Posts that I especially recommend today: Saturday, December 28, 2019

• America, Where Great Literature Kicked the Bucket by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook. 

• China detaining millions of Uyghurs? Serious problems with claims by US-backed NGO and far-right researcher ‘led by God’ against Beijing by Ajit Singh and Max Blumenthal from The Grayzone.

• From Colluding With Hitler Against the USSR to an Anti-Hitler Coalition by Yuriy Rubtsov from Strategic Culture Foundation. (Note: You might also be interested in my commentary that I wrote for a post entitled "Countdown to 'Full Spectrum Dominance'")

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, December 27, 2019

• Limited Hangout: A Deep State Psyops Few Know About by Guy Crittenden from Solarian.

• We Are the Ones Who Will Awaken the Dawn by Vijay Prashad from The Tricontinental.

• Goldman Sachs Federally-Insured Bank Loses $1.2 Billion in Interest Rate Derivative Bets by Pam Martens and Russ Martens from their weblog Wall Street on Parade. 

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, December 26, 2019

• End-of-life anxiety and finding meaning in a collapsing climate by Leonie Joubert from Our Burning Planet (aka Daily Maverick--New Zealand) (Note: I didn't know what to do about this post because this website blocks access to those computers who block ads. Another website you can access the article is Living Resilience, but one can't access the links in the latter website. I have ad blocking software on my primary browser; so to access such articles from blocking sites, I have downloaded a second web browser which I use to access articles on such websites and don't load any ad blocking software to the browser. That way I don't have to remember to re-activate or mess with my ad blocking software on my primary browser. Incidentally, the ads on Our Burning Planet are not obnoxiously all over the article as in more commercial websites.)

• The Amazon at a Tipping Point by Robert Hunziker from CounterPunch.

• Trump and the Stock Market Are the Winners in the Fed’s Repo Loan Binge; Here’s the Losers by Pam Martens and Russ Martens from their weblog Wall Street on Parade. 

• Banking Nature, a 1:26:39 video posted on Thought Maybe. (I thank an activist, Caren, for this recommendation.) 

• Planetary arson and amplifying feedbacks: No alternative to CO2 drawdown by Andrew Glikson, an Earth and climate scientist, posted on Arctic News.

Sanctions, Security and the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline

Click here to access article by Binoy Kampmark from OffGuardian. 

This is huge. And I think it is the beginning of the end for the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. European politicos are logically adamant about securing cheaper energy from Russia to fuel its profit-making industries, and they don't mind smacking the Empire (see this and this) to secure this energy. US sanctions against Europe will only increase the independence of Europe from the core Empire which includes Britain. I also think that Eric Zuesse is correct when he argues that "UK’s Tory Victory Likely to Bind U.S. & UK against Europe & Asia". 

However I can't go along with his elaborate argument that racism which is in the history of the Britain Empire accounts for this. Zuesse is a social-democrat and must find a way to justify this turn of events--see his remarks related to his statement "That’s not what capitalism was supposed to be". Racism was very prevalent around the turn of the century till late 1930s. But it has been diminishing in the post-war era as a useful divide and conquer weapon of the Empire's capitalist ruling classes (against workers) as color minorities have increased in population (customers) throughout the Empire. Anti-immigrant sentiment is now used in place of racism or as a substitute for racism.

So, what comes next? Either the Empire will execute an all-out attack against Russia, China, and Iran or the Earth's habitat will no longer support human life, or both. We ordinary people are "screwed" one way or another.

How the US Created the Cold War

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Washington's Blog.

Unfortunately, the false history of WWII has been written by the ruling classes of the current US/Anglo/Zionist Empire through their well-paid propaganda agents throughout institutions of the Empire. In contrast, Zuesse offers a valuable source of the real truth, but his insights are limited by his social-democratic political orientation. 

