Hong Kong in the Crosshairs of Global Power and Ideological Struggles
Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
"The [real] source of unrest in Hong Kong is the economic insecurity stemming from capitalism. In 1997, Britain and China agreed to leave 'the previous capitalist system' in place for 50 years...."
Hong Kong protesters flying US flags, an obvious admission of their anti-China mentality and high Western influence.
[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ong Kong is one of the most extreme examples of big finance, neoliberal capitalism in the world. As a result, many people in Hong Kong are suffering from great economic insecurity in a city with 93 billionaires, second-most of any city.
Hong Kong is suffering the effects of being colonized by Britain for more than 150 years following the Opium Wars. The British put in place a capitalist economic system and Hong Kong has had no history of self-rule. When Britain left, it negotiated an agreement that prevents China from changing Hong Kong’s political and economic systems for 50 years by making Hong Kong a Special Administrative Region (SAR).
China cannot solve the suffering of the people of Hong Kong. This ‘One Country, Two Systems’ approach means the extreme capitalism of Hong Kong exists alongside, but separate from, China’s socialized system. Hong Kong has an unusual political system. For example, half the seats in the legislature are required to represent business interests meaning corporate interests vote on legislation.
Hong Kong is a center for big finance and also a center of financial crimes. Between 2013 and 2017, the number of suspicious transactions reported to law enforcement agencies rocketed from 32,907 to 92,115. There has been a small number of prosecutions, which dropped from a high of 167 in 2014 to 103 in 2017. Convictions dropped to only one person sentenced to more than six years behind bars in 2017.
The problem is neither the extradition bill that was used to ignite protests nor China, the problems are Hong Kong’s economy and governance.
The Extradition Bill
The stated cause of the recent protests is an extradition bill proposed because there is no legal way to prevent criminals from escaping charges when they flee to Hong Kong. The bill was proposed by the Hong Kong government in February 2019 to establish a mechanism to transfer fugitives in Hong Kong to Taiwan, Macau or Mainland China.
Extradition laws are a legal norm between countries and within countries (e.g. between states), and since Hong Kong is part of China, it is pretty basic. In fact, in 1998, a pro-democracy legislator, Martin Lee, proposed a law similar to the one he now opposes to ensure a person is prosecuted and tried at the place of the offense.
The push for the bill came in 2018 when a Hong Kong resident Chan Tong-kai allegedly killed his pregnant girlfriend, Poon Hiu-wing, in Taiwan, then returned to Hong Kong. Chan admitted he killed Poon to Hong Kong police, but the police were unable to charge him for murder or extradite him to Taiwan because no agreement was in place.
Hong Kong protest. The numbers ebb and flow, but most people are simply misguided or outright in the service of foreign propaganda entities, like the US NED. And a lot of the problems are not caused by Beijing but by their own extreme capitalist regime. (Click to expand.)
The proposed law covered 46 types of crimes that are recognized as serious offenses across the globe. These include murder, rape, and sexual offenses, assaults, kidnapping, immigration violations, and drug offenses as well as property offenses like robbery, burglary and arson and other traditional criminal offenses. It also included business and financial crimes.
Months before the street protests, the business community expressed opposition to the law. Hong Kong’s two pro-business parties urged the government to exempt white-collar crimes from the list of offenses covered by any future extradition agreement. There was escalating pressure from the city’s business heavyweights. The American Chamber of Commerce, AmCham, a fifty-year-old organization that represents over 1,200 US companies doing business in Hong Kong, opposed the proposal.
AmCham said it would damage the city’s reputation:
“Any change in extradition arrangements that substantially expands the possibility of arrest and rendition … of international business executives residing in or transiting through Hong Kong as a result of allegations of economic crime made by the mainland government … would undermine perceptions of Hong Kong as a safe and secure haven for international business operations.”
Kurt Tong, the top US diplomat in Hong Kong, said in March that the proposal could complicate relations between Washington and Hong Kong. Indeed, the Center for International Private Enterprise, an arm of NED said the proposed law would undermine economic freedom, cause capital flight and threaten Hong Kong’s status as a hub for global commerce. They pointed to a bipartisan letter signed by eight members of Congress, including Senators Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, and Steve Daines and Members of the House of Representatives, Jim McGovern, Ben McAdams, Chris Smith, Tom Suozzi, and Brian Mast opposing the bill.
