How U.S. and EU Manipulate Public Consciousness: Montenegro

Click here to access article by "DrakulaBlogZ" from his blog. (Note: I surmise that this blogger is from Romania given his identification with Drakula who is a character first encountered in the novel Drakula by Irish writer Bram Stoker in 1897. The setting for the latter story is located in Transylvania which is a region in Romania.)

I’ve been working on this post for a long time, meticulously collecting scraps of information piece by piece to give you a comprehensive picture.

It is well known that the U.S. employs a sophisticated network of non-governmental organizations to manipulate public consciousness in multiple countries across the world. NGOs also play a key role in preparing color revolutions.

These last months I’ve been closely following the events in Montenegro....

He portrays a well-coordinated and comprehensive effort that is underway in Montenegro to shape the conscious of Montenegrins from opposition to their inclusion in NATO and the Empire to outright support. The analysis he provides is an excellent illustration of the Empire's use of propaganda and NGO networks that has been witnessed in many previous color revolutions. What is little understood is that, true to the globalized outlook of the Empire's ruling directorate, they try to utilize this type of operation everywhere in the world where they have established bases of support, including most especially within the US, to create a public consciousness that is compatible with the interests of the Empire's neoliberal capitalist class.

This blogger makes a valiant effort at creating a chart based on his research which shows how the operation functions. In my estimation I think the chart and related analysis is most accurate at the bottom layer, and distortions increase as one peruses succeeding upper layers. Thus the top layer is filled with distortions and errors. This is to be expected because the shadow government operated by the Empire's directorate is for obvious reasons shrouded in secrecy. What is vitally needed is information, leaked or otherwise, that can explicate the mediating structure at the top.

Night of the Living Dead, Climate Change-Style

Click here to access article by Bill McKibben from Post Carbon Institute. 

Although I have posted articles by authors who have been very critical of McKibben for ultimately serving the interests of fossil fuel corporations, I find little to criticize in this article and much to be praised. Regarding the former, I think he places much too positive a spin on activists ending the reign of fossil fuels. Notice that he sees this battle waged by local activists going on over this entire century which I find much too late to prevent climate destabilization. (I'm not certain that we have not already passed climatic tipping points.) However I see value in this article because he provides details on what activists are up against when they take on the fossil-fuel industry and why the latter's projects continue to be approved by regulatory authorities in spite of the opposition of scientists.

Perhaps it is McKibben's lack of urgency as well as his more benign strategies that provokes critics who see McKibben benefiting from a well-funded career that rather ineffectually opposes the fossil fuel industry.

Israel continues to sow the seeds of discontent

Click here to access article by Jonathan Cook from The National (UAE). 

New [Israeli] legislation is designed to intimidate and silence Israeli human rights organisations – the international community’s eyes and ears in the occupied territories. These groups are to be defined as “moles”, or agents of foreign governments. Justice minister Ayelet Shaked warned that such foreign intervention “endangers democracy”.

The problem is that the governments funding the human rights activity are not Israel’s enemies, but some of its staunchest supporters – European states.

Israel treats Europe’s support for human rights as malign interference, but it welcomes the vast sums channelled its way via the European Union’s special trade agreement and the billions in US military aid. It is this kind of foreign intervention that sustains the occupation.

For the latest atrocity committed by Israelis against Palestinians, read this.

Inequality as discussed by the rich

Sorry, but I didn't have time to track down the cartoonist. The cartoon was posted on Occasional Links & Commentary by economist David Ruccio.

Nationalism and Its Discontents: The Meaning of Trump

Click here to access article by Justin Raimondo from AntiWar.

This is an excellent bifurcation of acceptable political thinking in the US as portrayed in mainstream media and permeates much of the political discussion widely prevalent across the political spectrum which does not exclude so-called leftists. Anti-war critics such as this author are often featured in alternative media and often confused with real leftists and people who are beginning to understand political realities and limits their understanding of critical issues. Critics like Raimondo ultimately serve to defuse real criticism of capitalist rule.

However in this piece Raimondo provides a clear demarcation of capitalist ideology with his analysis of Trump's politics versus his adversaries. (Please ignore his standard capitalist view of American isolationism in 1940--in reality it was heavily infiltrated by pro-Nazis. See this and this.) There is an important political tug-of-war going on in current mainstream US political debate in both parties which I have recently made reference to (see this, and this). I am referring to two capitalist political camps that are forming rather sharp divisions within the ruling class, in conventional political thinking among ordinary people, and particularly coming to the fore in the current Republican party political contests: nation-based capitalist ideology supported by traditional conservatives (Pat Buchanan, Paul Craig Roberts, and Ron Paul) and internationally based capitalist ideology known broadly as neoliberals which are openly supported by neoconservatives.

His analysis by attributing so much influence and power to the new anti-war "isolationists" also is a gross distortion of political realities in the US--they are a vanishing political breed. The neoliberals are clearly playing a dominant role within the ruling class. Their recent attacks on Trump illustrate their power and influence and their interest in pursuing neoliberal policies. There really is no similar bifurcation in the Democratic party which has continued vigorously pursuing neoliberal policies while spouting words like "democracy" and "human rights". Bernie Sanders with his social democratic proposals serves only to return disaffected liberals into the fold of the Democratic party and ultimately to vote for Hillary when she wins the nomination.

On the Effort to Exonerate Team USA for the Rise of ISIS

Click here to access article by David Mizner from his blog Rogue Nation. (a "best post")

In this article Mizner is critical of many Western left journalists, political observers, online and print publications for their anti-Assad position while ignoring considerable evidence, which he supplies, that inculpates the US, Saudi Arabia, and others for the rise of terrorism in Syria and nearby areas.

This is one of the finest pieces of independent investigative journalism that I have seen.

China deploys in the Near East

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from VoltaireNet.

This French journalist and geopolitical analyst describes the latest efforts of Chinese leaders to seduce prominent Middle East rulers to support Chinese economic policies. Under the leadership of China's Communist party, the Chinese leadership since Deng has pursues a course in world affairs that can be described as keeping a low profile while hurriedly developing their economy using capitalist methods. As a part of this strategy they have strenuously avoided any political or military conflicts with the US Empire. Now this economic 800 pound gorilla in the world's room is now using the carrot of economic benefits to increase their influence in the world while quietly providing military aid in support of many antagonists opposed to Israeli and US interests in the region.

The Arab world today is dominated by the United States, who are intent on exploiting it and hindering its development. However, numerous revolts, in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Bahreïn, attest to a will to resistance which is in contrast to the voluntary servitude of the Europeans.

This game, entirely controlled by Washington since Henry Kissinger’s diplomatic successes, has been upset, on the one hand, by the Russian military intervention in Syria and, on the other hand, by the return of Chinese commerce....

You might also be interested to read this piece by Pepe Escobar entitled "China wades into the Iran-Saudi swamp" from RT.

The Gates Foundation, Ebola, and Global Health Imperialism

Click here to access article by Jacob Levich taken by the editors of The Wrong Kind of Green from a professional journal, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, as a PDF doc.

Although I only scanned most of the 39 pages of this journal article, I felt that it presented some valuable insights on how powerful foundations, as illustrated by the Gates Foundation and their associated NGOs, are collaborating with neoliberal capitalists to undermine nation-based health services particularly in poorer countries. 

