World War II continues… against Russia

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from nsnbc.

On this anniversary of the formal end of WWII in Europe (May 7th), Cunningham's article reviews real history to clarify what he means in this paragraph:

This ongoing reality of conflict is because the Second World War, as with the First World War, was not merely about belligerents confined in time and space. These conflagrations were really about imperialist power conflict and hegemony whose dynamics still persist to the present day. 

"To the present day", of course, refers to current events in Ukraine. 

He provides much more historical detail of the European part of WWII in an article entitled "Western Reset of Fascist Aggression Towards Russia" posted at Strategic Culture. 

A Return to Conspiracy and Its Theories

Click here to access article by Patrick Higgins from Cats, Not War.

I thought sure that I had posted this article last month; but upon checking, I clearly failed to do so. Well, better late than never--as they say.

Higgins provides an insightful examination of some of American's prime professional gatekeepers in liberal media circles in addition to excellent definitions of ruling class, mainstream, etc, the application of psychological techniques used my our military into the management of opinions of the American people, and the branding of dissenters as "conspiracy theorists". 

Call Climate Change What It Is: Violence

Click here to access article by Rebecca Solnit from The Peace Worker.

Solnit contrasts the frequent use of the term violence popularly applied in mainstream media to poor people with the ongoing violence that is perpetrated by the ruling One Percent and their system of capitalism. She identifies what the ruling class engagement with climate destabilization is all about: how much violence shall we tolerate to promote our profits? Being addicted to profits, and the power associated with the accumulation of wealth, you can be dead-certain that they will continue to tolerate plenty of violence while reassuring us that everything is under control.

In every arena, we need to look at industrial-scale and systemic violence, not just the hands-on violence of the less powerful. When it comes to climate change, this is particularly true. Exxon has decided to bet that we can’t make the corporation keep its reserves in the ground, and the company is reassuring its investors that it will continue to profit off the rapid, violent and intentional destruction of the Earth.

humanERROR

Click here if you wish to access the original posting of this 19:47m video at the Testosterone Pit.

There are people all over the world who refuse to believe the reassuring messages regarding nuclear energy. An increasing supply of energy is vitally needed to appease the voracious appetite of industries run for the profit of the global One Percent, and to sustain as long as possible a system that serves the deadly addictions to wealth and power that has turned the global One Percent into hard core addicts. One such person is a Japanese youth who passionately appeals to people's common sense about the hazards of nuclear energy. He is valiantly fighting for a future for his and succeeding generations.

An awesome, amazing, and powerful appeal (with lyrical English text) to the people of Japan to open their eyes and minds. It slams the nuclear industry, the mainstream media, government bureaucrats, and politicians of all stripes.

The End Of Democracy As We Knew It

Click here to access article by Bernd Hamm from Information Clearing House.

Bio on Bernd Hamm:

Bernd Hamm, born 1945 in Germany, Professor of Sociology, Jean Monnet Professor of European Studies, and UNESCO Chair in Europe in a Global Perspective at the University of Trier, Germany. 
Bernd Hamm is a professor emeritus of sociology, living in Berlin, Germany.

This lengthy article packs a lot about what I refer to as the "Empire", or the US-led Empire. You might consider it a condensed version of many articles I have posted on this website for nearly five years. Hamm offers a rich, concentrated tour of the Empire, its hidden features, its operations, leadership figures and organizations, and the use of fear campaigns to induce compliant citizens. 

The title he gives this piece and the substance of the article suggests to me that his political orientation is likely that of a social democrat: someone who favors strong social supports for the working class and civil liberties within a capitalist system with some vague notion of reforming it to socialism. He refers to such regimes as "democracy as we knew it". In other words, a kinder, gentler form of capitalism that existed in the immediate post-war years in Europe. Of course, this type of government was no accident. 

After the devastation of the inter-capitalist war of WWII there were large numbers of radicalized people and militant unions in Europe. Thus, the ruling capitalist classes were forced to offer this type of government to gain time to consolidate their control. I think Hamm is appalled at what I regard as the ultimate natural development of capitalism: the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a very rich few, a plutocracy.

Disaster communism part 1 - disaster communities

Click here to access article by "Out of the Woods" from Libcom.

In part one of this three-part article, we look at the concept of disaster communism as it relates to the communities of solidarity and mutual aid typically formed in disaster situations.

This series appears to be very timely given the fact that we humans face a future filled with disasters due to the accelerating destabilization of the climate. 

Ruling classes have successfully dominated societies since the advent of civilization. The current capitalist class in their limitless hubris, or maybe a hardcore addiction to power and profits, thinks it can control nature, that they can come up with a technological fix that will allow them to continue to exploit nature on our finite planet. Whereas we humans seem too willing to submit to domination and exploitation by our fellow humans, nature will not tolerate abuse and will always rid itself of creatures who violate, or cannot adapt to, her laws.

Corporate Oligarchy or People’s Democracy: Countering the Elite Agenda [An updated interpretation]

Click here to access article by Ajamu Baraka from Common Dreams. [My original commentary on May 1st is here.] 

I just read this article again and had a slightly different reaction. I think that Baraka is not advocating simply more efforts at reforming the fake democratic structure of capitalist society, but sees the necessity to ward off efforts at further curtailment of civil liberties in order to provide space for serious revolutionary action. Because his emphasis in this article was overwhelmingly on the first part, I didn't see the second part. However, I believe it is strongly implicit.

Such a misreading the first time around is due to the fact that I read dozens of articles everyday and sometimes read them too fast and miss nuances of meaning. I think my reaction came from a concern that far too much time and energy is consumed by progressive activists in reform activities and not enough on building a revolutionary movement. In other words, far too much time is spent on defense instead of offense.

Christian Boy Dies For 3 Minutes, Meets Allah in Heaven

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

This Land Isn’t Your Land, This Land Is Their Land

Click here to access article by Peter Van Buren from TomDispatch. (Note: Should you wish to skip Engelhardt's introduction, you will need to scroll down to the article.)

Van Buren takes us on a tour of many parts of the US, and in doing so he sheds much light for those of us over the age of 40 on the dramatic changes that have appeared across this land in the last three or four decades, changes which parallel the much more devastating changes our masters in the One Percent have wrought across Iraq, Libya, Syria, and now Ukraine. Outside of the enclaves of One Percent neighborhoods, the only areas resembling America 30 years ago are odd little immigrant places like Spanish Harlem and military bases. However, military base communities are heavily subsidized, rather artificial places that come with authoritarian rule. Welcome to neoliberal America!

I grew up in the Midwest at a time when the country still prided itself on having something of a conscience, when it was a place still built on hope and a widespread belief that a better future was anybody’s potential birthright. Inequity was always there, and there were always rich people and poor people, but not in the ratios we see now in America. What I found in my travels was place after place being hollowed out as wealth went elsewhere and people came to realize that, odds on, life was likely to get worse, not better. For most people, what passed for hope for the future meant clinging to the same flat-lined life they now had.

Remorseful Jurors Plea to Judge: No Prison Time For OWS Activist

Click here to access article by Sarah Lazare from Common Dreams.

It seems to me that the hidden hand of class rule is now coming out from under the blanket of indoctrination which has always portrayed our society as a "democracy", ruled by impartial law, in a system of justice informed by the civil liberties enunciated in the US Constitution. The judicial case as reported in two articles (this and the previous one) on this website provides a perfect illustration of this new reality. 

