Egypt and the Right to Truth

Click here to access article by Mohamed El-Shewy from Muftah. 

Obviously Egypt's January 25th (2011) uprising, although it removed one dictator, did not succeed in a full social revolution. The same power remains intact in the form of the Egyptian military which is largely a puppet regime having been armed, trained, and financed by the US. During the course of the political events since there have been numerous human rights violations committed by succeeding governments, all of which remain largely covered up. This article is devoted to the importance and difficulty in uncovering the truth about these violations.

This issue raises questions regarding the ability of repressive governments to engage in legitimate processes of truth-seeking. Events in Egypt over the past three years serve as a stark reminder of this problem.

Successive governments have sought to control the narrative of events since the fall of former dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011. This manipulation of truth can easily lead to a rise in collective paranoia and scapegoating, as without truth, “society will continue to live in confusion and illusion.”

However, I would like to argue that truth-seeking is vitally important before such human rights violations occur, and this can only happen in egalitarian societies. In other words, without a political climate that supports truth-telling, human rights violations are likely to eventually occur. And, this cannot happen in class-structured societies which--almost by definition--make such violations happen at sometime during their rule. 

This is obviously true because they have established one segment, their own class, in control all of society to serve their interests. It is in the DNA of humans to resist such an arrangement; thus it is imperative for the ruling segment to indoctrinate its subjects in the virtues of their rule, or to disguise the fact of their rule, and to suppress any truths about it being unjust. Thus, I would alter one sentence in this article to establish an important political principle:

A typical facet of authoritarian regimes [ruling classes] however, is their enthusiasm for writing and rewriting history and controlling the truth for the purposes of self-legitimisation.

How climate pain is being spun into corporate gain

Click here to access article by Fred Pearce from New Scientist. 

You will never guess what "the next big thing" is for capitalists. Climate destablization!

Pearce reviews a new book entitled Windfall: The booming business of global warming by McKenzie Funk in which Funk describes how capitalists see many profit-making opportunities offered by climate destablilization.

... journalist McKenzie Funk tells the story of the people and corporations trying to profit from climate change. Many of them don't want to halt its progress, they want to bring it on.

Going Once, Going Twice, Sold

Click here if you wish to access the original posting by Abby Zimet from Common Dreams.

Aiming to create awareness of today's estimated 27 million slaves around the world "hidden in plain sight," the folks at the Freedom For All Foundation have been holding slave auctions in New York City as part of their "Stop the Nightmare" campaign. See the chilling one on Wall Street, and the stunned looks of spectators. And these "slaves" are young adults; real sex trafficking victims can be as young as 12.

Liberal activists like to do actions like this, but I would like to see activists do something much more radical: an auction for wage-slaves. All they would need to do is label each person's national and/or regional origin, hold the auction in terms of hourly wages and benefits, and have worker-slaves auction themselves off to corporations. People from poorer countries/regions would under bid those labeled as being from richer countries/regions. This would dramatically illustrate the reality of  corporations pitting workers against each other all over the world to work for them at the lowest wages and benefits.

After all, is wage-slavery such a great advance over classic slavery? Capitalists would have you believe that this is "freedom"! But, what kind of freedom is this if a small segment of the population owns all the tools which workers made in the past, and they won't let present day workers use them unless they compete to be employed by capitalists for wages in a labor market? Freedom to starve? Freedom to live under a bridge?

Also, think about the advantages of classic slavery. If some person or corporation has purchased you in order to work on their property, they have an investment in you and are likely to take good care of you like they do with the machinery they own. Thus, they are likely to maintain you in good health, train you, and provide you with shelter so that they can keep exploiting the value you produce, recover their investment, and make a profit. That isn't the case with wage-slavery where they can simply and immediately replace you with someone else who is in better health and has more training purchased at their own expense.

No Fooling - When a Retired Conservative Politician Warns About Oligarchy...

Click here to access article by Roy M. Poses MD from Health Care Renewal. 

From time to time we hear from One Percent insiders some concerns about the growing income and wealth gap in the US. They are worried that the hoi polloi will think that there is a growing condition of social injustice in our country and that notions about democracy might even be fake. In other words, the jig will be up for the ruling class. The author found another agent of the One Percent who has such misgivings who said this:

When we conclude that in reality our government is controlled by the rich and super-rich, not the people, we will experience a great legitimacy crisis; our government will no longer feel legitimate to us, and thus it will not receive the deference that legitimate authority is entitled to. Lawlessness and disorder will follow.

Oh, now I see--he's worried that we will come to his home and take his toys away!

The Shocking Rise of Wealth Inequality: Is it Worse Than We Thought?

Click here to access article by Jordan Weissmann from Slate.

The author's examination of wealth and income data suggests some new insights about the growing gap between socio-economic classes in the US:

Forget the 1 percent. The winners of this race, according to Zucman and Saez, have been the 0.1 percent. Since the 1960s, the richest one-thousandth of U.S. households, with a minimum net worth today above $20 million, have more than doubled their share of U.S. wealth, from around 10 percent to more than 20 percent. Take a moment to process that. One-thousandth of the country owns one-fifth of the wealth. By comparison, the entire top 1 percent of households takes in about 22 percent of U.S. income, counting capital gains.

Conditionally yours: An analysis of the policy conditions attached to IMF loans

Click here to access article from Eurodad.

Loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) largely come with policy change conditions attached – conditions that the IMF has played a significant role in developing. .... The IMF claims to have limited its conditions to critical reforms agreed by recipient governments. However, the worrying findings of this research suggest that the IMF is going backwards – increasing the number of structural conditions that mandate policy changes per loan, and remaining heavily engaged in highly sensitive and political policy areas.  

I think one can ignore the last part of the article which focuses on how the IMF should function.

The Wall Street settlements and the new aristocracy

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

The article provides a good summary of the most obvious crimes committed by Wall Street financial organizations and how the ruling class's legal institutions dealt with them.

The settlements themselves were worked out between the banks and their regulators so as to have the maximum public relations effect, creating the appearance that the banks were being held accountable while minimizing the financial impact on the companies. The banks write off the fines—many of which are tax deductible—as part of the “cost of doing business.”

Not only have no top bankers been prosecuted, no major US banks have been broken up or nationalized.

The EyeOpener Report- Sibel Edmonds Examines the Turkish False Flag Leak

Click here to access post of a 12:33m video with James Corbett interviewing Sibel Edmonds regarding the recent "leak" of a false flag conspiracy involving Turkey.

Warning: This report is for advanced students of covert operations and dirty tricks as well as people knowledgeable of recent Turkish politics. For those of you who qualify, this interview provides a rich source of 1) understanding how Western media provides extensive propaganda coverage for deep political machinations, 2) an explanation of recent Turkish political events and the production of a leak manufactured to influence recent Turkish elections, and 3) and an explanation of how this "leak" provides an unintended positive consequence of alerting people to the existence of false-flag operations.

For those of you whose knowledge of Turkish politics in relation to Empire operations is weak, you can bring yourselves up-to-speed by a comprehensive review here of background material from this website. 

