A Blacklisted Film and the New Cold War – Consortiumnews. Special Report: As Congress still swoons over the anti- Kremlin Magnitsky narrative, Western political and media leaders refuse to let their people view a documentary that debunks the fable, reports Robert Parry. By Robert Parry (Updated Aug. Magnitsky not a lawyer.)Why is the U. S. mainstream media so frightened of a documentary that debunks the beloved story of how “lawyer” Sergei Magnitsky uncovered massive Russian government corruption and died as a result? If the documentary is as flawed as its critics claim, why won’t they let it be shown to the American public, then lay out its supposed errors, and use it as a case study of how such fakery works? ![]()
Torrentz will always love you. Farewell. © 2003-2016 Torrentz. Special Report: As Congress still swoons over the anti-Kremlin Magnitsky narrative, Western political and media leaders refuse to let their people view a documentary.![]() Film director Andrei Nekrasov, who produced “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes.”Instead we – in the land of the free, home of the brave – are protected from seeing this documentary produced by filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov who was known as a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin but who in this instance found the West’s widely accepted Magnitsky storyline to be a fraud. Instead, last week, Senate Judiciary Committee members sat in rapt attention as hedge- fund operator William Browder wowed them with a reprise of his Magnitsky tale and suggested that people who have challenged the narrative and those who dared air the documentary one time at Washington’s Newseum last year should be prosecuted for violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). It appears that Official Washington’s anti- Russia hysteria has reached such proportions that old- time notions about hearing both sides of a story or testing out truth in the marketplace of ideas must be cast aside. The new political/media paradigm is to shield the American people from information that contradicts the prevailing narratives, all the better to get them to line up behind Those Who Know Best. Nekrasov’s powerful deconstruction of the Magnitsky myth – and the film’s subsequent blacklisting throughout the “free world” – recall other instances in which the West’s propaganda lines don’t stand up to scrutiny, so censorship and ad hominem attacks become the weapons of choice to defend “perception management” narratives in geopolitical hot spots such as Iraq (2. Libya (2. 01. 1), Syria (2. Ukraine (2. 01. 3 to the present). But the Magnitsky myth has a special place as the seminal fabrication of the dangerous New Cold War between the nuclear- armed West and nuclear- armed Russia. In the United States, Russia- bashing in The New York Times and other “liberal media” also has merged with the visceral hatred of President Trump, causing all normal journalistic standards to be jettisoned. A Call for Prosecutions. Browder, the American- born co- founder of Hermitage Capital Management who is now a British citizen, raised the stakes even more when he testified that the people involved in arranging a one- time showing of Nekrasov’s documentary, “The Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes,” at the Newseum should be held accountable under FARA, which has penalties ranging up to five years in prison. Hedge- fund executive William Browder in a 2. Browder testified: “As part of [Russian lawyer Natalie] Veselnitskaya’s lobbying, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, Chris Cooper of the Potomac Group, was hired to organize the Washington, D. C.- based premiere of a fake documentary about Sergei Magnitsky and myself. This was one the best examples of Putin’s propaganda.“They hired Howard Schweitzer of Cozzen O’Connor Public Strategies and former Congressman Ronald Dellums to lobby members of Congress on Capitol Hill to repeal the Magnitsky Act and to remove Sergei’s name from the Global Magnitsky bill. On June 1. 3, 2. 01. Newseum to show their fake documentary, inviting representatives of Congress and the State Department to attend.“While they were conducting these operations in Washington, D. C., at no time did they indicate that they were acting on behalf of Russian government interests, nor did they file disclosures under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. United States law is very explicit that those acting on behalf of foreign governments and their interests must register under FARA so that there is transparency about their interests and their motives.“Since none of these people registered, my firm wrote to the Department of Justice in July 2. I hope that my story will help you understand the methods of Russian operatives in Washington and how they use U. S. enablers to achieve major foreign policy goals without disclosing those interests.”Browder’s Version. While he loosely accused a number of Americans of felonies, Browder continued to claim that Magnitsky was a crusading “lawyer” who uncovered a $2. Browder’s companies but, which, according to Browder’s account, was really engineered by corrupt Russian police officers who then arrested Magnitsky and later were responsible for his death in a Russian jail. Sergei Magnitsky. Browder’s narrative has received a credulous hearing by Western politicians and media already inclined to think the worst of Putin’s Russia and willing to treat Browder’s claims as true without serious examination. However, beyond the self- serving nature of Browder’s tale, there are many holes in the story, including whether Magnitsky was really a principled lawyer or instead a complicit accountant. According to Browder’s own biographical description of Magnitsky, he received his education at the Plekhanov Institute in Moscow, a reference to Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, a school for finance and business, not a law school.