President Obama, say the 'D-Word'

by Mark LeVine from Al Jazeera.

It's incredible, really. The president of the United States can't bring himself to talk about democracy in the Middle East. He can dance around it, use euphemisms, throw out words like "freedom" and "tolerance" and "non-violent" and especially "reform," but he can't say the one word that really matters: democracy.

Since the American and French revolutions, the crucial problem for ruling capitalist elites has always been to create the appearance of supporting the dreams of working people for social justice, democracy, and equality while doing precisely the opposite.

See also article by Stephen Gowans from his blog, "New York Times: "Democracy is Bad for US Foreign Policy". The author looks at the spin of US mainstream media regarding the unrest in Egypt, and finds hypocrisy and duplicity in its relations with various countries: 

The key to this duplicity is that Mubarak has sold out Egypt to US profit and strategic interests, while Mugabe has sought to rectify the historical iniquities of colonialism. Clearly, from Washington’s perspective, Mugabe is serving the wrong interests. Indigenous farmers don’t count. Western investors do.

Also read what the WikiLeaks cables reveal about the close relationship of US ruling class and their Egyptian puppet, by Luke Harding from the Guardian.

Human Rights Watch condemns US prison system, immigration policy

by Kate Randall from WSWS.

Whenever US government leaders meet with Chinese officials, the issue of human rights in China is always a mandatory topic promoted by US media. With US's record on human rights in relation to their torture prisons scattered throughout the world, the attacks on protesters here in the US, and reports such as this, it almost causes one to vomit.

In its annual world report, Human Rights Watch condemns the United States on a broad range of civil liberties abuses. In particular, the human rights group slams the US prison system, immigration policy, and the treatment of suspects in the “war on terror.” HRW also points to the US’s dismal record on women’s rights and the treatment of child laborers. 

The FCIC, in Lockstep with the Officialdom, Refuses to Use the “C” Word

by Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism.

Read how the US government investigates the ruling class which owns it. I am referring to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report issued yesterday on it findings about the latest economic collapse. Guess what? They found the banksters, not guilty! As Smith concludes:

The FCIC report is destined for the...dustbin of history.... It is a document of and by well-meaning insiders that just can’t deal with the corruption they were supposed to investigate. It’s a psychological crutch maybe, or perhaps a denial mechanism, but it doesn’t really matter. This report is just a cover-up, the same kind of cover-up that is allowing the thieves to escape with their loot.

Nothing will come from the generation in power who created this mess. They just don’t have it in them. The bad guys will steal again. I mean, crime pays. Besides, who’s going to call it crime, anyway?

Listen/view Michael Hudson's assessment of this report from Real News (8:28m video).

What if We Stopped Fighting For Preservation?

by Tom Butler from CASSE. 

Tim Murray’s essay “What If We Stopped Fighting for Preservation and Fought Economic Growth Instead?” is provocative for sure. Murray is a compelling writer, and I admire his unflinching focus on the root causes of ecological collapse including human overpopulation, consumerism, mass migration, and the religion of endless growth. He’ll get no argument from me about these factors as systemic drivers of biodiversity loss, and I share his frustration that many reform-minded environmentalists and large NGOs often are unwilling to acknowledge the fundamental contradiction between wild nature’s flourishing and the intrinsic logic of a techno-industrial growth society based on corporate capitalism.

This blogger, in contrast to Murray, correctly identifies the root problem of capitalism, but continues to support efforts to ameliorate the inexorable logic of capitalism--growth. Their disagreement is like two physicians arguing whether to treat pains due to cancer with aspirin or codeine, instead of removing the cancerous tumor. Too many activists in the US have bought into the neo-liberal notion that "there is no alternative" to capitalism.

Climate change related reports

from Climate Progress a World Meteorological Organization report:

2010 "characterized by a high number of extreme weather events"

from The Guardian: ExxonMobil warns carbon emissions will rise by 25% in 20 years

from Reuters: Greenland ice melt sets a record — and could set the stage for sea level rise


Clearly capitalism's addiction to profits (riches for a few) continues to cause unstable and extreme weather patterns that will likely result in the extinction of human and other species on Earth.

Reagan's Ghost

by David Glenn Cox from OpEd News. 

I am posting this article today to examine the political consciousness of middle-class America, a middle-class that came of age in the 1960s and 70s, was well educated, and mostly liberal as illustrated by the author of this article. 

He grew up in the post WWII period when the middle-class had such great expectations for economic advancement. The US industrial plant was intact--about the only one in the world that was--the US military was in great shape and, above all, they had the atomic bomb--the ultimate weapon. The capitalist ruling class was drunk with a sense of omnipotence. The only enemies that stood in their way of world domination were the Soviet Union and the domestic and foreign radicals who entertained dangerous ideas of social justice.

Without missing a beat, the US ruling class immediately went on the offensive against all of these actual and potential enemies. In the US they purged militant labor leaders and left-wing intellectuals during the McCarthy period. They drew a line of containment around the "socialist" countries of the Soviet Union and China, they established a secret organization known as the CIA to subvert left-wing governments, to terrorize leftist militants, to assassinate leaders who stood in their way (including US leaders), and to engage in proxy wars. (See this for a good summary of all these activities.) Their actions resulted in two major wars: the Korean War and the Vietnam War and millions of lives lost.

Like many in this large subset of Americans, the author is beginning to see the current political drama starring Obama as completely out of touch with the author's reality. Unfortunately, his reality has been shaped by post WWII indoctrination that was applied to American educational institutions after left-wing intellectuals were purged. As a result, he has a warped understanding of his own history. 

He has little understanding of what his country has been doing, and he romanticizes the New Deal programs of the Franklin Roosevelt administration of the 1930s that were reluctantly used by the ruling class to ward off more radical actions of militant labor and civil rights organizations. He doesn't see or understand that the ruling capitalist class has been moving in this direction of total control of working people since the system began in the late 1700s. Only now, since the American ruling class has gone global and doesn't need most American workers anymore, does he realize that things have really changed, that his government under the current "acting" leader, Obama, is not concerned with the issues that concern him. 

His best understanding is that it has something to do with Ronald Reagan! Well, maybe this is not too far off the mark. Reagan's presidency did launch the neo-liberal phase of capitalism, however this is only the logical development of the capitalist system itself; and with it the attacks against American working people and the planet that its perpetrators are all too willing to use.

Anchors Away! – The ‘Stability’ of U.S. Puppet Dictatorships

by Nima Shirazi from Dissident Voice. 

This writer knows how to see beyond official US propaganda to see the real motives and interests that drive US foreign policy.

The corruption game

by Juan Cole from Asia Times Online. 

This liberal US intellectual is quite willing to point out all the "blunders" (crimes) of US foreign policies that support corrupt, anti-democratic governments, but sees them as only mistakes that do not serve "US interests"--interests which he never spells out. This kind of analysis is as far left that acceptable left discourse is allowed to stray in US intellectual circles. Here are some good illustrations:

It would surely have been smarter for Washington to cut the Ben Ali regime off without a dime, at least militarily, and distance itself from his pack of jackals. The region is, of course, littered with dusty, creaking, now exceedingly nervous dictatorships in which government is theft. The US receives no real benefits from its damaging association with them.
                                                   ***************
As usual when Washington backs corrupt regimes in the name of its "war on terror", democracy suffers and things slowly deteriorate.
                                                   ***************
Here's a simple rule of thumb in such situations: bad policy creates even worse policy. The Obama administration's mistake in ramping up its Afghan war left it needing ever more supplies, worrying about perilous supply lines through Pakistan, and so vulnerable to transit blackmail by the ruling kleptocracies of Central Asia. When their populations, too, explode into anger, the likely damage to US interests could be severe.
                                                   ***************
...US backing [of corrupt regimes] has a significant probability of boomeranging sooner or later. Elites, confident that they will retain such backing as long as there is an al-Qaeda cell anywhere on the planet, tend to overreach, plunging into cultures of corruption and self-enrichment so vast that they undermine economies, while producing poverty, unemployment, despair, and ultimately widespread public anger.

