Comments on Tim Calvert’s Speech of September 10, 2011

Published on Sep 10, 2012

Selected Quotes from Tim Calvert’s Speech of September 10, 2011, Plus Comments from Rose City Antifa

Tim Calvert’s speech at a Portland 9/11 Truth Alliance gathering was uploaded online to Archive.org as well as Youtube (channel: BenWaitingClips) by local Portland videographer Joe Anybody. At the time of writing, this speech is still available online. We wish to draw attention to a few parts of Calvert’s speech highlighting his antisemitic conspiracy theory worldview. As some sections of Calvert’s speech are lightly coded, we believe that some context and commentary may assist understanding of its antisemitic content. For information on Calvert’s other antisemitic organizing and political work with racists, Holocaust-deniers and other extreme-Right activists, visit rosecityantifa.org

Tim Calvert states:

(18:00 – 18:48) “The visible and the invisible editors: in the news of today, corporate and gatekeeping reporters will speak from an anonymous omnipresent voice, never acknowledging the politics of the owners [and] editors. This has the net effect of pigeonholing the story and taking it out of context. For instance, a story on NPR about Israel will fail to mention that the reporter Linda Gradstein is married to an Israeli who was in the military and that she lives in Israel with her family. The spin of her story then must be seen in the context of her background and NPR’s larger intent. See: ifamericansknew.org. That’s Alison Weir’s website. She lived in Portland briefly and she was all over this kind of media analysis and NPR in particular. It’s horrible [unclear].”

Rose City Antifa comments: Calvert insinuates that Gradstein’s interpersonal links to Israel compromise her ability to report accurately for National Public Radio in the US, an argument reminiscent of the “dual loyalty” canard that Jewish people always maintain a greater allegiance to Israel than any other country. Gradstein doing journalism without being baited for loyalty to Israel is presented by Calvert as a typical instance of “the politics of the owners [and] editors” of the media. Calvert suggests that the US media is owned and edited by figures that are loyal to Israel, whose interests they promote in the manner of an “omnipotent voice.” There is very little to distinguish Calvert’s argument from the old cliché about Jewish people allegedly controlling the media.

Alison Weir, who Calvert mentions as his source on this matter, is herself an antisemitic activist currently serving as President of the Council for the National Interest. As well as her Jew-baitingmedia analysis, Weir is also notorious for pushing the modern-day blood libel that there is an Israeli conspiracy to harvest the organs of Palestinians.

Tim Calvert states:

20:16 “Gatekeepers are the frontline troops in the propaganda that is being waged on the American people. Long-range [penetration]… This… And I’ve just finished reading this book which is a very scary book to read. [Holds up copy of The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations: Shaping the Moral, Spiritual, Cultural, Political, and Economic Decline of The United States of America by John Coleman.] The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. Tavistock is a British institution that was started actually before World War I and it actually continues right to this point in time. And what it is, is an extremely high-level propaganda outfit and it… Freud’s nephew [Edward] Bernays was one of the key founders of the Tavistock Institute and they utilized insights that Freud had developed about the human subconscious to deploy propaganda to devastating effect. And that’s where we’re kinda sitting right now.

21:05 “I mean, basically the Tavistock Institute was established to get the British to hate the Germans enough to go to war in World War I, and then do it again in World War II, and then they’ve just kept doing it with every war that we’ve had since. And here are some of the words that the Tavistock Institute uses when they are talking about this sort of propaganda: ‘Long-range penetration and inner directional conditioning’. That is a very scary phrase: ‘Long-range penetration and inner directional conditioning’.

21:46 “The Tavistock Institute - I love this one - so they were researching how they were going to beat Germany in World War II. And so they set up the US Strategic Bombing Survey and the Committee on National Morale. According to Tavistock Institute records, the Strategic Bombing Survey played a key role in forcing Germany to its knees through a highly-disciplined program of systematic bombing of German worker housing, which Sir Arthur Harris of the RAF was only too delighted to carry out. And this comes right out of the book. So, systematic bombing of German worker housing. And actually when one reflects on the wars of aggression that the US has engaged in since then, that has been the technique: bomb civilians. Bomb civilians in North Vietnam, bomb civilians in Libya, bomb civilians in Iraq: bomb civilians. And it, like, completely rips the society apart. And - funny thing - it works, you know, when you bomb civilians.

22:51 [Comment from audience: ‘That’s real penetration.’]

22:53 – 22:56 “Yeah, yeah. ‘Inner directional.’”

Rose City Antifa comments: Calvert takes his information from a book by John Coleman, an extreme antisemitic author, albeit one who lightly codes his reference to the Jewish nature of the conspiracy in some of his books. Coleman was previously involved with the Christian Defense League, an antisemitic Christian Identity organization. Christian Identity is a racist theology that proclaims white people of European lineage to be the true descendants of the Biblical tribes of Israel, whereas Jewish people are considered impostors. Christian Identity theology often portrays Jewish people as tools of Satan on earth - Coleman promotes similarly negative characterizations of Jewish people.

Calvert, citing an antisemitic author, repeats Judeophobic conspiracy theories. Calvert, when he brings up Bernays’ relationship to Freud, highlights the Jewish aspect of the alleged Tavistock Institute conspiracy. Tavistock, by Calvert’s account, is behind British and US military campaigns as a sinister force that sets the stage for war. Calvert blames Tavistock for attacks on German civilian targets during WWII, thereby turning his narrative into one of a Jewish conspiracy actually victimizing Germans during the conflict. Calvert furthermore switches between his discussions of military strikes against Germany during World War II, and what he considers to be US “wars of aggression”. Tavistock - a rhetorical stand-in for Jewish power - is presented as the shadowy force behind them all.

Tim Calvert states:

26: 46 – 27:03 “Another example is the Rose City Antifa, otherwise known as the anonymous Zionist hit squad, trained by Tavistock and resembling most closely Israeli settlers on the West Bank of Jerusalem. We all become Palestinians in Gaza when the Zionists declare you the enemy.”

Rose City Antifa comments: Calvert cannot conceive of people expressing dislike towards antisemitism, without such attitudes being of “Tavistock” and “Zionist” origin. “The Zionists” are portrayed as a massively powerful and bellicose force worldwide; Calvert’s claims clearly exceed any realistic depiction of Israeli state policy or of pro-Israel political advocacy, instead suggesting the sort of huge conspiracy depicted in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other antisemitic propaganda.

Tim Calvert states:

38:11 – 38:35 “…and this in fact happened in Oslo, and I think in fact Cathie may touch on that a little bit, so I won’t go into that too much more, but it was very aggravating that the Oslo attacks were… They didn’t talk about what these students had been doing at that camp right before they were murdered. It just got dropped off media coverage. And it was very significant.”

Rose City Antifa comments: Cathie Bell, who Calvert references, would later at the Portland 9/11 Truth Alliance event give a presentation on the 22 July 2011 mass murders in Norway, presenting the Oslo bombing and Utoya shootings as “false flag” attacks. Calvert, in his comment concerning “what these students had been doing at that camp right before they were murdered”, may have been trying to draw attention to political calls made at the Labor Party camp in Utoya the day before Anders Behring Breivik’s massacre - demands that Norway recognize a Palestinian state. Calvert may therefore be promoting a similar theory to Bell, that the 2011 attacks in Norway were in fact the result of a world-dominating conspiracy taking exception to such pro-Palestine calls.

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