Surviving Capitalism (Not)

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Saturday, January 27, 2018

The War on Dissent

Click here to access article by CJ Hopkins from CounterPunch.

Hopkins explains how capitalist online social and information media (Twitter, Facebook, Google) have joined the Deep State, the financial and industrial elites that make major decisions behind the facade of official government, in order to protect their interests of profit and power from people like you who were disobedient in the last election! You will obey, or else!

The corporatocracy is going to change that attitude, or it is going to make it disappear. It is in the process of doing this now, using every ideological weapon in its arsenal. The news media. Publishing. Hollywood. The Internet. Intelligence agencies. Congressional inquiries. Protests. Marches. Twitter’s “advisory emails.” Google’s manipulation of its search results. Facebook’s “counterspeech” initiative. Russiagate. Shitholegate. Pornstargate. The ruling class is sending us a message. The message is, “you’re either with us or against us.” The message is, “we will tolerate no dissent, except for officially sanctioned dissent.” The message is, “try to fuck with us, and we will marginalize you, and demonize you, and demonetize you, and disappear you.”

The message is, “we control reality, so reality is whatever the fuck we say it is....

Facebook Is Throttling My Articles, So It's Time To Diversify Platforms. Hi Steemit!

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone from Steemit.

Steemit appears to be a good alternative to Facebook, which serves the interests of the capitalist ruling class, judging by Johnstone's article. It's about time!

I'm suddenly having a much harder time getting my articles in front of people due to a drastic plummet in the amount of views I'm getting from Facebook. According to my Medium account's statistics, I've gone from receiving many thousands of views from Facebook to just a few hundred over the last week or so, and the reach of my FB page has been slashed to a quarter of what it was in the same amount of time.

This likely has something to do with changes that Facebook has announced it is making in its News Feed algorithm, but it's hard to know exactly to what extent or whether anything else is going on. All I know is far fewer people are seeing me on that site now.

It's impacting everyone in alternative media, though.

A message from Patrice Greanville, chief editor of The Greanville Post.

The following is Patrice Greanville's introduction to Caitlin Johnstone's post entitled "Facebook Is Throttling My Articles, So It’s Time To Diversify Platforms. Hi Steemit!"

By now only those who are really NOT paying attention may be s[h]ocked to hear the corporate plutocracy is actively and furtively stifling genuine left/dissenting news and comment on social platforms, media and other venues. What is happening to Caitlin Johnstone is also happening to us. The Greanville Post has lost almost 45% of its circulation since mid-2016 alone, with dramatic losses after the election of Donald Trump, and although many new readers continue to make up for some of the downturn, the impact cannot be denied. Proof that only the real left is affected (and some of the “wild right”) is that the fatuous liberaloid blogosphere—still calling themselves “the left”, a cruel joke— sails on without disruption, and possibly even with some assistance from the powers that be. Since it is clear that Facebook, Twitter, Google and the rest of that uber corporate sneaky tribe are soon likely to become fully hostile territory to true journalists and dissidents in the United States and the rest of the West, it’s time to seek new platforms, and other modes of mass communication and struggle. We may soon contemplate the need to go back to a version of the Russian Zamisdat. 1984 is now, and the liberals, as we warned all along, now openly in cahoots with the CIA, and still idiotically rallying under the banner of the Democrats, are the chief undertakers of free speech. It was bound to happen. Lenin once said that the capitalists would sell revolutionaries the rope to hang them with, but he may have been wrong. Contemporary capitalists with their shitloads of highly-paid prostituted advisors and sentries are not liable to make that tactical mistake. From the beginning of the 20th century, at least, the US ruling class has completely understood the value of controlling the thinking of the masses, and reality has been shaped accordingly. The neutral Internet eventually came to challenge that underhanded stranglehold on people’s ability to grasp the truth, a dangerous thing for a blood-soaked fake democracy, and now the global plutocrats are clamping down. Creative thinking and much courage will be needed to survive and hopefully prevail in this brave mew world being thrust upon us.

New Year, New Turmoil as US Targets Thailand

Click here to access article by Joseph Thomas from New Eastern Outlook.

The Empire's transnational capitalist class, based in the US, Europe, and Japan, continue their efforts to encircle China using both soft and hard power. However, they are experiencing diminishing returns on their efforts. Read this carefully written article to see how Thomas reaches this conclusion regarding Thailand:

Thus, 2018 will not only see a concerted attempt to undermine the current Thai government and force it to hold elections the US will do all in its power to ensure Shinawatra [a Thai convicted criminal] wins, but also will see US-funded organisations in Thailand increasingly attempt to leverage violence in Thailand’s deep south to endanger not only Thailand’s peace and stability, but peace and stability across Southeast Asia.

Yes, it is a nasty habit of the Empire's ruling class to interfere in the elections of so many countries of the world. It is also becoming a nasty habit for them to accuse others of doing so in the USA.

Friday, January 26, 2018

Thursday, January 25, 2018

The Opioid Epidemic in America - Killing One Million Workers: The Triumph of Capital (Creating a Domestic ‘Shithole’)

Click here to access article by James Petras and Robin Eastman-Abaya from Petras' website.

After a short introduction regarding the use of addictive drugs to open up the China market to British and other advanced capitalist countries, the article continues on in PDF format to describe how Big Pharma in collusion with the government, which they largely control, has decimated mostly the white working population in the USA with modern highly addictive drugs. The authors see this as another manifestation of class warfare to enrich the ruling capitalist class along with many rewards for their compliant, highly educated upper-middle class scientists, technologists, and medical professionals.

There are historical precedents for the successful elimination of drug lords, both
elite and criminal and for bringing addicts back to productive social life.

Nobody Cares About ‘the News’

Click here to access article by Patrick Armstrong from Strategic Culture Foundation.

In his mordant novel Scoop, Evelyn Waugh has one of his characters explain what "The News" is:

News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead.

There is a great deal of wisdom in this little remark that I will attempt to unpack. It also, in my opinion, succinctly explains why we, who believe ourselves to be so brilliantly analytical and persuasive on sites like this one, have so little success in changing the opinions of our friends and neighbours (or awakening them as we might prefer to say).

Also, I think that the minds of ordinary people in the USA have been rendered largely ineffective to adequately interpret the propaganda which has been carefully crafted by the ruling capitalist class through their control over all institutions--most especially education, media, and entertainment.

Kafka 2.0: How Youtube’s Political Censorship Is Exercised

Click here to access article by Sayed Hasan from The Unz Review.

The procedure by which Youtube deletes videos and even the entire content of a channel is comparable to this Gothic novel in more ways than one. As I mentioned in a previous article, my channel Sayed Hasan, which, for more than five years, has subtitled in French and English speeches of Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah, as well as Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad and Sayed Ali Khamenei (in addition to interviews with Norman Finkelstein, content about revolutionary Latin America, etc.), was given two strikes by Youtube in less than one month because of two Hassan Nasrallah speeches, on the pretext of a “violation of the rules concerning violent or graphic content on Youtube”. The total suppression of the channel did not take long, since it occurred on December 20th, 2017, after a third and last strike announcing the guillotine, still because of a Hassan Nasrallah speech published in… 2014 – there is no prescription on Youtube, nor half measure. Thus, 400 videos, more than 6 million views and soon 10,000 subscribers have vanished, at the time of the greatest growth in their history. Youtube strives to hide its censorship behind a pseudo-legalistic procedure, but in fact, as we will see, all creators are under the constant threat of its political blade that drastically restricts tolerated contents.