This development is probably good for many Americans, mostly white and middle class, who naively believed everything taught to them in schools, by media talking heads, and other authority figures in their lives. Such people have been living in a "democratic" fantasy-land full of sugar plum fairies dancing to the tune of civil liberties, an abundance of superfluous consumer goods, carefully managed elections, and other childish delights.

Of course, the development is shocking, but also a wake-up call that, hopefully, heralds a new consciousness about the world we live in--painful, yes--but, a consciousness that could lead to all kinds of constructive actions.

Obama Directive Makes Mere Citing of Snowden Leaks Punishable Offense

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

In a new policy directive from the Obama administrative, national security and other government officials will no longer be allowed to publicly discuss or even reference news reporting that is based on "unauthorized leaks."

The fourth monkey blogger should also worry because our ruling class masters are starting down the slippery slope of website discrimination based on speed of access, and allowing corporations to buy faster access times. Eventually it will take a long time to access sites like this blog and Common Dreams.

Wealth, celebrity and decadence in Obama’s Washington: White House Correspondents Association gala

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

It appears that corporate sponsored journalism and a few co-opted independent journalists have become thoroughly embedded in the ruling class, and are well rewarded--it pays to serve power.

Those participating in the correspondents’ gala have long ago abandoned any sense that an independent press—once dubbed the “Fourth Estate” to distinguish it from the official government structure—should maintain a certain distance from the political establishment in order to report on it objectively and critically.

This was not a once-a-year encounter between the press, the corporate oligarchy and the political rulers, but another in the daily encounters in which they work together, make money together, and, in many cases, sleep together. They share the same political assumptions and personal ambitions.

Industrial Agriculture: Too Big to Succeed

Click here to access article by Paul Weinberg from Inter Press Service.

...experimentation in agricultural practices is less likely to happen in North America where farming operations, because of their size, are tied up in loans and big contracts to corporations in agribusiness and their unsustainable practices, says food security specialist Danielle Nierenberg, president of the Chicago based Food Tank, a food security think tank.

But small farmers, especially in developing countries, are better able through necessity to innovate and so, “we have a lot to learn from them,” she told IPS.

Many farmers have been encouraged to practice more industrial methods and they are finding in the face of drought and extreme flooding that going back to more traditional and indigenous practices they are able to better combat climate change, says Nierenberg.

I think the author exhibits naïve optimism by failing to understand that the Empire and other capitalist countries are vigorously promoting industrial agriculture, and this powerful force is creating dramatic climate destabilization in which small farmers, like the rest of us, will no longer be able to cope. Therefore, we must rid the planet of the scourge of capitalism if we humans hope to survive.

Climate change is evidence of the death-wish of capitalism

Click here to access article by Renfrey Clarke from Green Left Weekly.

Unless you have been living in the information cocoon created by right-wing mainstream media, I think you can omit reading the first part of this essay. What is new and valuable in this piece is Clarke's excellent examination of the deep contradictions between solving the climate crisis and the logic of capitalism. Thus, I advise skipping down to the subsection "The Compulsions of Capitalism".

Capitalist firms have no choice but to try to maximise profits and growth rather than address social needs. If they fail to concentrate on these private priorities, they are soon outcompeted and ruined. In strictly private terms, carbon polluting can make for a killer bottom line. But this privately rational choice will, in time, be collectively catastrophic.

The Kiev Putsch: Rebel Workers Take Power in the East

Click here to access article by Dr James Petras from Boiling Frogs Post.

The retired sociology professor provides an excellent summary of events in Ukraine, a geopolitical analysis of these events, and the near future consequences likely to appear in that country. 

Washington’s strategic objective is to isolate Russia from without, undermine its military capability and erode its economy, in order to strengthen NATO’s political and economic collaborators inside Russia – leading to its further fragmentation and return to the semi-vassal status.

Is This One of the Men Pushing Obama Toward War With Russia?

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

Quijones' rhetorical question regarding Brzezinski suggests a very important fact about US governance. People who occupy official offices in the government are rarely ones who actually have much influence over government decisions. (One exception as president was G. H. W. Bush) However, Quijones still gives far too much agency to Obama who, like most presidents, has been more accurately described as a "sock puppet for the ruling elite".

I've often referred to the power structure of the US ruling class as a kind of onion because there are many layers of influence. From my perspective, Brzezinski is located at the second layer from the center. He is a product of the Rockefeller clan who adopted him in his youth to wage the Cold War with Russia. His hatred for the Russians is no doubt rooted in his family background as members of the Polish aristocracy who were often suppressed and harassed by the Russians. (Notice he refers briefly to historical Polish-Russian relations in the video at the end of the article.)

Incidentally, there are political factions within the ruling class' directorate. Kurt Nimmo reported on the two most prominent--neoliberals and neoconservatives in his article "Obama, Brzezinski, and the Neolib-Neocon Family Feud". For another insightful report on the major players in the US ruling class since WWII, I highly recommend this article entitled "Demonic David Rockefeller Fiends Dulles Kissinger Brzezinski". 

I don't think that Brzezinski is really pushing war with Russia--I don't think he is that crazy despite his long obsessive hatred of Russia. I think he explains what he wants in a recent article directed to Americans posted in Politico: a well equipped and financed NATO-inclined Kiev government that will engage Russia in a costly local war.

The posted video in this article should be understood, which Brzezinski made clear, as an address directed to the Ukrainian people. As such, it is a pure piece of propaganda loaded with all kinds of deceptive language to inspire Ukrainians to fight Russians.

'Screwed?' US Climate Report says Era of 'Normal' Over

Click here to access article by Lauren McCauley from Common Dreams.

"We're screwed. Right now. And it could get much worse."

That was how 350.org co-founder Jamie Henn responded to Tuesday's release of the federal government's National Climate Assessment, the national scientific community's definitive statement on the current and future impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

While there are some indications that officials of our capitalist government are beginning to recognize the devastating impacts of continued fossil fuel usage, their policies cannot solve this problem within the system of capitalism. Thus, their efforts are directed at managing the perceptions of Americans regarding climate destabilization. 

Obama on Tuesday has scheduled interviews with a number of meteorologists from major network stations in an effort to promote the report and stem "the strong current of climate skepticism among weather forecasters," the Guardian reports.

According to a 2012 Pew report, 62% of Americans trust television weather reporters on climate change far more than they do climate scientists. And another survey in 2010 by George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communications found that only 19% of TV weather forecasters accepted that human activity was the main driver of climate change.

Humanity's Destruction of Earth's Climate in Ninety Seconds

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

This morning I heard part of Fed Chairperson Janet Yellen's testimony to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress in which she stated the following:

Although real GDP growth is currently estimated to have paused in the first quarter of this year, I see that pause as mostly reflecting transitory factors, including the effects of the unusually cold and snowy winter weather. With the harsh winter behind us, many recent indicators suggest that a rebound in spending and production is already under way, putting the overall economy on track for solid growth in the current quarter. [my emphasis]

I believe this quote indicates that the ruling class's Federal Reserve, which has so much power over the economy, still has no idea that their economic system is having a major and destructive impact on our biosphere. They continue to have their heads stuck firmly in the sand. This is a typical symptom of an addict: prolonged and irrational denial of reality in order to continue practicing a drug habit. 

