UK media cartels are trying to set up a great firewall of Britain against copyright infringement, according to a confidential document seen by Slightly Right of Centre (SROC).

The eight-page document, entitled “The Potential for a Voluntary Code”, reveals that the Premier League, the Publishers Association, the British Phonographic Institute, the Motion Picture Association and a number of other groups have formed a coalition to lobby minister for communications Ed Vaizey for changes to the UK’s copyright enforcement policies.

The most worrying thing about the proposed changes is that they call for a web site blocking scheme that is fast enough to deal with time sensitive copyrighted material, such as live events. The problem with this is that a faster process would mean circumvention of the standard practices of law and could lead to unfair action, without the proper protocols for allowing legal defence.

Another glaring issue is the fact that the proposals were discussed with Vaizey, copyright holders and ISPs last week in a closed-door meeting, to which rights groups were refused entry. The Open Rights Group (ORG) said that it knew of the event beforehand and applied to be present, but was rejected, despite calls in the document for a consumer representative to participate.

The executive director of ORG, Jim Killock, told SROC, “This is a dangerous and ill-thought out proposal. Worse still, rights holders have tried yet again to hide their ideas away from public scrutiny, in order to sneak them forward without democratic debate. We need to take action to protect ourselves from these destructive censorship plans.”

James Firth of SROC heavily criticised the document, saying it could inadvertently target legitimate web sites that do not facilitate piracy and that the proposals are anything but voluntary, since they would effectively force ISPs to cooperate.

He also slated the document for its vague wording and its lack of detail on costs associated with the project, highlighting the £6m set-up costs for the three strikes policy from the Digital Economy Act as an example of just how expensive the pursuit of potential copyright infringers could become.

Firth even revealed that Vaizey reportedly said, “If it’s a voluntary scheme, go and do it.” In other words, stop pestering the government and get the relevant bodies to agree on things between themselves. While that might be handy for the government in washing its hands of any involvement, it’s worrying that it would want to turn a blind eye to such proposals, which are unlikely to get voluntary support.

Link to article: UK media are trying to set up a copyright firewall

Right now, EU law makers are introducing an important bill which would impose strict pollution standards on car and lorry fuels and would effectively ban tar sands fuel, the world’s most filthy and environmentally destructive transport oil. But shockingly, the UK is opposing it.

Our government is bending under pressure from the oil industry and the Canadian government, who stand to make billions if they can get an ally to water down the law and remove the clause that bans tar sands. We can expose these dirty dealings, and demand the government support the law and protect the climate.

Tomorrow, campaigners will meet with Transport Minister Norman Baker. Let’s show him the British public is united against any attempt to undermine this critical legislation — sign below, then send this to everyone:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/crude_politics/

Tar sands fuel is nasty stuff. Oil companies destroy and degrade millions of acres of pristine Canadian forest and displace indigenous communities just to reach the unrefined bitumen. Refining it spreads cancerous heavy metals and sulphur through the air and leaves a barren, toxic landscape. The US Environmental Protection Agency says refining tar sands causes at least 82% more carbon pollution than refining conventional oil. But for Canada and the oil companies, the returns are lucrative — oil giants recently announced a $379 billion investment in them.

The EU wants to help stop this catastrophe, but the UK is standing in the way. The EU’s proposed Fuel Quality Directive would set a binding 6% climate pollution reduction target for Europe’s transport fuels by 2020. We need to make sure that our government – which likes to parade green credentials – doesn’t cave to tar sands oil interests.

Our political leaders should be securing a cleaner energy future for us and our children, not caving in to polluters that bring oil spills and climate change. Time is short — we need to convince the transport minister by June 23rd. Let’s tell the UK government to keep dirty fuels out of the EU. Sign the petition now, then forward this email to friends who want clean air:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/crude_politics/

In a world with a safe and stable climate, using energy will not come at the expense of our natural environment. Canada’s tar sands are an out-dated approach to energy, where profit outweighs pollution. We have a chance to make a change now. Together, we’ve influenced international climate summits, world leaders and our parliaments — now let’s take another decisive step towards a cleaner future.

With hope,

Alex, Maria Paz, Morgan, Iain, Ricken, Stephanie, Giulia, Pascal, Benjamin, Luis, and the rest of the Avaaz team

Link to article: No tar sands in Europe

At last, News Corporation has admitted illegally hacking the phones of celebrities and politicians. It’s a scandal that’s rocking the nation — and it could become the tipping point, the moment when Britain stands up and stops Rupert Murdoch.

Scarcely a month after Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said he’d allow Murdoch to take over BSkyB, Murdoch’s people have been caught red-handed. Politicians from across the spectrum are now calling for the takeover to be suspended until a public inquiry shows the full extent of News Corporation’s privacy invasion and law-breaking.

