CNN's Chicagoland: An 8 Part Miniseries Campaign Commercial For Rahm Emanuel and Urban Neoliberalism

Click here to access article by Bruce A. Dixon from Black Agenda Report.

This new TV series provides an excellent illustration of how our ruling One Percent uses entertainment to indoctrinate us into supporting their agenda. Dixon reveals what this new TV series is really designed to do:

Chicagoland nimbly ignores our capacity for rational thought, aiming instead at our guts and feelings. It shifts rapidly from gritty, compelling image to image, from sports stadiums as economic development tools, to Isaiah Thomas, Magic Johnson & Duane Wade as token sports figures offering “inspiration” and mentoring as the answer to job and education opportunities that don't exist. It depicts implacable urban violence as an existential fact kept at bay by the thin blue line of the city's police. This vision of urban life has a name. It's called neoliberalism.

Under neoliberalism, the problems of poverty and the poor are deemed unsolvable. The neoliberal vision calls upon us all to instead to retool and reform our individual lives, to pull ourselves up by bootstraps or whatever, seek or be role models, mentors and mentees, to adjust our expectations of society and solidarity downward and our positive attitudes upward. That's the unspoken vision Chicagoland is selling.

If you think that this is an extreme example or that you wouldn't encounter this on "public TV", then you are very naive. For example, read this piece entitled "Why Is Public Television Against Public Schools?" in which the author, Peter Dreier, only provides liberal hints to the answer:

PBS once received a significant amount of money from the federal government. But conservatives saw to it that Washington gradually slashed much of that subsidy from what used to be called "educational television." To keep going, PBS stations around the country have relied more and more on financial support not only from "viewers like you" but also from big corporations and their foundations. The people chosen to run PBS and many of its local affiliates are no longer experienced broadcasters but sycophantic fundraisers.

So when it comes to assigning reporters and camerapersons to poke behind the wall of billionaire backing for school privatization, public TV has been, for the most part, missing-in-action.

The fact is, there has never been a real "public TV", that is, a TV organization that supports the interests of the 99 Percent. PBS is under the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and as such is very well integrated with the ruling One Percent. Although local TV stations have some independence, they are run by boards of directors made up of local One Percenters.

From Cheerleader to Enemy of the State

Click here to access article which is an excerpt from a book Radical Peace: Refusing War by William Hathaway posted on World News Trust.

The excerpt gives us an idea of what happens to teachers if they try to teach real facts:

The long, flouncy curls from Judy Davis's cheerleader days are gone. Her straight blonde hair is now cut short. Large blue eyes stand out in a face pale without makeup. Her soft Southern drawl has an undertone of determination. "It's taken me awhile, but now I'm glad to be considered an 'unsuitable influence.' That was how the school board justified my firing. That and 'deviating from the curriculum.' It's like they were implying I was a deviant. And according to their norms, I am."

The 29-year-old was fired for teaching her high school students how U.S. foreign policy has provoked terrorism. This struggle with her school board turned her from a Republican into a revolutionary for peace.

He elicits a number of interesting views from her about the future and activism such as this:

"What do you see happening?" I asked her.

"Guerrilla warfare will gradually defeat the empire overseas, prevent it from expanding. So it'll turn inward and start squeezing its own people more. Since it's inherently unjust, that's the only way it can maintain itself. When we revolt against that, it'll turn fascist. In a couple of generations we'll overthrow the fascism. And then we'll build ... who knows? That's a long ways away, and we have a lot to do until then."

At one point she makes the following statement:

"The founding fathers were just rich men looking after their own interests. Just like our current leaders are. We need to knock these patriarchs off their pedestals.

"They've become masters at recruiting women to serve their interests. Most women politicians are offering us the same old system dressed up in a new outfit, just patriarchy with perfume."

I asked her how she thinks we should oppose patriarchy.

Unfortunately, Hathaway's response seems to frame the incident and the general problem of capitalist ruling class control of education as a cultural problem (together with the sub-headline "Radical Peace is a collection of reports from antiwar activists, the true stories of their efforts to change our warrior culture")--one of patriarchy, and diverts the discussion into her observations about patriarchy.

But, it's clear to me that she doesn't see it that way--women are equally susceptible of supporting capitalism as are men. Patriarchy is just an additional problem that women have to deal with. 

New American Reality: An Empire beyond Salvation

Click here to access article by Ramzy Baroud from Cyrano's Journal.

