Make-Believe America: Why the US Unemployment Rate Doesn’t Indicate Economic Recovery

Click here to access article by Paul Craig Roberts from Foreign Policy Journal. 

The former Assistant Secretary of Treasury under the Reagan administration points to another lie spread by the current capitalist ruling class.

Today the labor force participation rate is the lowest since February 1978, reversing all the gains of the Reagan years, and the Federal Reserve has used an increase in consumer debt to fill in for the missing growth in consumer income for so long that consumers have no more room to take on more debt. [my emphasis]

Roberts might be forgiven for indulging in a bit of braggadocio. As you can see, the participation rate under the Reagan administration was not much higher than it is now, and it increased under subsequent administrations. In addition, one must not forget that the government under each administration provides little employment for workers except in the military. The Reagan administration brought in the neoconservatives and the neoliberals who promoted an aggressive foreign policy and the elimination of borders that were impediments to their profits. It just took them about 15 years to implement their policies. 

This change was brought about by the ruling capitalist class, not by administrations who are the servants of the ruling class. However, Roberts does reveal another lie of this ruling class to hide their attack on American workers in pursuit of cheap labor elsewhere in the world. And he makes another good point: the fact that ordinary Americans are maxed-out in debt is a growing threat to (the capitalist organization of) the economy.

The latest false-flag attack against Russia?

These two articles point to suspicious clues that, indeed, this incident in Britain was the latest example of a false-flag incident to hoodwink people into hating Russia, supporting the armaments industry, and likely a propaganda campaign to prepare ordinary people for a war against Russia.

• The Skripal Incident-Another Anti-Russian Provocation by Christopher Black, an international criminal lawyer from Canada, posted on New Eastern Outlook.

• Poisioned British-Russian Double-Agent Has Links To Clinton Campaign by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama.

Stop Sessta and Fosta

Click here to access article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The people at this foundation are good, sincere people who naively believe that the political organs of capitalist rule serve ordinary people. They absolutely do not! However, if you have an extra $10,000 laying around, promise your Congress representatives that you will donate to his/her campaign if he/she will oppose these bills.

The CIA Democrats [Part 1]

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

According to Martin in part one of a series of three, it looks like the ruling capitalist class is packing one of its two political parties, the Democratic Party, with "intelligence" operatives and military personnel as candidates for the next House of Representatives 2018 election to insure that the US government follows their imperial agenda. Isn't (fake) "democracy" wonderful?!

The New Blacklist

Click here to access article by Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone.

Even intelligent and moral liberals like Taibbi are becoming upset over the insanity of the Russiagate events which, as he argues, are designed to "become a way of targeting all dissent".

From Trump to Bernie Sanders to Brexit to Catalonia, voter repudiation of the status quo was the story of the day. The sense of panic among political elites was palpable. The possibility that voters might decide to break up the EU, or put a Trump, Corbyn, or Sanders into power, led to a spate of "Do we have too much democracy?" essays by prominent think tankers and national press figures.

Two years later, the narrative has completely shifted. By an extraordinary coincidence, virtually all the "anti-system" movements and candidates that so terrified the political establishment two years ago have since been identified as covert or overt Russian destabilization initiatives, puppeteered from afar by the diabolical anti-Western dictator, Vladimir von Putin-Evil.

Recommended articles for 3/7/2018

• Tell Me More About How Google Isn’t Part Of The Government And Can Therefore Censor Whoever It Wants? by Caitlin Johnstone from The Greanville Post. The author explains how the ruling class does an end run around the Constitution by outsourcing much of its work to corporations. She explains how some major corporations are so integrated into the government, which constitutes fascism, that they are virtually one and the same. 

• Take a look around. This is what annexation looks like by Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man from +972 Magazine. The author describes how the Israelis are annexing the Palestinian territory one small step at a time.

The Weaponization of Social Media

Click here if you wish to access the 15:57m video (or podcast and transcript), that is provided below, directly from James Corbett's website. This is a best post.

Now openly admitted, governments and militaries around the world employ armies of keyboard warriors to spread propaganda and disrupt their online opposition. Their goal? To shape public discourse around global events in a way favourable to their standing military and geopolitical objectives. Their method? The Weaponization of Social Media. This is The Corbett Report.

In the past capitalist ruling classes initially were largely identified with nations which were under their control. Although national constitutions often used extravagant language about "democracy" and serving the people, in reality these ruling classes created governments to promote their interests and to moderate various capitalist factions that would occasionally come into conflict. These capitalists frequently adopted the corporate form that functioned largely within nations. 

However, beginning in the 1980s largely due to the developments in technology, transnational capitalists and their corporations became a dominate faction in Western nations, particularly in the nations that comprised the US-led Empire. These new capitalists promoted an ideology called neoliberalism ("neo" plus the classic meaning of "liberalism") that sought to eliminate trade barriers such as tariffs that interfered with their profits. They have used this transnational Empire to promote their interests of profits and power, much like their national predecessors did, but with a more aggressive use of subversive organizations such as the CIA and the use (or the threat) of their Empire's military forces.

In this video Corbett brings us up to date by revealing the ruling class of the Empire's use of internet technology to manage the views of the general public to be consistent with their global interests. (You may need to wait a few more seconds for this video to upload on your device.)



(For a very good, although very naive, explanation of only one of the tools, algorithms, that social media corporation use, listen to this 30:38m podcast from Mozilla Corporation.)

Fake History. How The Money Power Controls Our Future By Controlling Our Past

Click here to access article by Jim Macgregor and Gerry Docherty from Information Clearing House. 

These British authors and researchers of real history describe the methods of the capitalist ruling class, who they name as the "Money Power" or "elites", to alter history to support their interests of profit and power, and to discourage any real understanding of history by ordinary people. However, it must be understood that the ruling class insures that all institutions (media, entertainment, education, etc) support their interests. That's precisely why people, who are aware, call them the "ruling class".

To maintain control and stem dissent, the ruling elites maliciously misrepresent and question the integrity of alternative media and non-corporate news sources which broadcast genuine news, and the honest revisionist historians who relate historical truths. George Orwell suggested in his ‘war is peace’, ‘freedom is slavery’, ‘ignorance is strength’ thesis that the masses fall for the ruling power’s lies because their critical thinking has been so repressed they will believe any absurdity in contradiction of the plain facts.

Recommended articles for 3/5/2018

• Write for love, not money? Journalists appalled by Jonathan Cook from his blog.

• US Seeks to Intentionally Prolong Syrian Bloodshed by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook

• America is a System Not a Democracy by Chris Kanthan from Signs of the Times (SOTT) More and more people are waking up to the practice of "democracy" in the USA, and the real powers behind the political system which he identifies as the "System". However, the author doesn't name the system. It has a name--capitalism, and those that control it are a capitalist ruling class. Also, he doesn't realize that there never was any kind of meaningful democracy in our country.

Extracts from a new book entitled "How Will Capitalism End?"

posted by Ron Horn

The book, published in 2016, that I will quote from is written by Wolfgang Streeck, a German sociologist who I believe has some important insights about the capitalist system that I would like to share with you and for your consideration. This doesn't mean that I endorse everything he writes in the book. After all, his educational experience has been somewhat contaminated by capitalist authorities that oversee all institutions within the US-led capitalist Empire. (Note: I've taken the liberty to re-format the paragraphs to make them more suitable for online reading.)

The image I have of the end of capitalism--an end that I believe is already under way--is one of a social system in chronic disrepair, for reasons of its own and regardless of the absence of a viable alternative. While we cannot know when and how capitalism will disappear and what will succeed it, what matters is that no force is on hand that could be expected to reverse the ... downward trends in economic growth, social equality,and financial stability and end their mutual reinforcement.

