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 Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Articles I especially recommend for today: Saturday, September 21, 2019

Revealing While Concealing the “Invisible” Government’s Conspiracies

Click here to access article by Edward Curtin from his weblog Behind the Curtin

Curtin takes aim at political critics of our masters in the Deep State such as Christopher Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Alexander Cockburn by arguing that they have, in effect, colluded with them in order to conceal deeper truths about their machinations and manipulations of perceptions. I think they have performed this service for the Deep State in order to protect their careers or because they were fundamentally conflicted about revealing too much of their crimes. In the case of Cockburn, he was conflicted by his aristocratic ancestry which gave him an income to pursue a career as a dissident and critic. In the case of Noam Chomsky, he wants to maintain his academic position and the privileges that goes along with this status. 

Our masters are very adept at managing the consent and dissent of the broad masses of their societies. They learned much of the power of money, which they possessed being a capitalist ruling class, to manipulate such critics in not revealing too much about their anti-social and war crimes. These people are what Malcolm X described as "house niggers". They are a part of the numerous cadre of upper-middle class, highly educated and well paid technicians that the ruling class depends on to keep their capitalist system running.

Israeli election makes it difficult to deny the character of Israel as a racist state

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

Read this and see how Gowans reaches this conclusion:
On the one hand, a pure and grand vision, dating from the French Revolution, of Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité, and the universalist idea of a state of all its citizens; on the other, the particularist idea of the ethnic state for Jews, made possible by the demographic engineering of a Jewish majority, obtained by the expulsion of the natives and denial of their repatriation, and the exercise of a racist regime over the natives who weren’t dispossessed; in short, the idea of universal equality versus the conservative tradition of hierarchy, racism, colonialism, and religious bigotry. To criticize Israel and Zionism is not to hate Jews, but to deplore the conservative tradition of ethnic privilege, racism, and colonialism from which Israel sprang and which it continues to exemplify.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Articles I recommend for today: Tuesday, September 17, 2019

“911!” The Book Amazon May Not Want Americans to Read

Click here to access article by Gary Brumback from Dissident Voice.

During this year I've noticed more and more posts attacking Amazon for censorship of books. I've long wondered when their virtual monopoly on the sale of books would start censoring books, but only this year I've read online articles documenting this new reality. Now Brumback is also experiencing this sledgehammer by crushing political books that the ruling capitalist class doesn't want you to read. 

I took the author's challenge and looked for his book on Amazon's website. Sure enough, he is absolutely correct. Although they haven't banned the book, the corporation goes out of their way to make it impossible to find.

As you may know, I buy nearly all of my used books from Abebooks which is based in Victoria, Canada, and I've enjoyed supporting the company that markets books exclusively from independent booksellers. Although in 2008 Abebooks was purchased in 2008 by Amazon, I haven't experienced any problems with access to books from them. Now I am beginning to worry.

North Korean cyber-theft. If it’s really happening, it’s entirely defensible.

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

Gowans examines a recent allegation by the Treasury Department that North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) stole from the USA huge amounts of money using cyber operations. There are both reasons to doubt this and reasons to believe this which he elaborates. Gowans lists both: given the US's record of lying, this is another lie; and given the US's record of starving nations that refuse to follow the diktats of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, it is also may be true.
The US military budget is 18 times the size of North Korea’s entire GDP. Washington has threatened North Korea with total destruction on numerous occasions. Anyone who thinks the United States isn’t the aggressor, hasn’t been paying attention.

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Articles that I recommend reading today: Sunday, September 15,.2019

The New Cold War Against China

Click one of the following links to access an article by Fred Goldstein from either Low-Wage Capitalism or Online University of the Left: Changing Our Thinking, Changing Opinion, Changing the World. (Note: This is an exception to my policy to post articles that are published online within one month--this article is little over this time period. Also, I give two website postings--I normally attempt to give only one that is the source--because some of you, who have been conditioned by Empire propaganda, may be scared off the first website because of its revolutionary symbolism, but not, hopefully, the second website.)

I just discovered these two websites and the article by Goldstein who demonstrates an accurate understanding of China, the capitalist US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, their conflicts, and Chinese-American relations and history. Because the article is logically argued with sound references, it has a ring of authenticity to its explanation of the current economic war with China. See if you agree.
The Trump administration has opened up a tariff war against the PRC, imposing a 25-percent tariff on $250 billion worth of Chinese exports and threatening tariffs on another $300 billion. But there is much more to Washington’s campaign than just tariffs.