This posting, and in particular, the dramatic graphic that it contains (reproduced below) in addition to many years of warnings by scientists will not alter their delusions or their behavior in the slightest. Hence, it is up to us to take charge of this society and world by any means possible--our survival is at stake.

Christoph Germann Explains China’s War on Terror

Click here to access 26:22m audo interview with Germann on The Corbett Report.

Guess what? US agents appear to be stirring up terrorism in the western province of China (Xiajiang). Germann provides a comprehensive report on these incidents.

Washington, Ukrainian puppet regime prepare new fascist slaughter in Odessa

Click here to access article by Alex Lantier from World Socialist Web Site.

Reports are already emerging that inside the city there is widespread fear of far-right, anti-Semitic violence breaking out in the coming days. The National Guard began street patrols yesterday, amid mounting popular outrage over the Friday massacre. 

.... Everything points to the preparation by the Kiev regime and its US and European backers of another fascist atrocity to try to terrorize the city into submission. Given that forces like Right Sector openly glorify Ukrainian fascists who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust, there is deep concern, in particular in Odessa’s 30,000-strong Jewish community, one of the largest in Ukraine. 

Is Thomas Piketty Right About the Causes of Inequality?

Click here if you wish to access the original post (with transcript) from Real News featuring an interview with economist Michael Hudson in which he discusses a popular French economist's book entitled Capital in the Twenty-First Century that is widely circulating among our masters in the One Percent. 

[Interviewer]: So, Michael, this week we're going to be talking about the very popular book by French economist Thomas Piketty. It's a 700-page book that takes on the topic of income inequality. Why do you think so many people are talking about this book? What's in it that has people buzzing?

You might also be interested in Howard Kunstler's take on this book posted on World News Trust in which he writes:

Energy and technology are not substitutable with each other. If you run out of the former, you can’t replace it with the latter (and by “run out” I mean get it at a return of energy investment that makes sense). The techno-narcissist Jeremy Rifkins and Ray Kurzweils among us propound magical something-for-nothing workarounds for our predicament, but they are just blowing smoke up the collective fundament of a credulous ruling plutocracy. 

In fact, we’re faced with an unprecedented contraction of wealth, and a shocking loss of ability to produce new wealth. That‘s the real “game-changer,” not the delusions about shale oil and the robotic “industrial renaissance” and all the related fantasies circulating among a leadership that checked its brains at the Microsoft window.

However, Kunstler's vision of the future is unimaginative and uninspiring--humanity can do better.

Cecily McMillan's guilty verdict reveals our mass acceptance of police violence

Click here to access article by Molly Knefel from The Guardian.

To Knefel it appears that the harsh sentences imposed on Occupy protesters is due to a combination of the public's tolerance of police brutality combined with carefully managed courtroom procedures. I wonder if officials constructed the jury selection process in order to select more conservative citizens.

April 2014 sees atmospheric CO2 at over 400 ppmv

Click here to access article by Soumya Dutta from Climate Connections.

For the first time since ‘modern humans’ originated on planet earth, the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have reached and stayed at or over 400 ppmv (parts per million by volume), or 0.04% for over a month.  The modern humans (Homo Sapien Sapiens) are said to have originated around 60,000 years ago, and in that short span of time – about four seconds, if we take the earth’s age of 457 billion years as one year – we have managed this remarkable (negative) feat.

Looking at the graph in the article, the trend appears to increase generally through the month of April. 

NATO’s new Cold War runs into trouble in Germany

Click here to access article by Christoph Germann from Boiling Frogs Post.

Germann begins his excellent geopolitical analysis of the Ukraine crisis by introducing us to the propaganda technology used in the past to promote wars, specifically the recent wars promoted in the Middle East by the Empire, and especially now in Ukraine. 

This begs the question of what this is all about. Why is Washington determined to take on Russia? 

After his analysis in which he attempts to answer this question, he provides what I regard as very encouraging news about a huge, growing gap, supported by documented evidence, between the propaganda put forth by the European ruling capitalist classes regarding events in Ukraine and the views of the general population, with particular emphasis on ordinary Germans.

(By the way, there are many other excellent postings on this website that lie behind a subscription wall. I strongly encourage people to support them, and thereby being able to access all of their material. If we hope to ever seriously confront and defeat capitalist rule, then we simply must support sites like this.)

Another NYT ‘Sort of’ Retraction on Ukraine

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from Consortium News.

Independent observers (see also articles at Washington's Blog, here and here) are beginning to report the obvious deceptions put out by the ruling class's media, however their voices are little heard in the US where most citizens still believe what they read and hear via mainstream media. It boggles my mind to witness so much gullibility.

In this piece Parry continues to expose the lies and omissions (Read also his article of a few days ago.) that proliferate in mainstream media such as the... 

...on-the-ground reality of legitimate and understandable concerns among the eastern Ukrainians [that have] been missing from the U.S. propaganda barrage, which has overwhelmed the mainstream press as thoroughly as a similar P.R. campaign did during the run-up to the Iraq War, if not more so. Official Washington’s “group think” now is all about blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Ukraine crisis.  

A US & Filipino Front Vs. China

Click here to access article by Ulson Gunnar from New Eastern Outlook.

The reversal of longstanding policy preventing the US from using Filipino territory for military bases signifies and escalation in tensions between the United States and China, as well as exposes the true nature of the US “pivot” toward Asia. 

CIA’s Trojan Horse enters the Heart of India

Click here to access article by Shelley Kasli from his website Great Game India. (Shelley Kasli is a geopolitical researcher for international English quarterly Inner Voice of Bharath, who writes articles specific to the Indian subcontinent in the global scenario.)

We have all heard and read about the use of philanthropic foundations (NGOs) to hide the nefarious schemes of the Empire and its secret agents to promote their agenda of world domination. In this article Kasli gives us a lot of background on this development with a special focus on how the Empire's Trojan horses have in the past, and continue, to function in India.

Kiev Murders Civilians with Orwellian Western Collusion

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

Washington, which has invested $5 billion over the past 20 years in implementing regime change in Ukraine, seems to have yanked the strings tighter on its puppets in Kiev, demanding a much stiffer military response to crush the anti-Kiev protests it the east and south. The apparent integration of regular Ukrainian military with CIA-backed neo-Nazi paramilitaries and covert American mercenaries is consistent with this renewed Washington-led regime change effort. The greater covert intervention by Washington in Ukraine is also consistent with the unprecedented build-up of NATO forces in the region. The latter has to be seen as a concerted campaign of state-sponsored intimidation, just as shooting civilians on the street is.

Beware of Dangerous Articles by Rob Kall of OpEdNews

Click here to access article by John Spritzler from NewDemocracyWorld.

I'm not sure that Rob Kall is any more dangerous than all the other political liberals that exist in abundance in the US. He serves as another propagandist for the notion that there is a kinder, gentler capitalism and hopes to contain serious inspection of capitalist rule by giving an internet platform for many liberals to blow of some critical steam. Spritzler really takes apart the idea that there is a kinder, gentler capitalism with his devastating critique of America's favorite historical liberal, Franklin Roosevelt.

Capitalists of all stripes have a deep vein of authoritarianism that runs through their political souls, and I noticed that this was embedded in Kall's soul several years ago when I tried unsuccessfully for five or six months to get off his email subscription list. I finally started complaining directly to the authors he was featuring and got success.