Proponents of the bill responded by exempting nine of the economic crimes and made extradition only for crimes punishable by at least seven years in prison. These changes did not satisfy big business advocates.
The Mass Protests and US Role
From this attention to the law, opposition grew with the formation of a coalition to organize protests. As Alexander Rubinstein reports,
“the coalition cited by Hong Kong media, including the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Free Press, as organizers of the anti-extradition law demonstrations is called the Civil Human Rights Front. That organization’s website lists the NED-funded HKHRM [Human Rights Monitor], Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Civic Party, the Labour Party, and the Democratic Party as members of the coalition.”
HKHRM alone received more than $1.9 million in funds from the NED between 1995 and 2013. Major protests began in June.
Building the anti-China movement in Hong Kong has been a long-term, NED project since 1996. In 2012, NED invested $460,000 through its National Democratic Institute, to build the anti-China movement (aka pro-democracy movement), particularly among university students. Two years later, the mass protests of Occupy Central occurred. In a 2016 Open Letter to Kurt Tong, these NED grants and others were pointed out and Tong was asked if the US was funding a Hong Kong independence movement.
During the current protests, organizers were photographed meeting with Julie Eadeh, the political unit chief of US Consulate General, in a Hong Kong hotel. They also met with China Hawks in Washington, DC including Vice President Pence, Secretary of State Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, Senator Marco Rubio and Rep. Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Larry Diamond, a co-editor of the NED’s publication and a co-chair of research, has been openly encouraging the protesters. He delivered a video message of support during their rally this weekend.
Protests have included many elements of US color revolutions with tactics such as violence — attacks on bystanders, media, police and emergency personnel. Similar tactics were used in Ukraine, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, e.g. violent street barricades. US officials and media criticized the government’s response to the violent protests, even though they have been silent on the extreme police violence against the Yellow Vests in France. Demonstrators also use swarming techniques and sophisticated social media messaging targeting people in the US.
Mass protests have continued. On July 9, Chief Executive Carrie Lam pronounced the bill dead and suspended it. Protesters are now calling for the bill to be withdrawn, Lam to resign and police to be investigated. For more on the protests and US involvement, listen to our interview with K. J. Noh on Clearing the FOG (available on Monday).
What Is Driving Discontent in Hong Kong?
Makeshift shelters at Tung Chau Street Temporary Market in Sham Shui Po. Photo: Nora Tam
The [real] source of unrest in Hong Kong is the economic insecurity stemming from capitalism. In 1997, Britain and China agreed to leave “the previous capitalist system” in place for 50 years.
Hong Kong has been ranked as the world’s freest economy in the Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom since 1995 when the index began. In 1990, Milton Friedman described Hong Kong as the best example of a free-market economy. Its ranking is based on low taxes, light regulations, strong property rights, business freedom, and openness to global commerce.
Graeme Maxton writes in the South China Morning Post:
“The only way to restore order is through a radical change in Hong Kong’s economic policies. After decades of doing almost nothing, and letting the free market rule, it is time for the Hong Kong government to do what it is there for; to govern in the interests of the majority.”
The issue is not the extradition proposal, Carrie Lam or China. What we are witnessing is an unrestricted neo-liberal economy, described as a free market on steroids. Hong Kong’s economy relative to China’s gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen from a peak of 27 percent in 1993 to less than 3 percent in 2017. During this time, China has had tremendous growth, including in nearby market-friendly Shenzen, while Hong Kong has not.
“For the last 10 years wages have been stagnant in Hong Kong while rents have increased 300 percent; it is the most expensive city in the world. In Shenzhen, wages have increased 8 percent every year, and more than 1 million new, public, green housing units at low rates are nearing completion.”
Hong Kong has the world’s highest rents, a widening wealth gap and a poverty rate of 20 percent. In China, the poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, according to the World Bank.
Hong Kong In The Chinese Context
Ellen Brown writes in “Neoliberalism Has Met Its Match in China,” that the Chinese government owns 80 percent of banks, which make favorable loans to businesses, and subsidizes worker costs. The US views China subsidizing its economy as an unfair trade advantage, while China sees long-term, planned growth as smarter than short-term profits for shareholders.
