Billionaire political meddlers, disinformation agents launch ‘Good Information Inc.’ to fight disinformation

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

The corporate media is septic. And it kills.

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN • THE GRAYZONE
 

Billionaire CIA-linked “overt operative” George Soros teams up on a shady media venture with tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, who financed a Facebook disinfo operation that framed Russia for meddling in US elections.

On Tuesday, billionaires Reid Hoffman and George Soros launched Good Information Inc., a “public benefit corporation” to serve as a conduit of funds to newsrooms that “cut through the echo chambers with fact-based information.” On its website, Good Information further describes itself as a “civic incubator” aimed at fostering and financially backing projects that “counter disinformation where it spreads by increasing the flow of good information online.”

But more than merely providing an alternative to bad information through their own reporting, the company suggests that censorship is also on the menu: “We believe there is an urgent need for regulation of social media platforms,” their website states.

And what exactly is “good information?” The company provides another clue; that the “good information” resides exclusively on the pages established media outlets with billion-dollar budgets, lamenting on its website that “185 million Americans don’t trust traditional media.”

Billionaire “philanthropist” George Soros has weaponized his vast wealth in support of US foreign policy for several decades. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and later the unraveling of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe, The Washington Post celebrated Soros as a member of a “new network of overt operators” supporting “pro-democracy activists” and media operations in place of – and alongside – the CIA.

Continuing his anti-communist crusade into the 21st Century, Soros has sponsored color revolutions and information warfare campaigns against designated US enemies from Hong Kong to Syria to Russia.

This summer, the billionaire regime change enthusiast wrote that he considers China’s president Xi Xinping “the most dangerous enemy of open societies in the world.” Previously, Soros had declared Russian President Vladimir Putin “a bigger threat to Europe’s existence than ISIS.”

From George Soros’ 2016 Guardian op-ed on Vladimir Putin


Having sponsored the activities of many thousands of pro-US activists abroad, Soros is teaming up on Good Information Inc. with Reid Hoffman – a fellow billionaire with his own track record of political meddling – to train the sights of information operations back on the United States. 

Hoffman was the money man behind Project Birmingham, a covert disinformation operation devised by a tech company called New Knowledge which aimed to depress voter turnout among Republicans during Alabama’s 2017 special senate election. The operation created a Facebook page for a previously unknown Republican candidate  and promoted him to the media to divide the GOP vote.

Further, it relied on underhanded tactics including, in the company’s words, “orchestrat[ing] an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the [Roy] Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet.”

One leaked internal company document claimed that Project Birmingham’s covert tactics “moved enough votes” to ensure victory for the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones.

As the New York Times reported, “the funding” for this “experiment in the Alabama Senate race” came “from Reid Hoffman.”

During the 2020 Democratic primary election, Hoffman was at the center of another scandalous election meddling operation. As Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal reported, Hoffman bankrolled a dark money outfit called Acronym (also funded by Soros) which launched a dysfunctional digital vote counting system, Shadow App, that helped upend Bernie Sanders’ apparent win in the Iowa Caucus.

Thanks to the chaos spawned by the suspiciously glitchy app, establishment favorite Pete Buttigieg eeked out a victory over Sanders six days later. Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price resigned after overseeing the payment of $63,000 to Shadow Inc, the maker of the Shadow App, just months prior.

It turned out that a young Democratic Party operative named Tara McGowan had not only founded the Hoffman-backed Acronym PAC; she was married to a top Buttigieg advisor.

And now, McGowan is set to “lead” the Soros-Hoffman Good Information venture.

The Good Information website was launched by Kyle Tharp, another Acronym veteran who boasts that he “led all communications for ACRONYM and its affiliated political action committee PACRONYM during the 2020 presidential election” on his LinkedIn page.

Tharp also worked as an editor of FWIW Media, which is owned by Acronym, journalist Lee Fang has reported.

While the Good Information website was created in late February, McGowan is capitalizing on the buzz surrounded The Facebook Files leaked by Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee exposed by this reporter as a pseudo-whistleblower cultivated by a former CIA agent and attorney accused of informing on his client to the FBI.

In announcing the launch of Good Information, McGowan tweeted:“The broken, divisive information ecosystem in which we find ourselves today is an all-hands-on-deck challenge for American democracy. Excited to finally share what we’ve been building over the past few months to address it.” 

“One thing that the #FacebookPapers make abundantly clear is that bad information flowing online is one of the gravest threats that we face as a society,” she added.

Despite Reid Hoffman’s sponsorship of McGowan across multiple projects, Hoffman himself has invested in Facebook.

Good Information will “acquire Courier Newsroom from ACRONYM for an undisclosed sum,” Axios reported, describing it as a “local news group with a progressive perspective.”

Courier Newsroom is uniquely equipped to fulfill Good Information’s mission statement of “cut[ting] through the echo chambers with fact-based information.” At the time of this article’s publication, the top story from the network featured on their website instructed readers on “the right way to eat candy corn.”

 

The seemingly banal story was in fact part of a cynical strategy McGowan has honed on Facebook and other social media sites: spin out media outlets in swing states with a seemingly local flavor, draw in unsuspecting audiences with clickbait articles, then mobilize readers ahead of elections with aggressive political content.