ABSTRACT. Powerful institutions of Western capital, notably the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, viewed the African Ebola outbreak of 2014–2015 as an opportunity to advance an ambitious global agenda. Building on recent public health literature proposing “global health governance” (GHG) as the preferred model for international healthcare, Bill Gates publicly called for the creation of a worldwide, militarized, supranational authority capable of responding decisively to outbreaks of infectious disease—an authority governed by Western powers and targeting the underdeveloped world. This article examines the media-generated panic surrounding Ebola alongside the response and underlying motives of foundations, governments, and other institutions. It describes the evolution and goals of GHG, in particular its opposition to traditional notions of Westphalian sovereignty. It proposes a different concept—“global health imperialism”—as a more useful framework for understanding the current conditions and likely future of international healthcare.

This is another report on how multi-national corporations and their benefactors, the rich .01% located mostly in the US-led Empire, are attempting to destroy the autonomy of national governments to manage their public services in favor of global structures under the control of neoliberal-oriented transnational capitalists.

I wish to emphasize that unlike traditional conservatives such as Paul Craig Roberts and Ron Paul, I do not favor existing nation-based capitalist controlled policies. Nations today are mostly dominated by capitalist elites; and because they serve the narrow interests of their nation-based capitalists, they are by no means a progressive form of social policy control.

This current struggle between neoliberals and traditional capitalists (also known as "liberals" in the classic sense) is well covered in alternative media and is beginning to appear in mainstream media largely due to the adverse impact that neoliberalism is having on especially the US middle class. Thus much of alternative media acts to suppress genuine revolutionary thought that wants to overthrow both national and international capitalist control in favor of bottom-up socialist authority structures. In place of genuine revolutionary thought in alternative media, one often finds this critical form known as fake leftism.

Learning to Love — and Use — the Bomb

Click here to access article by Jonathan Marshall from ConsortiumNews. 

At a time when America’s public sector is apparently too strapped financially even to provide safe drinking water for some of its residents, the Obama administration plans to commit the nation to spending at least $1 trillion over the next three decades to improve our ability to fight a nuclear war. That’s right — an almost unthinkable war that would end up destroying much of the habitable portion of the globe.

Marshall follows this introductory paragraph with recent indications of an updated version ("2.0") of the old nightmarish world of a nuclear arms race. I lived terrified through the first one, but will I survive this one?

What’s Really Going on With Oil?

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

Engdahl looks at a variety of data and concludes that things do not add up to today's low oil prices. Could conspiracies be behind this? Nah, conspiracies such as people getting together in secret to make nefarious plans simply do not exist! (sarcasm)

If there is any single price of any commodity that determines the growth or slowdown of our economy, it is the price of crude oil. Too many things don’t calculate today in regard to the dramatic fall in the world oil price. In June 2014 major oil traded at $103 a barrel. With some experience following the geopolitics of oil and oil markets, I smell a big skunk. Let me share some things that for me don’t add up.

Russia and US are on [a compromise course] in Syrian conflict?

Click here to access article from SouthFront. 

Today, Jan.24, according to several media reports, Russia and US are getting close for a compromise on the participants of the Syria peace talk which is going to be held next week. Reports say that two separate Syrian opposition delegations are invited to attend the negotiations in Geneva. (My emphasis.)

Reflections on the Paris ISIS Meeting: Talks Filled With Sinful Crime

Click here to access article by Christopher Black from New Eastern Outlook.

Black is a Canadian and a very distinguished and international human rights lawyer who has prosecuted a number of such violations in the world. How dare he accuse the US of war mongering when we all know that our "indispensable" nation is a beacon of human rights! (sarcasm) 

His comments relate to a meeting in Paris four days before the Geneva meeting which started today for all of the participants in the Syrian-Iraq-ISIS war to negotiate a deal to end the warfare. One can't help but think that these war criminals were plotting a strategy for the Geneva meeting.

On January 20th a cabal of dependencies of the United States of America, Australia, Netherlands, Germany, France, and Italy, met in Paris to discuss war on Syria. One of a series of such meetings with a changing list of participants, it included the defence ministers of the countries supporting various proxy forces attacking Syria, either posing as “rebels” or allied with the American created and supported force ISIS. It was in fact a meeting of conspirators planning a war of aggression. There is no other way to put it. This was a criminal act under international law and another dramatic repudiation of the United Nations and everything the United Nations Charter stands for.

The Fake Left

Click here to access article by Dady Chery from News Junkie Post.

I was really impressed with this piece that provides an exposé of what often passes for a left perspective on the web, and how the writings of the fake-left effectively undermine genuine revolutionary writing.

 ...the motivations of the fake left are money and fame: the preservation of their place in their ivory towers, together with all the trimmings of an upper middle class or wealthy lifestyle. For them, the path is smoothed and the wheels of the machine are oiled for lucrative book deals, speaking tours, radio and television interviews, and articles that are infinitely reverberated through approved sites in the Internet. Their spokespeople channel political ideas toward electoral cycles and transform revolutionary musings into banalities, paralysis, and futile actions. They attack the public’s thought process itself and engender an attention-deficit disorder. Ideas are not pursued, shared, honed, and acted upon but instead displaced by fleeting slogans like “hope and change,” or “feel the Bern.” Alternatively, the ideas are muddled, branded and labeled with names like “shock doctrine,” “disaster capitalism,” or “climate capitalism,” so that they may be put away and no longer examined.

I think that people of the fake-left have a number of motivations that range from the subversive to the cynical to sincere views and it is often hard to determine where on this continuum any one writer lies. I tend to think that people like Naomi Klein and Chris Hedges are motivated primarily by fame and fortune while others like Soros are consciously subversive propagandists. But all these types seem to be well-funded and their articles proliferate throughout the web-world.

George Soros: Anti -Syria Campaign Impresario

Click here to access article by Vanessa Beeley from her blog The Wall Will Fall. 

Beeley in this rather lengthy article launches a devastating attack on Western media's anti-Syrian coverage by focusing on their recent Madaya propaganda reports (I personally missed them) with particular emphasis on BBC coverage which have been picked up by many other Western TV stations (for example, see this). She traces much of this propaganda to the influence of George Soros and his funding of various NGOs. She views such propaganda as an effort to open up unfriendly governments to opposition groups that are oriented and often funded by various Western foundations.

It explains perfectly the funding of the "people power", "time for change" campaigns that run in synch with any regional or national schisms that are then piggybacked by imported or locally fostered opposition movements to propel the Imperialist friendly movements towards regime change. [I supplied the quotes]

Of course there is never any intention from the behind- the- scenes- string- pullers of allowing the much acclaimed people power.  The goal is the now familiar power vacuum to be filled by an Imperialist compatible ruling entity that will ensure the completion of Empire’s hostile corporate take over bid.

Heart of Darkness

Click here to access article by Jay Taber from The Wrong Kind of Green.

In terms of relevance to the indigenous nations often referred to as the Fourth World, the rollouts from the COP21 gathering of UN member states, Wall Street-funded NGOs, and the global financial elite resemble colonial initiatives undertaken as a result of similar 19^th Century gatherings to carve up the world for capitalism. Then, as now, indigenous territories and resources were targeted for expropriation through coercion, with Africa being a prime target.

EXCLUSIVE: The Secret Behind the Next Global Crash

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Sputnik.

