One Year After the G20 Protests: Forms of Protest Reflect Our Power

Click here to access article by Clarice Kuhling from New Socialist (Canada).


This article provides some excellent background on organized labor, its alienation from activist youth, and some excellent suggestions on how to bridge the gap by using more effective militant tactics in future confrontations with highly organized capital.

"Smashing shit up," then, is both an expression of this context and a direct reflection of the low level of struggle and resistance in labour unions and on the left.

...These tactics keep reappearing precisely because they represent a wholesale departure from the forms of passive politics and bureaucratically controlled resistance that have increasingly monopolized the political terrain of working-class struggle in the last half-century in both Canada and the US.

The Miserable Ones

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

Another tragic story of an American architect who has become one of the millions of the new "Les Misérables" that banksters and capitalists are creating across the globe.

I'm going to tell you a story today, it's a story about you and me and it's a story about a father and son. In a larger sense it's a story about America because a story like this only happens in America. I doubt that it happens even in third world countries but it might happen in places like India where people live in wretched poverty, and it might happen during times of war or famine, but this is America, isn't it? 

Riots Reveal Britain’s Forbidden Truth

Click here to access article by John Pilger from Green Left (Australia).

On a warm spring day, strolling in south London, I heard demanding voices behind me. A police van disgorged a posse of six or more, who waved me aside.

They surrounded a young black man who, like me, was ambling along. They appropriated him; they rifled his pockets, looked in his shoes, inspected his teeth. Their thuggery affirmed, they let him go with the barked warning there would be a next time.

Chile strike: Clashes mar anti-government protest

Click here to access report from BBC.

Tens of thousands of Chileans have taken to the streets on the second and final day of a general strike to call for far-reaching reforms.

This insurrection stemmed from student protests against socially unjust education policies in Chile. For much more background on this, you must read this article by Ramona Wadi from Upside Down World.

The ongoing student protests in Chile are an unwavering accomplishment aimed at combating the social injustice riddling the country's education system. What started out as a series of peaceful protests has become a manifestation of unity between students, artists and much of the general population in a stance defying the current government’s position regarding social class, cultural difference and political division with regard to education. 

From this report it seems that after the CIA assisted overthrow of the democratically elected government of socialist Allende in 1973, US neoconservatives imposed their influence on Chilean educational policies. And, if they sound familiar, it is because the policies are very much like those being presently implemented right here in the US. 

You see, under the new hegemony of global capitalism, unjust social policies are being introduced everywhere. For the global ruling class of capitalists, boundaries pose no restraints in the pursuit of their interests; they are only used now to control the movement and exploitation of working people. Unless we as workers organize globally and fight back like the Chileans, the Greeks, the Spaniards, the Palestinians, Egyptians, the British, etc, the end result will be a tiny global elite living in luxury on heavily fortified islands amidst oceans of impoverished working people--a tiny 1st world and a huge 3rd world existing everywhere in the world. 

But, take heart, here is some evidence that working people are beginning to organize across boundaries throughout the world.

Voices are calling from the other side of the sea

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from Roarmag.

Now that the Gods had failed and the pigs been bailed, it was time for the halls of power to be scaled. They shook the walls with their voices, humble yet brazen, and firmly set their fearless gaze upon the invisible chains that bound them. On that beautiful day in May, the people took back their streets. Reclaimed their squares. And regained their dignity. The word quickly spread from land to land. Have you heard? The people have risen. And things will never be the same again.

Disney, Militarization and the National Security State After 9/11

Click here to access article by Henry A. Giroux and Grace Pollock from Truthout. 

The article consists of lengthy excerpts from a book by these authors published last year entitled, The Mouse that Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence.

The excerpts illustrate one of Gramsci's primary themes that contemporary capitalism does not rely so much on force (although prepared to use that also) and intimidation as it does on powerful cultural weapons to induce compliance by its citizens with the developing fascist Empire. (See also yesterday's reference to Gramsci.)

Libya’s forced collapse: What does it portend for Africa?

Click here to access article by Amengeo Amengeo from The Citizen (Tanzania).

What happens in Libya is a harbinger of what the West has in store for Africa. True independence and African unity will not be tolerated. Africa is too rich in resources that the world needs to be allowed to control its own destiny. This war is not just about Gaddafi. It is an opening salvo in a war to reclaim the continent for foreign interests, just as it was in 1896 in the Scramble for Africa...[T]he West will set up permanent military bases to control the Mediterranean Sea and a bridgehead for the re-conquest of Africa will have been established.

