Climate: past and future in 11 easy illustrations

Click here to access a graphical interpretation by David Spratt, Melbourne Climate Action Centre,
of aspects of recent paleoclimate research by Hansen et al.

From examining these eleven pages of graphs, it is clear that the human race has existed only within a quite narrow range of global temperatures during the past 60 million years. We, under the oppressive reign of this mere 300 year old system of capitalism, are now testing and threatening this delicate balance. We simply must not accept "the new normal" that capitalists, who consist of only 1% of us, insist we, the 99%, must accept so that they can continue to satisfy their addiction to profits and power. 

The time is now for us who care about a future for our children, our grandchildren, their children, and so on, to wrest this addictive system away from these drug addicts so that those who follow after us can have a future. We, the present living human beings, have a last chance to decide the fate of the human race. What is your choice?

I've Got Mine ... Freedom Feels So Good It Hurts

Click here to access article by Don Monkerud from CounterPunch. (Satire)

After all, corporations are people too! And without them, we would have hardly any jobs!

The Revolution Will be Self-Organized, Tahrir, #May27 (part 1)

Click here to access article by Zeynep Tufekci from her blog, Technosociology. 

The author has recently been in Egypt trying to gain some insights on the current political situation there. I am posting this because I think it important that we keep informed regarding events in this strategic country and I have great trust in her judgement and perceptions.

I cannot give an account of the complex political discussions taking place among activists and among the Egyptian. Instead, I am going to try to communicate the “spirit of Tahrir” as I witnessed it: festive, self-organized cautious, sharply political and ambitious.

Essential Readings: Iran

Click here to access article by Raha Iranian Feminist Collective from Jadaliyya. 

Because my time was cut short this morning, I haven't had much time to review this list of resource material--and there is a lot. However, I have great trust in the website, and the need to understand the issues and politics of Iran are extremely important for us Americans who are constantly being inundated with the Empire's imperialist propaganda.

In recent years, there has been a deluge of popular English-language writings by Iranians in exile, as well as hand-wringing public policy books by U.S.-based think tank pundits, all insisting on the same basic message: Iran represents a geo-political problem of unparalleled importance. While the stated goal of these books and organizations is to educate the English-reading global public about Iran, very often the message comes laced with support for militarily enforced regime change and full-scale neo-liberalization.

Europe's New Road to Serfdom

Click here to access article by Michael Hudson from CounterPunch.

The author explains how the capitalist predators in Europe are encircling what is left of a democratically controlled "commons" and preparing their working populations for a final attack that will leave them in complete debt servitude.

At issue is whether Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and the rest of Europe will roll back democratic reform and move toward financial oligarchy. The financial objective is to bypass parliament by demanding a “consensus” to put foreign creditors first, above the economy at large. Parliaments are being asked to relinquish their policy-making power. The very definition of a “free market” has now become centralized planning – in the hands of central bankers. This is the new road to serfdom that financialized “free markets” are leading to: markets free for privatizers to charge monopoly prices for basic services “free” of price regulation and anti-trust regulation, “free” of limits on credit to protect debtors, and above all free of interference from elected parliaments.  

Israel and the British Media - Winning the Propaganda War

Click here to access article from New Left Project (UK) featuring an interview with Greg Philo, co-author of More Bad News from Israel.

Philo provides some insights on how news coverage of Israeli-Palestinian events are carefully framed and interpreted to shape the views of the British public. Of course, the methods are the same as used in the US and Canada.

The journalists are under tremendous pressure to not criticise Israel.  As soon as they start to criticise Israel from the Palestinian point of view they get into all sorts of problems.  If they do that it’s very difficult.  So what they tend to do is to stay on the strongest ground, or what they see as the strongest ground, which is civilian casualties.  They would show lots of Palestinian civilian casualties and that would be their version of the Palestinian side and against that they would give the Israeli point of view of why it was all happening.  And of course that means that people in a sense become inured to the casualties and say, ‘Oh yes it’s sad isn’t it, but if only the Palestinians would stop starting the trouble’.

The WH/Politico attack on Seymour Hersh

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald from Salon.

Seymour Hersh has a new article in The New Yorker arguing that there is no credible evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons; to the contrary, he writes, "the U.S. could be in danger of repeating a mistake similar to the one made with Saddam Hussein's Iraq eight years ago -- allowing anxieties about the policies of a tyrannical regime to distort our estimates of the state's military capacities and intentions."  This, of course, cannot stand, as it conflicts with one of the pillar-orthodoxies of Obama foreign policy in the Middle East....

Time to be honest [Revised commentary]

Click here to access article from Red Pepper (UK) featuring an interview by writer Nick Buxton with Tim DeChristopher, an environmentalist extraordinaire.

One of my initial reactions to this article was surprise that I hadn't heard about these events related to Tim DeChristopher, a serious American environmental activist. I spend about four hours every day perusing articles on the internet, particularly ones referring to environmental concerns, social justice, and peace. I had entirely missed any reports of the events reported here which were happening virtually in my back yard. I apologize. I think that I was too distracted by dramatic news coming out of the Mid-East and the labor struggles in Wisconsin and nearby states.

I think...the problem is that we have too many rich people in the leadership of the environmental movement, who have benefited from the status quo. It is hard to change the world when you have little personal investment in changing it.

I find it hard to express how inspiring this piece was after reading yesterday's mainstream media announcement that we must simply adapt to a "new normal", hotter climate in which we will experience more, and much worse, devastating floods, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.

The turning point for me was when Terry Root, a lead author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told me privately after an event at Stanford University that it was too late to stop a climate crisis, that her generation had failed mine. I was shocked and asked why she had not said that on the public panel. And she said that she was scared that saying the truth would paralyse people. And it is true, what she said did first put me into a dark place of despair. I found myself mourning my own future, knowing it could be nothing like my parents. But sharing that grief with others, I found knowing the truth also empowered me to fight back in a more serious way.

Clearly DeChrisopher, and people like him, are extremely dangerous to the capitalist system, or any system that is based on endless growth. The most effective weapons we have to confront this suicidal system is the raising of the public's consciousness--and that is precisely what he intends to do. It is finally, and most decisively, an ideological battle. 

Remember how suddenly the Soviet Union collapsed? It happened because people simply stopped believing in it, and then stopped cooperating with it. The huge mistake that the Soviet citizens made was to adopt capitalism. Apparently they saw all the glittering stuff we had and thought that capitalism was the answer. Once people stop believing in the capitalist system, it will collapse virtually overnight. I don't think that anyone has expressed this phenomenon better than Mario Savio:

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

For Tim DeChristopher, and others like him, the time is NOW.

Why is the United States waging perpetual war against the Cuban people's health system?

Click here to access article by William Blum from his Anti-Empire Report. (The first section entitled, "God Bless America. And its Bombs", provides a good introduction to this second section of his report.)

His first two essays in this report illustrate how desperate capitalist political operatives are to discredit and destroy any system that does not allow investment opportunities for capitalists. You see, private investment opportunities, and the wealth and power derived from them, is their system's highest ethical value.  This raises a few questions in my mind.

Can a system that places such a value at the highest level be sustainable over the long run? It seems to me that the system's proponents have been able to impose their system on the rest of us because they have been able to establish a near monopoly of instruments of violence and the control of vast resources and wealth, and the willingness to use either or both to kill or starve people to death if they refuse to cooperate. But can such a system endure for a long time when it is based on threats to life? Will most humans, who having arrived on the planet around 150,000 years ago and having survived so many threats to their existence, continue to accept such a system? When there is now overwhelming evidence that the system's requirement for endless growth and its profligate use of fossil fuels is destroying their own habitat, will the species continue its adaptation to this sick system and become extinct?

