The NSA’s New Partner in Spying: Saudi Arabia’s Brutal State Police

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain from The Intercept.

It is often said that one can judge a person by the friends he/she has. If this is true and can be applied to ruling classes, then what are we to think of the US One Percent?

The National Security Agency last year significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world’s most repressive and abusive government agencies. An April 2013 top secret memo provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden details the agency’s plans “to provide direct analytic and technical support” to the Saudis on “internal security” matters.

Mega Drought?

Click here to access article by Robert Hunziker from Dissident Voice.

Droughts are a natural part of the climate cycle. As a matter of fact, studies of tree rings going back 1,000 years show mega droughts lasting for decades. Then, nature alone was the culprit, but what happens now when global warming/climate change is superimposed onto nature’s handiwork?

Dirty Coal Exports Are a 'Global Shell Game'

Click here to access article by Deirdre Fulton from Common Dreams.

It is difficult to calculate exactly how much pollution results from U.S. coal exports. When it comes to new export terminals, such as those proposed in Oregon and Washington, the federal government has been reluctant to assess how coal that originates in the U.S. could contribute to global warming.

Here in the Northwest of the US, we are seeing a surge of mile long oil and coal trains going through our cities and plans to build coal export terminals to increase coal exports to Asia. Meanwhile, little is reported by local media about the ongoing protests against these operations which only increase global warming and risky disastors. Instead, most coverage is only about immediate effects on the local economy.

Is the New BRICS Bank a Challenge to US Global Financial Power?

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of the discussion of this theme by liberal Michael Hudson and Marxist Leo Panitch monitored by Real News interviewer Paul Jay.



It seems to me that this discussion suggests the main difference between their two orientations: Hudson sees the BRIC attempts at independence from Anglo-American hegemony as dramatic and good for what they often see as a "multi-polar" world, while Panitch sees this development as only a new capitalist gang trying to assert more of their own capitalist interests within a world dominated by the US-led Empire gang. 

Many other liberals are also seeing the development of BRIC power and a multi-polar world as a solution to the present world crises, but Panitch correctly sees BRIC power as only serving another capitalist gang that wants basically the same thing as Empire ruling classes: exploitation of people and resources to promote their wealth and power. We have already seen the devastating results of inter-capitalist class competition in the last century. Surely, no one wants a repeat of that!!!

I've just listened to another interview given by Paul Jay with Patrick Bond of South Africa in which this distinction is made much clearer.



It's going to take a world-wide, organized opposition by the 99 Percent who must stop this capitalist train from driving all of us over the cliffs of climate destabilization, wars, and famine.

A struggle to save Europe’s soul from privatization

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

It should be clear by now that the privatization process, in all its scandalous ugliness, is little more than an attempt to enclose the commons and extract as much value as possible from a country whose population has already been sucked dry by the European banking elite amidst a catastrophic four-year-old depression. Completing the privatizations is a prerequisite for the release of Greece’s bailout funds, and it is common knowledge that Troika officials have been playing a leading role in drafting up many of the plans in great detail.

However, there is active opposition growing among the Greek people who are fighting to keep their islands, their beaches, and their classic Greek heritage from being put up for sale. Roos provides the details. 

American Empire: Reaping What It Has Sown in Latin America

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

...after destroying the means of survival for so many in Latin America, the poor and destitute turn to whatever means necessary in order to stay alive — crime, gangs, and the drug trade. The U.S. has reacted to this lawlessness by militarizing the “war on drugs”, providing even more weaponry and support to fascist governments who can then brutally squash any grassroots social movements which challenge the neoliberal capitalist order. It’s a vicious feedback loop in which the U.S. is forced to combat the very social disintegration of Latin America that U.S. economic policy has created. Thus, a fourth factor in America’s immigration crisis is the neocon militarization of the drug war and support of fascist governments aligned with U.S. corporate interests....

Because I am on a email list from Rights Action, I get nearly daily reports from their observers of all kinds of atrocities that people in Central America suffer at the hands of US and Canadian corporations, paramilitary armies, their corrupt governments, and occasionally direct US military actions. Very little of these reports are reflected in mainstream media. So, now we see the blow-back from such activities by recent sensational and highly distorted coverage of children fleeing these violence ridden countries and entering the US. Thus, as always, we get the blow-back without the "blow", and, as always, the American people are easily misled and manipulated by media owned by the ruling class that has perpetrated the atrocities. 

Do I need to state the obvious solution? Well, it seems that I do. The solution is: support those who are attempting to provide honest news by reputable journalists and other observers, and doing so with very little funding. Support and follow the websites listed on my website for starters. Although I spend four to five hours daily on my project, I don't need your financial support because I am retired with enough to live on. But, many other sites do need your support to simply exist.

Gen Dempsey: “We’re Pulling Out Our Cold War Military Plans Over Ukraine”

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

Hours after the U.S. State Department on Thursday claimed (though failed to describe) new evidence that Russia’s military was both increasing the flow of arms to rebel fighters in eastern Ukraine and firing artillery at Ukrainian Army positions across its border, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey elevated the rhetoric against Russian President Vladimir Putin and directly invoked the idea that a new Cold War-like posture is now being taken by the U.S. military.

Introducing Oligrapher: power mapping on LittleSis

Click here to access article by Kevin Connor from LittleSis Blog.

From Wikileaks to Edward Snowden to the rise of investigative media organizations like ProPublica and First Look there are some signs that a century after Brandeis and other muckrakers took it to J.P. Morgan, Standard Oil, and other monopolists, we are entering a new era of modern-day muckraking. This seems true even in spite of the extraordinary pressures on the field of journalism. And whether modern-day muckrakers are looking at the defense and intelligence apparatus, Wall Street, Big Oil, or some other industry or issue area, corrupt and cozy elite networks often end up at the center of the story. Some of the information dug up on these networks can be molded into a compelling narrative, and good stories will of course always be essential. But sometimes having another way to look at these connections and networks can be really helpful – that’s where Oligrapher comes in.

Israeli Comfort Women?

Click here to access article by Daniel Johnson from The Media Co-op (Canada).

The Israeli Defence Forces online social networking propaganda campaign, which so far has included government employees, youth groups and now a student grant for pro-Israeli spam trolling, has now taken a turn to the downright surreal on July 23, 2014, with the launch of the 'Standing With The IDF Facebook Group'.





Also, The Media Co-op is an excellent example of what people-powered journalism is all about. Canadian activists must be commended for bringing about this network from across Canada, and by activists who are committed to countering ruling class media with a media that supplies information that ordinary people need access to.

The Science of Thought Control

Click here to access article by Dr. Stuart Jeanne Bramhall, a retired psychiatrist and political refugee from Seattle and now living in New Zealand,  posted on her website The Most Revolutionary Act.

Prior to World War I politicians and businesses used facts and information to win votes or to persuade people to buy their products. When Woodrow Wilson hired him to run his Committee for Public Information to produce pro-World War I propaganda, Bernays incorporated Sigmund Freud’s theory that human behavior was based on unconscious instinctual drives. By appealing to these unconscious and irrational feelings, he succeeded in selling World War I to a profoundly isolationist American public.

It (the science of thought control) all started with the astounding success of a campaign launched during WWI to turn Americans from strong opposition to the war into supporters of US participation. American bankers had a huge investment riding on the success of the Allies in WWI, and they started worrying about outcome of the war and having their loans repaid. So, what to do? Well, what they did was to launch a vigorous pro-war campaign.  