Thought Police for the 21st Century [with two later addenda]

Click here to access article by Chris Hedges from TruthDig. (I again thank my longtime online friend and supporter, Christopher (northwest Oregon) for alerting me to this excellent article. Also I'd like to thank Caren in Oregon for sending me alternatives to Facebook which I have added to this post at 3:15 PM Seattle time.)

I've watched with growing pleasure the transition of Hedges from the low point of his writing when he was still trying to suck up to the ruling class in articles like "The Cancer of Occupy" to where he is now doing a program on RT and associating with socialist David North. He still annoys me by putting "corporate" in front of capitalism which leaves open the implication that there is a good kind of capitalism. Corporate capitalism is only entrepreneurial capitalism that has matured. It is the ugly monster that has grown up from (for some people) the rather cute baby of entrepreneurial capitalism of earlier times.

As a result of censorship that he writes about in this article, my website has also declined in readership from a year ago when it was rapidly increasing following the disillusionment of "Bernie-the-Sheepherder" followers. Mostly long time followers have remained loyal and kept reading my articles and commentaries. Hopefully with people like Hedges and the growing awareness of censorship, my website and other anti-Big Brother/capitalist websites will continue their growth in readership. There is clearly an information war going on and we, the people, are its victims--if we remain passive.

What I don't understand is why websites like The Greanville Post keep encouraging people to use Facebook. Isn't there some other place for people to virtually meet online?

Addendum provided by Caren from Oregon:

https://www.1and1.com/digitalguide/online-marketing/social-media/the-best-facebook-alternatives/

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/13/secure-alternatives-to-facebook-instagram-and-twitter.html

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/six-alternatives-google-facebook-battle-online-privacy-1472156

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/6-alternatives-facebook

From another engaged activist, Christopher in northwest Oregon, I received the following posts which also tackled alternatives to Facebook which I added to this post at 9:00 AM, 1/26/2018, Seattle time.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/10/ello_diaspora_and_the_anti_facebook_why_alternative_social_networks_can.html

http://web.appstorm.net/roundups/communication-roundups/6-alternatives-to-facebook/

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/09/13/secure-alternatives-to-facebook-instagram-and-twitter.html

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Leaked Trump infrastructure plan is a plan for corporate subsidies

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

The Deep State knows how to play the vulgar businessman Donald Trump, but Trump also knows how to play them by feeding them with profits and power. He has given them so many rewards since he's been in office that they are delaying his execution.

The Trump administration’s plans to rebuild infrastructure in the United States have been leaked, and it appears to be as bad as feared. At least three-quarters of intended funding will go toward corporate subsidies, not actual projects. It is possible that no funding will go directly toward projects.

There’s no real surprise here, given that President Donald Trump’s election promise to inject $1 trillion into infrastructure spending was a macabre joke. What is actually happening is that the Trump administration intends to push for more “public-private partnerships.”

Here's a tip whenever you read or listen to news from media corporations: when you encounter the words "reform" and "public-private partnerships", immediately think of advantages for our masters in the capitalist class. They love to disguise their exploitation of ordinary, and often, gullible people by using euphemisms (def.).

The failure of the Soviet economy and the global domination of the petrodollar

Click here to access article by Tobias Pfennig posted on Defend Democracy Press. (Note: this post is marred somewhat by the failure to raise reference numbers in the text. Thus, your attention may be distracted by such text as this: "Additionally, Northern America together with Europe controlled 91 percent of the global export market share2." and this: "In 2013 Oil exports together with gas made up more than 68%3 of the whole exports from the Russian Federation." The post was from a "Text of a speech delivered at the International Conference on Alternatives to Financial Capitalism, held in Chisinau, Moldova 12-13 December 2017", and obviously the numbers should have been raised because they referred to documentation which was left out of this post.")

I think the author has a very good grasp of the potential, and actual use, of economic weapons that have been used by the US-led Empire over the decades since WWII. Because the lethal applications of these weapons are never felt among ordinary people in the countries affiliated with the Empire, they are an ideal weapon of choice against independent countries in order to extend the Empire's (the transnational capitalists affiliated with the Empire) dominance of the world. The imposition of the US dollar on the rest of the world remains a major battlefield, and the entrance on this battlefield by Russia and China (in collaboration with smaller nations) in opposition to the dominance of the Empire looks very promising for the end of Empire dominance.

The AngloZionist family goes on a stroll

Posted on A bird's eye view of the Vineyard from an unknown origin.

This fantastic cartoon was sent to me by a friend who saw it on Moon of Alabama. I did some looking around and the original might well be from here, I am not sure. Whatever may be the case, it gave me such a laugh (I love the little turd at the bottom) that I had to share it with you. Cheers! The Saker [Note: the little turd is a reference to Ukraine.]

Sunday, January 21, 2018

'Ukraine on Fire': Oliver Stone Docu on US Destruction of Ukraine Finally Available in the West (VIDEO)

Click here to access article that includes Oliver Stone's film "Ukraine on Fire" posted on Signs of the Times (SOTT). (Again I must thank my online friend and supporter Christopher from northwest Oregon for alerting me to this post.) (I had to edit it for clarity at around 6:17 PM Seattle time because I made so many errors--I am not feeling 100%.)

I can personally vouch for the accuracy of the facts presented in this film that was again uploaded recently on YouTube. You are encouraged to view it and download it before Google, Inc. which owns YouTube, disappears it. (Notice that I attempted to post the film in March 2017, but it was shortly taken down.)

The article provides an excellent introduction to the film. The film begins with some background history of Ukraine which prepares us for the material presented about this carefully engineered coup d'état starting at about 25 minutes, and you will learn about most of the methods they used.

I documented most of the events of this in separate posts while it was taking place in late 2013 and 2014, and attempted to summarize all my posts until I ran out of energy and time in January of 2015.

Our masters in the Deep State of the USA, lauded for being the "land of the free, and the home of the brave" in a country that pretends to practice democracy, have also taken this experience with "colored revolutions" and crafted it into an advanced method that they are now using against us called "post-truth politics". We are now subject to an ongoing fabrication of reality in order to preserve their capitalist rule and to amass even more profits and power for this tiny class while threatening us with never-ending wars and nuclear wars. In the long run (should we survive that long) we face extinction due to their ongoing assault on the climate.

The Return of the Repressed

Click here to access article by Wolfgang Streeck. (Again in this post I am departing from my

Wolfgang Streeck, an economic sociologist

policy to post current articles (within one month) with my commentaries. I will continue to do this with articles that contribute to our growth in understanding our very troubled human existence.)

I am posting this article from a year ago because I regard Streeck as among the leading discerning thinkers regarding capitalism, and his forte is in reference to the advanced capitalist countries--essentially the US-led Empire (not only the US). I feel that we activists can, and must, learn a lot from him if we are to be successful in creating a bottom-up democratic world order while avoiding the doomsday scenarios awaiting us under the capitalist world order. On the other hand, the reader must take the date of this writing into account (about one year ago) because Streeck did not foresee Trump's yielding to powerful pressures (Russiagate) from the neoliberal Deep State (financial and industrial elites) that govern behind the facade of the official US government. Trump respects power as a highly important means to leverage wealth which to him as a businessman is the highest virtue.)

