Recommended articles for 1/12/2018

• Face Facts: A West That Never was by R. S. Ahthion, a blogger and author from Britain. Ahthion reports on some very "inconvenient facts" (a paraphrase of Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth) overlooked by Western media corporations which have been established by capitalists to support capitalism.

• Who and What Will AI Serve? US and China Give Very Different Answers by Jim Carey from Mint Press News. In my opinion this report gives a far better comparison of the use of artificial intelligence technology in the US and China than does the one authored by Jeff Brown in The Greanville Post. I find Brown's use of "Baba Beijing", an affectionate synonym for the Chinese Communist Party, to be very annoying.

In Almost All Western Colonies No Alternative Views Allowed, Victims Blame Themselves

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook.

World traveler and passionate humanist Vltchek reports on what life is really like in many areas of the world that are not reported in any Western media. Thus, to many Westerners the plight of many of the world's people, which is due to the plundering system of capitalism led by the US Empire, go unrecognized and unknown because of the censorship of Western media corporations.

The West is manufacturing simplistic, uniformed and one-sided ‘pseudo reality’ for all of its colonies and client states. It is one-type-fits-all sort of ‘pseudo reality’, intended to sustain collaborators and their regimes and to make the voices of people who are tormented, completely irrelevant. In fact, those who are robbed of everything are not supposed to even realize that they are being bled.

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.

USA: A Different Strategy For A Different Ambition

Click here to access article by Christopher Black, a Canadian international criminal lawyer, from New Eastern Outlook. 

During the first part of this article Black comments on his reading of the latest United States National Security Strategy released by President Trump in December 2017.

There once was a time when working people were on the move, had confidence in themselves, created their own leaders, their own heroes and heroines, their own philosophy, their own ideas of democracy, of society, of their conditions and how to overturn the old brutality of the capitalist system and establish new conditions favourable to us. But failures and betrayals have sapped the energy, weakened the will, created confusions and illusions, turned sister against brother, wounded the solidarity of our class, and pitted people against people in war after war solely to advance the quest for profit. ....

But all is not lost and rise we will again. The countries and peoples that resist are the proof before us that the omnipotence of the empire is illusory as all empires, based on power and fear, are. The resurgence of working class parties and movements is a fact. Things are happening. If we can find our way out of the maze they have created around us by dividing us into a thousand self interests, special interests, “identity” interests, gender interests, dividing us by religion, skin colour, accent, level of pay, nationality and ethnicity, and all the other things they use to get us opposed to each other, if we can make working people comprehend their own power once united, to see that anyone who works for a living is the brother and sister of all others who must do the same, then the resistance moves to a more concrete level.

Then in the 2nd half he, as a lawyer, examines the UN founding principles to compare with the US Empire's actions and finds that "the USA has been in persistent violation of the principles of the Charter since 1945..." and could be expelled from the UN. Black doesn't understand that the legal structure has been erected under capitalist rule, and as such it, like all other institutions, has been constructed by, and support of, capitalist rule. When laws are ignored--and they often are--they are used simply as legitimizing propaganda, or "putting lipstick on a capitalist pig". (This is what the Bill of Rights section of the US Constitution was designed to do.) Therefore, as a lawyer he can complain all he wants, but as long as capitalism exists, which only serves a tiny minority, we will continue to have war crimes, violations of UN laws, and a frightening devolution into the likelihood of a nuclear war conflagration and a slow development of climate destabilization that either or both will lead to our extinction. The only real solution is revolution.

Living Through the Catastrophe

Click here to access article by Jerome Roos from ROAR Magazine online.

This is the first article of the 7th issue of the magazine, and authored by the founding editor of ROAR Magazine which was formerly known as Reflections on a Revolution before Roos and associates sold it to a foundation. I have been very critical of Roos and associates--see this and this (along with David Graeber at other websites)--for running a series of articles on their former website which featured prominently the influence of Murray Bookchin, an American radical, on the Syrian Kurds. The clear implication was that this group was spearheading a very progressive agenda in Syria, but not the reality of collaboration with the US to undermine the Syrian government. However, I believe with this issue of the magazine entitled "System Change" that they are on much more solid ground in dealing with the ecological disasters awaiting us under capitalism. 

