Impunity and Excess, Desperation and Violence: Two Worlds Collide in Spain

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

The class war where the neoliberal One Percent rich is pitted against the 99 Percent is raging across Spain.

And it’s this culture of impunity, entitlement, hubris and wretched excess that has taken grip among Spain’s business and political elite that ultimately threatens the long-term viability of Spain’s fragile (some might say, phantom) recovery. More worrisome still, as the world of this elite repeatedly collides with that of the growing ranks of the abandoned, disenfranchised, desperate and resentful masses, the tenuously woven fabric of Spain’s post-Franco civil society continues to unravel at a disqueiting pace.

Weekend Funnies for the Depressed Collapsitarian #8

Click here to access article by xraymike79 from Collapse of Industrial Civilization. 

The author provides us with a much needed antidote to all the violence, inequality, and exploitation in today's world.

Wow, it’s been 3 months since we’ve done one of these, and I think we need a laugh or a chuckle.

Defense Spending: Putting Toys Before Boys [and Girls]

Click here to access article by Franklin C. Spinney CounterPunch.

The author provides us with an update on the "MICC", the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, which secures the Empire for the benefit of our ruling class.

Being pro-defense in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles on the Potomac means, in the salty words of my late friend Col. David Hackworth, one of the U.S. Army’s most decorated combat soldiers, putting “the toys before boys.”

Hackworth meant the number one budget priority in the Pentagon and the Halls of Congress is to reward the domestic political faction that benefits from buying and operating high cost, high complexity weapons....

Obama defends police state spying

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

The chief public relations officer of the US, often referred to as the "President", addressed the nation to calm the fears of its citizens about being spied upon by agencies of his employer, the One Percent and their government. According to Obama... 

“The folks at the NSA are our neighbors, they’re our friends and family,” Obama said. “Our intelligence community follows the law and is staffed by patriots,” he added, declaring that NSA operatives “follow protocols designed to protect the privacy of ordinary people.” 

MIT study of Ghouta chemical attack challenges US intelligence

Click here to access article from RT. 

Summary statements from the MIT report on the chemical weapons incidents in Syria:

*The Syrian Improvised Chemical Munitions that Were Used in the August 21,
 Nerve Agent Attack in Damascus Have a Range of About 2 Kilometers

*The UN Independent Assessment of the Range of the Chemical Munition Is in
 Exact Agreement with Our Findings

*This Indicates That These Munitions Could Not Possibly Have Been Fired at
 East Ghouta from the “Heart”, or from the Eastern Edge, of the Syrian
 Government Controlled Area Shown in the Intelligence Map Published by the
 White House on August 30, 2013.

*This mistaken Intelligence Could Have Led to an Unjustified US Military
 Action Based on False Intelligence.

*A Proper Vetting of the Fact That the Munition Was of Such Short Range
 Would Have Led to a Completely Different Assessment of the Situation from
 the Gathered Data

*Whatever the Reasons for the Egregious Errors in the Intelligence, the Source
 of These Errors Needs to Be Explained.

*If the Source of These Errors Is Not Identified, the Procedures that Led to this
 Intelligence Failure Will Go Uncorrected, and the Chances of a Future Policy
 Disaster Will Grow With Certainty. 

The help: dare you work for the super-rich?

Click here to access article by Hannah Betts from the London Evening Standard. (satire) 

(Note: to help you read this piece, which is directed to the Brits who are familiar with this language , you may need to learn a few words which the British rich frequently use like "butling" and "hols".)

This is another contribution to my practice on Saturdays to run articles 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 don't lose touch with their world and their concerns--you know, to promote understanding. It is important that we become better acquainted so that we can serve them better and make it easier for them to carry out the daily burden of making important decisions, decisions which affect whether we go off to war in foreign lands to kill their enemies, if we have jobs, if we live in a home or under a bridge, if we can afford their health care services, education, etc.

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. We should not let that deter us. 

In this Saturday's featured piece we learn of a growing career that you might well want to consider given the fact that jobs are disappearing in Western countries. Those who own our economies logically seek greater profits by moving their enterprises to cheap labor areas of the world; and where possible, replace us with robots. But those of you in the 99 Percent should not despair--this is merely opening up other opportunities. You see, capitalism works.

From watching TV the rich apparently have rediscovered  the delights of having people serve their every personal need just like in the days of yore. This is good news for us. They now want to emulate the characters on their favorite TV program, Downton Abbey, by hiring people who will attend to their many personal needs in a suitably obsequious manner. Of course, this highly romanticized TV version of aristocratic life has very little to do with reality. Then domestic helpers were treated little better than slaves and sexual abuse was rampant, but the lords of the manor in these British TV programs featured on PBS are always extremely virtuous. It's clear that Downton Abbey serves the fantasies of the current ruling class who want to view themselves as virtuous as well as powerful.

This article is fairly realistic about serving the ruling class of today, and is probably helpful in evaluating such prospects by considering the rewards as well as the downsides to working for our masters.

Butling is a 24/7 career, akin to becoming a human Swiss Army knife with acute OCD. Silver service, exemplary etiquette and the right sort of demeanour are a given. One may also have to embrace cooking, gardening, driving, child supervision, styling, art preservation, gun maintenance and minor psychiatric care.

Other roles may be more obscure. One soul of discretion confides that he has to ensure that guest bedrooms are stocked with tampons and condoms, and take care of their disposal once used. Another that one of her roles was to: ‘Keep wife and mistresses apart at house parties — difficult when the latter appeared in the plural.

NATO’s Ukrainian target: The Black Sea Fleet - Rick Rozoff

Click here to access article and 15:10m audio recording posted originally on Voice of Russia.

This posting can be either listened to or read in transcript form. It is the third and final segment of an interview with Rozoff in which he makes predictions about the Empire's global moves in the years ahead--Ukraine is only one target. Rozoff is highly qualified as a specialist on all matters relating to NATO and widely respected. 

For those of you who, under the influence of US major media reporting during the Cold War years, might dismiss this because of its Russian media source, I argue that one can often learn much from sources outside of the US because they have greater latitude as to what they report and discuss without fear of sanctions from their own ruling class. 

I learned this lesson in my foreign travels and even my visits in Canada where I viewed TV programs on US political issues that would never make it onto US TV channels. And, using the same logic, I would take any reports from this Russian source on Russian domestic political and economic issues with a grain of salt. 

Unfortunately, we still live in an era of competing capitalist nations and ruling classes, and we are likely going to see the same vicious competition for access to raw materials, markets, and cheap labor as we witnessed in the terrifying years of the last century which featured world wars both hot and cold and many regional wars. So long as this system of capitalism exists and we allow it to exist, we will always be plagued by the violence of wars and the poverty of class exploitation.

Thailand: Wall Street to the Rescue

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from Alt Thai News Network. 

This author who resides in Thailand exposes the disinformation campaign by a leading Empire media source (Washington Post) which is now being emulated by other US media. This is another excellent illustration of the degree to which such media sources will go to misinform the public about issues that are important to our masters in the ruling class whenever their interests are at stake and whenever there are few independent journalists that can contradict them. 

Because Washington Post along with the New York Times function as gatekeepers of information acceptable to our ruling class, we are now seeing other media corporations reporting the same type of misinformation regarding the uprising in Thailand. But Cartalucci is informed and has been running a series of articles on the explosive situation in Thailand which offers a very different view on what's happening there than what we are getting from mainstream sources.

