Isolating radicals: America's new academic blacklisting

Click here to access article by Steven Salaita from The New Arab. 

I was astonished to see this article in a rather conservative Arab website. Could it be that Zionists have more power than I thought by suppressing such an article in any left website in the US?

An emboldened right-wing media industry, long hostile to what it considers a disproportionately liberal academe, has ramped up its efforts to punish radical scholars in the wake of Donald Trump's election. 

While its proponents often conflate "liberal" and "left", there's now a long list of leftist academics who have been reprimanded or disciplined by their employers, many of them black, all of them deploring structural racism in the United States.

The same persecution has happened to the author Salaita as happened to Norman Finkelstein, and Salaita has reportedly endured so much that he is leaving academia.

Dr. Norman Finkelstein Subjected to Knock-on-Door Arrest in Middle of Night

Click here to access article by Thomas Müller from The New Nationalist.

Just the other day I was wondering about Norman Finkelstein and why I hadn't heard anything about him for some time. Finkelstein has been one of the first major critics of Israel and Zionist influence in the US, and US Zionists and Israel have never forgiven him for this. As a result he lost tenure and has been blacklisted from teaching in any US university. This morning while I was surfing the web, I found nothing in the left alternative websites about his incident. After finding some coverage on anti-Jewish websites (for example, see this), I happened upon this article which reports that he is being harassed by the police, although it mentions nothing about the Zionist backlash against him.  (And I found an excellent article about the repression of leftist academics which made reference to him on a rather conservative Arab website.) No doubt this police behavior is a part of his punishment for speaking out about Zionism and being critical of Israeli actions. 

I am astonished that I found only articles in anti-Jewish websites or, in this case, an old-fashioned conservative (anti-neoconservative) one. Why haven't left alternative sites covered this?!! Once again I am reminded how weak the US left is. They are unable to protect people who speak out or act out against its enemies; in this case, they haven't even provided coverage of Finkelstein's ongoing persecution. This has got to stop!

Spain & the EU’s ‘Oriental despotism’ is legitimizing Catalonia as a leftist cause

Click here to access article by Ramin Mazaheri from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard.

The author. in his analysis of the Catalonia-Madrid standoff, illustrates true leftist thinking at its best in analyzing this issue.

What does it mean to be a true leftist or a true socialist? It means believing thoroughly, genuinely, and completely in DEMOCRACY--the rule of the people, by the people, and for the people. (These exact words were included in the US Declaration of Independence from Britain. The ruling embryonic capitalist class wanted ordinary people to support their drive to separate the American colonies from Britain for the capitalists' benefit. Outside of this context, have you ever heard such words?) If you, because of long years of indoctrination in capitalist controlled schools and following corporate media, can not understand this last sentence, read it over several times until you get it. (It's almost comical the way most people, including authorities, so casually affirm they are for "democracy", but have little idea of what it means.) It means that every institution of society, including especially the economy (socialism), must serve and be controlled by the people--that means ALL of the people.

True, most ordinary people as they are now are not equipped to participate in governing. But this is due to long years of indoctrination in capitalist controlled schools and following corporate media, as a result they are poorly equipped to participate in governing themselves. This is not because they are inherently ignorant and thus they must follow the guidance of "wise" authorities or "experts", it is because they have been dumbed-down and brainwashed because of long years of indoctrination and poor education. (They are primarily excluded from any significant decision-making because they don't control huge amounts of wealth. Occasionally one of the ruling class's "morons" gets elected to office.) This is a major problem for all true leftists or democrats to deal with.

Anyway read the article to see how a genuine democrat, also known as a leftist, analyzes the issue of Catalonian independence.

NFL Owner Sparks Outrage by Describing Athletes as 'Inmates'

Click here to access article from TeleSur. 

Actually Bob McNair, owner of the Houston Texans came close to telling the truth when he said to an ESPN reporter "We can't have the inmates running the prison". Athletes are salaried workers who are paid more as a way to, not only assuage the owners' guilt, but to pacify the athletes who daily risk life and limb to promote the profits of their owners. Notice, too, they are essentially commodities that are literally and legally traded from one owner to another. As a child I could never understand this, but then I grew up.             

Photo-Report: The North Korea Neither Trump Nor Western Media Wants The World To See

Click here to access article by Eva Bartlett from Mint Press News.

Take a visit to North Korea through the lens of Bartlett's camera, and you will discover like she did that North American media corporations have lied to you. Bartlett, unlike media corporations, is not a part of the rich and powerful, self-serving capitalist enterprise. Thus, she tells you the truth, this time with the aid of her camera.

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA — North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) is one of the least understood and most lied about countries on Earth. In Western corporate media renditions, most news about the country is alarmist (of “the North Koreans want to kill you” type), fake (“all men have to have the same haircut,” a story originating from Washington itself), or about the North’s military.

Accounts of the nation’s military prowess and threat generally ignore (as noted here) the presence of the 28,500 U.S. troops occupying South Korea, their 38 military installations, and more recently their Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea — “a U.S. radar system opposed by the Korean people, in the North and South, as well as China.”

On September 19, 2017, in the forum of the United Nations General Assembly, U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to “totally destroy” North Korea.

How Corporate America Supported Nazi Germany

Click here if you wish to directly access this video (rather than the one below my commentary) presentation by Dr. Jacques R. Pauwels, a re-post from Global Research.

I agree with the main points that historian Pauwels makes about events leading up to, and including, WWII. It's true that all the ruling classes of Western capitalist countries were divided about the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy. This was initially manifested in their neutral stance regarding the earlier Spanish Civil War in which the elected left-oriented government of Spain was largely destroyed by the military interference of the fascist powers while other capitalist countries stood by in formal neutrality. 

In the US, which he mainly focuses on, the pro-fascist forces hid behind the label "isolationists" to provide them with some modicum of legitimacy. There were genuine isolationists who did not want to get sucked into another war on the European continent, but this did not describe the fascist inclined segment of the US ruling class. Another major bonus offered by the Nazis to the Western ruling capitalist classes, they had already planned to move eastward into the Soviet Union and crush the Bolshevik government. 

Another indication of the split in all the Western capitalist classes, are the easy victories achieved by the Nazis in Europe. After rolling through the low countries, Hitlers armies in a matter of days conquered France. It was not primarily because of the superiority of the German armies, it was largely because of this split among the European ruling classes. Thus French generals easily found a welcoming home in the French Vichy regime, a Nazi puppet government. 

The only disagreement I have with Pauwels is that President Franklin Roosevelt and a substantial part of the US and British ruling class eventually saw that the Nazis were a threat to both the British Empire and the Americans. The British were especially desperate while FDR, a dedicated anglophile, wanted to come the Empire's rescue, but he faced a determined and hostile pro-fascist segment of the US ruling class that wanted the Soviet Union to be crushed. He did all he could to help Britain, and there are some historians who think he deliberately maneuvered the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor so that we could enter the war. After the Soviets put up such a fierce resistance to the invading Germans in the summer of 1941, it became clear to the Allied ruling classes, especially the British much to their disgust, that they had to support the Soviets. It also became clear to a number of "isolationists" that the US could emerge from this war as the dominant power in the world.

Remembering the Russian Revolution

Click here to access article by Dmitry Davydov from In defence of the Russian Revolution. 

This writer obviously wrote the article 10 years ago, but it is especially relevant on the 100th anniversary of this great event. First, let me address a few remarks about the larger organization with which this website is associated, the International Marxist Tendency.

There are a number of names and projects associated with the International Marxist Tendency which is as stated an international organization to advance the study of Marxism with a particular focus on Leon Trotsky, and it appears to me to be based largely in Britain. Their main website is In Defense of Marxism, their main writers and speakers are Alan Woods and Ted Grant (deceased). I have read several of their books and have been impressed with their accuracy in presenting historical materials related to Marxism and to the Russian Revolution. 

