Too Big to Jail: Our Banking System's Latest Disgrace

Click here to access article by Neil Barofsky from The New Republic.

Let me see...I wonder if I understand this issue. According to Al Jazeera, HSBC is a bank "...which operates in 80 countries and which made pre-tax profits of $21.9bn last year...." They get fined $1.9 or about 10% of only one year's income. 

Fareed Zakaria of Time Magazine made some observations about people under some form of correctional supervision during this period of the "War on Drugs":

Drug convictions went from 15 inmates per 100,000 adults in 1980 to 148 in 1996, an almost tenfold increase. More than half of America's federal inmates today are in prison on drug convictions. In 2009 alone, 1.66 million Americans were arrested on drug charges, more than were arrested on assault or larceny charges. And 4 of 5 of those arrests were simply for possession.

I wonder if the drug offenders were ever given the option of paying a fine of 10% of their income. From my reading, I know that HSBC isn't the only bank that engaged in this lucrative business. 

It also appears from Zakaria's data that the War on Drugs has been good for banking business.

I agree with the author that crime pays if you are a bank. Hmmm, maybe that is why the "War on Drugs" has lasted so long.

Given the potential profits of criminal behavior and the unlikelihood of personal consequences for the executives directing it, the message is clear: Crime pays. This will inevitably lead to more reckless risk-taking that will further undermine systemic stability and lead to an even greater financial meltdown down the road.

Western media and the Brotherhood: Secrets behind the love affair

Click here to access article by Hani Shukrallah from Ahram Online. 

Egypt was once again making world history; millions of Egyptians across the country were engaged in open popular revolt against the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, almost literally the mother of all modern political Islamist movements, not least the dread Al-Qaeda....

So remarkable was this new wave of the Egyptian revolution, its reach extended from the heartland of Brotherhood-support in Upper Egypt to Mediterranean Alexandria....

It was, moreover, the first ever popular uprising against a ruling Islamist movement, much wider in scope, intensity and social composition than any of the revolts we’d seen hitherto against the Ayatollahs’ rule in Iran.

And yet, the Western media seemed unmoved and uninterested. “They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see.”

The author offers two reasons for this blindness. The second reason should be easily understood by anyone following events rather closely in the Middle East. But, the first one was, for me, eye opening.

Review – The Landgrabbers: The New Fight Over Who Owns the Earth

Click here to access article by Katharina Neureiter from Think Africa Press. (This link is no longer valid. You will find the article here.)

Neureiter comments on a recently published book by Fred Pearce who "examines the dynamics behind large-scale land acquisitions and their social, environmental and developmental effects" around the world.

In the book, the reader is taken on a whirlwind tour around the globe to witness, through Pearce’s eyes, a new kind of colonialism driven not by countries, but by powerful private capitalists. We encounter figures such as George Soros and Richard Branson; we learn about the effects of the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia; we find out why President Robert Mugabe's land seizures in Zimbabwe were not so bad after all for small-scale farmers; and we see how the global financial crisis and the intricate mechanisms of stock market speculations in commodities exacerbate the problem.

How U.S. Taxpayers Are Paying the Pentagon to Occupy the Planet

Click here to access article by David Vine from TomDispatch. (Note: should you wish to skip the introduction, you will need to scroll down to the article.)

The author makes a valiant attempt to unravel the mysteries of all the costs that burden American taxpayers in order to construct, maintain, and staff over 1000 foreign military bases (and growing). I assert a "valiant attempt" because the Pentagon uses all sorts of accounting and other gimmicks to hide these costs from the American people. It should also be made clear that he is only focusing on one sector of military spending, not on all the weapons production that supports the military-industrial complex and kills people in foreign lands.

How much does the United States spend each year occupying the planet with its bases and troops? How much does it spend on its global presence? Forced by congress to account for its spending overseas, the Pentagon has put that figure at US$22.1 billion a year. It turns out that even a conservative estimate of the true costs of garrisoning the globe comes to an annual total of about $170 billion. In fact, it may be considerably higher. Since the onset of "the Global War on Terror" in 2001, the total cost for our garrisoning policies, for our presence abroad, has probably reached $1.8 trillion to $2.1 trillion.

To support all these costs, it's clear why our masters in the ruling One Percent need to cut back on spending for sustaining retired people at a subsistence level, providing medical care to its indigent citizens, food stamps and income benefits to the unemployed, bigger classroom sizes, fewer teachers, fewer library hours, etc.

The Time has Come to Reform the International Climate Change Negotiation Model

Click here to access article by Glenn Ashton from The South African Civil Society Information Service.

...vested interests cynically undermine public opinion while lobbying political interests. Exxon, the world’s largest oil company was warned by the Royal Society of London to stop funding climate change misinformation campaigns. The richest men in the world, the Koch brothers, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying, funding and undermining democratic institutions to weaken emission regulations. They and others are linked to dozens of front groups around the world subverting scientific consensus on climate change.

The ECB and the Fed at the service of the major private banks

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

There was more detail here than I wanted to know, but the main point (for me) was well developed:

“Is it normal in a crisis for the private banks, who are usually financed at 1% by the Central Banks, to benefit from a rate of 0.01%, when in times of crisis certain States are obliged to pay rates 600 or 800 times higher?”

Given that the "central banks" are privately owned by the reigning One Percents, these differential interest rates and the resulting debts (owed to the One Percents) being piled onto nations' citizens is a prime illustration of the current class war in the West. What is so sad, even tragic, about this is that most people are unaware of its nature, particularly here in the US. This situation also illustrates the brilliant success of the One Percents' indoctrination programs and their management of media coverage.

Best articles I could find on the Egyptian crisis

Below I am posting the best articles I could find this morning on the ongoing Egyptian political crisis. 

It seems to me what we are seeing in this crisis is another example of factional or tribal organizing. In this case the Muslim Brotherhood, who suffered many years of suppression by the Mubarak regime, won a narrow victory in the recent elections. This apparently was due to the fact that they maintained a highly organized structure whereas most of the rest of Egyptian society was unorganized. But, given a narrow sectarian outlook and having attained power, they now wish to impose their views and interests on the rest of Egyptian society. With political power as a self-reinforcing dynamic, they then went for more power by securing the backing of the US Empire and its leading financial weapon, the IMF.

So long as people organize around factional, sectarian, or tribal interests, they will always end up fighting other such interests; and worse, they will be encouraged in this inter-factional conflict by agents of the Empire who love to use the old tried and true method of divide and conquer. Thus, the basic lesson that 99 Percent humanity needs in order to survive and prevent the descent into barbarism is to learn how to organize on a completely inclusive and universal basis.

• "The decline and fall of the Muslim Brotherhood" from Ahram Online.

• "On the current crisis" from Al-Ahram Weekly. (I don't get the author's "troika" concept when all three represent the Muslim Brotherhood organization. Freedom and Justice Party is the name of their political party.)

• "In Tahrir, the beginning and end of a Pharaoh" from Reflections on a Revolution.

• "The Battle Over Egypt’s Constitutional Referendum" from Muftah.

Republican and Democratic "Remedies" Ensure More Crises, But Alternatives That Work Are Taboo

Click here to access article by Richard D Wolff from Truthout.

