Posts that I especially recommend and a commentary for today:Saturday, April 25, 2020

• The Deadliest Pandemic by Paul Edwards from CounterPunch.

• Part 1: How the Chinese Authorities and the World Health Organization Handled the Coronavirus by Vijay Prashad from Independent Media Institute. (My reaction: The report (with documentation) clashes with the endless narratives transmitted by corporate media and US officials that blame Chinese officials for the delay in alerting the rest of the world about the pandemic. So, who do you believe? I believe Prashad, not only because of his honest character, but because of the contents of this well-documented report.) 

• World Food Programme warns: COVID-19 pandemic will cause “famines of biblical proportions” by Jean Shaoul from Defend Democracy Press.

• Russia warns US about biological weapons concern by Joaquin Flores from FRN (Fort Russ News). (Note: This international treaty (1972) which banned biological weapons corresponds to Francis Boyle's attempts to ban the US government's production of biological weapons in 1990. But if you believe that the US government functions according to laws or agreements, I have a bridge to sell you (def.). But if you don't agree with the last statement, you are in good company (def.) with American Indians.) 

• As US passes 50,000 deaths, workers strike against back-to-work campaign by Shannon Jones and Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site. (Note: I'm posting this only in order to respond to it.)

My commentary: I've noticed that the this website's editors have consistently advocated for worker's safely in response to the threat of the current pandemic. And, I've also noticed their lack of concern about the government's refusal to offer any significant support for millions of non-essential workers. WSWS seems in agreement with the ruling class's obvious view that corresponds to a condescending quote (1789) attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette "let them eat cake", which referred to the French ruling class's utter lack of concern for the millions of French who where facing famine.

It seems to me that the huge numbers of "non-essential" workers and the owner's of small businesses are facing simular threats to their survival: loss of homes (due to evictions and inability to maintain mortgage payments), can't afford medical care, instability of families (divorces and spouse problems) in addition to feeding their families. These workers may be non-essential to the capitalist ruling class, but their jobs are essential to them. Perhaps this attitude is related to the ruling class's solution to the climate crisis--depopulation. But I remain astounded by WSWS's stance on this issue.

One cannot blame these workers if they insist on returning to their jobs, but the small business owners do not have this option. However, many workers are employed by small business owners. Perhaps it is time to consider other options. (Also, be sure to see the next post.)

• Many Strikes Are Coming Before Nov. Election & After. w/Jane McAlevey from The Jimmy Dore Show (via YouTube). (Note: McAlevey, a labor organizer, continues talking about how to organize workers.)

• Capitalism Can’t Be Repaired – Coronavirus Shows Its Huge Weaknesses by Richard D. Wolff from Brave New Europe. 

• Would We Have Already Had a COVID-19 Vaccine Under Socialism? by Vanessa A. Bee  from In These Times.

Posts that I especially recommend and a commentary for today: Friday, April 24, 2020

My commentary after viewing the film entitled Planet of the Humans last night: (Editing for greater clarification was made at 8:56 PM CT.)

Basically, Jeff Gibbs concludes that humans are doomed, and he cites three explanations to account for this: 1) We humans cannot and have not faced the fact that we are like all other creatures and life forms--we are only temporary. Although in an unequal fashion we have excelled in controlling the environment to serve the needs of certain humans, this led to the second problem. 2) Our population has skyrocketed during the past few centuries that has caused the contamination of the Earth's ecosystem. 3) The profit system or capitalism has driven us to produce all kinds of stuff that is overwhelming the Earth's ecosystem. In the final moments of the film he circles back to the first theme. 

What ties these themes together is the attack of the Green Movement and their outlandish promises of solving the obviously developing degradation of the environment and, most especially, global warming.

The attack on the obvious failings of the Green Movement provides a variety of thinkers (Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Rockefeller Foundation, liberals like Michael Moore, anti-capitalists, and followers of Cory Morningstar and Wrong Kind of Green website) reasons to support the film. The Green Movement has promoted fake solutions that have helped to convince people that solar power, wind power, and the burning of biomass could save us. In the film these are revealed as nothing less than foolhardy solutions. Gibbs exaggerates this argument in order to thoroughly demolish the Green's proposals. He makes them look ridiculous. This is not entirely the case, but the outlandish promises made by the Green Movement led to this attack. The problem was the ruling capitalist class.
 