The organization should not be confused with the US Trotskyist organization called the International Committee of the Fourth International which is based in Detroit, Michigan, USA. The latter's website is World Socialist Web Site. I do not favor either one over the other. Both do very good work in presenting a Marxist perspective on world events.
                               
                                                               --------------------------------------------------------------------

The tremendous impact of the Russian October Revolution was due to one irrefutable fact: the working class, for the first time in history, had captured state power and used it to overthrow the existing order and transform society and existing social relations. Nobody will ever be able to erase this powerful fact from the memory of humanity. The October Revolution was not artificially engineered by a clandestine terrorist organization as many historical revisionists have attempted to claim; on the contrary, it was one of the most popular revolutions in history. The working class whole-heartedly supported it, as was shown by the courageous behavior of the Petrograd sailors and soldiers, that is, workers and peasants in uniform.

A Voiceless Left Faces History’s Monster

Click here to access article by Phil Rockstroh from ConsortiumNews.

The system was, from the get-go, designed to benefit a ruthless few and to the detriment of the many.

Thus we discover, the reason capitalism’s elite invest so much time, effort, and money rigging the game, from the political structure to mass media. It is the reason one could never have an honest dialog with the beneficiaries of the system. Where would be the profit for them in risking their litany of lies being countered and their false mythos exposed as the life-negating fraud that it is? Honesty and openness were not among the factors that enabled the capitalist elite to ascend to a position of dominance.

Willful and belligerent ignorance comprises the brick and mortar of the capitalist system’s mental architecture; the structure stands on a foundation of lies.

Human history has existed since the beginning of civilization about 10,000 years ago out of much longer period of human existence some 150,000 plus years. This history has seen one ruling class after another committing monstrous crimes against the rest of humanity for their self-serving purposes. Now under capitalism with the threats increasing to the point that they are now threatening the very existence of humans, we on the left simply must find our voices and speak truth to the monsters of evil.

To live is to live off death — but, in the case of Late Stage Capitalist humankind, the monster imperative has shifted into runaway, has become a self-resonating feedback loop of destructive impulses.

Kurdish PJAK Utilized to Weaken and Divide Iran

Click here to access article by Sarah Abed from The Rabbit Hole. 

I am posting a disproportionate number of article regarding Kurds because of what I believe has led to confusion about their progressive nature from articles mainly written by David Graeber and the people who formerly controlled the Reflections on a Revolution website. I believe that this author is another well informed person about Kurdish issues in Syria and nearby countries.

Every major Kurdish political group in the region has longstanding ties to Israel. It’s all linked to major ethnic violence against Arabs, Turkmens, Aramaeans, and Assyrians. From the PKK in Turkey to the PYD and YPG in Syria, PJAK in Iran to the most notorious of them all, the Barzani-Talabani mafia regime (KRG/Peshmerga) in northern Iraq.

Later in the article she asks in an apparent moment of exasperation (but doesn't answer):

Why are the so-called Kurdish “freedom fighters” willing to get in bed with any and every group that has an interest in destabilizing Syria, Iraq, and Iran? The provocative manner in which the SDF has teamed up with terrorist organizations during the war in Syria is a glaring contradiction to the “revolutionary” public relations image that they have fought hard to establish in recent years. [my link]

I have asked (to myself) the same question many times.

Balance this!

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

Both Donald Trump and Eduardo Porter would have us believe the U.S. trade deficit is a serious problem—and that, if it can brought back into balance, jobs for American workers will be restored.

Nonsense! 

Ruccio offers evidence to indicate the falsity of the above argument. Instead it is clear that that the operations of capitalism have inevitably accumulated wealth and power to the ruling class of capitalists. The latter have by "hook or by crook" forced workers around the world to create the technology that, in turn, makes possible all kinds of computerized machinery, robots, and artificial intelligence to take over control of production from workers. 

So, is it any wonder that the vast majority of workers are experiencing, and look forward to, more unemployment, underemployment, and inequality? Hence workers have created an advanced technology, which under the rules of capitalism, is owned and thus controlled by a ruling class of capitalists for their exclusive benefit and to the impoverishment of workers. What is so sad--actually tragic--about this is that such labor saving technology could be used to free workers for more time to engage in educating themselves, assuming governing posts, and otherwise enriching their lives and the lives of everyone in societies that can coexist within a healthy ecosystem.

Trump Reneges on Releasing JFK Documents

Click here to access article by Stephen Lendman from his website.

Surprise! Surprise! "Read all about it! Trump reneges on releasing documents about the assassination of President John Kennedy!" 

I sincerely hope that you weren't one of those surprised. There is a mountain of evidence out there to indicate that John along with his brother Bobby, and many other figures such as Martin Luther King, were assassinated by agents of the ruling class under the direction of their secret services like the CIA, FBI, etc. Thus the ruling class directorate cannot, and must refuse to, release documents that expose their criminal activities in spite of the fact that the event happened over 50 years ago. Such documents will never be released unless ruling class agencies which guard this information are somehow eliminated, and a new social system that insures a government of, by, and for the people finally replaces the present class-based system of capitalism. 

Lendman summarizes this event, which highlights the most prominent features of the US's continuing version of "friendly fascism", by writing:

Saying he [Trump] had “no choice” revealed his impotence, obeying what he’s told to do, going along with higher powers, dark forces running things, the way America is governed – a plutocracy-run police state, a fantasy democracy, one in name only to hide how rule in Washington operates, for the nation’s privileged class exclusively.

You may be interested in David Talbot's take on this event and his observations about political affairs in general in the USA. Talbot as an incorrigible liberal by looking to a rejuvenation of the Democratic Party to rescue us from imperialism, militarism, and gross inequality. Nevertheless he is well informed about the deterioration of political conditions in the US, and some of his observations are of interest. In the following audio interview (with transcript) posted on Who, What, Why, he argues that an increasing fragmentation of the ruling class's Deep State is occurring, and offers some other interesting observations related to the release of the documents.

I think power in this country now is fragmenting because of all the pressures and all the tensions that have been building up in our society, and I don’t think you can talk about a one deep state at this point, the hidden power in America. I think it’s very fragmented. Things are coming apart in this country every day.

Game over: How the Kurds lost the high risk gamble

Click here to access article by Aram Mirzaei from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard.

This view of the Kurdish people makes a lot of sense to me given that I've followed events their since articles started appearing in various alternative sites about the progressive nature of the Syrian Kurds. I congratulate Andrei Raevsky, also known as The Saker, for posting this and many other insightful articles on his website.

I have time and again argued that Kurds are very poorly understood both outside as well as inside the community itself. There are some facts about the Kurds that need to be addressed. 1- The Kurdish language is divided into several dialects that are not mutually intelligible. 2- All Kurds do not share the same religion, while many are Sunni Muslim, a sizeable minority are Shias, Yezidi, Alevi, Christians and even Jews. 3- All Kurds do not share the same ideology and dream of statehood. There are many Kurdish parties that seek different goals, depending on ideology, geographical location and history. The third point is very much relevant here (I will touch briefly on the first two points as well). So far, Kurds have been presented in the West (and by themselves) as an ideologically homogenous people who seek the same goal in all four countries that they dwell in.

...Kurds have been very passionate about their ideologies, so much that they have engaged in several civil wars and internal conflicts over political differences.

The Crooks, the Clowns and the Nazis

Click here to access article by "The Saker" from The Unz Review.

For those of you who want to catch up on all things political in the Ukraine, I think The Saker's views are probably the most informed that one can find on the World Wide Web.

