{"id":191041,"date":"2019-07-05T07:20:12","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T07:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=191041"},"modified":"2019-07-09T06:46:30","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T06:46:30","slug":"the-plot-to-keep-jeremy-corbyn-out-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=191041","title":{"rendered":"The Plot to Keep Jeremy Corbyn Out of Power"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Cook \u2013 The Unz Review July 4, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Jeremy Corbyn. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

In the latest of the interminable media \u201cfurores\u201d about Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s supposed unfitness to lead Britain\u2019s Labour party \u2013 let alone become prime minister \u2013 it is easy to forget where we were shortly before he won the support of an overwhelming majority of Labour members to head the party.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the preceding two years, it was hard to avoid on TV the figure of Russell Brand, a comedian and minor film star who had reinvented himself, after years of battling addiction, as a spiritual guru-cum-political revolutionary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brand\u2019s fast-talking, plain-speaking criticism of the existing political order, calling it discredited, unaccountable and unrepresentative, was greeted with smirking condescension by the political and media establishment. Nonetheless, in an era before Donald Trump had become president of the United States, the British media were happy to indulge Brand for a while, seemingly believing he or his ideas might prove a ratings winner with younger audiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Brand started to look rather more impressive than anyone could have imagined. He took on supposed media heavyweights like the BBC\u2019s Jeremy Paxman<\/strong><\/span><\/a> and Channel 4\u2019s Jon Snow<\/strong><\/span><\/a> and charmed and shamed them into submission \u2013 both with his compassion and his thoughtful radicalism. Even in the gladiatorial-style battle of wits so beloved of modern TV, he made these titans of the political interview look mediocre, shallow and out of touch. Videos of these head-to-heads went viral, and Brand won hundreds of thousands of new followers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then he overstepped the mark.<\/span><\/p>\n

Democracy as charade<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Instead of simply criticising the political system, Brand argued that it was in fact so rigged by the powerful, by corporate interests, that western democracy had become a charade. Elections were pointless<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. Our votes were simply a fig-leaf, concealing the fact that our political leaders were there to represent not us but the interests of globe-spanning corporations. Political and media elites had been captured by unshored corporate money. Our voices had become irrelevant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brand didn\u2019t just talk the talk. He started committing to direct action. He shamed<\/strong><\/span><\/a> our do-nothing politicians and corporate media \u2013 the devastating Grenfell Tower fire had yet to happen \u2013 by helping to gain attention for a group of poor tenants in London who were taking on the might of a corporation that had become their landlord and wanted to evict them to develop their homes for a much richer clientele. Brand\u2019s revolutionary words had turned into revolutionary action.<\/span><\/p>\n

But just as Brand\u2019s rejection of the old politics began to articulate a wider mood, it was stopped in its tracks. After Corbyn was unexpectedly elected Labour leader, offering for the first time in living memory a politics that listened to people before money, Brand\u2019s style of rejectionism looked a little too cynical, or at least premature.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Corbyn\u2019s victory marked a sea-change, it is worth recalling, however, that it occurred only because of a mistake. Or perhaps two.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Corbyn accident<\/strong><\/h2>\n

First, a handful of Labour MPs agreed to nominate Corbyn for the leadership contest, scraping him past the threshold needed to get on the ballot paper. Most backed him only because they wanted to give the impression of an election that was fair and open. After his victory, some loudly regretted<\/a><\/strong><\/span> having assisted him. None had thought a representative of the tiny and besieged left wing of the parliamentary party stood a chance of winning \u2013 not after Tony Blair and his acolytes had spent more than two decades remaking Labour, using their own version of entryism to eradicate any vestiges of socialism in the party. These \u201cNew Labour\u201d MPs were there, just as Brand had noted, to represent the interests of a corporate class, not ordinary people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Corbyn had very different ideas from most of his colleagues. Over the years he had broken with the consensus of the dominant Blairite faction time and again in parliamentary votes, consistently taking a minority view that later proved to be on the right side of history<\/a><\/strong><\/span>. He alone among the leadership contenders spoke unequivocally against austerity, regarding it as a way to leech away more public money to enrich the corporations and banks that had already pocketed vast sums from the public coffers \u2013 so much so that by 2008 they had nearly bankrupted the entire western economic system.<\/span><\/p>\n

