Cynicism as the cultural expression of neoliberalism

Click here to access a book review by Pete Dolack of J.D. Taylor's book entitled Negative Capitalism: Cynicism in the Neoliberal Era.

After reading Dolack's review I think that the main significance of this book, together with other critiques of the status quo by many intellectuals (for example, Henry Giroux), is that they are seriously questioning the existing system and are now beginning to consider the need to radically change it.  

Dolack explains that Taylor's book focuses on the culture of capitalism and how it creates feelings of cynicism, apathy, and passive fatalism among its citizens thereby preventing any significant opposition to form which might contest the rule of capitalists.

Feelings of hopelessness must be engendered. Although such injections can be, and often are, spread via propagandistic techniques — Margaret Thatcher’s “there is no alternative” being a prime example — an absorption into the bones of a society must be accomplished through multiple channels. Continual cultural reinforcement is critical to maintain a system such as neoliberal capitalism and the austerity that is imposed in ever more harsh forms.

A bleak cynicism — a deep pessimism that, bad though things are, there really is no alternative — keeps a populace in check better than bullets can.

US Seeks Occupation as US Fighters Flood Syria

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

Cartalucci once again exposes one of the real governing organizations, the Brookings Institute, in the US in contrast to the mostly mythical official institutions of government: Congress, the Executive, and the Supreme Court. Currently many ordinary people are caught up in another phony exercise of elections designed to fool people into believing that they enjoy some form of democracy. 

Brookings along with the Council of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Rand Corporation, etc (members of the Rockefeller family involved in most of them) all constitute the real government of the US and exercise dominant influence over US Empire policies. Exactly how policies are mediated by these organizations remains mostly a carefully guarded mystery. 

In this article Cartalucci explains that Brookings Institute, consisting of prominent members of the ruling capitalist class, have formulated the actual military policies used to destabilize Syria and the necessity for their media to provide cover for their war crimes and sponsorship of terrorist armies.

Not only does Brookings lay out an open conspiracy to invade and occupy Syria, it does so with the open admission that the goal is not to degrade the fighting capacity of the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS or ISIL), but rather to undermine and eventually overthrow the Syrian government. In fact, Brookings makes a point of stating that the goal would be to seize and hold Syrian territory to further advance American ambitions toward regime change, and would move quickly to degrade the Syrian government’s ability to resist ISIS if any attempts were made by Damascus to stop the US invasion.

News reports have trickled out regarding US and British “fighters” operating in Syria. Their backgrounds, affiliations, logistical support, and transportation to the battlefield have been intentionally left ambiguous by the Western media.

Why we need a politics of the far future

Click here to access article by Richard Eckersley from On Line Opinion (Australia). 

This is an academic journal and this piece reports on findings from research done on people's broad views of the future. The study used a sample of over 2,000 people in Australia, US, UK and Canada. Eckersley, commenting on one major implication of the findings, makes this insightful observation:

The findings strip the ground from under the largely 'business as usual' strategies that dominate political thinking. Concerns about the world's future barely register in our politics; our political leaders proclaim constantly that Australia is a great nation with a great future. This tension may contribute more than politicians and political pundits suspect to the current mood of political disillusion and cynicism.

This disconnect between the views of the future of ordinary people and the views of the real leadership can be explained by looking at the realities of a class-based split of society in which the leadership is based on "ownership" and control of all major institutions of society (by definition, a ruling class). The leadership especially in Western societies are capitalists and the agents among the middle class who loyally serve them. 

Because the study did not collect responses by class (this would have been impossible for the ruling One Percent (actually .01%) because of the small sample size), it is unknown how many people of the "leadership class" actually believe their own propaganda ("the dominant thinking") about the future. I suspect that many of them do not. However, they must keep ordinary people believing it so that they, capitalists, who depend on the latter to show up at work, can continue with their business as usual: engaging in the relatively short-term "highs" of power and profit.

Why [Rupert] Murdoch Pushes for War

Click here to access article by Craig Murray from his website (Britain).

To me this article is sheer comedy. I had a good laugh while reading the punchline.

In a rational world, the involvement of Rothschild and Murdoch in this international criminal activity would show them not to be fit and proper persons to hold major commercial interests elsewhere, and action would be taken. Naturally, nothing of the kind will happen.

Hopefully the "rational world" that Murray refers to is one in which decisions are based on social justice not for reasons of private accumulation of profit and power. Thus, a truly rational world would be an egalitarian one in which all participants would have an equal opportunity (ideally speaking) to influence decisions (especially laws) concerning economic matters. Thus, there would be no class divisions, especially those based on private "ownership" of the economy or ownership of anything of a social-economic nature which characterizes today's dominant form known as capitalism. This system has evolved from the use of force practiced by various ruling classes to attain power during the last roughly 10,000 years--about 2% of human history.  Economies are quintessentially a social phenomenon, and were prior to this period of civilization.

Behind the govt’s ‘rosy’ jobs report

Click here to access article by Gene Clancy from Workers World.

The collection of statistics can be useful or it can be used for deceptive purposes. The ruling capitalist class uses statistics often to deceive us, to make social-economic life among ordinary people look good in order to support their continued rule, to cover over gross problems, and to reduce expenditures for social programs so that more money can be devoted to weapons and military campaigns. Clancy focuses on the lies they are telling us about unemployment and those who are missing from the data collection.

The U.S. government issued its monthly jobs report on Sept. 4. Although only 173,000 new jobs were added — fewer than expected — the Obama administration immediately heralded the new unemployment figure of 5.1 percent, which they claim is the lowest since 2007.

Does this mean — as many capitalist apologists and economists claim — that the U.S economy is improving and that workers are better off now? It is crucial to look at the lies and obfuscations behind the report.

2015 El Niño produces new climate record: 3 simultaneous Pacific category 4 hurricanes

Click here to access article by Rolf Schuttenhelm from Bits of Science.

I discovered only this morning (see this, this, and this) that a huge El Niño is brewing over the South Pacific ocean which will be creating a number of effects such as the hurricanes that are now occurring over the ocean reported in this article, and predicted near future events for the west coasts of North and South America such as rising ocean levels, more record high temperatures, heavy rainfalls and other extreme types of weather.

This website is operated by a self-described small group of science researchers and writers who often run articles that are loaded with technical terms and material which are difficult to understand by ordinary readers. One such term in this article is "ENSO" which means El Niño Southern Oscillation. 

The climatic effects of the 2015 El Niño will not be limited to the Pacific basin. During 2014 the world went from negative to positive ENSO state – and even that was sufficient to produce a new global heat record.

In 2015 that record will be broken again, and 2016 may again break that record – as 2016 will be strongly influenced by the (forecast) end-2015 Super El Niño – adding at least ~+0.2C to the 1998 Super El Niño – as that is the greenhouse-gas-induced trend over that period.

A cursory search of articles on Google revealed many such articles from various local sources, but the environment and science sources I depend on have largely overlooked this phenomenon or it was hidden behind very benign headlines such as "1997 vs. 2015: Animation Compares El Niños Side-by-Side" from Climate Central (one of the sources I depend on).

Under Fight-Against-ISIS Disguise "West" Prepares To Openly Attack Syria

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

Media reports of the situation in the Middle East is so laced with disinformation that many analysts are finding it difficult to determine what is really happening. For example, read this article by Gordon Duff in which expresses his confusion, or this one by Thierry Meyssan who claims that the refugee crisis is fabricated. The author of this article makes an attempt to see through all this confusing disinformation to determine what is really happening.