What I particularly like about this article is that it is an illustration of journalism that recognizes the reality of the behind the scenes "Masters of the Universe" otherwise known as the behind-the-scenes capitalist puppeteers such as the Rockefeller clan, the banksters, the Bill Gates, the Henry Kissingers, the George Soroses of the world, who manage their Empire with often devastating consequence for the rest of us. This is in sharp contrast to other journalists who like to focus our attention on puppet shows such as the current US election campaigns.

Although Escobar has been "road-tested" and proven to be an excellent journalist in service of the truth, he is not clairvoyant. Of course, nobody is. In this article he speculates (using excellent references) on the outcome of Saudi machinations that are destabilizing oil markets and having major impacts on the world economy.

Moscow and Tehran are very much on it. The logic behind crashing markets, creating a recession and a depression – from the point of view of the Masters of the Universe above the lame duck President of the United States — is to engineer a major slow down, cripple buying patterns, decrease oil and natural gas consumption, and point Russia on a road to ruin. Besides, the ultra low oil price also translates into a sort of ersatz sanction on Iran. 

The empire strikes again?

Click here to access article by David F. Ruccio, professor of economics and rabble-rouser extraordinaire from his website Occasional Links & Commentary.

Apparently, the British public...are generally proud of their country’s role in subjecting the world to colonialism and the British Empire, according to a new poll: 44 percent were proud of Britain’s history of colonialism, while only 21 percent regretted that it happened. 23 percent held neither view.

Because it's often easier to point out the faults of others, it might be easy to look at the "educated" British public and regard what they believe to be true as ridiculous. This article does that precisely. After you are through amusing yourself about the stupid Brits, you might think about all the public opinion survey results here in the US which reveal that many people have unquestioningly swallowed similar lies about the good deeds done by our humanitarians imperialists. 

The great challenge of working people everywhere is to overcome our brainwashing by searching for credible historical information in books, online and offline articles to recover the history of our worker ancestors and the real history of our capitalist masters. And be on guard against the more subliminal messages about our history that permeates all of capitalist media and cultural products.

Putin 'Probably Approved' Murder Of Baby Jesus

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

This blogger lightens our day with a bit of humor over the latest bit of desperate propaganda designed to get us to hate the Empire's latest enemy, Vladimir Putin. You no doubt have heard reports on corporate TV that Putin poisoned Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent. If you didn't hear of it because you don't own a TV set or are "out of the loop", please view CBS's recent coverage of this "event" as an example.

Bernhard is very good at spotting anti-Russian propaganda. In an article entitled "Warmed-Over Propaganda: 'Putin Asks Assad To Leave'" is another he has discovered.

These claims are part of psychological disinformation campaign the U.S. and its allies are running against Syria. The stories are supposed to sow doubt between Syria, its allies and supporters. 

However for most well-informed people such propaganda is easy to spot. What is often missed are all the other reports that are carefully designed to promote capitalist ideology and support Empire-friendly interests everywhere in the world. That has become the primary role of corporate media.

The US School That Trains Dictators & Death Squads

Click here to access introduction by "Don Quijones" to the following 28:18 video from his website Raging Bull-Shit.

I am on an email list from a human rights watch-dog group--for example, see this--that currently reports on human rights violations in Honduras and Guatemala. I receive almost weekly reports of horrendous violations committed by the militaries and paramilitaries (essentially private terrorist armies) of these countries. It is likely that graduates of this school are involved in these crimes. 

Although the following video report mostly focuses on the activities of this school in the 1980s and 90s in Central America to promote the interests of US and Canadian mining corporations, this report is not merely an historical account because the school is still very active today.

Just Who Exactly Benefits Most from the Global Giving of Billionaires Like Bill Gates?

Click here to access article by Jon Queally from Common Dreams. 

As the world's political and economic elite gather to discuss their top concerns at the annual Davos summit in the Swiss Alps and with attention this week focused on the scourge of economic inequality, a new report begs questions about the potentially disastrous role the super-wealthy are playing when it comes to addressing key problems of global inequity, endemic poverty, and international development.

Released on Wednesday, the study by the UK-based social justice group Global Justice Now takes a specific look at the impact of the world's largest philanthropic charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), to assess how large-scale private giving may be "skewing" how international aid works. In its conclusion, the report argues that what may look like altruism on a grand scale may actually mask a sinister reality....

Syria: Has Anyone Stepped Back from the Brink?

Click here to access article by Michael Jabara Carley (professor at U. of Montreal) from VoltaireNet (France).

This history professor tries to wrap his head around the Syrian situation and Russia's desire for a peaceful settlement when countries associated with the US Empire continue behavior that is characterized by dishonesty, double-dealing, hypocrisy, and guile.

Is cautious optimism warranted about a Syrian peace? It is hard to see how. Kerry may say whatever he wants in Moscow, but when he gets back to Washington, he sings a different song, or his colleagues do. His boss, President Obama, said "Assad has to go" only a few days after Kerry returned home. And then there is the new phantasmagorical story published by Seymour B Hersh, the muckraking US journalist, who has revealed that not everyone inside the US government is brain dead. 

You might also be interested in this piece entitled "Syria - Some Preliminary Positioning For An Endgame" by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama.

When the Russian campaign in Syria started Obama promised that it would end in a quagmire. Various media and opinion writer picked up that narrative. It was false as Russia was and is executing a well thought out campaign.

Being confronted with reality the U.S. media is now changing its false narrative. 

The Complexity of Simple

Click here to access article by tdOs from his blog Pray for Calamity. 

This blogger has been trying to live a simple life in the country to conform to his ecological values and is finding it very challenging.

The simple life is expensive, and the honey, eggs, strawberries and other fresh foods we can produce are essentially valueless to the outside world thanks to petroleum. But we have to keep pace. Little house on the prairie only works when everyone is playing. If no one uses a car, it is not expected that you will, and the overall pace of your society slows down. Money is energy and velocity. Your rate of production must be commensurate with that of those around you with whom you hope to trade, or you will be for all intents and purposes, too poor to participate. 

Film Series Sheds Light On Neoconservatives Old And New

Click here to access article by Dan Wright from Shadowproof. (updated with cartoon on 1/22/2016)

Wright reports and promotes a series of three films by Robbie Martin called "A Very Heavy Agenda" which focuses on the relatively recent rise of "neoconservatives" and their agenda of world empire. The second of the three has now been released, and the third is expected next month. Although Wright provides an excellent description of the three parts and includes trailers, I have a problem with his and the filmmaker's perspective on the phenomenon of neoconservatism. 

Both suffer from a short time historical time frame which lends support to a perspective advanced, in my opinion, by people primarily of a middle class background whose knowledge of history has been truncated by the US ruling class's educational system. This view has been popularized by such people as Naomi Klein especially in her recent book This Changes Everything which focuses only on the recent period dating from the Reagan administration (1981) to the present in which neoconservatives and their ideology have taken over control of the US from the previous nationally oriented capitalists. 

This new faction has a decidedly global agenda to which the internal US interests are sacrificed to their obsession with power and wealth. This has very adversely affected the US middle class who benefited from their privileged position while the US capitalist ruling class had a much more nationalist perspective even though they engaged in imperialist adventures. This change was by no means a coup which seems to be suggested by many bloggers and writers in addition to Klein like Paul Craig Roberts, Kevin Barrett, and others. The neocon phenomenon was only a natural evolution of a capitalist state from a nation-based imperialist orientation to a global aspiring empire due to the coalescence of interests among US allied global capitalists and their unparalleled accumulation of wealth and power. The first such capitalist evolution in modern times was the Nazi-led Axis empire. 

