HOSTILE RULING CAPITALIST PROPAGANDA INSTRUMENT NEW YORK TIMES - ATTACK ON ASSANGE

CAPITALIST-CONTROLLED THE NEW YORK TIMES VOICE  OF USG AS AGENT OF CAPITALISM HOSTILE RULING CAPITALIST PROPAGANDA INSTRUMENT ATTACK ON ASSANGE PAVING WAY TO ELIMINATION OF JOURNALIST ASSANGE BY RULING CAPITALISTS Bill Van Auken Article, WSWS http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/02/wiki-s02.html http://archive.is/whyJ2 New York Times launches McCarthyite witch-hunt against Julian Assange By Bill Van Auken 2 September 2016   The New York Times Thursday published an article entitled “How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets.” The 5,000-word piece, covering three columns of the top half of its front page, boasts three bylines. Presented as a major investigative news article, it is a piece of pro-government propaganda, whose style and outright character assassination against the WikiLeaks founder seems to have been cribbed from the vilest McCarthyite smear jobs of the 1950s.  [comment:  'cribbed' = plagiarised ] Stringing together half-truths, innuendos, totally unsubstantiated assertions presented as facts and vicious ad hominem attacks on a man who has been persecuted and is effectively imprisoned because of his exposures of the crimes of US imperialism, the article has essentially three related purposes. The first is to brand Assange as a “dupe” if not outright agent of the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The second is to discredit in advance any forthcoming information from WikiLeaks exposing the sordid and potentially indictable activities of the favored presidential candidate of both the Times and the US military and intelligence complex, Democrat Hillary Clinton. And the third and most essential is to advance the relentless propaganda campaign mounted by the New York Times to prepare public opinion for military confrontation with Russia and intimidate and undermine the broad popular opposition of the American people to war. This anti-Russian campaign was sharply escalated following the WikiLeaks release last month of Democratic National Committee emails exposing the collaboration of the DNC leadership and the Clinton camp in the attempt to sabotage the campaign of her rival, Bernie Sanders. The response of Clinton and her supporters was to suppress any discussion about the content of the emails by waging a hysterical campaign indicting the release of material as a national security crisis deliberately provoked by the Kremlin in an attempt to subvert the US elections. This led to the open suggestion that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is Putin’s pawn, a theme that has been promoted as part of Clinton’s bid to rally the Republican national security establishment behind her campaign on a platform of aggressive war. The Times piece repeats this type of unfounded allegation, stating, “United States officials say they believe with a high degree of confidence that the Democratic Party material was hacked by the Russian government.” Who are these “United States officials?” What is the basis of their “high degree of confidence?” What, if any, evidence exists to substantiate this allegation? The lengthy Times piece includes not a word in answer to any of these questions. Nonetheless, using this unsubstantiated allegation as its foundation, the article advances its agenda with the kind of innuendo that the anti-communist witch-hunters of the House Un-American Activities Committee would have instantly recognized: “Has WikiLeaks become a laundering machine for compromising material gathered by the Russians. And more broadly, what precisely is the relationship between Mr. Assange and Mr. Putin’s Kremlin?” To bolster its political indictment, the Times asserts, “Whether by conviction or coincidence, WikiLeaks document releases, along with many of Mr. Assange’s statements, have often benefited Russia, at the expense of the West.” Among these “statements,” the Times paraphrases Assange’s comments in a televised interview last September, asserting that the US “has achieved imperial power by proclaiming allegiance to principles of human rights while deploying its military-intelligence apparatus in ‘pincer’ formation to ‘push’ countries into doing its biding.” It cites his charge that the 2014 coup in Ukraine was the result of Washington “trying to draw Ukraine into the Western orbit.” It also accuses him of being critical of NATO, an organization that “Putin would like nothing more than to defang or dismantle.”  [comment:  NATO is a criminal capitalist mercenary force that is a global aggressor and is known to have sent Serbian children graffiti bombs, while conducting illegal bombing of their nation ... and that's just Serbia. ] It accuses WikiLeaks of publishing damning “leaks of material from Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which are United States allies.” The article further adds that the leaks “came during times of heightened tensions between those countries and Russia.” It even attributes its publication of documents exposing secret talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a US-sponsored trade and investment deal devised as an economic arm of the US “pivot” to Asia and the military buildup against China, to the hidden hand of the Kremlin, because Russia was also excluded from the pact. Given these criteria, one can only conclude that anyone who opposes US imperialist interventions, or, indeed, employs their critical faculties in relation to any aspect of US foreign policy, stands in danger of being indicted by the Times as an “agent” or “dupe” of the Kremlin. Further “evidence” uncovered by the sleuths of the Times that Assange is a Kremlin asset, is that he appeared in a short-lived television series broadcast in 2012 by Russia Today (RT), a television network partially funded by the Russian government. The article suggests that the show was a hidden means for the Putin government to keep WikiLeaks afloat. “How much he or WikiLeaks was paid for the 12 episodes remains unclear,” it comments.  [comment:  ...  and the Israelis could have sent bitcoins in covert support.  ] Assange, however, was not employed by RT, but rather the network (like a dozen other broadcasters) paid a fee to air the program. Under similar arrangements, RT regularly broadcasts a series featuring Larry King, the 25-year veteran interviewer of CNN’s “Larry King Live.” So far he has not been named by the Times as a suspect. In the course of its report, the Times quotes Gavin MacFadyen, a WikiLeaks supporter and director of the University of London-based Centre for Investigative Journalism, as noting that “intelligence services had a long history of using news organizations to plant stories, and that Western news outlets published ‘material that comes from the C.I.A. uncritically.’” [comment:  The New York Times history shows CIA ties. ] Of course the premier example of this practice is to be found in the record of the New York Times itself, most infamously in placing both its news and editorial pages at the service of the Bush administration’s preparation of a war of aggression against Iraq, promoting and embellishing upon the phony intelligence about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction.” Two of the three bylines on the Times hit piece against Julian Assange bear closer examination. One is that of Eric Schmitt, the newspaper’s national security correspondent, who serves as a regular conduit for the CIA and the Pentagon. Among his services rendered was a 2002 feature article, published at the height of the CIA’s waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Sarcastically headlined “There are ways to make you talk,” the article was based entirely on the lying assurances of US officials that the interrogation methods being employed by the American military and CIA were all in strict compliance with the Geneva Conventions and that “torture is not an option.” Schmitt was also heavily involved in the Times’ handling of the major document leaks by WikiLeaks, which exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as US conspiracies around the globe, in the “Cablegate” release of State Department documents. He was one of the Times reporters who was sent to the White House in 2010 to brief Obama administration officials on the contents of the material obtained by WikiLeaks and to consult on how the newspaper should handle it. The newspaper’s then-Editor Bill Keller commented that the US government had praised the Times for “handling the documents with care.” In describing the paper’s treatment of the WikiLeaks revelations, Keller said that “in consultation with government officials,” the newspaper censored any information that “could harm the national interest.” [comment:  'national interests' is CAPITALIST INTERESTS, which usually does not coincide with the interests of the masses that are the nations that these capitalists deceive, control and exploit. ] [edit:  Eric Schmitt] ... went on to enunciate an Orwellian vision for the role of the media: “We agree wholeheartedly that transparency is not an absolute good. Freedom of the press includes freedom not to publish, and that is a freedom we exercise with some regularity.” In early 2011, Schmitt was cited as the source for a vicious personal attack on Assange, penned by Keller in defending his role as a gatekeeper for the US security services in the WikiLeaks affair. Schmitt is quoted as describing Assange as looking “like a bag lady walking in off the street,” and having “smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in days.” In relation to Assange, who is under constant surveillance by the US intelligence agencies, has been described as a “terrorist” by US officials, and whose assassination has been regularly demanded by elements of the right, this kind of language has a definite purpose. It is designed to invoke the hostility and distaste of the newspaper’s upper middle class readers and thereby make it easier for the state to either jail the WikiLeaks founder or kill him. The other noteworthy byline is that of Steven Erlanger, the newspaper’s London bureau chief and a 30-year veteran of the Times. In addition to his reporting duties, Erlanger serves as a governor of the Ditchley Foundation, which organizes Bilderberg-style, closed-door conferences of top state officials and big business figures to discuss strategic issues of concern to US and British imperialism. Other governors include the former head of MI6, the British secret intelligence service, various bank chiefs and the senior director of Goldman Sachs. Honorary governors include former Tory prime ministers David Cameron and John Major. The chairman of the group is Lord (George Islay MacNeill) Robertson, a senior advisor to BP and former secretary general of NATO. In the kind of secret talks held by the Ditchley Foundation, the subject of how best to dispose of Julian Assange would certainly not be out of place. That such “journalists” should sit in judgment of Assange, after indicting him, based on no evidence, as an asset of the Kremlin, is an obscenity. Their entire article stands as a devastating self-exposure of an American media that functions as a quasi-official state propaganda organ, mobilized in the buildup to war and in which outright intelligence agents play a decisive role.  [comment:  Wow, I wish I could send this article & the capitalist NYT hit piece to Noam Chomsky, especially after watching his 1989 video about the media and manufacturing consent.  ] http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/02/wiki-s02.html http://archive.is/whyJ2 Bill Van Auken b. 1950 politician and activist Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate in U.S. presidential election of 2004 VP nominee:   U.S. presidential election of 2008 full-time reporter for the World Socialist Web Site resides in New York City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Van_Auken Imperialism and War "The SEP asserts that capitalism leads inevitably to war, as imperialist states seek geo-political dominance, spheres of influence, markets, control of vital resources, and access to cheap labor.  