Ten reasons why new nuclear was a mistake – even before Fukushima

by Alexis Rowell from Transition Culture.

The author reviews ten arguments against nuclear energy. However, his "solutions" lack validity. 

This liberal opinion source totally misses the fact that a capitalist system requires cheap energy to feed its growth imperative. Thus, to exist the system only has one alternative, and that is to use nuclear power. Alternative sources such as wind, solar, bio-mass cannot provide this. That is precisely why we will continue to see corporate sponsored media and corporate sponsored political leaders like Obama pushing nuclear power. 

The same avoidance of the core problem is illustrated by the article entitled, "Unsafe at Any Screed: Can People Power Overcome Nuclear Power?". This author does go a little further by timidly making reference to a "military-industrial complex" and the need for "citizen action". As an academic employed at Prescott College, it may be that he doesn't dare go further in order to secure his employment and standing in the academic community which are closely supervised by capitalist authorities.

Capitalists are like hard core heroine addicts, they will go to their deaths (and ours) to preserve their addiction--in this case, their addiction to profits and power; and directly associated with the latter is the exploitation of working people, global domination, and wars.

There are alternatives to this system which, if we are to avoid the scourges of climate change, environmental destruction, resource depletion, and associated social disasters, we simply must create before it is too late. (See the alternatives on the right-hand side near the bottom of this blog-page.)

MR Original -- Re-Creating Revolutionary Communities

by Abby Martin from OpEd News. 

The author reports on Cindy Sheehan's call for people to start organizing in their communities to take care of their basic needs. I think that this ultimately must be the direction that we have to go in. I just question whether it is yet possible given the level of political consciousness existing thus far in the US.

There needs to be a kind of critical mass of a political consciousness to develop before the existing social-economic system and its masters can be challenged. Then it might be possible for an organized, politically aware grass-roots to bring about fundamental change to a new system. I don't believe we in the US are there yet. Too many people still believe the information delivered to them from corporate managed media, and are resistant to critical views.

I'm also bothered a bit by Sheehan's apparent need to always be in the spotlight of activity. The extreme individualism promoted by capitalism in the US has frequently spilled over into even more radical types of political activism. Too often, we see individuals trying to make a name for themselves in the media by making dramatic political statements, and putting much less effort into working toward collective organizing. After learning of her trip a year ago to Venezuela and her "audience" with Hugo Chavez, my doubts about her political consciousness have increased. Her political consciousness may be evolving, but I am skeptical that she is where she needs to be. 

Japan's Nuclear Calamity Compounded by History of Neglecting Safety, Downplaying Accidents

by Kevin Gosztola from OpEd News. 

Capitalism works the same the world over: corporate profits trump every other consideration. Why capitalists are allowed to run dangerous nuclear facilities like any other profit oriented business is quite astonishing to me. But then, why should I be astonished? Capitalists own and control their governments.

...BBC reported years ago, "A pervasive culture of secrecy that is commonplace in corporate Japan, and traditional hostility to whistleblowers, make it hard for the industry to change." It seems like it was going to take a disaster of this magnitude to shock Japan into changing or maybe an international diplomatic crisis brought on by WikiLeaks to alter how the industry functioned in Japan.

In another report, the BBC expounded on accidents & secrecy in Japan. Satoshi Fujino, public relations officer at the Citizens' Nuclear Information Centre in Tokyo, mentions an "extremely lax" safety appraisal process and "very haphazard" inspections carried out after the process all make the industry prone to accidents.

International Citizens Radiation Monitoring Network

from Washington's Blog. 

If we could rely on the Japanese and American governments to inform us of any danger, we wouldn't have to be so vigilant.

While mainstream media mostly assures us that we in the US have nothing to worry about in relation to the ever-worsening nuclear disaster in Japan, the author here has given us some useful sources of information, and advises on how we can take action to protect ourselves.

Tax Haven USA attracts over $3 trillion in foreign dirty money

by Nick Shaxson from his blog.

The number comes from a letter to Tim Geithner, US Treasury Secretary, sent by every single member of the Florida Delegation to the House of Representatives. 

The world's capitalists work together to keep their money from being taxed. Maybe that is why there are so many national and local governments in debt: little revenue coming in because rich people don't pay taxes.

Redefining Governmental 'Power Grabs'

by Steve Benen from Washington Monthly. 

And you thought Governor Walker of Wisconsin was the worst right-winger--he has competition from Michigan's Governor Snyder. 

The fact that these right-wing political assaults are all coming at the same time in many other States suggests coordination and planning. See this and this. Nah, that sounds too much like a conspiracy. And, we all know that unlike shit, conspiracies don't happen.

Crisis casts doubt on nuke industry P.R. campaign

by Justin Elliott from Salon. 

Years of well-funded public-relations efforts have asserted that nuclear power is completely safe. 

Tokyo Electric to Build US Nuclear Plants: The no-BS info on Japan's disastrous nuclear operators

by Greg Palast from his blog. 

The author reports on the history of fraudulent tests and claims of the nuclear industry, and the likely media damage control of the effects of the unfolding crisis in Japan's nuclear disaster. 

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

Dozens of US states declare war on workers’ rights

by Tom Eley from World Socialist Web Site. 

An analysis of pending legislation in dozens of US states makes clear that both the Republican and Democratic parties are pursuing an agenda whose central aim is to eradicate the ability of workers to resist wage and budget cutting. The primary difference is that the Democratic-sponsored legislation maintains a role for the union bureaucracies in implementing the cuts, while a number of Republican bills aim to weaken or destroy the unions outright.

This latter point is very well expressed. Since WWII when a massive attack was waged against militant labor leaders as a part of the McCarthy right-wing campaigns to rid the US of most of the labor and civil rights gains made by ordinary people in the 1930s, the US ruling class has steadily weakened the unions over the decades to where they largely consist of privileged union bureaucracies who preside over mere vestiges of what once existed. The right-wing mostly ensconced in the Republican Party want to get rid of these vestiges while the Democrats want to preserve them. The Democrats presided over the globalization of capitalism that has resulted in the shipping of much of our economy and jobs to cheap labor overseas. The two parties are simply two branches of the ruling capitalist class, and pursue slightly different strategies to extract more profits from working people.

The recent aggressive attacks of public workers may be exactly what is needed to wake up working people to the war that has been waged against them since WWII. This stealth attack aided and abetted by the Democratic Party has been very successful. It has obscured the reality of the class war and weakened unions to an empty shell of what they were while greatly increasing the power of corporations and their owners, the one-percent of Americans who now essentially "own" the US. 

We presently face a powerful ruling class that has used the so-called "war on terrorism" to create a legal framework of a police state (the Patriot Acts). This has given them an arrogance and sense of omnipotence that, I believe, has fueled their current coordinated drive to crush public worker unions as a first step to destroy what is left of organized labor.

WH forces P.J. Crowley to resign for condemning abuse of Manning

by Glenn Greenwald from Salon. 

Believe it or not, there are some decent people in government. Here I am referring to US State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley, who resigned in protest over the abusive treatment of Bradley Manning. Unlike our beloved President Obama who was satisfied with the assurance given him by the Pentagon that Manning was being treated appropriately, Crowley could no longer stomach it.

So, in Barack Obama's administration, it's perfectly acceptable to abuse an American citizen in detention who has been convicted of nothing by consigning him to 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement, barring him from exercising in his cell, punitively imposing "suicide watch" restrictions on him against the recommendations of brig psychiatrists, and subjecting him to prolonged, forced nudity designed to humiliate and degrade.

As I have argued many times before, Obama is merely a figurehead like all recent Presidents. He was carefully selected and groomed because ruling class operatives saw in him a person with weak moral principles and someone who would be perfectly willing to make a Faustian bargain in order to gain a little fame and likely fortune. He was the perfect candidate: having been raised by a white banker grandmother who probably worked for the CIA in Indonesia and who instilled in him the corresponding values of serving power. See this for the details of Obama's family connections with the CIA.

