British taxpayers paid for red-baiting Jeremy Corbyn

Americans may not be aware that the anti-Russia propaganda in the U.K. is at least as bad, if not worse, than it is in the U.S. It now turns out that the propaganda effort is both taxpayer funded, and definitively partisan.

The Institute for Statecraft, based in Fife, received hundreds of thousands of pounds in Foreign Office money.
...But its official Twitter feed retweeted anti-Corbyn messages such as the one calling the Labour leader a “useful idiot”. It added: “His open visceral anti-westernism helped the Kremlin cause, as surely as if he had been secretly peddling Westminster tittle-tattle for money.”
Other messages targeted Corbyn’s chief aide, Seumas Milne. The Institute for Statecraft retweeted a newspaper report that said: “Milne is not a spy – that would be beneath him. But what he has done, wittingly or unwittingly, is work with the Kremlin agenda.”

The overwhelming media bias against Corbyn is well-documented, and U.K. voters recognized the bias years ago, but this is the first time that we see government funds used to slander a major party leader.
The reason for this slander is obvious: Corbyn is consistently anti-war, and the effort to "counter Russian disinformation" is de facto warmongering. Anyone who is pro-peace risks being labeled a Putin Puppet in this political atmosphere.
Corbyn's support for the Palestinian people has also earned him a global smear campaign organized by the Israeli government.

Despite all this taxpayer money and effort, Corbyn could become PM in a matter of months anyway.
SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is ready to work with Corbyn against the Tory government.

Nicola Sturgeon has appealed to Jeremy Corbyn "work together" to topple Theresa May's government after a crucial vote on the prime minister's Brexit deal was abandoned, promising the SNP will support a motion of no confidence if it is tabled by Labour.

The Scottish first minister said delaying the vote was "pathetic cowardice" and vowed that her party would stand with Labour if it follows through with its plan to bring down the government with a confidence vote on Tuesday.

While Labour gained an ally, the Tories are at risk of losing the DUP, both developments point toward a new election and leaves Labour in a very good position.

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well, my title was stretching it a little to fit with the title of the article

well, maybe not too much

if wealthy make globs of money by influencing the political system which among other things gives them tax breaks, it is as if the govt is subsidizing the right wing

How US billionaires are fuelling the hard-right cause in Britain

George Monbiot article

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@DonMidwest

And, in the US in many cases, they ARE government. Most people in the SUS enate are millionaires or hope to become millionaires via speaking engagements and book fees that are likely to come to them because of their status. And Pelosi and Issa are examples of very wealthy people in the House.

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dystopian's picture

See the Skirpal fairy tale to see how Russaphobia is alive and well in the U.K. It is a real neat story, where the beginning, middle, and end, keep changing.

But we get to pay for the jet fuel and refueling of Saudi and UAE jets to commit war crimes in Yemen. We are so exceptional.

Institute for Statecraft? As in Wise Use Movement or Moral Majority? How 'bout Inst. for state propaganda?

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

It's not only Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the SNP who is backing Jeremy Corbyn.

The Liberal Democrats are on board. So is Plaid Cymru from Wales.

AND....The DUP from Northern Ireland who has given Teresa May her slim and now threatened majority. I haven't see what Sinn Fein's position is yet.

This coalition has the members necessary to form a government.

Hysteria and panic are surely the biggest emotions among the ruling class. That's my guess. Not a fact.

Nicola and Jeremy rarely affirm their connection in public. There is a Scottish Labour party and Scottish Tory Party but they have very few representatives in Scotland. (On the POLICY level, which is the level that interests me the most, Nicola and Jeremy are very similar.)

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NYCVG

@NYCVG

The Scottish Tories did well in the last election, Labour voters seem to have gone to the SNP so it will be a good fit.

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It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. Carl Sagan

@chambord true. The SNP lost about 15 seats after the failure of the referendum in 2014 to allow Independence for Scotland. Some to Scottish Labour and some to Scottish Tories. It's a tangled web.

The SNP still hopes for Indyref #2 where the increasingly wakened public will find the courage to vote for Independence.

My heart is with the SNP.

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NYCVG

the biggest threat to world peace since at least Truman, if not before. Truman at least subsidized, if not paid for, France's war in Vietnam before we adopted it and created the CIA. Sure, he said the CIA was a mistake, but, if Obama taught me anything, it was that talk is indeed cheap. In the US, though, talk may be cheap, even free, to the speaker, but it often buys the speaker a lot. Even--especially--Presidency of the United States.

That is my reaction to the following excerpt from from a source cited in the OP:

US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize four years ago. Today, the country he leads is seen — according to a new poll — as the biggest threat to world peace.

BTW, as the world mocked the Nobel Committee for honoring Obama that way, one of its members allowed as how the award was sometimes "aspirational." When Obama refused it, directing the money to charity (which raises interesting federal tax questions), the entire world should have reacted in unison with "Uh oh." Maybe the Committee ought to re-think the aspirational bit, unless it wants to become a total laughingstock. But, I digress.....

Of course, fairness to Obama goes both ways:

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act. Now what?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/02/president-obama-signed-...

While I tend to associate the word "propaganda" with statements that are misleading, if not flat out false, propaganda can be comprised of true statements and/or false ones. Of course, every government propagandizes its citizens, especially in war time. I imagine that's been so since cave people had leaders. especially if the cave people wanted to make competition in buffalo hunts a casus belli. Heck, there's even propaganda in the locker room from coach to team. Besides that, when has any government ever been in trouble for telling its citizenry the truth?

Hmmmm?

How much we USians take lying down is mind-boggling. Then again, what is our realistic alternative?

