We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore LappĂ©, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Soros Plays Both Ends in Syria Refugee Chaos

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

Engdahl reveals how tax-exempt foundations for the rich have been used as another major weapon to promote the Empire's policy of domination both over the resource rich Middle East and Europe. To do this, he uses as an illustration the many Soros funded foundations which are some of the most active foundations promoting the Empire's agendas. What makes his article especially interesting is his revelation about a research report's findings regarding Tweets and Facebook communications: they encouraged the exodus of desperate refugees most of whom were lured by these social media to settle in Germany.
The vast majority of these “Germany welcomes refugee” Tweets come not from Germany, but from the United States and from the UK, the two countries up to their necks in the bloody deeds of ISIS and Al Qaeda and countless other terror gangs rampaging across Syria the past four years.

Shalak analyzed 5,704 original tweets containing a “#RefugeesWelcome” hashtag and a country name which welcomes them. It showed almost 80% of all Tweets claimed that Germany was the most-welcoming country in Europe. The second most welcoming country found was Austria with 12%. However, the study also found that those “Germany welcomes you” Tweets did not originate from inside Germany. Over 40% of all the Tweets originated from the USA, UK or Australia. Only 6.4% originated inside Germany.
However he doesn't supply any evidence to indicate that the Soros foundations were behind this effort except to report on similar efforts by these foundations to encourage the exodus of refugees to Europe.

Wanted for Destroying Our Future: AVAAZ

Click here to access article from Wrong Kind of Green.

The article focuses on one NGO, AVAAZ, and especially their major staff members who have sold their souls to this devil-foundation for a few shekels.
Grassroots groups across the world are calling for a dismantling of the suicidal capitalist economic system. But a group of climate criminals (also known as the non-profit industrial complex) is trying to stop this imperative. Their tactics are different, but their end game is the same: shift the focus away from necessary emissions targets and keep first world consumption and the capitalist economic system dependent on infinite growth at the centre of “human development”. 

ISIS IP Addresses Traced Back To Saudi Arabia and UK Governments

Click here to access article by Brandon Turbeville from Activist Post.

Turbeville reports on another piece of evidence tying the US Empire, or at least the British section, to the world's premier terrorist organization. 
The Mirror reports it has learned that the British government sold a significant number of IP addresses to two Saudi Arabian firms and, after the sale in October, the IP addresses were being used to spread ISIS propaganda. These IP addresses were apparently not the only ones sold to Saudi Arabia in October, however, but little information is available as to how many others were sold and what they are being used for.

But while the sale of the IP addresses might shift the blame from the UK government on the Saudi Arabian government, the question still remains as to how and why the addresses can be traced back to the DWP
[Department of Work and Pensions in the UK].

US-NATO’s “Counter-Christmas Crusade” against the Cradle of Civilization and the Holy Land

Click here to access article by Felicity Arbuthnot from Global Research
There has been a searing irony to Christmas since August 1990 and the decimating embargo on Iraq. It marked the beginning of the destruction of the region where the three Abrahamic religions were born at Ur in southern Iraq, where the Garden of Eden is believed to have flourished at Al-Qurnah, translation “connection” or “joint”, since it is where the Biblical Tigris and Euphrates rivers join.
And she continues on to juxtapose many ancient religious sites with the Empire's criminal, moralistic war leaders who continue to destroy the region (in order to control the region's resources).

Friday, December 18, 2015

The IMF Changes its Rules to Isolate China and Russia

Click here to access article by Michael Hudson from CounterPunch

This very astute politically oriented economist analyses many of the ramifications of the recent IMF rule changes which dramatically changes their rules to omit enforcement of debts to Russia or China. This radical change of rules presents all kinds tortured legal and political problems for Empire strategists who are obsessed with the challenges posed by Russia and China to thwart its quest for total world domination. He see that these changes are fraught with peril and likely will backfire. 
Few have calculated the degree to which America’s New Cold War with Russia is creating a reaction that is tearing up the world’s linkages put in place since World War II. Beyond pulling the IMF and World Bank tightly into U.S. unilateralist geopolitics, how long will Western Europe be willing to forego its trade and investment interest with Russia? Germany, Italy and France already are feeling the strains. If and when a break comes, it will not be marginal but a seismic geopolitical shift.
However he appears to suggest that a multi-polar capitalist world is both desirable and possible. Therefore, his analysis of the recent IMF dramatic change of rules to omit enforcement of debts to Russia or China appears to suggest an anomaly in capitalism's evolution. This is contrary to my opinion.

