New World (Dis)Order: Trying To Stay Caught Up

This is Easter, and that’s what gives us hope. I’ll be celebrating that, but just to try to stay current I’m offering some quick links.

The UK continues to lead the pack with mongering for war, although their not alone. Are the Deep States—US and UK—trying to groom the public for nuclear war?

Michael Tracey @mtracey

Every digital ad on display at London Bridge train station is this propaganda message from the Ukraine government. Recall, it was just reported Friday that British soldiers have now deployed into Ukraine territory

And, following ueber Neocon and husband of Victoria Nuland, Robert Kagan’s pronouncement—nuclear war isn’t a big risk, so why not take it?—we get this:

Michael Tracey @mtracey

BBC Radio warns this morning to expect use of tactical nuclear weapons. With their governments as co-combatants, “Western” audiences are being conditioned to have greater expectations for nuclear war than a diplomatic accord

So, with that context, here’s a brief interview (4 minutes) with Col. Doug Macgregor that touches on that prospect and what this heightened rhetoric is about—spoiler, Macgregor is of the view that this special operation will conclude quickly enough that there won’t be time to get to that point:

Next, an update on the French elections. You’ll recall that Marine Le Pen finished nearly 5 points behind Macron, after running neck and neck. I recently got this missive from Friend George along with a link to a Russian article:

France: I knew it, not with forensic proof but simply by pattern-recognition. Off and on, watching German TV on election night, Macron and Le Pen were each 24%, for hours the numbers held up. Then suddenly Macron ended up with 28% and Le Pen at 23. I laughed, my wife asked why... she has to ask because I laugh so often at the news. Fraud, just fraud.

The article is dated 4/15/22. I don’t follow French news, so I can’t offer an opinion:

Macron will need the help of intelligence agencies to win the elections

The current President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has been catastrophically losing his rating in the eyes of the public opinion of the Fifth Republic in recent weeks.

According to the results of the first round of the presidential elections, the difference between him and Marine Le Pen was minimal. 28.1% of the French voted for Macron, 23.3% for Le Pen. Moreover, Alesya Miloradovich, a researcher at the Paris Academy of Geopolitics, expressed doubts about the reliability of this result in a conversation with me: “Too much for Macron, who has been smashed in all the media for a whole month. Looks like they plucked off Mélenchon and Le Pen."

Until recently, it seemed that the fight between Macron and Le Pen would become a fight between a TV and a refrigerator, but the current reality has made serious adjustments to this forecast. Resonant revelations exposed the current president of France as a real foreign agent, which seriously brought down his popularity and chances for a second term.

On March 16, the French Senate released a report entitled "The Tentacle Phenomenon: On the Growing Influence of Consulting Firms on Public Policy," which had the effect of a bombshell. The report revealed an amazing picture of the total corruption of the top officials of the Fifth Republic by foreign consulting companies, primarily the American company McKinsey. The report stated that state budget spending on advisory services had doubled since 2018 and amounted to more than one billion euros in 2021.

“This makes the concept of the state and state sovereignty, as well as the proper use of public funds, dependent on private firms. After four months of investigation and the collection of 7,300 documents, the commission of inquiry shows that entire sections of public policy have been transferred to private firms,” the senators said. Immediately after the publication of the report, Macron's rating collapsed. If until March 16, Macron's activities as president were approved by 30.5% of the French, by the first round of elections their number had dropped to 26.5%.

McKinsey Gate's main reputational damage for Macron was not so much in exposing large-scale corruption in the highest spheres of power, but in the fact that the political and managerial decisions of the French authorities are shaped by foreign companies.

In other words, France is de facto under external control. Macron's popularity has hardly suffered against the backdrop of a scandal that has been going on for a number of years around his suspiciously close cooperation with the world's largest investment fund Black Rock, which he brought to France so successfully that there was nothing French left in fact.

But the fact that, by the grace of Macron, France essentially lost its sovereignty, which was emphasized in the Senate investigation, outraged the proud Gauls, who had not yet completely forgotten the times of de Gaulle. The lawmakers also said that McKinsey has not paid corporation tax in France for at least 10 years. Marine Le Pen did not pass by such a scandal, saying that “with Macron, McKinsey, which last year cost you one billion euros for very vague missions, will continue to eat public money, not pay taxes and lie to the Senate.”

Xavier Bertrand, a prominent conservative politician, said that the use of foreign consulting services during Macron's tenure was "a state scandal and should lead to judicial investigations." The Senate investigation was preceded by a resonant article by well-known publicist Thierry Meyssan about McKinsey's connection with US intelligence agencies. In 2012, the CIA and NSA instructed the world's leading consulting firms McKinsey and the Boston Consulting Group to "keep a close eye on the French presidential campaign," writes Meyssan. “Macron’s architect was the McKinsey group, which accomplished the feat of electing an inexperienced politician to the presidency to destroy French society.”

As usual, I ask: Does this somehow sound similar to what’s going on in the US? Obviously, there are differences, and yet …

So, with that background, the latest news. Oh wait, there’s more background. Le Pen is continuing to emphasize her anti-NATO policy plans. So …

Angelo Giuliano 🇮🇹 🇨🇭/ living in 🇨🇳 @Angelo4justice3

New EU Anti-fraud report accuses Marine Le Pen of embezzling European Parliament public funds 🔹What a coincidence, 10 days from the second round of presidential elections. Elites and medias are rigging the elections

Hey, what do I know? But I think I know what happened in the United States from 2016 to 2020, and I think I know what’s going on now. So, here’s a link to a podcast with Scott Ritter. In the 30 minutes Ritter says a lot of interesting things, but his bombshell comes toward the end where he states—and explains his reasons for his statement—that Marine Le Pen could save the world. It’s all about Finland.

In know what you’re thinking: Finland? Huh? That’s not even a serious country! Here’s what he’s talking about—Finland applying for membership in NATO. I won’t go into the whole history of Finnish - Russian relations. Many of us have read about the heroic Finns fighting off Stalin’s Asiatic hordes. There’s truth in that but, as is so often the case, there’s the rest of the story, too. Here’s an account that’s sympathetic to the Finns re their alliance with Nazi Germany against Russia, and I have no quarrel with this account. Ritter’s point is this: Finland exists today as a sovereign nation only because they agreed with the USSR to be strictly neutral. But for that Finnish commitment to neutrality Finland would not exist as a sovereign nation. As such, says Ritter, Finland’s situation is entirely different from Sweden’s, which has not had any recent wars (since the 18th century) with Russia and doesn’t border Russia. Finland not only borders Russia, it is also within very close range of Russia’s second largest city and the extremely strategic Kola Peninsula. Ritter maintains, in the strongest terms, that if Finland should apply to NATO Russia will feel forced to invade with overwhelming force. Listen and see what you think. I don’t follow Finnish news, either, but this Finnish angle seems about what you might expect from an unserious country.

Now, Ritter’s connection of that situation to Le Pen as world savior is that Le Pen’s pledge to withdraw from NATO would, in essence, at this point in history, spell the end of NATO. Perhaps not formally, but that would be the reality. That, Ritter contends, would make a serious difference in Russia’s strategic calculations.

So, put that together with the question of whose interests would be gored by a Le Pen win, and with the allegations of electoral hanky panky and the—perhaps too convenient—allegations against Le Pen. The times are no less interesting than they were yesterday.