Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, February 14, 2020

• A Short History of Humanity’s Future by Manuel García, Jr. from CounterPunch.

• January 2020 Temperature Anomaly from Arctic News. (Note: In the second graph I choose the red line as representing reality.)

• A Few Minutes to Save the World featuring Stuart Scott from UPFSI (United Planet Faith & Science Initiative). (Note: This conventionally religious guy has not given up on saving the "world", that is, life-forms on our Earth planet. One must have a lot of religious faith to ignore scientific facts.)

Stuart Scott quit his day job in 2008 to serve humanity and life on Earth full time as a climate change and eco-social strategist. Here is one of his first speeches at the UN climate talks, one of the 'intercessional' rounds of negotiations between the annual COPs, or Conferences Of Parties. Everything he said is as urgently relevant today as it was back then. But the climate talks have continued as a disingenuous ritual of 'kicking the can down the road', until now we are experiencing a climate emergency of huge proportions.

• Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia Merger: Global Empire of Dystopia? by Gilbert Mercier from News Junkie Post.

• Revolutionary Medicine by Alan Macleod posted on Titanic Lifeboat Academy. 

• Did World War III actually start on 26 July 1945? by Eric Zuesse from The Duran. 

(Note: Zuesse, as a social democrat, must distort certain details of history in order to salvage his view "That’s not what capitalism was supposed to be." Thus a ruling class becomes an aristocracy, government become a "regime", and he places too much emphasis on individuals to explain his social democratic view of 20th century history that turned capitalism (in his view) from a hopeful enterprise to a disaster.

However, as a stickler for truth, he presents a much more realistic view of history than do thoroughly capitalist-indoctrinated historians who largely rewrite history to manage social consent for the ongoing disastrous actions of the US ruling class. 

The latter saw opportunities in 1941 to construct an empire out of the rubble that WWII left behind. Like any good capitalist, early on the ruling class saw this exciting opportunity and launched their initial attempts to defeat all opposition whether domestic or abroad. Their domestic opponents posed a more serious threat in 1945, and the latter were to weak to resist. So, they began their attacks on labor unions with the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 (also see this), and went on to weed out socialist-minded opponents in the film industry. This was only the beginning of an effort by the US capitalist ruling class to establish their own empire.

So, the simple answer to his question is a resounding "yes"! but not the individualist reasons he gives. The causes are systemic--capitalism.)

Articles recommended for Wednesday, June 12, 2019

• Look to U.S. executive suites, not Beijing, for why production is moved by Pete Dolack from his blog Systemic Disorder.

• The Great Insect Dying: Vanishing act in Europe and North America by Jeremy Hance from Mongabay.

• In the Western Media Narrative, SAA-Targeted Underground Bunkers and Terrorist-Run Prisons Become “Hospitals” by Vanessa Beeley from Mint PressNews. 

• Cuban Doctors Provide Healthcare To Those In Need - The U.S. Wants To Stop Them by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama.

Articles recommended for Saturday, August 25, 2018

• Breaking the chains of delusion -Technological progress mythologies and the pitfalls of digitalization by Fabian Scheidler from DeGrowth (Germany). (Note: there is one obvious mistake, likely a typo, in the article--"... in relation to 800 billion people starving on the planet.")

It is the endpoint of the submission of human beings under the logics of the [capitalist] machine, the blind mechanics of endless capital accumulation and the disciplinary apparatuses. The digitalized human only exists as a set of data, and consequently all that makes up life – spontaneity, emotional experience and creativity – have vanished. Of course this is not what Google is saying, quite the contrary, but it is what happens, if you follow their ideas.

Now, the question is: Do we want to entrust our future to people with visions of that kind? Do we want to feed them with our data, see the world through their Google glasses and move around in cars that are steered by their algorithms? Or are we going to free ourselves from the Matrix they have created, in order to regain reality, our bodies and our minds?

• US Uses Facebook to Spread Fake News About Cuba by Rosa Miriam Elizalde from Cuba-Network in Defense of Humanity.

• Video: Jasic factory workers imprisoned in China from Libcom. 

• US Inmates’ Against 'Modern Slavery': Possible Outcomes of the National Prison Strike by Edward Rhymes from his blog Rhymes Media Group.

La izquierda está consumida por la propaganda occidental [The Left is Consumed by Propaganda]

Click here to access article from Wrong Kind of Green posting a speech (translated into English) delivered by Gustavo Borges Revilla, director of the Venezuelan media project Misión Verdad during the 24th Sao Paulo Forum in Havana, Cuba held July 15th -17th. (An activist alerted me to this post.)



Missions in Venezuela were begun under former President Hugo Chavez to create a variety of grass roots organizations in Venezuela. Thus, Venezuelan media project Misión Verdad (Truth Mission) is some kind of media project of a grass roots organization.

