The Independent’s Robert Fisk recently described how Britain and America joined forces to overthrow the duly elected Iranian government of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 (in Britains case, not for the first time). MI6′s man in Tehran was a Colonel Monty Woodhouse, whom Fisk knew well – describing him as ” a ruthless man”.

Fisk reports that: Woodhouse brought weapons into Iran for a still non-existent “resistance” movement and he eagerly supported the CIA’s project to fund the “bazaaris” of Tehran to stage demonstrations (in which, of course, hundreds, perhaps thousands, died) to overthrow Mossadegh.

Sound familiar – think Iraq, Libya, Syria?

Let’s fast forward to the bright new twenty-first century.

2007. The CIA receives Presidential authority and funding to use covert black operations to destablise the Iranian government.

2010. Cyber-warfare. The US and Israeli governments use the Stuxnet virus to attack Iranian research facilities.

2011. An Iranian missile site explodes, killing 17 people, including the General in charge of missile development. Israel is thought to have carried out the attack.

In between there have been numerous attacks on military and civilian targets, including assassinations and abductions.

The MSM shapes our views by both omission and inclusion of stories, as well as by innoculation of ideas and rehearsed scenarios.

Just think how often we have seen a script whereby some big tough guy will repeatedly poke at a smaller person until he is provoked into a response. Usually because he has something the big guy wants.

By the way, Iran has the third largest oil reserves in the world.

Kudos today goes to The Independent for being alone amongst the UK’s leading newspapers to cover the latest UN report about Libya on this mornings front page. (Check out the Daily Mail, The Sun and the Telegraph.)

Remember the outrage over Gadaffi’s abuse of the civilian population, which dominated the news for months? Well, now that ‘our’ rebels are in control, the mighty pen of the free press has gone quiet about human rights in Libya.

You would think the following quote (from a UN report) came pre- not post-Gadaffi:

“Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, …... Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country’s new government.“

In another front page article Patrick Cockburn reminds us of how one-sided and complicit the western media has been, and describes their misreporting thus:

“An example of this occurred when eight or nine bodies of Libyan soldiers were found who appeared to have been executed. The rebels claimed they had been shot by Gaddafi’s men because they tried to change sides. But Amnesty located a film of the soldiers being captured alive by the rebels and it was presumably the rebels who killed them“

Sounds remarkably similar to recent reporting from Syria, another country on the Pentagon’s attack list, next to whom the US has just parked one of it’s global battle groups. There is a clear pattern of escalating reports of abuse towards a civilian population, aggressive posturing by Western politicians and a military build-up. Followed by war.

After each of these wars: Iraq I, Serbia/Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq II, Libya – clear evidence emerged that many of the horror stories which were used to justify the invasions, were false. Like the story about Saddam’s troops throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals, they were simply propaganda, lies, used to get a dumbed-down and distracted public on side.

Cui bono? It is clear how the financial/military/industrial complex benefits from the agenda of the MSM. But how do you and I benefit from our acquiescence? Will we ever wake up, or, like this poor frog, will we keep trying to compromise until it is too late?

Take a look at two of Britain’s most popular newspapers, The Sun and The Daily Mail which are dominated by salacious stories about celebrities and debates about what one footballer said to another. (Who would want to miss the front page story about a woman who found she had had a pool cue stuck up her nose for two years?)

While we are preoccupied with such tittle-tattle, we do not notice (or have time to think about) the intentions of powerful people. For example, General Wesley Clark was the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, of NATO, before retirement in 2000 and then went on to be a US Presidential candidate in 2004. He is well connected.

In this short extract (from a longer 2007 Democracy Now interview ) he describes how, in September 2001, he saw a briefing paper which listed the countries the Pentagon intended to attack over the next few years: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.

Afghanistan – tick, Iraq – tick, Somalia – tick, Libya – tick, Sudan – ‘welcomes US troops’ – tick, Syria … ? Iran ….. ?

Before Iraq a politician could not advocate regime change because it is illegal under international law (which is why Tony Blair needed to be so economical with the truth). But gradually, gradually, with the ‘Arab Spring’ and Libya it has become acceptable to interfere in the affairs of others, at all levels. Our blindness to change means we don’t see it until too late.

And the change keeps ratcheting in the same direction, it is part of an agenda. What we are missing is the obvious – the predatory intentions of powerful people. This month global financiers (whom this blog often refers to as predators) have carried out regime change in Greece and Italy. They have replaced properly elected governments with non-elected bankers. These bankers are in control and they are not accountable to anyone except their peers.

