Sunday, March 18, 2018

Russia’s Reaction to the Insults of the West is Political Suicide

ORIGINAL LINK

The onslaught of western Russia bashing in the past days, particularly since the alleged poison attack by a Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok (the inventor of which, by the way, lives in the US), on a Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, has been just horrifying. Especially by the UK. Starting with PM May, who outright accused Russia of using chemical weapons (CW) on UK grounds, without delivering any evidence. Strangely, there is no indication where Skripal and his daughter are, in which hospital the pair is being treated, no poison analysis is being published, they cannot be visited; there is absolutely no evidence of the substance they allegedly have been poisoned with – do Sergei and Yulia actually exist as victims of a poison attack?

As a consequence, Theresa May expels 23 Russian diplomats, who have to leave the UK within a week. Then came Boris Johnson, the Foreign Minister clown, also an abject liar. He said — no, he yelled — at his fellow parliamentarians that it was “overwhelmingly likely, that Putin personally ordered the spy attack.” This accusation out of nothing against the Russian President is way more than a deep breach in diplomatic behavior, it is a shameful insult. And no evidence is provided. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, in fact, said that Johnson’s personal attack on President Putin was “unforgivable”.

Not to miss out on the bashing theatre, UK Defense Secretary, Gavin Williamson, got even more insolent. Russia “should go away and shut up”. In response to all this demonizing Russia for an alleged crime, for which absolutely no proof has been provided, Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said that the undiplomatic comments meant that the British authorities are nervous and have “something to hide,”. Lavrov also strongly objected, wanted to initiate a joint UK-Russia investigation into the case – is he dreaming? – and responded to a question of diplomatic retaliation, yes, that Russia will also expel UK diplomates ‘soon’.

There is no doubt that the UK acted as Washington’s poodle. In the course of this anti-Russia tirade, Trump twittered that he fully supported UK’s position. Indeed, the European puppets, Macron, Merkel, May and their chief, The Donald, signed a joint statement blaming Russia for the nerve gas attack on the former double agent, “There is no plausible alternative explanation than that Russia was to blame for the attack”. Bingo, that says it all. The presstitute picks it up and airs it to the seven corners of this globe – and the western sheeple are brainwashed once again: The Russians did it.

Well, we know that. But the real point I want to make is that Russia always reacts to such nonsensical and outright false accusations; Russia always responds, rejects, of course, the accusations but usually with lengthy explanations, and with suggestions on how to come to the truth – as if the UK and the west would give a shit about the truth – why are they doing that? Why are you, Russia, even responding?

That is a foolish sign of weakness. As if Russia was still believing in the goodness of the west, as if it just needed to be awakened. What Russia is doing, every time, not just in this Skripal case, but in every senseless and ruthless attack, accusations about cyber hacking, invading Ukraine, annexing Crimea, and not to speak about the never-ending saga of Russia-Gate, Russian meddling and hacking into the 2016 US Presidential elections, favoring Trump over Hillary. Everybody with a half brain knows it’s a load of crap. Even the FBI and CIA said that there was no evidence. So, why even respond? Why even trying to undo the lies, convince the liars that they, Russia, are not culpable?

Every time the west notices Russia’s wanting to be a “good neighbor”, about which the west really couldn’t care less, Russia makes herself more vulnerable, more prone to be accused and attacked and more slandered.

Why does Russia not just break away from the west? Instead of trying to ‘belong’ to the west? Accept that you are not wanted in the west, that the west only wants to plunder your resources, your vast landmass, they want to provoke you into a war where there are no winners, a war that may destroy entire Mother Earth, but they, the ZionAnglo handlers of Washington, dream that their elite will survive to eventually take over beautiful grand Russia. That’s what they want. The bashing is a means towards the end. The more people are with them, the easier it is to launch an atrocious war.

The Skripal case is typical. The intensity with which this UK lie-propaganda has been launched is exemplary. It has brought all of halfwit Europe – and there is a lot of them – under the spell of Russia hating. Nobody can believe that May, Merkel, Macron are such blatant liars… that is beyond what they have been brought up with. A lifelong of lies pushed down their throats, squeezed into their brains. Even if something tells them – this is not quite correct, the force of comfort, not leaving their comfort zone – not questioning their own lives – is so strong that they rather cry for War, War against Russia, War against the eternal enemy of mankind. I sadly remember in my youth in neutral Switzerland, the enemy always, but always came from the East. He was hiding behind the “Iron Curtain”.

