Washington Slapdown: Turkey Turns to Moscow for Help

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney from CounterPunch.

Whitney draws from a number of recent analyses of the attempted coup against Erdogan's government in Turkey in order to support an argument that the coup attempt is having major effects on the US-led Empire's strategy for world domination. Although I resist inclinations to post speculative analyses, this one is very convincing as well as very significant in its implications for future global affairs and vital issues of war and peace.

On August 9, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg  The two leaders will discuss political developments following the recent coup-attempt in Turkey, tourism, and the launching of Turkstream, the natural gas pipeline that will transform Turkey into southern Europe’s biggest energy hub.  They are also expected to explore options for ending the fighting in Syria. .... The meeting will end with the typical smiles and handshakes accompanied by a joint statement pledging to work together peacefully to resolve regional issues and to put an end to the proxy war that has left Syria in tatters.

All in all, the confab will seem like another public relations charade devoid of any larger meaning, but that’s certainly not the case.

Also on the same subject you might be interested in an article entitled "Why Washington is Terrified by the Prospects of the Upcoming Putin-Erdogan Meeting".

The Democrat who cried Trump!

by Ted Rall, cartoonist.

A Lost History

Click here to access article by Eric Blanc from Jacobin.

This writer, activist, and historian from Oakland provides a history of the struggle for identity liberation within Marxist inspired organizations. Although such organizations were not always on the right side of these struggles in terms of both theory and practice, he argues convincingly that they generally were. I would argue and make clear that this history is in sharp contrast to capitalist ruling classes' desire to exploit such issues to divide workers using various social identity issues. 

However I have noticed a new ploy used by the liberal or subversive operatives within the liberal wing of the Democratic Party that has been used very effectively to promote an imperialist agenda. I am referring to the insidious use of support for social identity movements by the Democratic Party as an effective way to recruit especially young people to the party which otherwise promotes a very aggressive imperialist agenda throughout the world.

Such an analysis accounts for the following paragraph by Blanc:

Today it is far more common to dismiss the working class than to idealize it. Liberal identity politics has spread so widely that even a corporate politician like Hillary Clinton can plausibly discuss intersectionality. This climate demands that we rediscover the hidden history of the labor movement’s struggle against all forms of oppression.

Thus capitalist agents of this strategy have used a selective history of working class movements to discredit them, and simultaneously using the Democratic Party to promote social identity politics to recruit young people to the party. Instead of capitalist agents using social identities to divide and rule working people as they have so frequently throughout history, nowadays there is a section of the ruling class that cynically promotes the issue of social identities as a method of recruitment and co-optation of young people in support of a party that otherwise is a driver of imperialism. Hence we have seen liberals/agents in this party championing the causes of gay lifestyles, sexual identity, feminism, and others more rhetorically such as ethnicity/race and religion--even the legalization of marijuana which they demonized for years as a gatekeeper drug that led people to all kinds of hellish ends!

Hillary’s Speech: The Ultimate Brain-Wash

Click here to access article by Deena Stryker from New Eastern Outlook.

On the last day of the Democratic Convention, Hillary Clinton dressed in white in a remarked similarity to Melania Trump when she spoke at the Republican Convention. In response to Donald Trump’s motto: Make America Great Again Hillary Clinton declared, “America is great because America is good!” to ecstatic cheers from Democratic Convention delegates, who after four days of speeches, were still ready to swallow more bull.

“Brain-washed” was a popular American expression in the seventies and eighties, that mainly referred to the Soviet people who believed Communist propaganda, and it urgently needs to make a come-back. The number of lies the American people have swallowed since Vladimir Putin started wiping up the mess Washington’s man in Moscow, Boris Yeltsin, made before bowing out clutching his vodka bottle, is staggering.

At the risk of diminishing the author's excellent exposé of Hillary Clinton's display of chronic lying, I wish to point out the primary origin of the word "brain-washing". I clearly remember it being used sensationally all over US corporate media during and years following the Korean War. The term was used to cover for the criminal use of biological warfare that the US engaged in during this war. When confronted by other witnesses and incontrovertible evidence, US airmen who were prisoners of war gave testimony corroborating this crime, and in turn the Chinese authorities reported this to international reporters. Most of the airmen didn't know the details (they were dropping insects infected with cholera, smallpox, and typhus), but they knew that they were dropping strange looking canisters over parts of mainland China and areas in northern Korea. (Another result was that 21 American prisoners and one British prisoner refused to be repatriated. Instead they opted to stay in China.) Well, this obviously presented an enormous problem for the directors of the US ruling class. 

So, our masters went to work fabricating stories about how this could have happened: the airmen faked stories about biological warfare to get less onerous treatment from their Chinese captors, the Chinese rewrote the airmen's confessions, and finally they charged the Chinese with using "brainwashing" to alter the minds of the prisoners through the use of chemicals and/or classical conditioning, etc. We Americans were subjected to ongoing propaganda about "brainwashing" for many years afterwards in every existing media: TV and radio broadcasts, use of experts, films like Manchurian Candidate, books, magazine articles, etc. Eventually all this ridiculous propaganda completely disappeared and eventually the term was used only as a method of implanting ideas in the heads of recipients by constant repetition--something we are now subject to on a daily basis, but not by the Chinese. (If you need corroboration of this whole issue, I highly recommend that you read This Must Be the Place (2013) by Dave Chaddock who exhaustively researched it.) 

First Sept 11, Now Saudi Arabia Linked To German Terrorst Attacks

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

Several weeks after the US government finally released a redacted version of the secret "28 pages", which confirmed Saudi Arabia's key role behind the September 11 attack, even as both the Obama administration and Saudi Arabia claimed no such connection exists (when it clearly did for anyone who actually read the disclosure), a trail has now emerged linking the recent surge in deadly terrorist attacks in Germany to Saudi Arabia.

For your information, I've checked the linked references to Der Spiegel and Financial Times (regarding the late Prince Saud al-Faisal quote to John Kerry) and they both are valid.

Middle East: Facts About the Alleged and Actual Usage of Chemical Weapons

Click here to access article by Jean Perier from New Eastern Outlook.

The alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria has once again been used by Western media in a  propaganda war against Damascus and Moscow. And it’s no wonder, since we’ve been witnessing such claims on the regular basis made by all sorts of paid “activists” based in Washington and London. And the string of groundless accusations against Moscow and Damascus is only getting worse....

Fooling Most of the People Most of the Time is What American Politics Are About, Even When it Comes to the Threat of Nuclear War

Click here to access article by John Chuckman from Uncommon Thought Journal. 

The fundamental problem in America’s government is an elaborate political structure much resembling democracy but with actual rule by a powerful establishment and a set of special interests – all supported by a monstrous security apparatus and a huge, lumbering military, which wouldn’t even know what to do with itself in peace.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there is any apparent solution to this horrible political reality, and, while once it affected primarily Americans themselves, today it affects the planet.

There is an intense new element that has been added to America’s governing establishment: the drive of the neo-cons for American supremacy everywhere, for complete global dominance, and it is something which is frighteningly similar to past drives by fascist governments which brought only human misery on a vast scale.

Alaskans Witness Collapsing Mountains, Shattered Lives

Click here to access article by Dahr Jamail from TruthOut.

The dramatic evidence of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) is everywhere in Alaska and nearby areas, but you wouldn't know it by following corporate media. Jamail in the early part of this report interviews students from Alaska who are studying in Washington state and they are frustrated by a total lack of concern evidenced by their fellow students when they try to tell them what is happening in Alaska. It seems that if corporate media doesn't report ACD, then it simply isn't happening.

