The Tao of Toolbox (Violence/Non-Violence?)

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

The preoccupation with the subject of non-violence among activists in the US has succeeded in creating numerous divisions in activist circles, and Mickey Z. makes some excellent observations about this phenomenon. However, I would argue that these arguments over tactics are not merely due to vanity or the soothing of egos among activists.

When allies bicker over tactics, you can be certain vanity is ruling the day. ....

Please also understand that deriding others for not adhering to your finely tuned sense of purity (violent, non-violent, or whatever) is more about soothing your ego than about creating the changes we all seek.

The One Percent's domestic social controllers use a broad spectrum of methods to contain dissent, one of the more effective ones has been the insertion into activist circles the virtues and necessity of non-violence. Through their efforts the practice of non-violence has been raised to almost a religion, and the very meaning of non-violence has been broadened to mean attacks on property. It is so ironic that the most violent regime on earth and in history has succeeded in hamstringing US activist circles by causing them to engage in endless debates about non-violent tactics.

This has been accomplished to a considerable extent by constantly referring to constructed myths about historical figures such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King. I think if one really researches the facts about these epitomes of virtue you would find only King who approximated the myths spread by mainstream media. And, remember, the agents of the One Percent murdered him. This was essentially the judgement in the only trial permitted where a jury of ordinary Americans (Memphis, Tennessee) examined all the evidence in the many assassinations which occurred during this awful period. (Read An Act of State by William F. Pepper.) Of course, the One Percent made sure that the trial received minimal coverage in their media.

It’s Not Easy Being Young in This World: Help the “Lost Generation” Find its Way

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

My aim is to raise enough funds so that I can put aside a good deal of time from my various other time-consuming projects so that I can focus exclusively on the book and get the first edition done as soon as possible. But this requires actual funds, and I am far from having anything close to the amount necessary to dedicate meaningful time to this project. I hate asking for money, but I have come to terms with being an intellectual prostitute for the time being. However, I would rather prostitute my mind for the benefit of the wider public – and most especially the youth of the current “lost generation” to which I belong – as opposed to whoring my mind and efforts out to some various institution. At this point, however, I am essentially unemployable in almost every field, and so my options are rather limited. But I think that through my work, I can help others see that as a species, we do have other options, but that requires us to come to a common understanding, and to engage in common action. We cannot change the world, or steer humanity off the course of seemingly-inevitable extinction, alone. We need each other.

I agree. Everyone who is concerned about the growing use of violence and debt to bring all the people of the world under the domination of the One Percent must now choose essentially one of two courses: 1) join together with all the other activists of the world's 99 Percent in efforts to free ourselves from the evolving nightmare of existence and create a new world which will permit people to live in dignity and harmony with one another and nature; or 2) just keep going along with the existing systems of power out of habit, or because you think it is the easiest way to live, and watch the current problems of wars, unemployment, debt slavery, a growing police state, and climate catastrophes continue to worsen.

I'm not interested in those people who choose option 2, but I am for those who choose option 1. It is now time--hopefully, it isn't too late--to seriously act on what we need to do to affirm this option: because to choose this option means to commit to action! We, who identify ourselves as the 99 Percent, must now come together to save ourselves, to create conditions in which our labor serves our needs, to create institutions that we control and that enable us to decide what our labor is used for and the very conditions of our labor. 

A good place to start is to support people who, at great sacrifice to their material lives, have worked for us, and want to continue to work for us, instead of corporate executives, corporate boards of directors and their stockholders who are responsible for the growing nightmarish world. Andrew Gavin Marshall is one of the best such people. If we can't support him, then we have in effect chosen option 2.

There have been a lot of debates about the character of human nature. This next period of our history--hopefully, it will not be the last--will provide an excellent opportunity to test human nature to find out what it really consists of. I'm reminded of Tom Paine's words in one of his stirring pamphlets called "The Crisis" published in December 1776 in which he wrote:

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Only now we do not merely live in a country, but in the world. And, of course, we are now much more aware that it was never "our country", but a country that was mostly owned and, even more so, controlled by a small minority of landowners like Washington, Hamilton, and Adams. Now we see a world that is mostly owned and controlled by their descendants. the class of people known nowadays as the One Percent. 

We must not be deceived any longer. We, ordinary people, who call ourselves the 99 Percent, must decide that we no longer will tolerate the rule by a small minority because they have brought nothing but hellish scenes of terrorism, poverty, wars, unemployment, debt slavery, and environmental degradation upon the world. These are, indeed, "times that try men's souls" and I fear that "the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from "acting to save ourselves and our planet Earth which sustains our lives. We must decide that this dreadful rule of the One Percent is over, and that we are willing to do whatever it takes to end that rule. 

One such action is to support the research and writings of Andrew Gavin Marshall.

Ukraine: Wet Noodle Sanctions And Pressure For Constitutional Reform

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

As documented yesterday the "leaked" Russian non-paper which demanded constitutional reform in the Ukraine and more autonomy for its regions was at least partially accepted by Secretary of State Kerry....

Regardless of these worthless agreements, from now on the future of Ukraine will be controlled by events on the ground. This, of course, begs the question: who will control events on the ground? Unlike in Israel where such events are controlled by a Zionist government, events in Ukraine will be controlled to a large extent by the Ukrainian people as well as the Empire's puppet government, the IMF, etc and the Russian government. I think, and fervently hope, that the Ukrainian people will be the deciding factor in this contest between capitalist powers.

The Wall Street Etiquette Guide to Helping Oneself to Other People’s Money

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

Martens reveals a lot about Wall Street culture when she describes their ways of acquiring wealth:

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, there is a right way and a wrong way to help yourself to other people’s money on Wall Street. The right way propels you into the one percent replete with mansions and yachts, your name memorialized on buildings, a golden parachute, an office and car for life fronted by defrauded shareholders and regular invitations to appear on CNBC and lecture others on how to structure the financial system.

Then there’s the wrong way....

On Democracy and Orchestrated Overthrows in Venezuela and Ukraine

Click here to access article by Howard Friel from Common Dreams.

Friel notices that there are many parallels between the recent coup in Ukraine and the coup in Venezuela in 2002. Of course, basically the same pattern applies in many other regime change efforts by Empire directors, but the resemblance between these two fits the best. It's clear that regime change engineers have since upgraded their program (RegimeChange 5.5 to RC6.1) to include the use of snipers firing on both protestors and the police and other false flag operations that include the use of bombs to create a climate of intense fear to enhance their prospects of success. 

Having identified the main agency used in these regime change operations, Friel asks some critically important questions:

Finally, who in the United States oversees the NED? Not President Obama, who shows no intention of checking even the publicly known outrages of the NSA and CIA, let alone the mostly unknown ones of the NED. Not the Democrats or Republicans in Congress, who in 1983 created the NED “to promote democracy” abroad. Not the federal judiciary, needless to say. And not the press; surely not the New York Times, which, without Christopher Marquis, who died of AIDS in 2005, hasn’t employed anyone since who has shown an interest in shedding any light on the activities of the NED, certainly not in Venezuela and Ukraine today.

I find it difficult to understand why so many political analysts and observers resist the idea of a shadow government that rules our nation. They continue to be astonished by the lack of change between the Obama regime and the previous Bush Jr regime, but refuse to go any further. It's like a young child who believes in Santa Claus refusing to believe adults who tell him that this is just a myth. It's (past) time for progressives to grow up!

Ukraine, Austerity….Again?

Click here to access this 16:36m radio interview with economist Michael Hudson posted on his website.

Hudson's comments offer, along with some political analysis, economic predictions on what is likely to happen with Ukraine under its new NATO friendly government created by an Empire-promoted coup. There is much to recommend here; but his views do not go beyond certain limits that would be unacceptable to our ruling One Percent class. Were he to offer a more penetrating analysis, he would jeopardize his career as a college professor.

