It is an inauspicious sign for the outcome of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP19, that Poland, a country heavily dependent on coal and notorious for blocking more ambitious climate change policy at the EU level, is this year's host for the meeting. The Polish Government has invited private corporate sponsorship of the COP – a first for the conference – raising questions of whether this is being taken seriously as an international meeting of paramount importance, or a facilitated lobbying opportunity for those who have a direct commercial interest in burning more fossil fuels.The article goes on to report the astonishing details about the infiltration of big corporate polluters into these talks.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Trouble always comes in threes: Big polluters; the Polish Government and the UN
Click here to access article posted at Corporate Europe Observatory.
The American Criminal Elite: An Orgy of Thieves
Click here to access article by Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn from CounterPunch. (Note: this is an updated version of an article in the November 2000 edition of The New Statesman.)
I wonder how many times that this essay will be updated. Surely my fellow Americans will wake up before too long and take matters in their own hands!
I wonder how many times that this essay will be updated. Surely my fellow Americans will wake up before too long and take matters in their own hands!
Time for a Repeal: 21 Ways the Canadian Health Care System is Better than Obamacare
Click here to access article by Ralph Nader from CounterPunch.
Costly complexity is baked into Obamacare. No health insurance system is without problems but Canadian style single-payer full Medicare for all is simple, affordable, comprehensive and universal.
In the early 1960s, President Lyndon Johnson enrolled 20 million elderly Americans into Medicare in six months. There were no websites. They did it with index cards!All across the country people (including myself) are experiencing shock at their new medical insurance rates. Read this, this, and this.
Free Hugs Too Exotic for Saudi Police
Click here to access article by Erin Kilbride from Muftah.
It appears that hugging people in Saudi Arabia is a threat to public order, but the training and funding of terrorists by the Saudi rulers is okay. Isn't it interesting that the latter have been best friends with the directors of the Empire? Is it true that you can judge people by the friends they keep?
Saudi’s religious police have dubbed al-Swed and al-Khayyal’s “happiness” campaigns as “exotic practices” which “offend public order,” neither of which is to be tolerated in the Kingdom.
It appears that hugging people in Saudi Arabia is a threat to public order, but the training and funding of terrorists by the Saudi rulers is okay. Isn't it interesting that the latter have been best friends with the directors of the Empire? Is it true that you can judge people by the friends they keep?
Saudi’s religious police have dubbed al-Swed and al-Khayyal’s “happiness” campaigns as “exotic practices” which “offend public order,” neither of which is to be tolerated in the Kingdom.
Want a luxury jet? Steve Varsano has built a showroom that can help
Click here to access article by Russell Hotten from BBC News.
I've recently re-started a practice of posting lifestyle articles about the rich that I formerly ran for a few years starting in October of 2010. The thought behind this effort was to increase our understanding of our fellow citizens in the One Percent (actually .01 of the 1%, or one out of every 10,000 of us) hoping that by doing this that we wouldn't lose touch with their world and their concerns. Unfortunately, for some reason they tend to hide their lives from the rest of us behind walls of secrecy, literal walls of guarded gated communities, private clubs, esoteric publications, by traveling with private jets, etc.
Hopefully, you weren't so naive to believe that the rich are bothered by standing in line for humiliating security checks at airports and be inconvenienced by having to wait around airports for their flights. Of course not! They are smarter than us--they fly in their very own jet aircraft.
Today's article reports on one of the best places in the world to buy the luxury jets they use to commute to their homes scattered throughout the world, and to attend various gatherings where the elite meet and socialize. The locale is appropriately in London where reportedly most multi-millionaires reside.
I've recently re-started a practice of posting lifestyle articles about the rich that I formerly ran for a few years starting in October of 2010. The thought behind this effort was to increase our understanding of our fellow citizens in the One Percent (actually .01 of the 1%, or one out of every 10,000 of us) hoping that by doing this that we wouldn't lose touch with their world and their concerns. Unfortunately, for some reason they tend to hide their lives from the rest of us behind walls of secrecy, literal walls of guarded gated communities, private clubs, esoteric publications, by traveling with private jets, etc.