While both Russia and China do have significant segments of their economies that function according to capitalist principles, Russia is guided by a strong nationalist ethos while China's economy is supervised by a Communist Party which is attempting to use capitalist operations in limited sections of their economy in order to import investment capital and technology. Thus, once the Empire's virulent capitalist form is defeated, I am currently thinking that both Russia, China, and the rest of the world will abandon or sharply limit capitalist practices in their economies.

France’s Former Foreign Minister: UK Government Prepared War in Syria Two Years Before 2011 Protests

Click here if you wish to access this video directly from OffGuardian

The role of Israel is always downplayed in Western media, but here is a post from 21st Century Wire about a year ago that documents many attacks from Israel on Syria and Israeli support for the many forces trying to bring down the Syrian government.

If you prefer listening to recorded interviews of credible geopolitical analysts on an audio platform such as SoundCloud, I recommend listening to those featuring Patrick Henningsen, the founder of 21st Century Wire.

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Seven Wrinkles in the Paris Climate Deal

Click here to access article by Oscar Reyes from Foreign Policy in Focus
The headlines from the Paris climate talks tell an inspiring story. Agence France-Presse reported an outbreak of “euphoria” as the international climate accord was sealed. Reuters hailed a global “turn from fossil fuels.” The Guardian headlined “a major leap for mankind.”

The celebratory tone is partly relief at the fact that 195 countries managed to agree to any kind of climate deal at all.

Why capitalism is addicted to oil and coal

Click here to access a review by Martin Empson of a new book by Andreas Malm entitled FOSSIL CAPITAL: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming posted on Climate & Capitalism.

The book really strives to answer only one question: why are our ruling capitalist masters addicted to profits? As I have argued many times in the past, profits are only one source of the addiction puzzle. It is the power of domination over others, over societies, over nations which is derived from huge wealth accumulations that is the most intoxicating ingredient. 

Although originally capitalists were merely addicted to profits, nowadays capitalists are more driven by this derivative intoxicant to exploit man and nature and to engage in the grossest of war crimes to gain control of fossil fuels. Thus, it follows that any truly revolutionary movement that strives to save humans from extinction must take as its prime goal the destruction of a system whose primary function is to supply capitalists with the drugs of profits and especially power (hegemony). It also follows that individual or family enterprises for profit can be permitted, but not the huge concentrations of capital as seen in large corporations today.

Referring to our ruling capitalist masters, Empson writes:
The vested interests have no intention of changing their behaviour. While there are profits to be made, coal and oil will be extracted from the ground. The machinery to do so has to make a return and that means production might continue for a very long time. Malm gives one example if an oil platform built in 1982 whose one million tonnes of concrete represents an enormous investment that will see a return only after many decades of use. He quotes David Harvey, “When capitalists purchase fixed capital, they are obliged to use it until its value… is fully retrieved”. But from inside the environmental crisis of climate change, this obligation will doom the entire planet.
.... Even installing renewable energy doesn’t replace fossil fuels on a like for like basis. Malm quotes a study that demonstrates for every one percent increase in renewable energy, fossil fuel generated power only decreases by 0.1 percent. The logic of capitalism is to simply expand. What needs to be done is to “pull the plug” on fossil fuels – the shutting down of the fossil fuel industry; the closure of coal mines and oil fields. It is an inherently revolutionary perspective that cannot wait till after some future revolution, but needs to be initiated today.

India Announces Plans To Double Coal Output After Paris Agreement

Click here to access article by Dan Wright from ShadowProof.
It looks like former NASA scientist James Hansen was on to something when he called the Paris climate agreement, known as COP21, a bullshit PR exercise. The lack of enforcement mechanisms for emission targets is already proving to be problematic.

On Monday, just days after India and over 190 other countries signed the Paris agreement, a senior official in the India Coal Ministry named Anil Swarup revealed that India plans to double coal output by 2020 and plans to use coal for decades into the future.

Global Financial Order Could Utterly Collapse on Dec. 21

Click here to access article by Valentin Katasonov from Strategic Culture Foundation.
The fund’s recent decisions have created a precedent for a game played without rules, and it is almost impossible to calculate the consequences for international finance.