In his speech Gustavo Borges Revilla warned the audience that the capitalist Empire wages war in the form of propaganda to subvert and indoctrinate leftists of the world in addition to all their other means of warfare. 

Latin American School of Medicine: A beacon of fraternity, solidarity and collectivity

Click here to access article by Nuria Barbosa León from Granma (Cuba). (Note: I'd like to thank Caren from northwestern Oregon for alerting me to this article.)

Cuban medicine is famous all over the world except here in the US where media corporations don't want you to know about it. Their research has led to new medicines, their Latin America School of Medicine has trained more than 28,500 doctors from 103 countries, and Cuban doctors have served in numerous countries which are lacking in health facilities. I know from my trip to Venezuela in December 2005 that the Venezuelan people very much appreciate the work they have done in their country.

The article mostly reports on the author's interviews with recent graduates of the school to hear from them about their experience at the school.

Cuba: Revolution, Sabotage & Un-Normal Relations

Click here to access article by Abby Martin from Media Roots. 

Leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, has died on his own terms, after surviving at least 638 assassination attempts by the CIA. Unlike the glorification of brutal theocratic leaders like Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah, the establishment will be giving no accolades to Castro.

Capitalism’s defenders vociferously attack Cuba as a freedomless dystopia, while downplaying the country’s amazing achievements under socialism. 

This post features three videos by the outstanding independent journalist Abby Martin describing the history of Cuba under socialism, their relations with the US, and the numerous socialist achievements brought about the Cuban Revolution under the leadership of Fidel Castro. 

Fidel Castro: Historic Leader of the Cuban Revolution Dies

Click here to access article from The Dawn News. (Edited for clarity on 11/29/2016)

Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro died on Friday night at the age of 90. The unfortunate news was announced by President Raul Castro, via a special broadcast on the national television. The head of state informed that the body of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution will be cremated, following his will.

Because all lives only occupy a micro-instant on the scale of geologic time, I often think that we shouldn't be too despondent over the loss of individual lives, even the end of our own lives when we approach reach the end. However there are some lives whose outstanding achievements are remarkable. I think that the loss of Fidel Castro's life should not be mourned, but celebrated as a very successful revolutionary who, following the Cuban Revolution in early 1959, created a society in which all people could enjoy the benefits of health care, education, housing, and productive work--instead of a wealthy few who served North American corporations. Unlike most revolutionaries who irritated the US ruling capitalist class (and others like the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King), he defied all odds by living more than 90 years. His dedication to revolutionary struggle against the predations of capitalism should be an inspirational model for all of us to follow.

I remember well those days when I was enrolled in political sociology courses at a university. I witnessed first hand the virulent criticisms of Oregon's Sen. Morse and others as Castro and the new Cuban government threw out the mafia owned casinos and whore houses, nationalized lands owned by North Americans and gave them to the peasants, nationalized the phone company which was owned by US capitalists, and executed many of dictator Batista's government supporters who enjoyed friendly relations with the US. Of course, the criticisms were mostly focused on the executions, but the real source of their anger were his decisions to take over some of the property owned by US capitalists and mafia bosses. 

This resulted in a tit-for-tat round of conflicts that resulted in the Cuban government nationalizing all important industries owned by North American capitalists and turning to the Soviet Union for help to ward off the ongoing threats from the US monster. A serious threat soon appeared in the April 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion by an army organized and funded by the CIA. This event was followed in the Fall of 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis with the Soviet Union when the world narrowly escaped a nuclear war. And hundreds of attempts to assassinate Castro were made both directly by the CIA and contracted out to organized crime then ensured.

I can recommend two other posts that address the significance of Castro's life:

• Castro’s Legacy for Cuba, Latin America, and the World (an interview with historian Aviva Chomsky (yes, his daughter) 
• When CIA Tries to Assassinate You 638 Times but You Pass Away on Your Own Terms in 90 Years Old from South Front. 

U.S. intervention in Cuba continues via “civil society” groups

Click here to access article by W. T. Whitney Jr. from People's World.

Entrenched within institutionalized U.S. processes, these projects won’t end soon, it seems. Apart from huge amounts of money provided for propaganda through Radio and Television Martí, publicly-acknowledged U.S. funding for so-called “democracy promotion” in Cuba passes through USAID and NED. These agencies deliver it to high-purposed NGOs that pay agents to meddle directly inside Cuba. Or they pay Cuba’s enemies abroad to arrange for such intrusions.

Autonomous Co-ops, Planning, and the State: Some Considerations for Cuba's Economic Transition

Click here to access article by Al Campbell from Grassroots Economic Organizing. 

