What next for Wisconsin? [7:00m video]

The Real News provides us with this commentary by Allen Ruff, a program host for a radio station in Madison, Wisconsin. 

I have known of the results since the election results last week, but I have been waiting for a good analysis of the results. Ruff provides this. Clearly this recent electoral defeat was only one small battle in the war against the system. People like Ruff are learning some important lessons from this defeat.

He has reached the critically important conclusion that activists must not rely on creating change through the system's political and labor institutions. The latter have been shaped and refined over long periods of time to serve the interests of the ruling class. The labor unions and the Democratic party are key elements to contain dissent within limits that are tolerable to the political operatives of the capitalists. I certainly do not recommend opting out of these organizations, but activists must adopt a strategy that is multifaceted. Such a strategy would include community organizing, protests, campaigns targeting corporations, along with working within labor unions and the Democratic party to change their direction.

Austerity is Euphemism for Class War Waged by Rich

Click here to access article and video by Michael Truscello from Dissident Voice.

I have not had time yet to view his 1:39:45 video, but his introduction in this article promises development of a critically important theme: Capitalism Is The Crisis (the title of his film).

The U.K. Riots And The Coming Global Class War

Click here to access article by Joel Kotkin from Forbes. 

It seems that this capitalist source can only see class war as an option, not changing the system. Hence, one must assume that they are girding for war. Well, there has always been class war since the beginning of the agrarian age (see this for more explanation), but what I mean is a more aggressive level of class war, something like fascism.

...modern society cannot run according to the individualist credo of Ayn Rand; economic systems, to be credible and socially sustainable, must deliver results to the vast majority of citizens. If capitalism cannot do that expect more outbreaks of violence and greater levels of political alienation — not only in Britain but across most of the world’s leading countries, including the U.S.

Driving People into Rebellion

Click here to access article by Stephen Harper from Dissident Voice.

These events are not simply a response to the ‘neoliberalism’ which it is fashionable for left-liberals like to denounce (subtext: if only we could ditch those nasty Tories and install a more clement, democratic system of exploitation, then everything would be alright). Rather, they represent the death throes of the moribund system of capitalism. As the signs of social decomposition become harder to ignore, we should be very clear that the future offers, as Rosa Luxemburg postulated, only two possibilities: socialism or barbarism. The anti-social aspects of these riots, and the response to them by right-wing ‘vigilante’ groups, give us a glimpse of what that second possibility might look like: a Hobbesian war of each against all, fueled by racism and nationalism and leading to what Marx and Engels, in one of their gloomier moments, called the ‘mutual ruination of the contending classes’.

I think the big question is: will we allow the capitalist system to degrade society into barbarism, or will we act in an intelligent, organized fashion to destroy the system and replace it with a system that sustains societies?

Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?

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

As a federally protected whistle-blower, Flynn is not permitted to speak to the press. But in evidence he presented to the SEC's inspector general and three congressional committees earlier this summer, the 13-year veteran of the agency paints a startling picture of a federal police force that has effectively been conquered by the financial criminals it is charged with investigating.

So much for federal regulatory agencies--because even when they exist, they function to serve the interests of the class that rules over us.

NOTICE: Because I have too many distractions to deal with today, I will not be entering any posts. Everything should be fine tomorrow.

What Your Elected Representives Do When Not in Session

by Ron Horn for this blog.

To show how American democracy is currently functioning, I thought I'd bring you up to date with some currents events which you will not see reported in mainstream media. First, I'd like to bring to your attention what your state legislators have been doing. 

From August 3 through August 6 they were brought to New Orleans for wining and dining, and most importantly, to learn what legislative bills their corporate sponsors wanted. Trips and expenses were paid for by ALEC which...

...describes itself as the largest “membership association of state legislators,” but over 98% of its revenue comes from sources other than legislative dues, primarily from corporations and corporate foundations.

Read this report from PR Watch to learn about the details of how corporations make it easy for legislators by writing the bills for them.

ALEC's power lies not only in generating corporate-sponsored "model bills" for state legislators to make law, but that it facilitates multiple levels of influence-peddling. ALEC itself has a $7 million budget and 32 staffers. In addition to this budget, ALEC technically acts as an intermediary for about a million dollars in travel "scholarships" that pay for many legislators' trips to ALEC meetings, with corporate funds for the scholarships held in trust by ALEC. With corporate "sponsorship" of ALEC meetings, a couple million dollars flow through ALEC to put on days of workshops, meetings, and festivities. (This does not account for the dollars corporations spend for lobbyists to prepare for and meet with ALEC legislators in pursuit of their legislative agenda, nor does it take into account any campaign contributions that might result from the relationships cultivated at ALEC meetings.)

(See also previous articles regarding ALEC published on this blog: here and here.)

Next, let us see what our Congressional members are doing currently. It seems that they are making their annual expense paid trips to Israel to be wined and dined courtesy of an AIPAC affiliate. Stephen Lendman has the scoop on this. Read "Congressional Junkets to Israel" for the disgusting details.

Heading each [two groups] are House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) and House Whip Kevin McCarthy (CA). Spouses are also going at an estimated cost of $8,000, including business-class flights, first-class hotels, meals, transportation, side trips, guides and incidentals.

Red carpet treatment is assured along with considerable pro-Israeli messaging, especially for new incoming freshmen. They'll meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, as well as PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in Ramallah. Legitimate Hamas leaders are excluded.

Their entire week is choreographed and full, from early morning to late evening, including breakfast and dinner speakers, as well as meetings with other government officials.

It's obvious to me that what our "democratically elected" representatives do away from their offices is far more important to how our governments actually function. Yet, none of these activities are ever reported in mainstream media.

Commons Manifesto

Click here to access article by Justin Kenrick from Bella Caledonia (Scotland). 

Much food for thought here on an alternative way of living, especially an alternative to the community and soul destroying way of living that we presently experience:

The command and control system of elite domination and extraction – especially but not solely in its recent form of capitalism – has not just destroyed communities in the Highlands of Scotland and Papua New Guinea, but thrives on destroying the possibility of community in the cities and replacing it with consumption and interaction mediated through forms which generate profit for some and loss for everyone else. More than this, this form of domination, extraction and expansion not only destroys our pleasure in each other and ecosystems, but is reaching the limits of the ecologically tolerable as the forests, oceans, topsoil and climate are destroyed and poisoned. Trusting such as system to deliver well-being is mistaken at all levels.

As Economy Tanks, "New Normal" Police State Takes Shape

Click here to access article by Tom Burghardt from Antifascist Calling.

This is quite a lengthy article in which he provides numerous links to information to support his thesis: a police state is taking shape and the ruling class wants you to think of it as a normal state of affairs.

Here in the Northwest where I live, there have been numerous incidents of conflicts between border patrol agents and local citizens and migrant workers. This morning I've come across a new report from a Canadian source which reports on a US border patrol officer's attempt to act as a whistle-blower on our government's wasteful and needless hiring of so many border patrol agents for this area. It seems that the latter have nothing to do but harass working people.

However, from the point of view of the political operatives of the ruling class, I don't believe that these officers are "needless". I think that all US police and "security" agencies have been beefed up to establish the police state that Burghardt writes about in order to prepare for civil unrest from its own citizens.

The Syrian "Common": The Uprising of the Working Society

Click here to access article by Yassin Al Haj Saleh from Jadaliyya. (This actually was written in June, but only now translated into English for this website.)

