Conspiracy Theories: Europe is not immune from America’s political madness - by Gideon Rachman

A crowd of far-right activists break through police lines. Cheering and waving flags, they prepare to storm the legislature. In Washington DC, last week, the mob broke through. In Berlin, last August, they were stopped on the steps of the Reichstag. If the demonstrators had broken into the building, they would have found some walls still adorned with carefully preserved graffiti from when the Reichstag was sacked by Russian troops, in 1945.

Germany’s near-miss over the summer, the “gilets jaunes” demonstrations in France and the passions aroused in Britain by Brexit and Covid-19 — all underline the same point. Europeans cannot assume that they are immune to the political passions that have engulfed America. Many of the elements that destabilised the US are also present in Europe — in particular, the spread of conspiracy theories, online radicalisation and extremist political movements.

The crucial missing element is Donald Trump. The fact that America’s conspiracy-theorist in chief is also president makes the country’s situation uniquely dangerous. It was Mr Trump’s efforts to overturn the election that motivated crackpots from all over America to descend on the nation’s capital and storm Congress.

But it would be a mistake for Europeans to believe that the absence of a Trump figure makes them safe from dangerous political unrest — particularly given the economic distress and social dislocation caused by Covid-19. The Reichstag crowds were smaller than those that attacked the Capitol. But they represented a wide cross-section of groups, with the far-right mingling with anti-vaxxers and believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory that is rampant in America (and holds that Mr Trump is leading an effort to defeat a global conspiracy led by paedophiles)

Opinion polls taken afterwards suggested that 9 per cent of the German population supported the Reichstag rioters. This is a narrower base than the far-right enjoys in America, where polls immediately after the storming of Congress suggested nearly half of Republican voters approved — which would be 20-25 per cent of Americans. (Later polls suggested less support.

Support for the political extremes is closer to 25 per cent in the former East Germany. Officials in Angela Merkel’s government worry that the military, intelligence services and police have been penetrated by the far-right, and some elite military units have been disbanded because of links to political extremism. There have also been several deadly terrorist attacks by far-right extremists.

Read full report at: Europe is not immune from America’s political madness | Financial Times

Conspiracy Theories: John Cusack tweets and deletes coronavirus conspiracy theory about the dangers of 5G networks

John Cusack is standing behind a conspiracy theory that links the coronavirus pandemic to the 5G network.

Note EU-Digest: For many years micro towers used for communications, mainly cell-phone communications have already been considered unsafe to humans by some scientists, however taking it as far that 5G is a cause for the coronavirus is taking it too far and certainly falls into the category of "conspiracy theories"

Read more at:
https://nypost.com/2020/04/08/john-cusack-is-latest-star-to-push-5g-conspiracy-theory/

Conspiracy Theories Multiply: Broadband engineers threatened due to 5G coronavirus conspiracies

Telecoms engineers are facing verbal and physical threats during the lockdown, as baseless conspiracy theories linking coronavirus to the roll-out of 5G technology spread by celebrities such as Amanda Holden prompt members of the public to abuse those maintaining vital mobile phone and broadband networks.

Facebook has removed one anti-5G group in which users were being encouraged to supply footage of them destroying mobile phone equipment, with some contributors seemingly under the pretence that it may stop the spread of coronavirus and some running leaderboards of where equipment had been targeted.

Video footage of a 70ft (20 metre) telephone mast on fire in Birmingham this week has also circulated widely alongside claims it was targeted by anti-5G protesters. Network operator EE told the Guardian that its engineers were still on site assessing the cause of the fire but it “looks likely at this time” that it was an arson attack.

The company said it would be working with the police to find the culprits. It said: “To deliberately take away mobile connectivity at a time when people need it more than ever to stay connected to each other, is a reckless, harmful and dangerous thing to do. We will try to restore full coverage as quickly as possible, but the damage caused by the fire is significant.”

Almost every new generation of mobile phone telephony has attracted fresh theories about health risks, and similar 5G theories were already widespread before the pandemic but have been given a new lease of life by the crisis. Other variants on the baseless theory suggest the virus has instead been invented as cover for deaths caused by 5G rollout, while groups that previously claimed the mobile signal caused cancer or brain damage are now suggesting it is also responsible for a respiratory disease.

