TTIP: "Regulatory Cooperation" a threat to democracy

Click here to access article from Corporate Europe Observatory.

The article points to another threat (in addition to the Investor-state dispute settlement sections in multi-lateral trade treaties) to what passes as democracy in capitalist countries: "regulatory cooperation" clauses in these trade treaties.

The new EU position paper on “regulatory cooperation and good regulatory
practices" offers an insight into how negotiators hope to avoid future "nontariff"
and "technical barriers" to trade. While it is unclear precisely what form
such “cooperation” would take, we understand that the proposals would entail
several changes to EU and US law-making processes.

Report: War on Drugs Meant to Imprison Blacks, Leftists

Click here to access article and 4:32m video from TeleSur.

John Ehrlichman, chief of domestic policy for disgraced former U.S. President Richard Nixon, admitted that the war against drugs was implemented to criminalize Nixon's enemies: Black people and anti-war hippies.
       
Dan Baum of Harper's Magazine released a report Tuesday that says Ehrlichman admitted as much in a 1994 interview. [link supplied by blogger]

Many anti-war activists and African-Americans have known this for a long time, but it's great to hear it from the "horse's mouth". Like all other subjects most Americans still cling to the fairy tales as conveniently presented to them by corporate media.

Straight Talk Hate Talk

Click here to access article from Public Good Project.

This website follows up on a recent article, which exposed the use of non-profit organizations as front groups to attack tribal rights under long standing agreements with the federal government in order to pave the way for a coal terminal (in my county), with this article that gives more background information (mostly via links) on these attacks. 

As I remarked in the previous post, major economic interests are supporting this effort: Goldman-Sachs and Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett). Another non-profit front group that is playing a major role in this attack through the use of lawsuits and propaganda is mentioned in the article: the deceptively named "Northwest Jobs Alliance".

One link takes you to IC Magazine's (a Native American website) post entitled "Wise Use Terrorism: Craig Cole's Anti-Indian Campaign" which argues the following:

The Wall Street/Tea Party Convergence in the fossil fuel export war on the Salish Sea, using counterfeit front groups and political action committees, is a textbook example of Wise Use netwar (networked psychological warfare) exploiting organized racism. Gray ops (misleading propaganda) and black ops (counterfeit front groups) make it possible for Wise Use fossil fuel export developers to confuse mainstream media, and in conjunction with bribery through advertising, ensure that only the industrial point of view is represented in the corporate mainstream news. [my link]

Trickle-Down Economics

by cartoonist Gabe Crate?

Zero-Sum: The Savage Vision Driving a Terror-Ridden World

Click here to access article by Chris Floyd from his blog Empire Burlesque. 

In this essay the Floyd, an independent journalist, embarks on an ambitious quest to explain the continuing terrorist events in Western countries by examining what he regards as a "primitive" orientation of control and domination that has been adopted by so many ruling classes throughout history. Of course recorded history only dates back to about 10,000 years ago, or at most about 2% of human history. Thus little is known about the earlier 98% of human experience. 

Floyd later suggests that this "fiercely primitive worldview" is an "extremely limited worldview", however he doesn't develop the theme that there is another worldview that is characterized by "The idea of equal citizens working, living, and sharing together". Such a worldview is regarded as purely a fantasy by especially those who dominate the world today. 

This is a fundamental issue regarding human nature. It seems obvious that human nature is highly plastic and can take many different forms for long periods of time. Many have argued that, although the latter is true, human nature is not infinitely plastic. Two such people who argue that this "fiercely primitive worldview" is not a fundamental part of human nature are Susan Rosenthal, a retired psychiatrist, and Noam Chomsky, a world famous linguist. Rosenthal's thoughts on this subject can be accessed in Chapter Five of her book Power and Powerlessness and  Chomsky's in an article entitled "Human Nature: Justice versus Power" which features a 1971 debate with Michel Foucault. Eric Fromm after WWII wrote many books featuring a similar concept of human nature. All these concepts suggest that human nature is incompatible with any kind of class rule.

Floyd focuses our attention on more contemporary and false notions of human nature, the most prominent of which is the capitalist ruling class's notion of extreme individualism where everyone is encouraged to believe that they are in competition with everyone else for control and domination. Such beliefs, of course, ultimately justify capitalist class rule.

...the dynamic of domination is key: since nothing exists outside this dynamic, since there is no other way, then one group MUST dominate the others. The idea of equal citizens working, living, and sharing together is a fantasy in this worldview. If blacks or immigrants or women or gays are perceived to have gained a small share in the national life, then that share must have been “taken” from the dominant group. And since, in this view, domination is the goal of all groups, since it is the organizing principle of human life, then those upstart groups are not just seeking a fair share of society’s bounty and freedoms and opportunities; no, they are actually aiming to subjugate the dominant group. In this extremely limited worldview, life is always a zero-sum game. To give someone else more opportunity means less for yourself, and your kind. The freer someone else is, the less free you are. There is only so much to go around. You will find more sophisticated and empathetic worldviews on grade-school playgrounds, or in wolf packs.

And so we come to the foreign policies of Western nations today.

US is Offering False Hope to Syria's Kurds

Click here to access article by Ulson Gunnar from New Eastern Outlook.

I've been amazed at the support of the Syrian Kurds by both Russia and the United States with Turkey, a NATO ally of the latter, on the other side attacking the Kurds both in Syria and Iraq. The US has even gone to the extent of establishing an airbase in the Kurdish area of Syria which, of course, is illegal without the Syrian government's consent. I've wondered how the US rationalizes their support of Syrian Kurds to the Erdogan government in Turkey. And what about the Syrian Kurds who espouse a political ideology that is incompatible with the ideology of the Empire? Thus I've been waiting for independent experts on the Middle East to explain all these mysteries to me. Gunnar is the first I've discovered to attempt to do this, and he does shed a convincing light on some of these mysteries.

It is well known that the US's plan B, although usually regarded as a secondary solution to the destruction of ISIS and related terrorist armies, has been widely supported among US think tanks and government offices. Plan B also is very characteristic of a more general hegemonic orientation of the Empire whose British roots have long practiced this type of divide and rule strategy.

As the British did before them, the United States is an expert in Balkanizing regions, and nations within regions. What is touted as "revolution," "freedom" and "independence" often ends up becoming decades of instability, internal conflict and dependence on the US who had sold the idea of nation-making in the first place.

And while the US promises the Kurds a utopian future state, they have simultaneously promised overlapping spheres within the region to other allies, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even Israel. The diabolical brilliance of this arrangement allows the US to create future conflicts, divisions and weakness among all players in the region, between friends and foes alike, ensuring it alone maintains hegemony over a collection of infighting subordinates.

In my mind this begs questions about the political thinking of the Syrian Kurds whose political ideology holds so much promise. Are they naive about this strategy and will end up like so many other balkanized states dependent on the Empire or do they think that they can use the US for the purposes of protecting them from the terrorist armies (sponsored directly and indirectly by the Empire) and Turkey, and then kick them out when those purposes are accomplished? Doesn't such a strategy cause considerable discord with US allies in Saudi Arabia and Turkey? Such questions remain to be answered.

In any case what is coming into glaring focus is the astounding duplicitous nature of the Empire's role in the Syrian conflict and nearby areas. Of course duplicity has been in the nature of all imperial regimes throughout history, but Empire directors seem to have taken this to a whole new level. 