I absolutely loved the perspective on the Syrian uprising as offered by this author. I think that this piece has to a great extent captured the spirit of the uprisings that are occurring in many parts of the world, and this spirit could very well succeed in bringing profound changes--I'm thinking epochal changes. 

Ever since the beginning of the agrarian age (10,000 years ago?) when surplus goods were produced for the first time, societies have been plagued by class divisions and conflict. It seems that there were always people who no longer wanted to share the bounty, but to control and appropriate it for themselves and their families--you know, the kind of people Margaret Thatcher thought were normal. Often such people formed priesthoods and hoodwinked people into thinking that they had privileges because of some type of divine connections to gods. Other societies came under the control of a warrior class who insisted on appropriating most of the wealth. Later, we have seen slavery, landed aristocracies, state bureaucracies, capitalists, and combinations of all such arrangements claiming the right to take possession of most of the socially produced wealth. 

But, notice that the human spirit that demands social justice never really died. There have always been rebellions against such arrangements, and many succeeded for a time until some new special ruling group took over. Are the uprisings and protests that the author describes in Syria illustrative of what is happening in so many places across the globe? Do these events herald a new universal spirit of resistance to class-based societies everywhere? 

...nothing will bring back those who have participated in this noble act of freedom and have experienced the ecstasy of rebelling, to the political, moral and intellectual decay the regime has in store for them. If this regime is enslaved by and addicted to power, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have developed a more powerful addiction to freedom and collective rebellion. While the regime worked for half a century to strip Syrians of political interest and to spread apathy among them, the uprising today represents a great collective rehearsal on politics and on developing a concern for common interests. In this respect, one hopes that this rehearsal on freedom continues despite its dangers and cost. The sacrifice and selflessness that marks the participation in this uprising, the atmosphere of brotherhood and confidence among people, the broad mixture and coming together, the intense reactions and sharing of pain, all make it a sublime manifestation of life, one that is rarely possible.

On the Current Conjuncture in Israel

Click here to access article by Matan Kaminer from Jadaliyya. 

Many progressives around the world have been wondering out loud about what exactly has been going on here for the last month. Who are the unprecedented crowds taking to the streets in the name of "the people" (ha'am), demanding "social justice" (tzedek hevrati), and what exactly do they want? Is there any connection to the ongoing occupation and oppression of the Palestinians? And if not, can the protests be at all justified?

This article provides a much needed analysis of the current protest movement occurring in Israel. It is not always easy for American readers to follow with the author's use of English, but very much worth the effort. 

The Punk Patriot: The Whole F**king Thing Is Coming Down

Click here to access 2:11m video and lyrics from October 2011.

Hedge funds, derivatives, tea pot dome
wall street gambling, using your home
congress isn't gonna do a single fucking thing
because their campaign contributions all come attached to strings
The Democratic Party is a failing institution
what we need now is a real revolution

Collateral Damage in the War on Anonymity

Click here to access article by David Sirota from In These Times. 

I think that the author tries too hard to be "balanced" in reporting this issue. Clearly the authorities will maintain their anonymity and will seek to reveal all those who stand in the way of the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Surveilling authorities is often illegal. Thus, ruling class authorities are only exploiting the issue of right-wing attacks on civil liberties and assaults on people by increasing their surveillance of political activists. 

It is precisely the right-wing propaganda organs of the ruling class that spew out hate messages that provide an acceptable climate for crazies to act out their fantasies. (See this excellent piece for an explanation of this argument.) So, instead of cracking down on propagandists and cultural productions that encourage hate toward minorities, they use sensational incidents to further the surveillance of, and crackdown on, political activists. The cultural producers of the ruling class largely create the problem, and then use the problem against political dissidents.

BART Pulls a Mubarak in San Francisco

Click here to access article by Eva Galperin from Electronic Frontier Foundation.

This incident may be an indication of things to come: a willingness of authorities to shut down the internet to prevent protests and activism in spite of its gross violation of First Amendment Constitutional rights.

This week, EFF has seen censorship stories move closer and closer to home — first Iran, then the UK, and now San Francisco, an early locus of the modern free speech movement. Operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) shut down cell phone service to four stations in downtown San Francisco yesterday in response to a planned protest.

See also this piece by the same author.

NATO reneges on its mission

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from Voltaire. 

This astute observer fills in the missing news about Libya on US mainstream media. Nothing of the NATO campaign has been reported in the US for many weeks simply because the news is not good. The campaign is in shambles, and extensive efforts are underway to salvage something for the Empire from the disaster. The author presents a very different view of Libyan society that may offer some insights for NATO's defeat:

The country is ruled by people’s congresses and Muammar Gaddafi has reduced most of the administrations to their simplest expression. There are no grand ministries to be found here, only small offices. The ministers are not high-profile personalities, but simply team leaders. They are the advisers who are assisting the people through their powerful skills. Power is diluted and elusive. What used to be a headache for the businessmen who visited Libya, i.e. finding the right interlocutors, has now become an enigma for NATO strategists: who should one target? After five months of bombardments, they still have to figure it out.

See also this report by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya.

Food Companies Lobby Hard to Lower Healthy Standards for Kids

Click here to access article by Sarah Borron from Food & Water Watch. 

Nothing in capitalist societies trumps profits--not even the health and welfare of children.

Today one in three American children are overweight or obese. Restricting unhealthy food marketing to youth is one important step in addressing this crisis. Corporations spend close to $1.6 billion marketing food to children each year. Kids see unhealthy food marketing on television commercials and product placements, on websites featuring “advergames” based around foods, and even in schools.

Bush and Clinton Counter-Terrorism Czar Alleges Massive 9/11 Cover Up (amended commentary)

Click here to access 12:53m video and article from Washington's Blog.

Clarke theorizes that top CIA brass tried to recruit the hijackers and turn them to our side, but were unsuccessful. And - when they realized had failed - they covered up their tracks so that the FBI would not investigate their illegal CIA activities , “malfeasance and misfeasance”, on U.S. soil.

This may, or may not, be merely innocent speculation on Clarke's part, but his statements provide a convenient explanation for the coverups. 

As usual when the political operatives of the ruling class are determined to hide their crimes, it will be many years before the facts are uncovered. There is already a lot that is available (see this, this, this and this), but kept completely out of any mainstream media. Most liberals are afraid to even discuss the issue of a 9/11 coverup and conspiracy because of negative repercussions to their careers, especially those in academia who are the most knowledgeable.

Although I have not followed recent findings regarding the 9/11 event very closely, I have read a lot of earlier evidence provided by a wide range of alternative sources. Because of this information plus an extensive knowledge of the history of the CIA, FBI, and right-wing political operatives, I have a speculation of my own. But first, a little historical background because I don't believe that 9/11 was mostly a result of foreign actors, or a coverup of illegal domestic CIA operations, or unrelated to political developments in the US.

I think that there is a lot of evidence that a secret government has grown inside the government like a cancer since the failed right-wing coup plot in 1935 to remove FD Roosevelt from the Presidency (1) and take over the government. The coup was hushed up and the public never learned what happened. There were hearings behind closed doors by a select few members of Congress, but nothing came of it. 

After this failure the right-wing ensconced themselves mostly in the media, the FBI, and the military, but otherwise kept a low profile until WWII was concluded. They then passed the National Security Act of 1947 to set up the CIA under the naive, but well-meaning President Harry Truman. They also launched a powerful campaign to purge all pro-labor activists from unions and left wing academics from educational institutions, and attacked leftists in Hollywood (McCarthyism) and others. 