Our voices now can move the nation from outrage to action. But we don’t have long: News Corporation has gone into damage control hyper-drive, buying silence from hacking victims, trying to scapegoat individual employees, and pushing the government to allow its takeover. Let’s show that Britain is hacked off with Murdoch’s escalating threat to our democracy. Sign and circulate the urgent petition to halt the takeover and launch a public investigation into the hacking — it will be delivered this Friday at the High Court and to Jeremy Hunt at a constituency meeting:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdoch_hacked_off

The News of the World — one of several aggressive Rupert Murdoch media outlets — hired people to listen into the conversations of public figures they wanted to write about. Murdoch’s men rode roughshod over our privacy laws, eavesdropping on tens, perhaps hundreds, of public figures — including Prince William, senior police officers, and even the minister in charge of media policy.

When a News of the World investigator was caught with notebooks full of evidence showing who he had hacked, the police prosecuted him, but failed to follow other leads, apparently believing the newspaper’s lie that this was one person’s fault. This same lie has been used in many such cases — from Watergate onwards — only to shatter as more evidence emerges. Now, after newspaper reporters and lawyers dug out more details, the police finally arrested two senior News of the World staff last week, perhaps the first of many.

Jeremy Hunt says the phone hacking scandal has no bearing on his BSkyB takeover decision, although it’s clear that we can’t trust News Corporation to implement the safeguards that are part of the deal, let alone uphold the media quality standards which Hunt has a duty to protect. But, even before the latest scandals, an Avaaz/YouGov poll showed 60 per cent of the public think Murdoch already has too much influence on British politics and oppose the merger. If tens of thousands of us — Avaaz and 38 Degrees members together — sign this petition now, we can make our senior politicians stand up for democracy by halting the takeover until we all know the extent of the phone hacking scandal. Sign now and send to everyone:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/murdoch_hacked_off

The belated hacking confession shows how Murdoch’s media tramples our laws and values, and manipulates our political system. Avaaz members have repeatedly campaigned against the Murdoch media empire, and have won similar battles in Canada. Let’s make this moment matter: let’s stand up for a trustworthy, fair and honest media at the heart of our democracy, informing all of us and holding politicians to account.

With hope,

Alex, Iain, Ben, and all in the Avaaz team

More information:

Guardian — Jeremy Hunt is wrong to say phone hacking has nothing to do with News Corp bid for Sky:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/apr/10/news-corporation-rupert-murdoch

Avaaz Media Release — Poll shows public think Murdoch has too much influence over British politics:
http://www.avaaz.org/act/media.php?press_id=232

BBC — Hacking row: Miliband calls for ‘criminal’ probe:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13025225

The Independent — News Corporation in massive damage limitation exercise:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/damage-limitation-bid-may-not-placate-murdoch-empires-critics-2265508.html

Link to article: Hacked off with Murdoch

Our democracy is at risk. Media-mogul Rupert Murdoch wants to extend his massive political influence by taking over BSkyB and controlling nearly half the British media! We have just 24 hours to press the government to stand up for British media and democracy and stop Rupert Murdoch.

Dear friends across the UK,

In 24 hours, nearly half our mass media could be owned by Rupert Murdoch.

For four decades he has interfered with our democracy — determining election results, bolstering politicians in exchange for influence, and smearing others who refuse his orders. But he may have finally gone too far — with just 24 hours left before the decision, the coalition is still deeply divided on Murdoch’s bid for BSkyB.

The government is deciding right now whether Murdoch can gain control of one of Britain’s largest news corporations. Let’s tip the balance against Murdoch’s attempt to tighten his grip on our media. Click to send an urgent message directly to key decision makers on the BSkyB bid and send this on to everyone — let’s flood our politicians with tens of thousands of messages telling them we want Murdoch’s hands off our democracy:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_rupert_murdoch_uk/?vl

Murdoch has used his vast media empire to push war in Iraq, elect George W Bush, and block global action on climate change, and if he wins this week in Britain he will use his networks here to undermine all the issues that we care about. He has manipulated US, British and Australian democracy for years, but now he wants more complete control. In the US, most of the likely Republican presidential candidates are actually paid employees of Murdoch! When his Fox News Network was shunned by Barack Obama as a mere propaganda mouthpiece, it spawned the far right “tea party”and broadcast constant, often hate-filled attacks against Obama and his healthcare and peace agenda — resulting in a huge win for Republicans in the 2010 congressional elections.

Murdoch media staff have trampled laws and standards when gathering news. Several News Corporation executives approved phone hacking and, when a formal investigation began, they had regular secret meetings with senior police officers who then failed to investigate the full extent of the scandal. Our government should punish such an organisation, not allow it monopoly powers over our media. But if Rupert Murdoch is allowed to buy all of BSkyB this week, he will soon own half of our newspapers and television. This should not be allowed in any democracy.

