Regulation of financial industry is history if Trade In Services Agreement passes

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

Based on Wikileaks' revelations on TISA,  Dolack finds that this third plan, in addition to TPP and TTIP which apply to corporations with investments in commerce, will subordinate governments in most countries to the interests of financial corporations, the primary engines used by capitalists to exercise control over most economies. Thus TISA will further strengthen their domination over member countries.

What reads as bland bureaucratic text will be interpreted not in ordinary courts with at least some democratic checks, but by unaccountable and unappealable secret arbitration panels in which corporate lawyers alternate between representing multi-national corporations and sitting in judgment of corporate complaints against governments.

Puerto Rico Democratic Party Reduced Primary Votes to 8% of What Was Expected

Click here to access article by "Gaius Publius" from Down With Tyranny.

Capitalists have many ways to exercise control over their respective countries: their control of media, education, entertainment, and elections. Here in the US election rules are decided in each state or territory by the two capitalist parties. This piece illustrates how the Democratic Party will insure a suitable outcome to their upcoming primary election in Puerto Rico. 

Meanwhile another illustration of the creative strategies employed by the capitalist parties is reported on by Greg Palast. They were used yesterday in California to insure the results that the Democratic Party wanted (Hillary Clinton). Unfortunately he waited until yesterday to post this warning to the citizens of California. 

You can expect many other reports of such election tricks in alternative websites. Only a few of the usual types will be reported in corporate media such as these from the LA Times and the NY Daily News. 

And of course sitting above all these election shenanigans is the strategy of grooming of candidates by agents of the ruling capitalist class and the selection of candidates to run against each other in both of their parties. Read my commentaries here and here to learn about how they are managing this presidential election, and my post of another article which gives a history of methods they have used in past elections.

Hillary Clinton is Evil! (REMIX)

Thanks to all those people who put this video clip together.

Corporate Media Obscures Muhammad Ali's Anti-Imperialism

Click here to access the 11:10m interview conducted by Paul Jay with the noted African-American intellectual Gerald Horne.

I have been sickened by the plethora of disinformation spread over corporate media for the past several days about the history and significance of the life of Muhammad Ali. In contrast to their fables he was a strong vocal opponent of US aggression in Vietnam to the point where he refused to be drafted. Because the boxer was so popular, our masters in the capitalist ruling class had considerable difficulty in punishing him. What they finally did was to denounce him as a traitor, shut down his boxing career for three and half years, when he was in his prime, and took away his passport so he couldn't box abroad.

Horne explains that this is an illustration of how our masters construct our memory and history for us.

This is part of the crafting of a "cuddly" Mohammad Ali that can be fed as pablum to the US populace, and reducing and shrinking of the militance of Mohammad Ali from an opponent of US imperialism and US interventionism worldwide.

See also this excellent resurrection of the true history of this remarkable boxer entitled "The Greatest - RIP" by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama.

Although many people who lived through this period know that this media coverage is a gross falsification of his life, most of these people fail to understand that all history published by mainstream sources is falsified this way to serve the interests of our masters.

Any revolutionary movement worth supporting is one that has as one of its top priorities a mission to present the truth about contemporary events and our history. 

The Perfect Crime

by Max Gustafson from his website. 

Why So Many Americans Are Voting Against the Status Quo, in One Chart

Click here if you wish to access this reproduced chart and brief introduction directly from Yves Smith's post. 

They know they’ve gotten the short end of the stick for way too long. And with a weak recovery and short job tenures, they’ve got no reason to think this will get better.  

Syria: The U.S. Is Unwilling To Settle - Russia Returns For Another Round

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

The Obama administration does not want peace in Syria. The Russians finally have to admit to themselves that the U.S. is no partner for a continuation of a cease fire, a coordinated attack against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda and for peace in Syria. Indeed, as Lavrov explains, the U.S. has again asked to spare al-Qaeda from Russian air strikes even as two UN Security Council resolutions demand its eradication. Huge supply convoys (vid) from Turkey are again going to the "rebels" who will, as always, share them with al-Qaeda and other terrorists.

The UNO, the EU and Daesh schizophrenia

Click here to access article by Thierry Meyssan from his blog Voltaire Network (France).

Intergovernmental organisations are supposed to unite the efforts of member-states in order to achieve results that they could not manage alone. We might therefore conclude that the UNO and the EU are coordinating the fight against Daesh. Instead of which, these two organisations are hindering the forces on the ground and masking state support for international terrorism.

I often have difficulties with the English translations of Meyssan's articles (from French), but this essay is much better than most. I only had a problem with the use of "occulting" in this sentence:

It would be a mistake to believe that the occulting of the documents mentioned above is the result of anti-Iraqi, anti-Syrian or anti-Russian prejudice.

I had never heard of this use of "occult" as a verb. So in place of this obscure usage, it would have been much better to have used "excluding" instead. Otherwise I think his essay is well developed with linked references to support his thesis.

The use and abuse of the Arab Revolt

Click here to access article by Simon Guy from Socialist Review (Britain). 

To understand the ongoing crises in the Middle East, one needs to understand a little history of European domination of the Middle East particularly after the abundance of fossil fuels were discovered there. An key part of this history that is often referred to in current essays is the nefarious Sykes-Picot Agreement that was secretly decided in May 1916 by British and French agents who wanted to break up the Ottoman Empire. The Balfour Declaration followed a year later, and US interference in the region soon followed. This article tells the early story of the actions by European capitalists and their governments to control this valuable region.

These events are not just of historical interest, but show how the imperialist powers have never been trustworthy partners in the struggle for national independence. They also illustrate how aspiring rulers in the Arab world have long been prepared to compromise with imperial powers to the detriment of the mass of the population. The parcelling out of the Middle East in the Sykes-Picot agreement was a reflection of much deeper processes at work in the world economy a century ago.

Appearance of crater dubbed ‘the Gateway to the Underworld’ in Siberia is a warning to our warming planet

Click here to access article by Ian Johnston from the Independent (Britain).

The article reports on a phenomenon that many people see as insuring runaway climate destabilization.

It is known as “the Gateway to the Underworld” by local people who fear to go near the massive crater that suddenly appeared in the frozen heart of Siberia.

And they are right to be afraid. For as the permafrost melts, the world’s biggest “megaslump” is expanding rapidly. 

9/11′s Conspiracy Trio Falling Apart

Click here to access article by Wayne Madsen from Global Research. (Madsen's article on his website is behind a paywall.)

There are times when my mind is completely boggled by the reports from credible sources that expose so many lies about what the US government and its private agents, both of which are sponsored by the One Percent, say or write about what they are doing, and the contrast between their fictional accounts and the evidence that is being accrued by independent investigators and leaked information is ever widening. This morning is one of those times. My brain's computer crash was first triggered by this article, then accelerated with another article entitled "US Government Intentionally Destroys 9/11 Evidence" from Washington's Blog, and finally crashed after reading many of the numerous and solid supporting links to other articles contained in the latter article. 

(I was forced to stop my work by this brain crash for about 20 minutes, and I hope now having recovered most of my faculties that I can intelligently continue.)

