Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, July 23, 2020

• 5 Reasons Your Friends Mistrust COVID19 Case Numbers by Author Derrick Broze from The Last American Vagabond. (My reaction: If you think that the capitalist ruling class or their employees in the government care about your health, I have a couple of fine bridges to sell you.)

• U.S. Orders Up to 600 Million Doses of Pfizer, BioNTech Covid Vaccine by James Paton from Bloomberg. 

• Dispatches from the War: To Dr. Scott Atlas and Dr. John Ioannidis by Jon Rappoport from his weblog.

• Why the Bill Gates global health empire promises more empire and less public health by Jeremy Loffredo and Michele Greenstein from The Grayzone.

• Climate change: Summers could become 'too hot for humans' by David Shukman from BBC News. 

• Killing Americans. Health Departments Aren’t Equipped to Respond. From Covering Climate Now.

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

• The Deadliest Pandemic by Paul Edwards from CounterPunch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

France: A new stage for the Yellow Vests Revolution

Click here to access a report by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos (the “Monsieur from Greece”), a Greek geopolitical analyst who is visiting an assembly of Yellow Vest activists in Commercy, France. 

... all these people awoke suddenly on the 17th of November 2018. Here at Commercy, the Yellow Vests took the song of the partisans, of the anti-Nazi resistance, and paraphrased it. Now the song calls for the “toothless”, the “lazy” and “illiterates” to rise against the Money Elite, sparing not their own tears and blood, just as the French patriots did when they fought against the Germans. ....

.... These are the people who en masse the French press and television channels, concentrated now more than ever before in the hands of the Financial Elite, is shouting on them,characterising them as “Fascists”, “anti-Semites”, “extreme right”, “populists,” “homophobes,” “sexists,” “racists,” “champions of violence” and everything else imaginable. Do the maths, compare between propaganda and truth, to get an accurate measure of the degree of dominating totalitarianism in which we live.

As for the main international media, they do everything possible to hide from their readers and viewers what is happening now in the very centre of Europe! With quite a success! It is an unprecedented situation for Europe after WWII!

Opportunities and Challenges Posed by the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) Protests and the Sunrise Movement

Click here to access article by Kamran Nayeri from Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism.

It's clear to me that leftists have learned very little from history since the end of the Vietnam War. Now, judging by this essay, they want to use major issues to build an organization capable of establishing a "socialist" revolution (whatever that means). Oh, yes, I admit they have learned a few political buzz words like "bottom-up" when referring to organizations. However, they still address the dangers of looking to ruling class parties to address their problems, and they still, like Nayeri, advocate supporting independent movements that rally around contemporary issues. (Yawn) Forgive me, if I lack attentiveness. 

You see, in 1970 I largely agreed with Camejo's essay of 1970, that was republished at this website, which advocated using the Anti-Vietnam War Movement to build a revolutionary movement. Fortunately, unlike Nayeri, I have learned a lot since that time. That strategy didn't work then, and I have no reason to believe that it will work now in spite of what is going on in Europe with the Yellow Vest Movement. To his credit, he does warn about co-opted, reform movements such as the Sunrise Movement and other such movements.

The Sunrise Movement poses a different set of opportunities and challenges for the climate justice movement and its small ecosocialist component.  While its stated purpose is to combat the climate crisis, it has not absorbed a key political lesson apparent in the spontaneous Yellow Vests protests: that the existing political parties are not to be trusted.  Thus, the Sunrise Movement supports the agenda of the Democratic Party Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio Cortez ....

Nayeri, similar to Camejo, wants to use the ecological crisis to build a movement to construct some kind of "socialist" government. 

One such a proposal is what I have outlined (Nayeri, 2015)  A central goal of such a proposal is in its educational value: only an enlightened working people’s movement can stop and reverse the climate crisis. Such a proposal is key to educate our class about our lifestyle habits we came to own through the capitalist mass consumption culture.

However, I am convinced that the author of this article doesn't seem to understand the basic requirement of a revolution--enlightened working people--that will put working people into power and eliminate any class structured organization of society, particularly that which is in control of the capitalist class. Thus, Nayeri thinks getting behind an emissions tax will enlighten working people and put us on the road to socialism. Worse, he totally ignores the other major threat to humans: a global nuclear war catastrophe.