"It's frustrating to experience this stuff first hand, and then [go] to college and meet folks who aren't even aware of this," he said. "I think the media is a big part of the problem, people just aren't paying attention because it's not in the news enough. I'm interested in climate change at my university, but there are a limited number of classes on it you can even take."

I think capitalist agents have long recognized this phenomenon of naiveté among American consumers of information (if something is not reported on TV, then it ain't happening!) provided by corporate media, and they are intentionally playing down the destabilization of the climate (along with the imperial adventures of the US) simply because capitalism requires growth and growth depends on relatively cheap fossil fuels. Whereas before they attacked scientists' findings and individual scientists who found strong evidence of global warming and its relationship with the burning of fossil fuel, nowadays they are ignoring the dramatic evidence of ACD that is becoming so obvious that they can't deny it any longer.

Independent Media Heads to New York to Confront NBC Over MSM Lies

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

...yet another provable lie circulated by anonymous military sources through their propaganda arm, the US mainstream media. This story is a pretty straightforward example of a psyop designed to be spread throughout Turkey and used to defuse the Turkish public’s violent counter reaction to the coup.

Then, of course, there is all the lying that officials engage in that are widely reported and go unchallenged in corporate media as illustrated in this piece entitled "The Propaganda War With Putin".

California Court Upholds a Method to Detect Election Fraud

Click here to access article by Bill Simpich from Reader Supported News.

Ordinary people are reporting more and more instances of voter fraud. 

A research paper on the subject of possible election fraud has been recently released. One of the collaborators was Fritz Schueren, former president of the American Statistical Association and a statistics professor at George Washington University. Schueren said, “As a statistician, I find the results of the 2016 primary election unusual. In fact, I found the patterns unexpected [and possibly even] suspicious.” 

Why “Twenty-First-Century Socialism” Failed

Click here to access article by Eva María from Jacobin. 

This article is overly long and I think you can skip most of the first part. Why the author provides extensive quotes from capitalist media about the economic crises affecting these countries is a mystery to me. 

To access some of answers to the question posed by the headline, I suggest that you skip down to the section entitled "Stuck in Capitalism". However, even here you will not find the unequivocal statement that socialism cannot be constructed in a state where the economy is primarily privately owned. The latter is what divides any society into two basic classes: capitalists and workers, and the latter typically divides into working class and middle class which is paid more and tends to identify with the ruling capitalist class (much like Malcolm X's description of "field niggers" and "house niggers". Native capitalists, especially when backed by the US-led Empire, will always find a way to scuttle such social democratic experiments. 

A Thousand Li: an introduction to a three part series on China; and Part 1

Click here to access article by Chuang, "a collective of communists who consider the 'China question' to be of central relevance to the contradictions of the world’s economic system and the potentials for its overcoming."

This introduces an attempt to understand China's history from a materialist point of view and where it might be headed. Both the introduction and the first part are quite lengthy, and sometimes abstract, but I think it is worthy of study by anyone what seriously wants to understand China and its increasing role in the world's economy. There has been far too little from authentic sources in English which attempts to do that. 

In this journal, our goal is to formulate a body of clear-headed theory capable of understanding contemporary China and its potential trajectories. In this first issue, we outline our basic conceptual framework and illustrate the current state of class conflict in China. We also include translated reports and interviews with the proletarians engaged in these struggles, pairing our theory with primary sources drawn from class dynamics that might otherwise remain abstract. In general, we see our project as part of the recent revival in Marxist theory in the English-speaking world, sparked by the economic crisis of 2008 and the struggles that followed. More specifically, our theoretical framework is drawn from the work of similar editorial collectives such as Endnotes, Sic, Kosmoprolet and others who speak of communism in the present tense. One of our goals is to expand this framework beyond the US and Europe. At the same time, we hope to add to the global perspective of this theory by examining the implications of Chinese economic trends outside of China.

To understand the living, however, one must first turn to the lost. Though taking the present moment as our starting point, we are also in a way performing burial rites for the dead generations who have populated the collapse of the communist horizon in East Asia. This issue therefore opens with a long-form article on the socialist era, “Sorghum and Steel: The Socialist Developmental Regime and the Forging of China,” the first in a three-part series aiming to narrate a new materialist history of modern China (the next two parts will be included in subsequent issues). 

The Exoneration of Milosevic: the ICTY’s Surprise Ruling

Click here to access article by Andy Wilcoxson from CounterPunch. 

Milosevic had to spend five years in prison before he died under very suspicious circumstances, and then it took another five years for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY--located at The Hague, Netherlands) to find him not guilty. It took all this time after many years of Milosevic's vilification in Western media to furnish a verdict exonerating him. So, do corporate media in the US-led Empire report this? See for yourself.

The world’s 1,826 billionaires

Click here if you wish to directly access this brief article by economist David Ruccio from his blog Occasional Links & Commentary. 

According to a new study, The Geography of the Global Super-Rich, by Richard Florida, Charlotta Mellander, and Isabel Ritchie, the United States is home to the world’s largest number of billionaires, with 541, 30 percent of the total. China is second with 223 or 12 percent. Next in line are India and Russia, with 82 billionaires (4.5 percent) each. Germany is fifth with 78 billionaires (4.3 percent). The United Kingdom is sixth with 71 (3.9 percent). Switzerland has 58 (4.3 percent), Brazil 50 (2.7 percent), France 39 (2.1 percent), and Italy 35 (1.9 percent).

Just to put things in perspective, the world’s 1,826 billionaires make up just 0.00003 percent of the global population.

America’s Election 2016: War, Globalization and “Fake Democracy”

Click here to access article by Abayomi Azikiwe from Global Research.

The author describes the efforts of the two capitalist parties in their recent conventions to engage in fakery to deceive the overwhelming majority of Americans into voting for one of their capitalist candidates and therefore voting against their real interests. He concludes by writing:

The only solution lies in the formation of a mass party of the working class and oppressed which speaks directly for and in the interests of the people. What we can expect from the Democrats and the Republicans is much of the same propaganda and broken promises. The future resides with the efforts of the exploited and the oppressed when they are organized, mobilized and deployed in their own name.

I agree with the last sentence, but not the first because such a party will never be allowed to participate in any capitalist controlled elections.

In another article by the same author, I particularly liked this very insightful observation about the parties that are allowed to participate in elections in the US and Britain:

Although the capitalist parties in Britain and the U.S. are facing internal rebellions from both the right and the social democratic left, these institutions appear to have outlasted their functionality as instruments for the social containment of the working class and the nationally oppressed. This is why even the semblance of bourgeois or parliamentary democracy are absent within the context of intra-party affairs. Trump can walk in and take over the Republican Party without ever having to hold public office. Clinton with her laundry list of indiscretions and racism towards African Americans and other oppressed peoples is being sold to the electorate as a defender of “diversity” and stability. 

The Mainstream Media Has a Plan to Stop ISIS — but There’s Just One Problem

Click here to access article by Darius Shahtahmasebi from AntiMedia. 

In this well-argued essay backed by solid documentation, the author sees the plan's problem as one of disinformation propagated by Western media: "...statements of this kind are the epitome of lazy, pro-corporate media nonsense." Hence the plan is nonsense, or another example of Empire propaganda to justify their efforts to sow destabilization and fragmentation of existing unfriendly states in the region.

Unapproved GM Wheat Contamination In Washington State

Click here to access article by Brandon Turbeville from Natural Blaze. 

Although this could theoretically be more of local interest, the article reports on what has happened in a variety of places across the US and Canada. (I am a resident of Washington state.)

The plants are a form of GM wheat that had been planted and researched in “limited field trials” in the Pacific Northwest between 1998 and 2001. In other words, at least 12 years after the trials were conducted. The GM wheat is popping up all across the country, interestingly enough, in increasing amounts. It has long been argued by critics of GMOs that introducing dangerous types of biotechnology would not only pose a risk to human health, but also provide the potential for a irreversible contamination of the natural environment.