The Chinese model of state-controlled capitalism (some call it a form of socialism) has lifted 800 million people out of poverty and built a middle class of over 420 million people, growing from four percent in 2002, to 31 percent. The top twelve Chinese companies on the Fortune 500 are all state-owned and state-subsidized including oil, solar energy, telecommunications, engineering, construction companies, banks, and the auto industry. IMF and World Bank.
China does have significant problems. There are thousands of documented demonstrations, strikes and labor actions in China annually, serious environmental challenges, inequality and social control through the use of surveillance technology. How China responds to these challenges is a test for their governance.
China describes itself as having an intraparty democracy. The eight other legal “democratic parties” that are allowed to participate in the political system cooperate with but do not compete with the Communist Party. There are also local elections for candidates focused on grassroots issues. China views western democracy and economics as flawed and does not try to emulate them but is creating its own system.
China is led by engineers and scientists, not by lawyers and business people. It approaches policy decisions through research and experimentation. Every city and every district is involved in some sort of experimentation including free trade zones, poverty reduction, and education reform. “There are pilot schools, pilot cities, pilot hospitals, pilot markets, pilot everything under the sun, the whole China is basically a giant portfolio of experiments, with mayors and provincial governors as Primary Investigators.” In this system, Hong Kong could be viewed as an experiment in neoliberal capitalism.
The Communist Party knows that to keep its hold on power, it must combat inequalities and shift the economy towards a more efficient and more ecological model. Beijing has set a date of 2050 to become a “socialist society” and to achieve that, it seeks improvements in social, labor and environmental fields.
Where does Hong Kong fit into these long-term plans? With 2047 as the year for the end of the agreement with the UK, US and western powers are working toward preserving their capitalist dystopia of Hong Kong and manufacturing consensus for long-term conflict with China.
How this conflict of economic and political systems turns out depends on whether China can confront its contradictions, whether Hong Kongers can address the source of their problems and whether US empire can continue its dollar, political and military dominance. Today’s conflicts in Hong Kong are rooted in all of these realities.
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Long Range Attack On Saudi Oil Field Ends War On Yemen
DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY "B"
Despite the Saudis' savage bombing campaign enabled by Washington, and a blockade also supported by the US and many NATO accomplices, the Houthis have been able to develop a game-changing offensive capability with drones and missiles designed in Iran and other members of the Axis of Resistance.
New drones and missiles displayed in July 2019 by Yemen’s Houthi-allied armed forces.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]oday Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against new weapons the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis economic lifelines. This today was the decisive attack:
Drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside Saudi Arabia’s sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a “limited fire” in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry.
...
The Saudi acknowledgement of the attack came hours after Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued a video statement claiming the rebels launched 10 bomb-laden drones targeting the field in their “biggest-ever” operation. He threatened more attacks would be coming.
Today's attack is a check mate move against the Saudis. Shaybah is some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory. There are many more important economic targets within that range:
The field’s distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis’ drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant and Dubai’s busy international airport within their range.Unlike sophisticated drones that use satellites to allow pilots to remotely fly them, analysts believe Houthi drones are likely programmed to strike a specific latitude and longitude and cannot be controlled once out of radio range. The Houthis have used drones, which can be difficult to track by radar, to attack Saudi Patriot missile batteries, as well as enemy troops.
The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state. The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will.
The drones and missiles the Houthi use are copies of Iranian designs assembled in Yemen with the help of Hezbollah experts from Lebanon. Four days ago a Houthi delegation visited Iran. During the visit Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the first time publicly admitted that the Houthi have Iran's support:
"I declare my support for the resistance of Yemen's believing men and women ... Yemen’s people... will establish a strong government," state TV quoted Khamenei as saying in a meeting with the visiting chief negotiator of the Houthi movement Mohammed Abdul-Salam.Khamenei, who held talks for the first time in Tehran with a senior Houthi representative, also called for "strong resistance against the Saudi-led plots to divide Yemen", the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
"A unified and coherent Yemen with sovereign integrity should be endorsed. Given Yemen’s religious and ethnic diversity, protecting Yemen’s integrity requires domestic dialogue," he said, TV reported.
BELOW: Houthi exhibition of modern missiles and drones being used to finally respond to the Saudis' cowardly attack. The new weapons quickly changed the equation, not to mention the Houthis heroic resilience to genocidal assault by Ryadh and its supporters in Washington, London and other complicit NATO capitals. 
