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, October 2, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, October 2, 2021

  • The War on COVID-19: Man’s Final Conquest of Nature by Nozomi Hayase from 21st Century Wire. My reaction: Hayase apparently acknowledges that the capitalist class is using science "for a “Great Reset” to re-engineer the global economy as the world emerged from the pandemic.", but doesn't make this point explicit enough. Yes, I insist that the ruling class is using science, like all other institutions, to improve their dominance of the world and to prevent (in their delusional minds) a runaway climate that threatens most life on Earth with extinction. 
The above article, and others of Johnstone, explains why today's advanced capitalist nations are pure examples of fascism: the merging of governments with corporations such that the latter controls the former. Fascism is the inevitable final stage of capitalism. The ruling capitalist classes, which have had considerable dominance via their US/Anglo/Zionist Empire over the world since WWII, have had difficulty defining this word for very obvious reasons. 
 
I think that George Orwell produced the best definition. He determined from what the word commonly meant was little beyond a "swearword". This obvious development was the considerable work of capitalist propagandists who had exceptional difficulties with the word in order to prevent the real meaning from influencing the minds of most people. You see, this increasingly transnational capitalist class (which soon evolved into a US/Anglo/Zionist Empire that we see today) defeated another would-be fascist-capitalist empire and arose from WWII with different methods, other than violence, to achieve compliance to the interests (wealth & power) of the capitalist ruling classes.
 
After a lifetime (I'm 85 years of age) of considerable reading of political history from original sources, I've concluded that the term fascism describes the core meaning of an all-powerful, transnational capitalist class that has taken complete control of governments without the pretenses of liberality (def. #1). Fascism is the last stage of the development of capitalism. The older conventional meanings differ widely, but they all included violent means to get compliance from the great masses of people. But, outright violence is irrelevant to my meaning of the term. There are other ways to create compliance to the diktats of a ruling class, and the contemporary transnational capitalist class of the Empire are using all of them.
 
You see, the new capitalist overlords were so impressed by the effectiveness of their propaganda during WWI and the 1930s that they chose different methods to ensure compliance. They did not completely dispense with more violent means of compliance, but largely directed their more violent methods against minorities and poor European-Americans (and, of course, foreign populations). The huge prison population, consisting of disproportionate minorities and poor people, reflects this fact. In the new version of fascism, the original capitalists of Britain and the USA have more frequently emphasized control of the thoughts of their subjects through re-writing of history and control over media as well as control over all other institutions in order to reflect their values and interests. It doesn't take an advanced degree to see if you control jobs, careers, and grant funding (for independent contractors), you can effectively control behavior.

Now with the ruling class engineered corona-19 "pandemic", they are increasingly using more militant methods of control via mandates that prevent people, if they are not vaccinated, from keeping their jobs, traveling, eating at restaurants, attending public events, etc. The ruling capitalist class is essentially creating a two-class society: theirs and their obedient followers and the rest of humanity who they are slowly reducing in numbers in a desperate method of preventing the effects of abrupt global warming which they have caused.
 
I offer my own website as proof. Despite my anti-capitalist orientation, they have not decided to banish my website from the internet because of the relatively low numbers of followers. They use algorithms to reduce the number of hits enjoyed by opposition websites, and they have been effective to lead people away from such dissidents. They censor highly qualified experts who oppose or criticize official pandemic policies on their media and more popular internet sites. Soon the ruling class will tire of the use of mind-control methods and use more violent means of containing opposition as they are now doing in Australia.