I think the main source of my "bogglement" was the realization that there has been so much information revealed about the many huge deceptions practiced by the official and shadow governments, their corporate sponsors and collaborators and yet they continue rather securely in existence! I really don't know how to make sense of this. How much longer can this sea of lies support the Empire's ship?

Notes on the movement against the loi du travail, by a waitress (May 2016)

Click here to access article from libcom.

If you were to only follow corporate news while living in the US, you would be completely unaware of the ongoing since late March of the growing protests and labor strikes that have been occurring across France precipitated by an attempt at passing a new labor bill that will further weaken workers' rights. Those of us who refuse to be deceived and ignorant about what is going on in the rest of the world need to read this piece by a waitress who gives her perspective on what is happening there up until May 26.

The oil strikes and blockades, which are now being reported more in the international press, have been ongoing since Thursday 19th, and with increasing strength. On Thursday we heard it was not possible to get cash or oil in Rennes, since the ATMs were smashed during the manifestation, and the refineries were on strike. This is an explicit case in which the actions of casseurs support the actions of a strike. Every day there has been news of another refinery blocked, a new one evicted. They are often reoccupied. Road blockades are too many to count. 

Jobs Go Off The Cliff As Suicides and Violence Piles Up

Click here to access article by James Corbett from The International Forecaster. 

Corbett sees in employment numbers, election violence, and other signs that we can look forward to an even more disturbing summer and future.

...there are a number of economic, social and political factors that have brought us here, toward a cycle of violence that seems unlikely to stop no matter what way America votes in November. And they are coming to a head. America's second civil war is coming, and the chances of it remaining civil are declining almost as quickly as the economy.

"I totally agree with you about capitalism...."

by cartoonist Ed Koren.

Trumpocalypse: America Saves the World Again!

Click here to access article by CJ Hopkins from CounterPunch. 

Hopkins takes a lighthearted satirical attack on how Empire directors dupe their citizens into supporting their drug habits of profit and power. It seems that this style is about the only way that rational and informed people can maintain their sanity when dealing with the current state of affairs in the US. Here are two choice paragraphs:

...if you understand “America” as the symbolic face of transnational Capitalism, then suddenly everything does make sense. The chaos the U.S.A. has been sowing throughout the Middle East, on Russia’s borders, and in other quarters throughout the world, is all part and parcel of Capitalism’s ongoing mission to expand and exploit new markets, and to do away with the final remnants of any despotic structures and values that stand in the way of its dominance of … well, everything. Looking at things this way, it’s also clear that actual Americans (i.e. American citizens) mean nothing more to global Capitalism than actual Iraqis, or Yemenis, or Mexicans, or any other citizens of other nation-states … which possibly sheds a little light on recent trends in the U.S.A., like the mysteriously disappearing middle-class, or why a nation would allow its banks to debt-enslave its university students, and anyone else they can get their hooks into, in order to enrich a transnational elite of investors who have no loyalty to anything.

Which brings us back to our founding myth, and America Saves the World Again! See, the picture I just painted above is terribly depressing, and unromantic, and makes it hard for global Capitalism to sell itself as “freedom,” “democracy,” “progress,” and all that other stuff. It also makes it extremely difficult to keep people thinking in terms of nations, and “our national interests,” and “threats to the nation.” People, once they start to see things clearly and realize that their “national leaders” couldn’t give two shits about them, get really angry, which is inconvenient. So Capitalism needs to distract them somehow, and redirect their anger somewhere, and give them something to believe in again.

The Day of the Rhino

Click here to access article by Jeffrey St. Clair from CounterPunch.

The author reports that Israel, the Empire's colonial fortress for Jews only planted in the Middle East to secure the region's abundant fossil fuels, is moving politically ever farther to the right. What irony! Remember that corporate propaganda had it that Jews needed a home of their own because of all the genocide and antisemitic oppression they suffered in Europe under right-wing regimes, above all, the Nazis. St. Clair sees the current right-wing drift in Israel having remarkable similarities with the Nazi's favorite concept of Gleichschaltung.

When the climate comes for you

Click here to access a poem by Kamala Emanuel from Climate & Capitalism.

I wrote this after I read about people in Pakistan digging mass graves in advance of the forecast heatwave, so as to not be caught unprepared, as they were last year. — Kamala Emanuel

According to plan?

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

It’s all going according to plan, at least as mainstream economists and politicians see things. Private enterprises, both large and small, on Main Street and Wall Street, were given every condition to lead the economic recovery from the spectacular crash of 2007-08.

And, according to today’s job report, it worked....

New Silk Road or New World War for NATO Colonies?

Click here to access article by Matthew Ehret-Kump from Global Independent Analytics. 

The author reports on the efforts led by the Chinese strategy of "win-win", first advocated by Deng Xiaoping back in the late 1970s and now promoted by the current leader Xi Jinping, which has so far worked so well within China by raising the standard of living of everyone, developing China's infrastructure and economy, and bringing China to world power status in nearly every realm. As I understand it, the strategy is under the guidance of the Chinese Communist party which has allowed and promoted significant participation by both domestic and foreign capitalist corporations. One side benefit was to solve the political problems of China by a hyper-development of the economy and technology. For several years they have been trying, and succeeding to some extent, to export this model abroad. 

This win-win cooperation strategy is confronted by the US-led Empire's imperialist objective of dominating the world. The Canadian author gives his assessment on how the two strategies are competing and clashing throughout the world. While China is certainly gaining supporters, the Empire with its NATO armies is still in a dominant position; and as he and others have argued with substantial evidence, the Empire is meeting this challenge by preparing for another world war against both China and Russia. 

Could it be that the directors of the capitalist dominated Empire are looking for war both as a way to eliminating rivals to their dominance, but also as a way to re-charge their sluggish economies? War with its destruction of capital has always served to enrich capitalists by opening up many profitable opportunities for them to replace the destroyed capital as well as extending their control over new areas of the globe. Such thinking in this advanced nuclear-armed world is surely insane. This raises the question: have the Empire's directors become so hopelessly intoxicated and sickened with their drugs of profit and power that they have lost their grasp of reality?

TOON: The Roots Of Our Problems

Click here if you wish to access the cartoon by Gregory Crawford directly from World News Trust.

Art, war and social revolution

Click here (Part 1) and here (Part 2) to access the edited transcripts of recent presentations given by David Walsh, a film and book critic for the World Socialist Web Site, on several college campuses. 

I've long regarded Walsh as one of the most insightful critics of films and novels. His left, undogmatic political orientation has been informed by many years of critical thinking about culture and politics. In this presentation Walsh (born in 1949) tries to make sense out of life in the US, which has been so dramatically impacted by many wars during the past century, through examining the themes of many films and books during this period. He finds that they can be separated in two categories: films/books in the past 25 years and those previous starting in WWI. He is not suggesting that the earlier period was any kind of golden age, but he sees the more recent period has producing works that represent a serious decline in social examination and criticism. He asks:

Where is the work that has captured the horror of the “war on terror”?

Now, we’ve had 25 years of war … by now, you would think a great work would have appeared.

Where is the film or novel (or drama or poem or painting) that has captured for an entire generation the horror of the “war on terror”? This is a central issue in this talk, a central problem….

