in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
Todhunter looks at the results of neoliberalism in his home country of Britain and in India, where he has lived for many years, and finds the results devastating for working people, but a boon for corporations and the rich.
This proposed trade agreement (and others like it being negotiated across the world) is based on a firm belief in ‘the market’ (a euphemism for subsidies for the rich, cronyism, rigged markets and cartels) and the intense dislike of state intervention and state provision of goods and services. The ‘free market’ doctrine that underpins this belief attempts to convince people that nations can prosper by having austerity imposed on them and by embracing neo-liberalism and ‘free’ trade. This is a smokescreen that the financial-corporate elites hide behind while continuing to enrich themselves and secure taxpayer handouts, whether in the form of bank bailouts or other huge amounts of corporate dole.
In much of the West, the actual reality of neo-liberalism and the market is stagnating or declining wages in real terms, high levels of personal debt and a permanent underclass, while the rich and their corporations to rake in record profits and salt away wealth in tax havens.
It sometimes seems like this Brazilian independent journalist is everywhere at the same time. In this piece we find him in the People’s Republic of Donetsk talking to various military figures in this breakaway area of Ukraine to find out what is going on and what we can expect in the near future. It appears that more war is inevitable--only the timing remains in dispute: in a few weeks or in May or June.
Serbian fighter Dejan “Deki” Beric – a hero of the People’s Republic army, already decorated with 10 medals - fully shares the assessment of the Cossack commanders: “The real war has not started yet.”
There are 20 Serbs – all with extensive battle experience - fighting alongside the Donbass brigades. “Deki” has just returned from a secret hardcore recon mission, infiltrating enemy territory just to conclude they are bringing in fresh soldiers, bringing new technicians, and are awash with new weapons. Minsk 2 is about to the shredded to pieces.
Victoria Nuland Kagan, chief engineer of the Kiev fascist coup, seems to agree with this assessment:
Less than two weeks ago Ukrainian Prime Minister “Yats”, cherished pal of the American Queen of Nulandistan Victoria “F**k the EU”, made no mistake war is inevitable: “Our goal is to regain control of Donetsk and Lugansk.” Of course such a wide-ranging threat is possible only when you’re sure of total support from the IMF and NATO – financial and military arms from the US government. Not to mention Capitol Hill.
On Tuesday, The Associated Press reported The United States plans to send soldiers to Ukraine later this month to train the country’s national guard, which includes groups expressly espousing support for far-right and Nazi ideology.
Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a Facebook post on Sunday that the units to be trained include the Azov Battalion, a volunteer force that has attracted criticism for its far-right sentiments including brandishing an emblem widely used in Nazi Germany.
Of course Obama is the "same old, same old". Did you really think that our masters in the One Percent would allow us to vote for real change? No, they packaged Obama as a change candidate much like they package some new creme that will remove all your aging wrinkles.Our masters also benefited from his having black skin and nappy hair so that they could project another fake image of America as being non-racist. I doubt that Obama has any moral principles except that of a bank executive like his grandmother who mostly raised him in Hawaii and made sure that he was educated indoctrinated in elite private schools.
In early March President Obama sent an inexplicable and entirely unexpected letter to Congress declaring Venezuela, that mighty military behemoth, "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States." Deliberately avoiding our imperial past, his letter emulated every previous U.S. president whose policies have caused so much suffering in South and Central America.
This is another contribution to my occasional practice on
Saturdays to run articles about lifestyles of the rich ruling classes
also known as the One Percent (actually .01 of the 1%, or one out of
every 10,000 of us) who, under the rules of capitalism, essentially
"own" the economy in which we work--in effect, we all work for them to
support their lifestyle.
I hope that by doing this that we don't lose
touch with their world and their concerns--you know, to promote better
understanding. It is important that we become better acquainted so that
we can serve them better and make it easier for them to carry out the
daily burden of making important decisions, decisions which affect
whether we go off to war in foreign lands to kill their enemies, if we
have jobs, if we live in a home or under a bridge, if we can afford
their health care services, education, etc.
Unfortunately, for
some reason they tend to hide their lives from the rest of us behind
walls of secrecy, literal walls of guarded gated communities, private
clubs, esoteric publications, by traveling with private jets, etc. We
should not let that deter us.
In this piece we learn of a new job opportunity that could offer a career and hope for many of us in the 99 Percent who are unemployed.Yes, a career as a nanny for rich people's dogs. Okay, so this isn't your dream job, but it will put food on table. So, check it out.
