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, March 16, 2019

It’s the Green New Deal or Else

Click here to access article by Paul Street from Strategic Culture Foundation
Now that we understand these economic realities [as presented to us by capitalist class "experts"], we can prepare—without rebellion, with calm acceptance and within the limits of our stagnant incomes—for our coming extinction. Onward with the coming macroeconomic ecocide. [satire]

Except, wait. Hold on. Maybe Ohanian
[one of the "experts"] is full of petroligarchic crap. Maybe there’s still hope for the species after all.
He is, and there is [maybe].   [my insertions]

The road to hell

By cartoonist Max Gustafson from his website.

Friday, March 15, 2019

3-5°C temperature rise is now ‘locked-in’ for the Arctic

Click here to access the latest press release from the United Nation's Environment Programme. 
Nairobi, 13 March 2019 – Even if the world were to cut emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, winter temperatures in the Arctic would rise 3-5°C by 2050 and 5-9°C by 2080, devastating the region and unleashing sea level rises worldwide, finds a new report by UN Environment.

Meanwhile, rapidly thawing permafrost could even accelerate climate change further and derail efforts to meet the Paris Agreement’s long-term goal of limiting the rise in global temperature to 2°C, warns Global Linkages - A graphic look at the changing Arctic.
More bad news that will be ignored or pushed to the back pages of corporate newspapers so that the implications of this latest news will not discourage anyone from getting into their vehicle to go shopping, flying across country, generally engaging in business as usual, or questioning the capitalist system that makes all these activities (and much more) essential to the functioning of the system. We wouldn't want to interfere with the tiny class of capitalists getting drug-fixes from their obsessive pursuit of profits and power, would we? 

Thursday, March 14, 2019

Recommended articles for Thursday, March 14, 2019

Yellow Vests: The search for a “collective Robespierre”, for a new Incorruptible!

Click here to access article by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, a Greek journalist, posted on United World (based in Turkey).  (A "best post".)

I'm beginning to regard the author as a very deep thinker. 

In this article he has reported on conversations with various people in France in order to make make sense of the Yellow Vest movement. He has learned much. The ordinary French people are coming together, learning from each other and their rich history of revolution, and from all appearances, to be in an incipient stage of developing a revolutionary consciousness that could challenge the rule of their neoliberal masters (the current rule of transnational capitalists). 
The French popular classes have proven that they possess enough accumulated social intelligence and political experience, on the one hand, to demolish the arguments of the Neoliberals and, on the other, to articulate their demands of radical control of the political system, long ago bought and controlled by the Financial Oligarchy.

Richard Wolff on the money behind Brexit

Economist Wolff gives his interpretation of what in going on in Britain over the Brexit issue.

But first, RT reporter Eisa Ali brings up-to-date on the main facts about Brexit, the past vote to leave membership in the European Union. The main facts are that Britain is not prepared for leaving which by law is March 29th because they don't have import taxes and customs like they did before. Perhaps the Parliament will simply extend this deadline beyond March 29, 2019. 

The socialist economist sees it as the British people's surprising rejection of the economy since the collapse in 2008, much like the surprising election of Trump in the USA, and pits the rich financial sector against the people in general who are dissatisfied with the continuing poor economic conditions.

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Max Blumenthal: Report From the Real Venezuela

R. J. Eskow of the Zero Hour, a channel of YouTube, interviews Max Blumenthal, who has recently returned from Venezuela. 



Having visited Venezuela at the end of 2005 and followed events there closely many years thereafter, I had some basis for evaluating Blumenthal's report. I found his observations to be completely credible. But I was surprised at one of his statements.

He said starting at 8:58m after describing a protest demonstration at the east end of Caracas, the rich district, that he witnessed the end of the coup attempt. Thus, he clearly implies that if the Empire's regime-change project is going to succeed that a US invasion or some proxy invasion would be necessary. I regard this implication as completely unrealistic from an even imperialist point of view. 


I think the whole project of regime-change in Venezuela was a result of an almost hysterical attempt to salvage the Empire's costly defeat in Syria. I now think that this regime-change defeat has broken the Empire's back, so to speak, and the rather slow disintegration of the domination of the Empire is in progress. I see indications everywhere. The following posts I read today support this view: Video: The Price of US “Protection” Is Skyrocketing. Donald Trump’s “Ransom Money” Exacted from America’s Allies, Are we witnessing a new wave of the Arab Spring?, President Rouhani Visits Iraq in broad daylight, The End of Truth as We Know It – Or Knew It along with the ongoing Yellow Vest movement in France. Maybe I'm engaging in wishful thinking--you decide.