Good Information will be led by an advisory board that is heavily made up of former Obama alumnus and Democratic Party apparatchiks united in their hunger for control over the American information ecosystem and zeal for censoring ideological opponents.

Board members include Dan Pfeiffer, a former Senior Advisor to President Obama who co-hosts the popular neoliberal Pod Save America podcast; Jason Goldman, the Obama White House’s Chief Digital Officer; Eli Pariser, former Executive Director of MoveOn and co-founder of the online activist group Avaaz, which promoted regime change wars on Libya and Syria; Nandini Jammi, a former co-founder of Sleeping Giants, a pro-censorship  Democrat lobby that pressures advertisers to cut ties from right-wing news outlets, and the co-founder of Check My Ads, a non-profit that runs background checks on companies to help them avoid advertising on platforms that promote “disinformation” and hate speech; Stephanie Valencia, who “served President Barack Obama in senior roles through his presidential campaign and both terms in office,” Michael Tubbs, a former mayor and current advisor to California Governor Gavin Newsom; Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United and Let America Vote; Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director of Accountable Tech, an organization that says it is “fighting back” against “social media giants…eroding our consensus reality and pushing democracy to the brink;” and Jennifer Gunter, a gynecologist and author of “The Vagina Bible” and “Menopause Manifesto.”

Like McGowan, many of these board members have seized on the narrative spun out by Facebook pseudo-whistleblower Frances Haugen to advance their agenda.

Despite the obvious political leanings of the Good Information advisory board, its funders, and its leader, Tara McGowan, McGowan has insisted the initiative “could make investments in entities across the political spectrum.” She pointed to The Bulwark as an example of the type of right-leaning outlet they could fund.

Launched by Project for the New American Century co-founder and unrepentant Iraq war cheerleader Bill Kristol with financial backing from billionaire information mogul Pierre Omidyar, The Bulwark is part of Kristol’s rebranding from the smarmy neocon warmonger who discovered Sarah Palin to the anti-Trump Resistance figure celebrated on MSNBC as “Woke Bill Kristol.”

Good Information is much more than another partisan op. It a domestic echo of the aggressive information warfare operations that billionaire activists like Soros and Omidyar have sponsored abroad, usually alongside US intelligence cut-outs, in the service of imperial goals. And this time, the target is the American public.

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN

Alex Rubinstein is an independent reporter on Substack. You can subscribe to get free articles from him delivered to your inbox here. If you want to support his journalism, which is never put behind a paywall, you can give a one-time donation to him through PayPal here or sustain his reporting through Patreon here. 

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience. 

If you find the above useful, pass it on! Become an "influence multiplier"! 

This post is part of our Orphaned Truths series with leading cultural and political analysts. People you can trust.

The Jimmy Dore Show • Fiorella Isabel — Craig Pasta Jardula (The Convo Couch) • Mike Prysner & Abby Martin (The Empire Files)
Lee Camp's Redacted Tonight • Caleb Maupin • Jonathan Cook • Jim Kavanagh • Paul Edwards • David Pear • Steven Gowans
Max Blumenthal • Ben Norton • Aaron Maté • Anya Parampil (The Grayzone) • Caitlin Johnstone • Chris Hedges • Alex Rubinstein

[premium_newsticker id="211406"]

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post

YOU ARE FREE TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE PROVIDED YOU GIVE PROPER CREDIT TO THE GREANVILLE POST
VIA A BACK LIVE LINK. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Did you sign up yet for our FREE bulletin?
It’s super easy! Sign up to receive our FREE bulletin.  Get TGP selections in your mailbox. No obligation of any kind. All addresses secure and never sold or commercialised. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

black-horizontal



Cruel Britannia: Britain’s Real Role in the World, with Mark Curtis

Our articles depend on you for their effectiveness. Share with kin, coworkers and friends.

by Alan Macleod

Cruel Britannia: Britain’s Real Role in the World, with Mark Curtis
"Counter-narratives" are slowly beginning to erode the self-flattering myths, but the hold of the empire still dazzles many minds in the UK.

October 25th, 2021

Despite a number of embarrassing political events over the past number of years, Great Britain still likes to regard itself as a forward-thinking, world-leading country and a force for good. Surveys show that the United Kingdom retains a great deal of positive sentiment around the world.

And despite the savagery of the era, Britons themselves remember their empire extremely fondly, far more positively than those in countries subjugated by the crown. In 2014, a poll by YouGov found that 59% of the public considered the country’s empire something to be proud of, with only 19% thinking it was a shameful episode in British history. Perhaps more startling is the fact that more than three times as many Britons believed that their colonies were better off than worse off under their control.

These numbers have begun to change, with the rise of new histories and new political movements, such as Black Lives Matter, that have challenged the jingoistic consensus.

One historian whose work has done a great deal to shatter the myths of empire is Mark Curtis, who joins Alan MacLeod on the Mintcast today. Mark Curtis is a historian and journalist, the co-founder of Declassified UK, an investigative news website dedicated to scrutinizing the powerful.

