Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from Middle East Eye.
The "Empire of Chaos", as Pepe Escobar likes to call the US-led capitalist Empire, is apparently creating chaos in a big way in Syria and Iraq. They, the Empire directors, are playing a very complicated game in this region and their success in explaining their involvement to the war-weary American public illustrates how grossly gullible most of my fellows Americans are. Even Ahmed can't quite understand the games they are playing aside from the fact that they are feeding the US military-industrial complex with huge benefits:
If you have difficulty understanding this, don’t worry. I don’t understand it either. But what’s clear is that the ever shape-shifting US war on al-Qaeda, IS and Assad, is propping up al-Qaeda, IS and Assad.
Others like Escobar see clearly that chaos keeps both the Empire in overall control of the region and insures the security of their partner-in-crime Israel.
Click here to access article by John Halle from his blog Outrages and Interludes.
Referring to statements made by the Syriza leadership after they caved in to the EU's demands, Halle writes:
What is on display is the disenchantment of liberals who operated on a presumption of good intentions and underlying rationality of elite technocrats. Radicals such as Lapavistas do not. For them, providing “arguments” to the institutional representatives of capital makes no more sense than addressing a hyena with its fangs clamped on one’s jugular. The hyena is acting not according to reason but according to its fundamental nature and so are the capitalist hyenas who were the Syriza’s negotiating partners.
Click here to access article by the Zapatistas from Upside Down World.
The article provides an illustration of how the indigenous people in the Chiapas region of Mexico are empowering women as well as men, and constructing bottom-up authority and radical egalitarian political structures to defend their lands and people from the predations of capitalist agencies. In this region activists are fully conscious of the necessity of empowering all people so that the truth expressed in the slogan "the people united can never be defeated" can be fully realized. A "united people" requires that all, or most, people are educated in the realities of existing power structures as well as being empowered themselves within activist organizations.
Meanwhile, read in a Nation report how the people in Central America are fighting back against exploitation of their lands by US and Canadian corporations and interference in their political affairs by US agencies. Better yet, read a piece from Latin American in Movement entitled "7 Reasons to Scrap the $1 Billion Aid Package to Central America". This is another US "aid" bill which would actually worsen conditions for ordinary people in Central American countries while strengthening the existing dictatorships.
Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.
Unbeknownst to the general public, their elected politicians do not create the policy that binds their national destiny domestically or within the arena of geopolitics. Instead, corporate-financier funded think tanks do – teams of unelected policymakers which transcend elections, and which produce papers that then become the foundation of legislation rubber stamped by “legislators,” as well as the enumerated talking points repeated ad naseum by the corporate-media.
The above opening statement in this article by Cartalucci contains a profound political insight. I've long been aware that our official government really didn't govern, but only functioned to provide a public facade of "democratic" government. For obvious reasons, what retired Professor Peter Dale Scott refers to as a "deep state" or what others refer to as a "shadow government" in the US is very well hidden by capitalist media and other ruling class propaganda institutions. Various analysts have attempted to tease out the real centers of decision-making that impacts what policies and actions are pursued, and one such important analyst is Cartalucci. Like most others, he sees capitalist think-tanks as being a primary component of the shadow government.
However, there are many such think-tanks, some obviously more important than others, and a somewhat limited set of opinions are expressed in their publications. It is clear that not all of these policy proposals are acted on. Thus, it would appear that important think-tanks such as Brookings Institution function as clearinghouse for various ruling class ideas. But this raises the question about how individual opinions are processed into actual formal policies and actions of the state? What are the organizational mechanisms that process these opinions? This is the real mystery that is still not well understood by analysts of real political power.
This is where, I think, Cartalucci sometimes makes some errors. Just because an idea or policy (often camouflaged behind deceptive rhetoric) is floated in one these important think-tanks doesn't necessarily mean that they will be acted on. He seems to think that whatever proposed action that appears in publications form Brookings Institution or Council on Foreign Relations will be implemented. Although these particular think-tanks head the list of the most influential, I don't think that every idea that is floated in their publications will necessarily be transformed into actions.