The Fiscal Cliff and all its variations are called "austerity" in most countries. Austerity means raising taxes, burdening people and enterprises already hurt by years of crisis. Austerity likewise means cutting government spending that hurts those losing government jobs and business. Politicians now negotiating about the Fiscal Cliff are, in fact, dickering over the details of austerity for the US.

The author's "Plan C" is remarkable coming from a US academic. This plan implies, but does not state, public ownership of the economy. Such a thesis is truly radical and revolutionary, and it is very daring of him to advocate this.

Class War in Michigan

Click here if you wish to access the source and transcript of this 14:58m video in which Paul Jay interviews Frank Hammer who "now organizes with the Auto Worker Caravan, an association of active and retired auto workers who advocate for workers demands in Washington."

This discussion was held before today's action by the Michigan legislature which passed anti-union legislation.

We're having an all-out assault on Michigan's working class. We're having an all-out assault on the urban centers in Michigan. We're having an all-out assault on education. It's a general—if there was ever talk about class warfare, we are seeing class warfare.

Extreme Weather Of The Week (PHOTOS)

Click here to access article from Huffington Post.

I wonder if this is going to be a weekly series from this source--that would be a real indication of entering a new era of climate chaos. The article and photos cover mostly two items that I saw little of in mainstream media: a major typhoon (Asian for "hurricane") related disaster in the Philippines and unusually warm weather in the mid-west of the US.

In the Philippines, the death toll continued to rise this week. Over 300,000 people lost their homes....

Militarization of America

Thanks to Cyrano's Journal Today for posting these videos produced by Oregon Peace Works.

It's clear that there is nothing radical about this presentation, but it does cut through all the deception and obfuscation that occurs in any mainstream reporting of military expenditures. This presentation is also very timely in view of the current propaganda war going on about the so-called budget crisis widely advertised as the "Fiscal Cliff", the purpose of which is to convince you that cut backs are needed on all social spending--Social Security, Medicare, education, welfare, unemployment compensation, etc. The hidden purpose is to enable our masters in the One Percent ruling class to spend more on war.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

Doha Climate Summit Ends With No New CO2 Cuts or Funding

Click here to access article by Stephen Leahy from Inter Press Service.

As people of the world look forward to three, four or even five degrees (centigrade) of warming in the next 50-100 years, one observer at the conference noted that...

Countries are mainly influenced by the corporate sector and civil society has very little interaction or influence there....

According to the author this is what mainly occurred at the recent U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change:

Developing countries wanted a new institution and framework to deal with loss and damage, but the U.S. was opposed to any new institution. The compromise is for a “new mechanism” to be created in 2013.

A new second phase of the Kyoto Protocol will run from 2013 to 2020. Getting this second phase or commitment is considered very important by developing countries because it has hard-won legal terms that commit countries to making cuts as well as methods for measuring and verifying emission levels.

However, only the European Union, Australia and a few other countries are involved, representing just 12 percent of global emissions. The U.S. has never participated, while Canada and Japan have opted out of the second phase.

The Day After Hurricane Sandy

Click here to access article by Nicholas Powers from The Indypendent. 

The experience of Hurricane Sandy evokes some profound thoughts and insights for this author. Here is only one:

Our capitalism. It churns like a hurricane across national boundaries. It freezes nature under the sign of commodity. It forces hungry peasants into the city, where it sifts them for the lowest wage for the longest hours. It lifts up a bourgeoisie, who in turn hire the media to unleash a cascade of ideology that saturates the people. But if workers organize and demand higher wages, capitalism spirals up and away to another place with hungrier people. Left in its wake are men and women who sell their bodies, beg on street corners, who dream of what they can’t have, who want things.

Energy Leveraging: An Explanation for China’s Success and the World’s Unemployment

Click here to access article by Gail Tverberg from her blog Our Finite World.

This dedicated specialist in all things energy provides two very disturbing observations: China's success is to a great extent based on their increased use of coal; and evidence all over the place, in spite of mainstream hoopla about new shale fracking sources, that these increasingly expensive and diminishing fossil fuels will place a huge burden on existing economies.

Unfortunately, she like many others, are unwilling or unable to imagine a different way of organizing our societies other than capitalism. The best she can come up with is questioning the current phase of globalized capitalism otherwise known as neoliberalism:

Does it really make sense to continue on the path to increasing globalization? We will need to quit a some point, either because of a choice to move away from fossil fuels, or because oil supply becomes even more constrained, and the ensuing financial problems cause us to cut back.

Policymakers and economists assume that the only path forward is increased globalization, and have not really examined any other path. In a world with limited resources, the path away from globalization is more sustainable one. The big concern is  how much population it can support.

On the Death of Certain Dreams

Click here to access article by David Malone from his blog Golem XIV (UK)

All nations, all peoples, I think, have dreams of themselves, of their better selves, of the people they imagine they could be. They are not rational and are often not even true. But then again dreams do not have to be true. We just have them. Or perhaps they have us. But those dreams have been dying recently. The dreams of whole nations have been withering and dying. As if some disease of our imagination’s immune system were turning hope against us. And we find ourselves collectively adrift, mourning for the people we thought we could be.

Yes, it is necessary to dream when one lives in a society wracked by class rule and injustice, where a few people have every advantage imaginable while other "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." You see, modern humans evolved over their 175,000 years of existence by taking care of one another. More recently, say 10,000 years ago, something started to happen in which a few people began to take control over the lives of others through violence, more recently through laws and violence, and now they seem to be returning to using mostly violence or the threat of violence. 

By violence I wish to include humiliating treatment of various kinds which assault our sense of dignity on an almost daily basis: the numerous difficulties that prevent us from participating in an economy that can sustain our lives in a reasonable manner and all that this implies: denial of health care and education, treatment as dispensable human beings that are forced to live in tents or locked up in hellish prisons.

This period we are living in is the final stage of capitalism called neo-liberalism, which has divided up the world between those few who "own" our means of existence and the vast majority, many of which are becoming expendable. This has produced a huge chasm between the few who live lives of splendor and the rest of us. It is a nightmarish world we are entering: Orwellian police states, prisons, starvation, and wars. It is very difficult in such a world to go on dreaming, to believe in the usual adult fairly tales which tell us that we really are better than what we have become.

Yet, the end of the story is still to be played out. I am betting on our long suppressed better natures: the deep sense of justice, fair play, and commitments to each other which has sustained human beings over the previous 165,000 years before we took this wrong turn. What I mostly worry about is time--the time remaining before this system of capitalism with it ravenous appetite destroys our planet's ability to sustain our lives.

The Plutocrats and the Placeholder President

Click here to access article by Rob Urie from CounterPunch.

The author supplies a much needed different take on "entitlements" that is missing from mainstream media.

The ‘too-big-to-fail’ guarantee of the banks, which is the only reason why insolvent, predatory Wall Street remains in business, is an entitlement program for connected bankers—for which they pay nothing. The bloated, murderous, military industry that lobbies the U.S. into unnecessary wars for their own benefit and that of corporate welfare receiving multi-national corporations is an entitlement program.

I Accuse....

Click here to access article by Gabriel Donohoe from Fools Crow's Blog (Ireland).

In the spirit of Ēmile Zola, I accuse the international banksters of conspiring to wreck the global economy so that they can consolidate power and control. These banksters, though few in number, effectively run the world and are often referred to as "The Power Elite", "The Money Power", "The Illuminati", and various other names. This "Money Power" (a term coined by U.S. President Martin Van Buren) is nothing more than an evil cabal of gangsters. They are mass murderers, warmongers, tyrants, thieves, and inveterate liars and are utterly devoid of any human decency or compassion.

