Will Russia, Germany save Europe from war?

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

To look on the world as a global chess game played by various ruling classes always seems insane to me. After further reflection, I declare that such a view is a form of insanity. 

But after even more reflection, I have to admit that we are living in an insane world in which the Ninety-Nine Percent passively accept rule by elites who control nuclear weapons and have their own interests apart from the rest of us. This is the fundamental insanity driving all the others. Hence, the only ultimate solution is radical democracy in which ordinary people have control of their communities and societies that includes the control of their economies. 

However, until that times comes--if ever--we must consider the logic of an insane world. Escobar is doing exactly that in this article. Yet, as Escobar argues that there is a kind of balance of terror which will save the world of humanity a few more years, I know that inevitably there will be a time when the balance of terror (or, at least the perception) will favor one set of elites over others. Then we will be in deep doo-doo.

Are the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Russia on a mad spiral leading to yet another war in Europe? Is it inevitable? Far from it.

The Broader Implications Of The Events In Ferguson, Mo.

Click here if you wish to access the cartoon by Gregory Crawford directly from World News Trust. 

Of course, the real "death figure" is the rule by a tiny elite whose arrangement of society includes their private ownership of the economy which, in turn, gives them power over all institutions including the police and courts. It is in their interest to promote racism, to instill fear in some people from the threat of others, as a strategy to divide and control the American people. 

After all, it worked very well in the Middle East where Sunnis and Shias have been killing each other since the US invasion. The British found this useful in Ireland by pitting Catholics against Protestants, and in India by pitting Muslims against Hindus. It's an old strategy used by ruling classes down the ages.

 

Obama: A Placebo for Civil Liberties

Click here to access article by Wayne Madsen from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Barack Obama has served as nothing more than a placebo for steadily-eroding civil liberties in the United States. What was billed as the "most transparent" administration in the history of the United States has turned into its most opaque, with Obama prosecuting more government employees for violating the 1917 Espionage Act than any of his predecessors combined. The "crimes" of those being prosecuted were simply communicating to journalists the malfeasance and law-breaking of the federal government.

Obama was also billed as the first African-American president of "post-racial" America. 

Madsen also makes some very cogent observations about Michael Brown's murder by Officer Wilson.

Prosecutor Manipulates Grand Jury Process to Shield Officer

Click here to access article by Marjorie Cohn from TruthOut.
  
The grand jury case, in which Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson's killing of an unarmed, 18-year-old African American Michael Brown was investigated for a possible indictment, is an excellent illustration of how the ruling class misuses another construct of the "rule of law", a grand jury, to prevent one of the enforcers of their class rule, Officer Darren Wilson, from being tried by a more rigorous justice system embedded in a standard jury trial. The political use of the grand jury system is a common practice whenever ruling class interests are involved in order to lend legitimacy to their flagrant abuse of any sense of justice. It is most frequently used against left-wing dissidents. (See my previous posting and commentary related to grand jury practices in the US.)

In this article by Cohn posted on TruthOut, we see an archetype of a liberal take on this incident. You will see that there are no class interests involved. 

In a virtually unprecedented move, St. Louis Prosecutor Robert McCulloch in effect deputized the grand jurors to sit as triers of fact as in a jury trial.

In a normal grand jury proceeding, the prosecutor presents evidence for a few days and then asks the grand jurors to return an indictment, which they nearly always do. Of 162,000 federal cases in 2010, grand juries failed to indict in only 11 of them, according the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

This miscarriage of justice is seen initially as limited to an official prosecutor McCulloch who "has a history of bias in favor of police". Then in the final paragraph Cohn uses a quote to refer to a need for "systemic change", but it's clear that the quote is only referring to racism which has been the major theme emphasized by liberal media such as TruthOut. This emphasis plays into the ruling class's favorite strategy of "divide and rule". The ruling capitalist class would love to cultivate more divisions among working Americans by instilling fear in "white Americans" of the threat of African-Americans and other marginalized groups.

So-called 'counterterror' fusion center in Massachusetts monitored Black Lives Matter protesters

Click here to access article from PrivacySOS.

There are many, many other examples nationwide of these so-called fusion centers getting caught red handed monitoring protest movements and dissidents, conflating First Amendment protected speech with crime or terrorism. The fusion centers, meanwhile, have never once stopped a terrorist attack. It’s not clear what beyond monitoring dissidents and black people—through so-called ‘gang’ databases—these fusion centers actually do.

It's clear from the above last sentence that the author has difficulty in de-coding ruling class language. 

Alan Watts: What Is Wrong With Our Culture?

Click here if you wish to access this 5:06m video directly from its posting on Raging Bull-Shit.



What Watts portrays in this video is the culture of capitalism. The fact that he hadn't realized that this social-economic system lay behind this culture, leads him into a kind of magical thinking expressed toward the end of the film: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." 

Although magic is a delightful pastime that children often enjoy, we as adults must use our brains and our accumulated knowledge to understand that culture is to a considerable extent shaped by fundamental societal arrangements necessary to satisfy our material needs. Thus, if we don't like the culture, we must not engage in such magical thinking; instead we must change the system, capitalism, which is shaping the culture. Once we understand that the single driving force behind this system is to accumulate wealth and power for those that are clever at the game of capitalism, and that the game inevitably results in fewer and fewer people holding more and more wealth/power, poverty for the vast majority, wars, catastrophic climate destabilization, etc, then we will understand what really needs to be done to insure our happiness and security.

AP: U.S. Mercenaries Working With Al-Qaeda No Scandal - Just A "Difficulty"

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

Ten weeks behind Moon of Alabama the Associated Press is recognizing the southern attack on Damascus. They get paid for (not) reporting, I don't.

.... U.S. trained, supplied and supported mercenaries are openly cooperating with Jabhat al-Nusra which is al-Qaida's Syria branch. This is not a "conspiracy theory" of some nutcase but official AP reporting.

The people accused of bringing down the world trade center on 9/11 are openly working with U.S. (proxy) forces. And what does AP make of this?

Victims of Colombia's Civil Conflict Exceeds 7 Million: Media Yawns

Click here to access article by Daniel Kovalik from TeleSur.

Kovalik reports on some "inconvenient" truths about another close ally of the US ruling class.

...a notable fact in the Victims Unit report is that "that the majority of victimization occurred after 2000, peaking in 2002 at 744,799 victims." It is not coincidental that "Plan Colombia," or "Plan Washington" as many Colombians have called it, was inaugurated by President Bill Clinton in 2000, thus escalating the conflict to new heights and new levels of barbarity. Plan Colombia is the plan pursuant to which the U.S. has given Colombia over $8 billion of mostly military and police assistance. 

So, who are the victims? According to Human Rights Watch:

Human rights defenders, trade unionists, journalists, indigenous and Afro-Colombian leaders, and IDP [internally displaced persons] leaders face death threats and other abuses.

New video: "The corporate lobby tour"

Click here if you wish to directly access the 10:24m video and introduction from Corporate Europe Observatory.

Following WWII the people of Europe were sold on the idea that integrating their governments into a greater European union would benefit everyone. What they didn't realize that this was a clever plan to weaken any democratic influence in various European countries if favor of a centralized government that would be easily susceptible to influence by Western corporations. 

Sometimes stories in the news can make you wonder who is really pulling the strings. This 10-minute video exposes the role corporate lobby groups have in EU decision-making – who they are, how they get what they want, and how they affect you, and others like you all over Europe, from the food on your plate, to rules for bankers, to the chemicals allowed in everyday products. Watch, learn, and share!