This is rather sophisticated writing for those of you who have not had the opportunity for advanced education. Here is a sample of his writing so that you can decide if you want to read the whole article:

As a process of institutional and political regression the neoliberal revolution inaugurated a new age of post-factual politics. [5] This had become necessary because neoliberal globalization was far from actually delivering the prosperity for all that it had promised. [6] The inflation of the 1970s and the unemployment that accompanied its harsh elimination were followed by a rise in government debt in the 1980s and the restoration of public finances by ‘reforms’ of the welfare state in the 1990s. These in turn were followed, as compensation, by opening up generous opportunities for private households to access credit and get indebted. Simultaneously, growth rates declined, although or because inequality and aggregate debt kept increasing. Instead of trickle-down there was the most vulgar sort of trickle-up: growing income inequality between individuals, families, regions..... The promised service economy and knowledge-based society turned out to be smaller than the industrial society that was fast disappearing; hence a constant expansion of the numbers of people who were no longer needed. This surplus population of a revived capitalism on the move looked helplessly and uncomprehendingly at the transformation of the tax state into a debt state...as a result of which they found themselves worse and worse off. [7] [My link to a new (to me), very useful concept. See illustrations of this in Eva Bartlett's article in the adjacent post.]

A Personal Reply to the Fact-Challenged Smears of Terrorist-Whitewashing Channel 4, Snopes and La Presse

Click here to access article by Eva Bartlett from In Gaza. (Note: Bartlett refers to Polish-Canadian journalist Agnès Gruda employed by the Canadian newspaper La Presse located in Montreal.)

Bartlett illustrates many examples of post-factual politics that Streeck described in the adjacent post that features prominently in the US-led Empire's political strategy.

How about the “fact checkers” and apologists look into why the White Helmets recycled an image claiming to show a victim of “Russian airstrikes” after having previously used the same image before Russia even began bombing ISIS in Syria.

Friday, January 19, 2018

Rep. Gabbard Speaks Truth to Power about the Real Reason North Korea has Nukes

In this post I am departing from usual practice of posting articles from the web and offering my commentary.

I received an email from Dave Ratcliffe of ratical.org alerting me to Dave Lindorff's post which includes Lindorff's comments on an interview (transcript included in the post) with Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii) conducted by George Stephanopolos and broadcast on ABC News. Below I am quoting Ratcliffe's email introduction to this post. So, I advise you to read the Dave Lindorff's post first, and then read Ratcliffe's emailed introduction as follows:

The following highlights the straight-jacket thinking enveloping virtually all national legislators - including the incisive and straight-talking Representative from Hawaii. In the January 14 ABC News transcript at the bottom of this message, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard states clearly, "we've got to understand North Korea is holding on to these nuclear weapons because they think it is their only protection from the United States coming in and doing to them what the United States has done to so many countries throughout history." After then being asked, "Was it a mistake for the United States to take out Gaddafi and Hussein?" Gabbard responds, "It was. Absolutely." How clearly does any Federal legislator ever address head-on what Ms. Gabbard does here? And yet, in contrast to this, earlier in the transcript, Gabbard states, "We absolutely need to bolster our ballistic missile defense system, specifically for Hawaii and for this country." The fantasy of pursuing so-called missile defense capabilities serves to increase the risk of war by promoting a chimerical will-o'-the-wisp shield from that which cannot be protected against. (The Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space provides a diverse archive of Useful Links on Missile 'Defense'.) The supreme necessity is to exercise our inborn intelligence and common sense to critique and assess what is presented by media, academicians, and state actors, and decide for ourselves what is down-to-earth and what we spend our energy and time engaged in.

The End Of The Road For Capitalism Or For Us All? (a "best post")

Click here to access article by William Bowles posted on Dandelion Salad. (Again, I must thank my online friend and supporter, Christopher of northwest Oregon, for alerting me to this fine article.)

My god! I share so much of Bowles' perceptions about how British socialists were so fooled in the post-WWII years by the master class of capitalists, his anxiety about the tenuous condition of human existence, and his urgent plea for activists to get informed and off their asses and do something about it!

I opened this essay with Engels’ prophetic quote, written 135 YEARS AGO would you believe! And unless we, the people call a halt to industrial capitalism now, and I mean right now, we are doomed as a species and we have also doomed our amazingly beautiful planet that took Nature billions of years to evolve in an intricate dance of physical, chemical and biological relationships.

I have only very minor disagreements with some of his statements which I would mostly characterize as quibbling. Some examples: In the above quote he uses the expression "industrial capitalism". Capitalism as it exists today is a mixture of both financial and industrial capitalism. So, why use any adjective in front of "capitalism"?! Then he states that our planet is also doomed due to human activity. No! The planet will continue on. It is only a planet that can support humans and some other species that will end.

Will the Mainstream Media EVER Talk About Economic Issues?

Click here to access article by Ghada Chehade from Ghada's Soapbox (Canada). (I'm sorry for this belated post, but I only discovered it this morning.)

Everywhere I looked, people of different races and ethnicities were getting along, and gasp, even helping one another out. While I am aware that there is racial tension in the US, it was not overwhelmingly apparent, at least not on the surface (and I say this as a brown person).

This Canadian visitor of Palestinian descent writes of her recent visit to New York City. She noticed how little coverage in mainstream media compared to the reality she experienced during her visit. She uses this experience to illustrate how she has been deceived by mainstream media to distract attention from the real issues facing most Americans.

What was undeniably palpable, however, is something the MSM never talks about: the massive economic disparity in cities like NYC. If there is a glaring and unavoidable tension, it is between the classes not the races. Yes, “class,” that five letter word that no one in the west is willing to address. Everywhere I went in NYC, class was painfully apparent. The gap between the haves and have-nots was wide and oppressive.

Although she didn't make an explicit inference or argument that mainstream media is a major function of the capitalist ruling class to hide their crimes and to distract people from the issues and problems that they are really facing day-to-day, her experience clearly illustrates this insight. Therefore, the answer to the question she posed in the headline is "never", or never as long as capitalism exists ... because mainstream media is "owned" by the ruling class, and its function is to distract and hide the ruling class's self-serving power to commit their crimes of extreme inequality (tiny islands of extreme wealth among oceans of extreme poverty) as well as the many wars the US Empire has been engaged in. Our ruling masters depend on people being ignorant of reality, and the function of mainstream media and all their institutions, including entertainment and education, are designed to maintain this ignorance.

While visiting this post, I discovered an excellent explanation of another topic of our ignorance that our masters have so successfully hidden form our view--it's about money. This I will deal with in a separate post that one conscientious person listed in a comment to this article. This, too, is an illustration of how we can, if we collaborate, pierce the many veils of secrecy, deception, and distraction that our masters create to keep us ignorant.

THE AMERICAN DREAM - how debt slavery is killing us

Click here if you wish to directly access this 29:54m video from YouTube.

I found this video to be an excellent post in cartoon form which explains the hidden scams that our masters use to accumulate their wealth and power by using deceptions about money. The nearly 30 minute video is a must view for anyone interested in exposing another deception about such an important source of many of the difficulties we are facing.

