Got Enmeshed in Own Fabrications about North Korea?

Click here to access article by Konstantin Asmolov from New Eastern Outlook.

The author finds much of the propaganda issued by South Korean media to be unbelievable if not outright ludicrous. The problem for ordinary Americans is that such misinformation is often repeated in the US's ruling class media. This nation, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was the first victim of US's "full spectrum" military aggression following WWII, and the country was nearly totally destroyed. To be sure, North Korean leaders often display paranoia regarding the West, but who can blame them?

According to opportunistic propagandists from the Republic of Korea, the “crazy bloody tyrant” Kim Jong-un became notorious for a number of outrageous crimes. Here are some of them.

Summary of False Flag Operations and False Flag Terrorism

Click here to access article by from WantToKnow. 

There are many examples of false flag attacks throughout history.

This type of operation has been used by ruling classes who want a war in spite of opposition from their subjects who usually want peace. This article provides brief information on the most flagrant examples in recent history, and provides links to more details about each such event. 

Ford Foundation Fabrications About the “New Student Power” Movement

Click here to access article by Vincent Kelley from CounterPunch. 

It appears that NGOs have become the weapon of choice by our masters to both transform our society into a neoliberal cog in their "new world order" and to co-opt and control any dissent from those politically conscious enough to resist. This article focuses on the latter function that the Ford Foundation is using to contain any dissent from today's students. They obviously learned from the 1960s that students can cause them a great deal of trouble.

...it is clear that the Ford Foundation’s mission is to make sure these students’ voices are never heard or are nipped in the bud before they can even articulate themselves. A great way to do this is to invite student activists to present stories like the OSA’s in front of “a rapt audience of funders, organizers, and leaders at ‘The New Student Power’ a convening held at the Ford Foundation’s headquarters in New York City.” There’s nothing like attending a conference hosted by the company whose ‘innovations’ have come to stand for the exploitation and alienation of 20th century capitalism in one word—“Fordism”—to silence any rumbles of revolution.

The Nonprofit Industrial Complex’s Role in Imposing Neoliberalism on Public Education

Click here to access article by Robert D. Skeels posted on The Wrong Kind of Green.

Taking neoliberalism as the modern term describing the “Washington Consensus” policies of deregulation, austerity, and privatization, we can best describe the current assault on public education as “neoliberal corporate education reform.” .... [Instead of focusing on major NGOs and non-profit foundations advancing this agenda,] we will focus on a single city. Perhaps because of its size, or its proximity to The Broad Foundation’s headquarters, Los Angeles has been one of the central fronts on which the neoliberal ideologues have waged their war on public education. Evidenced by the staggering amounts the ruling class spends on school board and related elections, the number of well funded NPICs working as a neoliberal axis, and the collusion of the corporate media, those in power see Los Angeles as a high value target. In a word, it is a microcosm of what is happening to education everywhere. 

After reporting what neoliberal agents are doing in Los Angeles, Skeels points to organizations that have demonstrated effective resistance.

U.S. escalation of war against Syria undermines Iran pact

Click here to access article by Sara Flounders from Workers World. 

International attention is focusing on the coming struggle in the U.S. Congress to pass the Iran nuclear deal at the same time that the U.S. and Turkey have stepped up intervention in Syria. Under those conditions, we need to consider: Will militarist forces attempt to sabotage the agreement with Iran by provoking a wider war against Syria, which has an alliance with Iran?

It does seem like more than a coincidence that this attack on Syrian territory by Turkish and US militaries happened so soon after the Iran deal was negotiated.

The Eurozone’s Pyrrhic victory over Greece

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

The Eurozone has imposed a Carthaginian peace upon the Greeks, but the lessons of King Pyrrhus loom large: one more such victory would utterly undo it.

Mark Twain is credited with the observation that "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." The recent victory of the Eurozone over Greece suggests the truth of this aphorism which refers to the victory of King Pyrrhus over the Romans. Or, at least, Roos thinks so and explains why.

While Tsipras’ demise will be welcomed by the hardliners inside the creditor camp, the truth is that the Eurozone has shortsightedly set itself up for a fall. What makes the third bailout different is that, after Tsipras, there will be no one left inside Greece to credibly manage the memorandum. With the centrist and right-wing opposition in complete disarray, the leftists were quite literally the last hope for political stability and reform. Now, with SYRIZA on the verge of a split and Tsipras bound to suffer growing popular opposition and the withdrawal of grassroots support, it is not clear what pro-EU partner can step into the void and act as the creditors’ mouthpiece inside their newly acquired debt colony.

In short, the third bailout agreement destroyed everything and resolved nothing. 

Don’t Be Fooled by the Political Game: The Illusion of Freedom in America

Click here to access article by John W. Whitehead of The Rutherford Institute.

Whitehead joins many other members of the middle class in condemning the trend toward what they see as the rule of wealth, plutocracy, or an oligarchy of wealth. However, notice that nowhere in this essay will you see the system which make this development inevitable over time--capitalism. That is because the middle class are only starting to awaken that they too are dispensable in this system and they fear that their children will have little chance to secure a good living. Working class people have long felt this way as they fought to secure a living in a system that turned them into a commodity, a rental commodity for the rich to use and dispose of as they wished.  

The middle class has consisted of managers, highly skilled professionals and technical people. These people are truly indispensable to running a capitalist society. But their relationship to capitalists, who constitute the ruling class, is very much like the African-American concept of one type of slave relationship with the master of the house or plantation that existed in our period of slavery. Over 50 years ago Malcolm X expressed a metaphor that is very apt in describing the privileged position of the middle class (especially after WWII) when he spoke these words:

There was two kind of slaves. There was the house negro and the field negro. The house negro, they lived in the house, with master. They dressed pretty good. They ate good, cause they ate his food, what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near their master, and they loved their master, more than their master loved himself. 

Now we are seeing that this class is being threatened by technological innovation in the forms of automation and artificial intelligence that this middle class created but under the rules of capitalism were soon "owned" by capitalists. Also people in this middle class are keenly aware that in this neoliberal world capitalists are erasing boundaries (for themselves), and they can easily recruit people with middle class skills from poorer countries at cheaper rates. Thus, they now feel the capitalist heel pushing down on them much like working people have for centuries.

WikiLeaks goes after hyper-secret Euro-American trade pact

Click here to access article from Wikileaks.

Today, Tuesday 11th August, 9:15 BST, WikiLeaks has launched a campaign to crowd-source a €100,000 reward for Europe’s most wanted secret: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The following 11:00m video posted in this article offers the clearest explanation I've seen about these secret agreements, why they have been formulated, why they are secret, and why they pose dangerous threats to people power and world peace.

 

Economics departments — breeding generation after generation of idiot savants

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

It is...a fact that within mainstream economics internal validity is everything and external validity nothing. Why anyone should be interested in that kind of theories and models is beyond my imagination. As long as mainstream economists do not come up with any export-licenses for their theories and models to the real world in which we live, they really should not be surprised if people say that this is not science, but autism!

Studying mathematics and logics is interesting and fun. It sharpens the mind. In pure mathematics and logics we do not have to worry about external validity. But economics is not pure mathematics or logics. It’s about society. The real world. Forgetting that, economics is really in dire straits.

Of course, economic models, like everything else in today's world, are under the control of our capitalist masters. If they were to really test these models and theories, they would fail miserably. They have to make up all kinds of lies, fudge numbers, and keep repeating the mantra that "there is no alternative" to support their system of capitalism. Hence, their supporting theory and models have become a mythology that only capitalists really believe in, or a dogma that capitalist priests keep preaching after it has long failed to explain anything happening in the real world.

