Category Archives: Things that aren’t what they seem

Al Jazeera Film Challenges Trump’s Election Win

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Unfair Game

Al Jazeera (2018)

Film Review

The them of this documentary is that Trump used unfair tactics to win the 2016 electoral college vote, despite losing the popular vote by 3 million.

Most of the the film focuses on the California subsidiary of Cambridge Analytica, which purchased personal data from Facebook, Google, Twitter and other Internet data harvesting firms. It then used sophisticated algorithms to individually target potential Trump supporters in swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

According to filmmakers, Cambridge Analytica compiled 4,000 data points regarding the personal lives of 23 million voters. They then used the data to generate paid “dark posts” on Facebook. Dark posts are the weird personal ads and messages that pop up briefly on your Facebook news feed and then disappear.

Although it was intriguing to learn how Cambridge Analytica massaged personal data to identify and influence potential Trump voters, I objected to the way the documentary blames the Trump campaign for introducing microtargeting (potential supporters) to US elections. It was actually the Obama campaign that pioneered microtargeting, which is largely credited for his ability to overcome Republican vote rigging and vote suppression efforts in 2008 and 2012.

When the Obama campaign engaged in microtargeting, they were widely hailed as ingenious public relations innovators. When the Trump campaign does it, he’s branded as a liar and a thief. While I have no love for Donald Trump, the clear bias in this film really irritates me. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton, who inherited many of Obama’s campaign staffers, also used microtargeting in her campaign.

That being said, I found it significant that Cambridge Analytica was actually an offshoot of the British Strategic Communications Laboratory, which was widely used by NATO, NSA, the State Department and other deep state actors to influence US and global opinion and meddle in foreign elections. I was previously unaware that the California branch of Cambridge Analytica was headed by Trump’s campaign manager Steve Bannon and mainly funded by Trump’s biggest campaign donor, Robert Mercer.

The first 15 minutes of the documentary in which, “mainstream” corporate journalists decry the unregulated dissemination of “fake news” by “ultra right wing” online publications, is frankly embarrassing.It was the collective decision by so-called “mainstream” media to become a propaganda mouthpiece for the CIA, State Department and Pentagon that led Americans to look to the Internet for alternative sources of information.

Meet Noam Chomsky: Academic Gatekeeper

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Meet Noam Chomsky: Academic Gatekeeper

James Corbett (2012)

Film Review

This documentary explores prominent dissident Noam Chomsky’s peculiarly pro-corporate neoliberal positions on the Federal Reserve, the JFK assassination and 9-11.

Using archival footage of Chomsky presentations, Corbett begins by outlining issues in which he (and most of the activist community) share Chomsky’s political views.

  • Obama was for worse (ie anti-democratic) than Bush.
  • Drone strikes are terror weapons.
  • Bush merely tortured people, Obama assassinated them without trial.
  • The military Industrial Complex only survives thanks to corporate welfare.
  • The ruling elite exerts control over the US population mainly via propaganda and indoctrination.

Corbett continues by examining other areas of activist concern that Chomsky totally refuses to address – specifically the Federal Reserve and the role of private banks in money creation, the JFK assassination and government insider involvement in 9-11.

Corbett, like many of us, finds the arguments Chomsky advances on these issues totally irrational and contradictory.

For example, it’s totally mystifying to hear an “anarcho-syndicalist” like Chomsky sing the praises of private central banks and their control of money creation.

In contrast, his dismissal of any “conspiracy” in the JFK assassination seems to be based on a deliberate lie. He claims to have never “looked at” any of the evidence. A prominent JFK researcher disputes, based on a four-hour face-to-face meeting during which he shared a selection of assassination research with Chomsky.

Chomsky’s dismissal of insider involvement in 9-11 is just plain bizarre. His disingenuous claim that the 9-11 Trust movement is made up of non-activists who have spent an hour studying physics, architecture and engineering on the Internet is a slap in the face to the over 2,500 professional architects and engineers who make up Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth. As his claim that the 9-11 Truth movement diverts attention from “more serious activism.”

In 2018, Chomsky further solidified is neoliberal credentials with his call for US military involvement in Syria: Chomsky Among Progressives Calling for US Intervention in Syria

Caveat: Several readers have cautioned me that Corbett himself (a prominent climate denier) may also be controlled opposition. In this case, I think his analysis of Chomsky’s neoliberal contradictions are spot on.

 

Michael Moore and Toothless Political Satire

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Where to Invade Next

Directed by Michael Moore

Film Review

Maori TV showed Michael Moore’s 2015 documentary earlier this week. Like many of his films, it seems aimed at young Americans aged 10-12 with little knowledge of politics or other cultures. Like most of his films, it’s characterized by a total absence of political analysis, ie he makes no effort to explain the the political or economic forces responsible for the various social situations he encounters.

