Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, October 18, 2020

• Moon of Alabama – It’s time to say goodbye by Kit Knightly from Off-Guardian. My reaction follows: 

This also applies to David North of the World Socialist Web Site. He, and most of his writers, have jumped onto the bandwagon of scare tactics to instill fear in workers about this over-hyped "pandemic" which has caused untold harm by locking out millions of workers from employment. To be sure, employers of "essential" workers  have exposed worker-employees to unsafe working conditions and have largely ignored safety considerations, but North ignores the evidence of scientific research done by qualified independent experts that suggests the cure of the lockdowns and other policies are worse than the disease.

Regarding Bernhard, maybe I wasn't looking to him, an astute geopolitical analyst, to explain what is going on in this "pandemic". The articles that I have assembled from the beginning have suggested that something nefarious is going on. This huge medical controversy is being driven by fear inculcated in the population by the constant din of major media and the withdrawing of civil liberties by governmental authorities. I discovered yesterday that Bernhard had jumped on the fear pandemic along with others in the ruling class, and their numerous employees and sycophants, by attacking in a similar fashion Prof. Chossudovsky of Global Research. Bernhard impugns the integrity, expertise, and facts of independent and qualified experts. I was astounded by both of these critics.  

Have they both been compromised by the insidious and powerful influences of the ruling class and their Great Reset project?

• Great VIRAL Debate: Round 1: Dr Rancourt’s First Response: Responding to Dr Anderson’s Opening Statement from Off-Guardian.

• Great VIRAL Debate: Round 1: Dr Anderson’s First Response: Responding to Dr Rancourt’s Opening Statement & First Response from Off-Guardian. 
  

• Bill Gates: ‘A Second Wave of (COVID) Vaccines Will Come Next Year’ After The First by Arjun Walia from Collective Evolution.
  

• Playing Russian Roulette with a COVID-19 Vaccine by Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null from Global Research. 

• Coronavirus Fraud Scandal — The Biggest Fight Has Just Begun from Goodandreadi.
  

• Long Breadlines Form Outside of Food Banks as America Struggles to Cope With COVID-19 Fallout by Alan Macleod from Mint Press News (based in Minneapolis). 

• The CADTM denounces the G20’s measures on debt from CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt).

• Your Guide to The Great Reset, a 1:11:57 video featuring Jame Corbett (of The Corbett Report), a Canadian living in Japan, explaining from his point of view the "Great Reset" project. My reaction follows: 

I don't have time to listen to all of if, but I don't entirely agree with his general views on political subjects. He is an anarchist, a fashionable leftist type occurring nowadays. This view emphasizes mostly the rejection of official authorities. Anarchists frequently don't see a ruling class that behind the curtain controls the puppet shows that are incessantly broadcast by major media corporations and shows that are a pervasive influence in all other institutions of societies within the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. Corbett in this broadcast acknowledges their existence, but goes on to mostly ridicule them.

Also, I think he rejects the notion of the threat of climate destabilization--which is real. This, I think, is mainly what the Great Reset is all about (among other issues), that is, I think that the transnational capitalist ruling class that controls the Empire are genuinely concerned about this issue and they see the Great Reset as a means to continue their system of capitalism. They see as a necessity to sacrifice the lives of people who don't contribute to their wealth and power ("useless eaters") as a solution to the growing threat of climate destabilization. But Corbett has useful perceptions and should be listened to, that is, if you have an hour and eleven minutes to spare.

• The New York Post Gets the AmRen Treatment by Gregory Hood from The Unz Review.

• Facebook and Twitter Cross a Line Far More Dangerous Than What They Censor by Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept. 

• Assange precedent: BBCtargets independent journalists – Vanessa Beeley on UK Column News featuring Britis journalist Vanessa Beeley being questioned by staff at UK Column News in a 20.01m video and posted on Beeley's website, The Wall Will Fall.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, June 30, 2020

• The Co-opting of Activism by the [Deep] State by Dustin Broadbery from Off-Guardian.

• US Gov website falsely inflating Care Home Covid deaths from Off-Guardian.

• The Covid-BLM Diversion; "Shock Therapy" Behind a Smokescreen of Hysteria and Racial Incitement by Mike Whitney from The Unz Review.

• The Media is Lying About the ‘Second Wave’ by Ron Paul from his weblog.

• Unsanitized: Time to Seize Drug Patents by David Dayen from The American Prospect. 

