Exclusive: As the Russia-gate hysteria spirals down from the implausible to the absurd, almost every bad thing is blamed on the Russians, even how they turned the previously pristine Internet into a “sewer,” reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
With the U.S. government offering tens of millions of dollars to combat Russian “propaganda and disinformation,” it’s perhaps not surprising that we see “researchers” such as Jonathan Albright of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University making the absurd accusation that the Russians have “basically turned [the Internet] into a sewer.”
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside the Kremlin wall in Moscow, Dec. 6, 2016. (Photo by Robert Parry)
I’ve been operating on the Internet since 1995 and I can assure you that the Internet has always been “a sewer” — in that it has been home to crazy conspiracy theories, ugly personal insults, click-bait tabloid “news,” and pretty much every vile prejudice you can think of. Whatever some Russians may or may not have done in buying $100,000 in ads on Facebook (compared to its $27 billion in annual revenue) or opening 201 Twitter accounts (out of Twitter’s 328 million monthly users), the Russians are not responsible for the sewage coursing through the Internet.
Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans and pretty much every other segment of the world’s population didn’t need Russian help to turn the Internet into an informational “sewer.” But, of course, fairness and proportionality have no place in today’s Russia-gate frenzy.
After all, your “non-governmental organization” or your scholarly “think tank” is not likely to get a piece of the $160 million that the U.S. government authorized last December to counter primarily Russian “propaganda and disinformation” if you explain that the Russians are at most responsible for a tiny trickle of “sewage” compared to the vast rivers of “sewage” coming from many other sources.
If you put the Russia-gate controversy in context, you also are not likely to have your “research” cited by The Washington Post as Albright did on Thursday because he supposedly found some links at the home-décor/fashion site Pinterest to a few articles that derived from a few of the 470 Facebook accounts and pages that Facebook suspects of having a link to Russia and shut them down. (To put that 470 number into perspective, Facebook has about two billion monthly users.)
Albright’s full quote about the Russians allegedly exploiting various social media platforms on the Internet was: “They’ve gone to every possible medium and basically turned it into a sewer.”
But let’s look at the facts. According to Facebook, the suspected “Russian-linked” accounts purchased $100,000 in ads from 2015 to 2017 (compared to Facebook’s annual revenue of about $27 billion), with only 44 percent of those ads appearing before the 2016 election and many having little or nothing to do with politics, which is curious if the Kremlin’s goal was to help elect Donald Trump and defeat Hillary Clinton.
Even former Clinton political strategist Mark Penn has acknowledged the absurdity of thinking that such piddling amounts could have any impact on a $2.4 billion presidential campaign, plus all the billions of dollars worth of free-media attention to the conventions, debates, etc. Based on what’s known about the Facebook ads, Penn calculated that “the actual electioneering [in battleground states] amounts to about $6,500.”
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Monday, Penn added, “I have 40 years of experience in politics, and this Russian ad buy mostly after the election anyway, simply does not add up to a carefully targeted campaign to move voters. It takes tens of millions of dollars to deliver meaningful messages to the contested portion of the electorate.”
Puppies and Pokemon
And, then there is the curious content. According to The New York Times, one of these “Russian-linked” Facebook groups was dedicated to photos of “adorable puppies.” Of course, the Times tried hard to detect some sinister motive behind the “puppies” page.
The New York Times building in Manhattan. (Photo credit: Robert Parry)
Similarly, CNN went wild over its own “discovery” that one of the “Russian-linked” pages offered Amazon gift cards to people who found “Pokémon Go” sites near scenes where police shot unarmed black men — if you would name the Pokémon after the victims.
“It’s unclear what the people behind the contest hoped to accomplish, though it may have been to remind people living near places where these incidents had taken place of what had happened and to upset or anger them,” CNN mused, adding:
“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.”
So, these dastardly Russians are exploiting “adorable puppies” and want to “remind people” about unarmed victims of police violence, clearly a masterful strategy to undermine American democracy or – according to the original Russia-gate narrative – to elect Donald Trump.
A New York Times article on Wednesday acknowledged another inconvenient truth that unintentionally added more perspective to the Russia-gate hysteria.
It turns out that some of the mainstream media’s favorite “fact-checking” organizations are home to Google ads that look like news items and lead readers to phony sites dressed up to resemble People, Vogue or other legitimate content providers.
“None of the stories were true,” the Times reported. “Yet as recently as late last week, they were being promoted with prominent ads served by Google on PolitiFact and Snopes, fact-checking sites created precisely to dispel such falsehoods.”
There is obvious irony in PolitiFact and Snopes profiting off “fake news” by taking money for these Google ads. But this reality also underscores the larger reality that fabricated news articles – whether peddling lies about Melania Trump or a hot new celebrity or outlandish Russian plots – are driven principally by the profit motive.
The Truth About Fake News
Occasionally, the U.S. mainstream media even acknowledges that fact. For instance, last November, The New York Times, which was then flogging the Russia-linked “fake news” theme, ran a relatively responsible article about a leading “fake news” Web site that the Times tracked down. It turned out to be an entrepreneurial effort by an unemployed Georgian student using a Web site in Tbilisi to make some money by promoting pro-Trump stories, whether true or not.
Hillary Clinton at the Code 2017 conference on May 31, 2017.
The owner of the Web site, 22-year-old Beqa Latsabidse, said he had initially tried to push stories favorable to Hillary Clinton but that proved unprofitable so he switched to publishing anti-Clinton and pro-Trump articles, including made-up stories. In other words, the Times found no Russian connection.
The Times article on Wednesday revealed the additional problem of Google ads placed on mainstream Internet sites leading readers to bogus news sites to get clicks and thus advertising dollars. And, it turns out that PolitiFact and Snopes were at least unwittingly profiting off these entrepreneurial ventures by running their ads. Again, there was no claim here of Russian “links.” It was all about good ole American greed.
But the even larger Internet problem is that many “reputable” news sites, such as AOL, lure readers into clicking on some sensationalistic or misleading headline, which takes readers to a story that is often tabloid trash or an extreme exaggeration of what the headline promised.
This reality about the Internet should be the larger context in which the Russia-gate story plays out, the miniscule nature of this Russian “meddling” even if these “suspected … links to Russia” – as the Times initially described the 470 Facebook pages – turn out to be true.
But there are no lucrative grants going to “researchers” who would put the trickle of alleged Russian “sewage” into the context of the vast flow of Internet “sewage” that is even flowing through the esteemed “fact-checking” sites of PolitiFact and Snopes.
There are also higher newspaper sales and better TV ratings if the mainstream media keeps turning up new angles on Russia-gate, even as some of the old ones fall away as inconsequential or meaningless (such as the Senate Intelligence Committee dismissing earlier controversies over Sen. Jeff Sessions’s brief meeting with the Russian ambassador at the Mayflower Hotel and minor changes in the Republican platform).
Saying ‘False’ Is ‘True’
And, there is the issue of who decides what’s true. PolitiFact continues to defend its false claim that Hillary Clinton was speaking the truth when – in referencing leaked Democratic emails last October – she claimed that the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies “have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election.”
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)
That claim was always untrue because a reference to a consensus of the 17 intelligence agencies suggests a National Intelligence Estimate or similar product that seeks the judgments of the entire intelligence community. No NIE or community-wide study was ever done on this topic.
Only later – in January 2017 – did a small subset of the intelligence community, what Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described as “hand-picked” analysts from three agencies – the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation – issue an “assessment” blaming the Russians while acknowledging a lack of actual evidence.
In other words, the Jan. 6 “assessment” was comparable to the “stovepiped” intelligence that influenced many of the mistaken judgments of President George W. Bush’s administration. In “stovepiped” intelligence, a selected group of analysts is closeted away and develops judgments without the benefit of other experts who might offer contradictory evidence or question the groupthink.
So, in many ways, Clinton’s statement was the opposite of true both when she said it in 2016 and later in 2017 when she repeated it in direct reference to the Jan. 6 assessment. If PolitiFact really cared about facts, it would have corrected its earlier claim that Clinton was telling the truth, but the fact-checking organization wouldn’t budge — even after The New York Times and The Associated Press ran corrections.
In this context, PolitiFact showed its contempt even for conclusive evidence – testimony from former DNI Clapper (corroborated by former CIA Director John Brennan) that the 17-agency claim was false. Instead, PolitiFact was determined to protect Clinton’s false statement from being described for what it was: false.
Of course, maybe PolitiFact is suffering from the arrogance of its elite status as an arbiter of truth with its position on Google’s First Draft coalition, a collection of mainstream news outlets and fact-checkers which gets to decide what information is true and what is not true — for algorithms that then will exclude or downplay what’s deemed “false.”
So, if PolitiFact says something is true – even if it’s false – it becomes “true.” Thus, it’s perhaps not entirely ironic that PolitiFact would collect money from Google ads placed on its site by advertisers of fake news.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
What’s the Russian word for ‘porn’?
Maybe Politifact declares it? stance is based on an alternative fact?
But… greetings from Finland. In here is in full swing a MSM war against so called fake media, never mind the fact that many are the stories in fake media that have turned out to be the truth — or that we are supposed to be a civilized country with free speech.
Our government with the support of the MSM is using a term hatespeech to silence all tongues telling a different tale; some convictions have been given even though our law does not recognise hatespeech as a crime. The police nor the courts can not define exactly what hatespeech is — so it is what they want it to be.
I am curious whether Russia is really able to employ all these “marketing geniuses” to affect elections throughout the world. If so, then America’s greatest ad agencies need to look to Moscow for new recruits, instead of within our business schools.
If I recall correctly, Politifact is owned by the majority owners of the St Petersburg times, which family is a major big Clinton donor.
For WC,
Thank you for your answer to my question. The ‘reply’ tab is gone on the thread so I will reply here.
I believe I was trying to figure out the difference between “lawmakers” and the corporate entities you mentioned. Obviously the lawmakers are heavily influenced by the money and the lobbyists from the large corps which muddies the waters and makes it even more difficult to find clarity between politicians and the big money players. When the US sends our military into sovereign countries against international law, it’s fair to ask whether it is at the behest of corporate interests, or even Israels’ geopolitical agenda, especially in the Middle East.
The large corps you mentioned don’t have the legal authority to send our military to foreign lands and perform duties that have nothing to do with US defense (or do they?) and that is why I try to understand the distinction between 40 dual citizens of Israel within the ‘lawmakers’ of our country and large corporations. When Israels ‘allowance’ from US tax payers goes remarkably up in value, one has to wonder how and why that occurs when our own country is suffering. That’s all I wonder about. I won’t distract any more from Mr. Parrys’ article.
“Curious” repeats the “dual citizens of Israel” canard of Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Jewish”) propaganda.
The purpose of the Hasbara propaganda meme that members of the US Congress are ““dual citizens of Israel” (a fake “anti-Jewish” conspiracy theory totally unsupported by facts) is to distract from fact-based discussion of the actual operations of the pro-Israel Lobby, and Israeli influence on American politics and foreign policy.
Readers of Consortium News come from around the world, from very small towns with populations in the few 1,000’s to major cities with populations in the millions, and everything size category in between. In each of those categories of population size, the power is controlled by those possessing the greatest wealth inside that particular population, whether small town, medium, semi-large or major city. One can describe each category of population center as pyramidal in power structure, with those at the top of the pyramid the wealthiest few who “pull the strings” of societies, and, as relates to war and peace, the people who literally fire the first shots.
Identify those at the top of the world category pyramid, call them out for their war crimes, and then humanity has a fighting chance for peace.
I was glad to see that when H Clinton was in England, the RT ads all around were making fun of the blame game. Someone needs to lighten up and stop the ludicrous nonsensical year-long concentration on blaming Russia for the deep defects in almost all aspects of US presence in our world. Observe Pres. Putin and nearly every other real leader getting on with negotiations, agreements, constructive trade deals, ignoring the sinking ship led by the Trumpet and the Republican Party, while the Dems slide down with them.
