Dirty Hands on Dirty Deals: TTIP and COP21 Shaped by Same Big Business Interests

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

This British author who resides mostly in Barcelona, Spain provides an excellent introduction to a much longer report from Corporate Europe Observatory.

Everybody who cares about issues of sustainability and human coexistence with the natural environmental is being told to invest all their hopes and energies in December’s COP21 summit. Finally the people of the world are coming together to mend their ways and build a cleaner, more sustainable planet Earth. At least that’s the pretext.

But what if it’s all bullshit?

As our capitalist masters pretend to protect us from the threat of climate destabilization, they keep on squeezing out their profits from the Earth and its workers while polluting the atmosphere blanketing the Earth and the oceans. They do this because they are addicted to profits and power. The big question is: how much longer are we going to allow this tiny group of drug addicts to continue with their profitable activities while the climate becomes increasingly unstable and prone to extremes of weather. I can just hear one of these addicts respond: "So what? We can just move to another planet after we wreck this one." 

Just today we learn of the latest monstrous hurricane off Mexico's western shore. 

Next it is headed for Texas and nearby areas:

Once this system moves inland, mid-level moisture and energy from it may get pulled into the south-central U.S. This may add more fuel to a heavy rain and flooding threat in Texas and nearby states this weekend.

Commodifying the Oceans

Click here to access a 55 minute interview conducted by Sasha Lilley of KPFA, a listener sponsored radio station in Berkeley, California, with environmental sociologist Stefano Longo. Longo is a co-author with Rebecca Clausen, and Brett Clark, of a recently published book entitled The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture.

The oceans are in turmoil, but unfortunately most of it is out of sight and therefore out of mind. Environmental sociologist Stefano Longo explores the multiple threats to the oceans, from overfishing to coral reef collapse to ocean acidification. He weighs in on whether the notion of the “tragedy of the commons” is sufficient to explain the roots of the crisis.

Longo challenges conventional explanations for the demise of fish populations, that this is consumer driven or caused by commonly held properties (“tragedy of the commons”), by arguing for another explanation: the capitalist system drives production in order to produce profits.

Shadow Sovereigns - How Global Corporations are seizing power

Author Susan George is president of the Transnational Institute which is a leading organization that has been exposing for a long time the growing power of transnational corporations. 

Renowned scholar activist Susan George introduces her new book, Shadow Sovereigns - How Global Corporations are seizing power.

She explains how corporations have taken over all branches of the government as well as international governance, in particular through trade treaties such as the proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Ecomodernism is Anti-Progress – A View from Asia

Click here to access article by Chandran Nair from Degrowth (based in Germany). 

The author takes on the widely publicized myth that technological progress will enable capitalists to both eat the Earth's cake and have it too. Capitalists have apparently employed well educated and indoctrinated middle class people across the world to spread this propaganda. One such international group, who call themselves "ecomodernists", are actively promoting it. Nair argues that it is simply a myth.

Eco-modernists must recognise a simple fact – that simply calling for the decoupling of human activity from environmental impact will not in itself drive technological change to finds solutions. One can only hope that they do not also simply believe that the developers of technology are committed to finding these solutions, because they are driven by some altruistic motives or a higher calling. That is not how the world of technology and investments work. It will need a whole new way of organizing ourselves around the reality of a resource constrained world. And that requires a new socio-economic and political narrative about sustainability, individual rights, freedoms and the role of the state, much of which will fly in the face of current day western led narratives about capitalism, free markets and democracy. ....

A new economic model must therefore account for three major adjustments: First, it must accept limits to growth in a resource constraint world and thus ensure that resources are priced to reflect their true cost. Second, the economy needs to be subservient to maintaining the vitality of the resource base, and not the other way around, as it is now. Third, an effective economy for the 21st century must weigh collective welfare over individual rights. But how do we get there?

Unfortunately, Nair seems to think that the world's capitalist governors and their subservient populations can do the right thing simply by being informed by Nair and others that "ecomodernism" is a myth. He accuses ecomodernists of being naïve, but I think that he has topped them when he makes such an argument. His argument "defies logic and the prevailing evidence" which is much more abundant than the myth being spread by these people.

Black Lives Matter: The Real War On Terror

Click here to access article by Ashoka Jegroo from TeleSur.

...the police terror imposed on the oppressed within the U.S. is intricately tied up with state terror imposed on the oppressed around the world. One cannot decry the 1985 bombing of the Black radical group MOVE by Philadelphia cops and then approve of the U.S. bombing people in Afghanistan and Yemen today, and vice versa. These shared oppressions and their connected histories demand that the struggle against U.S. state terror be further internationalized. Steps have been made to connect Black Lives Matter with the struggle of the Palestinians and with the victims of state violence in Ayotzinapa, Mexico. This needs to continue and expand to other oppressed peoples. The protests must also continue too. But the harsh repression of Black Lives Matter by local and federal authorities, along with the lack of substantial progress made, shows that more radical tactics will have to be employed.

Harper's gone. Trudeau is in. The struggle continues.

Click here to access article from No One Is Illegal-Toronto.

Although Canadians voted for a lessor evil in their recent elections, the author of this article advises against any complacency.

While many rejoice at the end of the Harper government, we also know that the new Liberal government must be met with radical, collective, strategic organizations, and mobilizations if we are to improve the lives of our communities.

The Liberal Party has governed Canada for about half of Canada’s existence, and is responsible for half of the grave injustices we now face, including but not limited to the coup in Haiti, cuts to the national housing plan, and the creation of the temporary foreign worker program and the Canada Border Services Agency. Thus it is clear to us that this new change in government will not result in the collective transformation we require.

Hitler on Syria

My thanks to "The Saker" for alerting me to this (slightly altered) film clip put together by "Dom Rice". It is truly hilarious! It is a perfect piece of satire because it contains so much truth.

Monopoly capital

Click here to access article from occasional links & commentary.

...monopoly capitalists don’t strive to increase their accumulation to the maximum extent possible. Instead, large portions of the surplus they are able to appropriate from their workers and otherwise capture with their monopoly pricing power is used to acquire other portions of capital (through mergers and acquisitions), to engage in lobbying and funding its desired political candidates, to pay dividends to stockholders, and to pay enormous incomes to corporate executives and other members of the “professional-managerial” class who produce some of the conditions of existence of monopoly capital.

It is the middle class who mostly benefit from employment by the ruling capitalist class to maintain the latter's system. Much of capitalist profits go to propagate their propaganda in media, education, and even entertainment, and to sponsor elections and candidates so that the American people are fooled into believing that they live under a legitimate type of democratic governance.

“Unconscionable and indefensible” – U.S. 10-year offer to LDCs for pharmaceutical patent waiver

Click here to access article by Sangeeta Shashikant from Third World Network.

The United States’ offer to least developed countries of a 10-year transition period to grant pharmaceutical patents is  “unconscionable and indefensible”, according to six influential US non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

In a letter dated 19 October to President Barack Obama, the NGOs conveyed this strong criticism in view of the public health and other developmental challenges facing least developed countries (LDCs).

The letter states, “We fail to understand why the US, alone, continues to oppose LDCs’ demand – a legally sound and justified request for a pharmaceutical transition period for as long as they remain LDCs”.

Stern warns that humanity is at climate crossroads

Click here to access article by Kieran Cooke from Climate News Network.

