How Information Is Controlled by Washington, Israel, and Trolls, Leading to Our Destruction
Paul Craig Roberts
Dear Readers: I very much appreciate the support you show for me in your emails. I seldom receive a rude email from you, and when I do it is usually something off subject, such as a reader angry with Israel and unloading on me with an accusation that I am a coward and a “Jew-lover” because I don’t do enough to expose the crimes of the Jews.
This accusation always amuses me as the ADL lists me as an anti-Semite because I occasionally make an entirely justified criticism of Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians and excessive influence over US foreign policy, as have many outstanding scholars, such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, and many Jews themselves.
My friends find my designation by the ADL as an anti-Semite hilarious. The person whom I selected as my principal deputy in the US Treasury is a Jew. David Meiselman, my friend and co-author with me of an important study of the Congressional Budget Office, is a Jew (deceased). I went to Oxford for the express purpose of studying under Michael Polanyi, a Jew who had to leave his scientific post in Germany to escape the Nazis. Milton Friedman, an early supporter of the Institute for Political Economy, is a Jew (deceased). When my book (1971) on the Soviet economy was republished in 1990 without a word changed, it was a Jew who wrote the Introduction. He asked, “Why did only Roberts get it right?”
I have had Israelis as house guests.
And the ADL labels me an anti-Semite. Clearly, the term no longer means anything.
I hold Israel and the Israel Lobby accountable, just as I held accountable the Reagan administration, the George H.W. Bush administration, the Clinton regime, the George W. Bush regime, the Obama regime, and the Trump regime. (I differentiate between administration and regime on the basis of whether the president actually had meaningful control over the government. If the president has some control, he has an administration.)
According to the ADL’s logic, I am both anti-Reagan and anti-American. But readers see me as a true patriot, and Reagan-haters see me as a Reagan-apologist. Clearly, something is wrong with the ADL’s logic.
Obviously, the Israel Lobby has destroyed the meaning of anti-Semite. In its effort to control the explanation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israel Lobby has made “anti-Semite” into a badge of honor.
Control over explanations is important to Zionist Israel. If Americans can be convinced, as many have been, that Palestinians are terrorists out to kill all Jews, Israel’s theft of Palestine and mistreatment of Palestinians is not the issue that it would otherwise be. The Israel Lobby also works hard to control which voices are acceptable and which are not. For example, no one is permitted to investigate the Holocaust. Some European countries have a law against Holocaust investigation, and historians have been sent to prison for challenging the official explanation, which it is mandatory to believe.
In the US the Israel Lobby can even overturn decisions on academic tenure. For example, the outstanding scholar, Norman Finkelstein, a Jew and a critic of Israel, was denied tenure at a Catholic University solely on the basis of objection from the Israel Lobby. I find it extraordinary that not even Catholic Universities can stand up to the power of the Israel Lobby. The tenure committee and the faculty voted Finkelstein’s tenure, and the Israel Lobby interceded with the university president and blocked it.
Similarly, Steven Salaita was offered a tenure appointment at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, accepted it, resigned his tenure at Virginia Tech, sold his house and moved his family to Illinois only to have the president of the University of Illinois illegally cancel his appointment, apparently on orders from the Israel Lobby. Salaita’s attitude toward Israel was not acceptable to Israel.
The Israel Lobby succeeded in eliminating two outstanding scholars from American academic life, thereby extending Zionist control of the Israeli/Palestinian explanation by eliminating alternative explanations. As far as I can ascertain, neither scholar has been able to overcome the slander and obtain an academic appointment, a great loss to students and scholarship.
If a writer so much as reports these factual events, the writer is branded an anti-Semite by the Israel Lobby. In former times, an anti-Semite meant a person who hated Jews. But today it means anyone who makes even a mild criticism of Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians whose lands Israel occupies and is stealing. Indeed, practically nothing is left of Palestine except the Gaza ghetto that is totally controlled by Israel. All movements of supplies and people in and out are controlled by Israel. Essentially, Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto.