In contrast to the 1930s, there is today no political-economic formula on the horizon, Left or Right, that might provide capitalist societies with a coherent new regime of regulation.... Social integration as well as system integration seem irreversibly damaged and set to deteriorate further. What is most likely to happen as time passes is a continuous accumulation  of small and not-so-small dysfunctions; none necessarily deadly as such, but most beyond repair ....

Conceiving of the end of capitalism as a process rather than an event raises the of how to define capitalism. Societies are complex entities that do not die in the organisms do: with the rare exception of total extinction, discontinuity is always embedded in some continuity. If we say that a society has ended, we mean that certain features of its organization that we consider essential to it have disappeared; others may well have survived.

I propose that to determine if capital is alive, dying or dead, we define it as a modern society that secures its collective reproduction as an unintended side-effect of individually rational, competitive profit maximization in pursuit of capital accumulation, through a 'labour process' combining privately owned capital with commodified labour power, fulfilling the ... promise of private vices turning into public benefits. It is this promise, I maintain, that contemporary capitalism can no long keep--ending its historical existence as a self-reproducing, sustainable, predictable and legitimate social order.

.... One might think that a long-lasting crisis of this sort would open up more than a few windows of opportunity for reformist or revolutionary agency. It seems, however, that disorganized capitalism is disorganizing not only itself but its opposition as well, depriving it of the capacity either to defeat capitalism or to rescue it. For capitalism to end, then, it must provide for its own destruction--which, I would argue, is exactly what we are witnessing today.

But why should capitalism, whatever its deficiencies, be in crisis at all if it no longer has any opposition worthy of the name? When Communism [i.e. the Soviet Union] imploded in 1989, this was widely viewed as capitalism's final triumph, as the 'end of history'. Even today, after  2008, the Old Left remains on the brink of extinction everywhere, while a New Left has, until now, failed to appear. The masses, the poor and powerless as much as the relatively well-to-do, seem firmly in the grip of consumerism, with collective goods, collective action and collective organization thoroughly out of fashion. As the only game in town, why should capitalism not carry on, by default if for no other reason?

At first glance, there is indeed much that speaks against pronouncing capitalism dead, regardless of all the ominous writing on the historical wall. As far as inequality is concerned, people may get used to it, especially with the help of public entertainment and political repression. Furthermore, examples abound of governments being re-elected that cut social spending and privatize public services, in pursuit of sound money for the owners of money. Concerning environmental deterioration, it proceeds so slowly compared to the hum lifespan, so one can deny it while learning to live with it. Technological advances with which to buy time, such as fracking, can never be ruled out, and if there are limits to the pacifying power of consumerism, we clearly are nowhere near them.

Moreover, adapting to more time-consuming and life-consuming work regimes can be taken as a competitive challenge, an opportunity for personal achievement. Cultural definitions of the good life have always been highly malleable and might well be stretched further to match the onward march of commodification, at least as long as racial or religious challenges to pro-capitalist re-education can be suppressed, ridiculed or otherwise marginalized.

Finally, most of today's stagnation theories apply only to the West, or just to the U.S., not to China, Russia, India or Brazil--countries to which the frontier of economic growth may be about to migrate, with vast virgin lands waiting to be made available for capitalist progress. 

My answer is that having no opposition may actually be more of a liability for capitalism than an asset. Social systems thrive on internal heterogeneity, on a pluralism of organizing principles protecting them from dedicating themselves entirely to a single purpose, crowding out other goals that must also be attended to if the system is be sustainable.  Capitalism as we know it has benefited greatly from the rise of counter-movements against the rule of profit and of the market. Socialism and trade unionism, by putting a brake on commodification, prevented capitalism from destroying its non-capitalist foundations--trust, good faith, altruism, solidarity within families and communities, and the like. Under Keynesianism and Fordism, capitalism's more or less loyal opposition secured and helped stabilize aggregate demand, especially in recessions. Where circumstance were favourable, working-class organization even served as a 'productivity whip', by forcing capital to embark on more advanced production concepts.

 ... capitalism can survive only as long as it is not completely capitalist--as it has not yet rid of itself, or the society in which it resides, of 'necessary impurities". Seen this way , capitalism's defeat of its opposition may actually have been a Pyrrhic victory, free it from countervailing powers which, while sometimes inconvenient, had in fact supported it. Could it be that victorious capitalism has become its own worst enemy?

How far can the Americans be pushed?

Click here to access article by Ghassan Kadi from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. (Added a relevant quote by the author at 9:40 AM Seattle time.)

... after the petro-dollar loses its world dominance, and this doesn’t seem very far away, a time will come when it will become virtually impossible to keep propping up the American economy with quantitative easing (aka printing money). And as America loses its economic stature, its only remaining prowess and might will be in its nuclear arsenal. The question is this. If America is imposing sanctions and bans right left and centre right now, and for no good reason at all, will a much more desperate America use its nuclear power to restore its dominion?

Such questions have been troubling me for some time. With all I know about the desperate, sociopathic ruling class, I can't reach any other conclusion but that they will risk all in their determination to rule the world and to salvage their huge run-up of debts. They are totally addicted to the drugs of power based on concentrated wealth that capitalism has supplied them with. Anyone who has had any experience with addicts knows that they are likely to engage in desperate acts while under the influence of drugs.

We are now witnessing the end games that they are engaging in by converting every ounce of information into self-serving propaganda, subverting nations, activating military operations all over the world, and issuing bellicose threats to nations that stand in the Empire's way. 

Nobody likes to be lied to, but the information that the ruling class's media corporations are spreading are riling all sorts of honest and aware people from right to left on America's political spectrum (which is mostly skewed to the right). We see almost daily articles by Paul Craig Roberts and Pat Buchanan, who are on the right of the spectrum, American libertarians like Ron Paul and James Corbett, and numerous liberals (people who believe that only reforms are needed to the capitalist system) who are all extremely troubled by the lies and other aggressive acts of the Empire's transnational capitalist ruling class.

I think that only the American people can stop them, but I don't hold much hope for this to happen given that so many Americans believe their lies while others who know that they are lying, but due to capitalist indoctrination of individualism, are mostly preoccupied with their who own security concerns.   

Colonizing the Western Mind

Click here to access article by Jason Hirthler posted on The Greanville Post. 

I think this article provides much food for thought about the launching of neoliberalism by the ruling capitalist class that, according to the author, started in the 1970s and reached full bloom in the 1980s under the Reagan administration. 

Still, I experienced annoyance at the wording of numerous statements which I, as a pretend editor, would have re-phrased. Some examples of this (in order of their appearance):

• Instead of "On the left, the ruling ideology might be described as neoliberalism, a particularly vicious form of imperial capitalism that, as would be expected, is camouflaged in the lineaments of humanitarian aid and succor.", I would have re-written as "Leftists began to describe this ruling ideology as neoliberalism, ...."

• Instead of "The ideological assumptions, which serve to justify what you could call neocolonial tactics, are relatively clear: the rights of the individual to be free of overreach from monolithic institutions like the state.", I would have written "... the rights of individual capitalists must be mostly free of interventions by the state."

• Instead of "Together, an unshackled economy and an unfettered populace, newly equipped with individual rights, would produce the same flourishing and nourishing demos of mid-century America that had been the envy of humanity.", I would have written "By unshackling capitalists from government regulations while promoting more freedom for various social identities (such as gay and women's prerogatives), the neoliberalists disguised the former behind the wide publicity for the latter."

