Democracy, Class and the Fight against Recolonization

Click here to access article by Stephen Sefton (currently living in Nicaragua) posted in English on Wrong Kind of Green. 

It seems to me that the title of this article is a bit pretentious. A better title would have been something like "The Empire's renewed assault on its Latin American backyard". 

Having lost Eurasia, US and allied elites have prioritized Latin America and the Caribbean, seeking to re-consolidate control of the region’s resources. They work to destroy political movements and leaders who defend their countries’ impoverished majorities against the West’s neocolonial agenda. In particular, Western elites work with local allies to eliminate expressions of national sovereignty. From within, they undermine and co-opt governments and institutions. Externally they deploy all kinds of financial, trade, media and diplomatic aggression as well as military intimidation.

The author's main argument is that the US Empire is engaged in an increasingly aggressive media campaign to subvert truth throughout Latin America (I would argue throughout the world).

Recycling falsehoods promoting the US regime change agenda in Latin America and the Caribbean corrupts democratic debate in the West and creates an alibi for the phony, anti-democratically framed elections of US allies like Brazil’s fascist ideologue Jair Bolsonaro. Clear-sighted anti-imperialist writers like Max Blumenthal, Kerry Ann Mendoza and Jonathan Cook, among many others, repeatedly make this same point. Untruthful foreign affairs coverage by the Western intellectual, NGO and media class, destroys democratic debate at home, to the benefit of NATO country elites. Western coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean, especially Nicaragua and Venezuela now, demonstrates that reality over and over again.

You see, truth is revolutionary! That is precisely why a grassroots organization to counter their lies (like the one I have proposed) is so revolutionary. 

In the past I have frequently asserted that we must a have a revolution to save ourselves from the capitalist Empire's current death spiral. I wasn't arguing that we should man the barricades, or organize a militia. All we have to do is create and support a truth-telling organization! 

So far, the hold on the minds of the people by the Empire's capitalist propaganda machines have been successful, however their influence is waning. The latter point coupled with the fact that we must act before it is too late to save ourselves from the Empire's dangerous behavior (planning for a global war and the ongoing assault on the environment).

Articles/videos I read/viewed and recommend to you on Wednesday, November 21, 2018

• Revenge Is Mine Saith Washington by Paul Craig Roberts from his blog. 

Also, on the same subject of the persecution of Julian Assange by agents of the US Empire, RT America clarifies the legal issues regarding Assange: 

• "Time for opioid makers to feel the pain" from RT America featuring views by Rick Sanchez.

  

The Ten Rules of Hate

Click here to access article by Matt Taibbi from BS News.

There is much food for thought in this essay about how corporate media keep ordinary people fighting each other instead of their real rich and powerful oppressors--and this is from someone who has spent so many years in journalism and has admittedly participated in the ruse.

The trick is to constantly narrow your mental horizons and keep you geeked up [def.] on impotent anger. It’s a twist on Manufacturing Consent’s description of an artificially narrowed debate.

Can the working class change the world?

Click here to access the review by Ian Angus of a book authored by Michael Yates with the above title, posted on Climate & Capitalism. (I have not yet read the book, but Angus's review sounds very inviting.)

Angus concludes his review with the qualifications of the author and this encouraging statement:

Michael Yates worked for many years as a labor educator, teaching working people in classrooms and union meetings across the U.S. Those years taught him something very important — how to express Marxist ideas in everyday English, without condescension, without false bravado or illusions, and without any hint of dogmatism. The result is a superb popular account of what’s wrong with capitalism and what working people must do to get rid of it. Even if you think you know all this, you should read it to learn, by shining example, how to explain socialist ideas in clear, concise and convincing terms.

Can the Working Class Change the World? should be on every ecosocialist’s bookshelf. More than that, it should be in every radical worker’s hands. It’s a book to be read and discussed and argued over and acted on. Michael Yates has made an important contribution to building movements that not only can change the world, but must.

The “Resistance” Struggles To Justify Support For Trump’s Prosecution Of Assange

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone from her blog.