Baroud surveys the many hot spots in the world and concludes that the Empire's position in the world is very much on the defensive in spite of their recent "victory" in Ukraine. If he is right, we can expect more foreign wars and more repression at home. But then, who knows what opportunities might open up to improve the lot of the 99 Percent at home? We also might get ideas about liberation.

The state of US foreign policy in the Middle East, but also around the world, cannot be described with any buoyant language. In some instances, as in Syria, Libya, Egypt, the Ukraine, and most recently in Palestine and Israel, too many calamitous scenarios have exposed the fault lines of US foreign policy. The succession of crises is not allowing the US to cut its losses in the Middle East and stage a calculated ‘pivot’ to Asia following its disastrous Iraq war.

US foreign policy is almost entirely crippled.

For the Obama administration, it has been a continuous firefighting mission since George W. Bush left office.

Where is the protest? A reply to Graeber and Lapavitsas

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

In this article Roos discusses the apparent decline in protests and finds wanting the explanations of two other intellectual activists. Then he proceeds to offer his own explanation.

I think that activists in Europe and the US have previously protested from a view of social-economic change that lies within the framework of acceptable social change actions permitted by the Western capitalist rule. This form of mass participation in protest on the streets has been met time after time with brutal and subversive actions (infiltration of activist groups with informers, spying on their political meetings, use of agent provocateurs, etc.) which have succeeded in discouraging such actions. These responses by capitalist ruling classes are, I think, partly a result of a great concentration of wealth and power: they no longer fear this type of activism.

Also, I think that their system which requires constant growth is running up against the limits of a finite planet. Thus, they can only formulate policies that impose harsh austerity actions that destroy the social fabric that has produced their wealth and power. Such policies require oppression and control of their resisting populations: the use of violent and subversive actions by their police and armies.

Andre Damon and Barry Grey write in their article "Police killings in America" at the World Socialist Web Site: 

The ruling class has nothing to offer a population that faces permanent economic insecurity, declining living standards and growing poverty, hunger and homelessness. It lives in mortal fear of the emergence of mass social opposition to its economic and political system.

Its response—in the US and internationally—is to attack democratic rights, throw off the restrictions on its actions bound up with constitutional and democratic processes, and prepare to meet social opposition by means of mass repression and dictatorship.

The “counterinsurgency” methods of mass violence employed in America’s dirty neocolonial wars abroad—in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya—are being adapted for use at home.

I think that in time most people will reach the conclusion that nothing short of a revolution is required, and to start building revolutionary organizations with the avowed purpose of overthrowing the capitalist organization of society and the rule of capitalists. After this consciousness develops, I think then the first order of business is to construct an organized alternative media.

As Damon and Grey conclude in their article:

The class war has to this point been one-sided. The American working class has not yet responded in a mass way. But that will come, sooner than many think. 

Leaked IPCC climate plan to worsen global warming - ecologists

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

Referring to a leaked report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)  to be released next week, the author writes:

Dr Rachel Smolker, co-director of Biofuelwatch, said that the report's embrace of "largely untested" and "very risky" technologies like bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration (BECCS), will "exacerbate" climate change, agricultural problems, water scarcity, soil erosion and energy challenges, "rather than improving them."

We can expect to see capitalist ruling circles to engage in a desperate search for strategies to deal with the threat of climate destabilization while preserving their ability to use relatively cheap fossil fuels. Such an effort can only produce futile and even dangerous ideas (for example, see this).

Capitalists say the darndest things

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

It’s no secret that some of the world’s biggest corporations are draining aquifers and reselling tap water at enormous profit. But they want to go further and make paying for water mandatory. Water is simply another “market commodity” in this view — most notoriously propagated by Nestlé S.A. Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe in a six-minute video issued by his company. It’s fair to say that the apparent attempt by Nestlé to project an image of a company soberly grappling with the world’s problems through a stern rationality backfired spectacularly. 

Western-style “Democracy” Unravels in Southeast Asia’s Thailand

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

Cartalucci exposes the Empire's most frequently used propaganda theme and regime-change program they refer to as promoting "democracy, and shows how it has been applied in Thailand. It doesn't matter to Empire agents who they back as promoting "democracy"; it doesn't matter that their stooge in Thailand, Thaksin Shinawatra, is a convicted criminal and wanted by Thai authorities. He still rules in absentia through his sister by holding carefully managed elections.