Have you heard what the latest big news out of the Ukraine is? No? There is a mini-Maidan under way and Ukrainian nationalists seem to hope that Poroshenko will be kicked out before the end of the week. You did not know? Well, that is the real big news, the fact that you did not hear about this.

In our present era of fake news and censorship, you can't expect to hear news about Ukraine's political deterioration on CNN or read about it in the Washington Post.

Two billion minds are being hijacked by technology

Click here to access article from Time Well Spent.

I suggest a much better, more accurate title for this post: "Two billion minds are being hijacked by capitalists using digital technology". With a little reflection, it is so obvious that technology is neutral. It's like a tool, it can be used for a variety of purposes. Unfortunately in our social-economic system of capitalism, technology is being used to enrich the One Percent--and mostly at our expense.

Products designed around engagement-based business models hook people for as long as possible. Each interaction teaches these products how to glue us more perfectly to our screens, steering us toward their goals while vanishing ours away....

It's clear that people at this website are very well-meaning, but also are trapped in a mindset by many years of indoctrination to believe that capitalism is our natural environment, like water is to fish. They believe that we simply must accept it and naively believe that we can make technology serve social goals within a system which was designed to serve only an inevitably shrinking, and now tiny, class of people (capitalists) in societies consisting of billions of people.

You might also be interested in this 3:48m video as an amusing illustration:

 

Socialism or Amazonism

Click here to access article by Glen Ford from Black Agenda Report. 

Jeff Bezos is already in heaven. Late stage capitalism has concentrated wealth like never before in history, so that Bezos and seven guys like him are as rich as the poorest half of the rest of humankind. The Lords of Capital have no vision of a “modern prosperous society” – in American, Chinese or any other terms. They are concerned only with eliminating every threat to their wealth and power. That is the extent of their vision. [my emphasis]

China -- or rather, the global movement towards connectivity and peaceful relations at which China is at the center -- will inevitably overwhelm Bezos’ world, unless the process can be halted by war.

That’s why, if you are anti-war, you must be anti-capitalist.

Private Prisons in US Turn a Profit, Ruin Black Lives

Click here to access article by Val Reynoso from TeleSur.

Private prisons are a billion-dollar industry which exploit prisoners who are predominately Black and non-white Latinx people for profit. These prisons are run by private companies and have been on the rise since the mid-1980s, especially following the crack epidemic during the Ronald Reagan administration. Over half of U.S. states today depend on for-profit prisons holding approximately 90,000 inmates each year.

Racial profiling perpetuates white supremacy and the subordination of non-white people. For instance, oppressed nationalities living in marginalized communities have been receptors of police misconduct and a heavy police presence in their neighborhoods.

Russian Revolution at 100

Click here to access a series of brief articles from TeleSur.

The link gives you access to brief videos, photos, and articles which, in turn, provides more links to other related material. The material's emphasis is on the revolution's influence on Latin America. Did you know that "Lenin" is a popular first name in Ecuador? 

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, teleSUR reflects on the values and achievements of the revolution and what it means to today's revolutionaries. 

Confusion abounds among progressive thinkers

by Ron Horn

I was perusing interesting articles this morning, as I usually do, when I began reading an article by John Feffer posted in Mint Press News and re-posted in The Greanville Post, both websites of which I support as sources of very perceptive articles on current issues. However, I was seriously dismayed and discouraged by reading Feffer's article. Thus I have refused to give its title and posting it, as I usually do, as an article because I don't want to give it any prominence. 

Feffer's thinking in this article illustrates a number of shortcomings of educated people today in the US and probably in the rest of Western capitalist countries as well. Such thinking is the product of a capitalist oriented education that serves to exclude any social-economic class analysis about social and political issues. I view the way subjects are taught such as history, sociology, so-called political science, and even psychology as a necessary form of indoctrination under capitalist rule. This exclusion of any significant class analysis, of course, is another type of censorship so necessary to hide the ongoing criminal sins (exploitation, gross inequality, devastating wars, assaults on the environment, etc) perpetrated by capitalist ruling classes over the last few centuries.  I see many signs of this thinking in Feffer's article. Let me explain. 

The first sign of this false thinking was revealed in his conflating the issues of ethnocentrism of Kurdish independence along with the movements for independence in Catalonia and Scotland. They are vastly different. A Kurdish state, and other such states, would promote a rule by ethnic groups to the disadvantage of other ethnicities. This is a favorite technique used by all empires: it's called divide and conquer. It has been famously applied by the British Empire to divide up India after granting them independence into Hindu and Muslim states, India and Pakistan. This form of state is represented by Israel to the exclusion of Arab Palestinians as second class citizens at best. The US and its "coalition partners" used this in Iraq to divide the country into Shia versus Sunnis versus Kurds. You may not remember how this was started; but soon after Iraq was conquered, mysterious bombings of Shia and Sunni mosques and death squads started happening. Reports soon started leaking out that British agents were caught by Iraqi authorities dressing up in Arab costumes and carrying explosives.

Another source of Feffer's thinking is about the origins of states. It's true when he says that "Contrary to various founding myths, the nation didn’t exist from time immemorial. It had to be conjured into existence — and for a reason." And he follows with what he erroneously thinks was a reason. "The nineteenth century witnessed the first great modern shattering as people weaponized the new concept of “nation” and companion notions of ethnic solidarity and popular sovereignty in their struggles against empires." Yes, "people" decided to fight against empires so they created states to do this! Balderdash! It was capitalist classes that formed states after they overthrew feudal empires consisting of monarchs and aristocrats.

Then he illustrates more confusion about the significance of the Cold War and its end with the "shattering" of "ideological structures" and the rise of more so-called "independent states". He continues on with a description of recent events which are not explained by his "shattering" thesis. He only refers very tangentially and vaguely to classes in references to the right, middle, and left when he writes:

Given the polarizing impact of economic and technological globalization, it’s no surprise that the politics of the middle has either disappeared or, because of a weak left, drifted further to the right. Donald Trump is the supreme expression of this stunning loss of faith in centrist politicians as well as such pillars of the institutional center as the mainstream media. 

In an effort to appear to be profound, his analysis explains nothing. It only adds to the confused thinking that so many Americans are infected with about so many issues.

Rigging Elections in Georgia, Russia and the United States?

Click here to access article by Seth Ferris from New Eastern Outlook. 

This piece provides an excellent antidote to the Russiagate virus that is being spread throughout mainstream media. You will learn how US agencies functioned to rig elections particularly in Russia and border nations. You will also learn more about the obvious rigging of recent elections here in the USA. It is sad to realize that this trickle of information is easily overwhelmed by the rivers of disinformation produced and distributed by media corporations. Ferris concludes his article by writing:

...no matter what Clinton apologises for, she will never admit that one of the reasons for her defeat was that her own supporters had seen how she won the nomination. Long before it was mathematically certain, the press insisted she would be the candidate, and she had only got to that position by excluding registered voters in various states who supported Bernie Sanders. This may be OK in Third World countries the US sponsors, but not the US itself. However obnoxious Trump was to many, Hillary’s vote rigging made her the devil they knew only too well.

Why did she think she could get away with it? Because the US has made rigging votes in other countries a standard official practice. Getting the result which suits the US is more important than how it is done. As a political insider and former Secretary of State, Clinton would know the fine details of such schemes as well as anyone.

This is precisely the reason why, as I've argued several times, the ruling class uses such crude methods to misinform people, to manage the opinions of people, and to manage elections. They have gotten away with such deceptions for so long that their deceptive practices are becoming absurd, even laughable--to informed people. But for most people, who are struggling just to survive, don't have the time to see through their manipulative games, and consequently they turn conveniently to the "experts" in the ubiquitous corporate media to explain what is happening. 

