The New Privateers: Civil Forfeiture, Police Piracy, and the Third-Worldization of America

Click here to access article by Jim Kavanagh from his blog The Polemicist.

When I first learned of this practice in the 1980s as a part of the "War on Drugs", I was absolutely astonished at how the ruling class could get away with this--it was so blatantly unconstitutional!

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. [my emphasis]

Yet, only a relative handful of people objected to this practice. Apparently the minds of most people were so anesthetized by the hysterical propaganda promoting the "War on Drugs" that they couldn't think straight. Also, as the blogger explains, the One Percent's media only publicized the seizure of major drug operators.  

All the while operatives of the One Percent were importing drugs into the US and making sure it was distributed in Black ghettos across the country (see this, this, this, and this). This was their response to the Black Power Movement, especially the Black Panther part of it.

Kerry Can Not Be Trusted

Click here to access article by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama. 

The author has been closely following events related to the Syrian deal negotiated between Kerry and Lavrov, Russia's Foreign Minister. It appears that the Empire's directorate will be doing everything they can to undermine the deal. A major part of this effort will be to convince the American people that an attack is necessary. It remains to be seen how they will accomplish this. 

If you are not already knowledgeable about how consent and dissent is managed by the ruling One Percent, watching government/media actions to justify an attack on Syria should be an excellent lesson for you.

Degradation of Superpower or Obama’s Vitamin Cocktails

Click here to access article by Nil Nikandrov from Strategic Culture Foundation.

The Obama’s administration is in a deadlock. The ruses it had successfully resorted to before start to fail now. The mobilizing speeches of President sound less and less convincing. Obama is exhausted by constant need to come up with lies in public; one can see it having a look at his appearance. He evidently lost weight, his eyes are not that lively anymore, and his smile lost its naturalness. I won’t be surprised to know he started to consume vitamin cocktails to support him.

I sometimes even feel sorry for Obama, but this is the price you pay for selling one's soul to the devil, or in this case, the ruling One Percent class.

Is climate change already dangerous? ( Part 3): Consequences from current greenhouse gas levels

Click here to access article by David Spratt from Climate Code Red.

Whereas only a few years ago mainstream media directors were smearing climate scientists and creating doubts about their research, nowadays after numerous extreme weather events they briefly make benign reference to "climate change" when reporting these events. Well, I guess that's progress. But they still do not report about current scientific research. One has to go to independent sources such as Climate Code Red.

The author surveys the latest research to answer the question posed by the title--"Is climate change already dangerous?" Here is only one example of what he reports to answer this vital question:

With current CO2 levels at 400 ppm, a useful comparison is the Pliocene (3–5 million years ago).  The research body is large and growing in this area...:

Rohling, Grant et al.  find that during the mid-Pliocene, when greenhouse gases were similar to today, sea levels were more than 20 metres higher than today “we estimate sea level for the Middle Pliocene epoch (3.0–3.5 Myr ago) – a period with near-modern CO2 levels – at 25±5 metres above present, which is validated by independent sea-level data”. Likewise Hansen, Sato et al. find that “during the middle-Pliocene… we find sea level fluctuations of 20-40 metres associated with global temperature variations between today’s temperature and +3°C”.

The Global Crisis of Legitimacy and Liberation

Click here to access article by Nozomi Hayase from CounterPunch.

The author attempts a lot in this essay and I leave it to you to see if she always succeeds. She reports that the legitimacy of our ruling institutions is dissipating among wide sections of our nation. The ruling class instruments of social control rooted in public relations, modern advertising, and representative government are no longer as effective as they once were for most Americans. She offers various theories to explain this crisis of legitimacy and how it developed. 

As her essay appears to be heading in the direction of us becoming "good Americans" like the "good Germans" under the Nazis, she argues for a much more positive development. However, I think it might be a bit too hopeful, but that is for you to decide.

Is Capitalism to Blame for the Syrian War Drive?

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

While acknowledging the merits of the essay entitled "The People Against the 800 Pound Gorilla” posted in CounterPunch a week ago, Cooke argues that the authors ignored all the other capitalist gorillas who are playing major parts in this tragic drama, and explains the role they play.

Of course, the Israeli lobby, AIPAC, deserves a special place in any analysis of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and the authors deserve credit for taking to task those who ignore this gorilla. But this primate expresses its power best as part of a coalition of pro-war powerhouses, not independently.

US Congress moves to cut billions in food aid

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

The class war heats up as US capitalism runs into trouble. However, I see the ruling class attack on poor people as entirely rational from their point of view--the capitalist system was designed to serve only one class.

The fact that programs that keep millions of people out of poverty are on the chopping block, while unlimited amounts of cash are made available to the handful of multibillionaire financial parasites, is an expression of the irrationality of the capitalist system, which sacrifices the needs of the vast majority of society for the direct enrichment of the financial elite.

Golden Dawn and the extremism of the center

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

The author sees through the ruse of a civil war between two extreme factions which ruling capitalist directors would like to use as a cover for a police-military crackdown on all dissent. The quote by Sinclair offers a useful political equation to suggest that capitalism will resort to murder whenever their other strategy doesn't work. Their other strategy is obviously liberalism. Thus, I think it logically follows that capitalism minus murder equals liberalism. In both equations I see capitalism as a constant, while the independent variable is the legitimacy of class rule among the larger population, with fascism and liberalism the dependent variables.

Framing the relationships this way suggests that liberalism is only another facade that hides the exploitative system of capitalism. In university philosophy and history classes liberalism is taken far too seriously as a thing in itself that somehow influenced the rise of capitalism. The agency is the other way around. Liberalism as expounded by Adam Smith, John Locke, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Paine, etc, whether they were consciously advancing property rights--the core concept of capitalism--or not, their ideas were strongly advanced by key capitalists as a major ideological weapon in the struggle against aristocratic rule. Liberalism was used as a cover to justify the elimination of all barriers to capitalist enterprises and the capitalist class's exclusive claims to the wealth derived from these enterprises. Hence, liberalism was, and continues to be, merely political propaganda and a tool to insure the rule of capitalists.

Is global warming in a hiatus?

Click here to access article by Andy Pitman from The Conversation (Australia).

This scientist offers several possible explanations for some slight cooling in global temperatures from 1998. As one can see from the graph, there are other periods of temporary cooling.

Richard D. Wolff on Economics in Media

Click here if you wish to access the source of these video interviews on Media Channel via YouTube. 

Danny Schechter interviews Wolff who explains some of the economic issues that mainstream media refuses to discuss, and explains why, and how media is a primary means of social control by the ruling class.

Newspapers Are Becoming the Toys of Billionaires

Click here to access article by Roberto Savio from Inter Press Service.

...concentration of the media in fewer and fewer hands is a global phenomenon. Some media observers see in this a turn to the right, propelled by those with money. It is not a plot; it is simply that 100 people who own a Ferrari tend to have a more similar view of things than, for example, 100 people who own a Volkswagen.