Ever since suspicions were confirmed that the Trump administration is indeed working to prosecute and imprison WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for publishing authentic documents, the so-called “Resistance” has been struggling to explain exactly why it is so enthusiastically supportive of that agenda. And when I say struggling, I am being very, very generous.

Johnstone exposes the hypocrisy of Democratic party activists who pose as the "Resistance". I think that this is another illustration of how the capitalist ruling class is tolerating and using Trump as long as he does things that they couldn't get away with, or wouldn't want to, in order to preserve their facade of press freedoms.

(You might also be interested in reading an article by the same author entitled "The Empire Keeps Proving Assange Right About Everything".)

The World Order That’s Now Emerging

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation. (Commentary edited for greater clarity at 4:15 PM CT.)

There are numerous errors in this article which in the first example illustrates sloppiness on the part of the author and the editor for this website, but following this error are errors due to long years of indoctrination that is an integral part of all education in the capitalist US-led (trans-national) Empire.

The first error is so obvious that I wonder about the editorship of this website. Zuesse's mathematical skills seem to be lacking when he divides 13.7% by .32% which is clearly more than 4.28. The correct calculation is 42.8. Thus those killed in the Soviet Union were 42.8 times greater than US killed in WWII. (11/22/2018: This error has now been corrected.)

The remaining errors he commits are the result of the long years of indoctrination he received to insure that he was thoroughly convinced of virtues of capitalism and likewise convinced of the failures of Marxist theories. The remainder of his essay provides numerous examples of this. 

... the USSR’s communist regime was additionally hobbled by Karl Marx’s labor theory of value, which produced prices that contained no useful information about demand and thus no constructive information for planners.

Whatever the weaknesses were of the Soviet Union, one was not charging much less for essentials like housing and food. Of course, they clearly had other measures to determine demand other than market prices. Thus, housing was dirt-cheap (like only a few dollars per month) and food likewise. This is true of every country claiming to be socialist. Socialism requires that such essentials as shelter and food not be a commodity the price of which is determined by the market. If there is a shortage of such items, genuine socialist societies will always resort to rationing.

Throughout his posts he typically avoids referring to capitalism, ruling class, etc. by always using the feudal term "aristocracy" instead of the capitalist ruling class. He summarizes his liberal/left bias by stating:

America’s post-WW-II dominance, combined with Marx’s crippling economic theory, and produced the exodus of East Europeans to The West.

He goes on to argue that the great errors of the US "aristocracy" (sic) was to embark on a goal of world domination and adopted a "greed is good" orientation--not that capitalist systems inevitably result in ruling classes and must forever seek the accumulation of wealth in order exercise control/dominance otherwise they will be absorbed by others who gain more wealth and power. Thus, one often hears from capitalists about the necessity to grow or die. Zuesse avoids the intrinsic antisocial nature of the system by implying that this was simply an error of judgement by the US "aristocracy" (sic).

Otherwise the essay is excellent in that it argues that we are on a path that will lead to a devastating WWIII, and is supported by excellent documentation. Also Zuesse accurately directs our attention to the two main weapons used by the US Empire to rule the world: military dominance and the maintenance of the US dollar as the world's currency.

Could it be that his perspective has found sympathy with the editors of this Russian website because Russian society has a large component of a capitalist contingent in their economy and government? In any case, I think you can agree that Zuesse's views illustrate what passes for a liberal-left perspective in America, and as such retards the rejection of a system that will be the death of all of us.

Blundering American Ambassadors Unmask the War on Terror

Click here to access article by David Boyajian from Foreign Policy Journal.  (Commentary edited for greater clarity at 12:25 PM CT.)

American officials downplay how “allies” such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia support terrorists lest the US government’s support of terrorism also be exposed.

The author reviews the glaring lies of the officials, who serve the capitalist ruling class, regarding US's participation in the hiring of mercenary terrorist armies in an alliance with the feudal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to implement the Empire's imperialist policies in the Middle East. In their defense couldn't these officials now plead that they were only "following orders" from their superiors? Like the Nazi war criminals who lost WWII and the German Reich? Like the Saudi butchers have so dramatically illustrated in recent years? 

