New video: "The corporate lobby tour"

Click here if you wish to directly access the 10:24m video and introduction from Corporate Europe Observatory.

Following WWII the people of Europe were sold on the idea that integrating their governments into a greater European union would benefit everyone. What they didn't realize that this was a clever plan to weaken any democratic influence in various European countries if favor of a centralized government that would be easily susceptible to influence by Western corporations. 

Sometimes stories in the news can make you wonder who is really pulling the strings. This 10-minute video exposes the role corporate lobby groups have in EU decision-making – who they are, how they get what they want, and how they affect you, and others like you all over Europe, from the food on your plate, to rules for bankers, to the chemicals allowed in everyday products. Watch, learn, and share!

‘Iraqi Kurdistan’ – Western Fifth Column in the Middle East

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from CounterPunch.

This courageous independent journalist takes us on a tour of Iraqi Kurdistan in which we experience through his eyes a quasi-independent section of Iraq wracked by corruption, ISIS attacks, and tense border guards at numerous checkpoints. We also see evidence of extreme rich lifestyles amidst widespread poverty, and Western and Israeli influences everywhere. It's another nightmarish imperial colony created by the US and associated nefarious allies. Here is only one excerpt: 

I spot a public elementary school. It is dilapidated, and extremely basic.

This Muslim community is obviously neglected, despite the nearby oil basins and refineries. No wonder: the pro-Western regime in Erbil is openly anti-Arab and pro-Western. President Barzani repeatedly speaks about the Eurasian character of his enclave, disputing that it has anything to do with an undesirable Middle-Eastern Arab character.

A school principal, erect, beautiful and proud, wears a headscarf. I dash into her office, and then slow down and apologize. I have only one question for her: ‘Do any of the proceeds from those oilfields and refineries outside, end up here, in her school, in the education sector’?

Her reply is as short and precise, as my question: “No, nothing! Our people and our schools get absolutely nothing!”

But the number of Kurdish millionaires is growing, as is the number of luxury limousines and SUVs, as are the flashy malls for the elites, as are the armies of arrogant security guards, local and imported.

A Socio-Political Criticism of Magic: The Gathering

Click here to access article by Neale Talbot from Gathering Magic. 

It has long been recognized that Western fantasy has deep roots in Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition within the historical context of political absolutism and class stratification. The medievalist overtones of in-period literature such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf have persevered through time to the modern imaginary worlds of Tolkien and George R.R. Martin. These works have [informed and formed] the basis of class, hierarchy, and political authority within the codified structures of fantasy-genre-driven games.

One such game is Magic: The Gathering (“Magic”). [my link]

Talbot has much fun with this trading card game by explaining how it illustrates many fundamental concepts derived from Western feudalism that have shaped today's ruling class governance.

The aim of this essay is to demonstrate how Magic: The Gathering has codified and exemplified the historical classist hierarchical philosophy of Western society, from feudal manorialism through to colonialism, underpinned by a core belief in divine political legitimacy.

BREAKING: Germany's DW Reports ISIS Supply Lines Originate in NATO's Turkey

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

While DW's report claims no one knows who is arranging the shipments, it does reveal that the very torrent of trucks its film crew documented was officially denied by the Turkish government in Ankara. It is a certainty that Turkey is not only aware of this, but directly complicit, as is NATO who has feigned a desire to defeat ISIS but has failed to expose and uproot ISIS' multinational sponsorship and more importantly, has refused to cut its supply lines - an elementary prerequisite of any military strategy. 

ISIS supply lines leading from NATO territory should be of no surprise.

As reported since as early as 2007, the US and its regional accomplices conspired to use Al Qaeda and other armed extremists in a bid to reorder North Africa and the Middle East. 

Is Washington training a rebel army to “Occupy” Syria?

Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from RT. 

The Canadian sociologist and geopolitical analyst, whose focus has been on the conflicts in the Middle East, examines a recent publication of one of the Empire's primary think tanks to ascertain the next moves of the Empire in Syria. Specifically, he examines a document authored by Kevin Pollack of the Brookings Institution entitled “Building a Better Syrian Opposition Army: How and Why". (It might be worthwhile to compare this author's take on the document with that of Cartalucci's article entitled "ISIS is America’s Dream Rebel Army" that I posted earlier this month.)