I think that Savio is being a bit disingenuous or naive here. Most directors in the ruling class know how indispensable media are to shaping the opinions of the 99 Percent, and consciously use it accordingly. The same applies to all the other institutions of indoctrination--schools, Hollywood films, etc. That is patently obvious to anyone awake and reasonably aware of the history of media to support wars, to discredit labor organizing and strikes, to fear Muslims, etc, and how the CIA has infiltrated media to plant fake stories and influence others (see this and this).

Newspapers, and now media in general, have been not merely "toys" for the rich, but instruments of social control for well over a century. Recall how the Hearst papers strongly influenced the start of US imperialism in the Spanish-American War? Read Upton Sinclair's Brass Check (1919) in which he cites hundreds of examples of how newspapers publishers manufactured news to serve their interests and protect their system of capitalism.

Neoliberalism Plays Key Role in Economically Forced Mexican Migration to US

Click here to access article from Truthout featuring an interview with author David Bacon.

Few Americans realize that migrant workers from Mexico and Central America are usually forced to move north in order to survive due to neoliberal policies enacted since the late 1990s. 

NAFTA allowed the dumping of corn, meat and other agricultural products in Mexico at low prices by huge corporations whose costs in the US are subsidized by the US farm bill.  They did this in order to take over the market....

In spite of political rhetoric coming from the mouths of corporate-sponsored right-wing sources, corporations and the ruling class in general love migrant workers. Because they are so vulnerable they will work cheaply, will not complain about hazardous working conditions, and will not try to organize unions. They are the ideal source of labor to create better bottom lines in corporate financial statements.

Help Kickstart World War III!

Click here if you wish to access the source of this video created and posted by The Second City Network. 

This is political parody at its best, and produced by a comedy theater group that has its roots in Chicago's Second City Theater. When I lived in Madison, Wisconsin during the Vietnam War years, I occasionally drove to Chicago to enjoy their wonderful satire directed against the US war machine.

Obama, even more so than Bush, Jr., deserves this kind of parody because he has been packaged and sold to liberal Americans as an alternative to the ruling class's other puppets who more obviously have served their interests.

US Covered-Up For Decades The Largest Use Of Biological And Chemical Weapons In History

Click here to access article by Jeffrey Kaye from The Public Record.

The actions of the U.S. government for decades on the matter of biological and chemical weapons demonstrate that it cannot be trusted on this matter. The government was intimately involved with cover-ups on the use of these weapons. Their cover-up is likely still ongoing.

Failure to Withdraw: The CIA, the Taliban, and the Strategy of Tension in Afghanistan

Click here to access free transcript of the Corbett Report by James Corbett from his website.

If you simply cannot afford a subscription from Boiling Frogs website in order to access the full 16:20m video report, you can read the transcript of the report at the above link. It provides some rather astonishing insights on developments there.

By any reasonable standard, the US-led NATO-powered invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, now entering its 13th year, has been an unmitigated failure.

The economic costs of the war are easy enough to calculate, although difficult for the average person to comprehend. Even the most conservative estimate of the cost of the Afghanistan war shows that the US government alone has spent $659 billion dollars in the past 13 years of its occupation of the country. The UK government has spent a further 37 billion pounds on the war.

....

Of course, NATO does not measure the outcome of its mission by reasonable standards. They have their own entirely different yardstick by which they gauge their operations, and by that standard, the Afghan war has been an unqualified success.

The Armageddon Looting Machine: The Looming Mass Destruction from Derivatives

Click here to access article by Ellen Brown from her website Web of Debt. 

Although I've found this financial critic very helpful at times in explaining financial issues, I've also found her critique of the capitalist system limited entirely to the banking sector. In other words, she believes that if our central bank were owned and operated by the government, there would be no significant problems in terms of social justice. 

My view is that control of banking by private parties is at the very heart of capitalism, and certainly at the very core of capitalist ruling classes. In other words, we can't remove private control from banking as long as we have the capitalist system.

With that said, I recommend this piece because she is honest and informed about financial issues. I am not well informed on the phenomenon of what she refers to as the "shadow banking system", but she has links in the article that are helpful to understand this system. It is based on the use of the new "financial instruments" or derivative gambling scams. From what she reports, it appears that nothing really has substantially changed with Wall Street or the major banks in spite of all the Congressional hearings and laws that have been passed. Both are major players in the completely unregulated "shadow banking system", and it appears that we are headed for yet another economic meltdown because of their activities while still trying to recover from the last one. Ain't life wonderful?

Attacking Net Neutrality Once Again

Click here to access article by Alfredo Lopez from Dissident Voice.

...the corporations’ argument against the FCC’s net neutrality ruling isn’t only about bandwidth use. They are claiming the right to ban or restrict content and are rejecting the idea that the government can impose criteria for what they ban and restrict. The bottom line is that huge corporations, if they get their way, would be able to ban your website from any visitor — the would have that power — and that’s the very power used in countries like China and Iran where Internet use is repressed.

Is climate change already dangerous ( Part 2): The Arctic

Click here to access article by David Spratt from Climate Code Red.

It is now clear that the Arctic is heading quickly for summer periods free of sea ice.  A linear extrapolation of sea-ice mass loss suggests it may occur within a decade or so.  An exponential fit, which is a better fit for the current data, suggests it might occur within a few years .

How Occupy reinvented the language of democracy

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

The author provides an excellent evaluation of the Occupy movement in the US:

...Occupy’s critique of representation and its reinvention of the democratic narrative virtually killed off the last remnants of party and state fetishism within the grassroots movements of the anti-capitalist left. Occupy’s horizontalism did not so much smash the vertical structures of the institutional left — reformist and revolutionary alike — but simply dissolved them through its emphasis on radical equality and open-ended inclusiveness, and its revolutionary vision of the directly democratic urban commune.

But, he also sees the necessity to build on this experience:

...what’s next? It’s self-evident that Occupy reinvigorated anti-capitalist struggles in the US and across the world. But how can we now create the autonomous spaces (both physical and social) within which to carry on our experiment in radical democracy and from which to re-launch our disruptive direct actions against the 1%?

"What's next?", of course, depends on you and I and all other social justice seeking activists across the county.
 
To answer this question, you and I and all the other activists must study information such as the author provides in this article. Please do not merely skim it. There is so much here. View the video link to study police strategy and tactics. Read the many links to other sources of valuable information that the author provides. For example, I was astonished to learn from one link a lot about the Domestic Security Alliance Council--an organization that I had never heard about before. It is an archetype and a perfect illustration of a fascist organization: a direct integration of corporations and government enforcement agencies to control domestic dissent.  

On Money

Click here to access article by Carol Brouillet from Community Currency.

This article, while offering considerable valuable information, is weak on analysis. Although I have not thoroughly studied it, what I have read from the article directly and indirectly through the sources it links to, I have concluded that its focus is on central banks as the focus of all evil apart from the system of capitalism. Thus, you will find that its material would be supported by old-fashioned conservatives and US libertarians because of its narrow focus. The author and her linked sources appear to have no problem with other small, privately owned banks issuing their own money in the form of bank notes as has occurred in much of US history, or as we continue to see today in the form of loans through the practice of fractional reserve banking.