Hurtling Into Darkness: America's Great Leap Towards Global Tyranny

Click here to access article by John Chuckman from Uncommon Thought Journal.

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the dark truths that Chuckman has so well expressed about today's world and American society. I have only very minor quibbles with his point of view, and so I won't bother to express them in a commentary. This piece has moved me more than any other single article I have posted over almost five years of this blog. We are fast approaching a very frightening dystopia and I see only very scattered awareness of this development and inadequate responses in opposition to it. 

However, I believe there are glimmers of hope. The main one being that the ruling class is creating a system in which they need far fewer middle class people to manage it for them, hence a shrinking middle class, and worse: many young people with highly trained skills and huge debts who might think of rebelling.

Enough said. Please read it and see if you don't agree with his dark vision.

Hopefully, you and I will not be discouraged by his pessimistic vision, but see it as an urgent warning and a renewed call to action.

RGBS’s Film of the Week: Thirteen Days

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Raging Bull-Shit (based in Barcelona, Spain).

Because I'm well aware of what happened in those days when I wasn't sure about what hell the next day would bring, I will not be viewing the film. I am posting this article because of its brief introduction to the featured film. Quijones (I suspect this is a pseudonym) is another person in the world who sees the threat of "MADness" taking over in today's world like it almost did back in those terrifying days in October 1961.

'Cold War Against Russia — Without Debate'

Click here to access article by Katrina vanden Heuvel and Stephen F. Cohen from RT.

Future historians will note that in April 2014, nearly a quarter-century after the end of the Soviet Union, the White House declared a new Cold War on Russia.

And that, in a grave failure of representative democracy, there was scarcely a public word of debate, much less opposition, from the American political or media establishment.

Ukrainian Crisis Was Always About Containing Russia

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

Cartalucci provides us with another excellent contribution, and an antidote to corporate manufactured propaganda, that helps us to understand what really has happened in Ukraine and the Empire's ongoing project to absorb or isolate Russia.

...despite the best efforts of the West's media and politicians to claim the Nazi militants they used to overrun Kiev are creations of Russian propaganda, the truth exists in plain sight. The inability of the West to check Russia's counterstrokes in Crimea and eastern Ukraine is precisely due to the fact that neither the people of the East nor the West believe what Washington, London, or Brussels are saying. 

URGENT: Request for Help from Ukraine

Click here to access article attributed to Larisa Shevchenko, the writer of a letter to the German people asking for their help, and introduced by Paul Craig Roberts.

To whom shall we turn and ask for support, if not to you, to the German people ? We ask you not to conceal the appeal of the Ukrainian people, but to publish and distribute, so that this cry will be heard by the whole world.

As proof of our peaceful intentions and the very broad support of our movement in the population I have collected video material. 


We are writing to you with the request to support our efforts for a referendum because we understand that a peaceful solution to the conflict is no longer possible otherwise.

The junta is not interested in such a solution and is apparently ready to shed a lot of blood of peaceful people in Ukraine. In view of the fact that our media belong to powerful oligarchs, I am convinced that the world public has been presented false information and invented facts about the conflict in Ukraine and will obviously continue to receive such.

Will Gambling Oligarch Sheldon Adelson be indicted?

Click here to access article by Jim Dean from New Eastern Outlook.

In addition to exposing the crimes and machinations of one of the ruling class's most visible sociopaths, the author also includes much about how are masters in the One Percent are able to hide their crimes. Their intimate ties with the "security" establishment is always very helpful.

We have a huge ongoing scandal in the US, the non-prosecution of what are referred to as “protected entities”. These are not just the very rich, but those who are very powerful, or who have very powerful friends… political power. A State district attorney or a US attorney is putting his career on the line by going after someone whose conviction could embarrass many of those associated with the person targeted.

And it gets worse. If they fear the one prosecution could lead to others, those folks are not above killing a few people to tidy things up, although prosecutors and judges are generally never handled that way. They use other ways to discourage them.

Russia, GMO and the Geopolitics of Organic

Click here to access article by Ulson Gunnar from New Eastern Outlook.

It is clear then that nations like Russia, China, and others are not only responding to growing concern from among their populations regarding the safety and environmental impact of GMO products, but the threat this monopolized technology poses toward each respective nation’s food supply and consequently, their sovereignty.

NATO's soft war on Russia

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

Poor NATO. Damned Soviets. The benign North Atlantic Treaty Organization has spent two decades "trying to build a partnership" with Russia. But now, "clearly the Russians have declared NATO as an adversary, so we have to begin to view Russia no longer as a partner but as more of an adversary", according to NATO deputy secretary-general Alexander Vershbow, a former US diplomat/ Pentagon employee. 

Five Inspiring Struggles to Celebrate on May Day

Click here to access articles by various authors posted on Reflections on a Revolution.

The link takes you to "Yue Yuen: wildcat strikes and labor struggles in China" which is one of five articles in this remarkable collection, with the remaining four listed and linked to in the article. They are all about workers taking actions to improve their lives by organizing protests and taking over enterprises. 

The Enlightened Capitalist

Click here to access article by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

I'm not terribly impressed with their central thesis: 

Capitalists and corporations, we argue, are driven not to maximize profit, but to ‘beat the average’ and increase their differential power. In this approach, the redistribution of income and assets is not a ‘societal’ side effect of the economy, but the central conflict that propels modern capitalism. And the main weapon in this struggle, we claim, is not investment and growth, but what the American political economist Thorstein Veblen called ‘strategic sabotage’ – the restrictions, limitations, hazards and pains that capitalists impose on the rest of society in order to sustain and augment their differential power.

Capitalists and corporations are motivated by both. Given that capitalist operations are now coming up against the resource limits of a finite planet, they are driven more by the second motivation which essentially constitutes power and control.  

However, I am really impressed with, and amused by, their deconstruction and satire of current efforts by capitalists, especially "enlightened capitalists" to defend their system.

Mutiny in the Laboratory: Europe’s Lab Rats Lose Faith in EU Experiment

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

I've had a hard time understanding the numerous European-wide governing institutions. This article sheds some light on the subject by examining two such institutions--the European Parliament and the European Union Commission. I am quite amazed to find that Europeans are as foolish as are my fellow Americans when it comes to governing institutions. They are as easily duped by the never-ending "democratic" games played by capitalists. 

Quijones writes about the increasing disaffection of European voters over their institutions, and seems optimistic about positive changes that may begin with the upcoming elections for the European Parliament scheduled from May 22 to the 25th. I'm not so sure about his optimism given his explanation of the powers of the Parliament. At the same time, I am amazed that such a pseudo-democratic institution was ever allowed to be established in Europe. 

Like a court eunuch, the Parliament was effectively neutered at birth. Put simply, its main  mission in life is to give the wildly misleading impression that democracy actually exists in the EU. In reality, the Parliament cannot overrule the EU Commission nor can it even amend its budget on a line by line basis. Indeed, it cannot initiate legislation and it has no say whatsoever in foreign policy.

The European Parliament has no power to even hold individual members of the Commission to account. At best, it can overturn the entire executive branch, which it has only done once in its lifetime – back in 1999 when, thanks to leaks by commission-insider Paul Van Boetenin, the Parliament learnt of the irregularities, fraud and mismanagement within the Commission.

The real power in Brussels resides in the European Commission, the European Council of national leaders and the Eurogroup of Finance Ministers – three unelected institutions that are subject to virtually no democratic checks or balances.