It is necessarily rough because this video attempts in 30 minutes to explain how our present money system has developed over the last 10,000 years. It appears to me that many people are becoming aware of parts of this phenomenon, but don't understand all of it and how it plays into our present difficulties with gross inequality and endless wars. I certainly don't, but I am trying, and with your help we may succeed, and continue on by creating an economic and financial system that can live in harmony with nature and serve all of the people.

Many people think that getting rid of the Fed and having the government issue money will solve all our problems. I'm convinced that this isn't true. Although private control of money preceded capitalism, I think that this privatization of money issuance along with all the other private controls of our economy is built into the capitalist system so systematically that we must replace them both if we are to survive.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Gallup: Americans Distrust News Media — Especially Online

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from The Greanville Post. (I thank my online friend and supporter, Christopher in northwest Oregon, for alerting me to this article. I wish others of my longtime and loyal followers would do the same, or at least post comments to my posts and commentaries.)

Gallup’s latest finding in America is thus showing the U.S. portion of what is, actually, a global problem, which extends beyond merely the media, and beyond merely the United States. The super-rich keep getting richer and richer, while the rest of the population either stays the same or else gets even poorer and angrier than they were before. Increasingly, around the world, publics are coming to see the ‘news’ as being shaped by the owners of, and advertisers in, the ‘news’media.

Although Zuesse ends up on a positive view of this Gallup report, positive to those who are aware that an information attack is ongoing by the capitalist class against ordinary people, I am not so impressed. The first finding that discouraged me was this from the report.

Remarkably, the partisan breakdown of the 69% who thought this to be “a major problem” isn’t what one would expect if one equates “Republicans” with “conservatives,” and Democrats with non-“conservatives”: whereas 76% of Republicans said “major problem” here, only 61% of Democrats did. (72% of Independents did.) Republicans dissented from capitalism, on this question, even more than did Democrats. On this crucial issue, Republicans are more progressive than Democrats are; Democrats are the most conservative (and pro-capitalist) of the three groups.

Likewise, I was not encouraged by this finding:

Distrust of the news media has soared in recent decades; so that, whereas “In 1989, 25% of U.S. adults said there was a great deal of political bias in news coverage; now, 45% do.”

Our ruling masters in the capitalist classes have many ways to infiltrate our minds with their self-serving propaganda and/or distract us from the real issues. They have fallback methods that they employ if their management of news and information fails. This is readily apparent in the explosion of online alt-right and alt-lite websites stirring up conflicts among various segments of the population and inciting hatred towards each other. This can be seen as a counterpart to the more direct violence that has been created by them directed at various nations known as the Salvador Syndrome or chaos strategy. Then if all else fails, they are increasingly moving toward censorship of websites. Our capitalist masters can track success by using their well established methods of 24/7 surveillance of the internet including collaborating social websites.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

From the dream to a nightmare

Click here to access article by Patrick Nielsen from Socialist Review (Britain).

Many writers have been trying to explain why the Russian Revolution of 1917 ultimately failed to create a workers' run society, instead it devolved into rule by a bureaucratic class headed by a paranoid dictator. Bourgeois writers, of course, argue that it was fated to be this way.

The argument goes: “Look what happened in Russia. Doesn’t Stalin’s rise show how revolution, however well-intentioned people are, always ends in a despotic leader and tyrannical rule?” In other words, they argue that there is a straight line from the October Revolution to the Stalinist regime of more than a decade later.

Nielsen injects his own explanation partly favoring the Bolsheviks' valid argument that a militant international worker's organization was required to thwart attempts by capitalists in all the advanced industrial countries who would have of necessity back numerous attempt to crush this worker's revolution. However, Nielsen resorts to the old capitalist argument that leadership is required to bring about success, and that Bolsheviks' failure was caused by a lack of leadership.

For a brief period it looked like the Russian workers would be joined by the European proletariat. However, one by one these struggles were beaten. What was lacking was not the Europe-wide crisis, nor the willingness of workers to fight, but revolutionary leadership armed with political clarity and organisational experience which could lead the mass of workers in the way that the Bolsheviks had done in Russia. It was a weakness the Bolsheviks recognised and laboured to overcome. Though they didn’t succeed, this doesn’t mean it was a struggle that was doomed from the start, as modern day critics from both right and left argue.

I think that we should recognize that "good guys" don't always win (even with good leadership), and instead recognize the reality that numerous conditions, like famine, disease epidemics, the horrific WWI causalities, backing of Russian counter-revolutionary armies by capitalist countries, and the invasions of numerous capitalist countries after the end of WWI, all took a tremendous toll on the Bolsheviks and resulted in the Stalinist faction taking control.

In the 1930s the Western capitalist countries supported the rise of fascist parties all over Europe which led to the rise of Nazi Germany and its long-held plans to conquer the Soviet Union. Because the Soviet bureaucratic central planning enabled the economy to grow at a great pace plus the Soviet citizens' awareness that the Nazi's racist-fascist victory would turn the Soviet Union into a colony of Germany and its citizens into slaves, the Soviet Union was able, with a little belated help from the West, to break the back of the German armies.

How does Trump survive? He pays off the ruling class

Click here to access article by Fred Goldstein from Workers World.

True to his essentially fascist character, Trump respects power and has aligned most of is policies to serve the interests of the real holders of power--the capitalist ruling class. In spite of Trump's cloddish behavior, the ruling class will milk this appeasing character trait for all its worth until the time is ripe to replace him.

As long as Trump is in the presidency, the bankers and bosses are going to get much of their way with respect to profits, business, money. Under the various Democratic and Republican administrations, they have been chipping away at public land and coastline, at bank regulations, at environmental regulations, etc. But now they are enjoying unusually expanded freedom to plunder the land and the sea. They are exulting in the cuts on corporate taxes, from 35 percent to 21 percent, and billions from other cuts. Whatever Trump’s shortcomings, they can overlook them for now, because the billionaires don’t want the gravy train to stop.

Tuesday, January 16, 2018

The Daniel Ellsberg Story You Won’t See in ‘The Post’

Click here to access an interview with Daniel Ellsberg in a podcast with transcript that is posted on WhoWhatWhy.

Ellsberg addresses the vital need for an upgrade of the chaotic system in place that, based on his earlier experience, likely gives wide authority for many commanders to start a nuclear war. He also addresses all the overwhelming and devastating consequences of such a war for our species. It won't be entertaining like Star Trek and Star Wars. A most fascinating interview.

Monday, January 15, 2018

This is what too often passes as "alternative media" in the USA: "Fake News: WASHINGTON POST Evades Martin Luther King’s Communist Links"

by Ron Horn

I was fascinated by the article, posted in a self-proclaimed "alternative media", which attempts to tarnish the image and memory of one of our greatest leaders, Martin Luther King, Jr., with FBI surveillance reports of his links to Communists and his scandalous sexual behavior.

With examples of alternative media postings like this, we don't need the Washington Post, NY Times, etc. Apparently the editor of The Unz Review wasn't satisfied with MLK's assassination, Ron Unz wants his memory smeared with Communist associates and sexual escapades--all this within a framework of attacking mainstream media!

Rosa Luxemburg – Reform or Revolution

Click here to access article by Alan Woods and Niklas Albin Svensson from In Defense of Marxism.