Described by veteran journalist and filmmaker John Pilger as Britain’s greatest modern historian, Curtis has published a number of groundbreaking books. Among them are “Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World,” which exposes the fallacy that Britain is a force for democracy and human rights; “Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses,” which catalogs the country’s imperial crimes up to the present; and “Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam,” which explores how the United Kingdom has supported radical and jihadist forces in the Middle East in order to topple secular, independent-minded governments.

Today Curtis lays out how Britain is playing a major role in the devastation in Yemen, funneling weapons to Saudi Arabia, reloading its jets, and generally doing everything short of pulling the trigger itself. Britain is a major arms dealer around the world, and Saudi Arabia is by far its best customer, responsible for 49% of worldwide sales. The U.K. also plays a key role in propping up other Middle Eastern monarchies such as Qatar, which now operates two joint squadrons with the British Royal Air Force, making it an ever closer ally of London.

Curtis also strongly condemned the imprisonment of Australian publisher Julian Assange, who continues to be held under lock and key in London. Describing the case as a prime example of “imperial arrogance,” stating that “clearly, Assange is being punished for telling the truth,” he claimed that Assange’s case should concern every member of the British public.

This free-flowing discussion punctures imperial narratives and exposes Britain’s true role in the world.

MintPress News is a fiercely independent, reader-supported outlet, with no billionaire owners or backers. You can support us by becoming a member on Patreon, bookmarking and whitelisting us, and by subscribing to our social media channels, including Twitch, YouTube,Twitter and Instagram.

Subscribe to MintCast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud.

Also, be sure to check out the new Behind the Headlines channel on YouTube and subscribe to rapper Lowkey’s new video interview/podcast series, The Watchdog.

MARK CURTIS
Co-founder/editor,  @DeclassifiedUK, . Analyst of UK foreign policy. Books: Secret Affairs, Web of Deceit, Unpeople, The Great Deception, Ambiguities of Power

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as anumberofacademicarticles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience. 

All image captions, pull quotes, appendices, etc. by the editors not the authors. 
YOU ARE FREE TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE PROVIDED YOU GIVE PROPER CREDIT TO THE GREANVILLE POST VIA A BACK LIVE LINK. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]

 Don’t forget to sign up for our FREE bulletin. Get The Greanville Post in your mailbox every few days. 



Jacques Pauwels: De la Revolution Française a la Grande Guerre

Our articles depend on you for their effectiveness. Share with kin, coworkers and friends.

Jacques Pauwels

???? Jacques R. Pauwels est né à Gand, en Belgique Flamande, en 1946. Il est historien, politologue et essayiste belgo-canadien. Il a fait ses premiers pas à l'université en obtenant une licence d'Histoire en 1969 en Belgique. Il poursuit ensuite ses études au Canada jusqu'à un Doctorat en histoire, à la York University, à Toronto, en 1976. Il continuera son cursus universitaire dix ans plus tard, en obtenant une Maîtrise en sciences politiques, puis un Doctorat en sciences politiques en 1995 à Université de Toronto.

Jacques R. Pauwels a enseigné l'Histoire et les Sciences Politiques dans plusieurs universités canadiennes. Il s'est spécialisé dans l'histoire de l'Allemagne contemporaine, le Troisième Reich en particulier, et la proximité du géant états-unien. Cela va l'amener à analyser le rôle des USA pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. Jacques Pauwels a publié une dizaine de livres. C'est en 2002, que Jacques Pauwels écrit « Le Mythe de la Bonne Guerre : Les États-Unis et la Deuxième Guerre mondiale » qui sera traduit en six langues et en français par les éditions Aden, en 2005. Il écrira "Big Business avec Hitler" en 2013, où il explique que Hitler a comblé les attentes qu'industriels et banquiers avaient placées en lui.

Il est aussi l'auteur de la magnifique synthèse historique "Les Mythes de l’histoire moderne", publié dans l'excellente maison d'édition indépendante que nous avons eu la chance de recevoir sur le Front Médiatique, Investig'Action, en 2019. Il nous révèle ici la face cachée des révolutions et des guerres qui ont façonné notre société. 1789, la Commune de Paris, 14-18, Octobre 17, 40-45, Hitler, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima sont passés au crible par cet historien indépendant et consciencieux.

On aura l'occasion de l’accueillir à deux reprises sur le Front Médiatique. Aujourd'hui, pour ce 1er épisode nous allons revenir sur les fakes news historiques "De la Révolution française à la Grande Guerre : la Démocratie entre révolution et guerre". Et dans quelques semaines, nous reviendrons sur la montée d'Hitler et les mytes de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale qui nous est toujours présenté comme une guerre contre le fascisme.

???? La série "PENSEUR HÉTÉRODOXE" a la volonté de valoriser des regards divergents sur notre monde contemporain. Les intellectuels interviewés s'écartent de la doctrine officielle et du dogme dominant en vigueur. Face à la pensée unique, c'est un appel à la liberté de pensée.

