In FTR #1016, we highlighted a story about the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO), formed by Third Reich veterans in 1956. It is now a coalition partner in the government of that unfortunate country. The first head of the party was SS General Anton Reinthaller (pictured at right): ” . . . . Reinthaller was brought before the Austrian People’s Court and accused of ‘high treason against the Austrian people’, with the three [defendants] labelled as being those most responsible for the Anschluss [Nazi Germany’s annexing of Austria–D.E.] . . . .” ” . . . . Reinthaller died in 1958 and was succeeded as Freedom Party leader by Friedrich Peter, another former Nazi Party member and an officer in the SS. Peter ran the party formally until 1978 and then played an informal role well into the 1980s. . . .” “ . . . . Since December, the FPÖ’s Herbert Kickl has been Austria’s interior minister. . . . .The former president of the Viennese Jewish community, Ariel Muzicant, said in 2009 that Kickl’s texts reminded him of Joseph Goebbels. . . . The specific incident that has crystallized wider concerns in the world of espionage and counterespionage as well as counterterror was a series of raids ordered by the far-right interior minister earlier this year on the offices of the professional domestic intelligence chief, whose organization had in the past conducted and coordinated with Germany its surveillance of right-wing extremists. . . .Peter Gridling, known as the stubborn but politically colorless head of the BVT for the last 10 years, was fired several days after the raids. He had been the object of a virulent campaign by the website unzensuriert.at (known as ‘the Austrian Breitbart’). The former editor in chief of unzensuriert.at is now Kickl’s communications director. . . . as one long-time security adviser to several French presidents told The Daily Beast, ‘The Austrian operation against the intelligence service by the ministry of interior had an impact on every other intelligence service in the West.’ . . . ”
As indicated in the title, this show updates some paths of inquiry and introduces others.
Discussion begins with the origins of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO). The party has its genesis with post World War II Third Reich veterans. Its first head was SS General Anton Reinthaller: ” . . . . an honorary Brigadeführer (Major General) in the SS.[1] Having initially joined the SS in December 1938 (with the membership number 292,775)[2] he achieved his highest rank on 30 January 1941. . . . Reinthaller was brought before the Austrian People’s Court and accused of ‘high treason against the Austrian people’, with the three [defendants] labelled as being those most responsible for the Anschluss [Nazi Germany’s annexing of Austria–D.E.] . . . .”
Further analysis of the development of the FPO, notes that the party was founded by Third Reich veterans and Reinthaller’s successor was also an SS officer. ” . . . . The party was founded by the original Nazis in the 1950s and led by Nazis until the 1980s. . . . Reinthaller died in 1958 and was succeeded as Freedom Party leader by Friedrich Peter, another former Nazi Party member and an officer in the SS. Peter ran the party formally until 1978 and then played an informal role well into the 1980s. . . .”
Against the background of the genesis of the FPO, we note that a former speech writer for Jurg Haider is now the interior minister of Austria.
The FPO’s Herbert Kickl is described as the “mastermind” behind the electoral successes of the FPÖ that allowed it to enter into a coalition government.
In March, a police unit headed by a Freedom Party member raided the homes of four staffers and an office of the BVT (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismus Bekämpfung, i.e., Federal Bureau for the Protection of the Constitution and for Counterterrorism). The BVT is the bureau that deals with right-wing extremism.
The head of the BVT was fired several days after the raids. He had been the object of a virulent campaign by a website Unzensuriert.at which is known as “the Austrian Breitbart”. The former editor in chief of unzensuriert.at is now Kickl’s communications director.
As the article points out, having the far right in charge of Austria’s and Italy’s domestic intelligence agencies doesn’t just put the anti-extremist operations of Austria and Italy at risk. Because of data-sharing agreements across Europe, they’re also learning what other intelligence agencies of other European countries (such as Germany) decided to share with Austria and Italy.