Silent Spring --- 50 Years On

Click here to access article by D. Raghunandan from Newsclick (India). 

50 years after Silent Spring, the question posed by the book remains relevant: “How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind?”

Only under capitalism, dear author. And sadly, they who control our economies, and thus our societies, continue this practice.

Fracking Our Food Supply

Click here to access article by Elizabeth Royte from Food & Environment Reporting Network.

The author provides an comprehensive update on fracking in relation to food production on nearby farms. There continues to be a lot of adverse anecdotes, but a paucity of research into the effects of fracking on food produced in these areas. 

However, some institutions that specialize in risk have started to connect the dots. Nationwide Mutual Insurance, which sells agricultural insurance, recently announced that it would not cover damages related to fracking. Rabobank, the world’s largest agricultural bank, reportedly no longer sells mortgages to farmers with gas leases.

Christmas Shopping for the Elite

by Ron Horn exclusively for this blog.

I thought I should let all you working people know where to shop and what to buy for any relatives you might have among our rich ruling class. You certainly wouldn't want to shop at Walmart! Your rich relatives would be insulted and probably cut you out of their wills. Besides, there is nothing in that store that would distinguish them from us, and that is important to them.

So, peruse these websites for those special people and find the special items that would please them: here, here, and here. 

Who knows, they just might invite you to their villa on the Côte d'Azur!

Washington’s Iranian Future

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from TomDispatch via International Movement for a Just World. (My commentary was amended at 7pm PST.)

This Brazilian investigative journalist and political analyst seems to be everywhere in the world and in media--other than mainstream media. Obviously, this is because his political analyses are widely respected. Operating from strictly a realpolitik framework, he has a very sound grasp of geopolitical issues--except for suggestions that Obama has some significant influence. As I have always argued, based on a lifetime of study, that Presidents since Kennedy have been used largely for public relations purposes. One exception was George Bush Jr. who was installed as president in a highly manipulated fashion in order for secret services to carry out unimpeded the 9/11 project.

The real government is an amorphous group of powerful people located in the big financial centers and on boards of major corporations and elite universities. They have several homes located on various continents in places like The Hamptons on Long Island, Davos (Switzerland), Dubai, London, and Monaco. They think globally, form friendships and marriages with powerful people based in other countries (like the old monarchies and aristocracies), and see themselves largely as specially endowed (elite) global citizens. They hang-out at the secret Bilderberg meetings; probably have served on the Council on Foreign Relations, associated with various think tanks, and have been educated at Harvard, Yale, or elite foreign universities like Oxford. In contrast to most other government offices, in recent decades members of the power elite have usually been appointed as Treasury Secretary allowing them direct access to the national treasury. Thus, this arrangement greatly facilitated the recent bank bailouts. During these early years of the 21st century we have seen our masters adopt NATO's army to enforce their foreign policies. The people who carry out their policies are usually referred to as political operatives. They are mostly located in the Pentagon, the National Security Staff, and secret services like the NSA and CIA.  

In this piece he makes an excellent argument that there are very good reasons for a US accommodation with Iran, and that there are realistic ways of doing this. Yet, he doubts this will happen--also for very good reasons which he only hints at. 

The Empire's political operatives are infected with the delusion of world power. They have been since WWII, and despite costly wars in Korea, Indochina and the Middle East, they find it very hard to quit this addiction. Without an effective peace movement here in the US, it appears to me that they will bring us to an apocalyptic end or economic collapse or both. 

The ancient Silk Road was humanity’s first globalization highway centered on trade. Now, China in particular is pushing for its own ambitious version of a new Silk Road focused on tapping into energy -- oil and natural gas -- from Myanmar to Iran and Russia. It would, in the end, link no less than 17 countries via more than 8,000 kilometers of high-speed rail (on top of the 8,000 kilometers already built inside China). For Washington, this means one thing: an evolving Tehran-Beijing axis bent on ensuring that the U.S. strategic target of isolating Iran and forcing regime change on that country will be ever just out of reach.

WMDs Lies and More Lies

Click here to access source on YouTube, uploaded by AfriSynergy.

Yes, "we've heard all of this stuff before". I'm not sure we can blame all of this on Zionists as this commentator does.

Forbidden Planet

Click here to access article by George Monbiot from his personal blog.

First thing I noticed was that when this essay was published in the liberal Guardian, they omitted the subtitle--"We cannot restrain climate change without a political fight against plutocracy". 

After the recent climate related disasters, we are now seeing more people and institutions in the mainstream coming out of their secure woodworks to sound the alarm about the impending ominous climate changes that lie in our near future: scientists (see this and this), World Bank, a leading international accounting firm, etc. And, they are beginning to connect the crisis with our economic system--capitalism. Still they hedge by asserting or implying that it is only a certain kind of capitalism. 

In this article the author, a political liberal, targets "neoliberalism". Of course, neoliberalism is only an advanced stage of capitalism which is a developing system that has growth as its central dynamic. One can no more turn back the clock to an earlier stage of capitalism than one can turn back the clock on ourselves when we were younger and much more attractive. 

Neoliberalism, also known as market fundamentalism or laissez-faire economics, purports to liberate the market from political interference. The state, it asserts, should do little but defend the realm, protect private property and remove barriers to business. In practice it looks nothing like this. What neoliberal theorists call shrinking the state looks more like shrinking democracy: reducing the means by which citizens can restrain the power of the elite. What they call “the market” looks more like the interests of corporations and the ultra-rich. Neoliberalism appears to be little more than a justification for plutocracy.

Now I'm wonder how many more decades of climate disasters will have to occur before substantially more people recognize that capitalism is the malignant cancer that we must rid ourselves of. By then it will be too late, if it isn't already.

We Can No Longer Afford Vulture Capitalism

Click here to access article by Norman D. Livergood posted on hermes-press.

This reads like a revolutionary manifesto. It is an urgent call for changing the present system of "vulture capitalism" into a "commonwealth structure". 

Highly recommended.

We must first make all Americans aware of our present plight and then begin in all possible ways to overthrow the tyranny of cabal capitalism, producing material changes leading to political freedom and economic equality of opportunity. This will involve the public ownership of the means of production: companies, factories, businesses, institutions, etc. We can bring about these changes by joining with thinking citizens worldwide in specific initiatives such as boycotting, in citizen action groups available through progressive Internet sites, and through building cooperative commonwealth communities.

'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of this 12:35m RT interview with William Binney. a former employee and whistleblower at the National Security Agency.  

What Washington can learn from Finland’s success in K-12 education

Click here to access article by Aaron Keating from Washington Policy Watch.

Finnish students are among the best in the world. Their success has come through a system that would seem unorthodox here in the United States: no standardized testing, no private schools, fewer hours in school, teacher autonomy, full national funding, and equality in education, among other things.

The trends in education and school policies in the US appear to be on trend directly opposite of what is found in Finland. Here in the US we have seen an ominous trend known as "schools-to-prison pipeline" where schools seem to be treating students as criminals. See this, this, this, and this. 






