This Is What’s Really Behind North Korea’s Nuclear Provocations

Click here to access article by Bruce Cumings from The Nation.

Cumings is America's foremost historian on Korea in the modern era. (read the above Wikipedia link) As such he knows of what he writes about North Korea in this article which provides details about their weapons program in recent decades in relation to US concerns.

North Korea is the only country in the world to have been systematically blackmailed by US nuclear weapons going back to the 1950s, when hundreds of nukes were installed in South Korea. I have written much about this in these pages and in the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists". Why on earth would Pyongyang not seek a nuclear deterrent? But this crucial background doesn’t enter mainstream American discourse. History doesn’t matter, until it does—when it rears up and smacks you in the face.

For a much needed (for Americans) full history of US-Korean history of relations, I highly recommend that you read at least volume 1 of Cumings' 2 volume book entitled The Origins of the Korean War.   

Russian Defence Minsitry: No one has asked for antidotes or medicines around location of alleged Idlib chemical attack

Click here to access article by Adam Garrie from Duran. 

A puzzling new development has emerged in the aftermath of the alleged chemical weapons incident in Syria’s Idlib Governorate from the 4th of April.

Since the incident, apparently no one in the Khan Shaykhun area in question has asked for any antidotes for exposure to toxic sarin gas, the chemical allegedly deployed on the 4th of April.

This is likely because ISIS is using chlorine gas as weapons just like they did in Iraq in an incident recently reported by Newsweek. I've read several reports in which eye-witnesses claimed the Syrian Air Force bombed the Khan Shaykhun ISIS facility which apparently was being used to manufacture these weapons. Thus, ISIS leaders and their CIA collaborators likely saw that this incident could be exploited as a false flag attack to cast blame on the Syrian government for using chemical weapons. (Note that the Newsweek report did not connect the two incidents.)

Corporate Executives Swamp the White House

Click here to access article from CitizenVox, a blog sponsored by Public Citizen, a watchdog non-profit organization.

"The more things change, the more they remain the same." No one occupies the While House without being under the influence of the major power center (the ruling capitalist class) of the US. 

Public Citizen’s analysis of news reports and White House press releases reveals the astonishing degree to which outside corporate executives have swamped President Donald Trump’s White House.

According to news reports and White House press releases, since his inauguration, President Trump has met with at least 190 corporate executives – averaging more than two a day. Counting repeat attendees, he has had at least 222 corporate executive meetings.

One Hundred Years Ago: ‘The Revolution is not over; it is just Beginning!’

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

This professor of history at the University of Montreal provides a very accurate review of the initial stage of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the most pivotal event of the 20th century, which occurred precisely 100 years ago. The event spread panic among the ruling capitalist classes across continental Europe, the US, and the entire British Empire. You can't have a reasonably accurate understanding of major subsequent events if you don't have an understanding of this revolution. Carley provides that in his description of the first stage of the revolution in this scholarly, but concise article. 

(The scholarly features include showing dates from both our calendar and the Julian calendar, and using several foreign or more obscure words/expressions to which I've offered translations: "koshmar", "flagging", and "calendes grecques" became a colloquial expression for postponing something forever.)

This was the beginning of the period of so-called "dual power". The Petrograd Soviet would not take power directly, but in effect would govern indirectly, acting as a sentinel of the revolutionary masses and "usurping" government authority, as western diplomats saw it. Dual power was a formula for chaos especially since the Provisional Government represented  traditional tsarist elites, and the Soviets, the revolutionary masses. In fact, the Provisional Government had no popular base at all. Not even the Imperial Duma could buttress it, Ambassador Paléologue reported, for the Duma "had disappeared". The Petrograd Soviet is now "the parliament of all Russia". Hence, if there was "dual power" in Russia, it tilted heavily to the side of the new Soviets.

The two big issues in the spring of 1917 were peace and land redistribution.

America Aggression: A Threat To The World

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

This renowned Canadian international criminal lawyer concludes this essay with an insightful comment and final question regarding US aggression:

...the real tragedy of the American action is that it once again proves that the modern era is a wild and apparently aimless struggle between all that is noblest and all that is basest in our common humanity. International law is trampled under American army boots. The United Nations is reduced to a circus in which the Americans and British play destructive clowns. The governments of the NATO war alliance, by their support of the American actions, lies, threats and bullying, are members of a criminal conspiracy to rule the world through brute force. The western news media are reduced to propaganda units of the NATO military forces and the people in general have, through a constant barrage of false information, manipulation, fear, bigotry, and a general ignorance of history and other peoples, become willing dupes of this machine.

Here in Canada the government and press proclaim their slavering support for the American war crimes, and are glorifying the useless slaughter of the First World War as the nation’s “defining moment.” Not the linking of the nation from Atlantic to Pacific by a great railway built at great human cost, nor the defeat of the American invasion in 1812, nor the defeat of the fascists in 1945; no, for they have become the fascists and relish the symbols of death, of slaughter, and all but worship war as our destiny and the death of others as a beautiful thing.

Frankly, I am tired of the debate whether Trump, the new Duce, has “sold out” or been compromised by the war faction in the United States. I think it was clear from the beginning that he would be as destructive as the rest of their leaders. Does it really matter any longer what leader is in charge of the United States?

12 Talkin’ World War One Blues…

Click here to access article by Mark Crispin Miller from his blog News from Underground.

Could it be that the professor is engaging in sarcasm as he begins and concludes his essay with these remarks?

• What a difference a century makes, eh?

• So that’s what happened back in 1917, when Americans were so much easier to jerk around than we are.

US Major Funder of Saudi War on Yemen: American Activist

Click here to access article from Tasmin News Agency (Iran).

A prominent anti-war activist based in California highlighted the US support for the war crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and said Washington is “the major funder” of Riyadh’s bombardment of civilians in the Arabian Peninsula country.

“The United States is playing a very important role in supporting Saudi Arabia in these war crimes,” Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan said in an interview with the Tasnim News Agency.

“Saudi Arabia plays a pivotal role in the region in making sure the oil keeps flowing to the United States, so in response, the US is allowing the Saudi murderous regime to perpetrate these crimes against the Yemeni people,” she added.

The fact that most Americans have taken to the streets over feminist issues and anti-Trump demonstrations shows the power of the ruling class directorate to guide Americans away from concerns over the wars that Americans are supporting in so many parts of the world and onto social identity issues. Simultaneously it illustrates how another prominent anti-war leader's influence can be so effectively neutralized by the directorate's opinion-shapers in media corporations. This situation also illustrates that most Americans listen to and believe the talking heads on TV and are convinced by corporate provided information that reverberates throughout social media. (Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky remains a classic study of this phenomenon.)

US Attack on Syria Result of Domestic Pressure on Trump: American Pundit

Click here to access article from Tasmin News Agency (Iran).

"I think his (Trump’s) action was less determined to send a message to (Vladimir) Putin and Xi (Jinping) than to relieve domestic political pressure," Washington-based political analyst James Jatras said in an interview with the Tasnim News Agency.

"He (Trump) knew that if he even questioned supposed intelligence that concluded, without any investigation, with ‘a high level of confidence’ it was Assad, he would bring down on his head another avalanche of criticism," he noted.

Matrix world in 2017?

by editorial cartoonist Patrick Bagley. 