.... Washington ordered the fund to rewrite the rules so that even if Kiev defaults on what it owes Moscow, the IMF could still lend Ukraine money. The fund – ever submissive – fulfilled this seemingly unfulfillable command.

.... There have been few decisions of such a radical nature in the IMF’s history.
First, I would like to make it clear that I condemn the rhetorical headline of this article. I don't know if the author or the editors of the website chose it in order to dramatically draw attention to the essay, but what I do know is that his essay does not support it. However, what Katasonov does draw attention to are the desperate measures, rewriting the rules of the IMF, that the directors of the Empire have resorted to in order to damage Russia. 

It's becoming clearer day by day that these directors are willing to engage in desperate measures to prevent Russia, as a leader of a bloc of nations including China and Iran and a host of movements, from interfering with the Empire's hegemonic agenda. So, could this lead to a nuclear conflagration? It seems very possible so to me (and to Pepe Escobar). Whether our extinction is caused ultimately by climate destabilization in the long run, or in the short run by nuclear wars, I am convinced that the only way we humans can save ourselves is by working to end the rule of capitalists.

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Are The US And Al Qaeda Friends Again?

Click here to access article by Dan Wright from ShadowProof

Wright puts together an excellent clip via YouTube of Joe Biden's speech on October 2nd of last year when he tried to deflect any blame for various terrorist armies onto Turkey and Saudi Arabia and its associates. The posting was obviously prompted by a long article in this month's Harper's Magazine entitled "A Special Relationship: The United States is teaming up with Al Qaeda, again." 

To be fair, I must admit that I have only had time to skim this latter article; but it appears to me that it too attempts to soften are role in creating ISIS by directing most of our attention to the machinations of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, etc. I also did a search for the terms "Israel" and "Zionist" on the pages of the Harper's article and neither was mentioned in this lengthy article! 

Harper's is a liberal magazine and while it occasionally exposes the dirty deeds of the Empire's directors, it must finally in the end provide some excuses for these deeds so that we are left with a reformist attitude that permits us to think that mistakes were made but they can be corrected in the future under the existing system. Hence the title of the article and this post. 

Last year I posted an article from RT which also cited Joe Biden's speech, and in my commentary I felt that his accusations about the role of Turkey and Saudi Arabia were an inept gaff. Now I feel that his speech was a conscious attempt at damage control directed toward liberals and assorted intellectuals (after all he was speaking to an educated audience) who have been exposed to many leaks of information that revealed US involvement. 

The Harper's article fully acknowledges the US sponsorship of the terrorist army called Mujaheddin to fight the Soviet-backed government of Afghanistan--but this might be considered ancient history and excused as payback to the Soviets for their support of the Vietnamese. After this history lesson the author implies that we had very little to do with Al Qaeda and sees the recent events in Syria as mostly a mistaken renewed friendship. Notice that the author totally buys into the mainstream story about 9/11 and omits any CIA involvement in that major terrorist event:
...Al Qaeda, employing a largely Saudi suicide squad, destroyed the World Trade Center. In a sane world, this disaster might have permanently ended Washington’s long-standing taste for mixing Islam with politics. But old habits die hard.
Although the author admits CIA involvement in the terrorist armies in Syria, the overwhelming emphasis is on the various machinations and conspiracies going on in the nearby Arab countries. If I am correct, then the Harper's article is also such an attempt at damage control for US Empire directors.

For a brief, but accurate history of Al Qaeda, ISIS, and associated terrorist groups, you must read today's post by Tony Cartalucci entitled "Islamic State or Wahhabi Colony?".
 

Islamic State or Wahhabi Colony?

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.
Al Qaeda’s original inception itself was a joint product of US-Saudi geopolitical ambitions. The Muslim Brotherhood, destroyed and scattered in Syria by Syrian President Bashar Al Assad’s father, President Hafez Al Assad, was reorganized and sent to Afghanistan by the US and Saudi Arabia to fight a proxy war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

Since then, the group has serendipitously found itself engaged on every battlefield and in every region the US has sought to influence, whether it was in the Balkans and Chechnya, across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), or even as far flung as Southeast Asia.

Business as usual at Paris: summit won’t stop global warming

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.
What mechanisms will be created to ensure that the “Parties” (national governments) to carry out these plans? They “shall” report their progress, “shall undergo a technical expert review” (article 13) and discuss their progress five years from now (article 14). Governments will develop technology (article 10) and will “build mutual trust” through “transparency” (article 13).