Global Land Grab

Click here to access article by Terry J. Allen from In These Times. 

Neo-colonialism is rearing its head throughout 3rd world countries where the rich, in collusion with corrupted rulers, can buy land at bargain-basement prices to grow food for their restive populations. That is the kind of world that the Empire and its glorious system of globalized capitalism has created--everything is for sale, even farmland needed to produce food for local populations. 

...with spectacular speed, patchworks of plots that used to support local populations through subsistence farming and grazing are being amalgamated into massive industrial plantations. In Awassa, Ethiopia, a “plastic and steel structure already stretches over 50 acres—the size of 20 soccer fields,” writes John Vidal in South Africa’s Mail and Guardian.

With a 99-year lease for 2,500 acres, the developer, Saudi Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, has brought in Spanish engineers and Dutch water technology, and hired 1,000 women to pick and pack 50 tons of food a day, writes Vidal. “Within 24 hours, it has been driven 200 miles to Addis Ababa and flown 1,000 miles to the shops and restaurants of Dubai, Jeddah and elsewhere in the Middle East.”

The small and dark secret of European banks

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

At the onset of the recent volatility that has taken place in the global financial markets, much attention has been focused on the behavior of stock exchanges and the evolution of the debt crisis in Europe. But while the markets are reacting strongly to the signs that the process of restructuring the debt of the countries of the European periphery is only a matter of time, most media specialists are missing a key factor of fragility in the European and global financial system: its dependence on short-term, dollar denominated, bank funding.

Unfortunately, this piece requires an understanding of finance terms that are obscure to the average person. In my opinion such information has been deliberately obscured to keep ordinary people in the dark as to how their economy actually functions. Also, finance requires some study and therefore time to study the subject. To survive in a capitalist system working people must work long hours and have little energy left over to devote to subjects like this--and that's the way capitalists like it. 

I have only a little understanding of the subject and the terms used in this article, but I think it is very important. Thus, I will make a stab at it and welcome others to clarify the issues and concepts.

When the author refers to "asset backed securities" he is mostly writing about the worthless mortgage backed securities that banks were peddling like snake oil all over the world. (See this for more details.)
As these investments were finally revealed as mostly worthless, banks in the UK in 2007 were the first to feel the pain, then in 2008 Lehman Brothers in the US failed while Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch were sold at fire-sale prices. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley received considerable direct and indirect assistance from the Fed with their ability to create dollars out of debts assumed by US taxpayers--mostly working people because the rich and the corporations pay very little in taxes. 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two U.S. Government sponsored enterprises  (read privately owned but with government guaranteed backing), had guaranteed nearly $5 trillion in mortgage obligations at the time they were placed into conservatorship, that is, their debt obligations were assumed by the U.S. government (taxpayers) in September 2008. 

Soon more banks in Europe were threatened with bankruptcy. The large European central banks have been trying to keep them afloat by swapping some of their other assets for short term loans in US dollars from the Fed. This has been going on in secrecy, but at least partly revealed recently as reported in these articles: here and here.

But, as the author of this article reveals, there appears to be a roadblock ahead preventing the Fed from injecting more cash in these banks through the use of swaps:

...as a result of the Dodd-Frank Act, the FED would be unable to extend unlimited swap lines with other central banks without getting explicit approval from the Congress of the United States.

However, when push comes to shove, I have never seen the political operatives of the ruling class let laws stand in their way from whatever they wanted to do (the Iran Contra affair and CIA operations within the US come readily to mind), and certainly not when they need to save their precious system.

Bailing out the financial aristocracy

Click here to access article by David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

We’ve known all along about the TARP funds. Now, thanks to Bloomberg, we know about the $1.2 trillion of public money, which is about the same amount U.S. homeowners currently owe on 6.5 million delinquent and foreclosed mortgages, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke showered on the Wall Street aristocracy.

I've seen very little coverage of this revelation in mainstream media. The theme of the ruling class political operatives continues to be the cutting of the "entitlements"--which is new-speak that means defaulting on the debts owed to the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds (these have been built up over many years from equal payroll contributions by workers and employers). Of course, all other debts are sacred: such as debts to bondholders, private Treasury bill holders, and even debts to China.

Twisted Up By a Super Coup D'Etat

Click here to access article by Bruce K. Gagnon from Op-Ed News.