I think the “Powers that be” in America actually believed it when Karl Rove announced to the world that the U.S. government had the godlike power to create any reality of its own choosing, the facts be damned, and the entire world would come to accept it and live by it, like it or not. They’ve been incessantly trying to pound this square peg of a governing philosophy into holes of a wide spectrum of geometric shapes ever since, believing that mere proclamation made it so. Russia, China, Iran and any other country that does business with this troika are evil. Moreover, any country that does not kowtow to Israel, or objects to its extermination campaign against the Palestinian people, is evil. Even simply pursuing an independent foreign policy not approved by Washington, as Iraq, Libya and Syria felt entitled to do, is evil. Why? Because we say so. That should suffice for a reason. Disagree with us at your peril. We have slaughtered millions of “evil-doers” in Middle Eastern Islamic states who dared to disagree, and we have economically strapped our own “allies” in Europe to put the screws to Russia. The key to escape from this predicament is how much more blowback, in terms of displaced peoples, violated human rights, abridged sovereignty and shattered economies, is Europe willing to tolerate in the wake of Washington’s megalomaniacal dictates before it stands up to the bully and stops supporting the madness. When does Macron, Merkel and May (assuming they are the leaders whom others will follow in Europe) say “enough” and start making demands on Washington, and not just on Washington’s declared “enemies?”
And, if the internet has indeed become the world’s “cloaca maxima,” I’d say first look to its inventors, founders, chief administrators and major users of the service, all of which reside in the United States. In terms of volume, Russia is but a small-time user of the service. If the object is to re-create a society such as described in the novel “1984,” it is certainly possible to censor the damned thing to the point where its just a tool of tyranny. The “distinguished” men and corporations basically running the internet planetwide have already conferred such authority to the Chinese government. Anything they don’t want their people to see is filtered out, compliments of Microsoft, Google, Facebook and the other heavy hitters. Just looking at trends, rhetoric and the fact that the infrastructure is mostly privately-owned, I can see the same thing coming to the West, unless the users demand otherwise, vociferously and en masse.
Realist – An excellent summary of this new Political World Order as announced/ordered from Washington to all Nations on Earth. U.S. Is The New God.
Trump is running point on the distraction op currently being run, to distract from the actual crimes committed by the Blue section of the ruling political party. So far he played his part brilliantly, knowingly or unknowingly, matters not.
#MeToo – A Course In Deductive Reasoning: Separating Fact From Fiction Through The Child Exploitation Of 8 Year Old Bana Alabed
https://clarityofsignal.com/2017/10/19/metoo-a-course-in-deductive-reasoning-separating-fact-from-fiction-through-the-child-exploitation-of-8-year-old-bana-alabed/
The Rulers fear the internet.
Excellent Report! Consortium needs a video outlet somebody to give these reports. There are many places other than YouTube you could use and I could become one of your Amateur video editor :)
The targeting of Pokemon Go users was especially nefarious because aren’t about half of those people below voting age? But when they finally are old enough to vote we can say that they were influenced by Russia! And this is always reported in a serious tone and with a straight face. I find the aftermath of the 2016 election to be ‘Hillary’ous. The obviously phony from the get-go Russia story was invented out of whole cloth to allow stunned Democrat voters to engage in some sort extended online group therapy session. After a year many are still working through the various stages of the grieving process, and some may actually reach the final stage—Acceptance (of the 2016 Election results)
Good one!
It will be interesting to see how the so-called left leaning media like MSNBC and CNN spin the Uranium One/Obama-Clinton State Department story. The right, especially Hannity on Fox, are on it, also Tucker Carlson who is moderate mostly. When these pundits say “Russia”, they seem to imply “Putin” but that may not be the case. And they always want to imply the US is beyond corrupt business deals, which is a joke. It’s about time the Clinton case is cracked, but with corruption rampant, who knows?
Stefan Molyneux does a great job in this 25-minute video where he outlines the absolute corruption going on in the Banana Republic of Americastan on both the left and right.
He ends up by saying that all of the same actors (Rosenstein, McCabe, Mueller, Comey, Lynch, Clinton) who were part of covering up Hillary’s unsecured servers and Uranium One are the very same people who are involved with going after Trump and his supposed collusion with Russia. Same people. And the media seem to find no end of things to say about the latter, while virtually ignoring the former.
https://www.sgtreport.com/articles/2017/10/18/shocking-fbi-corruption-exposed-true-news
backwardsevolution –
Yes, Media ignores the other scandal while beating up 24/7 on Russian inference/collusion in the Presidential Election. It is the same with the Foreign News. There was this more than 10,000 strong torchlit Neo-Nazi March in Kiev last Saturday. The pictures in the Sputnik News of these neo-Nazis in the march were very threatening. I think that most of the Russians have probably left West Ukraine. There was not even a mention of this March in the Los Angeles Times.
However, a week before Alexander Navalny had this protest – 500 figure as given the Western media – in Moscow. The picture was splashed across the entire page of Los Angeles Times with a half page article, mostly beating up on Putin.
I rarely watch TV shows. However, this Tuesday, because of the some work going on our house, I was home most of the day. My wife was watching TV starting in the afternoon well into the evening – MSNBC, CNN, PBS newshour; Wolg Blitzer, Lawrence O’Donnell, Don Lemon, Rachel Maddow, and others with all these so called experts invited to the shows. Just about most of it was about beating up on Trump and Russia as if it is the only news in the Country and in the World to report. It was really pathetic to hear all these nonsensical lies and garbage coming out the mouths of these talk show hosts and experts. It is becoming Banana Republic of Americanistan as you wrote.
Hi, Dave P. Yeah, I swear they have things on the shelf that are ready-to-go stories whenever there’s a lull in the Trump/Russia collusion nonsense. This last week they pulled Harvey Weinstein off the shelf and crucified the guy (not that he shouldn’t have been). If this Uranium One deal gets legs, watch for some huge false flag to coincidentally appear to take our minds off of it.
The biggest thing separating a “first world” country from a “third world” country is the rule of law. Without it, you might as well hoist up a flag with a big yellow banana on it and call it a day. Bananastan has a nice ring to it.
Cheers, Dave.
”There was this more than 10,000 strong torchlit Neo-Nazi March in Kiev last Saturday.” It never happened, well according to the Washington Post (aka Pravda on the Potomac) or New York Times (aka The Manhattan Beobachter) who, like the rest of the establishment media lie by omission. Other things that didn’t happen – the Odessa fire where 42 anti-Maidan demonstrators were incinerated by the Banderist mob who actually applauded as the Union Building went up like a torch with those unfortunate people not only trapped inside with the entrances barricaded, but those who jumped out of windows to escape the flames (a bit like 9/11 in New York) were clubbed to death as they lie injured on the ground. The film is on youtube if you can bear to watch it, I could only bear to watch it once. According to the website of Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh, it was “another bright day in our national history.” A Svoboda parliamentary deputy added, “Bravo, Odessa…. Let the Devils burn in hell.” These people are our allies, along of course with Jihadis in the middle east.
In his the British playwright Harold Pinter’s last valediction nailed the propaganda methodology of the western media with the phrase, ‘even while it was happening it wasn’t happening.’
Lee Francis –
yes. The words : ‘even while it was happening it wasn’t happening.’ It is from his Nobel lecture. I read the text of Nobel Lecture by Harold Pinter at that time – very passionate lecture. Pinter had terminal throat cancer, he could not go to Sweden. I think he sent his video of the Nobel lecture to be played.
The whole Russia-Gate brouhaha has become a monumental bore. How anyone with a modicum of intelligence and moral integrity can believe this garbage is beyond me. I salute Mr Parry for his fortitude in clearing the Augean stables of this filth; it reminds of the old Bonnie Raitt song, to wit – ‘It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.” personally I can’t be bothered reading it anymore.
Very well written article
Hours ago:
“Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley asked the attorney of a former FBI informant Wednesday to allow her client to testify before his committee regarding the FBI’s investigation regarding kickbacks and bribery by the Russian state controlled nuclear company that was approved to purchase twenty percent of United States uranium supply in 2010, Circa has learned.
In a formal letter, Grassley, an Iowa Republican, asked Victoria Toensing, the lawyer representing the former FBI informant, to allow her client, who says he worked as a voluntary informant for the FBI, to be allowed to testify about the “crucial” eyewitness testimony he provided to the FBI regarding members of the Russian subsidiary and other connected players from 2009 until the FBI’s prosecution of the defendants in 2014. […]
FBI officials told Circa the investigation could have prevented the sale of Uranium One, which controlled 20 percent of U.S. uranium supply under U.S. law. The deal which required approval by CFIUS, an inter-agency committee who reviews transactions that leads to a change of control of a U.S. business to a foreign person or entity that may have an impact on the national security of the United States. At the time of the Uranium One deal the panel was chaired by then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and included then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-Attorney General Eric Holder.”
https://www.circa.com/story/2017/10/18/judiciary-committee-calls-on-former-fbi-informant-to-testify-about-uranium-one
This FBI informant was apparently gagged from speaking to Congress by either Loretta Lynch or Eric Holder (I’ve heard both names). Why would they have done this?
Joe – I never had interest in conspiracy type stories and narratives like that. However, after reading the zerohedge article in the link in your post, I am beginning to seriously doubt the Seth Rich murder investigation findings by the Washington DC police – I had some misgivings before about it too. I think there was not any significant involvement by FBI in the case. And the Justice department under Loretta Lynch did not pursue the investigation.
Knowing all kind of stories in the news about Clintons friend Vince Foster’s death during 1990’s , and many other episodes in Bill and Hillary Clinton’s political life, I wonder about the power and reach of this couple. And now this article and no investigation of this bribery and corruption scandal during Obama’s presidency. It all smells fishy.
Dave not only as what you had mentioned, but the Seth Rich story seems to have become taboo in our news. I realize what the Rich family requested, but when did ever a request from the family ever get honored by the big media ever before? I’m not suggesting anything more, than why is the Seth Rich murder appearing to be off limits, and further more with Seth’s death being in question and implicated to the Wikileaks ‘Hillary Exposures’ being Seth one of those ‘leakers’, then take responsibility DNC and ask the same questions, or at least answer the questions asked. I hope that made sense, because somehow it made sense to me.
The suggestion of any alternative to the establish narrative gets tossed to the wind. I think this drip, drip, flood, of Russia collusion into the gears of American Government is a way of America’s Establishment, who is now in charge, way of going out with a bang. The world is starting to realize it doesn’t need the U.S., and the U.S. is doing everything in it’s power to help further that multi-polar world’s growing realization that it doesn’t.
Okay Dave. Joe
Joe, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has the power to initiate investigations into these cases. However, it seems to me that the Ruling Elite/Deep State does not want to wash the dirty linen in front of the whole World. It would be very embarrassing; it will show the true picture of this whole sewage/swamp it is. Jeff Sessions or others in high places, have no independence at all, even if they want to pursue their own course – which they rarely do.
It seems like that all these investigations are a kind of smoke screen to hide the real issues. During 1950’s or 60’s , people in this country mostly trusted the leaders and elected officials. And majority of the leaders, whatever their policies or sides they took on issues, had some integrity, depth, solidity and dignity about them. But it seems to me that these days politicians do not have any of it. The same is true of the Media. This constant mindless Russia-Gate hysteria being perpetuated by the elected leaders, Media, and pundits without any thought or decorum is not worthy of a civilized country. Also, it is not good for the Country or the World.
Yes Dave the quality of accountability and responsibility in DC is sorely lacking of concern to be honest, and do the right thing by its citizens. This is another reason why it’s good to talk these things over with you, and many of the others who post comments here. Joe
Joe,Dave,…glad you bring it up… Russiagate seems to be providing a full eclipse of any investigation into the Seth Rich murder…and just whatever happened to his laptop?
I think Bob the Rich investigation got filed under ‘conspiracy theory do not touch’ file. Joe
Actually the family of Seth Rich did NOT request. They were appointed a DNC spokesperson who spoke FOR them.
Wikileaks tweet: Seth Rich’s new “family spokesman” is Brad Bauman a professional Democrat crisis PR consultant with the Pastorum Group.