The Syrian Refugee Crisis and the ‘Do Something’ Lie

Click here to access article by Adam Johnson from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. 

Johnson illustrates with a number of examples from leading newspapers in the Empire how capitalist media is attempting to exploit the refugee crisis created by the Empire to serve the Empire's ends to crush the Syrian government. Yes, it's "humanitarian intervention" all over again. Once again, the Empire's media turns reality on its head!

The US funded, armed and fueled the very crisis its partisan media are now calling for it to swoop and in save. The moral ADD [attention deficit disorder] required by those pushing further US involvement in the Syrian civil war in the face of this fact is severe. 

Meanwhile the directors of the Empire are busy creating chaos in Yemen by backing Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen. So we can expect the Yemenis will be the next source of refugees flooding into Europe, and then we can expect Empire media calling for another "humanitarian intervention".

What can't be admitted about refugees: they are here because we were there

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

The people in the camps at Calais haven’t spent months travelling hundreds of dangerous miles because they want free NHS treatment, housing or benefits, as the Sun would have us think. These are people who have had to make the torturous decision of leaving their loved ones and homes, and are fleeing for their lives.

People don’t risk everything they’ve got, walk for hundreds of miles, travel across seas on flimsy inflatable dinghies, or spend days in the back of a refrigerated lorry just because they fancy it. These people are desperate.

Despite the unwillingness of our government to accept refugees, we British have blood on our hands.

And we Americans have even much more than blood on our hands--it's all over us.

Everything You Know About 'Sex Work' is Wrong

Click here to access to this interview with former sex worker Rachel Moran conducted by Mickey Z. posted on World News Trust.

I think that there is an additional reason why so many women and men are supporting the liberalization of the sex trade. Once again I use class analysis contributed by generations of Marxists to understand the hostile division in this debate that Moran describes so well in this interview.

I can offer this analysis only as a theoretical argument because I have nor been in the sex trade or studied it thoroughly. But is the sex trade so unique in capitalist culture from all other issues so that unless one has been involved in it, one cannot understand it?

I think that this hostile divide between proponents of liberalization and those who see it as a very harmful gross exploitation is very similar to low-wage workers in general who know from experience the feeling of exploitation and abuse that they have experienced as low wage workers in a capitalist system versus those who have enjoyed the security of a middle class background. The common element shared by wage or salaried workers in general and those in the sex trade is the commodification of their work. The somewhat unique feature added to sex work is the patriarchal nature of capitalist history which predates capitalism. Thus my analysis will only focus on what capitalism has contributed to work--the commodification of work.

So, what is it about capitalism that results in commodification of nearly everything? That is easy to understand: capitalism results in a society that is obsessed with obtaining money which, not only brings security, but is often accompanied by power in a capitalist organized society. But, what is commodification and why is it so harmful? 

This is much more difficult to understand especially for those of us who have been immersed all their lives in a capitalist society where one has been, and continues to be, thoroughly indoctrinated in the values and practices of a society is which a market oriented economy has assumed the authority of a religion. 

What I see as a process of commodification is the extraction, out of all things social in character, values that can be marketed. It is this extraction that distorts and produces the harm for all social relations. 

This phenomenon can most easily be recognized in the sex trade where the most intimate relations between human beings are refined (much like coca leaves into cocaine) into a commodity to be marketed for private monetary gain by the seller, and into a extracted form which can be enjoyed as the "high" of an orgasm by the purchaser. Gone from the sex trade are the human features of caring, mutual respect, and wanting to share sensuous pleasure with another human being.

Those who have enjoyed the benefits of a middle class background (education, economic resources, opportunities for leisure, etc) can be lured into the sex trade by the easy money it offers especially in a time when opportunities for the middle class are being adversely impacted by the steady concentration of wealth in the hands of the capitalist ruling class. Middle class people are especially susceptible to capitalist indoctrination because they often experience more years in educational institutions and because of the many other benefits they have enjoyed. Their experience has taught them to believe that nearly everything that can be bought and sold is virtuous, or at least acceptable. Thus, they often have little qualms about turning the most intimate of human relations into a commodity. 

Because of the security provided by their middle class background, they are protected from the worst forms of exploitation and humiliation that lower class sex trade workers experience. (This is similar to middle class occupations compared with blue collar work.) Middle class sex workers also likely have middle and upper class customers which provides them with more security. Because these sex workers enjoy easy money, greater security, and respect, they aggressively oppose the criticisms of people like Rachel Moran who have been deprived of opportunities, comforts, security, respect, etc that capitalist society has to offer middle class people. 

China and the Return of the ‘Yellow Peril’: The muddled economics of scapegoating

Click here to access article by Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.

I'm offering this with the caveat that I don't necessarily endorse everything he writes about--particularly with regard to China. I simply don't know enough about China to hold firm opinions. That is precisely why I am occasionally posting reasonable articles from different points of view. At least Raimondo in his comments about China does offer supporting links unlike others such as Charles Hugh Smith who pretends that he is an expert on China by omitting any supporting links. I definitely agree with this view he expressed at the beginning of his essay:

As the US stock market was dropping 1,000 points on Monday morning, US commentators were pinning the blame on China. The Chinese economy, they said, was slowing down: what had been the “engine” of worldwide economic expansion was running out of fuel. The clear implication was that China’s rulers were somehow responsible for the sudden evaporation of over $2 trillion in assets over three days of the market plunge.

This focus on China as the foreign culprit behind America’s economic woes is being broadcast far and wide by Donald Trump, the mercurial demagogue who has put foreigner-bashing at the center of the political discourse.

U.S. Drops Fleas With Bubonic Plague on North Korea

Click here to access article by David Swanson posted on Washington's Blog.

I consider myself reasonably well informed about the Korean War, but I learned a lot from this post about the gross war crimes and deceptions in relation to this war. The Korean War was the beginning phase of the US's road to Empire which we see today with devastating effects on people over much of the globe--the latest being the waves of refugees fleeing to Europe. 

This post also illustrates how conscientious people working together plus the technology of the World Wide Web can expose many of the lies we have been taught by our masters in the ruling capitalist class.

Dave Chaddock’s book This Must Be the Place, which I found via Jeff Kaye’s review, collects the evidence that the United States indeed tried to wipe out millions of Chinese and North Koreans with deadly diseases.  

Capitalism—a love story

Click here to access article by Lynn Stuart Parramore from Reuters.

Can something as basic as love become an addiction? Artists have always said so. Now, scientific researchers find that intense preoccupation with a love object lights up the brain with chemicals in ways that can be as compelling as shooting up. But unlike the pipe, the blackjack table or the online escort service, intense romantic attachments are a culturally sanctioned mode of escape.

I would express the last sentence even stronger by writing that romantic love in a capitalist society is promoted to fill the alienated lives of workers, to encourage isolated nuclear families so that ordinary people will look to capitalist designated authorities for guidance on all matters instead of their friends and neighbors, to pass on the accumulated wealth of the capitalist class to heirs which contributes to the concentration of wealth and power, to sell all the accouterments necessary to make one an attractive love object, among a number of other reasons. Thus we ordinary people are all strongly induced to become addicts to romantic love as the ruling capitalist class are encouraged to become addicts to wealth and power.

The Stock Profits of Obamacare

Click here to access article by Catherine Austin Fitts from her website The Solari Report.