The purge in Hollywood provided an opportunity for Zionist influence in Hollywood that bore first fruit with the production of "Exodus", a major propaganda film promoting Zionist interests. This was followed by hundreds of similar films and what has been described as a holocaust industry to promote support for Israel. American money and military aid poured into Israel and Zionists infiltrated all important areas of the media and government. Fortress Israel has served in a similar fashion to forts established in the 19th century in western parts of the US to suppress hostile Native American uprisings, only in this case, to impose a hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East.

The CIA's early cadre were almost totally made up of Wall Street people, mostly corporate lawyers. Their mission was that of right-wing capitalists: to rid the world of communist,socialist, and non-market oriented influences--only they were determined to do this secretly using the CIA (2 &3) to burrow into the hidden recesses of the government while extending their influence in the media and Hollywood. Pursuing a foreign affairs policy of "roll-back", they launched the Korean War, and used covert military forces to overturn many other unfriendly governments (unfriendly to corporate interests), followed by the Vietnam War, and the rest is history (see this). There is considerable evidence that the CIA was heavily involved in the assassination of John Kennedy.

The next pivotal event was the right-wing's engineering of Reagan's campaign to get him elected to the Presidency. Further attacks on unions followed, and the right-wing surfaced as neo-conservatives to take control of government officially.

After the collapse in 1989 of the Soviet Union there was a general sigh of relief among the American people and they looked forward to an era of peace, demilitarization, and prosperity. By this time the ultra-right, not being satisfied with the collapse of their main foe, in their arrogance were intent on spreading US hegemony using the Orwellian term "Pax Americana" over the entire world. But first, they had to do something about the peace loving American populace. This concern was expressed in numerous neo-conservative documents: especially in the 2000 neo-con document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses"(4), also in the Rumsfeld Commission Report which stated:

History is replete with instances in which warning signs were ignored and change resisted until an external, “improbable” event forced resistant bureaucracies to take action. The question is whether the U.S. will be wise enough to act responsibly and soon enough to reduce U.S. space vulnerability. Or whether, as in the past, a disabling attack against the country and its people—-a “Space Pearl Harbor”—-will be the only event able to galvanize the nation and cause the U.S. Government to act.(5)

I believe that well before the 9/11 event the CIA became aware of an Arab militant group intent upon a terrorist project in the US. They monitored their movements closely and at some point realized that they could facilitate their activities and bring about a Peal Harbor event to "galvanize the nation" in support of their imperial project.

Clarke's explanation that the CIA was covering up its relations with the terrorist group because it was illegal for the CIA to be involved in domestic activities is patently ridiculous. Although there were some early jealousies and rivalries during J. Edgar Hoover's administration of the FBI in their relations with the CIA, the two agencies have since cooperated fully. And, the CIA is often involved in domestic actions. They are an entirely unaccountable, clandestine agency and do what they want regardless of the law.

Once you become knowledgeable about the content in these various sources, you can draw a straight line from 1935 to 2000 and then easily arrive at this sort of explanation for 9/11. Had that tragedy not happened, the American people would never have supported the many years of war and occupations since then. 

Notes
1. The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer
2. The Secret Team by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty (1972)  
3. Bill Moyer's 1987 PBS program entitled, "The Secret Government: the Constitution in Crisis"
4. Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century--A Report of The Project for the New American Century September 2000.
5. Quoted here from Rumsfeld Commission Report.

Swarmwise: What Is A Swarm?

Click here to access article from Falkvinge on Infopolicy (Sweden). 

...it is a scaffolding set up by a few individuals that enable tens of thousands of people to cooperate on a common goal in their life. These tens of thousands are usually vastly diverse and come from all walks of life, but share one common goal. The scaffolding set up by one or a few individuals allow these thousands of people to form a Swarm around it and start changing the world together.

There are some very interesting ideas in this and other articles at this and other sites which suggests to me that an entirely new subculture is forming as a result of the possibilities provided by the internet and the Web. This new technology is bringing people together in large numbers from all over the world without restrictions to share information and to solve problems. This phenomenon is not only challenging capitalist ideas of "owning" intellectual property, but is threatening to undermine the entire capitalist system which allows small segments of our populations to rule over the rest of us.

Syria's Torment

Click here to access article from the editors of Jadaliyya. 

New political dynamics are taking hold in the Middle East and the insurrection in Syria can only be understood through a new perception of these dynamics. The old political formulas are no longer relevant.

...the season of Arab revolt, including its Syrian phase, marks the end of an era. It is surely not authoritarianism per se that is disappearing in the Arab world, considering the Saudi quashing of the Bahraini rebellion, for example, or the worrisome signs coming from Egypt under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces there. But no longer is mass social mobilization against injustice absent from the regional stage. No longer can the will of the people be so blithely ignored. There will be no more hereditary transfers of presidential power in republics, and the notion of uncontested executive authority has been shaken to its core. 

Why do banks make so much money?

From RoarMag.

This brief 2:52m video provides a concise way of understanding why banking, particularly central banking, is held by private interests, by people who are firmly lodged in the ruling capitalist class. Because their control over the issuance of money is so rewarding to them in terms of power and wealth, they will not give up this control easily. But, it is a necessary first step in wresting control of money away from them to understand this phenomenon.  

A second step is to understand that the same people own and control our economy. This arrangement, too, must be removed from their "ownership" and control. Social enterprises (all corporations are social enterprises) must be owned and controlled by society for the benefit of all. The days of autocrats, elites, privileged segments of the population exploiting the rest of society are coming to an end. We must be prepared for this end and a new future by designing social structures to insure that societies serve the needs of everyone.  (See the alternative systems listed on this blog at the top right for ideas.)

Our way of life is the problem

Click here to access article by Mickey Z from Infoshop News.

The precarious state of things on Planet Earth is not some preordained theology or an unstoppable force of nature. We’re in this mess thanks to human decisions. If different decisions had been made in the past, different outcomes would’ve likely occurred.

If different decisions are made and different actions are taken—starting right now—perhaps different outcomes can still transpire.

I say we find out…

Anonymous Anarchism: The Yang of Globalization

Click here to access article by John Kelley from OpEd News. 

Anarchism is probably the worst threat to capitalists, and they have spared no effort in trying to distort its ideas and crush it in order to keep its ideas and history from the minds of working people. Although I've read a lot of literature on the left, I am no expert on anarchism. However, this article appears to provide excellent insights on contemporary and historical examples of anarchist thought and actions.

Anarchists believe that men should not rule or be ruled but form voluntary cooperative relationships to accomplish what they cannot do for themselves, bottom up democracy. Membership in any collective is voluntary and fluid. The three corruptions of power as far as Anarchists are concerned are the power of the state, the power of the church, and the power of capital. They refuse to recognize the authority of all three.

To learn more about the Anonymous group he refers to in his article, check this and this out.

The Pentagon's Fake Jihadists

Click here to access article by Tom Engelhardt from his blog, Tom Dispatch.

What about the effect of Pentagon's Jihadi versions on unbalanced people like Anders Behring Breivik and Jared Lee Loughner? 

Don't think deterrence here, think blowback. 

The motivation behind this program is quite likely to encourage terrorist attacks (blowbacks) on the US to justify more invasions and domestic police state methods--resulting in benefits to the military-industrial complex that serves as the enforcer for the Empire.
 

“Jobless Need Not Apply”

Click here to access article by Kathy McMahon from her blog, Peak Oil Blues.

The title refers to "what’s increasingly being posted on Monster.com" which lists employer "help wanted" ads.

Obama The Pretend Populist: Says He's Fighting For Jobs ... But His Policies Only INCREASE Unemployment

Click here to access article from Washington's Blog. 