Professor Nicholas Stern warns: “Whatever way we look at it, the action we need to take is immense.”

If governments delay taking decisive measures to halt greenhouse gas emissions, he is convinced that a tipping point on climate will be reached. “In Paris, we need recognition of what we need to do − and how radical that change will be.”

As the UN Climate Conference in Paris starting on November 30th approaches, I've notice Obama making noises about environmental concerns. I like Stern's warning about a tipping point, but I am not at all optimistic about any significant reductions in carbon pollution of our atmosphere from these talks. I saw what happened in 2009 in Copenhagen, and I know that only a dramatic cut in production of useless things and a major plan to equably distribute needed things simply is not compatible with the requirements of capitalism. So we can have capitalism or we can have a biosphere that can sustain human life, but we can't have both. Guess which option our masters will choose?

The VA, Another American War We Don’t Talk About

Click here to access article by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor at Veterans Today.

This author depicts the way our capitalist masters "support our troops"--or don't.

As a 100% combat disabled veteran and editor of the largest military and veterans new site, I have spent years dealing with abuses and fraud at the VA.  The body count for the VA itself is actually higher than any war, they kill more American veterans than wars have ever killed of our military.  If only I were making this up, and I am not.

For those who are unaware, there is a pecking order at the VA.  Only those who are 100% disabled, something the hierarchy makes it almost impossible to qualify for, get all available treatments.  Processing a compensation claim for a totally disabled veteran can take years.  Mine took 12 years, the oldest I have worked on has taken 43 years.  Many take 25 years.  In most cases, the veteran dies while waiting for appeals.

US, allies responsible for Syria’s destruction: Ex-intelligence linguist

Click here to access 2:13m video and associated article from Press TV. 

Chalk up another victim for the serial war criminal enterprise known as the US Empire. Scott Rickard expresses clearly what most Americans hate to admit, but most informed people already know. 

Should you have any doubts about this, just read the latest information about another recent US war crime furnished by independent sleuth and blogger Bernhard from Moon of Alabama in an article entitled "Why Is The U.S. Silently Bombing Syria's Electricity Network?". 

We learn from Red Pill Times the latest news from Syria in their article entitled "Battle for Aleppo begins. Syrian army ready to take on Obama’s Al Qaeda terrorists forces". We also learn from this article how dangerous the situation is with the US bombing anything which supports the Syrian government while Russia is bombing those who are attacking the government.

12:33 PM addendum: For an excellent hour long discussion of what is happening in Syria and nearby areas from the perspective of the US Empire, Russia, and China and perceptive insights about the US's deep state, I highly recommend that you listen to the following. However, what they overlook is the capitalist structure, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, which has created this monster of a deep state.

Major No to GMO by Majority of EU States

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

Monsanto and the GMO agribusiness cartel have suffered a major new defeat as two-thirds of the 28 EU member states have opted for a full ban on GMO crops according to the terms of new Brussels rules allowing national decision on the toxic agro-technology. The bans across the EU greatly expand the EU acreage off-limits to GMO from the previous somewhat chaotic EU procedures.

Jerusalem chaos is a warning of things to come

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

The steady erosion of Fatah and Hamas’ authority during the post-Oslo years, as the Palestinian factions proved incapable of protecting their people from the structural violence of the occupation, has driven Palestine’s orphaned children to the streets, armed with stones.

The growing hopelessness and sense of abandonment have led a few so-called “lone wolves” to vent their fury on Israelis with improvised weapons such as knives, screwdrivers and cars. These attacks have attracted the most publicity, becoming the equivalent of the second intifada’s suicide bomber. But they serve chiefly as a barometer of Palestinian despair.

If They Can Afford To Buy Elections...

by "larryldye" and borrowed from imgflip.

The cartoonist doesn't seem to realize that corporations buy candidates for both parties and sponsor elections in order to reduce their taxes and for many other self-serving reasons. They sponsor elections to fool people into thinking that they have real choices and are participating in some kind of democracy. This is much more cost effective than using a police state apparatus to enforce their will. 

But, just in case people wise up, they have constructed a police state (the Patriot Acts, 24/7 surveillance, militarized police forces, etc) that is ready to quash any resistance. You see, they don't take any chances to allow for change. The worst nightmare they have is that the people will kill the goose that lays their golden eggs of profits and power--capitalism!

Capitalism and technology and Stephen Hawking

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

Hawking provides an insightful answer to a question relating to issues of technological unemployment in this brief article. 

US Pacific Hegemony vs. a Rising China

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

The author reviews the sordid history of Western capitalists as they plundered Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries as a context for understanding what China is doing today to defend itself. All this ends up arguing for a multipolar world where peace and happiness reigns just like what we experienced toward the middle of the 20th century when the Anglo-American Empire, the fascist countries, and Russia constituted another multipolar world.

Three Rich Treasury Secretaries Laugh It Up Over Income Inequality

Click here to access article by Zack Carter and Ben Walsh from the Huffington Post. 

This article is a little late in that it predates my one month posting rule, but it is so good at exposing the attitudes of people who really rule over our country.

The article and video pertains to an excerpt from a longer discussion, entitled "The Global Economy: A Conversation with Timothy Geithner, Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin”, sponsored by the Milken Institute held in April of this year at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles.

Can’t Anyone Fix This?

Click here to access article by James Howard Kunstler from World News Trust. 

Please forgive me for running this article which is dripping with cynicism. You see, I, like you, have good days and bad days. Today I am having the latter. But don't worry, most days I try to be optimistic about the prospects for humans to take control of their lives, their societies, and change things for the better. There is one paragraph in the article that rang so true with me, and I couldn't resist posting the entire article.

What perhaps ought to be more alarming is the way that the two major parties are lining up to be a men’s party and a woman’s party, a perfect acting-out of psychological archetypes in a society churning out millions of lost souls year-by-year. The American people apparently want a Daddy to fix all the broken systems and they want a Mommy to reassure them that everything will be all right. Hillary, of course, wants to be both, but her problem is that a lot of voters won’t accept her as either.

Do you get the feeling that our capitalist masters are playing the Americans for fools? And are we?

Israel Receives $3.1B In US Aid While The Middle East’s Poor Struggle To Survive

Click here to access article by Kit O'Connell from Mint Press News.

...while the Middle East struggles through a historic refugee crisis, Israel is using U.S. taxpayer money to fuel its war crimes against Palestine and oppression of refugees.

The $3.1 billion dollar figure is aid already given to Israel in 2015. From today's report in World Socialist Web Site we learn:

General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, flew to Tel Aviv Sunday to discuss a 10-year military aid package worth some $3.7 billion a year. The pledge of increased American military support came in the midst of an increasingly brutal Israeli crackdown on Palestinians within both the occupied territories and Israel itself.

Of course, the poor in the US would also like to have a piece of this money, particularly the elderly like me: I struggle to live on $1100/month Social Security benefits. Our schools, teachers, and highways, bridges, etc. could also use this money,

Russia’s Awesome Responsibility

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

Let me be clear about my posting of this essay--I think it is abominable! But because Engdahl has written many articles that helped us clarify various geopolitical issues--and I have posted many--I am posting this piece because he is so influential as an alternative geopolitical analyst from the usual capitalist funded analysts. This morning I debated on whether to waste my time on it or to attack it. What I ultimately decided was to rather briefly point to the most obvious flaws in his arguments.

