Is Mali The Real Target?

Click here to access article by Bernhard, an American blogger who blogs at Moon of Alabama.

Although it is clear that the Empire is doing all it can to establish beachheads in Africa, France may have slightly different motives for their current overt military actions. This blogger looks at the prized resources of Algeria and the history of this former French colony for clues. It appears that Algerian authorities are not cooperating in these imperial adventures.

...there are indeed some signs that outer forces, mostly the U.S. and the French, have - sometimes competing - designs for the wider area of which the rather rich Algeria is a part. 

In Greece, the criminals live in other Villas

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

Claiming to fight lawlessness and chaos, the Greek state is cracking down on one of the last bulwarks against fascism: the anarchist squats of Athens.

The author notes that many people see the squats as...

 “free spaces”, “temporary autonomous zones”, “cracks in capitalism”, where a different way of life can be practiced and experimented with — a non-capitalistic and non-hierarchical space, in which direct democracy and social solidarity thrive, proving that another world is possible. 

That is precisely why the proto-fascist Greek state is attacking them. They are an example of a way of organizing life than is totally antithetical to a capitalist organization of society where hierarchy, exclusive rights to economic property, and selfishness reigns. They are a major threat to the self-serving, parasitic One Percent, and therefore must be crushed.

Manufacturing Terrorists

Click here to access article which is a review by Michael German from Reason.com of a book entitled The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI's Manufactured War on Terrorism, by Trevor Aaronson. (Michael German is a former FBI agent who currently works for the American Civil Liberties Union.)

Imagine a country in which the government pays convicted con artists and criminals to scour minority religious communities for disgruntled, financially desperate, or mentally ill patsies who can be talked into joining fake terror plots, even if only for money. Imagine that the country's government then busts its patsies with great fanfare to justify ever-increasing authority and ever-increasing funding. According to journalist Trevor Aaronson's The Terror Factory, this isn't the premise for a Kafka novel; it's reality in the post-9/11 United States.

The Trillion Dollar Coin: Joke or Game-changer?

Click here to access article by Ellen Brown from her blog Web of Debt. (My commentary modified at 7:00pm PST.)

Brown frequently shows real insight on money issues, as she does in this excellent article: but she functions within a capitalist world where critics of the system can be impaled on the sword of unemployment if they stray too far. This piece sheds a lot of light on the issuance of money and the interests that control the issuance, but it doesn't stray too far in that it accepts the prevailing ideology that we live in some sort of valid representative government. She demonstrates this by her timid or naive concluding comment regarding the Fed's rejection of the trillion dollar coin proposal. What I have a problem with is her implication that we can work through our "elected representatives" to bring about change.

In flatly rejecting the Treasury’s legal tender, the Fed as representative of the banks is asserting itself as outranking the elected representatives of the people.  If the Fed won’t acknowledge the coins created by the government, perhaps the government needs to charter a publicly-owned bank that will.

We have a chance today to end the charade of big money gridlock politics, as well as the reign of the big banks. We have the power to choose prosperity over austerity. But to do it, we must first restore the power to create money to the people.

Within the article she quotes from an excellent source, Triumphant Plutocracy, whose author, Richard F. Pettigrew, served in various public offices including in Congress as a Senator and Representative for 50 years from about 1870 to 1920. He tried, along with many others who one never encounters in public education, to tell the truth about government. (Our masters in the One Percent have carefully purged certain parts of our history.) Therefore, given the above naive statements of Brown, I wonder if she read the rest of the book. Here are excerpts from Pettigrew's introduction written in 1921:

The American people should know the truth about American public life. They have been lied to so much and hoodwinked so often that it would seem only fair for them to have at least one straight-from-the-shoulder statement concerning this government "of the people, by the people and for the people," about whose inner working the people know almost nothing.

....

I witnessed the momentous changes and participated in them. While they were occurring I saw something else that filled me with dread. I saw the government of the United States enter into a struggle with the trusts, the railroads and the banks, and I watched while the business forces won the contest. I saw the forms of republican government decay through disuse, and I saw them betrayed by the very men who were sworn to preserve and uphold them. I saw the empire of business, with its innumerable ramifications, grow up around and above the structure of government. I watched the power over public affairs shift from the weakened structure of republican political machinery to the vigorous new business empire. .... After the authority over public affairs had been transferred to the men of business, I saw the machinery of business pass from the hands of individuals into the hands of corporations--artificial persons--created in the imagination of lawyers, and given efficacy by the sanction of the courts and of the law. When I turned to the reading of American history, I discovered that these things had been going on from the beginnings of our government, that they had grown up with it, and were an essential part of its structure. [my emphasis]

What a few people, who understand the grand money scheme hidden behind the banking consortium that named itself the Federal Reserve, do not understand is that this privatization of money issuance is an integral part of a broader privatization scheme to own all the fruits of working people and to transform all of nature into commodities. It's called capitalism, and nothing short of a revolution will change things. This is a simple fact that too few progressives are willing to face. We must stop pretending that street protests, candlelight marches, voting, and petition signing will change anything.

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 1964

The Great Austerity Swindle!

Click here to access article by Joe Firestone from New Economic Perspectives. [My commentary modified at 7pm PST.]

If I understand this "coin seigniorage" proposal, and I think I do, this is a perfectly valid and legal way to eliminate government debt owed to the private banking consortium known as "the Fed", which was authorized by a 1913 law to issue US money as debt (with interest charged). What I am unsure of is the use of this method to restore the Social Security and Medicare funds, which have been used to cover lowered taxes on the rich and government expenses including military invasions, without causing other problems.

There are other methods of eliminating the debt to the Fed, chief among them recognizes that our government is the supreme law of the land and can simply abolish the debt, and justifying this action because the debt is obviously illegitimate, having been created via money that was created "out of thin air". And, of course, we must abolish the Fed, and have the US Treasury issue interest-free money. It should be a government function to authorize sufficient quantities of money as a medium of value required for the exchange of goods and services that are produced or created by working people. Real goods and services that contribute to the well-being of a people constitute real wealth, not gold, silver, or any other metal that has been made into a fetish by those who can own and/or control it. 

The unfortunate reality is that the government is overwhelmingly controlled by banking interests, and they are not about to pass any laws against their interests. They now have the nation in debt to them forever, and this is exactly where they want to be. Only an organized, informed citizenry can make real changes.

Still, it's good to propose and argue for such schemes, except that they are needlessly complicated and written in a style that only a relatively few people can understand. The concept of money has been so mystified--deliberately so--by the banking interests. As a result ordinary people find it difficult to understand issues related to money and debts, and they are easily deceived.

The best online source I've found to gain a better understanding is this one, organized as a series of lessons designed by someone by the pseudonym of "Smithy". Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics, and she works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions. For this reason, she can't reveal her real name. One needs to be aware that accurate knowledge about the money scam is difficult to obtain simply because it is so profitable for bankers who control it. They have ways of punishing people who reveal too many of their secrets.

Stewart vs Krugman and the Religion of Austerity

Click here if you wish to access original source from The Real News and the transcript of this interview with Prof. Bill Black.

Black proposes two alternative explanations for Pres. Obama's interactions with Tea Party Republicans who advocate harsh cutbacks to social spending. Forget the first one about damaging the Republican party by holding out. That is pure nonsense in the guise of common sense which conforms to the conventional view of two-party adversaries propagated over mainstream media. Both parties represent, and are funded by, the same interests. Obviously, they sometimes have different strategies to serve those interests. But, it is clearly the second explanation that Black offers: "he [Obama] wants the excuse to give in." 