Social media posts from celebrities such as singer Anne Marie have helped spread the theory, while Holden, a judge on Britain’s Got Talent, shared a link to a popular Change.org petition promoting the rumour that the symptoms of coronavirus are in reality due to residing near a 5G mast. The petition was subsequently removed following inquiries from the Guardian.

International radiation experts have repeatedly made clear that the new high-speed telephone system does not pose a risk to humans, while pointing out that the coronavirus has spread widely in many countries without any 5G coverage, such as Iran.

Read more at: Broadband engineers threatened due to 5G coronavirus conspiracies | Technology | The Guardian

Britain: How Facebook turned into a coronavirus conspiracy hellhole

The world is in the grip of two major outbreaks. The first is Covid-19, the novel coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, and has so far infected more than 93,000 people. The second is the wave of misinformation that has followed in its wake.

This second outbreak – which includes rumours about bat soup, bioweapons and 5G masts; mindfulness, garlic cloves and Vitamin C injections – has led the World Health Organisation (WHO) to create a new term to refer to the phenomenon: an “infodemic”.

This fake news has spread through “cure” books on Amazon, WhatsApp viral texts, and even the mainstream media. Now, according to data taken from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool that tracks the diffusion of viral stories, a small army of Facebook fringe groups are following suit and pivoting to a new hot topic: coronavirus misinformation.

This fake news has spread through “cure” books on Amazon, WhatsApp viral texts, and even the mainstream media. Now, according to data taken from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool that tracks the diffusion of viral stories, a small army of Facebook fringe groups are following suit and pivoting to a new hot topic: coronavirus misinformation.

The group Stop 5G U.K, created to air concerns about 5G, is responsible for many of these rumours. CrowdTangle shows it is the fourth ranking group in coronavirus posts over the last week – with 89 posts and 4,695 reactions.

Claims coming out of this group vary from China trialling vitamin c therapy as a Covid-19 cure and that the whole outbreak is a cover story and the deaths are really caused by 5G.

Other Facebook groups keen on coronavirus conspiracies include “We Support Jeremy Corbyn”, “I’M A BREXITEER” and the “Jacob Rees-Mogg Appreciation Group”, with hundreds of posts and tens of thousands of reactions. These posts incorporate political conspiracies – for instance, one post on the  “We Support Jeremy Corbyn Facebook” group, states that “people have bugs like this all the time, the media are basically covering up the economic global crash which is coming and also the Brexit shit show.”

This post received 50 reactions and 126 comments, four times more than an average post on the
group.

Read more at: How Facebook turned into a coronavirus conspiracy hellhole | 

The Deep State: "Right Before Our Eyes": What Russian TV is saying about Thierry Meyssan’s book - by Evgeny Baranov

Russian’s leading TV channel has just dedicated an entire report on Thierry Meyssan’s latest book. This report was part of the main news broadcast. While Europe and the United States customarily presents this French author as an unfortunate half wit, the rest of the world does not follow suite. Quite to the contrary, they consider him to be one of the leading thinkers in the field of international politics. This contrast should attract the attention of everyone who finds the Western Press lacking. Thankfully, within the global village news only circulates in one direction; never from the rest of the world to the West.

Formally, the new policy was launched on September 11, 2001, after the horrific terrorist attack in New York - the destruction of the Twin Towers by airplanes. After this act of terrorism, the so-called "Patriot Act" was adopted, which permits pervasive surveillance of any American citizen.
Meyssan talks about the end of democracy in America. But he goes even further, and claims that the "Patriot Act" was conceived long before September 11. Restriction of freedoms was part of the plan. Another point of the plan is full control over the media by the Capital. And we are witnessing how Western media is being degraded before our own eyes. Already, Soviet newspapers look like beacons of democracy against this bleak and dreary backdrop.

On book shelves of Paris bookstores, a new book by French writer and journalist Thierry Meyssan is absent. It has to be ordered. The author of the book, in his homeland, is being considered to be an unreliable persona since the 16 years ago he allowed himself to publicly question the official version of the terrorist attack in New York on September 11, 2001.

All these years Meyssan was forced to live and work in the Middle East, where he witnessed how step by step the strategy of the new world order, built on the ruins of the twin towers, was implemented.