For example, he states the following toward the end of the interview:

...Americans aren't told what America has done is turn over the foreign policy basically to the neocons. It is as if Obama has adopted Dick Cheney's military policy...with an exclamation point. 

And, he continues with a rant about Obama. Obama, of course, is only an employee of the ruling class. He functions in the capacity of a public relations officer and takes orders from this ruling class who hired him. If he were to disobey them, he would be removed one way or another--assassinated if necessary. 

In general, Hudson's views represent a left-liberal analysis which, although on the fringes, is still permitted to college professors by the ruling class, but will never be allowed in mainstream media. There are some other comments which are equally troubling, favorable comments about The Fed, our central bank, and how the US taxes the rich, etc. But, I will leave you to screen out what is valid in his analysis and some of which is not.

Mainstream US Media Is Lost in Ukraine

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews. 

There are times when I think that mainstream media coverage of world events is becoming more uniform than ever before. This writer argues that and targets as the most recent example the monolithic corporate media coverage of events related to Ukraine. He complains that mainstream media coverage has taken on the role of propagandists for the government instead of providing more objective, nuanced reporting.

Objective U.S. journalists would insist on a truthful narrative that conveys these nuances to the American people, not simply behave as clumsy propagandists determined to glue “white hats” on the side favored by the State Department and “black hats” on everyone that the U.S. government disdains. But virtually the entire mainstream press corps has opted for the propaganda role....

In a typical liberal fashion he whines about the lack of objectivity and media's role of supporting Washington propaganda, but avoids any attempt to explain this phenomenon. He refuses to see this coverage as reflecting the concentration of power in a ruling class who control both government and the media along with all other important institutions in society. Such coverage is arguably worse than ever before, but I wouldn't want to pursue that argument because media has always served ruling class interests. This is especially true since media ownership became concentrated in major corporations beginning in the early 20th century. Read The Brass Check by Upton Sinclair and his scathing attacks on corporate journalism during this period, and read Even the Gods Can't Change History by George Seldes in which he as a journalist reviewed the numerous lies he saw printed in the nation's media over a half century in support of imperialist ambitions. 

A much more valuable contribution to this issue of media disinformation would be uncovering facts about how and why this happens. However, this would inevitably lead into massive exposures of myths about government, about the reality of a ruling class, about the power of a ruling class based on private ownership of the economy, and about how this system impels its controllers to seek profit and power which, in turn, lead to the crimes of wars, exploitation, poverty, environmental degradation, and a media coverage that lies about what our rulers are doing. 

Anyone wanting to pursue a career critiquing media coverage in depth would run up against this ruling class and would suffer many consequences. Some journalists like Gary Webb paid with their careers and ultimately their lives while trying to pursue the truth about our government's involvement in drug trafficking.

Banker Farce: Spanish Bank Chief Launches Moral Crusade Against Political Corruption

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

This is another article which demonstrates that our capitalist ruling classes are heavily involved in the illicit drug trade while preaching about morality, promoting a "War on Drugs", using the latter to justify militarizing local police forces, and locking up petty dealers in private prisons for many years. This article compares one Spanish bank executive's words with his bank's known involvement in drug trafficking.

“Why Shouldn’t I Work for the NSA?”?

Click here to access the source posting of this scene, a posting from Raging Bull-Shit.

Thanks to Raging Bull-Shit for this great 2:50m clip featuring a job interview with the NSA.

"Never Forget": for Rachel Corrie

Click here to access article by Gary Corseri from Uncommon Thought Journal. 

There are many wonderful, ordinary people in Washington state where I live, and Rachel Corrie was one of them. (I sometimes think that we should hold a referendum here to declare our independence from the US Empire.) We will never forget her and the heroic humanitarian actions she took to defend Palestinian homes from being destroyed by Zionist bulldozers of the Israeli ruling class. Corseri writes about her heroism and humanitarianism.

For more details on Corrie's life and death, see this article entitled "'There Are No Civilians In Wartime.' Rachel Corrie’s Family Confronts The Israeli Military In Court"

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

Click here to access article by William J. Broad from The New York Times.

I normally try to avoid posting articles behind registration sites, but I will make an exception occasionally for important articles behind sites that require only free registration as does this website.

The article is an important posting for my website because it points to another example of the growing influence of capitalists over every sector of US society. In this piece the author reports that there is a parallel trend of cuts to government funding of science research with an explosion of privately funded research. Billionaires, who are rewarded with tax deductions, are donating their tax money instead to their favorite research projects. (Of course, their sponsorship of Congress gives them influence over the tax laws.) Thus, the latter are having a much bigger influence than ever before on the types of science research that is being performed. 

...personal setting of priorities is precisely what troubles some in the science establishment. Many of the patrons, they say, are ignoring basic research — the kind that investigates the riddles of nature and has produced centuries of breakthroughs, even whole industries — for a jumble of popular, feel-good fields like environmental studies and space exploration.

Other negative consequences? Well, they are touched on throughout the article, but they are frequently balanced, if not overwhelmed, by positive testimonials and a lot of information about the enormous funding that billionaires devote to their pet projects. Yes, basic research will suffer because billionaires like to focus on such "practical things as drugs, jets and gadgets, rather than fundamental insights into the mysteries of nature." Also, with regard to diseases, they are more likely to donate to finding cures for diseases that affect white people. Barely mentioned is the fact that the interests of billionaires might influence the findings of research itself which we've seen with regard to climate change.

The Ukraine Crisis - What You're Not Being Told

Click here if you wish to access the complete article from StormCloudsGathering.

The poster from this website has put together a lot of key pieces of information that I've posted separately before regarding the Ukraine crisis in this one 10:36m video. It serves as a good summary of information that is not reported by, and conflicts dramatically with, the propaganda being served to us by Empire media. As such, it might be useful as something you could send to friends and relatives who tend to mindlessly believe what is fed to them by corporate media.



What bothers me about this website is the lack of information about the website and authors of posts. There is nothing but content posted.

Our Way of Life/Death

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

We hear so often from our masters in the One Percent references to "our way of life" and often using this slogan to justify all sorts of crimes against humanity and nature. Mickey Z. turns this usage on its head.  

Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from The Guardian.

I don't know the politics of the author, but I do know those of The Guardian which serves the capitalist system by offering a liberal slant that limits critiques of the system. Of course, I am referring to the system of capitalism which controls the economy and offers fabulous rewards only for a few winners much like one sees in the popular capitalist game of Monopoly. 

Notice while reading this piece which offers some very serious warnings from solid scientific sources about our future and its direct relationship with the extremely unequal distribution of wealth, the author is unable to name the system which makes such a distribution inevitable. It seems that because leading ruling class agents such as Obama are permitted to express concerns about this development, it appears that this obvious problem is now permissible to discuss in ruling class media. However, if you want access to their media, you must never tie this problem to the name of the system that is responsible. Ahmed, and the quotes he provides, can only use vague terms like "the system" or "business and usual", and the recommendations that follow use terms like "structural changes".

See another illustration of this liberal sort of critique in The Guardian in an article entitled "London, a city in thrall to money and greed" which can only point to a moral problem.

No fracking way: How the EU-US trade agreement risks expanding fracking

Click here to access article by Pietje Vervest, Timothé Feodoroff, et al from Transnational Institute. (Note: it is rare that I post articles without reading the entire contents, but I have so much respect for this research institute that I will make an exception for this post which contains a link to an eight page PDF document available in three languages.)

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) covers a huge range of issues and sectors, including food safety, genetically modified products, toxic chemicals, highly polluting fuels and data protection. The talks threaten to weaken or roll-back democratically agreed safeguards put in place to protect the environment and citizens – for the sake of corporate profits.