After reading this first article of the 7th issue of the magazine, you may be interested in reading many of the other articles. Roos sums up his article with this insight:

Against these neoliberal delusions, we must stand firm and insist: the real catastrophe is capitalism, and the only acceptable outcome system change, not climate change. As unrealistic as this may seem from the dominant perspective of capitalist realism, the future of our species — and that of countless others — now depends on it.

Are Long-Term US Regime Change Efforts Behind Iran Protests?

Click here to access article by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers from Popular Resistance. (Note: This is a transcript of their podcast.)

We talked to Mostafa Afzalzadeh from Tehran about what the current protests in Iran are about and where they are going. Mostafa has been an independent journalist in Iran for 15 years and a documentary filmmaker. One of his documentaries is Manufacturing Dissent, about the US, UK and their western and Gulf State allies that launched a covert war in Syria in early 2011, dressed up by the media as a “revolution,” to remove Assad from power and the role of western media in creating support for the war.

Mostafa said the US has been trying to change the Iranian government since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

“An Idiot Surrounded by Clowns”: Why Trump (Still) Sits in the White House

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch. 

I especially love his historically accurate final paragraph:

Now the U.S. and the world are saddled with a juvenile, stupid, pathologically narcissist POTUS who poses grave environmental and thermonuclear dangers to humanity. Thanks to the absurdly deified Constitution bequeathed to us by wealthy and anti-democratic aristo-republican slaveowners and merchant capitalists 228 years ago, it is hard to imagine him being removed from office except by death or (further) disability prior to January 20^th, 2021.  We continue to be screwed by the Founding Fathers.  Hold on to your powdered wig.

However, in spite of their ongoing attacks against Trump I think that the ruling capitalist class is not going to remove him from office because of two reasons: 1) they want to punish the American people for voting the "wrong way", and 2) with their attacks on Trump they have turned him into a useful right-wing idiot to pursue agendas that they wouldn't dare to promote with a Democratic Party puppet in office. 

The Anti-Empire Report #154: Happy New Year

Click here to access article by William Blum from his website.

Blum attempts to allay our fears and sorrows with this excellent piece of satire. After all, isn't it true that it is better to laugh than to cry over a situation that at times seems overwhelming. He begins the satire with predictions like this:

2018 is going to be a fun fun year. And to better prepare yourself for all the merrymaking here is a calendar of some of the more delightful things to look forward to.

February 16: The United States bans entry to the country of all people except white Christian and Jewish citizens of Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Israel.

February 18: Congress passes a law that requires all new citizens to submit an essay – in excellent English – about how brilliant Donald J. Trump is, how devoted they are to him, what a huge success he’s been, how he’s going to make America great again, and how modest a man he is.

The CIA's 60-Year History of Fake News: How the Deep State Corrupted Many American Writers

Click here to access article by Robert Scheer from AlterNet. 

In this article Scheer, currently a professor at University of Southern California, interviews writer Joel Whitney who has written a new book entitled Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World’s Best Writers. In addition to how the CIA used many prominent liberal intellectuals and authors as conduits for CIA's anti-communist propaganda, "Scheer and Whitney discuss these manipulations and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as the Paris Review)." 

My argument is that this history, though accurate, suffers from limitations of a liberal bias that particularly Scheer, who is much older than Whitney, expresses as he essentially shames those intellectuals, many of whom he knew personally, for collaborating with the CIA (a product of the ruling capitalist class). And in one point of the interview I can't help wondering if Scheer himself would not have succumbed also to the inducements of CIA money as he told about his befriending Nelson Aldrich, Jr., a member of America's old, rich, and powerful families and member of the ruling class. He admits trying to get money out of Aldrich. 