He states near the end of the essay (which I think should have been placed near the beginning) a rather self-serving observation which, of course, does point to a little more than a grain of truth:

A deep study of history then can tell us volumes about what forces Russia, Germany and the world face today.

The only problem with this aphorism is that their are many histories and certainly not all of them are true primarily because most of them have been written by the powerful, and secondarily because of the limitations of any one historian. Only people, who can use a reasonable amount of independent judgement and agree on historical facts, can judge whether any given historical fact is true. And I think his understanding of history as expressed in this piece is riddled with inaccuracies. Thus, his conclusion based on this flawed history cannot be trusted, or at least not be taken at face value. The conclusion he, like many well indoctrinated middle class intellectuals, is essentially arguing is that a multipolar capitalist world will bring peace, social justice, and prosperity to all.

He repeats what I have heard said by those whose obvious motivation was to undermine Russian history and to create cynicism among activists. These history mischief-makers allege one incident as historical fact without presenting any reference to credible evidence, and then use it to generalize about the entire Russian revolution! In this piece Engdahl even omits the alleged historical fact, but simply points to the generalization, without any supporting documentation.

Wall Street and the City of London financed Leon Trotsky, Lenin, and the Bolshevik Revolution essentially as they did Boris Yeltsin after 1990, to open up Russia for looting and balkanization by favored western companies.

I suspect that this undocumented generalization is derived from the above mentioned alleged historical fact that I have heard repeated numerous times, from people whose motives I questioned, is that various rich capitalists, often the Rockefellers, paid expenses for Lenin and Trotsky to return to Russia to foment revolution. But then, consider this: it is an indisputable fact that around 13 capitalist nations invaded Russia immediately following their revolution and many of these nations also funded the White armies opposing the Bolsheviks. So how can the repeated allegations about funding the trip expenses of Russian revolutionary leaders or Wall Street, etc funding their revolution be reconciled with this historical fact? 

If true, this can be easily explained by what has been frequently observed among capitalists: they use their money to try to co-opt antagonists in order to eventually control them. Often they succeed, but they certainly failed with the Russian revolutionaries. So, Engdahl appears to use what is essentially a rumor to generalize that "Wall Street and the City of London financed Leon Trotsky, Lenin, and the Bolshevik Revolution". Is this an illustration of a "deep study of history"?!! 

Now for those of you who are new to this website, please do not infer from my above commentary to conclude that everything that Engdahl argues is wrong, or that I dislike Putin's and Russia's policies and actions in Syria. No one likes a bully, and the US (ruling class directorate) has not only been acting like a bully, no, much worse than that--like a serial war criminal. This time the bully is having his comeuppance.

Exxon's Profits versus Climate Destabilization

Cartoon created by Pat Bagley and posted on Occasional Links & Commentary.

For an excellent background report on Exxon's history as depicted in this cartoon, read at least Part 1 of a five part series of their history entitled "Exxon: The Road Not Taken" posted on Inside Climate News. 

Lessons for the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Click here to access article by Mark Weisbrot from The Cipher Brief. 

There are many lessons from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that are relevant to the current debate over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). First, like the TPP, NAFTA was never mostly about trade and even less about free trade. In 1994, the U.S. already had low tariff barriers to Mexican goods. The agreement was much more about creating and expanding new rights and privileges for investors, mostly multinational corporations.

TTIP Is a ‘Revolution Against International Law'

Click here to access article by Nick Dearden from Common Dreams. 

The article reports warnings from the UN human rights expert Alfred-Maurice de Zayas regarding the secret trade agreements.

He believes the privileges which big business is gaining through trade agreements like TTIP “constitute an attack on the very essence of sovereignty and self-determination, which are founding principles of the United Nations.”

The ‘corporate courts’ system is “a Trojan horse” threatening “a privatized system of dispute settlement, outside and contrary to … the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Google degenerates into Ministry of Truth; all knowledge must now be pre-approved by search algorithm

Click here to access article by Jonathan Benson from Natural News. 

Gone are the days when you could search Google and pull up neutral, relevant content appropriate to your search query. The search engine giant is reportedly pioneering a new search algorithm that will tailor search results not based on popularity or accuracy, but rather on what Google itself deems to be truthful or untruthful.

The world's new "Ministry of Truth", Google believes that screening and censoring information requested by its users will help avoid "websites full of misinformation" from showing up at the top of the search list.

Multipolarism Solves Syria at the Source

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

I regard Cartalucci as one of the very best geopolitical analysts who are using their writing skills to promote a more just and peaceful world. This piece, I think, represents one of his best efforts. He lays out his thesis in the first paragraph, then develops it by cogent arguments supported by linked-to evidence, reaches conclusions, and then looks ahead at the implications of his analysis for future efforts to create a more just, peaceful world.

However, he, like many other progressive writers, characterizes this latter world as a "multipolar world". Most such writers implicitly mean a world governed by at least several independent nation-states. It doesn't seem to really matter to them whether these nation-states are themselves fractured into antagonistic class divisions causing innumerable problems within these societies. Cartalucci tries to cover himself from this accusation by stating in the second to the last paragraph this rather startling sentence:

A multipolar world not only means a distribution of global power, but also a distribution of global responsibility and wealth. And this extends not only to nations, but also states and provinces, as well as communities and even individuals.

This is where I think he misses a stark reality preventing any solution to accomplishing a more just and peaceful world. This general statement, which he fails to develop, glosses over the role that capitalism plays in fracturing societies, pitting classes against each other, and ultimately nations against each other in wars for dominance and exploitation. 

Until humans become conscious of this core problem, no solution is possible for a just and peaceful world. We will keep floundering around and wasting valuable time by creating solutions that lead to dead-ends; meanwhile the more immediate threat of a nuclear conflagration will likely occur, and if not, then we humans will be disappeared from the face of the Earth by climate destabilization.

Putin is Defeating More than ISIS in Syria

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

Today the picture is changing, and profoundly. It is Washington that is on the defensive, exposed for the criminal actions it has been doing in Syria and across the Middle East, including creating the recent asylum crisis in Germany and large parts of the EU.

Engdahl uses the words of Putin at the UN and the actions of the Russian air force to reveal what the article's headline means:

The Obama Administration has been training terrorists of Al Qaeda/Al Nusra, allegedly to fight ISIS, much like the disgraced General David Petraeus did in Iraq and Afghanistan along with Obama’s special ISIS coordinator, the just-resigned General John Allen. The US-trained “moderate” terrorists were being readied, it’s now clear to all the world, in reality, to battle Assad and open the way for a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Syria and a real plunge into darkness for the world if that were to succeed.

Now, with the truth in the open, exposed by the remarkable successes of a handful of Russian fighter jets in four days against ISIS, accomplishing more than the US “anti-ISIS coalition” in more than one year, it is clear to the world Washington has been playing a dirty double game. [my emphasis]

Seeds of Freedom from The Gaia Foundation on Vimeo.

A landmark film narrated by Jeremy Irons. Find out more at www.seedsoffreedom.info
    
The story of seed has become one of loss, control, dependence and debt.
It’s been written by those who want to make vast profit from our food system, no matter what the true cost.
It’s time to change the story.