So yes, even IF his family ever did request such a thing, why might anyone expect media to honor such a request? But they did not. Further discussion about Bauman and his connections, suggests large potential for collusion and cover-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHdP71ohgz0
Your site has a lot of useful information for myself. I visit regularly. Hope to have more quality items.
Peter Schweizer, author of “Clinton Cash”, has been talking about the biggest Russian bribe of all, the one no one wants to talk about – Uranium One. This deal may have been the reason why $145 million ended up in Clinton Foundation coffers, all while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
Here is Peter Schweizer today on Tucker Carlson’s program talking about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNTdlyx7EMQ
Her emails showed that HRC’s internal polling proved her greatest vulnerability with her supporters was when they were told the details of her uranium deal.
Thanks for the link. Great interview. The real Russia-gate!
Absolutely crucial and outstanding piece by Mr. Parry. His well thought out dissection of Politifact is invigorating.
It’s amazing how the “mainstream media” has pushed this Russian collusion nonsense. What’s more amazing is how every time an article is published my these outlets claiming some new evidence of Russian collusion, within 24 hours there’s evidence to the contrary. I think the whole Pokemon and Facebook claims are the lowest point in this Russian collusion nonsense. The worst part is we won’t see it end anytime soon…
Good points, Sam. There are many named “Sam” so please distinguish your pen name from mine, perhaps with an initial. Thanks!
Was the article below in corporate media? Link below:
—————————————————————————————————-
Thousands of govt docs found on laptop of sex offender married to top Clinton adviser
Published time: 18 Oct, 2017 16:45Edited time: 18 Oct, 2017 18:37
https://www.rt.com/usa/407120-fbi-found-3k-docs-weiner/
No need for America to be influenced to turn the internet into a sewer, America is doing just fine on that with no help at all. The Russians are just mocking us over there, which is perfectly understandable. In fact, from what I read, Russians are actually more religious and concerned about immorality than Americans.
This whole thing is a joke, we know it, it’s an attempt to control people, and I for one am pretty sick of it and don’t mind telling anyone just that. Let them sputter, stomp their feet, or whatever. Keep it up, United States, and you’ll be playing in the schoolyard all by yourself!
A single person started all this nonsense: Hillary Clinton.
If it is possible to consider Russia helped throw the 2016 presidential election with 100k spent over a three year period, then why not suspect and investigate the American MSM, who gave Donald Trump 4.9 billion dollars worth of free media coverage? Surely you all may recall the wall to wall commercial free cable network coverage Trump used to receive during the way too long of a presidential campaign? Now we are being led to believe that a few haphazard placed Russian adbuys on FB stool the election from ‘it’s my turn now boys’ Hillary. Here I must admit that as much as I would love to have a woman President, I would choose almost any qualified women other than Hillary. But yeah, this Russia-gate nonsense is a creation of the Shadow Government, who wants so badly to see Putin get thrown out of office, that they would risk starting WWIII doing it.
Should I say it? Shocker. NYT and HIllary are a potent team. Add on Google and CNN and you have a formidable propaganda organization that is going to influence millions of American. Plus Face Book and you have most of America covered without a dissenting voice. I used to be one of their customers, reading and believing everything they put out until Judith Miller was exposed with W and Scooter. I confess to a jaundiced eye since then. Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot out there if you like to read good writers of relevant material. We have a problem, Houston.
Great take Mr Parry
Smoke and mirrors to distract we the sheeple of this dying paradigm. Fascism alive and well in the land of the free. The sheeple r now entering the critical stage, they have hit 20 percent. Dangerous times for the western masters of the universe. Get ready for more false flags to keep the sheeple blinded from reality. The recent events globally with regards to Iran, Syria and the DPRK are all their for distractions add the Russians ate my homework and viola distraction heaven. But like I said more and more people in the US and the west are turning off 1/5 to be exact and that spells trouble for the masters. They want war at all costs 600 percent debt is not a sustainable economic system . IMF warning just the other day that all it will take is one major European bank to crash and viola. So dangerous and interesting times we r living. Is it by design in order to get their way.?I would say yes to that.
Good notes. Incidentally you may intend the French “voila” rather than the musical instrument “viola.”
Voila, viola. Didn’t Curly of the three stooges do a bit on that?
We have sewer rats in our depraved “democracy.”
More info at link below:
October 18, 2017
Is This The “Democracy” of the Depraved?
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/10/is-this-democracy-of-depraved.html
All this nonsense will soon die an evidence-free natural death, but rather than admit to the lies the MSM will divert the Deplorables with some convenient scandal like the Weinstein affair.
The effect of all this will be to hammer the final nails in the coffin of the political establishment and its servile MSM. This process began with the Iraqi WMD lies, and now 6% of the population believes what it sees in the MSM.
mark-
I wish you were right, but with all the money being thrown around, and scumbag Mueller in the mix, how this will end is anybody’s guess. I’m also curious where you got the 6% figure. Sounds like wishful thinking to me.
Our election process is so completely corrupted I doubt that a few thousand dollars of Facebook ads that no one pays any attention to could sway the vote, I am much more concerned about bribery, Israel, American Zionists, racists, corporations, evangelicals, dominionists, white nationalists, anarchist’s, conservatives, war profiteers, gerrymanders, vote purges, vote repressors, voting machine hackers, seems like Russian’s are pretty far down the list.
Now you talking, let’s get to the real stuff. Good one Charles. Joe
I don’t have “FACEBOOK”. Or any other “social media (whatever that may be.)
I don’t “tweet” and the technology which we were once told would save
the world, has left me behind. I don’t text. I have no smart phone
or cell.
I no longer have a TV of any description. Or cable with millions of things
you don’t want to see anyway.
Only my mind is left. For some more years.
(J.M. Keynes: “…in the long run we will all be dead.”
Perhaps one has to have “social media” to be born in
this generation. Do you need it to exit?
Please accept my thoughts with my “asocial” [media]
appologies.
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
My “tweet”/message is only my fear that the NY Yankees
will be in the World Series where I can hate them with complete
impunity. (I was created a fan of the Washington Senators,
morphed into a Brooklyn Dodgers fan…so the usually failing
Boston Red Sox fits me well. Being for that so-called “dodgers”
team on the west coast is a forced marriage at best.
Peter screw Facebook and all the rest of that High Tech Big Brother Inc industry, and the garbage they are promoting.
Also Peter do you have a little Walter Francis O’Malley voodoo doll to stick pins in it? I also haven’t followed baseball since Roberto Clemente died.
We kids use to skip school to go watch Clemente play. In fact in 1957 a young ball player who the Pirates had acquired in somekind of trade with the Brooklyn Dodgers chased my seven year old little butt out of right field when I wandered all confused onto the field. That young rookie who chased my loss little being off the field, was none other than the great number 21 Roberto Clemente.
Actually the only thing you left out Peter was the Braves moving to Atlanta. Take care Peter, and let’s play more ball in the daylight, and let’s make it more affordable game to watch again. Play ball & BDS. Joe
I’m envious now Joe. Roberto Clemente was one of my favorite baseball players. My no. 1 favorite, though, was Willie Mays. And speaking of the Braves moving to Atlanta, my father took my brother and I there the first year the team was in Atlanta. The Giants were there for a series with the Braves, and I got to see Mays play (my first and only time). I would have loved to have been able to skip school and watch Clemente play.
On the subject of concern here, The Hill has a couple of stories on the zerohedge.com story you referenced above. From what I read, it appears to me that if this is still an open case with the FBI, Ms. Clinton (and Obama?) could possibly face criminal charges in this matter. We can only hope. To Peter – I do have an old 1992 console TV, but no cable; so I have no television to speak of. I have a VHS and DVD player though and watch old movies and such on the old TV.
Thomas how cool. My buddies and I would purchase the left field bleacher seats for I think fifty cents or maybe it was a dollar. Then around the third inning we would boogie on over into the right field stands overlooking the great Roberto, and yell ‘hey Roberto’. From right field we kids would eye up the empty box seats off of third base. Somewhere about the sixth or seventh inning we would sneakily slide into those empty box seats along third base side, where you could see into the Pirate dugout along first. Now the Pirate dugout is along third. The box seat ushers would back then justbsimply tell us kids to be good, and that they got a pat on the back from management for filling up those empty box seats, because the television cameras would pick that up. The best part was, we little hooky players did all of this on our school lunch money.
About that FBI thing with Hillary I’m hoping this doesn’t get written off as just another Trump attack, and that this doesn’t turn into another entertaining Benghazi hearing for Hillary to elevate her status among her identity groupies. Joe
EITHER OR, INC. (EOI) a secret subsidiary of Deep Sewer Election Manipulators, Inc (DSEMI), a fraudulent make believe Russia company, that changes election outcomes, in foreign countries, to conform the leadership of the foreign country with Russia foreign policy, studied the most recent USA candidates and concluded Russia could not have found persons more suited to Russian foreign policy than the candidates the USA had selected for its American governed, to vote on. The case is not yet closed, EOI is still trying to decide if there is or was a difference between the candidates..
Thank you Mr Parry for actually taking the time to read the NYT or WaPo for your readers, so we don’t have to. There is only so much disinformation one can cram into our ‘cranium soft drives’ regarding journalists with no ethics nor moral rudders.
It reminds me of watching Jon Stewarts Daily Show to check out the perverse drivel on Fox News since to watch Fox myself would have damaged me beyond repair. Many of my friends are already Humpty-Dumptied by the volume of fragmented info leeching into their bloodstreams by 140 character news.
Thank you for your fortitude in trying to debunk the news and ‘outing’ those editors who feel they are insulated from critical analysis.
jon stewart?WTF?
Well dahoit,
Just chalk it up to a historical reference as that is around the time I stopped watching TV, having worked in the biz for some 30 years. I don’t miss it either. Jon gave us a lot of humor and a lot of clever, surreptitious info, and the way they captured the talking points of the politicians by the use of their fast cuts was remarkable. There was a lot of political content in a show meant to just be humorous. Sorry you feel otherwise.
Yes, and over the past week or two, it appears that work is being redirected into holding the vast military behemoth (?), Israel, accountable for our own political/policy choices. Either way, the US is clearly in its post-reality era.
zio-alert
The naked gun of post-reality Hasbara propaganda:
When Israeli influence on US foreign policy choices may be discussed, Hasbara troll “D.H. Fabian” pops up to insist:
“Please disperse! There’s nothing for you to see here. Keep moving!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjK2Oqrgic
And what do you want to discuss Abe? That there is undue influence from Israel on the US government? Maybe, but you could say the same thing about the pharmaceuticals, the MIC, big oil and the bankers, just to begin the list.
If you and others wish to focus in on a single culprit (defined as anyone fighting for their own self interests), fine. But there are opposing views that believe the picture is bigger than the one you would like to paint.
WC, I don’t want to speak for Abe, but I am wondering about your use of the word “maybe”. Since the last count of US politicians was 13 Senators, and 27 House Reps who are dual citizens of Israel, does that not imply a conflict of interest just in those stats alone? Israel doesn’t allow dual citizenship in their political system as it is a security risk, so why do we? I will wait for your reply.
Curious.
I can’t speak for the legalities that led to allowing dual citizenship in the House and Senate, nor why Israel doesn’t allow dual citizenship in their political system. Like a lot of laws it is probably serving someone’s best interests. ;)
As for the word “maybe” and how it relates to your overall question. Just because there are dual citizen reps in government, does that automatically say they all vote in the interests of Israel exclusively? And even if that were the case what makes them any different from the rep sold out to the MIC, big oil, pharmaceuticals, bankers, etc., or combination of? We’d then need to do a study of all of the sold-out politicians and chart the percentage of each to the various interests they sold out to. At what percentage does Israel come into the big picture?