However, to put public education on the right path would not be a simple matter of transferring the Finnish system to the US. Public education is only one segment of US society that is undergoing all kinds of assaults from the One Percent. Societies are social systems and this means that they are composed of inter-connected subsystems. The entire US society is becoming dysfunctional for the 99 Percent. The One Percent who rule our society see the 99 Percent as merely another resource to be used to further their pursuit of profit. As such, they view us as a burden because we don't offer slave wages and tolerate slave working conditions. Romney's recent expression of contempt for ordinary Americans is very representative of this class view:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. .... These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn't connect. .... And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.

Another expression of their contempt was seen by workers in 2009 as they commuted to work on a billboard along Highway 101 near Silicon Valley:

1,000,000 people overseas can do your job. What makes you so special?

Will the Pacific trade deal protect workers?

Click here to access article from Al Jazeera.

Although the article begins with an inane question--"We ask if the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations have rendered democratic decision-making irrelevant."--it actually is fairly well balanced for a source owned mostly by the medieval monarch of Qatar and reliable US ally.

This ongoing, largely secret effort by global elites to extend free agreements will continue the downward trend in living standards of working people throughout the world and will increase the widening gap between the "haves" and the "have-nots". Such so-called "free trade" agreements force working people across the globe to compete over wages and working conditions which means a race to the bottom.  They also further alienate ordinary people by weakening what little influence they have over the corporate controlled, representative governments currently in place across the globe. 

This trend, of course, is the logical endgame of capitalism where the existing feeble versions of "democratic" government will be replaced by corporate imposed global treaties enforced by capitalist appointed judicial bodies, police, and armies. This trend will only accentuate the disintegration of societies, increase poverty, wars, and the destruction of our planet.

Washington floats chemical weapons charge as pretext for Syria buildup

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

The author sees the latest Empire propaganda regarding Syrian use of chemical weapons and NATO deployment of surface-to-air missiles on the Turkish border as preparations for a wider war in the Middle East.

In the offing is a war with potentially far more devastating consequences than the eight-year US intervention in Iraq or the more than decade-long war in Afghanistan. In attacking Syria, US imperialism is aiming to pave the way for an assault on Iran in a bid to reorganize the entire region in its own interests.

I can't express to you how depressing these developments are to me. Instead of the world wars we saw in the 20th century, in this century we are witnessing never ending mini-wars and widening split between the "haves" and the "have-nots" throughout much of the world. How right was Rosa Luxemburg who in 1915 asserted that it was either socialism or barbarism that was facing the human race?!

Although I started this blog as an effort to join with others to turn the tide against barbarism, it now appears to me that my blog is only offering a chronicle of our descent into barbarism.

Rich nations balk at liability for climate change damages

Click here to access article from The Economic Times (India).

Let me remind you that the UN meeting on climate change is happening in Doha, Qatar--it's just that US mainstream media decided to ignore it. So, I thought I would report a little bit about what's happening by posting this.

Should the rich world pay for inevitable losses and damages caused by climate change? The question has rocked the ongoing Doha climate talks with the US making it clear that it does not believe in the notion of liability in this case.

...The issue has been raked up here again, with the small developing island nations and the least developing countries (LDCs) clamouring that discussions on the subject mature soon.

The push has got a stiff reaction from the developed world, which opposes liability being attached to them for inaction. Rich nations have also balked at the proposal of paying compensation.

Here is what US negotiator Jonathan Pershing said to the LDC delegates and other environmentalists behind closed doors.

[He] reminded the international green NGOs here that it [the US] pays to bring them to these global conferences.

He said so in a closed-door meeting with the NGO representatives suggesting that they should remember who pays for their presence. TOI [Times of India] accessed the conversation [with] recordings done secretly.

"We are one of the funders to make it possible for you to be at the table. I hope you recognize that many of you who come to the meetings you do, the US fights for you at every chance to give you a chance to be in this room," he said. 

FCC Moves Towards More Media Consolidation

Click here to access transcript of Bill Moyer's interview with Craig Aaron, president and CEO of Free Press. 

Loosening the cross-ownership rules could unleash a wave of mergers and acquisitions within the media industry, as companies seek to control newspapers, television stations, and radio stations. These combined enterprises would likely consolidate their news departments, reducing the already severely limited options for most people to get information about their communities.

It's hard to imagine that media in the US could get much worse, but it appears to be so. Quietly, behind closed doors, Obama's FCC appointee is reportedly working on a proposal to do just that. The immediate beneficiary appears to be Rupert Murdoch's media empire. 

Well, why do you think corporations finance candidates? Because they like their candidates' general views on political issues? Because they like to support the "democratic" process of elections? No, of course not. They expect their contributions to contribute to their corporations' profits. Unlike in many countries such as India where direct bribes is the method of choice, US corporations launder their bribes through a "legal" process known as campaign contributions. And US corporations by contributing to both ruling class candidates cannot lose. In this recent election Obama was the biggest beneficiary of Murdoch's money, so it stands to reason that he expects to be rewarded.

Not black-and-white: The chess game behind the recent Gaza-Israel war

Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Russia Today. 

I have a great deal of respect for this sociologist and journalist who has specialized in the current politics of the Middle East. No one is omniscient, but he is exceptionally well informed, honest, and affirms the values of social justice. 

In this article he tries to untangle the complicated geopolitical strategies of various players in the region against the background of the Empire's general strategy of divide and conquer used to divide Sunnis from Shia Muslims. We have seen the latter strategy occasionally revealed in various reports during the occupation of Iraq dating back to 2005 when British soldiers were discovered dressed as Arabs. 

The divide in the Middle East is not a sectarian one between Shiites and Sunnis, but fundamentally political. The alliance of the predominately Sunni Muslim Palestinian resistance movements and the Free Patriotic Movement, Lebanon’s largest Christian political party, with predominately Shiite Muslim Iran and Hezbollah should defuse such a perception that the US and its allies are trying to cultivate.

The infirmary of Social Solidarity Thessaloniki

Click here to access article which features an interview with Serafía Kalamítsou, 37, a paediatrician and an anarchist working in a self-organized medical project in Greece. It is from Anarkismo.net via Infoshop News.

We have not started the project to save our soul with charity work, but see ourselves as a political project with a clear objective. Our main goal as SKS is to show that solidarity work and structures can succeed by organizing solidarity to overcome the problems caused by the economic crisis. Solidarity means more than just a helping hand. Solidarity structures may then have a great effect, when solidarity is part of our consciousness, not only for our patients, but also for their families, and the neighborhoods in which they live. During such a process, it is made clear that supportive structures can be created not only in the health sector, but in all the other areas of our lives also. This process of awareness is very difficult to set in motion. If we are here to stay however, if we only create a functioning health centre, our work has been for nothing. We are successful when we manage to make the SKS part of a general movement with the goal of social self-management and solidarity not only in the city, but also throughout the country.

Why UN Climate Agreements Fail

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

Countless environmentalists have tried to solve the climate issue while keeping capitalism in place, since this is the only “practical” solution. But this approach has failed as the climate has dramatically worsened. It’s becoming increasingly obvious to a growing number of people that our economic system itself cannot be reformed to save our environment, regardless of the incentives or other schemes to make it so.

Crack Capitalism — “we want to break”

Click here to access article by John Holloway from Reflections on a Revolution.

We want to break. We want to create a different world. Now. Nothing more common, nothing more obvious. Nothing more simple. Nothing more difficult.

