The War on Dissent

Click here to access article by CJ Hopkins from CounterPunch. 

Hopkins explains how capitalist online social and information media (Twitter, Facebook, Google) have joined the Deep State, the financial and industrial elites that make major decisions behind the facade of official government, in order to protect their interests of profit and power from people like you who were disobedient in the last election! You will obey, or else!

The corporatocracy is going to change that attitude, or it is going to make it disappear. It is in the process of doing this now, using every ideological weapon in its arsenal. The news media. Publishing. Hollywood. The Internet. Intelligence agencies. Congressional inquiries. Protests. Marches. Twitter’s “advisory emails.” Google’s manipulation of its search results. Facebook’s “counterspeech” initiative. Russiagate. Shitholegate. Pornstargate. The ruling class is sending us a message. The message is, “you’re either with us or against us.” The message is, “we will tolerate no dissent, except for officially sanctioned dissent.” The message is, “try to fuck with us, and we will marginalize you, and demonize you, and demonetize you, and disappear you.”

The message is, “we control reality, so reality is whatever the fuck we say it is....

Facebook Is Throttling My Articles, So It's Time To Diversify Platforms. Hi Steemit!

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone from Steemit. 

Steemit appears to be a good alternative to Facebook, which serves the interests of the capitalist ruling class, judging by Johnstone's article. It's about time!

I'm suddenly having a much harder time getting my articles in front of people due to a drastic plummet in the amount of views I'm getting from Facebook. According to my Medium account's statistics, I've gone from receiving many thousands of views from Facebook to just a few hundred over the last week or so, and the reach of my FB page has been slashed to a quarter of what it was in the same amount of time.

This likely has something to do with changes that Facebook has announced it is making in its News Feed algorithm, but it's hard to know exactly to what extent or whether anything else is going on. All I know is far fewer people are seeing me on that site now.

It's impacting everyone in alternative media, though.

A message from Patrice Greanville, chief editor of The Greanville Post.

The following is Patrice Greanville's introduction to Caitlin Johnstone's post entitled "Facebook Is Throttling My Articles, So It’s Time To Diversify Platforms. Hi Steemit!"

By now only those who are really NOT paying attention may be s[h]ocked to hear the corporate plutocracy is actively and furtively stifling genuine left/dissenting news and comment on social platforms, media and other venues. What is happening to Caitlin Johnstone is also happening to us. The Greanville Post has lost almost 45% of its circulation since mid-2016 alone, with dramatic losses after the election of Donald Trump, and although many new readers continue to make up for some of the downturn, the impact cannot be denied. Proof that only the real left is affected (and some of the “wild right”) is that the fatuous liberaloid blogosphere—still calling themselves “the left”, a cruel joke— sails on without disruption, and possibly even with some assistance from the powers that be. Since it is clear that Facebook, Twitter, Google and the rest of that uber corporate sneaky tribe are soon likely to become fully hostile territory to true journalists and dissidents in the United States and the rest of the West, it’s time to seek new platforms, and other modes of mass communication and struggle. We may soon contemplate the need to go back to a version of the Russian Zamisdat. 1984 is now, and the liberals, as we warned all along, now openly in cahoots with the CIA, and still idiotically rallying under the banner of the Democrats, are the chief undertakers of free speech. It was bound to happen. Lenin once said that the capitalists would sell revolutionaries the rope to hang them with, but he may have been wrong. Contemporary capitalists with their shitloads of highly-paid prostituted advisors and sentries are not liable to make that tactical mistake. From the beginning of the 20th century, at least, the US ruling class has completely understood the value of controlling the thinking of the masses, and reality has been shaped accordingly. The neutral Internet eventually came to challenge that underhanded stranglehold on people’s ability to grasp the truth, a dangerous thing for a blood-soaked fake democracy, and now the global plutocrats are clamping down. Creative thinking and much courage will be needed to survive and hopefully prevail in this brave mew world being thrust upon us.

New Year, New Turmoil as US Targets Thailand

Click here to access article by Joseph Thomas from New Eastern Outlook.

The Empire's transnational capitalist class, based in the US, Europe, and Japan, continue their efforts to encircle China using both soft and hard power. However, they are experiencing diminishing returns on their efforts. Read this carefully written article to see how Thomas reaches this conclusion regarding Thailand:

Thus, 2018 will not only see a concerted attempt to undermine the current Thai government and force it to hold elections the US will do all in its power to ensure Shinawatra [a Thai convicted criminal] wins, but also will see US-funded organisations in Thailand increasingly attempt to leverage violence in Thailand’s deep south to endanger not only Thailand’s peace and stability, but peace and stability across Southeast Asia.

