U.S. arming Egyptian military crackdown

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald from Salon. 

Data obtained by Amnesty International shows that the US has repeatedly transferred ammunition to Egypt despite security forces’ violent crackdown on protesters.

A shipment for the Egyptian Ministry of Interior arrived from the US on 26 November carrying at least seven tons of “ammunition smoke” – which includes chemical irritants and riot control agents such as tear gas.

It was one of at least three arms deliveries to Egypt by the US company Combined Systems, Inc. since the brutal crackdown on the “25 January Revolution” protesters.

Today, from Al Jazeera we learn this: Egypt's army asserts constitutional control

Training, military aid, travel junkets have all been key features of the Empire's strategy to build close ties with military elites of key countries in the world.

Lost Verities and Dirty Hippies

Click here to access article by Phil Rockstroh from Dissident Voice. 

The author provides a convincing argument to support this thesis:

The run of neoliberal capitalism is about over. Don’t mourn: This late stage, rapacious, mutant economic strain has leveled destruction on community and the planet itself as well as the hearts and souls of too many of those imprisoned within its paradigm.

And, in addition, he sheds light on the resistance of many Americans to people who question the system: it's very threatening to people to acknowledge that everything they have believed all their lives to be true, is actually false!

...it would behoove me to make the painful admission that I have been conned…have co-signed the crimes committed against me. Worse, I would be compelled to question all my verities and beliefs–all the convictions I clutch, regarding, not only the notions that I possess about myself and the methods I’ve adopted in approaching life, but also, the social structure that influenced my character.

Iran and the Strategic Encirclement of Syria and Lebanon

Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Stategic Culture Foundation.

This independent Canadian journalist assembles evidence that the Empire is actively and dangerously putting into operation its next project: the capture of Syria which is merely on the road to Iran, the biggest prize of all.

For half a decade Washington has been directing a military arm build-up in the Middle East aimed at Iran and the Resistance Bloc. It has sent massive arms shipments to Saudi Arabia. It has sent deliveries of bunker busters to the U.A.E. and Israel, amongst others, while it has upgraded its own deadly arsenal. U.S. officials have also started to openly discuss murdering Iranian leaders and military officials through covert operations. What the world is facing is a pathway towards possible military escalation that could go far beyond the boundaries of the Middle East and suck in Russia, China, and their allies. 

Although mainstream media has played up the removal of US troops from Iraq, they have downplayed the re-deployments of the same troops to neighboring Kuwait such as suggested by this report from AFP. There have been a few reports from US sources of only about 3500 being re-deployed there on a permanent basis, but I suspect that this is only a cover story for a vastly greater number.  I keep coming across articles about re-deployment of individual US units being moved to Kuwait. And then there is all the military equipment being moved to Kuwait which poses the question about whether it stays there. The analysis from World Socialist Web Site may have it right:

The formal US pullout from Iraq is part of a redeployment of US military assets in the wider region, as well as a shift in the focus of US foreign policy from southwest Asia to the Far East and the rising challenge of China. The US Central Command, which controls US operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, has more forces at its disposal today than during the heaviest days of fighting in Iraq under the Bush administration.

Occupy Goes Home on December 6

Click here to access article by Manny Jalonschi from The Indypendent. 

The Occupy movement is moving on to re-occupy foreclosed homes! 

The reclamation of foreclosed homes represents a new stage for the Occupy movement, one that comes in the wake of violent police dispersal of protest camps nationwide. With 1 in 4 mortgages currently in default and, a new Government Accounting Office report showing an increase in vacant residential properties from 7 million in 2007 to 10 million in 2010, it seems more than likely that the movement will continue to find ample support and opportunities to “Occupy our Homes.”

See also this report from The Guardian entitled, "Wall Street protesters to occupy foreclosed homes". 

As police crackdowns on Occupy sites continue, protesters enter 'new frontier.' 

What’s Next for the Occupy Movement?

Click here to access article by Brian Tokar from Institute for Social Ecology. 

As messy as it is, the Occupy movement is being seen by more and more people as offering real significance because it relates to concrete problems in their lives. This writer does not reveal as much about "what's next"as he does about the evidence that the movement is here to stay. I agree. Hence, we must all join in supporting it in any way we can to insure its success. We can both save ourselves and the planet which we all share. There is no other task that is as urgent.

Now, for the first time in decades, the terms of the conversation are shifting. People are fed up, and no longer too timid nor too defeated to speak out loudly against the status quo, and for a different kind of society. We have learned that we can challenge financial elites, defend labor rights, call to overturn capitalism, and our numbers continue to grow. In cities large and small, we experience the exhilaration of direct democracy, of reclaiming public spaces, and of reinventing our future. And we know that we are not going to disappear when elites respond with too many police, or even with small victories. 

System, not consumers, the big green problem

Click here to access article by Simon Butler from Green Left (Australia).

This essay appears to be a rebuttal to, and a critique of, Ted Trainer's comments from an earlier interview carried in Green Left in which he declared that “the main problem group is not the corporations or the capitalist class … The problem group, the key to transition, is people in general.”

300 economists give support for the Occupy Wall Street movement

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

Happenings like this suggest that cracks are beginning to appear in the capitalist fortress that towers over everyone on Earth. Economists are typically well-indoctrinated technicians of global capitalism that keeps the machinery running while justifying its existence. I doubt they are opposed to capitalist markets as such even though the operations of the latter result in widespread harm to society, but more by the appalling actions of ruling class enforcers on protestors and the cutbacks that institutions of higher learning are now experiencing. "But wait, there's more!"

The very first sentence in their statement reveals an important fact that they know from first hand experience: that their profession is subject to ongoing and rigorous discipline from the ideological masters of the Empire.

We are economists who oppose ideological cleansing in the economics profession.

Europe’s theatrical puppetry before an audience of bankers

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from Reflections on a Revolution. 

The author uses the metaphor of theater to describe the global elite's handling of the financial crisis. But then he sees what might be a more apt metaphor:

...the behavior of our elites is increasingly starting to resemble that of a cult of witch doctors, superstitiously carrying out complex rituals in honor of the Masters of the Universe, busily sacrificing the weaker members of the tribe at the altar of global capital, mysteriously deluded by the deities of high finance — the almighty Gods That Failed us yesteryear.

Obama's Payroll Tax Deception

Click here to access article by Frank Munley from OpEd News. 

The author is correct in the implication that this payroll "tax cut" is a stealth attack on the Social Security retirement system. And now they want to increase the attack by reducing the employer's contribution along with the employee's as is currently the case. So, you may look forward to working until you drop dead or living off, and with, your children after you retire.

Previously I have been extremely critical of this ploy and the framing of the Social Security retirement contribution as a "tax". But then I discovered this Supreme Court decision of 1960 in which the Court decided that the benefit program was not a right. This was obviously done in order to deny benefits to a member of the Communist Party. So, I guess legally speaking, according to the judges appointed by the one percent, it is not a contractual benefit like a private insurance policy would be.

Also, Professor Allen W. Smith explains how the money is handled by our government: just dumped into the general funds and marked "Special Issues of the Treasury" which is just a fancy phrase for IOUs. Hence, the funds apparently are not invested in anything that can earn interest income. That is why all these recent attacks on the SS Trust Fund: it is not generating much surplus money anymore and the ruling one percent don't want to pay back all the money it has used to fund their wars, etc.

International banks have aided Mexican drug gangs

Click here to access article by Tracy Wilkinson and Ken Ellingwood from Los Angeles Times. 

