The other immigrants: how the super-rich skirt quotas and closed borders

Click here to access article by John Rennie Short from The Conversation. 

One of the claims for those who promote and support a “cash for citizenship” approach is that it provides benefits to the country, such as increased investment and new jobs.

Short concludes this exposé of nations selling citizenship for cash this way:

...the data clearly show, it [it's] a selling of citizenship for a program with very limited benefits....

So, are we to believe that the capitalist ruling classes of these nations are stupid? I think not. They just need to provide an excuse that fits well with their "democratic" propaganda. In reality, they are merely expressing a fundamental tenet of their ideology: everything is a commodity to be bought or sold. (In this example the market demand and prices are interpreted by each nation's ruling capitalist class.) They want the freedom to live anywhere in the world--it's a corollary of their globalist and neoliberal perspectives. They want borders to restrict the movement of workers, but at the same time they want them erased for themselves--the capitalist elites. When they want to secure highly trained middle class workers (doctors, technologists, academics, etc) from other countries, they have other provisions in their laws to handle this.

Ukraine falters as per plan

Click here to access article featuring a 27:47m video of a program broadcast by RT posted on Hudson's website. Hudson is one of the discussion participants. (Because of time constraints, I am violating my rule of posting from original sources.)

Tick Tock

Click here to access article by David Malone from his blog Golem XIV. 

We are all intellectually blind (more or less) men/women trying with our existing senses to determine what the realities are of this beast of human existence. Malone as an acute observer of economic events describes what he sees happening today--trends that could threaten human existence.

Although this piece looks unfinished--and he says so--it focuses on some major changes in currencies which may be spurred on by China's current economic problems. Perhaps we can expect more articles which can add a finish to his analysis.

Once again I find myself in agreement with some of his observations, but not with others. By way of illustration, I do not share his implied view, which is commonly expressed by many middle class people of today, that everything was fine with Western societies before the current run of economic problems. But his observations about one trend in which the US currency no longer reigns supreme in the world contribute much to our understanding of something which could result in global cataclysmic changes if not disasters.

The Student Loan Scam with Alan Michael Collinge

Click here to access article by Catherine Austin Fitts of The Solari Report. 

In 1992, the US Secretary of the Treasury asked me to join the Federal Reserve as a governor. As I had started a company and made numerous personnel commitments, I declined. Shortly thereafter I received a call from the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States. He bluntly shouted, “Did you really just turn down the Fed or am I being lied to?”  When I explained that I was unable to accept a full-time position he said, “OK, I’ll put you on the board of Sallie Mae then.” He hung up.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself on the board of Sallie Mae, the government sponsored enterprise which securitized student loans.

This is a brief introduction and review of a recently published book by Collinge by a reviewer who has inside knowledge of the student loan program. If you wish to delve further into this subject on Fitts' website, I recommend a lengthy article entitled "William M. Diefenderfer: The Financial Hit Man of Student Loans" by Fitts that she wrote in 2011.

9/11 and Global Warming: Are They Both False Conspiracy Theories?

Click here to access article by David Ray Griffin from Information Clearing House. 

Griffin examines these theories first by asking a fundamental question of all such investigations: who benefits? Then he examines some of the key evidence that supports each theory.

#RefugeeCrisis: What The Media Is Hiding, Help #SyrianRefugees Go Home

a 13:24m commentary and analysis by Syrian Girl Partisan regarding the propaganda coverage of the refugee crisis used by the Empire to gain public support for a military campaign to remove the Assad government in Syria.

The crisis, the alternative, and the commons movement

Click here to access article by CNS-EP Collective posted on Capitalism Nature Socialism (CNS) website. 

The crisis of the dominant system marks the end of an epoch. It is not another phase of the same.

Capitalism is unable to keep its promises of eradicating poverty and hunger, ensuring social justice, respecting the environment, and overcoming the South-North divide.

This Italian collective is recognizing the need for a radical change in societies if humanity is going to survive the many crises that capitalist rule is creating. They are calling for a conference in Italy and elsewhere to come up with radical plans for a transformation.

World War III - Who Will Be Blamed? [Sources & Transcript]

Click here to access article from Storm Clouds Gathering.

If you want to start a to war, the unwashed masses must be convinced to send their brothers, sons and fathers to die on the front lines. The specter of an external enemy must be etched into their collective mind through trauma, exaggeration and repetition. History must be whitewashed, twisted and cherry picked down to a politicized nursery rhyme. At no point should the real motives or consequences of such an endeavor be discussed.