???? Site internet de Jacques Pauwels : http://www.jacquespauwels.net/
???? Les mythes de l'Histoire moderne - Jacques Pauwels - Édition Investig'Action
???? Big Business avec Hitler - Jacques Pauwels - Édition Aden
???? 1914-1918 : La Grande Guerre des classes - Jacques Pauwels - Édition Delga
???? Mythe de la Bonne Guerre - Jacques Pauwels - Édition Aden

➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖
Le Front Médiatique est une association loi 1901, créée à Toulouse en mars 2020, qui sélectionne et diffuse de manière collaborative le meilleur de l'information. Nous mettons en lumière les idées et points de vues trop peu médiatisés, à travers différents projets participatifs, un site internet, mais aussi des productions audiovisuelles, des supports papier et des événements publics.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience. 

All image captions, pull quotes, appendices, etc. by the editors not the authors. 
YOU ARE FREE TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE PROVIDED YOU GIVE PROPER CREDIT TO THE GREANVILLE POST VIA A BACK LIVE LINK. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]

 Don’t forget to sign up for our FREE bulletin. Get The Greanville Post in your mailbox every few days. 



Personal Interview: Abby Martin

Please share this article as widely as you can.

Personal Interview: Abby Martin
AS CONDUCTED BY JOHN RACHEL

What Are The Prospects For Peace?

Events are unfolding at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we are looking to our most respected and renowned thought leaders for an honest assessment of both U.S. foreign and military policy to offer their most current thoughts and insights. We know they have some ideas for improving the prospects for peace.

Abby Martin is an American journalist, TV presenter and activist. She helped found the citizen journalism website Media Roots and serves on the board of directors for the Media Freedom Foundation which manages Project Censored. She hosted Breaking the Set on the Russian state-sponsored network RT America from 2012 to 2015, and then launched The Empire Files in that same year as an investigative documentary and interview series on Telesur, later released as a web series. In 2019, she released the film documentary, The Empire Files: Gaza Fights for Freedom. She continues her work opposing imperialism and promoting peace, as an independent filmmaker and journalist. We are extremely honored that she took the time to talk to us and share her views. Her responses below are exactly as she provided.

The questions here are not philosophical or abstract. They focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real-time. They directly address the role of the U.S. in the escalating tensions and its capacity to reduce them. We also probe the role of everyday citizens in affecting the relationship the U.S. now has and will have with the rest of the world community.

Here is what Abby Martin had to say.—JR

Q. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has recently put the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds before midnight. Midnight means all out war, probably nuclear holocaust. This is the closest it has every been. Do you agree with this dire assessment?

"The need for critical media literacy and mass organizing has never been more urgent..."

A. Just a minuscule percentage of the world’s nuclear arsenal being detonated would have cataclysmic effects, propelling us into a nuclear winter that could eventually end human life on earth. Hydrogen bombs are up to one thousand times stronger than those that decimated Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the US has thousands of them. 

It’s chilling to face the reality that nuclear war is not some distant Cold War era threat, but a strong possibility in our near future. Due to incompetence or belligerence, any nuclear armed country could initiate this death spiral.

Right now we face an unprecedented ecological crisis in need of global cooperation. Instead of becoming a leader to reduce and dismantle nuclear weapons, the US is spending over a trillion dollars to modernize its nuclear arsenal. And despite being a signatory to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, the US is buying hundreds more. In February, the Biden administration secured a contract with Northrop Grumman for 600 new nukes, for no reason other than to line the coffers of the defense industry. 

DC think tank policy prescriptions about nuclear weapons are sponsored by the very arms companies rewarded with lucrative contracts for their recommendations, which always result in further militarization. We need to strategize how we can live in a world beyond nukes, because there will never be peace as long as these weapons exist.

Q. The U.S. always portrays itself as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc. Polls tell us that most other nations actually regard the U.S. as the greatest threat to stability. What in your view is the truth here?

A. One just has to leave the United States and speak to people in other countries, especially those long subjugated by the US, to see how true this idea really is. The United States is a global Empire, which imposes its world order through military force. A new study reveals that US “counterterrorism” operations have been active in 83 countries in the last three years alone. It does this not to spread “democracy” or “human rights”—a ridiculous assertion for an oligarchy that hosts the largest incarcerated population—but to extract resources and protect capital. 

Whatever the US dictates, its junior collaborators follow suit and the rest know the penalty for bucking the beast—genocidal sanctions, coups, invasions and bombing campaigns. These criminal actions depend on a compliant corporate media that make them palatable to the public. But for those living under the sanctions and bombs, it’s clear who the real threat is.

Q. Here’s a chicken-or-egg question: The U.S. accuses both Russia and China of rapidly expanding their military capabilities, claiming its own posturing and increase in weaponry is a response to its hostile adversaries, Russia and China. Both Russia and China claim they are merely responding to intimidation and military threats posed by the U.S.  What’s your view? Do Russia and China have imperial ambitions or are they just trying to defend themselves against what they see as an increasingly aggressive U.S. military?

A. The US military is bigger and more costly than the next ten countries combined. It is patently absurd to think that it is Russia or China, not the US that is setting the world stage militarily. For example, when the US violated the international treaty on outer space to create Space Force, Russia reacted by announcing it would pursue its own space defense to prepare for US plans. 