However it is evident that the Empire media agents are worried about people having access to alternative websites that they don't control and which furnish news and information that puts the lies to corporate media reports. The evidence is Google's (including YouTube), Twitter, and Facebook's attempts to censor alternative websites such as World Socialist Web Site and Global Research.

Pew Survey Examines "Future of Truth and Misinformation Online"

Click here to access article which was posted on Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

EPIC introduces the study by the Pew Research Center with this statement:

The Pew Research Center released a report on how to address the spread of digital misinformation in the coming decade. The report's respondents were evenly divided on whether technological advances in the coming decade will fix the problem of misinformation, or only compound it. EPIC President Marc Rotenberg told Pew, "The problem with online news is structural: There are too few gatekeepers, and the internet business model does not sustain quality journalism. The reason is simply that advertising revenue has been untethered from news production." The prevalence of "fake news" was one of the most significant issues in the 2016 presidential election. EPIC's Democracy and Cybersecurity Project seeks to restore integrity in democratic elections. EPIC is also pursuing details of the Russian election interference in FOIA cases against the FBI, the Office of Director in National Intelligence, and the IRS. This week several senators introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen disclosure requirements for online political ads.

Actually I don't want you to read the lengthy report from the Pew Research Center, unless, of course, you want to. It is predictable as corporate media feeding us anti-Russian stories. I did a little research on the background of the Pews who set up this foundation which is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. I found the following:

Although today The Pew Charitable Trusts is non-partisan and non-ideological, Joseph Pew and his heirs were politically conservative. The modern day organization works to encourage responsive government and support scientific research on a wide range of issues, including global ocean governance, correction reform, and antibiotic resistance.

Early priorities of the Pew Memorial Trust included cancer research, the American Red Cross, and a pioneering project to assist historically black colleges. Later beneficiaries included conservative organizations such as the John Birch Society, the American Liberty League, and the American Enterprise Institute, as well as environmental organizations such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Oceana, and mainstream think tanks like the Brookings Institution.

Then I turned my attention to EPIC which carried this post. I've long been suspicious about the efforts of EPIC in protecting internet users privacy, but this post really accelerated my suspicions. Thus, I decided to investigate EPIC. Wikipedia and others were not at all helpful. But I found what I was looking for at SourceWatch, a project of The Center for Media and Democracy. (This is an excellent resource to get funding information on many non-profit, mostly fake "do-gooder" organizations). I found that it is funded by the following foundations and charities.

Major grants to support the work of EPIC have been received from: Arca Foundation, Bauman Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Counterpane Systems, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Earthlink, Ford Foundation, Fund for Constitutional Government, HKH Foundation, W.K. Kellog Foundation, Irving Kohn Foundation, Albert List Foundation, Lutz Foundation Trust, Markle Foundation, Metromail Cy Pres Fund, Norman Foundation, Omidyar Network, Open Society Institute, Quixote Foundation, Red Hat Center, Rockefeller Family Fund, Rose Foundation, Glushko-Samuelson Foundation, Scherman Foundation, Simons Foundation, Sun Hill Foundation, Sun Microsystems, Trio Foundation of St. Louis, Working Assets, Zero Knowledge Systems

Many of these funders have been involved in what has become known as color revolutions which have been directed by agents of the Empire to destabilize governments such as in Ukraine which now has Nazis installed in the new regime. The Ford Foundation and the CIA were involved in the destabilization of the Sukarno's Indonesian government that resulted in the massacres of 500,000 Indonesian people. So don't trust EPIC to protect you privacy information. This well publicized interest of theirs is only a cover for their more dubious projects.

(Note: I very much regret posting an article entitled "Who Has Your Back?" in August of this year.) 

I encourage you to trust people like the Australian journalist John Pilger who talks about corporate media and their management and censorship of broadcast news and other media to suit the interests of capitalist ruling classes. (I thank the people at 21st Century Wire for the reproduction of Pilger's remarks.)

The following [12:07m] segment is from the ‘Media and War’ Conference held at Goldsmith’s College, University of London, 17 November 2012. Watch: 

Laughter is the best medicine

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

The basic question of the conference was: does contemporary macroeconomics, in the wake of the Second Great Depression, require a few reforms or does it need a wholesale revolution? Blanchard lined up in the reform camp, with Summers calling for a revolution—with the added spice of Adam Posen referring to himself as Trotsky to Summers’s Lenin.

Although from the description it would suggest that the economics conference would have take a debating form. But such was not the case. The headline for this piece is economist Ruccio's way of reacting to a conference which ended up avoiding the serious issues of growing inequality in current capitalism. As such I think the conference is another illustration of upper-middle class academics who are much more concerned about following the capitalist party line and securing their careers than in solving serious issues with contemporary capitalism. I also suspect this is partly because the problems are insolvable within capitalism.

The US lurches toward military dictatorship

Click here to access article by Andre Damon from World Socialist Web Site. 

The militarist diatribe by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired Marine general, at a White House press briefing last week laid bare an open secret of American politics: behind the façade of democratic rule, the United States increasingly resembles a military dictatorship.

Here is another astute author that interprets Trump's stacking of the government with military generals as a military takeover. Although I argued against a similar interpretation yesterday regarding the post entitled "'Above All' - The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power" by the politically astute Bernhard, again I argue that the Deep State (major financial figures and industrial capitalists along with assorted very loyal people (to capitalism) from academia, military, and media) will rule the US as they have always done mostly directly since the late 19th century. But they may very well choose to back a military-loaded regime headed by Trump (or whoever) that rules increasingly more with an iron-fist so characteristic of fascism. Damon is right when he writes that substantially nothing much will change except the delusional spell that has most Americans believing that they live in some kind of democracy.

"Above All" - The Junta Expands Its Claim To Power

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

Because I have limited time today, here is some thoughts off-the-top-of-my-head (def.) to this article. 

I think that Bernhard is reacting to a surface phenomenon. It is rather easy to see that Trump has included many military figures in his cabinet and other government posts and mistake this for military takeover of government. I rather think that it reflects Trump's mindset: he is authoritarian because of the nature of being successful at business enterprise, and he is racist given his socialization in the US. Thus, he likes soldiers because they have been trained to follow and give orders. He also has demonstrated his racism by pursuing blindly and in a most visceral fashion everything that was associated with the Obama administration: opening up to relations with Cuba, the Iranian nuclear accord, and the Affordable Care Act. Otherwise it appears so far that he is leaving most all other foreign policy matters to his military men, and pursuing domestic issues to serve his class (example: lowering taxes for the rich).

His allowing the generals to determine military policies, of course, is dangerous because the generals have been trained to make war and to devise strategies to defeat any opponents of the US and its empire. They have not been trained or socialized as people who understand the many political complexities of any given situation; and they have not been educated in the real history of humanity, rather they have been subject to intensive indoctrination to capitalist views and values. The latter also makes them very comfortable for Trump to relate to. 

I feel that Bernard underestimates the staying power of the capitalist Deep State: those who have since the late 19th century have accumulated vast quantities of wealth, and have ever since then, promoted the use of this wealth by first taking over the control of the currency in 1913 with the Federal Reserve Act, by taking control over every social and political institution (especially those engaged indoctrination and propaganda), and have organized a vast network of secret agencies (even organized crime syndicates) to commit illegal acts and to spy on ordinary Americans who might be inclined to carry their dissent to defiant acts of resistance. 

Bernhard's thesis that a military junta has taken control of the US under the Trump administration depends largely on a piece published in The New Yorker, a ruling class magazine that inspires a following of the upper classes (from the upper-middle class to the capitalist class). However, I think that this piece functions only as a part of the ruling class campaign to get rid of Trump, and to prepare American "opinion leaders" for the removal of Trump from the White House. 

