Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Fear and Loathing in the Arabian Nights

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 Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, April 22, 2016

Fear and Loathing in the Arabian Nights

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Sputnik.

Escobar furnishes a very different take on Obama visit to the Saudi kingdom than I did yesterday. With his inside sources and reportedly sources from the Financial Times he claims that it was to put additional pressure in the form of threats so that the kingdom would drop its support for from cutting production. The US wants the economic war against Russia to continue, and thus Obama, diplomatically I'm sure, "put the heat on" Saudi officials. This heat not only included the "28 pages" but also a new threat of freezing Saudi assets.

The heart of the whole matter is that Washington has been threatening Riyadh to freeze Saudi assets all across the spectrum if the House of Saud does not “cooperate” in the oil price war against Russia.