Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, May 29, 2020 (part 2 of 2)

•  Fabricated Shocks and Open Windows by Mark Taliano from Global Research.

• A Rendezvous with Destiny? by Nomi Prins from TomDispatch.

My commentary: This is an excellent illustration of a social democratic take on the latest capitalist crisis. Prins harkens, along with Engelhardt, us back to the Great Depression which they see as similar to the current crisis. Unfortunately for capitalism-loving social democrats, this time is different. I see the current crisis as brought about by the predictable reckless behavior of a ruling class that aspired to do too much: build a dominant capitalist empire while pursuing the accumulation and consolidation of all the wealth on the planet. 

I believe, even without further evidence, that this capitalist class engineered the current pandemic primarily as cover for bailing out their banks while providing a number of other benefiits such as increasing fuel for their piromaniacal attacks on China and to rid themselves of "useless eaters" of elderly retired folks and surplus workers. I believe this because I have witnessed their astonishing criminal record of the assassination of the Kennedys, the Black Panthers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and domestic others as well as all the foreign adventures to subvert or attack others who stood in their way of building a capitalist world empire. I believe that these criminals have been responsible for many false-flag attacks both domestic and foreign with 9/11 being their most brilliant achievement.

But this time it is different. This pandemic is a desperate gamble for them to hold onto power, and to me the outcomes look to be very different than the Great Depression. You see, I was born in the middle of the Great Depression, and I know first-hand what it was like for my parents.

Biowarfare has been seen as an unpredictable weapon, and for this reason it has been banned by most capitalist ruling classes. But to our ambitious masters who, like good fascists, saw that with sufficient research and development they could engineer it as a controlled type of weapon that could be useful in particular circumstances. The current situation with defeats abroad and economic crises domestically, in desperation, they gamblled that this was such a situation. The results are yet to be determined.

• U.S. Debt Crisis Comes into View as Fed’s Balance Sheet Explodes Past $7 Trillion by Pam Martens and Russ Martens from their weblog Wall Street on Parade.

• How Patriarchy and Capitalism Combine to Aggravate the Oppression of Women by Denise Comanne from CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt).

(Note: I've run out of time and energy for today.) 

Posts I especially recommend for today: Saturday, November 16, 2019

Bolivia:

• Interview: President Evo Morales on the Real Situation in Bolivia from 21st Century Wire.

• Bolivian Army Massacres Peaceful Protesters in Cochabamba from Internationalist 360°.

• Top Bolivian coup plotters trained by US military’s School of the Americas, served as attachés in FBI police programs by Jeb Sprague from The Greyzone. 

• VIVA EVO! Morales Overthrown, But Bolivian Socialism Will Endure by Andre Vltchek from 21st Century Wire.

• The Removal of Morales is a Minor Victory in a Series of Losses for Washington by Paul Antonopoulos from Brics.

Other posts:

• Former US Secretary of State Kissinger points to danger of “catastrophic” conflict between US and China by Nick Beams (Australian) from World Socialist Web Site.

• Seeking to cultivate fascistic base, Trump pardons two war criminals and promotes a third by Evan Blake from World Socialist Web Site. 

• Epstein Is Alive (Part 2) -- No DNA Test! from Fort Russ News (FRN).

• Watch the Arctic’s sea ice slowly disappear by Sid Perkins from Science.

• 2020 El Nino could start 18 degree temperature rise by Sam Carana from Arctic News.

Honest Government Ad

Click here if you wish to this satirical video from YouTube directly. It was produced and uploaded by The Juice Media channel. (I must thank my good friend in Oregon for alerting me to this outstanding satirical video.)

Chomsky Proves George H.W. Bush Was War Criminal

Jimmy Dore provides a clip of Noam Chomsky explaining to the interviewer about the war crimes committed by George H.W. Bush. This is furnished as an antidote to all the sickening corporate coverage extolling the virtues of this war criminal.

Seymour Hersh: The CIA Is Filled With Criminals

Click here to access a fascinating recent interview with Hersh conducted by Elon Green, Columbia Journalism Review, posted on Reader Supported News. 

This interview was obviously taped and is full of disjointed comments and slang that you would find in any conversation between good, knowledgeable friends, and it presupposes a level of fairly sophisticated understanding of Hersh, his background and history of reporting scandalous events that are rarely covered by other journalists. To those of you who have acquired such an understanding, this is a most fascinating interview ... and Hersh promises more revelations of our thoroughly corrupt, gangster-capitalist government.