No one is denying Israel has a certain influence on the US government, but given all of the vested interests involved, the US also has a big stake in what happens in the region. I also don’t know what the overall game plan is, not just for the middle east but all of the sordid shit going on everywhere. If old George is right about “The Big Club”, I’m assuming some group or combination of groups have some master plan for us all, so I am not ready to label any group, country or entity good or bad at this stage of the game. If this somehow leaves out the moral question, I am not idealistic enough to believe morality and Geo-politics often work hand in hand. :)
WCs point is valid and correct. The picture is MUCH bigger than a tiny desert country of a few million Semites ruling the World. The actual picture is the outgrowth of the several, world-wide, European Empires having united into one, gigantic “Roman Empire” (under Synarchist directorship) and CAPTURED America, post WWII, to be its enforcer, working to break the last holdout: the Eurasian Quarter including Iran, into a truly global Empire. Israel was a strategy of the British Empire to preclude any revival of a Muslim Empire, threatening its MENA holdings. The enemy is still the British Empire of the 1%er oligarchs in City-of-London and Wall Street. The fact that NOBODY pays attention to this situation, and obsesses over Israel, guarantees the success of the Plan.
No, the problem of Mideast policy and oligarchy control of mass media is entirely due to zionist influence, including all top ten donors to Clinton 2016. Ukraine and the entire problem of surrounding and opposing Russia is due primarily to zionist influence, due to their intervention in the Mideast, although the MIC is happy to join the corruption for war anywhere. The others on your list “pharmaceuticals,… big oil and the bankers” are involved in other problems.
WC seeks to divert discussion from zionist influence by changing the subject.
Brad, you will have a hard time explaining why US wars in the Mideast and surrounding Russia are always for the benefit of Israel, if you think that ancient Venetians and British aristocracy are running the show. Looks like a diversionary attack to me.
The naked solo of “D.H. Fabian” has surged into a Hasbara chorus. Where to begin.
Let’s start with “Curious”, who definitely does not speak for me.
The “dual citizens” canard is a stellar example of Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Israel”, “anti-Zionist”, frequently “anti-Jewish” or “anti-Semitic”) propaganda that gets ramped up whenever needed, but particularly Israel rains bombs on the neighborhood.
Like Conventional Hasbara (overtly pro-Israel or pro-Zionist) propaganda, the primary purpose of Inverted Hasbara false flag propaganda is to divert attention from Israeli military and government actions, and to provide cover for Israel Lobby activities
The Inverted Hasbara canard inserted by “Curious” came into prominence after the Israel-initiated war Lebanon in 2006. Israel’s shaky military performance, flooding of south Lebanon cluster munitions, use of white phosphorus in civilian areas brought censure. Further Israeli attacks on Gaza brought increasing pressure on the neocon-infested Bush administration for its backing of Israel.
A Facebook post titled, “List of Politicians with Israeli Dual Citizenship,” started circulating. The post mentioned “U.S. government appointees who hold powerful positions and who are dual American-Israeli citizens.”
With the change of US administration in 2008, new versions of the post appeared with headlines such as “Israeli Dual Citizens in the U.S. Congress and the Obama Administration.” Common versions included 22 officials currently or previously with the Obama administration, 27 House members and 13 senators.
The posts were false for a variety of reasons, not least of which was the misrepresentation of Israeli nationality law. Israel does allow its citizens to hold dual (or multiple) citizenship. A dual national is considered an Israeli citizen for all purposes, and is entitled to enter Israel without a visa, stay in Israel according to his own desire, engage in any profession and work with any employer according to Israeli law. An exception is that under an additional law added to the Basic Law: the Knesset (Article 16A) according to which Knesset members cannot pledge allegiance unless their foreign citizenship has been revoked, if possible, under the laws of that country.
The Law of Return grants all Jews the right to immigrate to Israel and almost automatic Israeli citizenship upon arrival in Israel. In the 1970s the Law of Return was expanded to grant the same rights to the spouse of a Jew, the children of a Jew and their spouses, and the grandchildren of a Jew and their spouses, provided that the Jew did not practice a religion other than Judaism willingly. In 1999, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that Jews or the descendants of Jews that actively practice a religion other than Judaism are not entitled to immigrate to Israel as they would no longer be considered Jews under the Law of Return, irrespective of their status under halacha (Jewish religious law).
Israeli law distinguishes between the Law of Return, which allows for Jews and their descendants to immigrate to Israel, and Israel’s nationality law, which formally grants Israeli citizenship. In other words, the Law of Return does not itself determine Israeli citizenship; it merely allows for Jews and their eligible descendants to permanently live in Israel. Israel does, however, grant citizenship to those who immigrated under the Law of Return if the applicant so desires.
A non-Israeli Jew or an eligible descendant of a non-Israeli Jew needs to request approval to immigrate to Israel, a request which can be denied for a variety of reasons including (but not limited to) possession of a criminal record, currently infected with a contagious disease, or otherwise viewed as a threat to Israeli society. Within three months of arriving in Israel under the Law of Return, immigrants automatically receive Israeli citizenship unless they explicitly request not to.
In short, knowingly or not, “Curious” is spouting Inverted Hasbara propaganda.
Conventional Hasbara (pro-Israel, pro-Zionist) propagandists constantly attempt to portray Israeli military threats against its neighbors, Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, Zionist claims of an “unconditional land grant covenant” for Israel, or the manipulations of the Israel Lobby, as somehow all based on “the way the world really works”.
“WC” slithered into the CN comments srael’s land grab “solution” was under scrutiny here:
Israel’s Stall-Forever ‘Peace’ Plan (September 23, 2017)
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/09/23/israels-stall-forever-peace-plan/
“WC” has repeatedly promoted a loony “realism” in the CN comments, claiming for example that “The Jews aren’t doing anything different than the rest have done since the beginning of time.”
The Conventional Hasbara troll refrain is that whatever Israel does “ain’t no big thing”.
“D.H. Fabian”, “WC” and others are not Hasbara trolls because we somehow “disagree”. They are Hasbara trolls because they promote propaganda for Israel.
Fellow travellers round out the Hasbara chorus.
Commenter anon discourses in absolutes such as “entirely due to zionist influence” and “always for the benefit of Israel”.
Commenter Brad Owen just can’t understand why everyone “obsesses” over that “tiny desert country” when “the Plan” outlined by LaRouche is sooo much more interesting.
Abe – An excellent analysis – very penetrating. Yes, I understand it very clearly.
I am one of those who does not have the background in this area. However, reading the largely British view oriented newspapers since I was fourteen , in a different land where at that time during 1950’s and early 60’s, all viewpoints were discussed including the communist Russian/Soviet side, and the Communist Chinese side too, one develops a balanced outlook on the World events.
Reading your comments on Israel’s citizenship laws, is very eye opening for me. Israel is a very Racist State, which is kind of the opposite of what Jewish Writers write books in this country about America being the melting pot. Some of us have already melted here. I sometimes wonder, Jewish writers are writing all these books, but why don’t they melt! Are they special chosen people?
Let me first dispel the notion that I am trying to change the subject, as “anon” would like to imply. What I am after is a proper perspective as opposed to something blown out of proportion.
When it comes to the subject of Israel, Jews and Zionism, Abe would appear to be well versed on the subject. He certainly cleared up “Curious”s question on dual citizenship!
With Abe and others on this site, Zionism is the big daddy culprit in the world today. I, on the other hand, see it as simply one part of a bigger picture, which I am still trying to get my head around, but I am quite certain it goes far beyond just a regional issue. In reading what Abe has to say on this subject over the past few months, he may very well be right about Zionist influence and a take no prisoners-type of resolve in pursuing their aims (whatever that may be). But none of this has yet to convince me they are entirely wrong either.
Which brings us to the subject of morality. Take a second look at what Abe has chosen to cherry pick from what he sees as the “Hasbara chorus” – all pointing to “trolls” who (he thinks) are in support of an all powerful and heartless sect. This is what is known as being overly dramatic and speaks volumes about what Abe (and others on this site) view as the most objectionable of all – the moral wrongs being committed. For the sake of clarification “morality” is defined as “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior”. Most of us who are not suffering from a mental disorder can agree on what constitutes right and wrong at its purist level, but thrown into a world filled with crime, corruption, greed, graft, hate, lust, sociopaths and psychopaths vying for power, sectarian violence, a collapsing economy, inner city decay, and all of the vested special interests jockeying to save their piece of the pie, what is right and wrong becomes far more convoluted and mired in mud. Simply throwing perfect world idealism at the problem will not fix it. In fact, it will get you as far as the miles of crucified Christians that lined the road to Rome. Which is a hell of a way to prove you are so right in a world filled with so much wrong.
Since the day I “slithered in” here, I have asked the same question over and over – what are your REAL world solutions to REAL world problems? So far, the chorus of the Church Of The Perfect World has offered up nothing. :)
Making the same statements over and over again, “WC” is clearly “after” a Hasbara “proper perspective” on Israel.
For example, in the CN comments on How Syria’s Victory Reshapes Mideast (September 30, 2017), “WC” advanced three key Hasbara propaganda talking points concerning the illegal 50-year military occupation of Palestinian territory seized by Israel during the 1967 War:
– Spurious claims about “what realistically (not idealistically) can be done”
– Insistence that “Israel is not going to go back to the 1948 borders”
– Claims that the US “depends on a strong Israeli presence”
A leading canard of Hasbara propaganda and the Israeli right wing Neo-Zionist settlement movement is the notion of an “unconditional land grant covenant” entitlement for Israel.
Land ownership was far more widespread than depicted in the fictions of Israeli propaganda. In reality, the Israeli government knowingly confiscated privately owned Palestinian land and construct a network of outposts and settlements.
Israel’s many illegal activities in occupied Palestinian territory encompass Neo-Zionist settlements, so-called “outposts” and declared “state land”.
The United Nations has repeatedly upheld the view that Israel’s construction of settlements constitutes a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention (which provides humanitarian protections for civilians in a war zone).
The 1967 “border” of Israel refers to the Green Line or 1949 Armistice demarcation line set out in the Armistice Agreements between Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
The Green Line was intended as a demarcation line rather than a permanent border. The 1949 Armistice Agreements were clear (at Arab insistence) that they were not creating permanent borders. The Egyptian–Israeli agreement, for example, stated that “the Armistice Demarcation Line is not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question.”
Similar provisions are contained in the Armistice Agreements with Jordan and Syria. The Agreement with Lebanon contained no such provisions, and was treated as the international border between Israel and Lebanon, stipulating only that forces would be withdrawn to the Israel–Lebanon border.
United Nations General Assembly Resolutions and statements by many international bodies refer to the “pre-1967 borders” or the “1967 borders” of Israel and neighboring countries.
According to international humanitarian law, the establishment of Israeli communities inside the occupied Palestinian territories – settlements and outposts alike – is forbidden. Despite this prohibition, Israel began building settlements in the West Bank almost immediately following its occupation of the area in 1967.
Defenders of Israel’s settlement policies, like David Friedman, the current United States Ambassador to Israel, argue that the controversy over Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory is overblown.
The Israeli government and Israel Lobby advocates like Ambassador Friedman claim the built-up area of settlements comprises only around 2% of the West Bank.
This Hasbara “2%” argument is at best ignorant, and at worst deliberately disingenuous.
The “2%” figure is misleading because it refers restrictively to the amount of land Israeli settlers have built on, but does not account for the multiple ways these settlements create a massive, paralytic footprint in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank.
Since 1967, Israel has taken control of around 50% of the land of the West Bank. And almost all of that land has been given to the settlers or used for their benefit. Israel has given almost 10% of the West Bank to settlers – by including it in the “municipal area” of settlements. And it has given almost 34% of the West Bank to settlers – by placing it under the jurisdiction of the Settlement “Regional Councils.”
In addition, Israel has taken hundreds of kilometers of the West Bank to build infrastructure to serve the settlements, including a network of roads that crisscross the entire West Bank, dividing Palestinian cities and towns from each other, and imposing various barriers to Palestinian movement and access, all for the benefit of the settlements.
Israel has used various means to do this, included by declaring much of the West Bank to be “state land,” taking over additional land for security purposes, and making it nearly impossible for Palestinians to register claims of ownership to their own land.