This excellent blogger assembles a lot of material to clearly illustrate how the US government has absolutely no interest in creating jobs, no matter how much they keep saying that they want to promote jobs. Their policies are concentrating even more wealth into the hands of those who, while hiding behind a "democratic" facade, rule over us.

Obama was essentially hired by the political operatives of the ruling class because he could be packaged and sold as a "minority" candidate who would support populist type policies. It worked! Once again, most Americans were played for fools.

The first signs of an economic collapse appeared in the Fall of 2007 with the loan default rates soaring in Europe. Many economists could foresee the collapse unfolding in the near future elsewhere. The political operatives of the ruling class clearly saw the need for a smooth talking populist type of candidate to carry them through the impending crisis. Thus, they recruited Obama who seemed to fit the role perfectly. And, he has. 

The political operatives of the ruling class gave Obama his script and he has been talking about jobs ever since. While Obama was talking jobs, the Fed, which is owned and controlled by the ruling class, instead of creating jobs by funding badly needed infra-structure projects, had other plans in mind. They used their money machine to create money (debts for us) to bail out their banks (along with AIG, a mortgage insurance company) who found themselves stuck with a lot of the packaged mortgages that they had been peddling like snake oil all over the world.

Detroit area workers, retired people speak out on social spending cuts

Posted on WSWS by Andre Damon.

In this video, workers and retired people respond to the $2.4 trillion in spending cuts passed by Congress and the Obama administration earlier this month, in the context of rising social inequality and widespread unemployment.

Union Workers Stand Up to Extreme Demands from Verizon

Click here to access article by Kenneth Quinnell from Crooks and Liars.

More than 40,000 workers -- members of the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers -- went on strike this week after Verizon refused to even begin to bargain fairly with the workers. The workers on strike include "telephone field technicians, call center workers and cable installers from Massachusetts to Virginia."

American workers are increasingly standing up to the big corporations and saying, "no more".

Writer to BBC interviewer: ‘Stop accusing me of being a rioter’

This 4:25m video from article by Dylan Stableford from Yahoo News.

The British media has fielded plenty of criticism over its coverage of the U.K. riots--in part, for siding with police in their clashes with London youth, and for not telling the latter's side of the story.

See how the BBC interviewer has difficulty managing the interview with Darcus Howe, a 68-year-old West Indian writer and broadcaster. When she doesn't get the responses her bosses want, she resorts to cutting him off and then trying to lead listeners to believe that he is a rioter. 

Thanks to Terry Everton.

Notes on the non-violence of the 15-M movement

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from Roar Mag. 

This essay, which I recommend more than the video, provides one of the best arguments for non-violent confrontations with authorities that I have seen. We have much to learn from our brothers and sisters in Spain, Greece, Egypt, etc.

The choice for nonviolence is not a choice to shun conflict, but rather to put this conflict in our own terms, choosing the scenarios and setting the pace.

...Violence makes us predictable: it reinforces the positions and roles (police repressor / protester victim). Calling a police officer a “hijo de puta” confirms the situation and the division of roles. Everyone knows who he is, what his identity is and what to feel towards the other. Surely this is not something very serious, but it isn’t really subversive either. Instead, the gestures that we have often seen at 15-M demonstrations compel the police positively, with forms of irony or empathic communication, to dislodge the situation: embarrassed, uncomfortable and restless, they interrupt the “automatisms”, challenge the clichés, ask questions, short-circuit the predictable, so that everyone knows he has to think, act and feel.

Panic on the streets of London

Click here to access article by Laurie Penny from her blog, Penny Red. Laurie is the author of a recently published book entitled, Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism.

Absolutely excellent reporting from this blogger who is on the scene in north London witnessing the disintegration of her community.

The violence on the streets is being dismissed as ‘pure criminality,’ as the work of a ‘violent minority’, as ‘opportunism.’ This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it. Tonight, in one of the greatest cities in the world, society is ripping itself apart.

Nickel and Dimed (2011 Version)

Click here to access article by Barbara Ehrenreich from TomDispatch. Excerpted from Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, 10th Anniversary Edition

As more Americans fall out of the middle class, they must cope not only with poverty but with a system that treats them like criminals.

In what has become a familiar pattern, the government defunds services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement.  Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Generate no public-sector jobs, then penalize people for falling into debt. The experience of the poor, and especially poor people of color, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks. And if you should try to escape this nightmare reality into a brief, drug-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too.

Applying swarm theory to networked union organising

Click here to access article by Walton Pantland from Cyber Unions.

...rather than having strict hierarchical structures, we could have networks of activists connected to each other and to nodes – campaigns. This creates a dense ecosystem of interlocking social movements and practical solidarity.

Swarm theory takes the rhizome structure even further, by proposing explicit organising techniques to mobilise people through these networks.

Much creative thought here about organizing our forces to stop the Empire and construct real democracy, healthy communities, and high functioning human beings.

The ugly face of austerity? Massive riots in Tottenham

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from Roar Mag. 

Class war is now raging in north London. Meanwhile, US mainstream media is almost totally focused on the stock market collapse. While I write this post, I am watching CNN's Wolf Blitzer giving an extensive interview with billionaire Donald Trump. Trump blames it all on China! As the Empire's Wall Street casino is burning, the ruling class spokespeople are shaking in their boots. 

And, even Israelis protested in massive numbers over the weekend! Read "Historic protest in Israel: over 300,000 demand social justice".

Chris Hedges: Why I Will Be There [3:36m video]

Click here to access video from Transcend Media Service. 

At least one American is fully aware that it is urgent for us all to stand up and say "no" to corporate control of our society. We must join the brave Greeks, Icelanders, Spaniards, Portuguese, British, Egyptians, etc. and say "no more"--we have had enough of your rule, your wars, your austerity, your destruction of our planet! 

As they say on some TV commercials, "But wait, there's more!" Chris Hedges is not the only one. Check out this article and this website.

The Markets. The Markets. Who Are These "Markets" We Are So Beholden To?

Click here to access article by Peter Kellow from OpEd News. 

Have you ever wondered about this god called "The Market" that our masters of the Empire worship so much? You can't blame them for worshiping this god because it has brought them so much wealth and power. On the other hand, this god has brought so much misery, death, and destruction to the vast majority of us. Hence, to fight this god, we must gain some understanding of it. This article helps to demystify the concept along with hedge funds, and money creation.

...the word "markets" refers to some indefinable, ineffable force to which we know we must just bow down. We don't need to question what they are and should not do so. We certainly should never put their authority in doubt, or terrible things might happen.

David Gregory's Social Security Nonsense: Misinforming viewers about deficit's causes--and public's solutions

Click here to access article from Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

This article explained a lot for me about the attacks on Social Security and Medicare programs. As I have written previously, these programs were set up as separately funded programs based on equal contributions from workers and employers, and they have been running huge surpluses for many years. It is only now or in the near future that they will be running annual deficits. So why all the concern?? My interpretation was that these funds have been "stolen" by the Treasury Department to help fund US wars, and now the wealthy ruling class doesn't want to increase taxes to pay back these "stolen" funds. And why weren't these funds invested instead? Well, this article explains it all for me.