The campaign went into high gear building on the sensationalism of the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania, a British luxury passenger ship, by German U-Boats because it was known by the Germans to be carrying munitions to Europe, but for some strange reason it was unknown to US passengers. Obviously, it was known to the British and should have been known to US agents.

Thinly Veiled Code for Genocide: Israel’s War of Attrition in Gaza

Click here to access article by Rob Urie from CounterPunch. 

...the Israeli pilots bombing Gaza today do so from safe distances and can tell themselves that they are bombing ‘targets’ rather than human beings. Left unsaid is that killing and maiming a civilian population to affect a political outcome is the definition of terrorism. This is the ‘practical’ purpose of the Israeli ‘human shield’ charge against Hamas— to shift culpability for terrorist violence onto its (Israel’s) victims.

The Colorado River Basin Has Lost Enough Water To Fill Lake Mead Twice Over

Click here to access article by Jeff Spross from ClimateProgress.

That’s the word from a new study by researchers at NASA and the University of California, who used satellite data to do a first-ever quantifiable measure of how much groundwater people in the American west and southwest have used up in the current spate of droughts.

The Human Rights Shop

Click here to access article by Mouwafak Chourbagui from CairoScene. [parody]

With his tongue firmly in his cheek, Mouwafak Chourbagui speaks to the owner of a new business that promises human rights in exchange for services, essentially breaking the glass ceiling of basic freedoms...

Tom Simmons – Money Is Our God [Satire]

Click here if you wish to access the posting on 2012 The Awakening.

'Witch Hunt': Fired MSNBC Contributor Speaks Out on Suppression of Israel-Palestine Debate

Click here to access article by Max Blumenthal from AlterNet. 

What liberals like Blumenthal and the disciplined NBC journalists fail to understand is that mainstream media is an organ of a ruling class in a class structured society. This media belongs to the ruling One Percent (owners of the economy and directors of their Empire) whose interests are often in opposition to the 99 Percent class of workers. 

Chris Hayes and others in mainstream media know this and quietly submit their on-air behavior to the dictates of their bosses. Perhaps Blumenthal knows this, but he, too, avoids mentioning the basic reality of this country in order to keep his job or avoid repercussions. Instead, it is much safer to wring one's hands at the awful behavior of NBC.  

These two journalists were not the first to go up against the One Percent's media and feel their wrath. Others include Ray Bonner, Gary Webb, Octavia Nasr, Helen Thomas, Eason Jordan, Peter Arnett, Phil Donahue, Ashleigh Banfield, Bill Maher, Ward Churchill, and Van Jones. How many fired, disciplined, and ruined careers of journalists does it take to understand this reality?

The solution, of course, is that we in the 99 Percent must take responsibility for establishing our own media as they appear to be doing in Spain, and to recruit and support truth-tellers such as the above journalists who are currently working for peanuts in current alternative media such as Boiling Frogs Post or The Greanville Post.

The Secret Government Rulebook For Labeling You a Terrorist

Click here to access article by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux from The Intercept.

The “March 2013 Watchlisting Guidance,” a 166-page document issued last year by the National Counterterrorism Center, spells out the government’s secret rules for putting individuals on its main terrorist database, as well as the no fly list and the selectee list, which triggers enhanced screening at airports and border crossings. The new guidelines allow individuals to be designated as representatives of terror organizations without any evidence they are actually connected to such organizations, and it gives a single White House official the unilateral authority to place entire “categories” of people the government is tracking onto the no fly and selectee lists. It broadens the authority of government officials to “nominate” people to the watchlists based on what is vaguely described as “fragmentary information.”

I can't help but wonder if this report wasn't deliberately leaked to frighten dissidents into more passive and ineffective means of resistance to the actions of the ruling class's government. Usually when they are genuinely concerned about a leak, there is an uproar, an investigation, and harassment of all those connected with the leaked report.

Still, it is useful for many people to know the details of what they might expect if they have reasonable suspicion that they are on the government's "watchlist" for terrorism. Also, it's useful for many liberals to know that the ruling class and their government, one which is supposedly "of, by, and for the people", must be afraid of the people--maybe even terrified of the people--to go to such an extent rather than relying on normal police procedures. Referring to the report, the authors write:

It reveals a confounding and convoluted system filled with exceptions to its own rules, and it relies on the elastic concept of “reasonable suspicion” as a standard for determining whether someone is a possible threat. Because the government tracks “suspected terrorists” as well as “known terrorists,” individuals can be watchlisted if they are suspected of being a suspected terrorist, or if they are suspected of associating with people who are suspected of terrorism activity.

Obviously, what they are really afraid of is an organized opposition of the 99 Percent who might use violence against them. Violence is one thing they really understand because they are world's premier practitioners of violence. To take this document at face value, one would have to conclude that the government, especially those who control the government, are the real terrorists because they have a long record of using terrorism against many people in foreign lands in the forms of torture, drone warfare, direct invasions and bombings, etc. 

In general, TERRORISM and/or TERRORIST ACTIVITIES are acts that: (a) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life, property, or infrastructure.... (b) appear intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of government by mass destruction, assassination, kidnapping, or hostage-taking. This includes activities that facilitate or support....

Collapse of Ukraine Government: Prime Minister Yatsenyuk Resigns amidst Pressures Exerted by the IMF

Click here to access article by Michel Chossudovsky from Global Research. 

The right-wing supported oligarchic government in Ukraine has collapsed due to the failure of the parliament to approve two key IMF demands. The author discusses what the likely consequences are. 

President Poroshenko (left) has intimated that the resignation of the cabinet has paved the way for a process of meaningful political restructuring:  “Society wants a full reset of state authorities,” said Mr Poroshenko.

What is implied by Poroshenko’s statement is that the parliamentary process is slated to become defunct inasmuch as Rada is obligated to adopt the legislation demanded by the IMF and the European Union. And if the Rada does not adopt the legislation, the composition of the Parliament will be changed through a process of outright political manipulation.

Live Free or Die: Palestinian Unity Resurrected

Click here to access article from Muftah.

As the death count in Gaza crept even closer to 1000 today, it seemed the imprisoned, ghettoized residents of the Strip were more alone than ever. But their Palestinian brothers and sisters in Occupied East Jerusalem and West Bank sent them a strong and clear message tonight: Kill one, kill a million - our resistance will continue. #Palestine demands justice

Also, from Muftah, "Palestine: Is It Resistance or Not?"

I believe is the only meaningful question for understanding and stopping this nightmare and its inevitable recurrence: “Do Palestinians have a justifiable reason to resist Israel or not?”

It is the most basic of questions, but it is astonishingly unaddressed by the official discourse. Confronting this question would finally frame the arguments and narratives faithfully enough to make progress possible, and encourage a discourse that is not hijacked by unproductive, nonsensical, and defaming perspectives.

Israel/Palestine: Some Of What The Media Ignores

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

It doesn’t make me a supporter of Hamas if I point out how imbalanced the media coverage is and has been. It doesn’t make me a hater of Israel when I remind you of what’s not being said.

So, in the interest of provoking a more informed discussion, I’d like to share some of the crucial but neglected fact. Simply put, I feel it’s impossible to have a useful debate on the conflicts if you haven’t factored in the following realities: 

He then lists a number of realities conveniently missing from Zionist influenced media.