Produced by The Gaia Foundation and the African Biodiversity Network, in collaboration with MELCA Ethiopia, Navdanya International and GRAIN.

Thanks to all those involved in making this film possible.
Produced & Directed by Jess Phillimore
Camera - Jess Phillimore, Jason Taylor, Damian Prestidge.

The Devil’s Chessboard: The Rise of America’s Secret Government

Click here to access the 40 minute interview conducted by Democracy Now! with author David Talbot about his recently published book and what he discovered about Allen Dulles, the long reigning CIA Director, who was involved in all kinds of nefarious activities including the Kennedy assassination. The blogger at Raging Bull-Shit introduces the must-view videos (with transcripts) of this very fascinating interview.  

I regard Allen Dulles as a key figure in the rise of the post-WWII shadow government controlled by a fascist oriented section of America's ruling capitalist class. The seeds for this shadow government were first planted in the 1930s after Franklin Roosevelt took office following the devastating economic crash of 1929. 

FDR had deep historical roots in the early history of the US: his Dutch ancestors settled in the New York area when it was known as New Amsterdam. He was a true member of America's capitalist aristocracy: he was born into wealth and privilege that had been obtained by his ancestors. Such people often exhibit more benign traits often described as "noblesse oblige", a French term borrowed from the reign of the French monarchy and aristocracy, which suggests that a rich and powerful person should be charitable and generous toward the poor. He expressed this attitude through the many programs he promoted, called the New Deal, in which the government employed people to work on public projects, and through social legislation like Social Security, labor laws favoring unions, etc. But he also imposed restrictions on banks and corporations to prevent them from creating another crash of the economy. Most of the capitalist class rabidly opposed spending money on the New Deal, hated unions, and they certainly didn't like restrictions on their activities

Thus you will learn from Talbot about the attempt to recruit Gen. Smedley Butler to lead a coup against Roosevelt. But Butler was no fan of Wall Street, and he reported them to members of Congress who, knowing who really employed them, held hearings on the event behind closed doors where this infamous attempted coup was quietly dealt with and covered up. (Read Jules Archer's excellent book entitled The Plot to Seize the White House.)

This was during a time of radical activity and a growing split between the outrageously rich amidst multitudes of poor, not only in the US, but in all capitalist countries. Many workers in these countries took their inspiration from the Soviet revolution in 1917 and noticed that no unemployment existed in the Soviet Union. The ruling classes in all the capitalist countries were terrified of this new radicalism that threatened their very existence, thus they turned increasingly to authoritarian methods known as fascism to control the threat posed by the vast numbers of disgruntled unemployed workers. 

Overt fascist parties sponsored by capitalists came to power in Germany and Italy, and became a potent force in the other so-called "democratic" countries like France and Britain. In the US they hid behind the label of isolationism and used this as an excuse to oppose any efforts to impede fascist powers in Europe. Some of these fascists showed up in the infamous Dies Committee in Congress. Because of the strong fascist influence among European capitalist classes, Nazi Germany easily overran European countries.

Anderson Cooper: Opposing Illegal CIA Wars Is Unelectable

Click here to access article by Robert Naiman from Huntington Post.

This article illustrates a number of political characteristics about the US: use of corporate media to promote capitalist ruling class views on the populace, the futility of working through the so-called democratic legal process to keep our ruling class government from intervening in the affairs of other countries and supporting subversive movements in these countries, and the infiltration of corporate media by those who have served in the CIA.

I have a personal connection with the events that this article describes. I, as an activist in the early 1980s, made two trips to Nicaragua and learned first hand the destruction by US funded and organized terrorist army known as the Contras of medical clinics and schools setup by the Sandanista government. I heard reports of the atrocities committed by this terrorist army first-hand from Maryknoll nuns who were helping to staff many of these popular social projects. I was also active in supporting the Boland Amendments to the appropriations bill to the Defense Department that was passed in 1982 and which was strengthened in 1984. 

The conservative Reagan administration discovered another source of funding for their nefarious project of overthrowing the Sandanista government by selling arms to Iran in violation of another law prohibiting such sales.

This experience taught me my final lesson about the US ruling class directorate: they will violate any restrictions imposed upon them--even laws enacted by their own official government--when they want to pursue their interests. I learned that they are perfectly willing to violate laws that restrict them from organizing and funding terrorist armies to overturn any government that pursues popular policies that interfere with their agendas of profits and power throughout the world.

“We estimate that the top percentile now own half of all household assets in the world.”: 2015 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report

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

Is The End Of Independent News In Sight?

Click here to access article by Graham Vanbergen from TruePublica (Britain). 

The author points to considerable evidence that our capitalist masters are closing down the internet for independent bloggers like myself and channeling news and information through "the cyber 'ghettos' of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram".

Don't Get Berned Again. Bernie's Bribes.

Click here to access article by John V. Walsh from LewRockwell. 

The fundamental problem with Sanders’s campaign is that it is based on bribery, and an especially immoral sort of bribery at that.  For Bernie promises more social benefits IF we, the beneficiaries, let him continue the Empire’s warfare – both economic and military.  That is a most unsavory sort of bribe.  Basically he gives us butter if we give him guns to kill innocents.

The way I see it is that elections are rather much like everything else in the US: a lot of fakery and manipulation to cover over our capitalist ruling class's true agenda which I have long believed to be their consistent fixation on profits and power. 

Yes, within this ruling class there are differences of approach as to how to achieve these twin goals. The liberal end of their political spectrum are lightly constrained by considerations of basic human decency, whereas the right-wing are filled with sociopaths who are not at all constrained in their passions for profits and power. It is the old story of the lessor of two evils, and elections are held so that we can choose between their evil servants. 

What is new is that the political spectrum of our ruling class is constantly shifting to the right. While we may want to choose a lessor evil among the candidates that they offer us, we are still supporting evil. And even if we choose a less evil official candidate, that person is really an employee of the ruling class and answers to them. Therefore we must constantly strive to search for the real masters behind the puppet show called elections in order to see what evil plans they are making and the resulting consequences we will be forced to live with. 

The only real solution is revolution, so don't take these election performances seriously. Sure, if it makes you feel better, vote for the lessor evil. But don't let your comfortableness deter you from more revolutionary activities of revealing the truth about all the lies of our masters, spreading this truth, raising consciousness among your friends and neighbors, etc. They know they cannot impose all their evil plans on the world if the American people don't support them. That is why they go to such great lengths to deceive us. Most importantly, we must work to build this consciousness because it is the foundation of any real revolution.   

Snowden and Allies Issue Warnings as Australia Unleashes Mass Spying

Click here to access article by Nadia Prupis from Common Dreams. 

Looks like much of the advice could apply to us in the US.

A Half-A-Billion-Dollar Waste…Or Was It?

Click here to access article by Andrew KORYBKO (USA) & Hamsa HADDAD (Syria) from Oriental Review. 

The lies of our official leaders become evermore convoluted as they pile lie upon lie to try to hide their criminal policies and actions in Syria and nearby region. The authors examine recent statements by government officials who attempt to "explain" their "failed" policies as simply a mistake at best, and government bungling at worst. The authors, by framing these recent "explanations" in the context of known government policies and actions in the region during the past decade, these official explanations look more and more like a propaganda cover-up of the Empire's true intentions--overthrowing the legitimate government of Syria.

