IMAGE ABOVE: Syria in ruins, the handiwork of McCain and his Neocon pals. 

Dispatches from
STEPHEN LENDMAN

   M  cCain is part of the neocon lunatic fringe infesting Washington, a criminal gang waging war on humanity. 

Syria is one of many countries America raped, massacring hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, their well-being destroyed, victims of US imperial viciousness. 

McCain was the cheerleader for utilizing “moderate” militants to fight in Syria (Halifax Media Co-Op).  A card-carrying crypto-fascist and warmonger to his marrow, McCain combines two of the worst traits of the empire: wanton militarism and plutocratic privilege.

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By JOHN STEPPLING

Plantagenet, I will; and like thee, Nero,
Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn.
—Shakespeare, Henry VI

A number of writers and critics have noted the astounding smugness and outsized indignation of white liberals during this election season. The Clinton supporters, basically. And I think it is useful to examine the relationship between the media and the Clintons. For no political mafia has ever penetrated Hollywood and NY media to the extent the Clintons have. Shows such as Madam Secretary and House of Cards could well have been scripted by the Clinton inner circle. Hell, by Bill himself. And outlets like Huffington Post and MSNBC and CNN operate as the press outlets for the DNC.

But the real nadir of media capitulation and bad faith was the response to the brutal murder of the Russian diplomat Andrei Karlov in Istanbul, on video, at an art opening. The western press spun this as a freedom fighter attacking the brutal Russian empire and defending Aleppo. Almost nothing was said about the family of the slain Russian, or about terrorism. I guess terrorism doesn’t exist if its directed at the enemy du jour. The celebrations on the streets of Aleppo seemed to have been erased by western TV and print editors, too. And all of this is in line, of course, with Hillary Clinton’s (and her advisors) pathological and obsessive hatred of Putin. And with the Clinton imprint on mainstream media.

So, back to those white liberals. Every single person (save one) that I once knew in theatre and in Hollywood, are liberal and none of them really do much in the way of research or political reading. All of them are arch Democrats. And never before, I don’t think ever, has an election so starkly revealed the stratification of classes and sub classes, even, in the U.S. I have found a just amazing, almost surreal level of willful and intentional blindness on the part of liberal America to the crimes of the Clintons, and to the basic corruption of the Democratic Party. One can say over and over and over and over and over that Clinton orchestrated a Neonazi fascist coup in Ukraine, a fascist junta in Honduras and an illegal assassination of a foreign leader in Libya. You can say this again and again and I guarantee you will get no response. The stunning silence of white liberal America to the crimes of the Clintons stands as the most profound element in the entire scenario of this election.

“No political mafia has ever penetrated Hollywood and NY media to the extent the Clintons have…”

The propaganda against Russia, culminating in the truly grotesque coverage of Karlov’s murder, has been pitched at levels that I’ve personally never seen or heard before. And then there is a strange sort of cognitive dissonance regarding the *fake news* issue, launched, of course, by Obama. And this was the lame duck Obama, a figure that actually the public has not seen before, or seen very little. The urbane repressed buttoned down lawyer is being gradually peeled back and an oddly callused cruel figure emerges. A borderline sadist even. And while we know for certain that Hillary is a sadist, I think Obama is at least her equal. But of late Obama has exhibited a curious if not unsettling lack of proportion between his comments and his relaxed manner and style. It is the relaxation, one must say, of a sociopath. I don’t say this glibly. But during the fake news remarks I felt as if this must have been how detectives felt interviewing Ted Bundy. All smiles, winks, and good natured charm. But he was discussing a new open war on dissent. Obama initiated drone assassination and discussed it in the same tone as he discussed his vacations. In fact he joked about drone killing at the Correspondent’s Dinner a couple years back. There is, in this lame duck version of Obama, the sense of letting his character armoring slip just a little. And it reveals just another layer of armoring. There is such an empty core to this man that I think he made the perfect chameleon. He was the black Max Headroom. I am reminded of the Book of Job…Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue.

The West Wing, starring Martin Sheen, was Hollywood’s first modern vehicle designed to both exploit the turf of politics and sell the liberaloid version of reality, what the US presidency is all about. Hewing closely to “PC” identity politics, it eschewed class issues, while heavily sanitizing US foreign policy, something that Madam Secretary does in spades. That creator Aaron Sorkin drew inspiration from Bill Clinton’s supposedly “progressive” presidency is rather indisputable. In that sense, yes, it was both soap opera and soapbox, of the worst, most insidious kind.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hat the economy is now a disaster cannot be hidden. In fact, 90% of Obama’s new jobs were part time. Women were hardest hit during his eight years.Traditional fields for women workers in medicine and education were the biggest losers. Full time employment, the traditional 9 to 5 secure fixed job is all but extinct. There are fewer of those jobs today than during the great depression. But this is not anything that really affects the haute bourgeoisie, the affluent white liberals from Connecticut, Long Island, or Westchester County, or Bel Air, the Pacific Palisades, or Westwood. Or Menlo Park and Mill Valley. The educated classes. They don’t work day gigs. They don’t punch time clocks. They inherit and their family helps find them managerial positions or something akin. These are the people disproportionately visible in media. They don’t live paycheck to paycheck. And this is the point. The stratification of classes. And the markers for these class divides are becoming more fixed. If you use public transportation, for example, you are part of the lumpen masses these days. Nobody rides a bus to work at NBC or SONY pictures or Time Warner. Except maybe the kitchen staff.