Key points of this story include:
1.–” . . . . In Italy, far-right politician Matteo Salvini now serves as head of Italy’s interior ministry, which handles internal security and terrorism. . . . ”
2.–” . . . . In Austria, the specific incident that has crystallized wider concerns in the world of espionage and counterespionage as well as counterterror was a series of raids ordered by the far-right interior minister earlier this year on the offices of the professional domestic intelligence chief, whose organization had in the past conducted and coordinated with Germany its surveillance of right-wing extremists. . . .”
3.–” . . . . as one long-time security adviser to several French presidents told The Daily Beast, ‘The Austrian operation against the intelligence service by the ministry of interior had an impact on every other intelligence service in the West.’ . . . .”
4.–[German politician Andrej] Hunko tells The Daily Beast he is specifically concerned that Kickl and his people would be able to acquire intelligence about leftist activists who oppose right-wing extremism: ‘It is unthinkable what would happen if secret information about anti-fascist activities falls into the hands of the extreme right via Austria’s conservative-far right government.’ . . .”
Jarrod Ramos, the alleged shooter at the Maryland newspaper The Capital Gazette was influenced by a theocratic neo-Confederate ideology espoused by League of the South.
Specifically, Ramos is a believer in the worldview expressed by League of the South leaders Mike Peroutka and Michael Hill, for whom a Biblical fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible is the only REAL law and individuals are empowered enforce their interpretation of Biblical law on their own.
Hill has also called for the formation of death squads to target journalists, elected officials, and other members of “the elite”. Hill has called for young men of “Christendom” to become “citizen-soldiers” to destroy the “galloping tyranny” of our time.
” . . . . The League is a theocratic, secessionist organization whose leader, Michael Hill, had called for the formation of death squads targeting journalists, elected officials and other members of ‘the elite.’ In his essay ‘A Bazooka in Every Pot,’ Hill described such an assassination campaign as part of ‘fourth-generation warfare,’ a style of decentralized conflict that blurs the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians. . . . .”
Mike Peroutka was one of the only politicians Ramos tweeted about (he was supportive of Peroutka). The other politician was Donald Trump.
The author notes a possible pair of events that may have catalyzed the shooting: Three days before the shooting, President Trump once again demonized member of the media as “enemies of the people,” at a big outdoor rally in California. The next day, Mike Peroutka lost his 2018 re-election bid in the Republican primary.
As Ramos’s social media posts reveal, another influence on Ramos is the “Berserk” bloody anime movie. He made numerous references to Berserk in his posts, including the last tweet made minutes before the shooting. He even described himself as playing a role in the world of “Berserk”, a world that includes vigilante “hands of God”.
In FTR #756, we noted the strong overlapping connections between Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Ron Paul and the League of the South.
Ramos appears to have manifested the “lone wolf/leaderless resistance” strategy. ” . . . . ‘Ramos came to see himself as some kind of vigilante for righteousness, casting himself for example as a ‘crusader’ . . . . Political Research Associates analyst Frederick Clarkson told Salon. This vision was ‘not unlike the militaristic, millennial vision of Michael Hill,’ he continued. . . .”
In FTR #888, we noted that Glenn Greenwald ran legal interference for the leaderless resistance strategy, freeing up the likes of Michael Hill from civil liability for their advocacy of mayhem. Greenwald is, in effect, an accessory to the bloodshed allegedly realized by Ramos and others like him.
Next, we turn to the subject of Hindutva fascism. (For more about this subject, see, among other programs, FTR #‘s 988 and 989, 990, 991, 992, and 1015.
In FTR #1015, we highlighted the “cow vigilantes” in India–Hindutva fascist gangs perpetrating violence on Muslims and lower-caste Hindus. WhatsApp is fueling the violence.
The mayor of Jaipur, Ashok Lahoty, shared the rumor about beef being served at the hotel on a BJP WhatsApp group.
It appears that the BJP is behind much of the rumor campaigns as part of its Hindu nationalist agenda. ” . . . . Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has largely remained silent about the problem, and analysts say there’s a reason for that: Much of the fake news now spreading like wildfire has been promoted, if not created, by some of Modi’s most fervent supporters. . . .”