The West is fabricating a new Iron Curtain. But while doing that, they don’t realize they are putting a noose around their own neck. Russia doesn’t need the west, but the west will soon be unable to survive without the East, the future is in the east – and Russia is an integral part of the East, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), that encompasses half the world’s population and controls a third of the world’s economic output.

Mr. Putin, you don’t need to respond to insults from the west, because that’s what they are, abusive insults. The abject slander that Johnson boy threw at you is nothing but a miserable insult; you don’t need to respond to this behavior. You draw your consequences.

Dear President Putin, Dear Mr. Lavrov, Let them! Let them holler. Let them rot in their insanity. Respond to the UK no longer with words but with deeds, with drastic deeds. Close their embassy. Give all embassy staff a week to vacate your country, then you abolish and eviscerate the embassy the same way the US abolished your consulates in Washington and San Francisco a bit more than a year ago. Surely you have not forgotten. Then you give all Brits generously a month to pack up and leave your beautiful country (it can be done – that’s about what Washington is forcing its vassals around the globe to do with North Korean foreign laborers); block all trade with the UK (or with the entire West for that matter), block all western assets in Russia, because that’s the first thing the western plunderers will do, blocking Russian assets abroad. Stealing is in their blood.

Mr. Putin, You don’t need to respond to their miserable abusive attacks, slanders, lies. You and Russia are way above the level of this lowly western pack. Shut your relation to the west. You have China, the SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Russia is part of the OBI – President Xi’s One Belt Initiative – the multi-trillion development thrive, emanating from China, connecting continents – Asia, Africa, Europe, South America – with infrastructure, trade, creating hundreds of millions of decent jobs, developing and promoting science and culture and providing hundreds of millions of people with a decent life.

What would the west do, if suddenly they had no enemy, because the enemy has decided to ignore them and take a nap? China will join you.

Everything else, responding, justifying, explaining, denying the most flagrant lies, trying to make them believe in the truth is not only a frustrating waste of time, it’s committing political suicide. You will never win. The west gives a hoot about the truth – they have proven that for the last two thousand years or more. And in all that time, not an iota of conscience has entered the west’s collective mind. The west cannot be trusted. Period.



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Why I Disagree With The Strategy Of Exiting Facebook, Twitter And YouTube

ORIGINAL LINK

Earlier this month Ben Swann, an important voice for whom I have nothing but respect, expressed a sentiment in one of his excellent Reality Check videos that I’m seeing more and more in anti-establishment circles, and I happen to strongly disagree with it.

In a presentation titled “Internet Purge of Dissenting Voices?” on the recent increase in censorship of anti-establishment voices by large social media corporations, Swann said the following:

“The problem for any dissenting voice is that if you are using your voice on someone else’s property, i.e., YouTube or Facebook, you will never have control of it. Which is why the next frontier must be decentralized platforms. Platforms like Dtube and Steemit, built on blockchain, will be future of how content, the good the bad and ugly, will be stored. And the efforts to silence dissenting voices, will actually be the undoing of YouTube and Facebook.”

I disagree not with Swann’s endorsement of decentralized platforms like Dtube and Steemit (which are both excellent and essential weapons in our revolution against the establishment oppression machine), but with Swann’s assertion that the social media giants’ censorship of dissenting voices will be their undoing. It will not.

“2017 was a strong year for Facebook, but it was also a hard one,” said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last month. “In 2018, we’re focused on making sure Facebook isn’t just fun to use, but also good for people’s well-being and for society. We’re doing this by encouraging meaningful connections between people rather than passive consumption of content. Already last quarter, we made changes to show fewer viral videos to make sure people’s time is well spent. In total, we made changes that reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day.”

Two questions:
(1) Does this sound like normal corporate talk to you? A corporation deliberately decreasing its advertising revenue for the benefit of “people’s well-being and society”?
(2) Does anyone honestly believe that Mark Zuckerberg has ever once in his life cared about “people’s well-being and society?”

Fast Company reports that time spent on Facebook is down a whopping 24 percent in a tone that seems to be warning that the company is in trouble, but Zuckerberg is actually publicly boasting about the loss and how beneficial it is for mankind. Not only has he drastically slashed his viewership, surely at great expense, but he’s also massively increased his overhead, hiring an extra 14,000 people to help fight “fake news”, which is expected to have risen to 20,000 by year’s end.

What kind of corporation does that? What kind of multibillion dollar corporation slashes its own profits that drastically without being legally compelled to, and does it for the good of “people’s well-being and society”?

