The Radical Center and Armed Revolution

Click here to access article by Rob Urie from CounterPunch.

Although I think that his overly complex sentences and writing errors get in the way, he makes some very good observations about political conditions in the US. Using a recent polling report which upset the ruling class (a "center" consisting of both liberals and conservatives), the author points out the many contradictions infecting their policies which provides opportunities for the left to exploit. My favorite is this:

...gun control advocates only look at the civilian side of the issue. Coincident in recent decades with increasing concentration of political-economic power has been the militarization of the police; the massive build out of incarceration and prisons as capitalist enterprises, the erosion of legal protections from illegitimate state and commercial power, the growth of intrusive surveillance technologies and a shift to formal race and class-based strategies of police repression. On the one hand gun control advocates argue [that] the fear of growing state power is lunatic paranoia while on the other there is no apparent interest on their part in disarming the increasingly militarized state against who the claims of outsized power are being made.

Fearlessness Grows From the Grass Roots: US Protest Movement against the Banksters

Click here to access article by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers from Global Research. 

As more people see that the government represents Wall Street and concentrated wealth, instead of them; that the government continues to give the banksters who crashed the economy a break while cutting access to basic necessities, that the government continues to put big energy profits ahead of protecting the planet – more people are becoming fearless.

Neo-fascists and police attack students in Naples (video)

Click here to access article and 3:09m video posted on Struggles in Italy. 

...almost all [mainstream media] sources unanimously introduce the video with the same caption, reporting a police intervention in order to divide two clashing group of protesters and presenting the incident as a scuffle between students and workers.

Yet the footage tells a different story: a group of protesters attacked the students’ rally unprovoked, with the complicity and support of the police, who charged and chased the students without identifying those responsible for the violence.

This strategy of promoting fascist thugs against left opposition continues to be a favorite weapon of the European ruling classes. So far, I haven't seen this employed much in the US in the current economic crisis. Probably because of the prominent influence of Israel-firsters in US institutions, US political operatives focus much more on playing up the "terrorist" theme and fear of Muslims by manufacturing terrorist incidents using Muslim characters. (See this, this, this, this, and this.)

The Greek workers who took inspiration from Argentina

Click here to access article by the ROAR Collective from Reflections on a Revolution. 

The story began in May 2011, when the parent company Philkeram-Johnson stopped paying wages to its subsidiary Viomichaniki Metalleutiki (Vio.Me) located in Thessaloniki, Greece, in the midst of the devastating economic and social crisis that has been facing the country for the past three years. After the failure of negotiations to collect unpaid wages, the workers occupied the factory, and only a short time later, its owners abandoned it.

Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears

Click here to access article by Justin Gillis from The New York Times. (Note: free registration required.)

The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years.

Scientific instruments showed that the gas had reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million....

While directors in the ruling One Percent class have long denied and then created doubts about this issue, now we finally find coverage in corporate mainstream media that, yes indeed, greenhouse gases are reaching dangerous levels...but, according to them, no one knows the impacts this will have!

Now while scientists expect CO2 levels to continue to go up, they're not entirely sure what that means for humans or where on the planet the impact will be felt the most.

The real dilemma is that the system of capitalism requires growth, which means burning relatively cheap fossil fuels. So, what are we to conclude? The One Percent are stupid? No. The real answer is that they are completely and hopelessly addicted to the wealth, and even more, to the power that their system of capitalism delivers to them. It's essentially a dog-eat-dog system where so many of the rewards of power and wealth go to the top dog. Hence, the tendency that we have witnessed: the growing concentration of wealth and power in fewer hands throughout capitalist history.

The system is also well known in its history for producing booms and busts which mostly results in disasters for working people. This stirs up opposition among working people which threatens the system. Capitalist ruling classes have a variety of ways to cope with this opposition: support fascist or police-state regimes to ruthless crack down on worker opposition (Nazi Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, etc.); go to war to distract working people from any revolutionary thoughts, to defeat national competitors, to create economy activity through production for war, to create demand after their wars from all the destruction of assets; promote social welfare policies to reduce such pressures (FDR social policies in the 1930s), make attempts to promote another economic bubble to create economic activity; control the media to keep workers from understanding economic issues and distract them with mindless spectacles and entertainment (for the latest example, see this); exercise close supervision over their education so that they remain ignorant of the causes of the many economic crises and remain committed to capitalism; various gimmicks such as "quantitative easing" (increasing the supply of money which always ends up in the hands of the rich) and, worst of all, austerity policies (cutting and/or selling off of public services and social supports); etc.