The author pays homage to all the "ordinary people" whom he describes in their daily heroic activities all across the globe as working to make a better world. His term "crack capitalism" refers to a theme he has developed in a book entitled Crack Capitalism in which he...

...argues that radical change can only come about through the creation, expansion and multiplication of 'cracks' in the capitalist system. These cracks are ordinary moments or spaces of rebellion in which we assert a different type of doing.

As Drug Industry’s Influence over Research Grows, So Does the Potential for Bias

Click here to access article by Peter Whoriskey from The Washington Post via Transcend Media Service.

I think the early Christians had it right about the threat that the god of mammon posed for the human race. Unfortunately this religion which created a revolutionary consciousness and a threat to the Roman Empire, was co-opted by Rome and degenerated under a succession of Pope's and a Catholic bureaucracy who modified this new religion into one where "God" sanctioned the power of rulers and the subordination of people to authorities. When the Empire fell, the latter simply allied themselves to the new ruling aristocracies and monarchies who continued to worship the same god.

Next we saw various people begin to use their marvelous human brains in new ways to discover truth. By gazing at the heavens with some new powerful telescopes they discovered that some of the central truths propounded by religious authorities were false. They, of course, were persecuted because they challenged the powerful. But, despite the persecution more and more individuals, driven by the need for truth about human existence and the world, began to develop and use more instruments to test new ideas about reality. These explorations gradually developed into the refined scientific method of truth seeking and the Age of Enlightenment.

Lo and behold, some individuals began to see how these new methods of truth seeking could make them rich and powerful. New tools and machines were developed using this knowledge. Likewise a new group of people arose who saw the huge potential for wealth and power that could be gained from the new instruments. They used their growing influence and their associations with more enlightened members of the existing members of the aristocracy to proclaim "ownership" of these new means of production. They, too, worshiped the same god of mammon.

Likewise the existing authorities of thought control for the masses known as the Catholic church saw that the arrangements of power was changing hands, and they decided to get on board with this new class of people who were called capitalists. Some early ones "jumped ship" and called themselves Protestants. They, of course, modified certain beliefs to conform with the ideas of the new class, the main one being that "God" welcomed the pursuit of wealth, that wealth was a sign of God's grace, and that much could be forgiven with the methods used for obtaining wealth.

Have you noticed in this story of humans, that while much progress has been made to obtain mastery over physical existence, religious authorities have been replaced by ruling class moralists and ideologues delivered to us through their media? Have you noticed that with every technological advance we see ruling classes hoarding the benefits for themselves?

Is not this report report addressing basically the same issue? Universities theoretically have been established as institutions to continue the search for truth using the scientific method. Yet, we see here that their purpose is being subordinated to the interests of the current ruling class whose god continues to be mammon.

The billions that the drug companies invest in such experiments help fund the world’s quest for cures. But their aim is not just public health. That money is also part of a high-risk quest for profits, and over the past decade corporate interference has repeatedly muddled the nation’s drug science, sometimes with potentially lethal consequences.

It appears to me that most of humanity no longer really accepts the belief propagated by ideological authorities that the material benefits that have accumulated through the ages because of the efforts of truth-seekers should be enjoyed by so few people. It seems that the powerful can no longer rely on their ideological allies, and must increasingly resort to shear violence and the threat of violence to keep their wealth and power. That is what we are facing today.

Mexico Rising: “Peña Nieto is not my President!”

Click here to access article by Leonidas Oikonomaki from Reflections on a Revolution.

It appears that the new consciousness, that has infected so many people across the world, has now come to Mexico following their recent managed elections. 

What we are witnessing in Spain, Greece, Mexico, and other parts of the globe, is the birth of a transnational movement-family that is mobilizing against the farce of representative democracy and the growing influence of business and banking interests on national governments, as well as the role of the mass media in manipulating public opinion. 

In Search of the Climate Front in the US

Click here to access article by David Kerans from Strategic Culture Foundation. 

The author provides a good framework for understanding what is happening in the US today with regard to global warming/climate issues.

Paradoxically, despite the obviousness of extraordinary weather patterns and the seriousness of the implications, the politics surrounding natural resources and climate in the US are deeply hidden from view… As we shall see below, struggles related to resources and climate change are proceeding on at least four fronts, three of which are not going well.

The four fronts are as follows:

• Washington: The Phony Front
• Natural Gas Statehouses
• The Municipal Front
• The Privatization Front: From Budget Crises to Environmental Despoliation 

Dispersant makes oil from spills 52 times more toxic

Click here to access article by Douglas Main from Climate Connections. 

The findings of this research suggests that the oil industries use of chemical dispersnants is motivated more by political reasons, and ultimately, protecting their profits rather than that of protecting the environment. As they say, "out of sight, out of mind."

For microscopic animals living in the Gulf of Mexico, even worse than the toxic oil released during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster may be the very oil dispersants used to clean it up, a new study finds.

The Hypocrisy of US Defense of Israel's Gaza War

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of this interview with Vijay Prashad by Paul Jay on Real News Network.

Prashad describes the gross hypocrisy of Empire agents as they defend their client states--Israel and Rwanda. 

The Rise of a New, Revived Form of Liberal Interventionism

Click here if you wish to access the source - by Seumas Milne from MRZine.

In this 17:35m video Milne, a Guardian columnist and editor, at a recent conference in London reviews the history and provides an assessment of the War on Terror. Included are all the myths used to justify it and all the horrors that it created. Because this "war" has been so discredited, the political operatives of the Empire are creating new forms of intervention which we are now seeing.

Seumas Milne: We've seen the rise of a new, revived form of liberal interventionism, or humanitarian interventionism, in the last couple of years, and the key to it is the idea that there mustn't be too many boots on the ground because that was the problem with Iraq and Afghanistan.  You've got to be seen to be targeting the bad guys.  You've got to be seen to be saving civilians and in the fight for freedom again.  It's a bit of a sort of a rewind to the Kosovo war and the story that was told at the time. . . .  The new, rebranded war on terror has to be seen to be arm's length, proxy wars.  And, of course, the Arab uprisings have provided the mechanism and opening for new forms of war on terror to be pushed forward.  First of all we saw it happen in Libya.  Now, the intervention, the NATO intervention in Libya, which is the first step in the new war on terror, was -- we were told -- a war, an intervention, to protect civilians.  As a result of that intervention, the death toll in Libya increased by a factor of between ten and twenty times.  The result of the intervention in Libya, the NATO bombing and bombardment in support of rebel forces in the civil war in Libya, has been 8,000 political prisoners, torture across the country, mass ethnic cleansing, the creation of a warlord and militia regime which is unable to run the country and manage the election process, which, if you look behind the curtain, was not a genuine election process at all.  Now, we have a growing, creeping intervention in the horrific civil war in Syria and the threat of an increased intervention through the channeling of weapons by the United States, Britain, and France, in alliance with the Saudis and the Gulf dictatorships . . . , to particular factions in the opposition, increasing the bloodshed all the time.

 

Illustrate! Educate! Organize!

Click here to access article by Sean Carleton from Canadian Dimension.

Being out of touch with youth culture, I have no idea as to the significance of "graphic novels" to recover and spread knowledge about working class history and current issues. However, with the censorship and distortion of these vital subjects in capitalist controlled institutions, whatever form of media that can contribute to an enlightened working class consciousness is urgently needed, and such efforts need to be encouraged.