The funds from these programs were invested--in US Treasury bills and bonds--just like the Chinese have done with all their surplus money. But, do you notice that there is no one advocating in Congress or mainstream media for the US to default on Chinese debts?? The author cuts through all the crap coming from mainstream media and political operatives with this statement:

When the government pays back these loans [from the Social Security/Medicare Trust Funds] --as it must, unless it borrowed trillions of dollars from working Americans under false pretenses--those payments will contribute to the deficit. But it makes no sense to think of the government paying back loans as Social Security contributing to the deficit. The government of China buys large amounts of Treasury bonds, and the U.S. government regularly pays this money back; if China uses some of this money to build highways, does that mean that Chinese highways are contributing to the U.S. deficit?

They, the US ruling class, simply want to default on their debt obligations to US workers!! Because they don't want to pay extra taxes to do this in addition to funding all their wars! So, maybe I wasn't so far off in my explanation. Maybe they did sell us their debt under false pretenses. Maybe they never intended to pay us back! We were conned by a mafia-like ruling class! Maybe they "stole" our savings from us!  And, now they are lying to us by framing the federal deficit problem as a Social Security and Medicare problem!

My only issue with the article is that it encourages people to think that they can solve this issue by writing to media figures such as NBC's David Gregory complaining about his coverage. He is only the very tiny tip of the self-serving ruling class iceberg that is planning to sink us all. 

Afghanistan is Broke, US Drowning in Debt – So What About a War Ceiling?

Click here to access article by Michele Lin from Economy Watch. 

Even journalists from business sources are beginning to state the obvious.

Double Standards on the Left

Click here to access article by Sveinung Legard from New Compass. 

I am not so much interested with his criticism of the "left" in Norway as I am about his interesting discussion about participatory democracy.

Democracy is first and foremost a question of power. If the members of a society collectively can make the substantive decisions governing the means of production and other social conditions in society – and if all the members of that society have equal opportunities to participate in those decision-making processes – we can talk about a direct or participatory democracy. If we cannot, it is not a direct or participatory democracy.

Bahrain Raids Offices of Doctors Without Borders (video)

Click here to access article by Kristina C from Care 2 Make a Difference.

Another posting to break US media's blackout of news regarding the popular insurrection in Bahrain. 

Yes, I know, there is one link in the article to the NY Times regarding the raid on the offices of this international humanitarian medical aid organization, but this is only because international people were involved and the information would leak out anyway.

No, I didn't watch the video. There is only so much brutality and injustice that I can stomach. 

Will S&P Downgrade Be Another Y2K Scare?

Click here to access article by Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism. (Amended commentary)

This downgrade of US debt is the Empire's way of continuing their neo-liberal war on US society following the recent debt ceiling agreement reached in Congress. Their end game is total capitalist control over everything that is of value to their profit machine. That means smashing the social contracts that have held people together in nation states that previously served the interests of national capitalist ruling classes. 

To understand the concept of social contract, one must place it in its historical context. The concept arose to public attention during and after the capitalist revolutions in the US and France in the latter part of the 18th century. It was essentially a deal made by capitalists with the rest of their populations to gain control of society from the aristocracy and monarchy and to promote their hegemony when they were relatively weak. It was mostly an unwritten philosophical position (although made explicit in the US with the addition of the Bill of Rights to the new US Constitution after considerable citizen opposition to its original form), but it informed the policies and public statements of the new ruling class in their relations to their subjects. Essentially, it stated that these new states under the control of capitalists would guarantee and actively promote individual and collective social security, social justice and effective forms of social solidarity.1 

Over time and after considerable social strife during the industrial revolution, this thinking evolved into advocating direct assistance to the weaker parts of the population. Also the capitalist state, especially after WWII, would ensure the loyalty of the middle class by providing them with numerous perks and a better income so that they could afford to buy their own homes and maintain a decent standard of living (aka "the American Dream"). In return, all citizens were expected to support their capitalist states and their wars, and not interfere with the rights of private ownership and management over socially produced goods and services.

Following the 20th century and its horrific wars between the competing dominant capitalist states and the demise of one state (USSR) that did not permit private ownership of social enterprises, the US-led empire of capitalists have been trying to establish a global hegemony which some have called a "New World Order". This new political arrangement consists of global capitalists who no longer need nor want national boundaries that interfere with their profit seeking pursuits. (They do like to use boundaries to control working people and to stash their money in tax havens.) They are intent on destroying any elements in societies that impede their profit-making activities such as government regulations, social safety nets, environmental and labor protections. And, they are intent upon extending their control over areas of the planet that resist this domination by using NATO forces to quell opposition.

Privatization is the new key word of the New World Order. They want to "own" everything that has any value. Thus, their almost religious affirmation of "market forces" which must be supreme. Of course, it has been "market forces" that they have used to concentrate so much wealth under their control and for their benefit. 

Another core belief was succinctly expressed by Margaret Thatcher who said, "There is no such thing as society. There are only individuals and their families." This provides a rationale to get rid of any social safety nets. This, of course, is a radical change of thinking from the collective sense of security that has sustained and fostered the growth of human populations during the past 150,000 years. Thus, under this new regime one's rights, opportunities, and security will be determined by one's relationship with the ownership of economic enterprises and immediate family, and not with one's neighbors, community, or nation.

Note
1. I don't take a cynical view that people such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Paine were insincere, but I think that they were used by the new capitalist class to deceive workers and peasants. In any era there are a variety of views expressed by people, but only those that serve a ruling class are ones that are permitted to reach large audiences.

A model for the world: Iceland's loud 'No'

Click here to access article by Silla Sigurgeirsdóttir and Robert H. Wade from Voltaire.

 Learn how a small group of people in Iceland gradually gained "ownership" over so much wealth, and gained control of Iceland by their collusion with neo-liberal forces in the world.

There is a direct line of descent from the quasi-feudal power structures of the 19th century to the modernised Icelandic capitalism of the later 20th century, when a bloc of 14 families, popularly known as The Octopus, were the economic and political ruling elite. The Octopus controlled imports, transport, banking, insurance, fishing and supplies to the Nato base and provided most top politicians.

But Icelanders are not fools, nor do they wish to become neo-liberal slaves--they are fighting back!

The Biggest Criminals Are Out of Sight: Shop and Shoot America

Click here to access article by Linh Dinh from Counterpunch.

The author sees signs of social disintegration gripping American society and explains how it relates to the interests of the military-industrial complex.

...one in six Americans is on food stamps, and more and more Americans are losing jobs, including teachers, firemen and cops, as unemployed and deranged teens run wild in “flash mobs” to beat up random strangers. It has happened repeatedly in Philadelphia, my neck of the woods, as well as Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Boston, Brooklyn, South Orange and Greensboro. There are racial and class components to this phenomenon, as these wilding youngsters are invariably poor blacks converging on white shopping districts.

The New Normal: Billion-Dollar Disasters

Click here to access article by Julia Whitty from Mother Jones.

Climate disasters will become the new normal if we continue to let the system of capitalism go unchallenged. The system which depends upon growth to produce profits for a few is driving us off the cliffs of climate disasters and resource exhaustion. Even if we could change systems today, we would still experience climate disasters for years to come. However, if we could change the system soon, we might survive and even thrive as fully functioning human beings in harmony with the ecology of our planet.

Exxon and Shell Announce Massive Profit Gains — All the More to Spend on Influence Peddling and Climate Denial

Click here to access article by Noreen Nielsen from Climate Progress. 

Exxon reported a whopping $10.7 billion in profits, an increase of 41% from the same period last year. Overall, Exxon has earned over $20 billion in profits in just the first six months of the year. Not surprisingly, ExxonMobil is also one of the most politically engaged of the top five oil companies.

Who says the economy is not doing well? The big corporations, particularly Big Oil is doing fine. And read the details about what they do with their profits to increase profits.