I think bloggers like Australian Johnstone with her critical use of "narratives" are catching on to what's happening and the true meaning of fascism.
  • CIA plan to poison Assange wasn’t needed. The US found a ‘lawful’ way to disappear him by Jonathan Cook, an independent British journalist now living in Nazareth in the right-wing Jewish occupied territory of Palestine which serves the hegemonic interests of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire, from his weblog. (Note: To those of you who have been closely following the persecution of Assange by the Empire, the article contains nothing new. The entire article encompasses all the main efforts to punish Assange for revealing the Empire's secrets.) My reaction: You might also be interested in an article by Joe Lauria entitled "What the Yahoo! Assange Report Got Wrong".
  • Does Capitalism Make Us Crazy? by Susan Rosenthal from her weblog. (Note: Rosenthal, a retired psychiatrist, gives a Marxist perspective on mental health.)
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Friday, October 1, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, October 1, 2021

Scientists have traditionally welcomed, and the public always demanded, alternative ideas and opinions when it comes to recommending treatment for illnesses. Indeed, the idea of ‘getting a second medical opinion’ for everything from dental work to heart surgery is such a popular notion that it is practically a cliché. Among medical professionals, had ‘second opinions’ been shunned, doctors would still be bloodletting to cure hypertension, for example, and conducting operations amid unsterile conditions. Once it becomes unacceptable to question the medical authorities then that’s when scientific inquiry will grind to a dramatic stop. And that seems to be exactly where humanity presently finds itself today in its battle against coronavirus, which is also a battle between doctors, although just one side gets all of the press. 
 
My reaction: Bridge's sub-headline is grossly naive: "Given that so many medical voices have expressed concern about the mandatory vaccine mandates, why is the media not balancing their reporting with a healthy modicum of skepticism, as one would expect to find?" Americans cannot grasp the fact that a cabal of right-wing capitalists, via the concentration of wealth that is inherent in capitalism, have taken over mainstream media. Thus, mainstream media is pure propaganda serving the interests of the ruling capitalist class.
  • 💥Crisis Of Legitimacy In Our Institutions by Chris Martenson features an interview with Peter Boghossian, a recently resigned professor at Portland State University located in Portland, Oregon from his weblog PeakProsperity. Although Boghossian resists talking about the events that led up to his resignation, Martenson teases out the story. This is a best post. My reaction: The two PhDs do not realize that educational institutions and all other institutions have been taken control by the right-wing cabal of billionaires. Although the capitalist ruling class has in the past greatly influenced what material is taught in colleges and universities, never has been a time up to now that a narrow group of billionaires who have control over all institutions.
Mainstream (corporate news media) coverage is not limited to dramatic events like 9/11 and the many assassinations of prominent leaders. This may become a shock to most Americans, but all "news" reports on mainstream media is purel propaganda designed to create narrative-realities to serve a increasingly concentrated group of billionaires who quite literally own and control the vital institutions of our nation and many others particularly those in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. Mainstream "news" does not serve the interests of the general public. It is very hard to convince Americans of this fact.
 
It is nearly impossible to escape these "realities" because people, who are preoccupied with their own concerns regarding the struggle to survive such as job problems, the welfare of their families, childcare, etc., that influence almost everyone: friends, family members, etc. I advise those people, who have the opportunity to move to foreign lands, to escape this iron-hold of "realities" created only to serve the interests of billionaires.
We’re sorry to have to tell you this, but the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) process, where the public and members of the press can request information from their government and get a meaningful response, is as dead under the Biden administration as it was under the Trump, Obama and George W. Bush administrations. In no small part, this is why the United States of America, which regularly lectures other countries on what it means to be a democracy, has lost the trust of the American people.
  • 100 Years Ago The Battle of Blair Mountain Rocked The U.S. narrated by Anders Lee and posted in Redacted Tonight's channel on RT. My reaction: This is a piece of labor history that is censored in public education, and represents thousands of articles that are left out in history courses in US schools. Remember that Prof. Michael Hudson is a champion of industrial capitalism in apparent rebellion against his Trotskyist parents? Hudson currently writes in opposition to neoliberalism (new capitalist ideas now that industrial capitalism has inevitably evolved into financial capitalism) while defending industrial capitalism. In his youth, he apparently saw that supporting industrial capitalism was a positive career move in a society that loathed subversive class-structured ideas that were not in accordance with capitalist ideology.
     