Large Corporations Seek U.S.–European ‘Free Trade Agreement’ to Further Global Dominance

Click here to access article by Andrew Gavin Marshall from AlterNet.

Although Marshall's headline suggests that he sees the Empire's aggressive pursuit of "free trade agreements" as a way to promote their agenda of global dominance, he doesn't supply much information in this article as to how a US-European trade agreement would promote their global dominance. Instead, he supplies a lot of views from trans-Atlantic ruling class figures and think tanks to justify and promote such an agreement while narrowly focusing on corporations and the benefits they would enjoy to the detriment of ordinary people.

Corporations are undertaking unprecedented drives for the accumulation of profit and power, promoting agendas and projects which re-shape the world in their image, treating governments as toys, the environment as an enemy, and impoverishing populations around the world. We are witnessing a transnational social engineering project, driven by large corporations, aimed at facilitating economic, financial, political and social consolidation into their hands.

Welcome to the era of Cosmopolitical Corporate Consolidation and Colonization.

Thus, he seems to miss the fact that global corporations are the engines of the US-led Empire's financial elites who are the key drivers behind the quest for global dominance. As globalists, of course they want to exploit cheap labor wherever they can find it, and want to reduce social costs to a minimum in their home countries. But what is missing is the reality of this capitalist gang's pursuit of global dominance to counter any opposition both domestically and internationally, especially competition from the rising economies of the BRIC countries which have shown far too much independence. 

As capitalist gangs come up against finite resource limits of the planet, the competition for resources and markets is becoming much more intense and dangerous. Hence, we are witnessing regional wars waged by powerful Empire sub-players such as Saudi Arabian led GCC and Israel to secure dominance in the Middle East along with the US Empire's subversion of Ukraine in opposition to Russia. Because Marshall's focus on corporations is too narrow, he misses the wider global geopolitical contest that is driving the Empire's quest for global dominance.

We cannot shop our way out of environmental crisis, ‘green’ or not

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

Using Richard Smith's longer article, Dolack explores the deceptions that lie behind the ruling class's campaign to delude the public into believing that they can "have their cake and eat it, too". It's called "green capitalism". 

Trapped in an idealist mirage that capitalism can be “tamed” or “repurposed,” green capitalists, through seeking individual solutions to structural and systemic problems, not only miss the forest for the trees but leave the economic structure responsible untouched.

World breaks temperature record for June after hottest May

Click here to access article from the Associated Press via The Guardian.

Our planet continues to heat up while global capitalist ruling classes, who are addicted to power and wealth, continue to supply their profit engines with fossil fuels. Thus, we as a human race continue our march to catastrophic climate destabilization.

Israel’s War Against Gaza’s Women & Their Bodies

Click here to access article by David Sheen from Muftah. 

Sheen, a reporter for a liberal Israeli publication, provides more evidence in addition to what Jerome Roos reported in his recent article that, indeed, many Israelis are becoming dehumanized by their government's campaign of brutalization of Palestinians.

As Israel’s latest assault on Gaza enters its third week, the destructive force unleashed upon the Strip has taken a massive toll, leaving over 650 Palestinians dead, over 4,200 wounded – mostly civilians – and over a hundred thousand homeless. As Gaza is pummeled, the level of anti-Palestinian racist incitement from top Israeli political, religious and cultural figures continues to ring at peak pitch, and has taken on a dangerous misogynistic tone.

A chessboard drenched in blood

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

The "policy" of the Empire of Chaos is clear, and multi-pronged; diversify the "pivot to Asia" by establishing a beachhead in Ukraine to sabotage trade between Europe and Russia; expand the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to Ukraine; break the Russia-China strategic partnership; prevent by all means the trade/economic integration of Eurasia, from the Russia-Germany partnership to the New Silk Roads converging from China to the Ruhr; keep Europe under US hegemony. 

I thoroughly agree with his reference to a thesis advanced by Immanuel Wallerstein:

In this piece (in Spanish) Wallerstein argues that the Empire of Chaos simply can't accept its geopolitical decadence - and that's why it has become so dangerous. Restoring its hegemony in the world-system has become the supreme obsession; and that's where the whole "policy" that is an essential background to the MH17 tragedy reveals Ukraine as the definitive do or die battleground.

China Blasts "One-Sided Western Rush To Judge Russia" Over MH17

Click here to access article by Tyler Durden from Zero Hedge.

Durden has followed mainstream media in China to find their reaction to the current tragedy of the Malaysian Airline MH17.

China appears to have crossed the line, siding very clearly with Russia as they conclude, "It is yet another example of the power of Western opinion as a political tool."

Foundation of the US Empire: Axes of Evil

Click here to access article by James Petras posted on Boiling Frogs Post.

The US Empire, like previous ones, depends on a host of alliances and axes of power to sustain it and compensate for military, political and economic limitations in resources and personnel. With regard to the main region of direct US involvement, the Middle East, Washington has embraced three sets of alliances with partners who have played a paradoxical role in both sustaining and eroding the US Empire.

He analyzes the cost/benefits of each alliance to reach this conclusion about two of the most important:

The US political leadership, beholden to unconditional supporters of Israel, has committed the most damaging policies in US history. First and foremost, these elite-educated policymakers have degraded the entire economic dimensions of empire by pursuing a relentless military agenda – destroying oil producers, raising world prices, sowing instability and by bleeding the US Treasury of trillions of dollars – with few returns.

However, it is not only the empire’s alliance with Israel which is driving the empire to crisis. The Saudi-US axis has given immense power to the most retrograde satraps and barbaric armed insurgents running amok in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. An empire, associated with the most parasitic Arab ‘rentiers’ who send their own fanatical offspring to self-immolate for a head-beheading new world order has scarce resonance in the modern world.

An empire, organized around axes of evil and directed by political leaders loyal to satraps, has no material or moral foundations to justify its existence.   

Israel mows the lawn

Click here to access article by Mouin Rabbani from the London Review of Books.

Its massive assaults on the Gaza Strip in 2008-9 (Operation Cast Lead) and 2012 (Operation Pillar of Defence), as well as countless individual attacks between and since, were in this context exercises in what the Israeli military called ‘mowing the lawn’: weakening Hamas and enhancing Israel’s powers of deterrence. As the 2009 Goldstone Report and other investigations have demonstrated, often in excruciating detail, the grass consists overwhelmingly of non-combatant Palestinian civilians, indiscriminately targeted by Israel’s precision weaponry.

Rabbani provides an excellent description of the run-up of events that preceded the latest Israeli invasion of Gaza, and explains a lot about Zionist policies to prevent any Palestinian state from being negotiated and their genocidal practices against Palestinians living in Gaza.

In 2004, a year before Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, Dov Weissglass, éminence grise [a powerful advisor who operates "behind the scenes"] to Ariel Sharon, explained the initiative’s purpose to an interviewer from Haaretz:

The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process … And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with … a [US] presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress … The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians. 

In 2006 Weissglass was just as frank about Israel’s policy towards Gaza’s 1.8 million inhabitants: ‘The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.’ He was not speaking metaphorically....