The talks are likely to favour safeguards for corporate investments over safeguards for citizens and the environment, allowing companies to seek compensation when government decisions affect their profits. This could benefit companies seeking to exploit natural resources through hazardous technologies whose activities may be affected by environmental or health regulations.

14 things we learned – and the Abbott government didn’t

Click here to access article by Giles Parkinson from RenewEconomy (Australia). (Note: the term "furphy" in the article is Australian slang for "rumor".)

Climate change is real, and it [is] man-made, Australia’s policies are a joke, renewable energy investment is leaving Australia, wind and solar do not add costs to the grid, they don’t need new back-up, and they have been reducing prices. And the world is changing while Australia stands still.

I doubt that there is any place on earth where people are experiencing worse extreme weather events as they are in Australia. I am reminded of this every year when I watch tennis players competing in temperatures over 100 degrees at the Australian Open in January. Tournament tennis officials were forced to put a roof on top of some of their stadiums to handle this, but I think they will soon need air conditioning if they want to continue to hold the Australian Open.

This piece reports on all the deceptions and games the Australian capitalist government plays to continue with business as usual. Also, as an antidote to this discouraging news, the author has placed at the end of the article a parody of their ruling establishment performed by two outstanding Australian comedians (Clarke and Dawe).

Kerry gives Russia until Monday to withdraw from Crimea, agree to the Victoria Nuland plan, and give up cabbage soup

Click here to access article by Joseph K. Winter from The Spoof (satire).

Ms. Nuland and Mr. Pyatt agreed that the right kind of minister for Ukraine to serve western interests was Mr. Arseniy "Rats" Yatsenyuk while vigorously rejecting the EU choice for the position.

Instead of my usual practice on Saturdays to post an article about our fellow citizens of the One Percent (actually .01 of the 1%, or one out of every 10,000 of us) to promote better understanding, I am posting this article which reports on one of them, John Kerry, who is directing our nation's policies with respect to Ukraine. It is important that we understand what he is doing on behalf of freedom and democracy so that we can wholeheartedly support him and, if necessary, stop what we are doing, enlist in the army, and go overseas to kill Russians who, it seems, are planning to do nasty things to Ukraine, or maybe just Crimea. Besides those Russians are probably commies, and we all know what they are like. 

Behind the Lies About Venezuela’s Protests

Click here to access article by Garry Leech from Rebellious Independent News & Film.

US Empire directors seem to be on a roll with regard to "regime change", a polite term these directors prefer to describe their efforts at overturning governments that they don't like to new ones that will serve their mission of world dominance. An important component of this effort is always to prepare the home audience with a barrage of propaganda in support of these projects. In recent history we've seen this pattern played out with our war against Iraq, our undeclared war with Iran, the overturning of the governments in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and now we see propaganda campaigns against the popular government in Venezuela. Leech fills us in on the details of this campaign and what is really happening in that country.

His description of the current happenings there are convincing to me based especially on my knowledge of Caracas gained from my two week trip to that country in late 2005. There are sections of Caracas that resemble rich neighborhoods of Western countries. I remember well a visit I made to a shopping mall located in one of these districts. I was amazed by the opulence of this mall which compared well with the most lavish that I had seen in North America. Not far from this mall were numerous people living in shacks stacked on the steep mountainsides surrounding the city. I was appalled and angry at the contrast, and slowly became aware of how rudely I was treating the sales clerks in a bookstore located there. I read some of the most malicious propaganda I'd ever seen against the government printed in their leading newspapers. Generally, I was left with the strong impression of two cities: a European colony intent upon asserting their dominance over the mixed race majority that surrounded them. It is on the streets of these European Venezuelans where these current demonstrations are occurring.

A Response to Robin Hahnel's Open Letter to the Movement

Click here to access article by Nicholas Davenport from New Politics.

It seems that many people like Hahnel in the climate justice movement continue to be fooled by proposals coming from capitalist agents that pretend to deal with the threat of climate catastrophe. Such people are apparently incapable of grasping the inescapable fact that capitalism and a sustainable planet are totally incompatible. Referring to the "cap and trade policies" offered by these agents, Davenport writes:

Their purpose is to provide the appearance of doing something while, in fact, fending off a challenge to capitalism by permitting a fossil-fuel-based economy to continue for as long as possible, and, to the extent that transition from fossil fuels does occur, placing as much of the cost as possible on the working class and the developing world. 

Ukraine: How to Hide a Nazi Army

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.

I don't think he directly explains "how to hide a Nazi army". However, he uses reports in European media to discredit US's massive propaganda about the virtues of their puppet government in Kiev and their tirade against Russian reactions. Cartalucci supplies us with a variety of such reports which describe the Empire's puppets and their supporters as consisting of substantial elements of neo-Nazis, racists, and homophobes. 

So, who among the US Empire directorate really cares as long as these elements serve their mission of world domination? And, who cares as long as the American people can be constantly fed outrageous lies that are mostly believed? A direct answer to the headline would be a massive propaganda campaign. However, it seems that they lack the same overwhelming control of European media as they have at their command in the US.

Let Me Tell You About Thailand's Rice Farmers

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from AltThaiNews. 

There is a lot of valuable information in this post, and thus it should not be read carelessly. First of all, Cartalucci brings us up-to-date on one of the fundamental causes of the deep political conflicts raging in Thailand. A second section is devoted to some very interesting ideas about self-sufficiency using high technology that empowers people. It's clear to me that such applications of technology are not possible within capitalist systems of exploitation. And, finally, some political recommendations about how to deal with the current crisis.

The problems faced by rice farmers have only been compounded, however astronomically, by the current regime's ill-conceived, failed vote-buying scheme. Farmers are facing increasing hardships that began long before this latest national disaster - and hope of rectifying any of them seems remote at best.

Another grave and growing concern is the increasing monopolies held by foreign big agricultural corporations who have set about miring Thailand's farmers in a web of debt and perpetual servitude toward chemicals and genetically modified organisms (GMO).

The cycle of chemicals and industrial scale monoculture (the dependence on only a single crop) leave farmers entirely dependent on both large agricultural corporations to grow their crops, and big-retail to sell them.

The 9/11 Attacks, “Keeping the Lid on the Lie”: Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9/11 Truth Movement

Click here to access article by Elizabeth Woodworth from Global Research.

As peer-reviewed scientific evidence accumulates, mainstream media is having a harder and harder time ignoring the discrepancies between the evidence and the official story of 9/11.

...it is important to consider that the survival of truth in a democracy [any society] rests on the outcome of an information war that is based largely on psychological operations and propaganda.

With regard to the truth about 911, the history of corporate media reporting is reminiscent of Gandhi’s famous statement:  ”First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” 

The author goes on to explain how this theme is reflected in media coverage of the 9/11 research.

Also, you might be interested in this 12:59m video from RT via YouTube. The term "Strategy of tension" is used in the video and, I think, it might be very useful in understanding a lot of mysterious events that have occurred in the world and are still occurring.

The State, the Deep State, and the Wall Street Overworld

Click here to access article by Peter Dale Scott from The Asia-Pacific Journal.

This former Canadian diplomat and retired professor from UC Berkeley has scored another hit by uncovering so much documented evidence that supports the insight that official government in the US along with political parties and well managed elections are facades to dupe people into believing all the lies and pretensions about democratic rule, the rule of law, and the very legitimacy of the existing US political institutions. 