Modi has a well orchestrated machine for disseminating BJP’s fake news: ” . . . . In her book, ‘I am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP’s Digital Army,’ journalist Swati Chaturvedi explains how the party orchestrates online campaigns to intimidate perceived government critics through a network of trolls on Twitter and Facebook. And she cites multiple people who worked inside the BJP’s social media machine to make her case. . . . Chaturvedi’s findings were backed by another former BJP cyber-volunteer, Sadhavi Khosla, who left the party in 2015 because of the constant barrage of misogyny, Islamophobia, and hatred she was asked to disseminate online. And Prodyut Bora, one of the masterminds of the BJP’s early technology and social media strategy, recently offered a similar outlook. He described his creation as ‘Frankenstein’s monster,’ and said that it had morphed from its original aim of better connecting with the party’s supporters. ‘I mean, occasionally, it’s just painful to watch what they have done with it,’ he told HuffPost India last month. . . .”
Turning from the subject of fake news in India to fake news in the U.S., we conclude with a look at what “deep fake” video technology may harbinger.
When the ‘deepfake’ video technology develops to the point of being indistinguishable from real videos, the far right is going to go into overdrive creating videos purporting to prove virtually every far right fantasy you can imagine. Among the memes that might be reinforced by such technology is the ‘PizzaGate’ conspiracy theory pushed by the right wing in the final weeks of the 2016 alleging that Hillary Clinton and number of other prominent Democrats are part of a Satanist child abuse ring.
Right wing polemicist Liz Crokin is repeating her assertions that video of Hillary Clinton – specifically, Hillary sexually abusing and then eating the face of a child is floating around on the Dark Web is definitely real. Crokin is now warning that reports about ‘deepfake’ technology are disinformation stories being preemptively put out by the Deep State to make the public skeptical when the videos of Hillary cutting the face off of a child come to light.
The alleged chemical weapons attack and the response was foreshadowed by Russian chief-of-staff Valery Gerasimov a month before the alleged attack!
Veteran journalist Robert Fisk has written in The London Independent that there was no chemical weapons attack at all. Rather, Fisk wrote, a strong wind kicked up a dust storm in the ruins of the bombed city and that cloud caused respiratory problems in refugees sheltering in underground clinics. ” . . . . A few days ago, Fisk visited the Syrian town of Douma and spoke to a doctor, who works in a subterranean clinic, in which victims of the alleged April 7th gas attack were being treated. The doctor explained that on that day a strong wind blew a huge dust cloud into the city’s destroyed basements and cellars where numerous people were seeking refuge. Many were therefore suffering from acute oxygen loss and came for treatment to his clinic. ‘Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet,’ shouted ‘Gas!,’ and a panic began.’ This can be seen on a video being used in the West as ‘proof’ for the use of poison-gas.[1] . . . ” The Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Barzah, destroyed in the Western retaliatory strike, does not appear to have been a chemical weapons production facility at all: ” . . . . It has also become known that the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Barzah, which was destroyed during Saturday’s air strikes, had been inspected last November by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). According to the OPCW, the SSRC had not served for research on chemical weapons, as has been alleged to justify the bombings. On the contrary, the Organization found no suspicious substances, nor did it observe any suspicious activities, according to its report that was published on March 23 — three weeks before the bombing.[2] . . . .”
The White Helmets–at the center of the chemical weapons attack charges–have been financed by elements of Western intelligence: ” . . . . Reporter and author Max Blumenthal has tracked the role of the White Helmets in the Syrian conflict. He reported that the White Helmets were created in Turkey by James Le Mesurier, a former British MI5 agent. The group has received at least $55 million from the British Foreign Office and $23 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development as well as millions from the Kingdom of Qatar, which has backed a variety of extremist groups in Syria including Al Qaeda. . . .”
Continuing coverage of the re-emergence of fascism in Ukraine, this program highlights the Orwellian aspects of governance in Ukraine and the coverage of events there by the world’s media.