These questions make it clear that we are looking at two possibilities here:
(1) That a Silicon Valley tech plutocrat, who censors the speech of political dissidents and hoards tens of billions of dollars while the poor starve, honestly cares about “encouraging meaningful connections” and being “good for people’s well-being and society” so much that he would slash his own profits to make that happen.
Or,
(2) This isn’t about helping people, and it isn’t about money. This is about marginalizing dissident voices as part of Silicon Valley’s extensive and well-documented alliance with the national security state.

Millionaires think in terms of money and profit. Billionaires think in terms of power and dominance. Zuckerberg isn’t filtering non-mainstream media off of Facebook for the good of society, and he isn’t doing it for money either. He’s doing it because he is an oligarch in the borderless new empire, and it is in the empire’s interest that dissident voices be silenced.

Silicon Valley is so intertwined with the agendas of intelligence and defense agencies that it’s gone beyond being used for surveillance and propaganda, and we now see things like Google straight up building AI for the Pentagon’s drone program. In an environment wherein money translates directly into political power, it’s impossible to grow beyond a certain size without learning to collaborate with existing power structures. Defense and intelligence agencies are the biggest enforcers of existing power structures in the new empire, and they will either empower you or your competition based on how willing you are to collaborate with them.

My point with all this is that the few clear-eyed rebels are not going to kill Facebook, Youtube and Twitter by marginalizing themselves into the fragmented fringe of alternative social media outlets like Steemit, Dtube, Gab, Minds, MeWe, etc. That’s exactly what these bastards want. They want us far away from their mainstream livestock. They want us to exit into some fringe circle that they will then invent a name for and smear as the place where all the kooks go. All of a sudden you’ll see all the mass media outlets simultaneously start using that label (“fringe conspiracy sites”, “fringe media”, who knows) in a derogatory and dismissive way, and from then on their herd will be immunized from our influence.

We should absolutely be expanding into new social media platforms (MeWe is an especially pleasant and collaborative site right now due to the current absence of pro-establishment disruptors), but we need to be engaging the mainstream as well, because they will not follow us. If Facebook can absorb a 24 percent dip that it caused by its own actions, then it can absorb the far smaller group of anti-establishment activists who would exit it as well.

I know it’s intensely creepy that these Silicon Valley corporations are being used to gather information on us. I know it’s incredibly frustrating to watch them strangle our numbers further and further into marginalization. But the reason they are fighting so hard to wedge us out of their mainstream platforms is because they want us out. Saying “Okay, well if you don’t want us here, we’ll leave!” is not a punishment, it’s a reward.

Tell Me More About How Google Isn't Part Of The Government And Can Therefore Censor Whoever It Wants? #Google #censorship #drone #pentagon #AI https://t.co/V6DKPWYodB

 — @caitoz

We need alternative social media platforms to enable us to talk to one another, but we need mainstream social media platforms to enable us to convey information to the mainstream as well. The empire is happy to have all of its dissidents marginalized into a small fringe group that it can then paint over with smear campaigns; what jams the gears of the propaganda machine is counter-narratives being shown to mainstream westerners.

Contrary to what the ideology of libertarians like Ben Swann would lead you to conclude, this isn’t a problem that the free market can sort out, because this is not a free market. The scales are being heavily weighted toward the social media outlets which collaborate most extensively with the interests of the empire, and that is where the mainstream population is going to remain for the foreseeable future. We cannot shut them down by exiting and taking some small amount of ad revenue away from them, but we can frustrate them so much that they are forced to expose their ham-fisted totalitarianism more and more.

By taking the revolution deep into the guts of Facebook, Twitter and Youtube, we can force them to either allow us to speak or become more and more totalitarian with their censorship, until they are forced to reveal to mainstream America just what kind of beasts they really are. Either way, we’d be making it harder for them instead of doing their job for them by marginalizing ourselves.

The mainstream will not follow us if we exit mainstream platforms into tiny websites most people don’t even know exist. The average American isn’t going to say “Hmm, I’ve noticed there’s a disappointing lack of anti-imperialist ideas in my news feed, maybe I should go check out that Twitter imitation with the frog logo?” They’re going to stay right where the propagandists want them. So since we can’t pull them out, we’ve got to go in after them.

Noam Chomsky said that the smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum, and that’s exactly what the propagandists are engineering with their censorship practices on Facebook, Twitter, and Google/Youtube. The only thing on the menu in cable news is an extremely heated ongoing debate ranging from the corporatist Orwellian warmongering neoliberalism of MSNBC to the corporatist Orwellian warmongering neoliberalism of Fox News, and they want that debate to be happening on mainstream online discourse as well.