And, I thought Americans were stupid! Referring to Europeans as lab rats seems very apt in more than one way.

Corporate Oligarchy or People’s Democracy: Countering the Elite Agenda

Click here to access article by Ajamu Baraka from Common Dreams.

I'm posting this article to examine an illustration of left/liberal thinking in the US. While agreeing with the general thrust of Baraka's argument, I view it as tainted with capitalist ideology, and as such, is deficient both as an analysis of society today and as an advocacy of action. I express this criticism with reluctance because it is probably the best that can be expected from anything like a major internet website on the current left in the US, or much of the world, for that matter. 

I make this criticism of the article because the times require it. The left must no longer hedge their criticisms of existing social arrangements in order to be popular. Yes, I know that the political consciousness in the US is so deformed from centuries of indoctrination; however the dangerous state of our biosphere which has been under attack for so long that it is now so unstable that it is threatening the very existence of humans and other species. Time is running out, if it's not too late already. Extreme weather events that we are currently witnessing are only relatively mild warnings compared to the far more horrendous events that lie in our future. 

People who are aware of the dangerous state of humanity--I think Baraka is one of them--must no longer hedge their arguments against capitalism. Notions of social justice has not succeeded in defeating capitalism, but sheer survival must now suffice. Certainly, there is no longer any alternative but to attack it head on. We simply must get serious about it if there is to be any chance of survival.

Okay, what do I mean about his analysis as being "tainted with capitalist ideology"? The ideology of "democracy" and their fake institutions of "democracy" have always been used by capitalist ruling classes to keep working people from rebelling against their rule. So, forget about any notions that "democracy" is being "captured by the corporate and financial elite" because it has never existed. 

Since the beginning of civilization when societies began having the ability to accumulate surplus value and store it, we have witnessed one ruling class after another. What we have most recently experienced as "bourgeois democracy" is a fake version of real democracy which people have aspired to for many centuries. Capitalist ruling classes have given us this fake version to pacify this yearning. However, we must not take it for anything like the real thing: complete control by all people over all institutions of their societies. 

In the early days of civilization a small minority of sociopaths (people who were inadequately socialized for any number of reasons) soon took control of the surplus wealth. Initially, they simply relied on superior weapons, but soon they discovered that indoctrination worked so much more efficiently. They quickly subverted religious doctrines to support their rule, and later all kinds of other doctrines were proliferated. 

Our current supporting ideology includes notions about democracy such as democracy equals elections, the virtues of the "free market" (capitalism), and vague ideas about the virtues of endless consumption expressed as the "American way of life". Today's sociopaths are more powerful than ever before and are drunk on their accumulated wealth and power. They will kill us all if we keep fighting back with reforms and with polite arguments that won't upset people too much.

Building Power and Advancing: For Reforms, Not Reformism

Click here to access article by Thomas from InfoShop News.

I agree with so much of the views argued here, but with one exception: the issue of reforms is a lot more complicated than presented here.

For example, I totally support this view which sums up the crucial argument against capitalism, for revolution, and the creation of a libertarian-socialist (or "anarchist communist") type of society:

...why are some allowed to own and control the land, wealth and the means of production? Shouldn't these be the common property of all as the inheritance of all that has been contributed by human history and the complex social processes that interacted to bring us to, and maintain the wealth that we have today? So how can we justify maintaining a system where some benefit more than others from the historically developed and socially maintained wealth? And how can we call only for reform of that system? It'd be like sitting at a family dinner where your brother claims to own the kitchen even though you're cooking dinner with your parents. Your brother then receives all of the food produced and gives you and your parents each 10% of the food while he keeps 70% of it as the owner. A reformist response would be to say that if only each member of the family were able to get a 15% or 20% portion each (leaving your brother with a 55% or 40% share for being the "owner"), everyone would be alright and less hungry.

However, the author expresses a classic leftist view of supporting reforms with which I take issue:

We see this revolutionary situation coming about after decades of battles- wins and losses- in which the popular classes steadily increase their power and continue to demand more and more until the demands of the popular classes are too much to concede for the elite classes; and the power of the popular classes is enough to effectively carry-out revolution....

The key justification for this argument is as he wrote:

...winning in reform struggles can build confidence, organization, capacity, solidarity, skills, and power; and losing in a reform struggle, can strengthen resolve and sharpen strategy. The point is that although we want reforms because they improve the lives of the oppressed and popular classes of which we are a part; even more fundamental to struggle– whether we win or lose- is developing the strength of the movement, which can come out of both wins and gains in reform struggles. 

He briefly mentioned, but didn't elaborate on, the fact that "Losing in a reform struggle can demoralize participants around the possibility of struggle achieving gains...." Thus, the key question regarding any proposed reform struggle will be the possibilities of winning, or the achievement of, real gains. This consideration is often viewed in very simplistic terms. 

More specifically, look at the reform struggle currently being waged in Seattle to pass a $15/hr minimum wage law which I have commented on previously at a post entitled "The Murky Politics of the $15 Minimum Wage". I think that this struggle could result in harming a lot of workers in small businesses and non-profits, dividing the community, and accelerating the introduction of more labor saving technologies. If this happens, activists for the $15/hr minimum wage will likely be thoroughly demoralized and drop out of any activism.

Report from a visit in Kiev in April 2014

Click here to access article by ye from Libcom.

This report from an anarchist media outlet provides a very interesting street-level view of events related to the Ukraine uprising. I think it can be added to the collection of views from independent journalists and leaked conversations by Empire officials, previously reported here, to form a more comprehensive view of what has occurred in Ukraine leading up to the current scene. Many lessons can be learned from this.

To be brief, I think that the total collection of reports supports the view that there were many protests against the Ukrainian government due to its corruption and austerity policies, but the protesters were unorganized and highly susceptible to Empire organized and funded fascist thugs who hijacked the uprising for their Empire employers. I think that Empire agents have perfected this type of operation through their many actions starting from the Color Revolutions and continuing with similar actions in Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Greece. 

Ukraine was ripe for such an operation because of the economic chaos created by capitalist gangs taking over the government and the economy, and their political history steeped in Stalinist policies. Such protests were bound to happen given the inevitable chaos and Empire agents were well prepared early to hijack them and install a right-wing government to serve the various needs of the Empire: opening up another country to Western investment and IMF policies, and to bring another NATO outpost to the border of Russia, a competing independent capitalist gang.

It remains to be seen as to whether the right-wing Ukrainian government can maintain control of their population. (See the latest news.)

Scapegoating the unemployed for being at the mercy of a global phenomenon

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

Dolack provides data on unemployment from various areas of the world, and arrives at this conclusion:

What we have here is something much bigger than any individual or single country. Market forces are at work, which undergirds the “race to the bottom” capitalism has foisted on the world. It is demand that creates jobs and if wages are declining and more are unemployed, demand will naturally decline, leaving less incentive to hire. Eventually, corporate profit margins will be squeezed, with the result that production is moved to locations with ever lower wage, safety and environmental standards.

Israel is an Apartheid State

Click here to access article by Siham Nuseibeh from Muftah.

Kerry was wrong to say that Israel would become an Apartheid State if a two-state solution was not implemented. He was wrong to say this because Israel is an Apartheid State as it stands today. Here is a small excerpt from a factsheet by the Institute for Middle East Understanding about how Israel does in fact classify as an Apartheid state…

Why is Putin in Washington’s Crosshairs?