We can turn the tide on this powerful threat to our democracy. In the end the News of the World phone hacking scandal forced David Cameron’s communications director to resign. And a mass outcry from Canadian Avaaz members recently prevented a Murdoch-style TV network from getting taxpayer funding and stopped the Canadian government from removing the journalistic standards that would prevent this new network from spreading lies to the public. The fight against Murdoch has just begun, but already we’ve begun to win. Let’s do the same in Britain! Click below to send an urgent message and send this on to everyone:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_rupert_murdoch_uk/?vl

The power of Avaaz and of this moment in our world’s history, is the power of unity. Across the Arab world and beyond, people are coming together in common cause across all boundaries. Murdoch’s power is the ability to divide. His networks spew fear and misinformation, dividing left from right, citizens from foreigners, muslim from western, immigrants from non-immigrants, etc. Murdoch knows that democracy must be divided before it can be conquered. This week, let’s show him what unity looks like.

With hope,

Ricken, Alex, Emma, Sam, Milena, Alice, Iain, Morgan, Maria Paz and the whole Avaaz team

Sources:

Murdoch close to deal with regulators over Sky
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a40fc482-4060-11e0-9140-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FHWHwqJE

If Murdoch gets BSkyB, it will be a victory for monopoly capitalism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/27/rupert-murdoch-bskyb-monopolies

‘News of World’ bosses dined with Met chief
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/news-of-world-bosses-dined-with-met-chief-2222814.html

Who is Rupert Murdoch?
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/07/b122948.html

Support the Avaaz community! We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way — donate here

Link to article: Stop Rupert Murdoch

Shocking new leaked emails show big corporations, defense contractors, and corporate law firms conspiring to run a “dirty tricks” campaign against their political enemies, including WikiLeaks. They proposed infiltrating groups under fake identities, smearing their reputation by planting false documents, and even hacking into their computers to try to steal information and disrupt their work.

But while WikiLeaks is the target of a major government investigation, these guys are still major government contractors! Now some brave members of Congress are trying to change that, demanding a full investigation into these potential crimes: They just signed a letter urging the chairmen of several powerful Congressional committees to start holding hearings. Can you join them?

PETITION TO CHAIRS DARRELL ISSA, LAMAR SMITH, MIKE ROGERS, AND HOWARD MCKEON: Several brave members of Congress just requested that your committees immediately open hearings on defense data security contractors HB Gary Federal, Palantir Technologies, and Berico Technologies, and the law firm Hunton & Williams.  I support their request, and urge you to start investigating the potential crimes committed by these firms right away.

Click here to sign the petition.

Salon covers the emails and the potential investigation here.

Link to article: Investigate Corporations’ Dirty Tricks Campaign

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I interviewed Ray McGovern, one of an elite group of CIA officers who prepared the President’s daily intelligence brief. McGovern was at the apex of the “national security” monolith that is American power and had retired with presidential plaudits. On the eve of the invasion, he and 45 other senior officers of the CIA and other intelligence agencies wrote to President George W. Bush that the “drumbeat for war” was based not on intelligence, but lies.

“It was 95 per cent charade,” McGovern told me.

“How did they get away with it?”

“The press allowed the crazies to get away with it.”

“Who are the crazies?”

“The people running the [Bush] administration have a set of beliefs a lot like those expressed in Mein Kampf… these are the same people who were referred to in the circles in which I moved, at the top, as ‘the crazies’.”

I said, “Norman Mailer has written that that he believes America has entered a pre-fascist state. What’s your view of that?”

“Well… I hope he’s right, because there are others saying we are already in a fascist mode.”

On 22 January, Ray McGovern emailed me to express his disgust at the Obama administration’s barbaric treatment of the alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning and its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. “Way back when George and Tony decided it might be fun to attack Iraq,” he wrote, “I said something to the effect that fascism had already begun here. I have to admit I did not think it would get this bad this quickly.”

On 16 February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech at George Washington University in which she condemned governments that arrested protestors and crushed free expression. She lauded the liberating power of the internet while failing to mention that her government was planning to close down those parts of the internet that encouraged dissent and truth-telling. It was a speech of spectacular hypocrisy, and Ray McGovern was in the audience. Outraged, he rose from his chair and silently turned his back on Clinton. He was immediately seized by police and a security goon and beaten to the floor, dragged out and thrown into jail, bleeding. He has sent me photographs of his injuries. He is 71. During the assault, which was clearly visible to Clinton, she did not pause in her remarks.

Fascism is a difficult word, because it comes with an iconography that touches the Nazi nerve and is abused as propaganda against America’s official enemies and to promote the West’s foreign adventures with a moral vocabulary written in the struggle against Hitler. And yet fascism and imperialism are twins. In the aftermath of world war two, those in the imperial states who had made respectable the racial and cultural superiority of “western civilisation”, found that Hitler and fascism had claimed the same, employing strikingly similar methods. Thereafter, the very notion of American imperialism was swept from the textbooks and popular culture of an imperial nation forged on the genocidal conquest of its native people. And a war on social justice and democracy became “US foreign policy”.

As the Washington historian William Blum has documented, since 1945, the US has destroyed or subverted more than 50 governments, many of them democracies, and used mass murderers like Suharto, Mobutu and Pinochet to dominate by proxy. In the Middle East, every dictatorship and pseudo-monarchy has been sustained by America. In “Operation Cyclone”, the CIA and MI6 secretly fostered and bank-rolled Islamic extremism. The object was to smash or deter nationalism and democracy. The victims of this western state terrorism have been mostly Muslims. The courageous people gunned down last week in Bahrain and Libya, the latter a “priority UK market”, according to Britain’s official arms “procurers”, join those children blown to bits in Gaza by the latest American F-16 aircraft.