Having crushed this empire, a global agenda was first pursued by a new secret postwar US agency, the CIA, through the Anglo-American-European complex of nations. After assassinating (with organized crime's help) the Kennedy brothers and others that stood in their way, the CIA and their political expression, the neocons, first infiltrated the Reagan administration followed by the full development of neocon power and their agenda under George Bush #2. 9/11 was their first project which paved the way for all their invasions abroad and the curtailment of civil rights within the US. Now leaders of both capitalist parties talk openly about the US as an "exceptional nation" and its people as "indispensable". As Roberts explained:

If a country is “the exceptional country,” it means that all other countries are unexceptional. If a people are “indispensable,” it means other peoples are dispensable. We have seen this attitude at work in Washington’s 14 years of wars of aggression in the Middle East. These wars have left countries destroyed and millions of people dead, maimed, and displaced. Yet Washington continues to speak of its commitment to protect smaller countries from the aggression of larger countries. The explanation for this hypocrisy is that Washington does not regard Washington’s aggression as aggression, but as History’s purpose.

Because the US middle class (in addition to the working class) has been harmed by the rise of the neocons in the ruling class (as well as advances in worker-created technology that is "owned" by capitalists), only now are middle-class writers and bloggers complaining. Only now after the neoconservative capitalists have taken over and have implemented their neoliberal policies which have adversely impacted the US middle class are we seeing these people come out of the social justice woodwork and complain. The working class have always felt the heel of capitalist exploitation and oppression bearing down on their faces.

‘Corporate Courts’ Have Taken from the Poor and Handed to the Rich – TTIP Will Turbo-Charge This Redistribution

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

By examining cases where agreements have been referred arbitration courts under the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) method, the York University (Toronto, Canada) study found a strong relationship between the size of a company and the judgements.

Our main findings are that the beneficiaries of ISDS-ordered financial transfers, in the aggregate, have overwhelmingly been companies with more than USD1 billion in annual revenue – especially extra-large companies with more than USD10 billion – and individuals who have over USD100 million in net wealth. ISDS has produced monetary benefits primarily for those companies or individuals at the expense of respondent states.

Such agreements have apparently already been made by governments on a bi-lateral or small multi-lateral basis to protect investors from so-called "arbitrary" laws passed in the future by the participating foreign governments. I write "apparently" because Dearden does not make this clear. What is needed is much more explanation of how such courts have already been set up, who appointed the judges, and associated issues such as "forum-shopping" cited in the study so that ordinary educated people can understand this issue. 

For example, from Wikipedia (under "Foreign investment protection/Modern practice) I learned that under this ISDS arrangement that governments cannot win any money if they win the case--they can only lose money if they lose the case in these unique arbitration courts.

...only foreign investors can sue states under investment treaties, because states are the parties to the treaty, and only states can be held liable to pay damages for breach of the treaty. States have no corresponding right to bring an original claim against a foreign investor under such treaties, again because investors are not parties to the treaty and therefore cannot be in breach of it. Thus, a decision in favour of the State means that the state has not been ordered to pay compensation, not that it has received any compensation from the investor, although costs can be awarded against the investor. A state cannot "win" in ISDS in the manner of a foreign investor - a state which wishes to sue a foreign investor does so through its own domestic courts, without the need for a treaty. [my emphasis]

What is clear to me is that such treaties have been designed to protect capitalists from governments who want to enact laws and regulations on behalf of the public interest. ISDS is simply designed to prevent governments infringing on the rights of capitalists to reap profits from operations that may be damaging to the environment, exploiting workers, and otherwise not in a nation's interest. It is obvious that this arrangement has been created by capitalist controlled "democratic" governments for the interests of capitalists. Like all the other features of these fake democratic states, capitalist interests always take priority. Also what is clear from this Canadian study is that the richer an investor or corporation is, the more money he can make through these "arbitration" courts. But that's the way capitalism always works.

Inequality and the World Economic Forum

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

The world’s rulers are getting together at their biggest bash of the year, the World Economic Forum. Prime ministers and other high government officials will also be in attendance.

The theme for this year’s Forum, which began on January 20 at its usual home in Davos, Switzerland, is said to be “Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

He continues on in the essay to explain what this theme might mean for them and for us.

U.S. Government Has Long Used Propaganda Against the American People

Click here to access article from Washington's Blog.

A companion piece from the same blog offers an excellent introduction to this history of media manipulation.

Americans’ trust of the media is at an all-time low.

But most Americans still don’t understand that the U.S. mass media is untrustworthy because  it’s completely manipulated to promote propaganda. [my emphasis]

The author provides an excellent history with many factual references, many of which I have posted before, to prove the truth of the above statement.

Government Sachs Gets Golden Wrist Slap For Global Financial Crisis

Click here to access article by James Corbett from The Corbett Report.

Corbett explains the injustice meted out to big banks that wreak our economy (and our lives) when placing their bets at the Wall Street casino. Unlike justice for banksters in Iceland, you will never see a bankster go to jail in America.

...Goldman makes tens of billions by selling the very toxic assets they were secretly betting against and in the end they pay a $5 billion penalty.

…Oh, and (needless to say) the Injustice Department practically fell over themselves to announce at the earliest possible opportunity that no one would even be prosecuted for this fraud (let alone go to jail).

…Oh, and poor Goldman will make a slightly smaller profit this year as a result of this golden wrist slap, equivalent to one measly fiscal quarter of profit for the banking behemoth.

Austerity for the people American style

Click here if you wish to access this cartoon by Brian McFadden from the NY Times or here to access it and others from his website. Also read this justified rant from American NewsX.

Meanwhile the corporate dominated government has no problem funding military bases in over a hundred countries, and bombing and invasions in places like Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It's clear that our masters are sacrificing our health and well-being in order to prioritize the corporate interests of profit and power throughout the world. 

No longer is it "guns and butter" as we experienced under Lyndon Johnson administration (guns to kill Vietnamese and butter for us)--our nation is now too poor to afford both. And, it's only going to get worse as we go deeper in debt...if we continue to maintain a state of passivity while watching their dumbing-down TV and entertainment.

Central banks as an integral part of the banking community

Click here to access article by Norbert Häring from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

Although the article is not well-written in English (likely because the author is a German economist), it offers some very candid insights about central banks that one rarely finds in media of all types. It's good to read such insights also because our most important ruling capitalist class directors are always located in such critically important institutions. 

Notice how our masters obscure the private nature of these banking institutions, which control a nation's money supply and thus control how the money is spent, with names like Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank (ECB), etc. Thus the title should read "Central banks as an integral part of a nation's governing structure". 

The ECB and other central banks do not only talk about the control of financial institutions over governments, they enforce it vigorously. They have even brainwashed the German constitutional court, which held that it would be unconstitutional, if governments would be relieved from the pressure of financial markets.

The ECB is not even hiding its very warm and protective feelings for commercial banks. It wears them as a badge of honor, saying that everything which is good for banks is good for the economy and thus for all the people.

The economy and governments, thanks to a system controlled by the ECB, are so dependent of healthy banks, that this is true.

EXCLUSIVE: Navy Uses US Citizens as Pawns in Domestic War Games [in Washington state]

Click here to access article by Dahr Jamail from TruthOut.