Needling Obama for More Wars

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews. 

As demonstrated by Steve Kroft of CBS’ “60 Minutes” in his contentious interview with President Barack Obama, a key role for the mainstream news media is to enforce whatever warmongering “group think” dominates Official Washington, such as today’s perceived need to escalate U.S. military involvement in Syria and hit back against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

I happened to view some excerpts from this interview, and I immediately saw this as a carefully designed attempt to goad the Obama administration into attacking Russia forces. This would have shocked me a decade ago, but the use of corporate media to currently shape American consensus toward objectives corresponding to those of right-wing forces has become so obvious to anyone who follows independent media.

However, it occurred to me that this hostile attack on the current restrained policies of the administration might signal an attempt by the lunatic right-wing in the US to take control of the government's imperial policies. And maybe the recent admissions by government officials of gross "mistakes" in training and equipping "Syrian rebels" might also be such an effort to undermine support for the "moderate" section of the ruling class directorate. Let us pray that this isn't so. 

[Late addendum] Also, see this article "The GOP’s Benghazi scam is exploding in its face: Why the latest stunning revelations will only make Republicans more extreme" posted on Salon. 

As Russia Bombs ISIS, US Bombs Syrian Civilian Power Stations

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

In yet another telling episode, the United States has again demonstrated its true position in regards to ISIS and the Russian bombing of the terrorist organization.

As Russian forces drop bombs and missiles on top of ISIS fighters all across Syria, lobbing cruise missiles from the Caspian, regular sortie missions, and combat helicopter attacks against ISIS and other “relatively moderate” cannibals and terrorists, the United States launched a bombing mission of its own against two power plants in Aleppo.

Public services under attack through TTIP and CETA

Click here to access article posted on Corporate Europe Observatory.

The article is a summary of a 45 page report (PDF) issued by a group of European NGOs and trade unions.

[The report] shows the aggressive agenda of services corporations with regards to TTIP and CETA [Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement] pushing for far-reaching market opening in areas such as health, cultural and postal services, and water, which would allow them to enter and dominate the markets. And it shows how those in charge of EU trade negotiations are rolling out the red carpet for the services industry, with both the consolidated CETA agreement published in September 2014, as well as drafts of TTIP chapters and internal negotiation documents that reflect the wishlists of corporate lobbyists.

US, Russia & Syria: The Problem With Faking It

Click here to access article by Thomas S. Harrington from Common Dreams. 

The great danger of faking your ability to do something in the public square is that someone with an actual desire to the job you are pretending to do might come along and show you up.

This is what has just happened to the US in Syria with the entrance of Russia into the fight against ISIL.

.... You see, the US strategic goal in Syria is not as your faithful mainstream media servants...might have you believe to save the Syrian people from the ravages of the long-standing Assad dictatorship, but rather to heighten the level of internecine conflict in that country to the point where it will not be able to serve as a regional bulwark against Israeli regional hegemony for at least another generation.

How do we know? Because important protagonists in the Israeli-American policy planning elite have advertised the fact with a surprising degree of clarity in documents and public statements issued over the last several decades.

The sowing of chaos among Arab peoples leading to the fragmentation of their nations has long been a consistent Zionist policy in order to promote Israel as a dominate state in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the professor does not provide links to the documents. Here they are: "The Iron Wall" (1923) by Vladimir Jabotisnky; "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East" (1982) by Oded Yinon ; "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" (1996, but first published for public consumption in 2006).

Then in 2007 we see how shocked Gen. Wesley Clark was to find out over the course of several visits to the Pentagon after 9-11-2001 what the real, operative policies were in the Mid-East. He, like most Americans, was thoroughly indoctrinated in the official version of how our government functions.

If it wasn't before, it is now clear that our government has been following the Zionist plan all along while professing humanitarian concerns. I'm not necessarily suggesting that Zionists control our government's foreign policies--there could be just a convergence of interests: Zionists want to dominate the Middle East while US Empire planners want to have Israel as their military fortress in the Middle East to help control the region's oil resources.

US Senate Hearing Discusses Using Refugees as Human Shields in Syria

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

With the Empire's deceptive "humanitarian" policy toward the Syrian people in disarray and their fake war on ISIS apparent after only a week of Russian attacks on the latter's bases, Cartalucci digs up information regarding desperate measures that the Empire's strategists are now considering. There seems to be no limit to their depraved imaginations.

The Final Leaked TPP Text is All That We Feared

Click here to access article by Jeremy Malcolm from Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Today's [Friday 10/9/2015] release by Wikileaks of what is believed to be the current and essentially final version of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) confirms our worst fears about the agreement, and dashes the few hopes that we held out that its most onerous provisions wouldn't survive to the end of the negotiations.

Any pretense of a democratic government must have as a prerequisite a government that provides unfettered access to journalists about what it is doing so that the people can hold their governors accountable. Sadly this is not the case with most any existing government, and certainly not in relation to the US government. This phenomenon is a direct result of class structured society which provides access to power by people based on some distinct characteristic. 

Under capitalism the "ownership" of economic property is this characteristic which has created a deep fissure in our society, and has caused extreme inequality of wealth and power. Those who control our society have huge concentrations of ownership, and with this comes overwhelming power to control what happens. The problem for these powerful "owners" is that they rule over a population that has been led by them to believe that our society is governed by democratic principles and therefore legitimate. 

Under the circumstance where there is a pretense of one form of government, but another form actually exists, then the requirement of secrecy is absolutely vital. Before the conclusion of WWII this was largely accomplished by the "ownership" class through their ownership of the media and their control of all other institutions. But since then we have seen the growth of secret agencies within the government to the point where very little functions as portrayed in schools, media, and even entertainment. Thus, we see people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and many other whistleblowers of government misconduct and publishers of state secrets so persecuted and hounded. Thankfully, there exists Wikileaks to help us unravel their dirty secrets.

This is what carbon climate feedbacks look like! Atmospheric monitoring shows dramatic 2015 CO2 emissions record unfolding

Click here to access article by Rolf Schuttenhelm from bits of science. 

...continued global warming will increase the likelihood of similar droughts – especially in the Amazon, leading to a positive climate feedback: elevated (fossil) CO2 emissions → higher average temperatures, increased droughts → extra (biosphere) CO2 emissions → further amplified warming, etc.

Shadow Sovereigns: Susan George

Click here if you wish to access the source post from Transnational Institute (TNI). 

Renowned scholar activist Susan George introduces her new book, Shadow Sovereigns - How Global Corporations are seizing power. She explains how corporations have taken over all branches of the government as well as international governance, in particular through trade treaties such as the proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots!

Click here to access article from the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens.

According to world famous physicist Stephen Hawking, the rising use of automated machines may mean the end of human rights – not just jobs. But he’s not talking about robots with artificial intelligence taking over the world, he’s talking about the current capitalist political system and its major players.

Oh Oil, where is thy peak?

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

I have re-posted many articles written by Engdahl relating to geopolitical analysis which have shed much light on the Empire's real policies and intentions. However, with this piece I think that he steps out of his area of competence to attack both climate destabilization forecasts and growing evidence of a Peak Oil future. He is outright dismissive of the former while concentrating his criticism of the latter view by merely citing evidence of new oil discoveries. It's quite easy to show that his arguments regarding the falseness of Peak Oil views are really quite shallow. 