Any class-structured society is immediately upon its founding embarked on a course where that society is bifurcated into the powerful and the powerless, and in capitalist societies, also into the super-rich and the poor. Hence, the seeds for this monstrous societal plant were sown at the very beginning in 1781 by establishing concepts and institutions to promote the private ownership of the economy--something that is inherently social. This arrangement immediately divided society into essentially two populations--a few landowning-slave owning rich like Washington and Hamilton and many who were indentured workers, slaves, and poor farmers. The dynamics of capitalism which by its nature promotes the concentration of private wealth has inevitably created the world we have today. 

Scott's history of this shadow government mostly goes back to the post-WWII period when the many of the world's nations lay in ruin and, thus so vulnerable. The American people were not sufficiently predisposed to empire building so that our masters in the ruling class had to construct an alternative, secret government in order to construct their US based capitalist Empire which would, in turn, make them overwhelmingly powerful and rich.  The Dulles brothers starred in this effort.

The only criticism I have of this report is that it is unnecessarily long. You can easily skip the first part and start with the second section entitled "The Deep State, The Shadow Government and the Wall Street Overworld". It seems to me that the term "The deep state" is really only a more polite term for "shadow government" which is much more disturbing.

In this essay I shall use “deep state” in the larger sense, to include both the second level of secret government inside Washington and those outsiders powerful enough, in either the underworld or overworld, to give it direction. In short I shall equate the term “deep state” with what in 1993 I termed a “deep political system:” “ one which habitually resorts to decision-making and enforcement procedures outside as well as inside those publicly sanctioned by law and society.”

Senate Intelligence head [Diane Feinstein] accuses CIA of undermining US “constitutional framework”

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

I think that there is more to this conflict between the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA than merely a show of hypocrisy by Feinstein as many in liberal and left media are seeing it. (Diane Feinstein last summer remarked that "what he [Snowden] did was an act of treason"). As a Senate liberal, Feinstein has supported nearly all Empire aggressions. The fact that she has gone public with this conflict with the CIA indicates to me that even liberals are becoming concerned with the level of the arrogance displayed by members of the shadow government. Notice also that the CIA director went before one of the most powerful behind-the-scenes ruling class organizations to issue what many regard as a thinly veiled threat:

"I would just encourage members of the Senate to take their time to make sure that they don’t overstate what they claim and what they probably believe to be the truth. These are some complicated matters.”

I have no doubt that the conflict will be quietly handled in favor of an aggressive shadow government and its secret agencies, and aided by their media executives who will make sure that their talking heads on TV handle the issue appropriately so that the public goes back to sleep. I see this incident as one more indication that our ruling class is intent on moving further toward fascist rule.

Crimea: Democracy Is Not Democracy…Unless Obama Says It Is…

Click here to access article by Eric Draitser from New Eastern Outlook.

As Crimea prepares to vote on Saturday March 16th in a crucial referendum on its future, the rhetoric coming from the West and its propaganda machine has hit a new and ridiculous low. Not only has US President Barack Obama and his administration done everything to undermine democracy in Ukraine, they have now resorted to the most naked forms of hypocrisy in an attempt to delegitimize the democratic process. 

Edward Snowden, Tattletale

Click here to access article by Arthur Silber from Once Upon a Time... 

After examining the unfolding story of Edward Snowden's revelations about extensive NSA surveillance of the communications of citizens, Silber argues that Snowden should be described as a "tattletale" rather than a "whistleblower". His exposition of this distinction makes some very important points about the significance of the leaks. As we know, less than 1% of the leaked documents have been released to the media and many of those are highly redacted. 

Be sure to appreciate the meaning of the...phrase: a tattletale is someone who reports "something bad or wrong" to an authority. And that is precisely what Snowden has done. He has entrusted the documents to "responsible journalists," who have adopted the rationales and methods of the States themselves. Moreover, these "responsible journalists" work together with "government stakeholders" to determine which documents may be "safely disclosed" on the basis of factors that are explained in only the vaguest and most vacuous of terms. We haven't escaped the oppression and abuses of authority: we have only added to the authorities who decide what we will be allowed to know. 

In other words, Snowden "told" on the NSA to the state who, of course, have little concern other than protecting those secrets from the public which all parties are effectively doing. This framing of the events, once again illustrates how the state does not serve the people: it is not, as it pretends to be, "of the people, by the people, and for the people". Well, then, for all the naïve or slumbering citizens out there, this begs the question: who does it serve?

Ukraine: The Sovereignty Argument, and the Real Problem of Fascism

Click here to access article by Gary Leupp from CounterPunch. 

His essay focuses on two question:

1. How (relatively) important is Kiev’s claim on sovereignty over the Crimea, transferred from Russia to Ukraine by the stroke of Nikita Khrushchev’s pen in 1954?

2. How (relatively) important is it that neo-fascist groups, in particular the Svoboda Party, played a significant if not decisive role in the toppling of the elected President Viktor Yanukovich, installing Arseniy Yatsenyuk (who has announced in advance an “unpopular” austerity regime); and now hold major cabinet posts, including minister of defense, and control the National Security Agency?

Because of the extensive collaboration with the Nazis by Svoboda during WWII and the abundant evidence of anti-Jewish attitudes among Svoboda party leaders, it occurred to me that I've seen little concern coming from Zionist sources over their key role in the coup and the new government of Ukraine. I looked at Zionist sources such as JINSA's website where I only found criticism of Obama for not being sufficiently aggressive with Russia in the Ukrainian events. I also looked at the online edition of Haaretz, a major liberal publication in Israel, and found only the mildest sort of concern expressed along with a considerable amount of anti-Russian propaganda. So, I ask myself: are Zionists more concerned about promoting the capitalist empire than protecting Jews?

Profiting from crisis - How corporations and lawyers are scavenging profits from Europe’s crisis countries

Click here to access introduction to a study done by Cecilia Olivet & Pia Eberhardt from Corporate Europe Observatory.

This study reveals the details of a global story which many of us have already seen indications of in nation after nation. Under the new banner of neoliberalism, capitalist vultures are now on a global quest to place entire populations in debt to major banks and, in turn, to them as the banks' investors. Of course, they have been doing this for decades as revealed by such people as John Perkins who wrote about it in his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. This is now accelerating using so-called "free trade agreements". The neoliberal vultures have thoroughly infiltrated governments and are now in the process of formulating laws in support of these agreements which make entire nations vulnerable to their capitalist class's predations.

The legal bases of these lawsuits are the over 3000 international investment treaties in existence to date. They contain far-reaching protections of private property enshrined in catch-all clauses such as “fair and equitable treatment” and “protection from indirect expropriation”. The trouble is that these clauses have been interpreted so broadly that they gave a carte blanche to corporations to sue states for any regulations that could be deemed to affect current or future profits. Moreover, investment treaties grant corporations rights to protection, without giving equivalent rights to states to protect their own citizens.

So far they have succeeded so well that the debts of nations owed to them, according to Bloomberg News, is now estimated at over $100 trillion! (I can't even comprehend how much money that is.) This new age of neoliberalism is looking more and more like old-fashioned feudalism. These new lords of the global manor can now merely sit back and live off the interest we pay them by cutting back on expenses that go to our health, education, recreation, retirement pensions, transportation, and general welfare. 

Are we humans and our natures so defective that we will continue to allow this tiny class of people put us into never-ending virtual slavery? Stay tuned, better yet, stay active and informed.

Julian Assange “We Are Headed Towards a Transnational Dystopian Total Surveillance Society”

Click here if you wish to access the source of this posting from Transcend Media Service.

To bring people up to date on the circumstances and views of our hero Julian Assange, I am posting this 15:15m video of a recent interview broadcast on MSNBC.



In the video reference is made to a "conversation session" put on by South by Southwest that took place today in Austin, Texas featuring Assange and others. This one hour session can be accessed at the ACLU website here.

William Engdahl on the Ukraine

Click here to access this nearly one hour interview with Engdahl posted on Bildungskanal, originating from TPV (The People's Voice) which appears to be located in Britain. 