He begins by pointing out that Obama has been preparing the groundwork by already offering concessions. Then Black explores the sources of proposed austerity policies in the Peterson Institute, and in turn, their earlier origins in the Washington Consensus of the late 1980s. However, for some reason he never mentions that Obama appointed billionaire Pete Peterson in 2010 to head the Deficit Commission to come up with policies to solve the problem of government deficits. This, of course, laid the groundwork for all the subsequent fake arguments about cutting social spending  between his administration and the Tea Party Republicans, actions that were designed to lead into some "grand bargain" involving controversial cuts to social programs that he would be supposedly forced into. The "grand bargain" would provide him with the "excuse to give in".

Anyway, what is clear is that the Washington Consensus that originally forced devastating austerity and privatization policies onto many countries in Latin America has, under globalized capitalism, come home to roost on American soil.

The Genetic Argument: Understanding That Social Advancement is our Collective Responsibility

Click here to access article by Chris Renzo posted on News Beacon Ireland.

American neuroscientist, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, states that there is a widespread and dangerous notion that has taken root in our dominant scientific understanding of human behavior. The notion is that we believe human behavior is genetically determined. This deterministic view of life suggests life is rooted in biology and genetics, that we are our genes, and that genes cannot be changed. This notion is used to support the view that human nature is governed by an innate self-interest, a trait we developed through evolution.

You may be wondering what this has to do with the scourge of capitalism that is the focus of my blog. Some of you may have looked at the last sentence as a hint--because, of course, this view of human nature directly supports the capitalist world-view and justifies all sorts of sociopathic crimes against the rest of humanity. This is correct, but I'd like to attack this "dangerous notion" that Renzo refers to from another direction.

The view of human nature as composed of genetic predispositions toward certain behaviors which are modulated by social experience is supported by overwhelming evidence. Yet, in spite of this, capitalist ideologues continue to revert to a more mechanistic view based entirely on genetics. It seems that this phenomenon keeps coming back. Recall its prominence among fascist regimes in the 1930s and in the quasi-fascism of 1920-1930 America? Such a view prevents any notions that the way societies are organized can have deleterious effects on human development; and thus, discourages any examination of evidence that a capitalist organized society contributes to all sorts of human behavioral disorders.

If you use a class-based analysis to class-structured societies dating from their first appearance in agrarian societies until the present time (which represents about two percent of human history), you will understand that a ruling class will always impose self-justifying views on the rest of society including its scientists.

Government Pushes Propaganda Through Video Games

Click here to access article from Washington's Blog.

At last I find people endorsing a view I've had for the last 25 years--the ruling class often use video games as another ideological tool to indoctrinate children. Their emphasis on, not just competition, but brutal competition where kids are encouraged to engage in life and death struggles against "evil doers" conveniently mirrors propaganda imposed on their adult populations. I never cease to be amazed at the brilliance of the ruling class's indoctrination agents to come up with such clever methods of controlling and manipulating the 99 Percent.

“By the late 1990s,” says Nick Turse, an American journalist, historian and author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, “the [US] army was pouring tens of millions of dollars into a centre at the University of Southern California – the Institute of Creative Technologies – specifically to build partnerships with the gaming industry and Hollywood.” 

The Idle No More Movement for Dummies

Click here to access article by Gyasi Ross from Indian Country. 

First and foremost, the Idle No More Movement is about protecting the Earth for all people from the carnivorous and capitalistic spirit that wants to exploit and extract every last bit of resources from the land. Therefore, anybody who cares about this Earth should be interested in the Idle No More Movement.
....

These mobilized Native people wanted to ensure that children two, three and twelve generations from now would have clean water. The children who will benefit from the Native mobilization are not just Native children—it’s for all children. Lakes and rivers tend to be either clean or dirty for Native and non-Native children alike.

It’s not a Native thing or a white thing, it’s an Indigenous worldview thing. It’s a “protect the Earth” thing. 

NATO funding, arming, & simultaneously fighting Al Qaeda from Mali to Syria.

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from Land Destroyer Report.

The author provides information to indicate that the Empire's warlords are spreading chaos by a variety of methods, especially the use of known terrorist organizations, from one country to another in the Middle East and North Africa. Today, in Africa it's Mali, tomorrow it appears that Algeria is the next target. Hence, it might be worth taking a look at what is happening in Algeria by also reading "For Algerians, a Divide on France in Mali" posted on Al-Akhbar.

...thanks to NATO, that is exactly what Libya has become – a Western sponsored sanctuary for Al-Qaeda. ...illustrating a pattern of using clearly terroristic organizations, even those listed as so by the US State Department, to carry out US foreign policy.

Everything We Know So Far About Drone Strikes

Click here to access article by Cora Currier from ProPublica. 

This is a very comprehensive report which includes links to other documents and reports, and provides up-to-date information on the use of drones to kill suspected militants that Empire warlords don't like.

I found this most disturbing:

Just last week, a federal judge ruled that the government did not have to release a secret legal memo making the case for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen. The judge also ruled the government did not have to respond to other requests seeking more information about targeted killing in general.  (In making the ruling, the judge acknowledged a “Catch-22,” saying that the government claimed “as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.”)

Revealed: America’s Arms Sales To Bahrain Amid Bloody Crackdown

Click here to access article by Justin Elliott from ProPublica. 

ProPublica has obtained documents under the Freedom of Information Act to reveal the following:

Despite Bahrain’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the U.S. has continued to provide weapons and maintenance to the small Mideast nation.

Defense Department documents released to ProPublica give the fullest picture yet of the arms sales: The list includes ammunition, combat vehicle parts, communications equipment, Blackhawk helicopters, and an unidentified missile system.

The rotten foundations of US policy in the Middle East

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

The author provides a graphic description of brutal exploitation of workers in Arab states protected by, and allied with, the Empire in the Middle East.

There are some 15 million of these workers in the Gulf States. They account for over half of the workforce and the overwhelming majority of workers in the private sector. It is they who have built the high-rise towers, luxury palaces and highways of Manama, Dubai and Riyadh, paid for with the oil earnings of the parasitic ruling dynasties.

The high cost of new and improved

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from his blog Systemic Disorder.

We have often heard the expression "planned obsolescence" used in critiques of capitalism. Faced with his own computer dilemma, this writer provides us with much more information regarding this practice which generates tremendous waste in order to improve next quarter's financial statements of corporations. Of course, they disguise this practice behind the euphemism of "new and improved". 

The greatest offensive against European social rights since the Second World War

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

The author explains how European capitalists are benefiting from the current crisis there which, of course, they created with their reckless gambling. (Of course, given the globalized nature of capitalism it is clear that all capitalists with investments in Europe are benefiting.) After securing the safety of their banks with government bailouts and other schemes, they are now benefiting from the misery of most working populations. Economic crises that are devastating for workers provide many opportunities for these owners of economies to reap big profits and steal more properties from the public sector.