In his conclusion Walsh argues that we are the threshold of change:

Clearly, we have entered a new stage of development. The economic and social crisis, along with relentless wars and militarist violence, are fueling the discontent of masses of people and blowing up—or threatening to blow up—political arrangements and set-ups around the globe, including in the US. 

An Insider’s Look at the Dulles 9/11 Video

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

The strongest evidence linking the alleged hijackers to 9/11 was a video said to be from the closed circuit TV (CCTV) system at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC. The video was not made available until the day before the 9/11 Commission Report was released, in 2004, and it helped to pave the way for widespread acceptance of the official account. Since the other evidence against the accused hijackers was dubious and suspiciously convenient for the FBI, which provided it, the Dulles video should be examined closely.

Capitalism is, overwhelmingly, the main driver of planetary ecological collapse.

Click here to access article by Richard Smith from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

This appears to be a teaser post to whet people's appetite for more, and to encourage them to read his now published booklet entitled Green Capitalism: The God that Failed which I strongly endorse.

Corporations aren’t necessarily evil, though plenty are diabolically evil, but they can’t help themselves. They’re just doing what they’re supposed to do for the benefit of their shareholders.

International investment law, development and sovereignty: no harm?

Click here to access article by Nicolás Marcelo Perrone from ISDS platform. 

This case involving Ecuador as reported by Perrone provides an excellent illustration of how this new stage of capitalism, called neoliberalism, actually functions to undermine the sovereignty of nations when they interfere with the transnational capitalist class's right to pursue profitable opportunities. In recent decades this transnational class has evolved under the hegemony of the US Empire and come from nations who have a modicum of "democratic" institutions. As ruling classes of the latter they intentionally designed these institutions to serve as a facade behind which they could exercise rule that would support their pursuit of profits and power. (For an excellent description of this in the US, read a section of a post by Stephan Gowans: scroll down to the subtitle to "Who Rules America", read from there to the subtitle "US Foreign Policy Goals in Syria".)

Having subdued and subverted any significant challenges to their power from workers within their nations, these transnational capitalists are now moving to eliminate national barriers that impede their quest for ever greater profits and power. Hence they are now constructing a new neoliberal regime (World Trade Organization, TPP, TPIP, etc) in an attempt to eliminate any interference in their pursuit of profits and power anywhere in the world.

However there are a few nations where regimes exist that espouse a very different view of development that is subordinate to other values. Perrone explains how a corporate case against Ecuador is an illustration of this. 

The international investment regime, which consists of more than 3,000 treaties for the protection of foreign investment, has been fundamental in promoting this development model and in supervising states that tried to defy its orthodoxy. ...an initial purpose of investment arbitration was to lock-in a foreign investment-led development project. International arbitrators were in charge of preventing governments from changing their minds, and disappointing foreign investor expectations. Most of the criticisms against the international investment regime, however, are not based on these grounds. The main argument sustains that some investment arbitrators have gone too far, limiting regulation to curb negative externalities and market abuses —involving, for instance, plain-tobacco packaging. The increasing discussion about the right to regulate, in this way, has eclipsed a more profound debate about the role of the international investment regime in limiting alternative forms of development and policy experimentation.

This short essay aims to illustrate this more general debate by looking at the awards in the case Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) II v Ecuador, where the tribunal imposed one of the highest awards against a host state.

France braces for travel chaos as transport unions join strikes

Click here to access article from RT.

Although I don't watch a lot of corporate news, it appears to me that they are continuing to censor news of the French strikes following the March 31st attempt by the government to dramatically reduce laws protecting workers. Here's the latest.

French trade unions plan to hold more strikes that will now target the transport system, in an effort to force the government to walk away from bitterly disputed reforms through a massive wave of labor unrest.

The protests raging across France over the controversial new labor law reforms could be approaching their highest point, with French unions now calling for more action from the national railway service, the Paris Metro and ports.

Book Launch Video: Ian Angus introduces ‘Facing the Anthropocene’ [a must-view video]

Click here if you wish to directly access the introduction reproduced below and the 34:09m video from the website of Climate & Capitalism.

Author’s presentation at book launch meeting for ‘Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System,’ at the Socialism for the 21st Century conference in Sydney, Australia, May 13, 2013.

The meeting was sponsored by Socialist Alliance, Green Left Weekly, and Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal. It was chaired by Simon Butler, and the first speaker was Christopher Wright, co-author ‘Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations.’  Wright has posted the text of his talk on his blog, Climate, People and Organizations.

Video by GreenLeftTV.

Angus makes this very accurate comment of what is at stake: "If we fight we might lose. If we don't fight we will lose, and my [all of our] grandchildren will pay the price."

9/11 Disinformation: Saudi Arabia Attacked America

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from Foreign Policy Journal.

The forever changing 9/11 story is entering a new phase. Blame is being transferred from Osama bin Laden to the Saudi Arabian government.

Here is how I would put Robert's argument: The "deep state" which assassinated many top leaders in the late '60s and early '70s is now trying another tactic to deflect our attention away from their false flag 9/11 operation that has been used to launch so many devastating wars in the Middle East.

Katib Al-Shammari says that the US planned and carried out 9/11 in order to obtain hegemony over the Middle East and placed the blame for 9/11 on an ever changing list of culprits depending on Washington’s goal at the time. First, he says, it was Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Then Saddam Hussein and Iraq. A New York Court blames Iran. Now Saudi Arabia is given the villian role. The Americans, he says, always come up with suspicious documents and claim to have evidence that they never show.

Americans would greatly benefit from reading the perspective of others. Do read the Saudi’s explanation of 9/11. It makes more sense than the official story.

Zeitgeist representations

Click here to access article and a 2:03:07 Zeitgeist video posted by economist David Ruccio on his website Occasional Links & Commentary. 

I have only had time to view about 25 minutes of this video in which much was explained about the money system, and how it is created in the US by a consortium of banks known as the Federal Reserve and other banking institutions through loans. I believe that this explanation is accurate, but more importantly Ruccio, an economist, appears to believe it is accurate by posting it on his website even though he as some reservations about the video's interpretation of their explanation. 

Please understand that he must use this oblique method to post his views because they are incompatible with capitalist theology in order to secure his career in economics. This threat to our livelihoods is a prime method used by our capitalist overseers to insure that we ordinary people are not infected with any radical ideas. He writes:

What I find interesting about the film is less the conspiracy-driven analysis of the monetary system and the Federal Reserve (although there’s a certain validity to the idea that people are forced to have the freedom to sell their ability to work in order to pay off their debt) than the argument that capitalism perpetuates the conditions it claims to address and that it’s possible to imagine a different economy, one that puts environmental friendliness, sustainability, and abundance as fundamental economic and social goals. Zeitgeist offers a particular representation of the economy as it is and how it can be made better, in a manner that runs directly counter to the representations offered by most official economists in the United States.

That and the fact that the film has been viewed on Youtube over half a million times.

On The Inevitability Of Human Progress

Click here to access these dramatic images posted by Bernhard of Moon of Alabama.

The juxtaposed images need little interpretation.