In other words, peer pressure is the mechanism. There are no binding legal agreements requiring any country to achieve the reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions pledged for the Paris Climate Summit.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

What Stinks in Saudi Ain’t the Camel Dung

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from OffGuardian

I regard Engdahl as a first-rate geopolitical analyst. In this explosive article he assembles many facts, most of which I have found documented by credible observers over the past decade, which he sums up with these two statements:
  • ISIS is simply a “Saudi army in disguise.”
  • What stinks in Saudi Arabia ain’t the camel dung. It’s the monarchy of King Salman and his hot-headed son, Prince Salman. For decades they have financed terrorism under a fake religious disguise, to advance their private plutocratic agenda. It has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with money and oil. A look at the ISIS map from Iraq to Syria shows that they precisely targeted the oil riches of those two sovereign states. Saudi control of that oil wealth via their ISIS agents, along with her clear plan to take out the US shale oil competition, or so Riyadh reckons, would make the Saudi monarchy a vastly richer state, one, perhaps because of that money, finally respected by white western rich men and their society.
What I fault him for in this article is what I fault him for in most of his articles: he doesn't provide any links to documentation to back up his facts. Either he is exhibiting what I refer to as a "professorial arrogance" or he is guarding his sources in his soon to be published book or other books he has authored. I can't fault him if it is the latter reason--he simply needs to be economically self-sustaining in order to maintain his independence to be regarded as a credible geopolitical analyst.

Shaker Aamer’s First Interview: ‘Everything That Happened To Us Is a War Crime’

Click here to access article by Kevin Gosztola from ShadowProof.

Shaker Aamer, a British citizen, who was recently released from Guantanamo talked about his experience in that hellish prison.
The psychological torture was the worst for Aamer. He mentioned the pain from physical torture would go away eventually. However, being psychologically manipulated, “You feel like every time they find something new to do.”

“Their goal is to scare you, to make you submit, make you understand that if you refuse to comply with the orders it means you are going to get this punishment all the time,” Aamer additionally claimed.

“They want you to submit to them. They want you to understand that they are overpowering you and you have no right to say yes or no, just do what they tell you, even if its a silly thing, a little thing like an apple stem.”

Given this testimony, it makes sense that Aamer believes Guantanamo is run by doctors and psychologists.

“Guantanamo’s been built on how to destroy a human being totally, how to damage him mentally, physically, spiritually,” Aamer declared in the ITV interview. “It’s a program that’s been designed by psychologists. I assure you that I can prove to the world who runs Guantanamo is not a military administration. It’s doctors [and] psychologists.”
This revealing testimony of his physical and mental torture over the past 14 years offers a graphic illustration of a fascist mindset that has infected the Empire's ruling class. It is challenging to read material like this without having a negative attitude toward the nature of humans. All sensitive humans are embarrassed by such reports. Yet, I think this taps into a profound and common orientation of humanity's relationship to the world that we simply must question.

One effect that civilization has promoted is a deep detachment from other humans, and indeed from nature itself. Thus such a mindset easily succumbs to the use of force to dominate both other humans and nature that especially characterizes the worst aspects of civilization that we see reported daily. Such a perspective promotes sociopathy among the morally weakest, or least socialized, of humans.

This profound evil effect has been observed and commented on by many to the extent that some even condemn civilization itself and has caused them to argue that humans must return to some more idyllic primeval existence. This, to me, is a most foolish idea. Such people have very little idea of what life would be like under such conditions. No--it's too much like the idea of throwing out the baby with the bath water because the latter is soiled. However, we are left with what to do about this "soiled bath water". This concern is often expressed with variations on this theme: "Any society (one can substitute "civilization" or "government", etc) should be judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable citizens", and then a moral condemnation is followed with reference to a specific entity.

I don't have a definitive answer to this question, but I think that the continued existence of humans depends on how, or if, this challenging question is solved. It appears to me that once one surrenders to the perspective that sees themselves and reality in terms of subject and object, one can easily succumb to a kind of pure utilitarian relationship to others and to nature. Then one can easily be led to engage in all kinds of horrible crimes against other humans and nature that is illustrated most dramatically in the history of fascism, the most extreme authoritarian form of capitalism. I think the general solution lies in our ability to see ourselves correctly as a part of the web of life and nature. Only then will we be able to treat each other and all of nature with respect. Only then can we humans live in peace with each other and survive in nature.