The visit in Tehran proved that the Houthi are no longer an unrecognized, isolated movement:
Officials from Iran, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, exchanged views about political resolution of the protracted war in the Arabian Peninsula country.The meeting was held at the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran on Saturday with delegations from Iran, Ansarullah and the four European countries in attendance.
The delegates at the meeting explained their respective governments’ views on the developments in Yemen, including political and battlefield developments as well as the humanitarian situation in the country.
...
The delegates stressed the need for an immediate end to the war and described political means as the ultimate solution to the crisis.
Meeting in Tehran
The war on Yemen that MbS started in March 2015 long proved to be unwinnable. Now it is definitely lost. Neither the U.S. nor the Europeans will come to the Saudis help. There are no technological means to reasonably protect against such attacks. Poor Yemen defeated rich Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi side will have to agree to political peace negotiations. The Yemeni demand for reparation payments will be eye watering. But the Saudis will have no alternative but to cough up whatever the Houthi demand.
The UAE was smart to pull out of Yemen during the last months. Its war aim was to gain control of the port of Aden. Its alliance with southern Yemen separatists who now control the city guarantees that. How long they will be able to hold on to it when Khamenei rejects a division of Yemen remains to be seen.
Today's attack has an even larger dimension than marking the end of the war on Yemen. That Iran supplied drones with 1,500 kilometer reach to its allies in Yemen means that its allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have access to similar means.
Israel and Turkey will have to take that into consideration. U.S. bases along the Persian Gulf and in Afghanistan must likewise watch out. Iran has not only ballistic missiles to attack those bases but also drones against which U.S. missile and air defense systems are more or less useless. Only the UAE, which bought Russian Pantsir S-1 air defense systems on German MAN truck chassis (!), has some capabilities to take those drones down. The Pentagon would probably love to buy some of these.
The Pantsir air defense platform is made by Russia.
It was the U.S. use of stealthy drones against Iran that gave it a chance to capture one and to analyze and clone it. Iran's extensive drone program is indigenous and quite old but it benefited from technology the U.S. unintentionally provided.
All the wars the U.S. and its allies waged in the Middle East, against Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Lebanon (2006), Syria (2011), Iraq (2014) and Yemen (2015), ended up with unintentionally making Iran and its allies stronger.
There is a lesson to learn from that. But it is doubtful that the borg in Washington DC has the ability to understand it.
Posted by b on August 17, 2019 at 20:16 UTC | Permalink
Posted by: ben | Aug 17 2019 20:35 utc | 2
I'm afraid the only lesson the Borg in Washington will learn is to continue squandering US resources and manpower on pursuing and inflicting chaos and violence in the Middle East. Clown prince Mohammed bin Salman will not learn anything either other than to bankrupt his own nation in pursuing this war.
Israel has driven itself into its own existential hell by persecuting Palestinians over 70+ years and doing a good job of annihilating itself while denying its own destruction. If Israel can do it, the Christian crusaders dominating the govts of the Five Eyes nations supporting Israel will follow suit in propping up an unsustainable fantasy. Samson option indeed.
Posted by: Jen | Aug 17 2019 20:45 utc | 3
I am sure that the Sauds will be looking to their zionist allies to supply them with the Iron Dome system that the US military just wasted millions of tax payer dollars and purchased several days ago. The irony of that system is that is was overwhelmed several times when the Palestinian freedom fighters launched a wave of home made rockets at Occupied Palestine. I hope the Sauds learn a lesson..doubt it though.
Posted by: Tonymike | Aug 17 2019 20:46 utc | 4
The exact center of this death/destruction is well known....it is a virus which needs to be eradicated from the face of the planet.....with each passing day it becomes more evident....each day brings that day of reckoning closer....
Posted by: Michael Houston | Aug 17 2019 20:52 utc | 5
This is good news for Yemen and...for oil producing nations in need of a price rise.
Posted by: donkeytale | Aug 17 2019 20:53 utc | 6
Does anyone know or can anyone speculate how Iran managed to get drones into Yemen ?
Posted by: Ian Seed | Aug 17 2019 20:55 utc | 7
The defeat of the United States aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria has shown the Venezuelan military that it can defeat the United States. The Venezuelan militia collectives, aka, colectivos is the embryonic form of Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Posted by: El Cid | Aug 17 2019 20:55 utc | 8
And not to want to make the drones a smaller factor than they are; The diplomatic recognition by this meeting in Teheran is the game changer IMHO.
