Too many lies

by cartoonist Dan Wasserman. 

State Terrorism and Education, the New Speculative Sector in the Stock Market [Mexico]

Click here to access article by Renata Bessi and Santiago Navarro F. from El Enemigo Común.

Neoliberals from international banks are meeting stiff opposition in Mexico in their efforts to transform public education into commodities that can be bought and sold in capitalist markets. They have no qualms about murdering people to obtain their objectives.

The reasons why the Mexican government wants to impose the Educational Reform, even if it means killing people, as with the massacre in Nochixtlán by repressive state forces on June 19, are rooted in economic objectives guided by international financial organizations. The reform, proposed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with the OECD-Mexico Agreement to Improve the Quality of Education in Schools of Mexico, aims to lay the groundwork to shift education from being a State responsibility to instead being resolved in the realm of the financial market.

Lois Weiner of New Politics introduces another report with this statement:

Another piece explains the complicity of the "official" pro-government teachers union, SNTE, in supporting the government reforms, against the will of thousands who have taken to the streets. The protests are being led by a reform movement, CNTE, within the official union.  An activist in the Chicago Teachers Union who has done work with CNTE has organized a fund-raising appeal.  Money will to directly to CNTE, which is fighting with unbelievable courage against reforms that are planned for the rest of the world. Yes, the US as well.

Genocidal Corporate Media

Click here to access article by Mark Taliano from Global Research. 

NATO terrorists, for example, are invading and occupying Syria, and the Syria government is blamed for the ensuing disasters, but the presstitutes omit this this from their narratives and instead find creative ways to blame the al Assad government whose duty it is to protect Syria, its sovereignty, and its territorial integrity.  When terrorists are occupying cities, as they do in Syria, innocent people will always be victimized, including during government operations to clear out the terrorist infestations, but the presstitutes blame the Syrian government, not the NATO terrorists.

President Assad is fraudulently demonized for a war perpetrated by aggressors who are tasked with destroying Syria....

Book review: The Killing of Osama bin Laden, by Seymour Hersh

Click here to access article by Alison Broinowski from The Border Mail (Australia). 

A veteran journalist who broke the stories of the My Lai massacre, the expansion of the Vietnam war, and the torture at Abu Ghraib, and who has continued through his long-established contacts in the US military to poke around in dark places, Seymour Hersh may still strike fear into Americans with bad consciences. But now, he suggests, they don't even feel guilty about supporting tyranny, fomenting violence and lying to allies, the Congress and the American people.

The New York Times castigated the Bush administration for the Iraq disaster but shied away from printing Hersh's evidence of how President Obama perpetuated it. He turned to the London Review of Books, which published his essays last year. Here, they conveniently reappear in a slim book with an eloquent 2016 introduction.

The ‘Dissent’ Memo That Isn’t

Click here to access article by Gareth Porter from ConsortiumNews.

Porter challenges the Empire's chief propaganda organ known as the NY Times in their recent "leaked" piece regarding the advocacy of more militant actions against Syria by State Department personnel.

The memorandum by 51 State Department officials calling for U.S. military intervention in Syria has been treated in news media coverage as a case of “dissent” from existing Syria policy by individual officials involved in Syria policy.

But the memo has all the earmarks of an initiative that had the blessing of the most senior officials in the department – including Secretary of State John Kerry himself – rather than having been put together by individual officials entirely on their own. And it may mark the beginning of an effort to take advantage of the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton.

Bernie, Bakken, and Electoral Delusion: Letting Rich Guys Ruin Iowa and the World

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch.

Street exposes the shallowness of the "Bernie" campaign which has played the American left-liberal activists for fools. The level of political consciousness and maturity of American activist has slowly and steadily deteriorated over many decades since the 1930s when activists really challenged the ruling class. 

Our masters are very clever. After WWII during the McCarthy period they purged the left of any true radicals from every institution, refilled them with "right-thinking" people. Then they went on to concentrate media and entertainment into the hands of a few who loyally served the capitalist class by feeding the public with information to dumb down, distract, and divert attention away from real issues to phony ones, and managed elections so that only people suited to serve them could win. As a result most Americans nowadays have the political consciousness of eight year old kids who, inspired by comic book heroes, look passively to political heroes to deliver them from evil. (Sorry for the sarcasm--I'm in a bad mood today.)

The Message in Cartoons

Click here to access article by Guy McPherson from his website Nature Bats Last. 

The views of this retired professor of biology represents a growing trend that is having a marked influence on people who are knowledgeable about the precarious conditions humans are facing in relation to climate destabilization. The cartoons he has selected for this article well illustrate his take on the dim prospects for human survival that he has articulated intellectually in a number of writings, interviews, presentations, etc. (See this, and this for starters.) However, except for the first cartoon, the others point to "civilization" as the cause for our probable demise.

 I agree with his dire assessment regarding the prospects for human survival, but I absolutely disagree with his views about how we should cope with this reality. 

A major mistake he makes is one which no scientist should make. He ascribes causality to correlation. The rise of civilization has enabled the development of technology, the application of which is now under the control of capitalists, is threatening human species with likely near term extinction. Hence civilization is the cause. (Wrong!) Ergo, there is nothing to be done but loving others, doing what we love doing, or looking within ourselves for some sort of spiritual salvation. I regard this solution as some sort of ultimate "selfie", a retreat into self-absorption and narcissism. 

This position neatly eliminates the role of a particular social-economic system created by a class of people to provide themselves with the wealth and power to rule over societies in the latest era of class-structured societies. The system has a name: capitalism. His take on the present crisis conveniently absolves capitalists of all responsibility--the culprit is the abstract concept of civilization.

I agree with McPherson that it is likely too late to save ourselves as a species, but I thoroughly disagree that our response should be a retreat into some sort of spiritual or emotional narcissism. 

Because our demise is not absolutely certain, I think the best action is to attack the cause--capitalism.  Even if we knew that that the odds of our demise were 100%, I would still argue that in the interests of justice that we should attack capitalism. Personally I have devoted the rest of my life to attacking the cause--that is what I love doing.

Perhaps McPherson has also been thoroughly indoctrinated by capitalist agencies so that his attention has been diverted away from seeing the real source of our dilemma. Or maybe he is even being encouraged to spread his message among those who are well informed of the destruction of human habitat and are acting in opposition to capitalist activities.

Monsanto, America’s Monster

Click here to access an introduction and a 24:00m video presentation by Abbey Martin from Media Roots.

In this episode of The Empire Files, Abby Martin issues a scathing exposé on the corporate polluter, chronicling its rise to power, the collusion of its crimes with the US government, and the serious danger it poses today.

Europeans Contest US Anti-Russian Hype

Click here to access article by Joe Lauria from ConsortiumNews. 

Lauria is no anti-capitalist but he insists on discerning and telling the truth about political events as best he can. In this piece he reveals many cracks (including the Brexit vote), cracks that are usually never reported in US corporate media, that are appearing especially in European governing circles in relation to the US Empire's control over Europe and their anti-Russian campaign. 

Too many heads stuck in the sand on Brexit

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

This evaluation of the Brexit vote and the British shadow government looks "spot on" as the Brits would say. He also reports receiving many loud complaints about a previous article entitled "Brexit and the diseased liberal mind" which exposed liberals in all their obscene pro-establishment nakedness.

CIA Weapon Deliveries to Syria Rebels Stolen by Jordanian Spies

Click here to access article from TeleSur.

This recent incident in Jordan highlights more evidence of the Empire's military support of terrorist armies that are trying to bring down the Syrian government.