As many of you know, Sibel Edmonds is an FBI whistleblower who worked for the FBI in 2001 and 2002 as a Turkish-English translator of highly classified communications between the two countries. As such she is highly qualified to write and speak of such matters. She also has a strong background in Turkey and the Middle East where she was born and raised. From Wikipedia we learn:

The daughter of an Iranian Azerbaijani father and Turkish mother, Edmonds lived in Iran and then Turkey before coming to the United States as a student in 1988. Fluent in Turkish, Persian, English and Azerbaijani, Edmonds earned her bachelor's degree in criminal justice and psychology from George Washington University and her master's in public policy and international commerce from George Mason University.

Secret History: Operation Gladio

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Raging Bull-Shit to read his introduction for a 1992 documentary film on Operation Gladio and view his posting of the 2hr25m YouTube video.

The following two-and-a-half hour BBC documentary may not be of the best visual quality, but is nonetheless vital viewing for anyone wanting to understand how Europe was clandestinely “rebuilt” from the ashes of the Second World War in preparation for the Cold War.

Every serious activist must learn about the Empire's strategies and related tactics, especially those that were employed in Europe following WWII under a CIA program known as "Operation Gladio". These secret activities laid the foundation for the more sophisticated Empire regime-change programs that we have seen operating most recently in Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Ukraine. Others have argued that the "Color Revolutions"  and the "Arab Spring" uprisings were "engineered" using such methods. Indeed, the evidence the latter have uncovered is considerable and substantial.

Radical U.N. Report Promotes Democratic Control of Food and an End to Corporate Domination

Click here to access article by Sonali Kolhatkar from Truthdig. 

A new report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the “Right to Food” took aim at the entire basis on which food is produced and distributed on a global scale. Reflecting the type of progressive analysis of our food system from experts like Vandana Shiva and Michael Pollan, report author Olivier De Schutter called for an undermining of large agribusinesses and an infusion of democratic control.

Although the report’s recommendations are revolutionary, news of its release went largely unreported in the major U.S. media.  

Of course, the recommendations seem equally valid for the rest of the economy, and the author hints at this with this statement:

Like other basic human needs such as water, shelter and health care, our food shouldn’t be subject to the drive for profit. In calling for democratic control of our food, De Schutter and Patel are threatening the business interests of some of the world’s largest and wealthiest corporations.

However, she ends the paragraph with an extremely understated, or else very naïve, recommendation for action:

Given that De Schutter’s report has been submitted to the highest international representatives of civil society, it has the potential to effect change, but only if there is enough pressure from below.

In each other we trust: coining alternatives to capitalism

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

Wow! I'm a bit overwhelmed by the many insights offered by the article and its abundant links which I've only begun to mine. I used the verb "to mine" deliberately to suggest that this article contains a virtual goldmine of insights on the subject of money. This subject which has been brought into popular consciousness by experiments with alternative currencies, particularly the Bitcoin. The understanding of money has been long obscured by ruling classes which have always benefited by using money to dominate and exploit their subordinate classes.

About four or five years ago I became aware of the importance of money in maintaining class rule, and my readings and study of the subject only deepened my conviction that it was a primary instrument of oppression used by ruling classes. Still the scarcity of current information seemed like a barrier to further understanding. I couldn't understand why so few people on the left engaged in the study of this vital topic.

Apparently, I have been looking in the wrong places, because this article makes clear to me that there has been an explosion of interest in this subject in the past few years. Now there are many people looking into it and discovering new insights which  are being shared with others. Roos was prompted to write this article after attending one such sharing event which he attended last weekend in Amsterdam: the MoneyLab conference organized by the Institute of Network Cultures.

Syria’s Victory Is Turning Point For Western Global Hegemony

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

The author continues to provide articles from a quintessentially geopolitical point of view and which offer brilliant analyses of the ongoing competition between power structures and ruling classes. To be sure, the most aggressive of these contenders for dominance in today's world is the US-led Empire, and, Cartalucci rightfully condemns their actions while favoring the lessor evils of more benign contenders such as China and Russia.

While the West compounds its growing impotence globally by insisting on the continued pursuit of its failed unipolar model built on achieving global hegemony, nations like Russia and China insist on mutual partnerships with other nations in a multipolar world – neither dictating nor violating the sovereignty of any nation beyond its borders.

While I admire his brilliant efforts at explicating these contests, I don't see that he is otherwise contributing much to the establishment of genuine people power which can only exist in classless societies. I am most troubled by his continued framing of the uprisings in the popularly referred to "Arab Spring" countries beginning in 2011 as US-engineered. By painting them with this one brush, he loses the many nuances of these uprisings that contained genuine, popular struggles of working people to achieve more power in their societies.

It’s very easy to get onto the terrorist database, and impossible to get off it

Click here to access article by Mary O’hara from Vice via Climate Connections (better format).

Lauren Regan, executive director of Oregon’s Civil Liberties Defense Center, offered some observations on this subject:

“In the last several years, you see young, very young activists who are 19 years old and doing their first protest, those people now have an FBI number.” ....

“One of the biggest impacts on civil liberties is the chilling effect on normal people,” she added. “Putting everyday people on these watchlists, the effect of that is ‘be afraid of being branded a terrorist if you go to a single protest.’” Regan believes this is the point of the operation: “The volume of the information they’re collecting, most of that information isn’t useful to the feds, but the paranoia that the collection instills is useful.”

National Endowment for Democracy and North Korean Regime Change

Click here to access article by Dae-Han Song & Christine Hong from Critical Asian Studies.  

Because we real-democracy advocates and ordinary citizens of the world have been witnessing one "regime change" after another often resulting in failed states and other negative consequences, it is of interest to all of us to study this phenomenon carefully. This fairly lengthy article which applies to regime change efforts directed toward North Korea provides an excellent source of information about the Empire's propaganda efforts directed by NGOs like National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and their application against North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK).

Critical Asian Studies is an academic journal and as such uses academic wordage which in some instances obscures meaning for ordinary people. However, I don't think the article is significantly offputting to the average educated reader. And, it offers a much needed, critical look at both the operations of NED in general, and its role specifically in ongoing attempts at regime in North Korea. The article is also broken down into sections conveniently enabling the reader to pick and choose which sections are most interesting.

You will learn that "democracy promotion" became the new theme that was adopted most seriously by NED to provide cover for US imperial propaganda which is a very important component in the overall regime change strategy of the US Empire. Propaganda has always been used by Empire agents since WWII, but this new theme was adopted to replace anti-communist propaganda which outgrew its usefulness as the Cold War was ending. 

Various components of their regime change strategy package is starting to be noticed by many political activists on the left especially with the recent successes Empire agents have achieved in Ukraine, Libya, Iraq, and the ongoing attempt in Syria. The best information about this strategy that I've found online is contained in a film study of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 by Susanne Brandstätter entitled "Checkmate - Strategy of a Revolution" that is available for viewing in a series of YouTube videos listed at Cassiopaea Forum website.

Panel’s Warning on Climate Risk: Worst Is Yet to Come

Click here to access article by Justin Gillis from The New York Times (free registration required).

I try to avoid articles that lie behind paywalls and registration-walls; but given that this crucial topic is causing all kinds of headaches for the ruling capitalist classes, I thought it best to see how a leading Empire publication reacted to another report just released from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a prestigious UN research group. (Other current postings of this report are here and here.) 

First of all, I found no mention in this article (or any other articles) that the capitalist system is any kind of factor driving this threat to human existence. That causal factor is clearly off the table around which sit representatives of the dominant ruling capitalist classes. So, how do they deal with a report that predicts so many dire consequences of climate change destabilization that are already starting to happen in many parts of the world?