Monsanto’s ticking time bombs now appear to be detonating more than two decades after Americans were told to stop being paranoid about the dangers of GMOs that “science” assured them did not exist. It is now time for Americans to realize that major corporations, “scientists,” and their government does not always have their best interest at heart.

When Americans fully realize that this capitalist ruling class never "have their best interests at heart" in relation to almost any issue, then they will be ready to transform their nation into one that serves all of the people--not merely one tiny class of owners.

Abby Martin interviews Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador

from the Empire Files/TeleSur via YouTube.

In this interview you will learn what developing countries have to deal with from highly developed, powerful countries like the US, their corporations, and the international tribunals that they control.

Published on Jul 29, 2016
Abby Martin sits down with the President of Ecuador to talk about different issues impacting the country and region. One of the more important questions Abby has for the president is finding out how he feels about devastating damage that oil giant Chevron caused in the Amazon rainforest. The president also talks about how tax havens are affecting developing economies and, how giving me the environment legal rights is important.

 
You might also be interested in reading this article entitled "Ecuador Foreign Minister: $3B in Tax Havens Could Fund Earthquake Reconstruction" from TeleSur.

Capitalist sponsored Olympics

by Brian McFadden

America's Self-Inflicted Defense [sic] Woes

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

Let me be absolutely clear as to why I am posting this article. It is an illustration of wordage used by the ruling capitalist class to confuse issues and mislead the public, but adopted by "alternative" writers and end up by diluting their anti-establishment themes. 

If the ruling class agents can't totally get you to think that the pursuit of murder and mayhem throughout the world in pursuit of wealth and power for a ruling class is good for ordinary people of the US, then at least they will settle for confusing the issues by introducing new definitions to words that formerly damned their rule. But if they don't succeed in doing that, they seem to be satisfied with emptying many such words of any meaning beyond merely vague buzz words that serve only to vent anger in ways that are harmless to our masters. First, let me proceed with such an analysis of this article, and then I will generalize to many others.

He uses the world "defense" throughout the article. It is a term used by our masters to re-define their imperialist adventures into one of defending the US. Of course, it is obvious that this is an example of "newspeak" which Orwell came to understand through his experience while fighting fascism in Spain and Britain. It is no coincidence that the term was adopted as in "Department of Defense" after WWII. This is precisely when the US capitalist class launched their drive to dominate the world and exclude any kind of workers state such as the Soviet Union and aspired to by many millions across the globe especially after the devastation of WWII.

Gunnar by using the term "defense" instead of imperialism serves to soften the issue by implying that the heavy investment in the F-35A was simply a gross mistake instead of arguing that under capitalism the drive for profits even trumps the drive for military superiority. He also obscures the issue of class interest by using a more abstract term of "America". To his credit he does slowly and rather timidly develop the argument that the pursuit of the F-35A weapon was pushed by business interests. But this argument could serve liberal arguments about the need to reform government by electing more Democrats who supposedly represent the broader interests of ordinary Americans instead of arguing that the very class nature of capitalist rule (especially in its advanced form that has infected the US capitalist class) is the root cause of wars and imperialism. 

Now on to other articles that serve to obscure and confuse ordinary people. The Bernie Sanders campaign was framed as promoting socialism. This was an effort to redefine a word that has been a dream for the past 150 years of many millions across the globe to bring their economies under public ownership and control. Instead his campaign clearly used the word as meaning a welfare state that promoted many programs for the poor, unemployed, and workers in general--but all within the system of capitalist rule.

Then there are the words "fascism" and "capitalism". Many who pose as radical writers on the left use these words as only buzz words to lamely refer to bad things instead of explaining to people what they mean precisely in the context of class rule and class interests. 

It is no accident that the term "fascism" has been given so many meanings by various writers. Once people understand that fascism is simply capitalism with the soft gloves of civil rights and legal processes (as practiced by capitalist authorities) removed, then they understand why capitalist nations opt into fascism whenever their tiny class rule is under threat. Hence the term has been reduced to a buzz word that only serves to vent emotion instead of creating understanding of political realities. The same applies to "capitalism" as currently used by many critics who merely pose as anti-establishment critics. The latter never explain that being opposed to capitalism means being opposed to the private ownership and control of an economy; and under advanced capitalism, this means ownership and control of the economy by a tiny class of people and leaving the vast majority up to their necks in debt (to the latter). Thus the sharp class conflicts that pervade most all important contemporary issues are obscured and confused. 

Given this (intentional) confusion of communication, it is no surprise to me that the political thinking in the US is so confused and rudimentary as exhibited by the Green Party in today's article by Pete Dolack. Taking to the streets as advocated by Dolack is not enough anymore. Only a well-organized revolution organized by the grass-roots will suffice to change things.

Who really won the legal battle between Philip Morris and Uruguay?

Click here to access article by Cecilia Olivet and Alberto Villareal from ISDS Platform.

The David-Goliath battle between Uruguay and Philip Morris is an iconic case because it so clearly illustrates the way corporations can use international investment treaties to attack regulations made in the public interest.

So does Big Tobacco’s defeat by Uruguay mean that the growing public opposition to these investment treaties is mistaken? The corporate arbitration lawyers that take up many of the cases – and their supportive political allies – are keen to say that it proves the system can work fairly.

The question however is for whom is the system working? In investment arbitration cases, states never win. States can never file lawsuits against investors, so the best-case scenario for them is if the tribunal dismisses the investor’s accusations.

The GMO Debate: One Student’s Experience of Pro-GMO Propaganda at Cornell University

Click here to access article by Robert Schooler from Independent Science News. 

Schooler tells of his experience as a serious student and the numerous difficulties he encountered while rationally trying to understand issues of climate change, food, and farming practices. He is not giving up, but I wish him luck because he will need tons of it.

We live in somewhat of a scientific dark age. Our universities have become extensions of corporate power, at the cost of our health, livelihoods, and ecology. This has to stop, yesterday. We cannot afford to spread lies to our undergraduate students. Cornell, please reconsider your ways. Until you do, I will be doing everything in my power to counter your industry GMO propaganda efforts with the facts.

The reality is that a capitalist organized society is one which ultimately in its advanced form imposes the logic of profitability in all institutions and over every other value--even the continued existence of humans.

How the West Extends its Control Over Journalism Worldwide

Click here to access article from The New Atlas (based in Bangkok, Thailand).

This offers a lot of food for thought. It's directly about the power of "Western" nations to impose their perspectives on the rest of the world; but by extension, given that we live in class structured nations, it is more about the management of minds or thoughts of subordinate populations by powerful/wealthy people. But the unknown author doesn't go to this extension, nor does he/she seem to see that we all live in class-structured societies. Instead, he reaches the conclusion that journalism (or the management of peoples' minds) should serve local governing/powerful people based in nations.

Then there is the psychological fact that humans are quite easily seduced by wealth and the power that accompanies wealth. And capitalism along with cheap fossil fuels has greatly promoted the concentration of tremendous wealth into a relatively few owners of capital. The seduction factor in human nature has led many humans to accept, and adapt to, all kinds of inequality; and in this historical era, to serve the interests of powerful capitalists. 

Unfortunately, power very much acts like a drug or aphrodisiac that drives people who have it to commit all kinds of crimes to gain more power. There is never enough power for people, especially those with sociopathic tendencies, who easily become addicted to it. This results in wars where competing powerful people seek to gain more power. And the effects of wars especially in this era of frightful mega-weapons is becoming unthinkable.