This is news? This is ancient history. For the past 50 years there have been so many books written about it and so much evidence uncovered about the collusion of drug traffickers with bankers and government agencies: In Banks We Trust by Penny Lernoux, Dark Alliance by Gary Webb, The Laundrymen by Jeffrey Robinson, The Blood Bankers by James S. Henry, The Washing Machine by Nick Kochan, to name a few. 

Nearly everyone involved gets something out of it: the ruling one percent funds their CIA operations (war crimes) in violation of US and international law, banks benefit with the huge cash infusions, drug traffickers get rich, people stuck in America's urban and rural ghettos could be drugged out to stifle dissent, the military-industrial complex likes selling numerous weapons to compliant dictators and local police agencies, and the "War on Terror" is used to justify invasions of other countries after the demise of the "Communist menace". Articles like this appear about once a year to reassure people that their government is doing something about the problem.

Wachovia paid the $160 million in what is called a deferred-prosecution agreement; no one went to prison, and the fines represented a tiny fraction of the money the bank had filtered. In court documents cited by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Wachovia acknowledged serious lapses.

Call to action: alternative day of human rights on Dec. 10!

Click here to access article by Pedro Noel from Reflections on a Revolution. 

I'm not sure that Americans can get behind a focus on human rights because the word has been misused so often by our ruling one percent to smear countries that they don't like by accusing them of "human rights violations". 

But I became thoroughly caught up in their link called "Feedback" (last paragraph) and the opportunity to review the action ideas of others and to vote on them.

This is a call out to any person, assembly or independent humanitarian organization to participate in this creative process: tell us what you are organizing for #December10, send proposals and vote for the ones you think are good by clicking here: FEEDBACK. We will post them on the site and spread them across the Internet, so that others can join in or debate. A more general discussion is going on here: titanpad.com/humanrights.

Protesters Reflect Vast Majority on 99 Percent of Most Major Issues

Click here to access article by Mark Weisbrot from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

This writer makes a compelling case with supporting links to evidence about the undemocratic government we have. You probably don't need this, but possibly you could use this evidence with your more conservative friends.

That’s why Mayor Bloomberg of New York evicted the protestors who spearheaded this historic social movement. It had nothing to do with safety or other pretexts. This is clear because he had his thugs deliberately trash many of the protestors’ possessions, including laptops and many of the books from their library. ...The one percent has used violence and excessive force against protestors in other cities such as Oakland for the same reasons: they fear that democracy in the streets could lead to democracy in other arenas, such as government. 

Seattle WTO Shutdown ’99 to Occupy: Organizing to Win 12 Years Later

Click here to access article by David Solnit from The Indypendent. 

The author provides a very good review of successful mass action strategies developed by activists in the Northwest of the US to counter ruling class enforcers (police and media) who try to smear, subvert, and brutalize participants. 

As the occupy movement grows, wrestles with how to organize and looks forward, perhaps it’s of use to look back to what did and did not work in the space opened up 12 years ago — the global justice movement of movements that followed global South movements and spread across North America in the wake of the Seattle WTO mass occupation of downtown Seattle and nonviolent direct action shutdown of the WTO.

Tell Congress: Say NO to Indefinite Detention and Endless Worldwide War

An action alert from American Civil Liberties Union.

Capitalism is not in crisis: Capitalism Is the Crisis [film]

This 1 hr 40 minute film is from their website. I have viewed about two segments and find it very worthwhile in understanding our current economic crisis and considering proposals to get ourselves out of this crisis. One can also acquire the DVD by offering a donation of at least $20 at the film's website. The film...

...examines the ideological roots of the “austerity” agenda and proposes revolutionary paths out of the current crisis. The film features original interviews with Chris Hedges, Derrick Jensen, Michael Hardt, Peter Gelderloos, Leo Panitch, David McNally, Richard JF Day, Imre Szeman, Wayne Price, and many more! The 2008 “financial crisis” in the United States was a systemic fraud in which the wealthy finance capitalists stole trillions of public dollars. No one was jailed for this crime, the largest theft of public money in history. Instead, the rich forced working people across the globe to pay for their “crisis” through punitive “austerity” programs that gutted public services and repealed workers’ rights. Austerity was named “Word of the Year” for 2010. This documentary explains the nature of capitalist crisis, visits the protests against austerity measures, and recommends revolutionary paths for the future. Special attention is devoted to the crisis in Greece, the 2010 G20 Summit protest in Toronto, Canada, and the remarkable surge of solidarity in Madison, Wisconsin. It may be their crisis, but it’s our problem.

Once Upon A Time....There was a Beautiful Planet

Mostly by Mitchell J. Rabin from Progressive Radio Network. I have taken the liberty to alter the last few paragraphs by substituting the final, un-italicized paragraph.

Yes...there was a big, beautiful planet called Earth. And running all around her, as well as swimming inside her, were all types of interestingly shaped, sized and colored beings, each making their own unique sounds, hums and noises while moving about in their own unique ways. Some walked, others crawled, some swam and yet others slithered. Despite the fact that some ate others for their sustenance, they all had a way of finding time to frolic, pro-create, rest, and those who were on land, bask in the warmth and rays of the sun. And in a strange, somewhat abstract way, all were somehow, more or less, co-existing on this beautiful, blue-green planet.

At a certain point along the way of the multi-billion-year history of this marvel of an Earth, a green gem of the solar system, appeared a being known initially as Neanderthal, and who later, much later, came to be known as a chimpanzee, oh wait, excuse me, as homo sapiens. Yes, in one of his now considered ancient languages, this meant "rational, or wise man" with a brain volume of a minimum of 1,350 cubic centimeters. What we have learned from biology and history, it is apparently not size that most matters.

He was a playful if mischievous creature, and due to his larger brain than that of his neighbors in the animal kingdom, in different ways, began to lord over them. He lived in accordance with the beauty and abundance of this amazing and extraordinarily rich, beautiful planet during which period, he was considered, according to another of his ancient languages from the other side of the Earth, living in the Tao, that is, the flow of life.

But one day, he began to plant seeds and grow crops. And then he realized that the more land he controlled, the more crops he could grow or animals he could herd and instead of just ingesting what he and his family or tribe needed at a given time, the herding turned into hoarding. Fights broke out in disputes as to who had control of what land, and before long, different belief systems developed, ideas of the Universe were cultivated, and alas, what we call human culture and civilization dawned, dominating Nature and all the kingdoms of Nature that came with Creation.

And even though more brain parts developed which allowed differing levels of consciousness, such as reflection, contemplation, imagination, self-awareness, a group of homo sapiens, not exercising the ‘sapiens’ part of the brain, kept acquiring and self-aggrandizing at the expense of the rest of the human flock.

So this is where we are today: less than one percent own and control nearly everything. This one percent also developed a vast network of communication to provide us with their managed news and entertainment to dumb down our minds as to what has happened and is happening. The Occupy movement all over the world has recognized this development and is looking for ways to fight back, to take back all that has been lost to us, the more than ninety nine percent. They are calling on everyone who still knows how to exercise the 'sapien' part of their brain to join their struggle for emancipation.

Situations, Occupations, and Revolution: On Taking Steps Forward to Fight the End of the World

Click here to access article from InfoShop News. 

This article provides an excellent evaluation of the US Occupy movement at its present state with suggestions about where it should go from here to continue the momentum. This type of discussion is absolutely critical for all who support the Occupy movement, who want real change, and who want the human race to continue on into the future. It's hard work, but who thought that real change would be easy when the one percent have so much power in the form of weapons and ownership of nearly everything--both of which we created?