This article (not the article posted in Strategic Culture Foundation--an edited version that left out his statement about "capitalism"--cleared up a number of questions I had about Eric Zuesse, the author. I have written several (at least) articles complaining about his use of the feudal term "aristocracy" instead of "ruling class" in his numerous articles. I saw this as reflecting his indoctrination in capitalist views mostly influenced by many years of education in US schools that he obviously had experienced. I was not wrong. In this article he clearly defines himself as a "progressive" by which he means his commitment to social democracy, a subset of capitalist ideologies, as illustrated by what has existed in the Scandinavian countries particularly after WWII when they had elaborate social welfare programs constructed on top of capitalist economies. Also, he is an admirer of FDR who saw the necessity of more elaborate welfare programs to preserve capitalism through the Great Depression. I gathered this from several paragraphs in the article such as:

Even other parts of that post-FDR system, such as the IMF, have served as siphons from publics around the world into the bank-accounts of the U.S. aristocracy and of its allied aristocracies. That’s not what capitalism was supposed to be. [Really?]

 And another quote:

Those weren’t “socialist” countries; they were dictatorial socialist (i.e., communist) countries, as opposed to democratic socialist (i.e., progressive) countries such as in Scandinavia — the proper term for what the Soviet alliance was is “communist,” not “socialist” — and there was a very big difference between the Scandinavian countries, versus the communist countries (though the U.S. regime wants to slur one by the other so as to sucker fools against democratic socialism — progressivism).

In other words, his "progressivism" is social democratic. He evidently believes that capitalism could be compatible with a sustainable Earth and that it could remain peaceful and just in spite of abundant contrary evidence throughout the relatively short history of capitalism.

Of further interest to me was a link in this article that brought me to an article in a publication that is followed by a section of the ruling class. This was published in Foreign Policy and entitled "The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan … Stalin Did" that added a great deal of clarity regarding the use of atomic bombs on Japan as well as the budding Empire's intentions toward the Soviet Union.

Zuesse's contributions to the geopolitical realities of our world are essential, but what isn't essential is his left-liberal views (capitalism can be reformed, his use of "aristocracy" instead of "ruling class", etc.) about these realities. 

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, December 20, 2019

• Capitalism and the Limits of Greening by Carl Boggs from CounterPunch.

• Corbyn was our Father Gapon. They have yet to meet our Lenin by John Wight from his weblog. (Note: you will need to know what "PLP" means.)

• US-China (Still Unsigned) Phase 1 Trade Deal by Jack Rasmus from his weblog.

• After addicting US to opioids, they’re selling cure. Mollye Barrows joins Rick Sanchez on his RT program to share her research. 

• The War on Terror - The Plot to Rule the Middle East. Bonnie Faulkner interviews Christopher Bollyn on her one hour program Guns and Butter which is carried live from WBAI in New York City and several affiliated stations across the Pacific Network. Her program was banned last year from KPFA in Berkeley, California (see this and this).

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, December 19, 2019

• COP25: Never have so many governments done so little for so many by Pete Dolack from his weblog Systematic Disorder.

• Extinction in 2020? from Arctic News.

• Biosphere Collapse? by Robert Hunziker from CounterPunch.

• Indo-Pak Nuclear Confrontation: First Use Policy and the Race Towards Armageddon by N.D. Jayaprakash from CounterPunch.

• Washington’s Refined Art of Torturing China May Ignite a War by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook. (Note: I found striking similarities in travel experiences with that of the author who is nominally an American journalist (in essence a citizen of the world). I experienced the same phenomenon in my short trip to the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in about 1983 that he experienced in his travels in Russia in the early years of Yeltsin rule and more recently in China: the notable effect of Western propaganda on the citizens of Russia and China.)

Posts that I especially recommend today: Wednesday, December 18, 2019

• The News Churn Memory Hole: How The MSM Lies Even When Telling The Truth by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog. (Note: She sounds exasperated, but keeps plugging away at exposing the truth in the face off overwhelming presence of fake news and gaslighting (def.) furnished by corporate media. Other individual voices have tried to do the same--click on links to access their latest efforts: like satirist C.J. Hopkins and humorists like Lee Camp and Jimmy Dore; truth tellers like Bernard of Moon of Alabama, Eric Zuesse, Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, Abby Martin; whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, and persecuted whistleblowers like Julian Assange and Chelsea/Bradley Manning. But nothing seems to change.) 

• When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job by John H. Richardson from Esquire.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, December 16, 2019

• Who is responsible for the climate crisis? by Jason Moore from Maize. (Note: one of my "best posts")

• Glacial melt creates Andes time bomb by Kieran Cooke from Climate News Network.

• COP25 video: Messages from climate marchers to politicians by Josh Gabbatiss from Carbon Brief.

•  No Justification For The Existence of Any Kind of Charter School by Shawgi Tell from Dissident Voice.