Now, Trump is obviously, if we can judge from the last six months, a very thin skinned and rather terrified man. The son of a slum lord and a man who constantly seeks attention, and who wanted to be the biggest swinging dick in the house…well, once the Casino, now the White House. But he knows he’s not. And that can be a very dangerous personality flaw for someone with power. Trump’s eldest sons, Don Jr and Eric are perhaps the greatest indictment against Trump. I keep finding myself thinking of Roger Ballen’s famed photos of the Plattland farmers in South Africa; in particular Dressie & Cassie, the unfortunate twin brothers of the Transvaal. Don Jr and might well think, ‘there but for fortune’. But I digress.

The protests in the street, the agitation around counting ballots, and the open charges of treason — this is the stuff of a Capra movie on acid. It’s a strange dystopic vision. (And as ridiculous in its way as the catered sit in for gun control earlier this year, also courtesy of the Democratic Party leadership). And all in service of somehow getting Hillary Clinton elected. As, I guess, these people feel was ordained by a higher power, and hence their sense of the world coming apart at the seams. Why has god forsaken them, one can almost hear such screams in the night. Honestly, the degradation of electoral politics has hit bottom. It has to be clear, to even the most indoctrinated, that the voting system is broken. The problem is, for all the Diebold troubles and hacking claims and the electoral college; the real problem is simply basic inequality. Period. There are a fair number of people with relative wealth and there are a shit load of people with nothing. People who have no savings, and who live week to week, even with a family. People who pay rent, use food stamps if they can get them, and who if they get sick, stay sick. Or die. People who, if their children get seriously ill, will borrow themselves into lifetime debt to save their child. A debt they can’t hope to ever crawl out from under. People who count pennies to buy their Copenhagen or Skoal — and weigh that against another tin of coffee. This is the America who didn’t vote. They didn’t because they are busy surviving. And the average liberal heaps scorn on these people as apathetic or selfish or whatever. The truth is, the average professional class white liberal has no fucking idea what poverty feels like. None. And the poor know what the affluent liberal does not. And that is that Hillary doesn’t give anymore of a shit about them than the Donald.

The obvious takeaway from this has been touched on by several writers; Diana Johnstone wrote:

“The entire Western establishment, roughly composed of neoconservative ideologues, liberal interventionists, financial powers, NATO, mainstream media and politicians in both the United States and Western Europe, committed to remaking the Middle East to suit Israel and Saudi Arabia and to shattering impertinent Russia, have been thrown into an hysterical panic at the prospect of their joint globalization project being sabotaged by in ignorant intruder.”

and Jonathan Cook noted…

“Much more significantly, the systematic deceptions perpetrated by corporate media for many decades have left swaths of western publics distrustful and cynical. Social media has only added to widespread alienation because it has made it easier to expose to readers these mainstream deceptions. Trump, like Brexit, is a symptom of the growing disorientation and estrangement felt by western electorates…But the claim of “fake news” does usefully offer western security agencies, establishment politicians and the corporate media a powerful weapon to silence their critics. After all, these critics have no platform other than independent websites and social media. Shut down the sites and you shut up your opponents.”

And Andre Damon summed it up best, however…

“There is not an ounce of democratic content in the positions of either faction of the state and intelligence apparatus and nothing to choose from between the arch-reactionary Trump and the veteran warmonger Clinton. However the disputes are resolved, the result will be a massive escalation of war abroad and the attack on the working class within the United States.”

Indeed. And again, the leaked emails were real, the content was real, just as were those strange connections between Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Clintons have long had close ties with the royal family and never once have either of them made mention of the gross human rights violations of the monarchy. Obama, too, has said nothing critical of the Saudis. These politicians all answer to the same people and places. (read Hillary’s speeches to her Wall Street backers!).

Now a recent poll indicated, interestingly, that almost 70% of Americans didn’t buy the Russia hacking claims. And half of America doesnt trust either party. And why should they? The new star of the DNC appears to be Keith Ellison of whom Bruce Dixon wrote… “Ellison is black. He’s the first Muslim elected to Congress, he’s smart enough and telegenic. He votes infallibly to support the apartheid regime in Israel, and he says if it were up to him there’d have been a no-fly zone (and possible shooting war with the Russians) a long time ago.” In other words, Ellison is another pro-interventionist, a friend of foreign war profiteers, and a man who has done everything in his power not to offend anyone. You don’t get to the top tier of the DNC without following the script.