Occupy SF Housing Action Day

Click here to access article by Michael Steinberg from IndyBay.

...an African American woman, said, "I'm a homeowner facing forclosure. Chase is trying to chase me out of my home. By the end of 2012 we expect 10 million foreclosures in the US, with 2 million in California. When they attack our homes, they attack our health, and we're done with them attacking us. People across the country are saying, 'We need our homes more than you need one more.'" 

American exceptionalism — A survey

By William Blum excerpted from his latest Empire Report.

The leaders of imperial powers have traditionally told themselves and their citizens that their country was exceptional and that their subjugation of a particular foreign land should be seen as a "civilizing mission", a "liberation", "God's will", and of course bringing "freedom and democracy" to the benighted and downtrodden. It is difficult to kill large numbers of people without a claim to virtue. I wonder if this sense of exceptionalism has been embedded anywhere more deeply than in the United States, where it is drilled into every cell and ganglion of American consciousness from kindergarten on. If we measure the degree of indoctrination (I'll resist the temptation to use the word "brainwashing") of a population as the gap between what the people believe their government has done in the world and what the actual (very sordid) facts are, the American people are clearly the most indoctrinated people on the planet. The role of the American media is of course indispensable to this process — Try naming a single American daily newspaper or TV network that was unequivocally against the US attacks on Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and Vietnam. Or even against any two of them. How about one? Which of the mainstream media expressed real skepticism of The War on Terror in its early years?

Overloaded with a sense of America's moral superiority, each year the State Department judges the world, issuing reports evaluating the behavior of all other nations, often accompanied by sanctions of one kind or another. There are different reports rating how each lesser nation has performed in the previous year in the areas of religious freedom, human rights, the war on drugs, trafficking in persons, and counterterrorism, as well as maintaining a list of international "terrorist" groups. The criteria used in these reports are mainly political, wherever applicable; Cuba, for example, is always listed as a supporter of terrorism whereas anti-Castro exile groups in Florida, which have committed literally hundreds of terrorist acts, are not listed as terrorist groups.

• "The causes of the malady are not entirely clear but its recurrence is one of the uniformities of history: power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations — to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image." — Former US Senator William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (1966)
• "We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people –– the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world. ... God has predestined, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls." — Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850)
• "God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist." — John le Carré, London Times, January 15, 2003
• "Neoconservatism ... traded upon the historic American myths of innocence, exceptionalism, triumphalism and Manifest Destiny. It offered a vision of what the United States should do with its unrivaled global power. In its most rhetorically-seductive messianic versions, it conflated the expansion of American power with the dream of universal democracy. In all of this, it proclaimed that the maximal use of American power was good for both America and the world." — Columbia University Professor Gary Dorrien, The Christian Century magazine, January 22, 2007
• "To most of its citizens, America is exceptional, and it's only natural that it should take exception to certain international standards." — Michael Ignatieff, Washington Post columnist, Legal Affairs, May-June, 2002
• Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, US Army War College, 1997: "Our country is a force for good without precedent".
  Thomas Barnett, US Naval War College: "The US military is a force for global good that ... has no equal." — The Guardian (London), December 27, 2005
  
• John Bolton, future US ambassador to the United Nations, writing in 2000: Because of its unique status, the United States could not be "legally bound" or constrained in any way by its international treaty obligations. The U.S. needed to "be unashamed, unapologetic, uncompromising American constitutional hegemonists," so that their "senior decision makers" could be free to use force unilaterally.
  Condoleezza Rice, future US Secretary of State, writing in 2000, was equally contemptuous of international law. She claimed that in the pursuit of its national security the United States no longer needed to be guided by "notions of international law and norms" or "institutions like the United Nations" because it was "on the right side of history." — Z Magazine, July/August 2004
• "The president [George W. Bush] said he didn't want other countries dictating terms or conditions for the war on terrorism. 'At some point, we may be the only ones left. That's okay with me. We are America'." — Washington Post, January 31, 2002
• "Reinhold Niebuhr got it right a half-century ago: What persists — and promises no end of grief — is our conviction that Providence has summoned America to tutor all of humankind on its pilgrimage to perfection." — Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations, Boston University
• In commenting on Woodrow Wilson's moral lecturing of his European colleagues at the Versailles peace table following the First World War, Winston Churchill remarked that he found it hard to believe that the European emigrants, who brought to America the virtues of the lands from which they sprang, had left behind all their vices. — The World Crisis, Vol. V, The Aftermath, 1929
• "Behold a republic, gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral factor to the world's progress and the accepted arbiter of the world's disputes." — William Jennings Bryan, US Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, In His Image (1922)
• Newsweek editor Michael Hirsch: "U.S. allies must accept that some U.S. unilateralism is inevitable, even desirable. This mainly involves accepting the reality of America's supreme might — and truthfully, appreciating how historically lucky they are to be protected by such a relatively benign power." — Foreign Affairs, November, 2002
• Colin Powell speaking before the Republican National Convention, August 13, 1996: The United States is "a country that exists by the grace of a divine providence."
• "The US media always has an underlying acceptance of the mythology of American exceptionalism, that the US, in everything it does, is the last best hope of humanity." — Rahul Mahajan, author of: The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism, and Full Spectrum Dominance
• "The fundamental problem is that the Americans do not respect anybody except themselves," said Col. Mir Jan, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry. "They say, 'We are the God of the world,' and they don't consult us." —Washington Post, August 3, 2002
• "If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future." — Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State, 1998

This Is What Conspiracy Really Looks Like

Click here to access article by Lincoln Stoller posted on OpEd News. 

Once in a while individuals are able to escape their cultural conditioning (also known as "brainwashing") that has trained them to believe that the political facade that surrounds their daily life is real. The braver ones, such as this author, wander behind this facade to find a totally different reality, and try to make some sense of it.

He concludes his essay with this statement:

This is the nature of our system which has private corporations buying influence in systems that are supposed to be democratic. This cannot be changed by singling out specific groups or erecting single-issue fire walls. This is not the result of a few rotten apples. It is the fungus of international corporate capitalism operating in the "fruit salad" of selectively democratic republics.

Although this is a good start, I don't think that he quite grasps the reality of today's governance issues. I don't pretend to have a monopoly of understanding of this reality, but I feel that I have had more time to explore it. 

As I see it, ruling classes which have existed for the last ten to fifteen thousand years--less than 2% of human history--have always erected phony systems of belief to justify their existence, their privileges, and wealth. The latest class rulers, the capitalist class, several hundred years ago first saw great opportunities to accumulate wealth and power under a system of private ownership of socially produced wealth that could be possible if existing property was not limited by the rule of the landed aristocracy. 

So, they had to usurp power from the latter class, and to do this they had to enlist the support of ordinary working people who they needed to fight in their armies. They appealed to them with all sorts of radical ideas about democracy, such as those espoused sincerely by Thomas Paine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Once this was accomplished, first in the American Revolution followed closely by the French Revolution, the new capitalist class were stuck with all these notions of liberty, justice, and democracy. Thus, they had to erect political institutions that appeared to embody these ideas. Thomas Paine was henceforth ignored and died in obscurity. Fortunately, Rousseau escaped this fate by dying a natural death just before the French Revolution. 

To prevent any real liberty from happening, our benevolent (sarcasm) Founding Fathers (they have been deified) carefully limited the vote to only owners of large properties, and found that mixing people into large voting areas tended to dilute any real democratic pressures from below. (Remember that roads were poor and the means of communication was limited.) It has been taught to us, along with a lot of other garbage, that the system of checks and balances that is a part of the design of our government was to protect against autocrats from coming to power. The truth is, the new American ruling class led by Hamilton and the banker Morris had a terrible fear of citizens and designed the new government to protect them from the "unwashed masses". (Read Unruly Americans by Woody Holton and An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by Charles Beard.) 

