If capitalism must end, what should replace it?

Click here to access article by Michael D, Yates posted on Climate & Capitalism. 

The consequences of capital’s drive to accumulate are those outlined in the first paragraphs above. These will, without doubt, intensify in the coming years, with more and more wealth concentrated at the top, with those at the bottom enduring nothing but suffering, with the planet heating up and making human life increasingly precarious. This means that we are doomed unless radical, all-encompassing change takes place. There are two implications of this.

Read the article to find out the details about these two implications, and about what a new social system could look like.

Caracas Chronicles, Part I of an Ongoing Series

Click here to access article by Ken Silverstein from WashingtonBabylon.com.

I just got back from Venezuela and I’ll be writing a lot about the country next week. Virtually everything you read or see about it in the U.S. media is a lie. And to be clear, I don’t mean skewed or misleading or incomplete, I mean a lie.

This independent observer continues on to report what he actually saw on his visit to Venezuela. 

If this article of is interest to you, you might also be interested in the CIA's record of the USA's interference in Venezuelan affairs by reading "The CIA’s View of Venezuela: What We Learn From the Archives" by T.J. Coles from TeleSur. 

Reshaping the Middle East: why the West should stop its Interventions (part 3)

Click here to access article by Elijah J. Magnier from his blog. (part 1 and part 2) (Updated at 11:33 AM CT to include a link to an article by Zuesse.)

In this segment (the last?) one of the world's top (independent) journalists continues to write about all the reasons "why the West should stop its interventions" both in the form of military invasions either directly or by proxy and economic sanctions. This record which he punctuates with graphic illustrations demonstrates that the US, Anglo, Zionist Empire's interventions have caused one disaster after another in the region. But, of course, that is no concern of our criminal masters in the transnational capitalist class who are "the deciders" of these interventions. They want nothing short of control of the entire world. (They already control us through our minds with their use of indoctrination and 24/7 propaganda.)

Recommended articles for Friday, March 1, 2019

• Carbon Taxes Won’t Stop Climate Change by Brian O'Boyle from Rebel (Republic of Ireland). The author gives you the history of the carbon tax fix in Ireland offered by Irish capitalists to cope with global warming. This is the same story, except for details, throughout the capitalist world; and their fix has not changed, nor was it meant to, the destabilization of our climate.

• What's next for US-North Korea ties after Hanoi summit failure? by Faras Ghani from Al Jazeera.

• Salvador Allende’s grandson calls for international solidarity as Venezuela faces US-backed coup, a 5:57m video from The Canary (Britain).

Pablo Navarrete reports from Venezuela, where Pablo Allende – grandson of former Chilean President Salvador Allende – gives a chilling summary of how the US and its allies have destabilised left-wing governments in Latin America and beyond to further their own imperialist interests.

• Michael Cohen hearing: A criminal administration, a reactionary opposition by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site. (I view nearly all governments to date as being illegitimate because they were originally installed by violence in order to serve a tiny ruling class.)

As Al Capone once said, "Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class." 

Recommended articles for Thursday, February 28, 2019 (content added)

• Trump Sticks To Sanctions - U.S., North Korea Summit Fails by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama. (Updated at 4:47 PM CT to add Magnier's article.)

• The Empire sharpens the class struggle by Patrick Corbett from The Greanville Post.

• Amerikan Demokracy: Gatekeeper of Tyranny by Philip A Farruggio from The Greanville Post.

• Can Netanyahu risk a “battle of missiles” with Syria? by Elijah J Magnier for his blog. 

Returning Syrian Refugees Were Fleeing US Proxy War, Not “Assad”

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

Why would people – enjoying refugee status in neighboring countries and even in Europe, risk returning to Syria where “brutal dictator” Bashar Al Assad not only still remains in power – but has decisively defeated his opponents through the use of “barrel bombs,” “chemical weapons,” and other forms of indescribable brutality?

The answer is simple – refugees were fleeing the US-backed war and the terrorists it had armed to divide and destroy the country – not the Syrian government. The vast majority of Syria’s displaced remained inside Syria – and simply moved into areas under government protection. Now with many other areas of the country having security restored by government forces with Russian and Iranian backing – hundreds of thousands more are returning from abroad, including from Europe – according to the BBC itself.