Although Gibbs does not make this explicitly clear, the Green Movement was corrupted by capitalists who infiltrated this movement in order to integrate it with their primary interests of profit and power. He is right in his belief that other humans needed to sustain their false belief in their immortality and rather easily succumbed to the enticements offered by the capitalist ruling classes. But who continued supporting religions in spite of man-made science that was uncovering the secrets of nature? Capitalist ruling classes. Like all ruling classes they soon learned the benefits of co-opting and modified them so that the Greens didn't interfere in their quest for power--the domination of others who would serve their needs of material comforts.

The capitalist class has always put their faith in the accumulation of wealth after discovering that wealth gave them power to dominate others. This faith was strengthened after discovering that they could use science to accumulate even greater wealth. However, capitalists also were disturbed by this existential problem of their mortality, so they turned to the solution offered by the feudal ruling class that they replaced--inheritance laws in which the accumulation of wealth and power in their families could be reproduced indefinitely in their descendants. This gave them a sense of immortality which most humans crave. Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of Britain, expressed this succinctly when she said that there was no such thing as society, only families.

As a critique of the Green Movement it succeeds, but it fails as an ultimate explanation for the growing recognition of our demise as humans. It satisfies capitalists in that it legitimatizes efforts to reduce global populations (but not theirs); it satisfies anti-capitalists as a critique of capitalism, and lastly the film satisfies those (mostly religious figures) who see human weakness (self-fulfilling argument) as the real cause of the extinction of humans. But could this failure be necessary in order to obtain the funding and support necessary to finance the film from such a variety of sources?

• Capitalism on Life Support… Time for a Cure by an editor of Strategic Culture Foundation.

• Podcast: Whitney Webb on the Rise of a Biotech Industrial Complex Under COVID-19 which features Mnar Muhawesh, the founder of Mint Press News, interviewing the very informative Whitney Webb on what she knows and other evidence about the background of people associated with the present coronavirus in the apparent quest to increase ruling class control in the USA and the world. (Note: This is nearly an hour, but the information is voluminous, and we get to hear Webb who, I think, will impress you with her breadth of knowledge and good judgment. And/or you may be interested in Webb's appearance on The Jimmy Dore Show where she explains some of the main findings in "a recent document acquired through a FOIA request" in her article from The Last American Vagabond entitled "Techno-Tyranny: How The US National Security State Is Using Coronavirus To Fulfill An Orwellian Vision").

• Coronavirus Lockdown and What You Are Not Being Told by Iain Davis from BS News (Britain).   

• China’s Covid-19 Reporting Is Truthful, Birx and Trump Demonstrate-Unwittingly by John V. Walsh from Dissident Voice.

• Healthworkers Call for Action on Workers Memorial Day from Reel News (via YouTube). (Note: We hear from health workers their observations about this pandemic.)

• The Russians And The Chinese Are Your Enemy (poetry) by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.

• How To Start A Successful Strike During Crisis. w/Jane McAlevey from The Jimmy Dore Show (via YouTube). (Note: McAlevey offers very impressive tips on organizing workers.)

• Capitalism and the Illusion of Democracy by Rob Urie from CounterPunch. (Note: Although the author makes some good points about "democratic" elections, he employs the term "state capitalism" to describe the present system in the USA and the Empire. What does this term mean? He doesn't define it. Might it mean by inference that the oligarchy controls the government? And further, could he by implication be arguing for small capitalism that existed 150 years ago? If so, this is a silly argument. Capitalism always develops by consolidating wealth and power in ever greater concentrations.)

•  Earth Day, Live Hope Presentation 2020 featuring Guy McPherson (via YouTube) building his argument that we are on the edge of abrupt climate change and global dimming, he reviews many scientific studies. Along the way he also explains the concept of "global dimming" in which reduced industrial activity results in even more global warming. McPherson elucidates this topic in the context of an opportunity to fully appreciate life in the current moment.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, April 23, 2020 (Added the first post at 12:43 PM CT)

• We cannot expect capitalists to manage a pandemic by Susan Rosenthal from her weblog. 

• Diseased System in Shut-Lockdown: Never a Better Time to Fight for Socialism by Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report. 

My commentary: I scanned this article and discovered that I differ from Ford as to the history of socialism in the Soviet Union. After reading widely in their history, I conclude that socialism only lasted a few years. Soon after Lenin died and Stalin consolidated control of the government, the Soviet Union deteriorated into what I call "bureaucratism" (others call it "state capitalism").