The only hope I see is the construction of a large alternative media organization that can provide real news coverage to the American public. Nobody likes to be lied to, and corporate media are disseminators of fake news reports and they censor honest coverage of vital issues. Polls show that increasing numbers of Americans are realizing that fact. In addition, such an alternative media organization would provide opportunities to experiment with bottom-up authority structures so vitally necessary in establishing a real and effective socialist society. (Here is my unfinished attempt as an example.)

Ten Lessons from the Yellow Vests

Click here to access article by Étienne Dolet from It’s Going Down.  (At 10:50 AM CT, I added the last paragraph to my commentary for greater clarity of my views.)

The author presents some excellent lessons to be learned from experiences of past anti-capitalist movements. We must study the history of each movement to build on their successes and to eliminate their weaknesses, or we will go down with the capitalist ruling classes in their final acts of self destruction. 

I especially liked this passage that emphasized the need to build networks and organization based on bottom-up principles:

... dire need to continue to develop networks of alternative media that provide a bottom-up account of radical social movements. Sites like Révolution Permanente, Wikipedia, and Mediapart are providing some of the more reliable coverage in French, along with Enough Is Enough, CrimethInc., and IGD in English. But these platforms could have greater visibility and support, and be part of a larger network of resources to help educate and agitate for revolutionary social transformation. They are an essential part of the anti-capitalist toolkit, and we need to continue to build autonomous but federated activist media platforms that can inform the public by developing the counter-narratives necessary for the coordination of mass revolutionary movements.

On the other hand, I haven't had much sympathy for anarchists. I think too many of their actions have been informed by a profound lack of historical information. From my experience, the average anarchist suffers from myopia, that is, they can only see in what is in front of them, or their immediate experience of repression. They lack years of study of authentic material that might give them insights on battling the far more sophisticated ruling classes. Thus, they are often deceived and led down paths that accomplish nothing constructive. 

A recent post from this website entitled "The Threat to Rojava: An Anarchist in Syria Speaks on the Real Meaning of Trump’s Withdrawal" offers an illustration of this. The author(s) is/are much too close to the Kurds to maintain any objectivity, and his/her/their lack of understanding of the geopolitics of the region also permeates this perspective. The author/authors can only see what is in front of him/her/them.

An effective revolutionary movement must understand what they are doing because the ruling capitalist classes have abundant resources and highly skilled upper-middle-class people, who they have pampered and co-opted, to mislead them down dead-end paths of activity. We must do our political homework to be effective! We must build our own organizations of independent journalists and educators, which are always informed by bottom-up organizing principles, to help us understand what is really going on in the world, and we must support and defend these journalists (Julian Assange is a prime example) and educators from persecution from capitalist authorities.

A sound revolutionary movement will have successes, and these successes will lead to other successful outcomes. You can't expect comfortable, highly educated, upper-middle-class people to abandon their advantages without some promise of success.

Julian Assange controversy

by Ron Horn.

I have been mystified by the lack of reporting regarding the plight of Julian Assange in left-wing British websites. I have emailed many of these website badgering and shaming them in order to get some kind of response. To date I have received none, and my patience is running out. So, I decided to do a little research. What follows is what I've gathered in about three hours time.

Last night I spent a frustrating one hour listening to the discussion of the streamed online broadcast of "United in solidarity for Julian Assange" on their website. I found the experience frustrating because the discussion was mostly focused on the legal aspects of his situation which I don't believe merit much attention given the fact that our fascist ruling classes have so little respect for legal procedures. 

Somehow my attention wandered to George Galloway, the outspoken member of the British parliament. He tells it like it is to audiences who often do not want to hear the truth. I discovered via YouTube an excerpt of a talk he made in 2012 in defense of Assange. He was speaking at the Oxford Union to a gathering of rich, ruling class brats. One statement he made at 6:20m into the talk in which he stated "I've never met Julian Assange. I'm told he is a weird fellow." drew my undivided attention. Unfortunately, his remarks were interrupted by a shallow ruling class kid who took this statement to mean that he was making a slur against gay people. However, this statement of his was full of implications that maybe Assange's personal behavior was looked on with disapproval in Britain, and this was the reason why he lacked support. 