In our attempts to revive and reenergize revolutionary organizing in the 21st century, then, it is important for activists to be aware of and to engage with the many graphic novels being published with leftist content today.

The author cites some of what he regards as the best examples of this new popular medium.

Britain and America target DR Congo

Click here to access article by Antoine Roger Lokongo from Pambazuka News (South Africa). 

We in the US have very little information about what is occurring Africa. We get bits and pieces of information regarding the secret deployment of troops in Africa and confusing reports about "civil wars" and other mysterious conflicts going on mostly through alternative internet sources. (See this, this, and this.) Recently we have been reading about new attacks on civilian towns in eastern DR Congo. This African writer's take on the Congo wars has a decided ring of authenticity to it.

What is happening in eastern DR Congo is not a civil war, but continuation of a 16-year aggression by the country’s two neighbours, financed and directed by the United States and Britain.

Bradley Manning: how keeping himself sane was taken as proof of madness

Click here to access article by Ed Pilkington from The Guardian.

I am posting this piece primarily for two reasons. 1) There is extremely scant media coverage of his pre-trial hearing in which he gave testimony confirming widespread reports in alternative media that he received "cruel and unusual punishment" at the hands of the Defense Department for his alleged acts as a whistleblower who transferred files that gave evidence of US crimes against humanity to Wikileaks. 2) To encourage people to support his defense in any way they can.

The People Have Spoken

Click here to access article by Senator Bernie Sanders from Uncommon Thought Journal.

• At a time when the wealthiest people in our country are doing phenomenally well, we must eliminate the Bush tax cuts favoring the top 2 percent.
• At a time when corporate profits are soaring, we must end the absurd tax policy that allows about one-quarter of large, profitable corporations to pay nothing in federal income taxes. 
• At a time when the federal treasury is losing over $100 billion annually because the wealthy and large corporations are stashing their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere, we must pass real tax reform that ends this outrage.
• At a time when we spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on defense, we must cut defense spending. There is also waste in other governmental agencies which must be eliminated.  

Don't let them win. The Bush tax cuts must be allowed to expire. Please sign the petition today. 

Also, economist James K. Galbraith warns on The Real News Network that the so-called crisis has been engineered to scare ordinary people into accepting cuts to social programs.

Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti

Click here to access article by Adam Tomes from CounterFire (UK).

Hillary Clinton & right-wing Pres. Michel Martelly in 2011

Tomes provides us with a book review of a recently published book by this title authored by Jeb Sprague. It is a very disconcerting story of transnational capitalists and their ongoing rape of a country founded by African slaves who successfully fought for independence from France. It is a neo-colonial story of managed elections, corruption, paramilitaries, exploitation, etc. 

Sprague’s book is very detailed, very analytical and incredibly eye-opening. As a newcomer to the modern history of Haiti, the reader feels enmeshed in the story from below, in the story of Fanmi Lavalas. The reader leaves feeling both angry and enlightened, but the wider story is the tale of how transnational elites support democracy only where it fits their interpretation of it, and that the use of paramilitarism has been an effective method of control used to disenfranchise the popular classes. The observations here can cast light on struggles elsewhere, such as those in Venezuela, Bolivia and Honduras.

See also this, this, this, and this for more information.

Labor Unions Under Attack in Morsi’s Egypt

Click here to access article by Ian Hartshorn from Muftah.

While many have focused on Mohamed Morsi’s recent actions toward the Judiciary and Constituent Assembly, the Egyptian president has quietly consolidated power over institutions affecting the lives of millions of workers, namely, Egypt’s labor unions. 

A Thermonuclear Energy Bomb in Christmas Wrappings

Click here to access article by Michael Klare from TruthDispatch.

Given the hullabaloo about rising energy production in the U.S., you would think that the IEA report was loaded with good news about the world’s future oil supply.  No such luck.  In fact, on a close reading anyone who has the slightest familiarity with world oil dynamics should shudder, as its overall emphasis is on decline and uncertainty.

Take U.S. oil production surpassing Saudi Arabia’s and Russia’s.  Sounds great, doesn’t it?  Here’s the catch:

The Vultures vs Argentina: The Debt Case of the Century

Click here to access article by Nick Dearden from Huffington Post UK.

This author, along with many other liberal commentators, brings up the issue of the legitimacy of some sovereign debts, specifically, those incurred by dictators. This is good. However, I think if one can widen one's focus a bit to see debt as merely one important weapon in the arsenal of class rule, then one should question class rule rather than merely some debts. There have long been creditors and debtors, but until more recent times with the strengthening of the capitalist class, debts have frequently been forgiven when societies saw their harmful effects (see this). 

Under the growing power of capitalist One Percents versus the 99 Percent, the former have long since legalized the enforcement of debts of individuals through the use of contracts. Capitalist ruling classes have succeeded through their organs of indoctrination to sanctify contracts--they must be honored regardless of disastrous social consequences. When debtors failed to honor their contract obligations, capitalists through their control of the state have enforced these contracts when necessary with the use of force. In the past debtors were thrown into jail or workhouses; nowadays they take away their possessions and homes and often threaten their jobs. Under capitalism contracts are very useful for the rich and powerful. As Howard Zinn explained:

To protect everyone's contracts seems like an act of fairness, of equal treatment, until one considers that contracts made between rich and poor, between employer and employee, landlord and tenant, creditor and debtor, generally favor the more powerful of the two parties.

As Dearden noted, entire nations have been treated little differently, although sometimes the use of force is waived by using other means of retribution--trade sanctions, blockades, etc. Under the recent capitalist stage of neoliberalism, large financial institutions have aggressively pushed loans onto governments using whatever means necessary. (See Confessions on an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins)  Many liberal critics such as Dearden are questioning the legitimacy of huge debts incurred by dictators and some other illegitimate governments.

We have also seen a similar operation within many Western societies directed against consumers through the use of creative mortgages to buy houses, by pushing credit cards onto everyone, student loans, etc. With wage increases being suppressed and consumption aggressively encouraged, many people succumbed to these influences. As a result, we have the economic crisis we are witnessing today nearly everywhere. Dearden touches on this with the following statement:

The truth is that the world economy is not in crisis because of debt. It is because too many have too little to buy what has been created. Without a stronger consumer base the capitalists have no reason to invest in making more commodities and creating more jobs. How are they going to realize a profit if few can afford to buy what is produced?

But, worst of all, we have seen large financial institution engage in reckless gambling using the new financial instruments they created and permitted under neo-liberalism. When they lost their bets they forced governments to bail them out. Now they are forcing austerity measures: meaning cutbacks in education, health, and welfare of citizens all, of which, are accompanied by the loss of jobs.

Therefore, shouldn't we question the social arrangement of capitalism rather than merely loan obligations incurred by dictators? Should not an economy support and sustain societies rather than individuals or classes of individuals? Are we not social animals who have evolved under arrangements of mutual obligation, commitments, and support? If so, why should we be burdened with a system than serves only a few?

Lisbon Calling: #14N in Portugal [13:16m video]

Click here if you wish to access the source of this posting authored by Brandon Jourdan and Marianne Maeckelbergh from Reflections on a Revolution.

After three years of crisis and taking the bitter pill of EU/IMF-imposed austerity without much resistance, the Portuguese have finally begun to rebel.