• WHO’s Conflict of Interest? by David Macilwain from American Herald Tribune.

• Real Revolution Means Expanding Consciousness, Both Outwardly And Inwardly by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. 

• Capitalism is a Class-Divided, Racist, Sexist Horror Without End from The Internationalists.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, May 31, 2020

• Young White Men Abuse George Floyd Protests For Violence And Looting by Bernhard (Germany) from his weblog Moon of Alabama. 

• US has deadliest police culture in modern world - George Floyd family co-counsel from RT (via YouTube). (Note: Police Unions are very strong with the sole exception to other labor unions in the USA. Could it be that they are protecting the ruling capitalist class?)

• Police Deny Any Connection to Mysterious Minneapolis “Umbrella Man” Saboteur by Raul Diego from Mint Press News (based in Minneapolis). (Note: This is the latest example regarding police infiltration of protests in order to discredit the latter.)

• Nothing Is Certain But Death, Taxes, And Police Infiltration Of US Protests by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. 

• As Chief Prosecutor, Klobuchar Declined to Bring Charges Against Cop that Killed George Floyd by Alan Macleod from Mint Press News.

• LAPD’s Hollywood Office: How The Department Shaped ABC’s ‘The Rookie’ from Shadowproof. (Note: This shows how the ruling class shapes views about fascist cop-killers in the USA.)

• U.S. Lectures World on Human Rights as Cops Kill Blacks With Impunity by  Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• “Germ-Ridden Masses” – How America’s Wealthy Elite Describe the Rest of Us by Alan Macleod from Mint Press News.

• In the West: Propaganda, Hysteria and Truly Foul Breath! by Andre Vltchek from Dissident Voice.

• Nobel prize-winning scientist: the Covid-19 epidemic was never exponential by Freddie Sayers from Unherd. (Note: The scientist uses Hubei province, and the capital of this province is Wuhan.)

• “It’s all Bullsh*t” – 3 Leaks that Sink the Covid Narrative by Kit Knightly from Off-Guardian.

• Sunrise Movement Being Co-Opted By Biden Task Force by Jimmy Dore of The Jimmy Dore Show (via YouTube). My reaction: Even liberal Jimmy Dore sees through the attempt to co-opt the Sunrise Movement.) 

Once Again Chomsky and Achcar Provide a Service to the US Global Dictatorship

Click here to access article by Canadian Stephen Gowans from his weblog.

Gowans accuses some of America's as well as Britains leading intellectuals as collaborating with the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire to destabilize governments that the Empire doesn't like with most recent target of Venezuela. He accuses them of using sophistry to rationalize these destabilization efforts. Chomsky and Democracy Now's Amy Goodman have already dramatically demonstrated this by their opposition to questioning the government's version of what happened on 9/11/2001 and many other crimes instigated by the Empire (see this, this, this, this, and this).

Articles recommended for Friday, May 31, 2019

• “The X Agenda”: what does XR actually stand for? from Winter Oak (Britain).

• Assange hospitalized, ‘dagger in journalist hearts’ a 5:56m video featuring George Galloway, MP, commenting on the recent news of the persecution of Assange. Produced by RT via YouTube.

The attorney of WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange’s has revealed that he was too ill to appear in a video chat for his extradition hearing. Assange has spent the past seven weeks at Belmarsh prison, where his health has continued to deteriorate. The WikiLeaks founder faces extradition to the US over “espionage” charges dating back to 2010. Former UK MP George Galloway joins In Question to break this all down.

• Alberta, Canada Smoke Near Me: Air Quality Maps & Forecasts from Heavy. 

Aren't the wildfires early this year? I was wondering why the skies out my window in southern Minnesota were gray when the day was supposed to be sunny. But having turned on a TM weather station, I learned that the residents in the area were warned to stay inside because of the polluted air.

Ecosocialist debates

Click here to access article by Louis Proyect from his blog. (The author has an annoying habit of listing abbreviations without, or delayed, references to their sources. Thus FB stands for Facebook and NLR stands for New Left Review.) 

One of the merits of this piece is that it cite references to academics who are debating the Green New Deal and related issues confronting academics who express some concern about the destabilization of our climate and the destruction of human habitat. But I think it also illustrates a lack of seriousness among people who have been inundated for most of their academic lives by capitalist indoctrination and thus exhibit some inhibitions about cutting back of the extraordinary materialist lifestyles that they have enjoyed in the Empire's academic institutions. Even Proyect exhibits some of this brainwashing when he sees Europe free of the domination by transnational capitalists in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. Also, his views about Swedish-style social democracy is at least 50 years old and out-of-date.