Therefore, the SEP encourages and supports the widest mass protests against US militarism and its plans for war. The War on Terror is viewed as an assertion of imperial aggression on behalf of corporate interests, and the SEP calls for an end to the conflicts in the Middle East." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Equality_Party_%28United_States%29 NATO | Serbia  [RIGHT-CLICK IMAGE, 'NEW TAB'] COMMENT That was a very good article. I like Bill Van Auken. He's telling the truth and he's able to articulate what we, the great unwashed, already know to some degree if we've been following how this is shaping up.  Auken also fills us in on missing pieces we may not be aware of, completing the picture of capitalist controlled media acting with and in support of capitalist-serving government (as official agent of controlling capitalists and not agent whatsoever of the controlled masses, despite the rhetoric); thus both capitalist media (the fake 'Fourth Estate') and capitalist government acting as agents/tools for advancing the interests of Western capitalist ruling elites, often at the expense of the information denied, indoctrinated, misled, exploited and controlled masses. This fits in nicely with Noam Chomsky's 'Propaganda Model' of Western media ... and then the entire thing locks in with overlapping corporate and media and government positions, capitalist established and funded NGOs serving capitalist interests, the capitalist business and government revolving door and overlap, completing the picture of the fraud of Western capitalist 'democracy', which is rule by the iron grip of arm's length, faceless,  unaccountable, mobile, capitalist elites who serve up lies as 'news', who suppress truth and deny information; who lead us into wars of aggression; who give away our European nations and heritage from under us; who put our physical safety at risk; who put the ongoing existence of our own kind, in what are our illegitimately usurped and misappropriated nations, in jeopardy; and lying, exploiting capitalists and their agents, who act in together to persecute, imprison or assassinate truth-tellers, refusing to be held to account for fraud, corruption and crime committed in the name of capitalism, while capitalist crimes are perversely defended to the man on the street as matters of 'national security' (the same man in the street that is denied a nation and robbed of a nation by capitalists as policy and deprived of the safety that ought to be borne of what they refer to as 'national security' (but is merely a shield for pursuing hostile capitalist interests with impunity, and by unified hostile Western capitalist policy), granting the criminal agents of the criminal capitalists (ie Western capitalist fraud that is known as 'democratic' government(s)) the licence to illegitimately control, exploit and violate nations, peoples, and individuals with impunity. It is these capitalist criminals and their capitalist criminal agent governments, which are acting in cooperation with one another (as their capitalist interests and their capitalist crimes are mutual & their agenda for global hegemony is the same), that are responsible  for the undemocratic 6-year without charge imprisonment and political persecution of Australian journalist Julian Assange, who has unlawfully been denied political asylum granted by Ecuador in 2012. ASSANGE & KITTY CAPITALIST STATE UNDEMOCRATIC IMPRISONMENT OF JOURNALIST EMBASSY SIEGE  via @EmbassyCat

The New York Times Ruling Capitalist Propaganda Hit on WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks Media-Military-Industrial-Complex  The New York Times Ruling Capitalist Propaganda Hit on WikiLeaks WIKILEAKS RESPONSE  to New York Times propaganda hit via @WikiLeaks  NYT Capitalist Propaganda | direct link The Young Turks Julian Assange Hit Piece In New York Times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_npSb-tyGQ RT News - Aaron Swartz Major Media Trying to Cut Out WikiLeaks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H1zLZ-xS0w TRANSCRIPT [For quotation purposes, confirm audio] Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA In the wake of WikiLeaks one-upping every news organisation on the planet, with a large trove of classified information they received, the major newspapers are trying to cut them out of the picture. As we've told you before on this show, The New York Times and The Guardian have been working on creating their own leaking sites, and yesterday, the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, launched their own leaking website called 'Safe House'. But, is this going to be enough to cut out WikiLeaks, to inspire whistleblowers to come to their site instead? It doesn't seem so, if you look at the fine print. In The Wall Street Journal's terms and conditions, those leakers who choose to remain anonymous, must first enter into a Confidentiality Agreement that states that any of the information sent to the journal can be used in any purpose. As in, they hold the right to disclose any information about the leaker, to law enforcement authorities without notice, in order to 'comply' with laws. AND 'Safe House' leakers have to agree not to use the service for any unlawful purpose. So does this just destroy the basic principles of anonymity aligned with leaking, and does it serve as a vindication for WikiLeaks? Joining me to discuss this is Aaron Swartz, Executive Director of DemandProgress.org. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Aaron, thanks again for coming back on the show. Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Thanks for having me. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Do you think that WikiLeaks has really changed the playing field over the last year? We're seeing this journalism 'arm's race' as to who can set up their own leaking site, or I guess alternative, faster. Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Clearly.  I mean, this is a huge vindication for WikiLeaks.  We've gone from everybody saying they should be locked up in prison, to the point where every newspaper and news outlet wants to have their own WikiLeaks site. I mean, we've got to a point where if they want to lock up Julian Assange, they're going to have to lock up every editor of every major newspaper in this country. It's just ridiculous. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Well, it's interesting, too, because The Wall Street Journal didn't get any of the document dumps from WikiLeaks, so I'm wondering maybe there's a little bit of bitterness involved there, too. I mean, why would Rupert Murdoch want to do this? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Yeah.  I mean, we've seen incredible sets of sour grapes from some of WikiLeaks' critics. For example, after The New York Times was cut out of one of the WikiLeaks scoops, their editor went around calling Julian Assange a crazy bag lady. I mean, the pettiness of these journalists is just incredible. So, I think what we're seeing is some of the more right-wing papers like The Wall Street Journal, which have had biased coverage and sort of right-wing slants on all their news, now they're trying to provide a competitor to WikiLeaks to get stories for themselves, so they can slant it instead of letting WikiLeaks control the story. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Let's talk about all the ways in which this Wall Street Journal experiment fails. First of all, not only do they not guarantee you any type of anonymity and say they might hand you over to the authorities, or at least your information, if they have to, I also hear that there are a lot of technical loopholes here. Can you tell us about some of those? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Yeah, that's exactly right.  They recommend that you use a secure anonymity service called Tor; which is a great idea.  Everyone should be using Tor to submit documents anonymously. But, unfortunately, they never tested it with Tor.  So if you did try to use it, it just didn't work. Similarly, the encryption system they use had serious flaws that allowed the government to decrypt some of the encrypted communications, under certain scenarios, and there were other multiple vulnerabilities in it. It just seems like they hadn't thought it through. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA But the fact that they also say it has to be lawful and that we might hand over your information to the authorities if they ask for it; I mean, that seems to go against the basic principles of what it is to be a whistleblower, what it is to be an anonymous source of some kind of documents. So do you think this just proves that all the news organisations are now scared. Now, all of a sudden, leaking isn't what it used to be and now they feel like they have to comply with the law no matter what and do what the government puts pressure on them to do? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Yeah.  I mean, I'm sure the lawyers got in here and said, look, we've got to have the free right to put everyone, you know, out to dry if we want to. The good news is that fewer Wall Street Journal journalists will go to jail. The bad news is that all the sources will go to jail.  The people who don't have the resources of a newspaper to protect them.  They're going to be hung out to dry and they're going to be the people most at risk, the people who are doing the hard work of actually leaking these documents. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA But at the same time, you know, I bet you that if WikiLeaks were to have another major document dump, even if that was to be obtained illegally, which I think is still obviously up for debate right now, I still think that The Wall Street Journal would go ahead and print it.  What about you? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Oh, definitely. There's a great study in The Atlantic today, that found The New York Times, which has been somewhat critical of WikiLeaks, like I've mentioned:  half of every paper issued by The New York Times this year - half of all of them - had WikiLeaks based stories in them. So on the one hand they criticise it, but on the other hand they put it into almost every newspaper they print. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA So what's your prediction, then, for The Wall Street Journal 'Safe House'? Do you think it's going to be a success?  Do you think that whistleblowers are actually going to go towards it, because they're so afraid with the example that the government has made out of WikiLeaks, out of Julian Assange, out of Bradley Manning, or does it really kind of put a dimmed light on all whistleblowing? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA You know, I think people who don't trust WikiLeaks aren't going to trust Rupert Murdoch any more. You know, what I think what we're going to see is this continued proliferation of leaking sites all across the internet. Because the internet is fundamentally designed to share documents. It's not something that you can shut down by just shutting down one website. And, so, what I'm hoping is that an open community will develop.  We will learn these best practices - these security things, like the ones Jake Appelbaum has pointed out today, about how to ensure that your site is safely encrypted, as well as operational security things about how to keep yourself anonymous and how to share documents securely, so that instead of relying on one single point of failure or one right-wing newspaper company, documents will be spread all over the net by everybody. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Well, you know, I think you wrote up a good point before, when you mentioned The Wall Street Journal and, obviously, how some of their coverage might be a little bit biased. Do you think that it would be the type of scenario, where unlike WikiLeaks who puts it all out there no matter what it is that you send, that they would even censor?  They might not even, you know, print stories about the leaks you send, especially if it might be a corporation with which Rupert Murdoch is associated with? Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA I think that's very clear. I mean, one of the fascinating innovations of WikiLeaks is this thing they call 'scientific journalism'. You know, they don't just write stories about the documents and quote them out of context, like The New York Times will do. They put the full documents online so that you can read them for yourselves without the spin; you know, without putting it in certain context. You can read the raw facts and make your own decisions. It's really hard to imagine Rupert Murdoch doing that. Reporter RT Studios Washington DC, USA Well, I think we'll have to wait and see whether this is successful at all. Wait and see whether The New York Times and The Guardian come up with their own versions. Al-Jazeera already has, you know, a certain unit that they've dedicated to that, too. But, somehow, I just don't really see this working out all that well. I think it's a bad, bad imitation of WikiLeaks. Aaron, I want to thank you, for joining us, very much. Aaron Swartz Boston, MA, USA Thanks for having me.  [Nods] ... Assange proffered a vision of America as superbully: a nation that has achieved imperial power by proclaiming allegiance to principles of human rights while deploying its military-intelligence apparatus in “pincer” formation to “push” countries into doing its bidding, and punishing people like him who dare to speak the truth. [NYT] Media-Military-Industrial-Complex  [Michael Hastings] Michael Hastings: Army Deploys Psychological Operations on U.S. Senators in Afghanistan War Effort DemocracyNow.org - "Federal law prohibits the military from using propaganda and psychological tactics on U.S. citizens, but that is exactly what may have happened in Afghanistan according to reporter Michael Hastings, who was interviewed by Democracy Now! about his recent expose for Rolling Stone magazine is called, "Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-ops on U.S. senators." In the article, Hastings writes that Lt. General William Caldwell, the commander of NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan, illegally employed psychological operations to manipulate visiting U.S. senators into providing more troops and funding for the war effort. "It show how far-off the rails the entire operation has gone," Hasting says. "The most important battlefield isn't in Afghanistan, it is in Washington."" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGi6FHi2zOE Discussing Afghanistan with Michael Hastings Published on 14 Jun 2012 "In 2010, Michael Hastings wrote a controversial piece for Rolling Stone that potentially ruined the reputation of US army general Stanley McChrystal, then commander of NATO's internal security assistance force in the war in Afghanistan. The article, which detailed McChrystal's disapproval of President Obama, caused McChrystal to resign his position. We got in touch with Hastings and he gave us the opportunity to discuss counter insurgency in Afghanistan, criticisms of President Obama and the ongoing tension between the Pentagon and the White House." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZwTATnSsvA Michael Hastings on 'The Operators' Uploaded on 11 Jan 2012 "Michael Hastings the Rolling Stone reporter whose profile of Stanley McChrystal ended the General's career has now expanded his experiences with troops, his thoughts on COIN, the rise and fall of McChrystal, and the toxic reaction from other journalists into book form. He joins the show to discuss his new book, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan"." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMzMs67cj38 DEAD. The Young Turks More Details Emerge on the Death of Michael Hastings "Our friend and colleague Michael Hastings died early Tuesday morning in a one-car crash in Los Angeles. Wikileaks' Twitter account is now reporting that hours before his death, Hastings contacted Wikileaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson saying he was being investigated by the FBI. Some establishment media outlets have taken care to try and assault Hasting's character and achievements as a journalist. Cenk Uygur breaks it down." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoyuXzM059Q DEAD. 'Aaron was killed by the government' - Robert Swartz on his son's death "On Tuesday, the funeral services of Aaron Swartz took place outside of Chicago, Illinois. Swartz reportedly committed suicide on Friday, and his family says the US government is to blame for the legal action taken against the 26 year old for allegedly hacking into secured computers. RT web producer Andrew Blake brings us more from Highland Park, Illinois." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yKkk-cUk6c IN DANGER U.S. Demands to Assassinate Assange Published on 27 Nov 2012 "High-level U.S. government officials, including Clinton and Biden, demand for the assassination of Assange and to list WikiLeaks as a terrorist organization." http://shop.wikileaks.org/donate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQW0US2sJw

Filthy Wall Street & London Banker Swindlers in Collusion with Arabs, Knee-Capping Targeted Economies