This morning I have done further online research to shed light on these implications. Of course, I ran into a number of biased reports against him, but two sources stood out as being reasonably objective: one from the British New Statesman entitled "Jemima Khan on Julian Assange: how the Wikileaks founder alienated his allies" posted in February 2013, and the second posted online in 2010 on The New Yorker entitled "No Secrets". Both give you insights on his personal behaviors that turn people off. I was particularly impressed with the comments of Jemima Khan, the editor of New Statesman, who reached this conclusion:

On the subject of Assange, pundits on both the left and the right have become more interested in tribalism than truth. The attacks on him by his many critics in the press have been virulent and highly personal. Both sides are guilty of creating political caricatures and extinguishing any possibility of ambivalence. “On the other handism” doesn’t make great copy, but in this particular debate everyone is too polarised. The kind of person who spends his life committed to this type of work, wedded to a laptop, undercover, always on the move, with no security, stability or income, is bound to be a bit different. I have seen flashes of Assange’s charm, brilliance and insightfulness – but I have also seen how instantaneous rock-star status has the power to make even the most clear-headed idealist feel that they are above the law and exempt from criticism.

We all want a hero. After WikiLeaks released the infamous Collateral Murder video in 2010, showing US troops gunning down a dozen civilians in Iraq, I jokingly asked if Assange was the new Jason Bourne, on the run and persecuted by the state. It would be a tragedy if a man who has done so much good were to end up tolerating only disciples and unwavering devotion, more like an Australian L Ron Hubbard.

After so many years of being incarcerated in the Ecuadorian embassy, many journalists and activists have risen above these petty grievances to consider the larger issues involved in his confinement. I think there is a lesson to be learned from this experience: activists in general need to be supported by a large organization. The experience of Assange and associates at Wikileaks have reflected an individualistic spirit that is such an integral part of our capitalist culture. We need to think like socialist revolutionaries who recognize that we need each other to keep our limitations and weaknesses in check in order to avoid being in a situation like Julian Assange is in. 

Articles about the "yellow-jacket" protests in France

• The Revolution and its meaning by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos from United World International (My educated guess is that this website is based in Turkey.)

• The Yellow Vests: Spontaneous Anger or Precursor to Revolution? by Donald Courter from United World International (My educated guess is that this website is based in Turkey.)  

• Yellow-vest protests in France- An extraordinary political school from LeftEast (I think that this website is based in Romania.) 

• France in crisis from Defend Democracy Press. This post contains a number of articles.

• Despite Macron’s TV Mea Culpa, France Set for Showdown by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

• Paris 08.12.18: Yellow Vests shift to the left from ReelNews via YouTube.

The yellow vests movement in France is now shifting decisively to the left, as shown by the huge anti-capitalist bloc in Paris on the December 8. Led by prominent campaigners against police violence, The Adama Committee for Justice and Truth, it included railworkers, striking postal workers, other rank and file workers, students, migrant workers groups, important collectives such as The Rosa Parks Collective, sex workers, LGBTQ groups and many more. The mood has changed completely since the horrific mass arrest at a school in a Paris banlieue; now workers are calling for a general strike, and the student movement is exploding with schools and universities blockaded throughout the country. [my link]

Checklist: Are You Organizing Democratically?

Click here to access article by Matt Noyes from Labor Notes. 

Although this is written for labor organizers who work within a capitalist system, there are also important suggestions for organizing an effective bottom-up authority structures absolutely necessary for any kind of authentic revolutionary movement. Unfortunately, many labor organizers, especially those who are indoctrinated in sociopathic norms of a capitalist society, are co-opted by corporations in order to help them manage workers into supporting their profit objectives. But let us examine and take seriously some of Noyes's recommendations. One thing he failed to mention: above all, such organizers must be appointed and controlled by members of any society, be it a group or a nation.

Climate and the Infernal Blue Wave: Straight Talk About Saving Humanity

Click here to access article by Carol Dansereau posted on System Change not Climate Change.

I believe this is one of those rare times that I posted an article from a secondary website which has posted an article from a primary website/blog. I saw the headline from a feed reader which gives me titles of articles from various websites/blogs that I find reliable and of interest. One of those websites is CounterPunch. During the past five years I've found that its selection of articles increasingly take a rather insipid liberal-left orientation which is increasingly irritating as the main issues of a nuclear war holocaust and environmental catastrophe become increasingly dire for human existence.

CounterPunch is an old website that back in the 1990s I initially followed with great interest. Alexander Cockburn and his partner, Jeffrey St. Clair, published articles by authors that would critically deal with many issues that websites from mainstream corporation would not. Cockburn died in 2012 and his partner continued on with the website. Over the years the posted articles have become much less interesting to me, and I've nearly dropped them from my feed reader.