Weapons from the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia intended for a Syrian rebel training program were stolen by Jordanian intelligence agents and sold on the black market, U.S. and Jordanian officials said in a joint investigation by Al-Jazeera and The New York Times....

Just before my deadline I found this piece entitled "'Jordan Bad,' Officials Tell NYT - Pressure For A New Southern Front Attack?" from Moon of Alabama which adds more ramifications to this report. 

Warming Arctic creates GHG [Green House Gas] danger zone

Click here to access article by Tim Radford from Climate News Network.

Climate scientists have coolly established the mechanism by which a warming Arctic will accelerate the warming of the whole world. It’s simple: as the permafrost warms and dries, it will release ever greater quantities of carbon dioxide from the Arctic soils.

And those bits of tundra that warm, thaw and become increasingly soggy will release ever greater quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas (GHG) more short-lived but also a far more potent heat trap than CO2.

Past Is Prelude: Stalin Was Right About National Defence (Part 2 of 2)

Click here to access article by Michael Jabara Carley from Strategic Culture Foundation. (Note: This is the final segment of the essay which I posted yesterday.)

Sovietophobia remained strong in both the United States and Britain. British generals hated the Soviet Union, and did not hide their animosity. Churchill, who was no Roosevelt, had trouble hiding his fear of the Soviet "crocodile". In the British Foreign Office, not a bastion of Sovietophilia, officials worried about the raving British generals who could set back Anglo-Soviet relations by 100 years. Those officials were right to worry. If you start the clock in 1917, the centennial comes up next year, not exactly a date to celebrate.

Perhaps, the people in Moscow making Russian foreign policy should keep in mind the history of western-Soviet and western-Russian relations since 1917. With the partial exception of the Grand Alliance, this history is one of unrelenting western hostility toward Russia… before 1941 and after 1945. Let’s call it Acts 1 and 2 of the Cold War.

As I see it, the Grand Alliance that consisted of Britain, USA, and Soviet Union was solely an alliance of necessity that was held together only by their mutual interests to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies of Italy and Japan. This was in an era of a true multi-polar capitalist world in which a powerful Nazi Germany emerged due to the encouragement and support from capitalists of the other countries who saw Germany as a useful agent to destroy their non-capitalist nemesis, the Soviet Union. But when Germany threatened both the dominance of the British Empire and its ally USA, things dramatically changed.

It all began when capitalists all over Europe and the US reacted with indifference to Germany's unilateral abrogation of many of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty concluded after WWI to constrain German militarism. The fascist powers first demonstrated their usefulness with their crushing of the leftist Spanish Republic in 1938 while the US, Britain, and France maintained strict neutrality. Soon they stood passively by as Germany went on to take control of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and finally Poland. Because the latter country had a mutual defense treaty with Britain, the latter formally declared war on Germany. What ensued over the next nine months was widely referred to as "the phony war" because Britain and France did nothing militarily against Germany. But then Germany made the great mistake of attacking Belgian, Holland, France, and Britain which greatly upset Western capitalists and threatened the British Empire. 

The alliance began formally in January of 1942, but really didn't function seriously until after the winter of 1942-43 during which the Battle of Stalingrad saw the German armies decisively defeated by Russian forces. Only then did the US and Britain aid and collaborate with the Soviets, and opened a second front to defeat the Axis powers. Thus the alliance immediately fell apart after the conclusion of the war.

This vote was about far more than immigration

Click here to access article by Alastair Stephens from CounterFire (Britain).

I don't pretend to have firm opinions about European political affairs, but it seems to me that this writer untangled some of the confusion about the attitudes of Britishers regarding the Brexit issue. In a nutshell voters were motivated by mainly two concerns 1) class politics combined with opposition to the anti-democratic European Union versus 2) what is essentially identity politics in relationship to the hordes of migrants swarming all over Europe to escape the trauma of living in the war zone of Syria and Iraq. 

Essays which saw the winning vote motivated by #1 are the following:

•  Brexit Shatters EU and Its Washington Bond
•  UK after the rain 
•  US imperialism the BREXIT culprit
•  Why the British Said No to Europe
•  What Now for TTIP, CETA and UK Trade?

And #2:

• Brexit: A Victory for the Populist Right
• The Day After: James Galbraith on Brexit (also includes incompetence by European Union authorities)

Hezbollah Wages an Existential Battle in Syria

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

Cartalucci explains why Hezbollah and other countries are so heavily invested with the fighting in Syria against the proxy terrorist armies funded by the US and its regional allies. 

Syria’s battle is Lebanon’s battle. It is also Iran’s battle, as well as Russia’s and even China’s. These nations do not support and defend the Syrian government out of an obligation to an ally alone. They do so with the realization of where the conflict will lead to later if not ended in Syria now.

This is precisely why Syria, Russia, Iran, and Lebanon – and to a lesser extent, China – cannot afford to abandon Syria. This is also why “assurances” from the US that if only “regime change” is accomplished in Syria, the conflict will end, cannot and should not be entertained.

Syria: Aleppo Cease-fire on Brink of Collapse

Click here to access article by Alex Gorka from Strategic Culture Foundation.

General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russian General Staff, said that Russia’s patience is waning over the situation in Syria. ....

.... In an unusually harsh statement, John Kerry warned Russia on June 15 that US patience on the Syrian conflict and the fate of its President Bashar Assad was running out.

Past Is Prelude: Stalin Was Right About National Defence (Part I of 2)

Click here to access article by Michael Jabara Carley from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Absolutely excellent! Carley reviews the history of relations between the West and Russia/Soviet Union since the Russian Revolution of 1917 in order to provide an understanding to lessor informed minds about the present conflicts between the West and today's Russia. 

I have read a considerable amount of this history, but Carley gives additional details to this history that I found absolutely fascinating. And he provides numerous original posters to illustrate this history.

Essentially this very accurate history suggests that the West regarded the Russian Revolution has bringing to power a system that was in extreme opposition to capitalism, a system that had provided capitalists in the West with so much wealth and power. The Soviet Union was the ultimate apostate that rejected private ownership of an economy--blasphemous to the religious-like devotion of capitalists to their system! This single event became a prime factor in understanding the rest of the history of the 20th century. In this 21st century the global domination agenda of the neoliberalist Empire does not tolerate any challenges from countries that aspire to be independent. It is this that drives the US-led Empire's aggressive actions against present day Russia (and China).

Because I don't want to burden readers of my blog with too much, I will post the second and concluding part tomorrow. But if you, like myself, are too curious to wait, here is the second part.

State Department Syria memo: Setting the stage for war with Russia

Click here to access article by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site. 

The author offers his views on the recent leaked State Department memo. 

The so-called "rebels" backed by Washington are not only in a state of shambles, but are turning the guns supplied by the CIA and the Pentagon against each other.

The cease-fire, which the State Department dissidents claim to want to enforce through military escalation, has been used by Washington to funnel more weapons to the Islamist militias, reposition their forces and blunt the Russian-backed Syrian army offensive. It has not, however, succeeded in shifting the tide of battle in support of the Western-backed forces.

Thus the need for what the State Department operatives call “a more militarily assertive US role in Syria, ...."

How to Operate an Anti-Authoritarian Hacktivist Cult (Part 1)

Click here to access article by C. J. Hopkins from the Consent Factory, Inc.

Who knows how many parts this will have and the author ain't tellin'; but it appears to be most clever and amusing, and besides, we may learn a few things. It appears to be a self-parodying kind of thing combining elements of cults and hacktivist culture. While we are dedicated to figuring out how to stop the extinction of humans, we need a little break from time to time to amuse ourselves in order to maintain our sanity and restore our forces for the coming challenges.

