America’s New Apartheid: Segregation by Incarceration

Click here to access article by independent journalist Garry Leech from his blog.

Leech provides solid arguments to support his thesis about what the "War on Drugs" really accomplished: a new method of apartheid to circumvent the many legal decisions trying to remove racist segregation practices. It was another way to roll back many of the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement. In my opinion, it was especially aimed at militant African-Americans who provoked an almost visceral reaction of hatred and fear among many in the US ruling class. And, the "War on Drugs" had a side benefit of expanding local police forces.

Many people associate the mass imprisonment of a population with authoritarian regimes. Consequently, many Americans are surprised when they learn that the United States incarcerates more of its own citizens than any other nation. With 2.3 million prisoners, the “land of the free” has more people in prison than China, which has a population four times the size of the United States. A hugely disproportionate percentage of those incarcerated are African-Americans as Washington’s war on drugs constitutes the latest incarnation of racist policies that have existed since the country’s founding.

The single non-reformist reform that can end capitalism within months, not decades

Click here to access article by Jehu from The Real Movement.

...having a job and and adequate income is by no means the aim of our struggle. An employed and/or well compensated slave remains a slave — a mere object of economic forces over which she has no control and which no organization can give her control. Social emancipation means more than a guaranteed job or income — in the end it has to mean emancipation from wage labor itself.

And this is where both the guaranteed job or the guaranteed basic income fails miserably: no one can explain how we go from a society of wage slaves subordinated to capital to a society of self-directed individuals. As reforms, however attractive they appear, a basic income or jobs guarantee are dead end reformism.

Is there a path that avoids this reformist cul-de-sac?

A Bonehead Ruling

Click here to access article from Class War in America. 

The title refers to a recent judge's decision in Los Angeles declaring that teacher tenure was interfering with firing teachers and thus harming student's civil rights to a good education. The author argues that it is largely under-funding that is preventing children from receiving a good education. And, more importantly, he deals with larger issues adversely affecting the quality of education: the unequal funding of public schools resulting from a property tax method, the drive to privatize schools, and other issues.

Warming of the Arctic Fueling Extreme Weather

Click here to access article from Arctic News.

The article contains an abundance of great graphs and videos that visually explain what humans are doing to cause extreme weather events, melt arctic ice, increase global warming, and pollute Earth's atmosphere that is needed to sustain human and other life forms. The material presented is based on data from highly reputable scientific sources such as NOAA, NASA, Purdue University, among others. Here is one video that is referenced in the report:

The rise of ISIS in Iraq is a neocon’s dream

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from Al Arabiya.

Following the bulk of western reporting on the Iraq crisis, you’d think the self-styled ‘Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’ (ISIS) popped out of nowhere, took the West completely by surprise, and is now rampaging across the Middle East like some random weather event.

The reality is far more complex, and less palatable. ISIS’ meteoric rise is a predictable consequence of a longstanding U.S.-led geostrategy in the Middle East that has seen tyrants and terrorists as mere tools to expedite access to regional oil and gas resources.

ISIS Fiasco: It’s Really an Attack on Iran

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from The 4th Media.

The whole fable about 1,500 jihadis scaring the pants off 30,000 Iraqi security guards to the point where they threw away their rifles, changed their clothes and headed for the hills, is just not believable. I don’t know what happened in Mosul, but, I’ll tell you one thing, it wasn’t that. That story just doesn’t pass the smell test.

Whitney convincingly argues that there is much to be suspicious about in corporate media's reporting on the sudden success of ISIS in their invasion of Iraq. His examination of the evidence leads to a far more plausible scenario. 

Has the Dept. of Homeland Security Become America’s Standing Army?

Click here to access article by John W. Whitehead from The Rutherford Institute.

If the United States is a police state, then the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its national police force, with all the brutality, ineptitude and corruption such a role implies. In fact, although the DHS’ governmental bureaucracy may at times appear to be inept and bungling, it is ruthlessly efficient when it comes to building what the Founders feared most—a standing army on American soil.

Everywhere is War

Click here to access article by Andy Piascik from CounterPunch.

The Empire's capitalist directorate seem to be preparing to launch numerous wars to extend their control over vital resources and to counter any resistance from independent nations with their own capitalist gangs such as Russia and China. Capitalist gangs, like all gangs, rely on their ability to control territories through the use of force or an intimidating threat of force. As activists in service to save humanity from this folly, we must be aware of what is happening in order to effectively organize counter measures. Piascik in this article warns us about the current efforts of the directorate to glorify war so that they can once again enlist our support for their nefarious causes.