Since then we have witnessed the extension of voting rights to most of the rest of the population, but this was only allowed because the new ruling class had a tight grip on the media, education, and control over what political parties were allowed to participate. They never had the slightest hesitation to hire private hooligans (for example, the Pinkertons), the FBI, aggressive police forces, or even the National Guard (for example, the Kent State massacre) to insure that their interests and policies were protected.

What is now placed on the shoulders of mostly young people throughout the world is the necessity of finally fulfilling the democratic dreams of working people to emancipate themselves from class rule. This is a huge task to ask of any generation, but nothing less will insure the survival of the human race. Should they succeed, they will surely become history's greatest heroes.

Occupy Homes lauds a radical new phase for the movement

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from Reflections on a Revolution.

...this Tuesday activists all over the United States will be taking the struggle indoors: to the homes of poor families who are under threat of being evicted by large and powerful Wall Street banks. The move from occupying public space to reclaiming private property marks a radical escalation of civil disobedience, striking the capitalist system right at its institutional heart.

Outside of New York City or San Francisco Bay Area, I am not sure that other Occupier activists are ready for this stage of activism--but, we shall see. It has to start sometime and somewhere in the US. On the other hand, we could just "throw in the towel", and pledge allegiance to the Empire and its global financial ruling class. 

I am proud to report that Occupiers here in the Seattle area seem to be ready for this phase of the revolution. Read this piece entitled, "Occupied Warehouse on Capitol Hill!". 

Let us be clear: this is only the beginning, a hint of what might come. If we are arrested, if we are removed from this building with guns in our faces and our hands bound behind our backs, it is neither unexpected nor a sign of failure. It is instead a sign that we constitute a real threat to capitalism and to the very concept of private property. There is no other option left but to recognize which side we are on. We say this not as martyrs, but as those who have chosen to live.

From Occupation to “Occupy”: The Israelification of American Domestic Security

Click here to access article by Max Blumenthal from al-Akhbar. 

There is not only collaboration among police/security agencies within the US as reported here: this article exposes the collaboration of the Empire's militarized polices across the globe, particularly influenced by the Israeli model.

The Israelification of America’s security apparatus, recently unleashed in full force against the Occupy Wall Street Movement, has taken place at every level of law enforcement, and in areas that have yet to be exposed. The phenomenon has been documented in bits and pieces, through occasional news reports that typically highlight Israel’s national security prowess without examining the problematic nature of working with a country accused of grave human rights abuses. But it has never been the subject of a national discussion. And collaboration between American and Israeli cops is just the tip of the iceberg.

Coal study names top 20 'climate killer' banks

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

After destroying the economy the financial elites, who form a core part of our ruling class, are now busy destroying our climate to satisfy their addiction to profits.

However, Africans and concerned people from all over the world are still fighting back. Read this piece entitled, "Thousands to Protest at COP 17 in Durban: Demanding Action to Save the Planet."

Feinstein Amendment Punts Issue of Indefinite Detention of Americans to Courts

Click here to access article David Dayen from FireDogLake.

Can Americans be indefinitely detained by the military on suspicion of terrorism if arrested on American soil? Thursday evening the Senate added a compromise amendment to the defense spending bill that states: Maybe.

It seems that the corporate sponsored US Senators just won't give up on an attempt to impose a police state on the US. They must be getting worried about a domestic insurrection. Meanwhile, mainstream media omits this coverage and encourages people to just go Christmas shopping (with their credit cards).

See also this piece from Wired entitled, "Senate Wants the Military to Lock You Up Without Trial".

See also yesterday's assessment of this bill by Glenn Greenwald who has a background in constitutional law. He rightfully says that the government is already doing what this bill proposes. Still, it is another nail in our civil rights coffin.

NAFTA - the Neo-Liberal Destruction of Mexican Culture & Anarchist Responses from Zapatistas to Drug Cartels

Click here to access article by John Kelley posted on OpEd News.

This article provides a good history of the Mexican people's struggle against the privatizing of their lands, and the more recent devastating effects of NAFTA on both US and Mexican workers--a good illustration of how neoliberalism plays off one nation's workers against another for the enrichment of corporations and their owners and ending in the exploitation of workers and the destruction of their lives.

Occupy Wall Street: The Enthusiasm Gap

Click here to access article by Bob Burnett from OpEd News. 

The latest polls indicate that approximately 75 percent of Americans agree with the goals of Occupy Wall Street.  Nonetheless, only 29 percent consider themselves supporters of OWS.  What accounts for this enthusiasm gap?

I also greatly worry about this. I think that my fellow Americans have been subject to so many years of indoctrination that filters down from the ruling class into every institution--schools, mainstream media particularly the "boob tube" (TV), corporate employers, non-profit administrators, churches, etc, that they will be very slow to respond to ruling class imposed crises. People have been taught to believe that it is far better to defer to authority than to think critically, that bad things happen to you when you start to question. "Better to go along to get along."

The shadow war in Syria

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

It's fair to argue that masses of Syrians want something other than the Assad regime - but certainly not some variant of humanitarian bombing, not to mention civil war. They saw NATO's legacy in Libya - virtually the whole infrastructure of the country destroyed, cities bombed to dust, tens of thousands of dead and wounded, al-Qaeda-linked fanatics wielding power in Tripoli, widespread ethnic hatred. They don't want a brand new massacre. But NATOGCC does. 

Student Protests Spread Throughout Region [Latin America]

Click here to access article by Pamela Sepúlveda from The Indypendent. 

In support of Chile’s ongoing student protests, and voicing their own demands, thousands of people took to the streets in more than a dozen cities in Latin America Thursday demanding quality public education.

Thawing permafrost vents gases to worsen warming

Click here to access article by Seth Borenstein of AP posted in Yahoo News.

Massive amounts of greenhouse gases trapped below thawing permafrost will likely seep into the air over the next several decades, accelerating and amplifying global warming, scientists warn.

The future of growing old in America

Click here to access article by James Ridgeway from The Guardian. 

The ruling One Percent have absolutely no shame in going after the most vulnerable people in our society--the poor, the disabled, and the elderly--in order to pursue their wars and protect their profits.

It's hard to argue that social security benefits are too generous, or that retirees enjoy extravagant lifestyles. The average social security benefit currently stands at just over $1,100 a month. As the Center for Economic and Policy Research's Dean Baker notes, "More than 75% of benefits go to individuals with non-social security income of less than $20,000 a year and more than 90% of benefits go to individuals with non-social security income of less than $40,000 a year."

Fed bailing out the Euro

Click here to access article from Russia Today. 

Markets are rallying, traders are full of optimism and the Euro is up. The only loser is the dollar: the good old buck has weakened compared to other currencies. The reason? An announcement from the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England and Swiss National Bank reveals that they are going to provide troubled European banks with massive amounts of cash – cheaper and faster than ever before. Obviously, the lion’s share of assets will be provided by the US Federal Reserve.

For more details and a deeper analysis of the latest European bank bailout by the Fed, read this piece by Naomi Prins, formerly of Goldman Sachs, in which she states:

...we...know from the US bailouts in phase one of the global meltdown, that providing ‘liquidity' or ‘greasing the wheels of ‘ banks in times of ‘emergency’ does absolute nothing for the Main Street Economy. Not in the US. And not in Europe. It also doesn’t fix anything, it just funds bad trades with impunity.

