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, April 9, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, April 9, 2022

  • ‘People’s Health Alliance’ established to help people with Covid-19 Vaccine Injuries from The Exposé, a British website, from their channel on Odysee (33:02). (Note: The NHS referred to in the video is a reference to the government's National Health Service, a token medical service for all British people.) My reaction: We clearly need such a service here in the USA because the established medical clinics are not doing their job of protecting the health of the people.
Katherine Macbean, who is spearheading the nationwide PHA initiative, said they were aware of an urgent need to support and treat people adversely affected by the Covid-19 injections.
  • Ukraine: The Broader Geopolitical Conflict by Vijay Prashad from Consortium News. My reaction: Prashad seems to agree with Mike Whitney whose post on Febr. 11 testifies about the conflict in Ukraine. It is about the independence of Europe and the subordination of Russia to the Empire to prevent the integration of the economies of Europe and Russia. Such an event will spell the ultimate end of the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire. This contention supports the argument that we should be closely following the events in Ukraine and Europe. Prashad writes as follows:
The principal axis of Russia’s war is not actually Ukraine, though it bears the brunt of it today. It is whether Europe can be permitted to forge projects independently of the U.S. and its North Atlantic agenda.
 
Later he writes:
 
Fearful of the great changes occurring in Eurasia, the U.S. acted on commercial and diplomatic and military fronts. Commercially, the U.S. tried to substitute European reliance on Russian natural gas by promising to supply Europe with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from both U.S. suppliers and Gulf Arab states.

Since LNG is far more expensive than piped gas, this was not an enticing commercial deal.
 
I predict that Europeans will ultimately choose the integration of the economies--a rational choice. Whether this result becomes before the climate destabilization really sets in is anybody's guess.
  • West Blames Russia for Using Missile Only Ukraine Has by Brian Berletic, an independent geopolitical expert and ex-Marine who currently resides with his family in Thailand, argues that Ukrainian missiles are blamed on Russia in the Empire's propaganda--from his channel on Rumble (11:19). (Note: The text is to introduce the post.) My reaction: See also Bernhard's (Moon of Alabama) take of this alleged incident here.
  • Capitalism normalizes death: From COVID-19 to the threat of nuclear war by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site. My reaction: Are the ruling capitalist class of the Empire (de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire) preparing us for a nuclear war in their war on Russia (and China) and to preserve their class rule over the world? Damon assembles evidence to favor the affirmative.
  • LIVE: Extinction Rebellion is back! Our mission: Stop Fossil Filth! from Extinction Rebellion, a British organization that protests the British government complicity in favoring fossil fuels--from their channel on YouTube (all day). My reaction: Let us look in on the today's ongoing protest by this organization. (Note: The text of this post is to introduce the post.)
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Friday, April 8, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, April 8, 2022

I've decided to handle lengthy posts like I handled yesterday's posts: listen to a part of it to get the overall theme of the post. I was mistaken as a special article that I recommended for your attention. You see, I have a rather good nose for where the post is going; but after listening to the whole discussion following my daily posts, I concluded that I should not have included this article with the other recommended posts. Let me explain.
 
I noticed that this discussion was a kind of commiseration among the group which was largely made up of Mint Press news analysts. I fault the founder Mnar Adley for this mistake. Although she was of Middle East ancestry and was influenced by her ties with this latter culture, she was clearly influenced by her formative years in the USA. This culture was This culture was in the form of overwhelming influences by the capitalist ruling class that went out of its way to discourage any socialist ideas. I am speaking especially of the rich Marxist influences that are suppressed in American culture. 
 
I encountered this in my formal education at a major university on the west coast following my one year experience at a small progressive college. At the latter institution I found myself surrounded by "red-diaper babies" and their ideas. I filed away their ideas but I subsequently found that these ideas explained much of what is occurring in the political world. This experience encouraged me to seek out Marxist literature in the vast collection of the library located at the major university. I discovered that such ideas are explained much better than conventional explanations of major geopolitical events. In the balance of my formal education, I pursued such ideas and was a serious student of sociology. 
 
However, my chosen path was not easy. I readily discovered that my new understanding of geopolitical and other sociological events was not welcome by other students and, to my shock, even by my professors. But in my nearly obsessive search for truth, I pursued Marxist ideas anyway in spite of this opposition. I experienced loneliness throughout my formal advanced education and was getting accustomed to it. Having graduated with a BA in sociology, I saw major difficulties in the post-graduate years ahead, and decided to pursue a post-graduate program that prepared me for a reasonably lucrative job. 