This is a very dangerous moment – precedent has been set. Our modern surveillance society conditions us to be subservient every day. We get used to ‘the authorities’ watching us – we don’t object even when they move to put cameras and microphones into taxis – to record our every word and gesture. Young children get used to strangers groping them at airports – it is the new normal. We have been blind to the change.

The public mind has been moved – it is okay to interfere. We have become used to invasive controls. The financial crisis is too complicated for us to understand. We have to accept that the authorities know best. Saving the financial system takes priority over democracy. Precedent has been set for the overthrow of elected governments by bankers.

It will seem only natural when, during the coming economic collapse of the UK, a banker is asked to run things (temporarily, of course) by our dear (unelected) Queen Betty. perhaps we will notice that change.

We find them alien because most people don’t like killing. Human beings seem to be hard-wired to not kill each other. During WW2 only about 15% to 20% of soldiers in combat actually fired at the enemy – 10,000 rounds were fired for each death. Only 1% of pilots shot down around 40% of the enemy aircraft. As Harry Patch reported from WW1, they tried not to kill German soldiers, they aimed for their legs.

All of which creates a problem for a warfare based economy. War is necessary to the modern military-industrial-drug based society and vital as a means of laundering money through the financial system. Each missile, bomb or bullet writes off debt and it’s replacement generates new financial instruments (at the tax-payers expense).

So, if we don’t like war, but war is deemed necessary, something has to change. And that something is us. We need to be conditioned to kill, desensitised to each other, trained to see each other as objects. We need more psychopaths – they presently only account for 1% of the population.

So we train our young people to kill: ‘Target practice on hollowed cabbages filled with ketchup to mimic the way a bullet rips open a human head. Marching to chants of “kill, kill, kill.”  Video game simulations that reward points for every successful “shot.”  These are among hundreds of techniques that experts say can recondition the human brain.’

British troops in Afghanistan have their own reality snuff television. ‘Kill TV Nights‘ when they can watch actual footage of people being killed – including women and children. More and more modern movies and video games include realistic and gruesome scenes of torture.

We are breeding our own aliens, a generation of psychopaths within. Are we ready for the consequences?

But we don’t need to rely on politicians, lets look at the data found in a 2010 report by Professor Murdock of the Loyola University Chicago School of Law. The report shows that:

Fraudulent inducement. Banks sold sophisticated, negative-amortization loan mortgages to people who they knew could neither understand the terms nor make the repayments. 87% could not identify the cost of the loan and 30% could not identify a balloon payment. The Banks knowingly pushed so-called ‘pick and pay loans’. A tiny percentage of the recipients were opportunists – the vast majority were (and are still) victims.

Fraudulent selling. Mortgage Brokers received both higher fees and an extra kick-back from the lender when they sold sub-prime mortgages. There is clear evidence of Brokers persuading people who would qualify for a conventional loan to take a sub-prime instead. In Florida 10,000 convicted criminals work in the mortgage industry. Brokers have been found to falsify documentation and transactions, taking home millions.

Fraudulent derivatives. The banks took these very risky loans (which they knew would fail) and packaged them up as triple AAA rated derivatives. They knew they were junk, but they lied to their clients. They gathered bad loans together with the occasional good one and created an exponential Ponzi scheme of Collateralised Debt Obligations and Credit Default Swaps.

Fraudulent ratings. The banks induced the various Rating Agencies to classify all these very risky derivatives as rock solid, gold-plated triple-AAA rated investments. The rating agencies did it because a) they were paid to by the banks and b) they received an on-going fee for the life of the derivative.

Fraudulent foreclosure. When the inevitable housing collapse arrived the Banks fraudulently foreclosed on millions of people, using fraudulent techniques like ‘Robo-Signing‘.

Fraudulent banks. They are not really banks, they are really criminal sydicates who use the banking facade to cover their illegal activities. For example, one of the biggest US banks, Wachovia, was recently found to have laundered billions of dollars in the drugs trade.

The criminal racketeering and fraud perpetuated by the financial industry is clear – there is massive, incontrovertible evidence for anyone who cares to look. Just spend a few minutes on the internet and you will find the evidence from all kinds of reputable sources. Why do we (and our politicians) not look?

According to Catherine Austin Fitts, the Assistant Secretary of Housing in the Bush Senior administration, the answer is simple – physical violence. Is it just that or is there more?