"Meanwhile back at the US ranch", the Empire's corporate media continue to manage all these discrepancies and contradictions with sufficient skill to keep my fellow Americans either totally misinformed or confused or both.

‘This is what happens when you get into bed with extremists’

Click here to access a 12:57 interview conducted by RT with the editor of Politics First Marcus Papadopoulos, commenting on the Brussels blasts.

I was aghast at his first comment (0:30m) about the terrorist attack in Brussels as "demonstrating the evil nature of Islamism", but after that he summarizes all the sponsorship and support of the Empire (US and NATO countries), its Mid-East medieval cronies, and Turkey given to terrorist armies that have tried to overturn the Syrian government. 

Scientists Warn of Perilous Climate Shift Within Decades, Not Centuries

Click here to access article by Justin Gillis from the NY Times.

The nations of the world agreed years ago to try to limit global warming to a level they hoped would prove somewhat tolerable. But leading climate scientists warned on Tuesday that permitting a warming of that magnitude would actually be quite dangerous. [my emphasis]

The likely consequences would include killer storms stronger than any in modern times, the disintegration of large parts of the polar ice sheets, and a rise of the sea sufficient to begin drowning the world’s coastal cities before the end of this century, the scientists declared.

Human-driven carbon release rate unprecedented in past 66 million years

Click here to access article from (e) Science News.

This is a very well-written piece for the lay public.

"In studying one of the most dramatic episodes of global change since the dinosaurs, the researchers show that we are currently in uncharted territory in the rate carbon is being released into the atmosphere and oceans," said Candace Major, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.

The findings suggest that humans [now] are responsible for releasing carbon about 10 times faster than during any time in the past 66 million years.

False Solutions: Pitfalls of Emissions Trading / Risks of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and Geo-Engineering

Click here to access a 17:46 video and transcript of a panel discussion in English from Kontext (Germany).

I had difficulty playing the video on this site. You can also access it at this link, and from TNI (I used right click to operate video).

The emission trading scheme has failed as an instrument to curb global warming. The reason for the failure is that there has never been a global cap on carbon emissions. In the end loopholes have caused stagnating or even rising emissions, says Alice Bows-Larkin. Additionally problematic mega-dams have been pushed as green projects. To include forests and soils in the emission trading like it is done with the program REED+ in the Paris agreement would follow a “perverse logic”, says former chief climate negotiator of Bolivia Pablo Solón. Only those who reduce deforestation get carbon credits as a kind of reward. Troubling is also that scientists and politicians rely on carbon capture and storage and geo-engeneering to reduce our emissions in the future. Instead of following these kind of dangerous solutions politics should rather stop the pollution by reducing the extraction of oil, gas and coal in the first place.

US accelerating military encirclement of China

Click here to access article by Peter Symonds from World Socialist Web Site. 

Symonds brings us up-to-date on the latest happenings in relation to the "pivot to Asia [China]" policy of the Obama administration.

The United States and the Philippines announced last Friday that five of the country’s military bases would be opened up to American forces under the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The implementation of the Philippine basing arrangement is just one component of the accelerating US military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific region as part of the Pentagon’s encirclement and war preparations against China.

European Union-Turkey deal to expel refugees comes into force

Click here to access article by Jordan Shilton from World Socialist Web Site. 

The deal struck last Friday between the European Union’s 28 heads of government and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to facilitate the mass deportation of refugees arriving in Greece came into force on Sunday.

The agreement, negotiated at a special two-day summit with the authoritarian Turkish regime, aims to seal off Europe’s borders to the millions of desperate people fleeing war and social misery produced by a series of wars and military interventions led by the imperialist powers. It represents a flagrant violation of international law by effectively abolishing the right to asylum, leaving the refugees at the mercy of the Turkish government.

The Turkish government in collusion with Saudi Arabia and its satellites and the US Empire which includes the European Union and Israel are responsible for the catastrophe in Syria which has caused so many people to flee for their lives.

Facing Turkey, Europe chooses suicide

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from Voltaire Network. 

By signing an agreement with Turkey to slow the influx of refugees – which happens to be illegal in international law – the leaders of the European Union have taken a step further in their pact with the devil. A large part of the 3 billion Euros annually allotted to Ankara will serve to finance support for the jihadists, and as a result will increase the number of migrants who are fleeing the war.

This French intellectual covers a lot of ground to support his thesis as expressed in the headline. Although I have posted some of his articles on my website, others have not been posted because of what I considered to be inadequate translations and thus would not be well understood by Americans. I am posting this piece because Meyssan draws on his extensive body of work and other solid sources to portray the irrationality from a European perspective of not only the recent agreement regarding refugees but most of the policies of Europe's ruling class. 

However, must we conclude that European leaders are stupid as Meyssan seems to suggest in the headline? This pattern of rule which he documents suggests to me that European leaders, and the European ruling class that they represent, have been so thoroughly integrated into the US-led Empire that they are really serving the Empire and identify with its global hegemonic orientation. 

We see another excellent example of portraying European leaders as stupid in a briefer article entitled "Is Putin Weaponising Stupidity?" by Rob Slane from his blog TheBlogMire.

America’s Fake War on ISIS Grinds On

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

Unfortunately the link on which his essay is based regarding the hearing at the Senate Committee on Armed Services is no longer valid, however the author has demonstrated over a number of years that he is a very reliable source of information. He expresses his general observation of the hearings as follows:

What the hearing illustrated once again was that it is the US plowing the fields – turning nations into failed-states – and then sowing the seeds of perpetual chaos with heavily armed, well-funded, and well backed mercenary forces to transform entire regions of the world into divided, weak, and perpetually fighting, perpetually shifting conflict zones from which the West’s enemies can be removed, and regimes more to their liking can be installed.

In the one hour plus hearing, nothing resembling a tangible strategy for confronting and defeating ISIS was discussed.

Capitalist trade and its discontents

Click here to access article by David Ruccio from his blog Occasional Links & Commentary.

Economist Ruccio writes:

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that international trade under capitalism creates winners and losers. A few winners and lots of losers.

Generations of heterodox economists have demonstrated exactly that—that, both theoretically and empirically, capitalist trade can and often does have diverging class effects. Mainstream economists, however, persist in arguing exactly the opposite: everyone gains from trade.

History as Propaganda: Why the USSR Did Not ‘Win’ World War II (both parts 1 and 2)

Click here to access part 1 and and part 2 here, both by Michael Jabara Carley from Strategic Culture Foundation.

This Canadian professor tries to correct how history is taught in Western countries. I wish him well in his own Sisyphean task because the teaching of history for ordinary people has become little more than propaganda to insure the new generations manning the imperial armies do so with conviction. Now that Russia is once again appearing in the scopes of the Empire's many weapons, this anti-Russian propaganda campaign is going into high gear.

The title of this article is intended to be ironic because of course the Red Army did play the predominant role in destroying Nazi Germany during World War II. You would not know it, however, reading the western Mainstream Media (MSM), or watching television, or going to the cinema in the west where the Soviet role in the war has almost entirely disappeared.

If in the West the Red Army is largely absent from World War II, the Soviet Union’s responsibility for igniting the war is omnipresent.

In both parts he uses mostly the shorthand expression of naming countries in place of specifying capitalist ruling classes of those countries. This omission also allows him to make the most egregious omission of all. The prime reason why Western capitalist countries engaged in so much perfidy with regard to the Soviet Union and were so sympathetic toward the growing fascist menace in Europe was the crime of rejecting capitalism in the Soviet Revolution of 1917--the 800 pound gorilla in the room of the 20th century! This is as close as the professor comes to this most important fact:

During the interwar years, the Russophobia was mixed with Sovietophobia: it was a clash of two worlds between the West and the USSR, the Silent Conflict, Litvinov called it. 