The emphasis is all on adaptation with some general comments thrown in about the need to reduce the use of fossil fuels. But their record during the past 20 years regarding fossil fuel usage makes it obvious that our masters have given up on the latter option simply because their system requires growth which, in turn, requires easily available, and relatively cheap fossil fuels. So we find reassuring paragraphs like the following in this NY Times' article:

The experts did find a bright spot, however. Since the group issued its report in 2007, it has found growing evidence that governments and businesses around the world are starting extensive plans to adapt to climate disruptions, even as some conservatives in the United States and a small number of scientists continue to deny that a problem exists.

“I think that dealing effectively with climate change is just going to be something that great nations do,” said Christopher B. Field, co-chairman of the working group that wrote the report, and an earth scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif.

So, what do they have in mind as adaptations? I could find only two examples in this article: build higher walls to protect critical infrastructure from rising sea levels, and "improved crop varieties and farming techniques". In a Guardian article, one fellow recommended insurance policies!

Then I noticed that authorities were so concerned about some dire parts of this report that they simply deleted them from reports that would be read by the "deciders".

[The report] cited a World Bank estimate that poor countries need as much as $100 billion a year to try to offset the effects of climate change; they are now getting, at best, a few billion dollars a year in such aid from rich countries.

The $100 billion figure, though included in the 2,500-page main report, was removed from a 48-page executive summary to be read by the world’s top political leaders. It was among the most significant changes made as the summary underwent final review during a dayslong editing session in Yokohama.

The edit came after several rich countries, including the United States, raised questions about the language, according to several people who were in the room at the time but did not wish to be identified....

Managing disorder: towards a global state of control?

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

Refusing to tackle the causes of our troubles and allow public space for dissent, the neoliberal state is sliding inexorably towards authoritarianism.

Of course, the new World Order, a neoliberal order, cannot "tackle the causes of our troubles" because their order is designed to serve only the One Percent and their addictions to wealth and power. If they were to address the "root causes" of our troubles, they would have to abolish the capitalist system; they would have to commit suicide as a class with special privileges; they would have to give up their ownership and control of the economy and reconstitute it as a social property under genuinely democratic social control. Because they can't fool the people forever, we are seeing the inevitable resort to violence to maintain their rule.  

We of the 99 Percent have two choices: 1) complete submission to the rule of a tiny minority in a police state, acceptance of a future of deteriorating living conditions, and the destruction of our ecosystem, or 2) we can dedicate our lives to a thorough regime change and construct a classless society controlled by ordinary, engaged citizens. Number one might seem easier, but ultimately it will end with very tragic consequences. 

Supporter Destroys the Illusions of The Fake Left [sic]

Click here if you wish to access the source of this post from StormCloudsGathering.  

In just four minutes Carey Wedler, a former Obama supporter, cuts right through the corporate branding and describes the administration as it really is. Her message, though directed at Barack himself, is actually a challenge to the left [liberals]. Are you going to keep silent? Are you going to keep covering for this administration's blatant crimes? Or do you have enough integrity to admit you were bamboozled by slick marketing campaign? The emperor wears no clothes. You can stop clinging to his imaginary coattails.

This post illustrates how so many Americans have a warped political perspective. Wedler, in this video, and like so many American liberals, think of themselves and Obama supporters as being on the left. She also sees contemporary problems as caused by "the institution of government". At least she understands, unlike many Americans, that it doesn't matter who is in office--we still get the same government. 

This dramatic shift of the political spectrum to the right has been accomplished first by the massive attacks on the genuine left following WWII during the McCarthy period when real left people were effectively purged by political and legal harassment and loss of their careers. Others, like teachers, had to sign a loyalty oath. In fact, in California and a few other states, you still must do so to obtain employment as a teacher (see this and this). Since then, widespread indoctrination in the schools, media, and movie industry have finished the job of turning people who ask serious questions about social justice and the capitalist system into liberals who merely want a kinder, gentler form of capitalism

NYT Fails to Cover Civilization Collapse

Click here to access article by Michael M’Gehee from the NYT eXaminer.

Referring to a recently published and rigorous scientific study funded by NASA on the prospects of a complete collapse in civilization which was not reported in the NY Times, M’Gehee writes:

This is very alarming.

While various news agencies around the world quickly picked up and reported the study, the New York Times has yet to provide any coverage.

Times’ readers should wonder why it is that the “paper of record” does not find the prospects of a full-collapse of civilization “fit to print.”

The NY Times is a prime ruling class newspaper, and as such, the material it prints must never lead one to question the system which gives so much power and wealth to this ruling class.

M’Gehee selects some choice quotes from the study.

Understanding the intellectual whores of capitalism

Click here to access article by Gary Engler from New Commune-ist Manifesto.

The choices offered young writers, journalists and academics who aspire to earn a decent living at their craft are not great today. There are many more opportunities to voice opinions supporting the system than to criticize it. If you do get a job in a shrinking newsroom or social science department the best way to get ahead is always to support the existing power structure, not oppose it. Arguing in favour of the rich and powerful certainly pays better.

And in a time when the Left seldom confronts capitalism, confining its criticisms to tinkering around the edges, rather than offering a vision of an alternative system, should it be a surprise that the easiest route to intellectual success is selling out to the highest bidder? 

Brainwashed The Indoctrinated West

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from CounterPunch. 

Now, please, I am not trying to be funny and I am not trying to play with words: I am honestly wondering… I am humbly asking: “Are people in the West, particularly in Europe… are they pretending that they don’t know what is happening in Syria, Venezuela, Thailand and now, particularly, in Ukraine? Or have they simply turned into a cynical assembly of brainwashed degenerates?

Where is that fabled diversity? Where is intellectual courage?

FBI Continues To Withhold Information On Occupy Assassination Plots

Click here to access article by Katie Rucke from Mint Press News.

I have run a number of articles of the Empire's use of snipers in their regime change operations that have been appearing with increasing frequency. (Type "snipers" in the search box located upper left side of this website.) I have also argued that many of the strategies and tactics that Empire directors use against activists in other areas of the world will also likely be used against their domestic counterparts. This is the first evidence, that I have found, of the considered use of snipers here in the US.

It was quietly reported last June that the FBI was aware that an organization — possibly a law enforcement agency — had plans to assassinate leaders of the Occupy movement, and the bureau did nothing about it. Now a U.S. District Court judge says the FBI has some explaining to do.

Well, the District Court judge may think that, but the FBI, or any other agency of the One Percent, will never explain any of their terrorist strategies and tactics they have used, are implementing, or are planned against their domestic enemies--the activists of the 99 Percent! They never explained the assassinations of Black Power activists, of Malcom X and Martin Luther King, or the Kennedys, etc.

America the Beautiful

Click here to access Abby Zimet's posting of a 1:52m video featuring Willie Nelson singing a new, updated version of "America the Beautiful".

The indomitable Willie Nelson has joined the fight against mountaintop removal in Appalachia with a dark and stirring rendition of "America the Beautiful." More performers and actions from the Natural Resources Defense Council's "Music Saves Mountains" campaign.