The revolt in the Arab world is not merely against a resident dictator but a worldwide economic tyranny designed by the US Treasury and imposed by the US Agency for International Development, the IMF and World Bank, which have ensured that rich countries like Egypt are reduced to vast sweatshops, with half the population earning less than $2 a day. The people’s triumph in Cairo was the first blow against what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a word that appears in his definition of fascism.

How did such extremism take hold in the liberal West? “It is necessary to destroy hope, idealism, solidarity, and concern for the poor and oppressed,” observed Noam Chomsky a generation ago, “[and] to replace these dangerous feelings with self-centred egoism, a pervasive cynicism that holds that [an order of] inequities and oppression is the best that can be achieved. In fact, a great international propaganda campaign is under way to convince people – particularly young people – that this not only is what they should feel but that it’s what they do feel.”

Like the European revolutions of 1848 and the uprising against Stalinism in 1989, the Arab revolt has rejected fear. An insurrection of suppressed ideas, hope and solidarity has begun. In the United States, where 45 per cent of young African-Americans have no jobs and the top hedge fund managers are paid, on average, a billion dollars a year, mass protests against cuts in services and jobs have spread to heartland states like Wisconsin. In Britain, the fastest-growing modern protest movement, UK Uncut, is about to take direct action against tax avoiders and rapacious banks. Something has changed that cannot be unchanged. The enemy has a name now.

Link to article: Behind the Arab revolt is a word we dare not speak

In David Cameron we have a leader whose job is to quietly legitimise a semi-criminal, money-laundering economy

‘I would love to see tax reductions,” David Cameron told the Sunday Telegraph at the weekend, “but when you’re borrowing 11% of your GDP, it’s not possible to make significant net tax cuts. It just isn’t.” Oh no? Then how come he’s planning the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory?

If you’ve heard nothing of it, you’re in good company. The obscure adjustments the government is planning to the tax acts of 1988 and 2009 have been missed by almost everyone – and are, anyway, almost impossible to understand without expert help. But as soon as you grasp the implications, you realise that a kind of corporate coup d’etat is taking place.

Like the dismantling of the NHS and the sale of public forests, no one voted for this measure, as it wasn’t in the manifestos. While Cameron insists that he occupies the centre ground of British politics, that he shares our burdens and feels our pain, he has quietly been plotting with banks and businesses to engineer the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle to the ultra-rich that this country has seen in a century. The latest heist has been explained to me by the former tax inspector, now a Private Eye journalist, Richard Brooks and current senior tax staff who can’t be named. Here’s how it works.

At the moment tax law ensures that companies based here, with branches in other countries, don’t get taxed twice on the same money. They have to pay only the difference between our rate and that of the other country. If, for example, Dirty Oil plc pays 10% corporation tax on its profits in Oblivia, then shifts the money over here, it should pay a further 18% in the UK, to match our rate of 28%. But under the new proposals, companies will pay nothing at all in this country on money made by their foreign branches.

Foreign means anywhere. If these proposals go ahead, the UK will be only the second country in the world to allow money that has passed through tax havens to remain untaxed when it gets here. The other is Switzerland. The exemption applies solely to “large and medium companies”: it is not available for smaller firms. The government says it expects “large financial services companies to make the greatest use of the exemption regime”. The main beneficiaries, in other words, will be the banks.

But that’s not the end of it. While big business will be exempt from tax on its foreign branch earnings, it will, amazingly, still be able to claim the expense of funding its foreign branches against tax it pays in the UK. No other country does this. The new measures will, as we already know, accompany a rapid reduction in the official rate of corporation tax: from 28% to 24% by 2014. This, a Treasury minister has boasted, will be the lowest rate “of any major western economy”. By the time this government is done, we’ll be lucky if the banks and corporations pay anything at all. In the Sunday Telegraph, David Cameron said: “What I want is tax revenue from the banks into the exchequer, so we can help rebuild this economy.” He’s doing just the opposite.

These measures will drain not only wealth but also jobs from the UK. The new legislation will create a powerful incentive to shift business out of this country and into nations with lower corporate tax rates. Any UK business that doesn’t outsource its staff or funnel its earnings through a tax haven will find itself with an extra competitive disadvantage. The new rules also threaten to degrade the tax base everywhere, as companies with headquarters in other countries will demand similar measures from their own governments.

So how did this happen? You don’t have to look far to find out. Almost all the members of the seven committees the government set up “to provide strategic oversight of the development of corporate tax policy” are corporate executives. Among them are representatives of Vodafone, Tesco, BP, British American Tobacco and several of the major banks: HSBC, Santander, Standard Chartered, Citigroup, Schroders, RBS and Barclays.