• Instead of "The enduring lie is that there is no democracy without economic democracy.", I would write "The enduring lie is that there is no kind of democracy that limits the freedom for capitalists to participate in the economy." 

• Then I would simply replace the last paragraph, which does nothing to advance his argument, with a summary of his thesis that would be something like this: "The ruling capitalist class began in the 1970s to construct a highly organized effort to advance a neoliberal agenda through its overwhelming control of corporate media and other institutions such as the film industry and education. The latter advanced the liberalizing themes of social identity while mostly disguising the steady promotion of government deregulation and lessening the restrictions placed on capitalist enterprise. Meanwhile, military interventions abroad in support of capitalist interests were always framed in corporate media has a promotion of human rights and freedoms. Such highly organized efforts effectively colonized the Western mind to support the ruling class's neoliberal agenda."  

Recommended articles for March 2, 2018

• Trump’s Bosses Pushing for Nuclear War with Russia by Gordon Duff from New Eastern Outlook. Duff writes in the last paragraph:

What we now recognize is that Trump, as with so many other politicians around the “free world,” has “handlers” and serves an agenda. That agenda clearly threatens human survival. Who profits by this?

My answer regarding Trump's handlers is: an executive network of top capitalists from primarily the financial sector but also includes industrial corporations, the military establishment, and academia. They function secretly in "think tanks" such the Council on Foreign Relations, Brookings Institute, Atlantic Council, and many others.

• Putin’s message couldn’t be clearer: The West needs to stop provoking a war we don’t want & which no one can win by "Catte" from Off-Guardian.

• The Shadow of an Israeli/U.S. Attack Grows Larger by the Day by Edward Curtin from his website, What's Left.

• World is Burning – While Western Left is Quarreling by Andre Vltchek from New Eastern Outlook.  (My mistake. I posted this on February 3 of this year. I got mixed up with the different formatting of the date by New East Outlook: I mistook 3/2/2018, NEO's Russian formatting for 2/3/2018, USA's formatting. )

Recommended articles for March 1, 2018

• Escalation In Syria – How Far Can The Russians Be Pushed? by "The Saker" and posted on Southfront. The author uses sound political reasoning to suggest some very realistic future scenarios in the complicated, dangerous, and crucial international political contest currently developing in Syria and adjacent areas.

• Xi Jinping’s power grab: Bonapartism with Chinese characteristics by Peter Symonds from World Socialist Web Site. Although I believe emerging nations of Russia, China, and Iran are posing necessary challenges to the US-led capitalist Empire, I still have mixed feelings about where these nations are headed. I am posting this article because it challenges the views of people who believe that these emerging nations (and their ruling classes) can do nothing wrong.

The [Continuing] War Against Alternative Information

Click here to access article by Rick Sterling, a re-post from January 2017 from ConsortiumNews. (a "best post")

This post updates the legalization of the propaganda war being waged against the American people as revealed in yesterday's post by Debbie Lusignan on her YouTube channel called Sane Progressive. A more recent law was passed at the end of 2016 that established a specific agency to fill the minds of ordinary Americans with propaganda designed to promote the interests of the Empire's trans-nationalist capitalist ruling class.

The U.S. establishment is not content simply to have domination over the media narratives on critical foreign policy issues, such as Syria, Ukraine and Russia. It wants total domination. Thus we now have the “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act” that President Obama signed into law on Dec. 23 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2017, setting aside $160 million to combat any “propaganda” that challenges Official Washington’s version of reality.

As Sterling later explains:

The new law is remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least because it merges a new McCarthyism about purported dissemination of Russian “propaganda” on the Internet with a new Orwellianism by creating a kind of Ministry of Truth – or Global Engagement Center – to protect the American people from “foreign propaganda and disinformation."

As part of the effort to detect and defeat these unwanted narratives, the law authorizes the Center to: “Facilitate the use of a wide range of technologies and techniques by sharing expertise among Federal departments and agencies, seeking expertise from external sources, and implementing best practices.” (This section is an apparent reference to proposals that Google, Facebook and other technology companies find ways to block or brand certain Internet sites as purveyors of “Russian propaganda” or “fake news.”)

Thus, this propaganda war against ordinary Americans is now completely legal. We are their new enemy! Of course, we always were enemies of the ruling capitalist class, but these new laws provides a legal basis for their government to wage war against us.

Recommended articles for 2/28/2018

• A very modern apartheid by Marienna Pope-Weidemann from Red Pepper (Britain). 

International Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is an international series of events that seek to raise awareness of Israel’s apartheid system over the Palestinian people and to build support for the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Many people remember apartheid as a dark chapter in the history of South Africa and the world. But for the Palestinian people, apartheid isn’t history; it is a brutal, daily reality.

• Political Assassinations and the Criminal Justice System. This is a nearly one hour talk by William Pepper, international human rights lawyer, was posted on KPFA's Guns and Butter program administered by Bonnie Faulkner.

William Pepper, author of Orders to Kill, An Act of State and The Plot to Kill King, gave the keynote address at the 13th Annual 9/11 Film Festival at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, California on September 11th, 2017.  Pepper speaks about his early years; the War in Vietnam; his work with Robert Kennedy; his friendship and work with Dr. King, King's assassination; his latest book with explosive new evidence about King’s murder; as counsel for wrongfully convicted Sirhan Sirhan, the mind-controlled patsy in the RFK assassination; control of the media; Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez; and the political nature of these assassinations. 

Entire CRISIS INDUSTRY Arose After Legalization of Psych-Ops in 2012 NDAA -- (a "best post")

Click here if you wish to access the video directly from YouTube which features Debbie Lusignan on her YouTube channel called Sane Progressive carefully explaining the crisis industry that has rapidly arisen after the Smith–Mundt Act (2012).

The Act was tacked onto the infamous National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013. This implications of this Act allowed propaganda and psychological operations (PSYOPS) to be legal within the USA. The designers of this bill carefully avoided explicitly mentioning that what was legal for US government agencies to use PSYOPS as well as propaganda in foreign countries, was now legal within the USA with the passage of this Act. Here is the pertinent language of the 2012 amendment to the Smith–Mundt Act of 1948:

Board of Governors are authorized to use funds appropriated or otherwise made available for public diplomacy information programs to provide for the preparation, dissemination, and use of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United States, its people, and its policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures, the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information centers, instructors, and other direct or indirect means of communication.

Thus, all the propaganda issued abroad by such organizations as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Marti, etc., were now legal in addition to the PSYOPS engaged in by the CIA all over the world. They just adjusted the Smith-Mundt Act to release the restrictions on the original bill of 1948 that prohibited such operations within the USA. This paved the way for the burgeoning "crisis industry". Lusignan carefully explains the growth and the details of many companies that consist of this industry. 

Because of personal issues that are taking much of my time, I didn't have time to listen to all of the video. I listened basically to the first 30 minutes. But this material is outstanding. It contains her basic argument that the passage of the NDAA bill of 2013 permitted propaganda and PSYOPS within the USA, the details of the various companies that engage in fake political operations, and an excellent summary (from 28:00m to 30:00m) of the material she has presented so far. (You may need to wait a few more seconds for the following video to upload on your device.)

US Senate report details funding of patient advocacy groups by opioid manufacturers

Click here to access article by Brian Dixon from World Socialist Web Site.

Although Dixon's report focuses mainly on one minority report issued by a member of the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, he also cites other research from other sources that support the main thesis of this report as reported by the Executive summary of the report:

The fact that these same manufacturers provided millions of dollars to the groups described below suggests, at the very least, a direct link between corporate donations and the advancement of opioids friendly messaging. By aligning medical culture with industry goals in this way, many of the groups described in this report may have played a significant role in creating the necessary conditions for the U.S. opioids epidemic.