Even if the Western European GND standards were adopted by a majority of politicians in the USA, there would be overwhelming forces opposed to their adoption by energy, transportation, petrochemical, and banking interests. In fact, the same array of reactionary forces would block the evolution of the USA into a Swedish-style social democracy. Unlike Western Europe, the USA is an imperialist hegemon that would resist all attempts at a New Deal of any sort, either Green or FDR-redux.

Those are the realities we are dealing with and the naïve hopes of the DSA/Jacobin left will crash up against them on day one of a Bernie Sanders presidency. And those who hope in neo-Kautskyist fashion that this will precipitate a general strike and other revolutionary measures are just kidding themselves.

Proyect finishes his essay with this statement:

Let me conclude with a few words about the possible outcome of this debate in the future as economic reality will bring things to a head. In my view, there is an element of truth in Huber’s claim that workers will resist a ceiling on consumption. After all, with television ads 20 times an hour urging you to buy a car or a trip on Norwegian Cruise ship, it becomes a form of brainwashing.

I suspect that a combination of ecological ruin, war, and deepening alienation of the kind that has produced an opioid crisis will eventually turn quantity into quality. Human beings are susceptible to baser temptations that an advanced capitalist economy can produce but the promise of a more peaceful life that offers leisure time and spiritual fulfillment will convince workers that giving up 5,000 square foot homes, SUV’s and meat every night of the week is worth it. A Peaceable Kingdom, so to speak. 

 It appears to me that most people cited in this debate regard the subject as only an "academic debate"--much like a fashionable topic to entertain themselves over dinner in some fancy restaurant.

“The X Agenda”: what does XR actually stand for?

Click here to access article from Winter Oak (Britain). 

The people at Winter Oak, which appears from its logo to be an anarchist website, see some obvious contradictions in the sudden appearance of  Extinction Rebellion (XR), Britain's counterpart of the Green New Deal which has also suddenly appeared in the USA. Coincidence?

Meanwhile, "back at the capitalist ranch" (def.) in Britain excited business supporters and leaders of XR see exponential profits to be made in this new sustainability market. I think "XR" is code in British business circles that means "extraordinary revenue".

New Green Bankster Rebellion’ with guest Cory Morningstar

Click here to access this audio interview with Cory Morningstar from in the British broadcast program "Sunday Wire". She is interviewed by hosts American Patrick Henningsen and British Mike Robinson. The interview is located on the audio spectrum between 53:30m and 155:45m.  

Morningstar summarizes her considerable research that have exposed the capitalist roots of the movements in Britain identified as Extinction Rebellion and in USA as Green New Deal.

Can Twenty-First Century Fascism Resolve the Crisis of Global Capitalism?

Click here to access article by William I. Robinson from Radical Political Economy.

Because I am seeing my energy declining at my age of nearly 83, I debated on whether I should offer a critique of this seriously flawed article. I prefer re-posting articles that really aim at understanding this deteriorating world at the hands of transnational capitalism. 

So, first off, I would answer the question in the headline. No, 21st century capitalism or any capitalism cannot ultimately ever resolve their various crises. Robinson declares that it can: "A fascist outcome to the crisis of global capitalism is not inevitable." Thus, he appears to be a reformist. Secondly, I find his use of "Trumpism" as not valid. "Isms" always imply an ideology. Ascribing Trump's style in the White House does not qualify. 

I also recently read his book Into the Tempest where his outlook on world political and economic affairs was limited to that of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire's world. This is not the whole world. There are nations that are contesting the neoliberal and imperialist policies of the Empire and succeeding. Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela come to mind. I think the efforts of those nations could very well impose a major reverse in the actions of the Empire. Europe is showing signs of waffling over their allegiance to the Empire. His book totally ignores this challenge.

I think Robinson is a product of US academia in which he has been exposed to pressures to conform to capitalist views and experienced a lot of censorship in materials he's been exposed to. He in his education was not likely exposed to the writings of Marx, Durkheim, and other radical writers and historians. I know I wasn't. I had to access their views independently by going to the college library, assuming that it is large enough.