Yes, it is a nasty habit of the Empire's ruling class to interfere in the elections of so many countries of the world. It is also becoming a nasty habit for them to accuse others of doing so in the USA.

Recommended articles for engaged activists on 1/26/2018

• "Op Ed: Washington Post, Legacy Press Betray Assange As His Freedom Hangs In The Balance" by co-founder and editor of Disobedient Media. (Recommended by engaged activist Christopher in northwest Oregon.)

• "Op Ed: Political Division Is A Hysterical Charade Maintained By Corporate Press" by the chief editor of Disobedient Media, Elizabeth Vos. I particularly recommend that you view the video featuring a discussion about American politics as reality TV show between two very smart women, Vos and journalist Suzie Dawson. They don't yet connect "plutocracy" to the system that inevitably produces plutocracy--capitalism--but they are on the way.

• "The Genocide Conspiracy Against North Korea: An Open Letter to the International Criminal Court" by a Canadian international criminal lawyer, Christopher Black.

The Opioid Epidemic in America - Killing One Million Workers: The Triumph of Capital (Creating a Domestic ‘Shithole’)

Click here to access article by James Petras and Robin Eastman-Abaya from Petras' website.

After a short introduction regarding the use of addictive drugs to open up the China market to British and other advanced capitalist countries, the article continues on in PDF format to describe how Big Pharma in collusion with the government, which they largely control, has decimated mostly the white working population in the USA with modern highly addictive drugs. The authors see this as another manifestation of class warfare to enrich the ruling capitalist class along with many rewards for their compliant, highly educated upper-middle class scientists, technologists, and medical professionals.

There are historical precedents for the successful elimination of drug lords, both
elite and criminal and for bringing addicts back to productive social life. 

Nobody Cares About ‘the News’

Click here to access article by Patrick Armstrong from Strategic Culture Foundation.

In his mordant novel Scoop, Evelyn Waugh has one of his characters explain what "The News" is:

News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead.

There is a great deal of wisdom in this little remark that I will attempt to unpack. It also, in my opinion, succinctly explains why we, who believe ourselves to be so brilliantly analytical and persuasive on sites like this one, have so little success in changing the opinions of our friends and neighbours (or awakening them as we might prefer to say).

Also, I think that the minds of ordinary people in the USA have been rendered largely ineffective to adequately interpret the propaganda which has been carefully crafted by the ruling capitalist class through their control over all institutions--most especially education, media, and entertainment. 

Kafka 2.0: How Youtube’s Political Censorship Is Exercised

Click here to access article by Sayed Hasan from The Unz Review. 

The procedure by which Youtube deletes videos and even the entire content of a channel is comparable to this Gothic novel in more ways than one. As I mentioned in a previous article, my channel Sayed Hasan, which, for more than five years, has subtitled in French and English speeches of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, as well as Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Sayed Ali Khamenei (in addition to interviews with Norman Finkelstein, content about revolutionary Latin America, etc.), was given two strikes by Youtube in less than one month because of two Hassan Nasrallah speeches, on the pretext of a “violation of the rules concerning violent or graphic content on Youtube”. The total suppression of the channel did not take long, since it occurred on December 20th, 2017, after a third and last strike announcing the guillotine, still because of a Hassan Nasrallah speech published in… 2014 – there is no prescription on Youtube, nor half measure. Thus, 400 videos, more than 6 million views and soon 10,000 subscribers have vanished, at the time of the greatest growth in their history. Youtube strives to hide its censorship behind a pseudo-legalistic procedure, but in fact, as we will see, all creators are under the constant threat of its political blade that drastically restricts tolerated contents.

Thought Police for the 21st Century [with two later addenda]

Click here to access article by Chris Hedges from TruthDig. (I again thank my longtime online friend and supporter, Christopher (northwest Oregon) for alerting me to this excellent article. Also I'd like to thank Caren in Oregon for sending me alternatives to Facebook which I have added to this post at 3:15 PM Seattle time.)

