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Journalist Steve Topple got right to the point in a hard-hitting article for Common Space, offering some stunning facts you probably never considered about Britain's "independent" nuclear arsenal.

Rather than presenting moral arguments against nuclear weapons or military-strategic arguments about how only the US benefits from the tiny and weak British island state acting as a second policeman to contain Russian "aggression", Topple goes after the ones who support Trident for financial gain. This is much the way Topple addressed dark money in British politics in another recent article. Most surprising of all is the role of UK-headquartered banks in the investment in the nuclear deterrents of the western countries as well as Russia. Apparently, these banks, their related companies and pro-Trident politicians in the UK are so driven by profit that they work to keep the nonexistent "threat" of nuclear war alive in the public consciousness, while financing both sides. Ultimately, the entire thing often just amounts to con against the public. Although a tense situation exists in Syria and Ukraine, Topple is certain that it will not lead to a nuclear war because globalization is currently too pervasive to allow that. Topple defuses the apparent nuclear threat skillfully in his article as follows:

Multinational corporate banks are playing one big chess game – except it’s all make-believe and there will never be a checkmate, because that would be unprofitable. Governments willingly participate - those in charge are invariably shareholders in weapons manufacturing companies or their financiers. 

We are not living in some Sean Connery-era James Bond film. The world is intrinsically too financially entwined for either the East or West to ever press 'the button' – and to believe they would is, in my opinion, deluded.

This is no conspiracy theory. Barclays, HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland are specifically identified as having a hand in investing in both sides' nuclear deterrents, and this largely links together the financial players behind the nuclear arms industries of Russia and the UK. In conclusion, Topple states, "There is no threat – except from our own foolhardiness for sleep-walking for decades and allowing this to continue happening." Topple is a listed member of the Mont Order society, which declared a short set of shared values between its global disparate members in October 2015.

See @RepPress video knocking down @RealAlexJones' stupid attacks on #BernieSanders https://t.co/hntzXKcS9U pic.twitter.com/RL3Qr3rmct

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) February 17, 2016

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Contributing an article to Common Space on 8 February, journalist Steve Topple criticized the relations between leading UK politicians, corporations, and tax havens.

Particular focus is on Bermuda as a tax haven in the article, with its role in protecting the wealth of unscrupulous corporations and British political campaign donors explained. Offering a list of the worst offenders, which includes Google shareholders and Conservative donors "Lord Green (serial HSBC wrong-un and Tory crony), Lord Lloyd-Webber (all-round bad-egg and party cheerleader), and Lord Glendonbrook (donated £700,000 to the Conservatives in the past 18 months)", Topple noted that the Labour Party is also blackened by the same financial dependence on tax havens. Exposing the unethical dark money obtained by Labour Party-affiliated think tank the Fabian Society, Topple wrote:

I wonder why beacons of social democracy the Fabians, then, have accepted £60,000 in donations from Cuadrilla (them of nefarious fracking ventures) – which is registered in Bermuda? Or £13,500 from corporate banking degenerates HSBC – who have eight subsidiaries on the island? Or £26,000 from Iglo Group (Birds Eye, Findus) - which at the time was dodging tax via Luxembourg and the Channel Islands?

Topple additionally criticized civil society organizations for talking about global wealth inequality while using investment over the stock market as a means of combating it, despite the stock market arguably being to blame for such inequality (if we ask the Occupy movement, for example). In addition, the article mocked people's faith in the corrupt political system in the UK, arguing as follows:

Politicians can wring their silver-crossed palms, bestow us with platitudes, and give rhetorical diatribes about the scourge of inequality all they want, but the truth of the matter is that corporations are now the organ-grinders running the planet – we merely vote for performing monkeys.

The Mont Order, which Steve Topple is a listed member of, holds the same skepticism towards present forms of democracy in the UK and the US, viewing these as shallow performances to keep corrupt elites in power with false appearances of legitimacy.

US-paid rebel thugs in #Syria talk "peace" to escape punishment by #Putin and #Assad https://t.co/X9aeOyt4Uf pic.twitter.com/qoSB1lfuZZ

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) February 10, 2016

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Government and media in Britain are too focused on the Syrian Civil War to notice the greater scale of the suffering in Yemen.