The fact that in the current economic collapse austerity policies have been emphasized demonstrates the confidence (or arrogance?) of the current international capitalist class has of maintaining their rule despite worker opposition. Are they deluded or realistic? Are they so high from the drugs of concentrated power, wealth, and weapons that they can't see the threats of climate destabilization and resource exhaustian looming ahead?

A Comparison of two reports on the outcome of recent elections in Malaysia

by Ron Horn.

I was confronted this morning by two reports on the same subject, but with widely different interpretations. I am referring to these reports:

• US "Pivot" Toward Asia Trips in Malaysia by Tony Cartalucci from his blog Land Destroyer
• Malaysia after the Election: a paradigm shift? by Giovanni Navarria from openDemocracy

The subject was, as my title indicates, the recent elections in Malaysia. My knowledge of that country's political affairs is minimal--so, who to believe? To answer this, I had to engage in a quick critical examination of both reports. 

First, let me cite two summaries of the two general views regarding the elections. 

Cartalucci:

Despite the US mobilizing the summation of its media power and pouring millions of dollars into the opposition party, including the creation and perpetuation of fake-NGOs such as Bersih and the Merdeka Center, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak sailed to a comfortable victory in this year's general elections. The cheap veneer has begun peeling away from America's "democracy promotion" racket, leaving its proxies exposed and frantic, and America's hegemonic ambitions across Asia in serious question. 

Navarria:

For decades elections in the country have been nothing but a smoke screen for a regime that has designed its election laws to look and feel democratic, while, at its very core, remaining authoritarian. The National Front coalition has won every general election since 1957 thanks to, among others things, favorable constitutional reform, corruption, abuse of power, media control, electoral fraud and strong influence on the electoral commission and the electoral districts boundaries. Yet despite the National Front clout on Malaysian politics, in the last two elections the opposition has succeeded in narrowing the gap to unprecedented levels. 

Whereas Cartalucci celebrates the defeat of parties backed by Empire funders, Navarria celebrates the fact that these latter parties have gained support in the election.

Cartalucci's report provides abundant evidence of Empire funding behind important players in the election. For example, he cites a reference to the Empire's prime election weapon, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and its website that clearly reports on the latter's support for Merdeka Center for Opinion Research which both authors use to bolster their views. 

A reference that Navarria uses to support his view is a source from Reporters Without Borders. Thus, I decided to find out more about them by doing a quick examination on Wikipedia. By looking at the section entitled "Criticisms of RWB", I learned that this organization had a number of ties with right-wing organizations and it has been viewed favorably by well-known Empire agents such as Otto Reich.

While Navarria describes the present Malaysian government as "authoritarian" and the opposition parties as "the foundation of Malaysia’s new democratic future", Cartalucci doesn't offer any evaluation of the existing government, instead he focuses only on US electoral manipulations and the economic and political interests behind these efforts. 

Election outcomes are important for Empire propagandists because they serve to reinforce the phony belief that the Empire supports "democracy" as well as providing opportunities to add additional regimes that can serve Empire economic and hegemonic interests. The report by Navarria posted on openDemocracy clearly supports this latter type of an agenda in Malaysia. 

The report posted on openDemocracy also makes me suspicious about this website in general. It may be another gatekeeping website designed to serve the Empire by steering progressive type readers to views that are compatible with Empire economic and hegemonic interests.  

Robin Williams On Junkie Bankers

Click here if you wish to access the source of this video posting on Raging Bull-Shit. 

The brave new world of work: where employees are treated as criminals

Click here to access article by Anthony Elliott from The Conversation (Australia). 

We have seen this new world of work expressed accurately as a "race to the bottom" for workers. The bottom as recently appeared in Bangladesh where over 1000 (and counting) low wage workers died in a building that did not meet required building standards and was ignored by officials --after all, workers are disposable in this brave new world of work. 

This bottom of working conditions that enriches major international corporations does not go without its effects on working conditions in the technologically advanced countries. Workers in these countries are fully aware that their jobs may be subject to off-shoring; and now with high unemployment rates nearly everywhere, they cling tenuously and anxiously to their own jobs where their performance is closely monitored. The author describes the increasing introduction of electronic monitoring methods.

Coup d’Etat to Trade Seen in Billionaire Toxic Lead Fight

Click here to access article by Andrew Martin from Bloomberg News. 