Put your ear to the railroad tracks and you can hear the train coming. Now that the new 12-member Congressional "Super Committee" has essentially been given the power of God (and the Devil) the military industrial complex, and their appendage called the corporate media, are swinging into action. Their message? We can't cut Pentagon spending because it will hurt an already tight job market.....and we need these troops to keep knocking countries off the "Non-Integrating Gap" list (those countries that refuse to play ball with corporate globalization). 

Passive revolution: are the rich starting to get scared?

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from Roarmag.

Warren Buffet wants to tax the rich, Forbes warns about a global class war and Nouriel Roubini says that Marx was right about capitalism. What’s going on?

The author astutely contrasts the recent expressed concerns about the capitalist system from several of its panicking spokespeople with a deeper understanding posed by Gramsci who argued how the political operatives of the ruling class have used cultural tools and compromises to keep the chaotic system of capitalism going. 

We are now witnessing such spokespeople sounding the alarm about their system, and some of them are willing to cut back on their looting of the economy in order to protect their goose, the capitalist system, that lays all their golden eggs.

During the 1930s economic crisis in the UK and US and in the post WWII US Empire we have seen the New Deal in the US and social democracy in many European countries which brought temporary benefits to working people, but only to save the system. We must not be lured into accepting these temporary inducements once again! This will merely leave us eventually drowning in goose droppings. It is no longer only a matter of social justice; it is now a matter of protecting our planet which supports all life from the continuing ravages of capitalism.

Capitalist Rioters Don’t Wear Hoodies

Click here to access article by Gaston Gordillo from Greek Left Review.

More on the London riots, mainstream media coverage, and a broader political view of these events.

The looters in hoodies are being promptly punished by the state. With over 1,000 arrests, the British courts are at capacity and overwhelmed. The capitalist looters in Armani suits, in contrast, destroy with impunity. They know they are above the law because they are the planetary elite, what we should probably call (resurrecting an old-fashioned but also crystal-clear political concept) the global oligarchy of the 21st century. Oligarchs are, after all, actors so wealthy and powerful that they control the state and do as they please with impunity, even if they act against of the will of the majority of the population.

 

The American Rebellion Has Begun – Now Is The Time (Resistance Video Roundup & Call To Action)

Click here to access article & numerous videos by Kevin Zeese from Amped Status. (Note: I had to scroll down to the article after initially getting a blank page.)

The author has included many videos and a plea for Americans to get off their knees, stand up, and confront our rulers on October 20 in Washington, DC.

We certainly understand the despair, lost hope and discouragement that many Americans feel about the U.S. political system. The system seems designed to make change impossible. We also see the power and sophistication of the corporate propaganda media machine. But, we also see people in the United States seeing through the propaganda, understanding the truth and getting angry. ...There is a lot of evidence that the time may be right for an American Awakening.

Disaster capitalism swoops over Libya

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

Think of the new Libya as the latest spectacular chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we had R2P ("responsibility to protect"). Instead of neo-conservatives, we had humanitarian imperialists.

But the target is the same: regime change. And the project is the same: to completely dismantle and privatize a nation that was not integrated into turbo-capitalism; to open another (profitable) land of opportunity for turbocharged neo-liberalism. 

It's Official: Human Activity Can Cause Earthquakes

Click here to access article from Washington's Blog. 

This prolific blogger has uncovered substantial scientific evidence that extraction and injection of fluids in the subsurface has caused earthquakes. This, of course, directly poses concerns over hydro-fracturing of shale to extract gas which has been seen as the next great energy source fueling the capitalist engine.

When People Take Over [audio recording]

Click here to access audio recording of speech (37:32m) in April 2011 by David McNally of Toronto University. An interview with McNally follows the speech. 

He offers a survey of new democratic practices that have appeared in various parts of the world that gives activists encouragement and a basis to build upon these experiences to confront the juggernaut of the capitalist empire that seems intent upon destroying our planet, our communities, and our souls.

Libya as a model for redividing the Middle East

Click here to access article by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site. 

This journalist, in contrast to journalists that are allowed to write for mainstream media, accurately puts his spotlight on a major behind-the-scenes political operative for the Empire to distill what his comments really mean for the rest of the Middle East people struggling for a better future. It doesn't look good. People like this operative are the ones who really run the Empire's system behind the elaborate facade of "democracy".

With CIA help, NYPD moves covertly in Muslim areas

Click here to access article by Adam Goldman, Associated Press. 