In fact, as Steve Topple writes in an opinion piece at Common Space, the UK has even taken sides in the Yemen conflict, supporting the Saudi-led forces who imposed mass killings and starvation in the country after pro-Saudi President Hadi was driven from power. The violence and displacement reported in Yemen, in what reports are available amid the pro-Saudi media blackout, is "a humanitarian disaster of even more catastrophic proportions " than anything seen in Syria. Topple writes that the war in Yemen is driven by Saudi Arabia's decline, as is found in recent events such as the lifting of anti-Iran sanctions, projected depletion of Saudi Arabia's oil fields in future years. Noting that sectarianism suits Saudi Arabia and is part of its strategy, Topple criticizes the UK government's role in supporting the Saudi regime. "We, as a nation, need to take a long, hard look at our current government, its seemingly morally-bankrupt foreign policy and its preference for the pound over human life", he wrote. The loss of the sanctions against Iran diminishes Saudi Arabia's position as a leading global oil supplier, and with this might reduce its political influence on other powers including the US. In Syria, much like Yemen, all the violence is driven and funded by Western-backed forces who refuse to tolerate the government and are using terror against the general population to force their way to power.

#MontOrder's @naughteeismaxim, @WaveChronicle and others: #Oregon militants should #gohome https://t.co/qz1HCDjyZM pic.twitter.com/ekGsNjyz68

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) January 24, 2016

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Britain-based blogger Steve Topple reflected on his writing career so far and his views on the future of media, in a recent post.

The following commentary offered is of great relevance to The clubof.info Blog's mission and readership:

I do this because in the current political and socioeconomic climate we are barraged day in, day out, with lie after lie after lie – and I’m of the opinion that the more people out there shouting at the tops of their voices in any way they can to counter these lies can only be a good thing.

Our mainstream media is corrupt – we all know that. 

Unfortunately, our “new media” (many of the sites you can find on Twitter)... are all (still) a Russell Group, self-serving chumocracy, albeit one which tows the line of what is fast becoming the new centre-left (that is, “Corbynism”), and will not deviate from the message which they perceive will garner them the most views, followers, re-tweets – whatever. 

This is not the future of journalism. The future of journalism (in my opinion), is one where every person, if they feel inclined, can write, record or express in any way they see fit “their truth”, and share it with the world – then the world can make up their own mind.

Steve Topple can be followed on Twitter here. In addition to his writing accomplishments, he is connected up with the Mont Order society's loose coalition of bloggers. His effective role as a firebrand on the British political blogosphere is the main reason people are drawn to his work and the causes he supports.

Suicidal lunatic @PeterTatchell demands #NoFlyZone against #Russia nuclear bombers in #Syria https://t.co/y5TwCNEVb7 pic.twitter.com/6908r6ZWJq

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) December 30, 2015

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The UK's Housing and Planning Bill, which extends the “Right to Buy” to housing association properties and forces local authorities to sell off their most valuable stock is a "potential catastrophe", a political analyst predicts.

What the Tories call an "opportunity" is in fact threatening only to "further enhance their poor-beater CV", Steve Topple has argued in an op-ed at the Political Sift political and social commentary blog. Statistics already show 1.4 million households on social housing waiting lists in 2014, which contrasts with only 43,000 new homes being built. Cameron's UK has also witnessed a devastating 55% rise in homelessness since he came to power in 2010. Calling the new bill "self-serving" Topple predicted such legislation would only worsen these already horrifying statistics. Agreeing with other commentators that the legislation especially attacks poorer families living in rural areas, with no guarantees of where new housing stock will be built, Topple had the following commentary:

The proposed plans to force local authorities to sell off their most valuable properties looks disastrous, at best. Aside from the fact the government is ignoring the fact many of these properties are adapted for the disabled, it also appears to brush over the serious effect it will have on council’s ability to replace these homes.

In addition, Topple comments that the "Right to Buy" will further inflate the housing bubble, which is projected to burst, although the real victims of the bill will be poor families in desperate need of social housing. Accusing the Tory government of running a "chumocracy", he points out that personal debt is already at record levels, but it will not stop Cameron's regime and his cronies from getting the helpless and the poor further into debt. Housing Associations have already backed the "Right to Buy" legislation, but Topple urges opposition parties to "do everything in their power to stop this despicable legislation" when it comes to a vote in the Commons.

The #MontOrder declared absolute opposition to the #neocons, and criticized @Google https://t.co/uFTS8NwWZ7 pic.twitter.com/tSehX8P3P5

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) November 3, 2015

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The European Union is an "undemocratically corporatized leviathan" and a "proxy for the agendas of the Western Establishment".