Here we see the early signs of the brave new world of neoliberalism that capitalist ruling classes are preparing for us. It's surprising that this prime capitalist media corporation allows such a headline, which accurately recognizes the likely outcome of a legal dispute in Peru, as a "coup d'etat".

“It’s like a quiet, slow-moving coup d’état,” said Lori Wallach, director of the Global Trade Watch division of Public Citizen, a nonprofit that opposes many aspects of trade pacts. Investors and corporations are “using this regime to have another front at trying to limit the governance authority of nation states.” 

New Compass Meeting about Participatory Democracy at the World Social Forum

Click here to access article from New Compass (based in Norway). (Note: the introductory article contains links to both an audio and a written transcript of the WSF meeting. The transcript is accessed as a Microsoft Word document.)

One important point about participatory democracy is to make sure that the institutions really empower the citizens. Often “participatory democracy” is just a political move made by the local authorities to attract votes, a communication move that only serves to legitimate decisions that already have been taken by the authorities. To ensure real participation and decision making power to citizens, the cooperative has created the Intervention Charter. Local authorities committing to the charter are put in front of the people and held to account. The idea is that it is the people who are the experts. But implementing such a practice encounters several difficulties: the fear of the local authorities to be directly confronted by their citizens, and the difficulty of convincing both citizens and experts that ordinary citizens know what is good for their community. Low participation of citizens can also be a problem sometimes. It is not easy to mobilize people to participate nowadays. [My emphasis]

I see a danger in this presentation of participatory democracy. One must never forget that capitalist ruling classes will never voluntarily relinquish control over important decisions. The fact that they permit local experiments such as depicted in this presentation does not in any way refute this point. You see, under globalized capitalism, local decisions matter very little to capitalist ruling classes. Most tax money is spent by national governments that are controlled by these ruling classes, and local communities have lost most of the important decisions. Consider how corporations can elicit all kinds of subsidies and favors from local communities so that corporations will set up operations in their communities. This lack of power over important decisions is clearly the reason why there is "low participation of citizens...."

However, I believe that such participation is desirable in that it offers a training experience for people to prepare them for self-government.

Female 'Purity' Is Bullshit

Click here to access article by Lindy West from Jezebel.

The author looks at the issue of the tendency for women to be reduced to sexual objects in a society that is infected with notions of sinfulness associated with sex. Hence, there are "good girls" and "bad girls", Madonnas or whores. This issue in general is, as illustrated by this article, usually dealt with as an issue of men versus women, with the female author arguing that men are evil-doers. As with many other issues, I think that a class-based analysis of the topic sheds much more light. See if you agree with my reasoning.

I think that both cultural phenomena, sexuality as sin and the sexual objectification of women, are fostered by the class structure of capitalism, a system that empowers one small group, "owners" of productive property, over all other people. Because of their privileges of "ownership" that has evolved over time, such people have the power to decide on how much net wealth that is created in productive enterprises go to a class known as workers versus how much they, the "owners", keep for themselves. This fundamental division of humanity has created a pattern that is repeated throughout all institutions in society because "owners" who by the advantageous nature of this division have assumed a leading role in governing societies, that is, they constitute a ruling class of people.

Regarding the sexuality as sin issue, libertinism has often been practiced, and even celebrated, among ruling classes throughout history. You will never find a reference in history to a worker or peasant "libertine". Hence, unrestrained sexual practices have always been the privilege of ruling classes for obvious reasons. Ruling classes want workers and peasants to devote their entire lives to producing things that ruling classes want and they want to accumulate most of the wealth generated by this production.

The other issue, the sexual objectification of women and its corollary, the Madonna or whore syndrome, can also be seen as serving the ruling class. First of all, the Madonna or whore phenomenon applies only to working class women, never to ruling class women. You will find that the latter's prolific practice of sexuality is romanticized throughout most of literature, for example, George Sand. Although you will never see this observed in popular versions of historical dramas about aristocratic life such as is frequently shown over PBS TV, but it was a common practice of aristocrats to regard peasant women, and probably men also, as completely available to provide them with sexual favors (see this and this).

Then there is the fundamental tendency found in capitalist societies to reduce everything to a commodity, and that applies to working class women as "whores" who offer their bodies for sale in the sexual market.