Censored scientists, dirty politics and the nuclear distraction

by Erik Curren from Energy Bulletin.

With the present tragedy of Japan's earthquake, the ultimate effects of which are still unknown, this is an exceedingly timely article.
 
The author of this article is reacting to James Hansen's latest book entitled, Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. While lauding, as I do, Hansen's many activities and views in opposition to the use of fossil fuels, he is highly ambivalent about Hansen's embrace of nuclear energy. This is where I part company with both.
 
To be sure, Hansen is one of our greatest warriors in opposition to the fossil fuel industry, and has used his widely recognized scientific expertise to argue convincingly that the continued use of fossil fuels at even present rates will end in catastrophic climate change. On the other hand, I believe that his arguments for nuclear power lack conviction, and are based more on hope than science, and very little on sound economics. See this, this, and this.

Without clean, virtually unlimited quantities of power capitalism, which demands growth and increasing consumption, simply cannot continue. Hence, like a terminal heroin addict, capitalists will insist on continuing their killer habit until we all are in peril. I believe that Hansen's thinking is informed by this same belief in capitalism and the widespread assumption "that there is no alternative" (TINA). 

The capitalist ruling classes have been highly successful in propagating this view through their comprehensive control of information media, education, and the film industry. And, if we continue to believe in TINA and act accordingly, humanity will surely perish from the Earth.  IT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE!

There are alternatives. See the ones listed at the top right hand side of this blog.

Get Ready for The Nuclear Energy Spin Assault

by Rob Kall from OpEd News. 

The tragedy in Japan will quickly produce an army of PR flacks, fighting to protect the interests of those who have a stake in the building and maintaining of nuclear reactors and related nuclear energy facilities.

...The industry's primary corporations will work together to establish teams assigned to minimize damage and control message.

The author goes on to cite examples of this damage control that is already happening in major media outlets.

From "Morning in America" to the Nightmare on Main Street

by Henry A. Giroux from Truthout. 

I find that Giroux is one of the most insightful observers of world events. In the article he tries to warn us that the...

...policies that informed Reagan's neoliberal agenda have given way to the intense assault now being waged by his more extremist governmental descendants on all vestiges of the democratic state. This brutal evisceration includes a rejection and devaluing of the welfare state, unions, public values, young people, public and higher education; and other political, social and economic institutions and forces in American life that provide a counterweight against the political power of mega-corporations, the rich and the powerful.

In the middle of the article is an audio link to a 54 minute interview he gave on a recent broadcast from Santa Fe Public Radio station. (This is separate from the text in the article.) In this interview he looks at the protests across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East as a growing global fightback by mostly youth against the crushing neo-liberal policies being implemented in many places of the world by the global capitalist elites.

Higher Learning

by Chris Lehman from New Left Project. 

This excerpt from the author's book describes the neo-conservative trends of higher education in the US. With all the talk coming from Obama, the "change" President, about the importance of higher education, one would think that the state of higher education in the US would be quite rosy. This piece shows the continuing reality of reactionary forces at work on higher education.

...the once-noble dream of a universal higher learning has been transformed, as have so many other social goods in America, into a brutally class-segmented market.

The big money still goes into the elite Eastern Seaboard schools—and students at those institutions get customized, grade-inflated, kid glove treatment in lavishly appointed campuses and physical plants.

Meanwhile, at the under-regulated frontier reaches of the college market, students are thrown largely back on their own resources—and systematically lied to by recruiters - mainly to furnish market subsidies in the form of federal aid to benefit a group of private investors. These shareholders evince no particular interest in educational quality, let alone the benefits that a liberal arts curriculum might bestow on a democratic citizenry. Indeed, it would be utterly irrational for them to cling to such notions, since doing so would only increase the company’s production costs while dramatically narrowing its consumer base. 

Inching Towards Intervention

by Graham Usher from Al-Ahram. 

This writer provides a much broader view of Libyan events than what mainstream media in the US reports as "news".

Libya is a media as well as a ground war. Diplomats admit one of the reasons the council has moved with such unwonted speed against the Gaddafi regime is less because of verifiable events than because of domestic pressure on governments fed on media reports that describe skirmishes as "battles" and moments of armed violence as "massacres".

Of course, Western governments and mainstream media represent precisely the same interests, and are presently busy preparing their populations for intervention in Libya.

Upheaval and the Return of Pan-Arabism

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Voltaire. 

I'm not sure how useful his categories of Arab states are, but this article provides a very useful and succinct report on the current state of unrest in the various countries of the region. It also illustrates the favorite strategy of the US-European-Israeli axis, like all hegemonies, to maintain their rule in the region: divide and conquer. He suggests that a new pan-Arabism is forming to counter this.

The interests of the U.S. government, Brussels, and Israel are to keep the Arabs in a feeble state and divided. There is, however, a new dynamic that is emerging in the Arab World. It is this new dynamic that is emerging from these upheavals and protests that will challenge the Yinon Approach that is continuously being implemented against the Arab peoples. Pan-Arabism is this new dynamic and it has made its return as a potent force. The trend of decades of divisions can eventually be reversed. Nor will the issue of Palestine be left in the hands of outside powers for much longer.

Big Data mining: Who owns your social network data?

by Paul Krill from InfoWorld.

An attractive application of Hadoop and other Big Data technologies is to analyze users' social activities, sometimes without their express knowledge

Investors are always looking to places where they can "make a killing", and many are training their sights on software that is capable of mining information from Facebook, Twitter, emails, etc. They know that money can be made by selling information. However, such sources present difficult problems regarding "ownership" which, of course, is one of the foundations of the capitalist religion. I'm sure they'll sort it out and make big profits. 

You didn't know that capitalism was a religion? Yes, indeed. It is faith-based: the followers believe in the beneficial "invisible hand" of the market. Just ask Ken Fisher, columnist with Forbes Magazine. 

I believe in capitalism. Capitalism to me is a spiritual concept. Democracy just gets in the way. Democracy is annoying. Let them buy stuff and eat cake. Where I come from if you don't believe in capitalism you're going to hell.

You didn't really think that social networking software was devised to merely bring people together, did you? In a capitalist theocracy, nearly everything ends up by providing a few people with profits. Capitalist worshipers believe that nothing can possibly happen unless people can make money from it. And the money made from creating something usually does not go to the creators, but to the "owners" of enterprises where the creation happens. 

Many people who do not subscribe to this religion believe that all creative activity cannot be merely a product of individual efforts, but derived from the work of other contemporaries and, especially, from the efforts of many past generations of people (workers) who contributed time and creativity in solving other related problems. Hence, they believe that such creations are social property. And, they also believe that solving problems, creating things which make life easier, more secure, and happier are intrinsically rewarding for their creators.

Pentagon Places Its Bet on a General in Egypt

by Elisabeth Bumiller from NY Times (free registration required).

As you read this article, notice the close relationships between Egyptian military leaders and the Pentagon. This is the way the US Empire controls its satellites: through the lavish support of the military of these countries by providing them with military weapons, training, junkets to the US, etc. This strategy serves to insure that the military in the various regions of the Empire are wedded to the US military-financial-industrial complex. With this relationship comes shared interests, perspectives, and support of global capitalism.

Today General Enan, a favorite of the American military, is the second in command among the group of generals moving toward some form of democracy in Egypt. In meetings of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, he sits to the right of its leader, the 75-year-old defense minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and is considered his potential successor. In the meantime, American officials say, General Enan, 63, has become a crucial link for the United States as it navigates the rocky course ahead with Cairo.

The Film: "Inside Job" and an Offer

by Ron Horn.