In the new scenario, which the military calls "realistic military training," Navy SEALs carrying "simulated" weapons may also travel across public and private property within city limits, and may swim through public and private marinas occupied by people living on boats. They could conduct war game patrols on roads through residential communities. In addition to tribal, state, federal and county lands, there are many properties on the Navy's list of training sites marked as private.

You may also be interested in a more recent recorded 35 minute interview with Jamail (with transcript) mostly regarding this report at this post from Shadowproof.

Davos and Its Threat to Democracy

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

While headline for this article makes the ridiculous implication that what we have had is some meaningful democracy, Buxton's essay does make clear that our capitalist masters are prepared to move away from any pretense of democracy. This is actually good unless their media manage to convince most of their subject populations that this is a move to more "democracy". It's good because more astute and awake members of the public will no longer be fooled by the present democratic fakery of managed elections, but it's bad if most of the public swallows more of their lies. The main problem is that capitalist rule intentionally creates a passive, misinformed population over time.

Buxton shows how undemocratic the board of Global Redesign Initiative which is the body that is spearheading this drive with the support of Davos members:

While half of the Board (12) are currently corporate executives, if you look at their career history, this rises to two-thirds. Only one member can be said to represent civil society (Peter Maurer of Red Cross). There are no representatives of trade unions, public sector organizations, human rights groups, peasant or indigenous organizations, students and youth.

It is therefore no surprise when multi-stakeholder policy groups rarely, if ever, recommend any binding regulations that would damage corporate profits.

Regarding the one Red Cross representative based on my personal experience with the Red Cross, this organization is thoroughly infiltrated at the highest levels by corporate representatives.

Turkey: Bombing Its Way to a Better Narrative

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

Notice how the Empire's allies in the Middle East are learning the techniques of the "big lie" that the West has perfected in its propaganda mostly to fool their own citizens. In this piece Cartalucci cites factual reports of Turkish direct support of "opposition" and terrorist armies back in 2012. I, too, posted reports of this support on my website (see this and this) as early as 2012. Hopefully Turkish citizens are not as gullible as are their counterparts in Europe and the US. Although we can't yet know for certain who was responsible for this latest terrorist incident in Istanbul, but we do have good reasons to be suspicious.

Travails of a Bankrupt Hegemon

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

Engdahl first provides an accurate early history of the would-be hegemon, the US Empire, after the conclusion of WWII, and follows this with factual information about the dramatic contrast of today's debt-burdened US. 

Now, its domestic economy a hollowed-out shell, its transportation infrastructure in horrendous decline, its skilled labor force increasingly non-existent, its university engineering and science students mostly from abroad–mainly China and India–the United States of America is in the throes of a terminal decline, a decline caused by no one but her own people who tolerated the looting and destruction of a once-beautiful nation by a greedy, power-addicted cabal of bad people with names like Rockefeller, Gates, Russell, DuPont, Buffett and others whose names are hardly known to the broad public.

The crisis that the USA faces today as World Hegemon is the fact the nation has become bankrupt, morally, spiritually, intellectually and economically, in an eerie manner much as the British Empire after onset of their Great Depression of 1873.

A few basic indicators says volumes about the rapidly-growing limits to America’s global power projection and why Washington’s “bully” tactics are being increasingly scorned by the rest of the world.

He then supplies us with a most depressing indicators of current US weakness. This is the end result of the sociopaths of US capitalist leadership which adopted the methods and operations of the earlier sociopaths known as organized criminal gangs ("mafias") to loot everything in site. (Read The Money and the Power by Denton and Morris, Double Cross by the Giancana brothers, and Gangster Capitalism by Woodiwiss--in that order.) I think that this tendency to work with criminal gangs and the use of their methods is endemic to capitalism because the system eventually and inevitably seduces ruling classes with its drugs of wealth accumulation and power to commit all sorts of crimes against humanity. Capitalism is a perfect system for sociopaths--both capitalist and criminal types.

Although he see the current weak condition of the US Empire as "a blessing in disguise", I think just the opposite. I think that this armed-to-the-teeth Empire because of its precarious position in the world is likely more dangerous than ever. 

Climate Change: A Radical Primer

Click here to access a book review of Capitalism & Climate Change authored by ecosocialist David Klein and reviewed by Michael Gasser from Solidarity.

[David] Klein and McMillan define capitalism as follows:

“Capitalism is an economic and social system in which the means of production are privately owned. The owners, or capitalists, appropriate the surplus product created by the workers. This appropriation leads to the accumulation of more capital, the amassing of wealth, further investment, and thus the expansion of capitalism. Commodities are produced for the purpose of generating profit and promoting accumulation. Within the capitalist system, individuals pursue their self interests against competition and impersonal forces of the market.”

Some of the more useful sections of this part of the book look at consequences of capitalism that are conspicuously missing from Naomi Klein’s book, in particular the military industrial complex and population growth. [David] Klein explains how imperialist wars are an inevitable consequence of capitalism and a major source of massive greenhouse gas emissions in addition to their more obvious destructive consequences for the countries that are invaded.

Ultra-Rich 'Philanthrocapitalist' Class Undermining Global Democracy: Report

Click here to access article by Sarah Lazare from Common Dreams. 

Lazare reviews a recent study by Global Policy Forum which concludes that the increasing influence of the rich via charitable organizations is having a huge impact on government policies at all levels. 

It is widely known that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, but it is less well known that the rich have always used their money-power to get rich with the result that they have always had a disproportionate effect on public governing bodies. It's almost obscure knowledge that their system of capitalism with its enshrinement of private ownership of economic enterprise has accelerated the wealth of a few at the expense of the many. This is the reason behind what we see today all around us: a most dramatic phenomenon of extreme inequality and so many problems associated with that reality: wars, rampant crime, huge number of refugees fleeing from war ravaged areas, poverty, huge prison populations, ignorance, etc.

Some have speculated on the motives of the rich and their use of charitable foundations. They range all the way from guilt expiation, to trying to "do good", to tax write-offs, to imposing their capitalist values and methods on the rest of us, or some combination of these motives. What is so clear from the study is that this trend is undermining any pretenses about democratic governing processes. But then, it was never a reality anyhow. So I think this trend could be good if it awakens enough people to change the anti-social, anti-nature system of capitalism into an economic system that can sustain humans with a reasonable amount of dignity and equality and a natural environment that can sustain human life. 

Dying to Forget: Oil, Power, Palestine and the Foundations of U.S. Policy in the Middle East – Book Review

Click here to access this review by Rod Such of a book authored by Irene Gendzier posted on The Palestine Chronicle.

In her new book Gendzier has uncovered many unknown facts about US support of Israel following its establishment. For example:

...once the Truman administration determined that Israel would become a strategic U.S. ally, Gendzier notes that it adopted a policy to defer to Israel in matters related to the Palestinians. As early as July 1, 1948, Philip Jessup, the U.S. special delegate to the UN, had argued the case for withholding U.S. pressure on Israel due to its strategic importance and its “strong military position” which was “more than a match for most of Arab states put together.” ...he also stated: “‘From the strategic viewpoint we assume that Palestine, together with the neighboring countries is a major factor presumably in any future major conflict this region would be of vital importance to US as a potential base area and with respect to our lines of communication. Presumably also the oil resources of the area are considered vital.’” As a result Jessup argued for not pressuring Israel regarding the return of refugees.

This realignment came about even though U.S. officials were increasingly aware of Zionist aims in Palestine.