More specifically speaking, I am convinced that capitalism systematizes this utilitarian kind of relationship to the world, and that is why I have devoted most of my life to destroying the system of capitalism and replacing it with one that reflects the true reality of existence.

Assessing Venezuela’s Elections: The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent

Click here to access article by Eric Draitser from Global Independent Analytics.

It was very interesting to me on a personal level to read Draitser's recent experiences while visiting Venezuela and his assessment of the dramatic losses of the Chavista party known as Socialist Party (PSUV) in the recent elections. 

In late 2005 I toured many of the places he mentioned, was exposed to the many kinds of people who he encountered, and listened to a talk by one PSUV leader who was a member of the government. I was singularly unimpressed with the latter. Subsequently I followed events in Venezuela quite closely in alternative websites and finally concluded that a traditional cultural practice of South America known as clientelism had carried over into the new ruling Chavista party and government and would limit how far the revolution would go. Although there were writings and speeches about a bottom-up political process, the reality was that too many educated people gravitated to the party to enhance their careers, and not for reasons of social justice. Thus political patronage and careerism infected the party and contaminated its political ideology with the result that the party led a government that in reality practiced social democratic principles instead of the truly radical principles that was espoused by Hugo Chávez and his ideologists.

Draitser concludes his assessment of the current political conditions in Venezuela with this observation that rings true for me:
Above all else, there is one common theme that I have heard repeated ad nauseam these last few days: the vote was a vote against the PSUV, not for the MUD. In other words many, if not most, of those ballots cast for the opposition were simply a rebuke of the government, rather than an endorsement of the neoliberal capitalism that MUD represents. While this is undeniably frustrating, it is also heartening in a sense, because it demonstrates clearly that the general principles of the vast majority of the country remain unchanged: they want socialism and the Bolivarian Revolution, they simply want it to be improved. I heard this nearly everywhere I went, from the 23 January to El Valle, from San AgustĂ­n to the SimĂłn Bolivar commune.

In other words, Chavismo is alive and well in Venezuela, it is the Party itself that has lost the support of many of the people.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Poisoned Agriculture: Depopulation and Human Extinction

Click here to access article by Colin Todhunter from Global Research

Todhunter is a British writer who has lived in India for extended periods of time and has done a considerable amount of study on the deleterious effects of biochemical technology widely used by multi-national corporations engaged in agricultural operations. I have followed Todhunter's essays for a number of years and I regard him as an especially reliable and credible source of information regarding his area of expertise.

In this article he focuses on a recent paper published in a major scientific journal (behind a paywall) authored by Rosemary A. Mason which makes some startling accusations regarding the widespread application of biochemical substances used by agribusinesses throughout the world.
She claims that plans are under way to depopulate the planet’s seven million plus people to a more manageable level of between 500–2000 million by a combination of means, including the poisoning and contamination of the planet’s food and water supplies via chemical-intensive industrialised agriculture. Mason also notes that health-damaging GMOs are being made available to the masses (under the guise of ‘feeding the poor’), while elites are more prone to eat organic food.

Although Mason cites evidence to show that a section of the US elite has a depopulation agenda, given the amount of poisons being pumped into the environment and into humans, the thrust of her argument is that we could all be extinct before this comes to fruition – both rich and poor alike.
Mason's evidence supports Todhunter's numerous findings about this type of agriculture which he studied in India, and he agrees with her conclusion that "the public must place pressure on governments and hold agribusiness to account." He argues that this is not enough, makes vague references to capitalism, but then ultimately arrives at his own recommendations which, in my mind, do not hold much more promise than Mason's: 
...both farmers and consumers must organise to challenge governments, corrupt regulatory bodies and big agribusiness at every available opportunity.
It seems to me that his conclusion negates any suggestion about the role of capitalism in causation of this huge problem. Capitalist directors such as Bill Gates and the Rockefeller clan today have firm control of the Empire's governments along with all other major institutions. So, it may do some temporary good to appeal to, or "challenge", their governments, etc, but how is this going to solve the problem in the long run? If the cause is an economic system, then the remedy is to organize to overthrow the rule of the system and the rule of the tiny fraction of humanity that it serves.

[An encouraging news item that might interest you, but don't count on capitalist appointed judges for future victories.] 