I viewed the documentary film, "Inside Job", a few days ago and found that it provided an excellent examination of the banking-mortgage scam which brought down nearly every Western capitalist economy. Although it won an Oscar in the Best Documentary category, I fear that it will not be widely distributed to cinemas in the US outside of college towns. And, I believe it is essential viewing to educate people on the origins of the current economic crisis that the ruling class is using to engage in further attacks on working people.

THE OFFER: I will have DVDs of "Inside Job" sent (free of charge) to the first ten people in the US who feel that they cannot otherwise access this movie. This offer assumes that supplies of the DVDs will be available. Contact me through the "About Me" section of this blog with your address and whether you want the film in DVD or Blu-Ray format.

Do or die in Wisconsin

by Lee Sustar from Socialist Worker. 

The writer argues that the weak responses by union leaders has motivated Governor Walker of Wisconsin and his corporate backers to pursue their latest attack on public workers.

Whether or not the anger of the union rank and file will push union officials into action is unclear. "Right now, what I am seeing from the labor leadership is a lack of response," said J. Eric Cobb, executive director of the Building Trades Council of South Central Wisconsin. Top union leaders have been in a reactive mode, rather than leading, he said.

And concludes his analysis with this:

If union leaders won't move face up to this battle, then the rank and file that has already showed so much strength and determination must take the initiative again. Unions have to respond to Walker by fighting as if their lives depend on it--because they do.

When Will You Fully Engage in the Class War?

by Sherry Linkon and John Russo from New Haven Advocate. 

For the last month, the attacks on public sector unions in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere dominated national news. The target is not just unions but on labor in general. But state bills barring or restricting collective bargaining are just one battlefront in a growing war on the working class — a war that will have consequences for the middle class, too.

There are now some signs in the US that working people who are being directly targeted for cut-backs and union smashing, as is now happening in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana, are beginning to wake up to the realities of this class war. 

But the ignorance of most Americans about the important issues of today is appalling. Whether working people can wake up soon enough to wage a successful war to save themselves is a big question. Especially since WWII, they have been subject to the most sophisticated campaigns of information management through the ruling class's control of media, educational institutions, and the film industry (see this). Only now when workers are being directly targeted can they see the realities of this class war that is so hidden and distorted by mainstream media.

As always, the strategy of choice is divide and conquer. Right-wing mainstream media are attempting to separate out public workers from the workforce for their first attack. For example, see this. Likewise, they are stepping up their campaigns to target American Muslims.

The more liberal section of mainstream media will frame it as a political battle between Republicans and Democrats. Both, of course, represent the interests of the capitalist ruling class simply because they both are sponsored by this class in order to maintain the illusion of choice, of "democracy". This technique has been very effective as we have seen in the past few years. (If you have nearly 2 hours to spare, and you need further details about capitalist style "democracy", I suggest you view this documentary.)

In 2008 Obama made all kinds of promises about "change", and he and many Democrats were voted into office. But, as usual, very little change has occurred. (See this and this.) The pattern has been repeated many times over the decades, and as a result, many working people no longer bother to vote. 

Others that do vote, merely vote to "throw the [current] rascals out". This is precisely what happened in last year's Congressional and US state elections, and as a result, many Republicans, who nowadays are rabid right-wingers, were voted into office and are now engaged in aggressive class war. So, you can see how the ruling class uses these managed elections to provide a veneer of legitimacy to their governments and justify their attacks on workers. 

Stealing from Social Security to Pay for Wars and Bailouts

by Paul Craig Roberts from Foreign Policy Journal. 

This former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under the Reagan administration, as a former insider, knows of what he writes. In this piece he reports on how Social Security Trust funds have been used to finance wars and for bailouts of banksters.

Alas, Social Security is an unfunded liability, because all the money working people put into it was stolen by Republicans and Democrats in order to pay for wars and bailouts for mega-rich bankers like Goldman Sachs.

I surmise that he is an old fashioned conservative who, from having been inside the government, saw the rise of neoconservativism in the US and has been thoroughly disillusioned by it.

As I see it, the latter, as a political philosophy, is really only an intellectual cover to hide a naked class war waged by the "one percent", who own every significant economic enterprise in the US, against US workers who they no longer need--they have found much cheaper workers elsewhere.

Refusing to Accept Concessions in Wisconsin: United we can win!

by Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer from Global Research.

As is typically the case, Wisconsin union officials lag behind workers who are increasingly becoming aware of their power. The fight in Wisconsin waged by right-wing, corporate backed Gov. Walker is an attempt to destroy public worker unions and privatize the State government. Through the sustained efforts of the workers and protesters, citizens of Wisconsin are piercing through the veil of corporate funded mass media coverage, and people are beginning to understand the real political and economic issues at stake.

Ordinary people get it immediately when presented with the facts about the growing inequalities in wealth, the ever-decreasing taxes on the rich and the corporations, and the increasingly difficult struggle of working people to maintain a dignified standard of living. Instead of capitulating to the polls, unions must launch their own offensive, stand up for what is right, educate the public by purchasing one-page ads in Wisconsin newspapers across the state, lay out all the facts clearly, and then let the people of Wisconsin make an informed decision. Union officials must not abandon public opinion to the corporate-owned media.

Tripoli under fire in media information war

from Russia Today.

This source has been providing excellent coverage of events in Libya. In this article they provide numerous short videos of interviews with knowledgeable independent journalists. 

Hillary Clinton: US Losing Information War to Alternative Media [3:43m video]

from Russia Today.

In the video you will see Clinton and the Voice of America representative using the term "we" when they mean US ruling class interests. It is clear that the ruling class is losing the fight to control the minds of working people the world over, and they are panicking. Hence, the aggressive attacks on WikiLeaks.                            

The perfect (desert) storm

by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times Online.

The problem now is that the West is simply clueless on what post-Gaddafi Libya could turn out to be. The "rebels" include everyone from progressive, secular intellectuals to hardcore Islamists and neo-liberal-addicted businessmen. Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt - which can be monitored and even relatively tamed by Washington/Brussels.

Libya without Gaddafi could be a complex collection of clannish tribes with no experience of Western-style political culture slouching towards "anarchy". Thus the reasoning for a NATO intervention; so "we", the enlightened, can control those barbarians' worst impulses, facilitate an "orderly transition" (US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, anyone?) and profit from their energy wealth. Besides, the Mediterranean is a NATO lake already.

US Counter-Terrorism Training 'presents Islam as inherently violent'

by Ed Pilkington from the Guardian.

Evidence is surfacing that the...

US government is ... pumping millions of dollars into unregulated training schemes for local police officers and other law enforcers that give a distorted, dangerous and inflammatory picture of the Muslim faith.

Introducing another alternative to capitalism

The basic name of this alternative is "resource-based economy". I recently discovered this alternative on the internet and the recent film based on this system entitled, "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward", a 2 hour and 41 minute film which can be viewed over the internet or purchased as a DVD. 

I purchased it and viewed it yesterday. I think the film is excellent and highly recommend it. Subsequently, I started looking into other internet material on the Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Movement and was less impressed. But, these are only my initial reactions. If this movement continues to gain traction, I likely will be furnishing more material and comments on it. Having said that, I don't think that this alternative precludes the other alternatives that I've listed on the upper right hand section of this blog.

After viewing the film, I was left with the startling impression that we may be presently on the verge of a new Renaissance very similar to what began in the late 13th and 14th centuries. Then, scholars and astronomers began to use evidence-based methods to unlock the mysteries of the universe and discovered truths that were at considerable variance with the truths approved by the Catholic Church and lay authorities. 

Gradually, over time as rigorous scientific methods were refined, many more discoveries were made that resulted in the application of labor saving machines powered by wind or water. With the discovery of fossil fuel energy, the industrial revolution took off under the system of private ownership (capitalism). This new powerful dynamic has brought great productive benefits, but also tremendous carnage in the forms of wars, famine, and social dislocations. Now we are facing the prospects of energy/resource exhaustion and dramatic changes in climate that will not support human life.