‘I Want to Be a Farmer’

Click here to access article by Randall Amster from New Clear Vision.

I'm posting this article simply because it is life affirming as well as being well written--and I need material like this.

As Evaggelos Vallianatos recently wrote in Truthout, “the EPA has been licensing toxic and cancer-causing farm chemicals that, essentially, poison our food and drinking water while causing harm and death to wildlife…. And many of these pesticides injure or kill wildlife at extremely low amounts, contributing to a massive extinction of species, which is unprecedented in history.” In addition to the wanton use of pesticides and biocides in food production, we have to grapple with the potentially-disastrous effects of untested genetic modification, unregulated additives, and unchecked centralization of our essential food supplies.

Are You Ready for More?

Click here to access article from Newsweek.

It's official, folks! Yes, corporate sponsored mainstream media has announced that climate change is real! Read all about it! (Sarcasm)

While they do a good job of describing what is happening...

Even if the world went carbon-neutral tomorrow, we’d be in for more: because of the CO2 that has already been emitted, we’re on track for another 5 degrees of warming. Batten down the hatches. “You can no longer say that the climate of the future is going to be like the climate of today, let alone yesterday,” says Judi Greenwald, vice president of innovative solutions at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. “In all of the plausible climate scenarios, we are going to have to change the way we do things in ways we can’t even predict.”

...the emphasis of the article is clear that climate-caused devastation is the "new normal", and we had better learn how to adapt. They even pose as severe critics of Big Oil and Big Coal.

So what lies behind America’s resistance to action? Economist Sachs points to the lobbying power of industries that resist acknowledgment of climate change’s impact. “The country is two decades behind in taking action because both parties are in thrall to Big Oil and Big Coal,” says Sachs. “The airwaves are filled with corporate-financed climate misinformation.” But the vanguard of action isn’t waiting any longer. This week, representatives from an estimated 100 cities are meeting in Bonn, Germany, for the 2nd World Congress on Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change. The theme is “Resilient Cities.” As Joplin, Mo., learned in the most tragic way possible, against some impacts of climate change, man’s puny efforts are futile. But time is getting short, and the stakes are high. Says Daniel Sarewitz, a professor of science and society at Arizona State University: “Not to adapt is to consign millions of people to death and disruption.”

I find this a bit much! For years and years they have been telling us that there are two sides to the argument about climate change, and anyway, more research is needed. Then they went on to tell us to concern ourselves only with buying low energy bulbs and appliances and hybrid cars.  

Forget about renewable energy and forget about living simpler--learn to adapt! We must keep feeding the profit addiction of the ruling class! It's capitalism über alles!

God, this article is making my head hurt!

The secret life of Arabia

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times Online. 

I'm not too fond of his glib writing style, but I think he has a very good grasp of the political dynamics that are shaping events in the MENA region.

As far as Washington and selected European capitals are concerned, "stability" prevails; as in Israel and Saudi Arabia, as pillars, now that Egypt has wobbled; and the oil-drenched Gulf Counter-Revolutionary Club, also known as Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is solid as Himalayan rock. No revisionism allowed. "Democracy", yes - as long as it is not a threat to "Western interests".

Saudi Arabia and Western Hypocrisy [11:14m video & transcript]

Click here to access video from The Real News.

Paul Jay interviews Madawi Al-Rasheed who provides some very insightful information on this obscure country.

Madawi Al-Rasheed is Professor of Social Anthropology at King's College, London. She is originally from Saudi Arabia and currently lives in London. Her research focuses on history, society, religion and politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Her recent publications include Politics in an Arabian Oasis , and A History of Saudi Arabia. 

America at War and the Debt Crisis: Hail Caesar

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from Global Research. 

The author argues that the centralization of political authority in the US has made the issue of the debt ceiling merely political theater designed to gain support for the elimination of all vestiges of the gains made by working people in the 1930s following the 1929 collapse of the economy. Such gains consisted most notably of Social Security, Worker's Compensation, and union organizing rights (the Wagner Act). Contrast this with the current period since the 2008 collapse which has seen mostly the corporate sponsored right-wing Tea Party trying to eliminate those gains of the 1930s (as well as Medicare passed by Lyndon Johnson in 1968 to stifle opposition to the Vietnam War).

Okay, so am I overlooking the labor struggles among State workers in Madison, Wisconsin and other mid-western States? At the moment I am concerned that they are being successfully contained by legal processes and elections which, I believe, will ultimately be very damaging to worker interests. The laws and the electoral machinery were designed by the ruling class to contain and defuse opposition; thus, I see little hope for any positive outcomes by limiting activism to these processes. 

A major difference in favor of the current ruling class of capitalists, is that there is no access to mainstream media by militant spokespeople as existed in the 1930s. At that time radio was still quite new, station owners more decentralized, and they had a lot of radio time to fill. Thus, they were much more open to speakers who could command large audiences regardless of their views. 

In the 1930s people such as Huey Long and Father Coughlin in their radio broadcasts launched vigorous attacks against the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few which they saw as a major cause of the devastation to the economy and the lives of working people. They were by no means radicals, but they were listened to by many millions of people across the country and likely, along with militant socialist type movements and radical labor unions, forced Franklin Roosevelt to support the progressive laws that he did.

Nowadays, access to mainstream media is carefully controlled to eliminate any militant opposition to elite policies. In fact, the media is carefully crafted to engineer support of these policies and otherwise to entertain, obscure, and divert attention away from the serious issues facing working people. It follows from this argument that it is absolutely essential that working people in the US establish their own means of communication in order to mobilize people to support actions that serve their real interests.

Of course, the author of this article is no radical either. He mainly sees the current concentration of power in the Executive branch as extremely dangerous. Of course, his statement that "The Bush/Cheney regime brought democracy and accountable government to an end." is extremely naive. Democracy has never existed in the US for anyone except for members of the ruling capitalist class. It is just that now the latter are becoming more aggressive and less concerned about preserving appearances.

Myanmar Targeted by Globalists

Click here to access article by Dr. K R Bolton from Foreign Policy Journal.

This astute author first provides an introduction to the propaganda that is used by political operatives hired by global capitalists to gain support for regime change in various parts of the world whenever it is in their interest. Following this, he goes into considerable detail to illustrate how this strategy of "cultural subversion" is actually happening in Myanmar.

I mostly scanned the rest of the article regarding Myanmar because I am so familiar with the process of subversion. But for those of you who are not, I highly recommend that you study this piece.

It seems clear now that whenever a regime is damned as repressive by “world opinion” then it is being marked for “regime change” in the interests of global capitalism. One should consider this before getting too enthused when the masses “spontaneously” pour out onto the streets demanding “democracy,” which should be interpreted rather as “plutocracy.” The same pattern has been followed in Eastern European, Central Asia, North Africa and adjacent areas, and Myanmar. Venezuela and Belarus are also particularly of interest to the globalists.

Well, I hardly believe that all uprisings are the work of these political operatives, but one must be aware that even the most genuine uprisings will likely be contaminated by such tactics in order to influence their outcome.

NATO Wants to Free Africa From the Africans

Click here to access article by Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report. [4:02m audio and script]

I've seen nothing in mainstream media about this: 

South African President Jacob Zuma made a second trip to Libya this week, on behalf of the African Union, seeking a diplomatic end to NATO’s war against Mouammar Gaddafi’s government.

Ford concludes his essay with this bitingly satiric statement:

And so it makes perfect sense that a peace proposal from the president of South Africa, Black Africa's most powerful and wealthy country, acting on behalf of the organization that includes every nation on the continent, counts for less than nothing in the imperial scheme of things. The West encourages South African President Jacob Zuma to help bring chaotic Black countries into line, but Zuma and the African Union are not authorized to interfere with imperial wars on the continent. That's “white folks business.”