What we frequently see nowadays reflected in "feminist" literature and writings is a ruling class framing of the sexual objectification issue as one of men abusing women. This is precisely the tone of this article. Such framing serves the divide and rule strategy very well. To divide working people on this issue provides a very good distraction from thinking about how the capitalist ruling class continues to thoroughly rob working people of their homes, jobs, pensions, and life savings.

Looking at these issues from a class-based perspective does not for an instant justify any exploitative behavior regardless of who is the agent and who is the victim. I am merely pointing out how the issues are usually dealt with in capitalist society. The framing of these issues are used against working people to serve ruling class interests. 

The real focus should be on the socialization of these attitudes in our current society. The fact is that both sexes are indoctrinated in the same ideas and participate in the indoctrination of succeeding generations in these attitudes. It is not a question of sex, it has more to do with gender indoctrination, that is, how we are indoctrinated and socialized to behave in certain ways. The only real difference between the sexes in terms of behavior is that we act on our socialization according to our sexual identity.

The Reverse Revolving Door: How Corporate Insiders Are Rewarded Upon Leaving Firms for Congress

Click here to access article by Lee Fang from The Nation.

Disclosures reveal that corporations and lobbying firms award six-figure bonuses to staff who leave to take powerful positions on Capitol Hill.

Here we see a liberal media outlet report on this practice as if it were a sensational discovery. What is really significant about this report is the framing of the report as a sensational discovery. Reporting it this way furnishes more evidence of the overwhelming power of corporate media and ruling class control of education to shape the views of most Americans to believe that it is even possible for government institutions to function in some kind of independent way in a class-structured society. 

What we see here is "government as usual" under capitalist so-called "democracy". I never cease to be surprised that there are so few Americans aware of the fact that the government is essentially a branch of American capitalism and its sole function is to pretend to be some sort of legitimate democratic institution.

Global corporations and the Bangladesh building collapse

Click here to access article by Peter Symonds from World Socialist Web Site. 

Two weeks after the Rana Plaza building collapse, global retail giants that source their garments in Bangladesh such as Walmart, Primark, Benetton and others are engaged in a cynical public relations exercise to distance themselves from the tragedy and preserve their image and their profits.
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As of yesterday, the official death toll had reached 705, with hundreds more injured, making the collapse the worst industrial disaster in country’s history and one of the worst ever in the world.

This latest tragedy joins the huge line of similar tragedies that are an integral part of a system that seeks to reduce costs to a minimum regardless of the consequences to workers and their families. After all, as expressed so well by Margaret Thatcher, "there is no such thing as society, only individuals (capitalists) and their families." In this brave new neoliberal world, workers everywhere in the world are expendable and profits are everything.

In bed with Bibi

Click here to access article by Gilad Atzmon from Intrepid Report. 

We call on people of the world to pressure the Syrian regime to end its oppression of and war on the Syrian people.

I was shocked by the names Atzmon cited who signed on to such a statement and immediately looked for documented evidence for this charge. It didn't take long. The author put it front and center in the article. So, why haven't I seen any similar views from the names he cited published in any source up to now? Have they been too embarrassed to express them? 

There are times when one must face a situation where both parties in a conflict are engaging in despicable acts, but in this conflict these "progressives" by default are supporting the most dangerous force in the world today: the Empire and its Zionist allies who are engaging in the most heinous acts in their attempt to destroy another nation.

Post navigation ← Older posts Greece’s depression is IMF’s idea of ‘progress’ May8

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.

Austerity programs are designed with ideology in mind, not with economics based on the real world. One clue to this is that “structural re-adjustment” programs invariably demand sell-offs of public assets — holding fire sales of state enterprises means private capital can scoop them up at very low prices, and profit nicely from doing so at public expense.

The neoliberal concept is that people exist to serve markets rather than markets existing to serve people.

Why is Corporate America fanning the flames of violence in Chicago?

Click here to access article by  Bob Simpson from Zcommunications.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is in full control of the public schools and enthusiastically represents corporate interests.  CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett of the Chicago Public Schools(CPS), answers directly to Rahm.

CPS currently is proposing 61 school actions involving a total of 133 schools. Students from schools that are closed must go to what CPS calls “welcoming schools”, whence the figure of 133 affected schools. Most of these proposed school actions would take place in working class neighborhoods of color, many of them predominantly African-American. Some of these school actions could have deadly consequences.

He goes on in the article to explain the "deadly consequences", and points to some answers to the question posed in the headline.