By brutalizing Palestinians, Israel dehumanizes itself

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

When a small group of brave Israeli pro-peace activists staged a protest against the assault on Gaza in Tel Aviv this weekend, they were pelted with rocks, beaten with sticks, and chased down the street by a 2.000-strong mob of warmongering, flag-waving nationalists — some of them actually wearing neo-Nazi T-shirts. An exasperated Israeli friend described to me the “hatred in the eyes” of her fellow countrymen and relayed the ominous atmosphere inside Israel: “It’s crazy and scary here. All you see and hear is the far-right. 90% of the people in Israel are pro-war. The reasons vary but they are the majority.”

Did the banks have to commit fraud?

Click here to access article by Dean Baker from Real-World Economics Review Blog.  

The brief article provides an obvious explanation as to why they did: the rewards and punishments in a capitalist dominated society induced banksters to commit crimes--as they will continue to do in the future. 

Citigroup’s settlement will not change the tradeoffs from what Citigroup’s top management saw in 2006. As a result, in the future bankers are likely to make the same decisions that they did in 2006.

Amnesty International and the War in Ukraine

Click here to access article by Vladislav Gulevich at The Greanville Post. 

Gulevich, a Ukrainian journalist who covered the violent overthrow of the Ukrainian government and subsequently fled the country, has reviewed a report by Amnesty International and found it to be grossly biased, not based on the reality of his experience. My own reading of the report suggests to me that not only is the report biased, but it reads like a report from a Western propaganda agency. 

California Halts Injection of Fracking Waste, Warning it May Be Contaminating Aquifers

Click here to access article by Abrahm Lustgarten from ProPublica. 

The misleading headline does not indicate that there is evidence that fracking has already contaminated aquifers. Such evidence must exist to motivate the regulatory agency to take such action, and it would be useful to know the details of the evidence from the 100 aquifers that were exempted by law from environmental protection. There are so many hedged statements in this report which suggests to me that there is an attempt at a coverup.

The problem is that at least 100 of the state's aquifers were presumed to be useless for drinking and farming because the water was either of poor quality, or too deep underground to easily access. Years ago, the state exempted them from environmental protection and allowed the oil and gas industry to intentionally pollute them. But not all aquifers are exempted, and the system amounts to a patchwork of protected and unprotected water resources deep underground. Now, according to the cease and desist orders issued by the state, it appears that at least seven injection wells are likely pumping waste into fresh water aquifers protected by the law, and not other aquifers sacrificed by the state long ago.

The Evolution of US War Propaganda

Click here to access article by Caleb Maupin from New Eastern Outlook. 

This New York based political analyst and activist provides an excellent review of the varying uses and methods of US war propaganda since WWII. 

...the victims of US aggression all vary in their ideological outlook, religion, history, and circumstances. As has always been the case, regimes are targeted not for ideological reasons, but because they stand for independence from economic domination by Wall Street and London.

The US ruling class started seriously using propaganda, which they called "public relations, in the 1920s to serve their interests following their dramatic and surprising success in using propaganda to turn public opinion from strongly opposing US entry into WWI to supporting it.

It was Putin's missile!

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

Because we have all witnessed the immediate condemnation of Russia and "pro-Russian separatists" in Ukraine following the downing of the Malaysian passenger airplane, Escobar's ridicule of these absurd propaganda efforts is very welcome as an antidote to such ideological germ warfare. He also provides an additional piece of very interesting information:

And then there's the curiouser and curiouser story of Carlos, the Spanish air traffic controller working at Kiev's tower, who was following MH17 in real time. For some Carlos is legit - not a cipher; for others, he's never even worked in Ukraine. Anyway he tweeted like mad. His account - not accidentally - has been shut down, and he has disappeared; his friends are now desperately looking for him. I managed to read all his tweets in Spanish when the account was still online - and now copies and an English translation are available.  

38 Damn Good Reasons to Support the BDS Movement

Click here to access article from Muftah.

The Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement is a peaceful, civil disobedience initiative started by Palestinian civil society in 2005, in response to a paralyzed peace process and continued Israeli violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Among other things, BDS includes academic and cultural boycotts, as well as divestment from companies supporting or profiting from the Occupation. Through BDS, regular individuals around the world have a concrete means to express opposition and outrage against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Now more than ever, supporting BDS is critical. 

Progressive extractivism: hope or dystopia?

Click here to access article by Don Fitz from Climate & Capitalism. 

The controversy over extractivism in Latin America has become a lot hotter.  Though social justice and environmental activists have sought a partnership for years, this could become a wedge issue.  The debate is core to our conceptualization of what type of society we are working to build and how we plan to get there. [my emphasis]

Fitz summarizes the contending arguments from pro-extractivism advocates and anti-extractivism advocates, following which he concludes:

The two sides often talk past each other while paying scant attention to fundamental issues of their opponents.  And there are multiple problems which are insufficiently addressed by either side.  Anti-extractivists often write of horrible effects of extractivism without delving deeply into the question “How can Latin America lift people out of poverty?”  This weakness is flaunted by virtually every one of their critics.

Pro-extractivists write well of the need to reduce poverty while paying little more than lip service to the objection that extraction is destroying humanity-of-the-future.  The “pro-” side also tends to downplay “externalities” such as destruction of community and damage to health.  Instead, authors imply that the quality of life would be better if people could buy more things, without taking into account increases in asthma, cancer and water-borne illnesses.

‘The Collapse of Western Civilization’ — A View From The Year 2393

Click here to access this book review by Joe Romm from Climate Progress. 

How would a historian in 2393 write about this century if we continue self-destructively ignoring climate science — and as a result modern civilization as we know it had collapsed 300 years earlier?

That’s the question answered by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their excellent and unique new entry in the emerging Climate-Fiction genre, “The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From The Future.”

An ironic quote from the book:

To the historian studying this tragic period of human history, the most astounding fact is that the victims knew what was happening and why. Indeed, they chronicled it in detail precisely because they knew that fossil fuel combustion was to blame. Historical analysis also shows that Western civilization had the technological know-how and capability to effect an orderly transition to renewable energy, yet the available technologies were not implemented in time.

The reason for this developing tragedy is simply that capitalist ruling class's were thoroughly addicted to the power and wealth supplied to them by their system and their highly advanced technology that enabled this class to thoroughly colonize most minds of their subjects with their ideology and complete submission to their authority. With such power they have made the extinction of the human race nearly inevitable. Although in reality this history as yet to play out, it appears to me that the planet's 99 Percent will not be able to successfully challenge their rule before catastrophic climate destabilization sets in.

Israel’s incremental genocide in the Gaza ghetto

Click here to access article by Ilan Pappe from The Electronic Intifada.

The nation of Israel was established in the 20th century after many years of effort by international Zionists who fanatically sought support for their project wherever they could find it. In WWI Zionists appealed to both governments of England and Germany to support their cause of "homeland" (or "nation" depending to whom they were talking). England finally came through, with the aid of American Zionists, in the form of the 1917 Balfour Declaration in order to secure financial support from international Jewry. (See other excellent histories here and here.) Leading up to and during WWII the Nazi regime collaborated with Zionists to support the emigration of European Jews to Palestine (see this, this, and this), and at the end of WWII the victorious capitalist Anglo-American Empire failed to seriously oppose the establishment of the state of Israel because they began to see it as useful as an imperial outpost in the Middle East. And, as they say, the rest is (a) history of apartheid and genocide.

Israel’s present assault on Gaza alas indicates that this policy [incremental genocide] continues unabated. The term is important since it appropriately locates Israel’s barbaric action — then and now — within a wider historical context.