It seems that the makers of the science fiction film "The Matrix" were prophetic. Much of life in the USA today resembles what was portrayed in the film. We only need Soylent Green for food, and likely Monsanto and Cargill Inc. will soon provide that.

The Rise of History's Biggest Empire

The 25:17m video produced by Empire Files and posted in TeleSur is narrated by Abby Martin.

Martin explains the history of the rise capitalist empires in the modern era leading up to the US-led Empire that rules much of the world today.

WikiLeaks: ISIS Tunnels Blown Up By MOAB Were Built By CIA

Click here to access article by Chris Menahan from InformationLiberation. 

Wikileaks in a tweet pointed to the latest major piece of fake news issued by the Empire's central government.

The tunnels used in Afghanistan by the Islamic State group that were blown up on Thursday by the world's most powerful non-nuclear bomb were built by the CIA, according to whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks. 

MIT Professor Debunks Media & White House & On S-Y-R-I-A G-A-S Attack

Danny Dore of the Danny Dore Show goes off on the latest fake report issued by the government which is sponsored by major banking institutions, "defense" contractors, government secret services all of which are controlled by the capitalist deep state. I like the way he speaks in the vernacular of ordinary people, a no-bullshit and entertaining style, to take down these fake reports.

The U.S. is counting on a long-term abundance of oil & natural gas: But what if the boom is just a bubble?

Click here to access article from Shale Bubble.

Despite recent declines in oil and natural gas production, Americans continue to be told that the United States is destined to have growing supplies of both, thanks to the widespread use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). This “shale revolution,” we’re told, will fundamentally change the U.S. energy picture for decades to come....

Why North Korea Needs Nukes - And How To End That

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

I am posting this article for three reasons: 1) as a prime example of vital information which media agents of our capitalist masters refuse to disclose; 2) it illustrates what could be reported much more widely if we had a people's media organization that served the needs of ordinary people for accurate information; and 3) it is an example of information that would undermine the ruling capitalist class's vital control of information that sustains this class in power, is terrorizing much of the world causing mayhem and considerable suffering, and is threatening a nuclear holocaust and environmental degradation both of which threaten the continuance of the human species. 

Another such example of reporting from an independent source that would never be published by a media corporation in the US Empire is a piece posted by the GEOPOLMonitor entitled "ISIS launches chemical attacks in Mosul, say Iraqi military". It would serve to undermine the Empire's fictional justification for their recent attack on a Syrian airbase.

The control of information is an indispensable weapon to sustain the rule of this tiny, self-serving class that has managed to own (and ownership's correlate, control) everything of importance to the functioning of our nation and most of the world. Quoting and referring to an 1989 article in the Marine Corps Gazette, Douglas Valentine writes in his recent book, The CIA as Organized Crime (p. 354), the following insightful commentary:

The new type of warfare will be widely dispersed and largely undefined. The distinction between war and peace will be blurred to the vanishing point. There will be no definable battlefields or fronts. The distinction between civilian and military will disappear. ...." [from the 1989 Marine Gazette]

The kicker in the article was when they said that, "This new type of warfare will depend on psychological operations manifested in the form of media information intervention."

All of this became standard operating procedure, at home and abroad, in terms of the military and CIA intervening in media information.

The article said, "One must be adept at manipulating the media to alter domestic and world opinion. On this new psychological battlefield, television news may become a more powerful operational weapon [than] armored divisions."

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that media corporations today are performing this role.
 
I am arguing the creation of an internationally based, people's media organization not as something that would be nice to have, but something that is vital to the survival of humans. And it must incorporate in its organizational structure the seeds of a new method of control of the organization from the grassroots up. Therefore the typical organization chart would be turned upside-down to indicate grassroots control of the organization. The development of such an organization could serve three functions: 1) as a source of much more accurate information; 2) as a catalyst for a revolutionary movement to topple the control of humanity by, and for the benefit of, capitalists; and as a model for a people-controlled organization of societies worldwide to prevent any other ruling class from being established. 

Neocons Point Housebroken Trump at Iran

Click here to access article by Jonathan Marshall from ConsortiumNews. 

The editor aptly introduces this piece with the following statement:

Now that the neocons have housebroken President Trump, they are ready for a resumption of their “regime change” agenda, with Iran next in their crosshairs, reports Jonathan Marshall.

The Hasty Trump Syria Attack Game – It Doesn’t Add Up

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

The headline for this article is a bit misleading because most of the article is devoted not to analyzing Trump's decision, but to expose almost the entire operation and media coverage with considerable evidence (backed up by solid linked-to sources) that this is overwhelmingly another "fake news" story from beginning to end.

Was this latest chemical weapons incident another ‘false flag’ as intelligence jargon describes it, done by US-Saudi backed ISIS or Al Nusra, in order to give the Trump Administration war hawks the excuse for major military action in Syria for the first time in six years of US-backed war? All evidence says yes.

So far we can only speculate about Trump's reasons for this attack and the current deployment of naval forces approaching North Korea. Is he trying to ward off the ongoing criticism as "Putin's man" from a powerful war-mongering faction in the ruling class? Or has he completely succumbed to that pressure? If the answer to the latter question is affirmative, he will likely pursue an even more aggressive foreign policy than the ruling class's approved candidate Hillary Clinton. 

Regarding Syria and the Empire's strategy , Cartalucci presents a well-reasoned essay (see the last section) that the US, aided by Turkey and Israel, will try to carry out long held plans to carve up Syria leaving what's left as another failed state like Libya and Iraq. If Trump has surrendered to this war-mongering faction, this strategy is likely to be followed. 

The American public could aid in a more peaceful strategy throughout the world if they engaged in as massive anti-war protests in the streets. Unfortunately, the dominate war-mongering faction of the ruling class directorate and their media corporations have them completely befuddled about foreign affairs. The American public are much more interested in domestic social identity issues (gay rights, women's issues, and racial discrimination). This is probably due to the role media corporations play in encouraging such interest.

As to the confusion about Trump's foreign policy as provoked by his recent aggressive moves, I recommend you read Alistair Crooke's piece entitled "Trump Lurches into Chaos and Conflict". 

The Epic Resistance of Kobane

Click here to access article by Marcel Cartier from TeleSur.

I especially loved this article for primarily two reasons. One, I have been wondering if I have been a dupe of Western propaganda furnished mostly by the former owners of Reflections on a Revolution (ROAR) who ran a series of articles (to find them, enter "Rojava" into any of my search boxes) several years ago extolling the revolutionary character of the Syrian Kurds that inhabited northern Syria. Since then I've seen the US military collaborating with these Syrian Kurds and even establishing military bases or installations on their territory which I saw as part of an implementation of a plan to carve up Syria into "safe zones". During this latter period I've seen nothing about this more recent development in leftist websites.

Second, this article written by a Western leftist has a pure ring of authenticity about it. Read it to see for yourself. What I found most satisfying is that it deals a bit with the issue of the collaboration with US forces--although not enough in my opinion. 

I remember reading somewhere that the Syrian Kurds were surrounded by the Empire's terrorist army known mostly as ISIS, and US forces came to their rescue. This fact suggests that these Kurds out of sheer desperation were forced to collaborate with US forces. I also remember reading somewhere that the Syrian Kurds were discriminating against non-Kurdish residents in the same area which is flatly denied in this article. 