I spotted the headline of this article posted in CounterPunch in my feed reader, but was not interested primarily because of its source. Later in the day I received an email from System Change not Climate Change (SCNCC) alerting me to this article which they re-posted on their website. I read it and found it excellent. The author expressed her concerns about the dramatic warnings by a UN report which cited the short number of years we had left to prevent catastrophic climate warming which she saw were obviously caused by the operations of capitalism. I was very impressed! Few writers--although increasing in numbers--will write about the obvious solution: replacing capitalism with another system that will not destabilize the Earth's climate. And she wants to start organizing for this solution immediately! Early on she writes:

This is not a joke, or a drill. This is it. Decision-point for humankind. The UN says we have to turn things around within 12 years to avoid catastrophe. Others give us even less time.

We need to act.  And we need to act quickly. But we need to act rationally as well. It won’t help to run out and just “do something, anything” to fight for our future. We need to look honestly at whether the things we’ve been doing so far are effective. They aren’t. 

She understands that working within the capitalist system which controls our nation can never be a solution because they, the ruling class, will never allow the system to be replaced--the tremendous power and wealth they enjoy is delivered by this system. We ordinary people must come to the rescue of our planet's ecosystem to save our ourselves, the rest of humanity, and future generations! She writes:

Some say it’s crazy to fight for system change, leaving the Democrats and incrementalism behind.  “System change is impossible” they maintain.  “We can’t possibly achieve it in time to stave off disaster.”  But which is crazier really?  Fighting for actual control over our destiny, or continuing to fight within the very system that produced global warming, a system that thoroughly disempowers us?

Enough said. Read the article in which she has some specific suggestions about how get the system-change started ... and act!

Crackdown on Gab Following Pittsburgh Massacre Proves Need for Alternative Internet Architecture

Click here to access article by Robert Bridge from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

Our masters are using the Pittsburgh massacre to shut down an ...

ad-free social media service that was/is devoted to “preserving individual liberty, the freedom of speech, and the free flow of information on the internet” – the exact things, incidentally, that the invisible comptrollers of the Internet fear the most – is facing an Internet sanctions regime when it became know that Bowers had posted an anti-Semitic rant over their platform.

I'm wondering if we will see other such social media services and websites shut down because of such incidents, manufactured or not. 

The author ends his article with a conclusion that I strongly agree with:

An entirely separate internet architecture needs to be created – pay services, hosting platforms, social media services – that are not bounds by the whims of the ‘free market,’ which as we have learned is not so free after all. In fact, it’s absolutely tyrannical. At the same time, IT companies – made up of men and women who subscribe to their own favorite ideologies, which more often than not are Liberal oriented – are no less susceptible to pursuing political agendas than the government, and to believe for a second they will not take advantage of a tragedy to oust a bothersome competitor from the marketplace would be shortsighted and plain stupid.

Since the internet is currently comprised of two separate and distinct people, from two separate universes, time to act like China and construct an entirely separate internet architecture. Personally, I see no other alternatives.

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.

New Year's Message and Warning from a War Correspondent

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from Countercurrents.org.  (Edited for clarity at 11:59 AM Seattle time.)

Vltchek has demonstrated what a real journalist does in reporting the truth, as he sees it, in his/her travels to the most war-torn areas of the world. Also, I think he has stumbled upon what is so vitally needed to overcome the forces of greed and cruelty spawned (def.#3) by the anti-human system of capitalism which sets one tiny class over the entire world's humans. He complains about the lack of support in 2015 he received from readers while suffering from exhaustion.

You and your determined work may save several villages, or if you are very good, you could make a difference on a global scale. Your writing or your films may help to stop a war. But never expect any official recognition, any practical backing or even mercy from your readers. In 2015, after making several films and writing books about several particularly horrid war zones, mostly in Africa, I totally collapsed. For several weeks, I was not able to move. I thought it was the end. There was no help at all coming from those millions of my readers living in all parts of the world. At that time I made my condition public. Still, nothing. Few letters of ‘moral support’ arrived. Few: “Be strong, the world needs you!” In the end, it was my close family circle that literally pampered and rescued me and put me back to my feet and into fighting order.

This is not a reproach, just a warning to those who are getting ready to fight for the survival of humanity: “You will be totally on your own. You will most definitely collapse on several occasions.”