The anger of the bourgeoisie then is about something else. It’s not really policy, it’s about their own entitlement. Its about their sense of affront and insult. This is what I keep seeing and reading. They are insulted and hurt. I’ve never seen such hostility and anger on social media. Never. I see a constant stream of insults directed at Trump. I see his wife insulted, and his children. And while it is easy enough to hate and even fear aspects of Trump (and his taste and vulgarity) the real anger seems directed even more acutely at anyone who disagrees with their demand for the coronation of Clinton. The underclass in the U.S. has been brutalized by an increasingly militarized domestic police apparatus, and by a nakedly racist judicial system. They have seen whatever small safety net they once had be reduced to almost nothing. And they are right to fear Trump’s appointments. Just as they would have been right to fear Clinton’s. This is now an institutional machine of control and domination, and in many ways it is running on auto pilot now. The stand off at Standing Rock was representative of the ruling elite’s strategy. If it becomes a big enough nuisance, then just adjust course and get what is wanted another way. The resistance at Standing Rock was important, however. Perhaps mostly symbolically, but important nonetheless. For it demonstrated a level of awakening for many. Anytime the underlclass organizes, they achieve victories. And this is because the great giant is actually very weak.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]rump’s appointments are actually pretty predictable. No president in fifty years has not chosen from the banking elite, and the upper echelon of the military, and over the last twenty or so years from the corporate CEO class. And since Bill Clinton the very worst millionaires that can be found were put in positions of influence, and certainly since Bush/Cheney the neo-con group has retained considerable power. There is an inexorable drive toward purely authoritarian policing of what is now viewed as a disposable population. It is happening regardless of who is elected. There are no jobs and there won’t be any jobs. There is an environmental crisis and pollution crisis, and none of that would have been made any better under Clinton. One cannot keep hawking military hardware, fighter jets, and battleships and be at all green. The desire for this ruling cabal is global hegemony. That is the delusional dream of the U.S. ruling political class of both parties. Hence the over 4 billion dollars a DAY spent on defence. The U.S. leads the world in weapons sales. We sell to Saudi Arabia first so they can destroy the poor and helpless nation of Yemen. And in fact, the U.S. sent advisors directly to Riyadh to help coordinate the vicious bombing of that small country that left a half million children starving (liberals compassion is more concerned with public restroom choices). The U.S. helps sell to ISIS, too. And to Israel. There is nobody we won’t sell to in fact. Business is business and war is the biggest business in the world. So all the chatter about the Paris climate talks, and all the health care cut backs that are coming, and the intensification of this war on free speech — all of that was in the cards either way. The attacks on minorities, women, the LGBT community is coming under Trump — it was going to come, but in another fashion, under Clinton. AGAIN THEY BEHEAD GAY PEOPLE IN SAUDI ARABIA. And Clinton is basically underwritten by the House of Saud. Women have suffered hugely in places like Haiti and Honduras and Libya and Ukraine from Secretary of State Clinton’s policies. And nothing is going to help climate change except a radical and total change in living. And the death of Capitalism, frankly.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he authority structure is afraid. They are afraid of China and Russia and they are even more afraid of the unhappy and now more and more desperate American working class. And the poor. The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world. And its growing. And it is reaching a kind of maximum limit. It is a gulag made up of the poor, primarily black and brown, and it is a place to which the rich are never invited. How many people exactly can the system keep in containers? We may well find out. Jeff Sessions will want as many as possible, that’s for sure. Trump is an ignorant man and no doubt it is dawning on him just how over his head he is now, and since I actually believe he began this with no desire to really win, he is probably in a state of near panic right now. His advisors, people like Steve Bannon, sense their own lack of ability to run a country, too, I would guess. Recent photos of Bannon reveal that deer caught in the headlights look.

The thing that will become the signature of Trump’s first 100 days is going to happen at the nuts and bolts level. I suspect things, daily bureaucratic things are going to grind to a halt. This is the 100 days of incompetence in the most basic operations of government. Trump will escalate his twitter output, though, and perhaps the eventual Trump library will all be tweets. And built in Vegas.

What comes from all this depends on people deciding to emulate the small symbolic victory of Standing Rock. It does not come from an entitled elite petulantly demanding their war loving sociopath replace the other parties vulgarian and authoritarian clown. This is 21st century post modern fascism. Its only which style code you feel best with. Reject this binary world view. Reject any candidate who endorses U.S. Imperialism and 800 plus military bases throughout the world. Stop all U.S. intervention and stop believing the manufactured narratives on Syria, about Russia, about Castro, and about China. Most everything MSNBC tells you can be turned on its head…and it will be closer to the actual truth. The U.S. is far more guilty of everything it charges other countries with doing. As such Samantha Power deserves a special seat in hell. The U.S. commits more war crimes, more human rights violations, more interference in the affairs and elections of other countries, than anyone else. And we prosecute dissent more ruthlessly, and are the least transparent of any country in the world save maybe Uzbekistan. We have intelligence agencies fighting proxy wars with other of our intelligence agencies. The U.S. is now a massive societal dinosaur. To go the way of the Great Auk or Woolly Mammoth might not be such a bad thing for the planet.