Once again, it appears that there is a huge gap between the knowledge that humanity possesses and those who rule over societies and prevent the beneficial applications of that knowledge. The first Renaissance took hundreds of years to break the hold of religious and aristocratic authorities. Unfortunately, today we have very little time available to break the hold of current capitalist authorities over the vitally needed scientific applications to preserve humanity and the health of the planet. (See the next article for an example of recent scientific research, the findings of which will not be applied under the current regime of capitalism.)

Eco-Farming Can Double Food Production in 10 Years

from Climate and Capitalism.

I am not a trained scientist, nor have I surveyed scientific literature to see if this research has been peer reviewed and approved, but the fact that it has been endorsed by the UN and translated into four other languages in addition to English leads me to believe that it has credibility. 

So, proceeding with some confidence that the findings are correct, what do you think the chances are that any action will be taken to implement them to prevent the current millions of people from starving to death each year? They are nil...that is, they are nil as long as the current system of capitalism exists. Why? In the words of one expert quoted in the article:

Private companies will not invest time and money in practices that cannot be rewarded by patents and which don’t open markets for chemical products or improved seeds.”

Thus, he calls for public funding and philanthropy to step in. What chance is there for that happening with the increasingly aggressive neo-liberal strategies of the ruling classes? NIL. The only hope for working people the world over is to deconstruct the capitalist system and create a system that promotes the best science to serve the health, welfare, and happiness of everyone.
 

Mexico's Hot Money Challenge

by Manuel Perez-Rocha from Foreign Policy in Focus. 

The article illustrates how international "free trade" agreements restrict the options that individual governments have to provide stability for their economies. An economy is merely the systems whole societies use to supply the material needs of its citizens. Free trade policies have been imposed on many nations by the Empire to serve the interests of its ruling capitalist classes while reigning havoc on the lives of working people.

For a country like Mexico, which is suffering from the escalating violence of President Felipe Calderon’s drug war, the volatility of financial flows could have a devastating impact on long-term stability.

Pro-Democracy Protests Spread to Oman

by Stephen Zunes from Foreign Policy in Focus. 

While US media focuses almost exclusively on the Libyan uprising, there are more troubling, and unreported, developments for the Empire' satraps on the Arabian peninsula affecting the Empire's vital interests.

Although most Americans may not be familiar with Oman, Omanis are certainly familiar with the United States and its support for the sultan. The growing unrest will make it difficult for the United States to remain silent about the severity of the country’s problems. Oman is yet one more test of whether the Obama administration will continue to back an autocratic status quo in allied Arab countries or respect the wishes of their people, manifested through large-scale nonviolent action.

The "Badger Advocates": Corporate Advocates, Not UW-Madison Advocates

by Steve Horn from The Center for Media and Democracy. 

Corporations, calling themselves "Badger Advocates, are stepping up their attacks on not only State workers, but on the University of Wisconsin in their drive to place everything under the control of "market forces." The real aim is, of course, to further reduce their taxes that support public enterprises by privatizing the latter.

They frame this latest move as creating greater "autonomy" and cutting red-tape for the University of Wisconsin. Here is the essence of what they are proposing:

...the state would reduce funding to the universities; in exchange, the universities would be given new outcome-based autonomy in their day-to-day operations. The universities would be given more flexibility to set tuition, negotiate faculty contracts, and undergo capital projects, pursuant to meeting a number of accountability goals. As more goals are attained, more autonomy is granted by the state.

...Wisconsin, ...has traditionally had a “high state aid, low tuition” system of financing its university system. Currently, state government appropriates slightly over $1 billion per year to the University of Wisconsin System, which allows it to have the second-lowest tuition in the Big Ten Conference.

Since the merger of the UW System in the early 1970s, the taxpayer subsidy to the state’s public universities, which currently stands at over $1 billion annually, has served to insulate the UW from market forces.

Fox News' "Madison Protest" Footage Aims to Deceive [2:09m video]

by Anne Landman from The Center for Media and Democracy. 

Just when one thinks that Fox News can't get any worse, along comes fake news coverage like this.

Standoff in Wisconsin [3:18m video]

An interview with a Wisconsin protester from Real News.


Hopefully, the thinking of this worker-protester is representative of a large section of the workers in Wisconsin. If it is, it represents a tectonic shift away from worker trust of mainstream media. Such a development would be extremely dangerous for the ruling class.

 ...I think it has to do with just all of us having come together and discussing this issue and probably talking to one another rather than listening to the mainstream media and realizing more broadly where these problems emanate--from where they emanate and what are the true solutions.

Ronald Reagan: "Where Free Unions and Collective Bargaining are Forbidden, Freedom is Lost"

from Washington's Blog. [9:55m video]

This blogger does good by digging up this fine example of what passes for the "democratic" process here in the US. The ruling class hires personable speech-givers like Reagan, Clinton, and Obama to pander to the dreams of working people while continuing business as usual or worse--stepping up the attacks on working people. I wonder which political operative wrote this speech.

Working people have to understand that Presidents are essentially puppets, and the people who pull their strings always function behind the staged scenes. They may be likable people themselves, but some weakness in their character permits them to be used by others in exchange for the fame of being "President".  What they really are, are super-salesmen for the financial-industrial-military complex.

The Reagan administration was laced with the rising fascist-Zionist operatives like Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and Richard Perle. Under their influence and others of their ilk, policies and activities were crafted that resulted in the invasions of Middle East countries. Alan Greenspan was appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and his bubble economic policies caused the huge economic collapse.

BP: While collecting windfall profits, oil giant backs away from its commitments to restore the Gulf Coast

by Michael Conathan from Climate Progress. 

...BP is doing everything in its power to drop the curtain on last spring’s fiasco as quickly as possible, allowing a return to the kind of business as usual that led to the disaster in the first place. Simultaneously, the oil giant is failing to follow through on its promises.

An empire of lies: why our media betrays us

by Jonathan Cook from Redress.

The author starts his explanation by using the recent media disclosure in the Guardian about the confessions of an Iraqi exile, code-named "Curveball", who gave false information eight years ago to the CIA regarding weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein. This was a major lie that was widely and uncritically disseminated in the Western press and used by the Empire to launch its invasion of Iraq.

He uses this illustration to develop his thesis that...

“...the media cannot fulfil the function of watchdog of power, because in fact it is power. It is the power of the globalised elite to control and limit the ideological and imaginative horizons of the media’s readers and viewers.”

He concludes this excellent essay by holding out hope for the new media of WikiLeaks, and presumably, independent online reporting and information that is disseminated over social networking media.

I think he is too hopeful because it appears that he doesn't really understand the crucial role of propaganda to insure the vital interests of capitalists. The latter must control and shape information in order to maintain the system of capitalism which provides this tiny minority with so much power and wealth. Already we are seeing signs that the ruling class will be making strenuous efforts to control and contain this new media. (See this.)

Thus, he misses the most crucial point of all: only the destruction of this system will allow the free flow of reasonably honest information, a world free of war crimes, the possibilities of social justice, and most important of all, the possibility of creating an economic system that can sustain human life within the limits of the Earth's ecosystem. 

Could it be that Cook is also constrained by the same "power of the globalised elite to control and limit" his own imagination?

Is "shale oil" the answer to "peak oil"?

by Gail Tverberg from The Oil Drum. 