Money is a very complicated subject and its history has been obviously and deliberately obscured by the ruling class whose core is made up of major bankers. Money when issued by private banks is usually the most lucrative capitalist operation of all. 

Bankers, or people acting as bankers, discovered this long ago. Central banks are major banks functioning as a consortium of banks that are granted a monopoly by a government to issue its money and is backed by the full enforcement powers of the government. Major bankers are able to achieve this feat and get away with it because they are the core part of any capitalist ruling class. They play a key role in what gets produced in any society, and of course, what gets produced is always the most profitable regardless of consequences to society. War is the most extreme example.

For more information to help you to understand money creation, I recommend this source which is 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. I also recommend a book entitled The Lost Science of Money by Stephen Zarlenga, but it is rather expensive. You could also check out my past articles using the label "money" in the "Categories" section for more information.

Frackademia: The People & Money Behind the EDF Methane Emissions Study

Click here to access article by Steve Horn from DeSmogBlog (based in Canada).

The information provided in this article on shale fracking illustrates how an important section of the ruling class, energy producers, use academia to promote, or more accurately, to cover for their environmentally destructive practices. This is only a more dramatic example of how the ruling class in general uses institutions of higher learning to promote their values, their history, and their system of capitalism that delivers to them so much wealth and, even more importantly, power.

Study sponsors listed in the 'Acknowledgments' section of the report include Anadarko Petroleum, BG Group, Chevron, Encana, Talisman and ExxonMobil subsidiary XTO Energy in addition to EDF. These are the obvious "frackademia" culprits raising red flags regarding the study's findings.

But that only scratches the surface.

The empire blinks

Click here to access article by Larry Chin from Intrepid Report. 

This political analyst also sees that the power-addicted Empire directors will continue their imperialist agenda in the Middle East despite any deal regarding chemical weapons.

...even as this murderous agenda rolls ahead with no end in sight, it fails. Central Asia and the Middle East have been sent into chaos, nation after nation gutted, but the empire is no closer to its goal of a petro-economic salvation or lasting geostrategic control. Desperate military violence and brute force do not change the fact that the days of easily recoverable oil and gas are over, and with it capitalism as usual. The world economy shows no sign of lasting recovery, and severe internal stress. The US government is bankrupt, financially as well as morally, while the disillusionment of the American populace grows.

Climate case overwhelming, say scientists

Click here to access article by Alex Kirby from Climate Code Red. 

Eleven days before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes its latest report, a group of eminent scientists says there is massive evidence of human responsibility.

Snowden Disclosures Finally Hit 12 on a Scale of 1 to 10

Click here to access article by Kevin Drum from Mother Jones.

I am only posting this piece as an illustration of a liberal take on the issue of government surveillance. While in the past I have been aware of how this and other liberal media sources function to limit critical examination of ruling class policies and actions, I still try to approach their articles with an open mind to glean valuable information that they sometimes provide. 

The first cue that the author was engaging in arguments to protect the ruling class was when he first used the term "bad guys"; and following that, how Snowden's revelations helped them.

...this is truly information that plenty of bad guys probably didn't know, and probably didn't have much of an inkling about. ....

Now every bad guy in the world knows for a fact that commercial crypto won't help them, and the ones with even modest smarts will switch to strong crypto techniques that remain unbreakable. It's still a pain in the ass, but it's not that big a pain in the ass.

Clearly, the author buys into ruling class propaganda about "evil doers" and what logically follows from that assumption--a domestic police state combined with an aggressive foreign policy. He functions like a ruling class operative by framing Snowden's revelations this way. I would not be surprised to learn that he is on the payroll of the CIA, FBI, or NSA while writing for a liberal publication that hides behind the image of the real, historical Mother Jones, an IWW activist, who risked her life to help miners in 1914 at the Rockefeller coal mine in Ludlow, Colorado, and many other workers in actions across the US.

Whether he is a liberal who identifies with the capitalist ruling class or a sociopathic journalist on the payroll of a government "security" service, the intent is to limit the damage that the revelations may have had on many people who were shocked by them and have started to question government policies. Judging by the comments following the article, many people were not deterred from questioning government surveillance.

False Flag Operation against Syria? Lessons from the Vietnam War and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Click here to access article by Timothy Alexander Guzman from his blog Silent Crow News.

The Obama administration wants war with Syria.  It has been planned for quite some time.  It does not matter what kind of deal was made.  It does not mean that the crisis in Syria is over and that a peaceful solution is in a matter of time.  The US will attempt anything to get into another war including a “False Flag” operation, which could be well on its way.

Also, I recommend this article by Tony Cartalucci from Land Destroyer entitled "Syria's "Rebels" Threaten UN - Will Use US Weapons".

Bumper Year for Corporate Donations Reveals Profit Motives

Click here to access article by Rick Cohen from CorpWatch.

...millions of U.S. workers...have been laid off from their jobs in the corporate world during the long and deep recession.... They can’t get their jobs back, because at the current rate of hiring, corporations and other sectors are hiring so slowly that it will take until 2020 before the U.S. economy reaches pre-recession unemployment conditions. Despite this, the companies have billions to give away?

Read the article to find out why.

To confront the climate emergency we need to dismantle the WTO and the free trade regime

Click here to access article from La Via Campesina.

Launched in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) completed the Bretton Woods trio with the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund in promoting neoliberalism and corporate globalization. The WTO was particularly special in its power to legally enforce and penalize countries, taking away the policy space of governments, and on several occasions, forcing them to change their national laws in order to implement global free trade rules.










The article provides examples of how international trade agreements usurp local control of the economy. It also shows what policies are needed to promote a healthy, ecologically sustainable economy. However, it fails to identify the system of capitalism which of necessity promotes harmful policies. In spite of this omission the article reaches a sound, although rather vague conclusion:

To really address the climate crisis, a world without the WTO and the FTAs, one that is not dominated by transnational corporations and the global free trade regimes, is necessary! We have to change the system, and we have to do this now.

Is climate change already dangerous? Part 1

Click here to access article by David Spratt from Climate Code Red.

This is a first installment in an unknown number of series that tries to determine if the human race is already "screwed" due to their extravagant use of fossil fuels and other assaults on the Earth's ecosystem.

In a compelling survey, this report answers the question many are afraid to ask: is climate change already dangerous?

This science survey measures the current manifestations and impacts of climate change against the "safe boundaries" metric; surveys the literature on tipping points and non-linear climate events; and provides a detail study of significant recent events in the Arctic.

Controlling the Flow: Thoughts on the Free Flow of Information Act

Click here to access article by Tricia Todd from The Huffington Post.

While many Mainstream Media outlets support the law, it does little to benefit the freelancers who frequently provide robust coverage of under-reported stories. Further, it specifically targets those who publish in what some members of Congress would deem questionable outlets, such as watchdog groups or independent blogs.