Props to MAN supplying the trucks for the Pantsir, though i wonder how they did this regarding US sanctions.
Though it is hard to predict how a political settlement in Yemen could look like. The country is still deeply diveded over ethnic, religious, tribal and ideological viewpoints. Even though the outside state actors did fuel this tension, it was there before the war, and likely will be after it.
So lets hope a modus operadi better as in Lebanon can be found. Or we will see a next phase of the conflict.PS: And to those who attacked me for pointing out that there may be truth in the allegations that Iran and Hezbollah supports the Houtis: Maybe you too can learn something from this:
The truth lies inbetween. It always does.
Even though some of those black&white worldview nuts that make witch hunts inside our Alt-Media community seem to not want the truth, but to be right in their one sided deluded narrative.
Just like those nuts on SF, who prefer to be lied at and cry for censoring when someone disturbs them in their sleep.
Well, sleep well folks..
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Aug 17 2019 20:56 utc | 9
Tit for tat and I hope that the Syrian, Hezbollah will do the same once the Israelis bomb Syrian territory.
Turkey watch out, useless SOB Erdogan.
Very nice indeed
Posted by: Robert Alaly | Aug 17 2019 20:57 utc | 10
let me throw something out there. Israel has entrenched itself in the US political and media systems. There is no logical path to eliminate or reduce that influence, and thus perhaps the plan that has been hatched is to strengthen Iran to the point that it can confront Israel.
Posted by: ebolax | Aug 17 2019 21:02 utc | 13
I anticipated just this sort of event 2+ months ago to go along with the tanker sabotaging to expand on b's thesis about Iran having the upper hand in the current hybrid Gulf War. The timing of this new ability dovetails nicely with the recent Russian collective security proposal, with the Saudis being the footdraggers in agreeing about its viability due to its pragmatic logic. So, as I wrote 2 days ago, we now have an excellent possibility of seeing an end to this and future Persian Gulf Crises along with an idea that can potentially become the template for an entire Southwest Asian security treaty, whose only holdout would be Occupied Palestine. The Outlaw US Empire is effectively shutout of the entire process. And as I also wrote, it's now time for the Saudis to determine where their future lies--with Eurasia or with a dying Empire.
Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 17 2019 21:07 utc | 14
So the U.S. bought the Iron Dome stuff from Israel? I guess that means we paid for it twice, eh? Glad to know my tax dollars are hard at work "keeping us safe."
Wonder what they might be planning for with that one?
Posted by: KC | Aug 17 2019 21:11 utc | 15
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from Moon of Alabama
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Google “Machine Learning Fairness” Whistleblower Goes Public, says: “burden lifted off of my soul”
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by Staff Report
VIDEO: “the police began looking for me…”
Google Sent Threatening Letter to Google Insider Zachary Vorhies: “they knew what I had done and that letter contained several demands”
HUNDREDS of Internal Google Documents Leaked to Project Veritas… news blacklist, “human raters,” YouTube CEO video…
Google Insider Wants More Insiders to Blow Whistle: “people have been waiting for this Google Snowden moment where somebody comes out and explains what everybody already knows to be true”
“I felt that our entire election system was going to be compromised forever, by this company that told the American public that it was not going to do any evil”
The internal Google documents are available here.
(San Francisco) A Google insider who anonymously leaked internal documents to Project Veritas made the decision to go public in an on-the-record video interview. The insider, Zachary Vorhies, decided to go public after receiving a letter from Google, and after he says Google allegedly called the police to perform a “wellness check” on him.
Along with the interview, Vorhies asked Project Veritas to publish more of the internal Google documents he had previously leaked. Said Vorhies:
“I gave the documents to Project Veritas, I had been collecting the documents for over a year. And the reason why I collected these documents was because I saw something dark and nefarious going on with the company and I realized that there were going to not only tamper with the elections, but use that tampering with the elections to essentially overthrow the United States.”
(Do you work in Big Tech? Project Veritas would love to hear from you.)
In June of 2019, Project Veritas published internal Google documents revealing “algorithmic unfairness.” Vorhies told Project Veritas these were documents that were widely available to full-time Google employees:
“These documents were available to every single employee within the company that was full-time. And so as a fulltime employee at the company, I just searched for some keywords and these documents started to pop up. And so once I started finding one document and started finding keywords for other documents and I would enter that in and continue this cycle until I had a treasure trove and archive of documents that clearly spelled out the system, what they’re attempting to do in very clear language.”