Humans seem to have a genetic flaw that causes them to submit to "authorities" whether the earthly representatives of gods of their own creation, sociopathic leaders, or those who demonstrate a temporary command of weapons that can cause severe injury or kill. Humans have demonstrated this character flaw for roughly the last 10,000 years, or about 2% of human existence, as they settled down into communities after mastering the growing of their own food. This period saw the emergence of tiny privileged social classes that ruled over the vast majority using instruments of violence. Bringing human history up to date, during this period humans with their gift of intelligence have also mastered the creation of weapons of mass destruction that now threaten their own extinction. What could explain such a self-destructive flaw other than it is simply genetic?

I've been considering a theory that the conscious awareness of our own temporary existence is so terrible for many of us that we have been only able to cope by dominating or killing others. This murderous instinct somehow gives some of us a temporary sense of invulnerability, which for some, becomes an addictive habit. Likewise, those of us who are the victims of such violence have an almost obsessive need to cling to life by submitting to those with power who we come to idolize as superior humans. Over time this survival instinct instills in many people the need to seek their own advantage at the expense of others by serving those with "authority" which causes us to lie, and in some instances, to commit war crimes to please our "superiors".

Religions created by humans have also reinforced this orientation by declaring that we are above nature, from which we have arisen, and causes us to believe that nature should serve us. Religions claim that there are gods that will protect us, and give us permission to dominate or slaughter others who don't share such beliefs or who have their own gods to protect them. Species come and go as our planet experiments with so many life forms. Maybe our time is up. 

Do you have a better explanation?

Trump’s Defense Spending Is Out of Control, and Poised to Get Worse

Click here to access article by Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone.

Isn't it laughable how the two political parties which we are allowed to vote for in our great American democracy are in total agreement about the use of violence abroad and cutting "entitlements" like Social Security domestically?

A bipartisan commission has determined that President Trump’s recent record defense bill is insufficiently massive to keep America safe, and we should spend more, while cutting “entitlements.”

The Filter Bubble

Click here to access article by editor David Edwards from Media Lens, a British website. 

Although the second half of the article is mostly about British media people and corporations, I am directing my North American audience to the first half regarding how the "filter bubble" works to keep us ignorant while our capitalist ruling classes commit war and other crimes.

This nightmare version of 'news' is maintained by a corporate 'filter bubble' that blocks facts, ideas and sources that challenge state-corporate control of politics, economics and culture. It is maintained by a mixture of ruthless high-level control and middle- and lower-level compromise, conformity and self-serving blindness.

It stands to reason that anyone seeking employment within this bubble will have to accept an unwritten agreement not to challenge the integrity of the bubble by which they are granted wealth and fame. Any ingrate deciding to renege is attacked, reviled and cast out; treated almost as sub-human, not entirely real. Politicians like George Galloway challenging the bubble can be beaten up in broad daylight and it is of no concern. Idealistic hippies like Russell Brand preaching love can be torn to shreds and silenced by the press pack – it doesn't matter. Whistleblowing activists like Julian Assange can be trapped, threatened with life imprisonment and death, and it is a laughing matter. Whole countries can be destroyed – it doesn't matter. The climate can be destroyed – it doesn't matter. The filter bubble has its own dream logic, follows its own cosmic laws as if the real world was none of its concern.

Trump Quietly Orders Elimination of Assange

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Information Clearing House. (Thanks go to activist for alerting me to this post.)

Basically, Trump has arranged for Assange to be eliminated either by illness that’s imposed by his Ecuadorean agent, or else by Assange’s own suicide resulting from that “torture,” or else by America’s own criminal-justice system. If this elimination happens inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, then that would be optimal for America’s President and Congress; but, if it instead happens on U.S. soil, then that would be optimal for Ecuador’s President. Apparently, America’s President thinks that his subjects, the American people, will become sufficiently hostile toward Assange so that even if Assange disappears or is executed inside the United States, this President will be able to retain his supporters. Trump, of course, needs his supporters, but this is a gamble that he has now clearly taken. This much is clear, even though the rest of the secret agreement that was reached between Pence and Ecuador’s President is not.

Ecuador Expected to Extradite Assange to US, Lawyer Says

Click here to access article from TeleSur. (I thank an activist for alerting me to this report.)