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from CounterPunch.

US provocations in Ukraine cannot be understood apart from Washington’s “Pivot to Asia”, which is the broader strategic plan to shift attention from the Middle East to Asia. ....

So what does controlling China have to do with the dust up in Ukraine?

Obama's 'strategy' against 'pariah' Russia

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

Many geopolitical analysts are joining in the discussion of what's up with the Empire's aggressive actions. Escobar gives us his perspective in the amusing metaphor laden piece. 

For all of US Think Tankland talking and theorizing, breathlessly, about "containment" of a "rogue state" - which in itself is laughable, as if Russia was Somalia - the Obama administration's overarching "strategy" is really in a class by itself. This masterpiece of juvenile delinquent diplomacy boils down to "ignore Putin".

Also, William Engdahl in his article "Obama: World’s loneliest leader" offers his assessment in which I think he attributes far too much agency to Obama. Otherwise, I have great respect for his views which in this article look quite alarming. For example, this statement: "A US State Department reliant on an uncontrolled group of psychopaths is hardly reassuring for world peace."

Syrian rebels who received first U.S. missiles of war see shipment as ‘an important first step’

Click here to access article by Liz Sly from The Washington Post.

Several items in today's news have me wondering if our masters have lost their grip on reality. Hopefully today's news is some kind of aberration; but if it isn't, then we will soon be wading in deep doo-doo.

I started my day by reading this disturbing article. It looks like our masters intend to keep stirring the cauldron of terrorism, death, and destruction in Syria. Then I read about more arm sales to the Philippines. Well, that means jobs for Americans, doesn't it? (sarcasm)

Then in Al-Monitor I read...

US Secretary of State John Kerry told Fahmy prior to his visit to Washington that he is "certifying to Congress that Egypt is sustaining the strategic relationship with the United States," although Kerry is "not yet able to certify that Egypt is taking steps to support a democratic transition."

The first part of his justification is certainly true, but the last part is the understatement of the year (see this). Ruling class media is justifying it as competition with Russian suppliers.

Finally, I read a piece entitled "War: What Is It Good For?", published in the Post and several other prominent Empire media outlets such as the Chicago Tribune and the The Telegraph, which essentially argues that war is good for us!  

Then, of course, there is all the war-mongering associated with the Ukrainian coup that was financed by Empire operatives (listen especially at 7:26m).

Yes, indeed, I think that the stench of doo-doo coming from the offices of the Empire is overwhelming, and I worry that we will all soon be wading in it.

Captured Soldiers Not OSCE Observers as Claimed: Germany and Russia Held Talks

Click here to access article by Christof Lehmann from nsnbc international.

This reports on another lie put out by Empire propagandists. 

The Ukraine crisis and the political lies of the media

Click here to access article by Alex Lantier from World Socialist Web Site.

What I really connected with in this piece by Lantier is his argument about the degeneration of US media into a monolithic Orwellian loudspeaker for the ruling class. I have expressed this feeling several times in my articles. I cannot recall in my lifetime that mainstream media was so full of disinformation, and so pervasive. I'm absolutely amazed at this development, and wondering what it might portend.

If the emphasis is put on "warmongers", then I agree with Lantier's statement that "A vast gulf separates the working class from the warmongers in the American ruling class and their lackeys in the media."  I think there is a gulf to the extent that ordinary Americans are not on board with any more aggressive actions over Ukraine; and, I think that Empire directors are aware of this and only going so far as to punish Putin and his friends with economic measures. 

Still, these directors and their European counterparts are playing a dangerous geopolitical game as argued by Paul Craig Roberts in his article "The World Moving Closer to War". The fact that they are willing to play such a game is very worrying. Do they really think they can intimidate Russia and their ruling class? Or is the strident rhetoric necessary to pacify the right-wing in the US? 

Democratic Elections in Syria

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from VoltaireNet.

When is an election a legitimate exercise in something like "democracy"? Well, opinions vary widely depending on the viewers' interests, and the viewers usually have some kind of big stake in the outcomes of elections. The universal cry of humanity for social justice has produced this process of elections to select and legitimize leaders, but it is a thoroughly corrupted system used by ruling classes to fool their subjects. You simply cannot have ruling classes and fair elections--this is, or should be, a self-evident contradiction. One might argue, as Meyssan does with the planned Syria election, that some elections are more legitimate than others. (See also Viktor Titov's views on the Syrian elections.)

For me, the best part of this article are the observations Meyssan makes about the gross hypocrisy which the planned Syrian elections are viewed by Empire directors and their associates.

War, Economic Catastrophe and Environmental Degradation. Under the Guise of Progress and Development

Click here to access article by Colin Todhunter from his website East by Northwest.

Todhunter, a British born writer, has lived in India for a number of years. In this fine article we learn how neoliberalism is destroying that society, and native neoliberal collaborators are making more plans to continue the destruction on behalf of the world's ruling capitalists. This is a global story because it is happening all over the world (the US included) to a greater or lessor extent.

The Earth is 4.6 billion years old and if you scale this to 46 years then humans have been here for just four hours. The Industrial Revolution began just one minute ago, and in that time, 50% of the Earth’s forests have been destroyed. Forests are just part of the problem. We are using up oil, water and other resources much faster than they can ever be regenerated. We have also poisoned the rivers, destroyed natural habitats, driven some wildlife species to extinction and altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere – among many other things.

Levels of consumption were unsustainable, long before India and other countries began striving to emulate Western levels and high energy use. The current model of development is based on a totally misguided dream; or, to put it another way, a deceitful ideology that attempts to justify and sell a system that is designed to fail the majority of the global population and benefit the relative few.

Capitalism has for a long time succeeded in making most people blind to the chains that bind and which make them immune to the falsehoods that underpin the system. This wasteful, high-energy system is tied to what ultimately constitutes the plundering of peoples and the planet by powerful transnational corporations. And, as we see all around us, the outcome is endless conflicts over fewer and fewer resources.

The Dull Static

Click here to access article by td0s from his/her blog Pray for Calamity. (Thanks to the blogger at Collapse of Industrial Civilization for posting this and thereby alerting me to this article.)

The writer beautifully expresses the many dilemmas facing humanity today. The only problem I have with the views expressed here is that he/she too often seems to reference "civilization" when I think he/she should be specifying capitalism (especially later in the essay). They are not equivalent. However, capitalism isn't the only ideology that has had deleterious effects for humans. The problem has been class rule, that is, the rule by a few over the vast majority of people. The fact that this began with the beginning of civilization must not lead us to throw out the baby of civilization with the bathwater of human creativity just because it also has the parasite of class rule in it.

But lay this rather minor criticism aside, and enjoy the many great insights that he/she expresses so well.

I named this blog, “Pray for Calamity,” because there are several major crises converging which threaten human civilization, and there are no existing structures capable of mitigating them. Democracy, capitalism, neo-liberal globalization; they are all incapable of undertaking the work necessary to avert cataclysm. The paradigms of thought and approach which are almost hardwired into the modern mind at this point, need to be scrubbed. Of the remaining, solvable ecological crises, which may not include climate change, there is no tool available to attend to them that comes from the conventional tool box of legal, lawful pursuit.

Eight Energy Myths Explained

Click here to access article by Gail Tverberg from her blog Our Finite World.