And second, Corbyn won because of a recent change in the party\u2019s rulebook \u2013 one now much regretted by party managers. A new internal balloting system gave more weight to the votes of ordinary members than the parliamentary party. The members, unlike the party machine, wanted Corbyn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Corbyn\u2019s success didn\u2019t really prove Brand wrong. Even the best designed systems have flaws, especially when the maintenance of the system\u2019s image as benevolent is considered vitally important. It wasn\u2019t that Corbyn\u2019s election had shown Britain\u2019s political system was representative and accountable. It was simply evidence that corporate power had made itself vulnerable to a potential accident by preferring to work out of sight, in the shadows, to maintain the illusion of democracy. Corbyn was that accident.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Brainwashing under freedom\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Corbyn\u2019s success also wasn\u2019t evidence that the power structure he challenged had weakened. The system was still in place and it still had a chokehold on the political and media establishments that exist to uphold its interests. Which is why it has been mobilising these forces endlessly to damage Corbyn and avert the risk of a further, even more disastrous \u201caccident\u201d, such as his becoming prime minister.<\/span><\/p>\n

Listing the ways the state-corporate media have sought to undermine Corbyn would sound preposterous to anyone not deeply immersed in these media-constructed narratives. But almost all of us have been exposed to this kind of \u201cbrainwashing under freedom<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u201d since birth.<\/span><\/p>\n

The initial attacks on Corbyn were for being poorly dressed, sexist, unstatesmanlike, a national security threat, a Communist spy \u2013 relentless, unsubstantiated smears the like of which no other party leader had ever faced. But over time the allegations became even more outrageously propagandistic as the campaign to undermine him not only failed but backfired \u2013 not least, because Labour membership rocketed under Corbyn to make the party the largest in Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the establishment\u2019s need to keep him away from power has grown more urgent and desperate so has the nature of the attacks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Redefining anti-semitism<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Corbyn was extremely unusual in many ways as the leader of a western party within sight of power. Personally he was self-effacing and lived modestly. Ideologically he was resolutely against the thrust of four decades of a turbo-charged neoliberal capitalism unleashed by Thatcher and Reagan in the early 1980s; and he opposed foreign wars for empire, fashionable \u201chumanitarian interventions\u201d whose real goal was to attack other sovereign states either to control their resources, usually oil, or line the pockets of the military-industrial complex.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was difficult to attack Corbyn directly for these positions. There was the danger that they might prove popular with voters. But Corbyn was seen to have an Achilles\u2019 heel. He was a life-long anti-racism activist and well known for his support for the rights of the long-suffering Palestinians. The political and media establishments quickly learnt that they could recharacterise his support for the Palestinians and criticism of Israel as anti-semitism. He was soon being presented as a leader happy to preside over an \u201cinstitutionally\u201d anti-semitic party.<\/span><\/p>\n