...the new “must have” for the super-rich. We’re not talking casual staff employed to take the little darlings for brisk strolls through Kensington Palace Gardens, but people like Ms Verschuren who are recruited to actually live with the dog 24-hours a day, feeding, washing, grooming and even sharing a room.
“President Obama is hailing this framework as something that could enhance the prospects for peace in the Middle East,” McCain told reporters at the United States Senate. “For those of us who have looked forward to bombing Iran for some time now, that would be a doomsday scenario.”
“The Iranians know well and good that if they abandon their nuclear program exactly the way we’ve asked them to, we can kiss bombing them goodbye,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “It’s a damn shame.”
So a deal was apparently reached in Lausanne. It is not quite final, and there might be zig-zags, but it looks likely that a deal will be reached between Iran and the AngloZionist Empire. Except for, in this case, the Anglos appear to be distinctly happier than the Zionists. So, what is going on here?
Joseph Massad is professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University in New York. He is the author most recently of Islam in Liberalism (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
I think that this article offers considerable insights on a much overlooked weapon in the arsenal of US-Zionist imperialism which has been applied to Arab nations. I'm referring to ideological warfare using Saudi money and Western psychological expertise to recruit and promote Arab liberals to further the agendas of the US Empire and Israel. I think that this strategy applied to the paranoid Medieval rulers of Saudi Arabia and its allies by focusing on the threat of other Islamic threats to their rule, particularly by targeting Shias and thus implementing a "divide and conquer" strategy.
Intellectuals from across the Arab world joined the effort, abandoning old leftist, communist, Nasserist and Islamist positions and adopted the much, much more profitable pro-US and pro-Israel liberal line politically, and the neoliberal economic order being globalized. By the dawn of the new century, the Saudis and the Americans issued new orders to their media and agents to spread an unprecedented sectarian campaign against Shiites inside and outside the Arab world.
Blum challenges our memories and intellect to think about the various "cold wars" in which our nation has been a leading protagonist, the US's frequent use of deadly sanctions against nations who refuse its diktats, and the failure of US higher education to produce enlightened citizens. Included in this report is a reference to an excellent 8:50m film called Imperial Decay posted on YouTube:
It is time to begin a real conversation -- locally, nationally and at all levels -- about what a genuine alternative beyond corporate capitalism and state socialism would look like, and how we would build it. Not too long ago, it was easy to dismiss any talk about "changing the system" as frivolous or impractical, a luxury or a distraction. What we are seeing today is that increasing numbers of people understand that this task has become absolutely necessary. What's become frivolous and distracting is continuing to assume that business as usual is still an option.
This astute geopolitical analyst examines the effects of the Empire's IMF conditions are having on Ukraine. They appear to be not only devastating for Ukraine's economy, but dangerous: Chernobyl type events could easily occur. But then, these are typical neoliberal policies of the IMF.
Like the Sicilian Mafia, the IMF gives a kind of “protection.” Its loans have strings, called the Washington Consensus or IMF conditionalities. They never vary. That’s because the US Treasury in fact controls IMF policy. The conditions are invariably that a country getting “loans” must open its economy, privatize state assets, slash health and education and public jobs and balance the state budget, something the USA has failed to do for decades. Foreign multinationals are then free to rape what is left. It’s a modern version of “outsourced imperialism” made to look technocratic and politically neutral. It isn’t.
Since its creation in 1948, the state of Israel has depended on a constant flow of opponents to which ultimate responsibility for its own reprehensible activities can be apportioned. Externally, neighbours Turkey, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq have all at some point in time served as public enemy numero uno for the Israeli state, in some cases more than once. Now, however, these adversaries have been neutralised, placated or reduced to smouldering rubble through infighting, civil war and Western intervention. With no obvious regional threats left, the Israeli government has been reduced to manufacturing non-existent ones.
The Fulton County prosecutor argued that charging educators under the state’s Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which is ordinarily reserved for organized crime cases, was warranted because the educators personally benefited from changing the answers on the tests through bonuses and promotions. They face 20 years or more in prison.
In fact, an investigation by the Georgia governor’s office in 2009 found that a “culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation infested the district,” led by then-Superintendent Beverly Hall, with teachers facing humiliation, demotion and firing if they did not meet student achievement targets.