In the early 20th century Luxemburg was another leader of the people against the ruling capitalist classes that ruled over the most powerful nations. As such, she also had to be eliminated by assassination by the criminal gang of capitalists. However, before she was assassinated, she wrote many articles and books which are still relevant today. Reform or Revolution (1899) is probably at the top of this list.

Reformist liberals have always posed threats to revolutionary organizations. We still have many such people among us today arguing that we should not take on the capitalist system because it reflects human nature (or any number of other reasons), but we should seek reforms of the system that people can live with. After devastating two world wars, a long dangerous Cold War, many mini-wars, tiny islands of wealth among oceans of poverty, the looming prospect of climate destabilization, her arguments in Reform and Revolution are as relevant today as they were over 100 years ago.

What we learned about the climate system in 2017 that should send shivers down the spines of policy makers

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

Much of what happened in 2017 was predictable: news of climate extremes became, how can I put it … almost the norm. There was record-breaking heat on several continents, California’s biggest wildfire (extraordinarily in the middle of winter), an ex-tropical cyclone hitting Ireland (yes, Ireland) in October, and the unprecedented Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria that swept through the Atlantic in August. The US government agency, the NOAA, reported that there were 16 catastrophic billion-dollar weather/climate events in the USA during 2017.

And 2017 “marks the first time some of the (scientific) papers concluded that an event could not have occurred — like, at all — in a world where global warming did not exist.

We Need a Martin Luther King Day of Truth

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

Curtin provides a fitting remembrance of MLK on this special day which is ignored by most American businesses. He begins his article with this profound insight:

As Martin Luther King’s birthday is celebrated with a national holiday, his death day disappears down the memory hole. Across the country – in response to the King Holiday and Service Act passed by Congress and signed by Bill Clinton in 1994 – people will be encouraged to make the day one of service. Such service does not include King’s commitment to protest a decadent system of racial and economic injustice or non-violently resist the U.S. warfare state that he called “the greatest purveyor of violence on earth.”

Government sponsored service is cultural neo-liberalism at its finest, the promotion of individualism at the expense of a mass movement for radical institutional change.

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous,” warned Dr. King, “than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

I think a MLK Day of Truth would be too much for most Americans, who have been raised on patriotic myths, to handle. It would mean that most Americans would be required to reconcile these myths with the reality that we live under a psychopathic criminal gang of liars, thieves, and murderers. So, let us not fantasize about days of truth, because there won't be any. Let us, that is, those of us who unflinchingly can face the truth, plan and organize to rid ourselves of this nightmarish capitalist scourge upon the planet and its humans.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

One Hundred Years Ago: The Bolsheviks Seized Power, but Could They Hold It?

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

Canadian Professor Carley describes the conundrum posed by the new Soviet government to the allies in WWI. While Lenin and Trotsky tried to seek a general armistice among civilians across Europe, allied ruling class leaders were thrown into confusion about how to deal with the new Soviet government.

Lenin’s idea was to mobilise European public opinion against the war and provide propaganda for militants in the west who wanted to make their own October Revolutions. As Trotsky made clear, the Soviet government desired a general, not a separate peace, so soldiers in Europe could turn their bayonets against their own bourgeois elites.

At a meeting in Paris at the beginning of December (new style), the Entente powers could not agree on a collective reply to Trotsky’s call for an armistice on all fronts. Once anyone started to talk peace, the Italian foreign minister noted, French and Italian soldiers would refuse to take up arms again. Prime Minister David Lloyd George feared “a rot would set in” over continuing the war. The Bolsheviks were counting on just that. It was not an unrealistic calculation: even Allied leaders feared popular anti-war opposition. A general armistice was therefore out of the question. The Allies agreed to stop shipping supplies to Russia and to start generous funding of “pro-Allied propaganda” hoping an acceptable Russian government would replace the Soviets.

CIA and the Assassination of Leaders Overseas

Click here to access article by Vladimir Platov from New Eastern Outlook.

Although I couldn't find any information about Platov, he clearly knows about what he writes. I already knew much of his history of US assassinations, but with Cornelius Rhoades I was stumped. I did a little research, and sure enough, Rhoades was as Platov described him. Of course, US media corporations, whose mission is to protect the US capitalist ruling class, omits much of this history; and when they do write about it, they downplay and obscure the significance of such incidents. Thus, it seems as though the vast majority of Americans continue to believe that we live in the "land of the free and the home of the brave", and our government (and especially its military) has a right to act as an "indispensable nation" to protect the human rights of people all over the world. The reality is that the USA functioned much like organized crime as they constructed their new empire out of the detritus of the old capitalist European ruling classes following the devastation of WWII.

The history of the US Central Intelligence Agency is replete with numerous examples of political assassinations, not only in the US, but also of leaders of countries Washington disagrees with. So today, the CIA has actively begun developing various methods for the deliberate elimination of the US’s newest political opponent, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, involving not only special forces in this task, but also the special services of countries that cooperate closely with the CIA.

The CIA, along with numerous other clandestine government agencies, was a key feature of the post-WWII launching of the US Empire. Such agencies, which were unaccountable to the public, were assigned to combat the influences of any movement or leaders that interfered with the sanctity of private property and the prerogatives of capitalists who "owned" and controlled economic property: mainly the US capitalist class and other capitalists who joined them in the plunder of wealth created by working people all over the world. Assassination of leaders was the ultimate weapon in the arsenal of weapons that was used. Other weapons were also used: disinformation spread by media corporations, infiltrating their agents into working class organizations to sow discord and distrust, false-flag operations designed to cast blame on working class organizations, paying criminal gangs to beat up workers, etc. (See this, this, this, this, and this.)

Friday, January 12, 2018

Thursday, January 11, 2018

In Almost All Western Colonies No Alternative Views Allowed, Victims Blame Themselves

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

World traveler and passionate humanist Vltchek reports on what life is really like in many areas of the world that are not reported in any Western media. Thus, to many Westerners the plight of many of the world's people, which is due to the plundering system of capitalism led by the US Empire, go unrecognized and unknown because of the censorship of Western media corporations.

The West is manufacturing simplistic, uniformed and one-sided ‘pseudo reality’ for all of its colonies and client states. It is one-type-fits-all sort of ‘pseudo reality’, intended to sustain collaborators and their regimes and to make the voices of people who are tormented, completely irrelevant. In fact, those who are robbed of everything are not supposed to even realize that they are being bled.

Wednesday, January 10, 2018

The Empire’s “Lefty Intellectuals” Call for Regime Change. The Role of “Progressives” and the Antiwar Movement

Click here to access article by Michel Chossudovsky from Global Research (based in Canada). (Edited for greater clarity at 8:42 AM Seattle time on 1/12/2018.)

The genius of the current ruling capitalist classes, especially the US class since WWII, has been so successfully demonstrated with their record of co-opting dissident organizations and people, the use of deceptive propaganda to hide their crimes of war, and the comprehensive control of the culture through their control of every institution of indoctrination. You might call this "full spectrum dominance" of the minds of citizens. In this article Chossudovsky only focuses on one part of this domination by looking at the co-opting of many prominent intellectual dissidents such as Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali. His insight demonstrates the truth of what people, such as Upton Sinclair, have known for many years: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it".