The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent: “The Inconvenient Truth” Behind Youth Cooptation

Click here to access series of articles by Cory Morningstar with Forrest Palmer reposted on Deep Green Resistance News Service. 

I don't pay much attention to corporate media sources because they are all about deceptions, and instead I focus on news and analysis by reliable independent sources. So, I occasionally miss the scams being committed by our masters in the capitalist ruling class. This post is a result of receiving this morning an article from Climate Code Red (Australian website) which lauded Greta Thunberg and her followers. I knew that Morningstar and Palmer have been running a series of articles on her backers (incidentally, I haven't seen any other exposé of this fake operation other than the series run by Morningstar and Palmer), but I was discouraged by the tome-length articles that they, as usual, write and post. However, this morning's post by Climate Code Red, which has previously run excellent pro-environmental articles, had me concerned. They were obviously taken in by our masters in the capitalist Empire.

As a result of this experience, I admit I didn't read all of the series by Morningstar and Palmer, but I scanned them together with many other articles which supported the astonishing rise of teenager Greta Thunberg as an environmental celebrity. After hours of research I reached a conclusion: there is another sheep-herding operation going on to shepherd those concerned about climate destabilization into the chute that leads--well, maybe not to the slaughterhouse of managed elections as Bernie Sanders did--but to the control and diffusion of the growing worldwide concern about the obvious signs of weather extremes--the first signs of climate destabilization.

At this stage we can only point to the supporters behind this celebrity status of Thunberg and the many other manifestations of this sheep-herding operation. Morningstar and Palmer provide an exhaustive (exhausting?) list of the promoters. The following is only a sample of what the authors found: worldwide coverage from media corporations, and their capitalist backers have managed to have Thunberg appear at the UN Climate Conference; at Ted Talks, at Davos, and they have used her celebrity status to spawn other organizations supposedly concerned about climate destabilization: The Green New Deal (Democratic Party), We Don't Have Time (movement), Sierra Club's Sunrise Movement, and NGO supporters like the World Resources Institute. The articles goes into considerable detail about the capitalist associations of the directors and backers. 

It's patently clear what is going on. The hoi poiloi (ordinary people) are once again being played for fools. In contrast to what we've seen in the past: devastating world wars, but this time it will result in human extinction.

Saving the Earth or Saving Capitalism? The Inconvenient Truth Behind Today’s Youth Climate Campaigns

Click here to access this one hour audio post from Global Research (based in Canada).

This week's Global Research News Hour, we consider the possibility that some of the most prominent climate campaigns on the planet, including the Greta Thunberg-led Climate Strikes are in fact being co-opted by the world's most prominent financial elites, via vehicles like large environmental NGOs, to serve a pre-existing agenda having more to do with expanding capitalism than reversing or mitigating climate change. Independent investigative journalist Cory Morningstar is our guest for the hour, and she expands on the theme of her recent series of articles: "The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – for Consent."

Climate of Class Rule: Common(s)er Revolt or Common Ruin (another leftist dilletante argues that we need an "eco-socialist people’s revolution here on the planet itself."

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch. (Thanks go to an activist for alerting me to this article.)

I've long followed the writings of such people as Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, etc. Actually the longest was Alexander Cochburn, the co-founder of this website. (I've been thinking that it is past time that I added Paul Street to this list.) This list consists of people of the highly "educated" upper-middle class who have, on the one hand, written articles critical of the capitalist ruling classes, and on the other hand, pursued careers which served these ruling capitalist classes. I see them as severely compromised by the many benefits that they have enjoyed in their careers. 

Some have hidden behind leftist rhetoric of resistance to capitalist rule much like CounterPunch or The Nation; some like Chris Hedges (author of The Cancer of Occupy) late in their careers found their duties and/or their masters so distasteful that they could no long pursue such careers. Some like Alexander Cockburn were compromised by the riches of their inheritances from former ruling classes. I consider all of them as leftist dilettantes who write and speak in leftist rhetoric but have always refused to seriously engaged themselves in revolutionary activities against the capitalist ruling classes. In this article, I think that Street unintentionally offers such an illustration by describing an incident involving Douglas Ruskoff, another highly educated person who occasionally was critical of the ruling class:

In an essay bearing the suitably appropriate title “Survival of the Richest,” the leading academic “media theorist” and “digital economics” professor, lecturer, and documentarian Douglas Rushkoff tells of an invitation he accepted last year to “a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was,” Rushkoff writes. “by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk — about half my annual professor’s salary — all to deliver some insight on the subject of ‘the future of technology.’”