Paris agreement papers over failure to act on climate change

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

In contrast to corporate media which paints the Paris agreement as a "success", Martin reveals the vacuous agreement that world capitalist leaders came up with to solve the growing problem of climate destabilization as a kind of public relations stunt.
The two-week climate summit could perhaps be summed up with a variation on the saying, “The operation was a success but the patient died.” In this case, the political operation in Paris was a great success for those who organized it, principally Hollande, Obama and other leaders of the major world powers who sought to posture as environmentalists concerned about the future of “the only planet we have.” The prognosis for the planet, however, remains terminal, so long as it remains imprisoned by the global capitalist system.

After the Paris climate talks: stay in the streets

Click here to access article by Elaine Graham-Leigh from CounterFire.

This writer for the mildly left wing British publication agrees with other non-establishment observers that the Paris climate talks were "much ado about nothing". 
A turning point in human history? Elaine Graham-Leigh takes a closer and more critical look at what the Paris talks really mean for our planet
Still she argues that the street protests accomplished a lot by forcing these capitalist officials to make many promises ("pledges") to do better, and that we should "stay in the streets" apparently because that this will be force them to make more promises! One might easily think that this publication could come up with something more radical after perusing the website which makes references to Marxism and socialism. 

For something more accurate and radical, read this article entitled "Paris agreement papers over failure to act on climate change".

Paris deal: Epic fail on a planetary scale

Click here to access article by Danny Chivers and Jess Worth from New Internationalist.
Before the talks began, social movements, environmental groups, and trade unions around the world came together and agreed on a set of criteria that the Paris deal would need to meet in order to be effective and fair. This ‘People’s Test’ is based on climate science and the needs of communities affected by climate change and other injustices across the globe.

To meet the People’s Test, the Paris deal would need to do the following four things:

1. Catalyze immediate, urgent and drastic emission reductions;
2. Provide adequate support for transformation;
3. Deliver justice for impacted people;
4. Focus on genuine, effective action rather than false solutions;

Does the deal pass the test?

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Who is the Real Axis of Evil?

Click here to access article by Jim Dean from New Eastern Outlook.
The Russian Defense Ministry won the quote of the week award with its “theater of the absurd” description of the US State Department’s and Pentagon’s denials that they knew anything about Turkey’s aiding and abetting ISIL via the massive oil smuggling operations from Syria. They were lying of course, and admitted that Turkey was guilty for not only the oil smuggling but all the other supplies crossing the border for ISIL.
See also this piece entitled "US accomplice with ruling Wahhabism" which makes essentially the same argument.

How U.S. and EU Manipulate Public Consciousness: Montenegro

Click here to access article by Ion Todescu from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard.

Todescu provides an excellent case study of how Empire subversive directors apply their color revolution scheme. However this time its application is not to overthrow the government and/or dismember the country (that was already accomplished with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia), but to pave the way for Montenegro's integration into NATO.
Since Montenegro had regained its independence the U.S. and the EU have created a multi-layered hierarchical system comprising multiple structures and organizations in order to reshape the public consciousness of Montenegrins and guarantee that the country joins NATO. This sophisticated ‘network of networks’ has engulfed government structures, NGOs and commercial companies working for one purpose. This method proved to be successful in Ukraine, where the U.S. and EU have achieved their goals. As for Montenegro, only time will tell.

Euphoria as Paris finally seals the deal

Click here to access article by Paul Brown from Climate News Network.

Many leaders and website writers are heaping praise for the very recently concluded Paris agreement of climate goals. But, as far as I can see, they are only pledges or promises to do better. And, what has been the record of previous pledges? Very poor. My feelings correspond well with some of the skeptics:
Helen Szoke, executive director, Oxfam, summed up for the doubters: “This deal offers a frayed life-line to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

Only the vague promise of a new future climate funding target has been made, while the deal does not force countries to cut emissions fast enough to forestall a climate change catastrophe. This will only ramp up adaptation costs further in the future.”

And this was the summing-up from one leading British scientist, Professor Chris Rapley, of University College London: “Time will reveal the true nature of the COP21 deal. From epic turning point, to naive expression of hope, it is the real-world actions that follow which will decide. 
Here is interesting 7:20m video from Climate Interactive that presents all kinds of "what ifs" that could bring the global average increase in temperatures below 2°C.