Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, November 1, 2020

• COVID-19 Exposes Economic Misery as U.S. Capitalism’s “New Normal” by Danny Haiphong from Internationalist 360°.
  

• Same Story, Different Decade: How WHO’s Definition of a Global Pandemic Benefits Big Pharma by Jeremy Loffredo from Children's Health Defense. (This article illustrates how governments, in this case a UN agency, has been corrupted by concentrated wealth that pervades all governments and institutions controlled by the capitalist US/Anglo/Zionist Empire.)

• Fury, Resistance in Europe Over New Doomsday Cult Lockdowns by Giovanni Legorano from Anti-Empire. My commentary follows: 

The "beauty" of this pandemic is that the assault on small businesses and the gig economy are carefully hidden by its existence. Coincidence? Hardly likely given the history of deceptions used by the Empire's ruling class most notably in their War on Drugs, 9/11, the invasions of Middle East countries (Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan) and the War on Terrorism. Populations in the countries of the Empire (led by the US/Anglo/Zionist nations) could conveniently ignore the horrors inflicted on other nations so long as they weren't affected, but this pandemic is now affecting them. It illustrates how the directors of the Empire could care less about their subjects when their profits and their system of capitalism is at stake. (You may also be interested in this article entitled "How Would You Spend Your Last Thanksgiving?")

• It’s Not a Social Dilemma – It’s the Calculated Destruction of the Social by Cory Morningstar from the Wrong Kind of Green. (Note: This is Morningstar's answer (and the collective that publishes the website Wrong Kind of Green) to Netflix's film The Social Dilemma. The latter film attempts to pose the dangers of social media especially for young people that have grown with it.) My reaction: I've always found Morningstar's articles difficult to read because she immediately launches into enormous details that require very large articles. And she does this within a posting style which includes large Tweets and other illustrations amid small type in which she expounds her views. Contrast this style with Caitlin Johnstone's in this post. However, if you can get beyond these difficulties, she rewards us with insightful comments.

• On Course for a Coup: Coronavirus hysteria and the U.S. elections by Michael Lesherby from Off-Guardian.
  

• Election Special – Part 2: How A “Cyber 9/11” Will Usher In The AI “Internet Security” State featuring mainly Whitney Webb with comments by Ryan Cristián both of The Last American Vagabond website in a 2:40:53 hour video. My commentary follows: 

If you haven't time to listen to the whole video, I suggest that you first listen to their conclusions (or summary or implications) of Webb's extensive research at 2:26:20 (starting with Cristián's comments). They both warn of a "cyber 911" that is in preparation to happen after the elections. They both agree that this will at least profit cyber security firms, but Webb, especially, is concerned that these preparations might lead to an attack on Iran. 

I listened to about one hour of this discussion by listening to different parts of the video. She tracks different actors that are in the US, British, and Israeli secretive intelligence services and their collusion with hi-tech corporations together with media corporations to support a conspiracy theory of a highly developed fascist-like takeover of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. The information that Webb supplies are convincing of the narrative that they are engaged in a massive manipulation of the American public in a kind of "problem-reaction-solution" strategy to milk government agencies (funded by Americans) to enhance the profits and power of corporations in this Empire. I include power because their strategies will also result directly in access to private data medical records of individual Americans.  

I tend to worry less about the prospects for war as a result of these fascist conspiracies because the transnational capitalists, who now control all institutions, fear that they will lose too much of their assets in a war. But, I can't be sure. The Empire's fascist Deep State may be willing to risk all because they have decided that they are in decline, and it's "now or never". However, I agree with both of them that censorship will only increase in the future.

• Western Sanctions a Failure of Diplomacy – What Lies Beneath, an editorial from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• Social media's erasure of Palestinians is a grim warning for our future by Jonathan Cook from Middle East Eye (based in London).
  

• Greenwald’s Intercept Resignation Exposes The Rot In All Mass Media by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.
  

• Divided Against Each Other And United For The Machine: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.
  

• Debt, Land and Money, From Polanyi to the New Economic Archaeology by Michel Hudson from his weblog.

• The ‘very, very bad look’ of remdesivir, the first FDA-approved COVID-19 drug by Jon Cohen and Kai Kupferschmidt from Science.