 What is never discussed are the contradictions between more democratic or legitimate governments and US interests. He concludes his essay with this absurd statement:

It's time for Washington to signal a new commitment to actual democracy and genuine human rights by simply cutting off military and counter-terrorism aid to authoritarian and corrupt regimes that are, in any case, digging their own graves.

Middle East: the Undoing of America’s Mendacious Foreign Policy

by Finian Cunningham from Global Research.

Very insightful and concise perspective on the current turmoil in North Africa and Middle East.

What we are seeing across the Arab world is not just the undoing of corrupt regimes. We are seeing the undoing of America’s entire foreign policy in that region. No wonder there must be deep misgiving in Washington over the recent turmoil in this key energy-producing region. For decades, US administrations have, through a cocktail of ignorance and arrogance, deluded themselves that they could get away with a mendacious contradiction. That contradiction is the espousal of democracy and peace in the Middle East while at the same time sponsoring regimes that act in every way to undermine any path to democracy and peace.

Insurrection in North Africa: the story so far

by Django from Libcom. 

I just came across the article which is a bit dated for these fast moving developments, but they offer some very interesting details and sound perspectives on the protests and revolts in North Africa.

How Corporate Journalism Happily Lost Interest in Climate Change

from Media Lens. 

In the media’s coverage of climate change, are we really still stuck on square one of some ghastly board game?

Global warming was recognised as a hugely serious problem as far back as 1988 when the United Nations set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since then the science has become more solid, more detailed, in fact irrefutable: the risk of dangerous climate change has risen alarmingly, and the corporate media has continued to bury serious debate on what to do about it.

Memo to Congress: Show us the M-O-N-E-Y!

by Geraldine Perry from Online Journal. 

Although she lacks credentials (only a Master's degree in Education) that would give one confidence in her views, she has been endorsed by the American Monetary Institute. I, based on my own studies, feel that most of her views are valid regarding a subject that is often obscured in mainstream media. The only problem is that people like her see the elimination of the Fed as a cure-all. It is only one problem related to the capitalist system. It is only one scam among many. 

Based on my fairly extensive readings, Jefferson and Madison were not really very active in opposing Hamilton's plans. Jefferson was mostly in Paris as Ambassador to France when Hamilton and the "money aristocracy", as they were popularly referred to, were arranging things. Madison was only mildly opposed.

Hamilton, Robert Morris, and friends set up the first central bank called the Bank of North America which was mostly privately financed, but they also helped themselves to US Treasury funds when they didn't have enough money. George Washington, one of the richest of Americans, largely went along with whatever Hamilton wanted.

National Security Letters and Gag Orders [8:30m audio and transcript]

from NPR's On the Media. 

Warning: this article may be hazardous to your peace of mind because you will be reminded that you are living in a country that increasingly resembles a police state.

The most serious kind of subpoena - called a 'National Security Letter' - used to have a lifetime gag-order automatically attached. That is until Nicholas Merrill appealed his and won the right to talk about it. Despite 50,000 national security letters a year there are only three organizations who have ever won the right to say they got one. Nick Merrill explains why he's the exception and the rule.

See Merrill's website, The Calyx Institute, for more details. Also, ACLU's website for their report on this case.

...as OTM notes, 50,000 NSLs and their accompanying gag orders are still being served by the government every year. And last summer, the Obama administration proposed expanding — yes expanding! — the NSL statute to allow the FBI to get even more electronic records without court approval or even suspicion of wrongdoing.

(For more information about preventing government agencies and others from accessing your use of the internet, there are VPNs that can provide this security. I have little knowledge of these methods, but if you would like to explore further, this website, vpnMentor, has four pages of posts that should be able to answer your questions.) 

Climate change: Barack Obama less interested than Bush, analysis reveals

 by Suzanne Goldenberg from the Guardian.


The graph below says it all, but read the article if you need more details. Clearly Obama's ruling class bosses are no longer interested in climate change issues.

Aggregate mentions of 'climate change', 'global warming' and the 'environment' in the state of the union address [and other speeches] since 1990. Photograph: Mat Hope, University of Bristol 

Also, you may be interested in reading the "Climate sceptic [who] 'misled Congress over funding from oil industry'".

Economic forum kicks off in Davos [2:28m video]

Emma Hayward reports on the scene in Davos, from Al Jazeera.  

Our capitalist masters are meeting at a swanky ski resort in Davos, Switzerland to decide on their, and our, economic fates. Guess whose interests will take priority?

World Social Forum: “The challenge of a global solution outside the system”

Eric Toussaint is interviewed by Sergio Ferrari, from CADTM.

While our masters meet in Davos, Switzerland, some activists are meeting in early February at Dakar, Senegal to look at ways of countering the ongoing assault on working people throughout the world.

The World Social Forum (WSF) is practically the only space for convergence of social movements on a planetary scale, so it is essential to continue strengthening it. This is the stance of Éric Toussaint, global justice analyst, who knows the World Social Forum from the inside as he has been a member of its guiding body since its founding, the International Council. Éric Toussaint is a Belgian historian and political scientist, and in Belgium, chair of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third world debt (CADTM www.cadtm.org). This organisation, very active in many countries, in particular in Africa, is one of the groups taking part in preparing the upcoming Dakar forum in 2011. Interview.

Tunisia and the world: roots of turmoil

by Paul Rogers from Open Democracy.

The relevance of Tunisia to this larger picture is that the uprising has come from a complex mix of economic problems involving food-price rises and high unemployment together with a hatred of an autocratic and plutocratic regime that has exercised violent control of public order for decades. The key question is whether this is a significant marker for likely future events, as a different phenomenon such as the Naxalites in India have proved to be....

I think he reaches some astute conclusions in the article.

See also Al Jazeera's report on protests currently happening in Egypt, or Guardian's detailed coverage that includes protests in Lebanon and Tunisia. See this report from Euronews regarding riots in Albania.

Early Lessons from the Tunisian Revolution

by Eva Galperin from Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

There are new issues being posed for political activists in their use of social networking--there are positives and negatives.  This article looks at some early lessons from the recent Tunisian revolution.

See also this report by Nate Anderson from Solidarity Economy.

Social Media and Law Enforcement: Who Gets What Data and When?

by Jennifer Lynch from Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

There has been a lot of concern expressed on various blogs regarding government and corporation surveillance of social media and the problems this poses for privacy and one's civil rights. This article appears to have a lot of good advice.

Also, check out security issues for users of mobile devices.

The True Meaning of Keith Olbermann

by Will Bunch from The Huffington Post. 

The author on this liberal website claims to have intimate knowledge of the personality and character of Keith Olbermann, a popular liberal TV commentator. That may be, but he misses the more important issues in his removal from NBC.
 
Olbermann's dismissal from NBC following immediately after the FCC approval of the Comcast purchase of NBC, raises all sorts of speculation. It seems that corporate media can no longer tolerate even liberal views to contaminate the Empire's messages.  The limits of political discourse that are acceptable in mainstream media continue to narrow as the concentration of the media continues. 