For those of you who don't own stocks and follow stock charts, the top of this chart provides information for a recent one day performance of one ETF -- ignore this. The actual chart below this information is what she is using to show how various medically related ETFs have performed since March 22, 2010 when the Affordable Care Act (aka "ObamaCare") was signed into law by Obama. The data she provides below this chart divides this long period into two periods: before the Supreme Court declared its legality and after. In the first period the stocks generally did well, but it is in the second period where the stocks dramatically accelerated in value. 

She draws one obvious inference for why the Obama administration so aggressively promoted this legislation. There are also others such as appealing to liberal voters for political support for the left-wing of the capitalist ruling class, and to improve the image of the US which was previously negative in comparison to many other industrialized nations who have universal health plans provided at low cost to the government. 

Elections

by Stephanie McMillan from her website.

Kaiser Report on Sept. 3, 2015

Click here to access these 27:34m discussions among Stacey Herbert, Max Kaiser, and Michael Hudson on RT.

In this special episode of the Keiser Report from New York City, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the ‘frack now, pay later’ economics of a desperate energy sector. In the second half, Max interviews Michael Hudson, author of Killing the Host, about how the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate sectors compromise our economies.

I've only had time to listen to a part of both segments, but the content looks very informative about rent issues and the concentration of wealth.

Europe's Refugee Crisis And The Warped Morality Of David Cameron

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

It is not only Syrians who are heading for Europe and the UK but also people from Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Countries that Britain has helped to devastate as part of the US-led long war based on the Project for a New American Century and the US right to intervene unilaterally as and when it deems fit under the notion of the US ‘exceptionalism’ (better known as the project for a new imperialism - the ‘Wolfowitz Doctrine’).

Leaving the suffering of millions of refugees aside for the moment, I am beginning to wonder if European workers are stupid, or what could account for their toleration of policies which damage their economy like the Russian sanctions and places other burdens on them like this refugee crisis. (Such problems do not directly affect American workers, so maybe there is some excuse for their tolerance.)

The New Colonialism: Greece and Ukraine

Click here to access article by Jack Rasmus from TeleSur. 

The new colonialism as financial asset transfer takes several practical forms: as wealth transfer in the form of interest payments on ever rising debt, in firesales of government assets sold directly to the colonizer’s investors and bankers, and in the de facto takeover the colony’s banking system and bank assets in order to transfer wealth to shareholders of the colonizing country’s private bankers and investors.

Ramos then goes on to explain to us how these weapons of the "new colonialism" inflict destruction on countries like Greece and Ukraine.

The Mythology of Work: How Capitalism Persists Despite Itself

Click here to access this book review by Orlando Hill from CounterFire (Britain). 

Peter Fleming, the author of this book, was on his way to work when suddenly he had an epiphany: the costs of attaining and holding a job offered  by the "owners" is externalized onto the worker themselves. For workers a job has become an all-consuming expense and project that all other activities of life must be subordinate to. Also with the advent of cellphones and emails, work for many, especially in the middle class, has become a 24 hour job. The only escape is to be sick, and that appears to be under attack. 

Say Goodbye to the Holocene Epoch

Click here to access article by Xraymike79 from Uncommon Thought Journal.

The author, who usually posts his articles on his own website (Collapse of Industrial Civilization), is finally getting attention from other websites that post articles of authors who are critical of the social and economic arrangements of our existing world. 

Notwithstanding the armchair technotopian dreams of a future world that includes driverless cars, zero-point energy, and asteroid mining, we are living at the peak of capitalist industrial civilization which produces a continual flood of products promising to improve and enhance our lives but which, in the end, only complicate them. We are trapped between mindless consumerism and the thoughtless destruction of the environment.

US/NATO Embrace Psy-ops and Info-War

Click here to access article by Don North from ConsortiumNews. 

This veteran journalist reviews the history of censorship, psy-ops, the attacks on journalists which has led to the official recognition of such practices with the recent publication of the Pentagon’s new “Law of War” manual.

As reflected in a recent NATO conference in Latvia and in the Pentagon’s new “Law of War” manual, the U.S. government has come to view the control and manipulation of information as a “soft power” weapon, merging psychological operations, propaganda and public affairs under the catch phrase “strategic communications.”

This attitude has led to treating psy-ops – manipulative techniques for influencing a target population’s state of mind and surreptitiously shaping people’s perceptions – as just a normal part of U.S. and NATO’s information policy.

Later in the article North reports how this new strategy was expressed in "Newspeak" at the NATO conference in Lativia.

On Aug. 20, some of the most influential minds from the world of “strategic communications” gathered in Latvia’s capital of Riga for a two-day conference entitled “Perception Matters.” A quotation headlined in all its communications read: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed” – noble sentiments perhaps but not always reflected in the remarks by more than 200 defense and communications experts, many of whom viewed information not as some neutral factor necessary for enlightening the public and nourishing democracy, but as a “soft power” weapon to be wielded against an adversary. 

Lebanon Protest Leaders Reveal Connections To Western Color Revolution Apparatus

Click here to access article by Brandon Turbeville from Activist Post. 

Because we live in a globalized world dominated by the US-led capitalist Empire, this is vital information that all activists need to study simply because the same methods will be used here in the US as elsewhere to support their interests of power and profit, and to prevent any genuine movement to overthrow the rule of the capitalist class. 

In this article the author builds on a previous article entitled "Color Revolution In Lebanon Designed To Weaken Hezbollah, Syria, Iran" by providing us with more information to support his argument that what is happening currently in Lebanon is to a large measure guided by the subversive methods of what has become known as a "color revolution" project. The same methods met with success in places like Georgia and Ukraine, and now there is considerable evidence, which Turbeville supplies, that they are now being applied in Lebanon.

...all of these aspects – shadowy reasons like “government corruption” for protesting, lack of demands, violence, and infiltrators – are hallmarks of a color revolution. So are the clever marketing strategies of “Branding” that see a protest movement, allegedly organic and spread across so many differing and various sectarian groups, develop a mutually agreed upon name for itself so early on.

The most telling aspect of whether or not a movement is actually a color revolution, however, is the “leadership” of that movement and the connections that leadership may have to the color revolution apparatus.

In the case of the You Stink! Movement, those connections are becoming increasingly visible.

The author then provides us with some very interesting information about the ties of several of the leaders of this "You Stink! Movement" to US funded agencies.

Turning national parks into corporate profit centers

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

Dolack provides disturbing evidence that this process is already underway. Under corporation control the public parks will be relaxing restrictions on mining, drilling, timber harvesting, and cattle grazing. As government, which is essentially owned and controlled by the capitalist class, imposes more austerity cuts on park services, this trend is likely to accelerate.

Given the corporatization of ever more commons, we may yet be visiting Golden Arches National Park or Disneyland Dinosaur National Monument. Even if the most extreme right-wing plans to auction off public lands don’t ever come to fruition, ongoing neglect can only promise creeping corporate colonization of the United States National Park system.

Commercialization is still relatively minimal in national parks, but worrying signs are there.

Added to this corporate threat, global warming is also damaging public parks.  

Take the Money and Burn: How CEO Pay Accelerates Climate Change

Click here to access article by Chuck Collins from the Post Carbon Institute.