Emma Sky - British 'Mother of Daesh' Wants To Reoccupy Iraq [a "best post"]

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

Reading this piece requires some knowledge of Iraq, its past decade of politics under US occupation, and some effort. However it seems to me that if you can manage all of these requirements, you will find some very rich political gems in the article that will help you understand recent and current events in that area of the US-led Empire.

It is clear from my reading that Emma Sky is a very useful Deep State figure whose task is to promote the Empire's many interests in this strategic, oil rich area and curbing Iran's influence. In addition the article reveals connections between her role and the rise of the terrorist armies of al-Qaeda and ISIS. This piece represents investigative journalism at its best.

Re-Visiting Russian Counter-Propaganda Methods

Click here to access article by "The Saker" from The Unz Review. 

The author, who is a Russian ex-patriot living in Florida, knows whereof he speaks when he examines US and Russian propaganda over the past 60 years. This article is an updated version of one he wrote in 2016 which I barely scanned today. I think he makes the same points as in the earlier article, but elaborates by describing various Western anti-Russian "experts" who  Russian TV programs host on their programs. These are usually former Russians who while in the West spout some of the worst and ridiculous anti-Russian propaganda. He explains how this arrangement is far more effective than the censorship practiced by the Soviets.

However I wonder if the reason that this arrangement works so effectively is because the US anti-Russian propaganda has sunk so much deeper in the mud of ridiculousness than was the case in the Cold War simply because they can. As I've stated several times before, I can't recall a time when US propaganda has been so downright silly than it is nowadays. I find myself grasping for explanations for this and all I can find is that US propaganda agents have been so successful in the past 50 years in covering up the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy, M. L. King, Malcom X and all the other crimes that they lied about (the US support of the Contras--funded by criminal activities such as drug trafficking and selling weapons to Iran-- who terrorized Nicaraguans to vote out the popular Sandinista government, the invasions of Granada and Panama, the 9/11 false-flag project, the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the other false-flag terrorist incidents. Apparently the directors of US propaganda programs have so easily accomplished the above that they feel safe in promoting the most ridiculous narratives justifying their continuing crimes throughout the world. I find it difficult to understand why my fellow Americans continue to believe such rubbish!

Reporting from Korea during the 2013 ‘crisis’: 5 key facts the West ignores

Click here to access article by Ramin Mazaheri posted on A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. 

Mazaheri gives us the other side of the ongoing dispute with the North Korean leadership which unfortunately is missing in the reporting by the Empire's media corporations. There is always two sides to every dispute, but our ruling masters consistently give us only one side--their side. The other is very difficult to find because our masters don't want us to know it. (They claim it's for our own good: so that we are not exposed to "fake news".) The other side as reported by the author is very revealing!

Back in 2013 I did 17 reports in 19 days, so it was a crash course in on-the-ground reporting in South Korea. Thanks to an excellent production team already in place, I interviewed top analysts, university professors, political activists and dozens of people on the street.

And almost every single report has been wiped clean from the internet. This process started this year, and it has affected top leftist sites like the World Socialist Web Site, The Greanville Post and many others. I have been able to provide a few web links, after much surfing.

But I wrote this article to provide 5 key things to know when discussing North Korea, but which you have probably never heard.

Sane Progressive, Follow Me on Bitchute to See What Youtube Censors

In the following brief video via YouTube Debbie of Sane Progressive explains why she is in the process of posting her videos on a new website called Bitchute which is still under development.

Go to https://www.bitchute.com/channel/sane... for EXTENSIVE new vid on V-egas up TODAY: My recent Vegas coverage got me put in the naughty corner with youtube, lost my live streaming ability. Oh well, good push to develop platform outside of big brother site. If you would like my analysis on sensitive subjects including V egas go here: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/sane... New video up today with EXTENSIVE summary on what actually happened.

DEA Whistleblowers Take Down Nominee, Expose Govt’s Role in US Opiate Crisis

Click here to access article by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News. (Updated at 11:03 PM Seattle time.)

Although Webb emphasizes regulatory capture by the pharmaceutical industry and only points to some facts--like heroin production is booming in US occupied Afghanistan (before under the Taliban government it was banned) and that US troops guard their poppy patches--I think we will likely learn in the future that US government agencies actively colluded with criminal organizations to refine and especially distribute heroin, much of which ultimately ended up in the hands of Big Pharma and resulted in opiate addiction in the US.

I well remember from my days in the San Francisco Bay Area that the CIA was directly flying in heroin and other drugs from southeast Asia into Oakland using their Air America airline (see this, this, and this).

You may also be interested in an article entitled "Make Big Pharma Pay for the Opioid Crisis" by Karen Hicks posted on CounterPunch.

The Zionist Project’s Duality: Escaping Racist Oppression and Reproducing It in Colonial Context

Click here to access article by Gilbert Achcar from Jadaliyya. 

This essay made perfect sense to me. It tied together so much knowledge that I've gained from other historical writings on this issue. By reading it, see how he weaves together many historical facts to arrive at this rather dramatic conclusion:

...Zionism is not a “normal” movement of national liberation that shares the dual character of many such movements struggling against colonial oppression while oppressing other communities, be they national or of another nature. This is the claim of those partisans of Israel who are not fanatical to the point of denying the oppression perpetrated by the Zionist state. The truth, however, is that the Zionist movement was built upon exploitation of the oppression suffered by the Jews and reliance on the help of anti-Semites in order to create a colonial state structurally integrated in the imperialist system—not a postcolonial state as it pretends. 

Who was James Connolly?

Click here to access article by Chris Bambery from CounterFire (Britain).

This website is honoring the activities of past revolutionaries on whose shoulders we stand in the fight against the capitalist monster. They are inspiration for us all in our daily activities against this monster who will devour us all if we don't finally slay it. 

“The Irish working class must emancipate itself, and in emancipating itself it must, perforce, free its country.” Those were the words of James Connolly, the great Irish socialist.

Connolly was a revolutionary socialist and trade union organiser in Scotland, where he was born of Irish parents, the United States and Ireland. He participated in the great debates of the international socialist movement at the beginning of the last century, standing on its revolutionary wing.

Globalist Counterpunch: Going for the Media Knockout

Click here to access article by Phil Butler from New Eastern Outlook. (Butler, who is an American currently living in Germany, lays claims in this article to an extensive background in public relations. Click on the "about" link at this website if you wish to learn of of his background.)

The UK government is all set to sledgehammer free speech in unison with the US deep state. News from The Guardian foretells of social media platforms being labeled “publishers” rather than information platforms, a move that will end the spread of free ideas to UK citizens. But the movement warns of international implications given recent events in the US aimed at Russia. The true message from Russia and beyond won out in recent media skirmishes, but as a byproduct we may soon witness the end of rights we took for granted for too long.

According to a story entitled “UK government considers classifying Google and Facebook as publishers,” Karen Bradley, the UK Culture Secretary, told MPs at a meeting of the digital, culture, media, and sport committee that the government is considering changing the legal status of Google, Facebook, and other Internet companies over “growing concerns about copyright infringement and the spread of extremist material online.”

Meanwhile back at the (US) ranch we learn from Bloomberg News that Facebook will be working closer to the US spy agencies to counter "fake news" and Russian interference in our elections, that is, to censor and shape news to conform to policies of the capitalist Deep State.

Understanding the ‘Fake News’ Hysteria

Click here to access article by David P. Hamilton from ConsortiumNews. 

For the most part, “fake news” is a fake concept designed by the corporate news media to discredit those who challenge the official U.S. hegemonic narrative. The typical MSM fake news accusation starts with some egregious fictionalization and then morphs over to the real targets: the subversives, those who would dispute foundational elements of the official history or its recent approved updates.