(In response to my queries about Magnitsky’s professional standing, Leonid N. Dobrokhotov, a professor at Lomonosov Moscow State University, wrote to me on Aug. Magnitsky had graduated from Plekhanov in 1. Finance and Credit” and later worked as an auditor or certified public accountant in a tax consulting firm. He had never been a lawyer in his life time,” Dobrokhotov wrote.)Nevertheless, the West’s mainstream media – relying on the word of Browder – has accepted Magnitsky’s standing as a “lawyer,” which apparently fits better in the narrative of Magnitsky as a crusading corruption fighter rather than a potential co- conspirator with Browder in a complex fraud, as the Russian government has alleged. Magnitsky’s mother also has described her son as an accountant, although telling Nekrasov in the documentary “he wasn’t just an accountant; he was interested in lots of things.” In the film, the “lawyer” claim is also disputed by a female co- worker who knew Magnitsky well. He wasn’t a lawyer,” she said. In other words, on this high- profile claim repeated by Browder again and again, it appears that presenting Magnitsky as a “lawyer” is a convenient falsehood that buttresses the Magnitsky myth, which Browder constructed after Magnitsky’s death from heart failure while in pre- trial detention. But the Magnitsky myth took off in 2. Browder sold his tale to neocon Senators Ben Cardin, D- Maryland, and John Mc. Cain, R- Arizona, who threw their political weight behind a bipartisan drive in Congress leading to the passage of the Magnitsky sanctions act, the opening shot in the New Cold War. A Planned Docudrama Browder’s dramatic story also attracted the attention of Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov, a well- known critic of Putin from previous films. Nekrasov set out to produce a docudrama that would share Browder’s good- vs.- evil narrative to a wider public. Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses UN General Assembly on Sept. UN Photo)Nekrasov devotes the first half hour of the film to allowing Browder to give his Magnitsky account illustrated by scenes from Nekrasov’s planned docudrama. In other words, the viewer gets to see a highly sympathetic portrayal of Browder and Magnitsky as supposedly corrupt Russian authorities bring charges of tax fraud against them. However, Nekrasov’s documentary project takes an unexpected turn when his research turns up numerous contradictions to Browder’s storyline, which begins to look more and more like a corporate cover story. For instance, Magnitsky’s mother blames the negligence of prison doctors for her son’s death rather than a beating by prison guards as Browder had pitched to Western audiences. Nekrasov also discovered that a woman who had worked in Browder’s company blew the whistle before Magnitsky talked to police and that Magnitsky’s original interview with authorities was as a suspect, not a whistleblower. US Considers Chinese Investment in Artificial Intelligence a National Security Threat. The US Department of Defense is struggling to get its arms around all of the new security issues that have come with our current technological explosion. One unexpected consideration on the table is placing stricter limitations on investment capital from China flowing into American companies that are working on artificial intelligence. If you had any doubt that Russian hackers attempted to meddle with the United States electoral…Read more Technology is the fastest growing industry in the American economy according to recent data. And with all the political talk about “JOBS, JOBS, JOBS,” it’s a bit surprising to see the government floating plans to limit investment in American companies. But that’s exactly what the Pentagon is proposing according to Reuters. From the report: Of particular concern is China’s interest in fields such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, which have increasingly attracted Chinese capital in recent years. The worry is that cutting- edge technologies developed in the United States could be used by China to bolster its military capabilities and perhaps even push it ahead in strategic industries. The U. S. government is now looking to strengthen the role of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the inter- agency committee that reviews foreign acquisitions of U. S. companies on national security grounds. Reuters was able to view an unreleased Pentagon report that outlines the ways in which Chinese investors have found loopholes in CFIUS that allow them to avoid setting off any regulatory triggers. The report recommends that new legislation be drafted to update the rules governing foreign investment. It also advises that a list of critical technologies be compiled and restrictions should be placed on Chinese investment in those areas of development. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis spoke to the US Senate at a hearing on Tuesday and he insisted that the CFIUS “needs to be updated to deal with today’s situation.”The second most powerful man in the Senate, John Cornyn, has begun drafting legislation according to one of his aides. You heard that right. A top Republican is pushing for more regulation and less investment. Time will tell if Republican’s can get behind another one of the Pentagon’s recommendations that goes against everything they stand for. The report is asking for greater flexibility on the immigration policy for Chinese graduate students studying in the US. It suggests that these students should be allowed to stay in the US after finishing their studies. The research firm Rhodium Group found that China funneled $4. US last year. It has increased that investment by 1. Tech lobbyists will surely be out in full force to fight any sort of regulatory increases. The new age of security threats includes encryption, online organization, cyberattacks, rapid spread of disinformation, autonomous vehicles, drones, unprecedented surveillance powers, and now, apparently, the pumping of billions of dollars into our economy.[Reuters].
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