The article lends support to the generalization that not only big corporations associated with the "legitimate" drug corporations, but all major corporations, including especially major financial and industrial, collude by using their riches to induce and corrupt other smaller sectors of the economy to support their profits (and ultimately power). This is so typical of a fascist type of capitalist governing system in which riches are used without any significant government regulations--because they control the government--as a method to extract ever more profits and concentrated power.

State Department Troll Farm Receives Huge Cash Infusion

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

The author digs up the latest efforts to strengthen the ongoing efforts by the US ruling capitalist class to enclose your minds and that of people residing in the nations governed by the US-led Empire into thought concentration camps under their control. They have learned much from the experience of corporate efforts to successfully sell products to American consumers, and are now applying these lessons to capture our political thoughts as well. 

Although financial and industrial corporations rule the Empire--and this constitutes fascism--the US Empire fascists prefer the more cost-effective methods of mind manipulation to that of brute force which characterized so much of the efforts of classical fascist governments of German and Italian capitalist ruling classes in the 1930s and early 1940s.

US Collapse – the Spectacle of Our Time

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Sputnik. (While I am distracted with personal tasks, I am so appreciative that activists like Christopher (northwest Oregon) who draw my attention to outstanding articles like this to post on my website.)

Yes, this website is sponsored by the Russian government, but there is no evidence to even suggest that the views expressed are sponsored by either Russian capitalists or nationalists. In contrast to US media corporations which pitch pure propaganda in an increasingly failing effort to promote the hegemonic interests of the declining US-led Empire, Russia government sponsored websites invite independent journalists from all over the world to express their views. And I'm sure that Cunningham would not be posting articles on their website if he was pressured to promote any particular interest except that of the truth as he sees it.

In this article the Irish journalist Cunningham places so much responsibility on ordinary Americans like us to prevent a nuclear war conflagration and end the rule of the hegemonic US-led Empire peacefully so that humans can have a future to create better social systems. Of course, he is right. Are we up to (capable of meeting) this challenge?

World history has reached a foreboding cross-roads due to the collapsing of the American Empire. Can we navigate a safe path forward avoiding catastrophic war that often accompanies the demise of empires?

A lot, it seems, depends on ordinary American people becoming politically organized to challenge their dysfunctional system run by and for the elites. If the American people cannot hold their elites to account and break their corrupt rule, overhauling it with something more equitable and democratic, then the world is in peril of being plunged into total war. We can only but wish our American brothers and sisters solidarity and success.

Recommended articles for 2/26/2018 (to maintain your sanity while living in the Empire's open psychiatric ward)

• It is not a war against Ghouta but a “cold” war between the USA and Russia, dividing Syria by an independent journalist from Kuwait, Elijah J Magnier posted on his blog.

• The battle of Damascus and East Ghouta by Serge Marchand posted on VoltaireNet (France). 

• Media owned by warlords, govt owned by big money, shock doctrine  The Redacted Tonight show features Lee Camp ranting satirically on the revolving door sociopaths who are getting rich off wars as they rotate from positions in secret "intelligence" services, media corporations, and war industries.

Lee Camp gives us a shortlist of major media networks who hire war profiteers to give us their take on foreign policy. Naomi Karavani explains how employees are stealing workers’ wages and John F. O’Donnell updates us on the privatization and militarization of the relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

CIA, Media & The Mind-Controlled Opposition

Click here if you wish to access this rather lengthy (nearly 1hr and 17minutes), but important video directly from YouTube that I have embedded below my commentary. (At 7:45 AM on 2/27/2018 I edited the last paragraph to clarify my views regarding Seymour Hersh.)

In this edition of Probable Cause Newsbud Founder and Editor Sibel Edmonds is joined by Douglas Valentine, author of several non-fiction books, one novel, and one volume of poetry. He has lectured and appeared on TV and radio talk shows, testified as an expert witness, served as a documentary film consultant and worked as a private investigator. His most recent book is The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World. Edmonds and Valentine discuss the influence and operations of the CIA abroad and domestically, while controlling the Media.

After introductory remarks the host of the show and founder of Newsbud, formerly Boiling Frogs Post, and well-known whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds interviews Douglas Valentine (see this and this), author of many books, the most recent of which is entitled The CIA as Organized Crime. She starts out by asking Valentine about his impressions of the Neflix production of Wormwood (on my recommended films list). He tends to go on and on making cynical statements about Seymour Hersh which overwhelms the significance of the Wormwood series that mostly exposes the bio-weapons research that scientist Frank Olson was engaged in, and his subsequent murder in 1953 at the hands of the CIA when he posed a threat to expose what they were doing.

Following this Edmonds asks about the CIA to which Valentine engages in a lengthy answer with various statements that suggest that they are a nebulous bureaucracy with agents embedded everywhere: in corporate media, government, military, educational institutions like Harvard, in left-wing organizations, etc. 

When she asks him about the relationship of the CIA to the Deep State, his answer is even more nebulous: "they are millions of people working together." He doesn't seem to make any distinction between the CIA and the Deep State. Much later in the interview he makes several references to a "ruling class" in relation to the creation of heroes in American culture (in order to promote the consumption of products), but this is totally absent when he answers her question about the relationship of the CIA to the Deep State. It's clear to me that he doesn't really know much about the contemporary ruling class and their interests in promoting the Empire's capitalist interests and hegemony. He's so obsessed with the CIA that he can't see the bigger picture. 

With my long time experience with Edmonds' websites, I don't think she understands either about the economic and political nature of the Deep State as the executive political network of the ruling capitalist class. 

However, I don't wish to downplay the excellent contributions by Edmonds and Valentine who have frequently exposed the machinations of the secret intelligence agencies or the fake journalists that serve them. Except for Hersh about whom I am withholding judgement, as the Brits would say, they are "spot-on"! (def.)

Recommended articles for 2/25/2018

• Western Lies about Lies over Syria’s East Ghouta by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.

• With Pai's Net Neutrality Repeal Published, Internet Defenders Prepare for 'Hell of a Fight' by Jake Johnson from Common Dreams. 

• Mainstream Media – Pushing Global Conflict, Disseminating Fear from True Publica (Britain)

Independent Journalist Corner: A Conversation with Andre Vltchek

Click here to access an interview with Vltchek conducted by Danny Haiphong that is posted on Black Agenda Report. 

I continue to find so much compatibility with what Vltchek says and writes, particularly the following quotes in this piece:

Mass media became synonymous with imperialist propaganda. It is all very well-orchestrated; choreographed. And people in the West are so thoroughly brainwashed that they stopped asking questions regarding the most essential issues.

And most especially this:

The majority of people in the West are not able to commit themselves. They are too selfish, too egotistic. And they are full of nihilism: sweating and shitting nihilism.

They reject all ideologies and they do not want to govern. They despise those who are holding power. However, without ideology and without aiming at governing, no true revolution can take place. I don’t think the Western left is serious: there is no revolutionary force there, no willingness to sacrifice anything for the struggle. It is all weak, spineless and boring: like shouting at the high definition television set, or insulting opponents in the pub.

Recommended articles for 2/22/2018

• The Mueller Indictments Are A F**king Joke & It's Dangerous featuring Lee Camp ranting about the latest Russiagate event. In the 1960s I felt I was living in an open psychiatric ward called the USA, but now I am thoroughly convinced. Credit an activist in northern Oregon for this post. (You may need to wait a few more seconds until the video here and the one following upload onto your device.)

