Click here to access article by John Steppling posted on Wrong Kind of Green.
This essay contains so many observations about today's fascism that I'm surprised I missed it in May when it was originally posted in CounterPunch. This upgraded fascism is reflected in many forms from the use of Greta Thunberg to the promotion of depopulation of Africa and other places that people of color live. Meanwhile, capitalists see in global warming as having exciting growth opportunities.
Saturday, July 6, 2019
Yellow Vest Realities and Reactions [updated]
Click here to access a nearly one hour interview with Prof. Gabriel Rockhill of Villanova University conducted by KPFA's C. S. Soong.
I was most interested in the observations and analysis of Rockhill about French intellectual's lack of support, and even criticism of, the Yellow Vest Movement. This suggests support for my observations that the rich capitalist ruling class in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire has co-opted the highly trained and indoctrinated upper-middle class in their class warfare against other working classes. Unfortunately, he doesn't explain how this was done. But it seems obvious to me: material rewards and the threat of unemployment. Because of technological advancements and the awareness of intellectuals as "opinion leaders" who play a crucial role in capitalist society, the capitalist ruling class must support them in order for today's capitalism to sustain itself.
I was most interested in the observations and analysis of Rockhill about French intellectual's lack of support, and even criticism of, the Yellow Vest Movement. This suggests support for my observations that the rich capitalist ruling class in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire has co-opted the highly trained and indoctrinated upper-middle class in their class warfare against other working classes. Unfortunately, he doesn't explain how this was done. But it seems obvious to me: material rewards and the threat of unemployment. Because of technological advancements and the awareness of intellectuals as "opinion leaders" who play a crucial role in capitalist society, the capitalist ruling class must support them in order for today's capitalism to sustain itself.
Friday, July 5, 2019
Yellow Vests protest for the 33rd straight week in Paris
Click here to access article from Defend Democracy Press.
You won't hear much, if any, about the ongoing Yellow Vests protest in the realities created by media corporations in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. But you will hear about the suspicious one-day protests in China, and elsewhere where the well paid agents of the Empire are functioning. And, you won't hear about the teachers striking all over North America for better wages and working conditions. They are not interested in those realities.
You won't hear much, if any, about the ongoing Yellow Vests protest in the realities created by media corporations in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. But you will hear about the suspicious one-day protests in China, and elsewhere where the well paid agents of the Empire are functioning. And, you won't hear about the teachers striking all over North America for better wages and working conditions. They are not interested in those realities.
Thursday, July 4, 2019
‘The coup turned Honduras into hell’: Interview with President Manuel Zelaya on 10th anniversary of overthrow by US
Click here to listen to or read a transcript of an interview with the former President of Honduras conducted by Anya Parampil from The Grayzone.
Learn from a leader of Honduras who refused to be a puppet of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire as he reports on what he learned about the Empire and capitalism:
Learn from a leader of Honduras who refused to be a puppet of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire as he reports on what he learned about the Empire and capitalism:
MANUEL ZELAYA: That is how capitalism works. In the US, France, anywhere. Capitalism is based on just one principle: accumulation of wealth. That is how it functions here and in the rest of the world.
A small elite of transnational [corporations] associated with people in countries who clean up for them. They do business, and that business creates the need to set up security [power] for themselves.
No Longer Fiction: Orwell’s 1984 is the Reality of Our Times
Click here to access article by Robert Bridge from 21st Century Wire.
Because Orwell, a British veteran of the Spanish Civil War, finally realized the reason why the "democratic" Western nations did not come to the aid of a democratically elected government in Spain while fascist nations were attacking it, and wrote about his awakening in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the warnings were tragically ignored. We are now living in the world he imagined in the late 1940s. Could it be that the ruling classes of Western "democratic" nations wanted their own empire? Could it be that WWII ended up as a kind of civil war between ruling capitalist classes of the fascist countries of the Axis and the Anglo-American wannabees?
Do you think that Bridge learned the lessons of this prescient book when he asks questions like these?
Because Orwell, a British veteran of the Spanish Civil War, finally realized the reason why the "democratic" Western nations did not come to the aid of a democratically elected government in Spain while fascist nations were attacking it, and wrote about his awakening in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the warnings were tragically ignored. We are now living in the world he imagined in the late 1940s. Could it be that the ruling classes of Western "democratic" nations wanted their own empire? Could it be that WWII ended up as a kind of civil war between ruling capitalist classes of the fascist countries of the Axis and the Anglo-American wannabees?
Do you think that Bridge learned the lessons of this prescient book when he asks questions like these?
The book ends with the words, “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” Will we too declare, like Winston Smith, our love for ‘Big Brother’ above all else, or will we emerge victorious against the forces of a technological tyranny that appears to be just over the horizon? Or is Orwell’s 1984 just really good fiction and not the instruction manual for tyrants many have come to fear it is? [my emphasis]Yes, indeed, time is running out for all of us because most people, like Bridge, have consistently asked the wrong questions ever since Orwell wrote the book. What are the "forces of technology"? Technology are essentially sophisticated tools, whereas capitalism is a system that privileges owners of economies over the rest of us, and thus capitalist ruling classes have used technology to secure and protect their system of privileges and power.
The plot to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of power
Click here to access article by Jonathan Cook from Countercurrents (based in India, but rather international).
Cook keeps mentioning a "system" that is fundamentally behind the plot to destroy Corbyn as a candidate for Prime Minister of Britain, but never identifies it. What system do you think he is referring to? And, why do you think he never identifies it?