Notice that Rushkoff had no difficulty accepting such a rewarding invitation; and even though he felt deceived to what the rich were requiring of him, he continued to offer his expertise in order to keep the generous fee.

I began to reflect on all these do-gooder, pretentious leftists and my experiences with them. I remembered how the sociology material we were given in the "higher educational" institution I attended in the early 1960s always portrayed the working class as inclined to authoritarianism (fascism) and motivated by short-term goals--hence, they were disparaged. Weren't Rushkoff's experience and that of most all of the other well-educated well-trained academics illustrations of people being motivated by short-term rewards? And I remember that when Bill Moyer asked Chris Hedges about an apparent contradiction in the latter's life (see segment from 41:20m to 43:30m in this interview), Hedges fumbled around to concoct a self-justifying explanation.

I've concluded that we should not take these compromised people seriously because in the end they will always be loyal to the ruling class that sustains them in a relatively luxurious lifestyle. Likewise, no serious revolutionary organization should ever let such people take leadership roles. 

The Beginning of the End of the Bilderberg Era

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Many critical observers are jumping on the bandwagon to forecast the end of the US-led capitalist Empire. Well, the signs are everywhere that the Empire is losing its grip, but I think that many such critics have no commitment to a classless society where all the people are empowered. Could Crooke be one of these? This piece has aroused my suspicions.

Like many others who pose as a pseudo-left, Crooke wildly exaggerates James Burnham's influence, and by describing him as a former Trotskyite, smears the radical revolutionary efforts of all of Trotsky's followers. Yes, there were some ex-Trotskyites (Christopher Hitchens, David Horowitz, Irving Kristol, etc) who became influential in constructing the US Empire; but in contrast to Crooke, I see this as evidence that was well expressed in Burnham's books The Managerial Revolution and The Machiavellians: the lure of power infecting highly educated, upper-middle class sociopaths back in the 1940s. Such sociopathic socialists saw the wind shifting to the right and jumped ship from revolutionary socialist activities to those ships going in the fascist direction. They rationalized this shift by making the pretentious claim that they, because they were indispensable in running capitalist enterprises, were forming a new ruling class who were about to replace capitalists.

Could it be that Crooke, like many old-fashioned patriotic Brits, merely expresses a sour taste in his intellectual mouth because Great Britain is not so "great" anymore and has been replaced by the US Empire? I really don't know--just asking.

American Pravda: Breaching the Media Barrier [updated]

Click here to access article by Ron Unz from his website The Unz Review. (Thanks go to an activist who alerted me to this article.) I added a link to Phil Butler's article on 6/13/2018.

Taking Unz's argument at face value, I think the article serves more to illustrate that members especially of the upper-middle class are disturbed by the gross lies that corporate media are spreading than it serves to argue for an effective strategy to counter their lies. 

The capitalist system is based on private ownership of any productive enterprises in societies. Thus the owners inevitably evolve into a class with considerable power over the rest of society and over time, because of the dynamics of capitalism, ownership becomes concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The security of the vast majority of people are faced with increasing wars and precarity, and they naturally engage in all sorts of resistance. To counter such resistance, the owner class must counter this resistance by using their media to spread ever greater deceptions about what they are doing in the world. This is precisely what is happening today.

The class that has contributed heavily to this end-development of capitalism is the well-rewarded upper-middle class of technologists, scientists, and highly educated trained and indoctrinated professionals in every field of endeavor. (Phil Butler is an excellent example of this phenomenon.) Currently even they, in spite of receiving many rewards and perks, are having a difficult time believing the lies that are constantly spewed by their counterparts in corporate media. As a consequence many, such as Ron Unz, Patrick Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts, Ron Paul, Andrei Raevsky (The Saker), Bernhard (blogger for Moon of Alabama) are now defecting--some such as Chris Hedges more than others. As a consequence Unz has not posted any of Hedges' writings on his website since 2016, and he was published frequently on his website previously. 