Having said that, I think it is very important to follow such articles because they reveal what the real political actors in our ruling class are thinking, and often doing. This focus on what the real Empire political actors are proposing is in sharp contrast to all the wasted time most people spend on what government officials are saying which is what ruling class media always focuses on.
Although the dramatic headline of Cartalucci's article suggests a US invasion, a careful reading of the Brookings document (PDF) suggests something else: a limited US military involvement ("low intensity warfare") along with the armies of their regional cronies to establish independent zones which will gradually dissolve the power of the Assad government. It seems to me that the policy that O'Hanlan proposes in the Brookings paper is already the operative one, and probably has been for some time. Cartalucci's assertions about the document's admissions of past US support for insurgencies is supported in the document.
What is also clear to me in the Brookings document is the imperial tone of our ruling class. They think that the US and its empire are always completely justified in intervening militarily and otherwise in the affairs of other countries. We can even spy on other governments. This is so because...err...well, we are a special nation, we're an "exceptional" nation. Obama said so himself.
Click here to access article by Charles Ornstein and Ryann Grochowski Jones from ProPublica.
That doctors receive big money from the pharmaceutical industry is no surprise. The new data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shows that such interactions are widespread, with not only doctors, but thousands of dentists, optometrists, podiatrists and chiropractors receiving at least one industry payment from August 2013 to December 2014.
What is being seen for the first time now is how ingrained pharmaceutical companies and their sales reps are in the lives of those who write prescriptions for their products.
Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Wolf Street.
This ex-patriot British blogger, in addition to living in Spain, sometime resides in Mexico (with his wife of Mexican origins) and follows events in that country quite closely. In this article he alerts us to a very important development in Mexican affairs that will impact the nation for years to come. Of course, such an important neoliberal event is not reported in mainstream news, but you can read about from this independent observer.
As the world’s attention is transfixed by every new development in Chapo Guzman’s latest audacious prison break, something much more important – and potentially more dangerous – is happening in Mexico. Yesterday the country held its first auction of offshore oil leases, bringing to an end 77 long years of state control over energy.
Click here to access article by Billmon from Moon of Alabama.
The central bankers waged a 50-60 year political war to wrest back the monetary flexibility that the break down of Bretton Woods gave to national governments. Having won that war across most of the developed world in the 70s and 80s, they extended the battlefield to the emerging markets in '90s and '00s.
The autonomy of central banks (meaning the political allegiance to Wall Street/London City/Frankfurt etc.) was maybe the biggest neoliberal victory of all. If rightwing political victories (Reagan, Thatcher et. al.) were the beachheads of the Great Counterattack on social democracy then "independent" central banks became the citadels of the occupation forces: Neoliberalism's "Republican Guard."
This article reveals one of the biggest secrets of capitalist control of their nations, and this was very well expressed by one of history's biggest banker:
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
Click here to access article by Petr Lvov from New Eastern Outlook.
This Russian writer sees the Iran deal as a cave-in to the Empire, and a defeat for Iranian independence and Russia.
What does all this mean in strategic terms? To be frank, the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program is in fact an achievement of historical significance, since Iran is making a U-turn to seek rapprochement with the US and the EU. The experiment of the Islamic Revolution is over and it has failed. And the winners are the West, the sitting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his pro-Western liberal team. And one could predict this happening due to the moods of the overwhelming majority in Iranian society. The population is tired of the hardships that have been brought forward by international sanctions. Iran’s economy has been experiencing a long period of stagnation. The government can hardly fund social programs anymore and the youth, which accounts to over 50% of the population of the country, refuses to understand why it has to live according to the religious concepts of Ayatollah Khomeini instead of following the modern technological and cultural developments that are adopted across the world.
If Iranian government refused to change its ways, it would face a “color” revolution brought around by Western propaganda and the fact that Iran is a multinational state where the rights of minorities are not always respected.
Click here to access article by Colin Todhunter from East by Northwest.
Rather than let science and rational discussion underpin the debate and attempt to use that to convince decision makers, the GM industry relies on expensive lobbying campaigns to attack transparency, resorts to fakery, bribery, intimidation, dirty tricks and the corrupting of public sector bodies that in principle exist to uphold the public interest.