What is totally lacking is an organized effort to support journalists such as Vltchek. We who see the ongoing destruction of both humans and the environment caused by capitalist rule must become aware that it will take something more than family support to confront this evil monster of capitalism. Remember capitalism puts families as the primary social unit of capitalism. This was so succinctly expressed by that British servant of capitalism, Margaret Thatcher:

...you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.  

However, she omits (and therefore lies) that these rich families are united and highly organized under capitalist class rule.

I simply don't understand why it is so difficult for activists to realize that some greater scale of organization is needed to break the power of capitalists than the family unit. Yet, Vltchek expected greater support for his work from readers when he suffered from exhaustion in 2015 when there wasn't any organization to support him. We on the left have not moved one iota from family support to build larger organizations with clout to defend ourselves from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" inflicted upon us by this tiny class of capitalists. How can we expect anything different than exhaustion, defeat, and more misery!!!?

We must put social back into the effort of building socialism. We must think in different terms than what we were raised with. We must be conscious of our indoctrination under capitalist rule and create another consciousness--or else we will perish.

The struggle for a Catalan Republic enters a new stage

Click here to access article by Jorge Martin from In Defense of Marxism.

The proclamation of the Republic by the Catalan Parliament on October 27th was short-lived. The Spanish state was ready to crush it decisively, while the Catalan government had no plans and no strategy to defend it. That, however, is not the end of the movement.

The author uses a class analysis to frame the future of the Catalan movement for independence. He sees an organization the emergence of the Committees for the Defence of the Republic as a constructive step toward a revolutionary movement of the people instead of merely the capitalist class in the Catalan province. (This step reminds one of the broad steps of the 1917 Russian Revolution.) The next official step of the Spanish government will be the holding of elections in Catalonia on December 21. 

Feminist Organising and the Women’s Strike: An Interview with Cinzia Arruzza

Click here to access an interview with a leading European feminist, an edited version posted on Political Critique. 

The Sicilian born Marxist-feminist talks about the new, global wave of women-led mobilisations and the continuing importance of class politics.

Although this is more suited to those people who have studied high level theory (def.) related to feminism and radical politics, I believe that it has much to offer regarding the debate between identity politics and class politics, and the contrast between liberal or capitalist feminism as represented by Hillary Clinton and radical feminism. She also uses the term "social reproduction" (def.) which I believe is a very useful concept which views capitalism as not merely an economic system, but a comprehensive social system shaping every institution of society, and is designed to reproduce the exploitative social system from one generation to another.

Defending immigrant rights and building the resistance

Click here if you wish to access this 33:01 talk by Heather Benno at a recent PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation) forum in Washington, DC. directly from Liberation's website.

In this talk you will get the perspective of a lawyer who has worked extensively with immigration issues in relation to the government's policies which vary according to the ruling class's political interests. You will also learn that it doesn't matter very much which capitalist party is in power, and more details about the Trump administration and it's policies.

Across the country, people are asking the question, where do we go from here? We look to what the future of the resistance movement will be against racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, and all that Trump and his administration represents. This event featured a presentation by immigration lawyer Heather Benno.

Over the last month, the world has watched as millions of poor and working people began to mobilize across the United States to protest Trump’s agenda. The question is now how can we grow the resistance into a powerful movement for revolutionary change?

Some observations and solutions about the contemporary class war being waged (on us) by our capitalist ruling class

by Ron Horn for this website.

I ended up with this essay this morning by reading and recalling a number of articles of how the capitalist ruling class through various NGOs or non-profit organizations (NGOs are usually used to refer to non-governmental organizations abroad, but within the US they are usually referred to as non-profit organizations) are so often used by them to shepherd Americans into fairly safe activist organizations, marches, demonstrations, protests, etc. Then I began to think how this is only one part of a complex of controlling mechanisms to insure that Americans support the existing rule of American capitalism and all its contemporary features of imperialism. Let me provide some details about this train of thought and where it led me.

I read and/or scanned articles entitled Amnesty International Stokes Syrian War and Standing Rock: Profusion, Collusion & Big Money Profits, and recalled other posts of a similar nature to realize more fully the complex nature of the forces of control used by the ruling class to secure our compliance and to divert our opposition energies toward fairly harmless pursuits that don't interfere with their interests of profits and power.

This complex of forces runs all the way from ideological indoctrination and information that we experience in education, to media, to entertainment, to the control of jobs especially in higher education and in non-profits which are usually funded by the rich, and to infiltration of their well-paid agents in activist organizations. Sometimes these forces that the rich ruling class commands seem overwhelming and invincible, and they very well may be. If so, I think that this is going to lead to a series of catastrophes such as nuclear war or major climate disasters or both that will likely end the existence of humans, or at least major loss of life. However, it seems that my human nature resists hopelessness and looks forever toward solutions.