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snoopydawg's picture

@HenryAWallace

if Obama taught me anything, it was that talk is indeed cheap

Obama won the Nobel prize just because he wasn't Bush. His speech made me very nervous about where he was going to lead the country. Saying that MLK wouldn't understand why the country had to be the biggest warmongering one was beyond disgusting. Obama doesn't have an ounce of integrity that MLK had.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people..

I think that MLK knew exactly what the world was like.

The National Defense Authorization Act greatly expands the power and scope of the federal government to fight the War on Terror, including codifying into law the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without trial. Under the new law the US military has the power to carry out domestic anti-terrorism operations on US soil.

"Obama's signing statement seems to suggest he already believe he has the authority to indefinitely detain Americans—he just never intends to use it,"

Why wouldn't he think that he already had the power to do that? Didn't he think that he had the power to kill any Americans without due process? Wars abroad have a tendency to make their way home. Giving any person this much power is wrong. The woman in Wink's video spoke about FEMA camps which people think are just conspiracy theory. Think again. Read up on the law as it's written and the executive orders that have been put in place for when martial law is declared.

People already were unconstitutionally arrested and detained during Obama's tenure we just didn't know about it. I've been working on an essay on this and will post it soon.

MLK said that "this country is the biggest purveyor of violence" and he was right. When the Cold War ended the country had a choice. Peace or War? It made the wrong one.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

not in a world where Jim Crow had been upheld by the Supreme Court and was still governing law in a good chunk of America. And where no law was needed to stop black people from voting.

Not only that, but Obama did not grow up in Jim Crow Georgia, not integrated until then Governor Carter, btw) but in multiracial Hawaii. I'm sure that even there, someone who looked like Obama was not common. And, as the battles between Korean Americans and African Americans in New York show, one minority is perfectly capable of being ugly to another minority. Still, what MLK, Jr. lived with--until someone saw to it that he stopped living--was so much more difficult than what Obama grew up with. And yet, MLK, Jr. remained steadfastly non violent and pro justice for all, as stated in our bizarre pledge of allegiance to a flag. The same is true of MLK Jr.'s role model Gandhi.

Funnily enough, Gandhi's inspiration, in turn, was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who spent all of one night in jail for his protext failure to pay taxes. Someone bailed him out and that was the end of that. Yet, look what his example led to. Talk about ripples!

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@HenryAWallace

Thoreau went to jail, Emerson bailed him out by paying his war tax. Thoreau was sorta grateful but mostly grumpy about it.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

mimi's picture

became known in his campaign and later on, that he had no clue about Europe and Africa. It was all in his first book. All that tells me is that the American voters at that time just wanted to forget the Bushes. Rightfully so. And they wanted to feel good about themselves and prove that they could support a black man. Now the dreamers woke up. That's life. You sleep and dream and then it's over for the day, til you sleep and dream again. Sometimes one wouldn't want to wake up though. Every morning I wished I had not woke up.

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@mimi

no matter what. Poppy had retired and was not running, J.E.B. was not yet running and Georgie Porgie had served out his Constitutional limit of two Presidential terms. The Bush from the bank scandals dared not run.

It was another Republican in the White House that 43 was vacating, not another Bush, that Americans wanted to ensure against. Especially after a PBS special had made clear that Iraq had been a war of choice. (I heard a staunch Republican neighbor exclaim, "I saw a show about Iraq. I ain't voting for nobody!)

I wanted the Democrat most likely to ensure that another Republican did not follow Bush 43. Kucinich, I liked very much for his politics, but doubted he could win a general. Once the Republicans (or his Democratic rivals) trotted out that flying saucer stuff, that would be it.

Biden had been there, not done that--and, generally, America has not seemed to like voting for losers--and too old. (In fairness to me, that was well before Hillary vs. Sanders.) Dodd, also too old and decidedly uninspiring, with a whiff of corruption. Hillary? Don't make me laugh. Even Reid and Kennedy thought she had too much baggage to win a general. Edwards? Almost been there, done that and lost in 2004. Close enough for America to associate him with a lost election. Also, a whiff of snake oil. Yadda, yadda, process of elimination led me to Obama and only Obama, as the Democratic Presidential contender most likely to win the general.

I was so happy that he won the general that tears streamed down my cheeks uninvited during his victory speech. Part of that happiness, yes, was that he was an African American, part of it was that I had come to find him personally appealing (which turned out to be a momentary lapse on my part) and a great part of it was relief that he was not a Republican, which originally had been my entire goal for the 2008 Presidential election.

At the primary stage, however, precisely because my sole criterion had been a sure winner in the general, the fact that he was black gave me pause: America had never voted for anyone but a WASP for President, save for JFK, who was a young, handsome, rich, witty, charming, well-read, well-educated man who was Catholic, rather than Protestant. Although his other attributes more than compensated for his religion, he still barely squeaked into the White House. Despite Obama's race and America's voting habits, however, I thought all the others in the 2008 Democratic field had much less of a chance of winning the general than did Obama. So, I wrote my first check to his campaign on Thanksgiving Day, 2007, while Hillary was still ahead in the polls. (Hillary Clinton 42%, Barack Obama 23%, John Edwards 13% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2008_De...)

BTW, most of the same people who would have been happy to elect a black President would have been as happy, or almost as happy, to elect a female President. And some people who were not so happy about a black President would have been over the moon about Hillary.

After all, Hillary did, at one point during her race-bating primary campaign, declare that her constituency was "hard-working white people." That was way too close for comfort to Lee Atwater shit. Until then, she had left the race-baiting to her husband and her campaign surrogates. But, as she saw her Presidential hopes swirling the drain, she herself made the most race-baiting statement of her entire, crappy 2008 campaign. In 2016, her POS surrogates were out there with similar tactics against Sanders, alternately emphasizing his atheism and his Judaism as things that would cause him to lose the general to a Republican.

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