Well, should we be surprised? The Empire's ruling class is there to serve the one percent, and that is what they are doing. The solution, broadly speaking, is to remove the one percent from power and create classless societies designed to serve the needs of everyone. Until that happens, we will continue to see the 99% serving the needs of the one percent (in this case, covering their bad bets), more extremes of wealth and poverty, more wars, and more environmental degradation.

Here, in a nutshell, is the way I understand this whole bailout phenomenon. The controlling center of capitalism are the financial elites in the US, Europe, and Japan under the leadership of US bankers. Their top controlling institution is the Federal Reserve which creates money backed largely by the power of the US and NATO military, and their Arab oil cronies . The financial elites have no problem creating money to bailout members of their class who made bad bets on mortgage securities and all kinds of derivative bets, but they have an almost obsessive fear of that money circulating among the general population. You see, if that money circulates widely, money cheapens, prices rise, inflation results and the value of the bonds that mostly elites buy are devalued.

Britain's Massive Anti-Austerity Strike: Could It Happen Here?

Click here to access article by Richard Eskow from Huffington Post.

This event was almost totally ignored in US media--it might give workers the wrong ideas!

Millions of employees mounted Great Britain's first General Strike in many years today after the government threatened to impose more cuts in retirement benefits and pay for public workers.

It was a smash success. As many as two million strikers proved that the public's patience with the unjust fiscal regime known as 'austerity economics' has its limits. It highlighted the important role unions can and must play in the fight for a more just and stable economy.

Dardari: The Trojan Horse of Neoliberal Syria

Click here to access article by Ghadi Francis from Al-Akhbar.

This piece provides an interesting thesis that Abdallah Dardari, the former Syrian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, functioned as a neo-liberal Trojan Horse. But when the usual destructive effects of neoliberalism occurred in Syria, he wisely "hopped into a lifeboat and paddled safely to the UN." He is now a part of the opposition. 

With the wrecked economy, (in my opinion) NATO imperialists see another splendid opportunity to move another chess piece in place to put Iran into checkmate. 

Global rebellion: The coming chaos?

Click here to access article by William I. Robinson from Al Jazeera. 

I am not posting this piece because I think it provides precise insights on our current social-economic and war disasters, but because it is broadly accurate and requires urgent action by the 99%. It is a liberal interpretation of crucial world events produced by an academic who consciously or unconsciously provides a more bland analysis of world events in order to keep his job or to enhance his career prospects. For example, he uses concepts like "social reproduction" to cover over unpleasant realities that you and I face--loss of pensions, loss of homes, huge debts, loss of jobs, standing in line at food banks, etc. 

And there are many other parts of his analysis that I would interpret quite differently. However, I really don't have the time or interest to do so. What is important is his main conclusion with which I agree:

Global elites are confused, reactive, and sinking into the quagmire of their own making. It is noteworthy that those struggling around the world have been shown a strong sense of solidarity and are in communications across whole continents. ...As global elites regroup and assess the new conjuncture and the threat of mass global revolution, they will - and have already begun to - organise coordinated mass repression, new wars and interventions, and mechanisms and projects of co-optation in their efforts to restore hegemony.

Occupy Wall Street's anarchist roots

Click here to access article by David Graeber from Al Jazeera.

"How are you going to get anywhere if you refuse to create a leadership structure or make a practical list of demands? And what's with all this anarchist nonsense - the consensus, the sparkly fingers? Don't you realise all this radical language is going to alienate people? You're never going to be able to reach regular, mainstream Americans with this sort of thing!"

The author provides some excellent answers to people who are confused about the Occupy movement and its practices. He does this by reviewing anarchist movements throughout history and their struggles with all class ruled societies, and by offering insights on what anarchism really is: a radical form of democracy which all governing classes of hierarchical systems loath. 

It is clear to me that the re-birth of this model of social organization offers the last best hope for humanity to survive in any form other than barbarism--indeed, to survive at all in the face of planetary destruction by profit-addicted capitalist ruling classes.


(Note: It appears to me that there is one minor typo in the following sentence: "Perhaps this is not surprising: We are facing conditions that rival those of the 1930s, the main difference being that the media seems stubbornly willing [unwilling] to acknowledge it.")

The Power of Occupy Wall Street Is Not Just What They're Doing, But How They're Doing It

Click here to access article by Sarah Jaffe from AlterNet. 

The people who seem unable to comprehend horizontalism are mostly those who come from hierarchical institutions themselves. (There isn't a more hierarchically structured media organization than the New York Times, for instance, which also sits at the top of the hierarchy of mainstream media as the “paper of record.”) But horizontalism has proved appealing to the Occupy protesters, I think, because those same hierarchical institutions, from Congress to churches to universities, and obviously, corporations have utterly failed most Americans.

She provides a very good discussion of the contribution of direct democracy (horizontalism) that the Occupy movement is practicing.

UK public sector stages national one-day walkout

Click here to access article from World Socialist Web Site.

More than two million workers across the public sector in the UK are taking part in today’s Day of Action against the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition’s attack on their pensions. For the first time since the government took office 18 months ago, working people have the opportunity to show their opposition to its policies, and they are doing so in their hundreds of thousands.

This major UK event is being given scant coverage here in the US--for obvious reasons.

Ruth Marcus reveals another journalistic value

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald from Salon. 

This piece is about prominent journalists who espouse values of US mainstream journalism--it's all about "respect for authority". If you want a career with corporate media, it would be useful to adopt these values. 

Every hierarchical social system, other than totalitarian systems of governance, realizes the importance of indoctrinating its subjects in the values of deference to authority. The latter system is much more efficient in bringing about compliance with the policies of ruling classes than the former which require a  huge, expensive security apparatus (police, surveillance of citizens, prisons, etc) to enforce compliance. It seems that our ruling class is playing it safe by promoting both.

Senators Demand the Military Lock Up of American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window

Click here to access article from American Civil Liberties Union.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. 

I have been expecting a desperate reaction from the ruling capitalist class who fear the Occupy movement and the threat it poses to their legitimacy. The one percent are a frightened and cowardly people who fear the 99%. We have seen brutal police attacks on protestors in Oakland and Davis, California, and other cities; now there is a move on in corporate sponsored Congress to make it lawful to employ US army troops against its own citizens! WE MUST FIGHT BACK! Use the form provided in the article to contact your corporate sponsored Senator to tell them, "hell no!" (in so many words). 

Unknown Snipers and Western backed "Regime Change"

Click here to access article by Gearóid Ó Colmáin from Global Research. 

I've been noticing reports of unknown snipers in Syria and recall Mahdi Nazemroaya, a Canadian journalist, who reported about snipers while trapped in a hotel in Tripoli in August.  (See first video regarding a video phone interview with Nazemroaya in article that I posted on August 22nd at segments 0:55 - 1:18 and 4:55 - 6:55m.) I began to wonder if this was a standard destabilization tactic used against targeted countries. This article provides considerable evidence that it is.

The US has a criminal record of training and sponsoring terrorists through its School of the Americas in the US state of Georgia. Graduate from these schools have gone on to promote death squads in many countries in Latin America and other places.

The use of mercenaries, death squads and snipers by Western intelligence agencies is well documented.  No rational government attempting to stay in power would resort to unknown snipers to intimidate its opponents. Shooting at innocent protestors would be counterproductive in the face of unmitigated pressure from Western governments determined to install a client regime in Damascus. Shooting of unarmed protestors is only acceptable in dictatorships that enjoy the unconditional support of Western governments such as Bahrain, Honduras or Colombia.