Vorhies walks towards police with phone in hand.
Shortly after the report including the “algorithmic unfairness” documents was published, Vorhies received a letter from Google containing several “demands.” Vorhies told Project Veritas that he complied with Google’s demands, which included a request for any internal Google documents he may have personally retained. Vorhies also said he sent those documents to the Department of Justice Antitrust Division.
(Project Veritas is hiring. If you want to become an undercover journalist, apply here!)
After having been identified by an anonymous account (which Vorhies believes belongs to a Google employee,) on social media as a “leaker,” Vorhies was approached by law enforcement at his residence in California. According to Vorhies, San Francisco police received a call from Google which prompted a “wellness check.”
Vorhies described the incident to Project Veritas:
“they got inside the gate, the police, and they started banging on my door… And so the police decided that they were going to call in additional forces. They called in the FBI, they called in the SWAT team. And they called in a bomb squad.” “[T]his is a large way in which [Google tries to] intimidate their employees that go rogue on the company…”
Partial video of the incident was provided to Project Veritas. San Francisco police confirmed to Project Veritas that they did receive a “mental health call,” and responded to Vorhies’ address that day.
“Google Snowden moment”
Project Veritas has released hundreds of internal Google documents leaked by Vorhies. Among those documents is a file called “news black list site for google now.” The document, according to Vorhies, is a “black list,” which restricts certain websites from appearing on news feeds for an Android Google product. The list includes conservative and progressive websites, such as newsbusters.org and mediamatters.org. The document says that some sites are listed with or because of a “high user block rate.”
Another newly published document titled “Fringe ranking/classifer: Defining channel quality” lists an example ranking of various news sites, including CNN and FOX News. A document titled “Fake news & other fringe: Trashy recap” reveals that videos are rated by multiple “human raters.”
One internal Google document labelled “coffee beans” appears to show Google employees discussing diversity hiring practices. A related internal thread of communications also shows an apparent discussion about the “coffee beans” document, where one Google employee expresses concern that the document appears to “misrepresent Google’s hiring practices in a way that could raise legal questions…”
Another thread of internal Google documents shows Google employees discussing President Donald Trump’s infamous “covfefe” tweet, and a proposed plan to change the Google translation of the term.
“You’re going to be a hero”
Vorhies told Project Veritas that he hopes more insiders at Google decide to go public and discuss big tech abuses.
“My message to those that are on the fence is I released the documents. They can go in, they can see everything that Google is doing and then they can see the scale of it. Because I think that there’s a lot of engineers that have a hint that things are wrong, but they don’t understand the colossal scale that it’s at. And so for those people, I say, look at the documents, take the pulse of America, see what’s happening and come and tell the world you know what you already know to be true.”
(Big tech insiders can reach out to Project Veritas here to help expose similar newsworthy wrongdoing.)
Project Veritas requested comment from Google on this story but did not receive a response at the time of this publication.
Leaked documents
Below is an index of internal Google documents Project Veritas received from the Google insider. Each folder can be downloaded by clicking on the links in the table. Project Veritas has not re-named any of the files, but did arrange the documents into the downloadable folders below.
Censorship |
Politics |
Fake News |
Hiring Practices |
Leadership Training |
Machine Learning Fairness |
Partisanship |
Psychological Research |
Everything.zip |
Misc and Video |
If you work at a big tech company, you can contact Project Veritas below.
Email us via Protonmail:
Send your tips via email to veritastips@protonmail.com. For more security, register for a free protonmail account which allows for end-to-end encryption. Make your free protonmail account here.
If you work at a big tech company, you can contact Project Veritas below.
Email us via Protonmail:
Send your tips via email to veritastips@protonmail.com. For more security, register for a free protonmail account which allows for end-to-end encryption. Make your free protonmail account here.
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Iran’s Dangerous Deterrence Policy: Trading Tankers and Another Partial Withdrawal from the JCPOA
Elijah J. Magnier
The Iranian Army will not easily crumble as the Iraqi army did. And some sane minds in the US government know it.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he UK acknowledged its first defeat by Iran when it released the Iranian super tanker “Grace 1” captured by 30 Royal Navy commandos in the first week of July in response to a US request, as the Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell revealed. In response, Iran will release the British-flagged tanker “Stena Impero”, captured by the “Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps” (IRGC) Special Forces before Saturday mid-day. This tit-for-tat response by Iran showed its determined deterrence policy towards the west: Iran is ready to accept any consequences, including a possible war if necessary.