Had Scheer and Whitney in their early careers of teaching and writing had written any material that exposed the ruling class attempts after WWII to roll-back all the reformist social benefits of FDR's administrations, both of them would not be enjoying their solid careers. (FDR and his administrations tried and succeeded to ameliorate the worst effects of the Great Depression and stave off the pressures from a growing radical movement, and thus saved capitalism.) Because these two, especially Scheer, in their careers were careful to never cross ideological red lines, they enjoy the approval of ruling class institutions and the money and respectable careers that goes with this approval. Whether consciously or not they both have succumbed to the rewards of adhering to acceptable ideological limits. So, are they not like those figures who shamefully collaborated with the CIA earlier in US history, when the political climate of the McCarthy period (and its aftermath) was more acceptable, simply because it is now safe to expose this mini history?

Recommended articles for 1/4/2018

• Tax cuts as a route to cutting Social Security by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.

• People being warned to check systems as Intel reveals 'serious flaws' in its computer chips from TheJournal.ie. 

I learned of these "serious flaws" from Financial Times that posted an article which stated "The flaws make it possible for a hacker to steal data from a computer’s core memory or from other programs running on the system." And the post went on to state that fixing the problem is almost prohibitively expensive. I agree with one commentator who essentially wrote that when auto manufacturers make faulty equipment, they are held liable to fix this fault. So why not the chip manufacturer Intel?

There have been other websites (see for example, the post in the San Francisco Chronicle) that have posted similar articles, but their content seems to downplay the problem. I am posting an article from this website so that non-subscribers to Financial Times can learn about this problem.

I can't help but wonder if this was purely an oversight on the part of Intel, and I suspect that reporting the problem was motivated by rumors that were already leaking out and spreading.

More recommended articles of the Iranian protests/riots for 1/3/2018

• Mass protests against austerity and social inequality shake Iranian regime by Keith Jones from World Socialist Web Site.

•  Iranian Protests: Deep State’s Unfinished Business by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.
  

Behind Korea, Iran & Russia Tensions: The Lurking Financial War

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

Although this article is not for the financially challenged, it offers well thought out and well developed, arguments that slowly and carefully lead to the final, and in my opinion, two crucially important questions: 

So the bigger question, if Trump does pursue an economic ‘containment of China’ strategy – and China and allies respond – is what will be the effect on ‘risk free’ US Treasury values in the wake of a major segment of the global economy going its own way?  And what too, will be the ability of the US government then to finance its debt at its current, and growing, levels?  Matters to ponder, perhaps. [my crossed-out word]

Posts recommended regarding the Iranian protests/riots on 1/2/2018

• Iran - Protests Decrease - Riots Increase - U.S. Prepares The Next Phase by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama.

• Hypocrisy writ large: US Empire Is Running The Same Script With Iran That It Ran With Libya, Syria by Caitlin Johnstone from The Greanville Post.

And for balance, I recommend:

• Revolutionary ferment in the depths of Iranian society by Hamid Alizadeh from In Defense of Marxism (Britain). I only found this about the author.

Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine: The Madness of America’s Nuclear Weapons

Click here to access article by retired lieutenant colonel William J. Astore from AntiWar.com. (Material added at 1;36 PM Seattle time.)

The author, based on his reading of a new book by Daniel Ellsberg, makes solid arguments that the US ruling class leaders are insane by promoting a policy that was formulated in the Obama administration to upgrade nuclear weapons at a cost of $1.2 trillion dollars over the next 30 years (according to the Congressional Budget Office). After using atomic bombs on two civilian cities in Japan during WWII, our masters have continued using nuclear weapons as threats against those nations that it sees as competitors or that might interfere with their imperial plans. 

Our ruling capitalist class are now so thoroughly addicted to the drugs of power and profits that they are prepared to destroy the world if they can't obtain their drugs. Meanwhile back at the imperial ranch, our masters have been indoctrinating citizens to believe that war is very entertaining. Beginning in 1966 (probably in an effort to suppress the growing anti-Vietnam War movement) their culture executives began a non-stop series of movies and TV series featuring inter-galactic wars and exotic weapons as seen in Star Trek, war as comedy in MASH movie/TV series, more exotic weapons in Star Wars, and now in the 21st century the abundance of war games on many electronic devices. Yes, war, even a nuclear war, has been sold to the gullible American public as merely entertainment. Hence, the disappearance of an effective anti-war movement. 