"V for Vendetta": The Other Face of Egypt's Youth Movement

Click here to access article by Linda Herrera from Jadaliyya.

This article shows how the creative youth of Egypt used the British film, "V for Vendetta", to create cartoons and a short film entitled,“Khaled for Vendetta”, all posted on Facebook to help mobilize opposition to the Mubarak regime.

I love this powerful message from the film:

“Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea…and ideas are bulletproof.”

Thinking About Anarchism: The State

Click here to access article  from InfoShop News.

This is a brief take on a bottom-up arrangement for a new society that is a genuine democracy.

...there will always be a need for administration, planning, defence and so on. We don’t need the old structures for this. The way we will tackle these tasks will have to reflect the new society. Certainly specialists will work at their jobs but they will be under the supervision of delegates elected from the workers’ councils. Power will come from below with everyone able to have their say about decisions that affect them.

Egypt's 'orderly transition'? International aid and the rush to structural adjustment

Click here to access article by Adam Hanieh from Jadaliyya. 

The press releases accompanying the announcement of these financial packages [offered by key financial institutions] have spoken grandly of “the transition to democracy and freedom”, which, as several analysts have noted, conveniently obfuscates the previous support of Western governments for the deposed dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. This article argues, however, that a critique of these financial packages needs to be seen as much more than just a further illustration of Western hypocrisy. The plethora of aid and investment initiatives advanced by the leading powers in recent days represents a conscious attempt to consolidate and reinforce the power of Egypt’s dominant class in the face of the ongoing popular mobilizations. They are part of, in other words, a sustained effort to restrain the revolution within the bounds of an ‘orderly transition’ – to borrow the perspicacious phrase that the US government repeatedly used following the ousting of Mubarak.

I think I will nominate this as the best article of May because it explains the real concepts that lie hidden behind the euphemisms and framing of concepts that mainstream and other media typically use to hide the real war that is ongoing between the capitalist ruling classes of the world and the underclass--working people who actually produce wealth. 

Capitalism is a system which supports a ruling class whose power is based on "ownership" rights over productive property from which all wealth produced by workers is under their control.  Although capitalists cooperate vigorously in defense of their advantageous system, they also compete aggressively against each other for the extraction of wealth and power; so much so, in fact, that their competitions often result in disasters for working people. Under this system we have witnessed ongoing oppression of working people, economic upheavals, and devastating wars. Moreover, the system is also threatening our lives due to resource exhaustion, environmental pollution, and climate change.

In this article the author goes to great lengths to explain the economic devices used by capitalists to insure their access to the wealth of Egypt. These methods are classic methods of neo-liberalism which are being used nearly everywhere in the world where wealth can be extracted by private interests, and this includes many underdeveloped, developing, and Western capitalist countries. Thus, it is critically important for us as citizen-activists to understand how these policies work, how they manifest themselves politically, and to be able to de-code reports relating to these issues in mainstream media.

The IMF versus the Arab spring

Click here to access article by Austin Mackell from the Guardian.

This failure to appreciate the revolutions as a rebellion not just against local dictators, but against the global neo-liberal programme they were implementing with such gusto in their countries, is largely a product of how we on the western left have been unwitting orientalists, and allowed the racist "clash of civilisations" narrative to define our perceptions of the Middle East. We have failed to see the people of the region as natural allies in a common struggle. [My emphasis]

Its good to see that some people are waking up.

Offshoring has Destroyed the US Economy

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from Global Research.

Sir James called it correct, as did Roger Milliken.  They predicted that the working and middle classes in the US and Europe would be ruined by the greed of Wall Street and corporations, who would boost corporate earnings by replacing their domestic work forces with foreign labor, which could be paid a fraction of labor’s productivity as a result of the foreign country’s low living standard and large excess supply of labor. Anytime there is an excess supply of labor, or the ability of corporations to pay labor less than its productivity, the corporations bank the difference, Share prices rise, and Wall Street and shareholders are happy.

None of the people whose observations on the contradictions of capitalism cited in this article are anti-capitalists. They are just honest people who see where this system is leading to--multiple crises. But contrary to some of their arguments, globalization is a natural extension of capitalism. It is following exactly the same basic motivation: the private appropriation of wealth on the basis of "ownership" rights to wealth created by working people. National boundaries have nothing to do with the system. 

Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink

Click here to access article by Fiona Harvey from the Guardian.

"I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions," Birol [chief economist of the International Energy Agency] told the Guardian. "It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say."

Al-Jazeera footage captures 'western troops on the ground' in Libya

Click here to access article by Julian Borger and Martin Chulov from the Guardian.

The authors offer evidence that NATO is breaking the "UN resolution over any 'occupation force'". Of course, they have already broken the UN mandate to provide only humanitarian protection to the rebels. It seems to me that there is a definite trend on the part of the Empire's political operatives to show less concern over legal pretexts to cover their war crimes. If this is true, it may suggest that they are becoming more confident in their ability to use force with impunity in order to establish the New World Order--the goal of the financial and corporate Empire builders.

One can see the influence of these purveyors of organized violence against local populations in many areas of the planet, especially those parts that are strategically important to the Empire. There is one common thread that appears to run through all of these forces of violence--a mercenary quality. 

There appears to be three main types of forces used by the Empire. First, the official armies of NATO member countries, used either in an overt or covert manner. Second, the sponsoring of client state's armies by NATO countries, especially by the US as seen in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iraq, Honduras, Afghanistan, South Korea, Philippines, etc. Third, the use of private military contractors like those of Blackwater Corporation: see two videos (9:01m and 6:56m) from Democracy Now.

The largest contingent in NATO is, of course, military forces of the US. This all volunteer army is essentially mercenary due to the lack of alternatives in the US economy for the majority of young people. I suspect that the lack of concern shown by the US ruling class for employment and educational prospects of young people is precisely because they want them to enter the armed forces. Before the recent economic collapse, armed forces recruiters were having a difficult time filling their quotas. Now, that is no longer a problem. 

“Only the Names Have Changed” The Continued Struggle for Democracy in Egypt

Click here to access article from Socialist Project (Canada) featuring an interview with Mamdouh Habashi. 

The army of Egypt has been turned around 180 degrees. Its transformation has been a long-running process. Originally, the army fought anti-colonial battles; it was a patriotic army that took its duty seriously. Now the army stands shoulder to shoulder with the USA and accomplishes the opposite. It fights with the USA against the people. This turn around took several decades and is related to the Camp David Accords (1979). 

The Sky Really Is Falling

Click here to access article by Chris Hedges from TruthDig.

The rapid and terrifying acceleration of global warming, which is disfiguring the ecosystem at a swifter pace than even the gloomiest scientific studies predicted a few years ago, has been confronted by the power elite with two kinds of self-delusion. There are those, many of whom hold elected office, who dismiss the science and empirical evidence as false. There are others who accept the science surrounding global warming but insist that the human species can adapt.

Unfortunately his solution is, like most US progressives, very short sighted:

...the rapid dismantling of the fossil fuel industry...

He, and Bill McKibben whom he quotes extensively, both completely miss the fact that growth oriented capitalism cannot exist without the continued use of fossil fuels.

“The only way around this is to defeat the system, and the name of that system is the fossil fuel industry, which is the most profitable industry in the world by a large margin,” McKibben said.

Of course, the name of the system is capitalism, fossil fuels is only a source of energy. But academics such as McKibben would be severely punished by academic authorities if he were to name the system accurately. I'm not sure what Hedges' excuse is.

A Lower Order of Being

Click here to access article by David Glenn Cox from OpEd News. 