I used to think of such processes as regulatory capture: government agencies being taken over by the companies they were supposed to restrain. But I’ve just read Nicholas Shaxson’s Treasure Islands – perhaps the most important book published in the UK so far this year – and now I’m not so sure. Shaxson shows how the world’s tax havens have not, as the OECD claims, been eliminated, but legitimised; how the City of London is itself a giant tax haven, which passes much of its business through its subsidiary havens in British dependencies, overseas territories and former colonies; how its operations mesh with and are often indistinguishable from the laundering of the proceeds of crime; and how the Corporation of the City of London in effect dictates to the government, while remaining exempt from democratic control. If Hosni Mubarak has passed his alleged $70bn through British banks, the Egyptians won’t see a piastre of it.

Reading Treasure Islands, I have realised that injustice of the kind described in this column is no perversion of the system; it is the system. Tony Blair came to power after assuring the City of his benign intentions. He then deregulated it and cut its taxes. Cameron didn’t have to assure it of anything: his party exists to turn its demands into public policy. Our ministers are not public servants. They work for the people who fund their parties, run the banks and own the newspapers, shielding them from their obligations to society, insulating them from democratic challenge.

Our political system protects and enriches a fantastically wealthy elite, much of whose money is, as a result of their interesting tax and transfer arrangements, in effect stolen from poorer countries, and poorer citizens of their own countries. Ours is a semi-criminal money-laundering economy, legitimised by the pomp of the lord mayor’s show and multiple layers of defence in government. Politically irrelevant, economically invisible, the rest of us inhabit the margins of the system. Governments ensure that we are thrown enough scraps to keep us quiet, while the ultra-rich get on with the serious business of looting the global economy and crushing attempts to hold them to account.

And this government? It has learned the lesson that Thatcher never grasped. If you want to turn this country into another Mexico, where the ruling elite wallows in unimaginable, state-facilitated wealth while the rest can go to hell, you don’t declare war on society, you don’t lambast single mothers or refuse to apologise for Bloody Sunday. You assuage, reassure, conciliate, emote. Then you shaft us.

Link to article: To us, it’s an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it’s the heist of the century

Wikileaks continues to rock the political world by shedding light on conspiracies, corruption and cover-ups. The latest batch of diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks reveals what can only be characterized as a U.S.-led conspiracy to force GMOs onto European countries by making those countries pay a steep price if they resist.

The cable reveals the words of Craig Stapleton, the US ambassador to France, who was pushing the commercial interests of the biotech industry by attempting to force GMOs into France. In his own words (below), he expresses his frustration with the idea that France might pass environmental laws that would hamper the expansion of GMOs:

“Europe is moving backwards not forwards on this issue with France playing a leading role, along with Austria, Italy and even the [European] Commission… Moving to retaliation will make clear that the current path has real costs to EU interests and could help strengthen European pro-biotech voice.”

Got that so far? His own words: “Retaliation” as a way to “make [it] clear” that resisting GMOs will have a price.

Stapleton goes on to say something rather incredible:

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory…”

As you read these words again, remember that these are the words of the U.S. ambassador to France who is suggesting the US “calibrate a target retaliation list” in order to “cause some pain across the EU” that must be “sustainable over the long term.”

The global GMO conspiracy is no longer a theory

Need we say anything more? This cable proves, once and for all, that there is a global GMO conspiracy where government operatives work in secret to push Monsanto’s GMO agenda while punishing opponents of GMOs and adding them to a “target retaliation list.”

This cable also proves that NaturalNews has been right all along about the GMO conspiracy, and that GMO opponents such as Jeffrey Smith are battling what can only be called an evil conspiracy to control the world’s food supply. It also proves that when Alex Jones talks about the global conspiracy to control the world food supply, he’s not just ranting. He’s warning about the reality of the world in which we now live.

As Jeffery Smith said today in a Democracy Now interview:

“We’ve been saying for years that the United States government is joined at the hip with Monsanto and pushing GMOs as part of Monsanto’s agenda on the rest of the world. This lays bare the mechanics of that effort. We have Craig Stapleton, the former ambassador to France, specifically asking the U.S. government to retaliate and cause some harm throughout the European Union.” (http://www.democracynow.org/seo/201…)

Military terms

Do you notice something about these words used by the US ambassador to France? “Calibrate a target retaliation list” sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it? It’s the kind of language you might find tossed around in a military bombing war exercise.

That’s no coincidence: These government operatives quite literally consider themselves to be at war with the world, and they intend to conquer the world with their genetically modified poisons. They will do anything, it seems, to force-feed their deadly crops to the public.

Eight important realizations from these leaks

This Wikileaks cable brings up all sorts of issues that each might deserve a separate article, but here are the highlights of what comes to my mind on this issue:

Realization #1) Wikileaks is valuable for exposing the government lies in our world. Without Wikileaks, we never would have known about these cables which prove the existence of this GMO conspiracy.