This type of propaganda program ranges from omission of information that mostly applies to news and analysis regarding events in many parts of Africa, and at the other end of the range, to outright lies in relation to events in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The Real War Heroes

Click here to access this very moving piece posted on World News Trust. It is the first chapter of a new book entitled Radical Peace:People Refusing War by one of my favorite writers, William T. Hathaway.

[The chapter] presents the experiences of peace activists who have moved beyond petitions and demonstrations into direct action: helping soldiers to desert, destroying military computer systems, trashing recruiting offices, burning war equipment, and sabotaging defense contractors.

NAFTA at 20: State of the North American Farmer

Click here to access article by Karen Hansen-Kuhn from Foreign Policy in Focus.

This article from a quintessential liberal source provides an excellent summary of the effects of NAFTA after 20 years of operation. While its description of the effects are excellent, the article lacks any in-depth political analysis. Notice how the author reinforces the illusions perpetuated by standard capitalist propaganda that official political institutions determine policies, which in reality are determined by ruling class directors in the major banking and Wall Street which sponsor actors in these political institutions and benefit from such policies:

...policymakers in Congress and the Obama administration continue to support the same failed policies. They advocate for more free trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. These are largely cut and pasted from NAFTA, but with a twist: they add dangerous new provisions that would limit any remaining restrictions on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), permit questionable food additives, and pave the way for even more questionable emerging technologies. A “new” U.S. Farm Bill currently being negotiated shifts the emphasis from commodity support to crop insurance, while locking in place advantages for even bigger farms and corporations. And it perpetuates the same willful ignorance of the devastating impacts of droughts and flooding caused by climate change.

Such a superficial treatment is not an accident or necessarily caused by ignorance. This media source is operated by people in universities whose funding relies on capitalist charitable foundations with a token representation from a major labor organization that long ago sold out to the capitalist ruling class. Their careers depend on how they frame and analyze issues in their articles to be consistent with capitalist ideology.

Here in the US the ruling capitalist class is very secure given their overwhelming control of all institutions. Thus, they allow some superficial dissent in the form of articles like this which are critical of ruling class policies so long as they do not challenge basic ruling class myths and secrets such as the ruling class control of our government, their involvement in the assassination of Kennedy, 9/11, the Boston bombing, their sponsorship of terrorist groups, etc. 

This, of course, could change over time if sufficient numbers of people became more consciously aware of the political realities of capitalist rule. However, they are prepared for that eventuality by establishing what is ofter referred to euphemistically as a "national security state" which includes militarized local police forces, restrictions on civil liberties, full spectrum surveillance now widely known from Snowden's revelations, and a vast prison system.

Of course, I and others can get away with such disclosures because we influence relatively few people. Were that to change, I have little doubt that we would be eliminated immediately. 

95% Income Growth Goes to the 1% [Part 1 of 2]

Click here if you wish to directly access the posting from Michael Hudson's website. 

In a segment (from 5:00m to 13:50m) on an RT TV program Prof. Hudson provides a most interesting explanation of the neoliberal business plan and its recent effects in Europe.

Geneva II – Washington’s Plan B for Regime Change in Syria

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.

The author provides some background on this proposed meeting beginning on the 22nd in Switzerland, and as an independent journalist gives a political analysis of the interests involved. The major players behind this meeting appear are US and Russia.

A successful agreement does not look encouraging for a number of reasons that he lists. On the other hand, Empire directors are realizing that the prospects on the ground do not look promising for their strategy to force Assad from power and establish a more acceptable regime in Syria, plus the fact that their Western and Saudi sponsored terrorist groups are fighting each other and spreading chaos in the region.

The Saudis appear to be the only member of the US-led axis that still retains a commitment to the covert military agenda for regime change. Washington and its other allies have sobered up to the realpolitik that regime change in Syria is not going to happen through the battlefield and wanton acts of terrorism.

That’s why Clinton’s successor, John Kerry, told the so-called Friends of Syria gathering in Paris last weekend that «there is no military solution, only a political one». The proper way to perceive Kerry’s reasoning is not one of moral exhortation, but more a jaundiced resignation to reality by the US.

Critiquing the Washington Post on Al Qaeda and the American Empire

Click here to access article by Michael McGehee from his blog Truth Addict. 

The author starts with a critique of a disinformation piece in a major Empire newspaper regarding Al Queda and continues on to cite evidence that traces the terrorism of this group back Saudi Arabia and its allies. He uncovers a lot of inconsistencies between the evidence and what the Washington Post article asserts as well as all the justifying propaganda for Empire policies and actions in the the Middle East and Eurasia. Such inconsistencies raise numerous disturbing questions about US policies and activities.

Economic Prosperity and Economic Democracy: The Worker Co-Op Solution

Click here to access article by Richard Wolff from Truthout.

Workers' self-directed enterprises (WSDEs) are a response to capitalism's failure to deliver economic prosperity and socialism's failure to deliver economic democracy.

This is the political project which Wolff supports in this article. First, he expresses what he believes is the resistance by ordinary US citizens to socialist alternatives, which, in my opinion, are due to a massive misunderstanding of traditional and misidentified "socialist" governments and parties. This, of course, is no accident. Ideological institutions in the West have always been flooded with intense propaganda to confuse and obscure any such understanding. (Even the Nazi party, the corporate sponsored party of fascism in Germany, was called "National Socialist German Workers' Party"!)

Following this, he then launches into what he believes are the virtues and possibilities of "workers' self-directed enterprises". Many people have favored worker cooperatives as a progressive movement, and people might easily mistakenly believe that he is arguing for the same thing. (Setting up worker cooperatives has been argued elsewhere as very problematic.) His different argument did not become clear to me until a careful reading of the final paragraph.

Transforming capitalist enterprises into WSDEs in this context would radically change workplaces, residential communities, and hence, the daily life of virtually everyone. It could realize the systemic change that traditional socialisms pointed toward but never achieved: a viable and attractive alternative preferable to capitalism. It offers leftists a means to overcome their frustrations and a focus around which to regroup, existing, as well as building, new left movements and organizations.

The key difference between his proposal and most who favor worker cooperatives is that he argues for transforming existing capitalist enterprises into worker controlled enterprises (and obviously publicly owned, but this wasn't explicitly stated) while others merely argue for setting up worker cooperatives within the capitalist system which are forced to compete with capitalist firms that exploit both workers and the environment. The difference between the two positions is startlingly dramatic!

From Madrid to Istanbul: Occupying Public Space [part 17 of 20: Reflections on the Gezi Uprising]

Click here to access article by Christopher Patz from Reflections on a Revolution. 

What I think is most valuable about this article is how the author puts a magnifying glass to the neoliberal operations in Turkey which clearly illustrates the way neoliberalism has operated throughout the world. He contrasts the social consequences of neoliberal operations with those of the squatters who reclaim empty buildings and spaces.

The ways that squatted and self-managed social centers function provide some stark contrasts to the economic growth trumpeted by neoliberal governing elites.

Superman, Clark Kent, and the Limits of the Gezi Uprising [Part 19 of 20: Reflections on the Gezi Uprising]

Click here to access article by Mehmet Döşemeci from Reflections on a Revolution. (Note: the term "çapulcus", which means "looters", refers to the government's slanderous word used to smear Turkish protesters who, in turn, adopted the term and transformed it into a proud identity.)