However, this commentator only touches superficially on those issues and leaves us with the comfortable impression that Olbermann accomplished his mission, the Bush administration was stopped, the lies of the far-right has been exposed, and all is well with the world. Check out this ridiculous statement:

Olbermann might have felt that now was the time to go. What he inspired during Bush's presidency was nothing less than a revolution, and it's often hard to adjust when the romance of revolution fades.

The lack of concern shown by this liberal commentator for the ongoing agenda of the Empire , illustrates how much the political center has shifted to the right in the US.

The Gutsy Food Sovereignty Movement Helps Shape Policy And to Rekindle and Model Democratic Principles at Work

by Olga Bonfiglio from her blog. 

She reports on some local efforts in the US, Africa, and Canada to take back control of the production, distribution, and consumption of food from corporations. 

Food sovereignty means that people have the right to decide what they eat and to ensure that food in their community is healthy and accessible for everyone.... It also means that producers receive a fair price for their products and that local family farmers and fishers should have the first right to local and regional markets.

With this mission in mind, food security advocates have been successfully changing food policy not only in the United States but all over the world. 

Anarchism and Psychology [Videos and article]

by Dennis Fox from CapitalismCrisis's Channel on YouTube. This is a two part presentation that the author gave at the recent conference of the North American Anarchist Studies Network.

Fox is an Emeritus Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Psychology at the University of Illinois, Springfield. He has had considerable involvement in left politics and identifies with anarchism.

He attempts to address the core issue of "personal and political" that have posed problems for generations of activists. In other words, how to be true to one's political principles and act on those principles in one's personal and political relationships. We have all been indoctrinated in the beliefs and practices of capitalism with its extreme emphasis on individualism. Hence we haven't learned the tools of behaving in a more cooperative and socially affirming way. He looks at the field of psychology to see what it has to offer regarding this issue.

...despite the significance of psychological assumptions about reciprocal links between the personal and the political, it remains unclear to what extent any of psychology’s various guises – academic discipline, therapeutic profession, psychoanalytical understanding, or force of popular culture – can help advance liberation and community.

Part 1  (9:03m)

Part 2  (4:18m)

The paper on which this presentation is based can be found here.

My own view is that a new subculture must be created to provide the soil to nurture egalitarian and social values. But, of course, that begs the question: how do we do that?

The jobs vs. war dollars dilemma

by Ben Grosscup from Gazette Net.

This article from the US State of New Hampshire reveals how the ruling class undermines anti-war dissent by rationing-out military contracts, and the high paying jobs they provide, throughout the country. 

While firms, that produce goods that people use for life, outsource their factories to countries with the lowest wages, the industries that make the equipment for threatening and bombing other countries keep their production centers sited largely in the United States.

Violent Rhetoric Has Consequences—Just Ask Abortion Providers

by Cynthia Samuels Care2. 

Abortion opponents have a long history of using violent rhetoric to attempt to justify their crimes and incite others to violence. They regularly refer to abortion providers as “murderers” in interviews and articles and utilize imagery associated with murder such as “wanted” posters and “hit lists” in their campaigns to end legal abortion. Unfortunately, instead of marginalizing these extremists, other opponents of abortion have picked up on this dangerous rhetoric to advance their political agenda.

She continues with examples of numerous physicians that have been murdered.

The right-wing's use of violent rhetoric is a form of terrorism used to advance their political agenda of limiting civil rights and creating a fascist state. They know that there are always weak, unstable people around to act out these impulses.

See the latest campaign against 78 year old Frances Fox Piven by Glenn Beck of Fox News.

Preparing for Life in a Peak Oil World

by Gail Tverberg from Oil Price. (Gail Tverberg is a writer and speaker about energy issues. She is especially known for her work with financial issues associated with peak oil. Prior to getting involved with energy issues, Ms. Tverberg worked as an actuarial consultant. This work involved performing insurance-related analyses and forecasts.)

On her website I found a further explanation regarding this article:

[1/17/2011] For a few days, I am working on an academic article. Since I don’t have time to do research and write something new, I thought I would post an article I wrote in 2007 on how to prepare for the impacts of peak oil, together with a few updates for 2011. This article was previously posted on The Oil Drum and was a chapter in what I called a Peak Oil booklet (found here).

I have followed her articles for a number of years on the Oil Drum website, and have always had a lot of respect for her judgment regarding energy issues. In this article she offers some sound tips on creating a lifestyle to help people cope with coming age of energy scarcity.

As I was reading the article, I was about to fault her for not mentioning any type of political activism, when she offered this disclaimer:

It would also be helpful to make changes at higher levels of government, but these are beyond the scope of the discussion in this chapter.

  

Silencing the media in America

by Paul Balles from Redress.

Paul J. Balles views the Zionist lobby's stranglehold over the mainstream media in the United States which has succeeded in bullying, threatening or bribing journalists into silence over Israel’s crimes.

Extreme floods are just the beginning

by Renfrey Clarke from Green Left. 

If a city drowns beneath a once-in-a-hundred-years flood, that's weather. Such things have happened in the past.

But when hundred-year floods start happening every few decades, that's no longer just weather. The dice have become loaded for different outcomes. Climate — that is, the average of weather — is changing.

The Futility of Green Capitalism

An interview with Daniel Tanuro from Climate and Capitalism, author of the new book, L’impossible capitalisme vert, or The Futility of Green Capitalism.

In addition to the contradictions that capitalism poses for a sustainable environment, Tanuro talks about ecosocialism as...

...a break with productivism and consumerism, of course, within the perspective of a society in which, the basic needs having been satisfied, free time and social relations constitute the real wealth. But also contestation of technologies and of harmful productions, coupled with the requirement of reconversion of the workers. Maximum decentralization of production and distribution in the framework of a democratically planned economy....

America’s ‘culture of cruelty’

by Henry A. Giroux from The Spec. 

This perceptive educator sees the recent Arizona tragedy within a culture of cruelty that is driven by political forces:

...culture of cruelty is important for thinking through how entertainment and politics now converge in ways that fundamentally transform how we understand and imagine politics in the current historical moment....

                                                           *************

...a powerful set of political, economic and educational forces at work in miseducating the American public while at the same time extending the culture of cruelty.

Obama Picks Jeffrey Immelt, GE CEO, To Run New Jobs-Focused Panel As GE Sends Jobs Overseas, Pays Little In Taxes

by Shahien Nasiripour from The Huffington Post. 

After appointing Wall Street people to his cabinet, the much ballyhooed liberal candidate for change, now President, is looking after his working class supporters. (sarcasm) 

Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman and chief executive of General Electric Co. tapped by President Barack Obama as his next top outside economic adviser, will be asked to guide the White House as it attempts to jump-start lackluster job creation and spur a muddled recovery.

Immelt's firm stands as Exhibit A of a successful and profitable corporate America standing at the forefront of the recovery. It also represents the archetypal company that's hoarding cash, sending jobs overseas, relying on taxpayer bailouts and paying less taxes than envisioned.

What also comes to my mind is the bailout of General Motors that resulted in a two-tiered wage schedule for US workers. Now GM is laying off US skilled workers while Chinese and other foreign workers are making more GM cars than American workers are making here. See this and this.

Jet-Setters Face Frustrating Flight Delays, Just Like the Plebes!

by Jamie Johnson from Vanity Fair. 