Almost every think tank that influences US politics has set its sights on China under the great-power competition doctrine, and has articulated that Russia and China need to be the military focus instead of the Middle East. Most of their mapped out policy scenarios end in full blown war, something that would be catastrophic and completely unnecessary. 

While both countries clearly have strategic geopolitical ambitions, Russia and China do not share the US’s imperial goals for global hegemony. China spreads its influence through production and financial investments but it only has one military base in Djibouti. When you compare this to the nearly 1,000 US bases littering the earth, the notion that the US is acting defensively is laughable.

Q. The U.S. always denies that it has imperial ambitions. Most unbiased experts say that by any objective standards, the U.S. is an empire — indeed the most powerful, sprawling empire in history.  Does the U.S. have to be an empire to be successful in the world and effectively protect and serve its citizenry?

A. The US is not only an Empire, it is the biggest and most powerful Empire the world has ever seen. It has 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and it bends other countries to its will through sanctions and war. It has interfered to subvert the democratic processes more than 50 times in Latin America alone. The US is not effective at protecting and serving its own citizenry, so it has no moral leg to stand on to justify this global military presence and daily violence. It is only successful if you look at control and domination as merits of success. The system it upholds exists to benefit very few people, which becomes a tinier pool every year, while the vast majority at the bottom suffer and die preventable deaths—structural violence under capitalism.

Q. In 2009, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton announced a reset with Russia, heralding greater cooperation and understanding.  By 2014, Obama had made a sharp reversal. A sweeping regime of sanctions has since been imposed on Russia to cripple its economy. Hillary Clinton and the Democrats now relentlessly demonize Russia and Putin, blaming them for every imaginable ill. Both in the media and from official pronouncements by government officials, Russia has become the favorite whipping boy for both the U.S. and its “special friend”, Great Britain.  Why?  What happened?

A. Some argue the love affair with Putin ended with his refusal to support the Iraq War and subsequently Russia’s support for US enemies like Assad, but many other factors play into why hostilities with Russia benefit the US. The US political system needs to manufacture consent for its global Empire by directing Americans’ attention and energy away from the corrupt oligarchs and corporate overlords who oppress us here at home to an external threat, like communism, terrorism, and now, Russia and China. 

When Donald Trump became president, it was imperative to rationalize how someone so unsavory to liberal sensibilities won a democratic election. Instead of having reflection or accountability for the failures of the Democratic Party, and the anointment of a candidate like Hillary Clinton, the results were blamed on sinister foreign forces like Putin’s Russia, and entities like Russia Today. In fact, the US intelligence community cited my show Breaking the Set, which ended two years prior to the election, as a major factor that “sowed discord” and “fomented radical discontent” within US society, leading to the outcome of Trump’s victory. 

Russia and China will continue to be hysterically fear mongered against because the arms industry needs to keep pumping out weapons to sell and the people need something, someone to blame for why our lives continue to degrade, other than our own government.

Q. The number of spy missions, nuclear-armed bomber flights, and war games near Russia’s borders have vastly increased over the past year. Same with China. Is all of this just business-as-usual geopolitical posturing? Or does it represent a dangerous escalation and a new ominous direction in U.S. strategic positioning? What is the justification for what Russia and China see as provocations and aggressiveness, if not actual preparation for a war?

A. There is no rational justification for the continuous, aggressive US military buildup and maneuvering around Russia and China. The US routinely sends in ships and aircraft into the South China Sea to flex its muscles, which China recently denounced as a “threat to peace.” It is incomprehensible to imagine China conducting military operations in the Gulf of Mexico, but apparently China should accept the US doing this on a regular basis. 

The US and its loyalists will defend this insanity by saying that the US is a beacon for good and needs to be on these countries’ doorsteps to keep these “authoritarian dictatorships” at bay, to save the world by preventing them from becoming *the next Empire.* None of this has any bearing in reality. Imperialism has nowhere to go but to expand, imperiling all life on earth. And US capitalism is threatened by China’s growing economic power. It does not want to exist in a multipolar world. It knows eventually it has to come to a head with what it sees as the great competitor, for no other reason than global domination.

Q. Between the FONOPS in the South China Sea and the recently expressed enthusiasm for Taiwan’s independence, the risk of military conflict with China keeps increasing. Where is this headed? If the People's Republic of China decides to use military force for full reunification of Taiwan, do you see the U.S. going to war in an attempt to prevent it?

A. A majority of Americans now favor using US troops to defend Taiwan if it is invaded by China, according to a recent poll. There is no other rationale to explain this mindset other than corporate media propaganda steadily pumping out anti-China stories and legitimizing it as an adversary. 

The US claims it conducts its war games around China in part to bolster its support for Taiwan. Now the narrative being pumped out by Pentagon sources is that these war games often end with China beating the US, calling for further military spending in order to beat China. The inevitability of war with China is a tacitly accepted reality, with rarely any questioning about whether or not the US should be conducting these acts of aggression or militarily backing Taiwan at all. How does any of this protect the American people? Needless to say, all of this points to the very real and growing possibility that the US will start war with China over Taiwan, and we need to speak out against this utter madness before it is too late.