The references above relate to the USA, but are true of financial services around the globe – driven by fear and greed. These criminal activities are not restrained to banks but are to be found in all large corporations. Our economies are built on fraud and other criminality.

In the UK the Financial Service sector accounts for 10% of GDP, in the US in 2010 financial companies accounted for 28.7% of all corporate profits. Without fraud our economies would collapse.

Maybe that is why we do not look. We live in a criminal dependency, afraid to look too closely at what is really going on – in a hole that we do not know how to get out of.

By our silence we are partners in crime.

As you would expect of skilled predators they chose their moment – and at the same time delivered severe lessons to others who had become above their station – who had forgotten where real power lies.

Everything was going according to plan. The BSkyB bid had been approved, phone hacking was yesterday’s story. Murdoch, through the agency of Cameron, Fleet Street and the Met, had it all under control. Cosy in their chumminess, his acolytes must have felt safe within the shadow of such a notorious beast of prey.

But they forgot who they were dealing with – beasts much bigger and more powerful than the dirty digger. Master conspirators, a ruthless mafia family who have held power for 1000 years. The senior members suckled on a family history of murder, rape and pillage. You don’t mess with the Wettins and expect to get away with it.

But naively they did mess. They hacked into Royal phones and email, ignored the wishes of Courtiers, bribed royal protection officers. The Press – guilty. The Police – guilty. Politicians – guilty. They should have known better.

Just when everything looked so good – it was over, in one day. On July 4th, Independence Day, a single, powerfully emotive story about Milly Dowler was all over the place – Reuters, The Guardian, The Telegraph … suddenly, everywhere.

In one fell swoop Murdoch, whose attack dogs hunted Royal scandal, was humiliated and his bid destroyed. Cameron, who disregarded Royal advice about Coulson, fights for his political life. The police, who took Murdochs 30 pieces of silver, are discredited and have resigned in disgrace.

No doubt the ratchet against free speech will click another notch or two in pursuit of ‘reining in the media’, as the witch-hunt spreads.

Machiavelli would have approved.

A French friend showed us some portraits hanging in his salon. He was particularly proud of two, dating back to the French Revolution. One was of a member of the nobility, who subsequently had his head chopped off and the other was a revolutionary, an executioner.

Much of his furniture also comes from that (or an older) period. I am reminded of the Alan Clark (old money) quote about Michael Heseltine (new money) to the effect that Heseltine “had to buy his own furniture“.

Growing up surrounded by the family history, isolated from the hoi polloi and regaled by stories of the past, it is no wonder that people like Clark, while charming and amusing on the surface, have warped and emotionally crippled inner worlds.

Clark was interviewed by John Pilger and had this to say:

JP “Did it bother you personally that you were causing such mayhem and human suffering (by supplying arms for Indonesia’s war in East Timor)?”
AC “No, not in the slightest, it never entered my head.”
JP “I ask the question because I read you are a vegetarian and you are quite seriously concerned about the way animals are killed.”
AC “Yeah?”
JP “Doesn’t that concern extend to the way humans, all be it foreigners, are killed?”
AC “Curiously not. No.”

As Clark says in one of the clips “My responsibility is to my own people“. Indeed, and who are ‘my people‘?

Clark’s world view is typical of the old families that dominate the British establishment. Just think for a moment about the influences on a young man like William Windsor. His grandfather Philip, was raised by Nazis, and Philips cousin and good friend, Prince Bernhard, was a member of the elite Nazi SS, as were Philips brothers-in-law.

Bernhard only renounced his membership so that he could marry the prospective Queen of Holland. Bernhard of course was one of the founders of the secretive but extremely powerful Bilderburg Group.

Many of the British Royal Court were closely associated with Hilter, Edward VIII was so close that he had to abdicate. Family gatherings must not have been for the liberal minded! Indeed the affinity for Nazi power and regalia continues to this day, getting Harry Windsor into trouble when he wore a Nazi costume to a fancy dress party. His choice speaks strongly about his inner fantasies and dreams!

William is a member of the House of Wettin, a dynasty founded by Dietrich I, who was born in 916. For over a thousand years his family descendents have murdered, raped and pillaged their way across Europe, seeking to consolidate power and wealth.

The family history is one of in-fighting and intrigue: brothers and sisters fighting each other or their fathers: in-breeding as they marry amongst themselves (like Victoria and Albert) for political, monetary or territorial advantage; madness, as their social isolation and intermarrying bears fruit.