The Israeli Supreme Court has repeatedly used the term “belligerent occupation” to describe Israel’s rule over the West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the question of a previous sovereign claim to the West Bank and Gaza is irrelevant to whether international laws relating to occupied territories should apply there.
Rather, the proper question – according to Israel’s highest court – is one of effective military control. In the words of the Supreme Court decision, “as long as the military force exercises control over the territory, the laws of war will apply to it.” (see: HCJ 785/87, Afo v. Commander of IDF Forces in the West Bank).
The Palestinian territories were conquered by Israeli armed forces in the 1967 war. Whether Israel claims that the war was forced upon it is irrelevant. The Palestinian territory has been controlled and governed by the Israeli military ever since.
Who claimed the territories before they were occupied is immaterial. What is material is that before 1967, Israel did not claim the territories.
Ariel Sharon, one of the principal architects of Israel’s settlement building policy in the West Bank and Gaza, recognized this reality. On May 26, 2003, then Israeli Prime Minister Sharon told fellow Likud Party members: “You may not like the word, but what’s happening is occupation [using the Hebrew word “kibush,” which is only used to mean “occupation”]. Holding 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation is a bad thing for Israel, for the Palestinians and for the Israeli economy.”
Whether one believes that these territories are legally occupied or not does not change the basic facts: Israel is ruling over a population of millions of Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens. Demographic projections indicate that Jews will soon be a minority in the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.
Real world solutions:
An end to the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
An end to apartheid government and the beginning of real democracy in Israel.
What can be done now?
United States government sanctions against Israel for its 50-year military occupation of Palestine, its apartheid social regime, and its arsenal of nuclear weapons.
The United States can require Israel to withdraw its forces to the 1967 line, and honor the right of return to Palestinians who fled their homeland as a result of Israel’s multiple ethnic cleansing operations.
In addition, the United States can demand that immediately surrender its destabilizing nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons arsenal or face severe U.S. action.
Hasbara trolls will keep trying to change the subject, continue muttering about “opposing views” and some “bigger picture” picture”, and repeatedly insist that an Israel armed with weapons of mass destruction routinely attacking its neighbors “ain’t no big thing”.
Thanks for the clarification Abe. My comment was more of a question than a statement because I don’t have your knowledge on the subject. I posted this question only to WC to ask about why the large Corps would be tossed into the equation since it appeared to me an entirely different subject. My attempt was to understand more the aspect of legislation and law vs large corporations or people holding the purse. It was a simple question with no agenda.
Not so fast or so simple, “Curious”
The Hasbara propaganda agenda is to divert attention from the Israel Lobby and Israeli efforts to influence American foreign policy.
“Curious” introduced the “dual citizens” propaganda canard in a two-troll Hasbara dance with “Antares” in the CN comments here:
How Netanyahu Pulls Trump’s Strings (October 15, 2017)
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/15/how-netanyahu-pulls-trumps-strings/
Then “Curious” re-introduced the “dual citizens” propaganda canard in a two-troll Hasbara dance with “WC”
Hasbara trolls typically spout “opinions” embedded with factual inaccuracies to see what kind of play they will get.
A key aim of the recent Hasbara troll saturation bombing campaign in the comments is to get Consortium News pegged as a “conspiracy theory” site that promotes “fake news”
As I pointed out above. the “dual citizens” canard was an Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Israel”) propaganda tactic concocted over a decade ago.
The “dual citizens” canard is associated with other Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Jewish”) propaganda efforts.
The diversionary propaganda agenda also operates in Conventional Hasbara (overtly pro-Israel) “questions” about the influence of “pharmaceuticals, the MIC, big oil and the bankers, just to begin the list”
Such “lists” have proliferated in recent troll “comments”.
Hasbara trolls display an extraordinary enthusiasm for “conspiracy theory” in order to divert attention from Israeli influence on American foreign policy.
Analysis definitely reveals extensive influence on behalf of Israel within the arms industry, the oil companies, the banking industry, and other interests.
This convergence of the pro-Israeli agenda and powerful interests in arms, oil and banking is not “a simple question” of either-or as Hasbara trolls attempt to frame it.
The bigger picture of pro-Israel influence is precisely what Hasbara propagandists attempt to conceal with diversionary discussions and false facts.
Some analysts of Israeli policy like Noam Chomsky have been rightly criticized for their reluctance to acknowledge the full extent of pro-Israel influence in American foreign policy.
American political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt note that unwavering American support for Israel has jeopardized U.S. security: “one might assume that the bond between the two countries is based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives….neither of those explanations can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel.”
Most of the ones in control of “pharmaceuticals, the MIC, big oil and the bankers” are Israel firsters as well. Round and round we go eh?
Both Conventional Hasbara (overtly pro-Israel) and Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Israel”) propagandists make use of Lyndon LaRouche. Call it a curious fetish.
In a September 11, 2002 webcast, LaRouche stated: “The world is against the war. Just a pack of lunatics, in Israel and in the United States, are for it. Nobody else.”
LaRouche clearly identified “Likud warmongers” like Benjamin Netanyahu
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2002/eirv29n36-20020920/eirv29n36-20020920_052-the_pollard_affair_never_ended.pdf
Warmongers in Israel and the United States aren’t difficult to identify. They give Netanyahu standing ovations.
OK Abe, I am properly bludgeoned by your reply. I’m glad you have found a topic to be passionate about in your life, but to assume I “introduced” anything is getting over the top. My question was neither verted, nor inverted, nor piRsqd, nor some “canard” imposed by me standing on my head or adding a virus while sneezing on my computer. It’s time to ease up on people, like me, who ask a question. If my facts are bogus, that would take just one line of clarification or rebuttal. You’re beating some drum that is tuned to a different frequency than what my ears can hear. So, in my ‘not so fast reply’ I’ll just go back to who I am, which has nothing to do with you.
I see that you haven’t even broached my topic of how to separate the mixed bag entities in my original question to WC as you drifted off into the weeds of theories. I think a lot of people wonder about the money trail, especially after the Citizens United ruling, and how money influences politics and eventually their lives. When we read about men like Adelson who bought the Vegas paper to go after judges in Vegas, and who admitted on air that he was against Obama because he thought the Dems would go after him for his assumed misdeeds in Singapore with his Marina Bay Sands (corruption, bribing, money laundering etc) we wonder, or better said, I wonder. When this same man bought the paper in Israel to back Bibi it was often reported that many of the political backing was against Israel’s laws. And when I read about Bolton visiting him in Vegas and then the WH, and our Prez making an announcement the next day, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that implication. I believe this man has too much influence. But this ‘pleb’ can only read, ask and wonder.
Any “canard” I would imply with my question is part of my own passion. I would like Israel to declare their nukes and join the international community and help solve a big problem and stop blaming everything on Iran, which is as bad as we see in the US blaming all dysfunction on Russia. I would like them to stop taking our tax dollars that properly belong here in the US. People like Adelson can just send them his own money. I would also like them to “tear down this wall” and treat the Palestinians with some decency and get rid of their open air prison and to stop jailing 10 yr olds who throw rocks. Is this too much to ask? Probably, since this would put a cramp into so many ‘American’ agendas. What would we possibly do with our all these think tanks, and a ‘New American Century’ that has nothing to do with America? We couldn’t survive!! If Israel also would apologize for the USS Liberty attack during their land grab in ‘67 that would also be a good international item to put on their ‘to do’ list.
In closing, I think people often ask a question on this site without having all the facts and without some prior agenda and this is why CN is very informative. Since you now know my nasty presuppositions you can tear those apart too, or just turn your attention to someone else, which would be my suggestion.
We can thank “Curious” for all the clarification.
Clearly, “Curious” is a passionate stickler for facts.
Here’s “Curious in yet another clear example of over the top Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Israel”) propaganda:
“Read, get your fact in line. And produce something that bears fruit rather than your propaganda. Did you know DNA tests show most of the Israelis are not even Semite [sic], but rather from Eastern European stock? Try and get a clue whoever you are.”
Clearly, the very informative “comments” of “Curious” come more as a statement than a question.
Clearly, “Curious” used the “Jews are not Semites” propaganda canard in a two-troll Hasbara dance with “D.H. Fabian” in the CN comments here:
How Netanyahu Pulls Trump’s Strings (October 15, 2017)
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/15/how-netanyahu-pulls-trumps-strings/
In fact, genetic studies indicate that modern Jews (Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi specifically), Levantine Arabs, Assyrians, Samaritans, Maronites, Druze, Mandaeans, and Mhallami, all have an ancient indigenous common Near Eastern heritage which can be genetically mapped back to the ancient Fertile Crescent, but often also display genetic profiles distinct from one another, indicating the different histories of these peoples.
Clearly, people often ask a question on this site without having all the facts.
And trolls often make statements posing as questions because they have an agenda.
Clearly, it is not so simple.
Pulling a fast one, “Curious” bludgeons us with a quick-fire ‘pleb’ list of “anti-Israel” statements.
Presumably we’re supposed to “wonder” now.
“Curious” offers the “suggestion” that it’s time to “ease up” on passionate fact-challenged Inverted Hasbara trolls.
Clearly, that is too much to ask.
Let’s give credit where credit is due: “WC” is most entertaining on the topic of “morality”.
A month ago, “WC” was defending Israel by insisting that “what is good, bad, right and wrong doesn’t play a part”.
Now “WC” claims that “what is right and wrong” is “convoluted and mired in mud”.
Moral slithering is required when “defending Israel” and the actions of “most moral army in the world”.
The IDF bears a legacy of murderous conduct against non-Jewish civilians.
During the British Mandate in Palestine, he Irgun and Lehi terrorist organizations carried on a ruthless campaign of political violence and intimidation, including assassinations, bombing attacks on hotels, barrel bombs rolled into groups of civilians.
The Haganah and elite Palmach forces also participated killings and massacres in the context of an ethnic cleansing of Arab Palestinians.
According to Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, “purity of arms” is one of the key features of “the conventional Zionist account or old history” whose “popular-heroic-moralistic version of the 1948 war” is “taught in Israeli schools and used extensively in the quest for legitimacy abroad”.
Israeli historian Benny Morris adds that “[t]he Israelis’ collective memory of fighters characterized by ‘purity of arms’ is also undermined by the evidence of [the dozen case] of rapes committed in conquered towns and villages.”
According to Morris, “after the war, the Israelis tended to hail the ‘purity of arms’ of its militiamen and soldiers to contrast this with Arab barbarism […] this reinforced the Israelis’ positive self-image and helped them ‘sell’ the new state abroad and […] demonized the enemy”.
During the 1948 Palestine war, Israeli troops of all backgrounds, ranks and ages engaged in ruthless acts of mass killing and butchering of thousands of Palestinians.
Despite their rhetoric, Arab armies committed few atrocities and no large-scale massacre of prisoners took place when circumstances might have allowed them to happen, as when they took the Old City of Jerusalem or the villages of Atarot, Neve Yaakov, Nitzanim, Gezer and Mishmar Hayarden.
On 28 May 1948, when Jewish inhabitants and fighters of the Old City surrendered, in fear for their lives, the Transjordanian Arab Legion protected them from the mob and even wounded or shot dead other Arabs.
With regard to massacres perpetrated by the IDF at the end of the war and particularly during Operation Hiram, where around 10 massacres occurred, Israeli historians Benny Morris and Yoav Gelber consider that lack of discipline cannot explain the events. Morris concludes that the atrocities were related to a “general vengefulness and a desire by local commanders to precipitate a civilian exodus”.
Further massacres by Israeli forces resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians and unarmed soldiers between 1949 and 1956. Jewish soldiers killing, torturing, beating and raping Arabs was not viewed as “morally” reprehensible behavior.
For example, in October 1953, at Qibya on the West Bank, Israeli troops under Ariel Sharon attacked killed at least sixty-nine Palestinian villagers, two-thirds of them women and children. Forty-five houses, a school, and a mosque were destroyed.
In October 1956, in the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim situated on the Green Line border between Israel and the West Bank, Israeli Magav Border Police killed Arab civilians returning from work during a curfew, imposed earlier in the day, on the eve of the Sinai war, of which they were unaware. 48 people died, of which 19 were men, 6 were women (one was pregnant) and 23 were children aged 8–17.