I will say that again and again, this is yet another example of how the AngloZionist Empire is finally showing its true face: not the gentle face of human rights, democracy, international law and progress, but the ugly, brutal and stupid face of ignorant violence, support for the scum of the planet (Nazis, Zionists and Wahabis) and imperialism. The period of “capitalism with a human face” is now clearly over and we are now living exactly what Lenin had predicted: imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism (and no, I am neither a Leninist nor a Marxist but, in the words of Malcolm X, “I am for truth, no matter who tells it”).
I can't vouch for the credibility of this entire report (especially in relation to "Who are 'the Houthis'?" section.), but it has a ring of authenticity to it and provides a lot of new information I haven't seen anywhere else. Part of the problem I have with it is that there is no documentation. Thus, we have to rely on the credibility of the reporter. However, much of what he reports has been corroborated by other sources that I consider very credible.
Although I don't regard such anarchists as a significant problem due their relatively small numbers, but I think that this discussion is important because it distinguishes two ways for seeking revolutionary truth. Rather than attacking such sectarian anarchists and exhibiting a colonial attitude as Stanchev does, I think it more useful to see their criticism of the Rojava and the Zapatista revolutionary struggles as patriarchal or hierarchical modes of thought: a vanguard kind of thinking in which revolutionary thought is essentially the province of designated experts. This type of thinking dominated revolutionary movements of the 20th century.
I thoroughly agree with Stavchev when he writes about the new path to revolutionary truth:
Without any doubt, these structures of democratic self-governance are under development, with many issues still to be addressed and plenty to learn. However, they do reaffirm the basic principle that true liberation can only be lived and applied here and now through the self-organization of the people.
As promised, I am posting everything I can find from independent sources regarding the controversy over the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Because I am mystified by such close collaborators of the US Empire such as Britain, Israel, Germany, Australia, etc, I am running this series in an effort to try to understand it. I still question the significance of this trend which many of these articles are implying or arguing.
It has been such a tough period for the pro-GMO lobby that it’s difficult to know where to begin. But let us start by looking at two pieces of recent research that strike at the very heart of the pro-GMO argument, namely:
1) GM crops are needed to feed the world.
2) The GMO agritech industry is based on sound science and reasoned argument.
Todhunter then follows this up with considerable documented evidence to refute both arguments.
With so much profit at stake, we, the public, are being fed pro-industry propaganda to counter the evidence, and scientists are being subject to pressure to distort their findings. This is much like the long history of health concerns about asbestos and cigarettes and industry efforts to counter these concerns. (Read Merchants of Doubt by Oreskes and Conway for this history.)
Bruno Lima Rocha has a PhD and MSc in political science, is a professor and researcher in geopolitics-strategic studies and international political economy. Bruno teaches at 2 universities located in the Brazilian southern state.
The essay suffers a little from an awkward translation, but I don't think you will have much difficulty in understanding it. I think it represents an excellent preliminary work as a part of a vital project that needs to be expanded if we humans are to overcome the ravages of capitalism and create a world that is sustainable, socially just, and peaceful.
This essay is the beginning of an attempt to develop a left libertarian approach toward an economic model, specifically to a model which is compatible with the political formations of Democratic Confederalism, also referred to as Libertarian Municipalism. At this stage the goal is the development of a working set of tools of analysis, and foster learning among the Libertarian Left. To this end I submit this relatively simple text to provide accessible notions for those struggling to build a society based on Democratic Confederalism.
.... We start with the analysis of some[eight] premises that may provide direction and parameters to the discussion.
Weisbrot gathers evidence to argue that the Empire's primary capitalist institutions in Europe, the Troika, is pursuing a strategy of a "shock-and-awe assault on the Greek economy" to destroy the Syriza government and destroy all opposition to the Empire's capitalist rule.
...blackmail is actually an understatement of what the ECB and its European partners are doing to Greece. It has become increasingly clear that they are trying to harm the Greek economy in order to increase pressure on the new Greek government to agree to their demands.
The first sign that this was the European authorities’ strategy came on February 4 — just 10 days after the Syriza government was elected — when the European Central bank cut off the main source of financing for Greek banks. This move was clearly made in bad faith, since there was no bureaucratic or other reason to do this; it was more than three weeks before the deadline for the decision. Predictably, the cut off spurred a huge outflow of capital from the Greek banking system, destabilizing the economy and sending financial markets plummeting. More intimidation followed, including a slightly veiled threat that Emergency Liquidity Assistance – Greece’s last credit lifeline from the ECB – could also be cut. The European authorities appeared to be hoping that a “shock and awe” assault on the Greek economy would force the new government to immediately capitulate. It didn’t work out that way.