Realization #2) US government diplomatic officials are working for the corporations! It’s just as we’ve described here on NaturalNews numerous times — Big Government is really just an extension of the most evil and most powerful corporations that now dominate our planet: The drug companies, the weapons manufacturers, the agricultural giants and so on. Here’s what Jeffrey Smith had to say about governments conspiring with Monsanto:

“In 2009, we have a cable from the ambassador to Spain from the United States asking for intervention there, asking the government to help formulate a biotech strategy and support the government — members of the government in Spain that want to promote GMOs, as well. And here, they specifically indicate that they sat with the director of Monsanto for the region and got briefed by him about the politics of the region and created strategies with him to promote the GMO agenda.”

Realization #3) The US is willing to retaliate against European countries if they try to block GMOs. This brings up the question: Why is the US so desperate to push GMOs on Europe? Clearly there is another agenda behind all this (maybe we’ll learn more in future Wikileaks releases).

Realization #4) No wonder the US government has declared war on Wikileaks because these dark secrets and “conspiracy notes” are never made public through any normal means. It takes a whistleblower to expose the true government corruption taking place in our world today.

Realization #5) The GMO conspiracy reaches to the highest levels of global control. This US ambassador Stapleton wasn’t just a nobody. He was, in fact, the co-owner of the Texas Rangers with former President George W. Bush! His wife, by the way, is George Bush’s cousin. This is a conspiracy involving the highest-ranking officials across multiple countries who are pushing a GMO agenda that’s poisoning people across the planet.

Realization #6) Governments are literally trying to kill their own people. It is widely known in the inner circles of power that GMOs are deadly, but governments keep pushing them anyway. As Jeffrey Smith explains in his interview with Democracy Now:

“…the person who was in charge of FDA policy in 1992, Monsanto’s former attorney, Michael Taylor, he allowed GMOs on the market without any safety studies and without labeling, and the policy claimed that the agency was not aware of any information showing that GMOs were significantly different. Seven years later, because of a lawsuit, 44,000 secret internal FDA memos revealed that that policy was a lie. Not only were the scientists at the FDA aware that GMOs were different, they had warned repeatedly that they might create allergies, toxins, new diseases and nutritional problems. But they were ignored, and their warnings were even denied, and the policy went forth allowing the deployment GMOs into the food supply with virtually no safety studies.”

Realization #7) The GMO conspiracy is always reframed as “science”. At one point in the leaked cables, Stapleton warns that in opposing GMOs, France would “roll back established science-based decision making.” The GMO conspiracy, you have to remember, is always hidden behind the term “science” so that anyone who opposes GMOs can be characterized as being somehow against “scientific thinking.”

All this gives science a bad name, of course, but I suppose that since the history of science is filled with arrogant scientists poisoning people in the name of science (mercury, vaccines, radiation, plastics, medications, etc.), we shouldn’t be all that surprised to observe this.

Realization #8) Spain has been a key co-conspirator to push the U.S. GMO agenda. Much of the conspiring taking place in the EU has been spearheaded by Spain, whose officials met personally with the head of Monsanto to plot their push of GMOs into Europe.

All of a sudden the Blackwater story adds up

This all reminds me of a story published a few months back by The Nation in which Jeremy Scahill exposed a link between Monsanto and the military contractor known as Blackwater. His article claimed that Monsanto had hired Blackwater spies to “infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.” (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/…)

Monsanto vehemently denied the allegation. I looked hard at covering that story at the time but could not substantiate the accusations to my satisfaction. However, given the new information gleaned from these leaked diplomatic cables — which blatantly state that the GMO conspirators plan to “calibrate a target retaliation list” — all of a sudden the Blackwater story adds up.

This is the verbage of a military-style retaliation campaign, and that’s exactly the business of Blackwater. Remember how Stapleton said the US needed to “cause some pain?” That’s Blackwater’s calling card!

Although these cables don’t prove any connection between Monsanto and Blackwater, they do lend credence to the idea that such a link is not only possibly, but perhaps even probable. It clearly deserves additional investigation.

Regardless of whether the Blackwater / Monsanto link is ever proven, what’s crystal clear from all this is that the global GMO conspiracy is very real and that GMO conspirators plot retaliatory actions against any nation that refuses to allow GMOs into their country.

The whole thing is then disguised as “science” so that anyone who opposes it can be branded as “non-scientific.” This is the same sick way in which vaccines are pushed, too: They’re called “scientific” even when they’re based entirely on scientific fraud (as are GMOs).

How governments really operate

Above all, what these Wikileaks cables really reveal is that government conspiracies are, of course, not only real but that they are taking place right now. Diplomats and ambassadors are, in effect, government thugs who engage in the most unethical actions, full of threats and retaliation, in order to serve the financial interests of their corporate masters.

That’s how the world really works, despite the Disney-like image portrayed by the mainstream media. Behind the scenes, the U.S. government is literally plotting with Monsanto to take over the world’s food supply. That is not an exaggeration. It’s not conjecture. It is a statement of fact based on the words of the government’s own operatives (who obviously didn’t know their words would ever be made public).