A "clash of two worlds"? Such obfuscation of history results in a gross distortion of history! Gone are any references to the 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. The viscerally hostile reaction by leading capitalist classes to the Soviet revolution colored so much of the history of the 20th century.

The actual WWII Soviet contribution to the defeat of fascism as described by the professor is accurate, but this glaring omission results in this distortion of history--this time apparently in service to the new capitalist ruling class in Russia which refuses to submit to the rule of the Empire capitalists. Or maybe in service to what has become fashionable among "leftists" in the West: promotion of a "multi-polar" capitalist world.

The Honorable Market Garland

Click here to access article by the creator of Habeas Quaestus blog.

She supplies more information (see this) about the new Supreme Court nominee.

With the nomination of Merrick Garland, the Obama administration and Democratic establishment have doubled down on upholding neoliberalism as the core of the party’s politics. The legal punditry must break free of the misleading categories that have long dominated our analysis, especially of the Supreme Court. Pro or anti-government; progressive or textualist; and activist or conservative all are false binaries and obfuscate the truth. Judge Garland in particular reveals a truth that the marginalized people of this country have known for centuries: the law is construed to fit the politics of the powerful.

The invention of capitalism

by Peter Chiykowski from his website Rock, Paper, Cynic.

Smart Power & The Human Rights Industrial Complex [a must-read]

Click here to access article by Patrick Henningsen from UK Column. [article of the month]

This lengthy study of corrupted human rights organizations reveals how many of them have been heavily influenced by the power of money to serve as ideological weapons for the many shady purposes of the Empire. The proliferation of such organizations and their influence over media and UN bodies only scratches the surface of a deeper ideological war: a massive effort to penetrate every institution of Western societies to insure citizens' compliance and support of Empire objectives of profit and power. The author only focuses our attention on one sector--human rights organizations.

Due to increased funding from corporate interests and direct links to government and policy think tanks in recent years, these organisations have become even more politicised, and more closely connected with western 'agents of influence.' As a result, an argument can be made that, on many levels, these 'human rights' organisations may be contributing to the very problem they profess to be working to abate: causing more suffering, death and instability worldwide through their co-marketing of the foreign policy objectives of Washington, London, Paris and Brussels.

The problem is both systemic and institutional in nature. As a result, many of the western world's leading human rights organizations based in North America and Europe have become mirror reflections of a western foreign policy agenda and have become virtual clearing houses for interventionist propaganda.

Because I am retired I have the time to be informed on the huge manipulative efforts of Empire directors, but this study (not merely an article) left me feeling rather discouraged at the prospects of coping with their massive display of power over the minds of ordinary citizens. Only a small fraction of the public will read this and similar articles, and fewer will understand all the implications it has for the urgency of an organized effort on the part of ordinary people to combat the powerful influence of the Imperial propagandists.

American politics as puppet show

by Young taken from a post on Occasional Links & Commentary.

I don't know if this was drawn by Chic Young of the comic strip Blondie or not, but it aptly describes American politics.

Latest Leak Confirms TTIP a 'Serious Threat to Democracy as We Know It'

Click here to access article by Deirdre Fulton from Common Dreams. 

EU member states and the European Parliament will be "sidelined" in favor of big business and U.S. interests should the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) go through, according to a leaked document revealed Friday.

The leak, of the corporate-friendly trade deal's draft chapter on "regulatory cooperation" between the EU and U.S., was made public by The Independent and Brussels-based campaign group Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO).

TPP will be toothless for environmental protection: [Canadian] study

Click here to access article from bilaterals.

This brief article serves as an introduction to a 3200 word report (PDF).

As the debate heats up over whether Canada should ratify the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a new study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) highlights the agreement’s serious shortcomings in protecting the environment.

“Far from being a milestone for environmental protection, as claimed by the U.S. and Canadian governments, the TPP will not safeguard or promote effective environmental protection measures,” says Jacqueline Wilson, legal counsel at the Canadian Environmental Law Association and author of the study Bait-and-Switch: The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s Promised Environmental Protections Do Not Deliver.

Imperial Elections

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

I congratulate the authors on this very literate exposé of the current president primary elections as political theater. Referring to Hillary Clinton, they write:

It was her turn. Somewhere a few wise men had decided this. The only problem was a logistical one. It was the perennial dilemma of legitimizing and celebrating this choice with a staged plebiscite. In a lame-duck season, inciting wars, chasing bogeymen, aiming at fake targets, and making victory speeches was not option. Furthermore, though the voters were not consciously aware of this, deep in their hearts they knew that she was the anointed one, and that the smoke of Rome would rise for her in the form of blue and red balloons. Therefore a year-long circus would have to be designed to turn a mirage into reality, to persuade the voters that cotton candy is a nutritious meal and that the clowns, the dancing elephants, and every act would inexorably lead to her grand finale high-wire act. Politics as spectacle would reach its apogee.

Few people on the left are covering these primaries as the carefully staged circus they are. While I admire and envy the writing of these authors (see also a previous piece entitled "The Fake Left"), I worry that the high level of sophistication of this piece will pass over the heads of more ordinary readers; and because of this, the article will likely not be re-posted on other websites whose audiences are less sophisticated. Instead our attention is diverted by the fake left into interpreting these elections at face value. Is there no real left left in America? Perhaps the authors are right in the view they expressed in "The Fake Left" article.

All writers with a desire to rattle people out of their torpor occasionally wonder if it is worthwhile to continue to try to raise their voices over the din of lies and distractions. More and more for us, such thoughts are occasioned, not by the mainstream, which predictably treats all the pronouncements from the powerful as being newsworthy, but by the fake left, which lobotomizes most of whom it touches. The increasing sophistication of this group and its rate of expansion are astounding. Its purpose is to annihilate and replace the real left, and it is making great strides in this regard.

“For years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa”

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

Ruccio explains with hard economic evidence that capitalist operations result in most of the wealth produced by American workers has caused the American worker to become poorer and poorer while the "owners" become ever richer by exploiting cheaper labor worldwide. Wealth produced by workers ends up concentrated in the hands of a small segment of society.

...capitalism means that capitalists get to appropriate the surplus and do with it what they want. They get to decide when and where commodities will be produced, and therefore when and where jobs will or will not be created. If that means offshoring production or purchasing inputs from producers in other countries in order to boost profits, they’ll do so. And workers in the United States will either lose their jobs or be forced to accept lower wages and fewer benefits in order to “compete” with the production of commodities elsewhere.

Thus an economy, which is a vital part of every society, ends up under capitalism serving the needs of only a tiny segment or class of each society while producing many undesirable effects such as unemployment, poverty, devastating wars, etc. for the vast majority of people.

Obama’s Supreme Court Nominee a Continuum of the Dubious War on Terror

Click here to access article by Christof Lehmann from nsnbc international.

Lehmann digs up the judicial record of Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court to show that  he will be an excellent choice to serve the ruling class.

A look at the track record of Garland suggests that Obama’s candidate of choice represents a continuum of dubious terrorism and anti-terrorism cases from Oklahoma to Guantanamo and beyond.