This thought process has long ago led me to my political position. The only solution, as I see it, is to construct societies governed by radical bottom-up authority structures in which ordinary people in small groups of about 8-12 deliberate issues in face-to-face situations. They delegate people, who can be quickly recalled, to represent their views at the next governing level, and so on. This arrangement would require that all people are educated to the best of their abilities and that societies should be much smaller than they are now. Whether this arrangement would be still possible anymore given the need to radically reduce our use of fossil fuels which makes possible so much leisure time to become educated is debatable.

Nine Reasons Why It Doesn’t Matter Who Is President [all related to 9/11]

Click here to access article by Kevin Ryan from Dig Within. (Updated on 9/17/2016)

If nearly 3,000 people can be murdered in a terrorist event and no one cares how it happened or who did it, then it does not matter who is president. Americans will not remain safe or free by pandering to superficial differences between oligarchs while ignoring real threats to freedom and social consciousness.

On 9/17/2016 Ryan recanted his argument about Stein with an article entitled "Jill Stein Proved Me Wrong".

Are Black Lives Terrorist Lives?

Click here to access article by Vedat Xhymshiti from Foreign Policy Journal.

This journalist-author with extensive experience in war-torn areas reports on an astounding piece of news:

A petition urging the US government to recognise Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organisation has now gathered more than 100,000 signatures, it means that the White House will consider the request and formally respond to the demands made.

His answer:

I’ve seen with my very own eyes the sheer bestiality of dictatorial regimes supported by overt and covert US funding – dictators who were massively involved in the systematic ending of innocent lives, for no better cause than their being in the wrong place at the right time – whilst racism within the US is steeped in much the same type of crimes against humanity; and therefore it is the Washington administration and the elite caste in control of the American alphabet agencies that ought to be considered for the latest bout of regime change that is currently sweeping the dawning decades of the twenty-first century; and it is these controllers and financiers that must be held to full account for their seemingly endless violence.

As a white skinned male I stand in full support of Black Lives Matter.  

White Workers Resisting Capitalism and White Supremacy: An Interview with RedNeck Revolt

Click here to access an interview with representatives of Redneck Revolt posted on The Hampton Institute.

What I especially like about this interview with the people of Redneck Revolt is that they offer explanations as to why working people should not let themselves be divided racially/ethnically by the ruling capitalist class in the US. Divide and rule has always been a major strategy used to quell opposition to the rule and exploitation of ruling classes, and there is currently an obvious attempt to do just that here in the US. The interview also provides numerous examples of working class struggles throughout US history that have been expunged from the history books that most working class children are exposed to. 

I have only one criticism of a view taken from one of the interviewees when he/she declared:

As Fascism is also inherently an anti-capitalist ideology, we have to understand that at this historical moment, when many are suffering under capitalism, and looking for better ways to live, that the working class, and particularly the white working class, is much more susceptible to reactionary and fascistic ideologies and influences.

The premise that fascism is an anti-capitalist ideology is completely false. Granted fascist organizations will sometimes use fake anti-capitalist rhetoric to attract militants, but in their actions they always serve the powerful capitalist class. They as sociopaths are easily drawn to, and corrupted by, the ruling class because they are rewarded in a variety of ways by ruling class agents. Fascism must be understood as capitalist rule without all the niceties of civil rights and legal processes that adorn and serve to hide their rule. Thus fascism is capitalist rule without the soft leather gloves of some rather anemic civil liberities to reveal the hidden fists of authoritarian class rule. But it is still the same class rule.

Climate scientists expected 'nothing like' this year's record-breaking global temperatures

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

The planet’s record-breaking temperatures every month of this year have taken scientists by surprise, according to a leading expert who said they had expected “nothing like” this level of global warming.

I've seen several reports this morning regarding the surprise of scientists at the accelerated world temperatures. I'm not sure which scientists they are referring to (they seem to be mostly meteorologists), but I am not at all surprised because of the scientific reports I've read and posted during the past five years. I also remember that many of these scientists were smeared in mainstream media, their emails hacked with damning attacks on some of their casual remarks, many subject to job harassment and lawsuits, while others were bribed by major corporations to downplay the threat of global warming.

I remember particularly scientists predicting that there will be positive feedback loops that would accelerate global warming. Here I am referring to the melting of the tundra in northern regions which in turn would release huge amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. I am also referring to the melting of the ice in the Arctic which in turn would reduce the reflection of the sun's rays that would increase global warming. So, I'm mystified by the reports I've read this morning.

The 1 Percent’s Useful Idiots

Click here to access article by Chris Hedges from TruthDig.

The parade of useful idiots, the bankrupt liberal class that long ago sold its soul to corporate power, is now led by Sen. Bernie Sanders. His final capitulation, symbolized by his pathetic motion to suspend the roll call, giving Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination by acclamation, is an abject betrayal of millions of his supporters and his call for a political revolution.

It's debatable whether Bernie Sanders fits the definition of useful idiot as accurately defined by Wikipedia: 

In political jargon, useful idiot is a term for people perceived as propagandists for a cause whose goals they are not fully aware of, and who are used cynically by the leaders of the cause.

Although one can't get in Sanders' head to really find out, it is really quite unbelievable, given his long career in government, that he didn't know how the game is played in the selection of fake leaders--also known as the election process--to act out their roles in government. You either play up to the real power centers in the invisible government peopled by major bankers, stockholders, and corporate CEOs, or you forget about having a political career. 

So I begin my commentary on this piece in a very skeptical mood. I've watched Chris Hedges too long to not be skeptical. He loves to sermonize. (He originally started training to become a preacher like his father.) He has enjoyed a high standard of living and arguably one might say that he has served as a "useful idiot" for the NY Times, the mouthpiece of the real but invisible government. I grew especially skeptical of his sincerity after he wrote the piece depicting anarchists battling police (the enforcers of the capitalist deep state) on the streets of Oakland as "The Cancer in Occupy [movement]". Apparently seeing people fighting back against what passes for law and order in the US was too much for Hedges' allegiance to the capitalist state. I came to think of him as a consummate poseur who liked to moralize, and got off on people seeing him as some kind of radical. 

So along comes this post which could have been written by a genuine revolutionary. Taken at face value, it is a very eloquent call to action against the capitalist state. But then I notice that he read this essay at the "Socialist [sic] Convergence" gathering in Philadelphia to commiserate over Sanders' defection and to salvage some valuable scrap out of their political wreckage. This occasion presented a perfect audience for him to demonstrate his well-honed oratorical skills loaded with radical sounding themes and to lend credence that the movement to elect Bernie Sanders had something to do with the radical sounding term "socialism" which their movement has redefined--to the comfort of the invisible "deep state", into that of social democracy.

Like Sanders I can't get inside Hedges' head to determine definitively whether he is a fake or not. But I have my doubts. (I tend to agree with Joseph Kishore in his article from World Socialist Web Site.) When Hedges talks explicitly in favor of public ownership and control of the economy, I will then recognize him as a genuine revolutionary. You, as always and as an independent thinking human being, will have to decide for yourself. 

Summarizing ‘The Missing 28 Pages’: Who Was Behind 9/11?

Click here to access article by Eric Zeusse from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Zeusse digs a lot of evidence from the report of "the Missing 28 Pages" and from other sources, but carefully limits his speculation about who was behind it--it was the Bush and Saudi families.

So, the long-bonded-together Bush and Saud families both had their own private – not merely their official and governmental – information sources about the impending attacks. Whereas the Sauds were masterminding and financing the operation (and so necessarily knew ahead-of-time the details of it), the US President (the American Bush) simply refused to be officially informed about any of its details until the attacks had already occurred and the CIA and FBI would then be assigned to do a report explaining why they had failed to prevent it from occurring (which actually wasn’t within their power to prevent); they were just Bush’s hirees, to take the fall for him after the attacks.