There are some technical terms that she uses that may throw the average reader, but this knowledgeable author zeros in on the current crucial issues facing the energy extraction industry and the economy as organized under capitalism. The article also provides a useful antidote to all the rosy pictures that the managers of the economy attempt to portray in mainstream media about the future of energy. She approaches the question posed by the title by looking at the evidence related to the following specific questions:

1. Is this really a new drilling technique?

2. How likely is the 2 million barrels a day of new production, and the 20% increase in US production, by 2015?

3. Can this additional oil supply really reduce the US’s imports by over half?

4. How much of a difference will this oil make to “peak oil”?

One crucial aspect of shale gas that she omits from this inquiry is the pollution of ground water caused by mining and drilling operations. See this, this, and this.

Why the possibility of an all out victory in Wisconsin frightens the union leaders.

by Sean Throne from Indybay. 

This is a very good argument for worker activists to keep union leaders from selling out once again. 

Since Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and the union leaders allowed him get away with this, the employers have been on an offensive against the working class. Wages, benefits, conditions, rights, rates of work, have all been under attack. The most recent front on this assault, this offensive war against the working class, is against the public sector workers. This is what we are seeing in Wisconsin and around the country; the most recent phase of the capitalist offensive against the working class.

How do we approach this situation? There is one way not to approach it and that is to say to the employers, if you allow us to negotiate we will make even more concessions than we have already made. In other words, we will cooperate even more with your offensive against us. This preserves the jobs and role of the union leaders in their capacity as negotiators but it is a recipe for defeat. [my emphasis]

Roundup: Protests Continue Across Muslim World

by Jason Ditz from Antiwar. 

Provides links to reports of protests all over North Africa and the Middle East.

DOD Passes the Buck Rather than Let Kucinich Visit Bradley Manning

by emptywheel blog on FDL. 

Apparently our US Representatives can't even visit Manning to find out about his abusive treatment. 

Then read this piece by Glenn Greenwald for the latest reports of mistreatment that Manning is receiving from the US military establishment.

Also check out Ray McGovern's piece entitled, "Army’s Mafia Abuse of Pvt. Bradley Manning".

This illustrates that a police state apparatus already exists in the US, it just hasn't been used very much against its own citizens. They are just not ready yet to remove completely the elaborate facade of "democratic" institutions (elections, courts, Congress, Constitution, etc) that have distracted and fooled people for a long time. But it is there and will be increasingly used as the ruling class becomes more desperate to crush dissent. So, will we be intimidated, or will we fight back like the brave people in Egypt did? Stay tuned.

How to Build a Progressive Tea Party

by Johann Hari from The Nation. 

The article reports on a new way of organizing protests by using Twitter that is happening in the UK against corporate welfare. 

Think of it as an open-source protest, or wikiprotest. It uses Twitter as the basic software, but anyone can then mold the protest. The Western left has been proud of its use of social media and blogging, but all too often this hasn’t amounted to much more than clicktivism. By contrast, these protesters have tried at every turn to create a picture of George Osborne, Cameron’s finance minister, sitting in his office, about to sign off on another big tax break for a rich person, paid for by cuts to the rest of us. Is a big Facebook group going to stop him? No. Is an angry buzz on the blogosphere going to stop him? No. But what these protesters have done—putting all the online energy into the streets and straight into the national conversation—just might. And by creating a media buzz, it draws in people from far beyond the tech-savvy Twitterverse, with older activist groups—from trade unions to charities—clamoring to join.

Eat the Rich

by Tom Robbins from The Village Voice. 

If you want a true picture of New York's current economic plight, take a look at a remarkable graph showing the share of income going to the top 1 percent of earners over the past 100 years.

Pakistan: Can America Get Away With Murder?

by Shahid R. Siddiqi from Voltaire. 

People are asking a lot of questions regarding this incident that is the source of widespread Pakistani anger.

Why is the State Department so nervous and jittery with Davis being held in the custody of Pakistani authorities? What secrets are the Americans afraid of being revealed by him? Why is this man so important that they are ready to sacrifice a 60-year old relationship and a strategic partnership? Do they want to block his trial at all costs because of the risk of his confession that he killed those boys in his line of duty, an admission that would implicate the State Department, CIA and other US agencies?

The author assembles as much evidence as he can to suggest some answers.

And read about what Pakistani authorities found on this mysterious character when they searched him.

Haiti: Washington’s Cynical Campaign to Keep Aristide in South Africa

by Glen Ford from Voltaire. 

If diplomacy is a form of lying, then the United States’ efforts to delay indefinitely the return to Haiti of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is a triumph of the most foul diplomacy.

Republicans and Democrats Agree: Cut Aid to the Poor, Not Israel

by Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis.

As Republicans and Democrats propose cuts in programs that actually benefit their increasingly impoverished constituents, though, they agree there's one area of the budget that's not to be touched: the annual $3 billion subsidy U.S. taxpayers provide to the Israeli military.
 

The Collapse of the Old Oil Order

by Michael T Klare from Asia Times Online. 

After reviewing the history of oil production in the Middle East and its control by Western powers, this astute writer reaches this conclusion:

...the handwriting is already on the wall. Since no other area is capable of replacing the Middle East as the world's premier oil exporter, the oil economy will shrivel - and with it, the global economy as a whole.

The global economy as currently organized under private ownership (capitalism) cannot be permitted to continue; because if it does, the world will descend into the inferno of global barbarism and/or severe destabilization of the Earth's ecology where its climate will no longer sustain human life. The human race has no alternative but to choose survival.

U.S. Cables Detail Saudi royal Welfare Program

by Simon Robinson from Reuters. 

Well, the details about the "welfare" program that serves mostly the Saudi ruling families may be different, but isn't the end result essentially the same as here in the US where socially produced wealth ends up in the hands of an increasingly concentrated ruling class of "owners"?

I Smell a Rat

by William Bowles from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

The writer examines two key reports that have been widely disseminated in Western media, and finds some evidence that they may be propaganda to serve Western imperialist aims:

...it was impossible to tell what was really going on, and accompanied by all manner of rumours about what it was alleged Ghadifi’s regime was doing.

Fertile ground for turning fiction into ‘fact’ and, as it has transpired, much of the current hysteria in the Western media rests on two, key rumours that surfaced almost concurrently with the uprising itself:

   1. The ‘African mercenaries’
   2. Libyan Airforce bombing civilians

Experiments in Democracy: Egypt, Tunisia and the US

by Joseph Gainza from Toward Freedom. 

Yes, I couldn't agree more--we have much to learn about democracy from those brave people in North Africa and the Middle East. 

As citizens of a democracy under siege we can take lessons from our Arab brothers and sisters that democracy is more than voting every two or four years. It is more than waiting for elected leaders to fulfill their campaign promises. It includes a healthy skepticism of elected and unelected power, in the form of mega business corporations, financial institutions, and leaders who promote fear of and anger toward our fellow citizens. We can remember that democracy, real democracy, not just electoral democracy takes effort, it is what happens between elections, it does not run on automatic....

But those revolutions are not finished, and they will not be finished until a reality behind these regimes is finished: the control of the economy by a few. What is missing from this article is that real democracy cannot be achieved without real democratic control over the economy. Authentic democracy is completely incompatible with the system of capitalism. Something as essential as an economy, the means by which people provide for their material needs, cannot be controlled by a tiny minority and still have meaningful democracy. What could be more obvious?

Intifada beyond Palestine

by Ismael Hossein-zadeh from OpEd News. 

The author puts the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East in a much broader perspective of anti-Western imperialism. 

...the long pent-up grievances of the Arab/Muslim world are exploding not just in the faces of local dictators such as Mubarak of Egypt or Ben Ali of Tunisia but, perhaps more importantly, against their neocolonial/imperial patrons abroad. ...This means that the uprising represents something bigger than the buzzwords of abstract, decontextualized personal freedoms, or the money-driven, carefully-scripted bogus elections -- called democracy. It represents a growing culture of resistance to neocolonialism that started with the great Iranian revolution of 1979.

Hopefully, the solutions they seek will not be merely national versions of capitalism, because this is a system that inevitably devolves into imperialism, inter-capitalist rivalries, and the horrors of major wars as we witnessed in the 20th century.