Engdahl, who I judge to be one of the world's best geopolitical analysts, covers in depth the historical background on Ukraine along with the coup d´etat, snipers, and lies in the mainstream media.

The Murky Politics of the $15 Minimum Wage

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

The politics of this campaign are murky, but I think murkier than what Cooke is aware of. 

Living in the Seattle area I am a bit disturbed by the popular $15 minimum wage campaign. Unfortunately, Cooke joins the effort by uncritically regarding it as a major achievement by worker-advocates as suggested in this article. 

Seattle has proved this demand is not only possible, but is a key demand to re-spark the labor movement. If labor and community groups around the country united behind implementing this demand across the country, city by city, the workers’ movement would be revitalized, as it is in Seattle.

Campaigns such as this could be used to educate people on the complexities of working for gains within the existing capitalist system, but I doubt that much effort will be expended to do this. Instead, I think it is more likely that advocates will not go further than their existing narrow focus on raising the minimum wage. This article is an example of that narrow focus.

Thus, we are led to believe that all we need to do is pass laws in support of working people; and to do this we need to support candidates and political parties that will work for such laws. This has gotten a lot of workers excited about, and spending a lot of time, working on this campaign. Meanwhile, the ruling capitalist class has hardly blinked at this supposed threat to their profits. I've also noticed that the campaign has gotten a lot of attention in mainstream media. (See this and this in major capitalist media.) Why?

Because it is essentially a wedge issue to split the 99 Percent. Proponents immediately discovered that small businesses and non-profits would be impaired and thus they have exempted small businesses (this is usually limited by number of employees--not sure what this is in existing proposals), and then there will be non-profits threatened with extinction if this measure passes in Seattle. Then there are other problems. Are part-time workers covered? Otherwise businesses will simply cut back on employee hours as many have done to avoid being affected by Obamacare, and some will cut employees by introducing more automation in the workplace such as self-check out counters at retail stores. Many large retail outfits are already closing stores, some of which plan to switch to online sales only. Others will relocate to other states with lower minimum wage laws. The city of Sea-Tac passed a $15/hr minimum wage and it was immediately ruled by a judge that it could not apply to airport employees because the airport was under a different legal jurisdiction (Port of Seattle). The measure if passed would have a big impact on city employees, and city government like all state and local governments in the US are revenue starved and cutting back services. 

The point is this: the law if passed will be a very mixed blessing for workers and it doesn't deserve the time and effort put in to pass it unless it is part of a larger effort to educate workers. But, I don't see this happening. For example, "Socialist" City Council Member Kshama Sawant appears to subscribe to the liberal view that laws can be passed within a capitalist system that can solve worker problems.

One campaign that is vital for the benefit of all working people is control of our own media, but do you see many people inspired by that? No. Such efforts don't get TV coverage. It seems that dangling $15/hour in front of our noses and plenty of coverage in mainstream media will get people activated. As long as we allow ourselves to be led like sheep by the sheepherders of corporate media to engage in such time-consuming political campaigns, we will never achieve any real progress. It is discouraging to see labor advocates like Shamus Cooke playing along.

Be Careful What You Fight For

Click here to access article by John Spritzler from New Democracy World.

This piece focuses on a major method of opposition that has been, and is used, by the "haves" against  the "have-nots" to achieve social justice. Elsewhere these two groups have been expressed as ruling classes versus their subjects, monarchs and aristocrats versus serfs, capitalists versus workers etc. Ruling classes have been the norm in human society since we settled down in agricultural communities instead of hunting and foraging for wild foods. Although this phase only consists of less than 2% of human existence, still it has comprised the last 2%. Many people have dreamed of egalitarian societies which existed in the earlier 98% of human existence. 

What this author writes about is the use of one favorite method that ruling classes have used to maintain their rule against such dreamers--divide and conquer.

A Nation Is Not a Person: Now Let's Talk About Ukraine

Click here to access article by John Spritzler from New Democracy World. 

Spritzler argues against the way most articles frame the events happening in Ukraine.

When these articles, as they so often do, tell their readers that one of the nations is imperialist and the other anti-imperialist, they are telling their readers to support a government (the "anti-imperialist" one) that oppresses its own people. No good can come from this!

What these articles fail to grasp is that when two nations (by which I mean two ruling classes) are in conflict, there is no need to support one in order to oppose the other. Doing so means taking the side of the oppressor against the oppressed in the so-called "good" nation.

However, I think there are ruling classes that are worse than others--in fact, much worse with regard to peaceful relations between ruling classes.

"We Need Ambedkar--Now, Urgently..." — an interview with Arundhati Roy

Click here to access the interview posted on Outlook India.

This article is an excellent antidote to all the mythology about Gandhi that capitalist indoctrination has so completely filled the minds of people particularly here in the US. I am referring to the propaganda of non-violence as epitomized by the supposed teachings of Gandhi. Ruling class media and educational institutions have instilled in Americans an almost religious belief in "non-violent" tactics of resistance to discourage them from using any form of physical resistance which includes property, especially their property. If there is one thing that our ruling class respects and uses it is the infliction of violence. You see, they are worried about its use on them. Hence, the need to fill us with such nonsense about Gandhi who is portrayed as almost a god-like figure. Our resource is Roy who has made an extensive research on Gandhi and found the real human being behind the myths.

I wasn’t really researching Gandhi’s views on diet or natural cures, I was following the caste trail, and in the process I stumbled on the race trail, and eventually, through all the turbulence and mayhem, I found coherence. It all made sense.It was consistent, and consistently disturbing. The fact is that whatever else he said and did, and however beautiful some of it was, he did say and write and do some very disturbing things. 

Ukraine

by William Blum from his latest Empire Report.

When it gets complicated and confusing, when you’re overwhelmed with too much information, changing daily; too many explanations, some contradictory … try putting it into some kind of context by stepping back and looking at the larger, long-term picture.

The United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their main occupation for over a century, it’s what they do for a living. The United States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, International Criminal Court … all help to keep in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their leaders as only the King of Sanctions can, lacking any sense of hypocrisy or irony.

And who threatens United States domination? Who can challenge The Holy Triumvirate’s hegemony? Only Russia and China, if they were as imperialistic as the Western powers. (No, the Soviet Union wasn’t imperialistic; that was self-defense; Eastern Europe was a highway twice used by the West to invade; tens of millions of Russians killed or wounded.)

Since the end of the Cold War the United States has been surrounding Russia, building one base after another, ceaselessly looking for new ones, including in Ukraine; one missile site after another, with Moscow in range; NATO has grabbed one former Soviet Republic after another. The White House, and the unquestioning American mainstream media, have assured us that such operations have nothing to do with Russia. And Russia has been told the same, much to Moscow’s continuous skepticism. “Look,” said Russian president Vladimir Putin about NATO some years ago, “is this is a military organization? Yes, it’s military. … Is it moving towards our border? It’s moving towards our border. Why?”

The Holy Triumvirate would love to rip Ukraine from the Moscow bosom, evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US military and/or NATO presence on Russia’s border. (In case you were wondering what prompted the Russian military action.) Kiev’s membership in the EU would then not be far off; after which the country could embrace the joys of neo-conservatism, receiving the benefits of the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family; but no price is too great to pay to for being part of glorious Europe and the West!

