Online articles recommended for Saturday, April 20, 2019

• Earth Day, Planetary Boundaries, and the Green New Deal by Howie Hawkins from Dissident Voice.

Conversion to an ecologically sustainable and just economy cannot happen under the capitalist system. Capitalism’s competitive structure drives blind, relentless growth that is consuming and destroying the biosphere. Its competitive international structure breeds wars for resources, markets, cheap labor, and geopolitical military advantages. With the nuclear weapons of the nuclear powers on hair-trigger alert and a new nuclear arms race now underway, the capitalist system will annihilate us if we don’t replace it with an ecosocialist system first.

• Before Ousting Assange, Moreno Government Spied on the Journalist for Over a Year by "jimmysllama" from Mint Press News (based in Minneapolis). Excellent piece of investigative reporting.

• China's Belt and Road Continues to Win Over Europe While Technocrats Scream and Howl by Matthew Ehret from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

• France braces for 'yellow vest' flare-up amid anger over rush of riches for cathedral from PressTV (Iran). 

US Defeat in Syria Transforms into Campaign of Spite

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

Read this post to see how the author, using excellent documentation (one from the "horse's mouth" (def.): Foreign Affairs, a journal of the directorate of the US ruling capitalist class), reaches this conclusion:

While Washington has lost its war against Syria, it continues its war on peace. It will spoil attempts by Syria to move forward – and by doing so – and more than anything else – illustrating to the world that its own malign interests and agenda wrecked the region – not “ISIS” and not “Iranians” or “Russians.”

The US campaign of spite will continue onward both in Syria and across the rest of the region until an alternative regional and global order can be established that allows nations to sufficiently defend against US aggression and interference and enables the world to move on without those special interests on Wall Street and in Washington driving America’s current battle for hegemony.

Articles recommended for Friday, April 19, 2019

After perusing a number of articles from normally reliable sources, my mind is boggled. I can hardly see what the future has in store for us except anything other than major changes.

• Why Isn’t Oil-Rich Russia Helping Its Syrian “Ally” Survive The Fuel Crisis? by Andrew Korybko from Eurasia Future. (This article is by an American, who lives in Russia, and who normally approves of Russian actions.)

• Middle East Resistance Is Stiffening by Tom Luongo from Russia News Now (I am posting this from the latter website because of ongoing problems with accessing the original post on Strategic Culture Foundation.)

• Six months after it begins, the oligarchs/Macron versus Gilets Jaunes battle is still raging and will keep on by "The Saker" (Andrei Raevsky) from his blog A bird's eye view of the Vineyard.

• 5G: The Dominoes Are Starting To Fall by Claire Edwards from her blog Take Back Your Power.

•  Climate science supports youth protests by Alex Kirby from Climate News Network.

• Google 'disables' Press TV’s YouTube account without prior warning from PressTV (Iran). (Google's censorship strikes again!)

Assessing the Green New Dea

Click here to access article by Eléana Ní Mhurchú from Rebel (Ireland). Added some minor editing to my commentary at 1 AM CT on Saturday, April 21 to add clarity.)

Even this "socialist" website devotes only one line to the realistic fact that only a revolutionary change from a capitalist economy to an economy directed by the people can produce real policies to prevent catastrophic climate destabilization. And, this is only stated in vague, abstract terms by including it in the last paragraph:

Combating climate change, however, ultimately requires expropriating resources from the rich in order to mitigate the worst effects of an increasingly hostile climate.

At this political stage, the Green New Deal is only in a "simple resolution" phase before Congress. That is a notion of intent much like an individual's New Year's resolution to lose weight in the coming year. There are so many legislative tricks to dodge a real implementation of any substantive change in the operations of the economy. The latter is under the control of private individuals realistically identified as a capitalist class, and they won't tolerate their government to meddle in what they regard as their affairs. 