Cartoon created by Monte Wolverton via CagleCartoons.com and occasional links & commentary on economics, culture and society by blogger David F. Ruccio.

Murray Bookchin and the Kurdish resistance

Click here to access article by Joris Leverink from Reflections on a Revolution. 

Revolutionary Kurds have been influenced by the writings of the late American activist Murray Bookchin. Leverink reports on efforts in the Kurdish resistance to implement his ideas, and how other activists can support this new model of social ecology. This model has arisen in opposition to dysfunctional and ultimately unsustainable model of human organization which is characterized by political structures based on man's domination of man and the environment.

Bookchin opposed the ideas and practices of the emerging environmentalist movements, accusing them of advocating mere “technical fixes” of capitalism, counter-posing it to an ecological approach that seeks to address the root causes of the systemic problem. In his view, capitalism’s fatal flaw lay not in its exploitation of the working class, as Marxists believe, but rather in its conflict with the natural environment which, if allowed to develop unopposed, would inevitably lead to the dehumanization of people and the destruction of nature.

The Next Revolution includes the 1992 essay The Ecological Crisis and the Need to Remake Society. In it, Bookchin argues that “the most fundamental message that social ecology advances is that the very idea of dominating nature stems from the domination of human by human.” For an ecological society to develop, first the inter-human domination must be eradicated.

Thus a sustainable alternative political structure of human societies must be built upon a foundation of face-to-face social units where all power must reside, and which supports a dependent political superstructure that plans, coordinates, and implements the ideas coming from the base. Such a social organization of human society would recognize the basic reality of human existence: human connectedness with each other and with the environment.

While recognizing the need to support, and to be inspired by, these revolutionary Kurds in their struggle, Leverink doesn't want this to be turned into merely a kind of spectator sport. 

The revolution in Rojava has been compared to Barcelona in 1936 and the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. The radical left needs its own mythology as much as everybody else, and in this sense Rojava, Barcelona and Chiapas serve as hopeful reminders that there is an alternative; that it is possible to organize society in a different way.

However, by merely placing these instances of radical organization on a pedestal, as a beacon of hope to be revered when times get rough, our support for these struggles is often not very different from the support we display when we cheer on our favorite football team on TV. The Zapatistas in the jungles of Chiapas and the Kurds on the Mesopotamian plains have come a long way by relying on nothing but their own strength and determination. Their relative isolation has allowed for the development of their radical alternatives, but for these experiments to survive in the long run they need more than supporters and sympathizers. They need partners. 

And, he concludes with suggestions for the best way to support them and their quest to create societies based on the principles of social ecology.

On America, part 1 [of 3]: Making Millionaires

Click here to access article by "Chilli Sauce" from libcom. 

It seems to be off-limits to even ask why so much poverty and misery exists amidst a world of plenty. And the core tenant of capitalism – that labor is directed toward profit – remains unexamined.

The simple reality is that the work we do keeps society functioning. Yet, we don't control the products of our labor. Our labor, instead of being something that benefits ourselves and our communities, only makes someone else rich.

How U.S. Achieves a 5.3% Unemployment Rate: If You Earn No Money, You Can Still Be Counted as Employed

Click here to access article by Pam and Russ Martens from Wall Street On Parade.

These independent investigators of crimes committed on Wall Street and in its subsidiary in Washington DC known as the US government have shed light on how our masters in the subsidiary lie about unemployment.

Even for a government hell bent on putting the best possible spin on overcoming the Wall Street train wreck of 2008, which brought on the worst economic slump since the Great Depression, characterizing someone working one hour a week in a lawn job as “employed” seems like the height of duplicity.

Speed of Glacier Retreat ‘Historically Unprecedented’

Click here to access article by Tim Radford from The Guardian.

The world’s glaciers are in retreat. The great tongues of ice high in the Himalayas, the Andes, the Alps and the Rockies are going back uphill at ever greater speeds, according to new research.

And this loss of ice is both accelerating and “historically unprecedented”, say scientists who report in the Journal of Glaciology.

Who Gets the Money? The Secret Bank Bailout

I credit "Don Quijones" of Raging Bull-Shit for this post and the German company, wocomoDOCS for producing this video. I haven't had time to listen to all of it, but I think that the film-makers have made a diligent and honest attempt to uncover the mysteries behind the bailouts of banks and the resulting severe austerity policies imposed by ruling class financial institutions. In the video the investigator makes a determined effort to find out who the real creditors are--something that is always hidden from the public. I also like the introduction of the video from Raging Bull-Shit which is reproduced below.

Where has all the money gone? That is the question that desperately needs asking (and answering) now that the European Union has morphed into one humongous orgy of national bailouts.

In his 2013 documentary “The Secret Bank Bailout,” German investigative journalist Harald Schumann documents how the peoples of Ireland, Cyprus and Spain were not bailed out. The biggest recipients of the Irish bailout that saved Anglo-Irish Bank were British, French and German banks, including Union Investment Privatfonds, Rothschild et Compagnie Gestion, and Deutsche Bank.

German and French banks accounted for 50 out of the 80 bondholders. Without the clandestine bailouts these banks received, they would have almost certainly gone under.

I think that these problems are basically caused by the dense concentration of power by capitalists over our societies through the private ownership of key sectors of the economy. They control money issuance, they control what money gets spent on, they control large segments of the economy, they control governments, and they control every important institution of society including media, education, and entertainment. 

I also recommend from the same filmmakers a more recent video entitled "The Trail of the Troika (HD 720p) | A must-see to understand the situation in Greece" that can be accessed here. 

Fourteen Incredible Facts About 9/11

Click here to access article by Kevin Ryan from 911blogger.

As the 14th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, it’s important to remind people that we still don’t know what happened that day. What is known about 9/11 is that there are many incredible facts that continue to be ignored by the government and the mainstream media. Here are fourteen.

National Endowment for Democracy is Now Officially “Undesirable” in Russia

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

Vladimir Putin! Now you’ve really done it. You have had the temerity to declare our National Endowment for Democracy (NED), America’s most important Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) to be “undesirable.” Where will this end? Don’t you respect our right, as a US Government-financed NGO, to meddle in internal Russian affairs? After all, we are the most important NGO of the world’s Sole Superpower. We can go wherever we want and do whatever we like. We are truly upset!

This is the clear reaction of Washington to the decision by the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office on July 28 to declare the activities of the US National Endowment for Democracy as “undesirable in the territory of Russia.”

Trump’s Triumph: Billionaire Blowhard Exposes Fake Political System

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from CounterPunch.

It's interesting to see how CounterPunch's coverage of candidate Donald Trump contrasts with mainstream media's selective coverage of the election circus that our ruling class is now performing. He is getting extensive coverage with his attacks on immigrants, women, and other sensitive political topics. However, I couldn't find any coverage of his comments that Whitney writes about in this article: Trump comments which suggests the fake nature of our capitalist political system. Instead the coverage was all focused on his critical remarks about certain women.

Perhaps Justin Raimondo's "conspiracy theory" was correct when he suggested last month that Trump's candidacy was a "false flag" operation designed to turn away voters from Republican candidates in order to elect the ruling class's favorite, Hillary Clinton, who they have been grooming for years to be president. He argues:

For the reality is that the media, far from ignoring Trump, have lavished so much attention on him that he’s eating up coverage that would otherwise go to the rest of the crowded Republican field. And that may be a clue as to what’s really going on here….