I have followed Tverberg's articles for a number of years. She has demonstrated to me and many others that she knows of what she writes. She is widely respected for her research and knowledge about energy by her peers in the energy field. (Take a look at the quality and quantity of the responses she got from this article.) However, she has one serious limitation. She has been so well indoctrinated in the TINA view ("there is no alternative") that she cannot even consider any alternative to capitalism. To her it is an absolute given, an unalterable reality. 

Nevertheless, I have found her insights about energy extremely useful in understanding the huge conflict that the system of capitalism has for our survival. Whereas other energy specialists writing for capitalist media often engage in fanciful ideas such as fusion energy to deal with the doomed future of capitalism on a finite planet, she looks clearly and steadily at the evidence and can only reach one conclusion--we are facing a herculean task, if not an insoluble, dilemma. In this article she demolishes many such myths by people who refuse to face reality.

Republicans, Democrats, and environmentalists all have favorite energy myths. Even Peak Oil believers have favorite energy myths. The following are a few common mis-beliefs,  coming from a variety of energy perspectives. I will start with a recent myth, and then discuss some longer-standing ones.

Why We Shouldn't Vote for Elizabeth Warren (or Bernie Sanders)

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

Spritzler explains how the plutocratic ruling class and their system of capitalism needs to have people like Elizabeth Warren to maintain their indoctrination about "democracy", especially the myth that elections equal democracy. This cradle to the grave indoctrination is having difficulty fending off the reality of today's world which is becoming ever more polarized between tiny islands of the rich and powerful among the oceans of the poor. Thus, our masters keep presenting us with liberals like Warren and Sanders who with their promises of crumbs from the plutocratic table desperately try to reinforce such rapidly diminishing myths.

...all the plutocracy needs to retain its power is to make sure that the principle of class inequality is not challenged by a large number of people. It matters not to the plutocracy that a politician defends the principle of class inequality while adopting vote-getting rhetoric about limiting various excesses of class inequality. The plutocracy couldn't care less, for example, that Warren talks about reducing the interest students pay on student loans or that she calls for more regulation of banks. These are crumbs compared to the fundamental injustice of our class society in which, to take just one example, people who work (or study in order to work later) are told they owe money to bankers who don't work. In fact, the plutocracy wants politicians like Warren to use such rhetoric if this is what it takes to persuade people to rely on voting instead of revolution.

Let's keep our eye on the prize--an egalitarian society with no class inequality.  

Poverty and war condemn capitalism

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from PressTV (Iran).

The article explains how the neoliberal stage of capitalism has worked its magic to enrich the global capitalist class at the expense of the wealth-creators, the workers.

Workers in Western countries are now paid so badly that businesses are reportedly finding it profitable to return from China - having relocated to Asia in the first place to exploit cheap labor there.

It is an astounding indictment of how capitalism has created a global race to the bottom of misery for workers - yet the Western corporate news media actively conceal this abomination.

This week a BBC business report sounded almost celebratory about the fact that Britain, the US and other Western countries were now said to be "cost competitive" with China and Brazil. 

NATO’s Incremental Absorption of Ukraine

Click here to access article by Rick Rozoff from VoltaireNet.

Rozoff provides an excellent history of NATO's strategy to absorb all the states adjacent to Russia to maintain the old Cold War as a neo-Cold War, and creating a "cordon sanitaire severing Russia from Europe". This history refutes the notion that the Empire is merely punishing Russia for their support of the Syrian government and their opposition to other Empire policies in the Middle East. This encroachment appears to be continuing the strategies of the Cold War when the latter was framed as a battle between social-economic systems. The Soviet Union collapsed, state industries were sold off for pennies on the dollar to a new capitalist class. But, as you can see, nothing really changed for our directors of the Empire. 

Therefore, Rozoff's history indicates that the history of the conflict-ridden 20th century is still continuing, and the prior contest had little to do with a conflict between social systems. It is a continuing conflict for world domination by capitalist gangs. The US imperial gang simply won't tolerate any interference in their plans for world domination, and Russia's historical independence requires that they must be contained and subdued. And, of course, China can look forward to the same treatment.

The great challenge facing all conscious activists is to throw off this monstrous system which is pillaging and ravaging country after country, destroying human habitat, destroying the biosphere, creating widespread poverty, and amassing fortunes and power for a tiny few. There IS no alternative worth considering. Humanity's very existence is now at stake.

Including the Young and the Rich

Click here to access article by Jamie Johnson from the NY Times.

For those of you who are not familiar with Jamie Johnson, he is a wealthy descendant of the Johnson & Johnson corporate entity founded by his ancestors. As such he should be considered as a part of the old wealth section of the ruling class. Such people often turn out to be considered as renegades by their contemporaries, and Jamie certainly fits that description. You see, he made two films that gave inside information on the rich: the film "Born Rich", a wonderful exposé, and followed it up with the sensational "The One Percent" which I think became the namesake of the target of the Occupy movement in 2011. (Coincidentally--or maybe not--he frequently wrote a column for Vanity Fair magazine, a magazine directed to the ruling rich; but ceased writing for them in the Fall of 2011.)

In this article we see the special access given to the rich by the official CEO of the government (in reality, he and most presidents serve as public relations officers for the ruling class) which, of course, the rich essentially own. According to Matthew Continetti of The Washington Free Beacon,

Here I learn that last month the White House held a secret meeting with “an elite group of 100 young philanthropists and heirs to billionaire family fortunes.” This “discreet, invitation-only summit” was intended, the author says, “to find common ground between the public sector and the so-called next generation philanthropists, many of whom stand to inherit billions in private wealth.” Media were not allowed, the author says in a parenthetical, but he was “invited to report on the conference as a member of the family that started the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company.”  

What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream?

Click here to access article by Noam Chomsky from Z Magazine. 

Chomsky, as a kind of elder statesman of radical academic circles, writes about his favorite subject: the way our capitalist masters use their institutions to manage our minds (those of the "outsiders"). This is a well-developed technology which he has examined and written about extensively over many years. Now, more the ever before, it serves so effectively the narrowing ruling class of owners of our economy, and increasingly under neoliberalism, the world's economy. Those privileged technicians who practice this highly specialized technology, and their bosses, are restricted to a very few trusted people within the ruling capitalist class. By implication, they must be the "insiders". 

A few renegade intellectuals like Chomsky have long been aware of their game, and occasionally he likes to remind his fellow intellectuals of this by writing articles which tend to make vague references to things that only intellectuals have knowledge of. (For example, he makes reference to "what happened at San Jose Mercury News" to illustrate a point, which must be about their 1996 series of articles regarding government collusion in the illicit drug trade authored by Gary Webb.) 

I think Chomsky's own celebrity status as a left critic and his academic career also has meaning in relation to his favorite subject. It certainly raises the question of his role as a radical critic in a system which, as he has shown, is very well managed to exclude real criticism and inspection. From an examination of his career, I think he has had to make certain compromises with the "insiders" by carefully limiting his remarks to very select academic audiences and by not treading over any red lines of the ruling class. 

This article with its glib academic jargon and obscure references illustrates his first compromise. The second, which is much less known and acknowledged, is that he, like many others, refuses to cross the red lines of the ruling class. Here I am referring to his acquiescence to the official versions of the many assassinations such as John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, etc, and of the many suspicious "terrorist" events such as 9/11 and the Boston Bombing. By making these compromises with the agents of power, he has been allowed to continue with an academic career, be invited to many conferences, and write many articles such as this in obscure media outlets.