This discusses a key piece of legislation before Congress that could mark a major turning point in the control of information that we now have access to. This law might be an effort at constructing a noose to hang many independent journalists and others like myself who pass on their reports. 

This proposed legislation is another illustration of how constitutional guarantees can be rather easily subverted by the ruling class whenever they are seen as impediments to their rule. In this case we might see a direct assault on constitutional guarantees of press freedom. In most cases unconstitutional actions are engaged in through various means such as government secrecy, control of major media, persecution of leakers, even targeted assassinations of journalists (see this, this, and this), control of courts, and international agreements such as the so-called "free trade" agreements.

A Short History Of The War On Syria - 2006-2014

Click here to access article by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama.

This very astute political analyst provides an excellent summary of the events leading up to this current crisis and the agreement, but he is a lot more optimistic than I am about the recent agreement between Russia and the US over Syrian chemical weapons to provide any kind of stable peace in the region.

The people of the United States have, for the first time in decades, stopped a war that their president wanted to pursue. That is a huge victory and a precedence. They should remember it well when the next manufactured war on this or that small country comes up. They have the power to stop it.

While the argument that the Obama administration needed and got a face-saving way out of their "red-line" attack on Syria because of a lack of public support, I think that there is far too much momentum behind the effort to destabilize Syria, and far too much at stake for the Empire's ambitions in this key area of the world to simply cease and desist from their plans. The directors of the Empire likely see this as only a temporary setback, and who knows what nefarious actions they will come up with to continue with their Middle East agenda.

The catastrophic management of catastrophe

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

...there will eventually have to be a point where the irresistible force of market fundamentalism runs up against the unmovable object of popular resistance. The social collision course upon which the ruling elite has embarked is now playing out in front of our very eyes. A global class war is unfolding.

Well, I agree, but it seems likely to me that it will be too late to save an ecosystem capable of sustaining human life.

Syrian Complexities And The Geopolitical Context – Analysis

Click here to access article by Zaakir Ahmed Mayet from The Palestine Chronicle. 

The world seems to be spiraling out of control. As murder, death and wanton destruction becomes the order of the day; these realities are demonstrated in Syria. The mass slaughter occurring within the borders of Syria appeals to the humanitarian in most, except for those that seek to rain cruise missile democracy upon the Syrian populous.

The author carefully follows the evidence related to Syria's internal war and finds that the trail leads to Israel and Zionist regional ambitions.

Washington maneuvers in Syrian negotiations to lay groundwork for war

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

The author lays out the evidence which supports the view that Western and Zionist forces are intent on using the current Syrian peace negotiations in order to provide a pretext for an attack.

Referring to a French resolution regarding Syrian chemical weapons, the author writes:

The resolution is designed to create a series of triggers for military attack. Like similar conditions imposed on the government of Saddam Hussein before the US invasion of Iraq, it aims at forcing the Syrian government to prove the impossible, that it is not hiding a single chemical weapon within its territory, and creates the conditions for riding roughshod over the country’s sovereignty in order to better prepare a war for regime change.

No More War for Israel?: The People Against the 800 Pound Gorilla

Click here to access article by Jean Bricmont and Diana Johnstone from CounterPunch.

An American friend who knows Washington well recently told us that “everybody” there knows that, as far as the drive to war with Syria is concerned, it is Israel that directs U.S. policy. Why then, we replied, don’t opponents of war say it out loud, since, if the American public knew that, support for the war would collapse?

Chemical weapons arsenals and the hidden truths about the "Convention"

Click here to access article by Manlio Dinucci from VoltaireNet. 

The hammering by politicians and the corporate media about chemical weapons use in Syria, which, according to secret CIA "evidence" was used by government forces, has generated the widespread false impression that it is only Syria that now possesses such weapons and threatens the rest of the world with them. That’s the power of the weapon of mass distraction....

Labor Leaders, Obamacare, and the Fate of the Unions

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

A funny thing happened a couple of months ago: labor leaders finally awoke from their coma and realized that Obamacare was not only bad for unions, but for working families in general.

Once the biggest salespeople of the bill’s passage, union leaders are suddenly full of rage and “shock” at the realities of Obamacare.

China stitches up (SCO) Silk Rd

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

... we have to come back to the ultimate adage of the times; while the (Washington) dogs of war bark, the (Chinese) caravan does deals.

While the Empire threatens more chaos in the Middle East, Escobar reports on all the quiet developments in Eurasia focusing on the Chinese capitalists to create an infrastructure...

..."economic belt along the Silk Road" is a supremely ambitious, Chinese-fueled trans-Eurasian integration mega-project, from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea; a sort of mega free-trade zone. Xi's rationale seems to be unimpeachable; the belt is the home of "close to 3 billion people and represents the biggest market in the world with unparalleled potential".

And the Chinese and Russians are increasingly seeing the need to collaborate to counter the imperial designs of the West. While such plans are seemingly motivated to create a "multi-polar" world, you can be certain that the future will be see deadly inter-capitalist rivalries just as we witnessed in the horrors of the 20th century world wars. Capitalist competition never remains in a benign state. Chinese and Russian capitalists are no more moral than our own or what we saw from fascist Germany, Italy, and Japan in the 20th century. That is precisely why the US Empire is now doing everything it can to thwart the plans of these rivals.

As ordinary people across the world, if we continue to be used as pawns in the rivalries between various capitalist gangs, we can only expect more wars with greater devastation, and the inevitable clash with our planet's ecosystem that is capable of sustaining human life.

Defeating AIPAC Starts with Syria

Click here to access article by Philip Giraldi from AntiWar.

AIPAC operates with a budget exceeding $50 million and has several hundred full time staff. Let there be no mistake about what the organization is and what it stands for: it wants the United States to start what almost certainly would quickly escalate into a major war on behalf of another country as a prelude to yet another war against yet another Middle Eastern country.

Rania Masri and Chris Hedges On Obama's Syria Address

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of part 1 of this interview from Real News Network. 



Part 2 of 2 of this interview:

Repression and Violence in Honduras Do Not Just Happen--They Are Policy

Click here to access article by Dana Frank from Rights Action. (This post was forwarded to me from Rights Action, a humanitarian group working for social justice in Honduras and Guatemala.)

I receive postings like this constantly from sources in Central America. Honduras and Guatemala are disasters as societies, and have been made that way with the close supervision of US and Canadian authorities. Occasionally liberals in Congress make moralistic noises about the many human rights crimes and civil rights violations against indigenous and opposition groups by multi-national corporations operating there or by the Honduran and Guatemalan militaries, but nothing is ever done to hold them accountable. News of these violations are rarely reported in US media with an occasional exception as we see here in this guest article published by the Miami Herald.

The (farcical) emperor is naked

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

In this article Escobar shows real insight on the fake government that millions are led to believe governs the US while pointing at the real people who manage the puppets from behind the screen of corporate media. However, it appears that fooling people is getting harder and harder.