  • The Pashtun will outlast all empires, but can they hold Afghanistan's center? by Pepe Escobar from The Cradle. 
The ‘historic’ 1990s Taliban – who now compose the majority of the interim government – are Pashtun tribals who speak Pashto and so affirm their identity, much more than emphasizing being member of a particular tribe. What is unshakeable for these men issued from rural conservatism is their suspicion of the city – especially Kabul and its modernists – and the Pashtun superiority complex in relation to other ethnic groups.
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Thursday, September 30, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, September 30, 2021

I have a medical appointment so I must break this day's collection of posts into two segments. I will be posting section two later. This is section one:
Bio: Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War that has worked on veterans and POW issues for decades and consulted with governments challenged by security issues. He’s a senior editor and chairman of the board of Veterans Today, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
                                                                          ******************************
Duff in his opening paragraph: Something strange has happened to America. Millions of Americans are demonstrating symptoms of what are generally referred to as pathological disorders, generally personality disorders, of the kind normally attributed to abandonment by parents or sexual abuse as children. 
 
Section 2:
  • Youtube cancels RT German channels featuring former UK MP George Galloway and cohost of Boom Bust Ben Swann express comments on this new development--from RT America's channel on YouTube (08:09m).
  • Another Tempestuous Balkan Pot Is Boiling by Stephen Karganovic from Strategic Culture Foundation. (Note: This article is for those who have been continuously informed of Balkan affairs. You will only need to what "Republika Srpska" means.)
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Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Wednesday, September 29, 2021

In this framework, Biden is openly asserting an actual right to do things he suspects or knows he has no legal right to do. He dares objectors to seek enforcement by the courts, telling them essentially to bring it on, knowing there are enormous costs in time, money, and hassle for them to do so. If they don’t, Biden has discovered an actual right. It’s a giant game of constitutional chicken, with ramifications that can affect generations by greatly expanding the power of the Executive Branch.
 
My reaction: Sanders seems to forget that we are living in a capitalist society where legal challenges take a lot of money to defend legal rights.
The recent article in The Guardian written by suspected MI6-linked Martin Chulov is a sign of the collapsing regime change project driven by the UK and US intelligence agencies since well before 2011. A war in a series of wars and coups that have plagued the region for decades. I recently wrote about the West being forced to partially normalise relations with President Assad after demonising him relentlessly since 2011. This is only the first in what will be a long line of climb-downs by the US/UK Coalition of intervention.
  • Podcast: Asa Winstanley on the Purging of Socialists from the U.K. Labour Party featuring Mnar Adley, a founder of this Mint Press News, in an interview with Winstanley, an investigative journalist and former member of the British Labour Party. (Note: You may want to access this interview via YouTube to give you greater control over the podcast.) My reaction: Britain is a major member of the capitalist de-facto US/Anglo/Zionist Empire--as such the directors of the Empire must keep out any socialist advocate. Also, read this article by British independent blogger Jonathan Cook.
  • There Is No ‘Good’ Form Of Capitalism: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix by Australian Caitlin Johnstone with her American husband, Tim Foley, also reading the script (but you may miss supporting examples, illustrations, etc.)--from her weblog. My reaction: The answer in the article about democracy is the fake version of bourgeois democracy (or capitalists' version of democracy) where private owners of the economy influence (with their wealth and power) what outcomes are decided. This is not real democracy where the general public has a significant influence on major political decisions, the media, and all other institutions. There should not be private ownership of the economy beyond a certain asset level which is decided by the people of that society.
  • Homo Economicus or Life in the Magic Kingdom by John Steppling from his weblog. My reaction: Steppling is a highly educated American blogger, who resides with his family in Norway and who has a long career in stage plays and films. If you can tolerate many graphics unrelated to the content and content that requires extensive education, you will likely appreciate this article. I found many passages that I thoroughly agree with, but I have doubts that it is worth the great effort to find these passages.
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Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Tuesday, September 28, 2021

  • Spartacus by "Spartacus" from The Automatic Earth. (Note: I thank a west-coast activist for sending me this post--RH.) Commentary by Brad Fredricks follows:
Sensational, well thought out, and symbolic. For those that do not know, or want to skip reading this thorough and informative article, Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who was an escaped slave leader in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic, and the Oligarchs.

