A Society Consumed by Locusts: Youth in the Age of Moral and Political Plagues

by Henry A. Giroux from Truthout.

What might it mean to oppose the institutions, reverse the values and challenge the power relations that created this theater of civic morbidity and culture of cruelty? Dare one not take account of the profound emotional appeal, let alone ideological hold, of neoliberalism on the American public? 

Revolution in Kyrgyzstan: nothing to do with tulips.

from New Left Project. 

The underlying issue is that Bakiyev embarked on exactly the same programme of privatizing and expropriating public goods as all the neoliberal rulers in central Asia have, and resorted to thuggery, nepotism and suppression of the media when his power base and popular support began to fragment.

Nonsanto: A Month Without Monsanto

from Civil Eats. 

When I first heard about April Davila’s quest to live without Monsanto for a month, I thought she was doing something noble in a public setting. But, would it really be that hard? As a locavore, I pride myself on purchasing my produce from farmer’s markets, so couldn’t she just do the same?  When we decided to meet, I soon realized that my arrogant assumptions had enough hot air to heat a compost bin.

How the CIA is Welcoming Itself Back Onto American University Campuses

by David Price from CounterPunch. 

The programs most significantly linking the CIA with university campuses are the “Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence” (ICCAE, pro­nounced “Icky”) and the “Intelligence Advance Research Projects Activity”. Both programs use universities to train intelligence personnel by piggybacking onto existing educational programs. Campuses that agree to see these outsourced programs as nonthreatening to their open educational and research missions are rewarded with funds and useful contacts with the intelligence agencies and other less tangible benefits.

U.K. Passes Internet Censorship and Disconnection Law

from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

Late Thursday night the U.K. Parliament passed  the controversial Digital Economy Bill, which grants the U.K. government sweeping new powers to control access to the Internet. 

Expanding the Meaning of the Commons

from On the Commons. This brief article illustrates how some people are beginning to re-envision the world. 

The Accomodationists: Memo to Liberals on the White House Death Warrants

by Chris Floyd from his blog, Empire Burlesque. 

Let us hear no more excuses for Barack Obama. Let us hear no more defenses, no more special pleading, no more extenuations. Let us have no more reciting of the "pressures" he is under, of the "many obstacles" that balk him in his quest to do us good, of the "bad advisors" who are swaying him to unworthy acts against his will. Let us be done at last with all these wretched lies, these complicitous self-deceptions that are facilitating atrocity and tyranny on a monstrous scale.

 Certainly it is time for all the good liberals, and past time for the American people, to awaken from their rosy dreams about the charming Obama. He probably was a reasonably decent person, but like many others, sold his soul to the governing class. The transition from Bush to Obama has been seamless--and why not? Obama is, like most US Presidents, an employee or, in the case of the Bushes, FDR, etc, members of the governing class. 

Citizens must awaken to the reality that a class of people, whose power is based on their claim to the ownership of all the significant components of the economy, rule the country and much of the world. This class is addicted to profits and it doesn't matter how they get them: through wars, theft, deception, destroying the environment, impoverishing people, etc. The capitalist system is the engine that is driving us off the cliffs of catastrophic climate change and exhaustion of energy and other resources.

The Perplexed Puppet Jerks on His Strings: Karzai Calls US Troops Invaders

from Common Dreams. This US puppet is either very shrewd, very stupid, or suicidal.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a former consultant for UNOCAL oil company was installed by the US as the President of Afghanistan after our invasion and occupation of that country. Now he complains that US and NATO troops are invaders of Afghanistan and this is drawing a furious reaction from the Obama administration and the mainstream media. His outburst deserves a closer look at what led up to this furor in Afghanistan as Karzai turns on his US puppeteer.

Shocking Censorship at Google News and the Future of Net Neutrality

by David DeGraw from Amped Status.