Click here to access article by Robert Hunziker from Dissident Voice.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as world governments, ignores the risks of an ice-free Arctic (Wadhams). Rather, an ice-free Arctic is widely applauded by much of the world as a positive way forward for re-opening of northern shipping routes, new trips for cruise lines, and access to a huge cache of fossil fuels.
According to Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, an ice-free Arctic with its concomitant methane outbreak potential is scarcely mentioned by the IPCC in its assessment. Evidently, the IPCC does not want to discuss the possibility of major catastrophes.
In truth, an ice-free Arctic tempestuously opens up eons of methane entrapped ever since the last Ice Age. The ramifications are profound.
While capitalists are celebrating the opening of an ice-free Arctic so that they can accumulate more profits and power, the methane explosion that is expected there in the near future is one example of a feed-back loop that climatologists have been warning us about for decades.
Click here to access article from Corporate Europe Observatory.
Which businesses are pushing most for the proposed EU-US trade deal TTIP? Who’s influencing EU negotiators? Corporate Europe Observatory’s eight new info-graphics reveal the corporate lobby behind the TTIP talks.
Here are some more blown-up graphics that illustrate whose interests TTIP will serve:
Click here to access article by Dan Froomkin from The Intercept.
Here is another incident that our ruling class media have exploited to keep the theme of terrorism going and fear spreading so that we will accept all kinds of restrictions on our civil liberties and look to their agents of violence for protection.
U.S. law enforcement officials announced another terror arrest on Monday, after arming a mentally ill man and then charging him with having guns.
ABC News quoted a “senior federal official briefed on the arrest” as saying: “This is a very bad person arrested before he could do very bad things.”
But in a sting reminiscent of so many others conducted by the FBI since 9/11, Alexander Ciccolo, 23, “aka Ali Al Amriki,” was apparently a mentally ill man who was doing nothing more than ranting about violent jihad and talking (admittedly in frightening ways) about launching attacks—until he met an FBI informant.
Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from his blog The Cutting Edge.
In reference to his investigations entitled "The bin Laden death mythology" which he published earlier this month, he writes:
I've had a few people raise questions about my story - now the third major alternative account of the bin Laden raid - due to early reports suggesting that bin Laden had in fact died long before 2011.
My piece does address this issue indirectly, though it's buried some way deep in the piece and easy to miss given the length.
Here I'm going to make some brief comments about this issue, to clarify the relationship between my story, and the idea that bin Laden died much earlier due to ill health.
Indeed, judging by the numerous previous reports of bin Laden's death, it's fair to say that he died something like nine times, if not more.
Click here to listen to a recorded 55 minute interview from KPFA in Berkeley, California with two professors, Jennifer Disney and Ginger Williams, who have recently published findings of their study on right-wing dictatorships in Latin America.
I recommend this for people who are only beginning to question US foreign policies, especially young people who have been subject to years of indoctrination in schools and are beginning to question what adult authorities have been telling them about the US government.
Two American professors tell about their discovery of Pentagon support for right-wing dictatorships and paramilitary armies that engage in terrorism to suppress all civil opposition. Sound familiar? The targets of these paramilitary-terrorist armies have usually been labor activists, teachers, health workers, journalists, and indigenous people who live on resource rich areas in countries like Mexico, Honduras, and Columbia. This, of course, has been going on ever since US capitalists of European origins went on an empire building project around the turn of the 20th/21st century after completing their control over the North American continent. Under neoliberalism this practice has been accelerating in some places in Latin America where right-wing political forces still control their governments.
The professors' findings have been published in an obscure academic journal where it will likely only gather dust in campus libraries. Such is the control of information wielded by our capitalist masters on subjects that are inimical to their interests.
Click here to access article by Deborah James from Our World Is Not for Sale. (Note: I am posting the article from OWINFS's website (instead of AlterNet) because the author is associated with this organization.)