This confusion about reality in this area of Syria is, I suspect, caused by leftists wanting to only write positive things about people they regard as serving a progressive revolutionary agenda. The same thing happened in Venezuela after the Chavez government took power. Revolutions are messy and many unusual, and sometimes disturbing, issues present themselves along their path. However too many writers on the left seem resistant to presenting any information about such messy issues. This, I believe, is a serious mistake. Such issues that confront revolutionary movements must be dealt with frankly and fully in leftist media so that the thinking of all revolutionary forces throughout the world can be advanced.  

There are no "good guys" and "bad guys" that capitalist media likes to suggest to their many readers/viewers. There are just human beings, most of whom just want peace and to achieve a reasonably good standard of living. (Their "good guys" are those who support the needs of Empire capitalists--the others are "bad guys".) Sometimes people in a revolutionary movement must make compromises with powerful capitalist adversaries (or some other ruling class like the feudal regimes in the Persian Gulf) in order to survive to fight another day. Then on the opposite end of the psychological spectrum from principled revolutionaries are sociopathic people who are easily compromised by rewards that powerful capitalists (or their agents) can offer in exchange for their services. Unfortunately capitalist ruled societies cultivate and promote the rise of too many sociopathic personalities.

Those of us who are consciously aware and simply living in advanced capitalist societies know that we must make daily compromises to power in order to survive in reasonably good conditions. 

The Geopolitics of World War III

This 22 minute video was produced by Storm Clouds Gathering website and shared with you via YouTube. (Because of my hearing limitations, I found the audio transmission rather uneven and a bit challenging.)

In this video Aaron Hawkins of Storm Clouds Gathering brings together many important facts to support, and important factors to inform, his geopolitical view of the current worrisome state of international affairs. Although his production of the video leaves something to be desired, I think his compilation of facts and factors ares very good.

Austerity never ends: Economists say wages are too high

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

I think that Dolack spends far too much time on the effects of wage labor on living living standards of workers instead of what it means to a worker and to be treated merely as a commodity. This is so typical of writers who have been thoroughly indoctrinated by capitalist propaganda that they miss, or don't clearly see, the background experience of being a commodity. Thus they tend to concentrate on low wages and benefits.

To owners of economic enterprises, being a worker in a capitalist economy means being essentially a rented wage slave . As such, you are transformed into a mere commodity in a labor market in which capitalists engage to secure the labor as a means to obtain profit, and profit for "owners" is by far the highest value in a capitalist society. At various times profitable economic activities do not attract capitalists to rent a sufficient number of workers for a variety of reasons: the boom and bust cycles inherent in a capitalist economy due to excessive run-up of debts and speculation in the mad pursuit of wealth, low wages by workers so that they cannot buy what capitalists offer for sale, owners cannot obtain loans at a satisfactory rate to invest in activities in order to produce profit, and the material needs of a society are already being met.  

Thus under capitalism, advertising plays such a critical role in creating additional needs beyond housing, clothing, health, education, and other personal needs. Another way to stimulate consumption when wages are inadequate is the provision of debt. And the latest figures show that consumer debt as measured by credit card debt is reaching record levels. Student debt likewise. And bankruptcies and rates of default on debts are also reaching record levels.

Being a worker in a capitalist society means being a wage-slave commodity, and this creates all kinds of negative effects on workers. They tend to have no psychological investment in the work they do simply because they have no significant influence over the conditions of their work; whenever they create more efficient methods of doing work, such methods become legally the property of the  "owner" if it happens at the owner's workplace; workers can be treated disrespectfully and even abusively within wide limits; and workers often experience job anxiety by working "at the pleasure" of the owners.

Thus a capitalist society is designed to serve the material benefits of capitalists, and the material benefits in terms of accumulated wealth give them additional power to shape how and what important decisions are made in any given society. The logical dynamic of capitalism is the ever increasing concentration of wealth in fewer hands with the result that the rest of society, which is the vast majority, merely exist to serve the needs of capitalists for ever more profit and power.

On the other hand, a socialist society theoretically exists to serve all of the people. That is why capitalist nations never spare any means to crush nations that want to experiment with measures to serve the vast majority of people whenever such measures might limit the rights and opportunities of capitalists. Because of this, no socialist nation has succeeded to survive the onslaught of nations governed by capitalists. The causalities include Spain whose socialist tendencies were crushed by Germany and Italy while the rest of the capitalist nations stood by in "neutrality"; the Soviet Union which deteriorated into a bureaucratic form after many decades of hostile actions by capitalist nations; Chile which elected a socialist candidate to head the government, Nicaragua after the Sandinistas took power, and other nations such as Venezuela that moved in that direction.

We are all viewed as commodities under capitalism

by political cartoonist Dan Wasserman.

To Russia with More Russia-Bashing

Click here to access article by Nat Parry from ConsortiumNews. (Although I haven't found absolute confirmation, I have found some evidence that Nat Parry is the son of Robert Parry who is editor of this website.)

In today’s America, what is normal, according to the bipartisan consensus, are unilateral strikes against countries without evidence and in violation of international law. It is also apparently normal for televisions to spy on law-abiding citizens, and with drone strikes shooting up 432 percent under the Trump presidency so far, it is apparently quite normal to use flying robots to bomb suspected terrorists (and their eight-year old daughters) half-way around the world. Indefinite detention at the legal black hole of Guantanamo is also rather normal.

After all, these are all policies that have been in place for a decade and a half under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and hope seems to be dwindling for returning to a period of actual normalcy.

It appears that our masters in the capitalist ruling class have taken upon themselves to be the arbiters of fake news and theories of conspiracies. They in their profound wisdom know things that we must simply accept. It seems that our masters have taken much umbrage over the fact that people in independent media have raised questions about their latest conspiracy theory related to the US attack of a Syrian airbase. It seems we must behave as children or their soldiers who should simply follow the guidance of parents/leaders; and through their ownership of the nation's newspapers of record, they just report the facts and create "reality" for us. It brings to mind a paraphrase of a famous poem by Tennyson, "ours is not to reason why, but to do or die".

US to balkanize Syria under Kurdish pretext

Click here to access article by Marwa Osman from RT.

The old formula used by many imperialists, especially the British Empire, is to carve up states that pursue independent policies with the hope of replacing the weakened governments of these new states with lackeys who will better serve the imperialists. This has been a plan for Iraq (which was partially implemented with a semi-independent Kurdish province) and now Syria for quite some time.

Osman writes:

The US’s vision of the future Syrian map was detailed by Kissinger during a presentation at the Ford School Syria with pretty much a distorted history lesson. He stated that Syria was not a historic state “It was created in its present shape in 1920, and it was given that shape to facilitate the control of the country by France, which happened to be after a UN mandate,” he said.

Kissinger then claimed that the current Syria was conceived as a more or less artificial national unity consisting of different tribes and ethnic groups.

This same theory was also presented by the Israeli Oded Yinon plan which is an article published in February 1982 in the Hebrew journal Kivunim ("Directions") entitled A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s. This plan is an early example of characterizing political projects in the Middle East in terms of a logic of sectarian divisions and the dissolution of all the existing Arab states.

Hence, supporting the partitioning of Syria began with the US and Israel’s full support of the so- called “Rojava Project”.

As many geopolitical observers like Pepe Escobar have pointed out, another major reason to divide up Syria was their government's refusal to go along with the Qatar's proposed pipeline that would transport gas from their fields to Europe. Escobar wrote in 2015 referring to the war in Syria:

It all started in 2009, when Qatar proposed to Damascus the construction of a pipeline from its own North Field – contiguous with the South Pars field, which belongs to Iran – traversing Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria all the way to Turkey, to supply the EU.