Although most of the material presented here has been previous covered on my website, this author brings together many years of the biggest lies that our ruling class have made to us--and often straight from the mouths of their members! Of course, these revelations were never broadcast on mainstream media.

On America: I hate my job

Click here to access article by "Chili Sauce" posted on libcom. 

When it comes to problems on the job, we're generally given few options: quit, vote, join a union. Here's why that's not good enough.

Pentagon Prepares For Century of Climate Emergencies and Oil Wars

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from Uncommon Thought Journal. 

After examining some Pentagon documents regarding their focus on fossil fuels and some regard for climate destabilization, he concludes that it is the former concern which informs their policies.

But the geopolitical context of the US Army’s new energy strategy highlights the chronic short-sightedness of US military planners. The Army’s sustainability strategy is ultimately about maintaining US military dominance despite resource scarcity, while safeguarding the wider fossil fuel system – not changing it.

The unswerving commitment to protecting business-as-usual, the fatalistic capitulation to a future of expanding oil dependence, and the blinkered belief that global economic health is tied to endless resource exploitation, all show that US policymakers still have their heads in the sand.

If Pentagon officials really want to defend US national security, they must wake up to the fact that the global system itself must undergo a fundamental transformation, in which economic stability is no longer dependent on the unlimited consumption of fossil fuels.

However, he leaves one with the implication that US military planners are rather stupid ("shortsighted") by forgetting his earlier insight:

The US Army’s understanding of “resilience” – the capacity to anticipate, prepare for, withstand and adapt to “natural or man-made disruptions” and to “recover rapidly” from them – is based on the unquestionable assumption that US-dominated global capitalism must be protected.

I think this is because Ahmed doesn't understand class rule (or he regards such ideas as dangerous), specifically that a capitalist class rules all institutions of society. The Army like all institutions serves this ruling class. The control of energy to fuel their engines of profit--corporations--must be secured for not only profits, but also for the power which secures their rule over US society and much of the world. Much like addicts, the capitalist ruling class don't care much about the future--not because they are "shortsighted"--it is because they derive so much immediate satisfaction from their short-term "highs" of profit and power.

The ISIS Conspiracy: US-Israeli-Saudi Intrigue (Part 2)

Click here (part 1 can also be accessed here) if you wish to directly access this 44:26m video by Brandon Martinez from Non-Aligned Media. 

Much of the material that Martinez cites has been posted previously on my website. But Martinez puts it all together very well.

Remember I Told You: All Our Problems Came from the Illuminati!

Click here to access article by Phil Butler from New Eastern Outlook.

Butler supplies us with sardonic humor after perusing numerous ruling class sources for news of the world which seems to be taking another frightening turn over the past few weeks.

The world is in a mess, in case you did not notice. For any journalist out there, one look at the headlines mirrors a reality right out of a Stephen King psychological horror. Migrants swarm into the European Union, America and Russia on the brink of war, ISIL chopping off heads, aren’t you astounded yet? Perhaps Hollywood made too many Die Hard flicks? Maybe most of the world is either immune or ready for the end perhaps? Let’s take a brief snapshot of a week in our surreal existence, a window into controlled media’s expression of our Orwellian fantasy turned real.

A Fundamentally Rational Economic System

cartoon constructed by "Tom Tomorrow". (satire)

‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11

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

The US nation's founding document of the US Constitution, which is largely the focus of this article, has a mostly untold history behind it, but instead of this real history we have been fed a lot of mythology.

The early capitalist class in the US was comprised of land speculators (George Washington was most prominent), merchants, and large plantation owners who used slave labor. They wanted to curb the British Crown's restrictions, which existed for various geopolitical reasons (mostly directed at France), on their activities, and to keep the American colonies as classic colonies to supply British industrialists with cheap raw materials. Thus the rich Americans revolted, but they needed the aid of ordinary free Americans who consisted of small farmers, craftsmen, and other workers. In order to do this they enlisted various democratic spokesman like Patrick Henry (who is quoted in the headline) and Thomas Paine to spread word about democratic ideology. The most revolutionary idea of all was formulated by Jefferson who wrote in the Declaration of Independence the following key principles:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. [my emphasis]

The central idea of democracy as defined here inspired millions across the globe ever since: the legitimacy of political arrangements are rooted in the consent of the people! No, governments were not divine creations of God or Allah, they were created by people, and should serve the needs of all the people, or they are illegitimate.