What consisted of this Marxist education in the USA? I learned that a capitalist society was fractured into different classes: a tiny ruling class which imposed their values and perspectives on those classes below them, followed by the upper middle class of highly trained specialists, and a middle class comprised of small to middle sized businesses, and the vast majority were lumped into the working class. And, I studied throughout my adult years the use of propaganda everywhere in order to cohere the adult population into subscribers and supporters of capitalist interests. 

This lengthy explanation was to explain how my life's education and experiences have differed from that of the great majority of ordinary Americans, and an explanation for my error in recommending this article. Nearly all Americans are exposed to this conventional upbringing while living in the USA, and it's very difficult to avoid it. 

In my post formal education years, I read widely and some of this reading consisted of histories written by people who experienced it. Thus, I arrived at the lengthy exposition of my political orientation as expressed in my articles entitled "Countdown to 'Full Spectrum Dominance'" and "Fake leaders and ineffective movements".
 
Regarding my opposition to yesterday's post entitled "Cancel Culture and Polarization in the Age of COVID: How To Agree To Disagree", I discovered this was all about their experience of losing friends and relationships with family members as a reaction to their very realistic views. In short, it was about commiseration. In contrast, I have lived this experience all my life and was accustomed to it. Their actual knowledge of the way the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire works cannot be explained by the cultural influences of US culture. Thus, the enlightened employees of Mint Press News are losing friends and family members from those that have been indoctrinated by the ubiquitous (def.) propaganda received while living in the USA, and they are suffering because of this loss. 
  • Twitter IS “State-Affiliated Media” by Australian Caitlin Johnstone with her American husband, Tim Foley, also reading the script (07:47) in the audio section of her article, but you may miss supporting examples, illustrations, etc.)--from her weblog.
The biggest news of today’s cycle is the wild admission by the Pentagon, U.S. media, etc., that the U.S. has in fact employed a “strategy” of outright lying and making up fake intelligence to ‘combat Russia’. [see here]
  • Edge of Extinction: Maybe I'm Wrong [I hope] features the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--08:36), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout much of his prior career and retirement on the climate crisis.
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Thursday, April 7, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, April 7, 2022

For centuries the left in the United States has stood against authoritarianism and government repression, and for civil liberties and the cause of the working class. Yet with the advent of COVID and the resulting pandemic, many on the left have abandoned all of those values, acquiescing to the demands of the pharmaceutical industry and co-opted government agencies to support lockdowns, vaccine mandates and vaccine passports.
  • They Wouldn’t, Would They? features, a British comedian turned serious analyst of political events--from Brand's channel on YouTube (00:52). 
  • Lee Camp on censoring anti-war voices features Camp being interviewed by Alexandria Zoe from Peoples Dispatch's channel on YouTube (18:14). (Note: The text acts as an introduction to the video.)
  • Sanctions - The Blowback featuring an interview with economist Michael Hudson from Renegade's channel on YouTube (27:57).
  • 💥The Necessity of Russian Victory in Ukraine: “I Don’t Want Peace. I Want War and I Want War to Finish it’s Awful Business.” features a video discussion by various participants. I only post Scott Ritter's view starting at 54:50 to expound his view of the war in Ukraine because I believe it is the one that has special merit. This is a best post. (Note: The video presentation by Ritter is from 54:50 to the end of his presentation at 109:15 which is 14:25 total time.) My reaction: We are seeing censorship applied with the war in Ukraine as we did in the corona pandemic, and I don't think that this is a mere coincidence. I don't know who wrote the following statement, but I fully agree with the first paragraph:
In this webinar titled “The First Casualty of War is Truth”, Scott Ritter delivered a powerful statement, departing from Western left hypocrisy. I concur with his assessment. Russia’s operation in Ukraine merits the full support of anti-imperialists throughout the world.
 
As a punishment for speaking the truth about the war in Ukraine, his twitter account was suspended.
  • Violent Inflation Riots Begin by Chris Martenson from his weblog PeakPosperity. (Note: This post includes a text summary, a visual and an audio presentation.)
  • Unless FullFact.org Says So Then It’s Not True, The UK Government Advises by Rhoda Wilson from The Exposé, a British based website. My reaction: It looks like the Brits are being subjected to the same censorship that we, in the USA, are facing. But this is not surprising. After all, Britain is in the same empire as the US--the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire as the USA.
This is Part 2 of Facing Future TV’s discussion with Dr. Luiz Marquez about his upcoming book, The Decisive Decade. Dr. Marques is a Professor of Environmental History at the State University of Campinas in São Paolo, Brazil. Here we discuss how war, overconsumption, pollution and ecological destruction are accelerating the #climate crisis while harming our health and the planet. This is fueled by global #capitalism and the grip of corporate control which rages unchecked. We must evolve to defeat the climate crisis - and this includes true accountability for corporate agents of ruin. Dr. Luiz Marques, a leading proponent of #EcologicalEconomics (http://isecoeco.org) shows why an economy based on continuous exponential growth, is unsustainable.
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Wednesday, April 6, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Wednesday, April 6, 2022