I keep thinking that if only ordinary people knew about, and understood, the realities of their condition of indoctrinated wage slaves or well-paid and indoctrinated agents of an exploitative ruling class that they might engage in revolutionary activities to change the system that supports this ruling class. They would do this because they would understand that the underlying reason why we experience so much extreme inequality, never-ending wars, and environmental devastation is the existence of the capitalist system. So this suggests some action to start the process of this understanding. My individual solution was to start this website. But social problems, especially of this magnitude, require collective solutions.

The only activity that I can see would generate a collective revolutionary movement would be focused on organizing alternative news, information, and opinion sources that are strictly funded by non-ruling class sources. I see signs such as more and more websites that are devoted to presenting such content and are funded by ordinary people. But many need to rid themselves of advertising because their sponsors inevitably end up influencing content. They also need to combine resources such as journalists, administrators, and funding in ever large media collectives to effectively counter the influence of corporate media.

To attract the right kind of activists they need to build in new alternative organizational structures, and not simply borrow hierarchical structures typical of class-structured organizations and societies. Thus some kind of bottom-up control structures are necessary to assure authentic democratic control which serves the people. Thus much experimentation must be done to produce a workable, practical model that can be adopted by other organizations in a growing revolutionary movement. 

Once such alternative collective media organizations become a significant influence, we can expect attacks from the ruling class in the forms of infiltrators who would try to create dissension in these organizations, attempts to bribe people to serve the ruling class, smears in corporate media in an attempt to discredit the alternative media, and even threats to people engaged in work for the new media. All such attacks could escalate as the new media became more effective, but this would only serve to attract more attention and people to the new media organizations. The new media could serve as a revolutionary catalyst that could grow a viable movement to overthrow the reign of capitalists and their entire support system, and then to replace it with a genuine democratic system that affirms life and harmony with nature.

One Does Not Hate When One Can Despise: Derrick Jensen on Donald Trump and How We Got Here

Click here to access article by Derrick Jensen from Seven Stories Press. (This post was suggested to me by Caren and Christopher who operate a sustainable farm and teach classes in sustainable living in northwest Oregon.)

The primary function of Democrats and Republicans alike is to take care of business. The primary function is not to take care of communities. The primary function is not to take care of the planet. The primary function is to serve the interests of the owning class, by which I mean the owners of capital, the owners of society, the owners of the politicians.

We have seen over the last couple of generations a consistent ratcheting of American politics to the right, until by now our political choices have been reduced to on the one hand a moderately conservative Republican calling herself a Democrat, and on the other a strutting fascist calling himself a Republican. If we define “left” as being at minimum against capitalism, there is no functional left in this country.

I think he is a bit too negative here because I have witnessed in recent years a number of people (like Jensen himself) who are questioning capitalism as a system that is destroying not only human habitat but responsible for many other crimes against humanity. Like Jensen (see this as a prime example), many of these critics in the past have limited their target to industrial capitalism which suggests that their is another kind of capitalism that could work well if only we could reform it, but increasingly these critics (including Jensen) now blame the system itself for the ongoing assault on our lives and the environment.

Another criticism I have is that Jensen casts too much blame on the victims of capitalism and often seems to argue that we are intrinsically all racists, women haters, and suspicious of foreigners. This is placing far too much emphasis on social identity politics and not on the ruling capitalist class's favorite method to divide and conquer us by encouraging such behaviors and attitudes. 

The US is profoundly and functionally racist and woman-hating, nature hating, poor hating, and based on exploiting humans and nonhumans the world over. So why should it surprise us when someone who manifests these values is elected?

Still, the overall thrust of this article is very positive:

...movements emerge only through organized struggle. And someone has to do the organizing. Someone has to do the struggling. And it has to be you, and it has to be me.

A doctor friend of mine always says that the first step toward cure is proper diagnosis. Diagnose the problems, and then you become the cure.

You make it right.

Caren and Christopher also recommend this encouraging piece by James Corbett entitled "Chaos Out of Order". 

...we have to understand that we have been brought to this point for a reason. In order to get their new order, the powers-that-shouldn't-be had to generate this current chaos. The unprecedented levels of social, political and economic tension we are experiencing right now are part of a game plan. To reset the chess pieces, the board has to be knocked over first.