The usual “mainstream” media tactics regarding a political outsider they hate is to ignore him or her: the example of Ron Paul should suffice to make this point. Indeed, Jon Stewart pointed this out in a memorable “Daily Show” segment, and it took Paul three runs for the White House to get their attention. Trump has suffered no such fate: quite the opposite, in fact. The Donald’s every demagogic pronouncement is faithfully recorded and broadcast far and wide. Over a hundred reporters crowded into his latest appearances in Las Vegas and Phoenix. Jeb Bush, for all the many millions stuffed into his campaign coffers, couldn’t buy that kind of exposure. 

Later, Raimondo reaches this conclusion: 

Although I have no concrete proof of my theory, there’s plenty of circumstantial evidence. His ties to the Clintons, his past pronouncements which are in such blatant contradiction to his current fulminations, and the cries of joy from the Clintonian gallery and the media (or do I repeat myself) all point to a single conclusion: the Trump campaign is a Democratic wrecking operation aimed straight at the GOP’s base.

Donald Trump is a false-flag candidate. It’s all an act, one that benefits his good friend Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party that, until recently, counted the reality show star among its adherents. Indeed, Trump’s pronouncements – the open racism, the demagogic appeals, the faux-populist rhetoric – sound like something out of a Democratic political consultant’s imagination, a caricature of conservatism as performed by a master actor.

Now I realize this is a “conspiracy theory,” and, as we all know, there are no conspiracies in politics. In that noble profession, everything is completely aboveboard and on the level – right?

Like hell it is.

If this is so, the conspirators unfortunately cannot control what Trump will say simply because he is so rich and therefore powerful in a capitalist system. That's part of his appeal to voters--he is completely authentic in contrast to the others who are bought and paid for candidates.

British SAS Special Forces “Dressed Up as ISIS Rebels” Fighting Assad in Syria

Click here to access article from The Truth Seeker.

Coalition between ISIL and US (from a Turkish website)

This blogger reminds us of a similar event which was exposed 10 years ago in Iraq in which Empire forces were busy with the project of creating hostilities between Sunni and Shia sects in Iraq. (I also posted an article on this event, but once again I find that this has disappeared from my website. Another elaborate post of mine which covered labor exploitation in Dubai, United Arab Emirates also disappeared.) Coverage of this event was posted on six British and US websites that can be assessed via the link that the blogger provides. 

This reminder introduces a recent event in which Empire forces are recruiting people to dress up as terrorists to invade Syria as reported in several newspapers, and covered in a recent article by Stephen Lendman which the blogger reproduces in this article.

Resilience Is Futile: How Well-Meaning Nonprofits Perpetuate Poverty

Click here to access article by Melissa Chadburn from The Wrong Kind of Green.

This is a testimony of someone who was highly motivated to do good for poverty stricken people (and not the One Percent) and sought out and was hired by an NGO supposedly doing good. She was soon trained to forget about thinking of real solutions to poverty, instead she was trained to encourage poor people to become more self-reliant, and to measure self-reliance.

The story the campaign told was a story of lost resilience. The narrative they preached was how to get it back. This is a common theme in community work. Over the years the term “resilience” has been applied more and more frequently to people in distressed communities to mean their capacity to bounce back from dysfunction or breakdown. Increasing community resilience becomes a solution to chronic barriers such as poverty, trauma, and class inequity. Dozens of programs that encourage resiliency have been introduced in schools and low-income neighborhoods all over the world in an effort to help children recover from trauma and also cope better with their day-to-day stresses. 

The NGO Trap

Cartoon by Stephanie McMillan. 

The Anthropocene. The human era and how it shapes our planet

Click here to access a review of a book by the above title by reviewer Elaine Graham-Leigh posted on CounterFire (Britain). 

Graham-Leigh introduces her review with an interesting anecdote telling us how the label "Anthropocene" came about to describe our present era. She then credits the author, Christian Schwägerl, with the insight that capitalism stands in contradiction to a sustainable planet.

Schwägerl provides important reminders here of how in addressing the environmental damage caused under capitalism, we are faced not by a technological problem but a political one. There is no question but that we have or could develop the technologies necessary to make the Anthropocene the epoch in which we reversed the environmental problems of the end of the Holocene. The real issue is how to get these good ideas implemented on a sufficiently large scale to make a difference.

Schwägerl recognises that the principles he puts forward for a sustainable Anthropocene are antithetical to capitalism....

However, it's all down hill from there because, as she points out, Schwägerl's critique of capitalism, like many other current limited critics of capitalism, degenerates into an argument about how we can as moral consumers make capitalism work in a sustainable way.

The book makes clear that a sustainable future and capitalism are antithetical, but what is missing is an understanding of capitalism as a system, not simply as the collective sum of seven billion people’s consumption decisions. In order to change the system, what we need to do is not simply to change our minds, nor even those of our neighbours and Facebook friends as well, but to organise to fight for that change.

U.S. is Destroying Europe

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Zuesse makes a much stronger argument that the US-led Empire has pursuing strategies against Russia because of its refusal to submit to the diktats of the Empire rather than that these strategies are destroying Europe. 

Obama’s top goal in international relations, and throughout his military policies, has been to defeat Russia, to force a regime-change there that will make Russia part of the American empire, no longer the major nation that resists control from Washington.

Obviously, the economic boycott is hurting European economies and the chaos of the Empire's destruction of entire nations in north Africa and the Middle East is forcing people to flee to Europe causing European countries numerous social and economic problem, but to argue that these actions are actually destroying Europe is not tenable. What they are clearly doing is maintaining Europe's dependence on the US while enlisting European efforts in the anti-Russian project. 

Libya has become Europe’s big problem. Millions of Libyans are fleeing the chaos there. Some of them are fleeing across the Mediterranean and ending up in refugee camps in southern Italy; and some are escaping to elsewhere in Europe.

And Syria is now yet another nation that’s being destroyed in order to conquer Russia.

Hiroshima: Grief, horror of atomic bomb remembered 70 years on

Click here to access article by Ivan Watson from CNN.

I am posting this article not because I think it offers an excellent analysis or interpretation of the subject, but because it is a rather typical example of what we see in liberal mainstream media regarding this horrific event. Mostly the authors of these articles express American guilt over the event. I notice that RT insists that the US should apologize to Japan. Others conservative authors in mainstream media offer many reasons and justifications for why US leaders decided to unleash this horrible weapon on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, neither of which was a significant military target.

Briefly, because I'm running out of time this morning, I am going to argue that ordinary Americans were not guilty--the American ruling capitalist class was. The most credible reasons why they used the atomic bomb against Japanese civilians: 1) to demonstrate this powerful weapon to the Soviet Union which was always seen as the major target by Western capitalists. 2) racism: The US capitalist ruling class were so accustomed to using racism within the US to divide workers from each other that they used this to mobilize a war effort against the Japanese, and to imprison Japanese-Americans.

I experienced this racism as a child during WWII while viewing many cartoons depicting Japanese as yellow, buck-toothed, crazed creatures running amok in the world. All sides in this war used defaming caricatures to depict their enemies, but with the exception of our "Jap" cartoons, they were mostly targeting the leaders of opposing nations, not the people themselves. Hence, Americans were well indoctrinated to accept the use of this horrible weapon against civilian populations in large Japanese cities.