Despite Thaksin Shinawatra’s demonstrably destructive policies and his autocratic, brutal style of dictatorship – when his overtly criminal actions were ever called into question, he simply held “elections” to give himself a renewed mandate to remain in office. His success at the polls was due to his iron grip on Thailand’s populous, but sorely undeveloped rural northeast region. An array of government subsidies, cheap loans, literal cash handouts, and a Tammany Hall-style political machine ensured not only victory after victory at the polls, but a growing sense of political and legal impunity.

And, of course, elections = "democracy", according to Empire agents. In this article Cartalucci, who refers to this as a "democracy racket", explains how it has failed in Thailand in contrast to so many other Empire applications elsewhere--for example, in nearby Myanmar (see this).

The FIRST REAL Russian Retaliation for US-led Sanctions: Far More Harmful to…

Click here to access article by Ian Welsh from The 4th Media.

The White House and the russophobes in the Senate are livid and are trying to block the transaction because it opens up some very serious and nasty scenarios for the petrodollar.

If Sechin [CEO of Russian oil company Rosneft] decides to sell this Iranian oil for rubles, through a Russian exchange, such move will boost the chances of the “petroruble” and will hurt the petrodollar.

It can be said that the US sanctions have opened a Pandora’s box of troubles for the American currency.

Since the regime-change events in Ukraine we are seeing a heating up of inter-capitalist ruling class rivalries. This article explains some steps Russia and other countries are taking to counter the global hegemonic plays of the US-based Empire. 

This scene reminds me so much of what happened during the 1930s when the economies of most of the capitalist world lay in ruin. The appeal of fascist parties for capitalist elites was widespread across the world to deal with rising labor organizing and opposition. They took over in Germany, but also had very significant influence in France, England, Spain, and the US. The US ruling class under Franklin Roosevelt and their British counterparts adopted a more Keynesian approach to deal with their domestic opposition. The ruling elites of France and most of mainland Europe were so totally divided that they easily succumbed to German invasions. The contest devolved into a contest for world domination by these two camps which ended in the conflagration of WWII.

I think we could very well expect the same result today except for the fact of nuclear weapons. Capitalist love destroying things because they can then invest in reconstruction. However, with nuclear weapons the destruction is far too much and unpredictable. No sane person would contemplate using such weapons. (Let us pray that our masters maintain their sanity.) Therefore, we are seeing these battles waged on the economic front, but we can also expect to see more regime-change attempts from the Empire.

The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want U.S. to intervene

Click here to access article by Kyle Dropp, Joshua D. Kertzer and Thomas Zeitzoff from The Washington Post.

Does it really matter whether Americans can put Ukraine on a map? Previous research would suggest yes: Information, or the absence thereof, can influence Americans’ attitudes about the kind of policies they want their government to carry out and the ability of elites to shape that agenda.

In this article published in a prime ruling class newspaper, I detect a peculiar satisfaction in reporting on the relationship between ignorance and citizen support of US military adventures. Of course, it wasn't really a discovery as the authors seem to suggest. Our ruling class has known this for a long time. That is precisely why they have always engaged in dumbing down Americans through mindless entertainment, propaganda that passes as news reports, and indoctrination that passes as education in schools.

Don't Pray for Venezuela: The Struggle Against Contemporary Fascism

Click here to access article by Chris Gilbert from MRZine.

The author provides an excellent attack on the Popular Front strategy that still lingers in Venezuela because of, what Gilbert argues is, an exaggerated fear of US intervention. The Popular Front strategy did have some (although, I think mistaken) rational basis its promotion by Stalin in the lead-up to WWII: to provide additional time for the Soviet Union to prepare for the inevitable attack from Nazi Germany. However, this strategy is now well past its for-sale-by-date, but yet it still is pursued by many would-be revolutionary leaders or leftists as we have seen in Venezuela.

The Anti-Empire Report #127

Click here to access article by William Blum from his blog.

Blum gives his thoughts about the recent renewal of the Cold War and some related historical material, and observations about the ongoing subversive attacks on Cuba.

Rebuilding the commons through economic democracy

Click here to access article by Gary Engler from the New Commune-ist Manifesto (Canada). 

When commons were common, through tens of thousands of years, people mostly developed technology and systems of usage that respected the land, ocean, river, forest, grassland and creatures that lived there. They did this because it was in their collective self-interest to do so. This was reflected in their religions and how their societies were organized, including the ways people thought of themselves.