In Our World Is Not for Sale network, we have been clear: after 20 years of failed policies of the WTO, it is time for a Turnaround! There needs to be an immediate cessation of all talks for further liberalization, and instead governments around the world need to start working in a completely different direction for global trade talks that put jobs, food, and sustainable development issues first.
Civil society needs to send a clear message to turn around the direction of global trade talks. Building on the global letter, work on the national level to ensure that elected officials reflect our goals and values is essential.
For some undisclosed reason the WTO must relax some of its restrictions on "liberalization", that is, trade rules for corporations in order to clear the way for the Empire's new trade/commercial rules of TISA, TTIP, and TPP.
Notice how our ruling capitalist masters even own the language we that is used even by opponents. They have forced us to adopt their words for our enslavement to them--the owners of the economy. They call this "liberalism"--the ideology of capitalism. "Neoliberalism" is the new ideology of capitalism they devised around the turn of the 20/21st century which is seeking to eliminate any nation's ability to interfere with corporate/financial activity. You see, "liberalism" was to earlier times when nationalism was present what "neoliberalism" is now when the Empire is determined to smash national boundaries--for their capitalists, not for us workers. It's what George H. W. Bush meant when he used used the term "new world order" in a speech during his tenure as president:
Until now, the world we've known has been a world divided—a world of barbed wire and concrete block, conflict and cold war. Now, we can see a new world coming into view. A world in which there is the very real prospect of a new world order.
Of course, this term has been ridiculed for the unwashed masses as a kind of "conspiracy theory" which, as we all know, is about paranoid fantasies involving elites which get together to plan for their profits and power to our disadvantage. (sarcasm)
However as we have seen in the reality of our daily lives, "neoliberalism" means our "depowerment" which results in our impoverishment. So whenever we read about "neoliberalism", we should translate this term into our further depowerment. (Or maybe another term that would fit would be our increased "impotence".) I use the adjectives "further" and "increased" to make clear that we workers have never enjoyed significant power to determine how our economies were run, but under the hyper-capitalism of "neoliberalism", we will have no power. Think of a slave being put in shackles, or a prisoner put in solitary confinement.
Click here to access article by Keith Jones from World Socialist Web Site.
Yesterday’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) enshrines the sweeping concessions Iran made under the “framework” agreement reached in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 2, as well as introducing further conditions and stipulations highly advantageous to Washington.
Iran must either dismantle or roll back and freeze the key elements of its nuclear program and must submit to the most intrusive nuclear inspections regime ever devised.
Here is another very sceptical view on this deal entitled "Iran Nuclear Deal: The Real Battle Begins" by Stephen Lendman.
And finally, I recommend this article entitled "US/Israeli/Saudi ‘Behavior’ Problems" by Robert Parry who shows whose behavior is really despicable and needs to be brought under control.
Click here to access article by Joseph Kishore from World Socialist Web Site.
Here is another worthy interpretation of the dramatic turn-about by the Syriza party in Greece when they submitted to European Union's demands.
This means, first of all, understanding the nature of Syriza and its political co-thinkers, which the WSWS has defined as “pseudo-left.” The actions taken by Tsipras flow inexorably from the class basis of Syriza, a bourgeois party resting on more privileged layers of the upper-middle class. Syriza could not resist the demands of the European banks, because to do so would require mobilizing the working class against the national bourgeoisie within Greece itself, which functions as a fifth column of European imperialism.
Click here to access article by Conor Friedersdorf from The Atlantic.
The agency collected and stored intimate chats, photos, and emails belonging to innocent Americans—and secured them so poorly that reporters can now browse them at will.
Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.
Fear of offending the more powerful and internalizing the “moral” hectoring they deliver at every opportunity. Guaranteeing bank profits is somehow more “moral” than the health and well-being of entire countries. Social Democrats have absorbed this ideology as thoroughly as conservatives.
With the Empire's neoliberal agenda and forces arrayed against them, ordinary Greeks need all the help they can get to keep from being crushed by the forces of fascism, aka the naked fist of capitalism, which are now facing them.
Socialism in one country is not possible in one small country. Socialism in a single big country would be extremely difficult, if the entire might of the capitalist world were arrayed against it.