“I believe that [Washington, London and Quito] have reached some agreement and that is exactly why the special protocol [on home rules] was introduced... to accelerate the process of ending his asylum and hand him over to the United Kingdom authorities," Poveda said Thursday.

Lucy is once again fooling Charlie Brown

I don't know if this archetypal cartoon was actually drawn by Charles Schulz, but I think the words were likely replaced. The cartoon and script suggests that the American public has been constantly fooled by our masters in the capitalist ruling class. (Thanks go to economist David Ruccio and one of his websites Occasional Links & Commentary.)
  
 

China’s Orwellian Social Credit Score Isn’t Real

Click here to access article by Jamie Horsley from Foreign Policy.

Recently there has been criticism of China's "social credit score" from a variety of US sources that have appeared online from people such as Vice President Mike Pence and media corporations like the NY Post.  Horsley, who has a career in Chinese studies and lived in China for almost a decade, challenges those interpretations, and offers many corrections to such views.

Unfortunately, most of her links are necessarily to Chinese documents in Chinese characters. She argues that there is not a general score used by the Chinese government on individuals, but there are many private companies and individual towns and cities that use such scores. One excellent link (in English) that she provides illustrates how Chinese private companies use scores, and is from Wired. She reminds us that in the USA, banks and credit agencies make use credit scores on individuals; and other companies track what you purchase.

It’s not surprising that myths about the system are spreading, given the shrinking space in China for civil society, rights lawyering, speech, investigative journalism, and religious belief; its increasingly ubiquitous, invasive surveillance capability; and the Chinese Communist Party’s push to apply big data and artificial intelligence in governance. China’s party-state is collecting a vast amount of information on its citizens, and its social credit system and other developments internally and overseas raise many serious concerns. But contrary to the mainstream media narrative on this, Chinese authorities are not assigning a single score that will determine every aspect of every citizen’s life—at least not yet.

A review of the predictions I made on Oct. 26, 2018

by Ron Horn

On Oct. 26 I wrote the following in a post:

I predict two things will happen: the stock market, although the economy rests on very tenuous or unstable foundations, it will pick up after the elections because our masters have a great deal of control over it; secondly, the FBI will never solve who was sending these mail-bombs simply because agents employed by our masters did it. (Need I predict that our masters will succeed in their attempt to elect a majority of Democrats?)

Results:



Although the stock market continued to decline after Oct. 26, it began to climb at the end of the day on Oct. 30 to around 26,200 on Nov. 8 (two days after the election), after which it has declined. This is, except for the first few day, the opposite of what I predicted. 

Regarding the second prediction, a guy (Cesar Sayoc, 56) was caught almost immediately (Oct. 26), but as yet he has only been formally accused guilty by a grand jury (which is easy to do), but has not been judged guilty because a trial has not yet taken place. It should be noted that nobody was killed or injured by the mailed pipe-bombs. I have not seen an reports that the any of them have been exploded, although the police claimed that they were authentic. 

Finally, the results of the election indicated that Trump lost a few seats in the US Senate but Democrats gained a majority in the House of Representatives. Thus, Trump lost ground in both houses of Congress.

Overall, my predictions are not validated by the results to date, although we must await a trial to see if Sayoc is convicted. The influence on the stock market as I predicted is not supported by the evidence. This experience illustrated how much I allowed cynicism to influence what I predicted, and it should teach me not to make predictions.

If Voting Changed Anything… – #PropagandaWatch

Click here if you wish to access the video and article by James Corbett directly from his website.

There is two parts to his show today: in the first rather brief part he has traced the oft used phrase "If voting changed anything it would be illegal" to a letter to the editor in 1976 printed in the Lowell (Massachusetts) Sun.

In the more substantial second part Corbett continues his presentation of the history of WWI by concentrating on the men who really controlled things behind the curtains of official government. Because I learned the real story of WWI a long time ago, I didn't re-post his previous material. However, in this second part of the post he traces the origins of today's Deep State and its directorate to events that began in the late 19th century. (I also recommend a book entitled The Anglo-American Establishment by Carroll Quigley.) 

Although the capitalist ruling class always controlled the USA mainly by controlling who would participate in elections, this development tightened their control immensely and thus they permitted women and minorities to vote in their phony elections.