The original Bolsheviks were exhausted fighting the Allies among the capitalist countries and the White armies, the embargos, etc. After Lenin died and the Stalinists consolidated control, the Soviet bureaucracy (also called "nomenklatura") gradually served themselves extra privileges denied to ordinary Russians: they appointed themselves to advanced positions in the bureaucracy, they got their children into the best schools and later into the best careers, they shopped at exclusive stores, etc.)

• Revisting Lenin’s “What is to be Done?” After Bernie Sanders by Tatiana Cozzarelli from Left Voice.

• Why Post-Coronavirus America Will Have Massive Poverty by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

• Landlords Illegally Evicting Tenants, Despite Federal Restrictions by Rebecca Burns from The American Prospect.

• WATCH: Planet of the Humans [Full Film] from Wrong Kind of Green. Blogger's Note: Because I have not viewed this film yet, I cannot recommend it personally. Although I have reservations from the people who have endorsed it, I am posting this because Wrong Kind of Green has promoted it:

This compelling, must-see movie – a full-frontal assault on our sacred cows – is guaranteed to generate anger, debate, and, hopefully, a willingness to see our survival in a new way—before it’s too late.

• In Light of the Global Pandemic, Focus Attention on the People posted in English on Defend Democracy Press. (Note: I believe this effort, along with all other efforts, is too late. I also believe that the first order of business is to overthrow capitalism (not "changes" or reforms) and install a sustainable system to redeem humans who have been responsible for the destruction of the environment that sustains life.)

• Merchants of death: Multibillion-dollar bailout for arms industry amid rising COVID-19 toll by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site.

• The AngloZionists Are Launching a Strategic PSYOP Against China by "The Saker" (Andrei Rsevsky) from The Unz Review. (Note: You may be interested in the frustrated and angry reactions that a descendant (read B. Faulkner's intro of Raevsky) of White Russian refugees has toward US government officials during this pandemic.)

• Human Lab Rats: The U.S. Government’s Secret History of Grisly Experiments by John W. Whitehead from Dissident Voice.

• ‘Republic of hunger’ in the Time of ‘Lockdown’ by Shashi Kant Tripathi from United World (based in Turkey). 

• US rewards for Hezbollah leaders’ heads: How do they affect the organisation? by Elijah J Magnier from his weblog.

My commentary: This distinguished Middle Eastern journalist writes how the rich US/Anglo/Zionist Empire operates in regions of the Middle East that are not under their control. The ruling capitalist classes control nearly all media in the countries they control, and thus control the narratives (control the perceptions of reality among populations) published/broadcast by media outlets throughout their Empire. 

However, the directors of the Empire (major capitalists) must resort to crude bounties on leaders who are their antagonists and independent of Empire influences in the Middle East. Magnier reports that these bounties inevitably backfire. Instead, such leader-antagonists receive rewards in terms of status and perks that other, more cooperative (with the Empire) leaders do not.

This reaction is in stark contrast with media corporations within the Empire. After many years of infiltrating these corporations, the directors of the Empire now have complete control of media (formerly they had only partial control), and thus control all information that their populations receive. The directors of the Empire do this by rewarding easily corrupted journalists with lucrative careers. The latter careerists joined many other "professionals" (particularly in education) in the upper-middle class (Malcolm X referred to them as house niggers: he used this term when speaking to largely African-American audiences, but YouTube purged these videos) who enjoy the many fruits of capitalist rule.

This is the primary secret of the Empire's success; and need I add, the demise of humans and most other species on the unique planet Earth.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 (added one post from RT at 12:38 PM CT)

• What Did U.S. Intel Really Know About the ‘Chinese’ Virus? by Pepe Escobar from The Alternative World.

• Abrupt Ecosystem Collapse by Robert Hunziker from Defend Democracy Press. (Note: This article is a summary of a study published behind a paywall in Nature. The study is another piece of evidence that most life on Earth will perish within a few decades, maybe one decade. Also, see this and this.)

• To feel safe, does the world need more weapons or better healthcare? The coronavirus pandemic proves it’s the latter by Shishir Upadhyaya and Danielle Ryan from RT.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, April 21, 2020

• Covid-19: Likely financial conflagrations to come (part 3 of a series, the first two can be accessed in the article) by Eric Toussaint from CADTM. (Note: This is a comprehensive series on the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire's central banks and the role they are playing to keep the Empire afloat.) He concludes this article with the statement "It is of fundamental importance that a strategy be put into practice that makes a radical and complete break with the capitalist system and its deadly logic".