Great effort had been put into misrepresenting the refugee crisis the Syrian conflict triggered – specifically because the specifics of the crisis clearly revealed who Syrians were really fleeing and why. Analysis of Syria’s internally displaced refugees was intentionally and systematically omitted by the BBC and other Western media organizations in their reports over the years to obfuscate the fact refugees were fleeing militants, and voluntarily returning once militants were pushed out of various regions across Syria.

Cartalucci concludes that the BBC does not report news, but functions purely as a propaganda machine. He should also have concluded that all Empire-controlled media corporations serve the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, and as such are all propaganda machines.

This transnational Empire controls not only their media corporations, but all institutions (for the latest example, see this) in the nations under their control; and they, like never before, insure that all institutions serve their capitalist Empire. When this control breaks down, our capitalist masters have no hesitation and no qualms about calling out their military forces to impose violence on their populations. France is the current illustration. The Empire's capitalism has inevitably evolved into fascism with their thorough use of deception and violence, the last stage of capitalism.

All ruling classes, and especially the capitalist ruling class which has refined deception into nearly a science. They rely on deception to maintain their illegitimate exploitation of working people. Nowadays I witness deception everywhere in corporate media coverage as well as in statements made by official representatives of the ruling class. Being retired, I am fortunate to have the time to read in order to check out sources, but the average working stiff has little time left over after struggling to survive, and thus is rather easily deceived. When they can no longer deceive working people is when they resort to the mailed fist of fascism. So where lies hope?

It appears to me that the capitalist system now faces some unsolvable crises, crises beyond the usual ones of boom and bust, wars, widening gaps between rich and poor, uncontrollable and ever expanding debt that characterize capitalism. Now the capitalists’ obsession with never ending pursuits of profits and power have come up against finite environmental limits for many decades. Their obsession is constantly degrading the environment and threatening catastrophic destabilization of our climate. 

Perhaps as working people experience the shocks of widespread unemployment, loss of home ownership, less educational opportunities for their children, more debts for those in advanced education, desertification, violent changes in climate, etc., corporate media along with corrupt official representatives and spokespersons will become thoroughly discredited. Then maybe it will be possible to organize working people to take back their government, to create their own media, to create a just and peaceful, sustainable society. My constant anxiety is that by that time, it will be too late.  

Russia Slides Towards Internal Political Crisis (MUST SEE SouthFront video report!)

Click here to access article by "The Saker" (Andrei Raevsky) from his blog A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. (This is a very important post for two reasons: "The Saker" is a very knowledgeable source for all things Russian and the source he features, SouthFront, is also very reliable.)

After he cites data that support the argument that the Russian government is declining in its support among the public and the likely reasons for this, The Saker writes: 

Meanwhile the general population has no effective levers of pressure to affect or correct government policy. The public political sphere has become a desert. United Russia (Edinaya Rossiya) is the only political party still de—facto existing in public politics. By now its ideological and organizational capabilities have become exhausted. Other “political parties and organizations” are just media constructs designed to defend the interests of a narrow group of their sponsors. It is hard to find a lawmaker in the State Duma or the Federation Council, who is not affiliated with the cliquish top political elite and oligarch clans.

In the media sphere, the government has failed to explain its current course to the population. A vast majority of the initiatives of Medvedev’s cabinet face a negative reaction from the population. A spate of scandals involving high and middle level government officials made the situation even worse.

Others have noticed this split between President Putin and the Prime Minister Medvedev, but The Saker adds specific poll data and analysis to this phenomenon. It is worrying indeed. In the Russian government, the president is in command of the armed forces and likely foreign affairs while the prime minister is in charge of domestic affairs. Putin and Medvedev have been exchanging these roles during the past number of years. 

‘We Don’t Do Propaganda’

Click here to access article from Media Lens (Britain).

An editor of Media Lens tackles the issue of propaganda served to us by our media corporations. It's clear to me, and hopefully it is clear to you, that the capitalist ruling classes have always selected news and news reporters to support their interests of profits and power. But this type of propaganda has evolved since the fascist capitalists took over the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire beginning in Britain with the Thacherites and in the USA beginning with the Reagan administration, both of which permitted Zionists to infiltrate key government posts. 

This evolution led to the outright control of all media corporations by the CIA which were ordered to do so by their masters in the Deep State. Instead of being subject to mere advertising pressures from industrial and other commercial corporations, media corporations are now under the direct control of the Deep State as evident in the way they monolithically report the news which is filled with obvious propaganda and repeat certain themes consistently over time. The limits of dissenting views have become much narrower since the fascist capitalists, aka "neocons", "ziocons", etc, have infiltrated key areas of our government and media corporations. As I wrote in the previous link:

How this secretive complex of organizations mediate and operationalize their decisions remains a mystery. However, it must be understood that the Deep State controls all significant institutions using bribes, threats, perks, career advancements, etc., and especially rewards those who demonstrate and promote the approved themes of indoctrination and Empire propaganda.