Through Wikileaks, we have been given a glimpse into the truth behind the Great Wall of government lies. And that truth, it turns out, is a lot uglier than most people could have imagined. (It’s no surprise to me, because I’ve seen things that most regular people have never witnessed. But to a regular Joe Blow working his J.O.B. and watching the evening news, the hard-core truth about the world is a bit too much to handle…)

Personally, I can’t wait to see what other dark secrets are buried in these Wikileaks cables. And it all makes me wish we had a Wikileaks for the FDA, too. Can you imagine all the dirty secrets that would come out of the FDA’s offices if we could read their emails? We need an FDA leaker.

The other thought that comes to mind is how much I wouldn’t want to be Julian Assange right now. His head is now the world’s most powerful bullet magnet… especially when government rifles are anywhere nearby. If the U.S. government would conspire to create a “retaliation target list” of nations that are merely resisting GMOs, can you imagine what they will do if they ever get their hands on Assange?

Read the leaked cables right here:
http://213.251.145.96/cable/2008/02…

and

http://wikileaks.ch/cable/2009/05/0…

(Note: These links may not be active for very long because the governments of the world are obviously trying to shut down all the websites that post this information. The truth, it seems, is just too dangerous to allow it to be openly published.)

How to turn all this around

Don’t let all this get you down. You can take action to help turn this around!

Action Item #1) Don’t buy GMO foods! Look for the non-GMO “Project Verified” label on foods.

Action Item #2) Urge lawmakers to oppose GMOs or require honest GMO labeling of foods.

Action Item #3) Help support the Institute for Responsible Technology and other non-profits working to oppose GMOs.

Action Item #4) Stay informed! Read NaturalNews and our Facebook GMO Dangers page (www.facebook.com/GMO.dangers) to stay up on this issue. The IRT (above) will keep you even more deeply informed on GMOs.

Action Item #5) Share what you know! Share videos, cartoons, articles and websites with your friends and family members who also care about protecting their health from GMOs.

Action Item #6) Don’t trust the government! They are pushing a GMO conspiracy. They don’t want you to have natural food, and the FDA is now being unleashed under the new food safety bill to destroy small farmers who tend to use non-GMO crops. Fight against government encroachment of our natural right to grow honest food. Support food freedom!

Learn more about GMOs

Get the truth from Jeffrey Smith at: www.ResponsibleTechnology.org

See the GMO page on NaturalNews: www.NaturalNews.com/GMOs.html

Join our anti-GMO page on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/GMO.dangers

Watch my Just Say No to GMO video! It’s now available in four languages:

English: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnN6…
Chinese: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz9s…
Spanish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mit-…
Polish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2FL…

Spread the word! Educate yourself and your friends about the dangers of GMOs.

Upload your own non-GMO videos (FREE) to our natural health video site: www.NaturalNews.TV

Just say NO to GMOs.

Link to article: Wikileaks cable reveals U.S. conspired to retaliate against European nations if they resisted GMOs

Top European Commission politicians are taking lucrative corporate lobbyist jobs.

It’s outrageous — over half of top European Union politicians move straight from their posts into lucrative corporate lobbying jobs — turning the EU into a “lobbyocracy” run by big business, not the people.

The European Parliament is up in arms and has just threatened to withhold EU budget money until a new code of conduct is introduced to block officials rushing to become lobbyists. In a few days parliamentarians will meet to hear the Commission’s proposals, but they need support to force a decisive change.

This is a chance to clean up Brussels, but it will take a massive public outcry. The grip of big business on EU decisions subverts our democratic priorities, from agriculture to climate to energy. Click to sign the petition — which will be delivered to top decision-makers at a meeting in the Parliament — and forward this email to friends:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_lobby_rules/?vl

The “revolving door” between the European Commission and the lobbyists fuels corruption, as officials compete for the fattest pay cheque when they leave office and then put their relationships and influence to work for the highest bidder.

The recently resigned EU Industry Commissioner has already joined the boards of 4 large firms — and set up his own EU lobbying company! And, months before she left office, another European Commissioner accepted a position with a giant insurance company which had a direct interest in decisions she was taking.

Such new jobs are supposed to be vetted by the Commission. But the secret ‘ethics committee’ responsible for that is failing to stand up for the public interest. It had never blocked a single appointment until September, when – following outrage in the media – it prevented former financial services commissioner Charlie McCreevy going to work with a British bank.

If we join together now, public and parliamentary pressure can break through Brussels complacency, block the industry commissioner’s appointments and force Commission president Barroso to fulfil his long-promised – but never implemented – promise for a tough new code of conduct to prevent abuse. Sign the petition and circulate widely:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_lobby_rules/?vl

In the world we all want, public servants will serve only the public, not personal or corporate agendas. Our governments are among our most powerful tools to create change, but they must be ours. Let’s take back Brussels for the people of Europe.

With hope,

Alex, Benjamin, Ricken, Alice, Luis, Ben and all of the Avaaz team

P.S. Former European Commissioners continue to get paid 50% of their salary for three years, precisely to prevent them rushing to cash in with corporate jobs. Sticks are clearly needed alongside these carrots.