These are simple irrefutable facts. Every aware person knows this, but if you say it or write it, you are a “Jew-hater.”
Many Jews have been conditioned to believe that any criticism of Israel, no matter how justified, is anti-Semitic. Even Israel’s friend, former US President Jimmy Carter, is reviled by the Israel Lobby as an anti-Semite. Carter cautioned Israel against mistreatment of the Palestinians and was instantly branded a “Jew-hater.” The Jews on the board of the Carter Center resigned.
How do we account for the vast power of the lobby of a foreign power whose entire consequence in the world depends solely on Washington’s support? How does a dependent country control, or if control is too strong, so heavily influence, Washington’s policy in the Middle East, resulting in millions of deaths of Muslims and the destruction of entire countries, and also overturn the tenure decisions of US Catholic and state universities? If the US is a superpower, clearly Israel is the Hyperpower.
Israel owes much of its influence to the billions of US taxpayers’ dollars that Washington gives each year to Israel. Money is fungible, and it comes back to the US in the form of political campaign contributions to support Israel’s friends and defeat Israel’s critics. It come back in support for friendly media, academics, and university administrations. It influences entertainment and some say court cases, not by paying off judges, but by influencing the explanation of the case. And so on. In other words, US taxpayers’ money is used to give a foreign government more control over the US than US citizens have.
There is a great deal of hostility toward the Zionist government among European populations and Muslims. But this hostility does not transfer to all Jews. People are capable of differentiating the responsible from the powerless.
All Jews are not Israelis and all Israelis are not Zionists. Some Israelis complain that the Zionist government is squeezing morality out of the Israeli population, and they pay a price for saying so. Israelis who organize in protest to the Zionist policies against the Palestinians, such as Jeff Halper, coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, are branded “self-hating Jews” by the Zionist government.
Few Americans know that the Israeli government confiscates entire Palestinian villages and demolishes Palestinians’ homes, using specially built equipment by the American corporation, Caterpillar, and constructs housing for Israelis. The Israel Lobby will deny this despite the fact that Israeli citizens have formed an organization that seeks to use law and Israeli courts to prevent it. Western governments and presstitutes are not interested in what becomes of the dispossessed Palestinians.
Halper is Jewish, but the Palestinians do not hate him. He can go to Gaza without any danger from the Muslims. The only danger he faces is from the Israeli government who arrested him for going to Gaza. Indeed, distinguished Israelis, such as Gilad Atzmon and Ilan Pappe have left Israel for safety in Europe. Both are demonized by the Israel Lobby. If you care to understand Zionist Israel, read Atzmon’s book, The Wandering Who? For Palestine, read Pappe’s books.
Think about this more generally. As Muslims have been under foreign occupation for a very long time, they are aware that they have no control over “their” governments. Some of them are aware that Europeans and Americans also have no control over their governments. Just as Muslims in Palestine do not hold Halper responsible for Israel’s murderous policies toward Palestinians, what sense does it make for Muslims to hold hapless Europeans and Americans responsible for the evil policies of the US and European governments?
If you think about this, you can see why it is suspicious that “Muslim terrorism” commits acts only against innocents, who have no influence over government policy, and not against the responsible government officials.
If Muslim terrorists are so sophisticated that they can pull off events such as 9/11 and the Nice truck attack, they are sufficiently sophisticated to understand who their real enemies are. They know that the enemy is not Frenchmen enjoying an evening on French streets.
As I have previously observed, the main neoconservatives are well known from their high positions in the George W. Bush and Obama regimes. Their responsibility for the years of US invasions, bombings, and destruction of millions of Muslim peoples is known. None of the neoconservatives have any protection. Yet there has never been a terrorist attack against any of them.
