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, September 7, 2019

Articles I recommend today: Saturday, September 7, 2019

Will NPR Now Officially Change Its Name to National Propaganda Radio?

Click here to access article by Edward Curtin from his weblog. 

Curtin satirizes NPR whose board has selected its president with a background in propaganda.  This is not the first time that NPR has selected its president among people who have backgrounds in overt propaganda like Voice of America, Radio and Television Marti, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. This is a consistent policy throughout its history.

Worst of all, according to a Wikipedia statement: "A Harris telephone survey conducted in 2005 found that NPR was the most trusted news source in the United States." I don't doubt this. I think NPR, as a single propaganda media outlet, is responsible for the ignorance of US foreign policies and much of our domestic issues. It exists legally as a public-private corporation, but much like the Federal Reserve this arrangement also serves to fool the public with its public facade. 

The fascist Deep State using their secret organization, the CIA, has transformed nearly all major media corporations here and abroad into propaganda platforms to support the profit and power interests of the USA and US/Anglo/Zionist Empire.  As a major source of fake news and analysis, I have followed NPR over the past 10 years of my weblog and have posted numerous articles and commentaries about this nefarious organization. You can learn much about this propaganda agency by simply typing in "NPR" in any of the search boxes on my website to access them.

Friday, September 6, 2019

Robert Mugabe: The national liberation hero who was demonized for trying to make liberation meaningful

Click here to access article by Canadian Stephen Gowans from his weblog. 

Gowans points to Western corporate media coverage of the life of recently deceased Mugabe, leader of Zimbabwe's struggle to maintain economic independence from the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, as another illustration of how such media corporations and capitalist interests of the Empire (profit & power) reports such efforts. He begins his essay this way:
It seemed almost inevitable six years ago that on the day Western newspapers were filled with encomia [def.] to the recently deceased South African national liberation hero, Nelson Mandela, that another southern African hero of national liberation, Robert Mugabe, would be vilified. “Nearly 90, Mugabe still driving Zimbabwe’s economy into the ground,” complained one Western newspaper. [my link insertion]

Mandela and Mugabe were key figures in the liberation of black southern Africa from white rule. So why did the West overflow with hosannas for Mandela and revile Mugabe? Why was Mandela the ‘good’ national liberation hero and Mugabe the ‘bad’?

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Articles I recommend for today--Thursday, September 5, 2019

WaPo Warns USA Needs More Narrative Control As Pentagon Ramps Up Narrative Control

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. 
Power is being able to control what happens. Absolute power is being able to control what people think about what happens. If you can control what happens, you can have power until the public gets sick of your bullshit and tosses you out on your ass. If you can control what people think about what happens, you can have power forever. As long as you can control how people are interpreting circumstances and events, there’s no limit to the evils you can get away with.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

A Persistent Misunderstanding of China’s Political Economy

Click here to access article by Christopher A. McNally (of Chaminade U.) from China-US Focus. (9/8/2019: Corrected version of the original post by substituting "multilateral" for "unilateral" in the first paragraph of my commentary. I wish that someone had earlier drawn my attention to this error.)

There is no misunderstanding by the US directors of the transnational US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. Any nation that pursues an independent course and tries to create a multilateral world is an enemy of the Empire. This Empire seeks world dominance much like the British Empire before it. That is why after WWII with its industry intact, the US Deep State saw their opportunity to establish an empire. It is in the very nature of capitalism to grow, and the US capitalists saw their opportunity to expand after the main belligerents of WWII, Great Britain, the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, and the Japanese Empire, were defeated or left in ruins. They united with British imperialists and what was left of the British Empire, and eventually allowed Zionists to join them after Israel proved its loyalty and effectiveness to the Empire.

Immediately after WWII US and British propaganda machinery went into action and started what became known as a "Cold War". Since then until 1989 the archenemy was the Soviet Union, which alone pursued a kind of socialist government, and other nations wishing to be independent: Indonesia, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iran, Angola, Granada, etc. During this period nations were forced into two camps: that of the Empire or the Soviet Union. The latter nation eventually collapsed starting in 1989 under the weight of a self-serving bureaucracy.

To the consternation of the directors of the Empire, under the leadership of Putin Russia reestablished themselves with a mixed economy and pursued an independent course in international affairs. We have since seen other nations, most especially China and Iran, join them in challenging the Empire's control over the world, and together these nations have pursued a genuine multi-national world free of the domination of the Empire. As a result, currently we see the Empire's propaganda organs, media corporations, frame the latter nations as our enemies.