Summer approaches and the stench of war is all around. Or, as the great Bob Marley put it, Everywhere is War. Start with the commemorations over a five-week span of Memorial Day, Flag Day and Independence Day, all presented varyingly as celebrations of our war dead, symbols of our greatness, the freedoms we love so dearly and seek to export to every corner of the world and, perhaps most important, the unquestioned rightness of our cause.

In reality, the celebrations are of imperialist war, with the talk about the hallowed dead just so much cover for the murderous nature of US foreign policy.

World's First Fleet of Riot Control Drones Ordered by Secret South African Company

Click here to access article by Max Ocean from Common Dreams.

Of course, it had to be only a matter of time before capitalist ruling classes realized the usefulness of drone technology to control their own populations. Desert Wolf, a South African company, appears to be leading the way. However, I'm sure they are not alone in developing these population control vehicles. It's just that this company is the first we learn about in this article. Technology that could be advancing the health, welfare, and happiness of humanity will be used by the ownership class to control humanity to promote their interests--more power and wealth. Welcome to the brave new world of 21st century high technology under the ownership and control of a tiny minority!

The drones, originally unveiled by their maker Desert Wolf at a trade show near Johannesburg last month, sell for nearly $50,000 apiece and are equipped with four "high-capacity paint ball barrels" that can each shoot a total of up to 80 paint, pepper, or plastic balls per second, with a full capacity of 4,000 balls. In addition to a generic on-board high-definition camera, it has a thermal camera for use at night, as well as “bright strobe lights, blinding Lasers and on-board speakers” that can be used to warn crowds, according to the company’s website.

The Fall of Iraq - What You're Not Being Told

Click here to access article and 13:17m video from SCG News.

This kind of political analysis is about as good as it gets. The associated transcript provides excellent documentation to back up the narrator's analysis. Because all the documentation has previously been reported on my website, I don't even need to look into his links to know that they are all authentic.

After viewing the above video and/or reading the transcript, I invite you to view the current video presentation below by Dick Cheney and his daughter to see how this ruling class warlord has changed his views since 1994. I have little doubt that such views reflect the current imperialist views of at least the right-wing of the ruling class directorate. 

World War II: The Unknown War

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from World News Trust.

This article should be more aptly named something like "The Lies About WWII Are Preparing Us for WWIII".

As a former member of the Reagan cabinet as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Robert's prolific articles on the current operations of the Empire appear to be an effort at redemption from his earlier key role as an active member of the Empire's directorate. Of course, he never goes so far as to link Empire policies with the underlying system of capitalism, but nevertheless his voice has contributed much by revealing the evils that the Empire directorate have perpetuated in the past, and appear to be planning more for the future.

In the first part of this article he reports on the extensive efforts of the US propaganda machinery to re-write the history of WWII, which after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan resulted in the virtual disappearance of the only accurate film series of that war entitled "The Unknown War". The series still exists on YouTube which appears to consist of five segments. Then Roberts makes a much more general and profound observation.

Propaganda has always been with us. The difference is that in the 21st century Americans have nothing but propaganda. Nothing else at all. Just lies. Lies are the American experience. The actual world as it exists is foreign to most Americans.

Following this revelation Roberts seems to argue that the Empire's propaganda machinery is now on steroids and preparing us for WWIII. The directorate seem perfectly willing to sacrifice the interests of ordinary Europeans to destroy or intimidate Russia. Apparently Assistant Secretary of State Nuland's remark about "fuck the EU", while planning the overthrow of the elected government of Ukraine in an intercepted phone conversation, reflects the general attitude of the directorate. Of course, the same applies to ordinary Americans. The Empire's One Percent have interests that are global, and thus they have a corresponding global perspective. 

The downward spiral of Chris Hedges

Click here to access article by Chris Burnett from San Francisco Bay Area Indymedia.

Has anyone been following the Chris Hedges plagiarism accusations? For what its worth, my reading is that he appears guilty as charged, and now the feeding frenzy of liberal-to-NeoCon-to-corporatists will jump in on the beat down. Now, before you react, I know some of you will be saying, 'who cares, we always kinda knew that guy was an asshole!" Ok, true, but this case is illustrative of how the system attacks it's critics.

I regard Hedges as an "asshole" because he has tried to have it both ways: a well-paid journalist for a ruling class newspaper, the NY Times, and a halfway critic of the system governed by the ruling class. This apostle of nonviolence was always disturbed by activists who fought back against the brutality of the police and broke a few windows, but was always restrained about criticisms of the police. Then when he attacked anarchists as the "cancer of Occupy", I totally lost patience with him.