• Negative Prices Mark The End Of U.S. Shale by Bernhard from his weblog Moon of Alabama.

• Oil Price Collapse Delivers a Loud Warning by Pam Martens and Russ Martens from their weblog Wall Street on Parade.

• The Bailout, the Fed, and the Aftermath: A conversation with former Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin (Robert Kuttner interviews Raskin) from The American Prospect.

• The mother of all monologues | Biden will NOT be able to stand | EP 44 featuring a monolog by George Galloway (via YouTube), a former member of the British parliament.  (Note: I thank an activist for sending me this post.)
  
  My commentary: I entirely agree with his implied question at the end: what to do when the working class wakes up to the knowledge that the ruling classes have been doing virtually nothing to preserve and protect them?
  
  I fear for the future, not for myself, but mainly for the workers of both countries--they have a very rough road ahead of them. I can't imagine how the US elections in November will turn out.
  
  However, I hesitate to agree with Galloway's implication (if I understand him) that it was a naturally occurring mutation that produced this virus and only accidentally exposed to the general population. I'll await further evidence to decide. Prof. Francis Boyle offered convincing evidence that Covid-19 was produced in the USA, but I differ from his view that it was accidentally released in China. I think it was likely deliberately released in China as a desperate attempt by the Deep State (whether the US or the Empire's) to act as a cover to again bail-out major banks and corporations; to damage much of China's economy as well as a number of other national economies such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela while maintaining sanctions on them, and increasing them on the latter two; to get rid of a number of senior citizens that was a growing burden on the Social Security Administration; and to reduce populations as a necessity to prevent the growing threat to capitalism that greenhouse gases posed.
  
  If this was the strategy, it likely backfired. Now some workers are calling for a general strike on May Day. Meanwhile, the ruling class's sheepherder, Bernie Sanders, who campaigned for "Medicare For All", dropped out of the election just in time to prevent any damage to the election of Joe Biden, the ruling class's choice. The latter's government could only manage a $1200 to bail-out to some workers. This class is experiencing a growing sense of desperation, and they're doing everything they can to keep their Empire's currency afloat. Alastair Crooke is seeing the US dollar collapsing under the weight of debts. Graham Peebles sees an economic tsunami coming: "Everywhere in the world the cushioned and comfortable are more or less, insulated, both from inconvenience and to a degree from the coming economic [and political] tsunami." (My insertion.) 

• The Gates Foundation's Vaccination Activism by Eric Wagner from the German website Multipolar.

• 100 days after the assassination of Soleimani: Did the US achieve its goals? (part 2/2) by Elijah J Magnier from his weblog. Note: (The author cites events since the assassination to argue that the event backfired on the Empire.)

• State of the climate: First quarter of 2020 is second warmest on record by Zeke Hausfather from Carbon Brief.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, April 19, 2020

• Covid-19: stage assessment on the multidimensional crisis and alternative approaches by Eric Toussaint from CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt).

• Bill Gates – Coronavirus Vaccine or Biological Weapon and Implanted Microchip? by Nazar Golovko from FRN (Fort Russ News).

• Can COVID-19 Truth and 9/11 Truth Change the World? (with Matthew Ehret) featuring Kevin Barrett interviewing Canadian Matthew Ehret, a critical analyst, who frequently writes for Strategic Culture Foundation. This is an opportunity for people who respect Ehret's views and analysis to listen to him in this one hour interview. Dr. Barrett taught at the University of Wisconsin until he was blacklisted in 2006 by the ruling class who disapproved of his views and analysis. The interview was posted on False Flag Weekly News, one of Barrett's weblogs.

• Will antibody tests for the coronavirus really change everything? by Smriti Mallapaty from Nature.

• Capitalism Grappling with Coronavirus from The Internationalists. (Note: If you liked this article, you may be interested in another article entitled "Covid-19 struggles and workers' control".

• Unsanitized: Donna Shalala Selection Makes a Mockery of Bailout Oversight Panel by David Dayen from The American Prospect.

• David Meiswinkle Interview – Ongoing Suppression Of 9/11 Truth & Proof Of Controlled Demolition from The Last American Vagabond. (Note: This is a 48:35m interview with the lead attorney trying to push this effort through the federal court system.)

• The Fatal Road To 4 Degrees Celsius by Andrew Glikson from Arctic News. (Note: This is a comprehensive scientific report that supports my view that we humans and a vast majority of other species are inevitably heading for extinction within the next several decades.)