‘Iraqi Kurdistan’ – Western Fifth Column in the Middle East

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from CounterPunch.

This courageous independent journalist takes us on a tour of Iraqi Kurdistan in which we experience through his eyes a quasi-independent section of Iraq wracked by corruption, ISIS attacks, and tense border guards at numerous checkpoints. We also see evidence of extreme rich lifestyles amidst widespread poverty, and Western and Israeli influences everywhere. It's another nightmarish imperial colony created by the US and associated nefarious allies. Here is only one excerpt: 

I spot a public elementary school. It is dilapidated, and extremely basic.

This Muslim community is obviously neglected, despite the nearby oil basins and refineries. No wonder: the pro-Western regime in Erbil is openly anti-Arab and pro-Western. President Barzani repeatedly speaks about the Eurasian character of his enclave, disputing that it has anything to do with an undesirable Middle-Eastern Arab character.

A school principal, erect, beautiful and proud, wears a headscarf. I dash into her office, and then slow down and apologize. I have only one question for her: ‘Do any of the proceeds from those oilfields and refineries outside, end up here, in her school, in the education sector’?

Her reply is as short and precise, as my question: “No, nothing! Our people and our schools get absolutely nothing!”

But the number of Kurdish millionaires is growing, as is the number of luxury limousines and SUVs, as are the flashy malls for the elites, as are the armies of arrogant security guards, local and imported.

A Socio-Political Criticism of Magic: The Gathering

Click here to access article by Neale Talbot from Gathering Magic. 

It has long been recognized that Western fantasy has deep roots in Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition within the historical context of political absolutism and class stratification. The medievalist overtones of in-period literature such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Beowulf have persevered through time to the modern imaginary worlds of Tolkien and George R.R. Martin. These works have [informed and formed] the basis of class, hierarchy, and political authority within the codified structures of fantasy-genre-driven games.

One such game is Magic: The Gathering (“Magic”). [my link]

Talbot has much fun with this trading card game by explaining how it illustrates many fundamental concepts derived from Western feudalism that have shaped today's ruling class governance.

The aim of this essay is to demonstrate how Magic: The Gathering has codified and exemplified the historical classist hierarchical philosophy of Western society, from feudal manorialism through to colonialism, underpinned by a core belief in divine political legitimacy.

BREAKING: Germany's DW Reports ISIS Supply Lines Originate in NATO's Turkey

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

While DW's report claims no one knows who is arranging the shipments, it does reveal that the very torrent of trucks its film crew documented was officially denied by the Turkish government in Ankara. It is a certainty that Turkey is not only aware of this, but directly complicit, as is NATO who has feigned a desire to defeat ISIS but has failed to expose and uproot ISIS' multinational sponsorship and more importantly, has refused to cut its supply lines - an elementary prerequisite of any military strategy. 

ISIS supply lines leading from NATO territory should be of no surprise.

As reported since as early as 2007, the US and its regional accomplices conspired to use Al Qaeda and other armed extremists in a bid to reorder North Africa and the Middle East. 

Is Washington training a rebel army to “Occupy” Syria?

Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from RT. 

The Canadian sociologist and geopolitical analyst, whose focus has been on the conflicts in the Middle East, examines a recent publication of one of the Empire's primary think tanks to ascertain the next moves of the Empire in Syria. Specifically, he examines a document authored by Kevin Pollack of the Brookings Institution entitled “Building a Better Syrian Opposition Army: How and Why". (It might be worthwhile to compare this author's take on the document with that of Cartalucci's article entitled "ISIS is America’s Dream Rebel Army" that I posted earlier this month.)

It's clear that the same Zionists and associated ilk who planned and promoted the Iraqi invasion in 2003 are influencing the current dramatic strategies that we are seeing being employed to create even more chaos and bloodshed in the Middle East in order to advance Empire interests to control the abundant oil and gas resources and to promote Israeli hegemony in the region.

OPEC decision a shot in oil price war

Click here to access article by Nick Beams from World Socialist Web Site. 

Unlike many other geopolitical analysts who see GCC hyper-production of oil as a means to crash Russia's economy, Beams sees the Saudi and GCC actions as a method to counter US shale producers. Could it be that the major oil companies who figure prominently in the Empire's power structure are looking to buy up the smaller companies at cheap prices? However as Beams notes, there are not only adverse consequences to many US oil companies, but banking institutions as well. It's hard to figure where this is going, but one thing is for sure: there will be even more chaos in world affairs than there is now.

Russia Turns East at Shocking Speed with China Mega Energy Deals

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

While Western mainstream media concentrates attention on the emissions agreement signed by US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi at the recent APEC Beijing Summit, Russia’s Putin and China’s Xi quietly signed major new energy agreements that will have enormous geopolitical significance in bringing about the very nightmare that US strategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski warned about way back in 1997 when America seemed indomitable as sole Superpower.

Ferguson and the False Promise of "Revolution"

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

Cartalucci has some wise words about effectively constructing a revolution, and not letting our enemies divide and thereby continue to rule over us. Here are two prime examples:

Instead of demanding justice, jobs, education, healthcare, food, and other necessities and desires from a system with no intention of ever empowering the people - a system that in order to continue perpetuating itself must by necessity never truly empower the people - we must begin working together locally to empower ourselves.


The alternative media itself is proof of what power people have when they stop depending on others, stop demanding others to do their jobs properly, and instead take up the responsibility themselves. Expanding this paradigm shift to other aspects of our daily lives, from agriculture to energy, to education, will be key to true and enduring change.

The BBC Worries That Russia Has Military Control of its Own Coastline

Click here to access article by The Saker from his website The Oceania Saker.

The Saker provides us with an excellent piece of satire of the war propaganda that we are now getting daily from our media.

“Russian Commander Warns US Could Control Whole Gulf of Mexico”

How is that for a ridiculous headline? You like it?

Well, it is just a little variation of a BBC headline today:

“Nato commander warns Russia could control whole Black Sea” 

Parents: This Is How They Mess with our Minds

Click here to access article by Cynthia Peters from TeleSur.

Cynthia Peters is the editor of The Change Agent. She is a longtime activist and a member of City Life/Vida Urbana, and she serves on the board of a youth justice organization called The City School and the alumni board of Social Thought and Political Economy at UMASS/Amherst.

Peters correctly interprets the usual parental advice that ruling class media impose on parents by examining one piece called "Raising a Moral Child" published in the NY Times as an illustration. Ruling class media always place the burden of child raising on the shoulders of parents or parent (in the case of single parents). This emphasis conveniently ignores the real overwhelming effects of the immoral or amoral influences emanating from all major institutions which, of course, are controlled by our masters.

While you’re parsing out these methods for raising a moral child and self-consciously scanning the horizon for an opportunity to role-model being nice, you will wisely block out all the messages about greed and ownership and one-upmanship that your kid is getting from about a billion other sources.

While we parents do mostly all the dirty, hard work of raising children (changing diapers, tending them when they are sick, clothing them, making all kinds of sacrifices for them), the ruling class institutions to a great extent fill their minds with the importance of shopping, of obeying (their) authorities, serving their country by invading foreign lands and killing people living there, etc.

After all, our culture is saturated with messages that acquisition is a moral imperative, that the way to be good is to have lots of stuff, and that the way to be the best is to have more stuff than anyone else. Greed is considered an inherent good; it is the motor that drives our entire economy, and so endless resources are spent justifying it, propping it up, and making it seem like a worthy quality rather than a depraved one.