The author provides a useful class-based perspective on famous revolutionaries in history by comparing George Washington with Che Guevara.

US Congress Becomes a Mob of Mindless, Cheering Sycophants

Click here to access article by James M. Wall from Veterans Today. 

The author describes a shameful day at the US Congress as Zionist influence rules the day.

The American mainstream media found nothing out of the ordinary as the US Congress enthusiastically embraced the words of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, in a refutation of the long-standing American understanding that “partisanship stops at water’s edge”.

In this instance it was not a partisan deviation. It was, instead a total capitulation of both parties to a foreign leader who stood before the members of Congress and ignored the ugly and costly results his own country’s policies have brought to both the Middle East and to the United States.

But the author is totally off-base with this statement:

This Congress is also guilty of a despicable act of defiance of the President of the United States, who is currently engaged in delicate negotiations to find peaceful solutions to the Middle East quagmire.

Obama is just preparing the liberal soil to grow support for next year's campaign for re-election. Just like his recent calls for the repeal of tax breaks for the oil industry as well as an Israeli-Palestine peace agreement, it is clear that he is not serious about either. There isn't the slightest chance of repealing any tax breaks for the oil corporations, it just appeals to liberal voters. As for a peace agreement, he has made it clear that his administration will continue with an "iron-clad" support for Israel.

Versus EconoParody on Dominique Strauss-Kahn

Many thanks to Versus and Naked Capitalism for this splendid piece. I don't think that it is only a  parody of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, but more importantly a satire of the rich screwing over the world and the lesson that in the capitalist jungle one can also be regarded as prey by other capitalist predators.

We've Gone from a Nation of Laws to a Nation of Powerful Men Making Laws in Secret [13:48m video]

Thanks to Washington's Blog for this excert from C-Span of Sen. Ron Wyden's speech to the US Senate regarding the renewal of the Patriot Act. This liberal Republican from Oregon, who has served on the Senate Intelligence Committee for a decade, argued against passage in its present form. (It was passed anyway.) His basic argument is that secret interpretations of intelligence laws are, and have been, used and inevitably they are eventually revealed to the public. This results in the undermining of public confidence in the legal system. He seems to suggest that it is only a problem because the public eventually finds out about it. Although he started off his speech with the correct ominous tone, he went on to praise the work of the well intentioned intelligence community for protecting our nation. Finally, he never revealed what the classified interpretation of the Patriot Act really is.

I believe he either fails to understand what he knows about our secret government, or he is deliberately understating the significance of this practice in order to pacify the public into believing that Congress will change things. He certainly did not set off any alarms bells to alarm mainstream media or much of the alternative media.

If you read The Fish is Red by Hinckle and Turner, The Secret Team by Col. (ret) L. Fletcher Prouty, and The Mighty Wurlitzer by Hugh Wilford you will not be reassured by Wyden's speech. You will conclude that much of US foreign and domestic policy is determined behind official government agencies by mostly unknown, unelected members of the security/defense establishment in spite of many years of Congressional and even Presidential attempts to bring it under the control of law.

The Counter-revolution Club

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times Online.

Welcome to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), formed in 1981 by top dog Saudi Arabia plus the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. A more appropriate denomination would be Gulf Counter-Revolutionary Council - or club; a Gulf club to end all golf clubs. As far as the GCC is concerned, the great 2011 Arab revolt will triumph over their (wealthy) dead bodies. 

One area of the world in which US mainstream media covers the most superficially are events in these oppressive medieval kingdoms. This might seem strange because they, organized as the GCC, are a major piece on the chess board of the Great Game, a piece joined at the hip to the US Empire and integral to its strategies for dominating the world.

The problem for mainstream media is that the governing of these countries represent the antithesis of democracy and humanitarian concerns which media organs always use to justify the Empire's  foreign policies and actions, the current one being the "humanitarian" mission in Libya that mysteriously morphed into regime change. Escobar does a splendid job of describing how neatly this piece fits with the Empire's preference for mercenary armies and weapons all supplied by private corporations.

If you would like to know more about what life is like in one of these kingdoms, Dubai (a part of the UAE), a good read is from the The Independent from a couple of years ago.

NOTICE: Because I am having guests visiting me through Saturday, my postings until Sunday will be rather light.

Black 9/11: A Walk on the Dark Side, Part 3: AIG and the Linkage to the Drug Trade

Click here to access article by Mark H. Gaffney from Foreign Policy Journal. 

I have read quite a few excellent books on this general subject. (Most prominently: The Old Boys by B. Hersh, The Secret Team by L. Fletcher Prouty, The Fish is Red by Hinckle & Turner, and Dark Alliance, Gary Webb.) Hence, I found it difficult to read this and the preceding two parts of this series. It is not because his articles are not well written and documented--they are. It is just that I've "overdosed" on such material. Thus, I mostly scanned this article and Part 1. There is some new material on AIG in this segment that I haven't seen before; so I'll look it over at some future date.

This whole history and story of the interweaving of Wall Street, the various organizations of the "security" establishment, criminal gangs, drug cartels, banking, and terrorist organizations is so sordid, often shocking that most people simply refuse to believe it and avoid reading the material whenever they encounter it. The material undermines everything that people in the US have been taught to believe about how their government and corporations function. As a result, there is now a huge canyon separating what most Americans believe about their country and reality. 

But, there are cracks forming in the minds of many and, who knows, how much wider they will become in the future as adverse economic consequences continue to worsen for most people, as resource exhaustion accelerates, as climate change produces even more extreme weather than we are currently witnessing, and as the ruling class increasingly relies on more effective police state measures to control dissent.

U.S. weather extremes show "new normal" climate

Click here to access article from Reuters News Service. 

Yes, the extreme weather we are seeing and will continue to experience is being referred to a the "new normal". This means that the ruling class political operatives know that there is nothing they can do to ameliorate it within the existing capitalist system. And, because they believe that there is no alternative to capitalism, they are telling us to "suck it up" because it is not going to get better. 

"What we're seeing is the new normal is constantly evolving," said Nikhil da Victoria Lobo of Swiss Re's Global Partnerships team. "Globally what we're seeing is more volatility ... there's certainly a lot more integrated risk exposure."

When capitalists talk about "risk exposure", they mean risk to their investments, not humanity.

Remaking Our Conceptual Maps of the World

Click here to access article by Harry Targ from New Clear Vision. 

The author of this piece draws on the insights of past cultural critics to deconstruct the present ideological fog machine that the capitalist ruling class is using to cloud our minds with material like the following:.

The recent rendition begins with 9/11. The world consists of large numbers of persons of color, especially Muslims, who want to kill us. We need to kill them first. Preemptive attack on those who we would expect to hate us is OK. International Law says so. U.S. diplomatic history says so.

Why should we be afraid? Why should we be prepared to kill? We must be vigilant because they hate our freedom. They want to destroy the natural evolution of societies from autocracies to market-based democracies. We must be fearful, vengeful, and ready to act for the benefit of the world.

And he concludes with this important insight:

We need to convince our brothers and sisters that killing and capitalism alike are antithetical to human needs.

The Spanish protests and the need for politics and conflict

Click here to access article by Guy Aitchison from Open Democracy (UK).

This morning I surveyed a number of articles regarding the protests in Spain that have been occurring in that country in about 60 cities for over a week. There has been almost no mainstream coverage of these events in US media. I chose to run this article because I think it offers a general perspective that provides the best understanding of this phenomenon. 

These demonstrations were timed to correspond with national elections held on Sunday, May 22nd. The main parties in Spain appear to be similar to the choices we have here in the US--choice of poisons. The demonstrations mostly attracted people under 30 years of age, were non-political, and focused entirely on protesting the austerity policies, public spending cutbacks, bank bailouts, etc.