I noticed on the right side of this posting that he posted an interview with David Harvey, a noted American Marxist, conducted by Chris Hedges. Because David Harvey has not appeared on this website before, it seems to me that Harvey's post was juxtaposed with this article in order to establish his neutrality and credibility regarding capitalism. Considering the evidence of his postings as a whole, I think Unz, as a member of the upper-middle class and a conservative, is worried about the fascist direction that his masters in capitalist ruling class are going. Thus, he and his fellow-rebels are waking up and smelling the foul odors emanating from the increasing fascist actions taken by their masters in the capitalist class and they are defecting--but only so far. Not far enough to challenge the system from which they have benefited so much, but are only desperately striving to return to an earlier stage of capitalism like in the 20th century when they, as an upper-middle class, flourished. 

However, there is another argument that one could make--I won't because I prefer to believe that Unz is honest--that he and agents of the ruling class are cleverly trying to co-opt alternative media to tame it and capture its audience as much as possible so that the threats posed by this opposition media are diminished.

Recommended articles for Monday, May 7, 2018

• China’s Determined March Towards the Ecological Civilization by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook.

‘Political correctness’ is diluting the sense of urgency, and there is plenty of hypocrisy at work: while, at least in the West and Japan, people are encouraged to recycle, to turn off the lights in empty rooms and not to waste water, in other parts of our Planet, entire islands, nations and continents are being logged out by the Western corporations, or destroyed by unbridled mining. The governments of the West’s ‘client states’ are getting hopelessly corrupt in the process.

Western politicians see absolutely no urgency in all that is taking place around the world, or more precisely – they are paid not to see it.

So, are we now dealing with the thoroughly hopeless scenario? Did the world go mad? Is it ready to get sacrificed for the profit of the very few? Are people simply going to stand passively, watching what is happening around them, and die, as their world goes literally up in flames?

It appeared so, until few months ago.

• Russia’s v. America’s Records on Democracy, and on Whistleblowers’ Safety by Eric Zuesse from Washington's Blog.

• Once China got off drugs: the link between opium and ‘liberal strongman’ Macron by Iranian-American Ramin Mazaheri. I only scanned this article and discovered that I don't agree with everything he argues, but he contributes to a valuable understanding of China's history with the ruling capitalist classes of Europe and North America.

• De-Briefing Academics: Unpaid Intelligence Informants by James Petras from Global Research.  Dr. Petas gives us a good idea of how upper-middle class academic travelers have been co-opted to serve the imperialist interests of the ruling capitalist class. Read the article to understand how he reaches the following conclusion:

What is clear in virtually all know[n] experiences is that academic informers’ ‘de-briefings strengthened the empire-builders and complemented the deadly work of the paid professional operatives of the CIA, DEA and the National Security Agency.

• The Myth of Low US Unemployment. Twisting the Definition, Manipulating the Data by Stephen Lendman from Global Research. Once again we learn that our masters are compulsive liars whenever their interests of profit and power are involved. However, due to the type of socialization that Americans are subject to throughout their lives, most of them have a very naive trust in their capitalist masters who have gotten away with lying so long that it has become essentially an automatic response to any subject where their interests are at stake. 

Recommended articles for Sunday 4/8/2018

• The Occupation of the American Mind, a one hour and 25 minute film produced by The Media Education Foundation and delivered to you by Vimeo and posted by The Real News. "A documentary film narrated by legendary musician and activist Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame trains a harsh light on Israel's [and Zionists'] decades-long propaganda war in the U.S."

• Marches, Voting and Social Change by Gary Olson from The Greanville Post. 

The recent March for Our Lives, started by remarkable high school students but taken over by the Democratic Party and financed by wealthy corporate and Hollywood patrons, drew effusive praise from mainstream political pundits. But anyone who’s followed gun control knows the Democrats have never stood up to the NRA. In truth, national level Democrats seized on an opportunity to coopt young people and channel them into electoral gains for themselves. 

Our economic and political rulers are vexed that students of color were standing in solidarity with Parkland while simultaneously linking that shooting with systemic violence in Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore. They worry that  young people are becoming concerned with a wide range of issues far beyond gun control and will seek solutions outside the two-party status quo.

• The Doomsday Machine: 00:00:10 Seconds to Midnight. Nuclear Weapons, Climate Change, Geopolitics and the Dollar from Global Research. Although the author describes the tenuous position of human existence in today's world, he doesn't realize that sooner or later capitalists' addiction to the drugs of profit and power would inevitably and ultimately threaten our existence. He exhibits his ignorance--or possibly cowardice--by using the abstract term "the powers that be". And this ignorance and sometimes cowardice has infected millions, especially in the co-opted upper-middle class, that capitalists depend on so much to keep their system that delivers their drugs functioning.