It's as if Dick Cheney had never left the building; paperboy Barack is Dick Cheney with a ''human'' face. The only good outcome in this multi-sorrowful tale is that the real ''international community'', all around the world, has seen the naked Emperor in all its (farcical) glory.

Kevin Ryan Exposes “Another 19″ 9/11 Suspects

Click here to access the 44:53m audio interview with Kevin Ryan by James Corbett.

Author Kevin Ryan's research has come up with another list of  9/11 suspects who had the means, motive, and opportunity to carry off the 9/11 operation.

9/11 researcher Kevin Ryan...joins us once again to discuss his new must-read book, “Another Nineteen: Investigating Legitimate 9/11 Suspects.” We discuss some of the individuals and corporations identified in his book and those who have helped to cover up investigations of them, as well as what works like this can accomplish and where the 9/11 truth movement should head from here.

Also, you might be interested in this 45:07m video which suggests that much of what we saw on TV during and following 9/11 might have been a Photoshop-type production.

Too Many Years Of Lies from Mossadeq to 9/11

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from his website.

The plutocracy through their corporate propaganda organs commemorates 9/11 today so that you will never forget that we are are constantly threatened and must pursue wars of self-defense and humanitarianism indefinitely. Besides, it's good for the stock market, and the stock market is good for America.

I hear some doubters out there who claim that the true story will inevitably come out about 9/11. Ha, ha. Well yes, but you will have to wait a bit.

If 60 years is the time that must pass before Washington’s crimes can be acknowledged, the US government will admit the truth about September 11, 2001 on September 11, 2061. 

Russia Throws Obama a Life Preserver on Syria

Click here to access article by Jim Lobe from Inter Press Service. 

With President Barack Obama facing increasingly certain defeat in his quest for Congressional authorisation to carry out military strikes against Syria, the Russian government Monday appeared to offer the White House a way out of the crisis.

Seizing on what seemed to be an offhand remark by Secretary of State John Kerry during a London press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pledged that Moscow would support any effort to put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control and eventually destroy them.

The "offhand remark"?

“Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week – turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting,” ... “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done.”

Why the US, UK, EU & Israel hate Syria

Click here to access article by Adrian Salbuchi from RT. 

A young, soft-spoken girl living the Syrian tragedy spells it out with far more common sense, truth and honesty than powerful Western governments and their money-controlled mass media puppets.









In this article the author expands on comments made by her in a YouTube video in which she cited “eight reasons why the NWO (New World Order) hates Syria.” 

Also, you might want to watch her and her friend debate so-called "Free Syrian Army" advocates on an Australian TV political program. 

By viewing her YouTube videos you will learn a lot about Syria that is never reported in corporate media.

Does your local government have a “black budget” too?

Click here to access article by Matthew Cagle from American Civil Liberties Union.

As we learn more about the US intelligence community's top secret, multi-billion dollar "Black budget" and how the NSA pays technology companies to comply with the Prism spying program, another mostly unnoticed pipeline moves billions of federal surveillance dollars from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to local governments for dragnet surveillance systems that include video camera networks, automated license plate readers, facial recognition, and even drones and tanks.

The art of building a new world: Freedom according to the Zapatistas

Click here to access article by Raúl Zibechi from Americas Program. 

It takes seven hours to traverse the 100 kilometers that separate San Cristóbal and the Morelia caracol. The caravan (containing thirty cars and trucks) left late and advanced at a tortoise pace. Around 2:00 am, we arrived at the caracol, and a maze of buildings that house the institutions of the autonomous region, made up of three municipalities, twelve regions, and dozens of communities governed by the Good Government Board. 

In August the author attended "La Escuelita", or Little School, arranged for people in other lands to come to Chiapas and learn about the new society that the Zapatistas are creating. This is a report on his visit and his observations about the new society.

One week of protests: what’s going on in Romania?

Click here to access article by Grecu Cristian-Dan from Reflections on a Revolution. 

In the last couple of years, people from Romania forgot that they had a voice, that they had power, that they could change something. Many accepted the current situation of poverty and corruption, and forgot that they could unite and fight together. But Chevron and RMGC (the Roşia Montană Gold Corporation, which is the Romanian arm of the Canadian mining corporation) with the complicity of the state obliged us to wake up!

Is The United States Going To Go To War With Syria Over A Natural Gas Pipeline?

Click here to access article by Michael Snyder from MND. 

The author presents considerable evidence that this is, indeed, the case. But, is this reason so surprising given the history of the US? Read General Butler's book entitled War is a Racket on how he saw his career:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

If you had read independent historical sources, you would know that both world wars in the 20th century were primarily over which capitalist empire ruled the world: Anglo-American or German. As we know, the Anglo-American capitalists won and they have continued fooling the American people about their wars with some of the more recent wars being the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the Vietnam War, the Kuwaiti incubators and the first Gulf War, the Racak massacre and the war in Kosovo, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the second Gulf War, and threats of a humanitarian nature to the people of Libya and the Libyan war). 

Now the Empire is threatening another war in the Middle East and pretending that it is for humanitarian reasons while it is actually over pipelines which are essential conduits for control of energy in their competition with Russian and Chinese capitalists. To sell the public on these wars, they must always justify them using humanitarian or security reasons. The latest form of this old ploy is now being used again to fool the American people.

Dogs of War Slaver over Syria, Powder keg for Disaster

Click here if you wish to access the source of this interview from RT via YouTube. 

At 4:25m into the interview Galloway refers to an attack on a Christian community called Maaloula in Syria by Al Qaeda affiliated rebels. One can find more information on this from Al Akhbar here.

Preparations for regional war

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from VoltaireNet.

Both the United States and France are busy with preparations for the bombing of Syria, although such action corresponds to no strategic objective for either state. Russia and the Axis of Resistance are therefore preparing their riposte. The major difficulty consists in transforming this aggression into a regional war while avoiding the Third, (and final?) World War. Whatever happens, if they engage in war, the Western world will have to deal with a long and wide-ranging conflict like nothing they’ve experienced since Vietnam.

An Interview with Naomi Klein on the Climate Crisis

Click here to access article from Earth Island Journal.

The author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine discusses her upcoming book on climate change. She sees some promising changes in the fight against climate chaos.

Right now it’s under the radar, but I’m following it quite closely.

Depravity Redefined: Selling US Slaughter in Syria

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

The corporate interests driving the United States, its resources, and policy, have invoked dead children in the latest and grisliest propaganda campaign yet, directed at the American public to build support for an otherwise unjustified and universally unwanted war with Syria.

The Senate's Syria Resolution Has a Huge Secret Giveaway to the President

Click here to access article by Garrett Epps from The Atlantic.

The Obama administration has claimed that Obama has the authority to attack Syria based on the 1973 War Powers Act even without Congressional approval. This is clearly false. However, this article specifically focuses on the evolution of this false interpretation of war making powers of the president from the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that congress passed after the 9/11 event. The latest attempt to strengthen the powers of the executive branch is revealed by Epps in the resolution just passed by the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. This is another lie compounding all the other lies in relation to Syria that a faction of the shadow government is using to justify the Obama administration's commitment to attack Syria. 