The premise of the film – the notion of Moore “invading” foreign countries to bring home desirable social programs to correct major flaws in US society – is extremely flimsy. He mostly focuses on surviving democratic socialist programs in various European countries, without once mentioning that coercive US diplomacy is forcing most of Europe (via free trade, hostile foreign investment, waves of mass immigration from US war zones, IMF privatization schemes, CIA meddling) to abandon their democratic socialist programs in favor of US-style neoliberalism.

That being said, this is probably a good film for pre-teens, providing they watch it with parents. There are some very disturbing scenes of US police and prison guards beating the shit out of black men.

Specific features Moore wants to “capture” from other countries include

  • Italy – up to seven weeks paid vacation, with virtually no productivity loss, owing to reduced stress and illness among workers – and 5 months paid maternity leave (only the US and Papua New Guinea fail to mandate paid maternity leave.
  • France – healthy and nutrient-rich school lunches for the same price as US junk food school lunches.
  • Finland – produces the most well educated students in the world, by reducing the school week (to 20 hours) and eliminating homework and multiple choice exams.
  • Slovenia – free university education for both domestic and foreign students, including wide range of courses in English for US and UK students seeking to avoid student loan debt.
  • Norway – has replaced prisons with rehabilitation centers, resulting in on 20% re-offending (after 5 years), in contrast to US 80% re-offending rate.
  • Tunisia – full equality for women.
  • Germany – 36-hour work week, federal law against phoning or emailing employees when they aren’t at work, extensive school and public education program about dark history of the Third Reich genocide (instead of sweeping their genocidal history under the rug like US does).
  • Portugal – reduced drug abuse and drug-related crimes by legalizing ALL drugs of addition and providing easier access to treatment.
  • Iceland – prosecuted bankers responsible for the country’s 2008 economic collapse, women control half the corporate board seats (owing to law mandating 40% representation) and half the parliamentary seats. Woman-owned bank has released studies showing that a lot of reckless investment trading behavior is testosterone driven.

 

911 Trillions: Follow the Money

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In this documentary, James Corbett approaches the mystery of 9-11 by tracing money flows rather than physical evidence – ie he identifies individuals and companies that plainly had foreknowledge of the 9-11 attacks and used it to reap windfall profits.

The three main ways people profited from 9-11 were insurance scams, insider trading and fraudulent electronic transactions. Ironically the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 9-11 Commission and FBI identified some of the same scam artists as Corbett and other private researchers. Bizarrely they declined to indict them owing to “no known ties to al Qaeda.”

Insurance Scams

Key suspects: Larry Silverstein, GMAC (the finance arm of General Motors) and real estate developers Lloyd Goldstein and Joseph Kerr. GMAC, Goldman and Kerr helped finance Silverstein purchase of the Twin towers from the New York Port Authority in July 2001. Immediately on taking possession, Silverstein doubled the insurance coverage from $1.5 billion (the buildings’ assessed value was $1.2 billion) to $3.55 billion. In addition, following the attacks, the Port Authority repaid Silverstein 80% of the original lease. In total, Silverstein netted a $4.5 billion profit from 9-11.

Insider Trading

On Sept 10 2001, the SEC identified a 90% increase in “put options”* for companies whose stocks would tank the week after 9-11:

  • United Airlines
  • American Airlines
  • Morgan Stanley (one of two major tenants in Twin Towers)
  • Marsh & McLennan (one of two major tenants in Twin Towers)
  • Boeing
  • Citigroup
  • Axa
  • Merrill Lynch
  • J P Morgan
  • various reinsurers

The SEC also noted a six-fold increase in “call options” on defense contractor Raytheon (manufactured missiles subsequently used in attack on Afghanistan) in the weeks prior to the attacks.

Three of the most prominent insider traders were Mrs and Mrs Wirt D Walker III (distant relatives of George Herbert Walker Bush and business partners with Marvin Bush with links to the Carlyle Group***) and Deutsche Bank, Alex Brown Division, run by to Buzzy Krongard, former consultant to former CIA director James Woolsey Jr.

Fraudulent Electronic Transactions

Marsh & McLannan was responsible for developing Silverstream, an innovative method of paperless electronic transactions. A team of March & McLannan auditors were investigating $100 million in suspicious transactions involving AIG and Deutsche Bank. All were killed in the 9-11 attacks – their data sets conveniently destroyed. A German company Convar was able to reconstruct most of these transactions from hard drives recovered at Ground Zero.

Attack on the Pentagon

The attack on the Pentagon killed the Department of Defense team investigating the $2.3 trillion that went missing from the DOD 2000-2001 budget – and destroyed all their data.