Under pressure of these attacks, Labour was forced to adopt a new and highly controversial definition of anti-semitism \u2013 one rejected<\/strong><\/span><\/a> by leading jurists and later repudiated<\/strong><\/span><\/a> by the lawyer who devised it \u2013 that expressly conflates criticism of Israel, and anti-Zionism, with Jew hatred. One by one Corbyn\u2019s few ideological allies in the party \u2013 those outside the Blairite consensus \u2013 have been picked off as anti-semites. They have either fallen foul of this conflation or, as with Labour MP Chris Williamson, they have been tarred and feathered for trying to defend Labour\u2019s record against the accusations of a supposed endemic anti-semitism in its ranks.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bad faith of the anti-semitism smears were particularly clear in relation to Williamson. The comment that plunged him into so much trouble \u2013 now leading twice to his suspension \u2013 was videoed. In it he can be heard calling anti-semitism a \u201cscourge\u201d that must be confronted. But also, in line with all evidence<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, Williamson denied that Labour had any particular anti-semitism problem. In part he blamed the party for being too ready to concede unwarranted ground to critics, further stoking the attacks and smears. He noted that Labour had been \u201cdemonised as a racist, bigoted party\u201d, adding: \u201cOur party\u2019s response has been partly responsible for that because in my opinion \u2026 we\u2019ve backed off far too much, we have given too much ground, we\u2019ve been too apologetic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Guardian has been typical in mischaracterising Williamson\u2019s remarks not once but each time it has covered developments in his case. Every Guardian report<\/strong><\/span><\/a> has stated, against the audible evidence, that Williamson said Labour was \u201ctoo apologetic about anti-semitism\u201d. In short, the Guardian and the rest of the media have insinuated that Williamson approves of anti-semitism. But what he actually said was that Labour was \u201ctoo apologetic\u201d when dealing with unfair or unreasonable allegations of anti-semitism, that it had too willingly accepted the unfounded premise of its critics that the party condoned racism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like the Salem witch-hunts<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The McCarthyite nature of this process of misrepresentation and guilt by association was underscored when Jewish Voice for Labour, a group of Jewish party members who have defended Corbyn against the anti-semitism smears, voiced their support for Williamson. Jon Lansman, a founder of the Momentum group originally close to Corbyn, turned on the JVL calling<\/strong><\/span><\/a> them \u201cpart of the problem and not part of the solution to antisemitism in the Labour Party\u201d. In an additional, ugly but increasingly normalised remark, he added: \u201cNeither the vast majority of individual members of JVL nor the organisation itself can really be said to be part of the Jewish community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In this febrile atmosphere, Corbyn\u2019s allies have been required to confess that the party is institutionally anti-semitic, to distance themselves from Corbyn and often to submit to anti-semitism training. To do otherwise, to deny the accusation is, as in the Salem witch-hunts, treated as proof of guilt.<\/span><\/p>\n

The anti-semitism claims have been regurgitated almost daily across the narrow corporate media \u201cspectrum\u201d, even though they are unsupported by any actual evidence<\/a><\/strong><\/span> of an anti-semitism problem in Labour beyond a marginal one representative of wider British society. The allegations have reached such fever-pitch, stoked into a hysteria by the media, that the party is now under investigation<\/strong><\/span><\/a> by the Equality and Human Rights Commission \u2013 the only party apart from the neo-Nazi British National Party ever to face such an investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n

These attacks have transformed the whole discursive landscape on Israel, the Palestinians, Zionism and anti-semitism in ways unimaginable 20 years ago, when I first started reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then the claim that anti-Zionism \u2013 opposition to Israel as a state privileging Jews over non-Jews \u2013 was the same as anti-semitism sounded patently ridiculous. It was an idea promoted only by the most unhinged apologists for Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, however, we have leading liberal commentators such as the Guardian\u2019s Jonathan Freedland claiming<\/a> not only that Israel is integral to their Jewish identity but that they speak for all other Jews in making such an identification. To criticise Israel is to attack them as Jews, and by implication to attack all Jews. And therefore any Jew dissenting from this consensus, any Jew identifying as anti-Zionist, any Jew in Labour who supports Corbyn \u2013 and there are many, even if they are largely ignored \u2013 are denounced, in line with Lansman, as the \u201cwrong kind of Jews\u201d. It may be absurd logic, but such ideas are now so commonplace as to be unremarkable.<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, the weaponisation of anti-semitism against Corbyn has become so normal that, even while I was writing this post, a new nadir was reached. Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary who hopes to defeat Boris Johnson in the upcoming Tory leadership race, as good as accused<\/a><\/strong><\/span> Corbyn of being a new Hitler, a man who as prime minister might allow Jews to be exterminated, just as occurred in the Nazi death camps.<\/span><\/p>\n