State allowed logging on plateau above slope involved in deadly Oregon [sic] mudslide

Click here to access article by Mike Baker, Ken Armstrong and Hal Bernton of the Seattle Times via Climate Connections. (Note I am using this post because Seattle Times limits access a bit to subscribers.)

This was one of the rare local reports linking this terrible tragedy (north of Seattle in Washington state) to clear-cutting of forests by timber corporations. Local area TV coverage has only focused on themes of pathos and heroism. Apparently, local corporate media do not want people to know much about this dangerous practice of clear-cutting--it might interfere with corporate profits. Having lived in Oregon for a number of years, I witnessed several such slides which were all eventually linked to this practice. The coverage from faraway places like Boston and even Britain (the best coverage) had no problem making this connection. 

Just as after the disasters in Oregon over the last 30 years, we once again learn that official authorities knew about the practices and the danger of building homes in these areas, but they did nothing to enforce laws prohibiting these practices or settlements in this area. This tragedy in Washington state is one more illustration that the capitalist ruling class will let nothing get in the way of enriching their members of the One Percent--the timber harvesters, the developers, and real estate brokers. Meanwhile, they succeeded, once again, in keeping the 99 Percent in ignorance.

US Bans The Import Of Russian Vodka

Click here to access article from The Daily Currant. (satire)

The U.S. says it may lift the ban if Russia pulls back their troops and recognizes Ukraine’s sovereignty over Crimea.

“We’ll also be open to re-establishing trade of vodka if they agree to give us back Edward Snowden, we just want to talk to him,” an inebriated Kerry told reporters later that night outside of his local D.C. bar. “Just talk to that little prick, that’s all.”

The Golden Era of the 1950s/60s Was an Anomaly, Not the Default Setting

Click here to access article by Charles Hugh Smith from Washington's Blog.

If there is one thing that unites trade unionists, Keynesian Cargo Cultists, free-market fans [Liberals, libertarians, and old-fashioned conservatives] and believers in American exceptionalism, it’s a misty-eyed nostalgia for the Golden Era of the 1950s and 60s, when one wage-earner earned enough to buy all the goodies of a middle-class lifestyle because everything was cheap. Food was cheap, land was cheap, houses were cheap, college was cheap and most importantly, oil was cheap.

The entire political spectrum looks back at this Golden Age with longing because it was an era of “the rising tide raises all ships:” essentially full employment, a strong U.S. dollar and overseas demand for U.S. goods combined to raise wages while keeping inflation low. 

Smith does an excellent job of identifying such views of this period as idealized myths that are easily explained by historical factors, although his explanations of the causes of the decline in conditions favorable to ordinary Americans are good, but very limited.

Since this ideal period spokespeople from these ideological camps are disturbed by the many social and economic problems that have since developed in US society. They fail to understand that the natural evolution of capitalism toward ever greater concentrations of wealth (and power) has created these problems. They cling to beliefs that we can fix the system and return to the wonderful days of yore. Such critics get wide exposure on the web and thus create distractions for serious criticism of the capitalist system that many people are looking for as an alternative to the views purveyed by mainstream media.

Ethics and morality at the end of history

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

 Strange, isn’t it, that the system supposedly representing the apex of human development — even the end of history — has no place for ethics or morality.

Perhaps this becomes inevitable when an ideology develops to the point where the economy is considered to be outside the environment. From that dubious...vantage point, the journey to seeing the environment, and the natural resources and life it contains, as nothing more than a cow to be milked at will is not a long one.

Controlling the Lens: The Media War Being Fought Over Ukraine Between the Western Bloc and Russia

Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Global Research.

The aims of information warfare are to use discourse to influence populations across the world and to establish a total monopoly on the flow of information, the perceptions of audiences, and the discursive processes shaping the modern world. At its basis power and relationships are being realized through mass media communication.

The messages and ideas that the mass media transmit through mass communication are constructed by those that control the media and, in succession, used by them to construct the perceptions of audiences. Since what the majority of people in most modern societies know is heavily shaped by the mass media, the mass media is used to lead audiences into forming certain opinions and to make their decisions on the bases of those opinions. 

Nazemroaya provides an excellent examination of the appearance of (non-NATO) competing sources of information provided especially by Russia Today (RT) and to a much lessor extent by Iran's Press TV and Chinese Central Television (CCTV). 

I've long argued that control of media by capitalist directors is a major factor in their self-serving class rule and all the associated problems ranging from social injustice to wars. The news coverage and analysis from these alternative national media are very helpful in breaking down the propaganda-fueled news reports from Western mainstream media. However, what is crucially needed is news media run by ordinary working people. Media representing various sections of the capitalist world can be helpful in contests between rival capitalist gangs, but they still represent interests of the One Percents.

George Soros‘ INET: An institute to improve the world or a Trojan horse of the financial oligarchy?

Click here to access article by Norbert Haering from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

Let’s assume that there is a financial oligarchy which exerts strong political influence due to the vast amounts of money it controls. Let’s further assume that this financial oligarchy has succeeded in having financial markets deregulated and that this has enabled the financial industry to expand their business massively. Then, in some near or far future, their artfully constructed financial edifice breaks down, because it cannot be hidden any more that the accumulated claims cannot be serviced by the real economy. ....

The financial oligarchy might also recollect that economics is their most important ally in shaping public opinion and policies in their favor. To prevent a loss of power as it happened hence, they might want to make sure first that economics will not challenge the notion of leaving financial markets mostly to themselves and will continue to downplay the role of money and the power of the financial oligarchy, and of power in general.

Let me be clear: this website is a publication of a liberal organization of economists called "World Economics Association". It is quintessentially liberal in that it functions to contain any critique of capitalism within limits permitted by the ruling capitalist class. This means that they limit their critiques to reforms of the existing capitalist system.

Thus, Haering's criticism is aimed at the existing rule of financial oligarchies that has resulted from the concentration of wealth and power that is an inherent tendency of capitalism. Liberals and libertarians fail to recognize that this is an inherent tendency and insist that we can turn back the clock on capitalism to an earlier stage of development characterized by more competing sectors of capitalists,  especially industrial capitalists, a stronger social safety net, a nationally oriented economy, and a thriving middle class that enabled the system to function. This type of capitalism represents, in their eyes, an ideal form of society.

This liberal economist and author reveals how major capitalist directors contain dissent limited to a discussion of reforms by examining the operations of well-funded non-profit think tanks, especially that of George Soros' INET. However, much of Haering's examination also applies to an understanding of how all ideological institutions of the capitalist system function to exclude more radical critiques.

IMF Unleashes 18 Billion on Ukraine’s Economy and People

Click here to access article by Christof Lehmann from nsnbc. 

The measures expected by the IMF include drastic austerity measures which will drastically increase already rampant poverty in the country. Analysts warn that the IMF package that was unleashed on the Ukraine and measures, expected to be taken by the government, will result in a new wave of social unrest.

Compare this report with those of mainstream capitalist media such as from the liberal Guardian and Reuters which celebrate the IMF loan program as a "bailout" and "lifeline".

The end result will be the neoliberal agenda we've seen elsewhere: Ukraine's economy will be open to Western corporate takeover by such firms as Cargill and Monsanto, the IMF loan will go to pay off the loans of oligarchs and banks, and the Ukrainian people will experience even more austerity to pay off the IMF.