Though Congress plays at narrowing Obama's authority, the draft authorization could actually give him and future presidents sweeping new powers to intervene overseas.

For another take on this evolution toward dictatorship, read Mickey Z's article which compares the Empire's management of a crisis (for Empire directors the crisis was a democratically elected socialist government!) located in Chile in 1973 with that of present day Syria.

Inside view of militias fighting for the Syrian regime

Click here if you wish to access posting from CBS News. 

While viewing CBS news coverage last night, I was stunned into disbelief of what I was watching. I thought possibly I had misunderstood it because I wasn't initially fully concentrating on what was being presented. So, I checked the segment online, and sure enough, I had understood it. 

The 2:29m segment reports on a local Syrian militia who are residents supported by their communities to fight against the rebels. They receive Syrian government support with arms and other equipment and a salary which many decline to accept being totally committed to protecting their country. These Syrians are essentially portrayed as freedom fighters! View the video:



Then I saw reported on CNN some coverage about a dramatic picture on the front page of the NY Times of Syrian rebels executing captured Syrian soldiers. Such mainstream media coverage represents an abrupt about-face to the constant theme of anti-Syrian government propaganda in the past several months. 

Earlier in the afternoon I received an email from my local Congressman asking my views about Obama's proposed attack on Syria. Believe me, I am not any kind of friend of this congressman. He was polling all of his constituents on his email list. This is the first time that a congressman or senator in my 55 years of adulthood ever asked me for my opinion on anything.

I cite these three incidents as evidence of a deep split in our ruling class, a split more serious than I have ever discovered before in my examination of US history. I'm not sure what is happening here, but the split appears to be roughly composed of two ruling class factions as delineated by Webster Tarpley in this article last November. 

Roughly they divide into what is often referred to as "hard power" and "soft power" advocates. The former are heavily represented in the military-industrial complex, Zionists, and other rogue elements identified by Tarpley; while soft power advocates in their international policies prefer to use financial incentives and threats to promote Empire rule, and domestically to preserve the facade of "democratic" rule as they promote their capitalist agendas. But now in contrast with his position in 2007, we see Obama proclaiming that he has the right to attack Syria without Congressional approval.

But this divide among the ruling class over the issue of Syria is anything but clear. It appears to me that the Obama administration and the soft power advocates are trying to head off the influence of the hard power advocates with this proposed strike on Syria. Not wanting to be outflanked, the hard power advocates are playing "hard-to-get" possibly trying to discredit the soft power advocates. This duplicitous strategy might be a preparation for a conservative victory in the next elections, and after that, an all-out campaign to create a fascist regime that would promote more aggressive agendas of world domination abroad and a police state at home.

Obama’s Politics of War and US Public Opinion: The Great Divergence

Click here to access article by James Petras from his blog.

This retired sociology professor provides his views on the Obama administrations push for an attack on Syria. As the headline indicates, he explores the implications of the gulf between the government's position and that of the American people. He appears to be far more optimistic about the outcome than I am.

Profound and lasting divisions between rulers and ruled accompanied by unending and onerous hardships at a time when our people lack redress in petition and protest, sooner or later, will lead the American people to demand his impeachment. A trial via judicial procedures, condemnation according to judge and jury and incarceration for multiple and grave violations of the constitutional order will ensue.Executives, usurping the rights of the American people at the service of empire and their collaborators with traitorous intent ,will not pass with impunity.

The Making of the Indebted State

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

Identifying two types of money (commodity money and credit money) and two associated forms of power (purchasing power and structural power), it [the article] tries to show how the neoliberal move towards privately created credit money has endowed global finance with unprecedented structural power, rendering states increasingly dependent on private banks to maintain the process of capital accumulation. The paper concludes that the making of the indebted state under neoliberalism has brought about an unraveling of state sovereignty and political representation, and hence poses a major challenge to traditional democratic processes.

Although the moderate-in-length article is written for an academic publication, it is written in easily understood English. After reading it you will gain a much greater understanding of phrases like "state's structural dependence on finance capital" and the assertion that:

The tail of finance, then, is increasingly wagging the financial watchdog of the state – and the principal mechanism through which it does so is through debt....

Militarizing America's Police Forces

Click here to access article by Jim Hightower from Uncommon Thought Journal. 

The author points out what appears to be a comical move by small town police departments to acquire military grade weapons because...well, everyone else is doing it, and there might be domestic terrorists out there! 

I don't mean to downplay the author's seriousness about this issue--he, as a political critic, just uses a humorous style with a touch of sarcasm to get his points across. Sometimes one must mix deadly serious events with a "spoonful" of humor in order to help the awful tasting medicine go down. 

The serious aspect of this is that this is becoming a common practice among police departments all across the US. Meanwhile, our ruling class operatives and their corporate media propagandists are continuing to manufacture "terrorist" incidents and sowing distrust among our fellow Americans by any means necessary. 

Because their designs to turn every human endeavor and natural resource into a commodity and to promote wars abroad to satisfy their addiction to profit and power, their propaganda messages which always attempt to hide their nefarious designs are becoming more and more unconvincing to the general public. A current example are the outrageous lies coming from the executive branch of government and corporate media to justify the attack on Syria. Thus, they must protect their addictive habits through the use, or the threat of use, of instruments of overwhelming violence against their own subjects. 

Remember, we are in the age of globalized capitalism. Boundaries mean nothing to them except to control the movement of workers. Potential, and actual enemies are everywhere.

Ecuador: The Rights of Nature Threatened in Yasuní National Park

Click here to access article by Marc Becker from Upside Down World. 

Global capitalist's insatiable desire for energy and other resources to produce objects for first world consumers and thereby extract profits is destroying indigenous communities all over the world. While Ecuador's president has been hailed as a hero by liberal environmentalists, his version of "green capitalism" is a sham like all the others. This, and many other similar stories, demonstrate that once you buy into the logic of capitalism, you cannot have unconditional human rights or a sustainable environment.

Leftist opponents repeatedly charged that Correa had failed to make a fundamental break from a capitalist logic of resource extraction. Sociologist Jorge León Trujillo states that he never understood how the commodification of the environment, as would happen with the Yasuní initiative, could be considered a revolutionary proposal.

The economic proposals that Correa pursues are not unlike those that the conservative economist Hernando de Soto in neighboring Peru has long advocated. At best, for leftists Correa’s approach appeared to be one of green capitalism that was quickly discarded when it no longer provided the expected economic returns.

See similar examples of neoliberal attacks on indigenous people going on now in Africa and Indonesia here and here. 

US Planned Syrian Civilian Catastrophe Since 2007

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

This blogger has put together an excellent summary of events leading up to the proposed US attack on Syria that has stirred up the present international crisis. There are so many factors that have contributed to this crisis and one cannot expect anyone person to provide them. 