Colonialism Never Died: Puerto Rico's Economic Crisis Made in the USA

Click here to access article by Danny Haiphong from Global Independent Analytics.

Following a brief history of the island and its resistance to US colonialism, Haiphong examines the impoverishment of the island as result of privatization and other capitalist policies.

...colonialism was never truly eradicated from the global picture. African revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah fathered the theory of neo-colonialism to explain this phenomenon. Nkrumah described neo-colonialism as a form of indirect, but no less exploitative, form of colonial domination where a native ruling class administers the plunder of a country on behalf of the former colonizer. One country, Puerto Rico, has remained a colony of the US imperial state.

Today, the people of Puerto Rico are facing a devastating economic crisis made in the USA. To understand the crisis in Puerto Rico, we must look into its root causes.

2015 second warmest year on record for U.S.

Click here to access article that follows this graphic from NASA.

Why would anyone celebrate the "joy" of war?

Click here to access article by Jim Hightower from his blog. (satire)

Well, maybe "defense" contractors. They seem to be whooping it up and partying like there is no tomorrow. But then military spending creates jobs, doesn't it?!  So, I guess it's okay. (sarcasm)

It seems that Canadian arms dealers are happy too. You might want to follow up this bit of satire with a piece entitled "Canada Condemns Saudi Executions, But Arms Sales Speak Louder Than Words".

Capital accumulation

My attention was originally drawn to this graphic illustration of capitalist exploitation of labor via economist David Ruccio's website which used it as a platform to discuss how wrong John Maynard Keynes was with regard to increasing wealth and leisure for working working people. 

Keynes back in the 1930s tried to reform the capitalist system through re-distributive government policies. Little did he realize that capitalists would have nothing to do with such policies--they wanted it all for themselves--and they proceeded as always to shape the government to serve their needs. Thus the government became entirely as we see today: their government.

But enough of Ruccio who as a professor must not annoy his capitalist masters too much or else join the line at the unemployment office. I want to direct your attention to this political cartoon and its real source at the Capital Drawing Group in London. This group of four cartoonists have drawn numerous cartoons to illustrate various themes about capitalism based on Marx's writings. 

The cartoon below illustrates "The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation" as a monster of devouring workers for the wealth benefit of the capitalist pocket shown at the top.

Anthropocene Working Group: Yes, a new epoch has begun

Click here to access article by Ian Angus from Climate & Capitalism.

Repeatedly, over hundreds of thousands of years, glaciers expanded south and north from the polar regions, covering much of the Earth with ice sheets several kilometres deep. Twelve thousand years ago, the Earth warmed and the ice retreated — the relatively warm and stable time since then is known to geologists as the Holocene epoch. It’s the time when agriculture was invented and all great human civilizations were formed. Holocene conditions, as Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Center likes to say, are the only ones in which we know for sure that humans can survive and prosper.

Is the Holocene now over? Has human activity changed the Earth System so much that a new epoch has begun? Are we now in the Anthropocene?

Are US academics who cite WikiLeaks blackballed?

Click here to access article by Chris Spannos from Crikey (Australia). 

Although the author doesn't offer any final answer to the question posed in the headline, but he provides numerous pieces of evidence that indicate the affirmative. 

My own position based partly on my experience at a university and the reading of the experience of others (sources like Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt) clearly and emphatically answers this and a more general question in the affirmative: does US academia act to discourage anti-capitalist ideas or anti-Empire material? This is one part of my theory that the ruling capitalist class has infiltrated their ideologists in every sector of society: mainstream media, entertainment, education, and most of all in the political institutions of the nation.

Jakarta Blasts: ISIS Inc Strikes Again

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

Cartalucci advances a theory to explain why all the terrorist events are happening in so many areas of the world. I think it makes much more sense than the propaganda put forward by Empire media.

Thoughts on Rojava: an interview with Janet Biehl

Click here to access this interview (posted on Reflections on a Revolution) conducted by Zanyar Omrani, who is an Iranian Kurd and an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker, with American Janet Biehl who was Murray Bookchin’s companion and collaborator for his last 19 years.

The interviewer, Omrani, asked various questions that were designed to get Biehl's opinion as to how much conformity there was in the actual decision-making operations as practiced by the people in Rojava with the ideology of Bookchin's bottom-up political ideology.

Specifically to Bookchin, the institutions of democratic self-government that they described corresponded to much of what he had envisioned (under the name libertarian municipalism). At the base of democratic confederalism is the citizens’ assembly (in Bookchin) or commune (in Rojava). The commune sends delegates to the confederal council at the neighborhood level, and the neighborhood council sends delegates to the district, and the district to the canton. In this multi-tiered structure, as Bookchin described it, power is to flow from the bottom up.

Has the vision become real?

Although Biehl's observations were interesting, I finished reading the interview without any conclusive answers. And I think one should not expect any conclusive answers at this point in time.

One part of the interview compared the historical experience of the Russians during their revolution and their subsequent war with the West which supported factions that were inclined to capitalism (the White armies). 

People in Rojava seemed very aware of the danger that a bottom-up system can turn into a top-down system. That’s what happened, after all, in Russia. In 1917, the multi-tiered system of soviets, or councils, all over Russia, was originally supposed to carry power from the base to the summit. But once the Bolsheviks came to power, they were able to use those very institutions as conduits for top-down power, indeed for totalitarian domination. 

Essentially this question dealt with the question whether such a bottom-up political apparatus could survive particularly in a wartime situation. The specific Russian experience and the latter general question has always intrigued me. My studies of various writings particularly by Trotsky, who commanded the Red Army, and Isaac Deutscher, who studied and wrote about the revolution extensively, caused me to reach a tentative conclusion about what went wrong with the Russian Revolution. 

Trotsky and others both in the Bolshevik party and outside did not question the authoritarian structure of a military command once the war began in earnest. Thus they readily adopted it. After the Bolsheviks won the war, they relied on this structure to defend the revolution from all the problems they faced after victory: widespread famine, poor crops, epidemics, destroyed infrastructure, etc. Then it was only a matter of time when the top-down command structure completely replaced any independent power of the Soviets. People such as Stalin, who were particularly susceptible to the addictive power of control and domination (like people predisposed to alcoholism are particularly susceptible to alcohol), took over the command structures of the Communist Party and the Soviet Union.

This always led me to the following questions. Could the Russian Revolution have succeeded if they had adopted a bottom-up command structure to prosecute the war against the White and Western capitalist armies? Given that wartime conditions often see people supporting a tight and efficient command structure, how can a people suddenly dismantle a military command structure and foster a bottom-up political structure after the war is won?

Of course the Communist party leaders always explained the success of the revolution depended upon the revolution immediately spreading to other advanced capitalist countries, especially to Germany, and when this did not happen, deterioration of communist practice was inevitable. 

CIA: Undermining and Nazifying Ukraine Since 1953

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

Madsen has gleaned through some recently released CIA documents (heavily redacted, of course) to discover that various operations under their control have been going on since at least 1953. This corresponds with other information that has been uncovered regarding the efforts of the nascent Empire using both soft weapons of propaganda as is described in this article and more terrorist type organizations such as Gladio (example, Operation Gladio--see this and this) which was used to rig elections, infiltrate, and crush leftist organizations and unions all over Europe and nearby areas. 