From Albrecht to Monsanto: A System Not Run for the Public Good Can Never Serve the Public Good [article of the month]

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

I am awarding this essay as the best I've posted this month of May among many others that were excellent. 

A number of years ago Todhunter first began reporting the devastating effects of corporate farming operations primarily in India where he as lived for many years, and has now arrived at the insight that the real roots of these devastating attacks on societies such as India lay with the tiny class-serving system of capitalism. 

Most informed people for a variety of reasons (securing their careers, wanting the approval of others, or serving the system which could bring them huge rewards of wealth and power) stop short of this deep insight. This fearless truth-seeker has gone all the way by stating a very simple principle which I will repeat: "A system not run for the public good can never serve the public good."--and as such is not legitimate! Hence the vast assembly of propaganda institutions that capitalists use to hide this fact and to deceive the public into thinking that the existing system (they usually don't name it, or refer to it by other bland names such as the "market system") does serve public interests instead of their own interests of profit and power.

Fearless truthseekers like Todhunter usually suffer for their efforts. They will never be hired by corporations, capitalist controlled governments, or non-profit organizations that usually depend on contributions from corporations. They often are socially shunned by most people who blindly or cowardly follow the easy, rewarding path of capitalist norms and values. The only problem is that this path is leading humans over the cliffs of nuclear wars and environmental destruction to extinction. If we as individuals refuse to be driven, then we simply must support people like Todhunter who pursue the truth and write about it. We must support them any way, or extent, that we can.

The grilling of a Wall Street criminal

by cartoonist David Horsey.

The Boiling Pot

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

On the surface, things appear normal. .... The stock market is up, unemployment is down. We’re muddling through.

Or are we?

Silencing America as it prepares for war

Click here to access article by John Pilger from his website.

I am posting this article only because of its shortcomings that I think should be addressed.

Pilger continues his practice of condemning nearly every official leader of the Empire, corporate media for their warmongering, and the pervasive nationalist propaganda that seems to exist everywhere in the US. However he fails, or refuses, to look deeper at the forces that drive people to promote the interests of the ruling capitalist class. Such superficial and cynical critiques, I think, serves not to enlarge people's understanding of the real world to that they can take effective actions to change things, but instead drives them into cynicism and despair.

Pilger offers critiques that are more scathing than most, but unfortunately he is much too typical of the many that one can find on the web. I often wonder about this. Are these people really that shallow or do they limit their analysis because they are afraid of going after the real puppet masters who pull all the important strings of the Empire, and their system which they so vigorously protect? If this is so, then they differ only in degree from the people they attack. 

Bear with me here because I don't like criticizing people like Pilger. But, it seems to me the difference is that many critics like Pilger refuse to go deeper because they fear doing so might bring repercussions to the modest perks they enjoy, while those who allow themselves to be used as puppets do so for all the abundant material rewards they will come their way. To be a real revolutionary requires one to live fearlessly, but that is asking a lot of people who have families, some security and comforts. 

We are all faced at times to deal with threats and rewards from powerful agents of capital, and even the best of us make compromises. I have, and I refuse to any longer, but that may be because I am an old man who has lived a full life. Now the threats to humans are of such an enormous scale that if most of us continue to do this, we as humans will surely perish from the Earth.   

Anyway, if you have read his commentaries before, I think you can pass on this one. 

Ticking Closer to Nuclear Midnight

Click here to access article by Jonathan Marshall from ConsortiumNews.

The provides a history of numerous incidents that could have easily triggered a nuclear war conflagration. Most of this history was under-reported at the time, and only now have I learned of many of them. I did experience a terrifying 24 hour period around the Cuban incident. The odds of this happening are increasing daily especially with the aggressive acts of Empire directors against Russia and China.

My only criticism is that the author, like many Empire journalists and commentators, sticks to the conventional and approved script by portraying Obama as the real head of the Empire, instead of his real function--chief of public relations for the naive citizens of the US.

Planetary Crisis: We are not all in this together

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

Climate change and extreme weather events are not devastating a random selection of human beings from all walks of life. There are no billionaires among the dead, no corporate executives living in shelters, no stockbrokers watching their children die of malnutrition.

Dear Capitalism...

Click here if you wish to access this and a related essay by economist David Ruccio directly from Occasional Links & Commentary.

Feel the Hate

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch.

Street takes us on a long tour of recent practices of the Democratic Party in support of the capitalist class, which sponsors them, while its candidates talk populist talk to the masses of ordinary people. During this tour he cites the Clinton's and the Democratic Party's contempt for the people they are duping. In the end he finally acknowledges that voting in capitalist elections doesn't matter anyway. 

But don’t forget the hate – the sheer unmitigated contempt that elite corporate Democrats from the Clintons on down feel for progressives in the ranks of “their” party, and indeed for anyone who challenges their superior wisdom and right to rule. As Ron Fournier noted in The Atlantic last February, “there has always been a [dark] side of the Clintons. They can’t fathom why anybody would challenge their motives, doubt their veracity, or criticize their policies. The Clintons’ self-conceptions are yoked to their sense of public service and joint commitment to making lives better—and they believe their ends justify their means…If you’re not for them, you’re not just an opponent—you’re beneath contempt.”

Still for people who still take American elections seriously, this article is an excellent antidote to treat that disease. The only real solution is revolution.

For others who are already aware of the fake democracy that our masters practice will be more interested in an article by Gilbert Mercier entitled "Donald Trump: Caligula of the Lowest Common Denominator Empire?" in which he launches a scathing and cynical attack on the fake democracy that sustains American capitalist rule in the center of their Empire.

The Orwellian empire is a global parasite feeding on its own people through disaster capitalism. It has no soul, no conscience just a vague reptilian intelligence designed for its elite short term survival. For billions, it has been death on an installment plan decades in the making. Unlike Rome, it is diffused with no specifics centers but a few thousands heads and countless tentacles. This is the nature of the beast. Its primary function is to concentrate the essential of wealth and resources the planet has to offer in the hand of a rarefied elite in power.

Used & Betrayed – 100 Years of US Troops as Lab Rats

Click here to access this brief introduction to the following 30:52m video exposé by Abby Martin posted on Media Roots of one of the worst types of the abuse of soldiers by our ruling masters. This might balance the unbalanced reports you will be subject to by corporate media in their coverage of this year's Memorial Day.

'Idiocracy' Realized: How Our Current Situation Is Worse Than the Film Predicted

Click here to access article by Paula Young Lee from AlterNet. 

This just may be the article to put you in a sick humor mood for the long holiday weekend. After all this could be the proper mood considering that our capitalist overlords designated Monday as Memorial Day as some sort of remembrance for all those working class soldiers they've sent to their deaths in service to them and their Empire.

The corporate overlords the movie indicted are creating a world where water is inaccessible to the poor and Trump Nation darkly looms. 

If this article doesn't succeed to put you in the mood for sick humor, "Tom Tomorrow's" cartoon might do the trick.

 

Free trade in rhetoric, not in practice

Click here to access article by Martin Khor from The Star (Malaysia).

This article touches on a subject that has always puzzled me: the contradiction between the rhetoric of "free trade" and the actual practice of "free trade"; and even more so, the fact that this is rarely acknowledged in Western media, both alternative and corporate media. It is a very well kept secret of Western economic imperialism.