Ferguson's Grand Jury Problem

Click here to access article by Noah Feldman from Bloomberg.

This very mild critique of the use of grand juries barely scratches the surface. But, of course, that would be expected from a ruling class media source. I'd like to briefly, because of time constraints, offer another argument.

Grand juries are used whenever the ruling capitalist class has a strong interest in a particular case. This is so because grand juries are sometimes seen by our masters as a useful legal excuse to harass political dissidents, or prevent the use of a standard jury trial when a grand jury could serve their interests better. You see, a jury trial has much more rigorous standards to insure the operation of the rule of law to serve justice than does a grand jury investigation. 

It has been rightly observed that "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted" and thus this is why they are used to harass dissidents. But, of course, the Ferguson case involved a member of an enforcement agency that serves the ruling class. Hence, the need for the latter to protect this person, and therefore they decided to use a grand jury to accomplish this instead of a trial jury in which he more likely would have been found guilty of some crime.

For an excellent source on the operation of grand juries, I strongly recommend that you read this brief piece entitled "A Few Facts About Grand Juries" from Grand Jury Resistance Project. Grand juries vary a little by states, but I noticed that in the Ferguson case that a judge appointed the jury. This is obviously a great advantage from a ruling class point of view.

You can have democracy as long as you vote for the boss

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

I am going to respectfully disagree with some parts of this essay. I emphasize "respectfully" because I have so much respect for this writer who has taught me a lot. But like all serious social/political critics, he (and I) sometimes fail to achieve perfect understanding of our subject. All we can do is the best that we can do, fully realizing that our efforts will sometimes fall short. When this happens, we must depend on others to challenge what we write so that together we activists can unravel the mystery of the continuing rule of world societies by a tiny few. 

What I take issue with in this essay is the confusion about what I identify as propaganda designed by the One Percent versus the real views of ruling class directors. Over the approximately 400 years of capitalist rule, this has steadily become more difficult to distinguish because of a development identified by Dolack:

Capitalism...requires a literate, educated population, in contrast to earlier systems, and a literate, educated populace is more inclined and more able to agitate for its interests.

Hence, the need for more and more agencies of propaganda and indoctrination, subterfuge, and especially for secret agencies like NSA and CIA to function outside of public purview. 

Because capitalist ruling classes came to power by using the ideology of "democracy" in order to gain the support of working people in their struggle against monarchy and aristocracy (for more details, read my commentaries here and here), the history of Western capitalist societies has to a considerable extent been a history of the development of methods to deal with the rising expectations by workers for real democracy. Because the capitalist economy over time required workers to become more educated, the capitalist ruling class had to strengthen the methods of indoctrination and propaganda, to create a largely fake government and elections, secret agencies, militarized police forces, and widespread surveillance of citizens as we see today.

West's Propaganda War on Syria Exposed Again

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

In this age of advanced communication technology now being used by nearly everyone, the Empire's directorate finds it more urgent than ever to deceive the public at large about what they are doing in the world. Cartalucci illustrates this urgency with numerous fake events that have been circulating throughout mainstream and social media.

McCloskey disses democracy

Click here to access article by Peter Radford from Real-World Economics Review. 

Although I haven't read, nor intend to read, the essay by Deirdre Nansen McCloskey criticized in Radford's article, I think her views are highly representative of many members of the ruling capitalist classes who have been embarrassed by Piketty's findings: essentially that capitalism systematically produces inequality rather than their shibboleth that capitalism eventually benefits everyone. I predict that she will go far in capitalist controlled academia with this essay. For every honest academic like Piketty, there are a hundred waiting in the wings to serve the ruling class and reward themselves with a splendid career.

[Capitalist] Economics in crisis

Click here to access article posted by David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review.

Ruccio posts a couple of graphs from economist Cornelia Strawser followed by some questions she feels must be addressed by the dramatic decline of worker compensation. Here is the main graph showing this decline followed by her questions.

   

    1. Does the falling labor share arise from rapid technological change?

    2. Or does it reflect changing power relationships?

    3. Is it a result of globalization, hence inevitable and irreversible?

    4. Or is it an anomalous business cycle development that we can expect to fade away?

    5. What does increasing financialization contribute to the falling labor share?

    6. Is the labor share made worse by our reliance on monetary stimulus – which encourages more financialization – having failed to deploy a more stimulative fiscal policy?

    7. If private-sector productivity growth is not raising worker wages, why should workers support it, and should it be a national priority?

    8. Does the rising capital income share contribute as much to investment demand as the falling labor share subtracts from consumption? Or, since investment demand depends on final consumption demand, does the falling labor share instead cause a vicious downward spiral of self-reinforcing underconsumption and stagnation?

    9. Is there a case for a compensating structural tax reform that would place a relatively greater burden on capital incomes, and less on labor?

My short answers are as follows: 1) no, 2) yes, 3) no, 4) no 5) it attempts to offset consumption missing from workers, 6) inevitably and eventually yes, 7) stupid questions, 8) not in the long term, yes, 9) stupid question.

Of course, her questions are posed within a capitalist framework which cannot question the system itself. It's the system with its built-in contradictions that is the problem. 

Australian economist Steve Keen has some useful insights (at 4:45m in video) about the contradictions of capitalism, but being a capitalist economist he must not stray too far from orthodoxy.

The conventional way of thinking about finances is that finances is.?.a profit center in capitalism. You've got the industrial sector which is profit, service sector which is profit, finance profit center. [However]Finance is fundamentally not a profit center. It's a cost of doing business. In fact, if costs get too high, you actually weaken the economy--you don't strengthen it. What you get is the risk of capitalism is being imposed on the workers, when the essence [rationale] of capitalism is that capitalists are the risk takers.

However, this economist continues on to blame a section of the capitalist class, the financiers, for the problems of the economy. Financiers are only the top echelon of the ruling capitalist class, and the capitalist layers below them are completely beholden to this top layer. Besides the two layers are thoroughly integrated with bankers sitting on many industrial corporation boards. And now we see banks owning a significant number of industrial companies. So, Steve Keen can blame them all he wants, but nothing will ever change their close identification with each other. Finance is the ownership of money whereas the industrial and service capitalists are the "owners" of economic enterprises (under capitalism). But, capital is capital, and capitalists don't care how they increase their wealth and power: whether with the production of goods and services or with the renting of their money to those engaged in the true profit centers.

Throughout the remarks of capitalist economists, you will always find that growth is their focus, and economic growth is always good simply because the system cannot function without it. This immediately creates a contradiction with planetary limits which we are now approaching, and possibly exceeding to our peril. Like never before, capitalism is in crisis along with the teaching of capitalist economics.

So, let us end this commentary on a lighter note by viewing these two Australian comedians who discuss economic growth (thanks to Wolf Street). 


 
 

Al-Mayadeen reveals Turkey aware of militants crossing border to Syria

Click here to access article from Al-Akhbar.

This article furnishes the latest evidence that the Turkish section of the Empire is continuing to supply arms and aid to terrorist armies in support of the Empire's goals of destabilizing Syria and the region, and thus to bring the oil-rich region under tighter control of the Empire. 

A video published on Al-Mayadeen’s website on Tuesday revealed that up to 100 civilians and militants cross the Syrian-Turkish border daily under the surveillance of the Turkish army, which never interferes.

“An injury to all”: the class struggle is back in Italy

Click here to access article by Alfredo Mazzamauro from Reflections on a Revolution.