The two main political parties consist of the current ruling party called Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers Party), a social-democratic party, and a center-right party called Partido Popular. The latter won Sunday's election. So you see, people in Spain as here in the US have really only an opportunity to vote against parties. They have no real positive choices. 

(Notice that the words "socialist" and "workers" are included in the name of the first party. Such naming is popular in Europe because of the strong popularity of socialist ideas in European history over the past century. Even the Nazi party translated into English was called National Socialist German Workers’ Party.)
  
The fact that the demonstrations were non-political received some rather cynical reviews by leftists (seeth is). 

Click here for many photos of the demonstrations.

Why the Rich Love High Unemployment

Click here to access article by Mark Provost from Truthout.

America's unemployed have been ignored and forgotten, but they are far from superfluous. Over the last two years, out-of-work Americans have played a critical role in helping the richest one percent recover trillions in financial wealth.

The author fails to mention a major cause of unemployment: the outsourcing of jobs to low wage countries over the past 30 years.

More deadly heat waves coming, climate scientists warn

Click here to access article by Sunanda Creagh from The Conversation.

The author gives us a preview of an upcoming report from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And more heat isn't all that is in store for us. 

The report will also examine other climate change related extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, floods and heavy rains.

If we all sit on our bums and let the growth addicted system that serves one class of people to continue, then expect more such dismal reports.

If Arab Spring threatens Israel, why does Saban support it?

Click here to access article by Maidhc Ó Cathail from Foreign Policy Journal. 

The first thing that struck me about his article was all the references to the word "democracy". I counted 19 such words in this article of moderate length. Why is that, when the title doesn't really imply that it is about the subject of democracy?

"Democracy" promotion is a covert way that the US-led capitalist Empire uses to gain support for its imperial interest of dominating all politically and economically important areas of the world. "Democracy" promotion conceals the real agenda of spreading its market oriented propaganda machine to deceive and manipulate working people in various countries.

"Democracy" promotion has historically been the theme of choice informing the propaganda efforts of capitalists. Democracy has been the dream of people all over the world since the American and French Revolutions which overthrew the rule of the aristocracies and monarchies which, unfortunately, were only replaced by the new class of capitalists. The latter used democratic propaganda when it suited them to enlist the support of working people in the revolutions. Once accomplished, the capitalist classes quickly consolidated their rule and secured the franchise only for their class, and created all the political and economic institutions to serve their interests of wealth and power accumulation.

Ruling classes have always insured that their points of view are conveyed to the underclasses. In earlier times religious institutions and their authorities have often been used to divert and deflect any criticism of the authorities and to generally support the dominant class. In more recent times the development of "public relations" methods has greatly enhanced the control of elites over the underclass by providing techniques to shape the perceptions and thoughts of the underclass.

It is interesting to note that the rise of public relations technology roughly corresponds with the expansion of voting rights: in the US and UK only about 10% of the adult population could vote in the 1880s, this changed to about 50% in the 1920s. 

Such notable figures as Walter Lippmann, Edward Bernays and Joseph Goebbels pioneered these techniques and applied them to the new mass media of radio. An Australian sociologist and psychologist, Alex Carey, wrote an excellent book on the subject entitled, Taking the Risk Out of Democracy. For a quickie introduction I suggest you listen to at least part 1 and part 2 of 5 videos that provide narrations from his book. Each video is approximately 10 minutes.

During the past five decades this propaganda phenomenon evolved into the widespread use of media and public relations consulting firms and right-wing funded think tanks to shape mainstream media's coverage of world events according to the interests of the capitalist ruling class. 

From this important function these institutions moved outward to engineer uprisings and revolutions in other countries, referred to as the colored revolutions. These were initially used by the CIA for smaller scale projects after WWII, but it appears that well funded NGOs (the Brookings Institution is a very prominent one) and foundations are increasingly operating in such countries more like independent agents of regime change, although likely in collaboration with the CIA. Zionist influence has figured very prominently in these institutions. See also this, this, and this.

They not only influence media in those countries where regime change is desired, but they pay for targeted groups to come to the US for training seminars, and fund benign sounding opposition groups within the countries.

The author of this article raises some important questions regarding the extent to which such operations were behind or shaped the recent uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

Battle Over IMF Chief: Proxy War Over Power of Banks?

Click here to access article by Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism.

The open question is at what cost will the advanced economies incur in installing yet another European. The IMF has been tasked to play a bigger role in global surveillance, particularly in prodding countries to rebalance their economies and change other risk-creating practices. If both top and the number two posts at the IMF goes to Westerners, it’s likely to produce simmering resentment and undermine cooperation on crisis prevention initiatives. The efforts to continue to make the world safe for big banks is coming at higher and higher cost, but no one in charge seems terribly concerned about the intermediate term, much the less the long term.

This perceptive and honest blogger has had a long career in the financial services industry. She is not against capitalism as a system, but appears to be more of a FDR era pro-capitalist when corporations and banking were under much tighter controls following the collapse of the economy in 1929. (See this famous semanticist's review of political-economic labels). Her honesty and knowledge of the system often produces insights into how the system actually functions.

Currently we are witnessing the internecine battle that is occurring in the capitalist camp following the purge of Dominique Strauss-Kahn who apparently strayed too far from policies that serve the interests of the financiers.

A careful reading of this piece suggests that the financier-bankers are at the top of the capitalist ruling circles. It is clear that in economies where industrial growth is of primary interest the capitalist classes are vying for power with the reigning banking interests in Western countries for control of the powerful IMF.

Of course, it will be the latter who win the current contest, but for the vast majority of those that actually create wealth, working people, it really doesn't matter. It is we who must take control of our economies if we are to live in peace and harmony within ecological limits of our planet.

Contamination: The totalitarian strategy of the GMO crop industry

Click here to access article by Kurt Cobb from Energy Bulletin. 

[Revised 5 PM Seattle time]
What is missing from this excellent article is a deeper class analysis which would provide a meaningful context within which to understand the "totalitarian" tactics of a major capitalist industry.

Thus, the author seems rather shocked that legal institutions are cooperating with the interests of this corporation (Monsanto) by giving legal sanction to their Frankenstein crops. He appears not to understand that all institutions in a class structured society serve the ruling class; and in our capitalist societies each capitalist class has created the legal sector to serve their interests, not ours. 

Any ruling class is by definition essentially a totalitarian class and employs various methods to maintain its dominance. The fact that this system in the US and other countries hides behind a well-designed and well managed facade of "democracy" has enabled them to fool most people into tolerating the present class arrangements. They are perfectly willing when they need to, to use police state methods to enforce their policies. If people understood that the capitalist version of "democracy" was only a fig leaf hiding the obscenity of class rule, they would launch a vigorous fight to change things.That is precisely the reason they prefer this "democratic" style of domination.

Greece: Urgent call for international solidarity

Click here to access article by Pavlos Stavropolous from Institute for Social Ecology. 

What is happening in Greece is the future for working people throughout capitalist countries: the ruling class is revealing its naked fist of fascism and divisive tactics to defeat the people.

Greece is at a critical turning point, and many critical changes are taking place in a societal as well as a political and economic level. The disintegration and dissolution of the dominant – until recently – model of power and exploitation is more than evident, so it defines what is commonly called ‘crisis.’ What we are experiencing now is the total failure of a system that is unable to secure any longer the social consensus, thereby is engaged in a frontal attack that is unconditional and with no pretext.

Dr. King Spanks Obama: Part 6

Click here to access article by David Kendall from OpEd News. 