Damascus, instead, chose in 2010 to privilege a competing project, the $10 billion Iran-Iraq-Syria, also know as «Islamic pipeline». The deal was formally announced in July 2011, when the Syrian tragedy was already in motion. In 2012, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with Iran.

Well the Empire builders would not permit this to happen because the Syrian government's plan would benefit their arch-enemy Iran. Then China's government came up with other plans. As an article sourced from Washington's Blog explained explained about the competing interests: 

Indeed, the “Great Game” being played right now by the world powers largely boils down to the United States and Russia fighting for control over Eurasian oil and gas resources:

 Russia and the USA have been in a state of competition in this region, ever since the former Soviet Union split up, and Russia is adamant on keeping the Americans out of its Central Asian backyard. Russia aims to increase European gas dominance on its resources whereas the US wants the European Union (EU) to diversify its energy supply, primarily away from Russian dominance. There are already around three major Russian pipelines that are supplying energy to Europe and Russia has planned two new pipelines.

The rising power China is also getting into this Great Game:

The third “big player” in this New Great Game is China, soon to be the world’s biggest energy consumer, which is already importing gas from Turkmenistan via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to its Xinjiang province — known as the Central Asia-China Pipeline — which may tilt the balance towards Asia. Pepe Escobar calls it the opening of the 21st century Silk Road in 2009 when this pipeline became operational.  China’s need for energy is projected to increase by 150 per cent which explains why it has signed probably the largest number of deals not just with the Central Asian republics but also with the heavily sanctioned Iran and even Afghanistan. China has planned around five west-east gas pipelines, within China, of which one is operational (domestically from Xinjiang to Shanghai) and others are under construction and will be connected to Central Asian gas reserves.

Who Will Bring Them To Justice For Crimes Against Humanity?

by Stephen J. Gray from his website. (I don't subscribe to many of his other views.)                                 

Who will bring them to justice for crimes against humanity?
The people who were, and are, the planners of this warring insanity
The Iraq war was a hellish lie about weapons of mass destruction
The invasion of that country was a planned diabolical production

A civil war now rages in that destroyed and unfortunate country
Hundreds of thousands are dead or maimed, and that puts it, bluntly
Many others are refugees from this created hell on earth
And depleted uranium contaminates innocent children at birth

Libya is another war crime dubbed “responsibility to protect”
Bombed and blitzed by NATO “allies” with great “successful” effect
That country is now in ruins, and terrorists are in control
The “victory” of “honourable” plotters, and men without a soul

Then the war criminals targeted Syria and started a civil war
They finance and arm the terrorists amongst the blood and gore
Then they blame its sovereign government for defending its own land
These hypocrites from hell: all these atrocities they planned

Yemen is another country where civilians are being slaughtered
Saudi Arabia and its coalition allies are the hellish plotters
Arms, planes, tanks and bombs supplied by America, U.K. and others
And the population cries out over the deaths of their mothers and daughters

Afghanistan is another country that never invaded us
It too is now a hell on earth with corpses in the dust
Soldiers are dead or dying that were sent to this awful war
And those who sent them cry out for more and more and more

War is a business for barbarians in expensive business suits
Corporate cannibals feed off death and destruction, are they callous brutes?
Political “warriors” voted for these wars that brought death and destruction
But, they don’t fight on the front lines, and they are missing in the action

It is no excuse for the perpetrators to say: “we were just following orders”
That excuse was thrown out at the “Nuremberg Trials,” and is a known disorder
Present day trials are needed, for those that planned these obscenities
But, who will bring them to justice for crimes against humanity?

My answer is: "if not us, who?".

Life [in Amerika] During (Endless) Wartime

by Tom Tomorrow.

The Elite Consensus on Syria

Click here to access article by Branko Marcetic from Jacobin.

I am really concerned this morning about avoiding another nuclear holocaust from my reading of various articles--and not only this one (see this, this, this, and this among several others).

The last time I was this concerned was in October of 1962. That time we had a sensible president as commander-in-chief. John Kennedy paid with his life for his opposition to war, but this time we have a power-hungry maverick in charge and egged on by a combination of ziocons (aka neocons) and so-called "liberals" in Congress who are lusting for war. Meanwhile ordinary people, who should be out in the streets vigorously protesting, seem be resorting to their lack of attention to foreign affairs by saying that "it's all so complicated".

... unlike the Trump administration’s half-baked attempt to yank health insurance from millions of people, its utter failures in instituting a racist immigration program, or its ongoing efforts to round up and break apart millions of families, Trump’s bombing of Syria likely won’t be met with a wall of “resistance,” certainly not within the halls of power. That’s because for nearly all liberal and conservative pundits and politicians, foreign wars — particularly those launched in the name of “humanitarianism” — are an issue where no leader, even one as disliked as Trump, can ever go wrong.

Professor Stephen Cohen – the last voice of reason in a world gone mad?

Click here to access article posted by "The Saker", a Russian expat living in Florida.

The article features an 8:11m CNN interview with American Stephan Cohen, a long-time expert on Russia. What I noticed is that Cohen is surrounded by CNN staff and a retired Col. Cedric Leighton who try to contain Cohen's remarks to what is acceptable ruling class propaganda. Cohen manages to avoid debate about actual historical facts and instead doggedly continues on to make some very disturbing remarks about peaceful relations between the US and Russia.

Golan Heights, Israel, Oil and Trump

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

During my recent downtime due to internet problems, it looks like I missed a very important article by Engdahl. He sees escalating events related to the Trump administration's increasingly friendly contacts with Netanyahu and oil in the Golan Heights. Of course, he wrote this before the US attack on the Syrian air-force base, but it may fit into the overall pattern. Referring to Netanyahu's visit immediately after his February visit to the White House, Engdahl writes:

Some days after Netanyahu left Washington, in an OpEd in the Rupert Murdoch Wall Street Journal, Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Washington pro-Israel think-tank, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, argued that American recognition of Israel’s control of the Golan “would provide the Israeli government with a diplomatic win while helping the Trump administration signal to Russia and Iran that the US is charting a new course in Syria.” Dubowitz is an adviser to the Trump Administration on Iran and the Middle East. Other neo-conservative editorials echoed the theme. There is big change brewing in Washington and it looks ugly in terms of a possible US-backed war with Israel against Russia ally, Syria, over the Golan Heights. That immediately poses the question what Russia would do if it materializes.

Against the backdrop of the Netanyahu talks on US recognition of Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, the ensuing events begin to make strategic sense, mad though they may be.

Google Putting CNN, Washington Post, NYT in Charge of Fact-Checking News

Click here to access article from AntiMedia.

Google announced Friday that it’s adding a special feature to its news service — Fact Check. Searchers will now know who checked the validity of a news story and the conclusion they arrived at.

But fact checking Google's list of fact-checkers which are ruling class media corporations, the writers at AntiMedia reach this very accurate conclusion:

...there’s already a mechanism in place for calling out bullshit. It’s called the independent media.

A factual update on global warming

Click here to access article by economist Merijn Knibbe from Real-World Economics Review Blog.