...one of the lessons they have learned from the absorption of East Germany at the beginning of the 1990’s is that important wage disparities between employees can be greatly exploited to the advantage of employers. The massive East German privatisations, the attacks against the job security of ex-GDR workers, along with an augmentation of German public debt due to the costs of this absorption (which have been used as the pretexts for austerity programmes) have permitted the employers to greatly erode the situation of East as well as West German workers. The present German leaders see the eurozone crisis, and the brutal conditions imposed on the Greek people, as an opportunity to push further and to reproduce at the European level, the gains they have made at home.

 He also explains the difference between relative and absolute surplus-value and how capitalists gain from each method of appropriation of worker-created wealth.

After several decades of neoliberal offensives, increases in absolute surplus-value have become, once again, a major element in the extraction of surplus-value and add to the relative surplus-value. The employers, using crisis based campaigns are now gaining on both surplus values, thus showing the magnitude of the current offensive.

The Economics of Insurgency Thoughts on Idle No More & Critical Infrastructure

Click here to access article by Shiri Pasternak from The Media Co-op (Canada).

Pasternak reports on the threats posed my the Idle No More movement in Canada to the Canadian economy as seen by their ruling class as revealed in their media and released classified government reports.

News reports are ablaze with reports of looming Indigenous blockades and economic disruption. As the Idle No More movement explodes into a new territory of political action, it bears to amplify the incredible economic leverage of First Nations today, and how frightened the government and industry are of their capacity to wield it.

This Canadian media co-op appears to be an excellent source of coverage of news and analysis for the 99 Percent in Canada in general, and coverage regarding the Idle No More movement in particular. They may offer an inspirational model for a peoples' centered media to overcome the information blockade imposed on all 99 Percent populations everywhere in the world.

Aaron Swartz, Canary in a Coal Mine for the Information Cartel

Click here to access article by Nozomi Hayase from Dissident Voice.

An American Hero

On Jan 11, 2013, a bright light burned out. Aaron Swartz was not only a prodigy. He was a genius with technical skills and articulated political thoughts. But more importantly, he was a thoroughly good person. Many who were touched by his life noted that he was always so willing to help people. “What can I do? I can build it. I can solve it. I can make it possible”. All of his work was based on that simple yet extraordinary generous heart.





This "canary", one of the finest examples of American youth, died while fighting against a core value of US capitalist society--property rights. Aaron was one of the key leaders of the victory over internet censorship which would have given the government the right to shut down sites that infringed on information commodities.

The open internet has been embraced by nearly two generations of youth who have seen the incredible potential of the internet to connect people with each other, with ideas, with knowledge, all of which could vastly enrich their lives. Also, maybe because of their youth they were not fully indoctrinated in capitalist values and concepts, especially the core concept of private property which is the foundation of capitalism. And, the more private property the better to feed the appetites of wolf-like, predatory creatures called capitalists who created a system that would transform everything into a commodities to be bought, owned, and sold for profits. Even money became a commodity which they (the privately owned "Federal Reserve") lend to the larger society--with interest, of course.

The system was created by, and for, this tiny minority who could see its potential to force the rest of mankind to work for them. Their system was never designed to serve society, but only a small segment, their segment, who "owned" the implements of production and thus "owned" everything that was produced. 

The defeat, so far, of these censorship bills represents a rare grassroots victory won in the halls of Congress owned and controlled by the ruling capitalist class. Obviously, he became their target along with class warriors like Bradley Manning who dared to challenge this class's right to commit war crimes with impunity. We, the people, simply must carry on their fight and support such dissidents against the backlash of an angry, vindictive ruling class.

Come Home, America!

Click here to access poem by one of my favorite writers, Gary Corseri, posted on Dissident Voice.

Are we heading to an economic crash in the next few years?

Click here if you wish to access source of this 9:21m video from an interview with Michael Hudson on the Thom Hartmann Program broadcast via RT TV. (Note: there is a brief interruption in the middle of the broadcast, but quickly resumes.)

It would be helpful in understanding Hudson's comments, to understand the difference between defined benefit and defined contribution pension programs. As I recall, this shift began in the 1990s until now whereby most pension plans are of the latter type. As one would expect, this shift has been enormously popular with the One Percent who live largely off of their ownership of corporations and speculative investments. Not only does this allow hedge fund agents and corporate executives to engage in more risky endeavors, but it also has the advantage of encouraging more of the 99% to identify with corporate interests.

For more information on pensions and their reckless use by hedge funds, I highly recommend perusing the Pension Pulse website where the Canadian blogger has specialized in following this issue. Although this offers a Canadian perspective, most of his analyses applies to the US. Specifically, I recommend this and this.

Unfortunately, Hudson's liberal recommendations for change consist of only reforms to the existing system which is doing what it is logically set up to do--to provide the One Percent with short-term profits and power. Over the past 300 years this system has so abundantly rewarded them that they are now hopelessly addicted to it. It is up to us to dismantle it and replace it with a sustainable system that serves everybody. We must do this or else...we will perish from the Earth.

 

Interview: Indigenous Occupy

Click here if you wish to access article and and source of 4:59m RT video interview with Andrew Gavin Marshall from his blog. 

The article offers more background on the Idle No More fightback that originated among Canadian aboriginals and includes some excerpts from the interview and a few additional comments. 

“Bill C-45 is not just about a budget, it is a direct attack on First Nations lands and on the bodies of water we all share from across this country,”

The indigenous populations across North American have always had to fight back whenever the dominant European ruling class saw that their lands contained valuable resources. Thus, they have always been shunted off onto reservation lands where elites saw little of value. With new technologies come opportunities for corporate exploitation of resources in many of these lands, and Prime Minister Harper's promotion of Bill C-45 is just the latest assault. They are fighting back to not only preserve their habitat; but being much more conscious of the ongoing devastating assaults on nature by corporations obsessed with short-term profits, they feel that they must take the lead in a last stand to protect all of our homelands on planet Earth.

This is happening everywhere in the world: most aggressively in Central and South America, and Africa. See this, this, and this.

Feds Replace Flawed Foreclosure Review With Vague $8.5 Billion Settlement

Click here to access article by Paul Kiel from ProPublica. 

The Independent Foreclosure Review was supposed to be a full and fair investigation of the big banks' foreclosure abuses, and it was trumpeted as the government's largest effort to compensate victimized homeowners. .... Millions of homeowners were eligible and hundreds of thousands submitted claims. But Monday morning, the very regulators who launched the program 18 months ago announced that it had all been a massive mistake and shut it down.

Instead, 10 banks have agreed to pay a total of $3.3 billion in cash to the 3.8 million borrowers who had been eligible for the review. That's an average of around $870 per borrower. But typical of a process that's been characterized by confusion, delays and secrecy, regulators said the details of how the money will be doled out were not yet available.

If we need a war footing to rebuild the physical economy, why can't we talk about it?

Click here to access article by Philip Sutton from Climate Code Red (Australia).

Given the recent dire warnings and the occurrence of climate-related disasters, there is some controversy about how to proceed in combating further disasters.

At the end of last year a very useful discussion was opened up by a number of climate scientists in different parts of the world calling for climate change action to be put onto a war footing.

John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, questioned the desirability of pursuing this approach. But how valid was John's critique? And is there a better response to the call from the climate scientists to go onto a war footing.

Was the Misuse of Social Security Money Pre-planned?

Click here to access article by Allen W. Smith from Dissident Voice.

Allen W. Smith has devoted much of his adult life to battling economic illiteracy and promoting economic education. He taught economics to college students for 30 years before retiring as Professor of Economics at Eastern Illinois University in 1998 to become a full-time writer.