And, of course, there was nothing particularly unusual about capitalist ruling classes use of weapons of mass destruction. In their quest to dominate the world they frequently resorted to using them: poison gas in WWI and fire bombing of civilians in WII (Tokyo and Dresden). And do you have any doubt that the Nazis would have used the weapon in WWII if they had it? Or the Japanese ruling fascist class? (Fascism is only an extreme form of capitalism.) Whether the Soviets would have used it--especially how they would have used it--is open to debate.

Millions of fish dead in Pacific Northwest — Ocean conditions have ‘gone to hell’

Click here to access article from EneNews.

We in the Pacific Northwest of the US are now witnessing the latest casualties due to global warming caused by capitalism's growth forever imperative: fish, whales, sea lions, birds and many other species that inhabit ocean areas are dying in huge numbers. Scientists have identified global warming as an underlying cause that is creating havoc to the marine environment (for example, see this), others speculate that radiation from Fukushima might be a factor. One thing is clear: ocean and river waters are heating up causing many kinds of health problems for marine life. This article furnishes news from a number of local area and national media sources reporting on this phenomenon.  

How US Allies Aid Al Qaeda in Syria

Click here to access article by Daniel Lazare from ConsortiumNews.

The dirty secret about the Obama administration’s “regime change” strategy in Syria is that it amounts to a de facto alliance with Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front which is driving toward a possible victory with direct and indirect aid from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Israel, as Daniel Lazare explains.

In this article Lazare's provides an overview of the chaos in Syria and nearby areas, however he fails to dig deeper to see the primary forces that have shaped this series of disasters for ordinary people living in the area who are regarded as dispensable by the various Arab tyrants as they play their petty power games. 

The most powerful actors that have shaped events in this area is not the Obama administration, but the large Zionist component of the US-led Empire's capitalist ruling class and their planted military outpost in the Middle East known as Israel. These powerful actors have continually stirred up conflicts, especially after the US invasion of Iraq, between Sunnis and Shias and between various Arab tyrants allied with one or the other sects. 

In recent years the chaos has grown murkier with the secret sponsorship of the ISIS terrorist army which have been attributed by astute observers such as Pepe Escobar, Tony Cartalucci, William Engdahl, Ray McGovern, Eric Draitser, and others to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, US, and Israel. Thus, while Lazare paints a picture of a series of seemingly irrational conflicts and scandalous policies perpetrated by the Obama administration, what he misses are the deeper interests at work to create this chaos. Empire directors are working earnestly to protect the Empire's access to Middle East oil and its military outpost, Israel, while reducing any inference in this project by hostile Iran,  Russia, and China.

(You might also be interested in these articles: "Iraqi Leader Says US Using ISIS to Continue Intervention", "Syria: Negotiating Ethnic Cleansing And A Temporary Partition", and "Vital Obama Decision on Syria Bombing 'Hoaxed'")

Citigroup’s Unchecked Crime Wave Proves that America Is Headed in the Wrong Direction

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

Citigroup, the bank that played a central role in bringing America to its knees in 2008; received the largest taxpayer bailout in the history of finance to resuscitate its insolvent carcass; pleaded guilty to a felony count of rigging foreign currency trading in May and was put on a three year probation – is now under a string of criminal and civil investigations.

High-tech exploitation is still exploitation

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

In the so-called “sharing economy,” it isn’t the profits that are being shared. What is being shared are ways of putting old models of weakening labor protections in new “high tech” wrapping.

“Sharing economy” enterprises designating employees as “independent contractors” so that workers are left without legal protections, and undercutting competition through insisting that laws and regulations don’t apply to them, really aren’t new or “innovative.” But it’s Silicon Valley companies that are doing this — so, hurray!, it’s now exciting and, oh yes, disruptive! Quaint, archaic standards such as minimum wages and labor- and consumer-law protections are so old-fashioned that Silicon Valley billionaires are doing us all a favor by disrupting our ability to keep them.

Briefing on the migrant crisis: causes and consequences

Click here to access article by Chris Nineham from Stop the War Coalition (Britain).

The Empire of Chaos, designated by Pepe Escobar, has earned this reputation by its so-called "War on Teror" and its "seven country strategy" as discovered by the shocked Gen. Wesley Clark shortly after 9/11 while visiting some Pentagon offices. The inspiration of this grand strategy came from Rumsfield, Wolfowitz, and mostly other Zionists dating back from 1991 and first expressed to Gen. Clark by Wolfowitz in 1991. The policy was formally laid out in the infamous paper published by the Project for the New American Century in 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" which noted that only a "new Pearl Harbor" would enable the military and defense policy transformations the group desired to rapidly take place. A lot of people think that this was 9/11. 

We are now seeing the results of these strategies of chaos as we witness many millions of people uprooted all over the Middle East and North Africa fleeing the violence and disintegration of their countries.

The Truth Behind Turkey’s Dual Offensives

Click here to access article by Andrew Korybko from Sputnik International. (Note: I think that Korybko is an American citizen studying at the Moscow university, but I haven't been able to confirm that. Oriental Review always puts "USA" behind his name on his articles.)

I think that this piece offers the best geopolitical analysis of the new aggressive strategy perpetrated by Empire directors in collusion with Turkey in Syria, and adjacent areas. US directors are stirring the cauldron of chaos in this region to further their control of the vast oil resources of the region.

Many people are scratching their heads wondering how the US went from supporting the Kurds in Iraq and Syria to backing Turkey's campaign against them in the former (and turning a blind eye to it in the latter), but the reality is that the US was manipulating them as geopolitical pawns from the get-go. On the one hand, it envisioned using them to create a ‘geopolitical Israel' in the heart of the Mideast, but on the other, it knew that such an effort would tempt Turkey to conventionally intervene and put an end to these plans (which could also derail its [Turkey under Erdogan] potential Eurasian pivot). Either way, it would be a win-win for Washington....

Cartalucci's interpretation of a Brookings article was much more accurate than mine as expressed in my commentary to his article.

China’s Cyberspying Is ‘on a Scale No One Imagined’–if You Pretend NSA Doesn’t Exist

Click here to access article by Janine Jackson from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

Every once in a while, we see reports from corporate media with alarming news about China agents spying on and stealing our secrets. No doubt some of this goes on, but to pretend that US spy agencies don't exist or are benign actors in these spy operations is laughable. This is another blatant illustration of how capitalist ruling class media attempt to shape our views toward China or any country that Empire directors regard as a threat to their interests. The problem is that they are too often successful in fooling the majority of Americans--and that is, of course, why they create such silly reports. As Will Durant once said,

It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.

TALK: We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo - Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11

Click here to access this video presentation from YouTube of a recent talk given by Kevin Barrett. I regard it as a "must listen-to talk".

"We Are NOT Charlie Hebdo! Free Thinkers Question the French 9/11" is a new book edited by Dr. Kevin Barrett, in which leading authors and activist challenge the official account of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, France on January 7, 2015.

Dr. Barrett spoke in Denver about this book on Sunday, July 19th, 2015. This is the talk.

I don't usually post video presentations that are longer than one hour, but I was so fascinated by Barrett's talk that I not only listened to all of it, but am posting this on my website. What puzzles me is that YouTube did not make the HTML coding available so that I could reproduce it directly on my website. I've never seen this exceptional treatment before on YouTube.

His talk is based on his investigations of the Charlie Hebdo incident in Paris, but includes material from other sources that were featured in his recently published book. I have posted a lot of this material previously by various investigators of this event (enter "Hebdo" in my search engine to find them), but he also in this talk provides a lot of new evidence. Thus, in this talk Barrett provides an excellent summary of all the evidence that has been uncovered by investigators of the incident which points to another false flag operation.