Knibbe suggests that the climate destabilization skeptics have engaged in "cherry picking" to serve their capitalist masters who are addicted to profits and power. However he argues that even their cherry picking of data confirms what the vast majority (95%) of independent scientists find when looking at more valid long term data.

US debt problems: three reports

by Ron Horn for this website.

Debt appears to be increasing for most sections of our society: small business, consumers, and those paying off student loans. This suggests that the Fed's low interest rate policy as a way of restoring the economy is not working. It seems that most ordinary people are sinking deeper in debt in order to survive. On the other hand, capitalists in commercial and bank corporations appear to have benefited by using the free money they have borrowed from the Fed to buy up their own stock and to add other corporations to their ever expanding corporate empires.

From ZeroHedge we learn that personal and commercial bankruptcies soared last month. I suspect that the latter bankruptcies consisted primarily of small businesses.

The Fed’s monetary policies have purposefully encouraged businesses and consumers to borrow. But debt doesn’t just go away. It accumulates. By now, an increasing number of businesses and consumers are suffocating under this debt overhang in an economy that never developed the “escape velocity” needed – and hyped by Wall Street for years – to outgrow this debt. Rising bankruptcies are a turning point in the “credit cycle.” They’re not exactly a positive mile-marker for the economy.

The irony is thick: In all major sentiment surveys, economic confidence has soared since November: consumers, owners of small businesses, and corporate executives are riding high on their own ebullience. But the economic reality is tough for businesses and consumers struggling under the hangover from eight years of ultra-low interest rates.

And also from ZeroHedge we learn that "US Credit Card Debt Rises Above $1 Trillion For The First Time In A Decade".

...there was one notable milestone: in February, following modest prior revisions, total revolving/credit card debt, has once again risen above the "nice round number" of $1 trillion for the first time since January 2007....

And from World Socialist Web Site we learn that the "Number of Americans defaulting on student loans reaches 4.2 million" and that...

In addition to more borrowers defaulting on their loans, both the number of borrowers and the average amount borrowed continues to increase rapidly. The new analysis shows that the total amount of student debt owed adds up to a staggering $1.3 trillion, triple what it was a decade ago. [my emphasis]

Fake News And Propaganda – Is The Guardian In Bed With The Deep State?

Click here to access article by the editor from TruePublica (Britain).

The author provides much evidence to support an affirmative answer to the rhetorical question. For example, in the following quote he makes reference to a foreign correspondent of the British-based Guardian and his contribution to fake news.

In our opinion, the blatant and shameless hypocrisy of the Guardian and Luke Harding’s fanciful inventiveness and exaggeration seem to know no bounds. Perhaps the Guardian is working in the service of US and British geo-strategic interests and being directed to do so by the ‘Deep State.’ Ian Cobain, an award-winning Guardian journalist and author of Cruel Britannia and The History Thieves confirms the existence of the Deep State and “how a complex bureaucratic machine has grown up around the British state, allowing government to evade accountability and their secrets to be buried.” Cobain also confirms in his book that state secrecy and manipulation is of vital importance in shaping the public image of the nation.

In today’s world of fake news, propaganda and disinformation anything is possible. 

Israeli police block Palestinian ‘March of Return’

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

The US Empire's fortress colony that was established on Palestinian land following WWII has for the first time in history blocked the annual march by Palestinians to commemorated their expulsion and ethnic cleansing from their historic lands.

The police have denied the organisers a permit, saying there is a shortage of officers to oversee the march.

But Palestinian leaders in Israel accuse the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu of being behind the decision, in what they believe is the latest move to silence their commemoration of the events of 69 years ago.

The Nakba – Arabic for “catastrophe” – refers to Israel’s creation on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland in 1948.

We're winning!

by cartoonist John Darkow. 

Trump’s short-term popularity boost over Syria could turn into a long-term nightmare

Click here to access article by Danielle Ryan from The BRICS Post. 

Although the fallout from Trump's attack on a Syrian military base by various independent sources has been considerable and speculative as to its significance (for some of the best examples, see this, this, this, and this), I thought this piece from an Irish journalist and analyst based in Moscow might be of special interest to my readers.

There have been mutterings among others that the Kremlin is in fact sorely disappointed in Trump ... but in reality, the Kremlin was always wary of Trump’s unpredictability, opting to reserve judgement until his actions reflected his words — and while they may not have expected his actions to divert from his words quite this quickly, they’re probably not crying into their cornflakes over it.

Militarily, Russia will seek to de-escalate the situation rather than rush in guns blazing. Moscow possessed the capacity to shoot down the American missiles but did not. In the aftermath, however, Russia pledged to strengthen Assad’s air defenses and suspended its flight safety memorandum with the US. The message the Kremlin is sending is simple: We didn’t target your missiles this time, but we can if we want to.

But just because the goal is to de-escalate, doesn’t mean the danger subsides. Trump’s strike significantly increases the risk of serious future conflict with Russia. What happens between Moscow and Washington now will depend on Trump’s future moves, which at this point, are anyone’s guess.

NATO’s Currency War against Turkey: Comparative Resistance & Solutions

Click here to access article by Pye Ian from Newsbud. (Note: to discover the supporting links to this report, you must place your cursor over each line.)

Turkey is being attacked by Anglo-American finance as punishment for Ankara’s perceived noncompliance with NATO’s geostrategic goals.  Despite Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), under President and once Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, running a successfully growing emerging markets economy for nearly a decade and a half while enduring multiple scares, Turkey’s economy is now uniformly described as in dire straits by the collective London-New York banking juggernaut and its media tentacles.  Despite the West’s reasoning for why the nation’s currency – the lira – is plummeting, Turkey is enduring this imposed situation due to seasoned, disciplined internal defensive economic measures, plus its insistent relations with China, Russia and Iran.

General Strike Brings Argentina to a Halt

Click here to access article from Left Voice (Argentina).

Argentine workers are not sitting idle in the face of the Argentine ruling class's repressive policies.

The largest labor unions in Argentina called a general strike today, April 6, against President Macri’s economic policies. Workers around the country are protesting against the high inflation rates, austerity measures, layoffs and subcontracting. The transportation workers have completely stopped working, as have airline workers, canceling hundreds of flights in and out of Argentina. Schools are also closed, and this general strike comes after weeks of teacher mobilizations and strikes in Buenos Aires.

The streets of Buenos Aires are completely empty due to the impact of the strike. “It’s like the movie ‘I am Legend’. You feel like you are alone in a big city,” says Buenos Aires resident Gloria Grinberg.

It's class war in Argentina, and the ruling capitalist class is fighting back. Read all about it in this piece entitled "Argentina's Macri Mulls Purchase of New Riot Control Weapons to Crack Down on Protests", from TeleSur.

Planned capitalist economy

by satirical cartoonist Max Gustafson from his website. 

America Illegally Bombs Syria Under False Pretexts. Links for critical thinking. [fake news alert!]

Click here to access observations and insights by various independent authors in relation to the fake news put out by the government and media corporations regarding the recent attack on a Syrian air base. The views are introduced by independent Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett. 

Bartlett writes:

This morning, under the orders of President Trump, the US military fired a reported 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at an airbase in Syria, killing at least 6, according to early reports. The false pretext for this is the tired old refrain that “Assad used chemical weapons”, a ‘red line crossed claim’ made–and disproven–in 2013 in Ghouta, and in allegations prior and since. Any actual instances were the western-backed ‘rebels’. All others were fabrications of the NATO aligned media and faux human rights groups.