Under tight control by the most powerful corporations on the planet, U.S. mainstream media has become an omnipresent propaganda system designed to divide, distract, confuse and create apathy among the U.S. populace. In the process, mainstream corporate controlled media has obscured, isolated and suppressed dissent and understanding of our present ruling class. 

And now it appears that the governing class is coming after the internet via their internet related corporations.

Timeout (click on cartoon to enlarge)

Is Momentum Growing for Debt Repudiation?

from Washinton's Blog. 

The most cynical (but not necessarily inaccurate) view of debt I've seen is that banks loan out imaginary money they don't really have, which was "collateralized" by capital they did not really have, based upon central bank printing presses which create money out of thin air which they don't really have. But then when debtors have trouble repaying onerous loans, the bankers seize real assets. See this  and this.

Opium and the CIA: Can the US Triumph in the Drug-Addicted War in Afghanistan?

by Peter Dale Scott from Japan Focus. Scott, a Canadian and retired professor of English at UC Berkeley, has also made a career of investigations of many controversial topics starting with the assassination of John Kennedy, followed by the Vietnam War and the related drug trade, the Iran-Contra issues, 9/11, and others. Of course, because of his findings that are a source of embarrassment to the governing class in the US, he has always been blacklisted in US media in spite of the fact that his writings have always been extensively documented.

The Source of the Global Drug problem is not Kabul, but Washington

The Coming European Debt Wars: EU Countries Sinking into Depression

by Michael Hudson from Global Research. 

The battle lines are being drawn regarding how private and public debts are to be repaid. For nations that balk at repayment in euros, the creditor nations have their “muscle” waiting in the wings: the credit rating agencies. At the first sign a nation is balking in paying in hard currency, or even at the first hint of it questioning a foreign debt as improper, the agencies will move in to reduce a nation’s credit rating. This will increase the cost of borrowing and threaten to paralyze the economy by starving it for credit.

The Global Economic Crisis: Riots, Rebellion and Revolution

by Andrew Gavin Marshall from Global Research. 

As the world has already experienced the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, the greatest social transformation in world history is soon to follow. The middle classes of the west, long the foundations upon which the consumer capitalist system was based, are about to be radically reorganized and integrated into the global labour class. As this process commences and accelerates, the middle classes will begin to protest, riot, rebel, and possibly revolt.

We must ask ourselves: Is this the right way forward?

He doesn't think so. Read why.

The Last Oyster Haul?

from Common Dreams. 

Thanks to greenhouse gas emissions, it's looking like my days as a commercial fisherman are numbered.

China maintains discriminatory measures against rural migrants

from World Socialist Web Site. Read how China's internal migrants provide the basis for capitalism in China to flourish, and how they defend this source of cheap labor. These internal migrants appear to be similar to, but more beneficial to capitalists than, "illegal immigrants" from Central America that provide so much cheap labor to US capitalists.

Without a major influx of new migrants, China’s advantage in cheap labour will erode in favour of its neighbours in southeast Asia.

Blasted in a West Virginia Mine: First by Explosion, Then by Lies

by Mike Ely from Dissident Voice.  Good exposition of how government officials and mainstream media provide cover for incidents like this.

The simple fact is that Massey’s Upper Big Branch...is governed by capitalism. And the rules and laws will be ignored over and over again. Those who report violations will be targeted and often fired.

Timeout

Iraq War Vet: "WeWere Told to Just Shoot People, and the Officers Would Take Care of Us"

by Dahr Jamail from Truthout. 

As disturbing as the video is, this type of behavior by US soldiers in Iraq is not uncommon.

Truthout has spoken with several soldiers who shared equally horrific stories of the slaughtering of innocent Iraqis by US occupation forces.

Out of work in the US (23:29m video)

by Avi Lewis from Al Jazeera.

To be unemployed in the US – to lose your identity as a consumer in an economy where 70 per cent of all activity is consumption – is in some way to inhabit another country.

In fact, if you count all the unemployed, underemployed, and those who have given up looking for work in the US, you have a population of almost 30mn – a country about the size of Canada.