This retired professor is a hero of mine for dedicating his academic life to educating Americans on the realities of economics, most valuable of which has been in relation to the so-called Social Security Trust Fund. I only discovered his writing about two years ago on Dissident Voice, but he has been trying to report on the Social Security scam for the past 12 years. My discovery has raised two questions in my mind: why did it take so long to hear about his revelations? And, why haven't others--there must have been many others who knew--reported on this hoax?

(Note: If you are new to this issue, you may not grasp everything he says in this article. Thus, I refer you to my commentary in a recent posting of mine for more information. I also refer you to an excellent essay on this subject by James Petras.)

In this piece Smith reports on his recent discovery of looting of Social Security funds by the Reagan administration to offset tax cuts for the rich. In reference to the title of this article, he argues that this and subsequent actions to pilfer Social Security funds were pre-planned--although I doubt that Reagan was astute enough to know what the reality was. I think that this third-rate actor was just mindlessly following orders from his One Percent handlers.

Why would Reagan create mass fear among the American people? He needed the surplus money that the Social Security tax increase would put within his reach. He needed the money to replace the revenue lost from his big tax cuts for the rich. The rich would get to keep their big tax cuts. But every worker in the country would have to pay higher Social Security payroll taxes.

Once you understand this ruling class scam, it all becomes clear as to the reasons for the current all-out attacks on Social Security and Medicare programs. Because of retiring post-war baby boomers, Social Security has in recent years started running a negative cash flow, which means that receipts from payroll taxes are less that payouts to existing retirees. Because past Social Security funding was stolen by the One Percent ruling class to fund their wars and offset their tax reductions, there are no savings in the fund to draw on. Benefits must now be paid out of general tax revenues. You see the dilemma that our ruling class faces? They have been robbing our retirement piggy bank for years; and like any compulsive thief, they don't want to pay us back. So, you say, what else is new? Ruling classes have been robbing working people from the very beginning of class rule 10,000 years ago.

At his point, if you haven't already, I suggest you read this article before reading the balance of my comments which gives you more background on Allen Smith's heroic efforts on behalf of the 99 Percent. This is an excerpt from his website.

            I began doing research on the federal budget in late 1999.  That research led to the publication of my book, The Alleged Budget Surplus, Social Security, and Voodoo Economics, in 2000.  It was while doing research for this book that I made an unexpected, and very troubling, discovery.  I discovered the ongoing fraudulent government practice of spending the Social Security surplus revenue on other government programs.  At first, I couldn’t believe my findings.  The elected officials of the United States government surely would not spend the Social Security contributions of American workers on other government programs without either the knowledge or permission of those workers.  But, the more I researched the subject, the clearer it became that the government had done, and was continuing to do, exactly that.

            I was outraged, and I wanted to tell the whole world so they would be outraged too.  But nobody wanted to listen.  It just didn’t seem credible that our own government, both Democrats and Republicans, would engage in such fraud against the American people.

             As part of my efforts to alert the public, I began sending material to candidate Al Gore in early 2000. I sent him advance copies of my book, research findings, and several letters.  I urged Gore to put distance between himself and Clinton on Social Security and take a stand against the continued use of Social Security money for non-Social Security purposes.  I used multiple channels of commun-ication in sending the material to Gore in order to be sure that at least some of it got to him.

            I cannot be sure that I was the source of Gore’s idea to propose the Social Security lockbox, and to make the raiding of the trust fund a major campaign issue.  However, the important point is that Gore did take a stand against the continued raiding of the trust fund, which resulted in George W. Bush taking a similar stand.  Thus, during the 2000 campaign, both Gore and Bush entered into a new covenant with the American people on how Social Security revenue would be treated in the future.  They both acknowledged that the trust fund had been raided in the past and pledged to end the raiding.

            With both candidates making such a pledge, it appeared that no matter who won the 2000 election, the days of using Social Security money for non-Social Security purposes were over.  But that was not the case.  We will never know whether or not Al Gore would have honored his promise to protect Social Security if he had become president.  But we do know that George W. Bush did not honor his promise.  He continued to raid the Social Security trust fund just like his father, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton had been doing for years.

How Zero Dark Thirty Brought Back the Bush Administration

Click here to access article by Karen J. Greenberg from TomDispatch.

The article by Greenberg is introduced by Tom Engelhardt who provides more historical background on the US use of torture and supporting regimes that use torture. As a typical American liberal, he avoids any class analysis that would suggest that torture is just another means of violence to insure rule by the One Percents of the world. Instead, as usual, he treats the subject with a heavy dose of sarcasm and in a limited framework of hypocrisy. The US ruling class tolerates such critiques, and liberals play it safe by staying within acceptable limits of criticism of their policies and actions.

It seems to me that the use of sarcasm with regard to hypocrisy without attempting to understand the actions merely feeds one's ego with feelings of moral superiority. This avoids the whole issue of class warfare that is not only shaping current events, but the underlying dynamic that has shaped human history for the last 10,000 years, only about 2% of human history.

Greenberg's article is useful in that it exposes the latest Hollywood political production as pure indoctrination to instill in Americans a belief in the necessity and merits of torture.

Here...are the seven steps that bring back the Bush administration and should help Americans learn how to love torture....

However useful this is, she also avoids any kind of class analysis. Instead, it's about the Bush administration  For some reason, she never explains why this propaganda campaign is being waged under the current Obama administration who promised to shut down Guantanamo and pretended to be critical of torture, and why the current administration has done nothing to hold Bush officials and lawyers accountable for their law breaking.

Liberals also like to point to the evidence that torture is not effective in obtaining accurate information. That begs some questions. If it was effective, would it be okay? Are US authorities and their agents of torture and all the torturers down through history stupid? I think not. You see, another purpose of torture is to instill fear in the hearts of the broader population that oppressors are trying to control so that they will be discouraged from fighting back. Torture is another form of terrorism and terrorism is another form of intimidation. This violent form of intimidation, like all forms of intimidation, is often effective.

The Next Big Thing

Click here to access article by Tim Gatto from CounterCurrents.

Tim Gatto is former Chairman of the Liberal Party of America, Tim is a retired Army Sergeant. He currently lives in South Carolina.

Here is another American that is waking up to a number of realities hidden behind the smokescreen of American life as presented by ruling class ideological institutions--schools, media, entertainment, and churches. It is another rant, but that is what happens when people wake up and realize they have been lied to: they get mad.

Most people in America are waiting for something to happen. Most don’t know or don’t want to know what the real truth is. ...We only need to wake up a few more people. That is the next big thing.

Schools, Guns & Drugs

Click here if you wish to access source of 10:34m video from RT via YouTube. 

Knowing that at least the last two incidents of mass shootings were committed by people on prescription drugs, it seems strange to me that mainstream media has not examined the relationship between the two. It really should not be surprising given that Big Pharma has been one of the most lucrative sectors of US corporate profits in the last several decades. To their credit, RT looks at this issue in the following video:

Zero Dark Thirty, or How a People Lose Their Humanity

Click here to access article by Annie Day from Revolution. 

This author's description of the latest Hollywood propaganda production, Zero Dark Thirty, fits the typical use of films to indoctrinate Americans in Empire practices, values, and policies. After viewing the film, she interviews other people filing out of the cinema to get their opinions about the film. She found some disturbing reactions. Such productions are seen by many naive patrons as presenting actual history. 