Moreover, Iran is prepared for another partial withdrawal from the nuclear deal three weeks from today as a counter reaction to the insufficient response of western signatory countries and their failure to effectively oppose the illegal actions of US President Donald Trump. The US unilaterally decided to revoke the deal, persuaded by Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu– even though its Chief of Staff acknowledged the nuclear deal was working. The bras-de-fer between Iran and the west is transforming the Middle East into a powder keg, ready to blow-up after the next challenging decision.
What is reducing the possibilities of war in the Persian Gulf are the 2020 US presidential elections. Indeed, Trump seems no longer willing to challenge Iran directly nor does he aim to push the conflict to a dangerous level. He is avoiding putting the US in the first line of confrontation against Iran for another year until he sees bailout results in his favour (at the end of the year 2020). In the meantime, the US administration is increasing sanctions on Iran and is trying to gather naval forces to police the Persian Gulf, contributing to an increase in the tension. Israel came forward overtly, challenging its sworn enemy Iran, by offering its direct participation in the US-proposed naval mission in the Persian Gulf. Now already Israel is involved in the US plans in the Gulf. Sources knowledgeable of the dynamic in the Gulf-Iran tension have said “Israel has drones in the area, and is involved by being present in many countries around Iran, providing military and logistic support”.
The Israeli “offer” is regarded as a clear provocation to Iran. It is sending a challenging message to the “Axis of the resistance” that has been threatening to attack Israel in case of all-out war on Iran. It shows the readiness of Israel to wage war on Iran whenever the US or a US led coalition decides, quite possiblyafterthe US election next year. Israel in any war-like decision balances the benefits and the consequences. It looks like this time the Israeli leadership should explain to their citizens why a war with Iran is worth major destruction to its infrastructure and domestic casualties. Hezbollah vows to attack Israel in case of war and the head of its Parliamentary delegation said the quasi-state actor believes that a war is under preparation against Lebanon. A Middle Eastern war is certainly not to the advantage of the nearby European continent. Unfortunately itis doing very little to influence or to cool down the levels of tension Trump is creating in the Midle East.
Among European countries, only the UK has agreed to join the US in patrolling and protecting oil tankers navigating in the Gulf. The UK is shifting away from the European stand towards Iran and seems willing to take the role of a US shield to keep earning US favour, as shown by its capture of “Grace 1”. The Trump administration is showing greater wisdom than the UK by keeping its jet carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships in Bahrein, away from the Persian Gulf.
Iran is showing further determination to protect its interests by rejecting harsh US sanctions and disrupting the exports if its own oil cannot be sold on the world market. On the other hand, Europe is aware of the danger and the possibility of a military confrontation, which means only losers. The UK insistence to have the first row position against Iran by sending a third warship to the Gulf is apparently not taking into account that the IRGC considers the western ships gathering in the area as proximate targets and floating coffins in case of war. Iran has cruise missiles, anti-ship precision missiles and armed drones enough to damage and destroy any naval ship, even one hiding behind an island, Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf.
Iraq played an important role in de-escalating the tension between Iran and the UK and for the release of the two tankers “Grace 1” and “Stena Impero”. The US administration is trying to look for ways to increase its maximum pressure on Iran in the hope of bringing Iranian officials to their knees, a goal far from realization. Baghdad will not be side-lined in case of war, and Iran’s allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen will not stand idle. They are preparing for the worst-case scenario. The war of tankers is far from ending, it is just beginning.
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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
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[google-translator]
US Black Peace Delegation Returns from Venezuela
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS
Read it in your language • Lealo en su idioma • Lisez-le dans votre langue • Lies es in Deiner Sprache • Прочитайте это на вашем языке • 用你的语言阅读
[google-translator]
There is a lesson to learn from that. But it is doubtful that the borg in Washington DC has the ability to understand it.
The outcome was a forgone conclusion. The smash, destroy, and destabilize campaign in the region could have only come from the most powerful lobby in the US. We all know who that is.
Posted by: dltravers | Aug 17 2019 20:23 utc | 1