• What You Aren't Being Told About NPR also by Lee Camp. Camp exposes much of the corporate funding of NPR. I have watched the steady deterioration of NPR over the last 50 years into what it is today, a prime propaganda outlet for the ruling capitalist class.

• “Stooge Time” for America. Florida School Killer Nikolas Cruz Diagnosed with Depression, Autism and ADHD by Philip A. Farruggio from Global Research.

How Biblical is Zionism?

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

The author, who has a "PhD in Medieval Studies at Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2009", provides a well-documented, in-depth study of how a fundamentalist interpretation of the Hebrew Bible has been a prime influence on the imperialist inclinations of Zionist leaders throughout the history of the Zionist movement.

Only by taking account of the biblical roots of Zionism can one understand why Zionism has never been a nationalist movement like others. It could not be, as Gilad Atzmon remarked, from the moment it defined itself as a Jewish movement, aimed at creating a “Jewish state”.[6] Jewish exceptionalism is a biblical concept that has no equivalent in any other ethnic or religious culture.

I beg to differ (def.) a little bit with the last statement because many American Christians, who have frequently embraced Zionism, have also a fundamentalist interpretation of the Christian Bible.

Bringing us up to date on the post-WWII history of Israel, Guyénot writes:

...when the British started to limit Jewish immigration in Palestine in the 1930s, the Zionists turned to the rising new Imperial power: the United States. Today, the stranglehold of Zionists on US imperial policy is such that a few Jewish neocons can pull the US into a series of wars against Israel’s enemies with a single false flag attack.

The capacity of Israel to hijack the Empire’s foreign and military policy requires that a substantial Jewish elite remain in the US. Even Israel’s survival is entirely dependent on the influence of the Zionist power complex in the United States (euphemistically called the “pro-Israel lobby”).

Did you notice that in the first paragraph in the above quote, the author makes an oblique reference to the real significance of 9/11?

Recommended articles for 2/21/2018

• "Russian bots" - How An Anti-Russian Lobby Creates Fake News by Bernhard from his blog Moon of Alabama.

• The Three Global Super-Powers by Eric Zuesse from The Greanville Post. 

Can it really be that if the world of the future won’t be led by America’s billionaires, then it won’t exist at all? Do they really demand “My way, or the highway” — really? Are America’s billionaires (despite any ‘humanitarian’ pretenses they individually so often hypocritically express, both in the fictionalized and in the real version) so stunningly united in their actual psychopathy (likewise in both versions — “Big Brother,” and today’s reality)? .... And collectively they’ve got the American public fooled into admiring the MIC (“the Military”) above all other US institutions. But whether America’s billionaires will carry their collective evil to the extreme, isn’t yet clear. They are the actual decision-makers regarding US Government policy, but they are playing their cards — as usual — privately and secretly, until their game (whatever it may turn out to be) will already be finished.

• The media and the Mueller indictment: A conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site.

Given that the US government has just issued a series of strategy documents that, among other conclusions, suggest that a significant cyberattack on the United States could justify retaliation with nuclear weapons, the implications of the argument put forward on the front page of the Times are chilling: What cyberattack could be more significant than an effort to hijack the US presidential election? By the logic of the leading “newspaper of record,” the US government would be justified in responding militarily to an alleged Russian election operation.

What is propounded in the media coverage is a conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories.

• What just happened in Korea and when will we ever learn?! by "The Saker" from his blog.

In my many contacts with Russians I notice one recurrent feature: most of them simply do not understand that they are at war and that the war which is being waged against them has absolutely no rules. Whoever put that Meldonium into Krushelnitsky’s room or bottle or snack took a tiny risk and yet that resulted in yet another major PR blow delivered against Russia’s image and the against the morale of the poor Russian athletes who are already competing with an (illegally) reduced team and in terrible conditions (Hats off to whoever came up with that plan: it was nothing short of brilliant, very low risk and very high yield)

The Coming Wars to End All Wars

Click here to access article by Edward Curtin from his web-log (blog). 

Americans, he argues, are being led step by step into a final series of war "to end all wars". All important political signs confirm he is right: the constant din of anti-Russian, anti-Iranian, anti-Chinese propaganda are designed to prepare gullible Americans into accepting this option. So far there are few signs that Americans are opposing this steady drift into what Empire propagandists portray as a kind of biblical Armageddon.

We are moving toward a global war that will become nuclear if an international ant-war movement doesn’t quickly arise to stop it.  Most people bemoan the thought of such a war to end all wars, but refuse to analyze the factors leading to it. It happens step-by-step, and many steps have already been taken with more coming soon. It’s so obvious that most can’t see it, or don’t want to.

A major source for the Empire's promotion of this final series of wars is the extreme indebtedness of the USA to the holders of US sovereign debts (the total is nearly $21 trillion), and most of these creditors are members of the ruling capitalist class throughout the nations of the US-led Empire. (A careful reading of this report confirms this.) They, for the most part, see successful wars as the only option to climb out of the huge debt hole that the Empire's ruling capitalists have dug to finance their imperial project.

Recommended articles for 2/20/2018

• On the American Inability to Turn Turkey Around by Salman Rafi Sheikh from New Eastern Outlook. The author provides a very insightful look at the tenuous situation of the illegal occupation of Syria by the US military.

• Cindy Sheehan and the Women’s March on the Pentagon: A Movement, Not Just a Protest by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News.

• "Empire Files: War With North Korea - Propaganda vs. Reality" This 32:45m video features an interview conducted by Abby Martin with Tim Shorrock, author, journalist, and expert on Korean affairs. (You may need to wait a few more seconds for the video to upload on your device. Or view the video directly from YouTube.)

On top of overtly genocidal threats, the Trump Administration has announced new terms: that they "will never accept a nuclear North Korea." But, the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea already has nuclear weapons. Does that mean a war is imminent?

While the bipartisan warmongering is receiving no push-back from the mainstream media, Abby Martin interviews Tim Shorrock--journalist and expert on US-Korea relations--to learn what is left out of the debate and the potential cost of a new war. 

• The Big Pharma Family that Brought Us the Opioid Crisis by Sam Pizzigati from Inequality.

There are more articles that are very good, but I will save them for tomorrow.

The US-UK Deep State Empire Strikes Back: ‘It’s Russia! Russia! Russia!’

Click here to access article by James George Jatras from Strategic Culture Foundation. (Credit goes to Christopher in northwest Oregon for alerting me to this article.)

Although the author declares that the Deep State, which is also known as the capitalist ruling class by those who are awake, has with this Russiagate stories accomplished the targeting of Russia as the next enemy of the US in the minds of most Americans who are fast asleep. Of course, China is another target often mentioned among those officials who serve the ruling class, but for now the focus is on Russia as the devil incarnate because China is making many American capitalists rich.

Because the ruling capitalist class, aka "the Deep State", remains behind the curtain of reality as represented to us by their media corporations, their role is always hidden from view. The Deep State actors hide behind the secret walls of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council, Brookings Institute, and host of other highly secretive "think tanks". Jatras' treatment of the subject only adds to the confusion by substituting the agents of this major propaganda project in place of the Deep State (the leading political members of the ruling capitalist class). 

Furthermore, he seems to suggest that the whole Russiagate project was designed to re-direct the public's attention from the ruling class project of insuring that Hillary Clinton was elected and to cover up their activities on behalf of HC. To support this argument, he writes:

The growing sense of panic was palpable. Oh my – this is a curtain that just cannot be allowed to be pulled back!