Unfortunately, after providing considerable evidence that major corporations are undermining all efforts to contain global warming by reducing reliance on fossil fuels, Collins then naively urges us to support a divestment campaign which he hopes will change their ways. This is a good way to defuse dissent this capitalist controlled website, which looks to me like it is funded by major foundations and the rich, away from any effective actions against an industry that is vital in creating profits and power to our capitalist masters.

Return to Crisis: Things Keep Getting Worse

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from CounterPunch. 

Although the capitalist ruling class has learned some lessons from the 1929 economic collapse, they are stuck in an economic system that serves only one tiny class at the expense of the vast majority of society. Given that an economy is a crucial part of a society as a whole, an economic system that serves only one tiny segment, whose policies often conflict with the interests of the vast majority, inevitably collapses periodically. 

Let's examine only one of the most important institutions controlled by the ruling class--the Federal Reserve which is owned and overwhelmingly controlled by the ruling capitalist class. They control the issuance of our currency: how much is issued, to whom it is issued, and what it is used for. 

What capitalists live for, and on, are profits from their investments in "ownership" of economic enterprises both productive and financial. The latter serve the former by lending money to the former and to investors. The Fed serves all of them by issuing money for investment whether such investments are socially useful or not--it doesn't matter as long as profits can be achieved. To cite one of the worst examples, the lending of money could be for enterprises involved in the manufacture of weapons, even weapons of mass destruction.  

Profits become an obsession with a capitalist class because it not only gives them tremendous wealth, but even more importantly it gives them overwhelming power over all institutions of society. With the Fed under capitalist control the Fed gives them the opportunity to issue money in the form of loans to capitalist investors who are obsessively looking for opportunities to realize profits. Whitney in this article explains how these loans have recently been used for a new purpose: to prop up their failure-prone system.

Cop Watch: protecting neighborhoods from the police

Click here to access article by Jelle Bruinsma from Reflections on a Revolution.

To protect their neighborhoods against police violence, Cop Watch groups in the U.S. patrol and document police activity, hoping to abate the harassment.

As an introduction Bruinsma writes:

Police brutality and harassment are problems in all modern [capitalist] societies. Those at the lower ends of class and race hierarchies stand a much higher chance of being targeted, brutalized, and ultimately killed by the ‘forces of order’. Irrespective of the country they live in, their neighborhoods are heavily patrolled and can often look like occupied territory. From Italy to the United States, from the Netherlands to Brazil, lives have been destroyed.

But of all western countries, none stands out so much as the United States. 

And in conclusion the author cites some critically important factors in defending communities from police who are controlled by the ruling capitalist class:

One key requirement for the success of any such project, however, is a civil society that cares. Spreading videos of brutalities is making an appeal to the moral consciousness of the viewer. Documenting incidents can help, but has to be supplemented by dedicated organizing by groups across the spectrum.

Corbyn and challenges to political power

Click here to access article by Jonathan Cook from his blog.

This British independent journalist provides us with his views of the unusual candidate Jeremy Corbyn to lead the Labor party by reviewing some comments from another critical Brit, Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan. More importantly Cook informs his views with a "structural" analysis (by which he means a class analysis) of British history since WWII which illustrates why so many people, mostly middle class people, joined the ruling class in order to enhance their careers and fortunes.

I have only one criticism, a sort of pet peeve of mine directed against many social critics, when Cook makes this statement:

Hard as it is to recall today, the NHS was long presented as a radical, dangerous idea – reminding us how crazy ideological assumptions can comfortably dominate even democratic systems. 

This sentence and much of his analysis seem to represent an oxymoron. His analysis indicates that capitalist societies are fractured into classes with a dominate class or ruling class which determines broad social policies. So, how can such a class governing system dominate a democratic (egalitarian) system if the latter is genuine? Of course the "democracy" in Britain and elsewhere is fake. It was devised by the ruling capitalist classes to fool ordinary people into believing that they enjoyed some meaningful participation in government.

Either his, along with many other social critics, concept of democracy is so stunted and corrupted by his ideological conditioning or he simply doesn't understand class (or "structural") analysis. I think both. If he thoroughly understood class analysis, he would understand that Corbyn, if he is genuine, could never be elected to lead a country ruled by a capitalist class that would never tolerate his leadership. They will find a way to destroy him--if he is genuine. (For a more elaborate explanation of my views on Jeremy Corbyn, see my commentary at this post.)

The ISIS Conspiracy: Origins (Part 1)

Click here if you wish to access introduction and 12:44m video by Brandon Martinez directly from Non-Aligned Media. 

In the first part of a series, Brandon Martinez of Non-Aligned Media unravels the murky origins of ISIS and unveils how the group’s meteoric rise in Iraq and Syria is a continuation of US psychological warfare designed to facilitate the Zionist-Neocon agenda of toppling seven sovereign Middle Eastern and North African States. [my reference link]

How the US Can Stop ISIS Without Setting Foot in Syria

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

After offering the obvious explanation as to how the US could stop ISIS, he concludes what many other independent observers have argued:

ISIS is both a creation and intentional perpetuation of US foreign policy. Just as the US so many years ago colluded with Saudi Arabia in the creation of Al Qaeda in the mountains of Afghanistan in the first place, it to this day colludes with its regional allies to use Al Qaeda and its various rebrandings – including ISIS – to fight wars Western troops cannot fight. This includes dividing and destroying Syria – the overtly stated, true objective of US policymakers.

Total War in Yemen Totally Ignored by Western Media

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

One might ask how – in the context of international law – it is possible for unelected absolute autocracies like Saudi Arabia and the UAE to intervene militarily in Yemen with naval blockades, aerial bombardments, and now an overt ground invasion including armor columns to restore an ousted regime. This is done with seemingly little concern from the United Nations and with the enthusiastic support both politically and militarily of the United States.

The answer to this question becomes more confounding still when considering Western condemnation of Russia for any attempt to support or defend the ousted government of Ukraine, a nation now overrun by NATO-backed Neo-Nazi militias who in turn are backing a criminal regime in Kiev which includes foreigners assigned to cabinet positions and even as governors. Saudi and UAE military aggression in Yemen makes it increasingly difficult for the West to maintain the illusion of moral superiority regarding Ukraine.

Russia’s relative restraint when compared to US-backed aggression on the Arabian Peninsula exposes once again the pervasive hypocrisy consuming Western legitimacy.

This may be yet another reason the Western media refuses to cover the events unfolding in Yemen.

Why Iran Won’t Double-cross Russia

Click here to access article by F. William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook. (Note, modified slightly for clarity at 6 PM.)

Given all of his compelling reasons to support the thesis stated in the headline, I am wondering why the Empire concluded this nuclear deal with Iran unless it was a setup for renewed hostile actions against Iran. 

Events since then have suggested a major reason for the Empire in concluding this deal. First, there was the agreement with Erdogan's government in Turkey (who have their own reasons), to use their airbases and together with Turkey to wage a pretense of campaign against ISIS, but in reality a military campaign against Syria. Thus with the Iran nuclear agreement and the lifting of sanctions by the UN, Empire directors saw the Iran deal as a way to neutralize Iran in their efforts to topple the Syrian government, and more recently to support Saudia Arabia's war in Yemen which has stepped up. As Eric Draitser argued in his balanced assessment of the Iran deal:

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the harsh sanctions and restrictions on Iran gave it far more freedom to act independently in the region as it was exposed to far less economic risk. Were Iran instead cooperating with the West, it is a virtual certainty that the Syrian government would have long since fallen, and Syria would be a failed state similar to Libya or, at best, a puppet state of Turkey.