As long as we refuse to leave mainstream social media circles, it’s like they’ve got Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity telling everyone what to think, and a bunch of fiery-eyed rebels keep storming the studio and kicking over their desks.

Stay where they don’t want us to the extent that you are capable, please. If you’ve left, go back in. Go back in and shine as bright as you can, attracting as many followers as possible and telling as much truth as you can get away with. Don’t leave until they drag you out kicking and screaming.

___________________________________

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Joe Biden Camp Braces, Attacks Before ‘Secret Empires’ Book Launch

ORIGINAL LINK

A forthcoming book due out next Tuesday is already drawing incoming attacks from members of former Vice President Joe Biden’s camp.

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In Rare Interview Kim Dotcom Says Obama-Jarrett are Directing Shadow Government From Their DC Bunker (VIDEO)

ORIGINAL LINK

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by Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit: Kim DotCom spoke out against the Deep State in a rare interview this week. The YouTube video is going viral and was promoted by Julian Assange. Kim DotCom believes Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett are running a shadow government against the Trump administration from their DC bunker. Kim DotCom: […]

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Ex-FBI Assistant Director: There Was A "High-Ranking" Plot To Protect Hillary; Brennan Leaked "Weekly"

ORIGINAL LINK

Former Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom said that there was a plot among "high-ranking" people throughout government - "not just the FBI," who coordinated in a plot to help Hillary Clinton avoid indictment. 

"I think we have ample facts revealed to us during this last year and a half that high-ranking people throughout government, not just the FBI, high-ranking people had a plot to not have Hillary Clinton, you know, indicted," Kallstrom told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo.

"I think it goes right to the top. And it involves that whole strategy - they were gonna win, nobody would have known any of this stuff, and they just unleashed the intelligence community. Look at the unmaskings. We haven't heard anything about that yet. Look at the way they violated the rights of all those American citizens."

Brennan the leaker?

Expounding on the "high-ranking" plot to protect Hillary Clinton and hurt Donald Trump, Kallstrom rattled off a list of involved parties - ending with Obama's CIA director, John Brennan...

Kallstrom: There's no question that he and McCabe and others in the FBI and the Justice Department, and, we're gonna find out the State Department and the National Security Advisor to the President, and the Deputy National Security advisor, and John Brennan.

Brennan notably fired off an aggressive tweet after FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's Friday night firing, stating "When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you."

When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America...America will triumph over you. https://t.co/uKppoDbduj

— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) March 17, 2018

Kallstrom and Bartiromo discussed Brennan's tweet, noting that the ex-CIA director had projected extreme animosity towards Trump, and was directly involved in leaks to the press

Kallstrom: My sources tell me that he was leaking almost weekly and daily. He was taking that bunch of phony crap supposedly from Russia, and peddling that through the Congress, all his buddies in the media, he was one of the active people. I've known him a long time.

Bartiromo: You think he's involved?

Kallstrom: Oh I think he's involved, absolutely. And I think it goes right to the top Maria.

In December, Kallstrom spoke with Fox Business News's Stewart Varney, where he said that the FBI's top brass has been conducting a highly politicized witch-hunt, and that a "cabal" of individuals, including McCabe, which set out to undermine Trump. 

Discussing the infamous "insurance polcy" text, Kallstrom said 

"People tweet each other and they send text messages, but they don't plan. The FBI is not in the business of planning to destroy a President of the United States," adding "I think they were way above their capability. This guy thinks he's the lone ranger, this Peter Strzok." 

If that's his thinking, and they were obviously in Andy's office plotting some kind of thing. And I think that some kind of thing is what we're seeing right now. And we've seen for the last, what, ever since he's been elected we've seen this facade and this phony challenge to Trump about collusion and Russia, which nothing could be further from the truth. All the collusion is with the Democrats, and it's very very depressing to be FBI agents. 99 percent are hard working patriotic guys and girls that come to work for the good of the country.

And you've got this cabal of people. You've got this deputy director (McCabe) who should have been out a long time ago for his actions. And then you’ve got Peter Strzok and who knows how many others. -James Kallstrom



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Snowden: Facebook Is a Surveillance Company Rebranded as ‘Social Media’

ORIGINAL LINK
Snowden Facebook Surveillance(ZHE) — NSA whistleblower and former CIA employee Edward Snowden slammed Facebook in a Saturday tweet following the suspension of Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) and its political data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica, over what Facebook says was imporoper use of collected data. In a nutshell, in 2015 Cambridge Analytica bought data from a University of Cambridge psychology […]

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US CENTCOM Chief Comes Clean: General's Three Stunning Admissions In The Mid-East

ORIGINAL LINK

Via Haaretz.com,

Assad has won, Iran deal should stand and Saudis use American weapons without accountability in Yemen: head of U.S. military’s Central Command's stunning Congressional testimony

The top U.S. general in the Middle East testified before Congress this week and dropped several bombshells: from signaled support for the Iran nuclear deal, admitting the U.S. does not know what Saudi Arabia does with its bombs in Yemen and that Assad has won the Syrian Civil War.

