Re: <nettime> Ten Theses on the Panama Papers

[Florian Cramer <flrncrmr@gmail.com>]

> On 5 Apr 2016, at 14:42, Florian Cramer forwarded:
>
>> Panama Papers - not the Scoop but the Flop of the Century
>
> Florian, I'm pretty confident that Jens Berger's eruption won't age
> hold up very well, and I really wonder why you bothered to forward such
> a load of bollocks. And to follow that up with intimations that most of
> the major foundations are behind the fact that no US citizens have been
> named in the first 36 hours? I'm under no illusions about the many
> roles that the upper echelons of US civil society have played in
> shaping (some would say distorting) the world for decades, but Berger's
> tantrum and your follow-up would be very much at home on Fox News.
   

Berger is by far not the only one with this opinion. After I posted
his article here, WikiLeaks retweeted the link to Nettime's archive
and Berger's piece. Before, Wikileaks tweeted the following (so we can
consider it WikiLeaks' official position on the matter:
   
"In total, Guardian has released, 2 #PanamaPapers documents.
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 0 documents." "#PanamaPapers: If you censor
more than 99% of the documents you are engaged in 1% journalism by
definition."

"US govt funded #PanamaPapers attack story on Putin via USAID. Some
good journalists but no model for integrity."
   
"The US OCCRP can do good work, but for the US govt to directly fund
the #PanamaPapers attack on Putin seriously undermines its integrity."

"#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia
& former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros."


Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, wrote the
following on his blog:

   "Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a
   genuine desire to expose the system that enables the ultra wealthy to
   hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained and all involved
   in tax avoidance. These Panamanian lawyers hide the wealth of a
   significant proportion of the 1%, and the massive leak of their
   documents ought to be a wonderful thing.
   Unfortunately the leaker has made the dreadful mistake of turning to
   the western corporate media to publicise the results. In consequence
   the first major story, published today by the Guardian, is all about
   Vladimir Putin and a cellist on the fiddle. As it happens I believe the
   story and have no doubt Putin is bent.
   But why focus on Russia? Russian wealth is only a tiny minority of the
   money hidden away with the aid of Mossack Fonseca. In fact, it soon
   becomes obvious that the selective reporting is going to stink.
   The Suddeutsche Zeitung, which received the leak, gives a detailed
   explanation of the methodology the corporate media used to search the
   files. The main search they have done is for names associated with
   breaking UN sanctions regimes. The Guardian reports this too and
   helpfully lists those countries as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Russia and
   Syria. The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the
   corporate media follows a direct western governmental agenda. There is
   no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca by massive western
   corporations or western billionaires â the main customers. And the
   Guardian is quick to reassure that âmuch of the leaked material will
   remain private.â
   
   What do you expect? The leak is being managed by the grandly but
   laughably named âInternational Consortium of Investigative
   Journalistsâ, which is funded and organised entirely by the USAâs
   Center for Public Integrity. Their funders include
   Ford Foundation
   Carnegie Endowment
   Rockefeller Family Fund
   W K Kellogg Foundation
   Open Society Foundation (Soros)
   among many others. Do not expect a genuine expose of western
   capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain
   unpublished.
   Expect hits at Russia, Iran and Syria and some tiny âbalancingâ western
   country like Iceland. A superannuated UK peer or two will be sacrificed
   â someone already with dementia.
   The corporate media â the Guardian and BBC in the UK â have exclusive
   access to the database which you and I cannot see. They are protecting
   themselves from even seeing western corporationsâ sensitive information
   by only looking at those documents which are brought up by specific
   searches such as UN sanctions busters. Never forget the Guardian
   smashed its copies of the Snowden files on the instruction of MI6.
   What if they did Mossack Fonseca database searches on the owners of all
   the corporate media and their companies, and all the editors and senior
   corporate media journalists? What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches
   on all the most senior people at the BBC? What if they did Mossack
   Fonseca searches on every donor to the Center for Public Integrity and
   their companies?
   What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every listed company in
   the western stock exchanges, and on every western millionaire they
   could trace?
   That would be much more interesting. I know Russia and China are
   corrupt, you donât have to tell me that. What if you look at things
   that we might, here in the west, be able to rise up and do something
   about?
   
   And what if you corporate lapdogs let the people see the actual data?"
   Original posting
   here:Â [1]https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/corporate-med
   ia-gatekeepers-protect-western-1-from-panama-leak/

   Florian

References

   1. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/corporate-media-gatekeepers-protect-western-1-from-panama-leak/

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