Media Lies Used to Provide a Pretext for Another "Humanitarian War": Protest in Syria: Who Counts the Dead?

Click here to access article by Julie Lévesque from Global Research.

The "Syrian uprising" seems to be a copy and paste of the "protest movement" in Libya, which was conducive to a NATO invasion and regime change. The mainstream press has once again one principal source of information – the opposition groups. The media neglects military casualties and fails to report that armed gunmen, 17,000 according to a report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, are among the protesters. A non-elected body, the SNC, ironically is upheld as a democratic movement and is offered "credibility" as well as extensive mainstream media coverage.

The author provides a lot evidence and arguments that there is a massive disinformation campaign going against the Syrian government to prepare the way for another NATO "humanitarian mission". I don't wish to imply that there is no legitimate opposition against the current ruling administration, but it appears to me that it is being grossly exaggerated and exploited by Western political operatives.

Rich nations 'give up' on new climate treaty until 2020

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

Postponing an operational agreement until 2020 would be fatal to hopes of avoiding catastrophic climate change, according to scientists, economists and green campaigners.

We are now witnessing the growth imperative of capitalism colliding with the ecological limits of our planet. Because capitalist ruling classes are so addicted to their profits, they are hopelessly unable to avert the disasters that are in the future for all of us. Because we share the same planet, we simply cannot idly stand by and let them have their way. Apparently the issues related to social-economic justice were not sufficient for people to rise up and demand changes in the past; but with the dire threats to our planetary home on the horizon, surely humanity will no longer tolerate such a destructive system.

The warnings of climate disaster are now occurring almost everywhere. Here in the Northwest of the United States we see oyster die-offs due to ocean acidification, in Texas severe droughts, earlier this year we saw flash flooding in eastern US, and this same pattern is occurring all over the Earth. 

Meanwhile, ruling capitalist classes do their best to keep their citizens ignorant of the evidence which makes the necessary connections between extreme weather, accelerated climate change, and fossil fuel consumption. For example, the latest refusal of TV broadcasters in Britain, US and other countries to televise a final segment of a series of programs apparently because the program made those connections. 

Witness now how the ruling elites are once again "stonewalling" the issue in the UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

The reality is that to stave off the Venus Syndrome – indeed, to maintain temperature rise to 2°C – the better part of known reserves of fossil fuels must remain untouched in the ground. But to the contrary, while the UN stalls and governments stonewall, corporations and the World Bank continue to invest wildly in expanding the fossil-fuel frontier through deep-sea drilling and exploitation of shale gas and tar sands, scraping the bottom of the oil barrel and locking us into a path of high emissions and a toxic future. Venus, here we come. 

Feminism, Finance and the Future of #Occupy - An interview with Silvia Federici

Click here to access article from Infoshop News. 

This piece presents an interview with a feminist of long experience who offers her insights on the important contributions of the still-active feminist movement on the current Occupy movement and the latter movement's struggle with the capitalist ruling class of the one percent. 

...in the present economic context, is it [is] impossible to take on Wall Street’s ‘crimes’ without confronting the entire economic system at the basis of its abuses. As with any other movements, there are different strands within the Occupations. Some participants may be satisfied with just obtaining a more regulated banking system, or a return to Keynesianism. But the economic crisis is bringing to light, in a dramatic way, the fact that the capitalist class has nothing to offer to the majority of the population except more misery, more destruction of the environment, and more war. 

Linda Katehi and the neoliberal reform of Greek Higher Education

Click here to access article by Panagiotis Sotiris from Greek Left Review. 

The recent publicity of police brutality against UC Davis students prompted this author to report on efforts by UC Davis Chancellor Katehi and other capitalist agents to "reform" Greek education to fit with neo-liberal values. 

...the main ruling body in every Greek University is going to be a ‘Directing Board’ comprised by academics but also external members and representatives of the world of business. This board is going to be responsible for all major policy decisions, including the selection of potential Rectors and Deans. Student and academic participation is drastically limited. Many university departments face closure in what is described as a process of ‘reorganization’ of Higher Education, but also in the name of budget cuts and austerity policies. Faculty promotion and tenure is going to become more difficult.

Lies and truths about Syria

Click here to access article Thierry Meyssan from Voltaire.

According to this French journalist, there is a massive media campaign underway in the West to justify aggressive actions toward Syria coinciding with an active project of destabilization of that country.

And this article from al-Akhbar (Lebanon). 

In a show of public support for the regime, tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets on Monday to protest Arab sanctions on Damascus.

Pro-regime protests were held in the cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Hasaka, Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, Sweida, and Tartus.

With Western media cranked up to support another invasion after NATO's victory in Libya--this time in Syria--it is important that we obtain alternative sources of information.  

Cairo’s Liberation by Innovation

Click here to access article by Mohammed Shoair  al-Akhbar (Lebanon). 

From onions, to milk, to shoe polish bombs, protesters in Cairo are coming up with new ways to counter the regime’s new weapons of stifling dissent.

The Egyptian revolution carries on with an unparalleled creative spirit. A rebellious and vibrant imagination is pushing up against a stultifying and authoritarian military regime. 

Dangerous Times

by Ron Horn.

As I scan various opinion and news articles this morning, I am left with a very uneasy feeling that the world is heading for major conflict, not in the distant future, but in the near future: within a year. I hope I am wrong. But, consider the following facts and analyses to see if you are able to arrive at a different point of view: 

• There are widespread, angry people in the MENA countries. Currently we are seeing the US trained and equipped Egyptian military being confronted by widespread public opposition to their rule. NATO has been attempting to exploit the unrest throughout the region, under the covering propaganda of humanitarian missions, seeing this as an opportunity to strengthen its hold on more neutral governments in the region. NATO leaders are celebrating their recent triumph in Libya and planning to secure new military bases in that country. Now they are once again beating the war drums against Iran over their alleged threat of nuclear weapons.  (See this, this and this for more details on what appears to be an overall NATO strategy.) Now NATO may be in danger of losing one of its key stooges in Asia over their latest attack on Pakistani troops.
• There is considerable evidence that the strife going on in Syria is being exploited by Western secret agencies by supplying opposition forces with weapons from nearby Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Although Western media usually attributes them to Syrian government sources, there are reports of mysterious sniper attacks on civilians which is creating chaos in the country. 
• There are nearly worldwide Occupy protests, and those in Western countries are creating problems for police agencies and are attempting to turn public opinion against the ruling one percent.
• There are widespread banking problems, sovereign debt issues, and austerity measures causing major civilian crises across Western countries.

Wouldn't a major conflagration be seen as a way for Western ruling classes to divert attention and energy away from their dissidents and onto what they would see as more constructive pursuits--people supporting more wars which are always waged in defense of security and freedoms and for humanitarian purposes? And war is always good for the military-industrial complex and the one percent who live off their profits.


God, I hope I'm wrong!

Our University: On Police Violence at CUNY

Click here to access article by Anthony Alessandrini from Jadaliyya. 

Over the past few months, around the world, we have seen how tyrants, no longer able to hide behind the empty rhetoric of “democracy” that includes neither enfranchisement nor representation, have fallen back on their only other option: brute violence. We are seeing precisely the same thing on our university campuses. University officials have become accustomed to the privilege of remaining unaccountable...and simply being able to ignore the demands of students, teachers, and workers.

Targeting of Christian Syrians and Black Libyans: The "Clash of Civilizations" is on the march

Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Voltaire.