A building superintendent stumbled onto a secret intelligence unit of New York City police department. He discovered all kinds of paraphernalia of terrorist material which is likely used as bait to setup "terrorists". One might easily infer that they are promoting terrorist activity in order to keep citizens terrorized, accepting the ongoing invasions across the globe, and police state measures at home. 

But, it's okay folks, this secret unit, unaccountable to any kind of public political process, are just protecting us from those bad terrorists. After all, it was set up by members of the CIA and surely they are accountable to the President. (sarcasm)

Just so you don't get the wrong idea about this operation, sprinkled throughout the article are statements like this:

One of the enduring questions of the past decade is whether being safe requires giving up some liberty and privacy. The focus of that debate has primarily been federal programs like wiretapping and indefinite detention. The question has received less attention in New York, where residents do not know for sure what, if anything, they have given up.

In a city that has repeatedly been targeted by terrorists, police make no apologies for pushing the envelope. NYPD intelligence operations have disrupted terrorist plots and put several would-be killers in prison.

Though most said the tactics were appropriate and made the city safer, many insisted on anonymity, because they were not authorized to speak with reporters about security matters.

"It should not be a surprise to anyone that, after 9/11, the Central Intelligence Agency stepped up its cooperation with law enforcement on counterterrorism issues or that some of that increased cooperation was in New York, the site of ground zero," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said.

He's Not Serious

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

Now the President and his staff have come up with another program to combat unemployment based on a Georgia model. The Georgia program allows corporations to hire workers while the workers still receive unemployment checks. The workers do labor for the employers while the employers pay them no wages of any kind, what so ever. Then after two months the employers get to decide whether to keep the worker or not, what do you think? Brilliant huh? Workers work for half wages paid by the state and employers pay zip!
 

Libya, the Real Deal

This excellent 24 minute KPFA radio interview posted on Dandelion Salad, which is providing a lot of coverage on Libyan events, presents another informed, independent source of information on the current scene there and particularly the distortion of news reports in mainstream media:

The Libya Media Hoax: Fabricated Scenes of Jubilation and Euphoria on Green Square

Click here to access article by Metro Gael from Global Research. 

Surpassing previous mass media fabrications, both in scale and boldness, yesterday morning's Al Jazeera mise-en-scène will surely go down in history as one of the most cynical hoaxes committed by corporate media since the manipulated pictures of Iraqis topplying Saddam Hussein's statue after the US invasion in 2003. 

The author reveals how the Empire is using media and media infiltrators consisting of CIA-M16 agents as another weapon in their conquest of Libya.

See also this report by Thierry Meyssan who is in Tripoli about the well coordinated use of corporate-NATO propaganda. 

Clearly, the lives of all independent journalists are very much in jeopardy.

Do not trust news coverage from Al Jazeera--it's owned by the royal family of Qatar that is heavily involved in NATO's campaign against Libya.

$1.2 Trillion to Banks, You 0

Click here to access article by Robert Oak from The Economic Populist.

Bloomberg News has researched a bombshell story, the Federal Reserve gave $1.2 trillion in secret loans to banks during the financial crisis, from August 2007 until April 2010. This is in addition to the TARP bail outs which was publicly known.

Read also the author's first remark in the comments section.  

The secret Fed-generated-taxpayer loans to banks continue to be revealed. That's okay, we can just cut back more on public services and let the government default on its debts to Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds to pick up the tab. (sarcasm)

As usual, very little coverage of this in mainstream press. After all, it is far more important to learn about the lives of celebrities and the horse races in the two ruling class political parties!

Welcome to Libya's 'democracy'

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

While NATO media gloat over their latest victories in Libya, this author provides some insights on the cast of characters involved in both the alleged triumph and upcoming plunder of that country. He finishes with this cynical comment:

...in the end R2P ["responsibility to protect"] wins. Humanitarian imperialism wins. The Arab monarchies win. NATO as global Robocop wins. The Pentagon wins. But even that is not enough for the usual imperial suspects - already calling for the deployment of a "stabilization force". And all this while lost-the-plot progressives in assorted latitudes continue to hail the Holy Alliance of Western neocolonialism, ultra-reactionary Arab monarchies and hardcore Salafis.

It ain't over till the fat Arab lady sings. Anyway, on to the next stop; Damascus.