You thought you had it rough having to arrive at the airport hours ahead of scheduled take-off, waiting in lines to be virtually strip-searched, and having to pay for every little convenience. My favorite one-percenter, Jamie Johnson, reports that the rich also have their frustrations with air travel in their private jets. How could that be? You ask. 

Well, it seems it's that damn government regulation!  I wonder why they don't do away with that, too--they don't tolerate the government regulating their banks, other financial institutions, and all the exotic derivative bets they use to enrich themselves, bets that often result in the wreckage of entire economies.

...people who spend between $10 million and $50 million on a jet don’t expect to be plagued by the same issues that beleaguer regular airlines. And when the realization hits, the response usually is one of bewilderment.

And, that is not the only problem they are experiencing during this economic collapse. According to the NY Times report, they are frustrated by the difficulties they encounter trying to sell their yachts!

The Real China Problem Runs Through JPM and Goldman

by Matt Stoller from Naked Capitalism.

This is one of the best, most concise explanations of many of the current contradictions of capitalism--debt crises, balance of payments problems, unemployment, depressed wages, economic collapse, etc--that I have seen.

This instability is leading to declining standards of living around the world, which is resulting in civil unrest in Europe, increasingly nationalistic rhetoric, global lawlessness in the form of cyber-attacks and piracy, and military build-ups. The big banks that intermediate these flows like this situation. So does China, whose mercantilist policies are allowing the acquisition of a massive industrial base. And the oil producers do as well, because of the wealth and power they acquire through a global dependence on their resource. 

But contrary to the suggestions in the final paragraph, there is no permanent "way out of this box" under the present system.

The crisis in Europe and the financial aristocracy

by Stefan Steinberg from World Socialist Web Site. 

It's banksters über alles in Europe!

In one country after another, social systems are being dismantled and health care provision ravaged. Echoing a demand from the money markets, the German chancellor called last week for the increase in retirement age to 67 years for all of Europe.

The slash-and-burn tactics advocated by the financial elite and introduced by compliant governments across Europe are rapidly impoverishing workers and the middle class. The rapacious and completely reckless nature of this layer introduces a new and explosive element into world politics.

The Spectre Haunting Europe: Debt Defaults, Austerity, and Death of the “Social Europe” Model

by Prof Michael Hudson and Prof. Jeffrey Sommers. 

Another title for this article might be, "A Tale of Two Economies". The one in Latvia which is a capitalist economy and the one in Belarus which appears to be like the former Soviet Union--a centrally controlled, bureaucratically managed economy.

I think that in order to make more sense of the post-war social democratic model that existed in Europe and its present dismantling by the Empire's neo-liberal model of capitalism, one must have a clearer understanding of capitalist history which is missing from the article. 

The Soviet economic model from its inception has been regarded with extreme hostility by capitalist ruling classes in the West. Fourteen Western countries invaded Soviet territory after WWI in order to overturn their revolution, but were unsuccessful. (This history has been nearly completely purged from sources available in the US. The best source is The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Vol. 3  by Edward Hallett Carr.) In spite of the authoritarian distortions that occurred in this revolution, it inspired workers everywhere in the world, and even more-so during the 1930s when workers in capitalist countries suffered from the effects of severe unemployment. After WWII the US made great efforts to restore European capitalist governments which contained strong social safety nets to counteract more leftist influences.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, neo-liberal capitalism has sought, and is succeeding, to eliminate these social supports in the never ending effort to feed their addiction to profits. 

Of course, there is a third alternative which must be implemented if we are to avoid the scourge of climate disasters and the impoverishment of working people: the inclusive democratic control of societies and the elimination of capitalism everywhere.

A hard rain's gonna fall

by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office.

Heavier rainstorms lie in our future. That's the clear conclusion of a new MIT and Caltech study on the impact that global climate change will have on precipitation patterns.

 

Extreme weather and climate change: How long must we sing this song?

by Dr. Paul Johnston, principal scientist at the Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter and Head of the Greenpeace International Science Unit. 

It seems to me that time is running out. We can debate the issue endlessly. But each extreme weather event, whatever the strength of its underlying link to climate change, only serves to emphasise the consequences of such phenomena in terms of structural damage and human suffering. It also highlights our limited ability, despite technological advancement, to predict, mitigate and recover from them. They are yet another painful reminder of the urgent necessity for the deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, cuts that the Energy Revolution could deliver.

The "Energy Revolution" cannot deliver any significant cuts as long as capitalism with its growth imperative exists. So which will we choose: survival with a sustainable social-economic system or capitalism and human extinction?
 
See also, "Thaw of Earth's icy sunshade may stoke warming", and Report reveals flooding's massive impact on farms and mining.

What, Me Care? Young Are Less Empathetic

by Jamil Zaki from Scientific American. (This is an shorter version of the research report which Scientific American is selling.)

The research, led by Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and published online in August in Personality and Social Psychology Review, found that college students’ self-reported empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years. To make matters worse, during this same period students’ self-reported narcissism has reached new heights, according to research by Jean M. Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University.

I think that this trend has a lot to do with the growth of neo-liberal thinking in the dominant US Empire. This school of thought has various roots, most celebrated are such exponents as Friedrich Hayek and Ayn Rand. Hayek established the Society for the Renovation of Liberalism and Rand expressed her philosophy in several books beginning with Fountainhead. Both were determined to revise the philosophy of the social contract that was originally used to justify the attacks on the old feudal rule of monarchy, aristocracy, and the Catholic Church in favor of the new commercial class. 

"Social Contract" theory held that people originally came from an anarchic original state to secure their common well-being by establishing laws, judicial procedures, and agencies of enforcement. This thinking was succinctly expressed in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government....

Hayek and Rand  were most concerned with justifying the concentration of wealth in the hands of a relatively few hands, the capitalist class, which was often seen as deleterious to the common good, especially as seen and experienced by working people. In the late 1930s the capitalist class greatly feared the rise of labor power and the threat of a different social system by the revolution that created the Soviet Union. Working people had made substantial gains in the 1930s in the form of labor legislation establishing rights to organize and other social legislation. Also during this time, the Soviet Union was making rapid strides with industrialization and experienced no unemployment which appealed to workers in much of the rest of the world. 

Neo-liberals, on the other hand, saw the state as interfering in their pursuit of profits and wanted to remove all restrictions on their activities. And they definitely wanted to roll back the gains made by labor, gains which cut into their profits. Thus they wanted to counter any ideas of the common good and replace them with ideas that advocated individual self interest. The pursuit of individual wealth was seen as resulting in the greatest good of all. 

One of Rand's students, Alan Greenspan, became one of the most powerful actors on behalf of this philosophy and neo-liberalism. In 1974 in told the NY Times:

What she [Rand] did--through long discussions and lots of arguments into the night--was to make me think why capitalism was not only efficient and practical, but also moral. 

Since the 1970s this neo-liberal thinking was promulgated through numerous right-wing think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. Under the powerful influence of media controlled by the ruling class, these influences have permeated all institutions of society. Thus, it is not surprising that young people today exhibit such beliefs.

The Identity Ecosystem: Obama’s plan for Internet control

by John W. Whitehead from Online Journal. (the author is a Constitutional attorney and author of a new book, The Freedom Wars.)

As I have argued before, Obama is a mere figurehead for the ruling class, a charming, rhetorically skilled salesman who delivers what they want. But media sources rarely fail to allude to the fiction that the President is a leader which, of course, maintains all the other fictions of representative "democracy".  I think they mostly do this out of ignorance, but also it enhances the chances of their reports being carried by various media.