Note to readers: Change of policy

Many times in the past I've made clear that humans face two fundamental threats to their existence: one from a catastrophic nuclear war brought on by mostly the transnational capitalist class in the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire; and two, a longer range problem due to the operations of the capitalist system which is well on its way to destroying our ecosystem that supports humans and so many other species. Previously I have limited all posts to one month from the current date, however because the second threat to our human existence moves more slowly (although it is picking up speed due to its accelerating momentum), I've decided to remove this requirement from posts related to this general subject.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, December 15, 2019

• Dr Peter Carter | Expert IPPC Reviewer | COP25 from Extinction Rebellion via YouTube.

• New Study: Greenland is melting seven times faster than 30 years ago. A post from Just Have a Think via YouTube.

• “The conversation we need to have with our children about climate change” by Jeppe Dyrendom Graugaard (Denmark) from his weblog Refiguring.

• COP25 video: Messages from climate marchers to politicians by Josh Gabbatiss from Carbon Brief (based in Britain).

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, December 13, 2019

Early news and commentary on yesterday's British elections

• How Boris Johnson’s election gamble paid off by Elizabeth Piper from Reuters (a news service mostly owned by the British ruling class).

• Jeremy Corbyn: ‘I will not lead Labour at next election’ from BBC.

• Campaigners demand law banning political lies as think-tank warns 'disinformation is becoming normalised' in elections by Cahal Milmo from Inews.

• National (counter) Revolution wins over Radical Reformism, Neocons win over Globalisers, War wins over Peace from Defend Democracy Press.

• Someone Interfered In The UK Election, And It Wasn’t Russia by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.

• Corbyn’s Defeat has slain the Left’s Last Illusion by Jonathan Cook from his weblog. (The best analysis in my opinion.)

• UK's Johnson wins parliamentary majority, Corbyn to stand down from PressTV (Iran).

• Corbyn Is the Lesser Evil from Russia Insider.

Other commentary and news:

• In its anti-‘Medicare for All’ push, the health insurance industry pulls from an old playbook from The Conversation. 

• Award-Winning Journalist Vanessa Beeley Faces “Deplatforming” at Six Canadian Venues by Michael Welch from Global Research (based in Canada). 

• Media bias: Why Putin-Ukraine deal gets no coverage from Rick Sanchez's show on RT America.

Two cynical videos for our entertainment in the last days of our species for Thursday, December 12, 2019

• MSNBC’s Fake Concern For The Climate Crisis, a 7:50m video from Lee Camps show Redacted Tonight via YouTube.

• Obama/Bush/Trump Lied Repeatedly About Afghan War-- Documents Reveal, a 27:04m video from The Jimmy Dore Show via YouTube.

Posts that I especially recommend for yesterday and today: Wednesday, December 11, 2019

• NIST Publishes New FAQ on Its Refusal to Release Key Building 7 Data by Ted Walter from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

• Trump-Pelosi Trade Maneuvers: USMCA, China Tariffs, & Brazil-Argentina Steel by Jack Rasmus from his weblog. (Note: You will need to know who AMLO is.)

• Human Rights from an Indigenous Perspective by Ollantay Itzamná from Internationalist 360°. 

• The true legacy of US central banker Paul Volcker (1927–2019) by Nick Beams from World Socialist Web Site.

• WADA Sporting Ban is Part of West’s New Cold War Against Russia. This post features an interview with 21st Century Wire's Patrick Henningsen via RT. 

• NATO Secretary General Targets ‘Rising China’: Why Cold War Newspeak Never Went Away by Cynthia Chung from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• The Art of Doublespeak: Bellingcat and Mind Control by Edward Curtin from his weblog. 

• Russiagate media smears against Corbyn brought to you by US and UK military-intelligence apparatus by Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal from The Grayzone.

• The Deep State by Alex Diaz from BSNews (Britain). (Note: More about smearing Corbin.)

• The Most Significant Afghanistan Papers Revelation Is How Difficult They Were To Make Public by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.

• How Many Types of “Good” Capitalism Are There? by Shawgi Tell from Dissident Voice. 

• A system that steals from our future by Ian Angus from Climate & Capitalism.

• The portent of runaway greenhouse warming by Andrew Glikson from Arctic News.