...because Hedges loved Occupy Wall St, he couldn't intellectually comprehend that it was anarchist theory and practice that made it successful, so when some minor property destruction happened in Oakland, he proceeded on his version of a Jihad to call anarchists, and the BB tactic, the "Cancer of Occupy", relying on some obscure blog posts which only exposed his incomprehension even more. Totally clueless. Hubris uber alles. He did a hell of a lot of damage with that hit piece, taking a small rift to national public attention, even when he got his facts completely wrong! Total asshole move from someone not even involved in the movement.

However, to get to the substance of the article, the attack on Hedges came from an article published in the New Republic (which I haven't read at the time of this posting.) And here is Burnett's take on the attack in the New Republic.

...Hedges brought this on himself, and it only hurts movements that try to expose corrupt state and corporate power. If Hedges chose to acknowledge some of the "mistakes", and admit he fucked up, some kind of redemption might be possible, but he didn't choose to do that. Instead, he held "strong" and is trying unsuccessfully to weasel his way out of ANY responsibility for his actions. That's a total dick move. 

Take a look at the side by side examples that Christopher Ketcham illustrates in his article, especially the Hemingway quotes, which I read as irrefutable evidence of plagiarism. The Naomi Klein, Matt Katz and Neil Postman rip offs are pretty damning. But the most damning is the careful substitutions of pronouns and prepositions in paragraphs that were clearly lifted. You don't use a fine-tuned cutting tool by accident. 

Washington Relaunches its Iraq Partition Project

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from VoltaireNet.

"How a better Middle East would look" [to the Empire]

The sudden collapse of the Iraqi state is presented by the international press as a result of the attack of the terrorist group ISIL. But who can believe that a powerful state, armed and organized by Washington, could collapse in less than a week in the wake of a jihadist group formally independent of any state? Besides, who can believe that those who support ISIL in Syria sincerely condemn its actions in Iraq? Thierry Meyssan reveals what’s in the cards.

Citigroup’s Dark Pools: Here’s Why the Public Doesn’t Trust Wall Street

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

These two financial investigative journalists make a valiant effort to explain to educated Americans all the tricks that global banks, other such financial institutions, and their collaborators in regulatory agencies play to keep their global casino functioning to serve the interests of a tiny Western-based capitalist class. In this piece they focus on Citigroup.

Most Americans, and, sadly, members of Congress, believe that Citigroup is the parent of all those branch banks holding FDIC-insured deposits across America and bearing that angelic red halo over the word “Citi.” But Citigroup is far more than that.

Corporate tax dodging another capitalist innovation

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

Competition takes many forms in capitalism. Financial engineering by corporations to avoid paying taxes is one aspect of this competition — under the rigors of market competition, evading responsibility is an innovation to be emulated.

The magnitude of tax evasion on the part of multi-national corporations through one channel — the shifting of profits to countries and territories with low or nonexistent taxes — was quantified earlier this month by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund and Citizens for Tax Justice. Their study, “Offshore Shell Games 2014,” reports that the 500 largest U.S.-based multi-national corporations have squirreled away almost US$2 trillion in profits that lie untouched. [my emphasis]

The plot to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to steal billions from the taxpayer

Click here to access article by Matthew Yglesias from Vox.

Ever since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went bust necessitating a federal takeover and about $190 billion in bailout money to cover their debts, plans have abounded about how to best fix the mortgage finance system in the United States. There are plans from the left and plans from the right and many many plans from the center.

And then there is a plan from four hedge fund managers — Bill Ackman, Bruce Berkowitz, John Paulson, and Richard Perry — who think the right solution is for the government to hand them tens of billions of dollars for no good reason at all. It's a plan so shocking that the fact that it's even receiving any consideration at all is a testament to the extent to which our republic is becoming a corrupt oligarchy. 

The Vultures Are Circling Argentina Once Again

Click here to access article by Don Quijones, a British expat living in Spain, from his blog Raging Bull-Shit.

The games that these vulture funds play is rarely explained in mainstream media so that ordinary people can understand them. That is because there is a lot of money to be made in these scams played by major capitalist players who have considerable influence within the ruling capitalist class.  As key players in the ruling class they essentially own the government which, of course, includes the court system. 