By co-opting prominent intellectuals, he essentially argues that the ruling class directors have killed the anti-war movement. That this movement has been killed is an obvious fact, but I don't think that it was caused only by this effort. Again, I would like to stress the comprehensive nature of the capitalist ruling class control of ideas and beliefs. As I have argued in the past, the ongoing promotion of futuristic wars as featured in films and TV (Star Trek, Star Wars, etc), entertaining comedic effect of TV series like Mash for which the setting was the Korean War, the profusion of computer games about physical conflict and war: all have had their influence of crushing the anti-war movement that arose prior to 9/11. The latter false-flag event has had a decisive influence on the promotion of war among the general population in the US and other capitalist countries aligned with the US Empire. And this is only a partial list of influences.

Nevertheless, this article is an important contribution to our understanding of one part of this cultural "full spectrum dominance". He concludes by stating the obvious:

An antiwar movement funded by major corporate foundations is the cause rather than the solution. A coherent antiwar movement cannot be funded by warmongers.

What is required is the development of a broad based grassroots network which seeks to disable patterns of authority and decision-making pertaining to war.

This network would be established at all levels in society, towns and villages, work places, parishes. Trade unions, farmers organizations, professional associations, business associations, student unions, veterans associations, church groups would be called upon to integrate the antiwar organizational structure. Of crucial importance, this movement should extend into the Armed Forces as a means to breaking the legitimacy of war among service men and women.

The first task would be to disable war propaganda through an effective campaign against media disinformation.

What is vitally needed are concrete proposals and discussion of these proposals, and I don't see this happening. For example, I have proposed a scheme to organize a grass roots independent media organization that I felt has real potential for an ultimate revolutionary movement to overthrow the rule of our oppressors--the capitalist class. Subsequently, I have seen no evidence that this proposal gained any traction among anybody. After all, isn't it obvious that we need "an effective campaign against media disinformation"? And I am convinced that such a movement would inevitably end up being a revolutionary movement to free us from capitalist rule. Although I have seen some collaboration among alternative media outlets, mostly they continue to compete with each other for funding and support of dissidents.

This is another manifestation of the success of capitalist indoctrination: the overwhelming influence of individualist ethics of capitalism on dissidents and alternative media people against the social ethics of socialism, a class-free rule of, by, and for the people. The comprehensive nature of this indoctrination and 24/7 propaganda have effectively defeated such an obvious proposal. Thus, I fear that Americans and others are being led like sheep into the slaughterhouse of some type of Domesday scenario.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

USA: A Different Strategy For A Different Ambition

Click here to access article by Christopher Black, a Canadian international criminal lawyer, from New Eastern Outlook.

During the first part of this article Black comments on his reading of the latest United States National Security Strategy released by President Trump in December 2017.

There once was a time when working people were on the move, had confidence in themselves, created their own leaders, their own heroes and heroines, their own philosophy, their own ideas of democracy, of society, of their conditions and how to overturn the old brutality of the capitalist system and establish new conditions favourable to us. But failures and betrayals have sapped the energy, weakened the will, created confusions and illusions, turned sister against brother, wounded the solidarity of our class, and pitted people against people in war after war solely to advance the quest for profit. ....

But all is not lost and rise we will again. The countries and peoples that resist are the proof before us that the omnipotence of the empire is illusory as all empires, based on power and fear, are. The resurgence of working class parties and movements is a fact. Things are happening. If we can find our way out of the maze they have created around us by dividing us into a thousand self interests, special interests, “identity” interests, gender interests, dividing us by religion, skin colour, accent, level of pay, nationality and ethnicity, and all the other things they use to get us opposed to each other, if we can make working people comprehend their own power once united, to see that anyone who works for a living is the brother and sister of all others who must do the same, then the resistance moves to a more concrete level.

Then in the 2nd half he, as a lawyer, examines the UN founding principles to compare with the US Empire's actions and finds that "the USA has been in persistent violation of the principles of the Charter since 1945..." and could be expelled from the UN. Black doesn't understand that the legal structure has been erected under capitalist rule, and as such it, like all other institutions, has been constructed by, and support of, capitalist rule. When laws are ignored--and they often are--they are used simply as legitimizing propaganda, or "putting lipstick on a capitalist pig". (This is what the Bill of Rights section of the US Constitution was designed to do.) Therefore, as a lawyer he can complain all he wants, but as long as capitalism exists, which only serves a tiny minority, we will continue to have war crimes, violations of UN laws, and a frightening devolution into the likelihood of a nuclear war conflagration and a slow development of climate destabilization that either or both will lead to our extinction. The only real solution is revolution.

Monday, January 8, 2018

Living Through the Catastrophe

Click here to access article by Jerome Roos from ROAR Magazine online.

This is the first article of the 7th issue of the magazine, and authored by the founding editor of ROAR Magazine which was formerly known as Reflections on a Revolution before Roos and associates sold it to a foundation. I have been very critical of Roos and associates--see this and this (along with David Graeber at other websites)--for running a series of articles on their former website which featured prominently the influence of Murray Bookchin, an American radical, on the Syrian Kurds. The clear implication was that this group was spearheading a very progressive agenda in Syria, but not the reality of collaboration with the US to undermine the Syrian government. However, I believe with this issue of the magazine entitled "System Change" that they are on much more solid ground in dealing with the ecological disasters awaiting us under capitalism.

After reading this first article of the 7th issue of the magazine, you may be interested in reading many of the other articles. Roos sums up his article with this insight:

Against these neoliberal delusions, we must stand firm and insist: the real catastrophe is capitalism, and the only acceptable outcome system change, not climate change. As unrealistic as this may seem from the dominant perspective of capitalist realism, the future of our species — and that of countless others — now depends on it.

Are Long-Term US Regime Change Efforts Behind Iran Protests?

Click here to access article by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers from Popular Resistance. (Note: This is a transcript of their podcast.)

We talked to Mostafa Afzalzadeh from Tehran about what the current protests in Iran are about and where they are going. Mostafa has been an independent journalist in Iran for 15 years and a documentary filmmaker. One of his documentaries is Manufacturing Dissent, about the US, UK and their western and Gulf State allies that launched a covert war in Syria in early 2011, dressed up by the media as a “revolution,” to remove Assad from power and the role of western media in creating support for the war.

Mostafa said the US has been trying to change the Iranian government since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

“An Idiot Surrounded by Clowns”: Why Trump (Still) Sits in the White House

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch.

I especially love his historically accurate final paragraph:

Now the U.S. and the world are saddled with a juvenile, stupid, pathologically narcissist POTUS who poses grave environmental and thermonuclear dangers to humanity. Thanks to the absurdly deified Constitution bequeathed to us by wealthy and anti-democratic aristo-republican slaveowners and merchant capitalists 228 years ago, it is hard to imagine him being removed from office except by death or (further) disability prior to January 20^th, 2021. We continue to be screwed by the Founding Fathers. Hold on to your powdered wig.

However, in spite of their ongoing attacks against Trump I think that the ruling capitalist class is not going to remove him from office because of two reasons: 1) they want to punish the American people for voting the "wrong way", and 2) with their attacks on Trump they have turned him into a useful right-wing idiot to pursue agendas that they wouldn't dare to promote with a Democratic Party puppet in office.