...here you have the point of this highly ideological film: to make acceptable, or perhaps "complicated," to people who consider themselves progressive the acts of this empire, to celebrate revenge against "America's enemies," to get you to sympathize with the criminal monsters who are carrying out these acts and to cheer for the "protection of the homeland," no matter the price. "For god and country," says the Navy SEAL after killing Osama bin Laden.

Idle No More -- Think Occupy, But With Deep Deep Roots

Click here to access article by Bill McKibben from Huffington Post.

This piece provides a good followup of Monday's posting by Andrew Gavin Marshall. 

Referring to the Canadian-based Idle No More movement, McKibben writes:

...I sense that it's every bit as important as the Occupy movement that transfixed the world a year ago; it feels like it wells up from the same kind of long-postponed and deeply-felt passion that powered the Arab spring. And I know firsthand that many of its organizers are among the most committed and skilled activists I've ever come across. In fact, if Occupy's weakness was that it lacked roots (it had to take over public places, after all, which proved hard to hold on to), this new movement's great strength is that its roots go back farther than history. More than any other people on this continent, they know what exploitation and colonization are all about, and so it's natural that at a moment of great need they're leading the resistance to the most profound corporatization we've ever seen. I mean, we've just come off the hottest year ever in America, the year when we broke the Arctic ice cap; the ocean is 30 percent more acidic than it was when I was born. 

Prime Minister Harper's actions to facilitate the dirty extraction of fossil fuels and minerals on aboriginal lands have provoked this movement into fighting back. To find out more of the details of this struggle, I recommend this current piece entitled "Harper Launches Major First Nations Termination Plan As Negotiating Tables Legitimize Canada's Colonialism".

Syria: A jihadi paradise

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

The brilliant political analyst and journalist again tells it like it is in the Middle East, specifically, in Syria by exposing the machinations of the Empire to replace Assad with agents of their latest favored puppet du jour, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Facts on the ground...spell that Assad is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire

Click here to access article by Sean Ledwith from CounterFire (UK).

Deepa Kumar’s important new book on Islamophobia explores the link between the politics of Empire and domestic attacks on Muslims in Western nations.

This book review focuses largely on the author's revelations about the favorite method of capitalist elites to maintain control over working people--divide and conquer--which is now being applied with some success against Muslims, although inevitably there will sometimes be "blowbacks" (see this for insights on blowback).

I have often wondered about the frequent and successful use of this strategy. It has been such a successful weapon against the emancipation of working people throughout history. Is the divide and conquer strategy exploiting a fatal flaw in human nature that encourages ordinary people to uncritically follow powerful people against their own interests? Is there no hope of overcoming this flaw? 

My musings on these questions have suggested some hunches that might explain this weakness. Perhaps it is the lengthy period of childhood needed to fully develop the marvelous human brain that creates a sense of dependency in many who are unable to transition fully into adulthood. Hence, they fail to develop their critical thinking faculties, and instead continue to defer to adult authority figures as they enter adulthood.

Then there is the class rule that has plagued humanity for the last 10,000 years of the approximately 175,000 years of human existence. Class rule by definition uses authoritarian methods--violence, threat of violence, indoctrinating subordinate members into believing that authority figures who serve the ruling class have superior knowledge (e.g. they are divinely inspired, they are "experts") to maintain privileged control over their subordinate populations. Thus, given their control over institutions of indoctrination--education, media, religion, entertainment--they have the ability to reinforce authoritarian mindsets. 

The latter is effective in preventing the transition from childhood into adulthood by transferring childish notions about the infallibility of parental authority onto adult authorities in the ruling class. This is especially effective if people are taught in their childhood to always respect authority, that there are right answers to everything and the authorities can provide them with these answers, that they are weak (as they were in childhood) and must look to powerful persons for their material well-being, salvation, for understanding of political and economic issues that are too complicated for them, etc.

Rogue geoengineering could 'hijack' world's climate

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

Techniques aimed at averting global warming could lead to an unpredictable international crisis, a report has warned.

This report was issued by the World Economic Forum which is a global capitalist foundation that meets yearly to deal with international conflicts. The 80-page analysis of 50 risks for the next 10 years was issued ahead of the their annual meeting later this month at the Swiss ski resort in Davos, Switzerland. Davos, of course, is a favorite hangout of the world's rich capitalists. Many have 2nd or 3rd homes here. According to Wikipedia...

The foundation is funded by its 1,000 member companies, the typical company being a global enterprise with more than five billion dollars in turnover, although the latter can vary by industry and region. In addition, these enterprises rank among the top companies within their industry and/or country and play a leading role in shaping the future of their industry and/or region.

Climate change related risks ranked lower on their list than the threats posed by the growing disparity between the world's rich (them) and the vast numbers of poor (most of us). You see, they are afraid of us.

The top two global risks identified for the WEF by more than 1,000 business leaders and experts were the growing wealth gap between rich and poor and a major financial economic crisis. But the next three on the list of 50 were environmental, including climate change, and water and food supply crises.

They are aware of the risks posed by capitalists who are inclined to engage in high risk geo-engineering experiments in order to save their beloved system of capitalism.

...a well-funded individual with good intentions may take matters into their own hands....

I regard their willingness to tinker with, and risk, the planet's ecosystem is far more dangerous than WEF seems to. Actually, they seem more worried about lawsuits than the destabilization of the ecosystem.

The authors fear that climate change could become a centre of litigation. "Although the Alaskan village of Kivalina – which faces being "wiped out" by the changing climate – was unsuccessful in its attempts to file a $400m lawsuit against oil and coal companies, future plaintiffs may be more successful.

I really didn't want to read this 80-page report, so instead I decided to see how capitalist sources were reporting it. I only found two. The Business Insider suggested that the report was about "managing catastrophe"; whereas The People's Daily Online stated that "economists and business leaders are pessimistic about solving the fundamental problems faced by the the global economy." 

I share their pessimism. That is precisely why we, the 99 Percent of the world, must act to take away the system of capitalism which supplies them with the hard core drugs of power and profits to which they are hopelessly addicted.

Another sweetheart bank settlement on mortgage fraud

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

Under the de facto protection of the government agencies that are supposed to police them, the banks are allowed to violate securities and other laws knowing that they can treat any fines that may eventually be imposed as part of the cost of doing business.

Of course, the justice system like all other sub-systems in capitalist society, a society by definition ruled by capitalists, necessarily reflect their interests. To hide this fact, their institutions of indoctrination, schools and media, work around the clock to instill in their subjects the belief that they live in some sort of "democracy", and that democracy equals elections. They neglect to mention that their elections consist of having one capitalist, or capitalist agent, run against another for any office. It logically follows, according to their fake theory, that the legal system functions to serve all of society fairly. The astounding thing is--many people believe this garbage!

The Brennan nomination: A government of torturers and assassins

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

Apparently now that torture is more out of sight and out of mind, Obama felt able to give the CIA's top job appropriately to US's top torturer and war criminal. Given that the CIA is US's secret agency used by the One Percent ruling class to promote the extension of their Empire by any means necessary, it seems to me that sociopathic Brennan was the perfect choice.

Cradle of US-backed Counter-Revolution in Libya Becoming Ghost Town

Click here to access article from Pan-African News Wire.