Mutual respect, independence, collective responsibility, reciprocity, community and what we would now call a sense of ecology were encouraged because all served a society that held its resources in common. 

Constructing the North Korean Revolution

Click here to access this book review by Gregory Elich of a book entitled Everyday Life in the North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950, by Suzy Kim, posted on MRZine.

...Suzy Kim has filled a major gap in the history of North Korea.  In the West, it has become customary to fixate on the top leadership in historical coverage of the subject.  That approach stems partly from lack of access to North Korean archives, but perhaps more strongly from an inclination to smooth over complexities in order to supply a simplified narrative that is easily digestible and harmonious with the imperatives of Western policy.

Kim has drawn upon North Korean materials captured by the U.S. military during the Korean War, housed at the National Archives II in College Park, Maryland.  These documents have enabled her to provide a unique perspective on the early years of the North Korean revolution.

To argue that there is "a major gap in the history of North Korea" for Western audiences is one of the biggest understatements of the year. Whenever such gaps exist, Empire propagandists see as a splendid opportunity to fill in the gaps with their Empire perspectives. The bigger the gap, the bigger the lies they tell.

Of course, all propaganda contain elements of truth. This is so in order for the lies to be believed. Thus, rare books like this can help us separate out all the lies. 

Another very excellent researcher and author is Prof. Bruce Cumings who has written several outstanding books on Korean history and numerous scholarly articles.

White House Lies to EU about US Gas Supply

Click here to access article by William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.

The White House and State Department have engaged in brazen lying to EU governments regarding the ability of the US to supply more than enough natural gas to replace Russian gas deliveries. Recent statements by US President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are so patently false that it betrays an incredible desperation in Washington over the situation in Ukraine versus Moscow. Or it suggests that Washington is so out of touch with any factual reality she simply doesn’t care what she says. Either way, it suggests an unreliable diplomatic partner for the EU. 

That this is a lie, there is no doubt. Gail Tverberg, another specialist in all things energy, in a recent article entitled "The Absurdity of US Natural Gas Exports" has laid out considerable evidence which confirms Engdahl's claim about US officials lying.

Engdahl catches the Empire agents in such a big lie that one has to wonder why they made up such a big fib. However, the place where Obama made his statement might suggest the answer.

After his recent meeting with EU leaders Obama issued the incredible statement that the secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that is being secretly negotiated behind closed doors by the major private multinational companies would make it easier for the United States to export gas to Europe and help it reduce its dependency on Russian energy: “Once we have a trade agreement in place, export licenses for projects for liquefied natural gas destined to Europe would be much easier, something that is obviously relevant in today’s geopolitical environment,” Obama stated.

Thus, it seems that the neoliberal project of bringing Europe into the TTIP is a top priority. Also, it appears that Empire policy makers want to promote more European dependency on the US in addition to punishing Russia.

McCutcheon took us back in time, but it might just birth the next Occupy

Click here to access article by Robert B Reich from The Guardian. 

Reich, the former Sec. of Labor under President Clinton, frequently writes for publications expressing a quintessential liberal point of view. He is on the left end of the liberal spectrum in the US because he is a strong advocate of labor rights and civil liberties. Generally, he is most concerned about the growing fact of income inequality in the US and the growing evidence of police-state type measures. 

In this article he expresses concerns about the influence of money in elections which was just made more convenient by a recent Supreme Court decision that prompted his article. As in this article, he has written many articles expressing concern over the rightward drift in US politics. Generally over the past 50 years, the whole political spectrum has moved from the liberal end to the right. He, like other liberals, are mostly concerned about the political stability of the capitalist ruling class given such aggressive attacks on the poor, on civil liberties, and as we see here, on the strong influence of money in the electoral system. 

To understand the US ruling class power structure, it is helpful to acknowledge that there are differences among those supposedly elected to represent Americans, but they are always sponsored by the One Percent.  One must not be confused about party labels because each party has members with varying views on issues. Parties largely exist to provide the appearance of choice, therefore the trappings of "democracy". Although individual political agents do express differences on various issues, their view are always within limits tolerated by the ruling capitalist class. If agents stray too far from these limits, they soon lose their offices--for example, Sen. Frank Church who aggressively sought to investigate and control the activities of the CIA and NSA. I distinguish basically three political positions within this ruling class: 1) neoconservatives, 2) liberals, and 3) old-fashioned conservatives. They all strongly support a capitalist system. (No other political orientation is allowed any influence.)