I don't like the way this article is written, but it is important, especially for Cubans, to discuss what kind of society they want. I will offer only some brief problems I had with the article.

First of all, there was no introduction to identify the writer. Then there were indications that this was a talk, but where and when was never specified. It was only later that I learned he was a professor at a US university. Also it seemed to me that the content was poorly organized. Basically, I think that he tries to do too much by weaving in abstract remarks about what socialism is with specific problems that coops can pose for a society.

I'm reasonably sure that many such discussions are going on in Cuba; but living in the US, I have no access to this knowledge. It would be very interesting to learn what is currently going on there.

Cooperatives in Socialist Construction: Commoners and Cooperators Key to Cuba's 21st Century Socialism

Click here to access article by Cliff DuRand from Grassroots Economic Organizing.

As Cuba re-establishes relations with the North American giant capitalist society, it is also undergoing social experiments to create a socialist society that is sustainable in the present century. Because the two are incompatible, Cubans must be on their guard to protect what they love about living in a socialist society no matter how imperfect it presently is. I wish them luck because they are going to need it with the North American giant doing everything it can to transform it back into a gambling casino and brothel for rich North Americans to play in.

Whereas capitalism focuses on the benefits to individual families, socialism attempts to create a social consciousness based on a commitment to society as a whole. Thus I believe the following reasoning is not valid logically, nor empirically on the basis of the Yugoslavian experience.

...commoners must identify themselves as a community sharing the common resource and thus feel a commitment to its proper governance, i.e. for the common good.  This is the foundation of a democratic governance of the commons. 

These are precisely the conditions that obtain in a worker cooperative.

To construct a society using cooperatives competing according to market principles will only result in people merely identifying with their cooperatives, not with society as a whole. This is the crucial dilemma, that is, to get ordinary people to "...identify themselves as a community sharing the common resource and thus feel a commitment to its proper governance, i.e. for the common good". As I see it, only by solving this problem is there any hope that humans can survive. 

There cannot be groups of people who have significantly more power than others because this is a condition fertile for exploitation of the powerful over the powerless. Kinship ties have predominated among humans since they settled into agricultural communities and capitalism has even weakened these ties by its emphasis on the nuclear family and their "ownership" of a society's economy. As a result we have families like the Rockefellers and Bill Gates running the world to promote their interests while the great mass of humans experience poverty, ill health, ignorance, and shortened life spans.

Still, I recommend this article because it encourages discussions about these important issues.

Cooperatives becoming bigger part of Cuba’s reforms

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder. 

The Cuban government and the Cuban people are trying to find a path forward to make socialist principles work while facing the overwhelming power of their nearby capitalist neighbor. Many people in Cuba and elsewhere see cooperatives as a means to a better life both economically and politically. Other people in Cuba see threats that cooperatives operating in a market environment pose for socialist egalitarian, participatory principles. And as I recall, such threats posed problems in the former Yugoslavia. Anyway, Dolack explores these important issues by examining what is happening in Cuba.

It is my view that as long as capitalism exists in any advanced country, socialist experiments will have very difficult struggles even surviving much less defeating their arch enemies among capitalist countries. Capitalism in any advanced form means, and has always meant, the exploitation of workers by a tiny class of capitalists. Only a worldwide revolution against the capitalist system can create conditions for a decent, sustainable human existence.

Cuba and the Future: a Great Debate Has Just Begun

Click here to access article by Nelson Valdes from CounterPunch. 

The author captures many of the difficulties that the Cuban socialist revolution has faced, and particularly, is now facing while being an island of 10 million people existing 90 miles from the center of the capitalist Empire. Under such circumstances it is a miracle that Cuba still exists as an independent nation and one that has major socialist components in its economy. However, because of forced austerities and a relaxation of controls of money transfers from the US, they now are facing new insidious influences that may be tearing the fabric of socialism which Cubans have constructed over the past 57 years since their revolution.

The Cuban political system is beginning to go through its most significant transition as the seasoned old revolutionaries step aside in what Havana is calling a “generational change,” while the United States government is attempting to foster as much growth in the Cuban private sectors of the island. In Washington, DC it is hoped that those Cubans born after 1980 will identify the revolution with all the shortages and difficulties that ensued after the demise of the Soviet bloc (post 1991), without acknowledging the national, social and cultural achievements.

Capitalism = homelessness

Click here to access article by Stephen Millies from Workers World. 

The author reviews much of the housing history of the US, including attempts to fund public housing, to illustrate how even a fundamental need such as housing cannot be met in a socially just way by an economy governed by capitalist principles simply because under capitalism profits always take precedence over vital social needs.

Revolutionary Transgressions: an Interview With Margaret Randall

Click here to access article by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz from CounterPunch. 