This author in a brief space provides a very good start on understanding the issue as it currently applies to Argentina. And, I have since found three other articles that add more clarity to the subject: "How the US Supreme Court brought Argentina to the brink of financial crisis" from Vox, "After Supreme Court loss, 'vulture funds' circling Argentina's billions" from Al Jazeera, and "U.S. Supreme Court “Validates” Vulture Fund Activities" from Inter Press Service.

To really understand these scams, you must, once again, return to John Perkins' classic work on the subject, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2005). He has also subsequently written other books on the subject which I haven't read.

The Truth About US Troops "Sent to Iraq"

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from Land Destroyer.

Cartalucci not only reveals the duplicitous nature of Empire operatives regarding the recent announcement about sending troops to Iraq, but argues that the same diabolical application of propaganda has been used in many other past operations comprising the "Arab Spring" events. 

Unthinkable Thoughts in the Debate About ISIS in Iraq

Click here to access article by Ross Caputi from Common Dreams.

This veteran of US occupying forces in Iraq and now anti-war activist provides his unique perspective on recent events in Iraq.

Ross Caputi, 29, is a US veteran of the occupation of Iraq. He took part in the second battle of Fallujah in November 2004. That experience led him to become an anti-war activist. Today he is on the Board of Directors of ISLAH and he directed and produced the documentary film Fear Not the Path of Truth.

Referring to recent coverage in US mainstream media, he writes: 

...[the] range of ideas and perspectives is fascinating, and it says much about American war culture, but mostly for the ideas and perspectives that are omitted from this debate. Entirely absent is the perspective of Iraqis and the issues that are important to them: accountability, independence, and resistance. Moreover, the real complexities of this issue have been lost in a number of the Western media’s favorite binaries: terrorism vs. counterterrorism, good vs. evil, and insurgency vs. stability. 

If we dare to take Iraqi voices seriously and think outside of the dominant framework presented to us by the mainstream media, a very different picture of the violence in Iraq emerges and a whole new range of options open up for achieving peace and justice. 

Iraq: three kinds of blowback and the threat of war stoked by western meddling

Click here to access article by John Rees from Stop the War Coalition (Britain).

The current crisis in Iraq is a direct consequence not only of the war of 2003 and the occupation that followed it but of Western foreign policy in Syria and the longer timescale of intervention in the Middle East.

Rees's analysis covers the long history of capitalist ruling classes trying to control the Middle East because of its vast oil and gas resources, but he seems to suggest that many of their policies had unintended consequences or "blowbacks". While many of the events as a consequence of their "meddling" may be, and have been, unanticipated, I argue that their overall effect is, and was, intentional: to keep Arabs and the Iranians killing each other and generally destabilizing all these governments so that they never pose a threat to Western capitalists who want to exploit their resources.

On big politics, Western media spews propaganda - war correspondent John Pilger

Click here if you wish to access the source of this video interview (and transcript) with John Pilger who offers his views on a variety of current issues on RT. Pilger is one of the world's foremost independent journalists.



Because I spend so much time surveying and accessing sources of reliable information on the web regarding major world issues, I particularly liked his response to one of the interviewer's questions: "Do you think we’re getting reliable information from the conflict zone in Ukraine?"

Pilger: No, it's impossible to get an informed cover of pretty well anywhere [in] the world, unless you navigate your way through, these days, through the internet. If you don't navigate, and you sit in front of your television set, then you're likely to be given propaganda. It's always been that way - it's probably now more intense, but we do have alternatives now. We do have the internet, but as I say, it requires that research. Otherwise, we sit in front of the TV, or we pick up a newspaper, and we're not so much informed as when we're monitoring it or deconstructing it - that's what I do as a journalist. We live in an age of intense propaganda.

However, I keep wondering when our masters will succeed in interfering with internet access as they are now trying to do by allowing corporations to buy faster access which means slower access by independent websites. I predict that you will see more complaints, indirectly engineered or not, about the slow access of many streaming video services like Netflix; and then this issue will be used to justify corporations buying faster online speeds. The legal foundation for this has already be prepared by the courts as reported in the Huffington Post article: "last month's federal appeals court ruling...struck down Federal Communication Commission rules known as net neutrality."  

Do We Want Corporations To Decide Who Should Teach Our Children?

Click here to access article by educator Ira Rabois from his blog. 

Rabois has taught at several schools that used to be known as "alternative schools" before corporate "reformers" got into the act to convert education into streamlined factories designed to serve corporate needs. This new corporate vision of education promotes schools under private control using public tax money. Essentially it is the privatization of public education without using private money. To disguise their aims, they cleverly use words like "alternative" and "reform", and thus introduce confusion as to what education should be about.