The author reports on the current class war being waged in Italy due to the acceleration of  contradictions resulting from the recent economic collapse and austerity policies. Workers are organizing and fighting back while capitalists are employing their usual divide and rule strategies.

As Renzi’s center-left government intensifies the project of neoliberal restructuring, a wave of self-organized class struggle takes off across Italy.

Mexico’s Youth Under Siege

Click here to access article by Laura Carlsen from Americas Program.

Carlsen provides a brilliant understanding of the current crisis in Mexico involving the murder and disappearance of 70 young people by examining the class interests of multinational corporations and Empire strategies to promote these interests. She does this by examining the development and the significance of the "war on drugs" and its relationship to "free trade" policies.

First of all, this meant a strategy to counter the virulent anti-establishment activities of young people that appeared in the 1960s, but more recently to promote the interests of mainly US corporations looking to expand their access to the economies and resources of their neighbors to the south under so-called "free trade" policies. Carlsen pierces the veil of Empire propaganda to show how the "war on drugs" have had, and still have, multiple benefits for the One Percent of the US and their collaborators in countries to the south by promoting state violence against anyone who stands in the way of corporate exploitation. (For the latest examples of Mexican state violence used against protesting youth, read this.)

In the capitalist system, the existence of an underground economy has financial and political advantages. On one hand, the criminalization of drugs creates a situation of vulnerability and ongoing harassment of youth by the repressive forces of the state, and assures that many of them will spend time behind bars. In foreign policy, the drug war justifies U.S. intervention.

The amount of money flowing without transparency or control was a factor, according to economists, in saving the global financial system in the 2008 crisis by providing liquidity to banks and financing speculation at a high level. Transnational banks not only accept drug money, but promote new and more sophisticated ways to launder money and ensure that illegal cash flows into the “legitimate” financial system.

Access to dirty money provides a way to finance illegal political activities and even secret or prohibited wars. The best known example is the funding of the Nicaraguan Contras with drug sales in U.S. neighborhoods by the CIA.

Cold War 2.0 Not a Likely Win for the U.S.

Click here to access article by Robert Freeman from Common Dreams.

Freeman appears to be a typical liberal writer whose inclination is to support capitalism, but at the same time, is able to reach many important insights about the capitalist world. However, notice that he doesn't even use the word. For him, and many liberals in the capitalist world, capitalism is a fixed background of reality in which competing powers play out their power games. For such people, there is no question of capitalism simply because, in their view, there is no alternative. While keeping this in mind, I recommend many of his insights about the new cold war taking shape in today's world.

I think that what Freeman misses in his world view is that US capitalists and their many allies are so addicted to the power of wealth accumulation that they cannot see the forest of world domination for the trees of next quarter's profits. Thus, he is right about the implications of this current contest: US and associated capitalists are going to lose this war. However, I don't have any expectation that Chinese or Russian capitalists will eventually behave any differently as they experience the addiction of power. Then, of course, all capitalists are forced to ignore the dangerous threat posed by catastrophic climate destabilization. Still, Pepe Escobar hints that Chinese and/or Russian regimes might turn out differently in this paragraph from a recent post:

Russia and China may not be proposing an alternative system – yet. Still, as the dogs of war, of hate, of inequality - bark, the China-Russia caravan passes. The caravan is selling Eurasia economic integration – not bombs. Real Asia-Pacific integration may still be a long dream away. Yet what APEC has shown – graphically – once again is the spectacular implosion, in slow motion, of the former indispensable nation’s geopolitical dominance. [my emphasis]

Radical Routes and the Shell of the Old

Click here to access article by Milan Rai from TeleSur.

This radical housing organization in Britain provides an excellent example of a radical experiment that needs to be studied by all serious revolutionaries. 

Radical Routes has achieved amazing things. It’s enabled groups of mostly young, mostly poor people (generally voluntarily-downwardly-mobile) to take well over £4 million-worth of property out of private hands and into co-operative ownership. It’s provided stable bases for some of the most important British direct action campaigning of the last 30 years. It’s been a beacon of democratic decision-making and anarchist financing.

At the same time, it’s not clear what the effect on the organization will be as the demand for individual and co-op autonomy overcomes the need for boundary-setting principles.

Radical Routes has, in many ways, been an example of the future desired society being set up in miniature within the shell of the old society. It’s possible that over the last few years, key elements preserving its radical identity have themselves been hollowed out, leaving a fragile shell. There may be lessons here for others.

Small Town America: Racial Apartheid, Cultural Decay and Neoliberalism

Click here to access article by Vincent Emanuele from TeleSur.

This community organizer in Michigan City provides a disturbing graphic description of cultural decay in an advanced capitalist country--the USA. He tells of his experience in a campaign to elect a progressive to the local school board while knocking on doors and meeting residents face-to-face. It became clear to him that in this advanced stage of globalized capitalism Michigan City can be found in many areas of the world.

After several weeks of knocking on doors, it occurred to me that the landscape of Michigan City would look quite familiar to those living in deindustrialized regions around the globe, from Lancashire to Latin America. A loss of viability and hope plagues people around the world. Michigan City is just one example. At the same time, it's a case study in neoliberal globalization. This small, yet common midwestern city represents the very worst of global capitalism: violence, drug abuse, prison-executions, privatized commons, casinos, clinically depressed citizens, empty factories, hyper-materialist consumer products, crumbling infrastructure, racial apartheid, environmental devastation and the list goes on.

The Fog of Empire

Click here to access article by Philip A. Farruggio from World News Trust.

Did you ever notice lately how often you hear the expression that someone is "in a fog"?

So many of us are walking around in some lethargic state as we go about our business. There is no sense of direction as many just "go through the motions" of existence.

Truly, we are lost in the fog of empire.

Could Farruggio represent a US middle-class person who is finally waking up to the deterioration of American life, particularly for the middle class, and a recognition that the US is engaged in never-ending wars to maintain an empire? He still doesn't seem to be aware of the extent of poverty here in the US. However, if he is an example of a trend in the US middle class, such a trend does not bode well for the future of the Empire.

Decoding the Media

Click here if you wish to access the posting by Micky Z. directly from World News Trust.

This activist expresses so well the necessity of decoding the media in these brief remarks:

Hungary’s Viktor Orban: Washington’s New Enemy Image

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

Engdahl cites many actions by Hungary's Prime Minister which have caused great consternation among Empire directors. He argues that such flagrant disobedience will likely make Hungary a target for destabilization via another NGO organized opposition.

...we can expect the National Endowment for Democracy and the usual US Government-backed NGO’s to find an excuse to launch mass opposition protests against Fidesz and Orban for his unforgivable crime of trying to make Hungary’s energy independent of the US-created insanity in Ukraine.

Naomi Klein: The Romantic Revolutionary

Click here to access article by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH from The Greanville Post.

Jonas provides an excellent examination of the core weakness of Klein's new book in which she places all the emphasis on the current neoliberal phase of capitalist development, and calls for a vague plan of organizing.

She does offer a plan for organizing an international movement to achieve the replacement of the current “neoliberal” form of capitalism.  To do this she calls for the arising of mass movements around the world, which are apparently to arise more or less by themselves, as awareness of millions (perhaps billions) of people of the oncoming catastrophe expands.  This is where Ms. Klein’s romanticism comes in.