The Saudis masterminded the operation? How does the evidence even suggest that? Then the above conclusion doesn't correspond well with an earlier statement that the operation was more inclusive:

My July 20th article reported US President George W Bush’s connection to these persons, and to the 9/11 attacks, and also US President Barack Obama’s covering up for his predecessor-in-office, and for the Saud family. Both of America’s political Parties are in on this, and are covering up about it; the operation is bipartisan.

Such an analysis is so stupidly superficial that I can't help but think that Zuesse is consciously engaging in damage control for the deep state.

Evolution of Capitalism, Escalation of Imperialism

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

He offers as useful description of how capitalism has changed over time, its transition from a nationalist based phase with that of the rise of global capitalism. He sees basically four changes from previous versions which emphasizes the component of imperialism to reveal how this current form of imperialism differs from past versions.

As an almost after-thought he describes how the nature of the capitalist ruling class has changed from it base in nations to today's transnational nature. This, in my opinion, is what I regard as the most important qualitative change in capitalist rule which determines the very nature of imperialism. National boundaries to capitalists mean very little except to control the movement of workers. Otherwise they--most especially under the US-led Empire--see themselves as a transnational class with their own interests separate from workers' interests within various nations under their control. He accurately describes this phenomenon as follows:

Globalization of capitalism and (along with it) universalization of economic austerity, has led to an indisputable cross-border class alliance between global plutocracies. Representatives of transnational capital and their proxies in capitalist governments routinely meet to synchronize their cross-border business and financial policies—a major focus of which in recent years has been to implement global austerity measures and entrench neoliberal policies worldwide. These meetings include the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the World Bank and the IMF annual meetings, the Periodic G20 meetings, the Aspen Institutes Ideas Festival, The Bilderberg Group annual geopolitics forum, and the Herb Allen’s Sun Valley gathering of media moguls—to name only a handful of the many such international policy gatherings.

Today’s elites of global capitalism “are becoming a trans-global community of peers who have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home,” writes Chrystia Freeland, Global Editor of Reuters, who travels with the elites to many parts of the world. “Whether they maintain primary residences in New York or Hong Kong, Moscow or Mumbai, today’s super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves,” she adds.

But then I was very disappointed at his recommended remedy which was contained in only one paragraph, and which he thought sounded radical. There was no mention of the elimination of the very basis of capitalism--the private ownership of the economy which creates the class structure, all the class conflict, and all the imperialism. However, how could one expect anything different from a retired academic who has enjoyed a lucrative career in the heart of the capitalist Empire? This is what passes for dissent in the Empire along with Bernie Sanders' "revolution".

The Power of “Nyet”

Click here to access article by Dmitry Orlov from Club Orlov.

The author entertains us with an amusing interpretation of how the Russian word makes the American ruling class directorate crazy.

The corrosive psychological effect of “nyet” on the American hegemonic psyche cannot be underestimated. If you are supposed to think and act like a hegemon, but only the thinking part still works, then the result is cognitive dissonance. If your job is to bully nations around, and the nations can no longer be bullied, then your job becomes a joke, and you turn into a mental patient. The resulting madness has recently produced quite an interesting symptom.... The truth is, they are sick, deranged non-diplomatic warmongers. Such is the power of this one simple Russian word that they have quite literally lost their minds.

Two articles written by highly educated scholars illustrates the power of capitalist ideology

by Ron Horn for this blog. (Some revisions to add clarity were made at 5 PM Seattle time.)

I perused two articles this morning that pushed my emotional buttons because they were written by highly educated people that reflects much of what passes as advanced intellectual thinking about two primary problems tormenting most of mankind today--1) wars, acts of violence, terrorism, etc and 2) the relatively imminent prospect of catastrophic climate destabilization (often benignly labeled as "climate change"). Related to number one was an article entitled "The Psychology of Ideology and Religion" by Robert J. Burrowes, and number two was illustrated by "The Guaranteed Ending?" by Guy McPherson.

What I will attempt to do this morning in the time remaining is to argue that both articles are illustrative of the incredible power that capitalist ideologues have. I don't have the time to speculate very much on how they exercise this power, but will concentrate on the fact that they are able to influence the minds of highly educated people so that their views are diverted away from any criticism of the capitalist system and by extension from any class-structured social system.

In the first article Burrowes essentially argues that adults are responsible for instilling fear in children that not only produces violence-prone behaviors when they reach adulthood, but also prevents them from developing any kind of critical judgement about their beliefs. Children are seen as innocent victims of adult behavior. Thus adults are evil-doers! That's it!

In the second article McPherson provides a concise summary of his concern about catastrophic climate destabilization. I don't dispute the facts supporting his concern that climate destabilization is going to result in the extinction of humans--indeed, I agree. What I see as a major flaw in his argument is that he attributes the cause of the profligate use of fossil fuels and other environmental disasters to industrial civilization or simply civilization. The core meaning of the word civilization is human knowledge about the world in which we live. McPherson argues that if we had not entered the civilization phase of our existence, we humans would be just fine. If we had remained stupid and only able to survive tenuously in rather primitive circumstances, we would be alright today.

Both of these highly educated people abort any reasonable effort to go beyond these rather superficial analyses to find real causes of the problems they are addressing. Both argue what looks like a more sophisticated version of the biblical "original sin", specifically the sin of disobedience by learning from the tree of knowledge.

Anthropological knowledge has revealed that although the difficulties seem to have paralleled the rise of civilizations, they more specifically had to do with the rise of class-based societies in which a ruling (or more powerful) class of people appropriated disproportionately more of the wealth of societies. Such classes originally were created through violence of the stronger over the weaker, but soon ideologies (including religions) rationalized and justified such class structured societies so that people soon passively accepted social injustice and inequality. This caused problems expressed in article number one. The second problems that McPherson addressed came later with the rise of industrialism in the class structured (capitalist) societies with the discoveries in technology related to cheap and abundant fossil fuels.

What I object to with both positions argued by these two highly educated people is their reluctance to go beyond what is essentially a position taken several thousand years ago--the concept of original sin--even though they dress up their arguments with more sophisticated terminology. I do not think this is an indication of a deficiency of intellect, but the influence of capitalist ideology which discourages in a variety of ways any examination of their system or of any class-based system. 

Knowledge seeking is a primary characteristic of human nature. Ruling classes want to have a monopoly of knowledge to preserve their power, therefore they want the classes of people they dominate to remain in ignorance. It is imperative that we of the subjugated classes should use the knowledge humans have gained over the last 2500 years or more to properly diagnose the major problems of violence and catastrophic climate destabilization that we see today. Such knowledge points directly at class-structured societies. 

Thus a solution according to our human natures lies in overthrowing our ruling classes and creating societies that insure equality. Yes, catastrophic climate destabilization will likely happen anyway along with the extinction of humans, but I and most others as politically aware human beings, with a human sense of justice, with a human sense of fairness, insist on pursuing this course anyway to the last gasp of our existence.

We love to talk of terror – but after the Munich shooting, this hypocritical catch-all term has finally caught us out

Click here to access article by Robert Fisk of the Independent (Britain).

It all comes down to the same thing in the end. If Muslims attack us, they are terrorists. If non-Muslims attack us, they are shooters. If Muslims attack other Muslims, they are attackers.

This outstanding, long-time journalist correctly identifies inconsistencies with Western reporting of violent incidents, but he never speculates as to why different groups of people receive different coverage from Western media. It seems obvious to me. 