BFP EyeOpener Report-The Psychology of Cognitive Dissonance

Click here if you wish to access the original posted article and 10:12m video narrated by James Corbett on Boiling Frog's website.

Excellent assemblage of video excerpts to explain and illustrate this important psychological mechanism which functions to prevent us from acknowledging, or even considering, evidence that conflicts with society's authority figures. This is a sample of the rich source of material awaiting those who subscribe to Boiling Frogs.

The theory of cognitive dissonance was first posited by American social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957 to explain the discomfort and mental stress that we feel when our beliefs, ideals or values don’t match up to reality. Festinger’s theory states that when people are in a state of dissonance, that is, when their beliefs or values don’t match up with their behavior or experiences, they will adjust those beliefs or values, or even adjust their perception of reality, in order to achieve consonance. Furthermore, Festinger showed that people will actively avoid situations or information that might challenge those beliefs and values in order to avoid dissonance.

Shocking Videos: Here is Ukraine since the NATO Coup

Click here to access article by William Engdahl posted on Boiling Frogs.

Engdahl has obtained some video footage of US backed neo-nazis showing their style in actions to overthrow the legitimate government of Ukraine. Paraphrasing a statement attributed to Franklin Roosevelt, "they may be sons-of-bitches, but they are our sons-of-bitches."

What has been deliberately censored from Western media is the reality on the ground. Here are a number of amateur videos filmed during and after the coup that paint an alarming picture of the new regime that now might join NATO if Washington has its way.

While thousands of honest Ukrainians protested peacefully for change and against the official corruption, the control of the opposition was always in the hands of brutal, organized neo-nazi groups such as Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) and, behind them, the hard-core trained killers of UNA-UNSO (Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Defense Organization).... The fascist thugs, in many ways comparable to the Black Shirts of Mussolini fascists, are tied intimately to the parliamentary party, Svoboda....

Finance Capital Uses Non-Profits for Privatization Agenda

Click here to access article by Danny Haiphong from Global Research.

NGOs (Non-governmental Organizations) have been in the news a lot recently, and often for rather nefarious reasons as regime change agents of the Empire. Such organizations are usually referred to as non-profits when operating within the US. The various schemes used by Empire capitalist agents abroad often are used in some form here in the US and vice versa--let us be clear, our masters in the One Percent ruling class think and act globally. Thus, we need to learn as much as we can. I believe that this article contributes a good deal to this examination.

Haiphong describes the role of non-profits in the US this way:

...the original purpose of the non-profit as a mechanism [was] to smooth over the roughest edges of US capitalism.  However, in the age of neo-liberal monopoly capitalism, existing programs that address the needs of the exploited are being rolled back to feed the bottom line of Finance capital.  Wall Street has transferred most of the world’s wealth into their dollar schemes. The ultimate goal of Wall Street is to privatize Medicaid, Social Security, public education, and the entire public sector to subsidize its losses and crashes.  Non-profits are being employed by finance capital to cement its privatization agenda, thus making the institution not only limiting in nature but thoroughly corrupting as well.

Ukraine - the corporate annexation

Click here to access article by JP Sottile from Ecologist. 

As the US and EU apply sanctions on Russia over its annexation' of Crimea, JP Sottile reveals the corporate annexation of Ukraine. For Cargill, Chevron, Monsanto, there's a gold mine of profits to be made from agri-business and energy exploitation.

Has Anglo-American Capitalism Run Out of Steam?

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of this inteview from the direct posting at Real News Network.

George Irvin, who is Research Professor at the University of London and author of Super Rich: The Rise of Inequality in Britain and the United States, provides a useful summary or overview of what has happened to the economies of Britian and the US since the beginning of the neoliberal era of capitalism.



Too many highly educated observers still think is is useful to frame their analysis in nationalistic terms; and thus, ignore the globalization of capitalism that has logically developed, under the rules of capitalism, in the neoliberal era. The neoliberal Western directors of capitalism, a system which is driven by its capitalist actors to seek ever greater accumulations of wealth and the power associated with wealth, have been enabled to expand beyond national boundaries by the advances of technology, and have been forced to do so by the increasing competition from low-wage countries beginning in the 1970s as explained by Irvin.

Thus, Western capitalists dominated mostly by US and British capitalists have gone global in their investments and logically found better profit-making opportunities in many low wage countries. Capitalists are organized like gangs to control access to resources, markets, and low wage labor; and they have used NATO as the ultimate weapon to insure this access. This larger view is much more important to understanding the current world we live in than the narrow nationalistic view that many observers still cling to despite this dramatic change in capitalist organization. Therefore, to me the question posed in the title and the related answer is not very useful.

These Charts Show What is Wrong With American Capitalism

Click here to access article by Yves Smith (pseudonym) from her blog Naked Capitalism.

As is frequently the case with her articles, this one contains a lot of specialized financial concepts and jargon (for example, ZIRP which means zero interest rate policy). However, I'm really not so much interested in her charts and arguments as I am in the effort, itself, to explain the problems of capitalism.

What is of special interest to me is that Smith is frequently raising questions about what is wrong with capitalist practices and the fact that her blog is followed by a high number of well-educated middle class people in finance, economics, and business. Because of the latter fact, I frequently read the very interesting comments following her articles, and I encourage you to do likewise. 

Liberal critics of current capitalism such as Smith are hampered, I believe, not only by their religious-like faith in capitalism, but also in a kind of trained incapacity or incompetence (see this and this). They confine their views to the specialized knowledge in which they have received so much training, but in doing this they miss the bigger picture as in the blind men and the elephant fable. Notice also that the very framing of her question, as she does in the title of the article, is completely inadequate in this age of globalized capitalism.

What I regard as most significant is that Smith, and the many middle class people who follow this blog, make the system function; and they are questioning it like never before because of the obvious social problems it is causing. Most of them, like Smith, still believe in the system and are almost desperately trying to figure out how to fix it. Think what might happen should sufficient numbers of them begin to understand that the system itself is defective!? 

Political apathy as a symptom

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

The author provides a very thought-provoking and disturbing examination of political apathy which afflicts so many people during these times when action is so desperately needed.

...the lack of passion for politics...is dominant in all capitalist authoritarian societies. It is fed by them and easily becomes attached in most of its institutions, expressed through excessive consumerism, religion,...adherence to political parties, lifestyle and commercial sports (soccer, etc).

Why the EU won’t annex Ukraine

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from RT. 

Hysterical 24/7 Western spin conveys the impression Ukraine will be annexed by a (mostly bankrupt) EU tomorrow. No so fast!

His argument supports this thesis:

...Ukraine is on the road to become legally bound to NATO’s overall project. Along with other independent analysts, I’ve argued from the start that this whole geopolitical drama is first and foremost about NATO annexing Ukraine.

Revealed: Visitor logs show full extent of Pierre and Pamela Omidyar’s cozy White House ties

Click here to access article by Paul Carr from Pando. 

 To put the numbers in perspective, Omidyar’s six visits compare to four visits during the same period by NBCUniversal chief Stephen Burke, two by Fox News boss Roger Ailes, two by MSNBC’s Phil Griffin, one by New York Times owner Arthur O Sulzberger, and one each by Dow Jones’ Robert Thompson, Gannett/USA Today’s Gracia Martore and Omidyar’s fellow tech billionaire turned media owner, Jeff Bezos.