Was the First Obama Election Fixed? New Book Raises Suspicions

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

Martens comments on a fictional book, Fixers by Michael M. Thomas, a former Wall Street insider, who uses fiction to disclose the many realities of the Obama administration and its smooth handling of the taxpayer bailout of major banks and Wall Street firms.

...what you’re getting in Fixers is a spellbinding analysis of the actual dirty deals that toppled Wall Street in 2008 with a new twist – a fictitious character who says he laundered $75 million into the Democratic presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton’s primary challenger in 2007 in exchange for three names on an index card. Those three names had to become the “hope and change” President’s chief economic advisor, Treasury Secretary, and head of the criminal division of the Justice Department. These three key posts were to keep piles of bailout money flowing to Wall Street while simultaneously making sure no Wall Street executives were prosecuted for the crimes that brought on the crash.

Unfortunately, Martens falls for the latest election scam by declaring that in this year's election we have a real choice in Sanders! Sanders, of course, is being used by the capitalist's Democratic party to bring in hopey-changey young people many of whom will end up voting for Hillary. 

Martens doesn't see that it was all arranged for Hillary to be elected. Our masters know how to manipulate the identity politics of Americans (class politics is taboo). Haven't many of Hillary's supporters said, "wouldn't it be wonderful to have a woman as president?!" Sanders is "unelectable" according to mainstream pundits, and then there's the ogre Donald Trump to scare most into voting for Hillary. Who said history doesn't repeat itself? If the political scam worked before, why shouldn't it work again? 

Organizations condemn Eco Oro Minerals’ warning that it could sue Colombia over efforts to protect water sources

Click here to access article from ISDS Platform.

Actually the article indicates that the Canadian mining corporation has plans to sue the nation because the country has taken actions to protect their water supply, and the actions will interfere with the corporation's profits under another "free trade" agreement with the same clause as the "investor-state dispute settlement" (ISDS) found in all these neoliberal agreements.

Civil society organizations condemn Eco Oro Minerals’ announcement that it will initiate international arbitration against the Colombian state. Eco Oro has stated its intention to sue Colombia under the investment chapter of the Canada Colombia Free Trade Agreement over measures that the Andean state has taken to protect the Santurbán páramo and páramos around the country from harmful activities such as large-scale mining.

Eco Oro Minerals’ Angostura proposed gold mine in Santurbán has financial backing from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation.

Why we don’t bother to debate with climate science deniers, illustrated

Click here to access article from Climate & Capitalism.

Actually I think that the debate on climate destabilization is largely over since Hurricane Sandy occurred right over the capitalist decision-making centers of the east coast. This disastrous storm could not have hit a better place in terms of influencing the debate. Now our masters who are (literally) addicted to the wealth and power "highs" delivered by capitalism, the root cause of environmental degradation, are using their media to censor out any relationship between climate disasters that are becoming increasingly evident and global warming; and when they do mention the latter, they emphasize fantasies about technology solving the problem.

If people are just confused about climate, they can be reasoned with. The facts are convincing, to anyone who is willing to see. But nothing convinces hard core science deniers, as this 2009 episode from Wiley Miller‘s comic strip Non Sequitur illustrates.

Crude Awakening

Click here to access article from Public Good Project.

Now that the U.S. crude oil export ban has been lifted, and ‘bomb trains’ are already rolling into the four Pacific Northwest refineries, the three-year-old conflict between Indian tribes and fossil fuel exporters opens up vast opportunities for Anti-Indian Movement organizing, with some really deep pockets behind it. By comparison, White Power on the Salish Sea — promoted by coal exporters — could seem like a mere warm-up for organizations like Citizens Equal Rights Alliance (CERA), “the Ku Klux Klan of Indian country”.

Because I've focusing most of my attention on the many imperial adventures of the neoliberal Empire abroad, I seem to have neglected their activities to exploit opportunities for profit and power in my local area. I was jarred into awakening by a scientist who under contract is working for tribal organizations to defend their fish stock which, like everything else in nature, is under attack by the addicts of profit and power. When I encountered him on some other matter, he was exhibiting signs of extreme frustration over a non-profit, Wild Fish Conservancy, that was launching some kind of legal suit against him, and if he loses will cost the local tribes dearly. What appeared to be driving him crazy was the irrationality of this non-profit's case against fish hatcheries. 

After leaving him I was puzzled by his behavior and decided to do a little online sleuthing. I have subsequently become convinced that he is up against powerful economic interests that are using various non-profit front groups (see this, this, and this) to attack tribal legal rights which are standing in the way of a coal terminal that these interests want to be built to ship coal to China. These sources reveal the powerful interests behind the coal terminal: Goldman-Sachs, and BNSF Railway which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway and owned in substantial part by one of America's richest (Warren Buffet) billionaires. 

It suddenly struck me that this is precisely how powerful capitalist actors use NGOs (non-profits in foreign countries) abroad to destabilize various countries (think Ukraine) in the various "color revolutions". It appears to me that these non-profit organizations are being used in a similar fashion domestically (in my backyard!) by these corporate addicts to secure their drugs of profit and power. 

Chomsky: Mainstream Media Owned By Those Who Would Destroy Civilization With War

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

Chomsky responded that activists must always remember who controls the media, and what their motivations are for controlling the news. “They are based on existing institutions of power and domination within our societies, and that affects the way what they chose to discuss at all — some things they don’t discuss — and the ways in which they do it,” he said.

The True Cost of Cheap Meat

Click here to access a book review by Martin Empson posted on Climate & Capitalism. 

Empson introduces his review of a new book entitled Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat by Philip Lymbery with Isabel Oakeshott with the following statement:

It is impossible to read Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat without coming to the conclusion that the world’s food and agriculture system is screwed. This is a system that produces enormous quantities of food, yet sees up to a third of that wasted. It’s a highly technological system requiring enormous quantities of oil, pesticides and chemicals to produce vast quantities of food; yet it’s a system that fails to feed the hungry.

Further on Empson reaches the following observation based on the book's examination:

Ultimately people go hungry because the agricultural system is driven by profit and there isn’t any profit in feeding the poor.

Algal Toxins Found in Alaskan Marine Mammals

Click here to access article by Neha Jain from GotScience. 

The author reports on a recent study that found that rising temperatures across the globe is contributing to the growth of toxic algae causing harmful effects to ocean mammals in northern regions.

Harmful algal blooms produce toxins that can be deadly to marine mammals. In the US, such toxins—unheard of 20 years ago—have caused almost half of all unusual marine mammal deaths in the last two decades, particularly among California sea lions. Now, for the first time scientists have discovered algal toxins farther north in Alaskan marine mammals; the mammals’ health can be jeopardized by these toxins.

“What really surprised us was finding these toxins so widespread in Alaska, far north of where they have been previously documented in marine mammals,” said Kathi Lefebvre, a scientist at NOAA Fisheries and lead researcher of the study.

Algal blooms occur when some species of phytoplankton grow rapidly while conditions are favorable. They are a common phenomenon in tropical and temperate regions.

Feeding The Bank Balance Or Feeding The World: GMOs, Development And The Politics Of Unhappiness

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

Modern state-corporate capitalism is stripping the environment bare through unsustainable levels of consumption. It is legitimised by a deceitful ideology that attempts to justify and sell a system which by its very nature is designed to benefit a minority at the expense of the majority.