I certainly don't want anyone to interpret this commentary as a cynical criticism of Chomsky. He has contributed so much to the understanding of the function of mainstream media; and if he hadn't made such compromises, his insights would not be as well known and influential. We've all had to make compromises with power, some merely to survive, others in order to function in some kind of constructive fashion, and others who surrendered easily to the temptations of comfort and wealth. But, doesn't this offer us another reason to destroy capitalism and all such hierarchical, class structured systems so that we can freely associate with each other and contribute each of our talents toward building a healthy society that can coexist with nature?

Escobar on RT: US fears opposing views are gaining strength

RT in this 6:47m video interviews internationally renowned independent journalist about Sec. of State Kerry's attack on RT as a Russian "propaganda bullhorn". It seems that this US ruling class agent and others do not like the fact that they no longer are in possession of the only bullhorn. These alternative bullhorns are threatening the monopoly that the Empire's Ministry of Truth has enjoyed since WWII. We are already seeing attempts to censor them as we've seen with Iranian PressTV, limiting access in general to websites, and giving priority internet access to corporations.

The revolving door between Google and the Department of Defense

Click here to access article by Yasha Levine from PandoDaily.

Levine provides examples of several people who have gone through this revolving door to reveal a pattern that is working to integrate corporate information technologies with the needs of the ruling class's surveillance agencies located in NSA and CIA. Corresponding with these activities, the author sees a tendency for many such people to become identified and integrated with powerful figures in the ruling class.

Weslander Quaid told Entrepreneur Mag that a big part of her job at Google entails meeting with intelligence agency directors to discuss technology they want and/or need. She also spends quite a bit of time teaching rank-and-file Google employees on how to hard-sell government clients. “I act as a bridge between the two cultures.”

...Google has aggressively intensified its campaign to carve out a bigger slice of the lucrative military-intelligence contracting market. It’s been targeting big federal agencies, and pushing its intel technology onto local and state government structures as well.

Goodbye, Net Neutrality; Hello, Net Discrimination

Click here to access article by Tim Wu from The New Yorker.

Referring to a promise that Obama made in 2007 about internet neutrality, Wu writes:

If reports in the Wall Street Journal are correct, Obama’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Thomas Wheeler, has proposed a new rule that is an explicit and blatant violation of this promise. In fact, it permits and encourages exactly what Obama warned against: broadband carriers acting as gatekeepers and charging Web sites a payola payment to reach customers through a “fast lane.”

The Politics of Pachamama

Click here to access article by Benjamin Dangl from CounterPunch.

Pachamama, which is translated into English as "Mother Earth", is rooted in Inca religious beliefs as a goddess of fertility. Dangl reviews this affirmation of nature which has informed the rhetoric of many new Latin American governments to find that the concept has not been reflected much in their policies. 

I spoke with CONAMAQ indigenous leader Mama Nilda Rojas of her view of the Mining Law. “The Morales government has told us that it ‘will govern by listening to the bases, and that the laws will come from the bottom-up.’” But this is not what happened with the Mining Law, Rojas said, which was created without sufficient input from representatives of communities impacted the most by mining. “This is a law which criminalizes the right to protest. With this law we won’t be able to build road blockades, we won’t be able to march [against mining operations],” she explained. “We’re well aware that it was the same Evo Morales who would participate in marches and road blockades [years ago]. And so how is it that he is taking away this right to protest?” 

“This government has given a false discourse on an international level, defending Pachamama, defending Mother Earth,” Rojas explained, while the reality in Bolivia is quite a different story. 

Meanwhile, outside of Latin America, governments, activists, and social movements are looking to places like Bolivia and Ecuador as examples for overcoming capitalism and tackling climate change.

This is not really news, but his information gives us much food for thought as to why this scenario is happening in so many places. Is it simply a matter of these leaders becoming co-opted by the old ruling classes? 

My immediate answer is that what Dangle describes is happening in Latin America is inevitable as long as the world is menaced by ruling classes armed with superior military and other technologies that can easily overwhelm lessor developed countries. To survive, the latter must rapidly develop their own countries in order to acquire what is needed to fend off their foreign acquisitive enemies. 

Still, I'm not satisfied with this. Hopefully, you and others can supply better answers.

De-escalation in Ukraine as seen by Joe Biden

Click here to access article by Nikolaï Bobkin from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Administration officials and spokespeople like Biden continue talking peace while fomenting more conflict in Ukraine and against Russia. It appears to me that the American audience is only hearing what they say, but due to corporate media coverage have very little idea of what Empire agents are actually doing in Ukraine. 

At the very least, I think that the ultimate events in the Empire's project for Ukraine are risking a dangerous confrontation with Russia, but at the very least will provide a turning point which will result in the Empire's loss of power in the world. The latter may be desirable; but given the fact that there are power-addicted figures in their directorate, this trend could also ratchet up more very destructive wars. 

Meanwhile, back at the American ranch, very few people seem to be paying attention.

Does Washington want war with Russia?

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

Presumably, those in the White House and the Pentagon believe that such a conflict would stop short of a nuclear war, but who knows?

The threat of a US war on Russia is also apparent in the flood of war propaganda being unleashed upon the public. Vladimir Putin is being subjected to the same kind of demonization previously reserved for Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, while the State Department and its faithful scribes at the New York Times serve up “photographic evidence” of Russian troops in Ukraine that has all the authenticity of similar “proofs” of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction.”

What underlies the US war drive?

Van Auken then attempts to provide some answers.

Many others are speculating on the super-aggressive actions which are accompanied by the most outrageous hypocritical propaganda supported by altered photos much as we saw in the run-up to the Iraq War. For example, the anonymous blogger "The Saker" compares the lies of Empire agents to those of the nomenclatura of the late Soviet Union which led to the downfall of that regime; and he predicts the same will happen to the US Empire.

Confronting Injustice: A must-read book for today’s activists

Click here to access a review of the book Confronting Injustice: Social Activism in the Age of Individualism by Umair Muhammad posted on Climate and Capitalism.

...it’s a true delight to receive a book written by an activist for activists, a practical contribution to building real struggles for a better world. Confronting Injustice is a powerful call for collective action against the social causes of poverty and climate change. It’s a compact and well-written book that deserves to be widely read.

Here is one excerpt from the book:

“There can be no such thing as a democratic, socially just, and environmentally sustainable capitalism. … it unavoidably produces a world full of injustice and inequality in order to secure a global division of labour suitable to profit-making; and it unavoidably produces the kind of ecological destruction which makes its own longevity, and that of human civilization, impossible.”

So long, net neutrality? FCC to propose new pay-for-preferential treatment rules

Click here to access article by Grant Gross from PC World.

Some digital rights groups called the pay-for-priority proposal, reported earlier in a Wall Street Journal article, the death of net neutrality at the FCC.

Trade legerdemain on both sides of the Atlantic

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

I had to run to the dictionary to find out what "legerdemain" means and found that the term is very apt for this article. 

Dolack reports on the various tricks now being deployed to pass major neoliberal trade deals through Congress and the European Union, deals which are being negotiated in secret by ruling class officials and their counterparts in corporations. Of course, I am referring to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. (Actually, the word "partnership" in these two agreements is also appropriate because they really represent an attempt to further the partnership between capitalist-owned multi-national corporations and capitalist-ruled governments.)