These subversive elements are likely to question important myths, such as the necessity of the nuclear incineration of Hiroshima or – before the Iraq War – Saddam Hussein possessing WMD, and hence must be silenced.

I strive daily to be one of those "subversives".

Syria, Iraq - Why The Kurdish Independence Project Died

Click here to access article by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama. (Addendum at 12:25 PM Seattle time.)

Over the last decades, and especially since the (foreign induced) Salafi insurrection weakened the states of Syria and Iraq, the Kurds had made huge territorial and political gains. But they became overly greedy and did not see that these gains were not sustainable. Iraq and Syria reasserted themselves. The "western" allies of the Kurds rediscovered that their strategic interests are best served by intact nation states.

I don't know where Bernhard gets all of his information regarding the Kurds, but so far the "facts on the ground" support his views, and such views make a lot of sense to me. It will be very interesting if future events support his interpretation of events at the current stage. One thing that I am reasonably certain is that the terrorists remaining in ISIS will be saved by the Empire and its vassals for another day elsewhere in the world. Terrorist proxies have been far too useful to them to dispose of such battle-hardened armies now. Already they appear to be showing up in the Philippines and Myanmar (Burma). 

Also, if his views of events are accurate, this situation marks a tremendous setback to the plans of the Empire and associates (Israel and Saudi Arabia) in that region, and this is likely to have a major impact on the ruling classes in the Empire which I can't imagine will be to the good. Some people think that a war with Iran looks likely (see this, this, and this), others imagine in Ukraine. In either or both, nuclear weapons are quite likely to be used.

[Russian Revolution, part 9 of ?] October 1917: an echo from the future

Click here to access article by Sally Campbell from Socialist Review (Britain). 

...attempts to reform it [capitalism] through parliaments haven’t worked. In the past century a whole number of left wing governments have been elected in various places, and while many have been able to temporarily ameliorate some of its worst effects, none has been able to legislate away the basic, brutal truth of capitalism: that it is a system based upon the exploitation of the vast majority by the extreme minority who own and control the means of creating wealth.

The Russian Revolution, and specifically the October Revolution, confronted this truth head-on, and for a period it showed how it might be possible to run society differently.

This did not come from the heads of Lenin and the Bolsheviks bestowing their knowledge upon the masses; rather it came from an intense period of workers’ self-activity. This self-activity didn’t only extend to the workplace — it also tackled forms of oppression and political grievances which had shackled Russian workers and peasants for decades.

How A Secretive Network Built Around a Nobel Prizewinner Set Out To Curtail Our Freedoms

Click here to access article by George Monbiot from TruePublica (Britain). 

The history professor’s work on the subject began by accident. In 2013 she stumbled across a deserted clapboard house on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia. It was stuffed with the unsorted archives of a man who had died that year, whose name is probably unfamiliar to you: James McGill Buchanan. She writes that the first thing she picked up was a stack of confidential letters concerning millions of dollars transferred to the university by the billionaire Charles Koch.

Her discoveries in that house of horrors reveal how Buchanan, in collaboration with business tycoons and the institutes they founded, developed a hidden programme for suppressing democracy on behalf of the very rich. The programme is now reshaping politics, and not just in the US.

James McGill Buchanan is an excellent example of contemporary America's "house nigger" as described by Malcolm X. He is an upper-middle class academic who loyally served plantation owners like Charles Koch. Unlike intellectuals such as historian Alfred W. McCoy and America's informal theologian Chris Hedges who serve the ruling capitalist class by managing dissent within safe limits, Buchanan went whole-hog (def.) in collaborating with the ruling class to consolidate and extend their power. Because of his loyalty and performance, he was amply rewarded. 

But doesn't Monbiot also serve to manage dissent when he writes the following reassuring statement as a conclusion?

Complete freedom for billionaires means poverty, insecurity, pollution and collapsing public services for everyone else. Because we will not vote for this, it can be delivered only through deception and authoritarian control. The choice we face is between unfettered capitalism and democracy. You cannot have both.

Buchanan’s programme amounts to a prescription for totalitarian capitalism. And his disciples have only begun to implement it. But at least, thanks to Maclean’s discoveries, we can now apprehend the agenda. One of the first rules of politics is know your enemy. We’re getting there.

Thus he tells us that we must strive to do a better job of regulating capitalists, and that our "democratic" institutions are still viable and able to do this job. (In the words of a 1911 activist) if that isn't pie-in-the-sky optimism, I don't know what is.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Capitalism [a "best post"]

Click here to access article by Phil Rockstroh form The Greanville Post.

Reading an article by Rockstroh, a leading American wordsmith, takes a little more time and effort, but I think you will agree that it is often worth it. 

This article of his was prompted by a NY Times piece entitled "“Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?”, and he attempts to answer the question. He concludes his article with this insightful remark:

Due to the reality that capitalism, on both an individual and collective basis, drives individuals into madness, all as the system destroys forest and field, ocean and sea and the soulscape of all who live under its rapacious dominion, our plight comes down to this: We either struggle and strive, by and any and all means, to end the system — or it will end us.

Rockstroh's article instantly recalled my early morning experience listening to NPR's Morning Addition through the fog of awakening to my radio-alarm. It's amazing what one can learn listening to NPR, America's radio station! This morning I learned that not only American teenagers are going crazy but adults as well. But NPR's directors would not leave their listeners to suffer because they assured us that there were apps (def.) to cure this. And if that didn't work for you, they immediately followed with another segment to report that American entrepreneurs had devised other cures such as "floating away your anxiety and stress" for as little as $50 a float! (sarcasm)

How Netanyahu Pulls Trump’s Strings

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from ConsortiumNews.

In the final presidential debate of 2016, Hillary Clinton famously called Donald Trump the “puppet” of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But what’s increasingly clear is that Trump has a more typical puppet master for a U.S. politician – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

I would put a rather different take on the source of Trump's policies and actions. Although a bit crude in his actions and not skilled at public relations, I view him as an otherwise consummate capitalist in that he is thoroughly addicted to the drugs of profit and power. This addiction drives his sociopathic personality to seek alliances with wealth/power figures who are richly ensconced throughout the capitalist power structure. I am referring to the powerful and rich Ziocons and even mafia types who seem to thrive in the US Empire. 

10:15 AM Seattle time--Addendum, a quote by Phil Rockstroh:  

When life is negotiated within a collective value system that devalues and deadens the individual’s inner life thus warps every human transaction, anomie descends, the worst among a people ascend to positions of power. 

Iraq - The End Of The Kurdish Independence Project

Click here to access article by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama. (Updated at 9:40 PM Seattle time.)

This report seems too good to be true. I will await other reports before I believe it. (Here is the first confirmation from a key Empire propaganda source.)

The dreams of an independent Kurdistan in Iraq have just been buried again. Masoud Barzani's position has been weakened significantly. This huge blunder might cost him his head. The Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi has gained in standing and is now in position to win next years election.

These events will also have consequences for the Kurdish position in Syria. They demonstrate that they can not hope for continued U.S. support and will have to reconcile with the Syrian government. The idea of some autonomous or even independent Kurdish entity in Syria is, as of today, also dead.

[Weekly series of the Russian Revolution of 1917] October 16-22: Trotsky leads Bolsheviks out of Pre-Parliament

Click here to access article from World Socialist Web Site. (I am continuing to post a weekly summary of activities during the Russian Revolution of 1917 in addition to articles by historians and other informed people of that great event. You may be interested to read my introduction to both series if you have not already done so.)

As the Bolshevik party leadership continues to hotly debate Lenin’s calls for an armed insurrection, Lenin forcefully continues his campaign to orient the party toward the seizure of power. He writes a number of letters to different Bolshevik delegations and party committees, in this way circumventing the Central Committee and reaching toward the working class. 