This piece is about a proposed internet ID that would be assigned to everyone who accesses the internet. This Constitutional attorney informs us:

...it would not take much for a universal Internet ID to become a de facto national ID, and the consequences could be devastating. Why?

FCC Blesses Comcast Merger and New Era of Media Monopoly

by Joe Torres from The Huffington Post. 

The concentration of the media just increased with this merger. Hence, the ruling class improves its control over what information is allowed to be broadcast to you.

Comcast is already the nation's largest Cable TV and residential broadband provider, reaching 23 million cable customers and 16.7 million broadband subscribers. But once this merger is completed, Comcast will own 26 local TV stations (NBC and Telemundo); the NBC broadcast network; 17 cable networks (including MSNBC, Bravo, USA, CNBC, the Weather Channel), Universal Pictures, and the online video service Hulu. Overall, the merged company would have a financial stake in 125 media companies, including cable networks, TV stations, Web sites and other properties.

The Revolutionary MLK [15:55m video & script]

from the Real News.

Monday was Martin Luther King day, a holiday in the US. Paul Jay's guest explains how ruling class media has sanitized the messages that characterized Martin Luther King's thinking in the last year before he was assassinated. Recapture this expunged history by viewing this video. Then read King's last book entitled, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?. And read An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King. by William Pepper.

Where the People Order and the Law Obeys

by David Martinez from Unside Down World. 

I’ve come here to find out about a group called La Policía Comunitaria, an autonomous police force and justice system that is something of a legend in Mexico. The idea is simple: local people are elected to act as temporary police officers, and justice is administered by a council of community members, not the local state system.

The author from the San Francisco Bay Area asks one of the activists how they accomplished this.

He leans towards me and his eyes gleam with pride at the many years he has put into this project. “Look,” he says, “there are many thinkers, many writers, many people who have very beautiful ideas about how to re-imagine the world. But the problem is that they can’t put them into practice, and to me it is because they don’t have the right foundation; their foundation is weak. We always engage in practice, our theories always involve practice. We always keep practice and theory in play with each other, and our theory comes from the same people who practice it: the indigenous people of Guerrero.”

A Time for Action - Not Servility

by Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon.

Every day, millions of people in the U.S. get their journalism from independent news outlets that expose not just the extremist antics of Republicans, but also the corporate corruption among Democrats. These informed Americans -- fearful of Speaker Boehner and alarmed by a White House now administered by a JPMorgan Chase executive -- represent a huge base ready to mobilize in new ways.

That's the basis for the launch of a new online organization -- RootsAction.org -- an initiative endorsed by such respected independent progressives as Daniel Ellsberg, Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk and Coleen Rowley.

Our first action -- in collaboration with Daniel Ellsberg -- is a petition to President Obama to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan. [my emphasis]

Wow, that is bold action! Unfortunately, these people are not getting off to a good start. Read the comments following the article to see the lack of enthusiasm. At this point in time, it appears to me that "Two Americas" second comment regarding RootsAction.org is the most apt of all:

It is yet another bait and switch scam for the purpose of herding people back into the fold. 

I'm wondering how many times that progressives can be baited and switched before they grow up and get serious about changing the system. Judging by the comments, it looks like such times have ended.

Evidence of an American Plutocracy: The Larry Summers Story

by Matthew Skomarovsky from Littlesis blog. 

LittleSis is a project of Public Accountability Initiative, a nonprofit nonpartisan research and educational organization focused on government and corporate accountability.

This is a must-read article for anyone who is not yet thoroughly convinced that the US is governed by a plutocracy, a ruling class whose basis of power is the private control and ownership of socially produced wealth, also known as capitalism.

Much of the public has come to view the Obama Administration as the latest round in a quickening game of musical chairs, played by the same old politicians who owe their fortunes or their careers to the same financial institutions that destroyed the economy, each round further consolidating their unaccountable power, each round bringing fresh disillusionment.

Corporate-friendly proposals that arise organically from discussions between government and business elites brought together within old institutions [associated with elite academic institutions, primarily Harvard] funded by a long list of corporate and wealthy individual donors are much more politically viable than those coming directly from a bank lobbyist, an oil company, or a group closely affiliated with one. Corporations don’t dictate specific views, they nurture hundreds of views within a safely constrained spectrum and run with what works best.

In this article the author provides an abundance of information to show how the ruling class uses corporate funded advisory groups and think tanks associated with elite educational institutions to provide legitimate cover for their policies, and how they move their key decision makers in and out of government.

Not that anything has changed from the inception of the US. The country was founded by America's first capitalists who engineered the revolution from Great Britain because the latter's ruling class imposed too many restrictions on them. This embryonic capitalist class in American colonies saw the huge potential for the plunder of the continent's resources and saw only "savages" standing in their way if they could only separate from the mother country. 

They employed people like Thomas Paine, Patrick Henry, and the conflicted Thomas Jefferson to espouse the philosophies of the Enlightenment that challenged the rule of aristocracies and feudalism and affirmed the "natural rights of man". These ideas were enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and had a strong influence on farmers and artisans, who otherwise were lukewarm to separation, to support the revolution. 

After the revolution succeeded, the new ruling capitalist class did everything they could to contain these democratic influences.  They clearly feared the people and designed the Constitution to act as a bulwark against popular power. (Read Charles Beard's books entitled, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, and Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy, Woody Holton's Unruly Americans.)

What we see today is the near final victory of this globalized class over working people nearly everywhere in the world. Thus they engage less in the pretend games of "democracy", human and civil rights, and enforce the rule of (their) law almost exclusively against working people that is taking on the appearance of fascism.

Whether the people succumb to their rule remains to be seen. What is certain is that their system is on a collision course with the Earth's ecosystem and resource limits. If we fail to stop it, the result will be the disappearance of human and other life forms.

Violent Media Rhetoric: Beyond Tucson

from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

US political pundits and leaders not only use violent rhetoric, but support the violent actions of the Empire. Violence, and the threat of violence, is the naked mailed fist of fascism that is increasingly the character of the US ruling class.

...any discussion of media support for violence should not exclude...examples, many of which emanate from respectable, mainstream figures in the corporate media. The difference is that, in most cases, they are supporting or calling for state violence, usually against citizens of weaker countries who cannot, in most cases, defend themselves. This kind of rhetoric rarely elicits calls for greater "civility" in our public discourse, which suggests that some calls for violence are considered more acceptable than others.

The Will to Drill

by Benjamin Wallace-Wells from the NY Times. 

This is quite a lengthy article, but it will give you a very good picture of the state of oil exploration and production. 

“It’s frustrating to me,” Farnsworth told me. “It’s never going to change, but the general public always thinks, I should be able to get a gallon of gasoline, and it should be damn cheap, and whether I choose to drive a 10-mile-per-gallon car or a 40-mile-per-gallon car should have no impact on that price. We know how hard it is to explore for oil, and we know how hard it is to get it out of the deep water. And there’s been this incredible disconnect, which might have been lessened by the spill, between what people think it takes to get gasoline in their car and what we do.”

Today we are all Tunisians

by Yvonne Ridley from Redress. 

Yvonne Ridley pays tribute to the courage of the Tunisian people and reminds us of the stark fact that all the time when the deposed Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was torturing and plundering his people, he had the full support of the USA and European governments.

And my fellow Americans, do you remember the following words?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it....

Israel’s right-wing future

by Lawrence Davidson from Redress. 

Lawrence Davidson analyses the growth of fascism in Israel, arguing that this process “did not begin ... with 1967 and the taking of the occupied territories. It did not even begin in 1917 and the Balfour Declaration. It began with the very inception of Zionism.”