  • CIA Trained the Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and Has Chosen Ukraine as the Birthplace of the New “Global White Supremacist” Terror Threat by Whitney Webb from Internationalist 360°. My reaction: Supporting the Nazis in Ukraine while pretending that the war currently going on is a result of a Russian invasion of Europe has created a thick mass of propaganda to conceal this agenda. The goal has always been (since the socialist revolution in 1917) to overthrow the nationalist government in Russia (and China, Iran, etc.) which has determined to break free of the unipolar dominance of the de-facto capitalist US/British/Zionist Empire. Now such a goal is more urgent than ever for the Empire before the threat of impending destabilization of the climate and the decline of the Empire sets in.
  • Why the EU is Confronting China by Salman Rafi Sheikh from New Eastern Outlook. My reaction: In order to defeat the Russia-China-Iran combination, the directors of the de-facto capitalist US/British/Zionist Empire must teach the existing leaders of Europe that they will win with the backing of the Empire. But the existing leaders can be replaced if ordinary Europeans wake up to the reality that Europe must pursue its own interests. It is questionable whether the directors of the Empire are desperate enough to resort to a nuclear war with their antagonists.
Foreign critics have long chafed at the “exorbitant privilege” of the U.S. dollar as global reserve currency. The U.S. can issue this currency backed by nothing but the “full faith and credit of the United States.” Foreign governments, needing dollars, not only accept them in trade but buy U.S. securities with them, effectively funding the U.S. government and its foreign wars. But no government has been powerful enough to break that arrangement – until now. How did that happen and what will it mean for the U.S. and global economies?
One doesn’t even have to look abroad to American politicians fleecing failed states to see what Liberal Democracy is really about. Again, Joe Biden, for example, has had a long and storied career as an insurance industry representative. His home state of Delaware has had many companies come in to take advantage of tax loopholes and the like, and Joe Biden has gone to Congress for decades to push for legislation that is agreeable to their continued profits.

Again, this is normal. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. This is how the system of [liberal democracy] works. [my edit]
 
This is the fundamental ethic of capitalism as expressed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who said "...there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families...". 

And the existing European leaders have joined the club of rich financiers and corporation CEOs like Jens Stoltenberg, titular head of NATO and a Norwegian, a careerist who wants to gain from the wealth by being the head of NATO, the army of the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire.
  • Proof: Zelensky REJECTED Peace With Russia features Jimmy Dore, a former comedian turned serious critic of our government's policies, conducting an interview with guest Aaron Maté of The Grayzone regarding the war in Ukraine--from Dore's channel on YouTube (21:43).
  • They’ll Stop At Nothing by Russell Brand, a British comedian and former drug addict turned serious political critic--from his channel on YouTube (00:55). 
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Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Tuesday, April 5, 2022

The war in Ukraine is a tragedy for those immediately impacted but for all of us as well. Particularly if we do not recognise the threat it conceals and act powerfully in response to this deeper threat.

For 5,000 years elites have been pitting us against each other – at work, on the battlefield, in life generally – by drawing attention to, and magnifying, superficial differences (based on gender, race, religion, class, nationality….), exacerbating conflicts and convincing us that they are acting in our own best interests when we do what they tell us via their agents in government, the corporate media and elsewhere, and that human solidarity is worth nothing.

Well, one day very soon now, we would do well to realize that in the end only three things matter: Human solidarity is essential if we are to survive this existential crisis, our true enemy is not each other but the insane Global Elite, and we must act powerfully and nonviolently if we are to defeat it.

A human future worth living will be short otherwise.
  • More sanctions against Russia would further harm Europe, ‘keep crisis from ending’ by  By Yang Sheng and Chi Jingyi from the Global Times, a Chinese major publication reputedly the voice of the Chinese Communist Party. My reaction: Ordinary Europeans will wake up sooner or later to the fact that their well-being is dependent on trade with Russia. That will spell the end (def.) of a unilateral world dominated by the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire.
  • The Kremlin Never Learns by Paul Craig Roberts from his weblog. My reaction: The invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces did not "win" the propaganda war as seen by Roberts. However, the propaganda war did not influence Pres. Putin's decision to invade Ukraine. It was to de-Nazify Ukraine and to eliminate a threat to Russia if NATO established bases in their nation. The propaganda war will take care of itself in the next few years as populations (especially Europeans) wake up to the real facts.
The Solomon Islands is in the process of working out a security pact with China which would allow Chinese police and soldiers to help maintain order in the country upon request. The West has decried this deal as a sign of growing Chinese influence, but fail to point out the context within which this pact is necessary for both the Solomon Islands and China.