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ABOVE IMAGE: SYRIAN UNO AMBASSADOR AL JAFARI IN PRESS CONFERENCE, NAMES FOREIGN AGENTS DIRECTING TAKFIRIS IN ALEPPO

Published on Dec 19, 2016

US, Israeli, Turkish, Qatari and Saudi secret service officers are trapped in Eastern Aleppo, Al-Jafari says. He mentions names and nationalities.

Additional videos:
NATO Military Officers CAPTURED in Aleppo as ‘REBELS’ – PLEASE SHARE

The Fing News

The Nazis take Aleppo! (a breakdown of western propaganda)

By TyrannyUnmasked

FOOTNOTE

This story was quietly leaked by Voltaire.net, who announced, “The Security Council is sitting in private on Friday, December 16, 2016, at 17:00 GMT, while NATO officers were arrested this morning by the Syrian Special Forces in a bunker in East Aleppo.”

Fares Shehabi MP, a prominent Syrian Parliamentarian and head of Aleppo’s Chamber of Commerce published the names of the Coalition officers on his Facebook page on the 15th December (emphasis added):

Mutaz Kanoğlu – Turkey

David Scott Winer – USA

David Shlomo Aram – Israel

Muhamad Tamimi – Qatar

Muhamad Ahmad Assabian – Saudi

Abd-el-Menham Fahd al Harij – Saudi

Islam Salam Ezzahran Al Hajlan – Saudi

Ahmed Ben Naoufel Al Darij – Saudi

Muhamad Hassan Al Sabihi – Saudi

Hamad Fahad Al Dousri – Saudi

Amjad Qassem Al Tiraoui – Jordan

Qassem Saad Al Shamry – Saudi

Ayman Qassem Al Thahalbi – Saudi

Mohamed Ech-Chafihi El Idrissi – Moroccan

In addition to Voltaire.net, the other original report was provided by Damascus-based Syrian journalist Said Hilal Alcharifi. According to Alcharifi, captured “NATO” officers were from a number of member states including the US, France, Germany and Turkey, as well as Israel. Here is his statement (translated from French):

“Thanks to information received, Syrian authorities discovered the headquarters of high ranking western/NATO officers in the basement of an area in East Aleppo and have captured them alive. Some names have already been given to Syrian journalists, myself included. The nationalities are US, French, British, German, Israeli, Turkish, Saudi, Moroccan, Qatari etc. In light of their nationalities and their rank, I assure you that the Syrian government have a very important catch, which should enable them to direct negotiations with the countries that have tried to destroy them.”

Note to Commenters
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ABOVE IMAGE: CASS SUNSTEIN AT THE AMERICAN ACADEMY, BERLIN.

In recent years it has become quite obvious that the US government and Deep State, in collaboration with mainstream media outlets and a number of corporate/Internet entities, are now blanketing the American people with blatantly deceptive propaganda and a vastly coordinated online censorship and information control agenda. This post will delve into the methods employed from 2011 onwards and will examine various aspects of this government/elitist campaign to control the minds and perceptions of the American people, as well as citizens of other western countries.

This “Full Spectrum Dominance” propaganda/censorship front is being conducted in the following manner:

1)  Manipulation of website comment sections via paid government operatives

2) Manipulation of online forums via infiltration of moderators and administrators

3) Reverse psychological projection techniques, including McCarthyism tactics and blame shifting

4) Establishment of controlled opposition groups and websites

5) Mass media coordination in collusion with an obvious government/elitists agenda

6) Use of advanced Deep State software tools to coordinate propaganda campaigns

7) Reverse psychological techniques focused on a specific government targeted adversary (in this case – Russia)

8) Monitoring of online groups that are in opposition to the government/elitists agenda

9) Labeling and discrediting of online news sites, groups and individuals that are in opposition to the government agenda, as “fake groups”

10) Manufacturing of ‘evidence’ in coordination with government selected propaganda approval outlets, thus allowing for plausible deniability (Snopes, Factcheck, Politifact, Stopfake, Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, Aleppo Media Center, Bellingcat)

11) Massive increases in funding to US government propaganda dissemination outlets (Broadcasting Board of Governors, RFE)

12) Utilization of leading social media networking sites (Facebook) to censor information, relegate certain sites to obscurity and cater to pro-government propaganda

13) Manipulation of search engine algorithms to produce results that are favorable to the governments agenda (Google, Yahoo)

14) Coordination with Internet giants to conduct operations that are favorable to the governments agenda

15) Infiltration of mass media corporations, online social media sites and Internet search engines that vastly affect public perception.

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Who is the “US Information Czar” behind this “Full Spectrum Dominance” agenda?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Sunstein

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]ass Robert Sunstein (born September 21, 1954) is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012. For 27 years, Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School. Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School.

On January 7, 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sunstein would be named to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). That news generated controversy among progressive legal scholars and environmentalists. Sunstein’s confirmation was long blocked because of controversy over allegations about his political and academic views. On September 9, 2009, the Senate voted for cloture on Sunstein’s nomination as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget.