Miranda, Obama, and Hamilton: an Orwellian Ménage à Trois for the Neoliberal Age

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch. [A note was added to the commentary at 6 PM Seattle time.]

Wow! Street give us so much in this rather lengthy review of musical production which is being heavily subsidized by the rich so that every kid in the New York area will see it. I can imagine that all the schools, especially the public schools, will be herding their students in mass to the local theater to attend this performance. It is a musical play done to rap music that transforms American history into pure capitalist indoctrination about one of the key "Founding Fathers", Alexander Hamilton. 

Hamilton agreed with Jay that “those who own the country ought to govern it” – govern it in accord with their own specific class interests, sold as the general interest of “all classes of people.”

In contrast to this fake version of American history, Street gives us the true history of the antidemocratic capitalist founders--and I bet that you never received this lesson in the schools you attended. He also sees Obama's presidential performance as essentially continuing this Hamiltonian love of the rich and powerful, but in a slicked up version that comes with a shiny veneer of virtuous concern for ordinary Americans. You see, the science of "public relations" did not exist back in Hamilton's day. 

(Note: there is one slight error in his otherwise accurate history of the period. Ordinary revolutionary soldiers were paid in scrip called "Continental currency"--Street referred to this paper money as "bonds"--while officers, of wealthier backgrounds, were paid in gold. The British during the American Revolutionary War also printed up volumes of this money in order to undermine this currency. After the war as the soldiers returned home, they found that this money was nearly worthless or about 5%-10% of its face value. In a desperate attempt to put their former economic lives together they began selling it at these rates in exchange for gold or silver. Meanwhile Hamilton and his friends decided that the new government under the Constitution would honor these scrips at face value, but they didn't let anyone know except their friends and relatives among the rich set. The latter made a killing on buying up this nearly worthless scrip and later selling to the government at par value. So you see, our early "Founding Fathers" established a grand tradition of fleecing ordinary people of their wealth. 

My history is based on books by Charles Beard, the noted historian and political scientist of the early 20th century, in his seminal work, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution, and his book entitled Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy.)

The National Endowment for Democracy: Not National and Not for Democracy

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

Once upon a time humans lived in small nomadic groups that supported themselves by hunting and gathering roots and fruits that nature supplied. Cooperation was essential for their survival. This type of existence last for the first 98% of nearly 200,000 years of humans as we know them today. In the last 2%, roughly around 10,000 years, many of these groups started to learn how to grow crops which enabled them to remain in one location. 

This was revolutionary in that it marked the beginning what we now know as civilization: written language that could pass knowledge within and between human societies and to the next generations. Humans soon learned how to efficiently provide for their needs and to secure their safety from the hazards of nature. 

Because they were poorly socialized or mutants (I don't really know), some humans soon realized that they could acquire all their material needs by the use of violence (or the threat of violence) and later deception. They soon took control of societies and evolved into ruling classes that dominated the rest of the cooperative humans. By evolving into nations with governments and all the trappings of laws, agents of enforcement, courts, these ruling classes transformed the more personal form of violence (or the threat of violence) into new and improved impersonal forms, often referred to as political power, and gave them a veneer of legitimacy. And, as they say, the rest is history.

Cartalucci in this essay describes how contemporary ruling classes called capitalists have perfected a third way to acquire power and wealth: induce with their wealth, or bribe, others to serve their interests. He focuses on one of the prime organizations, the National Endowment for Democracy, and illustrates how the capitalist ruling class has used this deceptive front organization to serve their interests of wealth and power in Thailand where he has lived for a number of years.

 Supposedly liberal-progress NGOs around the world taking money from corporate-financiers, warmongers, and right-wing ideologues embodies perfectly the notion of a fraudulent front used to conceal criminal intentions under the guise of a noble cause. 

Modi, Monsanto, Bayer And Cargill: Doing Business Or Corporate Imperialism

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

Todhunter, who knows India very well having lived in the country for a number of years, gives us an illustration of how neoliberalism works its magic to plunder a country for the benefit of transnational corporations while leaving many people in dire poverty.

The long-term plan is for an urbanised India with a fraction of the population left in farming working on contracts for large suppliers and Wal-Mart-type supermarkets that offer highly processed, denutrified, genetically altered food contaminated with chemicals and grown in increasingly degraded soils according to an unsustainable model of agriculture that is less climate/drought resistant, less diverse and unable to achieve food security. This would be disastrous for farmers, public health and local livelihoods.

Even if Brexit Vote Wins, there may be No Brexit: Daiwa

Click here to access article by Wolf Richter from Wolf Street. 

Well the Brits did vote to leave the European Union in spite of all the scary stories and threats. That could never have happened in the USA because our masters would manage the elections to produce a positive outcome (for them). Richter finds some people who claim that in Europe this vote will be ignored just like many others or until they vote right.

...Daiwa’s prediction that a Brexit vote may not lead to a Brexit is well-founded in the EU’s gloriously democratic history: referendum results when people voted the “wrong way” have been disposed of one way or the other every time.

Also Bernhard of Moon of Alabama doesn't think that Brexit will be permitted by Empire masters in an article entitled "The #ReverseBrexit Campaign Has Begun".

Bionic leaf can fuel energy revolution

Click here to access article by Tim Radford from Climate News Network.

Capitalists are very much like alcoholics who are experiencing the final stage of cirrhosis of the liver and told by their doctor that death would soon follow. Better informed capitalists know that they have been living off of the benefits of very cheap energy, fossil fuels, and they are only going to get much more expensive in the future. Meanwhile their system needs to grow or die--and they refuse to concede the latter. Much like alcoholics capitalists engage in various fantasies about new cheap fuel sources. Just in the past decade I remember two such forms that were widely publicized as the answer: hydrogen and fusion fuels, but I haven't heard anything about them for several years. Now we learn of this bionic leaf fuel source. 

The wiser capitalists know that they cannot keep their enterprises expanding on a finite planet, so they also tend to fantasize about traveling to other planets. Billionaire Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has purchased his own space travel company, Blue Origin, complete with rockets and facilities apparently with this in mind. I imagine the fantasy must be that once they're through trashing this planet, Bezos and others will throw it in the cosmic dumpster, and head for another planet.  

Saudis Push Washington Revolt Against Obama on Syria

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.

I recently mentioned that I don't like to indulge in speculations about recent events, but there are major exceptions. I really do think it is important, even critically important, to speculate with reason and evidence about future major geopolitical actions of the "deep state". Because the deep state functions in secret in the various ruling class "think tanks" (the Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institution, etc.) and secret agencies (CIA, NSA, etc.), we have no choice but to intelligently speculate on what this governing class directorate is going to do so that we can effectively respond. 

We can only do this by examining the overt clues that corporate media supplies us with. I recently made an attempt to do this by considering two events that have received considerable coverage in corporate media: vigorous opposition to Donald Trump and the recent deliberate leak of State Department staff who advocate more aggressive actions against Syria. Cunningham focuses on the latter and the key role that Saudi Arabia has nefariously played in supporting the policies and actions of the US-led Empire's directorate. He makes a compelling case that the US ruling class directorate are likely to use a military effort to solve the Syrian crisis in the near future, probably under the next administration.  This, of course, will put the US on a dangerous collision course with Russia.

Washington’s dissent on Syria is thus a signal for ramped-up war. It may be put on hold for a few months, but it seems almost certain that a wider war is being prepared. And that’s largely because US regime change objectives in Syria have been thwarted up to now. Failure begets petulance.

The Fairy Tale Of The ‘Self-Questioning’ BBC

Click here to access article by an editor of Media Lens (based in Britain).