What is surprising to me is that Jonas wants to return to a vanguard model of revolutionary action best expressed by Leninism, and he quotes directly from Lenin's writings. It doesn't seem to matter to him that this first major version of a worker's revolution had, by his own admission, "major flaws". This begs the question which he doesn't address: why should we do the same thing again which failed quite dramatically in the past? And, will people rally around such a revolutionary movement?

No, I don't think that there is a viable revolutionary scheme that can do the job of ridding the planet of the cancer of capitalism--yet. This is what activists must be consciously working on throughout the world by experimenting with various forms of anti-capitalist political actions and organizations. To some extent, they are. But, much more is needed. What is holding back this kind of determined activism are naive political writings such as Klein's, and questionable corporate sponsored activist organizations such as The Rules. 

America’s decade of declining real wages

Click here to access article by David Ruccio from Real-World Economics Review. 

The fundamental nature of capitalism is for a small class of people ("owners", capitalists, investors, etc) to exploit both people and the environment as much as possible in order to acquire more wealth and its concomitant power. Other factors being equal, this dynamic functions much like compound interest in that the more wealth/power that is obtained, the increase of both accelerates over time. In this neoliberal stage of capitalism we are seeing and experiencing the results that are recorded in hard data provided in this article.

Climate Chaos Casino: Another Roll of the Dice

Click here to access article by xrayMike79 from Collapse of Industrial Civilization.

The author assembles arguments and data to show how the warming Arctic is creating extreme weather events that are symptoms of a trend toward catastrophic climate destabilization. But that does not deter our capitalist masters from preaching about, and practicing, their addiction to capitalism and the relatively cheap fossil fuels that drive the system. Like the author writes:

...the multiple environmental crises we face are like a multi-headed hydra. Cut one head off with a techno-fix and it grows two more. Even those who are well-read and knowledgable on climate change still hold fast to a techno-utopian future, clueless as to what is and isn’t sustainable.... Remember… it’s the economy, stupid!

Sowing the Seeds of Hate: How the House of Saud Destabilised the Muslim World

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

This article makes an excellent contribution to the understanding of the appeal that many Muslim have for the Empire created Islamic State, but it omits all of the history of the Anglo-American ruling classes' use of this medieval dynasty to sustain their dominance in the world.

I haven't the slightest doubt that that this regime would have been put away in the dustbin of history except for its usefulness to the current US-led Empire. The Saudi Arabian people would have long ago thrown out these barbaric rulers had not the directors of the Empire decided to use their oil to back our fading dollar after losing much our national treasure in the war crimes committed by the directors in southeast Asia in the 1960s and 1970s. In exchange, we, like gangsters of the 1930s, offered these head-chopping fanatics protection from such an inevitability. 

If you don't know this important history, then I highly recommend that you read this piece for starters. Then if you want a more comprehensive history of how oil has played a dominate role in world history especially by various empire builders, I suggest you view the videos linked to in this article.

Four Sordid Tales of Selfishness of the Super-Rich

Click here to access article by Paul Buchheit from AlterNet. 

If the mainstream media made the effort to analyze and report the facts, the whole country would know about a level of selfishness that has spiraled out of control since the economists of the Reagan era convinced the wealthiest Americans that greed is good for everyone.

I take issue with the above introduction to this article. Selfishness has not "spiraled out of control" because of the Reagan administration. Selfishness has always been a prime motivation of capitalism which has in a variety of ways manifested selfishness throughout its 400 year old history. Think slavery, think wars of conquest, think child labor, think about the massacres of protesting working people by agents of the rich, think about the Opium Wars, think about how the CIA has been involved in the importation of illicit drugs into ghetto areas of the US, etc. Capitalists from Adam Smith to Margaret Thatcher have openly acknowledged that selfishness drives the system. In fact, they have made selfishness a virtue. They rationalized this asocial virtue by proclaiming that such a system will benefit everyone.

It is now being discussed more and more in liberal media because it is consuming the middle classes of Western countries. However, this was inevitable given the nature of the system: private ownership of socially produced wealth usually referred to as the "economy". In reality, it is the way capitalists have organized the economy which has naturally resulted in ever increasing concentrations of wealth and its concomitant power, and has produced all the present crises: islands of the rich amidst oceans of the poor, never-ending wars, and climate destabilization. It can only grow worse unless we, the Ninety-Nine Percent of the world, take action to insure our survival.

To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.

Matt Taibbi & JPMorgan Chase Whistleblower [Alayne Fleischmann]

Click here to access the 29:43m video of the interview from Huffington Post. 

This might be a little dated, but I was so impressed by these two inspiring and unusual (actually, I hope not) people who have gone up against power and were unwilling to sacrifice important social values in order to get ahead in the rat-race known as the capitalist game--and I'm not referring to Monopoly.

Journalist Matt Taibbi and JPMorgan Chase whistleblower Alayne Fleischmann join Alyona to discuss Taibbi's explosive new piece in Rolling Stone Magazine. It is Taibbi's first piece since his departure from First Look Media. 

Earth, Now Available in Ultra High Definition

Click here to access article by Brian Kahn posted with this video from Climate Central.

This is an actual view of our planet-home from a Russian satellite. 

Forget about emigrating to another planet after we thoroughly destroy the habitat that can support our lives here--that is just another fantasy of the rich who are bored with all their wealth. Thus, we must take care of our home, the mother Earth that nurtures all our lives. Because the rich appear intent on destroying it, it appears that we may have to take away the wealth and power hoarded by the rich in order to protect our home.

I recommend viewing this while listening to this: first click on the latter link, then return to this window and re-open this video in full screen mode. Enjoy.

Meet the Warmongering Billionaires Who Will Spend a Fortune to Influence the Next President

Click here to access article by Alex Kane from AlterNet. 

On November 9, the ugly face of America’s money-saturated election process was put on full display.

Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban, two billionaires with right-wing, pro-Israel agendas, took the stage at the Israeli American Council’s inaugural conference in Washington, D.C. They fantasized about bombing Iran and about buying the New York Times because they said it’s biased against Israel. Both are bound to play an outsized role in the 2016 presidential elections by flooding the campaign with money to support their favored candidates.

G.O.P. Unveils Immigration Plan: “We Must Make America Somewhere No One Wants to Live”

Click here to access article by Andy Borowitz from The New Yorker. (parody)

Forget about "Republicans" and "Democrats". They are only two wings of the capitalist ruling class who do not allow anyone else to participate in the running of the country. Think of the USA as the private property of this class--because it quite literally is!

When Politicians are Even More Stressed than Banks

Click here to access article by Costas Panayotakis from TeleSur.

The begins his essay with the news about stress tests being applied to European banks, and strangely, or not, all the European banks like their counterparts in the US passed the test. However, some of the banks in the periphery did not pass by much.

With the rapidly growing anti-austerity party of the left, Syriza, the European ruling capitalist class are facing a major challenge to their policies. Read the article to see how a capitalist class deals with opposition within countries being governed with capitalist versions of "democracy".

Questions about the future of eurozone economies have also been raised by the volatility of the markets for sovereign debt issued by the countries of the European periphery, especially Greece. Greece is an interesting case because it illustrates in an extreme form the predicament of politicians around Europe and the world who are called upon to make ordinary citizens pay for the ongoing global capitalist crisis.

US Never Intended to Defeat ISIS

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

Considering the hysteria generated by ISIS’ alleged global exploits, it should then be infinitely curious to readers who happen across US policymakers claiming that ISIS may pose a threat, but constitutes by far a lesser threat than Iran or Syria – the two principle nations leading the real fight against ISIS and its international sponsors. Furthermore, US policymakers claim there is no urgency to defeat ISIS, and it should instead be “contained.” 