*A put option lets the option owner sell a stock at its original price when the share price falls – pocket the difference.

**A call option lets the option owner buy a stock at its original price when a share price increases – and pocket the difference.

***Carlyle Group – a global equity management group, closely linked with George H. W. Bush and the bin Laden family.

Portrait of a Homeless Philosopher

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Martin

Directed by Donal Moloney (2018)

Film Review

Martin is a profoundly moving portrait of a homeless man befriended by Irish filmmaker Donal Moloney. Martin Holt, who lives under a bridge, considers himself much better off than people who live in houses – mainly because he has no debt, obligations or stress.

He maintains happiness is an illusion. Life, for him, is the simple pleasures of feeding pigeons, reading books at the library and enjoying seasonal changes.

The cinematography is stunning.

A Closer Look at Trump Supporters

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Trumpland

Fusion (2016)

Film Review

This documentary, filmed a month before the 2016 election, explores the life circumstances of a cross section of Trump supporters, referred to by Hillary Clinton as “deplorables.”

Commonalities shared by this demographic are

  • recent personal or family experience with job loss, bankruptcy or foreclosure.
  • strong feelings about Wall Street outsourcing manufacturing jobs to third world countries.
  • strong feelings about US politics being a “crooked” system set up to destroy the middle class.
  • strong opposition to their perceived corporate control of the two major political parties.
  • a perception that Trump, unlike other politicians, “can’t be bought.”

When answering filmmakers’ questions about Trump’s perceived racism and xenophobia, their replies vary. Some (especially women) feel that Black Lives Matter activists have a point about the abysmal way Black people are treated in the US. Others claim that Black people (and women) are demanding special privileges not enjoyed by white men.

Most deny that Trump is racist, claiming he only wants to prevent terrorist attacks by banning immigrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. They agree with his proposed wall because they believe his claims that most illegal Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists. This flies in the face of research indicating undocumented immigrants (who are loathe to draw attention to themselves) commit far fewer crimes than either legal immigrants or native born Americans.

Pipelinistan: Is the Novichok Psyops an Effort to Shut Down Nord Stream 2?

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Politics, Power and Pipelines – Europe and Natural Gas

DW (2018)

Film Review

This documentary concerns Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, due for completion by the end of 2019. The EU, the UK and the US have been working hard to shut down Nord Stream 2, and various commentators believe the current Novichok psyops is an effort to pressure Germany to back out of their agreement with Gazprom.

The Nord Stream 2 project is a partnership between Russian state-owned Gazprom and five private energy companies from Britain, Germany, France and Netherlands. It will transport natural gas directly across the Baltic Sea to Germany. The existing Nord Stream 1  pipeline system transports Russian gas to western Europe mainly via Ukraine.

Since the 2014 US-sponsored coup in Ukraine, there has been considerable conflict between Russia and Ukraine over Nord Stream 1 – involving Ukraine’s non-payment of fuel charges, their failure to maintain the pipeline and illegal diversion of gas supplies. Russia totally shut down gas supplies to Ukraine in 2009 and 2014 for non-payment, resulting in very cold winters for Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary at the other end of the pipeline.*

Two prominent Germans are part of the Nord Stream 2 consortium, former German Chancellor and Social Democratic Party leader Gerhard Schroder and former Stasi member and Putin friend Mattias Warning. The latter serves as the company’s Managing Director.

Despite their determination to become more independent of Russian gas and oil, Poland and other Eastern European states are dismayed that Nord Stream 2 will bypass them. Ukraine is distraught because it stands to lose $2 billion annually in transit fees.

The EU is trying to stop Nord Stream 2 by claiming regulatory authority, **which Russia and German dispute, as both Nord Stream 1 and 2 are external pipelines.

The US also opposes the pipeline, as it prefers both EU countries to buy its more costly fracked LNG (liquified natural gas). They have threatened economic sanctions on countries that sign new energy agreements with Russia.

The US also opposed Nord Stream 1 (completed in 1973), fearing it might lead to a closer relationship between West Germany and Russia. Former German chancellor Willy Brandt strongly championed Nord Stream 1, over US objections. He believed trade and detente*** were a preferable strategy for bringing down the Iron Curtain. It now appears he was right.

The filmmakers raise legitimate concerns about Russia investing so heavily in yet more fossil fuel pipelines (Gazprom is also building a pipeline via Turkey to Italy and Greece) in a period when the planet urgently needs to end fossil fuel use altogether.