Hopefully, you weren't so naive to believe that the rich are bothered by standing in line for humiliating security checks at airports and be inconvenienced by having to wait around airports for their flights. Of course not! They are smarter than us--they fly in their very own jet aircraft.
Today's article reports on one of the best places in the world to buy the luxury jets they use to commute to their homes scattered throughout the world, and to attend various gatherings where the elite meet and socialize. The locale is appropriately in London where reportedly most multi-millionaires reside.
Friday, November 22, 2013
A Letter to the American People (and Myself in Particular) On the Unspeakable
Click here to access article by James W. Douglass from rat haus reality.
After the assassination of JFK, the National Security State under the guidance of a financial/banking directorate took direct control of the growing US Empire. (It was the agents of these people who, I believe, were referred to by Jacqueline Kennedy while preparing for the emergency swearing in of Johnson as president. In reply to suggestions that she change from her blood splattered pink outfit that she continued to wear, she said: "No, I'm going to leave these clothes on. I want them to see what they have done".) The stunning success of this assassination encouraged many others that followed against any serious threats posed by people such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, many Black Panthers and other activists.
What we have now is a chief executive who functions as a public relations officer for the Empire. The real executive function has been taken over by a ruling directorate consisting of influential people from the financial, military, and industrial complex that I often refer to as a "shadow government". (There has been one exception: the presidency of George H. W. Bush who was very much a part of the directorate. His son, George Bush Jr, was too stupid to exercise much leadership.)
Anyway, I am posting this online piece written by Jim Douglas who has done considerable research on the event and authored one of the best books on the subject--JFK and the Unspeakable.
See also this article from Salon published a few years ago.
This is an annotated representation of the 1999 essay written by James Douglass with modifications made by the author in 2012 for greater clarity. Hyperlinks and endnotes by David Ratcliffe with the assistance and approval of James Douglass.I believe that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a watershed event in US history. It marked a real turning point from what had previously been a fairly independent presidency, although, of course, always representing the broad interests of the dominant capitalist class.
After the assassination of JFK, the National Security State under the guidance of a financial/banking directorate took direct control of the growing US Empire. (It was the agents of these people who, I believe, were referred to by Jacqueline Kennedy while preparing for the emergency swearing in of Johnson as president. In reply to suggestions that she change from her blood splattered pink outfit that she continued to wear, she said: "No, I'm going to leave these clothes on. I want them to see what they have done".) The stunning success of this assassination encouraged many others that followed against any serious threats posed by people such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, many Black Panthers and other activists.
What we have now is a chief executive who functions as a public relations officer for the Empire. The real executive function has been taken over by a ruling directorate consisting of influential people from the financial, military, and industrial complex that I often refer to as a "shadow government". (There has been one exception: the presidency of George H. W. Bush who was very much a part of the directorate. His son, George Bush Jr, was too stupid to exercise much leadership.)
Anyway, I am posting this online piece written by Jim Douglas who has done considerable research on the event and authored one of the best books on the subject--JFK and the Unspeakable.
Two prophets, a president, and a president-to-be were martyred between November l963 and June l968, four and a half years that raised some of the greatest hopes in American history. Has our downward spiral ever since as a people, from hope to despair, from faith in change to an acceptance of systemic evil, been because we haven’t recognized the truth of those martyrdoms, bound up as they were with unspeakable forces that continue to threaten us all?Of course, the answer is YES!
See also this article from Salon published a few years ago.
The Kennedy Assassination (November 22, 1963) 50 Years Later
Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from Infowars.
I never cease to be amazed by the gullibility of Americans, who know nothing about either event, but who confidently dismiss the factual evidence provided by experts and historians on the basis of their naive belief that “the government wouldn’t lie about such important events” or “someone would have talked.” What good would it do if someone talked when the gullible won’t believe hard evidence?
The Kennedy Assassination
Click here to access article from Real History Archives.
The directors of the ruling class have been flooding their media with an abundance of information and misinformation on the subject to insure that the younger generations learn the "correct" view about this historic incident.