Russian Historiography of the Korean War

Click here to access article by George Burchett, son of renowned independent journalist Wilfred Burchett. (Much of what I learned about the true story of the Vietnam War during that war was furnished by his father, Wilfred Burchett, an Australian independent journalist.)

George, who is an artist living in Hanoi, Vietnam, writes of the massive efforts in the continuing campaign of denial of bacteriological warfare engaged in by the US forces in the Korean War by subsequent propaganda agents of the class that rules the US-led Empire, particularly evidence sourced from supposedly recovered documents from old Soviet files in the 1990s. 

I strongly urge those who are interested in the US use of bio-weapons in the Korean War read a recent book by Dave Chaddock entitled This Must Be the Place (2013) in which he extensively covers the subject from both sides of the controversy and comes to the definite conclusion that the US did indeed use bacteriological weapons in Korea and adjacent areas of China. Chaddock also confirms what George Burchett writes about Unit 731 of the Japanese army headed by General Shiro Ishii in WWII. 

These “former officers” belonged to Unit 731. While many of the worst Japanese war criminals were tried and sentenced to death by a U.S. Military Court in Tokyo, the leader of Unit 731, General Shiro Ishii, and his top aides, were granted immunity and asked to work on the U.S. BW research and development program.

We Need a Martin Luther King Day of Truth

Click here to access article by Edward Curtin from his blog.

Curtin provides a fitting remembrance of MLK on this special day which is ignored by most American businesses. He begins his article with this profound insight:

As Martin Luther King’s birthday is celebrated with a national holiday, his death day disappears down the memory hole. Across the country – in response to the King Holiday and Service Act passed by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton in 1994 – people will be encouraged to make the day one of service. Such service does not include King’s commitment to protest a decadent system of racial and economic injustice or non-violently resist the U.S. warfare state that he called “the greatest purveyor of violence on earth.”

Government sponsored service is cultural neo-liberalism at its finest, the promotion of individualism at the expense of a mass movement for radical institutional change.

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous,” warned Dr. King, “than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

I think a MLK Day of Truth would be too much for most Americans, who have been raised on patriotic myths, to handle. It would mean that most Americans would be required to reconcile these myths with the reality that we live under a psychopathic criminal gang of liars, thieves, and murderers. So, let us not fantasize about days of truth, because there won't be any. Let us, that is, those of us who unflinchingly can face the truth, plan and organize to rid ourselves of this nightmarish capitalist scourge upon the planet and its humans.

Remembering the USS Liberty

Click here if you wish to access a 27:37m video from RT. Participants on the show feature Phillip Nelson author of Remember the Liberty, ex-marine and political analyst Ken O'Keefe, and Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute.

Once again I am presenting information that media corporations will not even touch indirectly. This is one of the most dramatic examples of our ruling class's effort to censor information that directly exposes criminal actions by our government officials in collusion with Zionist leaders in Israel. Even 50 years after the tragic and criminal event, the vast majority of Americans still do not know anything about it. Hopefully with this post a relatively few more Americans will have knowledge of it.

You can learn more about this war crime and treasonous behavior of our leaders in various books: the one I read entitled Assault on the Liberty by James Ennes, Remember the Liberty by Phillip Nelson (who is featured on the show), Operation Cyanide: How the Bombing of the USS Liberty Nearly Caused World War Three by Peter Hounam, and in dvd entitled USS Liberty Dead in the water directed by Christopher Mitchell. I notice that there are videos on YouTube that you can also access such as the BBC production entitled "USS Liberty: Dead In The Water". I have only read Ennes's book about the incident.

D. Rockefeller’s Gruesome Legacy

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook. (Editing for clarity at 5 PM Seattle time.)

Engdahl unwraps one of the capitalism's most secretive and powerful actors and finds the stench of a self-seeking misanthrope who devoted his entire life to satisfying his own excessive needs for power and wealth at the expense of untold number of lives across the globe. Instead of eulogizing such infantile behavior as corporate media has done, Engdahl tells the real, gruesome story of his life. 