The Ukrainian insurgents and their Western-power supporters didn’t care who their Ukrainian allies were in carrying out their coup against President Viktor Yanukovych last month … thugs who set policemen on fire head to toe … all manner of extreme right-wingers, including Chechnyan Islamic militants … a deputy of the ultra-right Svoboda Party, part of the new government, who threatens to rebuild Ukraine’s nukes in three to six months. … the snipers firing on the protestors who apparently were not what they appeared to be – A bugged phone conversation between Urmas Paet, the Estonian foreign minister, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, reveals Paet saying: “There is now stronger and stronger understanding that behind the snipers it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new coalition.” … neo-Nazi protestors in Kiev who have openly denounced Jews, hoisting a banner honoring Stepan Bandera, the infamous Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on February 24 that Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman advised “Kiev’s Jews to leave the city and even the country.” Edward Dolinsky, head of an umbrella organization of Ukrainian Jews, described the situation for Ukrainian Jews as “dire” and requested Israel’s help.

All in all a questionable gang of allies for a dubious cause; reminiscent of the Kosovo Liberation Army thugs Washington put into power for an earlier regime change, and has kept in power since 1999.

The now-famous recorded phone conversation between top US State Department official Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador to the Ukraine, wherein they discuss which Ukrainians would be to Washington’s liking in a new government, and which not, is an example of this regime-change mentality. Nuland’s choice, Arseniy Yatseniuk, emerged as interim prime minister.

The National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against states not in love with US foreign policy, is Washington’s foremost non-military tool for effecting regime change. The NED website lists 65 projects that it has supported financially in recent years in Ukraine. The descriptions NED gives to the projects don’t reveal the fact that generally their programs impart the basic philosophy that working people and other citizens are best served under a system of free enterprise, class cooperation, collective bargaining, minimal government intervention in the economy, and opposition to socialism in any shape or form. A free-market economy is equated with democracy, reform, and growth; and the merits of foreign investment in their economy are emphasized.

The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, declared in 1991: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”

NED, receives virtually all its financing from the US government ($5 billion in total since 1991), but it likes to refer to itself as an NGO (Non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO. Its long-time intervention in Ukraine is as supra-legal as the Russian military deployment there. Journalist Robert Parry has observed:

    For NED and American neocons, Yanukovych’s electoral legitimacy lasted only as long as he accepted European demands for new “trade agreements” and stern economic “reforms” required by the International Monetary Fund. When Yanukovych was negotiating those pacts, he won praise, but when he judged the price too high for Ukraine and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for “regime change.”

Thus, we have to ask, as Mr. Putin asked – “Why?” Why has NED been funding 65 projects in one foreign country? Why were Washington officials grooming a replacement for President Yanukovych, legally and democratically elected in 2010, who, in the face of protests, moved elections up so he could have been voted out of office – not thrown out by a mob? Yanukovych made repeated important concessions, including amnesty for those arrested and offering, on January 25, to make two of his adversaries prime minister and deputy prime minister; all to no avail; key elements of the protestors, and those behind them, wanted their putsch.

Carl Gershman, president of NED, wrote last September that “Ukraine is the biggest prize”. The man knows whereof he speaks. He has presided over NED since its beginning, overseeing the Rose Revolution in Georgia (2003), the Orange Revolution in Ukraine (2004), the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon (2005), the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan (2005), the Green Revolution in Iran (2009), and now Ukraine once again. It’s as if the Cold War never ended.

The current unbridled animosity of the American media toward Putin also reflects an old practice. The United States is so accustomed to world leaders holding their tongue and not voicing criticism of Washington’s policies appropriate to the criminality of those policies, that when a Vladimir Putin comes along and expresses even a relatively mild condemnation he is labeled Public Enemy Number One and his words are accordingly ridiculed or ignored.

On March 2 US Secretary of State John Kerry condemned Russia’s “incredible act of aggression” in Ukraine (Crimea) and threatened economic sanctions. “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text.”

Iraq was in the 21st century. Senator John Kerry voted for it. Hypocrisy of this magnitude has to be respected.

POSTSCRIPT: Ukraine’s interim prime minister announced March 7 that he has invited the NATO Council to hold a meeting in Kiev over the recent developments in the country. “I invited the North Atlantic Council to visit Kiev and hold a meeting there,” Arseny Yatsenyuk said during a visit to Brussels, where he met with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and EU officials. “We believe that it will strengthen our cooperation.”

Notes

1.     Guardian Weekly (London), June 27, 2001
2.     RT television (RT.com, Moscow/Washington, DC), March 1, 2014
3.     Deputy Mikhail Golovko, RT, March 1, 2014
4.     RT, March 5, 2014, “The EU’s Ukraine policy and moral bankruptcy”; the      phone conversation is believed to have taken place February 26.
5.     NED 2012 Annual Report
6.     Washington Post, September 22, 1991
7.     Victoria Nuland, speaking at the National Press Club, Washington, DC, December 13, 2013
8.     Washington Post, September 26, 2013
9.     “Face the Nation”, CBS, March 2, 2014 

Bring on the oligarchs! Ukraine drafts in its super-rich tycoons to help curb unrest in Russian-speaking east

Click here to access article from the Daily Mail Online (Britain).

The Empire's new regime in Ukraine is recruiting the rich and super-rich to take over their top government offices. Obviously, this is an ancient practice--it's called "to the victor belongs the spoils". Of course, having been guided in their quest for power and wealth by their Western counterparts who appreciate the value of good public relations, they offer a nicer sounding justification:

It is hoped that their influence and self-interest in preventing further conflict could help curb separatist tensions among pro-Russian activists in the region.

Brainwashed: The Indoctrinated West

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from CounterPunch.

Is this merely another rant? Or, is it an impassioned plea to wake up from the stupor induced by the megaphones of Western corporate propaganda? You decide. 

Fracking is the death spasm of a defunct economic order

Click here to access article by Paul Mobbs from Ecologist. 

This environmental consultant is growing in his awareness about the contradictions imposed by finite limits in our planet in relation to the economic system of capitalism. (Although, he doesn't name the system.) Also, in discussing his new awareness, he seems to be having difficulties keeping conventional thinking audiences with him.

The real problem is economic growth and consumption within a finite environment. It's only by changing the economic process [system?] itself, to adapt to the ecological limits acting upon the human system, that we can tackle the inter-related issues of resource depletion, climate change and ecological degradation.

Manifesto 2014

Click here to access article by the Greek collective writing for their website Eagainst.

Writing from a nation that is feeling the boot of neoliberalism stomping on their lives, people in this Greek collective have awakened from this nightmare to create a radically different vision for their future. Although the piece suffers a bit in its translation into English and from a format that does not favor reading via computer, it offers much inspiration in these dark days of capitalist rule. Here are a few samples:

...we reject the contemporary global political infrastructure, the concentration of power in the hands of the few which reproduces and perpetuates poverty, inequality and injustice in all areas, leading inevitably to violence and dissolving any bond of social solidarity. The existing political system of liberal oligarchies deprives humanity as it measures every human value in profit (the only dominant value) destroying every spirit of friendship.

...we propose to replace all of [capitalist] institutions...[with] political bodies that will allow all citizens to participate in the making (and taking) of decisions concerning public life, popular assemblies in squares, municipalities, workplaces (schools, factories, universities). Equality, friendship, solidarity and human creation for us should be a key objective of these new institutions.

One sentence that is especially impaired by translation into English is this:

The entire bureaucratization for our lives is characterized by the sheer totality of capitalist (and every heteronomous) imaginary that embraces every aspect of human activity and condition.

 I think that a better way to express this is: 

Our lives are shaped by the ruling class's ideological control that is pervasive throughout all institutions.

US, China ready to each assert power in Pacific

Click here to access article by Naoya Yoshino and Gakku Shimada from Nikkei Asian Review. 

You may have forgotten about "Obama's pivot" to China in all the turmoil going on in Ukraine, but the Empire's directors have not.

Updating its global strategy, the U.S. Defense Department announced the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) on Tuesday, which calls for deploying more naval vessels to the Pacific.