I've watched with growing pleasure the transition of Hedges from the low point of his writing when he was still trying to suck up to the ruling class in articles like "The Cancer of Occupy" to where he is now doing a program on RT and associating with socialist David North. He still annoys me by putting "corporate" in front of capitalism which leaves open the implication that there is a good kind of capitalism. Corporate capitalism is only entrepreneurial capitalism that has matured. It is the ugly monster that has grown up from (for some people) the rather cute baby of entrepreneurial capitalism of earlier times.

As a result of censorship that he writes about in this article, my website has also declined in readership from a year ago when it was rapidly increasing following the disillusionment of "Bernie-the-Sheepherder" followers. Mostly long time followers have remained loyal and kept reading my articles and commentaries. Hopefully with people like Hedges and the growing awareness of censorship, my website and other anti-Big Brother/capitalist websites will continue their growth in readership. There is clearly an information war going on and we, the people, are its victims--if we remain passive.

What I don't understand is why websites like The Greanville Post keep encouraging people to use Facebook. Isn't there some other place for people to virtually meet online?

Addendum provided by Caren from Oregon:

https://www.1and1.com/digitalguide/online-marketing/social-media/the-best-facebook-alternatives/

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/13/secure-alternatives-to-facebook-instagram-and-twitter.html

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/six-alternatives-google-facebook-battle-online-privacy-1472156
  
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/6-alternatives-facebook

From another engaged activist, Christopher in northwest Oregon, I received the following posts which also tackled alternatives to Facebook which I added to this post at 9:00 AM, 1/26/2018, Seattle time.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/10/ello_diaspora_and_the_anti_facebook_why_alternative_social_networks_can.html

http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/communication-roundups/6-alternatives-to-facebook/

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/13/secure-alternatives-to-facebook-instagram-and-twitter.html

Leaked Trump infrastructure plan is a plan for corporate subsidies

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from his website Systemic Disorder. 

The Deep State knows how to play the vulgar businessman Donald Trump, but Trump also knows how to play them by feeding them with profits and power. He has given them so many rewards since he's been in office that they are delaying his execution.

The Trump administration’s plans to rebuild infrastructure in the United States have been leaked, and it appears to be as bad as feared. At least three-quarters of intended funding will go toward corporate subsidies, not actual projects. It is possible that no funding will go directly toward projects.

There’s no real surprise here, given that President Donald Trump’s election promise to inject $1 trillion into infrastructure spending was a macabre joke. What is actually happening is that the Trump administration intends to push for more “public-private partnerships.”

Here's a tip whenever you read or listen to news from media corporations: when you encounter the words "reform" and "public-private partnerships", immediately think of advantages for our masters in the capitalist class. They love to disguise their exploitation of ordinary, and often, gullible people by using euphemisms (def.).

The failure of the Soviet economy and the global domination of the petrodollar

Click here to access article by Tobias Pfennig posted on Defend Democracy Press. (Note: this post is marred somewhat by the failure to raise reference numbers in the text. Thus, your attention may be distracted by such text as this: "Additionally, Northern America together with Europe controlled 91 percent of the global export market share2." and this: "In 2013 Oil exports together with gas made up more than 68%3 of the whole exports from the Russian Federation." The post was from a "Text of a speech delivered at the International Conference on Alternatives to Financial Capitalism, held in Chisinau, Moldova 12-13 December 2017", and obviously the numbers should have been raised because they referred to documentation which was left out of this post.")

I think the author has a very good grasp of the potential, and actual use, of economic weapons that have been used by the US-led Empire over the decades since WWII. Because the lethal applications of these weapons are never felt among ordinary people in the countries affiliated with the Empire, they are an ideal weapon of choice against independent countries in order to extend the Empire's (the transnational capitalists affiliated with the Empire) dominance of the world. The imposition of the US dollar on the rest of the world remains a major battlefield, and the entrance on this battlefield by Russia and China (in collaboration with smaller nations) in opposition to the dominance of the Empire looks very promising for the end of Empire dominance.

The AngloZionist family goes on a stroll

Posted on A bird's eye view of the Vineyard from an unknown origin.

This fantastic cartoon was sent to me by a friend who saw it on Moon of Alabama. I did some looking around and the original might well be from here, I am not sure. Whatever may be the case, it gave me such a laugh (I love the little turd at the bottom) that I had to share it with you. Cheers! The Saker  [Note: the little turd is a reference to Ukraine.]