Corrupt Obama Administration Pressuring New York Attorney General to Support Mortgage Whitewash

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

Maybe I missed it, but I've seen very little media coverage of this Obama backed settlement with the banks. It seems that Obama is only interested in getting the government off the backs of the banks. Does this sound familiar? You may need to read this NY Times article first to get more background information on this article by Smith who writes: 

...consider the damage the major banks have done. They have failed so badly at being competent lenders and record keepers that when judges in New York demand that bank attorneys certify that they have taken reasonable steps to verify documents submitted to the courts, foreclosures grind to a near halt. Two separate investigations, one by Fortune, the other by the New York Post, ascertained that an overwhelming majority of foreclosures took place when the banks failed to demonstrate that they had the right to do so. Banks have foreclosed illegally on servicemen, and have also foreclosed on people who didn’t have mortgages. Their is ample evidence that they have systematically violated their own contracts, the agreements that govern mortgage securitizations, and have on a widespread basis charged impermissible fees to borrowers. And when these junk and pyramiding fees precipitate foreclosures, the servicers have effectively ripped off investors too. They have tooth and nail fought every effort that would help borrowers if it in any way impinged on their profits, even though their very survival is the result of taxpayer munificence. Finally, they’ve made a mess of property records in this country.

Member-Owned, Worker-Run Brewery Taps into a Radical Idea

Click here to access article by Stacy Edwards from Shareable. 

The whole concept of Black Star is pretty radical, requiring a very brave community to sign on early. “The idea is so weird, right?” Mark admits as he reflects on his early reaction to the idea. “I mean, we want to make a brewpub, but we’re not going to get big venture capital support. We’re not going to do it like that. We’re going to get it from all the people in the community and when there’s profit, it’s going to be distributed to all of our members. Everything is going to stay 100% local. We’re going to have a focus on being green, a focus on supporting the community, and, by the way, we won’t have someone in charge.”

NATO-backed forces move into Tripoli

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

This author provides an excellent, well researched report on the apparent fall of the Gaddafi regime within an anti-Empire framework.  This is not easy to do in the chaotic and fast moving developments of a war zone. 

For an on-the-scene report from Tripoli, Mahdi Nazemroaya, a Canadian journalist, reports on his perilous situation and perspective in these two videos from RT. It seems that NATO is doing nothing to protect the international press. Notice how the RT media people describe what is happening as a "revolution", whereas Nazemroaya sees it very differently.




In case you were still thinking that NATO was on a "humanitarian mission", then you must read about "The Scramble for Access to Libya’s Oil Wealth Begins" in the NY Times.

Oil Limits, Recession, and Bumping Against the Growth Ceiling

Click here to access article by Gail Tverberg from The Oil Drum. 

I have frequently stated that the human race is facing two basic threats that the capitalist system cannot cope with and which are actually made worse by the continuation of this system: global warming (including other forms of environmental degradation) and fossil fuel depletion. It has been some time since I've run articles on the latter threat. This article, hopefully, will bring us up to date. 

This website features the best commentary section that I have ever seen. The site brings together some of the best trained people in energy related fields. However, being products of capitalist controlled educational systems, they have been carefully schooled to not look closely at the political-economic organization of society.

Hence, there is seldom any mention in any articles at this site of the system that is addicted to growth, and the necessity to change the present political-economic arrangements to something that can sustain human life in the decades and centuries ahead. You can see this in the commentaries and from the last section of the author's original article (omitted from this posting) entitled, "Where Do We Go from Here?" However, the content of both the article and the commentaries following the article are very useful to understand what the consequences will be if we continue with this addictive and socially unjust system.

You can do something about the news

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

What is particularly interesting about this article is the perspective the author, as a former newspaper editor, provides regarding the internet as a source of information and opinion. Whereas newspaper corporations are shaking in their boots over the proliferation of blogging and social media, he sees mostly positives:

I’ve contended in this space that each social networker owns his or her own newspaper. Each Facebook page is a newspaper. In the last few weeks I have scanned the web for political, cultural and literary news and ideas, posting what interests me on my Facebook pages. The response has convinced me that more information than ever before is available, and the crocodile tears about its reliability are rooted in a sense that the mainstream media have lost control of the game. They have, and they should lose control in the onrush of this more democratic and promising technology. 

Co-op to ‘work our way out of the climate emergency’

Click here to access article by Ben Courtice from Green Left (Australia).

Take a look at what some Australian workers are doing to fight "climate emergency" and to create a worker organized economic enterprise.