What to do, what to do . . .

It's clear to me that Russia has been in the cross-hairs of the US ruling class after Putin started scuttling their plans to destabilize Syria in 2011. The capitalist ruling class have also watched with growing alarm the rise of an independent Russia which colludes with a rising China, the combination of which seeks to impose a framework of multilateral relations on the world which interferes with the US-led Empire's New World Order project. 

With the public's rejection of Hillary Clinton, the chosen leader to promote this project of the ruling class, the latter were furious. But the reaction was not a "growing sense of panic", it was a realization that they needed to increase their propaganda efforts to impose on ordinary Americans an awareness of the growing threat of Russia which interferes in American elections, in reality, of course, to their imperial project. Initially the ruling class went after Trump; but since he has largely adopted their agenda, they have directed their efforts more at demonizing Russia.

There Is No Time Left

Click here to access article by Robert Hunziker from CounterPunch.

The author refers to scientist James G. Anderson who was one of the leading scientists that warned us about the deteriorating ozone layer in our atmosphere which could have had disastrous effects on humans if corrective measures had not been undertaken in time. 

In his acceptance speech, James G. Anderson, Harvard professor of atmospheric chemistry, now warns that it is foolhardy to assume we can recover from the global warming leviathan simply by cutting back emissions.

Accordingly, the only way humanity can dig itself out of the climate change/global-warming hole is by way of a WWII type effort with total transformation of industry off carbon and removal of carbon from the atmosphere within five years. The situation is so dire that it requires a worldwide Marshall Plan effort, plus kneeling in prayer.

The War on Dissent: the Specter of Divisiveness (with Video)

Click here to access article by CJ Hopkins from The Greanville Post. 

This article is loaded with cynicism as Hopkins exclaims about how many Americans are so easily manipulated into believing into the latest outrageous fake propaganda using the "Russiagate" theme. I have no idea how many of my fellow Americans fall for this latest lie because my attention has been focused on personal tasks; and he doesn't furnish any evidence to support this supposed gullibility. However, judging by past lies promulgated by the ruling class through their media corporations, the majority of Americans probably believe this propaganda also. Remember that a major part of American indoctrination, the part of classroom experience that the ruling capitalist class always refers to as "education", is the major dictum that one must always respect and obey authorities who always have the interests of ordinary Americans at heart.

To launch the phony "War on Terror" this conditioning of obedience was buttressed by the false-flag of the 9/11 tragedy that was engineered by US intelligence agencies in collusion with those of Israel and Saudi Arabia in order to justify all subsequent use of our armed forces in the Middle East and elsewhere. Referring to the 9/11 event, Hopkins writes:

Several million of us figured that one out … or at least figured out that the US government, the “intelligence community,” and the corporate media were using Americans’ emotional response to the September 11 terrorist attacks to con us into supporting the invasion and destabilization of the Middle East for reasons that had nothing to do with terrorism.

Then he continues on to castigate Americans for believing all the subsequent lies that are repeated endless by media corporations. He ends by writing "If you enjoyed ... all the other features of The War on Terror … you’re going to love The War on Dissent."

Recommended articles for 2/18/2018

• Ex-CIA Director Thinks US Hypocrisy About Election Meddling Is Hilarious by Caitlin Johnstone from The Greanville Post. 

• The US is Executing a Global War Plan by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.

BBC Journalism 101: They’re Just ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ in Need of an Explanation [a best post]

The Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) alerted me to the following 28:33 YouTube video that features a rebuttal by Roland Angle, a highly qualified civil engineer of 50 years, to a recent BBC program entitled “The people who think 9/11 may have been an ‘inside job.’”. There are many such sites in which various qualified people or eye witnesses offer evidence that conflicts with the official government's story which is parroted by all corporate media, but never permitted to express their views on corporate media.

The many architects and engineers that are active in AE911Truth are risking their own careers by taking issue with the official explanations of the tragedy that happened on September 11, 2001. Thus, they are very conservative in their challenges to the official story which I am convinced was a major false-flag event that made possible the launching of the War on Terror which permitted US armed forces to actively intervene in so many countries of the world since then. 

Two weeks ago, the BBC published a vapid iteration of its unrivaled brand of anti-journalism on all things 9/11, which it unironically titled: “The people who think 9/11 may have been an ‘inside job.’”

Unlike the hate-mongering Gizmodo article of two weeks before that, the BBC piece adopted a softer tone, trotting out the familiar trope of suggesting that people believe in “conspiracy theories” because of their supposed “need for an explanation that’s proportional to the event itself.”

(The following video may take a few more seconds to upload on your device.)  
 


Also, I recommend reading the commentary posted on the YouTube post.

The All-Important Doorman

Click here to access article by Jeff Thomas from International Man. (Credit for this post goes to Christopher of northwest Oregon.)

The only problem with this post is that its treatment of the "deep state" is so superficial, and its author posts it on a site (International Man) that is dedicated to capitalist speculation. Having perused the website, it is clear that it is managed by a transnational capitalist whose grasp of history is, of necessity, very ahistorical and superficial. Likewise, the author only suggests that the political system has been infected with corruption by big banks, the military industrial complex, Big Pharma, etc.... Thus, both the author and the website administrator cast a condescending glance at those ordinary people who naively believe that "somehow, those who are elected remain loyal to the voters, not to those who paid for their election". 

Meanwhile, they with their riches, which were apparently obtained through stock market speculation, neglect to mention that the system of capitalism has given the super-winners of the system not only fantastic riches but also super powers to ensure that ordinary people remain ignorant of their comprehensive corruption of society. 

The super-rich, that is, the owners of the banks, the industrial complex, Big Pharma, etc. constitute a ruling class that controls not only the political system, but every institution of society. This control of every institution insures that their values and interests are supported and that no one is allowed any significant platform to dissent from capitalist ideology. The author suggests that except for these super-rich corrupters of the system, the system would be fine. This post is an excellent illustration of the American version of libertarianism. 

The metaphor of the doorman is superficially apt, but unoriginal, and, of necessity, only attempts to explain political reality, and not the broader picture of capitalist rule. This allows the author and the website administrator to smugly continue on to enrich themselves with stock market speculation and to sneer at dumbed-down workers. 

The Wars No One Notices

Click here to access article by Stephanie Savell from The Unz Review.

The author describes her journey from an uninformed, uncaring person about the many wars we are engaged in throughout the world to where she is now: an awakened and caring researcher on the costs of these wars.

Do Americans really not care? That, at least, seems to have been the judgment of the many journalists who received our press release about the report.

In truth, this has become something like a fact of life in America today, one that’s only been made more extreme by the media’s full-time fascination with President Donald Trump — from his tweets to his insults to his ever-wilder statements. He — or rather the media obsession with his every twitch — poses just the latest challenge to getting attention of any sort for the true costs to us (and everyone else) of our country’s wars. 

In addition to their chronic use of fake news and propaganda, the ruling capitalist class, in my opinion, has mainly accomplished through their successful 9/11 monumental false-flag event. 

Operation Pacific Eagle: Duterte Falls in Line with US Plans for the Philippines

Click here to access article by Elliott Gabriel from Mint Press News. 

I have watched with amazement at the antics of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte during the past 1 1/2 years. I first witnessed his outrageous anti-American statements which called a member of Obama's administration "a gay son-of-a-bitch" and Obama "a son of a whore". Then there were his visits to China and Russia followed by his statements that he was aligning his country with China and Russia. Following this there appeared almost on cue the appearance of the Islamic army in the Philippines which was followed by Duterte asking the US for help in fighting them! Either Duterte is a very good actor or he is unstable to the extreme, possibly both.