I have lived my whole life under the notifications of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and their Doomsday Clock. It is currently set a two minutes to midnight after many years of variance, some as far away as seventeen minutes. After reading Daniel Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine, it would probably be more appropriate to move it forward to ten seconds before midnight. A combination of two main factors – global climate change and nuclear weapons launch on warning risks – puts not only humanity but virtually all species under threat of extinction. 

• State Dept Accuses Russia And Syria Of Gassing Civilians Before Any Investigation by Caitlin Johnstone (Australian) from her website. This false-flag event has been widely predicted by informed and honest people who know that the Empire's ruling class has become desperate and degenerate. After all, it must be acknowledged that they've gotten away with so many other crimes: the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the 9/11 false-flag event, etc., and most of the people believed their fairy tales which were widely disseminated by their media corporations.

Some recommended posts for 2/9/2018

• "What You Aren't Being Told About NPR" by Lee Camp of RT's Redacted Tonight program. Because I've seen the former liberal (this label means that they favored popular interests within a capitalist society) National Public Radio morph over the past 40 years into a right-wing propaganda radio network called "NPR" that is sponsored by right-wing people like the Koch brothers, I delight in posting this Lee Camp's satire of the radio network.

• "Corruption is Legal in America". This YouTube video was uploaded by apparently well-meaning people at Represent.Us, a group that advocates citizens' use of referendums to by-pass legislatures and Congress to prevent big capitalists from funding candidates and their support for the interests of the rich. However, seeing that they have received favorable media exposure from The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, NBC, etc., I rather doubt their sincerity. It is likely an example of how the capitalist ruling class prefers to co-opt any studies and reforms groups in order to lead them into dead-end political activity--much like the Bernie Sanders campaign of last year in the Democratic Party. Anyway, the Princeton study is a very worthy one, and one that I referred to last year here on my website. This 5:50m YouTube video summarizes the study very well.

• "Why is U.S. not globally condemned for its military occupation of Syria?" by Eric Zuesse from The Greanville Post. Although the author denies that Trump is the contemporary version of Hitler, Trump is a corporate fascist because he loves the military establishment and the generals, and he doesn't hesitate to use, or threaten to use, actual military violence to get his way. That is the authentic face of advanced capitalism once it decides to take off the mask of their fake version of democracy. In this post I don't think that Zuesse makes a solid argument to support the title of the post. I think he is only referring to the many nations under the US-led Empire, but not the whole world. Here in the USA very little has been broadcast or publicized in corporate media about the incident; and what little there was, was mostly lies.

The Empire’s “Lefty Intellectuals” Call for Regime Change. The Role of “Progressives” and the Antiwar Movement

Click here to access article by Michel Chossudovsky from Global Research (based in Canada). (Edited for greater clarity at 8:42 AM Seattle time on 1/12/2018.)

The genius of the current ruling capitalist classes, especially the US class since WWII, has been so successfully demonstrated with their record of co-opting dissident organizations and people, the use of deceptive propaganda to hide their crimes of war, and the comprehensive control of the culture through their control of every institution of indoctrination. You might call this "full spectrum dominance" of the minds of citizens. In this article Chossudovsky only focuses on one part of this domination by looking at the co-opting of many prominent intellectual dissidents such as Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali. His insight demonstrates the truth of what people, such as Upton Sinclair, have known for many years: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it".

By co-opting prominent intellectuals, he essentially argues that the ruling class directors have killed the anti-war movement. That this movement has been killed is an obvious fact, but I don't think that it was caused only by this effort. Again, I would like to stress the comprehensive nature of the capitalist ruling class control of ideas and beliefs. As I have argued in the past, the ongoing promotion of futuristic wars as featured in films and TV (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc), entertaining comedic effect of TV series like Mash for which the setting was the Korean War, the profusion of computer games about physical conflict and war: all have had their influence of crushing the anti-war movement that arose prior to 9/11. The latter false-flag event has had a decisive influence on the promotion of war among the general population in the US and other capitalist countries aligned with the US Empire. And this is only a partial list of influences.

Nevertheless, this article is an important contribution to our understanding of one part of this cultural "full spectrum dominance". He concludes by stating the obvious:

An antiwar movement funded by major corporate foundations is the cause rather than the solution. A coherent antiwar movement cannot be funded by warmongers.

What is required is the development of a broad based grassroots network which seeks to disable patterns of authority and decision-making pertaining to war.