There is a political agenda, likely inspired by Zionists in the US-led Empire, to separate Muslims from the rest of humanity as evil-doers, or targets of hate and fear in order to divert attention away from the real evil-doers who are promoting endless wars and exploitation on behalf of financial and corporate based ruling classes aligned with the Empire. 

Video: Hillary Clinton, A Threat to All Humanity. World War III is “On the Table”. Her Candidacy Must be Opposed

Click here to access this introduction and 13:58m video produced by James Corbett from Global Research.  

There is nothing like sensational headlines to grab people's attention, and many left writers are doing just that with Hillary Clinton's official candidacy for president by the Democratic Party.

I have argued for years that we in the USA (and most of the US-led Empire) are governed by an invisible government also referred to as a deep state, shadow government, and often more vaguely as "the powers that be". It appears that I and other deep state theorists have not had the slightest influence on many left political analysts whose articles are frequently posted on alternative websites. Still, I am in good company with people like Peter Dale Scott, Tony Cartalucci, Carroll Quigley, Stephen Gowans, and others. 

I would like to put this to the test of future events, but that will not prove anything because the present government led by Obama is already on a very aggressive foreign policy course that has a high probability of ending in a nuclear conflagration. Therefore nothing is going to change under the presidency of Hillary Clinton. How can anyone dispute the premise of my argument and still argue that Hillary will be even more dangerous! The directorate of the ruling capitalist class have been grooming her for a long time to become president. She will represent them in this grand facade naive people call "democracy" very much like Obama has done. You won't be able to tell the difference. Thus, I recommend that you ignore this video and many articles like it.

What Happened to the Pink Tide?

Click here to access article by Kyla Sankey from Jacobin. 

This review of left movements and governments in South America is long overdue, and Sankey makes a very good effort to meet this need in this analytical report. We should have many more to fully understand the deficiencies of these movements/governments and to determine what strategies revolutionaries must pursue in the future. 

The weakness of this analysis as I see it is that Sankey too often obliquely and abstractly alludes to what I think is the core problem with these pink governments: attempting to promote radical change within nations whose economies are overwhelmingly dominated by owners (capitalists) and these owners have strong ties with multi-national corporations and agents of the US-led Empire. I don't have a definitively practical remedy for this defect, but it is a problem that needs to be widely discussed among revolutionaries and left activists.

There is Nothing Great about War

Click here to access article by Kim Petersen from Dissident Voice. 

In this review of a new book entitled The Great Class War 1914-1918, you can ignore Petersen's gratuitous moralism about "great" as used as an adjective in reference to wars. Instead focus on the author's use of the word "great", connoting "major" as applied to class war. As such the book appears to offer an alternative and accurate way to view the history of this war as a class war instead of obscuring this reality by presenting it as various nations gloriously clashing for dominance that one gets in conventional histories. The book appears to offer an antidote to the usual brainwashing we experience while treading through capitalist ideological muck of conventional ideological institutions, especially education.

Pauwels presents the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand as a pretext for war. However, the war was launched by elitists1 who feared the hoi polloi eating into profits by forming unions and demanding higher wages, and demanding greater democracy. There was also competition among nation states to grab colonies and gain economic advantage. The elitists believed that a war would crush revolutionary zeal, aspirations for democracy, and replace socialism with nationalism.

Don't let Bayer overturn the ban on bee-killing pesticides

Click here to access article from Sum of Us.

Wow. Bayer, BASF and Syngenta are suing the European Commission to overturn a ban on the pesticides that are killing millions of bees around the world.

A huge public push won this landmark ban -- and we can't sit back and let Big Pesticide overturn it while the bees vanish.

Last summer, 37 million bees were discovered dead on a single Canadian farm. And unless we act now, the bees will keep dying. We have to show Bayer and Co. now that we won't tolerate them putting their profits ahead of our planet's health.

Why Oliver Stone’s new Snowden film almost never made it to theatres

Click here to access article from South China Morning Post (based in Hong Kong).

Oliver Stone thinks this near failure was due to self-censorship by major film studios. It only takes a few adverse consequences to infect many people and agencies with the mechanism of self-censorship. Obviously with Edward Snowden considered as an official enemy of the US state, any film that portrayed him in a positive light would be considered not in the national interest (read this as ruling capitalist class interest). This makes me wonder how many films are not made or not distributed because of self-censorship.

The film is scheduled to be released on September 16th.

Al Nusra Launches Rebranding Campaign to Depict Itself “Moderate Opposition” and Avoid Air Strikes

Click here to access article from South Front.

I wonder how many people are going to be fooled by the rebranding of the terrorist organization Jabhat Al Nusra to Jabhat Fateh Al Sham. This apparent ruse has resulted in a US agreement with Russia to ...

...share intelligence to coordinate air strikes against the Syrian Al Qaeda branch “Jabhat Al Nusra” and prohibit the Russian and Syrian air powers from attacking the so-called “moderate rebels.”

The answer seems obvious to me: the vast majority of Americans who unwittingly assume that corporate TV broadcasts news instead of propaganda to engineer their consent for Empire policies and actions.

Declassified 9/11 Report Portrays US-Saudis as Partners in Crime

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

Cartalucci attempts once again to get us to see another subject through his clear lens rather than through the distorted lens of capitalist ruling class media. This time he focuses his lens on a prominent subject increasingly in the news--terrorism. However as long as so many of us are locked into corporate media, I think that his efforts will be for nought. Let us pray that this isn't so.

In this article he addresses the publication of the previously censored 28 pages of the official government's 9/11 Commission report. It appears that our masters did this in spite of vigorous Saudi opposition as a way to deal with the many years of pressure from 9/11 activist organizations to reveal them.

The Western media has attempted to downplay the impact of the document's release, claiming that subsequent investigations found the "many" of the allegations in the document "without basis" - even as the US and Saudi Arabia today openly arm and fund terrorists in Syria.

Many mistakenly believe on one hand terrorism is simply an inevitable clash of civilizations between "Islam" and the West, while others maintain it is the predictable backlash to flawed or unjust Western foreign policy.

In reality, it is neither.

Guardian tries to silence Democrat leak scandal

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

I'm not sure exactly when this began, but I've been noticing the steady rise of propaganda style reports or the management of news coverage in mainstream media for quite some time, but it seems to have accelerated since 9/11. Back in the 1970s reports (see this, this, and this for starters) kept surfacing about the insidious use of media by the CIA from government investigations and from renegade journalists. From all appearances the problem seemed to have diminished, but what I really think happened was that our deep state (one analyst reveals a lot about the "Deep State" in spite of being motivated by damage control) of which the CIA forms a crucial part burrowed even deeper so that corporate media today functions as an arm of the deep state. 

For quite some time the deep state has been grooming Hillary Clinton to become president to take advantage of the identity political orientation of Americans which they have cultivated over many years to discourage any class-based orientation (see my 2013 commentary here). Thus during this election season their media went to work to insure that outcome. This article cites the most recent evidence of this phenomenon.

The pattern is unmistakable in both the UK and US – and I apologise for sounding like a stuck record. Liberal mainstream media prove over and over again their aversion to telling us the news straight. They conspire – I can think of no fairer word – with the political elites in Washington and London to spin and subvert stories damaging to their mutual interests, even when the facts are driving real events in an entirely different direction.

A perfect illustration is the story of the Democratic party’s leaked emails....

Israel’s Tightening But Weakening Grip

Click here to access article by Lawrence Davidson from ConsortiumNews.

Zionism’s range of influence is shrinking. One can see this progression worldwide. At a popular level the Israelis have lost control of the historical storyline of Israel-Palestine. They may teach their own citizens their version of the story, the one wherein the Jews have a divine and/or historical right to all of Palestine’s territory. But beyond their fellow Zionists and the loony Christian Right, no one else believes this story. Significantly, an increasing number of Jews no longer accept it either.