In this second article of a series of three by Gabriel he draws on comments by exiled Filipino revolutionary Jose Maria Sison and Professors William I. Robinson and Roland Simbulan to ascertain what Duterte is really like. The author tends to see Duterte's personality as very much like the Empire's Donald Trump. According to Sison, Duterte's former college professor, Duterte has been under the control of the US Empire all along. And Gabriel reminds us of the history of the Philippines as the first US imperialist launching of what has now become a worldwide Empire. 

For more information regarding US-Philippine relations, I recommend his first article entitled "Operation Pacific Eagle in the Philippines: Washington’s New Colonial War" and his last article yet to be posted.

Recommended articles for 2/15/2018

• US Media Turn to ‘Superhero’ Pence to Combat Korean Olympic Peace Threat by Adam Johnson from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting.

• Who is burying the Olympic movement and why? from Oriental Review. Although this rather lengthy post originates from an independent website in Russia, I think that it at least provides balance to the ongoing smearing of Russia athletes by the US. Actually I think most Russian and other nations' websites, whether independent or funded by their governments, offer far more accurate coverage of issues that those under the control of the transnational capitalist class in nations under the control of the US-led Empire.  Media corporations in the latter nations have no scruples about planting fake news stories, presenting extremely biased reports in their media, and engaging in censorship by refusing to offer the views of independent journalists.

• The following video was posted in an article entitled "A chi sono utili le «inutili guerre»" or "The Art of War: For Whom are the 'Useless Wars' Useful For?" posted at Il Manifesto, an Italian journalists' cooperative website. The 16:08m video provides a very good summary of the article. (The video may take a few seconds to upload.)

• Korean Olympic Diplomacy Moves Forward Despite U.S. Intransigence. This article features an interview conducted by Dennis Bernstein with a writer and regional expert, Kay Jay Noh.

• PBS’s The Gilded Age: Removing the working class from the stage of history by Tom Mackaman from World Socialist Web Site. This article exposes the deep capitalist bias and censorship that permeates most all American cultural productions related to USA history.

Tet Offensives, Hungry China and Dumbed Down Americans

Click here to access article by Linh Dinh from OpEdNews. 

After describing the cartoonish nature--due to the influence of the ruling class's ideological institutions--of the views of ordinary Americans regarding history and countries, the author, who has recently returned to his native Vietnam, launches into the real history of China, southeast Asia, and Western countries. He concludes with a most important question that has been on my mind:

Drugged, decadent, easily manipulated, narcissistic and ignorant of history, how will Americans deal with the existential storm awaiting them?

Russian Historiography of the Korean War

Click here to access article by George Burchett, son of renowned independent journalist Wilfred Burchett. (Much of what I learned about the true story of the Vietnam War during that war was furnished by his father, Wilfred Burchett, an Australian independent journalist.)

George, who is an artist living in Hanoi, Vietnam, writes of the massive efforts in the continuing campaign of denial of bacteriological warfare engaged in by the US forces in the Korean War by subsequent propaganda agents of the class that rules the US-led Empire, particularly evidence sourced from supposedly recovered documents from old Soviet files in the 1990s. 

I strongly urge those who are interested in the US use of bio-weapons in the Korean War read a recent book by Dave Chaddock entitled This Must Be the Place (2013) in which he extensively covers the subject from both sides of the controversy and comes to the definite conclusion that the US did indeed use bacteriological weapons in Korea and adjacent areas of China. Chaddock also confirms what George Burchett writes about Unit 731 of the Japanese army headed by General Shiro Ishii in WWII. 

These “former officers” belonged to Unit 731. While many of the worst Japanese war criminals were tried and sentenced to death by a U.S. Military Court in Tokyo, the leader of Unit 731, General Shiro Ishii, and his top aides, were granted immunity and asked to work on the U.S. BW research and development program.

Recommended articles for 2/13/2018

• View these YouTube videos below that portray north and south Korea cordial gatherings in relation to the Winter Olympics in south Korea, and see what is causing fits among the US ruling class that has been promoting conflict between the two sides ever since the actual ceasing of hostilities during the Korean War. This cold war attitude was expressed by Yahoo Corporation in this post, and because of such coverage most uncritically thinking Americans will continue to hate and fear north Korea.  (You may need to wait a little until the videos upload.)

 

• Focus on China: The East is green? by Martin Empson from Socialist Review (Britain). I am offering this post to balance so much of the uncritical coverage in the left websites.

• What U.S. News Reports on Syria’s War Hide by Eric Zuesse from Washington's Blog. Zuesse tells you the straight story regarding US history in Syria, and, in addition, explains how you can critically think about news coverage especially in corporate media.

Billionaires have lots of clout. There’s talk about “manufactured consent,” and this is the way it is “manufactured.” It is manufactured by incessant lying, not only by the Government, but by the press.

A good rule is to distrust everything you read, and to click onto at least a sampling  of its sources and examine them yourself to see whether they support the allegations that they allegedly support; and to evaluate whether those sources are themselves trustworthy — and to ignore any ‘news’ medium that doesn’t link to its sources (doesn’t conveniently let you check out its truth or falsehood), which includes especially TV, radio, and print media. 

‘Lost Connections’ review: the material basis of depression

Click here to access article by Martin Swayne from In Defence of Marxism (British Trotskyist website). 

This is a book review of Lost Connections authored by Johann Hari, a British journalist. His book was obviously inspired by his own experience growing up with depression and being treated by the medical and pharmacological establishments who viewed depression as a chemical imbalance in the brain. This view supported the belief that the favored treatment was to ingest chemicals to restore balance. Hari's journey ended up challenging this belief. This parallels my own journey to unlearn so much of what I was taught growing in a capitalist society to where I am now with this blog challenging such an organization of society as the root cause of so many of the evils we experience everyday of our lives.

The reviewer writes:

It has been proved that depression is, to a significant degree, not a problem of the brain, but of life in general. In that sense, depression is not a mystical and irrational illness. It is a very rational and understandable response to the adverse conditions of capitalist society.

.... To his credit the author names disconnection from meaningful work as cause number one.

Hari finds the second cause to be "disconnection" from society. This flies in the face of capitalist ideology as interpreted by Margaret Thatcher who said "there is no such thing as society". Once again the extreme individualism of capitalist societies create many conditions that end up causing disconnection or isolation from society which often leads to depression.

Under socialism

by cartoonist Stephanie McMillan
 

Recommended articles for 2/12/2018

• Lovefest in Korea Leaves US Regime Fuming by David W. Pear from The Greanville Post.

• How The Establishment [capitalist ruling class's] Propaganda Machine Gaslights Us Into Submission by Caitlin Johnstone from ConsortiumNews.

• Lifting of US Propaganda Ban Gives New Meaning to Old Song by Whitney Webb from Mint Press News.

The war against our minds sponsored by the ruling class of the US Empire

by Ron Horn, administrator of this website.

Over the past decade I've witnessed with increasing alarm the use of carefully crafted capitalist propaganda the intent of which is to fill our minds with rubbish about the motivations of the US Empire to garner our support for their interests of profit and power. With the ruling class's history of increasingly fake news that really took off with the assassinations of prominent political figures, JF Kennedy, his brother Robert, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and the official narrative about 9/11 which represented a coverup of their major false-flag crime, we are now seeing a daily dose of this sort of material as well as efforts to prevent access to alternative sources of information. 