The Anti-Empire Report #154: Happy New Year

Click here to access article by William Blum from his website.

Blum attempts to allay our fears and sorrows with this excellent piece of satire. After all, isn't it true that it is better to laugh than to cry over a situation that at times seems overwhelming. He begins the satire with predictions like this:

2018 is going to be a fun fun year. And to better prepare yourself for all the merrymaking here is a calendar of some of the more delightful things to look forward to.

February 16: The United States bans entry to the country of all people except white Christian and Jewish citizens of Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Israel.

February 18: Congress passes a law that requires all new citizens to submit an essay – in excellent English – about how brilliant Donald J. Trump is, how devoted they are to him, what a huge success he’s been, how he’s going to make America great again, and how modest a man he is.

Friday, January 5, 2018

The CIA's 60-Year History of Fake News: How the Deep State Corrupted Many American Writers

Click here to access article by Robert Scheer from AlterNet.

In this article Scheer, currently a professor at University of Southern California, interviews writer Joel Whitney who has written a new book entitled Finks: How the C.I.A. Tricked the World’s Best Writers. In addition to how the CIA used many prominent liberal intellectuals and authors as conduits for CIA's anti-communist propaganda, "Scheer and Whitney discuss these manipulations and how the CIA controlled major news agencies and respected literary publications (such as the Paris Review)."

My argument is that this history, though accurate, suffers from limitations of a liberal bias that particularly Scheer, who is much older than Whitney, expresses as he essentially shames those intellectuals, many of whom he knew personally, for collaborating with the CIA (a product of the ruling capitalist class). And in one point of the interview I can't help wondering if Scheer himself would not have succumbed also to the inducements of CIA money as he told about his befriending Nelson Aldrich, Jr., a member of America's old, rich, and powerful families and member of the ruling class. He admits trying to get money out of Aldrich.

Had Scheer and Whitney in their early careers of teaching and writing had written any material that exposed the ruling class attempts after WWII to roll-back all the reformist social benefits of FDR's administrations, both of them would not be enjoying their solid careers. (FDR and his administrations tried and succeeded to ameliorate the worst effects of the Great Depression and stave off the pressures from a growing radical movement, and thus saved capitalism.) Because these two, especially Scheer, in their careers were careful to never cross ideological red lines, they enjoy the approval of ruling class institutions and the money and respectable careers that goes with this approval. Whether consciously or not they both have succumbed to the rewards of adhering to acceptable ideological limits. So, are they not like those figures who shamefully collaborated with the CIA earlier in US history, when the political climate of the McCarthy period (and its aftermath) was more acceptable, simply because it is now safe to expose this mini history?

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Behind Korea, Iran & Russia Tensions: The Lurking Financial War

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Although this article is not for the financially challenged, it offers well thought out and well developed, arguments that slowly and carefully lead to the final, and in my opinion, two crucially important questions:

So the bigger question, if Trump does pursue an economic ‘containment of China’ strategy – and China and allies respond – is what will be the effect on ‘risk free’ US Treasury values in the wake of a major segment of the global economy going its own way? And what too, will be the ability of the US government then to finance its debt at its current, and growing, levels? Matters to ponder, perhaps. [my crossed-out word]

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Posts recommended regarding the Iranian protests/riots on 1/2/2018

Iran - Protests Decrease - Riots Increase - U.S. Prepares The Next Phase by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama.

Hypocrisy writ large: US Empire Is Running The Same Script With Iran That It Ran With Libya, Syria by Caitlin Johnstone from The Greanville Post.

And for balance, I recommend:

Revolutionary ferment in the depths of Iranian society by Hamid Alizadeh from In Defense of Marxism (Britain). I only found this about the author.

Ellsberg’s The Doomsday Machine: The Madness of America’s Nuclear Weapons

Click here to access article by retired lieutenant colonel William J. Astore from AntiWar.com. (Material added at 1;36 PM Seattle time.)

The author, based on his reading of a new book by Daniel Ellsberg, makes solid arguments that the US ruling class leaders are insane by promoting a policy that was formulated in the Obama administration to upgrade nuclear weapons at a cost of $1.2 trillion dollars over the next 30 years (according to the Congressional Budget Office). After using atomic bombs on two civilian cities in Japan during WWII, our masters have continued using nuclear weapons as threats against those nations that it sees as competitors or that might interfere with their imperial plans.

Our ruling capitalist class are now so thoroughly addicted to the drugs of power and profits that they are prepared to destroy the world if they can't obtain their drugs. Meanwhile back at the imperial ranch, our masters have been indoctrinating citizens to believe that war is very entertaining. Beginning in 1966 (probably in an effort to suppress the growing anti-Vietnam War movement) their culture executives began a non-stop series of movies and TV series featuring inter-galactic wars and exotic weapons as seen in Star Trek, war as comedy in MASH movie/TV series, more exotic weapons in Star Wars, and now in the 21st century the abundance of war games on many electronic devices. Yes, war, even a nuclear war, has been sold to the gullible American public as merely entertainment. Hence, the disappearance of an effective anti-war movement.

Weapons of war are very profitable for our "merchants of death", and under our fascist rule (government + corporations = fascism) the government participates (in sharp contrast to the 1930s) in the promotion of weapons as described in the article entitled "The ‘Merchants of Death’ Survive and Prosper" from the same website.

Sunday, December 31, 2017

Whatever Happened to Investigative Journalists?

Click here to access article by Frances T. Shure from AE911Truth (Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth).

This very lengthy article is Part 21 of her long series of articles. Throughout her article she lists numerous instances of lies told by government officials and media corporations, and in the background she always poses the question, "Whatever Happened to Investigative Journalists?" Later in the article she gives some very good answers to this question.

However, missing from her tome is a more profound class analysis, and thus it ends up being quite naive politically. But this lack of understanding of the important role of class in determining history is common throughout American society. The capitalist ruling class has been extremely successful through their control of all institutions to censor any thought of class as a political factor. Thus, she believes that the government has been corrupted along with corporate media, and naively believes that the solution is to get rid of the corruption by investigating and exposing it!!!

At one point she comes close to the truth by writing, "To question the official 9/11 story is simply and fundamentally revolutionary", but in the next sentence she negates this insight by writing "questioning the official story is also simply and fundamentally American." Her entire article doesn't support this last statement. Yes, to question the 9/11 story and so many other stories (lies) would be to reach the conclusion that we must prepare for a revolution. That she can't handle, and that is so true of most Americans. Yet, without a revolution, we are doomed to extinction either through a nuclear war conflagration or ultimately by climate destabilization.

New Year's Message and Warning from a War Correspondent

Click here to access article by Andre Vltchek from Countercurrents.org. (Edited for clarity at 11:59 AM Seattle time.)

Vltchek has demonstrated what a real journalist does in reporting the truth, as he sees it, in his/her travels to the most war-torn areas of the world. Also, I think he has stumbled upon what is so vitally needed to overcome the forces of greed and cruelty spawned (def.#3) by the anti-human system of capitalism which sets one tiny class over the entire world's humans. He complains about the lack of support in 2015 he received from readers while suffering from exhaustion.