Ukraine recently held a nation-wide minute of silence for Symon Petliura (as with other Ukrainian names, the spelling of his name is subject to varying transliteration.) In the immediate post-World War I period, Petliura’s armies butchered some 50,000 Jews. Also stunning, though predictable under the circumstances, is the Poroshenko government’s renaming of streets for Nazi collaborators Stephan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych. This has received scant, and altogether slanted coverage in the West, with Bandera’s well-documented alliance with Hitler being nuanced as “Kremlin propaganda.” It is now illegal in Ukraine to criticize Bandera, Shukhevych, the OUN/B or its military arm the UPA as having collaborated with the Nazis.
The institutionalized masking of the true nature of the Ukrainian government continues apace, with U.N. observers barred from investigating torture by government forces in the civil war that simmers in the East, the branding of reporters covering the war as “terrorists” and the publication of their addresses by a pro-government website, and the publication by “The New York Times” of an apparently fraudulent claim of Russian masking of the presence of Buk missiles in Eastern Ukraine.
Exemplifying the cover-up of the fascist nature of Ukraine is a piece from “The Huffington Post” that dismisses the verifiable Nazi nature of the Azov battalion as–once again–Kremlin propaganda. The source for the disinformation about Azov is Roman Zvarych, the former personal secretary to Jaroslav Stetsko, the head of Ukraine’s World War II collaborationist government.
Program Highlights Include: the Dutch intelligence service’s disclosure that only the Ukrainian army had missiles capable of downing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17; the use of the “punisher battalions” (such as Azov) by the Ukrainian government to circumvent Minsk II; the tainting of evidence in the investigation of the downing of MH-17 by the corrupt nature of the SBU (Ukrainian intelligence); the trafficking in stolen art by Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the former head of the SBU.
Karl Rove’s American Crossroads organization has been channeling money to Bernie Sanders’ campaign. This, alone, should make thinking people ask serious questions about Saint Bernard. Other questions the Sanderistas are not asking include: why has Sanders been cited by the Federal Elections Commission three times?; why haven’t the media asked questions about his Communist/radical past, including serving as a Presidential elector for the Trotskyite Socialist Workers’ Party in 1980; just what was his wife’s role in the collapse of Burlington College?; why has Sanders been so reluctant to release his tax information?; why is he repeating the GOP theme of Hillary as “a liar?;” why is Graham E. Fuller, a prominent advocate of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islam promoting Bernie Sanders? All of the contents of this website as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 35+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of videotaped lectures are available on a 32GB flash drive. Dave offers his programs and articles for free–your support is very much appreciated.
QUICK: Who said this?: “ ‘It seems like the [United States Dollar] and [Great Britain’s Pound] are both likely to go the way of the zimbabwe dollar,’ he suggested in March 2009. ‘Especially with that cockbag Bernanke deciding to magically print 1.2T more dollars.’ . . . Obama was ‘planning to devalue the currency absolutely as fast as theoretically possible,’ he wrote. . . .” Ted Cruz? Donald Trump? Marco Rubio? Paul Ryan? Rand Paul? No, it is Edward Snowden. Note how this jibes with Paul Krugman’s description of the GOP primary field: ” . . . . After all, Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, not only berated Ben Bernanke, Ms. Yellen’s predecessor, for policies that allegedly risked inflation (which never materialized), but he also dabbled in conspiracy theorizing, accusing Mr. Bernanke of acting to “bail out fiscal policy.” . . . But Wall Street isn’t the only source of malign pressure on the Fed, and in the actually existing U.S. political situation, such a bill would essentially empower the cranks — the gold-standard-loving, hyperinflation-is-coming types who dominate the modern G.O.P., and have spent the past five or six years trying to bully monetary policy makers into ceasing and desisting from their efforts to prevent economic disaster.” This program highlights the far-right, fascistic forces underlying Eddie the Friendly Spook. Much of the program consists of excerpts of past programs, stretching back to the late 1990’s. The electronic “vacuum cleaner” approach of NSA and GCHQ has been on the public record for years. In the 1990’s NSA, GCHQ and the ECHELON/Five Eyes network came under joint assault by Germany and the Free Congress Foundation. The latter is very close to Nazi alumni of the