The first group, the neoconservatives, have now largely taken control of US society. This takeover roughly dates from the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980. Their outlook tends to be strongly influenced by imperialist policies (spreading the Empire's capitalist domination over as much of the world as possible) has a strong component of Zionist influence, and an aggressive anti-working class/pro-business orientation domestically. They also advocate strong authoritarian policies to control dissent. 

The second group, the liberals, are characterized by a concern for civil liberties, pretend to be concerned about the preservation of social welfare systems and the interests of labor unions, and are more oriented toward the interests of the middle class (managers, professionals, and highly skilled technologists). Generally speaking, the want to preserve some remnants of the social contract. Most liberals only pay lip service to concerns about climate destabilization. This group presently has little influence over government policies. Liberals largely serve the function of providing alternative views which ruling class media publish to provide the appearance of differing points of views in the government. 

The third group, the old-fashioned conservatives, are a vanishing breed of politicos. They are against the imperial adventures of the neoconservatives, they have some concerns about civil liberties and a growing police state, but otherwise they mostly want to promote domestic private enterprise. I would include libertarians such as Ron Paul in this group, but figures such as Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts best express their politics. 

Addendum, 4-8-2014. The term "libertarian" is a very confusing concept in the US. People such as David Koch identify themselves as libertarian. I think the term has been appropriated by many of the right wing who are, in fact, fascists (they promote the unfettered rule of corporations in a police state). "Libertarian" sounds a lot nicer.

Dear Humanity, Time Is Running Out

Click here to access article by Jon Queally from Common Dreams.

Although under a lot of political pressure, scientists in capitalist countries keep telling the world that humanity faces serious threats from climate destabilization. The means to solve these problems are within humanity's technological abilities, but the political control of capitalist elites prevents any significant implementation--such actions interfere with corporate profits. Now scientists are telling us that time is running out. 

Still, judging by the authoritative US ruling class newspaper, the Washington Post, our masters have their heads stuck in the sand of cold war politics. They want to drill like never before in order to destabilize the Russian economy. (See also this.) They want more production of natural gas domestically to provide more energy to Europe to lessen their dependence on Russian energy. Russia needs to be punished for standing in the way of the capitalist Empire's agenda to control the world.

What is most startling of all, scientists seem to be aware that more than just a reduction in fossil fuel use is required: they recognise that basic changes in the structures of societies are needed! Referring to a report to be released next week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the author writes: 

 ...the report will say, society will not only need to rapidly reduce use of fossil fuels, but also revolutionize the structures of its economies, food systems, and energy grids.

Hersh: Turkey Behind Sarin Attacks In Syria

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

Bernhard provides an excellent summary to the much longer article by Seymour Hersh carried in the London Review of Books. Hersh essentially provides an update on all the Empire's secret machinations of the their direct, and indirect support via Turkey, of the jihadist opposition forces in Syria. The crucial events were the bombing of the US embassy and CIA offices in Bengazi, Libya which brought a halt to direct weapons transfer to Turkey (the "rat line"), and the desperate act of Turkish authorities to instigate the false-flag operation of the gas attack supposedly launched by the Syrian government.

It is always interesting and a challenge to tease out the actual decision-makers in the US government. Notice that Hersh's unnamed, but trusted, sources frequently use the expression "the White House" in reference to decisions made, although occasionally the reference is to Obama. It is important to be aware that the White House is not only the residence of the president, but also contains the powerful National Security Council and the White House staff. Obama functions formally, and probably literally, as chairman of the NSC. 

From my observations over many years, I have concluded that the president's main role, especially for the last few decades, is largely that of a public relations officer for the ruling class's government. It is unclear to me who functions as primary "deciders" within the National Security Council. Notice in one part of the article that the Chief of the White House Staff apparently made a very important decision independently:

In the months before the attacks began, a former senior Defense Department official told me, the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] was circulating a daily classified report known as SYRUP on all intelligence related to the Syrian conflict, including material on chemical weapons. But in the spring, distribution of the part of the report concerning chemical weapons was severely curtailed on the orders of Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff. ‘Something was in there that triggered a shit fit by McDonough,’ the former Defense Department official said. ‘One day it was a huge deal, and then, after the March and April sarin attacks’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘it’s no longer there.’ The decision to restrict distribution was made as the joint chiefs ordered intensive contingency planning for a possible ground invasion of Syria whose primary objective would be the elimination of chemical weapons.