After referring to the establishment crackdown on the Black Panthers who were making successful efforts at organizing multiracial communities in Chicago in the 1970s, he suggests that their current efforts are designed to serve corporate interests and to sow disorganization among the poor. In other words, a renewed class war.

And Then There Was One: The Last Empire?

Click here to access article by Tom Engelhardt from his blog TomDispatch. 

The title refers to the Anglo-American Empire enforced ultimately by NATO that has been imposed on the rest of the world. I refuse to quibble over some of his observations (for example, he suggests that the Soviet Union was an Empire) because his overall thesis is right on target.

The present capitalist model (the only one available) for a rising power, whether China, India, or Brazil, is also a model for planetary decline, possibly of a precipitous nature. 

Why You're in Deep Trouble If You Can't Afford a Lawyer

Click here to access article by Hannah Levintova, Jaeah Lee, and Brett Brownell from Mother Jones. 

Back in 1963 at the height of liberal (in the American political sense) influence the One Percent's Supreme Court was a bit embarrassed by the obvious fact that civil rights, like everything else, were essentially for sale under capitalist rule in the US. So our ruling class set about establishing a cover for this embarrassment with the provision of a "public defender". 

The article exposes what lies below this fig leaf: the obscenity of class based justice. Predictably, the editors of this liberal publication frame the issue as one that can be solved within the system. Thus, you can ignore their naive solutions, instead focus on the reality of injustice under the public defender arrangement.

Building The Commons: 2013 Forum

Click here to access posting by davana from Making Worlds: a commons coalition.

The significance of this post is to illustrate that the Occupy Movement has not disappeared, but is undergoing a period of consolidation, reflection, and rebirth. Here we visit people in New York City who are involved in the work of building a commons. They are people from a variety of activist and ideological backgrounds: Transition Towns activists, community organizers, Occupy Wall Street activists, Hurricane Sandy relief workers, academic intellectuals on the left, etc. 

I think one of the core commonalities that all of them share is a sense that people must re-assume responsibility for their own lives simply because their capitalist masters have little-to-no regard for them. It is a new consciousness that our society is manipulated by people who have separated themselves from communities and who have agendas at odds with the needs of communities. These activists know that they are faced with a massive project that includes new ways of thinking and relating to each other, in short, the construction of a new consciousness and culture. It is no place for individuals who have been thoroughly indoctrinated in the capitalist belief that the solutions to all problems can be obtained immediately by shopping and accumulating the stuff they want to sell you, or even a liberal's belief that participating in protest demonstrations can, by themselves, fundamentally change anything.

Anyway, I invite you to explore this website (for example, links like this and this) to understand where the commons/Occupy movement is today: it is a place where people are beginning to lay the foundations for a new society by asking important questions such as:

• How are people in NYC creating common spaces?
• How can commoning efforts support and strengthen each other?
• How do communities identify with and participate in the process of commoning?
• How can commoning be a form of resistance to neoliberal privatization?
• How can we construct a commons-inspired "Occupy theory" of collective action?

The Robot Revolution

Click here to access article by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin from News Beacon Ireland. 

Will we have more leisure time? That is predicated on the idea of a social fund created by society to pay for education, health, transport etc. But where will that money come from? The beneficiaries of robot production (which will no doubt be private) will be the owners and shareholders of robot producing companies and factories supplying robots to universities, hospitals, libraries etc. not society as a whole.

This may seem fantastical now during this transition phase of development but already relatively undeveloped robots are being used as tour guides and remote doctors. As more privatisation puts more people at the mercy of the profit motive, exposure to replacement by robot is only limited by the current capabilities of contemporary science.

Oh, I'm sure we will have much more leisure time. We are already experiencing much more leisure time while being jobless, although I don't think we can enjoy it much while being forced out of our homes and into lines at a local food bank.

The marvelous development of technology, which is a legacy of so many generations of humanity and a product of human ingenuity, has under capitalism been secured by a few for their benefit. Under their system of capitalism, they own this technology and the sophisticated tools it has produced; and they have been, and will continue, to use it against us.

The author does us a great service in pointing out the contradictions that many millions across the globe are increasing being confronted with, however his conclusion seems rather lame to me.

Only stronger ties building on the common interest between the unemployed and employed can possibly resist this coming workplace crisis. 

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Holds a Closed Door Meeting With Jamie Dimon and Hedge Fund Titans

Click here to access article by Pam Martens from Wall Street on Parade.