What inner worlds they must have, trapped in their finery, their cruelty and their insanity. So many of us live amongst the ruins of human aspirations brought low by the selfishness of this greedy elite.

The House of Wettin is older than Capitalism or Socialism and cares nothing about either. The only way you keep such a family business going for a thousand years is through a ruthless dedication and continued focus on what is important – power and control. After so many generations it gets into the DNA.

Hitler and the Nazis were an inevitable, indeed necessary, consequence of the values and priorities pursued by the Wettins. As the twentieth century unfolded, the corporate strategy of the Wettins moved from overt physical domination of the serfs to a more subtle control through public relations and consumerism.

Now we have become economic serfs, but we still need external threats to keep us focused – to deny us the time to think, to reflect, to dream. Take center stage Hitler, Stalin, Saddam – tools of these ancient predators. Although publicly vilified, in reality they are simply modern incarnations of those blood-thirsty early Wettins.

The Wettins have no problem with these dictators values or methods – they understand them. But they do recognise some need for change, for instance the bloodline must be refreshed occasionally. So they welcome people like Kate Middleton into the family for breeding purposes.

The entrance of each of these fragrant young things also provides an opportunity to refresh their public image. Behold! the Wettins are born anew, risen from their musty crypts, they appear before us, refreshed and revitalised. They give us time off work, entertainment, fairy tales and we give them  – everything!

We forget, but they don’t, surrounded by their history and memories.  Like a Freemason enjoying the secret symbolism embedded in his public speech, which only other Brethren will recognise, the Wettins too put secret messages in their public statements. They know what they are saying.

Of course, it’s just a coincidence that William and Kate chose to be married on the 29th April, the anniversary of Adolph Hitlers wedding to Eva Braun … isn’t it?

A popular story involves the granting of three wishes. You know the one – our hero finds a magic lantern and releases the genie, who grants him the wishes. Of course, there are always rules – so you cannot wish for unlimited wishes.

But then the hero is wary of a trap and not ready to believe his good fortune. So the first wish is used to establish that the wishes are real and asks for something trivial – like a giant ice-cream in the desert.

Then we come to the nub of the lesson: the hero has not thought through what he really wants. He asks for something that only creates more problems for himself – such as: “Everything I touch should turn to gold” – duh!!

Thus the final wish is used to undo the second wish! There you go – back where you started, sadder and (maybe) wiser.

Which brings us to the millions of people around the world demonstrating, marching, chanting – all demanding – what?

Freedom!! – from what? to do what?

Removal of … (fill in the blanks: Mubarak, Ali, Ghaddafi, Osborne) – to be replaced by whom?

An end to corruption (my favourite) – again – duh!! How do you measure that? They think they will change a fundamental human condition just like that? What about the causes of corruption?

Democracy – don’t get me started! – as Thomas Jefferson said: “Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% tell 49% what to do“.

Most of us are not aware of the way that think-tanks have influenced our ideas and thinking patterns. Hundreds have been formed since the fifties (Wikipedia lists a hundred in the UK and another hundred in the USA alone. Despite their apparent diversity, they have many shared members and have acted intentionally to ‘cognitively frame‘ our thinking about the world. The terms of the debate are set before we even open our mouths.

For instance, current debates about economics, austerity measures, military budgets, all assume that economic growth is not only good but necessary. Why? – increased GDP is a measure of activity – not profit, gain or well-being. More growth just means more activity – we must do more! For whom, you may ask.

It is very difficult to uncover the real facts about wealth and power – who owns what. Mostly, the public do not want to know, they do not have time (because of all the extra GDP activity) to realise that the Federal Reserve in America is a private bank, owned by wealthy families (as is the Bank of England, effectively).

What is clear is that, inexorably, wealth and power are sucked into the grasp of a powerful elite. They own or control all of the major global corporations. They fund think tanks to constrain our thinking, they fund politicians to constrain our actions and they fund the media to manipulate our moods. They take 95% of any benefit from extra GDP – leaving the rest of us to squabble over the remains.

And they will not release power without a fight.

It is their framing that drives the slogans shouted by the protestors – “give us democracy, freedom, less corruption“! The elite are very happy to see these phrases – they taught them to us! They learned the lessons of the three wishes long ago. They know the difference between potent and impotent demands.

So, be careful about what you ask for. Start with something clear and simple, such as a Debt Jubilee. What the elite do not want to hear is: “We are taking control of our assets”.