Bahrainis fight torture with hunger strike

Click here to access video interview from Press TV (Iran).

Press TV has conducted an interview with Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights in Manama, to further talk about the issue.

I am posting this because of the disappearance of any news about the Bahraini insurrection in US mainstream media. This lack of coverage is in stark contrast to the extensive coverage being provided for the insurrection in Syria.

Bahrain is the site of the US Fifth Fleet, and Bahrain has close political ties with Saudi Arabia, a key ally of the US government. Both are autocratic kingdoms where violations of civil and human rights are routinely committed by their governments.

War, Hollywood, and the Saviors and Slaughterers of Freedom [post of the month]

Click here to access article by Keith Harmon Snow from Dissident voice.

On July 22, 2011, thirty-two year-old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik massacred 77 people in Norway. Hollywood released the new Captain America film the same week. Some people see Captain America as ugly Americana at its worst; others think anyone who criticizes it should be killed. The savior story Captain America follows the earlier 2011 premier of Marvel Comic’s Nordic superhero THOR. Meanwhile, ordinary people of both developed and underdeveloped countries suffer more and more as the captains of industry profit from massive global high-tech warfare and the manufacture of misery. How do such seemingly benign Hollywood films affect mass psychology? How do they influence individuals? Is there any relationship between martyr-massacres and mass entertainment media? Some call the Nordic Aryan a psychopath. Others are calling him a savior. Is he a self-styled Norwegian version of Captain America?

I regard this author as of one of the best independent journalists that the US has. They are a rare breed, and because of this they can only be accessed through alternative sources on the Web.

In this piece he provides an in-depth--and I mean in-depth--analysis of this phenomenon of right wing assassins and wannabe heroes such as Breivik and Jared Lee Loughner. He clearly explains the cultural context that produces such people: a cultural context created by the close cooperation between Hollywood and the Pentagon to insert ruling class values and war propaganda into the minds of ordinary people, especially young people. 

There is so much material here that I have some questions about its length for the internet. I think he has content for several separate articles. Most internet surfers are unable to stay with an article of this length. But, on other hand, it contains so much excellent material.  I particularly recommend  RT's 4:15m video critique of the movie, "Captain America" which he links to in the article.

NATO facing military stalemate in Libya

Click here to access article by Peter Symonds from World Socialist Web Site. 

It seems that NATO's "humanitarian mission" is not doing so well in Libya. And, I have been puzzled as to why I've seen almost no mainstream media coverage of events in Libya for some time. Now, foreign coverage is limited to Syria. I'm sure people who follow this blog can figure that out.

In a revealing comment, Hague defended the NATO bombing campaign, saying it had saved “many thousands of lives and stopped the destabilisation of Egypt and Tunisia.” Saving civilian lives is the pretext used to justify NATO’s illegal war on Libya. The reference to Egypt and Tunisia, however, confirms that, along with securing control of Libya’s oil, the US and NATO are intent on establishing a beachhead against the revolutionary uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

Junk Food Industry Battles Attempts to Reduce Consumption

Click here to access article from Good Food World. 

The bad guys – junk food industry, including soda makers – are winning the war. That is, they’re doing their level best to continue to market and sell their products and prevent any constraint of their trade by government agencies or even “advisory committees.”

Nowadays ruling class corporations are winning battles on all fronts. This piece reports on their victories to keep people eating their highly profitable junk food. It's clear why they fight any government attempts to regulate or curtail their profit making, health impairing industries.

21st-Century Slaves: How Corporations Exploit Prison Labor

Click here to access article by Rania Khalek from AlterNet.

There is one group of American workers so disenfranchised that corporations are able to get away with paying them wages that rival those of third-world sweatshops. These laborers have been legally stripped of their political, economic and social rights and ultimately relegated to second-class citizens. They are banned from unionizing, violently silenced from speaking out and forced to work for little to no wages.

Whenever ruling class spokespeople talk about their concern for jobs, you know that they have something very different in mind. They hate jobs. They hate to pay people to perform jobs because jobs are costs that are deducted from their profits. Thus, they always search for new ways to eliminate jobs through efficiencies of operation, through investment in labor saving equipment, by pressuring people to work harder and longer, outsourcing jobs to cheaper locations throughout the world or to non-unionized subcontractors, and then there is this method.

In the past 10 years we have also seen immigrants criminalized by the ruling class and their servants in mainstream media and Congress in order to add more cheap labor to this burgeoning and highly profitable industry. When you realize that a considerable amount of public money has been allocated to police services rounding up immigrants to feed this system, it's clear that these corporations are also being supported by public money. 

This is a perfect scam for capitalists--using prison slave labor and public subsidies to enrich themselves. See this, this, and this. In addition to military related corporations in the US, the private prison industry is booming and highly profitable. See this.  

Ruling Class Victory

Click here to access article by Margaret Kimberley from Black Agenda Report.

The class war is nearly over, and those at the top of the heap have once again achieved a clear victory. They and their minions can be held in abeyance but only if there is a realization that we are in a war in the first place.[My emphasis] The much discussed congressional deal on the budget ceiling is a win only for the people who want to do away with the little bit of safety net and democracy we have left.

Many people all over world have come to this conclusion and are fighting back in every way they know how. Unfortunately, here in the US I continue to see too many symptoms of a disintegrating society where the vast majority of citizens are unaware of what is happening to them, and even worse, are turning on themselves.  See this, and this. 

However, we must all keep things in perspective. This is only the latest battle we, as working people, have lost. The war is far from over.

From Economic to Social Crisis: Deficits, Debt, and a Little Class History

Click here to access article by Richard D. Wolff from MR Zine. 

The author provides an excellent perspective on the history of capitalism's booms and busts, and ends on an upbeat note:

Resignation never was the only response of working people to capitalism's dysfunctions.  After the initial shock -- at an American Dream fast disappearing and lasting economic decline looming -- rebuilding old and/or creating new labor and left organizations will resume.  The old mole of real class struggles will return to the surface of contemporary politics.
 

How to Start A Worker Co-op

Click here to access article by Mira Luna from Shareable.

This article deals with the prospects and problems of worker coops better than any other article I have ever read. With the rapid deterioration now unfolding in capitalist controlled economies, there may be no other short term solution to sustaining the lives of working people other than this solution. Argentinians certainly found that to be true. 

I certainly don't mean to imply that this method is only short term because capitalism will once again straighten itself out and become a somewhat viable system for working people. There is no shortage of material on the internet that describes the deterioration of economies and the lives of working people under the present system. I simply used "short term" because ultimately the whole society and economy will need to be reorganized along very different principles: something like the principles of Inclusive Democracy.

CIA Forced to Release Long Secret Official History of Bay of Pigs Invasion

Click here to access article by Peter Kornbluh from Global Research.

To cover up their crimes, the ruling class simply "classifies" everything of a sensitive nature. It often takes 50 years or more to find out what their government has actually done.

This article reports on the latest release of documents concerning the outrageous war crimes committed against Cuba in April of 1961. This war was engineered covertly and hidden from the American public and most members of Congress. But it was poorly designed and quickly unraveled with many truths uncovered, although suppressed in mainstream media. The best source of information regarding this and other events related to the invasion, that I know of, is the book written by Warren Hinckle and William Turner entitled, The Fish is Red.  

Since then the ruling class no longer engages in such complicated plans when they want to invade another country. Since 9/11 and the never-ending War on Terror they find that the US public is much more willing to go along with their war adventures. Some people think that 9/11 was engineered to bring about this compliance.