The capitalist class is a (tiny) ruling class that shapes all institutions of society to serve their interests. If you think they are going to allow their funded representatives to pass laws to expropriate their private ownership of the economy, I think you should commit yourself to the nearest mental institution. Besides at this stage of consciousness, the people have been so dumbed-down that they don't even know that capitalism is responsible for the climate crisis. They have been taught 24/7 from birth that the economic system is "free markets" rather than capitalism. Hence, they can't even express in words what the economic system actually is. Their minds have been so manipulated for so long that they have very little comprehension of political and economic realities.

Some revolutionary people are supporting the "Green New Deal" because they have fantasies that eventually people will recover their mental capacities sufficiently that they will get behind an effort to take away the private ownership of the economy and restore this vital societal sphere to societal control. As a life-long socialist I can hardly blame them. To do nothing is to accept defeat. So, I guess we must accept reality for what it is and "grasp at any straws" (def.) that present themselves.  

Julian Assange’s extraordinary record of investigative journalism

Click here to access article by Oscar Grenfell from World Socialist Web Site.

The illegal arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange inside Ecuador’s London embassy, and the attempt by the US to extradite him on concocted conspiracy charges, are a frontal assault on freedom of the press.

The Trump administration, with the support of the Democrats, and US allies including Britain and Australia, is seeking to establish a precedent that criminalises genuine investigative journalism, including the publication of classified material exposing government illegality.

This is nothing less than an attempt to abolish the function of a genuine free press, established over centuries of struggle against despotism.

Then Grenfell launches into a description of what Julian Assange and Wikileaks has accurately revealed about war crimes committed by the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire which makes it quite a lengthy article. Of course, the directors of this Empire do not want their crimes revealed to the general public. So, if you like such crimes committed in secret by powerful people, you also want Assange punished. They want you to be only "informed" by their media corporations which they control.

Articles recommended to deepen your understanding of what is going on in the world as of 4/17/2019

• The Latin American Left’s Setbacks: What Does It All Mean? This is an interview with Prof. Steve Ellner posted on Venezuelanalysis.com.

• Extreme heat is growing threat to harvests by Tim Radford from Climate News Network. 

• Gallup Quietly Admits ‘Israeli vs. Palestinian’ Sympathy Polls Are Misleading by Grant Smith from Antiwar.com.

• 10 Things We Know Thanks to WikiLeaks by "Juventud Rebelde" from Network in Defense of Humanity. 

• Protests organized across Europe, demanding action to prevent climate change by Vyshakh T from Peoples Dispatch. 

• Julian Assange and the Agenda for Global War by Prof. James Petras from Global Research. 

• Yellow Vests Struggle to Reinvent Democracy by Richard Greeman from The Bullet (Canada).

Honest Government Ad

Click here if you wish to this satirical video from YouTube directly. It was produced and uploaded by The Juice Media channel. (I must thank my good friend in Oregon for alerting me to this outstanding satirical video.)

Posts recommended for Tuesday, April 16, 2019

• Tucker Carlson Defends Assange. Huh? from The Jimmy Dore Show via YouTube.

• Secret Plutonium Shipment by Maggie Gundersen from Fairewinds Energy Education.

• US Tax Day 2019: Sixty giant corporations pay zero income tax by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

VIDEO: How the Pentagon and CIA Push Venezuela Regime-Change Propaganda in Video Games

Click here to access article by Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton from their blog The Grayzone.

I've long been a critic of video war games. It seemed to me that the propaganda agents of the Deep (capitalist) State have used this popular entertainment package designed for youth to prepare them for ongoing wars that they were planning. And, no doubt was in my mind that they would insert their insidious propaganda to further focus the minds of our innocent children's attention on the Empire's "enemies du jour".  All that was needed was a "9/11" type of event. And, sure enough, the 9/11 event happened and our young adults went dutifully off to fight wars in foreign lands because "terrorists" were threatening us. 

The authors report on the involvement of the Pentagon and CIA in video game production.