Sunstein (right) enjoying the perks of being among the privileged elites dictating the fate of humanity—by artifice and deception. Life is good.

Sunstein’s 2006 book, Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge, explores methods for aggregating information; it contains discussions of prediction markets, open-source software, and wikis. His 2001 book, Republic.com, argued that the Internet may weaken democracy because it allows citizens to isolate themselves within groups that share their own views and experiences, and thus cut themselves off from any information that might challenge their beliefs, a phenomenon known as cyberbalkanization. He recanted many of the views expressed in the book before his confirmation as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in order to receive Senate confirmation.

Sunstein co-authored Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Yale University Press, 2008) with economist Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago. Nudge discusses how public and private organizations can help people make better choices in their daily lives. Thaler and Sunstein argue that people often make poor choices – and look back at them with bafflement! We do this because as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, happiness, and even the planet itself.

Sunstein (along with his coauthor Richard Thaler) has elaborated the theory of libertarian paternalism. In arguing for this theory, he counsels thinkers/academics/politicians to embrace the findings of behavioral economics as applied to law, maintaining freedom of choice while also steering people’s decisions in directions that will make their lives go better. With Thaler, he coined the term “choice architect.”

Conspiracy Theories” and government infiltration

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]unstein co-authored a 2008 paper with Adrian Vermeule, titled “Conspiracy Theories,” dealing with the risks and possible government responses to conspiracy theories resulting from “cascades” of faulty information within groups that may ultimately lead to violence. In this article they wrote, “The existence of both domestic and foreign conspiracy theories, we suggest, is no trivial matter, posing real risks to the government’s antiterrorism policies, whatever the latter may be.” They go on to propose that, “the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups”,[35] where they suggest, among other tactics, “Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action.”[35] They refer, several times, to groups that promote the view that the US Government was responsible or complicit in the September 11 attacks as “extremist groups.”

The authors declare that there are five hypothetical responses a government can take toward conspiracy theories: “We can readily imagine a series of possible responses. (1) Government might ban conspiracy theorizing. (2) Government might impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories. (3) Government might itself engage in counterspeech, marshaling arguments to discredit conspiracy theories. (4) Government might formally hire credible private parties to engage in counterspeech. (5) Government might engage in informal communication with such parties, encouraging them to help.” However, the authors advocate that each “instrument has a distinctive set of potential effects, or costs and benefits, and each will have a place under imaginable conditions. However, our main policy idea is that government should engage in cognitive infiltration of the groups that produce conspiracy theories, which involves a mix of (3), (4) and (5).”

Sunstein and Vermeule also analyze the practice of recruiting “nongovernmental officials”; they suggest that “government can supply these independent experts with information and perhaps prod them into action from behind the scenes,” further warning that “too close a connection will be self-defeating if it is exposed.“[35] Sunstein and Vermeule argue that the practice of enlisting non-government officials, “might ensure that credible independent experts offer the rebuttal, rather than government officials themselves. There is a tradeoff between credibility and control, however. The price of credibility is that government cannot be seen to control the independent experts.” This position has been criticized by some commentators[36][37] who argue that it would violate prohibitions on government propaganda aimed at domestic citizens.[38] Sunstein and Vermeule’s proposed infiltrations have also been met by sharply critical scholarly critiques.

WeAreChange confronts the “US Information Czar” in 2012…..

Published on May 1, 2012
In a rare public appearance, The Obama Administration’s Information Czar Cass Sunstein gave a lecture at the NYU Law School in NYC yesterday, prompting Luke Rudkowski of WeAreChange to attend. Watch as Luke confronts Sunstein multiple times on an academic paper he co-authored back in 2008 entitled “Conspiracy Theories” in which he called for cognitive infiltration of conspiracy groups by the government

Little known fact: Cass Sunstein is married to Samantha Powers (the US Ambassador to the United Nations) and the two of them worked on Obama’s 2008 election campaign. She was a senior advisor to Obama’s transition team along with Zbigniew Brzezinski who orchestrated the Grand Chessboard Strategy using Georgia and Ukraine against Russia.

IMI- Analysis – Understanding the Grand Chessboard – leading German Think Tank

[dropcap]Z[/dropcap]bigniew Brzezinski’s book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand current and future U.S., EU and NATO policy. Brzezinski had in mind two countries or regions in particular: “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Brzezinski argued further that there was an imperative need to gain control of the southern Caucasus, i.e. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, on Russia’s southern flank.

http://www.imi-online.de/2009/01/01/imperial-geopolitics/

S. Power

Sunstein

The complicit and corrupt establishment media joins in the fray to cloud the waters on behalf of Sunstein….

Cass Sunstein’s Cognitive Infiltration Exposed

An example of how government infiltration works:

Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media – Guardian UK

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda. A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

The project has been likened by web experts to China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.

The discovery that the US military is developing false online personalities – known to users of social media as “sock puppets” – could also encourage other governments, private companies and non-government organisations to do the same.

The Centcom contract stipulates that each fake online persona must have a convincing background, history and supporting details, and that up to 50 US-based controllers should be able to operate false identities from their workstations “without fear of being discovered by sophisticated adversaries”.