Although I applaud the evidence the author has dug up regarding media visitors to the White House, I think by focusing so much interest on one tree, the Omidyars, he misses a view of the forest. 

The White House functions as a nerve center for the Empire and is occupied by the directors of the One Percent ruling class. The evidence supplied here illustrates how the latter are so concerned about getting the Empire's stories covered properly that they have these frequent face-to-face meetings and other forms of contacts with media executives. Thus, the directors located in the White House serve as an Orwellian Ministry of Information. (By the way, it doesn't matter who is designated as "President" because whoever this person is, he/she functions as another public relations officer for the Empire.) If we truly had an independent media, do you think we would see such close collaboration?

US Forsakes Gay Saudi Diplomat: A Story of Western Hypocrisy

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

The Empire's Ministry of Information seems to being achieving new highs in hypocritical news coverage and editorial bias. If it doesn't serve the interests of the Empire, news simply isn't covered. What is served up to us as information is a daily dose of Empire propaganda to keep us wage slaves from revolting, and if necessary, risking our lives to kill anyone who refuses to take orders from them. Cartalucci slams them for their coverage of global gay issues and tells us what is really happening.

While human right crusades are dominated by headlines involving the “homophobic” Russian government and tales of homosexuals being strung up across Iran, there is a larger, more sinister violator of human rights operating right within an intentional, self-imposed media blackhole created by the West. That violator is Saudi Arabia, who not only has outlawed homosexuality, but reserves execution as punishment if caught. 

The Financial Elite and the Global Land Grab

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

It appears from this and other reports that the "next big thing" for capitalist gamblers is placing bets on land. The One Percent are now intent upon literally buying all the surface of the Earth that is worth anything. Welcome, peasants, to the new feudal lord of the global manor.

The global financial crisis, which began in 2008, has significantly altered the way many speculators and financial institutions invest. Rather than taking huge risks with dodgy derivatives like credit default swaps and mortgage-backed securities, both of which have proven to be particularly volatile, many speculators have instead begun to invest in the most tangible asset of all: land.

Big climate report: Warming is big risk for people

Click here to access article by Seth Borenstein from The Big Story.

Capitalist politicians discussing global warming (by Isaac Cordal)

If you think of climate change as a hazard for some far-off polar bears years from now, you're mistaken. That's the message from top climate scientists gathering in Japan this week to assess the impact of global warming.

In fact, they will say, the dangers of a warming Earth are immediate and very human.

22M: Madrid Protests on March 22, 2014

Click here to access the dramatic 10:56 video from Global Uprisings.

The video contains numerous scenes of violent clashes between protestors and police. You won't see any candlelight marches here. Perhaps we are seeing a new stage of conflict which borders on insurrection between Europeans and their ruling class enforcers. 

Hundreds of thousands of protesters protested against government imposed austerity measures in Madrid, Spain.

Shortly after dark, protesters and police clashed in central Madrid. 

Kiev Snipers Hired by Maidan Nazi Leaders

Click here to access article by Alexandra Valiente from Libya 360°.

There are an increasing number of articles showing up on alternative websites dealing with the use of snipers in the recent Ukrainian coup. I am posting this one because it provides a useful summary of this evidence and, especially, because it provides a link to the best historical article that I have seen on the use of snipers for regime change projects. (As a rule, I only post current articles on my website.) I highly recommend that you read that article.

The only problem with this posted article is that I found no evidence in the article which supported the headline. We don't know who precisely hired them, but we in alternative websites are gathering considerable evidence that points generally to Empire operatives.

Who In Ukraine Will Benefit From An IMF Bailout?

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of the 21:50m interview with Jeffrey Sommers and Michael Hudson directly from Real News. (If you listen carefully, you will notice that Hudson makes one slip-of-the tongue error which is, no doubt, due to his rapid-fire delivery: "blocking" instead of "backing".)

Bitcoins

Click here to access article by Paul Davidson from Real-World Economics Review.

What those who are promoting the notion that Bitcoin is some real, if virtual, money fail to comprehend is that all market transactions involving production and sales in any developed nation are organized through the use of that nation’s money denominated legal contracts.

Money (or currency), whether fiat or backed by gold or silver, is therefore defined as that thing that by delivery discharges all legal contractual obligations. Only the government, as the enforcer of contractual obligations, can determine that thing that is legally MONEY, i.e., what thing(s) will discharge contracts under that nation’s civil law of contracts.

When Bitcoins first made a splash in the media (I think it was nearly a year ago), I immediately thought that it could not be considered legal money. Yet, so much of Wall Street and mainstream media took it seriously. I was extremely puzzled because the control of money is vital to the power of any ruling class and their governments. Any contracts involving such fabricated money would not be enforceable in their courts of law. I wanted to issue a statement explaining why Bitcoins were not legal money, but I thought that others, with far more credentials than I have, would do so. I have had to wait until now with this piece. But, this puzzling phenomenon begs an obvious question: why has Bitcoin been taken so seriously so long by the One Percent ruling class?

I am convinced that it is making it easier for them to move money around any legal regulations that restrict their commerce (for example, illicit drug transactions) and to avoid taxes. But, this is for someone else with far more credentials than I have to write about at any length. If you have followed my thoughts about governments, you will recognize immediately the logic of my following summary statement. 

Because existing governments are controlled by capitalist ruling classes and Bitcoins are very useful to this class, they will exhibit a lot of ambivalence about using the weight of their governments' enforcement authorities to interfere with their use. Of course, this liberal economist cannot, or avoids, making such an explanation.

The Long-Distance Executioners: Camus in the Time of Drones

Click here to access article by Jeffrey St. Clair from CounterPunch.

St. Clair makes a compelling argument that the use off drones as killing machines is a new terrorist weapon employed by Empire directors "to humiliate, subdue and dehumanize" their targeted populations.

The conscience of the killer has been sterilized, the drone operator, fully alienated from the act he is committing, can walk out the door after his shift is over and calmly order an IPA at the local microbrew or play a round of golf under the desert sky. He is left with no blood on his hands, no savagery weighing on his conscience, no degrading images to stalk his dreams.

Drone strikes, Camus would argue, are not just meant to kill. They are programmed to terrorize. In this regard, whether the missile strikes its intended target or incinerates a goat-herder and his flock is incidental. In fact, the occasional killing of civilians may well be a desired outcome since collateral deaths intensify the fear. This is punishment by example, not for any particular crime or impending threat, but merely because of who you are, where you live, what you might believe. These new circuitries of death are meant to humiliate, subdue and dehumanize.

New documentary: Bosnia and Herzegovina in Spring

Click here to access article from Global Uprisings. 

This post contains a recently released 14:40m film documenting the recent uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina (one country) that was created out of the former Yugoslavia mostly by major capitalist powers including the US and Russia at Dayton, Ohio in 1995 (Dayton Accords). We see a lot of familiar elements here as we have seen elsewhere where capitalist governments take over from nations that had considerable state control over the economy: privatization of the economy, the assumption of loans from major capitalist finance agencies (IMF and World Bank), and in this case, balkanization of a former state run economy. 

Beginning in February of this year there have been widespread protests against the government that, in some cases, have grown into riots. This documentary explains what is happening there.