Meyssan’s book is an opportunity to see the real mechanisms that bring modern international relations in motion with all their cynicism, falsity and bloodthirstiness.
"This is the result of my work for the last seven years. It was written in cooperation with various governments. I worked with diplomatic documents, consulted officials, diplomats.

This is not a conspiracy theory, but a description of the working methods of some governments during this time. Unfortunately, there is no other explanation for the facts other than this, which I described.

I’m not necessarily absolutely right, but I’m close to the truth. Everyone today sees that the world seems to have gone mad, gone wrong, but no one understands how and why, and I explain this, explain the reaction of the players. I am certain of the veracity of these facts, "says the French journalist Thierry Meyssan.

The deep state, like any other, has its own history. In the contemporary American history, the countdown usually begins with the assassination of President Kennedy.

For the complete review of "Right Before Our Eyes Click here: What Russian TV is saying about Thierry Meyssan’s book, by Evgeny Baranov

Turkey: Conspiracy convictions deepen Turkey's divide - by Gokhan Yivciger

Political divisions in Turkey were on full display this week, as a court sentenced hundreds of former military officers, opposition politicians, journalists and academics for plotting to overthrow Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in a conspiracy case that has gripped the nation.

The highest-profile defendant of the 275 on trial was former armed forces chief Ilker Basbug, who on Monday received a life sentence in jail, along with 17 others - including retired generals.

Judges also sentenced three serving parliamentarians from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) to between 12 and 35 years in prison. The court freed 21 defendants.

All have been accused of being members of a little known underground group dubbed "Ergenekon", the name of a mythical valley in Central Asia where the Turks are said to have originated.

Read more: Conspiracy convictions deepen Turkey's divide - Features - Al Jazeera English

NSA Spying: Opinion - Snowden and the paranoid state - by Sarah Kendzior Sarah Kendzior

"Paranoids are not paranoid because they're paranoid," Thomas Pynchon wrote in Gravity's Rainbow, "but because they keep putting themselves, f%#king idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations."

On June 23, 2013, Edward Snowden left China, a repressive state with a vast surveillance system, to fly to Russia, a repressive state with an even vaster surveillance system, in order to escape America, where he had worked for a surveillance system so vast he claims it gave him "the power to change people's fates".

In proclaiming his ability to change the fates of others, Snowden lost control of his own. He was lambasted as the instigator of international conspiracies and praised as the source of their revelation. He was at once a hero and a traitor , a pawn and a king, a courageous whistle-blower with the means to bring down nations and a naive narcissist, little millennial lost . He inspired debate and inspired even more debate over whether to debate him.

What are people looking for when they look at Snowden? They are looking for answers about how much states and corporations know about their personal lives, but more than that, they are looking for a sense that answers are possible. They are looking for knowledge untainted by corruption, as Snowden continues his world tour of corrupt regimes. They are looking for state agendas explained by someone without an agenda of his or her own. They are looking, and they are not finding what they seek.

Satisfactory explanations require trust in the person explaining. In the long term, Snowden will be seen as a symptom of a breakdown in political trust, not a cause. His legacy is paranoia - the paranoia of the individual about the paranoia of the state that spurs the paranoia of the public. This is not to say that paranoia is always unjustified. But it has become a weltanschauung instead of a reaction.

It matters, of course, whether the allegations of mass surveillance and data-collecting made by Snowden and Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald are true, but this is not what determines how the allegations are received. Suspicion of surveillance can be as poisonous to a functioning democracy as surveillance itself. Not knowing the extent of surveillance - of whom, by whom, to what end - heightens anxiety over the distance between the powerful and the public, an anxiety that was in place long before Snowden emerged.

Between the state and the citizen, we have the media, whose biases and careerism thicken the fog. With Snowden, every revelation has a refutation, but the citizen is left to evaluate the state of their nation on their trust in the individual reporting it.

American political paranoia has a long history, perhaps most famously summed up in Richard Hofstadter's study of the "paranoid style in American politics", in which he described how a small minority employed theories that were "overheated, oversuspicious, overaggressive, grandiose, and apocalyptic in expression", often gaining power in the process.

Hofstadter's study was published in 1965, thirty years before the popularisation of an international communications system that potentially gives every citizen the ability to debunk fatuous claims and distribute reliable evidence.  