He then goes on to carefully construct arguments that lead to his final conclusion:

Deciphering the deceptive, criminal language used by US policymakers illuminates the ongoing conspiracy in which ISIS plays a central part. ISIS is considered not a threat – not because the US can manage what they claim is an inherently “anti-Western” terrorist organization – but rather because the US itself created and controls it. Syria and Iran, while not actual threats to the West, are considered instead “threats” to US interests – more specifically – the interests of the corporate-financier elite on Wall Street and their lobbyists in Washington D.C.

Who Rules the World? How a concentration of wealth and political power undermines democracy

Click here to access article by Benjamin Dangl posted on TeleSur (Venezuela).

I think Dangl places far too much emphasis on the Citizens United Supreme court judgement as a determining factor in the recent electoral victories of Republican candidates in Congress. The ruling capitalist class has had many weapons at its disposal and has used them to maintain their rule ever since the founding of the country in 1781. 

The Citizens United decision only made it more convenient for this class to fund its chosen candidates--which it has always done through more devious means. I actually welcomed the decision because it makes clear what has always been hidden. The Supreme Court decision was only another indication of the advanced consolidation of their rule which, in turn, reflects the growing consolidation of wealth and power by this small elite. They no longer fear us. Maybe it's time that we put back the fear of us in them. Dangl seems to think so in his concluding paragraph, and suggests that we go even further than mere fear:

We cannot depend on the 1% of the world to lead us away from disaster – they caused our global crises in the first place, continue to profit from them, and cannot bring about solutions from the top-down. It has to be the people’s movements leading the way from below, deconstructing capitalism and building a better world from the bottom-up.

System Change, or There and Back Again: Capitalism, Socialism, Fascism

Click here to access article by Richard D. Wolff from TruthOut.

I had quite a debate with myself about posting this article, but in the end I thought it necessary because of the popularity of TruthOut to run "alternative" writers. Time is running out on the human race, and there are many popular critics ready to lend a hand to solve the numerous crises that capitalism is creating. Unfortunately, not all of them have much of a contribution to make, and some may be consciously serving the ruling class's security state by deliberately confusing issues and leading potential activists in the wrong direction. I would put Wolff in the first category. On Wednesday I posted and responded to a pamphlet entitled "The One Party Planet" published by an "activist" organization called The Rule. This pamphlet is getting a lot of attention from alternative websites. I think The Rule they may be in the second category.

I think this essay is mostly rubbish. Wolff's "alternative" views about political-economic matters and their history has been bred within US academia which rewarded this retired professor with a long and "distinguished" career. People who are serious critics of capitalism do not get rewarded and are forced to live very marginal lives outside of any mainstream institution.

I am not going to waste much time on attacking this essay, but a few observations are required. Let's examine what Wikipedia has to say about Wolff.

Richard D. Wolff is an American heterodox economist, well known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology, and class analysis.

Reviewing this posted article, can you find anything of significance about Marxian economics or class analysis? The word "class" doesn't even make an appearance. Socialism becomes "traditional socialism"--those historical attempts in the name of socialism that we saw in the 20th century. And he sees fascism as a different system! He sees worker cooperatives, or "workers self-directed enterprises", as a significant revolutionary force that holds much promise to transform capitalism. He regards government and capitalists as independent actors. It is no wonder that he has constructed such a piece of rubbish having used such worthless conceptual materials!

2014 Set for Record Hot; Record Cold Thing of the Past

Click here to access article by Andrea Thompson from Climate Central. 

A surge of Arctic air has left much of the continental U.S. shivering in unusually bitter November cold. But this early foray into winter weather is just a small blip in the overall global picture, which is of a warming world that is still on track to see 2014 set the mark for hottest year on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday.

That warming — fueled largely by the manmade rise of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere — is so relentless, in fact, that the odds of seeing a record coldest year in the future are vanishingly small. As the animation below shows, the last time the world experienced a record-coldest year was in 1909, more than 100 years ago. But in that period, 18 records for warmest year have been set, with 2014 likely to be the 19th.

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again. And Again. And Yet Again … Using Saddam’s WMD!

Click here to access article by William Blum from Boiling Frogs Post. 

Since the February US-backed coup in Ukraine, the State Department has made one accusation after another about Russian military actions in Eastern Ukraine without presenting any kind of satellite imagery or other visual or documentary evidence; or they present something that’s very unclear and wholly inconclusive, such as unmarked vehicles, or unsourced reports, or citing “social media”; what we’re left with is often no more than just an accusation.

It appears from another post entitled " German Satire of Anti-Russian Propaganda Goes Viral" that ordinary Germans are experiencing even worse propaganda than we are, but not being taken in by it. Instead, they laugh at it.

It seems to have touched a nerve in Germany, where there is growing discontent due to a perception that their media is very biased and misleading regarding the Ukraine crisis.

Hard to believe, but the German media has been worse than the anglo-saxon media in this regard.

NED's Regime Change Tsar Eyes Czech Republic

Click here to access article by Daniel McAdams from Ron Paul Institute.

McAdams examines one of the US's most effective subversive organizations: the tax-supported National Endowment for Democracy and why the Czech Republic may be the next target of its machinations.

Gershman, a former Trotskyite, has been president-for-life of that organization [National Endowment for Democracy (NED)]. He overthrows elected governments overseas, but has never been elected to any office himself.

Perpetually flush with cash and ever on the lookout for a regime to change, when one catches the eye of Carl Gershman, trouble is sure to follow.

That is why the Czech Republic had better watch out.

Yesterday, Gershman took to the Washington Post to sound the alarm over Czech President Milos Zeman.

Depleting the water

Click here to access 13:55m TV segment from 60 Minutes TV program including a transcript from CBS.  

There is "...disturbing new evidence that our planet's groundwater is being pumped out much faster than it can be replenished."

Ecosocialism: Why greens must be red and reds must be green

Click here if you to access to access more details in relation to this 40:31m video in which Ian Angus addresses the necessity of an ecological and socialist revolution. Posted on Climate & Capitalism. The latter post also contains a second video of a question and answer session.

The One Party Planet: an analysis of the world today

Click here to access article by James Wan from Reflections on a Revolution. (At 1 PM and then at 5:15pm (Seattle time) I did some significant editing. I was unusually distracted today by personal affairs.)

This article is essentially an introduction to a 60 page pamphlet entitled "The One Party Planet" published by an activist organization called The Rules. The latter organization sponsoring it proclaim this as their mission: 

The Rules is a global movement to bring power back to people, and change the rules that create inequality and poverty around the world.

Wan's introduction whetted my radical appetite to read the pamphlet. He writes:

From American CEOs to Chinese party officials, and from African presidents to Russian oligarchs, there is an overwhelming consensus that unrestrained selfish competition is not only the best, but the only possible, way to organize society. This is not a conspiracy concocted in dark smoky rooms, and the individuals at the top don’t share some grand master plan. But the internal logic of their actions is one and the same, and this has contributed, the pamphlet argues, to a situation in which an unelected elite wield incredible influence over politics and inequality has reached outlandish levels.

In response to this, The One Party Planet culminates in a carefully argued call for a global uprising.

This "hook" grabbed my attention which motivated me to read the pamphlet.

I read and partly skimmed the pamphlet which purported to examine the system identified at various times as neoliberalism and capitalism. Unfortunately, the pamphlet is in a JPEG image format so I can't cut and paste various excerpts to illustrate my points. 