Half of climate safety level has gone

Click here to access article by Alex Kirby from Climate News Network.

In this article Kirby reports on a new scientific study published in New Scientist (behind a paywall).

The world is now halfway towards the internationally-agreed safety limit of a maximum 2°C rise in global average temperatures, researchers say.

That limit seeks to prevent the global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels exceeding 2°C above the pre-industrial global temperature. The UN’s Paris climate summit later this year aims to ensure that it is not breached.

It appears that the human race has taken roughly 250 years to stoke global warming by 1°C. On present trends, we look likely to add the next 1°C far more quickly – across much of the world, many climate scientists believe, by the middle of this century.

Sea levels have risen six meters or more with just slight global warming: Study

Click here to access article by A. Dutton, A. E. Carlson,  et al. from Uncommon Thought Journal.

The authors of this article include some dramatic quotes from scientists involved in the recent published study in Science (behind a paywall), and here is one:

“Studies have shown that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributed significantly to this sea level rise above modern levels,” said Anders Carlson, an Oregon State University glacial geologist and paleoclimatologist, and co-author on the study. “Modern atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are today equivalent to those about three million years ago, when sea level was at least six meters higher because the ice sheets were greatly reduced.”

“It takes time for the warming to whittle down the ice sheets,” added Carlson, who is in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, “but it doesn’t take forever. There is evidence that we are likely seeing that transformation begin to take place now.” 

Wildfire threat spreads across warming world

Click here to access article by Tim Radford from Climate News Central. 

As climate change warms the world vegetation dries, rainfall patterns waver and the threat of wildfire spreads.

The author reports on a research study published in Nature Communications (behind a paywall).

William Jolly of the US Forest Service in Missoula, Montana and colleagues say they examined the fire season worldwide for the study period, taking into consideration all the factors that are used to calculate fire hazard: wind, humidity and temperature, as well as rainfall levels.

They found that the combined changes in the surface weather have meant that the fire season has increased so far by 18.7% 

Julian Assange: the Untold Story of an Epic Struggle for Justice

Click here to access article by John Pilger from CounterPunch. 

For three years, a police cordon around the Ecuadorean embassy in London has served no purpose other than to flaunt the power of the state. It has cost £12 million. The quarry is an Australian charged with no crime, a refugee whose only security is the room given him by a brave South American country. His “crime” is to have initiated a wave of truth-telling in an era of lies, cynicism and war.

The persecution of Julian Assange is about to flare again as it enters a dangerous stage.

This courageous, independent journalist from Australia offers the most detailed history of the vilification and persecution by Empire authorities of Julian Assange that I've seen up until now. Pilger reports that in their vindictiveness they don't even abide by their own laws and legal procedures. The directors of the Empire never forget or forgive those who expose their secret crimes against humanity or refuse obedience to their diktats. Putin at first tried to get along with them, but he learned this lesson after refusing to go along with the UN resolution to bomb Libya and crush Syria. Now there are indications that our masters are going after the Ecuadorian government for protecting Assange.

This is What We’ve Been Waiting for, the True Recovery of the American Economy

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

After reading Richter's online biography, it seems to me that after a stint in small-to-medium sized businesses he experienced some sort of mid-life crisis and/or that he became dis-enamored with the way the business world functioned. Thus he traveled the world to escape it and find meaning. However, his world travels didn't seem to make a dint in his commitment to capitalism. 

He now lives in an expensive neighborhood in San Francisco and is the CEO of Wolf Corporation which seems to be engaged in some kind of service to investors or companies. His life experience has only made him become more cynical about business-as-usual in the US. He also apparently believes like many other critics of this business-as-usual that he can through his blog make people wise-up enough to make the system work. Thus, he seems to be admonishing people or banks or somebody that they shouldn't be building the economy on debt. Well, of course, he's right--but that is the way advanced capitalism has to function!

It is the inevitable evolution of capitalism to place ever greater concentrations of wealth (and power) in fewer hands through capitalists' "ownership" and control of automation, robotization, artificial intelligence technology, and all the new events associated with neoliberalism (example: outsourcing jobs to cheap labor countries). Advanced capitalist countries like the US have to rely increasingly on debt to keep the economy going. 

Regarding this use of debt, I was startled by an epiphany one day about ten years ago when reading articles about credit scores. Everyone seemed to have them and it was important to know what one's score was. Then in the post-economic collapse after the economy crashed in 2008, the main engine of recovery was to create fiat money in hopes of fueling spending. As I understand it, this creation of money is enabled by the rich and their corporations through the purchase of government securities which places taxpayers, mostly workers, in debt to these purchasers. (Last time I looked, our national debt was about $18 trillion which will be paid off by us through our taxes and at the sacrifice of Social Security, public services, welfare, etc.) 

And the rich are from everywhere in the world and regardless of the source of the money (drug trafficking, dictators who stole wealth from their countries via loans from the IMF, etc) because they see the US, or banks and governments in NATO countries, with their huge military establishments as the most secure place to store their wealth. The workers of Greece are the latest victims of this process.

So people like Wolf Richter who have been so thoroughly steeped in capitalist ideology and practice are having some doubts about the way the system is functioning or not, but they can't see any alternative because, I think, they are so completely hooked (addicted to) on the benefits of the system. Still, because of the intimate knowledge of how the system works, the Richters of the world can often aid us in understanding how the system works--or doesn't.

Let's Get Behind Gil Furbright...or whatever his name is.

Click here if you wish to access this video directly from represent.us website via their YouTube channel. (Note: by the way, by posting this I do not support their program to remedy the One Percent's ownership of the political system and government...and everything else.)


This same website has also developed another interesting video that is based on a Princeton research report that I haven't read, but I think you will agree that we don't need to read it.

We Are All Greece

Click here to access article by Helena Norberg-Hodge from Common Dreams. 

The World Wide Web is always full of limited views of this neoliberal stage of capitalism. These critics are usually of middle and upper-middle class origins who see their lifestyle, and those of their friends and neighbors, threatened by disappearing jobs many of which have been sent to cheap labor countries, automated, or roboticized. They all want to return to a state of bliss that they experienced in the previous nation-based type of capitalism when their capitalists masters employed them at quite generous salaries. 

This author is no exception, except that she, like some others, offers some very interesting insights about neoliberalism. In this piece she contrasts neoliberal propaganda with its actual results.

The European Union is an extension of the Bretton Woods institutions – The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – founded at the end of World War II. Their stated purpose was global economic integration in order to avoid another depression and to avert war. But the result was a form of economic development – based on debt, global trade and consumerism – that systematically favored corporate interests while hollowing out local economies worldwide. Sadly, many people still idealistically embrace the Bretton Woods institutions, as well as the European Union.

Neither the media nor academia has focused on the role of transnational banks and corporations in promoting this economic path. Instead they continue to reinforce the notion that European “economic integration” is about peaceful coexistence among countries that would otherwise be at war with each other.

John Perkins, who was employed as a kind of economic hit man for his capitalist masters, was one of the earliest critics by providing an inside report on these neoliberal machinations in his Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. However, he regarded this neoliberal phase only as a "mutant" form of capitalism instead of an advanced stage of capitalism.