A fitting title for a well authored piece that goes out of its way to connect the absolutely sensational yet plausible dots of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, they did not miss a beat on the arrest of Harvard Professor, and human brain interface nanotech researcher, Charles Lieber.

All points have been referenced, and imagining it is true, this heady review connects the dots to a narrative of deceit, subterfuge and ill-intents of the ruling class.
 
The key takeaway, be it sensational or not ... question the motives and narratives society is being served worldwide.
  • "This Is Completely Avoidable" - New York Hospitals Prepare For Staffing Crisis As Vaccination Mandate Forces Mass Firings by Tyler Durden from his weblog ZeroHedge. My reaction: When I was recently in New York state above NY City, I was surprised by the casual attitude of various receptionists at the abundant historical sites in an area that exudes wealth of the rich. They didn't take their orders seriously, that is, they didn't enforce the requirement to wear face masks. They just posted signs that said so. Otherwise, they didn't enforce the wearing of masks and I was able to tour a number of historical places. But I was forced to wear a mask at a store selling toll-road passes in a place near Chicago.
  • 💥Stepping Out of the Shadow of 9/11: Start by Ending the Post-9/11 States of Emergency by Aaron Good, Ben Howard and Peter Dale Scott from CovertAction Magazine. This is a best post among the category of best posts--it is essential reading. My reaction: This gives you, the younger generation, a partial list of events that I have lived through one-half of my adult life. This essential historical information is a recovery of past events that the ruling class has too often hidden from your view and that of the general public.
Ben Howard: ... while many well-educated and well-read Americans may acknowledge that the official story of a deep event like, say, 9/11 is “something of a whitewash,”[1] bourgeois norms typically prevent these people from delving too deeply into that which is being whitewashed. These deep events point to the conclusion that the world we live in is often ruled by dark and occulted forces which escape accountability thanks to state secrecy, media manipulation, and the powerful psychological forces of repression, denial, and dissociation. But to acknowledge the implications of this conclusion for our nominal democracy is to situate oneself outside of acceptable discourse. It is clear, therefore, that to develop a proper understanding of the nature of the American politico-economic system, we must transcend this “acceptable discourse.” Our present understanding of America’s history and politics, manipulated as it is by ruling class interests, cannot serve us.

It is necessary, then, to develop a popular “common sense” counter-narrative which, through unflinching analysis of the role of class power and elite self-interest in our society, is able to capture and convey the true significance of these deep events.
  • US War Plans with China Taking Shape by Brian Berletic, an ex-Marine living with his family in Thailand because he could no longer tolerate the all-encompassing lies coming from US sources, from New Eastern Outlook.
  • How Is The CIA Still A Thing? by Australian Caitlin Johnstone with her American husband, Tim Foley, also reading the script (but you may miss supporting examples, illustrations, etc.)--from her weblog. My reaction: I've wondered about this most of my life.
  • How the Media Brainwashes You by Starté Butone from Anti-War. Note: I don't take a position whether the USA should have entered WWII. Because if we take into consideration that WWII merely substituted one German fascism for another led by the US/Anglo/Zionist fascist Empire, we would be confused by the debate. I consider this an obscure argument for wiser folks than I. My reaction: I apologize to those of you that consider this piece obvious, but there are millions of Americans who don't realize they have been duped throughout their lives.
In the land of the free, every citizen is guaranteed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Sadly, however, this guarantee is often suspended for many folks who rot in jail for years waiting to prove their innocence. Because he’s yet to [be] proven guilty, Marvin Guy is innocent until proven so. And for the last 7 years, he’s been innocent, in jail, with no trial. [my insertion]
  • Left wins in German election — why? featuring Rick Sanchez and Mollye Barrows reporting on a clip from Rich Sanchez news report via his RT channel on YouTube (03:17m). My reaction: This is another indication that the important European section of the Empire is disintegrating.
Insiders at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have alleged dozens of violations of the agency’s “scientific integrity” policy over the last few years, including complaints of political interference and tampering with chemical risk assessments, but nearly all the complaints have been ignored, according to an analysis conducted by a nonprofit group representing EPA employees.
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Monday, September 27, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Monday, September 27, 2021