[Slightly revised 5 PM Seattle time] 
In this report on Dr. King's last thoughts (which are always entirely missing from mainstream media's hagiography) regarding the economic injustices in the US and his proposed solutions, it is clear why the political operatives of the ruling capitalist class had to "disappear" him. Such thinking was, and still is, very dangerous to the interests of that class. 

The author contrasts this African American's perspective with that of another "Black" American, President Obama, who having been raised mostly by his white banker grandmother and educated in elite schools, has very different concerns:

Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" clearly states his overall mission to "save capitalism from itself". True to his word, Obama's continuing agendas have typically 'bailed out' a wealthy minority to the profound dispossession of everyone else, both domestically and abroad.

Long after the insightful observations of Dr. King, this progressive author, along with many others, is clearly beginning to grasp the necessity of other social-economic arrangements in the US. 

...capitalism is an inherently lop-sided, top-heavy, bare-knuckles system that kicks the living piss out of most of us for the extreme benefit of an exclusively entitled few. There's nothing new about that. To soften the blows and to make the battle a little more humane, Americans have arrived at a number of public safety measures like Social Security, unemployment benefits, Medicare and Medicaid. But as we've seen recently, these are precisely the measures that come under attack whenever the U.S. government decides to 'take off the gloves' and "save capitalism from itself".

It is always interesting to me to see the enduring legacy of racism in the US. This is so evident with the way most people--and not only White Americans--in the country identify Barack Obama, who is of mixed race parentage, as Black or Afro-American. They see only his darker skin and other superficial racial characteristics to the exclusion of everything else.

Disinformation-Fighting Toolkit

Click here to access article from Washington's Blog.

I think of these as techniques used to distract from critical thinking and disrupt attempts at truth seeking. Such techniques are used by disinformation artists everywhere--most damaging are those in government and mainstream media.

In order to combat disinformation, we have to remind people again and again of the basic tricks. While the information in this links might be old-hat to you, many Internet surfers haven't seen this information before.

Indeed, psychologists and sociologists say that people won't even look at something unless they've seen it a number of times ... and even if they look at it, they won't learn it or understand it until they've been exposed to it again and again.

Bankers Cheer as IMF Head Faces Sexual Assault Charges: Why They Hated Dominique

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from Counterpunch. 

I have been nauseated by mainstream media's orgy of coverage regarding this latest elite sex scandal. I knew that they were hiding the real story behind their salacious focus on the sex details. I've been waiting for someone to come through with a sensible analysis of this incident--that involving Dominique Strauss-Kahn, one of capitalism's most powerful figures. This author from my own State of Washington has provided it. 

Of course, I don't for one micro-second condone such behavior, nor do most people. But human beings are complex creatures. We are all made up of good and bad characteristics. Bad behavior is quickly discouraged, even punished, by one's peers among ordinary people. But where you have vastly unequal power relations among people, those with less power must often suffer the "slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune"--chief among these "outrageous misfortunes" is living in a class structured society. 

Therefore, the arrest and public humiliation of this powerful capitalist did not make any sense to me. This does not happen in the real world unless powerful people stray from the party line of the ruling class. Ruling class people have always screwed working people with impunity throughout history both literally and figuratively, as they continue to do today, probably more than ever.

The IMF chief certainly has enemies in high places who will be cheering his predicament. He had recently broke-free from the "party line" and was changing the direction of the IMF. His road to Damascus conversion was championed by progressive economist Joesph Stiglitz in a recent article titled "The IMF's Switch in Time".

Mexico: Imperialism, Bankers, Drug Wars and Genocide

Click here to access article by James Petras from Voltaire Network. 

If Washington has been the driving force for the regime’s war, Wall Street banks have been the main instruments ensuring the profits of the drug cartels. Every major US bank has been deeply involved in laundering hundreds of billions of dollars in drug profits, for the better part of the past decade.

With his usual perceptive analysis of the drug business in Mexico, Petras reveals the real story of how capitalist addiction to profits and power results in devastation to the lives and communities of ordinary people in Mexico and the US.

Spain: this is what working class revolt in 2011 looks like

Click here to access article by Alex Snowdon from his blog, Luna17.
 

The mass protests in Spain are an inspiration to everyone facing austerity and fed up with the hollowing out of democracy. The movement fuses economics and politics, just like in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere. It takes inspiration from the Arab Spring, while seeing itself as part of Europe-wide resistance to cuts. Spain's young workers, jobless and students are showing us the way.

The always-expanding bipartisan Surveillance State

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald from Salon.

We now live in a National Security State, otherwise known as a police state. Yes, my friends, it is the "new normal"--so, get used to it.  And the war on Libya is legal because the President, our Fuehrer, says so. (See update 2 in article.)

Trump Is Not the Carnival Sideshow—The Political “Normal” Is

Click here to access article by Russ Baker from Who What Why.

I think a better title to this perceptive piece would be, "How Mainstream Media Misses the Real Circus by Focusing on the Sideshow."

...the bigger problem is that we fail to properly study the system itself in terms of the “non-hucksters” who get to the top.

Which Posh, Customized Private Plane is Right For You?

Click here to access article by Jamie Johnson from Vanity Fair. 

Often on Saturday mornings I like to pay a visit to the lives of the One Percent of Americans who live very differently than we do. Theirs is a life free of any concern about medical care, paying their bills, helping their children get a decent start in life, facing unemployment, foreclosure on their homes, etc.
But, after all, we really should get to know them because they do share this country with us as neighbors. 

Well, not really. We rarely, if ever, meet rich people in the flesh who spend much of their time at their various homes and playgrounds in such secluded places as Aspen, The Hamptons, Nantucket, Davos, Dubai, and Monte Carlo. We don't even meet them in the lines at airport security check points because they get around in their own private planes. One of their biggest concerns is deciding which type of aircraft to buy.

...rich aviation enthusiasts spend millions annually on lesser-known planes, commonly called owner-operated aircraft, or personal aircraft, built for recreational pilots whose passion for flying is matched by the size of their overflowing bank accounts. Their owners tend to be gentleman pilots eager to fulfill a James Bond fantasy. This typically involves finding the perfect seaplane to complement a grand private yacht, but sometimes it just means cruising the skies in de-weaponized military fighter jets.

Bin Laden Death Script & the Needed Trigger for Next Step-Pakistan

Click here to access article by Sibel Edmonds from her Boiling Frogs blog. 

Edmonds is a former FBI translator who was fired because she blew the whistle on government cover-ups and criminal activity. She is another important anti-war voice of reason that we must listen to if we are to prevent another round of wars concocted by capitalist empire builders. 

In this article she offers evidence that there is a US strategy against China that informs the Empire's plans for Pakistan. I agree with her assessment of the importance of Pakistan to the US Empire and the threat to the Empire that China poses. (For more evidence, read this.) 

Should Pakistan escape the clutches of the US Empire and embrace China, a dangerous chain of events could ensue with very unpredictable consequences. Such inter-capitalist rivalries are dangerous for working people, because it is we, or our sons and daughters, whose lives will be sacrificed to settle these inter-capitalist rivalries for dominance. We simply cannot allow them to repeat the horrendous war crimes they perpetrated in the last century. Only organized, informed, peace-loving working people throughout the world can put a stop to this.

Why does Nobody Believe in the U.S. Default?

Click here to access article by Paul Koshik from Foreign Policy Journal.

I agree with his thesis that the recent downgrading by Standard and Poor of the US credit rating was a propaganda stunt by the US governing class. It was part of a strategy to impress working people that all the devastating cutbacks in public services and the social safety nets are, indeed, required to save the dollar. However, I disagree with this Russian author as to the reasons the US can get away with running huge deficits with impunity.