Of course, the new American ruling class had completely different ideas, but they were stuck with this democratic ideology after the successful conclusion of the Revolutionary War. (Notice that in the subsequent first draft of the constitution, they made no mention of these principles. And, Thomas Jefferson was conveniently away in Paris as Ambassador to France.) Because of so much popular opposition to this original version of the constitution, these early plunderers of the new continent known reverently today as "our Founding Fathers" were forced to add the Bill of Rights amendments to get it passed by the majority of states. Jefferson returned during this period and was instrumental in formulating the amendments. 

However, the rights under these amendments have largely been ignored and were never taken seriously by the ruling capitalist class. Only seven years after the adoption of the Constitution with the Bill of Rights, the Sedition Act of 1798 (see this and this) was passed by the Federalists which stated the following:

To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it, or to aid or encourage hostile designs of foreign nations.

Incidentally--or maybe not--after the success of the War of Independence from Britain, the governing elite severely criticized Paine's democratic views, and he died in obscurity and virtually penniless.
 
After the war the new Constitution was rammed through a convention that had been billed as a meeting where modifications to the Articles of Confederation were to be discussed. As Charles Beard, the noted historian and political scientist of the early 20th century wrote in his seminal work, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution:

Instead of being a document drawn up by patriotic men for the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the Constitution was the work of consolidated economic groups--...property interests....

Having laid the ground rules to insure the priority of property rights which would be enforced by the new national army, they revealed the true character of their class by running a scam at the expense of those who fought this war.  

During the war the soldiers, which consisted of mostly farmers and working people (as usual) led by members of the local elites, fought the war against the British. It was a grueling war: many defeats were suffered at the hands of the British, long imprisonments in terrible conditions, and soldiers endured long delays in receiving their pay which also caused hardships for their families. Then when they were paid, they were usually paid in paper script issued either by their respective States or the Confederation government. This money depreciated dramatically over time to where it was worth less than 20% of its nominal value and as low as 5%. After the war was over, Hamilton and his capitalist friends quietly went about buying up all this script at their market value. Then after the Constitution was rammed through, they made sure that the new government assumed all of the debts for this old money and other war debts at their face value! (See the above book for more details and also Beard's book entitled, Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy.) (Note: this period is the origin of the phrase "I don't give a continental". It was frequently used many years after this war, but is now archaic.)

Another lie we were taught in school is that "our Founding Fathers" created in the Constitution a government with three branches (a so-called system of "checks and balances") to impede the development of authoritarian rule, but the truth is that it was structured this way to serve as a bulwark against democratic influences from below: they were profoundly fearful of the town meetings and other popular assemblies that were being held in many states.

Kerry’s Double Assisted Suicide: Russia Oil Gains, America Loses from Sanctions

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

Engdahl explains how the US obsession to undermine the Russian economy has not only backfired by hurting US and Canadian oil firms and causing havoc with the budget of a US key ally--Saudi Arabia, but is actually increasing business for Russian oil companies.

Secretary John Kerry and friends have managed what can only be called a brilliant double suicide. The September 2014 deal with Saudi Arabia to crash oil prices, then at $103 a barrel for US WTI grade crude oil, not only has managed to bring the US shale oil industry—Washington’s new strategic card allowing the US to essentially abandon her Saudi and Gulf Arab allies–to the brink of bankruptcy and collapse. The oil price collapse, ironically, also gave Russian oil beautiful profits and forced the companies to turn east for far larger and more lucrative new markets. Team Russia-Saudi Arabia: 2 to 0 for Team USA-Canada.

Cynicism as the cultural expression of neoliberalism

Click here to access a book review by Pete Dolack of J.D. Taylor's book entitled Negative Capitalism: Cynicism in the Neoliberal Era.

After reading Dolack's review I think that the main significance of this book, together with other critiques of the status quo by many intellectuals (for example, Henry Giroux), is that they are seriously questioning the existing system and are now beginning to consider the need to radically change it.  

Dolack explains that Taylor's book focuses on the culture of capitalism and how it creates feelings of cynicism, apathy, and passive fatalism among its citizens thereby preventing any significant opposition to form which might contest the rule of capitalists.