The internet would seem an antidote to conspiracy theories and state secrecy, but it has only amplified both.

Read more: Snowden and the paranoid state - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Turkey's ties with EU and US in light of murders in France - by Ayşe Sözen

Within two months Turkey’s agenda has been sliding between hunger strikes and the possibility of abolishing immunity rights of Kurdish Parliamentarians in the TGNA, restarting negotiations with ‘Imralı’ and the probability of sabotaging the negotiation process, shocking news of 3 PKK militant murders in France and protecting prudence at the funerals of Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan, and Leyla Söylemez in Diyarbakır.

The spring weather and tension coexist together throughout the country within the insecure atmosphere of mutual distrust. Speculations flow in the air: while ‘Kandil’ accuses the ‘deep’ state in murdering three PKK members, representatives of the government comment on the killings as an inner execution within the PKK. At the international level, on the other hand, foreign actors like Iran, Syria, France and Germany are included as suspects of the murders too. According to commentators, Iran as a country who may desire to undermine the peaceful talks between the Turkish state and the Kurds would have been an option that assassinated the PKK militants while Syria and France may become other suspects as the countries of money trafficking regulators of the PKK. Germany, on the other hand, is a country in this network that has always efficient intelligence activities connected to Turkey.

In this highly complicated and conspiracy smelling atmosphere, Turkey’s relations with the EU and the US are delicate. Two important consequences of murders in Paris may emerge with regard to Turkey’s foreign relations. First of all, the negotiation process with the EU may be suspended permanently although it also seems they enjoy spring season after the EU Presidency is undertaken by Ireland from the Southern Cyprus and Sarkozy replaced by Hollande in the last Presidential election of France. Second, America may want Turkey to be the focus of the Kurdish issue rather than the Northern Iraq for a while as it wants to do fine-tuning in overall Iraq.

Following the murders in France an invisible crisis took place between the Turkish and French intelligence services. This has been reflected in the statements of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who accused the French President Hollande to be in dialogue with the members of a terrorist organization. In fact, Erdogan’s statement was signaling more serious problem than being in dialogue with PKK members. The real problem was the lack of sharing data between French and Turkish intelligence services on the murders. Markus Bernath who is a columnist in Der Standard, an Austrian newspaper, commented on the recent crisis as a new bitterness between France and Turkey.

According to Berbath, Turkish-French relations are endangered once more after the Armenian issue as the first serious one. In fact, the relations have only recently stepped into a hopeful phase when France used the wording of ‘accession’ related to Turkey in the last EU Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting.
 This has opened a new page in the process. However, for Bernath, the last event took place in France may give the Elycée Palace the opportunity to continue its blockages on the regional, monetary, and economic issues in the Turkey’s negotiation process with the EU.

Read more: Turkey's ties with EU and US in light of murders in France | News Analysis | World Bulletin

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn 'feared political enemy would pay woman to allege rape' - by Peter Allen

Dominique Strauss-Kahn feared that one of his political opponents would pay a woman more than $1million to say he raped her, it emerged today.The extraordinary revelation emerged in Paris as the International Monetary Fund head remained in a New York police cell accused of launching a sex attack on a hotel maid.

Liberation, the left-wing daily newspaper, published details on off-the-record comments made by Strauss-Kahn as recently as April 28th. 

Discussing his plans to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy as Socialist candidate for the presidency in 2012, he said he imagined ‘a woman who had been raped in a car park and who was offered between €500,000 and €1,000,000 to make up such a story. Because he was the clear favorite to beat Mr Sarkozy, Strauss-Kahn feared he would be subjected to a smear campaign by the President and his Interior Minister, Glaude Gueant. Such theories were bolstered by the fact that the first person to break the news of Strauss-Kahn’s arrest was an activist in Mr Sarkozy’s UMP party – who apparently knew about the scandal before it happened.

Jonathan Pinet, a politics student, tweeted the news just before the New York Police Department made it public, although he said that he simply had a ‘friend’ working at the Sofitel where the attack was said to have happened.

Note EU-Digest: what is also remarkable is Mr. Kahn's treatment as a hardened criminal by the New York Police Department. Obviously there should be no preferential treatment in any judicial system, but in this case it looks very much like reverse discrimination.