Commentary regarding yesterday's post: Wikipedia Fraud EXPOSED

Click here to access article by the "administrator" of Disruptive Fare. 

First, I need to apologize to the activist who sent me this article. It was re-posted on Tyler Durden's Zerohedge which he sent me. I, out of habit, saw that the original post was from Disruptive Fare, and I gave them credit for the post. (Actually, as an aside comment, I have a strong suspicion that both websites are run by the same person or persons.)

I thought the post was very revealing to those who have over the years came to trust Wikipedia as an honest and independent source of information. It still is for many entries, but over the years the website has seen powerful/rich influences that have subverted many entries to serve their interests. All that they needed was a lot of money to hire people to do their subversive work by submitting 500 entries, following their rules of documenting, and qualifying as an "editor". It didn't matter that the documentation was from spurious or self-serving sources. Long ago I saw this weakness and knew that Wikipedia was eventually to succumb to those with vast amounts of money. But that's true of every institution in capitalist society. They and their supporters with their concentrated wealth/power have been harnessed to serve only the interests of the capitalist class: the preservation of their system, the accumulation of wealth, and power.

Fortunately, Karl Marx and his followers have long ago contributed to an understanding of classes and how societies are structured according to the needs of the dominant class. This class analysis is, in my opinion, the greatest of all of his gifts toward the understanding of social and historical development of societies. This commentary intends to use class analysis to understand why the website Disruptive Fare have used this issue of the corruption of Wikipedia.

While perusing the website of Disruptive Fare, I noticed several clues to its class identity: the sidebar that cited stock market data and the supportive passages of Trump's policies, in a addition to the incisive and thorough analysis of the Wikipedia issue. And the latter post attacks some main institutions of capitalist society: CIA and Big Pharma, an industry that has grown to be a self-serving behemoth that interferes with attempts to provide affordable healthcare for all Americans. This take on the issue of Wikipedia frames the issue much like left-wing analysts do--the corruption of a website due to the power and money of concentrated wealth. Yet the "administrator" as an author of the commentary is very supportive of Trump. What gives?

I've long ago pointed to the resentment of the older ruling capitalist class toward the neo-conservatives who have taken over the ruling capitalist class beginning most demonstrably with the Reagan administration. I pointed this out more than five years ago with my commentary to Amed's post "Who the hell are the Henry Jackson Society?" (now located here). I identified this new group of capitalists as neoconservatives who as transnational capitalists under the US Empire were taking over for the transnational ruling capitalist class of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. 

Since then there have been signs that the older ruling class, which I will identify as "old-fashioned capitalists", have terrifically resented this takeover. These latter people include Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts (he served in the Reagan administration and his comments are always positive in relation to this administration which brought in the "neocons"), Tyler Durden, the Mises Institute, and a host of others. Ron Unz is the latest to establish a website to counter the influence of the neoconservatives by appealing to a variety of ruling class critics and posting their articles. But there is a whiff of antisemitism to his website with increasing references to "Jews" rather than Zionists. This trait, too, is common among old-fashioned conservatives.

What these two capitalist factions have in common is their basic contempt for working people who do not live off of Wall Street stocks and bonds, but instead live off of their labor producing actual goods and services. This theme runs like lace through all of their commentaries mostly by totally ignoring the contributions of working people, the overwhelming majority of people.

I won't belabor this commentary further, but will cite an obviously biased take on the Zerohedge website which can apply to all old-fashioned conservatives.

Two posts that an activist sent me to further your understanding of these difficult times

• This is what mind control looks like uploaded to YouTube by Robert Boudrias.

• Wikipedia Fraud EXPOSED: Troll farms and the CIA have hijacked the once open platform by the "administrator" of Disruptive Fare. (This post needs some analysis; but in general it is quite revealing. I have posted several articles (here, here, here, and here) in the past referring to Wikipedia's subversion by powerful interests. Furthermore, I found the website Disruptive Fare most interesting, but I don't have time today to analyze it--probably tomorrow. For now, look at other posts on his home page--you will need to scroll down past the lead article to view his other posts.)

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, December 9, 2019

• “The Cost Of Sanity, In This Society, Is A Certain Level Of Alienation” by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.

• Journalist: Newsweek Suppressed OPCW Scandal And Threatened Me With Legal Action by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.

• West Point Professor Builds a Case Against the U.S. Army by David Swanson from World Beyond War. 