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The video below highlights a software tool utilized by Ntrepid, the company mentioned in the Guardian article above….. (Note that all information in the software is in English and focused on propaganda to support the coup in Ukraine – also note that the Guardian article stipulates Ntrepids contract was for the near east and far east countries only. Thus, it is safe to assume that Ntrepid is receiving tax payer money to feed propaganda to the American people instead of doing what the Guardian article and original contract stipulates).

Ntrepid’s ‘Tartan” software product allows the Deep State discovery of key influential posters in online groups

 

Now lets take a look at how the Full Spectrum Dominance agenda is being carried out most recently across Facebook, the world’s most popular social network. The following Guardian UK article provides a basic breakdown on newly implemented government affiliated propaganda control measures:

Facebook to begin flagging fake news in response to mounting criticism

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/15/facebook-flag-fake-news-fact-check

Excerpt:

Disputed articles will be marked with the help of users and outside fact checkers amid widespread criticism that fake news influenced the US election. Facebook will begin flagging fake news stories with the help of users and outside fact checkers, the company announced on Thursday, responding to a torrent of criticism over fake news during the US election. Readers will be able to alert Facebook to possible fake news stories, which the social media behemoth will then send to outside fact-checking organizations to verify. Facebook is working with five fact-checking organizations – ABC News, AP, FactCheck.org, Politifact and Snopes – to launch the initiative. If enough of Facebook’s users report a story as fake, the social network will pass it onto these third parties to scrutinize.

If a story is deemed to fail the fact check, it will be publicly flagged as “disputed by 3rd party fact-checkers” whenever it appears on the social network. Users will be able to click on a link to understand why it’s disputed. If a Facebook user then still want to share the story, they’ll get another warning about its reliability. Disputed stories also may appear lower in the newsfeed, said Facebook.

Another change being rolled out identifies stories that are being shared more by people who have only read the headline than by people who have actually clicked on them and read the text. “We’ve found that if reading an article makes people significantly less likely to share it, that may be a sign that a story has misled people in some way,” the company said.

More at link above…..

We are also seeing Search Engine giant Google implementing restrictive Ad Sense monetization measures for You Tube sites that do not toe the official government/establishment narrative line. Example here (volume warning):

 

Below we see an example of Google working together with al-Jazeera (Qatar) and Hillary Clinton’s team to implement the Alphabet tool to help conduct regime change in Syria via propaganda and information dissemination. Wikileaks revealed the activity in 2015:

WikiLeaks reveals Hillary, Google, al Jazeera all conspiring against Syria.

http://truepublica.org.uk/global/google-able-effect-regime-change-appears/

[dropcap]L[/dropcap]ast week truepublica reported that four months ago, Google created a new holding company called Alphabet and that Eric Schmidt the new Executive Chairman of Alphabet, and therefore Google had decided to accept the offer of leading the Pentagon advisory board with a view to “bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the US military.” We questioned the ethics and moral judgement of both Schmidt and Google in joining forces with the biggest killing machine in modern times, certainly since the world wars.

We pointed to the meeting between Eric Schmidt and Julian Assange back in 2011, supposedly organised to discuss a book Schmidt was writing who was unexpectedly accompanied by a Jared Cohen. Cohen had moved to Google from the U.S. State Department in 2010. He had been a slick ideas guy at two U.S. administrations, known to be something of a courtier from the world of policy think tanks sympathetic to US foreign policy. He was a senior advisor for Secretaries of State Rice and Clinton.

Assange asserts that Schmidt was acting directly on behalf of Washington with a documented relationship that put him close to President Obama and Clinton and as Assange puts it: “Cohen’s directorate appeared to cross over from public relations and “corporate responsibility” work into active corporate intervention in foreign affairs at a level that is normally reserved for states. Jared Cohen could be wryly named Google’s “director of regime change.”

The following video reveals what Google advocated using the Alphabet software tool against Syria::

 

In the following very recent Reuters article (dated December 21, 2016) it is revealed that the US government will soon establish a “Global Engagement Center” that will track online activities of people that the government deems are “spreading false stories”.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-disinformation-analysis-idUSKBN1492PA

Excerpt:

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]linton Watts, a security consultant, former FBI agent and a fellow at the nonprofit Foreign Policy Research Institute, said the U.S. government no longer has an organization, such as the U.S. Information Agency, that provided counter-narratives during the Cold War. He said that most major Russian disinformation campaigns in the United States and Europe have started at Russian-government funded media outlets, such as RT television or Sputnik News, before being amplified on Twitter by others.

Watts said it was urgent for the U.S. government to build the capability to track what is happening online and dispute false stories. “Those two things need to be done immediately,” Watts said. “You have to have a public statement or it leads to conspiracy theories.” A defense spending pill passed this month calls for the State Department to establish a “Global Engagement Center” to take on some of that work, but similar efforts to counter less sophisticated Islamic State narratives have fallen short.

James Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic & International Studies who has worked for the departments of State and Commerce and the U.S. military, said Washington needed to move beyond antiquated notions of projecting influence if it hoped to catch up with Russia. “They have RT and all we know how to do is send a carrier battle group,” Lewis said. “We’re going to be stuck until we find a way deal with that.”

Watts, who said he has tracked tens of thousands of pro-Russia Twitter handles since 2014, believes many of the most effective stories stoke fear of war or other calamities or promote a narrative of corrupt Western politicians, media and other elites. Obama has asked spy agencies to deliver an analysis of Russian meddling in the election that will include discussion of propaganda operations, Office of the Director of National Intelligence General Counsel Robert Litt told Reuters.

Much more at link above…..

 

In the post election 2016 atmosphere, a crackdown on sites that did not follow the government line was rolled out by the US Deep State utilizing their flagship propaganda tool The Washington Post and an untraceable recently formed group calling themselves PropOrNot. The near entirety of the US and UK alternative media were placed on a PropOrNot list along wth a number of Russian news sites. Any site that exposed US corruption and/or media collusion during the election 2016 process was placed on the list. The list has now been disseminated to Facebook, Google and other Internet giants, as well as government authorized “fact checkers’  to limit the ability of these sites to influence public thought.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/whos-behind-propornots-blacklist-of-news-websites/5560970  – by Pam Martens

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/05/wpost-wont-retract-mccarthyistic-smear/  – by Norman Solomon

https://consortiumnews.com/2016/11/27/washington-posts-fake-news-guilt/ – by Robert Parry

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/06/media-complicity-is-key-to-blacklisting-websites/ – by Norman Solomon

The US government has also been deliberating as to whether or not to enact government measures directly against sites that have been placed on the PropOrNot list, therefore stifling free speech and creating fear of reprisals for sites and individuals producing information that does not suit the governments interests. Paradoxically, all of the government techniques being employed are completely un-American. They are in complete contrast to the First Amendment………..as they abridge the freedom of speech.

Constitution of United States of America 1789

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

The following 2015 Guardian UK article highlights how service personnel of western countries are officially on Facebook and other sites influencing the governments agenda.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/31/british-army-facebook-warriors-77th-brigade

The British army is creating a special force of Facebook warriors, skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age. The 77th Brigade, to be based in Hermitage, near Newbury, in Berkshire, will be about 1,500-strong and formed of units drawn from across the army. It will formally come into being in April.

The brigade will be responsible for what is described as non-lethal warfare. Both the Israeli and US army already engage heavily in psychological operations. Against a background of 24-hour news, smartphones and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, the force will attempt to control the narrative.

More at link….

Israel also utilizes paid government propaganda disseminators:

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-students-get-2000-spread-state-propaganda-facebook

Israeli students to get $2,000 to spread state propaganda on Facebook

Ali Abunimah 4 January 2012

The National Union of Israeli Students (NUIS) has become a full-time partner in the Israeli government’s efforts to spread its propaganda online and on college campuses around the world.

NUIS has launched a program to pay Israeli university students $2,000 to spread pro-Israel propaganda online for 5 hours per week from the “comfort of home.” The union is also partnering with Israel’s Jewish Agency to send Israeli students as missionaries to spread propaganda in other countries, for which they will also receive a stipend.

The project seeks to take advantage of the fact that “Many students in Israel master the Internet and are proficient at using the Internet and social networking and various sites and are required to write and express themselves in English.” The paid scholarship will allow them to get training and then work from home for five hours per week for a year to “refute” what it calls “misinformation” about Israel on social networking sites.

More at link……

So where is all this “Full Spectrum Dominance” which uses McCarthy tactics, red-baiting and Russia as a ruse leading to? Answer: A controlled future….one that matches the desires of the global elite and the corrupt establishment/Deep State  that rules over all of us.

2nd TruthStream video explains new Facebook blocks and verifications with images.

For more information on how the US government carries out psychological information warfare, see here:

https://info.publicintelligence.net/USArmy-PsyOpsTactics.pdf

https://publicintelligence.net/restricted-u-s-army-psyops-manual/

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ABOVE IMAGE: ISIS MILITANTS CELEBRATE THEIR VICTORY OVER  THE SYRIAN ARMY. THEY ALSO CAPTURED A SIZABLE AMOUNT OF MATERIEL.

By Aram Mirzaei | Vineyard of the Saker

By December 11, ISIL had fully recaptured the city after the Syrian Army withdrew, facing overwhelming ISIL numbers and an imminent threat of encirclement.[3]

This event left many observers of the Syrian conflict with the question: what happened? How could the SAA lose the city so quickly, especially with ISIL being weakened so badly in recent times?