There are no Greek solutions for Greece, there are only European or international solutions.
Nonetheless, somebody has to go first. Finding allies is indispensable for any Greek turn from the eurozone to have a chance at success.
Click here to access article by Theodoros Karyotis from is blog atonomias. (Note: Theodoros Karyotis is a sociologist, translator and activist participating in social movements that promote self-management, solidarity economy and defense of the commons in Greece. Like most Greek writers, he frequently makes reference to the word "imaginary" which in English appears to be a word that is only used by sociologists. Here is an excellent definition. )
The dire circumstances in Greece compel the social movements to reposition themselves in front of the SYRIZA government.
This writer for Greek grass-root social movements clearly see the need for the grassroots' social movements to formulate a plan of action now that the middle class Syriza party has caved in to the neoliberal demands of European capitalists.
...at the end of February a forum of thinkers and activists of grass roots movements took place in Athens, with hundreds of participants, under the title “Prosperity without growth”, with the explicit goal of translating their activities into concrete proposals, addressed as much to the political powers, as well as to society. Starting from the premise that economic growth is already incompatible with social wellbeing and environmental sustainability, the grassroots movements seek to complement the creative resistance to neoliberal politics and the construction of viable alternatives from below with the demand for radical reforms: from the introduction of a basic universal income, to the institution of new regimes of management of the commons, to the creation of a legal framework that permits the operation of recuperated factories, like Vio.Me in Thessaloniki. ....
.... ...one of the most relevant initiatives that emerged from the forum was the effort to connect and integrate antagonistic projects in defence of the commons into a political agent capable of playing a protagonistic role in a postconsumerist society, helping thereby to overcome the artificial dilemma between austerity and growth.
Click here to access article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
This report shows how government of the ruling capitalist class can punish those who expose their secrets.
Academy and Pulitzer Prize Award-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. transportation security agencies today demanding they release records documenting a six-year period in which she was searched, questioned, and often subjected to hours-long security screenings at U.S. and overseas airports on more than 50 occasions. ....
“I’m filing this lawsuit because the government uses the U.S. border to bypass the rule of law,” said Poitras. “This simply should not be tolerated in a democracy. I am also filing this suit in support of the countless other less high-profile people who have also been subjected to years of Kafkaesque harassment at the borders. We have a right to know how this system works and why we are targeted.”
I wonder if after years of futile litigation, she will still believe that the US is, or ever was, a "democracy".
Click here to access article by Saleem Shaikh from Climate News Network.
More than 1,200 people have died as the result of an intense heatwave in southern Pakistan, and experts warn of more hot weather to come.
For an update on how the heat waves are impacting nature in general, read this article from the same website.
It's clear that we are only beginning to see the effects of climate destabilization because of the irresponsibility of humans, or more precisely, those who rule over humans: capitalists who are addicted to profits and power.
Click here to access article by Dahr Jamail from Truthout.
This veteran independent journalist on whom we relied so much to tell us the truth about what our imperial masters were doing in Iraq now brings us news of what they have planned in Alaska and the Arctic. This time the "collateral damage" are the fishing industry, what's left of the pristine environment, and wildlife instead of Iraqis and their environment.
Once again, it is the military, industrial, financial, and imperial complex that will win as a result of the Navy's plans to prepare for war in the arctic. How do they justify this assault on the environment? Of course, it's the old standby excuse when violating our Constitutional rights and committing crimes against humanity and nature--"national security".
The bottom line on all this is simple, if brutal. The Navy is increasingly focused on possible future climate-change conflicts in the melting waters of the north and, in that context, has little or no intention of caretaking the environment when it comes to military exercises. In addition, the federal agencies tasked with overseeing any war-gaming plans have neither the legal ability nor the will to enforce environmental regulations when what's at stake, at least according to the Pentagon, is "national security."
Click here to access article by Jerome Roos from Reflections on a Revolution.