Considering that the alleged Muslim terrorists are so inconsiderate of their own lives, they could easily take out former VP Dick Cheney, who has only minimal protection. Consider that there have been no Muslim terror attacks on unprotected US Senators and Representatives and presstitutes who have fervently supported two decades of murderous warfare against Muslims. Consider that the US and Europe are now full of Muslim refugees from Washington’s wars, and terrorist events (which are probably false flag events) are rare.
In a real democracy with a real media and real opposition parties, these questions would be investigated and part of public debate, not dismissed as “conspiracy theory.” As I reported in a previous column, CIA documents were discovered that show that the CIA invented the use of “conspiracy theory” to prevent a real investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/08/31/are-you-a-mind-controlled-cia-stooge-paul-craig-roberts/
To return to the purpose of this missive, which is to thank you for your support, I agree with the numerous readers who wrote to tell me that they do not waste time reading comment sections in which the majority of comments are the work of narcisstic idiots and paid trolls, and in which anonymous commentators slander not only the columnist but also one another. Readers advise me to treat the comments as water off the duck’s back.
I did not protest because of thin skin. As I understand it, many governments, agencies of governments, and private interest groups and individuals with agendas, such as Monsanto and George Soros, finance trolls to attack Internet writers who are critical of their agendas. Other reports say that Google is cooperating with the government’s control over explanations by making it more difficult to find truth-tellers online. Other reports say that Twitter and Facebook are censoring what can be posted.
The process of discrediting truth-tellers works as follows: A writer provides an explanation that differs from the official explanation. He or she is set upon both by narcissists full of themselves and by trolls.
His or her argument is mischaracterized. He or she is branded a “conspiracy theorist,” a “Putin dupe” or “Russian agent,” an “anti-Semite,” an “anti-American,” a “Reagan apologist.” Once these comments are posted, the troll network spreads them into social media, with the intention of discrediting the writer and creating suspicion about his or her motives and sanity. As most people are poorly informed and have difficulty differentiating The Matrix from The Reality, the trolls succeed in limiting the writer’s audience.
It is not “thin skinned” to object to a process that discredits those who provide real information when the purpose of the discrediting is to protect the official disinformation used to control explanations.
Readers continually ask me what can be done to regain control over the government. My answer is that the people cannot do anything until they understand the situation. Without good information, they cannot understand the situation. Narcissists and trolls work to keep people confused about legitimate sources.
If comment sections required real names and real email addresses, comments would be less damaging to the truth as commentators would be less inclined toward irresponsibility and malice.
Everywhere in the Western World, and this includes the Asian provinces of the American Empire, it is close to impossible to acquire accurate information. The only purpose of information from Washington and from the print and TV media and NPR is to get the captive populations to accept the officlal explanation that serves the ruling agenda. Those who provide real news, such as RT, are attacked as fonts of “fake news.” In other words, for Washington truth is an enemy. As George Orwell said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
The Saker says that the agenda most in need of our attention is the “anglo-zionist agenda” of US/Israeli domination. The overriding fact of our time is that any country or person in the way of US/Israeli domination is destined for destruction.
That is our reality.
Russia and China have finally caught on that the democratic rhetoric issuing from Washington is a cloak for the evil that is the operating force of the US government.
Will Russia and China accept the hegemony of this evil or will they not? It is a very serious matter that Washington has convinced the Russian and Chinese governments that Washington is preparing a preemptive nuclear strike against them. This is extremely serious, not something for narcissists and trolls to play with.
For all who ask what to do, the answer is to speak out strongly against Washington for risking all life by convincing Russia and China that Washington is preparing to nuke them. To understand how dire the situation is, ask yourself why you hear no protests against such provocation of Russia and China from the West’s print and TV media, from the US Senate, from the House of Representatives, from European political leaders, from hardly anyone.
The absence of protest tells the Russians and Chinese that the American Empire is OK with the preemptive attack. Where is Merkel’s voice? Where is May’s? Where is any leader’s voice?
The absence of protest voices tells Russia and China that the die is cast.
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