The writer makes a devastating attack on mainstream media which always defends business-as-usual and the capitalist trajectory that is leading us over the cliffs of a nuclear conflagration and climate destabilization. This may be radical politics 101, but we can't ignore reality: most people are so habituated to corporate media and naively believe that it offers an accurate lens on reality. Thus I see the final paragraph as an understatement of the year:

...relying on journalists in the corporate media, not least the BBC, to exercise such responsibility is a forlorn hope. We should reject the elite media which exists to serve elite interests. Instead, we need to develop and support alternative means of informing and empowering the public in the vital struggle for climate protection, peace and equality. [emphasis added]

Killing ourselves with technology

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

"God, I love this guy!" That was my reaction after reading this article. With this piece Dolack rose in my pantheon of political thinkers to the very top. Read it and see what you think.

With the Pentagon and its NATO army testing and provoking the Russians on a daily basis and the advanced weapons of war that exist now and are on the planning boards, we who follow these terrifying events are more concerned than ever that capitalism will cause our extinction even earlier than Mother Nature will. 

When we think of existential threats to our descendants’ world, we tend to focus on global warming, environmental degradation and the looming collapse of capitalist industrialism, of the impossibility of infinite growth on a finite planet. That is properly so, and these do seem to be the gravest challenges that will face us across the 21st century. But technology applied to perfecting military killing machines is within the human imagination. ....

...in a world of vast inequality, of an industrial and financial elite willing to do anything, even put the planet’s health at risk, for the sake of acquiring more wealth, the potential for evil applications of technology are ever present.

One more reason, if we didn’t already have enough, to bring into being a better world, one built for human need and environmental harmony rather than private profit. We then wouldn’t need to endure a mad pursuit of fetishized technological advancement; instead we could harness technology for the greater good as necessary. Barbarism remains the likely alternative.

The People's Summit, June 17-19, 2016, Chicago: Movements + Electoral =Progress

Click here to access article by Nancy Romer from New Politics. 

I think this is an excellent descriptive summary of what occurred in this conference of Bernie activists--and Romer should be congratulated. That is the only thing that I can write in a positive sense about it. My immediate reactions: the conference was one part grieving over the loss of their hero in the primary elections and one part inspiration to move on--where to move on was left undecided, but it appears that most people left with this hopeful answer: we need to wait to see what Bernie says.(!)

Then I had some secondary reactions. I noticed that the attendees did not seem very representative of the vast numbers of Sanders' supporters--there was marked disproportionate number of older people in attendance. It was highly organized by the organizations of nurses, unionists, and professional liberals who imposed a top-down control of the convention. The latter people allowed the testimonies of "bottom" people to vent their sorrows as a way of "healing", as they would put it. But as I would put it, it was a method designed to defuse the grieving so that people could move on to the next stage which would be the necessity to support Hillary in the final presidential election. 

This is "new politics"?! This political movement would be an hilarious joke if it didn't have such dire consequences for real change at the center of the Empire.

The Left and the EU: Why Cling to This Reactionary Institution?

Click here to access article by Joseph Richardson from CounterPunch.

Why is it that many people who consider themselves left-wing have such difficulty grasping that the EU is a deeply reactionary institution? The mere fact that those running the EU present it as an internationalist venture dedicated to the creation of a world free of nationalist enmities does not make it so. If we want to examine the EU in its proper light, then we should ignore the high-flown rhetoric in which its supporters indulge, and consider its actual record.  [emphasis added]

Evo’s Bolivia: Ten Years On

Click here to access article by Linda Farthing from New Politics. 

Evo Morales’ government has suffered two significant electoral setbacks in the past year and is currently mired in scandal, which has put its long term projections – planned for up to 2025 - into question. Why is one of the America’s most progressive government’s stumbling at this juncture?

It appears that another left experiment, Bolivia and its MAS party movement, in South America is coming to an end like what has already happened in Argentina, and is happening in Venezuela and Brazil.  Farthing attributes this to the usual reasons for reformist type movements to succeed over the long term:

Undoubtedly the MAS has lost sight of its original path in part because of the deals it cut with the wealthy landowners in the east. Increasingly the traditional elites don’t see the MAS as a threat, and in fact, as an ally in expanding the agricultural frontier. Political opportunists of every stripe have joined the party, as the state structure has always been perceived as a lucrative source of jobs and opportunities for corruption.

All this has seriously weakened the MAS and its original agenda, but allowed it to stay in power.  Like so many others before them and so many yet come – in Bolivia and everywhere else, the MAS’s principal objective has transformed over time into staying in power. The rationale is familiar: retaining power is seen as the only way to ensure that the ‘process of change’ as the MAS agenda is called, will continue.

Because these experiments in left-reformist governments never rid themselves of their capitalist sectors, I never held out much hope for them. They are compromised from the beginning and often with the collusion with capitalist ruling classes who see them as very co-optable (to use a new word that expresses a very useful concept). I believe their failures have implications for real political change: only revolutions that thoroughly replace capitalist ruling classes with bottom-up authority structures can be successful in the long run.

But I also think that it is true, as Soviet leaders like Lenin and Trotsky first realized, that a thorough anti-capitalist revolution in one country is not viable. The Soviet leaders knew that their chances of succeeding were slim if the Soviet revolution was not soon followed by a revolution in (especially) Germany. There was a German revolutionary party led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht that tried to take power in 1919, but they were assassinated and the movement was crushed. 

Thus revolutionaries are left with only one promising solution. Only a fairly well coordinated series of revolutions in many countries can overcome the highly organized and managed international power of capitalism that is represented most aggressively by the US-led Empire.

France Slaps Unions With Protest Ban, Then Backtracks

Click here to access article from TeleSur.

Here's the latest report from the continuing protests and insurrections in France, and it appears they have spread to Belgium.

Humanitarian Wars

by cartoonist Carlos Latuff. Thanks to Pete Dolack for alerting us to this meaningful cartoon.

Distorting Fascism to Sanitize Capitalism

Click here to access article by Ismael Hossein-Zadeh from Global Research. 

In defense of its unjust and destructive system, capitalists must use massive amounts of deception to hide the grossest crimes they commit against the rest of humanity. This author sheds much light on their transformation of the most virulent class form of dominance, fascism, into mostly a curse word used against various opponents in order to hide this obscene intrinsic feature of capitalist class rule whenever this rule is threatened. And he explains what fascism really is:

...fascism is a social-political strategy or tool that is employed by big business, or the ruling capitalist class, to simultaneously pacify the discontented public and fend off radical, socialistic developments.

Police can use illegally obtained evidence in court, SCOTUS rules, sabotaging 4th Amendment

Click here to access article by Ben Norton from Salon.

The 4th Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

The judges of the Supreme Court appointed by our masters in the ruling class have taken us down another step into the hell-hole of a police state. Recall that all of these Amendments known as the Bill of Rights were only added by the rich land speculators, owners of slave plantations, and merchants (all reverently referred to by many as the "Founding Fathers") after they met widespread opposition to their newly proposed Constitution (See my post and commentary here which provides much of the history) in order to get it ratified by the states. 

Who Killed Jo Cox?

Click here to access article by Moti Nissani from Veterans Today.

Nissani doesn't just believe in exposing the lies of our masters in the Empire's ruling capitalist class, he likes to go on the offensive by bringing evidence to bear on conspiracies that suggest they are guilty of major crimes. This article provides an illustration. 