Although he does not furnish any references for his analysis, I have long held this independent journalist as one of the best. No one is infallible and above criticism, but I consider Madsen as one of the most reliable and qualified sources of information and analysis regarding government secrecy. I've only found very minor errors such as his claim that Asst. Sec. Victoria Nuland spoke to Congress about the $5 billion dollar support of subversive efforts in Ukraine. I've been able to find that she only made this claim to the National Press Club (7:42m).

Climate Holism vs. Climate Reductionism

Click here to access article by Richard Heinberg from Post Carbon Institute.

Heinberg apparently thinks that our capitalist masters are stupid rather than desperate in their actions to support their addiction to power and wealth with which their system supplies them so abundantly. According to him, our masters are guilty of reductionist thinking.

The reductionist mindset is relentless: if one technofix leads to a problem, surely there will be a technofix for that too. Some habitual practitioners of reductionism do realize that their proposed tactics merely buy time before the next crisis hits, but they see no realistic alternative. Still, each new increment of time seems more expensive than the previous one.

Actually he doesn't see capitalist masters at all. He separates the economic system ("Wall Street") from government and labor. Apparently "holistic" thinking doesn't apply to capitalism. (sarcasm)

The lure of the technofix is that we won’t have to fundamentally change our behavior. We can go on extracting resources, using energy, and making money, all at an ever-accelerating pace. Wall Street is happy, government is happy, workers are happy. Here’s the thing: this line of action cannot solve the cascading complex of crises that will hammer civilization to bits during the remainder of this century. Until we start thinking holistically and alter our systemic behavior, we are locked into a trajectory that leads inevitably to a chain of mutually reinforcing planetary breakdowns that start with droughts and superstorms and won’t end until everything we hold dear is either destroyed or rendered meaningless.

Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman has Western leaders very worried

Click here to access article from News Corp in Australia.

If Rupert Murdoch's staff at their lead online news site in Australia says that the West (aka "The Empire") is worried, then I think its safe to assume that it's quite true.

HE’S just 30 years old and could soon be one of the most powerful people in the Arab world — and that’s probably not a good thing.

The new, 80-year-old king of Saudi Arabia, who suffers from dementia, has been criticised since taking the throne last January for his bloodthirsty style as ruler. But it’s his favourite son who has the Western world really worried.

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is considered the likely successor of his ageing father.

He is currently the gulf kingdom’s defence minister and has been privately criticised for his dangerous geopolitical gambles in the region as Saudi Arabia plays out proxy wars in both Syria and Yemen.

While the US Empire directorate may be "worried" about the new Saudi leadership that they have been publicly supporting, the French geopolitical analyst, Thierry Meyssan, has an interesting conspiracy theory about how they may have hidden motives behind their support in an article entitled "Towards the collapse of Saudi Arabia". 

Another article about the current political situation in Saudi Arabia from what appears to be a solid independent source is this piece entitled "Paul Aarts and Carolien Roelants, Saudi Arabia: A Kingdom in Peril". It is an interview with the authors about their new book. 

US Role as State Sponsor of Terrorism Implied in US Congressional Research Service Report on Syria Conflict

Click here to access article by Stephen Gowans from What's Left.

Written in October 2015, the report was prepared by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the United States Library of Congress. The Congressional Research Service provides policy and legal analysis to committees and members of the US House and Senate.

Titled “Armed Conflict in Syria: Overview and US Response,” the report reveals....

Russia Breaking Wall St Oil Price Monopoly

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

The sale of oil denominated in dollars is essential for the support of the US dollar. In turn, maintaining demand for dollars by world central banks for their currency reserves to back foreign trade of countries like China, Japan or Germany, is essential if the United States dollar is to remain the leading world reserve currency. That status as world’s leading reserve currency is one of two pillars of American hegemony since the end of World War II. The second pillar is world military supremacy.

Because all other nations need to acquire dollars to buy imports of oil and most other commodities, a country such as Russia or China typically invests the trade surplus dollars its companies earn in the form of US government bonds or similar US government securities. The only other candidate large enough, the Euro, since the 2010 Greek crisis, is seen as more risky.

That leading reserve role of the US dollar, since August 1971 when the dollar broke from gold-backing, has essentially allowed the US Government to run seemingly endless budget deficits without having to worry about rising interest rates, like having a permanent overdraft credit at your bank.

However Engdahl finishes his essay by suggesting that this will be good for world peace!

Step-by-step, Russia, China and other emerging economies are taking measures to lessen their dependency on the US dollar, to “de-dollarize.” Oil is the world’s largest traded commodity and it is almost entirely priced in dollars. Were that to end, the ability of the US military industrial complex to wage wars without end would be in deep trouble.

Perhaps that would open some doors to more peaceful ideas such as spending US taxpayer dollars on rebuilding the horrendous deterioration of basic USA economic infrastructure.

I have long argued that wealth and, especially under capitalism, its associated drug of power has taken hold of the Empire's ruling class in the form of an addiction. I really mean this literally, not rhetorically!

So, you know what often results when an opium addict or alcoholic can no longer afford their drugs? Often this results in more violence and criminal activities perpetrated by the addicts to secure money to buy their drugs. This has been the history of capitalist nations for several hundred years during colonialism and nowadays in neocolonialism and neoliberalism. The main difference, and a very dangerous one, is that most of the major nations today have nuclear weapons to fight each other with. I don't see how Engdahl can be so sanguine about the future.

The only peaceful future is one that we ordinary people must secure for ourselves by ending the rule of capitalists and their destructive, unsustainable system. There is simply no other alternative.

(Note: For more background on the petrodollar you might be interested in reading this and this.)

Avaaz: The Online Pro-War Propagandist And Color Revolution NGO

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

I have posted numerous articles on Avaaz in the past (see this, this, this, this, and this), but I still think that this organization needs more light shed on it. Organizations like Avaaz have often been used in "color revolutions" to destabilize countries that refuse to follow orders from the US Empire or to gain a more friendly ally. And such organizations also are meant to seduce well-meaning liberals and leftists to work for them by their appeals to human rights, democracy, and freedom.

Avaaz is, indeed, part of the color revolution apparatus, having apparently received funds from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation to start up in 2007. Avaaz was founded by Res Publica and Moveon.org, both Soros-funded organizations that attempt to co-opt the American left into supporting ideas and campaigns closely associated with the communitarian foundation oligarchs.

How Corrupt the U.S. Is: An Extraordinary Example

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from The Peoples Voice. 

...for imprisonments, the U.S. really does have no close second: it’s the unquestionable global market-leader, for prisons and prisoners.

Historian Zuesse examines one significance aspect that law-breaking has regarding the legitimacy of a nation's governance.

...by definition, people are presumed to be in prison for law-breaking, irrespective of whether the given nation’s laws are just — and, if they’re not just, then this fact reflects even more strongly that the nation itself is corrupt. So: a high incarceration-rate does strongly tend to go along with a nation’s being highly corrupt, in more than merely a technical sense — it’s almost more like being the definitive measure of “corruption.” So, the correlation between incarceration rates and corruption must be assumed to be high, and any measure of corruption which fails to at least include countries’ incarceration rates should be rejected.

Another myth busted

by Andy Singer from The Cagle Post. 

Access to capital is by far the biggest factor in producing an individual's wealth under capitalism.

Divergence at the top in the U.S.

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

Ruccio supplies data to show that there really is a core .01% that is concentrating wealth (and power) in their hands.

Voting Is for Chumps: Veteran Congressional Staffer Says 'Deep State' Already Controls America

Click here to access article by Riley Waggaman from Russia Insider. 