This context should be insisted upon, since the Israeli propaganda machine attempts again and again to narrate its policies as out of context and turns the pretext it found for every new wave of destruction into the main justification for another spree of indiscriminate slaughter in the killing fields of Palestine.

Capitalism’s Deeper Problem

Click here to access article by Richard Wolff from Moyers & Company.

Wolff provides us with a brief history of capitalism as another class system that took over from the earlier class system under feudalism, and shows how the recent phase of globalization under capitalism has only increased the disparity between a tiny class of the rich amidst huge populations of the poor. His analysis leads to an interesting question:

Everywhere, those extremes provoked revolutions against feudalism that eventually yielded that system’s demise. Today’s extremes produced by a globalizing capitalism  — Detroit versus San Francisco, Manhattan versus the Bronx, Germany versus Greece, China’s new billionaires versus many millions of poor workers and peasants —  where might they be leading us?

It appears to me that we activists and all humans will be spared the work of another major revolution because nature has had enough of our pollution. I am, of course, referring to the impending catastrophes awaiting us due to climate destabilization caused by our excessive burning of fossil fuels before we have a chance to turn things around.

New York Times Rewrites Gaza Headline: Was It Too Accurate?

Click here to access article by Peter Hart from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. 

This is only one more tiny illustration of how ruling class media carefully hones it news reporting so that their class interests are not harmed. Because the story has been widely reported by a number of independent sources, they have no choice but to cover the incident. Thus, the task then becomes to cover it in a way that reduces any damage that the coverage might cause to their ruling class, and their strategically important Zionist-Israeli section of the capitalist Empire. 

NBC news directors were so incensed over one of their reporter's coverage of this same event that they pulled him from the area. 

And now we are seeing the grossest forms of propaganda backing the Empire's actions in Ukraine.

The point I wish to stress is that all coverage by all the Empire's leading capitalist media corporations are presented from this class point of view. So then, if you understand that, it is not too much of a stretch to understand that all important institutions of society are likewise guided to serve the same ruling class. You will find the same bias shaping actions in legislation, court proceedings, education, entertainment, etc. 

You must understand that you live in a society that has a social-economic class structure which is shaped by a capitalist system, a system which gives overwhelming rights to "owners" of property, and permits property to be owned by individuals that is thoroughly social in nature. What is of major significance is that such rights also bring to these individuals vast amounts of wealth and power. That is precisely why they go to such extreme lengths to control everything in society and beyond that might threaten the extreme wealth and power they enjoy. That is precisely why they engage in all kinds of practices that ultimately destroy economies and whole nations, and wage wars against nations and peoples who interfere with their designs.

Big Brother To Get Bigger in Mexico

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Wolf Street. 

While opposition is gathering against net neutrality and electronic surveillance in the US portion of the Empire, it appears that a major effort to accomplish these objectives is well advanced in the Mexican section. Such nefarious measures have been carefully wrapped in propaganda material that appears to reign in monopolies. Thus, the public has been carefully prepared to view these measures as "reforms". (I think it is a truism that whenever ruling class media presents legislation as a "reform", what they really have in mind are measures that will harm the interests of ordinary people and benefit their class.)

...as El Confidencial warns, the anti-trust measures are effectively a carrot hiding a much larger stick within the large- and fine-print – a stick that could soon be wielded against political and social activists, investigative journalists, high-profile members of the political opposition or any other groups that threaten the status quo.

Planned Chaos in the Middle East—and Beyond

Click here to access article by Ismael Hossein-Zadeh from CounterPunch.

This is not exactly a new thesis, but it bears repeating.

The seeds of the chaos were planted some 25 years ago, when the Berlin Wall Collapsed. Since the rationale for the large and growing military apparatus during the Cold War years was the “threat of communism,” U.S. citizens celebrated the collapse of the Wall as the end of militarism and the dawn of “peace dividends”—a reference to the benefits that, it was hoped, many would enjoy in the United States as a result of a reorientation of part of the Pentagon’s budget toward non-military social needs.

But while the majority of the U.S. citizens celebrated the prospects of what appeared to be imminent “peace dividends,” the powerful interests vested in the expansion of military/security spending felt threatened. Not surprisingly, these influential forces moved swiftly to safeguard their interests in the face of the “threat of peace.”

The author continues on in the article to expertly develop the thesis of a voracious military-industrial complex and adds Israeli-Zionist territorial ambitions to the mix. I agree with all of his arguments, however they are not sufficient to explain the policies of the US-led Empire. 

The Empire's capitalist elite who determine those policies are also concerned about acquiring control of rapidly diminishing resources, particularly fossil fuels, needed to keep their giant wealth-sucking capitalist machinery fueled for more growth, or at least, to sustain it until some mythical new energy source is obtained. Thus, they have an imperial agenda to acquire as much control of these resources as they can, and they will attempt to subvert or attack any opposition, which includes the rapidly developing capitalist gang known as the BRICs, that stands in their way. This, in addition to the impending catastrophic climate destabilization which their system is causing, is what makes today's world so dangerous.

The Outrage This Time

Click here to access article by Andrew Levine from CounterPunch.

I always spend substantial time on Saturday mornings trying to find good satire of capitalists and their system, but I often fail. I've noticed that the right-wing does a much better job using satire to ridicule what they stupidly regard as a liberal government. I've even found myself laughing at some of their material. So with that apologia expressed, I offer this piece as the best I could find this morning in the way of satire.

Whenever my local NPR station has one of its frequent on-air fund-raisers, I am tempted to call in to tell them how Morning Edition is my source for conventional wisdom and pro-regime propaganda.

I could say the same, of course, about NPR’s weekend news programs and All Things Considered.  But Morning Edition is special; it starts the day.

The whistleblower speaks to Alan Rusbridger and Ewen MacAskill about life in Russia, the NSA culture, his time there and the future of communication

Click here if you wish to access the edited transcript of this 13:59m video of the interview conducted by The Guardian journalists.

He doesn’t drink, he’s reading Dostoevsky and, no, he doesn’t wear a disguise. A year after blowing the whistle on the NSA, America’s most wanted talks frankly about his life as a hero-pariah – and why the world remains ‘more dangerous than Orwell imagined’. 

Senator Warren Lets Yellen Know She’s Had It With the Fed’s Charade About Too Big to Fail [revised]

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

There are few people besides Martens who has followed more carefully the shenanigans of Wall Street actors. People from Wall Street have long been identified as the real directors of the US government. In other words, actors from this sector, especially the financial part of Wall Street, constitute what many keen observers of power in the US as a "shadow government" or "deep state". Although major capitalist actors have exercised major influence over the US government for over 100 years, their control has become so consolidated that they now have a hidden directorate who function as a shadow government. 

Unbeknownst to most people, following WWII the ruling class directorate became very interested in establishing an empire, and gradually established another branch of their directorate in northern Virginia to manage the empire. This has been well described in a recent book entitled Imperial Suburbs by Andrew Friedman. A 55 minute interview with Friedman broadcast from KPFA in Berkeley provides a detailed description of this event.

In the early days of the CIA, Allen Dulles moved the agency from Washington, D.C. to the suburbs, spawning a complex of government and private entities in the service of US empire. Scholar Andrew Friedman unearths the significance of the national security state's base in Northern Virginia. He examines the imperial ties and intimate connections between agents....