The author uses the popular theme Superman/Clark Kent that made an appearance in the Turkish protests of last summer as a metaphor to explain its strengths and weaknesses. 

What to make of these references to an American comic-book hero? Why did Turkish, especially middle class, protesters see themselves as Supermen? What does this self-fashioning reveal about the nature of the Turkish uprising?

What’s At Stake in Privatizing Education

Click here to access article by Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer from Workers Action. 

Although posted on a website that makes the pretentious statement that it is "A Revolutionary Socialist Organization", this is essentially a liberal take on the issue of the privatization of education going on now in the US. Omitted is any mention of how the issue of privatization of schooling has anything to with capitalism--it all has to do with "corporate culture" as if this were a thing separate from the rest of society.

The takeover by the ruling class, whose power is based on private ownership of the economy, of education is another indication of its hyped-up arrogance in imposing their rule over the 99 Percent. What is happening is nothing short of a revolution in education that is occurring: the transformation of anything resembling education into training for job skills needed by corporations, the driving engine of capitalist exploitation and power. 

The 99 Percent will now be forced to compete for this training in order to get an admission ticket to the privately owned economy and a reasonable standard of living. The rest will be added to the growing section of marginal people living off of low paid service jobs--if they are lucky, and if not, living under bridges. The remaining public schools must compete for funding, and teachers must compete for jobs; both must compete based on test scores designed to measure skill sets needed by corporations.

The Death of Irony, Or, University Of Penn's Secret Meetings On Secret Laws

Click here to access article by Dustin Slaughter from The Public Record. 

When the author, a journalist, was barred from attending this meeting, he asked for an explanation. This is what he got:

The main point of the discussions is for policy makers, academics, and others who are involved,” she begins, “to enter into dialogue with one another in a way that allows all of us to move up the learning curve, so that we become better-informed academics and policy makers become better-informed. [my emphais]

This article says a lot about the kind of society we live in, not explicitly, but implicitly. I think a more accurate translation of this statement is this:

People who have a stake in the ruling class are here to discuss this sensitive issue and need to do this away from the prying eyes of the public over which they govern.

Of course, the liberal writer cannot make such an observation in writing even if he/she consciously wanted to do so. You must realize, if you don't already, that one does not get access to major ("respectable") websites, or any other media, if one zeros in on what our masters in the ruling class need to hide: the class-based system widely advertised as "democracy" or "of the people, by the people, and for the people". Hence, the need for secrecy. The people in attendance at this meeting are part of, or crucially serve, the governing class, and what they discuss and do must remain secret--just like so many other matters of the ruling class. (And, of course, the fact that there is even a ruling class.)

One important point that was made explicitly was...

...how deeply entrenched this - and so many other non-state funded schools like Penn - are with the defense industry.

What is left unexpressed here by the liberal author is that the "defense" industry is a crucial part of the ruling class's power and profit, and that academia, as a subsystem, is also thoroughly under the control of this class as are all institutions.

New "Frackademia" Report Co-Written by "Converted Climate Skeptic" Richard Muller

Click here to access article by Steve Horn from DeSmogBlog.

As more scientific studies somehow manage to reach the public regarding the environmental hazards of the fracking technology, capitalist directors are busy promoting other studies ("frackademia") to confuse the public. However, experiencing the increase of extreme weather phenomena like the recent deep freeze helps people to tune out the messages blasted continuously from the megaphones of the fossil fuel industry's propaganda machinery. 

We’ll Have Nothing Left to Lose!!!

Click here to access article by xraymike79 from Collapse of Industrial Civilization.

I become more impressed with this website every week. It provides the perfect vehicle to blend art and social-political criticism to awaken the slumbering public to the disasters awaiting us if we continue with "business as usual". 

The oligarch’s of industry and banking shape public thought through an all-pervasive mass media monopoly, control legislation and regulation by pulling political purse-strings and commanding an army of lobbyists, sew death and mayhem with the global arms trade, sacrifice the next generation in resource wars, decimate ecosystems for short-term gain, manipulate and devalue currencies, create economic bubbles, and sell this entire vile process back to the masses as “progress” and “development” with measurements of inflated stock prices and skewed GDP figures.

Why Environmentalists Should Support Working Class Struggles

Click here to access article by Stephanie McMillan from her website. 

First, we must recognize the fact that global capitalism is driving ecocide. 

She is a cartoonist, and this is an example of her work:

Conan Shows Us That Main Stream Media Is Scripted

Click here if you wish to access the source of this posting from Ebaum's World.



Yes, it is frightening not only because much of scripted TV's content encourages us to shop, but it also encourages us to support all the other policies and actions of our ruling class.

Rule from the Shadows - The Psychology of Power - Part 1

Click here to access article from StormCloudsGathering.

You can access this elaborate article by either viewing the 37:24 video (Rule from the Shadows - The Psychology of Power) contained in the first section or by reading the material and viewing the videos following the video. The introductory video is just a more concise version of the rest of the post. 

The complete post contains a plethora of very useful historical information and links to documents that relate to the development of social-psychological manipulation techniques that not only inform the methods of public relations and advertising, but the policies and actions of our ruling class to manage the views and induce the support of ordinary citizens.

I have little idea about the ideological orientation of the person or people behind this website, and it doesn't offer any information. And the concluding statement, which I don't understand, is not helpful either.

Group psychology is a weapon and like all weapons it is capable of being used for good or for evil. For many years it has been in the wrong hands. It has been hidden from the public and used against them. It's time for the people to pick up that weapon and use it to free themselves.

Time to start studying. 

Saudi Arabia: A Retrograde Rentier Dictatorship and Global Terrorism

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

It is often said that one can judge a person by the friends they keep. Well, look at one of the US ruling class's closest friends in the Middle East. 

The ruling elite relies on the purchase of Western arms and US military bases for protection. The wealth of productive nations is syphoned to enrich the conspicuous consumption of the Saudi ruling family. The ruling elite finances the most fanatical, retrograde, misogynist version of Islam, “Wahhabi” a sect of Sunni Islam.

Al-Qaeda’s real origins exposed

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham for PressTV.

Although the author focuses mostly on the US collaboration with Saudi Arabian support of jihadi terrorists in recent years, he does make brief reference to their first application against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan which was mainly retaliation for their material support of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam and its struggle for independence from the US Empire.

The US has been working covertly with Saudi Arabia and British military intelligence for more than three decades to foster and fuel al-Qaeda extremists, beginning in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union from the late 1970s until 1990.

And, then there in considerable evidence of Saudi Arabian involvement in 9/11.

D19-20 ALLIANCE DAY OF ACTION: looking back as the smoke clears

Click here to access article from Corporate Europe Observatory.

The article reviews the protests in Brussels on December 19 and 20 against the meetings of the European Summit held at the same time. 

After the smoke clears and those involved look back, it's remarkable what has been achieved: not just the successful blockade, but groups who have never worked together before finding common ground, building new links, and showing those looking on – who were supportive but unable to join – that the D19-20 Alliance can deliver and is here to stay, which means more support and a stronger voice in the future. This is important to all European citizens, Brussels being the seat of European power, home to the European Parliament and Council, as well as the undemocratic, unelected Commission, which is one third of the Troika and responsible for imposing austerity-laced bailout packages on struggling European countries.  

