If you are running an organisation, or providing a service, or otherwise going about your business trying to do a good job for the people who depend upon you - there is a limited amount of time available to analyse the global events that are constantly unfolding around you. Thus, when you finally get a chance to ‘catch up’, you might be forgiven for thinking that the carpet bombing of dross usually referred to as ‘the news’ is what you should be concerned about. Here’s a different idea for your consideration: the stuff that is talked about most is often the least real…moreover it is often presented, knowingly or otherwise, as a distraction from what is most real.
PICK A CARD, ANY CARD:
To a magician this is known as ‘redirection’, and of course is carried out consciously; for sports fans after a bad result, the myriad of excuses for ‘why we lost’ are designed to deflect from the team’s mistakes, but are largely unconscious – the story teller usually believes his own myth. In PR, the sleight of mouth is called ‘spin’; for political operatives it’s referred to as ‘the narrative’. For governments and their security agencies, it’s known as ‘propaganda’…although of course such dark deeds are only ever carried out by the other side.
‘Russiagate’ is a perfect example of this. For the Democratic Party, the narrative that Wikileaks got the DNC and Podesta emails from Russian hackers was redirection from the content of the emails, which exposed genuine election rigging. For Hillary Clinton, as pleaded in her latest interview earlier this week, it’s the ‘reason I lost’. For the neoconservatives in Washington, any attempt at reconciliation with Russia threatens to take away their ‘bad guy’, without which the war machine cannot justify the trillions of dollars it consumes. Thus Trump is constantly attacked for his Russian ‘connections’.
In the mainstream media, such narratives are followed obediently and rarely questioned. The complicity is not confined to ‘editorial’ – it is increasingly common throughout ‘news’, and is rife in ‘comment’. In the FT, for example, the so-called ‘liberal democracy’ agenda (it is neither liberal nor democratic) runs through pretty much everything written by Gideon Rachman and Philip Stephens. It is essentially pro-EU, pro-globalisation, anti-Russia, and despite protestations to the contrary - it is for large, centralised government. To the degree that I still read the FT, it is not to find out what is going on in the world, but to find out what the establishment want me to think is going on in the world.
THIS IS MOST INCIDIOUS WHEN IT COMES TO STATE SPONSORED KILLING:
People who’ve studied history, folks who question what they are told, people who’ve been paying attention to western foreign policy…have known for decades that the US and the UK use proxies to fight their wars, and use the media to demonise the enemy. In Afghanistan we used the Mujahedeen to fight the Russians, only to see them turn into Al Qaeda and carry out 9/11...only to watch them morph into Al Nusra and fight ‘with us’ in our war against Syria. In short: when they kill for us they are ‘rebels’ and ‘moderates’; when they kill for the other side or for themselves, they are ‘terrorists’.
Events over the past couple of weeks have again emphasised just how insidious and dangerous our proxy wars are, and how increasingly transparent the propaganda to cover it up is becoming…I write the latter part of that sentence in the hope that people are beginning to ‘wake up’ to the murderous cesspit we are digging for ourselves.
I speak of the bombing in Manchester – specifically the identity of the terrorists themselves, and the prior knowledge of who they were, which was held by the British Government and our intelligence services MI5 (domestic) and MI6 (international). To the full knowledge of these institutions, the suicide bomber, Salman Abedi, was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an organisation described by our security services as seeking a ‘hardline Islamic State’ in Libya…’part of the wider global Islamic extremist movement, as inspired by al-Qaeda’
Here’s John Pilger:
“…When Theresa May was Home Secretary, LIFG jihadists were allowed to travel unhindered across Europe and encouraged to engage in ‘battle’: first to remove Mu’ammar Gadaffi in Libya, then to join al-Qaida affiliated groups in Syria…"
http://johnpilger.com/articles/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know
Essentially…we took a group of terror suspects, gave them back their passports, allowed them to travel to Libya, do our ‘dirty work’ for us, and then return to the UK. Are we mad? No, we’re not mad: we are blind…our government has its eyes wide open…and our media has its mouth wide shut.
Cui Bono? Here’s more from Pilger:
“To the Americans and British, Gadaffi’s true crime was his iconoclastic independence and his plan to abandon the petrodollar, a pillar of American imperial power. He had audaciously planned to underwrite a common African currency backed by gold, establish an all-Africa bank and promote economic union among poor countries with prized resources. Whether or not this would have happened, the very notion was intolerable to the US as it prepared to ‘enter’ Africa and bribe African governments with military ‘partnerships’.
…One of the world’s biggest arms fairs was staged by the British government…The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry held a preview entitled ‘Middle East: A vast market for UK defence and security companies’. The host was the Royal Bank of Scotland, a major investor in cluster bombs, which were used extensively against civilian targets in Libya. The blurb for the bank’s arms party lauded the ‘unprecedented opportunities for UK defence and security companies’
…Last month, Prime Minister Theresa May was in Saudi Arabia, selling more of the £3 billion worth of British arms, which the Saudis have used against Yemen. Based in control rooms in Riyadh, British military advisers assist the Saudi bombing raids, which have killed more than 10,000 civilians. There are now clear signs of famine. A Yemeni child dies every 10 minutes from preventable disease, says Unicef"
http://johnpilger.com/articles/terror-in-britain-what-did-the-prime-minister-know
CONCLUSION:
My point is this: When it comes to governments…and matters of blood and treasure…what is most real is usually least seen. Don’t expect to be told the ‘truth’ by your government or the mainstream media. The truth is not ‘for free’ – it should be…but it isn’t. If you want it, I’m afraid you are just going to have to ask lots of awkward questions, challenge the sacred cows, and most of all - call out the veracity of the empty suits and plausible gasbags who litter the halls of government and the media…you know…you're going to have to kick up a fuss.