On November 14th 2012, thousands of people took to the streets of Portugal as part of a European-wide general strike. Until recently, the International Monetary Fund held Portugal as an ideal example of the effectiveness of austerity policies, but today, its economy is heading in the same direction as Greece and Spain. This short documentary details the week of the November 14th strike in Lisbon and the events surrounding it.

Because the juggernaut of globalized capitalism is threatening to crush the aspirations of the 99 Percent all over the world as well as trashing the planet, the 99 Percent must become globalized in its strategies to fight back effectively. We must no longer be divided and separated into nations, as immigrants, old versus young, women versus men, black versus white, employed versus unemployed, etc. Divide and conquer is the oldest strategy of ruling classes since the beginning of class rule. We are now witnessing that people in Portugal and Europe are starting to become aware of this ruling class strategy and the necessity of solidarity.

Walmart Forced to Finally Admit Deadly Bangladesh Factory Was Supplier

Click here to access article by Global Justice Ecology Project from Climate Connections.

In this tragic incident the authors see an illustration of why off-shoring of American production and "free trade" policies have been so beneficial for our One Percent ruling class who have shipped American jobs overseas to countries where barbaric sweatshop working conditions still exist.

“The Triangle Shirtwaist fire [in New York City in 1911] galvanized a reform movement in the U.S. that transformed an industry of dangerous sweatshops into one defined by safe workplaces and decent wages. Now, global outsourcing has allowed retailers like Gap and Walmart to turn back the clock to 1911, recreating in places like Bangladesh the brutal conditions and rock-bottom production costs that prevailed in the U.S. at the time of the Triangle fire. 

A piece from the World Socialist Web Site argues correctly that such working conditions in Bangladesh and other poor countries are the new normal for globalized capitalism. Hence, protests against individual companies will not in the long run change anything.

Tragedies like the Tazreen Fashions fire will not be halted by appeals to governments and the transnational corporations. The only way to end such crimes is through the unified struggle of workers around the world to put an end to the barbaric profit system and reorganise society on the basis of a planned world socialist economy. 

Why is Obama Silent Over the New Congo War?

Click here to access article by Shamus Cooke from Worker's Action. 

Once again we see surface manifestations of deeper economic activities that are playing out in central Africa over its rich supply of minerals. Obama, often described as an African-American president, is, of course, only the public relations officer hired by capitalist decision-makers well-hidden in our shadow government. And his African-Americanism is only literally skin deep. He was mostly raised by his white banker grandmother and further socialized in US elite private schools.

Cooke uncovers the deeper forces at work here--and, guess what? Capitalist corporations in the West and China are competing for access to valuable metals existing in this area.

The electronics industry is one of the main destinations for these metals, which end up in mobile phones, laptops, and other consumer products.  Tin is used as a solder in circuit boards; colton goes into capacitors, small components used to store electricity; tungsten is used in the vibrating function of mobile phones; gold is also used by the electronics industry as a coating for wires.

World prices for each of these metals have been rising over the past year, giving armed groups in the eastern Congo all the more incentive to target or keep hold of the mines.

See also this and this.

Bookchin's Ecology and Assembly Democracy

Click here to access article by Janet Biehl from New Compass.

Murray Bookchin (1921-2006) understood earlier than almost anyone that an ecological crisis was not only looming but posted a challenge to capitalism and the whole social order. In the 1950s and 1960s, before most people even knew what ecology was, he was proposing fundamental solutions. Being ahead of his time, however, meant that his ideas were either ignored or condemned when they were first published; they remain insufficiently recognized today.

If the 99 Percent have any chance of emancipating themselves from the rule of capitalists, they must, first of all, recover their own class history of struggle, and part of this effort is to recognize their class heroes. Murray Bookchin is one such hero. He was a seeker of truth and dedicated his life to the promotion of social justice and a sustainable economic system. 

With his critical mind, he was always examining events and testing theories to see if they explained events. When they did not, he either discarded theories or parts of them, and participated in the formulation of new ideas. He was the finest representative of modern man who had absorbed the legacy of the best that human thought had to offer since the Age of Enlightenment, an era whose legacy has been corrupted and distorted by a new self-serving class known as capitalists. Is it any wonder that most of us have not heard of him?

This author has made a fine contribution to the task of knowing our history and our heroes.

Ten Numbers the Rich Would Like Fudged

Click here to access article by Paul Buchheit from Common Dreams. 

Class disparity has always occurred in class structured societies which by definition provide access to wealth and power to certain classes over others. What we have seen since the 1980s is an aggressive form of capitalism known as neo-liberalism that is essentially capitalism on steroids. Hence, this version of capitalism is accelerating class differences at such a rate that we are now headed straight into outright fascism if we of the 99 Percent fail to act. The authoritarian infrastructure of fascism is in place, they just haven't used it to a great extent yet.

Focus on the Global South Position Paper on Climate Change

Click here to access article.

Believe it or not, but there is another United Nations Convention on Climate Change and it opened this Monday, yesterday, in Doha, Qatar. After the failures of all the previous ones in Copenhagen in 2009, Cancún in 2010; and Durban, South Africa, last year, it is no wonder that this conference is being totally ignored in mainstream media. Despite the growing number of extreme weather disasters that are occurring throughout the world, corporate media directors do not want you to think about even the possibility of changing their system of capitalism to function in a sustainable way. You see, it simply is not possible. "So, get use to it." "This is the new normal." These are the messages, implied or literally stated, that they will be sending out through their media empires. For example, see this piece entitled "Can There Be a Silver Lining in Sandy?".

Apparently this UN convention event--although not even mentioned in the article--prompted people from this organization to present views representing the "global south" which are often juxtaposed to the "global north" and the various conferences on climate change. Evidently this is an alternative, and less threatening to our capitalist masters, way of dividing up the world between highly developed capitalist countries and the lessor developed capitalist, or mixed economies. In addition to presenting their familiar arguments regarding carbon reduction quotas that must be assumed by various countries, the paper surprisingly argues for the "transformation of the unsustainable capitalist system."

The big challenge of putting a process in place for collective and gradual transformation from fossil fuel-addicted system of consumption and production towards a low carbon society requires also the transformation of the unsustainable capitalist system. The carbon, oil and gas sector can’t be led by the logic of private profit. The power of fossil fuel corporations has to be dismantled and societies, not the state-bureaucrats, have to take control over these resources and enterprises.

To change the patterns of consumption and production we need to move beyond the all-dominating, profit-driven and unsustainable capitalist system that exploits people and ruin ecosystems.

Unfortunately, after making this point, the authors then backtrack, apparently to appease capitalist authorities, by making this statement:

A "one size fits all" model like neoliberalism or centralized bureaucratic socialism is not the answer. Instead, diversity should be expected and encouraged, as it is in nature.

If a system is hazardous to the planet's health and human sustainability, then it must be abolished. Period.

The President and the Fatal Trilateral Logic of US, Egyptian and Israeli Relations

Click here to access article by Amro Ali from Jadaliyya.

This provides another view on recent events in Egypt. While Morsi argues that he needs temporary powers free from judicial restraints in order to root out many Mubarak influences from the government, this author argues that he is caught up in business as usual in the lucrative relationship with the Empire.