It's clear that the same Zionists and associated ilk who planned and promoted the Iraqi invasion in 2003 are influencing the current dramatic strategies that we are seeing being employed to create even more chaos and bloodshed in the Middle East in order to advance Empire interests to control the abundant oil and gas resources and to promote Israeli hegemony in the region.

OPEC decision a shot in oil price war

Click here to access article by Nick Beams from World Socialist Web Site. 

Unlike many other geopolitical analysts who see GCC hyper-production of oil as a means to crash Russia's economy, Beams sees the Saudi and GCC actions as a method to counter US shale producers. Could it be that the major oil companies who figure prominently in the Empire's power structure are looking to buy up the smaller companies at cheap prices? However as Beams notes, there are not only adverse consequences to many US oil companies, but banking institutions as well. It's hard to figure where this is going, but one thing is for sure: there will be even more chaos in world affairs than there is now.

Russia Turns East at Shocking Speed with China Mega Energy Deals

Click here to access article by William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.

While Western mainstream media concentrates attention on the emissions agreement signed by US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi at the recent APEC Beijing Summit, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi quietly signed major new energy agreements that will have enormous geopolitical significance in bringing about the very nightmare that US strategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski warned about way back in 1997 when America seemed indomitable as sole Superpower.

Ferguson and the False Promise of "Revolution"

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

Cartalucci has some wise words about effectively constructing a revolution, and not letting our enemies divide and thereby continue to rule over us. Here are two prime examples:

Instead of demanding justice, jobs, education, healthcare, food, and other necessities and desires from a system with no intention of ever empowering the people - a system that in order to continue perpetuating itself must by necessity never truly empower the people - we must begin working together locally to empower ourselves.


The alternative media itself is proof of what power people have when they stop depending on others, stop demanding others to do their jobs properly, and instead take up the responsibility themselves. Expanding this paradigm shift to other aspects of our daily lives, from agriculture to energy, to education, will be key to true and enduring change.

The BBC Worries That Russia Has Military Control of its Own Coastline

Click here to access article by The Saker from his website The Oceania Saker.

The Saker provides us with an excellent piece of satire of the war propaganda that we are now getting daily from our media.

“Russian Commander Warns US Could Control Whole Gulf of Mexico”

How is that for a ridiculous headline? You like it?

Well, it is just a little variation of a BBC headline today:

“Nato commander warns Russia could control whole Black Sea” 

Parents: This Is How They Mess with our Minds

Click here to access article by Cynthia Peters from TeleSur.

Cynthia Peters is the editor of The Change Agent. She is a longtime activist and a member of City Life/Vida Urbana, and she serves on the board of a youth justice organization called The City School and the alumni board of Social Thought and Political Economy at UMASS/Amherst.

Peters correctly interprets the usual parental advice that ruling class media impose on parents by examining one piece called "Raising a Moral Child" published in the NY Times as an illustration. Ruling class media always place the burden of child raising on the shoulders of parents or parent (in the case of single parents). This emphasis conveniently ignores the real overwhelming effects of the immoral or amoral influences emanating from all major institutions which, of course, are controlled by our masters.

While you’re parsing out these methods for raising a moral child and self-consciously scanning the horizon for an opportunity to role-model being nice, you will wisely block out all the messages about greed and ownership and one-upmanship that your kid is getting from about a billion other sources.

While we parents do mostly all the dirty, hard work of raising children (changing diapers, tending them when they are sick, clothing them, making all kinds of sacrifices for them), the ruling class institutions to a great extent fill their minds with the importance of shopping, of obeying (their) authorities, serving their country by invading foreign lands and killing people living there, etc.

After all, our culture is saturated with messages that acquisition is a moral imperative, that the way to be good is to have lots of stuff, and that the way to be the best is to have more stuff than anyone else. Greed is considered an inherent good; it is the motor that drives our entire economy, and so endless resources are spent justifying it, propping it up, and making it seem like a worthy quality rather than a depraved one.

Ferguson's Grand Jury Problem

Click here to access article by Noah Feldman from Bloomberg.