Capitalism is a kind of religion that extols the merits of self-seeking behavior. To practice self-seeking they see the necessity to dominate and control others. Its adherents claim that the practice of self-seeking is beneficial to all. Of course, this is only a ruse to hide their ambitions to control everything in the world for their sole benefit. A capitalist has the personality development of a two year old child who is devoted entirely to its own satisfaction. 

Although capitalism as a system benefits only a few, capitalist ideologues indoctrinate all citizens in the goodness of this lifestyle from birth; and this influence continues throughout their lives in schools, corporate media, and entertainment. The end result is a full-spectrum ideological dominance over citizens to such an extent that people can no long imagine any other social-economic system in spite of the fact of the system's many deleterious effects (wars, poverty, environmental destruction, etc) on people all over our planet.

As our Empire's transnational ruling class is becoming desperate to maintain their objective of securing the entire world as their oyster, they are increasingly resorting to desperate measures that include full-spectrum surveillance of citizens and systematic propaganda and psyop programs to manage their consent to continue with the capitalists' obsession to obtain for themselves every last thing of value on the planet.

There's a 'Special Place in Hell' for Madeleine Albright [and Hillary]

Click here to access article by Kurt Nimmo from InfoWars.

There are plenty of US war criminals; but to the people who proclaim that it would be wonderful to have a woman as president, I offer this piece to show that war-mongering comes with no sexual identity. Being a person who is inclined to war-mongering and illegally acquiring a fortune, Hillary Clinton is another war criminal type who would be a perfect candidate to serve the Empire's ruling predatory class of capitalists. If you're not convinced after reading this article, then read this, this, and this. 

Many of my fellow Americans are glued to their TV sets and fascinated by what they think are "democratic" election results and getting caught up in all the drama that corporate media can muster. Hillary, of course, will "win" the presidency simply because she was selected as a woman candidate who would appeal to women and others who wish to deny their anti-women prejudices.

They performed the same ruse in 2008 by giving Americans the chance to prove their non-racism by voting for Barack Obama. Because he was raised mostly by his white banker grandmother and educated at elite schools, he was thoroughly indoctrinated in capitalist values and became a perfect puppet president to serve the ruling capitalist class. This illustrates how clever our ruling class directorate are with their applications of inverted racism and sexism to manipulate the social identity politics of Americans. (Class politics is taboo in the US. Should one be foolish enough to try to engage most of them in a class analysis of any given issue, they will look at you like you were from another planet.)

What most naive Americans fail to understand is that these elections are all smoke and mirrors designed to hide the fact that it really doesn't matter who becomes president because that person will either serve the ruling class directorate or they will be removed from office one way or another. However the directorate wants someone in office who they know will perform their public relations duties well and follow their orders. They long ago decided that Hillary was that person and have been grooming her for that job ever since.

The Anti-Empire Report #140: Are you confused by the Middle East? Here are some things you should know. (But you’ll probably still be confused.)

Click here to access article by William Blum. 

I completely endorse 99% of this article. The remaining 1% consists of this paragraph:

The candidacy of Bernie Sanders, a “democratic socialist”, for the US presidency has produced an unprecedented barrage of discussion in the American media about just what is this thing called “socialism”. Most of the discussion centers around the question of government ownership and control of the economy versus private ownership and control. This is, of course, a very old question; the meat and potatoes of the Cold War ideological competition.

I haven't seen any discussion about what socialism really is in American media--if by that he means mainstream media. The elaboration of the concept, if any, is limited to more generous welfare benefits, enhancement of labor protections, and more government spending on public projects. I have seen nothing about public ownership of the economy. This is blasphemy to a capitalist and anyone who affirms such a notion is immediately excommunicated.

As I've said before, Sanders' role for the ruling class is to make nice sounding words that will herd independent sheep back into the corral of the Democratic Party where they can once again be forced down the chute to the capitalist slaughterhouse. Obama performed this task last time, Gore the time before last, Bill Clinton prior to Gore, ad infinitum. Hillary can't do this now because she is too busy demonstrating that she is a tough "broad" for the more patriarchal right-wing voters in the US.

US, allies responsible for Syria’s destruction: Ex-intelligence linguist

Click here to access 2:13m video and associated article from Press TV. 

Chalk up another victim for the serial war criminal enterprise known as the US Empire. Scott Rickard expresses clearly what most Americans hate to admit, but most informed people already know. 