I’ll keep my own commentary short other than to emphasize that I do not believe for one second that the Syrian government used toxic gases on Idlib last week. My reasons are logical and many, but I will list just a few here and continue with suggested reading/listening....

Wilkerson: Trump Attack on Syria Driven by Domestic Politics

This 17:43m video interview is with the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson which was conducted by Paul Jay of The Real News Network. (I found the audio quality a bit problematic, but nevertheless very interesting.)

Wilkerson has prime connections at high levels of the US military establishment. In this interview he provides his insider views on the recent US strike against a Syrian airbase.

Former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, tells Paul Jay that the Syrian Government may not be responsible for the chemical attack and that Trump's response was a violation of international law.

Fascism occurs when a desperate capitalist ruling class decides to suspend an even nominal commitment to the rule of (their) law in favor of ruling by decree. Signs of this trend has been appearing under the Obama administration, and now even more-so under Trump's administration. This trend seems to be driven by a frustrated and desperate Ziocon faction (aka "neocons") who see their imperial plans for Syria thwarted by Russian assistance to the Syrian government.  

And here is another article which cites some of the reactions to this latest illegal US military aggression against Syria entitled "After US Cruise Missile Raid in Syria, Russia Suspends Russia – US Security Hotline" from nsnbc international.

Another article that I recommend is a post which includes a 5:13 video is entitled "Russia: Warship Steaming Towards U.S Destroyers In Response To Syrian Strike?" from We Are Change.

As an antidote to this latest war crime, you may very well need to view the following 3:43m video to keep you functioning for the rest of the day. I prescribe the following very timely, but early 1990's performance by the late George Carlin.

 

Will Washington Risk WW3 to Block an Emerging EU-Russia Superstate [?]

Click here to access article by Mike Whitney (located in my own Washington state) posted on The 4th Media website.

This geopolitical assessment of the emerging ties between Europe and Russia (and China) provides a broader background about the fears that the transnational capitalist deep-state, that rules the Empire, have about this potential relationship. It's "lights out" for the Empire if this happens. Our masters may want to risk a nuclear war to prevent it from happening. Are we going to sit idly by and watch it happen? 

The prospect of Russia meeting more of the EU’s growing energy needs, while China’s high-speed railway system delivers more low-cost manufactured goods, suggests that the world’s center of economic gravity is shifting fast increasing the probability that the US will continue on its path of irreversible decline.

And when the US dollar is inevitably jettisoned as the primary means of exchange between trade partners in the emerging Asia-EU free trade zone, then the recycling of wealth into US debt will drop off precipitously sending US markets plunging while the economy slips into a deep slump.

Preventing Putin from “creating a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok” is no minor hurtle [hurdle?] for the United States [and its Empire]. It’s a matter of life and death. 

Caribbean Reparations Movement Must Put Capitalism on Trial

Click here to access article by Ajamu Nangwaya from TeleSur. 

The author is only referring to slaves used in the British sugar plantations, but the same questions should be asked about US's cotton plantations.

Why is the reparations movement in the Anglophone Caribbean not putting capitalism on trial in its campaign to force British imperialism to provide financial compensation for its industrial and agricultural capitalists’ enslavement of Africans?

To what extent is capitalism such a sacred spirit or god whose name should not be publicly called in order to avoid attracting its vindictive and punishing rebuke?

Are the advocates of reparations truly convinced that British imperialism’s payment of financial compensation for the enslavement of Africans would end the economic marginalization of the labouring classes who are toiling under capitalist regimes throughout the region?

Why are we willing to place racism or white supremacy in the dock but not its creator – capitalism?

Bill O’Reilly and the advertisers’ dilemma

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

This is a short piece about the morality of our masters in the capitalist class. It's something that we ordinary people endure everyday of our lives to the extent that we simply take it for granted that our master's morality is a fact of existence much like water is to fish. But it really isn't so. It is a reality of living under a capitalist system that was established long ago by people who saw the splendid benefits accruing to them if people accepted the capitalist system. Ordinary people resisted for some time, but soon succumbed to this powerful new class.

Back in, I think, the 16th century adventurers discovered the system while exploring for the monarchs of Europe when the latter wanted to extend their control over other lands and to compete with other European monarchs for power.  The monarchs gave as an incentive to attract adventurers exclusive rights to a big share of the wealth that could be had from the conquering of new lands. Thus we had the Dutch East Indies Company and the British East India Company, etc. Soon after this mostly investors from the aristocracy were soon granted charters (or similar rights) by the monarchs to do likewise. 

The practice soon established a new class of people who overthrew the feudal authorities of monarchs and the landed aristocracies. These people became known as capitalists, and they extended the practice of exclusive rights to produce goods and services by the fiction of "ownership". Instead of simply violently conquering lands that the ancestors of the feudal authorities had done, they saw that the benefits of "ownership"--a method of nearly exclusive rights over property supported in law by the new states they created--could soon increase their wealth and power. Gradually they extended this concept to everything. 

For example, in Britain the lands held in common by subsistence farmers were purchased and cleared of their people because the new "owners" saw the benefits of using the land for sheep raising. Ultimately they converted everything into a commodity that could be bought and sold. Even non-Christian people (which they called "heathens") could be bought and sold. Workers who were Christians, even children, were simply rented by the capitalists in a labor "market" for as long they were needed, or sufficiently productive, to increase their profits. All of this capitalist enterprise was blessed by the new Protestant Christian churches that were more "progressive" minded than the Catholic church which was more wedded to the old feudal authorities.

Today, if we really think about the system as Cook does, and not as a fact of existence, it soon becomes obvious that it is a deeply immoral system that encourages people to commit all kinds of harmful acts on others.

Of course, we all understand that corporations only care about profits, and that in this case they are worried only about the possible damage to their image with women consumers from association with O’Reilly. The battle isn’t about the the truth of O’Reilly’s claims or the women’s. The issue, as presented by the Guardian, is solely about whether Murdoch’s commitment to make money from his association with O’Reilly outweighs the advertisers’ commitment not to lose money from an association with O’Reilly. The stronger profit motive will win out. 

However it is clear from all the other dreadful news (for example, see this) we receive daily that the harmful acts discussed in this article are the least that we should be concerned with. Capitalism, especially as practiced by the US Empire, is literally killing people and nature across the world in wars, famine, and environmental destruction.

‘Philanthropist’ Rockefeller and the hoax of ‘enlightened capitalism’

Click here to access article by Ramin Mazaheri from The Greanville Post. (Thanks go to Caren in northwest Oregon for alerting me to this article.)

The author launches a devastating attack on what is known by various names such as "enlightened capitalist", "conscious capitalism", "conscious business", "enlightened consumers", etc. It is primarily a popular view of capitalism that infects upper middle class people who suffer from the guilt of their active and key support of capitalist enterprises. Without these people the rule of capitalism would collapse within a week. Therefore capitalists like David Rockefeller are aware of their critical role in maintaining their system and class rule, and reward them accordingly. As a result they are co-opted into collaborating with capitalists to exploit workers all over the world, supporting wars to secure control of cheap labor and markets, damaging the environment, off-shoring their profits to evade taxes, etc.