Although I don't usually post articles that are speculative, he carefully constructs a case that our masters may be guilty of assassinating Jo Cox, a member of the British parliament, by examining patterns of past assassinations based on historical facts, and especially in the context of "cui bono" (who benefits). The examination of these patterns are, in themselves, worthy of our attention. 

Nissani concludes his investigation with this statement:

For my part, I don’t claim to know who killed Jo Cox; I only know who the prime suspect is.  A genuine investigation, it seems to me, would have started with this question: Who has been “helping” Tommy Mair?  Sadly, this is the one question that will never be asked by our rulers and by their lackeys in the press, government, police, and fake dissident camp.

The man who showed Donald Trump how to exploit power and instill fear

Click here to access article by Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg from The Washington Post.  (Revised for clarity at 10:10 AM and 7:30 PM Seattle time on Tuesday, June 21st.)

It's rare that I post articles from mainstream corporate media. But I think that this piece might be an indication where a dominant section of the ruling class directorate exists. Forget about which candidates will assume the office of President of USA. It is the dominant section of the ruling class that we must try to ascertain for it is they who will determine the course to be followed by any president. Permit me to digress a bit by illustrating my argument with what happened during a dark period of US history.

I still remember the 1950 days of hysteria provoked by the McCarthy hearings in which they successfully instilled fears in ordinary Americans about a plague of communists who were infesting our government with the aim of taking it over. The campaign was very much like the more recent fear campaign the ruling class has waged about "terrorists". There is nothing like fear to get ordinary Americans to go along with the agendas of the capitalist ruling class.

This was after the US, which completely dominated the UN, managed to get nominal UN support for a US war against North Korea. This campaign of hysteria about communists came to be known as the McCarthy period, and was motivated by two concerns: to get Americans to support ruling class war aims in Korea, and to further prepare Americans to support a growing right-wing imperial agenda. 

The first victims were Hollywood actors. Ronald Reagan starred as the principle witness and named names of people with left-wing views. Then they made teachers swear loyalty oaths, destroyed the careers of many people who they smeared with the communist label, barred immigration of people who were tainted with communist sympathies, and made it easier to deport naturalized citizens who were suspect of left-wing leanings (Walter-McCarren Act). Corporate media played a major role in whipping up this hysteria.

(Robert Parry adds even more damning material to this period's right-wing activities in an article entitled "How Roy Cohn Helped Rupert Murdoch".)

The history provided by these two articles gives us much information on the early actions of the growing fascist forces in the US whose intentions from the beginning were to build an empire, the US-led Empire that we see today with 1000 military bases all over the globe, fighting endless minor wars, and threatening major wars. 

With these historical diversions I am trying to construct an argument that the leading organs of corporate media can sometimes provide evidence of where the dominant sections of the ruling class exist. So I believe that it is significant that very little of the material reported in this article, which I find quite revealing, was made available by corporate media during this period or since. So why now? 

I strongly suspect that they are trying to whip up sentiment against the candidacy of Donald Trump because the dominant section of the ruling capitalist class wants Hillary Clinton as the formal head of the government. They have been grooming her for this role for many years and they likely see her as a most useful and compliant agent to accomplish their global agendas.

To me this backing of Hillary Clinton and opposition to Trump indicates that the dominant section of the ruling class is not ready yet to turn toward a more overt form of control over dissidents to their policies. The backing of Clinton suggests to me that they are inclined to "stay the course" by implementing the same policies as those during Obama's administration: neoliberalism, use of soft power to subvert unfriendly or independent governments, more false-flag operations, more hostile military actions against Russia and China designed to intimidate them, and the use of corporate media to indoctrinate Americans in support of their policies and actions. 

While the 50 co-signers in the State Department advocating more aggressive actions against Syria is worrying, I think that this action has a source in the hardcore and aggressive neocon faction of the ruling class directorate and will not be acted on under Hillary's administration. Of course, things could change radically given that a large section of the American population suffers a lot of disillusionment from the recent election exercise and may act in ways to threaten this current dominant faction of the ruling class. 

The FBI, Not "ISIS," Radicalized the Orlando Shooter

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

Cartalucci finds more evidence to support his argument that the FBI, as in many other cases of Muslim-connected "terrorism", carefully engineered the latest terrorist incident in Orlando:

If Omar Mateen was a "homegrown terrorist," the FBI served as the gardeners.

Read also an article entitled "Before Omar Mateen Committed Mass Murder, The FBI Tried To 'Lure' Him Into A Terror Plot" from AlterNet.

Call for a National Debate on U.S. “Regime Change” Policy

Click here to access article by the Center for Citizen Initiatives delegation from their website. 

While 50 people from the State Department appeared to have gone insane, there are others who are working for peace and trying to get the US to stop violating international laws.

The World Agreed To Not Burn Most Fossil Fuels. Why Aren’t These Banks Listening?

Click here to access article by Ryan Koronowski from Climate Progress.

Last December, the world agreed in the historic Paris climate accord not to burn most fossil fuels. To do that, some of the lowest-hanging fruit is halting the investment of hundreds of billions of dollars into the most expensive and extreme fossil fuels: coal, Arctic oil drilling, tar sands, deep offshore drilling, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) export.

So how is the world doing?

“Needs improvement” would be putting it charitably, according to a new report looking at the world’s biggest private-sector banks, which are still funding the industries that drive climate change to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.

Of course, banksters are among the top capitalists who really govern our nation and much of the world through their Empire. And people who own and control banks (including the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, etc) and create money know that their support of profit-making enterprises requires energy, and the the cheapest energy are fossil fuels. Banksters, or their agents, like to go to climate conferences such as the one held last December in Paris because it is good public relations. At the latter meeting they came up with all kinds of nice sounding unenforceable promises that they have no intention of fulfilling.

When a few attorney generals in various jurisdictions try to go after major fossil fuel corporations, they find themselves victims of legal suits filed by these corporations. Read "Exxon Sues Second Attorney General In Response To Fraud Investigation". This major international corporation is using constitutional rights that were designed for people (see Citizen's United, 2010) as the basis for their suit.

Dangerous Heat Wave to Grip the US: Top 10 Lessons to Survive Extreme Heat

Click here to access article by Brenda Ekwurzel from Union of Concerned Scientists.

The US National Weather Service heat index forecast for June 18, 2016 looks scary.  It indicates a dangerous situation that everyone who lives in the red areas in the map below should take steps to prepare for. I am not kidding. Extreme heat can be life threatening if not taken seriously.

The State Department’s Collective Madness

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews. 

I am mostly posting this article as an illustration of how many political analysts only look at the political surface to analyze what is happening. This investigative reporter probably spent too much time in corporate media and brainwashed to think in a conventional ruling class-approved manner. Thus he implies that President Ronald Reagan brought the neocons into the US-led Empire, and tries to explain why some of the succeeding presidents were unable to oppose this element. 

This is a popular way to look at political events. But others see below the surface reality and come up with a "deep state" kind of analysis. I am referring to people such as Stephan Gowans, Peter Dale Scott, Patrick L. Smith, Paul Street, and many others who have argued that a "deep state" organized by the One Percent really drives the policies of the Empire. Presidents such as Reagan, Truman, Eisenhower, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama are really only useful idiots who served the Empire and its imperial capitalist directorate for various reasons, but mostly they were seduced by all the fame, perks, and wealth that go along with that office. 

(No doubt there will be people who object to Eisenhower being on this list because of his well-publicized warning (in alternative media) about the "military-industrial complex". He only made the warning in one single sentence in his final speech as president. No doubt he was trying to expiate his guilt. Otherwise he was completely passive as the CIA cancer grew to enormous proportions. It was under his watch that the CIA planned the invasion of Cuba which was inherited by John Kennedy who did what he could to stop it.)