"The Holocaust" Is a Myth That Conceals Our Shame

Click here to access article by Kevin Barrett posted on The Unz Review. 

The author makes a good point about how history is often distorted by the use of victimization, and with particular emphasis on the current success of the victimization of the Jews that Zionists constantly use. As I was reading, I was wondering where he was going with this because he seemed to imply that it is human nature or institutional religion that are the root causes of this phenomenon. But finally at the end, he finds hope in the mysticism of various religions to rescue human nature and its culture from the "murderous lies" of such mythologies.

Ultimately it is the mystical dimension of traditional religion that holds the most hope for overcoming the murderous lies at the heart of human nature and culture.

I notice that he never mentions class or rulers and the uses of victimization to secure their rule. In contrast, he diverts attention from such a view, from socialists who argue that the analysis of class structure accounts for most of human history, and that the history of WWII in particular was a history of competing capitalist empires for world dominance. The US, Anglo, Zionist Empire won. Hence the ascendance of the myth of Jewish victimization which serves to diminish all the other victims.

... all culture is based on murder and lies, can we ever stop killing and lying? Marxists think a materialist utopia would do the trick. But murderous and uncontrollable mimetic-desire-driven envy is ubiquitous, even (especially) among those whose material needs are fully satisfied.

Perhaps Barrett is also serving the powerful of today.

Uncle Tom’s Empire

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

Hopkins first aims his satirical weapons at the "mandarins of the corporate media" (the talking heads on TV and their bosses in corporate media), but then goes on seriously to make a rather convincing argument, especially as applied to people like Manning and Assange:

The goal of the media and other propagandists is not to deceive or mislead the masses. Their goal is to evoke the pent-up rage and hatred simmering within the masses and channel it toward the official enemy. 

However, I think the "mandarins" mostly do this when the directors of the Empire engage in obviously despicable behavior, but otherwise they do both: deceive and direct anger at their enemies.

A Marriage of Conscience: Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning

Click here to access article by Edward Curtin posted on Titanic Lifeboat Academy, a website administered by dear friends who have dedicated so much of their lives to alerting others that what we are doing is causing the destruction of our very own habitat.

The way I see it, no reference must be made to some obscure painting by a 16th century painter and to ancient mythology that are only known by a few highly educated people in the 21st century.

No, I think because there is so much evidence all around us in the 21st century that suggests that we, the people, have been so ground down, so inured to the suffering of others and the destruction of nature by the ruling capitalist class. Our masters in this class live by the principle that "there is not such thing as society, there are only families" (with some consideration for our neighbors so as not to offend them), and that we should no longer be moved by the suffering of others and the destruction of our habitat.

Unfortunately, our masters have insured that we were taught to believe only in our happiness and comfort and that of "our" patriarchal families (an extension of ourselves), that we, like they, don't care about the plight of others. It is because of such indoctrination that we in the 21st century have become uncaring about the suffering of others because of what we, our neighbors, and our masters do. We look away so as not to be disturbed by these ugly sights.

Like Icarus of ancient lore, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange refused to follow what they had been taught. They were so stricken with the awareness that what we do causes the suffering of others that they had to report these facts.

Still, the Icarus in each of us cannot be completely disappeared and forever--there is much risk for our masters in such behavior.

CIA's Vault 7 Files Launched New Case Against Assange - Attack Intends To Prevent Further Leaks

Click here to access article by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama. 

This guy in Germany must be congratulated for his efforts to dig deep into issues of major importance to find jewels of truth hidden from our normal view.

In this article he digs up the reports on Vault 7 files that Wikileaks exposed, William Arkin who quit NBC over its collusion with war policies of the Deep State, the imprisoned Joshua Schulte--the alleged leaker of Vault 7, and finally answers his initial important question:

After the arrest of Julian Assange by British police and the unsealing of the U.S. indictment against him, the question is why is the U.S. doing this and why now?