Cracking Down on the Press: Turkish Media after Gezi [Part 12 of 20: Reflections on the Gezi Uprising]

Click here to access article by Beatrice White from Reflections on a Revolution. (Note: If you wish to see an outline of the entire series, click here.)

Control of information is the most powerful weapon of all that ruling classes use to control their citizens. This author reports on how this is being done in Turkey following the Gezi park protests of last year.

After the world’s attention moved on, the lack of international scrutiny gave the government the leeway it needed to mete out the sanctions and penalties it felt were warranted by the embarrassing show of civil disobedience and dissent.

The past few months have witnessed a backlash of remarkable scope, affecting all levels of society.

From this report we learn that the directors of the Turkish ruling class are frequently using a favorite method of their counterparts in the US, but applying it much more aggressively (only because the Turkish ruling class is much less secure than the US's): they are taking away jobs from journalists and others who express dissent in all forms of media including social media. Hence, underground alternative media that is financially supported by citizens must be established in this war of information and ideas in Turkey as well as in the US.

USDA set to eat the poison apple

Click here to access article by Will Bennington from Climate Connections. 

Genetically engineered apples may be the next novelty food item to hit markets, if Canadian company Okanagan Specialty Fruits wins the praises of the USDA.

And, as made clear in the article, there is little doubt about the outcome.

Fakethrough! GMOs and the Capitulation of Science Journalism

Click here to access article by Jonathan Latham from Independent Science News. 

"Fakethrough" as explained in the article is the fake reporting of a "breakthrough" which we have been seeing widely reported in mainstream media about some latest research in biotechnology. Clearly corporate dominance in journalism, as in all areas of our society, has corrupted the reporting of biotechnology news. 

The marketing of fakethroughs is an important component of a general manipulation of the science media. But interference with the media is in turn only a part of the barely understood but vast web of influence by which the biotech industry meticulously orchestrates the perception of itself (and its products).

What is new today, and which wasn’t the case thirty years ago, is that individual industrial sectors such as the life science industry are nowadays sufficiently profitable, monopolistic, and global that they can and do coordinate, to the mutual benefit of their larger members, the flow of information that spans three distinct but interconnected domains of thought: the public domain (TV, radio, print), the scientific domain (peer-reviewed publications), and the policy domain (government reports and bureaucratic discussions). 

See also this piece posted today entitled "Pharmaceutical firms accused of falsifying data in major Alzheimer’s study" which is on a related theme of corporate practices to deceive the public--although in this case it was not done via media journalists, but directly by corporations.

COINTELPRO is not dead—it's the FBI's second highest-ranked priority

Click here to access article from PrivacySOS (The site is produced by the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.)

This article shows how our masters in the ruling One Percent class have used the theme "national security" to also change (along with curtailments of civil liberties and promotion of all surveillance and militarized police agencies) the FBI into an agency to protect corporate controlled government from its citizens using the old COINTELPRO methods supposedly suspended back in the 1970s.

Bank of America employs 20 full-time social media spies, watches anarchists and occupy protesters

Click here to access article from PivacySOS. 

This piece, which has convincing supporting documentation, provides one more illustration (in our local area of Seattle) of the mostly covert nature of fascism that characterizes the US nation today. Fascism, if you didn't know already, is the convergence of powerful forces in modern societies: corporations, civilian government, and the government's enforcement agencies (police and military).

US NGO Uncovered in Ukraine Protests

Click here to access article by William Engdahl from Boiling Frogs. (This extraordinary website has recently made more articles free to non-members; but for all us who cherish the vital work they do, we simply must support their work by becoming subscribers or simply donating to their work.)

This outstanding geopolitical analyst has uncovered evidence of Empire meddling in recent political affairs of Ukraine which the Empire has been vigorously trying to lure away from Russia influence and bring into the European Union, and thus into the Empire. 

US imperialism and Iraq’s descent into civil war

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

The confrontation, presented by the corporate media as a struggle against Al Qaeda terrorists, has deep roots in the sectarian divisions that were instigated by the US war and occupation as part of a deliberate divide-and-rule strategy. They succeeded in pitting Iraq’s majority Shi’ite population against the minority Sunnis, while the Kurdish minority in the north has been allowed to pursue regional autonomy, while conflicts over borders and rights to oil wealth threaten to erupt into civil war there as well.

For more information of the Empire's use of the "divide-and-rule strategy" see this, this, and this.
For their application of terror to destabilize Iraq see this.

America’s Black-Ops Blackout: Unraveling the Secrets of the Military’s Secret Military

Click here to access article by Nick Turse from TomDispatch. (Note: if you wish to access the article directly, you might want to skip Engelhardt's introduction by scrolling down to the article.)

In this report you will learn about the wide-ranging activities of the Special Operation Command (SoCom). Two items are especially disturbing. They are engaged in propaganda activities abroad by setting up websites which, to me, suggests that they are likely doing the same here. The other is Turse's report on SoCom's efforts at embedding itself in a number of civilian institutions in our own society. Yes, folks, this report once again adds to the overwhelming evidence that the upgraded version of 21st century fascism is tightening its grip on the US while it tries to extend its influence over the entire world.

Today, Special Operations Command finds itself at a crossroads.  It is attempting to influence populations overseas, while at home trying to keep Americans in the dark about its activities; expanding its reach, impact, and influence, while working to remain deep in the shadows; conducting operations all over the globe, while professing only to be operating in “a number of locations”; claiming worldwide deployments have markedly dropped in the last year, when evidence suggests otherwise.

The Madoff Trustee Makes the Case; the Justice Department Collects the Money

Click here to access article by Pam Martens from Wall Street on Parade.

Thanks again to Martens whose reporting sheds much light on how the Wall Street/financial centers of the US Empire function. In this unusual Department of Justice case against JP Morgan, a global financial services firm whose executives are highly influential in all matters of the Empire, it was found that many large investors were duped by Madoff's pyramid scheme in collaboration with JP Morgan executives. People who facilitated this scheme ought to have gone to jail. Instead, JP Morgan pays a fine and the executives aren't even mentioned in the settlement. 

This case illustrates a lot about justice in the USA. Justice, like everything else in this capitalist country, is class based. It is only when other capitalists are threatened that the wheels of justice turn, but they turn carefully to avoid bringing any capitalists to justice.

Gezi Spirit: The Possibility of an Impossibility [Part 5 of 20: Reflections on the Gezi Uprising]

Click here to access article by David Selim Sayers from Reflections on a Revolution. (I can't seem to keep up with this series of articles on Turkish politics. See this introduction for the complete list of the series.)

The ferment in the Middle East as evidenced by the "Arab Spring" in general, the Egyptian uprising and counterrevolution by the military puppets of the Empire, the Saudi sponsorship of terrorist activity all across the Middle East and Eurasia, and the recent Iranian and US rapprochement, is far from over. It bear serious watching because it may develop into something which could radically change the geopolitics in the region and the world dramatically. This series of articles by very knowledgeable people focuses on the evolving political conditions in Turkey, a key player in the Middle East.

If this was the end of the Turkish Uprising, then what end did the Turkish Uprising actually serve? And why is it still an interesting phenomenon for us today? 

Saudi Arabia: The Ultimate Rogue State?

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

The Saudis’ increasing destabilization of the region is testament to just how desperate and isolated they’ve become. In many ways the country is still stuck in the middle ages, and the family that has reigned as an absolute monarchy for generations is determined that it will stay that way. However, there is a tide of change sweeping through the region and if history teaches us anything, it’s that governments that are unwilling to change will eventually be forgotten by time.