Weapons of war are very profitable for our "merchants of death", and under our fascist rule (government + corporations = fascism) the government participates (in sharp contrast to the 1930s) in the promotion of weapons as described in the article entitled "The ‘Merchants of Death’ Survive and Prosper" from the same website.

Whatever Happened to Investigative Journalists?

Click here to access article by Frances T. Shure from AE911Truth (Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth).

This very lengthy article is Part 21 of her long series of articles. Throughout her article she lists numerous instances of lies told by government officials and media corporations, and in the background she always poses the question, "Whatever Happened to Investigative Journalists?" Later in the article she gives some very good answers to this question. 

However, missing from her tome is a more profound class analysis, and thus it ends up being quite naive politically. But this lack of understanding of the important role of class in determining history is common throughout American society. The capitalist ruling class has been extremely successful through their control of all institutions to censor any thought of class as a political factor. Thus, she believes that the government has been corrupted along with corporate media, and naively believes that the solution is to get rid of the corruption by investigating and exposing it!!! 

At one point she comes close to the truth by writing, "To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary", but in the next sentence she negates this insight by writing "questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American." Her entire article doesn't support this last statement. Yes, to question the 9/11 story and so many other stories (lies) would be to reach the conclusion that we must prepare for a revolution. That she can't handle, and that is so true of most Americans. Yet, without a revolution, we are doomed to extinction either through a nuclear war conflagration or ultimately by climate destabilization.

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.

Recommended articles for 12/30/2017

• Russian military advisors work with all Syrian army units — Russian General Staff from TASS, a Russian News Agency.

I learned about this report by way of an article from a Kuwaiti independent journalist posted on his website. I'm not sure one can draw all the implications he does from this TASS announcement, but it is very much worth our attention.

• The Next Financial Crisis Will Be Worse Than the Last One by Nomi Prins from TruthDig.

She takes a gander (def.) at the huge run-up of corporate debts, tax cuts for the rich, and continuing low-interest money available to corporations, and reaches the following conclusion:

What does that mean? Financially speaking, 2018 will be a precarious year of more bubbles inflated by cheap money, followed by a leakage that will begin with the bond or debt markets. The GOP tax cuts won’t technically kick in monetarily for corporations until after the year is over in 2019, but the anticipation of extra funds will fuel more buybacks. This will help to provide cover for any rate hikes the Fed implements, because it provides corporations the ability to boost their own share prices further.

Meanwhile, the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and other smaller regulatory authorities in Washington will push for greater deregulation of the financial systems and banking industry on any level possible. If there is another financial crisis in 2018 or later, it will be worse than the last one because the system remains fundamentally unreformed, banks remain too big to fail and the Fed and other central banks continue to control the flow of funds to these banks (and through to the markets) by maintaining a cheap cost of funds.

•  Venezuela after the municipal elections by Jorge Martin from Defense of Marxism (Britain).

I agree totally with his analysis of the Venezuelan political scene. I observed first hand the bureaucratic resistance to any leftward course of the Bolivarian Revolution that I drew attention to in previous posts. See here and here.

Recommended article for 12/28/2017

• China plans to break petrodollar stranglehold by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times. (Because I am very busy today taking care of personal problems, this is the only article I could find at this time. I may post additional articles later if I have the time.)

The Holberg Debate 2017: "Propaganda, Facts and Fake News" with J. Assange, J. Pilger & J. Heawood

Click here to access a 2:40:40 video featuring the moderator asking each of these participants, Julian Assange, Jonathan Heawood, and John Pilger, a series of questions. (I am updating this post as I listen to this video. Please skip the second speaker. My reaction was that he is a fake speaker and a fake human. I'm looking forward to Pilger because I know he is so very human. 1:49 PM: Yes, Pilger was wonderful as he reviewed the record of Western journalism during the past 60 years. The record was one of fake or omitted news we have received--or not--up until the present, and most of it related to major war crimes. Updated again at 2:32 PM Seattle time after listening to all of it.)

At the 2017 Holberg Debate, Julian Assange, John Pilger and Jonathan Heawood discussed the presence of propaganda in news and social media, and its democratic implications.

