ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS

ERIC ZUESSE—To understand the Deep State, its basic ideological principles need to be recognized. Under Hitler, hereditary rights and obligations were publicly recognized; and democracy, the rule over a land by the residents on that land, was publicly condemned. Not only the hereditary principle, but the imperialistic principle, the right of foreign conquest, was publicly honored. The two principles go naturally together. The main reason why the Sauds and the other (all of them fundamentalist Sunnis) Arab kings, want to conquer Iran, is that Shia Islam denies the right of hereditary rule. (This is also why in Syria, Bashar al-Assad claims no hereditary right to rule; if he were to do otherwise, he’d violate Shia Islam and he would be rejected by Iran.) The main reason why America’s aristocracy wants to conquer Russia (other than the latter’s natural-resources wealth, which has always been a reason) is that Vladimir Putin insists that only the residents in a land should possess sovereignty there, but the U.S. and British aristocracies insist upon the right to conquer foreign lands.

ANDRE DAMON—The anti-Russia, anti-Trump campaign, while resonating with sections of the political establishment and the affluent upper-middle class, has left the general population cold. But now, the anti-Russian narrative has suddenly been superseded by mounting popular anger over real crimes committed by the Trump government: the torture and imprisonment of children; the construction of concentration camps; threats to dispense with due process.

ANDRE DAMON—The campaign against “Fake News” was initiated in November 2016, immediately following the 2016 election, by the US intelligence agencies, the Democratic Party, and the major technology giants. This cabal, shocked by the electoral defeat of Hillary Clinton, the favored candidate of the military/intelligence apparatus, and the widespread support for socialist ideas reflected in broad support for the campaign of Bernie Sanders, initiated a media offensive aimed at pinning the growth of social opposition on an amorphous, and rarely defined, concept called “fake news.”

THE WSWS.ORG EDITORS—The propaganda campaign justifying the attack on Syria was concocted to provide a pretext for a massive military onslaught—not one-off missile strikes.

Facing the prospect of a military rout of its Islamist proxy forces fighting to overthrow the Syrian government, the decision for an escalation was made in Washington and London, and it was left to the CIA, MI6 and their Syrian agents to manufacture a pretext.

JAMES PETRAS—Equally important, Zionist activists pressure and recruit leaders of civil society groups through guided propaganda tours to Israel. They enforce obedience and submission to Zionist objectives by blacklisting critics, contacting their places of employment and demanding they be fired. They employ even more repressive tactics against perceived threats to Israel’s interests, including threatening phone calls and unwelcome ‘visits’. At the commanding heights of the Zionist pyramid, hundreds of billionaires and millionaires finance and influence the corporate mass media, the political parties and conservative and liberal religious and educational institutions and demand adherence to Israel’s agenda.