Too \u2018frail\u2019 to be PM<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Although anti-semitism has become the favoured stick with which to beat Corbyn, other forms of attack regularly surface. The latest are comments by unnamed \u201csenior civil servants\u201d reported in the Times alleging<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that Corbyn is too physically frail and mentally ill-equipped to grasp the details necessary to serve as prime minister. It barely matters whether the comment was actually made by a senior official or simply concocted by the Times. It is yet further evidence of the political and media establishments\u2019 anti-democratic efforts to discredit Corbyn as a general election looms.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the ironies is that media critics of Corbyn regularly accuse him of failing to make any political capital from the shambolic disarray of the ruling Conservative party, which is eating itself alive over the terms of Brexit, Britain\u2019s imminent departure from the European Union. But it is the corporate media \u2013 which serves both as society\u2019s main forum of debate and as a supposed watchdog on power \u2013 that is starkly failing to hold the Tories to account. While the media obsess about Corbyn\u2019s supposed mental deficiencies, they have smoothed the path of Boris Johnson, a man who personifies the word \u201cbuffoon\u201d like no one else in political life, to become the new leader of the Conservative party and therefore by default \u2013 and without an election \u2013 the next prime minister.<\/span><\/p>\n

An indication of how the relentless character assassination of Corbyn is being coordinated was hinted at early on, months after his election as Labour leader in 2015. A British military general told the Times<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, again anonymously, that there would be \u201cdirect action\u201d \u2013 what he also termed a \u201cmutiny\u201d \u2013 by the armed forces should Corbyn ever get in sight of power. The generals, he said, regarded Corbyn as a national security threat and would use any means, \u201cfair or foul\u201d, to prevent him implementing his political programme.<\/span><\/p>\n

Running the gauntlet<\/strong><\/h2>\n

But this campaign of domestic attacks on Corbyn needs to be understood in a still wider framework, which relates to Britain\u2019s abiding Transatlantic \u201cspecial relationship\u201d, one that in reality means that the UK serves as Robin to the United States\u2019 Batman, or as a very junior partner to the global hegemon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last month a private conversation concerning Corbyn between the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the heads of a handful of rightwing American Jewish organisations was leaked. Contrary to the refrain of the UK corporate media that Corbyn is so absurd a figure that he could never win an election, the fear expressed on both sides of that Washington conversation was that the Labour leader might soon become Britain\u2019s prime minister.<\/span><\/p>\n

Framing Corbyn yet again as an anti-semite, a US Jewish leader could be heard asking Pompeo if he would be \u201cwilling to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK\u201d. Pompeo responded<\/a><\/strong><\/span> that it was possible \u201cMr Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected\u201d \u2013 a telling phrase that attracted remarkably little attention, as did the story itself, given that it revealed one of the most senior Trump administration officials explicitly talking about meddling directly in the outcome of a UK election.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is the dictionary definition of \u201crun the gauntlet\u201d: to take part in a form of corporal punishment in which the party judged guilty is forced to run between two rows of soldiers, who strike out and attack him.<\/span><\/p>\n

So Pompeo was suggesting that there already is a gauntlet \u2013 systematic and organised blows and strikes against Corbyn \u2013 that he is being made to run through. In fact, \u201crunning the gauntlet\u201d precisely describes the experience Corbyn has faced since he was elected Labour leader \u2013 from the corporate media, from the dominant Blairite faction of his own party, from rightwing, pro-Israel Jewish organisations like the Board of Deputies, and from anonymous generals and senior civil servants.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018We cheated, we stole\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Pompeo continued: \u201cYou should know, we won\u2019t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It\u2019s too risky and too important and too hard once it\u2019s already happened.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

So, Washington\u2019s view is that action must be taken before<\/em> Corbyn reaches a position of power. To avoid any danger he might become the UK\u2019s next prime minister, the US will do its \u201clevel best\u201d to \u201cpush back\u201d. Assuming that this hasn\u2019t suddenly become the US administration\u2019s priority, how much time does the US think it has before Corbyn might win power? How close is a UK election?<\/span><\/p>\n