Others to consider are Escobar's "pipelineistan" thesis, Engdahl's view of the Saudi kingdom's independent role, and the ever cunning ploys by Israeli leaders and their US Zionist supporters to establish their own hegemony over the Middle East (see this, this, this, this, and this). 

The dilemma for Empire directors is the lack of public and international support, and actually a lot of strong opposition. Because of the recent revelations of US spying on foreign governments in addition to this naked commitment to an act of aggression, the reputation and credibility of Empire officials is at an all time low. By making such a strong commitment to the attack on Syria, it appears that Empire directors have painted themselves into a corner. Needless to say, the situation is extremely dangerous.

So, the situation begs some questions: have these directors lost their nerve and are hysterically trying to asset control in Syria? or because they command so much military/police police power, have they now succumbed to megalomania by depending solely on their instruments of violence regardless of world and public opinion? 

Making the World Safe for Banksters: Syria in the Cross-hairs

Click here to access article by Ellen Hodgson Brown from Dissident Voice. 

This author sees banking elites behind the Empire's plan to attack Syria.

America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy

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

Ledwith provides a review of a recently published book by William Blum, a former US State Department employee who resigned in 1967 over his opposition to the Vietnam War. Since then, unlike so many anti-Vietnam War activists, Blum has never ceased his opposition and his activism against the US Empire and its ruling capitalist class's insane drive to rule the world while pretending to be promoting "democracy" and "human rights".

His viewpoint is that such is that ideological iron grip the US ruling class has over its population that many of them might as well have been in a coma when it comes to political awareness. As he puts it, ‘the American government has pulled off what must surely rank as one of the most outstanding feats of propaganda and indoctrination in all of history’.

US: The indispensable (bombing) nation

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from OpEd News.

...the Empire of Chaos is now totally out of control.

Syrians In Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack

Click here to access article by Dale Gavlak and Yahya Ababneh from Mint Press News.

Rebels and local residents in Ghouta accuse Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan of providing chemical weapons to an al-Qaida linked rebel group. 

Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War

Click here if you wish to access the transcript for this 14:15m video report from Global Research TV.

Syria and “Conspiracy Theories”: It is a Conspiracy

Click here to access article by Felicity Arbuthnot from Global Research. 

This re-published piece from last year is now very timely given the imminent attack on Syria promised by the public relations officer of the Empire (Obama). Having posted the article last year, I again examined it and once again found it to be an excellent example of investigative reporting using primary and other excellent sources such as the 1997 document from the US Army War College. Although she sourced the document to Information Clearing House, I've found the primary source at the War College (Strategic Studies Institute). I also noticed that one piece of documentation, the second YouTube video (ref. #6), has since been removed from YouTube. 

Above all, this article illustrates once again the obvious, on-going conspiracies engaged in by ruling class operatives. Like shit, conspiracies happen! 

I was recently reminded of this phenomenon in the US where all allegations of government/ruling class conspiracies are labeled in mainstream media as merely "conspiracy theories", that is, smeared with contempt as a kind of folklore, not to be taken seriously, and automatically discredited. In a conversation with an acquaintance, he regarded some solid article I referred to as a "conspiracy theory". Such is the insidiously powerful influence of major media to shape the thinking of the American people.

The Promise of an Unhurried Society

Click here to access article by Mat Little from New Compass (Norway).

I have a problem with an argument presented in this piece. The author seems to be indulging in idle fantasies. No, I don't disagree with the possibility that work-free time could be put to very constructive uses. It's just that he totally ignores that our home is on fire (both literally and figuratively), and indulging in such fantasies while our home is burning down is approaching insanity. We should and must be gathering all our energies and imagination to figure out how we are going to fight this rampaging fire of capitalism and preserve our home. Once we put the fire out, then we can realize the true potential of human imagination and activity. Time is running out.

The Confidential Memo at the Heart of the Global Financial Crisis

Click here to access article by Greg Palast from Vice.

Palast summarizes the "end-game" as this:

The bankers' and Summers' game was to use the Financial Services Agreement, an abstruse and benign addendum to the international trade agreements policed by the World Trade Organization.

Until the bankers began their play, the WTO agreements dealt simply with trade in goods–that is, my cars for your bananas.  The new rules ginned-up by Summers and the banks would force all nations to accept trade in "bads" – toxic assets like financial derivatives.

Until the bankers' re-draft of the FSA, each nation controlled and chartered the banks within their own borders.  The new rules of the game would force every nation to open their markets to Citibank, JP Morgan and their derivatives "products."

As a followup to this article, British activist Pete Dolack puts these sensational revelations in their proper perspective in his article "‘End-game’ conspiracy or business as usual?" by emphasizing that what Geithner, Summers, and Rubin were doing was "business as usual" under capitalism.

I’ve no argument against the accusation that Secretaries Summers and Rubin have personally enriched themselves to the tune of many millions of dollars. The facts speak for themselves. I am not suggesting that there is no personal interest at stake here; but the larger issue is that these Wall Street consiglieres are acting for ideological reasons. The logic of an entire economic structure led to deregulation and the disastrous consequences that flowed from it. The steps that culminated in the 2008 collapse that we continue to live with go back decades, before the careers of any of today’s capitalist mandarins.

Vulture funds: US court ruling on Argentina enrages debt justice campaigners

Click here to access article by Bodo Ellmers from The Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt.

The long litigation odyssey between the government of Argentina and holdout creditors continues. Debt justice campaigners in Argentina and the USA are enraged about a new ruling by the New York appeals court in favour of the vulture funds

That these international banking institutions are controlled mostly by the US that used its clout following WWII to establish them is rarely mentioned in any articles related to them. These banks are key players in the US dominated capitalist Empire.

The USA is the IMF’s largest shareholder and is endowed with a de facto veto right over its decisions.

For more information of the use of vulture funds and sovereign debts that have been used by major banks to hold entire nations in debt to them, I recommend the following links: this, this, this, and this. Also, read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man in which author John Perkins provides all the nefarious details on how this banking scam works.

An Eye-Witness Account of the Real War in Syria

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Raging Bull-Shit.

When they took control of a neighbourhood, the rebels would expel the children from the schools, which they would then turn into makeshift bases. On one occasion we visited one of those bases and I got speaking to the commander. At first he didn’t want to grant us an interview but I told him that I was Columbian and that Columbia was a friend of Israel.

His concerns duly allayed, he gave us a tour of the place, showing us their weapons stash, which included sub-machine guns, as well as a group of Al Qaeda fighters in one of the rooms.

During our conversation, the commander never stopped asking for support from the U.S. and Europe.

Banks put a price on Earth's life support

Click here to access article by Paul Brown from The Daily Climate.

It seems that some banksters at the highest level of banking are getting a bit concerned about the deep contradictions between their exploitative system of capitalism and our ecosystem. They have been forced by an abundance of scientific evidence and the almost daily occurrence of extreme weather events to finally acknowledge the reality of global warming. So, what's a bankster to do but come up with another plan to pretend to solve the problem. I'm sure some of them are sincerely concerned, although not enough to become a socialist in any sense, while others cynically view this as another public relations gimmick that will keep people off their backs.