Third Reich, the OUN/B in particular, and is an element deeply involved in projecting the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations back into the former U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe. GOP bigwig Grover Norquist has been a vociferous opponent of NSA spying, as well as shepherding Muslim Brotherhood-linked elements in the United States. Program Highlights Include: Mr. Emory’s first post on “L’Affaire Snowden,” in which he wondered aloud what all the fuss was about, since this has been on the public record for years; review of the fact that other European countries do the same thing as NSA/GCHQ; Review of Snowden’s views on Social Security: ” . . . Snowden wrote that the elderly ‘wouldn’t be fucking helpless if you weren’t sending them fucking checks to sit on their ass and lay in hospitals all day.’ ”
Before we turn to continuing analysis of “The Earth Island Boogie” in succeeding programs, we set the stage by updating events in Ukraine. To the surprise of no one, the OUN/B heirs in power in Ukraine have not indicted anyone in the burning alive of 42 pro-Russian demonstrators in Odessa in May of 2014. The Ukrainian “counter-terrorist” forces are inextricably linked with the OUN/B heirs in government and the perpetrators of the act. Failure of governance is taking its toll on the Ukrainian populace, expressed by support for OUN/B‑style fascists such as Svoboda in Western Ukraine, support for the political forces grouped around the corrupt former president Victor Yanukovych in the eastern and southern parts of the country and the election to the Odessa city council of a politician who assumed the name of a Star Wars villain. In response to growing criticism of the Ukrainian situation, the EU is implementing an information warfare program directed not only at EU members in Eastern Europe but in Russia as well. A primary theoretical influence on the information warfare the EU is conducting appears to be former Wehrmacht general Wolf Stefan Traugott Graf von Baudissin, who served on Rommel’s staff during World War II. Program Highlights Include: the effect of anti-Russian sentiment expressed by the Maidan coupsters on the population of the Eastern part of the country; the effect of the war waged by the Ukrainian government on public sentiment in the east; the overwhelming probability that hard intelligence on the shootdown of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 does not support the “Putin/Separatists did it” line; discussion of the long-standing sentiment on the part of Crimeans for re-unification with Russia; von Baudissin’s role in the re-institution of Nazi forces in the postwar German military.
In the wake of the terrorist incidents in Paris, discussion has pointedly omitted the perpetrators’ links to the Muslim Brotherhood–the Islamic fascist organization that spawned groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Portrayed in the West as a “moderate’ organization, the Muslim Brotherhood was allied with the Axis in World War II and nurtured as anti-communist cadre by Western Intelligence (CIA in particular) during the Cold War. Successfully scapegoated by European fascist groups like the National Front, elements of the Brotherhood network with those same fascists, mutually benefitting from cultural and political alienation generated among their respective supporters. Much of the program reviews and details the corporatist and free market economic philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood, an ideology that endears the Ikhwan to powerful political and economic interests in the U.S. and elsewhere in the West. Brotherhood elements continue to be used as proxy warriors by elements of Western and Saudi intelligence in places like the Caucasus and China’s Xinjiang Province.
In FTR #781, we noted that Viktor Yuschenko–married to top OUN/B official and Reagan Deputy Director of Presidential Liaison Ykaterina Chumachenko–institutionalized the Bandera political cadre, rewriting Ukrainian World War II history and paving the way for the rise of Swoboda and Pravy Sektor. We now learn that “new” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has reconstituted the old Yuschenko team, including American-born Roman Svarych, Yuschenko’s Minister of Justice and the personal secretary to OUN/B leader Yaroslav Stetsko in the early 1980’s.
With the U.S. and Germany respectively playing Bad Cop (military aid and sanctions) and Good Cop (economic aid and resistance to further sanctions at the behest of key German corporations invested in Russia), the follow-up to the covert operation resulting in the coup d’etat of early 2014 is proceeding apace. German industry–surprise, surprise–plans to modernize Ukrainian industries and establish subcontracting arrangements to build automobiles in that cheap labor market. This will be coupled by the austerity doctrine we have termed “Von Clausewitzian economics.”
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