As everyone in Washington is only too keenly aware, a UK election has been a distinct possiblity since the Conservatives set up a minority goverment two years ago with the help of fickle, hardline Ulster loyalists. Elections have been looming ever since, as the UK ruling party has torn itself apart over Brexit, its MPs regularly defeating their own leader, prime minister Theresa May, in parliamentary votes.<\/span><\/p>\n

So if Pompeo is saying, as he appears to be, that the US will do whatever it can to make sure Corbyn doesn\u2019t win an election well before that election takes place, it means the US is already deeply mired in anti-Corbyn activity. Pompeo is not only saying that the US is ready to meddle in the UK\u2019s election, which is bad enough; he is hinting that it is already meddling in UK politics to make sure the will of the British people does not bring to power the wrong leader.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember that Pompeo, a former CIA director, once effectively America\u2019s spy chief, was unusually frank about what his agency got up to when he was in charge. He observed<\/strong><\/span><\/a>: \u201cI was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It\u2019s \u2013 it was like \u2013 we had entire training courses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One would have to be remarkably naive to think that Pompeo changed the CIA\u2019s culture during his short tenure. He simply became the figurehead of the world\u2019s most powerful spying outfit, one that had spent decades developing the principles of US exceptionalism, that had lied its way to recent wars in Iraq and Libya, as it had done earlier in Vietnam and in justifying the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, and much more. Black ops and psyops were not invented by Pompeo. They have long been a mainstay of US foreign policy.<\/span><\/p>\n

An eroding consensus<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It takes a determined refusal to join the dots not to see a clear pattern here.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brand was right that the system is rigged, that our political and media elites are captured, and that the power structure of our societies will defend itself by all means possible, \u201cfair or foul\u201d. Corbyn is far from alone in this treatment. The system is similarly rigged to stop a democratic socialist like Bernie Sanders \u2013 though not a rich businessman like Donald Trump \u2013 winning the nomination for the US presidential race. It is also rigged to silence real journalists like Julian Assange who are trying to overturn the access journalism prized by the corporate media \u2013 with its reliance on official sources and insiders for stories \u2013 to divulge the secrets of the national security states we live in.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is a conspiracy at work here, though it is not of the kind lampooned by critics: a small cabal of the rich secretly pullng the strings of our societies. The conspiracy operates at an institutional level, one that has evolved over time to create structures and refine and entrench values that keep power and wealth in the hands of the few. In that sense we are all part of the conspiracy. It is a conspiracy that embraces us every time we unquestioningly accept the \u201cconsensual\u201d narratives laid out for us by our education systems, politicians and media. Our minds have been occupied with myths, fears and narratives that turned us into the turkeys that keep voting for Christmas.<\/span><\/p>\n

That system is not impregnable, however. The consensus so carefully constructed over many decades is rapidly breaking down as the power structure that underpins it is forced to grapple with real-world problems it is entirely unsuited to resolve, such as the gradual collapse of western economies premised on infinite growth and a climate that is fighting back against our insatiable appetite for the planet\u2019s resources.<\/span><\/p>\n

As long as we colluded in the manufactured consensus of western societies, the system operated without challenge or meaningful dissent. A deeply ideological system destroying the planet was treated as if it was natural, immutable, the summit of human progress, the end of history. Those times are over. Accidents like Corbyn will happen more frequently, as will extreme climate events and economic crises. The power structures in place to prevent such accidents will by necessity grow more ham-fisted, more belligerent, less concealed to get their way. And we might finally understand that a system designed to pacify us while a few grow rich at the expense of our children\u2019s future and our own does not have to continue. That we can raise our voices and loudly say: \u201cNo!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Corbyn\u2019s stance on Zionism has made him enemies and the relentless demonising of him is a measure of the extent of Zionist influence in British domestic politics <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-191041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=191041"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191078,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191041\/revisions\/191078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=191041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=191041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=191041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}