Regarding the infiltration of the neocons into the circles dominating the Empire, I think one of my previous posts points to a much more accurate source--the Henry Jackson Society. 

Nevertheless I do agree with Parry that a "collective madness" has overtaken the State Department, but not only this department. I think it is a symptom of a large section of the ruling class directorate. However, in my opinion they are not a dominant section. But who knows?

FBI Entrapment Fuels Terror, Not Stops It

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

He continues to raise questions about the FBI's role based on evidence from the many mass shootings.

The FBI often opens these cases when suspects with questionable mental health make statements online or to friends, family, or co-workers indicating possible support for terrorist groups or terroristic aspirations. Comments could range from claims of belonging to a terrorist group or expressing a dislike of or a desire to cause harm to certain groups.

Instead of recognizing a potentially dangerous, mentally unstable individual and getting them the help they need, the FBI instead proceeds with a process of entrapping them. They work often for months posing as terrorists, gaining the trust of the suspect, and leading them through elaborate, scripted terror plots.

So elaborate are these undercover investigations, that in at least two cases, FBI informants would actually train suspects how to use real explosives and even practice detonating live explosives in remote areas in the lead up to the final "attack." 

Development banks threaten to unleash an infrastructure tsunami on the environment

Click here to access article by Bill Laurance from The Conversation.

Some of the key players in this worldwide infrastructure boom are huge investors such as the World Bank. The past few years and decades have seen the rise of major new investment banks, such as the recently founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the dramatic growth of funds such as the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES).

The new banks, along with traditional big lenders such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian, African, and Inter-American Development Banks, are very fond of funding big infrastructure such as roads, dams, gas lines, mining projects, and so on.

Some people had hoped that these banks would promote sustainable and socially equitable development, but it now seems that they could end up doing precisely the opposite.

It's the system, stupid!

Shattered records show climate change is an emergency today, scientists warn

Click here to access article by Damian Carrington from The Guardian. 

May was the 13th month in a row to break temperature records according to figures published this week that are the latest in 2016’s string of incredible climate records which scientists have described as a bombshell and an emergency.

The series of smashed global records, particularly the extraordinary heat in February and March, has provoked a stunned reaction from climate scientists, who are warning that climate change has reached unprecedented levels and is no longer only a threat for the future.

Working collectively beats working for a boss

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

Cooperative enterprises are more stable than conventional capitalist enterprises, are more productive and create jobs that are more sustainable. And although the temptation to see coops as a magical solution to the ills of capitalism should be resisted, that they are better for workers than top-down enterprises shouldn’t be any surprise.

Kill List: Smashing the 'B' in BRICS

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Sputnik International.

So every coup is now literally allowed in South America; indirect attacks to the Brazilian currency, the real; bribing local comprador elites with the backing of the global financial system; a concerted attempt at the implosion, simultaneously, of the top three economies: Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela. SOUTHCOM went so far as to produce a report on “Venezuela Freedom” earlier this year, signed by commander Kurt Tidd, which proposes a “strategy of tension”, complete with “encirclement” and “suffocation” techniques and allowing to mix street action with a “calculated” use of armed violence. Echoes of Chile 1973 do apply.  

South America is now arguably the prime geopolitical space where Exceptionalistan is laying the bases to restore its unrivalled hegemony — as part of a multi-dimensional, geo-finance war against the BRICS bent on perpetuating the unipolar world.

It appears that this excellent Brazilian journalist is losing his faith in a "multipolar" capitalist world as he witnesses the attacks on Brazil's mild form of social democracy. What is happening in Brazil and many other nations of South America is a perfect illustration of the truth that there can be no compromises with capitalism, most especially the virulent advanced form of capitalism, known as neoliberalism, that is driving the aggressive policies of the US-led Empire. 

Capitalist ruling classes throughout South America have been thoroughly integrated with the Empire's and together they are dedicated to the Empire's neoliberal plan to rule the entire world. The lesson that Escobar and many other progressives have yet to learn is that there can be no permanent compromises made with capitalist ruling classes. The latter must have their private ownership of economies taken away from them and put into the hands of the people. Only then can humans have a socially just world free from wars. 

I fear that we may have already run out of time to free the world of the capitalist cancer that is now destroying its host planet Earth. But since we don't know this for certain, let us proceed with the most promising solution--revolution! Actually, I would work for a revolution anyway to punish those who caused our extinction along with so many other species.

Clashes at general strike in Paris — in photos & videos

Click here to access more photos of the protests and strikes in France that our masters don't want us to see here in the US. Posted on ROAR.

Deleting the Real Story Behind the Great Canada Fire

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch. 

Street does an excellent job of criticizing mainstream media coverage of the Alberta tar sands fire. 

The mass viewing audience is encouraged to conclude that Mother Nature is going off on its own – with no assistance from the human-made Greenhouse Effect cooked up by modern capitalism and Big Carbon.

Of course, this is the only likely response that capitalist media could have to this event and all the others in which capitalism plays a significant role.

Clinton and Sanders Meet, Pledge Party Unity. “It’s Clear Where Sanders Stands”

Click here to access article by Stephen Lendman from Global Research.

Now that so many progressive American sheeple have been gathered by the sheepdog Sanders, they are ready to be sent down the chute to the capitalist class's slaughterhouse in November. My head hurts at the memories of so many deceptions that our masters have used to maintain their rule, their wars, and their profits and power.

His voting record belies his rhetoric, consistently saying one thing and doing another – on the wrong side of too many major issues to ignore.

The New Education Reform Lie: Why Denver Is a Warning Sign, Not a Model, for Urban School Districts

Click here to access article by Jeff Bryant from AlterNet. 

It seems that many people are benefiting from charter schools in Denver except the students.

Former school board member Jeannie Kaplan also questions the success of such reforms. In an op-ed published last year in the Denver Post, Kaplan spotlighted numerous negative outcomes after many years of portfolio-based reform, including growing achievement gaps between white and non-white students, a school system stubbornly segregated along racial lines, and high staff turnover rates in schools.

Her op-ed pointed to a 2015 analysis from the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (an organization that advocates the portfolio approach), which looked at the 50 largest urban school districts in the country that have been actively engaged in education reform. Kaplan noted that, "Of them, Denver Public Schools was dead last in both reading and math, with gaps of 38 percent and 30 percent respectively. The average for the other districts was around 14 percent for each subject.

“As for graduation rates, Denver ranked 45th out of the 50 districts."

Hillary Clinton’s Project For A New American Century

Click here to access article by Dan Wright from OffGuardian. 

My only criticism of this piece is that Wright doesn't sufficiently make clear that Hillary Clinton, like her sociopathic husband, is a puppet of the Zionist-infested capitalist ruling class. Thus the title of this article should have read something like this: "The Zionist infiltrated ruling class has selected Hillary Clinton to star in their next puppet show". The new project will definitely not be "Hillary Clinton's Project".

Corporate media's denial of the reality of the behind-the-scenes management of the US government by capitalist puppeteers is deliberate; but when alternative media follows this practice, it is a symptom of their immaturity and that of much of the left in the US. Of course, one must make allowances for some of these authors whose careers would likely be adversely impacted if they even alluded to this reality. But those who have escaped from the world of safe mainstream media and conventional thought such as Dan Wright have a responsibility to make this reality clear. 

Otherwise most of the content of the article is very good.

Welcome to “Reality,” Kids

Click here to access article by CJ Hopkins from CounterPunch. 

This award-winning American playwright and satirist based in Berlin takes satirical aim at social liberals and assorted others who were made very uncomfortable with the campaign run by Bernie Sanders.