Q. In a democracy, at least in theory citizens have a say in all matters of public policy. Yet, in the end none of the recent military campaigns and undeclared wars seem to achieve much popular favor or support. What is and what should be the role of everyday citizens in determining the foreign policy and military priorities of the country? Or are such matters better left to the “experts”?

A. The United States functions as an oligarchy rather than a democracy. Policies passed not due to public support but corporate interests. The overwhelming majority of people in this country support things like paid maternity leave, free college, and a higher minimum wage. Yet these things are painted as wedge issues that can never be accomplished due to the partisan divide. Corporations control the political process and the conversation around it, and they always win what they want. 

This is why during the COVID pandemic, the oligarchs siphoned two trillion dollars from the working class, while one-third of small businesses shut down and the poor suffered through mass evictions and joblessness. Due to the neoliberal indoctrination of public education and mass conditioning of American Exceptionalism, most Americans haven’t given a second thought to what the US does in our names around the world. 

Many US journalists and politicians acknowledge that climate change is the largest threat facing humanity, but few point to the fact that the US military is the largest institutional polluter, and emitter of carbon emissions, and every single climate treaty excludes their responsibility.

The need for critical media literacy and mass organizing has never been more urgent. If you want to go down the rabbit hole with me to learn more about the true nature of the US government and how we can unite to demilitarize our communities, check out The Empire Files.

• • •

John Rachel

We are grateful to Abby Martin for her thought-provoking views. The interview was arranged by John Rachel, Director of the Peace Dividend Project. This effort embraces a powerful, unprecedented, end-to-end strategy for challenging the tyranny of neocon warmongers in Washington DC, ending the endless wars, and reversing the self-destructive foreign policy and military paradigm which now poisons U.S. relations with the rest of the world. Ms. Martin has also agreed to be interviewed for the full-length Peace Dividend documentary film, a devastating indictment of the corruption and fraud built into our excessive military budgets and imperial overreach. This movie will inform, unite and empower everyday citizens to have a voice in determining the future they want for themselves and their children.

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience. 

All image captions, pull quotes, appendices, etc. by the editors not the authors. 
YOU ARE FREE TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE PROVIDED YOU GIVE PROPER CREDIT TO THE GREANVILLE POST VIA A BACK LIVE LINK. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]

 Don’t forget to sign up for our FREE bulletin. Get The Greanville Post in your mailbox every few days. 



Canadian Imperialism

Our articles depend on you for their effectiveness. Share with kin, coworkers and friends.

Jim Miles
INFOPINIONS

Canada was born of empire and still thrives within that milieu.  It is the progeny of French and British imperial quests in the ‘New’ World and is accompanied by its siblings within the Five Eyes, the most influential being the United States.  Canada’s creation out of mostly British imperial interests carried all the factors of imperialism internally as it developed across the North American continent.  Currently, it still acts within the imperial prerogative, both domestically with its indigenous population and overseas with various other countries, frequently under the aegis of the U.S., but often enough acting on its own accord.

The ethnic cleansing of Canada

During this summer’s heatwave and firestorms I started rereading several books about the history of the indigenous population in Canada, mostly concerned with western Canada, but referencing previous events in the east.   Two books dealt with the problems of colonial settler movements in British Columbia:  “Contact and Conflict” [1] is an earlier work still widely referenced; and “Making Native Space” [2] is more contemporary, highlighting the efforts of establishing - literally - “native space” meaning the “reservations” set aside for indigneous use (think apartheid).

A third book, “Clearing the Plains”, [3] highlighted the colonial settlement of the prairie provinces, a hard hitting work that demonstrates the ethnic cleansing/genocide nature of Canadian settler colonialism.   The final work, “Guns,Germs, and Steel”, [4] is much more widely known and while not discussing British Columbia or Canada directly, does provide a strong background to the whole ‘business’ of colonial settlerism and how it operates.

I say operates in the present tense, as the racial conflict from the early colonial years still manifests itself today.  While I was involved with the rereading, several significant events occurred that reinforced all that the authors had said, and demonstrated that racism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide are all recent and/or ongoing occurences in Canada and British Columbia specifically.

Contemporary B.C.

Two incidents involved many aspects of contemporary concern - racism, the environment, government/police power, energy, native land rights - the latter which is a very specific concern within British Columbia as very little of the province’s land has been ceded by the indigenous population.   Demonstrators at Fairy Creek on Southern Vancouver Island are attempting to block logging of one of the few remaining old growth forests on the B.C. coast.  Farther north, the Wet'suwet'en are using blockades to try and stop the destruction of their formerly pristine wilderness by the Coastal GasLink Project which aims to transport fracked gas from northeast B.C. for export to Asia.

In both cases, the police forces have reacted in a militarized manner supporting the interests of the corporations and governments over any interests in the environment and ignoring the reality that the lands they are acting on are unceded indigenous lands.  The courts, while offering a small temporary success to the Fairy Creek protesters, have mostly sided with the corporations, and the police tactics of forced and violent removals and arrests.