While I don't regard anyone as omniscient, I am very disappointed with Engdahl's shallow reasoning on this important subject. It's clear to me that he has unquestioningly accepted one of capitalism's premises: capitalist exploitation of energy resources to produce goods for profit can continue indefinitely. Thus he picks evidence--limited to new oil discoveries--that supports capitalist ideology of growth forever. All people, especially in major capitalist countries, are subject to indoctrination in capitalist ideology, and those who spend and benefit from many years in higher education are especially subject to this type of indoctrination. This, I think applies to Engdahl. Likewise because of this conditioning, he also ignores the tremendous amount of evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is contributing to the destabilization of a climate that can support human life.

 Ignore the current glut of oil on the market today. It's the long term, at least two decades ahead, that is of concern about energy. The collapse in oil prices was caused by the decision of the medieval rulers of Saudi Arabia in collaboration with the directors of the Empire. The latter mainly wanted to undermine the economies of Russia (as they did in the 1980s), Iran, and Venezuela while the Saudi Arabian rulers mostly want to drive out competition from the smaller companies using oil-fracking technologies. 

Thus, what this current oil price collapse and oil glut perpetrated by Empire directors and their Saudi collaborators will be reversed as soon as the impacts become too negative for Saudi and/or Empire interests. The Saudi Arabian government is already taking out loans to balance their government's budget. Meanwhile, many major oil companies based in the US and Britain will simply take advantage of the situation by buying up smaller oil companies at bargain prices. This is precisely why US ruling class directors went along with the Saudis in this scheme. Thus, this incident will only register as a blip on the screen of the world's consumption of fossil fuels over the next several decades.

No serious Peak Oil theorists, as far as I know, have ever argued that accessible oil supplies are diminishing. What they have most convincingly argued is that oil sources that can be economically accessed are diminishing. I am not going to waste time by offering a comprehensive critique of his narrow view regarding Peak Oil, but simply refer to others who have studied and written about Peak Oil for years: Gail Tverberg (who is already arguing that our economies are being threatened by the high cost of energy), Chris Martenson, and Nicole Foss of The Automatic Earth. Just listen to the first 16 minutes of the following lengthy interview with Foss.

It's clear that the continued operation of economies under capitalism are running into a sharp clash with economically accessible fossil fuels, especially oil. Thus she sees simpler societies as the only solution, but this is in sharp conflict with the growth imperative of capitalism.

Campus Carry

Click here to access more of the brief article posted in connection with this cartoon by Jen Sorensen posted on occasional links & commentary.

Many faculty members in Texas are opposed to SB 11, also known as the “campus carry” law. The law provides that license holders may carry concealed handguns in university buildings and classrooms, extending the reach of a previous law that allowed concealed handguns on university grounds.

 

Zapatistas: Truth and Justice Will Never, Ever, Come from Above

Click here to access article by the Zapatistas from the region of Chiapas, Mexico.

We in the more "advanced" Western countries have much to learn from the Zapatistas--first, and foremost, are the insights contained in this article:

We as Zapatistas, women and men, did not trust those above before, nor do we now, nor will we ever, regardless of the color of their flag, regardless of their style of speech, regardless of their race. If one is above, it is because s/he is oppressing those below.

Those above have no trustworthy word, no honor, no shame, no dignity.
Truth and justice will never, ever, come from above.

We will have to construct them from below.

It's clear to me that many of us living in the "advanced" Western countries have, through many years of indoctrination and propaganda, come to accept as normal total obedience to, and trust in, the authorities who rule over us and control our lives. Their power is based on their private "ownership", under the rules of capitalism, of economies which in reality is a social legacy created by many generations of humans from the advent of human existence over 150,000 years ago. 

The Mystery of ISIS' Toyota Army Solved

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

The mystery of how hundreds of identical, brand-new ISIS-owned Toyota trucks have made it into Syria is solved. Not only has the US and British government admitted in the past to supplying them, their military forces and intelligence agencies ply the borders of Turkey, Jordan, and even Iraq where these fleets of trucks must have surely passed on their way to Syria – even if other regional actors supplied them. While previous admissions to supplying the vehicles implicates the West directly, that nothing resembling interdiction operations have been set up along any of these borders implicates the West as complicit with other parties also supplying vehicles to terrorists inside of Syria.

Saudi Arabia likely to become a failed state as oil revenues decline

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from The Parliament.

This elitist European website posts a paper by Ahmed in which he provides a variety of evidence and arguments that the head-chopping medieval kingdom will likely behead itself over the next decade. This, of course, could have all kinds of geopolitical consequences.

Russia Turning The Corner On Sanctions

Click here to access article by Kenneth Rapoza from Forbes. 

It's not often that I post articles from a prime capitalist source, but this one really amused me for its apolitical globalist capitalist view. Essentially the author is expressing a view that the sanctions imposed on Russia by the Empire may be coming to an end, and now might be a good idea to invest in Russian stocks! 

I believe this illustrates an advanced, pure view of capitalism: it is entirely globalist in its outlook--wherever profits from investments are likely to occur, that is where one should be headed with their money. Contrast this with views coming from capitalist economies outside of the Empire, places such as the BRIC countries, that are trying to pursue an independent nationalist course in a "multi-polar" capitalist world. Such a notion is in direct conflict with the Empire's hegemonic orientation. 

Thus it appears to me that there are three dominant views among capitalists today throughout the world: 1) Empire hegemonic (located in the US and their many associates in NATO countries and Israel), 2) globalist capitalist (located mostly in the US, but also in NATO countries and Israel), and 3) national capitalist (located mostly in the BRIC countries). This article, of course, illustrates the second view. However, it is the hegemonic orientation that rules within the Empire, and that view poses the most immediate and serious problem for world peace.

Meanwhile all these orientations contribute to the longer term, but very disastrous threat of, climate destabilization which likely will result in human extinction. Thus we activists must continue to chart our course toward a sustainable social-economic system between these twin threats: the Scylla of a nuclear war between major powers and the Charybdis of climate destabilization caused by capitalism's growth imperative.

The NATO-Russia face off in Syria

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from RT. 

What the Russian air campaign has already graphically exposed is the whole rotten core myth of the new Jihad International.

ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, Jabhat al-Nusra and assorted Salafi-jihadi goon squads have been kept up and running by a massive financial/logistical/weaponizing “effort” – which includes all sorts of key nodes, from arms factories in Bulgaria and Croatia to transportation routes via Turkey and Jordan. 

As for those Syrian “moderate rebels” – and most of them are not even Syrian, they’re mercenaries – every pebble in the ravaged Sykes-Picot desert sands knows they were trained by the CIA in Jordan. The desert pebbles are also aware that ISIS/ISIL/Daesh goons have been infiltrated into Syria from Turkey – once again, across Hatay province; and vast swathes of ‘the Sultan’s’ Army and police were into the game.

As for who pays the bills for the lavish weaponizing, talk to the proverbial “pious wealthy donors” – incited by their clerics - in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], the petrodollar arm of NATO. None of these goon squads could possibly thrive for so long without full, multidisciplinary “support” from the usual suspects.

Russian Airstrikes in Syria Expose Cynical US Policy

Click here if you wish to access the below podcast by Eric Draitser from Stop Imperialism. 