For obvious reasons it is very difficult to discern the real power centers in the One Percent ruling class, however one cannot be far off base to mark the Council on Foreign Relations as one of the primary nerve centers in the brain of the Empire's ruling class. I think you will find that this article reinforces that impression. The people gathering at this secret meeting are some of the primary directors of this class.

Americans have suffered for the past five years the economic nightmare that grew out of backroom deals, Wall Street and Washington’s revolving doors and crony capitalism. Lew continues the abhorrent tradition of drawing a dark curtain around the government’s interactions with Wall Street. 

The Syria-Iran red line show

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times Online.

This eminently Bushist Obama "red line" business, applied to Syria, Iran or both, is becoming a tad ridiculous.

Click here if you wish to access the source or the transcript of this interview with Escobar in which he provides an astute assessment of the latest Empire engineered disaster in the Mid-East. From RT.

U.N. has testimony that Syrian rebels used sarin gas: investigator

Click here to access article from Reuters via Chicago Tribune.

Strange, how this piece of news failed to make it into any mainstream sources that I viewed this morning. Well, our masters who manage the media certainly wouldn't want an independent source to conflict with the propaganda they have been spewing out for the past two weeks--it might spoil the false flag operation.

"Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television.

"This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian.

Climate Crisis Will Bring Drought In Temperate Areas, Fnds NASA

Click here to access article from CounterCurrents.

A recent NASA study indicates what other scientists have been saying for some time: we can expect our future climate to be characterized by extreme weather events, more extreme drouths, more extreme rain storms, more wildfires, etc, resulting in more disasters for populations.

"These results in many ways are the worst of all possible worlds," said Peter Gleick, a climatologist and water expert who is president of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland research organization. "Wet areas will get wetter and dry areas will get drier."

Questioning Labor Imperialism in Egypt: A Critique of the Solidarity Centre’s “Justice for All” Report

Click here to access article by Michael Barker from One Struggle. (a "best post")

In this rather lengthy, but very scholarly report, Barker illustrates in his examination of NGO operations in Egypt the Empire's use of intellectual workers employed in NGOs fronting as labor, pro-democracy, and human rights organizations to co-opt and otherwise undermine any real movements that might challenge the Empire's engine of capitalism. The article abstract spells out the significance of this examination:

People power is the dynamic driver of social history, with history merely being the documented response of elite power-brokers to popular demands for justice. Recognizing the latent power and desire of normal people to overthrow their oppressive rulers, more far sighted elites have long recognized the need to channel such unrealized power into non-revolutionary political alternatives: a process which entails their intervening at the grassroots level of civil society to ensure that such threats never coalesce into a force powerful enough to upset the capitalist status quo. In this way, US elites have created what many authors have amorphously referred to as a non-profit industrial complex, which forms a “natural corollary” to the prison industrial complex. Overseas, such technologies of repression play a central role in sustaining imperial domination; and while their role is largely ignored by most writers (even radical ones), their importance has nevertheless been thoroughly documented.

Of course, in this age of globalization the ruling class's use of the "non-profit industrial complex" in foreign countries applies equally well to domestic operations. The genius of the Anglo-American Empire has been its refinement of methods to manage the perceptions of people. To accomplish this, Empire agents have recruited large numbers of intellectuals in this service by offering them numerous and generous monetary inducements. With this careful examination of such operations in Egypt, Barker does us a great service by exposing how they function. 

U.S. Financed Independent Polls Are Not Independent

Click here to access article by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama. 

A favorite ploy used by agents of the Empire to manipulate elections is spotted by this keen observer being implemented in Malaysia.

Such tight independent polls usually carry the smell of U.S. interference.

A tight independent poll will show the U.S. favorite candidate may win. When the election then goes against the U.S. favorite the tight independent poll will be used to claim election fraud and to instigate riots to then somehow wrestle the U.S. favorite into power.

We have seen this scheme in various color revolutions in eastern Europe, in Thailand and recently also in Venezuela. 

Kennedy, the Lobby and the Bomb

Click here to access article by Laurent Guyénot from Voltaire. 

This piece offers an excellent review of US relations with Israel since the latter's founding. You will learn about Kennedy's attempts to curb Israeli influence over our government; following his assassination, Israel's successful efforts to influence the US government; Israeli espionage activities in the US; and their use of a false flag attacks--most notably on a US ship with the collaboration of the Johnson administration in an attempt to bring US into war against Egypt. (For more information on the latter, see this, this, and this.)