 

Making Money From Their Blood: Cheney's Former War-Profiteering Company Is Suing Veterans It Poisoned in Iraq

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

Proving there is no level of low Dick Cheney and his cronies will not go, Halliburton-linked, scum-sucking defense contractor KBR is suing 12 Iraq veterans who had the audacity to seek and win $85 million in damages for the cancer they got from burn pit smoke while guarding a toxic water treatment plant for KBR - a company which, the jury ruled, acted with "reckless and outrageous indifference to a highly unreasonable risk of harm" to them. 

Man, Master of the Universe

from a cartoonist published by the Miami Herald.

It appears to me that climate destabilization is finally being considered seriously with all the extremely hot weather, droughts, and many other symptoms that have been occurring across the country. That doesn't mean that anything significant will be done about it--like converting the  capitalist system which destabilizes our climate and destroys our economy into something that sustains both. Instead of denying climate destabilization as they did in the past, we can now expect our capitalist masters, who are addicted to the profits and power that their system provides them with, will simply come up with other ruses (like: "oh, yes, we promise a technological fix!") to insure that nothing serious is done about it.

Comcast Killed The Ed Show For Talking About TPP

Click here to access article by Farron Cousins from Ring of Fire.

It has to be noted that Comcast, the company that owns MSNBC, is a big supporter of the TPP. Comcast hired a phalanx of lobbyists to spearhead a targeted campaign to push for Trade Promotion Authority, which recently passed. Included among the individuals it was paying was the former chief of staff for former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA).

According to the Centre for Research on Globalization, Comcast is one of the few companies that have been brought in behind closed doors – where our elected Representatives don’t even get to go – to help review and consult with leaders about the global trade agreement.

“Extractivism creates a society without subjects”: Raúl Zibechi on Latin American Social Movements

Click here to access this interview with one of the most influential activist thinkers in Latin America, translated and posted on Upside Down World.

I think this give us rather brief, but informative observations to bring us up-to-date on radical political movements in Latin America, particularly in South America. Zibechi explains that most of the previous activists organizations have been integrated or absorbed into more social-welfare oriented capitalist regimes that have themselves been integrated within neoliberal structures, but the latter have reached their limits in creating a better life for most people and fall far short by condemning most people to live as poor objects in a world governed by transnational corporations located in New York, London, etc, rather than "subjects" who are in control of their lives. It's the difference between being passively acted upon by outside forces or being an actor participating in vital decisions that affect your life and the lives of people near you. (If you need an illustration of people who insist on being subjects in a hostile capitalist world, read about the Zapatistas.) Thus, he sees a new cycle of radical activism ahead.

Progressivism in Latin America, which broke out around 10 or 15 years ago depending on which country you’re talking about, produced some positive changes. But I think that cycle has come to an end. While there continue to be progressive governments, what I am saying is that progressivism as a set of political forces that created something relatively positive: this has ended. ....

...Latin America stands at a crossroads: either it changes into a political movement advocating real change reaching the structures of society – ownership of land, tax reform targeting the rich – or these governments simply become conservative, which is a process I think has already begun. 

Barter Networks – Lessons from Argentina for Greece

Click here to access article by Marina Sitrin from Telesur.

This multi-talented author and activist has visited Greece many times in recent years and she reports on her discussions with Greek activists about what Argentinians learned about dealing with a collapse of a capitalist economy.

In this article I focus on the Argentine barter networks, both because it is a specific question that is raised repeatedly in Greece, and also because there are some very concrete forms of organization and lessons that can be derived from the experience. It is also because there are already many different forms of barter throughout Greece, from local villages trading based on history and custom, within families and family to family to an increasingly large number of activist and community organized spaces of exchange. Within this culture of barter, immediate questions are arising as to how the networks can be expanded, if they are the right base for a currency based network, and what sort of support to ask for from the government to help ensure their existence.

“In every neighborhood people were able to eat because of this barter relationship -- we were all involved – and it changed us all.” (Nicolas, sub.coop, a conversation in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2003)  

Fire at World's End: Why We All Need to Learn the Word “Anthropogenic”

Click here to access article by Subhankar Banerjee from TomDispatch. (Note: if you wish to skip Engelhardt's usual introduction, you will need to scroll down to the article.)

The wettest rainforest in the continental United States had gone up in flames and the smoke was so thick, so blanketing, that you could see it miles away. Deep in Washington’s Olympic National Park, the aptly named Paradise Fire, undaunted by the dampness of it all, was eating the forest alive and destroying an ecological Eden. In this season of drought across the West, there have been far bigger blazes but none quite so symbolic or offering quite such grim news. It isn’t the size of the fire (though it is the largest in the park’s history), nor its intensity. It’s something else entirely -- the fact that it shouldn’t have been burning at all. When fire can eat a rainforest in a relatively cool climate, you know the Earth is beginning to burn.

And here’s the thing: the Olympic Peninsula is my home. Its destruction is my personal nightmare and I couldn’t stay away.

I live across the Puget Sound from the Olympic Peninsula, yet I've heard very little about this from corporate media which is the only media we can access for news about local and regional affairs. The talking heads they employ reported on it, but the reports were always very bland and sandwiched between local crime reports which corporate media executives love to cover in the most sensational way. 

As someone who is very concerned about these weather effects caused by capitalists' obsessive drive to produce and consume using fossils, I have observed in recent years the strange weather patterns with foreboding while also observing how they have been reported on corporate TV and other ruling class media. There is a dramatic disconnect. 

This is not an accident. Our ruling capitalist masters do not want to alarm us by associating the scientific concern about impending climate destabilization and what is now occurring before our very eyes. You see, capitalism, with its growth imperative, and a stable climate are completely incompatible. To be sure capitalists will be affected like everyone else (but less so because they have the resources to mitigate its effects on them), but they are so drugged by the opiates of power and profits that they are incapable of acting responsibly. So, the burden of radical change lies on our shoulders.

Timothy Kelly & Brandon Martinez: Zionism's War on Conspiracy Realists

Kelly uses his YouTube page to interview Canadian political observer Brandon Martinez in this nearly one hour video. I listened to about 32 minutes in which Martinez drew from many sources that I have posted in the past to explain in common sense language how the capitalist ruling classes use the epitaph of "conspiracy theorists" to discredit anyone who attempts to remove the veil of their propaganda to reveal their real conspiracies.


And in this article entitled "A 'No-Fly Zone' By Any Other Name - The 'ISIL-Free Zone' In Syria", Martinez reports on the latest Empire plan in relation to Syria and ISIL. In this report he again lifts the veil off this latest Empire conspiracy to reveal its true purposes.

Balkanizing Syria, Buffer Zone in Northern Syria. Redrawing the Middle East Map

Click here to access article by Stephen Lendman from Global Research.

Although different people have somewhat different interpretations, there seems to be some significant changes in the Empire's strategy in the area of Syria, Turkey, and Iraq that is currently occurring. 

The ugly scheme involves endless wars – killing millions through violence and deprivation. Imperialism works this way – causing unspeakable human misery for power, resource control and profit.

America, key NATO allies, Israel and rogue Arab states like Saudi Arabia are allied in potentially embroiling the entire region and beyond in endless conflicts – wanting regime change in Iran, Syria and elsewhere.

Washington wants all independent governments replaced by pro-Western puppet regimes. Israel wants all its regional rivals eliminated – Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Assad in Syria.

See also this piece entitle "Turkey in danger" by French geopolitical analyst Thierry Meyssan from his website. 

While the Western Press salutes the authorisation given by Turkey to the United States, allowing the US to use its military bases in order to fight Daesh, Thierry Meyssan looks at the nation’s internal tensions. In his view, maintaining Mr. Erdoğan in power, as well as the lack of a new majority during the next general elections, will rapidly lead to civil war.