This Canadian sociologist and independent journalist has assembled a complex, but compelling view of the grand strategy that informs the Empire's policies in the MENA region.

What is unfolding amongst the Arab peoples is naturally a mixed package. Insurgency is part of this package as is opportunism. Where there is revolution, there is always counter-revolution too.

Clearly the Empire is influenced by the principle which states, "never let a crisis go to waste".

Obama: Trilateral Commission Endgame

Click here to access article by Patrick Wood from Voltaire. 

The global banks and corporations are running circles around the nation state, including the United States. They have no regard for due process, Congress, or the will of the people.

Along with trade and all other economic activities, governance has surreptitiously become globalized and concentrated in the hands of the 1% from all over the capitalist world. Still, these new governing bodies believe that it is in their interest to maintain the fictions of democratically and independently governed nations.  

The fact of this new global governance is precisely why real change can only come from working people across the globe coordinating with each other to emancipate themselves. This does not mean centralized organizations like the capitalist globalists have, but coordination among organizations that are organized from the bottom up.

The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy

Click here to access article by  Naomi Wolf from The Guardian.

As the puzzle pieces fit together, they began to show coordination against OWS at the highest national levels.

Black Friday: Occupy Protests Discourage Shopping On One Of Retail's Biggest Days

Click here to access article by Beth Duff-Brown and Juliet Williams from Huffington Post. 

In San Francisco, a few dozen people in tony and touristy Union Square used signs to spread an anti-consumerism message. One, 9-year-old Jacob Hamilton, held a sign that read, "What is in your bag that's more important than my education?"

I doubt that the San Francisco Bay Area is representative of the US as a whole, but we can dream, can't we?

Vaccine Conspiracy: The CDC Caught Lying Again

Click here to access article by Gary Null, Jeremy Stillman, and Nancy Ashley from Progressive Radio Network. 

In a news release last Tuesday, CoMeD [Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs] exposed a cover-up by authorities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and vaccine researchers who deliberately omitted critical data from a 2003 article on mercury and autism that was carried out in Denmark.

At Durban, the big emitters will no doubt fail us again on climate change

Click here to access article by John Vidal from The Guardian.

Before Copenhagen we were told the world would stop at nothing to get an equitable, fair agreement. Then, we were told, a deal could be done in a week. After Copenhagen, it was so important for the future of humanity that we could expect a deal within the year. That then morphed to two or three years, and now ministers and senior diplomats are playing down expectations even further by suggesting it may take another four years of talks to come up with a plan that could, possibly, come into effect in 2020.

Black Friday Antidote: George Carlin on Advertising and Consumerism

This 9:44m video was posted today by Naked Capitalism. For foreign visitors let me explain than today is promoted as Black Friday by corporate media to start people shopping for the Christmas season. As Yves Smith expresses it, "Americans roll from a holiday [Thanksgiving] that has come to be about overeating to a day where merchants hope to seduce customers into an orgy of overspending." Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street activists are declaring it, "Buy Nothing Day!"

What next for revolution's second wave?

Click here to access article by Amira Howeidy from Al-Ahram.

The more the police have attacked and killed protesters, the stronger the urge to resist. Thousands have poured into Tahrir since Sunday as the death toll increased. Many people interviewed by the Weekly say they decided to join the protests after seeing graphic film footage of corpses piled by the side of the square and others being dragged by policemen and left on heaps of garbage.

Journalists and women are treated worse in Egypt by their police forces than here in the US:



A doctor treating injured protestors is one of the latest victims of US trained and equipped military satraps in Egypt using gas, no doubt, supplied by the US.

"Death to Al Sa`ud" Chants by Thousands in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province: A Game Changer?

Click here to access article from Jadaliyya.

Protests in this predominantly Shi`i region evolved after  Sunday's shooting. Thousands swarmed the streets calling for the "Death to Al Sa`ud" (i.e., death to the Saudi royal family).

Even people in armed-to-the-teeth Saudi Arabia are fighting back against their US satrap. No amount of repression can keep people down indefinitely. Ruling classes that exist only through the use of force have much to fear. Human beings are very adaptable, but there are limits, and these limits are being tested in many parts of the world today.  People throughout history have expressed this basic component of human nature in various ways:

Give me liberty, or give me death!
Patrick Henry - March 23, 1775, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia (Virginia Convention)

There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.
Mario Savio - December 2, 1964, University of California, Berkeley, California.

And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Martin Luther King - April 3, 1968, Mason Temple, Memphis, Tennessee.

To Be or Not to Be – Reform or Revolution – Fear or Love?

Click here to access article by Carol Brouillet from Progressive Radio Network. 

The idea of revolutionary change is generally terrifying to most people, at least to people who have an adequate income, shelter, food, clothing, and family and simply want to enjoy the pleasures of life. Under current conditions, however, a large majority of people are threatened with the loss of their livelihoods, lands, homes, pensions, health, and living standards. Their very survival demands a radical change in our financial system.

The privatization of our money is not the only thing that needs to be radically changed by being socialized to serve the public interest. Our whole economy needs to be radically changed. Our economies must be socialized to serve the public interest. People all over the world are reaching their limits of tolerance of private interests controlling public interests. They are facing down the brutality of the enforcers of private interests--the heavily armed police and armies who commit all kinds of crimes against humanity.

Reporter Greg Palast Exposes How U.S. “Vulture” Funds Make Millions By Exploiting African Nations

Click here to access 13:25m video from Democracy Now which includes a transcript.

View video interview to get an example of how vulture capitalists feed off the misery of 3rd world countries.

The Obama Predicament-and the Final Option! “To attack or not to attack Iran?” That is the question!

Click here to access article by Rev Richard Skaff from Global Research.

The author provides a cynical, but insightful, evaluation of Obama's job performance and what he needs to do to earn a second term as CEO of America Inc.

Every American president sets the stage for the next one, in order to continue the work in progress that has been set for him by the global corporate elite. Mr. Obama has been a faithful serf to his money masters, and he played his cards carefully and correctly, therefore, he will deserve a second term. 

How Online Learning Companies Bought America's Schools

Click here to access article by Lee Fang from The Nation.

Following the current capitalist principle to never let a crisis go to waste such as in this period of severe austerity, people and organizations such as David Koch, Jeb Bush, ALEC, Rupert Murdoch, and numerous investors and corporations see a great opportunity to profit in online education while, at the same time, launching a war against public education and teachers.

...by combining the financial firepower of their corporate clients with the seeming legitimacy of privatization-minded school-reform think tanks and foundations ...policies designed to boost the bottom lines of education-technology companies are cast as mere attempts to improve education through technological enhancements, prompting little public debate or opposition.

...It’s big business, and getting bigger....

And, so far there is very little research that justifies online education. In any case, any and all educational techniques must never be controlled by the ruling class. To be sure, they indirectly control education now, but this project would put education directly under their control and directly link education to private profits.
 

Frank Miller and the rise of cryptofascist Hollywood

Click here to access article by by Rick Moody from The Guardian. 

...Frank Miller has done Occupy Wall Street a service by reminding us that our allegedly democratic political system, which increases inequality and decreases class mobility, which is mostly interested in keeping the disenfranchised where they are, requires a mindless, propagandistic (or "cryptofascist") storytelling medium to distract its citizenry.

I've often been aghast at the apparent popularity of this Hollywood trash. Fortunately, the 99 percent are beginning to wake up.

Shale Gas Emerges as a Burning Issue

Click here to access article by Peter Custers from Inter Press Service. 