For more: IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn 'feared political enemy would pay woman to allege rape' | Mail Online

The buffalo bullet: "Michael Jackson" - The Man Who Knew Too Much - by Chris Stevenson

For the complete report from The buffalo bullet click on this link

"Michael Jackson" - The Man Who Knew Too Much - by Chris Stevenson

"Early this summer another black man died with needle marks in his veins. It's not that I was shocked when I heard the news that Michael Jackson had passed. I was really surprised he lived this long. Sure, like many others I became misty-eyed. Two images of Michael automatically came to my mind as I was on the I-90W headed to Cleveland listening to announcers read the TMZ press release; My first recollection of Michael and his brothers on that 1969 "Ed Sullivan Show" and Michael's still unbeatable solo-performance on that "Motown 25" Anniversary special. Those two images were of a young Michael, healthy Michael, black Michael. How many of us blacks wish Michael continued to look like that, for our own gratification. Were that the case this might be a completely different story, but coming around the corner was-sadly enough-naive Michael."

Therearenosunglasses’s: Turkey - Uighur Nationalism, Turkey and the CIA

For the complete report from Therearenosunglasses’s Weblog click on this link

Turkey - Uighur Nationalism, Turkey and the CIA

"Much was made in the news, earlier this month, of the series of violent clashes that erupted between Uighurs, a Turkic, and predominantly Muslim, minority ethnic group in China, and the Chinese state police, and Han Chinese residents in the the province of Xinjiang, North Western China. But the media’s recent attention to the matter should be seen in light of a larger geo-political strategy, involving Turkey and the CIA, as part of what is called "The Bernard Lewis Plan". Originally implemented under the supervision of Zbigniew Brzezinski during the Carter administration, the plan was based on Lewis’ idea of an “Arc of Crisis”, created around the southern borders of Soviet Union, by empowering Muslim radicals to rebel against the communists, to bring about the fall of the Soviet Empire. The key aspect of this strategy, over the last 30 years, as revealed in the book and movie, Charlie Wilson’s War, began with support for the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, which eventually became the CIA’s largest covert operation ever.

Despite years of Sibel Edmonds testimony being suppressed by the State Secrets Privilege, it is her revelations, discovered in the course of her work for the FBI, that now helps explain the significance of the immigration case against Turkish religious leader, Fethullah Gülen, living in "self-imposed exile" in the Pennsylvania, and explodes this entire complex of American foreign policy in the Middle East and Central Asia, and it’s broader implications for the Islamic world.

Fethullah Gülen, while also leading the movement behind Turkey’s current Islamic renaissance, is one of the key operatives who have been fronting for the CIA in the radicalization of Central Asia, involving drug trafficking, money laundering, and the nuclear black market, and false-flag terrorism. A number of sources reveal that the Gulen organization is also being used as a tool for the Special Operations Department of the Turkish police force.

The Rebel: Spies Like Us - by Edmund Connelly

For the complete report from The Rebel click on this link

Spies Like Us - by Edmund Connelly

Just after St. Patrick’s Day of this year, my review of Jeff Gates’ new book Guilt by Association: How Deception and Self-Deceit Took America to War appeared. The reference to deception and self-deceit in the subtitle are apt, for Gates explains that these techniques are responsible for America’s war in Iraq, among other things. “The war in Iraq is the product of a trans-generational syndicate skilled at displacing facts with (false) beliefs.” In such a short book, Gates makes great claims. For instance, he writes that “those masterful at manipulating thoughts and beliefs are also responsible for enabling organized crime to expand to a global scale.

As we now watch the unprecedented spectacle on Wall Street — venerable firms collapsing, the government giving bailouts to survivors, and now fat bonuses spread around financial firms such as Goldman Sachs — it’s instructive to contemplate how trillions of dollars can come and go. Yes, trillions. Not long ago we rarely heard that word. Instead, billion was the term for large sums of money, as the old economists’ joke shows: “A billion here, a billion there. Pretty soon you’re talking about real money.” Now, however, a billion serves in the way that million used to. If it’s any consolation to taxpayers who are footing the bailout bill, Russians not long ago were bilked for a similar amount. In his book, Gates claims that the pillage of Russian wealth in the 1990s is of a piece with the ongoing economic meltdown in the West now.