Depending on the critical nature of the role that individual upper middle class people play in maintaining their system, capitalists reward them with salaries and perks far greater than ordinary wage-slave workers. They enjoy the advantages of an independent work style, home ownership, securing higher education for their children, owning a smart new car, enjoying extended vacations, and many other features of a respectable lifestyle. However, they are at least partially conscious that they have made many compromises along the way to achieve such advantages such as doing things which they don't agree with. There are times when some of them feel guilty about this and about having so many advantages over ordinary workers with the result that they adopt such views to justify their support for serving the capitalist system. 

He wraps up his essay with this conclusion:

Working within the capitalist system is never going to work out. Ending the capitalist system, however, is guaranteed to provide the opportunities for the fundamental changes which are needed, and needed now. There is no “enlightened capitalism” on a corporate scale.

And to clarify, there is no going back to earlier stages of the system even if we wanted to--and why would we want to? The logical dynamic of capitalism is for ever increasing concentrations of wealth and power for a tiny class of people.

We're missing the point about the robotization of America's workforce

Click here to access article by economist David Ruccio from Democracy at Work for Economic Justice.

Ruccio sees major problems ahead for the system due to an accelerated introduction of robots. 

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin may not be worried. Nor, it seems, are other members of the economic and political elite. But the rest of us are—or we should be.

The robots are here and they’re rapidly replacing workers, thus leading to less employment, downward pressure on wages, and even more inequality.

What the Media Isn’t Telling You About Latest Chemical Attack in Syria [or another case of fake news]

Click here to access article by Don Quijones (pseudonym of British ex-pat living in Spain and Mexico) from his blog Rigged Game.

These facts are largely missing from any serious commentary on the most recent attack in Syria. Despite these reports being accessible and available, the world has instead decided to blatantly ignore them and rush to blame Assad once again. It is also worth noting that one of the sources blaming Syria and/or Russia for this attack is the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), an organization run by a single anti-Assad dissident in Coventry, England.

Fake news from media corporations is getting steadily more fake than ever before. How long can we put up with this?

The Silent Cries of Hiding Children: Fifty Years After MLK’s Riverside Church Speech

Click here to access article by Edward Curtin from his blog.

“Liberals,” conservatives. Democrats or Republicans – it makes no difference.  Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump – all killers who are embodiments of the myth of American innocence as the American people play dumb, hiding their heads in the sand as if the world can’t see their asses in the air. Desperate for false hope and phony innocence, they argue over the merits of their favorite killers to justify their complicity in a tradition of war-making where children’s deaths matter no more than Frank Perdue’s dead chickens.

They're back! White Helmets Report False Sarin Attack

Click here to access a post by Caren Black from her and her partner's website Titanic Lifeboat Academy. (With her permission I am posting this from her website. As you can see, she is using a similar format as my posts by providing a commentary to other posts, but different in that she posts the entire article (or two as in this post of hers). She wrote me regarding this piece:

Hi, Ron,
Since I don't think capitalism can be separated from the propaganda it requires, my post tonight may interest you. In order to get angry enough to get active enough to turn against capitalism, people need to realize the lies that must be built into it. Lies about peoples in other lands who are not capitalist, but more socialist must be constantly and consistently and very vocally proclaimed by a united media front in order to convince our thoroughly indoctrinated populace that Capitalism is The Only Right Way and everyone else is not just wrong, but "evil". No single example of a government caring for its people - building schools and hospitals instead of bombs, building homes instead of surveillance systems, providing health care instead of taxes to fund wars - can be allowed to exist. Syria is just one of the most visible current targets of capitalism.

US Didn’t “Change Priorities” in Syria, It Lost

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

US Secretary of State Tillerson’s reaffirmation of US policy rolled out during the Obama administration is yet another illustration of “continuity of agenda,” and how special interests on Wall Street, not politicians in Washington, steer US policy at home and abroad and explains how two apparently politically diametrically opposed presidents have maintained virtually the exact same policy over the course of six years and counting.

And while the US clearly lost in its bid to outright overthrow the government of Syria, it continues pursuing an agenda that will divide and destroy the Syrian state through every means available.

The toll of pollution: How many lives vs. how much profit?

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

Not only has the Trump administration proposed draconian cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency and signaled its intention to rescind air-pollution rules for motor vehicles scheduled to come into force between 2022 and 2025, it has issued an executive order requiring a “review [of] existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources and appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources.”

One of the targets of this order is the Clean Power Plan....

Dolack sees that capitalism, with its current expression in the Empire's capitalist transnational class and their obsessive pursuit of profit/power for their tiny class, is on a course to destroy human life by destroying our habitat. Because the destruction is so slowly insidious, people don't notice it very much unless they suffer from some environmental illness. 

Far too many people (mostly the upper middle class) are going along to get along, and the lower classes of working people are too brainwashed or confused by all the misinformation, and maybe too preoccupied by just surviving in an increasing hostile capitalist environment, that they simply don't have the energy to resist sufficiently. Meanwhile our masters in the tiny capitalist class are totally preoccupied by their obsessive desire to satisfy their addiction to profits and power while the Doomsday Clock under the Trump administration may be accelerating its movement toward midnight.

The Doomsday Clock is an internationally recognized design that conveys how close we are to destroying our civilization with dangerous technologies of our own making. First and foremost among these are nuclear weapons, but the dangers include climate-changing technologies, emerging biotechnologies, and cybertechnology that could inflict irrevocable harm, whether by intention, miscalculation, or by accident, to our way of life and to the planet.

IMF tells governments how to subvert public resistance against elimination of cash

Click here to access article by German economist Norbert Häring from his blog.

I get the definite impression that the IMP and other agents are currently pushing digital money in Europe.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington has published a Working Paper on “de-cashing”. It gives advice to governments who want to abolish cash against the will of their citizenry. Move slowly, start with harmless seeming measures, is part of that advice.

Trump's budget

by Pat Bagley, cartoonist for the Salt Lake City Tribune.

Announcement from website administrator

Due to internet connectivity problems, I will not be able to post articles or commentaries today or tomorrow. I expect to be back online on Thursday April 6th.

Afghanistan – ‘Small’ Western Propaganda Lies, Huge Impact

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook.

After more than 15 years of brutal Western occupation, Afghanistan appears to be thoroughly ruined. Not only in terms of its infrastructure and standards of living, and not only when it comes to all basic indicators like life expectancy (15th lowest in the world, according to the WHO, 2015) or education: all those things I expected.

But perhaps even more significantly, the country is destroyed morally and intellectually.

The only resistance the West is facing here, comes from extremist groups and movements such as the Taliban and Daesh (ISIS). All intellectual and artistic struggles against the occupation have been destroyed, contained, bought, or frightened into near absolute silence.

While reading this article thoughts entered my mind that what Vltchek was describing occurring in Afghanistan applies to all the world's lands and people who are under US Empire domination--and, that includes the USA! The directorate of the transnational capitalist class at the controls of the Empire have stumbled upon a near perfect way to control much of the planet for their tiny class and those approximately 9% just below them as described in yesterday's post. 

These are the people who the Empire directors have at great expense trained, thoroughly indoctrinated, and rather lavishly rewarded to staff the key sectors of Afghanistan. The Empire directors use these people as enforcers in the military and police agencies; and key positions in the government, the media, and educational institutions. All the efforts of these thoroughly colonized upper middle class loyally support the dominant capitalist Empire not to improve the living conditions of the people of Afghanistan, but to secure their allegiance to the Empire's transnational capitalists and their obsession with profits, power, and control.  