The real movement we need

Click here to access article by Phil of Liverpool, England from libcom. 

Phil's essay supports his major insight about the difference between grass-roots organizing versus organizing within a labor union whose operations are bound by capitalist ruling class laws.

There are too choices here. We can...build a movement in order to divert people's hope, optimism and energy to the benefit of the Labour Party. Or we can build a real movement to win improvements for our class and take on the present conditions. These two movements aren't the same. They don't even overlap. They are actively at odds.

Ecomodernism is Anti-Progress – A View from Asia

Click here to access article by Chandran Nair from degrowth (Germany).

"Ecomodernism" appears to be derived from a recently published paper entitled "An Ecomodernist Manifesto" which has been authored mostly by Western authors. Nair who was born in India and now resides in Singapore presents "A View from Asia". Ecomodernism appear to be another attempt to convince us that science and technological developments will overcome climate destabilization and environmental degradation caused by capitalism.

...the idea rooted in the modern western liberal narrative that free markets and technological advancements, coupled with individual freedoms and the singular pursuit of wealth should be left unfettered to allow for the human condition to realise its full potential, and thereby overcome all our challenges, is a lie. In many ways the ‘manifesto’ is not modern at all. It is anti-progress.

What Does Russia Want in Syria?

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

The author explains with documentation how the US capitalist Empire is using its own aggressive and expansionist actions as a propaganda weapon ascribed to Russia. With the Empire's phony war against ISIS and their lies and war crimes becoming clearer as they attempt to topple the Syrian government, their propagandists seem to be becoming increasingly desperate to hide their ultimate goals of eliminating any powers, especially Russia and China, that stand in their way of global domination. 

Once a capitalist class gains control over a nation or complex of nations such as the US dominated Empire (NATO) and become addicted to power and profits while piling on debts, there is only one way out for them: keep launching wars to secure resources, markets, profits, power, and pay off these debts; and eliminate all those who stand in their way. 

The capitalist Axis powers were another would-be Empire to attempt this, but they were up against the Anglo-American capitalist Empire. The end result was WWII. Future wars will be far more devastating and climate destabilization inevitable with the growth imperative of capitalism. With the Russian air force now active over Syria, conflict with US Empire forces has become a real possibility.

The only way for ordinary citizens to save themselves from the ravages of war and climate destabilization is to end the rule of the capitalist system and construct a new system under grassroots control and able to exist in harmony with the natural limits of a finite planet. At this point in time the future of humans does not look promising.

Yes, There is an Imperialist Ruling Class

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch. (a must-read article)

Contemporary history is neither a series of random occurrences nor the predetermined plaything of a small cabal of super-empowered conspirators. The truth is somewhere in-between. A sizeable cadre of class- and system-conscious deep-state and imperial planners from the heights of concentrated private and governmental power join together to shape the outlines of much of recent history. Along with professional class “experts” agreeable to their basic aims, they do so in accord with their shared interests in the endless upward accumulation of wealth and power. They serve the profits system that is still headquartered primarily in the United States even as it develops ever more and varied outposts across a globalizing world.

They exercise vastly disproportionate influence on the course of events and policy largely behind the scenes, in the darkly deceptive name of democracy.

At last there are people really studying the core decision-makers of the Empire and totally ignoring the facade of employed official decision-makers who hangout in Washington DC. 

Street bases this article on Laurence H. Shoup's recently published book by the title Wall Street’s Think Tank: The Council of Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014 from which he quotes extensively. 

I have been an amateur power structure analyst for most of my adult life while struggling in various jobs trying to support myself. I gave up on academia a long time ago because I felt that I would be too constrained to do any serious work. However, there are others who have managed to survive this milieu and have actually thrived. One such person appears to be Lawrence Shoup. I will definitely read his book.

How Putin will Win in Syria

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from CounterPunch. 

Whitney provides some illuminating quotes from leading Western media that cast doubts on the Empire's use of terrorist groups in Syria to remove the Assad government of Syria, and the annihilation of all these terrorists, whether Western authorities designate them as "good terrorists" or "bad terrorists", by the more serious Russian air force while complying with international laws.

Not only is Putin exacting retribution for the Empire's subversion of Ukraine, but he may be inflicting a damaging blow to the Empire's phony wars on terrorism, and more. As Whitney remarked:

As we shall undoubtedly see in the months ahead, Syria could very well be the straw that broke the Empire’s back.

Soros-Backed NGO Fakes Photos To Blame Russia For Dead Civilians

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

Are you ready for a big surprise? Another Soros-connected pro-terrorist NGO in Syria has been caught red-handed faking evidence of “crimes against humanity” allegedly committed by forces who stand in opposition to the goals of the NATO/U.S. ruling elite.

OK, well, maybe it is not a big surprise. In fact, it is not a surprise at all given that, ever since the Syrian crisis began (and in the time leading up to the crisis), NGOs have been on the ground in Syria stirring up jihadist resentment against the secular government of Bashar al-Assad and fabricating “crimes” committed by that government.

The only new development here is that the NGO, Soros-connected “White Helmets,” are claiming that the Russians are the humanitarian criminals.

It’s Alive! TPP Gets Signed, Democracy Dies A Little More

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

If you are a resident (the word “citizen” no longer seems fitting) of the U.S.A, Japan, Mexico, Canada, Brunei, Peru, Chile, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Australia or New Zealand, your elected government just sold you, your family, friends and everybody else you know down the river. Without a paddle. ....

Grasping for a ray of hope, Naked Capitalism’s Lambert Strether points out that the text of TPP has not yet been finalized and once it has, it will have to be ratified by lawmakers in each country against a backdrop of intensifying public opposition. ...the pressure on TPP’s 12 signatory nations to comply over the coming months will be almost unbearable. After all, the success of the U.S. empire’s so-called “Asian pivot” hinges on the signing of TPP. 

For more comments on this agreement, see this article entitled "Nine Thoughts On the TPP Agreement Being Reached Today" by Nick Deardon. 

"It's Ba-ack!" Editorial cartoon by Gregory Crawford. From World News Trust.

Foreign Policy Diary – Europe to build up new centers of power

Click here to access article from South Front.

I had difficulty accessing the excellent video posted on their website which specializes in geopolitical analysis. Here it is via YouTube.

People, who believe that the European Union is a monolithic entity that conducts business that benefits individual European nations, have made a huge mistake. Today, the EU is a crumbling bureaucratic intergovernmental organization with several centers of power serving their own interests. Each of these are seeking to convert the EU into a super state controlling Western Eurasian, exploiting its nations, borderlands and a number of third world countries through a sophisticated set of economic and political tools. The competition among European and external players affecting developments of the union is ongoing for the right to become the main control center of the arising super state. So it was yesterday and so it is today. But, very soon, the EU political model will be changed under the influence of sharp internal circumstances and external crises.

Parasites in the Body Economic: the Disasters of Neoliberalism

Click here to access article which features a transcript of Eric Draitser's interview with Michael Hudson which was podcasted a few weeks ago.  

Although I've valued Hudson's insights about finance capitalism and posted many of his articles, I've always experienced some discomfort when reading his posts. This morning I'd like to begin to explore where that discomfort lies not only with this particular lengthy article, but with his whole perspective. Thus my critique of his ideological position is a bit tentative and not yet fully formed.