Filthy Wall Street & London Banker Swindlers in Collusion with Arabs, Knee-Capping Targeted Economies SOURCE http://www.mintpressnews.com/brics-attack-western-banks-governments-launch-full-spectrum-assault-russia-part/215761/ Eric Draitser BRICS Under Attack: Western Banks, Governments Launch Full-Spectrum Assault On Russia (Part I) Russia is the target of a multi-faceted, asymmetric campaign of destabilization that has employed economic, political, and psychological forms of warfare -- each of which has been specifically designed to inflict maximum damage on the Kremlin. By Eric Draitser @stopimperialism | April 20, 2016  This article is part of a series on Western meddling to foment unrest and destabilize BRICS nations in an effort to ensure the continuation of Western economic and political control over the Global South. The first two parts, focusing on Brazil and South Africa, can be found here and here. Up next: Part II on the assault on Russia, which focuses on the political, psychological and military aspects that run in tandem with the economic war on Moscow. NEW YORK — The U.S.-NATO Empire, with its centers of power in Washington, on Wall Street, and in the city of London, is on the offensive against the BRICS countries. This assault takes many forms, each tailored to its specific target. The ongoing soft coup in Brazil has recently entered a new stage with the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff of the left-wing Workers’ Party. Simultaneously, the destabilization of the ANC-led government in South Africa continues as political forces align to remove President Jacob Zuma. These two situations illustrate clearly the very potent forms of subversion via Western-funded political formations and movements being employed against Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the bloc of emerging economies also known as BRICS.  However, when it comes to a country as large as Russia, with its vast military capabilities, consolidated and wildly popular political leadership, and growing antagonism toward the West, the tools available to the Empire to undermine and destabilize are in some ways more limited. Indeed, in the context of Russia, the popular mobilization pretext does not apply, and so that weapon in the imperial arsenal is blunted considerably. But there are other, equally potent (and equally dangerous) methods to achieve the desired effect.  Russia is the target of a multi-faceted, asymmetric campaign of destabilization that has employed economic, political, and psychological forms of warfare, each of which has been specifically designed to inflict maximum damage on the Kremlin. While the results of this multi-pronged assault have been mixed, and their ultimate effect being the subject of much debate, Moscow is, without a doubt, ground zero in a global assault against the BRICS nations. Economic war: Hitting Russia where it’s vulnerable While Russia is a world class power militarily, it is highly vulnerable economically. For that obvious reason, this area has been a primary focus of the destabilization thrust. Russia has for decades been overly reliant, if not entirely dependent, on revenues from the energy sector to maintain its economic growth and fund its budget. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and Russia’s Federal Customs Service, oil and gas sales accounted for 68 percent of Russia’s total export revenues in 2013. With more than two-thirds of total export revenues and roughly 50 percent of the federal budget, not to mention 25 percent of total GDP, coming from oil and gas revenue, Russia’s very economic survival has been as dependent on energy as almost any country in the world. In light of this, it’s no surprise that the drop in oil prices over the 18-month period from April 2014 to January 2016, which saw prices dive from $105 per barrel to under $30 per barrel, has caused tremendous economic instability in Russia. Even many leading Russian officials have conceded that the negative impact to Russia’s economy is substantial, to say the least.  At the World Economic Forum in January, former Russian Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin explained that not only has the drop in oil prices badly hurt the Russian economy, but the worst may be yet to come. Kudrin noted the potential for prices to drop even further, possibly even below $20 per barrel, and he warned that the impact to the economy will be significant. Specifically, it’s not just the loss of revenue, but the negative effect on wages and the currency which have many economic analysts and political figures worried.  According to the Russian Federal Statistics Service, real wages for Russian workers have dropped significantly since the end of 2014, with steep declines throughout 2015 continuing into early 2016. This has been felt by ordinary Russians, whose wages have stagnated while inflation causes prices to shoot upwards and who have had to endure belt-tightening in terms of personal consumption, and at the national level, where the Russian government has been facing a potentially large budget shortfall for 2016. It must be noted, however, that recent months have seen an improvement in the relative performance of the ruble, but the long-term outlook from experts remains gloomy. This has led many Russian analysts and policymakers to advocate yet again for a decreased dependence on energy revenues. They argue that the current climate could force economic restructuring away from the critical energy sector. Aside from Kudrin, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev made the case for potential “structural economic reforms,” as did Vladimir Mau of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.  