The basic reason is the huge military force that the US governing class uses to impose its money and other interests upon the rest of the world. It is precisely like a neighborhood bully who uses his counterfeit money to buy things from his neighbors. They dare not refuse to take his money or they know bad things will happen to them. (See this, if you are not convinced.) 

Another reason, but one related to this basic reason, is the secret deal Kissinger made in the 1970s with the brutal and oppressive Saudi medieval rulers to sell their oil only in US dollars in exchange for US security guarantees. Forcing the world to pay for oil in US dollars secured its value even without gold backing. In Mafia terms, the Saudi clan was paying for protection. An added bonus for the US is that the Saudis agreed to deposit their petro-dollars in US banks and invest in US securities. (See this, and this, p.207.)

Floods, Droughts Are 'New Normal' Of Extreme U.S. Weather Fueled By Climate Change, Scientists Say

Click here to access article by Deborah Zabarenko from Reuters via Huffington Post.

The extreme weather we now see is only a small bitter taste of what's to come if we don't stop growth-
addicted capitalism from destroying our planet.

Obama Officials Refuse to Investigate New Evidence in National Guard 1970 Kent State Shootings

Click here to access article by Linn Washington Jr. from This Can't Be Happening.

 During that late 1960s and early 1970s, the FBI was involved in COINTELPRO, secret and blatantly illegal campaign to disrupt the anti-Vietnam War movement as well as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, including through violence and assassinations. COINTELPRO actions involved not just the FBI, but also the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and other secretive government units, as well as Nixon's own secret and illegal "Plumbers unit" run from inside the White House.

It is no surprise to me that the Justice (sic) Department refuses to look at more evidence about the murder of Kent State students by the Ohio National Guard. This incident was only one among so many attacks on US citizens by government authorities during the Civil Rights/Vietnam War era. 

This was a period when Americans experienced one shocking incident after another--assassinations of Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Malcom X, numerous Black Panther party members, and many other militant activists. All these crimes were covered up.

It was a time when the anti-war and Civil Rights Movement was coming together to challenge the ruling class, and the latter made it clear that they would brook no opposition to their rule. That is when the naked fist of fascism, always hidden behind capitalism's facade of "democracy", was brought out to smash the jaw of American militants. It was a shocking and dreadful time for activist citizens who thought they had some rights to oppose their government's crimes against humanity. 

For me, it was even more disturbing that so many of my fellow Americans, those who were not activists, believed all the cover-up stories reported in mainstream media.

Spain’s Tahrir Square

Click here to access article by Pablo Ouziel from ZNet. 

This writer is an activist and a free lance writer who lives in Spain. It appears to him that his countrymen are finally waking up to see the necessity of fighting back against their ruling class.

As the country continues to implode economically, unemployment grows incessantly leaving one in two young people unemployed across many of the country’s regions. With many in the crumbling middle class on the verge of losing their homes while bankers profit from their loss and the government uses citizen taxes to expand the military industrial complex by going off to war; the people have begun to grasp that they only have each other if they are to rise from the debris of the militarized political and economic nightmare in which they have found themselves. Will thousands in protest become tens and hundreds of thousands? It is beginning to look like they might.

In Athens, austerity puts revolution back on the menu

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from Greek Left Review. 

This article reports on the concerns of the ruling elites in Europe about the increasing militancy of the Greeks and their fight-backs against austerity programs. What do you think is of primary concern to them? Well, read the article to find out if you are right.

The Hot-Money Cowboys of Baghdad

Click here to access article by Steven Lee Myers from The NY Times.

This Iraqi capitalist vulture sees a great profit opportunity in the devastation of his country resulting from US war crimes:

What makes Iraq’s economic potential so great, he explained, despite everything, is not just its abundant natural resources — it is the shattered state of Iraq itself: the damage done by the American war, but also the long, steady decay under Saddam Hussein, from the war with Iran that began in 1980 through the invasion of Kuwait a decade later and the crushing international sanctions that followed the first gulf war. The country has been decimated, and therein lies its potential.

Capitalists not only get rich waging wars, but they get rich re-building countries after their wars. As Deng Xiaoping of China said, "to get rich is glorious".

From Chiquita to Nike: Labor Activists Drive Corporations Bananas [updated 2x]

Click here to access article by John Lasker from Toward Freedom. 

The headline of this article would be much more accurate if it read, "From Chiquita to Nike: Corporations Drive Labor Activists Bananas.

I can't tell you how much an article like this angers me! This liberal view of the ongoing war on working people by ruling class corporations is precisely what is the most damaging to working people. It provides the prospect of hope for positive change by promoting methods that do not in any way disturb the system itself. To fight back according to the rules of capitalism will always ultimately end in defeat. 

Most labor activists have been doing this since the inception of capitalism, and what do they have to show for it? Is today's world so much better for working people than it was 300 years ago? Only for a relatively few high tech workers and workers in unions in the advanced capitalist countries. But, as we've seen, unions in the West are now facing all-out attacks by the ruling elites. 

The vast majority of working people (assuming they are working) in the world have seen their lives, and the environments in which they live, trashed. The working conditions in Columbia are not untypical working conditions in many areas of the world--it just isn't reported in capitalist media for obvious reasons. See this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.

It is long past time for activists and progressives to grow out of their delusions, and organize to fight this life destroying system! It is long past time for activists to start to create a new system that provides for social justice and one that enables us to live in harmony with the ecosystem!

Is Anyone at Home?

Click here to access article by David Glenn Cox from OpEd News. 

Throughout mainstream media there are many reports on the recent economic downturn, usually with statistics and broad descriptions, often colored with reassurances that the economy is improving. Even in alternative media one rarely finds descriptions of the suffering people actually experience. When I see and read all these reports, I often wonder how people are actually coping, what it is like to face extended periods of unemployment, about all the tensions that tear at the fabric of families and communities, how it feels to face foreclosure and being homeless. This gifted writer gives us some of the raw human experience behind these sterile mainstream media reports.

These things, these events leave scars and marks that Tide won't wash off. Like a death or a divorce, you carry them with you internally from then on. With upwards of ten million home foreclosures and maybe as many evictions it means that nearly of a third of our population has been displaced and scarred. A huge army of men, women and children whose lives have been disrupted and destabilized, who fear answering the telephone or the arrival of a stranger's car. The mail makes them queasy and the end of the month makes them nervous and jumpy.

Greece, Ireland and Portugal: bankruptcy or democracy

Click here to access article by Nick Dearden from the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt. 

It is simply not possible that the policies being inflicted on Greece, Ireland and now Portugal will reduce the debt burden of those countries – the very opposite will happen, as was seen from Zambia in the 1980s to Argentina at the beginning of the last decade.

...So why then are these policies still being pursued?

As usual, it's capitalists sí, democracy no!

Radiation exposure and the power of zero

Click here to access article by Jeffrey Patterson from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

• The accidents at Fukushima have once again raised concerns about public exposure to elevated levels of radiation.
• Science tells us that there is no dose of radiation so low that it can be considered completely "safe" or "harmless."
• We cannot afford to risk annihilation and continued environmental contamination; we must turn away from nuclear power and weapons.

The author acts like we, as citizens, have much of a choice in this matter under existing conditions. In spite of all the suppression of negative news about nuclear power, poll after poll in the US, both before and after the Fukushima disaster, demonstrates that most citizens want the focus to be on conservation and alternative energy. See this, this, and this.

Confidential Federal Audits Accuse Five Biggest Mortgage Firms Of Defrauding Taxpayers (with revised commentary)

Click here to access article by Shahien Nasiripour from Huffington Post. 

After only a two month audit that is being kept under raps by the Dept. of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) the results indicate that taxpayers have been defrauded out of at least $30 billion dollars.