A project of the Earthworker co-operative, the campaign seeks to build a cooperatively-owned factory making solar hot water systems in Morwell, Victoria.

A prime aim of the growing Surveillance State

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald from Salon.

Economic suffering and anxiety -- and anger over it and the flamboyant prosperity of the elites who caused it -- is only going to worsen.  So, too, will the refusal of the Western citizenry to meekly accept their predicament. As that happens, who it is who controls the Internet and the flow of information and communications takes on greater importance.  Those who are devoted to preserving the current system of prerogatives certainly know that, and that is what explains this obsession with expanding the Surveillance State and secrecy powers, maintaining control over the dissemination of information, and harshly punishing those who threaten it. 

Who–and What–Are Behind the “Official History” of the Bin Laden Raid?

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

One of America's top investigative journalists (Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi are two others that come to mind) trains his analytic radar-like vision on one more cover story of the Bin Laden raid, a story that was recently run in the prestigious New Yorker magazine.

Beyond all the contradictions, missing information, and misleading statements, one can also discern a lot about a secret government that functions behind the scenes.

When you look closely, nothing seems right about what will surely become the accepted account of the raid that nailed America’s enemy number one. And then things get even weirder…

Are These Young Men Terrorists—Or Were They Set Up?

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

This outstanding investigative journalist and author (Family of Secrets) introduces a new documentary film which is about the use of infiltrators and agent provocateurs by various police agencies in the US. This film will be shown on PBS on September 6th.

The Case Against the Credit Ratings Agencies

Click here to access article by Michael Hudson from Naked Capitalism.

The author is no radical economist, but he is a honest critic of the capitalist system. In this piece he gives us the details on how Standard and Poor's and other financial rating agencies act as enforcers for capitalist interests, and thereby cause the devastating effects we are witnessing daily in our local communities.

Localities are pressured when their rising debt levels lead to a financial stringency. Banks pull back their credit lines, and urge cities and states to pay down their debts by selling off their most viable public enterprises. Offering opinions on this practice has become a big business for the ratings agencies. So it is understandable why their business model opposes policies – and political candidates – that support the idea of basing public financing on taxation rather than by borrowing. This self-interest colors their “opinions.”

The Insurrection of the English Underclass [post of the week]

Click here to access article by Takis Fotopoulostakis from The Int. Journal of Inclusive Democracy.

The insurrection of the British underclass was seen by the entire British establishment and their followers – the bourgeois class and, particularly, the petty bourgeoisie – as a case of ‘pure criminality’. In other words, the real criminals of the political, economic and cultural elites have condemned the victims of their own criminality and have been both demanding and taking the worst kind of revenge on them for revolting against a system which has been destroying their lives since the day they were born. Of course, this is not surprising considering that, throughout History, the ruling elites and the privileged social groups have labelled the people who have revolted against them as criminals, from the French and Russian revolutions to the Spanish and Greek civil wars.

The author argues a very different proposition:

...the underclass implicitly realise that the overthrow of capitalist neoliberal globalisation is not a matter of overthrowing some evil conspirators and their catastrophic policies which, supposedly, simply reflect some criminal “dogma” based on a new capitalist “strategy”, but it is actually a matter of overthrowing the very same system of the market economy, whose dynamics have inevitably led to the present globalisation!

He very aptly identifies the British insurrectionists as the new "Les Miserables"! 

However, I must take issue with what I find as weaknesses in the Inclusive Democracy project. As the author and founder of this project, Fotopoulostakis spends far too much time on his favorite target, the "degenerate left", and especially on particular people who he identifies as such. This reminds me too much of inter-sectarian wars of the past. Also, as a Greek citizen I would expect him to have much more insights on, and contributions toward, strategies for change in his native country as well as other advanced Western countries where insurrections have taken place. All he can contribute is this important, but overly broad strategy:

The obvious conclusion is that the first step towards such a society is the breaking of each country’s economic links with the internationalised market economy and the creation of the preconditions for a self-reliant...economy.... 

(Please note the rebuttal from an Inclusive Democracy spokesperson in the comments section.)

In wake of British riots, New York police prepare for unrest

Click here to access article by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site. 

More evidence that the US ruling class is preparing to reveal the ugly fist of fascism to preserve the goose, capitalism, that lays their golden eggs of wealth and power. Here the author provides evidence from New York City of increased riot training, aggressive attacks on citizens, and more hires for police forces.

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.