It has been the US, Australia, and Taiwan who have undermined the peace, stability, and security of the Solomon Islands for years, forcing Honiara to find a more reliable security partner. China is already a reliable and important economic partner, thus Honiara believes China will make a suitable security partner. 
It is quite understandable that the West has always preferred to fight only with foreign hands, and it is now supplying Ukrainian neo-Nazis with huge quantities of high-tech weapons, as UK and US planes deliver weapons to Kiev in a race against time.  Weapons, including US-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, are arriving in Ukraine, yet Western governments claim at every corner that the West is supposedly not directly engaged in conflict with Russia. Why? This time they have found cheap cannon fodder on Ukrainian territory, who will now die by the thousands and then by the tens of thousands and millions in the name of the West who commands them.

The same is happening in far away Yemen, where Western rulers have waged a fratricidal war with the hands of the Saudis in the name of their mercenary financial interests.
  • What You Need To Know About The Great Reset features Joe Martino from The Pulse (based in Canada). My reaction: It seems so obvious that the solutions put forth by the rich and powerful only serve themselves as a tiny socioeconomic class. In other words, the Great Reset is wrapped up in clumsy propaganda designed to serve the tiny classes of the capitalist rich and powerful in order fool, once again, ordinary people in the working classes of the world. The core belief associated with the Great Reset, "You will own nothing and be happy", is a recipe for the rich and powerful to own everything and be gloriously happy because they will have us "by the short hairs" (def.).
  • This Could Change Everything features Russell Brand, a British comedian and former drug addict turned serious political critic, from his channel on YouTube (12:06). 
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Monday, April 4, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Monday, April 4, 2022

  • Two Years After Covid, Eyes Remain Firmly Shut by Ron Unz from his weblog The Unz Review. My brief reaction: I am firmly convinced that the Covid-19 virus was produced in one of the Empire's laboratories. The US has been engaged in biowarfare weapons research since WWII having recruited Nazi and Japanese scientists after the war. They have undeniably used them in the Korean War. Unz does not question the data furnished by the CDC and other government sources which was corrupted by many factors such as paying hospitals more for those who have come down with the virus, great pressure put on medical physicians (including the loss of their licenses to practice) to diagnose patients as having the virus, etc. The fact that the virus was first noticed in China and Iran, two prime enemies of the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire and the promotion by major media corporations to push vaccinations as the solution to the problem is enough to suspect otherwise. I hold great emphasis on media propaganda to reveal the true intentions of the directors of the Empire. I'll stake my whole political life and my many thousands of read books.
After European nations imported the most gas from Russian sources yesterday in months, scrambling to stock up on supplies as Russian President Vladimir Putin's deadline to either pay for gas in rubles (or be cut off) came and went, Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.
  • Nazis in Ukraine: Seeing Through the Fog of the Information War by Gabriel Rockhill from Internationalist 360°. My reaction: There is no question that the secret services of the Empire have developed ties with the right-wing fascists of Ukraine and supported them in this venture to topple the Russian government since their coup in 1914 which they engineered.
  • We Told You features Russell Brand, a British comedian and former drug addict turned serious political critic, from his channel on YouTube (15:38).
The “democratic” country of Canada is following up actions during the trucker protests with a new bill to regulate online speech.   
  • "It's A Con" features an interview with Richard Hanania conducted by Russell Brand. Hanania "is a writer, researcher and President of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology and a Research Fellow at Defense Priorities. We discussed who benefits the most from American Foreign Policy."--from Brand's channel on YouTube (11:14). My reaction: Former comedians like CJ Hopkins, Jimmy Dore, as well as Brand are not censored because the ruling capitalist class doesn't consider that you will take them seriously. However, they can see how the government functions, and you can too.
  • It Begins features comments by Russell Brand regarding the promotion by Pres. Biden for military spending using funds for the covid relief funds, passed last year--from Brand's channel on YouTube (14:17).
Despite calls to fund life-sustaining food and housing programs, President Biden has encouraged more spending on police tech. Almost as if he’s expecting people to be angry about something.
Thanks to the war in Ukraine, and the attendant rise in gas prices, US fossil fuel companies stand to make between $37-126 billion in additional profits in 2022. That’s according to joint research conducted by Oil Change International, Greenpeace USA, and Global Witness. So is it any wonder that the politicians who serve this powerful industry would pursue policies making war likely?

Jimmy and comedian/playwright Howard Skora discuss the financial incentives that make war so profitable for fossil fuel companies. 
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