Two-Faced Washington

Click here to access article by Tom Engelhardt from Tom Dispatch.

The author does a pretty good job of teasing out the duplicity of our ruling class in its media extravaganza called "The budget Crisis" in order to get the public to accept cuts to health, education, welfare, Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile the Pentagon plans to continue war making and occupation of other countries as usual. And, there are no tax hikes. The ruling class much prefers lending the government money, burdening the American public with more debt, than paying taxes.

Yes, there have been noises about cutbacks in the Pentagon budget, but this is also more about deception. The author finds evidence of this:

The “cuts” in the White House proposal, that is, will only be from projected future Pentagon growth rates.  Nor were the “savings” of up to one trillion dollars over a decade being projected by Senator Harry Reid as part of his deficit-reduction plan cuts either, not in the usual sense anyway.  They are expected savings based largely on the prospective winding down of America's wars and, like so much funny money, could evaporate with the morning dew. (In his last minute deal with John Boehner, President Obama's Pentagon "savings" have, in fact, been reduced to a provisional $350 billion over 10 years.)

When one understands the amount of effort going on in Washington to hide the realities of a war machine owned and profited from by the capitalist elites, one certainly cannot expect to uncover the real facts easily. At the time the deceptions are occurring, one can only read between the lines and scrounge for bits of information. For example, after considerable time looking, I found this rare gem at Politico:

...a solution to the impasse: Redefine “defense” cuts as “security” cuts to include homeland security, veterans affairs and foreign aid, diluting the impact on the Pentagon.

Such accounting tricks are often used to disguise Pentagon funding. Much of their budget is found in other departments, their favorite being the Department of Energy. See this, this, and this. 

And, a budget is only sort of a promise to spend. When the time comes that the ruling class wants to wage more wars, there is never any serious debate in Congress. They just pass supplementary bills to provide more funding as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. They no longer bother going through the Constitutional requirement of asking for Congressional approval.

Bill Gates and His $10 Billion Vaccine Scam

Click here to access article by Thomas C. Mountain from Foreign Policy Journal. 

[Thomas C. Mountain is an independent western journalist based in the Horn of Africa, and has been living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He was a member of the 1st US Peace Delegation to Libya in 1987.]

 This independent journalist asks a penetrating question:

Why is it that worldwide headlines greet Bill Gates announcement of his “vaccine” program while the biggest breakthrough in one of the major threats to life in much of the world remains unknown?

and suggests an answer.

Social Security Reform Bill Encourages Americans To Live Faster, Die Younger [1:56m video]

Click here to access video from The Onion Review. 

Here is some great satire to lighten your day.

The FBI and the CIA Pressured US Lawyer to Betray his Arab and Muslim Clients

Click here to access article by Sherwood Ross from Global Research.

The author's report on this form of government intimidation clearly illustrates how far down the road to a police state we actually are in the US.

The US debt ceiling deal

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site. 

This author provides the gruesome details of the current class war on US citizens that are largely missing from mainstream media.

The initial impact of the cuts will be on the social infrastructure of education, public housing, mass transportation and environmental protection, as well as the Medicaid program for the poor, disabled and blind. In the longer term—in other words, as soon as the 2012 elections are safely past—the cuts will begin to be felt by the more than 50 million elderly covered by Medicare.

 

Ultimately the problem of the debt is a political problem

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

I found it a bit difficult to follow all the European legal structures and operations, but it is clear that the capitalist ruling classes are doing everything they can to circumvent democratic principles in order to impose their self-serving neo-liberal policies. And, as here in the US the Greek ruling class political operatives are using fear to intimidate their citizens into complying with the neo-liberal demands. However, the Greeks are not so easily intimidated or fooled.

...fortunately in the last two or three months we have seen the rise of a very genuine and massive political movement, an independent movement that has escaped this trap of fear and tried to reinvent democratic solutions that are going to be imposed by the people and not by foreign powers or our creditors.

What the USDA Doesn't Want You to Know About Antibiotics and Factory Farms

Click here to access article by Tom Philpott from Mother Jones. 

Read about a report that was "disappeared" from USDA's website concerning the abuse of antibiotics in factory farms. 

The researcher, Dharmarha, has been silenced. Not only has her report been erased from the USDA site, but she has been forbidden to talk to media.

For the Benefit of Mr. Kite

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

Let's be clear here, the debt ceiling impasse isn't a question of doing the right thing or the wrong thing. It is show, a stunt, a mere question of how many Christians to throw to the lions or how many hostages to have shot. When Barrack Obama says, he wants a comprehensive solution he is speaking Washington speak for tax cuts.

The Tyranny of Bondholders [18:01m video]

Click here to access video and transcript from The Real News Network.  (The transcript can be accessed by clicking on a tab within this website.)

In this video Paul Jay interviews Kevin Gallagher who is a professor at Boston University, a research fellow at the Global Development and Environment Institute, and also associated with Tufts University.

This subject is quite complicated and is not easily covered in 18 minutes. Also, Professor Gallagher discusses the subject in rather abstract academic terms, and always within the context of the reigning capitalist system. However, the subject deals with urgent contemporary issues and needs to be understood by working people. 

The picture that the professor paints of the sovereign debt crisis suggests to me that the capitalist elites, who are the bondholders, have structured in all kinds of laws and mechanisms to prevent any kind of democratic response or solution to the problems by working within the system. 

Instead of paying taxes--and they don't pay much--the ruling class prefers lending money to the government in form of bonds and treasury bills. According to Bloomberg News, this ruling class of bondholders are making sure that their loans be paid back and that their bonds have priority over Social Security recipients, military personnel, welfare recipients, and unemployed.   

Is this the brave new world?

Click here to access article by Djelloul Marbrook from his blog. 

This is a light piece and a bit of a brain tease.

Who was right, Huxley or Orwell?

The crimes of Emperor Rupert

Click here to access article by Tony Iltis from Green Left (Australia). 

The Rupert-British government scandal is revealing what many on the left have been arguing for years: the close integration of right-wing media with the ruling capitalist elites: to sustain and promote the interests of that class. In other words, mainstream media is an indispensable propaganda organ of the governing class and used to manage the minds of working people

The illusion of pluralism in corporate-dominated democracies is promoted by the media, like mainstream parties, having a spectrum of opinions but none which question corporate rule.

Extreme Weather: The New Normal

Click here to access article by Dahr Jamail from his blog, Dispatches.

Of course, the framing of this phenomenon of extreme weather as the "new normal" is carefully engineered by the governing class so that we are not alarmed sufficiently to demand real changes to an economic system that is hellbent to promote growth and to satisfy their addiction to profits. You will have to look far and wide to find this UN report published anywhere in mainstream media.

According to a UN report released July 5, humanity is close to breaching the sustainability of Earth, and needs a technological revolution greater and faster than the industrial revolution in order to avoid “a major planetary catastrophe”.

Instead we are fed commercials from Exxon and other oil companies that assure us that they are taking care of any environment problems caused by fossil fuels.

Oil industry analysts are making it clear that regardless of environmental disasters, Big Oil and "market realities" will have their way:

The idea that such reserves will now be deemed ‘off limits’ by legislative moratorium is about as likely as developed countries ever signing off on any serious emissions policies. Political bluster says one thing; political logic tells Congress (et al) another. Analysts should duly take note: we can expect to see offshore drilling, lots of it, and in very deep waters.

This thinking also comes in handy when looking at the Arctic, or indeed Canadian tar sands when considering whether environmental musings or market realities will hold sway.