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The border policemen who were involved in the Kafr Qasim shootings were brought to trial and found guilty and sentenced to prison terms, but all received pardons and were released in a year. The brigade commander was sentenced to pay the symbolic fine of 10 prutot (old Israeli cents).
The IDF committed numerous atrocities that were covered up and denied.
In the Suez in 1956, 140 Egyptian prisoners of war and 49 Arab workers were executed by troops of the Israeli 890th brigade under the orders of Rafael Eitan, who later became IDF chief of staff.
In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. In September, the IDF had surrounded the mainly Muslim Sabra neighborhood and adjacent Shatila refugee camp in West Beirut. The Israeli Army ordered its allies, the right-wing Phalangist militia into the area.
Between 762 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, were murdered by 300-400 Phalangist militia. The “most moral army in the world” prevented civilian camp residents from leaving and, at the Phalangists’ request, fired illuminating flares at night to aid the massacres.
In 1983 Israeli Commission, appointed to investigate the murders at Sabra and Shatila, found that Israeli military personnel were aware that a massacre was in progress. The commission deemed Israel indirectly responsible, and Ariel Sharon, then Defense Minister, bore personal responsibility.
In April 1996, near the village of Qana in Southern Lebanon, the IDF fired artillery shells at a United Nations compound. Of 800 Lebanese civilians who had taken refuge in the compound, 106 were killed and around 116 injured. Four Fijian United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon soldiers were also seriously injured.
A United Nations investigation discovered video evidence showing that an Israeli drone was spying on the compound before the shelling. The Israeli government at first denied spying but changed its version of the story after the video was made public.
To these example may be added numerous other Israeli Army operations.
Israeli Colonel Dov Yirmiah has referred to “the lies about humanitarianism and ‘purity of arms'”, and refers to purity of arms as a phrase that is “sickening and false”. Dov’s book My War Diary: Lebanon June 5 – July 1, 1982 has been described as having crushed the myth of the “purity of arms” of the Israeli Army.
In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2008), American political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt describe the claim that the Israeli Army is the most moral army in the world as “yet another myth”.
In 2011, a form head of the Mossad, Zvi Zamir stated that the fact that Israeli soldiers have shot at unarmed civilians on the Syrian-Israeli border showed the erosion of the Israeli Army’s “purity of arms”.
Not to mention the Israeli Army’s direct aid delivered to terrorist forces operating inside of Syria since 2011.
Israeli claims of “morality” are equally untenable on the social front. Leaving aside the illegal military occupation of Palestinian territory, Israel’s segregationist society discriminates against its non-Jewish citizens in myriad ways.
In a state that loudly declares itself “the only democracy” in the region, 93 per cent of the land has been nationalized for one ethnic group (Jews) to the exclusion of the other major ethnic group (Palestinian Arabs).
In Israel, vetting committees operate by law in hundreds of communities precisely to prevent one ethnic group (Palestinian Arabs) from living in these communities.
Two separate citizenship laws exist in Israel – the Law of Return (1950) and the Citizenship Law (1952) – which are designed to confer rights on members of an ethnic group (Jews) who are not actually yet citizens or present in the state, privileging them over a group (Palestinian Arabs) who do have citizenship and are present in the state.
Israel has 55 laws that explicitly discriminate based on which ethnic group you belong to.
In addition, Israel defers some of what should be its sovereign powers to extra-territorial bodies such as the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund whose charters obligate them to discriminate based on ethnic belonging.
Israel denies its non-Jewish citizens access to any civil institutions on personal status matters such as marriage, divorce and burial, requiring all citizens to submit to the whims and prejudices of religious leaders. The only way to join the dominant national group (Jews) or to immigrate is through conversion.
In short, Hasbara propagandists have quite a lot of ‘splainin’ to do when it comes to “morality” and Israel. That’s why they’d much rather change the subject.
If we are to take Abe at his word and agree with his list of complaints and grievances, he still points at a regional issue only. When viewed in the context of it being just a piece in a wider global plan, I am, therefore, skeptical of any altruistic solutions that might otherwise be possible if this was the only trouble spot in the world.
I cannot thwart perfect world idealism because those so afflicted are absolutely right. And therein lays the mind fuck of mind fucks, if I can be permitted to be so blunt. The perfect world is right there in front of our noses were is not for some pesky quirks of human nature continually screwing things up. So, Abe and I are not in any disagreement concerning what is clearly right and wrong from a moral perspective. My position is more based on the odds of what will happen (with all of those pesky quirks factored in) as opposed to what should happen. Hope springs eternal, though, and I encourage all of the naysayers to keep up the good work. But the status quo will not go down without a fight and if perfect world idealism is all that constitutes the plan for opposing such a formidable force, what do you realistically give the odds for success?
Instead of obfuscation and stirring the pot around “Hasbara” and “inverted Hasbara” why not take a moment out of your tunnel thinking to clarify what Pfeffer may call “an excuse for not addressing Israels real problems” one might equivocate the analogy of the ‘forest for the tress, or in my view, a “tunnel vision” that only clouds peoples perceptions and doesn’t even give a Platonic light dancing in the shadows in the cave. You must feel you are smart in a definition but it is a narrow, confined view that only enhances your own biases, rather than a informative discussion. and Pfeffer goes on to explain ( and you probably dislike him since he tries to embellish a more objective analysis) the one is not merely Hasbara, nor spreading inverted Hasbara is a deliberate attempt at misleading the reader.
Stated in the header, Israel is more focused on Hasbara than it is on policy. In his words, “Hasbara, is the act of a profession of explaining, and has become an excuse for not seriously addressing Israels real problems, and is a substitute for policy making.
For you, Abe, to avoid the “problems” in Israel like their concept of mowing the grass”, the open air prison, the control Israel has over Palistian taxes, the water properly belonging to the Palistians and fishingin International waters, the control over the money, the wall, the taxes rightly belonging to the Palestinians, the lack of health care to the point where people die because they can’t leave the embargo Israel has put on them, the bombing of the Pakistan airport for invalid reasons, and the registration of the Palestinians, and the new settlements against any convention presiviasly signed. Throw in Israel’s nukes and putting their own population in jail if it is mentioned, and imprisoning the pilot who refused to attack the USS Liberty in’67, and Israels synical “ mowing of the grass in Gaza” just because they can depict an abusive and sick “culture” if that is even a comparable work for their abuse.
Fortunately for you, you avoid all these actions by Israel and revert to what Mr David Grossman word describe as a “laundered word” in his book “The Yellow Wind” to describe innocuous words to propagandist western thought. Even the simple Wikipedia takes about its purpose as the attempt to spread propaganda in an attempt to “disseminate propaganda aimed at an international audience, primarily, but not exclusively, in western countries”
Although the I seldom quote Wikipedia, this only one shows quite clearly you are the propagandist here. And by not answering the obvious misdeeds Israel has brought to the Palestinians and the world, I must say your best effort to tear down others is a mean shmear, rather than an informative discussion. Then again to take your false dogma to another venue and let people discuss the concerns they have over a sick, isolated Jewish State that refuses to join the international community omits it’s own Ayyrian desire for ethics purity. Take your propaganda somewhere else, no matter what words you mask your intent in falsifying the record. I,d “ nice try
But your thoughalness at diluting any rebute shows you have no open mind to even back up your falsehood. You pretend you are agains Israel, by defending it. The longer one read you dribble, the more obvious it becomes as your points have more Swiss cheese than the best variety. Give it a rest of write a book The no one will ahave the desire to perchase except you blood relatives
Mahalo, ans Aloha.
Hasbara trolls “WC” and “Curious” claim to be all about “clarification”.
Great!
Let’s continue clarifying the difference between fact-based information and Hasbara dis-information.
I have consistently presented fact-based investigative journalism and critical historical analysis, citing solid sources of both reporting and scholarship on issues from Israel’s segregationist land use policy and nuclear weapons program, to Revisionist Zionist terrorism and Israeli Army ethnic cleansing efforts, to the pro-Israel Lobby and Israeli influence on American politics and foreign policy.
By contrast, “Curious” has repeatedly posted rants built around notorious propaganda canards about “dual citizens of Israel” and “Jews are not Semites”.
Both of these propagandist claims by “Curious” are unsupported by facts.
Called out for these falsehoods, “Curious” presents no factual basis for the claims, but merely insists that he “posted many article [sic]”.
That’s typical rhetoric for Hasbara dis-information trolls.
When called out for blatant Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti Israel” / “anti-Zionist” / “anti-Jewish”) propaganda lies about “DNA result” and “dual citizenship in the House and Senate”, comrade “Curious” tries one dodge after another.
The latest obfuscation from “Curious” is to spew a list of some very familiar, indeed undeniable issues that are supported by well-known facts, like Israel’s nukes or the attack on the USS Liberty.
But that’s just another distraction from the clear dis-information repeatedly posted by “Curious”.
“Curious” hopes readers will ignore the obvious: two Hasbara propaganda canards left standing.
The primary aim of Inverted Hasbara propaganda troll activity is to discredit fact-based criticism and critics of Israeli policy, the pro-Israel Lobby, and Israel’s efforts to influence American politics.
Fact-based analysis and criticism Israeli policy and propaganda most certainly does include Israeli author David Grossman’s important 1988 book on the occupied West Bank, The Yellow Wind (1988), as well as British journalist Anshell Pfeffer 2012 Haaretz article on Hasbara
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-is-more-focused-on-hasbara-than-it-is-on-policy-1.415977
However, Pfeffer’s article does not address the Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Israel” / “anti-Zionist” / “anti-Jewish” / “anti-Semitic”) form of propaganda used to “defend Israel”.
Inverted Hasbara propaganda troll seed online comments with obvious lies (claims unsupported by facts), lunacy (illogic and looney “conspiracy theory”), offensive racism (virulent “anti-Jewish” rants, “Holocaust denial”), et cetera,
As Pfeffer mentions in the Haaretz article, much of conventional pro-Israel Hasbara propaganda has been readily dismissed as “a chaltura, an amateurish diversion, a poor excuse for a real job”.
The dismal lack of success of so much the Conventional Hasbara (overtly pro-Israel / pro-Zionist / pro-Jewish) form of propaganda led to the development of Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Israel”) propaganda.
The lies and lunacy of Inverted Hasbara are used to distract, divert and dilute legitimate critical discussion of efforts to manipulate US politics and foreign policy on behalf of Israel.
Thus clarifying the role of Hasbara dis-information in its two forms – both Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Israel”) and Conventional Hasbara (obvious pro-Israel) propaganda – supports true information exchange.
So far, the Hasbara chorus led here by “D.H. Fabian” and “WC” has offered up nothing but another pile of empty propaganda rhetoric.
By all means, take every one of these Hasbara trolls at their word.
And note how consistently, in the end, the Hasbara “position” is pure “mind fuck”.
Whatever global “plans” are afoot, the issue of a nuclear-armed Israel, a rogue state that openly interferes with US elections and foreign policy, an that manages to siphon tens of billions of dollars in military and economic “aid” from the American economy, can no longer be ignored.
Whether you or I “agree” or “disagree” with this Hasbara troll’s “comment” or that troll’s propaganda “opinion” is entirely irrelevant.
Actually, the trolls provide frequent opportunities to counter Hasbara “mind fuck” with fact-based reality.
Because the Israeli “solution” of war and more war threatens the world with nuclear catastrophe, the world can no longer afford a nuclear-armed Israel.
Abe, I refuse to believe that someone like you who can be so concise and articulate on the one hand can be so willfully blind on the other. If morality actually came first with the decision makers around the world we would have solved our problems long ago. So, “what is good, bad, right and wrong doesn’t play a part”, except in how the actions can be sold. And in a world so diverse, corrupt and hypocritical “what is right and wrong” can most certainly become “convoluted and mired in mud”. The bullshit flies so thick, yet the same old killing machine rolls along century after century. And you don’t see this as a “mind fuck” when the answer is so clear yet at the same time being virtually unattainable?