The author brings us up to date on the issue of fossil fuel developments as capitalist interests continue their suicidal project of profit über alles. Unfortunately, we live on the same planet as they do; otherwise I would say, "go for it"!

...the example of the fracking of shale gas retells the story of deregulation which has been so characteristic for the U.S.’s and the world’s financial sector in the era of neo-liberalism. In both cases, the profit interests of corporation and of a narrow section of company executives have been put wide above the welfare of the world’s population.

Liberating the Impossible

Click here to access article by Yotam Marom from The Organization for a Free Society.

Very inspirational! 

We need alternative institutions that fight, and fighting institutions that express an alternative. And we need them all to have real, long-lasting effects.

We need institutions truly capable of meeting peoples’ needs – we need health clinics and social workers, democratic schools and worker cooperatives, neighborhood assemblies and reclaimed homes. We need them on a large scale, and we need to defend them from the attacks of the status quo. We need to take space not symbolically, but for keeps.

Worker Cooperatives Reduce "Hard-Core" Unemployment [Argentina]

Click here to access article by Marcela Valente from Inter Press Service. 

Not exactly current as most of my articles are, but very important. An issue that is often overlooked when discussing the outsourcing of American jobs are the loss of skills this practice, after many years, has on American workers. To prevent this and to sustain workers and their families, we simply must establish our own work sites to produce goods and services needed in our communities. This can be successful if and when communities begin to view corporate produced goods and services as not in their best interests, and be willing to pay higher prices for cooperative products at least in the short run. The Occupy movement along with the obvious decline in the standard of living for ordinary people is rapidly creating this climate of opinion. 

See also this article entitled, "Millions Stand to Benefit from Farmers' Co-ops", regarding farming and food co-ops.

BUY NOTHING DAY / #OCCUPYXMAS

Click here to access article from Adbusters. 

You’ve been sleeping on the streets for two months pleading peacefully for a new spirit in economics. And just as your camps are raided, your eyes pepper sprayed and your head’s knocked in, another group of people are preparing to camp-out.

Do you think this other group will be harassed by police? After all, under capitalism shopping trumps free speech and freedom of assembly.

Black Friday is probably the most important day in the US for the one percent who depend upon profits from their mostly outsourced factories to sustain their profits--the sole interest of capitalist ruling classes the world over.

Van Jones and Democratic Party Operatives: You Do Not Represent the Occupy Movement

Click here to access article by Kevin Zeese from OpEd News. 

The author writes about how the Democratic Party operatives are preparing to co-opt the OWS movement to support their candidates in next year's elections. But, can they be co-opted?

At Occupy Washington, DC, we recognize that putting our time, energy and resources into elections will not produce the change we want to see. What we need to do right now is build a dynamic movement supported by independent media that stands in stark contrast to both corporate-bought-and-paid-for parties.

Egyptian military using 'more dangerous' teargas on Tahrir Square protesters

Click here to access article from The Guardian.

The pepper gas spraying of peacefully assembled students on the University of California campus in Davis has received widespread publicity--even on mainstream media. What is less known is that this weapon performs a critical role in the Empire's arsenal to enforce its will upon those outside of the global elite. This and other articles linked here, here, and here provides convincing evidence of that.

And look what corporate representatives in Congress are currently considering--rolling back torture prevention measures they previously passed! They must be getting desperate. 

The NEW COMMON SENSE

Click here to access article by VoiceOfReason from Pastebin. (Or if you can bear computer-generated language, you can listen to the text here. The link from the Pastebin webpage is an abbreviated version, for the full version it seems that you will need to download it to something like a Word document, which I have done.)

This is an up-to-date version of Thomas Paine's Common Sense inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement. A must read.

A Declaration of INTERDEPENDENCE, born of necessity, from and for the collective conscience of the "99%" to and for the oligarchic "1%" of the United States of America.

The Camp is the World: Connecting the Occupy Movements and The Spanish May 15th Movement

Click here to access article by Luis Moreno-Caballud and Marina Sitrin from The New Significance.

The authors identify the key elements of the Occupy movement which as a model can be used to expand the movement by inserting it into all spaces in society. 

...what this could continue to look like in the US is that there are assemblies on street corners, in neighborhoods, in workplaces and universities, working concretely together with neighbors and workmates, as well as then relating together in assemblies of assemblies or spokes councils in parks, plazas and squares, sharing the experiences from the more local spaces. All the while continuing to occupy space and territory, but seeing the territory as what happens together, with one another, in multiple places, and then coming together to share in another geographic place. This could take places on the level of neighborhood to neighborhood – to the level of city to city, all networked in horizontal assemblies.

From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy Your Street

Click here to access article by Paul Rogat Loeb from On the Commons. 

In an effort to move the Occupy movement further, there are a lot of discussions going on all over the US. This author provides some that are, no doubt, being seriously considered. But, I am bothered by what I detect as a gatekeeper function that seems to inform his discussion. He seems intent upon containing the options of OWS within ruling class political processes which he sees as realistic.

If the Occupiers stay contained in their familiar enclaves, or steer people away from electoral participation, they risk helping those at the top prevail even more.

That’s a real possibility given the blanket dismissal of voting by far too many of the Occupy participants I’ve spoken with, or at least of voting within the two party system.

He then continues on with the usual threats of the greater evil being elected--hence we should be engaged in the electoral process which, of course, has been designed by the ruling class and vote for the lesser evil.

But, perhaps he redeems himself when he concludes with the following paragraph:

Like participants in previous movements for justice, the Occupiers need to avoid the false choices between protest and organizing, community building and electoral involvement, surrealist theater and the grunt work of change. The criticisms they raise go beyond any single election, Congressional bill, or policy shift. They need to keep raising them, but in ways that keep spiraling out. If they can trigger enough conversations in communities as yet untouched by their voices, they have a chance to prevail. But they have to recognize that the powerful public presence they’ve created is just a beginning.

I would feel better if he had developed this theme further, because any participation in ruling class institutions is at best a holding action to provide more time to organize real power from below. There is room for all kinds of discussion about real change, but I do not think it is "realistic" to close off radical changes, because that is what it is going to take to create real change in our lives.

Labor Must Choose Between Occupy and the Democrats

Click here to access article by Shamus Cooke from Workers Action. 

If labor plans on building a strong movement with Occupy — and they had better — then these suicidal pro-Democratic Party policies must end. Labor cannot earn credibility within the Occupy Movement and then completely change course to campaign for Obama, in effect throwing all credibility in the garbage.

No Cops, No Bosses

Click here to access article from UCDavis Bicycle Barricade.

It's quite amazing and inspiring for an old-time activist like myself to see the current fire of revolutionary consciousness spreading all across the US by courageous young activists. So, let us pay a visit to the campus at UC Davis in Davis, California.

 

The [university] administration, as a managerial class for whom the ideal university is a massive corporation in imperialist partnership with other massive corporations and banks, will never accede to our demands for self-management, greater student and community participation in university governance, and better working conditions. The administration at UC Davis and every other UC campus has proven that, when faced with these demands, they will unleash violence in our learning spaces.

We demand the abolition of the administration and the transfer of all their functions to workers, students, and faculty.

Prof. Johan Galtung Supports the Leaderless 99%/Occupy Movement Worldwide

Posted by Transcend Media Service. 

Some very wise words from Professor Galtung:



It appears that the professor is speaking at the Brookings Institution, a major center of ruling class power at the heart of the Empire where the real decisions are made. (I hope you don't think that real political/economic decisions are made in Congress, the Supreme Court, or by the President!)