If I am correct, this view ultimately portends dramatic changes for the standard of living for ordinary people in the USA. Who knows where this will lead?

Wealth Concentration Drives a New Global Imperialism

Click here to access article by Peter Phillips from Project Censored. (I thank an activist for alerting me to this article.)

This professor of sociology summarizes a lot of material to indicate that the system of capitalism is presently literally deadly for the vast majority of humans. The system only serves a tiny minority and it compels them to engage in activities that result in ever greater concentrations of wealth which inevitably results in greater extremes of inequality, wars, the destruction of our habitat, and in the end the extinction of humans (although this is only implied). He states what is becoming obvious to most thinking, unbrainwashed people. 

What Phillips and other thinking people should have been doing is actively engaging in activities that undermine the system by engaging in revolutionary activities to change the system. Perhaps he in his pursuit of an educational career has tried to do this by creating greater awareness of the destructive tendencies of capitalism. However, these aware individuals have been isolated mostly in universities and being few in number mostly as a result of capitalist control of all agencies of indoctrination. 

Many people in other countries, in China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Syria, etc, are waking up to the destruction forces of the system and are fighting back. The story of humans is not yet finished.  

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Nasrallah on the End of US Hegemony: Trump will Leave the Middle East, Region Already Reshaping

Click here to access this interview with Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah Secretary General conducted by Ghassan Ben Jeddou, founder of the pan-Arab and anti-imperialist Al-Mayadeen TV channel in Lebanon originally posted on Resistance News, Unfilitered which is banned from YouTube by its owner, Google. The posts are picked up and apparently translated by The Unz Review for viewers in the USA. ("Sayed" is an honorary title.)

I listened to both parts of the interview that was held on January 26 on the Lebanese TV station which was very recently posted on this website. I was very impressed with Nasrallah's analysis because it brought together so much I have learned from my readings, research, and posts on this website/blog.

I would go further by arguing that the colonial powers (Britain, USA, and France) are primarily responsible for the turmoil and suffering that has occurred especially recently in the Middle East. This was implied by one of the statements that Nasrallah made (at about 14:24m in the second segment); to paraphrase: the governments would not exist in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Egypt (essentially the old Arab League) without the support of the US Empire. And, of course, Israel should be included. Thus, the conflicts that have divided this region would not exist, although Turkey might still be a problem.


Obama’s ‘Hope and Change’ was a ‘mirage’ says Ilhan Omar

Click here to access article from The Canary (Britain) which gathered the Congresswoman's (Minneapolis voting district) comments from a much longer interview posted on Politico.
The “hope and change” offered by former President Barack Obama was a “mirage”, according to Muslim congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

She made the comments during a recent interview with Politico. Politico contrasted Omar, a newly elected US Democratic Party representative from Minnesota, with Dean Phillips, a wealthy businessman. Minnesotans also recently elected Phillips to congress, whom Politico characterised as a centrist and pragmatist.
 

Monday, March 11, 2019

Anti-Semitism Pandemic!

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

Hopkins aims his spectacularly endowed satirical weapons on a "virus" that is taking control over the minds of people in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire: antisemitism! This attack is most virulent in Britain. And it's likely coming to America, if not already here! "Read all about it." The Zionist world is especially upset at this development (see this, this, and this). Hopkins concludes with this sage advice:
... get out those vintage plague doctor masks, lock your critical thinking up in your anti-anti-Semitism safe room, and pull up Schindler’s List on Netflix … oh, and don’t forget to scour the Internet for any criticism of the capitalist ruling classes, or the corporate media, or neoliberalism, or any other anti-Semitic tropes!

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Maduro’s claim that Washington has used cyberwarfare to bring down Venezuela’s power grid cannot be so easily dismissed

Click here to access article by Stephen Gowans from his blog What's Left.

As the corporate media and so-called "public media" are urging us to believe that the Maduro government's failings are responsible for the power outage in Venezuela, Gowans argues with documentation and the history of the US's record about causing chaos in countries in which it desires regime change that agents of the USA is more likely the cause of the power outage.
To be sure, there is, at this point, no concrete evidence that Washington has sabotaged Venezuela’s electrical grid, but it has the capability to do so, a record of using cyberattacks against countries slated for regime change, a motivation to throw Venezuela into crisis, and a game plan it has used repeatedly in other countries.

The US hand may be absent from this week’s power failures in Venezuela, but chances are it wasn’t.