The author provides an excellent summary of evidence of this Medieval kingdom's role in supporting terrorist activities throughout the Middle East in an attempt to ward off threats to it antiquated rule.

I have been waiting for some kind of disciplinary response from the directors of the Empire to the recent insubordinate activities of this kingdom, and now I am wondering if their cozening up to Iran might just be their way of retaliating.

Why Climate Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility: Only 1 of 9,136 Recent Peer-Reviewed Authors Rejects Global Warming

Click here to access article by James Lawrence Powell from DeSmogBlog.

The scientific literature since 1991 contains a mountain of evidence confirming man-made global warming as true and no convincing evidence that it is false. Global warming denial is a house of cards.

Thailand: More Throw-Away Propaganda From NYT

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from his blog AltThaiNews.

The greater the possibility of a propaganda piece to be believed is enhanced when there are the fewest number of independent media people who can question or contradict such propaganda. Because remote or dangerous places such as Africa or, in this case, Thailand, which have few Western independent journalists who are well informed about events in such areas, mainstream major propaganda outlets such as the NY Times can likely get away with their lies, both of commission and omission. In this article Tony Cartalucci who lives in Bangkok, Thailand, exposes the lies in a NY Times editorial entitled "Democracy in Peril in Asia".

An unsigned "editorial" appearing in the New York Times titled, "Democracy in Peril in Asia," most likely written by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED), reiterates the disingenuous narrative peddled by the West regarding "democracy" in Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Thailand.

A winter of discontent

Click here to access article from Socialist Worker. (Note: the "fight for 15" refers to the fight for $15/hr minimum wage laws in local jurisdictions.)

...the brewing discontent with what people endure today--in an era of space-age technology, amid ever-greater extremes of wealth--is forcing more and more people to question the dogmas and prejudices that justify the status quo. Socialists need to find every opportunity to give our answers to these questions, in a way that builds the capacity of our side to resist.

The article provides a summary of promising worker achievements and struggles across the US with some of the best right here in the Seattle area.

The 40-year disconnect (USA)

Click here if you wish to access this reproduced article from its source, by David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review. 

As Steven Rattner explains,

    Wage increases haven’t been paltry because the efficiency of the American worker has flagged; indeed, productivity has continued to chug along. But those productivity gains have simply not been passed on to workers. Between 2000 and 2012, productivity rose by 22 percent while wages increased by 7.7 percent. The divergence was particularly great over the last three years of that period – productivity up 4.6 percent and real wages down 1.1 percent. For this failure of the American worker to be rewarded for his growing output, blame a variety of factors, perhaps most important, globalization, which has allowed companies to move production to whatever part of the planet offers the lowest cost labor. In that respect, American workers remain in a race to the bottom.

Actually, it’s American employers who remain in a race to the bottom—and, during 2013, they continued to win.

Gezi: Losing the Fear, Living the Dream [Part 1 of 20]

Click here to access article by Rüzgar Akhat from Reflections on a Revolution.

Had I not experienced it myself, I would hardly believe that the apolitical people of Turkey, cowed by a history of coups d’étât, peer pressure and civil authoritarianism backed up by a vicious security apparatus would fill the streets of the country and resist for months after. We were there to protest the authoritarian front that found its voice in Erdoğan, and the intolerable assertiveness of a corrupt government. But the demonstrations spread so swiftly that I, along with many others, was puzzled and unable to grasp how and to what end things were happening.

Now, looking back, I have even more questions than I started out with. Of one thing I am certain: the resistance sparked by Gezi was a proud stance against neoliberal insolence....

Gezi and the Spirit of Revolt

Click here to access article by the collective at Reflections on a Revolution. 

This piece introduces what the writers refer to as a symposium. It is a collection of views from an additional twenty different authors all of whom are attempting to make sense of the surprising events that happened in Istanbul, Turkey during the Gezi protests last summer. 

Gezi: the name of a little-known and even less appreciated park in the heart of Istanbul’s booming Beyoğlu district. Generally known as a place to be avoided at night, when the small area adjacent to Taksim Square is taken over by drunks and drug addicts, who find shelter and security in the darkness provided by the shadows of the large trees. But this was before, before anyone could have even guessed that this obscure oasis, this last green refuge amid the encroaching concrete jungle, this biotope of fresh air courageously pumping out oxygen in a place where smog, toxic fumes and pollution are the norm, would be the rallying cry for thousands upon thousands of angry citizens from all walks of life.

This first piece is an introduction and overview of the twenty articles that are to follow in the near future.

Pennsylvania, other states confirm water pollution from natural gas drilling

Click here to access article by Associated Press republished online in Climate Connections.

In at least four states that have nurtured the nation’s energy boom, hundreds of complaints have been made about well-water contamination from oil or gas drilling, and pollution was confirmed in a number of them, according to a review that casts doubt on industry suggestions that such problems rarely happen.

Australia’s hottest year was no freak event: humans caused it

Click here to access article by Sophie Lewis and David Karoly from The Conversation (Australia).

What caused these extreme temperatures? Climate scientists have a problem: because climate deals with averages and trends, we can’t attribute specific records to a particular cause.

But our research has made significant headway in identifying the causes of climate events, by calculating how much various factors increase the risk of extreme climate events occurring. And we have found sobering results.

Activists accuse World Bank of deadly dealings in Honduras

Click here to access article by Kate Woodsome from GlobalPost. 

I get reports almost daily from independent journalists and human rights workers about raping, murdering, and pillaging by police, military, and paramilitary forces in Honduras and Guatamala to support the interests of US and Canadian corporations. I rarely see news of this reported in US media, and when it is, it is framed very carefully using words like "alleged" and "activists accuse" as we see in this headline. Nevertheless, this report is much better at providing some factual content which exposes the neoliberal role of the World Bank in service to North American corporations at the expense of Honduran farmers.

Why do I hate America?

Click here to access article by Mickey Z. from World News Trust. 

Having been a life-long critic (during my adult years) of US political and economic policies and actions, I can really identify with this piece. The conformance to the views of authority figures by many ordinary Americans and the frequent intolerance of dissent that critics experience suggests that many Americans have adopted the prescriptions and views of ruling class authorities like a fundamentalist religion. The fact that there are so many people like this is another result of having grown up in American culture where obedience and deference to authority figures and the neglect of critical thinking are so pronounced.  

Of course, this is not an accident. Our ruling masters in the One Percent have learned over many decades how to get people to buy their views and values just like they get people to buy their shoddy products--even when it is against people's own interests--without having to resort to authoritarian threats and harsh methods that dictators use. 

Hence, our masters have employed all their institutions of indoctrination--schools, news media, even entertainment--in this effort; and, at the same time, found it useful to frighten people: the Russian's are coming, the "commies" are going to control your minds with their propaganda, it's them terrorists who's gonna get you, or it's criminals and drug addicts that are coming to steal what you have, and the sex perverts are going to attack your children. There are many of these people in your neighborhood, so you probably should not even trust your neighbors--but you can trust our authoritative pundits and personalities who tell you the truth between commercials on TV. Thou shalt not question what they tell you--or else you are un-American, and people will ask you, "why do you hate America?"

Glaxo: the new modern face of big pharma?