This very mild critique of the use of grand juries barely scratches the surface. But, of course, that would be expected from a ruling class media source. I'd like to briefly, because of time constraints, offer another argument.

Grand juries are used whenever the ruling capitalist class has a strong interest in a particular case. This is so because grand juries are sometimes seen by our masters as a useful legal excuse to harass political dissidents, or prevent the use of a standard jury trial when a grand jury could serve their interests better. You see, a jury trial has much more rigorous standards to insure the operation of the rule of law to serve justice than does a grand jury investigation. 

It has been rightly observed that "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted" and thus this is why they are used to harass dissidents. But, of course, the Ferguson case involved a member of an enforcement agency that serves the ruling class. Hence, the need for the latter to protect this person, and therefore they decided to use a grand jury to accomplish this instead of a trial jury in which he more likely would have been found guilty of some crime.

For an excellent source on the operation of grand juries, I strongly recommend that you read this brief piece entitled "A Few Facts About Grand Juries" from Grand Jury Resistance Project. Grand juries vary a little by states, but I noticed that in the Ferguson case that a judge appointed the jury. This is obviously a great advantage from a ruling class point of view.

You can have democracy as long as you vote for the boss

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

I am going to respectfully disagree with some parts of this essay. I emphasize "respectfully" because I have so much respect for this writer who has taught me a lot. But like all serious social/political critics, he (and I) sometimes fail to achieve perfect understanding of our subject. All we can do is the best that we can do, fully realizing that our efforts will sometimes fall short. When this happens, we must depend on others to challenge what we write so that together we activists can unravel the mystery of the continuing rule of world societies by a tiny few. 

What I take issue with in this essay is the confusion about what I identify as propaganda designed by the One Percent versus the real views of ruling class directors. Over the approximately 400 years of capitalist rule, this has steadily become more difficult to distinguish because of a development identified by Dolack:

Capitalism...requires a literate, educated population, in contrast to earlier systems, and a literate, educated populace is more inclined and more able to agitate for its interests.

Hence, the need for more and more agencies of propaganda and indoctrination, subterfuge, and especially for secret agencies like NSA and CIA to function outside of public purview. 

Because capitalist ruling classes came to power by using the ideology of "democracy" in order to gain the support of working people in their struggle against monarchy and aristocracy (for more details, read my commentaries here and here), the history of Western capitalist societies has to a considerable extent been a history of the development of methods to deal with the rising expectations by workers for real democracy. Because the capitalist economy over time required workers to become more educated, the capitalist ruling class had to strengthen the methods of indoctrination and propaganda, to create a largely fake government and elections, secret agencies, militarized police forces, and widespread surveillance of citizens as we see today.

West's Propaganda War on Syria Exposed Again

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

In this age of advanced communication technology now being used by nearly everyone, the Empire's directorate finds it more urgent than ever to deceive the public at large about what they are doing in the world. Cartalucci illustrates this urgency with numerous fake events that have been circulating throughout mainstream and social media.

McCloskey disses democracy

Click here to access article by Peter Radford from Real-World Economics Review. 

Although I haven't read, nor intend to read, the essay by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey criticized in Radford's article, I think her views are highly representative of many members of the ruling capitalist classes who have been embarrassed by Piketty's findings: essentially that capitalism systematically produces inequality rather than their shibboleth that capitalism eventually benefits everyone. I predict that she will go far in capitalist controlled academia with this essay. For every honest academic like Piketty, there are a hundred waiting in the wings to serve the ruling class and reward themselves with a splendid career.

[Capitalist] Economics in crisis

Click here to access article posted by David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review.

Ruccio posts a couple of graphs from economist Cornelia Strawser followed by some questions she feels must be addressed by the dramatic decline of worker compensation. Here is the main graph showing this decline followed by her questions.

   

    1. Does the falling labor share arise from rapid technological change?

    2. Or does it reflect changing power relationships?

    3. Is it a result of globalization, hence inevitable and irreversible?

    4. Or is it an anomalous business cycle development that we can expect to fade away?

    5. What does increasing financialization contribute to the falling labor share?

    6. Is the labor share made worse by our reliance on monetary stimulus – which encourages more financialization – having failed to deploy a more stimulative fiscal policy?

