot of ground to be made up if the BDS movement is to achieve its goals.

See also:

California's Governor Newsom declares facemasks mandatory in public

Vanessa Romo
NPR.org
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 06:30 UTC

Comment: Submit, or else...

Californians are required to wear face coverings in high-risk settings as the state continues to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the statewide order on Thursday. It follows new guidance from the California Department of Public Health that asymptomatic or presymptomatic people can still spread the disease.

Newsom told Los Angeles' ABC7:

"Our numbers are going up, not going down. Hospitalization numbers are just starting to creep back up, and I'm very concerned by what we're seeing. We think the most impactful thing we can do, short of going back to a stay-at-home order, is wearing face coverings when we can't practice physical distancing."

In the latest guidance, the Department of Public Health explained, "The use of face coverings by everyone can limit the release of infected droplets when talking, coughing, and/or sneezing, as well as reinforce physical distancing."

People will be required to wear masks or other coverings in public spaces, including while taking public transportation, seeking medical care, shopping and in most work scenarios.

'Deplorables' redux: Susan Rice says Trump's supporters in Senate belong 'to the trash heap of history'

Morgan Phillips
Fox News
Sat, 20 Jun 2020 16:21 UTC

Susan Rice, former Obama administration national security adviser and potential VP pick for Joe Biden, said on Friday that President Trump's supporters in the Senate belong "to the trash heap of history."

Speaking on MSNBC about Biden's vice presidential decision, Rice said this election is about "getting Joe Biden in the White House," someone who could "remove Donald Trump and consign those who supported him in the Senate to the trash heap of history." Rice said Biden was someone who could "heal and unify the nation."

Comment: Susan Rice plays the race card on MSNBC in a bid to polish her potential VP credentials:

Some are not impressed:

Susan certainly has a lot of chutzpah considering the trail of scandals she has been involved in, from her complicity in Hillary's abandonment of US ambassadors in Benghazi to illegal unmasking of members of the Trump campaign organization and White House staff members:

After arresting presidential challenger, Belarus's Lukashenka says 'revolution' thwarted

RFE/RL
Fri, 19 Jun 2020 16:34 UTC

Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka

Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka claims to have thwarted an attempt to foment revolution in the Eastern European country, a day after his government ordered the arrest of a popular, would-be presidential candidate, prompting thousands to take to the streets to protest what they see as increased harassment of opposition leaders.

Speaking at a government meeting on June 19, Lukashenka said that forces "in the East and West" were trying to destabilize Belarus but that their "masks have been torn off" and the "puppets and puppet masters abroad" identified.

In the afternoon, dozens of people gathered in central Minsk for a final day of signature gathering for would-be candidates in the August 9 presidential election.

The participants were lining up along Independence Boulevard when police pushed them to a nearby square, amid reported disruptions of Internet connections in the area.

It's absurd to feel guilty about 200yo crimes while ignoring the West's recent destruction of Iraq and Libya

Neil Clark
RT
Fri, 19 Jun 2020 16:29 UTC

By focusing on the historical crimes of Western imperialism, we are in danger of forgetting that some terrible wrongs were done more recently in US-led 'regime-change' operations for which no one has yet apologized.

We live in strange times. Ordinary people are being encouraged, some would say gaslighted, to feel guilty over bad things done by Western powers hundreds of years ago, over which not even their great grandparents had any control. Yet at the same time they are expected to ignore or forget about equally awful things which happened in living memory.

The dominant hegemonic narrative has it that exploitative 'imperialism' - and the attitudes of racial superiority that went with it - ended with the demise of the old European empires. But that is absurd. Arguably an even worse form of it has emerged in recent decades, one which has caused an enormous amount of death and destruction around the world.

Yet while the 'old' imperialism and anyone associated with it is completely beyond the pale, the new turbo-charged, 'politically correct' imperialism, which often masquerades under a 'progressive' or 'humanitarian' banner, gets off very lightly. Consider what has happened these past 30 years.