Click here to access article by Tom Jefferson from The Conversation.

The author tells us how recent scandals perpetrated by large pharmaceutical corporations have caused them to modify some of their more egregious strategies to enhance profits: bribing your family physician and recognized medical authorities to push their drugs. So, have they reformed themselves with their new policies? Or, are they merely covering their asses and figuring out new, more subtle ways to enhance their financial statements. The author invites you to be skeptical.

Some of the more politically aware readers of this article might very well see these Big Pharma practices very similar to the methods used by the ruling capitalist class in general. I am referring to the bribes used to influence members of Congress referred to in polite terms as "lobbying". 

However, directors of the ruling class use many other means to establish and influence KOLs (key opinion leaders) in all institutions of society. They start with the youngsters in school with their indoctrination in the virtues of capitalism, then they pave the way for promising and compliant people with numerous perks--scholarships, foundation money for their projects, lucrative job assignments and promotions, insider stock information, stock options, etc. Once their well trained subject assume roles of "key opinion leaders", the ruling class is rewarded by their services in spreading the gospel of neo-capitalism (aka neoliberalism) and neo-imperialism ("defending American values and way of life" and for "humanitarian" purposes).

Revolution on Ice

Click here to access article by Elliott Colla from Jadaliyya. 

Colla thoughtfully examines one Egyptian author's recently released novel in an attempt to unravel the mystery presented by many Egyptian intellectuals who have supported the Egyptian military establishment's recent ruthless crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood and their ongoing suppression of dissent and protest in Egypt. Referring to the novel, Colla writes:

...it allows us to begin to recognize the author's deep skepticism toward the revolutionaries' proposition that another world is possible. Al-Jalid [the name of the novel] elaborates a form of Left pessimism, a Marxist, anti-imperialist critique of injustice and oppression, but without the utopian promise of justice or emancipation. 

Finding the roots of addiction in the instability of ‘free markets’

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

Solutions to addiction based on correcting individual behavior are hopeless without analyzing the role of dislocation in capitalist society, argues Bruce K. Alexander in his paper The Roots of Addiction in a Free Market Society.

This blogger introduces this thesis published in a longer PDF document authored by Bruce Alexander who is a Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University located in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Alexander's paper presents a radical thesis regarding addiction which enlarges the concept to apply to other forms other than the conventional forms such as alcohol and drugs.

The English word “addiction” came to be narrowly applied to excessive drug use in the 20th century, but was generally applied to non-drug habits during many previous centuries. There is ample clinical evidence that severe addictions to non-drug habits are every bit as dangerous and resistant to treatment as drug addiction.

More importantly, his concept relegates the latter to symptoms instead of causes. He identifies the primary cause as "dislocation". By reading only this article, it was not clear to me what Alexander meant by this term. This article seems to suggest only a physical dislocation. But by reading sections of the longer PDF report by Alexander, it is clear to me that he means any significant dislocation or separation from a society's web of supports and social relationships.  Here are some excerpts that point to this meaning:

It [dislocation] can arise from a natural disaster that destroys a person’s home or from a debilitating accident that bars the person from full participation in society. It can be inflicted by violence, e.g., by driving masses of people from their territory, or by abusing an individual child who thereafter shrinks from all human contact. It can be inflicted without violence, e.g., as when a parent instills an unrealistic sense of superiority that makes a child insufferable to others. It can be voluntarily chosen, e.g., in the single-minded pursuit of wealth in a “gold rush,” or in jumping at a “window of opportunity.” Finally, dislocation can be universal if a society systematically curtails psychosocial integration in all its members. Universal dislocation is endemic in free market society.

.... Because western society is now based on free market principles that mass-produce dislocation, and because dislocation is the precursor of addiction, addiction to a wide variety of pursuits is not the pathological state of a few but, to a greater or lesser degree, the general condition in western society. Because western free market society provides the model for globalization, mass addiction is being globalized, along with the English language, the Internet, and Mickey Mouse.

The concept also suggests alienation which has been written about throughout history, but in the  era under capitalism, such names as Marx, Émile Durkheim, and Erich Fromm are some of the most prominent authors who have linked capitalism with alienation. Alexander builds on this edifice to link "dislocation" or alienation to behaviors characterized as addiction, and even more specifically to drug addiction. The fact that most other Western intellectuals have not, shows the widespread enforcement of capitalist values among capitalist ideologs in defense of their system.

There Is No "Power Vacuum" In The Middle East

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

This blogger exposes the latest piece from the Empire's main newspaper as just another piece of Empire propaganda.

Vacuum is the absence of matter.

But according to the New York Times the only "matter" that counts is the U.S. military.

1st newsletter of Troika Watch

Click here to access article from Troika Watch.

The current situation is characterized by a Troika that still pushes for even more austerity and by governments that are doing window-dressing by claiming to see a positive development for the times ahead, which will never become reality if the current policy is continued. Neither in the Troika nor in the national governments, talks are about what should really be on stage: a significant debt relief in many countries – not only for the public, but also the private sector -, a restoration of public services and significant investment for facing some of the great challenges of our time, such as climate change and energy shortage.

By publishing this newsletter with reports from the countries affected by the Troika, we hope to be part of a growing movement that one day will be able to change this. 

The Not-So-Tangled Web of Tear Gas Manufacturers

Click here to access article by Jay Cassano from Jadaliyya. 

The weapon of choice for most ruling classes to control and oppress their citizens is their use of tear and CS gas. Profit-making corporations will tend to produce whatever brings in their profits and will sell to anybody willing to buy these products. This piece provides some information on the profit-making corporations that supply these regimes. 

To supplement this piece, I recommend that you see the graph at this link (in place of the one in the article) regarding the connections between the corporations and their national regime customers, and this link from Wikipedia showing the five major corporate suppliers.

'Chance of a Century' International Investors Flock to

Click here to access article by Susanne Koelbl from Spiegel Online.

This author provides a current view of political and economic conditions in Iran while relying mostly on her contact with a German businessman who grew up there. Of course, such views have to keep in mind the values and outlook of not only this businessman, but those of a major capitalist media source from Germany. 

Could it be that the lack of capitalist opportunities since the removal of the Shah, the Empire's puppet, in their revolution of 1979 was really the root cause behind the Empire's hostility toward Iran, as well as the current rapprochement due to the current regime's change of policies?

In India, a Spectre is Haunting Us All

Click here to access article by John Pilger from CounterPunch.

India has become a model of the imperial cult of “neo-liberalism” – almost everything must be privatized, sold off. The worldwide assault on social democracy and the collusion of major parliamentary parties — begun in the US and Britain in the 1980s– has produced in India a dystopia of extremes and a spectre for us all.

Susan George on the secret capitalist cabal behind European austerity

Click here to access article by Claire Provost from The Guardian. 

Susan George is one of my favorite contemporary authors. As you can see, her previously published The Lugano Report is on my essential readings list. She is one of the cleverest authors on the left which she demonstrated in the latter book, and appears to be doing so in her latest book. Her literary medium is the most piercing satire of the rich ruling classes imaginable.

I'm not sure that this liberal writer for The Guardian quite got George's irony when she wrote this:

If George can seem obsessed with secret cabals hatching grand plans for world domination, she's quick to say she does not believe in conspiracies – only interests and well-thought-out strategies to further them.

Essentially George is attacking the neoliberal order which is creating islands of the very rich and powerful amidst oceans of poor everywhere in the world. 