This article provides a number of reliable resources to pursue if you want to know more about what the real story is. I followed the event closely on that day 50 years ago and have accessed a wide variety of authentic materials since then. If you have time for reading only one book about this tragedy, I highly recommend JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass.
This posting also contains a brief commentary which I am quoting in full below:
The directors of the ruling class have been flooding their media with an abundance of information and misinformation on the subject to insure that the younger generations learn the "correct" view about this historic incident.
This article provides a number of reliable resources to pursue if you want to know more about what the real story is. I followed the event closely on that day 50 years ago and have accessed a wide variety of authentic materials since then. If you have time for reading only one book about this tragedy, I highly recommend JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass.
This posting also contains a brief commentary which I am quoting in full below:
People often ask,
"Why does the Kennedy assassination still matter?"
It's a good question, and one worthy of a longer and more detailed response than you'll find here. Ultimately each person needs to answer that for themselves, but here's one response:
When the government can flat out lie to its citizens about the death of its own President, when the truth is knowable, when the conspirators still living are not prosecuted, when the accessories after the fact still grind out the disinformation, when a concerted campaign to publish books promoting the big lie can go unchallenged, and when the media is not held accountable for its participation in the40+ year[50 year] cover-up, then our constitution is meaningless, our laws without substance, our people without hope of ever participating in the pseudo-democracy that passes for America.
If we allow ourselves to be lied to in so blatant a fashion about something as important as the assassination of a president, can we really expect the government or the media to tell us the truth about anything at all after that? Is that why Watergate happened? Iran-Contra? If no one is held accountable, than anything goes.
We are only just now finding out about an operation during the Vietnam war to spray nerve gas on deserters. What is going on now that we cannot know for another thirty years?
George Orwell wrote in his famous book 1984, "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." He wasn't being facetious. He was giving us a strong warning, and one that should be well heeded.
Don't give up your history. It's too important.
Robed Injustice
Click here to access article by Gary Brumback from Uncommon Thought Journal.
The author, without stating so, really describes how the duplicitous capitalist game has worked in the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS). Only at the end of the article does he imply that the game was rigged from the beginning without explaining how and why.
Still, there are widespread doubts about the way things are currently going in the "land of the free and the home of the brave". People are concerned about never-ending wars, poor and expensive health care, the closing and underfunding of schools, the disappearing jobs that pay a living wage, debts, homelessness, hunger, and the emergence of a police state that engages in full-spectrum surveillance of its citizens.
The author, without stating so, really describes how the duplicitous capitalist game has worked in the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS). Only at the end of the article does he imply that the game was rigged from the beginning without explaining how and why.
SCOTUS is just one of three branches of a totally broken government, broken in part at the very start by the U.S Constitution that is fundamentally flawed in its design and needs to be "demythologized" by asking "What kind of government do we want?"The game was established to insure the dominance of rule by, and for, a class consisting of owners of economic property (capitalists), but widely packaged and sold as "democracy". The latter theme has been pounded into the heads of its citizens ever since the founding of the nation so that now it is rarely questioned.
Still, there are widespread doubts about the way things are currently going in the "land of the free and the home of the brave". People are concerned about never-ending wars, poor and expensive health care, the closing and underfunding of schools, the disappearing jobs that pay a living wage, debts, homelessness, hunger, and the emergence of a police state that engages in full-spectrum surveillance of its citizens.
Saudi's internal power struggle sends ripples across international borders
Click here to access article by David Hearst from The Guardian.
The writer provides evidence that the medieval kingdom is conflicted over foreign policies that they have been pursuing in the Middle East, policies which have put them in conflict with the Empire upon which they have long depended for their survival in the modern world. Rivalries to succeed the aging king are heating up.
The writer provides evidence that the medieval kingdom is conflicted over foreign policies that they have been pursuing in the Middle East, policies which have put them in conflict with the Empire upon which they have long depended for their survival in the modern world. Rivalries to succeed the aging king are heating up.
No scientific consensus on GMO safety
Click here to access article by and from European Network of Scientists.