The importance of this point should not be understated. Iran’s lack of economic engagement with the West allowed it to grow into the counter-terrorism force that it has become in the region.

The Illusion of Choice: 90% of American Media Controlled by 6 Corporations

Click here to access article by Vic Bishop from Waking Times. 

It is worth repeating again and again that the bulk of America’s mainline media is owned and controlled by a mere 6 corporations. This, of course, means that unless you’re already consciously avoiding these mainline media sources, then most of the news and entertainment that makes it onto your screen and into your mind comes from a small pool of corporate sources, all of which play important roles in delivering propaganda, social programming and perpetual crisis narratives to the public.

Most of the data presented in this article is based on data from 2011, and thus needs to be updated. Still, according to Wikipedia six corporations control 90% of the US media today. However this obscures the fact of overlapping ownership in addition to overlapping boards of directors in these corporation. Due to the tendency for capitalism to treat everything as a commodity to be bought and sold for profit, even companies are regarded as commodities which results in this ever changing and complicated ownership data. 

Of course even common sense and the viewing of TV "news" programs, one can arrive at essentially the same conclusion. By hopping from one corporate TV station to another, one encounters much the same content delivered in a slightly different style.

Occasionally I've seen reports about CIA placing news stories with media corporations to manage the perceptions of people. For example, former CIA boss General Petraeus stated in 2006 that his strategy was to wage a war of perceptions conducted continuously through the news media. Reports of the CIA using social media have also recently surfaced. I've even read credible reports that CIA agents have been placed at all major media outlets (although I can't locate the sources immediately).

If things continue to get worse for the ruling capitalist class, who knows but that the Empire directors will follow the advice of a West Point professor as reported by The Guardian in an article entitled "West Point professor calls on US military to target legal critics of war on terror". 

Central banks step in to prop up global financial bubble

Click here to access article by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site. 

...the wealth of the financial elite cannot come from nowhere. Ultimately, the continual infusion of asset bubbles is the form taken by a massive transfer of wealth, from the working class to the banks, investors and super-rich. The corollary to the rise of the stock market is the endless demands, all over the world, for austerity, cuts in wages, attacks on health care and pensions.

Nowhere are these processes more clear than in the US. 

Michael Hudson’s New Book: Wall Street Parasites Have Devoured Their Hosts — Your Retirement Plan and the U.S. Economy

Click here to access a book review by Pam Martens from Wall Street on Parade.

In his new book, “Killing the Host,” Hudson hones an exquisitely gripping journey from Wall Street’s original role as capital allocator to its present-day parasitism that has replaced U.S. capitalism as an entrenched, politically-enforced economic model across America.

This book is a must-read for anyone hoping to escape the most corrupt era in American history with a shirt still on his parasite-riddled back.

What Martens and Hudson and other such critics fail to understand and are concerned about is that we live in a system called capitalism which inevitably results in the accumulation of wealth by a tiny group of capitalists amid billions of poor, and such a system cannot sustain societies or their economies. It's not because of "greed" or parasites--it is endemic to the system of capitalism. It is only now when middle class people (people with retirement plans) are being adversely affected that liberal critics are alarmed. 

Obama hails “entrepreneurial” transformation of New Orleans

Click here to access article from The Greanville Post.

In a well-deserved attack on the appearance of Obama in New Orleans to celebrate the 10th anniversary of New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina, the authors write:

Obama’s remarks paid little heed to the solemnity of the occasion, the worst natural disaster in American history, with more than 1,800 killed in five states, and one of the country’s iconic cities, a historical center of both culture and commerce, virtually destroyed.

Instead, Obama used the occasion to celebrate, in an unseemly, even grotesque fashion, the supposed successes of the capitalist system, both in America as a whole, and in New Orleans in particular.

“Saving America?” No, Donald Trump Is a Clinton Operative

Click here to access article by Melissa Dykes from The Daily Sheeple.

Quite a number of people have speculated that the Donald Trump candidacy for president in the Republican party is all a part of setup to clear the path of any Republican candidate that could derail the shadow government's long planned installation of Hillary Clinton for the Executive Office. Of course, this is an example of a conspiracy theory. So, should we just dismiss it with the pejorative statement that it is just a "conspiracy theory" like we are urged to do by those in our ruling class that attempt to hide their conspiracies? There are good theories and bad theories depending on the evidence and arguments assembled to support it. I think that Dykes assembles both in support of this conspiracy. Read the article and see what you think.

...if anyone ever had half a chance in Hell of changing anything in this country, rest assured The Powers That Shouldn’t Be would not let that person anywhere near the Oval Office. The last time this country had a president that tried to change things, that person got his brains blown out in front of the entire country.

But here’s what actually going on.

The only problem I have with her analysis is a problem that I have with many American critical observers: they use euphemisms like "aristocracy" or "powers that be" in place of a meaningful identification like the "ruling capitalist class". This practice serves to hide the reality of class rule which helps to maintain the fake democracy indoctrination of this ruling class.

Forget China, Here’s What’s Really Frightening U.S. Stock Investors

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

These two indefatigable investigative journalists who specialize on Wall Street issues point to two problems that are contributing to the economy's current doldrums: corporations buying back their own stock with near zero rate loans (under the Fed's "quantitative easing" policies) and a recurrence of "dodgy practices" that brought down the economy in 2007-2008. 

Native Americans and US Scorched Earth Continuum

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from LIBYA 360°.

This independent Irish journalist provides an historical perspective on mainstream media reports of an accidental toxic spill of waste water from a disused gold mine in Colorado. Could this have been a deliberate ploy to take over more land that appears to have valuable minerals?

Earlier this month, on August 5, a huge toxic spill of waste water from a disused gold mine in Colorado made international headlines when it flowed into several major rivers. Less publicised is that the contaminated waterways are vital for irrigation and drinking water in the Four Corners territory, upon which the Navajo people depend for their livelihoods.

Considering the history of the ruling capitalist class in America in taking by various means the lands from Native Americans, this contention seems plausible.

The historical precedent is also strongly indicative of a nefarious purpose. The history of Washington’s dealings with Native American nations is one of treachery, chicanery and genocide on the altar of capitalist exploitation orchestrated from corporate-controlled politicians sitting in Washington.

This summary statement hides such 19th century crimes as deliberately distributing blankets that were inflected with smallpox and other diseases to Native Americans in order to kill them.

Nowadays, according to the almost daily reports I receive, US, Canadian, and British mining corporations backed by their governments are engaged in many acts of genocide against native peoples in Central America for the same purposes.

Pentagon Needs More Money To Counter Chinese Submarine Threat

Click here to access article by Billmon from Moon of Alabama. (satire)

This is an example of the military orientation of our ruling class who with the aid of defense contractors, empire builders, and Zionist agents have adopted general policies that look more and more like what we witnessed in fascist countries and fascist circles in Allied countries that led to WWII.

Stock winners and wage losers

Click here if you wish to directly access the cartoon by Dan Wasserman from the Boston Globe. 

Notice: Wind Storm -- power outage

Because of the strong wind storm that occurred yesterday over the Seattle region, electric power was knocked out just minutes before I was to publish (upload) my article. I will publish at this time (7:00 AM, Sunday) and will publish Sunday's articles later today by noon.

Europe in Free Fall

Click here to access article by "The Saker" from The Unz Review.