The audits conclude that the banks effectively cheated taxpayers by presenting the Federal Housing Administration with false claims: They filed for federal reimbursement on foreclosed homes that sold for less than the outstanding loan balance using defective and faulty documents.

They clearly broke numerous laws, but what do you think the chances are that they will face any legal consequences? The people who run these institutions are in, or serve the interests of, the ruling capitalist class in the US. They make the laws, but only to serve their interests. Their laws don't apply to them. Laws only apply to us.

Rather than punishing banks for misdeeds, the administration is now focused on helping troubled borrowers in the hope that it will stanch the flood of foreclosures and increase consumer confidence, officials involved in the negotiations said.

Levying penalties can't accomplish that goal, an official involved in the foreclosure probe talks argued last week.

Yves Smith, a financial analyst, who has followed this issue closely in the past few years sees a coverup of the crimes. She writes:

This revelation, that HUD audits of the biggest servicers over a mere two-month period, showed extensive fraud, is proof that abuses were extensive. It also establishes that the effort by Tom Miller to settle the 50 state attorneys general investigation quickly and and the recent “see no evil” Federal consent orders are a cover up.

The article hardly mentions all the socially devastating effects that bankster (for my foreign readers, this is a combination slang word joining "banker" with "gangster") and mortgage lender practices have had on falling home prices. the wiping out of equity that ordinary citizens accumulated in their homes, the destruction of the economy, public spending cutbacks, and so on. As everyone knows or should know, the recent collapse of the economy was caused by the mortgage scam: coaxing people, even those with poor credit, to come into real estate offices and sign no-money down mortgages. Many people were in on this project, even George Bush who promoted the practice with celebratory references to an "ownership society". As a result property values took off and the real estate boom was on.

It is well known that economic booms and busts are an inherent part of a capitalist economy. What is less known is that capitalists love it. Volatility whether in the stock markets or in the general economy provides great opportunities to increase their fortunes. With their hands on the levers of finance, credit, mainstream media, and the political system, they can with their piles of money fairly easily create this volatility. During downturns in the stock market or, even better, busts in the economy, the ruling class seizes on these opportunities to pick up properties of all kinds at bargain basement prices to enlarge their holdings. These sociopaths who oversee our economy couldn't care less about the devastating effects of booms and busts on the rest of us.

After the latest economic bust in order to make even bigger bucks, the banksters spread this economic virus even further by wrapping these worthless mortgages in attractive AAA ratings from various agencies (no doubt they were also in on the scam), pedaled them to financial institutions and sovereign wealth funds, etc. all over the world. And the rest, as they say, is history.

We Have Bigger Abbortive Problems Than Abortion

Click here to access article by E.R. Bills from Dissident Voice. 

This piece is not terribly profound, but the point is so creatively expressed. He/she teases us into becoming critical thinkers! This is important because without critical thinking, there is no hope that we can solve the multi-dimensional crises we are now facing. So, stop performing abortions on your ideas!

Wanted Dead or Alive

Click here to access article by Robert Koehler from Transcend Media Service.

The more perceptive alternative commentators on the internet are seeing through the Empire's latest propaganda stunt: the dredging up of the myths of the Wild West which are worked over endlessly in mainstream media. 

In the post-9/11 decade, myth and politics — myth and all phases of American culture — have converged with a certain ferocity that seems unprecedented in my lifetime, and coincides with our transition to a state of perpetual war and economic freefall. As real security for most people nosedives, appeal to myth, especially the myth of the Wild West, becomes the prime tool of governance.

Imperial regimes frequently employ myths to mobilize their populations in support of their imperialist goals giving the pursuit of the latter heroic qualities that hide crimes against humanity. The most notable regime in recent history to do this were the Nazis who used myths that dramatized the superiority of the "Aryan race" to justify their domination over other people and races. Read 'Nazism and the myth of the "master-race"' for more details.

Green Smoke Is Sighted as Vatican Releases Glacier Report

Click here to access article by Lauren Morello from the NY Times.  

Climate change is shrinking the world's mountain glaciers, whose retreat creates new risks for humans and sensitive ecosystems alike, warns a new report commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church.

Maybe the Pope can excommunicate all the climate change deniers out there! But seriously, I don't understand the NY Time's titling of this article--are they trying to ridicule the report? The research team's qualifications look very impressive:

The Vatican academy fielded a group of two dozen researchers, including experts in snow, glaciers and atmospheric chemistry, led by Ramanathan, Lennart Bengtsson, the former director of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, and Paul Crutzen, who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on the ozone layer.

Crutzen later coined the term "Anthropocene" to describe the idea that human activities have pushed Earth's climate into a new geologic epoch that will last for thousands of years. That concept lies at the heart of the new report.

Debtocracy [1:14:47 video]

Click here to access the video from CADTM.

For the first time in Greece a documentary produced by the audience. “Debtocracy” seeks the causes of the debt crisis and proposes solutions, hidden by the government and the dominant media.

I have not had much time to view this video from Greece, but it looks very interesting. It has very good resolution in full screen mode on my computer monitor. I'll watch the whole video later. 

Observing the 63rd Nakba

Click here to access article by Richard Falk from Foreign Policy Journal. 

On this 63rd anniversary of the catastrophic Palestinian experience since 1948, when an escaping and expelled 760,000 Palestinians (now this dispossessed population has grown to 4.7 million; the 160,000 Palestinians who managed to stay behind in what became Israel now number 1.3 million), there is an encouraging sense that the destiny of the Palestinian people has entered a more hopeful phase....

After reading this article, I recommend watching the following 2:12m video that I borrowed from Transcend Media Service:

Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century? (Foreword to the new report)

Click here to access article by Richard Heinberg from The Post Carbon Institute via The Oil Drum.

I am posting this from The Oil Drum because of the very interesting commentaries included after their articles. People who follow this website are generally highly trained people in the various scientific disciplines. 

In Heinberg's forward to the study conducted by The Post Carbon Institute, and based on that study, is critical of the optimistic projections of the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Keep in mind that the EIA is a US government environmental agency which, of course, is stacked with people who have a stake in the capitalist economy that requires never-ending growth. He explains how this pro-capitalist bias works to influence the wider society.

...if this report [The Post Carbon Institute's study] is right, then how could mainstream energy analysts have gotten so much so wrong? ...it is fairly easy to trace the convergence of interests among major players. First, the shale gas industry was motivated to hype production prospects in order to attract large amounts of needed investment capital; it did this by drilling the best sites first and extrapolating initial robust results to apply to more problematic prospective regions. The energy policy establishment, desperate to identify a new energy source to support future economic growth, accepted the industry’s hype uncritically. This in turn led Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, 60 Minutes, and many other media outlets to proclaim that shale gas would transform the energy world. Finally, several prominent environmental organizations, looking for a way to lobby for lower carbon emissions without calling for energy cutbacks, embraced shale gas as a necessary “bridge fuel” toward a renewable energy future. Each group saw in shale gas what it wanted and needed. The stuff seemed too good to be true—and indeed it was.

Reflections Before the Collapse of Oil (Jan Lundberg interviewed in Shanghai Oriental Morning Post)

Click here to access article from Culture Change (Jan Lundberg's website). 

Jan Lundberg is an independent oil analyst who just published his autobiographical Songs of Petroleum. His father Dan Lundberg was the founder of the Bible of the oil industry "Lundberg Survey." Jan worked closely with Dan Lundberg for 15 years, during which time they accurately predicted the Second Oil Shock in 1979. In 1988 Jan had left for-profit work and founded Fossil Fuels Policy Action which coordinated the Alliance for a Paving Moratorium and published the Auto-Free Times magazine. Jan has been car free since 1989 and enjoys bicycling, walking, sailing, and taking trains.