This model thrives on the exploitation of peoples and the environment by powerful transnational corporations. Look no further to see how intellectual property rights and agricultural subsidies and the WTO serves the interests of these corporations, for instance, or the roles that 'free trade' agreements,'structural adjustment' and the undermining of non-compliant governments play. Moreover, economic neoliberalism strides the world hand in glove with militarism. The outcome is a programme of endless destabilisations, conflicts and wars over finite resources to enrich elite interests. 

Todhunter has returned to Britain after living a number of years in India where he witnessed the destructive practices of agribusiness, their use of GM seeds together with pesticides, and the transfer of land ownership from small farmers to large corporations who grow crops for export. He explains how all the destructive effects are tied to these powerful capitalist corporations.

Terminal Condition: Neoliberal Globalization

Click here to access article by Maximilian Forte from Zero Anthropology.

In this second of a series of three this Canadian anthropology professor offers his views on the American elections. In this piece he makes some cogent remarks about capitalist myths which clash with contemporary economic conditions. He argues that the American electorate are becoming aware of these contradictions and expressing them in the primary elections held so far, and he provides factual evidence to suggest that many people are discouraged with both parties. The most significant is that the recent primary elections show a dramatic decline of people registered in the Democratic Party, and many of these are gravitating to Bernie Sanders, while mainline Republicans are choosing Trump, a non-neoliberal candidate, over all the neoliberal Republican candidates. All of this supports his thesis that neoliberalism is coming to an end, but not by leftists, but by a right-wing "populist" (as he describes Trump).

I totally disagree with his premise which supports his thesis when writes:

Voters in the US find themselves in a unique position, compared with many of the rest of us: they have a chance to effectively vote on neoliberalism, on globalization.

This is complete nonsense as I and others have argued many times. (See this, this, and this as examples.)

Although he does not state it explicitly here (he did in his previous article), his implication is quite obvious: Trump as he previously predicted will win the presidency and that will be the end of neoliberalism! 

Forte also curiously describes Trump as a "populist" with "authoritarian solutions". Although the word "populist" is sometimes used pejoratively, it is most frequently used to denote a leader who represents real interests of a significant number of ordinary people. "Populist" was never used to describe Hitler although he demonstrated popularity. 

I think Trump is attracting a lot of people who are completely discouraged by all the other well groomed, coiffed and scripted candidates of the Republican Party. He exudes a kind of strong man or hero image who appeals mostly to all the middle and upper income folks who mostly see him as protecting them from the losses of their homes and property and from all the colored people who want to take away all their possessions.

What needs to be understood is the importance of ideology (a web of fairy tales) to any ruling class. What adults find so difficult to believe is that most ruling classes find it much more efficient (cost-effective) to lie about what they are doing simply because what they really do is so illegitimate in terms of any kind of social justice. Capitalist ruling classes have developed an extremely elaborate complex of institutions (which they closely supervise) which they use to inculcate in their subjects mythical beliefs that justify why there are a relatively few rich people and so many poor, and why the poor should work so hard, why the latter should not only obey the rich but esteem them. These myths are spread far and wide, so much so, that the masses of workers find it very difficult to believe that they are only myths spread by the ruling class to support their interests.

You might think of it this way: there are fairy tales for children and there are fairly tales for adults. Children at a certain age are told that their tales such as the tooth fairy are not true, but many similar beliefs about social and political reality are continued on into adulthood simply because such beliefs support the rule of a certain class of people, a ruling class.

This is easily seen when we review the beliefs of previous ruling classes such as existed in feudalism. Here beliefs were widely spread to justify the rule of monarchs and the aristocracy, the chief one of which was that the king ruled by divine right. Everybody believed this myth during feudalism, but no one believes that now. Frequently in the past people held a belief about a future existence in terms of heaven or hell. A relatively few people today take this fairy tale very seriously.

Yet today when adults are confronted with evidence that some of their beliefs about governance are false (for example: political institutions are controlled by the rich who exclude anyone who threatens their power) they experience deep discomfort and may lash out at the person who presents such evidence. The same is true when people are presented with evidence that threaten any of the capitalist beliefs about democracy, freedom, hard work, equality, and yes, elections; and that corporate media is full of lies. This is dramatically true when people are confronted with evidence of a "deep state", or rule by hidden actors behind the official organs of government. Over time such adult fairy tales appear to become integrated into a people's sense of their very identity. Thus any contrary evidence is psychologically very threatening. It follows as a general rule that older adults tend to be much more threatened by challenges to their beliefs than younger people.

Now let us return to the Forte's article. I think that his political analysis is flawed and confusing because he also accepts some beliefs about the US election system as reality: that citizens will determine who rules as president of the US and that people who vote in elections make this decision based on mostly rational beliefs.

It is my sense that the myths about governance in the US have been compounding over time, much like compound interest, to what we experience today: corporate news broadcasts (reinforced in entertainment and education) report mostly lies. I think what we are witnessing in the primary elections results are indications of confusion. People are beginning to sense that many these beliefs do not correspond with their daily experience. People voting for Trump are looking for a strong leader to save them. People voting for Sanders believe all of his social program rhetoric and that he can implement these programs if voted into office. People voting for Hillary Clinton are the majority who are mostly afraid of Trump and don't believe Sanders can win because corporate media keeps telling them that. Meanwhile it is much more realistic to believe, based on evidence, that the ruling class is managing the campaigns and election coverage to insure that Hillary Clinton becomes president. It's all like an incredible circus or puppet show if viewed by someone who is not devoted to mainstream media and their fairy tales.

To the ruling elite, elections are a barometer of how credible their propaganda machinery is. They are a bit worried about Trump's popularity because Trump will likely not follow orders issued by the "deep state", particularly with regard to foreign wars and neoliberal adventures, very well. They might have to assassinate him if he is elected, and assassinations are always messy affairs. But as I see it, they don't need to worry, and I don't think that they are very worried. From now until election time their corporate media will undermine most of the support that Trump is receiving. People will end up voting for Hillary, the ruling directorate's chosen candidate. What really worries the directorate is the diminishing support among ordinary people for their neoliberal agenda. But this setback by no stretch of the imagination means the end of neoliberalism as Forte suggests. They might have to revamp their propaganda, but in the end they always have their police state infrastructure to deal with widespread dissidence and resistance. 

I am thoroughly convinced that the ruling class are addicted to power and wealth and nothing will stop them from pursuing their agendas except an organized revolution by the people. Realistically this seems like a most unlikely prospect. But what's the alternative?  

Mind-blowing February 2016 temperature spike a "climate emergency" says scientist, as extreme events hit Vietnam, Fiji and Zimbabwe

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

Where do you start when climate data comes out that scientists simply call "jaw dropping", 'alarming" and "true shocker" and "quite stunning ... it's completely unprecedented"?

The jaw dropper is the global average temperature for February 2016, released on 11 March by the US government agency NASA.

Syria: Another Pipeline War

Click here to access article by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. from EcoWatch. 

In this essay John Kennedy's nephew provides a very long and accurate history of US interventions and subversive actions to secure the fossil fuel wealth of the Mid-East, but tends to explain the more recent actions as misguided blunders and casts blame on a few neocons who have imperialist motives.

The Sea Island Conspiracy

Click here to access article by Pat Buchanan from Town Hall. 

Buchanan is a traditional American conservative (Wikipedia labels them as a "paleoconservatives") who basically believes in a nationally oriented agenda of capitalism without much emphasis on imperialism. With the election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 a new version took over which consciously enlarged the scope of capitalist thinking into thinking on a global scale: neoliberalism, an advanced form of imperialism. The formal expression of this global political and economic vision was labeled by H. W. Bush as a "New World Order". 