Read about a recent success of American-style regime change--Libya. Yes, it is the "Salvador Option" strategy that has created another state in chaos. But, isn't that the objective of this strategy? 

Our Empire builders seem to use the strategy whenever a state poses problems and/or opportunities to enhance the power and profits of the Empire's One Percents. It worked in El Salvador and Nicaragua to contain and overturn leftist governments in the area regarded as "its backyard". It worked in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, central Africa, other areas such as Columbia, and now threatening Syria. The essence of the strategy is to arm, train, and unleash terrorist (aka "paramilitary", "freedom fighters", etc.) groups within a state in order to destabilize the country. It's clear to me that Empire's One Percents are the primary sources of terrorism in the world today.

A continuation of 500 years of indigenous resistance

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

As a followup of yesterday's article by Andrew Gavin Marshall in which he advised us to look at the new resistance movement, Idle No More, started by Canadian aboriginals who are taking a stand against further theft of their lands and the destruction of natural habitat.

This beautiful short film provides a portrait of Canada’s Idle No More movement, which marks the continuation of 500 years of indigenous resistance.

If you wish to find out more about this movement, I recommend that you read this and check out the website of Idle No More.  

Australian heatwave puts south-east on alert as wildfires burn out of control

Click here to access article by Alison Rourke from The Guardian.

Temperatures in some areas surpassed 45C (113F), while Monday's average high temperature across the country set a record at 40.3C. Further record-breaking highs are expected in the coming days, with the heat so intense that Australia's Bureau of Meteorology has been forced to add new colours to its temperature map – deep purple and incandescent pink.

Neoliberalizing Nature and Privatizing the Air

Click here if you wish to access the source of this 7:34m video or the transcript of the interview with Patrick Bond of South Africa regarding the topic.

Bond offers his observations about the pitfalls of putting a price on nature and its resources as has been advocated by some green environmentalists and attempted with poor results by markets in carbon trading schemes. The source of this problem is that our global economy is overwhelmingly directed by private interests who are addicted to short-term profits and power.

Corporate Culture and Global Empire: Food Crisis, Land Grabs, Poverty, Slums, Environmental Devastation and Resistance

Click here to access article by Andrew Gavin Marshall from his blog. 

In this piece the brilliant young Canadian writer gives us a condensed version of three chapters of a book project that he is currently working on.

One of the main themes of my blog has been to explicate the main feature of the New World Order which is now under construction. Our masters in the One Percent are building a new global society everywhere in the world in which the vast majority, the "99 Percent", will eventually be living in  third world conditions due to the leveling effect of labor arbitrage. This is a fancy term the corporate world uses to describe a world of worker-slaves competing for their jobs by being willing to work for the lowest wages and worst working conditions. In this new world the One Percent will live on tiny, scattered, well-guarded islands of prosperity. This is their plan of globalization, and we are only beginning to witness the results.

The author adds considerable flesh to this skeleton of a theme so that we can see the monster in all its hideousness. In addition, for those of us choosing to fight rather than submit to these plans, he advises us that indigenous people, who have vast experience in fighting oppression by the One Percent, have much to teach us about resistance. (For more information regarding Canadian indigenous resistance, read this piece by Eric Walberg and/or this by Naomi Klein.)

Construction is complete on behemoth airship; first flight planned

Click here to access article by W.J. Hennigan from the Los Angeles Times.

"This will land in Africa, Afghanistan," Pasternak told The Times in September, "a Wal-Mart parking lot -- wherever."

Really? I don't think that it will be landing in Wal-Mart parking lots. No, I think that it more likely will be landing in remote areas of Africa in order to set up mini-military bases complete with all the amenities of American lifestyle in order to provide the Pentagon's military with all the comforts of home. See this.

Meanwhile, in my area of Washington state I've seen bake-sales organized to fund school facilities. 

Does Online Boom Spell Doom for Traditional University Model?

Click here to access article by David Smith from Economy Watch. 

The internet has already revolutionised the working environment, the music industry, the media and shopping habits. It now appears likely that it is on the cusp of transforming the world of higher education with radical consequences for the future of higher education in both the developing and the first world.

Online education is the "next big thing" for investors looking to make a "killing" in the market. I don't think that there is any question that there are some advantages of adding programmed online courses to supplement educational goals. The huge threat that it poses is the way it will be integrated into education by those primarily motivated by profits. But, being a capitalist society with the ruling class more powerful than ever, it's primary focus will inevitably be on generating profits for the One Percent. Thus, if we are unable to mount an effective, organized opposition to this privatizing juggernaut, education about life in general will further degenerate into pure indoctrination.

After this basic concern, I'm also concerned with the suitable application of online education in various subjects. I can certainly see its advantages in teaching any sort of technical material. Where I think it is inappropriate, actually dangerous, is when it is used in subjects described as humanities. That is, subjects devoted to many aspects of history, literature, philosophy, social sciences, psychology, etc; any subjects that require critical thinking skills and their application in relation to values, perspectives, and morality.

Technology Servitude

Click here to access article by Joel S. Hirschhorn posted on World News Trust.

Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high tech devices, while driving, while walking, while shopping, while in groups of friends, while in restaurants, while waiting in doctor offices and hospitals, while sitting in toilets -- everywhere. While connected electronically, they are inattentive to and disconnected in physical reality.

I wholeheartedly agree with the author's views of the new electronic, mind-distracting, addictive gadgets. I have sometimes wondered if I was getting to be old-fashioned by rejecting the latest new gadgets; but when I keep looking at the evidence of their use, I can't see any sense in cluttering up my life with them. I am certainly not against new technological innovations, I just want them to be integrated into our lives so that we truly benefit from them.

I live in a beautiful area where there are lots of parks, hiking trails, lakes, etc. I have witnessed a number of people hiking these trails yakking incessantly on their cell phones or absorbed in some other feature of these gadgets. Why would I want that in my life? Recently, while driving to town I was met with an approaching pickup that was heading into my lane. At the last minute I had to turn sharply to avoid a head-on collision, and nearly lost control of my car. Very likely the driver was texting or talking on his cell phone.

I continue to be amazed at the power of modern advertising. We have been inundated with non-stop ads on the boobtube portraying people, sometimes well-know celebrities, who appear to be in a state of ecstasy while playing with their gadgets. The end result is what we see all around us today and as described in the article. What I worry about even more about TV advertising is that they sell us images of ourselves, their interpretations of world events, values, etc.

Living The Guns Dream

Click here to access article by Kiva Loaner from The Global Sociology Blog. My comments also are in relation to this piece entitled "Repeal the Second Amendment" by Tom H. Hastings from The PeaceWorker. 

It's very understandable for people to be concerned about the proliferation of guns in private hands, in the hands of people who do not normally use them, are amateurs at handling them, who may be unstable, etc. But, it seems to me what is always missing from their attacks on gun ownership is any mention of government's use of weapons on people. 

And, of course, the major government that uses not only guns, but all sort of sophisticated means of violence against people is the US-led NATO Empire. This Empire is under the control of the One Percent class who essentially "own", and thus control, the most essential component of our societies--the economy. If you need to experience an immediate example of their use of violence, or the threat of its use, show up at protest rally where you will see enforcers of the One Percent decked out in their dark vader uniforms and armed to the teeth.

Latvia’s Economic Disaster as a Neoliberal Success Story: A Model for Europe and the US?