On Wednesday, the Chinese government unveiled a record defense budget for 2014. The country is steadily building up its military strength to counter the U.S. military's "pivot" to Asia and to forge a relationship of equals with the U.S.

Oh boy, ain't life grand? Now we can look forward to more tension--as if we didn't have enough already to worry about. Well, as long as you have capitalist ruling classes vying for control over markets, resources, and cheap labor to support their addictions to wealth and power, what else could you expect?

Banks speculate on raw materials and food

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

I hesitated in posting this article because of it requires considerable knowledge about investing that ordinary people do not have. Also, many of its references are in French. Nevertheless, one with some knowledge of investments can glean a lot of information on how large financial institutions can and do cause considerable social pain while serving the interests of the capitalist class in general. You will learn that...

...the commodities market is a narrow market. Institutional investors such as pension funds, need only allocate 2% of their assets to overwhelm the system.

And:  

The price of commodities on the futures market has immediate repercussions on the current prices of these goods.

And Toussanit follows this with numerous examples.

By the way, for people who are less knowledgeable about the investment world, I highly recommend that you follow Pete Dolack's blog entitled Systemic Disorder. He is a journalist by training; but understands a lot of the more obscure investment concepts and market operations, and can explain them in language ordinary people can understand.

Snipers Are Commonly Used as “False Flag” Terrorists

Click here to access article from Washington's Blog.

Although he doesn't name the source behind such nefarious projects, this blogger has noticed the same phenomenon, snipers, being used in past regime-change projects. He examines their use as a part of a broader category of false flag actors who engage in violent actions in order to discredit, disrupt, and destroy anti-ruling class movements as well as regimes. If you examine closely the examples he provides, you will find that the Empire, the Empire's allies and agents, and/or its neoliberal agenda are supported in each case.

There is also a lot of evidence which suggests that in relation to governments the Empire's regime-change agents look for opportunities to extend their neoliberal empire that meet all these requirements: 1) significant popular dissent with a government as evident in protests, 2) the present targeted government functions either independent of the Empire's neoliberal agenda, doesn't adequately support such policies, or actively opposes them, and 3) the existence of Empire agents in the targeted country: CIA agents, NGO networks functioning in support of neoliberal policies, right-wing organizations and figures that can be recruited to serve Empire actions.

Then in an advanced stage of the regime-change process, the use of snipers to create panic, terror, and backlash against the targeted government becomes an effective weapon.

The current protests in Venezuela meet all the above criteria and if Empire agents can achieve more success in escalating the crisis, be on the lookout for the use of snipers to accelerate regime-change in that country.

Aid for the Ukraine “Will Be Stolen” – Former Ukrainian Minister of Economy

Click here to access article by Wolf Richter from his blog Testosterone Pit. 

Secretary of State John Kerry jaunted to Kiev on Tuesday and offered the newly installed Ukrainian government $1 billion in aid. EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger announced the same day that the EU would help the Ukraine pay its gas bill of about $2 billion, owed Russian state-controlled Gazprom. On Wednesday, the rest of the EU aid package was announced: €11 billion, contingent on the Ukraine’s inking a deal with the IMF and implementing tough reforms. The IMF is still working on its own aid package.

As always, it’s about preventing a default during which bondholders and lenders, including numerous Western banks, hedge funds, and other speculators.... ...taxpayers in other countries will be shanghaied into bailing out these bondholders and lenders, but indirectly, under the guise of bailing out the Ukrainian people.

Kiev snipers hired by new coalition, not Yanukovych - Estonian FM to Ashton

Click here to access leaked phone call between Estonian Foreign Minister and EU foreign affairs officer posted on Voice of Russia.

I'm not sure the leaked phone call proves that the Western backed coalition used snipers against protestors and policemen, but it certainly raises a lot of suspicions and questions that I'm sure will not be investigated. It also supports the information that William Engdahl recently received from his source. The following is part of what the Estonian official reported in the leaked conversation about his visit to Kiev as revealed in the 10:50m video.

"And second, what was quite disturbing, this same Olga [Bogomolets] told as well that all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides," the Estonian FM stressed.

Ashton reacted to the information by saying: "Well, yeah…that’s, that’s terrible."

"So that she then also showed me some photos she said that as a medical doctor she can say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened," Paet said.

About all she could respond with was a feeble "that's terrible" and "I think we do want to investigate, ...that's interesting."

Snipers have appeared in all the recent protests in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Ukraine which I think is used to create panic, a climate of terrorism, and a backlash against authorities who are blamed.

The Libyan Bedlam: General Hifter, the CIA and the Unfinished Coup

Click here to access article by Ramzy Baroud from Uncommon Thought Journal.

Baroud evaluates another Empire engineered regime-change "success" story--Libya.

Libya is in a state of chaos, not because of some intrinsic tendency to shun order. Libyans, like people all over the world, seek security and stability in their lives. However, other parties, Arab and western, are desperate to ensure that the 'new Libya' is consistent with their own interests, even if such interests are obtained at the expense of millions of people.

See also Chris Nineham's discussion of  Horace Campbell's recently published book entitled Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya.

...by the end of the decade the Gaddafi regime was developing a foreign and economic policy that was more and more independent of the west as a response to the US’s problems and the growing strength of rivals. Libya’s links with China, Russia and Brazil were developing fast. At the same time, conscious that six of the ten fastest developing countries were in Africa, Gaddafi was also orientating politically and economically more and more towards the African continent. He was using the rhetoric of Pan Africanism and forging close trading ties particularly with other states that had recently discovered new mineral resources.

Faced with this evidence of stubborn autonomy, the US began to develop a second track to its Libyan policy by encouraging alternative leadership figures.

Mexican Protest Site Censored by GoDaddy — with the U.S. Embassy's Help

Click here to access article by Danny O'Brien from Electronic Frontier Foundation. 

After an extensive protest against GoDaddy in late 2011 the corporation appeared to back off from its support of SOPA, a bill introduced in Congress in October of 2011 which would have allowed the U.S. attorney general to seek a court order against a targeted offshore Web site that would, in turn, be served on Internet providers such as GoDaddy to disappear the website. There was such a storm of opposition against the bill that it was shelved. (See this, this, and this.)

But it appears that they will cooperate anyway with US authorities who, it turn, are cooperating with Mexican authorities by blocking a Mexican protest site.

The Mexican website 1dmx.org,,,was set up in the wake of a set of controversial December 1st 2012 protests against the inauguration of the new President of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto. For a year, the site served as a source of information, news, discussion and commentary from the point of view of the protestors. As the anniversary of the protests approached, the site grew to include organized campaign against proposed laws to criminalize protest in the country, as well as preparations to document the results of a memorial protest, planned for December 1, 2013.

On December 2nd, 2013, the site disappeared offline. The United States host, GoDaddy, suspended the domain with no prior notice. GoDaddy told its owners that the site was taken down "as part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation."

How a Libertarian Capitalist Became a Libertarian Socialist

Click here to access article by Chris Wilson posted on Films for Action.

This article provides a memoir of an interesting political journey on which the author traveled as described by the title. In the process he learns how the system of capitalism essentially forces people into acting certain ways, ways that he rejected and the system from which they sprung. 

An anti-pension billionaire shows the five rules of deceptive native advertising

Click here to access article by David Sirota from PandoDaily.

In order to fully understand this article, I had to go on a 30 minute pursuit of what "native advertising" meant. The article uses the term throughout, but hardly defines what it means other than to suggest it is deceptive advertising. After much searching, I gather that it means using another, more legitimate media content to hide an advertisement. Googling the term led me to advertising industry sites and other media sites that used a variety of jargon to explain what they were doing. Although not totally satisfactory, Wikipedia offered the best explanation that I could find.