The seeds of this thinking were present from the end of WWII with the rise of secret agencies within the US government such as the CIA, NSA, etc. After the power of this hidden "deep state" was demonstrated with the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King, and other less notable political figures and after years of consolidation of their power, this new global and more secretive form of conservatives took over the formal reigns of government beginning in 1980. They became known as neoconservatives. A strong component of this new group are Zionists who are inclined to support the interests of Israel. (Many of the Zionists have, and have had, duel citizenship.)

Traditional conservatives like Buchanan, Craig Paul Roberts, and Ron Paul have resented this takeover and are very critical of these upstarts. In this piece Buchanan reveals how the neoconservatives are very much threatened by the strong following that the maverick Donald Trump is attracting in the Republican primary elections, and are covertly organizing to stop him. 

Traditional conservatives know a lot about real power, because they once had it and are still well-connected with powerful people. Buchanan demonstrates that knowledge by exposing how the New World Order/neoconservative operatives are using one of their favorite strategies to attack opponents: the use of non-profit agencies. The neoconservative administrations (Obama's included) have used them with much success in foreign countries to destabilize unfriendly governments (think Ukraine and all the color revolutions), and are now using them covertly within the US to stop Trump's nomination. (Note the term "NGO" or "non-governmental organization" is used to label such non-profit organizations in foreign countries.) What Buchanan omits in his exposé is that neoconservatives use these tax exempt organizations to spread their propaganda on an ongoing basis in support of the neoconservatives' neoliberal policies both domestically and in foreign affairs.

The dance of the capitalist class on the middle class

by cartoonist Ben Garrison from his website.

To paraphrase a famous quote by Pastor Martin Niemöller, first they came for the working class, now they are going after the middle class (professionals, smaller business proprietors, managers, scientists, teachers, and highly skilled technicians).

Bernie Sanders and the End of the Democratic Party

Click here to access article by Margaret Kimberley from Black Agenda Report. 

It is time to stop the quixotic search for better Democrats. It is time for a wholesale rejection of the reliance on electoral politics. A rotten system can’t accomplish anything that leftists want to see realized.

But later she writes:

Most Bernie Sanders supporters will not fall in line if the disliked Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presidential nominee. They probably won’t vote for the eventual Republican choice either but they won’t turn obediently to Clinton. They should choose to start over with a new party.

Oh my god!! This Pete Seeger refrain comes into my mind: "When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn."

I remember just before the presidential election in 2008, the Black Agenda Report endorsed Obama for president. Well, I guess Kimberley's view here shows some progress, but it is woefully short of what is needed. She totally ignores the fact that the capitalist ruling class controls all institutions which includes the elections. The only real alternative is for ordinary people to begin to organize a revolutionary movement to rid ourselves of the capitalist boot that is pressing down and slowly killing all of us.

Three conclusions and a surmise: Pravda, Iran and the US Judiciary

Click here to access article by Vaska from OffGuardian. 

This Canadian professor has done some sleuthing and found that a Pravada report was completely accurate about an astonishing US district court judgement that has been unreported in most of US mainstream media. There seems to be no end to the lies that even judges support. You have to read this to believe it.

...a New York district court judge has ruled that Iran is to pay $10.5 billion in damages and compensation for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Pentagon: $7.5 billion to the estates and families of the victims, plus $3 billion to insurance companies including Chubb Ltd. for the property damage, business interruption and other claims they’ve paid out.

A Warning From the B.I.S.: the Calm Before the Storm?

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from CounterPunch.

When the profitability of the world’s biggest corporations are at stake, the central banks will move heaven and earth to lend a hand. This was the basic subtext of the discussions at the recent G-20 summit in Shanghai, China. The finance ministers and central bankers wracked their brains for two days to see if they could settle on new strategies for boosting earnings. In fact, the austerity-minded IMF even called on the G-20 to support a coordinated plan for fiscal stimulus to  boost activity and decrease the risks to the equities markets. Unfortunately, finance ministers balked because fiscal stimulus puts upward pressure on wages and shifts more wealth to working stiffs. That’s why the idea was shelved, because the oligarchs can’t stand the idea that workers are getting a leg-up. What they want is a workforce that scrapes by on minimum wage and lives in constant fear of losing their job.  The class war continues to be a top priority among the nations voracious CEOs and corporate bigwigs.

Beware the "fat tail": Climate risk and scientific reticence

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

Because of my knowledge of ruling capitalist class control over every sector of societies, I am acutely aware of the pressures put on scientists, scientific institutions, and science media to downplay the effects of climate destabilization. Spratt addresses this awareness in the article. 

This phenomenon is a direct result of the awareness of capitalist ruling classes, especially those associated with the US Empire, that capitalism and a sustainable climate are in contradiction to each other. Only an addiction to wealth and power can explain why this ruling class persists in this endeavor which will result not only in the capitalist's own destruction but that of the human species as well. Only the 99% can save humans from the destructive habits of these sick people.

As an illustration of the fear that intimidates scientists, I will reproduce a comment to my posting of "Capitalism and the destruction of life on Earth: Six theses on saving the humans" on July 3, 2013: 

Anonymous Jul 13, 2013, 6:21:00 PM

I have been teaching environmental biology for decades, and entirely concur with the points made by the author. Most of my colleagues are simply afraid to speak up, and for very good reasons. The perpetrators of this tragedy control the world, and they do have a license to defame, harass--and even kill. If you take this threat along with so many others, you must conclude that--short of a revolution and a SYSTEMIC change--it's game over for humanity. I'd give us 200 years, at the most.

The Constitution doesn't exist in the workplace...and many other places

by Mike Konopacki from his website. 

45 Years After COINTELPRO, FBI Still Thinks 'Dissent is the Enemy'

Click here to access article by Lauren McCauley from Common Dreams. 

The article concludes with this statement:

"That the FBI cannot discern between activism and terrorism shows us that they think dissent is still the enemy," said Chip Gibbons, legal fellow with Bill of Rights Defense Committee and Defending Dissent Foundation, which organized the letter. "There have been multiple attempts at reform but after each and every one we see the same thing happening again. The FBI claims to no longer investigate groups for their political beliefs, but look at who the FBI investigates under its counterterrorism authority—peace groups, racial justice groups, economic justice groups—the very same types of organizations that were targeted during the heyday of J. Edgar Hoover."

Because there has been no ongoing organization that keeps records of the actual history of ordinary people, every generation has to re-learn the same lessons. In this piece McCauley has done some research which--surprise! surprise!--reveals that dissent is still the enemy of the ruling capitalist class. 

Until ordinary people organize and establish institutions that keep records of our history, we will see essays like this every generation. In recent years History Commons has been doing just that, but like all other alternative organizations they are begging for financial support because most ordinary people are so caught up in the election circus and all the other distractions supplied by our masters to keep us ignorant. 

Until substantial numbers of ordinary people support alternative organizations, the many problems we see today will only get worse under the system of capitalism. We have no alternative but to organize ourselves to defeat capitalist rule. Nowadays we have the literal equivalent of Patrick Henry's theme expressed as "Give me liberty or give me death" because it is our very survival as humans that is at stake.