Speculators circling Puerto Rico latest mode of colonialism

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

Puerto Rico’s governor may have said the commonwealth’s debt is unpayable, but that doesn’t mean Puerto Ricans aren’t going to pay for it. Vulture capitalists are circling the island, ready to extract still more wealth from the impoverished island.

You already know the drill: Capital is sucked out by corporate interests that pay little in taxes, budget deficits grow and speculators swoop in to take advantage, leaving working people holding the bag. 

Climate change cannot be addressed without breaking from capitalism

Click here to access article by James Plested from Red Flag (Australia).

Referring to a metaphor posed by Benjamin that revolutions are like passengers pulling an emergency brake on a runaway train, Plested writes:

The longer the capitalist system goes on, the more it resembles the “runaway train” of Walter Benjamin’s imagining. And nowhere is this clearer than in the case of climate change.

Here we face a challenge with potentially devastating consequences – rising sea levels, more frequent extreme weather events, the destruction of ecosystems and an accelerating rate of extinctions. Yet the current “drivers” of the train, the world’s business and political elite, show little interest in changing track.

Reforms, half-measures and market-friendly solutions have gotten us nowhere. Only when we pull the “emergency brake” on the system, forcefully wresting power away from the minority who are currently at the controls, can we hope to avert catastrophe and begin the task of building a better, more sustainable world.

Beyond Extinction: Transition to post-capitalism is inevitable

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed posted on Medium Corporation website.

In this piece Ahmed responds to a recent post by Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood entitled "It's not Climate Change--It's Everything Change" which is also worth reading as an urgent call to change our ways or we will face a dystopia and then become extinct. It looks like intellectuals are becoming worried about the approaching crisis given all the signs that it is real--and this is good, although a little late--but they are still keeping the discussion on a very abstract plane--which is not good if we humans are to save ourselves. 

Ahmed does little better by targeting industrial capitalism.

The endless growth model of contemporary global capitalism is not just unsustainable — it is on track to destabilize the Earth System in a way that could make the planet uninhabitable for society as we know it.

It is not humanity, then, that is doomed — it is industrial capitalism.

The choice before us, then, is whether or not we are willing to give-up fossil-fueled endless material growth. 

Then, as is the fashion among intellectuals, he quotes Foucault to indicate that the problem is us and that we need to change things. Unfortunately, Foucault is even more abstract. 

Given that overconsumption is driving many of the world’s most pressing problems, it may be that ethical activity today requires that we critically reflect on our own subjectivities in order to refuse who we are — so far as we are uncritical consumers. This Great Refusal would open up space to create new, post-consumerist forms of subjectivity, which is surely part of the revolution in consciousness needed in order to produce a society based on a ‘simpler way.’

So, the gist of both essays is that "we" are responsible for the many crises "we" are faced with and "we" need to do something about it. It's like "we" are all participating in one grand world democracy and "we" have made wrong decisions. This sort of analysis carefully steers us away from any realities that we have been, and are currently, subject to massive forms of control by a specific socio-economic class who are committed to their system of capitalism because of their addiction to the drugs of profit and power.

I guess such essays as these represent progress because they suggest an awakening consciousness of intellectuals, a small segment of humans, but it is far from being sufficient to save ourselves from the many crises that are in our future if not already here. This tiny, compromised sub-class of intellectuals even control how we think about these crises, and these rather timid, abstract essays are a reflection of that control. They lead us into thinking that the capitalist system can be reformed or that people can be morally influenced to invest in the right things as illustrated in a current article entitled "Fossil fuel industry still winning the investment war".

Because time is fast running out, what we really need to think about is the development of revolutionary movements to counter the powerful control of capitalists over existing societies so that ordinary people can truly shape and determine their own future.  While it is good to write consciousness-raising articles about the threat of climate change and, even more so, about capitalism that drives it, what is urgently needed are articles dealing with specific strategies and tactics to defeat this class and overthrow their odious, crisis-ridden system. Too often we are seeing articles like the above and articles like this entitled "Why Some People Will Always Bow to Tyrants" posted on Uncommon Thought Journal which wallow in pity by arguing that human nature is at fault instead of exploring how class rulers deliberately try to render ordinary people powerless both psychologically and in a real practical sense. 

All of these efforts that lead to the overthrow of capitalism are needed in order to provide the necessary conditions for the creation of new societies that can live in harmony with the ecosystems of our finite planet. Only then can we ordinary people truly participate in decisions about how we live. We don't need any more abstract discussions about how we are responsible for the crises.

The World Order and Revolution

Click here to access a book review by Robert J. Burrowes posted on Global Research.

Unfortunately, the authors of a book by this title and the reviewer, Burrowes, all believe that the US-led Empire is the problem, and like Pepe Escobar, William Engdahl, and others look to Russia and China (and others) for salvation. This despite the fact that both countries depend to a large extent on the engines of capitalism under governing elite control to drive their economies. Thus, you won't find any discussion about capitalism itself, only that of neoliberal capitalism which to these people is the exclusive characteristic of the Empire. So, I guess the "revolution" they are advocating is only a revolt against the US-led Empire.

To be sure this view will echo in the chambers of many victims of the Empire, but it is a very short-sighted one. Such a view if carried out can only lead to a nuclear conflagration by pitting the Russia and China, or maybe the BRICS, against the Empire. This goes further than Escobar and Engdahl who cherish a "multipolar world". Vltchek, Black, Koenig, and Burrowes apparently want a destruction of the Empire even though Burrowes diplomatically mentions only the "destructive forces of Empire".

The Empire has already taken over our streets and invaded our homes (where even those of us who feel least affected are still bombarded by its propaganda to infest and befuddle our minds). Will you join these three authors and me in resisting the destructive forces of Empire?

El Chapo Escape in Mexico Points to Intelligence Links with Narco-Traffickers

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

I regard Madsen has one of the most well informed analysts of the US's shadow government and their dirty secrets. His articles are always well reasoned and backed by sound investigative work and documentation. No doubt his background in various spy agencies in the US Navy, NSA, and contractors doing business with NSA has helped hone his skills at uncovering the dirty secrets.

The ramifications of El Chapo’s prison escape and Trump’s inconvenient referrals to the Mexican criminal immigrant problem are bubbling to the surface in a presidential campaign where the connections of the Bush family to the CIA drug trade are an issue, whether the Bushes and their well-heeled supporters like it or not.

 But, of course, mainstream media won't touch any connections to the Bush clan, but Madsen does in this piece. In this article he digs deeper behind the recent controversies that corporate media love to cover and finds some real significant dirt implicating various members of the Bush family. This evidence together with a number of reports from Peter Dale Scott, Gary Webb, in addition to Madsen and others might justify labeling the US as a "narco-state".

TPP's Copyright Trap

Click here to access article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Capitalism is famous for encircling and fencing off areas of private property the major fruits of which can be mostly enjoyed by their "owners". For many decades we have witnessed the growth of "ownership" related to creative and intellectual works under this system. The owners can range from someone who is directly connected to the "property" to someone who merely purchases the ownership of that property. The latter is true because under capitalism nearly everything can be, and often is, converted into a commodity.  Now we see that this is another dangerous anti-social feature of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that will accelerate inequality.

One of the defining battles in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations is whether its signatory countries will standardize copyright terms lengths to a minimum term of the life of the author plus 70 years. This would effectively set the maximum duration of copyright holders' monopoly rights to over 140 years. ....