Surely you must be aware that advertising technology which has long ago infiltrated all capitalist media, is no longer used merely to sell products. Such technology is also widely used to sell political ideas to serve the class that owns the media--the capitalist class. In this article Sirota lists five strategies that one billionaire has used to promote the slashing of public worker's pensions via public television (PBS).

Target: Ukraine – How Foreign Intervention is Tearing the Country Apart

Click here to access article by James Corbett and others from Global Research. 

The posting as a whole provides a good review and summing up of the Empire's destabilization project in Ukraine featuring the views of James Corbett, Prof Michel Chossudovsky, F. William Engdahl, and Dr. Paul Craig Roberts in a 12:34m video. Corbett's script is provided in the rest of the article. 

In the video Roberts' strongly criticizes the dangerousness of such a project and cannot understand why Empire directors have carried it out. Regarding the latter subject, it seems clear to me that the project was only a continuation of Empire policies to exert dominance over the entire world on behalf of their capitalist gang. Roberts himself acknowledges all the other actions against Russia that the Empire has pursued. And, of course, we are only beginning to see the same actions against China. So, this is only Empire business as usual in the competitive larger game of capitalist domination. It wouldn't matter in the long run whether this current dominant gang were to disappear--another gang would soon take its place threatening the world with global wars, many local wars, poverty for the 99 Percent and wealth for their One Percent. "It's the [capitalist] system, stupid!" to paraphrase one of our great presidents (sarcasm).

Regarding the project's threat of a major war, I don't share Roberts' views. However, this is only because of the current composition of the Empire directorate which consists of more prudent members. If this directorate were to be taken over by more right-wing sections, then we would be in deep shit. Also, if the existing directorate sees their Empire seriously threatened, we could see more aggressive and dangerous adventures. The odds of this happening are, in my opinion, quite high over the foreseeable future--unless, of course, if we, the people, can muster enough political awareness and guts to stop them.

What the 2008 Federal Reserve transcripts reveal

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

The author has reviewed the recently released transcript of the 2008 meetings of the Fed’s policymaking Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) which reflect the deliberations of Fed officials concerning the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

The article provides an excellent review of how the ruling class, which is strongly represented in the Fed, saw what was happening and how they managed the crisis. From this review Damon reached this conclusion:

In all of the 1,500 pages of Fed transcripts from the fatal year 2008, there is not the slightest suggestion that the banks should be seized, broken up or taken over, and that those responsible for the financial disaster should be held accountable and made to pay for their crimes. The Federal Reserve, far from being an impartial arbiter, above the fray of social interests, is delegated by the capitalist state with particular responsibility for securing the interests of the banks and financial interests, covering up their illegal activities, providing them with the most favorable conditions to speculate, and bailing them out with public funds when their bets go bad.

Climate forecast for Australia: hot days, higher fire risk, more severe droughts

Click here to access article by Paul Farrell from The Guardian.

Extreme weather events seem to be occurring over all the world, but it seems that nowhere are they as frequent and extreme as in Australia.

“The duration, frequency and intensity of heatwaves have increased across many parts of Australia, based on daily temperature records since 1950, when coverage is sufficient for heatwave analysis. Days where extreme heat is widespread across the continent have become more common in the past twenty years,”....

Who's afraid of ruins?

Click here to access article by Out of the Woods's blog (a collective) posted on libcom. (Be sure to read another article by the same people immediately following this post on my website.)

Capitalism is locking-in climate change for centuries, but in the process, making radical social change more realistic than tinkering around the edges.

Goodbye to the future

Click here to access article by Out of the Woods's blog (a collective) posted on libcom.

The authors first construct a convincing argument that humanity, whose actions are mostly shaped by immediate rewards, is doomed because it is caught between a capitalist system that promises, and sometime can deliver (to some), immediate rewards while facing a far-off future of climate destabilization that requires immediate action but no prospect of immediate rewards. Having led us down the path to doom and gloom, the authors immediately launch into an argument (which logically follows) that we must support a utopian vision which can be constructed in the near future. 

To survive we must couple bleak reality with the utopian impulse. No Future, Utopia Now. Let us jettison the notion of gradual change. There is no time for a transition. Let us pledge ourselves unflinchingly to a utopia. Not a distant one, not an imaginary thrown out into the future, but one we can build right now. One in which work is all but abandoned, in which the liberation of every minority is a priority, in which collective well-being is the only ideology. In which the machines which previously worked against Earth and its inhabitants are turned into the mechanisms of their preservation and emancipation. 

Because capitalist ruling classes control all ideological institutions of society, I think it will take a "game-changing event" (or several) even more dramatic than 9/11 to get people to consider other alternative ways of living. I have little doubt that this will happen; but I fear that by the time it happens, it will be too late.

Ukraine: Secretive Neo-Nazi Military Organization Involved in Euromaidan Sniper Shootings

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from nsnbc. 

I don't normally post articles which provides political analyses based on private sources, but I make an exception with Engdahl. I have followed his writings over many years and found his views to be solidly based in reality. (Of course, no one is infallible.) Lending credibility to the views expressed in this piece is the fact that the US has a long historical record of such Gladio-type subversive actions. We have seen the Empire's use of snipers to create panic and terror in various countries in Latin America since the 1970s, and more recently in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and now Ukraine. It makes me wonder when we will start reading about unknown snipers firing on civilians in the currents protests in Venezuela.

Of special interest to me was his report and documentation of a news event that I previously saw referred to, but couldn't find any source for, last week: the fact of a negotiated deal between European leaders and Ukraine in the latter part of February following Asst. Secretary Nuland's infamous leaked remarks in early February.

Jeff Bezos and the Imperial Paper

Click here to access article by Keane Bhatt from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). 

Following the purchase of the Washington Post by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon Corp, Bhatt focuses on the role of the Washington Post to support the most secretive and imperial departments of the US government such as the CIA (with which Amazon has a contract for services), NSA, the Pentagon and all the imperial policies pursued by the government. But, hasn't the Washington Post along with other major media long worked in close collaboration with the CIA? (See this and this.)

He makes clear that the newspaper often goes against the views of its readers in support of imperial policies. This is hardly news to most politically aware people. It is old news. Way back in 1919 Upton Sinclair (Brass Check) exposed the role of newspapers and their rich owners in support of imperial and anti-union policies pursued by the government, their government.  

And, why only focus on the Washington Post? The latter along with the NY Times are the leading shapers of public opinion in support of ruling class interests. They lead in this endeavor and other mainstream media are expected to follow, and do follow to a lessor or greater extent. The myopic view as expressed in this article is typical of liberal outlets like FAIR in their critiques of ruling class policies and pursuits. 

Rich people like Bezos and corporations do not buy media to get rich--they are rich already. They want power, the power to influence people to serve their interests as a class which is probably the greatest power after a gun-to-the-head to get people to do your bidding. This ruling class has largely concentrated media in six corporations, and this will soon change to five with Comcast's intention of buying the Time-Warner media empire. This, of course, is true throughout the Empire.
This is precise why it is so urgent that we, the people, have our own media which can tell our stories for our benefit.

On the importance of keeping investors out of the newsroom, and not treating your readers like fools

Click here to access article by Paul Carr from PandoDaily.

This piece offers some very interesting tidbits about connections between a billionaire co-sponsor of Ukrainian regime change, Greenwald, and billionaire sponsored journalism in general.

Mr. Greenwald is a very popular guy on Twitter, with about 320,000 followers. And he has earned a reputation for bullying people who don’t share his views, frequently using his megaphone to launch unfair and frequently dishonest personal attacks. It will be interesting to see if he keeps this up at the $50 million news venture he’s starting that’s being bankrolled by eBay billionaire Pierre Omidyar. – Christian Science Monitor