Russian sanctions as war and farce

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

With his usual cutting wit, he ridicules the latest sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration to punish the Russians for interfering in the Empire's regime-change project for Ukraine and also for their other impudent actions regarding Syria and Iran. They have to be taught a lesson about which capitalist gang rules the world's neighborhood.

However, I think he, and other critics, miss the point of these sanctions: they are mostly designed to appease the right-wing in the Empire's ruling class and to satisfy indoctrinated Americans after their bellicose condemnation of Russian actions.

Meanwhile, other knowledgeable people are trying to figure out the delayed effects of this event and the next moves on the global chessboard as the capitalist gangs line up in their game called "world dominance". Tyler Durban at Zero Hedge sees Russia cozening up to China and India. Manlio Dinucci sees an increase in NATO power in Europe in his piece "The new Cold War 'shield'" and also sees this result:

...Washington has scored the first point: the mounting tension in Europe enables the U.S. to increase its influence over its European allies.

It is quite literally a game to these capitalist elites, but a game which often has dire consequences for us. As long as we allow them and their system to exist, we will never have peace or a sustainable ecosystem.

Unfun Unions Would Trash Our Fun, Fast, Friendly Culture (Not to Mention Require A Living Wage) Says Target's New Agit-Prop

Click here to access article by Abby Zimet from Common Dreams. 

Wage slaves in USA

Target doesn't like unions - maybe because, as America's third-largest retailer with 2012 revenues of $73.3 billion, it can get away with paying its CEO $24 million a year, or $14,000 an hour, while paying its average sales "team member" less than $17,000 a year....

Fifth Avenue Freeze-Out: Uptowners, Feeling Chill, Eye Miami Over Manhattan: 'Don't hate me because I'm 10021.'

Click here to access article by Richard Kirshenbaum from New York Observer. (Satire)

This is another contribution to my frequent 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. 

I think that this piece, which is from one of the favorite publications of the New York rich, describes very well some of their leisure time activities and supplies us with a number of quotes from conversations that gives us a rich understanding of their views and concerns.

My first impression was from the sub-headline which expressed feelings of not being liked by us in the 99 Percent simply because they live in a certain area. ("10021" refers to a zip-code where the rich live in Manhattan. The Hamptons on Long Island is another such place he refers to.) They are a aware of the existence of "haves" and "have-nots", but they resent being blamed for this development. As one friend of his explains:

“This weather really has me down,” he shivered, wrapped in a khaki wool coat and a Russian-style military hat. “And then you realize you’re out of favor and that everyone hates you,” he complained.

“How can you say that?” I asked in disbelief. “Who hates you?”

“Them,” he shivered, eating the lonely saltine left in the cellophane wrapper, crumbs pouring onto his rough, woolen trousers. “We used to run this town. Now I feel like they want to run us all out.”

The rest of the article points to other people, particularly an Italian friend named Bella, who are bothered by such feelings, but mostly I think they are understated. I think that they don't want to be seen by us as wallowing in self-pity. After all, they are our masters and we must look up to them for leadership. 
 
My second impression was that they are very modest. I'm referring to Kirshenbaum's introduction of his first pal as only a "Wall Street friend". I imagine that he is very likely a hedge fund manager who has to toil daily over his office computer making huge bets using money from pension funds, insurance companies, municipal funds, etc. I think this must be very nerve-wracking. What if he lost a lot of these bets and wrecked the economy? He would feel embarrassed in front of his colleagues and be seen as a loser. This would only further aggravate his feelings of being disliked, this time by his own rich set. And with regard to Kirshenbaum's background, we only learn at the end of the article that he is a CEO of some new venture firm. With further research I learned that he is also a co-founder of this firm which is a major ad agency.

Other people are only identified as a "financial whiz", people from Italy, and a friend who happens to have multiple homes in several countries. Well, of course, these people have global investments that they must look after. What do you expect--that they should be homeless when they visit these countries?

Besides learning what they do to enjoy their free time, we get to sort of listen in on their conversations which are similar to ours--you know, about the weather and other such trivia. For example, our hero the author...

...goes to a swanky bar and meets a woman friend.... “These days, I have to wear a reversible fur when I go downtown,” [I guess this must be a comment on the cold weather] one of the queens of couture sighed with disbelief, knocking back a cosmopolitan at an uptown hotel bar....

“I mean, the very fact that I would be jeered at and pilloried in my own backyard for wearing a sheared dyed mink,” she droned on. “Well it’s just unconscionable. I don’t jeer at them for not showering and shaving and wearing patchouli oil, which I find equally offensive.”

The Ukrainian Revolution & the Future of Social Movements

Click here to access article by CrimethInc. Workers' Collective from their website. (Appears to be based in Salem, Oregon.)

I and many others think that a thorough study of what happened in Ukraine is of utmost importance if we, ordinary people, have any chance of surviving in a decent world. Although this collective does not clearly identify themselves as anarchists in their "about" page, from their writings, and this one in particular, they clearly express an anarchist perspective. 

I've never been able to identify my own political orientation even though I have agreed with some elements in various left ideologies. This has been especially true of anarchism about which I've always experienced a lot of ambivalence. It looks to me like that this piece may be helpful in clearing up most of my confusion in addition to offering a very thoughtful examination of recent Ukrainian events. Therefore, while my following comments may seem like a digression from the article's examination, I think it adds clarity to the latter.

In this article as in so many anarchist writings, one sees an emphasis placed on the "state" and governments which rule states. Anarchists are fundamentally anti-authoritarians and, of course, states and their governments are inherently authoritarian. Socioeconomic class concepts are sometimes inserted in their discussions, but their importance is lost in the background because the state is so dramatically thrust into the foreground. Thus the state becomes an independent actor in the drama of human affairs, according to anarchists, and I think that this perspective is clearly reflected in this article.

A variety of capitalists and state actors must be evaluating these protest movements as a way to pursue politics by other means. As more resources flow into the hands of reactionary participants in social struggles, we will likely see more developments like those in Ukraine and Venezuela.

Likewise, powerful governments will not stand by and let common people get a taste for overthrowing them. They will be pressed to intervene, as Russia has in Ukraine, in hopes that war can trump insurrection. War is a way of shutting down possibilities—of changing the subject. It is a risky business, however—it can help governments to consolidate their power, but history shows that it can also destabilize them.

With war looming, even the limits of violent nationalism become obvious. Mere protest militancy is worthless in the face of the Russian military; only contagious disobedience could serve to even the odds when a social movement does battle with a superpower. This is the one thing anarchist opposition to the state has going for it today: in a globalized world, all insurrections must ultimately become international or perish.

I argue that states (and their governments) are creations of the capitalist class to serve the competing interests of capitalist players and to establish the legitimacy of their class rule in the eyes of their working class subjects. Capitalist propaganda has always portrayed the state as serving all of society. This is explicitly expressed in national documents where one encounters such words as "of the people, by the people, and for the people", "inalienable rights" of people, and a "Bill of Rights" as in the US constitution. They have continually affirmed in their propaganda and indoctrination that they have established "democratic" governments and the "rule of law" that supports all people. (Of course, the reality is completely different: rights and access to their legal system, as well as everything else, all depends on how much money you have.) 

