ClandesTime

The X-Files new mini-season has been accused of being an admission of truth by the global elite, a type of predictive programming and an attack on conspiracy theorists. In this episode we explore the possibility that it promotes conspiracy theories and conspiracism as a way of thinking far more than it mocks or discourages those things. I highlight several scenes from throughout the new season that show how in particular the Mulder and Tad O'Malley characters are designed to draw the attention and sympathy of conspiracy theorists. I finish up looking at how Spooks was doing a similar thing 10 years ago with the theory that Princess Diana was assassinated. (Read more...)

This short episode is an update on my recent Freedom of Information fun. I talk about my successful and not so successful requests to the Pentagon and my ongoing struggle with the Foreign Office to reveal further details of their involvement in the entertainment industry. Finally I outline my efforts to find out more information about how a movie crew was allowed to blow up a bus in central London and why the MOD, MI5 and MI6 were told in advance but the public wasn't. (Read more...)

Recent stories focusing on the 'migrant crisis' and 'the Cologne attacks' - among other incidents - are provoking racial and religious tensions in Europe. In this episode I look at the simple-minded dialogue around these trends and events, identifying the Russian state as playing a critical role in the incitement. I recount some of my recent experiences of calling out RT and Sputnik for their thinly-disguised propaganda on the questions of immigration and multiculturalism, before articulating some of the supreme ironies of our modern 'political correctness'. (Read more...)

This week a little over 1 million people will die. Only one of them was David Bowie. In this episode I look at celebrity worship and the manufactured grief that results when a famous person dies. Why do people want to become celebrities? Why do people worship them? Why do so many celebrities commit suicide? Why do celebrity followers engage in all kinds of hypocrisy and special pleading in response to being reminded that famous people are just people? (Read more...)

2015 was an important year in government-assisted entertainment. Several major franchises - the Marvel Cinematic Universe, James Bond, Terminator, Fast and Furious, Mission: Impossible - released their latest films. All of these enjoyed the involvement of government agents and agencies. In this episode I review this year's state-sponsored movies (or at least, the ones I have seen). I quickly look at each individual movie before identifying three key themes running through several of these films - Russia as the enemy, the security services themselves being under threat, and the importance of secret societies. I round off by recounting my recent scuffle with Kevin Barrett of TruthJihad, and reading our highly amusing email exchange. (Read more...)

This review of the finale of Homeland discusses not just the final episode but the entire season. We reflect on what is new and different about this fifth season, from the religious dimensions being crow-barred into the show to the use of Russians as the enemy image and hackers as second-level terrorists. We examine the storyline of the recruitment of the Laura Poitras character by the BND, both drawing a parallel with the real life person and identifying this as a metaphor for Homeland as a state-sponsored show. We dwell on whether the CIA staff actually hate Laura Poitras, unaware that she may be an asset of some section of the Agency. As the conversation progresses, we outline the idea that Homeland is an experiment to see how far they can make people doubt their own perceptions of not just the show itself but also the geopolitical realities it sometimes portrays. We explore the idea that Homeland is designed to assault the audience's confidence in their own perceptions. We wrap up looking at Homeland's obsession with predicting or commenting on current events, often events that happen during the production or broadcasting of the show. We outline Alex Gansa's recent admissions that the major creative players in the show - including Claire Danes and Mandy Pantikin - attended four days of meetings at a private club in Georgetown. The meetings were arranged by former CIA deputy director John MacGaffin - the main consultant on Homeland - and involved currently serving CIA officers, State Department officials and White House staffers. (Read more...)

This much more dramatic episode of Homeland was the basis for a fun review discussion this week, touching on the hints towards the deep state, the portrayal of the Laura Poitras character, the implausibility of the CIA's handling of the Russian double agent problem and Pearse's hatred of Allison. We also discuss the mysterious origins of 'terrorist videos', particularly those coming to us via the SITE intelligence group, and how this is reflected in Homeland, and discuss why this episode made an explicit reference to the recent attacks in Paris. We round off talking about Pearse's enjoyment of the Carrie-Astrid relationship in the show, any my love of post-industrial architecture as the setting for both a jihadi terrorist cell and the CIA's discovery of that gang. (Read more...)

Today I am joined by good friend Adam of Themes & Memes to discuss the movie Kingsman. This is an action comedy set in the world of gentleman spies but beneath that exterior there is ultra-violence, a range of elitist, eugenicist philosophies, a rather sickening approach to sex, love and relationships and a whole lot more. So much, in fact, that even in this in-depth conversation we failed to cover it all. We also take a look at the state sponsorship of the film including the result of a FOIA request that I put in with the Metropolitan Police. (Read more...)

This was not the most interesting instalment of Homeland so Pearse and I talked about topics related to the episode including the history of Kosovo and NATO's use of jihadis in the entire Balkans region, the arrest this week of a mysterious unnamed Montenegrin arms trafficker on his way to Paris, and why it is that the US Marine Corps Entertainment Liaison Office reports do not make any mention of Homeland. Pearse hypothesises that the USMC and Homeland had some kind of deniable outside-the-loop relationship and that suggests a much larger degree of co-operation than usual. (Read more...)

Today Pearse and I discuss the latest 6th episode of Homeland, 'Parabiosis' which saw the return of the classic spies vs jihadis type of storyline. We looked at the two halves of the story - Quinn holed up in a refugee hostel/terrorist halfway house and ultimately him killing the Reel Bad Arab Hajik, and Saul's rediscovering that he is actually a skilled secret agent. Both of these storyline are less about inducing a state of hyperreality and much more about shaping our perceptions of the real world. We discuss, for example, why it is that Russia is portrayed in Homeland as a patient, sneaky, intelligent people, but in news media supposedly reporting on real life events they are portrayed as brutish thugs. In the other storyline we dissect the fight scene between Quinn and Hajik as a metaphor for the struggle between Western military-intelligence establishments and Islam. (Read more...)