Although Rabois initially direct his essay toward developments in higher education, he offers insights on what a democratic, child-centered education ought to be like and how this differs from what the corporate-driven versions are offering.

If you have the time and interest, I highly recommend listening to a recent 55 minute interview at KPFA radio station in Berkeley, California in which Rabois elaborates his views on education in contrast to what the corporate version is trying to spread in the US.

Critical thinking, democracy, and student-centered learning -- these themes are the basis of alternative education. Ira Rabois reflects on his own experience teaching philosophy and english at a public alternative school in upstate New York, and why developing inner motivation for learning is preferable to relying on grades and external discipline. He also discusses the attacks that all public education, including alternative schooling, face today.  

World Powers Keeping Firm Grip on Nuclear Weapons Arsenals: Report

Click here to access article by Sarah Lazare from Common Dreams.

A new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows clearly that in spite of the promises made under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons agreed to in 1968 and extended in 1995, nations officially possessing nuclear weapons are generally modernizing their inventories and some are expanding their stockpiles. 

Obama [US Ruling Class] responds to Iraq debacle with military escalation

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

The one consistent element in US foreign policy is ruthless plunder in the interests of the American ruling class, combined with a total lack of accountability. No one has been held responsible in the White House, which has directed one war after another; the military brass, which has carried the wars out; Congress, which has sanctioned them; or the media, which has promoted them.

They Can’t Represent Us: a riveting defense of democracy

Click here to access a book review by Jerome Roos of the recently published book They Can't Represent US by Marina Sitrin and Dario Azzellini, posted on Reflections on a Revolution.

...a timely new book...recounts the stories of ordinary citizens around the world as they decided to take matters into their own hands. ...the international scholar-activist duo provide us with a unique insight into the bowels of the ship, where a massive democratic mutiny is brewing — occasionally spilling over onto the deck to rearrange some of the chairs, but most of the time simply stirring below the surface, preparing the ground for a radical redistribution of power from below.

Edward Bernays - 'Propaganda' (1928)

Click here to access this introduction and links to a series of 13 podcasts, including transcripts, on the teachings and profound influence of Bernays whom many people regard as the founder of American propaganda and a major theorist behind the "manufacturing of consent". His ideas have resulted in a major tool that the US ruling class uses to dumb-down, entertain, dis-inform, and distract Americans from what our ruling masters really plan in secret meetings and execute as "humanitarian interventions" with our tax money and in our name.

Edward Bernays, born in Vienna in 1891 and famously the nephew of Sigmund Freud, was perhaps the pioneer in the field of Public Relations, and highly influential in providing the framework for modern advertising. His work aimed to convince people to want things that they didn’t need, and in the process, link their unconscious desires to the consumption of mass produced goods. This in turn, it was theorized, could be used to control the masses, as by keeping them distracted on frivolous happenings and relatively unimportant wants, they wouldn’t interfere with the activities of what he called ‘the important few’.

All the while, he was remarkably candid about his intent. In one of his first books, ‘Propaganda’ (1928), he coined the term ‘engineering of consent’ to describe his technique for controlling the masses. In this podcast series, Guy Evans examines just how influential these ideas were, and details the resulting impact in relation to public relations, advertising, celebrity culture, and democracy itself.

Capitalism is the enemy of mother earth

Click here if you wish to access the posting of this 6:50m video (Democracy Now!) on System Change Not Climate Change.

In this video excerpt we hear not only the voice of Bolivia's president Evo Morales, but also many voices of activists attending the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth.

On Recent Events in Mosul and Other Cities in Iraq: [A message from the] Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq

Click here to access article by Falah Alwan posted on Jadaliyya.

Referring to a commonly used strategy (divide and rule) of all imperialists throughout history, the author writes: 

it is...true that Iraqis generally reject ISIS, whether in the central or southern regions of Iraq or in parts of the country that are no longer under government control: the so-called "Sunni" areas or the "Sunni Triangle", a term that intelligence services, particularly the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), devised as part of a plan to engineer sectarianism in Iraq. At the same time, Iraqis generally reject Maliki's regime and its policies, built as they are on an ethno-sectarian basis. This is especially the case in urban areas where sectarian discrimination is most concentrated, wherein the government treats ordinary people as political enemies. [my emphasis]

In 2007 we finally learned about clear evidence of false-flag operations that had been carried out in 2005 by a special forces unit of the British army (SAS) obviously designed to stir up inter-sect hostilities: 

Two SAS men in Arab clothes and head dress were arrested by Iraqi police at a checkpoint after refusing to stop and opening fire from their civilian car which was packed with explosives. They were arrested by Iraqi police and detained. This led to British tanks smashing down the prison wall where the SAS men were being held and releasing them, but not before incensed Iraqis attacked the British army with petrol bombs and stones. A British soldier was captured on film fleeing from his tank in flames from a petrol bomb and being pelted by rocks from the crowd, an image which symbolises maybe more than any other the British experience in Basra. 