Click here to access article by Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson from NYTimes eXaminer.

Let us hope and pray that Latvia is not a model for the US to follow!

Today’s most highly celebrated anti-labor success story is Latvia. Latvia is portrayed as the country where labor did not fight back, but simply emigrated politely and quietly. No general strikes, nor destruction of private property or violence, Latvia is presented as a country where labor had the good sense to not make a fuss when faced with austerity. Latvians gave up protest and simply began voting with their backsides (emigration) as the economy shrank, wage levels were scaled down, and where tax burdens remained decidedly on the backs of labor, even though recent token efforts have been made to increase taxes on real estate. The World Bank applauds Latvia and its Baltic neighbors by placing them high on its list of “business friendly” economies....

War Addiction Default

Click here to access article by Dave Lindorff from CounterPunch.

I am posting this article primarily because it is written by a popular American leftist who, I hope unknowingly, further promotes misunderstanding about the huge deception of Social Security and Medicare programs. He is describing these programs as advertised, not the way they actually function. Secondarily, his article otherwise does offer a good perspective on our national "unbalanced" budget in the sense that it is heavily burdened by military spending, not for self-defense, but used to threaten and invade, or send drones over, other countries and kill their people.

The following sentence perpetrates the huge deception:

Social Security is not part of the tax take or the federal budget, as it is all paid from the Social Security Trust Fund, which in turn has been financed by the dedicated payroll tax paid by working people and employers.

To counter this misinformation, I advise you to read this posting of Michael Hudson's article and my commentary which contains additional links to other accurate sources.

Arundhati Roy speaks out against Indian rape culture

Click here to access source of video from Channel 4 (England) via YouTube.

This English TV station interviews Arundhati Roy regarding her views of the recent rape and killing of Indian women that has been in the news recently. She, unlike the way it has been reported in mainstream media, sees it as an unexceptional example of class war that frequently is committed by the military and police forces in India.

Jamie Johnson: Fable of Fortune

Click here if you wish to access directly the source of the 12:40m video below produced by The Moth via YouTube.

In October of 2010 I started a practice on Saturdays to run stories about our fellow citizens of the One Percent (actually .01 of the 1%, or one out of every 10,000 of us) hoping that by doing this that we wouldn't lose touch with their world and their concerns--you know, to promote understanding. Unfortunately, for some reason they tend to hide their lives from the rest of us behind walls of secrecy, literal walls of guarded gated communities, private clubs, esoteric publications, by traveling with private jets, etc.

But then I discovered Jamie Johnson who wrote a weekly column in Vanity Fair on lifestyles of the rich, and in October of 2010 I began running many of his articles on Saturdays. But then I discovered in--I think it was--August of 2011 that they stopped running his articles. Oh oh, I thought, this might be some sort of backlash for exposing their secrets during this year when protestors were targeting the One Percent for criticism in relation to the austerity measures and bankster bailouts. Johnson, of course, is well known for one of his famous documentaries entitled The One Percent. (If you haven't seen it, I urge you to do so. Incidentally, I hope to start up this feature about life among the One Percent again on Saturdays, with this being the first.) 

This morning I was wishing that Jamie was doing his column on the rich when I decided to google his name. I came up this recent video which I found very interesting, and I hope you do to:

When the heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune makes a highly acclaimed documentary about being rich, his father's unexpected feedback is what sticks with him.

Jamie Johnson is a documentary filmmaker and the great-grandson of the founder of the Johnson and Johnson pharmaceutical company. His HBO productions, Born Rich and The One Percent, examine wealth and social class in our culture.

 

America’s Deceptive 2012 Fiscal Cliff, Part IV [revised commentary at 8:00 pm PST]

Click here to access article by Michael Hudson posted on Naked Capitalism. (Note: this website has separated the longer piece posted on Hudson's website into four convenient postings, with this being the final one. I've noticed that the last seven paragraphs of the original were revised for this post.)

As I understand his view, it is a much more sophisticated version of the 19th century political economist Henry George's advocacy of a single land tax. Hudson has expanded this to all forms of income that do not derive from productive activity such as interest on loans, capital gains, value extracted from nature, etc. Hence, all income which he refers to as "rentier" income as opposed to earned income. Logically this should include currency issued by central banks on which interest is charged to sovereign governments, although I don't think he stated that directly in this piece. Thus, he is suggesting that most current debts that provide such income should be forgiven and that this type of income should be taxed at a higher rate to restore consumer demand and stimulate productive enterprises. This, of course, indulges in pure fantasy.

Also, it seems to me that it is quite confusing and futile to try to separate out productive from non-productive income. All income from productive capitalist enterprises involves some rentier type of wealth extraction. Where wealth comes from certainly doesn't matter to major capitalists including industrial capitalists who are currently sitting on piles of cash. Neoliberal policies and technology has enabled the latter simply to move their enterprises to other countries that can provide them with cheap labor and weak environmental laws. Thus, in Western capitalist countries the One Percent ruling classes have dramatically shifted to the remaining opportunity to extract wealth from an excess labor force--financial capitalism. Thus, the One Percent's pursuit of rentier type of income within Western capitalist countries is an effect, not a cause, of perfectly normal capitalist activity.

Although it would certainly be beneficial to relieve most people and governments of debt, it simply ain't gonna happen under our present system. You see, capitalism wasn't established to serve most people! For things to change, we, the people of the 99 Percent, must organize to deconstruct this exploitative system and replace it with one that serves all the people.  

Late Stage Capitalism and the Shame Haunted Life

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

The author explores the shame that infiltrates the souls of many Americans in a class struture social system in which people are judged by outward signs of wealth or the present state of the economy that that has little use for them. He recalls from his childhood the many ways that he as a member of a poor family experienced this shame. He looks at the many ways people, especially men, cope with this shame.

Anger dwells as deep as the pain leveled by being shamed and humiliated. From road rage, to internet trolling, to the compulsion to humiliate women in certain forms of porn, to right-wing radio ranters, to violent video games, to gun-sown episodes of mass murder — the shame-besieged psyche of the American male, in vain, attempts to mitigate a psychologically devastating sense of powerlessness.

The fiscal cliff deal

Click here to access article by Barry Grey from World Socialist Web Site.

The author provides a much needed early summary of the temporary deal worked out between the two capitalist parties which mostly consists of tax give-aways to the One Percent. Meanwhile, they are revving up their media engines to prepare their assault on our programs in the coming months. Yes, folks, the class war continues. What? Did you expect something different?

Part of the process is the creation by the media of a synthetic “public opinion” that has nothing to do with the real concerns and views of the population. Already on Wednesday, the morning news programs were speaking of a groundswell of popular anger over the failure of Congress to enact “real” deficit-reduction measures and serious cuts in social programs—this in the face of repeated polls that show a large majority of the population opposed to such cuts.

Also, Kevin Zeese provides more details here.

Debate: Occupy versus the Bank of England

This was posted by Inka Stafrace on CounterFire (UK).

The "debate" format for the 10:55m video below consists of a bank representative from the Bank of England responding officially to demands by the Occupy movement in England followed by responses from knowledgeable Occupy activists. 

Although this is focused on British banking, their banking practices are essentially the same as in the US and other capitalist countries. The so-called "Bank of England" established by private bankers in 1694 created the model of banking that exists throughout most of the world. This topic is most useful to people who have at least some understanding of how money is created by banks including central banks. Others may have their curiosity piqued sufficiently to delve into the subject more.  