The author offers a view from a European perspective and the European failure to cope effectively with many of their problems.

The sad reality is simple: the EU is a US colony, run by US puppets who are simply unable to stand up for basic and obvious European interests.

Up until the late 1980s, there used to be some more or less “real” opposition “Left” parties in Europe. In fact, Italy and France the Communists almost came to power. But as soon as the Soviet system collapsed, all the European opposition parties either vanished or were rapidly co-opted by the system. And, just as in the US, former Trotskysts became Neocons almost overnight. As a result, Europe lost the little opposition it had to the Anglo-Zionist Empire and became a “politically pacified” land. What the French call “la pensée unique” or the “single thought” has now triumphed, at least if one judges by the corporate media.

Black-out on tobacco's access to EU trade talks an eerie indication of TTIP threat

Click here to access article from Corporate Europe Observatory.

This European corporate watchdog have discovered that not only are the TTIP negotiations (the neoliberal trade agreement affecting Europe and the US) done in secret (held with corporate representatives, but hidden from the public), but documents related to these negotiations are heavily redacted from public representatives that are allowed access to the documents.

Looting Made Easy: the $2 Trillion Buyback Binge

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from CounterPunch.

Whitney fills us in on a story missing from mainstream media: what the recent plunge in stock prices really mean for the pensions of retired people and those looking forward to retirement.The practice of gambling with pension funds is only another illustration of the predatory nature of capitalist class rule that hides behind a pseudo-democratic facade.

Corporations are taking the retirement savings of elderly public employees and using them to inflate their stock prices so wealthy CEOs and their shareholders can enrich themselves at the expense of their companies. And it’s all completely legal. Under current financial regulations, corporate bosses are free to repurchase their own company’s shares, push stock prices into the stratosphere, skim off a generous bonuses for themselves in the form of executive compensation, and leave their companies drowning in red ink.

Even worse, a sizable portion of the money devoted to stock buybacks is coming from  “massively underfunded public pension” funds that retired workers depend on for their survival.

Big Easy to Big Empty: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans

Click here to access this introduction to a free (but asking for donations) 25 minute video made by independent investigative journalist Greg Palast.

The film is an antidote to all the corporate produced coverage of the Katrina disaster that happened 10 years ago. Corporate executives hired by the ruling capitalist class don't want you to know the gross corruption and racism of their government. Instead, they want you to be inspired as well as misinformed by all the recovery that has occurred since the disaster. I also noticed that the recovery they are celebrating in ruling class media (NBC-TV, CBS-TV, ABC-TV, NPR, PBS) all reference work done not by the government, but by non-profit enterprises organized by ordinary people. 

And, of course, they exaggerate the amount of recovery work that has been done, but worst of all, they omit coverage of the government's poor construction of the levees (which was well known by engineers), the government's lack of post-Katrina recovery operations, and the destruction of an entire community, many of whom still remained scattered all over the country. This film tells a significant part of the real story missing from mainstream media: an unnecessary disaster laced with racism and capitalist exploitation.

China Rails Linking Eurasia

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

This American geopolitical analyst, who has lived in Germany for decades and has recently made several trips to China, gives us a report on the high-tech development of rail technology which appears to be the backbone for what many analysts have labeled as a grand "New Silk Road project" linking Asia with Europe. The Empire directors consider this as a direct challenge to their control of world, and thus it presents a dangerous threat of moving beyond a new cold war into a nuclear conflagration.

What is most impressive to me in my many visits to China over the past years is the extraordinary sense of doing things, of their countless building projects, something we in the West long ago had forgotten about in our post-industrial fantasy world. This drive to change their physical surroundings is emerging with impressive scale around President Xi Jinping’s highest-priority, the so-called One Belt, One Road Eurasian high-speed rail project.

China today has the world’s longest High-Speed Railway network with over 16,000 km (9,900 mi) of track as of December 2014, more than the rest of the world’s high speed rail tracks combined. China’s high speed rail system also includes the world’s longest line, the 2,298 km (1,428 mi) Beijing–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway. In short, China knows what it is doing in railways more than pretty much anybody and they are acting on that knowledge.

This development may also herald a new phase in China's development from a low cost factory for world into an export driven high-tech economy.

The image of millions of Chinese sweating away in low-paid textile labor for cheap exports is rapidly passing as the government’s current five-year plan aims to make China an exporter of high-net-value-added industrial and technology products. Rails are at the center of that strategy.

What is remarkable is that many Western economic analysts blame their recent hysteria-driven market collapse on China's economic slump.  Reliable independent journalist and geopolitical analysts like Pepe Escobar sees China's recent economic decline and market drop as only a temporary correction to an overheated Chinese market while also revealing the unstable nature of the West's economies that are based on neoliberal policies.

Migrant crisis in Europe: Who caused it?

Click here to access article by the editor from Workers World.

The corporate media’s coverage omits the back story. Why? Because this story exposes the role of imperialism and the major imperialist countries. 

Assemblies for Democracy: A Theoretical Framework

Click here to access article by Richard Gunn, R.C. Smith and Adrian Wilding from Assemblies for Democracy (Britain).

In their actions against the Greeks, capitalist leaders in the Eurozone have inadvertently taught many activists all over the world that even the largely fake version of capitalist "democracy" doesn't matter when it conflicts with the interests of international capitalists. It was a wake-up call to all those activists who thought that working within the existing system could bring ameliorative relief from neoliberal austerity policies. This has invigorated many activists to study more radical solutions to the rule of international capitalists in this new neoliberal stage of capitalism. This article is an illustration of this kind of effort.

General elections are top-down events: attention focuses on political parties and their leaders. Personalities and success or failure move centre-stage. Policies get a mention, but are assessed like moves in a game of chess. Can this top-down perspective be reversed? Can a form of politics be found which retains a grassroots or ‘bottom-up’ emphasis?

In these notes, we attempt to do two things. We explain why, in our view, this question is important. And we explore challenges that a grassroots politics must face.

The Zapatistas on Elections and a Look Toward the Capitalist Hydra

Click here to access article by Zapatistas from Upside Down World. 

From reading this piece by the Zapatistas, it is clear that the rest of the world's activists have much to learn about participating in capitalist elections, self-governing, and bottom-up political structures from these people in Chiapas, Mexico.

Referring to naive leftist activists and reformers in their area, they say this:

You can see that they don’t realize that that if they get rid of the bad parts of capitalism, then it won’t be capitalism. And I’m going to tell you why: because capitalism is the exploitation of man by man, of the many by the few. Even if they include women, it’s the same. ....

But there are more than the two ways that they describe (the armed path and the electoral path) to get into government. They forget that the government can also be bought (or they’ve already forgotten how Peña Nieto got there?) And not only that, but perhaps they’ve also forgotten that it’s possible to rule without being in government.

If these people say that it’s only possible with weapons or with elections, the only thing that they’re actually saying is that they don’t know their history, that they haven’t studied well, that they have no imagination, and that they have no shame.

It would be enough for them to see just a little of what happens below. But their necks are already cramped from looking up so much.

That is why we, the Zapatistas, don’t get tired of saying organize yourselves, let’s organize ourselves, each person where they are, let’s struggle to organize ourselves, let’s work to organize ourselves, let’s begin by thinking about how to start to organize and let’s gather together in order to unite our organizations for a world where the people command and the government obeys.

Cracks in Correísmo?