Western countries commonly proclaim the great benefits of free trade and the evils of protectionism.

In reality, many developed countries practise double standards, insisting on free trade in areas where they are strong, whilst using protectionist measures in sectors where they are weak.

In the worst case, within the same sector they have designed rules that impose liberalisation on developing countries but allow themselves to maintain high protectionism.

Signing away sovereignty

Click here to access article by Cecilia Olivet, Jaybee Garganera, Farah Sevilla, and Joseph Purugganan from the Transnational Institute (TNI).

This article provides another illustration of corporations über alles.

The stark truth that communities across the Philippines who are facing pollution in their rivers and destruction of their lands have realised is that they are up against some of the most powerful transnational mining companies, and that an international trading system is stacked against them. This complex web of trade and investment agreements has created an architecture of impunity that has made it increasingly impossible to reject or even effectively regulate mining operations. 

Review of a Film by Michael Moore: “Where to Invade Next” (2016)

Click here to access article by Maximilian C. Forte from Zero Anthropology (Canada).

Michael Moore links US imperial adventurism, the state of permanent war and unending military occupations, with the devastating impacts these have generated at home. Moore is thus advancing the kind of deeper and more comprehensive concept of “blowback” which I have been advocating. He directly ties war, inflated military spending, and the dominance of corporate “defense” contractors, with not just cutbacks to social services and expenditures on health, education, and infrastructure, but also tying permanent war to the entrenchment of militarization in everyday social relations.

Spring snow a no-go?

Click here to access article from Unews at the University of Utah.

Red = Average temperatures;  Blue = Co2

Spring snowpack, relied on by ski resorts and water managers throughout the Western United States, may be more vulnerable to a warming climate in coming decades, according to a new University of Utah study.

The study, accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, models the year-to-year variability in precipitation and temperature in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains and other ranges in the West. [The researchers] found that above a threshold elevation, the amount of spring snowpack is dependent more on the amount of precipitation in a year than the temperature. In other words, whether a year is wet matters more than if it’s warm. But below that threshold, temperature matters more. By the end of the century, according to the study, that threshold will move uphill by around 800 feet in the Wasatch and more in the Sierra Nevada, Cascades and parts of the Rocky Mountains. 

 Unfortunately, there is no mention of the fact that positive feedback loops are accelerating global warming.

Socialism…Seriously: A Brief Guide to Human Liberation

Click here to access a book review by Ralph Graham-Leigh from CounterFire (Britain). 

This book is a well written and funny introduction to revolutionary socialism. Katch is a US humourist and activist and his wit, sincerity and passion run right through the book. He avoids use of jargon, making the book accessible to those without any prior knowledge of leftist thought, while simultaneously making it an amusing and sometimes uplifting read for those who are already familiar with his basic argument.

Insurgency, conflict, and communalism in Colombia

Click here to access this fairly lengthy interview conducted by Janet Biehl, a companion of Murray Bookchin for many years, with José Antonio Gutiérrez D., a Colombian activist teaching in Ireland.

I have followed events in Colombia sporadically for the past several decades. The country has always impressed me as being steeped in the most extreme form of class war, drug kings, terrorism, brutal paramilitary armies, assassinations of unionists, teachers, organizers, etc. And, of course as usual, the leaders of this country have always enjoyed strong support of US leaders and the US ruling capitalist class. 

The US gives money to Colombia for eradication purposes, but the government mainly uses it against insurgents, in the areas that are under FARC influence, and not in areas controlled by right-wing paramilitaries, who operate in compliance with the national army more often than not.

The point is, it’s the lower chains of production that absorb the risk; the peasants in Colombia and, the small-time street dealers in the US. They bear the brunt of the War on Drugs. The cocaine users on Wall Street are never touched. Nor are the financial advisers, the real estate dealers, all the rest who participate in the most profitable activities in this industry. It’s the peasantry that carries the burden. The narcotics mirage distorts our understanding of the basic reality of class struggle.

Judged by its own stated objectives, the War on Drugs has been a failed policy. .... It succeeds in driving drug prices up. And being a criminal operation is part of what makes the drug industry profitable. It also helps drive peasant farmers off the land, and it allows the US to meddle in Latin American affairs with absolute impunity, as some form of moral crusader.

But this article has given me hope that things are changing for the better politically, at least for the numerous small farmers.

...a new way of doing things is coming into being, although I wish it were more horizontal. But each struggle is what it is, and you have to work with what you have and try to improve every day. But there’s a lot of participation today, far more than in traditional politics. The guerrilla force [FARC] has taken a step back, and that space has been reclaimed by communities working in a more autonomous way. That is starting to happen in many parts of the country. People come to meetings. They can speak freely in the assemblies. 

Ellen Plays by State Department Rules — Agrees to ‘Promote’ Hillary’s ‘Agenda’ on Her Show

Click here to access article by Claire Bernish from The Free Thought Project.

This report represents a breakthrough in documenting the ongoing efforts of our ruling class masters to manipulate our opinions in order to elect their favored candidates. (Remember that the same right-wing organization known as Judicial Watch also obtained government documents last year that inadvertently provided dramatic evidence that the Empire deliberately used al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups to bring down the Assad government in Syria.) This article provides another excellent illustration of how our masters use entertainment in addition to straight news media to manage our consent to their nefarious policies.

Though it isn’t surprising — given the vast majority of media in the U.S. is owned by a handful of corporations with both murky and direct ties to the government — such outlets would fawn over the chance to proffer government-approved propaganda....

What he suggests is the use of platforms Americans turn to for entertainment, as secondary news sources, be manipulated to advance whatever governmental agenda needs to be legislated.... 

I am convinced that media directors of the ruling capitalist class routinely use entertainment, especially movies, to insert propaganda messages in support of their policies and actions.

Saudi Press Just Accused US Govt of Blowing Up World Trade Centers as Pretext to Perpetual War

Click here to access article by Jay Syrmopoulos from The Free Thought Project.

In response to the U.S. Senate’s unanimous vote to allow 9/11 victims’ families to sue Saudi Arabia in federal court, a report published in the London-based Al-Hayat daily, by Saudi legal expert Katib al-Shammari, claims that the U.S. masterminded the terror attacks as a means of creating a nebulous “enemy” in order garner public support for a global war on terror.

I never thought I would agree with any article put out by the head-chopping medieval nation of Saudi Arabia, but I thoroughly agree with the main points of this article--9/11 was a US inside job. Saudi Arabia only supplied the pseudo-terrorists to the US masterminders.

Big Nations Should Not Bully Smaller Ones: Obama in Vietnam

Click here to access article posted on TeleSur.

This grossly hypocritical remark by the shallow Obama while visiting Vietnam illustrates how inept or ignorant his handlers and speechwriters are.

U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday during his visit to Vietnam—a nation still suffering from a U.S. invasion that lasted 20 years—that big nations should not bully smaller ones.

Obama also spoke of the relationship between the U.S and Vietnam amid tensions with China and moves to push the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

This remark would be humorous if it weren't so sick.