3 BIG reasons why street activism doesn’t work (and usually makes things worse)

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

There is much to be learned in this piece from an author who has been a long time activist in New York City. After many years he now realizes that protesting this or that government policy or action is not the solution. Unfortunately he does not propose what politics could be effective. I think that his level of understanding of the problem might be the problem. That limited understanding, I think, is the result of many years of indoctrination about all the freedoms we supposedly enjoy in America: free elections, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, etc. ("It's them damn terrorists who resent our freedoms!") But, of course, these civic lessons taught by employees of our masters are only another illustration of the many false notions about political reality that our indoctrination instills in us.

The political reality is that we live in a class dominated society and we, the overwhelming majority, are forced to serve a tiny minority of capitalists who fill our minds with all sorts of foolishness so that they can keep us bound in service to them. In order to free ourselves of their oppression, we must first understand this reality, then organize in some form, formulate plans to rid ourselves of this class rule (street demonstrations might be a part of these plans), review our experience and formulate new plans, etc, until we overthrow our oppressors. This is becoming no longer an option for us, because if we keep putting this off, we as humans will disappear from the Earth.

I am a veteran of the anti-Vietnam War movement that existed in the 1960s and early '70s. To my chagrin, as soon as the war was over, everyone went back to their private "business as usual". Most activists failed to understand that this war was just another venture of the US ruling capitalist class to subject all of the world to their rule. There would many other such wars and many other forms of oppression and suffering as we have subsequently witnessed.

How the reserve army works

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

This politically aware economist explains how surplus workers in America provide larger profits for employers. So if you are a member of the capitalist class, what's not to like about recessions, depressions, and unemployment? Workers a hundred years ago knew this, but today's workers are kept by our masters in a state of ignorance with all kinds of meaningless distractions--like the current election circus which they manage--and provided an education that teaches them only skills that their employers can use. Rather than teaching a true history, our masters give us indoctrination in capitalist views and values. The average political IQ of ordinary Americans is in the idiot range.

Good cop, bad cop?

by Stephanie McMillan from her blog.

Update from Aleppo:”Superman is Coming to Rescue the Syrians?”

Click here to access "A report from inside Aleppo.  (Note: Source’s identity is withheld for their own protection"--posted on The Wall Will Fall.)

Telling the truth in the face of lies spread by powerful capitalist agents is very risky business. This person was forced to hide their identity because he/she reports so many truths which conflict with capitalist media. In this piece the author does that as a reaction to an opinion piece in one capitalist publication which appears to imply (I haven't read it, but it sounds typical of such pieces) that "superman" America must clean up the mess in Syria--as if they didn't have a hand in creating the mess in the first place! Turning reality on its head is a favorite strategy of Empire propagandists to keep people ignorant and supportive of Empire policies and actions.

Everything so far they blamed the Syrian government of doing it in the last 5 years, they did it themselves.

They [US NATO GCC Israeli coalition proxy terrorists] used chemical weapons against civilians. They besieged villages and towns and cut all food and water supply of reaching them, the hunger strategy in wars. They forced people to leave their homes and to become refugees. They forced people to vote for them and didn’t give them their freedom. They kidnapped cities and tortured masses of people because they don’t share the same religion, sect, or political opinion. They brought multinational fighters (from 80+ different nationalities) to fight with them, years before Syria asks the help of Hezbollah, Iran, Russia (3 nationalities).

The forgotten workers’ control movement of Prague Spring

Click here to access an excerpt from a 1978 book posted by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder. 

This is an excerpt from It’s Not Over: Learning From the Socialist Experiment, officially published February 26 by Zero Books. Citations omitted. The omitted sources cited in this excerpt are: Robert Vitak, “Workers Control: The Czechoslovak Experience,” Socialist Register, 1971; Oldřich Kyn, “The Rise and Fall of the Economic Reform in Czechoslovakia,” American Economic Review, May 1970; and several articles anthologized in Vladimir Fišera, Workers’ Councils in Czechoslovakia: Documents and Essays 1968-69 [St. Martin’s Press, 1978]

In the past I have alluded to the fact that ordinary people have little knowledge of their history. Instead we are fed a history that capitalist ideologues have contrived to celebrate their leaders, their perspectives, and their interests. This always instills in students a sense that ordinary people must look to capitalist authorities for wisdom and guidance because ordinary people are incapable of organizing their own economy or governance. Capitalist class history keeps us docile and ignorant of our own power. Dolack with this post does his part in keeping us informed of one important incident in our history.

The rape of East Timor: “Sounds like fun”

Click here to access article and 51:05m video by John Pilger from OffGuardian. (Note: I didn't have time to view the video for this commentary.)

Here is a summary of the history of the Empire's early and worst crimes against humanity. Only war criminals resort to such crimes as this. At the time when these crimes were happening, I was only able to receive brief reports. This is an illustration of a censorship problem over news that the Empire doesn't want people to know. It is only many years later that we learn about the details, and then nobody seems to care enough. 

This is happening today with human rights criminals that are in control of the Empire, and we will have to wait many years to find out the whole story. Thanks to the web, we can learn about these events much earlier, but such reports will always be relegated to obscure websites that few people will access. It is our duty as activists to learn about these websites and the independent journalists and observers who often risk their lives and welfare to bring us reports. One such very credible journalist is Australian John Pilger who with the aid of more leaked documents brings us up-to-date with this summary history about this monstrous crime perpetrated many years ago by our capitalist masters.

Secret documents found in the Australian National Archives provide a glimpse of how one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century was executed and covered up. They also help us understand how and for whom the world is run.

The documents refer to East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, and were written by diplomats in the Australian embassy in Jakarta. The date was November 1976....

Profits and Pie-in-the-sky Universal Medicare

by Mike Konopacki from his website. 

U.S. Regime, in Violation of International Law, Sets Up Air Base in North Hasakah, Splitting the Political and Territorial Integrity of Syria

Click here to access article from the real SyrianFreePress Network.

I imagine some readers will object to this article because its source is obviously biased in favor of Syria. My response is that Syria is a legitimate government that is another target of regime change by the Empire and its close collaborators in the Mid-East. I have posted a number of articles that support this position, and I think that the following 12:11m video offers an excellent summary of facts regarding the conflict in Syria. 

This article relates to, and is corroborated by, a number of other articles which have reported on the Empire's "Plan B" for Syria (see this, this, and this). 

The truth about creating this pirate base on Syrian territory is that the US is in practice already splitting the political and territorial integrity of Syria, making a completely illegal action, outside of any international mandate, within a project we can define a prerequisite for the Saudi-Qatari pipelines to Turkey and Europe.

Violence On The Factory Farm: How Not To Feed The World

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

Todhunter introduces us to a rather painful film which reveals the hidden truth behind our consumption of meat that is overwhelmingly produced by factory farms. He then goes on to examine the many ramifications of these factory farms, the corporate imperatives of profit behind industrial agriculture, and the threat they pose to human survivability.

...we should not lose sight of two points that are key to this discussion.

First, neoliberal capitalism is sowing the seeds of humanity’s destruction. It is stripping the environment bare through unsustainable levels of consumption and institutionalised economic plunder, the latter of which involves the programmed eradication of indigenous, productive agriculture. In doing so, the world’s ability to feed itself is being destroyed.

And the destruction of rural livelihoods and communities is for what? Agriculture and food poisoned with chemicals and the mass incarceration of animals whose suffering is hidden from public view; an urban-centric model of ‘development’ defined by greed and narcissism on the one hand and austerity and poverty on the other; all to be played out in polluted, congested mega-cities shaped by powerful private corporations which seek to colonise and mould the very essence of existence, from cradle to grave, from field to plate.