It has since the offensive was launched been revealed that a large number of ISIL terrorists had withdrawn from the towns of Rawa and Al-Qaem in Iraq, in order to engage the Syrian and Russian forces in the eastern Homs area. [4]

Southfront.org offered an analysis the next day, explaining the events that led to the second fall of Palmyra. The article explains that the rapid breakthrough and advancement of the ISIL terrorists was due to some fundamental mistakes made by commanders of the Syrian Army and the allied National Defense Forces (NDF) who let their guard down. In sum, they had not paid attention to sufficient fortification activities, and tactical reconnaissance and assessment of the attacking enemy forces. This resulted in insufficient information to the Army High Command causing them to fail to take preventive actions to counter the imminent ISIL threat. Southfront however also considers mistakes made by the Russian assist and advice mission, with regards to the surprise of the redeployment of ISIL units from Iraq to Syria. [5]

The constant ceasefires [in Aleppo] have only been used by the US and its allies as a way to stall the Syrian Army and delay the inevitable. This gave other jihadists, most notably ISIL, a window of opportunity to attack weaker fronts and take advantage of the massive amount of troops tied down at the Aleppo front.

This reason is one of the most important ones to consider when analysing the fall of Palmyra. Already in October this year, reports emerged that the US along with its Gulf allies had devised a plan to “relocate” ISIL militants from Mosul to Syria. The Russian news outlet RIA Novosti had revealed that the plan was to allow up to 9000 ISIL terrorists safe passage out of Mosul with the condition that they fight Syrian and Russian troops in Palmyra and Deir Ezzor. [6] This plan is essentially aimed at removing all Syrian government presence from eastern Syria, thus creating the infamous “Sunni entity” in eastern Syria and Western Iraq, with its role intended to be a permanent thorn in the side of Syria and its allies.

With this information at the disposal of the Syrian and Russian governments, it seems rather strange that the preparations for this upcoming influx of ISIL terrorists from Iraq to Syria was rather absent amid the rapid ISIL advance. Meanwhile, unconfirmed reports from twitter mainly, speculated about the idea that the US air force could have played a part in the very unnoticed ISIL advance to Palmyra. Any observer of this war would wonder how the massive ISIL convoys managed to travel from the oil rich town of Al-Sukhanah in the far eastern reaches of the Homs province to Palmyra totally under the radar with Russian satellites being unable to detect them. The Twitter user “Maytham” reported that the US air force had disrupted the “VHF radios and radars via satellites over the roads between Al-Sukhanah and Palmyra” in order to provide a 6 hour cover for ISIL’s passage. Whether or not this is true, I’ll leave it up for debate, we should however not forget that the US has assisted ISIL in the past, most notably when it “accidentally” bombed the Syrian Army in Deir Ezzor on September 20, killing more than 80 Syrian soldiers in the process.

Another factor explaining the loss of Palmyra that must be underscored is the fact that the Syrian Army simply does not have enough troops to attack and hold its positions on the multitude of fronts it is engaged in. The Army had sent some of its best troops to Aleppo for the major offensive that was launched in November and that resulted in the inevitable defeat of terrorist groups in this imperative city. This however left the Army very vulnerable on other fronts, especially the eastern fronts such as Palmyra.

While the liberation of Aleppo was welcomed by many, including me, I do think that it could have gone a lot quicker than it did. Ever since the Army managed to complete the siege back in July this year, the Army has had a chance to finally finish off the terrorist groups entrenched inside the eastern districts of the city. The Syrian and Russian governments have however been stalled on multiple occasions due to interference by the Western powers and their regional vassals. On too many occasions have the Syrian government and its allies agreed to pointless ceasefires, putting their faith in diplomacy and trusting the main backers of the terrorist groups fighting the Syrian Army. Too many times have they been disappointed and had to paid the price with the lives of brave soldiers.

These constant ceasefires have only been used by the US and its allies as a way to stall the Army and delay the inevitable. This gave other jihadists, most notably ISIL a window of opportunity to attack weaker fronts and take advantage of the massive amount of troops tied down at the Aleppo front. The liberation of Aleppo gives a bittersweet taste as Palmyra fell simultaneously, allowing the US to strike back in revenge for its proxies losing perhaps the most important battle in this war.

The Syrian government and its allies must stop putting their faith in “diplomacy” and allow the West to direct the course of actions, or else they will continue to remain in this kind of stalemate where they achieve an important gain, only to lose another strategic or symbolic point elsewhere. While the battle for Aleppo is over, the battle for Idlib is about to become the next focus point in this bloody war, a battle that will take the SAA far longer time and demand far more resources in order to achieve victory.

1. http://tass.com/world/918505?__hstc=143095274.6382dc5dd8e3b5f6135ac5ee5371dcdf.1473976512470.1481753379374.1481973110672.185&__hssc=143095274.10.1481973110672&__hsfp=56543330 ↑
2. https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/palmyra-serious-threat-isis-moves-closer-city/ ↑
3. https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/isis-fully-retakes-palmyra-stunning-blitz-offensive-map-update/ ↑
4. https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/isis-relocated-fighters-iraq-capture-palmyra/ ↑
5. https://southfront.org/syrian-war-report-december-12-2016-mistakes-that-led-to-fall-of-palmyra/ ↑
6. http://theduran.com/the-us-plan-for-isis-out-of-iraq-into-syria-to-fight-assad/ ↑

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