France: savage labour law vs strikes and blockades

Click here to access article by John Mullen from CounterFire (Britain).

Through April and May, millions of workers and students have taken to the streets in over a hundred towns across the country for seven separate days of action against the hated new Labour Law proposed by the Socialist Party government. An opinion poll in early May showed that 74% of the population were opposed to it (70% saw it as “in favour of business”). Only three per cent of those asked declared themselves “completely in favour” of the law and 22% “moderately in favour”!

But the first reading of the bill was rushed through parliament by means of a special “49.3” order allowing the government to refuse any debate. The bill now has to go through the Senate and other stages, which will take weeks, and the movement against it is not about to give up.

US corporate media has almost completely censored news of this movement across France that is in protest to a new oppressive labor law that is being pushed through the French parliament. This nationwide movement started back on March 31st. From a perusal of corporate news, I found only one article in an online report in Yahoo news.

You might be also interested in another alternative report on the French protests entitled "France: Workers battling labor law occupy refineries" from Workers World. 

Finance, capitalism and imperial power

Click here to access this book review by Tom Haines-Doran of The City by Tony Norfield from Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century (rs21). [Some additional comments were made at 4:40 PM Seattle time.]

Want to reform finance but maintain capitalism? Then you may have a problem.

I have seen many critics of capitalism, most notably Michael Hudson, focus exclusively on the finance sector and its need for drastic reforms in order to make capitalism function smoothly. In this book Norfield examines the City of London, which is one of two major capitalist financial centers of the world, to conclude that "finance is unreformable because it is an essential feature of capitalism".

Haines-Doran in this review writes:

...all too often these arguments take on a reformist hue, suggesting that if only we could moderate the excesses of the financial sector then the type of collapse that the banking system went through in 2008, and the social disaster known as ‘austerity’ that followed, could in future be averted, leaving a nicer and crisis-free form of capitalism. Accompanying these analyses have been feeble attempts by international institutions and national governments to introduce financial regulation.

With great skill, Norfield demonstrates that the financial sector is unreformable.

This insight is precisely why Hudson is allowed so frequently to write and talk about the destructive role that finance (also insurance and real estate) is playing in today's economies. By limiting his critique to finance (I grant that he has shed much light on its corrosive influence), he is ultimately heading toward a dead-end. Hudson is leading people nowhere that threatens our ruling class's beloved system of capitalism. If his critiques did threaten their system, he would no longer have his job at the University of Missouri.  

US Seeks to Transform Vietnam into Weapon Against China

Click here if you wish to directly access this 16:40m interview conducted by Brian Becker with Eric Draitser from Stop Imperialism.

Draitser gives us an excellent overview of the geopolitical strategies our imperial masters are using against the rising power of China in order to supply their insatiable addiction to power by increasing their domination over the entire world. This sick tiny class of addicted capitalists are likely driving us all to a nuclear war conflagration and we, by not interfering, by just going along, and by just concerning ourselves with our immediate circumstance will be contributing to this nightmarish outcome. We ordinary Americans will be, if we are not already, the "good Germans" of the 21st century.

Eric Draitser...provides his analysis (May 20, 2016) of President Obama’s visit to Vietnam and decision to lift the decades-old arms embargo on the country. Draitser expalins that US strategy sees in Vietnam a potential lever to use against China, and that that perspective shapes US policy towards the country and the region. He further explains some of the geopolitical implications of the current situation, and how the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Obama’s “Asia Pivot” and other policy initiatives fit into the broader strategy.

Standing Up To Multinational Big-Ag: Nepal, Monsanto, & USAID

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

The author gives us an update on the imperial use of biotechnology by corporations and US "aid" organizations to control the countries of Nepal and India. There appears to be a recent and developing backlash to GMO's and this form of "aid".

That the backlash against Monsanto has put enough pressure on the Indian government to make decisions acting against Monsanto's interests is, however, a sign of hope. Not only must pressure continue to be placed both on Monsanto directly and those in local government approached and bought-off by Monsanto, but alternative agricultural models, markets, and infrastructure must be created by both farmers and consumers, for farmers and consumers - cutting out both middle men and foreign corporate interests seeking power and profits at the expense of the people.

Nepal's temporary reprieve from Monsanto's advances despite the vulnerability it faced after its protracted civil war, should give hope to others in nations under more favorable conditions.

The Mental Disease of Late-Stage Capitalism [very inspirational]

Click here to access article by Joe Brewer from A Medium Corporation. 

This inspirational piece is just what we need to face the new week.

This great lie that we whisper to ourselves is how they control us. Our fear that other impoverished people (which is most of us now) will look down on us for being impoverished too. This is how we give them the power to keep humiliating us.

I say no more of this emotional racket. If I am going to be responsible for my fate in life, let it be because I chose to stand up and fight — that I helped dismantle the global architecture of wealth extraction that created this systemic corruption of our economic and political systems.

If Bernie Sanders Is Real, He Will Run as an Independent

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

Short of a strong left and libertarian ticket led by Sanders, the US election outcome will be a disaster not only for US citizens but globally. Political analysts are making projections that Sanders’ voting block, which is substantial, will not go to Clinton. That is of course if Sanders as part of the fake left, do the unthinkable and endorse Hillary or even worse run on the Clinton ticket as VP.

Most of Mercier's observations about the our current primary elections campaigns differs only a little from my own, but there is one major difference. His perspective completely ignores a deep state which would never allow an individual to interfere with their imperial and neoliberal agendas. 

I think Bernie Sanders well understands this, and would never run as an independent candidate--and not because he because he doesn't believe in the principles affirmed in his political campaign. I cannot, of course, get inside his head to determine his real motivations, but I don't think he is stupid. Beside this, I think it is likely, as has been reported, that he already made a deal with the Democratic party's managers to endorse Hillary in exchange for the privilege of running as a Democratic party candidate in the primary elections.

John Stauber, in article entitled "Why Bernie was Busted From the Beginning" essentially makes the same argument except that he opines that Sanders should have run as an independent candidate from the very beginning.

The most probable outcome of the elections is that Americans will be asked to make a distasteful choice between Donald Sanders and Hillary Clinton. This will leave many millions of Americans, mostly young, completely disillusioned with the capitalist election process. Who knows where this could lead?

Israel Veers Even Further Right

Click here to access article by Paul R. Pillar from ConsortiumNews. 

...Netanyahu is offering the Defense Ministry to former Moldovan nightclub bouncer (and resident of a West Bank settlement) Avigdor Lieberman. This will bring into the ruling coalition Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, which even within the Israeli context is usually described as “hard right.”

Bringing Lieberman into the government is indicative not only of the overall orientation of that government but also of some larger disturbing trends in Israeli attitudes that the government has fomented more than it has discouraged.

Jonathan Cook, a British author and journalist who spends a lot of time in Israel, agrees in his more recent article entitled "Religious zealots waging a quiet revolution in Israel":

In a surprise move, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week forced out his long-serving defence minister, Moshe Yaalon. As he stepped down, Mr Yaalon warned: “Extremist and dangerous elements have taken over Israel.”