We feel compelled to issue this statement because the claimed consensus on GMO safety does not exist. The claim that it does exist is misleading and misrepresents the currently available scientific evidence and the broad diversity of opinion among scientists on this issue. Moreover, the claim encourages a climate of complacency that could lead to a lack of regulatory and scientific rigour and appropriate caution, potentially endangering the health of humans, animals, and the environment.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
The June Uprisings in Brazil: Below and Behind the Huge Mobilizations (Part 1 of 2)
Click here to access article by Raúl Zibechi from Upside Down World.
This is a well-researched, well-documented analysis of the latest forms of social organizing that led to the June uprising in Brazil. The author through his writings has gained a reputation as a leading political theorist on the left throughout Latin America. The following is an apt introduction by his translator:
This is a well-researched, well-documented analysis of the latest forms of social organizing that led to the June uprising in Brazil. The author through his writings has gained a reputation as a leading political theorist on the left throughout Latin America. The following is an apt introduction by his translator:
An unprecedented wave of mass protest rocked multiple Brazilian cities beginning in June, 2013, and shows no sign of letting up. In this special two-part series, Raúl Zibechi argues that the huge mobilizations were not simply a demand for reduced bus fares -- as portrayed in mainstream media -- but the product of a decade of grassroots, anti-capitalist organizing. He dispels the myth that it was a spontaneous protest fueled by social networks, investigates the radical social movements behind the countrywide uprising, and explores the forms of organizing based on horizontalism, consensus and direct action.The organizing going on in Brazil is another illustration of the rise of a new global political culture that has developed through global ideological crowdsourcing. One can see the influences of grassroots resistance movements all over the world in Brazil's grassroots political actions.
Orthodox economists have failed their own market test
Click here to access article by Seumas Milne from The Guardian.
Many...students, though, have had enough. A revolt against the orthodoxy has been smouldering for years and now seems to have gone critical. Fed up with parallel universe theories that have little to say about the world they're interested in, students at Manchester University have set up a post-crash economics society with 800 members, demanding an end to monolithic neoclassical courses and the introduction of a pluralist curriculum.It is becoming apparent that economics students are not buy the ruling class's version of economics. The author even implies that this version, whose proponents are intolerant of all others, is about power and domination--in other words, orthodox economics is the academic manifestation of class warfare.
Truth as an Issue
Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from VoltaireNet.
Nevertheless, in this article Meyssan provides a broad view of this brief historical episode as a counter-narrative to the Empire's propaganda version which I think is very credible and useful. Because he doesn't attempt to document the elements and elaborate on the arguments that make up his version (it would have resulted in a very lengthy article), one has to rely on his record as a credible source. I believe that he has well established his knowledge and credibility over the past several years with his numerous writings about the Syrian conflict and other related matters in the Middle East.
One of the challenges of preparing for the Geneva conference is to write the history of Syria. The NATO powers and the Gulf Cooperation Council are trying to impose their version of events which would give them a clear advantage at the negotiating table. Hence a sudden avalanche of articles and summary reports in the Western and the Gulf press.It seems to me that the propaganda cover for promoting this war by the Empire and the Gulf Cooperation Council will play a secondary role in the negotiations and used mostly for public consumption as it was always designed to be used. It is real politics that will be the primary driving force in the negotiations. It will be the concrete material interests of the Empire, and the various components that comprise it, that will primarily determine the outcome of the negotiations.
Nevertheless, in this article Meyssan provides a broad view of this brief historical episode as a counter-narrative to the Empire's propaganda version which I think is very credible and useful. Because he doesn't attempt to document the elements and elaborate on the arguments that make up his version (it would have resulted in a very lengthy article), one has to rely on his record as a credible source. I believe that he has well established his knowledge and credibility over the past several years with his numerous writings about the Syrian conflict and other related matters in the Middle East.
Tension high in Warsaw talks as G77+China walk out vs climate inaction
Click here to access article by Tetet Nera-Lauron from IBON International.
Members of the G77+China, a group of 133 developing countries have walked out of the negotiations on ‘loss and damage’ at dawn today, amidst growing frustration at the intransigence of the EU, Australia, Canada, US and other developed countries on the issue of who should pay compensation for the effects of extreme climate events.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Where New JFK Evidence Points
Click here to access article by Jim DiEugenio from Consortium News.