This is an illustration of the phenomenon about the rising discussion of the "deep state" or "shadow government" in American discourse, especially in alternative blogs. In general I think it is also an illustration of an attempt at damage control by our masters to prevent radical consequences that such an awareness could bring about. This time the damage controller is surprisingly an editor of Russia Insider.

I'm referring to Waggaman's use of quotes toward the end of the article from an interview by the former Congressional staffer so that we don't reach any "wrong" conclusions. Essentially the former Congressional staffer, Lofgren, asserts that it, the "deep state", doesn't qualify as a conspiracy because it is all done in the open; and that we, the people, already know who runs the US. Yes, Lofgren trots out the old "blame the victim" trick to provide cover for the real deep state, and then Waggaman ends with a joke so that we don't get into a tizzy about it all. 

However I'm not sure about Waggaman's point. As always with my commentaries, you must decide.

Radioactive oatmeal fed to children: Just one, in a long line, of heinous government experiments

Click here to access article by Melissa Dykes from Activist Post. 

It’s getting harder to focus on the “news”.

Considering that all media is filtered through just five megacorporations (compared with 50 companies in the early ’80s), not to mention (but I will) the fact that domestic propaganda was officially “approved” for use against the American people a few years ago, it’s kinda hard to tell the difference between what is real and what isn’t anymore.

Besides, it’s all “hey look, shiny things”. Pay attention to the right hand so you won’t see what the left is doing.

The distractions on the “news” also serve another purpose. To fill up your short term memory like junk food for the brain. To keep you from remembering what happened last week, let alone last year. From putting these things into perspective, especially historical perspective.

We’ve undertaken a large-scale research project. We’re six months in. I was reading The Plutonium Files, a book on the American government’s top secret medical experimentation against mostly unwitting, clueless American citizens during the Cold War.

What follows this relatively bland introduction might make you throw-up!

The Humiliated Masses

Click here to access article by "td0s" from Pray for Calamity. 

The author describes a very disturbing and provocative visit to Chicago and seeing Star Wars, the latest Hollywood flick. He describes this visit in the language of a poet.

We have a lot of masters. We are made pitiful by clerks as well as clocks. We are degraded not just [by] politicians and police but by abstractions and imaginary lines. We so badly need to forge time and space to be quiet, to meditate, to speak softly about just who we think we are. Technology interrupts. The buzzing of other people’s demands seeps in through the cracks to find us, to distract us, to constantly hurry us up, to tire us out, to intoxicate us, to leave us slumped over and worn.

So we go to the movies and watch civilization collapse. We envy those who get to rebuild, if only on the screen. If we keep buying such stories, they will keep selling them. And we will surely never live them.

From Copenhagen To Delhi: 'Smart Cities' Call For Smart Solutions - Like Cycling

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

Throughout the world, there is now a desire to improve public health and combat climate change. As a result, Copenhagen’s renowned cycle-friendly policies are now serving as a template for some of the world’s most congested cities. 

This piece by Todhunter brought back so many pleasant memories of cycling with my Canadian friends through various parts of Canada. One benefit he didn't elaborate on--because he was focused on cycling as an efficient way of transporting people and as a way to promote a healthy environment--was the personal health benefits of cycling. I'm referring to both physical and mental health. After moving back to the US I have lived in an area that is not conducive to cycling, and also because of my advanced age I no longer cycle. I miss it, and I miss the health benefits--I use to be in such great shape!

Anyway, his description of cycling in Denmark reminded me of Quebec where I cycled in 2005 and found cycling, especially between cities, to be especially convenient and pleasant.

The lottery and social despair in America

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

It appears that the old religious fantasies about heaven used to pacify plundered populations in the past has gone through a series of updates. The latest under the rule of capitalism is the use of state lotteries to induce workers to dream about heaven on earth today to distract them from thinking about the deterioration in their standard of living.

For American workers, achieving the “American Dream” of a stable job and one’s own home is becoming increasingly unrealizable.

Following more than 10 million foreclosures during the financial crisis, America’s home ownership rate has hit the lowest level in two decades, and for young households, the rate of home ownership is the lowest it has been since the 1960s.

For the tens of millions of America’s poor, and the more than 100 million on the threshold of poverty, the dream of winning the lottery has replaced the “American Dream” of living a decent life.

On Racism and Empire: The Skeleton of US Capitalism and the Basis of United Resistance

Click here to access article by Danny Haiphong from Global Independent Analytics.

The US is an Empire of global capital and for global capital. Its reign of terror has divided the globe into two camps. In the imperial camp, numerous states around the world serve as willful partners of US Empire or hold positions as subjugated neo-colonies. In the resistance camp, non-aligned nations such as Russia and China have maintained relative independence from the US Empire despite varying modes of development and differing interests within the resistance. Racism has been a central component to US Empire's endless warfare on the resistance camp. It has been the primary means from which the Empire has sought to achieve its objectives. 

Haiphong then continues with historical illustrations of the Empire's use of racism in an attempt to achieve world hegemony.

After 60 years of nuclear power, the industry survives only on stupendous subsidies

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from the Ecologist. 

The entire industry would not exist without massive government subsidies. Quite an insult: Subsidies prop up an industry that points a dagger at the heart of the communities where ever it operates.

The building of nuclear power plants drastically slowed after the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, so it is at a minimum reckless that the latest attempt to resuscitate nuclear power pushes forward heedless of Fukushima's discharge of radioactive materials into the air, soil and ocean.

There are no definitive statistics on the amount of subsidies enjoyed by nuclear power providers - in part because there so many different types of subsidies - but it amounts to a figure, whether we calculate in dollars, euros or pounds, in the hundreds of billions.

Toward the end of the article he does provide many links to documents that give some idea of the huge subsidies that this industry receives. 

An ever expanding capitalist economy must have growth and only nuclear power can fuel this growth after the inevitable decline in accessible fossil fuels. Our masters are addicted to capitalism which provides them with so much power and wealth. They are perfectly okay with having you support this industry with your taxes (because they pay little), and are perfectly willing to experience one disaster after another in a desperate attempt to save their goose of capitalism that lays for them so many golden eggs. Thus out of a fake concern for the environment, capitalist sponsored leaders in government are now pushing nuclear energy.

2016: Oil Limits and the End of the Debt Supercycle

Click here to access article by Gail Tverberg from her blog Our Finite World.

What is ahead for 2016? Most people don’t realize how tightly the following are linked:

1.     Growth in debt
2.     Growth in the economy
3.     Growth in cheap-to-extract energy supplies
4.     Inflation in the cost of producing commodities
5.     Growth in asset prices, such as the price of shares of stock and of farmland
6.     Growth in wages of non-elite workers
7.     Population growth

It looks to me as though this linkage is about to cause a very substantial disruption to the economy, as oil limits, as well as other energy limits, cause a rapid shift from the benevolent version of the economic supercycle to the portion of the economic supercycle reflecting contraction. Many people have talked about Peak Oil, the Limits to Growth, and the Debt Supercycle without realizing that the underlying problem is really the same–the fact the we are reaching the limits of a finite world.

Trans-Canada sues US for $15 billion over KXL refusal

Click here to access article by Guy Taylor from the Ecologist.

In a dramatic example of the powers assumed by the corporate world through trade deals, energy infrastructure corporation TransCanada has commenced legal actions against the US president for cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline project.