He was referring partly to his expected successor: Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, whose trademark outbursts have included demands to bomb Egypt and behead disloyal Palestinian citizens.

You might also be interested in this article by an Israeli writer and peace activist Uri Avnery entitled "Israeli Weimar: It Can Happen Here". 

Venezuela - a last warning

Click here to access article by Jorge Martín from In Defense of Marxism. 

Martin's analysis of current conditions in Venezuela impress me as being the best that I have seen. The discussion of the rightward move of major countries of South America is strangely mostly absent from leftist observers and intellectuals who follow events in that continent. This article is a major exception, and I think it is exceptional in its clarity of observations and reasoning.

What his analysis demonstrates is that there are no half-way measures in seeking a just society. One either supports an egalitarian social order or one supports a class dominated order. There are no half measures like social democracy (Venezuela) or reformist capitalism as we've seen in Brazil and Argentina that can last over the long run.

What has failed in Venezuela is not “socialism” as the capitalist media likes to highlight in their propaganda campaign. It is precisely the opposite. What has clearly failed is the attempt to introduce regulations in order to make capitalism work, even if only partially, in the interest of working people. The conclusion is clear: capitalism cannot be regulated. The attempt has led to economic dislocation on a massive scale.

The deteriorating situation is leaving revolutionary Venezuelans with the ultimate choice that oppressed people have faced throughout the history of class war expressed in slogans such as "Revolution or death!", "Patria o muerte" (Cuba), and "The people united can never be defeated" (Spain, Nicaragua, and other Spanish speaking countries). Other Venezuelans must decide either to join revolutionaries or else experience the gross exploitation and social injustice they've gone through in earlier periods.

US Provokes Tensions with Russia, Venezuela and Now China

Click here to access article posted on TeleSur.

The United States continues to provoke countries they consider foes by carrying out surveillance flights that threaten the sovereignty of many countries, such as Russia and Venezuela, and most recently China, whose government on Thursday denounced two U.S. jets posing a "serious threat" to their airspace.

The mainstream media, which by default sides with the U.S. and its Western allies, always reports these incidents by highlighting Washington's explanation, which always places the blame on the countries they provoke. 

You might also be interested in an article by John Wight entitled "NATO exercises on Russian border: Are these people actually mad?"

UN Assessment: Global Destruction of Mother Earth on Fast Track

Click here to access article by Andrea Germanos from Common Dreams. 

With no region of the Earth untouched by the ravages of environmental destruction, the state of the world's natural resources is in a rapid downward spiral, a comprehensive assessment by the United Nations has found.

Published Thursday, Global Environmental Outlook from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) involved the expertise of more than 1,200 scientists and over 160 governments, and exposes through reports on each of the world's six regions that the rate of environmental deterioration is occurring faster than previously thought—and can only be halted with swift action.

But nothing was said in their report about the system that is driving the destruction.

Pushing Russia Toward War

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from ConsortiumNews. 

In this piece Crooke demonstrates an acute insight about Russian-American relations, and asks some very important questions. For example:

So has Putin’s strategy of co-opting America in the Middle East been the failure that the Bastrykin faction implies? In other words, is it the case that the policy of gaining cooperation has failed and that Putin must now move beyond it, because America is not about to cooperate and is, instead, continuing the process of cornering Russia?

However, I think he is much better at understanding Russian and European deep politics than he is of American deep politics. He sees Donald Trump as challenging the reign of the neoconservative (or Zionist) faction of the American ruling class which worked their magic especially through the Bush administrations and continued with lesser fidelity during the Obama administrations. I think Trump is an unknown factor in American deep politics. I always look at a person's track record in government office to determine his actual politics, and Trump is an unknown factor because he has never held office.

To be sure, he has spoken and written a lot that distinguishes his views from that of the neoconservatives and has made them uncomfortable, but I've seen his willingness to pander to power as demonstrated with his address to AIPAC where he received standing ovations. I think he is very ambitious; and since he has already achieved billionaire status, why wouldn't he go for the ultimate prize--the highest (formal) political office?  I think his sociopathic character makes him very capable of making a deal with the deep state to follow their policies in return for their backing. 

But can we assume that the deep state will adhere to its Zionist orientation? Could the ground be shifting a bit in this faction of the ruling capitalist class? This is affirmatively argued in another essay entitled "The Widening Cracks in Zionism" by Lawrence Davidson. So, who knows where the directors of the Empire are headed? That is the most important question. Forget about elections in the pseudo-democratic nation  of the US. Think about constructing a powerful, sustainable revolutionary movement--because that is the only way real change will come about.

In any case I think, as I have always thought, that Hillary Clinton will be elected to the formal office of president because a large segment of the American population feels threatened by a Trump presidency because of statements he made to suggest a very authoritarian orientation. Still, if Trump can make an accommodation with the directors of the deep state, who knows how much their corporate media can influence ordinary Americans to support Trump by manufacturing a new political persona for him?

Class, this is a test question: who really runs the political affairs of the US? Or, to put it in Bush Jr's vernacular: who are the real "deciders"? 

Keep on truckin’—without drivers

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

I was perplexed. I couldn’t figure out what all the fascination was with self-driving cars. Why all the investment in designing cars that could be operated with little or no hands-on attention by a human driver?

So, I asked a friend what that was all about, and he quickly responded: it’s really about trucks, not cars.

McTeacher Night is new low in marketing to schoolkids

Click here if you wish to access this cartoon directly from Jen Sorensen's website. 

Is the 9/11 scam coming undone?

Click here to access article by Tony Hall (editor/) from American Herald Tribune.

Hall takes off from the current trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, aka KSM, at the kangaroo court at the US torture site in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the many inconsistencies and known deceptions about the official reports of the 9/11 event, to reach this conclusion:

Surely the US government’s destruction of yet more evidence in the prelude to the long-delayed trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or whoever it is that is currently cast in the part, is yet another indication that there is much for authorities to hide when it comes to 9/11. What will it take to force some genuine reckoning with the role of 9/11 and the long series of false flag terror events that will continue to accelerate in frequency unless and until the corrupt core of this vile psychological operation is exposed? When will the real culprits rather than the patsies of 9/11 be brought to justice?

My only criticism is that his essay could have benefited from many more links to evidence that supports his contentions and arguments. Since 9/11/2001 I have followed the various corporate stories and compared them with the evidence turned up by independent investigators, and I can confirm that his facts and arguments are solidly supported by the latter. 

Al Qaeda Goes to Syria: How to Build an Emirate Overnight

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

It seems to me that I have posted several hundred articles that have provided solid evidence that the US Empire and its sordid (pun) assorted allies have been organizing and arming various terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq since 2012. The whole project to destabilize the Syrian government and replace it with a regime that follows the dictates of the Empire has been built on the grossest lies, most of which I, and many others, have exposed in web posts.

Considering the immense resources admitted by the United States, the European Union, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar pledged to rebel groups in Syria, an alarming question arises when considering how much better equipped and funded Al Nusra appears to be. Where precisely are they getting more funding to be so much better equipped than rebel groups the US and its allies are pouring billions of dollars into? How is Al Nusra able to acquire more resources than the combined efforts of America, Europe and the Persian Gulf?