This presents us with a glass-half-full/glass-half-empty situation. When the game board is overturned, the would-be tyrants waste no time in getting to work, trying to arrange things to their liking.

But their control is not total. At times like this, when the glacial status quo has been liquefied and everything is in flux, we have an opportunity for true change.

Actually, in contrast to most Americans, I don't see that the Trump administration (as puppets of the capitalist puppeteers) portends a significant amount of change from the past. It might be refreshing to see them more openly and honestly (for example, see this) revealing their fascist nature which the other capitalist party often hid; and because of this, the Trump administration might generate more incentive for people to learn about what is really going on. 

More Than 50 Soros-Funded Groups Partnered With Women’s March On Washington [a best post]

Click here to access article by Aaron Kesel from We Are Change.

I believe that this is a very important article in order to raise the political consciousness from a sheeple-type consciousness that appears every four years when presidential elections are held and many "progressive" people rather suddenly become involved. Such people usually get involved behind a candidate (example, Bernie Sanders) that serves to shepherd progressive types into the slaughterhouse of the Democratic Party. 

In between the quadrennial election circuses, most people watch corporate TV and involve themselves superficially in front organizations (like MoveOn.org) funded by the ruling rich to keep them diverted from the real issues of class war. (I simply do not believe polls which report low public credibility of news and opinion from corporate media.) Given this scenario it is no wonder that around election time, people get so excited about issues of social identity, multiculturalism, and social welfare. 

Now before anyone gets their dander up over this criticism, I strongly support these issues. So much progress has been made over the past 50 years on social identity issues, and many of us have benefited. But issues of social identity and multiculturalism do not significantly interfere with the rule of the capitalist class which has so many deleterious effects on our lives. In fact, our masters often use social identity issues to manipulate us. Notice how our ruling capitalist masters used guilt over racism to push Obama into the White House. Obama's obvious African-American identity was literally only skin-deep.

To counter these manipulations by agents of the ruling capitalist class, genuine alternative websites are springing up all over the web, but at the same time the rich are funding many others to mislead the people. Whether the people or the rich ruling class wins this ideological battle will depend on efforts by the people to spend far more time educating themselves on political realities related to the ongoing class war: extreme inequality, poverty, crime, never-ending wars, and climate destabilization that is being accelerated by capitalism. This article serves as a very good beginning point for "progressives" to raise their political consciousness. 

Others with a more advanced understanding of class war must become more involved in a collaborative way. This means that they must examine and discard many behaviors and attitudes promoted by the extreme individualism that is fostered by the capitalist system. It is good that so many independent voices are spreading their messages over websites, but it is far more important to join their voices and resources together to wage war more effectively over our common enemy. 

Too many operate their websites like companies which compete with other companies (websites) for advertising dollars. The dependence on advertising dollars must be supplanted by reader donations and subscriptions, and we the people must support genuine independent websites as best we can. We also must drop our need to appear all knowing simply because no one has a monopoly on knowing. We must be willing to criticize the views and actions of other activists and analysts and accept such criticism in a collaborative spirit.

For example, I have run about a half dozen posts from ProPublica because the articles were were good on various issues. Fake progressive sites like ProPublica do this deliberately to bait and hook people on the left to their websites in order to ultimately lead them to dead-end activist projects. I erred in posting their articles, and no one brought this to my attention! I can't believe that none of the people who follow my website did not know about the backers of ProPublica as reported in this article.

While promoting this article, I do not endorse everything that is posted on the We Are Change website. For example, I condemn an article entitled "Top Scientist Resigns Admitting Man Made Global Warming Is A Big Scam" posted a year ago on their website. Well meaning people can always make mistakes, and I don't condemn their website because of this one post.

Louis Proyect on US election outcome

Click here to access article by Louis Proyect posted on Redline.

Although I don't often agree with Proyect's views on various issues, I think that this brief article hits the nail on the head.

Do we have the guts to build a radical movement or will we be continuously tailing after The Nation, Salon, MSNBC and the Democratic Party? [my link to explain the usage of this verb]

And we see the same reaction from Workers World in an article entitled "Don’t just mourn, organize".

...this is no time just to mourn. It’s a time to reaffirm support and militant solidarity with all those who have been the main targets of Trump’s demagogy and hatred: women, people of color, immigrants. That’s the only path toward uniting the working class against its real enemies: the billionaire rulers of this country, including Trump.