"Calm before the storm" remark

by cartoonist Steve Sack from the [Minneapolis] Star Tribune.

Trump’s Media Furore... US Democracy On Thin Ice

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

The irony is, however, that the attack on American democratic rights has already been underway before Trump entered the White House, and without much protest from the same media outlets who are now railing against Trump over this rants. We can point to the increasing surveillance powers of federal intelligence agencies which have steadily encroached since the September 2001 terror incidents in New York and Washington DC.

Media freedom in the US has been under assault for a long time.

Trump’s latest outburst is not a one-off anomaly.

The US capitalist's version of "democracy" is indeed on thin ice as numerous reports are showing up in both mainstream and alternative media, both the right and left of the political spectrum, that suggest the orange "moron" may not be our head of state much longer. (See also this, this, this, this, and this.)  It is becoming serious when even his close friends, the Israelis, are expressing concern.

So, what's an advanced capitalist ruling class to do when it wants to get rid of a president? Well, we saw how it was done with Kennedy. Although he refused to take orders from the Deep State that rules the US, he was very popular. But Trump is merely acting like a clown; on the other hand, he is quite a useful clown for the capitalist Deep State. A coup would put US "democracy" on a par with Latin American banana republics. Impeachment process might take too long, and it represents only a first step in getting rid of him. Appearances are everything to our masters who find the myth of "democratic" rule so useful in preventing Americans from seeing the darker reality. So, stay tuned to corporate media to find out how our masters resolve this dilemma. If Trump weren't so dangerous as CEO of the US, this "show" that is broadcast every day on TV would be very entertaining.

Why U.S. and Saudi Arabia back Rohingya in Myanmar

Click here to access article by Sara Flounders from Workers World. 

Flounders with this article accomplishes an excellent example of investigative reporting.

She argues that the US and Saudi agents are supporting terrorist groups that have infiltrated the Rohingya. (Later she lists the sources that support her argument. The latter reports, of course, find very little coverage in corporate media.) While US officials have been hypocritically "beating the drums" (def.) on behalf of the Rohingya and corporate media is doing likewise, the result is...

Demonstrations, protests and online petitions have appeared worldwide to defend the struggle of the Rohingya people who have been driven from Myanmar into exile.

The obvious conclusion, which she reaches, is that these carefully engineered events and corporate media reports are crafted by the US-led Empire's directors in order to contain China's influence in the region.

I would like to suggest a larger hypothesis that shapes nearly all widespread coverage by media corporations: Media corporations overwhelmingly exist to promote the profit and power interests of their owners who are major capitalists. Therefore it follows that if you are going to following Western corporate media reports, you will be exposed to what they want you to believe about world events that affect their interests. In other words, you will be treated as a dupe.

The US-led Empire and its ruling capitalist classes are in a desperate struggle right now to wrest control away from other nations so that they can cover their increasing debts (around the massive figure of $20 trillion dollars for the US alone) with their increasing control over the world's labor and consumer markets and access to cheap resources by their corporations. If they fail at world domination, they fail their investors who constitute the ruling class of the Empire and will likely end their opportunities to cover government debts that are owed to themselves. The obvious problem is that they are hell-bent on stirring up conflicts like the one in Myanmar (Burma) and never-ending wars all over the world with devastating results for people like you and me.

Unless you are one of these investors, you have almost no reason to listen, read, or follow the news reports issued by their media corporations. It is now more urgent than ever to seek out reliable alternative media for this information; and better yet, to help create an independent news service to serve the interests of working people like ourselves.

Living Dangerously in Catalonia

Click here to access article by "Don Quijones" from Rigged Game. ("Don Quijones" is a pseudonym for a Brit who lives with his Mexican wife mostly in Barcelona.)

The province of Catalonia in Spain

This is the best article (together with its linked-to 2013 article by the same author) that I have read about the developing crisis in Barcelona and its province Catalonia. I have read several books (including Orwell's Homage to Catalonia) about the Spanish Civil War that began in 1936, and have wondered if this pivotal historical event were a direct antecedent of the current split between Madrid and Catalonia. Catalonia was the ideological and military center that defended the young, leftist Spanish republic from the attacks of Spanish, German, and Italian fascist armies. (Meanwhile the Western "democracies" stood passively by in neutrality and watched the destruction.) His linked-to article of 2013 affirms that this history has a very strong influence on what is happening today. I strongly encourage you to read it.

In the 2013 article he insightfully writes about the developing hostile relationship between the Spanish government and Catalonia and relates it to the earlier Civil War:

Franco’s dictatorship ended only 38 years ago — a mere blink of the eye in the great scheme of things — and Spain’s “transition” into a full-fledged constitutional democracy remains very much half-finished. Its institutions of democracy and civil society are still precariously young and extremely fragile.

Perhaps most importantly, Spain, as a living, breathing whole, is yet to come to terms with its recent past. The reason for this is simple: In the wake of Franco’s death in 1975, rather than confronting and reconciling themselves to the injustices and horrors perpetrated in his name, most Spanish people, including many on the left, simply swept all memory of them under the rug of collective amnesia.

Instead of confronting the fear and loathing that had built up during 36 years of brutal dictatorship, not to mention three years of bloody civil war, the Spanish people, egged on by the political and business establishment, chose to simply forget.

In today's article he writes about the current situation: 

...while all this frenetic flag buying, selling, waving and draping may be good business for some, it points to a very dark reality for society as a whole: two deeply rooted, diametrically opposed forms of nationalism with a bleak not-so-distant past are on the verge of a head-on clash. And it’s already having devastating effects on the social fabric as communities in Catalonia fracture, families splinter and friendships break apart.

The War on Google Terrorism: Las Vegas, Nothing Google Allows is True

Click here to access commentary by Gordon Duff, Senior Editor of Veterans Today--originally posted on Natural News.

The video above proves, scientifically and categorically that there was a 2nd shooter in Las Vegas.  Many have gotten it right and Google is taking down the videos and blocking the reports.  We believe they do it because we are open to this:  We believe Google Jigsaw, the military  arm of Google, may well be complicit.  No, VT is not kidding, we have found their trail in the Paris attacks, in recent and earlier Sarin attacks in Syria, and we find their agenda, crushing “non-Google approved news” to also be involved in covering up crimes.

I have been waiting for more definitive information released by official agencies to support their theory that Paddock was the lone shooter. There were all kinds of security cameras all over this area--why haven't such photos been released? Why haven't data been released such as Mike Adams reveals in the following video? 

The data that Adams, who is a director at CWC Labs, provides makes absolute sense to me, especially in reference to "lag times". I would formerly do a rough estimate between the visual display of lightening and the sound of thunder to determine the distance I was from the lightening strike. I used a very similar method that Adams uses in the video.

Naval false flags and the twentieth ‘American Century’

Click here to access article by Bas Spliet from Scrutinised Minds. 

The history of the directors of capitalist ruling classes as related in this long article by Spliet reveal that they will not shrink away from the most criminal humanitarian crimes to promote their class's interests of profit and power. Spliet explains how the directors were able to turn American opposition to war in the late 19th century into support for wars. He examines convincing evidence that led gullible Americans down the path to support US wars and imperialism which began in the late 19th century to the end of the 20th century. Ruling class directors discovered to their astonishment that creating false-flag attacks on naval vessels combined with pro-war propaganda issued by their class's media corporations were able to convert widespread American opposition to wars into strident pro-war sentiment.

Combined with a steady stream of propaganda, however, a number of naval mass casualty attacks blamed on the enemy of the day succeeded in temporarily changing public opinion in favour of war. As a result, at the expense of the lives of many more Americans and people from all over the world, the American empire was born.