Feelings of hopelessness must be engendered. Although such injections can be, and often are, spread via propagandistic techniques — Margaret Thatcher’s “there is no alternative” being a prime example — an absorption into the bones of a society must be accomplished through multiple channels. Continual cultural reinforcement is critical to maintain a system such as neoliberal capitalism and the austerity that is imposed in ever more harsh forms.

A bleak cynicism — a deep pessimism that, bad though things are, there really is no alternative — keeps a populace in check better than bullets can.

US Seeks Occupation as US Fighters Flood Syria

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook. 

Cartalucci once again exposes one of the real governing organizations, the Brookings Institute, in the US in contrast to the mostly mythical official institutions of government: Congress, the Executive, and the Supreme Court. Currently many ordinary people are caught up in another phony exercise of elections designed to fool people into believing that they enjoy some form of democracy. 

Brookings along with the Council of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Rand Corporation, etc (members of the Rockefeller family involved in most of them) all constitute the real government of the US and exercise dominant influence over US Empire policies. Exactly how policies are mediated by these organizations remains mostly a carefully guarded mystery. 

In this article Cartalucci explains that Brookings Institute, consisting of prominent members of the ruling capitalist class, have formulated the actual military policies used to destabilize Syria and the necessity for their media to provide cover for their war crimes and sponsorship of terrorist armies.

Not only does Brookings lay out an open conspiracy to invade and occupy Syria, it does so with the open admission that the goal is not to degrade the fighting capacity of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS or ISIL), but rather to undermine and eventually overthrow the Syrian government. In fact, Brookings makes a point of stating that the goal would be to seize and hold Syrian territory to further advance American ambitions toward regime change, and would move quickly to degrade the Syrian government’s ability to resist ISIS if any attempts were made by Damascus to stop the US invasion.

News reports have trickled out regarding US and British “fighters” operating in Syria. Their backgrounds, affiliations, logistical support, and transportation to the battlefield have been intentionally left ambiguous by the Western media.

Why we need a politics of the far future

Click here to access article by Richard Eckersley from On Line Opinion (Australia). 

This is an academic journal and this piece reports on findings from research done on people's broad views of the future. The study used a sample of over 2,000 people in Australia, US, UK and Canada. Eckersley, commenting on one major implication of the findings, makes this insightful observation:

The findings strip the ground from under the largely 'business as usual' strategies that dominate political thinking. Concerns about the world's future barely register in our politics; our political leaders proclaim constantly that Australia is a great nation with a great future. This tension may contribute more than politicians and political pundits suspect to the current mood of political disillusion and cynicism.

This disconnect between the views of the future of ordinary people and the views of the real leadership can be explained by looking at the realities of a class-based split of society in which the leadership is based on "ownership" and control of all major institutions of society (by definition, a ruling class). The leadership especially in Western societies are capitalists and the agents among the middle class who loyally serve them. 

Because the study did not collect responses by class (this would have been impossible for the ruling One Percent (actually .01%) because of the small sample size), it is unknown how many people of the "leadership class" actually believe their own propaganda ("the dominant thinking") about the future. I suspect that many of them do not. However, they must keep ordinary people believing it so that they, capitalists, who depend on the latter to show up at work, can continue with their business as usual: engaging in the relatively short-term "highs" of power and profit.

Why [Rupert] Murdoch Pushes for War

Click here to access article by Craig Murray from his website (Britain).

To me this article is sheer comedy. I had a good laugh while reading the punchline.

In a rational world, the involvement of Rothschild and Murdoch in this international criminal activity would show them not to be fit and proper persons to hold major commercial interests elsewhere, and action would be taken. Naturally, nothing of the kind will happen.

Hopefully the "rational world" that Murray refers to is one in which decisions are based on social justice not for reasons of private accumulation of profit and power. Thus, a truly rational world would be an egalitarian one in which all participants would have an equal opportunity (ideally speaking) to influence decisions (especially laws) concerning economic matters. Thus, there would be no class divisions, especially those based on private "ownership" of the economy or ownership of anything of a social-economic nature which characterizes today's dominant form known as capitalism. This system has evolved from the use of force practiced by various ruling classes to attain power during the last roughly 10,000 years--about 2% of human history.  Economies are quintessentially a social phenomenon, and were prior to this period of civilization.

Behind the govt’s ‘rosy’ jobs report

Click here to access article by Gene Clancy from Workers World.