Victorious capitalist classes merely substituted state concepts in place of kingdoms after taking power from monarchs and aristocracies. They did this originally to enlist the support of working people to overthrow the rule of the old feudal authorities. When their victories were accomplished, they were stuck with all the promises contained in their propaganda and thus had to create new authoritarian structures which pretend to be "democratic". Hence, their construction of the concept of "state".

Ukraine signs political deal with EU

Click here to access article from euronews.

Notice the language used by the European Council President Herman Van Rompuy regarding the new deal that the European Union made with the coup-established government of Ukraine that violently overthrew the previously elected government with considerable Western aid:

“It recognises the aspiration of the people of Ukraine to live in a country governed by values, by democracy and the rule of law, where all citizens have a stake in national prosperity,” said European Council President Herman Van Rompuy.

UkrainianGirl - Breaks Down Media Lies

A 21:37m YouTube video interview conducted by SyrianGirlpartisan with UkrainianGirl.

How refreshing to hear ordinary knowledgeable people discussing political conflicts! UkrainainGirl provides all the nuances of what is going on in her tragic country that is missing from class-biased Empire media. Unfortunately, we will always have these insurrections and wars as long as so many ordinary people remain disengaged from political issues, allow class-structured societies to exist, and allow ruling classes to enlist ordinary people to fight and kill each other to promote the interests of one ruling class over another. Meanwhile, the conditions for ordinary people remain the same, and it is they who end up suffering.

 

Beyond Neoliberal Miseducation

Click here to access article by Henry A. Giroux from Uncommon Thought Journal. 

This educator has written a lot about the deterioration of education under the onslaught of neoliberals and their ideology. He certainly identifies the deleterious effects that they have had on education. However, he falls far short of a fundamental critique that can liberate us from the juggernaut of capitalist control that is adversely affecting all of our lives, and is even now threatening to destroy conditions on our planet Earth that can sustain human life.

In this piece the liberal educator appears to pretend to be more radical than other liberals. Of course, the political spectrum in the US has shifted so far to the right that he is able to make such an argument. Because of his limited perspective, I hesitated to post this article on my website. However, social critics like this are given such wide exposure on the web that I thought that, once again, it is necessary to poke holes in it. 

One of the first indications of his limited political perspective as expressed in this article was his criticisms of Obama. This is a fundamental error of political understanding that will lead many people to avoid a deeper, and more accurate, understanding of how capitalists rule today. I am referring to the existence of a ruling class that functions with a shadow government that essentially issues orders to their agents in the formal institutions. I have no idea if he does this deliberately as a ruling class ideological gatekeeper, or if he is blinded by his long immersion in capitalist institutions. (The same observation applies to Chris Hedges.)

He identifies the "evil doers" in today's society as mostly neoliberals, but also names the "corporate class", corporations, and "casino capitalism". However, it is clear that he only takes issue with the latest stage of capitalism--not capitalism itself--which has outgrown national boundaries and is now gone global. Thus, capitalists, who dominated much of the rest of world to favor their own national economies, have now abandoned their home nations, removed all boundaries inhibiting the flow of commerce, and now see the world as their oyster. The only purpose that their national bases provide for them is the supply of weapons and training for their military forces. Thus, the huge developments of the military-industrial complex in NATO countries, a police state with 24/7 surveillance of communications, austerity policies, and increasing corporate influence over all aspects of education (and all other institutions) to serve corporate needs about which Giroux is so knowledgeable.

Ending the affair between polluters and politicians

Click here to access article from Corporate Europe Observatory. 

(Note: Once again I've experienced difficulty accessing articles on their website--actually even worse this morning. Thus, if you have problems, to save time I advise you to load a similar article from Climate Connections that expresses the same theme.)

If you follow this website you have read numerous articles about the influence of industries on the governments of Europe and their interference with climate policies that reduce carbon emissions. The same phenomenon, of course, applies to the USA. 

Let me say first that such articles are excellent to help us gain an understanding of how the capitalist version of democracy works. The problem I have is that they never go beyond their theme of industry interference in climate rehabilitation policies. They refuse to admit that capitalism and sustainable climate policies cannot coexist. As long as societies are ruled by a narrow segment of capitalists, the latter will inevitably destroy biospheric conditions that can support human and many other life forms.

In article after article the website's authors provide interesting details on how industry leaders have such easy informal as well as formal access to European official political leaders. Referring to informal contacts, they will make frequent statements like this:

They meet at birthday parties, over breakfast meetings, during cocktail receptions; so just how close are Europe’s dirtiest industries to senior politicians and regulators?

And they will give specific examples:

“Early July I had the pleasure of sharing a dinner table with Commissioner Oettinger at the birthday celebrations of Dr Klaus Mangold in Munstertal [Executive Adviser to the Chairman of DaimlerChrysler] .... I was wondering if he [Oettinger] would have some time either after the breakfast, or perhaps over dinner the evening before, to continue
our conversation from Munstertal about the future of energy and CO2in Europe.”

Email from Shell executive to the European Commission

They go on to discuss the massive lobbying efforts of industry. They report on closed door meetings between business leaders and government officials which are followed up by formal meetings where the former are again given priority over those concerned about carbon emissions. They acknowledge that there is a revolving door between industry and government positions. But, they stop short of recognizing that there is a ruling class consisting of capitalists who thoroughly control political institutions along with all other institutions in society. They always stop short of recognizing the basic contradiction between the short-term profit dynamics of capitalism and a sustainable biosphere.

The website's cartoons illustrate the same limited perspective. This one merely suggests that the European business man will go the way of the dinosaurs, but in reality human beings will go that way if we continue to allow this class and their system to rule over us. 

Trickle-up economics

Click here to access article by Lars Syll from Real-World Economics Review Blog. 

"Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are--simple upward redistribution of income, rather that a way to make all of us richer, as we were told."

De-Manufacturing Consent- “Boston Bombing Revisited: Official Narrative Unraveling”

Click here to access videos in which contain an interview with investigative journalist Russ Baker regarding his further research's into the Boston Bombing incident.

The first video is a 5 minute excerpt of the longer 55 minute interview--the latter being accessed by subscribers only.

If you are a non-subscriber, I hope after listening to the first short video that you will subscribe. However, if for whatever reason you cannot or decide not to do this, you can access much of the material in written form in two articles on Russ Baker's website, here and here. 

The latest material which Russ Baker provides casts considerable doubts on the official version pedaled by mainstream media. We have seen many investigations which found that the official versions of the many incidents from Nine-Eleven to the Boston Bombing are not supported by the evidence. (See this, this, this, and this.) Many keen observers have concluded that inducing fear in people through false-flag terrorism is being used for a variety of nefarious purposes.

Just today I viewed the latest attempt to do this while view CBS morning news on television which reported on a supposed Al Qaeda plan to bomb cars and other civilian targets in cities across the US. Their source is an online magazine whose authenticity they take for granted even though numerous questions have been raised about its authenticity in the past.

Nightmares of the Omnicidal Juggernaut

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

Some days I wake up and despise the monotony and pettiness of this culture and its followers: its celebrity worship, its staged news reporting, its chameleon politicians, its conniving marketers of consumerism, its cookie-cutter neighborhoods, its push-button surveillance state, and its clueless masses all working together to create the illusion of normalcy. Everyone goes along with this mindless program like obedient slaves, afraid of the social stigma attached to questioning any radical deviation from what constitutes normal. God forbid anyone openly discusses the cliff we are fast approaching....