With domestic affairs run by agents in Wall Street and Empire affairs run by their people in northern Virginia, what they left behind in Washington was merely a well-constructed facade of "constitutional government founded on democratic principles and the rule of law", an ongoing performance of a stage play called "Democrats versus Republicans", and the periodic extravaganzas of political campaigns and elections. It is the facade, the staged drama, and election campaigns that mainstream media report on, while the actions of those in the well-coordinated shadow government in Wall Street and northern Virginia go unreported.  However, the fake nature of the official government is becoming ever more apparent as Martens is discovering.

In this article she cites Fed Chair Yellen's semiannual report to the Senate Banking Committee as evidence that there is no serious planning by the Fed to exercise any discipline over reckless actions of "too big to fail" banking institutions as promised to the American people and as mandated in the Dodd-Frank bill following the most recent collapse of the economy. She also provides evidence of the collusion of major Wall Street actors with enforcement agencies, police and other legal authorities. 

Economists say solution to problems is more of the same

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

Few people explain capitalist economic concepts and analyses better than Dolack. In this piece he deconstructs a document entitled “Policy Challenges for the Next 50 Years,” issued by a major capitalist organization called the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 

It appears that key capitalist policy makers insist that they must continue with the same neoliberal austerity policies with plenty of assurances that everything will be fine, but admit that their beloved system must now accept slow growth for the foreseeable future. Of course, what they are really facing is stagnation as their system which demands high rates of growth comes up against the resource limits of a finite planet, especially cheaply available energy from fossil fuels.

The implications of that stagnation are a sputtering economy, more unemployment and more inequality because capitalism is a system that requires growth. A system based on endless growth can’t function without it — slow growth (all the more so no growth) means misery for working people as the recent years of “recovery” from the 2008 economic collapse has demonstrated.

However, as Dolack correctly concludes:

An economic system designed to meet human needs, rather than private profit, would have no need to grow. But as capitalism is designed for private profit, and requires continual growth to maintain itself, harsher austerity (and the force that will be necessary to implement it) is what is on offer by the world’s elites.

Ukraine: Kiev’s Ticking Time Bomb

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from The Greanville Post. 

After a brief ceasefire, Kiev has resumed the bombardment of populated centers in the eastern breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, both bordering with neighboring Russia. Kiev and its Western backers face a confounding dilemma – continue military operations in eastern Ukraine and create a heavily militarized opposition while racking up a troubling human rights record, or commit to a ceasefire and for all intents and purposes forfeit Donetsk and Lugansk just as Kiev has done regarding Crimea.

 Cartalucci's analysis of the terrible situation in Ukraine suggests a positive outcome leading to a "multi-polar world".

With NATO’s brand of hegemonic expansion swept aside, the world will be tasked with describing a new order with which to replace it. The multipolar world preferred by nations like Russia, China, and other BRICS members is already poised to serve this role. With the devastation of the West’s unipolar model on full display in eastern Ukraine, the cause of establishing a multipolar world gives added impetus to those resisting Western advances both within Ukraine, and beyond.

First of all, I don't see a multi-polar world as anything like a panacea. At best, it only temporarily averts a dangerous nuclear war. Secondly, I question the ability of the crazy neo-con infested Empire directorate to settle for any kind of multi-polar world. This is what makes the situation in Ukraine so dangerous. They have worked on the subversion of Ukraine for the past 20 years and have seen their recent success as a major step toward their quest for world domination. Thus, I see a more likely scenario in which the Empire's directorate throws in all kinds of military aid into the conflict including, if necessary, private armies to overwhelm the opposition in eastern Ukraine. I, too, see the Ukraine mess as a "ticking time bomb", but one that could easily lead to a major conflagration.

Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”

Click here to access a current re-post on The 4th Media of a prophetic 2006 article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a Canadian sociologist and geopolitical analyst. 

This article first published by GR in November 2006 is of particular relevance  to an understanding of the ongoing process of destabilization and political fragmentation of Iraq.

I've always been impressed by Nazemroaya's views on geopolitical events in the Middle East, but this piece represents the best of his work.

Has America’s Economy Entered the “Coffin Corner”?

Click here to access article by Fabius Maximus from Wolf Street. 

Maximus uses some very apt aerodynamic metaphors to illustrate the dilemmas confronting our capitalist masters ensconced in central banks as they desperately try to maintain their craft aloft.

In the absence of effective and comprehensible economic theory, economists often rely on analogies. Such as comparisons with aerodynamics. Flying complex vehicles at high speed under variable conditions, often with inadequate or old information — the role of pilot has similarities with that of central banker.

I particularly loved one comment by "Simon" following the article:

Just to riff [expand] a little more on the analogy….. we ought to add that the ‘central banker pilot’ is trying to keep the ‘plane’ aloft whilst strapping on his own parachute, making sure that his/her buddies have chutes also, whilst telling those in coach that everything is going swimmingly and we will all be ok!

 ...oh and those in coach are worrying about what movie they should watch! (ignorance is truly bliss).

"Altitude" in this analogy should be interpreted as the aircraft approaches the limits of the Earth's atmosphere--clearly a metaphorical referent to a capitalist economy which is running up against resource limits, especially cheap fossil fuels, to keep their giant wealth-sucking machinery fueled for more growth.

New Wave of Washington Consensus in Latin America

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Wolf Street. 

The author looks at economic trends in Latin America and sees some new moves by the neoliberal leadership of the US led ruling capitalist classes. (Neoliberal policies and operations that have been applied to Latin America are frequently identified as the "Washington Consensus".)

Something big is going down in Latin America: A slow-moving tectonic shift threatens to split the continent down the middle on ideological lines. On the Atlantic side are Mercosur nations such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, whose governments are by and large statist and protectionist. On the opposite side are the four signatories of the recently signed Pacific Alliance, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile – countries that are, in the words of the Financial Times, more “reform” and “liberal” minded.

Meanwhile, another capitalist gang known as the BRIC nations is taking shape to counter the capitalist gang represented by the US led Empire. Further details on this are provided by Pepe Escobar in his recent article "BRICS against Washington Consensus: Death Sentence for the Neoliberalism?". Unfortunately, Escobar's article suggests that the movement of the BRICs to create a multi-polar world would be a positive development. This view seems to be a common delusion among many critics of the US Empire. If you believe that, then you should also believe that the competing capitalist empires of the 20th century, the Anglo-American empire and the two blocks led by Germany in both WWI and II, were good for world.

Waking Up To Our Broken Education Policies by Jeff Bryant

Click here to access article by Jeff Bryant from Education Opportunity Network. 

What I find particularly informative about this article is not that major media is only recently starting to cover the grassroots opposition to the broken education policies promoted by the ruling class directorate that has been behind both the Bush and Obama administrations, but the many informative links provided by the author to sources which report on the details of this grassroots opposition. 

For years, collectivist actions in protest of public school policy have been scaling up from isolated protests to a nationwide movement of unified resistance. The movement is widespread among teachers, students, and parents. From the beginning, the movement was been grassroots driven and demanding of changes in the way our schools are being run.

Citigroup: The Original Gangsta

Click here to access article by Robert Scheer from TruthDig. 

Barack Obama’s Justice Department on Monday announced that Citigroup would pay $7 billion in fines, a move that will avoid a humiliating trial dealing with the seamy financial products the bank had marketed to an unsuspecting public, causing vast damage to the economy. 