Most American intellectuals and academics refuse to recognize this version of the Deep State as defined by me. They have either been trained not to see it due to many years of indoctrination by US universities or they deliberately avoid such a meaning because harm will come to their careers.

Recommended articles to keep you politically aware on Tuesday

• Turkey’s position on Venezuela- a Perspective from the Left by Justus Links from LeftEast. (I cannot vouch for this author, but because the article is posted in a leftist website based in Bulgaria and offered a Turkish point of view, I thought it should offer a different perspective on the Venezuelan situation as well as Turkish politics.)

• Turkish Army seeking to build new bases to block Syrian Army offensive in Idlib from AMN (based in Beirut, Lebanon).

• This Map Shows a Trillion-Dollar Reason Why US is Backing Terrorism in Western China by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.

The global struggle of teachers

Click here to access article by Jerry White from World Socialist Web Site. 

I frequently read in more independent websites that teachers are involved in labor strikes not only in many locations across the USA but in other lands across the globe. Such coverage is always omitted by our masters in their media corporations just like they refuse to cover the Gilet Juanes' ongoing protests in France for obvious reasons: the careful management of information that we are allowed to receive to protect the power and profit interests of the ruling transnational capitalist class of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. White attempts a summary of these strikes and their significance. 

Teachers have won popular support because they are fighting for fundamental rights and because all workers are facing the same conditions—declining incomes and skyrocketing living costs, precarious employment and endless attacks on social rights, including health care and pensions—which were won over generations of struggle.

The developing movement among teachers is an initial expression of a rebellion that will inevitably extend into broader layers of the working class, particularly industrial workers in key sectors such as auto, steel and other areas of manufacturing. It is a movement that will be compelled to address not only the immediate questions of wages and working conditions, but the great issues that face workers in every country—social inequality, the shredding of democratic rights, the growth of authoritarian forms of rule and the mounting danger of catastrophic war.

Watch My Speech On Assange’s Persecution For “Whistle-blowing, Wikileaks & the Future of Democracy”

Click here if you wish to access the video from its source: Australian Caitlin Johnstone's website.

I gave a speech at the Sydney Politics in the Pub event “Whistle-blowing, Wikileaks & the Future of Democracy”. Here it is if you’d like to watch (video quality isn’t great, but the audio’s fine): 

Mr Bolton’s Long Game Against Iran – Pakistan Becomes Saudi Arabia’s New Client State

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation. (This article requires a greater degree of knowledge of recent events in the Middle East.)

Despite the history of Crooke's service to the Anglo section of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, he continues to shed light on the Empire's covert strategies in the politically important region of Eurasia. This rather mysterious geopolitical analyst has written some solidly argued analyses of recent political events, and this is one of the best, in my opinion. Bolton appears to be continuing the David Rockefeller's protege Zbigniew Brzezinski and his influence outlined in his book The Grand Chessboard together with the current Empire's obsession with Iran. 

US Special Forces, (mostly) withdrawn from Syria, are deploying into this new Iraq military ‘hub’ in order, Trump said, to “watch Iran”. (Trump rather inadvertently ‘let the cat out of the bag’ with that comment).

The detail of the US ‘hub encirclement’ of Iran, however, rather gives the rest of Mr Bolton’s plan away: The ‘hubs’ are positioned precisely adjacent to Sunni, Kurdish, Baluch or other Iranian ethnic minorities (some with a history of insurgency). And why is it that US special forces are being assembled in the Iraqi hub? Well, these are the specialists of ‘train and assist’ programmes. These forces are attached to insurgent groups to ‘train and assist’ them to confront a sitting government. Eventually, such programmes end with safe-zone enclaves that protect American ‘companion forces’ ....

The covert element to the MESA programme, targeting Iran, is ambitious, but it will be supplemented in the next months with new rounds of economic squeeze intended to sever Iran’s oil sales (as waivers expire), and with diplomatic action, aimed at disrupting Iran’s links in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.