The Iranians may be a bit paranoid but, as the saying goes, this does not mean some folks are not out to get them. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his knee-jerk followers in Washington clearly are out to get them – and they know it.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the surreal set of negotiations in Switzerland premised not on evidence, but rather on an assumption of Iran’s putative “ambition” to become a nuclear weapons state – like Israel, which maintains a secret and sophisticated nuclear weapons arsenal estimated at about 200 weapons. The supposed threat is that Iran might build one.
Israel and the U.S. know from their intelligence services that Iran has no active nuclear weapons program, but they are not about to let truth get in the way of their concerted effort to marginalize Iran. And so they fantasize before the world about an Iranian nuclear weapons program that must be stopped at all costs – including war.
Scientists are worried that if these sudden warming events become more common or more intense, they could put the already threatened ice of the peninsula in an even more precarious situation, with serious implications for global sea level rise.
It appears to me that this is a translation of an article published in the Greek language.
For Americans to understand this article, we need to understand the use of language among Europeans. Those on the left of capitalist ideologues have historically tried to co-opt anti-capitalists by using the world "socialist" in the names of their parties. (Remember how even the capitalist funded Nazi party was actually named "National Socialist German Workers' Party"?) Many of these phoney anti-capitalist parties are known as "social democrats" among political scientists. The headline refers to Martin Schultz, a German politician who is a prominent social democrat and has a history of belonging to these phoney "socialist" parties. Such people are being used by European capitalists to bring the Greek debt crisis back under the control of European capitalists.
A potential success of the Leftist government under Alexis Tsipras is considered a threat against the power of the Social democrats in Europe, therefore a threat against the current political status [of capitalist rule].
This independent, crowd-funded journalist covers a lot of ground while gathering documented evidence to support his argument that IS (or ISIS) is the cancer of modern capitalism.
The continual input of vast quantities of money to Islamist extremist networks, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of material resources that no one has yet been able to quantify in its totality - coordinated by the same nexus of Western and Muslim governments - has over the last half century had a deeply destabilising impact. IS is the surreal, post-modern culmination of this sordid history.
The West’s anti-IS coalition in the Muslim world consists of repressive regimes whose domestic policies have widened inequalities, crushed legitimate dissent, tortured peaceful political activists, and stoked deep-seated resentments. They are the same allies that have, and are continuing to fund IS, with the knowledge of Western intelligence agencies.
Click here to access article by Grecia Gonzales (student) and Faculty Evaluator, James F. Tracym both from Florida Atlantic University posted on Project Censored.
For many years I've received almost daily email reports from Rights Action, a human rights organization, providing horrendous details of peasants being driven from their lands by paramilitaries, union leaders murdered, and protestors beaten or murdered. Most of these incidents have the fingerprints of North American mining interests all over them. Such reports never make it into corporate media. US and Canadian ruling classes have abused this country probably more than any country on the earth--and that's saying a lot! Thus, I would call Honduras an "ongoing socioeconomic nightmare".
Click here if you wish to access the YouTube posting of this 12:52m video on A bird's eye view of the Vineyard.
This video offers an excellent illustration of how these ruling class think tanks are used to hash out ruling class policies. You will notice that in his remarks, George Friedman talks very candidly about geopolitical issues facing the Empire--yes, he uses that word. Such talks for obvious reasons are never reported on by major media.
Friedman is the founder of Stratfor, a private intelligence agency, that has hired many people (for example, see this) from government security agencies and advises many in the government about geopolitical issues. He is particularly well connected to the military-industrial complex.
It is the unbelievable arrogance of a ruling class to claim to[two]
contradicting ideologies and justifications for the same act in front of
an entire nation without fear of exposing their true agenda.
Unfortunately, in 2015, it is more confidence than arrogance since there
is undoubtedly empirical evidence of success, since the American people
have fallen for virtually every excuse given for military conflict
since the first World War. Indeed, the general public is now fully
capable of lapping up any excuse for war fed to them by the ruling class
and equally capable of forgetting that justification as rapidly as they
are required to in favor of another.
After a lifetime of observing lies by various US authorities, I am still completely befuddled as to why my fellow Americans still believe, or at least, passively go along with whatever the authorities say about their invasions, assassinations, and false-flag events. But I can understand why our masters in the capitalist ruling class tell such outrageous lies--they know with perfect confidence that they can get away with it. However, this cannot continue indefinitely. A time will come when we Americans will suffer terrible consequences for our gullibility and passivity.