    7. If private-sector productivity growth is not raising worker wages, why should workers support it, and should it be a national priority?

    8. Does the rising capital income share contribute as much to investment demand as the falling labor share subtracts from consumption? Or, since investment demand depends on final consumption demand, does the falling labor share instead cause a vicious downward spiral of self-reinforcing underconsumption and stagnation?

    9. Is there a case for a compensating structural tax reform that would place a relatively greater burden on capital incomes, and less on labor?

My short answers are as follows: 1) no, 2) yes, 3) no, 4) no 5) it attempts to offset consumption missing from workers, 6) inevitably and eventually yes, 7) stupid questions, 8) not in the long term, yes, 9) stupid question.

Of course, her questions are posed within a capitalist framework which cannot question the system itself. It's the system with its built-in contradictions that is the problem. 

Australian economist Steve Keen has some useful insights (at 4:45m in video) about the contradictions of capitalism, but being a capitalist economist he must not stray too far from orthodoxy.

The conventional way of thinking about finances is that finances is.?.a profit center in capitalism. You've got the industrial sector which is profit, service sector which is profit, finance profit center. [However]Finance is fundamentally not a profit center. It's a cost of doing business. In fact, if costs get too high, you actually weaken the economy--you don't strengthen it. What you get is the risk of capitalism is being imposed on the workers, when the essence [rationale] of capitalism is that capitalists are the risk takers.

However, this economist continues on to blame a section of the capitalist class, the financiers, for the problems of the economy. Financiers are only the top echelon of the ruling capitalist class, and the capitalist layers below them are completely beholden to this top layer. Besides the two layers are thoroughly integrated with bankers sitting on many industrial corporation boards. And now we see banks owning a significant number of industrial companies. So, Steve Keen can blame them all he wants, but nothing will ever change their close identification with each other. Finance is the ownership of money whereas the industrial and service capitalists are the "owners" of economic enterprises (under capitalism). But, capital is capital, and capitalists don't care how they increase their wealth and power: whether with the production of goods and services or with the renting of their money to those engaged in the true profit centers.

Throughout the remarks of capitalist economists, you will always find that growth is their focus, and economic growth is always good simply because the system cannot function without it. This immediately creates a contradiction with planetary limits which we are now approaching, and possibly exceeding to our peril. Like never before, capitalism is in crisis along with the teaching of capitalist economics.

So, let us end this commentary on a lighter note by viewing these two Australian comedians who discuss economic growth (thanks to Wolf Street). 


 
 

Al-Mayadeen reveals Turkey aware of militants crossing border to Syria

Click here to access article from Al-Akhbar.

This article furnishes the latest evidence that the Turkish section of the Empire is continuing to supply arms and aid to terrorist armies in support of the Empire's goals of destabilizing Syria and the region, and thus to bring the oil-rich region under tighter control of the Empire. 

A video published on Al-Mayadeen’s website on Tuesday revealed that up to 100 civilians and militants cross the Syrian-Turkish border daily under the surveillance of the Turkish army, which never interferes.

“An injury to all”: the class struggle is back in Italy

Click here to access article by Alfredo Mazzamauro from Reflections on a Revolution.

The author reports on the current class war being waged in Italy due to the acceleration of  contradictions resulting from the recent economic collapse and austerity policies. Workers are organizing and fighting back while capitalists are employing their usual divide and rule strategies.

As Renzi’s center-left government intensifies the project of neoliberal restructuring, a wave of self-organized class struggle takes off across Italy.

Mexico’s Youth Under Siege

Click here to access article by Laura Carlsen from Americas Program.

Carlsen provides a brilliant understanding of the current crisis in Mexico involving the murder and disappearance of 70 young people by examining the class interests of multinational corporations and Empire strategies to promote these interests. She does this by examining the development and the significance of the "war on drugs" and its relationship to "free trade" policies.

First of all, this meant a strategy to counter the virulent anti-establishment activities of young people that appeared in the 1960s, but more recently to promote the interests of mainly US corporations looking to expand their access to the economies and resources of their neighbors to the south under so-called "free trade" policies. Carlsen pierces the veil of Empire propaganda to show how the "war on drugs" have had, and still have, multiple benefits for the One Percent of the US and their collaborators in countries to the south by promoting state violence against anyone who stands in the way of corporate exploitation. (For the latest examples of Mexican state violence used against protesting youth, read this.)