None of this means that the Zionists are not still influential. Yet their influence no longer has a broad popular base. It is now largely restricted to Western government circles.

Insumisión: From Teachers’ Strike to People’s Rebellion

Click here to access article by Scott Campbell from It's Going Down. 

With all the terrorist incidents and other indications of social conflict happening, you may not have paid attention to what is happening across our border with Mexico. Campbell attempts to summarize what has been happening.

With the ongoing teachers’ strike that has morphed into a widespread rebellion, primarily in Oaxaca and Chiapas, we haven’t put together a more general roundup of resistance and repression in Mexico in some time. While that struggle is very much alive and well, the intensity with which it is unfolding has diminished some. This column will first take a look at the past three weeks of that conflict (if you need to get up to speed, check out this piece) and then cover some of the other recent events around the country.

Trump as populist

by cartoonist Sean Delonas. 

In signal to military, Hillary Clinton picks Senator Tim Kaine as running mate

Click here to access article by Tom Hall from World Socialist Web Site.

In selecting Kaine, Clinton is making clear that she plans on running a right-wing, pro-war campaign targeted at winning over the military and sections of the Republican Party dissatisfied with Trump, and particularly with the Republican candidate’s attitude toward Russia. Clinton also wanted to repudiate any association with the issues of social inequality that motivated the widespread support for her main rival in the primaries, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Kaine is among the most hawkish figures among Senate Democrats.

Sizzling Midwest Feels a Preview of a Hotter Future Climate

Click here to access article by Bob Berwyn from InsideClimate News.

Current temperatures in large parts of the Midwest have been rising steadily for more than 100 years, with accelerated warming in the past few decades. According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment, the average temperature in the region increased by more than 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit between 1900 and 2010. Between 1950 and 2010, the rate of increase doubled, and since 1980, the pace of warming is three times faster than between 1900 and 2010. 

Some other Wall Street consequences

by cartoonist Khalil Bendib.

Looking at China through a lens, clearly

Click here for a review by Moti Nissani of China Rising authored by Jeff Brown posted on The Greanville Post. (Note: the following commentary was revised at 3:30 PM Seattle time.)

I'm not so sure that one can look at "China through a lens, clearly" by reading Jeff Brown's book. Although unlike what I found as mostly extremely positive reports about China in his online articles (now found here), Nissani assures us that in this book Brown presents a reasonably balanced report on current Chinese society. But then Nissani ends up posing many more questions that I had hoped the book might answer.

I was initially very impressed with Brown's writings a few years ago which provided a much needed prospective on China from an American living and working in China (Nissani also lived in China for a brief period) to fill a large void missing in corporate media, and what little coverage they provided was mostly negative. Subsequently I noticed that his views expressed a decidedly and consistent pro-China bias. It was almost like he was trying to convince himself that he made the right choice by moving to China. In other words, there seemed to be no balance to his reporting on Chinese affairs. I suspect that this might be an over-reaction to years of anti-China propaganda that he was fed by US corporate media. For Americans who have little knowledge about Chinese society, this book might be a good entry point. 

For background material on contemporary China I recommend reading the Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping (vol. 3). Ever since 1978 when Deng Xiaoping took control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China has launched a broad policy in pursuit of economic development. To accomplish this they opened China to the outside world, particularly to Western capitalist countries, under a "one country, two systems" policy. This policy combines significant (but not exclusive) capitalist development of their economy which is under the control and direction of the CCP. This policy induced, or one might argue "seduced", Western corporations to transfer a lot of their operations to China by offering cheap labor and other inducements as a method to rapidly obtain the high technology of the West while improving China's economy, while for Western corporations the prospects of increased profits could not be ignored. Since then the CCP has pursued a peaceful strategy that attempts to use economic development as a method to deal with conflicts both internal to China and external in foreign relations. 

This general policy has succeeded beyond even the CCP's wildest dreams. However, the risk has always been that the capitalist pursuit of profit by any means would have a corrupting influence on China and the CCP. Although China is strongly supporting renewable energies and implementing changes to improve the environment, they appear to be promoting economic development as a major priority over sustainability. China's pursuit of nuclear power seems to be an illustration of this priority.

One major worrying effect of China's success as an economic powerhouse is that the US-led Empire's ruling class now see China as a threat to their domination of the world. This has resulted in the Empire's "pivot to Asia [China]" foreign policy which we currently see dangerously being played out in the conflicts about control over the South China Sea.

Rise in plunder of Earth’s natural resources

Click here to access article by Alex Kirby from Climate News Network. 

Like many of these climate related websites that are funded by wealthy charities featuring writers from corporate media or government media, there is no mention of the 800 pound capitalist gorilla in the room that is driving the plunder of the Earth's natural resources.

Capital and compensation

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

"Who are the capitalists?" the professor asks his students. I give the professor a "D" for his answer. Any definition has, of course, an element of arbitrariness to it, but this is especially true when dealing with amounts of income from capital, and even more-so when looking at compensation for boards of directors. I think I can do better. A capitalist is anyone whose income is substantially from the ownership of capital or property. 

What I think he describes, if we focus on major financial as well as industrial corporations, is a capitalist ruling class. The amounts they receive on these boards is usually quite inconsequential to their total income. Often it is pocket change to them. Still I believe the subject is well worth thinking about.

US capitalist democracy in action

I couldn't decipher the cartoonist who drew this, but it perfectly captures the essence of "democracy" as practiced in the US.

Wall Street’s Think Tank

Click here to access this review by Dominic Alexander of a book authored by Laurence H. Shoup from CounterFire (Britain).

In my opinion Shoup is a leading intellectual and writer on the left, and thus his dissection of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as a primary think tank for the Empire should be read seriously. 

We learn from the book review and other sources that the origins of the CFR stems from the merger of Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), a major British think tank, with a group of intellectuals and diplomats connected with Wall Street in 1921. This bi-product of WWI created a close relationship between the ruling capitalist class of the British Empire with Wall Street capitalists of the US. (Carroll Quigley has written about this in his book The Anglo-American Establishment.) 

Much of the first half of the 20th century in which a multi-polar capitalist world existed, there emerged a contest for world dominance between Germany and Britain. Because Wall Street capitalists had in WWI bet heavily (in the form of loans) on Britain and France in this contest, they were soon able to get the US participation in the war to insure victory and the repayment of their loans (with interest). In WWII this rivalry, their earlier defeat, and bitter memories over the Versailles Treaty activated the deep resentment of the Nazis and provoked them into invading France, the Low Countries, and to launch an air attack on Britain (for less than 4 months) in spite of the fact that many Western capitalists had financially backed the German Nazi party as an instrument that would destroy the Soviet Union, a major heretic in an otherwise capitalist world. In was this same division among the allied capitalist countries that enabled the easy early German victories, and not the overwhelming power of the German military.

The British-American origins of this major "think tank" of the US-led Empire has forged an alliance among Anglo-American capitalists that plays a key role in policies and actions of the Empire that we see today. 

While the CFR has a long history, the focus of this book is its role in the formulation and propagation of neoliberalism as the dominant ideological prescription for governments globally since the 1970s. A highly prominent figure within the CFR, David Rockefeller, who was chairman between 1970 and 1985 (and the single largest financial contributor of the organisation’s entire history), was an early enthusiast for Friedrich von Hayek’s free market dogmas at the heart of neoliberal economics.

Politics is Fake and Staged

from the Corbett Report.

Only a psychopath could read someone else’s lies from their teleprompter with such feigned emotion. And only the flag-waving, dumbed down masses could believe them. Politicians are puppets, and your only questions should be: “Who is writing their speeches? And who is pulling their strings?”