This is the view of Steve Topple, breaking with the perspective of much of the proclaimed British political left. Captured in an op-ed at PoliticalSift on 9 October 2015, Topple advocates a strategic British exit ("Brexit") from the EU before 2017. From the op-ed:

Everything else we now recognise – the EEC, free trade agreements, free movement of people, the ECB – have all been installed as nothing more than levers to further (and protect) the rise of globalised capitalism.

Topple quotes Robert Griffiths, who described the EU as a "monopoly capitalist United States of Europe", explaining that it has become an imperialist actor competing at an increasingly military and economic level with other powers. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which the EU and the US have been negotiating, is sure to undermine the rights of workers and the sovereignty of the public by enabling private firms to sue the public (i.e. their national government). Further criticism is aimed at the European Central Bank and the European Court of Auditors, both of them being corrupt as their members belong to the same financial and corporate special interest groups. The op-ed warns us that in 2017, EU states are projected to lose their veto rights over key areas of legislation. The EU will become drastically more powerful, with a mere 55% approval for a law in the EU resulting in the implementation of the law, thereby potentially being forced down the throats of entire populations protesting such law. According to Topple, this means the surrender of popular self-determination. Even more worrying is the fact that states will in that year become unable to withdraw from the EU, according to the EU's new rules, Topple argues. Countries will need, again, 55% approval by the other countries in order to withdraw, and their own people's demands are to be excluded from any say in the process.

@MrTopple @PoliticalSift Curious what mechanism the #EU has in mind for blocking a country unilaterally exiting after 2017. War, perhaps?

— L'Ordre (@LOrdreNet) October 11, 2015

UK Prime Minister David Cameron promised a referendum in late 2017, after the British people will have lost any sovereign right to withdraw from the EU, if Topple's analysis is solid. While the possibility of unilateral withdrawal would still exist, the EU's increasing federalization and calls to construct an army hint at a possible conflict in the event of such "separatism". Rather than a pure chauvinist iteration of Britain demanded by rightists as the alternative to the EU, however, Topple advocates a "borderless, socialist union" based on majority citizen interests rather than minority financial interests.

Look how @reason got schooled by @c4ssdotorg's @KevinCarson1 on @Pontifex's anti-#capitalism http://t.co/H1BULRHAep pic.twitter.com/rNhrGj8rHJ

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) October 10, 2015

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Steve Topple has penned an analysis slamming the UK mainstream media's coverage of Jeremy Corbyn's new leadership of the Labour Party and calling for "boots on the ground" activism to derail public reliance on mainstream media.

An unreserved left wing writer, Topple praised Corbyn's party leadership election campaign as "grassroots activism, social media mobilisation and people telling an Establishment organisation to “get stuffed”". However, there is also a warning that these very modern methods used by Corbyn to win leadership of the party might not work on the whole national electorate. "It was 251,417 people, to be precise – out of an electorate of 45 million", Topple pointed out. Most people still rely on a couple of mainstream television stations as the source of all their news shaping their worldview. Topple's conclusion that "editorial rooms are not “cut off” from what the public think – they decide what we think, as has always been the case" resembles the arguments advanced in the booklet Media Control by Noam Chomsky. Namely, the idea that we live in fraudulent democracies in which, rather than deciding on the values of the state and putting the questions to our leaders as citizens of a true democracy would do, we instead get all our information stuffed down our throats and told what to believe.

NEW "#Corbyn has arrived, so send in the media clowns" Me, on the MSM Circus. http://t.co/cKs7T2vFFP RT PLS. pic.twitter.com/nRxaQWBiPc

— Steve Topple (@MrTopple) September 15, 2015

Since all the questions and options posed to "democratic" leaders are pre-scriped in a studio, it is legitimate to question whether these leaders have any mandate from the public at all. According to Glen Greenwald's book No Place to Hide, the problem is worse in the US regime, but many of the facets of this problem have infected the British mainstream press corps as well. Contacted for comment on his article, Topple explained his meaning of the "boots on the ground" action. The idea revolves mainly around direct action, including possibly DDOS cyber sit-ins, protest actions and strikes, as well as possible offensive cyber actions by groups like Anonymous. Steve Topple is an anti-establishment writer, prolific Twitter user and contributor to Common Space who has been a listed brother of the Mont Order dissident society since April 2015.

Why do #scientists and #engineers not use direct action to make #poverty history? @hjbentham http://t.co/FtWG9U7M2m pic.twitter.com/KgaPxsurJv

— The clubof.info Blog (@ClubOfInfo) September 16, 2015

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