The day after the election must become Day One of the resistance.

What I fail to understand after 60 years of activism is why younger American activists still take elections sponsored and organized by the capitalist ruling class seriously. They still don't seem to grasp the simple and obvious truth contained in a quote attributed to the early 20th century anarchist Emma Goldman: "If  [capitalist] elections could change anything, they would be illegal". Only grass-roots reform movements have made even a mild impact on the way capitalists rule the US: the abolitionist movement, Populists, women's suffrage, and Civil Rights movement. Only a revolutionary movement can make substantial improvements in the lives of ordinary Americans, and by extension, to the lives of most people of the world ruled by the US Empire. There is no other option. 

Forget about having families, forget about having kids, forget about having a career, and forget about the American Dream--it is truly a dream. Wake up! Organize a revolutionary movement as if your life and the lives of many people in the world depended on it--because they do! 

The Cooperative Movement vs. Global Capitalism

Click here to access article by Margaret Rapp from Grassroots Economic Organizing.

This article is a transcript of a talk given by Rapp in Cuba this past June. She provides a useful survey of economic cooperatives, both past and present, their various forms, and their difficulties, for anyone interested in co-ops.

I don't believe that even the most intensive type form of cooperative--worker owned and managed enterprises--can offer any kind of effective challenge to capitalist directed corporations. However, they can be useful to materially support workers who are unemployed, who can't tolerate working condition in capitalist enterprises, who need to maintain their skills, and those who want to have experience in cooperative management. 

However, I see one exception to my assertion that cooperatives cannot challenge capitalist rule: an ideologically driven media organization to control information and ideas. (I will address the ideology later.) The capitalist ruling class control over information and ideas has been crucial for them to maintain their war prone, boom and bust system, and their ongoing assault on the environment. The continuing concentration of media in ever fewer hands--consider the current proposed merger between AT&T and Time-Warner--gives this class more power to shape information, ideas, values, etc to serve their many anti-social agendas. We now see the results of this power in the overwhelmingly false reporting of news about both domestic and foreign affairs which liberals and leftists like to rail about in alternative media. Then, of course, this control furthers the capitalist ruling class control over basic ideas and values that serves to add legitimacy to their barbaric system. 

Thus far I have seen only two articles which express even mild concern over this merger in the alternative media: here and here. One might argue that the concentration of media is already so extreme that more of it will not substantially change things, but the writers of these articles don't make that argument. These writers and the general population seem blissfully unaware of the significance of the control of information and ideas. This is definitely not true for the capitalist ruling classes.

I am making the argument that forming an international network of journalists and other interested people who are dedicated to honest reporting not only offers a media source that can 1) insure the communication of truthful information, but can also 2) offer a revolutionary catalyst for the overthrow of capitalist class rule. 

Consider the fact that poll after poll shows a deep distrust of mainstream media: see here and here. If people had access to another significant media source that could demonstrate honest reporting, the general public likely over time would turn to this source in increasing numbers. Thus far existing alternative media agents exhibit the same basic individualistic motives as their counterparts in mainstream media: they see themselves competing with other rivals in alternative media for donations and advertising. These influences must be acknowledged and dealt with by those who are still uncorrupted by capitalist ideology, and by those who have come to understand the most crucial issues of all: war and environmental destruction which threaten human survival.

By significant media source I mean a global network of reporting activists who are truly independent (not funded by capitalist sources) and dedicated to providing the most accurate information possible to all people in the world. This dedication to truth would be the fundamental consideration for participation in the network. Beyond this would be a dedication to social justice, equality, and genuine democracy in a world free of any social class domination. By combining numerous worldwide resources and skills in an organized network could such a organization become a significant media source which provides not only information but a platform for ideas consistent with the latter basic values. I believe that increasing numbers from the general populations would financially support such an alternative media organization.

Now with regard to a revolutionary catalyst, I argue that such an alternative global media network would obviously draw attention from capitalist ruling classes who regard the control of the dissemination of information and ideas as crucial to their continued rule over the world. They would use smears, infiltration, police intimidation, outright assassinations of alternative journalists, and all other means to destroy such a global media network. However, such attacks are likely to provoke a backlash from people in the general population, particularly if such attacks were well publicized in this alternative media. There would ensue an ongoing battle which could radicalize many formerly inactive people from the general population, and over time could evolve into an effective revolutionary movement.