This is the best antidote I've seen to cope with nausea after viewing/listening/reading mainstream media's programs/reports featuring the re-hashed version of Kennedy's assassination known as the Warren Commission Report. It is clear that our ruling shadow government and their agents in mainstream media do not want the new generations of Americans since Kennedy's murder to be disturbed by any new evidence and dissenting views on the matter. The worst perpetrator of this kind of coverage has been the government's own mega-media organizations known as PBS/NPR.
This author and researcher has collected a mountain of evidence that does not support the ruling class's official story, yet their media to a considerable extent refuse to cover the discrepancies. This sort of media coverage is the greatest furnishes one of the best arguments that we have been ruled by a shadow government since the Kennedy assassination. He was the last president to rule with any kind of independence from what had been a growing right-wing cabal which since the assassination has completely taken over the government.
This is the best antidote I've seen to cope with nausea after viewing/listening/reading mainstream media's programs/reports featuring the re-hashed version of Kennedy's assassination known as the Warren Commission Report. It is clear that our ruling shadow government and their agents in mainstream media do not want the new generations of Americans since Kennedy's murder to be disturbed by any new evidence and dissenting views on the matter. The worst perpetrator of this kind of coverage has been the government's own mega-media organizations known as PBS/NPR.
This author and researcher has collected a mountain of evidence that does not support the ruling class's official story, yet their media to a considerable extent refuse to cover the discrepancies. This sort of media coverage is the greatest furnishes one of the best arguments that we have been ruled by a shadow government since the Kennedy assassination. He was the last president to rule with any kind of independence from what had been a growing right-wing cabal which since the assassination has completely taken over the government.
Despite this new evidence, there are many programs being broadcast this month about both President Kennedy and his murder, e.g. Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Kennedy. Not a single one will present anywhere near a representative selection of the new evidentiary discoveries made by the ARRB [Assassination Records Review Board created by House Select Committee on Assassinations]. Yet, this information is crucial to understanding where the United States finds itself today, a country awash in excessive secrecy and growing public distrust.
ECB Official Lost For Words At Irish Press Conference
Click here to access brief introduction to a 5:08 video posted by Don Quijones from Raging Bull-Shit.
Apparently Irish press conferences are not as carefully managed as they are in the US where a journalist like this one would never be allowed into the conference, or would be severely punished if he/she asked such questions.
Apparently Irish press conferences are not as carefully managed as they are in the US where a journalist like this one would never be allowed into the conference, or would be severely punished if he/she asked such questions.
The lies that states tell
Click here to access article by Paul Sedra from Mada Masr.
While there are those who would suggest that Egypt has now merely returned to the status quo ante of the Mubarak years’ security state, the persistence of the language and ideals of the 2011 revolution in various, often unexpected quarters reveals that the lies of the state are not left unchallenged. Indeed, the grassroots organizations taking action on issues ranging from sectarian discrimination to sexual harassment to neighborhood revitalization counter the notion that the revolution has failed.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s Gatsby, Master Spy
Click here to access article by Christopher Dickey from The Daily Beast.
Power acts very much like a drug. Once having obtained power, rulers and their agents lose their inhibitions and social conscience, and tend to act out their petty fantasies and grudges at the expense and suffering of others. Unless humanity can devise a means of organizing societies in which true equality is the basic principle, this scourge of elite rule will likely lead to human extinction now that humans possess weapons of mass destruction. If that doesn't accomplish the extinction, then the system of capitalism will in its mad pursuit of energy which will inevitably lead to the destruction of an ecosystem that can support human life.
Fortunately, there are people who still exist that refuse to act like slaves, refuse to recognize the authority of illegitimate power, who recognize the ecological destruction that is now occurring, and who are willing to fight for their survival.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, once famous in Washington for his cigars, parties and charm, is now Saudi Arabia’s point man, fighting Iran in Syria and denouncing the Obama administration.Bandar is a prime example of elite rule: rule by people who have attained power over others in their societies by various means, but means that always include the threat of violence against those who object. Contributing to the problem of rule by elites is that many people can be quite easily trained to behave like slaves or children and to show uncritical deference to authority figures. This may be the major flaw in human nature that may threaten the human race.