Land Conflicts in Argentina: From Resistance to Systemic Transformation

Click here to access article by Zoe Brent  from Up Side Down World.

As conflicts over land have increased in Argentina, resistance efforts by peasant farmers and indigenous communities have taken many forms. From land occupation to a politics of participation and appealing to international human rights declarations, indigenous communities and peasants are using a combination of legal tools, international appeals and direct action to resist dispossession. .... In order to directly challenge dominant systems of production in Argentina, the MNCI [National Peasant and Indigenous Movement] embeds these legal strategies in a broader political project of promoting food sovereignty through collective action. 

Tailored for Sharks

Click here to access article by Mary Louise Malig from the Transnational Institute.

This is the introduction and content directory from the linked-to PDF document which succinctly reports on everything that ordinary people need to know about the World Trade Organization. The introduction lists the key questions that the report aims to answer. 

Although the PDF document indicates that it is 24 pages in length, in reality the script is much shorter due to charts, blank pages, references, and other formatting.

Major social transformation is closer than you may think

Click here to access article by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers from Reflections on a Revolution. (Please note that the Bill Moyer referred to in the article is the American activist and should not be confused with PBS's Bill Moyers.)

The social movement in 2014 is poised to begin an exciting era of broadening and deepening the growing consensus for social and economic justice. This articles focuses on where we stand — in other words, at what stage of the progression of social movements we find ourselves — and broadly outlines the next steps.

Saudi ‘Gift’ to Hide its Terror Hand

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Press TV.

There have been many horrific terrorist events in the past month in Iraq, Russia, and Lebanon, and in the past decade in the Middle East, Eurasia, and Russia. Evidence keeps accumulating to indicate that the Saudi Kingdom is behind them with the US Empire and Israel often complicit in these crimes. Remember also that there was significant involvement in 9/11 by Saudi citizens. 

See this, this, this, this, this, and this for more information about the evidence.

See this for the latest update on the "gift". This is another illustration of how Saudi oil money collaborates with Western weapons manufacturers to sow chaos in the Middle East.

An Open Letter to the Makers of The Wolf of Wall Street, and the Wolf Himself

Click here to access article by Christina McDowell from LA Weekly.

The author who has tons of inside knowledge about the events depicted in a recently released film, "The Wolf of Wall Street", blasts Hollywood for glorifying greed. Well, isn't that the purpose of all institutions in a social system organized by capitalism? After all, there is no alternative, so we might as well "suck it up"--even better, to glorify the capitalist lifestyle. (sarcasm)

Economic winners and losers in the US since 2007

To access the source of these graphs from postings by David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review Blog, click here and here. 

Economists love to make charts, but there are two I found today which really portrays what you probably suspected was happening in the US. Since they crashed the economy (2007-2008) with their housing bubble, distorting the economy with accelerated military spending, and gambling with their new, exotic financial instruments, our rich masters in the capitalist ruling class have gotten much richer and the rest of us much poorer. Warren Buffet was absolutely correct when he said even as early as 2006 that "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.” The question I have for my readers in the 99 Percent is how much longer are we going to passively submit to this war on our lives?

Although economists at this website are great at producing such charts, they are rather empty-headed when it comes to interpreting them. It is said that a picture can convey a thousand words, but these graphs suggest a far greater number of words. 

In my ramblings on the world wide web this morning, I found what I believe to be an adequate interpretation of these charts. This is a piece written by Christopher Ketcham written in the autumn of 2010 and published a year later in Orion magazine. It is entitled "The Reign of the One Percenters". I highly recommend it.

Showdown in Seattle: Boeing Workers Take a Stand & Take the Heat

Click here to access article by Carl Finamore from CounterPunch.

The current negotiations over a labor contract between Boeing and the International Association of Machinists union provides a good illustration of what even organized union workers are up against when facing corporate Goliaths. Machinists (Local IAM District 751) at the Seattle area Boeing plants are putting up a brave fight against the takeaways that Boeing demands, and they must also contend with their parent union officials.

...Boeing workers are up against mounting threats of job losses. They are feeling it every day from the media, from politicians, from government, from Boeing, and most disgracefully, they are experiencing gross interference from their own international officers under the pretext of giving members a right to vote.

The Jan. 3 vote will be watched closely. Don’t these workers deserve our full support if ever we are to escape the spiral of concession bargaining and “race to the bottom?”

However, not only does Boeing want to take away benefits from Boeing machinists, they also are demanding and getting from the state of Washington substantial benefits. Without these jobs the local economy and tax revenues to the state could be greatly impaired.

...Washington state passed legislation offering Boeing $8.7 billion in tax breaks over 16 years, the largest state corporate subsidy in U.S. history.

Also, to get more details on what Boeing workers are up against, read this piece by a machinist posted on Labor Notes.

Here 35-year Machinist Jim Levitt gives a shop-floor view of the dispute, with Boeing and IAM International leaders on one side and local officers and members on the other.

Typical Media Doublespeak - You Never Get to Retire

Click here to access article by Rowan Wolf from Uncommon Thought Journal. 

In typical corporate media fashion, my local paper places totally contradictory articles - not only in the same edition, but on the same page. The big headline reads "Portraits in Aging Gracefully." It is a human interest story about three local women in an upscale "retirement community."  The women interviewed in the article "talk about lives well lived and what lies ahead." Just to the left of the banner story is "Retirement fiscal cliff is looming worldwide".... 

Flirting with Sauron: The Risks of Trusting the Snowden Story

Click here to access article by Kevin Ryan from his blog Dig Within.

Ryan is another alert blogger who is troubled by the latest twists and turns of the NSA's documents related to the agency's surveillance of electronic communications of people throughout the world. The first person, that I know of, to question some of the inconsistencies in Snowden's release of a few of his stolen documents was Naomi Wolf, and more recently joined by the most fearless truth-seeker and whistleblower of all, Sibel Edmonds, at her Boiling Frogs website.

Given the ruling class's propensity and long history of contriving and manipulating information and events along with their other powerful weapons in their huge arsenal they use in their insatiable addiction to more wealth and power, we must always be on guard for such practices. Thus far I have not reached any conclusions about the Snowden story, but I think we all must have the courage demonstrated by real whistleblowers such as Edmonds to examine the evidence carefully as it is revealed. Ryan provides an update on some of the most troubling aspects and provides a summary of various people who have questioned and continue to question.

2014: One step ahead

Click here to access article by Michael Theødosiadis from Eagainst (Greece).

If you want to review significant events from 2013 with their implications for the year ahead, you can't do much better than this article.

Here is 2014, one step ahead, a year where the spirit of resistance has to continue everywhere, where the struggle against oppression, whether it is called neoliberalism or religious fundamentalism has to carry on.

US farmers caught in GM herbicide-resistance treadmill

Click here to access article re-posted by the Global Justice Ecology Project team in Climate Connections from Biosafety Information Centre. 

I normally post articles from their original online source, but in this case GJEP team's introduction to the article offered additional insights as to the significance of the scientific evidence reported in the article from Biosafety Information Centre.

This is the same line of thinking followed by the GE tree industry.  Creating herbicide resistant or pesticide producing trees will not decrease the amount of herbicides and pesticides used in industrial timber plantations.  Instead, it will create resistant weeds and pests, requiring new herbicides and pesticides.  This, of course, is actually good news for the biotech and chemical industries, since their profits will increase when growers have to buy new and more chemicals, or more high tech seeds and seedlings, to deal with the supposedly ‘unforeseen’ consequences of previous seed traits.  As they say, capitalism is a pyramid scheme.