It dawned on me this morning that Hudson is really like so many middle-class critics of neoliberalism in which finance plays a major role: they see the obvious dysfunction for societies as a whole of this advanced form of capitalism and want to return to industrial capitalism in which their class played such an important role. The middle-class see their roles in monopoly and neoliberal capitalism as diminishing; and they are not only concerned about their own future, but especially that of their children's future in this advanced stage.

I believe that Hudson's view of capitalism distorts a number of insights contributed by various social critics and ideologists who wrote about capitalism during its several hundred years of existence. This is necessary because he must separate out this current "bad" form of advanced capitalism--finance, monopoly, and neoliberal capitalism--from the "good" stage of industrial capitalism.

For example, his take on Marx's labor theory of value.

...there’s often a misinterpretation of the context in which the labor theory of value was formulated and refined. The reason why Marx and the other classical economists – William Petty, Smith, Mill and the others – talked about the labor theory of value was to isolate that part of price that wasn’t value. Their purpose was to define economic rent as something that was not value. It was extraneous to production, and was a free lunch – the element of price that is charged to consumers and others that has no basis in labor, no basis in real cost, but is purely a monopoly price or return to privilege. ....

The aim of the labor theory of value was to divide the economy between excessive price gouging and labor.

I think this is a gross misinterpretation of Marx's concept. To me, it's really very simple: anything of value in any economy can only be created by labor through physical and/or mental work. Labor does this by using their brains and/or muscles to transform materials or ideas into products that people want. 

Thus the early English and Dutch capitalist settlers on the American continent realized the vast potential for riches in this undeveloped continent, and saw only "savages" and the need of labor standing in their way of vast wealth accumulation. With their superior weapons they rapidly eliminated opposition by Native Americans who refused to be enslaved, but they still needed huge amounts of labor. Because they could not get enough of this supply from Europe, they used violence to enslave and import Africans to furnish this labor. These early capitalists provided both mental labor and capital (stored labor value) to transform the natural resources of the continent into products. It didn't matter how much wealth (stored labor value) these early capitalists brought over from Europe, they had to have labor to create more value.

Many early capitalist ideologists mixed up these different contributions: capital and mental labor to justify the capitalist "property right" to take as much as he wanted above what was necessary to maintain his labor force whether owned (slaves) or rented (wages, salaried). 

Eventually they engaged in "price gouging" through the inevitable increasing concentration of "ownership" of sections of the economy. But that has nothing to do with Marx's labor theory of value. Over time these old entrepreneurial capitalists evolved into pure capitalists by supplying only capital through investments, forming banks, etc, where speculation about obtaining profits became their sole contribution. Now in this neoliberal stage of capitalism we see international industrial corporations and banks diminishing the power of national governments, whether fake democratic or autocratic, and increasing the power of international capitalists. 

We are also witnessing the sophisticated development of information technologies and automation which is diminishing the need for the middle class (managers, teachers, highly skilled technicians, other professionals) which is what people like Hudson are concerned about.

Nuclear War And Corbyn – The Fury And The Farce

Click here to access article from Media Lens (Britain).

What passes for a left in both Europe and the USA keep looking for "heroes" to deliver them from the evil of advanced capitalism. In the US many have gravitated to Sen. Bernie Sanders who is running in primary elections as a candidate for president. The Zionist senator, although he often supports social welfare policies, has never met an Empire war he didn't support. However Jeremy Corbyn looks a lot more authentic, but still real change in Britain's participation in Empire adventures will never be possible without a significant revolution that overturns the rule of capital in Britain. Either Corbyn will keep compromising his views until they are satisfactory to Britain's ruling capitalist class, or he will be marginalized or eliminated one way or another. Only an organized working class engaged at the grass roots can save themselves. Forget about heroes coming to save us.

The Strange Case of the Syrian Opposition

Click here to access article Gordon Duff from Veterans Today.

US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has cited concerns that Russia may be hitting the wrong targets in Syria.  Does Carter believe that a Syrian opposition group utterly and absolutely divorced from terrorist allegiances exists?

Thanks to "The Saker" at A bird's eye view of the Vineyard for alerting us to the following satirical cartoon.

Bad terrorist, good terrorist

Russia's Campaign To Snuff Off The CIA's Al-Qaeda Forces

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

The author pulls together solid evidence to undermine all the false reports issued by corporate media talking heads and various government officials. The links following this statement are the most important:

The CIA mercenaries in Syria - 10,000 men trained, armed and paid under a secret program - are directly cooperating with al-Qaeda and the likewise terrorist Ahrar al Shams. The NYT finally acknowledges this in two pieces today.

I came across this article posted yesterday by the Sunday Express (Britain) which announced in the headline "ISIS left so weakened by airstrikes and desertion it could be destroyed in just HOURS". Although the US has been supposedly attacking ISIS forces for over a year, maybe this is just a coincidence after the Russian air-force attacked terrorist targets in just the last several days. Of course the British website credited both "Western and more recently Russian airstrikes".

Mid-East Coup: As Russia Pounds Militant Targets, Iran Readies Ground Invasions While Saudis Panic

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

Durden digs up some very interesting Reuter's reports in support of the headline. Although I think he overstates Iran's impending ground invasion--a few hundred troops don't matter much--from what I've read, Iran is mostly sending military advisors. Putin and his allies are clearly playing a very clever geopolitical chess game vis-à-vis the Empire. In any case, the situation is very dangerous given the vitally strategic importance of the Mid-East to the Empire. 

...Putin looks to have viewed this as the ultimate geopolitical win-win. That is, Russia gets to i) expand its influence in the Middle East in defiance of Washington and its allies, a move that also helps to protect Russian energy interests and preserves the Mediterranean port at Tartus, and ii) support its allies in Tehran and Damascus thus preserving the counterbalance to the US-Saudi-Qatar alliance. 

El Salvador vs Pacific Rim: The Price of Saying ‘No’ to a Gold Mine

Click here to access article by Ciara Nugent from The Argentina Independent. 

Gold mining is one of the most polluting mining industries there are, and El Salvadorians through their government refused to allow a mining company to continue to pollute their water supplies and are now facing a $301 million lawsuit.

North American mining corporations have been most notorious for using violent tactics to gain access to various metals throughout Latin America. Pacific Rim, a Canadian gold mining company, is one such corporation. The details are a bit complicated, but what is clear is that they first used terrorist tactics to mine gold in El Salvador, then they gained access to a legal weapon through the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanism that has become a part of all "free trade" agreements. Read the article to find out what El Salvadorians, and all smaller countries, are up against with this weapon while fighting for clean water and healthy environments in their respective countries. Once again, it's the people versus powerful international capitalists whose corporations have the sole legally defined purpose as profits.

To challenge El Salvador’s rejection of their project, Pacific Rim activated the ISDS – investor-state dispute settlement provisions. Written into most trade agreements these days, and due to be expanded under the massive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the ISDS allows companies to challenge the decisions of governments that might be said to affect their investments in the country. The main forum for these cases, including El Salvador’s, is the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). It was established by the World Bank in 1966, and currently has more than 200 ISDS cases pending.

The ISDS is built into a free-trade agreement between the US and the countries of Central America. Pacific Rim initially gained access to this clause by transferring part of its business to the US, via a subsidiary.