In the capitalist system, the existence of an underground economy has financial and political advantages. On one hand, the criminalization of drugs creates a situation of vulnerability and ongoing harassment of youth by the repressive forces of the state, and assures that many of them will spend time behind bars. In foreign policy, the drug war justifies U.S. intervention.

The amount of money flowing without transparency or control was a factor, according to economists, in saving the global financial system in the 2008 crisis by providing liquidity to banks and financing speculation at a high level. Transnational banks not only accept drug money, but promote new and more sophisticated ways to launder money and ensure that illegal cash flows into the “legitimate” financial system.

Access to dirty money provides a way to finance illegal political activities and even secret or prohibited wars. The best known example is the funding of the Nicaraguan Contras with drug sales in U.S. neighborhoods by the CIA.

Cold War 2.0 Not a Likely Win for the U.S.

Click here to access article by Robert Freeman from Common Dreams.

Freeman appears to be a typical liberal writer whose inclination is to support capitalism, but at the same time, is able to reach many important insights about the capitalist world. However, notice that he doesn't even use the word. For him, and many liberals in the capitalist world, capitalism is a fixed background of reality in which competing powers play out their power games. For such people, there is no question of capitalism simply because, in their view, there is no alternative. While keeping this in mind, I recommend many of his insights about the new cold war taking shape in today's world.

I think that what Freeman misses in his world view is that US capitalists and their many allies are so addicted to the power of wealth accumulation that they cannot see the forest of world domination for the trees of next quarter's profits. Thus, he is right about the implications of this current contest: US and associated capitalists are going to lose this war. However, I don't have any expectation that Chinese or Russian capitalists will eventually behave any differently as they experience the addiction of power. Then, of course, all capitalists are forced to ignore the dangerous threat posed by catastrophic climate destabilization. Still, Pepe Escobar hints that Chinese and/or Russian regimes might turn out differently in this paragraph from a recent post:

Russia and China may not be proposing an alternative system – yet. Still, as the dogs of war, of hate, of inequality - bark, the China-Russia caravan passes. The caravan is selling Eurasia economic integration – not bombs. Real Asia-Pacific integration may still be a long dream away. Yet what APEC has shown – graphically – once again is the spectacular implosion, in slow motion, of the former indispensable nation’s geopolitical dominance. [my emphasis]

Radical Routes and the Shell of the Old

Click here to access article by Milan Rai from TeleSur.

This radical housing organization in Britain provides an excellent example of a radical experiment that needs to be studied by all serious revolutionaries. 

Radical Routes has achieved amazing things. It’s enabled groups of mostly young, mostly poor people (generally voluntarily-downwardly-mobile) to take well over £4 million-worth of property out of private hands and into co-operative ownership. It’s provided stable bases for some of the most important British direct action campaigning of the last 30 years. It’s been a beacon of democratic decision-making and anarchist financing.

At the same time, it’s not clear what the effect on the organization will be as the demand for individual and co-op autonomy overcomes the need for boundary-setting principles.

Radical Routes has, in many ways, been an example of the future desired society being set up in miniature within the shell of the old society. It’s possible that over the last few years, key elements preserving its radical identity have themselves been hollowed out, leaving a fragile shell. There may be lessons here for others.

Small Town America: Racial Apartheid, Cultural Decay and Neoliberalism

Click here to access article by Vincent Emanuele from TeleSur.

This community organizer in Michigan City provides a disturbing graphic description of cultural decay in an advanced capitalist country--the USA. He tells of his experience in a campaign to elect a progressive to the local school board while knocking on doors and meeting residents face-to-face. It became clear to him that in this advanced stage of globalized capitalism Michigan City can be found in many areas of the world.