Dunbar-Ortiz interviews a very prominent woman activist of my generation who demonstrated the best qualities of activists in those heady days when we aspired to deep changes in the world according to revolutionary ideals. I am referring to a rejection of conventional thought which held obeisance to corporate hegemony and commercial culture, to act on behalf of inclusiveness and social justice rather than exclusiveness and the individualistic pursuit of wealth and advantage over others.

It was an uphill battle against a growing capitalist monster-empire that was intent upon smashing everywhere every expression of independent thought and deed that might interfere with their global agenda. Margaret Randall was one of those who fought so courageously against this monster and suffered for it. Yet, she survived and triumphed. 

In this interview Dunbar-Ortiz describes another heroic woman, with whom she was acquainted, who fought for revolutionary ideals in Cuba, accomplished so much, but in the end took her own life in the process. Fighting for revolutionary ideals is a hazardous path to embark on, but it is living a very meaningful life because it is dedicated to the most fundamental truth: humans can only survive by caring for each other and their environment. All of these women--the interviewer Dunbar-Ortiz, Margaret Randall, and Haydée Santamaría of Cuba--have lived heroic lives by taking this revolutionary path.

Redefining Socialism in Cuba

Click here to access article by Garry Leech from CounterPunch. 

This report from an independent journalist feels almost like a tour of Cuba for those of us who cannot afford to travel there. It is also offers a lot of reassurance to us ordinary people that Cuba is not going on a capitalist road to deliver their labor and resources to a tiny class identified as capitalists whether Cuban or foreigners. 

When the Cuban government announced in 2010 that it was going to lay off more than half a million public sector workers, the US mainstream media proclaimed the failure of socialism and a shift towards capitalism. The Cuban government’s reduction in the public sector workforce was viewed in the same light as the austerity measures implemented by capitalist nations throughout the global South under neoliberalism. But such analysis highlighted a fundamental misunderstanding of Cuban socialism that is common in the Western mainstream media.

However Leech points to one current threat to their society which could deliver Cubans to a capitalist world of inequality and social injustice:

Younger generations in particular, those too young to recall life prior to 1959 and who take many of the revolution’s social achievements for granted because they have existed since they were born, are inundated with capitalist propaganda in the form of Hollywood movies and TV shows as well as on the Internet. They are being seduced by the capitalist consumer dream—and this, perhaps more than anything else, poses the greatest threat to Cuba’s socialist model.

Such media entertainment has seduced much of the world to support capitalist governments. Thus this threat must not be underestimated.

The Anti-Empire Report #137

Click here to access article by William Blum from The Anti-Empire Report.

This uncompromising (with the truth) American historian gives us some more history lessons along with some lessons in hypocrisy that have been so pervasive in the rise of the post-war American Empire. He visits the current crisis in Greece, cites some typical lies issued by State Department flunkies, reviews the many past lies about US relations with Iraq and Cuba, and reports on a new US propaganda minister.

US to Use Détente as Cover for Plans to Destabilize Cuba

Click here to access article by Nil Nikandrov from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

The United States will use the non-government organizations for inciting street protests like it was done in Ukraine. There are a growing number of posts to Twitter saying that, no matter the White House sounds soft on Cuba, the US special services are concentrated on organizing Cuban Maidan demonstrations.

Obama, Castro move to “normalize” US-Cuba ties

Click here to access article by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site.

These moves come more than half a century after Washington broke off diplomatic relations with Havana and imposed a punishing economic blockade on the Caribbean island nation as part of a concerted and protracted effort by successive US administrations, the CIA and the Pentagon to overthrow the Cuban government and assassinate its leaders.

Washington's anger over the measures taken by the Cuban Revolution against American profit interests has not abated. The US is merely adopting a new tactic for reversing them.

Cuba Sees a Crisis, and Sends Docs; The US Sees an Opportunity and Sends Troops

Click here to access article by Dave Lindorff from This Can't Be Happening! 

Lindorff compares the two nations' responses to the ebola crisis in Africa, and suspects that the directors of the Empire see only an opportunity to gain a large foothold in resource-rich Africa.

Anyone who thinks this dispatching of US military personnel to Africa is about combating a plague is living in a fantasy world. This is about projecting US military power further into Africa, which has already been a goal of the Obama administration, anxious to prevent China from gaining control over African mineral resources, and to control them for US exploitation.

RGBS’s Film of the Week: Thirteen Days

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Raging Bull-Shit (based in Barcelona, Spain).

Because I'm well aware of what happened in those days when I wasn't sure about what hell the next day would bring, I will not be viewing the film. I am posting this article because of its brief introduction to the featured film. Quijones (I suspect this is a pseudonym) is another person in the world who sees the threat of "MADness" taking over in today's world like it almost did back in those terrifying days in October 1961.