You and your determined work may save several villages, or if you are very good, you could make a difference on a global scale. Your writing or your films may help to stop a war. But never expect any official recognition, any practical backing or even mercy from your readers. In 2015, after making several films and writing books about several particularly horrid war zones, mostly in Africa, I totally collapsed. For several weeks, I was not able to move. I thought it was the end. There was no help at all coming from those millions of my readers living in all parts of the world. At that time I made my condition public. Still, nothing. Few letters of ‘moral support’ arrived. Few: “Be strong, the world needs you!” In the end, it was my close family circle that literally pampered and rescued me and put me back to my feet and into fighting order.

This is not a reproach, just a warning to those who are getting ready to fight for the survival of humanity: “You will be totally on your own. You will most definitely collapse on several occasions.”

What is totally lacking is an organized effort to support journalists such as Vltchek. We who see the ongoing destruction of both humans and the environment caused by capitalist rule must become aware that it will take something more than family support to confront this evil monster of capitalism. Remember capitalism puts families as the primary social unit of capitalism. This was so succinctly expressed by that British servant of capitalism, Margaret Thatcher:

...you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours.

However, she omits (and therefore lies) that these rich families are united and highly organized under capitalist class rule.

I simply don't understand why it is so difficult for activists to realize that some greater scale of organization is needed to break the power of capitalists than the family unit. Yet, Vltchek expected greater support for his work from readers when he suffered from exhaustion in 2015 when there wasn't any organization to support him. We on the left have not moved one iota from family support to build larger organizations with clout to defend ourselves from "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" inflicted upon us by this tiny class of capitalists. How can we expect anything different than exhaustion, defeat, and more misery!!!?

We must put social back into the effort of building socialism. We must think in different terms than what we were raised with. We must be conscious of our indoctrination under capitalist rule and create another consciousness--or else we will perish.

Saturday, December 30, 2017

Thursday, December 28, 2017

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

The Holberg Debate 2017: "Propaganda, Facts and Fake News" with J. Assange, J. Pilger & J. Heawood

Click here to access a 2:40:40 video featuring the moderator asking each of these participants, Julian Assange, Jonathan Heawood, and John Pilger, a series of questions. (I am updating this post as I listen to this video. Please skip the second speaker. My reaction was that he is a fake speaker and a fake human. I'm looking forward to Pilger because I know he is so very human. 1:49 PM: Yes, Pilger was wonderful as he reviewed the record of Western journalism during the past 60 years. The record was one of fake or omitted news we have received--or not--up until the present, and most of it related to major war crimes. Updated again at 2:32 PM Seattle time after listening to all of it.)

At the 2017 Holberg Debate, Julian Assange, John Pilger and Jonathan Heawood discussed the presence of propaganda in news and social media, and its democratic implications.

The event took place at the University of Bergen, Norway, on December 2nd, 2017.

What really piqued (def.#3) my interest listening to Assange was when the moderator got on the topic of artificial intelligence (at 45:40m) in the context of the information war (the crafting of news and information to get people to believe and do things that would promote capitalist ruling class interests, and likewise, not believe and do things that might interfere with ruling class interests). At this point Julian Assange made this rather startling statement in reference to artificial intelligence: "...it's overwhelmingly the biggest threat to humanity as much as...a much bigger threat than climate change." His following remarks elaborated on this statement which I found most interesting and insightful.

Here are the brief show notes:

About 00:11:00 Julian Assange; About 00:56:00 Questions for Julian Assange; About 01:19:00 Jonathan Heawood; About 01:43:00 John Pilger; About 02:17:11 Las Q&A Session.

I rarely post videos or article of this length; but because this topic is so important, I decided to post it. I recommend listen to Assange's response to a question posed by the moderator at 45:40m regarding artificial intelligence, skip the second speaker, and listen to Pilger's entire address.

About the speakers:

Julian Assange joins the panel via videolink. Assange is an award-winning journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. He is also a programmer, cryptographer, author and activist. Founded in 2006, WikiLeaks has published millions of leaked documents and several videos. This includes logs that relate to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the controversial “Collateral Murder” video from Iraq, U.S. diplomatic cables, and election campaign related e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta.

Jonathan Heawood is the CEO and founder of IMPRESS, the only press regulator to be recognised as independent and effective under the Royal Charter in the United Kingdom. He has previously worked as a journalist and human rights campaigner, and he is a former director of English PEN. Heawood has written on free speech and regulation for various publications, including The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, Critical Quarterly, Journal of Media Law, Ethical Space and Communications Law.

John Pilger is an Australian journalist, author and documentary film-maker. Pilger has covered military, political and cultural conflicts around the world for more than five decades, and his criticism of American, Australian and British foreign policy is strongly reflected his documentaries and writings. He worked at the Daily Mirror from 1963 to 1986 and wrote a regular column for the New Statesman magazine from 1991 to 2014. Pilger has won numerous awards as a journalist and film-maker, and he is one of only two people to win British journalism’s highest award twice.

The Holberg Debate 2017 is a collaboration between the Holberg Prize, the Fritt Ord Foundation and Norwegian PEN (Western Norway).

Who armed ISIS? A three year study provides some answers (updated commentary)

Click here to access article from Islamic Societies Review. (I have added additional content to my commentary at 10:54 PM Seattle time.)

Supplies of materiel, including advanced light weapons systems the U.S. military, from foreign parties — notably the United States and Saudi Arabia, ended up in the hands of ISIS fighters.

You may be tired of finding evidence of the US-led Empire's and their allied governments' support of ISIS in Syria in order to overthrow the government of Syria and replace it with a government that is acceptable to the Empire's ruling capitalist class. I have (including this article) 37 links to articles offering such evidence. Meanwhile, most Americans continue to believe the propaganda crafted (def.#5) in the ruling class's media corporations that omits or denies this well documented fact. What most Americans are not aware of is that the purpose of media corporations is not to inform them, but to manage their thoughts in support of ruling class interests.

What you need to know is that this fact is a prime characteristic of the new version of fascism 2.0. In contrast to the earlier German, Italian, and Japanese versions, this updated version doesn't care that you and a relatively small number of people like you know what is really going on in the world. They just need a certain (unknown) percentage of brainwashed people to maintain capitalist rule. With this arrangement they avoid the troublesome task of brutalizing people into acceptance of their rule. However, this arrangement depends on the level of security that their fascist rule enjoys. If I and other observers are correct, we can expect the decline of the power of the US Empire and the ascendance of other nations led by Russia and China. With this decline we can expect that our masters will increasingly go after people like you and me. Should we just wait for this to happen or should we take action now to prevent this from happening? And if we want to take action now, what should we do?

These are the crucial questions facing us. I don't have the answers--nobody or no one person does, but we might put our heads together and come up with some good answers.

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

‘Forces deep within US deep state’ are behind Trump’s national security strategy: Scholar

Click here to access video and transcript featuring Dennis Etler, "a former professor of Anthropology at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California" posted on PressTV (Iran). (I again thank Christopher in northwest Oregon for alerting me to this excellent post.)

The video post includes extensive quotes which are essentially a transcript of his talk starting with the section "What is the deep state?". Etler accurately describes the capitalist Deep State that is behind the curtain and in control of their puppets regardless of actors and administrations. The two political parties in the US represent a "heads I win and tails you lose" that is offered by the Deep State to ordinary Americans in their "democratic" elections.