After several weeks of knocking on doors, it occurred to me that the landscape of Michigan City would look quite familiar to those living in deindustrialized regions around the globe, from Lancashire to Latin America. A loss of viability and hope plagues people around the world. Michigan City is just one example. At the same time, it's a case study in neoliberal globalization. This small, yet common midwestern city represents the very worst of global capitalism: violence, drug abuse, prison-executions, privatized commons, casinos, clinically depressed citizens, empty factories, hyper-materialist consumer products, crumbling infrastructure, racial apartheid, environmental devastation and the list goes on.

The Fog of Empire

Click here to access article by Philip A. Farruggio from World News Trust.

Did you ever notice lately how often you hear the expression that someone is "in a fog"?

So many of us are walking around in some lethargic state as we go about our business. There is no sense of direction as many just "go through the motions" of existence.

Truly, we are lost in the fog of empire.

Could Farruggio represent a US middle-class person who is finally waking up to the deterioration of American life, particularly for the middle class, and a recognition that the US is engaged in never-ending wars to maintain an empire? He still doesn't seem to be aware of the extent of poverty here in the US. However, if he is an example of a trend in the US middle class, such a trend does not bode well for the future of the Empire.

Decoding the Media

Click here if you wish to access the posting by Micky Z. directly from World News Trust.

This activist expresses so well the necessity of decoding the media in these brief remarks:

Hungary’s Viktor Orban: Washington’s New Enemy Image

Click here to access article by William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.

Engdahl cites many actions by Hungary's Prime Minister which have caused great consternation among Empire directors. He argues that such flagrant disobedience will likely make Hungary a target for destabilization via another NGO organized opposition.

...we can expect the National Endowment for Democracy and the usual US Government-backed NGO’s to find an excuse to launch mass opposition protests against Fidesz and Orban for his unforgivable crime of trying to make Hungary’s energy independent of the US-created insanity in Ukraine.

Naomi Klein: The Romantic Revolutionary

Click here to access article by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH from The Greanville Post.

Jonas provides an excellent examination of the core weakness of Klein's new book in which she places all the emphasis on the current neoliberal phase of capitalist development, and calls for a vague plan of organizing.

She does offer a plan for organizing an international movement to achieve the replacement of the current “neoliberal” form of capitalism.  To do this she calls for the arising of mass movements around the world, which are apparently to arise more or less by themselves, as awareness of millions (perhaps billions) of people of the oncoming catastrophe expands.  This is where Ms. Klein’s romanticism comes in.

What is surprising to me is that Jonas wants to return to a vanguard model of revolutionary action best expressed by Leninism, and he quotes directly from Lenin's writings. It doesn't seem to matter to him that this first major version of a worker's revolution had, by his own admission, "major flaws". This begs the question which he doesn't address: why should we do the same thing again which failed quite dramatically in the past? And, will people rally around such a revolutionary movement?

No, I don't think that there is a viable revolutionary scheme that can do the job of ridding the planet of the cancer of capitalism--yet. This is what activists must be consciously working on throughout the world by experimenting with various forms of anti-capitalist political actions and organizations. To some extent, they are. But, much more is needed. What is holding back this kind of determined activism are naive political writings such as Klein's, and questionable corporate sponsored activist organizations such as The Rules. 

America’s decade of declining real wages

Click here to access article by David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review. 

The fundamental nature of capitalism is for a small class of people ("owners", capitalists, investors, etc) to exploit both people and the environment as much as possible in order to acquire more wealth and its concomitant power. Other factors being equal, this dynamic functions much like compound interest in that the more wealth/power that is obtained, the increase of both accelerates over time. In this neoliberal stage of capitalism we are seeing and experiencing the results that are recorded in hard data provided in this article.

Climate Chaos Casino: Another Roll of the Dice

Click here to access article by xrayMike79 from Collapse of Industrial Civilization.

The author assembles arguments and data to show how the warming Arctic is creating extreme weather events that are symptoms of a trend toward catastrophic climate destabilization. But that does not deter our capitalist masters from preaching about, and practicing, their addiction to capitalism and the relatively cheap fossil fuels that drive the system. Like the author writes:

...the multiple environmental crises we face are like a multi-headed hydra. Cut one head off with a techno-fix and it grows two more. Even those who are well-read and knowledgable on climate change still hold fast to a techno-utopian future, clueless as to what is and isn’t sustainable.... Remember… it’s the economy, stupid!