The collection of statistics can be useful or it can be used for deceptive purposes. The ruling capitalist class uses statistics often to deceive us, to make social-economic life among ordinary people look good in order to support their continued rule, to cover over gross problems, and to reduce expenditures for social programs so that more money can be devoted to weapons and military campaigns. Clancy focuses on the lies they are telling us about unemployment and those who are missing from the data collection.

The U.S. government issued its monthly jobs report on Sept. 4. Although only 173,000 new jobs were added — fewer than expected — the Obama administration immediately heralded the new unemployment figure of 5.1 percent, which they claim is the lowest since 2007.

Does this mean — as many capitalist apologists and economists claim — that the U.S economy is improving and that workers are better off now? It is crucial to look at the lies and obfuscations behind the report.

2015 El Niño produces new climate record: 3 simultaneous Pacific category 4 hurricanes

Click here to access article by Rolf Schuttenhelm from Bits of Science.

I discovered only this morning (see this, this, and this) that a huge El Niño is brewing over the South Pacific ocean which will be creating a number of effects such as the hurricanes that are now occurring over the ocean reported in this article, and predicted near future events for the west coasts of North and South America such as rising ocean levels, more record high temperatures, heavy rainfalls and other extreme types of weather.

This website is operated by a self-described small group of science researchers and writers who often run articles that are loaded with technical terms and material which are difficult to understand by ordinary readers. One such term in this article is "ENSO" which means El Niño Southern Oscillation. 

The climatic effects of the 2015 El Niño will not be limited to the Pacific basin. During 2014 the world went from negative to positive ENSO state – and even that was sufficient to produce a new global heat record.

In 2015 that record will be broken again, and 2016 may again break that record – as 2016 will be strongly influenced by the (forecast) end-2015 Super El Niño – adding at least ~+0.2C to the 1998 Super El Niño – as that is the greenhouse-gas-induced trend over that period.

A cursory search of articles on Google revealed many such articles from various local sources, but the environment and science sources I depend on have largely overlooked this phenomenon or it was hidden behind very benign headlines such as "1997 vs. 2015: Animation Compares El Niños Side-by-Side" from Climate Central (one of the sources I depend on).

Under Fight-Against-ISIS Disguise "West" Prepares To Openly Attack Syria

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

Media reports of the situation in the Middle East is so laced with disinformation that many analysts are finding it difficult to determine what is really happening. For example, read this article by Gordon Duff in which expresses his confusion, or this one by Thierry Meyssan who claims that the refugee crisis is fabricated. The author of this article makes an attempt to see through all this confusing disinformation to determine what is really happening.

The Syrian Refugee Crisis and the ‘Do Something’ Lie

Click here to access article by Adam Johnson from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. 

Johnson illustrates with a number of examples from leading newspapers in the Empire how capitalist media is attempting to exploit the refugee crisis created by the Empire to serve the Empire's ends to crush the Syrian government. Yes, it's "humanitarian intervention" all over again. Once again, the Empire's media turns reality on its head!

The US funded, armed and fueled the very crisis its partisan media are now calling for it to swoop and in save. The moral ADD [attention deficit disorder] required by those pushing further US involvement in the Syrian civil war in the face of this fact is severe. 

Meanwhile the directors of the Empire are busy creating chaos in Yemen by backing Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen. So we can expect the Yemenis will be the next source of refugees flooding into Europe, and then we can expect Empire media calling for another "humanitarian intervention".

What can't be admitted about refugees: they are here because we were there

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

The people in the camps at Calais haven’t spent months travelling hundreds of dangerous miles because they want free NHS treatment, housing or benefits, as the Sun would have us think. These are people who have had to make the torturous decision of leaving their loved ones and homes, and are fleeing for their lives.

People don’t risk everything they’ve got, walk for hundreds of miles, travel across seas on flimsy inflatable dinghies, or spend days in the back of a refrigerated lorry just because they fancy it. These people are desperate.

Despite the unwillingness of our government to accept refugees, we British have blood on our hands.

And we Americans have even much more than blood on our hands--it's all over us.

Everything You Know About 'Sex Work' is Wrong

Click here to access to this interview with former sex worker Rachel Moran conducted by Mickey Z. posted on World News Trust.

I think that there is an additional reason why so many women and men are supporting the liberalization of the sex trade. Once again I use class analysis contributed by generations of Marxists to understand the hostile division in this debate that Moran describes so well in this interview.

I can offer this analysis only as a theoretical argument because I have nor been in the sex trade or studied it thoroughly. But is the sex trade so unique in capitalist culture from all other issues so that unless one has been involved in it, one cannot understand it?