This network would be established at all levels in society, towns and villages, work places, parishes. Trade unions, farmers organizations, professional associations, business associations, student unions, veterans associations, church groups would be called upon to integrate the antiwar organizational structure. Of crucial importance, this movement should extend into the Armed Forces as a means to breaking the legitimacy of war among service men and women.

The first task would be to disable war propaganda through an effective campaign against media disinformation.

What is vitally needed are concrete proposals and discussion of these proposals, and I don't see this happening. For example, I have proposed a scheme to organize a grass roots independent media organization that I felt has real potential for an ultimate revolutionary movement to overthrow the rule of our oppressors--the capitalist class. Subsequently, I have seen no evidence that this proposal gained any traction among anybody. After all, isn't it obvious that we need "an effective campaign against media disinformation"? And I am convinced that such a movement would inevitably end up being a revolutionary movement to free us from capitalist rule. Although I have seen some collaboration among alternative media outlets, mostly they continue to compete with each other for funding and support of dissidents. 

This is another manifestation of the success of capitalist indoctrination: the overwhelming influence of individualist ethics of capitalism on dissidents and alternative media people against the social ethics of socialism, a class-free rule of, by, and for the people. The comprehensive nature of this indoctrination and 24/7 propaganda have effectively defeated such an obvious proposal. Thus, I fear that Americans and others are being led like sheep into the slaughterhouse of some type of Domesday scenario.

Recommended articles for 12/24/2017

• Pyongyang rejects biological weapons rumors, accuses US of fabricating pretext for attack  This is another example of the psychological term called "projection", a term that I touched on in the third article in the post "Recommended articles for 12/19/2017" entitled "Putin Is Preparing for World War III". I strongly suspect that this charge was made by Trump's regime because the US actually used biological weapons during the Korean War against North Koreans and nearby Chinese populations. Since then the ruling class has devoted massive efforts--and largely successful--to cover up this major war crime. For a recent, comprehensive review of the evidence, the best source is a recent book entitled This Must Be the Place by Dave Chaddock.

• US Congress passes tax windfall for corporations and the rich Excellent analysis of the latest move by the ruling capitalist class to enrich themselves in the face of government budget deficits.

• Western Media Consumed by Myanmar Monster of Own Creation by Tony Cartalucci

  

  Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi pledge to work together for Burma

  from Land Destroyer Report. The author knows southeast Asia very well because he resides mostly in Thailand (the last I heard), and he has followed political events in that area very closely. It was several years ago under the Obama administration of the world's "indispensable nation" that a "pivot to Asia" was announced. This, of course, meant that the US ruling class was going to put more efforts into containing and curtailing China's influence in the area. Soon there appeared articles in corporate media that looked favorably on certain events there, particularly in relation to the government led by Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar (Burma). Well, it turns out that the attempt to use this character as a useful puppet in their anti-China program backfired. (On the left is another photo from this earlier period when the US ruling class was attempting to recruit her for this project.) 

I Have Zero Sympathy for Jemele Hill

Click here to access article by Teodrose Fikre founder of the Ghion Journal. 

If you are not already familiar with Teodrose Fikre, I would like to introduce a blogger who I believe offers a very unique perspective on the current oppressive state of affairs in the hope that he can contribute to our understanding of reality and better enable us to change it into something which can benefit us all. I was recently exposed to this author by watching him on RT's Redacted Tonight show where he was interviewed by Lee Camp.

In this article (that includes videos) he begins with illustrations of co-opted African-American media celebrities in order to introduce his views of racial and related issues which range from the mundane (like immediate issues that we all face while trying to survive in capitalist America) to the profound (racism).

Let me say from the outset that I do not know Jemele Hill outside of seeing her on TV. She could be a great human being and she deserves my respect for succeeding in a business that has always been dominated by male figures. As a sport analyst, she does a great job of presenting her audience with facts and figures in ways that Grantland Rice [would be] proud....

The reason I say this is two fold. The primary reason is the fact that Jemele chose to present the ills of the world through a partisan prism and in the process, either willfully or ignorantly, is actively perpetuating this system of “us versus them” mentality that is the root of our problem as a society. She is doing the same thing that the rest of the jackals in the Corporate State Media are doing; by appending all the excesses of this repressive ideology of capitalism and institutionalized nepotism on Trump, she gives cover to the invisible hands of malice that is bleeding all of us.