I think that we are only beginning to see extreme weather. I think it is likely that extreme weather will accelerate over the next few decades and cause all kinds of human crises--unless, of course, we put a stop to the system that is producing this crisis.

How the Rich are Spending in 2011

Click here to access article from Economy Watch. 

The people at Citgroup were right about the growth of the rich and their opportunities to flaunt their riches. Those rich among my readers--I'm sure there are many--will be reassured that the world is their oyster and its time to start shopping for the right goodies and having the right credit card to show everyone that you've arrived in this world. Be sure to peruse their slide show to know what to buy!

They earn, they invest and they splurge. Only that they do so more ostentatiously and extravagantly. They are the ultra high net worth individuals....

The Reactionary Imagination

Click here to access article by Tom Mills from New Left Project. 

This is an introduction to a series of articles he is intending to publish on the internet in which he will...

...suggest that an elite dominated public realm (broader than just the media) not only leaves people unable to adequately understand the ‘troubles they endure’; but that this lack of understanding creates a vacuum into which reactionary, and often racist, ideas flow.  Understanding this dynamic can help us better situate right-wing ideology within the broader landscape of elite power and this in turn can help us better connect our fight against racism and other forms of prejudice with struggles over the economy and workers rights.

This sort of intellectual work is vital for all of us to understand how the system works to limit and shape our thoughts to serve the needs of the Empire.

Libya: Washington prepares its revenge

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from Voltaire Net. 

I regard this author as one of the best informed and most astute observers of events related to the Empire. In this article he outlines three steps that the Empire's agents are taking, and will take, to deal with the stalemate in Libya: stealing the assets and preparing the looting, negotiating a military exit, and then...

After the cease-fire takes effect, the United States will deploy an intense secret activity to reverse the political equation.

You know, using one of those "color revolution" strategies they employed in other countries with some success.

The top-end-of-town have captured the growth

Click here to access article by Bill Mitchell from his Billy Blog. 

This Australia professor of economics provides more data on the skewed distribution of wealth following the "recovery" from the 2007-2009 "recession". Once again we see an academic analyze data and come to conclusions that are obvious to an ordinary working person: the rich have gotten richer and most working people have gotten less--actually, they are barely treading water. He writes in his opening paragraph:

It shows that the so-called economic recovery in the US has not delivered any tangible benefits to the vast majority of citizens and has rather, concentrated real gains among the top-end-of-town. Given that the recovery has floated on the fiscal stimulus the findings reinforce the biased nature of policy in the US. That indicates poor fiscal design by an incompetent and corrupt government not that fiscal policy is inherently unsuitable for advancing public purpose.

But, that is the last time he uses the word "corruption" related to his analysis. Thereafter, this skewed distribution of wealth is all about incompetence.

Okay, so he does mention that...

The reality is that the neo-liberal attack on public purpose has changed the way the distributional system operates – with workers now finding it harder to gain access to real income growth despite contributing more per hour (productivity growth stronger).

The raft of anti-union legislation, deregulation of wages and conditions, etc have combined to shut workers out of the real growth pie.

But, he doesn't develop this line of argument; instead, he continues on in the usual liberal way of expressing moral condemnation and criticizing incompetence, and aims his blows at the Obama administration. 

That is a stunning indictment of the current US Administration. They cannot blame the recalcitrant Republicans because at the critical time they controlled the legislature.

...But it is clear by the appointments he made to his Administration and the policies he allowed to be implemented (in the name of fiscal stimulus) that his attention was biased towards preserving the wealth of Wall Street rather than the jobs and homes of the millions of workers who showed faith in him and put him into office.

Subsequently, he has shown the antithesis of leadership by actually conceding ground to the Republicans on the need to cut the deficit. The last thing a responsible leader would be doing in the US situation is advocating and offering deficit reduction.

So, it's all about Republicans and Democrats! This avoids any real look at the system itself and keeps his criticisms well within the limits of acceptable discourse among academics or anyone who plays an important role in mainstream institutions.  

This also preserves the notion that there is no alternative, that the capitalist system is part of the natural world that we must accept--it is not a man-made system, or more specifically, that it certainly has not been constructed by a class of people who have made up rules and created a system that has enabled them to appropriate the wealth that working people create.

Academics like Bill Mitchell provide a very important service to the Empire. They pose as learned people--and they do have many skills, but their core political and economic assumptions have been carefully cultivated to align with the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Those who can't stomach this process are weeded out. You see, such highly trained people have been through a long process of indoctrination and selection to insure that they serve the needs of the Empire. A few academics escape this process with their independent faculties intact, but not very many. This phenomenon is well described in a book by Jeff Schmidt entitled, Disciplined Minds.

Disastrous Outcomes From an Orchestrated Crisis

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts.

This former member of the Reagan administration goes even further than the author of the above article with his criticisms of the current administration and the "orchestrated" financial crisis:

The offshoring of US jobs, GDP, tax base, and consumer demand that has eroded away the US economy and the government’s tax base, thus elevating the deficit, is somehow not a crisis. These are just the imperatives of globalism and the routine maximization of shareholders’ profits and management’s performance bonuses.

But, then he abandons this line of thinking and goes back to acceptable discourse that it is all about evil Republicans and incompetent Democrats. Following this standard line, he blames the victims--the American public for voting them into office--as if we had some real choices! As if people had access to real information about political and economic issues!

WAKE UP AMERICA! - The Real U.S. Budget Problem: Defense & War Spending Equal 94% Of All Federal Income Tax Revenues

Click here to access article from The Daily Bail. 

This blogger takes an excellent graphic portrayal of our government's income and expenses (from the Washington Post) to place in perspective how much of the government's tax money is actually spent on invading and occupying other countries, and killing their citizens. He reveals how Social Security and Medicare trust funds, the source of which were equal contributions from workers and employers, have been used to pay for these wars. This has been a well kept secret for a number of years!

Trust funds are normally set up to transfer temporarily "...property to a trustee...who holds that trust property...for the benefit of the beneficiaries." Somehow the political operatives of the ruling capitalists figured out a way to tap into these Social Security and Medicare funds to pay for their wars. Because the ruling class doesn't want to tax itself to pay back what they have stolen from these programs, both of their well-financed pseudo political parties are now engaged in a Congressional performance along the lines of "good cop, bad cop" to frighten American workers into acquiescing to cuts in the benefits due them under these programs.

The Social Security program was set up during the Franklin Roosevelt administration in the 1930s and were effectively forced upon him by the many militant struggles of workers (see this, this, and this) all across the US where pitched battles were fought against police forces of the ruling class.  Medicare was quickly instituted by Lyndon Johnson as a part of his efforts to stifle opposition to his acceleration of the war in Vietnam.

Ten Lessons for Today’s Unions from Labor’s Militant History

Click here to access article by Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer from Toward Freedom.

Today, the incomes of working people are declining, those of the rich are skyrocketing, but federal and state governments are nevertheless aiming their fire at working people, demanding pension cuts, wage cuts, layoffs, and cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, and social services. These cuts will only accelerate the inequalities in wealth. Now more than ever, organized labor needs to step up, reclaim its glories from its past, and mount a major campaign to oppose these attacks and demand that the government institute job-creation programs.

Although we have much to learn from the largely expunged history of our ancestor's struggles against organized capitalists, we must also understand that we are living under quite different conditions and apply those lessons accordingly. We are living in a globalized capitalist Empire where the ruling classes can shift economic enterprises fairly easily from one location to another. Thus, we must collaborate much more closely with workers throughout the world. We must globalize worker struggles to overcome the oppression of globalized capital.