What is startling clear to those of us who pay attention is that the ruling class are smearing, and preventing access to, alternative sources of information regarding the activities of their government. For example, compare two different posts on YouTube: one uploaded by a Russian news and analysis network, RT, and a second post regarding an organization sponsored by governments associated with the US Empire and developed by Netflix, a major US media corporation. Did you notice that the RT post on YouTube added the statement, "RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government", but the second Netflix post omitted any reference to the funding of the White Helmets organization? 1984 has arrived--a little late--but it has arrived in full bloom. What is so sad is that most Americans are completely unaware of this. 

Rebel Without a Clue: Autonomy and Authority in the American Public School

Click here to access article by Susan Cain and Mark Mason from Dissident Post. (This is a guest post by Caren Black, an engaged activist, whose career spans three decades as a teacher and administrator in private and public schools as well as business, Caren Black has taught eight grade levels and served as assistant principal and principal for middle schools in the public school system.)

Muda by Design

The Japanese term, "muda", which means waste, breakdown, failure, planned obsolescence, all familiar components of capitalism’s sales structure, extend to the much misunderstood American public school system. Here is an excerpt from my book Get Over It!  Education Reform Is Dead. Now What? that describes my view regarding this concept:

 A concept introduced by Toyota Production System creator, Taiichi Ohno, and defined as “any human activity which absorbs resources but creates no value” muda is, quite simply, waste….

In education, of course, waste takes human form:  students we cannot or do not serve, people who get excluded from societal roles because they are too slow, too kinesthetic, too bright, too poor, too abused or too non-white to pass easily along our lock-stepped graded conveyor belt. As in any assembly line, we still reject those who don’t come out in standardized form.  When our system was designed, dropouts could still make their way in the world quite successfully.  Today, that is no longer true. The human cost of the rejection from our educational assembly line is high. Where do we think kids go when the system rejects them?  How does our rejecting kids pollute our communities?

“I want that kid out of my class!” Out of the school, off the planet, far away. “He’s disruptive! He’s defiant! He’s behind! He doesn’t do any work! I can’t teach with him in here! The class is fine when he’s gone!” It’s all true and it’s definitely a problem.  He is a problem.  For him, life is a problem.  He needs an attitude adjustment.  He’s got some learning difficulties.  His mother was (pick a couple):

1. drinking
2. snorting
3. not eating
4. without medical care
5. being beaten
6. uneducated when she was carrying him fifteen years ago.

He’s either hyper or asleep (meaning he does ecstasy weekly at raves). He’s in a crew or being jumped into a gang. Maybe he’s already in a gang.  He reads English at a third grade level and doesn’t know his multiplication tables.  We want him out of the classroom. (Yes, but to where?) He can’t sit quietly at a desk for 45 minutes and take notes on what we tell him were the causes of the Civil War without bothering other students or interrupting us.

We’re covering curriculum.  Of course he’s disruptive! Of course he’s defiant!  But do we really want him on the streets with nothing to do all day except hang around outside our houses?  Are we really ready to consign him to jail at 14?  That’s where he’s headed.  Does it seem so farfetched to create alternative educational systems designs that might better address the needs of non-standardized students like him?  Still not convinced?  Let’s give him a face….

My colleague Wes Beach described its effect on students from a different capitalist class in his book Forging Paths:  Beyond Traditional Schooling:

Compulsory education is based on compulsion. Compulsion requires power over students and control of them. Power and control often become the chief concerns.

School officials were…incapable of understanding, or unwilling to acknowledge that they understood, the fact that there are many perfectly legitimate and real reasons why some kids hate school.

Many students find no challenging material to study; they are capable of working at a much higher level than the curriculum allows. Their interests are not addressed; the academic curriculum in traditional high schools has little to offer someone who wants to be, or already is, a photographer, dancer, auto mechanic, or makeup artist. They do not like the social environment; they want to talk about topics beyond the latest clothing fad or the next party, football game, or sexual encounter. They find their teachers disinterested and sometimes incompetent. They find the environment oppressive and limiting, determining not only what they study but also when they can go to the bathroom or chew gum. They hate being controlled at every turn. They don’t like being on leashes held by administrators, counselors, and teachers. They resent it when their talents and goals are not respected. While this kind of rigid structure may work well for some students, this determination should still be made by the student with his or her parents.

Complaining about the public school system is a popular pastime while “reforming” it is a pundit’s playground, but few writers have actually taught in one or served in administration and fewer still have tried to effect change from within the system -- as both educator Wes Beach and I have, in addition to establishing independent schools of our own and working with two different groups of students, from two different classes of society, who did not “fit in”. This article captured the attention of us both, renewing our online discussions after many years’ lapse.

Susan Cain and Mark Mason, authors of this article, demonstrate their homework prowess by accurately assessing the creation of public education as a tool for instilling “a common political creed…in all citizens” (Spring, p.8) and its use as a bulwark for capitalism by creating the illusion of “equal opportunities” through schooling. 

While my first book was a guide for teachers working toward education reform, my second was an exposé on why reform couldn’t work. Had I written a third, it would have focused on why the power structure would not allow reform anyway because, contrary to popular misunderstanding, our school system is most definitely not broken:  It is doing exactly what it’s intended to do.

“Rebel Without a Clue” gets an “A” for research, writing and analysis.

Recommended articles for 2/11/2018

• Downed Russian Warplane Illustrates Enduring Danger of US-Backed Terrorism by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook. Read the well-documented article to see how Cartalucci reaches this conclusion:
  

US-backed terrorism has recently claimed a Russian pilot, amid a war that has cost tens of thousands their lives over the course of several years and threatened the stability of an entire region. But long after the war ends, whenever it ends, this threat as a result of America’s state-sponsorship of terrorism will endure for many more years to come, manifesting itself not only on battlefields but also in cities and towns, targeting soldiers and civilians alike – not just in Syria but around the planet.

• Amerika, the Cartoon: The “Good Guys”, The “Bad Guys”… Reality TV Becomes President by Philip A Farruggio from Global Research. Does the author really describe the political consciousness of most Americans? My god, I hope and pray that he is wrong!

• China’s latest move in the graveyard of empires by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times. 

How F-Book, Goo ogle, & You Tuube Collude To Crush Dissent

This post features Lee Camp exclaiming about social media and internet corporations attempting to reduce people's access to alternative media. Clearly there is an information war going on by the ruling capitalist class for your political consciousness.

Russia: How the Bureaucracy Seized Power ‒ part four: the bureaucratic counter-revolution

Click here to access article by George Collins and posted on In Defence of Marxism (a British Trotskyist organization). Note: this recent post is really an excerpt from Collins book published in 1987 with the above title. Although I believe that it is an accurate portrayal of Stalin's rule, the Trotsky bias becomes evident in the final paragraphs.

The lengthy articles goes into the details of the takeover of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union by Stalin after the death of Vladimir Lenin in early 1924. Stalin's actions were not based in a theoretical analysis that Lenin or Trotsky expressed, but became motivated by the allure of power. The details are reported in the article which consisted of various twists to the extreme right, and turns to the extreme left, then settling on building socialism in one country, all of which he also used to eliminate any competitors to power in the Soviet government. Thus many of Stalin's critics accuse him of sheer opportunism in quest of dictatorial power. However, his popularity has gained in recent decades in Russia among people who view him as saving them--because he began a campaign (although ruthless) of forced industrialization in the 1930s--from slavery to the German Third Reich during WWII.

In the final part of George Collins' history of the rise of Stalinism, he explains the bureaucracy's final victory over Trotsky's Left Opposition; their shameful co-operation with fascism and imperialism; and the brutal, counter-revolutionary role they played in suppressing the working class in Russia and internationally.