'Ukraine on Fire': Oliver Stone Docu on US Destruction of Ukraine Finally Available in the West (VIDEO)

Click here to access article that includes Oliver Stone's film "Ukraine on Fire" posted on Signs of the Times (SOTT). (Again I must thank my online friend and supporter Christopher from northwest Oregon for alerting me to this post.) (I had to edit it for clarity at around 6:17 PM Seattle time because I made so many errors--I am not feeling 100%.)

I can personally vouch for the accuracy of the facts presented in this film that was again uploaded recently on YouTube. You are encouraged to view it and download it before Google, Inc. which owns YouTube, disappears it. (Notice that I attempted to post the film in March 2017, but it was shortly taken down.) 
 
The article provides an excellent introduction to the film. The film begins with some background history of Ukraine which prepares us for the material presented about this carefully engineered coup d'état starting at about 25 minutes, and you will learn about most of the methods they used.

I documented most of the events of this in separate posts while it was taking place in late 2013 and 2014, and attempted to summarize all my posts until I ran out of energy and time in January of 2015.

Our masters in the Deep State of the USA, lauded for being the "land of the free, and the home of the brave" in a country that pretends to practice democracy, have also taken this experience with "colored revolutions" and crafted it into an advanced method that they are now using against us called "post-truth politics". We are now subject to an ongoing fabrication of reality in order to preserve their capitalist rule and to amass even more profits and power for this tiny class while threatening us with never-ending wars and nuclear wars. In the long run (should we survive that long) we face extinction due to their ongoing assault on the climate.

The Return of the Repressed

Click here to access article by Wolfgang Streeck. (Again in this post I am departing from my

Wolfgang Streeck, an economic sociologist

policy to post current articles (within one month) with my commentaries. I will continue to do this with articles that contribute to our growth in understanding our very troubled human existence.)

I am posting this article from a year ago because I regard Streeck as among the leading discerning thinkers regarding capitalism, and his forte is in reference to the advanced capitalist countries--essentially the US-led Empire (not only the US). I feel that we activists can, and must, learn a lot from him if we are to be successful in creating a bottom-up democratic world order while avoiding the doomsday scenarios awaiting us under the capitalist world order. On the other hand, the reader must take the date of this writing into account (about one year ago) because Streeck did not foresee Trump's yielding to powerful pressures (Russiagate) from the neoliberal Deep State (financial and industrial elites) that govern behind the facade of the official US government. Trump respects power as a highly important means to leverage wealth which to him as a businessman is the highest virtue.) 

This is rather sophisticated writing for those of you who have not had the opportunity for advanced education. Here is a sample of his writing so that you can decide if you want to read the whole article:

As a process of institutional and political regression the neoliberal revolution inaugurated a new age of post-factual politics. [5] This had become necessary because neoliberal globalization was far from actually delivering the prosperity for all that it had promised. [6] The inflation of the 1970s and the unemployment that accompanied its harsh elimination were followed by a rise in government debt in the 1980s and the restoration of public finances by ‘reforms’ of the welfare state in the 1990s. These in turn were followed, as compensation, by opening up generous opportunities for private households to access credit and get indebted. Simultaneously, growth rates declined, although or because inequality and aggregate debt kept increasing. Instead of trickle-down there was the most vulgar sort of trickle-up: growing income inequality between individuals, families, regions..... The promised service economy and knowledge-based society turned out to be smaller than the industrial society that was fast disappearing; hence a constant expansion of the numbers of people who were no longer needed. This surplus population of a revived capitalism on the move looked helplessly and uncomprehendingly at the transformation of the tax state into a debt state...as a result of which they found themselves worse and worse off. [7] [My link to a new (to me), very useful concept. See illustrations of this in Eva Bartlett's article in the adjacent post.]

A Personal Reply to the Fact-Challenged Smears of Terrorist-Whitewashing Channel 4, Snopes and La Presse

Click here to access article by Eva Bartlett from In Gaza. (Note: Bartlett refers to Polish-Canadian journalist Agnès Gruda employed by the Canadian newspaper La Presse located in Montreal.)

Bartlett illustrates many examples of post-factual politics that Streeck described in the adjacent post that features prominently in the US-led Empire's political strategy.

How about the “fact checkers” and apologists look into why the White Helmets recycled an image claiming to show a victim of “Russian airstrikes” after having previously used the same image before Russia even began bombing ISIS in Syria.