The limitations of two of America's brightest intellectuals

by Ron Horn

I will focus on two of America's brightest, historian Alfred W. McCoy and America's informal theologian Chris Hedges (a once divinity student and aspiring theologian, and later a NY Times journalist), in order to illustrate how intellectuals of the upper-middle class function to preserve the ruling capitalist class. I will draw on a recent book by McCoy entitled  In the Shadow of the American Century (also a precursor to the book in a 2010 article by him published by CBS News entitled "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire") and a recent article by Chris Hedges entitled "The End of Empire" in which he references the book by Professor McCoy.

When you examine both of their backgrounds (McCoy's self biography in his book's introduction entitled "US Global Power and Me" and Hedges in Wikipedia), I think there is sufficient evidence to classify their backgrounds as upper-middle class. These people are truly indispensable to running a capitalist society. But their relationship to capitalists, who constitute the ruling class, is very much like the African-American concept of one type of slave relationship with the master of the house or plantation that existed in our period of slavery. Malcolm X colorfully described them as "house Negro" (the servants and maids who worked for the master's family in their home and enjoyed superior privileges) versus the "field Negro" who correspond to ordinary workers.

There was two kind of slaves. There was the house negro and the field negro. The house negro, they lived in the house, with master. They dressed pretty good. They ate good, cause they ate his food, what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near their master, and they loved their master, more than their master loved himself.

McCoy supports the existing ruling class by the absence of any mention of capitalism, a social system that insures that societies are infected with class conflict; and in order to reduce such conflicts to a minimum, the ruling classes must engage in widespread and ongoing subterfuge to disguise this fact. He accepts capitalism as the only reality, but suggests that eternal vigilance from more people like him could have preserved US dominance in the world. He argues convincingly that the "American Century", which Henry Luce announced in February 1941 to the delight of domestic fascists, will come to an end in about a decade. However he doesn't see any threats to human extinction due to the likely prospects of a nuclear war conflagration or climate destabilization.

While Hedges occasionally criticizes the excesses of capitalism, he continues to insist that our governing system somehow represents "democracy", and his apparent obsessive concern about non-violence (or at least he uses this as a rationale to oppose any form of violence--see the "The Cancer in Occupy"--even against property as well as the police) insures that a revolution can never be achieved. He praises such benign forms of activism as projects like Cooperation Jackson; and in his latest article entitled "Faces of Pain, Faces of Hope" he definitely prefers the mild models of activism such as found in the Catholic Worker Movement and "intentional communities".

They both fear losing the privileges and wealth they have gained from many years of their active participation in ruling class institutions. Their long years of indoctrination in capitalist views and values handicaps them from offering any effective advice to young activists who see the necessity of ending a system which guarantees endless wars, exploitation, the destabilization of the climate, and the likely extinction of humans.

Remembering Che Guevara 50 Years After His Assassination

Click here to access article by James Cockcroft from TeleSur. 

Guevara was another martyr who dedicated his life to serving the interests of ordinary working people against the US-led Empire, a capitalist empire that was trying to crush all revolutionary actions and ideas in order to satisfy their addictions to profits and power in the world. Like other martyrs such as Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa Luxembourg, and Mao Tse-Tung, Guevara will live on in the fond memories of ordinary people and will inspire others to serve the interests of the people against the oppressive rule of transnational capitalists.

In his opening paragraphs the Cockcroft writes that capitalist well-paid ideological agents are, of course, trying to besmirch his memory with the usual deceptions and emphasis on Guevara's mistakes. Crockcroft sets the record straight.

The year 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the CIA-ordered assassination of Che Guevara.

In light of a recent upsurge in denunciations of Che and the Cuban Revolution, it is important to separate fact from fiction.

Here are five important points to take into account, all in historical context, drawn from countless reliable sources, especially from the "References" section at the end of this article.

You may be also interested in another article in TeleSur entitled "Richard Gott on Meeting Che and Covering His Death".

[Russian Revolution part 8 of ?] The state and revolution

Click here to access article by Amy Leather from Socialist Review (Britain).

The author describes the revolutionary ideas of Lenin which he, during the summer of 1917, wrote down in his unfinished book State and Revolution. Here are a few of the most popular ones that inspired people to follow the leadership of the Bolsheviks:

Lenin argues that once people are freed from the “untold horrors and savagery” of capitalist slavery they “will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of community life…they will become accustomed to observing them without force, without coercion, without subordination, without the special apparatus of coercion which is called the state”.

The need for a workers’ state recedes as there are no longer any capitalists, any classes and consequently no class to be suppressed — and will wither away completely when the norm in society is “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”....

[Weekly series of the Russian Revolution of 1917] October 9 - 15: Lenin steps up campaign for insurrection

Click here to access article from World Socialist Web Site. 

I am continuing to post a weekly summary of activities during the Russian Revolution of 1917 in addition to articles by historians and other informed people of that great event. You may be interested to read my introduction to both series if you have not already done so. 

With Trotsky at the head of the Petrograd Soviet, and with the Bolshevik Party in control of a growing majority of other soviets, the Bolsheviks are now the most powerful party in the Russian Revolution. However, significant differences have emerged within the party’s leadership regarding what course to take.

Identity politics and the growth of inequality within racial minorities

Click here to access article by Eric London from World Socialist Web Site.

The most useful aspect of promoting identity politics that London does not make clear is its ability to distract subjects of the capitalist ruling class away from any class analysis or class identification. And a further (to our masters') benefit, which he alludes to, is that it fosters competition between groups over opportunities to serve the ruling capitalist class.

Identity politics has become a key mechanism through which the next 9 percent situated below the top 1 percent advances its grievances within the political establishment, fighting for “space” in the universities, trade unions, political parties, state apparatus, and corporate media. This layer, which forms a principal social base for the Democratic Party, is generally pro-war and supportive of the right-wing policies that have produced a soaring stock market.

How Billionaires Become Billionaires

Click here to access article by James Petras from Global Research.

Under the section "Consequences of Inequalities" he writes about the realities of such inequality:

First and foremost, billionaires and their political, legal and corporate associates dominate the political parties. They designate the leaders and key appointees, thus ensuring that budgets and policies will increase their profits, erode social benefits for the masses and weaken the political power of popular organizations.

Secondly, the burden of the economic crisis is shifted on to the workers who are fired and later re-hired as part-time, contingent labor. Public bailouts, provided by the taxpayer, are channeled to the billionaires under the doctrine that Wall Street banks are too big to fail and workers are too weak to defend their wages, jobs and living standards.

Billionaires buy political elites, who appoint the World Bank and IMF officials tasked with instituting policies to freeze or reduce wages, slash corporate and public health care obligations and increase profits by privatizing public enterprises and facilitating corporate relocation to low wage, low tax countries.

The system of capitalism inevitably degenerates into this reality. In order to eliminate all such undesirable (and worse) effects , we must find a way to end the system and replace it with one that fosters equality, true democracy (providing opportunities for everyone to participate in governing), and harmony with nature.

The Big ISIS and SDF Lies of the US—‘Kurdistan’ and New Gas Wars

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

Engdahl concludes his article with this statement:

...because of the recent success of the Syrian Arab Army and allied forces backed by Russian air power, the battle is turning into a direct US-Russia showdown, something in no way conducive to world peace. As repeatedly in their history, the Kurds of Syria and of Iraq are being played by the larger powers in the west for their own game: to totally control the vast energy resources of the entire Middle East and with it, of much of the world. Ultimately the game will fail, though not before senseless and inhuman slaughter continues to take its toll.

I can only agree. And, on the subject of "senseless and inhuman slaughter", with the simple-minded Tweeter (def. 1) in the White House raving about Kim Jong-un, I can only hope and pray that the Deep State manages to control this mad-dog on some kind of leash.