Put yourself in their shoes for a minute and imagine being forced to pretend to care about Obama and Clinton fomenting coups, and otherwise destabilizing other countries, or assassinating pretty much anyone they like, anywhere they like, with complete impunity, or unequivocally supporting the State of Israel, and our friends in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and whichever other despotic regimes we happen to be supporting at the moment.

Not that Sanders was ever going to change the nature of U.S. foreign policy, or be able to achieve his domestic agenda. As Jeffrey St. Clair wrote in his recent piece, this was always “a rhetorical revolution.” Words, however, do not amount to nothing … not completely nothing, anyway. And Sanders has been saying a lot of stuff that folks in the international spotlight are not supposed to talk about publicly, and definitely not on television.

US Terrorism Hits Orlando - Not Just for Syrians Anymore

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

With evidence mounting that the FBI facilitates the numerous terrorist incidents that have terrified most Americans, Cartalucci notices the same pattern in Syria where even mainstream press now acknowledges that ISIS is being supplied with weapons through Turkey, a NATO member.

It seems that both in Syria and at home in America, the special interests running Washington have found in the "Islamic State" a perfect tool with which to advance its various political agendas.

Meanwhile most mainstream coverage makes excuses about the inadequate performance of the FBI and others associated with the Orlando incident. One author directs criticism at the multinational private security corporation, G4S, who failed to screen out the shooter and employed him for a number of years, as simply due to "poor management". In an article entitled "How US Counterterrorism Funds Ended Up in the Orlando Terrorist’s Pocket", he was using the apparent ineptness of this security corporation as an illustration of his argument that most of the billions spent on counter-terrorism is mismanaged.  Either this author is terribly naive or is engaged in deceptive reporting.

Its Official: Our World is Governed by Psychopaths

Click here to access article by Vanessa Beeley from 21st Century Wire. (The use of the word "psychopaths" is often referred to by others as "sociopaths". The usage of the latter term, I think, was brought about by its separate adoption by a professional organization (probably related to sociology) to differentiate behavior that is induced by inadequate moral socialization from mental disorders that are biologically based--"psychopathology" includes both. Thus when the terms are used in this context, they are equivalent.)

In this article Beeley express her profound chagrin over the recent appointment of Israel has chair of a law committee under the United Nations General Assembly. Israel has been in violation of a considerable number of UN resolutions concerning the Palestinian territory for a number of years. This appointment adds salt to the UN wound caused by Saudi Arabia's appointment to the UN Human Rights Council.

I was particularly struck by the quote from Aldous Huxley--it was very prophetic and insightful.

Confirmed: FBI Introduced Florida Shooter to "Informants"

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

This is a followup report on yesterday's posting entitled "US Law Enforcement Knew Florida Shooter BEFORE Shooting" by Cartalucci. Using FBI documents and the Intercept's investigations, he goes into some detail how the FBI uses their own trained "informants" to pose as members of a terrorist organization and among their duties...

...includes providing and training suspects in the use of real explosives, providing suspects with arsenals of weapons precisely like those used in the recent shooting in Orlando Florida, and encouraging suspects to adopt "radical ideology" over the course of the investigation. Suspects are given the false impression that they are working on behalf of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda or the self-proclaimed "Islamic State," often cultivating delusions of grandeur among otherwise mentally ill suspects.  

How the FBI Creates It’s Own Terror Plots

Click here to access article by Danny F. Quest from We Are Change.

Inside the Terror Factory an Award-winning journalist digs deep into the FBI’s massive efforts to create fake terrorist plots.

How The Press Hides The Global Crimes Of The West: Corporate Media Coverage Of Chad

Click here to access article by Richard Lance Keeble posted on Media Lens.

This British professor of journalism offers as an excellent study of Western media coverage (or coverup) of a Western supported human rights criminal illustrated in the rule of Hissène Habré, the former dictator of Chad, who was recently tried and convicted in Senegal and sentenced to life in prison.

The verdict could well have presented the opportunity for the media to examine in detail the complicity of the US, UK, France and their major allies in the Middle East and North Africa in the appalling genocide Habré inflicted on Chad during his rule – from 1982 to 1990. After all, Habré had seized power via a CIA-backed coup. ....

Indeed, while coverage of Chad has been largely missing from the British corporate media, so too was the massive, secret war waged over these eight years by the United States, France and Britain from bases in Chad against Libyan leader Colonel Mu'ammar Gaddafi.

US Law Enforcement Knew Florida Shooter BEFORE Shooting

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

The latest mass shooting in Florida reveals a familiar pattern with past such shootings: ranging from security agencies' knowledge of the perpetrators to the weapons that were used.

The FBI and other US, Canadian, and European law enforcement and intelligence agencies "accidentally" failing to stop terror suspects they have long-known about and have even arrested multiple times has since become endemic. In recent years, virtually every suspect has either been known by such agencies beforehand, or has been involved in a history of crime and terrorism before carrying out their final acts of grand terrorism.

Such was the case in the various French attacks. Many from the network that carried out the French attacks were then directly involved in the Belgium attacks. ....

In reality, what is playing out is an engineered strategy of tension using both the threat of terrorism and actual terrorism to create hysteria, fear, division, and ultimately obedience and capitulation across Western populations.

Allen Dulles’ “Indonesian Strategy” and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy [a best post]

Click here to access a review by Edward Curtin of a new book by Greg Poulgrain entitled The Incubus of Intervention: Conflicting Indonesian Strategies of John F. Kennedy and Allen Dulles posted on Global Research.  [Commentary revised at 6 PM Seattle time on 6/14/2016.]

I believe that this book is extraordinarily important in providing more details about the emergence of the capitalist right-wing to power in the US and the subsequent construction of the US-led Empire that we see today. 

It is my belief that the combination of the rise of a fabulously wealthy capitalist elite in the US in the early 1900s and the Soviet revolution in 1917 provided the basic ingredients that fermented during the Great Depression of the 1930s and led to an aggressive fascist element within the capitalist ruling class. In the 1930s right-wing capitalists were greatly disturbed by the restrictions placed on their up-until-then freewheeling capitalist adventures caused by the mild concessions the FDR administration made to working people, and they went to work on various projects to establish their uncontested power over US society. 

Agents of Wall Street tried to recruit the popular Gen. Smedley Butler to head a new government after a coup was planned to remove FDR (censored, see this instead). The next project was to destroy the Soviet Union by supporting the rising corporate-fascist elements in Germany while hiding under the banner of "isolationists". (To be sure, there were genuine isolationists, but few among the ruling capitalist class. After all, war is good for business!) Having failed that, they then quietly went about preparing for the takeover of the cumbersome machinery of government after the war. It was a project to preserve only the facade of democracy, to rid government and the entire society of the legacy of social-democratic laws passed during the FDR administrations and to remove from all institutions any key people who advocated worker interests. (If you are not familiar with what happened during these dreadful years, read this Wikipedia summary.) 

While this was going on, they rather stealthily constructed largely unaccountable secret agencies like the CIA and NSA to work outside of the purview of the official government to build a capitalist empire under their control. The assassination of Kennedy in 1963 (and his brother a few years later) signaled to all social-democratic and liberal rivals in the capitalist ruling class that a right-wing capitalist deep state had taken control of the US. 

I strongly disagree with the reviewer's state that this assassination "...forces us to consider how different the world would be if JFK had lived." The fact that revolutionary forces on the left failed to overthrow the rule of capitalists made the right-wing coup of Dulles and others an inevitable outcome of so much power and wealth that was concentrated in so few hands. Individuals play a role of little significance compared to a social-economic system.