For an in-depth geopolitical analysis of the conflict centered in Yemen, I recommend an article by a very credible, and independent Canadian journalist, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, who specializes in matters of the Middle East.
The Martens have discovered three theories that strive to explain the machinations of key capitalist institutions that appear to be undermining any Congressional attempts to control Wall Street operations.
Much nutritious food for thought here in this piece. He sees in the truth about pornography (although there is considerable overlap, I differentiate erotica from pornography) some greater truths about the oncoming failure of humans. It's the playing out of the human drama in very self-centered ways which began some 10,000 years ago and currently reflected in, and supported by, the economic system of capitalism. This way of living is fundamentally in conflict with the social nature of humans that has sustained the species for 95-98% of its existence.
In lectures I used to give on the subject, I would sometimes suggest that "pornography is what the end of the world looks like," not to suggest that pornography was going to lead to the destruction of the world, of course. Rather, I was suggesting that contemporary pornography deadens consumers' capacity for empathy for and solidarity with others--the things that make decent human society possible. When these aspects of our humanity are overwhelmed by a self-centered, emotionally detached pleasure-seeking, social justice is impossible to imagine. Equally impossible to imagine is ecological sustainability; if that same self-centered, emotionally detached pleasure-seeking leads to support for an unsustainable extractivist economy, our collective ability to emphasize with other living things or act in solidarity with life atrophies.
If these capacities are lost, human societies will become increasingly inhuman, and the planet will not indefinitely sustain those societies.
Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from his blog, Institute for Political Economy. Roberts discusses the implications of a new book entitled Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive The CO2 Crisis? by David Ray Griffin. Roberts regards the book as "a carefully researched document".
Griffin makes the point that the external cost imposed on the climate by fossil-fuel use is the source of the life-threatening crisis that humanity confronts. Capitalists make money by exploiting labor and by externalizing the costs of the wastes produced by the productive process by imposing the wastes on the environment. It is the short-term time horizon of production organized by selfish private interests focused on quarterly profits that is destroying the livability of the earth.
Almost every economist on earth will rise up in opposition to that true statement, because they are brainwashed in the neoliberal ideology that masquerades as economic science, but in fact is nothing but an apology for capitalist exploitation of labor and the earth.
...the team of researchers also examined the ways the stories about the IPCC’s findings were framed. They found a preponderance of them emphasized scientific consensus and scientific disputes. They also found that many focused on disasters, invoking fear that research by O’Neill and others have concluded can bring attention to climate change but fail to engage audiences. Very few IPCC stories were found to have been framed in terms of opportunities, health effects, ethical considerations, or the economics of global warming — frames that O’Neill said have been shown to be more engaging for audiences.
Could it be that our capitalist media managers deliberately framed coverage of climate destabilization issues as unsolvable in order to create a sense of hopelessness and turn people away from such coverage? After all, if they were to cover opinions about the economics of global warming, this might lead people into a dangerous territory of ideas which pose questions for the system of capitalism which are dangerous for the capitalist ruling class. I think that it's becoming clear even to managers of media that there is no solution within capitalism to the crisis of climate destabilization.
Click here if you wish to access this 28:06 RT program called CrossTalk.
In this program broadcast on March 27th host Peter Lavelle interviews Anthony Salvia, former appointee of President Reagan to the State Department; Martin McCauley, specialist of international affairs at the U. of London; and Don DeBar, antiwar activist and host of a daily radio program. Lavelle asks his guests why this popular program in the US is receiving so much criticism from official spokespeople.
Media wars have entered new territory: Secretary of State John Kerry, EU officials and the NATO military alliance all have singled out this television station, RT, as some kind of security threat. Since when is holding and broadcasting a different opinion or narrative a threat to global media freedom?
Kulikov asks what appears to be a rather trivial question, but the author's answer reveals the hidden actors behind most of the wars occurring in the Middle East.
Incidentally, Kulikov appears to be on the EU's sanctions on Russians list. I wonder what motivated them to place this name and any of the names on the list. Are they "terrorists"? Have they engaged in illegal activities? Have they in their actions threatened the European Union? It's strange, is it not, that we always hear about reports of sanctions against Russian individuals, but it's always expressed as individuals associated with Russian President Putin? It seems that the sanctions are purely politically motivated.