They have agreed that the present economic system uses and often destroys the environment without paying to do so. And that, they say, is not sustainable.

The banks are also concerned that some companies are using up natural resources so fast, with no thought for their own future, let alone that of the planet, that they will collapse.

The Full Story on Why Obama Backed Down on Syria

Click here to access article by Ibrahim al-Amin from Al Akhbar.

This editor of Al Akhbar appears to have inside knowledge of the negotiations involving all the important parties to the standoff in Syria. Because there is no supporting documentation, one has to depend on his credibility as demonstrated by past editorials, some of which I have cited on this website (see this and this). This record plus the internal logic and judgement displayed in this article lends a heightened credibility to his analysis of the present standoff in Syria which he portrays as a case of brinkmanship involving major powers.

Commentators in the West will surely declare that it was their democratic systems of government that forced US President Barack Obama to back down on attacking Syria. But the events that led up to Washington’s de-escalation suggest there were other factors at play.

This latest move by the US directorate to refer the matter to Congress could be either a face-saving way out if Congress were to deny support, or it could be a means of adding legitimacy to the attack on Syria. From what I have seen in the media thus far leads me to believe that the directorate is only intent on engineering greater support for the attack. Judging from past experience, it will not be difficult to gain Congressional authorization.

While reporting on the issue, both local and national mainstream TV continue to replay scenes of victims from a chemical attack and feature prominent US officials claiming that they have solid evidence that the Assad government was responsible. Just last night I saw local TV coverage of a street scene in Seattle which depicted a small number of people identified as Syrians or people of Syrian ancestry (see this) supporting the attack while numerous protests against the attack by much greater numbers of people all over the greater Seattle area have been mostly ignored.

Egyptian Addition to: “US Power Elite: At War Among Themselves?”

Click here to access article by Andreas Schlüter from Wipokuli. 

This is an updated addition to his primary essay entitled "US Power Elite: At War Among Themselves?” published in December 2012 and is also well worth reading. The author is a 65 year old German sociologist living in Berlin.

This piece offers a deep political analysis of the US power structure, or what I often refer to as "the directorate" or "shadow government" (in place of the staged version of "democracy" performed by the ruling class), which is nearly always missing from the views of other Western geopolitical analysts. These are the people who make the important decisions about policy matters; and as this analyst argues, they consist of two factions. 

Unfortunately, this article has some rather serious English flaws due to a poor translation in some places. I have offered below what I think he meant in the more seriously flawed places.

The fraction faction of the Neocons is more for direct action done by the US military, thus formerly dubbed the “Warriors”. ("fraction = faction throughout the article)

They are closest to Israel´s Power Elite and their dream of “having the whole cake” which means the perspective of the Palestinians “Transfer” over the Jordan. the transfer of Palestinians to Jordan.

The neocon ties into the US military and the ties of those to the Egyptian military gave the clue. This IMO should read "Neocon ties to the US military and the latter's ties to the Egyptian military offers the clue."

But that military coup could have been countered by the Obama administration if not the Saudis would also support had not supported the Egyptian Junta. And they do so! But they did! The Saudi regime is good friend of the Bush Clan (http://tinyurl.com/8t7rd), they consequently step in and compensate Western financial aid thus they stepped in and offered substantial aid (http://tinyurl.com/mlcl4ea).

 “Seven Countries in Fife Five Years”

After all, the enormous recourses resources of gas and oil in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea are the general reason for fierce the strong US influence in the region as well as Geo-Strategy geo-strategic interests, but there is also Israel´s desire to trigger an “all out war” in the region for the desired “Transfer” (of Palestinians).

Brutal Repression of National Strike in Colombia-Santos Declares Militarization of Bogotá

Click here to access article by James Jordan from Alliance for Global Justice. 

The national strike was called following attacks against peaceful protesters in the Catatumbo region, which set off a national movement. Demands include popular participation in the peace process, an end to Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) that threaten the livelihoods of family farmers and workers, and government fulfillment of unkept promises for infrastructure development and Peasant Reserve Zones in rural areas.

I haven't seen any coverage of this in US mainstream media.

CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

Click here to access article by Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid from Foreign Policy.

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America's military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

Thanks to this article I was reminded of Iraq's use of chemical weapons in their war with Iran in the 1980s with the full knowledge of US officials who supplied both sides with at least conventional weapons. It was a classic case of Western agents promoting war between two antagonists both of whom they wanted to destabilize--the old divide and conquer scenario. I remember reading reports of this from--of course!--alternative news sources. And, I remember reports of discovery of some chemical agents that were manufactured in West Germany which is confirmed in this statement in the CIA documents:

Chemcial agent precursors, munitions, equipment and expertise were purchased in Western Europe and Egypt. 

Thinking about Revolution

Click here to access article by John Spritzler and Dave Stratman from NewDemocracyWorld.

This timely PDF document is featured on this website to encourage us to think about a real alternative to the current capitalist mode of organization of societies so that we can live in harmony with nature, with others, and enjoy the fruits of our labor. It is clear that the time for radical change is no longer merely desirable, but absolutely necessary for our survival.

Real democracy will require a whole new organization of society. This paper proposes radical changes in how we think about ourselves and what we imagine human possibilities to be. It proposes a democratic structure based on confidence in the values and good sense of ordinary people.

Also, there are many other interesting articles to peruse on this website.

One thing that I don't understand in this age of full-spectrum surveillance is the "This I Believe" statement that they want you to sign, collect other signatures, and email it to them!

Obama's Carte Blanche War Resolution

Click here to access article by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama. 

Any war resolution Congress would pass would likely be interpreted by the administration as a license for all out war on Syria and beyond. 

USA: No.1 Threat to World Peace, Security and Freedom

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Press TV (Iran) via nsnbc.

The people of the world have had it with elite Western rulers acting as terrorists who are holding humanity to ransom. The rulers are presiding not only over military terrorism. They are inflicting economic, social and ecological terrorism with their bankrupt capitalist smash-and-grab system. That system has reached the point of meltdown and that is why we are being pushed into relentless wars – in order for the rulers and their politician puppets to corner the remaining resources. The ultimate solution to end the wars is for the people to overthrow the economic system that US and Western elite rulers preside over. The insane criminality of the US rulers over Syria is exposing this historic challenge facing humanity.

When Irish people do what their government won’t

Click here to access article by David Malone from his blog Golem XIV. 

Malone writes about a very interesting case of an Irish banker who tried to follow the rules to prevent a bank collapse and was told to shut up. Since then their government like ours has refused to hold Irish banks accountable for their destruction of the economy. This lone honest banker and other Irish individuals are fighting back.

It comes to something when ordinary people have to uphold the laws because their government refuse to. But that is where we are, not just in Ireland but in all of our nations.