In order to avoid a re-run of 20th century experience, what is now necessary is the destruction of this life-destroying social-economic system of capitalism, to be followed by a socially just and ecologically sustainable system.  

Thus, the intifada must be expanded from opposition to Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians to world wide opposition to the occupation and oppression of working people by capitalists. The protests against unemployment, public spending cutbacks, anti-labor legislation that has been occurring all over Europe and now North America may be the beginning of this global intifada.

The "Budget Crisis" is the Product of a Tax Avoidance Scam By The Very Rich

by Richard Clark from OpEd News. 

...a rather vicious cycle has been at work for years:   Reduced taxes on the rich leave them with ever more money to influence politicians and politics.   This influence wins them further tax reductions, which gives them still more money to put to political use.   Then, when the loss of tax revenue from the rich worsens already strained government budgets, the rich and powerful press politicians to cut public services and government jobs and not even debate a return to the higher taxes the rich used to pay. 

That is the core nature of capitalism--the rich become richer and the poor become poorer. If we do nothing, we will enter a nightmarish world where there will exist tiny islands of the rich who live behind well guarded gated communities amidst vast oceans of the poor governed by a police state. 

It must be understood that the system not only exploits working people, but also more dangerously exploits the Earth's ecosystem. The latter will simply not tolerate this for much longer. As we pass many ecological tipping points, we will see more and more extreme weather, and this will accelerate over time until the climate will no longer sustain human life. 

If we are going to survive as human species, we must immediately figure out a way to change the system into something that is socially just and sustainable within the limits of our planet's ecosystem.

   

US invasion of Libya? [must read article and view videos]

from RT (Russia Today). 

This piece provides excellent coverage from a variety of independent sources regarding the Libyan situation. There are numerous short videos featuring commentaries from independent observers.

The end of the end of history

by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times Online. 

...one may even dream that the notion of fighting incompetent/corrupt/unjust governments in the name of social justice in MENA [Middle East/Northern Africa] is about to contaminate Europe and the US (as it already did; "from Cairo to Wisconsin") - and a new day is dawning for workers' movements that suffer from austerity and "structural adjustments" concocted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). New internationalist workers of the world, class of 2011, unite. 

Egypt's new guiding lights

Interview with Ibrahim Mounir from Asia Times Online.  (Mounir is a lawyer and prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood)

I have seen little followup of developments in Egypt since the resignation of Mubarak. This piece provides some important insights on the current political scene.

Open Letter To The World

by anonymous from Anon News.

The revolution has begun:

We are questioning the old assumptions that we are made to consume not to create, that the world was made for our taking, that wars are inevitable, that poverty is unavoidable. As we learn more about our global community a fundamental truth has been rediscovered: We are not so different as we may seem. Every human has strengths, weaknesses, and deep emotions. We crave love, love laughter, fear being alone and dream for a better life.

Bahrain: Evolution or Revolution?

by Kristian Coates Ulrichsen from Open Democracy.

While Libya is receiving extensive, but not always accurate, coverage in US mainstream media, the continuing uprising in Bahrain is receiving little. And events there may be much more portentous for the Empire than in Libya.

Across the region, traditional methods of co-opting opposition through the spread of wealth are manifestly failing to deter calls for political reform and substantive change. Ruling families are looking anxiously at Bahrain as the cycle of political contagion and regime repression moves inexorably toward the Gulf.

The Enduring Mystique of the Marshall Plan

by William Blum from The Anti-Empire Report (Mar 1, 2011). 

This is an important excerpt from this report which furnishes a powerful antidote to all the indoctrination US people receive in their schools and media about the post-WWII aid programs in Europe under the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan along with the many other foreign "aid" programs are always presented as exemplifying the generosity of the US toward other nations in need. American working people are generally very generous in helping the unfortunate, but the same cannot be said of for those who rule over us: theirs is a never ending quest for more wealth and power.

Amidst all the stirring political upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East the name "Marshall Plan" keeps being repeated by political figures and media around the world as the key to rebuilding the economies of those societies to complement the political advances, which hopefully will be somewhat progressive. But caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.

During my years of writing and speaking about the harm and injustice inflicted upon the world by unending United States interventions, I've often been met with resentment from those who accuse me of chronicling only the negative side of US foreign policy and ignoring the many positive sides. When I ask the person to give me some examples of what s/he thinks show the virtuous face of America's dealings with the world in modern times, one of the things mentioned — almost without exception — is The Marshall Plan. This is usually described along the lines of: "After World War II, the United States unselfishly built up Europe economically, including our wartime enemies, and allowed them to compete with us." Even those today who are very cynical about US foreign policy, who are quick to question the White House's motives in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, have little problem in accepting this picture of an altruistic America of the period 1948-1952. But let's have a look at the Marshall Plan outside the official and popular versions.

After World War II, the United States, triumphant abroad and undamaged at home, saw a door wide open for world supremacy. Only the thing called "communism" stood in the way, politically, militarily, and ideologically. The entire US foreign policy establishment was mobilized to confront this "enemy", and the Marshall Plan was an integral part of this campaign. How could it be otherwise? Anti-communism had been the principal pillar of US foreign policy from the Russian Revolution up to World War II, pausing for the war until the closing months of the Pacific campaign, when Washington put challenging communism ahead of fighting the Japanese. This return to anti-communism included the dropping of the atom bomb on Japan as a warning to the Soviets. 1

After the war, anti-communism continued as the leitmotif of American foreign policy as naturally as if World War II and the alliance with the Soviet Union had not happened. Along with the CIA, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the Council on Foreign Relations, certain corporations, and a few other private institutions, the Marshall Plan was one more arrow in the quiver of those striving to remake Europe to suit Washington's desires:

   1. Spreading the capitalist gospel — to counter strong postwar tendencies towards socialism.
   2. Opening markets to provide new customers for US corporations — a major reason for helping to rebuild the European economies; e.g., a billion dollars of tobacco at today's prices, spurred by US tobacco interests.
   3. Pushing for the creation of the Common Market and NATO as integral parts of the West European bulwark against the alleged Soviet threat.
   4. Suppressing the left all over Western Europe, most notably sabotaging the Communist Parties in France and Italy in their bids for legal, non-violent, electoral victory. Marshall Plan funds were secretly siphoned off to finance this endeavor, and the promise of aid to a country, or the threat of its cutoff, was used as a bullying club; indeed, France and Italy would certainly have been exempted from receiving aid if they had not gone along with the plots to exclude the communists from any kind of influential role.

The CIA also skimmed large amounts of Marshall Plan funds to covertly maintain cultural institutions, journalists, and publishers, at home and abroad, for the heated and omnipresent propaganda of the Cold War; the selling of the Marshall Plan to the American public and elsewhere was entwined with fighting "the red menace". Moreover, in its covert operations, CIA personnel at times used the Marshall Plan as cover, and one of the Plan's chief architects, Richard Bissell, then moved to the CIA, stopping off briefly at the Ford Foundation, a long time conduit for CIA covert funds. One big happy family.

The Marshall Plan imposed all kinds of restrictions on the recipient countries, all manner of economic and fiscal criteria which had to be met, designed for a wide open return to free enterprise. The US had the right to control not only how Marshall Plan dollars were spent, but also to approve the expenditure of an equivalent amount of the local currency, giving Washington substantial power over the internal plans and programs of the European states; welfare programs for the needy survivors of the war were looked upon with disfavor by the United States; even rationing smelled too much like socialism and had to go or be scaled down; nationalization of industry was even more vehemently opposed by Washington. The great bulk of Marshall Plan funds returned to the United States, or never left, to purchase American goods, making American corporations among the chief beneficiaries.