While reading the article, some rather disturbing questions entered my mind. Should such people not be identified as a colonial comprador class who serve the ruling class of the Empire's transnational capitalists? Isn't that what is precisely happening in the US? Are we ordinary people in the US also not colonial subjects?

My commentary regarding yesterday's posts by Michael Hudson

by Ron Horn for this website. (Edited for clarity at 4:55 PM Seattle time.)

My dramatic reaction to these articles, but primarily the last post, was probably more of a personal nature. So I wasn't sure how much to share of my reaction with readers of this website. I will now attempt to share of a part of my personal reaction which might be relevant to a larger audience of people who are trying to make sense of the current times. 

My reaction stemmed from a sudden awareness that Hudson was a contemporary of mine. I had previously thought that, judging by appearances, that he was in his late 50s (age). But yesterday I realized that he was 79 and was nearly my age (approaching 81). This set me off in different directions parts of which I think is appropriate to share with my readers. I looked up his biography in Wikipedia, and found that Hudson's father was college educated and is described as a "Trotskyist" during the 1930s in Wikipedia. Then I thought about other scholars who had educated and sometimes radical parents such as Richard Wolff and Naomi Klein (red diaper granddaughter). 

In my own university education I ran across professors who sometimes expressed radical ideas. My family was from a rather poor, essentially working/farming class background. I looked up to college professors as sort of godlike figures who were engaged in truth-seeking. I have learned otherwise over the years since then. Many of those in institutions of higher learning are compromised politically by having to conform to capitalist ideas which inform every institution of Western society. People who refuse to do so, are screened out as they succeed (or not) to pass over the ideological hurdles they meet somewhere along the way in their schooling or careers. 

I've often wondered why some academic people use the word "Marxian" instead of "Marxist" with reference to themselves and types of literature. I just learned that this is a way for them to separate themselves as academics purely in pursuit of a study of a subject rather than being an advocate of Marxist ideas. Hence such people are accepted on this basis in academic institutions of higher learning. 

The point I wish to emphasize is that in capitalist societies, pro-capitalist ideas reign supreme while other ideas are merely tolerated if not banished. Education particularly in the United States is comprehensively influenced by capitalist ideas and values that are consistent with the current US-led Empire's ruling class's interests. That means both historical facts and contemporary ideas and values are promoted because capitalism is a culture as well as a political-economic system. Thus people who wish to advance their material interests must subscribe to the tenets of this culture, and it helps if they practice capitalist lifestyles by belonging to the appropriate associations, engage in activities such as golf, are good consumers, etc. People who spend a lot of time getting an advanced education in institutions of higher learning are subject to even longer years of capitalist indoctrination.

So, you may ask, what has this to do with Michael Hudson and his views? I think that Hudson is a perfect example of someone who was strongly influenced by his left-wing roots to hold anti-capitalist ideas, but during the course of his education he correctly decided that to pursue radical ideas was not a good career move. Thus he, and many others like him, gradually conformed by compromising his radical heritage into acceptable ideas of social democracy. You will never find Hudson using any words like "deep state" because he assumes that the official institutions really govern what happens in the US and that the election system and political parties are authentic means of expressing "democracy". Although he is critical of financial institutions and the ways they are distorting industrial capitalism, he does not take issue with the fundamental ideas of capitalism. What informs his many writings is that capitalism can be reformed to eliminate the corrupting influence of financial institutions. 

Thus Hudson points to the FDR administration which accepted many restrictions of banks and supported social welfare measures. What he leaves out is that FDR's administration was confronted by many truly militant organizations that threatened the capitalist system from the political left while on the right he was pulled in a fascist direction much like all the Western capitalist countries were. FDR saved the "democratic" facade that had served the ruling class so well for centuries. Hudson asks:

Where are the New Deal pro-labor, pro-regulatory roots of bygone days?

And he ends the essay with this statement which ties to his political roots:

As Trotsky said, fascism is the result of the failure of the left to provide an alternative.

But Hudson's extolling of Bernie Sanders' politics and his identification of Michael Harrington as a "socialist" is a long way from his roots in his father's Trotskyist ideas of a revolutionary working class. I think his father is likely turning over in his grave.

What I do like about his essay is his opposition to identity politics over class politics. It's just that his class politics doesn't change the system at all, it would only soften it. I think Hudson does this to fool himself into believing that he uphold his father's radical views. You can't stop the logical dynamic of capitalist development into ever larger concentrations of profit and power, and even if you could, why work for such program? Capitalism has never served working people. It has only served the capitalist class and the 9% below the 1%, or the upper middle class which academics and other such radical poseurs are located. If one could suddenly eliminate this highly skilled, educated class stratum, capitalist rule would not last a week.

These are the people that true revolutionary activists need to be concerned about. They often take over activist movements and deflect them from truly revolutionary goals. Like I wrote in my commentary to the above linked-post regarding Eric London's article: 

This writer carves out an important strata in our capitalist structured society known as the upper middle class, a class consisting of about 9% of Americans who lie just below the 1% rich ruling class. These people are identified by sociologists as the upper middle class. London shows how this particular class plays such an important role for the ruling 1%. Malcolm X graphically described the role played by the middle class to a largely African-American audience with a metaphor drawn from an historical context of American slavery that is relevant here: the difference between a house Negro and a field Negro, or the difference between most workers and a special subset of workers who identify with the ruling capitalist class.

London zeros in on the critical role played by the upper middle class (business executives, academics, successful attorneys, professionals, trade union executives and trust fund beneficiaries) in supporting the ruling 1%, and specifically how they have used identity politics (aka "multiculturalism") to successfully divert attention and energies away from class-based political activism. Likewise this class have obscured their own role in perpetuating identity politics by pretending to be left oriented activists. His research shows that this upper-middle class loves and serves their capitalist masters so well and that they have been richly rewarded for their efforts--unlike those classes of workers below them. London concludes his analysis with this political lesson:

The working class comprises the vast majority of the world’s 7 billion inhabitants and produces all of the world’s wealth. It possesses immense potential power. But it can advance its own interests only if it is armed with an anticapitalist and socialist program based on the class struggle. In advancing the slogan for a party of the 99 percent, the pseudo-left is perpetrating a fraud aimed at preventing the development of such a struggle and preserving the capitalist system.

Occupation of the American Mind

Click here to access article which introduces and includes a new 47:29m film by Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp which depicts the history of the rise of the Jewish state in a land populated by Palestinian Arabs.

After WWII the new capitalist Empire led by the US and what was left of the British Empire combined with Zionist leaders to establish fortress Israel in the middle of Arab territory in order to better secure a base to impose the new Empire's influence over the energy rich region. Since then the ruling capitalist class with close collaboration with Zionist leaders have promoted pro-Israel coverage of events in the region with their media corporations. As a result since the establishment of Israel most Americans have been fed mostly fake news about events in the region.

Climate change pushing floods, cyclones to new extremes, with worse to come

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

Extreme weather events are increasingly evident as our planet heads into the future of man-made climate destabilization. Just this morning I woke to a report from my radio of hundreds of people killed in Colombia due to flooding caused by unusually heavy rains at this time of year.

With Australia experiencing the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie and record-breaking rains and severe flooding in south-east Queensland and along the north coast of New South Wales, here’s a look at how global warming has, and will, push floods and cyclones to new extremes.