The answer is just as alarming. It is not a coincidence that the US has spent billions on training programs for rebel groups that do not exist and are not currently fighting on the Syrian battlefield. The money was truly spent, but not on "rebels." Instead, the money, through Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, has gone straight into Al Nusra's war chests, armories and administrative budgets. The proof stares the world in the face each day with headlines of Al Nusra's spanning exploits amid Syria's grinding war.

After WWII concluded, Allied critics wrote reams of articles and books about how the Germans must have known about all the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. The implication was a condemnation of the German people because they allowed these crimes to happen. Well, if the US and British critics are to be consistent, they must also condemn their own people for the crimes committed by their leaders in the Middle East since 2003. Doesn't it logically follow with our condemnation that we, too, deserve what the Germans experienced: the destruction of our nation? Well, difficult as it is, I think we should think about it.

Up Close on Venezuela’s Crisis

Click here to access article by Lisa Sullivan from ConsortiumNews. 

It is out of concern for the most vulnerable sectors in Venezuela, such as my neighbors, that I break my silence to write. As I watch their efforts to obtain food for their families become more desperate and more futile, and as I witness pounds dropping from their bodies, I think the time has come to do more than share from my own scarce cupboards and gardens as they share with me. These people, my friends and neighbors and family, are literally being swallowed up by massive economic and political interests.

From my two week visit to Nicaragua in 1982, three years after the Sandinista revolution, I brought back a profound respect for Maryknoll lay missioners who were very active in the Sandinista social programs. They impressed me as some of the most sincere and honest humanitarians that I had ever encountered. Thus I believe that Sullivan's observations from her recent visit to Venezuela, and her many years of service there, deserve the closest attention.

A perfect storm of a collapse of global oil prices combined with massive internal economic errors leading to unbridled corruption on all levels of society has left these vulnerable sectors literally almost starving.

The reaction of the U.S. and other global interests seems clearly based on Venezuela’s enormous oil reserves (the world’s largest). Those interests are circling our nation like vultures, ready to swoop in and devour. 

The Gig Economy

By cartoonist David Horsey of the LA Times.

 

American Aggression Against China: A World Crisis Looms

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

This widely respected Canadian international criminal and human rights lawyer provides some inside information on the views of Chinese leaders regarding the ongoing provocations by the US military off the coast of China. 

This blog is dedicated to informing people about the twin threats that threaten the future of humans and providing ideas about how we can prevent them from happening. Both threats are propelled by the system of capitalism. An immediate threat consists of the increasingly aggressive acts of the US-led capitalist Empire which could lead to a nuclear conflagration--and this could happen anytime; while the latter is climate destabilization that many scientists already see as "baked in" to our future, but a more distant future.

Black's article explains how the ongoing provocations by the US military off the coast of China is seen as an unacceptable threat to Chinese security by top Chinese leaders, and some of the ways that they are preparing to meet this threat. The same thing is happening near many borders of Russia. These provocations are an indication of the arrogance that infects the political directors of our capitalist ruling class. Many knowledgeable people, including Black, see this situation as almost inevitably leading to a devastating nuclear war.

The Chinese government has once again reacted angrily, calling this new violation of Chinese sovereignty, a “provocation” which indeed it is. But nothing more was done except to scramble some jets and ships to put on a show of the flag. But to what end? The Americans could not care less about dramatics. They only understand force. Logic requires that, unless these provocations stop there will be a shooting incident in the near future because there will be nothing else China can do. The thought of what could happen next can only make you shudder. But unless the world thinks hard about that and reacts with the necessary response, this renegade nation, the one nation that roams around the world with a big club, threatening, bullying and destroying, without regard for law, morality, or humanity, will push us all to the eve of destruction.

The American bullying attitude rests in an innate chauvinism and arrogance and a complete confidence in their superiority of arms. But it is this very confidence that will be their downfall.

New book: Green Capitalism: The God that Failed

Click here to access this brief review of a new book by the above title authored by Richard Smith posted on Historical Materialism. 

My attention was drawn to the publication of this book by an announcement at Real-World Economics Review Blog. They have previously carried articles by "Richard Smith" (I put this in italics to suggest that the author might be using a pseudonym as a cover to protect himself. See a reader's comment following this post.) starting in 2011 and then in 2013 and 2014. I finally appreciated its profound importance, and posted it as a foundation article on my blog. He apparently has been developing this thesis for quite some time and now it has been published in an updated version in book form.

Can Nuit Debout Succeed Where OWS Failed?

Click here to access article by Brent Gregston from French Morning (France).

I know very little about French media, but in my mind this piece has a very strong ring of authenticity to it--and it's very up-to-date (May 18th). I don't know where this movement is going and if it will last long, but I think it must be examined as another indication that all is not well with capitalist rule--to say the least. 

It has also occurred to me that events which US corporate media follows, or not follows, is a strong indication of how our ruling masters regard any politically charged topic. I recall how carefully US media followed street protests in Egypt in 2011, and later considerable evidence turned up that opposition and the protests to Mubarak's rule was heavily influenced by US subversive organizations funded by our masters. Notice currently, as one of my Oregon blog followers alerted me to, that US media is completely ignoring the Nuit Debout (night uprising) events in France--and these have been occurring since at least March 31st! (See also the photos of these events since March 31st posted in TeleSur.) 

You might also be interested in how capitalist media in France and Britain are covering this movement: see this, and this. And of course US business online media sources have been following this as newsworthy because it affects their world-wide profit opportunities--see this, for example.

Labour to open re-education camps?

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

Cook is a Britisher who spends a lot of time in Israel. Thus he knows well both the political establishment of Britain as well as happenings in Israel. In this piece he offers an illustration of how a governing capitalist class in their fake democracies deal with the occasional candidate who manages to squeak through their political filters. This especially applies to those who do not serve their interests either because they advocate policies that would burden their government with costly social services or candidates that might be criticizing the defects of capitalism too much for the comfort of the ruling class. 

Emma Goldman, that flaming red anarchist of the early 20th century in the US, was right about the futility of voting in capitalist elections ("If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal"). I have strong doubts that Bernie Sanders really threatens the US ruling class, but I am sufficiently convinced that Jeremy Corbyn is doing this in Britain. Hence the vigorous attacks by their media on Corbyn and his faction of the Labour Party. I don't see that happening yet with regard to Sanders in the US. He is mostly labeled by US media as some who cannot win in the presidential election, especially against the billionaire ogre Donald Trump. 

In any case, think what could happen if Corbyn continues to gain popular support in Britain or if the followers of Sanders caused numerous problems for our masters? The ruling capitalist classes might suspend elections altogether, take their soft kid gloves off and put their genuine class preference for fascism into practice. (Especially here in the US where they have already built the police state structure that would support it.) That might wake people up!

We can dream, or we can organize

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

In this article Dolack brings our attention to, and interprets the main arguments of, a book entitled Crowds and Party by Jodi Dean.

The title Crowds and Party is carefully chosen. Professor Dean has linked these two, and given us a powerful defense of organization, of demonstrating that only as part of collectives, rather than as individuals, can we hope to overcome the mounting horrors that capitalism unleashes on the world.