The program could be seen as more a joint business operation between governments than an American "handout"; often it was a business arrangement between American and European ruling classes, many of the latter fresh from their service to the Third Reich, some of the former as well; or it was an arrangement between Congressmen and their favorite corporations to export certain commodities, including a lot of military goods. Thus did the Marshall Plan help lay the foundation for the military industrial complex as a permanent feature of American life.

It is very difficult to find, or put together, a clear, credible description of how the Marshall Plan played a pivotal or indispensable role in the recovery in each of the 16 recipient nations. The opposing view, at least as clear, is that the Europeans — highly educated, skilled and experienced — could have recovered from the war on their own without an extensive master plan and aid program from abroad, and indeed had already made significant strides in this direction before the Plan's funds began flowing. Marshall Plan funds were not directed primarily toward the urgently needed feeding of individuals or rebuilding their homes, schools, or factories, but at strengthening the economic superstructure, particularly the iron, steel and power industries. The period was in fact marked by deflationary policies, unemployment and recession. The one unambiguous outcome was the full restoration of the propertied class. 2

1.See William Blum's essay on the use of the atomic bomb
2.For discussion of various aspects of the Marshall Plan see, for example, Joyce & Gabriel; Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and US Foreign Policy 1945-1954 (1972), chapters 13, 16, 17; Sallie Pisani, The CIA and the Marshall Plan (1991); Frances Stoner Saunders, The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the world of arts and letters (2000)

Kiss Egypt Good Bye? Not Yet!

by Jim Kirwan from Rebel News.

I first read Dick Eastman's piece entitled, "Kiss Egypt's Revolution Good-bye", that this author responded to, and I felt it provided some very useful information about how international finance would be dealing with the Egyptian situation. 

After reading this article by Kirwan, I felt, although I am not acquainted with Eastman's views, that this was an unjustified and inappropriate rant against Eastman and that Kirwan really didn't understand what Eastman was trying to do. After reading Eastman's comment following this article, my opinion was confirmed.

As I have argued before, the revolution in Egypt is unfinished. (See this and this.) However, both articles are useful in looking ahead at what confronts the brave people of Egypt in their quest for a true, liberating revolution.

Unverified Misreporting on Libya

by Stephen Lendman from Dissident Voice. 

The author raises some legitimate concerns about Western reporting and interests in Libya.

See also this which provides further evidence that air strikes against civilians did not happen.

Egypt’s Youth Present Demands to Military

by Mohamed Abdel Salam from Bikyamasr. 

The latest development in the direction of real democracy in Egypt:

The Coalition of Youth representatives, which included representatives of al-Wafd Party, Mohamed ElBaradei’s reform group, and Muslim Brotherhood youth along with youth not associated with a political movement, presented a list of demands to the council.

Iraq: Joining the revolution in the Arab world

by Adnan Al-Daini from OpEd News.

Whereas the Empire pretends to be a neutral party admonishing the use of force against demonstrators in other countries, they have a direct interest in maintaining the status quo in Iraq. Maybe that is why we see so little news of Iraqi protests here in the US.  

The young in the Arab world have sought the bond of humanity that connects us as human beings to be the emblem of their revolution.   Their grassroots uprising now sweeping the Arab world is not based on religious affiliation, ethnicity, or political party.   It is not secular, religious or nationalist. It is a struggle for human rights, freedom, and democracy that should be the birthright of everyone on the planet. 

‘Anonymous’ targets the brothers Koch, claiming attempts ‘to usurp American Democracy’

by Stephen C. Webster from The Raw Story. 

This piece puts together a lot of the reports about Gov. Walker's war on working people previously cited. 

I wouldn't accuse the Koch brothers of usurping American democracy, because it has already been usurped. What remains is only a shell of what it was; and what it was, was only a poor imitation to begin with. What the Koch brothers are attempting to do is to remove all the democratic facade and install outright fascism. Some people might argue that this would be a good thing in order to wake up the American "sheeple". But those are people who likely have never experienced fascism's use of brutal police oppression. 

Capitalism when threatened has often looked to dispense with their version of democracy as we have seen in Germany, Spain, Japan and in many other countries (aided by the CIA). And we have seen how they have no difficulty in collaborating with, and supporting, many such autocratic regimes like the ones people are fighting against in North Africa and the Middle East.

We've had our own fascist elements among our ruling class. The most notorious were those who surfaced briefly in 1933 when reports leaked out of a coup plot to remove F. D. Roosevelt from office. They tried to recruit the very popular General Smedley Butler to replace Roosevelt after the coup. You simply must listen to a 29 minute BBC radio program covering this incident that is missing from US history books.

Extensive efforts were made to cover up, or to downplay, this plot after Butler's testimony in closed-door hearings in the House of Representatives. It is interesting that the US was also in the midst of a devastating economic collapse as is happening now.

John McCain Wrapped the Egyptian Flag around him in the Tahrir Square in CairoMarshal Tantawi meets Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senate

from All Voices. 

Does this item sicken you as it does me? Here we have one US war hawk and one US Zionist, both connected with US Armed Forces, conferring with their Egyptian counterparts? (Don't bother with the pictures in the article.)

It appears that the Egyptians have wrapped their flag around Sen. Lieberman. He doesn't look particularly happy about it.

Profit Pathology and Disposable Planet

by Michael Parenti from Z Communications. 

He makes a point that I have also made many times:

...the function of the transnational corporation is not to promote a healthy ecology but to extract as much marketable value out of the natural world as possible even if it means treating the environment like a septic tank. An ever-expanding corporate capitalism and a fragile finite ecology are on a calamitous collision course, so much so that the support systems of the entire ecosphere—the Earth’s thin skin of fresh air, water, and topsoil—are at risk.

Three news items that you will not see in mainstream US media

1.  US Vetoes UN Draft Resolution Condemning Israeli Settlements from The National (UAE).

Well, actually I did see a few, but extremely brief, reports in the media that only mentioned the fact of the US veto--and that was all.

This continued policy of the Zionist, racist Israeli ruling class to build "facts on the ground" is obviously designed to make impossible any establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state that is imperative if a lasting peace settlement is to happen. The effect of this policy and the destruction of the Palestinian economy (as seen in the 3rd item below), is to keep Palestinians impoverished on Israeli bantustans. But, of course, this policy, and US and NATO aggressions in the Middle East, also fosters increasing anti-US hostility and the targeting of US and NATO countries with more terrorist attacks.

However, the Empire's rulers couldn't care less about Palestinians and their human rights and national aspirations. Fortress Israel is a critically important outpost in the Middle East to insure the Empire's access to cheap energy, markets, access to other resources of the Middle East, and their continued dominance over many areas of the world. Thus, Israel, plays a key role to insure the survival of capitalism and all the riches and power that capitalists derive from their system.

A Palestinian labourer works on a construction site at a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem. The Israeli left has largely ignored the US veto of a UN resolution condemning such settlement-building. (Reuters)








2. Israel Rebuffs United Nations Inquiries on Desecration of Ancient Jerusalem Cemetery

In the process of infrastructure and construction works to build a “Museum of Tolerance” atop a part of the ancient Muslim cemetery, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) in Los Angeles and Israeli authorities have overseen the disinterment of thousands of human remains, graves, and other archaeological artifacts.

3. New Palestinian Factory Turned to Rubble by Israeli Attack from Media Freedom Intl.

The coordinated Israeli attack injured eight people, along with damaging a primary school serving 600 children, a medical storage facility, and homes in the surrounding area.  The schools ceilings and windows were damaged forcing the school to be temporarily suspended. The medical storage facility caused a total of $400,000 in damage....

The elite dilemma

by Jim O’Reilly from his blog, Comments on Global Political Economy.

It is becoming clear that the contradictions inherent in capitalism are reaching a dead-end, and this reality is slowly becoming obvious to everyone. 