*On March 3, 2018, Russia announced it was ending fossil fuel contracts with Ukraine altogether, raising grave concerns for countries at the other end of the pipeline. See Russia’s Gazprom to Terminate Gas Contracts with Ukraine

**Detente is a cold war term referring to the easing of strained relations.

 

Biological Warfare: The US Germ Warfare Attack on North Korea in 1952

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Dirty Little Secrets

Al Jazeera (2010)

Film Review

Dirty Little Secrets is about an apparent biological warfare attack against North Korea in January 1952. The attack involved US bombardment of North Korean villages with canisters containing insects infected with typhoid, anthrax, plague and cholera. At least 30 witnesses report seeing insects crawling in the snow next to hollow bomb canisters. Following the attack, many North Koreans died of infectious illnesses that resembled plague and typhoid fever.

The US categorically denies the attack ever happened. North Korea, in turn, insists the US must acknowledge and apologize for this war crime before it agrees to nuclear disarmament.

The evidence compiled by an independent Japanese investigator is pretty damning:

  • Thirty-six US airmen who were shot down and captured, wrote detailed confessions admitting to their participation in the attacks. On their return to the US, they retracted the confessions after being threatened with court martial.
  • Declassified documents from the National Archives reveal the US shielded Shiro Ishii, the Japanese scientist who perfected this method of germ warfare, from war crimes charges after he agreed to sell his secrets to the US.
  • Other declassified documents reveal that in 1947 Fort Dietrick scientists expanded on Ishii’s work using flees and mosquitoes.
  • In 1951 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued an order calling for testing germ war fare under “operational warfare.”
  • An independent international commission (including scientists from France, Italy, Brazil, Sweden, Russia and the UK) investigated after the Korean War ended and produced a 600 page report confirming the attack occurred.

The Telegraph also features an excellent article on the same topic from 2010: Did the US Wage Germ Warfare in Korea

 

Why I’m Not on Facebook

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Why I’m Not on Facebook

Brant Pinvodic (2014)

Film Review

This is a documentary by a father struggling with the decision whether to allow his 13 year old son to join Facebook. After interviewing the Winklevoss twins, who claim to be the true originators of Facebook,* Pinvodik conducts a weird experiment in which a group of young Facebook fanatics construct a glamorous fake profile for him. When he’s instantly bombarded by “friend” requests, he phones a number of his new “friends” and attempts visits them at home. He’s extremely surprised by the number of celebrities who “friend” him, including Roseanne Barr.

He then consults an investigator who demonstrates how easy it is to access our personal information online – even when we aren’t on Facebook. Within minutes the investigator locates Pinvodic’s drivers license number, tax information and Amazon purchases, as well as the school his kids attend.

Pinvodic finishes with an examination of Facebook addiction. In addition to interviewing a teenager who spends 12+ hours a day on Facebook, he visits a psychologist specializing in narcissism. The latter maintains that Facebook appeals to two of the most powerful human emotions: narcissism and insecurity. By making ordinary people feel famous and significant, it enables them to become stars in their own limited universe.

In the end, the filmmaker concludes Facebook has both advantages and drawbacks. It can help people find jobs, kidney donors and long lost friends. On the downside are its addictive potential and the immense amount of personal information it collects for the benefit of US intelligence and corporate advertisers.

*The twins eventually sued Mark Zuckerberg, who currently runs Facebook, and won a $65 million settlement Winklevoss Twins Win Facebook Settlement

China vs the US: The Battle for Oil

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China vs the US: The Battle for Oil

Directed by Jean-Kristophe Klots (2012)

Film Review

The Battle for Oil is about the battle between China and the US over the world’s dwindling oil reserves. Globally China is the second biggest oil consumer – after the US. Owing to its dwindling reserves, they import two-thirds of their oil. High domestic demand for oil leads to periodic power blackouts and long queues at services stations.

China has three state-owned oil companies employing tens of thousands of workers, mainly in London, Singapore, New York. The country’s high demand for oil has led to major investment in African and South American oil producers. Rather than buying barrels of oil, China seeks investment in oil production capacity. Chad, Sudan and other African countries have granted them major oil concessions in return for major infrastructure investment in ports, railroads, telecommunication networks, schools, and clinics.

China’s ability (thanks to immense cash reserves) to invest in massive infrastructure projects gives them significant competitive advantage over western oil companies. As does China’s commitment to absolute non-interference in the host country’s political affairs. This contrasts sharply with western loans. The latter are always accompanied by demands for “democratic” and “human rights” reforms, which turn out to be camouflage for further penetration by Wall Street interests.

In 2005, China freaked out US lawmakers by attempting to take over the American oil company Unocal. Owing to their desire to preserve friendly trade relations, China dropped their Unocal takeover bid and shifted their focus to forging alliances with oil producers hostile to the US, such as Iran, Russia and Venezuela. Much of the current US animosity towards Venezuela stems from growing Chinese investment in their oil industry – a fact rarely mentioned in the mainstream media.