Obviously, Citigroup isn't the only "gangsta" that has wrecked so many lives of ordinary people, and we will get nowhere to solving these periodic crises and the dire future that lies ahead by casting blame on certain players. "It's the economy [system], stupid!" However, if the Justice Department were serious about pursuing justice, there would have been criminal charges brought against key players who knowingly perpetrated fraudulent deals. Instead Citigroup, like the other too-big-to-fail financial institutions have been rewarded by the Federal Reserve with trillions of dollars of near zero rate loans that Citigroup uses to provide credit for us at rates up to 21% interest.

For many more details on the deal worked out by the ruling class's "Justice" Department with Citigroup which provided cover for any criminal prosecutions, I highly recommend you read "$7 Billion Citigroup Settlement: About Those 25 Million Missing Documents" by Pam Martens.

NATO Hopes for Russian Invasion of Ukraine

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

For many reasons Russia will not benefit from invading Ukraine, and for many more reason, NATO and the EU would benefit from it – at least rhetorically. The Russians are therefore likely to resist provocations by Ukraine to cross the border and give NATO further excuses to meddle in Eastern Europe. Instead, Russia will allow Kiev to continue displaying its brutality and incompetence on the battlefield while eastern Ukrainians continue picking apart their forces. Meanwhile, economic pressure will continue undermining the regime in Kiev even amongst its supporters in western Ukraine.

New Map Shows Dramatic Time Lapse of Tar Sands Deforestation

Click here to access article by Kevin Grandia from DeSmog Canada.

The World Resources Institute and Global Forest Watch have been researching the world's boreal forests since 1990. According to their research, Canada holds the vast majority, 54 per cent, of the world's total boreal forest across a region of 500 million hectares or 14 times the size of California. Boreal forests hold twice as much carbon dioxide as tropical forests.

Debt: Eight Reasons This Time is Different

Click here to access article by Gail Tverberg from Our Finite Planet.

Tverberg is widely followed and respected among scientists and technologists who are informed about energy and the environment. She has been sounding warnings for many years about the fact that we, the citizens of the Earth, are running up against the limits of a finite Earth; and if we don't change our ways, the consequences will be catastrophic. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, she refuses to directly indict the system which is causing this inevitable calamity--capitalism.

In this essay she explains how the capitalist system (she always uses the word "economy") has been able to use debt as a method to solve the inevitable boom and bust crises that have forever characterized the operation of the system. Capitalism and its debt-fueled economies have depended on cheap sources of energy to create growth which always eventually succeeded in ameliorating the periodic crises in the past. However, this time conditions are dramatically different due to diminishing supplies of cheap energy and the impending catastrophe of climate destabilization caused by the excessive burning of fossil fuels. Still, the leaders of this system are hoping once again to use the same method for solving current economic problems--keep increasing the supply of debt-based money. Thus, Tverberg is led to this inevitable conclusion:

We live in perilous times. We have leaders who think they know the answers but, in fact, they do not. The debt problems we face now are not just overspending problems; they are signs that we are reaching limits of a finite world. World leaders do not seem to understand this connection. It is not even clear that they understand the connection of debt problems to the need for cheap-to-produce, high-quality energy products.

World leaders are nevertheless convinced that they know the answers, based on complex, but very flawed, models. Unfortunately, actions taken based on these models have a good chance of making the situation worse rather than better. For example, trying to tie a world economy closer together, when it is already heading toward collapse, seems like a recipe for disaster. 

Read also "Senior Bankers Warn: ‘It’s Crazy, It’s a Boom, It’s a Gold Rush’" by Wolf Richter. 

An Exceptional Decline for the Exceptional Country?

Click here to access article by Tom Engelhardt from TomDispatch, a project of the liberal Nation Institute. 

Although Engelhardt points to the ominous tendencies of the ruling class to ignore the rule of law and their reliance on military adventures which sow chaos in the world, he introduces an analysis that only confuses and leads people to wring their hands over the state of the nation and "puzzled" by what is happening.  His essay illustrates how many people identified as belonging to the American liberal political sector are really confused about today's political realities. Thus, they spread their confusion (some think intentionally) and thereby muddle effective responses to the growing crises that the world is facing: wars, growing poverty and debts for most and extreme wealth for tiny ruling capitalist classes, and impending catastrophic climate destabilization. 

Engelhardt starts off his essay by focusing on the US as a nation and dividing its rule into two interrelated parts: a national security state and a militarized corporate state. 

...two great power centers have been engorging themselves in twenty-first-century America: there was an ever-expanding national security state, ever less accountable to anyone, ever less overseen by anyone, ever more deeply enveloped in secrecy, ever more able to see others and less transparent itself, ever more empowered by a secret court system and a body of secret law whose judgments no one else could be privy to; and there was an increasingly militarized corporate state, ever less accountable to anyone, ever less overseen by outside forces, ever more sure that the law was its possession.  These two power centers are now triumphant in our world.  They command the landscape against what may be less effective opposition than at any moment in our history. [my emphasis]

While one may use such a separation legitimately for a limited analysis purpose, he doesn't go any further to show how these "power centers" are really only limited concepts that obscure the reality of a ruling, rapacious capitalist elite who must hide their criminal designs and operations from a public that they have indoctrinated into believing in a number of myths like the "rule of law" and constitutional governments based on "democratic" principles. 

Another source of confusion is his myopic concern about the US as a state in a world of nation-states instead of the reality of a transnational capitalist gang ruling over an ever-expanding Empire. (Engelhardt doesn't seem to understand that we live in an increasingly globalized world.) This Empire has its own army called NATO, and it is ruled over by capitalist elites who reside in NATO countries. This transnational ruling class continue to remove national impediments to their capitalist operations through the current secret negotiations known as TISA, TTIP, and TTP. They mostly use national boundaries to control the movement of workers (that's us) to benefit their far-flung enterprises.
 

Released Occupy Activist Cecily McMillan: "There's No Sense in Prison"

Click here to access the interview with McMillan conducted by Sarah Jaffe from Truthout.

There's no sense in prison. There's no rehabilitation; there's no citizenship; it is completely at odds with everything that we call democracy. It doesn't make any sense. People have called me a political prisoner; that's weird for me. But if I have to really think about that title and really come up with a definition of what a political prisoner is, it's someone who goes against the law or goes against the social rules or norms in order to stand up for the things that they believe in or the people that they care for, to do what is right by their communities. There's not a single woman in Rikers who isn't a political prisoner by that standard.

This privileged, educated, white woman has learned a lot about the realities of racism, ruling class police forces, and US prison systems; but judging from her comments in this interview (I did not think that the interview as reported here was well done), I think she has a lot more to learn. 

Of course, the way the police and "correctional" system works makes perfect sense if you understand--and it seems to me that she should--that all the nonsense about a "democracy" is just that. To see how confused she remains, just look at the contradictions in this paragraph:

...I do think that the NYPD as a force has become the arm of the corporatocracy. The way that they treated Zuccotti Park, the way that they go out and seemingly round up undesirable people, especially at times that gentrification is in full swing, but never happen to be around in times when the same people actually require assistance or help. What are our police doing? Why are they doing it? Who are they responsible to? Why don't we have more community oversight? Why don't we have a democratic hand in selecting the commissioner?