And, behind the National Security Council and the While House staff functions the general foreign policy making center of the US, the Council on Foreign Relations.

Afghan Elections for Another Fake Regime

Click here to access article by Eric Margolis from Common Dreams. 

Afghanistan’s national election held this week is a sham. A group of candidates, handpicked by the US, will pretend to compete in an election whose outcome has already been determined – by Washington.

The candidates include US groomed politicians, and drug-dealing warlords from the Tajik and Uzbek north. Chief among them, Rashid Dostam, a major war criminal and principal CIA ally who ordered the massacre of over 2,000 Taliban prisoners.

Margolis focuses only on Afghanistan, but he should make clear that democracy = elections is a prime program method that the Empire uses to legitimatize governments that serve their capitalist interests. I want to make clear that this method applies to the US as well, although the process by which they implement it is a little more sophisticated here in the US and in other advanced capitalist governments.

Looking at the candidates and their backgrounds as described by Margolis, you can see that the Empire will use anybody who is willing to serve the Empire, and then use elections to "certify" them as "democratically elected" and legitimate. Following such "elections" the Empire's media always portray their regimes as democratic which justify all kinds of policies from invading their country to save "democracy", to stationing huge military bases on their land, and to justify giving foreign aid to the regime.

We politically aware activists can view this with cynicism, but it works with the vast majority of American people. Thus, the only way we, and other people, can make progress against this capitalist Empire juggernaut and all ruling class governments is by establishing our own media, and using it to raise the political consciousness of people. There are elements of alternative media all over the place, but they are underfunded, and unorganized. If we are to avoid catastrophic climate destabilization, widespread poverty and misery, wars between contending capitalist regimes, and police states, we must direct our efforts to bring about our own organized and sufficiently funded media. This is our basic task on which all other progressive changes depend.

Capitalism's intellectual sell-outs

Click here to access article by Gary Engler from Rabble (Canada). 

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.

Those who sell their integrity to intellectual pimps of the ruling class are serving the criminal organization of capitalism. But, it pays well and offers promising career prospects along with social status--what more could a young man or woman want? (sarcasm)

In contrast, for young writers, journalists and academics who choose to maintain their integrity and their humanity, they can only look forward--at best--to low paying jobs, rented apartments, being single with no family, and low social status in the dominant culture. Such people have two choices: 1) drop out of society or 2) if they want to live meaningful lives, they must choose to become revolutionaries by dedicating their lives to destroying the organized criminal organization known as capitalism, by any and every means possible and effective, and building a new society based on truth and people power.

Top 0.1% wealth share in the U.S., 1913-2012

Click here if you wish to access source of this posting from Real-World Economics Review.

This chart, from the work of Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman [pdf], illustrates the large increase in top 0.1% wealth share since the 1980s (top 0.1% = wealth above $20 million today. In other words, the inequality in the distribution of wealth in the United States is back to what it was just prior to the first Great Depression. 

Amazing Graphic Shows Chicago’s Middle Class Disappear Before Your Eyes

Click here to access article and view the graphic by Daniel Hertz from his blog City Notes. 

...the obvious and immediate reaction to these maps is to see them as a direct consequence of rising income inequality. ...but the researchers from which much of this data came have already discovered that income segregation has actually risen faster than inequality.

...here you go: the disappearance of Chicago’s middle-class and mixed-income neighborhoods since 1970, measured by each Census tract’s median family income as a percentage of the median family income for the Chicago metropolitan region as a whole.

Ex-CIA agent reveals how Venezuelan “students” get putschist training

Click here to access article originally posted on a Venezuelan website, and translated into English by Sabina Becker (Canadian) for her blog News of the Restless.

This is a fairly lengthy interview conducted in Cuba by a reporter from Chávez Vive, which I assume is a Venezuelan magazine, with a former Cuban double-agent who knows intimately how the Empire's regime-change agents function. Although the translation of it suffers a bit in places, I think there is a tremendous amount of valuable information we can learn from the interview about the Empire's regime-change strategies and tactics that we've seen most recently in operation in Ukraine, and in the past played a role in the Color Revolutions and the Arab Spring uprisings.

Raúl Capote is a Cuban. But not just any Cuban. In his youth, he was caught up by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They offered him an infinite amount of money to conspire in Cuba. But then something unexpected for the US happened. Capote, in reality, was working for Cuban national security. From then on, he served as a double agent. Learn his story, by way of an exclusive interview with Chávez Vive, which he gave in Havana.

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).