The reader is greeted with a huge smiley on the first page, and then it begins with remarks about the value of pamphlets,  how they have a glorious history having been used in many great revolutions. Following this, it launches into a discussion about some philosophical aspects of truth, some general observations about the immorality of neoliberalism, how the system rewards psychopathy, and lots of data about inequality of wealth and power. It also addresses the issue of climate change. They make clear that they are not proposing a conspiracy theory for all the problems in today's world, instead they argue that the problems are a result of the logic of the system. This appealed to me.

After reading this lengthy pitch, I was a bit disappointed that I didn't find much about the fundamental dynamics of capitalism, most especially the capitalist construct of economic property ownership by individuals and anything to do with the labor theory of value. It was all rather tame intellectually, while being heavy on the immorality of neoliberalism. I certainly wasn't aroused enough to go out and start a "global uprising". I began to think that I was being too cynical.

Then I perused The Rules website, and at the bottom of their Movement page I found the source of their funding: Purpose, the New Venture Fund, The Open Society Foundations, and crowdfunding. The Purpose Foundation looked very mainstream to me, the New Venture Fund was listed on Tides which is sort of a clearing house for numerous charities. Rich people and corporations give to Tides which in turn doles out money to various charities and non-profits. The Open Society Foundations is a creation of super-capitalist George Soros who is widely known to have been a sponsor of the "color revolutions".

As several former Soviet republics slowly 'opened' their societies, Western-funded NGOs and civil society organizations flooded in, with powerful financial backers. Over the course of years, funding, training, organizational support, technical and material support was provided for a number of organizations and political groups that helped overthrow regimes in Georgia (2003), the Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgyzstan (2005). Not only were there government funded NGOs involved, but also private foundations, such as billionaire George Soros' Open Society Institute.

While reading the pamphlet, I was experiencing the uncomfortable feeling that I was being seduced. Now, I don't mind being seduced if it leads to an exciting erotic experience, but I do object to being intellectually manipulated. This information about funding increased my suspicions that The Rules organization's main purpose is to guide radical students on US campuses toward "constructive" action projects that will not seriously interfere with capitalist rule, and possibly to keep an eye on such students. Could it be that Soros and establishment-funded people like Gene Sharp (see this, this, this, this, and this) are using their skills to contain effective radical political actions of US students? Am I being too cynical and suspicious? 

Since writing this commentary, I now find another article about this pamphlet posted on Common Dreams and re-posted on Raging Bull-Shit.

US, NATO lie about Russia military buildup in, near Ukraine: Analyst

Click here to access article and 5:11m video featuring an interview with NATO media specialist Rick Rozoff posted on PressTV (Iran).

This is an excellent antidote provided by an expert on NATO to the daily propaganda we are doused with eminating from the Empire's ministry of information (also called mainstream media) regarding many provocations by the Russians.

Capitalism’s Victims

Click here to access article by Sarah Waters from Jacobin.

The title of this article is probably too broad because it focuses on the experiences of workers in one French company. Still, the article provides an excellent illustration how privatization of a state company can, and often does, severely impact workers. 

The privatization of France Télécom began in 1996 when shares were placed on financial markets, although the state retained majority ownership until much later. Employees accepted this partial privatization on the grounds that they would retain their public service status as fonctionnaires, which meant they could keep certain benefits, including job security, and that they couldn’t be legally fired.

And then it was all down hill from there.

Propaganda? What Propaganda?

Click here to access article by Peter Lavelle from Sputnik.

Lavelle is, of course, RT's host of their TV program Crosstalk. As one who has become very skeptical of news reports in the form of propaganda, I find that the debates on Crosstalk are quite stimulating, and offer views which cannot be expressed in US mainstream media.

Up until recently, western media outlets enjoyed near monopoly in defining the news agenda. It also worked in lockstep with the powers that be. Reading the op-ed pages of the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times one will quickly notice they closely mirror the foreign policies of western governments. It has been a cozy arrangement too. A pliant media whitewashed foreign policy adventurism. In return, major media outlets were given a front row seat to cover wars to be packaged as the West saving the world. This model worked reasonably well until the power of the Internet made itself felt, and until the financial crisis hit, failed wars were exposed, and new and alternative media began to emerge.

Food Security A Hostage To Wall Street And US Global Hegemony

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

By using huge amount of pesticides and genetically modified seeds together with expensive agricultural machinery, global corporations are "making a killing" from large farming operations by shipping their products over long distances (using fossil fuel energy) to Western countries to serve the whims of richer consumers. In order to do this and fatten their corporate income statements, they must "by hook or by crook" move small farmers off their lands and into their hands.

...peasant agriculture prioritises food production for local and national markets as well as for farmers’ own families. Big agritech corporations take over scarce fertile land and prioritise commodities or export crops for profit and markets far away that cater for the needs of the affluent. This process impoverishes local communities and brings about food insecurity. The concentration of fertile agricultural land in fewer and fewer hands is therefore directly related to the increasing number of people going hungry every day and is undermining global food security.

Everything under a capitalist system insures that decisions about nearly everything is made on the basis of its profitability for individuals rather than how much it benefits society. In this advanced form of capitalism known as neoliberalism, the boundaries of nations no longer serve to protect societies from predatory actions of corporations. In this new world corporations are moving across boundaries, bribing and co-opting local officials to serve their corporate agenda instead of the local population. However, this phenomenon is also true within the richer capitalist countries where many live in, or near, poverty. So, you see, everywhere in the world the system pits small groups of individuals known as "owners" or investors against the needs of the overwhelming majority while undermining the ability of the planet to sustain a healthy human habitat.

Abundant Clean Renewables? Think Again!

Click here to access article by Almuth Ernsting from TruthOut.

We certainly need to swiftly end fossil fuel burning and the destruction of ecosystems and that will require us to rely on the least harmful energy sources such as wind and solar power. But the myth of plentiful "clean" energy stops us from focusing on the far deeper changes needed - a transformation toward a low-energy society.

If you read and fully understand this article, you will soon embrace the idea that a revolution to eliminate the scourge of growth-fueled capitalism from this planet is not only desirable, it is a necessity for human survival. 

QE isn’t dying, it’s morphing

Click here to access article by Naomi Prins from her blog.

I can't say that I fully understand the argument she is making because I, like most others, don't play in this world of high finance. Thus, our ruling class play these opaque games without much fear of the hoi polloi. I leave it to those more familiar with the subject to understand and interpret where the game is heading. Prins, Paul Roberts, and many others, think we are headed for another, and far worse, economic disaster. 

Maybe this is why our Empire directors are being so aggressive in asserting their power throughout the planet. In the end, I think its clear that the value of our over-printed dollar rests not on anything tangible, but on the threat of violence by the globe's biggest bully, NATO and associated allies. It is backed by the actual use, and the potential threat, of violence made possible by the Empire's 1000+ military bases scattered throughout the world.

‘Kiev, West’s political machinations point to continuation of war’

Click here to access article by Eric Draitser from RT.

RT: What are the true aims and objectives of the Ukrainian authorities then?

ED: To expand the war, to continue their aggression against Donetsk and Lugansk and to try to achieve militarily what cannot be achieved politically and that is the re-integration of these territories into Ukraine. They are for all intents and purposes lost to Ukraine because of the actions taken by the extremist government in Kiev. Remember, this is a government that came to power illegally and is prosecuting an illegal war after having disenfranchised politically the entire eastern portion of the country. So to sit and say that somehow Kiev is a true partner for peace in this process is really farce in the face of the facts. 