-The GJEP Team

Warming climate may cut cloud cover, push temperatures even higher

Click here to access article by Tim Radford from Climate News Network.

Scientists have recently found another deadly feedback phenomenon driving global temperatures higher than previously thought.

“Climate skeptics like to criticise climate models for getting things wrong, and we are the first to admit they are not perfect, but what we are finding is that the mistakes are being made by those models that predict less warming, not those that predict more”, said Professor Sherwood.

Washington plays Russian roulette with missile defense

Click here to access article by William Engdahl from RT. 

This geopolitical analyst extraordinaire exposes the lies of nuclear defense to Western audiences inundated by the lies manufactured by corporate propaganda machinery. 

What remains unspoken, however, is the bigger lie that capitalist regimes can ever have relationships of peaceful coexistence with each other. This class of people whose ancestors invented the system of ownership over wealth producing enterprises are now addicts to the wealth and power with which their system provides exclusively for them. The addictive obsession to acquire more of wealth and power requires that you compete with others who have the same motivation or who present obstacles to your pursuit of both.

With the technical ability to destroy one's competitors--in this case entire nations--seemly without suffering retaliation is now a reality that lies under the control of the Empire's sociopathic leaders. Once again, we see the specter of a nuclear Armageddon haunting our very existence. 

The pseudo-legal arguments for a police state

Click here to access article by Tom Carter from World Socialist Web Site.

Responding to United States District Court judge Richard Leon’s decision earlier this month calling NSA surveillance “almost Orwellian,” Judge Pauley employs the argument that every dictatorship throughout history has made in one form or another: that “national security” and the threat of “terrorism” necessitate the abrogation of democratic rights.

Zapatismo and the Latin American cycle of struggles

Click here to access article by Raúl Zibechi from Reflections on a Revolution.

This militant journalist and writer from Uruguay provides us with a survey of grass-roots organizations in Latin America and points to some interesting commonalities among them.

Argentina Heat Wave Stirs Pot of Political Unrest in Buenos Aires

Click here to access article from Revolution News.

Are we seeing our future in the current heat crisis in Argentina?

The lights are out in Buenos Aires. Citizens of at least 11 districts in the capital city of Argentina have been without power for 2+ weeks. Water supplies run on electrical pumps so many are also without water. Early reports said at least 374,000 families have been affected by the blackouts according to Infomedia Argentina.

A scorching heatwave hit the country 2 weeks ago with temps over 100 F / 40 C. The increase in demand caused massive failure of the power grid and no one is sure when or how it can be fixed. Mauricio Macri, mayor of Buenos Aires has declared a state of emergency. 

Is the New York Fed Too Deeply Conflicted to Regulate Wall Street?

Click here to access article by Pam Martens from Wall Street on Parade.

Although naive liberals like this author fail to understand the class nature of our government, they perform a valuable role in our understanding of how government functions because of their knowledge gained from actually working in key institutions and/or their academic study of these institutions.  

New York bankers have historically have played key roles in our ruling class and its government. The roots are seen in the histories of key banking families: the Rockefellers, Morgans, and Warburgs who were related to the Rothchilds international banking family. (See also this and this.)

US judge rules NSA phone surveillance program is legal

Click here to access article from RT.

Recent court rulings related to lawsuits against the NSA for spying waged by citizens and citizen advocates. Only a few weeks ago a District Court judge ruled in favor of citizens in a lawsuit filed by a conservative legal activist, today we learn that another District Court judge ruled in favor of the NSA's right to spy on Americans in a lawsuit filed by the liberal American Civil Liberties Union. Who do you think will eventually win on this vital Constitutional issue? If you understand how the One Percent's government works to serve their needs, then you will easily arrive at the correct answer--the NSA and all other government/private contractor spying programs. 

The issue really goes back to the original meeting held behind closed doors by key figures of the emerging property class in the US following their successful War of Independence from Great Britain. They came up with a new set of rules known as the US Constitution to replace the rules known as the Articles of Confederation to consolidate their power in a much more centralized government. Then they needed to have this version passed by two thirds of the thirteen states.

Having been indoctrinated by the One Percent's schools, most people do not understand how the Amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights came about. The newly formed capitalist class needed to add "a spoonful of sugar" in order to get their property oriented constitution ratified by the states. Thus, the Bill of Rights was tacked on the original Constitution because of widespread opposition by ordinary people in the original 13 semi-autonomous states of the United States. The ruling class's promotion of this new Constitution was essentially a coup engineered behind closed doors by major property holders of the states while attending a convention that was only supposed to be modifying the Articles of Confederation.  

They knew perfectly well that under their new Constitution that they could control a powerful centralized government from any democratic inference from below, and therefore they need not worry about the Amendments. To illustrate how seriously these people, reverently referred to as our "Founding Fathers", took these Amendments, bear in mind that only nine years after the Constitution went into effect they passed the Sedition Act which made it a crime...

To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute, or to excite against either the hatred of the people of the United States, or to stir up sedition, or to excite unlawful combinations against the government, or to resist it....

Our ruling class has never hesitated to pass such legislation whenever it suited them as we've seen with the Espionage Act of 1917 and the imprisonment of citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII as the most egregious examples. So, you see that these Amendments which supposedly secured liberties for citizens was never taken seriously by this new ruling class. 

Now we are witnessing a very paranoid ruling class who insist on full spectrum surveillance over all citizen activities including journalists and their courts will, without doubt, find that these practices are permitted under the US Constitution.

Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit

Click here to access article from the staff at Der Spiegel (Germany).

It was thanks to the garage door opener episode that Texans learned just how far the NSA's work had encroached upon their daily lives.

Smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Click here to access article by xraymike79 from Collapse of Industrial Civilization. 

If you are able to look at humanity's future trajectory squarely in the face, then you must follow this blog which captures it with artistic flair. Although I'm still not satisfied with its emphasis on the correlation between this trajectory and "industrial civilization", the blog continues to introduce in one way or another the role of capitalism in determining the trajectory. 

The system of capitalism, which was constructed by a class of people whose rule is based on the exploitation of their fellow men and nature, is now confronting the natural limits of the biosphere. We humans have a choice. We either affirm life by overthrowing the system and the One Percent who profit from it, or we just continue "to go along to get along" and keep our eyes averted from the inevitable: a harrowing dystopia and extinction. 

A manifesto for independent media

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

The author from this revolutionary collective sees the crucial necessity for an independent media if there is to be any hope of escaping the rapidly developing dystopia of capitalism. Any victories we achieve can only come about by breaking the corporate media and conventional academic lenses that prevent us from seeing our way out of this dark cave of despair and doom.

...if we don’t find ways to connect our various national struggles by articulating a global critique of the capitalist world-system and a radical vision of a post-capitalist society, we will be forever doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

He insists that the tools and the material are available for us to construct an alternative to the mind numbing and distorting views of capitalist disinformation. It is time for the construction to begin. 

Only by collectively constructing our own autonomous nodes and networks of communication, only by generating our own participatory platforms to mediate other ways of seeing things, other ways of engaging with the world around us, can we liberate ourselves from the mental incarceration forced upon us by those in power.