Writing earlier this year in Vedomosti, Russia’s leading business publication, Mau explained: “The demand for oil as a commodity depends on technological progress…And it’s not obvious that oil as a fuel will be always in demand in times of economic growth. With the change of the technological model, it is not ruled out that oil will become just a stock commodity for the energy and chemical industry.” This last point — how oil is used relative to the market — is the most salient; in other words, it’s the financialization of oil. But the analysis must go a step further and explore how the financialization is, in effect, a weaponization process as oil prices become increasingly the playthings of powerful financial institutions, particularly the major banks on Wall Street and in the city of London. And this is no mere conspiracy theory. How Wall Street targeted Russia using oil In July 2013, Sen. Sherrod Brown, chair of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection, opened a hearing to probe just how connected major Wall Street banks were to the holding of physical oil assets, and the attendant ability of these companies to manipulate oil prices. The findings of the hearing, considered damning by multiple analysts knowledgeable on the subject, prompted an investigation by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, published as “Wall Street Bank Involvement with Physical Commodities.” The report highlighted just one of the big banks, Morgan Stanley, noting:   “One of Morgan Stanley’s primary physical oil activities was to store vast quantities of oil in facilities located within the United States and abroad. According to Morgan Stanley, in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area alone, by 2011, it had leases on oil storage facilities with a total capacity of 8.2 million barrels, increasing to 9.1 million barrels in 2012, and then decreasing to 7.7 million barrels in 2013. Morgan Stanley also had storage facilities in Europe and Asia.  According to the Federal Reserve, by 2012, Morgan Stanley held ‘operating leases on over 100 oil storage tank fields with 58 million barrels of storage capacity globally.’” Pam and Russ Martens of the well-respected financial analysis site WallStreetOnParade.com succinctly noted in their analysis of this issue: “With financial derivatives and 58 million barrels of physical storage capacity, it might not be so hard to manipulate the oil market.” Indeed, the sheer scope of Morgan Stanley’s market influence demonstrates the obvious fact that the major Wall Street banks, and their cousins in the city of London, are able to significantly affect global prices using multiple levers like supply and derivatives, among others. The Senate report’s brazen honesty is likely the main reason the corporate media failed to cover it all.  As noted in the report: “Due to their physical commodity activities, Goldman, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley incurred increased financial, operational, and catastrophic event risks, faced accusations of unfair trading advantages, conflicts of interest, and market manipulation, and intensified problems with being too big to manage or regulate, introducing new systemic risks into the U.S. financial system.” But perhaps most jaw-dropping is this January 2014 statement by Norman Bay, director of the Office of Enforcement at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who testified before the Committee on Banking and Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection Subcommittee. He plainly outlined how the big banks manipulate global oil markets: “A fundamental point necessary to understanding many of our manipulation cases is that financial and physical energy markets are interrelated … a manipulator can use physical trades (or other energy transactions that affect physical prices) to move prices in a way that benefits his overall financial position. One useful way of looking at manipulation is that the physical transaction is a ‘tool’ that is used to ‘target’ a physical price.” When one considers how much influence these large banks have on global prices, it’s almost self-evident that they would be able to use oil prices to execute a political and geopolitical agenda. With that in mind, it seems highly suspicious (to say the least) that the collapse of the oil price coincided directly with Russia’s move to annex Crimea and assert its dominance over its sphere of influence, thereby effectively stopping the eastward expansion of NATO in Ukraine. It’s amusing then when one reads The New York Times reporting this month that “simple economics” explains the drop in oil prices. In fact, it’s clear that it’s just the opposite: The collapse of oil is the result of financial manipulation by Wall Street in the service of the broader agenda of the Empire. Indeed, in late 2014 Russian President Vladimir Putin implied strongly that the oil plunge had less to do with economic factors than with political decisions. Putin openly theorized: “There’s lots of talk about what’s causing (the lowering of the oil price). Could it be the agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to punish Iran and affect the economies of Russia and Venezuela? It could.” Of course, Putin was not alone in this assessment, as many international observers spread “conspiracy theories” about collusion between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to deliberately depress oil prices by not cutting production despite all market indicators pointing to a needed decrease. With U.S.-Russia relations having reached their nadir at precisely that moment, and with Venezuela and Iran also on the enemies list, it is no surprise that many analysts around the world concluded that Washington and Riyadh were conspiring on oil for political reasons. Of course, the other major impact of the oil plunge on Russia has to do with the burgeoning energy-trade relationship between Russia and China. After the massive oil and gas deals announced between Russia and China in 2014 — deals worth hundreds of billions of dollars over the next three decades, it seems that Washington calculated that while it could not prevent the deals from moving forward, it could undermine them by fundamentally changing the calculus of the deals by tanking oil prices. In so doing, not only have the contracts been rendered less profitable for Russia, they are now subject to decreasing demand from China, which is experiencing its own economic slowdown.    