Should you have any doubts about this, just read the latest information about another recent US war crime furnished by independent sleuth and blogger Bernhard from Moon of Alabama in an article entitled "Why Is The U.S. Silently Bombing Syria's Electricity Network?". 

We learn from Red Pill Times the latest news from Syria in their article entitled "Battle for Aleppo begins. Syrian army ready to take on Obama’s Al Qaeda terrorists forces". We also learn from this article how dangerous the situation is with the US bombing anything which supports the Syrian government while Russia is bombing those who are attacking the government.

12:33 PM addendum: For an excellent hour long discussion of what is happening in Syria and nearby areas from the perspective of the US Empire, Russia, and China and perceptive insights about the US's deep state, I highly recommend that you listen to the following. However, what they overlook is the capitalist structure, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, which has created this monster of a deep state.

US Senate Hearing Discusses Using Refugees as Human Shields in Syria

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.

With the Empire's deceptive "humanitarian" policy toward the Syrian people in disarray and their fake war on ISIS apparent after only a week of Russian attacks on the latter's bases, Cartalucci digs up information regarding desperate measures that the Empire's strategists are now considering. There seems to be no limit to their depraved imaginations.

Iraq War General Ray Odierno Cashing In With New Job at JPMorgan Chase

Click here to access article by Murtaza Hussain from The Intercept. 

Here we see the latest example of how integrated the military-industrial-financial complex is at the nerve center of the Empire. This US war criminal, instead of facing a war crimes trial, is being rewarded with an important job with a leading financial institution. Never mind that his actions created millions of Iraqi refugees and many deaths in the illegal invasion of Iraq. This is a continuing lesson to other generals: follow the diktats of the capitalist class directorate and you will be rewarded regardless if they consist of war crimes.

Odierno rose to become U.S. Army chief of staff in 2011, and in that role was a consistent public critic of plans by the Obama administration to draw down troop levels from their post-9/11 peaks. He has also been a steadfast defender of the original decision to invade Iraq, stating earlier this year that Saddam “was moving toward terrorism and I believe if he continued to have problems, we don’t know what he might have done in terms of being part of the problem with terrorism.”

Odierno is far from being the only top military official to retire and take on a high-level position with a private sector firm.

Meanwhile, "back at the ranch" where mostly ordinary citizens hang out, a few liberals who serve the capitalist class are getting upset that we are losing all our civil liberties which they thought were guaranteed by that piece of paper called the Constitution. Such people, like John Whitehead, are alarmed about the fascist direction in which the country is heading. In the following quote his use of "we" seems very ambiguous. Is he shaming ordinary people by declaring that "we" are at fault for this, or is he shaming the ruling class that he has served so faithfully?

...not only are we developing a new citizenry incapable of thinking for themselves, we’re also instilling in them a complete and utter reliance on the government and its corporate partners to do everything for them—tell them what to eat, what to wear, how to think, what to believe, how long to sleep, who to vote for, whom to associate with, and on and on.

In this way, we have created a welfare state, a nanny state, a police state, a surveillance state, an electronic concentration camp—call it what you will, the meaning is the same: in our quest for less personal responsibility, a greater sense of security, and no burdensome obligations to each other or to future generations, we have created a society in which we have no true freedom.

Or maybe he wants to divert our attention away from the class nature of our society by suggesting that we all live in an egalitarian society in which we all participate equally in creating the conditions of our society. 

Federal Court Gives “Early Christmas Present” to War Criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Others, Immunizing Them From Civil Inquiry Regarding Iraq War

Click here to access article by Inder Comar from Global Research.

The fact that these war criminals will not be persecuted illustrates the class nature of the US justice institution. This is a perfect illustration that proves the fact of a ruling class which, by definition, rules over every important institution of society which includes justice and the rule of (their) law. This ruling class is obviously the American capitalist class that is populated at the highest levels by people in finance, major corporations, and military. The Iraq War was pursued for their geopolitical interests, not for the interests of ordinary Americans. That is precisely why they lied to us and arranged for the 9/11 false-flag tragedy. That is why they continue to lie to us about Ukraine, their economic war against Russia, and most everything else.

Stories Of Extermination: Silent = Complicit

Click here to access article by Mickey Z. from World News Trust. 