Power acts very much like a drug. Once having obtained power, rulers and their agents lose their inhibitions and social conscience, and tend to act out their petty fantasies and grudges at the expense and suffering of others. Unless humanity can devise a means of organizing societies in which true equality is the basic principle, this scourge of elite rule will likely lead to human extinction now that humans possess weapons of mass destruction. If that doesn't accomplish the extinction, then the system of capitalism will in its mad pursuit of energy which will inevitably lead to the destruction of an ecosystem that can support human life.
Fortunately, there are people who still exist that refuse to act like slaves, refuse to recognize the authority of illegitimate power, who recognize the ecological destruction that is now occurring, and who are willing to fight for their survival.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Paul Sweezy in 1982 on secular stagnation
Click here to access article posted on Real-World Economics Review Blog.
This piece caught my eye because I know Sweezy as a prominent American socialist economist whose articles were often published in Monthly Review. But then the brief introduction to a lengthy quote from a 1982 article which was printed in the Monthly Review left me puzzled:
As to the first question, it seems that the origins of this sudden interest in "secular stagnation" was ignited by a recent brief talk (Nov. 8th) given by Larry Summers at an IMF forum which Kevin Drum of Mother Jones summarized as simply this: "we might be in a permanent condition of slow economic growth—i.e., secular stagnation." It seems that capitalist ideologs have run out of solutions to the stagnant economy and Summers is simply acknowledging this.
Major wars in the past have served as a fix when capitalists were faced with this dilemma; but having arrived in this era of nuclear weapons, this solution is no longer feasible. So, I guess we of the 99 Percent are "screwed", unless, of course, we start to seriously consider alternative socioeconomic systems besides capitalism.
Could this be why the Sweezy quote from 1982 was resurrected in reference to the term "secular stagnation" without any explanation other than the term was "the talk of the town"? It appears to me that capitalist economists, even liberal ones who write for this website, don't want to direct too much attention to their dilemma and our plight. You see, we of the 99 Percent might get ideas--dangerous ones to the One Percent.
This piece caught my eye because I know Sweezy as a prominent American socialist economist whose articles were often published in Monthly Review. But then the brief introduction to a lengthy quote from a 1982 article which was printed in the Monthly Review left me puzzled:
‘Secular stagnation’ is the talk of the town at the moment. It was one of the mayor interests of Paul Sweezy. Here, part of a 1982 lecture with a rather concise conclusion.So, why was this "the talk of the town"? And, what does "secular" refer to in the phrase "secular stagnation". I couldn't find the answer to the second question after wasting about 15 minutes looking for it. The term appears to have been coined by an American Keynesian economist by the name of Alvin Hansen whom Sweezy refers to. It seems to me that "capitalist stagnation" is what is meant by the term. (For some reason, capitalist economists tend to avoid using terms that refer directly to capitalism--it probably has something to do with their belief that there is no alternative, or that they don't want you to think that there is.)
As to the first question, it seems that the origins of this sudden interest in "secular stagnation" was ignited by a recent brief talk (Nov. 8th) given by Larry Summers at an IMF forum which Kevin Drum of Mother Jones summarized as simply this: "we might be in a permanent condition of slow economic growth—i.e., secular stagnation." It seems that capitalist ideologs have run out of solutions to the stagnant economy and Summers is simply acknowledging this.
Major wars in the past have served as a fix when capitalists were faced with this dilemma; but having arrived in this era of nuclear weapons, this solution is no longer feasible. So, I guess we of the 99 Percent are "screwed", unless, of course, we start to seriously consider alternative socioeconomic systems besides capitalism.
Could this be why the Sweezy quote from 1982 was resurrected in reference to the term "secular stagnation" without any explanation other than the term was "the talk of the town"? It appears to me that capitalist economists, even liberal ones who write for this website, don't want to direct too much attention to their dilemma and our plight. You see, we of the 99 Percent might get ideas--dangerous ones to the One Percent.
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