This blogger, a retiree from a career in banking and finance, explains:

Infrastructure spending is the only prescription offered by the lords of the system.  That it’s grossly inadequate to the scale of the problem is clear.  Zuckerman says it will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, but just a few paragraphs earlier he documented that we have tens of millions suffering from inadequate employment and the condition is worsening.  Further, he proposes that the infrastructure spending be financed by the workers themselves through tolls while providing his class of wealth “a minimum calculated rate of return”.  The arrogance is staggering!

As the incessant growth--and only growth that creates profits for a few--required by this system comes up against environmental resource limits, climate instability, and environmental degradation, it is becoming imperative for the rest of us to fight for a change of systems. Contrary to what they would have you believe, there are alternatives.

Libya: How Gaddafi became a Western-backed dictator

by Peter Boyle from International Journal of Socialist Renewal. 

The author provides some interesting details on Gaddafi's variable history with the oil-hungry West, and leads him to this conclusion:

What has led to this new Libyan revolution is the degeneration of the regime born of the 1969 revolution into a crony capitalism. The popular character of the new revolution is undeniable, it is far from clear what sort of regime will emerge out of it. The same greedy and powerful Western interests that first attacked and then propped up the Gaddafi regime are preparing for a change of tack, including considering direct military intervention.

See also this article entitled, "Libyan Opposition Leaders Slam U.S. Business Lobby’s Deals With Gaddafi".

Soon after U.S. President George W. Bush dropped sanctions against Libya in 2004, when Gaddafi announced that he intended to give up weapons of mass destruction and expressed his eagerness to join the war on terror, U.S. and British oil producers and business interests jumped at the chance to expand into the country, which has been ruled with an iron fist by the unstable leader for some 40 years.

Libya: Are the US and EU Pushing for Civil War to Justify NATO Intervention?

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Voltaire.

The author raises some interesting questions about US and NATO's intentions regarding Libya, and furnishes some interesting material that suggest an affirmative answer to the title's question.

The flames of revolt are being fanned inside Libya. Chaos in the Arab World has been viewed as beneficial in many strategic circles in Washington, Tel Aviv, London, and NATO Headquarters. If Libya falls into a state of civil war or balkanizes this will benefit the U.S. and the E.U. in the long term and will have serious geo-political implications.

 

The Last Word on Terrorism: Kissinger and the Globalist Agenda [10:44m video]

by James Corbett from Global Research TV. 

Corbett reviews the real history of the Middle East and other areas of interest to global capitalists as counterpoint to false Empire propaganda and history. Likewise, he reveals the real use of the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" to hide the hegemonic activities of the global capitalists. 

However, the latter is only one side of the double-sided sword of these words: the other side is the fear that they engender in an unwitting public in order to induce compliance with policies and activities that violate international laws, that promote war crimes against other countries, that create acceptance of domestic laws (Patriot Acts) which undermine civil rights and rights to privacy, and that justifies expenditures for weapons while sacrificing health, education, and welfare of citizens. 

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US ruling class made exactly the same use of the words "communist" and "communism".

Another Runaway General: Army Deploys Psy-Ops on U.S. Senators

by Michael Hastings from Rolling Stone. 

There is really nothing new here, it's just that such incidents are rarely reported in mainstream media when they are discovered. Actually I haven't seen this current report covered much in the latter.  

They are an ongoing activity of the military-industrial complex to promote their interests and their Empire. Most Americans remain totally unaware of this practice.  It can't be emphasized enough that US political operatives not only engage in subversion of foreign countries, they also focus a lot of attention to subverting the US government and many other institutions to serve their interests.

If you wish to know more about this practice, I urge you to read The Secret Team by retired Col. L. Fletcher Prouty who was a liaison officer between the Pentagon and the CIA between 1955 and 1963. Also, read The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America by Hugh Wilford.

In search of an African revolution

by Azad Essa from Al Jazeera.

Citing the absence of media coverage for the rest of Africa, the writer makes us aware that much of Africa is seething with discontent much like we've seen in North Africa and the Middle East. Citizens in the rest of Africa are definitely aware of the events to the north and they suffer much the same hardships under similar regimes.

...globalisation and the accompanying economic liberalisation has created circumstances in which the people of the global South share very similar experiences: "Increasing pauperisation, growing unemployment, declining power to hold their governments to account, declining income from agricultural production, increasing accumulation by dispossession - something that is growing on a vast scale - and increasing willingness of governments to comply with the political and economic wishes of the North.

Egypt/Turkey-Israel: ‘A clean break’

by Eric Walberg from Global Research. 

Rarely have I seen so much accurate realpolitik in one article as I see here regarding Israel and the Middle East. Almost all of the important players and strategies are presented: Zionist influence in the US government (Perle and Kissinger), the domination of the Middle East using divide and conquer strategies which explain so much of recent history, and the use of threats and aid packages against Arab countries to induce compliance with US-Israeli policies.

I am not sure about his optimistic forecasts for the region. The denouement of the current uprisings against autocratic regimes in this area that have served the Empire's interests is no where near completion. All one can say at this point is that the Middle East will not remain the same as it was.

The New Latin American “Progresismo” and the Extractivism of the 21st Century

by Carmelo Ruiz Marrero from Americas Program. 

More people in South America are critically looking at the new, "progressive" regimes in that continent and find many similarities with previous neo-liberal governments.

“Political and social transformation is an unavoidable condition for the democratic planning of the exploitation of natural goods and the care of the environment,” advises Sabbatella. “That also requires a cultural transformation that stimulates an ever more participatory democracy. Finally, even with good intentions, the transition towards an ecological society is no more than an utopia if the foundations of capitalist production and reproduction are not questioned and altered.”

Open Class Struggle in Wisconsin

by John Reimann from IWW. 

While less than 10% of the private sector work force is organized in unions in the United States, these unions still represent a potentially massive force in US society, capable of mobilizing millions of workers and youth. This is in the process of being proven in Wisconsin, where the class struggle has broken out into the open. 

But workers must not count on co-opted union leadership to protect them.

Did Scott Walker Get Crank-Call Pwned? YES!

Audio and script created by Ian Murphy of The Beast via Mother Jones.  (I am posting this on Mother Jones' site because the Beast site was down last night.)

Nobody is denying the authenticity of this "pwn" or prank call. In case you missed it on MSNBC, it is a must-listen-to prank pulled on Governor Walker of Wisconsin. In a telephone call Murphy posed as David Koch of right-wing fame who is widely believed to be pulling the strings of Walker the puppet. It is very revealing of the fascist type of thinking that passes for right-wing politics in the US.

(Note: You will need to scroll down the article to listen to the audio.)

The coverage by MSNBC of events in Wisconsin has been excellent and very supportive of the protesters and labor. However, be aware that the coverage is always framed in terms of Democratic versus Republican politics. This is to preserve the myth of political choice in the US. The fact is that both parties serve basically the same masters of the capitalist ruling class. The Republicans are tending toward fascism, but they are really more honest than Democrats who pose as champions of the workers and want to hide the real class war that both are always waging against working people.

Thawing permafrost feedback will turn Arctic from carbon sink to source in the 2020s, releasing 100 billion tons of carbon by 2100

from Climate Progress. 

Countless studies make clear that global warming will release vast quantities of GHGs into the atmosphere this decade.  Yet, no climate model currently incorporates the amplifying feedback from methane released by a defrosting tundra.

Now we find that this threat is worse than previously thought. A major new study by NOAA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) concludes that previous studies have underestimated the release of methane from the permafrost.

But, no matter. Nothing will deter the ruling classes from wasteful, destructive production and consumption in their mad pursuit of profits. Profits are to capitalists as heroin is to an addict. Heroin addicts often go to their deaths to feed their habit. I wouldn't mind if they, the capitalists perished in pursuit of their addiction, but the problem is that we working people share the same planet with them.