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

When is the News Not the News? – #PropagandaWatch

Click here to access a nearly 16 minute video (and show notes) by James Corbett from his website.

Today I received this report via email from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a partner of the University of Alaska (Fairbanks), because I am on their email list. Because it is easiest to dispute of all the lies about the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon, both organizations are challenging the official story of 9/11 regarding the collapse of building #7 of the WTC.

Corbett's limited perspective is a libertarian (American version of that term) which is somewhat different than what the term means in Europe and beyond. Consulting Wikepedia I discovered all kinds of libertarians. I think Corbett's view (even though he is Canadian--Canada is a part of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire) can be described accordingly as "Individualist anarchism in the United States". His "libertarian" views simply sees, and often reacts negatively to, official authorities which is a very superficial view of government authorities. Likewise his analysis of the banning of the U. of Alaska report by media corporations, is very limited. He can only see some hidden hand which he refers to as "propagandists" who decide on what news is suitable for us to consume. That's it!

I have tried, and largely failed, to influence those who I have personally associated with throughout my long life and those who have wandered onto my website. I have urged them to have a more in-depth view of things by considering a Marxist-influenced take on contemporary global politics. This means taking an historical class structure point of view which is so unfashionable in today's America and throughout much of the capitalist transnational Empire. 

I admit, along with many others, failing to raise the political consciousness of my fellow Americans because of the influence of the powerful and ubiquitous nature of propaganda under the control of our ruling capitalist class. Our masters in this class have thoroughly indoctrinated Americans and much of the world in their view of not only current events, but historical events as well. They have accomplished this with their methods of pervasive mind control, that is, through the use of comprehensive indoctrination, propaganda, fake news, false flags, etc, by agents of the capitalist ruling classes in the Empire.

Also, I dispute Corbett's use of "social construct" as describing the official lies spread by our masters and their corporations since 9/11/2001. The term is defined as "an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society". This official version is a private construct. Only a class structure point of view reveals this meaning. Even in his video, he strongly suggests that specific people such as corporate editors decide what is news, and elsewhere he identifies them as simply "propagandists".  But he fails to attribute this to a ruling class. I think Corbett is also a victim of the Empire's comprehensive use of indoctrination and propaganda.

Monday, September 2, 2019

Articles I recommend for Monday, September 2, 2019

Is the Fed Preparing to Topple US Dollar?

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws"Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
Who knows what our masters in the financial world have in store for us? Engdahl deciphers their oblique (def.#1) language which suggests a move to scrap the dollar, an increasingly shaky money, in favor of a transnational digital money--which would give them much greater control over us--supported by the central banks of their US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. A logical secondary benefit in the process would be a financial crisis that would put Trump's re-election in considerable difficulty. 

Justin Trudeau Needs a History Lesson

Click here to access article by Michael Jabara Carley from Voltaire Network (France) and Strategic Culture Foundation (independent weblog based in Russia). 

“History is written by the victors.”, a wise quote attributed to various people. But not only history, and not only victors in a classic war--a ruling class is also a kind of victor: over the other classes. A ruling class puts its stamp on everything: above all culture (art, literature, history), education, media, etc. 

Nowadays the power of the ruling capitalist class has such control of technology--they "own" all of it--that their control and influence shapes nearly everything in an unprecedented scale. Carley only takes issue with current "history" as recently expressed by Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada. The latter's version of history is the history permitted in all parts of today's US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, and ordinary people in addition to our masters in the ruling class subscribe (def.#1) to it. It is a fake history. A true history can be re-constructed by reading reports of contemporaries (of that period of history) who did not identify with the ruling classes.

Carley, a Canadian intellectual and Marxist scholar historian, corrects only some of the history of WWII, an event that has had profound influence on world political affairs today. Because I have read considerable literature, reports, and research about what led to this major war, I thoroughly endorse Carley's version of this part of history. 

Because he couldn't write a comprehensive history of this war in a single article, I am concerned that his brief references to Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the British Empire during WWII, will lead people to believe positive feelings regarding his role. Churchill was a classic British imperialist. His only concern preceding and throughout the war was the preservation of the British Empire. Germany was a competitor. Immediately after the war, he led the efforts to gather support for his other obsession:  hostility to the Soviet Union. The Soviets tried to establish a non-capitalist nation.