The event took place at the University of Bergen, Norway, on December 2nd, 2017.

What really piqued (def.#3) my interest listening to Assange was when the moderator got on the topic of artificial intelligence (at 45:40m) in the context of the information war (the crafting of news and information to get people to believe and do things that would promote capitalist ruling class interests, and likewise, not believe and do things that might interfere with ruling class interests). At this point Julian Assange made this rather startling statement in reference to artificial intelligence: "...it's overwhelmingly the biggest threat to humanity as much as...a much bigger threat than climate change." His following remarks elaborated on this statement which I found most interesting and insightful.

Here are the brief show notes:

About 00:11:00 Julian Assange; About 00:56:00 Questions for Julian Assange; About 01:19:00 Jonathan Heawood; About 01:43:00 John Pilger; About 02:17:11 Las Q&A Session.

I rarely post videos or article of this length; but because this topic is so important, I decided to post it. I recommend listen to Assange's response to a question posed by the moderator at 45:40m regarding artificial intelligence, skip the second speaker, and listen to Pilger's entire address.

About the speakers:

Julian Assange joins the panel via videolink. Assange is an award-winning journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. He is also a programmer, cryptographer, author and activist. Founded in 2006, WikiLeaks has published millions of leaked documents and several videos. This includes logs that relate to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the controversial “Collateral Murder” video from Iraq, U.S. diplomatic cables, and election campaign related e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta.

Jonathan Heawood is the CEO and founder of IMPRESS, the only press regulator to be recognised as independent and effective under the Royal Charter in the United Kingdom. He has previously worked as a journalist and human rights campaigner, and he is a former director of English PEN. Heawood has written on free speech and regulation for various publications, including The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, Critical Quarterly, Journal of Media Law, Ethical Space and Communications Law.

John Pilger is an Australian journalist, author and documentary film-maker. Pilger has covered military, political and cultural conflicts around the world for more than five decades, and his criticism of American, Australian and British foreign policy is strongly reflected his documentaries and writings. He worked at the Daily Mirror from 1963 to 1986 and wrote a regular column for the New Statesman magazine from 1991 to 2014. Pilger has won numerous awards as a journalist and film-maker, and he is one of only two people to win British journalism’s highest award twice.

The Holberg Debate 2017 is a collaboration between the Holberg Prize, the Fritt Ord Foundation and Norwegian PEN (Western Norway).

Who armed ISIS? A three year study provides some answers (updated commentary)

Click here to access article from Islamic Societies Review. (I have added additional content to my commentary at 10:54 PM Seattle time.)

Supplies of materiel, including advanced light weapons systems the U.S. military, from foreign parties — notably the United States and Saudi Arabia, ended up in the hands of ISIS fighters.

You may be tired of finding evidence of the US-led Empire's and their allied governments' support of ISIS in Syria in order to overthrow the government of Syria and replace it with a government that is acceptable to the Empire's ruling capitalist class. I have (including this article) 37 links to articles offering such evidence. Meanwhile, most Americans continue to believe the propaganda crafted (def.#5) in the ruling class's media corporations that omits or denies this well documented fact. What most Americans are not aware of is that the purpose of media corporations is not to inform them, but to manage their thoughts in support of ruling class interests. 

What you need to know is that this fact is a prime characteristic of the new version of fascism 2.0. In contrast to the earlier German, Italian, and Japanese versions, this updated version doesn't care that you and a relatively small number of people like you know what is really going on in the world. They just need a certain (unknown) percentage of brainwashed people to maintain capitalist rule. With this arrangement they avoid the troublesome task of brutalizing people into acceptance of their rule. However, this arrangement depends on the level of security that their fascist rule enjoys. If I and other observers are correct, we can expect the decline of the power of the US Empire and the ascendance of other nations led by Russia and China. With this decline we can expect that our masters will increasingly go after people like you and me. Should we just wait for this to happen or should we take action now to prevent this from happening? And if we want to take action now, what should we do? 

These are the crucial questions facing us. I don't have the answers--nobody or no one person does, but we might put our heads together and come up with some good answers.