Click here to access article by Alejandra Santillana Ortíz & Jeffrey R. Webber from Jacobin. 

Political observers on the left especially have portrayed much of South American politics has moving in an independent, leftward course from controlling influences of the US. In recent years there have been some disturbing signs that the countries leading this progressive movement (Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela) have stalled and actually have moved in a rightward direction toward emphasis on extractive industries, export crops, and other compromises with international and domestic capitalist interests. 

The authors of this piece appear to have captured the complexities of politics in these countries with special focus on Ecuador. This is in sharp contrast to the views expressed by some left political observers such as the view expressed by the peripatetic political observer Andre Vltchek who visited Ecuador earlier this summer and came away with a right-wing backed by Empire subversion scenario. The authors of this article refute this simple "color revolution" perspective. Referring to an opposition march that was held earlier this month, the authors of this article write:

The accusation by the government that this march is trying to overthrow Correa is pure alarmism. Sections of the Right are probably thinking about this. The Left understands that what they need to do in this moment is to position themselves, to recover the political initiative.

The government is receiving ideological support from international organizations like Intellectuals in Defense of Humanity, including prominent Latin American left figures such as Marta Harnecker and Atilio Borón. The idea they have is to come out consistently in favor of progressive Latin American government because of the threat of imperialism. And it’s true that there is external financing directed to the domestic Ecuadorian right. I don’t doubt this whatsoever.

But it’s myopic to believe that the dynamics of Ecuador are determined by this financing, and that popular social organizations in this country are merely puppets of some external force, without their own capacities to enter into political struggles.

I think there is still important work to be done in terms of unveiling what kind of government Correa represents.

Smoke and Mirrors

Click here if you wish to access the transcript of this interview with Michael Hudson conducted by the Real News Network and posted on Hudson's website.

So the problem is in the real economy, not the financial economy. But Lawrence Summers and the Federal Reserve all of a sudden say look, we don’t care about the real economy. We care about the stock market. And what you’ve seen in the last few years, two years I’d say, of the stock run-up, is something unique. For the first time the central banks of America, even Switzerland and Europe, are talking about the role of the central bank is to inflate asset prices. Well, the traditional reason for central banks that they gave is to stop inflation. And yet now they’re trying to inflate the stock market. The Federal Reserve has been trying to push up the stock market purely by financial engineering, by making this low interest rate and quantitative easing.

Hudson made the startling claim that Summers and the Fed don't care about the real economy (or the society in which it is embedded) and that they just want to make easy money gambling at their casinos.  But wait...haven't we been told by all kinds of authority figures in schools, media, entertainment--actually everywhere--that when capitalists make money, we all benefit? Could it be that all these honorable, upright people were stupid or even lying? (sarcasm)

You may also be interested in a longer interview with Hudson on the Democracy Now! show in which he made similar comments about the recent Wall Street stock slump and touched on other subjects such as China's economy and political candidates running in US elections. Hudson in the last paragraph suggests that capitalists (he refers to them as financiers) control our government, that elections don't matter. Shocking! (sarcasm)

...you have Wall Street people basically running politics, whether they’re the actual politicians—Obama didn’t work on Wall Street, but he worked with the real estate families. No matter who the president is, they’re going to appoint Treasury heads and Fed, Federal Reserve, heads from Wall Street. Wall Street has a veto power on all the major Cabinet positions, and so, essentially, the economy is being run by the financial sector for the financial sector. That’s the problem with politics in America today. 

Iraq War General Ray Odierno Cashing In With New Job at JPMorgan Chase

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

Here we see the latest example of how integrated the military-industrial-financial complex is at the nerve center of the Empire. This US war criminal, instead of facing a war crimes trial, is being rewarded with an important job with a leading financial institution. Never mind that his actions created millions of Iraqi refugees and many deaths in the illegal invasion of Iraq. This is a continuing lesson to other generals: follow the diktats of the capitalist class directorate and you will be rewarded regardless if they consist of war crimes.

Odierno rose to become U.S. Army chief of staff in 2011, and in that role was a consistent public critic of plans by the Obama administration to draw down troop levels from their post-9/11 peaks. He has also been a steadfast defender of the original decision to invade Iraq, stating earlier this year that Saddam “was moving toward terrorism and I believe if he continued to have problems, we don’t know what he might have done in terms of being part of the problem with terrorism.”

Odierno is far from being the only top military official to retire and take on a high-level position with a private sector firm.

Meanwhile, "back at the ranch" where mostly ordinary citizens hang out, a few liberals who serve the capitalist class are getting upset that we are losing all our civil liberties which they thought were guaranteed by that piece of paper called the Constitution. Such people, like John Whitehead, are alarmed about the fascist direction in which the country is heading. In the following quote his use of "we" seems very ambiguous. Is he shaming ordinary people by declaring that "we" are at fault for this, or is he shaming the ruling class that he has served so faithfully?

...not only are we developing a new citizenry incapable of thinking for themselves, we’re also instilling in them a complete and utter reliance on the government and its corporate partners to do everything for them—tell them what to eat, what to wear, how to think, what to believe, how long to sleep, who to vote for, whom to associate with, and on and on.

In this way, we have created a welfare state, a nanny state, a police state, a surveillance state, an electronic concentration camp—call it what you will, the meaning is the same: in our quest for less personal responsibility, a greater sense of security, and no burdensome obligations to each other or to future generations, we have created a society in which we have no true freedom.

Or maybe he wants to divert our attention away from the class nature of our society by suggesting that we all live in an egalitarian society in which we all participate equally in creating the conditions of our society. 

Visual of Global Military Expenditures

Click here to access article by Robert Barsocchini from his blog Empire Slayer.

Global Military Expenditures

I believe that the huge US military establishment is also a major factor propping up the value of the dollar, in addition to the US's Mafia-like arrangement with Saudi Arabia and vassals to sell their oil only in US dollars in return for US protection. After all, if you were a major capitalist or head of an oil producing medieval kingdom with billions to guard, where else would you want to store your loot  than with the biggest capitalist bully in the world in the forms of US government and other securities?

US vs China: US-Backed Mobs Seek to Overthrow Malaysian Government

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

This very astute geopolitical American analyst who is based in Bankok, Thailand has uncovered evidence that the US is trying to do another regime change in Malaysia in addition to neighboring Thailand.

Malaysia's Bersih movement is yet another example of so-called American "soft power" in action. The use of US-organized and funded street mobs to carry out political destabilization and regime change has likewise transpired in similar fashion in Thailand through the use of US-backed Thaksin Shinawatra and his "red shirt" street mobs, and in Myanmar with Aung San Suu Kyi and her legions of anti-Rohingya, violent "saffron monks."

The goal is to string together a united front across all of Asia with which to encircle and contain China's rise.

Central Banks Have Become A Corrupting Force

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts and Dave Kranzler from Roberts' website.

Although the article is not dramatically revealing of new information, the co-author, Roberts, is so highly qualified to write on this issue that I am posting it. The authors' central argument illustrates how the ruling capitalist class, especially with their ownership/control of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, can get around any legal restrictions in order to support their failure-prone system and keep it going. 

An American dystopia

Click here if you wish to access the post directly from Moon of Alabama. 

The battle for your hearts and minds in Fallujah

Click here to access article by Ross Caputi from Insurge Intelligence.

This author has a personal relationship to the subject he's writing about judging by the bio that is offered.