See also this, this after the First Gulf War, and this, if you need further convincing.

Iraq's "World Of Hurt"

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

Read this and weep for the people of Iraq.

All sides will bleed and, thanks to the U.S. war of terror, all Iraqis will contine to be in a "world of hurt" for years to come.

India’s Heat Wave Is Unbearable

Click here to access article by Eric Holthaus from Slate.

On Wednesday, New Delhi enters day 10 of a blistering heat wave that’s broken at least one long-standing record, with part of the city peaking at 118 degrees Fahrenheit (47.8 degrees Celsius) on Sunday. During that stretch, the average high temperature at the airport in New Delhi has been 109.9 Fahrenheit (43.2 Celsius), with the average low an astonishing 84 Fahrenheit (28.9 Celsius). Days upon days with nighttime low temperatures above 80 Fahrenheit can be deadly, especially for those without a way to keep cool.

I expect to be posting articles like this at an increasing rate over the next decade (should I last that long)--not that it will do any good. For every article posted like this, there will be ten thousand media pieces broadcast over ruling class media that will pretend that efforts are being made to deal with the developing catastrophe of climate destabilization. We will hear messages like this: "All will be well, just trust us, the authorities; meanwhile, go shopping for air conditioners."

Bashing Climate Deniers (Easy)... Adequate Climate Action (Hard)

Click here to access article by Jon Queally from Common Dreams.

This piece by Queally says a lot about how the US political system works, that is, if one looks below the surface of what is reported.

Here we see Obama, the CPRO (Chief Public Relations Officer) of the US ruling capitalist class, delivering a speech to a brighter than average American audience, graduating students at UC Irvine. To this audience, and other Americans concerned about climate destabilization, he must make a good pretense of being concerned about climate change by delivering a "a new and impassioned speech centered around climate change". The author rightly points out that his proposals fall far short of what scientists are insisting is needed.

It is unlikely that even these insufficient measures will be instituted, but the directors of this ruling class must make the pretense that their political system is trying to grapple with the problem if only those nasty Republicans would stop getting in the way.

By the way, if you need more convincing about who Obama really works for, then read this article entitled "Meeting Logs: Obama White House Quietly Coddling Big Oil on 'Bomb Trains' Regulations".

A DeSmogBlog review of OIRA [Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs] meeting logs confirms that in recent weeks, OIRA has held at least ten meetings with officials from both industries on oil-by-rail regulations. On the flip side, it held no meetings with public interest groups.

Big trouble in the Antarctic has been brewing for a long time

Click here to access article by David Spratt from Climate Code Red (Australia).

In the first half of the article Spratt reviews recent evidence of the dramatic acceleration of the melting of glaciers in West Antarctica beyond what well-established scientists in service to capitalist ruling classes have foreseen. He rightly argues that this has been known and predicted for a number of years by scientists of a more independent mind or position. 

Notice that I have inserted some concepts into his explanation that he does not mention. I justify this insertion because it is clearly implicit in all the reporting that has been published so far about Antarctica and the whole climate destabilization issue. You cannot separate the capitalist system, and the ruling classes that benefit from it, from the issue of climate destabilization and how established climate organizations have reported on it. Because if you took his arguments at only face value, you would have to conclude that he and other like minded people are so much smarter than those connected with more established scientific organizations. In fact, he seems to argue this by repeating in the second half of his article an extract of "what we said back in late 2007" to prove how much smarter he and his friends are.

It seems so crystal clear to me, and others who get little play in the media, that there is a fundamental contradiction between the system of capitalism and climate sustainability. Thus, the class of people who benefit from the system and who have overwhelming control of media (and all other important sectors of most societies) are compelled to downplay or deny this contradiction as long as possible. And scientists are under tremendous pressure to conform to such views or risk losing their careers. 

Without knowing anything about Spratt, I strongly suspect that this type of pressure is also preventing him from explicitly recognizing this contradiction. What is desperately needed for any real change to come about is for courageous, reputable people to make this connection.