Return of the Kissinger model

by Adel Safty from Gulf News.

The author reports facts and provides a sound interpretation to reveal that the Obama administration is pursuing the same old strategies to maintain Israeli interests in the Middle East. The appointment of a prominent Zionist, Dennis Ross, to lead the "Israeli-Palestinian peace process" insures that no change will occur in US Middle East policies under this "change" President.

The removal of urgency and the restoration of the Kissingerian approach are not the only successes that Israel and its friends in America have scored. The recent elevation by the Obama administration of Dennis Ross to the position of influential adviser to the president in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is another.

Ross is known for his activism on behalf of Israel and for the role he played as an agent for a foreign government when he was chairman of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute in occupied Jerusalem — an organ of the Israeli government. At the Israeli Palestinian negotiations sponsored by Bill Clinton at Camp David, Ross's role was described as that of Israel's lawyer.

See also this and this.

Like most of Obama's policies and appointments, I maintain my thesis that he, like many of his predecessors, is only an "acting" President. The real decisions are made by ruling class figures behind him. That is precisely why the transition from Bush Jr. to Obama has been seamless and nothing of significance has changed. We still see the never ending wars and unrelenting attacks on social safely nets. The same ruling class is in charge, just different actors on stage.

The Koch Brothers’ Climatologist

by Russ Baker from Who What Why. 

This excellent investigative journalist illustrates how US mainstream media, in this case USA Today, covers climate change issues by using a climate change denier posing as a "climatologist" who is supported by a well-funded, conservative think tank in their report. 

The other day, USA Today ran an article reporting that 2010 had tied 2005 as the warmest year  since record-keeping began in 1880. That’s disturbing data, or course. But what really caught my eye was who they chose to question the significance of the news: a climatologist with….the Cato Institute. That’s a policy outfit heavily funded by the very companies whose emissions heat up the earth’s atmosphere.

Homeland Security's laptop seizures: Interview with Rep. Sanchez

by Glenn Greenwald from Salon. 

More thoughts by this excellent blogger and constitutional lawyer regarding the continuing erosion of civil rights in the US.

For those who regularly write and read about civil liberties abuses, it's sometimes easy to lose perspective about just how extreme and outrageous certain erosions are.  One becomes inured to them, and even severe incursions start to seem ordinary.  Such was the case, at least for me, with Homeland Security's practice of detaining American citizens upon their re-entry into the country, and as part of that detention, literally seizing their electronic products -- laptops, cellphones, Blackberries and the like -- copying and storing the data, and keeping that property for months on end, sometimes never returning it.

Earth’s hot past could be prologue to future climate

by Jeffrey Kiehl from University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

The magnitude of climate change during Earth’s deep past suggests that future temperatures may eventually rise far more than projected if society continues its pace of emitting greenhouse gases, a new analysis concludes.

If you don't have time to read this scientist's full report, please view this 3:45m video:

2010 Tied For Warmest Year on Record

from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average.

Alleged leaks from carbon storage project questioned

by Nathan Vanderklippe from Globe and Mail (Canada).

One of the solutions to capitalism's dilemma with the widespread use of fossil fuels, widely advertised in mainstream media, has been "carbon capture and storage". Here is early evidence that this solution may be hazardous to your health. Of course, only "dumb farmers" are claiming problems--what do they know?

Jane and Cameron Kerr, who own a farm near Weyburn, Sask., have cast doubt on the safety of a much-celebrated Canadian project to bury greenhouse gases after a series of bizarre incidents on their property that, they say, show those gases are escaping. After seeing accumulations of algae, unsightly sheens, strange bubbling and dead animals in and around a dug-out pond near their house, the Kerrs abandoned their property several years ago. Last summer, a consultant they hired confirmed that carbon dioxide from the Weyburn project was indeed bubbling up onto their land.

But, you should forget the "doubts". This major Canadian news agency managed to find some scientists who said:

...there may be natural explanations for many of the couple’s experiences. They also say the “smoking gun” in their consultant’s report may in fact signify nothing.

Extreme Weather Site

from The Huffington Post. 

Unlike any other post so far on my blog, this is a page, not an article on the Huffington website. However, as the incidents of extreme weather have increased in recent years, I felt that their postings on this page really capture the extreme weather occurring today. Although now we are witnessing mostly devastating floods, it was only last summer we saw severe droughts most notably in Russia and Australia. Mainstream media usually covers the events, but also usually omits any connection with climate change.

I found one exception yesterday at ABC News. Although as you can see, they still ask the question, "Is Wild Weather Evidence of Climate Change?", I find this rather encouraging.

A world in breakdown

by Paul Rogers from Open Democracy (UK).

I really don't like to post alarmist articles, but there are times when it is necessary to offset the complacency, the diversions, and reassurance of mainstream media in the face of alarming global trends. Many people here in the US need to wake up from their media-entertainment-induced stupor. 

The most harmful consequences of the world’s economic and environmental crises are likely to be felt in 2011, and to fall most harshly on millions of marginalised people. ...Some of the responses may coalesce into radical movements that will yet eclipse anything seen in the world’s financial hubs.

If and when that happens, perhaps it will be the beginning of the end of the stunning complacency that still grips banks, ministries, the financial establishments and their media. Even after the implosions of 2007-10, the elite belief persists that nothing has changed and nothing needs to change. The realities of the world’s combined environmental, economic and security problems say otherwise.

The War On Wikileaks

by John Pilger from ZCommunications.

This eminent truth-seeking journalist looks at the war being waged against WikiLeaks.

The attacks on WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, are a response to an information revolution that threatens old power orders, in politics and journalism. The incitement to murder trumpeted by public figures in the United States, together with attempts by the Obama administration to corrupt the law and send Assange to a hell hole prison for the rest of his life, are the reactions of a rapacious system exposed as never before. 

The 10 Things That Would Be Different If The Federal Reserve Had Never Been Created

by Tyler Durden from The Economic Collapse. 

About all I know about this author is that, although not in the mainstream, he is a widely respected and read financial-investment analyst. His main website is Zero Hedge. From my study of money creation and the Fed, I believe his arguments are "right on the mark".

The vast majority of Americans, including many of those who believe that they are "educated" about the Federal Reserve, do not really understand how the Federal Reserve really makes money for the international banking elite.

There's a very good reason Sarah Palin can be elected President

by Ed Martin from OpEd News.

This offers a good rebuttal to the comments I made on yesterday's post on the same subject.

Masters of hate locked and loaded

by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times Online. 

After Palin's video release yesterday in which she continues her stupid portrayal of herself as a victim, it appears that the right-wing of the ruling class is preparing to dump her. I believe it is only because she is seen as a rather bumbling "useful idiot" by the right-wing in the US. See this. Clearly her political handlers are not very competent.

For future historians who want to find the moment when Sarah Palin chose life as a culture warrior over life as a legitimate contender for White House, this moment is likely to be it. [from CNN]

It is revealing to note that, although it appears that Palin has lost favor with the ruling class, very little is reported in mainstream media about the rest of the hateful, violence filled rhetoric of the other right-wing pundits supported by the right-wing in the ruling class. 

There's no evidence US hatemongers festering in the politics/talk show crossover swamp are about to be chastised. There's no evidence Republican party leaders will publicly take a stand against the "take out" rhetoric. The Arizona massacre that killed six people and wounded 14 others is already being dismissed en masse in right-wing circles as the usual isolated act of the usual deranged loner.