All of this has left little Greece at the heart of an epic battle with geostrategic and financial implications that reach far beyond the debate about austerity or the question of the country’s towering debt load. Syriza’s sudden withdrawal [capitulation] after months of brinkmanship has ended up exploding deep-seated rifts within the creditor camp, revealing a set of seemingly insurmountable contradictions within the Eurozone as a whole.
Alex Lantier of World Socialist Web Site makes the same argument, but expressed differently, in his article entitled "Tensions erupt in Europe as Berlin threatens to expel Greece from the euro".
Read this article by "Yves Smith" from Naked Capitalism for the details of this new harsh agreement imposed mostly by Germany and the unelected elites at the European Commission headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.
Another liberal capitalist take on this issue which offers some useful perspectives on Greece's sovereign debt is a piece by Charles Hugh Smith entitled "Greece and the End of the Euroland Fantasy".
Click here to access article by Caleb Maupin from New Eastern Outlook.
The place where oil cartels, weapons manufacturers, and Israel supporters are most closely concentrated is on Wall Street. Most major US banking institutions contain all three elements. Digging even slightly into the most powerful circles of global financial power will reveal investments in oil, weapons, and Israeli-aligned entities.
Click here to access article by Fahwad Al-Khadoumi from nsnbc international.
The author provides evidence and testimony from knowledgeable sources that the creation of a Kurdish state is part of an Empire plan using a terrorist army to destabilize and balkanize countries in the region in preparation for low intensity conflicts with China and Russia.
While the US-led alliance carried out a number of air strikes against Daesh positions, these airstrikes focus largely on supporting the Kurdish separatist YPG that is combating Daesh forces in the region around Ayn Al-Arab / Kobani.
Analysts would call this US/NATO strategy with regard to Daesh and the YPG and instrumentalized , cooperative antagonism that ultimately aims at carving out a Kurdish territory from the Syrian State.
Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.
Even Western media confirm the following:
...Turkey, a NATO member since 1952 and host of the United States Air Force’s Incirlik Air Base, has full control of its borders meaning that ISIS-bound convoys not only pass over its borders with the apparent approval of Turkish border guards, but are assembled somewhere within Turkey itself before arriving at the edge of Syrian territory.
No effort has been made to stem the flow of supplies to ISIS from NATO territory, with the Turkish government officially denying the trucks DW videotaped and reported on even exist. This indicates clear NATO complicity in the arming and supplying of ISIS and other Al Qaeda affiliates who are in fact invading Syria from NATO-territory, as well as from US-ally Jordan.
Click here to access article by "alexrpt" from Red Pill Times.
Troika creditors are embedding terms into the new loan proposal that will prohibit Greece from seeking any financial assistance from third parties…i.e. Russia and the BRICS.
Click here to access article by William K. Black from New Economic Perspectives.
While investigating the Libor scandal, Black discovers a noticeable lack of reporting or a very decided spin on the reporting of the scandal in mainstream media. He reports the details of this discovery in the article.
I read a BBC story about the LIBOR criminal trial in the UK and was going to write to criticize its woeful analytics. In preparation I checked the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to see how they reported the devastating testimony in the trial. I could not, however, find any coverage in my electronic searches and viewing their web pages.
To review the bidding, the LIBOR bid rigging cartel was the largest cartel in history, manipulating the prices of an estimated $300+ trillion in assets. That is a figure considerably larger than the world’s combined GDP.
Once again we see members of our ruling class get away scot-free with
crimes while others are locked up forever or assassinated by their
police forces for very minor infractions. Such is life in
class-structured societies. We will never solve the major issues of
wars, climate destabilization, and extreme wealth-islands (even literally) for a few amidst vast oceans of poverty for the many unless we end their rule and create radical egalitarian societies.
Click here to access article by Colin Todhunter from CounterPunch.
Capitalism is based on addiction. It encourages people to crave for more and more wealth and more and more products. Ridiculously wealthy people want even more riches, resulting in war, exploitation and the immiseration of working folk. In turn, ordinary people have been encouraged to take out ever greater debts in order to purchase an endless stream of goods of dubious worth. This addictive behaviour is ultimately ruinous for the individual, humankind and the environment, which becomes stripped bare in the process.