Since then the general public has been bombarded by indoctrination by this Deep State to insure that ordinary people believe that the official government is the real government and the people decide via democratic elections who controls the government. This is the major myth that we are daily subject to and insures that capitalist ruling classes become ever richer and more powerful and more destructive. When people start disbelieving this myth is when we will see the arrival of overt fascism: the use of force against their own population to maintain capitalist rule. After the Deep State hoodwinked the people with the false-flag attack of 9/11, they insured that the laws permitting a fascist government were in place.

After Lebanon 2006, Syria 2011 and Iraq 2014, the “Arab NATO” and a Sunni-Shia war to revive

Click here to access article by Elijah J. Magnier, an independent Kuwaiti journalist, from his blog.

According to this perceptive author, with failure after failure to topple one Mid-East nation after another, the US Empire will in desperation use various divide-and-conquer strategies to maintain control over the oil and gas rich area. 

The failure of this strategy has pushed the US establishment towards two new options: the first, of using media to reveal Saudi Arabia’s intention to harm the Iranian economy and assassinate its military commanders. The second is to promote and advertise for an “Arab (Sunni) NATO Army”. The goal is to keep the possibility of sectarian war alive.

United States Will Bring Assange to US in Chains

Click here to access article by Ann Garrison from Consortium News.

It appears increasingly likely Wikileaks founder and publisher Julian Assange will wind up in the clutches of the U.S. government.

It’s hardly surprising, given that in ten years’ time, Wikileaks published more classified information than all other media combined. It exposed human rights abuses, government spying, torture, and war crimes on an unprecedented scale.

If we can't protect our hero Julian Assange, who tirelessly worked to keep real information flowing to us, from the war and environmental criminals, I fear all is lost.

What is the Point of Freedom of Speech When There is No Freedom of Thought?

Click here to access article by Sofo Archon from The Greanville Post. 

He writes with insight about the illusion of freedom of speech:

How much of a freethinker do you think you actually are? The majority of people aren’t much: Their ideas and opinions on the most important issues in life don’t sprout from their own personal experience and understanding, but are just a result of the conditioning they had to undergo during their upbringing. In other words, they have been brainwashed to accept and follow dogmas that were forced upon them by tradition through — just to name a few examples — school, religion, and the mainstream media.

Give this a thought: If your thinking is actually controlled and bounded within a tiny mental box, how much freedom of speech and expression do you actually possess?

We are social creatures, so we learn about life from each other. But, what if nearly all of us ordinary people are fed information from a source that controls in a self-serving fashion all information? Well, I am absolutely convinced that we live in a society that is in very large measure controlled by a ruling class consisting of very powerful and rich capitalists. Peruse all the articles written by independent thinkers I've collected and posted over the past nine years to see if you aren't also convinced of this. So what is the freedom of speech worth in such a society? The author is right that the much vaunted freedom of speech we supposedly enjoy is just another foolish illusion. 

The stark reality is that we live in a society where nearly all information is controlled by people who are rich and powerful mostly at our expense and sacrifice. Do you think they want you to be informed of this reality? That is why we are witnessing more and more control over information we receive and censorship of information that this class of people do not want us to think about. Many independent and dissident websites have lost so many viewers/readers because of this censorship. For the latest example, see this.

Crucifying Julian Assange

Click here to access article by Chris Hedges from Truthdig.

He opens his article with this dire statement:

Julian Assange’s sanctuary in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London has been transformed into a little shop of horrors. He has been largely cut off from communicating with the outside world for the last seven months. His Ecuadorian citizenship, granted to him as an asylum seeker, is in the process of being revoked. His health is failing. He is being denied medical care. His efforts for legal redress have been crippled by the gag rules, including Ecuadorian orders that he cannot make public his conditions inside the embassy in fighting revocation of his Ecuadorian citizenship.

But he ends with a call to protest. But the age of protest to our masters is over. Forget it. They aren't listening. They are completely under the influence of the drugs of power and riches, and like all addicts they are obsessed with accumulating ever more power and riches. It is for we, the people, to take matters in our own hands to free him one way or another.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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