'Destructive course': US seeks space superiority by making up threats - Russian Foreign Ministry

RT
Fri, 19 Jun 2020 16:25 UTC

Washington's Defense Space Strategy is provoking an arms race in outer space and threatening international security while trying to blame a nonexistent Moscow threat, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has said.

"To justify the implementation of this destructive course, which provokes an arms race in outer space and destabilizes the international security situation, Washington has resorted to the usual tactics of blaming others," the MFA said in a statement on Friday.

In the US Defense Space Strategy, the declassified summary of which was published on Wednesday, the Pentagon simply asserts that "China and Russia have weaponized space and turned it into a warfighting domain." Without offering any evidence or specifics, the Pentagon references the 2014 Russian military doctrine as envisioning the possibility of challenging the US operations in orbit.

UK's economic crisis has Chancellor considering 4-day work week

Ashley Cowburn
Independent
Sat, 20 Jun 2020 15:52 UTC

MPs and campaigners are urging the chancellor to consider a four-day working week as a way to overhaul the economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Comment: Note how this is worded: they're using 'coronavirus' as the reason for the dire economic situation and the need for an 'overhaul' - even though the economy has been in a downward spiral since the last crash in 2008 - and yet the coronavirus itself had little effect on the economy, mainly effecting old people and the vulnerable, it was the unjustified and tyrannical lockdown that caused the damage and accelerated the destruction of the economy.

In a letter to Rishi Sunak, seen by The Independent, the signatories including former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and Green MP Caroline Lucas, argue reducing working hours provide greater opportunities amid growing levels of unemployment.

The calls come after Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's prime minister, suggested employers could consider a four-day working week in response to the Covid-19 crisis, which she said would "certainly" boost the tourism industry.

Comment: There's worsening issues like soaring unemployment and millions are visiting food banks and yet New Zealand's PM thinks there's opportunities for tourism?

Comment: It's notable that even before this crisis countries have been touting a reduced work week, as well as Universal Basic Income:

Supreme Court rules against terminating DACA program - Justice John Roberts makes political stand

sundance
Conservative Treehouse
Thu, 18 Jun 2020 14:52 UTC

© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
U.S. Supreme Court (Front L-R) Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., (Back L-R) Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Elena Kagan and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh pose for their official portrait at the Supreme Court building November 30, 2018 in Washington.

A supreme court ruling today has blocked the termination of a court-admitted unconstitutional executive action known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The background of the DACA controversy, and the prior position of the court on the sister program DAPA, makes this ruling the most political ruling yet by Chief Justice John Roberts. [pdf link to ruling here]

The court decision was a 5-4 ruling. Justice Roberts sided with the four liberal justices in blocking the termination of the executive program. What makes this ruling outrageous is within the majority opinion of the court they recognize the Trump administration has the legal and constitutional authority to terminate the program; but the court, specifically John Roberts, doesn't like the way in which the administration might do it.

The crux of Justice Roberts' opinion is openly political. The majority admit there is no constitutional protection for DACA recipients, and the Trump administration has the authority to dissolve and reverse the protections under the previous executive action; however, Roberts specifically cites his concern with deportation.

Comment: Some background on Obama's DACA executive order:

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Puppet Masters

From dodgy dossiers to the sacking of Whitlam, the British Empire is revealed

The environmental Nakba: Palestine under Israeli colonization

BDS progresses: Gives Israel a black eye; legal blow to pro-Israel lobby

California's Governor Newsom declares facemasks mandatory in public

'Deplorables' redux: Susan Rice says Trump's supporters in Senate belong 'to the trash heap of history'

After arresting presidential challenger, Belarus's Lukashenka says 'revolution' thwarted

It's absurd to feel guilty about 200yo crimes while ignoring the West's recent destruction of Iraq and Libya

'Destructive course': US seeks space superiority by making up threats - Russian Foreign Ministry

UK's economic crisis has Chancellor considering 4-day work week

Supreme Court rules against terminating DACA program - Justice John Roberts makes political stand

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