Second, there are deep-seated questions to be asked about how we as individuals personally regard our mass slaughter and wholesale exploitation of animals on factory farms. Should we be treating animals more humanely in agriculture, or should we even be producing animal products for eating at all? Even if our consciences can continue to live with this, in the long run it will be not only impractical to expand factory farming and increase meat consumption but, based on the evidence presented here, catastrophic to do so.

Climate Disruption's New Record: Carbon Dioxide Levels Reach Highest Point in 15 Million Years

Click here to access article by Dahr Jamail from TruthOut. 

Under the criminal rule of sociopathic capitalists, humans are being led down the path to their destruction. Jamail nowadays specializes in providing data that show how we, under their rule, are rapidly altering the climate and making it unsuitable for human habitation. But then, we really don't want to know this, right? We much prefer watching on boob tubes the latest entertainment and infotainment provided to us by our corporate masters. (I'm in a cynical mood this morning.)

One of the most alarming indicators of ever-accelerating anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) this writer has witnessed since beginning these dispatches is the fact that atmospheric carbon dioxide, in early February, reached a level not seen on the planet in the last 15 million years.

Thanks to humans, the earth was (since the 1990s) already experiencing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in a realm not experienced on the planet since the Pliocene epoch, which was the period 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago that saw atmospheric carbon dioxide levels between 350 and 405 parts per million and average global temperatures that ranged between 2 and 3 degrees Celsius warmer than the climate of the 1880s.

Now we must brace ourselves for a new world, as carbon dioxide levels exceed even that epoch - a time when global sea levels were 80 feet higher than they are today.

Report on Israel’s aid subversion makes shocking reading

Click here to access article by Jonathan Cook from The National (United Arab Republic).

This Nazareth-based journalist reports on how Israel benefits from foreign aid that is designed to aid Palestinians.

While Europe may think of itself as part of an enlightened West, using aid to defend Palestinians’ rights, the reality is less reassuring. The aid may actually be making things worse.

Nonconsensual “Democracy” and the Degradation of the American Electorate

Click here to access article by M. G. Piety from CounterPunch.

I think Piety's essay is great as far as it goes. She starts of with a simple declaration that we don't have democracy in the US, and how one simple-minded retort to this is often used ("we don't have democracy, we have a republic"). She reveals the roots of democracy in the Enlightenment era, how propaganda tends to force people into voting for a "lessor evil", how ignorance and fear is used to control how people vote. But she leaves out the 800 pound gorilla in the room which is a ruling class that manages the elections (like everything else)! This ruling capitalist class will never allow people to vote for anyone whose views might interfere with their preoccupation with, or addiction to, profits and power. And, if somehow such people get into important offices, our masters have no compunctions about assassinating them.

This beast of capitalist class rule cannot be reformed. The only solution is revolution whether we like it or not. Most people refuse to face that enormous task and insist on remaining willfully ignorant out of fear that it is impossible and will only bring harm to them and their loved ones. Yes, a revolutionary path can and will likely be very dangerous, but it must be undertaken. The alternative is more poverty, more environmental degradation, more wars, more refugees, and more ignorance. Worst of all, their rule is a threat to the survival of humans!

Poisoned, Marginalised, Bankrupt And Dead: The Role Of Agroecology In Resisting The Corporate Stranglehold On Food And Agriculture

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

Todhunter is one of my heroes in an age in which our ruling capitalist masters are promoting their own versions of "heroes". In the latter version people who are designated as good guys use violence to subdue evil-doers who wish to harm us. One of the many problems with this formulation is that these fairy tales are used to extol the use of violence to ward off those who theoretically wish to harm us; but they also hide the reality that we ordinary people must rely on a few "heroes" to save us, and those heroes are carefully selected by our masters to serve their interests of profit and power. And worse, our masters want our consent for them to use violence against their enemies. The main problem with this comic-book formulation is that their enemies are nearly always ordinary good guys like most of us, and not our enemies.

The engines that our masters use to obtain profit and power are corporations, and Todhunter exposes the role of agricultural corporations to poison and de-nourish our food and destroy farmers who practice sustainable agriculture, a practice that he identifies as agroecology.

The current global system of chemical-industrial agriculture, World Trade Organisation rules and bilateral trade agreements that agritech companies helped draw up for their benefit are a major cause of structural hunger, poverty, illness and environmental destruction. By its very design, the system is parasitical.

Across the world, we are seeing farmers and communities continuing to resist the corporate takeover of seeds, soils, water and food. And we are also witnessing inspiring stories about the successes of agroecology: a model of agriculture based on traditional knowledge and modern agricultural research utilising elements of contemporary ecology, soil biology and the biological control of pests.

He concludes this essay with a warning: our masters are pursuing a strategy to isolate and contain the practices of agroecology so that it doesn't interfere too much with the operation of their corporate engines.

While many argue in favour of agroecology and regard it as a strategy for radical social change, some are happier for it to bring certain benefits to farmers and local communities and see nothing wrong with it being integrated within a globalised system of capitalism that continues to centralise power and generally serve the interests of the global seed, food processing and retail players. And that is the danger: a model of agriculture with so much potential being incorporated into a corrupt system designed to suit the needs of these corporate interests.

But there is only so much that can be achieved at grass-root level by ordinary people, often facilitated by non-governmental agencies. As long as politicians at national and regional levels are co-opted by the US and its corporations, seeds will continue to be appropriated, lands taken, water diverted, legislation enacted, research institutes funded and policy devised to benefit global agribusiness.

And that's something that only a broad-based, global movement of peoples, spanning continents and nations, countryside and cities, farmers and consumers, can take on with assurance of ultimate victory.

My hero, Todhunter, has identified one major area of our lives that is being threatened by the system of capitalism. There are many others. But we as individuals can only do a little to fight for our survival, and Todhunter is doing so much. Todhunter, like many other ordinary heroes, barely survives economically. This is a major problem for all those who defy our masters and their interests. The only way the Todhunters of the world can do their work--which is for our benefit--is by each us doing what little we can to promote our real interests. (And think how we outnumber our real oppressors by the billions.) Todhunter provides a vital role in identify the real threats to our survival and what we need to do to survive. One thing we can do is send what little we can afford to help him survive so that he can help all of us to live in a sustainable, peaceful world.

‘Plan B’ – Not an Enigma: Why the West is Keen on Dividing the Arabs

Click here to access article by Ramzy Baroud from Uncommon Thought Journal.  

In the past I haven't at all been impressed by the writings of Baroud who I considered an intellectual who was far to close to conventional thinking in the Empire (West). I still see evidence of the latter in this article, but as a whole I think it not only represents a remarkable advance in his geopolitical understanding of the world but, more importantly, clarifies Empire policies. 

The evidence of his conventional thinking that I see is in his opening paragraphs in which he regards the Arab Spring has some sort of spontaneous event that was not influenced by Empire agents. Accordingly he sees that the latter simply took advantage of it. In the past I've posted many articles from solid sources which strongly suggest that Western agents were very much involved (I simply don't have the time to look them up). My position is not that Western agents concocted the whole thing. In all of the Empire's "color revolutions" they always use domestic dissidents to fuel their operation. But beyond the initial misleading paragraphs, I think that he offers a very clear explanation of the favorite divide and conquer strategy that the Empire uses to control nations in their interests.

The New Normal

Click here to access article by Jen Sorensen from her website.

She offers an excellent satire of the election circus in the US.