MORE INFORMATION:

EU Commission pressed on tougher rules for ex-Commissioners:
http://www.theparliament.com/latest-news/article/newsarticle/eu-commission-pressed-to-introduce-tougher-rules-on-ex-commissioners/

European Commission revolving door scandal:
http://www.corporateeurope.org/lobbycracy/news/2010/09/27/revolving-door-scandal-alter-eu-call

Ethics committee blocks former Commissioner’s bank appointment:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/1007/breaking36.html

Should former Commissioners be allowed to cash in?
http://www.neurope.eu/articles/102969.php

MEPs hold Commission budget to ransom
http://euobserver.com/18/31101

Support the Avaaz community! We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way — donate here.

Link to article: Coporate corruption controls: close the revolving doors

Avaaz has come under attack from a major media-mogul.

Huge numbers of Canadian Avaazers recently mobilized against government favours for a new radical-right propaganda network run by the Prime Minister’s former spin doctor. The media empire behind the network and its billionaire owner, Pierre Karl Peladeau, has attacked our community with several smear pieces in their own newspapers, and one of their executives admitted insider knowledge of a criminal sabotage of our campaign. Now the mogul has threatened to sue Avaaz if we don’t take down our campaign within 24 hours!

This is how big corporate power works to silence people’s voices. But Avaaz is a community of almost 6 million people — together we’re far stronger than any corporate bully.

“Crony-media” and its incestuous combination of unscrupulous politicians and biased reporting is a rising threat to democracy in many countries, from Italy to the US to Australia. Let’s take a stand, and show them their intimidation tactics will only backfire. They’ve given us a 24 hour ultimatum: Let’s donate to give them our answer and keep the fight alive against crony-media across the world:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_up_to_crony_media/?vl

Democracy is on the march across the world, but anti-democratic interests have figured out a counter-attack: crony-media. When a political leader teams up with a massive media empire, they become hard to beat at the polls, no matter how bad they are.

In Italy, Prime Minister Berlusconi controls over 80% of the news channels, and has a major stake in leading newspapers, magazines and publishing. Berlusconi is mired in scandal and corruption allegations, but the spin on his networks is always positive. In the US, UK, and Australia, mega-mogul Rupert Murdoch exploits his empire to get sweet deals from politicians, whom he in turn backs for office. His infamous Fox News is the largest cable news network in the US. After President Barack Obama spurned Murdoch and boycotted his propagandistic network, Fox News spawned the radical right Tea Party group, and provided a platform for hate and racism, suggesting that Obama is a terrorist and hates white people.

The idea for a new Canadian crony-media network was reportedly hatched in a secret lunch between Rupert Murdoch and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper was George W. Bush’s closest ally on climate change and many other issues, and is widely understood to be importing a radical form of right-wing politics to Canada from the US. The new network, dubbed “Fox News North” would transform Canada’s media landscape, bringing an unscrupulously biased mouthpiece for a political leader. Avaaz’s campaign opposes a special government favour that would force taxpayers to foot the bill for this new network through their cable TV fees. This is an example of how crony-media works — a billionaire gets government-mandated funding for their media network while pushing propaganda that backs that government’s leader.

Many of these media barons are also ruthless in how they achieve their political objectives: pushing opinions that poison people’s hearts and polarize our world, threatening democracy and peace. Canada is the latest battle — let’s make it the battle where people-power begins to turns the tide on crony-media. We have 24 hours to win this one — click below to donate:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/stand_up_to_crony_media/?vl

Part of the promise of the Avaaz movement is our ability to work on the issues that cut across all others. The subversion of democracy by the collusion of political leaders and media-corporations is a threat to all the things we care about, from climate change to poverty to human rights. With our global reach, Avaaz might be one of the only organizations that can fight this rising threat to democracy. We’ve been given a 24 hour challenge — let’s rise to it.

With hope,

Ricken, Luis, Iain, Emma, Alice, Ben, Giulia, Alex and the rest of the Avaaz team.

More information on this below:

Avaaz’s Executive Director, Ricken Patel, debates Crony-media front-man, Kory Teneycke on Canadian national TV:
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Featured_Videos/ID=1582123926

Ricken Patel speaks to big corporate bully tactics on Canadian TV yesterday:
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Politics/ID=1592304620

Don Newman, CBC News, “The absolute last thing this country needs”:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/06/10/f-vp-newman.html#socialcomments#ixzz0r6MC4p46

Globe and Mail, “Is Stephen Harper set to move against the Canadian Television Radio and Telecommunications Commission?”:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/is-stephen-harper-set-to-move-against-the-crtc/article1677632/

BBC profile of Silvio Berlusconi:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3034600.stm

Newser, “Can the Brits get Rupert?”:
http://www.newser.com/off-the-grid/post/540/can-the-brits-get-rupert.html

Media Matters, “Fair and balanced Fox News aggressively promotes “tea party” protests”:
http://mediamatters.org/reports/200904080025

Support the Avaaz community! We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way — donate here.

Link to article: Media-Mogul Attacks Avaaz