Britain-s elites want you ready to die for a war they keep imagining

As the warnings about Russia grow louder, the public is being told to fear more, question less and prepare for war
Great Britain is going through a war scare. Or to be precise, its combined political and media establishment is subjecting its people to a relentless propaganda (in up-to-date NATO-speak ) campaign to create a sense of impending war against Russia. 
As you would expect, that war is, of course, framed as strictly defensive. In propaganda textbook manner, the message is both very simple and very repetitive: The UK is in great danger of a Russian attack, and its whole population must prepare itself to withstand and resist it.  
It goes without saying make no difference. 
Britain is certainly not alone in its establishment-induced hysteria. Much of NATO-EU Europe is undergoing, in essence, the same treatment. In France, for instance, President Emmanuel Macron has called to give what can only be called a national scare talk about Russian hybrid warfare; in Germany, Berlin and its mainstream media won’t stop stirring the pot about .     
Yet, over the last weeks, within a crowded field of European panic-mongering, Britain has stuck out as especially virulent. The single most grotesque contribution was made by uber-Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg. Comfortably seated against a backdrop that screamed country-squire probity, Rees-Mogg on war within the next few years, ancient Rome (he’s been to Eton, he wants you to know) and, most importantly, circumstances where people may have to die. Either that or – so Rees-Mogg’s stern message – decline and fall, as happened to those Romans, who let mercenaries do their fighting and thus lost their empire.
So much to unpack. For one thing, the reference to paying others to fight – and die – must be a Freudian slip. Surely, Sir Jacob cannot have meant to refer to how the West, Britain very much included, has paid the Kiev regime to send its subjects – – into the folly of a proxy war meatgrinder to demote Russia. And then, that Roman Empire analogy? Clearly, Rees-Mogg, true to type, is still struggling with the fact that Britain has its imperial collapse well behind it already. 
Yet, sour oddball as he is, the arch-conservative – and multimillionaire – Rees-Mogg is perfectly representative of the current British establishment trend. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, for instance, has just used his first UN General Assembly address in New York to blame his country’s misery not on, say, his predecessor and Labour Party comrade Keir Starmer, . 
Meanwhile, at home, Sky News is rolling out   a bizarre docu-fantasy in four parts, built on the premise that the Russians are coming, no, they really, really ARE this time! 
Pretending to be a sort of realistic account of what a British government would do in case of Moscow launching a series of escalating attacks, this production – – is unusually awful shlock. has-been politicos doubling as un-reality TV stars, such as Michael Gove and Nicola Sturgeon, and living out their inner Tom Clancy by pretending to be serious, decisive, and, most of all, terribly important to the nation’s survival. 
Unintentionally funny, though, as it may be, ‘The Wargame’ clearly has substantial political support and much hype around it. Propaganda can easily look ridiculous and be highly toxic at the same time. Because effective propaganda is, above all, one simple thing: the psychological manipulation of the many by the few. This is such a case. The viewers of ‘The Wargame’ are fed a silly but efficiently dramatized story, with the whole bag of well-worn but powerful tricks: suspense, shock, and, last but not least, a thrilling score. 
Read more It’s no surprise that the attitude of those doing the manipulating is, at best, patronizing. And to be fair even to the unbearable, Jacob Rees-Mogg, wh