In the Shadow of the Bomb: Conducting International Relations with the Threat of Mass Murder

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

Todhunter with his brilliant, penetrating mind refocuses his attention and ours from corporate contamination of food and the harm they are causing independent farmers to another aspect of capitalist rule--the ever present threat of their use of catastrophic weapons, especially nuclear weapons. He was prompted to write this essay by some remarks made by the new British prime minister, Theresa May, who said she wouldn't hesitate to use these weapons of mass destruction (presumably under certain conditions).

Politicians like May are reading from script devised by the elite interests. Members of this elite comprise the extremely wealthy of the world who set the globalisation and war agendas at the G8, G20,NATO,the World Bank, and the WTO. They are from the highest levels of finance capital and transnational corporations. This transnational capitalist class dictate global economic policies and decide on who lives and who dies and which wars are fought and inflicted on which people.

The mainstream narrative tends to depict these individuals as "wealth creators".

JFK Turned to Peace and Was Assassinated

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from his blog. 

Roberts provides and excellent review of Kennedy's opposition to the deep state that had been constructed after WWII to transfer control from the official capitalist government into an invisible government consisting of top capitalist figures in banking and corporations and using the new secret agencies to conduct activities that were illegal or that Americans would not support. Thus Kennedy, and others who stood in the way of this invisible government, had to be assassinated. However Roberts' focus is largely limited to the foreground of Kennedy's assassination and misses the greater significance of this new deep state: the emergence of neo-fascism to replace the capitalist version of democratic institutions of government. The latter became a facade while the former has taken control of all important decisions.

Is the Saudi 9/11 Story Part Of The Deception?

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from his blog.

As a former member of the Reagan administration Roberts knows how the US government works. In this article he knows that the CIA functions to hide secrets from Americans and from the rest of the government.  There are at least 15 other such government agencies, but I think that the CIA has played and is playing a key role in serving the ruling capitalist class in general, and the 9/11 project in particular. Given his knowledge about how these secret government agencies work, Roberts is very suspicious of the new revelations about the role the Saudi government played in the project.

The evidence of Saudi financing is what restores the credibility of the original story. Nothing changes in the story of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, the attack on the Pentagon, and the crashed airliner in Pennsylvania. American anger is now directed at the Saudis for financing the successful attacks.

To hype the Saudi story is to support the official story.

Gavin Long’s Last Words

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

The murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille were not unique. On average one black person is killed by police every day. But cameras were rolling and the sight of police lynch law twice in 48 hours was too much for millions of people to bear. So much so that revenge was not just contemplated but carried out. Micah Johnson and Gavin Long were named as suspects in shootings of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Both paid with their lives. If guilty, they were motivated to act on their anger and they changed everything about the movement to end police lynch law.

Johnson and Long were both black men who served in the military. Johnson was deployed in Afghanistan and Long in Iraq. Aside from the police version of their conversation with Johnson we know nothing about his thinking. But Long often expressed himself on social media. What he said is worthy of attention.

Note: "Convos" in the following video is Gavin Long. (I wonder how long the agents of our masters will permit this video to be shown via YouTube.)

“Boom Bust Boom” busted

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

Ruccio writes a critical review of Boom Bust Boom, Terry Jones and Theo Kocken’s Monty Pythonesque documentary about the crash of 2007-08.

...the film is just not very good. For starters, consider the fact that, after the worst crisis of capitalism since the first Great Depression, only once is capitalism itself even mentioned!

The filmmakers ultimately lay blame on human nature. 

But that's "par for the course" for many of today's critics of vital political and economic issues. By providing cover for, diversions and distractions from, the debacles of capitalism they reduce any threats to their careers and material well-being from agents of the ruling capitalist class. 

Thus anti-capitalist Marxists like John Bellamy Foster are shunted off to university ivory towers to expound about the intricacies of Marxist theory, while other more limited critics are given wide exposure on alternative media. Examples of the latter are Michael Hudson, whose focus is limited entirely to the evils of finance, and Eric Zuesse, whose liberal bias wants government to do more for the poor to prevent the gross inequality that we see today. Because Zuesse blames the "aristocracy" for this, one would think that we were living in the era of feudalism. More severe critics of the ruling capitalist class like retired Prof. Moti Nissani have been forced to avoid the wrath of our masters by escaping to other countries.

Top 10 Reasons Why It’s Just Fine for U.S. to Blow Up Children

Click here to access article by David Swanson from Washington's Blog. 

Sometimes when people are fed up with lies, hypocrisy, and phony propaganda, they resort to sarcasm. This is a good example.

Is it really necessary for me to explain to you why it’s acceptable, necessary, and admirable for the United States and its minor allies to be blowing up houses, families, men, women, and children in Syria?

This latest story of blowing up 85 civilians in their homes has some people confused and concerned. Let me help you out.

First Half of 2016 Blows Away Temp Records

Click here to access article by Andrea Thompson from Climate Central.

The first half of 2016 has blown away temperature records, capped off by a record hot June, once again bumping up the odds that 2016 will be the hottest year on record globally, according to data released Tuesday.

The monthly numbers from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration puts the planet on track to surpass 2015 as the hottest on record.

Roots to Social Democracy/Capitalism, Socialism: The Failure of Social Democracy (Part 2 of 7) [A must read post]

Click here to access article by Ron Ridenour from Dissident Voice. (I am not posting Part 1 because I think it is largely subsumed in this post.)

This article offers the best, most accurate, most concise history of class conflict under capitalism in the 20th century that I have ever seen. Not that it's perfect because it leaves a lot of important details out such as Operation Gladio under the direction of the CIA which used terrorist methods against militant workers in Europe following WWII to insure that only capitalist parties would triumph. 

The fact that this sort of accurate history is so unusual is simply due to the triumph of capitalist classes, especially the dominant capitalist class in the US, following WWII. The emerging US capitalist class has tried, and largely succeeded, in re-writing the history of this post-WWII era and re-defining important political-economic concepts (socialism equals social democracy) to obscure the basic class conflict between ruling capitalist classes and workers to insure that capitalist interests prevailed. As a result we see the dominance of the US Empire in world affairs today and all the chaos, social problems, never-ending wars, and deterioration of the lives of ordinary people throughout the world.

It is clear to me and this history that social democracy has always been a temporary strategy by ruling capitalist classes to stave off working class interests in public ownership and control of economies.

...World War II was an economic boom for the USA [mostly for the capitalists]. Its weapons, oil, steel, auto, and construction industries grew manifold. Their surplus financed the Marshall Plan to rebuild the capitalist economies of Western Europe and prevent socialist-communist electoral victories. This policy succeeded, especially in Greece and Italy where a majority of workers were leftist.

Europe’s two largest political parties, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, adopted and even extended welfare benefits enabled by the Marshall Plan. The “free market” has since largely replaced the state as the politically determining force, and the welfare model is no longer viewed as necessary.

Sibel Edmonds Dissects the Turkish Coup

Click here if you wish to access this interview by James Corbett directly from his website.

I don't know of anyone in the US with more knowledge of Turkish deep politics than Sibel Edmonds [her comments start at 5:45m] because of her Turkish origins and more especially because of her previous duties as a Turkish translator for the FBI before she became a whistleblower.

As we predicted last year, the deep state coup against Erdogan finally materialized last weekend…but it fizzled out almost as quickly as it arrived. So what are we to make of this would-be putsch? Did Erdogan allow it to happen in order to further cement his control on the rebound? Or was this merely a trial run for the real CIA/NATO/Gulenist coup yet to come? And what role do the Turkish people play in all of this? Joining us today to dissect the mayhem is Sibel Edmonds and Spiro Skouras of Newsbud.com.