See also this article from the World Socialist Web Site entitled, "More evidence of right-wing links to Tucson attack".

As for all those "balanced" commentaries in mainstream media that claim both sides are guilty of inflammatory rhetoric, read this.

Tax the Rich to Repay Looted Social Security Money

by Allen W. Smith from Dissident Voice. 

Of course, the rich must be taxed to pay back what they've stolen from the Social Security Trust Fund. But, don't bet on it happening. The American people have been so conditioned to the evil of taxes that they will put up little fight to save themselves in their old age. See this where I developed this argument in more detail. 

Only last month the Obama administration used a tax bill to further weaken the Fund in order to extend Bush's tax cuts to the rich. (See this)

One Year After Haiti Earthquake, Corporations Profit While People Suffer

by Jordan Flaherty from Dissident Voice. 

Now that mainstream media's spotlight is off Haiti and all the grand efforts of Western philanthropy to help in their recovery from last year's earthquake disaster, we now learn what is really happening with these efforts.

...it’s not just corporations who have been guilty of profiting from Haitian suffering. A recent report from the Disaster Accountability Project (DAP) describes a “significant lack of transparency in the disaster-relief/aid community,” and finds that many relief organizations have left donations for Haiti in their bank accounts, earning interest rather than helping the people of Haiti. DAP director, Ben Smilowitz, notes that “the fact that nearly half of the donated dollars still sit in the bank accounts of relief and aid groups does not match the urgency of their own fundraising and marketing efforts and donors’ intentions, nor does it covey the urgency of the situation on the ground.”

See also this from Mother Jones.

Time out

 This illustrates that "the more things change, the more they stay the same", especially in US politics. These ploys that the ruling class uses to manage their population seem to always work. I imagine the next ploy will be to select a woman candidate to promise all kinds of changes. 

Mainstream media will help create all the hoopla over her, and soon all America will "go bananas" over this candidate. 

Palin looked promising for a while to the ruling class, but it appears that she bumbled the opportunity with her release of yesterday's video that portrayed herself as a victim of the Arizona shooting.

120 Seconds Of Gerald Celente Kicking Wall Street's Ass [2:13m video]

from The Daily Bail. 

Text from YouTube page: While millions of Americans are unemployed and the national debt is soaring, it seems top financial executives are far from feeling the pinch.  A recent Wall Street Journal survey estimates they'll receive a staggering $144 billion dollars in compensation and benefits this year.

I don't usually go for rants in which more heat than light is shed. but this one makes a good point about people being distracted by mainstream media.

I think that underlying the success of mainstream media in managing the minds of ordinary people is a comprehensive indoctrination apparatus provided mainly by educational institutions whose aims for its subjects are to instill obedience to authorities and to avoid instruction in independent, critical thinking. Supporting the educational institutions are the many top-down authority structures, governed and monitored by the capitalist class that pervades all other societal institutions, in order to reinforce authoritarian thinking and to punish those who stray from it.

As a result of this pervasive authoritarian influence, ordinary people regard the talking heads on TV as authorities who, like parents, have their best interests at heart and mostly tell the truth. It is hard for them to believe that these authorities mostly lie in the service of their authorities, and this process extends all the way up the chains of authorities to the ruling capitalist class.

Hence, it follows from this system point of view that we must change the engine that drives nearly all of society--the capitalist system, a system which is designed to serve a few at the expense of the many. And it is no longer only a matter of social justice, it is now a matter of human survival. This system, so addicted to the consumption of energy and materials, is fundamentally in conflict with an ecological system that can support human life and many other current life forms.

A broader question might be posed: Is the human creature, that is uniquely endowed with an advanced brain, capable of creating a system that is in harmony with the Earth's ecology, or will it just be another failed evolutionary experiment that was able to survive only for a brief moment in geological time? It is up to us to answer that question, and we must answer it soon because time is running out.

Ecological civilization

by Fred Magdoff, excerpts from article in Monthly Review.


A few days ago I read the full article in Monthly Review, but found it a bit too lengthy for my postings. So I am grateful that "BA" provided these excerpts from the article. I like positive articles like this that illustrate how society could be, and must be, organized to serve the needs of everyone, unlike under capitalism which serves only the selfish, neurotic needs of a few.

...nearly the entire world is now part of a global capitalist system, which is, at its heart, an anti-environmental economic/social system. Having accumulation of capital without end as its motivating force and only goal, capitalism creates environmental havoc locally, regionally, and globally.

... The accumulation of capital, the driving and motivating force of capitalism, leads naturally to many consequences that harm the environment. The system proceeds assuming—contrary to all evidence—unlimited resources (including cheap energy) and unlimited natural “sinks” for wastes generated.

Hence, in contrast to the assertions of neoliberal capitalists, the author clearly shows that there are alternatives.

An ecological society is one that will need to be the opposite of capitalism in essentially all aspects. It would:

   1. stop growing when basic human needs are satisfied;
   2. not entice people to consume more and more;
   3. protect natural life support systems and respect the limits to natural resources, taking into account needs of future generations;
   4. make decisions based on long-term societal/ecological needs, while not neglecting short-term needs of people;
   5. run as much as possible on current (including recent past) energy instead of fossil fuels;
   6. foster the human characteristics and a culture of cooperation, sharing, reciprocity, and responsibility to neighbors and community;
   7. make possible the full development of human potential; and
   8. promote truly democratic political and economic decision making for local, regional, and multi-regional needs.

And: 

Decisions are made—to as great an extent as possible—at the level where the effects will be most felt. Self-regulation in this sense is democratic self-governing and needs to occur at the workplace, community, multi-community, regional, and multi-regional levels, so that major political and economic decisions are in the hands of an empowered populace. A system of economic and political democracy provides better identification of, and solutions to, problems. ... 

Prophets of War: How Defense Contractor Lockheed Martin Dominates the Military Establishment

from AlterNet. 

The article contains excerpts from a new book by William D. Hartung with this title.

Lockheed-Martin is a huge defense contractor that is involved in so many nefarious activities. This corporation is one of the most, if not THE most, powerful corporations in the military-industrial complex, which in turn, is the most powerful section of the US capitalist ruling class. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, this section of the ruling class has found the "war on terrorism" to be a very lucrative substitute for the Cold War as a justification for the huge US expenditures of war-making machines and security services.

While contracts for supplying weapons for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a significant part of Lockheed Martin’s business, the new company that has taken form since the merger boom of the 1990s has a far wider reach. These activities include everything from involvement in interrogation and police training to profiting from the new post-9/11 wave of domestic surveillance activities. 

False Paradox: Reflections on the American Profits-Jobs Disconnect

by Paul Street from ZNet. 

The author does a good job of explaining all the lies about governmental and business concerns related to creating more jobs.

There’s little mysterious about the disconnect between profits and jobs for those willing and able to look beyond the trickle-down theory’s naïve assumption of an identity of interests between the rich and the rest of us.

As Austerity Bites, Police Get More Brutal

by Apostolis Fotiadis from IPS. 

This report illustrates how the capitalist ruling class reveals it hidden mailed fist when it can no longer manage its population with the institutions of fake democracy. The Greek people are beginning to understand this.

"This is what happens in countries ruled by authoritarian regimes, not in a European democracy."

See, I Told You So Comes Back Around to Bite Rush Limbaugh

by Ed Martin from OpEd News. 

I've noticed that mainstream media has been going out of its way to defend the inflammatory rhetoric of its right-wing pundits. 

See also, "Republicans and Their Guns", and "Sarah Palin’s Cross Hairs – and Obama’s".