If you are looking for answers apart from what you call “propaganda rhetoric”, I can’t provide any. Unless we can all figure out a way to fix the not-so-good side of human nature (something I do not see happening any time in the near future) I am stuck playing the odds whether I like it or not. And in order to better calculate the odds, being overly judgemental is not useful. The real world doesn’t work that way. :)
Confronted with the facts about Israeli state terror and the Israel Lobby, Hasbara propagandists remain “not convinced” and “refuse to believe” so that the “same old killing machine” can keep on rolling.
The fear in the hearts of the Israel Lobby is that exposure of the facts about the Israeli state will lead Americans to abandon their passivity and indifference as they understand the reality that whatever Israel may claim it wants, ideologically and politically Israel remains implacably opposed to peace in the Middle East.
The Hasbara troll army is out in force to delay that day of reckoning for as long as possible, playing for time so the Israel Lobby can leverage more United States military assets to inflict the maximum possible damage to non-Jewish people of the Middle East.
The practical real world solution is to share the truth, present the facts, demand paece and justice, and trust the inborn morality and humanity of civilized people.
Contrary to the outright lies of Hasbara propaganda, there is not “such a formidable force” opposed to freedom and peace for our people.
In fact, the Israel Lobby force opposed to peace is extremely vulnerable and justifiably paranoid about exposure of what is happening in the real world.
Abe, since you cherry pick articles in a thread it’s not surprising since you base postulates without reading previous posts,not peoper research of what others have posted. Read a few ago or so when I posted a long article on the DNA research of many isrealies and found many origins come from eastern esropeen stock and provovided a rather extensive DNA result which considered skin color, parent, and generations. I surprised to learn the Palestinians seemed to have more “Semite” in there historical blood stream than many Jews migrated from Eastern Europe. I posted many article in DNA matches and the controversies that arise when Israeles tote just the obsosite. You do not have the continuity of my own research when you cherry picked your unsupported venom towards me. Your drum beating was post analysis of many articles, to your shame. I’ve learned much from your posting but you have an instinct to not do your research for the very people you try try to attack or put down as you want to be the recent ‘knowit all’
My suggestion is to go back to previous articles by, even me, and the games and falseisties presented by the Israeli agenda .
Just for you to mention items creates a historic context unrelated to past years of other comments. When I mention my friend sharing responsibilities between the UN and the World Trade senters he know they took the bomb sniffing dogs out of the building 5 days before the collapse. Anyone with any knowledge of controlled demo know a steel structure doesn’t fall at the rate of gravity into its own footprint. Building 7 is the perfect example, though ignored in the news. The dancing Arabs Trump repeated over and over were wrong since they were Israelis or Massad, and Trump stopped talk taking about it conveniently. If you talk about building 7 with a base knowledge of structural engineering this would be more advantageous than your hasbara weeds because it’s vivid in the minds of the pychie of this culture and of course the US military would NEVER do this. All bs. That way you.re in the weeds.
Go back, read my other posts and take some to to reflect. This is good advice for a country who know practically nothing of the lies of out own military, and I would put Mossad in the same hat. Read, read more, and reflect is all the advice I can give. You are off in the weeds of your own biases and dare I say misinformation subtle and not subtle, but lacking in historical context.
The saddest part for me, was went banners were carried through the streets of Erope after WW2 saying “never again” the Israels have a different agent of “never forget”. So, with the help of Holiliwood kept the Jewish issue for over seventy years not giving a damn about the gypsies, not the poles or communists which we’d also put to death. Ethnocentricitic was a deliberate mind f*ck to keep there sympathy cards in the public eye for over seventy yeas…. always the victim. I have not found one article from the Jewish State thanking the Russians who freed their camps in Poland the Russians list over 20,000,000 militants people and soldiers in that was ans have not seen one use of Israel,propaganda to thank them. Here in the USwe are a propagandied to think the Us saved the would and Europe.
Israel keeps this fantasy going in Hollywood ad nauseum. I would suspect you know how Israel proaganda feeds and false narratives, but you don’t seem to have any desire to take this on historically oh, the poor Jews… what about the poor Poles at he first of. Hitlers invation. It doesn’t play well in Hollywood.
You seem to me to be a case of very informative issues, and you forget (like so many funnel vision authors) so much regarding the red armies efforts to free the Jews from the Germans in Poland and the awful camps Poles and Ukrainians, along with so many.your posts barely touch the historical issues and I almost wonder if it attmpt to obfuscate and lead false articles on who liberated the awful camps in Poland. This is not History and the US doesn’t learn proper history. Obama would go to the celebration of freeing the camps because he was altrady emasculated my military propaganda. Idiot. Keep the Jewish State in the news and forget the bloody Jewish terrorism at the King David Hotel. All this moral bs democracies in the Middle East and the only democracy in the ME. It’s all lies, probagady, and a lot of Intel cover.
If Israel hadn’t kept pounding this agenda for seventy years, and not try a 93 yr old man recently for whatever they could make up in Germany is something it is known for (easy to make up) may of today’s mentions of Hiltler, Holcast, Jews, etc would have dispersed. Since Israel,has no motivation to take of othe ehnocentricies in the 30’s they’ve have torn up a worlds wonderful sympathy card to base and attack people around the world, with no desire to heal. Let’s create “look at us!” The Jews have also been about the purity of the race, not unlike the Aryans, but had created victimation to coagulate that purity. Lessons learned well from the Germans, and they haven’t stopped yet. E.g Kissing people an Arab a Jew Is Verboten to the extreme. I, pesonal cannot defend their hate anymore, as they have burned through all their sympath cards. Take some time to read post and set aside your own bias. Take long deep breath or meditation and start again in a year, that’s my advice. They are many informative comments on this, mostly, or deliberative ignored by you
Ps, I learned a lot from your post, really. I just have realized your new patron is less informative and more specific to,an agenda of your own recalcitrant rants.
All the best as you try to create harmony our of disharmony as you look ahead
The only bias here is against claims unsupported by facts.
“Curious” repeats the “Jews are not Semites” canard of Inverted Hasbara (false flag “anti-Jewish”) propaganda.
Comrade “Curious” insists that he “posted many article [sic]”
Rather than simply re-post alleged “article” for evaluation, “Curious” dodges with an incoherent rants about his so-called “research” and “weeds”.
Comrades “Curious” and “WC” share a strange fondness for the phrases “cherry pick” and “mind fuck” (though “Curious” is less “blunt”), and an equal passion for distraction.
This is probably as good a place as any to point out that it isn’t just Russophobia at work; Congress is hard at work to protect Israel’s abominable human rights record from public criticism as well. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act is squarely aimed at criminalizing advocates of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement and has 50 co-sponsors in the Senate. See https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/720?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22israel+anti-boycott+act%22%5D%7D&r=2
The Act is squarely aimed at our First Amendment right to boycott and to advocate for boycotts. See https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/first-amendment-protects-right-boycott-israel?redirect=blog/speak-freely/first-amendment-protects-right-boycott-israel
wapo says Hamas disarm because us and israel want them to.israel won’t disarm though.Boy.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I suggest Mueller focuses on Tinder too. I’m betting there’s something on there. Russians have been known to use honey pot plots.
Ah, but who is better at it — Russia or the US? (And dare we even consider the power of China to infiltrate political powers and the media?)
So do Martians and every other national, religious, and ethnic group on the planet, with the US out in front. You will not trick more careful thinkers by attacking the target du jour.
I’m not crazy about Robert Parry’s phrase, “the mistaken judgments of President George W. Bush’s administration”.
The lying, murdering bastards were lying. It’s their parents that made the mistake.
But I’ll let it slide.
I fear we must set aside our sarcasm and understand that this entire Russian narrative has the ultimate goal of silencing any oppositional news sources to the corporate media. When we hear that Facebook is seeking to hire people with national security clearances, which is made to sound as if it’s a good, responsible reaction to the “Russian ads” and is cheered on by people who should know better, we need to get our tongues out of our cheeks and stay alert.
A good friend, who is an activist battling the fracking industry in Colorado and blogging about it, was urging people this week to sign petitions demanding more censorship on Facebook to “prevent Russian propaganda.” When I pointed out that, based on the Jan. 6 “report,” which condemned RT America for “criticizing the fracking industry” as proof it was a propaganda organ, her blog is Russian propaganda. Did that change her mind? Nope. Her response was in the category of “Better safe.”
So, it appears Russia is not replacing “Muslim terrorists” as the “great danger” our beloved and benevolent government must ask us to hand over our rights to combat. And people who can’t seem to get it through their heads the government is NOT their friend are marching in lock-step to agree because it never occurs to them they, too, are a target.
Yes, the purpose of Russia bashing is to distract from the revelations of DNC corruption by oligarchy (top ten Clinton donors all zionists), attack leakers as opponents of oligarchy, and attack Russia in hope of benefits to the zionists in the Mideast.
Perhaps you meant to say that “Russia is [not] replacing “Muslim terrorists” as the ‘great danger’ our beloved and benevolent government must ask us to hand over our rights to combat.” Or perhaps you meant that the Russia-gate gambit is not working.
American psychologist Gustave Gilbert interviewed high-ranking Nazi leaders during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. In 1947, Gilbert published part of his diary, consisting of observations taken during interviews, interrogations, “eavesdropping” and conversations with German prisoners, under the title Nuremberg Diary.
Hermann Goering, one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, was founder of the Gestapo and Head of the Luftwaffe.
From an 18 April 1946 interview with Gilbert in Goering’s jail cell:
Hermann Goering: “Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
Gilbert: “There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”
Hermann Goering: “Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
Abe –
Good post. Yes, from all the wars initiated during the last half century what Hermann Goring said is very true of U.S. The opposition to the Vietnam War later on was largely because of the draft.
Bertrand Russell in his autobiography describes in length how they prepared the U.K. public with outrageously false propaganda for War – World War I – against Germany in 1914. Bertrand Russell was vehemently against the War with Germany and spent some time in Jail for his activities to oppose the war.
Based on what I have read about him, in his own words,on EIR, he was probably opposed to war with Germany because he was already looking ahead to a revival of the “Imperial Rome” situation we have in the Trans-Atlantic Community today, with its near-global Empire (enforced by America), working on breaking up the last holdout:the Eurasian Quarter with Russia, China, India, Iran, etc.
Yes Brad, Bertrand Russell did love England and was very proud of English Civilization and it’s contributions to the World. Considering his very aristocratic background, his contributions to mathematics and Philosophy are laudable. And he was very much involved in World peace and nuclear disarmament movements.
(Goering quote)…ahh yes, sometimes it takes a cynical scoundrel to tell the truth!
the major war criminals’ trial ended in 1946, with the execution of the 10 major war criminals taking place on October 16, 1946.
Elizabeth for the mere fact you are on this site may possibly be your reason for your escape from the MSM as it is a propaganda tool, to be used by the Shadow Government to guide your thought processes. (See YouTube Kevin Shipp for explanation for Shadow Government and Deep State) other than that I think it safe to say we are living in an Orwellian predicted state of mass communications, and for sure we are now living in a police state to accompany our censored news. Joe
Here is something I feel may ring your bell when it comes to our maintaining a free press. Read this….
“From the PR perspective, releasing one anti-Russia story after another helps cement a narrative far better than an all-at-once approach to controlling the news cycle. The public is now getting maximum effect from what I believe is a singular and cohesive effort to lay the groundwork for global legislation to eradicate any dissent and particular dissent that is pro-Russia or pro-Putin. The way the news cycle works, a campaign is best leveled across two weeks, a month, or more, so that the desired audience is thoroughly indoctrinated with an idea or a product. In this case, the product is an Orwellian eradication of freedom of speech across the swath of the world’s most used social media platforms. This is a direct result of traditional media and the deep state having failed to defeat independents across these platforms. People unwilling to bow to the CNN, BBC and the controlled media message, more or less beat the globalist scheme online. So, the only choice and chance for the anti-Russia message to succeed is with the complete takeover of ALL channels. As further proof of a collective effort, listen to this Bloomberg interview the other day with Microsoft CEO Brad Smith on the same “legislation” issues. Smith’s rhetoric, syntax, and the flow of his narrative mirror almost precisely the other social CEOs, the US legislators, and especially the UK Government dialogue. All these technocrats feign concern over privacy protection and free speech/free press issues, but their real agenda is the main story.”