This book promises to fill in some missing pieces to this largely secret history of this right-wing accession to rule. And as they say, the rest is history. The legacy of this history is what we see today: the rule of a deep state behind a facade of "democratic" government complete with managed elections, a huge propaganda apparatus straight out of Orwell's 1984, NATO armies engaged in never-ending wars, corrupt head-chopping allies, use of sovereign debts to control entire nations, sponsorship of terrorist armies to undermine others, neoliberal trade treaties to enrich the already rich, the ongoing military threats to Russia and China, and all the rest of their obsessive efforts to extend their control over every nation on earth.

Strong headwinds are making France a stormy sea

Click here to access article by Léon Crémieux from International Viewpoint.

This post is a bit dated about a fast moving anti-government resistance movement in France, but I think it sheds much light on what is happening there. The authors offers a left political perspective and analysis on the ongoing crisis precipitated by the introduction of a bill in the French parliament that would further take back workers' rights and benefits. The post was written by a Frenchman to people who are at least somewhat familiar with French politics and their government. So I will add a few explanatory notes to help especially American readers to better understand the nation-wide protests and strikes that are currently occurring all across France.

The opening paragraph refers to the French constitution which permits the passage of this bill without a vote:

“The 49-3 is a brutality. The 49-3 is a denial of democracy.” Despite François Hollande’s opinions on this article of the French constitution in 2006, his government under Manuel Valls (who had himself been among the MPs proposing it be suppressed in 2008) used it to force through the unpopular law proposed by Minister for Labour Myriam El Khomri on May 10. This provoked an immediate reaction from the coordinating committee of workers’ and students unions calling days of national mobilisation and strikes on May 12, May 17, May 19, to continue on May 26 and June 14.

The "PS" party refers to the Socialist Party. Notice once again how a party that is spearheading austerity and neoliberal programs uses the word "socialist" in their party's name. This is another illustration of how agents of capitalism use deception whenever it serves to secure their class rule.

The author describes the characteristics of the mostly young people who form the core of the resistance to government policies.

...whereas the old generations of activists, absorbed by institutional politics, have thrown away their revolutionary hopes, the new generations who do not have the same traditional baggage often have a strong awareness of the evils of capitalist barbarism and are always receptive to political arguments about the need for revolutionary transformation. This consciousness is often combined with a very strong demand for real democracy, and a rejection of delegation of decision-making – the heritage of the fiascos of Stalinism and of social democratic governments.

Crémieux sums up his analysis with this statement:

It clearly appears both that the political system is profoundly undemocratic and that real power lies obviously outside the elected assemblies. The banks and the multinationals, the centres of capitalist power, not only make laws but exonerate themselves from respecting them.

The rejection of the financial system, energy choices, border closures, policies of unemployment and precarious work are the ingredients that are producing a rejection of the political system, but also of the capitalist system itself. This is latent in society and it is patently obvious in places where people express themselves, such as Nuit Debout.

So this movement contains many strengths and weaknesses. The coming weeks will tell which will dominate.

Thus you can see why US corporate media has censored all coverage of this rebellion. 

Into The Zone: A look at the billion dollar cleanup following the Fukushima disaster

Click here if you wish to access this 27:47m video produced by Journeyman Pictures directly from YouTube.

Mark Willacy [of Australian Broadcasting Corporation] travels to radiation-poisoned Fukushima as few residents return home after evacuation lift. He uncovers startling new evidence of the dangers that still lurk there, and the near insurmountable task of cleaning it up.

Five years after the nuclear meltdown, the Fukushima countryside remains full of radiation and virtually empty of people. As levels spike on the radiation meter at Fukishima a guide from the plant operator TEPCO warns Willacy: "they don’t want to go any further”. “In the beginning I felt lonely", says Naoto Matsumura, described as Japan’s most contaminated person. "But now I’m used to it”. The task of neutralising hundreds of tonnes of melted nuclear fuel turns out to be far greater than previously thought, and may never be fully remedied. Naoto Kan, Japan’s Prime Minister at the time of the crisis and an anti-nuclear convert, believes that "the accident took us to the brink of destruction". 

“The university system has gone the way of Walmart”

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

Lisa Liberty Becker is absolutely right: there’s something seriously wrong with a university system that has “gone the way of Walmart,”

False Flag Terrorism and class struggle: From Paris to Abidjan

Click here to access article by Gearóid Ó Colmáin from American Herald Tribune.

The author looks below the surface of the government's response to the nation-wide protests and labor strikes in opposition to a law restricting workers' rights to see that they are using "an old technique of class repression - terrorism." 

Strikes and protests are intensifying throughout the country, with bin collectors now joining the fray. In response to these working class mobilisations, government agencies have resorted to repression and terrorism in order to gain the upper hand in this class war.

Hooded thugs were caught on camera driving iron bars through shop windows during a recent demonstration against old-age pension cuts. When one of the demonstrators attempted to stop the criminal, he was promptly joined by a colleague that clearly showed he had military training, assaulting the demonstrator with a martial arts style jump-kick. Meanwhile, the police, who were present at the scene, simply looked on. It was clear these two thugs were police agents provocateurs.

He concludes his article with this excellent political insight:

For real political change to occur, the workers of the Northern Hemisphere states must liaise, organise and fraternalise with those of the Southern Hemisphere. They must understand that the same class, waging war on French workers, the same companies pushing for more profits in Europe at the expense of human life, are complicit in genocide and crimes against humanity in the world's Southern Hemisphere. They must seek the link between terrorism and class war. Mass consciousness of this fact will overcome all attempts by oligarchic states to repress through terrorism, the working-class struggle for emancipation. 

Media Blackout As France Witnesses Biggest Revolution In 200 Years

Click here to access article by Sean Adl-Tabatabai from New Politics.

As France prepare to host millions of visitors at the Euro 2016 Football Championships, a state of emergency has been extended in the country as it faces its largest protests in recent history.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets in France, amounting to what some are calling the new French Revolution amid a total media blackout in Western news outlets.

I have seen nothing of these strikes and protests against a proposed anti-labor law by millions in France since the beginning of April in US corporate media, and I don't know to what extent corporate media is censoring news of these events in other Western countries. It's clear to me that the recent travel advisory to Europe issued by the US State Department citing warnings about "terrorism" was really only aimed at travelers to France in order to circumvent any references to the turmoil.

You may also be interested in this more recent article entitled "French government threatens to crush strikes as Euro 2016 football cup starts" which argues that union bureaucratic leaders are colluding with government authorities in France to stifle the ongoing strikes which threaten to interfere with their hosting of the European Soccer Championship that is occurring right now in Paris and other cities in France.

Arctic melting feeds on itself

Click here to access article by Tim Radford from Climate News Network.

This article reports that scientific research suggests that we are entering a period of runaway climate destabilization.

Climate change is happening, being driven by the human combustion of fossil fuels at unprecedented rates for more than a century. But how the climate will change is harder to guess. The suspicion is that – if the Arctic amplification process works in the way that scientists think it must do – then climate change in the Arctic can only accelerate. But right now, all researchers can do is watch, record and measure.

On the same subject you might want to read this article from Inside Climate News entitled "Wobbly Jet Stream Is Sending the Melting Arctic into 'Uncharted Territory'".

Meanwhile, the capitalist ruling class employees in the U.S. House of Representatives recently voted against taxes on carbon emissions and oil production.  

This is How We Unify the Party [or how to herd the dissident sheep back into the Democratic Party's corral]

Click here if you wish to access this cartoon by Ted Rall directly from his website.