Earlier in the article he explains what the MESA program is:

MESA (Middle East Security Alliance) maybe the new bland vehicle for a seemingly gentler Arab NATO, but its covert sub-layer is, under Mr Bolton’s guidance, as fixated on Iran, as was ‘Arab NATO’ at the outset. How would it be otherwise (given Team Trump’s obsession with Iran)?

And he continues his cogent analysis citing the recent moves and interests of all the other players in this dangerous part of the world.

The Magic Socialist

Click here to access article by C. J. Hopkins from his blog Consent Factory, Inc.

In his latest article America's master-satirist takes aim at Sen. Bernie Sanders (see the latest revelation), his very naive followers, and at the managed elections held by the capitalist ruling class:

... that’s the magic of electoral politics! The global capitalist ruling establishment, despite the fact that they own the banks and the corporations that own the government that owns the military and intelligence services, and despite the fact that they own the media, and all essential industries, and channels of trade, and are relentlessly restructuring the entire planet (which they rule with almost total impunity) to conform to their soulless neoliberal ideology, and are more than happy to unleash their militarized goons on anyone who gets in their way … despite all that, if we elect Bernie president, they will have no choice but to peacefully surrender, and transform America into a socialist wonderland!  

‘The Establishment’s Last Roll of the Dice’: What Will Become of Europe?

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation. (I missed this essential article because I was distracted by personal medical issues. Thankfully, Pepe Escobar alerted me to this post.)

Clearly he uses "The Establishment" (in the headline) to mean the hidden-from-your-view, transnational capitalist class that controls the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire.

Crooke, who has an extensive history in Britain's CIA (MI-6) and diplomatic corps, reviews the rather dismal scene in today's Europe: the "Gilets Jaunes" mostly in France, the threats to the Italian economy, a downturn in the German economy, Brexit issues, etc, and draws some rather dramatic interpretations.

I think that you’ll find that after ‘08 people understand a lot more about finance than they did before ‘08. They may not realize it, but I think they now understand bailouts, they understand how unfair bailouts are when they’re targeted at Wall Street, as opposed to Main Street. And I think that what you’re going to see, sadly, is the Fed and the government will do what they’ve always tried to do, which is bail out Wall Street to ‘save the system’.

If you have a bad economy and you have people feeling like they’re disenfranchised and you tell them, you know what, we need to do this to save the system, well, suddenly the reaction changes. And the reaction is to hell with it, let’s burn the system to the ground.  

US Executes Planned Venezuela Violence, Pompeo Says Cuba, Nicaragua Next & US Doubles Syria Troops

Click here if you wish to access the one hour video and introductory article by Ryan Cristián directly from The Last American Vagabond.

Cristián contrasts what is happening in Venezuela to what is reported by mostly US Empire media corporations. I can't confirm every last details of actual events as presented by Cristián, but I think his version is light-years better than what the Empire's media corporations report which is propaganda disguised as reporting and ordered by fascist Empire capitalists to deceive you.

The climate emergency with Dahr Jamail

Click here if you wish to directly access a 28:27m video of an interview with Dahr Jamail on Chris Hedges' "On Contact" show that is posted on RT America. (My thanks go to a long-time activist for alerting me to this video.)

The following is an introduction to this video:

The glaciers in Alaska alone are losing an estimated 75 billion tons of ice every year. The oceans, which absorb over 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, are warming and acidifying, melting the polar ice caps and resulting in rising sea-levels and oxygen-starved ocean dead zones. We await a 50-gigaton burp, or "pulse," of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, which will release the equivalent of around two-thirds of the total carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial era. Some 150 to 200 species of plants, insects, birds and mammals are becoming extinct every 24 hours – one thousand times the "natural" or "background" rate. This pace of extinction is greater than anything the world has experienced since the disappearance of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Chris Hedges speaks to journalist and author, Dahr Jamail, about his new book 'The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption,' which looks at the climate emergency.

  

It's clearer now than ever before that climate destabilization has already set in. Chalk another victory to the addicts of power and profits--capitalist ruling classes all over the world (in addition to their collaborators among the highly trained, indoctrinated, and pampered upper-middle classes) who have been the main criminals perpetrating this crime. What does this mean for those who have long witnessed the destruction of our biosphere upon which so many species depend including our own human species? 

I, for one, choose to continue my fight against those who are guilty of this monstrous crime of ecocide: capitalists who have imposed on the rest of us through violence and chicanery the system of capitalism. I don't care if addiction is a disease or not because those who have succumbed to this addiction have used the most criminal means possible to commit this monstrous crime. What about you? What is your choice?