She initially recognizes in an intellectual sense that our society is a "corporatocracy"; but judging by her questions, she still clings to fake ideas from her indoctrination that our society is some sort of democracy. Thus, her experience makes "no sense" to her. The interviewer failed to point out these contradictions to her and encourage her to dig deeper in her understanding. It's as if "corporatocracy" exists in some separate compartment away from the larger "democracy".

Of course, her police and prison experience makes perfect sense in a society ruled by a tiny class of people who literally own our economy under a capitalist system which rewards them with overwhelming wealth and power. They must constantly control the people they exploit, with racial minorities being the most numerous, by first of all, methods of indoctrination, and finally by a racist, classist, police force, kangaroo courts, and an elaborate prison system. Once people who are seen as dissidents, malcontents, or simply cannot function in their "corporatocracy"  get caught up in their police state systems, the kid gloves come off to reveal the hidden fist of fascism. Such people of necessity are subject to dehumanizing, humiliating experiences to break them psychologically into compliant subhumans.

McMillan's views, as reported in this interview, are another illustration of shallow thinking about our society, and as such, is a major problem among many US activists. It is preventing them from moving more seriously to discussions about the necessity for revolution as the solution to a whole range of problems: wars, poverty, police state methods, climate destabilization, resource depletion, etc.

‘Politics and Mafia Are Same Thing’ – Jailed Spanish Politician

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Wolf Street.

...cozy ties between politicians and organized crime are hardly a problem exclusive to Spain. Nor are they a new problem: in 1920s Chicago the political class was perfectly at ease hobnobbing at speakeasies with Al Capone and his motley crew of ruthless bootleggers. Indeed, throughout history marriages of convenience have taken place between people and organizations on opposite sides of the legal divide. Lest we forget, in the mid 19th Century, the British Empire became arguably history’s largest ever drug trafficker when it began exporting – at the barrel of a gun – vast quantities of opium grown in India to China. 

I have always viewed the operations of capitalists and organized crime as coming from the same psychological source in sociopathy. (This latter term has long been competing with the term "psychopathy". The dispute between usages seems to be related to professional territories with more traditional and medically oriented professions clinging to the older usage of psychopathy versus mainly sociologists who have separated out behaviors that are based in faulty socialization versus those behaviors that have mostly an organic basis.) People who have low empathy (For a current article illustrating high empathic individuals, I highly recommend an article by Nozomi Hayase entitled "Chelsea Manning and The Power of Empathy".) or high sociopathy thrive well in a capitalist system, and likewise in a criminal organization. Thus, you will find a high percentage of such people in today's ruling capitalist classes. 

You will find a lot of evidence of the blurring of lines between "legitimate" activity and criminal activity as cited in the above quote from this article by Quijones, and there are tons of other sources of information showing the close collaboration of criminal organizations with capitalists and officials in their governments. (See this, this, this, and this for starters.)

CIA Covert Operations and U.S. Interventions Since World War II Full documentary

Click here to access a re-posting on Greanville Post of a documentary produced by Frank Dorrel. I only viewed 20 minutes of the video which covers the history of subversive activities of US secret agencies since WWII. I don't need to view the rest because I lived through all of this history.

Unfortunately, many people in the film, and people in general, see these developments as some kind of aberration rather than an intrinsic feature of a predatory ruling class such as exists under any system of capitalism. Thus, many people still hold out the false hope of correcting these problems and returning to what they have been taught to believe has existed in some mythical past: some sort of "democracy" or constitutional government founded on "democratic" principles. Notice that in this re-posting, an editor of The Greanville Post suggests that such operations of the existing system can be corrected without eliminating class rule if only we wake up:

As a class tool for the ruling elites, it’s quite obvious the CIA will not disappear or perform legitimate national security work until capitalist class rule is finished, OR Americans wake up sufficiently from their induced stupor to revamp the agency. 

Blood for gas: Why Bibi is punishing Gaza

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from RT.

So here’s the “secret” of Operation Protect the Zionists, sorry, Protective Edge: without smashing Hamas, which controls Gaza, Israel cannot drill off the Gaza coast. For Bibi as well as the Knesset, the possibility that the Palestinians could have access to their own gas-generated wealth is an absolute red line.

And the EU may be on it as well. No one in Brussels will admit it, but it’s easy to conceive “strategists” regarding this takeover of Palestinian gas fields opening the door in the future for the EU being less dependent on Gazprom, and a substantial importer of (stolen) Israeli gas.

Israel’s Newspeak is old news; after all they are masters of fooling no one but themselves. Expanding on what Michael Klare has brilliantly detailed, the new, open-ended, collective punishment inflicted on Gaza is most of all a blood-for-gas energy war.

National Endowment for Empire: Democracy Promotion Means Regime Change

Click here to access article by Ed Warner from The Unz Review.

Warner reports on the Empire's leading regime change organization and its neoconservative leadership.

NED occupies an envious position. Though government funded, it operates with little in the way of oversight. Amid the many voices projecting US foreign policy – the White House, State Department, Defense Department, Congress – it can be heard above others because it speaks forcefully with ideological assurance. It is indeed the voice of the neo-conservatives who recommend US military intervention wherever it can be employed with special attention to the needs of Israel. Explains Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State and chairman of the National Democratic Institute, an offshoot of NED: “We stand tall, and thus see further than other nations. We are the indispensable nation.” Is a name change in order perhaps? The National Endowment for Empire.

Of course, like many other superficial observers of the US power structure, Warner goes along with the myth of an independent executive office or President as a chief executive officer of the US, instead of viewing the office more realistically as a public relations cover for a shadow government. 

This Chart Truly Depicts What’s Wrong With the ‘Recovery’ in America

Click here to access article by Wolf Richter from Wolf Street.

Richter provides some telling details behind Wall Street's "recovery". (Hint) There is a growing bifurcation of US society between the rich and the poor, between the haves and have-nots, and the latter are going into debt to spend on the rising cost of necessities like food and fuel.

 

The World Cup Spilleth Over: As the Soccer Games End, Political Ones Begin

Click here to access article by Danny Schechter posted on Common Dreams. 

The FIFA sponsored World Cup of soccer in Brazil has imposed enormous social costs on the Brazilians. Now with the humiliating loss to the German team, Schechter wonders if the Brazilian ruling class may have counted too much on a Brazilian win to assuage public discontent.

The World Cup has spilleth over. With the  FIFA spectacle about to pack up its goodies—most of their lucre has already been wired out of Brazil—...the “host” country now tries to cope with its financial losses, intensified social conflicts and humiliating defeat at the hands of the Germans....

The Excellent But False Messaging of the Common Core Standards

Click here to access article by Diane Ravitch from Common Dreams.  

Although Ravitch offers too much of a liberal interpretation of the issues related to the spread of Common Core standards, nevertheless she provides interesting new information to illustrate how big money can easily subvert the more established ruling class methods of education.

Have you ever wondered about the amazingly effective campaign to sell the Common Core standards to the media, the business community, and the public? How did it happen that advocates for the standards used the same language, the same talking points, the same claims, no matter where they were located? The talking points sounded poll-tested because they were. The language was the same because it came from the same source. The campaign to have “rigorous,” “high standards” that would make ALL students “college and career-ready” and “globally competitive” was well planned and coordinated. There was no evidence for these claims but repeated often enough in editorials and news stories and in ads by major corporations, they took on the ring of truth. ....

This was no accident.