Here is the link for the rest of the essay to Phil Butler’s important news story…..
https://journal-neo.org/2017/10/18/globalist-counterpunch-going-for-the-media-knockout/
Here is a great example of American politicians colluding with the Russians.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-18/fbi-informant-says-he-was-threatened-after-offering-details-linking-clinton-foundati
When you read this keep in mind that the Russians weren’t doing any backroom illegal deals, because the Russians thought that they were dealing on the upside with the Obama White House State Department. Where you may question this, is where our Obama State Department side stepped the law to make money for those couple of Americans who fronted this deal. This is the epitome of hypocrisy of the worst kind.
Disclaimer; please Clinton and Trump supporters try and attempt to see this scandal for what it is. This fudging of the law to make a path for questionable donations is not a party platform issue. It is an issue of integrity and honesty. Yes Trump is the worst, but after you dig into the above link I provided, please don’t come back at me screaming partisan politics. This scandal doesn’t deserve a two sided political debate, as much as it deserves our attention, and what we do all should do about it.
Joe Tedesky –
Reading about this Russian Bribery case in buying interest in “Uranium One” reminds me that Russians came a century or two late into this Capitalist Game. And they must be novices and rather crude in this business of bribing. This Russia bribery case is just a puddle in this vast Sea of Corruption to sell weapons, fighter jets, commercial airplanes, and other things by U.S., U.K., French, Swedes or other Western Nations to the Third World countries like India, Egypt, Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria etc. To make a sale of three or four billion dollars they would bribe the ministers and other officials in those countries probably with a 100 million dollars easily. Those of us who belong to the two worlds know it much better. The Indian Newspapers used to be always full of it, whenever I visited.
And the bribe money stays in the Western banks with which those ministers and officials sons and daughters buy extensive properties in these countries. In fact, these kind of issues are the topic of conversation at these Ethnic parties of rather prosperous people to which we do get invited once in a year or so – which minister or official bought what property and where with this kind or other type of corruption money. There used to be stories about Egyptian Presidents Sadat and Mubarak’s sons playing around in U.S. having bought extensive properties with the bribe money. For Indian Ministers and Officials U.S., Canada, Australia, U.K., and New Zealand are the preferred destinations to buy the properties.
And as we know with the corruption money, rich Russians are buying all these homes and other properties in Spain, U.S., U.K. and other Western Countries. It seems like Putin and his team have stopped most of big time corruption but it is very hard to stop the other corruption in this globalized free market economy, especially in countries where corruption is the norm.
Same is true of these IMF loans to those Third World Countries. Most of the money ends up in these Western Countries. The working class of those countries end up in paying back the high interest loans.
This is the World we are trying to defend with these endless wars and Russia-Gate.
Dave I concur that even the Russians are not beyond corruption, but we are not talking about the bad habits of the Russians, no we are talking about U.S. officials possibly breaking the law. I’ll bet Dave if I had taken you on a vandalizing spree when we were young bad ass little hoodlums, and we got caught, that your father wouldn’t have come after me, as much as he would come after you, as he would have given you a well deserved good spanking for your bad actions. So with that frame of mind I am keeping my focus with this Clinton escapade right here at home.
I like that you did point out to how the Russians maybe new to this capitalistic new world they suddenly find themselves in, but I would not doubt that even an old Soviet Commissar would have reached under the table for a kickback of somekind to enrich himself, if the occasion had arisen to do so. You know this Dave, that bribery has no political philosophy, nor does it have a democratic or communist ideology to prevent the corrupted from being corrupt.
I am not getting my hopes up that justice will be served with this FBI investigation into Hillary and Bill’s uranium finagling. Although I’m surmising this whole thing will get turned around as a Sessions Trump attack upon the Clintons, and with that this episode of selling off American assets for personal wealth benefits, will instead fade away from our news cycles altogether. Just like the torture stuff went missing, and where did that go?
Dave I always look forward to hearing from you, because I think that you and I often have many a good conversation. Joe
Yes Joe. I agree with you. The reason I wrote my comments was to make a point that Russian businessmen are not the only one who are in the bribery business, the businessmen of other Western Nations are doing the same thing. Yesterday on the Fox News the “Uranium One” bribery case was the main News. Shawn Hannity was twisting his words to make it look like that it is Putin who did it, and that it is Putin who gave all this 140 million as bribery to Clinton Foundation. Actually , I think the 140 millions was given to the Clinton Foundation by the trustees of the Company in Canada. And Russian officials probably greased the hands of a few of them too.
Of course Clintons are directly involved in this case. Considering how Hillary Clinton has been perpetuating this Russia-Gate hysteria, I hope some truth comes out to show that she may be the real center of this Russia-Gate affair. But way the things in Washington are now, probably they are going to whitewash the Hillary Clinton’s role in this bribery scandal.
While my one comment i wanted for you to read is being moderated, and it is an important comment, read how the Israeli’s handle unwanted news broadcasting. When you read this think of the Kristallnacht episode, and then wonder why the Israeli’s would do such a terrible thing similar to what they had encountered under Hitler’s reign.
http://theduran.com/rt-provider-off-air-palestine-israeli-regime-takes-palestinian-broadcasters/
Be sure to see my comment I left above, which is being moderated. In the meantime go to NEO New Eastern Outlook and read Phil Butler’s shocking story, ‘Globalist Counterpunch: Going for the Media Knockout’.
Joe Tedesky – the Zionists had been working (long before Hitler) on getting the Jews into Palestine. Read up on the Balfour Declaration. Hitler was helping them get out to Palestine. During World War II, one of the top German officials (can’t remember which one right now) went to Palestine to have discussions with the Zionists. The Zionists basically said to him: “Look, you’re sending us lazy Jews. These guys aren’t interested in construction. Can’t you raise more hell so that the harder-working Jews will want to leave Germany and come to Palestine?”
I think if we ever find out the truth about what happened, we will be shocked.
Edmund de Rothschild who was a big financier of Zionism in 1934 on the subject of Palestine had said, “the struggle to put an end to the Wandering Jew, could not have as its result, the creation of the Wandering Arab.”
I personally can’t see the legality of the ‘Balfour Declaration’, but before Zionist trolls attack me, I must admit I’m no legal scholar.
I’ll need to research that episode you speak of about the Germans meeting the Zionist. It’s not an easy part of the Zionist history to study. Unless, you backwardsevolution can provide some references that would help to learn more about this fuzzy history.
Good to see you posting, for awhile your absence gave me concern that you are doing okay. Joe
Thanks for the links Joe. Both great articles.
Your welcome Skip I’ll apologize for my posting all these links, but I kind of went nuts getting into the subject we are all talking about here, and more. Joe
Although this article by the Saker talks about the U.S. being prepared for war against Iran it speaks to the bigger problem of who is America’s puppet master.
http://thesaker.is/trump-goes-full-shabbos-goy/
Joe start with a book called The Transfer Agreement by Edwin Black
I put it on my next book to read. Thanks Tannerhouser appreciate your recommendation. Joe
Elizabeth: Tell your good friend that once they get rid of the Russian propaganda on Facebook they will coming after those that oppose the Fracking Industry next:
How Hillary Clinton’s State Department Sold Fracking to the World
h**p://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron/
Why Obama’s top scientist just called keeping fossil fuels in the ground ‘unrealistic’
h**ps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/07/12/why-obamas-top-scientist-just-called-keeping-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground-unrealistic/
Protesting the Dakota pipeline is not cut and dried
h**ps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/protesting-the-dakota-pipeline-is-not-cut-and-dried/2016/11/06/2872e228-a207-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html
Sorry, but how naive or deeply in the bubble can one be? lol :(
I agree Elizabeth. The ultimate objective is censorship and control, using the pretext of keeping America safe from external meddling just like they enacted the Patroit Act to protect us from the terrists they created.
Thank you Elizabeth. Shutting down alternative voices is clearly the end game here.
Can anyone out there please supply me with a couple of Russian hit pieces that crippled Hillary´s campaigne. Just askin, because I have never seen one.
You obviously haven’t looked hard enough. I just finished the book “Shattered” and she had no problem blaming the Russians when the emails of Podesta came out in the summer. It took her a day or 2 to figure out that she couldn’t blame the Arabs so the Russians were next up. How could you have missed it?
He is likely asking for ads from Russia that actually could have served as “hit pieces” against Clinton, versus her accusations.
This sounds eerily similar to newspeak described by George Orwell “1984” in
The failure of Russia bashers to rank all nations on FB ads and accounts, proves that they know they are lying. Random Russians (about 2% of the world population) may have spent 100K on mostly apolitical ads on FB (about 0.0004%) and may have 470 accounts on FB (about 0.000025%). So Russians have far fewer FB ads and accounts per capita than the average nation. Probably most developed nations have a higher per capita usage of FB, and many individuals and companies may have a higher total usage of FB.
The fact that 160 million is spent to dig up phony evidence of Russian influence (totaling about 0.13% of the investigation cost), proves that such “researchers” are paid liars; they are the ones who should be prosecuted for subversion of democracy for personal gain.
The fact that all views may be found on internet does not make it a “sewer” because one can view only what is useful. The Dems and Repubs regard the People as a sewer, because they believe that power=virtue=money no matter how unethically they get it, to rationalize oligarchy. They keep the most abusive and implausible ads out of mass media only because no advertiser wants them, but of course they don’t want the truth either.
Add MSNBC to the sources of sewage on the internet. I checked out MSNBC today, and they are full-throttle on any kind of Russia-phobia. For those who read somewhat widely, it is obvious they are not even trying to present a balanced picture of the actual evidence. It is completely one-sided, and includes the trashiest trash of that one side. Their absolute lack of integrity matches Fox on its worst days.
As someone who formerly watched MSNBC regularly, I am sickened at the obvious capituation to the criminal Zionists who own the network. Have these people no decency? Apparently not. Historians will judge them harshly.
JWalters –
Yes. I completely agree with you. I am beginning to wonder if these people who are spitting out this trashiest trash at MSNBC from their mouths every day for over a year now are really sane people. I believe that along with politicians like Adam Schiff, these talk show hosts have slid into complete madness. The way it is going now, I am afraid that If these people are not removed, there is a danger of the whole country sliding into some form of madness.
“Historians will judge them harshly.”
The western civilisation galloped to worldly success on the twin horses of Greed and Psychopathy. This also provided them the opportunity to write history as they wished.
Are historians judging them harshly now? They are themselves whores to whichever society they belong to.
Jonathan Albright, the Research Director at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, [email protected]. https://towcenter.org/about/who-we-are/
Mr. Albright is preparing for himself a feathered nest among other presstitutes swarming the many ziocons’ “think tanks,” like the viciously russophobic (and unprofessional) Atlantic Council that employs the ignoramus Eliot Higgins (a former salesman of ladies’ underwear and college dropout) and Dmitry Alperovitch of CrowdStrike fame, a Russophobe and threat to the US national security
One can be sure that Jonathan Albright knows already all the answers (similar to Judy Miller) and he is not interested in any proven expertise like the one provided by the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/
.
I bet the Russians are responsible for all the naked lady internet pictures as well. Damn you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, for polluting our purity.
Two-thirds of a century ago, Arthur C. Clarke, who besides being a famous SF author, conceived the concept of the communications satellite, published a short story in which the Chinese use satellite broadcasting to flood the USA with porn in order spread moral degeneracy. Wadya think?
Mr. Mueller! Mr. Mueller! Investigate who the owners of YouPorn are!
It’s all a Chinese plot, not a Russian one!
I second the motion!
“Mandrake, have you never wondered why I drink only distilled water, or rainwater, and only pure-grain alcohol?”
And Vladimir keeps tempting me with offers of money that he found abandoned in Nigerian banks and mysteriously bequeathed to me.