For example, he writes in the final paragraph:
Cook keeps mentioning a "system" that is fundamentally behind the plot to destroy Corbyn as a candidate for Prime Minister of Britain, but never identifies it. What system do you think he is referring to? And, why do you think he never identifies it?
For example, he writes in the final paragraph:
As long as we colluded in the manufactured consensus of western societies, the system operated without challenge or meaningful dissent. A deeply ideological system destroying the planet was treated as if it was natural, immutable, the summit of human progress, the end of history. Those times are over. Accidents like Corbyn will happen more frequently, as will extreme climate events and economic crises. The power structures in place to prevent such accidents will by necessity grow more ham-fisted, more belligerent, less concealed to get their way. And we might finally understand that a system designed to pacify us while a few grow rich at the expense of our children’s future and our own does not have to continue. That we can raise our voices and loudly say: “No!”
Wednesday, July 3, 2019
Posts recommended for Wednesday, July 3, 2019
- Countdown to “Full Spectrum Dominance” by T.J. Coles from CounterPunch.
- The Only Thing Worse Than The World Dying Would Be If It Died Unseen And Unappreciated by Caitlin Johnstone (Australian) from her weblog.
- Former British Parliamentarian George Galloway Speaks out on the Violent Criminalization of Julian Assange in an interview conducted by Dennis J. Bernstein and Randy Credico. This is a transcript of their broadcast from KPFA, a listener funded radio station in Berkeley, California via Covert Action Magazine. You can also listen to the interview directly from the station (nearly one hour).
- Corporations have 'hijacked justice' by Sam Cossar from Ecologist.
- The global war on refugees by Will Morrow from World Socialist Web Site.
- Sea Ice Nitty-Gritty, Profoundly Disturbing European Heatwaves from the weblog of Paul Beckwith, Climate Scientist. (four 15:00m videos with his introductions related to the subject.)
Mutu: rethinking our radical media
Click here to access article by "E & J" from Libcom (Britain).
Although I am not an anarchist, who I think are too limited in their thinking, I am delighted by this post which reports on a rising network of grassroots independent media in France. The establishment of such networks is exactly what I think is vitally needed to counter the crushing oppression of ruling class corporate media. Media corporations serve only as propaganda and psychological warfare operations of the ruling capitalist class to create confusion and a false consciousness among ordinary people.
Although I am not an anarchist, who I think are too limited in their thinking, I am delighted by this post which reports on a rising network of grassroots independent media in France. The establishment of such networks is exactly what I think is vitally needed to counter the crushing oppression of ruling class corporate media. Media corporations serve only as propaganda and psychological warfare operations of the ruling capitalist class to create confusion and a false consciousness among ordinary people.
In May 2018, we attended a conference of the Mutu network in France, a network of local radical media websites which operate much like Indymedia did, but with a completely transparent editorial process.
We were blown away to discover how each of these sites, many we hadn’t even heard of, were acting as hubs for the various social movements taking place in cities and regions across France, focusing on local struggles and issues. With this focus, they became places where people went to find out about social conflicts when they broke out. But as we listened to descriptions of these sites connecting with groups of striking workers or occupying students, we also realised they function to draw together the various struggles within a given locality into a multi-faceted working-class movement.
Penguin, Rothschild and Zionist Pressure [updated]
Click here to access article by Gilad Atzmon (British) from his weblog.
This post is for those of you who have been targets of false accusations of being anti-Semitic, have been profoundly disturbed by the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire's use of Israel use as a "Beachhead in the Middle East" (Gowans), and equally disturbed by the equivalence of Jews with Zionists.
This post is for those of you who have been targets of false accusations of being anti-Semitic, have been profoundly disturbed by the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire's use of Israel use as a "Beachhead in the Middle East" (Gowans), and equally disturbed by the equivalence of Jews with Zionists.
Penguin announced this week that in response to claims of ‘antisemitism’ it has stopped printing Col. Pedro Baños’ best selling book, “How They Rule the World.”And George Galloway, a British member of parliament, agrees:
The scandal erupted when it was revealed that passages in the original Spanish edition of the book related to the Rothschild dynasty were omitted from the Penguin Random House English translation. The meaning of this deletion is in itself devastating. It suggests that Penguin attempted to kosherize a book by editing and deleting sections so it would not offend Jewish sensitivities.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
The IMF and World Bank: Partners In Backwardness
Click here to access a nearly one hour interview conducted by Bonnie Faulkner with economist Michael Hudson.
In this interview Faulkner revisits Hudson's 1974 book Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, and Hudson explains how the budding US Empire engineered at the close of WWII the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to always favor the capitalist wealthy at the expense of working classes all over the world to enlist the support of the world's capitalists for the leadership of the US Empire. This was at a time when most of the world was in ruins, except for the USA, from WWII .
These institutions have shaped most of world as we know it today: a neoliberal economic order in the world which facilitated Empire corporations at the expense of Third World nations. Thus, agents of the Empire essentially bribed local elites, small cliques of capitalists, to support this arrangement.
In this interview Faulkner revisits Hudson's 1974 book Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, and Hudson explains how the budding US Empire engineered at the close of WWII the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to always favor the capitalist wealthy at the expense of working classes all over the world to enlist the support of the world's capitalists for the leadership of the US Empire. This was at a time when most of the world was in ruins, except for the USA, from WWII .
These institutions have shaped most of world as we know it today: a neoliberal economic order in the world which facilitated Empire corporations at the expense of Third World nations. Thus, agents of the Empire essentially bribed local elites, small cliques of capitalists, to support this arrangement.
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