In short, Russia’s attempt to break free of its dependence on revenue from gas sales to Europe by shifting its focus eastward has left Moscow in a bind. Facing the prospect of significantly less revenue than it anticipated coming from the deals with Beijing, Russia has been forced to adjust its own estimates and outlook for the coming years. Sanctions: The other economic weapon The overall impact of Western sanctions against Russia is a hotly debated subject. Russian media tends to downplay the overall impact of the sanctions, while the Western media paints a picture of imminent collapse. Notably, Paul Krugman, the leading liberal doomsayer, prognosticated in The New York Times in 2014 that “Putin’s Bubble Bursts,” warning that Russia was headed for economic meltdown thanks to the courageous sanctions regime imposed by the fearless leader President Barack Obama.  In reality, the sanctions had little immediate, direct impact on the Russian economy, but the indirect bruising might be significant, particularly over the medium- and long-term. Last year, the International Monetary Fund issued a report, noting: “IMF estimates suggest that sanctions and counter sanctions might have initially reduced real GDP by 1 to 1½ percent. Prolonged sanctions may compound already declining productivity growth. The cumulative output loss could amount to 9 percent of GDP over the medium term. However, the report’s authors underline that these model-driven results are subject to significant uncertainty.” But, looking beyond the raw numbers, one must realize that the policy prescriptions outlined by the IMF and leading economists internationally are perhaps the actual target for the West.  The IMF recommended “reforming the pension system” (read: reduce pensions), reducing energy subsidies, reducing tax exemptions, and other measures, while also suggesting that education, health care, and public investment be safeguarded. However, the subtext of the recommendations is that austerity, which by its very definition starves public programs of much needed funding, is the way to go for Russia. There are likely strategic planners in Washington who recognize that the political subversion model employed in Brazil and South Africa simply won’t work in Russia. If nothing else, the failed “White Revolution” protests of late 2011 led by Russian liberals and various pro-Western political forces, demonstrated unequivocally that the Russian state was prepared to prevent precisely this sort of outcome.  And so it seems that those who play on what former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski famously called “The Grand Chessboard,” have made their moves in an attempt to corner Russia economically. Whether that strategy has been, or will be, effective likely depends on perspective. While it alone will not bring about the Western pipe dream of regime change in Russia, the Empire’s elites are banking on the collective assault on Russia and the BRICS broadly to do what political subversion alone could not. About the author Eric Draitser Eric Draitser is a geopolitical analyst based in New York and the founder of StopImperialism. More articles by Eric Draitser [MintPress] SOURCE http://www.mintpressnews.com/brics-attack-western-banks-governments-launch-full-spectrum-assault-russia-part/215761/ -------/\/\/ Eric Draitser "Eric Draitser is an independent geopolitical analyst based in New York City and the founder of StopImperialism.com. He is a regular contributor to RT, Counterpunch, New Eastern Outlook, Press TV, and many other news outlets. Visit StopImperialism.com for all his work."   [RTNews] -------/\/\/ Enemies of the Free World: Morgan Stanley Goldman Sachs JP Morgan City of London Wall Street International Monetary Fund The New York Times -------/\/\/ COMMENT Help save Russia & Brics countries from greedy Wall Street & city of London banks.  Call for worldwide privatisation of their foreign assets ... that ought to throw a spanner in the works.  *Not sure I'll remember much of this.

WikiLeaks - The New York Times - US Government Mediated News & Other 'Free Press' Shockers

ꕤ Media Selling Unicorns❄ Corporate-Serving Media In Service of Aggressive Neoliberal Foreign Policy |  Manufacturing Consent Bias.  Compliance.  Censorship. Disinformation.  Distraction.  Diversion.  Suppression.  Smear. censorship & disinformation is denial of informed consent Dishonourable Mentions The New York Times The New Yorker The Washington Post LINK to other Media Bad Boys | here WikiLeaks The New York Times more WikiLeaks The New York Times  US government mediates its WikiLeaks redacted stories freedom of information documents show Source | WikiLeaks | here USG FOI | Emails PDF |  here other The New York Times published military “expert” C.J. Chivers report purportedly based on rocket trajectories etc & asserting gas shells could only have been fired by Syrian army positions --> Ghouta attack "became the pretext for a warmongering campaign by the White House and the US and European media" --> Obama "threatened immediate air strikes" “Obama’s change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire ... sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn’t match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army’s chemical weapons arsenal." *** "US military leadership also knew that White House claims that there could be no other source for the sarin gas than the Syrian army were false" https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/07/syri-a07.html American Media Refusals to publish Journalist Seymour Hersh The New Yorker The Washington Post refused to publish Seymour Hersh first report on Ghouta gas attack US press largely silent re Hersh report US press as at July 2014 "blacked out latest exposure" https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/04/07/syri-a07.html The Washington Post The New Yorker Refused to Publish an Article on Obama Admin Syria Lies Michael Krieger | Posted Monday Dec 9, 2013 at 11:00 am https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/12/09/how-the-washington-post-and-the-new-yorker-refused-to-publish-article-on-obama-admin-syria-lies/ LINK to other Media Bad Boys | here ꕤ