I think that this hostile divide between proponents of liberalization and those who see it as a very harmful gross exploitation is very similar to low-wage workers in general who know from experience the feeling of exploitation and abuse that they have experienced as low wage workers in a capitalist system versus those who have enjoyed the security of a middle class background. The common element shared by wage or salaried workers in general and those in the sex trade is the commodification of their work. The somewhat unique feature added to sex work is the patriarchal nature of capitalist history which predates capitalism. Thus my analysis will only focus on what capitalism has contributed to work--the commodification of work.

So, what is it about capitalism that results in commodification of nearly everything? That is easy to understand: capitalism results in a society that is obsessed with obtaining money which, not only brings security, but is often accompanied by power in a capitalist organized society. But, what is commodification and why is it so harmful? 

This is much more difficult to understand especially for those of us who have been immersed all their lives in a capitalist society where one has been, and continues to be, thoroughly indoctrinated in the values and practices of a society is which a market oriented economy has assumed the authority of a religion. 

What I see as a process of commodification is the extraction, out of all things social in character, values that can be marketed. It is this extraction that distorts and produces the harm for all social relations. 

This phenomenon can most easily be recognized in the sex trade where the most intimate relations between human beings are refined (much like coca leaves into cocaine) into a commodity to be marketed for private monetary gain by the seller, and into a extracted form which can be enjoyed as the "high" of an orgasm by the purchaser. Gone from the sex trade are the human features of caring, mutual respect, and wanting to share sensuous pleasure with another human being.

Those who have enjoyed the benefits of a middle class background (education, economic resources, opportunities for leisure, etc) can be lured into the sex trade by the easy money it offers especially in a time when opportunities for the middle class are being adversely impacted by the steady concentration of wealth in the hands of the capitalist ruling class. Middle class people are especially susceptible to capitalist indoctrination because they often experience more years in educational institutions and because of the many other benefits they have enjoyed. Their experience has taught them to believe that nearly everything that can be bought and sold is virtuous, or at least acceptable. Thus, they often have little qualms about turning the most intimate of human relations into a commodity. 

Because of the security provided by their middle class background, they are protected from the worst forms of exploitation and humiliation that lower class sex trade workers experience. (This is similar to middle class occupations compared with blue collar work.) Middle class sex workers also likely have middle and upper class customers which provides them with more security. Because these sex workers enjoy easy money, greater security, and respect, they aggressively oppose the criticisms of people like Rachel Moran who have been deprived of opportunities, comforts, security, respect, etc that capitalist society has to offer middle class people. 

China and the Return of the ‘Yellow Peril’: The muddled economics of scapegoating

Click here to access article by Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.

I'm offering this with the caveat that I don't necessarily endorse everything he writes about--particularly with regard to China. I simply don't know enough about China to hold firm opinions. That is precisely why I am occasionally posting reasonable articles from different points of view. At least Raimondo in his comments about China does offer supporting links unlike others such as Charles Hugh Smith who pretends that he is an expert on China by omitting any supporting links. I definitely agree with this view he expressed at the beginning of his essay:

As the US stock market was dropping 1,000 points on Monday morning, US commentators were pinning the blame on China. The Chinese economy, they said, was slowing down: what had been the “engine” of worldwide economic expansion was running out of fuel. The clear implication was that China’s rulers were somehow responsible for the sudden evaporation of over $2 trillion in assets over three days of the market plunge.

This focus on China as the foreign culprit behind America’s economic woes is being broadcast far and wide by Donald Trump, the mercurial demagogue who has put foreigner-bashing at the center of the political discourse.

U.S. Drops Fleas With Bubonic Plague on North Korea

Click here to access article by David Swanson posted on Washington's Blog.

I consider myself reasonably well informed about the Korean War, but I learned a lot from this post about the gross war crimes and deceptions in relation to this war. The Korean War was the beginning phase of the US's road to Empire which we see today with devastating effects on people over much of the globe--the latest being the waves of refugees fleeing to Europe. 

This post also illustrates how conscientious people working together plus the technology of the World Wide Web can expose many of the lies we have been taught by our masters in the ruling capitalist class.

Dave Chaddock’s book This Must Be the Place, which I found via Jeff Kaye’s review, collects the evidence that the United States indeed tried to wipe out millions of Chinese and North Koreans with deadly diseases.