  • EXPLOSIVE Truth About Vaccines & COVID w/Inventor Of mRNA Vaccine Technology featuring Dr. Malone, the inventor of mRNA vaccines, who addresses the current push (via conditional mandates (if workers want to keep their jobs) and orders to military personnel from government officials to have everyone vaccinated with experimental vaccines that have mRNA technology, interviewed by Jimmy Dore via his channel on YouTube (01:14:55) to explain Malone's opposition to such technology. My reaction: YouTube does everything it can to discourage you from listening to Dr. Malone's explanation by statements like "Get the latest information from the CDC." and  "See More Resources on Google." This is not the first specialist who has argued against the CDC's policies. Vaccine scientist and virologist Geert Vanden Bossche also is in opposition. Many others highly trained scientists are (in opposition), but they are being censored by compromised government bureaucrats and from any media controlled by the ruling capitalist class claiming that their policies represent "science". What is more damning is that the capitalist ruling class through its media are now projecting onto China what they have been doing all along--engaging recklessly in research which the USA is doing intentionally--engaging in the secret development of biowarfare weapons (read Nicholas Baker's book entitled Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act and Dave Chaddock's book entitled This Must Be the Place).
  • NEA [National Education Association] World Order by John Klyczek from Unlimited Hangout. (Note: My insertion)
Does this struggle against China make sense? Can America, whose economic and financial system today is highly precarious, afford to bludgeon China into adverse economic straits also? Can an America that off-shored much of its manufacturing capacity to China, for short-term profit, afford the de-coupling? Do American corporate leaders truly share the view that the (inevitable) consolidation of economic power in Asia imperils American prosperity, and that its consolidation would shatter their imperial outreach, dollar-based order? Possibly they do. They do fear it.
Escobar rightly assesses that “today, it is…the specter of a Russia-China-Germany entente that terrorizes the Hegemon as the Eurasian trio capable of sending American global domination to the dustbin of History.”
Truly, tectonic changes are happening before our eyes, and today I just want to list some of them but without going to deep into specific analyses, that I plan to do later in the coming weeks. But just looking at this list is impressive enough, at least for me.
  • Corporate media stirred global terror hysteria to push postwar hostility toward new Afghan govt by Gareth Porter from The Grayzone. My reaction: The only thing that I disagree with Porter is his sub-headline "The media’s latest ahistorical freak-out over Afghanistan is further evidence of its de facto merger with the U.S. national security state". As I see it, the concentration of wealth (and power) has enabled the capitalist ruling class to take complete control of the media--it is not a merger.
This post's author is described at the end of the article as a "libertarian conservative" which means, like all contemporary anarchists, that he doesn't see beyond the government. This means, in turn, that he is in favor of small capitalism. The trouble with small capitalism is that it inevitably grows to big capitalism that controls the government and all other institutions as we see today in the presence of the transnational empire--the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. 
 
But I think Tate has a valid point: the tendency of the general public is restoring normalcy, but they are naive. I think that this is a possibility (shutting down the internet) given the setbacks that the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire has experienced in the last decade. Given the ignorance of the general public and their compliance with pandemic mandates like good-little fascists, this would be a possible next step for a desperate ruling transnational capitalist class in order to maintain their Empire in the face of growing doubts about this class's pandemically-inspired mandates on the internet. But this would also affect ordinary business operations, too! And, this possibility also does not take into consideration the disintegration of the Empire (see this). Thus, I don't consider it a probability, but it is a possibility for the US capitalist ruling class.
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