But the world's leading economists agree that such an extraordinary long copyright term makes no sense. It provides no further incentive for creation and provides little additional income to creators or their families—except for a very small, successful minority. 

Neoliberal Ebola: The Agroeconomic Origins of the Ebola Outbreak

Click here to access article by Rob Wallace from Independent Science News. 

This evolutionary biologist and public health phylogeographer finds considerable evidence to indicate that neoliberal practices of international corporations in Africa greatly contributed to the Ebola outbreak.

...the structural adjustment to which West Africa has been subjected the past decade included the kinds of divestment from public health infrastructure that permitted Ebola to incubate at the population level once it spilled over.

The effects, however, extend even farther back in the causal chain. The shifts in land use in the Guinea Forest Region from where the Ebola epidemic spread were also connected to neoliberal efforts at opening the forest to global circuits of capital.

The revolving door: greasing the wheels of the TTIP lobby

Click here to access article by Vicky Cann and Margarida da Silva from Corporate Europe Observatory.

This website is produced by a foundation whose official mission aspires to do good, but within the capitalist system. As such it is a reform organization. They have produced a number of videos in various languages to inform ordinary citizens how their European institutions are serving corporations as a priority. This is all good, but unfortunately they offer the conventional remedy that we in the US have long heard: contact and advise your representatives (in their case, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).  Thus, you will hear at the end of several videos (for example, this) the following statement:

And, so it is that big business capture the policy agenda ensuring that European laws time and time again serve the interests of large corporations above those of the people of Europe. That is, unless those people speak out.

By reading this long article and viewing some of their videos you will learn all the sordid details about how their European system of government works to serve the interests of banking, commercial, and industrial corporations very much like ours do by using revolving doors, heavy lobbying, use of phony front groups to issue fake research reports, promoting secrecy for corporations while permitting their access to private information of citizens. This appears very familiar to what we experience in the US. A coincidence? I think not. I suspect that the US ruling capitalist class advisers were on hand following the devastation of WWII to guide them in setting up these institutions.

However, after reading this article and perusing some of their videos I realized that there was one difference: they did not make any mention of corporate campaign money going to their MEPs! Well, it didn't take me long to find out that they have a problem with this too! From
openDemocracy, a British-based European website, in an article entitled "European elections and campaign finance: show us the money", we learn the following:

Europe's economic turbulence in recent years has led many citizens to question the powers of the European Union and the legitimacy of its politicians. There is much talk of a "democratic deficit" in Strasbourg and Brussels, while issues of accountability and sovereignty are high on the public agenda. The elections to the European parliament on 22-25 May 2014 give these concerns a current political edge. Yet scant attention is paid to the financial rules (or lack of them) that play an important role in the election of MEPs.

This omission is important, for the role of money in European (as in member-state) politics has grave implications at several levels: the integrity of the members elected to the European parliament, the competitiveness of the European political process, the resulting quality of the parliament’s policymaking, and citizens’ perception of all these.  

Wall Street's Owners Manual

from occasional links & commentary.

By serving Wall Street, the candidates, who we are permitted to vote for, seem to be doing just fine. See this article entitled "The many mansions and penthouses that the US Presidential candidates call home" from Red Pill Times. For example, here are where the Clintons live:

NATO and the West Just Became Irrelevant

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

Engdahl first reports on what happened in two meetings in Ufa, Russia.

The dual summits that took place in Russia’s Ufa beginning 9 July were anything but routine. In fact it may be seen by future historians as a signal event that marked the definitive decline of the global hegemony of European civilization including North America. This is no small event in human history. It’s the most significant shift in relative global economic relations since the Fourth Crusade in 1204 when the Republic of Venice emerged as a world power following their brutal, disgraceful capture and sacking of Constantinople, marking the demise of the Byzantine Empire.

And, then he reports on the Empire's response to these meetings which signify the growing power of the alliances of nations, mostly BRIC nations, who are determined to be rid of the domination of the Empire.

The response of Washington and NATO to all this is a bleak, pathetic contrast to put it mildly.

The new Obama nominee to become US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, declared Russia to be America’s greatest threat in his Congressional testimony some days ago. Conveniently forgetting all about the “existential threat” from ISIS, an organization US and Israeli intelligence brought into being to spread their chaos, Dunford declared, “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia.” The alarming thing is there was scarcely a peep of protest aside from blog remarks by retired Congressman Ron Paul and a few others. The tom-toms of bellicosity are pounding louder along the Potomac these days. 

Drive to Replace Russian Gas Supplies to EU Intensifies

Click here to access article by Steven MacMillan from New Eastern Outlook.

Since relations between the West and Russia have deteriorated so rapidly following the US coup in Ukraine, Western strategists have been working relentlessly to find a replacement to Russian energy supplies to the EU. In the immediate term, this is impossible, a reality that unnerves many in Washington and Brussels. But in the medium to long term, an assortment of countries could combine to replace Russian energy, or at least dramatically reduce Europe’s energy dependence on Moscow.

As Cold War II heats up, the Empire as well as its adversaries are scrambling to line up energy sources and pipelines. It seems to me that this author provides a well-balanced survey of these efforts which likely reflects the geopolitical strategies employed by both adversaries. For example, such considerations very likely influenced the recent deal with Iran, the outcome of which is in dispute by various analysts (see my commentary with this post).

Saudi Arabia Having to Borrow Billions – Could Be Bankrupt by End of the Decade

Click here to access article by KJ McElrath from Ring of Fire. 

Apparently their strategy of dumping oil on the world market below market prices is having an adverse affect on Saudi Arabia's budgets. Contributing to the budget shortfalls is a costly war with Yemen. As a consequence this rich nation is having to borrow billions--the author doesn't report from where, but likely this is from Western banks and institutions.

Over the past year, Saudi Arabia – once among the richest nations on the planet – has wound up having to sell some $4 billion in bonds. It has been necessary in order to maintain levels of spending on public works and continue financing the war against Yemen. The Saudi government has also had to draw on its reserves of foreign currency. Falad al-Mubarak, who heads the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (the nation’s equivalent of the U.S. Federal Reserve), predicts “an increase in borrowing” in the face of a projected $130 billion deficit.

The primary cause is the drastic decline in the price of crude oil.

How ‘Adjunct’ Professors Are Exploited

Click here to access article by Laura Finley from ConsortiumNews.

I didn't know what she referring to until I read an entry in Wikipedia which explained what "adjunct professors" were. It appears to me that our ruling capitalist class masters (via "boards of regents" who are appointed to serve this class) use tenure track professorships as a way to discipline any professors from straying too far from ruling class propaganda. Those that are finally given tenure are those who have passed years of disciplinary tests. They dump the rest in the "adjunct professor" category to cut costs and to further control those who they see as a threat to infect students with subversive thoughts that undermine capitalist propaganda, or thoughts or ideas which threaten our masters' control of society.

Finley provides a graphic description of what it is like to be an adjunct professor.

What does degrowth mean to you?

Click here to access a 3:36m video by Marc Menningmann from degrowth (Germany).

Hear what German activists are saying about the need to consider other ways of living in order to live in harmony with nature--our planet's ecosystem.

In this video, some of the scientists, activists and ordinary people who gathered at last year’s Degrowth Conferenc in Leipzig share their personal understanding of degrowth. It shows how many different facets degrowth can have. Now we have added English subtitles to it which can be activated by clicking on the little green box saying “CC” in the bar at the bottom of the video.