The best online source I've found is this one, organized as a series of lessons designed by someone by the pseudonym of "Smithy". Smithy has degrees in mathematics and economics, and she works as a consultant calculating investment risk for financial institutions. For this reason, she can't reveal her real name. One needs to be aware that accurate knowledge about the money scam is difficult to obtain simply because it is so profitable for those powerful private parties known as bankers who control it. They have ways of punishing people who reveal too many of their secrets.

Ben Dyson from Positive Money and Richard Paton from Occupy respond to five measures suggested by Andy Haldane of The Bank Of England, after he claimed that the Occupy movement was right.

Bradley Manning, the small man who wrote big

Click here to access article by Ellen Graubart from CounterFire (UK).

Bradley Manning's case as been almost totally ignored by mainstream media; what little they have recently reported planted doubts about his mental stability. This author provides the best perspective that I have seen on the issues involved, his courageous stand, and more details on his background. I believe he is still in a pre-trial hearing phase with a court-martial scheduled for March.

Bradley Manning's crime is of revealing the truth about how the US carries on its business around the world, committing crimes against humanity on a gross scale. For a crime such as his there must be no mercy.

America’s Deceptive 2012 Fiscal Cliff, Part III

Click here to access article by Michael Hudson posted on Naked Capitalism. (Note: this website has separated the longer piece posted on Hudson's website into what looks like will be five convenient postings. The subtitle of today's Naked Capitalism's posting is actually only the section heading where it continues Hudson's much longer essay. Regardless of today's news about the temporary budget deal, the deal is only a postponement of the larger issues dealt with in Hudson's article.) (Comment modified slightly on 1-11-2013)

Part III continues to explore all the implications of the way the so-called "entitlement" programs of Social Security and Medicare are organized. I don't think I was unusual for having assumed until a few years ago that these funds were set up like conventional trust funds which are separate accounts used to store wealth which are increased by investments and decreased by payouts according to trust fund rules all for the benefit of defined beneficiaries. That is the way that media has always presented it, the way our congressional representatives always framed it. It seems like everyone was duped by this perception except, of course, our master-deceivers in the One Percent.

There are many who still do not understand it like blogger, Jim Kavanagh, who insists that “Social Security and Medicare have absolutely nothing to do with the short-term U.S. fiscal problem.” He sees the current attacks on these programs as a giant "con", but that is only because he sees them as conventional trust funds. It's a con alright, but the deception has to do with the way the programs were set up and managed ever since.

It seems like I should have gotten a clue of this when Al Gore kept talking about putting Social Security in a "lock box" during the 2000 political campaign. I had little idea what he was talking about, and he didn't explain it. Also, another clue is that the payments to these programs are worker payroll taxes, not premiums or contributions as you would find in a conventional retirement trust fund. But it was not until I started reading Allen W. Smith's pieces (the first one was this and the last and best one is this) in Dissident Voice in the past few years that I finally understood how these programs worked. It was another giant hoax perpetrated on working people by our masters in the One Percent. 

Social Security and Medicare have been very beneficial to workers in that it has provided for retirement income and minimum medical care, but it has been much more beneficial for the One Percent ruling class. Until now. Because the latter didn't want to have their taxes used to pay social benefits to workers, the One Percent made working people save for their own retirement by prepaying taxes on their payroll earnings into a pretended "trust" fund. Until now all this money should have built up huge "trust funds", but instead of earning any interest, they were used like all other tax money to balance the budget; hence around half was to purchase weapons and to invade other countries. 

I'm not sure Hudson thoroughly understands this arrangement when he refers to funding of the programs as "pre-saving" or "pre-funding". In any case Hudson contrasts this government spending with all the other types of expenditures where pre-saving for future costs is never required for any segment of the population. 

There is no inherent need to single out any particular area of public spending as causing a budget deficit if it is not pre-funded. It is a travesty of progressive tax policy to only oblige workers whose wages are less than (at present) $105,000 to pay this FICA wage withholding, exempting higher earnings, capital gains, rental income and profits. The raison d’être for taxing the 99% for Social Security and Medicare is simply to avoid taxing wealth, by falling on low wage income at a much higher rate than that of the wealthy.

Because we are now entering a period where payouts are less than income from Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, the One Percent no longer benefits from these programs. Hence, they want to severely cut them back or do away with them.

Unfortunately, Hudson, like many academics should have understood this setup all along, but did nothing to expose this grand deception. Notice that in this article, he makes no reference to a deception regarding Social Security or Medicare, but only in reference to the "fiscal cliff". However, one must understand that agents of the One Percent are located at strategic places everywhere in society, and institutions of higher learning are one of the most important. People who are appointed to governing boards of our universities are usually drawn from the highest levels of the One Percent. And, academics who are too critical of ruling class policies or expose their deceptions find their careers very much threatened. The same applies to journalists who work in mainstream media corporations.

Pope Benedict Slams Capitalism, Economic Inequality--Calls for a new economic model, ethical regulations for markets

Click here to access article by Craig Brown from Common Dreams.

Initially I thought that this must be a joke, but apparently not! Imagine that! The Pope is a commie!

2013 [Infamous] Predictions

Click here to access article by the Swan's collective: 

The irreverent subset of the Swans collective that brings these Infamous Predictions™ to you features the usual clowns that perform at your local circus on a regular basis, whose cast this year is Michael Barker, Jan Baughman, Peter Byrne, Fabio De Propris, Manuel García, Jr., Jonah Raskin, Glenn Reed, Harvey Whitney, Jr., and, of course, your fearless Gallic editor [Gilles d'Aymery], who welcomes readers' flames, whines, and outrage while denying all responsibility for the reckless endeavor. Don't sue him. He is penniless. 

God (or Allah, etc) knows, we need humor! And, this group has supplied it abundantly in this piece in which they make outrageously funny predictions for the new year so that we can courageously face what lies ahead. (Incidentally, they are barely hanging on by a financial thread--they need help.)

Behind the humor lies a much more serious purpose. This writer's collective in actuality is a motley collection of guerrilla fighters holed up in the Santa Cruz mountains of California and preparing to launch a revolutionary armed struggle to liberate the US. (just kidding)

The Planetary Emergency

Click here to access article by John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark from Monthly Review. 

The two scholars provide many comprehensive arguments to support their thesis that a capitalist organized economy produces huge amounts of waste, and much of this is in the form of planet destroying pollution which now poses a threat to humanity. They make many references to other scholars throughout the past two hundred years who foresaw many of the dysfunctional aspects of capitalism. Alternatively, they make this claim:

There is no doubt that the social-technological potential already exists to address our most chronic environmental problems and to improve human existence—if we were to use present human capacities and natural resources in a rational and planned way. Yet, this existing potential is simply discarded: as all such rational solutions necessarily cross swords with the “antisocial [and anti-ecological] results of private ownership of the means of production.”

While comprehensive and scholarly, it seems to me that in our present state of crisis, much of this is like beating a dead horse. Still, many people need convincing. The internet is filled with people who, under the influence of "there is no alternative" view, continue to argue that the capitalist system just needs to be reformed or fixed. What is really needed at this late date is a number of people dedicated to the replacement of this destructive system by a life-affirming, equitable, rational, and sustainable system.