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 28, 2019

The Coverup of President John F. Kennedy’s Assassination Is Wearing Thin

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from his weblog. (Note: I have decided (9/29/2019 at 1:20 PM CT) that my commentary is a major project for another time, but I did not find another time because dramatic events took over. Thus, I've edited out most of the original post.)

I place this event and the Deep State's portrayal of it along with the 9/11 tragedy and other major false-flag events contrived by them. Their portrayal of these events are thoroughly ridiculous, and thus I like the address Michael Parenti gave to a Berkeley (California) audience in 1993 (here and here) in which he ridiculed and entertained them with the stories that the authorities gave on the assassination of JFK.

Friday, September 27, 2019

A Few Words about the Climate Crisis

By Ron Horn

My political views come from my experience as a anti-war and social justice advocate and related studies in sociology. Thus I am not a climate scientist, not even a physical scientist. My training in university has been largely in political sociology, but I've learned so much more by independent reading and my anti-war and social justice activities. Since the 1970s when the Vietnam War was winding down, I knew that much was need to be done to clean up the environment, and naively hoped that popular pressure would urge our government (US) to do just that. Over the years since then I have been aware of the growing climate crisis that threatened most life of our planet Earth including our own species. Earlier I came to the conclusion that the system of capitalism was the source of most of the ills of the vast majority of humans, but I then realized that this included the growing climate crisis.

Because I am not a physical scientist I have devoted much less time and effort to the climate crisis than the issue of never-ending wars and social injustice. Over the years I have been astonished at the indifference displayed by my fellow Americans regarding the suffering that capitalism has caused for most humans. But now the very existence of humans is being threatened by the climate crisis and still this indifference exists to a startling degree. I cannot attribute this all to the success of the capitalist ruling class and their incessant propaganda and indoctrination. The old religions which has treated humans as an exceptional species guarded over by their imaginary gods have also contributed to this indifference.

In my weblog I have posted many articles documenting this climate and environmental crisis from scientific sources that are the most credible. Because I don't want to be accused of "cherry picking" my sources related to global warming, I recently posted a "recommended" article entitled "Cutting air pollution would not cause ‘near-term spike’ in global warming" that summarized the implications of a research that was published in Nature (behind a paywall) that contradicted a major contention of biologist Guy McPherson, a pessimist about global warming. McPherson has argued, based on his study of climate change, that cutting emissions of carbon dioxide now would only contribute to global warming (known as McPherson's paradox). I sent the article from CarbonBrief to friends who have contact with McPherson to see what they thought of it. They in turn sent it to McPherson who trashed the study and asserted that there were "abundance of evidence" supporting his contention.

I think McPherson is likely right because of several reasons: 1) research trends clearly show that more recent studies from reputable sources are more pessimistic than earlier ones; 2) capitalist authoritative sources have always and consistently opposed the whole impact of global warming studies simply because their system is incompatible with the implications of global warming (also see this, and even in Russia a major climate scientist finds difficulties); and 3) the scientific community has been reticent and conflicted about the dangers of global warming and environmental degradation.

I recommend to those concerned about this issue (and we all should be) to subscribe to a YouTube channel Just Have a Think. [No! See my revised opinion.] The videos are narrated by Dave Borlace, a Brit. Listen to his clear explanation of arctic sea ice, methane release, and the efforts of Natalia Shakhova, a Russian climate scientist.

(A best post)

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Articles I especially recommend for today: Thursday, September 26, 2019 (Added one more article at 3:50 PM CT)

The Democrats' Impeachment Attempt Against Trump Is A Huge Mistake

Click here to access article by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama. (Updated at 10:00 AM CT)

Well, maybe it's a mistake or maybe not, but Trump took aim at the Deep State's main candidate for president, and they couldn't tolerate that. As far as it is going to result in a backlash for the Democratic Party, I think Bernhard underestimates the power of the Deep State, the core (def. #2) directors of the US capitalist ruling class. 

Formerly this directorate harried Trump through their media corporations in order to use Trump to promulgate aggressive foreign policy actions that they favored. But Trump has now committed the unpardonable sin by directly exposing and attacking their main candidate: Trump's major crime was to expose Joe Biden's influence to have his son appointed as CEO of one of Ukraine's main industrial companies after the US engineered the coup in Ukraine in 2014 (see this and this).

Monday, September 23, 2019

Two articles I especially recommend today: Monday, September 23, 2019

US political warfare explodes over Trump and Ukraine

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

This is a hot potato that threatens warfare between Trump and the neoconservatives who are in control of the USA and much of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. Their corporate media are attempting to use this scandal to attack Trump. It's fun to watch members of our ruling class attack each other for their corrupt practices. It will be very interesting to see where this ends up.

Why Evidence of Iran’s Role in Attack Doesn’t Matter

Click here to access article by Gareth Porter from The American Conservative.

It is interesting to see old-fashioned conservatives, who are devoted readers of  The American Conservative, attacking the aggressive actions of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. They were displaced by another faction of capitalists (many see these as neo-fascists) labeled neoliberals by our corporate media, a transnational class of capitalists, who are currently pursuing world domination through their Empire. Having lost their control of the ruling capitalist class, these old-fashioned conservatives are resentful of this new faction of capitalists because their aggressive policies lead to many costly wars and threaten their investments in other countries.

Washington experiencing ‘mutiny’ over Syrian conflict

Click here to access article featuring an RT interview with Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 analyst.

The last Crooke's answer to RT's question is most revealing:
RT: The trust between US and Russia took a major blow over the past week with American coalition planes hitting the Syrian army and the Humanitarian Aid convoy being hit. Do you think there's still a chance for cooperation?

AC: I think it is very clear that the attempt to have a détente, and after all this is not the first president to try and attempt a détente with Russia. Eisenhower was the first and that was sunk by the CIA and the Gary Powers incident [The incident occurred in 1960 when an American U-2 spy plane, flown by CIA pilot Gary Powers. Powers parachuted to safety and was released by Soviet officials after two years imprisonment- Ed]. What we are seeing now is the sinking of President Obama’s attempt at a détente with Russia. He is facing a concerted opposition of the Department of Defense, the CIA, the New York Times, Washington Post and the Democratic candidate. Can he prevail against that? I don’t think so. From what we’ve just seen, it is not likely. So, all this noise and accusations are basically about America trying to get advantage back out of an unpromising situation. Just as we saw during the MH17 incident in Ukraine, immediately going and accusing Russia of being behind it before the facts were known, before any investigation was made. We see the same thing here, going straight online saying, of course, Russia is responsible for everything that has happened. This is just the war of narratives that the West is very good at because it controls completely the mainstream media.
The "concerted oppostition" is none other than the Deep State, the well-hidden fascist financial oligarchy who really controls the USA behind the facade of capitalist's version of "democracy". Most are members of the Council on Foreign Relations.