The incident that struck me the hardest was the discovery of the 215 unmarked Indian graves at the Kamloops Indian residential School, the final resting place of hundreds of native children taken/kidnapped from their families.   Growing up in B.C. I knew about the residential schools.  When very young it was simply a benign reference.  Later, as I began to discover B.C.’s history, it became more and more a cruelty to families, villages, and native societies as a whole.   The last residential school in Canada was closed in 1996 - essentially most of my life was concurrent with the residential school system.

The damage done to indigenous life, to indigenous culture as a whole, and to the thousands of affected individuals and families is enormous, and still ongoing as survivors and their families - their whole nations - struggle with the after-effects of the system.  The term survivors indicates the brutal reality that thousands of indigenous children did not survive the residential school system, at the same time highlighting that the schools were a malignant imposition onto the culture of the people.

Back to the books

The original white contacts in British Columbia were the fur traders who dealt with the indigenous populations generally in a more restricted contact environment.  The natives were considered astute traders but nevertheless were still subject to white racism and British gunboat diplomacy.

“...with gunboats in the background, framed one side of the conversation, such as it was:  the other side had more to do with drastic depopulation, cultural change, and inability to fend off the gunboats.” [5]

With the transition to a settler colony, the prejudices and actions accompanying the settlers became significantly more overtly racist.

“The proposition that civilization would bring not only degeneration but also annihilation to the Indians was one that was much more frequently expounded by settlers than it had been by fur traders….By disparaging Indian culture Europeans could convince themselves that little worth would be lost if the Indian way of life was brought to an end.”  [6]

The residential schools introduced above were run by various church denominations, funded by the government of Canada,

...1880s, the federal government had adopted an official policy of funding residential schools across Canada. The explicit intent was to separate these children from their families and cultures. In 1920, the Indian Act made attendance at Indian Residential Schools compulsory for Treaty-status children between the ages of 7 and 15. [7]

The churches played a significant role in the cultural genocide of the native population,

...the missionaries were a part of the settlement frontier and required major social change of the Indians….Their aim was the complete destruction of the traditional integrated Indian way of life.  The missionaries demanded even more far-reaching transformation than the settlers, and they pushed it more aggressively than any other group of whites. [8]

The land is the culture


Britain controlled the world’s largest empire and most Canadians were proud to be a part of it.


With the advent of white settlers, land settlement for resource exploitation (minerals, forestry, fishing) and agriculture effectively cleansed the indigenous populations of B.C. and the prairie provinces of Canada from their territories.

While rereading Diamond’s work, his underlying thesis about the rise of guns, germs, and steel was the establishment of agricultural based settlements, essentially implying that agriculture started the whole system of violent empires through the course of history.  Some modern theorists support the same claim.

The corollary is probably more accurate:  that when indigenous agriculture was ‘industrialized’ - organized to support a more powerful elite - the violence began domestically with internal control and then expanded out seeking new resources and more power.  That puts it in basic terms, but indigenous agriculture existed in most regions of the world.  It was not organized on a for-profit power and control model, but was - and is - set within the limits of sustainability in the natural environment.

Regardless, the removal of the indigenous populations of B.C. and prairie provinces was accomplished through disease (smallpox, tuberculosis mainly, and other ailments associated with European lifestyles), military and settler violence, and the full range of laws and orders designed to maintain dominance and exclusion over the remaining populations.

British Colonial policy was “dominated by expediency…

...the underlying intention of almost any Native land policy in a settler colony was the dispossession, with as little expense and trouble as possible, of Native people of most of their lands.” [9]

Those lands not dispossessed became the reserves, small plots of land of little importance for any of the resource industries, Canada’s modern apartheid system that still exists and continues to subjugate the indigenous populations regardless of the rhetoric of reconciliation.  Talk is important, but it is the land that is the culture.

Back to the future

Canada continues with its mostly racist policies towards its indigenous inhabitants.  The Indian Act, now incorporated into the Constitution, and limitations put on other laws and the control exerted by the Department of Indian Affairs denies the equality of rights to land and resources for the indigenous people.  As above, violence is still used to control indigenous lands for resource extraction by large corporations.

It is not surprising that this domestic policy is reflected in Canada’s foreign policies.  Often viewed as a “peacemaker” - thanks to its own propaganda and the propaganda successes of Lester Pearson’s UN efforts for a peacekeeping force [10] - Canada’s foreign interests are very frequently assisted under more violent terms.

Canada’s imperial foreign policy

 

Lord Strathcona’s Horse regiment (Royal Canadians) on board the S.S. Monterey en route to South Africa to fight for the British in the Boer War, 1900 (Credit: Patent and Copyright Office / Library and Archives Canada)

Canada’s foreign policy is often seen domestically as being a benefit for the world.  Nothing surprising in that as most of the propaganda to support Canada’s foreign affairs is directed at the domestic population, as is done within other countries [the most prominent example being the USA].  Right from the beginning, when Canada was essentially ‘settled’ and the Indian problems had been removed either to the reservations or to the impoverished centers of major towns and cities, Canada’s imperial role, under British guidance, continued.