U.S. Army General Joseph Votel said the Iran agreement, which President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw from, has played an important role in addressing Iran's nuclear program.

"The JCPOA addresses one of the principle threats that we deal with from Iran, so if the JCPOA goes away, then we will have to have another way to deal with their nuclear weapons program," said U.S. Army General Joseph Votel.

JCPOA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, is the formal name of the accord reached with Iran in July 2015 in Vienna.

Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from the accord between Tehran and six world powers unless Congress and European allies help "fix" it with a follow-up pact. Trump does not like the deal's limited duration, among other things.

Votel is head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East and Central Asia, including Iran. He was speaking to a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the same day that Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after a series of public rifts over policy, including Iran.

Tillerson had joined Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in pressing a skeptical Trump to stick with the agreement with Iran.

"There would be some concern (in the region), I think, about how we intended to address that particular threat if it was not being addressed through the JCPOA. ... Right now, I think it is in our interest" to stay in the deal, Votel said.

When a lawmaker asked whether he agreed with Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford's position on the deal,Votel said: "Yes, I share their position."

Mattis said late last year that the United States should consider staying in the Iran nuclear deal unless it was proven Tehran was not complying or that the agreement was not in the U.S. national interest.

A collapse of the Iran nuclear deal would be a “great loss,” the United Nations atomic watchdog's chief warned Trump recently, giving a wide-ranging defense of the accord.

Iran has stayed within the deal’s restrictions since Trump took office but has fired diplomatic warning shots at Washington in recent weeks. It said on Monday that it could rapidly enrich uranium to a higher degree of purity if the deal collapsed.

Syria

Votel also discussed the situation in Syria at the hearing.

During the Syrian army's offensive in eastern Ghouta, more than 1,100 civilians have died. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, backed by Russia and Iran, say they are targeting "terrorist" groups shelling the capital.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned on Monday that Washington "remains prepared to act if we must," if the U.N. Security Council failed to act on Syria.

Votel said the best way to deter Russia, which backs Assad, was through political and diplomatic channels.

"Certainly if there are other things that are considered, you know, we will do what we are told. ... (But) I don't recommend that at this particular point," Votel said, in an apparent to reference to military options.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham asked whether it was too strong to say that with Russia and Iran's help, Assad had "won" the civil war in Syria.

"I do not think that is too strong of a statement," Votel said.

Graham also asked if the United States' policy on Syria was still to seek the removal of Assad from power.

"I don't know that that's our particular policy at this particular point. Our focus remains on the defeat of ISIS," Votel said, using an acronym for Islamic State. 

Saudi Arabia

In a stunning exchange with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, Votel admitted that Centcom doesn't know when U.S. fuel and munitions are used in Yemen. 

“General Votel, does CENTCOM track the purpose of the missions it is refueling? In other words, where a U.S.-refueled aircraft is going, what targets it strikes, and the result of the mission?” Warren asked.

“Senator, we do not,” Votel replied.

The Senator followed up, citing reports that U.S. munitions have been used against civilians in Yemen, she asked, “General Votel, when you receive reports like this from credible media organizations or outside observers, is CENTCOM able to tell if U.S. fuel or U.S. munitions were used in that strike?”

“No, senator, I don’t believe we are,” he replied.

Showing surprise at the general's response, Warren concluded, “We need to be clear about this: Saudi Arabia’s the one receiving American weapons and American support. And that means we bear some responsibility here. And that means we need to hold our partners and our allies accountable for how those resources are used,” she said.



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Maria Zakharova blows apart poisoning hoax: US should “be put under question

http://theduran.com/maria-zakharova-blows-apart-poisoning-hoax-us-should-be-put-under-question/

U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-un/u-n-has-testimony-that-syrian-rebels-used-sarin-gas-investigator-idUSBRE94409Z20130505

Many Americans have no clue what transpired in Syria. Here are 3 narratives explaining the conflict in Syria | Syrian War For Dummies – Three Versions

http://theduran.com/many-americans-have-no-clue-what-transpired-in-syria-here-are-3-narratives-explaining-the-conflict-in-syria/