Ross Caputi is an anti-war activist and Iraq War veteran. He served as a US Marine from 2004 to 2006, including during the Sirst Siege of Fallujah in November 2004. He became openly critical of the military and was discharged in 2006.

Ross holds an MA in Linguistics and is on the Board of Directors of the Islah Reparations Project. He is the director of the documentary film, Fear Not the Path of Truth: a veteran’s journey after Fallujah, and has written for The Guardian, Truthout, and Middle East Eye, among others.

He introduces his subject by reporting on the current bombing of Fallujah, Iraq by both US and Iraqi air forces, and how this is being reported in US media. The rest of the article is devoted to explaining how information is presented to the American public by the military section of the Empire's capitalist class in order to manage their perceptions. By focusing on the current bombing of Fallujah and how this is being reported in mainstream media, Caputi contributes to the understanding of the highly developed techniques used on us to obtain our consent, or at least neutralize our opposition, to the Empire's criminal acts of war. Thus, this analysis might fall generally under the subject of management of consent/dissent that the classic book Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky brought to the attention of activists in the late 1980s. 

And I notice this morning that others are following up on their work. I'm referring to a collaborative work entitled Managing Democracy Managing Dissent (2013) published by Corporate Watch a London based cooperative which is devoted to journalism, research and publishing. I especially like their book's introductory announcement which offers a broader perspective on these information management techniques that Caputi writes about and which contribute to the pervasive indoctrination efforts by the capitalist class in education, media, entertainment to manage what we think about their fake version of "democracy" .

Democracy was once considered a dangerous new idea and a threat to ruling elites. It brought to mind fearful images of oppressed masses demanding social and political equality. Fast forward to today and democracy is a key method by which the inequality and injustices of capitalism are legitimated and popular consent engineered. Despite the fact that capitalism can tolerate neither equal access to decision-making or truly open dissent, and in fact prioritises profit-making above all social or environmental concerns, we are nonetheless persuaded to believe that capitalism is, or at least can be, democratic. Now a new book – published by Corporate Watch – uncovers how this contradiction is sustained, and the anti-democratic rule of capitalism protected.

The volume includes examinations of the inherent contradiction between genuine democracy and corporate capitalism, the use of corporate media, the entertainment industry, and celebrity activists as propaganda vehicles, the attempts to co-opt and neutralise NGOs and social movements, the demonisation and repression of unco-opted dissent, and the imperialist agendas behind so-called 'democracy promotion' interventions.

The capitalist transformation of rural China: Evidence from “Agrarian Change in Contemporary China”

Click here to access article from Chuǎng. 

Because I have posted articles by Jeff Brown who is an American living in China and whose articles are very favorable toward the Chinese government and their control of capitalist operations (for example, see this), I am also looking for other perspectives on what is happening in China. While trying to discern where the authors were coming from I learned from the "About" section that the authors could be contacted at chuangcn@riseup.net. Riseup.net is an anarchist collective based in Seattle, but has participating members elsewhere. So, this suggests that the article takes an anarchist perspective. I've only had time to superficially scan the summaries of articles he writes about from the Journal of Agrarian Change which appears to be an international academic journal devoted to agricultural issues (see this and this).  

Despite so much attention being spent on the woes of the Chinese stock market and currency wars, in other fields the Chinese state continues its liberalizing reforms. Over the last few years the state has pushed forward with its attempt to scale-up and capitalize agriculture, and Li Keqiang recently argued for the need to “industrialize agriculture.”1 This has led to a debate concerning the character of rural social and production relations. Some continue to claim China is not a capitalist social formation, and rural China and its land system are taken as major pieces of evidence. But this stance can no longer be maintained. Chinese agriculture is undergoing a rapid transformation as it is subsumed by capitalism. In order to understand rural China and contemporary peasant conflicts, therefore, we need to focus our attention on the processes of agrarian change and class differentiation that capitalism brings to the rural sphere.

A recent special issue of the Journal of Agrarian Change (volume 15, issue 3, July 2015) makes this clear. The issue deals with “agrarian change” in China since the late 1970s and especially focuses on the increasing capitalist transformation of agriculture and rural society over the past decade. The eight articles offer new insights into the changing terrain of social and environmental antagonisms in China today, which have implications for how we conceive of anti-capitalist intervention there and elsewhere. Below we summarize points of interest from each article. In the forthcoming first issue of the Chuang journal, we elaborate on points raised here and relate them to other debates to draw out their political implications.

As 2015 smashes temperature records, it's hotter than you think

Click here to access article by David Spratt from Climate Code Red (based in Australia).

We in the Northwest of the United States are experiencing record temperatures, a lack of rainfall, and numerous wildfires. I've been breathing smoky air during the last few days as the smoke from the wildfires in eastern Washington state drifts to the west over the Cascade mountains. Nearby fisheries which have already been harmed by the warm temperatures are causing unusual effects on sea life. Severe restrictions have been placed on harvesting of sea life, an important industry in Puget Sound. Of course, this not the only place that this is happening--it's a global phenomenon.

Yes, it is a strong El Nino period, and it may drop back for a short while, but 2016 could be just as hot and we may be entering a new phase of accelerated warming.

I agree. I think that we are only witnessing the first stage of a runaway climate. I'm no climate scientist, but I have been following scientific reports on climate change--rather than corporate media reports--and I sense that climate feedback loops are now in operation. For example, the widespread wildfires are sending huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere which contributes to the carbon blanket in our upper atmosphere which, in turn, is elevating our planet's temperatures creating optimal conditions for more wildfires. Another example: the thawing of the grounds in Siberia and North America releases methane which adds an even stronger greenhouse gas to the blanket which contributes to the acceleration of global warming.

I also think that the puny efforts that our masters in the capitalist One Percent are making can only slightly delay one disaster after another due to accelerated climate destabilization.

The Age of Imperial Wars

Click here to access article by James Petras from Information Clearing House. 

Like the wildfires appearing everywhere in eastern Washington state and Oregon, this retired professor provides a survey of mini-wars and chaos spreading throughout the globe. Meanwhile, the politicos in the US ruling class directorate and their cronies are threatening more in the future.

War is everywhere and expanding:  No continent or region, big or small, is free from the contagion of war.

Imperial wars have spawn local wars . . . igniting mass flights in a never-ending cycle.  There are no real diplomatic success stories!  There are no enduring, viable peace accords!

The Guardian Gets it Wrong on Latin America Again

Click here to access article posted by J.C. from TeleSur.

J.C. exposes the false reporting by a major British media company well known for its left-wing capitalist (aka "liberal") orientation. I have generally followed events in Ecuador and have known about these demonstrations, some of which are peaceful, some genuinely opposing the policies of exploitation of Ecuador's oil and mining resources, and some are based in the right-wing that are opposed to any of Ecuador's public expenditures and taxes on the rich policies. But recently there was a violent protest by an environmental group such as depicted in this video which reminds one of what occurred in Ukraine before their government was overturned in a right-wing coup. (See also this, this, and this.)

As the narrator in the video asked, can you imagine such a protest in the US? The police would simply respond with more violence up to, and including shooting the demonstrators like they did to unarmed, non-violent student protesters during the Vietnam War.

Could it be that a US regime-change project targeting Ecuador is in operation? Well, they certainly have motives to get rid of President Correa's administration because of his refusal to follow orders from Washington, his many criticisms of US policies, and his protection of Julian Assange in their London embassy.