Government-created climate of fear

by Glenn Greenwald from Salon. 

This popular blogger among progressives is also a constitutional lawyer and author. Thus, his remarks in this article about the function of "the rule of law" in the US is particularly interesting: it clearly shows that he as changed his views. It very much appears that he, too, is beginning to see the fact of the growing fascism in the US. 

(I try not to use political words carelessly. So often the word fascism is used merely as a buzz word to denote something very bad, or a slur. What I mean by it is a highly centralized rule representing the interests of corporations and political authorities that uses brute force, or the threat of force, to intimidate people into submitting to government authorities.)

Downturn's Ugly Trademark: Steep, Lasting Drop in Wages

by Sudeep Reddy from The Wall Street Journal.

The author provides a lot concrete examples of how the (bankster engineered) economic collapse is affecting American workers--only he doesn't mention all the psychological and social devastation that is occurring and will increasingly occur in the days ahead: depression, marital problems, divorces, behavior problems in children, suicides, increasing crime, homelessness, loss of job skills, etc. These effects will happen unless, of course, we organize some kind of resistance and make changes in the existing economic arrangements.

Obits for "Fabled Hero" of Vietnam War, Vang Pao, Omit CIA Drug Connection

by Conn Hallinan from Foreign Policy in Focus. (About the author.) 

The author reveals what is hidden in mainstream media's innocuous reports on the demise of a former Vietnamese who in actuality was a CIA collaborator in the drug business during the tragic Vietnam War. It is reports like this that can recover real information that was suppressed when the events were happening. It is often hazardous for the health of journalists to report such things.

A fine journalist, Gary Webb, employed by the San Jose Mercury, who in 1996 wrote a series of fine reports regarding CIA involvement in illicit drug operations, found himself blacklisted, his career destroyed, and died mysteriously in 2004.

Deepening crisis traps America's have-nots

by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard from The Telegraph.

Raghuram Rajan, the IMF’s former chief economist, argues that the subprime debt build-up was an attempt – “whether carefully planned or the path of least resistance” – to disguise stagnating incomes and to buy off the poor.

“The inevitable bill could be postponed into the future. Cynical as it might seem, easy credit has been used throughout history as a palliative by governments that are unable to address the deeper anxieties of the middle class directly,” he said. 

I have observed that mainstream media has managed to condition the American people to view any taxes as evil incarnate.  I came to this realization quite recently with the results of a ballot initiative in Washington State that called for an income tax on people earning over $200,000 a year. It was defeated! As a result, this state, as many others, is drastically cutting back on social, medical, educational, and other government services that mostly impact poor people.

In contrast, people have been led to believe that credit is just fine, that funding local infrastructure and services through the purchase of bonds is just fine, while signing up for onerous mortgage loans on homes was greatly encouraged and celebrated ("the ownership society'). Meanwhile the 30 year destruction of well paying jobs and the suppression of wages has continued. Do you see a pattern here? 

Well, by design or not, the end result is what we have today--Americans and a large part of the world indebted to a tiny group of capitalists. Welcome to neo-feudalism!

Arizona's Long Dark Night Continues

by Randall Amster from Huffington Post. 

The open persecution of people of color at the level of both bodies and minds; the outright hijacking of the state's politics by far-right figures with white supremacist ties; the bankrupting of the economy while private interests gain tax breaks and write favorable laws for themselves; the decimation of the public infrastructure including the education and health care systems -- all of this and more has been front and center for beleaguered Arizonans in recent years.

I've often had my suspicions about all the violent metaphors and imagery used by the rabid right wing in the US. I can't believe that they use such language without being aware of how it inflames unstable people to commit literal violent acts as we witnessed this past weekend in Arizona. My suspicion is that they aim to encourage such incidents to justify an ever increasing and oppressive police state in the US. The Empire's fascists evidently feel that they need to secure their American center as they increasingly feel their domination of the world slipping away.

Wikileaks: Bradley Manning and the Rule of Law

by Kevin Zeese from Global Research. 

I think that there is a pronounced element of naiveté running through this article. But it is very common among progressives and liberals. I am referring to the "rule of law" that is often invoked to criticize the actions of the capitalist Empire. 

Once again, I insist that progressives grow up. The "rule of law" is used by the ruling classes to obscure the fact that they, the ruling capitalist classes, rule, and rule according to their interests, that is, to secure total domination of working people and accumulation of wealth. 

Think of the "rule of law" as an adult fairy tale designed to have working people believe that life under their regimes is fair and just. As is often cynically expressed, the "rule of law" is more like a "golden rule of law"--those that have the gold rule.

Look how they are treating Bradley Manning. The authorities in this case don't even bother with legal procedures. He hasn't been charged with any crime and yet they have been holding him in dehumanizing solitary confinement for six months.

There are lots of adult fairy tales used to hide the realities of class rule such as capitalist governments are democracies, the elections they stage are legitimate means of securing democracy, we have freedom of the press, the virtuous "founding fathers" designed the perfect political system, all citizens enjoy equal political rights, etc.

Laws are a reality, but a reality only for working people, not for those that rule. They make the rules, but those rules don't apply to them, only to us. How many banksters have you seen arrested for the crimes they committed while creating the current economic collapse? Only one--Bernie Madoff! He made the mistake of stealing from fellow members of the ruling class. 

How many war criminals have stood trial for their crimes? Only leaders of defeated nations or leaders of small countries are tried for war crimes. The ruling capitalist classes have a code of conduct that is very similar to the Mafia--you don't snitch on, or steal from, or harm each other unless members break these rules or are very minor players. 

The ruling class has established the institutions of law to present a thin veneer of legitimacy to their rule while enforcing their will upon us. To sum up, they make the rules of law. They enforce them only on us. And finally, they fool us into thinking that the system is legitimate so that we obey them without question.

The Pentagon's Planet of Bases

by Nick Turse from TomDispatch. (You may want to skip Engelhardt's introduction by scrolling down to the article.)

In a world of statistics and precision, a world in which “accountability” is now a Washington buzzword, a world where all information is available at the click of a mouse, there’s one number no American knows.  Not the president.  Not the Pentagon.  Not the experts.  No one. 

This has puzzled me also. There have been so many widely varying numbers thrown out about the number of bases that it has been hard to know what to believe. I once tried to access data and ended up with total confusion. However, this is the best coverage on this question that I have seen.

Spinning Unemployment in a Collapsing Empire

by Paul Craig Roberts from OpEd News. 

...what fell was not the number of unemployed people but the number of unemployed people who are actively looking for work. Those who have become discouraged and have ceased looking for work are not considered to be in the work force and are not counted as unemployed in the U.3 measure. The unemployment rate fell because discouraged workers increased, not because employment rose.

If the Fraud Stops, the Financial System Collapses

by Charles Hugh Smith from his blog. 

Unfortunately, this is the only entry I could find for today--and I found this at the last minute before my deadline of noon, Seattle time. Briefly, I think he makes many good points, but where I differ is that I believe that the capitalist system is INHERENTLY corrupt--the system IS organized crime. And it has always been that way, only now it is much worse.

Fraud, collusion, embezzlement, manipulation and misrepresentation of risk are not isolated incidents, they are now the essential fabric of our entire financial system.

Though fraud and complicity are presented in the mainstream media as isolated conspiracies outside the status quo, the truth is that the status quo is now entirely dependent on fraud and complicity for its very survival. Every level of the status quo would immediately implode were fraud and complicity suddenly withdrawn from the system.