Canada has never lost the cultural ties to the British that promote imperial military adventurism overseas.  Those links did weaken, but the neighbourly presence of the United States and the increasing encroachment of U.S. affairs binding Canada to the U.S. have directed Canada - willingly for the most part - to support U.S. foreign policies.  It is not always military activities binding the two countries.  NATO, NAFTA, NORAD and other agreements make Canada an effective part of the U.S.empire.

Canada’s contemporary foreign policy events highlight its attachments to the U.S. empire, but also its willingness to act on its own parallel interests.  Canada supported NATO in its bombing of Serbia, the bombing of Libya, and its occupation of Afghanistan.  It has recently organized the “Lima Group”, a collection of right-wing Latin American governments willing to harass and sanction Venezuela while supporting a “government in exile” led by U.S. puppet Juan Guaido.   Now that “Lima” has departed from the group, it has not been active in current events.

Continuing with Latin America, there are two large examples of imperial reach.  One of them is rather understated - the support Canada provides to its mining companies operating within other countries, buttressed by trade agreements, subsidies through foreign “aid”, and through “security cooperation” with the governments involved.

Haiti is the prime example of Canadian imperial interference.   Food was part of the program:  in order to maintain the imperial legacy in Haiti, Canada played a major role in eliminating a native pig species, forcing the importation of hogs from Canada and the U.S.;   Canada supported the removal of tariffs on rice, allowing foreign rice - cheaply subsidised - to flood the market and devastate the local rice growers.  Food dependency not being enough, Canada assisted in deposing the popularly elected Jean-Bertrand Aristede.

In other affairs, Canada supports sanctions against Russia, based mainly on U.S. and British foreign policy objectives.  Only recently, Canada embroiled itself in U.S. foreign affairs by arresting and holding Meng Wanzhou for extradition to the U.S. on trumped-up bank and wire fraud charges.  Meng was released after some backroom negotiations between Canada and the U.S., more than likely propelled by ‘realpolitik’ than any generosity or humanitarian considerations.

Israel

Not last, and not least, but highly significant, is Canada’s support of Israel.  While officially holding to the two-state solution, Canada does not care to understand, wilfully, that a two-state solution is all but impossible.  The willful ignorance continues with Canada’s parliament passing an anti-BDS motion,

In CJPME’s chats with MPs after the vote, many MPs admitted they knew virtually nothing about the BDS movement, and what motivates it. [11]

Fortunately, the Canadian populace is well ahead of the government with concerns about the illegality of Israel’s settlement policies, its near-starvation rules placed on food imports to Gaza, and the ongoing violence and expulsions of Palestinians in the West Bank - sounds familiar this far into the critique.

A series of recent polls show that the majority of citizens support BDS and the application of international law and human rights in part through the jurisdiction of the ICC.[12]  Israeli activities in Sheik Jarrah and the military actions against Gaza, while not highlighted in the mainstream media, were important factors in the general trend of the polls.

The Anglo empire rolls along

Canada, born of empire, continues to be an active imperial participant, both in its own endeavours and in support of ongoing British and U.S. imperial adventures.  Along with the British sponsored “outpost” of Israel in the Middle East among all its other imperial concerns, Canada’s imperial drive - at home and abroad -  is as strong as ever.

Jim MilesJIM MILES, Distinguished Collaborator • Jim Miles is a Canadian educator living in British Columbia. He writes regularly about the Middle East and its militarization and economic subjugation. His concerns include the commodification of the world by corporate governance and the American government. He writes book reviews and opinion pieces which are published here, as well as in The Palestine Chronicle and Foreign Policy Journal. His work is widely distributed across the Internet.”


REFS
[1] Fisher, Robin .  Contact and Conflict - Indian-European Relations in British Columbia.  1774-1890. UBC Press, Vancouver, 1977, 1992.

[2] Harris, Cole.  Making Native Space - Colonialism, Resistance, and reserves in British Columbia. UBC Press, 2002.

[3] Daschuk, James.  Clearing the Plains - Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life.  University of Regina Press, 2013.

[5] Harris, p. 107.

[6] Fisher, pp. 87-8.

[7] Residential School History https://nctr.ca/education/teaching-resources/residential-school-history/

[8] Fisher,  pp.144-5.

[9] Harris, p. 14.

[10] Engler, Yves.  Lester Pearson's Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt.  Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, Nova Scotia, CA.  2012.

[11] BDS:  Informing the Parliamentary Debate.  February, 2016.  https://www.cjpme.org/fs_196

[12] https://www.cjpme.org/survey and https://www.cjpme.org/survey2020

Note:  For further reading on Canada’s foreign policy, Yves Engler has written a series of critical books detailing many of Canada’s foreign policy actions that deny Canada’s benign peacekeeper propaganda.  See:  https://yvesengler.com/yves-books/

 

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of  The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience. 

All image captions, pull quotes, appendices, etc. by the editors not the authors. 
YOU ARE FREE TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE PROVIDED YOU GIVE PROPER CREDIT TO THE GREANVILLE POST VIA A BACK LIVE LINK. 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]

 Don’t forget to sign up for our FREE bulletin. Get The Greanville Post in your mailbox every few days.