• On Those Questionable Jobs Numbers….Again! by Jack Rasmus from his weblog. (Note: Is the ruling capitalist class desperate enough to lie to extend their predatory system?)

• Why the UK establishment hates Jeremy Corbyn by Johanna Ross from Brics.

• US and UK military-intelligence apparatus campaigns to destroy Jeremy Corbyn by Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal from The Grayzone.

• The Planned 1933 Fascist Coup in America by Larry Romanoff from Global Research. (Note: For history buffs like myself who have wondered why FDR seemingly colluded to cover up this crucial event.)

• Capitalism versus Life on Earth by Ian Angus from Climate & Capitalism.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Friday, December 6, 2019

While waiting for the ecosystem to collapse, I'm hearing sounds that suggest the destructive iceberg of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire and its army, NATO, is breaking up. What do you think? Even Canada, the Empire's colony to the north, is part of this noisy background. 

• NATO is “Brain Dead” by Peter Koenig from New Eastern Outlook.

• NATO Splits Reveal Alliance is Redundant, an editorial from the Strategic Culture Foundation.

• Hong Kong — Pure Western Insanity by Peter Koenig from New Eastern Outlook.

• Fake News By Omission :  The Mass Media’s Cowardly Distortion Tool by Caitlin Johnstone from her weblog.

• Bolivia Returned to Being a Country Governed by the U.S., Neo-Nazis and Narcos translated from Misión Verdad and re-posted on Internationalist 360º.

• Latin America: Imperialist Subversion Forges Full Speed Ahead posted on Granma (Cuba) and re-posted on Internationalist 360º (probably safer for you to read).

• Greenland ice melt feeds glacier instability by Tim Radford from Climate News Network.

NATO summit dominated by growing inter-state conflicts

Click here to access article by Alex Lantier from World Socialist Web Site.

Lantier summarizes what I believe are the signs to the collapse of the capitalist US/Anglo/Zionist Empire which rose from the ashes of the German Nazi version of this capitalist Empire. WWII was not fought to end fascism as the Empire's propagandists want you to believe, but the ultimate contest between a German-capitalist led and a British-capitalist led fascist capitalism. The Nazi Empire was originally funded and supported by Western capitalists of all countries, but as soon as they saw Nazis stalled at the gates of Moscow, the capital of a first socialist experiment, they immediately allied themselves with the preservation of the British Empire. The current fascist Empire (in "democratic" clothes) has been the final result of the devastating conflict of WWII. 

But this Empire is seeing its end days. To revise a weather folklore, I believe that the Empire will not go out like a lamb, but like a wounded lion which thrashes around to impress his fellow lions (capitalists) that he is still dominant among the creatures of the earth--think Bolivia and Venezuela after the Syrian debacle. The Fed is stuffing our failing banks with their "printed" money to stave of the massive debts that the Empire has created to impose its dominance on the rest of world. The signs are everywhere.

But let me not assure you that we residents of the Empire will not suffer "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". The ensuing series of catastrophes will soon engulf us and end in the extinction of humans. In contrast to this inspiring video we are doomed as a species. We might have changed things back in 2012, but we surely can't while approaching 2020. The artillery of our oceans and skies are so locked and loaded with capitalist-produced carbon that our fate is already decided. 

We are entering a new "brave world" in which our capitalist masters may still be brought to justice--hopefully! For us, this can only be a bitter-sweet reward to see that this class of sociopathic people, who have destroyed ours and so many other species, and whose exploitation of the Earth and all of its working people has brought them so much temporary wealth and power, will finally share in our fate--extinction.

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, December 3, 2019

(Blogger's note: I have been fighting influenza for nearly a week; so if the posts are not up to the standard of previous ones, I apologize.)

• Leading climate researchers: we are in a climate emergency, facing existential risks by David Spratt from Climate Code Red.

• Failed Action On The Climate Crisis Makes Resistance Imperative by Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese from Popular Resistance.

• The fantasy world continues by Michael Roberts from his weblog.

• Venezuela's Counter-Attack by Eric Striker from National Justice.

• Technocracy now: The US is working to turn Lebanon’s anti-corruption protests against Hezbollah [part 1 of 2] by Rania Khalek from The Grayzone.

• Crack down on genomic surveillance by Yves Moreau from Nature.