Fiscal Cliff An Artificial Crisis

Click here to access a 10:37m video featuring an interview with Prof. Michael Hudson, from The Real News Network.  (Amended commentary, 4pm PST)

The only problem that I have with Hudson's view is where he argues that all the Fed needs to do is print money as it did for the Wall Street bailout:

...exactly what it did when it took on the $13 trillion bailout of Wall Street. It just prints the money. There's no need to tax the money to pay Social Security. The government simply spends it into the economy. That's what central banks do.

Well, this is true except that one should understand what this means. The ability to "print money" that is not based on an increase in productivity requires an aggressive foreign policy backed up and enforced by armed forces so that other countries are forced to accept this money in one way or another. That is precisely why the core of any capitalist class has always gone after control of what constitutes money (and/or the issuance of money as debt from their banks) and constructed powerful militaries to enforce their policies. 

In our own War of Independence those two objectives were vigorously pursued immediately by the so-called "Federalists" (they were really nationalists) after the successful conclusion of this war. Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton in 1782 established a central bank (privately owned as are nearly all central banks) (Bank of North America), but it didn't last long largely because they were unable to enforce their policies on the country which was still ruled under the Articles of Confederation, a decentralized type of government. Most of the states recognized various forms of money or means of exchange: paper money, tobacco, farm animals, local bank issued notes, etc. Hence, to insure the success of a central bank, it was necessary to centralize all authority in the hands of a national government with a powerful army. This they accomplished by secrecy and trickery in a convention in 1787 which the elites called ostensibly to modify the existing Articles of Confederation, but immediately set about, and succeeded, in establishing a new US Constitution that met these requirements. In 1791 they successfully established the First Bank of the United States. (Notice how they always hide private ownership under names that sound like government bodies owned by the public. Today we have the Federal Reserve which has a thin veneer of government participation. Deception is always a major weapon in class rule.)

The newly independent capitalists with their newly created central government saw the huge potential of riches and power that could be derived from the continent--only "savages" stood in their way. To get in the game of exploitation they needed to join in the mercantilist game that the other capitalist ruling classes were engaged in: trading goods from their new manufacturing firms to markets which were secured with the use of, or the threat of, force by their powerful militaries; and the use of slave labor to produce raw materials and food in regions under their control.  However, to engage in commerce with the other powerful capitalist nations (Britain, France, The Netherlands) and to obtain credit (in the form of gold or backed by gold), they had to adopt the use of gold which was the latter's medium of exchange imposed on their countries by their ruling classes.

Hence, the new US ruling class immediately forced citizens, who greatly favored paper money issued by the government as was used during the war, to use gold as a legal currency. Few ordinary Americans possessed gold, and this change caused them considerable hardship. Those that owed debts to banks had their farms and properties taken away from them if they couldn't pay off their debts in gold. They rebelled all over the states, but the ruling class with their new national army suppressed these rebellions.  (Shays' Rebellion, and the Whiskey Rebellion are about the only ones we learned about in school. An excellent source for more information is Toward an American Revolution by Jerry Fresia.)

The class issues in the “fiscal cliff”

Click here to access article by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site.

This website continues to cut through all the obfuscation provided by ruling class institutions of indoctrination, by liberals, and other assorted progressives who are more concerned about their careers than telling the truth.

While the ruling class may seek to deny it and the pseudo-left may seek to contain it, the class struggle operates with an irrepressible logic. The interests of the working class cannot be secured except through the revolutionary transformation of all of society, replacing capitalism with socialism.

The much abused word "socialism" must be refined into some basic principles that we working people can rally around. It seems to me that the principles can be condensed into two basic ones: 1) public ownership and control of the economy, and 2) replacement of hierarchical structures with their opposite--bottom-up decision-making ("subarchy?"). The practical details of the second principle remain to be figured out, but I have no doubt that people can work them out once the "privateers" are defeated. In the meantime, cooperative enterprises can serve as an incubator of ideas and practices of the second principle.

Liberal capitalism, crony capitalism and lumpen development

Click here to access article by Samir Amin from Panbazuka News (south Africa). 

Liberalism creates nothing, in the peripheries of the Global South that agree to submit to it, other than a crony capitalism based on a Comprador State in opposition to the National State committed to sustainable economic and social development.

The author provides an excellent summary of the principles and practices of neo-liberalism, a doctrine of the contemporary capitalist ruling classes that are now being implemented all over the world. It is an ideology of a small class of people who lay claim of "ownership" over increasingly concentrated productive enterprises and the currencies which, like oil, enable this machinery to function. While claiming that it serves to benefit societies as a whole, in reality the self-serving doctrine serves only this small class and subjects the rest of us to the miseries of exploitation, poverty, and wars.

Unfortunately, the author offers solutions that require only reforms to this hideous system.

No Idea(ology), And Paul Hawken's Blessed Unrest

Click here to access article by Michael Barker from Swans Commentary. 

This could be considered as part 2 of 2 articles which he devotes to Paul Hawken's latest book and more generally his strong influence in liberal environmental circles. I suggest first reading Barker's earlier article entitled, "Paul Hawken's Spiritual Business". 

Hawken has written numerous books and articles, spoken at many environmental events, and is connected with many liberal environmental non-profit organizations. But, has his influence been constructive? There are contra-indications.

For example, he has credited the Gates foundation with helping feed 3rd world countries, but in reality the Gates Foundation is working with Monsanto. That is hardly helpful to the starving people of the world who must use GMO seeds that require Round-Up and other pesticides. 

He is well connected with some prominent capitalists and their propagandists, and many are fond of him and his views. For example, Bill Clinton called Paul Hawken's last book, Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution one of the five most important books in the world today.

His views are rooted in his earlier embrace of mystical New Age thinking of the 1960s, and are loaded with inspiration rhetoric. His influence over environmental issues in the US has been powerful, but it has never challenged the system which drives environmental destruction. In fact, he has served to encourage the belief that we can have the system and thrive--you know, like "having your cake and eating it, too".

[The two articles trace] out some of the ties between Paul Hawken's greening of corporate power and the diverse circle of New Age environmental activists closely associated with the magical Findhorn community, which as observed at the start of this winding article was the topic of celebration in Paul's first book. However, from a critical perspective it is obvious that neither magical thinking, nor its equally irrational counterpart, green capitalism, are going to provide any useful solutions to the serious problems facing human civilization. By outlining the overlapping nature of some of the groups that Paul presently works with that inevitably help mystify the true extent of capitalism's inherent destructiveness, it is hoped that more concerned individuals will begin to explore the necessity of adopting truly radical solutions that address the root causes of our societies problems. The primary problem being capitalism, and with one prominent alternative being socialism.

Three articles on the current Egyptian crisis

by Ron Horn for this blog.

Disentangling the confusion regarding what is currently happening in Egypt is a bit challenging, but the following three articles may provide some understanding until future events can offer more definitive insights. 

• Explaining Mursi's Decisions by Abdel Rahman Youssef from Al Akhbar.
• From Limitations to Unchecked Powers: the Buildup to Mursi’s Decree by Sarah El Sirgany from Al Akhbar. 
• The battle for Egypt by Mina Naguib from Bikya Masr

During latest war, calls for ethnic cleansing of Gaza and population transfer of citizens

Click here to access article by Patrick O. Strickland from Bikya Masr. 

During Israel’s most recent military offensive against the Gaza Strip, brought to an end by a tenuous ceasefire on Wednesday night, several Israeli officials and public figures called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and others for the forced population transfer of Arab citizens of Israel.