The author reminds us of the fact that there is nothing exceptional about the many who still remain silent regarding the latest massacre of Palestinians. He reminds us of the real history--in contrast to the fictional history of our indoctrination--of the rise of fascism in the 1920s and 30s that was greeted by capitalist elites everywhere who for a long time overlooked the atrocities committed by their German counterparts.

Hitler's "Final Solution" took the lives of roughly six million Jews along with millions more Slavs, Eastern Europeans, Roma, homosexuals, labor leaders, communists, and others suspected of such “crimes.” If decency and morality played any role, the United States would have taken action against Germany some time during the 1930s.

On the contrary, the U.S. business class had nothing but love for the Nazi regime.

Of course, this covering up of crimes by ruling classes has been true throughout recorded history which, of course, is only about 2% of human history. In our current era of capitalist rule only one ethical principle is consistently adhered to by ruling classes: if its good for the bottom line on financial statements, it is good. They justify this with general propaganda and indoctrination about the rule of market principles which are always neutral, and in the end always benefit humanity. 

You see this principle played out in current world events. If the current ruling capitalist classes and their satellites of the Empire were concerned about genocidal events, they would take serious actions against Israel. Instead, they are taking actions against Russia which has done nothing to justify sanctions except to oppose Empire subversive activities in Syria and Ukraine. And, of course, Empire rulers have a long history of crimes against humanity in pursuit of their ethical principle.

Lest we forget: Our present leaders can derive inspiration from other great American leaders.

The piece is entirely reproduced from a section extracted from the latest Anti-Empire Report by William Blum.

Thanks to audio recordings found in Nixon's White House office, we are privy to how our ruling class selected leaders really converse when considering actions which are, in actuality, the most extreme, unprecedented war crimes in history. There is no reason to believe that the existing US administration is any different.

White House tape recordings, April 25, 1972 

President Nixon: How many did we kill in Laos? 

National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger: In the Laotian thing, we killed about ten, fifteen [thousand] …

Nixon: See, the attack in the North [Vietnam] that we have in mind … power plants, whatever’s left – POL [petroleum], the docks … And, I still think we ought to take the dikes out now. Will that drown people?

Kissinger: About two hundred thousand people.

Nixon: No, no, no … I’d rather use the nuclear bomb. Have you got that, Henry?

Kissinger: That, I think, would just be too much.

Nixon: The nuclear bomb, does that bother you? … I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christsakes.

May 2, 1972:

Nixon: America is not defeated. We must not lose in Vietnam. … The surgical operation theory is all right, but I want that place bombed to smithereens. If we draw the sword, we’re gonna bomb those bastards all over the place. Let it fly, let it fly.

–

“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.” – Michael Ledeen, former Defense Department consultant and holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute

Dozens dead, morgues overflowing after siege turns one of Ukraine’s largest airports into a war zone

Click here to access article by Peter Leonard of the Associated Press via National Post (Canada).

This is another example of what 5 billion dollars and 20 years of subversive activities under the guidance of the Empire's regime changers can wreck on a country like Ukraine.

Laurent Fabius and Justice

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from Voltaire Network.

Meyssan uses his laser-like vision to see through the veils of hypocritical legalities constructed by capitalist ruling classes to hide their war crimes. 

Laurent Fabius’ proposal to the International Criminal Court for crimes committed in Syria was rejected by the UN. Indeed, hidden behind the appearance of justice, the ICC is a tool of Western imperialism. Its procedure is grotesque, it does not hesitate to invent imaginary crimes to convict defendants and it participates in NATO propaganda operations. Yes, we want justice, and it must begin by judging Mr Fabius for his crimes in Syria.

US Doubles Down on Failed Military Strategy in Syria

Click here to access article by Sarah Lazare from Common Dreams.

It appears that our masters in the One Percent are determined to continue their war crimes against the ravaged Syrian people. This policy is, no doubt, partly intended to punish Russia for interfering with the Empire's plans to dominate the entire planet. Where are the Nuremberg type war crimes trials now? 

Back at the American ranch, people seem blissfully unaware or unconcerned about what their masters are doing: destroying societies and creating chaos in many parts of the world. Although there are some differences in style, I can understand what it was essentially like living in Germany during the 1930s when capitalist-sponsored Nazi's committed their crimes.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry vowed on Thursday to step-up U.S. backing of armed opponents of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad as part of an 11-nation "redoubled" effort that critics warn will bring further military escalation to the war-torn country.