Yes, They Really Are Proposing Trashing the Motherland For 50 Jobs

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

...it's remarkable most media missed Sunday's stunning admission by TransCanada CEO Russ Girling that, yes, in fact, just like all those greenish naysayers have charged, Keystone will create just 50 permanent jobs. Of course he hastened to add there will be 9,000 temporary construction jobs and "42,000 'indirect' jobs (waitresses et al) for companies that will thrive during the two years of construction and then quietly, painfully die off, as will the surrounding landscape after the accompanying devastation followed by the inevitable leaks and spills and disasters. But still: 50 whole jobs, or as the GOP talking points would have it, "Jobs, jobs, jobs!" Call your senators. 

Yes, whenever our masters want to push some plan that will result in disasters for us but huge profits for them, they trot out the "jobs" deception. This reminds me of the BP ad that is now shown constantly on TV to counter BP's very tarnished reputation.

NASA Shows Stark Year in the Life of CO2

Click here to access article by Brian Kahn from Climate Central. 

Read the article to find out more about this subject.

What really happened in Beijing: Putin, Obama, Xi — and the back story the media won’t tell you

Click here to access article by Patrick L. Smith from Salon.

I highly recommend this major piece of geopolitical analysis in spite of his record of writing for mainstream and liberal media outlets. 

Patrick Smith is the author of “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century.” He was the International Herald Tribune’s bureau chief in Hong Kong and then Tokyo from 1985 to 1992. During this time he also wrote “Letter from Tokyo” for the New Yorker. He is the author of four previous books and has contributed frequently to the New York Times, the Nation, the Washington Quarterly, and other publications.

I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about this writer, but examining his record of articles posted on Salon, I am impressed with his astuteness and honesty in spite of what I identify as a liberal writing style. Such a style is characterized by a tendency to use misleading and bland words that provide cover for concepts which otherwise would serve to uncover the reality of ruling classes. However, if for no other reason, such a style is a necessary qualification in order to write for any mainstream or quasi-mainstream media company. I am referring to the use of a figurehead leader (Obama or Kerry) or nation (US or Russians) as a way to hide the reality of an action or policy decided by a particular ruling class; also "neoconservatives" or "neocons" which I regard as a cover for Zionist influence

Put this in the larger context: With the prospect of ending three and a half decades of pointless hostility within reach, this is the moment to be battering Russia as near to a pulp as possible with sanctions, market interventions to its disadvantage, and who can tell what on the military side in Ukraine? You start to think Washington simply cannot help itself....

Still, as Smith so well demonstrates in this analysis, he does look below the surface announcements of governments and media reporting, and with the help of his informed sources makes some very convincing arguments of what is really happening. In this piece he weaves together bits and pieces of evidence which, for me, ends up constructing a most dangerous scenario: one in which a dominant Empire, armed with nuclear weapons, refuses to accept the growing reality of a world in which it is being challenged by several competing capitalist-gangs, and gives every indication that it will not tolerate any rivals. However, in the end Smith, true to his liberal perspective, trivializes this nightmarish scenario by reducing it into a worry about who are going to be winners and losers:

This century’s winners and losers are not yet clearly marked — I have to preserve my optimism on this point — but with each passing event, each mistake, who is fated for which side becomes a little more evident. 

U.S. Companies Now Stashing $2 Trillion Overseas

Click here to access article by Jeff Cox from NBC News. (I added a paragraph and a sentence to my commentary at 7 PM Seattle time.)

As David Ruccio of Real-World Economics pointed out:

It is a portion of the surplus captured from workers in the the United States and around the world that could be used to create jobs and improve the infrastructure—and is currently not being used for that purpose. Instead, it’s being hoarded as cash for corporations to do with it what they will, when they will.

Not only do they stash away their wealth in foreign lands, but often it is hidden in tax havens which permits them to pay less taxes. Should anyone be surprised? That is the way the system is supposed to work: the accumulation of wealth and power by "owners" of the economy. I suppose you thought that this process would work to create jobs and ultimately benefit society. Didn't you know that jobs are an expense on their profit and loss statements? Didn't you know that "there is no such thing as society? ...there are only individuals and their families." (M. Thatcher) Thus, capitalists do everything they can to eliminate jobs, or failing that, to reduce these costs as low as possible.

If you don't like the system, organize and change it!

Cecily McMillan on Prisons, Profit, Protest, and Privilege

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

Recall that McMillan was an activist in the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in which she was groped by a cop, fought back against the cop, and was subsequently arrested for assaulting a policeman, a felony for which she was facing a sentence of seven years. However, she was lucky.

Following an international leniency campaign, McMillan was sentenced to 90 days at the Rikers Island Correctional Facility. In July 2014, she was released on good behavior after serving 58 days.

In the interview she gives us a very moving and realistic picture of what it is like to be in prison, who ends up there, how the justice system really functions, the overwhelming stigma attached to prisoners, some of the real reasons why they are there, and other astute observations about ruling class prisons for those who cannot, or refuse, to adapt to a dog-eat-dog, racist capitalist society.

The NAFTA Connection: The Role of “Free” Trade in Mexico’s Tragic Travails

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

The author explains how NAFTA, which has been a boon to corporate profits, has also been a major root cause of the massacre of 43 Mexican students that has so shocked the Mexican people.

We are often told that freer trade is a panacea for all our economic ills. Yet if that were the case, Mexico, which has signed more trade agreements than just about any other nation on the planet, would be one of the world’s richest, strongest performing economies. Instead it’s on the verge of a vertiginous descent into social chaos, endemic lawlessness, and failed statehood, while its economy – at the exclusive service of transnational corporations, home-grown oligarchs, corrupt politicians and drug lords – continues to splutter in the slow lane. 

Sexual Violence, Women’s Bodies, and Israeli Settler Colonialism

Click here to access article by Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Sarah Ihmoud and Suhad Dahir-Nashif from Jadaliyya.

Sexual violence is central to the larger structure of colonial power, its racialized machinery of domination, and its logic of elimination.  This is readily apparent in the history of settler colonial contexts, where the machinery of violence explicitly targets native women’s sexuality and bodily safety as biologized “internal enemies” since they are the producers of the next generation.

Obama's Mercenary Attacks On Syria Are Breaking The Law

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

The author digs up clear evidence of the Empire's illegal agenda for Syria, and that the directors of the Empire are trying surreptitiously to flout national and international laws while packaging their war crimes in humanitarian wrappings to avoid opposition by their own citizens. 

Climate : is the US-China announcement historic ? Not really

Click here to access article by Maxime Combes from Mediapart (France).

Combes looks at the details of this "historic" agreement, and finds rather meaningless commitments that look more like a public relations stunt than a serious agreement.

Class Interests as Economic Theory

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

The author describes the evolution of capitalism from its revolutionary roots when the teaching of economics was regarded as a helpful understanding of the class nature of capitalism and the labor theory of value compared to today's capitalism in which owners of economic property have so consolidated their wealth and power that the teaching of economics must be more obfuscatory by necessity.

...not surprisingly, an increasing number of students who take classes and/or major in economics are complaining about the abstract and irrelevant nature of the discipline. For example, a group of French graduate students in economics recently wrote an open letter, akin to a manifesto, critical of their academic education in economics as “autistic” and “pathologically distant from the problems of real markets and real people”.